The Big Chill Page 10

  Wendy laughed. ‘Well, it’s good to have perspective.’

  Hannah shook her head, anger rising. ‘Don’t you want to know why he did it?’

  ‘Why do you think he chose you?’

  ‘What?’

  Wendy turned away from the map to a framed picture on the mantelpiece. It looked like her and Hugh on a glacier somewhere, enjoying their perfect existentially meaningless existence together. Wendy lifted the picture.

  ‘He spoke about you recently.’

  ‘He did?’

  ‘Said he felt terrible about what happened to Melanie.’

  ‘It had nothing to do with him.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Wendy said, putting the picture down. ‘But he can still feel bad, can’t he?’

  Hannah stared at the old woman, hunched over. ‘You said he chose me.’

  ‘Do you think it was a coincidence you found him?’

  Hannah stood up. ‘I don’t know, do I?’ Her voice was louder than she intended. ‘No one will ever know, that’s the point of suicide.’

  ‘Not all stories have a resolution.’

  ‘Come on,’ Hannah said. She dug into her bag on the floor, pulled out the medal. ‘He was holding this, what does it mean?’

  ‘Not everything means something.’

  ‘That’s not good enough,’ Hannah said, the medal clenched in her fist. ‘This is some Yoda bullshit.’

  Wendy frowned. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what that means.’

  Hannah sighed, held out the medal.

  ‘You keep it, dear,’ Wendy said.

  Hannah stared at the medal. The truth was she didn’t want to give it back, not to a widow who didn’t seem to miss her husband of sixty-odd years the day after he killed himself.

  ‘Isn’t there anyone else who will miss him?’ she said.

  ‘Edward, of course.’

  Hannah scratched her arm, imagined the hydrocyanic acid in her tea coursing through her bloodstream, killing her quickly and painlessly.

  ‘You said you didn’t have children,’ she said.

  ‘Edward is Hugh’s lover,’ Wendy said. ‘We enjoyed an open marriage. Edward and Hugh were together for thirty years.’

  Hannah felt the edge of the medal cutting into her hand as she squeezed.

  Wendy collected the tea tray and spoke over her shoulder.

  ‘I presume the Skelfs would like to conduct Hugh’s funeral?’

  22

  JENNY

  Archie had made a beautiful job of Evie’s face. The girl was lying in the open casket in the viewing room, head nestled on a small pillow like she was sleeping. Jenny could see her cheeks flushed and rounded out, the ear in one piece, a perfect little daughter. Evie’s dad gripped the coffin edge, tears dropping onto the sleeves of his ill-fitting suit. Jenny heard Evie’s mum outside the room, making gulping sobbing sounds. Archie had taken her out a few minutes ago when she fell to her knees by the coffin. Kids were always the hardest. Kids and babies, because we’re grieving for all the possible futures that have been snuffed out.

  Evie’s dad held his daughter’s hand, shoulders shaking as he cried. Jenny thought of Hannah and felt sick. She wanted to say something but what was there to say? She just stood there. Maybe it was enough to be another human presence in the room.

  Evie had been with her dad when she was hit by a bus on Chambers Street. They’d just visited the museum, off to get an ice cream, Evie darting into the road without looking, straight into a tourist coach. A simple, careless moment, all the waves rippling out across the universe. Evie’s mum and dad, her friends and family, teachers and pupils at her school, the coach driver, the paramedics who put her in the ambulance, the tourists on the coach, thousands of pounds spent to visit Edinburgh, returning home under a cloud, the horror and sadness, Edinburgh forever associated in their minds with the death of a little girl.

  Sadness and grief were energies and forces in their own right, Jenny had come to understand that since getting into the funeral life. Unpredictable, uncontrollable forces that could destroy worlds, change lives.

  Evie’s parents would carry this forever, drown in it. It wasn’t ever a matter of escaping, it was a matter of managing it, making it bearable somewhere down the line, but what the fuck was bearable about any of this?

  Evie’s dad wiped at his eyes with his sleeves, sniffed, a guttural noise from the back of his throat. Jenny wanted to wrap her arms around him, just that basic feeling of connection and empathy. She remembered Hannah scraping her knee badly as a little girl, she’d come off her bike in the park, wound herself into a minor hysteric, no amount of logical persuasion could get her to calm down. Jenny just held her tight for two minutes, listened as the sobbing slowly reduced, felt her daughter’s heart rate drop, air sucked into her lungs, time and physical contact bringing her back from the edge of something.

  Evie’s dad kissed his daughter’s lips and raised his head.

  ‘It’s time,’ he said.

  Warriston Crematorium was half empty. Maybe the Brockhurst family had few connections in the city, maybe it was just too much for people to handle. Folk liked to turn out for funerals of the elderly, the sense of a life well lived, it was their time. But none of that applied to a ten-year-old. If she had been a few years older the place would likely be mobbed. Teenagers were mature enough to understand the tribute and ceremony, and they were at a stage where the dark seemed dangerous, where death was something to be explored.

  But this was too much.

  Two sets of grandparents sat broken in the front row, heads bowed. There were no children here, though Evie must’ve had friends, maybe siblings, cousins. But decisions had been made not to expose them to this. Jenny wondered about that. It was a difficult call. And it was hard for her to gauge the effect on others, since she’d grown up around death and other people’s grief.

  Dorothy stood with her at the doorway greeting the stragglers. Elderly funerals sometimes had the feel of social events, friends catching up after years apart. But this was brutal, no words exchanged, disgust that any of them had to be here for this.

  ‘This is horrible,’ Jenny said under her breath.

  Dorothy nodded.

  Jenny pulled at the cuffs of her jacket. ‘Why do we need this?’

  Dorothy pursed her lips. ‘You know why.’

  ‘It doesn’t help.’

  ‘We don’t know what helps.’

  Jenny stared at Evie’s mother, her fists full of tissues in her lap.

  ‘Nothing can help these people,’ she said.

  Archie and Evie’s dad came in with the coffin, along with two other bearers, uncles. At the sight of the coffin, Evie’s mum gave a yowl and buried her face in her hands.

  Jenny pictured Hannah lying in a coffin and her throat tightened up so that she had to make an effort to swallow.

  The coffin was slid onto the plinth then Evie’s dad joined his wife, grabbing her hand but not looking at her. As if the acknowledgement of this was too much.

  The minister began speaking, an old, sonorous voice with quiet authority, and Jenny tuned out, unable to take the details of Evie’s short life. She imagined being at Craig’s funeral, if he’d died on the Meadows that night. She imagined sitting with Hannah, with Fiona and Sophia, a little girl grieving for her daddy, no understanding of what he was.

  She wondered how she would feel if Craig died, and she was shocked that it felt like sadness. Loss. Despite everything. She tried to remember sitting across from him in the prison visiting room but that encounter was blurred in fog. He always pushed her buttons, why couldn’t she control herself around him? She turned into a different person, the worst version of herself. She was terrible at self-reflection at the best of times, it wasn’t in her nature, and she tried to dig into why that was. She still had the lingering Generation X thing of internally shrugging her shoulders at the stupidity of the world, barrelling along with no deep thought or analysis. That was a terrible way to live but it was so ingrained she
struggled to fight it. She knew she let people down, Hannah, Dorothy next to her now. She wasn’t a great mum or daughter and she didn’t feel great about herself as a woman, but she tried, damn it. She had to be better, have more control, be there for others as they were there for her. As the Skelfs were here for the Brockhurst family in the middle of this terrible shitstorm.

  She swallowed hard and looked around the crematorium at the broken lives. She pulled at her blouse, felt the scar tissue underneath like a comfort blanket.

  The minister finished and the coffin sank into the plinth and Evie’s mum wailed.

  When the coffin was gone the congregation left like zombies, the parents not standing for that awful line-up where people shake your hand and tell you they’re sorry for your loss. Jenny could understand why they wouldn’t.

  Outside the sunlight was painful after the gloominess of the chapel. The hearse was already gone and the young lad Keiran they hired as a driver was waiting by the family car, holding the door open.

  Jenny looked at the crematorium, a square early-1900s brick affair with a concrete sixties extension. Buildings never stay the same, just like their home back at Greenhill Gardens. Extensions and demolitions, upgrading and renovating, change was the only constant.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  Jenny felt Dorothy’s hand on her back.

  ‘That was hard,’ Jenny said.

  ‘It always is.’

  ‘I couldn’t help thinking of Hannah.’

  ‘I know.’ Dorothy breathed deeply. Over in the cemetery blackbirds were building a nest in a sycamore, twigs dropping to the ground. Instinct made them keep going, building for the future, raising new chicks, doing whatever was needed to continue.

  ‘I’ve told the police we’ll do Jimmy’s funeral,’ Dorothy said.

  Jenny couldn’t pick up her mum’s thread. ‘Jimmy?’

  ‘Jimmy X. My homeless friend.’

  Jenny smelled blossom of some kind, the world renewing. ‘The guy who almost killed you.’

  ‘He needs a funeral.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘But I need to know who he was first,’ Dorothy said. ‘So we can give him a proper send off.’

  Jenny hadn’t got anywhere with the car, Hannah the same with the notebook.

  Dorothy turned to Jenny. ‘I’ll take social care, you do the homeless shelters.’

  23

  HANNAH

  Judging by the décor in the waiting room, the psychiatry business was booming, at least for Stanford and Carver. Moray Place was an expensive place to have an office, and the woodland paintings, Danish furniture and pristine blonde receptionist all suggested money.

  The receptionist, Imogen according to her name badge, was in a turquoise suit that managed to be simultaneously flashy and understated, and it fit perfectly. Hannah watched as she greeted clients with a sincere smile, answered the phone with the right amount of buzz in her voice, clacked away at her laptop. Hannah’s attention picked up when Imogen sashayed over to two large filing cabinets behind the desk. All the information in there for Stanford and Carver’s clients. The cabinets were locked but the key sat in the lock, and Imogen turned it, slid a drawer open, placed a brown file inside. Interesting.

  The phone rang and Imogen glided back and picked it up, nodded, replaced the handset.

  ‘Ms Anderson,’ she said to Hannah. ‘You can go in now.’

  Hannah smiled and stood up, smoothed her skirt. The fake name was essential given how recognisable Skelf was and what she was here to do.

  Sally Carver was younger than Hannah expected, early thirties, pretty in a non-confrontational way that made her seem like a long-lost friend. She was heavy around the hips but knew how to hide it. Chestnut hair and matching eyes. She came out from behind her desk and pointed at two comfy chairs that matched the ones in reception.

  ‘Have a seat.’

  Sally mapped out what they would cover in this initial assessment interview then Hannah laid out her mental-health history, anxiety, periods of depression, a short spell of self-medication with booze and skunk that ended badly, and so on.

  ‘So what brings you here today,’ Sally said. Her voice was like Nutella, smooth but sickly.

  ‘Well.’ Hannah breathed deeply. This was meant to be made up but she was feeling it, talking about her teenage issues had made those feelings creep up on her. ‘There’s been a fair bit of trauma in my life recently.’

  Silence.

  More silence.

  Sally leaned forward. ‘Go on.’

  ‘My dad. He had an affair with one of my friends.’

  ‘And how did that make you feel?’

  Hannah had already explained about Craig and Jenny’s divorce. ‘He’d remarried. Had another daughter. And he started sleeping with my mate on the side.’

  ‘That must’ve been hard.’

  Hannah felt a lump in her throat despite herself. ‘But that was only the start.’

  Sally put on an empathetic face. She’d stopped taking notes to show how much she cared. Or maybe she really cared.

  ‘My friend went missing.’

  Sally’s face moved to a frown. ‘OK.’ She dragged the word out.

  ‘And I started looking for her.’

  Sally ran her tongue around her teeth. ‘I’m really more interested in your emotional state. Your mental state.’

  Hannah nodded, innocent. ‘Sure. I was crazy, frantic. I couldn’t understand why she would just disappear. I didn’t know about my dad and her at that point, he kept it a secret.’

  Sally’s frown deepened and the beginning of a realisation came over her.

  ‘My friend had been seeing a few guys apart from her boyfriend, it turned out, including Dad. I thought it was one of the other guys, accused him, and he killed himself.’

  Sally looked uncomfortable. ‘Look, I’m not sure where this is going, exactly, but…’

  ‘I’ll tell you where it’s going,’ Hannah said. ‘Just wait. This is the best bit. So I discovered my dad’s affair with her, and at that exact moment he was with my mum, about to fuck her, and she challenged him about it so he stabbed her. Then he tried to kill my gran by strangling her, and he only stopped when I walked in the door, then my gran stabbed him and he ran away.’

  Sally checked the name in her notepad. ‘Ms Anderson…’

  ‘I chased him,’ Hannah said. ‘He was wounded and I chased him across Bruntsfield Links and the Meadows. He collapsed and I caught him and he confessed to everything. I looked him in the eyes and he told me he’d done it.’

  Hannah was gripping the arms of her seat so tight it felt like her fingers might rip the fabric.

  ‘I looked him in the eye, he knew exactly what he was doing. He was one hundred percent in his right mind.’

  Sally shook her head. ‘This is not appropriate.’

  ‘So what I want to know is,’ Hannah was breathing shallow, hardly at all, ‘how the hell you decided Craig McNamara was suffering from diminished responsibility on the grounds of his mental health?’

  Sally stood up and went to her desk. ‘Please leave.’

  Hannah stood too, followed her. ‘I just want it explained to me, that’s all. You met him for half an hour? An hour? And you decided he was mentally ill?’

  ‘Leave now,’ Sally said. ‘I can’t discuss another client, this is completely inappropriate.’

  ‘Did he charm you?’ Hannah said. ‘Is that it? Fluttered his eyelashes and you fell for it? He’s very good at that. Very good at focusing his attention on you, making you think you mean something to him, that you’re the only woman in the world.’

  ‘I’m calling security.’

  Hannah laughed. ‘You don’t have security.’

  ‘Then I’m calling the police.’

  Hannah placed her hands on the desk, leaned in.

  ‘Just tell me how you came to that decision?’

  ‘Get out.’

  Hannah waved a hand around the office. ‘You’re doing pretty well her
e. You get a nice juicy fee from the defence solicitor, is that how it works? Do you do a lot of assessments for middle-class prisoners on remand?’

  ‘I have the highest professional standards.’

  ‘Then how come you got this wrong?’

  Sally had the phone in her hand, looked at it pointedly. ‘I really will phone the police if you don’t leave.’

  ‘Did you fancy him, is that it?’

  Sally started pressing buttons on the phone.

  Hannah held her hands up. ‘OK, I’m going.’ She inhaled, tried to stop her head from spinning. ‘I just want you to realise your decision has consequences. There are real people out there suffering because of what my dad did. And we have to give evidence in court because of you.’

  Sally was still holding the phone receiver like a poisonous snake.

  Hannah turned and left, closing the door behind her.

  She went left instead of right, into the gents’ bathroom, closed the door in a stall and sat. Five minutes went past as her breathing returned to normal, her hands stopped shaking. She left the bathroom and strode into the corridor, took her keys out and punched them through the fire alarm, then went back into the toilet stall. Stood on the seat and left the door open, pulled it half over to hide herself.

  The alarm blared through the building and she heard voices and feet in the corridor. The bathroom door opened, someone shouted hello, checked under the stalls then left. She waited five more minutes, the alarm drilling into her brain, then climbed down and left the bathroom, walked along the empty corridor into reception.

  Through the blinds she saw a dozen people standing outside, hugging their arms at the breeze swirling round Moray Place. She ducked under the window and crept to the filing cabinets behind the desk, turned the key and opened the middle one. Flicked through the files to M, pulled out Craig McNamara’s folder, opened it. She looked round, no sign of anyone. She snapped pics of each of the three pages with her phone, slid the file back and locked the cabinet.

  ‘Hey.’

  She turned to see two firemen in the doorway in full gear.