Come to Harm

sixteen

The security light clicked on most nights, flooding the back of the house and the patio with a white glare that banished sleep as instantly as snapped fingers. Roaming cats set it off, tree branches in high winds, even a hedgehog one time. They had learned to ignore it and so the delivery went unwitnessed. The letter didn’t make itself known until the next morning. Then there it was, propped against the kitchen window, held in place with one of the large polished pebbles from the water feature, facing in, the front of it-for you-pressed against the glass, ink bleeding a little from the dew. And inside: There’s a name for people like you. There’s a word for it. I will tell them all.

As soon as the house was empty for the day, it was taken upstairs, up the Ramsey ladder, to the attic, into the eaves. It was filed between the pages of a weekly magazine, fifteen years old, one of hundreds, yellowing. It was put towards the back of the issue too, with the dress patterns and recipes, the black-and-white pages, where no one flipping through to see the articles and photographs would ever go looking.

Monday, 4 November

The first knock came half an hour early. Keiko was ready though, a pile of questionnaire papers and a mug of biros set out in the living room, the whole bottle of chemicals tipped down the kitchen sink and a vanilla candle lit, the door to her bedroom and bathroom safely closed.

She stepped back when she saw Malcolm Poole standing there but managed, moving sideways, to turn it into a gesture of welcome.

“I’m not coming in,” he said, his voice booming around the high empty landing. The creep across the road, Craig’s cousin had called him. “I just wanted to warn you to close your back windows. Mum said your bathroom window was open.”

“Yes,” said Keiko. “I open it every day. I didn’t realise. Please make my apologies to your mother.” Could a creep be female? She could ask Fancy.

“No,” said Malcolm. “Just this morning, I mean. I’m doing kidneys.”

“Oh yes?”

“Cleaning them. And they smell a bit.”

Keiko took a little sniff, feeling her lip curl and Malcolm, looking up briefly, noticed and smiled.

“I haven’t started yet,” he said. “They’re lovely, once you’ve soaked and blanched them. But they do smell at first, so I do a whole load of them together and freeze them down. I’ll go up to McLuskie’s after this and tell the girls to take their aprons in off the line.” He seemed to be waiting for a response, looking from side to side at the edges of the doormat.

“You’re very thoughtful,” said Keiko. “So… you’ll be busy in the little house in the yard this morning.”

He looked at her properly then, closely into her face for the first time, then shook his head, and made a massive movement of relaxation, leaning against the doorframe and throwing one leg in front of the other. He almost filled the doorway, an iceberg in his white overall and white boots, leaving just a sliver of space that she would have to jump through if she decided, for some reason, that she needed to get past him.

“No,” he said. “I do everything in the back of the shop. We don’t really use the slaughterhouse anymore. Hey!” he said, suddenly loud, the sound echoing. Keiko could feel her heart banging. “Hey! I’ll bet you’ve never had a steak and kidney pudding.”

“You’re right,” said Keiko.

“I’m going to make you a steak and kidney pudding. I only make pies for the shop, of course. They keep better. A pudding has to be made and cooked in a oner, unless you’re very careful, but there’s nothing like it. I’ll use ox kidneys. Beef suet. You know, suet is kidney fat. Makes sense, eh? All these old recipes.”

“You’re very kind,” said Keiko again.

“You’ve no idea,” said Malcolm. “Wait until you taste it. I’ll need to come up here to boil it, though. Easiest all round and let’s face it, the smell of it cooking is half the pleasure. You name the day and I’ll be here.”

Keiko’s thoughts raced. Then she said, “Come and cook it for lunchtime while I’m running my dry run. And all the people will smell the lovely smell and come downstairs and buy a pudding to take home!”

“A pie,” said Malcolm, slowly. “Puddings don’t keep to sell in the shop.” There was a pause. “So you’re starting your work this morning?” he said. “I saw the sign downstairs.”

Keiko made a gesture of mock panic, but her eyes were dancing. “You could come in and be the first person,” she said. “Your mother seemed a little… but it’s really nothing to be concerned over.”

“I’m already the first person,” said Malcolm, smiling down at his feet again. “Alien spaceships and killer tomatoes. Been there, seen it.”

Keiko laughed in surprise. “I forgot!” she said. “Yes, of course. But Fancy’s taken away my aliens. She said they were too distracting. She’s very firm.”

Malcolm uncrossed his legs and, bending one knee slightly, pushed himself up off the doorframe and stood straight. “Right. You go and push back the frontiers of knowledge, and I’ll go and blanch my kidneys.” He turned and moved away.

Mrs. Watson, it turned out, was the first person. She knocked on the door at quarter to ten, and then put her head round and called along the passageway.

“Shout at me, Keiko my darling, and tell me to get out and come back when you’re ready, but you’ll have to shout at me, for I’m that excited I can’t wait.”

“Mrs. Watson,” said Keiko coming along to the door. “You’re going to be so disappointed. It’s so very dull.” Mrs. Watson’s head disappeared and when Keiko opened the door, she was standing half-turned away on the mat. “But how can I shout at you, when I am so excited myself?” She took Mrs. Watson’s arm, walked her to the living room, and settled her down at the table.

“Now,” she said in a high voice. “Please read the instruction page and then ask me if anything is unclear.”

“Och, away,” said Mrs. Watson. “You tell me about it yourself. You’ll know it all back to front.”

“No, I can’t,” said Keiko in her normal voice. “Everyone has to have exactly the same introduction so that I don’t give more information to some and not others by accident and confound my methodology.”

“‘Confound your methodology’,” echoed Mrs. Watson. “Your mother must be so proud.” She nodded conspiratorially and turned her eyes to the page while Keiko sat in an armchair and pretended to read. When Mrs. Watson looked up, she leapt to her feet.

“Is everything is clear? Good. If everything’s clear, please go on to the sample question. We can talk through this one.”

Mrs. Watson nodded with shrewdly narrowed eyes and read aloud: “Mark the line to show how strongly you agree with the following statement: There’s no smoke without fire. You know what this is like? This is just like a séance. Make the mark wherever you feel drawn to make it. Let yourself be guided, empty your mind.”

“Well,” said Keiko, but bit her lip as Mrs. Watson marked the paper with a languid hand.

“What would you do if people started coming out with real messages,” she said. “Could you use that?”

“Do you believe in the spirit world, Mrs. Watson?” Keiko said, sidestepping Mrs. Watson’s question. She hadn’t put anything in the profiler about such paranormal things, since most British people were supposed to be so rational that they would scoff. And she didn’t want to offend the others.

“I’d like to,” said Mrs. Watson. “I sometimes feel as though there’s someone nearby. Don’t you?”

“Not really,” said Keiko, although she shivered as she spoke. “But I’ve never lost anyone close to me.”

“And long may that last,” said Mrs. Watson. “I don’t recommend it.”

Keiko hesitated. Was Mrs. Watson thinking of her niece Dina? If she was speaking Japanese she would have been able to tiptoe up to the questions, but in English the intrusion would be-

The doorbell rang.

“You run along,” said Mrs. Watson. “I know exactly what to do. You concentrate on the newcomers.”

It was Mr. McKendrick, dressed in a dark suit and black tie. He checked his step for a moment in the living room doorway when he saw Mrs. Watson bent over her paper, and looked rather ostentatiously at his watch.

Mrs. Watson raised her eyes without raising her chin, regarded him over the top of her spectacles. Then taking in his black tie she lifted her head. “Of course, it’s Tam Cleland’s funeral this morning,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it when I heard he was gone.”

“Aye, he looked such a tough old goat,” said Mr. McKendrick.

“But Mrs. Mackie was saying there’s nothing at the church.”

“No, it’s the crematorium, just. And no do.”

“Crematorium!” said Mrs. Watson. “He’ll be turning in his grave.” Then she put one hand over her mouth to smother the giggles.

Keiko got Mr. McKendrick settled and took him through the introduction, Mrs. Watson looking up at intervals and nodding. He viewed the mug of biros sternly and reached into his pocket for his fountain pen.

“No smoke without fire,” he said softly. “No smoke without fire. Would that be barbecue smoke? Because this was supposed to be about food, if you remember.”

“The food questions will come later,” Keiko said. “This is just smoke.”

“You’re not allowed extra instructions, Jimmy,” said Mrs. Watson. “It wrecks the methodology.”

Mr. McKendrick turned slightly away from her and addressed Keiko. “It’s true, you know. I was a volunteer fireman in my younger days. Even when there’s only smoke there’s either just been a fire or there’s going to be a fire. Or if there isn’t, it’s because someone sees to it that there isn’t. So would that be a yes or a no?”

“It’s not a clear yes or a clear no,” said Keiko. “You need to mark the line to show what mixture of yes and no. More yes? More no? Can’t say?”

“Just let your mind drift, Jimmy,” said Mrs. Watson, without looking up.

“And if you don’t know, if you can’t say, you leave it blank?” said Mr. McKendrick.

“No,” said Keiko. “If you can’t say then it would be in the middle. Neither yes nor no. You see?”

Mr. McKendrick nodded, kindly. “Aye well, I suppose that’s why you do a dry run, isn’t it after all,” he said. “To iron out these wee hitches. You’ll need to ditch this one before you get going for real, eh?”

Keiko smiled tightly. “Mr. McKendrick,” she said, “remember these answers are strictly anonymous. You should use one of my pens instead of yours, so that all the sheets are the same.”

Mr. McKendrick moved as though to put the lid back on his pen, then catching sight of Mrs. Watson staring at him, he set the nib down on the paper.

“I’ve nothing to hide,” he said, “and I trust you.”