An intoxicating stench of real vanilla made my saliva glands ache and flood in an oral orgasm. Resting on the glass shelves were chocolates the size of small cakes. The light was too harsh, the glass counter a sheet of brilliant white so clinically bright it sent a pain through my eyes that ricocheted to the back of my brain.
“May I help you, sir? Sir? Which box would you like?”
Behind the counter, next to the register, sat different-sized scarlet boxes. I raised a finger.
“This one?” She sounded Spanish. Like Yeni. And she had black hair and sallow skin and a dimple on her chin. She was very thin. “Sir, is it this one?”
I nodded.
From below the counter she took out a large red box the size of a box of tissues. She took off the lid, laid it on the counter, unfolded the tissue flats, and lifted her silver tongs. She looked at me blankly, hardly a sign on her face that she recognized me. Why would there be? She had never met me before. I had never met her before. But even through a gossamer haze of drink, her gaze locked on mine too hard and firm to be accidental. We were strangers, but each knew the other’s darkest secrets, my hollow marriage, her many lives, my wife’s loathing and disgust, her mother’s lonely death.
We said nothing. Together these two strangers chose a box of chocolates. White chocolate strawberry crème. Nougat enrobed in white and dark chocolate. The famous coca truffle. Maple caramel with almond. Crisp-shelled praline. Ganache- that one has marzipan in it, sir. Do you wish marzipan? I see you have already chosen a box. I looked down and found I was clutching a gold treasure chest of marzipan. Yes, I said, running my hand fondly over the yellow lid, yes, I have already chosen. A superior brand of marzipan, sir. Have you tried their coffee chocolate? Quite exceptional. Still the Spanish accent. Still the blankness in the eyes. Yes, that’s all, thanks. Forty-three pounds, then, sir, for the chocolates and the marzipan together. I gave her a fifty-quid note.
She turned away to the register, bent her little head forward, and there, between the elegant long ligaments on her neck, was a tiny black mole, nestling among the fine hairs.
My stomach lurched, and I shut my eyes. What could I do? Tell her employers? Tell the police? Confront her? She has killed four times; she let a woman who adored her be convicted in her place; she killed four times to avenge a mother she had never even met.
“Your change, sir. Sir? Your change. Thank you.”
Picking up my chocolates, I turned and walked away.
chapter forty-one
THE DRIVE TO THE VALE OF LEVEN SEEMED TO TAKE HOURS AND hours. They are doing roadwork on the narrowest stretch of road outside Coatbridge, and half a mile of the motorway is reduced to a single-lane obstacle course. Margie started whimpering softly in the back. For three miles I didn’t get above twenty, and each time we came to a break in the divider, I imagined myself pulling a U-ey, turning us around, and heading home. I saw myself at home in the bedroom, throwing clothes into bags, packing Yeni and Margie into the car, and driving us all to Dover. We were having lunch in France, sitting outside on a pavement café somewhere charming and tranquil, when Margie’s shouting from the backseat turned into a full-blast screaming panic attack. I found it hard to care. I turned the radio up for a while, but she was losing her breath. I pulled over and found her diaper was full; she was sitting in cold shit. She had been crying for ten minutes. I almost drove all the way there with her in that state.
Worse than that, I smoked in the car with Margie in the back. That’s probably the real reason she was crying. I opened the window to make myself feel better, but that just streamed the smoke right into her precious little face.
When Yeni was bathing her later she said, “Baby hair smell of smoke,” and I shrugged.
“Susie,” I explained.
Yeni frowned. “Ver’ bad.”
“I know, Yeni, I know.”
I stopped at the village and left Margie in her seat for a minute while I nipped into the shop and bought a bag of toffees like the first time I went there. They didn’t taste as nice, and they didn’t have the same pacifying effect, either. They tasted dull after all the rich sickly gourmet chocolates I’d eaten.
I see Cape Wrath quite differently today. I see Susie getting the call and her heart leaping at Donna’s voice. I see her turning away from me, looking down the hall, and her cheeks turning quite pink, her clit stiffening. Of course I’ll come. I see myself sitting in the kitchen, asking where she’s going, and Susie smirking at me, huneee, won’t be long, huneee. I see her driving, happy at last because she has made her choice, arriving at dusk and sitting in the little wobbling boat across the beautiful kyle, worried by the letter but determined, going to save Donna for herself. I see Brenda Rumney standing in the filthy bothy, immaculate in her white shirt and black skirt, holding the supine Gow’s tongue between little silver tongs, pulling it out as far as it will go and slicing it off slowly. Will that be all, sir? I see Brenda, panting as she walks across the wet sands with the heavy weighted sling, climbing to the foot of a cliff and letting out Donna McGovern, her solid eyes still open, frozen blood all around her mouth. I see her placing the golden ring under her playmate’s body. Later she stands in the dark and sees Susie run back across the wet sands. She sees Susie run into the hotel. Through a small window she watches her order a drink of whiskey, and Brenda smirks at her, huneee. See Susie run. Run, Susie, run.
Susie was a gift for Brenda. She must have thought that modest, lonely Donna was a good cover for her, but what luck to stumble upon Susie, another love-hungry lady, willing to be duped and used, driving for eight hours on the promise of a kiss after being passed over for a prick like Gow.
The sky before me was dull as I approached the flat plain of the prison. The guard on reception asked for my mobile phone, to see my bag, and for me to lift the raincoat Margie was wearing so she could see her legs and tummy. It makes me despair of the world when there are people in it who’d smuggle contraband into prison strapped to their children’s legs.
There were other visitors waiting in the glass-walled room, but I didn’t really notice them. Margie had worn herself out crying in the car and sat quietly on my knee, sucking her fingers, burying her face in my chest when anyone tried to talk to her and no doubt thanking her lucky stars that she was no longer sitting in cold shit while being suffocated by her selfish father.
For the past two days I feel as if I’ve been walking through thick custard, trying to think through cotton wool. All I can see clearly is Susie’s betrayal, Susie tossing aside the empty husk of my dignity. She must despise me.
I saw a laminated photocopy of the official rules on the wall of the waiting room: They can’t ask you to take your clothes off. It turns out they can only ask you to take your coat off, pat you down, and check your mouth and feet. They weren’t being nice when they let me keep my clothes on. They’re not allowed to ask me to do more. I didn’t care, I didn’t care. I don’t care. None of it matters now.
We tripped through the door, across the cold, wet, grassy verge, and through the far door to the visiting room. Margie, perched on my hip, saw Susie sitting nearby and pointed her wet little finger at her. I held her out to her mother, and Susie stood up to take her. She offered me her cheek again, but I pretended not to notice and sat down.
“Well,” said Susie to Margie, with a lightness in her voice I hadn’t expected. “Daddy’s annoyed with me for some reason.” Margie wriggled and squealed until Susie put her down. We both watched her stagger over to the table and grab the plastic ashtray, banging it off the tabletop. “Which is odd, because he’s been having affairs with half of Glasgow, apparently.”