by Roberta Kray
Jess wasn’t in the mood for a discussion. Outside, she told Toby that she’d call him later and then, splitting off from the rest of the group, quickly walked away. She strode around the corner to the memorial garden and lit a cigarette. Here the snow was untouched, crisp and white. She had been hoping for some peace and quiet but it didn’t take long for Harry to catch up with her.
‘What do you want?’ she sighed.
‘I was just wondering if—’
Jess gave a short bitter laugh. ‘Look, I know I said I’d make a decision after Len’s funeral but I didn’t expect you to take it quite so literally.’
‘No,’ he said, shuffling his feet. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not here to pressure you.’
‘Really?’ she said. ‘Only you’re doing a pretty good impression of it.’
‘I just thought you might like to talk things through.’
As it happened Jess would have liked to talk to someone, but it couldn’t be him. He was far too close to Ellen, too emotionally involved. She couldn’t trust him to be objective. ‘I’ll ring you when I’ve made a decision.’
Harry opened his mouth as if to ask when that might be but then had the sense to button it. Instead he gave a small nod of acknowledgement, raised his hand in a wave and went to walk away.
‘Hang on a moment,’ she said. ‘Are you all right to drive now?’
Turning, he glanced down at his leg. ‘I think so.’
Jess took the keys from her pocket and held them out. ‘Here, you may as well take these. The car’s parked by the chapel.’
‘There’s no hurry.’
‘Please,’ Jess said. ‘I can’t hold on to it forever.’ It was a shame to lose the wheels but better that than feeling she was under any obligation. When she finally made her choice, it had to be for all the right reasons.
Harry reluctantly accepted the keys. He took a few steps and then stopped and glanced back. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’
For a second she hesitated, tempted to give in to her need to talk about Len, about all the mess that was whirling around inside her head. What she wouldn’t give for a shoulder to cry on! But that shoulder couldn’t be Harry Lind’s. ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I promise. I’ll call you.’
Jess watched him walk along the path. There was still time to change her mind, to call him back, but she couldn’t. She mustn’t. She could not afford to be influenced by anyone else.
It was only a minute or two before she heard the tramp of footsteps behind her again. Presuming it was Harry, she whirled around in frustration. ‘What is it now? What do you—’
As she saw who it was, the words dried in her throat. Her eyes widened in astonishment.
Charlotte Meyer was standing right in front of her.
Dressed in a long white coat and matching fur hat the woman had the appearance of a devilish Ice Queen. ‘There’s no need to look so surprised, dear,’ she said, in that cool upper class voice of hers. ‘You weren’t that hard to find. A quick flick through the guest list and then all it came down to was a process of elimination. Your editor was very helpful when I asked him the name of that nice young journalist he’d brought along last week.’ She gave a thin unpleasant smile. ‘Oh, by the way, what name are you going by today – Rachel or Jessica?’
Jess took a nervous drag on her cigarette while she tried to figure out what to say next. It was never comfortable being caught out in a lie. Deciding that the only form of defence was attack, she slowly exhaled the smoke and said: ‘This is hardly the best of times. As I’m sure you’re aware, I’ve just been to a funeral.’
‘I don’t suppose there ever would be a good time,’ Charlotte replied. ‘We’re all busy people, aren’t we?’ She paused, that thin smile hovering on her lips again. ‘But I think you owe me an explanation.’
Jess, riled by her callousness, was tempted to claim that she didn’t owe her anything. If she decided to leave, there was nothing Ms Meyer could do to stop her. But then again, the very reason she’d tried to stir things up in the first place was to make something happen. Now that it had, it would be foolish not to follow through. ‘I doubt if I can tell you anything you don’t already know.’
‘That’s hardly the point,’ Charlotte said. ‘It’s what you’re going to do with that information that interests me.’
‘Do?’ Jess said.
Charlotte frowned. ‘Please don’t play games with me, Jessica. I’ve already talked to Paul and I know he has no intention of writing a book.’
Jess shrugged, threw the cigarette on the ground and put her hands in her pockets. If she had to stare at that supercilious expression for a second longer, she was likely to say something she’d regret. ‘Shall we walk?’ Without waiting for a reply, she headed towards the old part of the cemetery and Charlotte had little choice but to fall in beside her.
Flanked by the tilting gravestones, they strolled side by side along the path. Their feet made a thin crunching sound in the snow. There were only the grey stone angels, their ice-filled hands clasped in prayer, to witness the conversation.
Charlotte was the first to speak again. ‘Paul didn’t tell you about the blackmail, so who did?’
‘I’m not at liberty to reveal that,’ Jess said, with just a hint of smugness. It was a phrase she had always wanted to use.
Charlotte gave a contemptuous snort. ‘You don’t need to. There’s only one other person it could be. That bloody woman has a lot to answer for.’
Jess wasn’t sure which bloody woman in particular she was referring to. Did she mean Ellen Shaw? She had been Tony Keppell’s girlfriend but had not – at least so far as Jess was aware – played an active part in the blackmail. All she could do was try and provoke Charlotte into revealing a name. ‘You don’t think she has the right to tell her side of the story?’
‘Right?’ she scoffed. ‘I don’t think blackmailers should have any rights at all.’
‘Maybe not,’ Jess said.
‘But that won’t stop you from repeating every filthy lie she tells you!’ Charlotte almost spat the words out. ‘Your sort are all the same.’
‘And what sort would that be?’
Charlotte shot her a look, her eyes bright with venom. ‘Paul’s still languishing in prison because of that tramp. Don’t you think he’s suffered enough?’
Jess raised her brows. What she really meant was that she had suffered enough. But, surprisingly, she did feel a twinge of pity. Charlotte Meyer was abrupt and arrogant and too used to getting her own way but she had also been embroiled in a scandal that must have come close to destroying her. For a woman of her social standing, the humiliation and disgrace could not have been easy to bear.
‘Look,’ Jess said, ‘I do have some scruples. Why don’t you talk to me, tell me your side of things? That way I get to see the whole picture.’
Charlotte gave an abrupt shake of her head. ‘I’m not talking to the press,’ she said, apparently oblivious to the irony of the statement.
‘I wouldn’t quote you. It can be completely off the record.’
‘I’m not interested,’ Charlotte said. She gave Jess a haughty glare. ‘If you insist on going ahead with this, I’ll have no choice but to consult my lawyers. I’ll have them draw up an injunction.’
‘Okay,’ Jess said brightly. ‘I’ll look forward to hearing from them.’ She was pretty certain that it was an empty threat; Charlotte wouldn’t be here now if she’d already found a legal solution to the problem.
‘Right,’ she said, ‘if that’s how you feel then …’ Charlotte faltered, her face beginning to crumple. Suddenly she looked her age. Even the immaculate make-up couldn’t disguise the deep lines of worry etched across her forehead. When she spoke again, she sounded close to tears. ‘Why is she doing this?’
Jess, sensing that the best response was silence, lifted her shoulders in the tiniest of shrugs.
Charlotte took a moment to compose herself. Taking a pristine white handkerchief from her bag, she blew her nose and
stared off into the middle distance. ‘I suppose she’s claiming that Paul offered her the money. Well, that might have been true at the start – I mean, it was the only decent thing to do, wasn’t it? – but later, it was pure extortion. Surely even you can see that.’
Jess tried not to take the latter words too personally. She had more important things to focus on – like who they were actually talking about. Surely Tony Keppell had been the one who was blackmailing Deacon? How had Ellen become the villain of the piece and what was all this ‘later’ business? She had to be careful what she said, very careful; if Charlotte suspected, even for a second, just how much in the dark she was then this conversation would be over.
Jess offered what she hoped was a suitably ambiguous statement. ‘She strikes me as a rather sad person.’
‘Sad?’ Charlotte repeated incredulously. Her left arm rose and fell in a gesture of frustration. ‘I suppose you would think that. Just because … Oh, I can see how it must look. And I can see how she’ll get everyone’s sympathy: the poor innocent girl seduced and then abandoned by her rich married lover, left to bring up a child alone, struggling to make ends meet. It’s all good tabloid fodder, isn’t it? Except, there was nothing innocent about that tart and Paul didn’t abandon her. He might not have been able to provide exactly what she wanted but the financial settlement was more than generous.’
Even as Charlotte spoke, Jess was desperately trying to absorb the information she was receiving. Sparks were going off in her head. So it was Ellen he’d been sleeping with, not Tony! That put a different slant on things. Ellen (or should it be Grace? – she still wasn’t sure what to call her) – must have met Paul Deacon after arriving in London, had an affair and fallen pregnant. She must have turned to Tony to help get the cash out of him.
‘That can’t have been easy for you to deal with,’ Jess said.
Charlotte glanced at her and then slowly raised her eyes to the pale blue sky. Whatever reservations she might have felt about talking seemed to have melted away. ‘I wasn’t aware of it then,’ she said. ‘Paul was always very discreet about his extramarital affairs. He didn’t tell me until … Well, you know what happened next.’
Jess assumed she meant the shooting of Tony Keppell. ‘Yes.’
Charlotte shook her head. ‘And that doesn’t bother you? I mean what kind of woman, what kind of mother, could use the abduction of her daughter as a good excuse to extort another fifty thousand pounds?’
Jess’s heart almost stopped. What? While her feet came to a halt, her brain went into overdrive. She had got it all so wrong! It wasn’t Ellen who Deacon had had the affair with – it was Sharon Harper. ‘So Paul was—’ She smartly put a brake on the sentence, stopping herself from blurting out Grace Harper’s father.
Charlotte, alert to the sudden pause, turned to look at her.
‘So Paul was … was asked to pay again,’ Jess finally managed to stammer out.
‘Forced,’ Charlotte said. ‘The bitch threatened to go to the press, to reveal the true identity of Grace’s father if he didn’t pay up.’
Jess took a deep breath while she hastily rearranged her ‘facts’. She had a weird half-elated, half-sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. So the truth was finally coming out. ‘Why didn’t he just go to the police? I mean, surely it had reached the point where—’
‘Why do you think?’ Charlotte said. ‘He’d have been a prime suspect, wouldn’t he? Members of the family always are. They might have thought … And how much time would they have wasted on him when they could have been searching for the real killer? It would only have muddied the waters.’
Muddied the waters? Jess could hardly believe what she was hearing. Anger rose up inside her. ‘I don’t suppose the publicity would have done much for his career either.’
‘That wasn’t why—’
‘No,’ Jess snapped out. ‘I’m sure it never entered his head … or yours. You know, it’s kind of hard to figure out which is worse – a mother who uses her child that way or a man who refuses to publicly acknowledge his own daughter even after she’s gone missing.’
Charlotte Meyer visibly flinched. Jess couldn’t tell if she’d hit a raw nerve or if the woman was genuinely offended. Either way she could see that the shutters had come down. Jess kicked herself. What had she done? It was stupid and completely unprofessional to have reacted so emotionally. Unless she quickly built some bridges she had no chance at all of hearing the end of the story.
‘I’m sorry if that sounded harsh,’ Jess said, adopting a more conciliatory tone. ‘I can understand that you and Paul must have been under a lot of pressure.’
As if in two minds as to whether she should walk away, Charlotte looked back along the path. Then she switched her gaze to stare at Jess. Her blue eyes were cold and impenetrable.
‘It can’t have been an easy decision to make,’ Jess persisted. Sensing that she wasn’t making much headway, she suddenly thought of something Charlotte had mentioned earlier. ‘It’s all too easy to pass judgement and … and that’s what Sharon is probably counting on. If she says that Paul offered her the second lot of money to keep quiet then that’s a far cry from blackmail. She could, theoretically, claim that she accepted it because she needed the funds to help in the search for Grace.’
‘But that’s not true,’ Charlotte said, a dark flush spreading across her cheeks. ‘For God’s sake, it wasn’t like that at all. She wanted the money for herself. She’s just a cheap little slut.’
Not that cheap, Jess thought, recalling the cash Sharon had managed to get from him. Back then, almost thirty years ago, fifty thousand could have bought a house with plenty left over. And then she’d managed to procure another fifty grand too. Sharon certainly knew how to take advantage of a situation. Jess wondered briefly if any of the money had gone to the Corbys but then pushed the query to the back of her mind. She didn’t have time to think about that now. She had to move things on, to find out what had happened next.
‘And then Tony Keppell came back for more,’ Jess said. ‘That must have been quite a shock. What was it – about seven years after Grace had disappeared?’
Charlotte frowned down at the ground. ‘I told Paul not to pay,’ she said. ‘I told him it was never going to end.’
‘And so he —’
‘No!’ she said, glaring up at Jess. ‘Paul would never even have considered that. He hated violence. He abhorred the very thought of it.’
‘How did Tony Keppell know about Paul’s daughter?’
‘She told him of course. I mean, we both realized who was behind it all. Tony was only a boy; he was just the messenger. Sharon had been sleeping with that gangster father of his for years.’
Jess knew that on this occasion it hadn’t been down to Sharon but she nodded as if in agreement. Charlotte clearly had no idea that Grace was still alive.
‘Anyway,’ Charlotte continued, ‘we paid, we paid for months and months but Tony just kept on asking for more until …’
‘One day he went too far?’
‘I don’t know.’ Charlotte turned her face away. ‘I wasn’t there. They had a meeting in the flat. It turned into a row. Paul was at the end of his tether. But it was an accident – I’m sure it was – Tony pulled a gun and …’
Jess waited a moment. ‘So why didn’t he mention any of this in court? If the jury had known he was being blackmailed, being threatened, it could have put a whole different slant on the trial.’
‘I don’t see how. Whatever the reason, Paul still killed him, didn’t he? Nothing could ever change that.’
There was a long silence. And yet it was not quite a silence. Even after they were spoken, Charlotte’s words continued to hang in the chill midday air. Jess didn’t quite believe in the starkness of her statement; it was based, she suspected, more on fear and guilt than anything else. Perhaps Paul had kept quiet to protect her. If the truth had come out, Charlotte would inevitably have been implicated too. They had not just turned their backs on a chil
d who had gone missing but had actually paid for the privilege of doing so.
Jess gazed bleakly out across the long lines of graves as she tried to figure out if any of this had brought her closer to finding out who had killed Len. Ellen had certainly been economical with the truth. But then so had her mother. And so had just about everyone else who had been involved in this whole vile charade. Over the years, the lies had piled up, one on top of another, until …
‘Well,’ Charlotte said eventually, ‘I take it that you’re going to drop this ridiculous idea of publishing her story now you know what she’s really like.’
Jess said nothing.
Taking her lack of response as a positive sign, Charlotte smiled. ‘I knew you’d see sense in the end. It’s been nice to meet you, Ms Vaughan.’ She glanced down at her diamond-studded watch before extending a slender white-gloved hand. ‘I’m so glad we understand each other.’
Jess didn’t want to touch her. It felt wrong, almost disgusting, but as it also seemed the only way of getting rid of her she reluctantly reached out and shook her hand.
‘Goodbye,’ Charlotte said.
‘Goodbye.’
After she’d gone, Jess wandered a few yards off the main path. The snow was deeper here, almost covering her ankles. She could feel the cold seeping through her boots. Sweeping a layer of ice away, she perched down on the edge of a grave. The once-grand but now crumbling mausoleum apparently housed a Mr Herbert John Jenkins and his family. She lit another cigarette, leaned over and pulled a few skinny weeds up by their roots.
‘Well, Herbert,’ she murmured. ‘Who says the dead can’t come back to haunt you?’
Chapter Fifty-Four
Harry wasn’t sure why he’d waited. By now the battered Vauxhall was the only vehicle left in the car park; even the rather grand Bentley, driven by the Lady in White, had pulled away ten minutes ago. She had not given him a second glance.
He watched as Jess came into view, trudging along the path with her shoulders hunched, her hands deep in her pockets and her head down. He couldn’t tell whether this stance was down to the cold or because she was deep in thought.
