Come to Harm (9 page)

twelve

It was in their
slot in Glendinning's one day, tucked inside the
Radio Times
. But the layout of the shop—paper rack out of sight of the counter, in between the dairy cabinet and the bakery trays, so that people could pick up their milk, rolls, and newspaper in a oney and not make a crowd by the till while they were at it—that meant anyone could have put it there safe and unseen.

When it was opened, the message was clear.
I see what you are. I know what you do. I will tell them all.

They didn't have a fireplace in the new house, and even a match in a wastepaper basket was taking a risk, with all the smoke alarms ready to shriek out they way they did at the toaster set on frozen, the griddle pan on its fourth chop, the steam from the shower if the bathroom door was open onto the landing. So it was shredded, in the little hand-wound shredder they'd got for their statements and bills. And then went into the compost, mixed with the lawn clippings, potato peel on top and the last of the faded marigolds as well, until it was gone.

Monday, 21 October

Fancy was busy with the photocopier, so grimly bent on it that she could do no more than nod at Keiko and jerk her head towards a chair. She lifted a pile of red sheets from the out-tray, backed around to the in-tray and flipped them over.

“Same way up, turn them short side over short side, try one to start with …” She punched a button on the copier and stepped round to the out-tray to wait. “Bugger it! Upside down again.” Finally, she turned. “Hiya. Sorry, but I really thought I had it that time. So what, yeah? But this coloured paper's dead expensive and you have to use like ten times as much toner to make it show up. Check the state of it.” She held out the printed page to Keiko, turning it this way and that.

“I'll do it,” Keiko said, “if you have the manual. You're trying to make a leaflet with two folds, yes?”

Fancy fished inside the front door of the copier and held out a booklet, looking dubious. “I'll put the kettle on,” she said. “I want fifty, by the way, if you work it out.”

When Keiko took the fifty copies through to the kitchen, Fancy hugged her, squashing the sheets of warm paper between their bodies, then sat down at the table, divided the pile into two and started folding. Keiko sat down on the other side of the table and got to work too.

“Did you read it?” said Fancy. “What d'you think?”

“I didn't, in case it was confidential,” Keiko said. She took a drink of her tea and read the front page of the leaflet she had just finished folding:
Do you spend your days at a desk, on your feet, up a ladder, or under a car? Use the voucher on the back of this brochure and spend a night in the hands of an expert.
Keiko turned the page.
Aromatherapeutic techniques to soothe and refresh the tired bodies of busy people—neck, shoulder, back, leg, and feet treatments available individually or in combination
.

“It sounds lovely,” she said. “I would like relaxing neck and shoulders, please, since I only sit at a desk typing.”

“You can have a freebie when I'm finished with the course. And Sandra Dessing can stick it.”

“Vinegar Tits?” said Keiko. “How is it her business?” She managed to get that much out before she gave up trying to keep her face straight and started laughing along with Fancy. “You know that's what Murray called her. I, of course,” she clasped her hands under her chin and gazed upwards, “don't even know what that means.”

Fancy finished folding and kissed the top of the bundle. “So,” she said, “Murray Poole.” She smirked at Keiko.

“So, Craig McKendrick,” Keiko replied.

Fancy spluttered a mouthful of tea. “I thought Japanese people were meant to be dead polite.”

“Can I ask a question then?” said Keiko. “Since I'm busted already.” Fancy nodded. “What do you know about Murray's girlfriend?”

“Nothing,” said Fancy, looking away. “I never met her.”

“Oh! It wasn't a serious relationship then?”

“Can't have been,” said Fancy.

“Only Malcolm said that Murray wasn't over her.” Fancy was still staring at the cluttered sideboard. “Can I ask another question?”

“Absolutely,” said Fancy, turning back to her.

“Why did Mrs. Watson's niece leave?”

“What? Dina?” said Fancy. “She didn't. Well, she stopped coming, I suppose. She never lived here.”

“But the other girl lived here,” said Keiko. “Tash. Did you live at Mrs. McMaster's house together?”

“Look,” said Fancy. “What is this?”

“I don't know,” Keiko said. “A puzzle. I'm trying to make sense of things Murray said to me.”

“Ha!” said Fancy. “Good luck then.”

“Can I ask one more question?” Fancy nodded. “What did Mr. Poole die of ?”

Fancy blinked so slowly that it seemed she did not understand the words. “Nothing contagious,” she said finally. “You're not worried about the flat, are you? He hadn't lived there since the boys were at primary school, anyway, when they all lived above the shop together. You're
not
worried, are you?”

“No, not about that,” said Keiko. “Just … there was no kind of mystery about him dying, was there? No kind of question or anything?”

Now Fancy turned her head slowly to one side while still staring hard, as though she would be able to get a clearer view of Keiko from the corner of her eye. It made Keiko think of dolls' eyes or a mannequins', and she shifted uneasily.

“What the hell has Murray been saying?” Fancy asked, but she went on before Keiko had a chance to answer. “No, of course not. I suppose it was a heart attack.”

“You mean you don't actually know?”

“I'm trying to think if anyone said for deffo,” said Fancy, screwing up her face in concentration. “I think we just assumed. He was that kind of age, you know, and … Well, that kind of shape. I didn't get all the gory details,” Fancy groaned. “God, speaking of which”— she fanned out the pile of red leaflets—“I really hope this works out, and I'm pretty sure it's not gonna.”

“What's wrong?” said Keiko.

“It's costing a fortune, for a start,” Fancy began. “And it's dead, dead hard, but mostly what's wrong is it's bloody traumatic and I'll be a basket case before I'm qualified.” She shuddered. “It's the anatomy module.”

“Cadavers?”

“God Almighty, no!” Fancy shrieked. “Practically, though. There's physiology and we had to watch these totally disgusting films all about the muscle groups and that.” Her face was beginning to blanch, the skin around her eyes fading to pale yellow and her lips turning blue. She gulped and went on. “Then the practical work … we have to practice finding all the different muscles and tendons in each other, and you can really feel the gristle and stringy bits moving about.” She stopped and bent suddenly at the waist as though hit in the back of the neck with a sandbag.

Keiko chewed her lip in silence. After a moment or two, with her head still between her knees, Fancy went on.

“And the worst of is that after I've been to the class all I can think about whenever I'm moving around is all these, all these … bits. It does my head in. I have to go and lie flat. Once I had to go to the sick room in the college, cos I could hear all the strings in my hips clicking when I was walking to the bus stop and I fainted.”

“Isn't that going to be a problem when you're doing the treatments?” asked Keiko, struggling to keep the hoots of laughter tucked down inside.

“Just a bit,” said Fancy, sitting up. She sighed. “As if Old Vinegar Tits Dessing isn't bad enough.”

“You can practice on me,” said Keiko. “I don't mind if you faint.”

“You're a pal,” said Fancy. She was fiddling with one of the leaflets. “Sorry I got weird about Tash. We
weren't
here at the same time, to answer your question. She came after me and she was gone before I got back. Usual story—hit sixteen and legged it.”

“But she didn't return.”

“Not so far,” Fancy said, folding the leaflet into a fan. “She wasn't happy here. Didn't fit in.”

“How do you know?” said Keiko. “If you and she didn't overlap. Oh! Of course, Mrs. McMaster.”

“You're kidding,” said Fancy. “Pet never speaks her name. Nah, just gossip. I know she had a fella,” she paused, “a boyfriend, I mean, and a job—which was more than I ever got, but she didn't settle. Piled on a ton of weight before she left and that's usually misery, innit? Mind you, it was Etta McLuskie who said that and she's a total body fascist, so who knows?” Despite the price of the red paper and the extra toner, Fancy screwed the leaflet up into a ball, threw it up in the air, and flicked it into the wastebasket with a jerk of her head.

“No more questions,” Keiko said. “I'm sorry I upset you.”

“Me?” said Fancy, wide-eyed. “Why would any of that upset
me
?”

_____

It was only three o'clock when she stepped out onto the street to go home, but the light, already milky, was about to begin its long fade and the town was hushed, balanced on the moment before the children were let out of school. They would be lining up right now waiting for the bell to release them like breath on a seed-head. Keiko smiled to herself and Murray, coming towards her, couldn't tell whether the soft light and quiet brought the smile or the smile softened the light and stilled the air around her. He was beckoning her across the road towards him when she noticed him at last.

“Do you still want to see my place?”

“Of course,” said Keiko, asking herself when she had said so.

He led her over the corner of the Green to the pink building, fiddled with a padlock, and then hauled open a door, rattling it right to the end of its runners.

“This is your place?” said Keiko. She tried not to let her thoughts show on her face, but he guessed anyway.

“Nothing to do with me on the outside,” he said, twinkling. “I just rent this one room from old man Byers. He owns it and the colour's his fault.”

Inside, Murray punched numbers into the alarm panel and then flipped a row of switches.

Keiko stepped into the sudden dazzling light, taking in first size and emptiness, freshly whitewashed walls, enormous mirrors, and ranks of shelves. Then she noticed the canvas-covered hulks, six or eight of them, some on a soft green mat which covered half the floor, some resting on clean, grey-painted ground. She raised her eyes to question Murray's in the mirror opposite them.

He had taken off his coat and now he strode to the middle of the room, lifted one of the covers by two corners, and swept it up and off with one practised, billowing crack.

“Ta-da!” he said.

It was a motorcycle, black and silver, glittering under the lights. One of the old ones that looked more like a bee or a fly than something made by man. Before she could think of what to say, Murray had swept off another of the covers. This one was yellow with a duller gleam, just as old. The third—red, more paint and less chrome—shone as though water was flowing over it.

“They're beautiful,” said Keiko. Murray was facing away from her, pulling the canvas from one too big for his matador flick. It was blue and very heavy. So heavy that the paint and chrome bulk of it seemed almost to scrape the ground between its tyres, like an over-laden hammock.

“Harley Davidson,” said Keiko. Murray, rolling the canvas cover up in his arms, lifted his head to one-side with a slow wink and a click of his tongue. She looked towards the last of the shrouded shapes on this bare-floor half of the room, but he shook his head.

“It's not finished, not fit to be seen.” He laughed. “Nobody's Bantam ever gets finished. It's traditional.”

“Not finished?” Keiko echoed. “You mean you made these?”

“Kind of. Well, yeah, I suppose so.”

“So
this
is what you do,” she said. “You're really
not
a butcher.”

“I'm really not,” said Murray. “This is what I do. I strip them down and work out what's wrong, get new bits, and put them together again. Or hit things with hammers when I'm really stuck.”

“No!” said Keiko. “How could you hit these beautiful things with hammers? “

“You like them, eh?”

“I love them. They're like sculptures.” He frowned. “Don't you think so?”

“Oh, yeah, they're the best. Never thought of them as sculptures.” His eyes met Keiko's in the mirror. “But I see what you mean.”

Keiko walked over to him to look at the Harley close-up. She didn't have to be told not to touch it. “How old is it?” she asked.

“Knucklehead. Hard to say, really,” said Murray. “How long is a piece of string? I'm going for early forties. See this?” Keiko craned her head to look down at it from the same angle as Murray. “That's a cat's-eye dash. See? The way the lights look? That puts it between 1936 and '46, but this tank had a two-light dash when it came, '47 to '54, so who knows? It's about two and a half years old, is the short answer.”

He walked over to the black bike like a fly, Keiko following him.

“This one,” he stopped, and arched an eyebrow at her. “Sure you want to hear any of this?” Keiko nodded. “Okay, this one's a Vincent Rapide, 1948.”

“Really?” Keiko murmured, looking between the splendour of the Harley and this ungainly creature. “That's hard to believe. It's so much more primitive-looking.”

Murray made a show of looking around to see if anyone had heard her. “Watch it! That's a British bike. Postwar austerity. They were short of tubing, so the thing about the Rapide is it's got no frame.” He crouched down and started pointing. “The rear swinging arm pivots from the gearbox and rear suspension and the steering head for the front forks is attached to the oil tank.” He looked up at her expression. “Not so keen on this one, eh?”