Barry Maitland: The Marx Sisters

Peg was reciting the phrases in a cosy, familiar manner, as another elderly lady might discuss the strategies of contract bridge, or growing roses.

‘Now if you understand this, then you can see that the whole history of socialist revolutions in this century, in Russia and in even less developed countries, has been a dreadful mistake, a misguided attempt to take a short cut from feudalism to socialism. Our great-grandfather foresaw that such an attempt would be doomed, and he wrote his final book to describe the true path. His book is a map of the future, but it cannot be used to take a short cut to that future, as were his other books. That is why it cannot be published until the time is ready. And just imagine how people would sneer at it now, when all the world believes that the failure of those false experiments of the past seventy years has proved that Marxism is a path only to poverty, oppression and despair. We must wait, twenty years or thirty, until the memory of these mistakes has faded, and a new generation is ready to understand the true path to the final goal.’

Kathy found it difficult to reconcile this grand vision of human history with the reality of the elderly lady huddled in front of her gas fire, explaining why one of her sisters had pulled a plastic bag over the head of another. The mismatch was too silly to be taken seriously. She felt her weary brain lose focus, and her stricken body withdraw into itself.

‘Am I explaining it to you, dear?’

‘Not really,’ she mumbled in reply. She really was desperately tired, and could hardly remember any more why it had seemed so urgent to leave her hospital bed for this nonsense. She couldn’t imagine how she was ever going to get out of this armchair again.

‘Oh dear. Well, that was how it seemed to Eleanor, anyway. She was so bright, so dedicated. The papers weren’t just something given to us by our mother. They were a sacred trust which our family had inherited.’

Kathy tried to rouse herself. ‘Why did Eleanor wait so long before killing herself?’

‘She was drawn to the anniversary of Tussy’s noble suicide, of course, and then she wanted the new buildings to be at the stage where we could put her safely away, where she wouldn’t be disturbed, at least for a couple of decades.’

‘So that wasn’t Danny Finn’s idea?’

‘No, dear man. He thought it was. I helped him to think of it.’

‘And the Endziel is down there with Eleanor?’

Peg gave a coy smile, ‘Perhaps, my dear, perhaps.’

‘Why the hammer?’

‘Eleanor thought we should distract you. To give us more time. We saw it at Terry’s house one day when we were invited to admire the new work being done to their kitchen. Eleanor thought of it. We knew it would make things worse for Terry for a while, but it served him right. Stupid boy. It was a hateful thing to do to poor Eleanor. But she was already gone, and sometimes one must do hateful things.’

An interval occurred which Kathy couldn’t account for. One minute Peg was a few feet away, the next right beside her, her face very close.

‘Are you all right, dear?’

‘Must have dropped off. Very sleepy.’ Kathy’s eyelids simply refused to open, but some corner of her brain that was still working reminded her that Meredith must have felt like this, having been given a sleeping pill before she was killed. She made herself speak. ‘ We. You said just now, we.’

‘Of course, dear. We both killed dear Meredith. Why ever would you imagine otherwise?’

Kathy forced her weary lids open a crack and saw the old lady standing over her. In her hands she held a plastic bag.

The site workers arriving in the pre-dawn darkness found Marquis Street half blocked with police cars and ambulances, their blue and red emergency lights whipping across the scarred remains of Jerusalem Lane. A crowd of police officers and men wearing donkey jackets and hard hats huddled around the entrance to Mrs Rosenfeldt’s Sandwich Bar, sipping steaming mugs of tomato soup.

Upstairs Brock picked his way round the ambulance crew as they strapped Kathy’s body into the stretcher. He conferred for a moment with Bren Gurney before going over to Dr Mehta who had emerged from Peg’s bedroom.

‘My guess would be two or three sleeping pills in the drink to make her sleepy. Then the plastic bag,’ the pathologist said. ‘There’s a foil of Somatone in the kitchen with half a dozen pills missing.’

Brock nodded. He turned back to Sergeant Gurney. ‘Have a good look for the manuscript here when the scene-of-crime people are done, Bren. I don’t think you’ll find anything, but better check.’

Gurney nodded, then indicated to Brock where one of the ambulance men behind him was trying to attract his attention.

‘Yes?’ he said to the man, a stocky figure with an expression on his face which suggested that he had long since stopped being impressed by disasters.

‘We’ll get going with this one now, squire.’

‘All right.’ He looked down at the bandaged head visible at the top of the red blanket. Her eyes were open, staring in the direction of the bedroom, where the photographer’s flash gun kept throwing the figure of the old lady on the bed, with the crumpled transparent plastic bag over her head, into brilliant focus.

When they reached the street, the crowd outside parted, staring solemnly down at her as she was lifted up into the ambulance. Behind them, framed by a halo of light from her shop, she thought she made out the frail figure of Becky Rosenfeldt, the last survivor of Jerusalem Lane.

The ambulance was swaying from side to side like a small ship in a heavy sea, but she felt secure within the womb of the strapped stretcher, the old man above her, holding her hand, watching the ambulance crewman who kept checking the drip attached to her left arm.

‘Am I still alive, then?’ The words barely made it past her lips, but Brock seemed to pick them up. He was saying something about her foolishness, and how long it had taken for her message to reach him. But there was something she had to tell him.

‘She confessed to me, Brock. They both killed Meredith, then themselves.’

She blinked her eyes to see his face, but her vision was blurred by tears she couldn’t wipe away.

He said nothing, but she felt the pressure of his hand on hers.

At last she spoke again, in a whisper. ‘At least Marie Kowalski can go free.’

Brock nodded. ‘Yes, but Felix Kowalski will still have to pay for what he did to you. And, much as it hurts to admit it, I’m afraid we’ll have to let Terry Winter go. Without the sisters’ evidence we’d never make it stick.’

The mention of Terry brought Martin Connell abruptly into her consciousness. She held him there for a moment, then took a deep breath, letting him go.

‘I don’t care,’ she whispered. ‘I really don’t care.’ Then, ‘The manuscript is in the pit with Eleanor.’

But surprisingly Brock was shaking his head. He didn’t think so. Stupid place. Never know when it would reappear. A red herring to keep us all off the trail. Something about the female line, from mother to daughter, from aunt to niece.

‘Terry Winter’s daughter, Alex?’

He was shrugging. ‘If it exists at all,’ she heard him say.

She closed her eyes, feeling terrible. ‘What’s wrong with me?’

Stitches torn, loss of blood, sleeping pills in the drink, probably die, serves you right.

But when she looked up at him he didn’t seem unduly alarmed.

She relaxed into the warmth of the blanket, letting it just happen.

‘Tell Bob,’ she whispered, and he bent his head to hear. ‘Tell him: Eureka.’