The Big Chill Page 12

Dorothy was impressed at Abi’s ingenuity, getting the keys, checking the work calendar, feeding herself. But her voice was wavering, her conviction in her mission too, and they both knew it. Dorothy tried to think how to play it. She went to the window and looked across the road, wondered about Neil Williams, where he was now, if he knew how much his daughter cared. It’s never easy to live up to a kid’s expectations.

  ‘How about this,’ she said. ‘If you let me take you home, I promise I’ll find your dad for you.’

  Abi swallowed hard, tried to hold her chin up. ‘How?’

  Dorothy held her arms out. ‘I’m a private investigator, it’s what I do.’

  26

  HANNAH

  Hannah stared at the solicitor. ‘Tomorrow? You are kidding.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Mr Erickson – ‘call me Lars’ – didn’t look sorry, he’d had the same smug face since they walked into his office. He sat behind his large walnut desk, leaned forward on his leather chair and shuffled papers from one pile to another. The shelves were full of law books and box files, none of which apparently contained any information that could stop this from going ahead.

  Hannah turned to her mum and gran for support. They looked like she felt, a bomb had gone off in their hands and they hadn’t worked out yet how injured they were.

  ‘How can the case suddenly be going to trial tomorrow?’

  Erickson wiggled his nose like something was irritating his nostrils, and Hannah wondered if he was coked up.

  ‘The defence solicitor persuaded the judge that his client was suffering emotionally and mentally the longer the investigation took.’

  ‘Good,’ Hannah said. ‘He deserves it.’

  Dorothy put a hand on her arm. ‘Hannah.’

  Hannah snapped at her. ‘What?’

  ‘Try to stay calm.’

  Hannah shook her head and turned back to Erickson. ‘I sent you the psychiatrist’s file, it’s clearly rubbish.’

  ‘As we have already discussed,’ Erickson said, ‘that was highly inappropriate. And illegal. It didn’t help at all.’

  ‘He harassed me on the phone,’ Hannah said.

  ‘There’s no evidence of that.’

  ‘He admitted he was guilty at the time, doesn’t that mean anything?’

  Erickson touched his shirt cuffs. ‘Of course, and I’ll be using that, but it won’t convict on its own. But don’t worry, there’s plenty of evidence, lots of forensics. They’ve played into our hands by jumping the gun, to be honest.’

  Jenny piped up. ‘It just…’ She looked at the others. ‘None of us are prepared for this to happen now.’

  Erickson spread his hands. It was supposed to be reassuring but just seemed arrogant. ‘I completely understand.’

  His look changed as he focused on Jenny.

  ‘Of course your little altercation in prison didn’t help.’

  Hannah swallowed down bile. ‘She had every right to do what she did.’

  ‘No one has the right to assault anyone, no matter how provoked.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Jenny said. ‘It was stupid.’

  Hannah stood up and breathed deeply. ‘This is what he wants, for us to fall apart.’

  Erickson did the hand thing again. ‘Try to stay calm. We’ve been over your statements. Just tell the truth and leave the rest to me.’

  Hannah wandered to the window. They were high up on George Street, terrific views over the Forth. The expanse of water, Fife in the distance, the three bridges to the left, as far as Berwick Law in the other direction. You had to pay for a view like this so maybe Erickson knew what he was doing.

  ‘The worst thing you can do is get emotional in court,’ Erickson said. ‘If you lose control the jury will turn against you.’

  ‘But you said there’s loads of evidence,’ Hannah said, turning back.

  Erickson shook his head, put on a resigned face. ‘Sadly, logic and evidence are not always king when it comes to juries. We need to get them onside, give them a story to believe in.’

  ‘But he’s so…’ Jenny trailed off.

  ‘He’s manipulative,’ Erickson said. ‘But so am I. I’ll play him and the jury just as much as he’s playing us at the moment.’

  ‘I don’t share your confidence,’ Hannah said through her teeth.

  ‘I don’t need you to share it, I just need you to trust me.’

  Hannah looked over the dark water, grey sky leaning down to meet it. She pictured being out on the firth, wind in her hair, the sea beneath her, worries drifting away.

  ‘Just don’t mess this up,’ she heard someone say, and was surprised to find it was her.

  She looked at Erickson, the same implacable confidence on his face. She did not have a good feeling about this.

  27

  DOROTHY

  She stood for a long time in the doorway watching Archie work, unsure if he was aware of her. She loved watching him prepare the deceased, it was a joy to see someone good at what they do, taking care and attention. Jim taught him well, and Archie had taken to embalming like a natural, a feel for just the right kind of work needed to make the body presentable.

  Today’s was a simple job in one sense, no reconstruction, no major bruising or other marks to cover. Archie dealt with everything from car crashes to suicide, jumping off bridges or in front of trains. Dorothy remembered once searching the railway track with Archie and Jim for pieces of corpse as transport police watched and tried not to be sick. That one was a closed casket.

  Everyone from babies to great-grandparents, death visiting just the same. And people you were close to as well. Jim, of course, but his parents before that, friends, aunts, cousins. With Dorothy’s family in California she hadn’t been involved in any of their funerals, except for attending, her family giving her a wide berth, partly because of the trade she was in, partly because she’d become a stranger, bringing up her daughter in a wet, cold land across the Atlantic, choosing dour Scottish weather over golden sunshine.

  And now Archie had his mum on the embalming table, brushing her hair, checking the flow of embalming fluid into her neck, patting her hand out of love, but also checking the elasticity was returning to the skin, the fluid making the veins expand and hold their shape. Her cheeks were filling out, her lips coming back down over the grimace of exposed gums.

  Dorothy came into the room wondering if she should reach out and touch Archie, comfort him. But sometimes there wasn’t much comforting to be done.

  Archie glanced up and smiled.

  Dorothy looked at Veronica Kidd.

  ‘We could’ve got a freelance to do this one,’ she said.

  Archie shook his head. ‘I wanted to do it.’

  Dorothy understood. When Jim died, she felt blessed to spend some final moments with him before he was gone forever.

  ‘If you need to talk,’ she said.

  ‘I need to speak to you about the arrangements.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  ‘I don’t want anything too expensive.’

  Dorothy pressed her lips together. ‘My God, Archie, you don’t have to pay. What kind of person do you think I am?’

  Archie touched the back of his hand to his mum’s cheek. The fluid was filling her out but there was only so much it could do. Veronica had died of cancer, eaten away piece by piece, so she was diminished anyway when she died.

  ‘I didn’t want to presume,’ Archie said.

  Dorothy put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Anything you want, just ask.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  He checked the gauge on the embalming pump. It wasn’t necessary, he’d used it as an excuse to step away from her touch. Dorothy lowered her hands to her side.

  ‘How are you coping?’ she said.

  He didn’t answer for a long time, and she started to wonder if he’d heard her over the buzz of the pump.

  ‘As well as can be expected,’ he said eventually, still looking away, running his hand along the tube from the p
ump to Veronica’s carotid.

  Dorothy was struck by how little language was able to communicate. Words have meaning, of course, but they’re so inadequate, and we each have a lifetime of hang-ups and quirks that feed into how we speak. Archie had never been much of a talker, most Scottish men weren’t, and she got used to it. But she missed the openness of California, where you could talk your way into a new way of feeling. That seemed absent in Scottish society, buttoned up, isolated. But maybe things were changing. Hannah was seeing a counsellor. She and Indy had a much healthier and open way of communicating, maybe future generations would sort themselves out.

  Dorothy looked at Veronica’s bare arm over the sheet. Small hairs on her forearm, the pores of the skin, liver spots on her hand, the veins beneath filling up with artificial life.

  She thought about her own mother, dead for twenty years now, a severe stroke in her sleep. At least it was peaceful, that was the comfort she took, but what did she know, really? Maybe Mom woke up confused and panicking, maybe there were long moments of paralysis and pain before the end. None of us know what anyone else goes through, that was the truth.

  When Mom died all her experience and memories died with her. Edith had been a child of the Great Depression, her family moving from the dust belt to the promise of the West Coast, only to find things just as hard there. She married young and her husband came back from the Second World War a changed man, closed off to his family. Only one child, life as a housewife in Pismo Beach while Eric went out selling insurance best he could. In later years, once Eric passed, Dorothy spoke to Edith about her dreams as a young woman. She was trying to get her to widen her horizons but her mom was nonplussed, content with the smallness of her life, and Dorothy couldn’t think of a good reason to argue.

  She wondered what kind of mother Veronica was to Archie. When he came into the Skelfs’ lives a decade ago, it was Dorothy who helped him with his Cotard’s, a mother figure. If she was honest, she’d never given much thought to his real mother and she was mortified by that.

  Archie glanced up, held her gaze for a moment then went back to work on his mum.

  We all just have to keep going.

  Dorothy walked to the front of the house, surprised to see reception empty. She heard a noise from the contemplation room, where the bereaved could sit and compose themselves at viewings. Crying. They had no viewings just now, no arrangement meetings in the diary.

  Dorothy opened the door.

  Indy was in an armchair, face in her hands, gently sobbing. She wore a bottle-green blouse that matched her hair, dark skirt, black Filas. She didn’t hear the door open. Dorothy watched her shoulders shake, thought about leaving.

  ‘Indy,’ she said softly.

  Indy jumped, lifted her face, grabbed a tissue from the box on the coffee table. ‘Shit, sorry.’

  Dorothy shook her head. ‘Do you mind if I come in?’

  Indy fanned at her face then rubbed at her temples. She waved at the chair opposite and Dorothy closed the door and sat.

  ‘You must think I’m stupid,’ Indy said.

  Dorothy wanted to hug her. ‘Of course not.’

  Indy swallowed, fanned her puffy eyes again, blew her nose. ‘The funeral director who can’t handle death.’

  Dorothy reached her hand out.

  Indy took it, put on a smile. ‘I don’t want you seeing me like this.’

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘I’m trying to be a funeral director, I can’t just fall apart.’

  Dorothy squeezed her hand. ‘We’re a family here. You’re part of the family. Understand?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I don’t think you do.’ Dorothy looked around the room, lilies on a table at the window, a Highland seascape on one wall. ‘I know what it’s like to be an outsider, to feel like you don’t fit in, I’ve felt that most of my life.’

  She waved a hand in the air. ‘I didn’t choose all this, you know. I chose Jim and this came with the package. You do what you do for love, the rest takes care of itself.’

  ‘I’m not sure I can cope.’

  Dorothy stayed silent, waiting.

  Indy swallowed, wiped away tears. She nodded towards the back of the house. ‘It’s Archie through there with his mum. It brought it all back, about Mum and Dad.’

  ‘It must be so hard,’ Dorothy said.

  ‘Do you remember when I first came here?’ Indy said, voice wavering. She laughed. ‘It was in this room, wasn’t it? Where you helped me arrange the funeral.’

  Dorothy smiled.

  Indy shook her head. ‘If only we’d known. Four years later, so much has happened.’

  ‘You’ve always been strong,’ Dorothy said. ‘That day, the strength it took as a teenager to talk about your own parents’ funeral. I was impressed by your spirit.’

  ‘I was a mess.’

  ‘Of course you were,’ Dorothy said. They were still holding hands, Dorothy’s thumb rubbing Indy’s knuckle. ‘Anyone would be. But you made it through, you’re still here.’

  ‘Only because of you,’ Indy said. She took her hand away and tucked hair behind her ear.

  ‘No, it was because of you, what’s inside you.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I love you,’ Dorothy said. ‘I mean it. You’re the most compassionate person I know, the most selfless and caring. It’s very rare. You’re always there for Hannah.’

  Indy breathed loudly. ‘But who’s there for me?’

  Dorothy stared at her. ‘We all are. We’re here for each other. That’s what gets us through. I meant it when I said you’re family. You’re as important to me as Jenny or Hannah, Archie too. Even Schrödinger and Einstein.’

  Indy laughed. ‘Great, so I rank alongside a cat and dog.’

  Dorothy sighed. ‘Please don’t ever think you have to hide your feelings. You never have to hide from me, Indy.’

  Indy nodded but seemed unconvinced.

  The door swished open and there was Hannah swinging the van keys on her finger. She looked from Dorothy to Indy.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  Indy stood and put on a smile. ‘Just a wee chat.’

  She glanced at Dorothy then brushed past Hannah in the doorway, kissing her cheek. Hannah watched her go, admiring her bum in the skirt. She turned back to Dorothy.

  ‘Are we going?’ she said.

  They headed round Marchmont and down the Pleasance to the mortuary. Dorothy had Einstein in the passenger seat footwell, felt his fur against her legs, stroked his snout as he panted and licked her hand.

  Hannah was an angry driver, sitting too close behind the car in front, accelerating through an amber light. They reached the Pleasance and were stopped by students on the pedestrian crossing heading to the sports centre. Dorothy saw the Sally Army hostel, thought about what Jenny found out there. She scratched Einstein behind the ear, wondered what he knew about his dead owner. She thought about the homeless community, supportive in some ways, toxic in others. The temptation to fall back into problematic behaviour patterns was strong. But wasn’t that the same for anyone? Hannah and her anxiety, Jenny falling for Craig’s lies. She tried to think of her own problems – her grief, her obsession with Jimmy X.

  They parked at the side entrance of the mortuary by the corrugated door. Went into reception, buzzed and waited. Graham came through from the back, smiled when he saw them.

  ‘Well, this has brightened my day,’ he said.

  He lifted his glasses from his eyes and checked a piece of paper on the noticeboard, ran his gloved finger down. ‘Here for Hugh Fowler?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Dorothy said.

  ‘Come through.’

  Dorothy tied Einstein up, reassured him, and he sat down and closed his eyes.

  She and Hannah followed Graham through to the post-mortem suite and the fridges. A body was on one of the tables, skin burnt black, peeling and flaky. It was so badly burnt Dorothy couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman. The smell of cooked flesh was in the air. Han
nah swallowed as she took it in.

  The body had the top of its skull removed, the brain sitting on a tray. The inside of the skull was bright against the blackened outside. The body’s chest was open, heart, lungs and other organs laid alongside.

  ‘House fire,’ Graham said. ‘Drunk and smoking seems likely so far.’

  He pulled out a fridge tray and there was Hannah’s professor under a sheet. Dorothy watched her granddaughter closely.

  ‘You OK?’

  Hannah nodded.

  Dorothy had said she could do this alone but Hannah insisted. Headstrong, like her mum. And Dorothy didn’t argue, how do we know what works for other people?

  Graham pulled the sheet back to reveal Hugh’s face, blue around the lips, eyes closed, white hair sticking up.

  Hannah nodded.

  It always helped to get a visual ID, make sure you had the right body. They’d once spent a day removing and embalming John Williams, only to discover they’d taken the wrong John Williams from hospital. Turns out two John Williams had died within hours and no one at the hospital had noticed.

  ‘Did the post-mortem throw up anything?’ Hannah said.

  Dorothy took her in. It seemed like only yesterday Hannah was in a diaper, running around the funeral home at weekends when Jenny visited, Dorothy following her, explaining that the embalming room was off limits, luring her away with a favourite toy. How did she have such a strong, grown-up granddaughter already? Time was a bitch.

  Graham shook his head. ‘Simple poisoning.’

  ‘Any sign of coercion?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Graham touched the rim of his glasses. ‘If someone pointed a gun at his head and made him drink it, there’s not a lot I can do. But in terms of physical force, there’s no bruising or sign of struggle.’

  Dorothy wondered what Hannah was thinking. Maybe for her this was like Jimmy X, an itch to scratch.

  ‘Did you get anywhere with your joyrider?’ Graham said, like he read her mind.

  Dorothy pictured standing in the cemetery, waiting for that car to hit her. She imagined not moving, the crunch of metal into her legs, the rush of air as she’s flung over the windscreen and roof, the pain as her bones shatter, landing in a heap, head bleeding, heart and lungs burst. She imagined lying in one of Graham’s fridge trays, no more worries.