Come to Harm (22 page)

twenty-eight

Thursday, 21 November

Pamela Shand arrived on
time, declined coffee, and got straight to work while Keiko pretended to be reading. Should she show Pamela the necklace, saying she had found it out on the street? But if she said that she'd have to take it to the police as lost property, and she already knew she didn't want to give it away. It was in her pocket right now and she ran her fingers over it.
I will find you,
she promised.

What she
should
do, she knew, was show it to the Pooles since they owned the flat, but just thinking about that made her pulse thrum.

Then she tried to tell herself that Nicole might have visited and the necklace might have come undone while she was washing her hands. Except the clasp was closed, and visitors do not wash their hands in the kitchen.

Finally she told herself that
N
could stand for lots of things, but when she thought of all the women and girls she had met here—Grace, Fancy, Pet, Etta, Mabel, Sandra, Margaret, Janice, Viola, Yvonne—she didn't believe it was true.

There was a polite cough. Pamela Shand was staring at her.

“If you're finished we can take a few moments to discuss anything,” said Keiko. “But only if there's time before the next person.”

“Why not come round tonight and have some supper with me?” said Pam. “You'll be drained after a day of appointments, and I would like very much to talk to you.”

“Really?” said Keiko, looking up.

“I've been trying to get to you,” Pam said, “but you're very well minded. I really wanted to say there's no need for you to feel you should put up with it. Even though it must be awkward for you, living above the Pooles.”

“Awkward?” Keiko said. She was aware of her pulse again.

“Uncomfortable,” said Pam. “Oh, why am I mincing my words? It must be hell and it's about to get worse.”

Keiko's heart was banging now.

“Christmas is coming,” said Pam. “I can't begin to tell you what's coming at Christmas.” She leaned in closer across the table. “Imagine a turkey so fat it can barely stand, stuffed with minced pork and covered in bacon and butter, roasted for hours with the fat ladled up and over it again and again until it glistens, served up burnt skin and all, with thick gravy.”

Although it was only an hour since breakfast, Keiko's stomach gave a slow, luxurious rumble that she tried to cover by rustling the pages of her book and clearing her throat.

“Ah yes,” Keiko said, slumping in disappointment. This woman had some kind of fixation. All this outrage and drama and she was only talking about food again! “Yes. Yes, certainly, that's a lot more meat than a Japanese family would eat even when feasting.” She gave a shrug. “But feasting is supposed to be out of the ordinary. And when the everyday custom is to eat so very much, then to make a feast seem like a feast they must need to …” She trailed into silence.

Pamela had those plump but narrow hands with dimples at the base of each pointed little finger, and she gripped the edge of the table with them now as she leaned even closer.

“I admire your fortitude,” she said. “But that's not all. I'd love to warn you about the local delicacy for New Year's Day, but I can't bring myself to describe it. All I will say is that the time is coming for its preparation, and if it gets too much for you—here above the Pooles'—you are welcome to come round at any time to visit me.”

“You are most kind,” said Keiko.

“Not at all. Is there anything you don't eat?”

“Nothing you're likely to serve,” said Keiko, hearing the rudeness too late as Pamela frowned.

“I am a great devotee of world cuisine,” said Pam evenly, and they left it there.

_____

Mrs. McMaster laid down her pen after less than five minutes and Keiko could see that she had stopped halfway through a page.

“Fancy helped you with these, did she?” Keiko nodded. “I see.” She paused a moment and considered Keiko's face closely. Then she shifted her gaze slightly off to the side and spoke again. “Of course Fancy was around the shop quite a lot when she was just a wee girl and … it's a funny thing, you know, but a florist is right up there with a priest and a doctor for hearing things.”

“That
is
rather surprising,” said Keiko.

“Aye well, there it is,” Pet said. “Christenings, weddings, and funerals loosen the tongue. People will put it down to the drink, but drink it cannot be, for it's just the same first thing in the morning across a florist's bench. Things people would never breathe a word of face to face, eye to eye, you know? But there's me not looking at them, busy with the flowers, and they're watching my hands so they're not looking at me, and they get to talking.”

Keiko waited.

Mrs. McMaster took off her spectacles and hooked them by one of their earpieces through a ringed brooch pinned to her bosom. “Some of your wee scenarios here are pretty close to home,” she said. “I'm surprised at Fancy.”

“I don't think she meant to betray any confidences,” Keiko said. Mrs. McMaster only raised her eyebrows. “Really. She said she just let it all bubble up out of her subconscious. I thought she meant her imagination. If I'd known she meant subconscious memory …”

Mrs. McMaster looked less convinced than ever.

“Really, Mrs. McMaster,” Keiko said. “You must believe me: Fancy is always discreet about anything that could hurt anyone.”

“Oh?” said Pet. “Like what?”

Keiko flushed. “That girl—Tash—who left,” she said. “Fancy could have spoken about that and she didn't. Ever.” Keiko swallowed. “She didn't even tell me her last name.”

“Turnbull,” said Mrs. McMaster, her face clouding briefly, before the arch look returned. “Well, she'd hardly have dwelt on Tash to you now, would she?” she said.

“To me?”

“You're stepping out with Murray Poole. And Tash was Murray's first love. Broke his heart for him. No wonder Fancy didn't have much to say.”

It took a few moments for Keiko understand. “Tash was Murray's girlfriend?” she said. Her thoughts were reeling. Tash who left was the same person as Murray's girlfriend who broke up with him? “He didn't tell me,” she said. Then she remembered something even worse. “He said he didn't know her!” She could hear his words again in her head:
No can do. I don't know their names.

“Sounds like he didn't want to talk to his new girl about his old one,” said Mrs. McMaster. “It's hardly surprising.”

Keiko didn't answer. She was gone, reliving every conversation with Murray. How many times had he lied to her?

“I don't think that's what it was,” she said at last. “He said he didn't know Dina either. And she left too. Or Craig's—”

“Who?” said Mrs. McMaster. “Oh, you mean Dina Taylor. Mabel's girl?”

“Taylor,” said Keiko.

“That's right,” said Mrs. McMaster. “Nadine Taylor. Dina for short. Aye, she hung around him a while. But it didn't last. What's she got—”

“
Nadine
?” said Keiko, feeling her face changing colour.

“Now why would that surprise you?” said Mrs. McMaster. “What on earth are you up to together, the pair of you?”

They weren't up to anything together, Keiko thought. He had hidden so much from her, even while he dropped all those hints of trouble.

“What ‘pair'?” she said with a dry laugh.

“You and Fancy,” said Mrs. McMaster. “What's Nadine Taylor got to do with this?” She tapped the paper with her pen.

Fancy. Keiko felt a chill as if a door had been opened on a winter night. As many times as Murray had lied, Fancy had lied even more. She had spoken of Tash and of Murray's girlfriend and never admitted that they were the same person. What was going on?

“Mrs. McMaster,” Keiko said. “Do you think I should cancel the profiling? Scrap all of these questions and start again?”

Mrs. McMaster blinked in surprise. “What?” she said. “Och, no. There's nothing in there that wouldn't be just the same in any small town in the land. As long as the names are changed, there's no harm to anyone.”

“So … it's not something terrible? I'm not in danger if I carry on?”

“Danger of what?” said Mrs. McMaster.

“Oh, being sued” said Keiko. “For example.”

Mrs. McMaster threw back her head and let out a merry peal of laughter. “What an imagination you've got,” she said. “You and Fancy are as bad as each other. No, you're not in any danger. There might be one or two red faces here and there, but you've worked hard on this, so go ahead and don't worry.”

She did go ahead. Full steam ahead now that she was able. She only wished she had remembered to ask Nicole's other name while Mrs. McMaster was laughing. All day long, she let her subjects take their time while she hunched over her laptop, Googling.

She got Tash Turnbull out of the way first, aware that her interest might only be because of Murray.
Tash Turnbull + foster + Painchton + McMaster
, she typed and then, in desperation,
missing girls
. Of course she didn't know how common a name Tash Turnbull might be, how odd it might be that she found nothing.

Then she turned to the real task at hand. She took the gold chain out of her pocket late in the day and held it tightly as she typed.
Nadine Taylor + Painchton + Dina
. She clutched the pendant so hard she could feel the points of the
N
digging into her palm. Again, there was nothing. Pages of businesswomen—realtors and attorneys—in Canada and Arkansas. Pages of Taylor genealogies.

She was alone by this time, the last of her subjects gone away. She opened her fist and spoke to the pendant.

“Where are you?” she said. “Who are you? Nadine or—”

She jumped at the sound of footsteps inside her flat and only just managed to get the chain back into her pocket as the living room door was opening

“Knock, knock,” said Murray. “You're late. I've been waiting for you.” He was wearing warm-up trousers and a sleeveless tee-shirt, even though the night was cold with a squally rain lashing against the window.

“Sorry,” said Keiko.

“D'you always leave your door unlocked? That's a bit too trusting for this town.”

“I wish
you
were a bit more trusting,” she said, blurting it out before she could think better. And without giving him a chance to answer she went on: “You did know Tash's full name. Of course you did. And I bet you knew Dina's name was really Nadine. I bet you know Nicole's name too.”

Murray had taken a step backwards as she started talking. Now, he pulled in one long deep breath and let it go, hissing. “Sneddon,” he said. He came over and sat down at one of the other dining chairs set around the table. “It's Nicole Sneddon. And I'm sorry.”

Nicole Sneddon
, Keiko typed.
Painchton
.

Murray bumped his chair around to look over her shoulder.

‘You could try Nikki too,” he said “N-I-K-K-I. I'm sorry, Keiko.”

“Good,” Keiko said, watching the results scroll by. More realtors and executives, more genealogy.

“I should have just told you straight and asked you straight.”

“Yes,” said Keiko, still scrolling. “Asked me what straight?”

“To leave this alone,” he said. “What did you Google for Tash?”

“Tash Turnbull,” Keiko said. “Her name. The one you said you didn't know.”

“I'm sorry,” said Murray for the third time. He paused. “Did you find her?”

“I didn't find any of them,” Keiko whispered. “Nothing at all. All three of them are just … gone.”

Murray took her hand, lifted it from the mouse, and clasped it in both of his. “Please leave it to me,” he said. “Promise me you won't put yourself in danger.”

“If you would tell me what the danger is,” began Keiko, but he was shaking his head. So she shut the laptop and went to change into her workout clothes. But she promised nothing.

twenty-nine

Saturday, 23 November

It was two days
bef
ore she could face Fancy. But at last she steeled herself and walked around the corner. Fancy was trotting back and forward with a delivery of dry-cleaning when Keiko came hurrying in out of the ra
in.

“I'll need to tape these up,” she said, “keep them out the puddles.” She heaped the clothes up on the counter in a slithering bale and folded the bottom halves up to the shoulders, leaning down on them to push out the air. She looked over her shoulder at Keiko. “You okay?”

“Not really,” Keiko said. “Mrs. McMaster did my questionnaire.”

“God, yeah, she told me,” Fancy said, straightening up. “I nearly got put on the naughty step.”

“I'm not talking about the gossip,” Keiko said. “That's not the problem.”

Fancy pulled a long strip of tape from the dispenser with a screeching sound. “Oh?” she said.

“She told me Tash was Murray's girlfriend,” said Keiko. “Why did you lie to me?”

“I didn't—”

“By omission,” Keiko said.

“Jesus,” said Fancy. “It's like being back with the nuns.” Instead of taping the bags, Fancy wound the strip round and round one of her hands until her fingertips turned purple, concentrating hard on it, saying nothing. Then she looked up. “When I came back,” she said, “Pet was in bits. I thought she'd never stop crying. She used to sit with Viola, both of them bawling their eyes out.” She gave Keiko a bleak kind of grin. “Brilliant ego boost.”

Keiko said nothing, didn't even smile.

“So I suppose I was angry,” Fancy said. As she spoke, she unwound the tape from her fingers and screwed it into a ball. “With Tash, I mean. For hurting Pet. And I just didn't want to think about her. Or talk about her.”

Keiko weighed her words for a moment. “Understandable,” she said. “I'm sorry.”

“What for?” said Fancy. She threw the tape ball at the wastepaper basket. It missed.

“Doubting you. I thought you knew something about them.”

“Who?” said Fancy, frowning.

“The missing girls,” Keiko said. “Tash and Nadine Taylor and Nicole Sneddon.”

“Not this again!” said Fancy. “They're not ‘missing.'”

“But I've searched and searched online for Nicole and Dina,” Keiko said. “Why can't I find them?”

Fancy rolled her eyes and opened her laptop. “What did you look under?” she said. “Cos the best place to find Dina Taylor is in St. Abbs, where she lives. Or under photography, which is her hobby.” She typed in silence. “And there she is. North Berwick High School, summer photography show. This summer, Keeks.”

“High school?” said Keiko. “But Mrs. McMaster said she hung around Murray. How old is she?”

“She didn't hang around him that way,” said Fancy. “She just liked the bikes. Likes black leather anyway.”

“And what about Nicole Sneddon?”

“Horses,” said Fancy, typing again. “She's a showjumper. Did you know that? If you don't add in something extra all you get is Linked­In and family history. Nikki's a showjumper and anyway, she was here about two weeks before you arrived, visiting Jimmy and Craig.”

“Well, what about Tash then?” said Keiko. “Can you find her? What were her interests before she got fat and unhappy and broke up with Murray and went away?”

Fancy pressed her lips very close together. As they stood in silence, the shop door opened, letting in a surge of damp air and the sound of cars swishing slowly past in the fog. From Fancy's face Keiko knew without turning that it was one of them, she just didn't know which until she looked over her shoulder.

Malcolm was just inside the doorway, wrestling with the neck fastening of his waterproof cape, trying to remove it before stepping from the doormat onto the carpet. The black rubber squeaked against the glass as he struggled, then he gave up and, planting one foot out away from the door to give himself room to manoeuvre, he reached one hand over the opposite shoulder as far as it would go and flung the cape across his back with a grunt, then scrabbled to catch it and pluck it away from him. Underneath, his white overall showed a faint whiter ghost where his apron had been. He had on the white rubber boots he wore in the shop too and as he turned a
nd stretched up to hook his cape over the door hinge, Keiko could see that the boots had been cut down in the back to fit around his ankles. His socks had disappeared, wrinkled down during the slow walk around the corner, and there was a cold, pink vee of wet skin briefly visible before the hems of his sodden trousers came down again.

“I've come for my posters, Fancy,” he said in his soft boom.

“They're ready,” said Fancy. She took a roll of paper from under the counter, plucked the middle sheet free, and spread it on the counter. Malcolm paced over towards them and then stood reading carefully, his eyes pinched up in concentration.

“Good,” he said at last. “You see what I've done?”

Fancy and Keiko bent to look. They were price lists for Christmas packs of meat, written in red with a suggestion of snow covering the bigger letters, and decorated at the corners with robins and spruce trees.

“Christmas preparations begin very early,” Keiko said. “Pamela has already been discussing it with me.”

“Can't come soon enough for me,” said Malcolm. “I'm dying to see how these go. The Family Deluxe is actually the budget option, but I don't say that. The selling point is that the turkey comes all ready to go in the oven, and the ham's ready cooked. Now, I'll let you in on a secret.” He rested the heels of his hands on the counter and relaxed slightly, treading his feet. “The Family Deluxe is going to be just as delicious as the Butcher's Finest. You know why?” Keiko shook her head. “Because,” he went on, “nobody can cook a ham like me. So the cheap hams that I did are going to taste better than the expensive hams that Mrs. So-and-So tries to do herself. People are scared of the salt, see? They soak out all the flavour and then they're too scared of the sugar to do a proper glaze. And as for the turkeys. A turkey's a turkey's a turkey—it's what goes in it and on it that makes the difference. Fat, basically. You need fat to cook a good turkey and Mrs. So-and-So won't have the bottle. She's terrified of fat. She'd rather pay more for lean bacon and high-meat sausage and have a dry one. So that's what she's getting. But the Family Deluxe is stuffed front and back with fatty pork, and I put extra fat under the skin and cover the breast with good fat belly strips. It's going to be gorgeous. That's the one to go for. The fat one.” He beamed at them, breathing rather hard after such a lot of speaking.

“Well,” said Keiko. “That's …” She looked at Fancy for help, but she was just staring, slack-jawed. Malcolm lowered his head.

“I'll walk back round with you, if you're going,” said Keiko. “I must settle down to some work soon or today will be lost.”

Despite her umbrella, raindrops—or maybe fog drops, she thought—were clinging to her eyelashes before they had reached the corner. She hugged the roll of posters closer and took an extra little step to keep up with Malcolm, surprised, since he had always seemed to move so slowly, to find that she had to hurry to walk beside him, her feet taking two steps to every one of his. They stopped at the kerb and as Keiko lifted her umbrella to check the traffic through the sheeting rain, Malcolm peered out from under his hood. They caught each other's eyes and smiled.

Keiko was suddenly overwhelmed with a wave of homesickness like a heavy blanket thrown over her. When she was small, rain like this was funny, never bothersome; it was something to raise her face to and dance in, and she could never understand why grown-up people hunched their shoulders and scowled, why they tried so hard to be angry with the rain. And she knew it was an effort because if the rain got the better of them—if her mother's umbrella blew out of her hand, or a passing truck soaked her father from head to toe—they would give up the pretence and whoop just like she did.
Laugh or cry, it's the same life, Keko-chan,
her mother said.

And then, all of a sudden, as though he had read her thoughts, Malcolm said, “Oh, stuff it!” He stepped into the brimming gutter and splashed a few paces up the road and then down again, kicking up gouts of water with his feet like the man in the old musical. Keiko was about to close her umbrella and join him when she remembered she was holding his posters, so she stayed put but cheered. Then the little stream of traffic came to an end and they crossed the road, Malcolm raising one arm protectively behind her like the wing of a gigantic bird, the ear of some monstrous, dripping elephant.

Murray was perched on a stool behind the counter reading a magazine. She stepped boldly behind the counter, squeezed his hand, and pecked him on one cheek. He wiped his face where her damp hair had grazed against it, so she made a show of smoothing the frizzy tendrils back and holding them against her head with both hands before kissing his other cheek. He smiled and put his hand on her shoulder.

“Why are you so chirpy?” he said. “How can you stand this weather?”

Keiko wondered whether to try to explain about rain, but in the end just kissed his head and said nothing.

“Where's Mum?” asked Malcolm, when he got back from putting away his cape. Rainwater still rolled down his face in fat drops and he cranked a piece of paper towel out of the dispenser and wiped his head roughly.

“Gone to see Byers,” said Murray.

Malcolm nodded, one upward jerk of his chin, making him look very like his mother, and then made his way towards the cold store.

“What's happening?” asked Keiko. “Is Mr. Byers going to sell his workshop to the Traders?”

“God knows,” said Murray.

“Is that the secret?” Keiko asked, dropping her voice until she was only murmuring. “Is it something to do with the committee?”

“How many times—” Murray began.

“Oh!” said Keiko, interrupting him. “Dina and Nicole are both fine.”

Murray let go of her and propelled her away from him, but just as she began to ask what was wrong the shop bell rang and the door swept wide open to admit Mr. McKendrick, who would not appreciate—what did Fancy call them?—public displays of affection.

He backed in, closing an enormous umbrella, which he shot deftly into the stand before righting his tweed jacket and turning to face them.

“What a day, what a day,” he said comfortably. “Now don't you be booking yourself a seat on the plane home, mind.” He twinkled at Keiko and then craned towards the passage to the office with an expectant look. “Is your mother busy, Murray? Will I just go through?”

“She's not here at the mo,” Murray said.

“I'll catch her at home,” said Mr. McKendrick. “Just as good.”

Malcolm emerged from the cold store, swinging a chunk of dark meat from a hook in one hand.
What does he do in there, in the cold?
Keiko asked herself.
What could take him all of the time he spends in there with the door shut on him?

“By, that's a good-looking rib,” said Mr. McKendrick.

Malcolm swung the meat up and rested it against the back of his wrist twisting it this way and that to show it off like a waiter with a bottle of vintage wine.

“I've never seen a better colour on a piece of beef when your father himself was alive,” Mr. McKendrick continued, admiring.

Malcolm looked up. “Mum,” he said.

Keiko looked towards the door, where Mrs. Poole was standing, pushing her dripping hair back from her face, her white overall transparent with wet, showing the colours of her clothes underneath.

“Gracie, for God's sake,” said Mr. McKendrick. “Where have you been? Where's your coat?” He shook out a large handkerchief and seemed about to dry Mrs. Poole's face with it but settled for passing it to her and shifting from foot to foot, pointing to where she needed it.

“Just round the corner,” said Mrs. Poole. “I had my brolly, but I've left it behind.” She tried a laugh, which came out oddly. Mr. McKendrick frowned at her then turned to look at the water coursing down the window pane and guddling away along the pavement. He caught Keiko's eye briefly. How could anyone step out into that and forget her umbrella?

“Round the corner where?” he asked.

“Post box.”

“I never saw you.”

“I came back along the lanes.” Mrs. Poole gave a shiver, tiny but too much for Mr. McKendrick; with one movement he had swept off his jacket and settled it around her shoulders. She stiffened for a second, then drooped again.

“And now,” Mr. McKendrick cried, “it's soup kitchen time.” Being in his cardigan sleeves seemed to have released even more energy in him. “I say soup, Keiko, but ask Malcolm what he made last year. Eh? For the Christmas dinners for the homeless? Eh, Malcolm?”

“Venison casserole,” said Malcolm, with a small smile at Keiko.

Mr. McKendrick reached up and clapped one hand against his shoulder. “Venison casserole for the homeless,” he said, triumphant.

“It's meat from deer, isn't it?” said Keiko.

“Aye, Bambi's mum,” said Murray softly behind her. “Kids love it.”

Mr. McKendrick chortled. “Not at Christmas, Murray. Stewed Rudolph. Very seasonal.” He laughed richly and rubbed his hands again. “So what's it to be this year, son? Ostrich steaks? Spit-roasted partridge?”

“Not this year, Jimmy,” said Mrs. Poole. “Malcolm's not going to be doing it this year.”

Mr. McKendrick sobered himself with a gruff cough. “No? No, no, I quite understand. You'll want them round you this year on Christmas morning, Grace. I quite see that. But you'll do the cooking on Christmas Eve?” He addressed the question to Malcolm, but Malcolm continued to look at his mother and she answered.