Cold to the Touch

by Fyfield, Frances

  He looked towards Sarah imploringly, as if he was begging for forgiveness for her, too.

  ‘Oh, shut up, whoever you are. You look like a vicar and you’ll be as bad as the old one, pious, pompous bastard, although he did have a way with the ladies. My wife used to think the sun shone out of his arse. You’re a load of perverts and hypocrites. Spare me bloody platitudes.’

  ‘I meant to say,’ Andrew said, loudly and with considerably more dignity, ‘that there really isn’t much that can’t be forgiven, ultimately. And there’s nobody so bad that they can’t redeem themselves with their own bit of goodness, however small. I say it because I believe it. Your daughter was in pain: so were you. And the fact that you want to exonerate others from blame for any part in it redeems you, it seems to me. Not completely – there’s no such thing – but it goes a long way.’

  To Sarah’s surprise, this humble sermon was not met with contempt. Edwin Hurly listened as he let his head sink onto his chest. They waited in silence. Only Sarah came closer. Finally he looked up, and laughed.

  ‘So that’s why I’m here, then. My passport to heaven after a long spell in purgatory. Hell can’t be any worse than living here. Look at the time. It’ll be light soon. Any questions?’

  Mike stepped closer, still ready to hit and still with the knife behind his back.

  ‘How did she die? Why the fuck did you hang her up like that?’

  ‘I wish you’d put that knife down. I’ve asked you already. Any more human blood in this shop and Sam Brady’ll be ruined. You’ll hear it all on her phone, she was recording it. There’s your bloody evidence. A god-almighty row, right? Her coming at me with those nails of hers, threatening to tell Celia, telling me I had to come home with her. The floor was still wet from cleaning. She was out of her head, furious. I can’t remember the sequence. Silly shoes. She was running, slipped and fell, she hit her head on the edge of the steel corner. You’ll hear, I talk myself through it, too. I didn’t kill her. I might just about have killed her mother by breaking her heart, but I didn’t kill her. She killed herself.’

  Such a cruel, handsome face, Sarah thought.

  Mike put the knife back in the rack. The light inside the room seemed to grow dimmer at the mere suggestion that another day was beginning outside.

  ‘But slitting her throat, bleeding her . . . WHY?’

  Edwin Hurly considered the question briefly, puzzled by it, as if the answer was perfectly obvious.

  ‘I wanted her to look beautiful. It’s the only humane way, right? I’d heard her neck crack, I know when a beast is killed, I know it. I trained in an abattoir. There’s nothing as good-looking as a good well-bled carcass. Much more dignified than a body changing colour and stinking to high heaven within a day, I didn’t want that. Was trying to keep her dignity, keep her clean and sweet so she’d get home looking good. Be at her best. Nothing nicer than a well-slaughtered carcass. It’s a beautiful sight. Nothing more beautiful.’

  Sam nodded agreement. It made sense to him.

  ‘There’ll only be ashes to put in the sea,’ Sarah said.

  There was silence in the circle.

  ‘Look at the time,’ Edwin Hurly said to the delivery man. ‘Get that stuff out now. He’ll be opening in an hour or two, got things to do. Got to get this show on the road. You should have sunk the daft bitch, Sam Brady, when she looked her beautiful best. Before somebody else gutted her.’

  Strange, to hear and watch the workings of an alien mind. Master butcher Hurly had his own terrible logic and standards of beauty, so different and yet so real that Sarah almost appreciated them – for a minute. A bled carcass which looked fit for human consumption was a prettier sight than a dead body dressed by an undertaker. There was no comparison. At least he had stopped short of gutting her. She was watching the alternative but viable morality of a man so sure that someone else would do exactly what he expected them to do and so certain that others would behave and react as he would have done, with the same immaculate taste. Never doubting that Sam Brady, good butcher that he was, would feel the same admiration for a piece of work well done, take it out to sea in accordance with instructions, and get on with business. She did not want to listen to whatever was on that phone. Wanted to believe it was as he said. Wanted Edwin Hurly gone because, unlike Andrew, she could not muster a shred of compassion for this big old man who had slit the throat of his own daughter in order to get her home smelling sweet. He had done it for himself, not for her.

  Edwin Hurly lumbered to his feet.

  ‘Better I don’t contaminate the place. I’ll go now, before anyone sees me. I leave it to you lot what you say, but my version’s better than the truth. The truth was the only way I could think of. For God’s sake, Sam, get your order indoors and get to work. Let that boy get back to London – he’s whacked. And you,’ he addressed Sarah, ‘you make sure it’s my version, right? It’s the one that gets everyone off the hook, if you see what I mean. That’s your responsibility.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘About my own business, not yours.’

  He seemed determined upon a course, ready to move, still confident of being obeyed. She noticed the heavy boots on his big feet, far removed from the smooth city shoes he had been wearing in his own restaurant where he had looked far more at home than he did here. There, he looked like a swarthier version of the bankers and stockbrokers he entertained: here, he looked like a fisherman in the wrong clothes.

  ‘Going for a long walk. I need the exercise. I may call in on my wife, only it is a little early. She’s not often an early riser. Probably not. Tell her I loved her once. Wasn’t her fault, it was this suffocating place.’

  ‘What do you want us to do?’

  ‘You know very well what I want you to do. Give my version, later in the day. Make it convincing, only give me a bit of time. Go home to your own beds. Keep the phone, it’s all the evidence you need.’

  The delivery man and Sam Brady unloaded from the white van, scurrying in and out like large ants. Vacuum-packed ham, ready-jointed joints, pork and sausages in packets, instant stock requiring the minimal preparation for attractive display, wholesale, ready-prepared meat not requiring a butcher’s skill, except for one quarter of beef, a gift, the delivery man said. It was the only way to start again, for the time being. Organic local produce could wait, although in the meantime Sam knew it was the only way to go. Local produce was for later, because bugger the profit margins in the future; he wanted nothing else delivered in the dark from Smithfield. In the meantime, there was plenty for a display of meat within two hours. The future and the exorcism of ghosts depended upon it. The return of the village to a normal life, as a place with a centre, depended upon it.

  Sarah and Andrew stood outside, standing back from work in progress, and watched the large figure of Edwin Hurly walking downhill towards the bend in the road, disappearing out of sight. He was veering left, towards the next town. Dawn was beginning in the sky, not yet touching the land.

  ‘We should go after him,’ Andrew said. ‘Come on, let’s go. I don’t know what he’s going to do, and he’s a man of conscience, for all that.’

  ‘No,’ Sarah said. ‘No.’

  Ten minutes later, the delivery man, who’d never had a name, got into his white van and drove away, fast.

  An hour later the Pennyvale traffic jam began.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  How had she done this? What was it Edwin Hurly had said? I didn’t see her; she was there. She had taken the phone off and put it down.

  Sarah was on the cliff path alone, playing it back. The record of a Sunday night conversation.

  (Calm voice, male.) What the hell are you doing here, girl? I told you, stay away. What are you on? What do you want to do, ruin me? Do you know what time it is? You should be in bed. Oh God. Dinner. I forgot. I got busy, I forgot.

  (Female voice, hysterical.) Bastard, bastard, bastard, fucking bastard. You forgot. Like hell you forgot, you left me sitting alone. You
were going to make it up to me for leaving me again and again. All you ever do is leave and get away with it. Every time, you leave and you lie. You say you love me, and you lie, you’ve lied to me all my life. You lied to my mother, you broke her into pieces. How could you let me think you were dead, how could you let me think it was ME who drove you away to die? How could you do that to me? You drive me mad.

  You were mad before that, girl.

  DON’T call me GIRL! MAD? What about you? You give out love like you’ve won some lottery, then it’s all gone, gone, gone. Couldn’t believe it when I found you again. You hugged me; you kissed me. You said I’d be the most important person in your life, for ever, just like it was. You were proud of me, just like you were once, wanted to take me everywhere, you said we’d do that again, only don’t let Mummy know. We’ll go to all the best places, you’d go with me, you’d get me work, get me started. You took me places, made me meet people, got me jobs, Daddy, you were proud of me. Why did you stop? What did I do?

  You’re a stupid little tart, Jess. You wanted me to go home. I got scared of you and I won’t be scared of anyone. Grow up. You can’t, Jess, you never could. You should go home. You’re a home girl. You can’t even cook. How could you think I could ever go back to hell?

  Go home and keep quiet? Go without you? Not tell her? I can’t go home ever again, because of you. I don’t want to go anywhere without you. I love you, Daddy. I love you so much it hurts and you shut me out. I can’t live without you. I want Mummy to be happy. I want to stop this pain and make us all happy.

  (Him, wearily.) Get real, Jess. You’re a loser. I can’t make you a winner. You can’t hold down a job. You’re a fucking stalker. You’ll ruin me . . . You’ve made a fool of me three times over. Look, what do you want? Money?

  I want you to love me like you said you would, like you did. I want you to love both of us.

  (Sobbing.)

  Get real, Jessica. Can’t love a stalker. Go away, please, I’m tired. If you show me up, if you come here again, I’ll fucking kill you.

  (Pause. Footsteps, metal clashing, fist on surface?)

  (Female.) Where’s that bloody chef? I’ll tell him.

  Go home, girl. Tell you what, if you’re good, I’ll take you . . . somewhere nice. PUT THAT KNIFE DOWN.

  Again? Like a pet on a lead? And then stand me up? I’ll kill you first, I’ll kill you. It was better when you were dead. I was happy when you were dead.

  Put it down, girl. Stoppit. It’s sharp, put it down. STOPPIT.

  (Shuffling, crashing, both voices screaming, indecipherable noise: duration thirty seconds. Silence one minute.)

  (Male voice.) Shit. Where’s your phone? Oh, no, no, no. Oh, you silly little calf. What have you done?

  Convenient that the recording had ended there, the last messages curtailed by Edwin Hurly finding the phone. It was all oddly undramatic, sounding more like a Saturday-night screaming row between two drunks in the middle of a longstanding shouting match with threats, where nobody died and they all stood up again like characters in a cartoon film. It coincided with the prescribed version, leaving terrible ambiguities. Unclear throughout: there were intervals with nothing but white noise, mumbling, yelling, crashing; Jessica’s phone could not record what went on in every corner of a room. The recording was unable simultaneously to show who had attacked whom while it worked to exonerate anyone else. Had Edwin Hurly really been sure that Jessica was dead when he’d used his own knife with such imperative speed? The cut would have had to be instant: otherwise she would not have bled.

  Twenty-four hours for a bled body to cool; transfer to Smithfield on Smithfield’s busiest day of the week. For the record, Jessica would rest in the cold dark backyard of a fashionable restaurant in the meantime. DK was closed on Mondays: he could live with her corpse there for longer than that. After that, according to the record which would become official, Edwin Hurly had brought her home the long way, by himself.

  Sarah knew that he had not done so. Edwin Hurly was a man who gave orders, did not deliver himself. Jessica had rested in the delivery man’s cold van, waiting her chance to go home. Edwin Hurly was a man who forced others to do his will, just as he was doing now. He wanted them to know the truth of his ingenuity and his power and then act upon the untruths and Sarah, for one, was willing to comply. He wanted them to know all but the details and then wanted them not to know. Sarah wondered how long it had taken him to realise that this was the only way.

  She was rationing compassion in the interests of compromise. Sarah had called the police and informed them that she would be arriving soon with new evidence and it was better that she came to them rather than them coming to her, because all it was was a phone. Mike and Andrew disappeared into the ether, following instructions. Let Sam Brady and herself be the only witnesses to Edwin Hurly’s reappearance and confession: keep it simple. It was not good to make a man of the cloth tell lies: better that he had never been there. Andrew had shaken her hand on leaving, gazing into her eyes, his own full of questions and disappointment and hope. A hooker. A Mary Magdalene, ripe for redemption. Maybe she was.

  The best part of the day had gone. Sarah had been accused, lectured and criticised for obstruction of the course of justice. She’d opened her eyes wide, and held her innocent ground. The light was going again before she walked past the bend in the road, turned left and followed the coastal path to the next town, deviating onto the shingle beach, following the pathways that Jeremy had shown her on the way back and because the beach was such a wilderness it was difficult to remember, until she gave way to instinct and let her own feet lead her. She had learned about instinct and finding her way in the dark and she was thinking as she walked that this hidden village was not as disjointed as she’d thought. There was a core to it: there was common opinion: there was secret knowledge of who was who and what was what, secretly shared. There had been a fine conspiracy to lead the police in the opposite direction from the obvious place where anyone who knew Jeremy would know where they might have gone. There was loyalty here; there was devotion to those who had not left; there was belief in innocent until proved guilty, whatever the evidence. Those two had not stayed free in the darkness alone. Someone had helped.

  They had been in her house only once. They took a risk to bury a dog: they were savages with peculiar consciences. There was plenty of anarchic goodness in this place.

  As Sarah approached the beach, she met a man returning from it, an old man who seemed to wink compulsively, accompanied by an even older (in canine time) dog that knew how to walk the paths on the beach without injuring its paws on the shingle.

  Mike had come part of the way and then went back when he saw the emptiness of the landscape. He was afraid of nothing but nothingness like this. He hated wide empty spaces.

  ‘Got to go home, doll, can’t walk on this stuff. Can’t stand this place, can’t help anyone if I’m scared. When are you coming home?’

  ‘Don’t know. You’ve been brilliant. You are a star in my firmament.’

  ‘Like those in this bloody great big sky? No, thanks. I need other kinds of lights. This scares me. Just don’t tell me you’re going to stay here and marry the vicar and raise kids.’

  ‘At my age?’

  ‘You’re never too old. You can always hightail it to town. Don’t leave it too long. I’m not waiting for you. You told me, don’t.’

  ‘No, don’t wait. No one should ever wait for me.’

  Sarah could hear his footsteps, going back, losing the path, afraid to go over the dip and be out of sight of the few lights on the side road and the twinkling lights beginning to emerge from the pub and the row behind. Mike could not bear this kind of darkness and whatever he did he always had to know the way back. He had to know his own territory to function, while she had never been afraid of the new. All she could hear was the sound of the sea and the distinctive sounds made by her own feet whenever they went left and right off the meandering path which led with such charming indir
ectness, somewhere and nowhere. The sound of boots on shingle was as loud as shouting, neutralising the sound of the water that seemed so distant and yet so close. They would hear her approaching long before they could see her. Better Mike had gone back: otherwise they might have run. A single set of footsteps was better than two.

  The beach shelved as steeply as she remembered, levelled out and shelved again. She fell once or twice over the first slope, hazarded the next and followed her own feet. Beyond the amazing growth of fennel, garlic, thistles and soon-to-be vibrant flowers, there were only smooth hard-going stones. Sarah slithered and slipped, bore left, plodded on noisily, until she could sense as much as see the colony of damaged boats looming ahead, identifiable by shape alone, backlit by the reflection from the sea itself, still hidden beyond the last shelf. There was a single light illuminating the little colony; a light that was extinguished as soon as her steps became audible.

  How clever that the search parties had always gone right of the village, towards the cliffs and the old ice houses, never to the left in the other direction, guided then by crafty local expertise. Sarah was carrying six cans which rattled in a bag. Her imagination, that mortar between facts, told her that even the sound of that burden was audible and welcome. She walked beyond the boat colony, with her all too noisy steps, as if she had not seen it, stepped into the beyond. This was vanity, she told herself as she slithered down the last shelf and sat facing a quiet, murmuring, talkative sea, so peaceful that she felt able to have a conversation with it.

  She sat on her bottom, twenty feet from the mumbling waves, lit a cigarette, shook the carrier bag she had carried with her so that it made a tinny sound, waited. The bag had grown heavier with each step, given her ballast. She took one can from it, sipped from the rim and slung the rest to one side. Wine was her preference; lager would do. She wanted to swim out here when it was warmer. Home was where you could find your own way, backwards and forwards, a place where you had no fear.

  Finally two figures slithered into shape beside her. Sarah ignored them and turned her face to the sea, sat with her bum on cold shingle, arms crossed over her knees, looking ahead. Greedy hands went towards the bag three feet away. Then they sat in a single line, facing the sea. Today the waves chose a time to mumble rather than roar: she was grateful for that.