‘So … did we go for dinner even?’ Paddy said.
We had wandered through in the dark and were sitting side by side on the couch, not touching. We hadn’t lit a fire since we’d moved in and the smell of the ashy grate made my stomach turn over. What century was this? Setting wood alight in the corner of your living room to keep warm. What were we doing here?
We were finding out we didn’t know each other. How could Paddy not tell me about three years in the North Sea? Somewhere underneath the shock – her skirt kicked up and the blood pooling – that was nagging at me. But, then, I hadn’t told him about my two times six months. And I knew how easy it had been. You just pushed it down so deep it was like it never happened. But I also knew what the pushing cost. So, even though this was the second worst night of my life, I felt the weight lift off me. No more secrets.
‘Finnie?’ Paddy was saying. ‘Did we?’
‘Depends. If anyone else heard we were going, we should say we went, right? Did anyone?’
‘I don’t know,’ Paddy said. ‘I don’t think so. Lovatt never mentioned it when he left the office. It was only when Tuft offered me a lift home. She thought of it on the spur of the moment, I think. I don’t know.’
‘You’ll soon be able to tell,’ I said. ‘When you go in in the morning. Won’t someone ask you how it went? If they knew it was on.’
Paddy rested his head on the back of the couch and blew out a long, shaky breath. ‘Right. When I go in in the morning.’ I could tell he was running over the office staff in his mind. I had always been able to tell what Paddy was thinking, from about our third date onwards. Lovatt was the only other partner, but there was Abby the trainee, and Julie in the front office. ‘I’ll go in, and when he doesn’t turn up we’ll phone, and when he doesn’t answer his phone, I’ll offer to come back and see what’s what. If anyone heard that we were going up for dinner they’re bound to mention it by then, right?’
‘Right.’ I felt as if I had a lead blanket over me, pressing me into the couch, like for an X-ray.
‘I’ll have to take the car, though. So I can nip back. Okay?’
I thought about being here on my own with no car, knowing they were lying up there, chilling and stiffening. I shook my head. ‘Better not do anything that looks different,’ I said. ‘If you don’t want to cycle, I’ll drop you off and then go in to work.’
‘But that’s something different,’ said Paddy. ‘You’re not due to start till Wednesday.’
‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I can’t just sit here. I don’t want to be here when the cops and ambulances come.’
‘Okay, okay,’ Paddy said. ‘You go to work. I’ll phone you and say I’m taking the car for a bit. Will I park it at the office? Or will you park it at the church?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Don’t phone me. There would be no need to tell me anything if you were just nipping out to check on them.’
‘There’s no way I’m going to make it believable.’ Paddy’s voice broke.
‘You just need to try to forget what we know,’ I said. ‘Act as if we’re starting our lovely new life.’
He said nothing.
‘And soon it’ll be over,’ I said. ‘We’ll be back in Edinburgh. But can we get the tenant out? Will we have to stay with your mum? My lot?’
‘I can’t think about that,’ Paddy said. ‘I just need to get through tomorrow without blowing it. I’ll go and check if they’re okay. I’ll find them. I’ll call the cops. And then somehow they’ll find out what happened. Maybe there’s a history. Something to explain it.’ He swallowed hard. ‘Except I don’t think I can do it, Finnie.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Okay. Have you got any meetings or appointments or anything?’
He gazed blankly at me. ‘I was supposed to be meeting the factor from Blackshaw,’ he said at last.
‘You are meeting the factor from Blackshaw,’ I corrected. ‘That’s the big agricultural conglomerate. Farm leases and contracting. Right?’
‘And having a quick check-in with Abby to see how she’s doing. I was taking over her training from Lovatt.’
‘You are taking over Abby’s training,’ I said. ‘Letting Lovatt take it a bit easy and concentrate on his pro-bono work for St Angela’s. How old is he anyway?’
Paddy shrugged. ‘Seventy.’
‘Bloody lawyers,’ I said, trying for a joke. ‘Never know when to quit.’ But it rang hollow and I saw a tear bulge up in Paddy’s eye. It brimmed there until he blinked. Then it splashed down his cheek.
‘It’s going to be a long night,’ I said. ‘We should try to rest.’ Then I burst into tears. I think it was the word ‘rest’. Rest in peace. Eternal rest. There let the weary be at rest. That abomination on the kitchen floor was so busy, even in its stillness. So many colours of blood and so many different ways for it to spill, in smears and drips and blots. Leaking out of the gashes in her hands and seeping up into the tweed of his jacket.
‘I really liked her,’ I said, scrubbing at my eyes. ‘I know I moaned on about moving to the sticks but tonight – for the first time – I thought I was going to be happy here, with a friend like Tuft Dudgeon. I thought we were going to be happy.’
‘Maybe we will be,’ Paddy said. ‘Not tomorrow and not for a while, but when all of this is over. You’ll make more friends. You’ve never had any trouble making friends.’
I nodded. I had never understood that difference between us – the way Paddy hung back. He’d pretend he couldn’t go to a party even when he was free. He’d pay for someone’s pictures ticket instead of asking them out for a pint. One time, just after we moved in together, I told him eight pals were coming round for pasta. I didn’t know what I’d done, but I knew I’d done something. He bought twenty-quid wine we couldn’t afford – I had been planning on a box each of red and white.
But Simmerton had been different, like a new Paddy to go with the new job and new house. He’d been up for this from the start. Even agreeing to go for dinner on the spur of the moment.
‘I’m not going to lose my old friends,’ I said. Paddy said nothing but he gave me a look I had to decipher. ‘Hang on. You’re not seriously thinking we might stay here, are you?’
‘I’m not thinking anything,’ he said, but I knew him and I knew that wasn’t true.
‘Won’t the office close now? Won’t you lose your job? We’ll lose this place.’
‘I signed the partnership papers, Finnie,’ Paddy said. ‘And I signed a lease on this cottage. Let’s see what’s what when the dust settles.’
When the blood dries, I thought. I shivered again. Not the port this time. Probably just the time of night and nothing but cold ash in the fireplace. January setting in.
‘I don’t think I can do it either,’ I said. ‘I want to phone the police now and get it over with. Get away from here. We can say we went back for my bag. Saw them, came here, locked our doors and phoned.’
‘But they’ll be able to tell they’ve been dead too long. What will we say we were doing?’
I tried to think about it. Five minutes to walk down the drive, two minutes to look for our key and realise we’d left it behind. Five minutes back up the drive. The bodies would still be warm when the cops got there. The blood would still be running.
‘Or we say we used your keys to get back in here and I didn’t realise I’d left my bag until … well, now. Then we went back.’
‘On foot? At this time of night?’
‘Or by car,’ I said. ‘I tell you what. Let’s do it. Let’s drive up there now and walk in, “find my bag” and then “see them” and then phone the cops. Eh? Why not? Then we’ll tell them the God’s honest truth.’
‘Without phoning?’
I could feel a scream beginning to build in my chest.
‘Phone, then!’ I said. ‘Phone them and get worried when they don’t answer. Then drive up.’
Paddy hauled himself to his feet and went through to the kitchen.
‘It’s ringing,’ he said. ‘Oh, God, it’s Lovatt’s voice on the machine. Will I leave a message?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘No. Hang up, Paddy. I’m sorry.’ I felt as if all my energy was draining out through the soles of my feet, but even as I had the thought, it made me picture the blood again. The spreading puddle of bright red under Tuft’s body and the seeping black stain on the back of Lovatt’s jacket.
Paddy was back beside me. He reached out and cupped my cheek, rubbing my temple with his thumb. It was usually comforting, but his hand was icy.
‘I don’t think we can go back now,’ he said. ‘We wouldn’t, would we? If we phoned at this time of night and they were in their beds and didn’t answer, we wouldn’t go bothering them.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘No, we wouldn’t. It’s crazy.’ I grabbed his hand, pulling it away from my cheek and squeezing it. ‘Look, we’ve done nothing really wrong, have we? Just a bit misguided. Let’s call the cops and tell them everything. Tell them why we didn’t phone. My prison sentence, your loan. Everything. How bad could it be, now that we’re not keeping it from each other any more?’
Paddy didn’t answer me. He changed the subject. ‘Is that – the conviction – is that why you’re only a deacon when women can be ministers?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I’m waiting till the twelve years are up and it disappears off my record.’
‘Not long to go.’ He sat down on the arm of the couch and pulled me towards him. ‘You’ll make a great priest, Finnie.’
‘I’m the lucky one,’ I said. ‘Twelve years and it’s gone. Gossip lasts for ever.’ I felt him flinch as it hit him again and we fell away from each other. ‘I’m trying to say I know we can’t phone the cops,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’
I double-checked the locks while he was in the bathroom. I’d been brought up on the seventeenth floor. The lifts were sometimes a slice of life but once we shut our front door we knew we were safe. Even the balconies had dividers that stuck away out, impossible to clamber round from one into another. And then Paddy and me’s flat was at the top of a tenement – the penthouse, I called it, only half joking – with an entry-phone. This little gingerbread cottage felt about as safe as sleeping under a bridge. There was the bay window and a side window in the living room, the bowed bedroom window, one in the kitchen, one in the bathroom and two doors. Nothing to stop someone lobbing a brick through any of them and just climbing in.
At least they couldn’t see us sleeping. Not unless they came right up and pressed their nose against the glass. Because the mattress was on the floor, the bedframe still in bits. The sight of Paddy lying down there with piles of clothes all around him made me feel better. It looked like a nest.
‘Turn the light out,’ I said, looking at the naked pane facing the drive. When he clicked the switch, the sheet of shining black glass glowed pale instead, from the fog pressing up against it.
‘Sorry I never got the curtains up,’ I said, shedding my dressing-gown and sliding in beside him. ‘I was going to ask you to help with it tonight.’
‘Right. If we hadn’t gone out,’ Paddy said. ‘What did we do if we didn’t go out, Finnie? Did we unpack?’
I leaned over him and switched the light on again. ‘Come on, then,’ I said. ‘We’ll sleep better for being tired out anyway.’
I started talking again, while I was holding the two sides of the bed and he was bent over the footboard, screwdriver in hand. His scalp was beginning to show through his hair at the crown. I wondered if he knew. I wondered if I should tell him, now we were done with secrets. Then the new secret, the one we were sharing, came screaming in again: her open mouth, the red underneath her blue pleated skirt, the black stain on his tweed jacket. So really I opened the subject to chase away that one.
‘Pad?’ I said. He grunted. ‘I don’t want you to tell your mum what you found out about me tonight.’
He sat back on his heels. ‘Good call,’ he said. ‘She’d definitely judge you. She’d recategorise you. Stop resenting you for being perfect and start looking down on you. She’d love it.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I know. Oh, God, maybe you should tell her. Maybe if people stopped hiding things and pretending life was better than it is, they wouldn’t crack up so much. They wouldn’t…’
As we both remembered why we were up after midnight putting our bed together, he bent his head again and picked up another one of the tiny screws.
‘Are we doing the right thing?’ he asked, just once.
‘No,’ I said. He froze until I went on: ‘We missed the chance to do the right thing. But we’re doing the best thing that’s still an option.’
It was gone three o’clock before we were done. All the curtains were hung. The bed was up, the kitchen sorted. The boxes were flattened, tied with string and stored in the shed. It certainly looked like the house of someone who’d spent their evening unpacking. And when we fell back into bed after another shower, Paddy was asleep on his second breath. I started the Lord’s Prayer and I was pretty sure I got as far as begging for forgiveness and promising to pay it forward before I drifted off. That was the bit that mattered right now anyway.
I dreamed of knives. Figures flitting between the dark trees throwing switch-blades that whistled through the air towards me. I caught them in my slick grip, gasping from the pain as they sliced into my palms, but knowing I couldn’t turn my back or the knives would bisect me.