Mum selected another photograph: Scarlet in her nurse’s uniform. “Her patients adored her.” She slurred her words and took another deep swallow of gin. How I’d like to reach for the bottle and tip the contents down the sink, but I did what I always did and nodded blandly.
As if suddenly remembering Nate, she stood up, made for the door, unsteady on her feet. I called after her, scrabbling, about to give chase when Dad and Nate bowled in.
“Nate, darling.” Mum flung her arms around him. “You poor poor man.”
“He’s going to stay with us for a few days, Amanda,” Dad said.
“Of course. Absolutely. You must, Nate.”
Looking over her shoulder, Nate looked me straight in the eye. He didn’t look flustered. He didn’t look apologetic. He didn’t look ashamed. I couldn’t read him at all.
Chapter 21
Zach looked as if he hadn’t moved since my last visit. Sitting down, shades on, thighs spread, soaking up the sun. The only difference: Tanya sat beside him cross-legged on the dry ground, as if someone had taken a pair of shears to her hair and tipped a pot of Dulux over what was left. ‘Lady in Red’ sprang to mind. As soon as she spotted me, she unfurled, lithe-limbed, and threw her arms around me in a hug. Sandalwood and sweat, incense and ingenuousness. Goodness knew what she saw in my brother. “Zach told me,” she whispered in my ear. “So sorry.” Drawing away, she asked after my parents even though she’d never met them. Probably never would.
I trotted out a neutral ‘as well as can be expected’ reply.
Much to my amazement, Zach had managed to prise himself out of his seat, stagger to his feet and engage in normal social niceties.
“Hi,” he said watchfully. Sizing me up.
“Is there somewhere we can go and talk, Zach?”
Catching on, Tanya said she needed to check on an ailing chicken.
“Sure, I —”
“Darling Molly,” a smooth educated voice, tidal in its delivery, one instantly recognisable, boomed over our heads. We did a collective turn and watched as Chancer bounded down the steps of what had once been a Romany caravan. He carried more weight than I remembered, the buttons of his white, open-neck shirt, which hung loose outside his jeans, competing with flesh and gravity. Fuller-faced too, a little dissolute around the eyes, he looked as though he’d returned from an all-night party. Before I knew it, I was grabbed and spun off my feet. Startled, I briefly forgot that I was in mourning. So had he, it seemed.
“Chancer, for God’s sake,” I struggled.
“Mad Molly,” he said, quite delighted and squeezing hard enough to wind me. Nobody ever spoke to me the way Chancer did.
Inches from his sun-tanned face, I couldn’t help but gaze at his extraordinary deep blue eyes, his jaw, not quite so sculpted and defined. Must have been several years, at least, since we’d last met. He’d acquired laughter lines that did nothing to detract from his good looks. My blood sprinted.
Placing me carefully down, he rested his hands on my shoulders, looked into my eyes. For a second it was simply he and I and nobody else. “I’m so very sorry about your sad news. Poor Scarlet.”
“Thanks. It’s appreciated.”
“And poor Zach,” he said, glancing over in my brother’s direction to which Zach nodded dutifully back. “How are your Ma and Pa? Pretty broken up, I guess. Will you send my warmest best wishes and condolences?”
“I will.” I realised that any chance I had of speaking to my brother in private had been ground into the dust under Chancer’s size nine’s.
“Did he tell you about me and Edie?” Chancer jerked his head in Zach’s direction again.
I acknowledged my brother with a smile. “He did. It’s a great shame.”
“Yeah, well,” he said, downcast, as though it wasn’t his idea, but Edie’s to split. “Bad business.” Chancer dropped down onto the grass, my cue to sit next to him. Zach, meanwhile, had taken up his favourite position. All very Zen.
I had no intention of discussing Scarlet’s death or the break-up of Chancer’s marriage. Divorce is akin to suicide. The more couples bicker and bitch, the less likely they are to follow through. It’s the ones that suddenly announce: ‘It’s over’ who mean it. Similarly, successful suicides rarely leave a clue of intention until it’s too late, which upped the odds of pre-meditated murder, I realised darkly. Was this Scarlet’s legacy, that I would forever associate her with the taking of a man’s life?
We sat in stony, gloomy silence. Conversation, when it broke through, was stilted and sporadic and, to me, meaningless. What did you talk about at a time like this? I lay back, closed my eyes. Sun-pennies danced in the sunlight. Stalking the silence, I willed for Chancer to go.
Maddeningly, the boys wound up discussing Chancer’s job.
“My recent bonuses won’t count for much, not after Edie has cleaned me out.”
“You could always transfer funds into my account,” Zach said cheerily.
“You don’t have an account,” I said. I wouldn’t be surprised if Zach reached his fiftieth birthday without ever having a payslip. Zach huffed loudly in protest, but that was all.
“Not a bad idea.” The reflective way in which Chancer spoke briefly made me unsure whether or not he was serious. Silence kicked in once more. For God’s sake, Chancer, leave.
“Mum and Dad okay?” Zach said eventually.
“They’d be better if you came home. Don’t you think he should, Chancer?” Which I admit was low. In the absence of a response, I cocked an eye open. Zach’s stare could melt a polar icecap.
Chancer wore a ‘What do I know?’ expression on his face. Male solidarity for you. We fell silent again, the heat having a soporific effect on everyone, bar me. I itched to get my brother alone.
“Anyone fancy a drink?” Chancer said.
“Tap water or tap water,” Zach snorted.
“Nah, I’ve got a bottled of chilled wine in the car.”
“Flip me, a car with a fridge. Didn’t spot it,” I said, casting about.
Chancer jerked his head in the direction of the entrance to the site. “Wouldn’t dream of driving my beamer down that pot-holed piece of crap. Left it at the top of the road.”
“Like the car, like the man. Go on, then.” It was the moment I’d been waiting for.
The second Chancer was out of sight I jacked myself up on an elbow and twisted round to face my big brother.
“Why did you lie about Scarlet’s visit?” While I was direct, my tone was neither accusing nor challenging. That approach wouldn’t work. Nailing Zach was akin to taming smoke.
“Don’t know what you mean.”
“Last time we spoke you said you hadn’t seen her for months. Fliss says Scarlet saw you weeks ago.”
“Did I? Must have slipped my mind.” His left leg fidgeted, and he itched both his arms below the elbows. Classic Zach under pressure. He used to do it all the time when he was wasted.
“Well, now it’s slipped back in, why did she come?”
“To see me.” His voice was heavy with sarcasm. “Or is that so surprising?”
I stuck my tongue out in response. “How was she?”
“Seemed fine.”
“Nothing odd?” Nothing that indicated what she was about to do?
“Like I said, she was good.”
“What did you talk about?”
“Don’t really remember.” He scratched his head, making a pretence of trying to recall.
“Did you know she was having an affair?”
“Ah,” he drawled knowingly.
“You did?” I sat up straight. The air suddenly compressed with thick and poisonous heat. I swear my ears popped. “Did she mention a name?”
Zach’s eyes thinned. His lips moved, like he was attempting to locate a piece of information from his brain and flush it out through his mouth.
“A guy called Charlie Binns?”
My brother is a proficient squiggler when it comes to telling the truth but even I could
tell he hadn’t a clue. “What about Richard Bowen?”
“Richard who?”
“The guy she killed.”
Zach jumped to his feet. It would be fair to say I’d not seen my brother react with speed like that in the thick end of twenty years. “Why do you have to load everything?”
“Load?”
“Emotionally. You make it sound as if she murdered him.”
“If she was having an affair with the guy, she might have meant to.”
“That’s complete crap.” He was loud and agitated. At this rate Chancer would hear from several fields away.
“Zach, I didn’t mean it to come out like that.”
“Yes, you did.” A bubble of spit balled at the side of his mouth.
“For goodness’ sake, calm down.”
“Then don’t make such crazy allegations.”
“The police are on to it. They’re examining her phone and computer records. If you’d taken your head out of your backside and come home, it wouldn’t come as such a shock.”
He slung off his sunglasses and threw them onto the grass. Sparks of rage flashed behind his eyes. “Don’t you dare,” he growled.
Peripherally, I caught sight of Tanya strolling back. From the concerned expression, she’d heard the noise and loss of volume control. Zach couldn’t care less.
“Why can’t you stop meddling?”
“Now, you look here.” My turn to jump to my feet and raise my voice.
“Fuck’s sake, stop interfering in things you don’t understand.” Zach’s full lips wrapped around and spat out every word. His eyes were everywhere but on me.
“All right, guys?” Tanya said with forced jollity, looking from me to Zach.
“I’m going to take a shower.” He grunted something derogatory under his breath, then, kicking up dust with his bare feet, stalked off.
Chapter 22
In the silence of my own home all I could hear was Zach’s warning words.
Dad always said, in homicide investigations, it was vital to study the victim. I didn’t know whether or not Bowen was a murder victim, but I’d spent so much time looking at Scarlet, I’d neglected to fully check out the man she killed.
I grabbed my laptop, clicked my way to local online news. The accident remained riding high. This time there was a more personal interest article and I struck lucky. Frederick Allen, and next-door neighbour of the Bowens, talked of a family man tragically taken from his wife and children too soon. For security reasons, most police officers keep their addresses secret. But the neighbour had not been so circumspect. I knew Hales Road well, with its jowl by jaw terraced houses. Allen’s unguarded remarks offered a couple of possibilities and it got me thinking.
Nate had said that Bowen was heading to Gloucester, but Bowen worked at the police HQ in Cheltenham, which was in Hester’s Way. Why would Richard Bowen come off a night shift and head in the opposite direction to where he lived?
Amped, I threw open all the windows, kicked off my sandals, and changed into a loose-fitting silk dress that was a lot more comfortable than shorts and T-shirt. About to grab a beer from the fridge, my mobile rang. Rocco Noble.
“Hi,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind me calling.”
I did. Perhaps he’d found someone else to do his house clearance.
“No pressure, but I have to go away for a few days.”
In my experience, when people say ‘no pressure,’ they mean nothing but pressure. “Yeah?” So what? We haven’t even met.
“We were going to schedule a meeting.”
“At a mutually convenient time.” Not after five, any day, as he’d instructed. I didn’t say ‘take a hike’ but the tone of my voice suggested it.
“God, I knew I shouldn’t have phoned.” Agitated and cross with himself, he stumbled an apology.
My teeth grated. Everyone meant well but I really wished people, particularly those who didn’t know Scarlet, would stop saying how sorry they were. I wondered what Scarlet would make of it and glanced around the room to check whether her ghost had taken up residence on the nearest easy chair. Before my damned imagination ran away with me, I cut sharply to the chase.
“Are you always this pushy?” Who else pursues a woman for a business arrangement when it’s already been explained that there’s been a death in the family? Someone used to getting his own way. Clearly, one of those thrusting ambitious ‘Me, me, me’ types.
“Oh my God,” he laughed lightly. “Look, I’m so sorry. I hadn’t meant to hound you. It’s just—well—I’m leaving very soon, and I’d really like to get things sorted.”
See him, quiz him and get rid of him, I thought. It would take me ten minutes to check him and his granny’s stuff out before I offered to clear it for an exorbitant price that he was bound to decline. “I’ll come round tomorrow. I could drop in after lunch, around 2 p.m.”
“Won’t work for me. Are you free now, by any chance?”
“No, I’m not.”
“I’d be immensely grateful.”
Did he have a neurological disorder, like Asperger’s? I took a breath, mimed banging my head against the wall, then reached for my car keys and headed out. Right, Mr Noble, very soon you will be toast.
*
It was a genuine ‘pinch me’ moment. The first thing that struck me about Rocco Noble was his smile, and he looked like a guy who smiled a lot. Mr Sunshine. Cute creases at the sides of his alert, highly intelligent eyes told me so. His hair, which was short, was the colour of midnight. He had an olive complexion and probably needed to shave a couple of times a day. Stubble suited him. Tall and built, he wore a suit, the top button of his shirt undone, his tie loose and casual. In business mode, or because we were indeed doing business, he stuck out his hand, which was firm and smooth, not sweaty at all, a proper leader of men type handshake. He might be pushy, but I didn’t detect anything off about him. When I addressed him as Mr Noble, he quickly corrected me.
“Rocco, please.”
“Molly,” I stammered in return. Standing in his gran’s sitting room, a cavern crammed with dark Victorian furniture, ornaments and knick-knacks, I was acutely aware of a space brimming with neat testosterone. In danger of having a total mind-drain, I reckoned I could get pregnant from simply standing next to him.
I flicked a weak smile, which, when reciprocated, lit up the dark interior as if his personality alone could shape-shift the room.
“Right, my gran’s gaff,” he said, brightening the mood, “As much as I loved her, I’m not a fan of her furniture.”
“It’s a bit gruesome, isn’t it?” I agreed with a tight smile. Glancing around, I made notes, my gaze finally resting on an ugly looking Chiffonier cupboard in darkest mahogany that ran along one wall. It would probably look okay painted.
“What’s upstairs?”
“More of the same.”
“Okay if I check it out?”
“Sure.”
Clipboard in hand, I followed him up the quirkiest little staircase ever. You’d need to be a mountain goat to successfully navigate it and God alone knew how anyone had managed to get a bed, let alone a wardrobe into the upper storey. Already, I was making mental notes of ropes and ladders.
At the top, a landing the size of a sandwich, off which three doors with old-fashioned latches.
“In here,” Rocco said.
Dusty light trickled through leaded windowpanes onto a magnificent Victorian brass bed that dominated the room. “My mother was born in that,” Rocco said with pride.
It was fabulous. My only worry was how the shop would accommodate it. Since taking charge of a full-sized, non-PC stuffed grizzly bear, space was at a premium. “Don’t you want to keep it?”
“I’d love to, but it’s not very practical. Hell,” he beamed, catching hold of my cautious expression, “Maybe I should.”
“Is the cottage yours?”
“Bequeathed to me.”
“Then definitely keep it.” I flushed, hoping he didn�
�t think I was suggesting I help him put it to good use. “You’re planning to live here?”
“Eventually. I rent in Worcester at the moment.” I wondered where, whether Rocco was the kind of man who lived in a modern purpose-built flat, or preferred older properties, whether he shared, had a girlfriend – not that it was any business of mine. “Obviously, it needs work,” he said, glancing at the walls, nostrils briefly flaring as if detecting damp.
“Any designs to reconfigure the layout?”
“You think I could?”
“My dad’s a property developer.” Although I didn’t think he’d be up for projects any time soon. Not after Scarlet. Not with Mum being the way she was. Not was going to figure a lot in all our lives.
“You on commission?” he said, raising a sexy eyebrow.
I laughed, shook my head, instantly guilty. I had no right to either solicit business or have fun at a time like this and yet I couldn’t help myself. God knew what my parents would think if they found out I was pricing a job. They probably thought I was home mindlessly watching the tennis at Wimbledon.
“Are you in a commission-based profession?” I said, deflecting attention from me.
“Not personally. I work for ContraMed.”
I was none the wiser and said so.
“Medical insurance, specialising in negligence cases.”
“Sounds interesting.” Not having a clue what it entailed, I mentally kicked myself for making such a crummy observation.
He smiled without expanding on the subject. “So, what do you reckon?”
“You say you want the lot cleared?”
“Apart from the bed, yes.”
I made a big performance of looking down the list, crossing out the need for ropes and ladders now that the bed was staying, did a mental recce, gave him a price all in that was way over the top and should make his eyes water.
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