Blood From Stone

by Frances Fyfield

  ‘I have the feeling that this is the only evidence of why she chose to do it the way she did. It makes me sad.’

  Frank Shearer continued to look at the view outside the window, enjoying it, listening without caring.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘She was reading an article in the Daily Mail,’ Thomas explained. ‘Page three.’

  ‘I thought she never got further than the law pages in The Times.’

  ‘She did this time,’ Thomas insisted. ‘She was reading an article about an unemployed woman who died in a bedsit in North London and was only found two years later. Almost a record. Two years! Doesn’t say much for her neighbours, who reported a foul smell, and then nothing after a couple of months, which according to this,’ he handled the newspaper carefully, it was evidence of a kind, after all, ‘is hardly surprising. She died with the heating full on, and it never went off. TV still murmuring away in the corner, central heating going full blast after two winters and a summer. Place infested, of course, but even the bugs had perished.’

  ‘Are you making a point?’

  ‘Yes. The point I’m making is that Marianne read this article which is dated two days before she died. It gives a clue to what she was thinking. She was thinking that if she stayed in her own flat, no one would notice she was dead. She didn’t want that.’

  ‘Your point is?’

  ‘The woman in the newspaper. Marianne definitely didn’t want to be undiscovered for two years. Or two weeks.’

  ‘So she jumped instead? And if she had died here, how long would it have been before the body was found? How long before a friend like you would have worried enough to break the door down?’

  Thomas shrugged. He and Marianne Shearer met for civilised evenings as often as twice a month. That was his version of close friendship.

  ‘Knowing my sister,’ Frank Shearer said, ‘she might just as well have been reading the article to try and discover what type of boiler and TV that dead woman had. The sort that works for two years without servicing. She’d be looking for the same make and model. Or maybe it was just envy of someone who didn’t have to pay any bills. She was cute with money, my sis.’

  He shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think it was that, even if she did leave this newspaper. There was that other woman who jumped out of a hotel window the other week, wasn’t there? Wasn’t she some kind of lawyer, too? Photos of her in the paper, but not nearly as good as Marianne’s. Marianne would have seen that and thought she could show people how such things ought to be done for maximum impact. Make herself the definitive hotel suicide. She did like having the last word in everything.’

  Thomas knew that Frank Shearer and his late sister had not been close because she had told him. Bloody ne’er-do-well, sponger, with a touch of the vicious about him, you know? Work-shy, that one, spoiled rotten. No time for him. Frank Shearer had absolutely no interest in her life, only her death. The physical resemblance was there. Frank had her eyes and her hair, without any of her backbone; he was soft where she was slim and muscular. He was handsome: she was not, although she could be striking. That’s why I had to succeed, Thomas, I didn’t have the option of hanging around and being pretty. Thomas Noble, solicitor; friend of the deceased whom he had accompanied to many a football match in pursuit of a shared passion which surprised them both. If she wasn’t winning herself, she was certainly wanting someone else to win. She might have evolved into a hired assassin in another life, and if he had been a heterosexual man himself, he would have run a mile from her. As he was, he was free to appreciate a frightful friend and consider himself a mentor, although how much he had succeeded in that was sadly in doubt. Marianne had said nothing about what ailed her – that was insulting – and it seemed that she had never followed his advice to make a will. All the same, he had to admit there was something in what Frank had just said. There had been a similar suicide soon after Christmas, and Marianne could never resist upstaging another woman. This was surely an unfair thought, although it lingered because of the similarities. Marianne’s was definitely different. All she had done, on the same day she had read the newspaper article about the woman dead for two years, was transfer money into his bank account, with the cryptic email saying, Look after stuff, and have fun with this will you? Use Peter Friel for the business, he’s dull but dogged. Mx

  He coughed. It followed from this that he was appointed in the role of her legal representative in the absence of anyone else. There was no one better qualified to sort the mess. It also followed that this foul, definitely homophobic man needed him, since Frank did not know where else to start and Thomas held all the cards. Frank was a car salesman with a history of debt and he needed a lawyer, since, as things stood, under the rules of intestacy, he the undeserving was going to reap the fruits of what she had sown. Ms Shearer’s brother was practically salivating. Worth nothing last week and now worth enough to strut like a cockerel.

  ‘Great apartment. The newspaper said it was worth a cool mill. And recent life insurance, you said?’

  Thomas shook his head.

  ‘I doubt if the flat’s worth that much. And there’s a mortgage. She was a barrister for twenty-five years, but a Life of Crime doesn’t make you a millionaire. If we,’ he stressed the ‘we’ in the interests of companionship because it was important they did not fall out . . . yet, ‘don’t find a last will and testament, or other known relatives apart from yourself, then this,’ he nodded at the white walls, ‘falls to you. Subject to tax et cetera. The verdict at the inquest will have an impact on the amount, of course.’

  ‘How’s that? What do you mean?’

  Oh Lord, signs of animation at last. If not grief, at least anxiety. Thomas was a conscientious lawyer, but he still liked alarming the client and enjoyed it when people gave themselves away. It always amazed him how mere information had the knack of creating anger, which was something he preferred to witness rather than experience first hand. Hence the love of football. Ritualised disharmony. Also Wagner. Anything with a tempest included, watched from a safe seat.

  ‘She insured her life, of course. She would have had to have done that, to get the mortgage. I did the legal work, I have those papers. A verdict of suicide, as such, can invalidate life policies. Most coroners are careful these days. A verdict of accidental death would be better. You aren’t really supposed to take out insurance and then kill yourself, any more than you’re allowed to insure your wife and then kill her. Simply not sporting. But yours, all yours, old son, pending evidence of other instructions, of course.’

  ‘So we want the Coroner to say something like accidental death while balance of mind disturbed?’

  ‘Yes. Especially if the insurance policy she took out on the mortgage has a suicide clause. It would diminish the estate quite a bit. Coroners rarely give a verdict of suicide. Even murder would be more convenient.’

  Frank barked with horribly satisfied laughter.

  ‘How do you pay the bloke to get the words right? Get him to say she didn’t really mean it when she’s thrown herself out of a window in front of witnesses? For fuck’s sake, there can’t be much doubt about that, even if she was copying someone else.’

  ‘We all need doubts, Frank, no doubt about that.’

  Thomas turned the old newspaper over in his hands and slipped it under the sofa. It was offensive. Let someone else take it away. He supposed that the money Marianne had left in his care was for practical things, like paying for cleaning and a funeral. Three days after her last occupation, and the place was already dusty. She had been the owner for less than a week. There was a bed, sofa, the rudiments of furniture. The rest she was going to buy new. There must be things stored with other friends.

  ‘You don’t pay coroners,’ he said. ‘You pray for their discretion.’

  ‘Surely Marianne would have known that suicide could invalidate insurance policies? She was a lawyer after all.’

  ‘One of the few female Queen’s Counsel, and the even fewer who made crime pay,’ T
homas answered. ‘But speaking as one who acts as a humble, domestic lawyer to many other lawyers, I’m beyond being surprised about how little they know about law outside their chosen field. And how little they take the legal advice they either dispense or receive. Such as making a will, minimising tax, that kind of thing. I doubt if she read her policies. Don’t worry, there’ll be plenty left. She was clever with property. She invested wisely.’

  Frank Shearer moved from his view over the gardens at the back and sprawled on the sofa, testing the springs with his weight, as if already deciding whether he would keep it or not. Or maybe regretting that she had depleted what was going to be his inheritance by purchasing such a thing. He pulled a cream cushion on to his lap and picked at the braid around the edge, actions designed to irritate. The last buttocks to occupy that sofa were those of his dead sister. The indentation of her behind was still present, next to him. Thomas would have scalded himself rather than sit on it. Oh why, oh why, had she not made herself clear? There were too many whys buzzing around here, like angry wasps trapped in a room, such as why she had done it at all. There were all those possessions of hers, no doubt hidden with some other friend, maybe the will was there, too. Hope sprang in his mind and he kept his face bland. You’re like an old cat, Marianne had said. No one knows what you’re thinking, even when you purr.

  ‘I’m sure she didn’t make a will,’ Frank said. ‘Because, if she had, she would have told me what to expect. There was no love lost, if you see what I mean, but I’m still her only brother. Perhaps she jumped because she’d invested her all in the dream flat, and then found she was still fifty-one, past her sell-by date, still ugly and as lonely as ever.’

  ‘She wasn’t lonely,’ Thomas protested, guilty for leaving out the fact that beautiful she was not.

  ‘Don’t tell me she was popular.’

  ‘No . . . I mean yes. She never needed to spend an evening alone unless she wanted. She was a workaholic, not lonely. Have we finished here?’

  He could not bear the sight of Frank Shearer unpicking a cushion as if he might find money inside it. Frank grinned at him.

  ‘Shame you don’t like me, old boy,’ he said. ‘’Cos we’re stuck with each other for a bit, aren’t we? That’s what she would have wanted. Everything sorted out fair and square in strict accordance with the law, and you in charge, looking after me.’

  ‘I don’t know what she wanted,’ Thomas said. ‘But I’ll act for you in the matter of her estate if you pay me. I’ll need to advertise and hire a probate researcher, just to ensure there’s no other beneficiaries. I’ve got Peter Friel on hand to do that.’

  ‘Look out those insurance policies, old boy. Smile at the taxman, cosy up to the Coroner, throw a few hissy fits, kiss arse and sleep with the enemy. That’s what she would have done, that’s what she did all the time. Anything for a result.’

  The phone rang, eerily loud in the empty space. Thomas looked around for the source of the sound, coming from the small room stage left of where they were. He hovered, for once uncertain about a bizarre piece of etiquette such as who should be the one to answer a dead person’s phone. There was no precedent for that one. He moved towards it but Frank moved faster.

  ‘Hello, what d’ya want?’

  ‘Marianne? Is she there?’

  ‘Don’t you read the newspapers? She’s dead.’

  Thomas stepped forward, seething with anger and grabbed the receiver from Frank’s hand.

  ‘Hello, who is this please?’

  There was the sound of tumultuous breathing, like someone struggling for air.

  ‘I’m so sorry for that response,’ Thomas said. ‘You got Ms Shearer’s brother. He’s upset. Can I help you?’

  More breathing. He waited.

  ‘I don’t read any newspapers, I make things for her, I have this dress, ready for her, and . . . I so sorry. Why she die?’

  Why, oh why? Not enough to say I don’t know.

  ‘It seems she was very depressed,’ Thomas said, gently. ‘So depressed, she took her own life.’

  The breathing became sharper.

  ‘Tha’s a lie. She not depressed. How can she be depressed? She had this dress, beautiful dress, she wanted it so bad. I don’ believe you. Someone gotta pay. She love it. Oh, nooooo . . .’

  He paused. Another challenge to the good manners that dictated his life.

  ‘Can you give me your name?’ he asked quietly. ‘And send details of any outstanding bills to me? I assure you, they’ll be paid.’

  He recited his address as he listened to the sound of noisy weeping.

  ‘I send what I want. I keep the dress, maybe. Now I’m the one depressed. Someone kill her, you hear?’

  The phone was slammed down and the sound rang in his ears. He went back to the living room, shaken. Frank was on his feet, chucking the keys to the place from one hand to another, itching to move all of a sudden. The cold of the place got to them. With her usual efficiency, Marianne had turned off the heat before she left from her new home here, to go to a room in a hotel a hundred yards away in order to kill herself. She had been sure she would not need warmth when she came back.

  He took the keys from Frank and Frank took one last look around. Thomas remembered as he closed the door on the empty space what it was that had impressed him about Marianne Shearer when they had first met, a decade before. Not beauty, for sure. Style. He wondered for the first time what exactly she had been wearing when she jumped.

  It was warmer outside.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Always colder by the sea.

  The wind was howling round the door, tugging at it. Henrietta could not imagine how her mother had found the strength to pull it closed so quietly in order to plod alone head down, up to the beachfront as she herself did now in cold pursuit. She remembered that Ellen Joyce was strong; wind and rain were her favourite hazards. It was her father who stayed indoors and refused to follow. When she found her mother this time, Henrietta was likely to kill her.

  She could hear someone screaming.

  Saturday afternoon, cold and gusty, children drawn to the playground of the beach, standing at the edge of the thundering sea with a dog that barked in tune with their shrieking. They were screaming for the sake of it, adding to an orchestra of sound. Then they ran away. Maybe her mother had heard them and gone out to watch; maybe she was simply being perverse in wanting to sit in the cold until it froze her. It would be the third time in a long week that Hen had embarked to find her. Dragged her back with gentleness no longer quite genuine while all she felt was impatience with the nagging edge of fury and compassion, and anger at the dead. Perhaps better to let her mother die in whatever way she wished, but then her father would be helpless, and she herself would be trapped in a worse vortex of conscience. Her own life had been on hold for a year and she wanted it back. It was too soon for this. Her parents were hardly ancient and yet they had grown older than the hills.

  Striding against the wind, Hen thought that there was a great temperamental difference between her father and mother and herself. She, Hen Joyce, believed in the creative power of anger, which was not something either of them understood. That was half the problem. Mother was wallowing in grief the way she had always wallowed in worry, instead of being like the eldest of her daughters, devoted to action rather than reaction, interference rather than reticence; damn her, where was she? Mrs Ellen Joyce always said everything would turn out all right, and it didn’t. She had always told Angel that it was all right to be plump and insecure as long as you were loved, because that alone was enough to make you beautiful. Rubbish; you were what you made yourself. Even when you were crippled by your name. Hen and Angel, I ask you. How could they do that to us?

  What a day. Squalls of wind, little interludes of deceptive calm, bolts of sunlight and flurries of rain, as if to say, got you, just when you thought you were safe. The sea was broiling along the promenade, prowling against concrete, laughing and threatening, growling and roaring like an old
bear, then scuttling back with a snarl. No children to watch now. Four o’clock, darkness coming down with a bitter, gusting chill. Hen pulled her coat around her and wondered if Mother had bothered to cover herself at all. The instinct to shout at her increased with the cold, and then died in her mouth. Her mother had grown so thin.

  Ellen was in the furthest bus shelter along the seafront, the smelliest, most miserable sheltering place on the whole promenade, sitting upright in the corner with her handbag clutched to her waist, leaning over it as if it was warm. She looked fully in command of all she surveyed, serene in the face of hypothermia with her small feet in her damp slippers. Henrietta knelt at her feet among crushed glass, beer cans and litter brought in by the wind, took hold of her mother’s cold ankles and began to knead them warmer. Mother stared out to sea. It was her refusal to look anyone in the eye that had always infuriated.

  ‘Come home, Mother, there’s a dear. It’s getting dark.’

  Ellen Joyce inclined her head in an approximation of agreement, nodded, then shook her head and held her handbag tighter.

  ‘But it’s so nice out here,’ she said.

  This could only have been spoken by someone with a neurotic love of the sea and Hen ignored it. It was foul out here. Dismal, bleak and ugly. Everyone else was quite right to avoid it. Ellen was surely crazy, but the gaze she turned upon her daughter’s hands was merely confused, as if she had woken from sleep. She shook herself and stood up, awkwardly, stumbling into Hen’s arms, and then pushing her away almost in the same movement. Hen let her lead the way slowly out of the bus shelter and begin the walk home. They did not link arms, Hen measuring her steps to keep pace with her mother’s slow progress, all the time wanting to break into a run. Darkness descended like a blanket as they turned the windswept corner into Alpha Street and saw the lights of the house on the corner shining a mocking welcome with the Christmas tree still in the window. No one had the energy to take it down. Ellen held on to the wall, wanting to say something before they went in.