Quiet Neighbors

by Catriona McPherson

  “Could you hear her breathing?” said Eddy.

  “I couldn’t hear anything,” said Jude, “with the noise of the baby.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Eddy said. “I forgot the baby. Poor wee mite, eh?” She put a hand on the top of her belly and held it there, looking at Jude with not a single twinkle in her eye. “And then you dialled 999,” she said. “Just like anyone would. You did the right thing. Just like any other good person. Didn’t you?”

  Twenty-Six

  “Oh my dears!” Lowell had opened the door so quietly that neither one of them had time to compose her face. “Those ruddy police!”

  “Steady on, Dad,” said Eddy, with a shaky laugh. “Mind your language.”

  “They let me off comparatively lightly,” he said, “thanks to the fact that the house was empty and it’s not insured.”

  “It’s not insured?” said Jude. “Oh Lowell. I’m so sorry. If only I hadn’t come and started kicking up dust.”

  He shushed her, flapping his hands as though he were swimming doggy paddle. “Truth will come to light,” he said. “‘Murder cannot be hid long.’”

  “What?” said Eddy. “What murder?”

  “Oh my dears! I should be shot.”

  “It’s just an expression, Eddy,” said Jude. “A quotation. From … ”

  “The Merchant of Venice,” said Lowell.

  “Who?”

  “What do we do now?” Jude said.

  “We get back into the cottage and purloin the letter for one thing,” said Lowell.

  “Which, if you’d put it in your bag or your back pocket instead of in some old book where you’d completely forget it was, we’d already have it,” Eddy offered.

  “I just hope, dear me, yes, that the fire investigator doesn’t find it first.”

  “Oh yeah, like the fire investigator’s going to go snooping through a pile of manky old books looking for clues to a fire that started downstairs. Why would he? Why would anyone? Who puts stuff that matters in a book deliberately, instead of like bus tickets or that to keep your place?”

  Jude leapt up from the button-backed chair. “Eddy, you’re a genius,” she said.

  “I try,” Eddy said. “How come this time though?”

  “I knew there was something,” Jude said. “I knew there was some reason I wanted to bring the book club books. I’ve got it. Lowell, where can we spread them out?”

  “Dining room,” Lowell said, striding out and across the hall, into another of the unused parts of Jamaica House. It was dancing with dust motes and sad in the daylight, its dark wood and rich colours much more suited for lamp-lit evenings.

  “Christ Almighty, when’s the funeral?” said Eddy, looking around.

  Jude clicked on the electric light hanging low over the long table. “Perfect,” she said. “Eddy, we’ll run up and down and you unpack them.”

  “Right,” Jude said, twenty minutes later. “Three book clubs, like you said, Lowell.” She picked up the nearest volume. “First, the one he joined himself when his wife was still alive. He didn’t write anything on any of these because he didn’t need to; he had someone to talk to. But then there’s the next one—the one his daughter Angela got him. He wrote wonderful little reviews in them. Witty, pithy, clever little summaries. I think I fell in love with Todd Jolly because he gave Rosemary’s Baby the one-word review Blimey!”

  Eddy rolled her eyes. Lowell shouted with laughter.

  “But I’m not entirely sure I quite see, my dear,” he added mildly.

  Jude opened Black Narcissus to the endpaper. “Brilliant but I bet the tourist board hates him. See the thing about these is—and this is the lightbulb you turned on, Eddy—it never occurred to him that anyone would ever read them. These were his little jokes with himself, part of the pleasure of reading, along with building his shelves and all the rest of it. He never meant anyone to see these. But then something happens.”

  She took the volume of Lolita, which had put itself under her hand, and opened it.

  “A third book club. One hundred books to read before you die. He’s thinking about death, you see. And he’s old now; his friends are starting to go and he’s seen it happen that a house is cleared and people go through a person’s belongings. He knows that someone will see his words once he’s gone. He means someone to see his words. In one way it destroys his writing—there’s no playfulness, no little jokes. But what there is … is messages. He’s writing down what someone needs to know. Archie Patterstone is dead. Etta Bell is fading fast. I will tell Dr. Glen enough is enough. This plain man is sick of the world tonight.”

  “What are you on about?”

  “He knew what was happening,” Lowell said.

  “But what was happening?” Eddy said.

  “Frank and Pete Oughton wanted the farm,” said Jude. “What about the rest of them, Lowell?”

  “Elsie’s daughter moved into her house” said Lowell. “As far as I remember. I can’t tell you anything about Etta Bell, though. And Archie Patterstone was a lifelong bachelor.”

  “I don’t suppose you can remember what happened to his estate?” Jude asked.

  “Estate is rather a grand word for it,” Lowell told her. “He lived in the pensioners’ cottages. Can’t have left much beyond his Post Office savings and his—”

  “What?” said Jude.

  “Well, dear me, this might sound silly, but his allotment.”

  “For growing prize leeks?” said Eddy. “Or does allotment mean something else here?”

  “I know, I know, it does sound silly. Good heavens, how could it fail to? But two things. Archie Patterstone worked on that soil for decades. It was like caviar. And I’ve just remembered who inherited it.” He paused. “Bill McLennan.”

  “So what?” said Eddy.

  “Billy McLennan,” Jude said, “whose wife was so angry when I started snooping.”

  “What?” said Eddy.

  “Jackie didn’t want Auntie Lorna in the nursing home. Cared for and looked after and using up all her money.”

  “This is pretty wackadoo, Jude,” said Eddy.

  “Look, we already thought someone had done it, didn’t we? Someone freaked out when the doctor started threatening exhumations. So all we’re saying now is that it happened more than once. The Oughtons offed the old lady for the farm. The Days offed Elsie for the house. Bill offed Archie for his allotment. The Bells … Maureen was rattled when I asked, and her cousin deleted Jackie’s call log.”

  “And you think Todd Jolly saw what a doctor missed and he left hints in his books?”

  “At least hints,” said Jude. “If we’re lucky, proof! He was certainly writing in the hundred-books volumes all through the time these people were dying. Eddy, what are the dates again?”

  “I still think this is major nutso,” said Eddy, “but … December 1983 to May 1985,” she said. “That’s like fifty books!”

  “Eighteen,” corrected Lowell. “Dear me. Late ’83 to early ’85, eh? Well well.”

  “What?” said Jude.

  “Let’s hope nothing,” he said, not quite meeting her eye.

  “Rip it off,” said Eddy, understanding the emotion he was feeling, even if she couldn’t guess at its source. “Just grab one corner and rip it off, Dad. It’s the only way.”

  Lowell looked at her at first unseeingly and then with a small smile. “Do you have any idea, my dear child, that you make my heart leap like a salmon every time you say that word? Of course you don’t, and that is part of the wonder. Now see here, Jude and I are going to be mining the book mountain in the dead room all day. I want you to come with us. I think we should stick together.”

  Eddy regarded him steadily. “I can’t bloody stand salmon,” she said. “Too pink and too greasy.”

  It was more than twice as fast with two of them, somehow, and Jud
e was forced to admit that, in spite of all of his vagueness and the way he pattered about, when it came to shifting books, Lowland Glen was the equal of any librarian she had ever known. He was big, for a start, and could move twelve paperbacks at a time, six in each splayed hand, if he lined them up well. And he didn’t stop to leaf through what he was unpacking. So he kept Jude up to the mark. Between them they got into a rhythm of stripping back the plastic of the carrier bag or untwisting the dovetailed flaps of a cardboard box, assessing what was in there, and then Lowell would clear the chaff away while Jude delivered the wheat to Eddy.

  “But some of the hundred-books books don’t even have his name in them,” Jude said. “I only know them from the book club stickers.”

  “Just keep everything,” said Lowell. “Whittling down is a great deal easier than whittling up.”

  The corridor was in danger of closing completely and Lowell decided not to open the shop, told Eddy not to put lights on in the upstairs rooms, if she wandered there in between deliveries. She didn’t wander, but she did complain about being bored and asked them to talk to her, standing in the dead room door with her Birkenstocks kicked off and her feet in padded posting bags to keep them warm.

  “How can you be bored?” Jude said. “There are eighty thousand books out there.”

  “And what of the dreaded device?” asked Lowell, pushing his spectacles up his head and smiling at her.

  “It’s off,” said Eddy. “I thought you’d be happy.”

  “Off because of that phone call?” said Jude, but Eddy only scowled at her and shuffled away, little pockets of the bubble wrap in her makeshift shoes snapping with every step.

  “Todd!” Lowell sang out. Jude crowded in beside him to see.

  “BCA, BCA, BCA,” said Lowell. “Ah, ‘One Hundred Books to Read Before You Die,’ number 45: Ulysses.”

  “God almighty,” said Jude. “They should have made it 99 with just one after it, so you could die happy. Will I get that other Ulysses back from Eddy now? Now we know it’s not his?”

  Lowell looked down at her through his spectacles, clouded with dirt and slightly steamed up from his exertions. “Let’s leave it,” he said. “I’m interested in the duplicate copies. I’m sure some of the other book club members were as elderly as Todd himself. Who knows? Perhaps we’ll find another diarist among them.” He looked back at the book in his hand. “Anyway, 45 is well within our range. Number 34 was 1982’s Christmas pick. You do the honours.”

  He handed the book to Jude and then, to her astonishment he put his arm casually around her shoulder while she opened it. It might have been partly to help him rest and it would have been more welcome if he hadn’t been so hot; hot enough to warm every layer of outfit from shirt, through musty cardigan, through elderly hairy jacket, so that she got fresh sweat and stale sweat and ancient sweat all mixed in. But she leaned into him anyway and was even more astonished when he dropped a kiss on top of her head.

  She turned the book towards the light, the single naked bulb in the centre of the room, and read.

  He’s either a genius or a madman, Todd Jolly had written. It’s like dancing to jazz music, reading this.

  “Wonderful!” Lowell said. “I had no idea these notes were here. What must you think of me?”

  He took his arm way and plunged into the box for another. “Number 46!” he announced. Then he threw back his head and shouted. “You’re missing the best bit, dear child.”

  There was silence from outside and then Eddy’s voice shouting back, “I’ll cope.”

  “Number 46,” said Lowell again. “The Wind in the Willows.”

  “A reward after Ulysses,” Jude said.

  “Seems like a kid’s book,” Lowell read. “Not so much to it as Animal Farm and a gey sight too English to bring back memories of my boyhood. That’s all he wrote at first, but look.”

  Jude peered over his arm and read what was written in Todd’s firm handwriting.

  “This was when Norma Oughton died. They said she was worn out. She was nothing of the sort. M. told me N. didn’t think much of U. and I phoned her up and we agreed about it and had a good laugh. We talked for half an hour and only rang off because I was tired. I was tired. She was fine. She had years left in her.”

  “Who’s M.?” said Lowell.

  “I have no idea,” said Jude. “It’s come up before, though.” She read it over. “This was when Norma Oughton died,” she repeated. “You see what it means, don’t you?”

  Lowell nodded. “He went back later—possibly much later—and added that. Different pen too.”

  “I’ll deliver them to Eddy,” Jude said. “Keep digging.” She took both books and picked her way out of the room towards Lowell’s desk. “Here’s two mor—”

  Eddy was sitting there, turned away and whispering fiercely into her phone.

  “Eddy?”

  The girl shrieked loud enough to bring Lowell stumbling from the dead room, crashing into one of Jude’s towers and sending the books, so carefully sorted, in an avalanche across the floor.

  “Jesus Christ!” Eddy said. “What the fuck, Jude?”

  “Darling girl, what’s wrong?” Lowell demanded.

  “Nothing!” said Eddy “Fuck sake. Calm down, Da—” She bit off the word and snapped her gaze back to the phone. She lifted it and spoke in a hissing whisper. “Now see what you’ve done? Leave me alone!” She killed the call, pressing her thumb down as if she was trying to choke the life out of her phone.

  “Who was that?” said Lowell. “Are you sure you’re—”

  “No one,” said Eddy. “A friend.”

  “A friend who needs to leave you alone?” Jude said.

  “I bloody wish you’d leave me alone. Both of you.”

  “In that case,” said Lowell, “Jude, come and see what I’ve found now.”

  He hadn’t noticed the bitten off dad while the line was open. Jude had.

  “One minute,” she said. And when he had gone she spoke in a low voice. “Are you in trouble?”

  Eddy pointed at her stomach and said, “Duh! No, I’m not. If everyone would stop freaking out. I’m not, but yeah, I might be. As it happens.”

  “Tell me,” said Jude. “I’m here for you.”

  “Yeah, right,” said Eddy. “You’ll be there for me if I get dragged off to the cop shop. You’ll be right there bailing me out, eh?”

  “I think that’s on films,” Jude said. “Bailing people out of jails. But I take your point.”

  “I take your point,” said Eddy in a mincing singsong, mocking her. “In other words, I’m on my own.”

  “Eddy, for God’s sake, how can you say that?” Jude jabbed a finger towards the dead room. “That man loves you. Instantly. Unconditionally. You pop up out of nowhere—I’m your daughter, here’s your grandkid, oh wait, no grandkid after all—and all he does is love you.”

  “It probably helps that he thinks he’s my dad, yeah?” Jude said nothing. “And about the grandkid, I’m kind of rethinking the whole Liam and Terry angle again, so I hope you’re right.”

  Jude gave her a stunned look. Did rethinking the angle mean coming clean? If Eddy came clean about her own secrets, would she still keep Jude’s? Before she could think of a way to ask, Lowell called for her.

  “I’ve found his Godfather!”

  “Go back to your clues, Nancy Drew,” Eddy said.

  In the back of The Godfather (49) Todd had written, Should have read it before I saw the film. I couldn’t get that that daft voice out of my head. Then later: Elsie Day is gone. I mind her skipping in the playground with her skirt flying up and her wee navy-blue knickers. Dead from renal failure. She was still dancing at the bowling club on Christmas Eve. She winked at me. Later still, and this time with a shaking hand, he had added: Number two.

  “Then came Archie,” Jude said. “Written about
in On the Beach. And Lolita was only six months later, and Etta Bell was already fading. That’s what he wrote. Fading fast.”

  “I wish this book club advertised the next volume in the current one,” Lowell said. “Then at least we’d know what we were looking for.”

  Jude clicked her fingers. “Keep rummaging.” She backed out of the room and squeezed along the corridor. They had given up all pretence of organising the books now as they threw them over their shoulders. The mess should have appalled her, should have made every inch of her skin crawl, should have made her throat feel felt-lined. In fact, as she edged past them, they barely registered. Perhaps like a very small pebble under the instep in her shoe.

  The girl was gone.

  Jude listened at the toilet door and then knocked softly.

  “Eddy?” she said. “You okay, love?”

  There was only silence and when Jude turned the handle and entered, the tiny room was empty and the cistern quiet.

  “Eddy?” she shouted up the stairs, listening. The whole house was still.

  She looked along the passage towards where Lowell was working and hesitated. If Eddy wanted to run, she should be allowed to run. She was over eighteen. But Lowell thought she was eight months pregnant. Jude took a step towards him and then breathed out a huff of relief as she heard the garden door open. A moment later, Eddy appeared from Coasters and Key Rings, stepping quietly, looking the other way, towards where she thought Lowell and Jude were both working. When she heard the noise of books being moved in the dead room, she breathed out and trotted along the side passage.

  “Been out for a breath of fresh?” Jude asked and then felt rotten as Eddy jumped in the air and, swinging round, turned her ankle. She was carrying something and, from instinct at the fright, she had put it up like a weapon. Jude frowned. “What the hell?”

  Eddy was brandishing one of the spoons from the kitchen alcove, a tablespoon that usually sat in the coffee jar, making everyone tip too many of the bitter granules into their mugs, making the bad coffee even worse. Jude stared at it. It was caked in mud, as was the hand Eddy held it in.