Naming the Bones (13 page)

‘Hello, I’m phoning with regard to your advert in the
TLS
. My late husband Alan Garrett did some research into Archie Lunan’s death.’ The woman stalled as if expecting someone to pick up, then continued less confidently, ‘Anyway, give me a call if you’re interested.’ A number and email address followed, succeeded by a click on the line as the widowed Mrs Garrett hung up.

Rachel had suggested the advert to him on one of their early dates. She’d driven them swiftly along the unlit road, the dark nothingness of the reservoir below them, the lights of the city trembling in the beyond. Rachel had guided the car surely round the tricky bends and Murray had tried not to dwell on how well she knew the road. She’d slowed as they got closer to their destination, uncertain at the last moment of their turning, and a stag had started into the full beam of their headlights. Murray caught a glimpse of bright eyes blackly shining, a candelabra of horn, before the creature darted back into the night. He remembered a news report about a driver colliding with a stag, the beast’s antlers piercing first the windscreen, then the man’s chest, the injured animal tossing its head frantically trying to escape, the ruin of bodies found hours later.

He asked, ‘Are you okay?’

Rachel laughed, ‘Yes, that was a close one’, and pressed down on the accelerator. The turn-off appeared soon after on their left and she bumped the car gently into the pitch-darkness of the car park. ‘Here we are.’

He pushed his chair back. Rachel killed the engine and clambered quickly from the driver’s seat into his lap. They were kissing, her hands moving thrillingly down to his fly, his fingers unfastening her blouse, tracing the line between the lace of her bra and her not-yet-familiar-breasts, when Murray saw the shadowy form of another car resting mutely in the darkness. He stayed his hand.

‘There’s someone else here.’

‘Mmmm.’ Rachel had set him free and was rubbing herself against him. She wasn’t wearing any knickers and the thought that she’d driven him there naked beneath her skirt gave him a quick frisson of excitement. But the knowledge of the other car bothered him.

‘Do you think they can see us?’

Rachel leaned back and turned on the interior light. Her breasts shone whitely beneath their lace.

‘Let’s make sure.’

He reached up and quickly clicked it off.

‘You spoilsport, Murray.’

‘I don’t want an audience.’

‘Shame.’

She snapped open the front fastening of her bra and let her breasts fall softly against his face. They’d kissed and resumed their play, but the awareness of the car lurking in the opposite bay remained with him, and their coupling was clumsy and hurried.

They’d driven back down from the country park in silence, Rachel taking the turns more slowly this time, only gathering speed when she reached the straight road that bordered the reservoir.

She’d been hitting seventy-five when the headlights of another car shone in from behind, illuminating the dashboard. Murray turned and saw Rachel’s face caught in shine and shadows like a black and white photograph, her jaw set somewhere between a smile and a grimace. He realised she would have seen the car’s approach in the rear-view mirror and wondered if it, rather than the straightness of the road, had prompted her increase in speed.

The car was a Saab. It started to overtake and Rachel hit the accelerator, staying level with it, racing. Up ahead the road curved into a bend. Murray’s right foot pressed on an imaginary brake, the Saab zoomed on and Rachel dropped speed, letting it pull in front. Up ahead the car’s brake lights shone red. Rachel tailed it down to the cross, where the Saab made it through the traffic lights. For a second Murray thought Rachel was going to put on a spurt and follow it through, but at the last minute she hit the brakes. Murray jarred forward. The seatbelt’s inertia reel held him tight.

‘Sorry.’ Rachel looked at him. ‘Bit of a bumpy ride.’

Murray tried to reconstruct the shadow of the parked car in his mind, but it had only been a shape in the dark. There was nothing except his intuition, or perhaps it was paranoia, to suggest it had been the Saab Rachel had raced.

‘You had me worried for a moment.’

‘You’re always worried, Murray, it’s your default setting.’

‘That’s not fair.’

She put a reassuring hand on his knee.

‘Your being old school is part of what I like about you.’ Rachel glanced away from the road, letting her eyes meet his for a moment. ‘How are you getting on with the elusive Archie?’

‘Elusive is the word.’ Murray’s voice grew warmer. She’d never said that she liked him before. ‘I’ve been on the phone to the National Library. They have a few boxes of bits and pieces they’re going to let me have a root aboot in. What I’m really missing is first-hand accounts, contact with people who knew Lunan. It’s amazing how many of that generation are no longer with us.’

‘That generation.’ She laughed. ‘He wasn’t much older than Fergus, you know. Maybe you should interview him.’

‘I doubt they moved in the same circles.’

‘You’d be surprised at the circles Fergus has moved in.’

Her archness matched the grudge in his voice.

They drove on in silence, the city taking form for Murray as they began to get closer to the university. He looked again at the clean lines of her profile and wondered why she betrayed Fergus with him, him with Fergus.

They waited at the pedestrian lights on the Great Western Road. He could see the fish fryer in the lit window of the Philadelphia shovelling fresh chips into a vat of hot fat. Maybe he should offer to buy Rachel a fish supper, drive the scent of their sex from the car with deep-fried cod and vinegar. The lights shifted to green and she swung the car round a dawdling pedestrian.

‘You should seek them out.’

‘Who?’

‘Old associates of Archie’s.’

‘I intend to.’

‘It could be fun, like being a detective. Maybe you’ll go undercover.’

He put a hand on her knee.

‘I’d rather go between the sheets.’

‘I prefer you in your natural habitat.’

She changed gear, knocking him away.

‘The library?’

‘Now there’s a thought, between the stacks.’

She hit the emergency flashers and drew into the side of the road, double-parking so he could get out and catch the underground the rest of the way home.

He’d placed the same small classified ad in the
Herald, Scotsman, TLS
and
Scots Magazine
the following day.

It had resulted in nothing, until the phone message. He pressed
Return Call
and listened to the telephone ring out at the other end. He counted to twenty then broke the connection and dialled again. The ring had its own tone, its own rhythm, regular as a heartbeat. It jangled on, until he cut the call.

He thought back again to the drive home, Rachel in the seat beside him, her hand guiding the car down the gears as they descended into the city. Sometimes lately he remembered their moments together as if he were on the outside, a viewer watching a film, or a man behind the wheel of a car in a darkened car park.

Chapter Eleven

MURRAY WASN’T SURE
what happened to widows in the first three years after their husband’s death, but if he’d imagined Audrey Garrett at all, it was as stoical and underweight, a lady depleted if not destroyed.

The woman who buzzed him up to her third-floor tenement flat was well-nourished, with pale skin flushed red, and strawberry-blonde hair tied firmly back in a thick ponytail. Her black jogging pants, white Aertex top and air of no-nonsense vigour reminded him of the members of the Officer Training Corps he sometimes saw loading the university minibuses. Then she smiled, and the impression was dispelled.

They shook hands at the door. Her palm was warm to the touch. Murray was aware of a savour of fresh sweat and realised she was straight from exercising. He’d brought her flowers, a small bunch of yellow roses, conscious of avoiding anything flashy or funereal. He shoved them at her nervously, like an awkward suitor.

‘Thank you, but there was no need.’ She softened her words with a smile. ‘It’s a pleasure to share Alan’s work with someone who might be able to turn it to some use.’ Audrey raised the bouquet to her face, dutifully searching for scent in the cellophane-wrapped blooms, and Murray saw he’d forgotten to peel off the garage’s price sticker. ‘Come on through.’ She led him into a square entrance hall, messy with half-opened cardboard boxes, a jumble of bags and tangle of bikes.

He’d thought she was English, a Londoner perhaps, but now he recognised an antipodean inflection to her accent: Australia or New Zealand? He couldn’t tell.

‘You’ll have to excuse the mess. As you can see we’ve just moved in. Normally, of course, we’re a super-tidy household.’

She turned to check that he had got the joke and Murray met her eyes guiltily, wondering if she had seen his gaze drop reflexively to the tilt of her bottom. He looked away and met another pair of eyes peering at him from behind an open door in the hallway. They belonged to a small, solemn-faced boy with a mass of dark hair. Murray couldn’t judge his age: older than five but younger than ten, he guessed.

‘Hello, I’m Murray.’

The boy’s expression remained grave. He silently pressed the door to.

‘You’ll have to excuse Lewis. He’s shy of new people. My sister-in-law’s coming round to take him swimming in a while.’ Audrey Garrett glanced at her watch. ‘She should be here by now, but as you can see everything’s running late – as usual. I meant to be showered and changed before you arrived.’

‘I’m grateful you made time to see me at all.’

Murray glanced back towards the boy’s bedroom and saw Lewis Garrett’s eyes peering out again from the slit in the open door. He wondered if he should play the uncle and slip him a pound. But the boy saw him looking. This time he slammed the door.

Audrey said, ‘Lewis, that’s not very polite’, but didn’t stop to argue the point. She led Murray into a large bay-windowed sitting room piled high with boxes, like a fence’s secret warehouse.

‘Chaos reigns supreme.’ She flung herself down on the only piece of furniture in the room, a large right-angled couch that made Murray think of airports and long delays. ‘Lewis was only three when his father died. I’m afraid he’s a little shy of men, while also being completely fascinated with them, of course. He’s currently very taken with Mr Sidique across the landing. His beard is a big part of the attraction – reminiscent of Santa’s apparently. He may get his courage up and come through to interrogate you in a while, if Lisa doesn’t get her skates on.’

Murray perched on the far promontory of the settee and rubbed his chin.

‘No beard.’

‘No, that may put you at a bit of a disadvantage.’

He smiled, unsure of whether he should declare himself relieved or disappointed. Instead he said, ‘Lewis, after RLS?’

‘No, the spelling’s different. Choosing names for a child is an unexpected trial. Alan and I made a lengthy list. In the end we chose one we thought original only to spot it a month later, somewhere near the top of the most popular boy’s names in Scotland.’ She laughed. ‘Never mind, it suits him.’

Murray remembered the collection of names he’d found in Archie’s effects and wondered if it resembled the list Audrey Garrett and her husband had made. He contemplated showing it to her, but Audrey had moved on. ‘I’ll make us some tea in a moment. I’m absolutely bushed. I’m usually working when Lewis is at school, but I played hookey this afternoon and went running before I collected him. I’m afraid I overdid it.’

She stretched out a leg. Her feet were bare, their soles dirty, as if she had been sprinting shoeless through the city.

Murray found her friendliness disarming. He wondered if it was typical or if her chatter was a delaying tactic; a means to avoid discussing her husband’s work with a stranger.

He leant forward.

‘Don’t worry about tea. You’ve enough to do with your boy and all this.’

He waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the boxes.

Audrey Garrett smiled and said, ‘You’re wondering when I’m going to shut up and let you get on with it.’

‘No, not at all.’

‘I guess I should tell you. He was in Lismore researching Archie Lunan when he died.’

Just for a second Murray couldn’t think which man’s death she meant, then it struck him and he said, ‘I’m sorry.’

She shrugged, managing to acknowledge his consolation and its uselessness at the same time.

‘I thought it might be better to get it out there so you understand if I’m a little . . . well . . .’ She smiled. ‘Even after this space of time, I’m not always sure how things are going to affect me.’

‘No.’ He looked away from her towards the piles of brown boxes piled high like a defence, wondering what the correct response would be. ‘Perhaps you’d like someone else to join us, your sister-in-law maybe?’

‘Lisa?’ Audrey Garrett laughed. ‘She’s worse than me. No, we’ll be fine.’ The doorbell rang and she got to her feet. ‘Speak of the devil and smell smoke. Excuse me a moment.’

He heard a cheerful exchange of women’s voices, laughter and a child’s high, excited tones. Then the front door shut and there was a pause. He imagined her standing barefoot in the suddenly still hallway, gathering her strength. The new apartment held an atmosphere of brittle bravery. Murray pressed his hands together and sandwiched them between his knees. There would be a point when his own life tipped and the absent outweighed the living.

‘Peace, perfect peace.’ Audrey flung herself back on the settee, which shifted a little beneath her weight. ‘Lisa takes him overnight once a week to give me a bit of a break.’