The cops had called for Derek later that night, following up the reporter’s complaint, and had asked him questions about Ellen. That was bad. But it got worse the next day when the newspaper ran the picture of Derek throwing the punch under the headline, ‘Fiery Temper of Boyfriend of Missing Ellen’s Sister Revealed’. The story was full of quotes from unnamed ‘close friends’ of Liz who’d said she’d completely changed since she’d started going out with Derek. Liz could still remember them word for word. One had said: ‘Liz used to be a bubbly, happy-go-lucky girl who was full of fun, but it’s like she’s got something on her mind that’s weighing her down now. She’s completely withdrawn into herself.’
Another had claimed: ‘Liz and Ellen weren’t like sisters at all, they weren’t close, they moved in completely different circles. Liz was always jealous of Ellen because she had the looks and the brains.’
The details of Derek’s convictions were printed in a panel, reversed out of black ink to make it stand out more, with no mention of how he’d grown up in a house with eight kids and a violent drunk for a father, or that he hadn’t once gone off the rails since he’d started going out with Liz. Nowhere had it said that maybe Liz had changed because her baby sister had disappeared off the face of the earth, or that her parents were in denial that Ellen might have been killed because the alternative was too horrific for them to contemplate.
‘For fuck’s sake, why don’t they just come out and say that I buried Ellen up in the mountains?’ Derek had asked Liz. ‘They may as well have. That’s what everyone is going to think.’
He was right. Most hurtful of all, Liz’s parents seemed to believe it. Derek and Liz had tried to undo the damage. They’d gone to a solicitor, who’d sent the newspaper a letter warning them that if there was any further insinuation in the future that Derek had had anything to do with Ellen’s disappearance, they would sue.
In every story from then on, Derek was ‘the prime suspect who cannot be named for legal reasons … a Svengali-type figure who has put a close relative of the missing girl under his spell’.
Snapping back to the present, Liz spotted a garda walking towards her, and hurried towards her car, which was parked on the pavement outside the estate in the hope of attracting a buyer. The keys were still on her house ring.
She didn’t want to face the police yet. She hadn’t even begun to think about what she’d say when they asked if Derek had been home last night. If she told the truth – that he’d been working late – they would ring Derek’s workplace looking for confirmation, and that kind of smoke, even without fire, could lead to him being fast-tracked towards redundancy. She was going to drive around the block now rather than risk the garda knocking on the window. Liz pulled the ‘For Sale’ sign off the windscreen of her car, and rolled her neck, which felt like it was about to snap.
She put the keys in the ignition, and stared in surprise at the red petrol light as it came on. She’d filled the car up before leaving it out so she’d be able to bring any prospective buyer for a spin. Something else was niggling her. It was the bonnet, she realized, staring at it through the windscreen. The car had been clean when she’d left it out, but now it was spattered with mud splashes.
The car juddered as it moved off the kerb and landed on the road. Liz strained her neck the other way so she wouldn’t have to acknowledge the garda as she passed. As she did so, out of the corner of her eye she spotted a pale-blue chiffon scarf on the passenger seat. She reached for it, and held it to her nose. The perfume smelt distinctive, expensive, and familiar. It brought her right back to her short time in Amanda’s office on Friday. A hollow feeling struck up in the pit of her stomach. Stuffing it into her pocket, she put the car in gear and took off.
That was another reason Liz didn’t want to have to be interrogated, the one she’d been putting out of her mind since hearing the news this morning. She’d witnessed a terrible row between Derek and Amanda on Friday. Derek still had no idea she’d seen it, and she hadn’t mentioned it to him either, so she wouldn’t have to tell him why she’d gone to see the murdered solicitor in the first place.
Why hadn’t Derek mentioned taking her car somewhere off the beaten track? Had he given Amanda a lift somewhere on Friday after their row? Was that where Amanda had gone? If so, why had he taken Liz’s car instead of his own?
Whatever happened, it would have to wait. If the gardaí found anything to link her murdered neighbour to Derek, it would lead to no end of suspicion. And that would mean Conor’s life would change irrevocably.
She drove towards the nearest garage. The detour would mean she’d end up being late for work, but Liz had to prioritize now, and the only thing that was going to stop Ellen from dominating the future just as she had the past was to get this car cleaned inside and out.
7
IN ALL, LIZ reckoned she’d spent less than five minutes in Amanda’s company on Friday. Enough time to realize that Amanda Wells was a control freak, and that was putting it nicely purely because of the terrible end she’d met. There were a few other choice words Liz could think of that would have more accurately described her …
Liz had been up to the solicitor’s office because she’d already waited several weeks for Amanda to return a form she needed verified by a peace commissioner in order to complete an application for a home-tuition grant for Conor. Liz wanted to get him some extra grinds before his entrance exam in the subjects he was average at, but Friday had been the deadline for receipt of the annual batch of applications. Those extra hours might mean the difference between Conor getting the scholarship or not.
‘It will go in the post today,’ Amanda’s secretary had reiterated every time Liz had rung.
When the form still hadn’t arrived by D-Day, Liz had waited until Amanda’s secretary had walked by Supersavers at lunchtime, and then nipped around the corner to the solicitor’s office, hoping to light a fire under Amanda herself. Liz knew Amanda’s office was sometimes left on the latch at lunchtime while her secretary popped out for a sandwich, so she’d seized her opportunity and slipped in through the main entrance, walking down the corridor and right up to Amanda’s office door. She’d knocked and put her head around the door without waiting for an answer. Maybe that was why they’d got off on such a bad footing. Maybe Amanda had thought Liz was being presumptuous. Maybe the fact that Liz was used to seeing Amanda every morning with a towel wrapped around her hair in an upstairs window, and every night drinking a bottle of wine in front of the TV, had given Amanda the hump. Maybe Liz had thought it OK to go straight in because Amanda lived so close. She couldn’t have been more wrong …
She tried to remember what she’d said to make Amanda, sitting in a black leather presidential chair behind her leather-embossed desk, act like Liz had just done something really inappropriate. To make matters even more intense, the stamp that Liz wanted so badly was literally sitting on a pad of ink between the two of them, closer to Liz than Amanda, ironically enough.
It wasn’t supposed to have been a favour; Amanda had made it one. Having rummaged through her in-tray, and taken one look at the voluminous form, she had stated: ‘Not if your life depended on it, and I have good reason.’
Liz had reached up to her hairnet self-consciously. She hadn’t understood, but she hadn’t had time to get into it, not if she was to get the form back that day. ‘Please, it won’t take a minute, it has to be returned by close of business.’ Ordinarily, she’d never have left something so important to the last minute. If Amanda’s secretary hadn’t given her the runaround, she’d have organized some other peace commissioner to stamp it, but she’d made the mistake of holding out, believing Amanda – a neighbour at home and work – would come through. Liz didn’t have time to try and find anyone else on Friday without risking missing the deadline. As it was, she was going to have to hand-deliver the form.
She’d tried to explain to Amanda the difference it could make to Conor.
‘I told you: no,’ Amanda had answered, stonily
. ‘And like I said, I have good reason.’
‘Please …’
‘What part of no don’t you understand?’ With that, she had moved to the door, and had held it open for Liz to leave.
Liz had tried again, for Conor’s sake, but Amanda had given the door a bang once she was on the other side of it.
But Liz, who had pins and needles in her hands from fidgeting with her fingers, hadn’t left Amanda’s building straight away. Not when there was so much riding on that form. She’d wanted time to think, so she’d detoured to the toilet on the way out. She hadn’t needed to go, or wash her hands, brush her hair, or reapply her lip gloss. It was just a split-second decision to have a think about what had just happened, and it had been made so quickly that it hadn’t even required a change of pace. She’d simply ducked into the door on the left, bolting it behind her, and lowered the toilet seat. Because the WC for Amanda’s office was situated in the hallway, on a corridor leading to the street door, Amanda was none the wiser. It wasn’t like she had stood in the doorway waiting or watching for Liz to exit the building.
The fact that around ten seconds later, when Liz was mentally rewording her request for Amanda in the john, the door to the street had banged – in or around the time Liz would have been expected to exit – probably confirmed the misconception in Amanda’s mind.
At first, Liz hadn’t paid much attention. She’d been too wrapped up in her own worries, trying to come up with a new approach to make Amanda understand that this was Liz’s son’s life. On the toilet seat, she’d practised various ways of grovelling and pleading with Amanda to reconsider. She’d been determined not to leave without at least giving it one more shot. What she’d really wanted to do was to burst back in and ask Amanda what she knew about Liz’s life, or Conor’s daily struggles, that enabled her to dismiss them so out of hand, but that wouldn’t have served her purpose. Things would have been different if Amanda had had kids of her own, if she’d understood what it meant to be a mother, but that was another thing that couldn’t be said. Since all she’d wanted was the form signed off, she’d decided to be a pest and to go back and beg Amanda to reconsider, or, at the very least, get the form off her to try and get it signed by someone else.
Liz had stared at the ceiling tearfully. Who did Amanda Wells, in her tailored suit, think she was? What kind of neighbour didn’t help another out in a time of need?
She’d just taken a step towards the door to head back in for another try, when the sound of muffled shouting from Amanda’s office had made her freeze. She’d pressed her ear to the wall.
‘Now it’s your turn, is that it?’ Amanda had shouted. Liz could hear her as clear as day. ‘Get out.’ There’d been a pause. Liz had strained but been unable to hear the other voice, only the resonance – it was a man’s – and then Amanda had said again, louder than before, ‘I don’t owe you a red cent.’
It had sounded like the man was trying to reason with Amanda, Liz had guessed, based on her own earlier experience.
‘How dare you? This is extortion! I said out,’ – this time Amanda had given a screech that made Liz put a hand to her chest – ‘and if you ever come near me again, I’m going to tell your wife all about what kind of man you really are.’
That must have pressed the man’s button, because his muffled voice had risen. He’d shouted back, ‘I told you before. I’ll tell your boyfriend’s wife about you myself!’
It had made Liz wince to hear it. Not that, in the circumstances, she didn’t agree with the sentiment.
‘Get off,’ Amanda’s voice had said again. ‘Let go. Don’t touch me. I’ll have you done for this. I’m going to have you charged with assault. You think things are bad for you now … by the time I’m finished your wife will have left you, and you’ll be facing a prison sentence.’
Something had slammed against the wall with such force that the toilet-roll holder shook.
Liz’s stomach had clenched. She had to go back in there. But what if Amanda got angry that she was still around, and refused to sign the form? Then again, Amanda might be grateful that she’d come to her rescue. Liz had still been mulling it over when the sound of a heavy bang had made her heart stall. Something had dropped, or been thrown. The row was getting more vicious. Liz had tried to think what in the office could have landed with that weight, but there was nothing, bar Amanda herself. Indecision had made her jittery. What should she do? The seriousness of it all had demanded action. She’d reached for the handle. Something was better than nothing. Liz’s hand had frozen at the sound of Amanda’s office door opening and footsteps marching down the corridor. Steel-tipped ones, she’d realized from the clinking.
Liz had opened the toilet door slightly and peered towards the exit just in time to see the back of her husband’s pick-up jeep driving away from Amanda’s glass window. Just remembering this now brought back the same feeling of dread. She’d filled in the gaps. She’d thought he was in work, but obviously he’d come back to chase up some of the money he was owed. Amanda hadn’t paid Derek for the job he’d done a few years back, like so many of his other clients just before the bubble burst. His business had gone bust a year later. Liz had had no idea he’d used brutal, savage tactics like the one she’d overheard to try and keep himself afloat. She’d felt sick.
And then she’d remembered Conor. She would apologize profusely, backtrack, explain the pressure they’d been under – that Derek was only trying to do the best for his son, just as she was – and then she would once again ask Amanda to sign off Conor’s form. Walking tentatively back up to the office door, she’d given it a light rap. When there was no answer, she’d swallowed her mortification and opened it anyway, only to find the place empty. Amanda had completely vanished, but only Derek had exited the building. Where had she gone? Had he taken Amanda with him? Liz hadn’t been able to see if he was alone or if she was with him, but she was sure she’d only heard one set of footsteps.
A moment later she’d spotted the stamp still sitting in the middle of Amanda’s desk. A stride, a glance over her shoulder, a double-check that the stamp’s date was correct – it wasn’t, a tweak of the dial fixed that – and then she’d pressed it into the spongy pad and transferred it to the box on her form.
Amanda’s signature she’d forged later.
The tension in the house since Friday had been all one-sided. Liz wasn’t talking to Derek, could barely look at him, and he’d no idea why. He’d have freaked if he’d thought Liz had forged an official form, because after what he’d been through with Ellen he was obsessed with doing things by the book, paranoid he’d be pulled up and charged at the first slip-up.
8
JO PRESSED THE doorbell of Gavin Sexton’s flat on Dorset Street for the seventh time, her phone sandwiched between her shoulder and ear, as she stepped back on the pavement for a better view of the flat above a bookie shop, five minutes from the station.
It was half ten and she was waiting for Dan to pick up while watching for any sign of Sexton. She needed to ask her husband about Ellen Lamb, but without upsetting him. He was highly sensitive at the moment, and she was worried he was slipping into a depression. He was a proud man, and her being the breadwinner while he was off on sick leave had put further strain on their relationship. It had been a ropey start to their reunion after their separation. They’d split after Jo conceived their youngest son, Harry, some sixteen years after getting pregnant at Templemore training college with their eldest, Rory. Jo had assumed Dan wasn’t coping with the prospect of becoming a father again when their careers were so demanding. But when he’d moved in with his secretary of ten years, Jeanie Price, who’d also since had a baby, she’d had to wonder. The dogs on the street knew the baby wasn’t his, because their blood types would have made it impossible for Jeanie to need rhesus positive injections during the pregnancy if Dan had been the father. But Dan was still paying maintenance and hadn’t asked for a DNA test yet. Jo didn’t want to force the issue, but it was going to have to be
broached at some stage.
‘Hi, love,’ she said, as the call connected.
‘All right?’
‘I need to talk to you about something,’ Jo said. ‘Can you mute that for a sec?’
‘Two seconds,’ Dan said.
Jo could have sworn he’d actually turned The Jeremy Vile Show bloody well up. After waiting for the result of a DNA test, Dan finally killed the sound, declaring, ‘Poor bastard.’
Jo bit her lip so she wouldn’t say something she’d regret.
‘Do you remember Derek Carpenter?’
‘I was shot in the back, not the head,’ Dan snapped. ‘Sorry. Yeah, course I remember the man also suspected of being the country’s biggest serial killer.’
‘It’s about that girl we found in the mountains this morning,’ she explained.
‘Why? What have you got on Derek?’
‘The victim lived on the same estate as him, and the place where we found her body was within yards of where Ellen’s shoe was found.’
‘Is that it?’ Dan scoffed. ‘I wouldn’t mind being a fly on the wall when they try and persuade the DPP that that one will stick. Derek Carpenter’s harmless.’
Jo wished it didn’t feel like she was pulling teeth. She was on his side, just worried her own involvement would cloud Alfie’s judgement when it came to Dan’s role. She’d enough guilt when it came to Dan without needing Alfie adding unnecessarily to it.
‘Hang on, it’s not your jurisdiction yet, is it?’ Dan said, defensively. ‘Why are you taking such an interest?’
‘Why do you think?’
‘I don’t need you going to bat for me,’ he snapped. ‘Carpenter had nothing to do with what happened to Ellen Lamb, or the other missing women for that matter.’
Too Close For Comfort Page 5
