A Taste for Malice (31 page)

‘Just made sense,’ she mumbles.

‘Why?’

‘Dunno,’ she answers eventually. The sleeves of her jumper are long enough to cover her hands. The only part that is showing are the tips of her fingers. She’s picking at a nail, looking half her age.

‘Jasmine, what I told you the first time we met wasn’t a lie. A child’s life could be in danger if you don’t tell me what you know.’

She says nothing. Just stares at her hands. This makes me realise how young this girl really is. Barely out of her teens and she still displays a teenage response.

‘Jas,’ says Darren. ‘Help the man.’

‘Jasmine. Look at me,’ I say. She lifts her head up and does so. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can’t hear you.’

‘YES.’

‘So tell me.’

‘We got a letter through to say that this woman had died. Natural causes.’

‘Didn’t it strike you as odd that someone that age, who was healthy enough to hold down a job, had died of natural causes?’ I ask.

‘Nope. You see all sorts of things in that place. Besides you don’t have time to ask questions. You just fill in forms and keep the piles of papers down as low as you can.’

‘What next?’

She exhales sharply. ‘Then we sent off a request for the death certificate, and diarised a chaser.’

‘Do you remember the address you sent it to? Or the person who sent in the letter?’

‘You kidding? Do you have any idea how much paper I touch in a day in that place?’

‘Then what?’ I keep my focus on Jasmine, but I can see that Darren is edging further and further away from her.

‘Then,’ she exhales, long and slow, ‘then a woman came up to me in the car park at the hospital. Gave me one hundred pounds and asked me to get rid of the Hepburn file.’ She looks at me and then Darren. ‘Easy money, right? What’s the harm?’

I allow this information to sink into my subconscious; I don’t want to focus on it just yet. The implications are important, but I need more from Jasmine first.

‘Could you describe this woman?’

‘Average height, short dark hair,’ she makes a face, ‘dressed expensively but pure frumpy. Sunglasses. Big sunglasses that covered half her face and it wasn’t even sunny.’

‘A local accent?’ I ask.

She studies me, ‘Aye, but she was posher ’n me.’

‘How did she know to pick you?’ I ask. ‘There are any number of people who work in that place who might like an extra hundred pounds. Why you?’

‘Dunno what you mean. What are you tryin’ to say, mister?’ She’s sitting tall in her chair and her mouth is pinched tight as she speaks.

‘Had you met Hepburn before she died?’

She doesn’t answer me.

‘Were you mates with Hepburn?’

‘Nut,’ she screws up her eyes and tries to stare me down.

‘You were. That’s why this woman chose you. She knew you would do it.’

‘That’s no true, mister. You’re doin’ that thing where…’

‘Hepburn was your mate and she knew she could call on you to help. Man are you in trouble.’

‘Nah, mate you’ve got it all wrang,’ she’s leaning forwards towards me.

‘We’re talking child abuse. You’ve aided and abetted. Prison sentence …’ I suck at my teeth, ‘…ten years. And those that harm kiddies get a nasty time in prison.’

‘For fucksake, Jas,’ says Darren. ‘What the fuck’s going on?’

‘Darren. Darren,’ she reaches for his hand. He pulls away from her. ‘It was only a wee bit of smack. That’s all. Just a wee …’

‘Fuck me,’ he jumps to his feet. ‘You’re dealing. In a fucking hospital.’ He rubs his head and looks at me. ‘Man, I had no idea about this. I am totally clean. Totally.’

I believe him on the recreational drug front, but I wonder what a test on steroids would show.

‘Darren,’ Jasmine is pleading.

‘Izzat how you know Kenny O’Neill? Fuck. Jasmine. You brought drugs to my door!’

‘Guys,’ I interrupt. ‘We need to get this straight before you go into meltdown. Jasmine, am I right in saying that you sold drugs to Hepburn.’

‘Aye,’ she nods, defeated.

‘How many times?’

‘A couple.’

‘So the hundred quid was a sweetener. The real issue was that this woman would grass you up to the authorities if you didn’t do as she asked.’

She nods.

Darren has walked out of the room. Jasmine follows him with her eyes. She rubs at her left eye. Then her right. She has gone several shades lighter.

‘What did you do with the file?

‘Put it in along with patient files. In among the Macs.’

‘Who the hell are you?’ asked the man who came out of the door to accost Jim. He appeared to be in his mid-thirties, wearing a pair of dark blue trousers and an open necked shirt over his slim build. He had a long, thin face that was pale apart from the dark shadows under his eyes. ‘Are you from a newspaper? You vultures do my head in. Away and piss off. It’s no as if we’ve had enough to deal with.’

Jim prepared to speak back to him in the same manner when the part of his brain that was still working spotted the man’s stance, his certainty, and allowed what he said to sink in. From a newspaper?

Jim’s confidence in his mission evaporated and he wondered what in hell he had just walked into. ‘Do you live …I was here just a …’ he shook his head as if trying to make sense of everything that had happened over the last few days. The way things were going he wouldn’t be surprised if gravity reversed and he went floating up into the sky.

The man walked out of his doorway and stepped into the grass patch that had moments ago given Jim visual access to his living room. ‘Are you looking for someone, mate?’ His earlier aggression had softened a little, but there was a degree of concern in his tone.

There was no car in the drive and there had been no sign of movement with the house’s walls or Jim would never have dreamed of peering in the window.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Jim. ‘I must be confused. I thought I had dinner here the other week with a friend called Moira and her son Erskine,’ said Jim.

‘Erskine? You say
her
son’s name was Erskine?’ the man asked, his voice rising in alarm.

Jim took a step back and held up his hand. ‘I’m really sorry, mate. There’s been some sort of misunderstanding.’

He turned and walked towards his car.

‘How do you know my son’s name?’

‘I was here just the other week. Moira invited my wife and I for …’

‘Moira? Moira Shearer?’

‘Is that her surname?’ Jim inwardly grimaced. He hadn’t even bothered to find out the woman’s surname.

‘So you’ll be Mr Shearer then.’ He relaxed.

‘What? My name’s McKee. Rob McKee. And Erskine is not Moira’s son.’

‘I …eh…but …’ began Jim. Will somebody please tell me what the fuck is going on, he thought.

‘I think you’d better come in,’ said Rob.

The interior was just as Jim remembered from his last visit. Rob guided him in to the living room and watched him as he viewed the room.

Rob studied him for a moment and then asked. ‘You’ve been in here before, haven’t you?’

Jim nodded. The room was pretty much the same. Everything about it was recognisable. It was the same room. The same house, after all. There was something not quite right though, but he couldn’t pinpoint what it was.

‘As I said, Moira invited my wife and me over for dinner.’

‘And you came over here to see if you could see Moira?’ asked Bob.

‘Oh I know where Moira is, Rob,’ said Jim. ‘What I need to know is what she’s up to.’

‘Want a beer, Jim?’ asked Rob. ‘I’ve got a feeling that this is going to take some time.’

Rob vanished, then returned with a bottle of Stella Artois for each of them. Between gulps from his bottle, Jim told Rob his story.

‘So she told you Erskine was her son and that I, or some mythical person had stolen him from her?’ Rob was sitting forward in his chair, pointing his empty bottle at Jim. He leaned back in his chair, his mouth pursed in thought. ‘Bloody hell. She seemed all right, like. A bit flirty, but good with Erskine.’

Jim rubbed his forehead, feeling the shame of his submission to this flirting.

‘You know, what you’re saying throws everything she told me up in the air. As well as making me think of the similarities between us. We are both working fathers, struggling with a solitary child, a boy, both our wives are having a tough time.’

‘Your wife …?’ Jim assessed Rob afresh. Now that he mentioned the situation with his wife, Jim noted again the strain in his face, the pouches of grey under his eyes. ‘She’s in hospital. Head injury. Would you believe she fell down some stairs? In a shopping centre of all places. She hates lifts. I told her I would see her on the top floor. Try explaining all of that to the police.’

‘How’s Erskine taking it?’

‘The wee soul’s doing okay. Well he was until …he had his accident.’ Rob swallowed and shifted his view from Jim to the floor, to the window and back again, clearly uncomfortable. ‘That’s why I got it into my head you were a journalist. Those pricks just prey on bad news to good people.’

Bad news, thought Jim. What’s going on here?

‘Come to think of it that was the last day I saw Moira,’ said Rob as if he was having half a conversation out loud and half internally. ‘I was convinced she blamed herself. Just a couple of weeks ago.’

‘What happened?’ asked Jim. ‘Where is Erskine?’

‘He’s sleeping. He…’ Rob paused as if he had trouble forming the words, ‘… lost his eye. His right one. And it’s all my stupid fault.’ Rob rubbed his forehead, then his chin, agitation running through his muscles like a current. ‘I should know better than to go off to work leaving planks of wood and tools lying in the garden. I was building him a den, you know. Something to cheer him up while his mother was …’ Rob broke off, his voice thick with emotion. ‘I can’t tell you how awful …’ his voice broke.

Jim could feel Rob’s anguish. ‘Man, that is terrible,’ he offered, not knowing what to say. What could he say that might help?

‘It seems he was running and he tripped and fell into the …I left a pile of old planks …I was going to build a den among the bushes at the back of the garden. Boys love that kind of thing right?’

Jim nodded.

‘He tripped and fell. A nail was embedded in his eye …I wasn’t even here and I can still hear his screams.’ Rob stared off into some indefinable distance, heating his thoughts on a guilt that would never wear down.

‘Man that is tough,’ said Jim and decided he’d already said something similar, so he’d best just shut up for a while. The two men sat for minutes in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Something occurred to Jim.

‘When did it happen?’ Jim asked.

‘Not sure. A couple of weeks ago. Three weeks maybe. It was a Monday, I’m sure of that.’

Monday, thought Jim. It was a Monday when Moira came over to his claiming that her son had been stolen from her by his father.

‘I know what’s different, in here. The photos. There’s loads more photos.’ Jim looked around himself. Different sizes and different frames. Different family members.

‘It’s always like this,’ said Rob. ‘My missus loves a house full of photos. Says it makes up for only having one child.’

‘Yes, but they were evidence that Moira was not who she claimed to be. So she hid half of them that day we came for dinner.’

‘Crafty bitch,’ said Rob as if impressed despite himself.

Jim thought some more. A thought that chilled him to the marrow and made him want to rush out and visit his family. ‘Rob, are you sure Erskine’s trip was an accident?’

‘Oh, c’mon man. Now you’re getting a bit weird on me. Okay, I think we can both agree that Moira has lied and schemed. But to deliberately hurt Erskine like that? No. I’m sure that’s not her game. She just wants free room and board.’

‘Ben liked…sorry, likes her. Did Erskine get on okay with her?’

‘Yes,’ Rob said almost automatically. Then he thought about it some more. ‘Yes, he did. I think he enjoyed the female company given that his mum wasn’t available.’ Rob gave a weak smile, as if he had only a few left and he didn’t want to be wasteful. ‘He loved bedtimes. He enjoyed her stories about pirates and smugglers in caves. He kept badgering her about when she was going to take him to see the caves.’

They both fell silent again. Another thought occurred to Jim.

‘How did you meet Moira? How did she get to be your part-time nanny?’

‘Somebody at the hospital I got talking to recommended her. I can’t remember her name,’ he paused. ‘It might have been Lilly? Lucy? It began with an L.’

Driving away from Darren and Jasmine’s flat I look at the clock on the dashboard. Just gone five pm. If I phone Bob at the Southern General Hospital and tell him what Jasmine has to say, he might just have time to have a quick look for the Hepburn file before he finishes for the day.

I park the car on the side of the road and pull my phone from my pocket. I have a missed call. No number has been stored in the memory, which suggests it was a phone call from a place of work. I try my answering service. Whoever it was chose not to leave a message. Couldn’t have been that important then. Daryl or Alessandra maybe?

Na. The bastards will be so delighted to have a real case they’ve probably forgotten I exist.

From the directory I get a number for the hospital. I ask to get put through to medical records. The phone rings out. They’ve probably all gone home.

Back at the flat I change out of my suit and put on shorts and a T-shirt. Then I throw some chicken, pak choi, beansprouts and garlic into the wok. I wash it down with some tap water. All very tasty and healthy. There is however a very large bar of chocolate in the kitchen cupboard calling my name.

I put on the TV and watch the news. War and famine. Violence on women and children. People dying from heat exhaustion during a heatwave in Eastern Europe. Desperate stuff. This is what we get served up several times a day to in order to fulfil our public duty of staying informed. Question: do we have to wallow in it? Another question: is there nothing new in the world that is good
and
newsworthy?

I jump to my feet, pace three steps to the machine and turn it off. Instantly the noise and gloom dies. Turning, I see a book on the sofa. The last time I picked it up a feather fell from its pages. I shiver. How had it got there? Surely Maggie wouldn’t use it as a bookmark.