‘What was your aunt like?’
‘Cassie? She was lovely, she fussed a bit but she looked after me well, always made sure I had everything I needed, especially when she was away.’
‘Away? Where did she go?’ Mac asked.
‘All over the place, I remember some of the little gifts she brought me back, a Yankees baseball cap from New York, a Juventus football shirt from Italy and a set of those little Russian dolls that go inside each other.’
‘What did she do on these trips?’
Mac was really interested in what a woman who had no passport was doing travelling abroad.
‘I’m not totally sure but she was an expert on mediaeval manuscripts and she said she was hired to verify that certain manuscripts were real, that type of thing. She never really spoke much about it.’
At this point Mac glanced over at Amrit who was gazing wide-eyed at his visitor with a dreamy smile on her lips.
‘What happened after you gave your statement?’ Mac asked.
‘The police gave me a lift home. I let myself in and sat on the sofa. I’d washed my hands but I could still see blood between my fingers. I started shaking and couldn’t stop. Cassie came in, saw the blood on my hands and asked me what had happened. I told her about Asma and I said that I’d killed her, I said that it was my fault that she was dead.’
Mac could see the teardrops collecting in the corner of his visitor’s eyes.
‘Why would you say that?’
‘Because I thought it was true at the time. I had a friend called Marcus, he was my best friend, still is. Well a few days before Asma’s murder we got our hands on some cider and got pretty drunk. Marcus started telling me that I should get myself a girlfriend and he kept on and on about it. So I told him that I already had one and I told him who it was. I swore him to secrecy but when I saw Asma that morning I thought he must have told someone and that Youssef had killed her because he’d found out she was going out with me.’
‘Why were you so certain it was Youssef?’ Mac asked.
‘Because Asma had told me about his yellow trainers and how much they’d cost him. She thought he was silly. I knew it was him.’
‘And you told your aunt this?’
Nathaniel nodded.
‘When I told Cassie she was afraid that Youssef might be after me as well. She said she knew exactly what to do.’
‘And what did you do?’
‘Cassie told me to shower and then pack a bag with a week’s worth of clothes. When we walked to the car I asked her why she didn’t have a bag too but she said she’d join me later, that she had some work to do. We drove to Stevenage Police Station where I gave a formal statement. I nearly forgot to tell them my address again.’
‘But you still didn’t tell them about you and Asma,’ Mac stated.
‘No, Cassie told me not to. She said it would be best to keep it a secret as it would only complicate things. My whole world had just imploded and I hadn’t any idea of what to do about it so I just had to trust her. After the Police Station she drove me to a house in London. I’m not sure exactly where it was except that the street it in was in was a mews so I suppose it must have been somewhere central like Kensington. The house was right at the end of the cul-de-sac, it was small but very nice. She introduced me to a man called Caspar who she said would look after me until she got back. Then she left.’
‘What was Caspar like?’
‘Oh he was in his late twenties I suppose, not tall but muscular. He always wore long sleeved shirts but I did see him once when he was washing, he had scars on his arms. I remember he was very light on his feet. He’d walk around the house and you’d never hear a thing. He was good company though, he was funny and made me laugh a lot. Looking back I find it strange that I could laugh but I suppose I needed some sort of release. ‘
‘Anything else you can tell me about Caspar?’ Mac asked.
‘Well the windows of the house looked straight down the street. There was only one way into the street from the road so you could see everything that came and went. Caspar spent a lot of time looking out of the window. Then there was the time he disappeared.’
‘Disappeared how?’ Mac asked.
He was getting totally engrossed in Nathaniel’s story.
‘I don’t know, I just know that he wasn’t in the house. I woke up early the next morning and found he’d gone. The house wasn’t that big and I looked everywhere so I knew he must have gone out. I sat by the window looking for him as the only way in was the front door. Then suddenly Caspar appeared behind me. He made light of it and I never asked where he’d been. It was strange.’
‘Was it just Caspar who looked after you?’
‘No there was another man who sat looking out of the window at night. He hardly said a word to me. He was tall and rough looking, he also had a gun.’
‘A gun?’ Mac said in surprise. ‘What type of gun?’
This was getting even more mysterious.
‘I’ve no idea I only saw the grip when he bent down once. He had it in a holster under his armpit.’
‘So what happened then?’ Mac asked.
‘Nothing really. Caspar and I played a lot of video games, he was really good and beat me just about every time, then a couple of days later Cassie came and took me away. We went to a five star hotel and spent a week there. She took me to the theatre, believe it or not I’d never been to one before. We went to the Globe and saw The Tempest with Mark Rylance and that changed everything for me. I’ll never forget that play, it mirrored my life as it was at that moment. I really felt as if I was lost and in the eye of a storm as well. The actors were absolutely incredible, there were just the three of them playing all the parts and, while I was sitting there, I suddenly had the thought that I could do that too. We went and saw other plays and it was good, it gave me a little time before I had to start processing Asma’s death.’
‘Weren’t you worried about Asma’s family, her brother?’
‘No, Cassie said that I shouldn’t worry about that. She said that Youssef had left the country and that he wouldn’t be coming back. She also said that none of her family knew about me, Marcus had kept it secret after all. She said that Youssef had killed her because she’d refused to marry a friend of her uncle’s back in Pakistan.’
‘How did she know all this, did she say?’ Mac asked.
‘She said that she knew someone in the police.’
Mac doubted that even the police could have any certainty about whether or not Youssef Rafiq would ever return at that point. So how could she possibly know that?
‘Is there anything else you can add?’ Mac asked.
‘Not really. After we returned from London I went back to school and tried to keep things as normal as possible but it was hard. I was so glad when it was time for me to go to university, a fresh start with people who didn’t know my story. I had my bad times there too I suppose and drank too much but then again I was a student so hopefully no-one noticed. Cassie was so good to me when I told her that I wanted to try acting. She gave me enough money to last me three years, without that I’d have never made it.’
‘When did you notice that your aunt was having problems?’
Nathaniel frowned. It was obviously something he didn’t want to think about.
‘I didn’t, she noticed it herself. She told me that she’d stopped working because she’d been having problems remembering. She told me it was Alzheimer’s and that she’d been almost expecting it as her mother had contracted it when she was only forty eight. I got her the best treatment I could and it seemed to help a little at first but then she got worse, much worse. I took her over to the States for some new treatment but that didn’t work either. In the end her doctor advised that the best we could do for her was to find somewhere where she’d be looked after until she died. There was no hope. The retirement home was recommended to me and, it being in Letchworth, I thought I’d be able to visit her every now and again.’
‘But
you didn’t,’ Mac said.
‘No I didn’t. I could say that I was busy and make excuses but it wasn’t that. Cassie had always been so, I don’t know, full of life, her own person, I’m sorry but I’m not explaining it very well. I visited her at the hospital before she was moved to the retirement home and, while her body was there, she wasn’t. Her eyes were blank and I knew that whatever had made Cassie the person she’d been had gone. Although her body was still breathing the Cassie I loved was dead. I just couldn’t bear to see her like that.’
‘I can understand that,’ Mac said. ‘Thanks and I’m sorry for bringing this all up for you again but you have clarified quite a number of points that have been puzzling me. I won’t be writing any sort of a report about this and, as I promised, what you’ve told us won’t leave this room.’
‘Thank you Mr. Maguire. I can’t help thinking that for some reason I needed reminding about Asma. The dreams I’ve been having have certainly done that and it’s been unexpectedly good to talk about her and what happened. She was lovely, beautiful yes, but there was a lot more to her than that. She had this fierce intelligence and quick mind, the discussions we used to have about religion, politics, science, books. I was nearly forgetting about all that. I realise now that ever since I lost her I’ve never been really close to a woman. Oh I’ve used them I suppose, the papers will tell you that I’ve had a different woman every night. Not quite true but not that far off I suppose. Then not long ago I met this girl. She’s not one of the film crowd, she’s a writer. She was brought in at short notice when our regular script doctor fell ill. She’s just like Asma. I mean she doesn’t look much like her but she has the same sparky intellect and fearlessness that Asma had. She didn’t care in the slightest about me being a film star, all that meant nothing to her. We were close for a while before I pushed her away just as I had all the others. I know why now. It was fear, I was afraid of investing too much in one person because that person can always die. You shouldn’t live in fear though, should you Mr. Maguire?’
‘No, no you shouldn’t,’ Mac said.
‘Thank you. I think it’s done me good to talk about it after all this time. It’s given me a lot to think about.’
With that Nathaniel Bardolph shook Mac’s hand and then followed Amrit out into the hall.
Amrit came back a minute later beaming from ear to ear, ‘He kissed me on the hand, Nathaniel Bardolph kissed me on the hand. I shall never wash it again.’
Mac thought she was taking it a bit far until she winked at him.
‘Cup of tea?’ she asked.
‘Most definitely.’
Chapter Twenty Five
Mac whiled away some of his time by going through the remaining cold cases but made no headway with any of them. As his pain slowly started to recede he actually started reading some of the books that Bridget had bought him.
However there was an event that broke the monotony. He had another visit from Dan Carter and he looked very pleased with himself.
‘Two more wins Mac! The only problem I’m going to have is that my boss might start expecting this all the time,’ Dan said with a big smile.
Mac was puzzled.
‘Let me explain Mac. I did as you suggested and I went over to the prison and interviewed Ellen Dickinson personally. I eventually pried out of her the reason that she killed her husband. He’d lied about his wife being with him when her mother had died and Ellen was afraid that once he was out of her control he might spill the beans. Apparently she and her mother had a blazing row, not unusual so she said, but this one went a bit too far. She picked up a statuette, it was solid metal so quite weighty, and bashed her mother’s skull in with it. She then took the statuette home, washed it and put it on her mantelpiece if you can believe that.’
Mac gave this some thought.
‘Her brother and sister, Robert and Eloise, knew too, didn’t they? Neither of them mentioned that the statuette had gone.’
‘Well Eloise is saying nothing but Robert admitted as much,’ Dan said. ‘They’d all painted a rosy picture of a happy family but from what Robert told us his mother was not a nice person. She took delight in playing her children off against each other and had been quite cruel to them when they were young.’
‘What was the statuette of?’ Mac asked out of curiosity.
‘Elvis, Edith was mad about him apparently.’
Mac could only smile and shake his head.
‘You said you had two wins?’
Dan’s smile returned.
‘Yes and it was thanks to all that ringing around you did a while back. A couple of days ago, just outside Edinburgh, a young woman’s car broke down on a country road. Unfortunately her mobile phone’s battery was dead so she tried to flag down a passing car for help. Does this sound familiar?’
‘Terri Maynard!’ Mac said feeling suddenly excited. ‘Go on.’
‘Well someone stopped to help her, a courier van for a firm that worked out of Edinburgh airport. The young woman, Danielle Goldfisch, stated that the man seemed helpful enough at first but then pulled a box cutter from his pocket and held it to her throat. He said he was going to rape her.’
‘She lived to tell the tale then!’ Mac said with surprise.
‘Better than that, just listen. So he had the box cutter at her throat and, luckily for her, it caused a small cut. Unluckily for him Miss Goldfisch happens to be a Tae Kwon Do champion, in fact she’s been trying to get into the national Olympics team so she must be pretty good. Anyway a few seconds later the man, a Mr. John Oldson, is in a heap on the ground with a broken wrist and a shattered kneecap. She used his phone to call the police and when they turned up Mr. Oldson started screaming blue murder about how she’d attacked him. However the injury to Miss Goldfish’s neck and her blood being on Mr. Oldson’s box cutter confirmed her story. They were going to charge him with attempted GBH when one of the officers remembered your phone call. So they got a sample of Oldson’s DNA and sent it to us for comparison. I just heard an hour ago that we’ve got a match for Terri Maynard’s murderer and so I thought I’d come and tell you.’
Mac’s smile couldn’t have been wider.
‘That’s great news. I was so sure that he would do it again. It was just bad luck that led to Terri Maynard’s murder in the first place but it looks like it was the murderer’s turn to have bad luck this time. A Tae Kwon Do champion! What’s the odds on that?’
Dan’s news kept Mac’s spirits up for quite some time. However the days still passed too slowly but ‘Freedom Day’, as Mac was beginning to think of it, eventually came.
Surrounded by an audience consisting of his doctor, Bridget, Tim and Tommy he sat up and then tried to stand. It felt strange and thankfully not as painful as he’d expected. The doctor told him to take it easy as he’d need to build up his muscle strength again. It was unexpectedly wonderful to just sit in the garden and look around him, the grass was an incredibly luxurious green and the flowers were in bright technicolour. It was as though he was seeing it all for the first time.
One morning Kate joined him in the garden. She’d popped by to say goodbye as her attachment had ended with the Whyte case and she was going back to work at Hatfield station. Although she brightened up when they discussed the case Mac couldn’t help feeling her sadness and he wished he could do something to help her. She seemed totally adrift at the moment and Mac made sure to get a promise from her to keep in touch.
He still found it incredibly hard to walk more than a few steps at first but he gradually got better and, while he had spikes of pain every now and again, it was never quite as bad as it had been.
Just over a week after this he received an excited phone call from Amrit.
‘I can’t believe it Mac! I’m walking on clouds but what shall I tell Prem?’
‘I’m sorry Amrit but what on earth are you talking about?’
‘My invite, haven’t you had one?’
Mac asked her to hang on while he had a look at the post. Th
ere was a fancy looking envelope which he opened up. It contained an invite to the premiere in London of Nathaniel Bardolph’s latest blockbuster film. Not only that but it was an invite to the VIP area so they’d get to meet all the stars of the film too. Mac could see Amrit’s problem, how could she possibly explain this without letting the cat out of the bag?
‘What about a competition? Can we say that we were bored and jointly entered a competition in the paper? What do you think?’ Mac asked.
‘Yes that could work. Oh Mac it was so nice of him to remember us, wasn’t it? Who are you going to bring?’ she asked excitedly.
‘No-one.’
There was a few seconds of silence.
‘No-one, you’re not going then?’
He could hear the disappointment in her voice.
‘No I’m going to give it to Bridget and Tommy, it’s the least I can do. They’ll enjoy a night out in London.’
‘Ah, that’s such a nice thing to do. We can all go together then, tell her to ring me and I’ll book the hotel. Oh Mac I can’t wait!’
Bridget and Tommy were so happy when Mac gave them the invite. It made him happy just seeing their excitement. They thankfully didn’t ask for too many details about the fictitious competition so he didn’t have to lie too much.
It was more than three weeks before Mac was allowed to drive by himself. The first place he went to was the retirement home. He rang Mrs. Collins and made an appointment to see Cassandra Bardolph. He was curious and wanted to see her for himself.
She was much smaller than he’d expected, only five feet five or so, and he wondered if she’d shrunk. She also didn’t look her age, her face was still smooth and unwrinkled. She sat in a chair blank eyed and unmoving. He spoke to her but it got no reaction whatsoever. He sat and looked at her and wondered. What he’d been thinking seemed impossible and yet he couldn’t get the notion out of his mind. She was a conundrum.
23 Cold Cases (The Mac Maguire detective mysteries Book 5) Page 20
