Helen’s sour expression melted under the barrage of compliments until she couldn’t help but babble on for another hour about the boat, the various ports of call until in the end Rachel thought she knew the itinerary better than Helen, which was just as well because if her idea had any chance of convincing people that Tom was dead, it would need a lot of luck and just a little piece of her husband.
The first letter arrived in Padstow two days after the Fitzgerald’s boat left on the cruise and was postmarked “Fort Lauderdale”. The paper and envelopes she’d found amongst Tom’s personal items, which she’d boxed and placed in a self-storage lockup just on the outskirts of Penzance. Now she was thankful that he’d never thrown anything away and from the scruffy nature of the stationery, she felt fairly confident that he’d handled it on more than one occasion.
Dear Rachel,
I hope my letter finds you well. I feel sorry for leaving you like I did but the pressure at work finally got the better of me and I just knew I had to get away. As you can see I’m in sunny Fort Lauderdale but am leaving tomorrow for South America. I’ve met a guy here who reckons that if I get myself down to Cartagena in Columbia, he knows someone who’s looking for a manager to oversee some operation he’s setting up. Sounds just perfect for me… plenty of beer and no pressure or stress.
Sorry again for not explaining sooner but once I’m settled I’ll send you an address and if you want to get a divorce, I’ll understand.
Tom
“And you say it arrived yesterday Mrs Cox.” The inspector who had been handling her husband’s disappearance asked, as he walked into the small reception room at the police station and greeted Rachel.
“Yes, he obviously sent it from Fort Lauderdale before he set off for Colombia, although what sort of job he could do out there Christ alone knows… he’s more likely to get himself killed than land a job.” The inspector finished reading the note and looked over his glasses at her and frowned. He’d thought it a strange remark to make and Rachel wished she’d not made it, as soon as the words had slipped from her mouth.
“What I mean is Tom always had a habit of saying the wrong thing to people and rubbing them up the wrong way.” She adroitly corrected herself.
“Quite. But you’ve heard nothing else from him since he left? There’s been no clues as to how he managed to get out there without money or his passport.” The inspector looked unconvinced by Rachel’s shaking head but just as he was about to bag the letter and file it as evidence he spotted something else.
“Hello what’s this?” He opened the envelope wider and dropped the single hair onto the table.
“What is it?” Rachel asked inquisitively, as she leant forward to get a better look.
“Please Mrs Cox don’t touch it!” The inspector instructed with the authority of experience. “It could be evidence. I’ll have it bagged and tested. Tell me, apart from reading the letter yourself have you given the letter to anyone else look at?”
“No. I opened it, read the letter and then brought it straight round to you.” It was another convincing lie. “But I don’t understand, what possible significance could a hair be?”
“It might be nothing… but then again it could prove the letter is from your husband.”
The second letter arrived four weeks later and had been posted in Colombia’s capital, Bogota.
Dear Mrs Cox,
It is with deep regret that I have to inform you of the death of your husband, who was tragically killed in a hit and run accident last week in the coastal town of Buenaventura. He was declared dead at the scene of the accident and I found your name and address in his coat pocket. There were few personal effects apart from the enclosed comb and ring. In accordance with our local customs, your husband was cremated shortly after he’d been declared dead and his ashes scattered.
I trust this letter may bring you some closure at this sad time.
Yours respectfully,
Hernando Rueda
Office for the Minister of Foreign Relations
“Do you mind if we keep the comb and ring Mrs Cox?” The inspector asked when Rachel presented him with the second letter. “We’ll have them DNA tested just to be sure. I don’t know if the ring will be much use but the comb should give us enough material for a match.” He dropped both pieces of potential evidence into sterile bags. “By the way the hair we found in the last letter did provide us with enough DNA to obtain a profile. Can I ask do you still have any of Mr Cox’s clothes and if so can we borrow them? If they do all prove to be from your husband, may I be the first to offer by sincere condolences.”
~~~~~
“So… it’s Donald is it? You know Martha had a rabbit called Donald, did she tell you that? It …” Dr Monroe didn’t manage to finish his introduction before he was rudely and abruptly interrupted.
“Yes father I’ve told Donald all about my rabbit, thank you.” Martha turned away from the two men and walked across the hallway to the granite stone steps, which led to the second floor of the grand old house that generations of Monroe’s had called their home. “I was thinking that Donald could have the bedroom next to mine in the attic.” She announced, as she continued her climb up the steps.
“Oh right… well I’m not sure that’s such a good idea Martha. What will Mrs Henderson say?” Her father said hesitantly, as he thought of all the gossip such a choice would cause in the town. There’d already been enough talk at the surgery about them taking in the stranger who might be an axe murderer. What he wondered, would Mrs Henderson say about Martha and Donald sharing the attic?
“Who’s Mrs Henderson?” Donald asked nervously. Suddenly he wasn’t sure that staying with the family was such a good idea. He liked Martha and she was beautiful in an impish sort of way but he got the distinct impression that her father wasn’t as keen as his daughter about him living with them.
“Mrs Henderson is the housekeeper… that’s all.” Martha stated categorically. “Although, she likes to think she runs the house and our lives… doesn’t she father?”
After a fitful night’s sleep, during which he’d dreamt and worried in equal proportions about his new life, Donald had woken very early, as he’d done most mornings since coming out of his coma. Tossing and turning in his strange bed, he’d dreamt of the good times he would share with Martha and worried about all the time that he’d lost and might never get back.
The ward had routines and the staff had rounds… patients on the other hand just followed the rules and woe betide any patient that had been brave enough to take on matron. So he’d fallen asleep around ten each night and had always been wide awake by five. He’d spent many a first hour of each day lying in bed wondering what his routine had been before his accident. There’d been an optimism to his nightly dreams that when he’d wake the following day, he’d remember what had happened to him and who he was.
At the start it had been exciting, like the prospect of winning the lottery… each night he’d stood another chance and each morning he’d been disappointed by the result and the fact that his winning ticket hadn’t been drawn from the pot of lost memories. Finally, with the odds stacked against him, he’d given up any hope of winning and had concentrated on what the future might hold for a man who could remember nothing about himself or his life.
After that, on any number of occasions when there’d been nothing to distract him from the boredom of lying in a hospital bed and staring aimlessly out of the window, he’d tried to comprehend why it was that as soon as he’d emerged from his coma he could remember the full extent of his vocabulary and had retained his ability to converse but not who he was or what had happened to him.
The doctors had explained that amnesia was a complicated condition, which had many inexplicable and interesting aspects but few concrete answers. Interesting because he’d known that the people in white coats were doctors but inexplicable because he couldn’t remember if he’d worked as a doctor… interesting because he’d been unable to tell the medical staff
what month it was but inexplicable because he could recite them all forwards and backwards without hesitation.
The doctors had tried to provide some answers… but as they had readily admitted, the brain was the most complex organ of the body and they knew more about outer space than the bundle of tissue that had created their own intelligence.
All they could offer were possible theories… there were no certainties in neurology, excepting the fact that had the girl not acted as quickly as she had and he’d not had the operation… then without doubt he would now be dead.
Donald had been given some of Dr Monroe’s old clothes until such a time as he felt confident enough to spend a day shopping in Inverness. Fortunately, Martha had been an excellent judge of his size, something which Mrs Henderson had said could only have come about due to her spending too much time at the stranger’s bedside.
“But I’ve no money to go shopping with… well none that I know about.” He’d said stating the obvious to Martha, as she had stood and admired his new look. She hadn’t actually asked her father if she could take his clothes but knew he’d have said yes… eventually, so the question would have been a little irrelevant.
“Ah… I’ve thought of that as well. You can work.” Martha explained smartly.
“Work? Doing what? I don’t remember what I can or can’t do… whether I can juggle balls or build a house? For all I know I might have been a brain surgeon or a footballer.” He’d said exasperatedly.
“A brain surgeon?” Martha scoffed unkindly. “You might equally have been a street sweeper. I notice you didn’t include that particular skill on your brief CV.”
“Is that what you think? I was a street sweeper?” Donald asked, hoping beyond hope that Martha had more faith in his abilities than something so mundane.
“No… but it’s not because you look or sound clever either.” Martha threw out the backhanded compliment. “Look, the doctor wasn’t sure if you’d done a manual job or been employed in a white collar role… your hands weren’t particularly calloused but you might have been a keen gardener or someone who liked DIY… but brain surgeon? You don’t think you’re aiming a little high do you?”
Perhaps he had, but the problem of what he was going to do to earn a living wouldn’t just go away, he needed money… that much he’d already learnt from just lying in hospital, where everything that wasn’t pushed down his throat or up his bottom, cost money. Yes sir, he’d learn very quickly that nothing in whatever life he was living, was free.
“The job we were thinking about was gardener and handyman.” Martha explained cautiously.
“We?” Donald asked.
“Well alright, I was thinking that you could help out in the garden and father needs someone to do odd jobs around the place. Between you and me, since mother died, the garden’s hardly been touched and although he won’t admit it, after his surgery, home visits and his extra shifts as a volunteer at the homeless charity in Inverness… not to mention the odd day here and there working at the Cottage Hospital, father has no time left for anything else.”
“But…” Donald had started to explain.
“But nothing… and that’s all you’ve got left to lose?”
After dressing quickly and stopping only for the merest moment in front of the floor standing mahogany mirror to check the sartorial effect of the borrowed clothes, Donald headed downstairs towards the kitchen and the kettle. The rest of the house appeared quiet except for the sonorous sound of the large grandfather clock that regularly beat out its rhythmic message from the confines of the doctor’s study.
The kitchen didn’t look as if it had been touched since the house had first been built in the early part of the nineteenth century. The cream and green cupboards were still the hand-built originals and the large elm butcher’s block that took pride of place in the centre of the room looked like a rough sea on a windy day. The years of cutting and preparing all manner of food had carved any number of small hillocks and shallow dales across its entire golden coloured surface. Donald ran his hand over the surface and immediately felt it come alive. He might not have been able to remember his own past but he could sense the house’s history in the wood.
“A’d appreciate it if ye didnae titch anythin’ in ere, young man.” The cold, menacing Celtic voice cut through the warmth of the kitchen and sent a shiver scurrying from his neck all the way to the stone floor and forced Burn’s ‘Wee, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beasties’ to seek the shelter and safety of their own warm nests.
“Ye’ll an’ a’ mind that in this hoose a’m in charge.” Donald turned slowly around to see what hag and harridan was stirring the cauldron and putting her curse on his tortured soul.
Sat in the corner of the kitchen, next to the Aga and in reach of its warm enamelled surface sat a little old lady, who looked to be no more than five foot high in stature and five or six stone at the very most. As she spoke, she gently rocked back and forth in the ash chair, so that every now and then her two short legs, which were covered in brown wool stockings, touched the floor and then like a see-saw were elevated upwards, until the hypnotic cycle was repeated all over again. She didn’t look too formidable, Donald mused bravely… but the mice were not that easily fooled and whilst Donald took a few steps forward, they stayed safe and hidden behind the kitchen’s tall skirting boards.
“You must be Mrs Henderson? My name is Donald.” He announced holding out his hand like some African explorer who’d just found a lost tribe of pygmy headhunters.
“Aye ah know who ye’r. Y’re th’ laddie that lost his mynd.” The old lady pronounced with a steely stare that could have cut a diamond but instead merely stopped Donald in his tracks.
“I was wondering if it might be possible to make myself a drink.”
“Noo laddie what did I juist say? This is ma scullery… sae breakfast, wid ye lik’ some porridge?” Donald thought her accent rather thick but if he listened carefully he could just make out most of what the old woman said. But porridge didn’t ring any bells. In the hospital he’d started each day with toast, nothing else… but as the old crone stood on a stool next to her Aga and stared into the cast iron cauldron, which was bubbling and toiling away on the hotplate, Donald decided that for the sake of a peaceful coexistence that porridge might be his food of choice from here on. He pulled out one of the wooden slatted chairs from the large table and sat down.
“Aye, I think I’d like to try your porridge and maybe you’ll join me Mrs Henderson?”
Breakfast had been a civil affair. Donald optimistically thought that they’d come to a mutual understanding, which basically involved him not touching or doing anything in or around the house without her permission and the old housekeeper wouldn’t interfere with what he did in the garden… so long as he grew the vegetables she wanted for the kitchen and the flowers that she felt right for the house… they’d have to be colourful but not garishly so and have a scent that was pleasant but not overpowering.
“Mr Henderson wis a braw gardener ye ken. His favourite flowers wur Sweet Willeam, ‘n’ Wallflowers.” Mrs Henderson had hinted rather too solidly for Donald to overlook, as she washed up the breakfast dishes in the deep Belfast sink.
Donald’s kind offer to help had been met with another icy glare and unwilling to challenge the détente that had descended upon the house, he’d remained firmly seated. But each time Mrs Henderson had reached into the deep sink, to retrieve another pot or plate, he’d hoped and prayed that she would lose her precarious footing and tumble headfirst into the soapy suds.
“And he grew a stoatin neep 'n' swede… gey versatile vegetables they're 'n' thay lest lang intae th' cauld months, whin a' th' ither fancy ones hae bin taken by th' frosts. Whit aboot chickens? Hae ye considered th' hens yit? Mr Henderson kept aboot twenty… bit you’ll need tae protect thaim. Yond wee fox often pays us a visit 'n' he’ll be a bawherr partial tae th' odd hen… marc mah wurds.”
With the words, if not their meaning still ringing in hi
s ears and with a slightly bemused look upon his face, which Mrs Henderson had mistaken for someone who was still a little ‘shoogly in th’ heed’, Donald had been shooed outside and told not to come back in until eleven o’clock, when there’d be a cup of tea and a slice of freshly baked bread waiting for him.
Dazed by his first experience of the old Scot and wondering what sort of man the much lauded Mr Henderson must have been, Donald stood transfixed on the steps outside the back door and looked down the long garden out towards the Firth and the open sea beyond that. A crisp easterly breeze whipped across the water, rustled through the patch of overgrown shrubs that had been left to run rampant over the past few years and peppered his face with specks of sharp fine grit. The was a pleasant familiarity to the salty sensation that made Donald smile but whatever memories it had stirred remained locked away and so he thought no more about it except to think that it was an experience he’d savour for another time.
Undeterred by the sight before him and with the kitchen door barring his retreat, he brushed the sand from his lips and flicked up the collar of his ‘new’ Tweed jacket before heading off to explore the unknown, overgrown jungle.
Unsure what Mrs Henderson had actually said to him, he edged down the length of the garden expecting at any moment to come across the remains of Mr Henderson, who’d died with a spade in his hand after being abandoned to his fate by his wife. He too had been shooed out of the kitchen and had the door bolted behind him on the promise of some baked sustenance that never came… Donald shivered to a stop, as he pushed his way through the next group of dense shrubs and was presented with the sight of the single fork stuck in the ground, like a marker for an unknown grave.
Stranger at the Wedding Page 12