Quiet Neighbors (24 page)

“I don't believe Frank Oughton wrote that note,” Lowell said. “And he and Peter are as thick as thieves.”

“I'm really sorry about the cottage,” said Jude.

“Tush,” Lowell replied. “It could have been so much worse.”

Even as he spoke, the knock came at the front door that would make it so, would push peace and happiness further away than ever from them all.

Eddy answered it. She went swishing away along the passage to the front door with the chiffon of Miranda's peignoir billowing out behind her. The fleece pyjamas underneath spoiled the effect, but the pale yellow silk was beautiful against her hair.

“I don't know where she gets the energy,” Lowell murmured when she was gone, and Jude made a mental note to remind Eddy to act a little tired now and then.

Her footsteps were even faster as she returned, flying along the thin carpet strip. “Judith!” she called out. “Father!”

Lowell and Jude sat up and stared at one another.

“Cop,” said Jude, under her breath. “Bet you.”

Twenty-Five

When she looked back,
it was only an hour, if that.

Eddy, who had been questioned by police before, took the whole thing in her stride.

“I'll wait upstairs in my flat till you're ready for me,” she said. “And here.” She took the back off her phone, took the battery out and gave the phone to the younger of the two policemen, young enough to blush at the implied insult. His boss, a woman in her forties, gave Eddy a knowing look out of narrowed eyes.

“What makes you think we need to speak to you? Miss—?”

“Glen,” said Eddy. “Miz. I can alibi them. Lowell and Judith and me were together all night. Nobody went round to the cottage to set it on fire. Like for the insurance or that.”

The policewoman—a sergeant, Jude thought, although the Scottish uniforms were unfamiliar—gave Eddy her phone battery back and turned away.

“Suit yourself,” Eddy said. “I'm having a bath, Father dear. Will I leave the water in?”

“Um, well, I mean, if we're finished before it's cold,” said Lowell.

“I'll whistle down when I'm done,” Eddy said, “and then you can just tell them to stuff it. Unless they arrest you or offer to chip in on your water bill.”

And so the sergeant was good and angry when she took Jude into the drawing room on her own and opened a notebook.

Jude chose a comfortable-looking velvet armchair near the empty fireplace, surprised when she sat by how unyielding it was, despite the deep buttoning and the dome of the seat. It had to be horsehair, she decided, and put her hands to her sides to feel for bristles poking through.

She had never spent any time in this room. None of them had, gracious as it was. Jude wondered, looking round, if it had been used since Mrs. Glen had died all those years ago. The ornaments on the high mantelpiece were delicate white china, touched here and there with gold, probably valuable since they looked too old to have been made in a factory. No doubt it had a name, although Jude didn't know it, and she could imagine Mrs. Glen in the fifties telling a maid to be careful with her Such-and-Such when the girl washed it as part of the spring cleaning. Life must have been simpler then, when you'd tell a girl to beat the carpets and you'd go out for a walk to escape the dust while it was done. Even if you were the girl, it had to be simpler than the life Jude was leading.

“Right then, Miss—?” said the sergeant, sitting down with her own startled look at how hard the chair was when she got there.

“Crowther,” said Jude.

“Judith?” the sergeant said. “And is it Miss?”

“It is Miss,” said Jude, expecting the woman to approve, surprised by the twist of her mouth.

“I'd have put you down as married,” she said. “There's a different look.”

“How can there be?” Jude said. “I mean, that's interesting.”

“Hard to explain,” said the cop. “A lot of detective instinct is hard to explain. It's a right pain in court.”

“It must be,” said Jude. Then she heard her own sycophantic voice and thought the cop would know she was trying to ingratiate herself. What would Eddy say? “
Are
you a detective, then?” She was rewarded with a quick frown.

“Right, Miss Crowther.” The voice was more clipped now. “Add-ress?”

“Here, now,” Jude said. “Since the cottage isn't exactly—”

“Permanent address,” said the sergeant.

Jude rattled off her parents' house number and street, the postcode she'd learned as a child. They wouldn't check. They had no reason to.

“And you've been here how long?”

“Just over a week,” said Jude. “Working for Lowell. Mr. Glen.”

“Oh, we know Lowell,” she said. “He's an old friend of the D&G constabulary, is Lowland Glen. Although he's been living quietly this last while.”

Jude said nothing. Was she harking back to the summer of love, 1994, the time Eddy would so dearly like to learn more of?

“Although … ” the cop said. “Maybe he's starting up again.”

Jude shook her head. “I'm a librarian and Eddy's his daughter,” she said. “We're not exactly setting the rafters ringing. Eddy's mum was one of the ones who used to hang out here, you know. Back when Lowell had a houseful.”

“Aye, so I heard,” said the cop. “And she has a look of her.”

“So, was it really wild?” Jude said. “It's hard to imagine.”

“We never got the chance to find out,” said the copper. “They all kept their noses clean, kept it on the premises, and the only neighbour”—she jerked her head—“never complained officially about the noise, so we never got a chance to come in and see what they were up to.”

“Frustrating for you,” said Jude, but she had gone too far and the woman's eyes narrowed.

“Let's get back to business,” she said. “Any enemies?”

Jude felt her face freeze. Raminder had an unknown number of brothers and sisters, plenty of them in the only photo Jude had ever seen, although some might have been cousins.

“Something bothering you?” the cop asked.

“Just made it seem real, you asking that,” Jude said. “I was feeling guilty, thinking I'd left something on and destroyed Lowell's lovely little house and then, when the fireman said about the letterbox, I was feeling lucky—understatement! I was feeling sick with relief that I wasn't in there. I never even thought of it being about me until right there. I—Sorry.” She put her head down between her knees to buy herself time, tense, waiting to see if her story had gone over.

“Really?” The woman's voice was dry. “That wasn't the first thing that occurred to you?”

“Of course not,” said Jude, sitting up again. “I mean, it's like something off a film.”

“Huh.” Jude thought she saw a drop in the woman's shoulders. “Now that's interesting. See, I'd have said coming from London you'd be more alert for crime. But I suppose a crime like that—targeted arson—that's the kind of thing that comes easier in a wee place like Wigtown. Know what I mean?”

“Not really,” said Jude.

“Big city—everyone's a stranger. And if nobody knows your secrets there's no point trying to get rid of someone to stop them spilling.”

Jude couldn't have helped her eyes widening even if she'd tried, and so it was just as well that it fit the bill. “So you really don't think it was just kids being bad?” she said. “You think someone's got a grudge against Lowell? And I just got in the way?”

“Lowell, the church, Todd Jolly … ”

“Todd
Jolly
?” said Jude. “He's been dead thirty years.”

“Ach, it's not a proper grudge till it gets down a generation or two,” said the woman. “And you're dead right, by the way. It was thirty years past just in the spring there. You've got yourself up to speed nice and quick, eh?” She winked at Jude and grinned at the effect of her wink.

This was why Max never liked cops, Jude thought. They ran up against each other most days at work, going out to accidents and sudden deaths, and Jude thought they'd be natural allies. But Max changed pubs when the one nearest the ambulance depot turned into a coppers' haunt thanks to the new offices being built. Their old pub—the Bobbies' it was called for the years it had done service to police coming off their shift—was too far away.

“They're
never
off their shift,” Max had said. It had taken a while for her to work out the problem, but in the end it came back to drink, like everything. He had told her when they were dancing at Allan's retirement do. Everyone else was shaking their tail feathers since it was a fast song, but Max could only drape his arms over Jude's shoulders and shuffle around the floor.

“Go home after this, eh love?” he'd mumbled into her hair. “Place is crawling with bloody filth.” She hadn't understood, had looked around at the sparkling black and silver décor of the function room. “That fat one with the pint in his hand. He's got a lip on him. I can't be arsed with him. Dunno why Allan invited them all.”

Jude looked over at the man with the pint, an off-duty cop as clear as if he'd a sign above him. He was standing with his legs spread wide and surveying the room with a smile on his face, switching his gaze from corner to corner like a metronome. When he caught Jude's eye, he came over.

“Day off tomorrow, Maximilian?” he said, a rich chuckle bubbling just under his words.

“No,” said Max.

“Shame you've got leave so early then,” the man said. “Still, you've managed to get a whole night's partying in in half the time, eh?” He threw a look at Jude. “Let us know if you need a hand, love,” he said. “When your taxi gets here.”

“I'm driving,” Jude said.

“Are you?” said the fat man, still grinning. He glanced over at the table where her bag and cardigan were sitting. “You just leaving that nice big glass of Chardonnay for someone else, are you? That's very generous. You're like your husband. I see him buying drinks that turn out to be for other people all the time.”

Jude had driven home in burning silence, making up retorts, while Max snored with his face against the window, a line of drool joining his chin to his tie. A silk tie, ruined. She'd thrown it out in the morning.

She had been quiet too long. This copper was looking more amused than ever.

“You think someone's sending a message?” Jude asked. “Like the Wigtown mafia or someone?”

Annoyance was better than amusement, and the woman was pretty annoyed to have a Londoner laugh at her little town, at the possibility of crime there. She retreated into routine questions: had Jude seen anyone hanging around, had she heard any noises at night. Jude kept quiet about the footsteps in the fog and the footprints in the grass, and when five more minutes had passed, it was over.

“Right-oh,” the cop said. “Phone?”

Jude gave the number of Lowell's landline and the woman looked annoyed. She added the shop number and the cop went as far as to lift her pen from her little notebook and look over.

“Are you deliberately refusing to give me your mobile number, hen?”

“I haven't got one,” said Jude. “They're not compulsory.”

Again the copper's eyes narrowed but she said no more, just stood and walked out, leaving Jude sitting there.

She heard Eddy clattering downstairs as soon as the kitchen door closed.

“Christ on a bed of rice!” she said. “I was sitting halfway up, like whatsisface. I heard everything. What a prize bitch
she
is.”

“Christopher Robin,” said Jude. “You were right about a mobile, by the way. She looked at me like I was a space alien.”

As if to cement Eddy's triumph, her phone rang at that very moment and she cackled with glee as she fished it out of her pocket. She had bathed and dressed and was wearing a long cardigan of Lowell's like a dress, nothing but her wrinkly ribbed tights underneath. She had Birkenstocks on her feet and a towel round her shoulders while her hair dried. She looked about fifteen, despite the belly. She glanced down at her phone and then wheeled around, turning her back on Jude so fast that her wet rats' tails of hair flew out like blue-black sunrays.

She touches that up, Jude thought, and felt a shift inside her. It was partly something she couldn't put her finger on and partly, of course (what else?), Raminder. Raminder was more and more in her head; the dream getting to be nightly, the picture there behind her eyelids, whenever she closed them.

“What is it?” said Eddy, turning back.

Jude looked up. Maybe it was that blue-black hair and the cold blue light in this room—no wonder Lowell never used it—but Eddy's face looked whiter than Jude had ever seen it.

“Never mind me,” she said. “What's wrong with
you
? Who was that?”

“No one,” said Eddy. “Ex-boyfriend. A ghost. Jude, what
is
it?”

“Just memories,” said Jude. “I don't want to talk about it.” But that was a lie and Eddy knew it. Jude tried again. “I don't trust you not to tell Lowell.”

“Me?” said Eddy. “I'm like a bank vault. Why are you looking at me like that?”

“It's your hair,” Jude said. “Your black hair. It reminds me of someone.”

“I've seen the photos,” Eddy said. “In the news. But hers was straightened. Mine comes out my head like this.” She tossed it this way and that again. It was so fine it was drying already.

“She fell.” Jude blurted the words out. “She was crying. And she was carrying a suitcase. She tripped at the top of the stairs.”

“Raminder,” said Eddy.

“I didn't push her,” Jude said. “I went out onto the landing to … talk to her, I think. Help her. Like, drive her somewhere or help with the baby. The baby was down at the front door in her pram, bawling her eyes out, and Raminder was crying. So I went out onto the landing and she heard me and turned round and then she just tripped. She went down like …
” Jude put her head between her knees for the second time in half an hour. The cool blue room had started to darken from each side, turning to grey as her eyes lost focus and all the blood left her head to puddle under her feet.

“Where was
he
?” said Eddy. “Cos the news said—”

“Passed out drunk,” said Jude, into the tent of her skirt. “That's why Raminder was leaving. That's why she was crying.”

“So she didn't find you together?” said Eddy. “Cos the news said—”

“She didn't know I was there until I went out onto the landing,” said Jude and sat up and back, feeling the hard mounds of the button-back chair behind her, feeling at last the stiff end of one of the horse hairs she knew would be there somewhere. It dug into the back of her head and she let it keep pricking at her, drove her head back harder to see if it would break her skin, but instead she felt it buckle. “I was hiding behind the bedroom door,” she said “like someone from a French farce.”