The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths (26 page)

I’m shouting too. She is, or I am. I don’t know. We’re not always so separate. A stream of swearwords mostly. Nothing very inventive. ‘You stupid fucking buggering shit-wanker.’ That sort of thing.

Henderson doesn’t resist much. That is: he protects himself from my assault but doesn’t seek to harm me back. Any billhook action is strictly off limits. But this fight is eighteen-to-one, and I’m the one.

My left arm is yanked from behind. Yanked and twisted. My right arm is also seized. A forearm closes over my throat and darkness instantly starts to overtake me.

I’m aware that my legs are thrashing. Kicking out at anything I can reach. But my shoes are soft and can’t do much damage. In any case, my legs too are pinioned. Geoff materializes beside me. Passes his pistol to Henderson, who holds it loosely. Geoff cuffs my wrists behind my back. Someone forces me down into a chair. The person who was choking me removes their hold and light starts to return to my world.

A world of confusion.

Henderson is dabbing his cheeks with a paper napkin. Has wine everywhere. But there’s blood on him as well as wine, and I realize that a fair bit of the blood is mine. I think I cut myself on the wine glass somehow. In any case, I’ve got a gash on my knees and a graze all down my forearm. My joints scream from their various pummelings.

The confusion isn’t merely physical. There’s a ripple of social confusion too. It’s not every cocktail party which is enlivened by unexpected assault, and at first people aren’t sure how to react. I’m fairly sure that while I was being choked someone swiped me hard across the face. A backhand slap that seemed to loosen the teeth in my mouth. But I can also see that my actions have provoked amusement. Henderson is too suave to be your classic bruiser, but he knows how to handle himself and he was never at great physical risk from a girl who takes her T-shirts in size XS. A couple of the Indians are laughing openly at me and speaking to each other in some language other than English. There’s a circle of faces, checking that Henderson is OK, rebuking me in different accents, and laughing.

One of the waitresses tiptoes into the circle. Starts mopping up wine and broken glass with kitchen towel and a plastic dustpan. She doesn’t catch my eye. When her efforts to clean up start flicking round my feet, someone drags my chair backwards and me with it.

I say, sulkily, through a swelling lip, ‘We’re all fucked. You know that? That guy there’ – I’m nodding at Geoff – ‘he’s a pig. Special Branch. You think you’re all so clever with the strip searches and bollocks, and you let a fucking copper right into your stupid fucking meeting.’

There’s more. I say more. But I don’t really know what. Fiona Grey doesn’t cry any more than I do, but she’s distraught. As far as she sees the world, everything’s just turned to shit. Instead of speech therapy, New Zealand, and a pocketful of cash, she’s looking at a prison sentence, investigation by the Manchester police, and no chance of ever emigrating.

As I speak, more to myself than anyone else, hair falling in front of my face, I become aware of Henderson’s voice saying, ‘Fiona. Fiona.’

I don’t respond, or not properly. Just kick out, catch his shin, swear some more.

So he slaps me. Hard.

Hard enough I’m half thrown from my chair. I might even fall, except that someone has my handcuffed wrists in their grip and their hold steadies me.

This time I feel blood in my mouth and there’s enough force in the blow that I don’t want another.

I just mumble, ‘Fuck off,’ and try to turn away.

But Henderson’s not for turning. Staying clear of my legs, he tells me that Geoff is not Special Branch. That he’s assigned to tell all newcomers the same thing. That it’s a test of loyalty. That I should have calmly reported the comment to him, Henderson, at the next opportunity. That instead, I have caused an unnecessary drama and, he manages to indicate, a good bit of damage to a decent suit.

He says these things with a quiet, emphatic force. As though telling me these things were a slightly less flavorsome version of hitting me.

‘Do you understand what I’m telling you? Geoff, will you please tell Fiona that you are not a policeman working undercover.’

Geoff does as he’s asked, and other people weigh in too. The consensus in the room is that I overreacted wildly. That I somehow owe an apology to them all for interrupting their precious party. For damaging something as beautiful and valuable as Vic Henderson’s Italian grey suit.

At the same time, as it becomes clearer that I am not a threat, that no one has been hurt, that this whole thing has been the most temporary of tempests, I become the very best form of party entertainment: a thing of merriment. A person that everyone can ridicule without breaching etiquette. One of the Indian guys is re-enacting my assault, with explosions of laughter from those around him. Quintrell’s face is a study of dislike and contempt.

And then – it’s all over. Geoff releases me from my handcuffs. A waitress brings kitchen towel for me to wipe at. Henderson and I shake hands. Someone gives me a glass of white wine, which I neither drink nor use as a weapon.

One of the waitresses offers me a canapé.

I say, ‘Is there any blood on my face?’

She says, ‘A bit,’ and helps me wipe it off. I say I made a bit of a fool of myself. She tells me not to worry, no harm done. I ask her for a packet of cigarettes and she’ll say she’ll see what she can do.

Her accent is Welsh, for sure, but not Cardiff, and not North Wales. The accent of the Valleys is a bit different from the accents you hear further into Wales, Powys and Ceredigion, and I think her accent isn’t Valleys, but I wouldn’t swear to it. We don’t talk for all that long.

I try standing up, but feel wobbly, so sit back down.

I’m in sports shoes, T-shirt and trackie bottoms. The men here – and it’s mostly men – are, apart from Geoff, all in suits and ties. Quintrell is in black dress and clicky heels. Also she doesn’t have blood, wine and glass all over her clothes.

Henderson goes off to change. When he returns, he introduces me to a man who calls himself Ramesh.

‘Ram is leading the software side of things,’ Henderson says. ‘He’s going to need your operational knowledge to make sure we get a really robust system. Garbage in, garbage out, right, Ram?’

Ramesh shakes my hand and laughs at me some more. I think the laughter is meant to be jovial and inclusive, but it doesn’t feel that way.

Then the waitress comes with cigarettes and matches. I say thanks, smile at Ramesh and leave. The waitress points out the smoking room for me, but then enters a code on the keypad next to the main door, releases the lock and leaves. I slip out after her, in the wake of the closing door. I don’t want to sit indoors in some shuttered room and Fiona Grey doesn’t either. It’s been a rough day for us both.

So we just sit outside on the steps to the barn. The sun has set, but a summer twilight still hovers in the trees. There’s a big farmhouse to the right, with some windows lit up, but the view from the barn is mostly of a cobbled courtyard, some old agricultural buildings, and trees. Oak. Ash. A punky fringe of hawthorn. Over in the distance somewhere, I can just see the top lamp of a telecoms tower, a red beacon in the night.

The steps to the barn are a reddish sandstone, flaking at the edges. I play with the stone and break off a flake. Pocket it. Get stone dust under my nails.

I smoke.

Fiona Griffiths never used to smoke much. Weed often, tobacco almost never. Fiona Grey is a bit different. Less weed, more tobacco. I wonder vaguely if I’ll ever kick her habit.

The party behind me begins to break up. People start exiting the barn.

I guess the barn itself only accommodates lower-level staff. The more important, or more trusted, members of the team are in the farmhouse itself. Quintrell, for all her airs, is strictly servant class, like me.

I also wonder about the party I just witnessed.

When I entered the room, I didn’t look around much. Just sought out Henderson and attacked him. But I had an impression of numbers. Numbers, and the mix between white faces and brown. At a rough guess, and excluding the waitresses, I reckon there were about twenty people, with around two white faces for every brown one. By the time the Fiona-’n’-Vic show was over, however, I’d say the room was significantly emptier, with about equal numbers of British and Indian faces. I’ve also something of a suspicion that Henderson’s attention was only partly on me, through all that fight scene. I think he was also looking elsewhere, checking that the people who had to vacate the room because of my intrusive presence were indeed vacating.

I’ve got a feeling that Allan, the Astra-man, was present in the room. It would make sense.

I smoke another cigarette.

I can hear the churring of a nightjar. The distant movement of farm machinery.

Henderson materializes behind me. I’m disobeying his instructions and I think he’s hesitating about how to react.

Gently, is the answer.

He sits beside me and I offer him a cigarette. He lights it from the glowing tip of mine.

‘Bit of a show back there,’ he comments.

‘Sorry.’

‘Well, I’m sorry too. Sorry for hitting you. I didn’t need to do that.’

I shrug. ‘I hit you.’

‘Well, sorry anyway.’

‘I’ve had worse,’ I say, and Fiona Grey has. Much worse.

We smoke awhile, without conversation.

Beyond the telecoms tower, and to the right, a low moon appears between loose cloud.

‘What’s the time?’ I ask.

‘Quarter to eleven. Bedtime, almost. We start early.’

‘Vic?’

‘Yes?’

‘I want to go home. Sorry. I don’t think I fit here. I can’t do what you want me to do.’

Vic looks at me in the moonlight.

Reaches out and draws me to him. An arm round my shoulder, pressing me against his warmth. He kisses me softly on the top of my head.

‘You’re fine, Fiona. What you did in there—’

‘It’s not just that. It’s everything. I should have said when you first came. When I left Manchester, I wanted to change my life. I wanted to be different.’

He kisses me again. A kiss that could easily be paternal. Or ex-boyfriendy. A kiss which is intimate but also respectful of boundaries. Yet I think he’s angling for more. I think if I turned my face up to his, turned my lips up to his, I could drink from that well as deep as I liked.

I’m tempted. Not just Fiona Grey, but me too. I feel a good old-fashioned desire tugging at me in this soft summer night. My once-a-month conjugal visits with Buzz feel as distant as fairy tales. I lean into Henderson, my head against his shoulder. Enjoying his presence, but keeping the barriers up.

No well-drinking for me tonight.

He’s been holding his cigarette away from me during this, now takes one last drag and stubs it out. He’s not really a smoker, I don’t think. He’s smoked barely half the cigarette and when he stubs it, he has an odd action, one which breaks the cigarette where the tobacco meets the filter. In the hostel, someone would pick up the unsmoked tobacco for a roll-up. I can feel myself wanting to do the same.

‘Fiona, I don’t think you realize how much we depend on you. We’ve had other people doing what you do, but you’re the only one who really gets it. The other day with Anna, when you had those disagreements with her, you were always right. We need that woman. We need you.’

‘Sorry, Vic. But I’ve made up my mind. I do want to go home. I won’t tell anyone about anything. I don’t want to cause trouble.’

We argue a bit. He says he can’t let me go home. That there’s no one to take me. I say I can’t face meeting all the people who were laughing at me this evening. Say I hate my clothes. That they make me feel like riff-raff amongst all those suits. The laughing stock.

‘They weren’t laughing
at
you …’ he starts.

‘They were. You know they were.’

‘Look, they haven’t met you yet. They don’t know how good you are.’

‘They’ll still laugh.
Look
at me.’

‘We can get you clothes.’

‘You already did. You got me horrible polycotton tracksuit trousers that don’t fit.’

Vic sighs. ‘Look, give me a list of stuff you want. I’ll get one of the girls to get it for you.’

He means one of the waitresses.

I don’t give way too soon, and it takes another cigarette and another kiss on the dome of my head before he shifts from the step. When he does, he crosses the moonlit yard to the farmhouse. Comes back five minutes later with the waitress. Pen and paper.

I shoo Henderson away and go through stuff I want with the waitress. I know I’m not allowed to ask her what town we’re near, and know Henderson will check, so I just say, ‘There’s a Gap in town is there?’ and the girl, Nia, hesitates a moment, then says, Yes, she should think so.

We make a list. I want a dress, some tights, some smart shoes. Trousers. Skirt. Two or three different tops. I give my sizes. The dress, I say, has to be in petite. That the full size ones never fit me. I say I need something for smart, something for more relaxed.

Nia is helpful actually. Sounds like she used to work as a shop assistant. When we have a list, we OK it with Henderson. It’ll be three or four hundred quid, I would guess, but separate a girl from her wardrobe and you pay the price. He accepts my request with one of those patient male sighs.

Nia goes.

Henderson says, ‘Feel ready for tomorrow?’

‘No.’

‘You’ll be fine. You’ll be great, actually.’

‘If anyone is horrible to me while I’m here, I’ll walk out.’

Henderson gives me a look which I decode as meaning, ‘If you walk out of here, I will kill you.’ Perhaps there’s also a whiff of, ‘And I’d regret that, because I enjoyed our moment on the step.’

I say, ‘Where are we anyway?’

He waves his hand at the night. ‘Somewhere in the universe. Does it matter?’

‘Not really.’ I put my hands on his shoulder, in that intimate/not-intimate ex-girlfriend way, and give him a light kiss on his cheek. There’s a long rip on his left hand cheek, ending with a flap of skin and some thickly clotted tissue, dark as ox-blood. My handiwork. ‘Thank you for being nice to me.’