The Sweetest Poison

by Jane Renshaw

  Fiona.

  Steve had thrown her out, and she was here.

  Her cold bare feet silent on the Persian carpet, she made her way along the passage, across the landing, up the two steps until she was standing outside the door of Hector’s room. She could see a tub chair against the wall on the left, and a bedside table with a book and a glass on it, and a small section of an austere-looking mahogany bed – part of the dark headboard, and a snowy-white pillow and duvet cover.

  Hector’s voice: ‘Of course not.’

  ‘What, so you won’t get even the slightest bit of a sick thrill from it?’ Not Fiona: Damian. ‘And there’s the added frisson of the possibility of being hauled off to prison. Again.’ There was something different about his voice – it sounded like a bad recording of itself, flattened out and blurred at the edges.

  ‘Hardly. A few hours’ community service at worst.’ Silence. Then: ‘Do you want this back on?’

  ‘Uh. No. Too hot.’

  ‘How about I put it on the low setting, just for twenty or thirty minutes? Just till you get back to sleep? Were you asleep?’

  So this was Damian’s room now, not Hector’s.

  ‘Until you started blundering around out there. Why didn’t you put on the lights?’

  ‘Because, ironically, I didn’t want to wake you. So do you want it or not?’

  Silence. Then, so low she could hardly hear: ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You can always take it off again if it does get too hot.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Hector appeared in her line of vision, wearing a dark sweater and dark trousers. He bent to fit a plug into a wall socket, and turned back to the bed. ‘Let’s shift you over, then.’ He pulled back the duvet and leant over the bed, his head and shoulders disappearing; and then reappearing, the boy’s arm slung across his back, pale head next to his dark one.

  Damian’s hand on the wool of the sweater tightened as Hector lowered him onto the mattress, and Hector was still for a moment, and said something she couldn’t make out. Then the hand loosened its grip, and Damian lay back.

  ‘Right.’ Hector moved again, out of her sight, but she could see Damian’s face now against the pillow, eyes shut, skin blotched ugly red and white. She wouldn’t have recognised him. ‘So I’ll put it to three? For how long – maybe better make it an hour?’

  ‘Okay.’ Damian opened his eyes. ‘Hector.’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘Is there anything going on between you and Fiona?’

  She closed her eyes, steeling herself for the reply.

  ‘No.’

  She reached out to the wall and put her palm flat against it.

  The sound of Velcro being pulled apart. Then:

  ‘There? Or a bit further down?’

  ‘That’s fine. Thanks.’

  She opened her eyes. Hector was pulling the duvet up the bed; pushing the hair from Damian’s forehead and asking, ‘Is that better?’

  ‘Mm-hm.’ Damian looked up at him with a twist of the lips that was less a smile than a desperately placatory grimace. ‘Thank you.’

  Hector sat on the edge of the bed and put his hand over Damian’s. ‘I’m not going to say I told you so... Well, obviously I just have. But I’m not going to labour the point.’

  ‘Good.’ And, the words starting to slur: ‘Don’t you have a grave to desecrate?’ But she could see that his fingers had gripped Hector’s hand.

  She wasn’t sure how long Hector sat there, speaking in a low voice about inconsequential things, like Norrie’s idea for a new fishing hut and his ever more ludicrous suggestions for its location; and then falling silent, watching the tense face on the pillow; how long she stood at the door, watching him. When Damian’s mouth relaxed and his breathing deepened Hector let go of his hand and got up slowly, and straightened the duvet where he’d been sitting, and turned and came to the door. Before Helen could gather her wits he was there, switching off the light and leaving the room and –

  ‘Helen,’ he said, and shut the door behind him.

  He was angry.

  She knew it from the way he stood; the way he said her name, however softly; the way he closed the door, blocking it with his body, as if to protect what was behind it.

  ‘I’m sorry – I heard something – something woke me.’

  ‘Fell over the hoover. Sorry.’

  ‘Is Damian all right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But – is his leg –’

  ‘He’s fine.’

  Nothing to see here.

  Like when Tip had died. Nasty old Tip. His breath had smelt of jobby and he would nip you for no reason, on the leg or arm, as he ran past. When Dad had told her Tip had died she’d been secretly glad, even though he’d died in agony because he’d eaten rat poison, and gone into fits, and the Laird had had to shoot him and Hector had nearly cried. That was what Dad had said. At school the next day she’d wanted to tell Hector she was sorry, but couldn’t pluck up the courage – she’d never seen Hector cry before and didn’t want to.

  But Norrie’s brother Craig had said, ‘That’s a shame about Tip – what happened?’ and Hector had told a lie. He’d said, ‘He just died of old age,’ and shrugged, and said he was getting a new puppy and this time he’d teach it not to bite.

  He hadn’t wanted anyone’s sympathy – for himself, or for his nasty old dog.

  And he didn’t want it for Damian.

  He didn’t want anyone scrabbling at the edges of his privacy – least of all the ghost of Helen Clack.

  He hadn’t once mentioned Irina; and neither had she. He hadn’t told her anything about what had happened; and she hadn’t asked. She hadn’t asked him any of the questions she’d been longing to have answers to – what had happened when he’d got to the hospital and found Damian abandoned there? How had he managed living day to day, with a child who’d needed so much care, and an estate to run? Why hadn’t he let the aunt and uncle step in? Was Damian the reason he was still single? Or was Fiona?

  But one question, at least, she was entitled to ask, although it would betray just how long she’d been standing here.

  ‘Are you going to look in that grave?’

  She couldn’t see his face properly – only, in the light spilling from the open door of the other room, the planes and angles of it. She thought for a moment that he wasn’t going to answer – that he was too angry to speak – but then he said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I want to come.’

  This time, he didn’t say anything.

  ‘If Suzanne’s in that grave, I want to be there.’

  ‘All right. Wear something warm. We’re leaving in five minutes.’

  ◆◆◆

  She couldn’t stop shivering. Hector had got her an extra jersey from the Land Rover, a thick Norwegian one that came down over her hips, but she was still cold. All the muscles in her shoulders and back and arms ached, although she’d been doing nothing but standing holding the torch. The clouds against the dark sky were unnaturally bright in the moonlight; against them, the branches of the trees moved, every so often, with a creak or a sigh. And, ludicrously, there were actually bats – their tiny bodies like winged bullets, whizzing over their heads.

  Emblems of mortality.

  Of death.

  Suzanne, dead and cold in the ground.

  There were three of them digging: Hector and two men she hadn’t met before, introduced as Mick and Chimp, like a comedy double-act from the 1950s. Mick, a stringy man with short grey hair, had explained the procedure on the drive from the house: cut out the turfs, line them up on one side of the grave in order so they can be fitted back into their place in the jigsaw, and mound up the earth on the tarpaulin on the other side. He’d dug many a grave in his time, he’d told her; and added, with a grin: ‘For Aberdeen Council, when I was a loon.’

  They worked in silence, apart from the occasional muttered swear-word when a spadeful of soil went astray, and Hector’s stinging remarks on the work rate. He
himself was digging like it was a race.

  ‘Where’s the fire?’ grumbled Chimp at one point.

  ‘Under your arse if you don’t step it up.’

  Mick and Chimp exchanged a look.

  Hector wanted to get this done and get home, not because there was anything wonderful waiting for him there – Fiona, drowsy and warm in his bed – but because there was a boy with a maimed limb, lying awake, maybe, and in agony.

  At last: ‘Now then,’ said Mick, and tapped his spade on something that rang hollow.

  The coffin was intact, from what she could see when they lifted it with ropes and set it on the grass at the foot of the hole. As soon as they’d put it down, she moved the torch away.

  ‘Okay,’ said Hector, lowering himself back into the hole. ‘Ca’ canny with the spades. Helen, do you want to go and sit in the Land Rover, and if we find anything –’

  ‘No. I’ll stay. You need me to hold the torch.’

  ‘We can prop it up on something.’

  ‘I want to stay.’

  But when all three of them suddenly stopped digging, and Chimp looked up at her and pointed to indicate where she should direct the beam of the torch, she froze. He put up his hand, and Helen gave him the torch, and he knelt and shone it onto the earth, and scraped with his fingers at something white.

  ‘That’s a skull.’

  ‘Got a boot here,’ said Mick.

  Helen turned and walked away into the dark, the air shivering across her face.

  ‘Helen? It’s not Suzanne. It’s someone much bigger.’

  She walked back to where Hector was standing, a tall figure fitfully illuminated by the moving light of the torch.

  ‘It’s a man, I think, judging from the size of the feet.’ He took her arm, and guided her to the edge of the hole. Chimp shone the torch on the toe of a thick black boot.

  ‘And check out the belt.’ Mick took the torch and angled the beam to show them a thick belt with a square buckle on it.

  ‘Helen?’

  ‘That’s Rob’s belt.’

  Mick was holding something up to the torch. ‘This was loose in the soil.’ He handed it up and Hector put it on his palm.

  It was a ring, a silver ring, in the form of a snake eating its tail.

  ‘Suzanne’s,’ she said. And: ‘I’m all right,’ as Hector put an arm round her. She took the ring from him and rubbed it between her fingers to remove the soil. Then she closed her hand round it and held it until it was warm.

  62

  ‘But it makes sense,’ said Damian.

  ‘Just because Suzanne’s body wasn’t there, doesn’t mean she wasn’t also killed. By whoever killed Rob.’ Hector sat back in his chair. ‘If it is Rob. We’ll have to wait for the police to do their stuff before we can be sure about that.’

  Morning sun streaked the end of the table. Another lovely day. She had her hands round her mug, but what was radiating from it seemed to be an unpleasant prickling feeling rather than warmth. She was cold all the way through, as if there was nothing left of substance of her at all; nothing that could think or feel or care.

  ‘But the ring...’ Damian brushed toast crumbs from his fingertips onto his plate, and then set his empty porridge bowl in its exact centre. ‘If some hypothetical psycho killed them both, why would he bury Rob there, with Suzanne’s ring, but Suzanne somewhere else?’

  ‘Not enough room in the grave for two bodies plus Willie Duff?’ Hector shrugged. ‘The ring could have fallen out of his pocket.’

  ‘Or maybe it came off Suzanne’s hand when she was shovelling soil back on top of him. Suzanne wouldn’t have had the strength to carry Rob’s body to some remote place up a hill to bury it. But if she knew about Willie Duff’s grave, she could have parked at the back gate, dragged – or even rolled – the body to the grave, tipped it in and covered it up, losing her ring in the process. Then she got the bike from the shed, put it in the car –’

  ‘But she couldn’t have got Rob’s body down the stalkers’ path in the first place. Not without help.’

  ‘She could have had help.’

  As if they were discussing some abstract problem (Hypothesis A: Suzanne is dead; Hypothesis B: Suzanne is alive), she said, ‘No. Suzanne could never have killed Rob. She loved him too much.’

  Damian pushed himself to his feet, both hands on the table. It was only then that she noticed a stick, a sturdy wooden one, hooked over the back of the chair next to him. But he left it where it was as he took his plate, bowl and mug to the sink.

  There was nothing graceful about his limp now – it was more of a hobble, so obviously painful that she wondered at Hector not doing or saying something. But Hector was gazing off, abstracted. And as Damian hobbled back to his chair and she met his eyes, she registered a flash of antagonism. A challenge: want to make something of it?

  And a little part of the hollow inside her filled up.

  ‘Maybe it was an accident?’ His mouth tightened as he sat back down. ‘Maybe he attacked her and in the struggle...’

  ‘In which case, why would she conceal the body? Why run off?’ Hector shrugged, and looked at Helen. ‘One thing at least we can be pretty sure of – Moir Sandison is not Rob Beattie.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The question is: why did he want you to think he was?’

  The phone on the worktop trilled. Damian started to get up, and Hector said, ‘Sit down for God’s sake,’ and rested a hand briefly on his shoulder as he passed behind his chair.

  ‘Hello?... Have you – Okay, so what can I do for you?... Well, that’s interesting... Really?... Yes... No, I don’t mind in the least. No. No... I can come over now, if you like... Yes.... All right. Goodbye.’

  As he put down the phone:

  ‘Campbell Stewart,’ said Damian.

  ‘Requesting my presence at the station.’

  ‘They traced the “anonymous” call about the grave?’

  ‘Give me some credit: I used an unregistered pay-as-you-go. Some insomniac curtain-twitcher saw the Land Rover last night, turning onto the track at the back of the kirkyard.’

  ‘So what’s the story?’

  ‘Simple denial. There’s no CCTV or anything. They can’t prove it was one of our Land Rovers. Still less who was in it.’ He put both hands on Damian’s shoulders. ‘Right. Shouldn’t be long.’

  When he’d gone, Helen stood. ‘Would you like more tea?’

  ‘No thanks.’ And then: ‘You still think it was Rob who attacked you, on the Knock?’

  She put her hands on the warm top of the Aga. ‘Yes.’

  ‘What if Suzanne did follow you? What if she found him attacking you... You remember a knife, but there were no knife wounds on you – what if Rob had the knife, but Suzanne managed to get it off him, and stab him –’

  ‘She was so little. How could she get a knife off him? How could she get his body all the way down that path to his car?’

  ‘Maybe she got the knife off him, he chased her down the path to the track – caught her as she was trying to get into his car – and then she stabbed him.’

  Her hands, her whole body, were suddenly burning hot. She walked away from the Aga on legs that shook.

  Suzanne could still be alive.

  ‘Well,’ said Damian. ‘If she is – don’t you think her parents would know it?’

  She must have said it out loud.

  ‘Don’t you think they’d have helped her? All those times your aunt went off supposedly following up leads – couldn’t she have been with Suzanne? Helping her establish a new life?’

  The kitchen was tipping. She locked her hands on a chair back.

  ‘Although why would she need to, if it was self-defence – or defence of you? She was injured too – it was her blood on your clothes, wasn’t it – there would have been plenty of forensic evidence to back her story up. But maybe she didn’t know that.’

  And now she could speak. ‘I have to see Uncle Jim. I have to ask him –’

  ‘W
ait till Hector gets back and he can take you over there. He shouldn’t be long.’ He put the top back on the marmalade jar. ‘They’re not going to arrest him or anything.’ Are they? was unsaid in his quick look up at her.

  She sat down on the chair. ‘Of course they’re not. But I don’t want to wait for Hector. Can one of your tame gorillas take me?’

  63

  ‘It’s locked.’ Helen tried the doorknob again to make sure. ‘And his car’s gone.’ Uncle Jim always parked his Volvo in the same place, in the shelter of the steading.

  Damian reached behind the downpipe and pulled the big Victorian key from its hiding place on the bracket holding the pipe to the wall. ‘We can wait for him inside.’

  Chris looked at his watch.

  ‘You can come back and get us later. Hand over your nannying duties to Dod in the meantime.’

  ‘Wherever the fuck he is.’

  ‘Well he won’t have gone far.’

  Chris had left the Land Rover next to its twin, in identical Pitfourie Estate livery – presumably Dod’s mode of transport.

  ‘Boss’ll have a Hairy Mary if he has,’ said Chris. And, without warning, he gave a piercing whistle.

  An answering whistle came from somewhere behind the steading.

  ‘Gorilla mating call,’ said Damian, putting the key in the lock.

  ‘Dod!’ Chris shouted. ‘Get your fat arse to the house!’

  ‘Gimme two seconds!’ was the response.

  Chris brought a mobile phone from his pocket. ‘When do you want picked up then?’

  ‘About an hour?’ Damian raised his eyebrows at her, and she nodded. ‘If Mr Clack’s still not turned up by then, Helen can come back later.’

  Chris was frowning at the phone.

  ‘You won’t get reception here,’ said Damian. ‘You’ll have to go back onto the road, or up to the Parks.’ He opened the door and stood back for Helen to enter first.

  The hall seemed different. As if everything had shifted a little. The phone on the table – had Uncle Jim lifted that phone to his ear and dialled a number and waited, and then Suzanne’s voice –