Billie's Kiss (5 page)

Elov nodded, bewildered. His food had long since ceased to steam; he hadn't been able to tell when he might be called on to make an alert response.

James Hallow turned to Murdo and told him that the divers he'd sent for were not expected till the following day. There were times when it really was no virtue to be so out-of-
the-way
.

Elov Jansen gratefully turned his attention to his plate. Murdo watched the boy. Elov was, like Rixon, bruised beneath the eyes, waxy and unsteady. He seemed relieved that he had lost his host's attention, and reassured by the quiet sobriety of Lord Hallowhulme's latest remark.

Hallowhulme took a forkful of sausage into his mouth and chewed with mighty appetite, as though giving a
demonstration
of chewing. The fork's tines thrust into a mound of rice and clashed on the plate. All James's big noises and deliberate movements seemed to be saying ‘Come on, buck up' to all of them. He swallowed, and started talking again. It was a shame, he said, that all those fellows on the pier hadn't thought to use their hats. ‘Use their heads, and use their hats.' He waited a decent interval, and with increasing delight, to be sure that no one knew what he meant – knew what
he
knew
.
‘A hat makes a capital life preserver,' he said, and then put down his fork to poke a finger in the air. ‘Provided it's the stiff sort, silk or beaver or thick felt – a straw boater just wouldn't be up to the job. No – a stiff hat and a pocket handkerchief are all a person needs to make a life preserver. At a pinch.' James pushed his plate and cutlery
aside to mime, and the invisible objects of his lesson immediately assumed real dimensions, real substance. He was pink with enthusiasm. ‘First you spread your handkerchief on the ground, then put the hat on it, brim down. Then you tie the handkerchief, careful to keep the knots upward and in the centre of the crown.' He looked up, in turn, at his son Rixon, Rixon's friend Elov, and at his daughter, Minnie, who was listening with a calm politeness that was obviously a cue to the bewildered Elov Jansen. ‘Then' – James half rose from his chair, making his demonstration – ‘seizing the knot in one hand and keeping the opening of the hat upward, you can fearlessly plunge into deep water despite being unable to swim.' He sat down again, dusted his palms together, to dissipate the particles of the imaginary hat and handkerchief. ‘There's not enough emphasis in education on learning all the little tricks and devices that make us able to render assistance to our imperilled fellow creatures,' James said. ‘There are boys and girls all over this island getting their catechism off by heart – in one of two flavours – but frankly, I think that the churches, having them for an hour on Sunday morning, should teach a few practical matters not related to mending nets, sowing barley, or cutting peat.'

Elov opened his mouth to say something. ‘But –' Then he jumped.

Rixon had prodded him under the cover of the table. Rixon knew not to say a word, knew that it made no difference if you disagreed, agreed, asked a question, tried to turn the subject – there was endless potential energy in his father's talk, and one word, one touch, would only set it rolling on again.

Lord Hallowhulme called for a fresh pot of tea. His daughter, Minnie, had patted her mouth and risen a few inches from her seat, so that the butler hustled up behind to draw back her chair. She said, ‘My lessons, Father.'

‘Yes, Minnie. Are you fully fortified?'

‘Yes, Father.' She shook the napkin off her sticky hand and came around the table to kiss him. Minnie was short and slight and had to balance a hand on one of her father's big shoulders in order to lean in to his face. Then she circled behind Murdo, who was sure he could feel her gaze breeze the back of his head. She touched her lips to her mother's cheek, checked the door before it was fully ajar, checked the footman's white-gloved hand to discourage him from opening it further. The footman audibly caught his breath, possibly because of the touch, possibly he was shocked to have
forgotten
one of the household's habits, or preferences.

James Hallow had remembered that the new telephones, and telephone line, and batteries, had been in the hold of the
Gustav
Edda
.
He had been
so
looking forward to its
installation
, the Isle's first telephone line, between Kiss Castle and its gatehouse first, then between the castle and the post office, possibly the rectory – Mr Mulberry being willing – and there would certainly be a telephone line to the factory. ‘Another factory,' said the smirking James to Elov, who blinked and blushed. ‘At Scouse Beach, near here. A factory to extract alginate from seaweed. It's the food of the future, you know.'

Elov nodded, as if he did know.

James's wife Clara said that she must go and write to her friend Jane Tegner, who, considering the accident, might decide against bringing the twins to visit Minnie. She hoped they weren't on their way already.

Rixon muttered that at least he and Elov would be excused from Minnie and the twins' ambitious theatricals.

‘I'll ask what Jane thinks,' Clara said, but she didn't get up.

Murdo did, and, as always, the butler anticipated his movement. Murdo looked over his shoulder at the man. He said thank you. He saw sympathy. ‘I'm going to speak to Rory Skilling,' he said to James.

Clara stood. ‘And I'm going to visit the people in Mr Mulberry's “infirmary”.'

‘I'm going there, too,' Murdo said. ‘Eventually.'

‘Good morning, then, to both of you. Good work,' James said. He beamed at his wife as she came gliding up the room to kiss him, and held her as she did so, his hand on the artificial fluted curve of her waist.

Jenny was waiting in the hallway with her mistress's coat, hat, and gloves. She helped Clara into the coat, and they both turned to the big dark glass above the hall table to settle the hat. Clara rolled down the hat's veil over her dull-skinned, handsome, worn face. Murdo saw that she was watching him in the mirror. He told her that Rory Skilling had a suspect in custody at the gatehouse. ‘The suspect jumped from the ship directly before the explosion. Before the gangplank was down.'

Clara wormed one hand into a glove, settled the leather over her wedding ring.

‘I think James underestimates the islanders' antagonism toward himself and his ideas,' Murdo said.

‘Antagonism?'

‘Hostility.'

‘James wasn't on the
Gustav
Edda
,'
said Clara. She put on her other glove and took the bag from Jenny. They left the house.

Murdo went back to the dining room, opened the door, and asked James if he had the
Gustav
Edda
's cargo manifest – and if not who would have it?

‘I thought of that yesterday evening,' James said. ‘Anticipated your interest.'

Murdo waited in the doorway. He brushed the door lightly with his shoulder so that it opened further.

‘There wasn't anything explosive on the ship – except the coal, of course,' James said, his brows knitted. He began to fidget with irritation. ‘For God's sake, cousin, either come in or go out!'

‘Where is it? The manifest,' Murdo said.

James Hallow leapt up. The blasted paper was in his office,
he said. He hustled his cousin out of the doorway, closed the door firmly, gave the door handle a couple of fast turns to make sure it was firmly latched, and, taking Murdo under the elbow, led him to his office.

The room was dusted and polished, and the window glass sparkled with the lead from the ink in the newspaper used by the maid for its final polish. But there were papers
everywhere
, notes and plans, books stacked on chairs, and two unfinished canvases precariously sharing James's easel. The cargo manifest and other papers pertaining to the ship had not yet worked their way under the sediment of documents. ‘I do have a copy to spare,' James said, and gave the manifest to Murdo, who thanked him. James drew his cousin to him by his elbow, so that their hips bumped, but he didn't look at Murdo. He said quietly that of course Murdo must satisfy himself about the accident, but he should bear in mind how little James could spare him, Southport and Scouse Beach being at a crucial stage in their development.

‘I'll be everywhere, James,' Murdo promised, then, amusing himself, ‘You won't see me.'

‘Of course, of course,' James said. He released Murdo's arm, gave him a shying and sideways look and a slap on the back.

Murdo went to speak to Rory.

A LONG, partly gravelled road ran in a loop through the edge of Lady Hallowhulme Wood and then down between the seawall and a sloping lawn before the castle. The road continued around the edge of the shallow, notched corner of the harbour – where the sea lay only at high tide – and
terminated
at a stagnant waterway straddled by a bridge on which perched Kiss Castle's gatehouse.

Murdo walked from the gravelled drive and along the road whose surface was rutted, leaves in a deep layer in each rut and the grass tall on either side. The road seemed to say,
soberly, that it wasn't recreational, was only for expeditions either into or out of the grounds of the castle. As Murdo went he watched water draining back into the mush of leaves where Clara's trap had passed and the road was recovering its composure. Below the seawall the tide was out, and the rocks of the seabed were draped with a tissue of tender green sea cabbage and brown Neptune's necklace. The notch was in the shade, rank and slippery, its air grainy with midges.

Murdo knocked and was admitted to the gatehouse. Three men were lounging in its kitchen – Rory's fat female friend was busy at the range. All had glasses of porter by them.

The men were overseers employed on Lord Hallowhulme's Stolnsay projects, under Murdo's management. They were islanders, but only two were locals. Rory – like his surname – was from over the mountain range that had divided the island throughout its history.

Stolnsay was the largest settlement on Kissack, Southport the largest on Skilling. This ‘on' was deceptive – since Kissack and Skilling were one island. One – but because of the dividing mountains, Kissack had been invaded, settled, and ruled by Norsemen for several hundred years of its history, whereas Skilling was, for a long time, under the protection of an Irish chief. Both Kissack and Skilling later became the territories of two mainland clans, but while Kissack, looking to the northeast, embraced a combination of Scandinavian
Lutheranism
and the Knox Church, Skilling, facing southwest, remained an outpost of the Church of Rome. Murdo's man from Skilling was named Skilling – Rory Skilling. Rory was a Catholic, and was thus even more Murdo's man – not because Murdo was a Catholic – he was not – but because, as a Catholic, Rory was scarcely tolerated in Stolnsay.

At the gatehouse Murdo sent someone up to see if his prisoner was awake. Then he drew Rory aside. ‘Can you do something for me?'

The man turned his mouth down; he was surprised, not
disapproving, perhaps pleased to be asked for help instead of given an order. He was favouring Murdo with his most attentive, serious look.

‘Would you go into town and buy me some shaving tackle? Mine went down with the ship.'

Rory began to shuffle.

Murdo gave him some money.

Rory palmed it but continued to shuffle. He sighed, said, ‘You do know that I live
here
,
Mr Hesketh. Here in the gatehouse.'

‘Yes?'

‘My Fiona' – he indicated the fat woman at the range – ‘brings us bread, and eggs, and fish, and ale, sir. The landlords don't like us at the bars. And the grocer has long since stopped serving me. I'm sorry, Mr Hesketh.' Rory unclenched his hand and gave back Murdo's crumpled money.

Murdo hadn't been aware, till then, that his men were so ostracised. He was astonished, and uncomfortable. He must send them down some whisky later. Yes – whisky – he could do that.

The other man reappeared and said, ‘She's awake.'

Murdo went upstairs to see her.

3

Among the Dead

B
ILLIE WOKE when the key turned and opened her eyes to see a man peer around the door.

‘Miss?' he said. Then he came into the room and fished in his patched jacket. He placed a comb beside her on the bed. He apologised, he had no mirror. He went out again.

There was dusty white grease in the teeth of the comb. Billie looked at it – waited as though for animation – before turning her eyes to the other recent appearance in the room: a mug of tea, its heat long gone and a dark skin on its surface. This skin shook and wrinkled as the floorboards quivered. Another man came into the room. Billie looked only at his shoes. They were black, with a high polish on the black
leather-covered
buttons of their gaiters.

Had she not slept? he asked, then came close enough for her to see his hands, too, to see the one with the wedding ring lift the blankets that were still folded on the foot of the bed – lift them as though he was looking for something stowed between them. Then he planted himself in front of her and reached down to touch the filthy comb.

Billie raised her head just high enough to see his waistcoat, watch chain, fob – all black, the chain made of beads, basalt and jet, the fob a heavy jet heart embossed with the glittering facets of an eight-pointed star. Billie checked her own hands, the silver ring on the little finger of one. His wedding ring was on his
right
hand, she saw, and he was in mourning. She looked up into his face.

His face blinded her. It was, simply, the wrong one. She turned her head.

‘You will need shoes,' he said. He went back to the door and called down the stairs: ‘Rory, send Fiona up here, will you?' Then, a moment later, and in a lower tone, to a nearer person: ‘Could you go up to the castle and tell Mrs Deet that there is a girl from the ship with no shoes who needs to walk somewhere. Tell Deet the girl is approximately the same size as Miss Minnie.'

He came back to stand over the bed. He asked Billie why she had jumped.

She made an effort, but only to say that she couldn't talk to him – didn't care to.

He asked her how she did it.

Jumped? Took flight? Flew? She was in the cabin with Edith still, and was singing. She jumped and she hit her head. Oil fell from the lamp in little rags of fire. There were holes in the wool of her skirt, coin-sized, with brittle scorched edges. She was in the cabin with Edith still. The shadows swung and pooled against one wall. Black water. The light had gone out. She was in the cabin with Edith still –

He asked how she
knew
?
Why she jumped when she did?

Billie tried; she opened her mouth and got it wrong. ‘The sip shank,' she said. Then she said, ‘Stupid,' to herself. She was gagged by stupidity. She ventured a look and saw his curled upper lip.

‘You disgusting creature,' he said, softly.

Billie was being misunderstood, and it mattered to her. That surprised her. She began to shake. She found she wasn't in the cabin with Edith and the song was just something wheedling away in her sore ear. She touched her ear and felt, all down her neck, a lock of hair plastered with blood, set as hard as the grain in a branch of sea-dried tortured willow.

Billie moved back against the wall, drew her feet up under her skirt, and wrapped her arms around her knees.

THE GIRL mocked Murdo's questions, then called him stupid, and then squirmed back across the bed and folded herself up away from him, fastidiously hiding her bare toes. The room filled with the faint smell of old vomit, stirred up from her skirt when she moved. There were holes in her dress, as though made by a dropped cigarette.

Gooseflesh formed on the skin of Wilhelmina Paxton's flat breastbone. In the dim light her hair was darker, a red without its own radiance, matted at the back, separated in thick chunks, and so long its curls still managed to form hooks against the bedclothes on either side of her hips.

‘Speak up,' Murdo said. ‘Why did you jump, Miss Paxton?' Then he went on to say that, while the island operated under the laws of the land, there was no representative of that law on the island – unless one were to count his cousin, James, who was a magistrate.

‘Henry was coming to take up employment as cataloguer of Lord Hallowhulme's library,' the girl said. Then, ‘I was happy to hear his name had two Hs. I couldn't turn it around. I didn't have to practise.' Then she finally answered Murdo's question. ‘It's no business of yours why I jumped.' She hugged herself tighter, put her forehead on her knees, and muttered that she couldn't bear to wear anyone else's shoes.

Murdo said he imagined she might need shoes to follow a coffin.

Miss Paxton grunted. She said, ‘Uh!' in the true timbre of her voice, which wasn't deep but dense and furry somehow – Murdo had heard that when she'd apologised after her clottish mistake with pail, vomit, and prevailing wind. Miss Paxton grunted, and came off the bed with the same speedy
competence
with which she'd jumped from deck to gangplank. She crashed into Murdo and pushed him right across the room and against the wall. The room shuddered, and a panel cracked. Miss Paxton was small but solid, like a young dog, all power and muscle; the only feminine things about her were
her hair and her fine upholstery of body fat. Murdo caught her. He didn't fall. He held her fists away from his face. She called him a pig – a mist of warm spit hit his chin. Then she went limp, lolled, and he turned her so that she fell against him, her head on his shoulder.

Murdo righted himself and walked her to the door, touched the back of her bare ankle, her tender Achilles' tendon, with the toe of his boot. She moved. He walked her down the stairs. Every man in the kitchen was on his feet, red-faced with stove heat and booze, but blotched, the faces turned to him like cards in a high straight hand.

‘Mr Hesketh,' said Rory.

‘Be quiet!' Murdo said, savage. He sat Miss Paxton on the stairs, her arms held crushed against her body. Then he released her. His hands hurt from the exertion of his grip.

‘Is the young lady –?' Rory tried. Murdo glared at him, then at the top of Wilhelmina Paxton's drooping head. He said to her that he simply could not believe that the explosion was only coincidental with her jump.

‘But, sir –' Rory persisted. ‘Why would a young lady go to those lengths to –' Then, in difficulties, ‘Who on that ship had enemies so desperate?'

Murdo shrugged this off. He'd possibly never have imagined that the ship was sabotaged if the girl hadn't jumped. He told Rory that he didn't have to explain his thinking. But then he did. Perhaps it was the
cargo
the saboteur had wanted to send to the bottom, the tools and materials for Lord Hallowhulme's factories. Perhaps the explosion occurred too soon. The fuse was poorly timed. She set it, then saw her mistake, and ran.

Murdo saw that Rory Skilling looked dubious. He also saw pity. He leaned forward, held his weight for a moment on his trembling arms, then sat on the step above the silent, drooping girl. He looked at her hands – her grubby, grazed palms, stiff with scabs, and curled like cooked shrimps. Then
he closed his eyes and regarded what he cherished – a plausible picture – Wilhelmina Paxton setting a flame to a fuse, the dynamite packed between the plates of the hull and something unyielding, perhaps the crated parts for the Scouse Beach generator, or James's telephones, their batteries and bales of cable. He saw Miss Paxton check her watch to time the fuse. And, persuaded by his picture, he opened his eyes to look for the timepiece, around her neck or pinned to her breast. He touched her and she brushed at his hands, absently, as if brushing at a fly or scratchy foliage. Murdo opened the bag she wore on her belt – found a mesh miser's purse, a pewter pillbox, a comb, a manicure set, a hinged buttonhook and shoe horn, the steel horn engraved on its inside curve: Janet Blazey. She hadn't a watch, of course, and so Murdo let it go – her purse, and his picture.

‘It was the boiler,' Rory said, consolingly.

‘Edith,' whispered Miss Paxton.

For several minutes nothing was said or done. Murdo remained beside the girl, his head hanging too, his men looming in the passageway and teetering a little like skittles grazed by a bowling ball.

Fiona came back with two pairs of shoes. Worn dancing shoes, one pair red, the other white. ‘These can be spared, says Mrs Deet.' Fiona was out of breath, with anger as well as hurry. She said to Rory, beginning quietly and ending up broadcasting: ‘Deet was in a fluster. I suppose because these shoes were poor Miss Ingrid's. Still, a respectable woman would have asked
why
the girl was in the gatehouse, and noticed that, with me gone, the girl must be in the gatehouse alone' – Fiona gave Murdo a mollifying but totally unmeant smile – ‘with one gentleman, and three ruffians.' She was making it quite clear she'd modified her first thought –
four
ruffians. She knelt to fasten the shoes on Miss Paxton's feet, first removing Miss Paxton's one remaining shoe. ‘And where are you taking her, Mr Hesketh?'

‘Mr Mulberry's church.'

‘She should have been there from the first,' said Fiona.

‘But Fi, she was never in the water,' said Rory Skilling.

Murdo could feel his rage going, taken by reason and the force of circumstance. He had felt that he'd come ashore on the girl, that his imagination followed her jump – but behind him was the water, and Ian, under the water. Only his spite had vitality; it pulled him up and on again. Miss Paxton's scabbed palm was against his own; he hauled her to her feet as Fiona finished fastening the shoes. Miss Paxton stumbled around the kneeling woman. Murdo hauled her out the door.

They walked from under the arch of the gatehouse and onto the road. Murdo's men followed them, a few paces back, except Rory Skilling, who stayed just behind Murdo's
shoulder
, and whispered to him, ‘God help you, Mr Hesketh.'

Murdo ignored him. He didn't have to drag the girl. She went on nimbly enough, kept pace with him. Her arm was at its fullest stretch, but her shoulder never pulled forward. The worn leather soles of poor Miss Ingrid's slippers slapped and scuffed.

MR MULBERRY'S church had become a makeshift
infirmary
. Some pews had been moved together to make beds, and others had been pushed back to the walls to make way for cots. There was a detached draining board balanced on the font, carrying a kettle, a basin, a pot of soup, and a basket of bread. There were around ten town women in attendance on twelve near-drowned people – Mrs Mulberry in charge of all.

Billie stood where she'd been let go, in the doorway, and listened to the doctor, to the minister, Mr Mulberry, and to Murdo Hesketh. Hesketh was now all politeness, patience, and propriety. The doctor told how he had the four worst cases back at his house – those who showed signs of
bronchopneumonia
after their immersion. Three had been ‘pumped'
on the pier yesterday. Emptied of water, and had air pumped in by a bellows inserted in one nostril. There were many ‘dry' drownings – the shock of sudden and unexpected immersion in the icy water had simply stopped hearts. All the dead were next door, in the sacristy. Seven bodies were as yet
unrecovered
.

‘Your cousin wouldn't let me look you over,' the doctor said to Hesketh, grave. ‘Or the young gentlemen. He was in a hurry to have you off the scene and safe at Kiss Castle, and he couldn't be made to see sense.' The doctor pointed the porcelain cone of his stethoscope at Hesketh's buttoned waistcoat. ‘Do you mind?' Hesketh gazed disdainfully over the top of the doctor's head, but submitted to his touch, stood rigid as the doctor unfastened six waistcoat and three shirt buttons and put the stethoscope in against his heart. The doctor then inserted a hand, fingers shaped like a parrot's beak, to sound against Hesketh's ribs. Billie saw Hesketh hold his breath, as he was told, then let it out so that it stirred the wispy, unoiled hair by the doctor's left ear.

‘You're fine,' the doctor said, himself reassured. Then he moved out of the knot of men, came to Billie, frowned at her, concerned, and pushed down her bodice a little to place the skin-warmed porcelain cone against the top of her chest.

‘She wasn't in the water,' one of Hesketh's men said, informative and acid at once. Billie recognised the man as the one with the same name as the other half of the island – Skilling.

‘I've brought Miss Paxton to help identify some people. Wherever they are.' Hesketh spread his hands rather like the even-handed, sloe-eyed Christs in the Last Judgements frescoed on walls of the churches Billie had seen as a child. Churches in San Remo or Portofino, or the chapel near La Brigue – Christs with hands spread to say,
Behold!
The
damned
and
the
saved
,
Hesketh was apparently too refined to say, ‘Among the living or the dead.'