Come to Harm (24 page)

“Yeah,” said Fancy. “Death by drop scone. See I never got much of that—except from Pet—because they didn't approve of me, but you were always going to be for it: a good girl like you, all on your own and thousands of miles from home. You might as well have had a red cloak on and a basket of stuff for Grandma.”

Keiko was nodding, but Fancy saw through it. “What?” she said. “What else is there?”

“Janette Campbell,” said Keiko. “Why was she so cold when I talked about the slaughterhouse? I don't believe it was what Malcolm said.”

“Neither do I,” said Fancy. “I never did. Janette Campbell doesn't have much time for Murray. I reckon it was finding out you'd taken up with him that bugged her, not the mention of that back shed.”

“But why didn't you
tell
me that?” said Keiko.

“Because Malcolm was there, remember?” Fancy said. “It was steak and kidney pudding day. And I didn't want to say that someone didn't think much of his brother in front of him. And then I forgot.”

“But why?” said Keiko.

“Oh, for God's sake, Keiko!” said Fancy. She poured herself another drink and after a sip of it, she spoke very slowly and loudly. “Okay, I didn't forget. I just don't like talking about it, but okay, you win. I, Frances Mary Clarke, did not tell you that Janette Campbell bears a grudge to Murray Poole. Shoot me.”

“I didn't mean why did you forget,” Keiko said. “I mean why doesn't Janette—”

“For God's
sake
!” said Fancy and then started speaking very loud and slow again. “Because Natasha was her shampoo girl and she probably told Janette that Murray was a crap boyfriend. Or … I don't know.”

Keiko frowned.

“What now?” said Fancy.

“Who's Natasha?”

Fancy blinked. “Tash,” she said.

Keiko stood up and jammed her hand into her jeans pocket. She pulled out the necklace and let it swing in front of Fancy's face.

“I found this in my kitchen drain,” she said. “This is what was clogging it.”

Fancy reached out and grasped it. “That's Tash's,” she whispered. “Pet's got a picture of her wearing it.”

“It was fastened,” Keiko said. “It didn't just fall off.”

“Oh my God,” said Fancy.

“Has anyone heard from Tash since she left?”

“Mother of God,” said Fancy. She held the chain and put it to her lips. She looked up at Keiko with fresh tears in her eyes. “What have I done?” she said.

Keiko took her free hand. “Please,” she whispered. “Tell me.”

Fancy waved to the bottles, and Keiko refilled both glasses with even bigger measures than before.

“I lied to you,” Fancy said when she had taken a big swallow from hers. “It was true about the state Pet was in when I came back,
rocking with the baby, crying, all that. And the ego boost, that was true too. Except the more time went on, the more I got the idea that it was Tash she was mourning, and Vi and me were like a consolation prize.” Keiko shook her head but Fancy ignored her. “And I sort of knew I should try and get in touch with Tash and tell her she was wrong about foster mums. We all get so cynical so young, you know? Toughen up so no one can hurt you? We all used to tell ourselves the carers were in it for the money. Only I must have known it wasn't true with Pet, or why did I come back, right? And I knew I should find Tash and tell her. But …” Fancy ducked her head down between her shoulders the way she had the first time they met. “I didn't want to share. I didn't want Pet's favourite coming back and shoving me out.”

Keiko was shaking her head faster now. “Pet loves you,” she said. “She adores you. And Viola. No one could shove you out!”

“Well,” said Fancy. “That's what I did, anyway.”

“You didn't do anything,” Keiko said. “All your feelings are understandable and natural, even if they're wrong.”

“Yeah, but I did lie though,” said Fancy, in a tiny voice. “By omis
sion.”

Keiko groaned. “Please forget I said that.”

“And the other thing too. I didn't look for her to try to get her home again.” Fancy's voice had grown hoarse. “And then—Jesus, this is hard to say!—when Pet asked me to, cos she's useless with the Internet, I said I would, and then I said I had, and I said couldn't find her.” She caught a sob before it could get free. “But I never checked at all because I was scared if she came back there'd be no place for me. And then, after you asked about her and Nikki and Dina the other day, I did search and there's nothing. I left it too late and she's lost now. She's really gone.”

Keiko put down her glass and took Fancy's out of her hand, then she wrapped her arms around Fancy's shoulders and hugged her close. Fancy buried her head into Keiko's middle and finally let go. Keiko bent and kissed the parting of her hair.

“I am so sorry,” she said as Fancy wept. “I've dredged up your worst memories and made you feel badly. You did nothing wrong.”

“I let her stay lost,” said Fancy, her voice sodden and muffled.

“You were young,” Keiko said. “Then you grew up into a good person and a good mother, and you are a wonderful daughter and friend. You did nothing wrong.”

Fancy sniffed and pulled back, turning her face up to look at Keiko. “Well, neither did you then,” she said with a watery smile.

Keiko went to get a cool cloth and took her seat again.

“You know what the real mystery is?” Fancy said after she had blown her nose and finished her drink. “Murray thinks he can tell you what to do and what to look like and drop mysterious hints until he's got you demented. And Craig McKendrick has been playing silly buggers with me since he first stuck his hand up my jumper on a school trip. Jesus, you jumping when Murray says jump must be making him as happy as a pig in shit, you know! And so the only real mystery is why I—after everything I learned the hard way from Viola's dad—and you—who spend your whole life studying human nature—give one single solitary sod about either of them.”

Keiko finally felt her body and mind smash back together at last. “I've made such a fool of myself,” she said. “I just want to crawl into a hole and hide. I don't know how I'm going to face anyone.”

“Nobody knows what you were thinking, you bampot,” said Fancy. “Or hey! You could always walk home backwards like Vi does. Rewind!”

“I must have gone mad. I really thought—”

“Look,” said Fancy. “You're in a new country, a long way from home and it must seem like, ‘Oh my god, what a crazy place, what's going on?' Like all kinds of things that could never happen at home might happen here. But it's not real. It's like if I went to Tokyo, I would be just the same. Total head wreck.”

“Well, I'm over it now,” Keiko said. “And you're right about Murray. But …” She hesitated. “Don't be too hard on Craig. He did warn me. Except I thought it was Malcolm he was warning me about.”

“Did he say he warned Tash?” said Fancy. Her voice was cold. “Or was he another one who reckoned she didn't matter?”

“He didn't mention Tash,” Keiko said. “He felt bad even saying what he did. He was trying to be loyal to his friend.”

“Yeah, well, his friend's not worth it and he's definitely not worth you. And poor Malcolm—he's done nothing!”

“Please promise me you will never tell anyone what I said, what I thought,” Keiko said.

“Cross my heart and hope to die and be served at a barbecue to all my friends and neighbours,” said Fancy with a smirk. “I won't tell a soul.”

_____

Keiko called in to say sorry to Mrs. Watson for dashing through the shop earlier. Mrs. Watson stroked her arm and made soothing noises through her giggles.

“Well now, you must just put it out of your mind in time for New Year's Day, so you can sit down to your hough dinner and enjoy it. I'm just the same with tongue, mind. I love a slice with a good sweet pickle, but I couldn't cook it for a king's ransom. Lying there in the pot looking just like a great big tongue.” She shuddered and then squeezed Keiko's shoulder. “So I won't tell if you don't tell. And don't you worry about Malcolm; he's used to the rest of us being more squeamish than him.”

Keiko stood still, staring at her, wondering if she could ask—just ask straight out—about the letter and why Mrs. Watson had looked that way. If Fancy was right, there would be some silly, innocent explanation for it.

“And speaking of the Pooles,” said Mrs. Watson. “I was hearing in the post office first thing that Willie Byers has finally caved in and agreed to sell to the Traders. He went round and told Jimmy McKendrick last night.”

“Really?” said Keiko. “That's excellent news. Well, not for Murray.” What would he do? she wondered. Cut the ties, leave Painchton, and find a proper place of his own? For a split second, the feeling this thought produced—a flattening out, a downward swoop in her insides—might have been mistaken for disappointment, but in no time at all she had identified it: it was relief.

thirty-two

Wednesday, 27 November

After talking with Fancy
on Monday, Keiko did not put on her tracksuit and trot over to the workshop at the time set by
Murray for their sessions. She sat in the flat listening for him and rewording her explanation until bedtime. The next night she waited again, thinking of all the times she had skipped downstairs to find him, of how he had watched for her passing and come out onto the street to talk to her, of how he only climbed the stairs—all that effort!—when he needed something.

So when the knock finally came at seven o'clock on the third day, as she was standing in the kitchen slicing vegetables for her dinner, she was almost tired enough of thinking about him to feel no triumph at all. She stood aside to let him in and he slouched towards the living room and threw himself down into a chair with a groan. Keiko settled herself on the sofa.

“Have you heard?” he said at last.

“I don't think so,” said Keiko, almost sure what he meant but refusing to go along with his estimation of its enormity.

“Willie Byers said to McKendrick that the Traders can have his place. He's going to sell.”

“I see.” Was she trying to provoke him with this performance of calm?

“It must have been right after Mum went to see him. For sheer spite.”

“He is not a kind man,” Keiko said. “But does it matter? Since you want to leave anyway?”

“What?” said Murray. “Who said I want to leave? Why would I want to leave after the work I've put in on the place?”

Keiko was speechless for a moment. “
You
said it,” she said, when she had got her voice back. “You said it over and over again. That Painchton wasn't right for you. Or for me. That it was dangerous and you wanted to get away.”

“Oh,” he said. “That. Yeah, well, it was just the shop really.”

“But you said there was a secret. You said I was in danger.”

“What secret?” he said. “Yeah, I said you were in danger—of ending up like Malcolm and the rest of them.”

Keiko thought hard. Could that be right? Had Murray really never mentioned a secret? Was that her own imagining? “You said there was a puzzle,” she told him. “You definitely said that to me.”

“Yeah: how to keep my workshop when the Traders were trying to get it,” he said.

Keiko felt the last twist of tension leave her. Fancy had driven most of it away, but there had been wisps left behind. Small questions, small worries. Now she felt nothing. Absolutely nothing at all.

“It might be for the best that Byers is selling,” she said to Murray. “This way you can look for better premises, perhaps in a busier place where you'll have customers. Start taking on repairs. Get a bank loan, draw up a business plan.” Like Fancy had done when she was only seventeen. “Or,” she softened her tone, “if it's to be just a hobby, then make it a hobby. Build a shed in your garden.”
Get a garden,
she thought.
Get a house.

Murray shook his head, as if she didn't understand. “There's no reason for him to sell to the Traders,” he said. “He doesn't give a stuff about the town. And he should compensate me. We had an agreement.” His eyes darted to and fro across the pattern on the carpet as though the answer was hidden there in the brown and orange swirls and he could catch it if he was quick enough. “Someone must have nobbled him. He wouldn't have done this. I know him. I know how he works.”

“Clearly you don't,” she said. “Unless he's only toying with the Traders. Has he signed anything?”

“I don't think so.”

“So talk to him.” She did not quite manage to hide the exasperation. “If you really think you want the whole redevelopment stalled so that you can have your bikes and your gym where it suits you to have them …”

“Mum won't—” he began.

“Oh Murray, it doesn't matter if your mother won't do it for you. Do it for yourself. At least enforce the contract yourself. Try to
get
compensation.”

“But he's made up his mind,” said Murray. “I'm no good with things like that.”

“At least try!” Keiko said, even louder. “Don't just say you can't. Change his mind. Unmake his mind.” He was staring into the fire again and his breathing was getting quicker. “People are
not
lumps of meat, Murray. Take it from me. You can change them and fix them, just like motorbikes. What do you think I spend my time doing?” He was almost panting now listening to her. “Byers is playing you and the Traders off against each other, and you shouldn't let him.” She was getting to him. She tried to sound like Fancy, who made all things seem so clear. “He's …” She groped for the phrase. “He's as happy as a pig in shit, making all this trouble,” she said. Murray turned his whole body towards her and gave her a stare that was both hard and vacant at the same time. “And,” she went on, “you shouldn't let a shitty old pig decide your life for you.”

“You're right,” said Murray. “I knew that. I just needed to hear someone else tell me.” He sprang out the chair so suddenly that she flinched. And then he moved, faster than walking, smoother than running, out of the room. She heard the front door bang behind him.

“It doesn't have to be this minute, you … plank,” she said to the empty air, then shook her head at her reflection in the mantelpiece mirror. Not a word. Not a single word about her, about them. Just total concentration on his own little problem. Like a child. She laughed out loud and went back to the kitchen.

The red onion, green pepper, and white radish were sliced into thin lengths with pointed ends like quills, and she sprinkled them into a smoking skillet smeared with a drop of oil. She took an egg from the fridge. She would make it into a thin omelette to wrap around her vegetables, slice the tube into rounds and then sit at the table and nibble away until she was tired. Except that she was tired already. She watched the vegetable strips beginning to crisp at the edges and, moving with sudden speed, she got another two eggs, broke all three into the pan and stirred the mess until it was mixed. While the underside browned, she grated cheese on top, holding the grater over the pan, ignoring the sound and smell of stray shards hitting the stove. She roasted it under the grill until it was bubbling and then, holding it between two slices of toast, she carried it, plateless and licking the melting butter from her wrists, over to the table and ate the lot.

She was in her bedroom about to start undressing when the next knock came.

“Hello?” she said through the door, striking just the right note of caution to let him know that she didn't assume it was him. And if it was him, he could forget it; he was not getting back in tonight.

“Keiko?” came the answer, just as soft. Malcolm.

He was as uneasy as she had ever seen him, swaying in the familiar side-to-side shuffle, looking down. She had always thought of him as looking at his feet, but she realised now that when he looked down he must be looking at his chest or maybe his stomach; he couldn't see his feet from there.

“Keiko, I'm sorry to trouble you so late.” It was almost midnight. “But I really need to speak to Murray.”

“Murray's not here,” she said more sharply than she intended, and Malcolm looked up.

“But he's been here?” he said. She nodded. “Have you had a row?”

“No.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“The workshop, probably,” said Keiko. “Have you tried there?”

“There was no answer,” said Malcolm. Then he just stood there, waiting.

“Do you want to come in?”

He nodded and she led him to the kitchen, turning to fill the kettle while he rearranged the table slightly out from the wall and squeezed himself into the sturdiest chair. He looked tired, his lips pale and less clearly outlined than usual against the smooth expanse
of his face, grey smudges like thumbprints in the inner corners of his eyes. She put sugar into his tea without asking and sat down opposite.

“Did you hear about Willie Byers?” he asked. She nodded. “And you knew my mother was hoping to buy the place for Murray?” She nodded again and felt the look of incredulity, possibly picked up from Murray himself, pucker her eyebrows. How solemn could everyone be about this? Malcolm blew across his tea, drew in a loud mouthful, and went on. “Murray's very disappointed.” He looked at her through the oily locks of his fringe and chewed his lip, then seemed to come to some decision. “He was at the house earlier and he was very
…
upset, and I thought I should ask you to be careful with him.”

“Careful?” said Keiko. Was he warning her or threatening her?

“Gentle, I mean. I know you don't understand and it's hard to explain. Impossible to explain, really. So just be kind. And if he needs to talk, just listen. Would you do that for us?”

“It's too late,” said Keiko. “I've already told him what I think and I'm afraid I wasn't ‘kind and gentle and careful.' I was straightforward. I actually dared to speak my mind. I know that's wrong.”

Malcolm smiled at her tone and acknowledged the point with a bow. “Not the Painchton way of doing things?” he said. “Is that what you mean? Or not the Poole way at least?”

“But I think I helped him come to some decision.”

“What did you say to him?”

“I said he should take control of the situation. I simply suggested that he could make it happen if he really wanted to and if Mr. Byers had made up his mind, then Murray should change it. I hope he doesn't. I hope he fails. The Traders' plans are more important than Murray's whim.”

“You told him to change Byers's mind?”

“I was talking in the most general terms, but Murray seemed to think I'd given him an idea.”

Malcolm put his cup down with a smack, slopping his tea. His eyes were an echo of Murray's from hours before, piercing but blind. “What
exactly
did you say to him?” he asked her.

Keiko could remember her words clearly. She had been proud of them, inelegant as they were.

“I said—why does this matter, Malcolm?—I said Mr. Byers was causing trouble and enjoying it, and that Murray was pathetic to say he could only deal with bikes and not people and he should take charge, unmake Mr. Byers's made-up mind and I said—excuse me, but what I said
exactly
—was that Mr. Byers was like a pig in shit and that Murray shouldn't let his life be decided by a stupid, shitty pig.”

Malcolm rose straight up like a whale breaking water and with no backward movement, so that the flimsy table was shoved towards Keiko and pinned her to the wall. He loomed over her, swaying, for just two or three of her racing heartbeats, then he turned and thundered to the door, gathering speed as he went, making the stone floor under Keiko's feet shudder. She scrambled out from her chair and followed him along the passage, watching the hanks of hair flap, the clods of flesh wallop and shiver with every thumping footfall.

Down the stairs he went, two at a time, the hallway booming back at him. When he turned on the landing, Keiko could see that his whole face was putty grey, his blue lips working grotesquely as he tried to summon his voice. She could feel each of his steps through her own feet and up to her teeth as he pounded along the passageway to the yard, and she was right behind him as he slammed in through the back door of the shop. The moan in his throat got clearer and louder until it burst out of his mouth.

“Mm. Mm! Mum!”

Mrs. Poole was in place in the puddle of light at her desk, with her ledgers spread open before her. She moved only her eyes as Malcolm lurched into the doorway and stopped dead, making Keiko smack into his back.

“Keiko?” she said, her voice defeated and odd-sounding after Malcolm's panic. “Where is she?” Malcolm reached behind him and dragged Keiko to the front, clamping her to him tightly, her waist in the fold of his elbow. She rocked back and forward against his heaving belly as he laboured to catch his breath and did not even try to struggle as Mrs. Poole rose to her feet, crossed towards them, reached out, and put her hands on either side of Keiko's face.

“Thank God,” she said. For the first time, in the dim light of the lamp, Keiko could see colour, a bloom of warm brown, in the dark eyes. Mrs. Poole looked up at her son. “What then?” she whispered. “What's happened?”

“Byers,” was all Malcolm managed to say. He released his grip on Keiko and turned away, letting the cold air sweeping in from the yard door move around her body again. He went back along the passageway at a stumbling trot, barely lifting his feet from the flagstones. Mrs. Poole hesitated until he was halfway down the yard, almost out of sight, then went after him. Keiko followed her. They heard Malcolm fumble for the padlock on the slaughterhouse door and yank it down hard against the hasp, testing it, finding it locked. Then he started to move again at a shuffle; as their eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, they could see him pause in the yard gateway before turning and heading down towards the green.

Malcolm shouldered open a back door into Byers's part of the building, splintering the lock, and they hurried inside, he first and Mrs. Poole and Keiko in his wake like two tugboats following a liner. They passed the filthy toilet Keiko had once glimpsed and burst into Murray's room. The darkness was so deep it was like stepping into ink. They could see nothing and it sounded still and empty. Only
the smell was wrong. Rising up through the mix of wax, oil, and paint was something else—sourness and sweetness combined, metal and
animal, perfume and stink.

Mrs. Poole clicked on one of the lights just long enough for Keiko to see but not to comprehend. There was something spreading across the floor and splattered out, something smeared thin, something clotted. Heaps jagged and piled, smooth white and rags, and Murray's face as the light snapped off again.