Missing Joseph (37 page)

“No! She put you up to this, didn't she? Missus Spence. I c'n see it on your face as big as c'n be. She said go see that Polly, go ask her what she knows, go ask her where she's been. And she left it to you to think up the rest. That's how it is, isn't it? Isn't it, Colin?”

“Don't even say her name.”

“Oh, I'll say it all right. I'll say it and more.” She stooped and snatched the book from the floor. “Yes, it's mine. Yes, I bought it. I used it as well. And she knows that—damn her—because I was fool enough once—more'n two years back when she first came to Winslough—to ask her about making a tincture from bryony. And more the fool I was, I even told her why.” She shook the book at him. “Love, Colin Shepherd. Bryony's for love. So's apple in a charm. Here, want to see?” She flipped a silver chain from beneath her pullover. A small globe hung from it, its surface filigree. She yanked it from her neck and threw it to the floor where it bounced against his foot. He could see the dried bits of the fruit inside. “And aloe for sachets and benzoins for perfume. And cinquefoil for a potion that you wouldn't ever drink. It's all in the book, with everything else. But you only see what you want to see, don't you? That's the way it is now. That's the way it's always been. Even with Annie.”

“I won't talk about Annie with you.”

“Oh, won't you? AnnieAnnieAnnie with a halo on her head. I'll talk about her just as much as I want because I know what it was like. I was there just like you. And she wasn't a saint. She wasn't a noble patient suffering in silence with you sitting at the bedside, putting flannels on her brow. That wasn't how it was.”

He took a step towards her. She held her ground.

“Annie said, Go ahead, Col, you take care of yourself, my precious love. And she never let you forget it when you did.”

“She never said—”

“She didn't
need
to say. Why won't you see it? She lay in her bed with all the lights off. She said, I was too ill to reach for the lamp. She said, I thought I would die today, Col, but it's all right now because you're home and you're not to worry a jot about me. She said, I understand why you need a woman, my love, you do what you must do and don't think about me in this house, in this room, in this bed. Without you.”

“That's not how it was.”

“And when the pain was bad, she didn't lie there like a martyr. Don't you remember? She screamed. She cursed you. She cursed the doctors. She threw things at the wall. And when it was worst, she said, You did this to me, you made me rot, and I'm dying and I hate you, I
hate
you, I wish you were dying instead.”

He made no response. It felt as if a siren were sounding in his head. Polly was there, mere inches away, but she seemed to be speaking from behind a red veil.

“So I prayed on the top of Cotes Fell, I did. At first for her health. And then for…And then for you alone after she died, hoping that you would see…would know…Yes, I got this book”—She shook it again—“but it was because I loved you and I wanted you to love me back and I was willing to try anything to make you whole. Because you weren't whole with Annie. You hadn't been for years. She bled you in her dying, but you don't want to face it because then you might have to face what living with Annie was like as well. And it wasn't perfect. Because nothing is.”

“You don't know the first thing about Annie's dying.”

“That you emptied her bedpans and hated the thought of it. Don't I know that? That you wiped her bum with your stomach at the boil. Don't I know that? That just when you needed most to get out of the house for a breath of air, she knew and would cry and take a bad turn and you always felt guilty because
you
weren't ill, were you? You didn't have the cancer. You weren't going to die.”

“She was my life. I loved her.”

“At the end? Don't make me laugh in your face. At the end was bitterness and a rage of anger. Because no one lives without joy for that long and feels anything else at the end of it.”

“You bloody bitch.”

“Yes, all right. That and more, if you like. But I face the truth, Colin. I don't tart it up with hearts and flowers like you.”

“Then let's take the truth another step, all right?” He reduced the distance between them another few inches when he kicked the amulet to one side. It clattered against the wall and broke open, spilling its contents onto the carpet. The bits of apple looked like shrivelled skin. Human skin, even. And he wouldn't put its collection past her. He'd put nothing past Polly Yarkin. “You prayed for her to die, not to live. When it didn't come quick, you helped it along. And when her dying didn't get you what you wanted the moment you wanted it—and when was that, Polly? Was I supposed to fuck you the day of the funeral?—you decided to try potions and charms instead. Then Juliet came. She threw your plans awry. You tried to use her. And it was bloody clever to let her know I wasn't truly available just in case she was interested and got in your way. But we found each other anyway—Juliet and I—and you couldn't bear that. Annie was gone. The final barrier to your happiness was buried in the churchyard. And here was another. You saw what was happening between us, didn't you? The only solution was to bury her as well.”

“No.”

“You knew where to find the hemlock. You walk by the pond each time you hike Cotes Fell. You dug it up, you put it in the root cellar, and you waited for Juliet to eat it and die. And if Maggie died as well, that would have been a shame, but she's expendable, isn't she? Everyone is. You just didn't count on the vicar's presence. That was the misfortune. I imagine you had a few uneasy days once he was poisoned, while you waited for Juliet to take the blame.”

“So what did I gain, if that's how it happened? Coroner said it was an accident, Colin. She's free. So are you. And you've been stuffing her like some randy farmboy eyeing his daddy's ewes ever since. So what did I gain?”

“What you've waited and hoped for, ever since the vicar died by mistake. The London police. The case re-opened. With every bit of circumstantial evidence pointing to Juliet.” He snatched the book from her fingers. “Except this, Polly. You forgot about this.” She made a lunge for it. He threw the book to the corner of the room and caught her arm. “And when Juliet's safely put away for good, you'll have what you want, what you tried to get while Annie was alive, what you prayed for when you prayed for her death, what you mixed your potions and wore your amulets for, what you've been after for years.” He took a step closer. He felt her trying to pull away. He experienced a distinct tingling of pleasure at the thought of her fear. It shot down his legs. It began to work unexpected magic in his groin.

“You're hurting m' arm.”

“This isn't about love. This was never about love.”

“Colin!”

“Love has no part in what you've been after since that day—”

“No!”

“You remember it, then, don't you? Don't you, Polly?”

“Let me go.” She twisted beneath him. She was breathing in tiny baby gasps. No more than a child, so easy to subdue. Squirming and writhing. Tears in her eyes. She knew what was coming. He liked her knowing.

“On the floor of the barn. Where the animals do it. You remember that.”

She wrenched her arm away and spun around to run. He caught her skirt as it flared with her movement. He jerked her towards him. The material ripped. He twirled it round his hand and pulled harder. She stumbled but didn't fall.

“With my cock inside and you grunting like a sow. You remember that.”

“Please. No.” She was starting to cry and he found that the sight of her tears inflamed him more than had the thought of her fear. She was penitent sinner. He was avenging god. And her punishment would be a godly justice.

He grabbed more of the skirt, pulled on it savagely, and heard the satisfactory sound of it giving way. Another pull. Then another. And every time Polly struggled to escape him, the skirt ripped more. “Just like that day in the barn,” he said. “Just what you want.”

“No. I don't. Not like this. Col. Please.”

The name. The name. His hands shot out and tore the rest of the skirt from her body. But she seized the moment of release and ran. She made it to the corridor. She was close to the door. Another three feet and she would escape.

He leapt and tackled her as her hand grasped the knob of the inner door. They crashed to the floor. She began to flail at him wildly. She didn't speak. Her arms and legs thrashed. Her body convulsed.

He struggled to pin down her arms, grunting, “Fuck…you…so…hard.”

She screamed, “No! Colin!” but he cut her off with his mouth. He drove his tongue inside her, with one hand on her neck pressing and pressing while the other ripped at her underwear. He used his knee to force her legs apart. Her hands tore at his face. She found his spectacles, flung them off. She sought his eyes. But he was close on her, powering his face into hers, filling her mouth with his tongue and then spitting, spitting and every moment fired more and more with the need to show, to master, to punish. She would crawl and beg. She would pray for mercy. She would call upon her Goddess. But
he
was her god.

“Cunt,” he grunted into her mouth. “Bitch…cow.” He fumbled with his trousers while she rolled and struggled, kicking against him, her every breath a shriek. She drove her knee upwards, missing his testicles by less than an inch. He slapped her. He liked the feel of the slap—how it brought life and power back to his hand. He hit her again, harder this time. He used his knuckles and admired the red bruising they brought to her skin.

She was weeping and ugly. Her mouth hung open. Her eyes squeezed shut. Mucous dripped from her nose. He liked her that way. He wanted her weeping. Her terror was a drug. He shoved her legs apart and he fell upon her. He celebrated her punishment like the god he was.

She thought, This is what it's like to die. She lay as he had left her, one leg crooked and the other extended, her pullover shoved up beneath her armpits, her bra jerked down to bare one breast where his bite still throbbed like a brand. A sheer piece of nylon edged with lace—“Got yerself some fancies I see,” Rita had chuckled. “Looking for a bloke who likes it wrapped up pretty?”—looped round her left ankle. A shredded ribbon of skirt draped across her neck.

She stared upwards and followed the threading of a crack that began above the door and spread out like veins against the skin of the ceiling. Somewhere in the house a metallic crank-rattle sounded, followed by a whirring that was steady and low. The boiler, she thought. She wondered why it was heating water since she couldn't recall having used any that day. She pondered everything she had done in the vicarage, taking each project one step at a time because it seemed so important to know why the boiler was heating water right now. It couldn't realise, after all, how filthy she was. It was just a machine. Machines didn't anticipate a body's needs.

She made a list. Newspapers first. She'd bound them up like she'd promised herself and discarded them all in the rubbish bin. She'd phoned and cancelled the subscription as well. Potted plants next. There were only four of them, but they were looking poorly and one had lost nearly all of its leaves. She'd been giving them water religiously every day, so she couldn't understand why they were turning all yellow. She'd taken them to the rear garden and set them on the porch, thinking the poor little things might like some sun, if it ever came out which it hadn't. Bedding after that. She'd changed the sheets on all three beds—two singles, one double—just like she'd been doing every week since she'd first come to work. Didn't make any difference that no one used the beds. One had to change the linen to keep it fresh. But she hadn't done any laundry, so the boiler shouldn't be at work over that. What was it, then?

She tried to picture each of her movements that day. She tried to make them appear among the cracks in the ceiling. Newspapers. Telephone. Plants on the porch. And after that…It was too much effort to think beyond the plants. Why? Was it water? Was she frightened of water? Had something happened with water? No, how silly. Think of rooms with water.

She remembered. She smiled but it hurt because her skin felt stiff like glue had dried upon it so she hurried in her mind from the bedrooms to the kitchen. Because that was it. She'd washed all the dishes, the glassware, the pots, and the pans. She'd scrubbed the cupboards as well. Which is why the boiler was working now. And anyway, didn't a boiler always work? Didn't it fire itself up when it felt the water inside start to cool? No one switched it on. It just worked. Like magic.

Magic. The book. No. She must have no thoughts like that. They painted nightmare pictures in the back of her head. She didn't want to see.