Eden by Dorothy Johnston

bathroom window, squeezing myself through it?
    Two could play the break and enter game. The fact that I was there, that I’d acted on an impulse, had already done wonders for my morale, but I had no intention of inflicting any damage. I just wanted to see for myself where the man had lived, and, if possible, find out who owned the apartment now.
    I flexed my hands in latex gloves and looked around the living room. My first impression was that it was completely empty of personality. I was reminded of the room at Margot’s club, its feeling of a shrine.
    One shelf held novels and biographies that looked like Christmas and birthday presents. I picked up a few and leafed through them. There was a New English Bible, with Dollimore’s signature on the flyleaf. I wondered if Carmichael had kept it to please his friend, or if he’d been in the habit of reading it himself.
    A TV stood in one corner, a cheap CD player in another. A couch was covered with ugly synthetic material. Another shelf held a few video and audio tapes, and no more than a dozen CDs. I scanned the titles, tempted for a moment to take them. I could have fitted the lot into my backpack. The tapes might hold anything, despite their labels. There was no computer.
    The fridge was empty and switched off. There was no food in the kitchen cupboard next to it, but others contained a small variety of pots and frying pans, and a plain white dinner set. Should I have been surprised by how few possessions Carmichael had accumulated? The bedroom contained a single bed with a new mattress, and a built-in wardrobe where three dark suits and one of pale-grey linen hung against shirts and a couple of tweed jackets, a parka and a raincoat. Shoes were lined up underneath them. I pulled underclothes and handkerchiefs out of a chest of drawers. No women’s shoes or dresses, nothing that could remotely have been called lingerie.
    Carmichael’s suits and jackets were good quality, well made, anonymous. There were no notes in any of his pockets. I checked to see if any of the drawers had false backs or bottoms, suspecting that Ken Dollimore had been there before me, doing what I was doing now. Not climbing through the bathroom window—that was too undignified. But his ageing masculine righteousness seemed to fill the space left by his friend’s death. Maybe he’d hired someone to break in to my house. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that his theology left room for accomplices.
    The bed base was fitted with two large drawers. I pulled the first one out, unfolding sheets and pillowcases, dark-blue towels. In the second, I found several manilla folders underneath a blanket, and in the top one was a copy of Carmichael’s will.

Eight
    Margot Lancaster looked tired. She was wearing the same trouser suit I’d seen her in the first time. Her hair was neat. Her make-up looked freshly applied. The morning sun was hard on the lines around her eyes, but she smiled with pleasure at having got her wig back from the police.
    I watched her stroking the wig with long polished nails, the weight, shiny slipperiness of thick natural hair, falling from hand to hand. It smelt freshly washed, but there was another smell, faint but recognisable underneath the shampoo.
    â€˜It is lovely,’ I said.
    Margot glanced at me as though she’d forgotten I was there. She bit her lip, leaving a smudge of red lipstick on her front tooth.
    â€˜Can I hold it for a moment?’ I asked, reaching out.
    Margot snatched the wig away from me. I drew back my hand, aware that she would have liked to slap it. We stared at each other for a long, considering moment. It struck me that fatigue was claiming all but her outer edges, and these edges were black against the walls.
    â€˜What did you think of the funeral?’ I asked.
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    â€˜Did it do Eden Carmichael justice?’
    â€˜Justice,’ Margot repeated harshly. ‘I had as much