Come to Harm

twenty-five

Which made the full set: oxters, high doh, crabbit, wasp up her. There were four people wound like springs with worry. Five if she counted Jimmy McKendrick. Six if Mrs. Watson’s dropping the cauliflower that day was proof of anything. Seven including Murray. Eight in total, with Mrs. Poole. The only one not anxious at all was Malcolm!

She opened a new document and set her fingers lightly against the keys.

Death of Mr. Poole

Slaughterhouse

Letter for you

Mrs. Watson

Committee

Then she added another column.

Death of Mr. PooleCrime?

SlaughterhouseScene of Crime?

LetterReport of Crime?

Mrs. WatsonWitness to Crime?

Committee

There was only one way to fill that last slot, as far as she could see. Another word she could type but would never try to pronounce: Perpetrator. But where did that leave Malcolm-innocent bystander? And what about the missing girls-more witnesses? She leaned on the delete key until the two columns were gone.

There was definitely a secret in this town, but was it a secret crime in the past or a secret plan for the future? She was almost sure that all the worry was about something coming, something looming, not leftover guilt about something over and gone. But if that was so, then what did Mr. Poole have to do with it?

Keiko sat back and stared across the room. Maybe he found out about it. Maybe he even threatened to stop them.

This theory had a gaping hole, of course: she had no real evidence that Mr. Poole’s death was suspicious in any way.

Thursday, 14 November

“Murray’s round at the bikes,” Malcolm said as she entered the shop. He was staring at a large haunch of pale meat on his cutting block, perhaps deciding where to divide it.

“I’m not looking for Murray,” said Keiko.

“Not a problem upstairs, is there?”

“None at all. I want to speak to you because you find it easy to talk about your father.” She took a deep breath. “Is there any reason I shouldn’t be asking about food and health? It occurred to me that it might be unfeeling. Because of… heart trouble… and your father.”

“Oh, right!” said Malcolm, looking up again. “My father didn’t die of heart trouble.”

“I beg your pardon, then. I thought someone told me so.”

“At least not in the way you mean,” said Malcolm. He ran the flat of his hand back and forth over the haunch of meat, smiling at her. “I once heard a doctor say that heart failure is what kills everyone in the end.” Keiko couldn’t match his smile. Malcolm said nothing for a moment and then he nodded as though deciding.

“No, you’re all right with food questions,” he said. “But it shouldn’t be cheese and chocolate and apples and kale.”

“Oh?”

“You should stick to this,” he said, slapping down with both his hands.

“Why?” said Keiko, glancing at his hands and then away again.

“If it’s why people eat what they do, meat’s best,” said Malcolm. He was absentmindedly plucking bristles from the skin of whatever animal was on the cutting surface. “Because it’s the only food that needs an explanation, isn’t it? It doesn’t make sense if you think about it too long. Animal lovers who eat meat. Cruelty-free meat. That’s where the beliefs are strongest, because they have to be.”

“Malcolm told me you were here,” she said, in answer to Murray’s look of surprise when he opened the door to her. She looked past him and saw that the covers were off all of the bikes.

“Do you know,” she said, “you never did introduce me to the last one.” It was true; they had fallen into a pattern of warm up, work out, cool down and, except when Murray saw her passing the shop and came out to speak to her, there was nothing more. He looked behind him and stepped aside to let her enter.

“Aerial Square Four,” he said, squatting down beside it. “A Squariel it’s called, because of how the crankshafts and cylinders are geared together. And a 1000cc engine-totally ridiculous when it was new. 1956. Beast of a bike, really, more trouble than it’s worth.”

“Like the Golden Flash?” said Keiko.

“No, no,” said Murray. “Not that way-this is a great bike, smooth as silk. It can overheat a bit but no, I mean the insurance and everything. There’s guys I would trust with the rest, but I wouldn’t trust them not to slip in here and make off with the Squariel if they thought they could.”

Keiko scrutinised the machine; it was certainly beautiful, with its red painted parts gleaming like pools of silk, but it was just another motorbike to her and, glad as she was that it had got her inside and got Murray talking today, she was even gladder she wouldn’t have to try to remember the names and quirks of any more.

“So,” he said, looking up at her from where he was crouched. “I’ll see you tonight then.”

“Of course,” she said. “I’m sorry I interrupted your…” She looked around to see what it was she might have interrupted. “But now that I’m here, can I say something to you?”

“Okay.”

“About what’s wrong?”

He was silent, waiting.

“You said one time-more than once, actually-that you couldn’t tell me anything because I wouldn’t understand and maybe I wouldn’t even believe you.”

He nodded.

“But you also said you thought I could help. Well, I want you to know that I’m working on it. And I’m getting somewhere-maybe not to the bottom of it-but somewhere.”

“How?” said Murray, staring up at her.

“The way I do,” Keiko said. “By looking at the wiring, remember?”

His eyes shone as he nodded.

“Also, there’s something I need to ask and you’re the only one I can trust,” she said.

“You trust me?” he said. “You’ve no idea how much it means to hear you say that.”

“It’s about Dina and Nicole and Tash,” she said.

Murray blinked twice. “Who?”

“Mrs. Watson’s niece and Craig’s cousin and Mrs. McMaster’s foster child.”

“Who?” said Murray again.

“Do you know their full names? I want to speak to them but unless I can find out their names, I have no hope of tracking them down. Is Dina a Watson? Is Nicole a McKendrick? And what about Tash?”

He was shaking his head very slowly now and his eyes were wide and strained. “Don’t,” he said. “They got away safe and sound, Keiko. Don’t do anything that would drag them back here. They got away.”

Now it was her turn to stare at him. “Are you serious?” she said.

“Always,” he replied.

“But… if the danger was real-is real-shouldn’t we try to speak to them? Double-check they’re okay?”

He thought about it for a while and then shook his head. “No can do,” he said. “I don’t know their second names. You know how it is; everyone’s so friendly here-first names all the way.”

“Who would know?” said Keiko.

“It’s not a good idea to ask too many questions,” said Murray. “Trust me.”

She heard Murray lock the door behind her after she left and stood staring at it-was he really that scared?-until something moving caught the corner of her eye. Mr. Byers was standing on the forecourt, smiling broadly around his chewing gum.

“Better than the telly any day,” he said and sauntered back through his open workshop door and into the shadows. Keiko watched him go and kept watching the spot where he had disappeared, straining her eyes to see if he had turned to face her.

“Mr. Byers,” she called. She followed him into the darkness. “Mr. Byers? I just realised I haven’t managed to rope you in to my questionnaire yet and you’d be a very interesting addition because you haven’t been here that long. Mr. Byers?” Right at the back a light was on and she thought she could hear the sound of a tap running. “Mr. Byers?” She pushed the half-open door and saw him standing with his back to her, urinating into a filthy toilet.

“What do you want now?” he said over one shoulder, but Keiko was gone, racing back through the workshop towards the street, with the sound of his laughter ringing in her ears and a negative print of his straddled figure in the block of light etched on her eyes.

Monday, 18 November

“Okay then,” said Fancy, looking straight up at Keiko’s living room ceiling and breathing hard. “I worked all bleedin’ weekend and finally got two scenarios each for conformity, conscientiousness, compliance, optimism, orthodoxy-but I still think that’s a kind of toothpaste-lawfulness, discretion, compartmentalisation, and suggestibility. And I made sure and got theft, murder, rape, blackmail, incest, domestic violence, fraud, corruption-what’s the difference?-and ehh… bigamy, yeah. And you haven’t even added red meat to your shitty spinach, you lazy article.” She sighed heavily. “I thought this would be a laugh when you asked me, you know.”

“It does do your head in, doesn’t it?” said Keiko. “You are an angel. Flop your arms over one way and your legs the other.”

“Yeah, I’m the guardian angel of your English,” Fancy said. “You can’t say it does your head in.” She moved her arms and legs to opposite sides. “Man, this feels good. Those are killer crunches.”

“I know. And I only made you do ten and now we’re having this lovely rest. Murray says fifty.”

“Well, just say no. What would he do?”

“He said he would put me over his knee and spank me.”

“Way-hey! Just say no, then!” said Fancy.

Keiko jabbed her bottom with a toe, making her wobble. Then she put her feet flat on the floor and laced her hands behind her head. “Scissors,” she said.

“No,” groaned Fancy, “not scissors. I’ll never get up again if we do bloody scissors. I’ll take my questions back and then you’ll be sorry.”

“I’m going to show the questionnaire to Dr. Bryant tomorrow,” said Keiko, and something inside her fluttered at the thought of it; the questions about murder, rape, and incest-everything she could think of that the problem in Painchton could possibly be-seemed to pulse on the page as though they’d been printed out in some special fluorescent ink. More than half of her expected Bryant to throw the paper down, call the servitor, and have her removed from the building, removed to the airport, stripped of her funding, stripped of her first degree, her high school diploma…

“And if Biscuit-man says okay, you should get cracking,” Fancy was telling her. “The very next day. Everybody’s in a good mood on half-closing.” She rolled over onto all fours, stood awkwardly, and stepped up onto the coffee table to look at herself in the mirror. “Still fat. I told you it wouldn’t work.” She pulled down the waistband of her leggings and pinched a roll of skin between two fingers trying to make it waggle.

Keiko rose to her feet with a thrill at how fluid the movement was now after all those evenings with Murray. She stretched and walked over. “Fat!” she said. Fancy’s navel, currently at eye level, lay flat on the surface of her stomach, its neat banana-slice pattern not shaded by the slightest overhang of flesh. “There’s not even enough there to pierce,” she said, then immediately put up her arms to steady Fancy as she sank down and put her head between her knees. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” she said.

Fancy lifted her head again and glared. “Body piercing! That’s my worst thing. It’s like the world’s gone totally mad.” Her face was patched with unnatural colours, her lips grey and the skin around her nose yellowish, but a blue flush still blooming high on her cheeks and round her eyes from being upside down.

Keiko clapped her hands. “No scissors,” she said. “To make up for me being so thoughtless.”

She started for the kitchen to begin cooking but Fancy, stopping in the bathroom doorway, beckoned her back. Perfumed steam was spilling out, casting Fancy into soft focus and beading her bright hair. Keiko put her head round the door and blinked through the vapour. Viola was lying almost completely submerged in a heavily scented, deep-tinted bath, just an island of face sticking up. Her eyes were shut and her hair, tame and lank under the water, was swished out in a waving fan behind her head, moving in the slight eddy made by her twirling hands. As they watched, one lock of hair slicked against her neck and she stopped the figure-of-eight dance of her hands, put her feet flat on the bottom of the bath so that her small knees rose steaming into the air, raised one hand to scoop the hair free again, then resumed her pose. She waited until the water had stilled and then began again to trace her hands through and back, through and back, just enough to make the surface plane of the water slide and keep her hair moving.

Keiko stepped back, uncomfortable, as Fancy bent over and knocked gently against the side of the bath, but when Viola opened her eyes she just smiled up at them and moved only to raise her head out of the water.

“Your bath’s great, Keiko,” she said. “Can I put some more salts in?”

“Yes, of course,” said Keiko.

“No, you can’t, you monkey,” said Fancy. “We’ll have to get a licence from the Environmental Health before we take the plug out anyway.” She took the towel from where it was warming on the radiator and tucked the middle of one edge under her chin. Viola stood and turned her back and Fancy lifted the child towards her with one hand under each skinny armpit. Viola felt for the hanging corners of the towel and pulled it around herself. She kicked drops of water from her feet as Fancy stepped away from the side of the bath and swung her round onto the floor, then she scooted off along the passageway towards Keiko’s spare bedroom, huddled in the towel and with her hair plastered in clumps to the sides of her face, already beginning to frizz again.

In Keiko’s future memories, this evening was the last innocent time. The sight of the small girl in the perfumed water, perfect little body and perfect unconcern when she opened her eyes and saw them looking down at her. The choreography of mother and daughter getting her out of the water and back on her feet, and the three of them in a row on the sofa later watching a movie together to make Viola feel grown-up, making Fancy and Keiko feel like little girls again. This remembered evening-even though the sick feeling had already arrived and even though there were times to come when briefly it left her-this warm, glowing evening was the last real moment before what was coming began.