The Dog Walker

by Lesley Thomson

  ‘Their population’s smaller than the UK. Dale’s like you, he knows everyone!’ Suzie Darnell seemed pleased by this idea. ‘Whatever Stephanie was doing for twenty years, it wasn’t at that address. She made it up. The question is, why?’

  ‘Mum, you don’t know that.’ Stella was still fazed by the decluttered living room.

  ‘She couldn’t recall where she’d lived.’

  ‘Maybe she didn’t want to say. Our handbook discourages personal conversation with clients.’

  ‘It encourages polite conversation. All she had to do was say where it was. No, she’s never lived there.’ There was no shifting her mum once her mind was made up.

  ‘Jackie would have checked her references.’ Stella hadn’t for­got­ten she’d once discovered that two solid-sounding referees didn’t exist; it wouldn’t happen again. Jackie was training Beverly to chase up references. This made Stella nervous because Beverly trusted everyone. Had Benson’s check been one of Beverly’s? ‘If she’s cleaning how you like…’ No matter how good Benson was or that Suzie actually liked her, no one worked for Clean Slate if they had lied in their application. No one except Jack. Clean Slate entered people’s homes, they had to be trustworthy. Stella put from her mind that Jack, while not utterly trust-worthy – it was he who’d provided the fictional references – was her best cleaner.

  ‘She’s hiding something.’ The fortune-teller voice again.

  ‘I’ll clean until your ankle’s better,’ Stella decided.

  ‘I want Stephanie!’ her mum exclaimed.

  ‘But I thought—’

  ‘How will I find out her secret? Loose ends are a detective’s nightmare. Your father learnt that the hard way.’ Her fingers busied over the cushion.

  ‘Mum, it’s not ethical—’ Was it really five years since her dad died?

  Your father is dead. The words still baffled her.

  ‘It’s for her own good. It corrodes the soul to be inauthentic.’ Suzie gave a peremptory sniff and her fingers fluttered to a stop on the cushion.

  ‘Are you OK with what Daphne Merry’s done?’ Her mum had thrown out pictures of herself as a girl. Stella had an album Suzie had made for her and pictures her dad had taken of her up until the age of seven after which he’d seen less of her. But now there were no photographs of her grandparents or of Suzie.

  ‘I can’t take clutter with me.’ Suzie stretched out her leg and contemplated her bandaged ankle. ‘Like Daphne said, you and Dale won’t want to take it with you either.’ With the agility of a forty-five-year-old, Suzie Darnell sprang from the sofa. She zigzagged across the carpet to the kitchen.

  She said in a small voice, ‘Funny, with no clutter you don’t know who you are.’

  36

  Sunday, 10 January 2016

  HELEN SUSPECT BANKRUPT

  By Lucie May

  The prime suspect in the disappearance of Helen Honeysett (pictured left) was facing bankruptcy. Plumber Steven Lawson’s (35) final job before drowning himself in the Thames and abandoning his wife and children was to fit a washing machine that subsequently leaked. Ankle-deep on her puddling lino housewife Shirley Falcon told us, ‘Steve was charming. I’m sorry he’s passed, but how am I meant to get the washing done?’

  Customers told us of boilers failing to ignite and stone-cold radiators after Lawson had ‘fixed’ them. Examples of shoddy workmanship have ‘flooded’ our post bag. Contemplating the water, Mrs Falcon cried, ‘If he’s a cold-blooded killer, he’ll never sort this out now.’

  His business ‘leaking’ customers and with a family to support, Lawson was desperate. (Pictured below.) He relished the innocent attention of the pretty blonde estate agent (26), a glamour model before she sold houses. Gorgeous Helen, described by friends and family as loved by all who knew her, made Lawson feel special.

  Every day, Rosemary Honeysett (inset pic) grieves for her lost daughter; with no body, she is deprived of a funeral while Lawson got a send-off at Mortlake Crematorium (left).

  Detective Inspector Ian Harper told us, ‘Helen’s disappearance is being treated as a missing person’s inquiry at this stage. This is a direct appeal: Helen, if you are watching, please do make contact with police to tell us you are OK.’

  Lucie’s piece was heavily biased towards the plumber as the culprit. Jack had noticed this with all her articles. Crude adjectives like ‘pretty’ and ‘gorgeous’ were par for Lucie’s course, but the level of venom towards a man who hadn’t been charged with murder and had since committed suicide was harsh even for Lucie. Constrained by legal implications, she had been content with heavy hints that Steven Lawson (‘Lawson’) was guilty.

  Adept at working heart-strings Lucie had portrayed a flirt­atious man as careless of his work and his family. Even his good looks played against him. Lucie often claimed to shine a laser beam on the truth. In fact she concocted the ‘truth’ first. She spared nothing and nobody in pursuit of a story. Lucie disliked her copy being ‘ripped to shreds’ by her ‘septic tank of an editor’; she had needed a cool-headed editor for this story. His heart missing a beat, Jack considered that Lucie May was one person you didn’t want as an enemy.

  In the photograph accompanying Lucie’s article, he could see that the comparison to Paul Young was justified. Steven was better looking even. In Honeysett’s original file, Jack had seen a shot of a grim-faced Steven Lawson leaving Richmond Police Station where he had been questioned. The snap of him smiling was designed to underline a ‘devil-may-care’ attitude to life, and to death. A visual cue to direct the reader to his unassailable guilt. Perhaps he was guilty.

  A smaller shot showed the hearse with Lawson’s coffin under the arch outside the crematorium chapel. Jack had been inside the art deco building for more than one funeral – including Stella’s father’s. Three years earlier he had got trapped in the ‘locked-down’ grounds when Margaret Thatcher’s coffin arrived, the hearse escorted by police outriders. Risking arrest, he’d had to hide behind a bush until her ashes were removed from the oven and the police had gone. He had left by the gate on the towpath, little guessing that he’d be as good as living there one day.

  Jack flicked through the copy Stella had given him of Adam Honeysett’s real file. His attention was caught by a headline; it was the article they’d seen on Latimer’s computer: The Secret Lover!

  Jack laid the article beside him on the sofa. Another one by Lucie. She had been busy on the case. Despite the gaping hole rent in Honeysett’s bereaved-husband image, Lucie had reserved her judgement for ‘Drake’, whom she painted as lazy and indulged. In comparison to Steven Lawson, Lucie had been lenient on Honeysett. What had happened to Jane Drake after Honeysett had told the police about her? She’d have needed her luxury penthouse pied-à-terre to keep Lucie and the rest of the ravening press pack at bay. Jack hoped she’d passed her exams.

  He became aware of squeaking. The ghost? Jack looked down the length of the basement. In the glass he saw his repeated reflection – phantom Jacks – and as he walked towards his mirrored self the panels slid aside. The sound came from beyond the end wall. Jack hesitated. Unfazed by creeping about someone’s house without their knowing, or walking on a dark and lonely towpath, he felt unsettled by the JCB digger entombed beyond the wall. The squeaking had stopped.

  He pushed on the brick. The heavy door swung inwards. He was hit by an icy draught. It had been cold last time, but not like this. He felt every hair on his body stand up; the tingling in his palms warning of danger was electric. He should leave the house, walk until he got a signal and call Stella. He climbed into the chamber.

  Who am I and what have I done?

  He stopped. Blood pounded like a mallet. The whispered words were in his head. Behind him the basement lights went out and he was plunged into blackness. He felt in his coat for his Maglite and realized he’d left it on the sofa with his phone. It was metres away, but way out of reach.

  He found the light switch. He heard a slapping sound. It was the river hitting
the sides of the bank. He smelled mud and gasped as if the viscous substance might suffocate him. He put a hand on the leather seat of the digger and snatched it back. It was warm. He waited until his heart had regained a semblance of a normal beat and touched it again, this time with the back of his hand. Definitely warm.

  Jack had made dank cellars his home, knowing should a True Host find him, he would die. Yet in a house in which he was living legitimately, he was afraid. He tried to conjure up his mother’s lilting voice:

  Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross,

  To buy little Johnny a galloping horse.

  Emboldened, he climbed on to the digger. He grabbed a lever as if to manoeuvre the machine as, with his mother as passenger, he’d ‘driven’ the 27 bus up King Street clutching the seat in front and doing revving noises. He pulled on the lever. With a drawn-out squeak the giant claw rose, jagged teeth silhouetted in the bleak light. It was the sound he’d heard. A ghost didn’t operate diggers. Who had been here?

  The sound of the river and the smell of mud meant one thing. As he’d said to Stella, the chamber had an exit. He climbed off the digger and felt his way along the wall, coming to a narrow opening. There was nothing. The light didn’t penetrate inside. One step more and the darkness was absolute. A whisper slid off the cold sweating bricks, ‘Who am I and what have I done?’

  An exit was also a way in.

  37

  Monday, 11 January 2016

  ‘No drama. I didn’t tell you because it’s not relevant,’ Natasha Latimer bellowed. Stella held the phone away from her ear. Beverly had brought her a mug of tea; she took a sip, but it had gone cold.

  That morning Stella had visited Jack on her way to work.

  ‘Latimer has an intruder,’ he’d told her.

  ‘What?’ Stella quelled a thud of dread.

  ‘Come and see this,’ he whispered as if someone could hear.

  He had taken her into the brick room with the JCB and led her along a low passageway. At the end was a grille. Holly and bramble branches poked through the bars.

  ‘It leads on to the towpath. It’s hidden by bushes; a casual passer-by would miss it. Although not an inquisitive dog.’

  ‘You are kidding!’ Stella rattled the grille. ‘It’s locked. Natasha Latimer must have a key. It doesn’t look forced.’

  Now Stella asked Latimer, ‘Do you have a key to the grille at the end of the tunnel in your basement?’

  ‘Somewhere.’ Latimer was impatient. ‘Don’t bother cleaning there. No one need see it.’

  Careful not to panic Latimer, Stella asked airily, ‘How many people have keys?’

  ‘Just me, of course.’

  Stella remembered Jack’s point. ‘Could your builders still have a key?’

  ‘My builders were honest.’ But Stella detected doubt.

  ‘Did you change all your locks when you bought the house?’

  ‘No need, the Banham on the front door is impregnable and that grille is locked.’ Without seeing her face, Stella sensed Latimer absorb her unspoken words.

  No lock was impregnable if you had the key.

  Tentatively, Stella said, ‘I wonder if you should call the police.’

  ‘Keep the place clean for sale. Do not call the police. They’ll do nothing, but they will record it in their stats. It’ll wipe thousands off the asking price. Please ask your man to sort a locksmith.’ The line went dead.

  Stella took her tea through to the office. ‘Natasha Latimer told us that Neville Rowlands, who rented the house before her, is dead. But what if he isn’t and he has a key? Or someone else…’ Stella saw that Jackie was on the phone.

  ‘Lots of people don’t change the locks when they buy a new house.’ Beverly looked up from her computer. ‘They think it’s OK cos they bought the place off of someone. But what if someone else has a key? Some boy I was at school with took the key for a flat where his mum used to feed the cat. The new people didn’t know she had one. He nicked things regularly until he was caught red-handed with the TV!’ Beverly rocked back on her chair then shot forward, ‘As for the digger, Jackie got me to do research.’

  ‘Research on what?’ Stella couldn’t help worrying when Jackie let Beverly use her initiative. Unfair, because one thing she did know was that Beverly learnt from her mistakes.

  ‘I uncovered – yay, good pun! – there’s hundreds of diggers in basements around London. At least a thousand, it says here!’ Beverly read out: ‘Once a basement is excavated, the digger is extracted with a crane. The street has to be cleared of cars and obstacles to get the crane in. The operation costs more than the price of the machine so basement construction companies have calculated that it is cheaper to leave the digger in situ.’

  She took a breath. ‘Shall I find out about the man?’

  ‘What man?’ Regardless of house price, Latimer should call the police.

  ‘The old man you said rented before she dug a great hole under the house.’ Beverly’s pen was poised. ‘Mind you, if he’s dead, it can’t matter that he’s got a key.’

  ‘Bev’ll have it for you in no time.’ Jackie was off the telephone.

  But Stella wouldn’t have staff work beyond their remit. ‘It’s not in your job description.’

  ‘It could be!’ Jackie arched her eyebrows at Stella.

  Assuming disinterest, Beverly did a spin on her chair.

  ‘It would have to be reflected in the salary.’ Stella was stern.

  ‘We can sort that. Stella, if this detective agency is going to get off the ground, you’re going to need a new office and more staff.’

  ‘In the meantime, dead or alive, the old man might have the key to the secret passage!’ Beverly spun around the other way.

  ‘OK,’ Stella agreed cautiously. ‘He’s called Neville Rowlands. Cross-check with the electoral roll. The name can’t be common.’

  Jackie had said ‘if this detective agency is going to get off the ground…’ Was Stella serious about it? What was putting her off? Vaguely, she supposed Terry would be laughing at her. But Terry was dead. And she didn’t believe in ghosts.

  ‘That was Angela Morrish on the phone.’ Jackie interrupted Stella’s thoughts.

  ‘Who’s she?’ Stella forced herself to concentrate.

  ‘The woman who owns that chain of solicitors we pitched for? The washroom contract? The one who let Stanley sit on her posh suit.’ Jackie raised her eyebrows. ‘I’m afraid we lost it guys.’

  ‘No way!’ Beverly jumped out of her chair. Stanley, sensing threat, flew from his bed and raced about the office barking. ‘That was so in the bag! I gave her two cups of tea and we got biscuits.’

  ‘She probably took one look at this place and decided we were smaller than we are.’ Jackie pulled a face.

  ‘We deep cleaned it before she got here!’ Beverly had gone red, her eyes were blazing. ‘Who got it?’

  ‘Premark Environment. Their specialism is washrooms. They’ve got a brilliant track record,’ Jackie said.

  ‘Crap!’ Beverly flumped down on her chair.

  ‘I’ve heard of them. They’re good.’ Stella couldn’t remember when they’d last lost a pitch for a major job. Angela Morrish had visited the same day as Natasha Latimer and Claudia brought the ‘ghost job’. Stella had been out doing a domestic estimate. She should have stayed. No, Jackie and Beverly were good. She said, ‘We stood no chance with Premark Environment in the frame. Maybe it was this office too.’

  ‘If we had to lose to anyone it was to the best,’ Jackie agreed. ‘Angela said it was close. She’s keeping us on file. I liked her, she sounded like she really meant it.’

  Stella nodded vaguely, she was no longer listening. If someone had a key to Natasha Latimer’s house, Jack shouldn’t stay there another night on his own. She should have said so this morning. She was zipping up her jacket when her mobile phone rang. Mum Barons Court. Stella had lived in the flat until her twenties, but had never considered it either her ‘home’ or her mum’s.

&nbs
p; ‘I was bang on!’ Suzie always shouted into mobiles, as if she or Stella was on a mountain top.

  ‘About what?’ Her mum was always bang on about something.

  ‘Stephanie Benson. I got her address in Sydney out of her. I rang Dale and he says it doesn’t exist.’

  Stella looked at the clock; it was ten past two. ‘Mum, it’s the middle of the night in Sydney. Dale must have been asleep.’

  ‘He’s like you, he never sleeps.’ Suzie was dismissive. ‘Stephanie said she lived at the junction of Olola Avenue in Vaucluse. That’s near to Dale. You have to have serious cash to have a house there…’ Her mum gave a sigh of pride. ‘Where she’s supposed to have lived is a patch of grass with trees. Look it up on Street View. Dale says that unless Stephanie’s a possum, she can’t have lived there!’

  Stella rubbed her temple. She had expected Suzie to have issues with anyone who took over from Jack, but not this.

  ‘Stephanie claimed to be housekeeper at a house there. What was she doing, picking up leaves and mowing the grass?’ Stella could hear Suzie tapping her cushion. ‘Whoever she is, she’s not Stephanie Benson!’

  Stella faced off her mum’s implacability. ‘I don’t see why not.’

  ‘I’ve twice called out to her to come for coffee and she hasn’t come.’

  ‘Was she vacuuming? Maybe she didn’t hear.’

  ‘She heard the lift alarm when she was vacuuming and we know from that time I was stuck in it that no one hears it. Listen, darling girl, I’ve been around the block enough times with your papa to spot a false identity. She doesn’t answer to “Stephanie”. False name, false past. You’re a detective: find out who she is. Follow her!’

  Stella rubbed her face. ‘Spying on staff is not company policy.’ She nearly suggested Suzie ask Stephanie Benson, but she didn’t want her mum quizzing staff about their private lives.

  ‘Just like your dad,’ Suzie groaned. ‘Can’t or won’t?’

  Jack would love it, but Stella drew the line at tracking people, especially a woman. This was partly why she was hesitant about the detective agency. A detective had to follow people. A cleaner did not. She lit upon a cast-iron objection. ‘We don’t need to follow her; we have her address.’