by Jenny Harper
‘Really?’
‘You bet.’
His mother said, ‘I expect your father would have something to say about that.’
‘Yes.’ Adam subsided into a chair and picked up an egg. ‘I expect he would.’
The egg felt like a small miracle – smooth and still warm, the most perfectly packaged food in existence. He held it against his cheek and thought about Jean’s chickens.
Chapter Nineteen
‘She’s acting strangely,’ Caitlyn confided to Malkie on Saturday as they strolled round the Thomson Memorial Park in Hailesbank watching Isla May kick up leaves with her friend Mariella. Isla May’s blonde curls gleamed in the autumn sunshine, while her friend’s russet ponytail bounced and bobbed as they ran with extraordinary energy in and out of the trees that bordered the perimeter.
‘She doesn’t look strange, just like a normal kid,’ Malkie said, putting an arm around her waist and pulling her close.
It felt so natural being here with Malcolm Milne, like they’d been an item for ages rather than just a couple of months. Everything seemed to be falling into place all at once.
‘Hmm. She’s stopped pestering me about the school summer camp, which is odd. And sometimes, when I get home at night, she looks kind of furtive. Her and Ailsa, now that I come to think of it.’
‘Furtive?’
‘In that kind of really innocent “Who, me?” way, when I haven’t accused her of anything.’
‘Maybe she’s been trying your make-up while you’re out. My kid sister used to do that.’ Malkie laughed. ‘She made me try it as well once. What a sight! Ginger hair and scarlet lipstick, with a good dose of blue eyeshadow.’
Caitlyn giggled. ‘Don’t tell me you secretly liked it?’
Malkie groaned. ‘Couldn’t get it off quick enough. Just imagine if Ricky McQuade or one of his gang had called at the door.’
‘You’d have been dead meat.’ Caitlyn pulled a face at Isla May as she peeped round a tree trunk, then disappeared again quickly. It was good to see that she hadn’t completely grown out of the delights of peekaboo. ‘I suppose she might be using my make-up. Or maybe dressing up, or practising walking in heels. Though I’ve only got one pair of high heels, and I can’t walk in them for more than a few yards myself.’
‘Well, I don’t suppose it’s anything serious, or you’d know.’
They stopped by a bench. The sun was already dropping in the sky, the rapidly cooling air a whisper that winter was approaching. Joyce had taken Harris and Lewis to their school football match and Ailsa was out somewhere with Wallace Ford. Caitlyn still had reservations about Wallace. He seemed too old for Ailsa, too knowing about the world. Ailsa was still at school, and for all she liked to project an air of sophistication, she was still a child, untutored in matters of the heart and innocent about all the ways the wrong man could damage her. Wallace was too experienced. Her sister should be with someone who was exploring the meaning of romance, not someone who’d almost certainly broken a few hearts already. He might be preparing to break Ailsa’s heart too, even if unintentionally.
Malkie glanced at her. ‘You’ve got that look again.’
‘What look?’
‘The one that tells me you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders.’
Caitlyn laughed. ‘Am I so transparent?’
‘To me.’ Malkie put a finger under her chin, tipped her face up towards him and started to kiss her.
‘Oh yeugh!’
They broke apart, laughing, as Isla May and Mariella skipped away, pulling faces of disgust.
Caitlyn said, ‘Malkie? This is good. I like it. I like you. But I’m not like Saskia, and to be honest, I’m not sure I’m quite ready for a full-on live in relationship.’
‘Was I suggesting it?’
‘No. Sorry, I didn’t mean to – Listen, all I meant was can we just take this slowly?’
Malkie jumped up and hauled her to her feet.
‘Take what slowly?’ he said grinning. ‘Race you to the fountain.’
And he was off, sprinting in and around the rose bushes and into the formal garden with its box hedges and half-dead summer plantings to where a monstrous gilded dolphin spewed water into a giant seashell.
‘Come back!’ Caitlyn called, puffing in his wake.
When she finally caught up with him, he scooped her up in his arms and threatened to drop her into the chilly water, encouraged by two very excited little girls who had found a shortcut.
‘Don’t you dare!’ Caitlyn cried, laughing and squirming.
Malkie had a knack of getting it right. Impulsively, she kissed his cheek.
‘What was that for?’ he asked, smiling.
‘For understanding.’
Even after almost ten weeks of commuting, Caitlyn was still finding the long days tiring, especially now that the clocks had changed and the days were getting shorter. She left home in the dark and got back home in the dark. If she didn’t manage to get out for a walk at lunchtime, which happened if they were very busy or the weather was too foul, she felt like a mole.
Still, she had settled in well at Blair King. Loads of people she knew still worked there. She’d been given a desk next to Deirdre Shaw again, so coming back hadn’t felt strange at all. Deirdre – kind, round-faced and unashamedly overweight – had a new boyfriend and they’d been out a couple of times as a foursome.
One Friday shortly before Christmas, Agnes Buchanan put her head round the door of their office and announced, ‘I have to leave early, girls. I have an invitation to a private view at one of the galleries in Dundas Street. They’ve got a special Christmas exhibition on. There’s nothing I need to know about before I head off, is there?’
‘No, Agnes.’
‘Nothing,’ they chimed in response.
‘Very well then. I imagine that one of the partners will be last to leave, but you both know how to lock up, don’t you?’
‘Yes, Agnes,’ they chorused dutifully – then burst into giggles as soon as she was out of earshot.
‘“Invitation to a private view”,’ snorted Deirdre. ‘Makes it sound like she’s important.’
‘Those galleries are really expensive,’ Caitlyn said. ‘I took my mum into one once – she’d seen a picture in the window she liked. She thought it’d be about fifty quid but it turned out there were a few noughts on the end.’
‘Guess Agnes has been hanging around for so long they give her a free glass of wine now and then. Makes the place look busy.’
‘Well, good luck to her,’ Caitlyn said charitably. ‘I don’t suppose she has a lot of excitement in her life. What’re you up to this weekend?’
‘Kev and me, we’re catching the train to Glenrothes to visit his gran tonight, but he’s at the footie tomorrow. I’ve made him promise to come Christmas shopping with me on Sunday to make up. You?’
‘The usual. Get the twins to football in the morning. Isla May’s got a sleepover with her friend. Heaven knows what Ailsa will be up to. I’m seeing Malkie tonight. Might have to babysit tomorrow, I can’t remember what shifts Mum’s on.’
‘Jeez,’ Deirdre said suddenly, catching sight of the clock. ‘Is that the time? Hell!’
‘Problem?’
‘Yeah, Kev’ll be waiting for me outside, and Mr Keir’s left this whole stack of papers here. He must have forgotten to pick them up when he shot off to his meeting this afternoon. It’s not like him. He’s usually so careful. He hates anything left lying around. I ought to do it for him, but—’
‘I’ll do it,’ Caitlyn volunteered.
‘Are you sure? I was hoping you might say that but I didn’t like to ask. What about Malkie? Thought you were seeing him tonight.’
‘I’m sure it won’t take long. Anyway, it’s the least I can do, you’ve been such a help to me since I started back.’
Deirdre obviously wasn’t about to argue. She pulled a small set of keys out of her pocket before Caitlyn had even finished speaking. ‘Well, ta, I won�
��t say no. His door’s open, I checked it a few minutes ago, but lock it before you go. He goes mental if you don’t. You’re an angel.’
‘I know.’
‘I’ll pay you back sometime, honest.’
She dropped the keys onto the stack of papers. ‘Them’s his spare keys for the filing cabinet. Stick them back in his desk drawer after, will you? You have a good weekend, now.’ She opened the door, paused on the threshold and said, grinning, ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, ha ha. Bye!’
She winked, and was gone.
Caitlyn smiled at the empty space. Making proper friends had been one of the best things about coming back here. There’d been nobody at the supermarket she’d felt any kind of bond with.
She stood and stretched. Almost quarter to six already – no wonder Deirdre had been so keen to get away. Still, this wouldn’t take long, twenty minutes or so at the most. She’d have to watch her time herself – she was heading for the cinema in Hailesbank with Malkie this evening. A Brad Pitt film didn’t sound her kind of thing, but Malkie wanted to go, and she liked to keep him happy. Anyway, looking at Brad Pitt for a couple of hours would be no hardship.
There was no-one on Logan Keir’s floor. Everywhere was in darkness. She knocked on his door, just in case, but there was no reply, so she went in, flicking the light on.
He kept his room very tidy. Some of the partners were real squirrels – they liked to hoard everything. Mr Keir had always been one of the tidy ones, but now that he was compliance partner for the business, he obviously took security very seriously, because there wasn’t a scrap of paper to be seen anywhere in his office. No wonder Deirdre was keen to get this filing done.
Caitlyn inserted one of the keys into the lock on the filing cabinet and turned it. Compliance partner – that meant making sure that all the regulations were kept properly. It must be a complicated job, she thought as she picked up the first letter, because there were so many regulations these days. Back in the old days, Deirdre had told her, people just went to a lawyer and he acted for them. Nowadays, you had to take heaven knows what along with you if you were a new client – utility bills, passports, anything that was recognised as official identification with your address on it – to prove you were who you said you were. Something to do with money laundering, apparently.
She smiled to herself. She used to think money laundering was when you forgot to take a fiver out of your jeans before you washed them. Well, she knew better now.
She started to work through the pile systematically.
L for Leishman.
B for Brown. There were quite a few Browns.
E for Edwards.
She rifled through the files, but couldn’t locate a Michael Edwards. She checked again. There was no sign of the file. She scanned the documents she was holding once more. There was a form on the top, and the papers had been fastened together with a paperclip. The heading on the form on the top read, ‘New client introduction’. She’d have to open a new file.
She examined the form again and felt a wave of dizziness.
Not again!
A vein started pulsing at Caitlyn’s temple and her skin felt cold. Introduced by ...
She forced herself to look at the name again.
There was no mistake. She wanted to drop the papers and run, out of Logan Keir’s office, out of the building, to be anywhere but here.
Her head was spinning. Her breath came in short, ragged bursts and she clutched at the first thing that came to hand – the hard ridges inside the filing drawer that was open in front of her. The sharpness of the metal forced her to look down.
This was real.
Think, Caitlyn. Think.
The introduction form needed lots of information. The person’s name, of course. Where they lived and who had introduced them to the firm. And finally, the signature of the partner who was taking them on, and the signature of another partner.
A year ago, one of Logan Keir’s forms had become mixed up with a sheaf of documents sent by a couple of other partners for filing. She hadn’t really been reading them, but a name on the document had leapt out at her, stopping her in her tracks. She’d looked at it again, then at the date.
New client: Agatha Franckzac.
Introduced by: Graham Robertson.
Signatories: Logan Keir and John Masters.
She thought that was a bit odd – if Mr Robertson had introduced Agatha Franckzac, why hadn’t he signed the form?
And even odder – John Masters, the partner whose name appeared on the form, had died two weeks before the date shown.
It must be a mistake. Maybe just the date?
She’d gone to Mr Keir and asked.
‘It was merely an expedient,’ Logan Keir had said, his eyes smiling less than his mouth. ‘No-one was around at the time and it needed to be done quickly.’
‘Oh. I thought maybe ... Well, what should I do? Will you change the date, or what?’
To her astonishment, instead of giving her an instruction, he’d turned vicious. ‘You’re a silly child. Just do your job, and if you can’t do your job, find another one.’
And he’d snatched the form out of her hands and marched away.
She’d been cowed. Maybe she was a silly child – she certainly felt like one. He was a partner, and she was way down the ladder.
The episode left her feeling deeply uneasy. What should she do – let it pass? Tell one of the senior partners about it? Inform the Law Society? Maybe she could do that anonymously, then she could stay on at Blair King.
She agonised over what she’d seen. An expedient, he’d said. But he’d lied on the form, hadn’t he? There were lies and there were lies, but she knew that this one must be very wrong because the regulations were so strict.
If it was a mistake, surely he could just have explained to Mr Robertson, destroyed the form and filled in another one with the right dates and signatures.
It didn’t make sense to her, but she lacked the courage to talk to anyone else. If she told a senior partner and was wrong, they’d definitely think she was stupid – or, worse, a troublemaker. If she tipped off the Law Society, Mr Keir would know quickly enough who’d done it, and what would her life at the firm be like then?
She started tossing and turning all night. She lost her appetite. The small edifice of confidence she’d been carefully constructing crumbled. In the end, she couldn’t stand it any more and she handed in her notice.
The day she left, Mr Keir had stopped her in a corridor, blocking her way. ‘Don’t forget,’ he’d said in a low voice, ‘that you signed a confidentiality agreement when you joined Blair King. I expect you to adhere to that.’
And he’d brushed past her, leaving only the faint smell of aftershave and the lingering hiss of the threat.
In the half darkness of Mr Keir’s office, Caitlyn shivered. She’d made her decision, and she’d thought about it endlessly over the towers of cans and mountains of sugar. As time had passed and she hadn’t found a job that paid nearly half as well, she’d revisited the matter endlessly. Had she really just been a stupid child?
Paralysed with fear, she looked down again at the form she was holding.
New client: Michael Robert Edwards.
Date of Birth: 16:09:1954.
Address: Moray Place, Edinburgh.
Introduced by: ...
Introduced by: Caitlyn Murray.
Chapter Twenty
‘I really don’t know what to do,’ Molly said to Lexie as her friend peeled a damp nappy off the baby, folded it and dropped it into a poly bag. ‘Here, give me that.’
She knotted the bag then dropped it in the nappy bin.
‘About what?’ Lexie cooed at the baby, who gurgled. ‘Do you think that was a smile? Look, Molly.’
Molly glanced across to where the baby lay on the changing mat. ‘Isn’t she a bit young to be smiling?’
‘She’s obviously a very quick developer,’ Lexie retorted.
Maternity suited h
er, Molly thought, watching as her friend played with the baby. And what a surprise that was – it was not much more than a year since Lexie had been submerged in grief for Jamie, unable to lift a paintbrush and completely at odds with Patrick.
‘Now look at you—’ she murmured.
Lexie looked across at her. ‘What’s that?’
‘Oh sorry, did I speak out loud? I was just thinking how quickly all this has happened. You and Patrick, I mean, and the baby.’
Lexie gathered the baby – still unnamed – in her arms and sank onto a low chair. The slanting rays of the afternoon light caught the back of her head and formed a halo – Madonna and child, a timeless image. An indefinable feeling of sadness settled around Molly and she struggled to banish it. How can you feel loss when you have never had something?
Lexie was absorbed in feeding. The baby, her eyes closed, raised one tiny hand to her mother’s breast, let go of the nipple and gave a little sigh of contentment. Molly marvelled at the miracle of life. The fingers were so small, yet so perfect; the skin pure and soft, unblemished by age or weather. If she and Adam had revisited the issue of children, might they still be together? Might they have avoided the sad descent into neglect and anger that had led to her infidelity and torn them apart?
At length the baby’s head fell back and her snuffle turned into a soft snore. Lexie, rousing herself from her own half-stupor, covered herself and laid the child in her cot. ‘Tea?’ she murmured, her gaze filled with languorous contentment.
‘Thought you’d never ask.’
In the kitchen, they debated the thorny matter of names.
‘We’ve only got a few days left to register her,’ Lexie said, fidgeting with her mug. ‘Patrick wants something Irish, like Aoife or Fionnoula. I’m with him on the poetic, but I’d like something easier to spell.’
‘So not Guinevere or Amarantha then?’
‘Definitely not. Nor Calliope or Zuleika.’
‘You’ve considered Zuleika?’ Molly asked incredulously.
‘What do you think?’
Molly reached for a biscuit, then put it back. She wasn’t hungry. She quite often found she wasn’t hungry these days. ‘Lexie—’ she started.