Dead And Buried

Seventy

Many people in the professions find that the first part of December is their busiest time of the year. Although the month is curtailed by the Christmas season, clients’ needs tend to grow more urgent as the year end approaches. As Curle Anthony and Jarvis, Alex Skinner’s law firm, was one of the biggest in Scotland, her workload was correspondingly heavy. It was one minute before eight p.m. when she made it home on Thursday evening. ‘TGIF tomorrow,’ she muttered, as she slid her key into the lock. ‘Only trouble is, I’ll be working bloody Saturday as well.’ She stepped inside and cancelled her alarm, headed straight for the kitchen, where she switched the oven to keep her pizza takeaway warm until she was ready to eat it, then went through to her bedroom, discarding clothes on the way.

Ten minutes later, she was showered and changed into blue jeans, a sweatshirt and sheepskin slippers, when a pleasing thought occurred to her. She still had the best part of a bottle of pressure-sealed cava in the fridge. Soon she was seated at the dining-table, the pizza divided into eight slices to make it easier to eat with fingers, and a flute on a coaster beside it. She was halfway through both when her eye was caught by the blinking red light on her phone, advising her that she had recorded calls waiting to be reviewed.

She picked up plate and glass and moved over to the dumpy little swivel chair that she used when she was working at her desk. ‘What’s here, then?’ she said, making a mental note to stop talking to herself. She was about to push the button when the doorbell rang. She frowned. The entry-phone from the street had a buzzer; the bell meant that there was someone inside, at the front door. She was still frowning as she walked out into the hall, glass in hand.

On any other week, she would have opened the door without thinking, but the memory of her stalker was still fresh, and so she looked through the spy-hole, to see the distorted figure of Griff, her neighbour. Intrigued, she turned the wheel of the Yale.

‘Alex, hi.’ He seemed a little ill at ease: he was big and fair-haired, and managed to remind her of a lumberjack she had once seen in a movie. His accent was southern hemisphere, but she found it hard to place. ‘I’m not interrupting anything, am I, only. .’

‘You’re not interrupting anyone, Griff. What can I do for you?’

‘I hate to ask this, but Spring and I have friends in for supper, and my one and only corkscrew has just come to pieces in my hand. I wonder, do you have one I could borrow?’

‘Sure, come on in while I dig it out of its hiding-place.’ She led him into the living room, silently cursing because her work-shirt, complete with sweaty armpits, was still lying on the floor where she had left it. She kept her corkscrews in the top drawer of her sideboard. There was a ‘waiter’s friend’ type and a complicated wooden affair that had once belonged to her grandfather. It had twin bars, one for twisting the screw into the cork and the other for drawing it smoothly out of the barrel. She gave Griff the waiter’s friend. ‘That’ll do the job,’ she said. ‘I had a waiting job for a while when I was a student in Glasgow. We used those there: in fact, they were so good I nicked that one.’

‘I won’t tell anyone.’

‘It’s all right, I told my dad; he let me off with a caution.’

‘What does he do?’

‘He’s the deputy chief constable.’

‘Crikey, the name on the door: I should have known.’ He brandished the corkscrew. ‘Thanks, Alex, you’re a life-saver. I’ll drop it in first thing tomorrow.’

‘Keep it till you get a replacement. If I’m not in, just drop it in my letterbox out front.’

‘Okay, thanks.’

Pity about Spring, she thought, as she closed the door, and went back to her solitary pizza and cava. She had forgotten about the phone, until the red light blinked its way back into her awareness. She picked up another slice of supper and pushed the play button.

The machine told her that she had three calls waiting. The first was timed at twenty minutes to nine. ‘Hi, Alex.’ Her father’s voice filled the room, and she felt lifted. ‘I guess you’ll be travelling to work right now. I haven’t much time so I’ll have to leave this message rather than wait till you get there. If you’re looking for me over the next few days, you’ll have to use the mobile number. This thing I’m on has taken a couple of turns, and I’ve got to head for the States. I’m not sure how long it’s going to take. I’ll let you know when I get back. In the meantime, if these calls continue to be a nuisance, I want you to stop your nonsense and ask Neil to reinstate the intercept. Love you.’ There was a click and the sound of the dial tone for a few seconds, until the second message began; the machine told her it had been received at five thirty-five.

‘Hello, lovey.’

‘God,’ she whispered.

‘It’s Guy here, ruining your evening by calling to let you know I’m safely back in London and, of course, to thank you for a wonderful night, and almost morning. Hope you’ve recovered your strength. You’re absolutely delicious, Alexandra. . Ha, ha. You did order me not to call you Lexy. . and I don’t know how I’m going to struggle on without you or, even worse, how you’re going to struggle on without me. London would be a brighter place with you in it, you know. ’Bye, darling.’

‘What the hell was that about?’ she exclaimed to the walls. ‘The infuriating pillock, he doesn’t even know my proper name and there he is implying that I’m going to pine for him.’

She was still fuming when the dial tone ended and the next call began. The synthetic voice advised that it had been logged at seven minutes past seven. It began with silence or, rather, with the sound of breathing and traffic noise in the background. She was about to push the erase button, when she heard a noise that was somewhere between a cough and a gurgle, as if breath was being drawn in. ‘You really did hurt me, Alex,’ the distorted voice croaked, rising as something heavy passed nearby. ‘I don’t take kindly to it.’ Then a click; then the line was dead.

She stared at the instrument for almost a minute. ‘Raymond, my boy,’ she murmured evenly, when she had recovered her composure, ‘if that’s you, I have news for you. I’m going to hurt you again, and a hell of a lot worse this time.’

She was still glowering at the phone when it rang. She snatched it up, ignoring McIlhenney’s instruction to record all incoming calls. ‘Yes?’ she snapped. ‘What is it this time?’

‘Hey, hey, hey,’ Sarah exclaimed. ‘Hold on a minute. Whoever it is you’re steamed at, this isn’t him.’

Alex sighed. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just. . Something I thought was over just reared its head again.’

‘Man trouble?’

‘That’s too kind. These are reptiles.’

‘I’ve encountered a couple of them in my time.’

‘So I’ve heard.’ Once again there was silence on the end of a phone line. This time it was distinctly frosty. ‘I’m sorry, Sarah,’ said Alex at once. ‘That was out of order. What can I do for you?’

‘I was wondering if you knew what your dad’s up to? I had the briefest of brief calls from him this morning, saying that there’s no way he’s getting home this weekend, like he’d hoped, and asking me to say sorry to the kids.’

‘I really don’t know, I’m afraid. I know where he’s headed, and that’s America, but that’s as far as it goes. He’s not saying anything about what he’s doing, not even to me.’

‘Mmm.’ Alex could sense that her stepmother was thinking something over. ‘Do you have any big plans for tonight?’ Sarah asked, at last.

‘Not even the tiniest.’

‘In that case, you wouldn’t like to come out here, would you? I know it’s pushing nine, but it might be the last chance I have to talk to you, one to one, about everything that’s happened. How about it?’

Alex looked at the phone: the red light had stopped blinking, but it still shone brightly. ‘Why the hell not?’ she replied.