‘You’ve got answers,’ said Lars.
She nodded. ‘Yep,’ she said. ‘Good point. I got what I said I wanted.’ She dropped a kiss on Sylvie’s head and lifted her face with a strand of Sylvie’s thistledown hair still stuck to her lip. ‘I’ve got the cold, hard truth. Wonderful. I always knew something was . . .’
‘Missing?’ I said, thinking of Angelo.
‘Hidden,’ said Julia. ‘Not anymore. Lucky me. I’ve got all the answers now.’
She gathered Sylvie to her again and rocked her. Lars, who was so used to letting people feel like shit, just stood there. But inside me a volcano was rumbling and my breath was coming quicker and quicker. She was speaking to me. ‘Mmmhmmm.’
‘Bullshit!’ I said. Sylvie twitched, reacting to the harsh sound. ‘That’s not the cold, hard truth. That’s just a different story.’
It had to be coincidence but, as Julia looked up, Sylvie looked at me too. I saw for the first time that they really were sisters.
‘Your sister killed your dad and then just happened to turn catatonic?’ I said. I was pacing. I thought it was stagy when Dr Ferris did it, but I couldn’t contain the bulge and burst of all the ideas going off inside me. ‘That seems a bit convenient, doesn’t it? Not to mention the fact that she’s suddenly a bit less catatonic all of a sudden just exactly as the bones come to the surface again. Doesn’t that strike you as odd? Doesn’t it strike you as pretty odd, too, that Dr Ferris would suddenly employ a fucked-up beautician, whose PVG comes through miraculously quickly and who gets to look after Sylvie overnight? And – most of all – doesn’t it seem a bit odd that your mother would let you come here, Julia?’
Julia searched my face, then Lars’s. ‘Well, after all the bedwetting and fire-setting she had to put me somewhere, but . . . yes, actually.’
I screwed up my face, trying to think, still marching up and down the little stretch of carpet, not caring how it looked. It was helping. And she was helping too. ‘Mmmhmmm,’ she said. I nodded. She was right. It made no sense. If Mona Swain loved her elder daughter so much that she covered up a murder, and kept her safe and quiet at Howell Hall instead of in prison, she would want her younger daughter well away. You keep your children safe. Like we did with Angelo. Safe from the pain of it, safe from the memories.
‘Well,’ said Lars, ‘Sylvie’s been all right here for all these years. It maybe seemed like the best place for you.’
But Julia had caught the fire that was in me. She wasn’t going to settle for another story. She shook away the comfort and stared hard at Sylvie, thinking. ‘Now, of all times,’ she said. ‘I mean, if my mother knew the jig was up, the bones washing to the surface, the story bound to break . . . Except – oooh.’ She rubbed her head and now she screwed up her eyes too. ‘The time’s wrong. I was in here before the police found the body, wasn’t I?’
‘How long would you say you’d been trying to get in here?’ I asked her.
Julia stuck out her bottom lip and puffed a breath up her face. ‘Couple of years?’ she said. ‘When my dad left – Garran, I mean – I went snooping. I thought he was in here. I found receipts, you know.’
‘It doesn’t fit,’ I said. ‘Mona and Sylvie make sense. But you don’t, Julia. And I sure as hell don’t. And Angelo’s phone and the watch . . .’ I had ground down into silence when my phone rang. Marco again.
‘What?’ I said.
‘Ali, this is getting ridiculous,’ he said. ‘I left work early, like you said, I came home, like you said, and the wee toerag’s not in.’
‘What?’ I said. I spoke so sharply that Sylvie jerked out of her drift and whimpered. Julia pulled her closer and glared at me. ‘What do you mean, not in? Where is he?’
‘He’s out on a bloody date,’ Marco said. ‘Left every towel in the house soaking wet on the bathroom floor, used all the hot water and borrowed my aftershave. See, this is typical you, Als. You buy all his crap, thinking he was broken-hearted, and now she’s clicked her fingers again and he’s off.’
‘Again?’ I said.
‘It’s the same lassie from last time! He was never going to go outside and he was finished with school after the way she treated him. Then she phones him up and he’s away back for more.’
‘The girl who stood him up in front of all her friends and laughed at him?’ I said. Lars and Julia were watching my end of the conversation, avidity in their eyes. ‘Do you know where they are? Go and get him home and spit in her Coke while you’re at it! What’s wrong with you?’
‘Ocht now,’ Marco said. ‘She’s not a bad lassie. She’s got some class. Good family and all that. Bloody stupid name, but that’s not her fault.’
As he spoke, I felt a grating and grinding somewhere deep inside me as wheels that were stuck began to turn and slabs of meaning heaved themselves until they hung over cold, black holes and slid home.
‘Dido,’ I said, my voice parched.
‘That’s her,’ said Marco.
‘That bitch!’ said Julia.
‘Where are they?’ I asked Marco. My voice had dried out even more, to a croak.
‘Ocht, Als. They’re fine,’ he said. ‘They’ll be at the pictures or sitting in a café. Or they’ll be parked up somewhere with the seats flat. Nothing we didn’t do.’
‘Find him and get him away from her,’ I rasped at him.
‘Ali,’ Marco said, ‘don’t upset yourself. Come on!’
How many times a day did he tell me to ‘come on’? How many times in the last week? How many times in the six months I was il— I caught myself. I could almost feel myself reaching for the thought as it formed, taking it by its neck and squeezing it until it hung grey and limp in my hand. I wasn’t ill. I was mourning. Or, at least, I was trying to.
‘Do what I’m asking, Marco,’ I said. ‘For once, just listen to me, eh?’
‘That could be awkward,’ Marco said. ‘I don’t want to cause trouble. Not when things are finally looking up for us.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I said. ‘You think her mum’s going to sack me because my son won’t go out with her daughter?’
Marco said nothing and into his silence came memories. His face when he was on the phone; her sharp look when I said his name; the call log on our landline. A great big sack of understanding came swinging in, like a sandbag, and socked me in my guts. I hung up without another word.
‘Lars,’ I said. ‘The Ferrises’ other business?’
‘Eh?’ said Lars. ‘What about it? You mean Springview House . . . or wait. You mean her family business?’
‘Yeah, that’s the one,’ I said. ‘The builder’s yard. T&C, right?’
‘What about it?’
I swallowed vomit, leaving a bitter blackness in the back of my mouth. ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Julia? How well do you know Dido Ferris? Do you know where she hangs out? Where she’d be likely to go if she was out for a laugh one night?’
Julia shrugged. ‘Why?’
‘Because she’s the missing link and she’s got my son.’
She had bewitched him, picked him up in her car, goaded him to photograph the hand and its watch at the abbey. She had stolen his phone and used it to call the police. She had stolen the watch. Then, when she was done with him, she had tossed him aside and broken him. And she’d laughed about it – or at least talked about it – with her mum. Whatever it was she wanted with him now, I had to stop it happening.
‘Lars,’ I said. ‘I have no idea what’s going on, but either I need your keys back or I need you to come with me. And I need you to phone your pal and ask him what make and model of car stopped at my door the night the bones were found. Somebody’ll have written it down. They were all still at the crime scene when Dido came and Angelo jumped out his window.’
‘I can tell you that,’ said Julia. ‘Roughly. It’s like a red Mini or a pink Jeep or some stupid chick car like that. But are you really both going to go shooting off? What about us?’
And then all of us jumped, even S
ylvie, at the sound of a voice from the half-open door.
Chapter 23
‘I’ll take care of you both,’ said Dr F. He looked as if he’d been running, his chest heaving up and down and his face shining.
‘Nice ambiguity!’ Julia said. ‘Could you get any creepier? And are you wearing a white coat to look like Dr Frankenstein, by the way? Just for a bit of extra—’
‘I’m wearing a white coat because . . .’ His voice trailed away. ‘Comfort blanket, I suppose you’d say,’ he said at last, with an unhappy laugh. ‘The SCCE are just off the phone. Today’s the day. Two inspectors are on their way from Glasgow as we speak.’
‘They won’t be here till God knows when,’ said Lars, with a glance at his watch.
‘It’s part of the plan,’ said Dr F. ‘They start at the fag end of the day shift. The manager I just spoke to said they get the most accurate picture of true protocols and procedures at that time of day.’
‘Bastards,’ said Lars.
‘So,’ said Dr F, ‘I think it’s fair to say that Howell Hall’s number is up. My wife is AWOL and she appears to have left her office open to the outside and her computer unprotected.’
‘Her computer was on?’ I said. I hadn’t even checked. I almost laughed thinking about the page ripped out of the phone book.
A frown flickered over Dr F’s face, but he wasn’t really listening to me. ‘And so, while the cat’s away, the mouse has just reviewed Sylvie’s details. Something I’ve been meaning to do for a while now. Something, if I’m honest, I’ve always meant to do and never found the courage to.’ He sniffed deeply, a rich liquid sniff and a big swallow at the end of it. He walked over to Sylvie’s bed and looked down at her, with that same kind smile that had beguiled me. Julia moved her arms more closely around Sylvie’s shoulders so that one elbow poked straight at Dr F’s chest. ‘I’m Paul, Sylvie,’ he said. ‘I’m going to help your sister take care of you tonight and then tomorrow—’
‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘How—’
‘—do you know you can trust me?’ said Dr F. ‘That’s the wrong question. You should be asking yourself, do you trust me? And the answer is . . .’
‘Yes,’ said Lars, without a pause. ‘The answer is yes.’
‘My answer is “What choice have I got?”’ I said.
‘Pragmatic,’ the doc said. ‘Practical to a fault. How about you, Julia? What do you say?’
‘What happens tomorrow?’ said Julia. ‘That’s all I’m bothered about.’
‘I’m going to help you and Sylvie get settled somewhere new. Howell Hall is finished.’
‘You don’t think you’re finished too?’ I asked him. ‘Seeing as how you knew what was going on?’
He shook his head. ‘I didn’t know a thing. I put it together when I saw the records just now. I was negligent and I might be reprimanded but it’s my wife going down and I’m not going with her.’
‘But . . . tomorrow?’ said Julia. She spoke in a whisper. ‘You think they’ll take her away as quick as that?’ Maybe she hoped Sylvie wouldn’t hear her.
‘I think either everyone will be leaving tomorrow,’ Dr F said, ‘or they’ll be bringing someone in. I knew my wife had pulled some strings to get us started. And I knew she didn’t always play the straight bat. A little collusion here, a convenient assessment there. But I honestly had no idea about Sylvie till I saw it in black and white.’
‘She wrote it down in her records?’ I said.
Dr F raised his chin a little at that. ‘Of course she did,’ he said. ‘She’s not completely lost to goodness. She’s still a doctor.’
‘And what exactly does being a doctor have to do with anything?’ said Julia. She was wriggling out from under Sylvie, who had fallen suddenly and deeply asleep, her mouth hanging open and her breath dragging on her palate.
‘We’re talking about two different things,’ Lars said. ‘Doc, you’re talking about her drug regimen, aren’t you?’
‘What else?’ said Dr F. ‘She’s been sedated for years. And now the sedation is being lifted. What are you talking about?’ Something about what he said bothered me. Because I remembered that first day and how disturbed Dr Ferris was when Sylvie looked at me. Well, maybe she just didn’t know how quickly the girl would start to come out of the fog when the sedation was lifted.
‘Didn’t you wonder why?’ I asked him. ‘Didn’t you wonder why a woman would want her daughter tidied away into this room for keeps?’
‘I’ve only known for half an hour,’ Dr F said. ‘But of course I wonder.’
‘Julia will tell you,’ I said. ‘Lars and I have got to go.’
I didn’t bother asking him where his daughter might be. No matter how quickly he was willing to stop covering for his wife, a daughter is different. I wouldn’t have told him anything to help him find Angelo, would I?
Lars and I made our way as fast as we could move and still look casual out of the front door and into his car.
‘Did you know about Sylvie’s drugs?’ I asked, as we moved off up the drive.
His silence told me everything I needed to know but he followed it up with an answer eventually. ‘Not out loud,’ he said. ‘I wondered and I knew wondering would get me out on my ear so I let it go. At least now I know it was that or jail.’
‘Catatonic,’ I said. ‘Oedema in her legs. Years drifting by. She was a kid, Lars. She was fifteen. She might have got a suspended sentence. And she’d have been out by now either way. What kind of mother . . .?’
‘Mmmhmmm,’ she said.
‘But Sylvie wanted to take the blame,’ Lars said. ‘As soon as she came back to life she started trying to draw a flipping treasure map to the body. Her mum was only trying to save her from herself. Where am I going, by the way?’
‘Where did you go when you were a kid?’ I said, looking both ways as we passed the checkpoint and stopped at the side of the road. ‘Did you ever go out with a posh bird? Where would she take you?’
‘Wimpy, ice rink, Loreburne Centre. Anywhere the grass was dry,’ Lars said. ‘And no, there were no posh birds for me. Sharon and Tracy all the way till my wife. And by then we were old enough for pubs.’
I nodded, letting his words wash over me. If it was Angelo, if it was . . . if life had turned out differently and it was my little girl . . . I would have got the best lawyer I could afford, made a stink and tried to get her sentence down, visited her on remand, visited her in prison.
‘Mmmmhmmmm,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered, as I tried to shake her out of my head. Angelo. I needed to concentrate hard on Angelo. My boy. My only one. Why had Dido Ferris picked him up again and where would they be?
‘Dumfries, then,’ I said, pointing right. ‘They went to the Loreburne Centre one . . . time . . . before.’
‘Sure?’ said Lars. He was a good driver for these roads, sitting well back behind a tractor that was rumbling along in front of us. The farm worker saw us and pulled in, waving us past. Marco always tucked right up in the blind spot, like a fly at a cow’s arse, then sat there fuming.
‘What?’ I said.
‘You kind of stopped talking there. Let it out. There’s sense there somewhere. You’ll find it, Ali.’
‘How could she stand it?’ I said. ‘She lives a mile away as the crow flies and never visits for fifteen years? She lives in that comfortless house – honest to God, Lars, you should see it! – she lives there for years waiting for the flesh to rot from her dead husband’s bones so she can move him, and the girl she loves so much, the girl she did it all to protect, is silent and softening all alone just out of sight? Something is wrong with that story.’
‘Mmmhmmm,’ she said.
‘Okay, forget talking,’ said Lars. ‘Listen. What does your gut tell you? What does your heart say?’
‘Mmmmmmhhhmmmmmm,’ she said. ‘Mmmmmmhhhh uuuuhhhhmm,’ she said, clearer than ever. Then she said something she’d never said before. ‘Mhhuuuuhhmmm?’
‘Lars,
stop the car!’
If he hadn’t been the driver he was he’d have skidded off the road at the sound of me. We had reached the row of cottages at Dundrennan and he pulled in a hundred yards from my house.
‘What is it?’ he said.
‘My daughter’s voice,’ I told him. I knew I sounded insane. But I didn’t care. ‘I’m listening to my daughter’s voice. And Mona’s daughter’s voice too. Both of them.’
‘Ali,’ Lars said, ‘I know daughters are a difficult thing for you to think about clearly. Especially when you’re so ups—’
‘Fuck that!’ I said. ‘You can take that fucking shit and fuck the fuck off with it. I am thinking clearly about daughters today for the first fucking time in my fucking life.’
Lars had a light dancing in his eyes but he knew better than to laugh at me. ‘Got it,’ he said. ‘So what are the daughters saying?’
‘They’re both saying what Julia’s been saying ever since she came to Howell Hall.’
‘That she killed her father and she hurt his middle.’
‘Right,’ I agreed. ‘But she knows she’s not repeating something she said all those years back. She’s repeating something she heard.’
‘She heard both things. She heard Sylvie say them.’
‘Of course she did. Okay, do your best Julia impersonation. Say it like she says it.’ Lars grimaced at me, not understanding. ‘Go on.’
‘I killed my father?’ he said, in a high-pitched voice that sounded nothing like Julia except that it was loud and crazy. ‘I killed my father?’
‘You see,’ I said softly.
Lars gave a long low whistle. ‘She’s asking,’ he said. ‘She heard Sylvie asking. Who was she asking?’
‘Exactly.’
I could imagine it all now, in that ugly glass cube of a house. A fifteen-year-old girl asking, ‘I killed my father?’ and the sound carrying into the bedroom of a three-year-old child. ‘I killed my father?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ her mother answered. ‘Yes, you did.’
And what kind of mother tries to make her child believe such a thing? The sort of mother who would leave her in an empty room for fifteen years to keep her quiet. The sort of mother who’d rather have her dulled to a shadow by drugs than risk her talking. The sort of mother who’d put her other daughter in the same place, under the thumb of the same people.
The Weight of Angels Page 27