‘What did I do, Ed dear? What did I do?’
There was a draught of cold air from the back door. Joanna stood, hair damp, frizzed by rain, looking at the tableau of mother and son. Mother sat with great precision and began to tease the two hooks out of her palm, wincing only slightly, tut-tutting under her breath. It was the barbs, pointing backwards, that got under the skin and went into the bone of a fish without causing pain; Joanna had listened to a thousand expositions and explanations from Edward. The hooks did not look painless inside a hand.
‘There!’ Mother said, triumphantly, easing out the first, holding it to the light and going to work on the second. ‘You just have to do this and then you go this way, see? Easy peasy.’ Joanna was comforted. Accidents will happen, fishing was silly sport. Then the drop of blood oozing from behind Mother’s hat, a single drop, plopping on the table before Mother caught it in her injured palm, sucked greedily. All gone, that bright red speck, all gone. Then she saw Joanna for the first time. Her voice became defensive. She looked at Edward, fearfully.
‘All gone!’ she said, gaily, retrieving the second hook. ‘Time for bed! Time for bed long ago! Should not have got up!’
Edward was filling the kettle at the sink. Joanna looked long and hard at the hunch of his back as she guided her mother out of the room.
‘Want a sandwich, Ma?’ she asked as they went slowly upstairs. ‘Are you hungry?’
‘No, thank you, thank you no.’ Then as an afterthought, ‘Mustn’t wear ear-rings, darling, they hurt if you fall over.’
Joanna was glad Mother wanted nothing like a sandwich. She did not want to go back to the kitchen, with all its lingering body heat, the claustrophobic warmth, the accusations, the denting of faith in the brother she had trusted. Not yet.
The tide receded. Hooked against a rope in the quay, looking jaunty in the moonlight, hung a purple shirt like a church gown left out to dry at the end of the Sabbath. A pair of sandals danced and sank, moving on elsewhere with the fish.
Julian Pardoe stirred in Sarah’s arms, bereft of guilt or pain.
‘Sarah?’
‘Yes?’ Moving closer.
‘When grief makes you insane, what do you do? What did you do the first time?’
‘This,’ she murmured sleepily. ‘Only this.’ Then later, another murmur. ‘I never was much good at the law, you see, never much good at anything, but I am good at this. The law is so slow. It’s no fun at all. It should be more than arithmetic . . . There are so many better ways to cure an ill.’ He did not understand: it did not matter, he pulled her closer, back into the kiss, felt those strange scars on her arms, too late for questions, let himself drown in the oldest medicine of all.
CHAPTER NINE
They could go fishing for the ghost and earn themselves glory. Stonewall and Rick were down in the boat, a battered old rower with a put-put engine, half a horsepower, Rick said, but good enough for the creeks and if you let it go with the tide, it could win the Olympics. They were waiting for the water in the kind of milky sweet dawn which made Stonewall shiver. The boat lay snug against the harbour wall. He leant over the side with his line, looking for the crabs he could sell for bait or more likely throw back if he caught them, found instead a purple shirt drying on the mooring rope, wrapped it round his skinny middle and felt absurdly happy with his prize. Rick lay supine and looked at the sky.
He stood to stretch his legs and yawn, his head below the level of the quayside wall when he heard Edward Pardoe pass in his unseasonally heavy shoes. Rick balanced himself on the central bench of the boat, clutched the wall and sprang over. Intent on his own progress, looking briefly at the swans which dithered with the tide, Edward noticed nothing else. Rick put a finger over his mouth as Stonewall sprang to attention beside him. Both silent by common consent, they leaned with their elbows propped on the bonnet of a car, looking through the windscreen and out the back to watch Edward walk towards the road which led out to the beach, the caravan park and the woods.
Rick snapped his fingers and jerked his head in Edward’s direction in a parody of military command, instantly appreciated. Stonewall made a mocking salute, trotted away in his filthy training shoes after the disappearing figure. Rick shaded his eyes with his hand, still acting the role. The sun was brighter by the minute; Stonewall’s mum would blame him if the lad was not home by breakfast, time enough for that. Now what was that bastard Edward doing? He wouldn’t rise early in the morning for nothing, wouldn’t rise at all if he could help it. Rick turned and spat on the ground, always did him good to spit, even if it was a habit recently learned and one which shamed him.
He’d acquired it first a few weeks since, when Edward came down the arcade and warned him off Joanna. What’s it to you who she goes out with? Rick had said. I’m not going to do her any harm. Just lay off, that’s all, she doesn’t even like you, just pretends, laughs at you behind your back, Edward had drawled, so leave her alone, or we’ll see about your amusement arcade, your job and your dad’s living, plus all those other souls who work in there from time to time. That’s when Rick spat, more in response to the first half of the message than the second, powerless, the way he often felt, story of his life.
Pardoes and fathers have the last word. Not any more. He looked across the road at the kingdom of his arcade. Even with a dad like his, he was good enough for anyone. He’d been thinking about it all. Today was the day to find Jo.
Rick folded back the doors to the arcade, went inside, moving from switch to switch. The place was suddenly full of flashing light and wonderful, raucous sound which gave him strength.
Stonewall thought he had got the drift of Edward’s purposeful direction, since on this road there was very little choice. Maybe the lazy sod was going to dig up his own bait for a change, but he carried nothing. The road could only lead to caravan site, beach or woods; Stonewall couldn’t see a Pardoe having much to do with caravans. Edward walked on the bank parallel with the silent road, with Stonewall shadowing, shielded from view even with the piece of purple flotsam round his waist, as he trailed behind, slightly excited, more irritated than thrilled, for once, slightly insulted by being so inconspicuous. He was hungry, he was following Ed who owed him money, committed to the pursuit, even if he was cross enough to risk a short cut. Stonewall launched across the caravan park, flitted like a shadow between the sleepy, slug-like vehicles where morning life was just beginning, into the woods where the wind moaned softly. Ed must have gone to the beach; he would head him off. He followed a series of tracks which led through the scented pine woods, dipping through sandy valleys, up and down to the final ridge of trees on the edge of the sand. There was a path across the ridge, again dipping into gaps where entries and exits had been forged or grown. Stonewall scanned the beach, moved slowly left. He had first seen the ghost talking to Edward, right out there. They had met in the middle of the wilderness, like two people about to fight a duel.
That was weeks ago. This time he heard the voices first and almost stumbled across them, sitting halfway up part of the steep slope which led from woods to beach, out of the breeze. Two of them, Edward and the white-haired man sitting in his old clothes with the palms of both hands on the pommel of a stick which Stonewall also recognized. Miss Gloomer’s stick. Stonewall fell flat to earth as if he had been shot, lay with his hands propping up his head. He could scarcely hear them, what with the wind in the trees behind him and the mewing of the gulls on the beach below, struggled to listen for the sake of having something to report. His stomach grumbled, he farted and almost apologized aloud. People did not do that on videos and the prospect of doing it again stopped him crawling closer.
Rick loves me: he said so.
The sun was beginning to filter through the branches above him and warm the back of his head, not the sand beneath. The light was intermittent, like being in the disco above the Ark Royal with strobe lighting. Stonewall shivered with an uncomfortable sensation of fear, watched the sand flies leaping in front of his nose.
What did you do with my Sal, you, you with the white hair like the headmaster? Sal’s collar still dug into his groin; fear was displaced by anger, then by his own importance in seeing the ghost in which others now believed. They’d catch him all in good time, Rick and he.
Rick loves me. We can do anything.
A spider was creeping along a dew-defined tightrope of web, suspended in front of Stonewall’s freckled nose. Edward and the old man beneath were certainly not talking with the ease of old pals. The conversation was clipped, infrequent, with much staring out to sea and long pauses, not men at ease, not like him and Rick.
‘That’s a new stick you have,’ Edward was saying. ‘Where did you get it? I thought you hadn’t any money.’
‘Oh, I stopped by to visit some old dear, for tea and chat, of course. Somehow acquired the stick on the way out.’ Edward made a tut-tutting sound of warning, played with a blade of grass.
‘You shouldn’t do things like that,’ he said petulantly.
‘A man must eat. I shouldn’t break into your brother’s surgery either, but you didn’t have qualms about that.’
Silence, the wind moaning, blurring sound.
‘. . . did you find?’
‘The medical records of one Elisabeth Tysall. Details of a complicated prescription for soporific poisons. Particulars of an adulterous murder, to my mind.’
‘Oh no, not quite that,’ Edward protested. ‘Not as such.’
‘Yes, as such. Letters from her which he received. Bitter letters to her he never sent. Why did he keep them out of his own house?’
‘Because my mother is so inquisitive, I suppose.’
‘I could kill him,’ said the man calmly. ‘That’s the idea, is it not?’
‘You mean Charles Tysall could kill him?’
‘With his bare hands,’ said the man laconically. ‘Although I daresay he’d endeavour for a little more subtlety.’ Edward wriggled uncomfortably. The man shifted in sympathy and moved further away. His piercing blue eyes abandoned their constant survey of the shore and bored into Edward’s own. They seemed slightly out of focus, the man himself more of a vagrant than he had ever been before. Only his speech was perfectly controlled.
‘Which would suit your purposes, I presume, as we discussed, however obliquely. It would suit you even better if your mother perished in the same accident. You and your beloved sister, lord and lady of all you survey, now that would be a lovely landscape to play with.’
‘I suppose so,’ Edward muttered, still uncomfortable, but his body tingling with excitement. He would still have preferred his ambitions to be guessed, remain beyond definition, carried out without his knowledge. In the light of morning, his dreams became violent and vulgar; he wanted first to cherish and then, postpone them. Plans were so much more pleasant before they became real.
‘We’ve still got this woman staying,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Makes it a bit awkward.’
‘The one your sister called the cow.’
‘She doesn’t do that any more. Look, we ought to think about this.’
‘Of course. I think all the time.’
‘I mean, lie low, for a while—’
‘Are you changing your mind?’
‘No, no.’
‘You would prefer, perhaps, not to know?’
‘Can we just arrange another meeting, say two days’ time? I’ve brought you a key to a caravan, all mod cons, fourth row down on the left, on the end . . . What’s the matter?’
The long, thin man was heaving with mirthless laughter, an unpleasant wheezing sound which shook his whole frame and made the stick vibrate.
‘Nothing. It’s too late to change your mind. Do you really think I’ll stay in a place of your choosing, where you can find me?’
‘I can turn you over to the police,’ Edward blustered.
‘For what? And have me repeat our conversations? Really!’
Again, there was that revelation of the balance of power between them, which Edward tried to pretend did not exist, but had been there all the time, since the very first, denying his control of the man, giving the lie to the little illusion that he was a grand benefactor and this was the grateful servant.
‘Just don’t do anything until I tell you.’
The man raised his eyebrows, spread his hands. ‘Would I? Did your sweet sister make you sandwiches today?’
‘Yes, sorry I forgot them.’
Edward left without a backward glance, breaking into a jog along the beach, running awkwardly, disturbed, anxious to be away. The man rose too, moved to the left, out of sight.
Stonewall had missed most of the talk, apart from the odd bit about caravans. Something froze him, belly down, the inertia of hunger which stopped him getting up and following the ghost, the sun on his head, his long squinting at the spider, the light falling in lumps through the trees. Thinking of his mother’s wrath, wondering if it was better to wait here longer until her anger would be tempered by anxiety, thought after ten minutes’ indecision how that might well make things worse. Thought, too, of which lies to tell to explain sneaking out of doors so early on a Monday morning, drawn by the allure of Rick’s boat, not able to mention where he had been in case that meant a total ban, and somehow, in between all these anxious machinations, something more than the memory of Sal nagging at him, like being halfway to school on games days and realizing he had forgotten his shoes. Stonewall hated Monday mornings like that: they were the days for guilt.
Rick loves me.
Reluctantly, he scrambled to his feet and turned to run downhill back into the woods. Stopped, took a step back, heart in mouth, tripped, fell heavily on his bottom, winded. The white-haired man was standing there, towering above him from nowhere, looking at him, leaning on his stick like a man who had no need to lean.
‘I know you,’ said the man. ‘Don’t I? And you know me.’
Stonewall shook his head in frantic denial, tried to scramble up, but the sand slipped from beneath his feet. Oh yes, he knew the man now. Almost a year to the day, that man striding out over the channels, Stonewall trying to stop him and tell him about the tide coming in faster than anyone could run, getting pushed over for his pains. A man who seemed to have grown taller and thinner and acquired this halo of bright white hair. He must have lived like an animal to change from that to this. His arms were like sticks, he was dirty.
‘You’re a spy for the good doctor,’ said the man softly. ‘You’re just a spy. You even look like the doctor. Did you help to bury her? Did you put your grubby little fingers all over her, you and the doctor? Is that her shirt I see on you? Did you touch her tits? Did you?’
The boy was opening his mouth to protest, I never did nothing. I don’t know what you’re talking about, lay off, leave me alone, what did you do with my dog? There were no words, only a single sharp scream.
Stonewall’s hands had flown to his head: the pommel from Miss Gloomer’s stick broke three of his fingers. The second blow thudded into his skull; he could feel the crunching without pain, like a tooth coming out at the dentist, hardly felt the third blow at all. His body, halfway upright, curled into itself, fell forward, rolled down the slope through the pine needles and spiky grass, the thistles and the brambles tugging at his shorts, nothing hurting or feeling, his eyes awake to the light sparking through the pines, the moaning of the wind turning into a roar and then into a great big silence. He ceased to notice the sun, felt a mild surprise as his body jerked again and then lay still, foetally curled with his hands to his head the way Rick had taught him to land if he fell. The final sensation was of resting against a brown tree trunk where the bark scraped his cheek and at last, that graze caused pain, humiliation, a vague sense that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, foolish, just a baby who wanted to cry and not be teased like this. He could not close his eyes but there was nothing he could see.
Rick loves me.
The man looked down dispassionately. If he followed to finish what he had started, he would probably
tear his clothes and he did not have clothes to spare. Nor enough clothes to go home. Wherever that was.
It was a mild breakfast, big brother in mild humour, Joanna noticed. Mother took hers out into the sun; there was no sign of Edward and no ill will from anyone. Mother had dressed in Monday best, wore a turban with a brooch. With a reluctant sense of fairness, which had always distorted itself to champion the younger of her brothers, Joanna was admitting to herself how it was that Julian was best with Mother, adapted to her childish level, played her games except sometimes when she went near the stove. There was a bruise she had noticed to the side of Mother’s cheek, the imprint of yesterday’s ear-ring neatly reproduced, a lower level of attention-seeking in her lunacy today, uncharacteristic, a deviation from the way she never sought to hide her battiness, always thrust it under their noses. The dress beneath the turban was turquoise and shimmery with leg-of-mutton sleeves, the pink plimsolls the same as yesterday. Joanna could see her now, beyond the kitchen door, feeding the birds by scattering crumbs in large, unnecessary flings. Joanna sensed her restlessness. She was restless herself, wanted to tell Julian about the scene she thought she had seen last night, Edward and Mouse, something terrible. Loyalty forbade revelation, even to herself. Edward would never do such a thing; her imagination was playing tricks. It was all part of some spirit of energy which seemed to have afflicted them all since Sarah Fortune had arrived, a long few days before.
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