“I don’t,” I stated, mystified. “Why would I want to do that?”
“Because, as I said, we found a can of it in your potting shed.”
“Well, I didn’t put it there. Maybe my father was doing something with kerosene when he was last over from France.”
“And that would be when?”
“About a year ago. He came over Christmas before last.”
“This can was purchased pretty recently. It came from a shop in Westbourne Park Road that’s only been open a month.”
“Well, I didn’t buy it. You said you found fingerprints on it.”
“Oh, we certainly did. We found Mr. Kempinski’s prints on the can of kerosene and on the door latch. We also found another set of prints on the latch, small enough to be a child’s.”
“Kevin O’Malley,” I said with a certain amount of satisfaction.
“Yes, we’ve talked to him,” said Max Austin. “We think he was the last person to talk to the deceased. Told us he liked Frederick Fox because he took the trouble to kick a football around the garden with him.”
“My garden?”
“That’s what he implied.”
“I’ve never seen him in my garden. His mother and I don’t really get on. But he could have been hanging out with Fred while I was in France. So Kevin saw Fred on New Year’s Eve?”
“Mrs. O’Malley saw Miss O’Leary leave at five, which was the time she told us she left. Then about a half hour later Frederick Fox turned up looking for her. Young Kevin was outside and asked Fred if he wanted a game but Fred said he didn’t have time. Apparently he was a bit under the influence, according to Kevin, and he kept shouting that Miss O’Leary was his girlfriend and he had to see her.”
“YES!” I punched the air as if I’d just won match point at Wimbledon.
Max Austin looked at me.
“This all ties in with my dream,” I explained.
“Your dream,” he repeated. But he didn’t sound skeptical. “Tell me about your dream.”
“I’m not like that, really,” I protested. “I don’t go in for all that dream analysis stuff. And it wasn’t really a dream. I was on the point of falling asleep when I had this instant replay in my mind of what might have happened. It was a kind of vision but it felt like a dream.”
I was aware that I was waffling away like an idiot.
“Just tell me about it,” he said quietly.
When I got to the bit about Fred lighting another cigarette and leaving it burning, he stopped me.
“You know he smoked?”
“Well, no, I just assumed—”
“Because we asked Miss O’Leary and she said he didn’t as far as she knew. And there were no butts anywhere.”
“Well, maybe someone threw in something that started a fire?”
“That’s what you saw in your—your ‘vision.’” Now he was beginning to sound a bit skeptical.
“I just ran that through as a possibility,” I confessed.
“Go on,” he said.
I stumbled through the rest of my description of Fred’s demise as he became engulfed in the fire, my voice becoming strained as I relived the moment once again.
“But it was dark. You couldn’t actually see this,” Max Austin asked.
“I never saw any of it. It’s all in my mind. I wasn’t there.” I stared at him. What was he suggesting?
“It’s quite possible Frederick Fox died just the way you’ve described. The firemen determined that the fire was started deliberately.”
“With a can of kerosene.” I didn’t want to think about the fact that Buzz’s prints were on that can and what that implied. “You found Kevin’s prints on the can too?” I asked hopefully.
“No. Not Kevin’s, although we found footprints right outside that were a match with his sneakers.”
“Well, if he was playing football—”
“And we found another kid’s footprints but Kevin insists he only played with Fred and that he wasn’t in your garden on New Year’s Eve.”
“And you believe him? So who’s the other kid?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out because those footprints were also found outside Astrid McKenzie’s house the night of her fire.”
Now he had my attention.
“But I thought you were questioning a man for that?”
He looked at me rather coldly. “Yes,” he said slowly, “of course we’ve talked to those people we’ve tracked down whose prints were found inside her house but I’m talking about the prints that were found outside, all over the letterbox for example. Someone pushed a rag soaked in kerosene through it and then tossed a lighted match after it. That’s how the fire started at Astrid’s and whoever fiddled around trying to get the rag through the letterbox was dumb enough not to be wearing gloves. We’re talking about an amateur.”
“A child? She was a children’s TV presenter after all.”
He looked at me so askance that I just knew he hadn’t put that together until I mentioned it. I felt rather pleased with myself.
“We don’t know it was a child,” he said shortly, “but we’re not ruling it out. We’ve got a witness who was looking out of one of the windows of the house next door to yours. He says he saw a kid running down your garden at about the time Fred died. He couldn’t give us a description because the kid was wearing a parka with the hood up. He couldn’t even be certain if it was a boy or a girl because it was so dark, just this little shadow going down the lawn. Kevin says he wasn’t in your garden but we think maybe he’s lying. He knows he wasn’t supposed to be there. Apparently his mother has forbidden him to play in your garden. We’re getting a list of his friends and we’ll be talking to them.”
“So there were kids in my garden?” I said.
“Oh, that’s just the half of it. Your garden’s pretty well enclosed. The only access really is via the alleyway that runs down the side of the house so we’ve been asking for witnesses who saw anyone going into that alleyway around five o’clock on New Year’s Eve.”
“And?”
“Besides the witness looking out the window who saw the child in the anorak, there’s a woman across the road who says no, they were wearing an anorak but they were too big to be a child. She noticed the little—or big—anorak because they were in such a hurry. And she says it was later, closer to six. Then there’s a man who was putting leaflets through all the letterboxes in the area that afternoon and he’s come forward to say he saw a woman coming out of the alleyway ‘after five o’clock’—that’s as close as he can make it—so we have to find her. Then we’ve got one of the market merchants who says he knows you—”
“Chris?”
Max Austin looked at his notes. “Christopher Petaki, yes. He was making last-minute New Year’s Eve deliveries from his stall. Does he deliver to you, Miss Bartholomew?”
“No, he doesn’t.” When Chris had taken over from his mother, he’d started a new service of running along the road to restaurants and certain favored customers to deliver produce directly to their door, but I’d always thought part of the fun of shopping in the market was actually going there.
“Anyway, he saw a man go into the alleyway at six o’clock. He says he stopped to look at him because he knew it was your house and you were away.”
“Buzz?”
“He fits the description. Tall, dark but Mr. Petaki says he was wearing a brown leather jacket and Mr. Kempinski says he’d never wear a leather jacket, not his style.”
“So you’ve got a man, a woman, and a child. Do you have prints for all these people?”
He nodded. “We’ve got a ton of prints because of all the firemen tramping about all over the place. We’re still eliminating them.”
“What about Angel?” I said. “Did she say she’d seen anyone unusual in the garden?”
“She said the only people she’d ever seen were the deceased and her new boyfriend—Scott.”
I thought about telling him that Angel knew Buz
z had been to my house but before I could say anything, he said:
“I need to ask you about your relationship with Mr. Kennedy.” He’d done it again. Jumped from one subject to another without warning and caught me off guard. “You don’t live together.”
“Well, we’re about to start—he’s moving in with me.” Until you sort all this out and I feel safe again, I wanted to add but didn’t. “So the person you’re looking for,” I said slowly, “is someone who would have had a motive for setting fire to both Astrid McKenzie and Fred?”
“Not Fred,” he said.
“You think it was someone different who torched Fred?”
“No. I just don’t think it was Fred they were after.”
I let that sink in.
“Angel? Someone wanted to set fire to Angel?”
“Well, she was the person who was supposed to be there. And it was dark so if we assume that your vision was pretty close to what actually happened then whoever torched the summerhouse would not have been able to see it was Fred and not Miss O’Leary in there. A blurred shape through the curtains maybe but that was it.”
The thought that Fred had died because someone had mistaken him for Angel was almost too much to bear. I didn’t say anything for quite a while and I must have looked pretty grim because Max Austin suddenly stood up and told me to go home.
“You’re letting me off the hook, even though I didn’t tell you about Buzz?” I was amazed.
“If you think there is anything—whatever it is, however small—that you think I should know, you are to pick up the phone and call either me or Mary Mehta and tell us. If I find you are withholding evidence again, then I will charge you. Do you understand?”
He looked straight at me and I felt quite scared for a moment or two. I nodded frantically. “I’ll come running,” I promised.
“Anyway,” he muttered, his face softening, “you’ve been a great help and I’m sorry you have to be drawn into it like this.”
I was touched by the sudden gentleness in his voice. His temperament really did seem to be highly mercurial. I had the distinct impression that I only ever had half his attention and that the other half of his mind was busy working out something else while he was talking to me. I held out my hand but he had already turned away so I slipped out of the room before he thought of something else to ask me.
Sergeant Cross was sitting at the desk where I had seen Cath’s picture.
“Why have you got a picture of Cathleen Clark on your desk?” I asked him.
“She’s my girlfriend.” He looked startled by my recognizing her.
“Since when?” I asked.
“Since about eight months. You know her, do you?”
“I haven’t seen her in a while. I’ve lost touch with her. She used to live at number twenty-four All Saints Road. On the second floor.”
“Not anymore. She lives with me now. We got a flat together Shepherd’s Bush way. Bit of a bargain, it’s got a roof terrace, not that I spend much time there.” He gave me a rueful grin. It was cases like my summerhouse fire that kept him away from it.
“We grew up together,” I explained. “We went to school together, we were—like—best friends and then we sort of lost touch. I’d really like to see her again. Maybe you could give me her—”
His phone rang. He held up his hand to me, mouthed Don’t go away, and then his face broke into a big smile.
“How did you know to call right this minute?” It’s her, he mouthed at me again. “Listen, you’ll never guess who I’ve got standing right in front of me, says she hasn’t seen you in a while. Nathalie Bartholomew. Here, I’ll put you on so you can talk to her. Hello? Hello, Cath? Are you there? What? Oh, okay. I’ll tell her. Yes, tonight. I should be back on time. We’ll talk then. Fine. Bye.” He looked at me. “She says she’ll call you. I’ll give her your number tonight.”
“She’s got my number,” I mumbled. Then someone called his name from across the room and he excused himself. I could tell he was embarrassed and I wondered what Cath had said about me in the brief moment she’d had him on the phone. As he walked away I surreptitiously picked up his phone and dialed 1471. Cath hadn’t blocked her number and I wrote it down and pocketed it.
On impulse I went back and popped my head round Max Austin’s door to say good-bye. He had his back to me and was sorting through his laundry. He was talking to someone while he did so.
“What do these wretched signs mean, Sadie? How am I supposed to know if I can put them in the machine or not?”
I stepped into the room and looked around the door. There was absolutely nobody else there.
I knocked on the door. “Can I help?”
He jumped and turned around. “Oh. Hi. Just trying to figure out which of this stuff gets dry cleaned. I never understand what these little pictures mean. I always seem to arrive at the launderette when the woman who runs it is on a break so I have to do it myself.”
I think it was the fact that he was so helpless that prompted me to study the washing instructions on each individual label. “This means wash separately. This means don’t put it in the dryer. This means don’t let the water get too hot, no more than thirty.”
I couldn’t believe it. He wrote it all down and stuck a yellow Post-it on each item of clothing. “I’ll never remember otherwise,” he said. “Thanks.”
“I just came by to say good-bye.”
“Well, yes. Good-bye.”
I was almost out the door when he yelled after me, “And if you keep anything else back from me, I’ll have you locked up!”
I imagine everyone in the entire police station heard. Mary Mehta touched my arm.
“Don’t mind him,” she said.
“Who’s Sadie?” I asked her.
“Sadie?” She frowned. “She’s his wife. Was his wife,” she corrected herself. “She’s been dead five years. Why?”
“Oh nothing,” I said, “nothing at all.”
CHAPTER 13
I KNEW I SHOULD CALL SELMA NOW THAT I’D LISTENED to the tape. She must be sick with anticipation wondering what I had made of it. But the astounding revelations had made me more than a little nervous about calling her house. What would I say if Buzz picked up the phone?
But before I had time to do anything, Angel moved in. She just appeared on my doorstep and I made good on my offer to give her a room. It was the least I could do. I used it as an excuse to rearrange the house a little and only when I had finished did I stop to wonder if I should have consulted my mother beforehand.
From the outside our house looked vast. If I hadn’t known I would have guessed it had at least six or seven bedrooms. In fact, it only had four and one of these I had converted into my office. Within a week of my parents disappearing to France, I appropriated the master bedroom on the second floor with its accompanying luxurious bathroom. My mother had installed a Jacuzzi bath and a power shower and Tommy’s biggest gripe was that I wouldn’t let him use this bathroom when he stayed the night. I relegated him to the one at the top of the house but now I supposed I’d have to share mine with him otherwise he’d start walking in on Angel soaking in a bubble bath. On my way up to the top of the house to inspect this bathroom, the one where my mother complained the shower didn’t work, I stopped at the little box room on the half landing. I had intended to put Angel in my old bedroom on the top floor but it suddenly struck me that this little room would be perfect for her. I spent the rest of the day emptying the room, carrying the boxes downstairs to the basement where they should have been in the first place. I had found the key to the basement at the bottom of a tin of Vienna roast that I’d just finished. I must have just tossed the contents of a new packet into the empty tin without noticing the key.
Unfortunately the strong aroma of the coffee lingering on the key could not mask the vile reek of the damp that hit me full in the face when I opened the door to the basement. I carried the boxes down breathing out through my mouth, placed them gingerly on the floor, and switched
on the light. Near the floor the walls looked positively bruised, great patches of blue mold splattered all over them. Higher up the moisture-sodden paper billowed out from the walls. It was much worse than when I’d last been down here. Here and there the damp had risen all the way up and the ceiling was buckling and sagging. It looked as if any minute now the kitchen floor could cave in.
I rushed upstairs and called the first damp fixer I could find in the Yellow Pages. They said they’d be around first thing in the morning to take a look. I felt so pleased with myself I wanted to call my mother so she could give me a pat on the back. And then I thought, Hold on, you call and tell her you’re getting the damp fixed, she’s going to ask how come I didn’t know about this damp and why has it taken you so long to do something about it?
I might grumble about Tommy procrastinating but I managed to fritter away an entire afternoon preparing Angel’s room. Besides buying flowers and arranging them just so and laundering a pretty blue bedspread, I emptied a closet for her clothes, found a fleecy bedside mat, made sure her reading lamp worked, and cleared some shelves for her books. When I finally surveyed the room, it looked extremely cozy. I turned up the heat on the radiator so it would be really toasty when she arrived and went upstairs to scrub the tub for her. I was still up there at midnight, rearranging the furniture in the spare bedroom that had been my office and wondering whether it might make a nice TV room. I barely registered the rotting windowsills, the leaking radiator, and the crumbling cornice. Give me a break, I’d called someone about the damp, hadn’t I? When I finally fell into bed, I wrote CALL CATH on a Post-it and stuck it to my alarm clock.
In any event, all my thoughtful effort on Angel’s behalf proved to be a waste of time. She didn’t need any of the things I’d prepared for her. She brought a pathetic amount of clothes with her. Virtually everything she owned had been destroyed so she didn’t need much closet space. She didn’t read in bed and when I mentioned bookshelves she looked bewildered and it began to dawn on me that maybe she didn’t read at all. And when I asked her if she needed a desk—that really made her laugh. What do I need a desk for? I don’t do homework no more.
How to Seduce a Ghost Page 18
