Dead Alone

by Gay Longworth

  ‘It’s so small,’ she said. And it was. Chillingly small.

  ‘You may want to look away, Clare,’ said Jones as the mortician gathered the tools necessary to prise the lid off.

  ‘No. I’m staying here. With Frank.’

  Jones gave Jessie a worried look. Jessie took Clare’s arm. She was ready to catch Clare when the lid came off and she saw her brother for the first time since she was eight. A genealogist was standing by. The necessary samples would be taken and compared to the samples that Clare had already given the lab. The body would be interred immediately after the samples were taken. Returned to peace everlasting.

  Everyone took a step closer when the mortician bent down by the box. They took an involuntary step back when the wood cracked open. He looked up at Clare, Clare nodded, then he lifted the lid off. Everyone stared at the contents of the child’s coffin.

  Stones. Three large flint stones.

  The morticians gasped simultaneously. Jessie continued to stare at the stones in disbelief. Jones tried to pull Clare away, but she fell to her knees and began to pray. ‘Thank you, thank you God …’

  ‘What’s been going on, Inspector?’ asked a mortician.

  ‘He’s alive,’ said Clare, staring into the small box.

  Not necessarily, thought Jessie. They didn’t even know for sure that Gareth Blake was Frank.

  ‘I want an investigation into this immediately,’ said Jones angrily. He didn’t like surprises.

  ‘It wasn’t my Frank, after all. He’s out there somewhere, waiting for me.’

  Jessie put her arm through Clare’s and pulled her up. She didn’t know what the stones meant, but she knew it couldn’t be good.

  ‘Don’t you agree? This is good, right, Inspector? He’s still alive?’

  ‘Clare …’

  Jones spoke over her. ‘We need more information before we can say anything.’

  ‘What do you think happened to Gareth Blake?’ The question floated between the gathered crowd. No one answered because no one could think of one good reason why anyone would fake a child’s death and bury stones in his place. Clare suddenly sobbed. ‘Oh God, no, they took him, didn’t they …’

  ‘Who took him, Clare?’ asked Jones gently.

  ‘They were all evil,’ said Clare. ‘If they could take Gareth Blake, they could’ve taken my Frank. They were too young to defend themselves …’ She pulled herself up to her full height. ‘No. I’m not going to think like that. You find him. Like you promised you would.’

  Clare started to walk away.

  ‘Let me come with you, Clare. It’s still dark.’

  ‘Can I borrow a torch? My mother is buried here. Give me a few minutes, I’ll be fine, just …’

  ‘I’m sorry, Clare.’

  Clare bit the skin around her fingernail. ‘Don’t be. Bones would have been worse.’

  They watched Clare move between the crumbling headstones, her torch picking up the ageing slabs. Flashes of colour were rare; few visitors left flowers here. Jessie leant closer to Jones’ ear. ‘Ray St Giles. Mark’s right, it’s the only explanation.’

  Jones seemed to be ageing before her eyes. ‘Wrong. There is another explanation, but it’s too frightening to contemplate.’ He straightened himself up. ‘Frank and Gareth may be the tip of the iceberg. If there are others, we may have dug up a previously uncovered child-pornography ring. In which case we’ll have a great deal more to worry about, because no victim has come forward with a complaint against this department. Which can only mean one thing …’

  Jessie looked sadly at the three stones. ‘They’re all dead,’ said Jessie.

  Perhaps bones would have been better.

  Jessie left the small coffin and the large men and followed Clare up the pathway. Daylight had crept up on them stealthily. From the crest of the hill she could see Clare kneel by a marble cross. It gleamed white against the all-pervading grey of the surrounding cemetery. Clare was crying. She held up a dry old bunch of roses, the dirty yellow petals falling from the stems.

  ‘She hasn’t been,’ said Clare. ‘Irene hasn’t been. It’s the first month she missed, ever.’

  ‘Come on Clare, let’s get you home, it’s been a difficult morning.’

  ‘But where is she? I can’t lose her too, not Irene,’ she sobbed.

  ‘These things dig up old memories. She probably needed a break, time to think.’

  Clare continued to stare at the dead yellow roses.

  ‘As for you,’ continued Jessie, ‘most people would have cracked years ago. You’re stronger than you think. Impressively so.’

  Clare took Jessie’s hand. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘We are with you all the way.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Clare, standing up.

  ‘Come on, let’s go and have breakfast somewhere. These early starts make me very hungry.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Clare again. This time she smiled. It was a small smile. With three stones in it.

  CHAPTER 81

  It wasn’t until much later that day that the lab report came back. As Jessie sped along Ealing High Road, she stared at the test result. It was not what she’d been expecting. The IT expert at the station had tracked a web name found to be a frequent user of fan-extremis and other P. J. Dean fan sites. The moniker was WhiteTip: W.T. WhiteTip had then been traced to a number in Acton. Frances Leonard’s telephone number. According to the lab test, however, the cigarette found by Niaz outside her flat the night the malevolent cross appeared on her door had been smoked not by Frances Leonard but by P. J. Dean.

  As she turned into Frances Leonard’s street, Jessie was sorry that she had sent Niaz back to Haverbrook Hall to oversee the sifting of Cosima’s belongings. This break was all his. Four police cars pulled up outside the terraced house in Acton. Burrows and Fry went around the back, she and three uniformed officers approached the front. Jessie rang the doorbell. A middle-aged woman with cheap-looking dyed blonde hair opened the door. She stared at Jessie, then smiled.

  ‘P.J. sent an escort,’ she said. ‘Hang on, let me get my things. I’m not dressed, I’ve got a special outfit, you see.’

  ‘Are you Frances Leonard?’

  ‘Of course, but then you know that. Come in.’ She opened the door wider. In the living room, P. J. Dean saturated the wall space, his music filled the air space and his image bore down from every angle.

  ‘Frances, we need to ask you some questions.’

  ‘Yes, I know. I should have come to you earlier, but I needed him to come and get me. He’s waiting, I presume?’ Her eyes darted between Jessie and the police officers.

  ‘Frances, do you know who I am?’

  ‘Detective Inspector Driver. I saw you on the telly. I tried to tell you before, but I got scared. I’m such a chicken, really. He gives me so much strength – love is an amazing thing.’

  ‘What did you want to tell me?’

  She smiled playfully. ‘Spoilsport! Where’s P.J.? I should tell him first, don’t you think?’ Suddenly she squinted and put her hand to her mouth. Her nails were bitten to the quick. ‘Is he cross? I hate it when he’s cross. Is he cross? Is he? Does he think I should have stopped it sooner? Well, he should have stopped it.’

  ‘Stopped what?’

  ‘Sleeping with those women – that tart.’ Frances put her hand to her mouth again. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. I shouldn’t say that, should I? They’re dead. It’ll all be okay.’

  ‘Why don’t you tell me, and I’ll tell P.J. That way he won’t be cross with you. He’ll be cross with me instead. Then he can just be pleased with you.’

  ‘What about my nice dress?’

  ‘You can still wear that.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll go and fetch it. Come with me if you want.’ Burrows followed Jessie instinctively. ‘Not you. No men. Just her, alone, it’s private.’

  ‘Boss …’

  ‘It’s okay.’ Jessie smiled at Frances. ‘It’s only girls’ talk, right?’

  ‘Boss!’
r />   ‘It’s okay, Burrows. Everyone wait here.’

  Jessie walked up the creaking, narrow staircase behind Frances, along a dark corridor and through a cheap veneer door. A computer blinked in the corner. She was online to fan-extremis.com. Pictures of Cary Conrad suspended over a vat of excrement filled the screen.

  ‘Oops,’ said Frances. ‘What a filthy little man. It says here his butler lowered him in. The rope was wet and the knots slipped.’ Frances looked at Jessie. ‘Not a very nice way to go.’

  Jessie stared at the photograph. No wonder the secretary had disappeared. Some tabloids would pay good money for those images. ‘That hasn’t been proved yet, Frances.’

  ‘It says so – there. Anyway, I thought I’d wear this.’ From the closet Frances pulled a black Armani dress with diamanté straps. ‘Do you like it?’

  Jessie felt the sweat on her upper lip. She wiped it off with a sleeve. ‘Frances, what did you want to tell P.J.?’

  ‘That I saw who killed Verity, of course.’

  ‘You saw?’

  ‘Yes. That house in Barnes – she took lovers there. I told him she wasn’t good enough, that slut –’ Frances suddenly swiped at a photograph over the small Victorian fireplace. It landed at Jessie’s feet. It was a picture of Verity Shore cut from a magazine. She was draped over a large pewter mantelpiece in a low-cut dress. Nothing was left to the imagination. Jessie picked it up and stared at it. She’d seen that fireplace before. Back at the station, pinned to a board, was a photograph of Eve Wirrel, doused in ash, sitting in a pewter fireplace. And here was Verity. Standing at the same fireplace. And that was not the only picture she’d seen of the distinctive art deco fireplace …

  ‘You think I should have said something sooner? But P.J. didn’t, he wanted rid of them. He did, he told me. He wrote them for me you know. All of them.’

  ‘What did you see, in the house at Barnes?’

  ‘A person. On a bike with a big backpack. Hit her over the head. I watched.’

  ‘Man or woman, Frances?’

  ‘Can’t tell you all my secrets, can I?’

  ‘Would you recognise this person again?’

  ‘When do I see P.J.?’

  ‘Soon, Frances. Sooner if you come to the station with me.’

  ‘You like him?’

  ‘I’m just doing my job, it isn’t personal.’

  ‘I know, I saw you on the telly. You’re a detective inspector. Fast-tracked.’

  ‘Frances, have I made you cross?’

  ‘No. You’re only doing your job. You’ll be cross with me, because I didn’t tell.’

  Jessie looked from the Armani dress to the woman’s dressing table. Frances had been inside more than the house in Barnes. ‘Did you paint that cross on my door?’

  She shifted from one foot to the other. ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I don’t lie!’ she shouted.

  ‘Boss!’

  ‘It’s okay, Burrows. We’re fine. Aren’t we, Frances?’

  She calmed down. ‘I came to tell you what I saw. But I was a bit cross when you took him away. I’m sorry about your bike, I’m sorry I got cross. I didn’t realise you were trying to save him – us. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s okay, Frances.’

  ‘Do you like my dress?’

  Jessie looked at the sparkling straps. ‘Very much. Shall we go?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Can I borrow this photo?’

  ‘Okay.’

  CHAPTER 82

  Eventually the picture editor at Hello! magazine told Jessie what she already knew. The ‘at home’ with Verity Shore in 1998 and the ‘at home’ with Eve Wirrel in 2000 were fakes. Neither woman was at her own home. Apparently it happened quite often when stars did not have residences to back up their glamorous image. The magazine paid the home owner a considerable sum of money for the intrusion, said the editor. And their silence, thought Jessie.

  The editor-in-chief wouldn’t give Jessie the name of the real home owner, but it didn’t matter. Jessie already knew. She was looking at her. Dame Henrietta Cadell: author of Isabella of France. Jessie walked back to the evidence room very slowly. A terrible feeling was beginning to take hold of her. She picked up the list of initials from Eve Wirrel’s collection of bizarre keepsakes and read down it. Towards the end, she found what she was looking for, the phial initialled J.C. She moved to the painting, the giant, grotesque painting, and stared at the well-endowed centrepiece. It wasn’t Jesus Christ. It was Joshua Cadell. Henrietta’s precious son had slept with Eve Wirrel. Her husband had slept with Verity Shore. Maybe Joshua had, too. He had a reputation, according to Maggie …

  Maggie! Jessie picked up the phone and dialled her flatmate’s number. Jessie knew which Cadell had been with Maggie, she’d seen him herself. Frances was telling the truth, she hadn’t painted the red cross on their door. It hadn’t even been for Jessie, it had been for Maggie.

  ‘Hey, Jessie, how are you?’

  ‘Has Henrietta Cadell tried to get in touch with you?’

  ‘Um, no.’

  ‘If she does, call me immediately. And do me a favour, do not under any circumstances meet up with her.’

  ‘What’s all this about?’

  ‘Promise me, Maggie.’

  ‘Fine, I promise. I’m filming, anyway.’

  ‘And don’t see Joshua either.’

  ‘Joshua? Why would I –?’

  ‘I saw him leave the flat, Maggie. Your cameraman, remember?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you liked him so much. I thought you only had eyes for P. J. Dean. It certainly looked that way when you ran out of the party.’

  ‘This is serious, Maggie,’ said Jessie firmly. ‘Don’t see him.’

  ‘It was just a shag. To be honest, he hasn’t even called.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Good? Jesus, Jessie –’

  ‘I can’t explain now. Maggie, please do as I ask.’

  ‘Who made you –’

  ‘MAGGIE!’

  ‘Okay, okay, I’ll be good.’

  Jessie put the phone down and exhaled loudly. Sometimes she could happily throttle Maggie. As Joshua had said, it was always shocking the first time you saw the crack in the façade. The fault lines were creeping through their friendship. Jessie was so proud of herself for not compromising herself in her job, but she did it all the time with Maggie.

  She picked up her bag and leather jacket. She had never abandoned the possibility that a woman had committed the murders. They required mental, not physical, fortitude. Jessie didn’t know if Henrietta Cadell had it in her to turn the written word into reality, but she had means, motive and access to all the dead girls. And when it came to mental fortitude, Henrietta wore her intellectual superiority like armour.

  CHAPTER 83

  Irene came from an era of quiet distrust. But now, at last, she had confessed her secret. To someone who, despite their best intentions, would tell. It was a weighty truth that had dominated her life, her work and her relationships. She had loved Veronica dearly. They were family, and that made Veronica’s affair with Raymond Giles doubly distressing. They’d been obsessed with each other. She needed him like an addict needs a hit. Even if it killed her. And it did, in the end. She could not stay away from him for ever. She did not possess that sort of strength. Away from the protection of the night nurses and the hospital walls, she would fold like she had so many times before. Irene had always thought that Veronica took her life to save her daughter’s. But perhaps Veronica knew that her daughter’s life was already ruined and it was guilt that made her climb up on the bedroom chair, hook the dressing-gown cord round her neck and kick her life away.

  Frank, as far as Irene was concerned, had fared better. An imprisoned father may be absent, but at least he was consistent. It wasn’t a big deal that Ray had been inside, either. Criminality was just a job to them. It put food on the table and heat in the pipes. So now it was time for Frank to do something for
his sister. The policeman would talk and, if she didn’t do something, Clare would find out. And, like her mother, it would kill her.

  Clare could not know her beloved Frank was Ray’s son. Irene had no option but to warn Raymond Giles that the police were on to him. And to do that, she was going to bring Frank in on a little secret.

  Irene pushed open the door and stepped into Ray St Giles’ new deluxe office suite. The young man was standing by a filing cabinet. He slammed the drawer shut and took a menacing step forward. Irene had had enough of menace. Mean men scaring women into submission – she had the victims in her salon all the time. She looked at him and tried to recall the small boy hammering on the window of the car as he was taken away.

  ‘I want to speak to you,’ said Irene calmly.

  ‘How did you get in here? No one is –’ said Alistair.

  ‘About your mother,’ she said softly.

  He blinked at her. He had his father’s eyes.

  ‘I knew her very well. We used to go to Raymond’s clubs. They met there.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  Irene smiled sadly. ‘I don’t suppose you call him Dad, do you? That would give the secret away.’

  ‘The secret?’ he repeated quietly.

  They stood facing each other. ‘Hasn’t he told you?’

  ‘No. He doesn’t really talk about …’ he struggled to keep control of his voice ‘… my mother.’

  ‘She was married when they met.’

  ‘Married! Mum was married?’

  ‘They knew it was wrong, they knew they shouldn’t fall for each other, but they did. Raymond fell hard. He was in love with your mother. They tried to stop it. She would go back to her husband, swearing never to see Raymond again. Raymond even got together with some young innocent lass, but he was only trying to make your mother jealous. It was too strong, you see.’