The steps were not the only way up to the road. She could go along the beach to Chiswick Eyot.
Someone was standing on the spot where Kate was murdered.
Flakes flew at her like flies and, reckless, she plunged into the darkness. All the time the snow fell silently around her, covering the ground. Stella wrenched back her hood. She could see no sign of the eyot: she had underestimated the distance. Twice she splashed into water, veering into the shallows – or was the tide coming in?
If she could get to the eyot she could double back to the Mall and slip up a side street to the van as she had on the day she bent her mudguard. Was it the same man? She wished for her bike now.
Keep to the right.
The snow camouflaged dips and drops in the ground and she nearly turned her ankle, her boots heavy with freezing water swilling around her, slowing each step. The tide was almost to the wall, the water deeper. If she went further she would be cut off. She had no choice but to go back.
She saw nothing but dark feathery shapes pursuing her and struck out for the river. He would expect her to keep to the wall. Again her boots were submerged and she could not avoid splashing. He would hear. Careless of where she stepped, keeping the hazy image of Hammersmith Bridge ahead, she struggled forward.
Above the pounding of blood in her ears she heard him, jumping and hopping from one stone to the next in the furred darkness, heading her off.
She could see the Bell Steps, but in the driving snow they got no nearer. She had lost her scarf, her neck was cold and above the gentle trickle of the approaching tide washing over the stones, her anorak swished with each step, marking her position.
Breath, sour with alcohol, warmed her cheek, hands held her tight and frogmarched her to the wall.
Stella saw Jackie at her sunlit desk – the only person who would care about where Stella was – before absorbing the numb realization: It’s over.
22
Thursday, 13 January 2011
‘Why are you here?’
Stella braced herself. She could not struggle: his grip was like iron. Water lapped around her ankles, a continual running like a tap; she clung to the sound to blot him out.
‘Answer me.’ He shook her. She bit her tongue as her jaw clenched.
‘It’s none of your business.’ Wrong answer.
‘It is my business.’ He let go, brushing his sleeves as if he had ‘dealt’ with her. In the half-dark of the intermittent moonlight he rubbed under his chin with the back of his hand.
Paul.
‘You frightened me!’
He stroked her face. Then closed in, his coat collar tickling her ear he went to kiss her, his tongue pushing between her teeth. Stella shoved him away but he pressed himself against her.
‘I love you, Stella,’ he bleated into her neck. ‘You haven’t answered my calls. I miss you.’
If only he weren’t so sensitive. Her fear gone, Stella was furious. Paul had ruined the operation: she had been close to seeing what it had been like for Kate and a few minutes more might have got it, but the image was fragile and Paul had destroyed it.
‘You deliberately scared me.’
‘You knew it was me, you saw me when you came out of the pub. What are you doing here? Who are you meeting?’ His words fizzed though his teeth.
‘No one.’ Stella heard the guilt in her reply. Even if she had owed Paul an explanation, she could not explain why she was there: he would not believe she was meeting a dead woman. He had never believed her when she worked late in the office or subbed for her team and he quizzed her about every client. When she had made the mistake of telling him about Mrs Ramsay sending herself flowers, he had sent a bunch to the office every week until she said it would be over if he did it again. Jackie said Paul loved her.
‘I saw you talking on the phone. What happened? Did he stand you up? Sitting there with your eye on the door like a lovesick kid. Who did you ring?’ Paul was in tears now.
‘You’ve been spying on me.’ His crying meant she couldn’t be angry with him.
‘I won’t be made a fool of.’
‘You’re not a fool, Paul, I don’t think that, but please go.’
‘So you can see Lover Boy?’ He did not move. His efforts to sound threatening were impotent. Jackie would feel sorry for him. Stella told herself that she did not feel sorry for Paul.
She tried to conjure up Ivan’s room with its spotless surfaces, tasteful objects and subdued lighting. Ivan would deplore such a scene, so far removed from Beethoven and Mark Whatsit. Mrs Ramsay would have dealt with the Pauls of this world with a tip of the hand while she whirled around her dining room clasping the vase of lilies like a lover. Stella’s shame redoubled. ‘I’ll call the police. This is stalking.’
‘Call Daddy?’
She had never seen Paul like this and was thrown. He was stalking her. Women were killed by possessive ex-partners who would not take no for an answer. Paul had rung her bell the previous night, he had been outside Terry’s house, he texted and called her every hour. He had come to the office, left her heavy breathing messages and now he had attacked her. Stella felt afraid.
‘Let’s talk tomorrow.’ A concession she had no intention of keeping.
‘And leave you to betray me?’
‘I’m not betraying you.’
‘He’s stood you up.’ He was vicious.
‘For the last time, I am not meeting anyone. I need space, time alone.’
‘Oh, please! Alone here? Don’t give me that shit. We love each other. Let’s go home and talk in the warm.’ He put out his arms. ‘You’re grieving; you’re in shock about your dad.’
He seemed to have forgotten that a moment ago he had taunted her about Terry. He was losing his mind. Stella edged towards the steps. ‘There’s nothing to say, Paul, leave it. Go to bed—’
‘A woman was once murdered here, did you know that? No, you didn’t. I was there! I watched them drive her off in an ambulance.’
Stella stopped. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I remember it.’ Cramming his hands into his jacket pockets, Paul went on: ‘I was on the mini-cabs then and working in the area. The cops interviewed everyone at my firm except me because I wasn’t on the books, doing a favour for a mate.’ He did his braying laugh. ‘Your dad was in charge, but he never talked to me.’
Stella clenched her teeth to stop them chattering. She had not known Paul had driven a cab: he was a computer engineer now. He would have been twenty-five in 1981. Jackie would say Paul was not capable of murdering a mouse.
‘Why didn’t you come forward?’ Jackie knew nothing about Paul; nor, Stella realized, did she.
‘Interested in me now, are you?’ He grabbed her by the shoulders. ‘How long has this little affair been going on?’
‘I’m calling the police.’ Stella wriggled free and patted her pockets for her phone but it was not in any of them. Despite the cold, she was sweating. She must have dropped it on the stones. It would be under water; if not, then buried in the snow. Her only hope of locating it was to ask Paul to ring her number.
His face was lit from below with a greenish glow; his jowls hung heavy; his eyes were cavities.
The light came from her phone.
‘What will you use to call them?’ He sounded pleasant, even interested. Stella did not recognize him.
‘Where did you find it?’
‘You left it in the pub.’ He tutted. ‘Anyone could have nicked it. Imagine losing those confidential numbers, all those contacts. I’ll say this, well done for emptying your text boxes.’
‘Oh, Paul, don’t do this.’ Stella was tired. ‘Let’s meet for coffee after work and talk.’
‘Today we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But today,
Today we have naming of parts…’
Stella cast blindly about, but could not tell from which direction the voice ca
me. Nor could Paul. He wheeled around sharply, stumbling. Stella snatched the phone.
She smelled smoke: roll-ups. She knew the distinctive brand although couldn’t place where she had smelled it. The voice intoned:
‘…Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighbouring gardens,
And today we have naming of parts.’
A figure was pacing the stones near the wall with sure-footed ease, the words – intimate in the snow-blanketed air – enunciated like an actor, every syllable stressed, each emphasis precise. Stella could make out only that he was tall and thin.
Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, a swollen dead thing, and she bit down on it to summon saliva. The pain focused her.
‘He was at your office.’ Paul gestured at the man. ‘You’re meeting him. I was right!’
‘I don’t know who he is.’ But she did.
The way he was moving, his steps economic and sure like a dancer, crazily reassured her.
Soon Stella was picking out stones of the right shape: not too big with flat sides. She grubbed them out, not caring that her hands were getting dirty.
‘You’re a mud lark,’ he told her.
‘What’s a mud lark?’
‘Long ago, kids your age would roam the shores of the Thames on the lookout for bones and lumps of coal to sell for fuel.’
She stared at the place where she had thrown the stone into the water and said it was dead and gone forever.
‘Stell! You come out with the funniest ideas.’
One day she would ask a question he couldn’t answer.
‘So, Paul, I gather you’re not wanted here.’ Jack Harmon had his back to them.
‘I’m not leaving her here with you.’
Paul’s speech was slurred. Stella could tell that he was frightened and wanted to comfort him. The feeling was fleeting.
‘Oooh, I think you will leave.’
Harmon trudged over to them. It might have been a summer’s morning, the sun beating down, not a cloud in the sky; he gave no sign of feeling the cold.
Paul lunged at Harmon and in moments, after some swiftly executed moves, Harmon twisted Paul’s arm behind his back and held him fast from behind. Stella had seen Terry do it to a man not unlike Harmon in an alleyway off Hammersmith Broadway, when he broke up a fight on their way to her ice-skating lesson in Queensway. The restraint was a police manoeuvre for a person resisting arrest and every time Paul struggled, Harmon hitched his arm up a fraction, which she could see was causing Paul excruciating pain. She was astonished: it seemed Paul’s judo classes had done him no favours.
‘When I let go, you will go away,’ Harmon whispered into his ear.
On the steps Paul turned back to Stella. He dared not ask her to go with him, but obviously hoped she would. Impassive, she watched him mount the steps. Jack was beside her, the tip of his cigarette glowing in his cupped palm. Nonchalantly he drew on it.
‘I did that at school,’ he remarked.
‘Self-defence?’ She coughed, her throat felt constricted as if it had been compressed, although Paul had not touched her.
‘Naming of Parts.’
Terry said that killers often came back to the scene of their crime.
The clinking had stopped: the bottle had floated off on the incoming tide. The river was nearly at the steps.
Kate Rokesmith had known her killer so did not run. Up to the last moment she trusted him not to hurt her. Had Paul followed her, or had he been here already?
‘You OK?’ Jack flicked the stub away. It hit the ground with a hiss and the light went out.
‘Paul’s harmless. He wouldn’t hurt me.’ She would not discuss her private life with an employee.
‘He will be back. Guys like that, they don’t give up and he wants you.’
Unlike some people who smoked roll-ups, Jack’s clothes and hair did not smell of tobacco. Stella caught shampoo, washing powder and soap on the cold air.
‘What are you doing here?’
They were climbing the steps, treading on soft snow.
‘I knew you would be here.’
‘That wasn’t my question.’
‘That was my answer.’
He had not sounded surprised when she rang, as if he had been expecting her call. Tonight he had known she would be here. She had given him a job. Had he known she would? She should feel afraid of him, but strangely she did not.
‘Have you learnt anything tonight?’
All the lights in the pub except one above the sign were off.
‘What do you mean?’ Stella knew what he meant.
‘You’re here because of the Rokesmith murder.’ He kicked up snow, making a black scar in the road.
‘How do you know?’
‘Why else would you be here at this time of night? Oh, and you were looking at the papers when I visited your office and I dare say in the pub just now.’
‘This is none of your business. My dad has died, I’m clearing out—’
‘You’re on a mission to solve the case for your old man. Nice sentiment, although I’m not sure Paul sees it that way.’
‘I’m clearing out Terry’s house. There’s no mission.’
‘Not fast enough, according to your PA.’
‘Have you been talking to my staff?’ Stella was stunned. Jackie had never betrayed her.
‘She has told me nothing; she’s quiet as the grave.’ He walked in long strides, bouncing on his heels.
‘I’ll pay you what I owe you.’ Stella was gruff. They went down the ramp into the subway. Jackie would tell her not to trust this scruffy man; he was too full of himself. His next words underlined this.
‘I’m the best cleaner you’ve ever had.’
‘No one is indispensable.’
‘We both know that is not true.’
In the tunnel Stella had to take extra steps to keep up with him, their footsteps echoing.
‘We match perfectly. Your Paul sees that. I know how people live, when they piss and shit, when they make love; if they never make love. I know when they are having affairs, keeping secrets; living a lie. I know about those who are sick of their partners and those who are sick of themselves. I know what they are thinking and I know what happens next. You need someone like me. When I clean, I see things.’
Jack stopped.
‘Are you saying you know who killed Kate Rokesmith?’ Stella tried to keep her breathing regular. It could not be him, despite the poetry and the coat; he didn’t strike her as the type.
‘I have no idea, but together we might find out. We would make a good team.’
‘There’s no basis to think that and anyway why do you care?’
‘I don’t care. I like puzzles. Why do you care?’
‘I don’t care either.’ Stella directed her key at her van and the locks shot up.
‘I’ll come to yours in the morning and see where you’re up to in the files.’
‘I can manage on my own, thanks.’
‘It’ll speed things up if there’s two of us.’
‘No, you’re all right. Like I said, I’ll manage. Thank you.’ Only when she reached the traffic lights where the old Commodore had stood did Stella realize she no longer had her scarf.
Jack watched until Stella had driven away and then returned to the church. Pushing through the bushes, he sat with his back to the Leaning Woman. Sheltered from the snow by sycamore branches overhead, he struck a match into his hand and lit a roll-up.
In the shadow of the statue, he stroked the London street atlas in his pocket. The end was in sight; he only had a few pages to walk. This was not good for so far the journeys had led him nowhere.
He had not known of Stella’s existence until he read about her father’s death in the paper and saw her name; it explained the dark house and the missing car. He should have realized that the one he needed was the detective’s daughter. It must be someone methodical, who did not let emotion interfere with their thinking and would worry
at the problem like a terrier with a lamb bone. Stella Darnell was that someone.
While Stella arranged ideas logically and was focused and ordered, he depended on intuitions and dreams to make signs out of numbers and chance events and divined messages out of random words.
Stella would need to be in charge; he liked that about her. He must not act too soon. If she were not in control, he would not get the best out of her. She was not especially perceptive; that would be his job.
He got up and rested his cheek against the sculpture’s concrete flank. Under the sycamore and in the shadow of St Peter’s Church, she was dusted with only a light coating of snow; he brushed it off.
Jack knew what Stella had been thinking when she drove away. She had sized him up and, although dubious, was interested and would trust him. Until it was necessary, he would not let her glimpse what he was really like. He knew too that she did not think he had killed Katherine Rokesmith. That she would reach that conclusion in the face of so little evidence was what attracted him.
Smiling to himself, Jack ground his cigarette out on the plinth. He blew on the mark and pocketed the stub. He would like to tell Stella that whatever the evidence it did not mean he was incapable of murder.
23
Friday, 14 January 2011
The buzzer went. Stella flicked a dishcloth over the counter and draped it on the dish-rack. She stopped to straighten it unhurriedly; it would be Paul. She would let him in and get it over with. She dried her hands and squirted a bead of hand moisturizer into her palm from a wall-mounted dispenser. On her way through the sitting room, she did an unconscious sweep for anything she did not want him to see. The files. She scooped up the papers, crammed them in the boxes and put them behind the table next to her rucksack. She decided to leave her laptop; it gave nothing away.
Apart from the furniture there was nothing else, although Stella did not consider that the picture-less walls, uninterrupted grey carpet, and bland, blond furnishings would reveal more to any visitor than an empty coffee mug, pieces of opened post or a battalion of ornaments could. She nudged a coaster in line with another.
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