As She Left It: A Novel

by Catriona McPherson

  But wouldn’t something like that more likely drive him towards his wife instead of away from her? Opal was so lost in her thoughts that she had spent quite a few minutes watching the vague movements across the street without really taking in what they were. Just a shadow passing over and back behind the net curtains in one of the front bedroom windows. Then she gasped and stepped back, her eyes snapping wide. It was the front bedroom of No. 6, Someone was in her house. Someone was in her bedroom, moving around.

  She let herself out of Pep’s front door and locked it, then stood staring at her window, not knowing what to do. If she crept in she might be able to trap whoever it was, but then she’d have to deal with them. If she made enough noise at the front door, they might leg it out the back, but then what? A car came round the corner, windows down, music thumping, engine snarling, and she stepped right out and flagged it down.

  “Lift home from here, love?” said Sanjit, and he rubbed his chin, sucking the air in over his teeth. “It’ll cost you.”

  “Ha-ha,” said Opal. “Sanj, there’s someone in my house. I just saw them walk past the bedroom window.”

  Sanjit craned his neck and peered up from under the shade strip along the top of his windscreen.

  “Seriously? It’s not just the curtains moving?”

  “Seriously. Will you come in with me?”

  “Will I come up to your bedroom?” he said, wiggling his eye-

  brows.

  “Sanj, for God’s sake. There’s someone in my house. And two nights ago someone put an anonymous letter through my door. I need you to help me.”

  “Okay,” said Sanjit, pulling his brows down. He got out of the car and slammed the door.

  “Sh,” said Opal.

  “Oh, yeah, right,” Sanj said. “So are we trying to catch them or scare them off?”

  “I don’t know,” Opal said. She was crossing the road and digging her key out of her bag. She fitted it and opened the door. The door between the living room and kitchen was shut, and for a moment they both stood and listened to the silence, then came the sound of the back door slamming and feet thundering away across the yard.

  “Fucking hell, there’s somebody there!” shouted Sanjit, diving for the kitchen door and tugging at it.

  “What did I say?” Opal shouted after him. “Push it! Sanj, push! It opens the other way.” And he was gone, across the kitchen, out the back door, across the yard, out through the gate and away. Opal pounded up the stairs to the door of her bedroom and then stopped. Did she really want to see? But she couldn’t help herself. She pushed the door open and stepped in.

  Nothing written on the walls, nothing scrawled on the mirror, no letters or photos, no envelopes propped up anywhere. Her wardrobe doors were closed and all her drawers too. She walked over towards the bed and that’s when she saw it, curled up with its nose under its tail. A cat with the handle of a knife—Opal’s own bread knife—sticking out of its back, the whole blade deep inside.

  Opal felt her stomach rise and turn, but then she took another step closer. How could a cat look so comfortably curled up when it was stabbed? She heard noises downstairs again.

  “It’s me,” came Sanjit’s voice. “I lost him. Where are you?”

  “Up here,” Opal said, and he bounded up the stairs and came into the bedroom.

  “Fucking hell!” he said. “Oh Christ.”

  “It’s not real,” said Opal. She walked over and picked the cat up off the bedcover. It stayed in its curled-up pose with the knife sticking out, just the same. “It’s one of those fake ones. Real fur. You get them at the market.”

  “Oh, right, yeah,” said Sanjit, rubbing his stubble again, trying to get back his cool. “But you don’t usually keep your bread knife in it, right?”

  “It’s not mine,” Opal said. “I mean, it’s not my fake cat. It’s my bread knife, I think. But he brought the cat with him.” Then she made a big sound that she hadn’t meant to, and she couldn’t say whether it was a sigh or a sniff or some new kind of sound from out of a new part of her body she’d never used before. Sanj came over and put an arm around her shoulders, pressing a little too hard and hurting her collar bone, but it was welcome.

  “Did you see where he went?” Opal said.

  “Never saw him at all,” said Sanjit. “He was out the gate before I was through the kitchen. I went down to the canal path, but he could have gone any way really. You need to call the police, you know.”

  “No!” said Opal, breaking free from the painful comfort.

  “Do you know who it was doing it?”

  “I think so,” Opal said. “There’s been someone following me any-

  way.”

  “Following?” His eyes were like gobstoppers. “Bloody hell, Opal, what’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. Every time I think I’ve found something out, it gets more confusing. I just don’t know. But … Sanj, did you hear someone running? I know you said you didn’t see anyone, but did you hear footsteps disappearing into the distance or anything?” Sanjit shrugged and frowned, not understanding. “Only I think maybe whoever it was didn’t actually go all that far. I think it might be one of the neighbors, actually.”

  His frown deepened. “Not one of us?”

  “No,” said Opal.

  She went over to the dressing table where the two notes and the photograph were and showed the photo to Sanjit. “Turn it over,” she said. “That’s what came through the door.”

  “Well it wasn’t Margaret or Mrs. Pickess,” Sanjit said, when he had read it. “He was off like a rocket.”

  “Yeah, but that’s what I’m saying,” Opal said. “Was he? Did you hear him running or could he maybe just have bobbed in the next gate? Dammit, I wish I’d come up and looked out the back window.”

  “You should phone the police,” Sanjit repeated. He gave the photo back and wiped his hand just like Opal had found herself doing the first time she touched it.

  “I hate the police,” Opal said.

  “Yeah, me too,” said Sanjit. “I’m going to go and get Mum and Dad. You trust them, don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” said Opal, hoping it sounded sincere. “’Course I do.”

  She listened to him go downstairs then watched him cross the road, and only when he had gone inside did she notice the sound of thumping coming from the backyard. Was Franz Ferdi unbolting the ladder? Was he going to set the ladder up and come back into her house through her window now? She went to the back bedroom, but the ladder was still folded and chained to the pole. He was setting up some kind of table or work bench. It must have been him dragging it that she had been hearing. And now he was uncoiling an orange extension cable from his back door and plugging it in. He pulled a pair of plastic goggles down over his face and fiddled with a switch, setting a round disc on the edge of the work bench spinning.

  It was, Opal realized, a saw—some kind of cutting machine anyway—and she shivered to see the wink of the spinning metal blade as Franz Ferdi went back into the outhouse and then re-emerged with a long heavy log of some pinkish wood in his arms. Opal had forgotten that the first time she’d met him he had left sawdust all over her step, but she supposed if he came home from work covered in sawdust he was probably a carpenter. And if he was a carpenter by trade, it might be his hobby too.

  She watched him for a while. He had a pencil behind his ear and a cloth hanging out of his back pocket and, through the closed window she could just hear it, he was whistling. Could that man really just have been snooping around her house? Could a whistling man with a pencil behind his ear really have pushed that photo through her door? But the crying was real, and she had seen him smashing up that red and blue plastic.

  Eventually, when her stomach started growling, she turned away from the window and went downstairs. But as she came into the kitchen, the front door banged open and Zula Joshi, followed by Sanjit, burst in.

  “Not even locked!” she said and turned to smack Sanjit over the back of his head with
her open palm. “I was out, Opal. Sanjit told me when I got in. Didn’t think to call.” She turned again to swat, but he ducked and she missed him. “Did you leave the back open when you were out?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “Was it forced?”

  “I never even thought of that,” Opal said, and she turned to look at the lock of the back door just behind her. “Nope. Not forced. It must have been someone with a key.”

  “And who’s all got a key? We’ve got one and Margaret … you should change the locks.”

  “Don’t be daft,” Opal said.

  “And give us copies of the new one!” Zula said. “It’s not neighbors breaking in and leaving knives.”

  “Well, someone’s not pleased I’m back,” Opal said. She couldn’t help remembering Sunil hissing at his wife that day, asking her why she was being friendly, saying that Opal asked too many questions.

  “Who?” said Zula.

  “I think—” Opal dropped her voice as she said it. “It might be the new bloke next door.”

  “Him?” said Sanjit. “He’s only been here ten minutes.”

  “Yeah, no, but that’s the thing,” Opal said. “I think maybe he took the photo, Sanj. I think he was here before.”

  “What photo?” said Zula. “Sanjit said a note.”

  Opal still had it in her hand, and she held it out to Zula now.

  “My God,” Zula breathed. “Opal, what is going on?”

  “Dunno,” said Opal. “I’ve got no proof of anything. So don’t tell me to go and accuse him, and don’t tell me to go to the police.” She turned and looked out of the kitchen window at the outhouse, at the piece of cardboard she had shoved into the frame where she’d smashed the glass away. “I just need to keep my head down. I’ve been … interfering in things that are none of my business.”

  “Like what?” Zula said.

  “Like more than you’d believe,” said Opal, thinking about the message she’d left for Shelley, raking through Fishbo’s wardrobe not even an hour ago, stalking Karen Reid like some kind of cartoon detective in a trench coat. “I thought I could help.”

  “Help who?” said Zula.

  “Fishbo. Margaret and Denny.”

  “Help with what?”

  “Plus this other friend of mine. You don’t know her.”

  “Help with what?” said Zula again and that look was back on her face, that sideways look like the first time she had edged the conversation so carefully around to Opal’s storage needs and possible renovation plans without ever actually mentioning it. The outhouse, the outhouse, the hold your nose and shout house.

  “Opal?” said Zula. “Are you singing? Are you okay?”

  “Was I? I didn’t mean to do it out loud.”

  “What did you think you could help Fishbo with? Or Margaret and Denny?”

  “Believe it or not,” Opal said, “I thought I could find little Craig.” Zula was staring at her, completely still, like a waxwork of herself. “And I thought I could maybe find Fishbo’s family and get them together while there was still time.” She laughed, one single bark of laughter. “And my other friend. She is so past helping, I can’t even tell you. But I was going to do it all. Me! Ha. Me!”

  “Find Craig?” said Zula, and the words sounded like two gobs of mud dropped into a pond.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “And Fishbo’s … family.”

  “Yeah, I know about that too. Luckily, he doesn’t know I know.”

  “You should be careful, Opal,” Zula said. “And you shouldn’t be alone. I’ll go back and get a sleeping bag. Stay here and keep an eye on you.”

  “Keep an eye?” Opal said.

  “Not like that.” Zula’s hand fluttered around her neck, patting straight the chain she wore there. She smiled at Opal. “I mean, look out for you, look after you. You know what I’m saying.”

  “Like you did for Mum,” Opal said.

  “Exactly. Good, then,” Zula said. “In fact, why don’t you come over with me now? So I can ‘keep an eye on you’ even better.” She was sending herself up, making a joke of it to cover the slip, maybe. Opal shook her head.

  “I’ve had a long day. I just need a bit of peace and quiet to myself really. If I’ve started singing without knowing it, I definitely do!”

  “Good luck then,” Sanjit said. “Peace and quiet wise.”

  “I know,” said Zula. “What is that horrible noise?”

  “Wood saw,” said Opal. “Him next door. He’s a carpenter, you know.”

  And when they had gone, she went back upstairs to see how he was getting on with his log, see if he’d turned it into a totem pole by now.

  He’d turned it into something. Opal could hardly believe what he’d done in the time she’d been talking to Zula. What had been a plain boring round log like a telegraph pole was now sinuous and curvy like some kind of gigantic banister rail, or not really a banister rail, but more like a—

  Opal put her head against the glass and stared at it. It looked so familiar and yet she couldn’t think what it reminded her of. A ball at one end, a straight bit, then in and out, in and out, and a big ball near the other end with an uneven lump left right at the tip.

  “For carving,” Opal said to herself and as the words rung in the silence around her she could see it, the unborn ghost of it, hiding inside the vague shape of the log he was turning and turning and turning. And once she had seen it she couldn’t unsee it. Franz Ferdinand was making a copy of her bed.

  So it was him in her bedroom and he had run next door when Sanjit disturbed him, but why was he copying the bed? The photograph with the threatening note, the cat with the knife in it—those things made some kind of sense if he was trying to scare her, but why would he copy her bed? That was madness. That couldn’t really be happening. She was losing touch with what was real. She was losing her mind. She blundered down the stairs, out into the yard, the lane, the yard next door, and he stopped the saw when he caught sight of her.

  “What are you doing?” Her voice sounded hoarse in her ears as if she’d not spoken for days.

  “Sorry, love,” he said, pushing his goggles up onto his head making a white path through the red dust stuck to his brow. “Aye, I suppose it’s getting a bit late for all that noise.”

  “But what are you doing?” Opal said. “Are you making a bed?”

  “I’m making half of one,” he said. “The other half’s missing.” Opal felt the ground shift underneath her feet. “Are you all right?”

  “But you shouldn’t know that,” Opal said. “You had no right to be in my house, and you had no right to be snooping around my bedroom copying my bed. What are you doing to me?”

  “Your bed?” said Franz Ferdi. “I’m not copying your bed. What are you on about?” He took his goggles off completely and pointed into the open door of his outhouse. “I’m copying that bed there, love. Making the other half of it anyway.”

  Opal turned round and peered into the dark interior. There, leaning against a blanket tacked onto the wall, was the headboard, six feet high, five feet wide, roses and chrysanthemums and funeral plumes. She turned back to face Franz Ferdi.

  “Did you get that from Billy and Tony?” she asked him.

  “Who? Here, you need to sit down, you look right peaky.”

  “Why is Martin’s bed in your outhouse? Nobody’s bed should be in there.”

  “How do you know about Martin?”

  “It’s not right. It’s filthy in there.”

  “It’s not great, I’ll give you that. Look, love—”

  “The outhouse, the outhouse, the hold your nose and shout house,” Opal mumbled. Franz Ferdi put his head back and laughed a laugh that rang out across the yard and echoed back from over the lane.

  “I haven’t heard that for donkey’s years!” he said. “Hold me by my left hand, flush me down the muck pan.” He turned—“Hey!”—and rushed forward, but he was too late.

  Opal had slithered to the ground befo
re he could catch her, knocking her head hard against the stone flags just inside the outhouse door.

  FORTY-TWO

  IT WAS A SMELL that came back first, even before her eyes fluttered open: the smell of damp stone and standing water, the smell of mice and rusting metal, and darkness and secrets and … sweat. She opened her eyes.

  “Lay still,” said Franz Ferdi’s voice. “Don’t move too quickly.”

  His work shirt was bundled under her head, stinking sharply of fresh sweat and the oily perfume of new sawdust.

  “Promise me you won’t move while I get you a drink of water.”

  “Promise,” Opal said. And she kept it, lying flat on her back staring up at the outhouse ceiling, the undersides of the tiles overlapping on top of the beams, just the same, just the same, and it made her pull her knees up to her chest and hug them hard, rocking on the stone flags even though it bruised her backbone every time she moved.

  “Here, love,” said Franz Ferdi, kneeling down beside her with a cup in his hand. “Hutch up a bit and drink some of this down. Then tell me what’s the matter. It can’t be as bad as all that.”

  “Did you find the notes?” Opal said when she had swallowed two mouthfuls of water and held her breath until she was sure it would stay down. But Franz Ferdinand only frowned at her, so she struggled to her feet, using the headboard posts to haul herself upright. She gripped one hard and twisted, feeling it start to shift right away.

  “Blimey O’Reilly,” said Franz Ferdi. He came over and stood right behind Opal. “I never even noticed that. That graining is absolutely perfect.” He ran a nail over the join that was almost invisible until you knew it was there.

  “My bed’s good at catching people out,” said Opal. “It’s got form.” She lifted off the top part and there, inside the brass-lined compartment, was a folded piece of paper just like the other two.