Louise Welsh - Death is a Welcome Guest

Belle was standing in the doorway. ‘Can I see?’

Magnus handed the picture to her.

Belle glanced at the photograph of Jacob’s wife and gave a small snort of amusement. ‘That’s how Marilyn Monroe would have looked if she’d eaten all the pies.’

Magnus took the picture back. He felt a need to defend the dead woman. ‘She looks nice.’

Belle shrugged. ‘You mean she looks like she could fuck and cook. I guess that’s all men will want now.’

The girl had been sarcastic and skittish since Jacob’s death. Magnus resisted asking if she was thinking about leaving the group in case she mistook the question for an invitation. He opened the drawer of the bedside cabinet and pawed through its contents: a tube of Savlon, a box of matches, a dead battery. He slid his fingers above and below the drawer, checking its hidden surfaces the way he had seen spies in movies do, but nothing was taped there. He thought Belle would ask what he was looking for, but instead she said, ‘How’s Jeb?’

‘Locked in a dungeon, but otherwise on top of the world.’

‘Perhaps I should visit him.’

Magnus lifted Jacob’s pillow. He turned to look at the girl. ‘Would Will give you the key?’

Belle said, ‘Will thinks he’s the big man now Jacob’s gone. And you know how keen big men are on keys.’

‘Would you be willing to ask him for it?’

She paused, considering his question. ‘Probably not.’

Magnus dropped the pillow back on the bed and pulled the covers down. There was a stain on the sheet, stiff and familiar. He felt a quick stab of shame and drew the bedclothes over it.‘Because Jeb insulted you?’

‘Because he killed Jacob.’

‘You don’t know that.’

‘How sure are you that he didn’t?’

‘Pretty sure.’ Magnus lifted the mattress. The slats below were empty. He had built a bed like it once, a flat-pack from Ikea he had assembled and then christened with a girl he had gone out with in college. He let the mattress flop back down again and sat on it. ‘Why didn’t you come to the funeral?’

‘I couldn’t face it.’ Belle ran a finger through the dust on a chest of drawers by the window, leaving a wavy line on its surface, a river or a swimming snake. ‘Jacob focused on survival so much it’s ironic he’s dead.’ She dragged a hand through her hair. A wisp came away. Belle looked at it and then let it fall to the floor. ‘He wouldn’t have let you leave, you know. He’d decided you were crucial to the community .’ She stressed the words. ‘I thought about leaving after Melody died.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘But where would I go?’

It was Magnus’s cue to invite her to join him. He asked, ‘How did you end up here?’

‘It’s not much of a story.’ Belle boosted herself up on to the chest of drawers. ‘I was working in the King’s Cross Starbucks when the sweats started. My dad had a thing about his children learning to fend for themselves.’ She swung her legs, watching her feet scissor to and fro. Belle had lost more weight and her limbs looked long and insect-like. ‘They were at our holiday home in Portugal when the sweats got them. I should have been there too, but I’d had another row with my dad about money; a big one.’ Her eyes met Magnus’s. ‘He was pretty tight, my dad, but he usually came round in the end. I thought staying in London might make him miss me.’ She drew a circle in the dust beside her and dotted her finger into its centre, a glaring eyeball. ‘Imagine if I had gone with them. I’d be all alone now in a country where I don’t speak the language.’

‘Are you certain they didn’t make it?’

Belle stared at the surface of the chest of drawers and painted more patterns in the dust. ‘Dad telephoned to tell me that Mum was ill. I could tell he was worried, but he didn’t sound frantic. I thought she would be okay. He phoned back a day later. She had died and my sister was in hospital.’ Belle added another swirl to her dustscape. ‘I thought grief had made his voice hoarse, but later I realised it was the sickness. I phoned him back, phoned all of that day, into the night, through the next day and the next, but that was the last time I spoke to him.’ Her voice was flat, as if none of it mattered. ‘I wasn’t sure what to do so I phoned my aunt in Shropshire. We decided I should go and stay with her, but just as I was about to get on the train she called to say that she was unwell. I think she would have liked me to come anyway, but much as I was fond of my aunt, I wasn’t willing to die for her.

‘The girls I was sharing a flat with both went home. I had nowhere to go, so I stayed on, watching television and emailing and texting friends. One by one they stopped replying.’ She gave a small, sad smile. ‘I used to have some good friends.’ Her eyes were slightly glazed, her voice far away. ‘I ran out of food, but the Internet and television were trending riots and curfews and I was scared to go outside. I think I was ill for a few days, it’s all a bit hazy, but I do remember hearing a woman screaming in the street outside, as if she were being murdered, and hiding under my bedclothes praying for her to shut up. Then the Internet went off. So did the water and electricity. I saw a rat in the toilet. I wasn’t sure if it was real or if I was hallucinating, but somehow after that the flat didn’t seem safe any more. I knew that if I was going to survive I had to get out of London.’

Magnus remembered his own flight from the city. The smashed shops, abandoned cars and dead bodies lying forsaken in the streets. ‘That couldn’t have been easy.’

Belle’s eyes met his. ‘There were gangs rounding up women, did you know that?’

‘No.’

‘I saw one. Men armed with rifles guarding half a dozen women who were handcuffed to a chain. One of them was only a girl, a tiny little thing with big eyes. Another was ancient, a pensioner. It didn’t seem to matter what age they were or what they looked like, as long as they were female. A couple of the women were bruised and staggering, as if they’d been beaten up. I hid in a shop and watched the men force them into a van. After that I got myself a knife and only ever travelled at night.’ Belle had lowered her head as she spoke; now she raised her eyes to his. ‘I get so scared. I’ve thought about leaving ever since Melody hanged herself. But what if I met men like that?’

‘You trusted Jacob.’

‘Not straight away. I met Melody first. She was on a foraging trip. I followed her back here. She told me later that she knew I was there, but didn’t want to scare me away. That was what Melody was like, gentle. She persuaded me to stay the night and introduced me to Jacob. I thought the priest’s collar was probably a con. But by that time I was in bad shape. Melody and Raisha were living here and they seemed okay. I needed to be with other people and so I took a chance.’

‘Jacob thought Melody and Henry had been murdered.’

Belle shrugged. ‘Jacob wanted to live more than any of us. I think his lust for life embarrassed him, but he couldn’t help it. The idea that survivors would kill themselves offended him.’ She gave Magnus an apologetic look, as if the strength of her own opinion had surprised her. ‘That’s what I think, for what it’s worth.’

‘Maybe you’re right, but Jacob was definitely murdered.’ Magnus kept his voice gentle. ‘Do you know why he died?’

Belle gave a frightened giggle. ‘He died because someone shot his head off.’ She slid off the chest of drawers. ‘I don’t know why you’re so keen on getting Jeb out. Even if he didn’t shoot Jacob he killed that woman and her child. Either way he deserves to be locked up.’

‘If he didn’t kill Jacob then someone else did. Doesn’t that bother you?’