twenty-eight

Thursday, 21 November

Pamela Shand arrived on time, declined coffee, and got straight to work while Keiko pretended to be reading. Should she show Pamela the necklace, saying she had found it out on the street? But if she said that she’d have to take it to the police as lost property, and she already knew she didn’t want to give it away. It was in her pocket right now and she ran her fingers over it. I will find you, she promised.

What she should do, she knew, was show it to the Pooles since they owned the flat, but just thinking about that made her pulse thrum.

Then she tried to tell herself that Nicole might have visited and the necklace might have come undone while she was washing her hands. Except the clasp was closed, and visitors do not wash their hands in the kitchen.

Finally she told herself that N could stand for lots of things, but when she thought of all the women and girls she had met here—Grace, Fancy, Pet, Etta, Mabel, Sandra, Margaret, Janice, Viola, Yvonne—she didn’t believe it was true.

There was a polite cough. Pamela Shand was staring at her.

“If you’re finished we can take a few moments to discuss anything,” said Keiko. “But only if there’s time before the next person.”

“Why not come round tonight and have some supper with me?” said Pam. “You’ll be drained after a day of appointments, and I would like very much to talk to you.”

“Really?” said Keiko, looking up.

“I’ve been trying to get to you,” Pam said, “but you’re very well minded. I really wanted to say there’s no need for you to feel you should put up with it. Even though it must be awkward for you, living above the Pooles.”

“Awkward?” Keiko said. She was aware of her pulse again.

“Uncomfortable,” said Pam. “Oh, why am I mincing my words? It must be hell and it’s about to get worse.”

Keiko’s heart was banging now.

“Christmas is coming,” said Pam. “I can’t begin to tell you what’s coming at Christmas.” She leaned in closer across the table. “Imagine a turkey so fat it can barely stand, stuffed with minced pork and covered in bacon and butter, roasted for hours with the fat ladled up and over it again and again until it glistens, served up burnt skin and all, with thick gravy.”

Although it was only an hour since breakfast, Keiko’s stomach gave a slow, luxurious rumble that she tried to cover by rustling the pages of her book and clearing her throat.

“Ah yes,” Keiko said, slumping in disappointment. This woman had some kind of fixation. All this outrage and drama and she was only talking about food again! “Yes. Yes, certainly, that’s a lot more meat than a Japanese family would eat even when feasting.” She gave a shrug. “But feasting is supposed to be out of the ordinary. And when the everyday custom is to eat so very much, then to make a feast seem like a feast they must need to …” She trailed into silence.

Pamela had those plump but narrow hands with dimples at the base of each pointed little finger, and she gripped the edge of the table with them now as she leaned even closer.

“I admire your fortitude,” she said. “But that’s not all. I’d love to warn you about the local delicacy for New Year’s Day, but I can’t bring myself to describe it. All I will say is that the time is coming for its preparation, and if it gets too much for you—here above the Pooles’—you are welcome to come round at any time to visit me.”

“You are most kind,” said Keiko.

“Not at all. Is there anything you don’t eat?”

“Nothing you’re likely to serve,” said Keiko, hearing the rudeness too late as Pamela frowned.

“I am a great devotee of world cuisine,” said Pam evenly, and they left it there.

_____

Mrs. McMaster laid down her pen after less than five minutes and Keiko could see that she had stopped halfway through a page.

“Fancy helped you with these, did she?” Keiko nodded. “I see.” She paused a moment and considered Keiko’s face closely. Then she shifted her gaze slightly off to the side and spoke again. “Of course Fancy was around the shop quite a lot when she was just a wee girl and … it’s a funny thing, you know, but a florist is right up there with a priest and a doctor for hearing things.”

“That is rather surprising,” said Keiko.

“Aye well, there it is,” Pet said. “Christenings, weddings, and funerals loosen the tongue. People will put it down to the drink, but drink it cannot be, for it’s just the same first thing in the morning across a florist’s bench. Things people would never breathe a word of face to face, eye to eye, you know? But there’s me not looking at them, busy with the flowers, and they’re watching my hands so they’re not looking at me, and they get to talking.”

Keiko waited.

Mrs. McMaster took off her spectacles and hooked them by one of their earpieces through a ringed brooch pinned to her bosom. “Some of your wee scenarios here are pretty close to home,” she said. “I’m surprised at Fancy.”

“I don’t think she meant to betray any confidences,” Keiko said. Mrs. McMaster only raised her eyebrows. “Really. She said she just let it all bubble up out of her subconscious. I thought she meant her imagination. If I’d known she meant subconscious memory …”

Mrs. McMaster looked less convinced than ever.

“Really, Mrs. McMaster,” Keiko said. “You must believe me: Fancy is always discreet about anything that could hurt anyone.”

“Oh?” said Pet. “Like what?”

Keiko flushed. “That girl—Tash—who left,” she said. “Fancy could have spoken about that and she didn’t. Ever.” Keiko swallowed. “She didn’t even tell me her last name.”

“Turnbull,” said Mrs. McMaster, her face clouding briefly, before the arch look returned. “Well, she’d hardly have dwelt on Tash to you now, would she?” she said.

“To me?”

“You’re stepping out with Murray Poole. And Tash was Murray’s first love. Broke his heart for him. No wonder Fancy didn’t have much to say.”

It took a few moments for Keiko understand. “Tash was Murray’s girlfriend?” she said. Her thoughts were reeling. Tash who left was the same person as Murray’s girlfriend who broke up with him? “He didn’t tell me,” she said. Then she remembered something even worse. “He said he didn’t know her!” She could hear his words again in her head: No can do. I don’t know their names.

“Sounds like he didn’t want to talk to his new girl about his old one,” said Mrs. McMaster. “It’s hardly surprising.”

Keiko didn’t answer. She was gone, reliving every conversation with Murray. How many times had he lied to her?

“I don’t think that’s what it was,” she said at last. “He said he didn’t know Dina either. And she left too. Or Craig’s—”

“Who?” said Mrs. McMaster. “Oh, you mean Dina Taylor. Mabel’s girl?”

“Taylor,” said Keiko.

“That’s right,” said Mrs. McMaster. “Nadine Taylor. Dina for short. Aye, she hung around him a while. But it didn’t last. What’s she got—”

“Nadine?” said Keiko, feeling her face changing colour.

“Now why would that surprise you?” said Mrs. McMaster. “What on earth are you up to together, the pair of you?”

They weren’t up to anything together, Keiko thought. He had hidden so much from her, even while he dropped all those hints of trouble.

“What ‘pair’?” she said with a dry laugh.

“You and Fancy,” said Mrs. McMaster. “What’s Nadine Taylor got to do with this?” She tapped the paper with her pen.

Fancy. Keiko felt a chill as if a door had been opened on a winter night. As many times as Murray had lied, Fancy had lied even more. She had spoken of Tash and of Murray’s girlfriend and never admitted that they were the same person. What was going on?

“Mrs. McMaster,” Keiko said. “Do you think I should cancel the profiling? Scrap all of these questions and start again?”

Mrs. McMaster blinked in surprise. “What?” she said. “Och, no. There’s nothing in there that wouldn’t be just the same in any small town in the land. As long as the names are changed, there’s no harm to anyone.”

“So … it’s not something terrible? I’m not in danger if I carry on?”

“Danger of what?” said Mrs. McMaster.

“Oh, being sued” said Keiko. “For example.”

Mrs. McMaster threw back her head and let out a merry peal of laughter. “What an imagination you’ve got,” she said. “You and Fancy are as bad as each other. No, you’re not in any danger. There might be one or two red faces here and there, but you’ve worked hard on this, so go ahead and don’t worry.”

She did go ahead. Full steam ahead now that she was able. She only wished she had remembered to ask Nicole’s other name while Mrs. McMaster was laughing. All day long, she let her subjects take their time while she hunched over her laptop, Googling.

She got Tash Turnbull out of the way first, aware that her interest might only be because of Murray. Tash Turnbull + foster + Painchton + McMaster, she typed and then, in desperation, missing girls. Of course she didn’t know how common a name Tash Turnbull might be, how odd it might be that she found nothing.

Then she turned to the real task at hand. She took the gold chain out of her pocket late in the day and held it tightly as she typed. Nadine Taylor + Painchton + Dina. She clutched the pendant so hard she could feel the points of the N digging into her palm. Again, there was nothing. Pages of businesswomen—realtors and attorneys—in Canada and Arkansas. Pages of Taylor genealogies.

She was alone by this time, the last of her subjects gone away. She opened her fist and spoke to the pendant.

“Where are you?” she said. “Who are you? Nadine or—”

She jumped at the sound of footsteps inside her flat and only just managed to get the chain back into her pocket as the living room door was opening

“Knock, knock,” said Murray. “You’re late. I’ve been waiting for you.” He was wearing warm-up trousers and a sleeveless tee-shirt, even though the night was cold with a squally rain lashing against the window.

“Sorry,” said Keiko.

“D’you always leave your door unlocked? That’s a bit too trusting for this town.”

“I wish you were a bit more trusting,” she said, blurting it out before she could think better. And without giving him a chance to answer she went on: “You did know Tash’s full name. Of course you did. And I bet you knew Dina’s name was really Nadine. I bet you know Nicole’s name too.”

Murray had taken a step backwards as she started talking. Now, he pulled in one long deep breath and let it go, hissing. “Sneddon,” he said. He came over and sat down at one of the other dining chairs set around the table. “It’s Nicole Sneddon. And I’m sorry.”

Nicole Sneddon, Keiko typed. Painchton.

Murray bumped his chair around to look over her shoulder.

‘You could try Nikki too,” he said “N-I-K-K-I. I’m sorry, Keiko.”

“Good,” Keiko said, watching the results scroll by. More realtors and executives, more genealogy.

“I should have just told you straight and asked you straight.”

“Yes,” said Keiko, still scrolling. “Asked me what straight?”

“To leave this alone,” he said. “What did you Google for Tash?”

“Tash Turnbull,” Keiko said. “Her name. The one you said you didn’t know.”

“I’m sorry,” said Murray for the third time. He paused. “Did you find her?”

“I didn’t find any of them,” Keiko whispered. “Nothing at all. All three of them are just … gone.”

Murray took her hand, lifted it from the mouse, and clasped it in both of his. “Please leave it to me,” he said. “Promise me you won’t put yourself in danger.”

“If you would tell me what the danger is,” began Keiko, but he was shaking his head. So she shut the laptop and went to change into her workout clothes. But she promised nothing.