17

‘Let go of the knife. Move away. Do as I say. Now. Please.’

Kate looked at the policeman, a bulging-eyed, ruddy-cheeked young man with an anxious expression who talked in too loud a voice. He was crouching, his right arm extended. ‘Miss, let go of the knife. Move away from him.’

‘He’s been stabbed.’ Kate’s head shook, confused by the policeman’s misdirected concern, confused by the blood which welled and oozed from the man’s stomach, around the knife’s hilt. ‘Is an ambulance on the way? Is a doctor coming? He needs help.’

‘Miss, you’ve got to let go of the knife.’ The policeman stretched out his arm further as if to reach her, still keeping some distance. The fingers of his open hand beckoned. ‘Please.’

A siren whooped before becoming silent. Kate saw the ambulance stop by the lane’s entrance. ‘Thank goodness. Tell them to hurry, can’t you?’

‘Miss. Look at me. Miss.’

Instead Kate looked at the knife, at the stain which seeped across the man’s clothes, at the blood on the lane, at grey cobbles spattered with dark scarlet.

‘Oh, hurry,’ Kate said. ‘Please hurry.’

‘Miss, no one will attend to him until you’ve released the knife. Please, miss, move away. Look at me. Here.’ The fingers beckoned again.

Kate glanced at the policeman, then behind him. A man and a woman wearing green overalls and carrying bags were walking quickly along the lane.

‘Here!’ Kate shouted out. ‘Hurry! Can you help him?’ She looked at the policeman again. ‘Why aren’t they coming? What’s wrong with them?’

‘They’ll attend to him the moment you let go of the knife. Please. Let go of the knife. Move away. Now.’

Kate stared at him. ‘His hands are on top of mine.’

‘If you remove yours his will come too. Do it. Now. Please.’

Kate glanced back at the injured man. She moved her fingers, tried to lift her hands. His hands held hers tighter. Hers were warm and sticky with blood, his were colder. ‘Don’t die,’ she said. ‘Please don’t die.’ She was startled to find his eyes were open. He was watching her.

His expression was soft and rheumy, that look of fondness, of affinity she had seen earlier. ‘My perfect girl,’ he whispered. His eyes filled with what Kate thought were tears.

‘No, not perfect,’ she managed to reply, and he smiled, wheezed, winced, the pain creasing across his face.

Kate felt the knife shift. ‘Oh God, please help him!’ she shouted behind her. ‘Please, one of you, help him.’

When she turned back, he was still watching her. His head nodded slightly as if in approval.

Kate said, ‘Who are you? Why do I know you?’

A smile creased his face. ‘Flora …’ he said. ‘I’m your father and you’re …’ His expression became indulgent before he winced with pain. ‘My girl, my perfect girl.’

*

Kate inspected her spread-out fingers with a puzzled, faraway expression as though wondering whose they were, how they had become so sticky, messy, why her wrists were cuffed. ‘Is that blood?’ she asked the curly-haired woman beside her. ‘Real blood?’ Kate’s attention shifted to the scene across the lane. Two paramedics were at each side of the stabbed man, two more at his head. All Kate could see were his boots and blood. ‘Is any of this real?’

Like her hands, her voice appeared separate, strange, part of her, yet not part of her.

‘I’m afraid so,’ the woman replied. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Kate.’

‘Your other name?’

‘Tolmie.’

‘Hello, Kate. I’m Helen Jamieson. I’m a detective sergeant. You’ve had a shock, Kate, haven’t you?’ Helen watched for a reaction. ‘Do you know who that man is, Kate?’

Kate shook her head.

‘Are you certain?’ It was a question but not a question, more an expression of curiosity. ‘Don’t you know him?’

Kate looked into Helen’s face with the same bemused expression with which she had been regarding her bloodied hands. ‘Do I? I don’t think so.’

‘He says he’s your father. He says your name is Flora. But Flora’s your sister, isn’t she?’

‘Yes. Flora …’ Kate blinked, as though trying to remember something. She wiped her face with her left hand, leaving a crimson smear on her cheek.

‘Is that man your father?’

Kate said, ‘I don’t have a father. I’ve never had a father. He can’t be my father.’

‘No?’ The same soft expression of curiosity.

‘No.’

‘What happened to him, Kate?’

Kate shuddered. ‘There’s a knife in his stomach. It’s horrible.’

‘Who put it there, Kate? Did he do it or did someone else?’

‘I think he did.’

‘Did you see him?’

Kate shook her head. ‘No.’

‘Did he tell you he’d stabbed himself?’

‘No.’

‘Was there anyone else in the lane?’

‘I didn’t see anyone.’

‘So you found him like this. It was just you and him, no one else?’

‘I think so, yes.’

‘What was he doing?’

‘He was holding on to the knife and the blood was coming out through his clothes.’ Kate stared at her hands. ‘Blood everywhere.’

‘So he’d already been stabbed when you found him?’

‘Yes.’

‘And slumped down like that?’

‘He was standing when I first saw him. Then he fell.’

‘Did he say anything?’

‘He said I was perfect.’

‘I think he said something more.’

Silence.

‘Didn’t he call you his perfect girl?’

‘Yes.’

‘That was an odd thing for him to say. Why would he say that?’

‘I don’t know. I think he thought I was Flora.’

‘Why would he think that?’

‘We look alike.’ Kate stared at her hands before wiping them on Flora’s jeans. ‘I’m wearing Flora’s clothes.’

‘I see,’ the policewoman said.

Silence.

‘The thing is, Kate, the guys over there …’ Helen nodded towards the paramedics but kept her eyes on Kate. ‘They say he’s been stabbed in the back as well as the front.’ Helen widened her eyes, inviting Kate to draw a conclusion. ‘Someone else must have done that, Kate, don’t you think?’

‘There wasn’t anyone else,’ Kate said.

‘Because,’ Helen carried on, ‘I don’t see how that poor man could have stabbed himself in the back and then removed the knife and stabbed himself in the stomach.’

Kate listened. Helen watched her reaction. ‘Can you explain that, Kate?’

‘No.’

‘It’s a hard one …’ Helen paused. ‘The thing is … the thing I need to find out, and quickly, is whether someone dangerous is out there or whether –’ Helen watched Kate’s eyes – ‘you stabbed him.’

‘No.’ Kate shook her head. ‘No.’

Kate saw a paramedic stand up and speak to a uniformed policeman close by. The policeman looked in Helen’s direction. There was a brief shake of his head followed by a nod of hers.

‘I’m sorry, Kate.’

‘Why?’

‘Your father’s dead.’

‘I don’t have a father. I’ve never had a father.’

A wicker tray with leftover breakfast was on the carpet outside Flora Tolmie’s door. Cal poured coffee into her used cup, gulped a cold mouthful, then another. He heard Mrs Hawes moving about downstairs, followed by the sound of a radio, two men having a heated discussion about the state of the economy. After returning the cup, Cal wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Flora, hi … it’s Cal McGill.’ His knuckles rapped on the door. ‘Flora …’ A floorboard creaked followed by the snap of metal. Cal wasn’t sure whether she was letting him in or locking him out. He tried the handle and opened the door on to a room which was high-ceilinged, simply furnished with a sand-coloured rug, framed prints of beach scenes on the wall, a bedside table and lamp, an armchair covered with chintz print of sailing ships and a large iron bedstead. Flora was walking away, towards the window. She was five feet six or seven, barefoot, dressed in black jeans and a lime-green jersey. Her hair was lighter in colour than Kate’s – pale ginger compared to rust-red – shorter, shoulder-length rather than down her back, finer-textured. She stopped by a round table on which was an old-fashioned and battered small brown suitcase held together by two frayed leather straps. She spoke without looking at Cal. ‘I know Alex is dead.’ Her voice sounded dead too.

‘I wasn’t sure if you did or not,’ Cal said. ‘I’m sorry.’

Her head shook, a succession of tiny tremors, and Cal wondered if she’d spoken those words out loud before: I know Alex is dead.

The quiet in the room was in contrast to the noise of the radio downstairs. It provided a jarring and contentious intrusion, the argument about the economy gaining passion. Cal reduced the volume by closing the door. ‘Alex loved you, you know,’ he found himself saying when he turned back to Flora. ‘When I met you last year … do you remember? … I asked him whether you two were serious, forever serious, and he replied, yes, he thought so, he hoped so.’

She looked at Cal, her face smaller, rounder and softer-edged than Kate’s. Her eyes were dulled and lifeless like her voice. There was no anger in them, nor any animosity against him. Perhaps, Cal thought, she was unaware of his role in digging up Alex’s grave and burying him at sea.

She asked, ‘Have you spoken to Alex’s family?’

‘Yes,’ Cal replied, ‘to Mrs Lauder.’

‘She blames me for Alex’s death? Did she tell you that?’

‘She talked about a lot of things,’ Cal replied. ‘I don’t think she knew what she was saying. Her son had just died. She was upset, flailing about for an explanation, to make sense of it all, for someone to blame.’

‘What did she say about me?’

‘Really, she wasn’t herself.’ Cal tried to deflect her again.

‘Tell me,’ Flora insisted. ‘Please.’

Cal sighed. ‘She said Alex lost the will to live after you’d gone. She said you abandoned him because he was dying. She said your interest was the future, having fun, not Alex, not what might have been.’

Flora’s head jerked as if he had hit her. ‘That’s not true.’

For a while neither spoke. Apart from her right forefinger stroking the edge of the suitcase on the table, she didn’t move. Cal wondered if that was all she wanted to know. Had he left Edinburgh early in the morning and driven 400 miles for an exchange lasting less than a minute? In that brief time, he realized Mrs Lauder’s assessment of Flora was wrong. Rather than a young woman who was cut and dried about leaving her dying boyfriend, this flesh-and-blood, living and breathing version of Flora Tolmie appeared not to have moved on at all.

Which begged the question: why did she leave Alex? If not about his burial arrangements, then what?

Flora’s finger stopped. ‘I didn’t know Alex was going to die the next day. I thought he would live for weeks, months even. The doctors said … I thought I would see him again.’ Her finger started moving, faster than before, in agitation. ‘Afterwards … Alex’s father rang me to tell me I’d killed his son by running out on him. He said I wouldn’t be welcome at the funeral.’

‘I know,’ Cal said. ‘Mrs Lauder told me.’

‘Can I …’ She hesitated. ‘Can I ask … about …?’

Cal noticed how her head shook, more little tremors. These, it occurred to Cal, were not caused by shock or emotion as before but by the question she was about to ask. His answer appeared to matter.

‘About the funeral?’ he suggested.

She shook her head, then took a deep breath, steeling herself before carrying on. ‘Before I left … Alex gave me a ring. He asked me to be his wife. Everything had been planned. His father would marry us in church the next day.’ Another breath. ‘I felt uncomfortable. It was all so sudden.’

Cal said, ‘You felt you should have been consulted?’

Flora looked towards the window. Her finger continued to stroke the suitcase. ‘Alex hadn’t mentioned marriage before. We talked about everything, everything. We loved each other. I thought we were happy as we were. But, without telling me, Alex had arranged a surprise wedding. There was no time for discussion. I had to say yes or no.’

‘And he was dying,’ Cal said. ‘Difficult for you.’

‘I didn’t want to hurt him. I loved him.’

‘What did you say?’ Cal noticed the fingers of her left hand were clenched tight and pressed against her thigh, hiding where a ring might have been.

‘I tried to sound happy, to be happy.’

Cal nodded, sympathizing.

‘As soon as I put on the ring, Alex said I might grow to hate him after he was dead, also I’d question whether he ever loved me. He said the ring, the wedding, would be proof of his love and if I found myself hating him, I should look at the ring. I should read the marriage certificate. I should take out the photographs of the wedding.’ A little cry, despair, escaped from her. ‘He’d even arranged a photographer.’

‘Why did he think you would hate him?’

‘I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me. It was to do with his past.’ She frowned. ‘He said it was the reason we met, why he arranged to meet me.’

‘Where was that?’

‘In a supermarket, pushing trolleys. I thought by accident. He always told me it was love at first sight for him. But it wasn’t, was it? He knew I was going to be there. He planned it. He must have followed me. What reason would he have had? A bet? Did he pick up girls in supermarkets? He said I would hate him if I found out. What could it be? Why wouldn’t he tell me?’

Cal was still puzzling over Flora’s revelation – Alex wasn’t that kind of person; he didn’t have secrets – when she sighed.

‘I took off the ring. I said I couldn’t wear it, not until I knew why I’d hate him. I told him I’d go away for two or three days. Then I’d speak to him again. I’d only return if he was prepared to be honest, open with me. I thought I’d see him again.’ She watched Cal. ‘You were his friend. Why would I have hated him?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ Cal said. ‘None. Are you sure he wasn’t confused? He was ill, taking medication. At that stage, he might have been muddled, frightened. He might have imagined you hating him. The drugs … He was desperate, clinging on to life. The ring and the wedding were his responses. He was trying to hold on to you as well.’

A long exhalation followed: sadness as well as exhaustion. ‘Why did he die?’ she asked. ‘He was expected to live for weeks, months.’ The speed of events appeared to daze her, also the feeling she could have done something, said something different, to change how things ended between them. ‘You know my mother went missing a long time ago?’

‘Yes, I gather you’ve been trying to find out what happened to her.’ Not for the first time Cal was surprised at the direction of the conversation. He played along. ‘You’ve launched a charity in her memory, haven’t you?’

‘The timing –’ a shadow darkened Flora’s face – ‘was awful. I had so much to do, dates in the diary, clothes to collect and distribute, and then Alex found out he was dying. We sat down and talked about everything. At the time, during the week he was living in a small flat in Oban because he was involved in a sea loch research project at SAMS. At weekends he would either stay with me in Edinburgh or I would go with him to his parents’ house. For his treatment we thought he should be with his parents because he could walk in the hills every day, visit the sea loch nearby, continue his research. I thought that would help to keep his strength up, his spirits up. He thought so too. I said I would drive north to be with him every Friday afternoon, after lunch, and leave again on Monday morning. I made him promise to tell me if the arrangement wasn’t working for him, and if it wasn’t, I’d drop everything and come to live with him because nothing was more important than him.’

A pause, a silent punctuation that Cal recognized as regret: if she had the conversation again she would have chosen differently.

‘So,’ she continued, ‘during the week, we’d speak every day, twice a day, and I’d tell him about work, about the people I’d met, you know, just chat. I thought he’d want to be distracted … a respite from having to think about hospitals and doctors. At weekends, we’d go for walks when he felt well enough.’ She looked out of the window, then back at Cal. ‘Perhaps that’s why he bought a ring, arranged a wedding without telling me. He thought I wasn’t in love with him any more because of the time I spent away from him, trying to set up the charity. Do you think he thought that?’

Cal said, ‘I don’t know. Even if he did, it wouldn’t explain why he talked about you growing to hate him.’

Flora’s eyes suddenly opened wide. She looked shocked, startled. ‘I shouldn’t have taken the ring off, should I? I shouldn’t have given it back to him. I should have said, “I don’t know what all this is about, Alex, but I’m going to leave you for a day or two to give you time to explain your past, this thing that you think will make me hate you, and I’ll continue to wear your ring until you do, because I can’t imagine anything you’ve done, anything in your past, could ever make me hate you.” If I’d done that, if I’d kept his ring on, he’d still be alive.’

Not just dazed, Cal thought, but a young woman who had been in this guest house bedroom too long and had begun to invent a narrative of blame about Alex in the absence of any other explanation about the suddenness of his death.

Cal glanced around the room. ‘Why are you here?’

‘I didn’t know where else to go,’ Flora replied, misunderstanding him. ‘I didn’t know what to do. I needed time to think.’

Instead of repeating the question, he said, ‘Your sister’s been looking for you.’

‘You’ve spoken to Kate?’ Flora sounded surprised.

‘She came to my office, asking if I knew where you were. She’d heard about Alex. She told me you’d written down my name, also “Speak to Alex about him”. She thought you might have been in touch with me. I said you hadn’t. She was upset.’

Flora turned away, upset too.

Cal tried again. ‘I meant why here, in Southwold? Why did you come here?’

‘Because –’ Flora looked at the small brown suitcase – ‘Mrs Hawes heard me on the radio talking about a suitcase that was with my mother when she vanished. The description was familiar to Mrs Hawes and she contacted me to say it had washed up near here on the beach, and had spent the last twenty-three years hidden under some newspapers in her garage.’

She glanced at Cal. ‘I’ve spent most of my life trying to find my mother and this is the first clue to turn up since she disappeared.’ A shrug, then her eyes widened: her answer to Cal’s question about Southwold: why here? ‘I didn’t know where else to go,’ she repeated.

Cal nodded.

‘Cal, please …’ She was nervous. What she was about to ask mattered. ‘Will you help me find my mother?’