Jones nodded. ‘Quig did a lot of that, long time ago. It’s not the same now. You get penned down in the hold like a whole lot of cattle fit for nothing but eating and shopping for rubbish. You can’t even go on the top deck. We went last year, remember?’
‘Yes. The whole pub went for a day of getting drunk afloat. I thought you were trying to romance me, and all the time you kept saying how easy it would be to jump off.’
He remembered, felt a little guilty, couldn’t stop thinking.
‘Jumping off them boats mid-channel must be the easiest way to disappear in the world. Pick a moment halfway across, the ferry can’t stop and most likely no one would notice. That’s why they close the top decks. Health and fucking safety.’
Christ, he was good with useless information
‘I wanted to jump, Jones. I really did. I still do. When you’re on that top deck on a nice day with a drink aboard, you think you can fly. Fly away and sink, before you hit the realities of coming home. It looks painless. Must have looked like that to Christina Porteous.’
‘Yes, that’s what they reckon. Her and a few others. Are you going to tell me about Quig? Is he helping the daughters to stiff Di?’
They watched the boats, miles out but as large as life. Closer in, the more recognisable craft, small vessels, plying for fish, maybe bringing in other kinds of contraband. Looking pretty. Different kinds of fishermen entirely from those who fished off the pier.
He put his arm around her, wanting to comfort her, short of time. She was one of those invaluable, blind, angry women who didn’t guess at her own worth, because she wasn’t what she wanted to be and life was passing so fast she had lost control of it. And all the time, anything he had ever told her about Di Quigly had been passed on to Di’s dad, wherever he was, near or far. That’s how it went; Jones told Monica, and Monica told Quig. The wonders of the mobile phone never ceased to amaze him. Poor old Monica, always hoping to lure him back.
‘Tell us about Quig,’ he urged. ‘You’ve got to tell me. Or warn him off. Those Porteous kids are bitches. They’ll screw him and they won’t pay. Tell him.’
‘He already knows.’
She threw away the cigarette. Christ, she hated this pier, where she had courted, been bored, loved and lost. Never even try to love a fisherman, you always came second. Never love a man with a passion for something else; you always lose.
‘He came back,’ she said. ‘He came round mine the night we had a drink and you went back to the pier. Just as well you weren’t there. He was raving. Talked in his sleep. I knew he’d hit you, he said so.’
Jones waited. And you told him where I was. She took out a handkerchief and dabbed her nose. He was losing pity for her. He loathed fucking informers.
‘Said he was homesick. Said he wanted to see Di, wants to make it up to her, but he knew she wouldn’t have it. He’s sad, Jones, sad and spiteful. Nor was she going to give him anything, so he’d only got together with Di’s stepkids, hadn’t he? He was going to help them. They reckon Di’s place is full of their mother’s stuff and they want it back.’
‘And he would have helped them, and helped himself as well? Leave off, Monica. There’s nothing there he could use, not even a gun.’
‘That was the plan, and he was going to help. Only they’ve fucked him over, told him they don’t need him no more. And once he knew you were staying up there, he thought he wouldn’t bother. He’s afraid of you. You hit him when he came back for Di’s wedding.’
‘Which you told him about, and that’s why he was there. You’ve never forgiven me that, have you? First I knew he was afraid of me. It isn’t me he’s afraid of, it’s Di. And he only knows I’m up at the house because you told him.’
She hung her head.
‘He’d have found out anyway. He’s been watching the place.’
‘While bunking up with you. You’ve been his spy. Don’t you know Quig would bury you as soon as look at you? Or is that part of the appeal? Well, perhaps he wouldn’t unless someone paid him. That’s how Quig earns a living. He gets paid to hide the fucking bodies, and then he gets paid for blackmail and information. So, who’s going to die this time? Or what fucking body is he after?’
‘Don’t,’ she said, ‘Don’t. It’s not true. He wanted to help her, Jones, he really did. He thought there was something he could do for her; he said it in his sleep. And he knew what them kids really wanted to do, one of them anyway. He said one of them really wants to kill her. Only that man, Edward, he was never going to pay. Called him a cunt, and Quig doesn’t like insults.’
Monica got up and walked away. He followed her, stopped her and stood in front of her.
‘Where is he now?’
She put her hands in her pockets, feeling for the cigarettes, the tears coursing down her cheeks running furrows in the blusher.
‘He’s gone, Jones. Got an offer of a job somewhere, with a lot of dosh. Got an offer on his iPhone. Very technical he is these days. So he’s gone.’
He would not have believed her, except for her ugly grief and the feeling of a weight, lifting. Jones trusted his feelings. He looked out at the ferries crossing. Another world, so close. Why were they all so slow to move away and find opportunities somewhere else? Why fester here if you didn’t love the place? All you had to do was go a few miles down the coast and get on a fucking boat.
‘He’s really gone, has he?’
‘Yes,’ she said, pointing towards the closest of the ferries. ‘He went off on one of them, this morning. And he didn’t take me.’
He wasn’t sure he could believe that, and decided he just would. Jones went indoors and whistled. Fuck me, people had better level.
Di was unpacking the food the deli and the out of town supermarket delivered. Peg was out of sight. He came in through the back gates that led on the yard and the blankness of the defective steel shutters.
Midday. No sign of Saul and he was sorry about that, but he had been briefed by phone. He looked at the apples in the bowl.
‘Listen, Di. Do you hear me? Quig’s gone. Reliable information.’
She packed things away, quietly and efficiently, the sag of her shoulders showing relief.
‘Are you sure?’ she said.
He smothered hesitation and said, as sure as I can be.
‘I would so like to go shopping,’ she said. ‘I get some of the right things and a lot of the wrong ones this way. Next week, I’m going shopping.’
The sheer silliness of this took his breath away. Jones hated fucking shopping.
‘Did you hear me? Quig’s gone for a job with money. I’ve been talking to Monica,’ he said.
She dipped her head, bending from the waist to retrieve a paper bag from the floor. She was as supple as oiled rope.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I saw you. Sit down a minute. I can’t talk to you when you’re standing up, that’s not levelling. And you need something to eat.’
Jones sat.
‘OK, I’ll believe Quig’s gone for a while. Makes it easier to breathe. And thanks for being here. Thanks a fucking million.’
He felt ridiculously pleased.
‘Look, you’ve got the outline of what’s going to happen, and Saul’s got the details. It’s tomorrow. I don’t want anyone else to be in danger. Especially Peg, and you’ve got to talk to Peg.’
‘What date are we on?’ he asked, reaching forward for the bread she was offering.
‘The anniversary. Ten years ago tomorrow, when I came in through the shutters.’
‘You were good at stealing, you know,’ Jones said. ‘And I’m looking forward to tomorrow. Always wanted to be a thief.’
Saul came back in the late afternoon, full of insouciance. He found Peg and Di sitting at the computer. Peg was learning how to use it. She was learning how to write. He saluted them and went away. They could hear him whisking round the house, checking every room, singing to himself, very light of foot. Peg and Di raised eyebrows and smiled at each other. He really was a n
utcase, that Saul. A bit silly. A Dreamer, Peg said. But a clever one, Di said.
You won’t tell Jones, what I told you, promise you won’t tell Jones?
No, I never tell. You tell him yourself. And just you remember, no one gets arrested in my house.
Then it all lulled down, such peace and tranquillity, everything quiet, as if the castle keep had gone to sleep, quietly.
Saul Blythe and Diana Porteous sat in the gallery room, admiring it. In the last week, they had re-hung the lot, revising the format, as if preparing for an exhibition. It was part of refining, it was what collectors did, a way of taking stock. Madame de Belleroche occupied the same place as always, a small creature, demanding a lot of wall space, as if she was alive. That’s what they all were to Saul; alive.
‘They’ll do it tomorrow. And when they’ve been and gone,’ he said, ‘we can really organise the cellar.’
‘Can’t keep you out of there,’ she said.
‘Fantastic space down there, wonderful ceiling. Look, darling, when we really expand, when this collection is bigger and better, well, that would be a great place. Early Victorian brickwork. Changing exhibitions in a wine cellar, under a great big arched ceiling.’
‘Perhaps,’ she said.
‘You seem so much more confident,’ Saul ventured. ‘But you’re always so diffident about the potential of that glorious cellar.’
She said nothing.
Another cigar; another log falling thump into the fire, a feeling of peace. She stirred.
‘Whatever happens, I don’t want them to be here for long. They need to take the pictures and go. I want it over. I want to be free to bury Thomas. With plumed horses and a gun carriage, he would have liked that.’
Her voice trailed away. Saul coughed as he looked at the text on his phone.
‘They’ll come in about eleven tomorrow evening. They have strict instructions. We leave the steel shutters part open, to make it easy. You and your horrible friends will be up here, either asleep or aggressively drunk. They know you’re guarded and I’ve told them Jones is fierce. So you do the lights and the music, and they never enter the house. Lock the door to the cellar, and they can’t get in anyway. They come, they see, they conquer. Later they learn, so Thomas said.’
‘And where will you be?’
‘I don’t quite know. Guarding from a distance.’
‘Gayle and Edward,’ Di murmured. ‘I’d be more worried if it was Beatrice.’
Saul thought of the smashed-up flat he had not mentioned: said nothing.
‘It’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘As long as you aren’t alone. And there’s no question of that.’
The fire was dying. She got up and rebuilt it with a single log. They needed sleep; she would let it die out and begin again in the morning. Logs from the pile in the yard, more in the basement, firelighters, twigs to get it going, the same method for fifty years. No shortcuts.
‘Poor Gayle, poor Edward.’
Saul coughed.
‘You’re doing it again, Di,’ he said.
‘What is it I do?’
‘Defend people, even the indefensible.’
‘No one’s indefensible,’ she said. ‘Except me. Shall we go through it again?’
The echo, like the sea, was uncomfortable to his ears.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It was a nice, calm day. What a terrible and useless word, nice.
You’re getting blurred round the edges, Thomas, Di wrote. Don’t go away.
Today’s the anniversary. Ten years ago. I don’t regret a minute of it.
There was one thing I wanted to ask you. Was there a favoured child? Was it Beatrice, or was it Gayle? Which of them did you love the most? It was Gayle you talked about most. Gayle made you laugh, like I did.
‘We’re having a party tonight, Jones said to Peg at breakfast. ‘Fresh fish.’
‘Yuk,’ Peg said.
‘All right,’ Jones said. ‘Burgers and chips, if you like. It’s my birthday.’
‘Fuck off, Jones.’
‘No, not really, but it’s about time to celebrate. Been working hard.’
‘Can we have real music?’
‘OK. You teach me to boogie and I’ll teach you to waltz,’ Jones said.
‘“Boogie”?’
There was music from the radio in the snug, noises in the cellar, with Saul down there, doing things. He wasn’t coming to the party. He was going away soon.
Peg said, ‘You all keep going into huddles and I don’t like it. How do I know what to do if you don’t give me any idea? OK, I’ve done a bit of listening, so I know half what’s going down, and Di’s told me stuff, but I want it from you, and I know it’s not just a bloody party.’
Jones put down the coffee down in front of her, patted her shoulder in a condescending way meant to be reassuring.
‘’Cos it’s like this,’ he said. ‘This evening we are going to eat, drink and make merry. Bottle of vodka, anything you like. Matter of fact it might be better if we all got a bit tiddly, not too much, and then went deaf.’
‘Suits me,’ she said. ‘And then someone’s going to come along and do something we aren’t suppose to notice. Like stealing something. Like them proper thieves you talked about. Is that it? Why can’t you tell me exactly?’
Jones was serious, trying not to patronise.
‘Because it’s better for you that you don’t know the details so you can’t ever tell anyone else even if someone asks. And we’ve got to be very careful because these aren’t proper thieves. Fucking amateurs and although they know what they want, being amateurs makes them unreliable and they don’t like Di, not much they don’t and we don’t want them getting frustrated, do we? Di doesn’t like them either and she’s got a temper, too. So we’ve got to keep her upstairs and guard her. Close the doors and take no notice. Keep the music loud. Don’t want no violence, and there won’t be as long as she doesn’t see them and they don’t see her.’
‘You mean you think it’s Di might get violent?’
‘Don’t know, love, don’t know. What they’ll expect to hear,’ Jones said, ‘is a party upstairs, and nothing downstairs. It won’t be till late on. So we eat well and drink up. You up for it?’
‘There won’t be no police, will there?’
‘Only me,’ he said, and got serious. ‘No question of that, Peg. No question of that.’
‘Not like the other time, then,’ she said, ‘like when you arrested Di. And what about them coming back for her, and all? Isn’t she still in the frame because of her old man?’
Him and his big mouth. Jones slapped his head.
‘Yeah, she is, too, but they’re only thinking about it. It won’t be like any other time at all, oh no. Pity Saul won’t be here. Come on, girl, move yourself, this is going to be fun.’
A lot more fun than a walk with Di. Got to clear my head, Di said. Come with me, Peg. So she walked with Di, wearing Di’s boots. It was nice, at first, walking with someone who knew what a pickle she was really in and still wanted to walk with her, but when Di said a walk, she meant a hike, right round the corner of the coast and into the bay. To see what? Birds, only bloody birds, I ask you. Peg preferred boats and dreams. If she stayed here, she was going to have to learn to ride a bike. They talked about Patrick; they talked about spring and Peg’s future and they looked at the sky. Plenty of time, Di said. They didn’t turn back until Peg begged and the light began to go. The geese flew over their heads, cackling like mad things. That’s the last of them for this year, Di said sadly, and whatever she was looking at, she kept on looking around, Di did, as if she was watching out for somebody, and Peg thought she was looking out for her, and then she made them both jog home.
Peg was exhausted. Not used to moving fast, and on that last run home, with Di almost skipping, Peg guessed that what Di intended to do was to wear them both out and she was right about that; you couldn’t think of anything else when you were knackered. Maybe that was why she liked work.
A milky sky as the day faded. The house smelled sweet on every floor with fresh washing and Peg embraced the deep interior, knowing she was all right as long as she had hiding places, the linen room, the laundry, her favourite places, anywhere but the cellar: she could never hide there. She soaked in a bath and changed her clothes, enjoying the ozone aftermath of the cold air and deciding she just might do it again, because it really did fog up your head and make you want a drink, and yeah, there really was time for everything, and it was going to be a party, and whatever else happened was nothing to do with her. There was a slight celebratory air around the place downstairs; someone even mentioned Christmas. Only six weeks away; better plan for it and she reckoned she was safe until then and she started feeling good. She and Jones started cooking.
He left out the fresh fish. No fine-looking mackerel straight from the sea, grilled for a minute, and left on the plate with wide, staring eyes, that was what Peg had dreaded. Chili con carne, with oven chips, salads for the grown ups but not for her, followed by an old fashioned apple crumble Di got out of the freezer and put into the microwave. Vodka and coke, wine, and at the end she was feeling full and happy and it all took so long, it was already late. Jones was loading a tray with drinks to take up, went with the first consignment and came back for the rest, humming to himself, turning on the music, which she could hear from upstairs. They were all going to get lathered, and Jones was going to listen to her. Then all other sound was drowned out by the noise of the front door bell.
There was a bell pull on the outside, connected to the row of bells in the kitchen Peg had never noticed before. Clang, clang, clang, from that grand front door that was rarely used. Jones knew the door: it was how he had once come in to school at the beginning of term via the sea-side door, with grand steps and railings leading up to it. The ringing of the ancient bell on the wall was as loud as a fire siren. All of them stood and stared, not quite believing it. Jones put down the tray. Then the knocking began.
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