She left Sophie, moved to Jack’s room, opening the door very quietly and staying in the doorway, going no further because sometimes, if he was restless, a creaking floorboard was enough to disturb him. Christopher was right; he was sleeping. She stood there for another few moments, watching, listening to her son’s breathing. There was a slight chestiness, but nothing worse than Edward’s when she’d returned to the house on Monday morning.
Only yesterday, she realized. It seemed longer ago.
Jack stirred, cleared his throat a little, shifted restlessly, then lay still again.
Lizzie waited a little longer in case he woke.
‘Please God,’ she said, very softly.
Chapter Forty-Eight
‘Mike, it’s Robin.’
Just after seven-thirty on Tuesday morning, and Allbeury was on his terrace, drinking coffee and eating a croissant – no butter needed, perfect as it was.
‘What’s up?’ Novak, too, was still at home, but quite accustomed to hearing from his number one client early in the day.
‘Everything’s in place for Joanne and Irina,’ Allbeury said. ‘So I need you to get final confirmation from her that she’s ready so we can set things up to keep Mr Patston busy on the day.’
‘Do you have a day in mind?’ Novak asked.
‘Thursday,’ Allbeury said. ‘If she needs more time, Friday’s possible, but try to discourage it. Every day that passes, she’ll be more tempted to tell someone.’
‘Or bottle out.’
‘If she’s not certain, Mike, I don’t want her going through with it.’
‘I’ll call soon as Patston’s gone,’ Novak said. ‘He leaves by eight most days.’
‘Careful where you call from.’
‘I know,’ Novak said.
‘Of course you do,’ Allbeury said, and put down the phone.
‘She’ll be scared,’ Clare said, after he told her.
‘Yes,’ Novak said.
They were in their small kitchen, sitting on stools at the counter that doubled as a worktop. Ordinarily Clare enjoyed breakfast, but this morning she seemed to have little appetite, nibbling round the edges of a slice of toast.
‘You okay?’ he asked.
‘Fine.’
Novak drained his coffee, got to his feet. ‘Got to go.’ He kissed her on the nape of her neck.
‘Mike, how do we know Robin’s really going to take care of Joanne and Irina long-term?’
‘If the job’s done properly,’ he said, putting his cup in the sink, ‘then I suppose we never will know that for sure.’ He saw her suddenly bleak expression. ‘No perfect answers, sweetheart.’
‘No,’ she said.
The bleakness unsettled him. ‘You feeling down?’
‘Not really.’ She smiled. ‘Bit tired.’
‘Doing too much?’ Novak often thought she put too much pressure on herself, working at the agency and helping out Nick Parry – giving more time to him lately because another of his carers had left London, and Clare always gave her all, was wholly incapable of doing anything by half.
‘Not at all.’ She craned her head to see the oven clock. ‘Time you were gone.’
It was eight-thirty before Novak had found a pay phone inside King’s Cross Station that accepted coins and worked.
He put in a pound coin and dialled.
‘Hello?’
The male voice – brusque, presumably Patston’s – caught Novak off-balance. ‘Sorry, mate,’ he said, quickly. ‘Must have misdialled.’
‘Watch what you’re doing then,’ the voice said, and put down the phone.
Novak stepped away from the pay phone, pulled his mobile from his jacket, keyed Allbeury’s home number and filled him in.
‘Hopefully he’s just late,’ he said. ‘Maybe got a hangover.’
‘Should be used to those,’ Allbeury said.
‘Maybe he just overslept,’ Novak said. ‘Or maybe he’s got flu.’
‘Maybes aren’t much use to me right now,’ Allbeury said.
‘I don’t think I should call again just yet. Want me to go take a look?’
‘Soon as you can,’ Allbeury said. ‘I don’t want this on hold any longer than necessary.’
Chapter Forty-Nine
At five minutes to nine o’clock, a woman cyclist named Phyllis Eder who regularly cycled through Epping Forest with Dirk, her energetic, but placidly-natured springer spaniel, on a long lead attached to her bike, was taking a pleasurable morning ride, thoroughly enjoying the sights and smells of autumn, when the dog took off unexpectedly and yanked so hard on his lead that Phyllis swerved, crashed into an oak tree, and fell off.
‘Dirk!’
Finding, after a moment or two, that she was not really hurt, she got shakily up, brushing leaves and dirt off her tracksuit, and looked over at her dog, still attached to the lead, barking loudly, digging at something, tail wagging.
‘Dirk!’ she called again. ‘Stop that and come.’
He took no notice, went on barking, scrabbling away at what looked like nothing more than a small, leaf-covered hummock.
Phyllis bent to pick up the bike, and went to take a look for herself.
‘What is it, Dirk?’
The spaniel stopped digging and looked at her expectantly.
Phyllis Eder bent halfway, then froze.
Not a hummock.
No mistaking what it was.
The partially leaf- and branch-covered body of a woman.
Chapter Fifty
‘He’s much better.’
The first words Lizzie heard when she woke at nine-fifteen – much later than she’d intended to sleep – spoken by Christopher. Very briefly it occurred to her that he hadn’t knocked, as he generally did these days, or that if he had, she hadn’t heard.
Not that it mattered right now.
She got out of bed, put on her dressing gown, looked at Christopher, already fully dressed in suit and tie. ‘No temperature?’
‘Just a touch,’ he said.
‘Could go up again,’ Lizzie said.
‘Or down.’ He smiled at her. ‘He’s on the mend, Lizzie.’
Real relief struck her almost like a small blow and, temporarily weakened, she sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘I was the same,’ Christopher said gently.
Lizzie looked up into his face. ‘We always are, aren’t we?’
‘Always will be,’ he said.
However long always might be, she thought, knew she didn’t need to say. It was always the same for them whenever Jack became unwell and then recovered, always that same immense weight lifting for a moment, then descending again almost immediately in a kind of superstitious fear that seemed to grow, Lizzie thought, each time Jack went through any kind of crisis, however minor. Each recovery a small miracle for which they were both – all – vastly grateful. Each, they could not seem to help fearing, signalling another slip closer to the brink.
‘They’ve all had breakfast,’ Christopher said.
‘Goodness,’ Lizzie said. ‘Thank you.’
‘It was a pleasure.’ He smiled again. ‘Edward and Sophie have both got their appetites back, but even Jack managed one pancake.’
‘Goodness,’ Lizzie said again. ‘Pancakes.’
‘Special request by Edward,’ Christopher explained. ‘I could hardly refuse.’
‘Maple syrup?’
‘What else?’
Lizzie stood up, suddenly hungry too. ‘Don’t suppose there are any left?’
‘I saved you a few,’ Christopher said.
It was at moments like that that Lizzie almost forgot their troubles.
Almost.
Chapter Fifty-One
The uniforms had come first, then CID – just as the weather had changed, bringing rain; the surrounding area had been cordoned off and, soon after, the team from the Major Investigation Section at Theydon Bois had arrived, its leader Detective Superintendent Ann McGraw attending the scen
e together with the detective inspector whose job it would be to investigate the crime, Jim Keenan.
‘Very nasty,’ McGraw said as they stood inside the Incitent, waiting for Simon Collins, the ME – running late after a hit-and-run – to arrive, pronounce ‘life extinct’ and conduct a preliminary examination.
Keenan, older than McGraw by at least a decade, with pepper-and-salt hair and a lined, thin face, looked down at the dead woman, at the nightmare of wounds in her chest and abdomen and – bloodiest of all – her neck; looked at the face, ghastly in both colour and contortion, and though he knew, after more than a year of working under Ann McGraw, that she preferred self-control at all times, he found it very hard not to give way to the sick, sad rage burning its way up through him.
‘I’ll leave her in your hands then, Jim,’ McGraw said.
‘Thank you, ma’am.’
They both emerged – moving as carefully as they’d entered – out of the tent into the rain, removed their paper suits and plastic overshoes, bagged them as evidence, and then Keenan waited until his team head had vanished from sight before taking a couple of minutes to walk around the perimeter of the cordoned-off area, glad of the opportunity to get his head and stomach together. Collins would be with them shortly, and after that it would be the mortuary, leaving the crime scene to the fingertip search team, so what Keenan wanted right now was a few gulps of decent air in which the only scent of decay came, sweetly and naturally, from the layers of old dead leaves under his feet. Jim Keenan liked forests, their sounds and shadiness as well as their smells; they reminded him of nature rambles with his school as a young boy living just outside Croydon.
‘Sir?’
Too good to last. He turned around. The young, already rain-bedraggled, PC, whose job it presently was to log people in and out of the crime scene, was shifting from foot to foot.
‘Sorry, sir, but Dr Collins is here.’
‘Right you are,’ Keenan said.
And snapped back to the present, in all its ugliness.
Simon Collins, crisp-looking despite the weather and circumstances, told Keenan little more than he had already seen for himself, namely that the deceased had been stabbed four times, that, judging by the heavily blood-spattered surroundings and the appearance of the body and clothing, the attack had taken place at that location, and, finally – though that would have to be confirmed later – that she had died about twenty-four hours earlier.
‘One piece of luck,’ Collins said, gently raising one red-stained hand.
‘Skin under her nails?’ Keenan asked.
‘A little,’ the ME said.
Keenan knew there was no point speculating now. The stuff under the woman’s nails might be her own, if she’d clawed at her own wounds, but if they were lucky, they might perhaps have something to play with.
Don’t hold your breath, Jim.
He went for another walk, this time with senses on full alert, hoping against hope that his eyes might just fall on some perfect piece of evidence, preferably the murder weapon dropped in a panic, and with a full set of prints on it.
Even seasoned detectives could dream.
Chapter Fifty-Two
‘What did the police say?’
The first time Sandra had called Tony at the garage that morning to ask him that, he’d fobbed her off by telling her he was with a customer, but he knew now that he was going to have to come clean.
‘I haven’t called them yet.’
‘Why not?’ Sandra was horrified. ‘Tony, Joanne’s been out all night. You have to report her as missing.’
‘It’s hardly been twenty-four hours,’ Tony said.
‘I don’t care,’ his mother-in-law said. ‘My daughter’s missing, and if you don’t tell the police, I will.’
‘They’ll only think we’ve had a row.’
‘Have you?’ Sandra asked. ‘Did you have a row?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Then why don’t you want to phone them?’
‘Because you’ve already phoned the hospitals, so we know she hasn’t—’
‘I only phoned Waltham General and Whipps Cross.’
‘How many other hospitals are there round here who take bloody casualties, Sandra?’ Tony demanded. ‘You think of any, I’ll phone them.’
‘I don’t understand you,’ she said, ‘I really don’t. If Joanne was all right, she’d have phoned to check on Irina, wouldn’t she?’ Her son-in-law didn’t answer. ‘Even if you two did have some kind of row, and you don’t feel like telling me—’
‘We didn’t have a fucking row, okay?’
‘No, it’s not okay.’
‘Well, that’s just too bad, isn’t it, because I’m not going to phone the fucking police because my wife’s gone off in a strop.’
‘Could you stop swearing, please,’ Sandra asked, quite softly.
‘Yeah. Okay. Sorry.’ Tony paused. ‘I’m just upset.’
‘So am I.’
‘I know.’
‘So are you going to phone the police now, or am I?’
Tony took a breath. ‘I will.’
‘Promise?’
‘Sandra, if I said I will, then I will.’
‘I don’t know how you can bear to work,’ Sandra said. ‘I don’t know why you’re at the garage. Why aren’t you at home, or out looking for Joanne?’
‘Jo expects me to work, Sandra. We have bills to pay, remember?’
‘But you are going to phone now, aren’t you?’
‘Sandra, you’re really starting to wind me up.’
‘Good,’ she said, and put the phone down.
Chapter Fifty-Three
‘Still nothing,’ Novak told Allbeury at five to twelve, sitting in the Clio a few hundred yards down the road from the Patston house.
It was the fourth time he’d phoned in that day, and Allbeury had long since informed his contacts that a delay was likely in the effort to remove Joanne and Irina Patston from their situation.
‘No one home here,’ Novak said. ‘No sign of Joanne’s Fiesta, all windows still closed, front and back, no visible movement.’
‘Irina still with the grandmother?’
‘In Edmonton, yes. And last time I looked, Patston was working on an old Sierra at the garage.’ Novak paused. ‘I hope I’m overreacting, Robin, but I don’t like the feeling I’m getting.’
‘Do you mind sticking around a while longer?’
‘Not at all,’ Novak said.
Allbeury put down the phone and leaned back in his chair, returning his mind to his other current preoccupation, Lizzie Piper Wade.
His then – and now – state-of-the-art home computer system had been set up five years earlier by Adam Lerman, his partner’s son, a student back then with a flair for computer technology and a passion for the Internet. Alas, Lerman Jr had since gone to live in Los Angeles, and obliging as he was about being e-mailed by Allbeury at all times of day and night with queries about add-ons and up-to-date software and above-average difficulties, it was not nearly as satisfactory as having Adam able to come and sit at the two terminals in the penthouse.
Nevertheless, Allbeury had not spent all that time with Adam and post-Adam without learning a good deal about PCs and the Internet and how to make full use of them for his own purposes. For the most part, when it came to research, he tended to save himself time and effort by using Novak Investigations, but Mike was otherwise occupied and in any event, this was one piece of work he felt more inclined to tackle personally.
Chapter Fifty-Four
At Patston Motors, Tony had his head – thumping despite the second dose of paracetamol he’d swallowed with a Becks for lunch ten minutes earlier – back under the bonnet of the Sierra that Novak had seen him working on earlier, when a blue Mondeo pulled up in the forecourt and two men got out.
He knew, instantly, they were police.
‘Mr Patston?’ The older of the two men fished in his pocket.
‘Yes.’
&nbs
p; The man produced his warrant card. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Keenan, and this is Detective Sergeant Reed. We’re from the Major Investigation Section based at Theydon Bois.’
The word ‘major’ gave Tony a hollow, sick feeling in his stomach. ‘Is this about my wife?’ He wiped his hands nervously on his overalls, looked from one man to the other. ‘Only she went missing yesterday, and I was . . .’
‘Could we go inside, Mr Patston?’ Keenan interrupted him gently.
‘Can’t we talk here?’
‘Might be better if you had a seat, sir,’ Terry Reed, a stockily-built man with a sharp, almost bird-like face, suggested.
‘God,’ Tony said, and began to sweat. ‘What?’
‘I’m afraid I have some very bad news for you,’ Keenan said, gently.
‘Oh, God.’ Tony felt his legs begin to shake. ‘Oh, Christ, what’s happened?’
‘Sir, let’s go inside,’ DS Reed said.
‘Tell me here,’ Tony said. ‘For God’s sake, tell me what’s happened to Jo.’
‘This morning,’ Jim Keenan said, ‘just before nine o’clock, the body of a woman was found in Epping Forest. I’m afraid we believe her to be your wife.’
‘Epping Forest?’ Tony’s voice was pitched suddenly higher, ringing with disbelief. ‘Why would Jo be in Epping Forest?’ He shook his head, managed a smile at both men. ‘You’ve made a mistake. It couldn’t be Joanne.’
‘Unfortunately, Mr Patston,’ Keenan said, ‘we don’t believe it is a mistake.’
‘We need you to come with us, sir.’ Reed started towards the one-storey building that housed Patston Motors’ office. ‘To identify her.’
Tony stayed put. ‘If you need me to do that, then you’re not sure it’s her.’ He stared at Keenan. ‘Her bag, is it? Oh, God.’
‘I’m sorry to say that a handbag has been found close by,’ the detective inspector confirmed.
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