The Weight of Angels

by Catriona McPherson

  ‘Mona Swain killed her husband,’ Lars said.

  ‘Yeah, I think so,’ I said. ‘He was abusing Sylvie. She “hurt his middle”. So once he was dead she was all set to take the blame.’

  ‘But Mona would have stopped her,’ Lars said. ‘And even Mona – if she killed him in a maternal rage, because of what he was doing to Sylvie, no jury would blame her. She’d probably get a round of applause.’

  ‘Maybe that wasn’t the problem,’ I said. ‘Mothers aren’t all saints, you know. Maybe her rage wasn’t maternal. Maybe it was jealous so she punished both of them.’

  We sat silently and tested it.

  ‘And then the floods came,’ Lars said. ‘And Mona knew what might happen.’

  We had seen it on the news: subsoil washed up, wrecking farmers’ fields; corners of coffin lids poking through the dead grey grass of that cemetery on the edge of the South Downs.

  ‘And if it did,’ I said, ‘the cops would ID him, and they’d want to know where Sylvie was.’

  ‘And once she was in the spotlight, sent to a police psychiatrist for evaluation . . .’ Lars fell silent.

  ‘Her oh-so-convenient catatonia would have to stop. They’d have to see her drug list, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘And so . . .’ Silence again, for even longer this time, but eventually he roused himself. ‘How does Julia fit in?’

  ‘You really don’t know?’

  ‘The only thing I can think of is so insane I can’t believe it. I can’t even say it.’

  ‘I’ll say it for you,’ I told him. ‘I’ve got no trouble believing it. It was going to look like Julia killed Sylvie and then herself while under the care of an unstable woman who lied on her application. Dr Ferris hand-picked me.’

  ‘How the hell did Dr Ferris even know about you?’

  ‘Because she’s having an affair with my husband,’ I said. It was interesting to say it and feel nothing. True things don’t hurt at all when you finally face them. ‘She’s moved him in and now he moves me out. Three birds, one stone. Dr Ferris gets rid of Sylvie, Mona Swain gets rid of both kids for good, and she can stop worrying about what they know and what they’ll say, and as a bonus Marco finally gets rid of me.’

  ‘And Angelo?’ said Lars. ‘How does he fit in?’

  ‘Marco would never let anyone harm him,’ I said. ‘I think . . . I think . . . I think Dr Ferris told her daughter to find a stooge with a phone.’

  ‘Just a coincidence that she chose your son?’ said Lars.

  We stared at each other. We both knew that was too much to swallow.

  ‘Okay, so it wasn’t that innocent,’ I said. ‘Dr Ferris told Dido to get in with my son and steal his phone. But Marco didn’t know that bit of the plan.’

  ‘But – but Angelo could have dropped Dido right in it. Told the police she’d made a beeline for him, told them she’d nicked his phone.’

  ‘She’d deny it and her lawyers would say he was trying to protect me.’ I wrapped my arms around my body and squeezed. ‘He does that. He’s been doing it for years.’

  ‘So . . . you’re supposed to have just generally gone off your rocker? Is that it?’ Lars said.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘But why are they together again tonight?’ said Lars.

  ‘Because she’s a teenage girl and Angel’s got his dad’s eyes?’ I said. ‘She decided to phone him up again and have some more fun? I think Marco’s right. He’ll be in by eleven, crunching Tic-Tacs to hide the booze on his breath, all zipped up to the neck if she’s a biter.’

  Lars nodded. ‘Did Marco actually say she phoned him?’ he said. ‘Is that definitely how they hooked up again today?’

  ‘I think so,’ I said. ‘I think he phoned her yesterday to talk to her about the photo of the hand. At least, he definitely phoned someone, someone who knows the names of designers, but if it was Dido, she resisted him. He was in all last night.’

  ‘Could he have tried again?’ said Lars. ‘Did he have anything else to offer? Anything new to tell—’

  ‘Fuck!’ I was out of the car and running. ‘Of course he did!’ I yelled back over my shoulder, as Lars scrambled out and followed me. ‘He called her to say the watch was in her mum’s desk drawer. When she heard that she couldn’t get here fast enough.’ I was fumbling with my key but my fingers felt like jelly. ‘Oh, Jesus! Dr Ferris is AWOL too. He might be with both of them.’

  Lars took the keys from me and fitted one into the lock. ‘Say Dido didn’t know he took a picture,’ I said. ‘Say she only found out today there was a way to tie him to the hand. Well that would tie her to the hand and that would blow their story sky-high.’

  We burst in and both of us were panting. Marco was on the couch, a can of beer in his hand and the telly on.

  ‘Who phoned who?’ I fired at him.

  ‘What?’ said Marco. He frowned past me. ‘Liam? Is it? Ali, shouldn’t you be at work?’

  ‘Close enough,’ Lars said.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Marco said. ‘Liam, you need to know, pal, my wife can get a bit—’

  ‘Give it up,’ I said. ‘I know you’re at it with Tamara Ferris. I know that’s how you got your job and got me mine.’ I held up a hand. ‘Don’t even bother. We’re past that. And let me tell you, Marco, I will never forgive you for letting our son get mixed up in all this. Even if we find him safe and sound, I will never forgive you. And if he’s come to harm I will kill you.’

  ‘Angelo’s fine,’ Marco said. ‘There’s no need to upset yours—’

  ‘NO!’ I bellowed it at him. ‘You say that over and over like it’s some kind of slogan. And I never knew why it made me feel as if I was going mad. I don’t “upset myself”, Marco. Things “upset me”. Things “upset” everyone, unless they’re catatonic or drugged to their eyeballs. It’s called life.’

  ‘Do you think we could maybe—’ said Marco, flicking a glance at Lars.

  ‘He’s a friend,’ I said. ‘I needed one. So we’re done. We’re over. But I’m going to give you the chance to tell me the truth before I check for myself. Who phoned who?’

  ‘It was a long time ago, Ali,’ Marco said. He was shifting from foot to foot and not quite looking at me.

  ‘What the hell are you on about?’ I said. I walked up close to him and dipped my head trying to scoop up his gaze. ‘It was today. It was this afternoon.’

  ‘What are you on about?’ Marco said, meeting my eye at last. ‘Are you ill again?’

  My hand shot out without any particle of me choosing to move. ‘I was never ill,’ I said, gripping his arm and squeezing. ‘That was all you. Now tell me: did Dido Ferris click her fingers and have him come running for a laugh or did Angelo go running back to her with a big piece of bad news? Who phoned who?’

  ‘Ali,’ said Lars. ‘You said he’s not got a mobile at the minute, right?’ He sounded unfazed by the mini-drama playing out in front of him. But, then, I supposed a psychiatric nurse would be used to worse than a gripped arm and some hissed words.

  I turned to him and let Marco’s arm go. ‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘It’ll be on the log on the landline.’

  ‘Is this Angelo?’ Marco said. ‘What exactly does my son’s priva—’

  ‘Oh, fuck off,’ Lars said. ‘And try redial too, Ali. Just in case.’

  Marco was swaggering over the few feet of carpet towards him. I grabbed the phone from the arm of the couch and punched the buttons. ‘It’s ringing,’ I said.

  ‘Who do you think you are?’ Marco said. He was squaring up, taller and heavier, inches away from Lars. ‘This is my house and my family.’

  ‘And this is my job,’ Lars said. He didn’t step back and his voice was calm. ‘I diagnosed your wife the minute she walked through the door the first day. She’s had a chronic case of being married to a man like you. She’s on the mend, though.’

  Someone answered the phone. ‘What now?’ It was Dr Ferris. Of course it was.

  ‘Tamara?’ I said. ‘Do you know wher
e your daughter and my son are? I’m fussy about who he hangs out with.’

  The silence went on so long I wondered if the call had dropped. When at last she spoke her voice quaked with swallowed rage. ‘Alison, shouldn’t you be at work?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ I said. ‘We decided not to go ahead with that . . . project. Your soon-to-be-ex-husband is looking after the Boswell girls and Lars and I are here teaching my soon-to-be-ex-husband a lesson. Okay?’

  ‘Project?’ Dr Ferris said.

  ‘We’ll never prove it,’ I told her. ‘So you’re probably safe. You’ll only get done for . . . Lars, what would you call it? What the doc did to Sylvie?’

  ‘Assault,’ said Lars, loud enough for her to hear. ‘False imprisonment, actual bodily harm. Maybe grievous bodily harm.’

  ‘You’ll never prove anything,’ she said.

  ‘Tell me one thing,’ I said. ‘Did you know my son took a photo of the hand while it had the watch on? Did Dido tell you?’

  Her intake of breath was like paper ripping. ‘What?’ she whispered.

  ‘Oh, yes. He took it off his phone but he kept it on his laptop and I’ve got it on a flash drive too.’

  ‘A photo? Of the watch?’

  ‘Before it wound up in your desk drawer,’ I said. ‘Didn’t Dido tell you?’ Another sheet of paper ripped and afterwards her breath came rough and ragged.

  ‘Nonsense,’ she said. ‘My desk drawer?’

  ‘And I took a photo of it in there,’ I lied. I wished I had, but her thinking I did was almost as good. ‘You’re telling me you didn’t know?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t know!’ she said. ‘Why would I bother taking it off if there was a photo?’

  ‘So you didn’t send your daughter to silence my son?’ I said.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You sound sincere,’ I said. ‘And I want to believe you. So how about if you tell me where Dido and Angel are?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know they were—’

  ‘Or give me her number, at least,’ I broke in. ‘And we’ll help you pretend Sylvie just recovered suddenly. How about that, eh?’

  ‘You’re not going to harm her, are you?’ she said. The first genuine words I had ever heard drip from her lips.

  ‘Harm her?’ I said. ‘Harm your daughter?’

  And I think she recognized the truth of what I’d said. At any rate, she gave me the number. I relayed it to Lars and he keyed it into my phone. Then, without another word, we left the house. Left Marco just sitting there. The sun was going down behind the abbey, long fingers of yellow light dazzling through the empty sockets where windows should be. I stopped on the doorstep and stared across at it.

  ‘Is this real?’ I said. ‘Is any of this really happening? Or is this me going off my head like Marco’s been ready for, all these years?’

  ‘Wouldn’t that be nice?’ said Lars. ‘Sorry, Ali. This is as real as rat shit in your raisins.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, laughing. ‘Right then. Looks like I won’t be getting a month at Howell Hall in one of the big bedrooms with the good toiletries. Even if I am married to the boss’s boyfriend.’

  ‘If the doc’s right about the SCCE inspectors heading that way this afternoon, nobody’ll be in there long,’ said Lars. ‘I’ve seen those guys bring the hammer down on a place before. It’ll have started already.’

  ‘As quick as that?’

  ‘If getting sued’s the other option. Anyway, that’s not really the point this minute, is it?’

  I nodded, gathering myself up again. ‘How are we going to find Angel and Dido? Where will we start? Are you going to try her phone?’

  ‘Speaking of phones,’ said Lars, ‘what did Marco mean when he said the phone call was a long time ago? What call was he talking about?’

  I shook my head, casting my thoughts around, like driftnets. So many phones. Missed calls and logs and messages. It was so much harder, these days, for anyone to miss anyone they wanted to speak to, yet it was just as hard to reach across a chasm once you’d let it open.

  ‘Oh!’ I said, as the truth broke over me.

  I looked down at the contacts on my phone. I’d kept the number. I’d even transferred it from phone to phone when I upgraded, made sure I had a Euro-roving account. All for that one French phone number I had never rung. I hit the little green icon and listened to it ringing.

  ‘Hello?’ she said.

  ‘Mum?’ I said. ‘It’s Ali. Mum, I know this is coming out of nowhere, but . . . all those years ago, what did Marco tell you?’

  ‘He simply made your position clear,’ my mum said, that same snippy voice that used to tell me to sit up straight and clear my own dishes.

  ‘What did he say?’ I asked her again.

  ‘He told me you were fine and didn’t want a fuss.’

  ‘He was fine,’ I said. ‘He didn’t want a fuss.’

  ‘That there was no funeral planned.’

  ‘That’s true. I couldn’t have planned a funeral if my— So we didn’t have one.’

  ‘He said we’d only upset you if we came over and tried to change your mind. It seemed so cold, Ali. I didn’t understand.’

  ‘Me neither.’ I took a few big breaths, calming myself, before I tried to speak again.

  ‘We’ve got a lot of talking to do. When would be a good time?’

  ‘Anytime, Ali,’ she told me. ‘Day or night, darlin’. I’m your mum.’

  I hung up, because the neighbour was twitching at his curtains and because if I said another word I would be sobbing.

  Chapter 24

  All those years. I’d missed their ruby wedding. They’d missed my fortieth birthday. They hadn’t seen Angel on his first day at school or his best day at swimming. They hadn’t been there to share the Champagne when Face Value opened or the vodka when it closed. My dad hadn’t been around when Marco laid out his plans, and couldn’t tell me how muddle-headed they were, help me get him told before we lost everything. And how I had hated them for it. If she’d phoned me, I wouldn’t have said day or night. But then I wasn’t her mum.

  ‘Why?’ I said to Lars.

  ‘You want comfort or a diagnosis?’ Lars said.

  ‘Comfort!’ I said. It came out in a howl.

  ‘He’s a shit.’

  It wasn’t exactly comforting but it made me laugh.

  As I shook my head, I noticed that the neighbour was peering at me. Poor old codger. Bloody awful neighbours we’d been since we rocked up, hadn’t we? I waved at him and mimed opening the window.

  ‘I don’t want another mouthful,’ he said, as he leaned out.

  ‘I need your help,’ I said. ‘I think my son probably got picked up by a friend in a car a wee while ago. Can you tell me which way it went?’

  ‘Went? It didn’t go anywhere,’ he said. ‘That’s it sitting right there in my space outside my gate.’

  I looked where he was pointing. Julia had said a red Mini or a pink Jeep. It was actually a Volkswagen Beetle in lemon yellow. Same difference: it was a car that screamed spoiled teenage girl.

  ‘You haven’t got a car,’ I said. ‘What harm’s it doing you?’

  ‘I could have a taxi coming,’ he said, and slammed the window.

  Lars was already dialling and, of course – of course – when the call went through we heard it both tinny from inside the phone and very faint from all the way across the road in the abbey grounds.

  ‘Where else?’ Lars said, and started walking.

  ‘I think she meant it,’ I said, scurrying along beside him. ‘I don’t think Dr Ferris knew about the photo. I don’t think she sent Dido to . . . shut Angel up.’

  Lars took my arm and broke into a run. ‘Let’s hurry anyway,’ he said grimly.

  All the police cars and vans had made a worse mess than the flood. A week before when the water went down, the grass was still grass, even sodden in yellowing clumps, but now the whole bowl of grounds where the ruins sat was a soup of
mud, churned up into ropes and clods from the tyres, like piped chocolate icing. It sucked at my feet and splatted up my trouser legs. Lars had to give me his arm to steady me as I lurched and skidded towards where the phone was ringing out, bouncing off the high stones and echoing.

  ‘Why doesn’t she answer?’ I said, clutching at Lars.

  ‘Angelo?’ he shouted. ‘Where are you? Are you okay?’

  The ringing stopped.

  I could see it in my head long before I got to the corner and looked for real. I saw her, tall and haughty, standing over him, looking coldly down, taking a picture for a souvenir. And Angel’s face blue with blood, his eyes drying, his tongue pushed out and as black as his lashes. I threw myself at the last of the buttresses and hauled my way round to look at the scene, to grab her and choke the life out of her with my two bare hands.

  They were huddled together on a slab of rock, their muddy feet pulled up out of the mess, arms around each other. Angel and a little round girl with a pink flash in the front of her Mohawk.

  ‘Dido?’ I said, as the vision of the younger, taller, icier version of her mother melted away.

  ‘Are you Mrs McGovern?’ she said.

  ‘Does your mum know where you are?’

  ‘My mum?’ she said. ‘You’re kidding. My mum told me I had to dump Angelo. She told me he was trouble.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ said Angelo. He was glaring at Lars.

  I dropped his hand and took a step towards the pair of them. ‘Sounds like you made a proper job of the dumping,’ I said. ‘Did your mum tell you to send your friends to carry out a public shaming?’

  ‘Mu-um!’ said Angelo. ‘We’ve sorted all that out.’

  Dido had put her head down and when she spoke again her voice was tiny. ‘I had to burn my bridges to make myself stick to it,’ she said.

  ‘It doesn’t seem to have worked,’ I said, looking at the way their arms were still wrapped round one another. ‘And did your mum tell you to go out with him in the first place?’ I said. ‘Did your mum tell you to get his phone?’