A Shorter History of Tractors in Ukrainian with Handcuffs Read online

  ‘I wasn’t sure what setting to put it on,’ he said.

  ‘It doesn’t really matter. It’s not haute cuisine, you know,’ she snapped, then immediately felt guilty. ‘Sorry, darling. Something cropped up at work.’

  She kissed him on the cheek, hoping he wouldn’t smell the alcohol on her breath, and rustled up a salad. He opened a bottle of wine (Steady on, Laura, you’ve already had half a bottle) which put them both in the mood for an amorous bedtime – though, to be perfectly truthful, it wasn’t Graham that she was thinking of as she closed her eyes and pulled him towards her under the duvet.

  2

  ‘Are you alright, Laura?’

  Laura awoke to find Graham standing over her with a cup of tea.

  She rubbed her eyes and smiled. ‘Thank you, darling. I must have been having a strange dream.’

  ‘You were shouting in your sleep. Sounded like “Mad! Mad!” Have you been having a hard time at work?’

  ‘An old case has resurfaced. Some lunatics,’ she murmured guiltily, taking a sip of tea. ‘Thank you, darling.’

  He bent over and kissed her on the cheek. She breathed in his reassuring early-morning smell of Lynx, Colgate, Gillette Foam and Comfort. His cheeks were pink from the razor, his John Lewis terry-towelling dressing gown was loosely knotted over his Marks and Spencer pyjamas – last year’s and the year before’s Christmas gifts from her.

  ‘Better be off. Important client meeting today.’

  He bumbled away and, a moment later, she heard him singing in the shower.

  Laura lingered in bed a little longer so as to give him a clear run of the en-suite dressing room. From downstairs, the dulcet tones of her daughters squabbling over their breakfast cereal assailed her ears.

  She sighed. Why did everything have to be so . . . so ordinary?

  Grayson Maddox was not on Facebook or on Twitter. He had no homepage, didn’t blog, and the last mention of him on a legal site was back in 2007. She had no idea how to get in touch with him – or even what she would say if she could – but for the next few days she treated herself to a morning pastry and cappuccino in the storeroom as she read and reread the details of the Mayevskyj case.

  One morning, as she closed the file, a small piece of handwritten notepaper fluttered to the floor.

  See you on Saturday.

  All my love,

  Eric

  She picked it up and studied it, frowning. Eric – wasn’t one of Valentina’s lovers called Eric Pike?

  Eric Pike did feature on Facebook, as a vintage car enthusiast who lived on a modern estate on the far side of town.

  At six o’clock she closed up the office, retrieved her car from the car park, and made a long detour on her way home.

  Her odyssey took her into a confusing maze of crescents and cul-de-sacs of identical red-brick boxes – thirty-five, thirty-six – washed up nebeneinander like seawrack on the ineluctable shore. She might have given up and gone home, had she not spotted, parked in front of an identikit bungalow, a preening gleaming white vintage Rolls Royce Silver Cloud, like a wide-winging swan unexpectedly come to earth on this commonplace driveway. Laura remembered that Mr Mayevskyj’s ex-wife had once owned a Rolls Royce.

  Could this be the same one?

  She presses the brass bell at the side of the frosted glass door, ding-a-ling-a-ling, and a woman appears, middle-aged, thin limbed, brown curled, pasty skinned, pencil browed, lipstick lipped, dimple chinned, and with eyes in which a tear and a smile strive ever for the mastery, dressing-gown clad, her heaving embonpoint on display between low-plunging lapels of Fitzpatrick clan tartan: snotgreen bluesilver gorseyellow check, as worn by Fitzpatricks of renown including Mac Giolla Phádraig (King of Ossory, founded by Aengus Osrith), Brian Mac Giolla Phádraig (Vicar Apostolic of Ossory, who saved the ‘Book of the O’Byrne’ from destruction and died at the hands of Cromwell’s soldiers), Sir Percy Fitzpatrick of South Africa, Major Thomas Fitzpatrick the Broken-Handed from Cavan (Indian Agent to the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho, peacemaker with the Plains Indians in 1851 at Fort Laramie, Wyoming) and Patrick Fitzpatrick (ally of Daniel O’Connell).

  And under her arm is a small excited white terrier in matching tartan jacket.

  ‘He’s out,’ she says, and moves to slam the door, then changes her mind. ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘My name’s Laura Carter. I’m looking for Eric Pike.’

  ‘You want to hire the roller? It’s available for weddings and special occasions. Da Daaa Da Daaa. Here comes the bride!’ She sings, her voice blending and fusing in clouded silence – silence that is infinite of space – and swiftly, silently the sound is wafted over regions of cycles of cycles of generations that have lived.

  ‘Not exactly. I’m a solicitor. I represent an elderly gentleman who married a young Ukrainian woman whom I believe your husband might have known. I wonder if she’s been back to the area? Has there been any contact that you know about?’

  The pencilled brows pucker. A lipsticky leer widens in the pasty visage.

  ‘Are you saying she’s back? Because, listen, Mrs Cartier, I’ve had it up to here with her and her bloody carrying-on, and my Eric weren’t the only one in town to get the treatment, and if she ever shows her green-satin-clad bazookas around here, I’ll chop them off with a kitchen knife and feed ’em to Sammy, is that clear?’

  The small wiry-haired canine yaps appreciation.

  ‘Quite,’ says Laura in a placatory voice, thinking: Goodness me, this Joycean prose is hard going, no wonder I never got past page ninety-three. ‘So if you do hear anything, Mrs Pike, I’d be ever so grateful.’

  She hands her a business card, and legs it down the drive.

  Once in her car, Laura realizes that she does not know the ubicity of this bungalow nor by what processes she has there been ushered, nor whether to Tophet or to Edenville in the like way is all hidden when she would backward see from what region of remoteness the whatness of her whoness hath fetched her whenceness.

  In other words, she has no idea at all where she is.

  Eventually, via several pubs, the cemetery, the newspaper office, the hospital, Sandymount, the racecourse and the seashore, she navigated her way.

  It was almost nine o’clock when she got home, to find Graham grappling manfully with the packaging of a home-delivered pizza. Bits of shredded cardboard were all over the kitchen floor, and smears of tomato sauce were on his face and hands.

  ‘You could have phoned.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I got lost on the way home.’

  ‘Lost?’ There was an edge of disbelief in his voice.

  3

  After her Ulyssean encounter with Mrs Pike, Laura resolved to put the Mayevskyj case out of her mind.

  For the next few days, she made a point of arriving at work before Dina’s Patisserie opened, and she stuck to salads at lunchtime. She seemed to be getting her life under control again – though, sometimes, she found herself staring too long out of the office window, hoping to catch another glimpse of the mysterious couple. But the citizens of Peterborough remained stolidly unmysterious.

  She tried not to think about the judge. In the daytime she kept herself busy and redirected any stray thoughts firmly back into the present. But at night she found herself lured into dangerous new terrain. Oftentimes, curving herself around Graham’s warm sleeping bulk, she found herself thinking of Judge Maddox: his robust judgement; his robust . . . Calm down, Laura. She would listen to Graham’s soft rumbling snore and drift off into a fitful sleep, during which a tall quiet man with aviator glasses and an extremely robust throbbing manhood did unspeakable things to her, which she blushed to remember when Graham brought her a cup of tea in the morning.

  One morning, she awoke later than usual, her nightie moist with perspiration, to find that Graham had already gone to work, the girls had left for school, and a tepid cup of tea was cooling on the bedside table. She closed her eyes and struggled to recapture the dream. Handcuffs. Yes, handcuffs had
definitely been part of it. And underwear that was certainly not from M&S. Oh dear.

  Letting her standards slip by just ten minutes that day meant that Dina’s Patisserie was open by the time Laura got to work. And after what she’d undergone during the night, a mere slice of chocolate torte seemed a minor misdemeanour by comparison. And then, as if summoned by her dream, a letter appeared in her in-tray that morning, hand-scribbled on creamy headed notepaper from a posh-sounding address in Stamford.

  There seems to be a development in the Mayevskyj case.

  Can we meet?

  Maddox

  She read through the brief dispassionate note several times, wondering how such a curt turn of phrase could send her pulse helter-skelter. Should she reply? Shouldn’t she reply? She needed time to calm down. It wouldn’t do to seem too keen. She decided to postpone the decision.

  In the meantime, there was more detective work to be done – she wanted to be superbly briefed when they met.

  ‘I’m going to a client’s home,’ she told her secretary, Rosie, at five o’clock. ‘If Graham calls, tell him I might be a bit late back.’

  Although she had Mr Mayevskyj’s old address in her files, she had never actually been to the house before. Now, turning into the lane, the first thing she noticed among all the neatly clipped hedges and trimmed lawns was one hedge that was so straggly and overgrown that it screened the house behind it entirely from the road. And sticking out of the hedge was a crooked For Sale sign. Strange, she thought. It must have been years since the daughters had sold the house. When had it come on to the market again, and why?

  A prickly pyracantha bush, bright with orange berries, had almost taken over the front path, clawing at her jacket as she tried to push past on the mossy stones. Although the light was already fading, she noticed her first clue: some twigs on the bush were freshly bent and broken. Somebody else had been here recently. Next, she spotted a crumpled scrap of paper lodged among the thorns. She pulled it out and examined it. It was a bus ticket from Peterborough to Duckwith and, although it was damp and faded, she could just make out that it dated from last Monday – the same day she had noticed the mysterious couple in the centre of town.

  Her heartbeat quickened as she pressed on.

  The lawn had obviously been subject to the attentions of an enthusiastic mole; little mounds of freshly turned earth dotted the unmown grass. The house itself was peeling and dilapidated. The front window was so dusty she could hardly see in. But as she pressed her eye against the glass she was aware of a slight movement in the frame, and where the frame touched the sill a row of fresh gouge-marks suggested that a sharp instrument resembling a screwdriver had been used to lift the sash. Clue number three. She leaned forward and tried to ease the frame up with her fingers. At first it seemed stuck. Then it budged. She pushed again with all her strength and eased it up a couple of inches. There was a single muddy footprint on the inside of the sill – clue number four. Large. Right foot. Sporty grips. A bit worn on the outer edge. Pleased with herself, she looked around carefully for other signs of the intruder.

  So engrossed was she in analysing the clues that she failed to notice, at first, the sudden chill in the air and the thick fenland mist that wreathed itself around the darkening garden, shrouding the tall dark bushes and obscuring the way to the gate and the lane. When she looked up, she realized with a pang of fear that she could hardly see past the end of her arms. Suddenly, she felt a thump on her calf and a sharp pain stabbed into her leg. She shrieked and jumped back. A big black cat was clinging to her skirt, clawing through the fabric above her knee, looking up at her with mean green eyes. As she tried to bat it away, it narrowed its eyes and scrambled up her thigh as though she were a tree.

  ‘Get off!’ Laura yelled.

  She didn’t like cats – cruel, unpredictable, selfish creatures. She tried to push it off, but it clung tighter. She turned and bolted in what she thought was the direction of the gate, skidding on the mossy path and colliding with the pyracantha prickles, still feeling the creature’s fierce claws in her skin as it tried to hang on.

  At last she reached the lane, and the cat let go and vanished into the hedge. She got back in her car and sat there, breathing deeply. Calm down, Laura. Whatever monstrous things have happened here, or are going to happen here, it’s nothing to do with you. Just go home and forget it.

  The mist had lifted as mysteriously as it had appeared. She turned on the engine, tuned the radio to Smooth Classics, put her foot down and headed for home. Near where the village lane joined the ring road there was a bit of unkempt woodland, part of a former green belt. As she slowed down to pass a cyclist she noticed a track into the wood and, a few metres away, a car parked under the trees – a shiny low-slung silver sports car. Probably a lovers’ tryst. She smiled to herself, and wondered what kind of car the judge drove.

  Graham was already home when she pulled into the drive.

  ‘What happened?’ He looked at her laddered tights and the dribble of blood running down her leg.

  ‘Oh, I had an argument with a cat,’ she laughed.

  ‘Laura, if there’s anything you want to tell me . . .’

  ‘What?’ She looked up into his earnest pink face. ‘Oh no, darling. I told you – just a nasty brute of a cat that tried to climb up my leg.’

  ‘I see.’

  He was still staring at her, and then she noticed that a couple of pyracantha twigs were embedded in her jacket.

  ‘Home visit. Difficult client. Like I said, mad, mad, mad!’

  4

  ‘Justin Jacques,’ said the voice on the other end of the phone, though when they were at school together he’d been plain Jim Jackson and she’d been Laura Devine. In those long-ago days, while she yearned to be a detective, he yearned to be a footballer. Funny how things turn out.

  ‘Jim, it’s Laura. Sorry to ring you like this out of the blue. I’m just wondering, are you still a detective?’

  ‘It’s Justin to you, lovely Laura. And yeah, I’m still a sleuth. How can I help?’

  ‘That house in Duckwith, Jim . . . sorry, Justin . . . where you served the divorce papers on that Ukrainian woman back in nineteen-ninety-something – any idea why it’s still empty?’

  ‘Empty as a whore’s heart; been on the market ever since the old guy retreated into a retirement home. The buyer backed out, and for some reason it’s never sold. Some folks say it’s haunted.’

  ‘Haunted?’ she said, wondering how he had acquired an American accent since they had last spoken. ‘The only person who’s died there in living memory is the old lady, and she died peacefully in her sleep.’

  ‘You know how dirty little rumours circulate. Anyway, what’s it to you, lovely Laura?’

  ‘I drove past the other day, and it looked like someone had tried to break in. There were a number of clues, but –’

  ‘If I was you, Laura, I would keep your pretty little nose out. Don’t get involved.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘People could ask questions.’

  ‘What people? What questions?’

  ‘Nothing. Just forget I ever said that. So, when are we going to get together for a bourbon?’

  A bourbon? What had got into him?

  ‘I’d love to, Jim, honestly, but things are so hectic at the moment.’

  ‘So hectic that you have time to go nosing around empty houses?’

  There was something in his voice that was half flirtatious and half threatening. Laura shuddered, remembering that at school he’d been a bit like that. She’d gone out with him for a short time, mainly to annoy her parents, but even annoying her parents was not a strong enough motive for ‘going the whole way’, as it was called in those days.

  After school, he’d joined the police force, while she’d gone to university to study English Literature, before her parents persuaded her to take the law conversion course. But they’d stayed friendly, if not exactly friends. Friendly enough for her to pass on occasiona
l assignments to him. He was a man with an ear to the ground and contacts in useful places. So when he talked about people asking questions, she listened. Seemed like he knew something she would like to know.

  ‘You’re right, Jim. It would be good to catch up,’ she said. ‘Let’s fix a date.’

  A couple of difficult divorces swallowed up the rest of her morning, and she was grateful for their complexity – kept her mind off the turmoil of questions and emotions that was invading her previously uneventful life.

  She resisted the morning pastry and had a salad for lunch, but later that afternoon she had a moment of weakness, during which she replied to Grayson Maddox. She could just have called him, but the phone can be an unwitting betrayer of emotion. Email was too familiar. As a judge, he was a couple of status notches above a solicitor.

  So she scribbled a note on her personal headed notepaper.

  Good idea.

  Where and when?

  Laura

  She posted it on her way home.

  5

  Laura Carter and Jim Jackson (aka Justin Jacques) met at lunchtime in a dingy American-themed pub that served an industrial estate on the outskirts of town, where Jim/Justin claimed they sold the best authentic rye east of the west coast. Although it was midday, a murky gloom shrouded the environs. A thin greasy rain hung in the air like a fog, wetting her hair and clothes, and giving the bleak potholed asphalt of the car park a menacing gleam.

  He was sitting at a sticky Formica-topped table near the bar, and he rose to greet her as she came in. He was still a handsome man, she observed, though he had put on some weight around the middle. He was wearing a slightly too tight powder-blue suit, a dark-blue shirt and tie, black brogues and black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them – an outfit which Laura thought was slightly unusual but quite fetching on him. She was wearing her usual grey wool Per Una work outfit, and a squirt of Miss Dior behind the ears. He was wearing some rank overpowering man-juice that barely masked the feral smell of . . . Steady on, Laura – not your type. Nevertheless, she couldn’t help noticing that a virile five-o’clock shadow darkened his cheeks and jaw, although it was only just after noon.