Strangers at the Gate Page 7

  Whimpering under my breath, I scuffed over Paddy’s first, leaving a churned mess of puddle mud and dead grass. You could still tell someone had been there, but not who. Then I splashed round the edge of the water, clouded and murky, reflecting nothing now, and started on my own.

  I rinsed the soles of my boots in the puddle when I was done and checked I was leaving no new prints on the damp tarmac behind me as I went on my way. By the time the sinkhole was out of sight my breathing had calmed down and my heart had dropped back into its proper place.

  What the hell was Paddy doing? Why wasn’t he here already? He was usually so dependable. That was what had made me fall for him, dull as it sounds. Not at first sight. It was his looks and his laugh that St Patrick’s night in the pub when I had my maple-leaf hat on and his hair was green with spray-on party dye. He was getting free drinks because of his name so he was hammered by the time we met. We were in the Doctor’s, my friend and me, partly because it was just round the corner from the dosshouse where I was volunteering and partly because my pal reckoned we might meet junior medics there and be set for life. ‘Drunk, confident, expensive shoes,’ she’d said, pointing at Paddy as he tried an ill-advised Riverdance on the wet pub floor. ‘He might well be a future surgeon and provider of gîtes and Beemers.’

  He had caught sight of me at that moment and stopped dancing, wheeling back to face me. ‘That’s not a shamrock,’ he said.

  ‘No shillelagh, Sherlock,’ I’d said. I was pretty drunk too, drunk enough to find myself hilarious.

  ‘That’s a maple leaf.’

  ‘No kidding, Columbo.’ I was really cracking myself up.

  ‘Are you Canadian?’ He was none too steady on his feet and another drunk passing behind him sent him stumbling into my arms.

  ‘Am I Canadian?’ I asked, turning to pull my friend into the wind-up, but she had melted away leaving him to me. She was a good pal that way.

  ‘My name’s Paddy Lamb.’

  ‘My name’s Ontaria Trudeau.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No,’ I said. And finally he laughed too.

  That was how it started, but soon enough it went deeper than a good time. He wasn’t freaked out by my job. He wasn’t put off by my family. He was nice. And good. And easy to love. He didn’t deserve this mess. Neither of us did.

  I had reached the top of the drive and there was the house. The Agatha Christie house, I had called it. Arts and Crafts, Paddy had told me. I shuddered. The colour of it sickened me and the way the weak, bleary lights shone now it was daytime. And there was another light I hadn’t noticed last night, a carriage lamp above an archway leading round the side towards where the kitchen lay. Could I walk through that arch and, passing the kitchen window, happen to glance in?

  A memory was nibbling at the back edges of my brain now. Tony was sitting in our flat in Edinburgh, with a decent pizza and the lullaby of traffic passing on the street below, and he was talking about … What was it? Public footpaths and rights of way and freedom to roam. I hadn’t really been listening. I’d never imagined I’d need the information. I’d happily walk to a beach from a hotel or to the other end of George Street to see if John Lewis had the shoes in my size, but walking through empty countryside in stout boots and waterproofs wasn’t me. Still, what I thought Tony had said – and not only because I wanted this to be true – was that England had all kinds of rules and regulations, but in Scotland you could go wherever you wanted. Within reason. And the only way to carry on up the Simmerton valley, without scraping yourself to shreds on those stunted pine branches, was to take a shortcut through Widdershins’ garden, either up the far side in two tyre ruts that must lead to a garage, or through that arch and past the kitchen windows.

  I didn’t know anything about gardening, but I could tell as soon as I rounded the corner that the terrace beyond the archway was someone’s pride and joy. Lovatt’s, I reckoned, remembering Tuft’s sharp red nails and all the rings. The urns and pots dotted about were bright with flowers, even in January. Pansies, I decided. Roses, neatly trained up the house walls, were a far cry from the scramble of dead twigs that was threatening the shed down at the gate lodge. And the strip of dark earth they rose up from was free of weeds. It looked, crumbled and dark, like coffee grounds or caviar.

  The first set of windows belonged to a living room. I saw ceiling beams and a dark green leather sofa-back, my own reflection tiny in a television screen. The next room was the dining room, long and thin – explaining the corridor we had taken to reach the kitchen doorway – with a table big enough to seat a dozen people and a sideboard with a crowd of bottles on a drinks tray. There I was again, in the mirror above the fireplace. And finally the kitchen. First came the small window above the sink. I remembered Tuft wrenching off half a dozen of her rings before she started rinsing the pudding plates to stack in the dishwasher. And there they still were, a little glittering heap on the sill.

  My footsteps slowed as I came close to the big windows, a whole corner of windows where the little table sat. I was looking at my feet and felt my pulse begin to bang at the thought of seeing her face again. After another twelve hours, there would surely be some changes. The gashes would be scabbed over. The deep blood in its spreading pools wouldn’t be shining. It would be as dull as the smears now. And her eyes wouldn’t glint, after all this time. So perhaps looking now would be easier. Or perhaps from this new angle I would be able to see his face too. I took a deep breath, held it with my bottom lip caught in my teeth, and raised my head.

  The curtains were closed. I was looking at the pale linings of a set of winter curtains blocking my view of everything except a row of little cacti in fancy pots that sat on the windowsill. Had the curtains been closed last night when we all sat down for dinner?

  I couldn’t remember and I didn’t know what it meant even if they hadn’t been. Perhaps Lovatt and Tuft had closed them as part of tidying up and getting ready for bed. Only wasn’t it more normal to close curtains for the evening and open them at bedtime, so they were ready for the morning? That was what Paddy’s mum always did. She closed her curtains as soon as the lamps went on at dusk, but she pulled them back at lights out, so the dog-walking neighbours wouldn’t see them at six o’clock and judge her, I always reckoned. It didn’t matter so much on the seventeenth floor. My family only shut curtains when it was cold outside, for daytime naps, and when the sun shone on the telly.

  I retraced my steps to where Tuft’s rings sat, winking and glinting as my shadow passed over them. I leaned across the strip of dark earth and pressed my cheek to the glass.

  The island hid everything. I could see the bare, clean kitchen and that single dark smear on the edge of the ceramic cooker-top. But I couldn’t see the floor beyond. I couldn’t see anything on the table side of the room at all, except one flash of pink. And that flash of pink made my blood stop. It was one of the blooms on the Christmas cactus. The Christmas cactus that someone in the Simmerton florist must have sold to Paddy yesterday. The Christmas cactus covered with my fingerprints. And I couldn’t for the life of me remember if I’d admitted to Shannon that I’d ever met them, or if I’d denied it, or if I’d dodged answering.

  I needed to go in there and get that plant. I needed to breathe through my mouth, so no smells reached my nose, and I needed to keep my gaze trained on the fleshy green leaves and soft pink flowers without looking down at the floor.

  Except, if I did that, I might stumble over Lovatt’s sprawled feet. Would he still be stiff? I had no idea. Maybe if I knocked against one of his brogues lying so awkwardly, toes down, on the floor, he would skitter out of place, jagged and brittle. Maybe some bit of him – a clawed hand – would snag on some bit of Tuft and they’d both clatter against the base of the island.

  So I would look where I was going. I’d breathe deeply in and out and I’d step around their feet, grab the cactus and go. There was no need to look at their faces. I had a strong stomach anyway. I would be fine.

  I ma
de it to the front door. I was standing in the little vestibule, with my hand stretching out, my sleeve pulled down over it, when my phone rang in my back pocket, making me shriek and stumble, losing my footing as I fell backwards onto the gravel.

  ‘Paddy?’ I said. ‘Oh, God, at last! What took so— Wait. Please tell me there’s no one on the way to the house. I need to get out of here.’

  He wasn’t listening. ‘Finnie,’ he whispered. ‘I’m coming home.’

  ‘What’s happening?’ I said.

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Have you been out to the house?’

  ‘I can’t talk about it!’ His voice sounded close to breaking. ‘I’ll be home soon and I’ll tell you everything then. You can help me. You’ve got to help me. I don’t know what to do.’

  Chapter 9

  ‘Jesus, Paddy,’ I said, when he came in the front door. The shadows under his eyes were dark brown and the rest of his face was the colour of putty. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Shh,’ he said. ‘Please, Finn.’ He sat down carefully at one end of the couch and let his head drop back against the cushions. He closed his eyes, but they kept twitching.

  ‘I hope you managed to look a bit more together than this in the office. What’s happening?’

  ‘I don’t know and my head’s killing me,’ Paddy said, his voice a monotone.

  ‘Migraine?’

  He gave a thumbs-up instead of nodding. ‘I didn’t get to it quick enough. I wasn’t thinking. I went in and they were all clustered round in the outside office. I thought the news had got out. Somehow. Then Julie said she hoped I was okay being tossed in at the deep end. And I asked what had happened and she said I was holding the fort for the next three weeks because Lovatt had gone off on holiday.’

  ‘On holiday?’ I wanted to shake him, make him open his eyes and look at me, at least.

  ‘Shh,’ said Paddy. ‘He emailed last night. Late last night. Faxed through my signed papers and emailed saying Tuft and him were off on a jaunt and they’d be back in three weeks.’

  ‘What time’s late last night?’ I asked. I sank down onto the armchair opposite him. ‘We left at nine and he didn’t email anyone after that, did he?’

  ‘Shh,’ said Paddy, again.

  ‘What the hell’s going on? They can’t have faxed papers before you signed them. Anyway, if they’d planned a holiday before we got there, why didn’t they mention it?’

  ‘Please, Finnie.’

  ‘Have you taken your pills?’ I said. Six hundred milligrams of ibuprofen on top of his prescription painkiller usually worked, but it was a tight window.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Too late, though. I need to lie down. Will you take my briefcase back into the office for me? I’ve got a folder Abby needs for the meeting with the Blackshaw factor.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. I would have tried to think up an excuse to go in if he hadn’t handed me one. I wanted to see if he’d managed to act even halfway normal or if he’d spooked both his colleagues, like he was spooking me. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘we just need to sit tight. Someone will go into the house soon. The cleaner? Whoever waters the plants?’

  Paddy stood up without opening his eyes and felt his way towards the bedroom.

  By the time I got there with his sick bucket he was lying down flat with his shoes off, his tie loosened, his black-out mask and his noise-cancellers on. He was muttering to himself. ‘Too dark. Too dark.’ He must have heard me, though. Or maybe felt me moving beside the bed. The slightest noise, the slightest nudge is like torture when he’s as bad as this. He put out a hand and I slipped mine into it. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. This on top of everything.’

  I squeezed his fingers in reply. I never minded taking over when he was laid out. And ‘on top of everything’, dropping off a briefcase barely registered.

  ‘Can I just ask you one thing?’ I said, pulling one of the ear covers away from his head. ‘Were the curtains shut?’

  I was hardly even whispering, just breathing the words out, but Paddy moaned low in his throat and his frown deepened.

  ‘You were facing the window while we ate. Were you looking at curtains or could you see your reflection?’

  ‘Please,’ Paddy said, and his face was getting that green tinge.

  ‘Sorry. Forget it,’ I breathed and left him.

  * * *

  Dudgeon, Dudgeon and Lamb had so many houses-for-sale displayed in their windows it was hard to tell what might be going on inside, but when I opened the shop door, flinching as an electronic buzzer announced my presence, it looked serene. There was a flatscreen with a slideshow of all the same houses rotating to the accompaniment of what sounded like the theme music to Twin Peaks. A middle-aged woman, scrawny from genes or diet, greeted me. Through a half-open door I could see another woman, younger, wearing a headset and talking very fast into the dangling microphone she held up to her chin.

  ‘Mrs Roper?’ the thin woman said. She had the drawstring mouth of a lifelong smoker and her lipstick had bled into the lines, but her smile was warm.

  ‘Finnie Lamb,’ I said, shaking her hand. She was attractive or would have been with about ten pounds on her to get rid of the ropy look. But I guessed she was proud of the ropy look. At least, she had dressed in a pencil skirt and belted her clingy jumper to show it off. Through the open office door, the other woman waved, then made a face at the earpiece, apologising for whoever was keeping her on the line. ‘I’m Paddy’s wife. You must be either Abby or Julie, I’m guessing.’

  ‘Julie.’ She smiled wider. I had got a couple of early points with her for not assuming she was admin and the youngster in the bad suit and headset was the trainee solicitor. I smiled back.

  ‘Thing is,’ I said, ‘Paddy’s laid out with a migraine so I’ve brought his briefcase back. He said there were documents in it that someone needed?’ I was well versed: I’d never admit he’d said a word about what the papers were, like he never admitted I said a word about any service-users.

  ‘A migraine?’ said Julie. ‘I thought he was looking a bit peaky.’

  ‘Not a great start,’ I said.

  ‘It’s probably the stress of moving house and starting a new job,’ Julie said. I knew women like her. If I was too concerned, or if Paddy acted sorry for himself, she’d scoff at the notion of migraines, but as long as we were apologetic, she would be kind.

  ‘It’s usually food,’ I said. ‘Cheese, chocolate and oranges. He can eat them all but not together. Two of that lot in combo and he’s a goner.’

  Julie tutted. ‘I love a chocolate orange.’

  ‘He’ll be fine again by tomorrow,’ I told her. ‘But it’s just one Dudgeon and no Lambs for today.’

  Abby had finished her phone call and came out. God, though, that was a terrible suit, I thought, as I said hello. The wrong length for her wide hips, the wrong size for her narrow shoulders, the wrong colour – flat black – for her sallow skin.

  ‘The other Dudgeon is Tuft,’ she said. ‘A sleeping partner. She hasn’t practised law since long before they got married. Have you met her?’

  I hesitated. Julie’s eyes had gone back to her computer screen, but as the silence lengthened she quirked a look up at my face again. I knew I was changing colour. Had I met her? Had I met Tuft Dudgeon, fellow smoker, winner of parlour games, chaser of handbag thieves? How could I have forgotten to ask Paddy what he’d said to this pair about last night?

  ‘Finnie?’ Julie said.

  Now they were both staring at me.

  ‘I’m trying not to take it personally,’ I said at last. ‘Them disappearing off on holiday as soon as we get here. Was it a spur-of-the-moment thing, do you know?’ I was trying to get them to say what time the messages came through. But they just shrugged. ‘I mean, it can’t be Paddy that’s the problem or Mr Dudgeon wouldn’t have given him the job. So I can’t help thinking it must be me. Is she … very religious?’

  ‘She’s churchy,’ Abby said. ‘But more sor
t of flowers and fundraising than God. Why?’

  ‘I’m a deacon,’ I said. ‘And sometimes people don’t approve of woman deacons.’

  ‘Oh, you’re the new girl,’ Julie said.

  ‘Not up here,’ said Abby. ‘We’ve had women ministers for decades. That’s more an English problem, isn’t it?’ She was looking at me as if I was some kind of hysteric and I could hardly blame her. It was the first thing – the only thing – that had come into my mind but it was total codswallop.

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ I said. ‘I’ve been spat at in the street when I’ve had my dog-collar on.’

  Julie grimaced and tutted.

  ‘Well, you don’t need to worry about Tuft spitting on you,’ Abby said. ‘Or taking off for Brazil to get away from you.’

  ‘Brazil?’ Paddy hadn’t said that, and I’d assumed Majorca or even Margate.

  ‘She’s a sweetheart,’ Julie added. ‘She’d kill me for calling her that, but she really is. She’d do anything for anyone. And she’s a laugh and a half when you get a glass of wine down her. The stories of her misspent youth!’

  Now both of them were smiling, sharing memories.

  ‘And she can roll a joint that lasts for over an hour,’ said Julie. ‘You just wait till the Christmas party, Finnie.’

  ‘Tchssh!’ Abby said, flashing her eyes. ‘Finnie’s practically a priest. Shut up about joints, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain!’ Julie shot back.

  But the frozen look I knew was on my face was nothing to do with what they were saying. ‘She sounds lovely,’ I said. I blinked twice to stop the tears coming. It was all over: her tales, her kindness, her wild side. ‘What’s he like? I know about his interest in family law. But I’m not sure what it stems from.’

  ‘Now that,’ said Julie, hitching a buttock onto her desk and settling in, ‘is another story. Twenty-five years ago when he married for the second time—’