Jackie is quiet for some time.
“But we don’t know what happened after that. Nor before it,” she adds cryptically.
“Before it? What do you mean?”
“Maybe James had it all planned. And if he did… well, he wouldn’t get his hands dirty.”
I don’t understand what she means at first.
“James didn’t cut the electricity supply personally,” Jackie says. “He didn’t interfere with my water. He didn’t break into the bank and temporarily change my account details. James doesn’t do things himself. He hires people to do it for him. Just like he hires a gardener.”
Oh my God.
“You mean he hired someone to kill her? A hit man? Round here?”
“Don’t get taken in by the picture-postcard landscape, Rebecca. People are people. You know when you turn over a rock and all sorts of insects scuttle around underneath? When you have money, you know which rock to turn over.”
A voice in the background. A woman. Come on, Mum, she’s saying. This isn’t doing you any good.
“Just a moment…”
The receiver is taken from her.
“Hello?” The voice is firm.
“Yes.”
“This is Jackie’s daughter. I’m sorry, but she really has to go now. She’s getting exhausted. She’s not well, you know.”
Her voice is accusing, as if I should know better.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know…”
“She has cancer.”
“Oh… I’m sorry… I hope she… she… Please give her my thanks. For speaking to me, I mean. I am grateful. I am very grateful…”
“I’ll tell her.” The voice softens. “I’m sorry. She told me about your mum. She wanted to speak to you. Insisted, in fact. But she’s not up to this.”
“I understand.”
I put the phone down. The room is full of sunlight but I feel enveloped by darkness. The way Da used to get. Surrounded by shadows. Sucked of energy. I understand now. I lie down again on top of the bed. How long does Jackie Sandford have left? It saddens me to think of an adult lifetime lived – all those years my mother has been lying cold in the earth. Her generation is dying out. How long before the truth dies too?
For the first time, I find myself imagining what my mother felt at her killer’s hands. Perhaps she is becoming more real to me in an odd kind of way. Strange questions invade my mind. What was she wearing when she died? Had she dressed up for her lunch with Cory? Lipstick? What colour? Pink? Plum? Red? Orange? What colour?
When I was a little girl, I used to sit at Peggy’s dressing table with a pot of old discarded makeup she gave me to play with and draw a shaky Cupid’s bow of lipstick round my mouth, smudged, artless, a tangerine kiss that exploded outside its edges. But what was my mother’s colour? And why does it matter? It doesn’t and yet it does. Like the paint colour in Da’s dingy old hall. My mother would not have known her preparations that day were final. Is it less cruel, I wonder, to die at the hands of a stranger than someone you thought you loved?
The information from Jackie Sandford settles into my brain slowly. My frustration builds. Her call took me by surprise. I had no planning, no time to think. The unasked questions seem so obvious now, with the benefit of hindsight. But there is one thing I can check myself. In the afternoon I go back to the library to look at the local papers again. At one point, she had mentioned an investigation into allegations of council corruption in the awarding of contracts. If I can find mention of that, it will not only confirm she is telling the truth, it will tell me what happened in that investigation.
The search does not take long. It was, as you might imagine, front-page news. COUNCIL CHIEFS CLEARED OF CORRUPTION ALLEGATIONS. I skim the story quickly. There is no mention of Masonic links as the reason for the allegations. And of course people were under no official obligation to declare themselves Masons. As I run down the story, my eyes catch sight of a familiar name and I backtrack to a quote.
“Allegations that the chief executive and chief planning officer of the council were involved in irregular procedures with regard to the awarding of council building contracts are entirely without foundation,” said the man heading the investigation. My head sinks into my arms. His name? Chief Superintendent Terry Simons.
CHAPTER FOUR
Moonlight is falling through the B & B window, lighting the room. In my head I can hear the haunting opening notes of one of Da’s favourite pieces of music, Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. Softly, softly it fills the space in my head, the darkness in my heart, as delicately as the shaft of light fills the room through the window. My throat tightens, as if there is too narrow a space to swallow. Each note sounds inside my head as clearly as if the piano is in this room.
I slip my feet into my shoes and lift a cardigan. It is the early hours but I know it will be a long time before I can sleep. Tiptoeing to the front door, I close it soundlessly behind me and walk along the river towards the bridge. There are plenty of people still, distant shouts from dark streets, laughter from pub doorways. Benign. Safe compared to Glasgow, I think. It is so picturesque by the river that it seems almost kitsch to a city dweller like me, the bridges lit by twinkling necklaces of light that glitter lightly in the black skirt of water below. I walk towards the main bridge across town, following the road onwards past the restaurant lights and hotels, down towards the town’s theatre. I think this is where the Ness Islands are, the riverside walk the landlady mentioned. There are little bridges, apparently, crossing from the road to the miniature islands in the middle of the river.
The road gets gradually quieter as I walk towards the Islands but I can see a bridge in the distance. The walk has helped calm me. The sound of the water running in the darkness is soothing. I will not cross to the Islands, of course – I’ll leave that for daylight – but I will walk to the bridge before turning back. There are no houses here and the streetlamps have ended but it is close to the bustle of town still.
The feeling of unease is gradual, hard to define. An instinct. A sudden awareness. I stop. Listen. Take a few steps forward. Listen again. I turn my head, staring into the black night. A crackle, like a twig being snapped. Or was it? Silence. My phone beeps and makes me physically jump. My hand shakes as I grab it out of my bag. A text: ‘I can see you.’ I look round, though I can see little in the darkness, scanning the shadows for movement.
I turn sharply to go back the way I have come, then hesitate. Where is he? What if he is not further on into the blackness ahead but behind me, somewhere in the belt of darkness between me and the town lights? He. Surely it must be a he? What if I walk straight back into him before I reach the town again? I start one way, then turn the other, but I cannot go on into the darkness where there is no light. I look all round, heart thumping. There is only straight on, or back. I turn sharply back and walk quickly, stifling the urge to run.
Beep. Beep. Beep. I almost drop the phone as it vibrates in my hand. I don’t stop, keep moving, my trembling fingers opening the text as I walk. ‘Race you?’ I start to run, not fast but a steady trot. Is this how my mother felt? This overwhelming fear? The trapdoor closing. Who is it? Has Terry Simon alerted the brethren? The Masonic mafia who drove Jackie Sandford out? Has Cory hired another hitman? Are they just trying to scare me? Or am I to meet the same fate as my mother?
My breath is coming in short gasps. Beep. Beep. Beep. I glance down at the screen. ‘Run. But you can’t win.’ I run fast now, run towards the distant light, until my lungs are bursting. The phone beeps constantly but I no longer read it. Can’t turn round. Can’t look back. Where is he? The lights of the first hotel are coming closer, the lit windows of a seafood restaurant burning brightly. The road curves and I run, run, run, but before I can reach the light, it’s over. I run slap into him in the darkness. I open my mouth and scream with the passion of a woman who suddenly knows how much she wants to live. Hands in the darkness grabbing my arms. I flail out at him.
“Je
sus!” says a voice. “It’s okay!”
I continue to scream; the only thing filtering into my consciousness is that the voice is male. I do not hear the words.
“It’s okay!”
Jumping back, I am about to turn the other way, run again, when I realise there are actually two shapes, two men. Two men walking home from the pub.
“Are you okay?”
I am shaking, unable to answer.
“What’s happened? Has somebody hurt you?”
“Sorry,” I mutter. “Sorry. I was startled… I…” I back off, head down, then move sharply past them without looking either of them in the eye. “Sorry…” I repeat.
“Fuck’s sake, what was that about?” one of them says as I shoot off.
“She gave me a bloody heart attack,” says the other. “Drama queen!”
My legs can barely carry me as I walk back across the main bridge towards the B & B. The streets are busy again, people milling outside fast-food shops, a few drunken screeches.
“Want a chip, darlin’?” someone says drunkenly as I pass.
I’d normally have a barbed quip but I don’t even look up.
“Don’t be shy!” he shouts at my retreating figure.
At the guest house, my trembling fingers can barely get the key in the lock. I close the door behind me and snib it. Then snib my own bedroom door and block the moonlight with the curtains. Beep. Beep. Beep. Another text. I take a deep breath and try to make my fingers function sufficiently to press read. ‘I let you win. This time.’
CHAPTER FIVE
For a few minutes tonight, I thought I was going to join you, Da. I thought the secrets of the grave were about to be shown to me. What is it the Bible says about mysteries being revealed to mere children? I felt like a child out there, stumbling in the darkness, overcome by fear and helplessness. Death does that to you. No, that’s not quite right. Life does that to you. Life is just a long process of wandering in the night, looking for daylight, waiting in vain for dawn. Occasionally, you get to admire a sunset.
Am I any closer to the truth, Da? Am I? I no longer think I am going to uncover it completely. If tonight taught me anything, it is that I have to leave this place. I will be glad to go because the truth is, I am too frightened to stay. We all have our limits. My limbs tremble still, and my hands shake as if they have a life of their own, separate from me. Worse, my resolve is broken. My cowardice disappoints me, but I learnt out there that I want to live. I cannot die for old, undiscovered secrets. Especially old secrets that, once they are uncovered, might destroy me.
You did the right thing in leaving your old life. I understand now the need you had to simply walk away from here and take nothing with you. This place, with its pretty façade and ugly underbelly, it invades you, seeps through your pores until you turn from it in disgust. Who is it who wants me gone? Do I know too much? And if I know too much, what do I know too much about? The corruption? The Masons? The murder?
Who texts me? Who follows me? Cory must know I am here by now. Or is there some other anonymous enemy that I don’t even recognise yet? Can I trust Jackie Sandford and what she told me? Or David Carruthers? Or even my aunt Kirstin? I no longer know what is real and what is not, who is friend and who is foe. And what of you, Da? Are you in a place where you know it all, or a place where all has ended?
I want to go home, Da. Tomorrow. I am even fighting the urge to go now, to jump in the car and go right this minute. Go spontaneously, the way I came. I want to feel safe. I want to see Sarah and Peggy and Charlie. But I have to wait until morning because there are two more things I have to do. If I don’t, I will live with regrets. Two more things. One small thing for Mother. One big one for you.
THURSDAY
CHAPTER ONE
“Did you get to the Islands yet?” the landlady asks as she puts a pot of coffee down in front of me on the breakfast table.
“What?”
I look up sharply. Why is she asking that? What does she know?
“The Islands,” she says. She is busying herself lifting dirty dishes from the next table but her hands have stilled and she looks up in surprise at my tone. “The walk I mentioned down at the river?”
“Oh, yes. No. Well… yes, I went part of the way. I didn’t cross the bridge.”
I reach for the coffee pot to busy myself, using one hand to steady the nervous tremor in the other. I feel embarrassed: I can tell she has clocked the tremble.
“Well,” she says, glancing away deliberately and busying herself wiping the table clean, “there’s not really that much to see. They’re tiny, but visitors find them quaint and like using them to cross to the other side of the river.”
I slowly stir a spoonful of sugar into my coffee cup. So whoever was texting might not have followed me back to town. He might have escaped across the bridge and then over to the other side of the river. I look at the landlady speculatively. How do you know who to trust in life? For all I know, she’s part of it. Maybe her husband’s a Mason in this town.
“Some toast?” she says kindly.
“Please.”
I try to keep it casual but even to me, my next question sounds odd.
“Does your husband help you with the business?”
“My husband?”
“Yes.” I smile thinly. “I was just thinking… in the summer… all the breakfasts. It’s a lot.”
“Oh, I have someone come in to help when we’re busy but mostly I can manage myself. Paul works shifts so he’s not always around.”
“Shifts?”
“Aye. He’s a policeman.”
Shit. Does he know Terry Simons?
“I hope I didn’t disturb you last night.”
“Last night?”
“I couldn’t sleep. I went for a walk late on. I hope I didn’t disturb you coming back in.”
The landlady pauses a moment, resting the dirty plates she has gathered on the back of a chair.
“Oh, don’t worry about that. You come and go as you please.” She laughs lightly. “There’s not much can wake Paul – and not much that wakes me apart from Paul snoring!” She looks keenly at me. “It’s so hot even late on, isn’t it? Hard to sleep. And it’s bonny down by the river at night.”
“Yes,” I say. “Yes it is.”
I smile at her, more naturally this time. I am being ridiculous. This whole thing is making me crazy, making me imagine conspiracies and twisted motivations. But places like this… they seem a reasonable size until you spend some time in them. And then they just keep on getting smaller and smaller and smaller.
CHAPTER TWO
“Can I help you?” The doors of Cory Construction have barely closed behind me before the receptionist leaps on me like an underfed guard dog. She takes off a pair of poncy-looking glasses, looking upwards through a flutter of mascara-heavy eyelashes.
“I’d like to see Mr Cory, please.”
Her smile is fixed. She catches a strand of loose hair with a pink polished nail and tucks it smoothly behind her ear.
“Do you have an appointment?”
She knows I don’t, silly cow.
“No, but if you tell him Rebecca Connaghan is in reception I’m sure he’ll see me.” Confidence confuses people. I say it authoritatively but there is sweat on my back.
“I’m sorry,” she begins, “Mr Cory has a full diary this morning.”
I don’t bother waiting for the rest. I don’t have time. I see a door across the reception that has a name tag on it and I head for it. If it isn’t his, I am in trouble. I’ll be thrown out before I find the right one. The receptionist jumps from behind her desk.
“I’m sorry, you can’t go in there,” she says, almost running across the offices. She moves so quickly, she twists suddenly on her high heel. I knock briefly on the door but don’t wait for an answer. She comes running in behind me.
“I’m sorry, Mr Cory,” she says, “This woman refused to wait.”
James Cory looks up in surprise when his do
or bursts open but it is the second look that passes through his eyes that really registers shock. Kirstin might not have recognised me but Cory certainly does. I know what he is thinking. I’ve seen that look before. That haunted look. I saw it in Pa’s eyes, the night I wore my green dress to Peggy’s.
“Rebecca Connaghan,” I say, holding out my hand to shake hands. He says nothing, does not stand to take my proffered hand. He simply stares.
“What’s the matter? Seen a ghost?”
He recovers quickly, I’ll give him that.
“It’s all right Shellie,” he says, looking at his receptionist and smiling. “I’ll give Miss Connaghan a couple of minutes. I heard she was in town.”
I could have been a rep on a sales call, the unflustered way he spoke.
Cory must be pushing sixty by now but I’d have placed him younger, maybe early fifties. Whatever burden he’s carried over the years, it isn’t showing. You expect it to show. Like grief showed on Nazima. But there is nothing to suggest James Cory’s sins worm inside him.
Even sitting at a desk, I can see he’s tall. His hair is well cut and still quite dark, though sprinkled with silver at the temples. He is wearing a white shirt and blue patterned tie, small, tightly packed royal blue diamonds against a navy background. The jacket of his navy suit hangs on a coat stand beside his desk. It has not been dumped over the stand. The hoop on the jacket collar has been placed over the iron curl. Just so.
When I think of James Cory in future it will not be one solid presence that I remember, but a series of flashing impressions, of inconsequential details that I drink in now as I look. Golf-club tie pin, gold cuff links, gold signet ring on his wedding finger, expensive black leather shoes with a gleaming buckle at the side. Flashes of light sparkling on gold. Tiny gap in his front teeth. Brown eyes. I can see why she went for him. He is handsome in the way Sarah’s Des is handsome. Broad shoulders, trim frame with maybe just a slight thickening round the executive middle. Smooth bastard. Hate whiplashes inside me like the sudden flick of a fish fin. I wondered how I would feel and now I know. Smooth, smooth bastard.
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