by M B Vincent
The long turn into the main thoroughfare.
The vet’s.
The medical centre.
The long-stay car park.
The bridge.
Kidbury Road.
Harebell House.
She was home. Kuzbari didn’t realise that her house felt like a morgue much of the time. She let herself in.
Music. Whooping. Barking. Laughter she recognised.
‘When did you get here?’ Jess found Mary in the warm kitchen.
‘About an hour ago.’ Mary let Bogna out of her arms and the woman spun, dizzy, onto a chair. She was crying with laughter.
‘We dance,’ she managed.
At the table, Susannah sat by the Judge. They were flushed. Like children at a party.
A hug. Mary’s smell of mints and faint body odour and shampoo. The radio was turned down.
‘Me and Suze have been talking.’ Mary ruffled Susannah’s hair.
Susannah smiled, pleased with herself. Everybody was awarded a nickname around Mary.
‘Why back so soon?’ asked Jess.
‘The rage room’s kaput. Me landlord put his foot down. A hen party booked in. Things got out of hand. There was a small fire. So I’ve been kicked out and now I’m staying here.’
‘Dad?’ Jess checked with the Judge.
‘Why ask me?’ he replied.
‘Sure, it’s all sorted,’ interjected Mary. ‘I can stay as long as I like. But never mind all that,’ said Mary energetically, ‘Susannah popped in to pick up one of the kids’ toys and she’s been telling me all about Stephen’s shenanigans.’
‘Really?’ Jess knew Mary lived to meddle. ‘What shenanigans?’
‘You tell her, Suze.’
‘It’s probably nothing. Just the stuff we discussed at the spa,’ started Susannah. Tears threatened. She shredded a tissue. ‘He’s been working very late.’
‘Working late,’ said Mary. Darkly.
‘And he’s been very grumpy.’
‘Grumpy,’ repeated Mary. She gave a disapproving wobble of the head.
‘He won’t explain all the extra work. He’s still buying new clothes and hiding them.’
Mary threw her arms up. ‘He won’t say. He’s hiding new clothes. This fella clearly has another woman on the go. I’ve told Susannah to leave him. Take the kids and get out. She can stay here.’
The Judge looked at the ceiling.
Jess gawped. ‘You told her what?’
‘She’s got to leave him, Jess. Stephen’s a total bastard.’
‘I think I’ll go to my study,’ interjected the Judge. ‘The oestrogen count’s very high in here.’
‘You can’t order a woman to leave her husband.’ Jess was exasperated. ‘You don’t know he’s having an affair. All you know is he’s working late, buying clothes and is in a bad mood. And that’s my brother you’re calling a bastard.’
‘Sounds like he’s being naughty boy to me,’ said Bogna. She had gravitated to the sink. ‘You know men. Always sneaking about, waving their little winkies around. They can’t help it, isn’t it?’
‘I’m most certainly going to my study.’ The Judge headed for the hallway. ‘I need some Vivaldi to cleanse my brain.’
‘Susannah,’ said Jess. ‘Ignore my friend. Try talking to Stephen.’
‘Every time I try, he gets defensive and walks off,’ sniffed Susannah.
‘I can’t believe I’m saying this.’ Jess was about to dispense classic Woman’s Own advice. ‘Book a table for dinner at his favourite restaurant. Make yourself up. Put on a dress he likes. Then tell him how you feel over dessert. My brother has his faults, but I don’t believe for one moment he’s having an affair. And you!’ Jess shot a look at Mary. ‘You’re nobody’s idea of a relationship mentor.’
Susannah was despatched home. Bogna murmured something about killing a chicken. And Mary was sent upstairs like a naughty schoolgirl.
‘Can’t believe I missed a feckin’ murder.’ Mary stretched out with Moose on Jess’s bed.
Only half listening, Jess was on the rug with a Double Decker and a book about Boudicca. ‘Yeah, you really missed out, it was great.’
‘Was it?’
‘No, obviously. Someone died. You seem to have forgotten how you felt after Gavin.’
‘Fair dos,’ conceded Mary. She broke off from tending to Moose’s ears to cross herself. ‘You shagged Rupert yet?’
Jess raised her eyes from the book and returned them to the page. ‘I’m not even answering that.’
‘He’s got plenty of juice in him, that one. If you don’t jump him soon, some other bitch will.’
‘Thankfully some other bitch has. His ex is all over him. Pandora Smith. She’s a supermodel, or a megamodel or something.’
‘The Pandora Smith? You’re kidding. She’s awesome!’
‘You’re too old to say awesome.’
‘She’s no competition, though. Poor eejit’s cracked about you.’
‘Pandora’s welcome to him.’
Mary propped herself up. She seemed thunderstruck. ‘Jaysus, Jess Castle, you’re jealous.’
‘I’m not. Just disappointed. I didn’t think he was that shallow. I mean, fancying a model. That’s so obvious.’
‘Jealous!’ Mary fell back onto the bed. ‘So jealous.’
Chapter 24
THE DEEP END
Tuesday 31 May
Jess is gasping.
Drowning.
She’s fighting hard to breathe.
Swimsuits, empty swimsuits, all around.
Red. Striped. Green.
One yellow one.
She tries to keep sight of it.
Her air is used up.
This time the water is winning.
Her limbs close down.
She can’t see for blood.
Jess woke up.
The dream meant business. Could you really die in a dream, or was that just an old wives’ tale?
It was too early in the day to spot a Mary.
The house smelt good as Jess padded through it. Different to the way it smelt when Mum ran the kitchen. It felt mildly disloyal to enjoy Bogna’s regime.
The empty pool was a deficit. A nought. A big hole in the ground that drew Jess to it. She sat in the deep end, Moose at her side. Both of them deep in thought.
As ever, her thoughts slid first to the boxes and the symbols on dead flesh. Those dynamic, secretive little images. Teasing her. Holding out the truth like a stripper dangles a bra. Jess knew she had the knowledge to unlock the code, but something stood in the way.
A bleat. Urich stood at the side of the pool. His strange eyes fixed on them.
Moose grunted. He didn’t like the goat; the goat didn’t like him.
‘Want to come and join us, Urich?’
Apparently Jess spoke fluent Goat. The creature dawdled, in its knock-kneed way, towards the sloping shallow end. Hooves clicking on the tiles, horns nodding.
‘Jesus, you smell,’ said Jess.
Urich was difficult to insult. He nosed about, sniffing leaves. Moose watched him, his lovely brown eyes full of contempt.
Cross-legged, Jess closed her eyes and concentrated. The murders kept her mind off herself; she offered a silent prayer of contrition to the men who’d been crucified simply to give her something to do.
‘Urich, what would you do if you were me?’
Urich ignored her. He was savouring a crisp packet.
‘I’m a lecturer with no one to lecture. I’m verging on unemployable. Instead of some solid research, or teaching, I’m chasing hippies around campsites and standing by while an old school friend descends into addiction. As for me and Dad, we’re . . .’ She wasn’t sure of the word. Estranged was too strong. She hoped. ‘We don’t get on, Urich.’ Kuzbari’s advice was hard to put into practice. ‘I can’t talk to him. And I certainly can’t talk to Mum.’
Jess slung an arm around Moose. Sturdy and blond, he was a bridge to the old days. He had known
her mother. She’d been a soft touch for titbits. ‘You miss her too, I bet.’ She looked at the goat. ‘You’re right, Moose. That Urich doesn’t give a toss.’
Urich, as if to emphasise the toss he didn’t give, belched.
‘Pan’s safely put away. That’s good. And yet . . .’
The goat chewed. The dog panted.
‘Plus there’s Rupert,’ Jess reminded them. ‘He hasn’t texted since Pandora turned up. No reason why he should, but you know, I thought we were friends.’ Jess turned over her feelings the way she turned over the symbols. An outraged sense of dispossession. Disappointment. As bewildering as the boxes, Jess’s attitude to Rupert changed from day to day. It was an unanswered question, one that edged nearer and nearer.
Uproar at the house. A clatter. A door slamming. Bogna racing out onto the terrace and shrieking, ‘Jess! Jess! Quick!’
Up out of the pool, along the hedge corridor, up the lawn. Moose and Urich sprinted after Jess, whose pulse jumped in her throat. ‘What? What is it?’
‘Jimmy. He is collapsed.’ Bogna followed on slippered feet as Jess dashed past her.
‘Dad,’ she said pointlessly as her feet squeaked on the hall parquet. ‘Dad, please,’ she whispered, rounding the door of his study.
‘He stands up. Then he falls.’ Bogna bent over the Judge. ‘He is very quiet.’
‘I don’t like it.’ Jess kneeled.
The Judge was stretched out. He’d taken a table down with him, one of the round ones her mother dotted about the house. Silver photograph frames lay face down, as did the Judge. A large vase – inherited, ugly – had smashed. Chrysanthemums lay across the back of his head, and his shirt was wet.
‘Recovery position.’ Jess couldn’t tell if his chest was rising and falling. Her father’s eyes were shut. She had the unwelcome feeling that she was at a sharp edge of her life. A hinge. ‘Roll him with me, Bogna. Gently.’
‘Maybe we should not touch him.’ Bogna backed away.
Jess had to see his face. To check that he was still there. She took hold of him, the man she rarely touched, and turned him over.
He’s so heavy, she thought. As if his thin frame was full of boulders. ‘Have you called an ambulance, Bogna?’ Jess had to repeat herself before Bogna answered no. ‘Ring one now!’ Jess’s voice was a screech.
‘I – is it nine nine nine?’ Bogna scrabbled about ineffectually.
‘Take my place. I’ll do it.’ It seemed vital that somebody hold onto the Judge. Tether him. His colour was bad. ‘Quickly, please,’ she said unnecessarily to the emergency services operator.
‘He’s waking up. Dziȩki Bogu.’ Bogna let out a loud breath.
‘Dad. Dad!’ Jess refrained from slapping his cheek. ‘Are you okay?’ she said, instantly regretting it. She imagined him thinking, deep in his stupefied brain, Do I look okay?
Between them, the women helped the Judge to a chair. He blinked. He coughed. He was confused and it was hard for Jess to witness.
‘No fuss,’ he said, as the ambulance arrived. ‘Not the damn hospital.’
The damn hospital was where his wife had taken a long time to die. The Judge got his way. Within an hour he was beneath his own duvet, cross-faced, listening to Dr Rasmussen pontificate from the end of the bed.
‘Do you hear me, James?’ Rasmussen was tall, wide, and had been the same age for all of Jess’s life. ‘No more of these bike rides. Gentle exercise only.’
He’d fainted. That was all. Jess had liquefied with relief. The ACE inhibitors the Judge took for his aortic stenosis had lowered his blood pressure to the extent that he keeled over.
‘And for God’s sake, feed him properly, Bogna.’
‘I keep him alive with my cooking!’ Bogna rounded on the doctor, who took a step back on the rug. ‘Bloody cheek, mate,’ she said, hotly.
‘All I’m saying is—’
‘You’re saying I should feed him Uncle-Ben-two-minutes-ping!’ Bogna’s impression of a microwave made the medic jump.
‘I’m saying that my patient is fully aware of the treatment options open to him. If he took advantage of them rather than cycling and eating organic this, that and the other, he might see an improvement in his health.’ Dr Rasmussen clicked his bag shut, made haste to the bedroom door. ‘Nobody lives forever!’ he reminded them cheerfully.
‘Nobody lives forever, isn’t it.’ Bogna impersonated the doctor as Jess helped her wash potatoes dug from what had been Harriet’s rose garden.
The tubers were gnarly, unlovely. They’d never make the grade in a supermarket. Jess patted them with a tea towel, lovingly, as if they were toddlers fresh from the bath. Ugly toddlers.
‘What does he know?’ Bogna’s outrage was limitless.
‘Quite a lot, I should think. Especially,’ ventured Jess, ‘about doctoring.’
Bogna made a Polish noise of derision. ‘What does he know about our Jimmy?’ The sentence ended on a strangled note. Jess, who was about to say that Dr Rasmussen had been the Castle family doctor since before she was born, turned and saw tears racing lemming-like off Bogna’s chin.
‘Bogna,’ she said tenderly. ‘Hey. Come on. Dad’s all right. The doc said so.’
‘I worry.’ Bogna’s face was contorted. ‘He was so sad after your mummy went. He is man who needs softness. Because he is not soft.’
‘You love him, Bogna.’
‘Not like boyfriend-girlfriend.’ Bogna pulled a disgusted face. ‘I have enough of that slop with my exhusband. I love Jimmy like family.’
‘He’s grand,’ said Mary, slipping out of the Judge’s study. ‘Roses in his cheeks again. I told him a couple of jokes, cheered him right up.’
And shocked him to the core of his being. ‘Thanks, Mary.’
‘Jess, maybe . . .’ Mary laid a hand on Jess’s arm. ‘Let him have tonight before you go in all guns blazing, eh?’
‘This needs to be said. Don’t worry. I’ll stay calm.’
‘Yeah. Right.’ Mary left her to it.
The Judge sat at his desk. He stopped writing when his daughter stole in. He looked abashed. ‘Jess, thank you. It must have been—’
‘Dad, Dr Rasmussen told me. About the . . .’ she looked at a biro scrawl on her hand, ‘the transcatheter aortic valve implantation you refuse to have.’
‘Taking everything into account, I’ve decided to wait and see.’
‘Wait and see what?’
‘What the next few months bring, health-wise.’
‘So you’re the only person who gets to be consulted?’
‘I do own the heart in question, Jessica.’
‘Do you think you’re God, Dad? Because this selfishness is truly awe-inspiring.’ Jess rushed on, allowing the Judge no opportunity to speak. ‘The doc described your aortic stenosis as severe. There’s only way for that to go. Untreated, it gets worse. Eventually, it leads to death.’ To Hecate’s underworld. ‘Will you think about it?’ For me, she wanted to add, but couldn’t. ‘I’ll go. I didn’t mean to harsh your mellow.’
‘Harsh my what?’
By the jotter on his desk, something glinted red in the lamplight.
‘The fox.’ Jess reached out and picked up the ugly porcelain animal. It had cross eyes. ‘Mum’s fox,’ she said. ‘How did it get here?’
‘No idea.’ The Judge was bent over his pen again. ‘Must have been Bogna moving things around. Didn’t notice it there.’
‘Shall I put it somewhere else?’ Jess held the fox to her chest. ‘I know you always hated it.’
‘No need. No need.’ The Judge waved his hand. ‘Just leave it.’
Bogna wasn’t permitted near this inner sanctum. The fox was there by the Judge’s choice. Jess put it down.
‘Ever heard of something called a taxi?’
Mary tutted from the passenger seat. ‘Feck off, you ingrate. Don’t I keep this car in good nick for you? The least you can do is give me a lift now and again.’
That was true. But Jess was depleted.
> ‘Step on it,’ said Mary. ‘I want to get to the Druid’s Head for happy hour.’ The pub gleefully ignored the suggested curfew and was packed every night. ‘It’s a two for one, so if I buy six Guinnesses I’ll get them for the price of three.’
‘What are you, the Chancellor of the Exchequer of Drunk Land?’
‘I’m a girl on a mission.’
‘You’re a nightmare.’ Mary pushed endlessly at boundaries, but they seemed to be elastic. Jess gave her enough rope to hang herself, and Mary merrily did just that. But Jess never walked away – Mary’s virtues were as blatant as her faults.
As Mary scrolled through her beloved gossip sites on her phone, pausing now and then to roar ‘Cellulite!’ or ‘Cokehead!’, Jess recalled nights when she’d rung Mary at three a.m., when she’d cried the proverbial river on Mary’s shoulder, when Mary had uncoiled a rescue rope to the bottom of the deep well where Jess sat navel-gazing.
She stole a look at her friend. Short, yet with the strength of ten men, Mary was a conundrum. ‘Your hair’s getting a bit haywire.’
‘Yeah. Needs a trim. Should have done it in Exeter. I don’t think your Castle Kidbury salons can handle Afro.’ Mary’s mouth dropped open. ‘Bastard,’ she shouted at her phone.
‘Why do you read those stupid sites? They only wind you up.’
‘Look!’ Mary held the screen in front of Jess. The car swerved. Jess swore. She pulled in.
‘Don’t do . . . oh.’ Jess took the phone from Mary and studied the thumbnail photo of Rupert. It was odd to see somebody she knew so well – Do I? she thought – reduced to a blurred collection of pixels in the Daily Mail.
‘He’s leaving some poncey restaurant with that Pandora.’ Mary spat the name. She was no longer, it would seem, awestruck. ‘Holding hands!’ She was as scandalised as a Victorian spinster.
‘Yeah, but, maybe he grabbed her hand to run past the paparazzi.’ Jess had an urgent need to defend Rupert. To rewrite the sneering prose beneath the photo.
Mary read it out. ‘Stunning Pandora Smith makes a speedy exit from a swanky W1 eatery with her old flame, provincial toff Rupert Lawson. Fellow diners said the pair looked very “cosy”. “They only had eyes for each other,” said a waiter.’