Undercurrent (36 page)

So I knew what to say when they asked me. I knew how each injury had been caused. I knew
they would find him soon. The sea always yields up the dead. I knew they would question family first.

Murder is done by those who purport to love one another. If they got as far as Tanya, it would be too
late. If they took her away from her mother, everything that had been gained would be lost. She would
be ostracized and institutionalized; she would become another lost child. She could become one of the
faceless girls in my prison.

And Harry would still be dead.

I still miss the sea most of all. It saves me from remembering that I have no one to love any
more. No child to love. And I did love them both, with all my heart.

I knew he would not believe me, but the chaplain says catharsis is good for the soul.

There, the anniversary of my arrival has passed.

Everything has a purpose, and I have achieved mine.

My only achievement was to be believed when I lied.

FMC.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

After the rain, the temperature rose. The office was warm.

'No one will believe him,' Edward said. 'Is he all right in the head?'

'Not exactly. Nobody with a temperature that high can ever be described as all right, but he's better. He talks less than he did. No more deliriums.'

Cigarette smoke spiralled up into the air. Maggie seemed to have lost weight in a matter of four days. The small gold studs in her ears were her most vibrant features. Edward wondered at the fact that she had remembered the earrings as well as the brushing of her hair.

'I've been worried to death. I thought we might have killed him.'

'You might have. Mine was the small part. All I did was confirm things with the bogus Uncle Joe.'

'Yes. I might have killed him. Me. Margaret F. Chisholm. Me.' She gazed at the fish and its lifeless profile. Edward's fingers, free of his black half-gloves, beat a mild tattoo on the desk. He coughed to clear his throat of the last cigarette before lighting another.

Cigarettes had been forbidden from Henry's sickroom, but elsewhere Maggie smoked as if survival depended upon it.

'An old-fashioned chill equals pneumonia. He's a heavy man to move. He loves being nursed and a clear conscience aids recovery. It reminds me of how much I like looking after a man and how much I hate those macho types who won't succumb to weakness.'

'I didn't think you were a natural nurse, but you are, aren't you?' Edward paused. 'You must mean Philip. He came here for directions.'

'So what about him? He arrived without warning.

I was too busy with Henry and his highly articulate nightmares. Philip took one look at the boys and the House of Enchantment and finally at me. He's even blinder than most, oh dear, oh dear.' She laughed, softly. 'We took a look at one another. He's so distinguished.

He wore a suit. He was born in a suit.'

'So was I,' Edward said, shooting his cuffs, holding his arms steady the better to observe the unequal lengths of his dark sleeves.

'Not that kind of suit, not even a cousin to that kind of suit. Philip would die of embarrassment. Still,' she added carelessly, examining the coffee mug for cracks, 'Henry appreciated the flowers.'

Edward stood looking out of the window into the bustle of the High Street. From where he stood, he could watch the traffic in and out of the greengrocer's and hazard guesses about what they carried away in their bags. The grocer had five different kinds of potato, his wife had told him.

There was the sonorous clanging of the church clock striking midday, a reminder of work undone and yet to do. He was relieved and depressed; truth was better than fiction, but not always as cheerful; it felt like the interval between one headache and the next. The storms had licked everything clean; the hotel had been flooded again in a minor way. The owner wanted to sell it.

They were at the beginning of the season for storms. Fishing would be out of the question.

He wanted to be outside to take advantage of the temporary blessing of the sun.

'Did you really have no idea?' Edward asked, casting the question over his shoulder. She shook her head. Even her hair seemed to have shrunk a little.

'No, but I should have done. Should have been able to work it out the way Henry did because it fitted so well with what Francesca's really like. It accords perfectly with what she would have done. She would have taken the blame and taken it soon enough to stop Tanya being questioned because Tanya would crack. Henry has a huge imagination or perhaps he really did know her better than any of us. On a different level. He told me the story as he saw it in every detail, as if he'd been there.

It all makes sense. Angela so defensive and protective, keeping Tanya apart...'

'... Francesca hiding medical books with someone who would never read them and videos with someone who would never watch them to see how often she filmed Tanya. With love and curiosity. No one should see what Tanya could be like. No one could see what Harry was like. How much, how little she changed.

How fucking sad. Does Henry know what he told you?'

'Yes, he knows. He's repeated it all when sober, if you see what I mean. But if he hadn't been so ill, I doubt he would have said a word. He would have kept it locked up and said, I can't talk now.

And neither,

I suppose, can we.'

'Not without permission, no. I faxed the prison.

We should get a reply saying whether she wants to see him, oh, any time now. Let's go for a walk before it rains again.'

'Not the pier, not today.'

'No. The other place. The back way.'

He was too well known for the High Street. On a day when the sun shone in late February and the populace was out on errands they might otherwise have ignored, it would take Edward half an hour to survive the greetings and the chatterings and the sheer duty in acknowledging the length and breadth of his acquaintance. Francesca had once told him it was the same for her: she could not walk down here without meeting a parent of a child, or a child, or latterly an ex-schoolchild, hoped it would be so until she saw the ex-pupils walking here with their own children, but she sometimes wanted to do her shopping in the dark,

To make it shorter. He tried to remember what he had written to her, what sort of a code he had used, so that she would get the meaning and no one else, then remembered he had given up trying to be clever, had given up some time ago since words of more than one syllable were rarely understood.

Dear F.

A detective called Dr Henry Evans (mentioned before) has unearthed the truth about T;
Not only the pros and the cons, but also the whys. He awaits further instructions and so do I.

Do you wish to meet him? Can be arranged if so. A confidential fellow who will doubtless
disappear on request; no profit motive. As discreet as myself. Regret to inform you that Uncle
Joseph Chisholm has died.

Deepest sympathies and understanding.

'I don't understand,' he burst out. 'She could phone, she's allowed to phone. If she was worried, she could always phone. She doesn't.'

'She'd say too much. She can't talk now. She never could, don't you see? Henry sees. Henry sees it all.'

'I don't. Why are there so many kids about? Oh, sod it. Half-term. They tread on the daffodils.'

They were approaching the castle from the back of it, where the bridge over the dry moat met the road and where there was the sign saying when it was open and when it was shut. Such a squat beast, this castle. Sitting there like a great, solid mushroom. Almost beautiful in this light, he said, if you liked every permutation of grey. Look at it, Edward said; a grim place, like a prison. A Victorian prison might have been made on similar lines, with the slight difference that it would be designed to keep them in rather than keep them out. A small amendment. The interior could be as spartan as one pleased to ensure the rigours of the soul.

Doubtless Francesca's prison had a few more creature comforts, he thought sourly, such as TV and reliable hot water and heat, as if that would make all the difference. Probably, in her own way, with her own upbringing, she was used to confinement. He told this to himself to make himself feel better.

'Miserable place,' he said. 'Look at it. I don't know why anyone bothers.'

'There's no choice about it. You can't destroy it and it's quite incapable of falling down.'

They had moved from the road on to the seaward side where the swathe of grass separated the environs of the castle sunk into its own vast well, so that they walked the perimeter railings erected to protect the unwary. Dark inside at sea level and darker still beneath sea level in the Runs.

Edward was looking out for the daffodils traditionally planted on this stretch of green. They tended to bud during storms and he never knew why. Any sensible thing would stay beneath earth until it was over and the spring as certain a thing as it ever was. Not very certain. He could see the green shoots, with only a single yellow bud in sight.

'How can you dislike it, Edward? It's your heritage. Look.' Maggie dragged him across the green to lean against the rails and look down into the moat. There were pools of water and crops of winter crocus, brilliant blue and yellow even in the shadow. Cotoneaster and hebe, privet and rhododendrons, nothing that minded shade. 'You can grow anything here,' she informed him, 'it's a nursery garden.' She was leading him from the precipice back to the bench against the beach where the sound of the sea soothed and no one would pause for long because of the wind, which worried the backs of legs and made the pennant flutter.

'Please don't be a cynic, Edward, don't. It was wonderful to be here, I promise you it was.

We stood at that window. You had to stand to see out, you got used to it. That one.' She was pointing towards the middle keep, where a silly wooden turret protruded above the rest. It was like the tuft of a nest sticking out of a tree.

'What a cold place to live. Who stood?'

'Oh, me, Francesca, my aunt and uncle. After my parents died.'

She wanted to tell him something else, but he sprang to his feet. Pointing, still with his gloves on, quivering with worry and rage. 'Will you look at that? Will you just look at that? Jesus fucking Christ, they should be shot, look at that. Who let her, ohmyfuckingGod, oh jesusbloodychrist, GET DOWN!' He bellowed with his hands cupped round his mouth and his cheeks distended like a trumpet player. 'GET DOWN!'.

There was a figure dancing round the walls. The balancing act looked like the dance of a butterfly in a patch of sun which caught the vivid auburn of the hair swept back by the breeze into a huge halo. She stepped to her own tune, nimbly moving from brick to brick around the curved and inward-sloping walls of the nearest inner keep, arms outstretched with the elegance of a ballerina, oblivious to the height and the slope and the remnants of frost. She tested herself and went a little faster, tried a skip. Slipped and landed with her long skinny legs each side of her body, supported on her hands.

Raised the body by the hands in one effortless movement, extended her arms again and ventured on. She turned her progress into an elegant goosestep, each leg swung forward in a high kick, extending the opposite arm to touch the opposite toe. Then sat on the last sunny part of the wall, examining the abyss below without any sign of fear, delved into the pocket of her windcheater for something to chew. Lay down on the sloping wall and looked at the sky, crossed her legs like a miniature sunbather, sprang up in a single moment, continued the act, snapping her fingers to some indiscernible beat, body vibrating with it.

'That's Tanya.'

'Ah. I see what she meant, oh Christ. Take me away. I can't stand it. She'll fall, she'll bloody fall.'

'No, she won't,' Maggie said, pulling him away.

'Not if you leave her alone. She'll thrive if she's left alone.'

Edward's room had reached a stuffy temperature which was almost intolerable. The building was emptied for lunch. Prominent on the mess of the desk was the fax.

Dear Edward and Maggie,

So that's why you haven't been to see me, Maggie. You've been breaking promises all over the
place and much as I love you for it, why can't you just ACCEPT? Accept that of all the people involved
on the morning 'in question' I was, without doubt, the only one who knew what I was doing. I'm over
the worst, I can stand it, if only because the alternative would really break my heart. What's left of it.

Don't do ANYTHING. I DO NOT WANT TO APPEAL. Not until she's far older, anyway. Can't you ever see
the virtue of doing NOTHING?

Henry Evans? Of course I don't want to see him. What are you up to? Bring some daffodils, just
so I can look at them. Get a garden and tell me about it. Get a bloody LIFE and tell me about that.

These ARE my formal instructions.

Tell Henry Evans to go home.

I love you very much, Maggie Chisholm.

You're better than a sister. I've given you a lot of duff advice in my time, but this is for real.

Edward, go fishing.

FMC

Maggie looked at the fax and wondered what it had cost to write. All Chisholms had a talent for the stiff upper lip. If this is what you've got, get on with it. She found that she was crying, copious, effortless tears.

Henry combed his hair and tried to select from his jumbled suitcase an item of clothing which was not ruined either by adventure or the enthusiastic cleaning attempts of Tim, who was willing but less able than Peter. He had never really replaced the original hat, might not be in this weakened state if he had done so. You lose half your body heat from your head, someone had told him once and now was the time he believed it. There had been a kind of pleasure, latterly, in lying up here, listening to the storms, forgetting for a while where he was, other than at the wheel of a big, safe ship, ploughing through the sea towards a headland and not, as he had been in the other kinds of dreams, sinking beneath the waves, weighted with sadness and wishing he had learned how to fish.