Finn frowned. Joy was out again the night before, dressed in black. He really hoped she wasn’t the diamond thief. She didn’t seem to have a job and as she didn’t appear to have come from wealth, having to sell her home when she was eighteen, she had to be getting her money from somewhere.
Hoping Casey hadn’t noticed his eyes sliding to Joy’s house when he spoke of the diamond thief, he changed the subject slightly. ‘I thought you were supposed to be on holiday, you’re not involved in this case are you?’
Casey frowned. ‘It’s my case. It’s the same thief that hit five houses in my patch in spring. We’re trying to play down that we have a serial thief on our hands, the press don’t know, but he wants us to know that’s it the same man. He always leaves behind a plasticine animal.’
‘Plasticine? What is he, a child?’
‘A very talented child, the animals are so intricate, obviously a lot of work has gone into them. It could be a child, though. The size of some of the openings he’s got through are tiny.’ Casey swigged his beer thoughtfully. ‘Could be a woman.’
Finn cleared his throat uncomfortably, just as Joy walked out into her garden.
‘Hey,’ Casey waved at her. ‘Were you out by any chance last night?’
She stopped and Finn saw her eyes slide momentarily to him. She knew he had seen her go out dressed in black.
‘Yes, for a drive. I … couldn’t sleep so drove around for a bit, getting to know the local area.’
‘And did you perhaps go near say… The Orchards or… Strawberry Green?’
She paled, she definitely paled. Though Casey seemed to think the whole thing was hilarious.
‘I don’t really know where I drove, Ashton Woods, your neck of the woods, I was definitely there, Chalk Rise. I don’t think I was near The Orchards.’
She seemingly had deliberately not mentioned Strawberry Green, though the small village of The Orchards backed onto it. She stroked Darcy as she ambled past her. ‘Casey, pop by later when you’ve got a moment. I need a word.’
Casey nodded and Joy disappeared into her shed, closing the door firmly behind her. Finn eyed Casey, watching Joy go suspiciously, and fought back the sudden urge to give her an alibi.
*
When Joy had finished cleaning and sharpening her chainsaws later, and replacing a new disc on her angle grinder, she emerged from the shed and was relieved to see Casey and Finn were gone. Just because Casey had seen her with the chainsaws, he had now decided that she must be The Dark Shadow. There was no more proof than that, but still he knew and she had always been a bad liar. It was the local jobs as well, she should never have taken them. She had one more to do in Ashton Woods but after that she wouldn’t work so close to home again.
Zach was in his garden, smoking again, but after what she had heard about him that morning she wasn’t in the mood to talk to him. He smiled and waved at her as she walked past, but she ignored him.
‘Hey, wait up, what’s wrong?’ Zach came through the connecting gate, his eyes filled with concern. ‘You ok?’
‘You’re not the person I thought you were.’
‘Wait, wait.’ He quickly followed her into her kitchen. ‘What has Casey been telling you now?’
She whirled to face him. ‘It wasn’t Casey, it was Finn, he told me about you sleeping with Pippa.’
His face fell and a real sadness filled his eyes. ‘Oh. Worst thing I’ve ever done. I can never go back and change that; I can never undo the hurt that I inflicted on Finn. He was my best friend…’
‘And you betrayed him.’
‘Do I not even get a chance for my side of the story, or is that it, you’ve already made up your mind about me.’ She could see he was hurt but he didn’t deserve the chance to explain.
‘What are you going to say, that it was an accident, that you tripped over and your dick accidentally fell into her.’ She turned away from him.
‘No, listen.’ He caught her arm and pulled her back. ‘She had been after me for months, touching me, trying to kiss me, but I didn’t want anything to do with her. She was Finn’s and he was so in love with her. She was beautiful though, any idiot could tell that. I was attracted to her, I can’t deny it, but I would never have done anything with her.
At her party I got so drunk, Pippa had mixed some weird punch and kept plying me with it all night. I have never been so drunk in my entire life. I went back to my house and passed out on the sofa. God I had weird dreams, I still remember them, so vivid – Angelina Jolie was in them, always had a bit of a thing for her. So I’m with her, kissing her, and ahem… other things… and the next thing she changes and it’s Pippa I’m making love to, Pippa who is sitting on top of me, stark naked, Pippa whose breasts I’m…’
‘Ok, ok I get the picture.’
‘Well the next thing Finn’s there and there was a lot of shouting and well… you know the rest. Finn has barely spoken to me since. I swear Joy, I would never have intentionally slept with Pippa, I could never do that to Finn.’
She watched him, his shoulders slumped, his hands thrust in his pockets, his face crumpled and she couldn’t help but feel a bit sorry for him.
There was a knock on the back door and Casey was suddenly standing there, looking between her and Zach with narrowed eyes.
‘Clear off little bro, me and Joy have some serious talking to do.’
Zach took a step back away from her, watching her carefully. ‘We’re ok aren’t we?’
‘I… don’t know.’
‘Just think about it before you cast the first stone,’ he said as he walked out looking very dejected.
As soon as he was gone she turned to Casey, who was scowling at her.
‘Him and Pippa, do you believe his side of the story?’
‘Yeah, I sort of do. Zach is many things, most of them are not good but I doubt he would ever have deliberately slept with Pippa behind Finn’s back. Alcohol can make you do some stupid things.’
She sighed, not sure what to think.
‘What’s the deal between you two anyway? Finn says you’re going to the wedding with him.’
‘As friends.’ She turned to put the kettle on. Although why had she agreed to that when she’d much rather go with her new best friend she had made the night before?
‘Just make sure it stays that way. He’ll hurt you, Joy – and I’d hate to see that happen.’
She didn’t say anything, just busied herself with the mugs. She had to prepare herself for what she wanted to say next.
‘Have you seen the new sign on the road into the village,’ he said behind her. ‘You know at the top of the hill, where there’s a sign saying, “Home of Finn Mackenzie”, there’s a new one now, it says, “Home of The Dark Shadow.”’
She dropped the mug she was holding and it smashed on the floor.
Chapter Nine
She quickly bent to pick up the pieces, deliberately not looking at him.
There was silence from Casey for a moment, then he spoke. ‘Shit, Joy – you are, aren’t you. I was joking, I was just teasing you because of the chainsaw, I didn’t think you actually were. Oh my god.’
‘Of course I’m not, what a silly thing to suggest.’ She grabbed the dustpan and brush and started to sweep up the fragments. ‘What on earth makes the villagers think that he lives here?’
He paused, obviously watching her carefully. ‘One of the villagers, Mr Brackley I gather from the gossip, was in The Orchards last night visiting his sister when he saw a black 4x4 emerge from the woods. Well The Orchards is directly above Bramble Hill, you can see your village from the road. He watched the headlights of the car follow the road down towards Bramble Hill and past The Pride and they went out shortly after that. It was impossible to tell which house it stopped outside, but as there’s only one road into Bramble Hill it stands to reason that the driver of the vehicle lives or at least was staying in Bramble Hill, otherwise they’d have no reason to drive down here quite so late at night.’
‘That’s silly, it could just have been a farmer, or someone looking for firewood.’ She concentrated on sweeping up all the fragments so she wouldn’t have to look at him.
‘In August? And the news is filled with another Dark Shadow strike in The Orchards this morning; a Ringwraith apparently. The villagers are very excited. They all think it’s Mark Duggan who moved into the village about three months ago, he owns a dark blue BMW 4x4, which might have looked black in the night. Though to be honest, as this is quite an affluent area, most of the villagers own dark 4x4s, it could have been anyone.’
‘And now they’ve put up a sign?’ She looked up at him and he nodded. Crap. Wait till the press got hold of that, they’d be swarming all over the place trying to find out exactly who it was. Ashton Woods would have to wait a few days, maybe even weeks until the furore calmed down.
She had worked so hard for this; she couldn’t let it all go now. She realised her hands were shaking as Casey knelt down by her side.
His eyes were serious, concerned. ‘Joy, there’s CCTV footage of the grounds of Menton Hall, from the night of the robbery. There’s a black 4x4 in the background of one of the shots, driving through the woods. It’s very far away. It’s the only sign of anything suspicious from that night. The only clue we have. We were going to have it analysed, get specialists to zoom in to see if we can make out the driver. Is this something I need to get hold of and accidentally lose or delete?’
She swallowed. Asking him to do that would be admitting she was The Dark Shadow. How much could she trust Casey? There were probably only two people that knew who she was – Jake Aldbury and Alex. To get hold of this footage she had to trust Casey more than she’d trusted anyone in her life.
But then even if she did ask him, that was a dreadful imposition on him. He could get in serious trouble for tampering with evidence like that, even if her presence in the video had nothing to do with the diamond robbery. He could lose his job over it, she couldn’t ask him to do that. She would just have to hope the specialists couldn’t identify her through the footage. But what if they could? She would be called in for questioning, they might think she had something to do with the diamond robbery, she would have to tell them who she was and what she was doing. She could easily prove who she was but there was no way a whole team of police would keep her identity a secret.
She finally found her voice. ‘I erm… I know someone who might be able to help you with that evidence. Alex actually, he works in the film industry, he has access to that sort of equipment that allows you to enhance footage. If you get me the footage, I could pass it to him and he could look at it for you.’
She knew she had just handed herself to Casey on a plate. It was down to him now whether he would serve her up to the police and the waiting press.
He stood up. ‘We normally have our own people for such things, but… We have limited budgets, we don’t have access to the really cool stuff that MI6 have, and I expect Warner Brothers and their associates have an even bigger budget than they do. It would be good to pass on this evidence to someone skilled enough to handle it. I imagine I can trust Alex to pass on any details that he finds?’
‘Absolutely.’
He nodded and fished his phone out of his pocket, then walked into the lounge. ‘Hello it’s DI Fallowfield. You know the CCTV footage of the Plasticine Diamond case, from Menton Hall. I need you….’ His voice faded as he moved to the front of the house and Joy realised her heart was thundering against her chest. She quickly made the tea, having to do something with her hands. Alex to the rescue once again.
He had done so much for her, not only putting his life on hold to raise her, but financially supporting her for the first few months when she had returned to the UK and was trying to make a name for herself as a chainsaw artist. Where other parents might have encouraged their child to get a job somewhere, anywhere just to get some money, Alex had been fierce that she had a rare talent and that her career would take off just as long as she kept working at it. Eventually she’d gotten a few commissions, in her life previous to The Dark Shadow, and it was enough that she could move out of Alex’s home and rent a place with bad plumbing and several dubious damp patches. It was here that she had lived on a diet of porridge and baked beans on toast, and where she was determined that after everything Alex had done for her, she would not be reliant on him again. He had his own life and it was time enough that he started to live it.
She couldn’t go back to wondering where her next meal was coming from, or rely on Alex to put her up again.
But yet here she was, relying on him to get her out of this bind, pulling him in to the lies and the deceit, now she’d be asking him to lie to the police for her.
Casey came back in and he smiled at her when he saw her worried face.
‘I’ve just spoken to Alex, he’ll be more than happy to have a look at the footage for me.’
She frowned slightly, confused. ‘You spoke to Alex?’
‘Yes, you gave me his number, remember, so we could chat about being gay and my inappropriate crush on my best friend.’
‘Of course, but I didn’t know you had spoken.’
‘We actually met for coffee yesterday; he really is a lovely bloke.’
She beamed. ‘He is… did you…’
He must have seen her innuendo. ‘No, no, no. Definitely not my type. I mean funny, kind, fiercely loyal to you, but I’m not remotely attracted to him. He’s way too thin for my liking. In comparison to Finn, Alex is like a blade of grass. Alex pretty much said the same about me, that if this was your attempt at setting the two of us up, then it hadn’t worked, he likes them big too, men that is.’
She smirked. ‘I didn’t think the two of you would suddenly leap into bed with each other just because you’re both single and gay, I was just hoping that you could become friends.’
‘Well we’ve certainly done that. We’re definitely going to meet up again, probably after the wedding or the honeymoon. Anyway…’ he fixed her with a serious look. ‘He says he’ll take care of the CCTV for you, I mean for me.’
‘Thank you.’
‘And perhaps, if you know this Dark Shadow man, you’ll tell him to keep his head down for a while.’
She nodded.
‘And that’s the last time I’ll speak of it, I promise.’
She knew it would be too. She knew she could trust him completely. She stepped forward and hugged him. He jolted in surprise as she rested her head on his chest and then he hugged her back, holding her tight in his arms. She felt a tightening in her throat as she held him and she smiled as she pulled away.
‘Damn it Casey, why do you have to be gay?’
He laughed as he kissed her fondly on the head, picked up his mug of tea and walked into the lounge. ‘What did you want to talk to me about anyway?’
She cast her mind back to her previous problems, grabbed her mug and followed him.
‘Finn.’
‘Oh yes?’ He threw himself down next to Darcy who was sprawled out upside down on the sofa, with her tongue hanging out of her face. He rubbed her belly absently which earned him a half-hearted wag of the tail. Joy sat down on the big comfy chair opposite him.
‘It’s just that… there’s a code, between friends.’ How could she put this? ‘When me and my friends would go out, if one of us called dibs on a guy the rest of us would stay well clear. Normally we all went for very different types anyway but occasionally we would overlap. I remember once I fancied this guy Steve for months, though he was blatantly not interested in me. Anyway as the months went on, Libby started to notice him too and when he asked her out, she came to ask me if it was ok.’
‘And was it?’ Casey asked with a smirk, clearly knowing where this conversation was going.
‘Yes,’ she said, honestly.
Casey took a big breath. ‘You’re asking me if it’s ok if you go after Finn?’
‘Yes. I won’t do anything with him if you’re not happy with it. You’ve been in love
with the man for fifteen years, it would be a bit mean of me to…’ She sighed. ‘I think I’m falling for him.’
He took a big swig of his tea and swallowed it thoughtfully. ‘Does he feel the same way?’
‘I don’t know. He likes me, I know that much. I think it could be something more. He’s still hurting over Pippa and I don’t think he’s ready for a relationship yet.’
He shifted uncomfortably. ‘I’m going to tell him.’
‘What? That I’m falling for him, that’s hardly fair.’
‘No, that I love him.’
She had no words, though she was aware that her mouth was flapping open like a fish.
‘I have to know Joy. I know deep down that he doesn’t see me that way, that he’s not gay, but I have to know for sure. I have to hear it from him. Maybe then I can finally move on.’
‘You’re going to tell him you’re gay, that you love him and have been in love with him for fifteen years?’
Casey nodded. ‘I know it’s stupid, but I have to.’
‘But what if… what if he’s homophobic?’
‘Finn? No way, he may be a moody sod, but he’s not that.’
Her heart ached for him. He was not going to get out of this what he wanted and he knew that. But maybe this would be the first stage in him coming out, in finally being brave enough to accept who he was.
‘When are you going to do it?’
‘Friday. I’m having a sort of mini stag do, just me and him. I don’t want a big fuss and if Zach had his way there’d be strippers and lap dancers. Me and Finn are just going to have a few drinks, maybe play on the Wii. I’m going to tell him then.’
She moved to sit next to him, taking his hand, but she couldn’t find any words to offer hope when she knew it was hopeless. She could only hope that Finn was kind about it.
‘After that Joy, after I’ve told him and been spectacularly rejected, you can have him. I want him to be happy and I know he won’t find that with me so if he can find it with you then I’ll be happy with that. Just give me till then.’
Beneath the Moon and the Stars Page 13
