Simeon's Bride

by Alison G. Taylor

  ‘I probably won’t be able to get into the computer before morning,’ Jack said. ‘Things here seem to have come to a full stop. Forensic reported a red wine stain on the carpet.’

  ‘Allsopp said she drank a lot of the stuff,’ McKenna said. ‘You could try Beti with a picture of a Scorpio. And ask her to describe this ornament she saw in the car … try to see Beti tonight, Jack,’ McKenna added. ‘Pumping her about John Beti wouldn’t be a bad idea, either … there’s no love lost between those two. See if she’s anything to say about him knowing there’s a body in the woods and keeping quiet about it.’

  ‘I’ll send Dewi Prys.’

  ‘Did you do the report for the assistant chief?’

  ‘I did.’ Jack paused. ‘There’s a memo from HQ about contacting them before making enquiries about anything relating to Ireland, North or South.’

  ‘Is that all?’ McKenna laughed. ‘Mr Jones from Special Branch can’t be too pleased. By the way, what did the gipsies have to say?’

  ‘They threatened to report us for harassment to their tame councillor,’ Jack told him.

  Night fell from a clear starlit sky as McKenna drew again into the car-park of the Cat and Fiddle Inn. A chill wind blew off the moors, bringing cold scents of peat and heathers. He stayed in the pub for an hour, washing down sandwiches with a pot of coffee, wanting to stretch out on one of the benches in front of the huge fire, and go to sleep.

  The last thirty miles of the journey to Bangor seemed the longest, as if travelling into another culture, another time. Even in darkness, he noticed the encroachment of decay with each passing mile, saw the true nature of the beast of poverty which dwelt within the mountains and lakes and forests of North Wales, for all the disguises of the beautiful setting. Arriving in the city at midnight, he found himself taking, from force of long habit, the road out to his marital home, and drew into a layby beyond St David’s church, to sit weary with despondency and regrets. A few yards up the road, the lights of a Chinese takeaway made a puddle of yellow on the empty pavement.

  The cat waited for him, staring through the parlour window. He opened a tin of sardines and scooped the fish on to a plate. Drawn by the smell, she ventured into the kitchen, sniffed the dish, crouched on her haunches, and began to eat ravenously, scraping up every last morsel of fish, every last drop of milk, before sloping off into the night. She lingered for a while in the back yard, grooming herself meticulously while McKenna watched. He left the door ajar, hoping she would come back in, and reluctantly closed it, long after she had disappeared over the garden wall.

  Chapter 11

  ‘The DVLA reckon it’ll take all day at least to put the various names through the computer,’ Dewi told McKenna.

  ‘Can’t be helped. We’ll have to wait.’

  ‘Mr Tuttle’s in your office, getting together the things you want doing.’

  ‘Did you see Beti again?’

  ‘Yes,’ Dewi groaned. ‘Drives you potty trying to talk to her, sir, because with the way she talks, it’s bloody hard to follow what she’s saying. Apart from the fact she rambles as well…. I showed her a picture of a Ford Scorpio, only we’ve only got a photo of a black one, so all I got from her was a maybe. Or, then again, a maybe not, I suppose.’ He grimaced. ‘She was a bit more help with the ornament. It’s a gonk, she reckons. Have you any idea what one of those looks like? Because I haven’t, and neither has Mr Tuttle.’

  ‘A gonk.’ McKenna racked his memory. ‘I think it’s one of those hideous toys with an ugly face.’

  ‘Sounds like Beti Gloff,’ Jack said, walking into the room with a pile of folders in his hands. ‘Probably why she remembered.’

  Closing the door of his own office, McKenna regarded the ill-tempered features and unkempt appearance of his deputy. ‘How are things with you?’ he asked.

  ‘You really want to know? Sodding awful!’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know why!’ Jack snapped. ‘Emma’s had a right cob on her since the weekend, and takes every opportunity to drag up every little thing I might’ve done wrong in the past sixteen years!’

  ‘What happened at the weekend?’ McKenna asked.

  ‘For a start,’ Jack began, ‘I wouldn’t go to that bloody wedding. I didn’t want to, I didn’t get a special invite, so I don’t know why the hell she’s making a fuss … but she says I should’ve gone to see the twins being bridesmaids.’

  ‘Maybe you should.’

  ‘Why?’ Jack frowned. ‘The twins didn’t want me there.’

  ‘You know mothers have different ideas.’

  ‘She should’ve said, then, instead of letting me think it didn’t matter one way or the other. Why are women so bloody unreasonable?’

  McKenna lit a cigarette, and leaned against the window ledge. ‘I suppose she saw Denise there, Jack.’

  ‘And that’s another thing. Emma’s mad as hell because I won’t tell her where you are so she can tell Denise.’

  Standing on Emma Tuttle’s front doorstep, McKenna thought that death could never be as bleak and empty as life. The last time he stood here, he and Denise were together, and if not happy, with no real or urgent thought of separation. He had torn apart the remaining fabric of their marriage, wilfully and with no thought to the outcome, perhaps unable to believe that some miracle would not stitch up the holes, pull the tattered bits back together into some form wearable for a few more years without too much discomfort. And he had been so sadly wrong. The marriage lay behind him, a few rags trodden into the mud.

  Emma, never at ease with him in the past, did not know what to do with this new McKenna, the one who suddenly walked out on his wife, had bared his teeth and bitten Denise where it would hurt her most.

  ‘I want to talk to you, Emma,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure it’s either the best thing to do, or the right one, but I think it’s necessary.’

  ‘Does Jack know you’re here?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, well, I won’t tell him, then.’ She smiled slightly. ‘What he doesn’t know won’t hurt. Have you had lunch? It’s getting quite late.’

  ‘Is it? No, I haven’t.’

  She made sandwiches and a pan of coffee, and buttered scones still hot from the oven, their sweet yeasty smell filling the kitchen. He ate absently, silently. She waited.

  ‘I’ve been to see Denise,’ he told her, ‘because she and I seem to be causing trouble for you and Jack.’

  ‘What’s Jack said?’

  ‘Only that you’ve had a disagreement. I virtually had to drag that out of him,’ McKenna said. He sipped the scalding coffee. ‘He’s upset. He can’t understand why you and he should be fighting over other people’s problems.’

  Emma stirred her coffee. ‘We haven’t before, even though we knew things were getting worse by the day with you and Denise…. But since last week, Jack seems to have taken sides.’

  ‘He mustn’t.’ He ate a scone, wiping buttery fingers on one of Emma’s napkins. ‘And neither must you.’

  ‘I know,’ Emma said. ‘But these things happen, don’t they? Before you know it.’

  ‘Only when other people make them, Emma,’ McKenna said. ‘Don’t let Denise use you and Jack to get at me.’ He reached out to squeeze her hand, his warm and fine-boned over hers. She felt the treachery of desire thump her body, and rose. ‘Have some more coffee.’ Standing at the cooker with her back to him, she said, ‘Will you tell Denise where you’re living?’

  ‘When she needs to know. It’s not urgent.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what is urgent.’ Emma turned. ‘You should get yourself a solicitor. Denise has.’

  ‘How can nobody know anything at all about this woman?’ Jack demanded. ‘No trace of her husband, no sign of parents or family, nothing on the car.’

  ‘There’s no record at DVLA of any car belonging to our body under any of the names,’ Dewi offered. ‘They’ve double-checked, tried the husband’s name and Allsopp’s. He’s got just the one car register
ed, bought a couple of years back…. Our body must’ve sold the car to somebody. And,’ he added gloomily, ‘unless we find out the registration number, there’s not a cat in hell’s chance of finding out who’s driving it around now.’

  Romy Cheney remained an enigma, even her name unreal, stolen from the pages of a novel to promote some treasured private image. What brought her to the foreign territory where only death awaited her? Why did she leave her husband? Why had she twice aborted children? No one missed her, except perhaps Robert Allsopp, after his own casual fashion. Enquiries met with apathy, almost indifference, for there were no tearful children or gaunt-faced husband to make plaintive appeals on television, no gruff-voiced father or harrowed mother to care if the killer died a free person in their own bed, if Romy’s body busied a niche in the mortuary until Judgement Day. Her file was already hidden under new files, under reports of burglaries and assaults and suspected fraud. Life went on, and simply forgot about the woman who had called herself Romy Cheney, if it had cared very much in the first place.

  McKenna requested authority from police headquarters to have a head cast from her skull, convinced the request would meet only exasperation, then asked DVLA to search under all the names she had used for the past ten years. On the desk, he found a cutting from the local paper, and read that the vicar of Salem village was anxious to lay Rebekah to rest at the expense of the church. McKenna smiled a little, wondering what vengeance Simeon might devise for those who gave his wife a Christian burial, then put the cutting in the file, glancing at his watch. Time dragged its feet, only moving when he engaged in some burst of activity, and McKenna could not bear to think that such spasmodic and fitful behaviour might characterize his time for the rest of his days.

  On a whim, he telephoned Prosser.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ Trefor Prosser greeted him.

  ‘Yes, Mr Prosser.’ McKenna tried to put a smile in his voice. ‘You can probably help tie up a few loose ends. Who cleared out Gallows Cottage when Ms Cheney’s tenancy came to an end?’

  ‘Who cleared it out?’ Prosser snapped. ‘How the devil should I know?’

  ‘Well, who handed in her keys?’

  ‘Nobody. Nobody handed them in, that’s who!’ Prosser said sharply. ‘I had a spare set in the office, so it didn’t matter.’

  ‘When you checked the cottage after she’d left, what was in there?’ McKenna asked.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Well, how long after she’d left did you go there?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ Prosser exclaimed impatiently. ‘I don’t know when she left, do I? According to you, she was dead and gone long before the tenancy lapsed. I don’t go spying on people. She’d paid her rent so it was her business what she did.’

  ‘D’you know, Mr Prosser, I find you singularly unhelpful.’

  ‘Do you indeed!’ McKenna could almost see him bridling. ‘Well let me tell you what I think about you!’ Prosser squealed. ‘I’m sick to death with all the trouble you’re causing! Not to mention harassing me morning noon and night! Anybody’d think I murdered the woman myself! You’ve caused no end of trouble!’ he raged. ‘Did you know that? First you find that silly mare’s body in the woods, then you have to go and dig up some two-hundred-year-old corpse! I’ve had reporters and nosy parkers trampling all over the bloody place for days!’

  ‘Did you, Mr Prosser?’ McKenna asked.

  ‘Did I what?’

  ‘Murder Ms Cheney?’

  McKenna heard Prosser gasp, then the telephone went down with a slam which made his own receiver whine.

  Tears glittered in Mary Ann’s eyes as she buried her face in the sheaf of daffodils and freesias McKenna handed to her. ‘First signs of spring,’ he said. ‘I thought they’d brighten up your parlour.’

  ‘I can’t remember when a man last brought me flowers.’ She smiled a watery smile. ‘You’ve taken me back years.’ Mischief glinted behind the tears. ‘My Dafydd was never a one for flowers … if I remember right, the last time I had flowers off a man was before we married, when Dafydd was away in the war, and I walked out for a bit with his friend. That shows you how long it’s been.’

  McKenna stretched out his legs, feeling the heat of her gas fire singe his skin through the cloth of his trousers.

  ‘How’s Beti?’

  ‘Pah!’ Mary Ann choked on the cigarette she was lighting. ‘That one wants her backside kicking! She’s got a gob on her bigger than the hole that quarry makes in the mountain!’

  ‘I hear she’s seen Simeon,’ McKenna said. ‘Dewi tells me the local paper’s doing an article about her.’

  ‘I’ve told her it’s one of them gippos, but will she listen?’ Mary Ann seethed. ‘Making a fool of herself, she is, coming out with any old tale just to get noticed! Well,’ she added, with grim satisfaction, ‘I’ve told her. Things always come home to roost, one way or another. You see if I’m not right.’

  The cat arrived, mewling at the back door, while McKenna was listening to a late news bulletin on the radio. A freshly slain mouse, her gift to him, lay on the doorstep at his feet. He watched happily while she ate the food he put out for her, imagining the dusty coat bathed and brushed and gleaming. Instead of leaving as usual, she explored the parlour, rubbing the back of her ears on furniture and walls, laying a scent. He followed her outside, watched her nosing through the plants in the little garden, and decided he would spend time at the weekend weeding and tidying up, cutting back the overgrown bushes straggling along the fence. She followed him back into the house, and went to sleep in front of the fire after proudly grooming every part of her scruffy little body.

  Chapter 12

  On Sunday morning, anxious to test whether the calm surface beguiling his eye since Friday hid any treacherous currents in his marriage, Jack told Emma he intended to visit McKenna.

  ‘Why don’t you ask him over for a meal this evening?’ Emma suggested. ‘He’s probably fed up with cooking for himself.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said invite him for a meal tonight.’

  ‘Right.’ Jack watched her face, her eyes, and found nothing save a bland smile.

  Emma watched him back the car from the garage and turn into the road. As soon as he put his feet back under the table from where she had kicked them last week, Jack would want an explanation for her unexpected kindness towards McKenna, for Jack and anything approaching tact or subtlety were uneasy bedfellows. She would simply put forward a change of heart, Emma decided, an access of commonsense. He might not believe her, but the best of marriages had a few white lies billowing somewhere in the passageways of their history. It was strange, she reflected, clearing the breakfast table, how some little thing, some tiny thing, could force a person so violently into your thoughts you couldn’t prise them out again, and you spent your days engaged in normal trivial activity while the mind engaged itself with an excess of fantasy.

  The twins began fighting in their bedroom. Emma went upstairs, summoned by rising voices, and screams of ‘Mummy!’ from both, and stood in the bedroom doorway, wishing it was McKenna who stared back at her, waiting and wanting.

  Jack followed McKenna, still in pyjamas, puffy-eyed and dishevelled, down the stairs. The cat, curled up in front of the unlit fire, head tucked under paws, opened her eyes, yawned hugely, stretched, and returned to sleep.

  ‘Looks like she’s moved in,’ Jack commented. ‘Denise won’t like that.’

  ‘Denise won’t have to live with her. How are things at home?’

  Jack sat at the kitchen table, watching McKenna make toast and scrambled egg and put the kettle on to boil. ‘Emma’s back to her old self. Or nearly. She wants to know if you’d like to come for a meal tonight.’

  ‘That’s very kind of her.’ McKenna made tea, lit the small burner on the gas stove, and put the teapot back to brew. ‘Tell her I’d like that. Very much.’

  McKenna let the cat out, washed up, vacuumed the house, and spent the afternoon happily uprooting weeds, tr
imming back the few shrubs, stopping every so often to gaze at the beguiling view of a city studded with burgeoning trees, sunlight glittering on the waters of the Straits where yachts tacked slowly back and forth, their sails slack. The cat went backwards and forwards, climbing trees, basking on the wall. A large and beautiful tabby leapt over the wall into the garden, to rub itself around McKenna’s legs, and to flee screeching as the piebald stray came after her.

  After a poor Sunday dinner of sausage and mashed potatoes, coloured with a dribble of thin gravy, Beti Gloff went out on her afternoon walk: three hours to herself before she must make tea for John Jones then leave dutifully for chapel. Some days, she roamed the city streets; on others, she would crab along the pathways of the mountain, staring down upon the little back streets, envy biting into her heart. She dwelt on the estate because John Jones odd-jobbed for the owners, his meanness too huge to pay rent on another house when one came free with his wages. That the house was little better than a hovel worried him not at all. Mary Ann and her cronies said among themselves that John Jones was too mean in every way, and that was the reason why no child added riches to Beti’s impoverished existence. He gave no thought to Beti’s comfort, to the pain her crippled body thrust upon her night and day, year in and year out. He sluiced himself down at the stone sink in the kitchen once a week in winter, twice each summer week, stood upright in the ramshackle privy hidden in blackthorn and bramble bushes at the bottom of their overgrown garden, and strung torn-up newspapers on a hook behind the privy door. Never once in the long dreariness of their marriage had John Jones thought his wife might like an indoor toilet, might need a warm bath to ease her poor body and its pain.

  This fine Sunday, when the first real sunshine of the year warmed her twisted bones and caressed her ugly features as no man’s hand had ever done, Beti took a turn around the cemetery before making her way into Bangor. Happy to see those whose memory was bedecked with fresh flowers, she fretted for the others forgotten, graves untended, sour with weed and mossy gravel. She read again the inscription on the elegant marble gravestone guarding the mortal remains of Councillor Hogan: fine verse, she thought, without understanding of its meaning, but taking comfort from the instruction that ‘All Shall Be Well’. In her chapel prayers, she tried not to ask God too often when exactly that perfection might manifest itself.