by Kim Fleet
Love, lust, lucre: those were the motivations for murder, and here there was plenty of each, sowing suspicion onto pretty much everyone associated with Lewis.
There were too many suspects: Jocasta and Xanthe, who could have sent the poison pen letters as they knew Lewis’s movements, but both were out on the town at the time Lewis died. Lewis’s foster mother, Rose Taylor, who resented him for wrecking her children’s lives, and who worked at the hotel where Lewis was killed, but not on the night he died and there was no sign on her on the CCTV. Lewis’s mother, Tracey, burdened with debt she had no hope of ever paying off, stood to inherit Lewis’s London apartment. That would see her right for the rest of her life. And then there was the mysterious thirty grand Lewis paid into his bank account in cash and immediately transferred to Tracey. Did it come from a money lender who charged interest in blood and pain?
She sighed and thumped the steering wheel in frustration. Too many suspects, and that was without factoring in Aidan, who probably suspected it was Lewis who stole the Holy Blood, and who didn’t have an alibi for the evening Lewis was killed. And then there was the origami swan in Lewis’s room, which bore every sign of being made by Aidan, down to the nick in its beak. She didn’t believe for a moment that Aidan had killed Lewis, but there were questions she couldn’t answer right now. Did Aidan visit Lewis and challenge him about the Blood? How did that origami swan get into Lewis’s room? And where was the Blood right now?
Her mobile rang, interrupting her thoughts. She answered it using the hands-free and a voice spoke straight into her ear.
‘Found you at last.’
Her breath caught. Hammond.
‘I’ve been calling your house. Your lovely, safe home, but you’re not there. Where are you, I wonder? How would I find that out, hmm?’
‘What do you want?’ she said, her throat spasming with fear. His voice, in her earpiece, in her head, here – imprisoned, alone and vulnerable in the car. For a mad moment she thought he could see her, was watching her from the road bridge up ahead.
‘That’s no way to speak to an old friend, is it?’ Hammond said. ‘I just wanted to check you were alright, not getting into any trouble.’
‘How the hell did you get this number?’
A laugh; a nasty, taunting laugh that filled her veins with ice. Escape was impossible. It was just her and him, his voice, bound together.
‘You do get yourself into trouble, don’t you, Jackie?’ Hammond said. ‘Don’t worry, I’m looking out for you.’ The line went dead.
She yanked the earpiece out and threw it into the foot well, her breath coming in sharp gasps. Fighting the urge to fling open the car door and run out into the road and down the motorway, she switched the radio back on and let the banalities fill the space until her heart had steadied and her breathing was no longer ragged.
Car engines started around her. The traffic was moving. The brake lights in front of her flashed then the car pulled away. She turned the key in her ignition and followed, her mind in turmoil. Would she ever be free of Hammond?
17:36 hours
It was dark when she pulled into the car park in front of her flat and the sky was blanketed with cloud, smothering the stars. A gusty breeze hurried through the trees and shook more leaves to the ground. Gaudy lights twinkled from one of the balconies: someone had put their Christmas tree up.
As Eden reached into the car to get her bag, she had the distinct impression she was being watched. Years ago, when she started surveillance training, she was taught never to focus on the target, but keep them in the corner of your eye, only glancing at them occasionally. An atavistic instinct warns people when they’re being stared at, and that instinct prickled in her now. Stretching her peripheral vision, she scoured the area. No one in the car park; no one standing at the windows of the flats; no sudden movement of a curtain. The trees on the lawn concealed the flats from nosey passers-by, but also meant she couldn’t tell if there was anyone lurking there. Taking her hefty torch from the glovebox, Eden headed back up the drive to the street, all her senses alert.
Facing her was a square of blank-faced amber Regency buildings with wrought-iron balconies, one draped with plastic wisteria. At the far corner, a line of women queued to enter the church that had been converted into a restaurant. Opposite was a Victorian villa quarantined by security fencing. No sign of movement there. No one on the street. She patrolled the perimeter of the square: all quiet.
Still with the uneasy sensation she was under surveillance, Eden went back to the flats and let herself in. The foyer was empty, the lift was empty, and the corridor outside her flat was empty. The hair she always left across her doorway was still in place, and when she opened the door and stepped into her flat, the air shifted to accommodate her. No one had been in this space since she left that morning.
Out on the balcony, she scanned the street, car park and square. Nothing. She released a pent-up breath, aware how Hammond’s phone call had unsettled her. Miranda had warned her he’d been moved out of a high-security unit, and knowing Hammond, he’d rule not only the wing, but the whole prison. She imagined the comfort of his cell, the privileges he never had to work for, the lackeys cleaning and fawning over him. The drugs he had smuggled in and favours he arranged on the outside to maintain his position as top dog. Untouchable.
She switched on the TV for the comfort of the sound and flickering picture rather than the content, and closed all the curtains in her flat, startling herself with her own reflection in the windows. It had been a hell of a day. What she needed was a hot bath, a long read and a good sleep. Just as the bathroom was filling with scented steam, the doorbell rang.
The image that met her eye when she peered through she spyhole made her gasp and stagger back in shock. She peeped again, just to check her mind wasn’t playing tricks. The last person in the world she thought ever to see again.
The bell rang again, and a voice called, ‘I can hear you.’
Slowly she drew back the bolt and opened the door. A man stood outside. Medium height, dark-blonde hair, square-built. He stared back at her, his mouth working silently.
‘It is you,’ he said, at last. ‘They told me you died.’
‘Hello, Nick,’ she said.
His face crumpled. She stood aside to let him in, then went to turn off the bath taps, snatching a moment to breathe deeply, aware her heart was galloping. When she returned to the sitting room, he faced her with a countenance full of shock and disbelief.
‘Sara,’ he said, then faltered. ‘I don’t know what to say except, why are you alive? And that sounds wrong.’ He folded his overcoat round him as though cold and attempted a smile but his lips caught on his teeth. ‘Where’s your long hair gone?’
‘It went a long time ago, along with everything else.’ She saw he was shivering, knowing it was shock, not cold, that made him tremble. ‘Sit down, Nick, I’ll get us a drink and something to eat.’
Thank goodness the kettle took so long to boil and the toaster was slow to heat up. It gave her precious time to try and collect herself, to decide what she could say to him, this ghost from her past. She made a pile of toast and loaded butter, marmalade and Marmite onto a tray.
‘Do you still like marmalade?’ she asked.
‘Yes. I see you haven’t got over your Marmite addiction.’
She slid a mug of tea towards him. He sipped and winced at the scalding liquid, and put it back down again.
‘It’s been a long time, Sara.’
‘I’m Eden now.’
‘What happened?’
She hesitated. Telling him would put her life in danger, but then, he’d already found her, and Hammond seemed to be able to taunt her whenever he felt like it. Her new life and identity hadn’t lasted long. ‘I worked undercover with a gang, and when they went to prison I had to have a completely new identity. I left London and came here. I’m a private detective now.’
‘That job!’ Nick groaned. ‘I said it would be the death of you.�
�
She flinched. ‘It almost was,’ she said. ‘The gang found out I was working undercover and tried to kill me.’ Her mouth was dry and her tongue clicked against her teeth. ‘The ringleader is still after me.’
Nick stared at her for a long minute, evidently at a loss what to say. What was there to be said? To cover his confusion, he took a slice of toast and slathered it with marmalade. It reminded her of the early days of their marriage: breakfast in bed, coffee from the thick pottery mugs they’d bought on honeymoon, their whole lives ahead of them. How little time they had actually had together.
‘How did you find me?’ she asked.
‘I saw something on TV about a skeleton, and there was a woman on camera who looked exactly like you. I thought it was just a coincidence; it couldn’t be you, you were dead, but for some reason I couldn’t let it go. I found the footage on the Internet and played it over and over, and the more I saw it, the more I knew it was you, crazy though it seemed. I rang your old office, said who I was, and eventually I spoke to someone who told me to leave it. And that frightened me.’
‘Because if I really was dead, they’d just have said sorry for your loss. So much for my cover.’
‘Exactly. So I kept on digging.’
‘How did you find where I live?’
‘I went to your office and started asking around. Someone said they thought you lived here, so I came to check it out. The post in the pigeonholes told me which flat.’
‘You should be a private eye yourself,’ Eden said.
‘How did you come up with the name Eden Grey?’ he asked.
She stretched her legs out in front of her. ‘An in-joke, really. When I worked undercover I became Jackie Black. Sara White to Jackie Black, so when I needed a new name, I mixed the two to get Grey.’
‘And Eden?’
‘Saw it in a book and liked it. And sometimes clients aren’t sure whether I’m going to be a man or a woman, and that can be useful.’
Nick polished off the last slice of toast. ‘That was nice, Sara, but hardly filling. Let’s get dinner.’
‘I’ve had a hell of a day and I can’t face going out again.’ Besides, how could she sit opposite him, making polite restaurant conversation when they were divorced and she was dead?
‘Takeaway? I saw there was a Thai place just along the road, are they any good?’
‘Food’s wonderful, but I can’t afford it right now.’ She pulled a face. ‘Sorry to be a wet blanket, but self-employment isn’t making me rich.’
‘My treat,’ he said. ‘The least I can do.’
She fetched a takeaway menu and they pored over it, heads together, the way they used to when they were married. The memory jagged her heart. She’d lost so much. She remembered the day Nick left, the pain in his eyes as he blamed her work for the loss of their child, and his despair that she wouldn’t give up her career for him. He never understood how important her work was to her: making a difference, however small that difference was.
‘Are you still working for Price’s?’ she asked, when the order was rung through.
‘Made partner a couple of years ago,’ he said.
‘That’s great. I’m pleased for you.’ She hesitated before she asked the next question, but she’d already registered the flash of gold on his finger. ‘And you’re married?’
‘Four years ago.’
So he hadn’t mourned the end of their marriage for long. Maybe he’d a replacement wife already pencilled in while they were still rowing.
Nick continued, ‘She’s called Naomi. I met her at work.’ He fished in his wallet and pulled out a photo. ‘That’s her.’
A willowy blonde with long straight hair. Nick always had a thing for long hair. He would’ve gone mental if he’d seen the hairstyle she wore when she was undercover: one half of her head shaved and a tattoo on her scalp. Naomi’s arms held a baby.
‘That was taken ages ago,’ Nick said. ‘This one’s more recent, but I love the light on their faces in the other one.’
He handed over another photo: the same willowy blonde with a little girl with fair hair and a sunny smile. Both of them fed by Waitrose and dressed by Boden.
‘This is your daughter?’
‘Yes, she’ll be three at Christmas. Born on Boxing Day so we called her Holly.’
Pain ripped through her. Holly. Their little girl was Molly. Molly, who didn’t carry full term, who was born dead, a wax figure, a perfect dead little doll.
‘Holly and Molly,’ she said, her voice tight.
‘It was a way to remember her, I suppose.’ He took the photos back. ‘And you? You’re not married, I take it?’
‘No.’ The takeaway arrived at that point and saved her from elaborating further. Nick went to the door and paid, and she gathered plates and spoons and forks and arranged them on her dining table, shoving aside the papers scattered there.
Over dinner, they reminisced about the old days. Though it hurt to recall how things had been between them, the pain softened the more they talked, and Eden realised that she had stopped loving Nick a long time ago, even before he left her, and she felt a sudden surge of gratitude that he’d been brave enough to end it for both of them.
‘That holiday in Budapest!’ Nick said at one point. ‘You were speaking Russian and no one could understand a word.’
‘I thought Hungarian must be similar. How wrong I was!’
‘And our hotel room? So small we couldn’t walk round the bed and there was nowhere to put the suitcase.’
‘And you banged your head on that sloping beam every time you got out of the bath.’
‘And that cafe that did the honey pastries. We must have eaten dozens of them that weekend.’
‘I was only talking about that cafe the other day,’ Eden said, remembering her conversation with Gabor. ‘In Oktogon Square.’
‘You mean Tordai Street,’ Nick corrected her.
‘No, it was on Oktogon Square. Not far from our hotel.’
‘I went there six months ago with Naomi. It’s in Tordai Street,’ Nick said, putting down his fork. ‘Dig out that guidebook you had, that’ll settle it.’
‘I don’t have the guidebook,’ Eden said. ‘I had to leave everything behind: all my clothes, books, pictures, certificates. I have no photographs of Mum and Dad. I had to create an identity from scratch.’
Nick stared at her, speechless, for a long moment. ‘What happened to all your things?’
‘As I’m supposed to be dead, I imagine they gave it all to Mum and Dad,’ she said, trying hard not to think of the pain that must have caused her parents, sorting through her belongings, deciding what to keep, what to give to charity, what to throw away.
‘Jesus!’ Nick breathed. ‘I never thought about how … complete it was.’
She hesitated before she asked the next question. ‘Did you tell Mum and Dad that you’d seen me on telly?’
Nick’s eyes met hers. ‘No, I didn’t want to hurt them more than they are already.’
‘Are you going to tell them now?’
He tore off a chunk of naan bread and wiped it over his plate. ‘No. I know that you wouldn’t just disappear unless there was very good reason.’
Tears pricked her eyes and she blinked to clear her vision. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘I always liked your parents,’ Nick said. ‘I don’t want to hurt them. Or put them in danger.’
She scraped up the last of the curry. ‘Thank you for dinner, Nick,’ she said. ‘This was lovely. Just what I needed after today.’
‘Tough one?’
‘You have no idea.’
As she collected up their plates, her doorbell rang. She froze, afraid it was someone sent by Hammond, then crept to the door and peeped through the spyhole. Aidan, clutching a bouquet of flowers. She opened the door and he came in, bringing with him the scent of cold night air.
‘I wasn’t sure if you’d see me, seeing as last time we saw each other you accused me of murder, but there�
�s something you need to know …’ his voice trailed away as he caught sight of Nick.
‘Good evening, Aidan,’ Eden said. ‘This is Nick, my ex-husband. Nick, this is my boyfriend, Aidan.’
The two men shook hands, eyeballing each other.
‘I didn’t realise you had company,’ Aidan said. ‘I’ll go.’
‘No, it’s fine,’ Nick said, picking up his overcoat. ‘I’ve got a long drive home. Nice to meet you, Aidan. Look after her, won’t you?’ He turned to Eden and seemed to be weighing up whether or not to hug her. In the end, he simply touched her elbow and said, ‘Take care, Sara.’
And he was gone.
Aidan collected up all the takeaway containers and washed them out, dried them, and stacked them in ascending order of size on the kitchen counter. He tipped away the washing up water and ran fresh, giving it a good squirt of washing-up liquid, then washed the plates and cutlery, the plate with the toast crumbs, and the buttery marmalade knife. Eden watched in silence as he put away the cups, repositioning everything on the shelf so all the handles pointed south-east, and as he rearranged the cutlery so the forks spooned each other and the knives all faced the same way in the drawer, as if to prevent them chatting to each other in the dark.
As he folded and hung up the sodden tea towel, he said, without looking at her, ‘So that was Nick.’
‘Yes, that was Nick.’
‘I didn’t realise you were still in touch.’
‘We’re not. He tracked me down and turned up unexpectedly.’
Aidan faced her. ‘Tracked you down? Why would he do that?’
She balled her fists. ‘Not for the reason you think,’ she said. ‘But as he was told I was dead, and for all I know attended my funeral, he was a bit surprised to see me on TV at Hailes when I found that skeleton.’
