The Detective's Daughter

by Lesley Thomson

  ‘It’s keeping the desk steady.’ Some detective he was.

  Lifting the desk, Jack pulled out the paper and unfolded it.

  ‘It’s blank.’ Stella wished he would leave things alone.

  ‘No it’s not.’ He smoothed out the deep creases. ‘Why does Colin Peterson ring a bell?’

  It had meant nothing to Stella when she used the paper as a stabilizer. It did now.

  ‘He was a suspect in the Rokesmith murder.’

  The church clock chimed one.

  ‘Let’s call him.’

  ‘He’ll be asleep. Besides his alibi was proven.’

  ‘When the time frame was fifteen minutes to midday, but now?’

  ‘He was at Doncaster Racecourse. I think we can rule him out.

  ‘He may know something.’

  ‘Such as what?’

  ‘Wasn’t he decorating the spare room? He might have overheard something but not appreciated its significance.’

  ‘Don’t you think the police would have got that by now?’

  ‘They were treating him as a suspect, not a witness. Come on, Stella, it’s at least worth meeting him.’

  They agreed to go the next afternoon. Jack helped Stella load the computer and remaining files into her van.

  ‘I’ll give you a lift home.’ She was weary and aware she had done no clearing up.

  ‘Nice try. I’ll walk.’ Jack smiled.

  ‘It was a simple offer,’ Stella barked, thinking as she spoke that this was not true.

  The snow had stopped and there were no new tracks outside the house or on the road. Jack skittered off in the direction of the Leaning Woman.

  When he was out of sight Stella climbed out of the van. Jack was pretending he had the power to conceal himself in people’s houses. He was like some little kid being a spy or Batman. She would find out where he lived and make him cut the crap.

  Stella floundered through the snow to the church and tiptoed into the dark clearing with the statue. Jack was not there. She did not linger and shuffled through powdery snow past the subway. What with the graveyard and bushes, there were many places to hide. Jack would keep still until she had gone.

  The ground was uneven where snow had been trampled and overlaid by another fall. She returned to Terry’s street where she spotted fresh tracks on the pavement leading to St Peter’s Square. Jack had doubled back from the Leaning Woman. He had got the better of her. She stopped and listened, but heard only traffic on the Great West Road, still busy despite the late hour.

  The footprints went diagonally over to the park where, with a flick of the heel, they were lighter. Jack had run, perhaps to make little impression, and then halted by the gate, its horizontal bars picked out in white. The top was clear of snow where he had climbed over or he had wiped it clean to fool her.

  Stella nearly gave up. Except giving up was what Jack expected her to do.

  She put a foot on the bar above the lock and pulled herself up and over. She had done this before. In the hours before dawn, clothes on over her pyjamas, she had filled a basket with conkers. The cane on the basket was hard and lumpy like a Christmas stocking, or was that from the conkers?

  Long shadows fell across the blue-white lawn. For a moment Stella forgot why she was there. Her eyes became accustomed to the dark and gradually she distinguished shapes on the path where Jack had not bothered walk on the edge. He probably thought she would not get this far.

  Abruptly prints tracked back the way they had come, along the pavement parallel to the path. He had exited opposite Mrs Ramsay’s house.

  She clambered over the gate and ran over to 48 St Peter’s Square. There were no lights in the windows but Jack was not stupid. Nor were there footprints to the door, and the snow on the yew hedge was pristine. She hovered in the porch. She had a key, she could go inside, but it was late and she was tired; her mind was playing tricks; Jack was not here.

  Stella stopped by the hedge. So faint she might have missed them were footprints from the park gate – heel first – that went up the steps of the house next door to Mrs Ramsay’s. The house which until 1981 had been Kate Rokesmith’s home.

  34

  Wednesday, 19 January 2011

  Stella made her way from the garages to the lobby in the dark; the lights were still on the wrong timing. She had copied the boiler-room key in case Paul ambushed her but could see from the lack of footprints that there was no one about. For this, if in no other way, the snow was proving useful.

  It was numbingly cold. The crunch of her boots carried across the silent compound. It took six journeys to transfer the Rokesmith boxes and Terry’s boxes to the lobby. Stella was relieved to get inside. For once she would have derived comfort from meeting another resident.

  She loaded the boxes into the lift and pressed the button for her floor. She padded back and forth along the corridor until she had got everything into her flat.

  The novel Ivan had given her lay on the hall table where she had left it and aimlessly she carried it through to the lounge where the DVD clock read two minutes past three. On the dining table the case papers she and Jack had been reading were scattered across the glass. This reminded her that Jack had confessed to knowing the boy.

  Perhaps he was lying about that too, but somehow she believed him.

  She left Wuthering Heights on top of the microwave while she brewed a cup of tea, and then, the scuffed volume in one hand, the mug in the other, she went to her bedroom.

  Stella had lied to Jack. She did not want to solve the case to vindicate her father as Jack imagined, but to show Terry Darnell that she was a better detective, and to get Kate justice. Now a new impetus was creeping in, which Stella could not put into words. She shivered: the sense that Terry was present had followed her from his house.

  She sat in bed drinking the tea, Wuthering Heights propped up on her knees, and turned the tissue-thin pages. Other than Jackie, Ivan Challoner was the only person she had met who was genuinely interested in Clean Slate, she mused.

  He was wrong about Wuthering Heights – she had no time for fiction, real life was full enough – but she rather liked that he thought it was her favourite book. Something fell out of the pages, skimmed off the bed on to the floor. She bent to retrieve it and nearly toppled over. It was a postcard. She flipped it over. It was not stamped and in turquoise ink were the words: ‘T, Five. “Cathy” x’.

  The writing was scrawled, as if written in a hurry. Described on the back as a ‘Winter Scene in Woodland’, the picture showed Queen Charlotte’s cottage in Kew Gardens, the roof laden with snow, surrounded by trees, not unlike the scene outside Stella’s bedroom window.

  This presented Stella with a dilemma. The card must have been given to Ivan and if she returned it, he might feel bound to explain who it was from and risk their conversation straying to intimate subjects. Beyond discovering that each was an only child and Ivan referring to a son, neither had given anything away.

  If she did not return the card it would be stealing. The scribbled words might be one of the few mementoes he had of his dead wife, whose name was Cathy – or perhaps not, given the inverted commas. It might seem insignificant, but he had kept it so Stella could not throw it out, nor did she want to hold on to it.

  No, it was not Ivan’s; the novel was second-hand, it had been sent to a previous owner. There was no signature on the flyleaf to offer a clue; no name starting with ‘T’. The edition was eighty years old and the card had no date. Ivan had probably never even opened the book. She laid the postcard on the bed. The Rokesmith papers had made her question everything.

  More questions: when had Ivan’s wife died? How long were they married?

  Wide awake now, Stella turned to chapter one and began to read.

  35

  Thursday, 20 January 2011

  Sarah Glyde did not hear her brother come in. It had always been like that; Antony entered and left rooms without anyone noticing. He had a key because it had been his home, but since their m
other died this was her house and she wished he would ring the bell. It was worse than that: Antony never announced himself but lingered in the doorway of her studio until she sensed his presence. She would look round and there he was. She never felt alone.

  ‘You gave me a start.’ She was by the sink scraping clay from her fingernails. The cold water splashing down from the loose wall-mounted tap made her hands ache.

  He was dressed for work so she did not kiss him and risk dirtying his suit. He was flourishing a bunch of flowers like an Olympic torch.

  ‘You always say that. What are you doing?’ He sounded incurious.

  ‘Nothing.’ Sarah flung a wet cloth over the beginnings of her sculpture; not that he would see more than a lump of clay. It would not work for her this morning, it was thick and sluggish, refusing to comply or submit to manipulation.

  She had seen the man several times, but it had taken only one sighting, when he crossed the road outside her house, for her to retain the intricacies of his face: the straight nose, high forehead and full lips. Her hands could feel his skull beneath the sallow skin and in her mind she stroked the defined planes, the rise of the high cheekbones and the jutting of the jaw. He was not one of those she collected and catalogued, to be accessible whenever she needed an ear, a pose, or a dimpled chin. He had more substance than the faces that populated her dreams. He was beautiful. Sarah had learnt that when a person burned so indelibly into her consciousness she must work on him or her immediately. She would give the clay shape and life and make it her own.

  She had been in the studio since dawn, her strong hands with their nimble fingers shaping, slapping and pressing the sullen material to little avail; after several hours it remained unchanged and she quelled a rising panic that she no longer had the skill; her inspiration was used up. Her temples pounded and her eyes ached; she would get nothing done today.

  As he so often did, Antony had caught her in one of her bleak moods. In vain, she reminded herself it was like this at the start of every new piece. All the things she had ever feared had happened, but she had survived. This was life. She incorporated the fear into her work, striving to make permanent what was temporary, and to find the enduring in the ephemeral.

  Sarah Glyde turned people into sculptures who gazed out from alcoves and corners. The heads, busts and masks she placed everywhere did nothing to break the silence in the many-floored house that, ever since she was a child, had unnerved her. It was a silence that Antony did not break now, as stock still – a statue himself – he communed with himself until she registered he was there.

  ‘Do you want tea?’ Sarah had resolved to be nicer to him and, weaving her way between pedestals supporting commissions in various stages of completion, kissed his cold cheek.

  He was flapping a leaflet. It was the flier advertising cleaning services that had come through the door. She had meant to hide it from him.

  ‘This was in the hall.’ He spoke as if she had deliberately set out to cross him by leaving it there.

  ‘I thought of giving them a call. This place is more than I can manage.’ She affected nonchalance.

  ‘You should go by recommendation. Don’t choose whatever drops on to the mat.’

  ‘Can you suggest a cleaner?’ A Stella Darnell owned the company and Sarah did not say that she would have gone by the name because she liked it. Such minor considerations often precipitated her into making major decisions and infuriated her brother.

  ‘I don’t have a cleaner.’ Antony screwed up the paper and hurled it accurately into the dustbin by the kiln. He made no attempt to sound convincing and Sarah did not believe him. He was being obstructive. In that moment she hated him.

  ‘It was a whim. I doubt I’ll get around to ringing.’ After her father’s death their mother had made no decision without consulting Antony. Sarah gave him the mug without the chip and, in an effort to be pleasant, patted him as he took it from her. His shoulder was thin and hard. She reminded herself that Antony bought her pieces and gave them away as presents. He was her self-appointed patron and she should think him a good brother.

  ‘What are brothers for?’ He had read her mind.

  ‘Do they have to be “for” anything?’ Antony put her on the back foot; he did not think or speak like other people. Not for the first time she marvelled he was so successful; he must be different at work.

  ‘What can I do for you? Is this a social call?’

  ‘I came round to see that you were all right.’ He seemed mildly aggrieved.

  ‘I am, but why wouldn’t I be?’ For over thirty years, since Antony had bought his own house, the siblings had exchanged no intimate information or confidences; their relationship was set in clay.

  ‘The weather’s making it hard to get out. I’ve had a plethora of cancellations.’

  ‘The snow brings everything to a halt. It’s fabulous, it encourages reflection.’ She did not expect him to understand.

  Antony took a sip of tea with a smile that did not reach his eyes.

  He was sitting on their mother’s chaise longue. Antony disapproved of his sister bringing it into her studio to be caked with splashes of slip and stained with paint; he had accepted tight-lipped the clean cloth she laid on the fabric to protect his trousers.

  Wintry sun warmed their faces. The river was filling, the beach beneath Sarah’s back garden was submerged, water rising up the Bell Steps. Sarah knew this: the times and turns of the tide were in her bones.

  ‘I don’t like to think of you stranded, unable to get out. Have you enough food?’

  ‘I’m fine. Stop worrying.’

  Sarah went around the screen and washed up the cups. When she came back Antony had gone. The bunch of flowers was on the table next to the sculpture. She checked the cloth and was sure it had not moved. As usual there was no message on the flowers but she presumed they were for her. She would have to ring him and ask, and then be suitably grateful; he would be upset if she did not thank him.

  Later that afternoon, Sarah called her brother before she could change her mind. The crabby Mrs Willard knew her voice but as usual asked for her name and was only marginally more polite when Sarah told her. She was possessive of Antony and resented any attentions he paid his younger sister. Today was his day off, she reminded Sarah, and Antony had gone to the country. She suggested Sarah keep the flowers, doubtless they were for her.

  Sarah chucked the flowers into the dustbin. As she did, so she saw the screwed-up cleaning flier on top of snips of wire and floor sweepings. Still in what she called ‘doing mode’, she rang and asked for Stella Darnell. The nice person who answered – she called herself Jackie – said Stella was out all day but booked an appointment for Ms Darnell to come that evening to scope the job. It sounded rather too official, but Sarah agreed. She was also told to expect a polite young man called Mr Harmon who, should she sign a contract, would be doing the work. Sarah was reassured: it sounded like Clean Slate took trouble.

  She was about to start work when she remembered the flowers. It was no use; she took them out of the bin – chrysanthemums, her least favourite – and deposited them in a jug she had made for her mother. Putting it on the window sill, Sarah wished again that Antony would find a more willing recipient of such gifts and stifled the fear that she was the only woman he cared about.

  This notion, although uncomfortable, was more palatable to Sarah Glyde than admitting that her brother did not care for her any more than she did for him.

  She lifted the cloth off the clay. The feeling of dread, which had abated when she booked Stella Darnell, returned. Sarah contemplated the ill-formed features, dabbing at them with a moistened cloth, and tried again to recall where she had seen the face who was its inspiration before.

  36

  Thursday, 20 January 2011

  Stella arranged to meet Jack outside her office on Shepherd’s Bush Green at three o’clock to avoid him finding out that she had told Jackie she had an afternoon appointment with a man in Paddington. Jackie ha
d raised her eyebrows at the name: Nick Jarvis. Not practised with untruths, Stella had inadvertently used one of Jack’s fake referees.

  She concluded that it would worry Jackie less to think she was struggling with bereavement than that she was investigating a murder with a man she knew little about beyond his cleaning skills, who had been at school with the son of a murdered woman.

  She had not told Jack she suspected he had broken into the old Rokesmith house in St Peter’s Square for two reasons. One: while he imagined he could hoodwink her, he might let his guard down and she would learn more about him. Two: she did not really believe that he had broken in.

  Jack was lounging against the bonnet of the only van not kitted out with the new green livery. Stella had delayed the respray; she did not want Jack to collapse. He had washed his hair and lost some of the pencil-grey pallor. He had on a clean shirt and his trousers were pressed, his shoes polished. He had made an effort; Stella inadvertently waved.

  There was no sign of Paul. After her visit he must have got the message.

  As they sped along the Westway they concocted the story for Colin the plasterer. Stella would have to say she was Terry’s daughter; they would not reveal the new timings and Stella promised to keep an open mind. Jack would just be Jack.

  The satnav guided them into a network of streets behind Wormwood Scrubs Common in the shadow of the prison. Terry had grown up nearby; Stella could not remember where.

  Colin Peterson lived halfway down Mellitus Street in the only house in the two-up-two-down thirties’ terrace painted white and adorned with hanging baskets. The regulation council house door had been replaced with ornate oak and leaded stained glass of red and yellow diamonds. They passed between a trimmed privet and up a concrete path, the snow shovelled aside; Jack pressed the doorbell and precipitated a clamour of Big Ben chimes within.