Loss (18 page)

As I pulled into my brother’s drive, I noticed someone had been busy: a snowman had been built in the front garden. It seemed out of place – I wondered who had felt jolly enough in the home to do it. I got out of the car, watched Usual settle in my vacated seat, then a loud scream came from the back garden.

I slammed the door and ran to the gate.

It was Alice.

I thought she was in trouble, visions flashed. They were all wrong.

‘Alice!’ I yelled.

She looked across at me. She had a snowball in her hand, taking aim at the lodger, Vilem. They both looked flushed and red, covered in snow. She opened her mouth a little, derived something from my expression and dropped her snowball on the ground. She pulled off her mittens as she ran to the back door. Her lope was girlish and knock-kneed.

I called to her as she passed me, ‘Alice. Alice . . .’

She ignored me and went inside.

I turned back to Vilem. He looked smug, pressed down the corners of his mouth in a smirk, shrugged.

I said, ‘I’m keeping a close eye on you, fuckhead.’

He tossed his snowball between hands, then threw it at the wall. It exploded on impact. He didn’t answer me, followed Alice’s footsteps through the snow as he walked back to the house. He knew he was protected as long as Jayne was around; he’d done quite a number on them, but it couldn’t last.

I still felt nervous having this guy around my brother’s family. ‘A real close eye . . .’ I said, ‘remember that.’

I went round to the front, knocked. Jayne opened the door in an apron and Marigold gloves. As she waved me in she looked over the handle and letter box, ‘I’ll need to get some Brasso on those.’ She tugged at a rubber glove; it twanged as she removed it. She repeated the motion for the other one, spoke rapidly: ‘Can I get you some tea, coffee?’

‘Eh, coffee please.’

Jayne’s quick steps on the parquet floor sounded like rifle fire as she went. I watched her remove the apron over her head in one swift, deft movement. Right away I saw she was hypo. I hadn’t known her to behave like this before. My brother and Jayne were the most together people I knew; it was a knock to see it. Made me wonder how much you really ever know anyone.

I settled down. She soon returned with a tray, set with cups. Sat down herself. ‘Oh, the biscuits.’ She jumped up again, ran through to the kitchen. I grew exhausted watching her.

When Jayne returned I let her pour the coffee. ‘So, how are you coping, Jayne?’ I knew the answer to this question: it was obvious the answer was ‘not well at all’.

She spoke so fast I hardly took in her words, found myself focusing on the delicate lines around the edges of her mouth. I’d never noticed them until recently.

‘I’m fine, fine . . . just fine. Keeping myself busy, y’know. Around the house and what have you.’

I took my cup from her. ‘That’s good, Jayne.’

‘Yes, yes . . . So much to do, this time of year.’

‘Less than a week till Christmas.’

She looked like I’d slapped her. ‘Is there? I mean, so soon.’ She put down her coffee, stood up. ‘My God, I’ll never be ready in time.’

I patted the chair. ‘Jayne, sit down.’

She took the hint. ‘I’m sorry. I get carried away . . . And there’s so much to do.’

I tried to relax her. ‘Don’t apologise. You’re doing fine . . . How’s Alice?’

Jayne dropped her gaze. She picked up a teaspoon and stirred her coffee. I thought for a moment she wasn’t going to answer me. A silence stretched out between us, then, ‘She’s . . . coping.’

‘You don’t sound convinced.’

‘We’ve had to pay a visit to the doctor . . . get her medicated.’

I got the hint Jayne was too; like I could comment. ‘So long as it helps.’

A sigh. Deep breath followed. ‘Yes, long as it helps.’

I thought to press her further, to ask about the scene I’d just witnessed in the garden with Alice and Vilem, but I pushed it out of my mind. Told myself I was being overly protective of my niece. I still had my suspicions about this character but this wasn’t the time to raise them.

I sipped my coffee, told her it was great.

‘You didn’t come to talk about the coffee, did you, Gus?’

I felt heat rise on my chest. ‘No, no I didn’t.’

Jayne squared her shoulders, took another deep breath. ‘What is it you want to ask me?’

I had a million and one things I needed to know. I saw by the state she was in that I’d have to tread carefully. Much as I wanted to protect both her and Alice, though, I had a duty to Michael to root out the truth. We were all hurting, we were all asking why, why us? I knew if I found some answers, even if it meant more pain in the short term, we would have some peace.

I spoke softly, kept my voice flat: ‘Did Michael ever mention any trouble he might be in?’

Jayne tilted her head to one side. ‘Trouble? . . . No. Never.’

I tried again. ‘I spoke to Davie and one or two others and I get the impression that things weren’t right with the business.’

She brought her hands together. ‘Well, you know Davie . . .’

‘What do you mean?’

She played with her watch strap. ‘Michael used to say that Davie could sell the Pope a double bed.’

‘He did? . . . Did he say anything else?’

Jayne looked away; an old memory played on her face. ‘I think Michael regretted being tied to the partnership. He spoke about going it alone, but he never would . . . He’d put his heart and soul into that factory.’

I could see this was painful for Jayne. Her eyes misted.

‘I’m sorry, I hate to put you through this.’

She shook her head. ‘No, it’s fine. It is, really. Go on.’

I drew breath, fired on. ‘On the night . . . on the night Michael didn’t come home, did you notice anything unusual?’

Jayne rolled her gaze to the ceiling. The tears in her eyes sat poised to fall as I watched her bite at her lip. I thought she might crumble, fold. She found strength, though, said, ‘A man came to the door. I had never seen him before. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, a lot of business associates come . . .
came
calling for Michael . . . but this guy was a bit strange.’

I pressed her. ‘In what way?’

‘When I answered the door he was already on the step, he seemed very anxious . . . He jumped back right away and apologised.’

‘Did he come into the house?’

‘Yes, he was here to see Michael. He had very broken English. That’s when I realised he was from the factory and I got Vilem.’

‘You got the lodger?’

‘Just to talk to him, whilst I got Michael . . . He’d had a long day and was in the shower. When we came back it looked like the man and Vilem were arguing, but I couldn’t be sure, it might have just been the language I’d picked up wrong.’

I looked back to the kitchen door. There was no sign of the lodger. ‘And then what?’

‘That was it. Michael told me there was some problem at the factory, a conveyor belt or something had broken. He told the man how to fix it and he went away.’

‘Did Michael go with him?’

‘No. He went out later . . .’ She paused. A tear fell down her cheek, she wiped it away with the back of her hand. ‘That would have been when he . . .’

I wondered if this had been Michael’s visit to the Undertaker that Davie spoke of – or if there had ever been a visit to McMilne. Here was Jayne telling me about a Czech calling the night he died. I found it hard to believe Davie didn’t know about this too, but he’d chosen to leave it out. I saw Jayne’d had enough; I wanted to stop but I knew I might never get this chance again. ‘The man that called, what did he look like?’

‘He was tall, broad . . . dark-haired, I think.’

‘Did you see his car?’

‘I don’t think so. I didn’t look out the window. Oh, I don’t remember.’

‘Think. What about when you let him in?’

She seemed to be rallying. ‘There was, now I think about it, there was one of those jeep things.’

‘A four-by-four . . .’

‘Yes. There was one parked in the road.’

‘Was it a Pajero?’

She shook her head. ‘Oh, Gus, I don’t know cars.’

‘What colour was it?’

‘It was too dark to say. It was very dark, though.’

‘Could it have been black?’

‘I suppose so, yes, I suppose it could have been black . . . a black four-by-four.’

DR NAUGHTON HAD BEEN CHRISTMAS shopping. A little kid’s tricycle sat in the corner of the room. She’d tied pink ribbons on the handlebars, secured them with a big bow. I couldn’t stop staring. On my last case, a mother had told me of her murdered young child’s love for such a tricycle. I couldn’t believe that the sight of such an innocent object could be a trigger for so much misery. My demons were forever with me.

‘It’s safer away from prying eyes,’ said the doctor. ‘I’ll take it home on Christmas Eve.’

I tore my gaze away, nodded. ‘Of course.’

‘Would you like to sit down?’

I removed my coat, hung it on the stand. I didn’t know what to say; Michael had been the one with all the small chat. I smiled. Prayed we wouldn’t delve into baby talk. I’d been frozen out of that subject a long time ago. I even stopped looking at small children as people – they seemed like accessories that the more successful adorned themselves with. I might have felt differently if I was a father, but the older I got, and the more I found out about the world, the more relieved I was to be childless.

Dr Naughton put on her professional tone; she had her clipboard back: ‘How do you feel today, Gus?’

It seemed a totally meaningless question, even as an opener. ‘Fine. I feel fine.’ Was I nothing. I burned inside. In the last few days I’d replayed a million and one scenarios that might have led to Michael’s murder. Every one was possible, and every one twisted in my gut like a bolt.

She made that face of hers, one that says
Trust me, I’m a doctor.
I wondered if she practised it in the mirror. ‘Do you think we made any progress in the last sessions?’

I nodded. She seemed a good person and I didn’t want to upset her, but I thought it would take more than a few hours of chat to see any progress in my life.

‘That’s good.’ She sounded pleased, one of her Kicker boots started to tap on her chair leg. ‘Maybe you’d like to tell me some more about your upbringing.’

Or maybe not. I looked out the window. There were icicles on the railings. They’d thaw before I would, but I played along, said, ‘What would you like to know?’

‘Can you tell me something you remember from your adolescence?’

I had a store of memories from this time. The one I thought of first was when I met Debs. I toyed with telling her about that, about how she thought I looked like I’d been hit with a brick. The memory spiralled on to the time I took her home to meet my family, and it ended with another first: my raising a hand to my father. I decided against telling the doc.

‘I, erm, went to university at seventeen,’ I said. ‘I was the first in my family to go. It was quite an achievement. My mother was just rapt . . .’

She sensed an opportunity to probe. ‘And your father . . . How did he react?’

I huffed, ‘He didn’t.’ My father was hacked-off – anything that took the sheen off his accomplishments was worthy of frowning upon.

She pressed: ‘He never commented?’

I remembered his face, wanted to punch it yet. ‘He did, yeah, about six months later . . . when I bailed.’

It must have been in her middle-class programming to attack me for that decision, but she held it back. Her face held firm, she let some distance settle between the years then continued, ‘Do you want to tell me what he said?’

My palms itched. ‘He laughed and said I had shown myself up. Not him, because he had told everyone I’d be back like a whipped dog before the end of the first year. Bastard knew exactly how to get me back as well – it was all his fault. He ruined my chance.’

Dr Naughton looked impassive. She kept a hold on the level of emotion in the room by remaining so calm herself. She said, ‘What was the subject you studied at university?’

She never asked the questions I expected, the logical ones. ‘Don’t you want to know
why
I left?’

‘Only if you want to tell me, Gus.’

I leaned forward in my chair, planted my elbows on my knees. ‘He beat my brother so badly that he ended up in hospital. He’d duffed us all up for years but this was something else, this was savage. He’d kicked him about like a football.’ The memory set off a tick in my brow; I smoothed it away with my fingertips. But the image still burned. ‘He was so black and blue, his face such a horrific sight, that my mother woke up screaming in the night for months.’ It wasn’t the physical beating she’d upset herself over – it was the damage it had done him inside his mind. ‘Michael was so ashamed, knew he couldn’t hide his bruises like we were supposed to, that . . .’ I wondered if I should tell her this. I had never spoken of it before, it was Michael’s business and no one else’s, but now he was gone. ‘He put a clothesline around his neck and jumped from the back dyke. If the line hadn’t been rotten through he’d have made a job of it.’

The doctor lost her composure – her hand jerked on her clipboard. ‘My God.’

I had gotten to her, broken that steely reserve. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to shock you.’

My words helped her gather herself. ‘You came home to protect your brother?’

I had been used to protecting Michael – this one incident aside, he had fared better than all of my father’s children. ‘I wouldn’t want you to feel I resented him for that . . .’

She spoke softly, ‘It’s what
you
feel that matters here, Gus.’

I didn’t know what to feel any more.

HOD WAS DUE FOR RELEASE from hospital. I waited for the call. Mac had told me that Hod had some information to give me; apparently he’d come good. I’d already decided what my next move was going to be: if Hod had come up with the goods then it was time to do some serious head-stomping.