I dabbed concealer on the shadows under my eyes, smeared blusher on my white cheeks, and tried to shake the dream off me. A nice neutral reading for the school assembly was what I planned. A nice neutral easing into my new role in my new place. I’d toyed with the Good Samaritan. But when I thought of the words ‘and stripped him naked and wounded him and left him for dead’, all I could see was Lovatt Dudgeon in the bright kitchen, still clothed, it was true, but wounded and left there. So I plumped for my favourite, these days. It’s topical, popular, uncontroversial unless you’re a total git: the sojourner at the gate. Or ‘stranger’, as the modern Bible would have it. The ‘alien’ is what American churches say, but that’s a bit on the nose, even for me.
An hour later, looking out over a sea of bent heads, I felt my throat start to tighten around the words I was reading. ‘And if a stranger comes within your gates you will not reject him. The stranger at your gate will be as one born among you and you will love him as you love your own family.’
As I spoke, an idea began to whisper itself to me, like another voice inside my head, drowning my own. I fell silent, listening. I even closed my eyes, to see if I could tune in any better. When I opened them again, none of the students were scrolling or tapping at their phones. Every face was turned up towards me. I felt a flush begin to creep up from under my collar.
‘That got your attention!’ I said, too brightly. ‘Here I am, a stranger among you! And it’s not me telling you you need to treat me like a lifelong friend, like a member of the family. It’s God telling you.’
Someone smothered a giggle. A teacher shushed them. I’d saved it. I hiked in a sharp breath and smiled. ‘Of course He’s not talking about a new deacon at your school assembly, is He? Who’s He talking about? Who is it we need to open our arms to?’
‘Hearts fans,’ shouted a boy in a Hibs scarf. ‘Forget it!’
I kept smiling through another giggle and another shushing. I looked around the room, waiting for a more sensible answer.
‘Like homeless and that?’ came a voice from the back. ‘Instead of moving them on kind of thing?’
‘Definitely,’ I said. ‘Who else?’
‘Immigrants,’ said someone off to the side. There was a rustle of whispers.
‘Refugees!’ Now they had it.
‘Foster kids?’
‘Gypsies!’
‘Visitors from outer space!’
A teacher turned as if to hand out a scolding for that one, but the kid turned to me, eyes wide and hands out, beseeching. ‘Eh, no, miss? If space aliens came we’d need to be nice to them. Eh, no?’
‘Absolutely,’ I said. ‘Imagine how scared they’d be. Let’s have a hymn now, so if they land their spaceship on the roof they’ll know we’re friendly.’
The teachers were glowering, but I didn’t care. The kids loved me. And the singing gave me time to ponder what that little voice had been whispering. There’s almost as much in the Bible about kindness to strangers as there is about murder. It used to puzzle me, till Jed in the first parish pointed out that it’s pretty easy not to murder people day-to-day and much harder to be open-hearted to weirdos. Lovatt should have tried harder to act like everyone else ‒ who need to be told. He shouldn’t have given Paddy a partnership and me a deaconship and both of us a cottage. He was even more reckless, giving Shannon a house and all that expensive equipment. And the Sloans were set for life. It made me wonder about the family with the skateboards. Were they lucky winners in Lovatt and Tuft’s big giveaway too?
I wasn’t going against what I’d agreed with Paddy. I wasn’t going to investigate. I was going to leave it. Like we said. I was just thinking. There was no harm in that.
It was eleven o’clock as I turned the corner onto the high street. I stopped at the coffee shop at the top of the town. It was what passed for a hipster joint in Simmerton, with an espresso machine, muffins instead of scones.
‘Am I too late for elevenses?’ I said, backing into Dudgeon, Dudgeon and Lamb minutes later with a cardboard tray. Paddy was missing, as I’d expected, but the other two were there, Abby in her office with the door ajar and Julie behind the front desk at her screen.
‘Lifesaver, you are,’ Julie said. ‘The coffee machine here makes pigswill. I have to burst my diet every day with Irn Bru to take the taste away.’
I put the tray down and let a small avalanche of sweeteners fall out of my sleeve onto the table.
‘Two lattes, one caff, one decaf,’ I said. ‘One Americano, one flat white. I’m not fussed so I’ll have whatever’s left.’
‘Paddy’s not here, you know,’ said Julie. She snatched up the Americano as I knew she would. She hadn’t got that figure chugging lattes.
‘What are you buttering us up for?’ said Abby, coming to the door of her office as I pulled the bag of muffins from my backpack and ripped it open to make a plate.
‘Not buttering,’ I said. ‘More like seeking comfort from familiar faces. I just did the school assembly. Feral, they were.’
‘Wee toerags,’ said Julie. ‘Mind you, we tormented the minister something chronic in my day too.’
‘And mine,’ I admitted. ‘So, Paddy told me you reckon the Dudgeons are a goner. Not just on holiday.’ I still wasn’t breaking my deal with him. I was just chatting. It would be weirder if I didn’t. If whoever it was – and I still couldn’t stop asking myself who’d put my bag on the hallstand – if they saw me being silent, like I was hiding something, they’d start to wonder what and why. ‘Has anyone told them along at the church?’ I went on, trying to sound casual. ‘Or will St Angela’s do that?’
‘I suppose it’ll get out soon enough,’ Abby said. She had tipped three sachets of brown sugar into one of the lattes and taken the chocolate-chip muffin. That explained her pasty complexion, I thought, then caught myself. I was too young to turn into my granny just yet.
‘That’s where Paddy’s gone right now,’ Abby said. ‘St Angie’s. To see if anyone up there can shed any light on it all.’
‘And you’re absolutely sure?’ I said. ‘Maybe Lovatt just switched to more favourable terms for Pad to give him a nice surprise. It seems weird to me but then I don’t know him. Is that what he’s like?’
‘It’s not just Paddy,’ Julie said. ‘Lovatt’s done a lot of clearing up and setting to rights on the quiet over the last few months. Things he’d definitely need to do if he was clearing out. Things he’d never do if he was staying put.’
‘Even getting Paddy in as a third partner, to be honest,’ Abby said. She caught my look. ‘No, it’s not sour grapes because he didn’t wait till I was ready, then hand the practice to me. Just that there’s not really enough work for two active partners and a trainee.’
‘We reckoned it was a first step to him retiring, didn’t we?’ Julie said.
Abby, chewing a mouthful of muffin, nodded glumly. She took a swig of coffee to wash it down and said, ‘This is going to cause a stink. St Angela’s would be totally justified in deciding they want another firm looking after them.’
I tried to look sympathetic, but I probably failed because, if St Angela’s decided they wanted to look elsewhere, I might lose my job too. I knew we couldn’t stay but you never want a decision like that to be mutual.
‘But is that what he’s like?’ I said. ‘Reckless? Incautious?’
‘He’s a lawyer,’ Julie said. ‘What do you think?’ She threw a cheeky look at Abby as she spoke.
I tried a different approach to the same spot. ‘Has he ever done anything that explains why he would do this now? What’s he running away from?’
‘To Brazil?’ said Abby. ‘The long arm of the law. Must be. We’re toast once everyone knows.’
‘So,’ I said carefully, ‘are you going through everything trying to find out where the irregularity is? The mistake he might have made. It must be professional, right? Embezzled funds, kickbacks from the planning department.’
‘I’ve done nothing but snoop in his private papers and records all morning,’ said Julie. ‘I can’t see anything. Lovatt was the king of “reply to all”. If anything he was too open.’
‘Maybe Paddy’ll find something,’ I said.
‘I can’t believe there’ll be “irregularities” up there,’ said Julie. She finished her coffee and dabbed her lips with a folded napkin. ‘I remember the beginning of St Angela’s. I remember Lovatt when his wife and children died. I worked for him up in Edinburgh, you know. He was broken. A broken man. And then this one adoption he just happened to be handling fell through and he couldn’t move on. He sat in his office with his hands spread on his empty desk and just stared into space. It was like … he couldn’t save his own kids but he couldn’t stand by and see another wee tot suffer. So then he looked at the record of the adoption agencies – the local authority and the privates – placing children like the one his client wanted to adopt, and at last he started to come back to life. It fired him up, you know. He was full of ideas, dashing off letters left, right and centre. He was himself again.’
‘But is it possible that – all fired up like that – he made a mistake and it’s come back to bite him?’
‘A mistake like what?’ Abby said.
‘I don’t know. Or maybe he cut corners, barged through red tape. What corners could a principled man cut – for the good of the children – that would get him into trouble if it came out?’
The two of them shared a troubled look, then shrugged. I had to take a step back if I wanted not to spook them. ‘Or maybe it’s Tuft,’ I said. ‘Maybe the irregularity is with the fundraising. That makes just as much sense, doesn’t it? Maybe Lovatt’s gone to be with her because she had to run.’
‘I tell you one thing,’ said Julie. ‘They didn’t have money worries. I’ve just been looking at the tenancy agreements for the cottages this morning and they were only asking a pittance.’ She gave me a quick glance. ‘If that.’
‘Let’s go back to Lovatt,’ I said. ‘I’m just kicking ideas around. What sort of thing could go wrong in an adoption and then come to light? Because here’s what I’m thinking: say a parent gives a kid up on some condition or other but no one who wants to adopt meets that condition, so Lovatt fudged it. Everyone’s happy. Only when the kids get to eighteen and find their birth parents, it all hits the fan.’
‘Illegal adoptions?’ said Abby. ‘St Angela’s kids aren’t really the kids that illegal adopters go after. You know? It’s healthy white infants that get smuggled and sold to the highest bidders. Not … I know it sounds terrible but it’s true. Look.’
She stood up and rummaged on the reception desk for a remote. She pointed it at the screen where the photos of houses for sale were fading in and out to the fake Twin Peaks soundtrack. She clicked the remote and the slideshow changed. Gone were the houses, and in their place were portraits of children. Some had breathing tubes taped to their cheeks, a few were strapped into full-support chairs, others were lying on mats, but all were grinning and some had been caught mid-guffaw, mouths wide and eyes dancing. The soundtrack was a cacophony of giggles and shrieks of delight.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Oh, God, look at them! Okay, so not illegal adoptions, but like I was saying. Cut corners? Irregularities? Say there was a sibling group that was supposed to stay together and he split them. Or say a family got a kid and handed it back and that was kept from the birth family. Something like that. Is that possible?’
‘It’s possible,’ said Abby. ‘Anything’s possible. But if that had happened the injured parties wouldn’t be secretly blackmailing Lovatt. They’d be shouting it from the rooftops. For the compensation.’
I nodded but I wasn’t really listening. I was trying to block out her voice because the germ of an idea was trying to take root in my head. Something someone had just said. Only all the words following on were washing it away.
‘Anyway,’ said Julie, ‘I still don’t think it’s St Angela’s where something’s wrong, if something’s really wrong.’
‘Exactly,’ I said, taking the plunge. ‘If something’s really wrong. How can we be sure Lovatt didn’t just have a big clear-up for Paddy coming, then whisk Tuft off on a surprise trip? He might come back in three weeks’ time and laugh at all the fuss. How can we tell for sure?’ No one answered. ‘I don’t suppose this “extreme openness” extends to personal finances, does it?’ I said.
‘How d’you mean?’ said Abby.
‘Well, if you knew his passwords for his personal bank account or credit card, you’d be able to find out if he booked return tickets. Or how long he arranged accommodation for. Or something.’
I knew I was shocking them but it was deliberate. I wanted to say outrageous things so that when I dialled back to my real idea it would seem mild in comparison.
Because I couldn’t keep the pact with Paddy. Three weeks of this would kill me. And I thought he was wrong to assume we were safe, just because nothing had happened yet. The sooner the bodies were found and the investigation started, the sooner we could admit we were scared, lock our doors, buy extra bolts, stop pretending life was normal.
‘Or does anyone have a key for their house?’ I said, offhand, like it had just occurred to me. ‘Does anyone go in to feed the cat or water the plants? Surely you’d be able to tell if they’ve gone on a trip or for keeps.’
‘Popping in at the house is better than hacking into his credit card,’ Abby said. She turned to Julie. ‘What do you think?’
Julie twisted her mouth to the side and screwed up her nose. ‘I know this is funny,’ she said, ‘because we’ve known each other for years and he’s brand-new. But technically he’s the boss, so I think we should ask Paddy. There’s a key in a fake pebble by the front door, but let’s ask Paddy. If he says okay, okay. Okay?’
Abby nodded and shifted onto one buttock to fish out her phone. She had him on speed dial already.
I couldn’t hear his side of the conversation but Abby was a good relayer. She gave us the thumbs-up and a grin, then an elaborate frown as she turned the thumb sideways.
‘Are you sure?’ she said. ‘Of course, of course. But … No, of course.’
We were all silent by the time she hung up, even paler than her pasty usual and swallowing hard.
‘What, for God’s sake?’ Julie said.
‘St Angela’s is winding up,’ Abby said. ‘Winding down. The staff’s down to one and she’s been on notice for six weeks. There haven’t been any new files opened for over a year. Henry, a year past October was the last one. They thought we knew.’
‘Simmerton Kirk definitely doesn’t know,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t have a job if Simmerton Kirk knew. And I won’t have a job once they find out.’ I had thought Paddy was nuts, Tuesday morning, talking like we could stay on. But here I was, two days later, mourning it.
‘Join the club,’ said Abby. She put down a half-eaten second muffin, looking a bit sick. ‘Disruption halfway through training’s a big blot.’
‘What did he say about going to snoop round the house?’ I said.
Abby blinked. ‘Oh! He said go for it. He said if we can prove Lovatt and Tuft have hooked it we can call the police and then – like you were saying, Finnie – if there is an irregularity somewhere, the cops’ll sniff it out. Something here stinks to high heaven, doesn’t it? I still can’t quite wrap my head round it but my nose is sold.’
I tried to smile at her, thinking I couldn’t let her walk into that kitchen, also that I didn’t know how to stop what I had started. ‘What if they’re … there?’ I said.
‘What ‒ like faking a holiday to get a bit of peace, you mean?’ said Julie. ‘I’ve been tempted to do that. Much cheaper, but it hurts people’s feelings if they find out.’
‘I don’t know what I mean,’ I said. ‘It’s just that they’re elderly and they’re missing and if it was just one of them I’d be scared they’d taken a tumble and were lying there.’
Abby stared at me.
‘Hazard of the job,’ I said. ‘I’ve gone into some bad flats once the neighbours got worried.’
Abby grimaced but Julie sniffed. ‘No need to worry about me,’ she said. ‘I was on the volunteer fire brigade for ten years after they opened it up to women. The sights I’ve seen!’
‘Oh, Julie’s got a world-famous gag reflex,’ said Abby. ‘‘Member when that mouse drowned in the toilet over the Christmas break and wouldn’t flush?’
‘Anyway,’ Julie said, ‘it’s not just one of them. It’s an empty house. No gagging, guaranteed.’
‘So are you both going?’ I said.
‘Best had,’ Abby said. ‘We need to witness each other.’
‘Can I come?’ I found myself asking. ‘I know I’m not part of the firm but I’m sort of connected one way and another.’ I couldn’t let them walk into that house, into that room, into that hellhole. If I went with them I could maybe try to soften it for them somehow.
‘Paddy suggested it,’ Abby said, with a smile.
That troubled me but I put it out of my head. Something lay ahead and it was going to take all my courage to get to the far side of it.
‘No time like the present,’ Julie said. ‘We could stop for a spot of lunch after. The church café does tomato and roasted garlic soup on a Thursday.’
I gave Julie a tight smile and hoped my face wasn’t turning white. The gashes on her hands as if she was holding bundles of red twigs. The knife bisecting his back, like the body of a butterfly between those spreading black wings.
Besides, Abby was shaking her head. ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a meeting to go over a power of attorney. Poor old Mrs—’ She flicked a glance at me and swallowed the indiscretion. ‘And I think I’d rather do it after work. On our own time? So it’s not so…’
‘After dark!’ said Julie, flashing her eyes. ‘Full-face balaclavas. Synchronised watches.’
‘I’ll come back at five,’ I said. ‘Take it from there, eh?’ Julie gave me a sharp look, hearing the break in my voice, but she said nothing.