Cold to the Touch (25 page)

He jerked his thumb in the direction of the delivery man, who stood by the door, quivering, looking for an escape.

‘Blamed for what?’ Sarah said.

‘Bringing her home. He did it, all right, but only because I made him. It was the only way. I couldn’t drive her myself – I don’t drive. Besides, I liked the irony of it and I could make them do it. I always kept tabs on who delivered to Pennyvale, I knew the delivery men, made it my business, a sort of homesickness. You got it all worked out, didn’t you, S for Sarah? Jessica died in my kitchen. I hung her up and bled her dry. Don’t ask who helped. Me and chef, another poor bastard who needs his job, got her over to Smithfield and onto the line, day after. We, sorry,
I
carried her when she’d cooled down. Who notices men in white coats around there? Takes a long while for a hot body to cool, even when the blood’s out. Especially Jessica, she was burning hot. Twenty-four hours, about. After that, they had no choice but to move her on or close up and they’d never do that. Not that lot. I knew they had no choice.’

Edwin Hurly reached into the pocket of his overcoat, took out a mobile phone on a leather thong and laid it on the floor next to his enormous feet. He was still a strong man.

‘Want to know?’

They stood around him in a semicircle, nodding at him, protecting each other. Mike kept hold of the knife.

‘She recorded it,’ he said. ‘Some of it, anyway. Didn’t notice that she’d taken her phone off, put it down on the
side. She was never without it, even ordered food on it. She turned up after about one in the morning when there was only me and chef, doing the business. I didn’t see her come in, she was sly. She was high and drunk, whatever the order. I don’t know what we do with this generation, expects too much, everything given. She expected too much.’

He coughed. It was a long, racking cough, sending his whole body into spasm. He gripped both sides of the chair, leant forward and spat onto Sam’s clean sawdust.

‘You can listen to it, if you like. She was never without that mobile.’

Sarah recognised it, a phone on a thong. Edwin Hurly saw her recognition.

‘You with that hook around your neck. You. You could take a man’s eyes out, any time. You go equipped.’

‘Always,’ she said.

He sat back and began to laugh. The laughter wrecked him as much as the coughing. Then he began to cry.

‘I don’t want anyone else blamed,’ he repeated. ‘For that poor little calf. Don’t look for that chef, either – he’s long gone.’

‘You were never a bad man, Edwin Hurly. You were good to me,’ Sam said, moving towards him, extending his hand.

The old man nodded and waved him back.

‘I was good to everyone, always was, only it didn’t always work. Always knew what was right for everyone, only no one else understood it. That’s why I’m here. Tell it like it is, boy. Come on.’

The delivery man stepped forward. The light had not changed in its fierce brightness, except that with them surrounding him it felt more as if they were shielding him. He spoke awkwardly and nervously with a heavy accent.

‘He’s right. He got her hooked up inside a truck. It was dark. She went down the line, into the stall and back and I was called to collect her and put her in the van with all the other stuff. He wanted her brought here. He always knew us men. He always knew who delivered where. He knew I came to Pennyvale, he was in Smithfield most nights, always nice.’

The delivery man hesitated. ‘I had to keep her in the van for a day, so’s I could deliver on a day when I was never expected. She was cool about that: she was cool all the time.’

He stuffed his fist in his mouth, distressed. ‘I’d seen her before, you see. Pretty lady. I
wanted
to bring her back. He said she was going home and he paid me and said I’d lose my job otherwise. He said I’d never work in Smithfield again if I didn’t and no one would ever know because she’d just disappear. I’d never hear about it again.’

Edwin Hurly ignored the broken voice and waved him aside.

‘Such confidence I had in you, Sam. You let me down.’

He had recovered from the tears, rolled his eyes, lifted a hand and wagged a finger at the delivery man.

‘No, no, no. Look at him. Loco, you see, absolutely loco and foreign with it. They do good butchers in the Ukraine, but loco. That’s his version, poor lad. Can’t be doing with these unreliable versions, even if they have to be heard. Yes, she died in the kitchen, yes, I bled her. The chef didn’t help at all. He did, poor sod, I made him. Yes, I took her to Smithfield to get rid of her, yes, he went too, or no, he didn’t. She gets in down the line to stall fifty-five, where there’s one man who owes me and wanted to keep his business open at all costs. He’s the no-choice man. They all are. That’s one version. Not a version I like.’

More coughing. Backstage, the kettle came to the boil.
There was the slightest tinge of daylight outside. Edwin Hurly continued.

‘Deal with my version, OK? I want my version to be the only version, if you don’t mind. Yes, she died in there, but it was me who brought her home, that’s my version. Miss Oh-so-smart S for Sarah will know which version is best for everyone. It was me and me alone. I didn’t kill her, although I might have done. My version goes like this, OK? It was me and me alone, because whatever else kind of a shit I might be, I was giving orders to no-choicers, they were thoroughly blackmailed and what I want now is
nobody
else to be blamed.’

He pointed his finger round the room, ending with the delivery man who stood back, shaking.

‘Of course it was
him,
poor sod, who carried her here. But let’s say it was me. Nobody need know I haven’t driven a white van in twenty years, wouldn’t be seen dead in one. I’m beyond all that, except for today. I couldn’t bring her, but I knew who could.’

The stabbing finger was directed at Sarah. ‘For the record, in front of witnesses, it wasn’t him, it was me. There won’t be a trace in his van, not the way he cleans it and besides, she wasn’t bleeding, so don’t go that way. Yes, the chef helped, but he was drunk and as far as anyone else is concerned he wasn’t there. He’s got his own lines and he’s paid off. Yes, the Smithfield brothers could have known how I got her onto the truck that came from Scotland, got her off again and onto the line and out again, but I’m telling you now, they didn’t. I’m old, but I can still heft a body. I could carry her for half a mile, it’s easy when you learn young. You could have done that all by yourself, couldn’t you, Sam? Especially if everyone else was busy.’

Sam nodded slowly.

‘But you didn’t,’ Sarah said in a flat voice.

‘Think what you like. Yes, I did. Better for all concerned if I did, isn’t it? Stowed her in the back yard, somewhere, for a day, we were closed the next day. Then I carried her down here, hooked her up. I’m the one who best knows how to do it and I know how to get in. I worked here, once, didn’t I, when I was twelve, long before I owned the property. I’m the one who knows how nothing changes here, nothing. I’m the one who would have checked with the delivery man that nothing
had
changed.’

Edwin Hurly glared at Sarah, leant forward, grasping the arms of the chair.

‘Why exactly are you here?’ Sarah said.

‘Because you fucking told me to be. You left me the paper. You let me know I was busted, and you let me know that that bastard son of mine was going to be hung out to dry. Can’t have that, either.’

‘There’s some goodness in you, then,’ Andrew said earnestly. ‘There’s goodness in us all. We must concentrate on that goodness in ourselves, whatever our belief.’

He looked towards Sarah imploringly, as if he was begging for forgiveness for her, too.

‘Oh, shut up, whoever you are. You look like a vicar and you’ll be as bad as the old one, pious, pompous bastard, although he did have a way with the ladies. My wife used to think the sun shone out of his arse. You’re a load of perverts and hypocrites. Spare me bloody platitudes.’

‘I meant to say,’ Andrew said, loudly and with considerably more dignity, ‘that there really isn’t much that can’t be forgiven, ultimately. And there’s nobody so bad that they can’t redeem themselves with their own bit of goodness,
however small. I say it because I believe it. Your daughter was in pain: so were you. And the fact that you want to exonerate others from blame for any part in it redeems you, it seems to me. Not completely – there’s no such thing – but it goes a long way.’

To Sarah’s surprise, this humble sermon was not met with contempt. Edwin Hurly listened as he let his head sink onto his chest. They waited in silence. Only Sarah came closer. Finally he looked up, and laughed.

‘So that’s why I’m here, then. My passport to heaven after a long spell in purgatory. Hell can’t be any worse than living here. Look at the time. It’ll be light soon. Any questions?’

Mike stepped closer, still ready to hit and still with the knife behind his back.

‘How did she die? Why the fuck did you hang her up like that?’

‘I wish you’d put that knife down. I’ve asked you already. Any more human blood in this shop and Sam Brady’ll be ruined. You’ll hear it all on her phone, she was recording it. There’s your bloody evidence. A god-almighty row, right? Her coming at me with those nails of hers, threatening to tell Celia, telling me I had to come home with her. The floor was still wet from cleaning. She was out of her head, furious. I can’t remember the sequence. Silly shoes. She was running, slipped and fell, she hit her head on the edge of the steel corner. You’ll hear, I talk myself through it, too. I didn’t kill her. I might just about have killed her mother by breaking her heart, but I didn’t kill
her.
She killed herself.’

Such a cruel, handsome face, Sarah thought.

Mike put the knife back in the rack. The light inside the
room seemed to grow dimmer at the mere suggestion that another day was beginning outside.

‘But slitting her throat, bleeding her  . . . WHY?’

Edwin Hurly considered the question briefly, puzzled by it, as if the answer was perfectly obvious.

‘I wanted her to look beautiful. It’s the only humane way, right? I’d heard her neck crack, I know when a beast is killed, I know it. I trained in an abattoir. There’s nothing as good-looking as a good well-bled carcass. Much more dignified than a body changing colour and stinking to high heaven within a day, I didn’t want that. Was trying to keep her dignity, keep her clean and sweet so she’d get home looking good. Be at her best. Nothing nicer than a well-slaughtered carcass. It’s a beautiful sight. Nothing more beautiful.’

Sam nodded agreement. It made sense to him.

‘There’ll only be ashes to put in the sea,’ Sarah said.

There was silence in the circle.

‘Look at the time,’ Edwin Hurly said to the delivery man. ‘Get that stuff out now. He’ll be opening in an hour or two, got things to do. Got to get this show on the road. You should have sunk the daft bitch, Sam Brady, when she looked her beautiful best. Before somebody else gutted her.’

Strange, to hear and watch the workings of an alien mind. Master butcher Hurly had his own terrible logic and standards of beauty, so different and yet so real that Sarah almost appreciated them – for a minute. A bled carcass which looked fit for human consumption was a prettier sight than a dead body dressed by an undertaker. There was no comparison. At least he had stopped short of gutting her. She was watching the alternative but viable morality of a man so sure that someone else would do exactly what he
expected them to do and so certain that others would behave and react as he would have done, with the same immaculate taste. Never doubting that Sam Brady, good butcher that he was, would feel the same admiration for a piece of work well done, take it out to sea in accordance with instructions, and get on with business. She did not want to listen to whatever was on that phone. Wanted to believe it was as he said. Wanted Edwin Hurly gone because, unlike Andrew, she could not muster a shred of compassion for this big old man who had slit the throat of his own daughter in order to get her home smelling sweet. He had done it for himself, not for her.

Edwin Hurly lumbered to his feet.

‘Better I don’t contaminate the place. I’ll go now, before anyone sees me. I leave it to you lot what you say, but my version’s better than the truth. The truth was the only way I could think of. For God’s sake, Sam, get your order indoors and get to work. Let that boy get back to London – he’s whacked. And you,’ he addressed Sarah, ‘you make sure it’s my version, right? It’s the one that gets everyone off the
hook,
if you see what I mean. That’s your responsibility.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘About my own business, not yours.’

He seemed determined upon a course, ready to move, still confident of being obeyed. She noticed the heavy boots on his big feet, far removed from the smooth city shoes he had been wearing in his own restaurant where he had looked far more at home than he did here. There, he looked like a swarthier version of the bankers and stockbrokers he entertained: here, he looked like a fisherman in the wrong clothes.

‘Going for a long walk. I need the exercise. I may call in
on my wife, only it is a little early. She’s not often an early riser. Probably not. Tell her I loved her once. Wasn’t her fault, it was this suffocating place.’

‘What do you want us to do?’

‘You know very well what I want you to do. Give my version, later in the day. Make it convincing, only give me a bit of time. Go home to your own beds. Keep the phone, it’s all the evidence you need.’

T
he delivery man and Sam Brady unloaded from the white van, scurrying in and out like large ants. Vacuum-packed ham, ready-jointed joints, pork and sausages in packets, instant stock requiring the minimal preparation for attractive display, wholesale, ready-prepared meat not requiring a butcher’s skill, except for one quarter of beef, a gift, the delivery man said. It was the only way to start again, for the time being. Organic local produce could wait, although in the meantime Sam knew it was the only way to go. Local produce was for later, because bugger the profit margins in the future; he wanted nothing else delivered in the dark from Smithfield. In the meantime, there was plenty for a display of meat within two hours. The future and the exorcism of ghosts depended upon it. The return of the village to a normal life, as a place with a centre, depended upon it.