The Vows of Silence (9 page)

“I might. I can guess what’s making her angry. Surprised she wants to see me though—Karin’s very proud, she won’t want to lose face.”

The telephone rang. “People,” Lois said to Cat, before she answered it, “behave unexpectedly. You know that as well as I do. There’s no second-guessing how it’s going to take anyone. She’s in room 7.

“Imogen House, good evening, this is Lois.”

The sense of calm and peace Cat always experienced walking through the quiet corridors of the hospice at night met her as she left the reception area, though there were voices from some of the wards, and lights were on. Whatever their beliefs about death, Cat thought, no one could fail to be affected by the atmosphere here, the lack of rush, the absence of noise and bustle that was the inevitable part of any other hospital. She turned into B wing. Here, rooms 5 to 9 were grouped around a small central area which had armchairs and small tables, and double doors that led onto a terrace and the hospice garden. Patients who were well enough sat here during the day or were pushed out in wheelchairs and even beds, to enjoy any fine weather. But now the doors were closed and the room empty.

Or so it seemed. But as Cat went across to room 7, someone said, “I’m here.”

Karin McCafferty was sitting in the chair closest to the darkened windows. The chair was high-backed and turned away, towards the light. Cat realised that she had failed to see her not only because of that but because Karin, who had never been tall, seemed the size of a child curled up in it.

Cat went over and would have bent to hug her but Karin made a movement to lean back and away from her.

“I was afraid I’d die,” she said, “before you got home.”

Looking at Karin in the light from a lamp in the corner, Cat understood that this might well have been so. The flesh seemed barely to cover her, her skin had the transparent gleam and pallor of the dying. Her fingers on the chair arm were ivory bones interlaced by the blue threads of veins. Her eyes were huge in deep sockets sunk into her skull.

“Don’t gloat,” she said, looking intently at Cat. “Don’t crow because you won.”

Cat pulled up one of the chairs. “You think very badly of me,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

Karin’s eyes filled with sudden tears and she shook her head furiously.

Cat took her hand. It lay almost weightless in her own. “Listen—everything fails. Sooner or later. Everything. We don’t know nearly as much as we pretend. You did what you believed in and it gave you time—good time too, not time recovering from awful side effects, not time without your hair and being sick and exhausted or recovering from major surgery. You
had the courage to reject the orthodox. And, for you, for a long while, it worked. What do I have to crow about? You could have had surgery and chemo and radiotherapy and been dead in six months. Nothing’s guaranteed.”

Karin smiled slightly. “Thanks. But it
has
failed. I’m angry with it, Cat. I believed, I really and truly believed, that it would cure me for good. I believed that more than I have ever believed anything, and it let me down. It lied to me. They lied.”

“No.”

“I’m dying nevertheless—and I wasn’t going to die. I was going to stay well. I thought I’d beaten it. So I feel totally betrayed and if anyone asked me, should they go down the road I took, then no, I’d say, no, don’t bother. Don’t waste your money or your energy or your faith. Put your faith in nothing. None of it’s any good.”

The tears splashed down onto Cat’s hand, and now Karin leaned forward so that she could be held.

No one can get through to her. Maybe you’ll have some luck, Lois had said.

Cat felt Karin’s frail body shake in a fury of crying. She said nothing. There was nothing to say. She simply held her and let her cry her tears of weariness and pain, disappointment and fear.

It took a long time.

In the end, Cat helped her to bed and sent a text message home, fetched tea for them both and came back to find Karin lying, white as the linen of her high pillows, exhausted but calm.

“Have you been in touch with Mike?”

Karin’s mouth firmed. “No, I have not.”

“Maybe he’d want to know?”

“Then he’ll have to want. I’ve moved on from all that.”

“OK. It’s your call.”

“There is …” Karin hesitated. “I want to talk about it. About dying.”

“To me?”

“Do you know what happened to Jane Fitzroy?”

Jane had been the chaplain to Imogen House and a priest at the cathedral.

“No, but I could find out. She went to a convent—I had an address before we went to Sydney—and if she isn’t there any more they’ll probably know where she went.”

Simon might know, she thought but did not say.

“I liked Jane. I could talk to her.”

“I’ll do whatever I can.”

“I’ll try not to die first.”

Cat stood up. “Do you want me to come and see you again?”

“If you can bring Jane.”

“And if I can’t?”

Karin turned her head away.

After a moment, neither saying any more nor touching her again, Cat went quietly out of the room.

Her phone buzzed the receipt of a text message as she crossed the courtyard.

Feel crap going bed. Si here mad as hatter. Hurry up. Xx.

Seventeen

Ten past six. This end of town is quiet. Offices shut. Shops shut. And the
Seven Aces
not open till eight. Plenty of time.

Timed it right. Perfectly calculated.

The floor of the old granary looked dodgy but he’d been up twice and it was better than he expected. He’d walked on the beams and the boards. Tested. There was woodworm. Dust flew. But it wasn’t about to give way under his weight.

The evening sun had warmed it. There was straw and white splattering where the swallows had nested in the summer. They’d found the holes in the roof. He came up the old fire escape at the back. He wore trainers with the soles covered in thick wedges of polythene foam. No prints.

It smelled of wood and dust and dryness. There was
a
FOR SALE
sign on the temporary fencing at the front.
DEVELOPMENT POTENTIAL
. Half of Lafferton. The Old Ribbon Factory. The canalside buildings. The old munitions store. Now this. Lafferton was changing. Apartments, boutique shops, smart offices.

He didn’t mind. Not sentimental. Wasn’t born here anyway. Nowhere near. Safer that way.

He’d come up here three days ago, at this time. Looking down onto an empty street. The odd car, but the granary wasn’t on the road to anywhere and this end of town was still run-down. Not for long. But run-down now. Which suited.

He left the door open behind him.

He’d already done the run twice, silently across the open granary loft, slip through the door, close it, rope secured over the fire-escape rail. Quickest. He was good at ropes—no one knew that—ropes and the beam, from being seven or eight. Small. Agile. Strong arms.

Behind the old complex of buildings there were two ways he could take. The path leading to the canal, overgrown, trees and shrubs in the way, so he’d pushed through it half a dozen times. He’d go that way, make a narrow track through, and then along the towpath, running. Easy. The other way was a gravel path leading to the street.

The van was parked in the next, Foster Road, halfway down.

D.F. STOKES. PLUMBING. CENTRAL HEATING.
CORGI REGISTERED. 07765 400 119.

*

All over the house, girls were dressing up. Miniskirts, nurses’ aprons, schoolgirl blouses, St Trinian’s ties. Claire Pescod was Lady Godiva, her own hair but with extensions, a flesh-coloured leotard. Her chief bridesmaid-to-be was dressed as a lady vicar, another girl as a cowgirl, shrieking with laughter, fighting for the mirror.

Claire’s mother, laughing. “I spent my hen night in the pub. Your dad and his best man turned up just before closing time.”

“Mum!”

“Didn’t matter. We had a good time.”

“We’re having a good time. When’s the limo coming?”

“Ten to eight.”

“Too early.”

“Mum, Page says ten to eight’s too early.”

“Well, you can’t change it now.”

“Oh help.”

On and on, mascara, glitter, lip gloss. Fake tattoos. Badges with “Claire’s getting wed.”

Seven. Seven thirty.

“Good God!” Claire’s dad, skirting round them in the hall. “Don’t come near me, I stink of oil.” Off to the shower. “Have a good time, girls. And behave.”

Half the street out to see the stretch limo. White. Black windows. Champagne. Confetti. Chauffeur.

“Behave.”

“Be good.”

“Be careful.”

The limo backed, slow and stately, inch by inch, down the road. Cars stopped for it. Hooted. A man got off his bike. An Alsatian went mad on the end of a leash.

Champagne.

“Here’s to you, honey.”

They showered her with rose petals, concealed in skirts and pockets, inside the car, shrieking with laughter, looking out at Lafferton through darkened windows.

He had waited for two hours. Calm. Unworried. Occasionally checking the sight lines through the space a few inches to the left of one of the boarded-up windows. The boarding-up was split, and worm-eaten as well. He had brought nothing to eat, a single can of drink which when finished he crushed up small and put in his pocket.

It was warm. Snug. He was alert. Ready. Tense but not anxious.

Occasionally he had walked the length of the loft and back.

At first it was quiet but in the last half-hour or so it had grown lively outside. The
Seven Aces
opened at eight. The fluorescent and the neon went on outside the club and on the boards and hoardings. The pavement turned blue and green. Faces were orange. He had worked it out to the second. Took the rifle down from the false cupboard behind the ceiling boards. Left the front panel off to replace it quickly afterwards. Loaded.

Positioned himself. The sights were perfect. Take a stag at three hundred yards. More.

He waited. Only now his heart began to beat faster. As it should. But he was cool. His hand was steady.

The white car glided to the kerb outside the club, caught in the whirling lights, now blue, now green, now pink, now gold. The doors opened and they started to spill out, laughing, shrieking, arms waving.

Claire Pescod.

He had her in his sights.

Aim for the heart.

But a split second and the girl in the silly cowboy hat stumbled and reached out.

The shot glanced off the cowgirl before hitting Claire, too, but not in the heart, not clean.

Outside, the screaming rose and rose.

Chaos.

But not here.

Here he reached up and stowed away the gun, replaced the panel and then went surely, lightly, across the broken rafters and through the door. Dropped the wooden bars. Turned for the metal fire escape and the rope and slid, fast.

At his back the screaming increased until it was like the crying of a thousand seagulls following him away.

Eighteen

“Mummy it’s going to be the Jug Fair, it’s going to be the Jug Fair.”

“Mummy, we can go, can’t we, we always go to the Jug Fair?”

“And I’m old enough to go on the big rides now.”

“Don’t be stupid, you’re not, you wouldn’t be allowed, you’ll be on the teacups again with Felix, nuh nuh nuh.”

“Mummeeeee …”

She could deal with her own squabbling children easily enough. But not Simon.

Simon was leaning against the dresser with a mug of coffee in his hand.

“OK, what’s that face for?—as Ma would have said. Sam, stop winding your sister up. Have you finished your homework? No, don’t answer that, just go and do it. Didn’t Dad make you?”

“He went to bed with his jet lag.”

“Good excuse! Hannah, don’t whine. Now GO. You on duty, Si?”

“Yes and no.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Well, I’m having a glass of vino. Are you staying to eat?”

Simon shrugged.

“For God’s sake, I can’t cope with three of you
and
Chris’s everlasting jet lag. What’s happened, Si? Oh, before I forget, do you have an address or a number for Jane Fitzroy?”

Simon looked wary.

“Karin McCafferty is in the hospice. She’d like to see her.”

“Bad?”

“Bad.”

Cat slipped out of her shoes and lay back on the sofa with her drink. She closed her eyes and centred herself back home, winding down, gathering her resources slowly to cope with supper, the children’s bedtime. And her brother.

“Dad’s got a girlfriend,” Simon said.

She opened her eyes. “Ah.”

“Is that all you can bloody say?”

“Er … I could do “Good” if you prefer.”

“How can you possibly say that?”

“Good. There, said it again. Take that look off your face. Good. Good. Good. If Dad has got someone to be with, good. Why shouldn’t he have?”

“You read
Hamlet
?”

Cat sighed and got up. She poured a glass of wine
and handed it to her brother. “If your phone rings ignore it. They can manage. Now get that down you and stop being ridiculous.”

“I knew you’d take that line. I just bloody knew.”

“Dad is alone, he is lonely—though he would bite out his own tongue rather than admit it. He misses Ma, it’s over a year since she died—”

“Exactly. Only one year.”

“Time enough—if he thinks it is. Anyway, how do you know?”

He told her. “I couldn’t bear it … she was in the kitchen, at the stove, getting things out of the cupboards … she was in Ma’s place. I couldn’t bear it.”

“Get over it. This isn’t about you, it’s about Dad. Who is she, anyway?”

“Some woman called Judith Connolly.”

“Don Connolly’s widow?”

“No idea.”

“If so, she’s lovely—God, what a brilliant outcome. Don Connolly was one of the cardiologists at BG and, ironically, he died of a coronary.”

“Bad advertisement.”

“Nice man. Judith’s delightful—quite young. She was his second wife.”

“Making a habit of it, then.”

“Oh shut up. Come on, Si, look at it another way. It might take the pressure off us—not that there’s been a lot.”