She had been operating Clean Slate from her bedroom that year, resisting Suzie’s demands to lease an office and ‘put a stake in the ground’. Stella felt the prickling of goose bumps. But for the Simon Le Bon hair, the twenty-something Dale, lounging against the door of the café, the proud owner, might be Terry. In the photograph of Terry outside her nana’s house, he had leant on the door in just the same pose.
Dale wore an apron with the legend ‘Dale’s Place’. Her dad had hated fancy restaurants as much as she did. He would have been unnerved by a son who cooked food with French names. Stella rubbed her face. Terry would have been astonished to discover he had a son. He wouldn’t have cared what he did.
People, probably friends rather than real punters, could be seen waving through the café window. Stella had had no official opening for Clean Slate. As she had later told Jackie, people don’t fuss about cleaners. Some even give the impression they do the job themselves and for those Stella used her plain white van. Dale’s Place had served hot food all day. Terry would have liked it there.
Her eye skimmed a shot of a young man and a woman below Dale’s picture. The woman looked vaguely familiar, but she had one of those finely boned faces to be found in every generation. Stella’s attention drifted to the article above the image.
FEARS MOUNT FOR MISSING TEACHER
Five years to the day since English teacher Nathan Wilson vanished, police say they have no clue to his whereabouts. The forty-year-old bachelor, on a sabbatical from Menzies High in exclusive Vaucluse, set off last October on a three-month walking tour of New Zealand to ‘feed his soul’ and never…
‘You’ll stay for lunch.’ Suzie swept into the room, bearing a bundle of cutlery and a clutch of wine glasses.
‘It’s nearly eleven.’ Stella shut the album. She would be late for Lulu Carr.
‘Not now. It’s moules marinières with lemongrass. There’s fresh parsley!’ As if parsley was a rarity. ‘Dale’s making fresh crusty bread for it and at the same time he’s preparing sea bream with milk-braised leeks for tonight, with saffron and vanilla cream sauce.’ Suzie picked up the album and held it with the tips of her fingers.
Stella was on the verge of retorting that it must be usual for Dale to cook several meals at once, but Suzie had decided he was extraordinary, so no point. She was secretly impressed. She could be floored by the calculation of timings for microwaving two shepherd’s pies for her and Jack.
‘I’ve too much on.’ She wouldn’t mention the case. ‘Say goodbye to Dale.’
Suzie lifted the album. ‘We’ll do a copy for you.’
Stella snatched up Stanley and pecked Suzie on the cheek. She hesitated in the doorway. The smell from the kitchen was appetizing; she was hungry. Suzie was cradling Dale Heffernan’s life-story album as if it were a baby.
33
Friday, 25 October 2013
‘Mrs Frost?’
The fridge hummed; the boiler fired up. Silence. Checking the time out of habit – it was ten forty-five; he would stay no longer than an hour on this first visit – Jack glided along the passage on his rubber-soled shoes. He pushed at a door on his right with a finger, the way people do in public toilets to check if they’re free. It swung open. He bent down and looked around the door. People look for intruders at eye level, and don’t see a person crouching ready to pounce. He was the intruder. Jack didn’t want to frighten anyone, not even a True Host who made it their business to frighten others before they snuffed them out. Senses acute, he could pick up a shift in the air, a change in atmosphere. He called out again.
‘Yoo hoo? Mrs Frost? I’m a friend of William. He suggested I drop by.’
In the sitting room, a sofa, an armchair and a coffee table faced a fireplace inlaid with Delft tiles. Jack’s eye was drawn to a flat-screen television on the wall above the mantelpiece. Rick Frost had been in security, he would have rated gadgets and electronic equipment higher than a Rothko or Matisse. The Frosts obviously didn’t go in for fuss or sentimentality. Stella would like the streamlined look: nothing to collect dust.
Stella was all set to do a meticulous internet search into the deceased’s character, but they needed to know the stuff people kept to themselves. Interviews weren’t enough and anyway Stella had gone ahead and interviewed William Frost without him.
Jack must work undercover, which was appropriate, since Rick Frost had made his business from selling surveillance equipment. Stella would be pleased with the results. No need to say how he came by them.
On the mantelpiece was a silver framed photograph of a man and a woman. The man wasn’t Frost, Jack had seen him both dead and in a picture released for the press. The haircuts were 1980s, big shoulder pads, bouncy hair. They must be Tallulah Frost’s parents; she’d be unlikely to keep up a picture of her in-laws after her husband’s death. He thought them both faintly familiar, but as a train driver, he saw a lot of faces; it made everyone look like someone he had seen before.
Along from the picture was a silver Wee Willie Winkie candlestick holder with snuffer. A ball bearing lay in the base. Jack sent it rolling around the candle. His skin pricked with horror; he shouldn’t touch or move anything. Leave no fingerprints, no trace.
In the kitchen he found the back-door key hanging by the back door. An odd breach of security for a surveillance expert. Jack opened the door and stepped out on to a gravelled patio of about three metres square. The gravel would warn of the enemy’s approach. A log bin under the wall provided escape: one hop and he would be over. A way out and a way in. Jack returned to the kitchen, locked the door and, hesitating, replaced the key. There was plaster dust on the top of the light-switch plate suggesting that the hook had been fixed recently, no doubt since Frost’s death. That explained it. Frost would have known how easy it was for an intruder to smash a pane in the door and reach in. Jack doubted that Rick Frost used to leave the front-door key under the mat. Perhaps, shattered by his death, his wife had grown careless. Generally, the bereaved were keen to keep up the deceased’s routines. Stella cleaned Terry’s house and maintained everything as it had been in his life. Tallulah Frost had transgressed, which made it easy for him. Jack was disappointed to have no tax on his skill or experience. It had been too easy – a bad sign.
On the staircase Jack saw what had been troubling him. The Frost home was clean. Not a speck of dust. Everywhere sparkled. In the sitting room someone had smoothed the carpet pile after vacuuming, leaving no tracks. Tallulah Frost didn’t need a cleaner.
Cleaning could be an antidote to grief; although she’d never admit it, Stella’s shifts had increased when her dad died. Jack relished cleaning, ever hoping to recreate the home he had lost long ago. If Mrs Frost did her own cleaning, she must be very upset indeed. Either that or she had found a cleaner on a par with Clean Slate. Stella had competition.
Singing softly under his breath, he mounted the stairs. If anyone walked in now, he had nowhere to hide. Jack’s fingertips tingled. This was how he liked it.
‘Old Mother Goose,
When she wanted to wander…’
Invisibility wasn’t all about keeping to the sides of stairs or to the ends of floorboards where there was least give. Jack dipped into rooms unseen and crouched in a strip of shadow when the Host was near. He wasn’t like the enemy Rick Frost had sought to ward off with alarms and sensors, he joined the household and learnt its darkest secrets.
‘…Would ride through air
On a very fine gander.’
On the landing he listened for breathing or for the silence of held breath. All clear.
No dirty grouting in the bathroom or limescale on the bath. The chrome plugholes shone. On the landing Jack opened a built-in cupboard. It contained Mrs Frost’s summer clothes and, judging by a gap on the left-hand side, had once held her husband’s too.
At the back of the house Jack opened a door by the bathroom.
‘Hello, Rick.’ This was Rick Frost’s sanctum. He lingered in the doorway, picturing the man who
had lain broken and bleeding on the sharp stones. Jack felt profound sadness. Death was expressed by the gaps in wardrobes and the silence of overly cleaned rooms.
‘Please give up your secret,’ he breathed but detected no ghost.
Rick Frost had run his business from this room. The walls were taken up with shelves crammed with books on coding and intruder monitoring. Jazzy-coloured boxes of security software were emblazoned with exclamatory titles: ‘Duress!’ ‘Panic Stations!’ ‘Dispatcher!’
Three filing cabinets left space for the arm of an L-shaped desk with a Mastermind chair in the corner. The other arm of the ‘L’ would have had a view of the back patio, but for the frosted window. Dedicated to combating human transgressions, mostly inspired by the darkness of the soul, Frost hadn’t required daylight. To beat the enemy, it was necessary to have the mind of the enemy.
Beside the desk was a dustbin-sized shredder where Jack guessed Frost destroyed every scrap of rubbish.
Jack fitted his Clean Slate pen through the desk-drawer handle and was surprised when it slid open. Inside was typical desk stuff: a stapler, staples and a staple remover, a cloth tape measure, a roll of sticky tape and some AA batteries. Shutting the drawer he heard a clunk as something rolled to the front. He opened it again and found a bullet. Not so typical. When William had said his brother took part in battle re-enactments, Jack had supposed this was jousting with shields, not using modern weaponry. At the back of the drawer he found a rolled-up canvas belt bristling with more bullets. He shivered. Although no ghosts, he felt a nasty energy in the room.
On the desk was a thin silver laptop with a printer. Jack sat down in the spacious chair, appreciating how comfortable it was. He turned on the laptop. The machine sprang to life and demanded a password.
He’d expected this; Frost was in security. Most people were unimaginative about passwords, choosing pets’ names or whatever they saw when they glanced up from the monitor: Webster, Shakespeare. Stella had used ‘hygiene’ until he made her change it. Frost would have a strong password, alpha-numeric for starters.
A wireless mouse lay on a blank mouse mat. No company logo. Frost’s was a clandestine business: he would rely on word of mouth for customers. They must find out who they were and what he had done for them. There was a shiny dip on the right of the space bar; otherwise there was an equal amount of wear on the keys. No way to establish the letters in the password, which, infrequently typed, wouldn’t be evident.
The mouse was on the left of the laptop. At the inquest the pathologist had said Frost’s left wrist was broken, as if, going under the wheels, he had instinctively tried to protect himself. Jack had forgotten. Frost had raised his hand, not to stop the train, but to Jack. He had been trying to point something out to him. Not something. Someone.
The prime suspect was Stella’s ‘inspector’. Was he returning to the scene of his crime? Or had he followed William Frost to the pub and overheard Jack suggest to Stella that they go Stamford Brook station? Suddenly Jack was sure the man was not there simply waiting for a train.
Jack peered closer at the desk. There were scratches on the laminated top, so faint that, but for the strip of sunshine on the desk, he would have missed them. Someone had written something on paper with ballpoint, leaving the indentation on the desk. A single moment of carelessness, for there were no other marks on the laminate. The error suggested the action was untypical, perhaps in a moment of stress.
Jack patted the breast pocket in his coat for his notebook and pencil. Laying a sheet of paper over the scratches, he shaded it with the pencil, keeping his pressure consistent. Gradually he revealed a series of marks, white against the pencilled background. He held it up to make sense of them and saw the camera.
Fitted above the door, it was white like the walls. It moved fractionally and a red light blinked. It had been filming him since he entered the room.
Numb with horror at his stupidity, Jack didn’t hear the diesel engine until it stopped. He strode out to the landing and opened the door of the room at the top of the stairs: Mrs Frost’s bedroom. It was probably a delivery van. The driver would go away when he or she got no answer – or it might not be for this house. He tiptoed to the window and peeped out through slatted blinds.
Outside was a van, back doors open. Beneath it Jack could see legs encased in trousers and sturdy boots. He knew them instantly.
Jack Harmon could break into and live in a stranger’s home with a steady pulse and cool nerve, but as Stella heaved her equipment bag on to her shoulder and headed to the front door, the dog at her heels, he nearly fainted.
He ran to the landing and blundered into the bathroom, then back to the landing. Stella had agreed to William Frost’s plan, she was working undercover as a cleaner. It explained the hyper-clean rooms, the lack of vacuum tracks on the carpet, the precise positioning of ornaments and the ball bearing at ‘six o’clock’ in the well of the candle holder until, like a game of Russian roulette, he sent it spinning. It wasn’t the work of a rival cleaning company or of a widow assuaging grief, it was Stella Darnell at her best.
Jack must help her in with her bag. He froze. Stella hadn’t told him she had changed her mind. She didn’t want him, or William Frost, to know. A detective’s daughter, she would be uncomfortable about her decision. If Jack greeted her in the hall, aside from frightening her, he would cause her deep shame.
He spun around, hands wringing. It was worse. Stella would realize he had broken his promise. He had betrayed her.
34
Friday, 25 October 2013
With green lights all the way from her mum’s flat, Stella made it to Lulu Carr’s on time, but she hadn’t been able to drop Stanley off at the office. She could have left him at Suzie’s. Dale said he loved dogs, but he seemed to ‘love’ everything so she took that with a pinch of salt. She would explain to Lulu Carr that Stanley, being made of wool, wouldn’t moult. If she had allergies – and Stella suspected she did – the dog would not set them off. She rehearsed her speech in her mind as she reversed into a space outside the house. If there were any accidents – there won’t be, he’s toilet-trained – or if he caused any damage – he knows not to touch anything – she would reimburse her. Stella pulled her equipment bag from the back of the van and slung it over her shoulder.
She was reaching for the doorbell when she heard a single chime from somewhere in her anorak. A text.
Had to see bro. Key under mat. Lulu. x
Not again! If this cavalier attitude to security was Lulu Carr’s revenge on her estranged husband, it was self-defeating. She wondered about the brother; if he was loyal, he was probably also protective. When a person slid into chaos, it was often the relatives who called in Clean Slate. Stella hoped he wasn’t fuelling Lulu Carr’s obsession with her husband. Having just acquired a brother herself, Stella had no idea what to expect. However, Lulu not being there did mean she needn’t explain why she had Stanley in tow.
There was no key under the mat.
This hitch did at least give her a reason to leave and get on with the ‘One Under’ case. So far they had three suspects backed up by flimsy evidence. Her internet search on Rick Frost had resulted in one page of double-spaced text, including a photo that looked like a passport picture. The lack of available information on him might be apt for a surveillance expert – Frost had left the faintest of footprints – but it wasn’t helpful for finding his killer. But ‘stick to one job at a time’ had been her motto since she started Clean Slate. Stella texted Lulu Carr, No key. Will you be long?
Lulu texted back immediately. Another one above door. Don’t be cross!
Stella stepped back from the door and looked at the narrow lintel above the door. She caught a movement in one of the upstairs windows. She shaded her eyes against the morning sunshine and saw only a flash of light as the sun hit the glass. She wouldn’t put it past Lulu to be in there, watching, testing her. Perhaps if she had left without texting, Lulu would have cancelled the contract. At th
is moment Stella doubted she would mind. She could see the key. Checking there was no one in the street, she took it down.
She unlocked the door, picked up the equipment bag and, with Stanley beside her, squeezed inside. Stella was pleased to see that Lulu was still keeping the house tidy; perhaps she was on the road to recovery. It was good too that she was seeing her brother and not scouring the streets for Mr Carr and his mistress.
Stella laid the towel she kept in the van to dry the dog off after walks down in the hallway and directed Stanley on to it. Obediently he flopped down and contemplated her with a doleful expression.
She lugged the bag into the living room and got out her ‘light-clean kit’. The room was already spotless, but Stella was the first person to applaud the cleaning of a clean room.
Ten minutes later, as the clock on the mantelpiece struck eleven fifteen, Stella came out of the living room to fill a bucket with warm water from the kitchen and saw the towel on the hall floor. No Stanley.
She ran into the kitchen and tried the back door. Surprisingly, given Lulu’s lax attitude to keys, it was locked. She knew he wasn’t in the sitting room. She took the stairs three at a time to the landing.
Stanley was sitting on the crimson mat, bolt upright, staring at the cupboard built into the space behind the banister rail. He was making a hideous guttural growl. Stella realized she had heard the sound for some minutes but, engrossed in getting the windows spotless, hadn’t taken it in.
When he saw her, Stanley began to bat at one of the doors. It was loosely fitting and made a resounding bang. The cupboard had stored many of the husband’s clothes, jumpers and more combat gear, which Lulu had carted off to the dump. Stella had helped her put her own clothes in there. There was nothing that Stanley could want.
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