An hour later, she stared unblinking at the graph she had made until her eyes started to water. She went to the bathroom, took out her lenses, and came back again, threading the wires of her spectacles around her ears.
Maybe Mrs. Watson had seen something surprising behind Keiko in the street that first day. Or maybe she’d been trying not to sneeze. One thing was for sure: there was nothing in her profile-not in scruples, trust, discretion, anywhere-that marked her out as different from Pet McMaster, Pamela Shand, or Moira Glendinning. They were all as innocent as newborn babes.
They were, but it wasn’t like that for everyone. Hidden in the crowd of forty was a very worried little band. Their names, when she put them together, rang a faint bell somewhere. Imperiolo, McLuskie, Dessing, and Ballantyne. Where had she come across them bunched together before? Murray, she remembered, had told her she’d be better off without the Imperiolos and McLuskies as friends. Except that it wasn’t both Imperiolos that stood out on this graph she was staring at; it was Kenny Imperiolo, him alone. And it wasn’t Andrew McLuskie, Master Baker, but his wife, Provost Etta. Likewise, Alec Dessing and Margaret Ballantyne ran with the herd, and it was only his wife and her husband who had made the anxiety indicators shoot off the top of the scale.
What did these four have in common? She was sure there was something. She could see them as clear as day, as if she was looking down on them from above.
That was it! Of course she had seen them, across the street. She had seen them going into the flat door beside the ironmongers, to Mr. McKendrick’s offices up there. They, along with Jimmy McKendrick himself, were the Painchton Traders committee.
Well, of course they were worried! Her shoulders fell and she let her held breath out with a hiss, almost laughing. They were steering a massive project, involving all kinds of decisions and initiatives-including having her here in the flat doing this project. She heard again Mr. McLuskie’s voice telling her she must be wondering why they’d brought her there. And then she remembered his voice saying it was anyone’s guess what was wrong with Etta. He had said she was up to high doh. And Mrs. Imperiolo had said her husband was stressed to his oxters, and Keiko had had to ask Fancy for translations.
But if they were merely anxious about Traders business, wouldn’t their spouses understand that? Why would Andrew McLuskie and Rosa Imperiolo be puzzled if that was all that was going on?
So what was worrying them? Keiko glanced back at the graph again. She hadn’t asked the right questions; she didn’t know. And she couldn’t ask the right questions-simply couldn’t-because of conscience, ethics, morals… and the small fact that the questions she asked were supposed to help with her PhD and not with Painchton’s secrets, whatever they were.
Unless… Keiko lay back in her chair and stared up at the ceiling. The target questions-food fads and health scares; her shitty kale, as Fancy called it-they were sacred and they were harmless. But the filler questions could be anything at all. And if she wrote on the front page that responses to the study questions were anonymous, then possibly, logically, technically, you could say that the filler questions, not actually a part of the study, were…
Well, if she never put a name to this, it would be that much easier to forget once it was done.
She was surprised to find herself wondering what her mother would tell her to do. Let the stream flow past you, was a favourite of her mother, who would not let the slightest trickle flow anywhere without her permission. But sometimes, and more honestly, she would say: Cover your ears, Keko-chan, and steal the bell.
It would be for a good cause-for Murray. No one should have to laugh to keep from screaming. No one should have to know things that were crushing them and be sure that no one else would understand. Another saying of her mother’s popped into her head, the best one yet. She said it aloud to herself.
“The weak are meat. The strong eat.” And she nodded, decided at last.
But would it work? Could she find out Painchton’s secrets this way, through a questionnaire? She gave a dry laugh. Everybody else certainly thought so. As soon as Murray had heard about her work he had thought she could help him. And Mr. McKendrick reckoned she could analyse Mrs. Poole. All of them believed that Keiko’s training, her expertise, her methods, would let her crack open their secrets like eggs against stone.
But that was the mark of a layman. Keiko sat up a little straighter in her chair. A professional always acknowledged the limits as well as the scope of her discipline. So, yes, she would design a study within a study to see where the secret lay. She would also, however, complete her investigation of the committee. If Sandra Dessing’s husband and Iain Ballantyne’s wife were as worried and puzzled about their spouses’ stress as Rosa Imperiolo and Andrew McLuskie were, she would have discovered something.
She turned over a new page on her scribble pad.
Fillers, she wrote.
Snoop spouses
She stood at last, knuckling her back, looking out across the empty street to the dark buildings across the way. She stretched and made her way across the room towards bed. Then she wheeled back and added a third line to her list:
Find the girls.
twenty-four
Tuesday, 12 November
The piano didn’t quite stop playing as she walked into the bar of the Covenanters’ Arms, but Margaret Ballantyne rushed towards her, came right out from behind the bar, and had her away to the empty dining room before any of the drinkers had gathered themselves to call a greeting.
“Different if you were meeting someone,” she said. “Different if Fancy or Murray”-she winked at Keiko-“was coming, but you can’t just sit there in the public bar on your lonesome.”
“Can I sit alone in here?” asked Keiko looking around.
“Away, I’m not going to leave you,” said Mrs. Ballantyne. She drew out two chairs opposite Keiko, sat in one and put her feet up on the other, kicking her shoes off. “The bar can manage without me for half an hour,” she said. “Pulling pints is great for your arms, but it’s murder on your ankles. Anyway, I’m pleased to get the chance to do my bit.”
“Your bit?”
“Feeding you up,” said Mrs. Ballantyne. “Getting a good dinner down you. Mind and tell Jimmy McKendrick too. He had plenty to say to Iain and me about us dodging the schedule, but what could we do about it? We’re always busy in here and he was adamant that it was home-cooking he wanted for you. He said as bold as brass: ‘I’m not wanting her stuffed full of all the additives and chemicals. They’re just poison.’”
“He’d drop dead if he saw my freezer,” said Keiko, thinking of the honey-dipped Southern-style boneless breaded buffalo bites (deep fry, shallow fry, microwave, or oven).
“I told him,” said Mrs. Ballantyne, not listening to her. “I said: the Covenanters’ is home-cooking, Jim. Local suppliers and all made from scratch in the kitchen. But there’s no telling him. So, what are you in the mood for?”
“Whatever you recommend,” said Keiko, choking back the impulse to suggest that they phone Mr. McKendrick and ask him.
What Margaret Ballantyne recommended was sausage and mash and onion gravy.
“Oh my goodness,” said Keiko when she saw it.
“And seasonal vegetables,” Margaret said, putting a dish of them down beside the plate.