by M B Vincent
That, apparently, was too much. Abonda pulled her fingers away.
‘Who’ll take you on your last journey now?’
‘Nobody left to do it, so Abonda’ll go alone.’
Sooner rather than later. ‘I’ll go with you, Abonda. To Ham and Cheddar and, what was it, Bakewell.’
‘You’re a daft one, my little didicoy,’ said Abonda.
They sat together until the sun came up.
CHAPTER 25
ALL ARE WELCOME
Saturday 19 November
Cometh the hour, cometh the woman.
Susannah had excelled herself; the orangery was transformed. She had draped fairy lights, hung evergreen boughs and lit a thousand tea candles. She had handpainted a banner: Happy Birthday Judge James! The exclamation mark, an afterthought, was too small, and would trouble poor Susannah for the whole evening.
There were people everywhere, all dressed in their best, and accepting champagne flutes from dickie bow-ed waiting staff.
A new portrait of Jess took centre-stage among the tinsel. Squeezers had outdone himself; she seemed mid-vomit. Or maybe dead. Opinions differed.
‘Poor woman,’ whispered Meera to Moyra, as Dandan Wong passed them, new threads of grey in her glossy black hair. Both Meera and Moyra wore saris in honour of Meera’s heritage. Moyra looked ill at ease, as if she worried her complicated outfit might unravel.
‘Coming through,’ said Eddie. He had been asked/ordered to ‘look after’ Dandan by Patricia Smalls, and he was herding her through the throng as if she might detonate. All agreed that Eddie looked none the worse for his ordeal at Nic Lasco’s hand.
Blotmonap had no foothold in the bright room. Jess passed through, smiling greetings, stealing canapes. She wore black, of course, but it was strappy. Her pale shoulders were infrequently aired; they lent her a softer look. She wasn’t sure if she liked it, but she was persevering.
‘Thanks for coming,’ she said, and ‘Have you had a glass of champers?’, and ‘Yes, almost Christmas!’ Terrible at small talk, she persevered with that as well. It wasn’t that hard. If you switched off your brain.
She didn’t talk about how Christmas was a pagan holiday hijacked by early Christians. About how each little fairylight from John Lewis was a prayer against the darkness.
‘Out of way!’ Bogna scattered partygoers, holding a huge platter above her head. There were ‘Ooh!’s. There were ‘Aaah!’s. ‘Yule log, isn’t it,’ she said, placing it reverently on the buffet table.
‘We nicked Yule Logs from the Vikings,’ Jess had told her, as Bogna mixed and whipped and creamed and piped.
‘Don’t care,’ Bogna had replied.
‘The Viking log would have been covered in incantations, not plastic robins.’
‘Still don’t care.’
Now, Bogna basked in the rave reviews, and slapped Squeezers’ hand as he reached out to the ganache. ‘Later, smelly boy,’ she told him, and whipped off her apron to reveal sequins. To Jess, she said, ‘Go save your father.’ She smiled. Held Jess back for a second to add, gently, ‘Again.’
This time the foe was armed only with a cocktail. But it was her fifth. Lynne, rarely spotted outside the Mini-Mart, had arrived early and was now a few drinks ahead of her host.
Poor Dad. He was so bad at women. ‘Lynne, I think Graham from the bookshop’s looking for you.’
‘Is he?’ Lynne turned romantic at Castle Kidbury get-togethers; now she made for the unsuspecting Graham like a missile.
‘Thank you,’ said the Judge. He was pressed so far into the wallpaper he was part of the design. ‘How much longer?’
‘This too must pass,’ said Jess. No point trying to jolly him along. No point insisting, as Patricia Smalls had done earlier, that they were ‘making memories’. She understood. ‘David would have hated this.’
The Judge laughed. ‘Wouldn’t he just?’ Nowadays, their lost one could be named. They brought him up often: David, who had felt alone in crowds, was in the midst of one tonight. ‘Where’s Patricia?’ he asked.
No longer did Jess take this as a plea to protect him; she was climbing this steep learning curve with as much grace as she could scrape together, i.e. not much. ‘Probably critiquing Bogna’s log.’
The Judge said, ‘She means well.’ He said that a lot. Patricia had gained ground at Harebell House since the arrest, much as Hitler had gained ground in Europe in nineteen thirty-nine.
Grudgingly, Jess could admit that the analogy was only a loose one. Patricia and Adolf had little in common, beyond the moustache. Patricia’s exaggerated concern for the Judge, which had always irritated Harriet when she was alive, had transformed into something more sincere post-Jolly Cook.
Jess, too, found herself stealing looks at her father, trying to replace the memory of his lolling, wounded head with his present good health. Yes, he irritated her on an hour-by-hour basis; yes, he didn’t notice what she needed from him; yes, she had to bear the stigma of being a disappointment to him; but he was her one and only dad. He hadn’t walked out, like Fred Lasco. He hadn’t had the misfortune to die, like Denis Heap and Timothy Wong and J P Barreau. He was here, and like his birthday, he should be celebrated.
‘Rupert’s looking a lot better,’ said the Judge.
‘He is,’ agreed Jess. Not that much better; he was still zombie-pale and held one shoulder lower than the other. His new nickname was Quasimodo, but it would never replace her favourite, Rumpole.
Rupert’s flat was up for sale. A removals van was booked. He’d make the long drive to Edinburgh the morning after this night before.
He’d told Jess about his plans as he lay in hospital. She had dashed to Richleigh General after talking to Abonda in the woods. Outside his ward she’d slowed down, shoes squeaking on the lino, in case he realised she’d been rushing.
All the arrangements for the big move had been overseen by Jack. She was capable, this Jack. She was organising Rupert out of Jess’s life.
The coming year would have zero Rupert in it. Rupert-free. 0% Rupe.
Which was fine. Because it had to be. But before he went, Jess needed to tell him that Mitch was a diversion down a one-way street she’d had to awkwardly reverse out of. She looked about for him; he was generally easy to find in a crowd. He was taller than most, a big blocky chunk of bloke.
Rupert turned out to be behind her. He pulled her hair. She turned around. ‘You’re wearing make-up!’ he said. He peered, as if he was a scientist and Jess was a petrie dish full of fascinating germs. ‘Looks . . . sticky.’
‘Feels sticky.’ Jess had been coerced into lipstick and eyeliner by Susannah, who was dangerously manic around Christmas and could not be resisted. Jess now had a special place in Susannah’s capacious heart as a marriage saver; the ‘makeover’ had been pressed upon her with love and complete ignorance of Jess’s wishes. ‘Can’t wait to wash my face.’ She put her hand on his arm. ‘Listen, Rupert, about Mitch—’
‘Is that Abonda, all on her own?’ Rupert moved away, and Jess was nabbed by a guest needing directions to the loo.
A little exclusion zone around her, Abonda sat on a gilt chair. The proportions were all wrong, like a circus bear on a trike. She had found a fancy hairband and squashed it into her grey curls. That was as far as she went with trying to fit in with the gorgers.
Rupert squatted by her. ‘You been behaving yourself?’
She eyed him.
‘I was very sorry to hear about your son.’
‘Abonda don’t need your pity.’
Rupert straightened up. ‘My condolences, all the same.’
‘I can make you up a love potion, if you want. On the house, as you got me out of trouble.’
Rupert smiled. ‘Thanks for the offer, but I don’t need a love potion just now.’
‘A girlie’s head can be turned by a handsome face, but it don’t mean nothing.’
‘Probably true, but I’m not sure what you’re talking about.’
Abonda ignored h
is embarrassment. ‘This isn’t a witch talking, it’s a woman talking. Abonda’s been watching your Jess.’
‘She’s hardly my Jess,’ said Rupert. ‘Jess belongs to herself.’
Across the room, Jess asked Moretti to introduce her to his wife.
‘Not right now, I’m in the doghouse. Made fun of her fascinator.’
Butting in, Knott was disconcerting in a lacy dress. ‘Jess, nobody has bothered to point out the fire exits.’
Moretti put a hand on her shoulder, ‘Karen, we’re off duty.’
‘I’m never off duty.’ Knott waved to Eden, and with the slightest slump of his shoulders, he made his way towards them.
Dear God, thought Jess. She’s simpering.
‘Sir, isn’t it lovely to get together outside the station?’
‘Yes.’ Eden was short. As was his hair; he’d had a savage trim. ‘You look, um . . .’ He seemed to forage for a word to do justice to Karen. ‘Nice.’
Knott couldn’t speak.
With a pang, Jess realised that she would relive that compliment over and over.
‘I’m still buzzing!’ Moretti rocked on the balls of his feet. ‘My first big murder case. I can’t come down.’
Eden, who was pointedly not buzzing, said, ‘I’m just relieved it’s put to bed. I’m hoping for a nice long period of shoplifting and lost dogs. These people around us, everyone in Castle Kidbury, are in our care.’ He seemed to steel himself. ‘You did well, Moretti.’ He paused. ‘Pete.’
Taken unawares, Moretti blushed. ‘Thank you, sir. Richleigh might have the infrastructure and the budget, but they don’t have your way of doing things.’
If it’s possible to look delighted and horribly awkward at the same time, that’s what Eden did.
‘How’s your tumtum?’ asked Jess.
‘Better, thankfully.’ Eden patted his midsection as if it was a wayward pet.
Knott let out a shriek of surprise that startled them all. ‘Ooh look!’ She pointed upwards. A bunch of mistletoe, tied up with red ribbon, hung from the light-fitting above their heads. ‘Silly tradition, I know, but . . .’ She went on. She looked at Eden, who did not look back. ‘Traditions have to be obeyed, I suppose.’
‘Mistletoe,’ said Jess, feeling obliged to fill the silence that emanated from Eden like mustard gas, ‘was used to make the arrow that killed Balder, Thor’s brother. It’s said that their mother, Frigga, wept over the mistletoe and turned the berries white with her tears.’ Across the room, she saw Abonda and Rupert; any tears Abonda shed for her son were done in private.
Moretti stepped up to the plate. ‘C’mere, Karen!’ He planted a smacker of a kiss on her cheek, making her stagger. A passing woman in a fascinator stopped and glared.
‘I’m in for it now,’ muttered Moretti.
Jess left Knott and Eden to it. There was raucous laughter – the kind she liked best – coming from the kitchen.
Mary stuck out an arm, waved her over to the pantry, where she and Mitch, their heads close together, were having a party all of their own.
‘This fella’s such a flirt!’ said Mary.
‘Me?’ Mitch pretended to be insulted. ‘I’m genuinely madly in love with you, girl.’
‘You should be careful,’ warned Mary. Her concession to party dressing was a beauty spot felt-tipped onto her cheek. ‘Some people might take your crap seriously.’ She cast a sideways look at Jess. ‘He’s dangerous, isn’t he?’
‘More victims than the Kidbury Kannibal,’ said Jess. An hour earlier, she’d witnessed Mitch induce a whole-body flush in her sister-in-law that had almost proved fatal.
‘But not you,’ said Mitch. He winked.
‘Jaysus, have you no off switch?’ Mary cuffed him and Mitch reeled, the way men did when cuffed by Mary.
Jess had been back to the farm since Lasco’s arrest. Seen for herself that the circled place names were places Mitch meant to avoid because of their murderous associations.
Tying up all the loose ends, Jess had asked him if Zinnia really had woken up to find him missing from the house. He’d admitted that yes, he sometimes fled the house to cry. In the barn, he told her, he could ‘let it all out’ without disturbing his girls. It was pure coincidence that one of those nights was the evening of Timothy Wong’s murder.
When Mary, mesmerised by a tray of sausages on sticks, moved away, Mitch asked, sotto voce, ‘Are we, you know, cool, Jess?’
‘Yeah. ‘Course. We’re completely cool.’
A fresh wave of canapes hit.
Somebody spilled champagne on a rug.
Mary chose the waiter she would tie to a bed later on.
Circumnavigating the mayoress, Jess joined Rupert and Abonda. ‘I’m glad you came,’ she said, as the woman huffed in reply.
Abonda wouldn’t stay long; Jess had noticed the pain caused by each step on the deep carpet. The cancer was hitting its stride. Jess had worked a spell of her own; somehow she had convinced Abonda to visit a specialist.
Jess knew better than to ask how the appointment had gone. Instead Jess talked about the trance, how it lingered in her mind, how it had changed her.
The expression on Rupert’s face – the one he used if anybody mentioned healing crystals, guardian angels, or homeopathy – was wonderful to behold.
‘It took a while,’ said Jess, ‘but everything came together and suddenly the vision made perfect sense.’
‘Of course it did,’ said Abonda placidly.
‘It helped me to connect to somebody.’ Somebody dead, but hey it’s a start.
Abonda must have noticed Rupert’s scepticism. ‘You don’t have to believe in summat for it to be true.’
‘The accident you saw in my palm – I remembered it,’said Jess. ‘But no exciting holiday planned, so sorry, no dice there.’
Abonda rose. Slowly. Painfully. Neither Jess nor Rupert put out a hand to her. ‘Abonda needs to spend a penny,’ she said.
‘This is a house of many loos.’ Jess directed her to the nearest one.
‘She’s not coming back, is she?’ said Rupert.
‘Nope,’ said Jess.
In another part of the orangery, Susanna was saying, ‘Oh go on darling! Do a little joke for everyone!’
Stephen demurred. ‘I don’t really do jokes, darling.’
‘He’s so funny!’
‘I’m sure he is.’ Iris was in a silk dress that whispered as she moved.
Beside her, Eddie half listened. He kept an eye on Dandan Wong. The serpentine scar on the back of his head was fading.
‘Stephen’s funnier than Billy Connolly,’ Susanna assured them both. ‘And much better than that horrible Ricky Gervais.’
‘Suze, don’t.’ Since Stephen had confessed his heinous secret and been astonished by his wife’s reaction – ‘Why didn’t you say, you silly billy!’ – he’d had to withstand something far worse than her scorn. He had to withstand her fandom.
Their son zipped past, roaring like a Viking mid-pillage.
‘Baydrian, no!’ Susannah made to chase him, but Stephen put an arm around her.
‘Let’s enjoy being a couple tonight. You look bloody gorgeous, by the way.’
Susannah turned, watching the wake of spilled drinks and disgruntled guests Baydrian left. Then she leaned into her husband and smiled.
Iris stepped away, poaching a glass from a passing tray, and joined the Judge. He was pressed up against the wall, being talked at Patricia.
‘You two look very cosy.’ Iris was wry.
‘Patricia’s my port in a storm,’ said the Judge. Not wry at all. ‘I’ve never been any good at parties.’
Iris fondled the smooth head of the china fox. ‘That was more Harriet’s department.’ The expert spin she put on this comment sailed right over Patricia’s head.
Her grandson bowled up. Josh never just arrived; he always bowled up. ‘Isn’t this jolly? I love a good birthday bash. How old are you now, Uncle James? Twenty-one again, eh? Did Grandma tell you? About Da
d’s portrait?’
‘We don’t have a portrait of David, Josh.’
‘Oh yes we do! It’s only an old snap, really. He must have been, ooh, twenty or so. I blew it up, and had it framed. Very modern. I hung it in the exhibition. Between me and Grandpa. Where he belongs. He looks . . .’ Josh stopped. Emotions seemed to have caught up with his rush of words.
Patricia Smalls opened her mouth, but a flashed look – No! – from Iris made her close it again.
The Judge stepped in. ‘I’m sure it looks splendid, Josh. Well done.’
Fatherless, bumbling Josh nodded and beamed, beamed and nodded.
***
Rupert was talking.
Jess wasn’t listening. She was watching the back of his head as he turned to usher Squeezers into their circle.
He’s got a big head, she thought.
Mary swooped on Rupert, mussing his hair and grabbing him tight. ‘Jess hasn’t thanked us!’ she said. She kept hold of Rupert; Mary liked a big man. Well, she liked a small man and an in-between man. Mary liked men. ‘We saved your life, woman, and you never even said ta.’
‘Saved my life? I had it all under control until you lot barged in and the shooting started.’
‘Whisht, you loved it. It’s dead sexy being rescued.’ Mary nudged Squeezers. ‘Isn’t that right, Squeezers?’
‘Yes. No. What do you want me to say, Miss Mary?’ Squeezers was in awe of her. When she kissed his mucky forehead, he almost fainted.
Rupert, who was the wrong side of a lot of champagne, waggled a finger at Jess. ‘You were beside yourself when Lasco shot me. That’s what it takes for you to be nice to me. A bullet.’
‘Sure, it was only a shoulder wound,’ said Mary. ‘Don’t be a crybaby, Rupert.’ She whacked him on his wounded shoulder and his eyes glazed over.
‘It ruined my coat.’
Lynne said, ‘That Kelly McVeigh was in Hello magazine this week. Crying her eyes out in her high-end kitchen. Reckoned she knew nothing about her boyfriend’s little hobby.’