She shouldn’t be here, she should be with Fiona scouring the streets for Sophia and Craig. That nagged her all the time, but what could she really do? She knew the hard way, she’d been wandering around Edinburgh for a year trying to get a whiff of that bastard and she hadn’t turned up anything.
She was sitting with Archie in the van, parked in Cluny Avenue, about to visit some amateur embalmer nutjob. Archie had just finished explaining what was in the fluid in those orders from FME. A long list of chemicals Jenny had never heard of, except formaldehyde and methanol, which she thought were poisonous and booze respectively. There were also solvents and something called a wetting agent, which made Jenny feel queasy.
They got out of the van and went to number eight. Cluny Avenue was another rich old street, half of Edinburgh seemed to be like this. Jenny wondered where the money came from, were people just lucky enough to inherit these houses from family who’d bought them for a pound a hundred years ago? She thought of the flat she rented in Portobello before she moved back in with Mum. She couldn’t pay the rent when she lost her freelance journo gig, and it would be a lot more money now, Porty was on the rise because of the beach. Edinburgh had lots of areas where locals were being priced out.
There were no houses across the road, just low railings then thick trees leading down an embankment to the southside railway line, only used by occasional freight trains and empty rolling stock. Jenny thought about the railway line cutting a swathe through the south of the city, so much green space and coverage. Blackford Hill was not far, the Braids, a million places for a big cat to disappear.
‘You OK?’ Archie said.
‘Fine.’ She looked him in the eye. ‘How are you doing?’
‘Great,’ he said. ‘Love spending time chasing loonies.’
Archie was the same age as her but seemed older. Or maybe her idea of herself was much younger than she really was. Wasn’t that the same for everyone? She still felt like the same woman who went to grunge gigs thirty years ago. How the fuck did that happen? But Archie’s steadfastness and reliability made him seem like an old man. She thought of herself as a Generation X flake, whereas Archie seemed at ease with himself despite his condition. He knew who he was as a human being.
She couldn’t help comparing him to Liam, she kept coming back to him in her mind. He was a few years younger than her but his passion for painting and creativity made him seem much younger. Jenny could never get her head around the fact he was interested in her, a fact that fed into her decision to break it off. Which she’d regretted ever since.
The sound of the front door opening made Jenny jump.
‘Hi.’ Standing in the doorway was a round woman, maybe sixty, receding fair hair, loose black T-shirt over stretched leggings.
‘Mrs Stevenson?’ Jenny said.
She smiled. ‘Queenie.’
‘I’m Jenny Skelf, this is Archie Kidd, we work at Skelf Funeral Directors.’
Queenie nodded, she recognised the name.
Archie cleared his throat. ‘We have a rather strange request.’
This was how they’d planned it, Archie taking the lead. Jenny had never seen him say more than a few sentences together so she had her doubts. He smiled at Queenie, at ease.
‘Oh yes?’
‘You see, we’re experiencing a shortage of some of our embalming fluids. There’s been a distribution problem. We order from FME, and I believe you recently got a delivery from them.’
‘That’s right.’
Archie put on a pleading face. ‘I was wondering if it might be possible to buy some from you.’
Queenie frowned. ‘I’m sorry, I’m afraid I need everything I have.’
Archie nodded like this was completely understandable. ‘I’m chief embalmer with the Skelfs, if you don’t mind I was wondering what you used it for exactly?’
Queenie eyed him up and down. ‘You’re an embalmer?’
‘For eleven years.’
She nodded, then looked at Jenny less favourably.
‘Come in,’ she said.
She rolled her hips down the hall, Jenny and Archie behind. The walls were lined with framed prints of twee Victorian children, fairies, small animals, all soft focus and cute poses. Queenie walked past the living room then kitchen, went to the end of the hall and stopped at a doorway to the right.
‘This way,’ she said, going in.
Jenny shared a look with Archie. Her fists were tight at her side, body making itself ready for something. Archie went first.
‘Careful,’ Jenny said under her breath.
The room was laminated floor, plain walls, bright overhead light, and it was dominated by a large workbench in the middle, an array of bottles and instruments on it, table lamp with a magnifying glass attached.
Jenny’s eye was drawn to the shelved display cases on the wall behind, full of hundreds of stuffed mice dressed as famous people in history. Jenny walked to the shelves, ignoring Queenie and Archie at the workbench.
Here was a mouse dressed as Napoleon, here was one as Julius Caesar, stabbed in the back by another mouse, presumably Brutus. On the next shelf was Winston Churchill mouse and Adolf Hitler mouse with tiny black moustache and swastika armband, his wee arm in a fascist salute. Jenny swallowed as she spotted a Christ mouse on a cross, Roman centurion mice alongside. Holy shit. It was comical but also creepy as absolute fuck.
Jenny turned and Queenie was beaming at her.
‘Taxidermy?’ Jenny said.
Queenie’s face fell. ‘Absolutely not.’
Archie was at the other end of the shelves and Jenny wondered what historical rodent hell was over there.
‘I embalm them,’ Queenie said. ‘Taxidermy is quite different. In taxidermy, the skin is usually just stretched over a voodoo doll.’
‘What?’
Queenie rolled her eyes. ‘It’s just called that, it’s not really voodoo. The armature for the animal. It’s usually foam or wire. Taxidermists treat the skin and fur and stretch it over the framework, throw away the body. I actually embalm my models.’
Models, Jesus. Jenny looked at Archie, hoping to share an eye-roll at crazy Queenie, but Archie was examining the mice.
‘Why?’ Jenny said.
‘Why what?’
‘Why embalm them instead of taxidermy?’
Queenie bustled over and picked up a Henry VIII mouse, held it delicately in her fingers.
‘This is more respectful,’ she said, and Jenny had to stifle a laugh, covered it with a cough. ‘This preserves the whole animal, not just the pelt.’
‘OK,’ Jenny said, trying not to make it sound sarcastic.
Queenie narrowed her eyes. ‘I can tell you don’t approve.’
‘It’s not that,’ Jenny said, waving a hand along the shelves. ‘I just wasn’t expecting this.’
‘It takes a little getting used to.’
‘Where do you get the mice?’
‘I don’t kill anything,’ Queenie said, replacing Henry VIII. ‘I get them frozen from pet shop suppliers. If I didn’t do this with them, they’d end up as snake food.’
Jenny moved away from the shelves to examine the workbench. Half a dozen mice in various stages of preparation, scissors, needle and thread, a pile of tiny outfits and materials, bottles of various embalming fluids, syringes, blue plastic gloves, a box of borax powder and one of cornstarch.
Jenny thought about the order from FME.
‘These are tiny,’ she said. ‘Can I ask why you need such a big order?’
Queenie smiled as she came to the workbench. The spotlight made her skin shine. ‘This is a business, I sell these on the internet. I’ve done thousands.’
Jenny looked again at the shelves, spotted a mouse Britney Spears dressed as a schoolgirl. She shuddered. ‘There’s a market for these?’
‘I make a good living.’
Jenny turned to Queenie. ‘And you’ve never embalmed anything bigger?’
‘Like what?’
Jenny shrugged.
Queenie shook her head. ‘Mice are easy to get. The availability of larger subjects is a problem.’
Jenny thought of the foot back home in the body fridge.
Archie cleared his throat. ‘This is beautiful work, Queenie.’
She glowed. ‘Thank you.’
Archie turned a mouse in his hands, nodded as he ran a finger down its leg. ‘Really excellent.’
Jenny thought about how the foot had been badly embalmed.
‘You mean…’ she said to Archie.
Archie placed the mouse on the shelf and minutely shook his head. ‘These are too good.’
Queenie looked confused. ‘Too good for what?’
‘Nothing,’ Jenny said, pulling a piece of paper from her pocket and showing it to Queenie. ‘Do you know either of these other people who got orders from FME?’
Queenie lifted reading glasses from the workbench. ‘Of course, they’re in the business too. We’re a wee club, supporting each other.’
Archie was now over next to them.
‘But they won’t be able to help you,’ Queenie said.
‘Why not?’ Archie said.
‘They need all their embalming chemicals for their work too.’