by Liz Evans
‘There’s something I wanted to ask you too,’ I murmured.
‘Really? Ladies first.’
‘Is that why you left the frock off?’ Now his body heat was penetrating the cotton nightshirt and my own sweat, all my senses were telling me he’d left pretty much everything else off too.
‘Don’t be bitchy, it doesn’t suit you. What did you want to ask me?’
I levered myself free and wiggled round to face him. ‘When you stole my snaps in London, you got a complete set. So how come you’ve never wondered what your mum was doing in St Biddy’s?’
‘I know what she was doing. Sleeping with Luke.’
His face was next to mine on the pillows. In the light from the windows, I couldn’t see much beyond the darkness of his pupils against the whites. ‘You’re not supposed to know about that.’
His breath tickled my nose as he said that of course he knew. ‘Luke told me months ago. He thought it was the right thing to do.’
‘But you didn’t tell your mum?’
‘How could I? It was embarrassing, finding out your mother was sleeping with someone young enough to be her son. Would you want to discuss your mother’s sex life with her?’
‘Probably not.’ I wasn’t even sure my mother had one any more. Not since my dad had been confined to that wheelchair.
He eased the length of his body closer to mine. ‘Luke promised me it was all finished anyway. One last fling and farewell, my lovely. He was moving to the States and she was going back to my stepfather. On a full-time basis, I mean.’ There was a small silence when he seemed to be holding his breath. Then he released it in a gentle sigh and said in a different tone of voice, ‘Who do you think killed him?’
‘How would I know? He was your mate - who’d want to?’
‘No one. He was all right, Luke. Everyone liked Luke.’
‘Somebody didn’t.’
‘I don’t suppose it was personal. These things are usually burglaries gone wrong, aren’t they?’
‘Are they?’
‘I had an idea ... That story you spun me about being a trainee investigator - was that on the level?’
‘More or less. Although I’m not training any more. I’m fully fledged.’
‘Even better.’
‘For what?’
‘I thought you could help me get into his place. Take a look around. See if there’s anything to connect him with my mother.’
‘And nick it.’
‘Well, basically .. . yes.’
‘Forget it. If there was anything, the police will have found it by now.’
‘But they might not have realised it was important. A quick search wouldn’t hurt, would it? You’ve no idea what it would do to her if all this came out. Please, Grace.’
He drew me in tighter and started easing up the hem of my nightshirt. The storm was working itself to an ear-bashing finale outside. I heard myself saying I’d think about it.
‘I knew I could count on you. There’s something special between us. I can feel it. Can’t you?’
‘You think so?’ I nuzzled into the hollow of his neck. ‘There is one special thing I’d like you to do for me.’
‘Name it.’
I eased away from him and started sliding the soles of my feet up over the front of his feet, his shins, knees, thighs, and into the groin. I was quite proud of my own flexibility. I got my knees right up into my chest. Putting every ounce of energy behind them, I kicked him straight in the stomach.
The cotton undersheet was smooth and tightly woven. He skidded off it and hit the floor with a very satisfactory thud.
Flicking on the bedside lamp, I bent over his groaning form and hissed: ‘Nobody cons their way into my bed twice, sunshine. Now get lost.’
At least he had the sense not to argue. With some relief, I flopped back on the pillows and gave myself up to an aching head, rising temperature, and the shivers. I couldn’t remember when I’d last felt this rotten. Eventually I went downstairs, found the phone, and dialled.
The answering machine at my parents’ house picked up the call and invited me to leave a message.
‘Mum? It’s me. Can you ring me back at this number—’ I rattled off the figures on the receiver. ‘I really need to know - have I been immunised against diphtheria?’
26
It wasn’t diphtheria. I had food poisoning. The doctor couldn’t identify anything in the past twenty-four hours that might account for it. In the end, he decided I probably had a strange metabolism that had taken an abnormally long period to absorb the bugs, took a variety of bodily samples that made me glad lab-technician hadn’t been my career of choice, and left me to suffer in peace.
I spent the next three days curled up in bed with just the cramps, diarrhoea and boiled water for company. The high spot of the seventy-two hours was the undignified whack of a syringe full of anti-emetic in a very personal place.
By Friday night I was able to sit up in bed and groggily scoop up the clear soup and toast Faye had prepared for me. Saturday morning had me sinking into a bath with a grateful sigh.
My clothes were neatly stacked on a chair. When I picked them up I discovered they’d been washed and pressed. I was relieved
I’d had to wear one of Barbra’s wildly overpriced lingerie sets. The idea of a Member of Parliament washing out my off-grey knickers with their dodgy elastic didn’t bear thinking about.
Padding downstairs with my knotted bundle of whiffy sheet and duvet cover clasped to my chest, I located the washing machine in the kitchen and Faye in a small study tucked into the back of the house.
‘Well, hello. And welcome back to the world of the living. How do you feel?’
I did a quick mental check and discovered I actually felt quite hungry. And embarrassed. ‘I’m really sorry about crashing on you like that.’
‘It couldn’t be helped. Hang on until I’ve finished this letter and I’ll cook you some brunch.’
I was lounging by the door whilst she was sitting at a well-worn desk sorting through files and tapping information into a laptop computer. There was a bookcase next to the desk which seemed to contain mainly legal text and folders labelled with the names of assorted voluntary agencies and government departments.
Today she looked like the woman who made all those public appearances: silver-grey coat dress, matching court shoes, the sheen of pearlised tights, the discreet touch of silver jewellery around her throat and on her ears. Even the hair was sitting in an ebony cap that no split end would ever dare to disrupt.
She closed down the laptop screen. ‘I hope you don’t mind eating early. I’ve rescheduled my surgery for this afternoon.’
‘Don’t fix anything specially for me. I can always grab something on the way home.’ Another niggling thought emerged in my partially comatose brain. ‘You didn’t stay down here because of me, did you?’
‘Well, I could hardly leave you on your own. Imagine if we’d opened up the house again next month and found you decomposing in the front bedroom.’
A spasm of pain twisted the immaculate make-up as the import of what she’d just said brought to mind another body - both alive and dead. She recovered with another of the brave-little-trouper smiles and said, ‘I have to eat anyway. You’re more than welcome to join me.’ I hesitated. ‘Please stay, Grace. There’s something I need to discuss with you.’
My conscience doesn’t allow me to refuse meals more than once. Perched on a kitchen stool, I watched my sheets spinning and Faye whipping up some kind of savoury potato pancakes with warm salad. From a girl who couldn’t peel a spud, she’d come on amazingly.
There was a TV on the corner of the work surfaces. She used the remote control to surf the channels until she found a local-interest programme. The diphtheria scare was still the number-one story, although no new cases seemed to have been detected. Nonetheless, the camera panned down queues at the local clinics and doctors’ surgeries that had stocks of the vaccine.
‘You’d thi
nk they’d have had the sense to have those children immunised as babies,’ Faye said, muting the television before shaking a pan of crisping pancakes and flipping them with a wrist-action that would have got her a job at Pepi’s, no questions asked. ‘Thank the Lord mine have had all their shots.’
‘How are they? Your daughters, I mean,’ I added hastily in case she thought I had the slightest interest in her first-born.
‘Having a wonderful time. I spoke to them on the phone last night. I’m joining them in Scotland next week. With my husband. As a matter of fact ... that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.’
She flipped the food on to plates. Three of them. And set one to keep warm in the oven.
‘There doesn’t seem to be any progress in Luke’s case. At least, as far as we can gather from the press reports. Of course I know they only release a fraction of the information, but I can’t ask, you see. It’s not even in my constituency. And if I were to make enquiries, no matter how discreet—’
‘It could trigger off the very sort of questions you’re trying to avoid?’
‘Yes. That’s it.’
‘Then why not just keep your head down?’
‘Because I can’t. Because I have to know. If someone you’d loved had died in a particularly brutal way, wouldn’t you want to know why? I need to make some sense of this, Grace.’
‘Sure. But I don’t see what I can do.’
‘You’re a private investigator. You must have contacts. In the police or somewhere? You could ask around.’
‘I could. And I’d be told to get lost.’
Faye considered this whilst she poured two glasses of fizzy water and added ice and lemon. ‘Then perhaps you could find out yourself who killed him?’
‘The police investigate murders. Any private investigator with an ounce of sense stays well clear.’
‘Why?’
‘Because a murder indicates that there is someone around who is prepared to kill. Sticking your nose in their business is a good way to hack them off. Believe me - I know. My last venture in that direction left me tied up in a car boot and heading for oblivion over the North Bay cliffs.’
This glimpse of life in the raw seemed to have shocked my hostess into silence. I forked up pancakes greedily as my body demanded replacement calories for all those it had missed out on since Tuesday.
Faye ate with more daintiness. ‘Couldn’t you just... find a few clues?’ she said eventually. ‘Point the police in the right direction?’
I tried to picture the scene. ‘Excuse me, Officer, did you happen to notice that particularly distinctive cigarette ash in the footprints by the south window?’ Oh, yeah - the CID officers at Seatoun would love that!
‘It really would be better to leave it to the police, Faye. They’ll find him - or her - in the end.’
She sipped her water without smudging the immaculate lip gloss, and asked me if I had any idea how many murders weren’t solved in this country. ‘I sat on a select committee into the use of police resources. And the less the police find, the more they’re going to dig around in Luke’s life.’
So it wasn’t just a need to know who’d taken Luke away. There was a good dose of self-preservation in her desperation. ‘I thought you said no one knew about you and him.’
‘They don’t. As far as I know. We were so careful. We met at different places. Made sure we weren’t followed. If we were travelling together, it was always on his motorbike.’
A mental picture of the garage at Brick Cottage flashed into my mind. ‘Because you could wear a helmet.’
‘Who would have guessed it was me behind that visor?’ Her eyes sparkled and the woman momentarily peeped out from behind the professional mask. ‘It was fun. We did all kinds of silly, impulsive things. Hamish never does anything on the spur of the moment; it’s the lawyer’s training, I suppose. Every decision weighed, evaluated, judged. I’d become the same.’ She frowned into the distance. ‘It’s strange how you can change and not even know it until you see yourself reflected in someone else’s eyes. When I realised Luke was attracted to me, I took a long, hard look at myself... and I just couldn’t understand why. What could he see in a middle-aged woman who’d become so obsessed with presenting the right image, professionally and socially, that all the spontaneity had gone out of her life? I love my Hamish; he’s been a rock, I couldn’t have managed without him. But Luke brought joy back into my world and I’ll always love him for that. Always.’
‘But you’d decided to break up?’
‘It was the sensible thing to do. I had my children, and Luke had his whole life ahead of him. I wasn’t so naive as to imagine he’d still feel the same way in ten years’ time.’
Make that five, my cynical little demon whispered.
‘He’d probably have wanted children of his own eventually. Letting him go now was the loving choice. He’d have found someone else ... someone of his own age.’
And unless Faye was a saint, a piece of her would have been hoping he’d compare every twenty-year-old he ever slept with her — and feel he’d got the rotten end of the deal.
‘I can’t afford the scandal, Grace. I really can’t.’ She took my empty plate. I looked round hopefully for signs of pudding. ‘Apart from the effect it would have on my private life ... there’s my career. I’ve worked hard to get where I am. I don’t intend to lose it.’
‘Would it be such a big deal?’ I asked. ‘I mean, politicians with something on the side are practically the norm these days. It doesn’t seem to make much of a dent in their image.’
She served me a small dish of fresh peach slices but took none for herself.
‘Those were men. Let me give you a tip here, Grace - in case you ever decide to go for a public career yourself. Forget all¬-female steering committees, high-profile foreign jaunts and cabinet appointments. When a middle-aged female MP is caught out having a bonk with her toyboy and her family line up to appear in cosy shots for the Sunday papers and tell the world the marriage is as solid as ever - whilst the party leaders rally behind her to say what a marvellous job she’s doing for the country and her private life is her own business - then you’ll know that women have achieved real equality in politics.’
‘That’s a bit cynical, isn’t it?’
‘No. That’s totally realistic. If my affair with Luke becomes public property, then my marriage and my career are over. At least in their present form. I’m not saying I wouldn’t be able to salvage something. But it wouldn’t be what I have now. And I want to hold on to what I have. Coffee?’
Without waiting for my answer, she took a foil package of ground from the cupboard. It was new too. She must have done a major shop when she realised she was going to be stuck here playing nurse for a while. My conscience pricked. I told it to mind its own business.
Slicing the top off, Faye took a deep breath of the released aromas before spooning coffee into the cafetiere. ‘He loved ground coffee.’
A couple of tears spilt over the top of her bottom eyelashes. Grabbing a sheet of kitchen towel, she dabbed daintily, careful not to smudge the make-up. ‘It’s hard, you know,’ she said. ‘I was being good; strong. Until I opened that damn newspaper. It was all right, you see - when I could imagine him out there somewhere. Living his own life. Without me .. . but going on . .. being whatever it was he wanted to be. But now ... I have to go up to Scotland next week and play happy families, and pretend everything’s just as it was always was. When it’s not, and it never will be again. And I can’t even talk to anyone about it.’
‘Except me.’
‘Yes, well you knew anyway, so there’s not much point in being secretive now. And I’m grateful for that, having someone to confide in. Even if you won’t help me any further.’
What could I do? The conscience was sticking needles in like a demented acupuncturist. I heard myself saying I’d ask around and see what I could pick up on the murder.
‘But no promises, mind? The police really don’t welcome ama
teurs sticking their noses in.’
‘I understand. Anything you can do will be very much appreciated. And I’ll pay your normal fees, obviously.’
Obviously.
We both heard the sound of the front door lock turning. ‘Don’t say anything to Peter.’
‘Not a word.’
‘And you won’t forget those negatives?’
‘No problem.’
(Well, one big problem, actually. I couldn’t think of any good reason why Barbra should want to hand them over to me. And if I started to ask after them, she was fly enough to take a closer look to see what the attraction was. Who knows ... maybe if she looked long and hard enough, even she would recognise Mrs X.)
Faye was ostensibly retrieving his warming lunch from the oven when Peter sauntered in and we did the hi-how-are-you- feeling-much-better-thanks routine.
She kept her head turned away as she juggled setting the pancakes on the salad and dabbing with more kitchen towel. I knew she was crying. Peter knew she was crying, although he was pretending not to notice. I knew why he was pretending not to notice. The whole thing was beginning to give me another headache.
Blowing her nose noisily into the towel, Faye said in a barely trembling voice, ‘Can you give Grace a lift home this afternoon, Peter? I don’t think she should cycle that far. She’s bound to be a bit woozy still.’
The silence of his non-answer was enough to make her look round in surprise. Incautiously she lifted her head so he could see the lighter patches where her tears had washed away half-moons of foundation below the lashes. At least he could have done had he been looking at her. But he was staring beyond her, towards the windows.
‘Peter? Is something wrong?’
We both instinctively tried to find something odd about the perfectly ordinary street scene framed between the blue-chequered blind and the smudged grey windowsill. There was nothing I could see.
‘I was wondering,’ Peter said, ‘why Grace was famous.’
‘Am I?’
‘Apparently. Or perhaps you’re simply notorious.’