The Day She Died (24 page)

But
, I told myself,
on the other hand, here it is
. Okay, he'd embellished a bit about how far he'd got. He hadn't skimmed over the blocks or done the windows, but still. There it totally was. And no wonder the other room was such a mess. There was no room in here for anything else besides this. Nothing in the two-foot-wide passageway between the front of House and the byre wall. Nothing, that is, except for a sack—an old-fashioned hessian sack, tied shut with string, leaning against the corner. I couldn't help myself. I tiptoed towards it. There was a bit of a smell coming off it, hard to say what kind of smell, but it stirred some kind of troubled feeling in me. I bent over and touched it. It gave and resisted both. It was squashy but there were wiry little points too. I knew I'd felt that before, the give and resist. What the hell was it? I pulled a bit at the string around the neck and peered inside.

Then I was out, banging off the stone and the breezeblock, ricocheting like a pinball, back out into the dark of the field.

A sack of them.
A whole brown sackcloth bag of them and I had felt them. Put my hand right on them and felt the curled ends give and the spike ends squeak and prickle. I retched and bent over, but my heart was thumping too fast and my throat was too tight. I had touched them! I had pulled the string. And it might have come loose and they'd all have burst out and I'd have been trapped in there with them flying around me. I'd never have got them back into the bag and Gus would know and—

Gus.

I was drenched in sweat but as cold as a corpse as I stumbled back, pulled the light switch, and closed the door. I locked up and dropped the keys back into the pocket of my borrowed coat.

Why would Gus have nothing at all in the same workshop as the piece except for a sack full of
them
? How could that be innocent? How could that just happen to be?

It couldn't. He must have collected them and put them there deliberately. He must be keeping them there as a way of scaring me if I ever stepped out of line. He'd tie me up in there with them, or he'd go to the workshop in the night and get them and empty them all round the room while I was sleeping and tie me down and …

I could hear a voice, and it was Lauren's voice, telling me to breathe in and breathe out. In for four and out for five. In for five and out for seven. In for six and out for nine and catch a hold of my racing thoughts and start to fold them up and put them away.

Of course he collected them. He didn't want me to walk on the beach and see them. It was just the kind of thing Gus would do. And they were in a sack in his workshop because … he didn't want to put them in the wheeliebin and upset me. He'd even taken the very first
one—off the end of the novelty pen—he'd taken it out of the
wheeliebin, taken it right away. That was last Tuesday night. A week ago today. I stopped short. Why did that thought bother me?

Or. Maybe he had a sack of them like he had all that other stuff lying around. Maybe he'd had it for years, lying about with the light bulbs and lamps, but last week when he knew I was coming, he moved the sack to the other room in case I saw it. And that was why he didn't want me to follow him through when he went to get Pram. Maybe that was the whole reason why he was so peculiar that night. Poor Gus. Worrying about me. I was glad I'd had that fright before I could look for a computer; he didn't deserve me spying after all he'd done for me.

I let myself in at the cottage door and went to find him. He was in the kitchen eating pasta with the children. He looked like he hadn't a care in the world. The same way he'd looked in Marks and Sparks with Ruby that day, before he smashed his phone. I smiled at him.

“I was just going to send out a search party for you,” he said. “You okay?”

“Party!” said Dillon. “Happy Birthday!”

“Your pasta's cold,” said Ruby. “And we ate all the top bit with the crispy cheese.” She waved her fork at the dish in the middle of the table, a wodge of pasta and, right enough, no top bit at all.

“I don't mind,” I said, sitting down. “I'm just happy to be here. I'd eat anything so long as I could eat it with here with you.”

Gus screwed up his nose and laughed. “Oh, kids,” he said. “This is too good to be true. What will we give Jessie if she'll eat anything, eh?”

“Liver,” said Ruby.

“Yum, yum,” I said.

“Rice pudding and gooseberries,” said Gus.

“Rice pudding and bogies!” said Ruby.

“Bogies,” said Dillon. And then he went straight for the big one. “POO!”

“No, no, don't make me eat poo,” I said. Gus leapt to his feet and went rummaging in the larder, came out with a jar of Nutella. He opened it, put in a finger, and then came towards me waving the brown goo like a snake's head, to and fro.

“Jessie eats POO!” said Ruby. I took a tiny nibble, no way I was going to suck his finger in front of the kids.

“Yum, yum,” I said.

“Not poo, not really,” said Dillon, troubled now by the thought of how often he'd had toast and Nutella maybe.

“Not really, baby,” I said.

“I'm a baby too,” said Ruby. “Dillon's the second baby. I'm the first one.”

“You're a beautiful baby, baby,” I said.

“But I'm a big girl,” said Ruby. “Bigger than Dillon.”

“Oh Ruby, I love you,” I said. “You're just brilliant.”

“I am actually,” said Ruby. “That's okay for you to say that. That's actually true.” Under the table Gus had reached out both his feet and grabbed one of mine between them. The pasta was lukewarm and under-salted—for the kids, probably. But I'd never tasted anything so good in my life. And when we bathed the kids together, me washing Ruby's hair and Gus playing subs with Dillon, I felt as if my heart had steel bands round it, it ached so much from wanting this to be my future. It was the happiest night of my life. Before or since. It was the best, most hopeful, most innocent moment I've ever had or ever will.

It lasted about half an hour. And it was my own fault. I pulled it to pieces single-handed.

“My turn,” said Gus, once the kids were in bed. “If you don't mind.” He had his coat on, the same one I'd borrowed, and his wellies too.

“You going to the workshop?”

His face clouded. “My turn for a walk,” he said. “I told you—I can't face the workshop just now.”

“I don't blame you,” I said. “Know the truth? That night we were there, I thought it was kind of creepy.” I thought he looked amused, and I even thought I knew why. How creepy would I have found it if he hadn't hidden that sack away?

As soon as he was out of the house and I'd followed the bobbing spot of yellow torchlight until it was far away down by the water's edge, I made for the phone in the hall and dialled 1471. There were so many clicks and buzzes I thought for sure it wasn't working, and the ring sounded funny too, but after a minute a woman answered.

“
Czesc?
” she said.

I punched the air. “Ros?”

“
Masz jakies wiadomosci o mojej siostrze
?”

“This is Jessie Constable, I'm a friend of Gus King and I—”

“You?” she said. “What is it you
want
from me?”

“Eva?” I said. “Oh, shit! You phoned back?”

“What are you talking about?” she said “You called me.”

“Sorry, sorry,” I said. “When did you phone? Did you leave a message? Did you talk to Gus? Did he tell you Ros phoned?”

“What? Why did you not tell me this earlier when I spoke to you?”

“No, no, no.” God, a
s soon as I talked to this woman it was instant confusion. I don't know whether it was her or me, but I had more luck talking to Kazek with the sound effects and the miming.

“Ros phoned
after
I called you today,” I said. “What time did you call here?”

“I called the number Kazek gave me yesterday and I left a message. I do not know what you are asking me.”

“I'll work it out and get back,” I said. I hung up the phone, desperate to get it out of my hands, like it was a wasp that had just stung me. If she had phoned yesterday and her number was the one in the memory, then how did Ros talk to Gus today? I thought it through very calmly and of course it wasn't that difficult. In less than a minute I knew.

There must be another mobile somewhere. There had to be. Gus had stamped on his, Becky had taken hers with her—she'd used it to call Gus, call his voice-mail anyway. But somewhere in this house, there must a phone that Ros had called to tell him she was okay.

It wasn't in his coat pocket. And it wasn't in his trouser pocket. (I'd put my hands in his pockets when we were standing looking down at the kids in their beds; there was only some change in there.) I looked in the hallstand drawer, with the gloves and spare keys. There was a charger but no phone. Nothing in the sideboard drawers in the living room. Nothing in the kitchen junk drawer. Nothing in the top drawer of Gus's dresser in the bedroom or in his bedside cabinet either. In Becky's bedside cabinet—this was the first time I'd opened it; I'd just been putting my glass of water on the top and ignoring the drawer and cupboard bit—there was a lot of photos. Ros and the kids, Ros and Becky and the kids, just the kids (where was Gus?). And a diary. It sat there in my hand like a grenade with the pin out. I poked a finger in and nudged the pages open.
I can't stand this anymore,
it said at the top of the page
. Life doesn't feel worth
—

I snapped it closed. I wasn't going to read any more than I had to, but I wished I had read it days ago. He was right to be satisfied, not to want the Fiscal making a song and dance of it. Even her writing was screwed up smaller than an ant with cramp. Tiny, tiny little writing—nothing like the scrawl she'd left in the suicide note, once she'd given up and decided to let it all go.

Where else could I check?

There was a basket in the back porch, where stuff got put that came out of pockets before the clothes went in the machine. That was a likely spot for a mobile to end up. I let myself out the back door, tipped the basket towards the light, picked out a few purple ponies whose pink manes and tails were hiding everything and … bingo! A phone.

With no charge. I tipped the basket again and threw it back in.

And that's when I saw the thing I'd missed before.

I reached in and pulled it out, feeling it stretch and then snap and sting my hand as it the end of it came free.

Ja jestem Droga, Prawda i Zycie
, it read. Polish. It was broken, the rough ends of the rubber pale and crumbling, like it had been ripped off. I turned it over in my hands. It had to be Ros's. Not as good as a phone with a number in it, but … if I knew what charity this was, maybe it would give me some clues. Like if I wore an RSPB one, people might find out I'd worked in the shop and then they could ask my old workmates and find out my mother lived in Sanquhar and go and ask her for my number. Or something. Worth a try. I took my mobile out and phoned the flat. Would he answer? He was being careful, letting the machine get it, but he picked up when heard me say, “Kazek, it's Jessie.”

“Jessie-Pleasie,” he said. “You okay?”

“Face hurts from grinning,” I said. “Listen.” And I read the words on the bracelet to him.

“
Ya yestem droga pravda ee zeekie
,” I said.

“Oh,” he said. A soft cry like he'd turned and seen a sunset. He said the words back to me, pronouncing them better. “How, Jessie?” he said. “What?”

“What does it mean?” I asked him. What were the chances he'd be able to put it into English, over the phone, without miming?

“Is Bible,” he said. “I am path and truth.”

“I am the way, the truth, and the life?” I said.

“You read Polish Bible, Jessie-Pleasie?”

“It's a … oh, shit,” I said. “It's a rubber bangle, Kazek. Arm, right? Hand? Charity?” There was silence. “Listen.” I held the bracelet up to the phone and snapped the rubber.

“
Opaska
!” he said. “
Bransoletka-cegielka
? Brad Pitt. Save fish. Save planet.”

“Yes!” I said. “We're getting better at this. It was Ros's.”

“No,” he said. “No way, Jessie-Pleasie. Not Bible. Not Ros.
Ja jestem Droga, Prawda i Zycie
? Was Wojtek.”

“It can't be,” I said.

“Police give?”

I turned the bracelet round in my hand again. The crumbling rubber on the broken ends, like it had been snatched off. Like in a struggle. Then I whipped my head up as a noise came over the turf, from the track, a hollow scraping, rumbling sound. It was Gus dragging the wheelies.

“I've got to go,” I said to Kazek. “Go to sleep, let Jesus keep.” Fuck sake, I was quoting my mother.

I shoved the bracelet in my pocket and slipped inside again. I didn't want to see Gus right now. I needed to get my head straight. It wasn't Wojtek's bracelet, couldn't be. It had to be Ros's. Maybe her mum sent it, and she snorted and gave it to Ruby, who wouldn't understand the words. And Ruby used it for a catapult and burst it, and Becky left it in the basket when she washed Ruby's jeans. There was a simple explanation for everything, really. Gus was a good man. And I was going to prove it. I was going to tell him the worst thing anyone could hear and he was going to love me anyway. And then I'd tell him I'd love him even if he told me the worst thing he could tell me. And he would. And it wouldn't really be bad, like my worst stuff wasn't either. He would explain it all. He would make sense of everything.