The Endings Man (19 page)

He was making a statement, sitting at a table with Meldrum on the other side. There was another policeman there too, but it was Meldrum who mattered. During the statement, Meldrum didn’t shift his gaze or alter his expression. ‘When Hetty Logan was murdered,’ Curle told them, ‘I was on holiday in Australia. Look, I have the plane tickets here. My son Kerr and I were on Bondi Beach when this terrible thing happened.’ He was sorry about Hetty Logan who’d lived in the house opposite with her mother when he was a child. The mother had blonde hair and had been abandoned by her husband, and the insurance man when he called said he was never going in her house again because there was human dirt on the floor. Curle was sorry, but he couldn’t help being happy because he’d been in Australia when Hetty died. It meant that he could prove he was innocent.

When he opened his eyes, the sun was shining.

‘Stop dreaming,’ Liz said. ‘The sun’s shining.’

‘I know,’ he said.

It was slanting in through the gap between the curtains, drawing a line of light down the wall. He was still sleeping on the couch in the study.

‘Let’s do something for Kerr,’ she said. ‘Don’t be long.’

Early sunshine in a changeable month would often be
gone by midday, and so they set out to make the most of it while it lasted. The streets were Sunday quiet as they drove through the town. In the Royal Botanic Garden, they walked side by side watching Kerr run through the long shadows thrown by the trees on the grass. They sat on a bench under a cherry tree. The leaves were still small, unfolding like tiny hands. They hadn’t spoken for a while. Now he said, ‘See how they’ve cut that branch. It must have been growing the wrong way. They don’t paint the cut end. They just rub a handful of earth on it. The bacteria in the earth protect it.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘A gardener. One of the times we were here.’

‘Do you ever come by yourself?’ she asked.

‘No… Do you?’

‘Sometimes.’

Her reply startled him. Why would she do that? Did she need time to be on her own? What would she think about? He tried to picture her walking the paths by herself.

There were no clouds even by lunchtime, and it seemed the good weather might last all day. It was more comfortable being out and about than going home so they went to the National Gallery of Modern Art and ate lunch in the basement café. Afterwards they looked at paintings till Kerr wearied of it. When they came out, the unclouded sun had warmed the air and there wasn’t a breath of wind. The three of them strolled down the long curves of the earth sculpture circling the miniature lake, its water reflecting the blue of the sky. Liz said something and he found himself laughing for the pleasure of the company he was keeping.

As they went into the house, Curle saw an envelope lying behind the door. It was a business envelope, the
address scratched out and ‘Liz’ scribbled on it. As he turned it in his hand, he saw that it wasn’t even closed. The flap had just been tucked in.

He smiled and handed it to her. ‘Looks as if it might be from one of the neighbours.’

When she slid out the contents, he saw a page ragged at the edges as if it had been torn out of a notebook. She glanced at it and went through into the kitchen.

‘Can I go on to the computer, Dad?’ Kerr asked. ‘Till dinner’s ready?’

He stood watching as the boy climbed the stairs. On the landing, Kerr turned and seeing him still there gave the thumbs-up sign.

He was still smiling as he went into the kitchen. Liz was standing by the sink looking out at the garden.

‘Fall of the Roman Empire,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Or something like that. He’s gone up to go on the computer.’

He took a beer out of the refrigerator and cracked the tab. As he poured into the glass, he asked, ‘Was it a neighbour?’ When she didn’t answer, he said, ‘That note, was it from a neighbour? I hope it’s not a problem with picking Kerr up from school.’

When she turned, he saw she was still holding the ragged-edge scrap torn from a notebook. He poured too quickly and set the can and glass on the table.

‘Would you look at this, please?’ she asked and held it out to him.

Cramped into the narrow space, the letters were square and neat; only the signature sprawled so that it took him a moment to make out that it read Brian.

Hoped to find you in so that I could say this in person.
Don’t let that husband make you feel guilty. While I was refusing your charms, he was along the corridor with a whore he’d bought. Spanking and fucking her was the way I heard it.

As he looked up, he saw that lager foam was creaming over the rim and beginning to slide down the side of the glass. It seemed to move infinitely slowly, which was one of the effects of shock.

‘Are you not going to answer it?’ the taxi driver asked.

Still watching the house across the road, Curle fumbled with the zip of the inner pocket on his coat. While he was opening it, the noise stopped.

‘Just as well,’ he said. ‘They scramble your brains.’

He switched the phone off, having some superstitious idea that its microwaves might fry his testicles, and put it back in the pocket.

‘There’s going to be a lot of people with their brains scrambled then,’ the driver said. ‘Do you want me to sit here much longer?’

‘No!’

There she was, coming out of the gate at the end of the path with a little dog on a leash at her heels.

‘Keep the change.’

He pushed the twenty-pound note he’d been holding tucked in his palm through the partition and scrambled out of the car.

She was moving surprisingly quickly so that he had to hurry to catch her. From the back she was like a doll or a child, pecking along on very high heels. A beautifully dressed doll, the long coat with the fur collar wrapping her like some prized possession. By the time she emerged from the cul-de-sac, he was almost at her shoulder. ‘Mrs Todd,’ he said quietly.

She startled, hands flying up as if to protect her face.

‘What do you want?’

‘To talk to you. If you want, we can go back into your house.’

She set off as if she hadn’t heard him.

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘You’re going to listen to me. I don’t care where.’

‘Leave me alone,’ she said. ‘Brian will be angry.’

‘Like he was the last time? He’s not here though, is he? So you don’t have to tell him. Do you tell him everything?’

She veered abruptly off the pavement. It was a main road and he was held waiting for a gap in the traffic, before half running across to the opposite pavement.

‘You could have got yourself killed,’ he said. He could feel his heart pounding. He took deep breaths. ‘That dog has more sense than you. It doesn’t deserve to die.’

To his astonishment, she said in a small voice, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘For God’s sake,’ he groaned, ‘don’t say that.’

Peck, peck, peck, high heels, little bird legs.

‘You tell Brian everything,’ he said. ‘And you don’t have friends any more. And you’ve lost touch with your relatives.’

She stole a glance at him, not saying a word, every doll feature carefully painted.

‘He’s careful not to hit you on the face,’ he said.

He didn’t know any more if he was looking for revenge or if he was on a mission to save her.

‘Let me tell you about Brian.’

She stopped and picked up the dog. Holding it close to her, she started off again.

‘You can’t walk fast enough to get away from this. I’m telling you the truth.’

Traffic roared past, but the pavements were empty. It was a road for cars and lorries, not pedestrians. He had harassed her away from her normal circuit for walking the dog.

‘Please,’ she said.

‘Brian isn’t going to be around for much longer. He’s a criminal and the police are going to arrest him. I don’t know when, but soon.’ He looked down at her, but it was as if she hadn’t heard. He raised his voice against the surf of traffic heading out of the city towards the Forth Bridge. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying to you? There’s a law now that seizes criminal assets. Maybe that big house will go. You’ll be on your own. It’s time you thought about yourself.’

She stopped and faced him.

‘I don’t care,’ she said

It struck him that she didn’t challenge what he’d said. It was possible he was only forcing her to face what she had been denying. In a marriage were there any secrets? Had Liz always known what he was?

‘Stand by your man?’ Vomit came up into the back of his throat. It was as if he was choking on his own bile. ‘Are you that stupid? Going to visit him in prison? Sit in a room somewhere waiting for him to come back?’

‘If I have to.’

‘Why would you do that? Tell me. I haven’t had a laugh for a long time.’

‘I love him.’

It didn’t make him laugh. He was too full of despair to feel pity. There was nothing more to say. He had said it all, voided it like sickness. And now, bereft of words, it was as if he saw them from the outside, as if he was one of the occupants of a passing car, seeing the two of them on the
empty pavement, the little bird-like woman with the dog clasped in her arms confronting the bulk of a man.

‘You asked me about my child. I lost it because he beat me. I thought I would die,’ she said, ‘but I stood by him. And you think I wouldn’t stand by him now?’

In the weeks after his mother’s death, his father had walked hours at a time until he was crippled by the growth of bone spurs on his heels. Curle walked like that, trying to find the peace of an exhaustion that would take him beyond thought. When it was almost too late, he remembered Kerr and phoned the neighbour Mrs Anderson to ask if she would keep the boy until Liz came home. By that time, he was sitting in a corner of an empty New Town pub. Later, as the place filled, he came briefly again to his senses and phoned the pharmacy. Not able to face talking to his wife, he left a message for her to collect Kerr when she came home. At some time after that, when the mobile phone, which he had forgotten to switch off, began ringing, he thought it must be Liz. But she would have been home a long time, why would she phone now?

Confused, he had to ask the woman twice to repeat what she was saying before Linda Fleming succeeded in making him understand.

The drawn curtains made a mourning light, but they chose not to put on the lamps. When the younger man found the jewellery box, he held it out and shone the torch into it, shaking it gently to stir the contents.

‘It’s not here.’

‘I didn’t expect it to be.’

‘Maybe she was buried in it.’

‘Not according to the undertaker.’

After searching the room thoroughly, they started on the rest of the flat. It was almost an hour later that they found the photograph in a box under two others piled at the back of a cupboard. They stood it against a bowl of withered flowers on the dining table and shone the two torches on it.

‘Why would she hide it away? You’d think a wedding photograph would be on display.’

‘Maybe she blamed him for dying,’ the younger man said. ‘Is it the one, do you think?’

The older man bent closer. ‘No way it isn’t. But it looks out of place with a wedding dress. I’d guess it’s there for a reason. Belonged to her mother, something like that.’

‘Something old.’ As explanation, he added. ‘Like something borrowed, something blue.’

The older man grunted.

‘And it’s not in the flat now. And you think she probably wore it all the time.’

‘She was wearing it when we questioned her. She kept touching it. Reminded me of the way some people touch wood for luck.’

‘Luck,’ the young man said ironically. ‘Question is, where is it now?’

‘With the other necklace,’ the older man said. ‘I’d bet my career on it.’

‘Are you drunk?’ Linda Fleming asked.

‘It’s the only way to travel,’ Curle said, more cheerfully than he felt.

He staggered slightly, bumping the wall with his shoulder, as he went into the living room. It was a relief to sink into a chair.

‘I walked,’ he said. ‘I was in a pub in Hanover Street. It’s a long walk.’

‘Have you had anything to eat?’

He thought about it. ‘I remember breakfast. Must have had something since. Crisps!’ He brightened. ‘Bags of those. Can’t remember the flavours.’

She muttered something and went out. He dozed and when she came back asked, ‘Did you swear there?’

Without answering, she laid a tray on the occasional table beside his chair.

‘Coffee and ham sandwiches,’ she said.

‘I’m not all that hungry.’

‘Fuck’s sake!’ she said. ‘Eat it.’

Shocked, he picked up one of the sandwiches and nibbled a corner off it. She hadn’t struck him as a woman who swore. The sandwich tasted good, a little dry; he washed it down with a mouthful of the coffee.

‘I don’t take sugar,’ he said.

‘It won’t do you any harm.’

She sat and watched as he worked his way through two of the sandwiches. The others defeated him.

‘I’ll make more coffee,’ she said, getting up.

When he’d drunk a second cup, and been out to the lavatory twice, he finally said that he was sorry. ‘I don’t get drunk,’ he explained. ‘But you have to admit I’m reliable. I came when you said you needed me.’ He thought about it. ‘What did you need me for exactly?’

‘I wanted somebody with me,’ she said. ‘I think Bobbie Haskell is going to try to kill me tonight.’

It didn’t sober him at all, or even shock him much, because he didn’t believe it for a moment.

He shook his head at her. He spoke slowly, because he wanted her to understand. His main feeling was one of pity. ‘He isn’t the one. We talked about this. Brian Todd killed Ali.’ He leaned forward confidentially, almost losing his balance. From this angle, he noticed how strong and shapely her legs were. Swimmer’s legs. ‘Thing is,’ he lowered his voice, ‘the police are going to arrest him.’

‘That can’t be true.’ Far from being reassured, she sounded distressed. ‘How could they make a mistake like that?’

‘No mistake.’

‘How do you know this?’

He puzzled for a moment. ‘It’s true.’

‘They’re going to arrest this man for killing Ali?’

‘Ah.’ Why was everything so complicated? ‘He’s being arrested for something else. But once he’s inside, they’ll sort it out. You see?’

‘Not really.’

They sat and looked at one another, as if on two rafts drifting gently apart.

At last, he said, ‘What do you mean, he’s coming down?’

‘Sometime tonight. I think he’ll wait until the light in the hall goes out.’

‘Why tonight?’

‘I had tea with him this afternoon. I was very relaxed and talkative. Trying to give the impression I liked him. I told him I was leaving tomorrow and that I’d an appointment to see DI Meldrum before I caught my train. And I mentioned the diary as if by accident. Oh, not in so many words, but he’d know what I was thinking of. And at the end I said I’d forgotten my key but it didn’t matter, I was always forgetting to lock the door.’

‘Jesus,’ Curle said. Even not fully sober, there were so many holes in that he didn’t know where to begin. For somewhere to start, he said, ‘If he thinks you’ve found evidence in his diary that proves he killed your sister, how the hell could he imagine you liked him?’

‘I wish you wouldn’t swear,’ she said. ‘After I’d done it, I phoned the police. I spoke to DI Meldrum.’ She bit her lip and looked away.

‘What did he say?’

‘That I was being very foolish.’

‘Exactly.’

‘I wandered about the flat until I couldn’t bear it any longer. That’s when I phoned you. I didn’t want to be here alone.’

He sighed. ‘My wife will be wondering where I am.’

She looked at her watch then got up and went out into the hall. When she came back, she stood in the doorway and said, ‘I’ve put the light out. I think we should wait in the bedroom.’

The moment he stood up, she put off the light in the living room. In the hall, the only illumination came
through the half-open door of the bedroom. Not knowing what else to do, he followed her in.

She’d set two chairs almost side by side, halfway between the bed and the dressing table.

‘Sit down,’ she said. ‘And then I’ll put the light out in here.’

‘We can’t sit in the dark!’

‘I’ll open the curtain first.’

As he sat down, he saw she was holding a black stick. It was about a foot long and it had a thick handle resembling the knot where two branches join.

Seeing his glance, she said, ‘It’s a shillelagh. Ali got it on an Irish holiday. It’s made of blackthorn. A
hard
wood.’ She gave the word a vicious emphasis as if smacking it into a skull.

Again he had to fight down the impulse to laugh. Fight it down, because it wasn’t funny, none of this was funny. A pathetic woman with God knows what private troubles of her own grieving for her sister, grieving for Ali. How would she cope when she came out of this fantasy? Her tragedy could end in a locked ward.

Keeping it simple, he said, ‘I doubt if that would be much use against a desperate man.’

She studied it and got up again. When she came back, she was carrying a carving knife. He recognised it. A Kitchen Devil; they had one at home.

‘You take this,’ she said, and handed him the blackthorn stick.

When she put the lights out, it was black as a mine. Even when she drew the curtains, it was a matter of shades of black on black. The bedroom was at the back of the house, looking down on to patches of drying green.

He thought about getting up and leaving. He would
insist as he went that she locked the door behind him. But how could he be sure that she wouldn’t unlock it again? And if she did, what did it matter? There wasn’t a chance in the world that anyone was going to come creeping down the stairs. She might in the pathos of her madness sit alone here through all the hours of darkness until the first morning light. As he thought about this, he must have gone to sleep for he woke with her hand probing into his side. He was slumped over, any further and he would have fallen on to the floor. His fist ached from gripping the stick.

When he spoke, his voice sounded rusty from disuse.

He whispered, ‘Did you say you’d told Meldrum about stealing the diary?’

He thought she wasn’t going to answer. Softly at last she said, ‘I told him it wasn’t me who was the thief. I gave Ali a necklace for her twenty-first birthday. I can’t find it anywhere.’

Although there was no chance of seeing her face, he studied the darkness until his eyes wearied.

He must have slept again, this time slipping into a profound sleep, for he started awake when she touched him. Her hand pressed his arm repeatedly. He opened his mouth to protest, and then he heard the footsteps.

Brian Todd was moving through the hall.

He couldn’t conceive of how Todd had come to be there. But for a murderer one night was as good as another. He lurched to his feet and threw the door back. And the monster out of the dark was there, the murderer, the man he hated, it wasn’t a dream. With all his force, he swung the stick.

In the instant he felt the impact of wood on bone thrill up his arm all the way to the shoulder, Linda Fleming put on the light.

Meldrum stood there with his right arm hanging by his side. The colour had drained from his face leaving it the colour of soiled paper. With his left hand, he reached out and took the stick, exerting a controlled pressure to loosen Curle’s grip on it.

He said quietly, ‘I’ve just arrested Robert Haskell for the murders of Ali Fleming and Eva Johanson. Would you like to tell me what you think you’ve been doing?’

Shakily, Curle sat down on the edge of the bed. Thank Christ I didn’t have the knife, he thought. It was the only thought in his head.