Denise Mina - Deception aka Sanctum

Susie slapped my hand away and shut her eyes, taking deep breaths, trying not to lose it. If we had been at home, she’d have left the room to cool down, but we were in an open-plan visiting room surrounded by nosy bastards with nothing better to do than listen in. “Forget the study,” she said through gritted teeth. “Just stay out of there.”

“Susie,” I said softly, “come on…”

She stood up, pocketed the pack of cigarettes, turned on her heels, and left. A guard opened the back door to let her through and glanced at me, curious and faintly accusing. I’d driven forty reluctant fucking miles to be blown off for trying to help.

I pulled over onto the hard shoulder on the way home, pretending to the passing drivers that I was afraid to go on in the high winds. I put my elbow up to the window and hid my face with my hand. It was the search, and fighting with Susie, and the strain of not asking her about Gow. She was in love with him, I know that now. I don’t think she hates me, but I can see in her eyes that I’m irrelevant. I knew it when we sat and smoked together. She was thinking about him, wishing I were him.

I was glad Margie hadn’t been with me. I don’t want her left alone with a prison guard while someone pokes her dad in the balls. I went for a walk around Kelvingrove Park so that I didn’t have to go home early. I sat on a bench and watched people walking their dogs. It was cold, I could see my breath, and I remembered the Christmastime when we were expecting Margie, how hopeful everything seemed and how pretty the frosted grass was in the garden, like a moat of jagged glass all around the house.

The journalists were gone from the back lane when I got back. I still feel that they’re watching me. Trisha was watching television with Margie in the front room. She asked me how the visit went. I shrugged. She didn’t tell me off or make any statements about what had happened, which I was grateful for. Yeni was hiding in the kitchen, looking uncomfortable. I think Trisha has been hounding her all day. It’s obvious that Yeni doesn’t like Trisha at all, and I feel I can trust her because of it.

I was suddenly struck by the terrifying thought that Yeni might leave and I’d have to find another au pair and explain the situation to her and the agency and her parents. No one in their right mind would let their teenage daughter come to the house of a lone man whose wife’s a murderer. I realized that I must be much nicer to Yeni, so I asked her if she’d like pizza for dinner and ordered it in for us all to share. I got a big one with artichoke and olives because that’s what she likes. I know she appreciated it because she went out to the deli later and bought me a bar of marzipan (“Fur jyou, Lachie”) and left it in the fridge.

I wonder about Susie. I wonder how I could live with her and know her so little. I keep looking at the picture of us in Corfu and realizing that we’ve hardly seen each other since Margie was born. I thought that was normal when couples have a baby. I thought you had to take each other for granted and concentrate on the child. I was looking forward to it, actually. It’s a normal part of the rhythm of life. It doesn’t mean one of you can go off and fall in love with a psychopathic convict.

THEY PHONED AT SIX-FORTY THIS MORNING TO ANNOUNCE THAT they were coming and arrived just after five p.m., dressed for an Arctic winter. We left their suitcases in the hall and sat around the kitchen table. The place looked nice because Mrs. Anthrobus had been and everything was clean and polished. Mum had brought a basket of pretty red and yellow jellied fruits from Marbella, and we had them with a high tea in the old manner, bread and jam and cakes and Marmite and several strong pots of Ceylon. The garden had never looked so inviting, and I wished I were out there, alone, working up a sweat pruning the apple tree and raking the leaves, kicking up the damp smell of the earth and settling the beds for winter.

Dad’s getting old. He never speaks when Mum’s there, and Mum is always there. He’s smaller than ever before, and his eyelids are coming away from his eyes. He looks awfully tired, not long-trip tired but life tired. I tried to hug him, but he sort of brushed his forehead against my chin and pushed me away.

As with Trisha, Mum and Dad were not invited to my home, nor did I in any way encourage them to come here. However, my wishes and well-being are of little concern to this elderly triumvirate. I’m little more than a sideshow, a useful prop for them to prove to each other how caring and family-oriented they are. Afraid Trisha was usurping her by coming here first, Mum’s been fussing around the house, spraying her scent in corners and doorways. She knows Trisha warned Susie about me before the wedding and is very suspicious of her.

They’ve begun a vicious exchange of tit-for-tat pleasantries that can only end in bloodshed. Trisha says how well I’ve done, and Mum trumps that by saying she knew I would do well, having known me since childhood. Trisha wants to give up the guest room in favor of Mum and Dad, but Mum and Dad want to sleep in the coal cellar so that Trisha won’t be disturbed by dad’s snoring, because you do snore, don’t you, Ian? Eventually I gave M amp;D my room and said I’d sleep downstairs, that it didn’t matter because I wasn’t really sleeping much anyway.

Mum stroked my hair and looked accusingly at Trisha. Trisha smiled and muttered, “So kind.” The irony of this sort of comfort is completely lost on both of them. They have nary a care that their support has resulted in my being put out of my bed.

Margie is loving it, though. They held her, one at a time, and fed her, cooing and gasping at her every move. It is lovely to see her through fresh eyes, because I forget how enchanting she is. The proportions of her facial features are perfect really, and she’s very clever. She plays little jokes, hiding things and so on, and her singing and talking is very advanced. She chats away all the time, to toys and walls and floors and shoes and the telly. She tries to boss everyone around, getting us to sit in chosen seats, hold a particular doll, eat things, and she claps her hands with pleasure whenever we do her bidding.

I was hoping with everyone here that Yeni might get a few days to herself, but Mum and Dad insisted that she join us for afternoon tea and quizzed her in pidgin Spanish. Having gone to the trouble of bastardizing her language, they were quite indignant to find the discourtesy unreciprocated. Yeni apologized in Spanish and reacted to their stonewalling by blushing and wobbling her head from side to side. Then she sloped off to hide in her room. She really must not leave.

I said I was going to the loo and went up to her room to see if she was okay. She was sitting on the end of her single bed, looking at the pictures in a book about the Romans. She had wound up the noisy little circus clock that Susie had as a child, the one with the seal balancing the ball on his nose. The anxious, tinny tick-tock bounced from wall to wall, making her seem like a child waiting out her time in detention. I gave her a quizzical thumbs-up. She raised a limp thumb back and stretched her lips across her teeth. I made a wait gesture and brought the portable television through from my room. I sat it on the chest of drawers at the end of her bed and plugged it in. I pointed at my watch. “Friends,” I said, and her big fat face lit up.

“Friends?”

“Yes,” I said and turned it on, fiddling with the aerial until I found good reception. Mum called me, and as I went to open the door and go back downstairs, Yeni darted from the bed and caught my arm, turning me around. She gave me the toothiest, cheesy grin and a big, affirmative thumbs-up. We both giggled behind our hands as Mum called again, and I dragged my heavy feet back downstairs to the unwelcome support and comfort of my family.