Out of Mind (13 page)

There were more building materials piled outside the back door, including a heap of bricks. Jacqui pushed open the glass door
and we stepped into a large, light space that had been opened up so that there were no longer rooms, but a series of spaces
defined by partitions.

I saw that the alcoves that would eventually be exhibition galleries were doubling for now as living space.

“Mum’s flat isn’t ready yet,” Jacqui explained. “Sheryl and Kes have moved into theirs, but Justin can’t do stairs yet. Mum
and Christopher have been using this area downstairs anyway, so Justin’s got a bed down here, too.”

At Jacqui’s invitation I peered into one of the spaces, which was transformed by its only furniture, a bed, long and low and
beautiful, with a tan leather headboard that curved in elegant Italian lines. The white sheets were twisted, tumbled to the
floor. There was something about the careless beauty of that bed that arrested my eyes.

“They’ve knocked down lots of the original internal walls, as you can see. Not all of them, though, so the place feels open,
but there are lots of alcoves, which means lots of wall space to hang pictures. And they’ve enlarged the windows to let more
natural light in. They haven’t painted yet, so it still looks a bit rough.

“These are Mum’s,” Jacqui went on with pride in her voice, and I dragged my eyes from the beautiful bed and looked where she
pointed, at a row of tiny oils hung on the unplastered brick walls, each a miniature explosion of color. I stepped up to look
at the pictures more carefully and saw on examination that each was an exquisitely rendered still life, a classic arrangement,
vase and flowers, fruit. There was another canvas on an easel, the painting scarcely begun, no more than a few tentative strokes.
I went over to look at it. Even in these early stages, it was clear that this was to be a painting of the bed, the twist of
the sheet already outlined in brown ink.

“The paintings are beautiful,” I told Jacqui. I bent to pick up a brush where it had fallen on the floor. I handed it to Jacqui,
and she smiled.

“Do you know what this brush is made from?” she asked me.

I shook my head. I knew nothing about painting.

“It’s called Kolinsky,” she told me. “It’s mink. This one isn’t so romantic.” She held up a second brush. “It’s weasel hair.”

There were bottles of turpentine and linseed oil and tubes of oil, their names as gorgeous as their colors: burnt umber, Chinese
vermilion. “Luckily Mum does big ones, too,” she said, smiling wryly and nodding at a stack of canvases in the corner, “or
we’d never fill all the wall space.”

“Is the bed your mum’s, too?” I couldn’t help asking.

She nodded. “Whatever else you say about her, you can’t say she doesn’t have a good eye. And that’s Christopher’s room”—she
gestured at the neighboring space, with a baby’s crib and a camp bed—“mine too at the moment.”

“You live here, then?”

Jacqui pulled a face. “No. Definitely not. I share a house with friends off the Caledonian Road. I’m just here temporarily.
That’s the theory, anyway.” She broke off and gave a shake of her head, then considered me. I had the strong impression that
she really wanted to talk, and when she spoke again, it was as though she were sharing a confidence. “For years, Mum’s been
worried sick about Dad and all the places he goes to, and the things he has to do. She’s not the world’s most independent
person. So without him she’s like a shadow of herself. She was so happy when he said he’d leave the army and come and be at
home, and he wouldn’t go away again. There’s plenty of security work not too far from here. So Mum started painting again,
and then she got pregnant right away, which they said was an accident, and they decided to go in together with Sheryl and
Kes on this place. And then Christopher was born, and Mum got postpartum depression, and Dad buggered off to the other side
of the world, and she’s like a zombie all over again.”

“Is your mum on medication?”

“I don’t know. She went to see the doctor, but I don’t know if he did anything for her. She must be taking something, she’s
not herself.”

“So you’ve been left holding the baby,” I said.

“I don’t mind that,” she said. “Well, I do. That sounds terrible. I love him. But I can’t be his mother. And to tell you the
truth, that’s what I’m doing right now, being his Mum because his own mum isn’t up to it.”

“How can you look after Christopher and rehearse for a show?”

“Yeah, well, that’s the question.”

Jacqui turned and led me around the rest of the space. In the corner, as far as it was possible to be from Anita’s bedroom,
Justin had set up camp in another alcove.

Justin’s lodgings seemed to consist of a mattress on the floor, with a duvet crumpled into a mound on top of it. The bedding
looked too hot and heavy for summer nights. Jacqui stared at Justin’s bed.

“He’s been saying he might as well have died,” she said.

“I think I’d be pretty depressed, too,” I told her. “It doesn’t mean it will last.”

“He doesn’t think he’s going to be able to do anything,” she said quietly, “like walk and run and have a job and a girlfriend.”

Confusion clouded her face.

“He’ll do all those things,” I told her. “Justin doesn’t strike me as the gung ho type. It’ll take him a while, but he’ll
get there.”

“If he can do one of those things, he’ll believe he can do the others.” She sounded as though she were thinking aloud.

“It’s going to take him a while to find his way through it.”

“Yes, but other people can help him,” she said with determination, and I thought that in that moment she had reached a decision.

We heard movement from the staircase, and from the shadows first a woman and then a man emerged. The woman extended a large-boned
hand. She had a disconcerting smile that turned her mouth down, not up. She was of indeterminate age, with long, uniformly
black hair. She wore a Lycra T-shirt and leather trousers that followed exactly the line of her too thin legs, rising to a
large, flat bottom and a layer of thickening waist. Her fingernails were glossed. She looked down a narrow nose at me as I
told her my name. Her face, I felt, would once have been pretty and responsive, but it had hardened and become aloof, every
feature coated in foundation, powder, the mascara at the eyes grating onto the loose skin beneath. Her eyes had a skimming,
quick-moving quality to them that suggested she did not want to dwell too long or look too deep.

“Sheryl,” Justin’s stepmother gave me her name. “Who are you?”

The man who had followed her, elderly, with pronounced cheekbones and thin white hair, pushed past her and extended toward
me a hand that was covered in age spots.

“I know who you are, Miss Ballantyne.” He spoke slowly and smiled an enormously friendly smile. “I’m Ronald Evans. I recognize
your face from the television.”

I smiled tightly. People who saw my face in the newspaper and on television at the time of Adam’s death do sometimes recognize
me. I never react well.

Sheryl’s eyes went to Justin’s mattress. “I didn’t know we were having press here. We’re not usually in this state.”

She looked around her impatiently, wanting to tidy us all up. But Ronald was talking enthusiastically, his head nodding slightly,
beyond his control.

“I’m Sheryl’s next-door neighbor. Don’t you find it impressive what they are doing? My dear”—and here he turned to her and
seized her hand in his—“you won’t regret it, despite the temporary difficulties. Discomfort is a little thing weighed against
the success of your project.”

“Ronald,” Sheryl told me, “says that our surroundings are expressions of our inner landscape. He’s a man of great vision.”

Ronald Evans made an embarrassed noise and turned away slightly. “Sheryl’s too kind,” he said. “She asked my opinion about
one or two things, and I gave it. I don’t think I’ve quite reached the status of a visionary. Has anyone offered Miss Ballantyne
a cup of tea?”

Nobody answered him. Sheryl had started straightening Justin’s bed, and Jacqui was watching her, scowling. Ronald took me
by the hand and led me into another alcove, where a kettle, a toaster, and a microwave seemed to constitute the kitchen. He
looked around, then hissed at me, “I don’t know how long they can all camp like this. Let’s go up to Sheryl’s, it’s much more
comfortable. Sheryl”—he turned and spoke over his shoulder—“I’m going to take Miss Ballantyne upstairs, if you don’t mind.”

She waved her hand in a gesture of agreement and went on gathering up Justin’s dirty clothes from the floor. Ronald led the
way upstairs slowly and shakily, speaking as he went. “It’s a terrible strain to have everyone on top of each other like this.
I don’t mean . . . oh no, I don’t mean it like that at all.”

We got to the top of the stairs, and Ronald came to a halt and gathered breath. I looked around me and found it difficult
to believe that I was in the same house. The overwhelming style was what I believe some magazines would describe as “contemporary.”
A sofa was covered in leopard-print fabric, and the curtains were draped gauze, the dining chairs molded metal against a glass
table. A great deal of effort—never mind money—had clearly gone into all this, but the overall effect was unfortunate. There
were incongruous touches that suggested flounces rather than molded metal formed the landscape of Sheryl’s soul. There were
embroidered cushions on the leopard-skin sofa, and the fabric at the windows was secured with vast pink bows. I followed Ronald
to a small but well-equipped kitchen. He filled the kettle with water and turned to me. “It’s been such a stressful time.
The news of Justin’s injury. You can imagine, it was devastating for Kes.”

He said the name Kes with a certain amount of awkwardness, as though it required some concentration to pronounce.

“I haven’t met Kes.”

“Ah, well.” He stopped for a moment, a teabag between finger and thumb. “Mike and Kes are very good friends.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“But Justin is Kes’s son. He blamed Mike, of course; it should never have been allowed to happen.”

I made a noncommittal noise.

“I was here for dinner the night they heard—I do so admire Sheryl.” He paused, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “Sheryl’s
the only cheerful thing around here at the moment. She often comes over to me in the evening to watch television, just for
the company, her husband’s away so much. Anyway, as I was saying, we were all having dinner in the garden. Sheryl is a wonderful
cook, and she always wants to look after people, so she’d cooked a pheasant casserole. But Kes was desperately rude about
Mike, after a drink or two, you know. And Anita, the poor sweet girl, she’s not very with it these days, but she so wanted
to defend Mike, and she did her best, but Kes was very cruel to her. I couldn’t blame him, his son had been so horribly hurt.
Anyway, Anita left the table in tears and rushed off inside, and Kes had to go after her and apologize. It was awful, quite
awful.”

At that moment, a man appeared at the entrance to the kitchen. He was tall and thin, and his blond hair had faded and receded
from his long face, and it was not hard to identify him as Justin’s father, Kes. He looked white with exhaustion. I was not
sure how much of Ronald Evans’s gossip he could have heard.

“Kes,” Ronald said, looking embarrassed, “I’m sorry, I asked Sheryl if we might make ourselves some tea.”

Kes ignored him. His eyes were on me.

“Hello,” I said, holding out my hand, “I’m Robin Ballantyne.”

“And why are you in my kitchen?” The directness of the question was softened by the fact that he took my hand briefly.

“I came to see Justin,” I said, smiling. “I did ring, but I understand you were delayed.”

“You came to see Justin,” Kes echoed with a note of sarcasm. “You don’t happen to have a hidden camera on you?”

“Excuse me?”

“Mike told me all about you,” Kes said, his tone more mocking than aggressive. “How you pitched up in Pursat, how you started
asking Mike questions about the woman who’d disappeared. What’s your game?”

“There’s no game,” I said, no longer smiling. “I came to see Justin.”

Kes looked from me to Ronald, then back again. But as he opened his mouth to respond, he was interrupted by the arrival of
Anita and Sheryl. Anita’s eyes were still puffy from sleep. It was Sheryl who looked excited, but as she spoke I realized
that she was reporting Anita’s news.

“Mike just rang Anita,” she said. “He’s coming back. Isn’t that wonderful?” She held a mobile phone in her hand, and she waved
it high, like a victory flag.

Anita looked from Sheryl to Kes and then to me, in growing confusion. Her eyes welled with tears, and she sat down hard on
a kitchen chair and started to sob. Sheryl bent solicitously over her friend.

“Perhaps you could have your cup of tea another time,” Kes said in a tone of polite apology.

I nodded, turned, and walked downstairs, followed by a flustered Ronald. Justin was waiting, looking anxiously up the stairs.

“You’re looking much better,” I told him. “I’ll see you some other time. I think I should be off.”

“I’m sorry about all this,” he murmured. He shook his head, fumbling his crutches back under him so that he could walk me
to the door. “I think I wish I was leaving, too.”

I
spent all morning trying to get hold of Finney to tell him that Mike Darling was on his way back to Britain. It wasn’t my
place to tell DCI Coburn what his job was, but his ability to conduct a criminal investigation far outshone mine, and my priority
was to find out what had happened to Melanie. When I eventually reached Finney, he heard me out, but he was reluctant to get
involved.

“I’m not going to tell them what to do,” he told me in a low voice, “they’ll find out soon enough that he’s back. Coburn’s
a professional. He knows what he’s doing.”

I dragged Sal to the canteen for coffee. He hated any place that didn’t serve alcohol and sneered around him at anyone who
dared to come close.