The Detective's Secret

by Thomson, Lesley

  Jack was covering for a colleague on the Wimbledon line who did day shifts. Used to doing the Dead Late shifts, he missed the darkness. Only in the brick-lined tunnels, amid the dust, lit by the headlamps, like motes of gold, did he feel truly alive.

  He resumed singing under his breath so that the passengers beyond his cab door wouldn’t hear:

  ‘Eating a Christmas pie;

  He put in his thumb…’

  His engine had been heavy, a grand thing to hold. The word ‘Triang’ was emblazoned on its boiler with the name, ‘Puff-Puff’. Jack had taken it to the river, although his mummy had asked him not to.

  ‘And pulled out a plum,

  And said, “What a good boy am I!”’

  Jack believed that what is lost will one day return. A circularity with no beginning or end. Even so, he was doubtful that the toy engine he had just seen was the same as the one he had lost in the water thirty years ago.

  Distracted, Jack was midway through the West Hill tunnel before he recalled his self-imposed task. The tunnel ran beneath West Hill between East Putney and Southfields stations. Dictated by whimsy and coincidence – ‘signs’ – Jack was ever in search of hidden facts that would reveal profound truths. The length of the tunnel was one such fact. His colleagues didn’t know and he hadn’t found the answer on the internet.

  Each time he entered the tunnel, something made him forget to collect the ‘data’: the time it took to travel from one end to the other. He only had a few more chances: his colleague would be back soon.

  ‘And said, “What a good boy am I, am I

  And said—”’

  He stopped singing. The steam engine was a sign.

  Jack stood in the dark hall and absorbed the silence of spectres. He went to the foot of the staircase and peered up. The banister wound into darkness and shadows of the spindles striped across the wall – like in a Hollywood film, someone had once said, perhaps his mother.

  Every object, every shadow and splash of light had meaning or intent. When Jack was in his dead parents’ house, he too was a ghost. Once, looking in the hall mirror to see his reflection and reassure himself he was alive, he had seen his mother’s face through the blossoms of silver, a trickle of blood on her forehead. He had removed the mirror. An oval stain marked where it had been.

  Tonight the house was not his friend. The owl knocker, as cold as brass, hadn’t greeted him. He considered going to Rose Gardens North to see Stella, but remembered she was at Jackie’s and then off to Heathrow to fetch her mother. Stella had rung him that morning, but not left a message. He wouldn’t interrupt her at Jackie’s.

  In the dining room, printed music, discoloured to parchment yellow, lay open on the piano, the pages wrinkled with damp. Jack couldn’t play the piano, it had been his mother’s, but he knew the music by heart. The house was a tomb in which he glided wraithlike, catching snatches of conversation and glimpses of action in the low-wattage gloom. The threads of people’s lives and deaths, the hidden facts. In the past he had craved their company. Tonight he wanted peace from his ghosts.

  Another flier lay on the doormat. It would be an estate agent telling him someone wanted to buy his house, or maybe a pizza-delivery service.

  It was none of these. One of his Tarot cards had blown off the hall table. Jack bent down and picked it up. He turned it over and stared at the image. A tower stood on the edge of a roiling sea, waves smashed against the sheer walls, the sky was dark and riven with a jagged thunderbolt. Out of the waves rose Poseidon clasping a trident, the representation of the crescent moon that connected the God to the night and to the instincts. In Tarot, the Tower augured the breaking down of old structures, the stripping away of the false self to reveal truth and integrity. Jack had turned up the card in the spread he laid out for himself on his birthday earlier in the year. He had not had it in a spread since.

  His book of tides lay on the hall table. His mother had hit her head on the corner of the marble, a sharp corner, it had broken the skin. Jack shut his mind to the memory and snatching up the tide tables book, he flipped through the pages. He had promised Stella not to go on journeys in London at night, the time he liked best. The promise didn’t include the eyot. The tide turned at two sixteen. If he got there in twenty minutes, he had hours before the river filled.

  This time the owl fluffed her feathers. He assured her he wasn’t breaking his promise to Stella – the owl was big on loyalty. Like the lions perched on plinths around the Square and the eagle preparing for take-off from the pediment above his head, the owl watched over Jack. Stella would despair if she knew that symbols on cards, creatures on door knockers, weather-worn gargoyles, even garden ornaments gave him direction and protection. He lifted the owl’s tail feathers and lowered her; she tapped the strike plate. Time to go.

  Eighteen and a half minutes later Jack was hopping and jumping across the exposed causeway to Chiswick Eyot. Fog blotting out rooftops on Chiswick Mall thinned briefly to reveal the tower. Then it vanished. Jack did a final sweep of the mall, and decided he was alone. He reached the eyot and climbed the bank, tracing a faint track into the undergrowth.

  When he stepped into the silence of his Garden of the Dead, it occurred to Jack that it was strange that the Tarot card had fallen to the floor because he had secured the pack with an elastic band.

  Had Jack waited, he might have seen that the pole by the embankment was not a pole. A man stood in the shadow of the moored barge. Jack’s keen ear would have caught a sound and he would not have mistaken it for the rhythmic wash of the tide.

  Across the mud flats he would have heard a lilting song:

  ‘He put in his thumb,

  And pulled out a plum,

  And said, “What a good boy am I!”’

  6

  Saturday, 19 October 2013

  Jackie was in the passage when Stella came out of the downstairs toilet. ‘Stell, any chance you could drop William at the station? He’d like a private word.’

  ‘I’m going to the airport,’ Stella objected.

  ‘Gunnersbury station is pretty much on your way,’ Jackie cajoled. ‘I said you might be able to help him.’

  ‘Is it cleaning?’

  ‘Not exactly. Best he explains.’

  ‘OK.’ She would say no if he asked her out. Simple.

  All evening the man had seemed more interested in Stanley the dog. For some women, his tactic would have worked, but the way to Stella’s heart was not through her dog. Mr Right had got it wrong and she would tell him so. It was better to be straight with people.

  ‘Does the name Dale Heffernan mean anything to you?’ she asked Jackie.

  ‘No, should it?’

  Stella shook her head. Her mother often confided in Jackie; if she didn’t know the name, there was nothing to know. Meanwhile she had another man to deal with.

  ‘Can I drop you at the station?’ she asked from the doorway.

  ‘Great!’ He jumped up and his paper napkin floated to the floor. He was too pleased.

  She waited in the van while Mr Right – she had forgotten his actual name – was no doubt thanking Jackie for setting up the evening. The dog was perched in Jackie’s arms. Stella glared at him as if he too was in on the scheme.

  When she came to collect him tomorrow she would insist that these blind dates stopped. She preferred being single.

  Idly she watched a dark shape flit between the graves, the shadow of a branch moving in the wind. She looked back at the house. Now Mr Right – or whoever – was petting Stanley. She tapped her foot, although she had plenty of time. The shape in the cemetery was not a shadow. It was a man in a long black coat.

  Only one person looked like that. Stella craned over the passenger seat and looked out of the side window. Jack. He must have seen she had called, but he hadn’t rung her to see why. He would say he assumed her initial call was a mistake if she asked him. Giving a huff – Jack had a reason for all his seemingly unreasonable behaviour – Stella climbed out of the van.
She was about to cross the road – somehow she couldn’t bring herself to shout over to him – but he had gone.

  Stella got back in the van in time to see a fox lope along the verge inside the cemetery and vanish among the graves.

  It wasn’t the dead she minded, decay disposed of bodies, but at night the sprawling space offered opportunity for anyone to spy on the houses on Corney Road. What better place to bury a body than in a graveyard? Stella frowned. Her mum had said she was like Terry, seeing crime around every corner. The blue Toyota had gone.

  The man couldn’t have been Jack, she concluded; he had promised her not to go walking late at night.

  By the time Mr Right joined her, she was grateful for the company.

  ‘Gunnersbury station.’ She started the engine.

  The journey would take five minutes, but a lot could happen in five minutes. It took two minutes to get out of Jackie’s street, Burlington Lane was busy with late commuting traffic heading west. Another minute to Chiswick Roundabout.

  ‘I’ve not been up front,’ Mr Right blurted out. ‘I wanted to meet you.’

  Stella knew London like a cabbie. Mentally she mapped out a short cut, but all the streets led back to the Great West Road.

  ‘Jackie has got the wrong end—’ A horn blared as a car cut up a van.

  Mr Right was speaking, his words lost in the sound. On Chiswick High Road, she braked at red traffic lights. She could smell his aftershave; she traced the woody scent to Burberry.

  The lights went green, thirty seconds to go. Bolstered by this, Stella asked, ‘Sorry, what did you say?’ She made herself concentrate.

  ‘I wanted to see you because Jackie told me that, apart from cleaning, you solve murders.’

  Involuntarily Stella lifted her foot off the clutch and, with a judder, the van stalled.

  7

  May 1985

  Justin was taking ages to lace up his shoes. Twice he got it wrong and undid them. Simon suppressed anxiety; they would be late.

  ‘Shall I do it for you?’ he asked politely.

  ‘I can do it on my own.’ Justin pulled at the lace and snapped it.

  This was the first time they had been alone since Simon had found Justin’s secret place in the kitchen garden. He had been told off for leaving the library by the librarian, whom some boys called ‘the Oyster’; his jumper over the chair hadn’t fooled her. But the Oyster hadn’t noticed Justin was missing.

  ‘Would you like my lace?’ Simon offered, already loosening it.

  Justin made a knot with the short length. Without looking at Simon, he stood up and jogged out of the room.

  Simon folded Justin’s clothes into a proper pile, as neat as his own. Everyone had to be kind to Justin because his mother had died. Simon sometimes wished his dad was dead. That would mean two good things: he could share being half an orphan with Justin and wouldn’t have to see his father in the holidays. If his own mother died, he’d want to die too. Justin’s mother couldn’t have been as nice as Simon’s mummy or Justin might have tried to die when she did. Baffled by the complexity of this, Simon raced after Justin on to the field.

  ‘You’re late. Next time it’s detention!’ Mr Lambert the games master roared at him. He shoved him to the other end of the line of boys to Justin. The last time they had done cross-country, Justin had got lost and come in late. Mr Lambert had been nice to him, but in case it happened again, Simon resolved to stick close to him. Running was the one sport that Simon was good at. He anticipated obstacles: protruding roots, puddles, dips and jutting stones; he conserved energy, paced himself. He kept a steady speed regardless of gradient.

  Today it was like in his dreams: Justin was shadowing him. Simon felt a burst of joy; they would represent the school, get in the Olympics, go for gold. He ran blindly on, tactics abandoned; he had boundless energy. Bramble branches ripped his shirt; drops of water from overhanging trees wet his cheeks. Justin was his friend; he would ask him to be his blood brother. On they ran, heel for heel.

  Ahead of them was the line of trees; they were coming to the woods with minutes on anyone else. Simon must warn him to increase speed before the woods because the level ground allowed even weaker boys to gain. With a tip of the hand he signalled for Justin to pick up pace.

  Justin wasn’t there. Simon faltered and, stopping, he turned right around. There was no one there. Fifty metres back came a straggling line of boys. They were gaining on him. The bright red of their shirts stood out against the browns and greens, the sweep of the Downs. Justin couldn’t have overtaken him. Ahead, the woods were a fringe of dark green and, skirting them, Simon saw Justin. He had cut up around the base of the hill. He had left the designated track. He was entering the woods by the pheasant run.

  Plunging after him, Simon smashed through bracken, crushing saplings, slipping and sliding, all tactics abandoned. He ran between the tree trunks, fast and nimble; he couldn’t call out, he would give them both away. At last he stumbled out of the canopy of trees on to a track rutted with tyre tracks and hoof prints.

  Two metres away, in sunlight, Justin was sitting on a steep grassy bank. Simon staggered towards him, his lungs bursting. Justin was sucking on an orange quarter and chatting with Mr Lambert. Simon saw he had emerged beyond the finishing line. It was too late to hide: Mr Lambert had seen him.

  The sports master handed Simon two hours’ detention for cutting out some of the route, which was cheating. The boy didn’t say that he had been trying to help his friend. Busy with his orange, Justin couldn’t have seen him.

  8

  Saturday, 19 October 2013

  ‘Who’s been murdered?’ Stella stopped outside Gunnersbury station.

  ‘My brother.’ Frost unclipped his seat belt and turned in his seat to face her. His bulk seemed to shrink the van’s interior.

  ‘Thing is, I run a cleaning agency.’ Stella wouldn’t be rude, but it didn’t do to lead people on.

  ‘Jackie said you are a detective.’ Frost gripped the dashboard with his left hand, his other hand around the back of the seat. ‘She said you were good.’

  Stella was on the brink of explaining that her previous cases had been her father’s unfinished business, they didn’t count, but then she heard her mum advising that she scope a job before refusing it. A real live murder case, unconnected with Terry, was as good as deep cleaning.

  ‘How did your brother die? And when?’

  ‘A month ago. He supposedly jumped in front of an Underground train, near here at Stamford Brook.’

  ‘Supposedly?’ Stella felt a stirring of anticipation. Stella hadn’t expected to miss her mum, but had found that her absence revealed how integral to her routine Suzie had become. Stella missed the advice on potential new business and new cleaning operatives. No one else shared Stella’s excitement about latest equipment to further increase standards of hygiene. With Suzie gone, Stella needed something else to challenge her. Now she saw that what she needed was a case. Jackie, as ever second-guessing Stella, had sent her one.

  ‘I want you to find his killer.’ He kept glancing out of the window as if the killer might be out there.

  ‘Murder is a job for the police.’ A year ago, the police had been her enemy. Her mum said that being a detective had taken her father away from his family. Stella hadn’t thought of it like that, but fell in with her mum’s take on it. By the time she was grown up, she saw her dad a handful of times a year and found little to say to him. After his death two years ago, memories of their time together from her childhood had returned so that she no longer felt antagonistic to the police – in particular Martin Cashman, a man a little older than her who had worked with her dad.

  ‘They’re not interested. Superintendent Cashman said there was no one else on the station platform and the only two witnesses, both drivers, confirmed Rick ran in front of the train. He was “satisfied” with the suicide verdict.’

  ‘You don’t agree?’ Stella didn’t want to go up against Cashman. He would suggest she st
uck to cleaning and he would be right. ‘Your brother’s death sounds straightforward.’ Wrong word. Jack was better at this stuff. She cast about for the name Jackie had said when she introduced him.

  ‘Jackie warned me you’d be circumspect. All I ask is you hear me out.’

  ‘Why do you think it wasn’t suicide?’

  ‘Killing himself isn’t Rick’s style. He sticks at things.’ He looked away as if overwhelmed by his grief.

  ‘Did he leave a note?’ He spoke of his brother in the present tense. Perhaps he couldn’t accept the man’s death; in any case, she found his way of putting it unsettling. Odd to be in denial. Jumping in front of a train left little room for doubt that it was suicide. If Jackie hadn’t referred him to her, Stella would give him no time.

  ‘In the unlikely event that it was suicide, Rick would leave a note. He’s hot on admin.’

  ‘Was he— Had he had a drink?’ Stella was careful. Not a good start to suggest the man’s brother was a drinker.

  ‘The post-mortem found whisky in his stomach.’ He raked a hand through his hair. ‘I know how it sounds.’

  It sounded like the man had drunk enough to muster up courage to step in front of a train. She would let him down lightly.

  ‘I have to go.’ If her dad had died under a train she too would have doubted it: he wasn’t that sort. Terry’s post-mortem had been irrefutable. Yet he hadn’t had a day off sick in his life, so his being dead had made no sense. It still didn’t.

  ‘Do you have siblings?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’ She hoped he wasn’t about to go down the ‘you can’t possibly understand’ route.

  ‘I hardly knew my brother. I’d say the guy was a fantasist. When we were boys, he was always playing soldiers. Not with me, I’m three years older. He had a gang, a couple of kids in his thrall. But he rang me an hour before he died. I had no signal so didn’t hear the voicemail until after the police knocked on the door. I failed him once. I won’t fail him again.’