Mr. Flood's Last Resort(26)

I watch her fingers move with an implausible deftness. It is as if her hands are operating independently from her, cursed to fuss and jab at the wool for all eternity.

But her mind isn’t on the wool: it’s on Mary Flood and the faceless child. Her happy scowl tells me my friend is thinking of dark deeds.

“So, no word from Mary Flood today?”

“I thought we were talking about something other than death and murder and bones for a change? You swore.”

Renata puts down her knitting. “We’ll talk about the living, then.” She regards me coyly. “A man called today for you; he was very alive.” She puts a lewd spin on the word.

“The satellite TV repairman?”

The satellite TV repairman lives with his mother and participates in historical reenactments (Roundhead). When he last visited, two pairs of knickers went missing from my bathroom radiator. Renata has encouraged this match due to some folkloric notion of warding off the certain evils visited on our community by my prolonged spinsterhood.

Renata shakes her head. “No, this one was a hunky blondie.” She returns to her knitting.

“Did he leave his name?” I ask, although I already know it.

“He did. Then we drank vermouth and he fixed the bathroom blind. Lovely man. Well muscled.” Renata looks at me. “It was Sam, you know, the threatened care worker who went mad or back to Hull.”

Hence the wig and the glad rags. I can just imagine her scuttling off to change then returning to drape herself nonchalantly over furniture. A woman transformed, exuding sudden star quality.

“And you’re only telling me this now?”

She shrugs, not in the least repentant.

“Did Sam say what he wanted to talk to me about?”

“At first it wasn’t clear why he was here, either to Sam or to me. Until we did his cards.” She frowns. “Major Arcana and Swords such as you wouldn’t believe. Justice, Judgment, and the Wheel of Fortune, all upside down.” She purses her lips. “But he took it well.”

“Did he say anything about the house? About Mr. Flood?”

“No, but I told him that we’re onto Mr. Flood for killing his wife, along with a young unidentified female relative.” She keeps her head down, rummaging in her knitting bag.

“Why did you tell him that? What if he’s still in a delicate state of mind, after the assault? He could believe it.”

Renata pulls out a ball of lurid pink wool; she squeezes it, then, satisfied, picks up her needles. “Sam isn’t delicate at all. If by delicate you mean mental.”

I stare at her in despair.

She begins to cast off. “He came here today to tell you to stop working at Bridlemere. He likes you.” She smirks. “He’s worried for your safety.”

“Sam said that?” I ask.

She pettishly knits a few more stitches, then glances up at me. “He thinks you are in grave danger from Mr. Flood.”

I can’t help but smile. “And aren’t you worried for my safety, Renata? Sending me off digging around Bluebeard’s lair.”

“I know you; why would I be worried?”

“Thanks.”

“You are like me, Maud. Drop us, we bounce. Kick us, we bounce.” She puts her knitting down. “Besides. There’s a puzzle to be solved here, an intrigue. Do we run away?”

I don’t answer.

Renata nods, gratified. “As you know, the best things in life are usually a little dangerous.” She extracts a full bottle of krupnik from the side of her chair with a smile.





CHAPTER 9


“Meeting her boyfriend, is she? In a rush to get down there, is she? End of your visit to Granny’s, is it? Making the most of it, is she?”

Noel Noone always asked four questions to one, for he never had anyone to talk to. Nobody ever visited his kiosk. Even so, he was there all day, every day.

Old Noel sold cigarettes, sweets, deck chairs (try putting one of those up; the wind would laugh its bollocks off), fishing nets with cane handles and buckets and spades (blue or pink, square or round turrets). He had a kettle out the back, and he’d make you a tea but the milk was chancy and you had to stay and drink it in front of him so he could have the cup back. The cups had drippings on the outside; we were uncertain as to whether he ever washed them.

Old Noel called Deirdre Sugarcheeks and Deirdre called him a dirty old fecker.

He had cornered me near the secondhand books, pinching the top of my arm, squeezing my earlobe, and circling my wrist with his grabbling fingers. And all the while talking in his strange, high, giddy voice with the spits coming out of his bluish lips.

Old Noel regarded me intently with one eye. His other eye was trained on Deirdre as she stood outside the door to the kiosk. Deirdre had her back to us. An angel framed against the sunlit tarmac of the car park, her brown hair burnished, pinned up, wispy curls falling on her narrow neck nape.

I saw him see this with his wall eye.

He saw her slim shoulder blades under her dress and the rouge on her cheeks. She’d picked a spot on her chin; he saw this too. For after all Deirdre wasn’t perfect, although she looked it in some lights.

Deirdre kicked the door frame with her sandal, surveyed the sky with an expression of profound boredom, and then opened her handbag. It was beautiful: heart shaped and made from red leather. Deirdre let me touch it once and showed me the inside. It was lined with pink silk and had a gold popper to keep it closed. The strap was a fine slim ribbon of a thing. Jimmy O’Donnell had given it to her, for no other reason than he felt like it.