Come to Harm

by Catriona McPherson

  “Itadakimasu,” she said ten minutes later, as she knelt again. “You say it too.” She repeated it until he could chant it smoothly after her, and then they said it once more to each other.

  “Now, hold your chopsticks like something for eating and not for gardening,” she said. Murray made a passable attempt and she nodded at him. “Easy, see?” she said. “And remember not to put the same end into the big dish as the end you put in your mouth. Don’t stick them in straight up and down but always tilted to the side. Don’t pick up a dish in the same hand as you hold your chopsticks. Don’t wave them over the food, don’t point them at me—either end—and, most important, never never pass any food from one person to another in your chopsticks. But you can’t get that wrong because I wouldn’t take it anyway.”

  “Makes sense,” said Murray. “So basically, don’t spit in the food and don’t poke your eyes in.”

  He watched her as she made mosaics on the surface of her soup with tiny pieces of shredded spice, then took a piece of chicken from her bowl and bit into it. Next a tangle of noodles that she scooped up to her lips and sucked in with the proper sound. He drew back, his stare hardening, but she nodded and smiled. Then she lifted her bowl and took a slurping gulp of the broth. He looked away from her.

  “This is how,” she insisted. “Bite, suck, slurp. Especially a good noisy slurp. That’s the polite way to eat soup. And you say ro-ro-ro when you’re eating your noodles.” Murray stared down into his bowl in disappointment. “I’ll get the dumplings,” she said.

  “Dumplings?” His voice sounded cold.

  “Gyoza. Special lighter-than-air Japanese dumplings. I’ll show you how to eat them.”

  The dip, bite, dip, bite, dab of the gyoza seemed to please him more. He copied her movements, letting go of his chopsticks only once to shake a cramp out of his hand. When he had grasped a particularly neat piece and dipped it with two elegant swipes into the sauce, he held it out to her over the table, smiling, inviting her to take it. She pulled back, shaking her head but laughing.

  “No, no, impossible,” she said. “I can’t.” He kept his chopsticks out towards her, waving the steaming dumpling back and forth.

  “Come on,” he said. “There’s nobody watching.” She wanted to, and almost did, but she took too long and by the time she had steeled herself to raise her hand, he had begun to lower his and the smile had disappeared.

  “Just enjoy the food,” said Murray, in a high piping voice, with his mouth turned down into a pout like a carp. “Don’t worry about the etiquette.” Keiko flushed and had a sudden urge to upend the table into his lap. She could see the noodles sliding and spattering over his shirt, the soup, still hot enough to scald with any luck, spreading in a dark stain over his trousers. She blinked the image away.

  “When a person dies,” she said, “their body is cremated and their bones are laid to rest.” Murray stared at her. “And during the ceremony,” she went on, “the bones are handled with special chopsticks and they are passed from person to person, and that is the only thing that’s ever passed that way.”

  “Christ,” he said, flicking the piece of dumpling right off his plate and then staring at it where it lay on the tabletop. Keiko picked it up in her hand and took it out of the room. When she came back he was composed again, and they ate in silence until they were done. Keiko laid her chopsticks down.

  “Gochisousama,” she said. “Goh chee soo sah mah.”

  “Gochisousama,” said Murray, and they stood. In the kitchen, Keiko tidied the bowls into the dishwasher and tidied the leftover dumplings into herself. Then she blushed and went back to Murray. He was sitting on the sofa reading a blank questionnaire.

  “Are you still hungry?” she said.

  He looked up in surprise. “No. Is there more?”

  “No, nothing. Only Japanese food—it can be fiddly.”

  “Some people aren’t happy unless they’re face down in the stew,” he said. “Not me.”

  She joined him on the sofa, reading the last questions over his shoulder.

  “Well?” she said when he had finished and was smoothing the pages flat again.

  “What will you be able to tell from all that?”

  “I’ll plot the subjects’ positions on various continua of attitudes, allowing me to judge their responses to later stimuli against a normative scale.”

  “Say no more,” said Murray. Then: “Sorry about that chopsticks thing.” She shrugged to show him it was nothing. “But how can you stand it?” he said. “Using the same things for food and dead bodies.”

  “Not dead bodies,” she said. “Just bones, clean from the fire.”

  “Bones are bodies,” he said. “How are bodies different from bones?”

  “The same way that frames aren’t bikes,” said Keiko. “Otherwise how could there be a Vincent—a bike without a frame? They’re two different things.”

  “Don’t,” said Murray, and when Keiko turned to him in surprise she thought he was pale suddenly. “Don’t talk like that about the bikes.”

  “Like …?”

  “Dead bodies,” Murray said. “It’s completely different. Bikes last forever if you keep them oiled. Bodies rot. Even if you clean the bones, they crumble to bits in the end. Bikes … if something goes wrong, you can take them apart, fix it, and put them back together, good as new. Bodies … if you take bodies apart, it’s just … meat.” He stood, gulping as though he were about to retch. “Sorry,” he said. “I need to get out. It’s this place. I need some fresh air. Sorry.”

  And then he was gone, picking up his boots as he passed, but fleeing downstairs in her spare slippers, leaving her gazing after him.

  She breathed in deeply to steady herself and then groaned. That bloody smell! No wonder he needed fresh air. What was the point of trying to make everything pretty and dainty with that stink in the background? She gathered the last of the place settings—the napkins and placemats—and stamped into the kitchen. And another thing! Who knew what it would do to a load of results about eating if the subjects were halfway to nauseated because of her drains? What was that smell?

  She threw down the napkins, opened her laptop, and when the browser started, she typed why does my kitchen drain smell?

  She could dismiss all the answers saying it was dirty; she had poured a swimming pool’s worth of bleach down there. And it wasn’t tree roots outside because the bathroom drain was fine.

  The cartoons on the plumbing DIY site made her shudder, little grey-green monsters hiding in the trap like trolls under a bridge.

  “Bones or other solid objects may form a framework which collects debris,” she read. Murray had said bones crumble eventually, even if you clean them. Not fast enough, she thought, going to the kitchen drawer and taking out the flower-patterned wrench the Traders had put there for her.

  She followed the instructions like the scholar she was, placing a bowl under the pipe joint and turning the water off just in case (of what, the website didn’t say), and truth be told she was pleased at how easy she found it and yet how competent it made her feel.

  But when the U-shaped piece of pipe came free, as she unthreaded the coupling, she could not help starting back at the sudden rolling outward of that same foul familiar smell, stronger than ever. She let the pipe fall into the bowl and then stood up, lifting it into the light, giving a grunt of satisfaction as she peered in one end. There was something in there; something criss-crossing the space that should have been clear, something furred with old grease and shreds of vegetable peelings. She could even see a strand of tonight’s soup noodles caught on it and wound around.

  She seized a chopstick from the pile of dirty dishes and poked it into the end of the pipe, waggling it around trying to dislodge the object. It didn’t budge, so she poked harder, felt something give way with a snap. It sounded like a bone, small and thin, and deep inside her a ti
ny shrill of fear began as she turned the pipe over and banged one end hard with the heel of her hand.

  When the thing fell out, she let her breath go in a rush.

  It was only a chicken bone. A broken wishbone, nothing more. But then, as she turned to rip off a piece of kitchen paper, she saw something glint and turned back, bending to look more closely. There was more than peelings and noodles caught in the vee of the bone. What had made it into a cat’s cradle was a chain, fine and gold-coloured, tangled there. She picked at a loose loop of it and slowly it came clear. It was a necklace of small gold links, and hanging from it was a pendant shaped like a letter N.

  “Nicole,” she breathed. “Where are you?”

  twenty-eight

  Thursday, 21 November

  Pamela Shand arrived on time, declined coffee, and got straight to work while Keiko pretended to be reading. Should she show Pamela the necklace, saying she had found it out on the street? But if she said that she’d have to take it to the police as lost property, and she already knew she didn’t want to give it away. It was in her pocket right now and she ran her fingers over it. I will find you, she promised.

  What she should do, she knew, was show it to the Pooles since they owned the flat, but just thinking about that made her pulse thrum.

  Then she tried to tell herself that Nicole might have visited and the necklace might have come undone while she was washing her hands. Except the clasp was closed, and visitors do not wash their hands in the kitchen.

  Finally she told herself that N could stand for lots of things, but when she thought of all the women and girls she had met here—Grace, Fancy, Pet, Etta, Mabel, Sandra, Margaret, Janice, Viola, Yvonne—she didn’t believe it was true.

  There was a polite cough. Pamela Shand was staring at her.

  “If you’re finished we can take a few moments to discuss anything,” said Keiko. “But only if there’s time before the next person.”

  “Why not come round tonight and have some supper with me?” said Pam. “You’ll be drained after a day of appointments, and I would like very much to talk to you.”

  “Really?” said Keiko, looking up.

  “I’ve been trying to get to you,” Pam said, “but you’re very well minded. I really wanted to say there’s no need for you to feel you should put up with it. Even though it must be awkward for you, living above the Pooles.”

  “Awkward?” Keiko said. She was aware of her pulse again.

  “Uncomfortable,” said Pam. “Oh, why am I mincing my words? It must be hell and it’s about to get worse.”

  Keiko’s heart was banging now.

  “Christmas is coming,” said Pam. “I can’t begin to tell you what’s coming at Christmas.” She leaned in closer across the table. “Imagine a turkey so fat it can barely stand, stuffed with minced pork and covered in bacon and butter, roasted for hours with the fat ladled up and over it again and again until it glistens, served up burnt skin and all, with thick gravy.”

  Although it was only an hour since breakfast, Keiko’s stomach gave a slow, luxurious rumble that she tried to cover by rustling the pages of her book and clearing her throat.

  “Ah yes,” Keiko said, slumping in disappointment. This woman had some kind of fixation. All this outrage and drama and she was only talking about food again! “Yes. Yes, certainly, that’s a lot more meat than a Japanese family would eat even when feasting.” She gave a shrug. “But feasting is supposed to be out of the ordinary. And when the everyday custom is to eat so very much, then to make a feast seem like a feast they must need to …” She trailed into silence.

  Pamela had those plump but narrow hands with dimples at the base of each pointed little finger, and she gripped the edge of the table with them now as she leaned even closer.

  “I admire your fortitude,” she said. “But that’s not all. I’d love to warn you about the local delicacy for New Year’s Day, but I can’t bring myself to describe it. All I will say is that the time is coming for its preparation, and if it gets too much for you—here above the Pooles’—you are welcome to come round at any time to visit me.”

  “You are most kind,” said Keiko.

  “Not at all. Is there anything you don’t eat?”

  “Nothing you’re likely to serve,” said Keiko, hearing the rudeness too late as Pamela frowned.

  “I am a great devotee of world cuisine,” said Pam evenly, and they left it there.

  _____

  Mrs. McMaster laid down her pen after less than five minutes and Keiko could see that she had stopped halfway through a page.

  “Fancy helped you with these, did she?” Keiko nodded. “I see.” She paused a moment and considered Keiko’s face closely. Then she shifted her gaze slightly off to the side and spoke again. “Of course Fancy was around the shop quite a lot when she was just a wee girl and … it’s a funny thing, you know, but a florist is right up there with a priest and a doctor for hearing things.”

  “That is rather surprising,” said Keiko.

  “Aye well, there it is,” Pet said. “Christenings, weddings, and funerals loosen the tongue. People will put it down to the drink, but drink it cannot be, for it’s just the same first thing in the morning across a florist’s bench. Things people would never breathe a word of face to face, eye to eye, you know? But there’s me not looking at them, busy with the flowers, and they’re watching my hands so they’re not looking at me, and they get to talking.”

  Keiko waited.

  Mrs. McMaster took off her spectacles and hooked them by one of their earpieces through a ringed brooch pinned to her bosom. “Some of your wee scenarios here are pretty close to home,” she said. “I’m surprised at Fancy.”

  “I don’t think she meant to betray any confidences,” Keiko said. Mrs. McMaster only raised her eyebrows. “Really. She said she just let it all bubble up out of her subconscious. I thought she meant her imagination. If I’d known she meant subconscious memory …”

  Mrs. McMaster looked less convinced than ever.

  “Really, Mrs. McMaster,” Keiko said. “You must believe me: Fancy is always discreet about anything that could hurt anyone.”

  “Oh?” said Pet. “Like what?”

  Keiko flushed. “That girl—Tash—who left,” she said. “Fancy could have spoken about that and she didn’t. Ever.” Keiko swallowed. “She didn’t even tell me her last name.”

  “Turnbull,” said Mrs. McMaster, her face clouding briefly, before the arch look returned. “Well, she’d hardly have dwelt on Tash to you now, would she?” she said.

  “To me?”

  “You’re stepping out with Murray Poole. And Tash was Murray’s first love. Broke his heart for him. No wonder Fancy didn’t have much to say.”

  It took a few moments for Keiko understand. “Tash was Murray’s girlfriend?” she said. Her thoughts were reeling. Tash who left was the same person as Murray’s girlfriend who broke up with him? “He didn’t tell me,” she said. Then she remembered something even worse. “He said he didn’t know her!” She could hear his words again in her head: No can do. I don’t know their names.

  “Sounds like he didn’t want to talk to his new girl about his old one,” said Mrs. McMaster. “It’s hardly surprising.”

  Keiko didn’t answer. She was gone, reliving every conversation with Murray. How many times had he lied to her?

  “I don’t think that’s what it was,” she said at last. “He said he didn’t know Dina either. And she left too. Or Craig’s—”

  “Who?” said Mrs. McMaster. “Oh, you mean Dina Taylor. Mabel’s girl?”

  “Taylor,” said Keiko.

  “That’s right,” said Mrs. McMaster. “Nadine Taylor. Dina for short. Aye, she hung around him a while. But it didn’t last. What’s she got—”

  “Nadine?” said Keiko, feeling her face changing colour.

  “Now why
would that surprise you?” said Mrs. McMaster. “What on earth are you up to together, the pair of you?”

  They weren’t up to anything together, Keiko thought. He had hidden so much from her, even while he dropped all those hints of trouble.

  “What ‘pair’?” she said with a dry laugh.

  “You and Fancy,” said Mrs. McMaster. “What’s Nadine Taylor got to do with this?” She tapped the paper with her pen.

  Fancy. Keiko felt a chill as if a door had been opened on a winter night. As many times as Murray had lied, Fancy had lied even more. She had spoken of Tash and of Murray’s girlfriend and never admitted that they were the same person. What was going on?

  “Mrs. McMaster,” Keiko said. “Do you think I should cancel the profiling? Scrap all of these questions and start again?”

  Mrs. McMaster blinked in surprise. “What?” she said. “Och, no. There’s nothing in there that wouldn’t be just the same in any small town in the land. As long as the names are changed, there’s no harm to anyone.”

  “So … it’s not something terrible? I’m not in danger if I carry on?”

  “Danger of what?” said Mrs. McMaster.

  “Oh, being sued” said Keiko. “For example.”

  Mrs. McMaster threw back her head and let out a merry peal of laughter. “What an imagination you’ve got,” she said. “You and Fancy are as bad as each other. No, you’re not in any danger. There might be one or two red faces here and there, but you’ve worked hard on this, so go ahead and don’t worry.”

  She did go ahead. Full steam ahead now that she was able. She only wished she had remembered to ask Nicole’s other name while Mrs. McMaster was laughing. All day long, she let her subjects take their time while she hunched over her laptop, Googling.

  She got Tash Turnbull out of the way first, aware that her interest might only be because of Murray. Tash Turnbull + foster + Painchton + McMaster, she typed and then, in desperation, missing girls. Of course she didn’t know how common a name Tash Turnbull might be, how odd it might be that she found nothing.