Core of Evil (22 page)

Being in the car reminded Daisy of her own Volvo, sitting quietly in a back street in Colchester. She had been neglecting it, and by now it may already have attracted parking tickets, perhaps even been clamped. Retrieving it would be risky, and given that Sylvia had her own car, pointless. Soon this car would be hers, and she could leave the Volvo to rust in peace. It was, after all, a link to a past that she was trying to get away from. Best to let it lie.

Sylvia parked carefully beneath the shade of a large
tree outside the garden centre. They went in together, and while Sylvia pottered around looking for something suitable for a herbaceous border, Daisy wandered over to the area set aside for small trees. An entire row was dedicated to yew trees, and Daisy spent an enjoyable half hour wandering along it, noting the differences between the English, Canadian and Japanese varieties, running her hands through the needle-like leaves and across the reddish-brown, scaly bark. Such a versatile tree. So sturdy, so appealing, so deadly if used in the right ways thanks to the high dose of taxine in the bark, leaves and seeds.

Turning her head, she could see Sylvia pushing a trolley along, stacked up with small pots of various types. She let herself daydream for a moment, imagining how she could feed the yew to Sylvia in a variety of ways. The needles alone could cause what she believed was termed anaphylactic shock, if chewed as part of a strongly flavoured dinner. On the other hand, a gradual introduction of powdered bark into Sylvia’s food could weaken the heart to the point where it would stop. How delicious.

Growing tired of the yew trees after a while, Daisy went looking for Sylvia. She found her bending over a display of chamomile, trying to select the healthiest specimens.

‘Don’t they smell gorgeous?’ she asked. ‘I do so love the idea of a chamomile lawn. They thrive by being trodden on, you know.’

And some people are the same
, Daisy thought to herself, anticipating the day when she would be in charge in the house and Sylvia would dance to her tune. A month? Three at the outside, if she didn’t rush things. ‘Don’t you find the smell a little sickening?’ she asked. ‘I don’t think it’s quite the right thing for your garden. Let’s look for something else.’

‘If you really think so …’ Sylvia looked slightly hurt by Daisy’s reaction.

‘I do. You’ll thank me for it.’ Turning to the trolley, she noticed the large number of plants that Sylvia had collected. ‘Are you sure you can afford all this?’ she asked.

‘Oh yes,’ Sylvia smiled, her momentary hurt forgotten. ‘My husband left me very well provided for. The widow’s pension I get every month is more than I used to earn when I was working. I don’t know what to do with all that money.’

And that, Daisy reflected, was the best news she’d had all week.

While Sylvia pottered about looking at more herbaceous plants, Daisy wandered across to where a fine display of rhubarb was spreading its leaves and nodding gently in the sun. Such a neglected plant. Who, these days, ever cooked rhubarb pie or stewed rhubarb? And did anyone still remember that while the stalks were delicious, the leaves were highly poisonous, if cooked along with them? Oxalic acid, she believed.

Turning away from the rhubarb, Daisy found Sylvia talking to a gentleman in a blazer and sharply creased trousers. They were debating the various merits of bugle and cranesbill as a ground cover plant, and there was an expression on Sylvia’s face that Daisy didn’t like at all. She was smiling. More than that, she was
radiant
.

‘Oh, Daisy,’ she said, flustered, as Daisy approached, ‘this is Kenneth. He used to work with my husband, years ago. We just bumped into one another, would you believe it?’

‘What a lovely coincidence,’ Daisy said brightly as Kenneth took her hand. She couldn’t help noticing that his gaze only strayed briefly from Sylvia’s face. ‘My dear, we should really be going if we want to make it back in good time.’

‘I thought we might have a cup of tea first.’ Sylvia’s hand reached out to touch Kenneth’s sleeve briefly. ‘Kenneth and I have such a lot to catch up on. We haven’t seen each other for
years
.’

Reluctantly, Daisy found herself pulled along to the garden centre’s café, where she had to endure what at times seemed to her like a long-delayed and very polite courtship. Kenneth was charming, there was no doubt of that, and Sylvia was suitably charmed. Over tea and scones, which Kenneth paid for, Daisy saw her plans begin to erode. By the time the last cup of tea had been poured and the last spoonful of cream had been applied to the last
crumbs of scone, Kenneth and Sylvia had arranged to go to the theatre together the following week. Daisy was invited as well, of course, and she accepted in order not to look petty – something might still be retrieved from the situation – but she knew in her heart of hearts that Sylvia was now lost to her. She had another friend now, and that would make isolating her from the flow of the world and making her dependent on Daisy all the more difficult. Perhaps even impossible.

A part of her wanted to cook Sylvia and Kenneth a wonderful rhubarb pie, just to show there were no hard feelings, but there was no point in letting her frustration get in the way of her long-term plans. She would just have to start again.

After they had finished their tea and scones, the three of them parted: Kenneth to hunt down some slug repellent and Sylvia and Daisy to the Fiat, and then back to Leyston-by-Naze. The journey back was rather more strained than the journey there. At one point, Sylvia turned to Daisy and said, ‘Are you feeling all right? You’re very quiet.’

‘I’m just tired,’ Daisy said, and she wasn’t sure whether she was talking about the day or her life in total.

Sylvia dropped Daisy off just down from the station, after Daisy broke another long silence by saying that she wanted to do some shopping in the High Street. For reasons she couldn’t quite explain,
Daisy had been reluctant to let Sylvia see where she lived. Now she was grateful for her caution. If she was going to have to break things off and start again, it was best there was no connection between one potential victim and the next – even if that connection was Daisy’s rented accommodation. As the small Fiat drove slowly away, Daisy watched it go with mixed feelings. On the one hand, there was the aching loss of the house, the car and the wonderful pension. On the other hand, Sylvia had been quite strong willed. Dominating her would have taken time and energy, and Daisy had the feeling that both of those were in increasingly short supply. Something was pressing her on, forcing her to leave shorter and shorter periods between her murders. Sylvia would no doubt wonder where her new friend had gone, but she would recover – with Kenneth’s help. And she would never know what a lucky reprieve she had been given.

Instead of heading down towards the High Street, Daisy found her footsteps leading in a different direction – towards the other side of the pier, where row upon row of beach huts sat in regimented order, looking down onto the beach, waiting until the holiday season when they would open up like flowers, shutters and doors flung wide to catch the warmth of the sun.

From the road above the beach huts, Daisy stared down at the brightly painted roofs – red, blue, green
and yellow in chaotic array. Concrete paths wound between the rows, while concrete steps with steel pipe handrails connected them to the beach below. It all looked rather drab and sad now, but in the height of the summer the whole place would be heaving with children and parents, and smelling to high heaven of sun tan lotion.

Carefully, Daisy walked down the nearest stairway towards the beach. Sea grasses were growing up along the edges of the stairs and in between the treads: hardy survivors that would flourish even in the harshest of conditions. Sand had drifted into every crack and every crevice. The doors of one or two of the beach huts had been smashed in by teenagers looking for somewhere to shelter, to smoke their cigarettes and paw their unwilling girlfriends. As she reached the last set of steps, and carefully climbed down to the damp sand below, she could feel the weight of the beach huts at her back, like a hundred staring eyes.

The tide was in the process of going out, and her footsteps squeezed water from the beach as she walked. The receding water had carved the sand into tiny ripples. Small tubes of sand lay curled up every few yards: casts left behind by lugworms searching for scraps of food. Somewhere below the sandcastles and tide pools of the beach there was an entire world of blind, thoughtless life, writhing and squirming away, and yet nobody ever thought about
it when they were lying in the sun trying to get a tan, or running around playing volleyball, or throwing themselves into the waves. They weren’t aware of the horrors that lay just beneath the surface.

To her right, the dark bulk of the pier dominated the sky: blocking her view of the side of Leyston that she had come to know so well over the past weeks. On a whim, Daisy began to walk across to the massive wooden supports that held the pier up. She could walk beneath it, then find a way up to the esplanade on the other side. From there she could catch a bus back to her flat.

The wooden pilings were each set in a water-filled depression, carved out by the retreating waves as they swirled around the posts. The wood itself was covered, to a height of six feet or so, by seaweed: bladderwrack and various other kinds. Moss-covered rocks littered the waterlogged sand, and Daisy’s nose was assaulted by the overpowering aroma of decaying vegetation. She kept walking, avoiding the pools of still water and the stumps of rotted wood that poked out of the muddy sand, holding her breath until she reached the other side.

There, the panorama of the sky and of the esplanade calmed her down somewhat, and she even ventured to walk out towards the retreating tide. A small, still voice in her head suggested that she take off her shoes and paddle in the water for a while, but
she knew that she would have looked ridiculous. She kept walking along the beach, the massive promontory of the Naze up ahead of her. Other people were also on the beach, alone or in pairs, walking dogs or just wandering along by themselves. She felt isolated, vulnerable, and yet also somehow anonymous. To anyone on the esplanade she was just another figure walking along the sand.

Daisy reviewed her options. The theatre, she reluctantly decided, was not on the cards, if only for the fact that Sylvia and Kenneth looked like they might be confirmed theatre-goers, and Daisy didn’t want any well-meaning interference in her stalking. Perhaps the Widows’ Friendship Club might be worth investigating. Alternatively, she could always try popping along to one of the local churches on a Sunday evening. Morning services, she found, attracted too big a crowd. Worse, they all tended to know one another and socialise together. Sunday evening services tended to be more for the loners, the people who wanted to worship by themselves, rather than in company. She should be able to find a decent victim there. The problem was that the kind of women who tended to go to worship on a Sunday night were as poor as church mice, pardon the pun. Worse, she would almost certainly be noticed and approached by the vicar, and the last thing she wanted was a well-meaning cleric on her doorstep.

There ought to be a bowls club in the vicinity, Daisy decided. She was pretty sure she’d seen a bowling green from the bus on the way to her flat. Perhaps she should join.

The afternoon sun behind her cast her shadow out across the sand, and suddenly it was joined by another one. She turned her head warily. A small bundle of hair and teeth rushed past her feet and up to the water, backing up suddenly and then rushing toward the waves again, barking.

‘Terribly sorry,’ said a voice behind her. ‘He’s always like that. Always racing off, chasing his own shadow. I hope he didn’t frighten you.’

Daisy turned. The woman behind her was wearing the oddest assortment of clothes: legwarmers, a billowing skirt, a velvet waistcoat over a denim shirt, and a voluminous coat over the entire ensemble. Her hair, or what could be seen poking out from beneath a shapeless hat, was quite wild, turned gold by the rays of sunshine that spread low across the skyline. Her face, shadowed as it was by the sun behind her, was creased, rather than lined, and her eyes were a faded blue. She might have been ten years younger than Daisy, or ten years older: she had one of those faces that was difficult to put an age on. In one hand she clutched a plastic bag, and in the other a dog lead.

‘I said, I hope he didn’t frighten you.’

‘I’m quite unfrightenable,’ Daisy said, staring at
this apparition as if it had arisen from the sand in answer to her unspoken prayers.

‘Good for you,’ the woman said. ‘I’m Eunice. Eunice Coleman.’

‘Daisy Wilson.’

‘And are you a visitor to this benighted town, or do you have the misfortune to live here?’

Daisy couldn’t help smiling at the woman’s forthright manner. ‘I moved here recently.’

‘Then you have my condolences.’

The small bundle of fur and teeth that had rushed past earlier suddenly rushed past again, heading across the sand at breakneck speed in pursuit of the shadow of one of the gulls that hung in the air above them.

‘That’s Jasper,’ said Eunice. ‘Named for Jasper Johns, the artist.’

‘Is he famous?’ Daisy asked. ‘I’ve never heard of him.’

The woman looked at her strangely. ‘You’ve never heard of Jasper Johns?’

‘No.’

‘You’ll be telling me you’ve never heard of Jackson Pollock.’

‘I never have.’

‘Joan Miró?’

‘Her neither.’

‘Joan Miró was a him, not a her.’ Eunice shook her head grimly. ‘What is the world coming to?’

‘Are you an artist?’ Daisy asked, feeling as if she’d been drawn into a conversation that was spiralling out of her control.

‘I run an art gallery and craft centre,’ Eunice said, as if that were the same thing. ‘Not that people around here are that interested in arts. Keeps me occupied. Stops me from going doolally.’

‘What kind of arts and crafts do you have?’

Eunice shrugged. ‘Paintings I’ve picked up along the way. Some pottery. A couple of wall hangings. Nothing as tedious as embroidery. That’s not art, that’s just fiddling about. I do classes as well, or I would if anyone cared enough to come along. Coffee and cakes. All sorts. I’ve got a converted barn just out of town, next to the house. Off the beaten track, though. Not on the main tourist routes.’