Maud and her husband had no children. “Bloody good job too,” her father remarked quietly to Cyril if the topic were ever raised.
As her parents grew older and frailer, Gladys took care of them. She nursed them, fed and washed them, kept them comfortable and safe. Maud stayed in Scotland and sent the occasional useless gift. But when they eventually died, she found the funerals very upsetting. The contents of the Post Office Savings Account were divided equally between the two sisters, and in recognition of her devotion, her parents left their home to Gladys. But the will had a catastrophic codicil. It stated that if Maud should ever become homeless, she could live in the house in Copper Street until her circumstances improved. It had been kindly meant to make provision for a circumstance which her parents had believed to be most unlikely, and more easily included for that reason. But “most unlikely” is not impossible, and when Maud’s husband died he left her homeless, penniless, and speechless with rage. He had gambled away every asset they possessed, and rather than face Maud, he had then deliberately died.
Maud returned to Copper Street an old-woman-shaped vessel of vitriol. The peaceful, happy life that Gladys enjoyed was destroyed the moment Maud arrived at the front door demanding money from her sister to pay the taxi driver. Untempered by any trace of gratitude, Maud invited misery as a permanent houseguest. With her accomplished repertoire of tiny tortures she tormented her sister at every turn. She put sugar in her tea, knowing full well that Gladys didn’t take it, overwatered the houseplants, and left a trail of mess and chaos in her wake. She refused to lift a finger to help with any of the chores, and sat all day growing fat and flatulent, eating fudge, doing jigsaw puzzles, and listening to the radio at full blast. Gladys’s friends stopped coming to the house and she went out as often as she dared. But her return was always met with a punishment; a precious ornament “accidentally” smashed or a favorite dress inexplicably burned with the iron. Maud even frightened away from the garden the birds that her sister had lovingly fed by leaving out scraps for the neighbor’s cat. Gladys could never disregard her parents’ wishes, and any attempts to reason or remonstrate with her sister were met with disdain or violence. To Gladys, Maud was a deathwatch beetle; an unwelcome parasite who had invaded her home and turned her happiness into dust. And she tapped. Just like a deathwatch beetle she tapped. Pudgy fingers tapping on the table, the arm of the chair, the edge of the sink. The tapping became the worst torture of all: incessant and invasive, it haunted Gladys day and night. Macbeth may have murdered sleep, but Maud murdered peace. That day she sat at the dining room table tapping as she contemplated the huge half-completed jigsaw puzzle in front of her. It was Constable’s The Hay Wain—a monstrous reproduction of one thousand pieces and the largest she had ever attempted. It was going to be her masterpiece. She squatted toadlike in front of the puzzle, a surplus of buttocks spilling over the edges of a chair groaning under her weight, and tapped.
Gladys closed the front door quietly behind her and set off down Copper Street smiling as the wind whisked and twirled the crispy autumn leaves along the gutter. In her pocket her fingers felt around the edges of a small scrap of cardboard, machine cut, blue with a tiny fleck of white.
Anthony’s fingers traced the edges of the jigsaw piece in the palm of his hand and he wondered whose life it had once been a tiny part of. Or perhaps not so tiny. Perhaps its loss had been disproportionately disastrous to its size, causing tears to flow, tempers to flare, or hearts to break. So it had been with Anthony and the thing that he had lost so long ago. In the eyes of the world it was a gimcrack, small and worthless; but to Anthony it was precious beyond measure. Its loss was a daily torment tapping on his shoulder: a merciless reminder of the promise he had broken. The only promise that Therese had ever asked of him, and he had failed her. And so he had started to gather the things that other people lost. It was his only chance for atonement. It had worried him greatly that he had not found a way to reunite any of the things with their owners. Over the years he had tried; advertisements in the local press and newsletters, and even entries in the personal columns of the broadsheets, neither of which had produced any response. And now there was very little time left. But he hoped that he had at last found someone to take over: someone young enough and bright enough to have new ideas; someone who would find a way to return the lost things to where they belonged. He had seen his solicitor and made the necessary adjustments to his will. He leaned back into his chair and stretched, feeling the hard wooden struts press into his spine. High on its shelf, the biscuit tin gleamed, burnished by early-evening sun. He was so tired. He felt that he had overstayed his time, but had he done enough? Perhaps it was time for him to talk to Laura, to tell her that he was leaving. He dropped the jigsaw piece onto the table and took up his gin and lime. He had to tell her soon, before it was too late.
CHAPTER 6
Eunice
JUNE 1974
Eunice dropped the keys of the petty cash tin back into their rightful place and closed the drawer. Her drawer. In her desk. Eunice had worked for Bomber for a whole month now, and he had sent her out to buy iced buns for the three of them so that they could celebrate. The month had flown past with Eunice arriving earlier and leaving later each day, stretching her time in a place and with company that made her feel ignited with exciting possibilities. In those four short weeks she had learned that Bomber was a fair and generous boss, passionate about his job, his dog, and films. He was also her matinee idol. He had a habit of quoting lines from his favorite films and Eunice was beginning to follow suit. Her taste was more contemporary, but he was teaching her to appreciate some of Ealing Studios’ finest, and already she had piqued his interest sufficiently for him to see a couple of newer releases at the local cinema. They agreed that Kind Hearts and Coronets was utterly marvelous and Brief Encounter tragic; The Exorcist was shocking but the spinning head bit hilarious; The Wicker Man chilling, The Optimists of Nine Elms magical, and Don’t Look Now atmospheric and haunting, but with rather excessive exposure of Donald Sutherland’s naked buttocks. Eunice was even considering the purchase of a red duffle coat like the one worn by the dwarf in the film and doing some haunting of her own. And, of course, The Great Escape was perfection. Bomber said that the wonderful thing about books was that they were films that played inside your head. Eunice had also learned that Douglas liked to go for a little stroll at 11 A.M., particularly if it took him past the bakery which sold such delicious iced buns, and that he always ate the icing first and then the bun. And finally, she had learned that poisonous Portia was every bit as odious as a bowl of rotting offal.
Bomber was in the kitchen making the tea and Douglas was chivvying him along by dribbling on his chestnut-colored Loake brogues in anticipation of an iced bun. From the window, Eunice watched the street below, today bustling with life, but only recently paralyzed by a death; pedestrians and traffic stopped in their tracks by a heart stopping forever before their very eyes. According to Mrs. Doyle in the bakery, Eunice had been there. But she hadn’t seen a thing. Mrs. Doyle recalled the exact date and time, and every detail of what had happened. As an ardent fan of police dramas on the television, she prided herself on being an excellent potential eyewitness should the occasion ever arise. Mrs. Doyle inspected unfamiliar customers carefully, committing to memory lazy eyes, thin mustaches, gold teeth, and left-sided partings, all of which she believed to be signs of a questionable moral character. And women with red shoes and green handbags were never to be trusted. The young woman who had died had neither. Dressed in a powder-blue summer coat with matching shoes and handbag, she had collapsed and died right there outside the bakery against a backdrop of Mrs. Doyle’s finest cakes and pastries. It had happened on the day of Eunice’s interview at 11:55 A.M. exactly. Mrs. Doyle was sure of the time because she had a batch of Bath buns in the oven which was due out at twelve.