Scar Tissue (26 page)

It was the sort of day when decorators thank God for an indoor contract. Grey? I don’t think it had ever got light, and when it tried to, the rain that had simply been threatening started to sluice down. There was a poem about it, wasn’t there? Something about no dawn and no dusk, and finishing up with the single word, November.

Yes, I’d moved on to poetry, something I’d never thought anyone like me would read. I’d been to see a couple of plays, too, when Jan and Todd had thought there was something interesting in London or Brighton – and loved them both. I’d managed to identify that bit about seeking the villain in hell: it was from
Hamlet
. Todd kept on at me to do what he’d done – an Open University course – but I was still putting off applying. He pointed out that I’d done well in my residential course in August, learning all sorts of techniques I was now applying in our renovation of Fullers. But I insisted there was a huge difference between practical stuff I already knew the basics of and real, abstract learning. I’d enjoyed that course, actually, and made several good contacts, two of whom were now working here at Fullers.

Yes, there’d been a number of changes in Paula’s Pots. There’d had to be. Todd and Jan had been so obviously torn between their desire to let us do the work and a quite reasonable and equally strong desire to be able to move in sometime in the next decade. It wasn’t just a matter of people slapping on paint and hanging wallpaper; the whole thing had to be co-ordinated. So they’d asked Paula to become
their Clerk of Works, chasing and supervising and generally doing all the things Paula does to perfection.

‘It’s an offer I can’t refuse,’ she’d confessed over a drink to celebrate the completion of our work on that pensioner’s bungalow, the one we’d done at cost, largely using the paint Meg had spilt. Paula had been right: Mr Green had been happy to use van der Poele’s leavings. ‘So what I’m going to suggest is this: that Meg takes over chasing new business and costing it, the work I used to do. I know that Fullers will take ages to finish, but we’ve got to keep other things ticking over too. That’s if Caffy and Helen don’t mind her being promoted.’

Helen wriggled. ‘I’m afraid I shan’t be around all that much. You see, I’ve decided to go for that college course. Get my qualifications.’

There was a huge cheer, a lot of hugging, and a bit of a weep, too. Was this spelling the end of Paula’s Pots? From the expression on Paula’s face, it might.

‘This leaves Caffy as the labourer.’ Paula looked uncomfortable, as well she might. We’d always been more a co-operative than a conventional firm. She’d been irritable for a couple of days, but this felt personal.

Meg was already shaking her head. ‘You know we’ve got to expand. And if we take on those women from Caffy’s course we’ll have to pay them a proper rate. Todd doesn’t want sweated labour anyway.’ These days she managed to talk about him without blushing.

‘Well, I wasn’t suggesting we should pay her less than the others.’

‘I propose we promote her to forewoman,’ Meg said. ‘And
since we wouldn’t have the Fullers’ work at all if it wasn’t for her, I reckon she deserves a rise to match.’

I could breathe again. So I could afford to be generous. ‘I shan’t need it. Not if I’m going to get compensation for Granville’s scars.’

Meg shook her head firmly. ‘The law takes forever. And we agreed right at the start, a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. And now you’re the most skilled of all of us.’

Paula nodded. ‘Yes, she is. I suppose the business can afford a bit of a rise.’

‘Paula, just because you’ve broken up with whoever it was, there’s no need to take it out on us,’ Helen said, fingering a spot on her nose. ‘You should be grateful to Caffy, not bad-tempered. And you’ve got a nice new title – why shouldn’t she?’

That was the problem, wasn’t it? Paula always liked to come first. When she’d settled into her new role, she’d be sweetness and light itself.

And it was light we could do with this November day. Paula was in Leeds chasing a last marble fireplace, Meg was off meeting a friend of Todd’s who’d seen our transformation of Fullers and now wanted his country pad titivated, Helen was busy studying and I’d just told our new colleagues to knock off for the day. I’d stay a little longer. I liked being on my own in the place, wandering round rooms now glowing in the paint I’d helped apply and promising the same treatment to the few still scruffy ones. Nearly the same. Jan had long since decided that as the house evolved over so many periods, each room would be decorated in the style most appropriate
to it. The kitchen might be as hi-tech as they came, Aga and refectory table apart, and the central heating might be state of the art, but she’d found some framed stump-work panels for a dark, Jacobean room, and elegant chinoiserie tables for the regency salon. The hall now had a particularly fine mirror in place. The silvering was past its best, but it reflected kindly back to me a young woman now with well-cut blonde hair and blue eyes.

Some evenings, after supper, I’d start work again. This area didn’t really offer much in the way of entertainment for a young woman on her own, even one with an elderly Fiesta courtesy of an even more elderly lady who’d been told she could no long drive the three hundred miles a year she’d managed till she was ninety-one. Paula and I were again on good terms, and she’d twisted her brother’s arm to come up with bargain wheels for me. But I didn’t use them much more than the old lady. Sometimes my fellow Pots shook their heads, fearing loudly that I was going to turn into a dried-up old spinster living only through her books.

Although Todd and Jan always welcomed me as a beloved daughter into their caravan, they weren’t there all that much now the weather had changed. Who could blame them, when the Caribbean called? Not me, any more than I’d have blamed my real parents. Real? Blood parents was nearer the term. Todd and Jan, with their unqualified, undemanding love, were my real parents now. I’d tried to ask them why they’d taken me so unquestioningly under their wing. They’d never come up with any sort of rational explanation, any more than I could have done. Love at first sight, I suppose, and not at all in the romantic sense. We’d just walked into
one another’s lives and found it the best place to be. Sometimes I was uncomfortable when I considered the extent of their generosity. But it made them unhappy if I tried to refuse things they knew I needed. I had a terrible suspicion that my Christmas gift might be a replacement for the Fiesta, simply because they wanted me to have the latest in in-car protection. Mine for them? Well. The best-painted house I could manage. The most loving restoration. The warmest welcome.

When Christmas came, and all the rooms had had their last vacuum and polish, it’d be as perfect as I could have made it. They were planning a housewarming party, a huge one: they’d already told us we must bring our friends too. Apart from anything else, Jan was desperate to see whom Paula would bring. For old times’ sake, I could always invite Taz, I suppose, but I didn’t want to embarrass him and his new girlfriend. Gates? No, he’d never asked me out again, nor had I really wanted him to. I didn’t want a man who could only do emotion when he was shocked into it and preferred to be in control the rest of the time. Think about those cold, grey eyes. Maybe we’d have lunch or dinner when the trial of Moffatt, Marsh, van der Poele and their police minions was over, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Perhaps the Pots had been more accurate in their predictions for my future than I cared to admit. It would take a very special man to deal with my past, always assuming I ever thoroughly dealt with it myself. Maybe the therapy a friend of Jan’s had organised would help. Maybe the plastic surgery, but that was still some way down the line.

I went down to lock the door behind the two women and
stood listening to the building breathe as the old timbers settled. Like a chatelaine, I walked solemnly from room to room, making sure the shutters were fast. At least I didn’t have to worry about the tunnel any more. After the building archaeologists had photographed it from all angles, it was sealed. First of all a big steel plate was fastened under the trap door. Anyone on the canal-side managing to find and lift it would be met by something as impenetrable as a safe. Then it had been bricked up. Todd had insisted on the belt and braces, although he’d caused a purist eyebrow or two to lift.

There was the sound of a car outside. Yes, Jan and Todd’s Range Rover. And they gave their familiar triple toot, so I’d know it was them. The security lights, promised when the troubles began, came on in greeting.

There were their voices now.

So, as if I owned the place, I flung open the big front door, opening my arms wide.

‘Welcome home,’ I said.

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Prize-winning short-story writer J
UDITH
C
UTLER
is the author of nearly thirty novels, including the successful crime series featuring Fran Harman, police woman extraordinaire. Judith has taught Creative Writing at Birmingham University, and has run writing courses elsewhere, including a maximum-security prison and an idyllic Greek island. She now lives in the Cotswolds with her husband, fellow author Edward Marston.

www.judithcutler.com

The Chief Superintendent Fran Harman series

Life Sentence

Cold Pursuit

Still Waters

The Josie Welford series

The Food Detective

The Chinese Takeout

The Tobias Campion series

The Keeper of Secrets

Shadow of the Past

Scar Tissue

Drawing the Line