Looking Down (28 page)

‘I wish we knew where the girl was,’ the woman said. ‘She was a helluva climber.’

‘Probably miles away by now,’ Sarah said. The basement was, effectively, a million miles from here. They would have no entitlement to search down there. It was safe for now.

There was something appalling about an empty room. All that lovely light and elegant space. It was odd to be angry about the waste of that rather than anything else, such as cruelty and greed, but anger had to take the form in which it could be contained and put to use. She thought it might be the effect of her last view of the sea that suddenly made everything else, even this room, seem comparatively small and enclosed. The sound of traffic from the open window could be made to sound like the wind and the sea and she wondered if she would ever again want to live here.

She went downstairs, towards home, minding her own business.

Inside, she looked at the mess, analytically, deciding there were worse kinds of mess. Most of this mess involved nothing but work to restore order, put back torn-down curtains, pick stuff off kitchen floor: all that was only work and nothing desperate. What she mourned was the wanton damage to the painting of the cow, because it was spiteful and the malice of the knife wound was like a bad smell in the room. It was an envious, pointless message. But paintings often attracted malice and she could only think that, unlike the effect of fire or damp, a clean slash to a canvas was not fatal and this would mend as good as new after surgery and convalescence. She heaved it off the wall and laid it flat, touching it gently with promises of repair, telling herself to keep
self-pity at bay because she had, in her way, asked for this. This was the price of involvement in other lives. Her own would be touched and potentially destroyed, but so what, a home is never quite permanent and no more indestructible than a nest on a cliff, subject to predators and storms. She was alive and lucky; she knew you never really owned a home, but she did feel a guilty responsibility for the painting.

Sarah opened the window and imagined the sound of the sea, and tried to focus her thoughts on the present.

Mess. There were tasks that preceded the dealing with the mess by a long way. Tasks far more difficult since they involved thought beforehand, which the simpler clearing of mess did not. So they had to be done first. Such as, what to say to Minty’s sister. Truth would be unpalatable, in whatever translation it was given by Mrs Fritz, and unless Minty’s sister agreed to assist the police, stand up and be counted and maybe get asylum, the girl could hardly come forward and claim her sister’s body. How terrible not to be able to do that: they would have to find the in-between way. Sarah was counting on her fingers again. So, either Minty’s sister could be persuaded to do just that, or Dr Armstrong and Miss Fortune would pay for a funeral or a cremation, whatever she wanted, or more aptly, get Minty taken
home,
or whatever. That was stage two. Stage one was how to rationalise the death with the minimum of bitterness. Stage three was the future of the surviving sister: she was already planning that.

Sarah shut her eyes and thought of the sea, used the sound of it to make a rhythm of Edwin’s halting explanations in the waiting queue at a distant hospital. He might have said anything to get warm. She could feel the imprint of Minty’s mobile phone in her hip pocket. She had taken it from him and given it to the police.

Yes. I lead them in, four or five times, fifteen each. Got them out
and over the rocks in Cable Bay, good money. Before the ravens came. Never saw any of them again, until that girl came back. I wasn’t sorry for them, they paid good money, so they had to have money. I remembered some of the faces: I’m good with faces I see in the dark. That girl was one, fucking gypsy. I don’t remember her at first, but she remembers me. She pointed at my scarf; she was tugging at that bright thing round her neck they all wore.

She followed the artist up the hill that day. I thought she was after him. I thought, he’s picked up a tart last night, plenty of those, and now he doesn’t want to know her. Then she saw me, coming from the other way, and she changed tack. Ran up to me, screaming Take me home, take me home, you can take me home. I knew she was one of them; there weren’t many gypsies. She was tearing off her clothes, she said she’d fuck me if I took her to where the boat came in
 . . . 
She kept screaming she wanted to go back to where the boat came in, as if it came in every night, wait for it, to take her back. Take her home. She’d have shagged anyone for that. Disgusting.

What exactly did she say?

She said Take me, take me; she was mad as a snake. And I thought, if I don’t, she’ll tell. She’ll go to Cable Bay, and she’ll frighten the baby ravens with her screaming, and she’ll bring the whole world with her. She beat me with her fists, saying Take me, take me, take me. Dropped her bag, unbuttoned her dress
 . . . 
she was hungry, only small. I backed off towards the ledge, thinking she’ll never follow me, and she did. Take me or I tell, she kept saying. Take me there, to that boat, or I tell. Tell? How did she know about the ravens? I pushed her away and she kept coming back, and I thought of them, picked her up and threw her over.

Did you think she would go to the police and tell them about the scam?

I thought of the chicks. I thought of the babies and how they might die if they were scared. That’s what I thought of. And I took all her stuff away. She’d a wool coat. They always need wool for the
nest. They died, anyway. Never thought of someone coming from the sea.

He had cried, this Edwin, but it was too late for crying. How would she ever explain to anyone else the reason for this death? Better to say Minty had tried to go home, and fell. No. Counting her fingers for the fifth time, Sarah shook her head. It was always better to tell the truth and let who would make what they would of it. Confusion was a hazard of truth, but lies and evasions were worse. Minty had died because of homesickness, and the death of dreams, and ultimately because of a nest of rare birds, who had been killed, too.

Sarah unpacked her bag and took out the Beaumont painting. Task number two, return
it.
Tell the artist, in case he wondered, that he hadn’t killed the girl he had hidden from on the cliff. Her/it. Tell him it wasn’t so bad to hide from someone who was in the way when you didn’t have the faintest idea of what might happen next. Didn’t make you a bad man, merely a frail one. Unless he had lured her there, which made him wicked.

It was easier to deal with the physical mess, since there was something therapeutic about that. Housework was irritating, an exercise in dust and hygiene control which never solved the root causes and was always done in the knowledge that the effect was temporary, and each resentful swipe of a cloth or flourishing of a hoover was going to be repeated, sooner rather than later. It never cured anything but a mood. But the clearing of this mess would at least have a dramatic effect for the better, instead of the usual, faint improvement. Looking at her sitting room with its wall bare of the painting, leaving a large rectangle of unfaded paint, Sarah felt the temptation to throw everything away and begin again with nothing, but that was a promise often made and broken, and she had done it once too often. It was usually better to carry on as before.

She checked the phone messages. Six, from the lovers, none from Steven. She could have done with him now. Her brother was indeed a great creator of mess, but he was equally good at clearing it up and was far more domesticated than his older sibling. He would have whisked through this, and she missed him, even in the wry acknowledgement that he was only rarely there when he was needed. In that respect, a brother was similar to most other men, and what a woman needed was a wife. At least he had phoned to warn her.

She pushed the window wider open to receive more spring sun, propped the Beaumont painting on the sofa to remind herself of the next tasks, took off her sweater and used it, absentmindedly, to dust the mantelpiece. The framed photograph of her parents’ wedding was on the floor with the glass smashed. She picked it up, glanced at the still intact faces and put it back. Did you fall or were you pushed? The Beaumont painting somehow drew attention. It was, she realised, with a purely objective eye, quite vividly good. Seen out of the context of the knowledge of the story, seen as artist, subject, paint and impact, it had quality.

She would never have seen in it what John Armstrong had seen. Would never have detected that chain round the throat of the broken corpse as anything more than light and shade. She pictured Edwin untwisting the scarf from round his neck with his shaking hands, extracting from the depths of its folds the yellow gold chain, complete with the tag. She could feel it in her hand, a poor, useless inedible trophy for a raven. Why on earth had the Chinese traders supplied their slaves with such incriminating identification? Not to identify themselves as the importers, surely, but as an arrogant badge of ownership, arrogantly supplied. Something that would rattle and glitter in the dark, marking the wearer as one of a new tribe, enable them to identify one another, supplying a name and address to be used only in emergencies.
An address they confidently supposed would never be revealed. The insolent confidence was breathtaking. As if they never believed any of their immigrants would dream of telling, would go to their graves with this round their necks. Then why  . . . 

There was movement in the doorway, a waft of perfume, cutting through the mess.

‘I should chuck it all out and start again, if I were you,’ Lilian said.

She strode into the room and stood with her hands on her curving hips, turned full circle, inspecting the curtains that had been pulled to the floor.

‘Never did like those, anyway. I’ve got some spares if you want them. Why on earth did they tear them down? Did they think that girl, whoever she was, was hiding behind them?’

Turning back to Sarah, Lilian’s gaze fell upon the painting. Light flared in those brilliant blue depths and then faded.

‘How did that get there?’ she asked, flatly.

‘I expect my brother found it,’ Sarah said. Lilian looked at her, unblinkingly, until her expression assumed a dreamy softness.

‘Your brother. He told me he was your brother. I’d never have guessed. He’s so good-looking. The darling  . . .  he got it back, the darling. He said he would, oh the darling.’ Tears swam in her eyes, making them glitter like reflective pools. Lilian suited unshed tears. Inconsequentially, Sarah thought of ravens and bright eyes: how they would peck at the eyes of lambs. They had taken the girl’s eyes, and her identity.

‘Tell him  . . .  tell him, please come back, but not yet.’

‘I can never tell my brother to do anything,’ Sarah said, ‘unless he wants to be told and wants to do it anyway.’

Lilian nodded, vigorously, the gorgeous golden curls around her head in full movement, creating a draught and an extra waft of scent. She looked tired but magnificent in uncharacteristic clothes. Denim shirt and jeans, nipped in at the waist with a
narrow belt, tight over the hips and fitting perfectly. The shirt was open, showing a hint of cleavage, so the whole ensemble was a parody of working clothes. Again she looked at the painting, this time indifferently.

‘I’m not sure Richard wants it back, after all. I’ll have to see. We might have to say Fritz found it by the dustbins, or something. Unless you can think of something better. Perhaps it should stay lost.’

Sarah resented the use of the word ‘we’, but stayed silent until she asked,

‘How
is
Richard?’

‘A little vague, weak, but restless. He’ll recover. Listen, the first thing he does when he could was phone some man friend and the kids. Doesn’t need me just now. Anyway, enough of that,’ Lilian went on, suddenly brisk. ‘I came to help, really. Shall I start in the kitchen? Why did they pull things out of cupboards? She couldn’t have been hiding in there, either, could she? What was she? A midget?’ She shivered. ‘Fancy living below a bunch of money-laundering slave traders. The idea! We could have been murdered in our beds, but oh, Sarah, have you seen that flat? It’s quite magnificent. I’ve been on to the agents. Anyway, I’ll get on with the kitchen. You look shagged out. Don’t be upset about your painting, will you? Steven’ll mend it. Oh I do hate mess, don’t you?’

Sarah sat for a while and listened to Lilian whistling in the kitchen, banging and crashing in a battle with the mess. Then she heaved herself off the sofa and went to stand in the corridor, leaning against the door jamb, enjoying the pleasure of watching Lilian work. As far as Sarah was concerned, the kitchen was the least interesting room in the house and the one demanding the least attention. She had painted it scarlet and put colourful pots on top of the units at near ceiling height. These had been broken by someone sweeping them to the floor in search of
it.

‘I think they were venting spleen,’ Lilian was saying as she swept up debris and shoved it into a bin liner which she knotted, aggressively. ‘They weren’t looking for her, not really, by the time they got here. They were just cross. I suppose it’s a natural reaction when someone’s taken something from you. Someone, something, same difference. I’d be furious. And they were cross because someone had got the better of them. But they’d no right to be so cross. After all, no one owns anyone else, do they?’

She looked at Sarah, the last remark challenging a response.

‘No, they don’t. Just like I don’t own my brother, and your husband doesn’t own you. Or you him. Things have to be paid for, is all.’

Sarah doubted if this was the required response, but it seemed to satisfy. Having swept the floor, Lilian began to mop it with great efficiency. Amazing how she did not get dirty or wet. She was one of those women who seemed to repel dirt.

‘Richard certainly doesn’t own me,’ Lilian said, mopping round Sarah’s feet, and then undoing her own handiwork by treading back over the damp floor to scour the sink. ‘He won’t even let me nurse him. What good’s a wife if you won’t let her look after you, I say to him, and he says, a wife has a different purpose entirely. Sex, I suppose. As if I was an it.’