It swallowed me like it swallowed the sunlight, deadening my footsteps and stilling the wind. A cut, Shannon had called it. Jerusalem House, derelict now, was up a cut on the other side of the Simmerton valley, and all that the Dudgeons owned now was here in this one. ‘Five houses,’ I said, ‘and one or two pine trees.’
I had never seen them this way before, massed like an army, instead of standing in a bucket in the living room, twinkling and scented, or standing proud in the botanic gardens with a ring of needles, like a rug, on the wide velvet carpet of grass.
Those trees had no needles at all. They had no branches to speak of. Well, stunted little spindly things that made a cat’s cradle between the trunks. I stopped walking, stood in the middle of the drive and looked up, no need to shade my eyes, at the dizzying dwindle of them, far above me. Up there was a suggestion of green, a sign of life, but down here not even the rain could penetrate. The drive and ditch were dark with damp, like all of Scotland in January, but two trees up the bank, the bark was pale and dusty, and cobwebs hung on those cat’s-cradle twig tips, as if the trees had died down here.
But I needed to look where I was going, instead of gawping at the tree trunks, because surely the big puddle was coming soon. Yes, there it was, reflecting the white slit of sky above. And there at one edge were Paddy’s boot prints. And there at the other edge were mine. My heart rose into the base of my throat, bulbous and soft like an egg, choking me. We had wiped our fingerprints from the door handle and the edge of the kitchen island and left footprints leading to a murder scene.
Whimpering under my breath, I scuffed over Paddy’s first, leaving a churned mess of puddle mud and dead grass. You could still tell someone had been there, but not who. Then I splashed round the edge of the water, clouded and murky, reflecting nothing now, and started on my own.
I rinsed the soles of my boots in the puddle when I was done and checked I was leaving no new prints on the damp tarmac behind me as I went on my way. By the time the sinkhole was out of sight my breathing had calmed down and my heart had dropped back into its proper place.
What the hell was Paddy doing? Why wasn’t he here already? He was usually so dependable. That was what had made me fall for him, dull as it sounds. Not at first sight. It was his looks and his laugh that St Patrick’s night in the pub when I had my maple-leaf hat on and his hair was green with spray-on party dye. He was getting free drinks because of his name so he was hammered by the time we met. We were in the Doctor’s, my friend and me, partly because it was just round the corner from the dosshouse where I was volunteering and partly because my pal reckoned we might meet junior medics there and be set for life. ‘Drunk, confident, expensive shoes,’ she’d said, pointing at Paddy as he tried an ill-advised Riverdance on the wet pub floor. ‘He might well be a future surgeon and provider of gîtes and Beemers.’
He had caught sight of me at that moment and stopped dancing, wheeling back to face me. ‘That’s not a shamrock,’ he said.
‘No shillelagh, Sherlock,’ I’d said. I was pretty drunk too, drunk enough to find myself hilarious.
‘That’s a maple leaf.’
‘No kidding, Columbo.’ I was really cracking myself up.
‘Are you Canadian?’ He was none too steady on his feet and another drunk passing behind him sent him stumbling into my arms.
‘Am I Canadian?’ I asked, turning to pull my friend into the wind-up, but she had melted away leaving him to me. She was a good pal that way.
‘My name’s Paddy Lamb.’
‘My name’s Ontaria Trudeau.’
‘Really?’
‘No,’ I said. And finally he laughed too.
That was how it started, but soon enough it went deeper than a good time. He wasn’t freaked out by my job. He wasn’t put off by my family. He was nice. And good. And easy to love. He didn’t deserve this mess. Neither of us did.
I had reached the top of the drive and there was the house. The Agatha Christie house, I had called it. Arts and Crafts, Paddy had told me. I shuddered. The colour of it sickened me and the way the weak, bleary lights shone now it was daytime. And there was another light I hadn’t noticed last night, a carriage lamp above an archway leading round the side towards where the kitchen lay. Could I walk through that arch and, passing the kitchen window, happen to glance in?
A memory was nibbling at the back edges of my brain now. Tony was sitting in our flat in Edinburgh, with a decent pizza and the lullaby of traffic passing on the street below, and he was talking about … What was it? Public footpaths and rights of way and freedom to roam. I hadn’t really been listening. I’d never imagined I’d need the information. I’d happily walk to a beach from a hotel or to the other end of George Street to see if John Lewis had the shoes in my size, but walking through empty countryside in stout boots and waterproofs wasn’t me. Still, what I thought Tony had said – and not only because I wanted this to be true – was that England had all kinds of rules and regulations, but in Scotland you could go wherever you wanted. Within reason. And the only way to carry on up the Simmerton valley, without scraping yourself to shreds on those stunted pine branches, was to take a shortcut through Widdershins’ garden, either up the far side in two tyre ruts that must lead to a garage, or through that arch and past the kitchen windows.
I didn’t know anything about gardening, but I could tell as soon as I rounded the corner that the terrace beyond the archway was someone’s pride and joy. Lovatt’s, I reckoned, remembering Tuft’s sharp red nails and all the rings. The urns and pots dotted about were bright with flowers, even in January. Pansies, I decided. Roses, neatly trained up the house walls, were a far cry from the scramble of dead twigs that was threatening the shed down at the gate lodge. And the strip of dark earth they rose up from was free of weeds. It looked, crumbled and dark, like coffee grounds or caviar.
The first set of windows belonged to a living room. I saw ceiling beams and a dark green leather sofa-back, my own reflection tiny in a television screen. The next room was the dining room, long and thin – explaining the corridor we had taken to reach the kitchen doorway – with a table big enough to seat a dozen people and a sideboard with a crowd of bottles on a drinks tray. There I was again, in the mirror above the fireplace. And finally the kitchen. First came the small window above the sink. I remembered Tuft wrenching off half a dozen of her rings before she started rinsing the pudding plates to stack in the dishwasher. And there they still were, a little glittering heap on the sill.
My footsteps slowed as I came close to the big windows, a whole corner of windows where the little table sat. I was looking at my feet and felt my pulse begin to bang at the thought of seeing her face again. After another twelve hours, there would surely be some changes. The gashes would be scabbed over. The deep blood in its spreading pools wouldn’t be shining. It would be as dull as the smears now. And her eyes wouldn’t glint, after all this time. So perhaps looking now would be easier. Or perhaps from this new angle I would be able to see his face too. I took a deep breath, held it with my bottom lip caught in my teeth, and raised my head.
The curtains were closed. I was looking at the pale linings of a set of winter curtains blocking my view of everything except a row of little cacti in fancy pots that sat on the windowsill. Had the curtains been closed last night when we all sat down for dinner?
I couldn’t remember and I didn’t know what it meant even if they hadn’t been. Perhaps Lovatt and Tuft had closed them as part of tidying up and getting ready for bed. Only wasn’t it more normal to close curtains for the evening and open them at bedtime, so they were ready for the morning? That was what Paddy’s mum always did. She closed her curtains as soon as the lamps went on at dusk, but she pulled them back at lights out, so the dog-walking neighbours wouldn’t see them at six o’clock and judge her, I always reckoned. It didn’t matter so much on the seventeenth floor. My family only shut curtains when it was cold outside, for daytime naps, and when the sun shone on the telly.
I retraced my steps to where Tuft’s rings sat, winking and glinting as my shadow passed over them. I leaned across the strip of dark earth and pressed my cheek to the glass.
The island hid everything. I could see the bare, clean kitchen and that single dark smear on the edge of the ceramic cooker-top. But I couldn’t see the floor beyond. I couldn’t see anything on the table side of the room at all, except one flash of pink. And that flash of pink made my blood stop. It was one of the blooms on the Christmas cactus. The Christmas cactus that someone in the Simmerton florist must have sold to Paddy yesterday. The Christmas cactus covered with my fingerprints. And I couldn’t for the life of me remember if I’d admitted to Shannon that I’d ever met them, or if I’d denied it, or if I’d dodged answering.
I needed to go in there and get that plant. I needed to breathe through my mouth, so no smells reached my nose, and I needed to keep my gaze trained on the fleshy green leaves and soft pink flowers without looking down at the floor.
Except, if I did that, I might stumble over Lovatt’s sprawled feet. Would he still be stiff? I had no idea. Maybe if I knocked against one of his brogues lying so awkwardly, toes down, on the floor, he would skitter out of place, jagged and brittle. Maybe some bit of him – a clawed hand – would snag on some bit of Tuft and they’d both clatter against the base of the island.
So I would look where I was going. I’d breathe deeply in and out and I’d step around their feet, grab the cactus and go. There was no need to look at their faces. I had a strong stomach anyway. I would be fine.
I made it to the front door. I was standing in the little vestibule, with my hand stretching out, my sleeve pulled down over it, when my phone rang in my back pocket, making me shriek and stumble, losing my footing as I fell backwards onto the gravel.
‘Paddy?’ I said. ‘Oh, God, at last! What took so— Wait. Please tell me there’s no one on the way to the house. I need to get out of here.’
He wasn’t listening. ‘Finnie,’ he whispered. ‘I’m coming home.’
‘What’s happening?’ I said.
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Have you been out to the house?’
‘I can’t talk about it!’ His voice sounded close to breaking. ‘I’ll be home soon and I’ll tell you everything then. You can help me. You’ve got to help me. I don’t know what to do.’