Denise Mina - Slip of the Knife

He reached into the black hole, pulling down a tent and poles, two sleeping bags tightly rolled in sleeves, and a cardboard box of dusty Christmas decorations, handing them down to Dub, who set them on the floor. Next came three black binbags of bedding, old duvets and pillows. The quiche maker then climbed off the top rung of the ladder, kneeling into the cupboard, his feet sticking out as he felt towards the back.

They heard a long sliding noise and he stepped carefully back onto the ladder, his knees gray with dust, screwing up his face as if he might sneeze. He was holding a large, square yew box. Although it was dusty the wood was still gorgeously yellow and leopard spotted, the edges perfectly dovetailed. A flat brass hook on the front held it shut. He handed it down to Paddy, who flicked the hook from the eye and opened it.

Inside were photographs, mostly old, of family members. One near the top looked like it might be Terry’s parents, a couple with their arms around each other standing under an apple tree in high summer. The colors had faded to orange and yellow, the white-framed edges worn from being held. Scratched in thin biro on the back it said “Sheila and Donald ’76.” Creepily, the mother looked a bit like her.

Dub looked over her shoulder, sighed onto her neck. “I’m not saying it.”

“Me neither.”

“Hang on.” The quiche maker reached farther in. “There’s this.”

He climbed out again, dragging a large black portfolio, A3 size, just like the one Kevin had shown Paddy on Sunday night. The quiche maker looked puzzled. “Didn’t want to lose it, I suppose.”

“It’s a book Terry was writing,” said Paddy. “He’d already been paid for it.” She reached up and took it off him. “Thanks so much. It’s really kind of ye.”

“No bother,” he said, taking the camping equipment back from Dub and chucking it into the black hole. “My pastry needs to rest anyway.”

He dragged the reluctant door back across the hole and climbed down the ladder, brushing his hands clean.

“We’ll empty Terry’s room and get out of your way.”

“If you could leave the keys for the next person.” He wrestled the ladder shut and put it over his shoulder. “There’s binbags in that cupboard on the wall there if you want something to put the stuff in.”

Back in the room Pete set up a little play camp by the window, taking marbles out of his pocket and chipping at them, chatting to himself, playing the audience to his own moves. “Wow, good one. Close, very close, wee man. Superb.”

Dub grinned at Paddy as he shook a black binbag open and dropped the Penguin Classics into it. “What’s in the portfolio? Why did he hide it so carefully?”

“Dunno,” she said quietly. “Could be just because it’s work. Could be he knew whoever’d broken in was after it.”

Dub put the binbag down, said hang on, and left her to it. She found a suitcase full of papers hidden in the trunk, Terry’s own clippings mostly.

“The guy out there says Terry’s room wasn’t the focus of the break-in. They nicked a bike and a penny collection, so it doesn’t look like a master burglar.

“Maybe Terry was just paranoid about it because it was his work. He’d never had a book published, had he?”

“No.”

“You know how different that feels. It might have really mattered to him.”

“Maybe.”

She went back to stripping the bed. When she raised the duvet up to fold it into a binbag, his smell enveloped her face. She poked it into the bag, shoving it in angrily, promising herself that she’d dump it in a skip on the way home.

They made a tidy pile of binbags in the middle of the floor, filled the trunk and shut it, put the duffel bag by the door. Quiche Maker said they could leave the mattress. The next person might use it.

They were ready to go.

“Come on,” said Dub, “Mary Ann’ll be there soon.”

Paddy gave Pete the portfolio to carry while she and Dub managed everything else in two trips up and down the stairs.

At the last they stood in the doorway to the huge dusty room. The sun was low and the lights were out in Lawrence Street. When they switched off the bare bulb, the big room was lit by the windows of the facing flats.

Across the street a family had gathered to watch their television set under the window, sitting in a line along a settee as if they were looking straight into Terry’s room. In another window a woman dusted a pristine front room, lifting doilies and straightening antimacassars. In another, an elderly woman looked out of the window into the street, watching for someone.

Paddy could smell Terry in the dust, could see him sitting on his bed drinking a cup of coffee and contemplating his day. He looked small and alone as she imagined him there, a speck, helpless as a dust mote floating gently away on invisible currents.

Dub cupped her elbow. “You’re not just shocked, pet. You’re really sad about this, aren’t you?”

Ambushed, Paddy drew a deep, wavering breath. “I don’t even know why.”

“Maybe it’s really about your dad.”

“Aye, maybe,” she said, “maybe.” But she knew it wasn’t.

It didn’t look very nice. The pasta had cooked too long and was soft and cloudy at the edges. Paddy dropped the contents of the sauce jar on it and stirred the pot. It still didn’t look very nice, but she knew she’d eat it. She put the lid on and took some ready-grated Parmesan out of the cupboard, setting the cardboard tub on the table.

Dub looked up from the free local paper, chewing his pen seriously. “ ‘Man’s best friend,’ three letters?”

She shrugged. “Jesus?”

She took plates and glasses out of the cupboard and set the table for four. Here, among the steamed-up windows, in the peaceful pocket of the house with all the workaday reminders of routine and pending chores, the threat of Callum Ogilvy and the horror of Terry’s death seemed faintly ludicrous.

She stood over the basket of fresh ironing on top of the washing machine, looking at the creases Dub had carefully worked into her office clothes and Pete’s spare uniform, telling herself not to think about it, just for the evening, until Mary Ann left. They saw little enough of each other and it was a shame to waste a whole evening on distractions.

The doorbell rang out a soft chime and Dub tried to stand up but banged his knees on the underside of the table. Paddy and Pete met in the hall, rushing for the door, a little throb of excitement in Paddy’s throat too. She let him get it.

Mary Ann was standing outside the front door, dressed in a plain blue button-down dress and carrying a plastic bag with a heavy tub in it, her blond ringlets newly and brutally cropped. She smiled wide, stepping into the hall, touching her head self-consciously. Pete wanted to touch it so she bent down to let him.

“Oh dear.” Paddy slipped her arm through her sister’s and tutted. “That is one terrible haircut. But you’re still prettier than me. It’s damnable.”

They came into the kitchen and found Dub standing proudly over the pot of hot pasta on the table as if he’d made it. He took the plastic bag Mary Ann offered him and pulled out a clear Tupperware box, setting it on the edge of the table. It was soup, yellow from the lentils, flecked with green peas and white chunks of potato. The lid wasn’t fitted on properly and a floury dribble had dried down the side. Pete pressed his nose against the box, trying to see through it.

“Soup,” said Mary Ann.

Paddy recognized the cut of the potatoes, the particular yellow tone Trisha got from soaking the dried split peas for two nights instead of one. She took it from Dub, disguising her irritation. “Did she come into the mission to give you this?”