“Mixed meat tapas,” Mr. Dessing confirmed. “Light bite, aye. I’ll just talk you through. Mini kilties-that’s wee sausages with bacon kilts on; deep fried haggis balls-self-explanatory to an old hand like you, but we have a laugh with the tourists about them; steak and kidney puffs-the steak ones are the square and the kidney ones are the wee love-hearts there; then you’ve got your spare ribs; your belly lollies-pork belly, most like; and the specialty of the house, lamb and mince koftas-my own invention. Malcolm makes them up for me, mind.”
“Lamb and mint?”
“Lamb and mince. Wee bit of minced beef and pork mixture with the lamb to help them stick together. He’s always got plenty of his special mixture to spare. All served on a bed of-would you like some mint sauce, though?”
Keiko assured him that she had everything she could want and more. “About what you were saying,” she began when she had eaten three of the so-called tapas. “What if I did ask you?”
“Ask me what, lovey?” Mr. Dessing was engrossed in the handset for his music system, the instruction booklet open on the bar in front of him. He pushed a button, cocked his head, listened to silence, then tutted and turned a page with a licked finger.
“About things turning nasty.” Keiko bent her head as he raised his, to avoid his eye.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” he told her. “But if you did ask me…”
She had, Keiko thought, waiting.
“If somebody did ask me, I’d say there’s no way a few new signs and picnic tables have put this wasp up Sandra’s ar-uh, this bee in her bonnet. Or Jimmy McKendrick’s either. Kenny. Any of them.”
Keiko tried very hard not to look too interested. “I’m glad to hear it,” she said. “I’m sorry there’s anything wrong, of course. But I’m glad it’s not the Traders initiative that’s worrying everyone. I’d feel responsible.”
“You?” said Mr. Dessing.
“Well, I’m part of it, aren’t I? Their pet project. Mrs. Ballantyne called me the centrepiece. The international section of the… what’s the word, like menu, but for financial things?”
“Search me. Portfolio? And anyway, you’ve been no trouble to anyone. We’re glad to have you, and it’s a pleasure to show you a bit of hospitality. I’ve been feeling it, I can tell you; seeing you traipsing round to everybody’s houses for your tea and here we are at the end of the road, dead handy.”
“Mr. McKendrick didn’t want me frequenting bars,” Keiko said.
“He did not,” said Mr. Dessing. “He said the Japanese weren’t good with strong drink. He said it would ruin your liver.”
“Mr. McKendrick was worried about my liver?” said Keiko, blinking.
“As if you’d be getting plastered just because you’d come in for a supper!” said Mr. Dessing. “Anyway, never mind J McK. Never mind any of them and whatever’s got them all birling.”
“He was worried about my liver?” said Keiko again, unable quite to understand why that was so troubling.
twenty-five
Which made the full set: oxters, high doh, crabbit, wasp up her. There were four people wound like springs with worry. Five if she counted Jimmy McKendrick. Six if Mrs. Watson’s dropping the cauliflower that day was proof of anything. Seven including Murray. Eight in total, with Mrs. Poole. The only one not anxious at all was Malcolm!
She opened a new document and set her fingers lightly against the keys.
Death of Mr. Poole
Slaughterhouse
Letter for you
Mrs. Watson
Committee
Then she added another column.
Death of Mr. PooleCrime?
SlaughterhouseScene of Crime?
LetterReport of Crime?
Mrs. WatsonWitness to Crime?
Committee
There was only one way to fill that last slot, as far as she could see. Another word she could type but would never try to pronounce: Perpetrator. But where did that leave Malcolm-innocent bystander? And what about the missing girls-more witnesses? She leaned on the delete key until the two columns were gone.
There was definitely a secret in this town, but was it a secret crime in the past or a secret plan for the future? She was almost sure that all the worry was about something coming, something looming, not leftover guilt about something over and gone. But if that was so, then what did Mr. Poole have to do with it?
Keiko sat back and stared across the room. Maybe he found out about it. Maybe he even threatened to stop them.
This theory had a gaping hole, of course: she had no real evidence that Mr. Poole’s death was suspicious in any way.
Thursday, 14 November
“Murray’s round at the bikes,” Malcolm said as she entered the shop. He was staring at a large haunch of pale meat on his cutting block, perhaps deciding where to divide it.
“I’m not looking for Murray,” said Keiko.
“Not a problem upstairs, is there?”
“None at all. I want to speak to you because you find it easy to talk about your father.” She took a deep breath. “Is there any reason I shouldn’t be asking about food and health? It occurred to me that it might be unfeeling. Because of… heart trouble… and your father.”
“Oh, right!” said Malcolm, looking up again. “My father didn’t die of heart trouble.”
“I beg your pardon, then. I thought someone told me so.”
“At least not in the way you mean,” said Malcolm. He ran the flat of his hand back and forth over the haunch of meat, smiling at her. “I once heard a doctor say that heart failure is what kills everyone in the end.” Keiko couldn’t match his smile. Malcolm said nothing for a moment and then he nodded as though deciding.
“No, you’re all right with food questions,” he said. “But it shouldn’t be cheese and chocolate and apples and kale.”
“Oh?”
“You should stick to this,” he said, slapping down with both his hands.
“Why?” said Keiko, glancing at his hands and then away again.
“If it’s why people eat what they do, meat’s best,” said Malcolm. He was absentmindedly plucking bristles from the skin of whatever animal was on the cutting surface. “Because it’s the only food that needs an explanation, isn’t it? It doesn’t make sense if you think about it too long. Animal lovers who eat meat. Cruelty-free meat. That’s where the beliefs are strongest, because they have to be.”
“Malcolm told me you were here,” she said, in answer to Murray’s look of surprise when he opened the door to her. She looked past him and saw that the covers were off all of the bikes.
“Do you know,” she said, “you never did introduce me to the last one.” It was true; they had fallen into a pattern of warm up, work out, cool down and, except when Murray saw her passing the shop and came out to speak to her, there was nothing more. He looked behind him and stepped aside to let her enter.
“Aerial Square Four,” he said, squatting down beside it. “A Squariel it’s called, because of how the crankshafts and cylinders are geared together. And a 1000cc engine-totally ridiculous when it was new. 1956. Beast of a bike, really, more trouble than it’s worth.”
“Like the Golden Flash?” said Keiko.
“No, no,” said Murray. “Not that way-this is a great bike, smooth as silk. It can overheat a bit but no, I mean the insurance and everything. There’s guys I would trust with the rest, but I wouldn’t trust them not to slip in here and make off with the Squariel if they thought they could.”