All the Hidden Truths

by Claire Askew

  ‘Okay,’ she said.

  There was a sort of rummaging noise on the phone line – Amy’s hand over the receiver, no doubt, as she explained to DI Birch that the unhinged Summers woman was on the phone and making an annoyance of herself. Moira looked around at the dingy landing, her vision blurring and sharpening in the gloom. Without really thinking, she reached out and pushed open the bedroom door nearest to her, to let a little light into the windowless space. The bedroom nearest to her was Ryan’s bedroom. The light that came in bounced off the ruined divan bed – set right side down again by Callum, but still slashed – and the upended drawers. The mounds of clothes looked chewed and spat out. For the millionth time, Moira remembered: who she was. Who her son was. What he did. What she had failed to prevent him doing.

  ‘Mrs Summers.’ DI Birch’s voice on the phone jolted Moira, pulled her gaze away from the wrecked room with its empty bed. ‘Amy tells me you’re in need of a warm ear.’

  Moira hesitated. She’d anticipated a very different sort of tone.

  ‘In need of – a what?’

  DI Birch laughed, and inside that laugh Moira could hear a month of weariness.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘it’s something my mother used to say. You’d like to talk to someone, Amy says. Is that right?’

  Moira’s mind raced. Would I? Really?

  ‘I – did say that, yes.’

  ‘You’re struggling with the new arrangement we’ve come to?’

  Something about the way Birch said ‘we’ve’ confirmed what Amy had mentioned about the decision being taken over her head.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay.’ Moira imagined DI Birch looking at her watch – remembered her frazzled hair. ‘Today’s going to be a hard one, I don’t have to tell you that.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But if it’s all right with you, I’d like to come and talk to you myself, once the memorial service is over.’ DI Birch waited a moment, and then added, ‘Would that be okay?’

  Moira thought for a moment.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It would.’

  ‘You’re sure you don’t need to talk to someone sooner than that? I know at your handover meeting with Amy and Callum you had . . . something of a heated discussion. About today.’

  Moira closed her eyes.

  ‘We did,’ she said. ‘But I was in the wrong, then. I see now where they were coming from.’

  ‘It’s not that we don’t think you deserve to be there,’ Birch said. ‘Personally, I think what you said is right. This memorial service should be recognising Ryan, too. After all, he died too.’

  ‘That’s not what I said.’ Moira was wincing now – wishing she’d had the sense at that handover meeting to focus on trying to save Amy, and fend off Callum – but also wincing at DI Birch’s words. He died too. He died.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Birch said, and sounded like she meant it. ‘I might have got the wrong end of the stick. But Amy told me you wanted to be at the service today, and she and Callum – well, they had to explain why . . .’

  ‘. . . why it’s not a good idea,’ Moira said. ‘Yes. And they were right. That’s not what . . . it’s not why I said I wanted to talk to someone.’

  ‘Okay. And Callum’s been to see you this morning?’

  Moira sniffed.

  ‘He has.’

  ‘So you’re going to be okay until later today, when I can come and see you?’

  In spite of herself, Moira twisted round a little, to look again at Ryan’s room. It was going to be a beautiful day: she could tell from the long, pale yellow light slanting in through that room, past the half-opened curtains. Dust danced in the sunbeam: tiny little pieces of hair and skin. Tiny little pieces of Ryan, she thought, and shivered.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Great.’

  Moira looked at the clock on the wall of Ryan’s room, marvelled at the fact that it was still there, on its nail, though the SOCOs must have examined it. One of them must have set it back there, and Moira wondered what had prompted that action.

  ‘DI Birch,’ she said, hurrying to hold Birch’s attention before she hung up. ‘I didn’t want to cause a scene, or anything. At the memorial, I mean. I didn’t want to suggest that it should be made about Ryan . . . or about me, for that matter. That’s the last thing I want. I just . . .’

  The line between them crackled.

  ‘I’ve had a lot of time to think,’ Moira said. ‘About what I want. About whether there is anything I can ever do to . . . fix things. Make things better. And I sometimes think, if I could just . . .’

  Go on, just say it. For God’s sake, woman.

  ‘I don’t know. If I could just . . . talk to some of the families. The families of the victims. If I could just explain . . .’

  DI Birch was quiet. Explain what? Moira thought. She wasn’t sure she knew.

  ‘I understand.’ DI Birch’s reply was so quiet, Moira almost didn’t catch it. ‘I know it sounds unlikely, but I actually do. I understand exactly what that feels like.’

  Moira blinked. The line between them stretched and ebbed.

  ‘Perhaps I can tell you what I mean,’ Birch said, ‘when I see you later.’

  For a moment, Moira said nothing. Then she said, ‘Yes. Thank you.’

  ‘I don’t know when I’ll be there.’ DI Birch’s voice had lost its softness: she sounded as if she’d physically shaken something off. ‘It’s going to be an unpredictable sort of day.’

  ‘That’s fine.’ Moira glanced again at the clock in Ryan’s room. 9.45 a.m. ‘I’m not planning on going anywhere.’

  Moira stood on the landing for a few minutes after putting the phone down. Inside Ryan’s room, the dust motes danced and swam. The sunbeam had crept over the threshold now: she found she was standing inside the golden square it had thrown. The air felt warm. Outside her grey house, beyond the constantly drawn curtains, it was summer. Moira took a moment to marvel at this: the world kept on with its routine, in spite of whatever horror human beings dreamed up. The same was true of the smaller world of her own body. Most days, Moira wanted to do nothing, or as close to nothing as was possible: to lie in bed in the dim light and turn her grief over and over like a dark grey stone. Yet, in the month since Ryan had died – since all those girls had died – her body had kept interrupting. Insisting that she stand up. Hydrate herself, eat what little she could manage without vomiting. These days, it was also telling her to wash, sometimes, and put on clean clothes. And somehow, impossibly, summer was here.

  Moira stood in the doorway of Ryan’s room. Since Callum had righted the bed base, she’d taken to creeping in sometimes and lying down on it – no mattress, just the flimsy board that bowed a little under her weight. She’d never lain on that bed while Ryan was alive. Now, she’d taken to staring at the ceiling with its Anaglypta wallpaper, a throwback to a bygone era of décor that Jackie had always talked about replacing but never had. She imagined Ryan lying there every night, in that exact place, reading the wallpaper’s swoops and curves like a child reads clouds. That part looks like an elephant. That part like a swan with an S-shaped neck. The divan base must have bowed under his weight, too – perhaps she was lying in a groove he’d already made, over many years. Lying there comforted her, and she also hated every second of it. It made her feel weak. Getting up from that bed again to go and get into her own, or to go and feed her nagging body, was the hardest part of any day. And days were hard. Moira realised she’d never done anything this hard, never endured any pain this cold, this unrelenting.

  She leaned down and put the phone back into its cradle. Then she bent down further and unplugged the cable, just to be on the safe side. When she straightened up, the room was still there, full of sun, the cloth-covered top of the divan white and flat as an embalmer’s table. She’d been awake only an hour, yet the desire to lie down again was almost overwhelming. But for the first time, a small voice in her head said, Don’t.

  Moira stood very still, and listened.
There was nothing: only the scuffing voices of the photographers outside and some distant, far-off traffic. But that ‘Don’t’ hung in the air like the clean peal of a bell.

  Don’t go in there. Go and do something else.

  The only thing Moira had come to appreciate about Callum was the fact that he gave her commands. Show me where you keep the mugs. Just stay here for a minute while I make a call. Let me get this window fixed for pity’s sake. They were similar to her body’s commands – You’re thirsty, or You have to eat – she didn’t have to think too much. She realised she’d barely made a single decision in almost a month; even the disastrous meeting with Lockley had been his decision, not hers. Until today, when she’d refused the scene guard. And right now. Right now she was deciding not to go and lie on her dead son’s bed and spend the rest of the day there, crying. She took a long breath in. The air felt warm.

  Results for #TRCmemorial

  Spr G Gulbraith @SapperGeo 45m

  Setting off for the #TRCmemorial. Important to assemble and reveal what truly happened. http://www.truthunifi . . .

  Grant Lockley @thegrantlockley 42m

  First Minister among high-profile attendees at today’s long-awaited Three Rivers public memorial #TRCmemorial http://bit.ly/grantlo . . .

  Grant Lockley @thegrantlockley 41m

  I’ll be there live-tweeting from set up, the vigil, and the memorial service itself. Follow #TRCmemorial for updates throughout the day.

  Alison Ross @alibalyalibalyb 38m

  I was there at Three Rivers College. Sad & proud to be going to the #TRCmemorial for my classmates :’(

  Marianne Egan @maeg21657 35m

  So pleased that my boy Jack will be by my side for the #TRCmemorial today. We won’t stop fighting for #justice.

  Edinburgh Watcher @ALookAtEdin 33m

  #Edinburgh residents remember today is the #TRCmemorial so expect road closures and other disruption in city centre #travel #travelsafe

  Grant Lockley @thegrantlockley 31m

  Poll: should gunman’s mother Moira Summers be allowed to attend #TRCmemorial today? Have your say here: http://bit.ly/poll983 . . .

  Logic Ninja @___logical 30m

  @thegrantlockley No way!!!!! That woman has blood on her hands! #TRCmemorial

  MG @moongurl7 30m

  @thegrantlockley Like I said on yr column Grant – no one wants u there Moira! Personally Im still waiting for her public apology #TRCmemorial

  MG @moongurl7 29m

  @thegrantlockley @___logical U r right, srsly she better not turn up

  to #TRCmemorial!

  #ThreeRivers newsbot @threeriversbot 28m

  #TRCmemorial is today: 438 tweeting about this #threerivers #threeriverscollege #threeriversbot

  #ThreeRivers newsbot @threeriversbot 28m

  RT @thegrantlockley Poll: should gunman’s mother Moira Summers be allowed to attend #TRCmemorial today? Have your say here: http://bit.ly/poll983 . . .

  Spr G Gulbraith @SapperGeo 25m

  I may be in the minority but I think Mrs Summers has every right to be at #TRCmemorial @thegrantlockley @___logical @moongurl7

  Logic Ninja @___logical 23m

  @sappergeo delete your account troll @thegrantlockley @moongurl7 #TRCmemorial

  MG @moongurl7 22m

  Haha um yea this!!!! RT @___logical @sappergeo delete your account troll @thegrantlockley #TRCmemorial!

  8 June, 10.00 a.m.

  Ishbel had woken at 5 a.m., and felt a stab of fear: what was this strange room, dimly outlined by the green glow of an emergency fire escape light? It didn’t smell like her house in Primrose Bank, didn’t sound like it. She could hear too much traffic noise: delivery lorries on cobbles, and somehow, the clunk-clunk of trains. And then she remembered, the way she did every morning, now. After a few moments of blissful oblivion, memory rushed in: She’s dead. My old life is gone. I’ve left my husband. And my only daughter is dead.

  She’d been here for ten days, though it felt like one long blur of sedated sleep, with periods of waking to cry. Ishbel had, a couple of times, made herself go outside and walk around the block. She’d gone to the little newsagent’s on the corner of St Mary’s Street and bought a few things: apples, bottled water. She’d cried as she paid for them. Tourists on the Royal Mile had stared at her as she walked back.

  Her phone was filled with voicemails from Aidan and Pauline. She’d listened to them – Aidan trying a different emotional tack in each one: angry, pleading, sulky – but had not called back. She only answered the phone when Rehan called her. He was a policeman, after all. They spoke awkwardly and in short bursts. He told her he thought it would be a good idea if she and Aidan met to talk. She told him thank you, but he was not a marriage counsellor and she felt he ought to do the job he was being paid for. She knew that was unfair, but it worked – Rehan hadn’t mentioned it again after that.

  Now, Ishbel dressed in the little enclave of the hotel en-suite, the holdall propped on the counter, miniature shampoo bottles cannoned over like ninepins. She had nothing left of her own that hadn’t been worn, now, and Aidan wasn’t here to tell her what to do. Since she’d arrived at the strange halfway house of the Premier Inn, she’d taken Abigail’s belongings out of the bag many times – just to touch them. Unfold them, shake them out and then fold them again. Just to put her face against them and breathe in.

  Now she began to put them on. First, a pair of tights she’d found in the chest of drawers in Abigail’s room. They were good quality, expensive; they had none of the raspy static about them that Ishbel’s own workaday ones had. They also had a black seam running up the back of each leg, like wartime stockings, or the kind that burlesque performers wore. Mutton dressed as lamb, Ishbel thought, looking at them on her own legs.

  Over them, Ishbel put on the plain black skirt she’d worn to the crematorium. Then, Abigail’s coral top, which was pretty, but altogether the wrong colour for a memorial. The school tie came out of the bag in a kind of snarl, and as Ishbel unwove it, she wondered at the way some things can do that – knot themselves up without any human hand touching them. For a moment, she considered wearing the tie as a sort of headband, but then changed her mind and looped it twice around her neck, as though it were a very thin scarf. Among the jewellery Ishbel had pilfered were two different pairs of earrings. She couldn’t decide which to wear, and so opted for one of each, a different one in each ear. She clipped on the gold locket, and snapped into her hair two glittery hairclips she’d found alongside the jewellery. Abigail had used them a lot, to keep her unruly, pale hair out of her face. But Abigail had been blessed with Aidan’s hair: Ishbel’s own was dark, and cut severely. The hairclips bunched it into two clumps that looked like tiny shaving brushes. But Ishbel reached up and touched the hairclips gently, in turn. It didn’t matter what they looked like. These are Abigail’s. She corrected herself: were Abigail’s.

  There wasn’t much left besides the silky dressing gown, and though she was sorely tempted, Ishbel realised she was going to a holy place, and couldn’t stoop to the disrespect of nightwear in church, whatever the occasion. She pulled on the black jacket she’d worn to the cremation – stiff and a little warped now from being left for days on the hotel radiator. In the mirror, she looked unhinged: like a mother who’d agreed to let her small child pick out clothes for her. But I am unhinged, Ishbel thought. Uncoupled from everything that made me who I was. That blank room had been her home long enough now that she felt stateless, like she was no one. And nobody, she thought, buttoning the outfit in behind her too-warm overcoat, notices a no one.

  She’d walked up towards the Canongate, and found neon-vested stewards placing cordons at the line where the pavement met the cobbled road. They were doing so all along the length of the street. Traffic was still rolling up and down the Royal Mile, but police vehicles were beginning to gather, and soon the whole thing would be closed to allow the procession from the vigil site to the cathedral to pass through. Ishbel dithered at the corner o
f Cranston Street, trying to decide whether or not to turn left, downhill, to the vigil. She was distracted by the slant of yellow light along the fascia of the tenement in front of her: the sandstone block was lit up like a paper bag with a candle inside it. As she stood there, a flock of pigeons took off from one of the high slate roofs and barrelled, clattering, through the blue air to the other side of the street. The chimney stack they settled around had one fine feather of smoke drifting up out of it: somewhere in the maze of the building, a fire was lit, in spite of the June morning’s early warmth. Ishbel turned her head right, to look up the hill for the Tron Church clock tower and St Giles beyond it, and as she did, she caught the good, bread-like smell of the Caledonian brewery. The vigil would be crowded. There’d be TV cameras. Aidan was going. Rehan had phoned up to tell her, to ask if she’d like to meet there, maybe say a few words? If she looked up the hill, the sun was behind her, throwing her own shadow long and gunmetal grey onto the pavement. If she walked that way, that shadow would always be ahead of her. Ishbel put her hands into the pockets of the overcoat, and made for the crossing.

  She’d expected to find St Giles Cathedral as it usually was: a cool, dark cavern in the midst of the city, hushed but for the occasional squeak of a tourist’s shoe against the stone floor, the occasional whispers of its visitors. But when she rounded the cathedral’s shoulder, she found West Parliament Square was full of activity: cordons erected, trucks chugging in and out between the chain-link barriers, men in hard hats removing scaffolding from the fronts of giant erected screens. A few news crews were already there, their anchors standing at various points around the Queensberry Memorial, cameramen vying for the best angle of the cathedral’s exhaust-blacked face. Though there were official-looking personnel everywhere – people in hi-vis or wearing fleeces with the STV logo stitched into them; people talking into headsets or brandishing walkie-talkies – no one tried to stop Ishbel as she climbed the few steps to the cathedral’s entrance and made her way inside. And inside, things were even busier: the central nave was rigged with a steel climbing frame of lights. Around her, people rushed and chattered: men in polo shirts with STAFF screen-printed across the back hoisted camera equipment and taped cables to the floor. Above it all the Great West Window blazed its refracted colours.