The Sweetest Poison

by Jane Renshaw

  She held Suzanne’s hand.

  More voices, and Hector saying, ‘I’m just going to get Helen,’ and then, right above her: ‘Helen.’

  She didn’t look up.

  He touched her back. ‘The ambulance is here. They’ll take you to hospital; get you checked out.’

  ‘I don’t need to go to hospital.’

  ‘You can’t do anything for her now.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘You can’t stay here.’

  She looked up at him. ‘If I told you you had to leave Damian, would you?’

  ‘I have left him! For once, Helen, can you just – get a grip on reality?’

  She let go Suzanne and rocked to her feet and drew back her arm and hit him, as hard as she could, with her open hand. Across his face. He didn’t try to turn away, or deflect the blow, or avoid it.

  ‘Go then! Go to your precious Damian!’ She was shaking so much she had to sit down again. She didn’t look at him. She grabbed Suzanne’s hand back.

  Voices, from round the house. The wind, soughing in the branches of the trees at the end of the garden. Something banging. His steps on the concrete, going away.

  ◆◆◆

  The policeman put his hand over hers and kept it there until she let go Suzanne’s. He helped her stand up and walk round the house and across the yard. There were a lot of men in black police uniforms. Radios crackling. Then she was sitting in a hot car with the door open, and someone put a bottle of water in her hand and asked her name.

  ‘Helen Clack.’

  When a policewoman came and sat next to her, and started to say something, she said, ‘What’s going to happen to her?’

  ‘We’ll take good care of her, don’t you worry about that. Is she – a relative?’

  ‘She’s my cousin. Her name’s Suzanne.’

  Then the policewoman got out of the car and in her place was a man she knew.

  ‘Helen? Are you all right?’ DCI Stewart.

  She nodded. ‘I don’t want to go to hospital. I’m not hurt.’

  ‘Well, that’s your decision, but –’

  ‘I have to tell Uncle Jim!’ She started to get out of the car but he took her arm.

  ‘First, I’d like you to tell me what happened. If you can. The full statement can wait, but if you could just tell me briefly what happened?’

  Underneath the concern, the sympathy, why was there an eagerness in his voice? An excitement, almost, as if what she was going to tell Uncle Jim was wonderful, a wonderful treat, and DCI Stewart wanted it for himself?

  ‘And will you believe me this time?’ she said.

  His gaze dropped away from hers, and he said, ‘Yes. I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry we... I was so dismissive...’

  ‘Moir,’ she said. ‘He was at the Mains.’

  ‘Right. And –’

  ‘Then he took us here.’

  ‘By “us”, you mean...’

  ‘Damian and me. Is Damian all right?’

  ‘As far as I know, there was a concussion, but he wasn’t out for long and they don’t think it’s serious. When Moir –’

  ‘Hector went with him in the ambulance?’

  A little smile, quickly repressed. ‘Yes.’

  They’re not going to arrest you.

  ‘Hector saved my life. Moir killed Suzanne and was going to kill me. He would have done, if Hector hadn’t –’ She touched the raw place on her forehead.

  ‘If Hector hadn’t what?’

  ‘Moir attacked him. With a knife.’

  ‘And what did Hector do?’

  ‘They fought. Moir – They were fighting, and then Moir – fell.’

  ‘The medics say it looks as if his neck’s been broken.’

  ‘He’s dead?’

  ‘Oh, he’s dead all right.’

  Complete silence for one, two beats.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘You’re saying Hector Forbes broke his neck?’

  ‘Moir had a knife. He attacked Hector. He killed Suzanne.’

  ‘Right. Yes. Suzanne.’

  ‘She had it all twisted. She thought me and Rob – she thought there was something between us. I don’t know why –’

  ‘So Suzanne killed Rob?’

  What did it matter? ‘No. I did.’

  ◆◆◆

  He didn’t arrest her. He took her to the Mains and said someone could wait with her if she liked, until her uncle got back, but she didn’t want that. She wanted to be alone, to rehearse what she’d say, what words of comfort she’d use, but when she saw the Volvo coming down the track and up into the yard, and Uncle Jim and the man who must be Dod get out, all she could do was stand there with the tears running down her face. And all she could say, eventually, into the fusty tweed of his jacket, was: ‘Suzanne’s dead.’

  And it was he who comforted her.

  She tried to tell him. When she couldn’t say any more he made her go to bed, and she slept. She must have slept for hours. The light was going when she found him again in the kitchen, and he poured her an inch of whisky. She gulped the burning liquid into her stomach.

  ‘Eh me.’

  She was able, then, to tell him, as they sat opposite each other at the table, Fly and Ben at their feet. He heard it all without any outward display of emotion, except that when she told him about Suzanne falling he closed his eyes.

  ‘She wouldn’t have felt anything. Her head – she hit her head.’

  He nodded.

  ‘She was trying to stop him putting me out of the window.’ She took a long breath.

  Uncle Jim nodded; swirled the whisky in his glass. ‘And Rob Beattie. Was it Suzanne killed him?’

  ‘No.’ And as the tears came again, she told him what she remembered. ‘I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t mean to – the knife – I didn’t mean to hurt either of them. I didn’t even remember doing it, until –’

  He was patting her arm and bringing her toilet paper to wipe her face with, and telling her it wasn’t her wyte; none of it was her wyte. And she wasn’t to go telling folk that it was.

  A lot later:

  ‘Auntie Ina – she never told you Suzanne was alive?’

  ‘Never a word. But that’s not to say I didna wonder.’ His eyes went to the window; to the view of the Back Park, the ripe barley pink and yellow and gold in the evening light, and the rooks rising over the trees along the dyke.

  ◆◆◆

  was very late when they came: DCI Stewart and a policewoman.

  They sat at the kitchen table while she gave them her statement about the day’s events. When she’d finished, DCI Stewart pushed a palm across his stubbly cheek. ‘Right. Thank you for this. I’m sorry to have had to make you go over it again.’

  ‘It was self-defence, what Hector did. It was reasonable force – isn’t that what you call it? You’re not going to arrest him, are you? You’re not going to charge him with anything?’

  Bleakly: ‘That’s not my decision, but I shouldn’t imagine so.’

  Under the table, Fly sighed.

  DCI Stewart leant back, and the kitchen chair creaked under him. ‘And now. Helen. Let’s have the truth about Robin Beattie, eh?’

  ‘Robin Beattie.’ She was so tired.

  ‘We know you didn’t kill him. There’s no way it’s possible. You had zero opportunity to remove and hide his body. You were unconscious in a hospital bed, for God’s sake. I can attest to that myself.’

  ‘Hel’nie?’ snorted Uncle Jim. ‘How could it have been Hel’nie?’

  ‘That’s what I’m saying.’ DCI Stewart’s voice was very gentle.

  ‘I stabbed him, and then Suzanne – Suzanne was taking him to hospital, but then he died on the way –’

  ‘And so she decided to conceal the body? Why would she do that?’

  ‘She thought everyone would think she killed him.’

  He sighed. ‘We’ve found the “confession” they made you write… How they expected that to convince anyone, I don’t know. Helen, if you�
�ve got some confused notion of protecting Suzanne –’

  ‘Aye, she’s been that confused,’ said Uncle Jim. ‘Been calling me “Dad”, the poor quinie.’

  DCI Stewart was looking straight at her. ‘Would you rather wait till morning to do this?’

  ‘No.’ She looked at Uncle Jim.

  The policewoman leant across the table. She had a nice face. ‘Helen? What really happened?’

  You always were a great liar.

  She made her voice small. ‘It wasn’t Suzanne’s fault.’

  ‘What wasn’t?’

  ‘I thought it was Rob who attacked me – but I was wrong. It turns out I was wrong. It wasn’t Rob.’

  DCI Stewart frowned. ‘It was Suzanne?’

  ‘No.’ She had to make this convincing. ‘I suppose you’ll say she was an accessory, because she helped him, afterwards – an accessory after the fact, or whatever you call it – but you don’t understand what it was like for her, with Moir. How he controlled her.’

  ‘Wait a second. Moir?’

  The lie came easily: ‘She met him when she was doing her childcare course. In Glasgow. All those years ago. I didn’t know – she only told me just before she died. He wasn’t calling himself Moir Sandison then. But it was him. It was Moir who attacked me. It was Moir who killed Rob.’

  73

  Hector came to see her the next day.

  ‘How is he? Damian?’ She stood at the door, holding onto it.

  ‘Milking it for all he’s worth.’ He looked the same as ever: like he’d just come off a hill, in open-necked shirt and lightweight khaki trousers. He pushed a hand through his hair. ‘Helen, can I come in?’

  She stood back to let him into the hall. ‘Uncle Jim’s in the kitchen.’

  ‘And is your mother –’

  ‘They should be arriving early afternoon. Mum and Lionel.’

  Uncle Jim stood when she brought Hector into the room.

  Hector said, without any preamble: ‘I’m so sorry about Suzanne.’

  Uncle Jim nodded.

  ‘If I’d got there sooner –’

  ‘Na na,’ he said. And to Helen’s surprise he came round the table and grasped Hector’s arm. ‘She’s gone, and there’s an end to’t. Hel’nie’s back safe, and she wouldna be, but for you. Sit you down.’

  Helen put the kettle on, and while it boiled took a chair across the table from Hector.

  Uncle Jim said, ‘Hae a lookie at this, now.’ It was the leaflet, the one about the sheltered housing. ‘This is the latest. They’re for putting me in this place for doddery aald folk that canna wipe their ain arse.’ It was no surprise that he didn’t want to talk about Suzanne. And if they weren’t going to talk about Suzanne they had to talk about something. But there was something terrible about it, that they even could.

  ‘Mm,’ said Hector. ‘Although I don’t think arse-wiping is one of the services provided.’

  ‘I’ll get that gate yet. And May the Lord be Thankit.’ Uncle Jim chuckled.

  Hector smiled. ‘My father used to trot that out as commentary on any example of...’ He shrugged. ‘Ludicrously misplaced pride.’

  Uncle Jim nodded, his gaze on the table, but as if he was looking through it. ‘She was a grand buddie, Jessie.’

  ‘Dad had all sorts of stories,’ said Hector, ‘ about Jessie Mitchell, and Altmore.’

  ‘Holes in the roof and more cardboard than glass at the windows. Outside toilet and paraffin lights. But it was a rare place to us bairns. Spying on poor aald Jessie, playing at commandos. Once Alec made it to the kitchen and was lifting a bannock from a platie for proof when Jessie came at him – dinged his hand with the griddle pan, for all he was the Laird’s loon. Before the arthritis got bad she’d a fair turn of speed.’ He chuckled. ‘Coorse little buggers. That bannock was maybe all her dinner.’

  A little silence.

  ‘Why And May the Lord be Thankit?’ she asked, as if she cared. ‘Was she very religious?’

  Hector shook his head. ‘I don’t think praising the Lord had much to do with it. She certainly sent the minister away with a flea in his ear. Wouldn’t accept help from anyone. Not from relatives, not from the Council, not from the Estate. She wouldn’t allow repairs to be done on the place because she thought that would put the rent up. She was convinced there was a general conspiracy to get her out of Altmore and into a home. And maybe there was. I think it was after an incursion by Estate workers that the gate appeared across the track end. She must have spent all her savings on it: a beautifully made black gate, with a lock on it, and the name of the farm in wrought iron capitals: “ALTMORE”. And under it, “And May the Lord be Thankit”. As if Altmore was such an earthly paradise that God must have had a hand in it.’

  Jim chuckled again. ‘A rare aald buddie, Jessie.’

  He stayed fifteen minutes. When she showed him to the door, he said, ‘Do you have time – could you come for a walk with me?’

  Such an invitation, only a few days ago, would have had her heart pumping. Now she just nodded, and called to Uncle Jim that she was going out.

  ‘You haven’t been bothered by anyone?’ he said as they headed down the yard.

  ‘No.’ There’d been an Estate Land Rover at the track end since it happened, to keep away the ghouls and the Press. Chris sitting there, or Mick or Chimp, was evidently an effective enough deterrent.

  But he went ahead of her to the track.

  Hector, walking away from her.

  In the kitchen at the Parks.

  He’d left her in a house with a psychopath, with her hands and her feet tied. She hadn’t tried to rationalise it. She wasn’t going to kid herself that he’d heard Moir in the hall and gone to tackle him. He hadn’t. He’d been at the front door when Moir had jumped him.

  He’d left her to go to someone he loved.

  They climbed the gate at the other side of the track and headed up the burn, their feet swishing through the long grass of the Low Park.

  ‘I’m sorry I hit you.’

  ‘Don’t be.’ And as if he could see into her mind: ‘Helen – I – God. I left you in there.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Of course it does.’

  ‘You had to go to Damian.’

  He stopped, and so she had to as well. She had to look at him.

  ‘It was unforgivable. Even more so in the light of what you did. You could have got away, at the Mains, but you didn’t. Damian told me: you could have just run. But you didn’t.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘But you came back. There aren’t many people would have done that. I don’t know how to thank you. And how to – apologise –’

  ‘There’s no need. Really.’ She looked down at the clear water rippling across the stones, all colours of brown and yellow. ‘I’ve been thinking about the text message Damian sent you. It doesn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t he just call you? Or the police?’

  It was a little while before he answered. ‘His generation seem to text by default. And maybe he thought Moir might hear him.’

  ‘Can he remember sending it?’

  ‘No. But his memory of what happened is pretty patchy.’

  ‘What did it say?’

  ‘That Moir had got the two of you at the Parks.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking – maybe Suzanne sent it.’

  ‘Suzanne?’

  ‘He doesn’t remember her being there?’

  ‘I assume not – he didn’t mention her.’

  ‘Moir told her to go and check on him – to make sure he was dead – and she came back and said that he was. When obviously he wasn’t. She could have got his phone and sent you a text message.’

  ‘Why would she do that?’

  She took a breath. ‘Because she wanted it to stop. She tried to stop him, and that’s when – he threw her – from the window.’

  ‘You’re putting a very positive gloss on her actions.’

  ‘No. I’m telling you what happened.’

/>   ‘Is it really likely that Suzanne would summon me? When did Suzanne ever do anything that wasn’t in her own interests?’

  ‘She died because she was trying to stop Moir killing me.’

  ‘Or had she realised that they were unlikely to get away with it?’

  ‘She never wanted him to kill me. She only wanted –’ She only wanted the truth. But she couldn’t tell Hector that. She needed this, whatever it was. Friendship. Pity.

  Did Hector know about the “confession”? With his contacts in the local police force, he surely must?

  She made her voice flat. ‘She only wanted me to write this bizarre confession about how I’d killed Rob, and you and me and Norrie conspired to hide his body.’

  He nodded. ‘I assume it was Suzanne who killed him?’

  ‘No. No, I think – I think that was Moir too.’ She couldn’t look at him as she told the same story she’d given the police.

  ‘Christ,’ was all he said.

  ‘I suppose they’ll be opening an inquiry now, into Rob’s death – they’ll have to look into everything all over again.’

  ‘Fish says a report’s already gone to the Procurator Fiscal, who’ll order an investigation, concurrent with the one into Moir and Suzanne’s deaths.’

  ‘But – they’ve accepted that what you did was self defence?’

  ‘I think so. Thanks in large part to your statement.’

  ‘I only told the truth. You didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t mean to kill him.’

  He sat down on a fallen willow, and she sat next to him. She ran her fingers over the bark of the tree; the exact same colour as the stone of the table grave, long ago, in the kirkyard. A knobbly gravestone, and rubbery gym shoes, and an empty plastic lunchbox. And Hector.

  Always Hector.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘To have got you involved in all this in the first place.’

  ‘I think I involved myself a long time ago.’

  She wanted to touch him, to reassure him. But she couldn’t do that. He was looking off down the burn. As she followed his gaze, he said quietly, ‘Water vole.’

  They watched it, a fat, dark, purposeful rectangle darting this way and that in the water, keeping close to the left-hand bank. Eventually it wriggled up out of the water and disappeared in the long grass.