Ghost Song (46 page)

With angry irrelevance she found herself noticing how her mother's hair had become untidy—pepper-and-salt, uncared for—seeing how her skin was dull and rough, the cheeks sunken and veined with tiny red lines. How old was she now? Late forties? Yes, that was all. But drink ruined people, it plunged them into strange twilight worlds where they no longer remembered the ordinary rules of life. Where they forgot to lie and pretend about things that mattered? Such as a man who had died a squalid death, branded as a strangler of young girls. (Against the curtain wall of Tantallon, that's where he did it.)

She should have been safe from the grim legacy of Iain Seymour because he was dead. There was a hammy old saying that dead men told no tales, and it was certain that Iain Seymour (she would
not
call him Father or even think of him as that!) would not be telling any tales.

Dead women told no tales either. And here was her mother, sunk in self-pity, drinking herself into an early death.

An early death.

Scarlet rage swamped Shona, and she reached for the bottle of vodka standing near her mother's chair. It was a quarter full and the top was loosely screwed on. Shona removed the top and flung the contents over her mother's chair. Ignoring her cry of protest and shock, she bent down and using the copper coal tongs, picked out a glowing red coal from the centre of the fire and dropped it onto the arm of the chair.

It caught fire at once, and the alcohol sent the flames shooting sky high. There was a scream of fear and pain and the brief impression of the figure in the chair struggling to get up. Clothes—hair—skin—flamed up, and Shona backed away and stood by the door, watching. Only when her mother stopped screaming did she run into the garden, shouting for Elspeth.

When it came down to it, no one in Moil was very shocked, although they were all greatly saddened. Poor Margaret Seymour, they said. A difficult life she'd had, what with being widowed so young, what with losing her sister in that macabre way some years ago. It was true there had been a few whispers about drinking and certainly she had not been seen much in the village over the last few years, but surely to goodness the poor woman could be allowed a few little nips now and then. Finding your sister's desiccated body behind a wall in your cellar could not be exactly good for your nerves.

Elspeth Ross, who had lived up at Grith for so many years, said Mrs Seymour was a martyr to crippling migraine attacks. Anyone who had ever suffered from migraine attacks—the real McCoy, not just your average milk and water headache—knew quite well that you could be laid low for forty-eight hours at times and couldn't even lift your head from the pillow. She had pills of course, but they were not always entirely effective.

There had to be an inquest, but everyone thought the verdict would be accidental death. A foregone conclusion, they said. She'd likely have been a bit fuzzy from taking the pills, and wouldn't have noticed a spark flying out from the fire and setting the chair alight. A very nasty, very tragic, death, but nothing in the least suspicious about it. They listened, with horrified but slightly guilty relish, to the tale of how poor Shona, poor child, had actually come running in to find the chair alight and her mother screaming, and how Shona had acted with remarkable promptness, shouting to Elspeth Ross for buckets of water to douse the flames, telephoning the fire brigade there and then. All too late, though.

The Cheesewrights, who were the main source of information, told everyone that the funeral would be held at Moil church, and Shona and Elspeth Ross had said mourners would be welcome at the house afterwards for a cup of a tea or a glass of sherry. Nothing elaborate, what with the sitting room still being in such a mess from the fire, and the insurance company not prepared to stump up the money until after the inquest. But people would likely make allowance for that.

Edna Cheesewright told Shona that she and Mona would see to the food after the funeral—no, it would be no trouble, they were pleased to think they could do something to help. Just sandwiches and rolls, they thought, although Mona would bake a few scones as well. All very plain, nothing frivolous. Shona thought the words Grith House and frivolous were not ones that would occur to most people in the same sentence anyway, but she did not say so. She said she and her cousin would be very glad of Edna and Mona's help with the modest wake, and added that Elspeth had ordered a Cheshire cheese and a large ham for boiling.

The ham had to be boiled for a very long time, and the smell made Shona feel sick because it was dreadfully similar to the smell that lingered in the sitting room after her mother had gone up in flames. She suggested they might have been better to just order cooked ham for the sandwiches, but Elspeth said that was not how things should be done, and people would think it funny if they found themselves eating pre-packed, machine-sliced ham from a supermarket.

She was poking and prodding at the ham in the big saucepan, and looked up when Shona came in. Her face was flushed from the heat of the cooker and she had a tea towel over her shoulder.

She said, ‘I'm glad you've come in, Shona. I wanted to say something to you.'

‘Yes?' It would be something to do with the funeral which was tomorrow afternoon, or about what Elspeth herself was going to do now that Shona's mother was dead, or even a question as to whether the insurance people were likely to pay up so they could have the room put to rights. It had remained locked since the fire, although the assessors had had to go in.

Elspeth said, ‘I wanted to tell you, Shona, that I know you found out about Iain—about your father.'

As if from a long way away, Shona heard her own voice say, ‘I don't know what you mean.'

‘You do know. You found the papers about him, didn't you? The letter and the newspaper cutting. You left them in the pocket of the skirt you had on that day—I found them afterwards. I'm sorry you had to find out like that. It must have been a dreadful shock. We never wanted you to know the truth.'

‘Didn't you?' Shona looked at Elspeth, who should not be talking about this because no one must ever talk about it. But there she stood, her foolish sheeplike face mouthing something about having acted for the best.

‘He was a very charming man, your father—I met him several times—but he wasn't sane. Even when it was proved, quite definitely, that he had killed those girls, he always said he had no memory of it. The doctors—psychiatrists and so on—said he had completely blanked out what he did. They used long words, medical terms, but that was the gist of it. It was as if his mind couldn't accept what he had done, so it buried everything.'

‘But he was guilty?'

‘Oh yes. Guilty but insane. He didn't remember. Just as you never remembered killing Anna all those years ago.' Then, as Shona made to speak, Elspeth said, ‘We all tried to protect you. We all agreed you must be protected from the consequences.'

Memory stirred again, as it had done when she had been with her mother. Painful and raw, like the feeling when a fingernail is torn off below the quick.

‘I don't know what you mean,' she said, but she did know. Anna. That was what Elspeth was talking about. That dark fear buried all those years ago. I killed Anna even though I didn't know about it afterwards. But they all knew, Mother and Grandfather. And Elspeth knew as well. Elspeth…What am I going to do about this?

Elspeth was standing with her back to the oven, steam still rising from the boiling ham. The windows were blind and white with the hot dampness from the stove, and Elspeth's hair was frizzed from the steam: it would smell of the boiling meat. Horrid. Shona was aware of an odd feeling—a feeling she had not experienced when she killed Anna or her mother. It was a feeling of being huge and invincible. Nothing could touch her.

Her father had used his bare hands to strangle his victims, but for Elspeth it should be a more homely death.

She bounded across the kitchen, and before Elspeth realized what was happening, snatched up a heavy iron frying-pan and brought it smashing down on the silly creature's head. Elspeth gave a half-grunt and slumped sideways, half over the edge of the oven, not unconscious, but dazed. Before she could recover, Shona grabbed the long-handled tongs used for removing fish and chicken from the big fryer, and lifted the half-cooked ham from the saucepan, dropping it into the sink. Then she snatched the tea towel from around Elspeth's flabby neck and, hooking her hands under the stupid woman's arms, pulled her into a standing position. Using the tea towel to protect her own hands, she pushed Elspeth face down into the boiling pan of water, and held her there with the long-handled tongs.

The shock of the bubbling water brought Elspeth to her senses and she fought for all she was worth, clawing and kicking, and making dreadful wet bubbly screams through the water. Despite Shona's care some of the boiling water splashed onto her hands, raising little blisters. But she held on, and at last Elspeth's struggles stopped and she slumped forward over the cooker. Water cascaded everywhere in little hissing rivulets and Shona sprang back, then, using a dry tea towel, managed to switch off the heat.

The smell of Elspeth's boiled face was almost exactly the same as the smell of the boiled ham joint. It would take a long time to get the smell out of the kitchen.

S
HONA SCRUBBED EVERYWHERE
with bleach and cleaned the top of the cooker very thoroughly. She threw the ham joint away—she would tell the Cheesewrights it had turned out to be too tough for the sandwiches. The butcher, if he got to hear about it, would be upset, but Shona was not worried about the butcher's feelings. She was not worried about anyone's feelings. For the moment she was concerned over what should be done with Elspeth. She managed to check for a pulse and a heartbeat and was relieved when there was neither. Presumably Elspeth had died from shock, although Shona did not really mind what the stupid woman had died from. There she lay, her face the most repulsive mess Shona had ever seen. The skin was exactly the colour and texture of cooked meat and the boiling water had poached the eyes—Shona found this the worst part of all. She wrapped the tea towel round the head, knotting it firmly at the neck. This helped, but not much because the white tea towel gave Elspeth a hideous blank appearance. Shona kept imagining the dreadful boiled eyes swivelling this way and that, trying to see.

She knelt down to check the heartbeat again, and as she did so there was a brief shutter-flash of a picture: a man against the backcloth of an old ruined castle with a strange but somehow melodic name—Tantallon—and a curtain wall dramatically spanning the headland. Iain Seymour. Did you do this, Iain Seymour, when you killed? Did you bend over your victims to check for a pulse or a heartbeat before you buried them? Did they even find all your victims, I wonder? They aren't going to find any of mine.

Elspeth was dead, Shona was sure of it. She straightened up, her mind flying ahead. Tomorrow was her mother's funeral. That would have to go ahead—she did not think there was any way of avoiding either the service or the modest wake afterwards. She sat in the darkening kitchen and thought for a long time, and the first glimmerings of a plan began to form. The details were not there yet, but the more she thought, the more she was convinced it would work. The only trouble was that the body would have to be concealed for a little over twenty-four hours, until after the funeral. Could that be done?

The silly woman's own bedroom would have been the best place to hide her body, but Shona did not think she could get the heavy weight all the way up the stairs and even if she could, she would have to get it all the way down again. But the sitting room should be safe: it was still a sealed area because the insurance people needed to look at it again. But they would not do that tomorrow because of the funeral, and Shona would have dealt with everything by the following day.