by James Oswald
The long corridor from the front hall to the kitchen at the back of the house is a lot shorter than I remember it. Memory plays tricks, and the world shrinks as we age. The door is slightly ajar, and as I approach I can hear the quiet sounds of someone inside. Cat saunters up to me, purring gently and nudging my leg as if she wants me to hurry.
A wonderful aroma of coffee greets me as I push the door wide and step into the kitchen. Of all the rooms in the house, this was always my favourite. Probably because it was always warm, but possibly because it was Margaret the housekeeper’s domain. What little domesticity I have I learned in here: how to bake bread; how to prepare vegetables and make a stew big enough to feed an army; how to darn socks, sew buttons back on trousers, and knit simple things like hats and scarves. All skills I’ve long since forgotten, or maybe consciously rejected, but I learned them all the same. I also learned how to make porridge properly, and it’s that smell which wins out over the coffee as I see a person standing over the stove, stirring a pot.
‘Hello?’ I’m not sure I meant it as a question, but that’s how it comes out. There’s no mistaking this person for Margaret. The housekeeper was a tiny woman, and she’d be about a hundred by now. From behind, all I can tell is that Aunt Felicity’s friend is enormous. At least six foot and change, and broad-shouldered. Her greying hair hangs neatly around her shoulders and she’s dressed in a tweed skirt and jacket, a white apron tied neatly around her wide midriff.
‘Ah. Lady Constance. You’ve made good time. I’m so pleased to finally meet you. I’m Rose.’
She turns as she speaks, one hand clasping a wooden spurtle like a weapon. I can’t say anything, am aware that I’m staring and that it’s rude, but there’s nothing I can do about it. When Aunt Felicity told me an old friend was at the house, I assumed some school friend, spinster of the parish or suchlike. The woman who smiles at me now is something quite different.
The woman who smiles at me now is quite clearly a man dressed in drag.
30
I know it’s bad of me. I’ve been through the diversity training, lived alongside all manner of colourful individuals during my years in London. There was even a teacher at Saint Bert’s who all the girls were convinced was a man in drag, although in truth Mrs Staunton was just unfortunate to have a husky voice and a bit too much facial hair. I shouldn’t really be bothered by Aunt Felicity’s friend, Rose, and yet I can’t help staring at her. I don’t feel threatened, don’t sense any kind of hostility in that patient gaze, which is perhaps even more unsettling.
‘You look exhausted, girl. Sit you down and I’ll get you some coffee.’
Her voice – his voice? – is strange. There’s a soft Scottish accent about it for one thing, but it’s also a bit like old Mrs Staunton’s voice, not so much deep as coming from the wrong part of the throat. It takes a while for the words to sink in, and that’s when I realise she’s right. I am dog tired.
‘Sorry. I’m staring, aren’t I?’ I pull out a chair and thunk down into it. Rose simply smiles, fetches a mug from the draining board and pours coffee into it from a large cafetière warming on the back of the stove.
‘Milk’s on the table.’ She points to the jug. ‘And I’m used to it.’
I cradle the mug in my hands; just the smell of the coffee is enough to give me a boost. ‘I have to admit, you’re not quite what I was expecting when Aunt F. told me an old friend was staying.’
‘How very like her to be so mysterious. She does love to tease. Hang on a mo.’ Rose turns her back on me, and I hear the sound of frantic stirring as she tries to stop the forgotten porridge from sticking to the bottom of the pot. ‘Think that’s done, right enough. You want some?’
I remember eating porridge in this kitchen as a child, watched over by Margaret, who tutted at my adding sugar and cream. It was always served in wooden bowls and eaten with a wooden spoon. Don’t ask me why, it just was. ‘If there’s any going spare. I’m starving.’
Rose goes to the cupboard and comes back with two bowls. They’re not the ones Ben and I used to use, they’d be tiny now, but they’re made of wood. I watch as she spoons a generous portion of gloop into each, then passes one over to me.
‘I always think it’s best with a sprinkle of demerara and a knob of butter, but some people prefer cream.’ Rose pulls out a chair and sits down opposite me, her imposing bulk even more obvious. I’m sure there was only a milk jug on the table before, but somehow there’s a little bowl of sugar, a butter dish and a pot of cream in front of me now. I’m just tired, I must have dozed a little.
‘How long have you known Aunt F.?’ I spoon a bit more than a sprinkle of sugar over the porridge, then drown it in cream. It’s not often I get to indulge. Rose ponders a while before answering.
‘I think I must have first met Felicity in about nineteen sixty. Or was it fifty-nine? She was just a little girl then, of course. Looked a lot like you, actually.’
I do the maths in my head. In 1959 my aunt would have been about four years old, I think. Dad hadn’t even been born.
‘Yes. I remember now. I used to have a little bookshop in the Grassmarket. Your grandfather came in looking for a copy of Aleister Crowley’s memoirs, brought little Felicity along for the trip. She was a very serious young girl. Not at all interested in the children’s picture books.’
Having just taken a mouthful of porridge that’s an almost perfect trip down memory lane, I have to stop myself from spitting it out laughing. The thought of my aunt as a serious little girl is too much. How did she grow up into the adult who took such delight in letting me and Ben do things my father disapproved of whenever she could?
‘Hot.’ I wave a hand over my mouth in the universal gesture in an attempt to hide my rudeness, swallow the mouthful and take a sip of coffee before speaking again. ‘The Grassmarket? In Edinburgh?’
‘Of course, you know the city.’ Rose’s face breaks into a smile, and it occurs to me that she’s probably as uncertain about me as I am her. I took my jacket off when I sat down, forgetting the twining patterns of the tattoos on my arms. A well-to-do lady like her probably finds them a bit common, maybe unsettling.
Except she’s not a well-to-do lady. Well, she’s not the stereotypical Edinburgh matron. She’s transgender, for one thing, and a lot older than I first thought if she knew my grandfather. And yet after just a few minutes in her company I have accepted her as just a normal late-middle-aged woman. Strange. I always notice when people put me on edge, but Rose is the complete opposite.
‘I went to university there. Four wonderful, wasted years.’
‘And now you’re a police officer. A detective no less. How very exciting.’
‘Maybe a little too exciting sometimes.’ I wonder how much Aunt Felicity has told her friend about me. ‘Hence my trip here.’
Rose takes a few thoughtful spoons of porridge, concentrating on her food rather than me for a while. I’m happy to do the same; it’s very good and I’m starving. In surprisingly little time we have both finished.
‘I should have made more. It’s not often I have an appreciative audience.’
‘I’ve not had such a good bowl of porridge since I was a little girl.’
‘Sure you’re not just tired and hungry from a long drive?’ Rose tilts her overlarge head to one side as she asks the question, and I find myself ever so slightly mimicking the action. With the motion comes the realisation that she’s right. I’m utterly knackered, and the weight of creamy porridge in my stomach isn’t exactly waking me up. I stretch and yawn, eyeing the cafetière warming on the back of the stove, the precious black stimulant swirling within.
‘I’ll be fine. Maybe have a bit of a nap once I’ve got myself settled in.’
‘Will you be staying long? Only I’ll be leaving later today. Heading back to the city.’ Rose frowns, perhaps misinterpreting my own expression. ‘Not because of you, my dear. I wa
s only going to be here for the week, and the week is done.’
‘Oh.’ It’s all I can think of to say as she puts the pot in the sink and fills it with cold water, fusses around tidying things for a while. Finally she brings the cafetière over and fills up my mug.
‘I shan’t be leaving till the evening, and I would love to talk some more. But that can wait. Drink that down, then go get some rest. You look all done in, dear. I’ll let your aunt know you’ve arrived.’
And with that, she strides out of the room, leaving me to my thoughts.
I don’t have much luggage, but what there is I carry up to the tower room where Ben and I slept when we were children. Like everything else, it seems smaller, but it’s still more than twice the size of the bedroom in my London flat. There aren’t any holes in either of the two mattresses either. It’s a long time since last I slept in a single bed, but it’s worth it for the view across the loch to the mountains beyond. Although perhaps if I was being sensible I’d take one of the guest rooms looking out over the drive and any unexpected and unwelcome visitors.
Checking my phone for the time, I’m surprised to find both a clear signal and Wi-Fi. The connection isn’t password protected, and I’m halfway through composing a stern talk to my aunt about cyber-security and identity theft when I remember where I am. The nearest house is well out of range, and that’s occupied by the farmer and his wife. They’ve probably got their own connection anyway, and the thick stone walls of Newmore won’t let much of a signal out. You’d have to be parked at the front door to use it, and that would be fairly obvious. It’s a far cry from the old days, when the nearest telephone was a red box in the village, a three-mile walk away.
The old dresser makes a passable desk for my new laptop, and I spend a while plugging it in and getting it fired up. It’s much quicker than my battered computer back in London, or any of the rickety old machines in the station, but as soon as I sit down and stare at the screen I’m yawning. I’m fighting the weariness when Cat comes in, sniffs the air and twitches her tail before leaping onto Ben’s old bed. A couple of turns, and she’s curled up tight, purring herself to sleep.
It’s light outside, still morning, but I can’t fight the lethargy any more. I lock the computer down, pull off my boots and clamber onto my own narrow bed. A twenty-minute nap will clear the cobwebs, and then I can get down to work. The old springs protest at a weight much heavier than the pre-teenage girl who slept here last, but the mattress is surprisingly comfortable and the pillows freshly plumped. As I stare up at the spider-webbed ceiling, I barely have time to wonder who’s done that before the warmth and the silence and the calm drag me down into sleep.
31
I wake up to dreams of choking, and find myself staring into the face of a monster. Cat sits on my chest, her nose inches from mine, studying me with the sort of intensity that would have a hardened criminal spilling all in the interview room. It takes a while for reality to reassert itself, my head thick with sleep. The silence is total, and for a while I can’t remember where I am. Then it all begins to seep back in. The long drive north through the night, Newmore house and its strange guest.
‘Give me some space, won’t you?’ I struggle to remove Cat from on top of me, then lever myself upright. My mouth tastes like something has crawled in there and died; never a good idea to have coffee and then sleep. My phone tells me it’s late afternoon, at least eight hours since I lay down and stared at the ceiling for a quick power nap. I hadn’t realised I was so tired, can’t remember the last time I slept that long uninterrupted. It’s hard to get any kind of peace in the city; out here it’s hard to find any noise.
I grab my washbag and stumble across the narrow landing to the tiny washroom on the other side of the tower. There are baths and showers down a floor, but this is all I need right now. The face that stares back at me in the mirror is mine, I’ve seen it often enough, but I don’t recognise the puffy bags under the eyes or the pallid skin.
Brown peat water fills the old ceramic basin, and I can smell the earthiness in it as I wash my face and damp my hair to get the worst of the spikiness out. The toilet bowl reflects the same dark colour. Instinctively I reach for the chain on the old cistern hung high on the wall above it, then stop myself. No one’s dropped a depth charge and then forgotten to flush, Con. You’re in the Highlands now, remember? This water’s purer than anything you’ll find coming out of a London tap. No one else has drunk it since last it was a cloud.
Back in my room, I stare through the window and out over the loch. Four storeys down, Rose’s impossibly elegant car still sits next to Aunt Felicity’s more modern motor, so the strange house guest is still here. As if my thoughts had summoned the spirit, I hear the sound of heavy footsteps on the narrow wooden stairs, slow and measured. They stop every so often, a heavy sigh punctuating the silence. By the time she appears at the bedroom door, I’ve more or less composed myself.
‘I thought I might find you up here.’ Rose fans her face as if she’s just climbed the north face of the Eiger, not a steep set of rickety wooden steps.
‘This was always my room. Well, Ben’s and mine. Back when we were forced to come here as kids.’
‘Forced?’ Rose raises a perfectly drawn eyebrow. ‘Why on earth would you need to be forced to come here? This is paradise.’
I manage to suppress my laugh, more or less. ‘I’m guessing it’s been a while since you were a teenager.’
She smiles, comes into the room and sits heavily on the end of Ben’s bed. ‘Aye, well. You may have a point. Still, did you not have adventures here? Boat out to the wee islands at the far end of the loch and pretend to be pirates?’
I want to say, ‘It’s the twenty-first century, not the nineteenth’, but I’ve had manners beaten into me by my father and, more effectively, the staff of Saint Humbert’s.
‘We were never allowed to use the boats. They were for the fishermen. I walked out to one of the islands once. The year there was a drought. Took me pretty much all day to get there and back, and I got a beating from my dad for the trouble I’d caused not telling anyone where I was going. He said they’d been searching for me all day, but I saw the boats out the whole time. Nobody’d even noticed I was gone until I came back.’
It’s another of the wonderful memories I have of this house, of the utter misery it used to bring me. And yet, for all that, I feel safer here than I have at any time since I found Pete’s body. Since before then, really.
‘Your father never comes here any more. His gammy leg can’t cope with stalking deer or walking up grouse, and he lost patience with fishing around the time I first met him.’
‘You know him? My dad?’ I’m surprised. My father is so tightly wound he’d never cope with meeting a transgender person. I kind of wish I’d been a fly on the wall at their first meeting; his discomfort would have been a delight to watch.
‘I’d hardly say know. Earnest Fairchild does not entertain the likes of me.’ Rose shakes her head sadly. ‘A shame, really. His father, your grandfather, was much more open-minded. Your Aunt Felicity takes more after Fortitude. I think you probably do too.’
I’m not sure how to take this intimate telling of my family history. Quite how I’ve made it to my age without ever meeting this strange woman who seems to know all about the Fairchild lineage puzzles me too. I’m sure I’d have remembered her if we’d crossed paths before.
‘How is it you know so much about me? About the whole family?’
‘Not the whole family, Lady Constance. Just the important people.’
It’s the second time she’s called me Lady Constance. No one’s called me that in years, although technically speaking it’s the correct way to address me. Not something I encouraged in the Met, of course.
‘Just Constance is fine. Or Con. I really can’t be doing with this Lady business. You’ve no idea how much my colleagues at work would make life hell for me
if they knew.’
Rose smiles, nods her head in understanding. ‘Ah yes, the rough humour of the police force. Your family were for a long time defenders of the common people; I’m pleased to see you have chosen that vocation. But tell me . . . Con. Are you still looking for Isobel DeVilliers? Please tell me that you are. I know her father doesn’t want you to, but she’s very important. Far more than you can know.’
Hearing Izzy’s name spoken brings me up short. How much has Aunt Felicity told her? How much does she trust this man who knows herself a woman?
‘You know about her?’
‘But of course. Why else would Felicity send you here to meet me?’
I open my mouth to complain that this is wrong on many levels, but something about Rose’s directness stops me from speaking.
‘Isobel is very like you. Stubborn, resourceful, but also struggling with her fear. I think you will find each other soon enough. I hope so, for all our sakes.’
‘Have you any idea where she’s gone?’
Rose pauses a while before answering. ‘I see you haven’t asked me if I know why her father doesn’t want anyone looking for her.’
‘Do you know that?’
‘I have my suspicions.’ She struggles to her feet with much theatrical huffing and puffing. It’s all an act, I can see now. I’m just not sure who it’s meant to be for. I don’t have time to ask before she speaks again.
‘Well, my dear. It was lovely meeting you, albeit briefly. I have no doubt we shall meet again, and soon.’ She pauses a moment, then produces a business card from the pocket of her tweed jacket. ‘If you find yourself in Edinburgh any time, do drop in.’
I take the card, glancing briefly at the words. Antiquarian Books, Occult Curios. It seems somehow apt. Rose is already out of the door, crossing the narrow landing to the stairs. I stand up, go after her. ‘You never answered my question. Either of them, for that matter.’