The Big Chill

by Doug Johnstone

  The band was singing about dying, no surprise given the whole The Black Parade album was about death, one of the reasons Dorothy had loved it ever since a student brought it to a lesson one time, asking how to play the fills in ‘This Is How I Disappear’. She loved the pure anger, thrashing guitars, pounding drums, singer on the edge of sanity.

  She pummelled the kit and felt the strain in her forearm tendons, along her calf muscles, her body singing like it was on fire. The song ended and she breathed heavily, waiting for the next one. In the sliver of silence her mind flooded with images, the look on Abi’s face when she thought Dorothy had news about her dad, James Dundas dead in his stolen car, Craig with his hands around her throat in the kitchen downstairs, death so close that she could feel its breath on her neck, could smell it every day when she woke, could feel its icy touch spreading from her mind to her limbs, now pounding away again as the music burst into life and her body with it, trying more than anything to hit and kick her way to some kind of truth.

  52

  JENNY

  The first three Dundases were a bust. At least Jenny thought so, but her mind was churning over Liam so maybe she missed something. She was going round the likely Dundas addresses, mentioning James and showing a picture, seeing how people reacted. She could’ve done it by phone but Dorothy thought you got a better feel for things face-to-face. Plus it was good manners given that Jenny could be delivering the news that someone was dead.

  So she’d driven the body van to Comely Bank, Murrayfield and Cramond, no dice. She thought again of the city as interlacing veins and arteries, the pieces of a city cross-pollinating, intertwining, spilling into each other. The differential of Edinburgh in a few hundred yards was crazy. From Cramond’s seaside cottages it was three minutes through Silverknowes into Pilton and Muirhouse, Trainspotting territory. Then south through the huge houses and parklands of Fettes and Inverleith. She skirted the traffic chaos in the centre of town, avoided the Royal Mile that tourists were so familiar with but which was only a tiny percentage of this unfathomable city. Then east around Arthur’s Seat along Duddingston Low Road, the loch below shimmering in the scudding sunshine, herons in treetop nests and swans gliding through the water, fluffball cygnets trailing in their wakes.

  Then she was here in Duddingston Village, past the Sheep Heid, apparently a resting post since the fourteenth century when Duddy was separate from the city. The houses here, even in the same street, were wildly different. Compact terraced cottages one side, detached mansions with gardens on the other, a scatter of sixties pebble-dashed semis at the end. She pulled up outside 46 The Causeway and switched the engine off.

  She walked up the driveway, lined by birch and oak, ravens flustering in the branches, magpies calling to each other. The house was huge, Victorian with Doric columns, plush curtains in the windows, a sporty Audi and a four-wheel beast parked outside the double garage.

  Jenny felt a fire in her belly as she reached the front door. She had the list of Dundases in her hand along with the picture of James and Rachel up Crow Hill. As she stood here she realised the path to Crow Hill started just round the corner, by the loch. She felt that burn in her stomach move to her chest as she rang the doorbell.

  The inner front door was old, etched glass, a swan and cygnets just like the ones she’s seen on the drive here. She saw movement behind the glass. The door was opened by a middle-aged woman, apron over a yellow summer dress. She was a few years older than Jenny but well maintained, carefully arranged, short blonde hair, impeccable make-up, strong cheekbones. She wore tasteful flat shoes and small drop earrings, was clutching a tea towel in her hands. Smudges of flour were on the apron and the sleeve of her dress.

  ‘Mrs Dundas?’

  ‘Mary, yes. What is this about?’ Her voice was posh Edinburgh, old money.

  ‘I was hoping you could help me,’ Jenny said, feeling the weight of every word. ‘Do you know a James Dundas?’

  Mary smiled. ‘Of course, my husband. What do you want?’

  Jenny shook her head as something dawned on her. ‘No, I mean this James Dundas.’

  She held up the picture, messy hair, smiling, briefly happy.

  Mary’s eyes gave her away. She reached out to touch the edge of the paper. Eventually her eyes darted away and she glanced over her shoulder, lowered her voice.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m Jenny Skelf, a private investigator.’ She held the paper up and it fluttered in a breeze. ‘You know him.’

  Mary swallowed hard, rubbed at her tea towel, twisted it into a spiral. She looked like she might pass out.

  ‘He’s my son,’ she said, again looking behind then leaning forward. ‘Our son.’

  Jenny felt tears behind her eyes, a shiver running from her neck down her back. ‘I have some bad news.’

  Mary shook her head, eyes wide, she knew.

  ‘Don’t,’ she said.

  ‘I’m afraid James is dead.’

  ‘Don’t.’ Mary’s fingertips went to her temple like she was channelling a message from the universe, but the only message here was a broken heart.

  The magpies were still making a racket in the trees behind them, and Jenny tried to remember the rhyme about them, how many were lucky or unlucky, whatever it was. As if our fate were dictated by birds.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ Jenny wanted to reach out and hug her but the distance between them seemed overwhelming. Mary leaned against the doorframe, fingers still fidgeting at her forehead, like she was tapping out a signal in reply to the universe.

  ‘Who are you?’ she said.

  ‘I told you, I’m a private investigator.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  Jenny shook her head.

  Mary swallowed. ‘I don’t believe what you say about Jamie.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s true.’

  ‘No.’ Mary gathered herself, pushed away from the doorframe, lowered her hand, returned to squeezing the tea towel. Her eyes were wet. ‘It’s not true.’

  There was a noise from inside the house, a door opening, the creak of floorboards.

  ‘Mary?’ A male voice, authoritative, confident. ‘Mary.’

  James Senior opened the door wider. He was tall, grey hair, clean shaven, buttoned-down Oxford shirt and cream chinos. His hair was a close buzz to his head, ex-military maybe, and his chin jutted out like he wanted the world to justify itself.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  Mary stayed silent, shrank into herself. Tears in her eyes but Jenny didn’t think James had noticed. He turned to her.

  ‘Who are you? What do you want?’

  Jenny looked at Mary, whose face dropped. Eventually Mary turned to her husband, tears on her cheeks. ‘It’s Jamie.’

  James stared, neck muscles tense. Mary looked down and away like a cowed beast.

  ‘Your son,’ Jenny said.

  James kept staring at Mary for a long time then eventually turned to Jenny, gripping the door.

  ‘We don’t have a son,’ he said.

  Mary gasped and raised her head. She hesitated for a long moment and James stood, daring her to do something. She swallowed heavily, seemed to muster up some courage, held his gaze.

  ‘He’s dead,’ she said, voice shaking. ‘You killed him.’

  53

  HANNAH

  The Inuit throat singers were terrifying and mesmerising. The two young women stood next to the plinth with Hugh’s coffin laid on top. They wore intricately embroidered purple cloaks, bone necklaces and earrings, leather headdresses. The noise they were making was insane. Hannah was transfixed along with the rest of the small congregation at Seafield Crem.

  The women faced one another and held each other’s elbows, arms rocking in time with the rhythm. Their heads were close as if telling each other a secret, smiles on their faces, lost in the moment of creating something magical. Their singing was a mix of gasping breaths, low, menacing growls and higher melodies, the two of them slightly out of step, giving t
he syncopation an unsettling edge. They started soft, built gradually until their voices reverberated around the high ceiling and walls, the sound penetrating Hannah’s mind, making her heart flutter. She was suddenly very conscious of her own breathing, how alone she was in the universe, a singular being cut adrift from the mass of humanity represented by the sisters’ hypnotic chants.

  She looked at Indy in her funeral-director outfit, demure black suit and white blouse, and thought about her body underneath. She hadn’t felt horny or sexy in a while, and she missed that deep pleasure of sharing your body with someone else. Maybe the throat singers were turning her on.

  The singers were nodding their heads, foreheads occasionally touching. It seemed deeply personal yet completely outward-looking, as if they were addressing the whole history of the planet with their primal voices. Hannah wondered if she could channel anything like that or if it was cultural, generations of women teaching their daughters this link to the universe.

  She looked around the congregation. Wendy and Edward were in the front row holding hands, eyes closed, enveloped in sound. Hannah couldn’t help thinking of them as a couple. What if they killed Hugh or persuaded him to take his own life so they could be together? She was an investigator now, she could investigate. Look into their lives, whether there was any evidence. Was it possible to have an affair within an open marriage? And wasn’t Edward gay?

  She was losing her mind. There was no evidence Hugh was murdered or that these two were in cahoots. But maybe it would explain Wendy’s coolness about Hugh’s death, how Edward was her rock. She stared at their hands together on Wendy’s lap, let the music wash through her, felt the reverberations in her pelvis, the growls in her scalp. She imagined herself as a polar bear snarling across the Arctic tundra, ripping open a seal’s stomach and feasting on the innards, seal blood smeared around her mouth and matting her fur.

  Wendy opened her eyes and Hannah looked away.

  The rest of the congregation was made up of Hugh’s colleagues from the physics department and other academics. Hugh was in his eighties so there weren’t many people here. It was a paradox of funerals, you might expect older people to accumulate friends over the years, but ceremonies for the very elderly were often quiet because some friends had died off already. Hannah found that depressing. She tried to remember when she’d last seen her therapist. She soaked up the unearthly music flowing around the room, felt her constituent atoms vibrate, a quantum entanglement that rewired her brain, turning her into someone she barely recognised.

  She looked around again. She recognised some of the lecturers, heads down, sombre. A couple of post-docs and one or two undergrads, maybe they had a soft spot for Hugh.

  Then she saw him.

  A couple of rows behind everyone else, black hoodie and jeans, his head bowed. She wasn’t sure to begin with, couldn’t see his face. This guy was blond, though, cropped short, slight flick at the front, and his frame was a match too, tall and skinny. It could even be the same hoodie and jeans. Hannah hadn’t spotted him on the way in but there was another entrance to the chapel, through the waiting room at the back. He must’ve come in that way once Hannah was inside.

  The singers were still going, throbbing voices, gasping and panting, the beat of it all around.

  She waited and watched, didn’t blink in case she missed something. She prayed for his head to rise and up it came like she made it happen. It was him, bags under the eyes, quizzical arch to his eyebrows.

  Hannah got up and walked down the aisle. Everyone watched her, the guy too, his face turning from curious to something else as he realised she was heading for him.

  ‘Hey,’ Hannah said, and the singers at the front hesitated for a moment before synching up again.

  The guy got up and walked to the back of the chapel, people in the pews turning as Hannah started running and the guy did too.

  ‘Hey,’ Hannah said again, as the guy picked up pace and was out the door and through the waiting room, Hannah banging the door as she flung it wide heading after him. He was outside and turned left up the gravel drive, sprinting hard. Hannah stopped and kicked her heels off then sprinted after, feeling gravel on her stockinged feet. This was quicker, she was going to catch him.

  He glanced back and saw her following, spurred himself through the graveyard, past the garden of rest and war memorial, his feet pounding. She was gaining on him, though, and he clutched at his chest. He turned into the older graves, a couple fallen down, some worn away, the forgotten dead. He was heading for the exit on Leith Links but she was getting closer.

  ‘Stop,’ she shouted between gasps of air.

  He looked back but kept going, past the gatehouse and the stone exit posts. She was still closing, only a few yards away as they both sprinted along Boothacre Lane. It was a tiny street and he was near the end already, Hannah’s feet burning, lungs heaving.

  ‘Wait,’ she said.

  He turned and looked at her as he ran beyond the end of the street into the bend of Claremont Park, straight in front of a red Ford Ka that knocked him up and over the windscreen, tumbling across the roof in a horrible crunch, then the heavy slap of his body on the road and the screech of brakes.

  ‘Shit,’ Hannah said.

  54

  DOROTHY

  She watched Archie embalming a Mr Bateman, checking the pressure gauge on the pump, lifting the tube to check for blockages, massaging the skin of his hand and arm, bringing him back to fake life. She tried to process the two calls. Hannah was in hospital with an unconscious man she chased into traffic from Hugh Fowler’s funeral. Jenny was on her way back to the house, said she’d found James Dundas’s family and the father didn’t want to know. Families were hard, but standing on your doorstep denying you had a son was something else.

  Archie noticed Dorothy in the doorway and smiled. She ran a hand along the fridge doors, thinking about the people inside, the lives they led, the dreams they had.

  ‘Why do we do this?’ she said.

  Archie glanced up from Mr Bateman. ‘What?’

  ‘All this death.’ She waved a hand. ‘It seems natural to us, but it’s deeply weird.’

  Archie thought it over. ‘If you say so.’

  Dorothy walked over to where he was working. ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘I mean with your mum.’

  ‘I know what you mean.’

  ‘If you want to talk.’

  ‘No.’

  Did talking help? That was the standard line about grief but maybe there was nothing gained from chewing it over. Maybe it just stopped the healing.

  Her mobile rang in her cardigan pocket. She fished it out, a number she didn’t recognise. She thought about Craig taunting them. It must be Dorothy’s turn for the treatment.

  ‘Hello?’

  A pause on the line, a cigarette inhale.

  ‘Hello.’ Dorothy’s voice was hard, she wasn’t afraid of Craig.

  ‘It’s Sandra, Abi’s mum. You left a message.’

  Dorothy sensed something down the line, Sandra knew what this was about.

  Dorothy smelled embalming fluid, other chemicals, a hint of decaying flesh. ‘We need to meet.’

  ‘Just tell me what you have to tell me.’ There was bluster in her voice undercut by nerves.

  Dorothy stepped away from Archie, back to the fridges. ‘I know.’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘I know.’

  Silence down the line, another draw on the fag.

  ‘You don’t know anything.’

  Dorothy leaned her forehead against a fridge door, cold metal on her skin. She imagined lying inside on a tray.

  ‘I met Neil Williams,’ she said. ‘I mean Stephen Marks.’

  More silence, no cigarette this time just hesitation. It went on so long Dorothy wondered if Sandra had hung up.

  ‘Have you spoken to Abi?’ Sandra said eventually.

  Dorothy closed her eyes. ‘I wanted to talk to you first.’
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  Sandra cleared her throat. ‘Let’s meet.’

  The Earl of Marchmont was a tiny dogleg bar on the corner of Sciennes Road and Marchmont Crescent. It had fairy lights around the bottle gantry, a scatter of small tables, big windows flooding the space with light. The last time Dorothy was in here, some years ago, it was full of Bangkok Lady Boys from their Fringe show on the Meadows. They were off duty, in shirts and trousers rather than glitter and feathers, but they were still the most beautiful people Dorothy ever laid eyes on.

  Today the clientele was more prosaic, an old man with a West Highland terrier by his feet, a young student couple with pints of something hoppy and cloudy. And Sandra Livingstone with a large glass of red wine already half finished. She sat in the corner, as far away as possible, and Dorothy wondered if that was deliberate. As she approached, Sandra noticed her and flinched.

  Dorothy spotted the bottle of Malbec on the table and a second glass. Sandra refilled her glass and poured into the other without asking. She took a glug and nodded at a seat. Dorothy sat and sipped, her hands shaking. She didn’t want to be here any more than Sandra. It was just another bunch of lies. She wondered if this was her life now as a PI, uncovering people’s stupid secrets and feeling bad about it. Was that how Jim felt? The burden of knowing this stuff was overwhelming.

  Sandra’s eyes were red from crying.

  ‘So you met Stephen.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did he tell you?’

  ‘I know all about it,’ Dorothy said. ‘The only thing I don’t understand is why.’

  Sandra shook her head, picked at her thumbnail. She wore a neat blouse and skirt, the smart businesswoman with a hint of sass, it didn’t hurt when letting flats to men.

  ‘How did you find him?’ she said.

  ‘Mike gave me the address Abi had for Neil. I cased the place using an apartment opposite. That’s where I found Abi.’