by Penny Kline
‘I wondered if Tessie had said anything. About Glen.’
‘Glen. No, I don’t think . . .’
Karen broke off. Tessie was standing in the doorway. Her hair was dripping onto her shoulders and her face looked flushed, but it could have been the hot shower.
‘I wish you wouldn’t talk about me behind my back,’ she said dully, then she turned and went slowly back up the stairs.
Karen raced after her. ‘Tessie? Oh, come on. It wasn’t my idea. Your mother seems worried.’
Tessie pushed open the bedroom door. ‘You could have told me,’ she said. ‘Why didn’t you say?’
‘Told you what?’ Karen closed the door behind her, then moved a teddy bear and an elephant out of the way and sat down on Tessie’s bed.
‘Hearing about it from you would have been bad enough, but better than my stupid brother announcing it in the middle of breakfast. Glen’s seeing someone else. There’s no point in trying to cover up for him.’
‘I’m not. Are you sure?’ Karen was thinking about the girl by the river. ‘Who is it?’
‘I don’t know her name,’ said Tessie.
‘What did Robin say?’
‘Not Robin. It was Nick. He was out with a friend, taking a stupid dog for a walk or something. They saw Glen near the Sports Centre, standing on the grass, holding hands with a girl.’
‘I expect he imagined it,’ said Karen. ‘The holding hands bit. What did she look like?’
‘Why? Nick couldn’t remember. Quite tall, with long hair.’
It seemed an awful thing to ask, in the circumstances, but Karen had to know. ‘Tessie, did Glen know Natalie Stevens?’
‘What?’
‘Natalie Stevens. Can you remember if Glen ever met her? I don’t mean he went out with her.’ She wanted to tell Tessie about the diary – the initials GF printed at regular intervals during the weeks preceding Natalie’s death. But how could she? ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, trying to sound cheerful, optimistic. ‘I’m sure there’s a perfectly ordinary explanation for why Glen was talking to whoever it was. I’ll ask Simon, shall I, then I’ll give you a ring.’
Chapter Thirteen
Karen waited until she saw Olive Pearce set out for the park. She was walking slowly, pushing the buggy over the wet grass towards the pond. A moment later she was joined by a woman with two Yorkshire terriers on long, expanding leads.
Karen stepped out from her hiding place behind the bus shelter, crossed the road to number eighty-eight, and rang the bell. With any luck Mrs Pearce would be out for at least half an hour. That was more than enough time for what she had to do.
At first she thought Liam must be out but as she reached out to press the bell again the front door was wrenched open and a sleepy-looking man, dressed in grey track suit bottoms and a thick white sweater, stood rubbing his eyes.
‘Yes?’
‘Liam Pearce?’
‘Yes.’
‘Could I come in for a moment? I have some information I think you might like to hear.’
It was a lie. There were various facts she could pass on to him, but none that he would find particularly interesting. She could tell him how Joanne had left home and moved into a one-roomed flat. She could describe how she had seen his mother sitting in the burger bar with Ann Stevens the previous evening. Why should he care? More than likely he would shout at her to mind her own business, then kick her out of the house.
He was looking her up and down. ‘What sort of information?’
‘About Natalie.’
His expression remained unchanged but a tic had appeared in the corner of his left eye. Peering out of the front door in the direction of the park he muttered something that sounded like ‘five minutes’, then walked back into the house, leaving the door ajar.
Karen followed him into the narrow hallway. ‘Look, this won’t take a moment.’
‘What’s your name? Do I know you?’
‘No, but I’m a friend of Joanne’s.’
He yanked up his track suit bottoms and she caught a glimpse of the thick bandage that covered the lower part of his right leg. His breath stank of beer and she doubted if the fact that he seemed unsteady on his feet was simply the effect of the sprained ankle.
Pushing open the living room door he limped inside and flopped onto the nearest chair with the damaged leg stretched out in front of him. The television was on with the sound turned off. Some Australian soap opera about doctors and nurses. A woman with a stethoscope round her neck was just about to kiss a man who looked young enough to be her son.
‘Well,’ said Liam, glaring at her through half-closed eyes, ‘spit it out.’
‘It’s about the murder,’ she said, moving her chair round to avoid the glare of the sun in her eyes.
‘They think I did it,’ he said, stretching out his arm to search for a can of lager that had been left on the floor beside his chair.
Karen handed it to him. ‘Yes, I know.’
‘If it’s money you’re after you’ve come to the wrong place.’
‘No, of course not, nothing like that.’ Did he really think she would be stupid enough to turn up at the house and try to blackmail him or something?
‘All right then, you’ve found some evidence that’ll let me off the hook. If it was something incriminating you’d be talking to the old Bill.’
‘Joanne thinks you’re innocent,’ she said. ‘She’s certain you didn’t kill her sister.’
He closed his eyes and for the first time Karen could see what Russell had meant when he said Liam had flashy good looks if you like that kind of thing. His hair was jet black, and so were his long, thick eyelashes. He looked unwell. No, not ill exactly, just the way you would expect someone to look if they had stayed at home for weeks with no exercise or fresh air, living off a diet of lager and crisps.
Then she remembered the football. ‘I suppose you’ll be out of the team for several weeks,’ she said, trying to sound genuinely sympathetic.
He stared at her. ‘What team? Dropped me didn’t they, said I wasn’t fit. That’s what they told me but of course what they really meant . . .’
‘You mean they dropped you after Natalie died?’
‘Not immediately. Lost my job too. Used to work for the council as a gardener. Not that I was all that sorry. Murder, it was, strimming all the rough grass down by the river.’
His voice was slurred and there was froth at the edge of his mouth. Karen was surprised he was prepared to talk to her, but just recently she had discovered a lot of people didn’t seem to mind talking about themselves.
‘So Joanne thinks I’m innocent,’ he said. ‘That’s because she had her own ideas about who was responsible.’
‘How d’you mean?’ If she pressed him too much he might turn nasty.
‘Anyway.’ He shifted the injured leg into a more comfortable position. ‘Who are you? Joanne’s put you up to this, has she? Didn’t have the nerve to come round herself, but wanted some information that’d prove her theory correct.’
‘Yes, I suppose that’s right.’ Karen searched her mind for something to say that would encourage him to keep on talking. ‘She doesn’t want the killer to get away with it. For Natalie’s sake. I’m not sure but I’ve a feeling she thinks your mother–’
He laughed, spilling beer down his sweater and not bothering to wipe it off. ‘She couldn’t stand Nat, felt the same about her as Mum did. That was the thing with Nat – people loved her or loathed her – know what I mean?’
‘Yes, I’ve met people like that.’
He grinned at her through half-open eyes. ‘Oh, you have, have you? Not that Mum ever tried to get to know her. Not properly. What is it they say about two women in the same house – or is it the same kitchen, I forget.’ He broke off, frowning. ‘Hey, you mean Joanne thinks my mum was the one who . . . Must be off her head. Besides Mum’s busy on Friday evenings. Goes to see her sister.’
‘I thought it was your mother who gave you an ali
bi.’ Karen could feel her heart thumping in her chest, but Liam’s only reaction was to screw up his face as if he was trying to remember that far back.
‘The thing is,’ he said slowly, ‘that particular night she’d forgotten to tell her she was staying with a friend.’
‘Who was?’
‘What? Auntie Bev of course. Mum called round at the house but there was no-one in.’ He held the can above his head and drained the last drops. ‘Yes, that’s right, I told the old Bill she was here with me. Well she was, apart from half an hour or so.’ Suddenly he realised his mistake. ‘What I mean is . . . Oh, I don’t remember who said what. In any case we was both in all evening so what’s the difference?’
He lay back with his eyes closed, snoring lightly, twitching every so often as though he was about to fall into a deep sleep. Karen wondered where he and Natalie Stevens had met each other. Had Natalie been a football supporter? It seemed unlikely and, in any case, the teams that played down by the river were hardly Liverpool or Manchester United. At a club then? The one by the new multi-storey car park. The place Glen and Tessie liked but Simon said made him feel sick with all the flashing lights.
All of a sudden Liam sat up straight. ‘You still there? When you see Joanne tell her she’s nuts, always has been. As if Mum’d do a thing like that. Deprive little Just of his real mother. Idolises that kid, she does. Never treated us like that when we were small – as if the sun shone out of our whatsits.’
Karen stood up. ‘Just one last question.’
‘Just one last question,’ he mimicked. ‘What is this? Hey, you’re not from the local rag are you? If you are there’ll be trouble, I can tell you that for a–’
‘No, I told you. I’m a friend of Joanne’s.’
‘Oh yes, so you said. So what’s this one last question?’
‘Who do you think killed Natalie?’
He closed his eyes again. ‘Who do I think did it? Could have been anyone. Anyone at all. Someone she met at a club, who knows? Whoever he was he’ll be miles away by now. Other end of the country. There was no evidence, see. Nothing that’d link him with the attack. Nothing that would link me either, come to that. How could there be when I was here all evening, watching the telly.’
*
Back at the house Simon was sitting chatting to Alex. Karen’s mother was upstairs, talking to someone on the extension. When she heard Karen come through the front door, she rang off and ran downstairs.
‘Well then.’ Her mother had this way of talking as though nothing could happen unless she was there to supervise things. ‘How are you, Simon, we haven’t seen you for ages?’
She glanced at Karen, making the kind of face that says I don’t know how things are between the two of you but I’m going to carry on as normal.
Simon turned to Karen. ‘I thought you’d be back by now. I just wondered if you still needed that book I lent you.’
‘What book?’ He had made something up on the spur of the moment. When they were alone he would confess that it was just an excuse to come and see her. ‘Oh that book. Hang on, I’ll go and fetch it. No, you’d better come up too in case I can’t see where it is on the shelf.’
Upstairs in her room Karen waiting for an explanation. But it didn’t come. Simon was angry, angrier than she had ever seen him before.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’m not going to apologise for turning up like this. If things are over between us I’d rather you said so straight out.’
She sighed. ‘I told you. I thought it’d be better if we didn’t see each other for a bit.’
‘And then? We haven’t seen each other for over a fortnight, not to speak to.’
‘It’s not that long.’ But it was. If it had been the other way round she would have felt dreadful. ‘Couldn’t we just be friends?’ she said, but even as she spoke she despised herself. It was the easy way out, she deserved his anger.
‘That’s all right.’ He was halfway through the door. ‘As long as I know where I am. And, by the way, I did lend you a book. That one on word-processing. You said you’d need it if you could persuade your father to buy you a new computer.’
‘Simon?’ It was the wrong time to ask but she had to know. ‘That girl with you and Glen – when you were flying the kite?’
‘What about her?’
‘I just wondered who she was. I don’t remember seeing her before.’
The corners of his mouth turned up but it couldn’t be called a smile. ‘She wasn’t with me if that’s what you’re thinking. Glen met her at the Sports Centre. His exercise class. I suppose you’ve told Tessie.’
‘Is there anything to tell?’
He shrugged. ‘You know Glen. She’s called Holly Fisher, works for that vet on St Saviour’s Hill.’
‘As a receptionist?’
He shook his head. ‘An assistant. Helping with the animals.’
‘Really?’ Karen couldn’t conceal her surprise. ‘I thought she looked . . . Oh, I don’t know.’
‘You’re prejudiced.’ Simon had his hand on the door. ‘Just because she was with Glen you assumed she was someone he’d picked up walking by the river. Anyway, she was a friend of Natalie Stevens.’ He snorted through his nose. ‘Yes, I thought that’d make you sit up and take notice. I don’t know why you’re so interested in the stupid case. They won’t find out who killed her now, not after all these months.’
Chapter Fourteen
According to the notice board on the wall the vet’s surgery finished at seven. That meant Holly Fisher would be coming out any minute now – unless she stayed on late, looking after animals that had to be kept there overnight. Karen had once had a rough-haired guinea pig that had lived to a ripe old age – for guinea pigs – in spite of several stomach upsets and bouts of wheezing. When it finally expired she had sworn she would never, ever have another pet. Not if it was going to die.
Busy day dreaming, Karen almost missed Holly when she came out of the building and started walking towards the main road. She was wearing a short raincoat over her veterinary assistant’s uniform and her long hair was tied back and held in place with a black ribbon. She looked older than Karen had expected. Older and rather unfriendly-looking, and just for a moment Karen decided to forget about the whole thing. But having got this far she might as well plough on.
She caught up with her and spoke her name.
‘Yes?’ Holly stopped dead in her tracks. ‘Surgery’s finished I’m afraid, except for emergencies.’ She broke off, realising that Karen was a stranger, quite apart from the fact that she had no dog on a lead or cat in a basket.
‘I’m a friend of Glen Fortune’s,’ said Karen. ‘I wondered if you’d mind if I walked along with you for a bit – or do you have a car parked nearby?’
‘No car.’ Holly smiled. ‘You’re Tessie are you? He’s told me all about you.’
‘No, no, I’m Karen Cady.’ Holly’s remark had thrown her a little. ‘Tessie’s a friend of mine too. It’s just . . .’
‘Look, this is crazy.’ Holly stopped walking and faced Karen. ‘What is it you want? I can’t stand people who talk in riddles.’
‘Me too.’ Karen knew she would have to ask her straight out. ‘You and Glen . . . I saw Tessie and she thinks – well, Glen’s done this before.’
Holly laughed. ‘She thinks me and Glen . . .? Who was it told her about me? I remember, you’re the one who was walking by the river. The one Glen and Simon stopped to talk to. That’s the trouble with jumping to conclusions—’
‘It wasn’t me, it was her brother. He saw the two of you together, outside the Sports Centre, holding hands.’
She sighed. ‘Nice brother she must have. Look, I don’t really see why I have to explain myself, but if you must know Glen and I are taking part in a kind of exhibition – to raise money for charity. It’s at the Sports Centre – demonstrating different ways of exercising, body-building. Nothing too serious but the guy who runs the gym wants to make a good impression. Hopes it’ll bring in m
ore customers.’
Was she telling the truth? Karen thought she probably was.
‘I’m sorry. It’s nothing to do with me. I just—’
‘I know. You were thinking of Tessie.’ Holly gestured to show which way she was going. ‘I guess if I saw my friend’s bloke with another girl . . . Tell Tessie she’s got nothing to worry about. As a matter of fact I’m getting married next month. My boyfriend’s out in Saudi Arabia but he’s starting a new job in November, up in London. Oh, and the reason Glen and I were holding hands–’
‘I know,’ interrupted Karen, ‘you were practising for the gym display. I believe you, thousands wouldn’t!’
They laughed. In spite of the way they had met, in spite of getting off to a bad start, they seemed to be on the same wavelength.
‘Look, there is just one more thing,’ said Karen, encouraged by the way Holly had reacted to her questioning with such good humour.
‘Yes?’ Holly’s voice had a tone of mock exasperation.
‘You knew Natalie Stevens, didn’t you?’
‘What?’ She stopped walking, almost seemed to have stopped breathing. ‘What about her?’
‘I know Joanne, her sister. Not very well, but I like her. She’s moved into a new flat and–’
‘Really?’ Holly smiled a little. ‘Good for her. I wondered what had happened. It was Natalie I knew best but I always felt sorry for Joanne. I mean, Natalie was bound to be the favourite since Walter Stevens was her real father.’
Karen opened her mouth to say ‘how do you mean?’ then decided to pretend she knew all about the family already. ‘Yes, of course.’
‘Joanne’s father never even saw her, you know. He was killed three months before she was born. Imagine it. Her mother, I mean. I don’t know if I could go on, but you’d have to, I suppose, for the baby’s sake.’
‘D’you know how he died?’
