The Devil’s Dice

Chapter 9

I walked back down to the marketplace, wrapping Carrie’s scarf tightly round my neck against the bitter wind. My car was still in the car park and hadn’t plunged down the hill into the side of a shop, as per my imaginings. I had my hand on my key when I remembered about Mum’s brooch, ready for me to pick up from Grace Swift’s jewellery shop. It was just over the road, and probably due to shut as it was bang on five o’clock. I dashed over the marketplace as fast as my dodgy ankle could carry me, ran in front of a driver dopily looking for a non-existent parking spot, and burst in.

The shop was empty. I glanced back at the door and saw the sign – Open. Oh dear, the other side must have said Closed. But the door had been unlocked, and I needed Mum’s brooch.

‘Grace!’ I called.

No answer. A distinct clunk came from the door. I jumped. It had sounded like something locking. I gave the door a shove. It didn’t move. I twisted the handle and rattled the door, a feeling of unease squirming inside me. I was locked in.

‘Grace?’ I tried to keep my voice calm.

I could hear a ticking noise, like a loud clock. I was sure there hadn’t been any ticking when I’d first walked in. It had started when the door clunked and locked. I told myself to think calmly. There had to be an innocent explanation.

I looked around the small shop. Glass cabinets were filled with standard fare – watches and so on – but one cabinet caught my eye. It seemed to glow. Inside were pendants and bracelets made from a precious stone I didn’t recognise. It had a kind of magical luminance – colours swirling and mixing and seeming to change before my eyes. A top shelf contained pale, bright pieces and a lower shelf darker pieces, both beautiful.

Where was Grace? The hairs on my arms pricked and I remembered there was a murderer somewhere in this unlikely community.

I noticed a door at the back of the shop, behind the till. I walked round and pushed it. It resisted, then swung open with a creak to reveal a small workshop. I stepped in, trying to avoid knocking over any of the vats of noxious-looking chemicals. The air was thick with the smell of burning metal.

Grace was hunched over soldering equipment. She looked up and her soldering iron fell and clanged on the floor.

‘The door was open,’ I said. ‘But then it locked me in.’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’ Grace stooped and retrieved the soldering iron. ‘I set it to lock at five. My assistant must have left early.’

‘Yes, there was no one around. Aren’t you worried about leaving the shop unattended?’

‘God wouldn’t let me be burgled.’

I replayed the words in my mind, trying to work out if I’d misheard. I hadn’t noticed God taking a hands-on role in crime prevention in the area.

‘And the cabinets are electrified after five,’ Grace said.

‘Electrified?’ I said weakly. Obviously God wasn’t quite up to the job on his own.

‘Yes. With a simple electric fence set-up.’

I remembered the clicking I’d heard in the shop. ‘That sounds dangerous.’

‘Oh no, it’s quite safe. It’s high voltage but the pulse duration is short, so the energy transmitted is low. Like a fence for horses.’ She put down the soldering iron and led me back into the shop. The clicking sounded more ominous now.

‘You’re not going to make me stop are you?’ Grace said. ‘It would only affect someone who tried to steal something. It’s off when the shop’s open.’ She reached forward and touched the edge of the cabinet containing the lovely jewellery. A spark cracked the air and she pulled her finger back sharply. ‘There! I’m still alive. Try it if you like.’

‘No thanks. Look, just make sure no one can wander in the way I did, and put some signs up.’

‘Yes, of course. I’ll switch it off and get your mum’s brooch.’ She tapped a code into a keypad behind the counter. The clicking noise stopped. I let out the breath I’d been holding.

Grace reached under the counter and pulled out a box, which she handed to me. I opened it up and the brooch was spot on – exactly like the original. ‘It’s beautiful,’ I said. ‘Perfect. It was her grandmother’s and she was so upset to lose it. I know it’s not quite the same to have a new one but I think she’ll be pleased.’

Grace smiled, put the box into a plush velvet pouch, and tied it with a silver ribbon. ‘Have one of these too.’ She took a magazine from a pile on the cabinet of lovely things and popped it into an expensive-looking paper bag, with the brooch. ‘I do hope your mother likes the brooch.’

‘She will. I can’t believe she was so careless, but she’s been a bit forgetful recently.’

‘What a shame. Do you see her often?’

‘Not as much as I should.’

‘Oh, I was the same. I should have done so much more for my father when he was still alive.’

Her eyes glistened. I wasn’t sure what to say. I gestured at the cabinet. ‘Your jewellery’s beautiful. Do you make that yourself?’

‘Yes, it’s rather special.’

I walked a step closer to the cabinet. ‘It’s lovely. Like nothing I’ve ever seen.’

‘Well, it’s a rather unusual type of jewellery.’ She opened her mouth as if to say more, but then hesitated.

‘Oh?’ I leant to peer into the cabinet.

‘You might have heard of it. I call it Soul Jewellery.’

‘No, I haven’t heard of it.’

‘You may have heard the term Cremation jewellery. I know it sounds strange but people kept asking for it. I wasn’t sure at first, but I like it now. It’s made from loved one’s ashes.’

I stepped back. Dead people’s ashes. I shivered.

‘Those ones aren’t for sale, obviously. They’re for the relatives. But do you see the different colours? That tells you so much.’

‘Oh, what does it tell you?’

‘You can see from the colours those who have led good lives versus those who haven’t.’

‘Sorry?’ I glanced at her face. She had the Stepford Wife look again – eyes wide, slightly vacant expression, not a touch of irony. I swallowed. ‘You mean the light ones versus the dark ones?’

‘Yes.’ She smiled and a little dimple appeared in each cheek. ‘Well, that’s how I see it anyway.’

As I was in Eldercliffe, I decided to drop Mum’s brooch round. It would be an excuse to check she was okay and moderately assuage my ever-present gnawing sense of guilt.

I drove up the hill and navigated the lanes to the more modern side of the town. Leaving Eldercliffe was like travelling in time, as the buildings progressed from medieval through Georgian and Victorian, past 1930s semis and finally to the ‘executive’ new-builds which sprawled around the town’s edges. Mum lived in the semi-detached zone, in a dull but reasonably affluent suburban street, where men washed cars that weren’t dirty and mowed stripes in their lawns, and women did everything else.

I pulled up outside Mum’s house, and was surprised to see that her car wasn’t in the driveway. She must have nipped to the shops. I decided to let myself in and wait for her.

I walked through the privet-enclosed garden, turned the key and gave the front door a shove. A crash came from the direction of the kitchen. She was in after all – dropping things again. Maybe she’d left the car at the garage.

The door slammed behind me, as if a window was open somewhere in the house. That was strange, in this weather.

‘Mum,’ I called. ‘I’ve got your brooch.’

No answer. That was really odd. Mum must have surely heard the door slam, and would have come into the hallway, or at least shouted a greeting. I hoped the crash hadn’t been her falling. They always said the kitchen was a potential death-trap and best avoided.

I heard a soft thud, like the boiler room door closing. I figured she must be okay if she was fiddling with the heating. I headed towards the kitchen. ‘Mum, are you there?’

No answer.

With a flush of adrenaline, it occurred to me that it wasn’t Mum in the house.

Chapter 10

I froze and stood in the hall, ears straining. I contemplated calling for help, but it would take too long for anyone to arrive and I’d feel an idiot if it was just Mum having one of her moments.

I retraced my steps to the front door and picked up Mum’s cast-iron boot jack. Gripping it in my right hand, I edged towards the stairs. I had to check Gran was okay. She was now a professional ill-person and was virtually immobile, lying helpless in bed. I crept up to her room and gently shoved the door open. She was asleep, snoring gently, and I could see no evidence of an intruder. My own breathing slowed.

I tip-toed back downstairs and paused outside the kitchen. I could hear nothing but my own heart, which was surely beating more loudly than it should have been. I inched the door open.

The room smelt of washing up liquid and vinegar, and under that a trace of burning. There was no one there.

My gaze flicked over the clear work surfaces and tiled floor. All looked normal, except that a window was wide open, leaving gingham curtains fluttering.

I stepped over to the boiler room, clutching the boot jack with rigid fingers, and pushed the door. The room was empty. I rushed to the back door and out into the garden, but could see no one, so ran round the side of the house and looked up and down the road. It was tumbleweed-level deserted.

I stood stupidly in the road, looking back and forth, feeling my breath rasping in and out. Who could have been in Mum’s kitchen?

I hurried back to the house. The study was locked and the TV and DVD player were still in the living room. I checked Mum’s bedroom, and it looked pristine and untouched, her jewellery still hidden in the first place a burglar would look. She kept the study locked up like a fortress but her jewellery was in her underwear drawer. There was something forlorn about her Mum-pants, folded neatly around her rings and necklaces.

I padded back downstairs, still half-expecting to see an intruder lurking in the shadows. But I’d seen enough burglaries – glasses smashed, bins upended, clothes strewn everywhere – to know this wasn’t one. I must have arrived just in time.

I took out my phone to call it in. And had a moment of doubt.

I returned to the kitchen, and noticed Mum’s little metal horse on the floor. It lived on the windowsill, and could have been knocked off by someone climbing through. I looked around with a forensic gaze, but could see nothing else out of place.

Something loomed at the window, visible in the corner of my eye.

I gasped and jumped back before spinning round to look. The neighbour’s cat perched on the sill and stared at me with dazzling green eyes.

I let out a huge sigh. ‘Alfie. Oh my God. Did you jump up onto the windowsill and knock the metal horse on the floor?’

Alfie blinked – a fluffy ball of tabby, admitting nothing.

I sank onto one of Mum’s wooden chairs. It was just the bloody cat. Mum must have left the window open. She’d been absentminded recently. I felt like a melodramatic idiot for charging around the house and garden with an offensive boot jack.

I tried to laugh at myself, wishing someone was there to share the story. High-flying detective terrified by tabby. Hannah would think it was hilarious. What I’d thought was the boiler room door closing must have been Alfie jumping off the windowsill back into the garden. Thank God I hadn’t called it in. I could do without the Pink Panther cracks.

I imagined myself telling Mum, and started to rehearse a comic tale. I felt a coldness inside. No matter how light-hearted I tried to be, she wasn’t going to find this funny. I pictured her face crumpling with anxiety. She’d understand it was the cat, but deep down she’d think it was something else.

I stood and paced the kitchen. I couldn’t tell her. It would be cruel. She wouldn’t feel safe here any more, and all because of the neighbour’s cat. I’d have to keep my mouth shut and pretend it had never happened.

Like someone twisting a knife, a little part of me pointed out that I wasn’t absolutely sure no one had been in the house, that I really should tell Mum and call it in – persuade them to take fingerprints, just in case. Was I being selfish by not telling her? Saving myself the trouble of coping with her if she got scared.

I felt the familiar tearing inside, my job tugging me one way, Mum and Gran the other. The job was like a new baby, demanding total commitment and unsociable hours, especially with the Hamilton case. I couldn’t bear to fail. I had to prove I was good enough for the opportunity I’d been given. If Mum got more anxious, how could I find the time to be with her? And we needed my salary. Without the money I contributed, Gran couldn’t have a private carer. It had been so upsetting for her when she’d had a different one each day, someone she didn’t even know, doing the most intimate and unspeakable things to her.

Alfie jumped down with an un-catlike thud and disappeared into his own garden. I closed the window, found the key in the kitchen drawer and locked it.

The front door clicked. ‘Meg, is that you?’

‘In the kitchen,’ I shouted.

She appeared and gave me a hug. She felt more solid these days – almost my size. She’d always been skinny when I was a child, seeming insignificant next to Dad’s bulk.

‘You left the window open, Mum. You need to stop doing that. I shut and locked it.’

‘Oh, did I? I’ve been a bit forgetful recently.’ She put her bag on the floor and leant against the kitchen counter. ‘I burnt the toast and opened it. I must have forgotten to shut it. I nipped to the garage but they’ve got no milk.’

‘Well, be careful, Mum. I worry about you. Are you alright? You don’t seem yourself at the moment. Are you anxious about something?’

‘Oh, I’m fine, Meg. Don’t fret about me.’ The skin of her face was greyer than I remembered.

Worry nagged at me. ‘I can ask Tracy to do some extra hours.’ I could manage. Just.

‘No, no.’ She turned away from me and fiddled with the kettle. ‘You mustn’t. I’m fine.’

I hesitated. I’d been so sure there was someone in the kitchen. Maybe it wasn’t fair to keep it from her. But, no, I’d been silly. It was only the cat. ‘I’ll nip up and see if Gran wants a word.’

Gran had obviously just woken up. It shocked me each time I saw her now – her face creased like an old apple and her scalp shining through a fuzz of hair, almost like a baby’s head. She’d been so proud of her hair, treating it to blue rinses and Silvikrin hairspray that Carrie and I had secretly mocked.

A cloying smell hung in the air, and a sick bowl nestled half under her bed. She levered herself up on the pillows and fixed me with her still-demanding eyes. ‘Got yourself a new boyfriend yet, Meg?’

‘Hello Gran, good to see you.’ She clearly hadn’t heard me charging around with the boot jack.

‘Better get a move on, all the decent ones’ll be gone. You’ll be on to the second round – divorcees, and they’re a menace with their ex-wives and spoilt brats. And if you want children…’

‘Come on Gran, you know that bit of my brain’s missing. I’m not bothered about having kids.’

‘Ach, you’re probably right. I sometimes wish I hadn’t bothered myself.’ I loved the way Gran came out with such un-grandma-like comments. Her mind was still sharp, although the tact-and-diplomacy-lobes had shrunk.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Most people spend their lives making themselves miserable doing work they hate, to make money for the sake of their kids, and then their kids grow up and do the same thing over again for their kids. I don’t see the point. Besides, I’m quite capable of making myself miserable all on my own, without doing it for the kids.’

‘Ah, well, you modern women, you’re right, you know. Who wants to depend on a man? There aren’t many good ones.’

She stared into the distance. Not that there was any distance in her life any more, stuck in this room, with nothing to look at that was further away than the TV. I couldn’t imagine knowing I’d never again look at the vastness of the sea or even the Peak District views I took for granted.

‘Anyway, how are you feeling? You look well.’ I could smell the lie as it slithered out of my mouth.

‘I’m not going doolally if that’s what you’re wondering. But my damn stomach does hurt and I can’t keep the painkillers down. If I was a dog, they’d have put me down long ago.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Your mum should…’

‘Gran?’

She didn’t reply, and sank lower into the bed. I hugged her, not too tight for fear her bones would crumble. ‘I’ll see you again soon, Gran.’

I crept out and padded downstairs to the kitchen.

Mum made tea and we sat together at the table. A memory from long ago popped into my head – the four of us having supper at our old house. Before Carrie got ill. I’d been a babbler. I’d ask ‘Why?’ until most adults were ready to bash my little blonde head against the table. Except Dad. He’d have answers for every question, and then he’d have some of his own for me. ‘Why do you think the sky’s blue?’ ‘How many stars are in the universe?’ (I guessed fifty, which was a big disappointment to him.) ‘How far away do you think the sun is?’ ‘How long do you think the light takes to get from that star to here?’ Mum and Carrie would sigh, roll their eyes and serve the sprouts.

‘Your dad makes the important decisions in this family,’ Mum used to say. ‘Like whether the universe is expanding and whether we should throw our hats in for string theory or loop quantum gravity. And I make the unimportant ones like what we have for supper.’

‘Here. I’ve got your brooch.’ I fished it out and pushed the velvet bag into her hand. ‘You can forget you ever lost it.’

She opened up the little box, and the brooch sat and sparkled.

‘It’s lovely,’ she said.

I took the box and had another look. ‘Did you know they made jewellery out of dead people’s ashes?’

‘Oh, that’s nice.’

‘Really? A bit ghoulish, isn’t it?’

‘Don’t worry, I won’t suggest it for your gran.’

I smiled, wondering if Gran’s ashes would come out light or dark, according to Grace Swift’s insane theory. ‘Mum, is she in a lot of pain? She said we’d have put her down if she was a dog.’

Mum stood and walked to the window. ‘I don’t think she really means that. She can be a bit incoherent.’

‘She was pretty coherent about my lack of a boyfriend. But I was serious, do you need more help looking after her?’

‘No.’ She knew the financial situation. ‘I’m okay. Tracy’s great. She bathes her… and everything. But some days it’s hard. Sometimes I have to force myself not to just shut the door and forget about her.’ She wandered back and sat at the breakfast bar with me. ‘Anyway, how are you?’

‘I’m on this new case. You’ll have seen it on the TV.’

‘I haven’t really been watching the TV. Let’s talk about something other than work.’

‘Haven’t you been following it at all? It’s the most dramatic thing to happen in Eldercliffe for about four hundred years. It’s normally all sheep down mineshafts round here.’

‘I know, love. I don’t like bad news.’

‘He was some kind of lawyer. His wife’s a GP just up the road. Are you at her practice? Kate Webster?’

‘No. I said let’s talk about something else.’

It wasn’t like her to get snappy. I sensed she was hiding something from me. I felt as if the world had lurched, like a ship. ‘Are you alright? Mum?’

‘I’m fine. I don’t know her. I’m at the other doctors’ surgery. I don’t know the name.’ She picked a piece of fluff off her cardigan.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. Never heard of her. Poor woman. You’re not working too hard, are you? You know what you can get like. Have you found time to see Hannah recently?’

I felt a stab of guilt. ‘I’ll see her at the weekend. But Mum—’

‘Could you nip out and get me some milk, love?’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’ The shop was only five minutes’ walk away, although half of this was spent plunging down a perilously steep set of steps to the main road. I sensed she was trying to get rid of me, but when Mum didn’t want to talk, there was little point in persisting. I grabbed one of her coats from the rack by the door, shoved a fiver in my pocket and let myself out the front.

The road was dimly lit and the houses were set back – all in their own lonely spaces, behind hedges and cherry trees, so the street-lamps cast long shadows onto their lawns. This area was a complete contrast to the tiny lanes, steps and alleyways of the old town a few minutes away. I walked in the direction of the main road, still feeling spooked by the Alfie-cat experience. I looked down at the cracked slabs of the pavement. When I was a child, someone had told me if you avoided the cracks, terrible things would never happen to you. I’d always avoided the cracks. So much for that theory.