by Helen Cox
‘I know, but we’ve got to try. It may all be for nothing but at least we’ll have tried to help Banks. If the information goes direct to Ricci, Halloran won’t get a sniff of it. He’s sent me some pretty dry texts to suggest Ricci is watching his every move.’
Evie slumped down in the chair in front of the student enquiry desk. She had checked her phone on the way to the library too, but she hadn’t heard anything from Charley. She had begun to wonder if she would hear from her at all or whether she was just being polite when she said she’d keep her informed. It’s not like they had known each other a long time or anything. She wasn’t obliged to keep her word. Especially given she had no idea that they were looking into this case on her behalf. Evie didn’t relish the thought of keeping a secret from her but she did rather enjoy thinking about how happy Charley would be if this all came off and they were able to find who had stolen those books, and who had set her up.
‘You thought Olivia’s behaviour was a bit strange, didn’t you, Evie?’ said Kitt, breaking her train of thought.
‘Um, yeah . . . she was a bit on edge at times. But she did help us in the end. Telling us all that stuff about their financial situation and . . .’ Evie looked over her shoulders to see who was around. One or two people were meandering amongst the book stacks quite close to them so she would have to continue to keep it down. ‘About the suspected affair.’
‘What finances? What affair?’ asked Grace, forgetting to lower her voice in her excitement. ‘And who’s Olivia?’
‘Shhhhh,’ Kitt hissed, and kept her voice low as she spoke. ‘Olivia’s the shop assistant at Bootham Bar Books. She says there’s all sorts of trouble brewing for the shop owners just at the minute, and she’s not the only one.’
‘Sounds like a lot of drama,’ said Grace.
‘That we agree on,’ said Kitt. ‘I’ve known them for a long time and they did seem a little bit on edge this afternoon. All three of them did, actually, Olivia included. There’s definitely something amiss there.’
‘Not surprising if half the town thinks their business is going under any minute,’ said Evie. ‘You know, the more I think about it, the more likely it seems that they might have got desperate and staged the whole thing like Derek said.’
‘What’s that now?’ asked Grace. ‘I really hate the fact that I always miss out on this stuff.’
‘You don’t always miss out,’ said Kitt. ‘This is only the second time we’ve ever looked into something like this. But sometimes it can’t be helped. We have to try and stay under the radar and going round town in a gang asking questions probably isn’t going to achieve that.’
‘I know,’ said Grace. ‘I guess being filled in – no detail spared – is the next best thing.’
Kitt rolled her eyes but obliged her assistant anyway.
‘God,’ said Grace, once Kitt had relayed what they found out from Derek and Olivia. ‘Do you think any of it’s true?’
Kitt shook her head. ‘If you ask me this whole thing sounds very out of character for him, and Shereen.’
‘You never know what goes on though, do you?’ said Evie thinking back to some of her recent experiences. ‘People can often seem perfectly friendly, but you never really know what’s going underneath it all. Especially in relationships. Donald and Shereen did seem like nice people but they might just be putting on a show for everyone.’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ said Kitt. ‘I suppose I just like to think of myself as a good judge of other people, and Donald never struck me as the kind of person who would stoop to that level.’
‘We all like to think of ourselves as good judges of character,’ said Evie.
‘But when people are desperate, they do desperate things,’ said Grace. ‘Though one thing I don’t understand is why, if they needed money, they wouldn’t just sell the books at auction anyway. Surely that’s easier than an insurance scam?’
‘Easier maybe, but at auction you have to find a bidder willing to pay top price for the books to really make your money,’ said Kitt. ‘And that can take time, maybe time they don’t have.’
Grace nodded, conceding Kitt’s point. ‘And I suppose if they were doing it for the insurance money then they might not even go to an auction house to sell the books. They might just want to make them disappear. Get rid of the evidence.’
‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ said Kitt. ‘Although, if you were going to do it, wouldn’t it make sense to go for broke and get the insurance money and sell the books?’
‘Depends on how much money you needed and how likely you thought it was that you’d get caught,’ said Grace. ‘If the insurance money is enough you’d be wiser to destroy those books.’
‘Oh . . .’ Kitt sank into her office chair. ‘I feel rather faint at that thought. Imagine, first editions like that being thrown into the river or burned in a bonfire. Books deserve a better fate than that.’
What was undoubtedly about to become a mini-monologue on the sanctity of the written word was interrupted by the buzzing of Kitt’s mobile. She fished it out of her pocket and scrolled down to a text message. Her shoulders drooped as she read.
‘What is it?’ asked Evie.
‘Halloran,’ said Kitt. ‘The financial check on Amira Buruk – Alim’s mother – turned up nothing. There’s no hard evidence she orchestrated the robbery – or the beating of her son.’
Grace’s eyes widened. ‘The beating of her son? Surely nobody would do that to their own flesh and blood?’
‘If you had met her you wouldn’t think it was such an outlandish idea,’ said Evie. ‘They might not have found anything in her finances but I’m telling you she’s involved somehow.’
‘Until we can prove it, there’s nothing we can do. And Halloran has told us to steer clear of her anyway. Though she’s never been officially charged with anything she has a reputation among the officers as a dangerous entity.’
‘No financial proof and no hits at auction houses,’ said Grace. ‘What do we do now?’
‘We keep looking,’ said Evie. ‘There has to be something we can find that will help Charley out.’
‘I think we’ve already found out quite a lot,’ said Kitt. ‘The possibility of insurance fraud and affairs – I’ll relay it all to Halloran tonight and see what he says. But for now I think the best thing we can do is go home and sleep on it.’
Thirteen
It had just turned afternoon when Evie awoke the next day. She’d had a fitful night’s sleep and once she’d finally managed to drift off for good she had slept right through to midday. Eight straight hours was the minimum amount of sleep she could function on these days and, given the sight of her face, she reasoned she could use all the beauty sleep she could get.
On waking, her first instinct was to reach across to her phone which stood on the bedside table next to her current read: an early edition of To Catch a Thief that Kitt had lent from her own personal library. Evie smiled as her hand brushed past the book, remembering the personalized plate she’d discovered in the inside cover complete with an inscription that read: From the Library of Kitt Hartley. She supposed it was no surprise that a professional librarian kept their private collection of books in order.
Evie switched her phone on. The light from the screen blared in the dimness of the bedroom but the message box was empty.
Still no word from Charley.
She could have sent Charley a text message, of course. In fact, that was what she would normally do, if it was anyone else. She never thought twice about texting people on the whole, especially if they were having a tough time. But somehow this wasn’t the case when it came to Charley. Perhaps it was the fact that she probably had enough going on just now, without having to manage a series of questions and concerns from a person she knew very little.
Sighing and throwing her head back on the pillow, Evie thought back to the people she and
Kitt had spoken to yesterday. She had hoped she might wake up this morning well-rested and full of epiphanies about the case that would save the day. But the whole thing was just a jumble.
This burglary seemed to be a case that only became more complicated the more you looked into it and this in turn probably meant that she, Grace and even Kitt were somewhat out of their depths here. Evie was struggling to put her finger on why she had been so keen to involve herself with this investigation when the police were already dealing with it, or why she cared so much for Charley’s career after just a few meetings, but the truth, whatever it meant, was that she did care. Moreover, an emptiness was starting to brew in the pit of Evie’s stomach. Evie would have liked to put it down to missing breakfast but she knew the real cause: the fact Charley hadn’t got in touch again was getting to her, and she had to do something to take her mind off it.
Nothing else in Evie’s life required quite as much concentration as keeping Jacob, the 1968 Morris Minor parked in her garage, in working order. Consequently, as soon as she could bring herself to turn out of bed, she checked the silicone sheets the doctor had prescribed for her scars were still in place after a night’s sleep, pulled on a T-shirt under a pair of dungarees, and then added the thickest jumper she could find to the ensemble. Once convinced she had sufficient layers to brave the cold, she swiped a banana from the fruit basket downstairs in lieu of brunch, and shivered her way out to the garage to see how the old machine was coping in the winter conditions.
It was one of those crisp December days that might almost feel like spring if it weren’t for the nip in the air. She’d have to get as much done as possible before the sun began to set; after that it would be too cold to work out here and the cosiness of the sofa and Sunday night TV would be calling to her.
Evie pulled up the garage door and smiled at the baby-blue car. Her smile faded, however, when she noticed some rust that had crept in around the headlights. ‘Oh, Jacob,’ she said. ‘You’re getting cataracts. We’ll have to sort those.’
The car didn’t respond.
Job one on a cold winter afternoon was getting the small portable heater in the garage working, closely followed by flicking on a transistor radio which was ever-tuned into a radio station that exclusively played 1960s music. Once those tasks were sorted and the volume had been adjusted to a pleasing level, Evie grabbed some sandpaper sitting in the toolbox – or medical kit as she called it – which she used to patch up Jacob week-to-week, and began working on the rust. After a short while she saw shiny metal break through the brown and that was her cue to apply the primer. Pushing the brush into Jacob’s every nook, Evie felt a smile form on her lips. Looking after her car was even more pleasurable now than it used to be. It wasn’t just her newfound singlehood. Although, she couldn’t deny she missed having someone to take care of, even if her last, and now deceased, boyfriend hadn’t been so good at taking care of her in return. But more than that, she was able to feel at ease in her own skin. Jacob didn’t notice her scars, let alone comment on them, and that made him the best kind of company as far as Evie was concerned.
By the time she had painted and buffed up the area around the rust and completed several other maintenance tasks such as hoovering out the interior, checking over the engine to make sure he still started up all right, and taking a pit stop for some tea and a sandwich, dusk was closing in on the short, winter day.
Evie had just made a start on clearing away the rags and tools when a voice came out of nowhere.
‘I didn’t have you down as a mechanic.’
Evie started: it was Charley’s voice. She turned to face her and then realized she must have oil and grime all over the place. She did her best to clean herself off with the back of her sleeve and pulled her curls forward a bit in the hopes of disguising the state she was in.
She glanced up at Charley to take a better look at her. She was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a leather jacket. The sharp lines of the garment somehow emphasized the softness of her face whilst also giving her the air of a woman who was ready for anything.
‘I think mechanic is a bit strong,’ said Evie. ‘With these old things it’s mostly a matter of following a set of very simple instruction manuals.’
Charley smiled. ‘Sorry to drop round unannounced. I tried texting but didn’t get a response so at the risk of coming across as a bit of a stalker, I thought I would swing round on the off chance you were in.’
‘I don’t feel stalked,’ said Evie, thinking how typical it was that she had been waiting on a text from Charley for the last couple of days and the moment she put her phone down for a couple of hours, she had got in touch – a watched phone never beeps. ‘And I speak as someone who has a little bit of experience in the whole “being stalked” area.’
Charley put a hand to her face. ‘Oh God, sorry. I forget I shouldn’t joke about things like that. It’s hard not to develop a bit of a dark sense of humour, you know? My line of work.’
‘It’s fine, really,’ said Evie. ‘How are you?’ I’ve been thinking about you. I mean – you know, wondering how you’ve been getting on.’
‘Aye, sorry I haven’t been in touch.’ Charley looked at the concrete floor of the garage for a moment and then back up at Evie. ‘I’ve been in talks with my rep, in meetings with my superiors and in between, well, I’ve got a membership to that 24-hour gym on Fossgate and let’s just say I find their punchbags . . . therapeutic.’
‘I can imagine,’ Evie said. ‘You’ve made progress on the five stages of grief then? Denial to anger?’
‘I’m not sure I even visited denial. I think anger was my first port of call and if I get to choose, I’ll skip straight to acceptance,’ said Charley.
Evie forced a smile. Acceptance of all that had happened to her lately, especially the life-changing injuries she’d sustained, felt so out of reach right then. If Charley could jump straight to it, maybe she would be good enough to teach Evie how.
‘Anyway, enough about my unhealthy processing of workplace difficulties. I wanted to get in touch and let you know the forensics came back on the window in my garage.’
Evie’s heart leaped. ‘And . . .?’ she said, though she could tell by the sparkle in Charley’s eyes that it was good news.
‘They found DNA not belonging to me on the glass and on the frame. The same traces were found on the tool box where the hammer was kept.’
‘Get in!’ said Evie. ‘So now they have proof someone else entered your garage?’
‘Yes, whoever’s trying to set me up clearly isn’t a professional. They’ve been pretty sloppy about it . . .’
‘Oh that’s such a relief,’ Evie said, bounding up to Charley and squeezing both her hands. Then, looking down at them she added: ‘Oh . . . I’ve made you all dirty.’
As she reached for a clean rag, Evie tried not to blush. If Kitt had said that to Halloran she would have made sure she never heard the end of it. The silence between them grew thicker. Evie’s skin was tingling and she felt an unfamiliar shyness creeping in. She didn’t feel she could just laugh off that comment with an attached innuendo. Probably best to move on.
‘It is a bit of a relief, but there’s still a lot of evidence stacked against me so I won’t know until tomorrow if my suspension has been revoked.’
‘Oh,’ Evie said, handing Charley the rag to wipe her hands on. ‘You might not want to worry so much about that.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I – well, we – me and Kitt – have been asking around, here and there.’
‘I know,’ Charley said with a small smile. ‘I spoke to Halloran over the phone at lunchtime.’
‘So he told you . . .’
‘Possible insurance fraud, a possible affair, it definitely helps my case for innocence that this isn’t all clear cut.’
‘A lot of it is just rumour, that’s the thing,’ said Evie.
&
nbsp; ‘The rumours might not be true, but often, in investigative work, following the rumours leads you to the ultimate truth. A lot of the time, they start because someone sees something or hears something that doesn’t add up. So although the rumour itself isn’t true, it suggests there is something off about that person or situation.’
Evie looked into Charley’s eyes. ‘So, us looking into it, that might have helped you?’
‘There’s certainly hope, and right now I’ll actually take any excuse to celebrate. So I thought . . .’ Charley produced a handsomely sized bottle of gin from the bag she was carrying, ‘you might stop me being one of those sad people who drinks alone at home on a Sunday night.’
Evie smiled. ‘Monday morning hangover ahoy!’
Charlie chuckled while Evie wondered why such stupid things came out of her mouth in front of her. How difficult was it to say something normal like: ‘Good call, I’ll get the glasses’?
‘I’ll order us in some food as well,’ said Charley. ‘There’s a top Indian takeaway not far from here.’
Evie shook her head. ‘You don’t have to do that. I could cook something.’
‘I’d rather you just relaxed with me. Looks like you’ve had a day of hard graft,’ said Charley, with a nod towards the car.
‘I wouldn’t quite go that far,’ said Evie, trying to use her sleeve to wipe away another smear of engine oil off her face, ‘but if you insist on making my life easier, I’m not going to put up a fight about it.’
‘Good girl,’ Charley said through a smile.
Evie’s breath caught in her throat at that comment. Charley had said it in quite an easy, casual tone but something about those words went straight to her core. Confused by this reaction, she decided to try to act breezy until she could figure out why Charley’s words had had such an effect on her. Granted, the amateur dramatics she’d tried on the Buruks at the hospital hadn’t panned out so well but given there were a lot of weird thoughts and feelings circulating inside just now, what else could she really do? ‘I’ll need to get showered and changed first though,’ she said, gesturing down to her grubby dungarees.
