Carol came back with a little overnight bag slung over her shoulder.
‘I promised to stay over at Mary’s tonight. Her mum and dad are going out for the night. I’ve just got to get her present.’
Ah. She went off into the utility room. She came back her face all screwed up again. This was going to be harder to get out of.
‘OK Dad. Where are they?’
They? I wasn’t expecting that.
‘Where are what, sweetheart?’
‘The Toblerones. I put them in the freezer as soon as I got here, two of them. You saw me. You haven’t eaten them both have you? Not even you…’
‘Course I haven’t eaten them. Both gone did you say?’
‘Why? Would only one disappearing make it any better?.’
‘No, of course not. You sure you didn’t take them up north, keep you company on the journey up.’
‘Of course I didn’t.’ She was screaming, like it was the most important thing in the world.
‘Calm down Carol. As a matter of fact Alice Blackstock was around here yesterday.’
‘You’re not going to accuse her are you?’
‘Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t dream of it. However, you’re probably not aware of this, but some years back she took a sizeable bang on the bonce. Never been the same since. When she stayed with us, we couldn’t help noticing that one of the side effects…’
‘She stayed with you. Old Poke Nose stayed with you?’
‘Don’t you have neighbours in Australia, Carol? Don’t they ever need help? It’s what one does, when they fall down the stairs.’
‘She fell down the stairs?’ Whoops. I tried to keep my face as straight as I could.
‘She’d been to the dentist, darling, drugged up to the eyeballs, not to mention the vodka she’d mainlined on the drive over.’
‘You were with her?’ It was like Michaela all over again.
‘I was a taxi driver, remember. I drove her there, I drove her back. I met her at her front door, I took her back to her front door. I should have gone in with her, taken her upstairs, made her a cup of tea, but I didn’t. I didn’t think of other people then. So, a little later she falls down the stairs, lies there all night. My fault again. Anyway, to back to the point in question, when she was staying with us afterwards, we couldn’t help noticing that one of the side-effects of her accident was that she’d become a little light fingered all of a sudden – trinkets, rings, things started to disappear, even food. We’d wake up in the morning to find the fridge stripped bare, a cooked chicken hidden under her bed in the spare room, Audrey’s extensive yoghurt collection tucked away in the en suite bathroom cupboard. We never said anything natch, because we knew it wasn’t really her doing it. As I said, she was here all day yesterday, busy making cups of tea while I made that fish, the one you must have seen by the gate. She probably took them then. They’ll be in her bag or stuffed down her sofa upstairs. I’ll pop round later, see if I can sniff them out. If not, I’ll get some more. What did you think of it, by the way, my fish?’
‘There’s no fish there, Dad. Only that stupid sign.’
‘What do you mean, no fish?’
I pushed her aside, ran out. My first work of art had gone. On the table someone had left £2.50.
Carol left. I poured myself a glass of wine, munched on the crisps. My hand was shaking. One fish was bad enough, but two Toblerones? That didn’t make any sense. We didn’t scoff both of them that night did we? I know the old weed can make you a bit antsy in the cocoa bean department, but even Audrey would have had trouble putting both those bastards away.
Two things disappearing. One thing turning up. Robin’s scrabble tile lay on the table. I turned it over so I could look at the A. I stared at it. It stared at me. I went to the wood-burning stove, fetched out Robin’s pride and joy, poured all the letters out on the table. It was from the same set all right. I turned them all face up, singled out the A’s, put them in a little group all of their own. Eight. Christ, some people.
I checked all the other letters, to see if he’d squirreled away any more of the important ones, but no, the two blanks, the four S’s, everything else was as it should be. It was just that one A that was missing. I looked at it now, lying to one side, all alone. I picked it up, put it in with all the other A’s, swirled them around, letting it rub shoulders with them, like it should have been doing all these years. I wanted to keep it there, but knew I couldn’t. Unless Carol left it here when she fucked off back to Australia, it would always be on its own and the set would always be one letter short. Was it something Robin had done all the time, or had he singled it out, just for the game up the mountaintop? I’d never know, but thanks to it, lying there on the table, there was a mystery to Robin now, a mystery that kept him alive and I didn’t like it. I didn’t want it hanging around like an itch you couldn’t stop scratching. The sooner Carol forgot about it, the better. Out of sight, out of mind, that was the first step.
I stirred all the letters together again, then scooped them up back into the box, put it all away again, took the single tile into the kitchen, lifted Princess Diana’s Commemorative Wedding Mug down off the shelf and dropped it in with the key to Kim’s bungalow. I looked out the window. Still no sign of her. I took the key in my hand. It was like a magnet, the way it lead me to the door.
I went inside. Same smell, same emptiness, same pink number hanging on the exercise bike. It was like she hadn’t been here at all. This time I took in the bedrooms first. In the spare room another case had been opened, the lid flung back, sprays and lotions loose in the webbing inside. In the main bedroom, she’d taken out a couple of outfits from the cupboard and hung them on the door handles. There was no postcard on the bedside table this time, but leaning up against it was one of Audrey’s, a golf club, the little tartan sock still sat on its head. Perhaps I wouldn’t drop in unannounced after all. A white swimsuit was draped over the dressing table mirror, white, cut away at the kidneys, a screwed up ball of cotton wool on the table beneath, stained with tan lotion. I got it. She’d stepped into the suit, touched herself up.
The main room was exactly the same as before, except on the glass table in the middle, the map showing Rump’s house had gone, and in its place were a spread of holiday brochures, cruises to be exact. Some she had underlined with the biro that lay next to them, the Caribbean, Rio. Some had crosses drawn through the cover, the Greek Islands, the Norwegian Fjords. The one to Durban had nothing at all, except little red circles around all the sailing dates for the next six months. She was getting homesick.
I went back into the kitchen. All the cups on their hooks, all the plates piled neat and tidy, the saucepans in their little stack, the handles all pointing in the same direction. If she’d eaten here, or made a cup of tea, she’d hidden it well. Even the breakfast stools look unsat upon. I opened up the dishwasher. Clean as a whistle. No milk in the fridge, no crumbs in the toaster. This wasn’t a home, not even a rented one. This was a museum. I don’t know what led me to it, maybe it was the pink two piece hanging there all empty, waiting for a body that wouldn’t come, maybe it was the stillness of the place, the stripped bareness of it, maybe it was the white freezer itself, standing there all long and shiny, so quiet, so full of mystery, but I knew that there was something in this bungalow, something here that shouldn’t be. I could feel it. I crossed over to the freezer, lifted the lid, lifted it slowly, like it was a coffin. I don’t know what I expected to find there, Torvill, Dean, even my Miranda all cold and perfect like an ice princess, but when I saw it there at the bottom, it didn’t come as any great surprise, lying there in its cardboard box with the cardboard handle poking up. Missing Toblerone No 2. Michaela must have tucked it away somewhere the day she came round, though how she’d found out about it, God knows. She’d hardly been in the house. But that didn’t make any sense either. Tucked it away a three-foot Toblerone? In the get-up she’d been wearing? Besides, I was sure there’d been the two of them in the freeze
r when I took the one out for Alice later that evening. Which meant…what? I couldn’t work it out.
And then it struck me. No, of course she hadn’t tucked it away somewhere. She hadn’t needed to. She’d nicked it when I wasn’t here, when the bungalow had been all locked up, this morning most likely. How? Simple. She had Audrey’s keys. First opportunity she’d gone through the bungalow just like I’d gone through hers, the only difference being I hadn’t lifted anything. It was a funny thing to have done, drawing attention to the fact that somebody’s been there unasked. But perhaps I was meant to know. Perhaps she’d left a clue that I’d missed. Perhaps she was addicted to chocolate. Perhaps she was addicted to thieving. Perhaps a bit of all three.
A wee thought then crept in my head, like all the best ones do, noiseless, but that seemed to fill the room, like a fart creeping out on carpet slippers. The box was unopened. She’d just assumed it had bar of chocolate inside. I still had the wrapping from the one me and Alice had gobbled, tucked away in the kitchen. It struck me that all I had to do, was to lift this one out of the casing, stuff it in the box back at the ranch and I’d be quids in. I’d tell Carol that thanks to her ongoing medical condition Alice had scoffed one of them before I could get to it, but I’d got the other one back unharmed. Carol would be content, if not happy, and I’d be let off the hook. Michaela would be one Toblerone short of a freezer, but she could hardly come round and argue the toss, could she? More importantly, it would unsettle her, and after setting Carol’s mind to rest and sculpting my fish, unsettling Michaela Rump was top of my agenda. The more I thought about it, the more I liked it.
I leant in, lifted the box up and opened the end, dead careful not to tear the folds. The monsteroony slipped out, the light catching the lettering, like it was blinking. I squeezed the bar into my trouser pocket, put the box back and closed the freezer. Job very nearly done.
Then the mobile rang the one Michaela gave me.
‘Mr Greenwood?’
‘No, Humphrey Bogart. Fancy a paddle?’
‘Most amusing. Where are you?’
‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’
‘Not particularly, but you might like to know where I am.’ The line went dead.
I ran out through her kitchen, out to the fence. A splash of yellow was setting out at the bottom of the Beacon path. I was halfway across the field when I remembered, I hadn’t locked her back door and worse, my key was still in the lock. I charged back, banged the door shut, pocketed the key. It only took me a couple of minutes but if I didn’t look out she’d get there before me, and I didn’t want that. I belted across the field again, heart racing, mouth dry, jumped over the fence at the other side and started up the slope, my hands batting my way through the overgrowth, pushing myself as hard as I could. It was killing me, but this was a race I had to win.
And then I slipped, not just a little, but one of those where it’s like in a car crash, everything happening fast and slow at the same time, the world all topsy turvy, grass and sky and everything in between coming up to smack you on the lips. Arse over tit I went, down about twenty metres, my fall blocked by one of those manky cattle troughs that I’d earmarked for my fish. I picked myself up. I hadn’t taken any real damage, but Carol’s Toblerone had. Somehow in the tumble it had been smashed to bits, and what’s more the bar had come loose from the box. All I could see was an end, about a broken foot of it, lying in its silver paper at my feet. Where the rest was I couldn’t see, didn’t have time to find out either. I stuffed what was left back in my pocket and carried on up, hands pushing on my thighs to help me get there. I was suffering, big time. How she wasn’t there before me I don’t know but she wasn’t. There was just pimple and the grass beyond, all smooth and green like the runway ready for take off, with nothing at the end but nothing. An awful lot of it.
I tucked myself behind the curve on the pimple, half crouching, my lungs heaving like a landed fish. I told her I’d be standing by the tuft, but I didn’t want that. I didn’t want her to see me, just like whoever it was didn’t see me the time before, like I was the only one who knew what was going to happen.
I waited. And waited. And then I waited some more. No sign of her. The best of the afternoon may have been and gone, but no one had told the sun. It was belting it down. I was desperate for something, a lick of water, a wet kiss, the feel of some skin and sweat. Still she didn’t come. What the bloody hell was she playing at? Then it clicked. She was playing at me, messing my head in. I laughed, one of those laughs you do when you know you’ve been nearly bested. Out loud? I didn’t know. Maybe, because that was when she appeared, like on cue, glanced at where I was supposed to be, then turned, face out to sea. She was expecting me to have been there. But guess what? Two could play at the waiting game.
I watched her, standing there at the cliff ’s edge, Michaela Rump, the woman who knew what had happened here four years back, the woman who wanted me to steal her husband’s fish, the woman who led me round my bungalow like a dog on a chain and who called Audrey her Dimpled Darling. She stood there with her back to me, Audrey’s yellow oilskin barely covering her backside, her feet in little ankle boots, her legs bare and smooth, full of power, like they knew there was a runway out there too, like they was waiting for the pilot to climb on board, open up the throttle.
I stepped out, came up right behind her, not a sound. She tilted her head back.
‘Well here we are then. Has the Greenwood memory been stirred at all?’ Her voice was soft, far away. I wanted to grab it, stuff it in my mouth.
‘I’m not sure about the memory. Something has.’
I put my hand on her shoulder. I could feel her muscles twitch.
‘You’re burning up.’
‘Am I?’
‘It’s very bad for the skin you know, to overheat. Brings out all sorts of discolorations. I can hardly bear to touch it.’
‘My skin?’
‘The coat. It’s a bit like that linoleum you had in the bedroom. It needs stripping out completely.’
‘And you’re just the man to do it I suppose.’
‘The man, the hands, the eye. I mean, its what underneath that counts, isn’t it?’
I reached round, slipped the buttons free one by one, peeled the coat back over her shoulders. She stood, like the nymph, staring out to nowhere. I touched her, touched her where I’d touched the nymph. She was cold and hard like the nymph, still like the nymph too, but warm and soft at the same time, and quivering inside. I bent into her neck. She pressed back into me, eyes straight ahead.
‘Heavens Al,’ she said, pushing against me some more. ‘I’m surprised you managed to walk straight. You’ll have me off the edge with that thing.’
Jesus Christ! The Toblerone! I’d forgotten all about it. I pulled away. Lucky the oilskin was still on her, or she’d have clocked it right away. She turned round oblivious, put her arms around my neck. This was going to be tricky.
‘Imagine all these years you thought it had been me, standing here Al. All these years you’ve been thinking about me – and we’d never even met. And now we’re here, together, practically nothing between us.’
She opened up the coat, wrapped it around me. I tried to keep my hands still. Down below something was trying to nudge the Toblerone out the way.
‘Have you ever been on a cruise Al, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, South America?’
‘Not that I can remember. Perhaps you better button up. This is a family picnic area you know.’
‘There’s a ship sailing to Rio soon, from Southampton, did you know? Why don’t we join it, when all this is over? Her hand snaked round my waist, drawing me close again. I tried not to wince. Something had just fallen off the north face of the Toblerone.
‘This is a bit sudden isn’t it? I thought you didn’t like men.’
‘I don’t like the gym either, but let’s face it, a body needs all sorts of exercise. Half an hour on the rowing machine, half an hour on a man, they both have their place.
Besides, my body’s changed its mind, thanks to you. It’s quite responsive to a man’s needs now, don’t you think?’
She caught the Toblerone off guard. It moved up and down in my trouser pocket like it had a mind of its own. What had happened to the other fellow, I had no idea.
‘There’s been a change of plan,’ she said. ‘My informant got her dates wrong. Adam’s course has already started. He’ll be back late tomorrow evening. We’ll have to steal her tomorrow afternoon.’ She nibbled my lip.
‘I thought it was next week.’
‘Does it matter? You’ve got the pool ready, that’s the main thing. We could plan our cruise waiting for the money, get the tickets in advance if we want. Look at it Al, the sea, moving so deep, so slow. Wouldn’t you like to feel that rhythm pulsating beneath you?’ She moved her the hips again, like one of the mechanical dough beaters Harry used to have in his bakery. ‘Can’t you feel it Al?’
She took my hand, pulled me down. I wanted to resist but the will of an undressed woman in an unbuttoned oilskin on the principle pimple in Dorset is hard to ignore. We rolled this way and that. I should have been paying attention where we were going, but I was trying to get the Toblerone out the way without her noticing, but it was no use. Every time I put my hand down in that direction, she grabbed it and put it somewhere else. It was like one of those Christmas party games, musical chairs, pass the parcel, everyone spending a lot of energy getting nowhere fast. Then suddenly, she was on top of me, the coat hanging over me like a tent, all the contents tumbling out over my face, no air to breathe, no room to move, my shoulders pinned down, and my head, Oh sweet Jesus, my head hanging back down over the edge of the cliff, down into nothing. One wrong move and we’d be gone.
Fish Tale (Cliffhanger Book 2) Page 18