Alex Barclay - The Caller

‘Now, because we are talking about books,’ said Magda, ‘I have some good news for you. Stan Frayte, you know Stan, is going to do your makeover on the library.

Mary clapped. ‘Cool.’ Then she frowned. ‘So do you think it’ll wind up looking more like a library than a store window?’

‘Nothing is happening with the glass if that’s what you mean. We want to make sure no-one’s making trouble in there.’

‘No-one makes trouble in libraries.’

‘They do, going right to the dirty bits in all those romance novels. Hot throbbing whatever.’

‘Magda!’

Magda laughed.

‘I wish they’d do something about the other windows,’ said Mary. ‘They’re too high up. You can’t see out if you sit down. You’re just staring at a blank wall.’

‘You know what?’ said Magda. ‘I like to think that the reader uses it as a blank screen and they project onto it the world of whatever book they’re reading at that time.’

Mary thought about it. ‘I’ll go with that,’ she said. ‘I like it.’

‘Oh, you want to know how they got the money to do the library? Stan himself. He said he got a discount on some light fixtures for the hallway. I’m not so sure.’

‘That’s so kind,’ said Mary. She paused. ‘There’s something sad about Stan.’

Magda went into the kitchen. ‘You’re out of coffee, Mary.’

‘Oh. I’m sorry.’ She hit Tasks on her phone menu and added coffee to her grocery list.

‘So,’ said Mary, ‘what’s going on?’

‘David’s coming this morning, isn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ said Mary. ‘There’s cake in there. I’m not hungry, but you can help yourself.’

Magda opened the bread bin and pulled out a cake wrapped in aluminium foil. It was covered in mould. She flipped the lid of the bin and threw it inside.

‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘but I’ve eaten.’ She came back into the living room and sat down on the sofa. ‘Will I stay until David comes?’

‘That would be great,’ said Mary. ‘Today is ironing day, so I’m going to start now, if you don’t mind.’

‘Go ahead,’ said Magda.

David Burig was thirty-four years old, looked younger, and spent most of his time dressed in a suit so his staff would take him seriously. He ran a successful catering business he bought after offloading an overvalued software firm nine years earlier.

‘Hello there,’ he said, hugging Mary and kissing her on the cheek.

‘David,’ she said. ‘Yaaay!’

‘If only everyone had that response when they saw me.’

‘Yaaay!’ said Magda.

He laughed. ‘Why thank you, both. I feel very special. So,’ he said to Mary. ‘I believe it’s time for bed.’

Mary frowned. She looked at the clock. ‘But it’s only 10 a.m.!’

He smiled. ‘ Flower -beds.’

She shook her head. ‘Is that supposed to be funny?’

‘Yes.’

‘Just because you say so, I’m still not sure that means it is.’

He held his hands up. ‘It actually wasn’t funny at all.’

‘It was dumb,’ said Magda.

‘Worth a try, though,’ said David. ‘Let me go change. And can I ask? What are you wearing?’

‘Do I look nuts?’ said Mary.

‘You look… creative.’

Mary smiled because David did. ‘I thought it was kind of cool.’ She was wearing a pair of orange baggy cotton pants that tapered at the ankle, a green vest and white sneakers.

David laughed and disappeared into the bedroom with his sports bag.

‘OK,’ said Magda. ‘Have you got what you need for gardening?’

Mary pointed to the tools lined up on the table: ‘Two trowels, mat to kneel on, watering can, fork thing… is that everything?’

‘Yes,’ said Magda. ‘There’s a faucet at the back of the building.’

David appeared in a battered pair of jeans, a blue long-sleeved T-shirt and green retro Pumas. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I am ready to garden. I am proud – no, I’m shocked – to be assisting in such a noble endeavour. Come on, lady in scary pants, let’s go down and bring that dirty brown soil to life.’

‘I’ll take the elevator with you,’ said Magda.

Mary laid down the mat in front of the flower-bed that ran along the edge of the property, fifty feet away from the back of the apartment block. A row of pots filled with chrysanthemums in bright shades of yellow, orange and magenta was lined up against the wall.

‘They’re so beautiful,’ said Mary.

‘They are,’ said David. ‘Stan always sticks with the same colour theme, doesn’t he? Just changes the flowers in fall.’

She nodded.

David turned to the bare flower-bed and laughed. ‘Look – he’s marked out where we can plant: the shadiest, quietest corner-’

Mary smiled. ‘In case we do it wrong?’

‘I’d say so.’

‘But I’ve helped him before, he knows I’m good.’

‘You. But not me.’

‘OK,’ said Mary. ‘We need to take the flowers out of the pots, break up the roots gently and plant them here in a pattern.’ She handed him a piece of paper with a rough diagram.

‘That should be easy,’ said David.

Mary knelt down on the mat and started to dig a hole. David tended to the pots, pushing a small trowel into the first one, working it around the roots, pulling the plant free and shaking off the excess soil.

‘Everyone I know is at the office right now,’ he said. ‘Do you know how good that makes me feel?’

Mary smiled. ‘Thanks for helping me.’

‘Helping you? I’m helping myself, here,’ he said. ‘This is therapy. This is what life’s all about. Outdoors, fresh air, office avoidance.’

He spotted a weed, growing by the grass at the edge of the flower-bed. He pulled it out and held it up. ‘Isn’t it funny?’ he said. ‘How easy it is for beauty to attract such ugly, clinging things.’

‘Like the garden in Manderley,’ said Mary.

‘Yes!’ said David. ‘Exactly.’

They worked on, talking and laughing for over an hour. David stopped and watched his little sister, her concentration unwavering, stooped over the bright petals, holding them gently in her tiny hand, pouring her heart into the job.

‘How are you doing?’ he said.

She looked up at him. ‘I guess I’m OK.’

He squeezed her hand. ‘That’s good. That’s good, Mare.’

She smiled. They continued in silence until David stopped again. He looked at her and started a quote from Rebecca: ‘We all of us have our particular devil who rides us and torments us.’

Mary smiled sadly and continued. ‘ And we must give battle in the end. We have conquered ours…’

David let out a breath. ‘ Or so we believe.’

The body of Ethan Lowry was laid out on the perforated surface of a stainless steel table in the basement of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. A body block lay under his back, forcing out his trunk that had been emptied of its organs. A handwritten, bloodstained list with their weights lay by the scales.

Joe and Danny were dressed in scrubs, gowns and gloves, with face masks hanging around their necks. Joe’s digital camera and notebook were on the counter beside him. He had taken photos and notes and asked questions through every step of the three-hour autopsy.

Dr Malcolm Hyland was young for an ME. Cops liked him because he didn’t expect them to be doctors, but he didn’t expect them to be stupid either. He was soft-spoken until he had to use the microphone – then he turned stilted and loud.

‘OK, doc,’ said Joe. He grabbed the notebook and flipped it open again.

‘OK,’ said Hyland. ‘Estimated time of death somewhere between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. Cause of death was a point-blank GSW to the head – you saw the small entry hole by his eye socket and the bruised and battered twenty-two caliber bullet taken from the skull cavity. The bullet’s trajectory was left to right, lodged in the temporal lobe. You remember the grazing around the wound margins as the bullet was spinning in. Because it was directly over bone, you got the radiating splits in the skin and the stellate effect – that star shape. Mechanism of death was an intracerebral bleed.