The Dog Walker

by Lesley Thomson

  ‘That the police have a confluence of events that could tie the plumber to Honeysett’s disappearance, but no motive or concrete proof. That’s why they couldn’t charge him. Time will reveal the truth. Mark my words, you will be exonerated, Megan.’

  ‘What if Daddy didn’t kill her and now he’s dead?’ Megan didn’t know the word ‘confluence’ and felt a stab of fear at the prospect of something called ‘exonerated’ happening.

  ‘Oh, Megan! Is the moon made of cheese?’ Daphne Merry gathered up the photographs and letters and tossed them into the sack. ‘We’ll never know the workings of your father’s mind – he’s taken that with him. I will never know how my husband could allow himself to fall asleep… Well, anyway.’ She indicated a myriad of ornaments and trinkets on her work table. ‘Stow those in this cardboard box and write “Hospice” in your lovely neat hand on the side. Hopefully they’ll find good homes and raise money for what is a worthy charity.’

  ‘Won’t they be clutter there too?’ Elated to have a task, Megan was still baffled.

  ‘Doubtless.’ Clasping the bin bag Mrs Merry glided from the room.

  The felt pen squeaked as Megan wrote on the cardboard. She counted thirty-two pieces of clutter: photograph frames, a glass fruit bowl, a lump of glass with a shape of a swan entombed within, a bobbly-fringed lampshade, a matchbox of odd earrings and some old coins. She paused over a Donald Duck clock with a bell on top. If it belonged to her it would be such a treasure, not clutter. She remembered one of Mrs Merry’s mottos: ‘A clear home is a clear mind.’ Megan’s mind didn’t feel one bit clear.

  25

  Wednesday, 6 January 2016

  Jack dug a channel in the sand and drove his truck along it. The sand was dry and as he manoeuvred the truck along the trench, the sides gave way. He should sprinkle some water, damp sand was firmer, but not committed to the activity he remained on his haunches in the sandbox.

  The truck had a flatbed behind the cab and was the one thing he’d brought with him. Jack loaded sand on to the back. When it was full he drove the truck from one end of his channel to the other. Weighed down, it was soon mired in the dry sand.

  ‘I will make a mountain with the sand,’ he announced.

  ‘You want to make a mountain with the sand.’

  ‘I will be king of my mountain.’

  ‘You want to be king.’

  ‘My mummy will be queen.’

  ‘You want your mummy to be with you on your mountain.’

  ‘Daddy can’t climb mountains.’ Fact.

  ‘Your daddy can’t climb up your mountain.’

  ‘Mummy can climb anything, and I can too.’

  ‘You and your mummy will be on your mountain.’

  The back flap of the truck gave way and sand poured out. He looked up. There were boys all around him. With scruffled hair, in crumpled jumpers, they crouched in the sand. The boys were his reflection repeated in the glass panels. Jack was alone in Natasha Latimer’s show playroom.

  The voice wasn’t his ghost mother. It was the therapist he’d seen after his mother died. Or the one he’d wished he’d seen. He made so many people up.

  He should have told Bella what Natasha Latimer wanted; Bella would have understood. When she was immersed in a drawing, she liked to be by herself. Jack ran the truck back up the channel and shovelled on another load of sand. He tried to picture Bella, but she had gone. He only saw his own reflection in the glass.

  He tipped the truck up and shook out the last grains of sand.

  ‘I will make a mountain of sand to cover my daddy.’

  ‘You want your daddy to be covered by sand.’

  ‘If he’s under the mountain he will be dead and gone instead of my mummy.’

  ‘You want your mummy to be alive.’

  Jack jumped up, scrubbing at his hair to shut out the voices. He pulled out his phone. He would call Bella and say he was sorry. He could go and see her. He pressed the phone to his ear. Nothing. He was in the dead zone.

  He went back to the room with the River Wall. The glass swished aside. Luminous footprints appeared on the floor when he stepped on it. Ghost steps. Latimer would like to see proof of her impact as she moved about. Jack found the feature unsettling; he tried to move though life leaving no trace of his journey. It hadn’t been there the night before so he hoped it was possible to switch it off.

  The black water darkened the space. The reflection of a light on the north bank flickered on the surface. The darting dot of yellow was extinguished; perhaps a branch had blown in front of it. It reappeared. Jack touched the speck of light, thinking of it as a friend. He felt cold plaster, the light vanished and he was engulfed by desolation. He wished he could have brought the short-eared owl, but things and creatures had their rightful place. And besides, the sadness did not feel as though it belonged to him.

  The ceiling lights flashed. The projection of the river dis­appeared. The outline of a figure filled the space. Stella. Jack ran up the glass staircase as if he was soaring in the air.

  26

  Wednesday, 6 January 2016

  ‘I made you a cake.’ The woman brandished a cake tin. Her look was timeless, flat brogues with tasselled laces, tweed skirt, shirt buttoned to the neck and a jacket with a fearsome brooch that resembled a medal pinned to the lapel. Her dark hair was cut into a bob. She made Jack think of Miss Marple and that made him realize he’d thought this before. It was the strict woman who’d accosted him outside the dilapidated house. Daphne Merry. Number 3. Jack was suffused with horror that she might so easily have visited him the night before when Natasha Latimer and Stella were there and given away that she’d met him.

  ‘Ah, how lovely, thank you.’ He took the tin. The base was faintly warm. The cake must be freshly baked. ‘Come in.’ Too late he remembered Natasha Latimer’s rule about visitors.

  ‘I see you’ve now moved in.’ The lamp in the hall revealed deep lines on Daphne Merry’s face, less, Jack thought, due to age than life; on the towpath he’d put her in her late sixties, but she was possibly nearer late fifties. He took in her comment. She had known he wasn’t living at number 1 when she met him on the towpath. She truly was Miss Marple. With a burst of glee, Jack dismissed his qualms about having visitors.

  ‘I hope you like Jamaican ginger?’ Daphne Merry’s tone implied that if he didn’t, he should. ‘It was my little girl’s… It’s my favourite.’

  ‘I love it.’ Jack nearly said it had been his mother’s favourite, but was suddenly unsure that was true. ‘Would you like a cup of tea? Oh! I can’t offer you tea or indeed anything!’ He smacked his forehead. ‘I moved in today and I need to go shopping.’ Damn. If Daphne Merry hadn’t known he had lied, she did now. He was making a mess of both ghostbusting and detection. With reckless bravado, he said, ‘We can eat cake!’

  ‘I imagined you wouldn’t have anything. I’ve brought tea bags and a carton of milk. That’s what you do with new neighbours.’ Smiling, she passed him a carrier bag. Jack reminded himself that not everyone suspected others of lying.

  ‘Follow me.’ A door at the top of the staircase to the basement led to what had once been a mean scullery, but was now a large steel-clad kitchen – resembling a morgue – with a glass door to the garden. The only items on the stainless-steel worktop were a set of silver Sabatier knives and a chrome kettle. The colour came from six bubble-gum-pink plastic chairs around a glass table. Jack drew one of these out for Merry, quelling an apology because the garish design must be ill suited to her taste.

  ‘I haven’t been in here before,’ Daphne Merry commented.

  Had Merry brought similar provisions when Natasha Latimer had moved in? He speculated whether Latimer had refused the Jamaican ginger cake; her svelte curveless figure suggested a regime of diet and exercise. He remembered that Merry was one of the neighbours who had complained about the disruption caused by the conversion. Perhaps she hadn’t felt like bearing gifts. ‘It’s much bigger than it looks from the outside.’ Jack sc
rabbled to wind back the absurdity of his remark: ‘Have you lived in Thames Cottages long?’

  ‘Yes.’ Daphne Merry got up and said apropos of nothing, ‘I expect you’re hungry.’

  Jack wasn’t hungry. He made the tea while Daphne Merry opened and shut cupboards until she found mugs and plates. They came from Asda; Latimer had bought cheap for what was essentially a show home. ‘She doesn’t have a cake slice.’ She sounded mildly censorious.

  ‘It seems a friendly street.’ Jack sat down at the table.

  ‘It isn’t, but that suits me. I didn’t come here to make friends.’ Merry wasn’t drinking her tea. For a moment Jack thought she looked immensely sad, but then she smiled and the impression passed. Merry passed him a plate with a wedge of cake and a piece of kitchen towel folded into a triangle. Jack was reminded of Jackie who could make the least domestic space feel like home. Mrs Merry was the motherly sort. Nothing he’d read on the Honeysett case suggested that Daphne Merry had children, but they could be grown up and have moved away. Not that Garry Lawson had moved away.

  ‘You’ve come to get rid of the ghost.’

  Jack swallowed a lump of cake. He had been ready with Latimer’s story that he was keeping the house clean and occupied while she was away on business. ‘Well, er…’

  ‘It’s her, you know,’ Daphne Merry remarked archly. She wiped her fingers on the kitchen towel although she hadn’t touched her cake.

  ‘Helen Honeysett? You think she’s haunting this house?’ Perhaps Merry wasn’t being malicious and genuinely believed it.

  ‘What? No I do not! Poor dear Natasha is, I suspect, rather neurotic. These money types are. She hadn’t heard about Honeysett until she moved in and she whipped up quite a fuss about how it affected house prices. I pointed out that she’d bought her house, but to no avail. I should have told her that we carry our dead with us.’

  Jack was interested. Had Latimer herself started the rumour? He agreed about the carrying the dead. He’d only been in the cottage an hour, but could feel his mother’s presence. Not as a loving companion, but as a reminder of what he had lost. Bella was right, he was shackled to a woman he’d only known for four years of his life but loved more than anyone. He was filled with the urge to tell Daphne Merry his life story, to confess everything.

  ‘At least it’s free of clutter.’ Merry regarded the kitchen with approval.

  Jack had forgotten Daphne Merry was a declutterer. Despite her objections to the basement conversion, she must like the vast uncluttered space. Stella would get on with Daphne Merry.

  ‘Besides, we don’t even know if the girl is dead. One minute she was there; then she was gone. The path was empty.’

  ‘Did you like her?’ Jack remembered Daphne had said Helen Honeysett was careless.

  ‘I didn’t know her enough to like her or to dislike her.’

  ‘Do you think Steven Lawson was guilty?’ He knew he was pushing it.

  ‘I am not a detective, Mr…’ She appeared to have forgotten about her cake and her tea. Jack was loath to remind her in case she had changed her mind.

  ‘Call me Jack.’ He finished his cake. So much for not being hungry. He was ready to start on Daphne’s slice.

  ‘Mr Lawson had no alibi. With no body, the police had little to go on. He was guilty of selfish cowardliness; he ruined his little girl’s life. The only saving grace is he didn’t take his children with him.’ Daphne folded the kitchen towel into a smaller triangle and laid it back on the table. Jack had gathered that she prized taking care. ‘Megan had to find out far too young that her father was a flawed being. Some children pay dearly for those flaws.’ She got up. ‘I’ll leave you to your ghosts, Jack. It’s been a pleasure to meet you.’ She took his hands in hers and looked into his eyes as if she really meant what she said. Jack blinked to stop the tears that stung his eyes. ‘Please return the cake tin when you have finished with it. They are few and far between.’

  ‘Of course.’ In a flash, Jack supposed that Latimer had accep­ted the cake and she had never returned the tin. Careless of her.

  After he had shown Daphne Merry out, Jack was in the base­ment sitting on the Dalí-esque sofabed – Latimer had designated it his sleeping place – when again the ceiling lights dimmed and a figure filled the River Wall. Daphne Merry had realized that she hadn’t eaten her cake. Jack felt a flush of pleasure at the prospect of seeing her again.

  *

  ‘I’ve brought milk, tea and coffee.’ Stella unclipped Stanley’s lead to let him into the hall. Stanley bolted back down the path. Stella and Jack watched in dismay as he slithered under the gate and galloped up the steps to the towpath.

  ‘Is he chipped?’ Jack panted as they plunged after him, the torch on Stella’s phone barely breaking the darkness.

  ‘Yes and my mobile number’s on his collar, but it won’t help if he falls in the river.’ For all his night walking, Jack wasn’t a sprinter; Stella soon left him behind.

  ‘Are we sure he came this way?’ he called after her.

  ‘He did last time,’ Stella replied from far off.

  Bushes gave way to grass. It was the dilapidated house. Stella was shining light over the crumbling wall. This time Jack saw that the wrought-iron gate hung off its hinges and that a window pane on the upper floor was broken and blocked with cardboard. He heard a noise.

  ‘Someone’s in there.’ Jack lifted the latch. Stella put her hand on his arm.

  ‘Wait!’ She crept past, Stanley’s lead dangling from her hand. ‘Stan-ley,’ she whispered. ‘Stan-ley.’

  Stanley was on his hind legs scratching at the front door. A sound like fingernails on a blackboard. Jack sucked his teeth. Stanley began to mew; the call, plaintive and dismal, might express every sorrow in the world. For no reason, he thought of Daphne Merry.

  So intent was the little poodle on getting into the house that he didn’t notice Stella until she clipped on his lead. In protest, he sat down heavily when she tried to lead him away.

  ‘He did this last time too.’ Stella lifted Stanley up.

  ‘What last time?’ Jack caught the significance of Stella’s earlier comment. Why had she been to this house before?

  ‘He came here the night I met Adam Honeysett. He must catch a scent of a creature or something.’

  Stella told him easily; she had no secrets to keep. Envious, Jack fitted the gate on to the latch. He paused and swept his Maglite’s piercing beam across the house. The night before – or early morning – Daphne Merry had interrupted him before he could examine it. Now he saw that the inside of the windows were draped with cobwebs like tattered lace and the sashes were rotten. It looked abandoned, but often houses that he found on nocturnal outings, crumbling and desolate, were someone’s home. Others were empty – perhaps the owner had died and probate had stalled or a developer was letting the property deteriorate to justify demolition. One day the double-fronted house (it looked Georgian) would fall victim to a Natasha Latimer-type makeover. He saw a face peeping from behind the cardboard in one of the upper windows.

  ‘Jack!’ Stella hissed from the towpath. ‘Come on!’

  ‘I think someone lives there,’ he said when he joined her.

  ‘Very likely.’ Stella was tight-lipped. ‘It needs a good clean.’

  As he had when they were outside Thames Cottages, Jack suddenly had the distinct impression that, somewhere in the shadows of the towpath, someone was there. He walked faster.

  Stella stopped abruptly. ‘If we were to carry on the way Stanley was going we’d get to Mortlake Crematorium.’

  ‘Let’s not.’ Jack kept his tone neutral; no point them both being scared. In fact Stella wasn’t easily rattled. The first time he’d met her had been late at night by the river at Hammersmith. She was poking about on the site of their first murder. As he pictured this, Jack anticipated what Stella would say next.

  ‘Helen Honeysett went jogging at eight in the evening, two hours earlier than now. But, like tonight, it would have been dark an
d it was January.’ Before he could protest, Stella had turned round and was walking back towards Mortlake, her footsteps diminishing.

  Jack thrilled with the horrible possibility that from somewhere in the darkness either side of the towpath they were being watched. He caught up with her. It was scant comfort that Stanley was pattering along beside Stella, tail up, seemingly unbothered. Yet dogs picked up the slightest thing. They must be alone.

  They were passing the dilapidated house. This time there was no one at the top window.

  They stepped into the foot tunnel under the Kew Railway Bridge; it was chill and dank. Jack switched on his Maglite. A notice offered a number to call in case of a ‘strike’ and gave the bridge identification (SAR 2/29). He couldn’t find significance in the letters and numbers. Stella didn’t hold with his finding meaning in signs and if she was prepared to consider it, now wasn’t the time to ask.

  ‘That was Helen Honeysett’s birthday,’ Stella said.

  ‘What was?’

  ‘The twenty-ninth of February. She was born in 1960, which was a leap year. She only had a birthday every four years and was due to have one in 1988 and would have had one this year. She’d have been fifty-six this year. She chose her birthday on years where there wasn’t a twenty-nine. The year she died it was going to be the thirty-first of January. Bit random.’

  ‘No such thing as random.’ Jack was elated. Stella had found a sign. Just when he thought he knew her, she confounded him with something supposedly untypical. She was unknowable.

  ‘Or maybe the journalist – Lucie May as it happens – twisted facts to fit the story. It wouldn’t be the first time,’ she said.

  Stella was negative about few people but Lucie May was one. Recently they’d had a rapprochement and acerbic comments like this were even rarer.

  They passed iron railings on their right. These were dwarfed by swaying ornamental grasses beyond. In the light of Jack’s torch the grasses looked bright red. Sinister. A pebbled path led off between the grasses as if through a maze. Beyond was a dull wash of light. ‘That’s a gated estate,’ Stella said. ‘We clean a couple of the houses. In 1987, according to an old A–Z of Dad’s, this whole area was a sprawl of warehouses and scrub.’