The House With No Rooms

by Lesley Thomson

  ‘What’s wrong with cleaning?’ His wife flicked the washing-up brush at him, spraying him with water.

  ‘There’s everything wrong. Or being a cabbie. What’s she at this expensive school for otherwise?’

  ‘Since it’s George paying—’ At a look from her husband Mrs Banks had stopped and joined in with Dorothy Moore.

  ‘I like cleaning,’ Chrissie had muttered. And she longed to drive a taxi. Except, since the locket, she wasn’t of good character.

  ‘I can’t see you up at five scrubbing fifty toilets, my girl,’ Jenny Banks interrupted her singing to retort.

  ‘It’s good for Watson you being there. Good for his wife too.’ Clifford Banks leant over the sink and switched off the radio. His wife, seemingly unaware, continued with the song.

  Chrissie couldn’t say about the locket or the Cat in the Hat. Nor could she say about the policeman because he gave her a bad feeling. In confusion she had scooted her spoon around the empty Shredded Wheat bowl and crammed it in her mouth.

  ‘It’s not up to Chrissie to make up for them not having kids. Besides, that Rosamond Watson doesn’t help herself. Last time I saw her in the street, she couldn’t crack as much as a smile. No wonder she’s got no friends.’

  ‘Has she got no friends?’ Chrissie was intrigued. Mrs Watson lived in a big house and owned jewellery. Maybe having friends wasn’t as important to getting on as her dad said.

  ‘She keeps herself to herself, that’s all.’ Her mum wiped her hands on a towel and hung it from the grill handle. ‘Come on, Cliff, like Chrissie says, she won’t be drawing flowers for a living. She’ll need something decent.’ Her mum had snatched up the packets of Cornflakes and Shredded Wheat and put them back in the cupboard.

  ‘A botanical artist is a decent job. Watson started out in a council flat and now he’s got a bloody palace in Kew!’

  ‘Thought you said that was his wife’s? You said he’s a bad botanist.’

  ‘He’s not a botanist. And, poor sod, that Rosamond never lets him forget that he’s a just a pen man. She expected more of him for her money. He just does drawings.’

  ‘Well, we work as hard as him,’ his wife said, seemingly irrelevantly.

  ‘Course we do – he’s not up all hours driving. Plants don’t complain and give low tips.’ Chrissie’s dad had giggled at his joke.

  ‘Plants have tips on their leaves,’ Chrissie commented.

  ‘They do, sweetheart! Listen, you stick going there, keep on Mr Watson’s right side.’ Cliff Banks grabbed his car keys. ‘Get your skates on, I’ll give you a lift to the school.’

  Toiling now beside the railway arches Chrissie clutched the locket – unable to hide it in the bedroom she shared with Michelle in case her sister or her mum found it, she was condemned to carry it with her all the time. Yet unconsciously the little girl had come to need it. She fingered it in class, avoiding Bella’s fierce glare; like a talisman it made her feel protected.

  Fretting about how to keep on Mr Watson’s ‘right side’, she resolved to return the locket tomorrow if there wasn’t another field trip. She was startled by shouts and whoops of laughter echoing from one of the arches under the viaduct. These were drowned out by the clatter of a Piccadilly line train on the tracks above.

  Chrissie ran up to the arch and looked into the gloom. There was a tower, so tall it almost touched the curving brick roof. At the top was a fairy-tale cottage with doors and windows. Out of one door came a chute and from the back an iron ladder. Several faces were crammed in one window. Chrissie recognized friends from her old class. Boys and girls were pushing and jostling for a turn on the slide, as she had when she had gone to the school around the corner. Chrissie grabbed the sides of the metal chute and began to climb.

  ‘Chrissie, be careful!’ a girl shouted from the top of the chute and then yelled with undisguised glee, ‘She’s back!’

  Chrissie kept going, confident that with her feet wedged against the sides of the slide she wouldn’t slip.

  ‘You could fall,’ another girl warned, her voice thrilling at the possibility.

  ‘I’ll make her fall!’ Chrissie recognized Geoff Lyons, a boy who had won the high-jump championship for Hammersmith. He pushed the first girl aside and took up the space in the doorway. ‘It’s my turn. Out of the way!’ There was no conviction in his voice.

  As she got higher, the pull of gravity was stronger. One slip and she would tip over the side and crash on to the concrete below. Geoff Lyons drummed the metal with his shoes, making the frame vibrate. She pushed on up.

  ‘You’re not in charge now.’ But Geoff Lyons shuffled out of the way.

  ‘Yes I am.’ Chrissie threw herself on to the platform and, sitting down, arranged her skirt over her bare legs, feet sticking out over the chute. She looked around at Geoff and said, as a concession, ‘You’re after me.’

  The boy bit his lower lip to stop a self-conscious grin. Behind him the other children on the platform surged forward.

  It was a potent rumour amongst the children – a grisly tale – that long ago a boy had pitched off the slide and split his head on the concrete. Stains on the ground around the iron supports were his blood and brains. His ghost haunted the arches, making a ‘whoo-whoo’ like a train whistle. Michelle said that the boy had died on King Street outside the park ten years ago and the blood had been cleaned up.

  At her old school, Chrissie could scale the chute or zoom down the ladder like a fireman holding on to the handrails. This was just one reason that she was in charge. At the prep school where she was now, badges of honour were won for obscure attainments to do with Latin and composition. Now she was back in a world with rules that she understood.

  She shuffled on her bottom to the edge of the slide and swivelled round so that her back was to the chute. To cries of incredulity, she flung herself backwards and shot downwards. Halfway she lost her balance and tried to break her speed by grabbing at the sides of the chute, but, propelled by momentum, she tumbled head over heels and crashed over the side on to the ground. Inches from her nose were the stains. Time stopped. Chrissie was gazing at her own brains.

  Everything righted itself. She wasn’t dead. She clambered to her feet, brushing down her skirt and hazily noting a tear in one of the pleats; she pushed back her hair and did a jig. Everyone was clapping and cheering. The sensation was one of pure joy.

  Knowing when to leave a scene, Chrissie went back to the path, but instead of going to the park gate, she continued past the arch with the ponderous roundabout that took two kids to push it. She passed the sandpit where her dad had made her castles, patting the top of the bucket like a magic trick and lifting it to reveal the firmest castle she had ever seen. He had been cross when she had tapped it with her spade and it had collapsed.

  A bird or an animal, a fox maybe, was snuffling in the bushes. She parted the branches, but couldn’t see anything. She heard a sniff. One of the kids from the sandpit was hiding. She had done that when she was little.

  ‘This is a stupid place – anyone will find you.’ She spoke to the leaves. ‘I just have.’ Although she couldn’t see anyone, Chrissie pushed her way in, smashing tinder-dry branches.

  Huddled in a ragged spot of sunlight, not blinking, not moving, was a girl. Chrissie had seen eyes like that before: staring gobstoppers. Then the eyes blinked.

  ‘Bella!’ Chrissie touched Bella’s arm. The girl flinched.

  ‘Ouch!’ she hissed.

  ‘I didn’t press hard.’ Chrissie squinted down at Bella’s arm. She was astonished: she had only brushed the girl’s skin, but where her fingers had been there were marks.

  Bella Markham had broken friends with her.

  Broken. Chrissie found herself wondering what she could do to Bella if she had meant to hurt her. If Bella Markham weren’t there then Chrissie would be in charge. Without Bella and Mrs Watson everything would be happy ever after.

  In the shadow of the railway arches, above the crash and bang of the trains, no
one would hear Bella’s screams. No one would know.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  October 2014

  ‘Police confirmed that a body found by cleaners in Kew Gardens in the early hours of the morning died in suspicious circumstances.’ Cashman’s voice came out of the four speakers in her van, so clear he might have been in the van with her. The information he gave was brief. He appealed to anyone who might know Joseph Hooker to come forward. Cashman had been right – the murder in Kew Gardens was the top news item, beating the fighting in Syria and a bomb blast in Afghanistan that had killed seven people.

  Stella was relieved that the BBC hadn’t named ‘the cleaner’. But still, barely two hours since she had found the dead man, Lucie May knew the cleaner was Stella. She had left messages and texts demanding an exclusive. ‘You owe me, Officer Darnell.’ Stella hadn’t replied. Yet it would only be a matter of time before the reporter caught up with her. Jackie would field any other approaches. Jack had texted; she would reply later.

  As she was getting into the van parked in the Kew Gardens Estates car park, another Instagram picture had winged in from her mum. Suzie was on an underground train. Through the window behind her, a station sign said ‘Bondi Junction’. Suzie was apparently absorbed in a copy of the Sydney Morning Herald. The caption below the picture read Commuting in Sydney – driver not patch on Jack. Stella wondered how her mum could judge this. Her hands were visible, so Stella supposed that her brother had taken it, but it was as likely that Suzie had inveigled a real commuter into photographing her.

  Cashman was refusing to give a date for when Kew Gardens would reopen. Stella knew that the galleries would be shut for several days while they gathered evidence. She turned off the radio. Tina would advise her how to handle the media.

  She had driven to the hospice on autopilot and had been sitting outside for twenty minutes.

  She frowned at the substantial Edwardian house wrapped in a flourishing Virginia creeper, the only colour on a day that had dawned grey. The mist lingered over the Thames off to her left. Stella didn’t think that she would be allowed to see Tina. She had been in a room with a dead body; it must compromise infection-control rules. Not that murder was an infection from which Tina needed protection.

  Stella returned to her first belief that Tina wouldn’t want to be seen unwell. She tapped the steering wheel. She should have rung before coming. She could ring now. She took her phone off the dashboard cradle and found Tina’s mobile number. She hesitated. Surely they didn’t allow mobile phones in a hospice? She didn’t have the landline number. She could find it on Google. When she tried, she found she had no signal. She had passed a sign at the entrance – perhaps the number was on there.

  Stella leant on the driving wheel. A woman and a man were making their way up a ramp to the entrance; the woman was helping the man although he didn’t look old enough to need help. Tina would have a fit if Stella held her arm. Stella started the engine. Jack said that families knew less about relatives than friends and partners. Stella didn’t know much about her brother, or either of her parents. Michelle Banks was wrong; if Tina wanted to talk to her then she would call herself.

  Decision made, Stella started the engine and drove slowly back down the drive. At the gate she pulled over to let a taxi pass. The cab had privacy windows, so she couldn’t tell if the driver had thanked her. After it had gone, she wondered if it was Tina’s father. Tina would be pleased if it was her dad.

  In his text, Jack had said he might have found them a case. If he meant the murder in the Marianne North Gallery, she would have to emphasize that it was a police matter. Cashman wouldn’t appreciate them treading on his toes.

  Passing Kew Gardens, she glimpsed the Marianne North Gallery through the gates. She saw a flash of police tape, blue and white against the grey of the day. She hoped Jack had found something. Tina had advised they go and get detective business. Stella shuddered. They would only take cases brought to them. Whatever, she did want to work on a case with Jack again: they made a good team.

  She parked up behind the Clean Slate office on Shepherd’s Bush Green and saw that her mum had sent another photo. Two in one day. This time Suzie was sporting crazy headgear. A logo to her right indicated that she was in David Jones. Her brother had said that their mum was practically living in the department store. Suzie claimed that it was due to the air-conditioning. But, having spent her childhood with Suzie trailing around Derry & Toms in Kensington and Peter Jones in Sloane Square, Stella was unconvinced. Tweaking the image, she enlarged it.

  The caption was: Elementary, my dear Watson.

  It was the second time in as many hours that Stella had seen the hat. She was astounded, less at the coincidence than at the fact that Suzie Darnell was wearing a deerstalker.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  July 1976

  Bella, jammed between the branches of a bush, her head in her hands, made Chrissie think of a Guy Fawkes waiting to go on a bonfire.

  ‘You OK?’ Chrissie managed. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you.’ It was true.

  Perhaps because Chrissie sounded sympathetic, Bella’s shoulders shook with great sobs. When she finally looked up, Chrissie saw that her skin was blotched red. One of the blotches was dark. It was a bruise.

  ‘I didn’t do that.’ Chrissie had an edge to her voice. She expected that Bella would say she had beaten her up. She would be expelled. She wouldn’t mind, but her dad would go mad.

  ‘It wasn’t you.’ Bella struggled between sobs. ‘They said I was a rich prig.’

  ‘Who did?’ In the fantasy where Bella Markham was dead, ‘a rich prig’ was one of the names Chrissie had called her.

  ‘Horrid children. They laughed at my uniform and said I talked funny. They pushed me off the slide. I said I thought I was better than them, which I am. Did you send them?’ She looked at Chrissie with watery eyes.

  ‘Send them where?’

  ‘To kill me.’

  ‘I don’t know who they are.’ But she did. The ‘horrid children’ must be her friends. Chrissie remarked, ‘If I was going to kill you I’d do it myself.’

  ‘They said if I told anyone in the whole wide world they’d kill me properly.’

  ‘They didn’t push you off the slide. You must have fallen.’ Chrissie looked stern. Not even Geoff Lyons would do that.

  ‘Yeah, well.’ Bella shrugged. ‘They could have done.’

  ‘Get up.’ Chrissie held out her hand and was remotely surprised when Bella scrambled to her feet and took it. Her fingers were hot and Chrissie nearly snatched away her hand. She brought her out of the bushes on to the path.

  At the roundabout arch she commanded, ‘Sit there.’ She stomped back to the arch with the slide.

  Her timing was perfect. Janice Maynard had whooshed to a stop at the bottom of the chute. When she saw Chrissie she broke into a smile. ‘Did you see that?’ she asked brightly.

  ‘Yes.’ Chrissie grabbed her arm as she was about to head back to the ladder for another go. ‘Stop.’

  Looking up at the rusting cottage on top of the slide, she signalled to the children huddled there. Geoff Lyons was about to come down.

  ‘Get down here.’ Her voice boomed in the vaulted space. She waited until the children – six in all, her old gang – were clustered around her. Without waiting to see if they were following, Chrissie marched out back to where she had left Bella.

  Bella Markham was hunched on the roundabout; she gripped one of the iron handrails as if it were moving and she might pitch off. When she saw Chrissie with the children, she pushed herself towards the middle of the roundabout. Seeing that there was no escape, she drew her legs up under her and folded her arms over her chest. The blotches on her cheeks were livid and her uniform was in disarray.

  ‘OK, so this is Bella. She’s at my new school. She can’t help being rich or a prig and often she isn’t nice. So you’d all better leave her alone or I’ll smash your faces in. OK?’ Chrissie drew herself up, but was still sh
orter than all the other children apart from Geoff Lyons.

  ‘She said I smelled,’ Janice Maynard pointed out.

  ‘She’s like that.’ Chrissie shook her head. ‘You have to ignore her. It’s cos her dad wears a wig to work.’ Her forbidding look quelled a snort of laughter.

  Chrissie put an arm around Janice. ‘No one hurts my friends. If she touches you, I want to know.’ She cocked her head, waiting for an answer.

  ‘I wasn’t there,’ Geoff Lyons said at last. ‘I came at the end.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Chrissie demanded.

  ‘What do you mean?’ He shuffled about on the cracked concrete.

  ‘Did you stop it?’

  ‘No, I... er—’

  ‘It’s worse to do nothing than to do something,’ Chrissie said. ‘Bella fell off the slide. Did anyone help her?’ No one spoke. She jutted a thumb at Bella. ‘Come here.’ Bella didn’t move. ‘Now!’

  Bella scrabbled off the roundabout and limped over.

  ‘She said we pushed her,’ Kathy Haynes said.

  Chrissie nodded. ‘She’s always saying stuff like that.’ She rounded on Bella. ‘Tell them you’re sorry you lied.’

  ‘I’m not sorry. They smell.’ Bella flinched at her temerity. ‘Well, they do,’ she muttered.

  ‘We all smell. I’ll tear your arms off if I have to,’ Chrissie said.

  ‘They could have pushed me off.’

  ‘No one here would do that.’ Chrissie pulled a face. ‘Except maybe you.’

  ‘Sorry then,’ Bella said.

  ‘It’s wrong to lie,’ Chrissie echoed Emily all the while she clutched the locket. ‘Next time you see Bella, remember she’s my friend. She’s in my gang at the new school. So is my friend Emily, but she’s not here. Everyone there smells.’

  Janice Maynard played her last card. ‘She said you was a liar, Chrissie.’

  ‘She’s still my friend. Go!’ She flapped her hand and, like a flock of birds, the children scattered out of the arch.