Cold to the Touch

by Fyfield, Frances

  She walked back towards Smithfield, skirted round the building, reaching the crowded pavements again, slowing down. It was a walk of a mile to home, but where was home? It was nowhere: it was on top of a cloud: it was somewhere where you could make a nest and defend it. It was somewhere you taught yourself to love, even if it did not love you back. It was somewhere where you could be useful. In the meantime, there was this constant craving for the sound of seagulls squabbling.

  Sarah considered going back to Das Kalb, feeling the same pull as Jessica and wanting to confront him, even just to see him again. No. Leave it alone now. She was not going to be flayed alive; nor did she want vicarious revenge, but her own God would damn her if she let someone else be blamed. Her duty, if it could be called so, was not to Jessica, it was to the living. Damn duty, but it was always there. She acquired it wherever she went, whatever she did, and with whomever she slept, although that involved the least duty of all. The love for a lover was a pale shadow of the child’s love for a father.

  She needed proof. She had found the bricks in the edifice of the story. The mortar was subject to decay. Proof was a long way off. The only fact of which she was certain was that the owner of Das Kalb was Jessica Hurly’s father, first seen in a grainy photograph, holding a fish. It was time to go home. Begin at the other end.

  The meal lay heavily on Sarah’s stomach. She walked faster.

  She wanted to pick up a bag and the chosen companion, go for the train and get home soonest, but it could not be today. Again, she would have to wait. Wait for the day when the delivery man would come to Pennyvale. The day would arrive soon enough. Another Sabbath would pass.

  The mist over the sea was a glorious blanket. After his morning walk, Andrew Sullivan admired the pristine glory of the vicarage living room and then walked uphill to help Sam. Sarah was going to love the new room. The mist disappeared and the day turned grey.

  ‘We made the national news,’ Sam grumbled. ‘For one day only. It’s insulting when you think of it. Then we faded. Help me out here.’

  Tidying, scouring, cleaning. Sam was back in his own premises, not quite as happy as a pig in shit but almost. Such a bonus to be allowed to open again tomorrow, within a fortnight of being shut. The day went quietly. The chiller was perfectly empty. She might never have been there.

  ‘Smithfield delivery tomorrow. She says we have to wait. I spoke to the man, the same man, put in the order. He sounded fine, didn’t seem to know anything. Just said he wondered why we hadn’t ordered recently, not chatty. He couldn’t say what time he’d be here, said it depended on other deliveries, traffic and stuff, could be very early, could be after opening time. Would let himself in, if need be, if the traffic was fine, etc. Any time, I said, the earlier the better, gives me time to display. I reckon the earliest he’ll get here is five in the morning. I got the impression he wanted to be early.’

  ‘So we wait for him,’ Andrew said.

  ‘Back to yours, vicar? She said she’d come and join us with some hard man she knows. Why do we listen?’

  ‘Because we do. No choice about it. I don’t like the idea of the hard man.’

  ‘I’m glad she’s coming home.’

  ‘So am I. She’d better stay this time.’

  ‘I’m not gay, you know.’

  ‘Who did you think you were fooling? Wise man, you are. Otherwise you’d be target practice for all the widows in a place like this. Stay as you are, I would. Or confound them all by getting a wife. Are we ready?’

  The darkest hours were before dawn.

  Sarah Fortune was well used to the company of men, and wished with all her heart for the company of a woman on this occasion. She had never wanted to be the leader of the pack. Mike could take that role. It was he who had suggested the plan. Find the delivery man? Needle in a haystack. Go and wait for him. Shake him until he rattles. Then you’ll have proof, or not. Proof that Miss Hurly never came home alive.

  So they were waiting. The earliest time he could be here was five a.m., Sam said. OK – unless he really wants to avoid us, then he’ll be sooner. They had foregathered at four in the morning in the tiny upstairs flat above the butcher’s, with the window looking onto the dark street, a depressing place to be, although warmer than the back of the shop. There was a flask of tea, paper cups and grimy blankets on which to sit. Someone had provided sandwiches that no one wanted. The room was crowded with three men and one woman, the men feeling slightly ridiculous and manipulated. Andrew was gazing towards Sarah, looking for guidance, enjoying the sight of her, but wondering why he was there. Surely not as a priest; only as another male presence, a sort of makeweight who might curtail the excesses by his very presence, the soft man as opposed to the hard one. He had loathed Mike on sight and conceded to himself that there was jealousy in that. They all knew the theory: they all knew why they were here, but the levels of belief varied, along with the anxieties. They were waiting for the delivery man who might have brought Jessica home. Sam had hardened his heart to anything except his chief priority, which was to make sure that the delivery was right so that he would open his doors for business and become himself again. Mike, the man with the frightening face, wanted to nail whatever bastard had killed a pretty woman, even if he did not care about the woman herself who sounded like a right spoiled bitch to him, but no one deserved to be hung. Sarah wanted to know if she was right. Mike and Sam were chatting man to man, Mike asking about business, always interested in someone else’s business. You never knew when information would come in handy, all knowledge was useful. Andrew was losing the will to live. Conversation became desultory, fell into silence. Then they were tense and silent and waiting, waiting, waiting.

  The main street of the village was in darkness. No door left unlocked, no curtains left open. A street of barriers. A mild night for the time of year: it had been a long mild spell since Jessica had come back.

  Only two cars passed in the hour. They could hear the sudden acceleration up the hill, the whizz as they went by. Then as they sat stupid and quiet, there was the sound of footsteps and of someone wheeling a trolley. A knock at the front door of the shop. Then running footsteps, following whoever it was. A voice saying, There, there, come away, they aren’t open yet.

  Celia Hurly and her shopping trolley went back down the hill. Total silence fell again. It was six o’clock.

  ‘Right,’ Sam said. ‘I’d better get on. Things to do. If that bastard doesn’t come with that bastard delivery, I’ll kill him. We can make better tea down there, anyway.’

  He lumbered to his feet and went out of the attic, down the back steps and into the shop through the back door. They all got up and followed, crowding into the back of the premises. Mike put the kettle on and followed Sam into the still dark front of the shop, still curious, wanting to learn more. He would like to watch a skilled man sharpening his knives. ‘That’s one of the first things I do,’ Sam said. Mike listened: he always wanted to learn; you never knew what you might have to do next. They began to relax. It would be dawn within the hour and everything would stop being so unreal.

  Sam moved towards the front door to turn on the lights. Before he got there the whole shopfront was swept with fierce light from the headlamps of a white van pulling onto the forecourt, halting so close to the window that he thought it was aiming to drive straight through. The headlamps went off. A door slammed, then another. They scuttled away like cockroaches.

  ‘Christ,’ Mike said. ‘There’s two of them.’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ‘Better open the door,’ someone said.

  Sam turned on the lights and opened the door. Two men came in. The regular small scared-looking delivery man in a white coat, and a handsome white-haired man in a suit and overcoat.

  Mike moved towards the knife rack, took one of the knives and held it behind his back.

  Sarah came out from the back of the shop into the bright light at the front. The throbbing glare was strong enough to hurt her eyes, going right to the b
ack of the eyeball after all the darkness, creating a sudden violence. Sarah put her hand on Mike’s arm, let it rest there. She knew what he could do.

  ‘Dear God,’ Sam said. ‘Mr Edwin Hurly as I live and breathe.’

  The man in the coat blinked at the light and slumped into the chair by the counter reserved for the elderly customers. He looked old and tired. He shielded his eyes and looked towards Mike.

  ‘You can put that down,’ he said. ‘I’m not dangerous. I’m nothing now, nothing at all. This light’s too bright. Never was like that before.’

  They moved automatically, mesmerised, to stand around him in a rough circle.

  ‘You. You’re everywhere. S for Sarah. Jessica told me about you. Said you were a high-class hooker. The woman with the hook.’

  She spoke softly. ‘Hooker, yes. High-class is overstating it a bit.’

  He sighed and closed his eyes briefly, opened them again, pointing a finger at Andrew.

  ‘Who’s that streak of piss?’

  ‘He’s the vicar,’ Sam said. ‘And you just missed your wife.’

  Edwin Hurly shuddered, sat up straight in the chair. He turned to Sarah.

  ‘Would you sleep with me if I paid you enough? Are you that kind of tart? Jessica reckoned you would. She wanted to give me you as a present, said you would persuade me to do what’s right. You did it anyway, didn’t you? Never mind, don’t answer. Thanks for leaving the paper. Thanks, but no thanks. The game’s over … some bloody game. I thought someone would be waiting, but not you, and not so many. Nice to see you, Sam Brady. You were always a good man. I’m sorry if fetching her home was bad for business. I thought you’d deal with it like I would have done. Businesslike.’

  ‘I don’t know what you would have done, Mr Hurly.’

  ‘Me? I’d have got her out in a boat and buried her at sea, just like I was asked. Best all round. Jeremy would have done that for you. That’s what she would have wanted. And then I’d have got on with business. That’s what it’s all about. That was the decent, practical thing to do while she still looked nice. I left instructions, why didn’t you follow them? I didn’t want anyone blamed.’

  He jerked his thumb in the direction of the delivery man, who stood by the door, quivering, looking for an escape.

  ‘Blamed for what?’ Sarah said.

  ‘Bringing her home. He did it, all right, but only because I made him. It was the only way. I couldn’t drive her myself – I don’t drive. Besides, I liked the irony of it and I could make them do it. I always kept tabs on who delivered to Pennyvale, I knew the delivery men, made it my business, a sort of homesickness. You got it all worked out, didn’t you, S for Sarah? Jessica died in my kitchen. I hung her up and bled her dry. Don’t ask who helped. Me and chef, another poor bastard who needs his job, got her over to Smithfield and onto the line, day after. We, sorry, I carried her when she’d cooled down. Who notices men in white coats around there? Takes a long while for a hot body to cool, even when the blood’s out. Especially Jessica, she was burning hot. Twenty-four hours, about. After that, they had no choice but to move her on or close up and they’d never do that. Not that lot. I knew they had no choice.’

  Edwin Hurly reached into the pocket of his overcoat, took out a mobile phone on a leather thong and laid it on the floor next to his enormous feet. He was still a strong man.

  ‘Want to know?’

  They stood around him in a semicircle, nodding at him, protecting each other. Mike kept hold of the knife.

  ‘She recorded it,’ he said. ‘Some of it, anyway. Didn’t notice that she’d taken her phone off, put it down on the side. She was never without it, even ordered food on it. She turned up after about one in the morning when there was only me and chef, doing the business. I didn’t see her come in, she was sly. She was high and drunk, whatever the order. I don’t know what we do with this generation, expects too much, everything given. She expected too much.’

  He coughed. It was a long, racking cough, sending his whole body into spasm. He gripped both sides of the chair, leant forward and spat onto Sam’s clean sawdust.

  ‘You can listen to it, if you like. She was never without that mobile.’

  Sarah recognised it, a phone on a thong. Edwin Hurly saw her recognition.

  ‘You with that hook around your neck. You. You could take a man’s eyes out, any time. You go equipped.’

  ‘Always,’ she said.

  He sat back and began to laugh. The laughter wrecked him as much as the coughing. Then he began to cry.

  ‘I don’t want anyone else blamed,’ he repeated. ‘For that poor little calf. Don’t look for that chef, either – he’s long gone.’

  ‘You were never a bad man, Edwin Hurly. You were good to me,’ Sam said, moving towards him, extending his hand.

  The old man nodded and waved him back.

  ‘I was good to everyone, always was, only it didn’t always work. Always knew what was right for everyone, only no one else understood it. That’s why I’m here. Tell it like it is, boy. Come on.’

  The delivery man stepped forward. The light had not changed in its fierce brightness, except that with them surrounding him it felt more as if they were shielding him. He spoke awkwardly and nervously with a heavy accent.

  ‘He’s right. He got her hooked up inside a truck. It was dark. She went down the line, into the stall and back and I was called to collect her and put her in the van with all the other stuff. He wanted her brought here. He always knew us men. He always knew who delivered where. He knew I came to Pennyvale, he was in Smithfield most nights, always nice.’

  The delivery man hesitated. ‘I had to keep her in the van for a day, so’s I could deliver on a day when I was never expected. She was cool about that: she was cool all the time.’

  He stuffed his fist in his mouth, distressed. ‘I’d seen her before, you see. Pretty lady. I wanted to bring her back. He said she was going home and he paid me and said I’d lose my job otherwise. He said I’d never work in Smithfield again if I didn’t and no one would ever know because she’d just disappear. I’d never hear about it again.’

  Edwin Hurly ignored the broken voice and waved him aside.

  ‘Such confidence I had in you, Sam. You let me down.’

  He had recovered from the tears, rolled his eyes, lifted a hand and wagged a finger at the delivery man.

  ‘No, no, no. Look at him. Loco, you see, absolutely loco and foreign with it. They do good butchers in the Ukraine, but loco. That’s his version, poor lad. Can’t be doing with these unreliable versions, even if they have to be heard. Yes, she died in the kitchen, yes, I bled her. The chef didn’t help at all. He did, poor sod, I made him. Yes, I took her to Smithfield to get rid of her, yes, he went too, or no, he didn’t. She gets in down the line to stall fifty-five, where there’s one man who owes me and wanted to keep his business open at all costs. He’s the no-choice man. They all are. That’s one version. Not a version I like.’

  More coughing. Backstage, the kettle came to the boil. There was the slightest tinge of daylight outside. Edwin Hurly continued.

  ‘Deal with my version, OK? I want my version to be the only version, if you don’t mind. Yes, she died in there, but it was me who brought her home, that’s my version. Miss Oh-so-smart S for Sarah will know which version is best for everyone. It was me and me alone. I didn’t kill her, although I might have done. My version goes like this, OK? It was me and me alone, because whatever else kind of a shit I might be, I was giving orders to no-choicers, they were thoroughly blackmailed and what I want now is nobody else to be blamed.’

  He pointed his finger round the room, ending with the delivery man who stood back, shaking.

  ‘Of course it was him, poor sod, who carried her here. But let’s say it was me. Nobody need know I haven’t driven a white van in twenty years, wouldn’t be seen dead in one. I’m beyond all that, except for today. I couldn’t bring her, but I knew who could.’

  The stabbing finger was directed at Sarah.
‘For the record, in front of witnesses, it wasn’t him, it was me. There won’t be a trace in his van, not the way he cleans it and besides, she wasn’t bleeding, so don’t go that way. Yes, the chef helped, but he was drunk and as far as anyone else is concerned he wasn’t there. He’s got his own lines and he’s paid off. Yes, the Smithfield brothers could have known how I got her onto the truck that came from Scotland, got her off again and onto the line and out again, but I’m telling you now, they didn’t. I’m old, but I can still heft a body. I could carry her for half a mile, it’s easy when you learn young. You could have done that all by yourself, couldn’t you, Sam? Especially if everyone else was busy.’

  Sam nodded slowly.

  ‘But you didn’t,’ Sarah said in a flat voice.

  ‘Think what you like. Yes, I did. Better for all concerned if I did, isn’t it? Stowed her in the back yard, somewhere, for a day, we were closed the next day. Then I carried her down here, hooked her up. I’m the one who best knows how to do it and I know how to get in. I worked here, once, didn’t I, when I was twelve, long before I owned the property. I’m the one who knows how nothing changes here, nothing. I’m the one who would have checked with the delivery man that nothing had changed.’

  Edwin Hurly glared at Sarah, leant forward, grasping the arms of the chair.

  ‘Why exactly are you here?’ Sarah said.

  ‘Because you fucking told me to be. You left me the paper. You let me know I was busted, and you let me know that that bastard son of mine was going to be hung out to dry. Can’t have that, either.’

  ‘There’s some goodness in you, then,’ Andrew said earnestly. ‘There’s goodness in us all. We must concentrate on that goodness in ourselves, whatever our belief.’