The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries (57 page)

Garnett cleared his throat. “He got it in the arse, Mal . . . though God only knows how.”

Broadhurst glanced across at the solitary toilet roll sitting on his chest of drawers. “I know, too,” he said. “But the ‘why’ . . . that’s the
puzzler.”

“And the ‘who’?”

“Yeah, that too.”

Edna Clark sat at her kitchen table, her hands wrapped around a mug of steaming tea. Sitting across from her was Betty Thorn-dike.

When the knock came on the front door, Betty said, “You stay put, love – I’ll get it.”

Hilda Merkinson had been in every room in the house but her sister was nowhere to be found.

Worse still, she couldn’t find her handbag.

“Harry?” She had already shouted her sister’s name a dozen times but, in the absence of a more useful course of action, she shouted it again. The silence seemed to mock
her.

Hilda knew why Harriet had gone out. She had gone out to clear her head, maybe to have a weep by herself. No problem. She would get over it. It might take a bit of time, but she would get over
it – of that, Hilda was convinced.

They had lived together, Hilda and Harriet Merkinson, in the same house for all of their 53 years . . . just the two of them since their mother, Hannah, had died in 1992.

They had a routine, a routine that Hilda did not want to see altered in any way. It was a safe routine, a routine of eating together, cleaning together, watching the TV together, and
occasionally slipping along to the Three Pennies public house over on Pennypot Drive for a couple of life-affirming medicinal glasses of Guinness stout. It was a routine of going to bed and kissing
each other goodnight on the upstairs landing and of waking each morning and kissing each other hello, again in the same spot; a routine broken only by Harriet’s job in Jack Wilson’s
General Store – a sop to his love of America – and Hilda’s work at the animal testing facility on Aldershot Road, where she’d been for almost seven years. The same length of
time that Harriet had worked. Since their mother had slipped finally into a coma in a small side ward in Halifax General, her six-stone body reduced to wattled skin and brittle bone.

During that time, the routine had persevered.

It had been all and its disappearance was unthinkable.

Not that there hadn’t been times when things looked a little shaky . . . namely the times when Ian Arbutt had cornered Hilda in the small back room against the photocopier and sworn his
affection – despite Ian’s wife, Judith, and his two children. But basically, Ian’s affection had been for Hilda’s body and Hilda had recognized this pretty quickly into the
relationship – if you could call the clumsy gropes and speedy ejaculations performed by her boss on the back room carpet a relationship.

Hilda had had to think of how to put an end to it – thus maintaining her and Harriet’s beloved routine – while not having it affect her position at the testing centre.

The solution had been simple, if a little Machiavellian. She had sent an anonymous letter to Judith Arbutt saying she should keep a tighter rein on her husband. “I’m not mentioning
any names,” the carefully worded – and written – letter had continued, “but there are some folks around town who think your Ian’s affections might be being
misplaced.” Hilda had liked that last bit.

A very anxious and contrite Ian had suggested to Hilda, on the next occasion that they were both alone in the centre, that he felt he wasn’t being fair to her. “Trifling with her
affections” is what Hilda imagined he was wanting to say but Ian’s pharmacological expertise did not extend to the poetic. “I hope you’re not leading up to suggesting I look
for other work,” Hilda had said, feigning annoyance, brow furrowed, “because that would mean something along the lines of sexual harassment, wouldn’t it?”

The answer had been emphatic and positive. “A job for life”, is how he worded it. “You’re here for as long as you want to be here, Hilda,” he said. And he had been
true to his word, at least Hilda could give him that.

No, Hilda would have nothing come between her and her sister. They were all either of them had and their separation was something she could not contemplate. She had thought that Harriet felt the
same way.

And then came the fateful day, almost a week ago – was it really only a week? It seemed so much longer – that had threatened to change all that.

Every Thursday, without fail, Harriet always walked along to the fish and chip shop on the green – Thursday being Jack Wilson’s early closing day – and had the tea all ready
for Hilda when she got in. But on this particular Thursday, following four days of solid rain, when Hilda – a little earlier than usual because Ian also had flooding and wanted to get off
– had gone past the General Store, she had seen Harriet helping Jack with moving boxes around due to the leakage through the front windows. He had asked her to stay back and give him a hand,
and Harriet couldn’t refuse . . . despite her other “commitments”.

“We’ll just have some sandwiches,” Harriet had shouted through the locked door of Jack’s shop, looking terribly flustered. “You just put your feet up and I’ll
make them when I get in,” she added.

Hilda had nodded. Then she had gone home, put the kettle on and, at the usual time Harriet always left the house en route for the fish and chips, Hilda had embarked into the darkness on the very
same journey. Imagine her surprise when, from behind the big oak tree on the green, a shadowy figure leapt out, grabbed her by the shoulders and planted a big kiss on her mouth.

It was Arthur Clark.

“Thought you weren’t coming,” Arthur had announced to a bewildered Hilda. “Been here bloody ages,” he had added. “Edna’ll be getting ideas – mind
you,” Arthur had confided, “it won’t matter soon. Must dash.” Then he had given her another kiss and had scurried across the green bound for home, calling over his shoulder,
“See you on Saturday anyway, at the Christmas do.”

Hilda had stood and watched the figure disappear into the darkness, and she was so flabbergasted that she almost forgot all about the fish and chips and went home empty-handed. But already she
was thinking that that would not do. That would not do at all.

The “meeting” had given her advance knowledge of a potential threat to the beloved routine. And by the time she was leaving the fat-smelling warmth of the shop, Hilda had hatched a
plan.

She knew all about poisons from Ian’s explanations, long drawn-out monologues that, despite their monotony, had registered in Hilda’s mind. Which was fortunate. She knew about
nicotine, and about the way it was lethal and produced symptoms not unlike heart failure.

Getting a small supply would not be a problem. There were constant threats against the centre – notably from animal rights groups based out in the wilderness of Hebden Bridge and Todmorden
– so a small break-in, during which most of the contents of the centre could be strewn around and trashed, was an easy thing to arrange . . . particularly after administering a small dose of
sleeping tablets to her sister, who obligingly nodded off in front of the TV during “Inspector Morse” (Hilda didn’t mind missing it because it was a repeat).

Hilda scooted along Luddersedge’s late night streets, let herself in with her own key – thanking God that he had seen fit to make Ian make her a joint key-holder with him . . .
undoubtedly a result of Ian’s keenness to make her feel important after his calling off their “affair” – did what she considered to be an appropriate amount of damage, and
removed a small amount of nicotine from the glass jar in Ian’s office cabinet, to which, again, she had a key. She left the cabinet untouched by “the vandals” who had destroyed
the office. Then, after resetting the alarm, she had smashed in the windows with a large stick and returned home.

It wasn’t until she was almost back at the house that she heard the siren. She had smiled then – it had been long enough for whoever had broken in to do all the damage and escape
without challenge. The night air had smelled good then, good and alive with . . . not so much possibilities but with continuance. Back in the warmth, she had settled herself down in front of the TV
and, after about half an hour, had dropped off herself. The icing on the cake had been the fact that it was Hilda’s sister who woke Hilda up. A wonderful alibi, even though none would be
needed.

Two days later, on the night of the Conservative Club’s Christmas Party, Hilda had bolted her meal and – though she knew she was risking things – had gone to the toilet at ten
minutes to ten (Arthur Clark’s toilet habits being legendary in Luddersedge). Once out of the ballroom, she had run down to the gentlemen’s toilet, removed the tissue rolls from all but
one WC, and had treated the first few sheets of the remaining roll with the special bottle in her handbag. It was four minutes to ten when she had finished.

She had arrived back in the ballroom at 9:58 just in time to see Arthur get up from the table and set off for his date with his maker. She had not been able to go straight back and was grateful
for Agnes Olroyd catching her to talk about the break-in – there was nothing that the people of Luddersedge liked more than a bit of intrigue – and about her Eric’s prostate (in
the absence of intrigue, family ailments being the order of the day).

By the time she had finished talking with Agnes, Hilda’s composure was fully restored and she was able to rejoin the table.

And now Harriet was nowhere to be seen. But that could wait.

The main thing as far as Hilda was concerned was to find her bag.

And she had a good idea as to where it was.

Harriet’s revelations had hit Edna Clark harder even than her husband’s death less than twelve hours earlier.

In Edna’s kitchen, with the sun washing through the window that looked out onto the back garden and with steam gently wafting from the freshly boiled kettle, Edna sat at the table feeling
she had suddenly lost far more than her life partner: now she had lost her life itself. Everything she had believed in had been quickly and surely trounced by the blubbering Harriet Merkinson when
she burst through the front door, ran along the hall – pursued by a confused Betty Thorndike – and emerged in the kitchen, tears streaming down her face. And now Edna’s 27 years
with Arthur lay before her in tatters . . . every conversation, every endearment whispered to her in the private darkness of their bedroom, every meal she had prepared (if not always lovingly
– for how can one “lovingly” make egg, chips and beans three times a week for 27 years? – at least with profound affection) and every holiday snapshot they had taken in
Dorset and Derbyshire (dressed in shorts, T-shirts and walking boots, their backpacks on the ground before them) and Cornwall (sitting on the beach amidst the inevitable clutter that always
resulted from such seaside expeditions).

While Harriet continued sniffling and Betty simply stood leaning against the kitchen cabinets (installed by Arthur, Edna recalled, one laughter-filled weekend in the early 1980s), her eyes
seemingly permanently raised in a mask of disbelief, Edna looked around at the once-familiar ephemera and bric-a-brac of a life that now seemed completely alien. The painting on the kitchen wall;
the small collection of tea pots and milk jugs on the wide window sill; the stacked plates and cereal bowls stacked behind the glass door of the cupboard – all of them. It might just as well
have been the priceless jewellery and artefacts unearthed in an ancient Egyptian tomb . . . so devoid now of meaning and familiarity and understanding. These were things from another life –
another
person’s
life – and nothing to do with Edna Clark, newly bereaved widow of one Arthur Clark, late of this parish.

The story had been a familiar one. Even as Harriet Merkinson had been burbling it out – the clandestine meetings, the whispered affections, the promise of a new life once Arthur had built
up the nerve to leave his wife – Edna felt that she had heard it all before . . . or read it in a book someplace, maybe even watched it on television. The Arthur revealed by Harriet was not
the Arthur she remembered . . . save for one thing: his toilet habits. At least something was constant in her husband’s two lives.

And now, while Edna’s mind raced and backtracked and questioned and attempted – in the strange and endearing way of minds – to rationalize and make palatable the revelations,
the “other” woman continued to burble a litany of regret and sorrow and pleas for absolution and forgiveness.

“I can’t forgive you,” Edna said at last, her words cutting through the thick atmosphere like a knife through cheese. “Never,” she added with grim finality.
“I can understand, because I know these things do happen, but I can never forgive you. You haven’t taken only my husband’s memory, you’ve completely removed my entire
life.” It was the most articulate statement Edna had ever made, and the most articulate she would ever make in what remained of her life. Of course, she would come to terms with what had
happened, but she would never get over it.

“Edna, Edna, Edna, Ed—”

“Now get out,” Edna said, cutting Harriet’s ramble off midword. Her voice was quieter now, more composed . . . gentle even. There was no animosity, no aggression, no threats of
retribution: just a tiredness and, the still silent Betty was amazed to see, a new-found strength that was almost majesterial. “I never want to speak with you again.”

Minutes later, Betty and Edna heard the distant click of the front door latch closing. It sounded for all the world like the closing of a tomb door or the first scattering of soil on a recently
lowered coffin. Edna leaned forward and placed her face in her hands, and she began to sob, quietly and uncontrollably.

While Malcolm Broadhurst was greeting the two uniformed policemen on the steps of the Regal’s ornate front door, two things were happening . . . both of them personally
involving the Merkinson twins.

For Harriet, the routine so cherished by her sister had been a chore. More than that, it had been the bane of her life.

Harriet had long wanted to get out of the repetitive drudgery of the existence she shared with Hilda, and Arthur Clark – dear, sweet Arthur, with his strange toilet habits – had been
her ticket to salvation. Love was a new experience to Harriet: for that matter, she did not know – not truly, down in those regions of the heart and the soul where such things reside, safe
from the prying eyes of light and Society – whether she really loved Arthur, for she had never experienced such feelings, even as a teenager and a young woman, when such experiences and
experimentation are commonplace. But she did see in him the means whereby she could attain a new life, a life of relative importance . . . “Harriet and Arthur”, “Arthur and
Harriet” – she couldn’t decide which she preferred but she preferred either to “the Merkinson twins” or “Hilda and Harriet”!