Alex Gray - The Swedish Girl

Kirsty nodded again, then on an impulse she rose from the chair beside Henrik’s to give him a hug. She could hear a sigh as she held him for a moment. Then, as she pulled away, she could see through her own blurred eyes the streams of tears that were coursing down this stricken father’s cheeks.

‘No, I don’t have any wholemeal bread, you’re just gonnae have to have plain white like the rest of us!’ Corinne Kennedy gritted her teeth as she pulled the loaf out of the plastic bread bin, noting for the umpteenth time the yellowing tape that held its broken lid together. Everything in this bloody house was falling to bits, she told herself, shoving the hair out of her eyes. She yanked a couple of slices off the end of the packet, muttering to herself as she pushed them into a toaster that had once been chrome and white but was now stained with scorch marks like the smudges of nicotine on her father’s old fingers.

‘Just you wait, see if I cannae find you a wee place out in the country,’ she hissed quietly. ‘Then we’ll a’ hae a bit of peace.’

Corinne slammed the cutlery drawer shut, listening all the while for the tap tap of the stick that might herald the old man coming through from the living room to stand and girn in her ear. It had been like this for more than a week now, ever since that poor wee Swedish lassie had copped it. At first Corinne had tried to show her elderly father a modicum of kindness; he’d had a bad fright, right enough. But after the first couple of days his whining and demands and that incessant ‘ What? ’ that made her practically shout at him to be heard had got on her nerves. And why should she be nice to him anyway? she thought, fingers closing over the bread knife. He’d been the one to chuck her out when she’d fallen pregnant, hadn’t he?

The toast popped up with a dull ping and Corinne slapped the pieces down on a plate, buttering furiously. He didn’t like her sort of butter, he’d told her; preferred that expensive Danish stuff. Well Derek McCubbin was in her home now and he’d just have tae take what he was given, Corinne told herself, scooping up some watery raspberry jam from the bottom of a jar. Maybe she could bring up the subject of rent? He wanted to stay on here, she knew that fine; but maybe she should hold her tongue a wee bit longer till she had worked out just what her father’s future was to be. Then it would be payback time for all the years she’d suffered. She smiled to herself as she sliced the toast into neat triangles. Once the Anniesland house was sold it would be easy enough to work on him.

With a sigh that came from too many years of scraping along on cheap food and cut-price everything else, Corinne Kennedy put the plate onto a melamine tray along with the pot of tea that had stood stewing till it was black enough for the old man’s liking, and strode through to the living room of her third-floor flat. Her father was sitting where she had left him, in the most comfortable chair opposite the television, a rug spread across his knees.

Corinne blinked for a moment. Where had the time gone since she had left home with his words ringing in her ears? You’ve made your bed now you can lie on it , he’d shouted at her, no sympathy for her advanced state of pregnancy or for the hasty marriage that had ensued in the register office. Margaret McCubbin had said nothing, but Corinne could still recall the tears in her mother’s eyes when her only daughter had left Merryfield Avenue for good, the poor soul wringing her hands on the hem of that old flowered apron.

‘Here ye are, Faither,’ Corinne said, placing the tray onto the old man’s lap. ‘Watch an no’ spill the tea, okay?’ She put out a tentative hand to pat his shoulder but withdrew it suddenly as he turned his face to scowl up at her.

‘Where did you learn to speak like that, woman?’ he growled, his gimlet stare pinning her to the spot. ‘After the decent education we gave you! Too many years in this slum of a place, that’s what’s wrong with you,’ he snarled bitterly before turning his attention to the pieces of toast.

Corinne bit her lip and retreated to the kitchen once more. Her hands were shaking as she held onto the lip of the sink. He could still do this to her, make her feel like some inadequate. Well, if it all worked out, she’d be having the last laugh. A place in the country, she told herself, thinking about the neat little bungalows spread out in Carmunnock, not this wee space inside a tenement shaped like a cereal packet in the sprawl of houses that was Castlemilk.

Anyhow, he’d been a right auld misery since his next-door neighbour, Grace Smith, had passed away, Corinne thought, standing up straighter and pulling a dry tea towel off the radiator. Grace’s daughter had sold the flat in Merryfield Avenue last summer and taken bits and pieces of her late mother’s things back to her home in St Andrews. Corinne had dropped plenty of hints that Derek should sell up, leave his sad memories behind and move in with her to somewhere nice but until now he had stubbornly refused to consider such a thing. Grace was my friend , he’d told her, I can remember her best if I stay where I am. But that was before. Now that poor wee Swedish lassie had been found dead in the same flat that Grace had died in everything was going to change, she thought, wiping the dishes and stacking them back in the cupboard.

Corinne Kennedy swept a disgusted glance over the grey cupboards — ‘catkin’, the brochure had called them, but they were still just a dull indeterminate shade of grey — to the window beyond where a weak sun was trying to emerge from behind the edge of the buildings that blocked her view of the skyline.

Her expression hardened for a moment. Aye, everything would change now and she was going to make damned sure it was a change for the better.

Kirsty Wilson waited behind her bedroom door, listening. Outside there was a low hum from the traffic making its way along Great Western Road and she could hear the swish of wet tyres down below her window. There was no sound from upstairs, but that didn’t mean that the boys were asleep yet. Either of them could be lying in bed with their ears full of music downloads. She heaved a sigh. Well, if she was ever going to find a time to search in Eva’s room it was now. The December darkness had filled the flat since well before the afternoon was over and now it was almost midnight. Kirsty shivered, not from cold but from the anticipation of making that diagonal walk across the hallway and unlocking the door to the dead girl’s room.

A sudden thought of Colin made her straighten up and take those few steps along the corridor. He would be sleeping in a narrow bunk in a cold cell, wouldn’t he? There was nothing in the girl’s experience to give her a visual idea of what that might be like, only ancient TV sitcoms like Porridge , but Kirsty reckoned that any kind of incarceration had to be pretty bleak for a sensitive soul like Colin Young.

The keys that Mr Magnusson had left were in her dressing gown pocket and she pulled them out, feeling the cold metal in her fingers, seeing a piece of white fibre that had attached itself to the smallest. She picked it off and held the key up to the light. Aye, that was Eva’s, all right. Her father had shown her the markings on the small Yale key so that she would recognise it again.

The door opened smoothly and Kirsty entered the room for the first time since the Swedish girl had died. Her hand found the light switch and the room glowed warmly under the soft pink light from the overhead lantern. Everything was there, just as Eva had always left it. Even the searches by the police and forensic folk hadn’t disturbed the usual neatness of the girl’s bedroom. The curtains were open to reveal the emptiness of the night sky, a dark rectangle that only reflected her image, a tubby figure lurking uncertainly in the doorway. Kirsty turned the handle to close the door, fearful of hearing the tiniest click, then moved to the space beside Eva’s bed. Where to begin? She turned slowly, considering her options. There was a wall of cream-coloured sliding doors opposite Eva’s bed and Kirsty pulled them slowly aside, holding her breath lest they make any sort of sound and alert the boys upstairs. It was an odd place to start, perhaps, but the girl was curious to see if the police had left her friend’s things the way she’d liked them. She nodded to herself as she saw the colour-coordinated garments hanging in double rails, shoes arranged in boxes below, each turned end-on to show a picture of their contents.