The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries 6

GLAZED by Danuta Reah

Anthony Richardson woke up in the spare bedroom, aware that the mattress was not the well-sprung one he was accustomed to. His back was aching. He climbed out of bed and opened the curtains, looking out on to the grey November day.

He pulled on his dressing gown and tiptoed barefoot to the marital bedroom. He pushed the door open silently. Molly was asleep, her face hidden, her red hair spilling across the pillow. Her hair had lost its brightness over the years, and her face, though it still had its delicate prettiness, was creased from sleep. At one time, seeing her like that would have been a powerful incentive for him to climb back into the bed they had shared for over twenty years, but not any more.

Quietly, he collected his clothes from the wardrobe. He would shower in the other bathroom rather than risk waking her. He’d stayed too late the night before with Olivia, falling asleep next to her perfumed softness. “You see,” she’d whispered as he climbed reluctantly out of her bed, “It’s time to let Molly know. It’s for the best, darling. I wouldn’t want to keep you in a dead marriage if it was me.”

He sighed. He still cared for Molly. Of course he did. But… The image of Olivia, fair-haired, beautiful, and most of all young rose up in front of him.

Anthony Richardson had met Molly when she was twenty-one. He was handsome, in his thirties, sophisticated and successful with his own chain of exclusive designer stores. She was a graduate from St Martin’s College, with a degree in ceramics and a talent for design that was yet to be fully recognized. She was beautiful, of course. She had to be. Anything less than beautiful would have done. And she wasn’t just beautiful, she was one of the most talented ceramicists he had ever met. Her designs had a quality he had never seen before, designs that her current employer had dismissed because people who want cups with feet on them and smiling teapots tend to be limited in their appreciation of style. It was an added advantage that she was very young and not very confident.

It was serendipity. Molly needed a Svengali. Anthony needed her talent. His business, though successful, had reached a plateau. He worked by finding good designs and importing them, but a lot of other people were doing the same thing and there was nothing to distinguish his company, Richardson Design, from the mass. The continuing success of his shops depended on his having something new, something distinctive, something that no one else had. And in Molly, he had found it.

Molly Norman Ceramics became the cornerstone of his company, Richardson Design. RD, the discreet silver logo that marked his company, became a byword for the best in fine china.

Anthony was a good husband. He kept the business running well and provided a comfortable, even luxurious, home for her. And though any man has a need for variety that even a young, talented and beautiful wife can’t entirely fulfil, he kept his infidelities low key and away from home.

The marriage was a success. Except that they didn’t have children. Not really. Molly had got pregnant a few years into their marriage but the child was born defective – Down’s Syndrome, the doctors said. A Mongol. Anthony believed in calling a spade a spade. He had made sure that there were no more children. He wanted no more defectives in his family.

Molly made a reasonable job of raising the boy who was now fourteen, a lumbering presence in the house. She insisted on private schooling, which was an irony Anthony found hard to bear. A real son would have gone to Eton of course, but Dominic… “He’s a lot more able that you give him credit for,” Molly had said sharply. “I want him to be able to earn some kind of a living.” In fact, the youth would be a drain on his resources forever.

And then, just a week ago, Olivia had hit him with the bombshell of her pregnancy. “Don’t worry, darling,” she’d said briskly. “I can deal with it. I know you’ve got problems with…” Her eyes, dark-lashed, flickered sideways to the photo of Molly that stood where it always did, on his desk.

And he realized what the dissatisfaction with his life was. He had achieved the material success he craved. Now he needed the personal fulfilment of knowing there was someone to carry on that success. He wanted a son, a proper son, not one with a lolling tongue and an incoherent voice, one that only a mother could love. He wanted a son he could be proud of. He finally understood why men of his age took up with younger wives. They achieved success with their first wives and raised a family with their second and it was an unfortunate trick of nature that prevented women from doing the same.

“You were late last night.” Molly came into the room, tying the cord on her dressing gown. Her hair was untidy and she looked pale.

“Yes.” He didn’t elaborate.

One thing that had been holding him back from the final decision was that once he’d asked her for a divorce, the company would lose Molly’s talents and – at a time when he was planning a major expansion – he would have to give a large part of his wealth to her. He had discussed this with Olivia who happened to be a lawyer specializing in the divorces of the wealthy and powerful. The company, she suggested, was his. Molly was an employee, not a joint owner and she had earned a good income through the years. As for her leaving, well, the company was more than the Molly Norman range of ceramics and anyway, Richardson’s had the copyright on the Molly Norman name and all the designs she’d done for the company over the years.

He could find and promote another designer. Molly was probably getting a little passé now, a little past her prime creatively as well as physically.

He’d have to get his lawyers on to it. He didn’t want a prolonged fight.

He realized he hadn’t heard what she was saying. “… start training Tim as an assistant today. He’s really very…”

“What?”

“Tim. He’s been with us for six months now. He loves the pottery – he knows the work – he’s helped me often enough and…”

A few months ago, she’d taken on a youth from some charity she was involved with that looked after people with so-called “learning difficulties”. The young man was another Dominic, another flat faced defective with a protruding tongue that stumbled and spluttered over the few words he could manage. The pottery needed a general dogsbody – someone to make the tea and sweep up, the kind of work he was fit for and there were grants available for companies who took these people on, so Anthony hadn’t argued.

But now Molly was planning to spend good money training this man, this Tim, as an assistant in the pottery, letting him load the kiln, even let him switch it on and keep an eye on the firing. “No,” he said.

He saw Molly’s puzzled frown. “I told you last week. I’ve already promised…”

He vaguely remembered her mentioning something. It was typical of Molly to drop something important into her general chat. She probably did it, knowing he wasn’t paying attention. “Then you’ll have to un-promise.” He saw her open her mouth to argue – she could be stubborn sometimes – and said, “I’ll see you later.”

He left the house, intending to go straight to the office. Instead, he drove to Olivia’s. It was time they made some decisions.

Tim Sergeant was cleaning up in the workshop. Every morning when he came in, he mopped the floor to clear up any dust that had settled in the night. At the end of each day he cleaned up all the dropped clay, all the spatters of glaze, all the wood ash and bone meal for the colours that Mrs Richardson used on her pots, leaving everything clean and scrubbed for the next day. Then in the morning, he came in early and mopped everything again so that the decks would be cleared (Mum) and ready for the beautiful things that Mrs Richardson made.

He liked the pottery in the early morning. It was quiet with no one to distract or confuse him. He liked the wheel with the seat where you could sit and make it spin with a treadle. He did that now, pretending he was throwing a pot and making it grow under his fingers like Mrs Richardson did. When he’d first started, he’d been afraid of the kilns, especially the big gas one. The first time he’d seen flames come shooting out of the little hole in the door, he’d gone away and hidden, but Mrs Richardson had explained the kiln was supposed to do that.

There were rows of pots on the table waiting to be glazed. At first, Tim hadn’t understood about the glaze. Mrs Richardson had shown him a bowl of pale sludge, and she’d dipped the beautiful, fragile bowl into it, then she’d swirled her brush along the side. It didn’t look like anything special to Tim. Just sludge.

But then it had gone in the kiln with all the other pots, and when it came out, it had been the most beautiful yellow, bright as the sun. “It’s like Mum’s canary,” he had breathed. “It’s magic.”

Mrs Richardson had laughed, but not in a mean way. She’d been pleased. “Yes, like canary feathers. You’re right.” After that, she’d let him help with the glazes. She’d taught him how to use the ball mill to grind up the materials, and he helped to mix the glazes she wanted to use, carefully adding the wood ash, the flint, the felspar, the bone meal, making something ugly that somehow, miraculously became beautiful in the fire.

And today was a special day. For weeks now, he’d watched her as she’d packed the kiln and closed the heavy door, sealing it shut by turning the wheel on the outside. He’d been allowed to turn on the gas tap as she wielded the flaming wand that made the gas ignite with a whoof. And she’d taught him how to keep checking the temperature gauge hour after hour as the heat crept up and up. “Red hot” she’d say, then ‘White hot,” as it reached the magic number: 1300. And the last time they had done this together, she had nodded to Tim and, not able to keep the grin off his face, he had turned off the gas. Then the kiln would have to be left for a day and a night to cool down. “I think you’re ready,” she’d said to him, the last time they’d fired the kiln together.

Today, she was going to let him pack it by himself. She would be there in case he needed help, but she was going to let him do it, and she was going to let him use the wand to light the gas and then she was going to let him watch by himself until the time came to turn off the gas. He wouldn’t be the cleaner any more. He would be Mrs Richardson’s assistant. He would be a potter.

He watched from the window as Mrs Richardson’s car pulled into the car park and went to make her a cup of tea in one of the teapots she designed. His hand hovered over the yellow one, but then he decided to use the one with the deep red glaze that was so fine and delicate that you could almost see the tea as you poured in the boiling water. He put a cup and saucer on the tray, and some biscuits carefully arranged on a plate.

He carried the tray through, keeping his eyes fixed on it so that it stayed level, and put it carefully down on the table in Mrs Richardson’s room as she came through the door. “Tea,” she said. “Just what I wanted. Thank you, Tim.” But there was something in her voice that worried him. She was frowning as she poured the tea as if she was thinking about something else. She needed to be left alone to work.

“I’ll go and finish sweeping,” he said.

Molly watched Tim leave, cursing herself for being a coward. She should have told him that the days of working as her assistant were over. Anthony wouldn’t tolerate it. When he looked at Tim, he saw Dominic and he couldn’t forgive the boy for being less than the perfect son he had envisaged. She used to fool herself, tell herself that his distance from the child was self-protection, that he didn’t want to be too close to a child whose health was giving them concern. But she couldn’t do that any more.

She had stayed because, for a long time, she had loved him. Later, she had stayed because Dominic needed the long term security that money could buy. He wasn’t like Tim who was able to earn money and have some independence. Dominic’s handicap was much more severe and he would need caring for all his life. She dreaded what would happen to him if she died, if she hadn’t managed to make provision for him. She had to make certain that his future was secure.

She put on her overalls and went into the pottery to finish the designs on the new Molly Norman range. Her mind focused on her work and her worries faded into the background.

It was late morning before Anthony arrived. She was just putting the finishing touches to a special commission, something that would bring a great deal of business into the firm, if it went right. She was making a set of long-stemmed cups, fragile and beautiful that she was glazing to try and capture some essence of the fire that would create them. She could see the colour in her mind – a clear, translucent glow. She hadn’t quite managed to get that in her various experimental firings, but this time – maybe this time she’d got it right.

“What’s this?” Anthony’s voice broke into her thoughts.

“It’s the De Clancy commission.”

“Haven’t you got that done yet?”

“It’s got to be right.” She swivelled her chair to face him. “Anthony, about Tim…”

He interrupted her. “Olivia’s pregnant,” he said.

She felt as though something had kicked her in the stomach. “Pregnant…”

“I want a child,” he said.

She could feel the anger growing inside her. “You have a child.”

His jaw set. “I meant a proper child. You can’t give me one. Olivia can. I want a divorce.”

She could only think of Olivia pregnant, about the children she hadn’t been able to have because there was only her to look after Dominic. Deep down she had always known that Anthony would be no father to his son.

He was still speaking. “You’ll want to leave the firm, of course. You’ll get a generous pay off, I’ll make sure of that.” A generous payout. That wouldn’t be enough to keep Dominic, not for the rest of his life.

“I’ll fight,” she said.

“Then I’ll fight back and we’ll all lose.”

Molly watched him leave and felt a black wave of despair wash over her.

Tim felt a jump of excitement as Mrs Richardson came out of her office. He’d been getting more and more worried. It took twelve hours to fire the kiln. He’d told Mum it was one of the nights he would be late, but the day went on, and Mrs Richardson stayed in her workshop, painting the pretty cups she’d been working on for days.

When he saw her, his heart sank. She had changed out of her overalls and was carrying her bag. She was going home. She’d forgotten. “Come and sit down in the kitchen,” she said. “I want to talk to you.”

Slowly, he put down his brush and followed her. “Tim, you’ve been an excellent worker. I’m very pleased with you, you know that, don’t do?”

“Yes, Mrs Richardson.” He looked at her, willing her to tell him he was still her assistant, waiting for her to smile at him, but she didn’t.

“I’m very sorry,” she said, “but you can’t be my assistant any more. Not just now. You’ll still do your other work, of course you will. But Mr Richardson doesn’t think you’re ready. And… Tim, listen. Things are changing round here. I might be leaving.” Her voice was odd and far away, and he got the impression she wasn’t really seeing him at all.

“But…” He couldn’t imagine the pottery without Mrs Richardson. He wanted to protest but the words wouldn’t come. His tongue felt big and unwieldy in his mouth.

“I’m so sorry, Tim. You go home now. Take the rest of the day off and enjoy the weekend.” She smiled then. “Don’t forget to lock up.”

She still trusted him to do that, but Tim’s bubble of happiness had burst. He watched her as she left the pottery. He saw her walk across the car park to her car and get in. He dropped his mop onto the floor and sat down. He could feel the disappointment inside him like a knife. He’d told Mum that he’d be late tonight because he was working overtime. “I’m promoted,” he’d told her.

“Promoted!” she’d said. “I’m proud of you, Tim.” And now he’d have to go back and tell her, and she’d think that he’d got it wrong because he wasn’t clever and he did make mistakes.

The pottery was quiet. Everyone had gone home. It was a long weekend and they wanted to get away for their holidays. There was only Tim, sitting there in the gloom, and he wasn’t crying, not really, because he was grown-up now, and grownups didn’t cry, but something was making his face wet. He sniffed and wiped his hand across his nose. He might as well go home.

Instead, he went into the room where the big gas kiln stood, its door open, waiting for the pots that Tim would no longer be loading in there. He’d set everything ready, the supports that would keep the shelves secure, the shelves on which each layer of pots would stand and he’d planned exactly where each pot would go.

And then he had his idea. When it popped into his mind, he couldn’t believe he was thinking it, and it made him so frightened that he found it hard to breathe. He hid his face and waited for it to go away. But his mind wouldn’t let it go and the more he thought about it, the less scared he became.

All the pots were ready. There was no reason why they shouldn’t be fired. The weekend – the long weekend with a holiday – would be wasted otherwise. He would stack the kiln. Mrs Richardson wouldn’t be there to watch him, but he would do it as slowly and as carefully as he could. Then he would light the kiln – when he thought about the flames of the gas wand, he had to hide his face again for a while – but he would switch on the gas, light the gas wand, and listen to the whoof as the burners in the kiln ignited. After that, he just had to wait. Then Mr Richardson would know that he was good enough to be the assistant.

When he went into the work room, he saw the pots for the firing were on the table, all carefully glazed, all covered with the dull, dry film that the magic of the fire would turn into glorious colours like canaries’ feathers and butterflies’ wings. And there, on Mrs Richardson’s own work table were the long-stemmed cups that she had been working on that day, using the new glaze that Tim had ground and mixed and ground and mixed again as she tried to get it right. When they were fired, they were going to be more beautiful than anything, and Tim couldn’t wait.

But if he didn’t get today’s firing right, then he wouldn’t be allowed to assist Mrs Richardson again. He turned away from her table, and began to load the pots onto the trolley.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing!”

The voice came from behind him. Tim jumped and dropped the pot he was holding, a tall jug with a delicate handle. It shattered on the floor and Tim wanted to weep. He’d never broken anything before.

Mr Richardson was standing behind him. “Where’s my wife?”

“She’s gone home,” Tim tried to say. He could feel his legs shaking and he wanted the toilet.

Mr Richardson turned on his heel and went into the kiln room. When he came back, his face was dark with fury. “Were you going to load that kiln?”

Tim nodded.

“Does my wife know what you’re doing?”

Tim always told the truth. He shook his head. He couldn’t speak.

Mr Richardson’s lip curled. “You’re fired. Get out before I kick you out!”

Tim felt his nose clog up as his eyes filled with tears. He’d done it wrong. Mum had been so proud of him being an assistant, and now Mr Richardson had fired him.

As he stood there, Mr Richardson started shouting. “Well? Did you hear me? Are you too stupid?” He grabbed Tim’s arm and started pushing him towards the door. They were near Mrs Richardson’s table and he was going to knock into it and make the beautiful long-stemmed cups fall over and shatter. He panicked. He pushed Mr Richardson away, hard. The grip on his arm loosened and he waited with his eyes screwed tight shut, waiting for Mr Richardson to start shouting at him again.

Nothing happened, and cautiously, Tim opened his eyes.

Mr Richardson was lying on the floor. There was blood on the corner of the stone table, and blood on the floor coming out of Mr Richardson’s head and ears. Tim felt sick. Mr Richardson would tell the police that Tim had attacked him. He was going to go to prison. He watched, frozen, and then as he saw Mr Richardson’s face turn blue and bubbles come out of his mouth, he realized he was in even more trouble than he thought.

Mr Richardson wasn’t going to get up at all.

Tim sank down to the floor and forgot about being a grownup. He cried.

After a long time, he mopped his eyes. It was no good crying over spilled milk (Mum). He screwed up his face, trying to think. That was the trouble with not being clever. It took him a long time to know what to do. Usually, he asked Mum, but this time, he couldn’t. And eventually, he worked it out.

It was a good job he had the trolley. Mr Richardson was heavy. He wheeled him into the kiln room, and, grunting slightly with the effort, he slid Mr Richardson into the kiln. A leg flopped out, and then another. Tim stood there, perplexed. He bent Mr Richardson’s leg and then the other, and wedged it against the kiln wall. He had to try several times before Mr Richardson was safely folded in.

But now, there was no room for the pots. They were all big, heavy ones. “We’ll start you off on the basic stuff,” Mrs Richardson had said.

Tim screwed his face up as he thought. When the idea came, it scared him as much as when he’d thought about doing the firing on his own. He wished, now, that he’d just gone home, but it was too late for that. Look before you leap (Mum). But he didn’t have time to hide his face and wait for the idea to go away.

There was just space in the kiln for one shelf of small pots. Very carefully, he set the supports. Bits of Mr Richardson kept getting in the way, and he had to remember that Mr Richardson wouldn’t be there all the time to prop up the shelf. It was an hour before he’d got it right and he was confident that shelf would stay in position by itself. Then, his tongue clamped between his teeth, he picked up the long-stemmed cups, one at a time, and placed them on the shelf. He felt as though he hadn’t breathed in all the time he was doing it, and when the last one was in place, he had to sit down for a while.

Then he swung the heavy door of the kiln shut, and turned the wheel to seal it. Everything was ready. He turned on the gas, lit the gas wand – he wasn’t even a bit scared of it now – and slipped it into the ports where the burners were waiting to be lit. Whoof! The kiln ignited.

He went into Mrs Richardson’s office to phone Mum. He was going to be out all night and he didn’t want her to worry. “Will you get a lift back?” Mum asked.

“Yes.” Tim didn’t like telling lies, but he knew the early bus would get him home safely. All he needed to do now was wait. He sat on the floor watching the temperature gauge. It was going to take a long time. After a while, the smell of something cooking began to fill the room and Tim realized he was hungry. He went to his locker to find the sandwiches that Mum had made for him that morning.

Anthony didn’t come home all weekend. Molly hadn’t expected him to. When she went into work on Tuesday morning, she expected to find him there with the details of the divorce all worked out. She was going to fight him. She wanted every penny that he owed to her to secure a future for their son, and she wanted what he owed her for other children, the ones he would never agree to and now she would never have.

His car was in the car park when she arrived, but there was no sign of him.

Puzzled, she went into the pottery. Tim was already there, down on his hands and knees scrubbing the work room floor. “There’s no need to do that,” she said. “Just mopping it is fine.” He muttered something, and she realized that he was rigid with tension. She looked round the room and saw at once that a jug was shattered on the floor.

“Don’t worry if you’ve…” and then she saw that the long-stemmed cups were missing.

Her eyes went back to Tim’s. He dropped his gaze.

“Tim,” she said. “What have you done?”

He didn’t answer, but the way his eyes moved towards the kiln room told her all she needed to know. She ran through, hoping that she was wrong, but when she got there, she saw the kiln door closed. She touched it. It was still warm. “Oh, my God, Tim!” Anger fought with guilt. She should never have let him think he could do this. She should never have left him alone in the pottery. She’d have to start from scratch, the commission would be delayed…

She checked the temperature than spun the handle and dragged open the door of the kiln.

And what she saw silenced her.

She was aware of Tim, a silent presence in the entrance behind her, but all she could see were the cups. She’d never seen such a quality in a glaze. The colour had the deep translucence she had been dreaming of. Scarcely breathing, she lifted one out and held it to the light as she turned it in her hands. They were the best things she had ever done.

“Tim,” she said. “What did you do?” For there had to have been something in the firing that gave it this extra quality, a quality she had never planned because she didn’t know it existed.

Then she noticed that there was ash in the bottom of the kiln. She leaned forward and studied it. It wasn’t just ash. There were lumps of charred…

“What’s this?” she said, straightening up.

His face flooded red. “Just… stuff.”

There was a pool of metal on the floor, something melted beyond recognition, something about the size of a man’s watch… Her eyes met Tim’s. His face was wretched with guilt. She remembered him scrubbing the workroom floor, his face tense with effort.

She looked at the pots again and found herself wondering what the effect would have been of very high levels of carbon in the kiln during the firing, carbon from-

“Fine,” she said slowly. “I’ll get rid of it.”

No one ever found out what had happened to Anthony Richardson. The investigation into his disappearance went on for several weeks. His car was found in the car park at his office. His secretary said that he had left shortly after six. As far as she knew, he was going home.

His wife told them that her husband had been having an affair and that they were planning to divorce. His mistress told them the same thing, but both women had alibis for the evening he had last been seen.

No one really asked Tim any questions at all. No one knew that Mr Richardson had visited the pottery before he went home, no one knew Tim had stayed late, apart from his mother, and no one asked her. Tim was pleased about that. He didn’t like telling lies. He knew the best lies were the ones you never had to tell because nobody ever asked you the question.

And the long-stemmed cups that he’d fired were the best things that the pottery had ever produced. But Mrs Richardson decided to keep them. “These are special,” she said. “I’m going to give them to the people I think should have them.” To Tim’s surprise, she gave one to Mr Richardson’s lawyer, Olivia. “For drinking a toast when the baby’s born.”

And she picked out one for herself and one for him.

“Let’s celebrate you becoming my assistant,” she said. “Champagne, Tim?”