“Why must you always blame her?” Mum’s pale face and tight mouth gave the game away. She was pissed off all right. To my ears, the words ejected from her lips were like lit matches flung onto petrol.
“Amanda, I don’t think that’s what—”
“It’s okay, Dad, I’ve got this. I really don’t appreciate what you’re implying, Mum.” I ground my fingers into my palms to stop my hands from shaking. “I know you’re grieving. We all are, but you can’t escape the fact that Scarlet was responsible.”
“That’s not true,” she shouted. “You’ve fallen for their lies. Tell her, Rod.”
“Does she know about the booze in Scarlet’s bloodstream?” I addressed the question to Dad, as if my mother were somewhere else. Unseen. Unheard.
“That’s nonsense,” Mum cried. “Preliminary findings can be wrong.”
“So, what will you do when the toxicology report is finally written and it’s there in black and white?” My frustration at my mother’s refusal to face the truth unforgivably boiled over. In a few paragraphs, I could enlighten her about bloody offerings, threats and notes, and a stranger shot a few streets away from where he lived.
“We’ll demand another, get a second opinion, won’t we, Rod?”
“Well, I—” Dad began.
“Have the police found anything on the computers or phones?” I had images of laptops in evidence bags with descriptions of the exhibits; their data pored over and copied.
Nate’s voice slammed into me. “What the hell do you expect them to find?”
I raised an eyebrow in reply, but I wasn’t finished. “What about the absence of marks on the road, the deliberate act, the bloody—” I broke off, stared at Nate who looked as if I’d produced an axe.
“Let’s calm down.” Dad patted the air with the palms of his hands. “Understandably, we’re all upset.”
I focused on him, refused to look at my mother, whose penetrating gaze lasered a hole in the side of my head.
“Agreed,” Nate said. “What are we going to do about the threat of legal action?” Dad virtually buckled with relief, grateful for a return to practical matters. Me? I was light-headed with fury and frustration.
“Talk to the blasted woman.” Mum snatched at her drink. “Tell her to back off. Tell her if she doesn’t, we’ll sue the hell—”
“Mum, you can’t.”
Eyes sparking, she steamrollered right through me. “Your father will fix it.”
“I can’t fix everything, woman.”
The sudden steep rise in emotional temperature took us all unawares. My mother could not have looked more stunned had my dad thumped her. Nate took an avid interest in his shoes. I didn’t know where to look. Silence crawled through the room and hid in the corners.
“I’m sorry, Amanda, I —”
“Screw you, Rod.” Slamming down her drink, she flew out into the hall, the furious beat of her shoes on the stairs as she fled to their bedroom. When Dad made to follow, I caught his arm.
“Think I’ll go for a wander in the garden.” Embarrassed, Nate shot out through the open French windows.
Demeaned and ashamed, Dad clasped the back of his neck. I felt for him. Scarlet’s untimely death was smashing us all to pieces. And I was about to crush him some more.
Chapter 26
“When I got home, last night, I found a knife buried in my kitchen table.”
Dad’s mouth dropped open, like the aforementioned blade had stabbed him in the belly.
“I’d left the bathroom window open. I know it was stupid,” I said, before he could remind me of the many times he’d impressed on me the importance of home security.
“Was anything stolen?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Have you fallen out with anyone?”
“Nothing that would warrant someone behaving in such a despicable way. Dad, don’t you see, this is a clear threat?”
“I’m not denying it, Molly.” He ran a hand under his jaw. “I’m trying to figure out why.”
“Isn’t it obvious? Someone doesn’t want me looking into Scarlet’s death.”
A nerve near Dad’s left eye pulsed. I knew that look. His expression was not dissimilar to Heather Bowen’s when she’d spelt out that I was out of my depth. Be that as it may, I wasn’t finished.
“After the accident, I found something in Scarlet’s bag.” I took the note out of my pocket and handed it to him. He took his spectacles out of the top pocket of his shirt, studied it and handed it back. “It’s the name and address of an elderly man killed in a suspected contract killing in London recently.” I didn’t dare admit that I’d seen Heather Bowen and she’d confirmed that the note was in Richard’s writing. “You see, Dad. There has to be more to Scarlet’s death.”
“Enough.” His anger was sudden, white and blinding. “Dear God, what are you playing at?” It wasn’t the response I was expecting. “Scarlet’s death was an unfortunate accident,” he said. “Nothing more. Nothing less.”
“But—”
“I haven’t finished,” he said with a glare. “Your mother and I have had our hearts broken. I appreciate why you might try to find sense in all of this, but you are mistaken. Sit down,” he said. I did. “Now tell me calmly and logically what you’ve been up to so that we can put this nonsense to bed once and for all.”
I took a breath and told him everything apart from the content of the note Scarlet left Nate. The more I told him, the calmer he became. When I finished, I couldn’t tell whether he was impressed or horrified by my doggedness.
“You actually went to this man’s address?”
“I did.”
He looked at me in awe. “Christ, Molly, you were taking a risk.”
I supposed I was, but I didn’t know then what I knew now.
“Okay,” he said bluntly. “Firstly, in the light of recent developments, the police will be looking at all of Scarlet’s contacts. If this man was on her radar, you can be certain they will establish it.”
I nodded in relieved agreement.
“Secondly, if you wish to take this further, I’ll support you all the way. Realistically, however, the police don’t have anything tangible to go on. I can vouch for the animal remains in your carport. We can report the knife you found but—”
“As it’s mine, it makes it less eye-catching and, chances are, whoever did it wore gloves.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“So; unless someone smacks me over the head, I won’t be taken seriously.”
His expression told me that, regrettably, I was bang on. “Putting that aside,” he continued briskly, “what exactly have you discovered about Binns?”
Like a pupil in front of a demanding, yet much admired, teacher, I wanted to slay him with the right answers. “It’s claimed he was an informer.”
“Odds on, the guy had criminal connections.”
“Could you find out?”
He cast me a reproving look. “Let’s not race ahead of ourselves. How did you obtain the information?”
“A newspaper report.”
Dad half-smiled. I knew what my Dad was thinking. According to him, newspapers turned opinion into Gospel. “And what do the police say?” he said.
He had me. I stalled. Everything about him suddenly softened. His tone. His body language. The way he looked at me. “To be scrupulously fair,” Dad said, “if the man was an informer, sure as hell the police won’t admit it.”
“You see,” I said, brightening.
“But even if he was, you still haven’t explained why your sister would be interested in him. An old lag of pensionable age? It doesn’t make sense.” Dad rammed home the point with the force of a nail gun.
Put like that, it didn’t.
He thought for a moment. I could see that, despite what he said, he had to admit it was all very strange. “What we don’t know is why Scarlet had this man’s name and address in her bag.”
/> “I assumed she’d visited him.”
“What have I taught you? Never assume.”
He was right.
“Working theory then.”
“Without evidence. Pity.”
“But the trip?”
Dad spread his hands. “What about it? The capital is a popular venue.”
“On her own, in a deadbeat hotel? You know that’s not her style.” Scarlet enjoyed weekends away in posh resorts with spas.
Dad drummed his fingers on the arm of the sofa. I looked out onto the garden and watched a crow strut threateningly across the lawn. I’d been hasty and foolish. I should have known I didn’t have enough to persuade my procedurally bound by the book father.
“With your permission, I’ll have a word with Stanton and explain about the break-in.”
I tuned out. What was the point? The police could hardly give me a log number when nothing had been nicked. I must have looked as dejected as I felt.
“Molly,” Dad said, leaning across and taking both my hands in his. “I understand what you’re doing. If I learnt anything when I was a police officer, it’s that when bad things happen to decent people they try to rationalise and explain them. It’s the most natural human response. But sometimes there are no explanations. There are no answers. With so little to go on, you literally don’t have a case. You’d need a lot more evidence than this. Not that I’m advocating you rush into a wild goose chase,” he added with a sympathetic smile.
I nodded absently, thinking I’d simply have to find more. Taking my silence as acceptance, he continued, “From now on, pay particular attention to your personal security. You lock your doors. You don’t go out alone at night. Make a list of anyone who could have something against you. You haven’t had a tricky customer lately, have you?” He sounded wary.
Instantly, I remembered Rocco Noble. He was odd, for sure, but a threat? “This business with Heather Bowen,” I began.
“It won’t come to anything.”
“You think?” I’d met the woman. Dad hadn’t. Heather Bowen seemed pretty sorted and she had two teenage lads to support.
“I don’t see how until after the inquest.”
“When is that likely to happen?”
“Usually takes three weeks.” He looked down. I got it. This wasn’t usual. Anything but. “Depends if there’s a criminal investigation, in which case the inquest will open and adjourn, with a verdict reached later.”
He didn’t expand, but I knew what he was thinking. If it were discovered that Scarlet deliberately targeted Richard Bowen, for whatever reason, our worst nightmare would come true and she would be officially labelled a murderer. I caught my breath, watched my Dad and tried to gauge his reaction.
He leant forward, squeezed my arm. “It’s all right, Molly. Everything that needs to be done is being done. Now,” he said, glancing up, “I’d better go and make my peace with your mother.”
Good luck, I thought, not for him, but for me.
Chapter 27
I went straight to the shop, put a closed notice on the door and dragged Lenny out for a drink. Displacement therapy made me think more clearly.
We sat in a boozer where the food was hit and miss and, more often than not, ‘unavailable’. Lenny drank high-octane cider, the petrol analogy no joke: not only did it rot guts, but dissolve teeth. This did nothing to dissuade a fruit fly intent on death by drowning while drunk. I was too preoccupied to drink the hard stuff so nursed a lime and soda. Probably explained why it took Lenny so long to prise more than a couple of sentences from me. What was the link between Scarlet and Charlie Binns, and Binns and Bowen? If Bowen didn’t visit Binns, who did? Binns was the weak link. He held the key, but he was dead. I stayed silent; mind freefalling.
“Sure you don’t want a proper drink?” Lenny eyed my glass as if I were drinking drain fluid.
“I’m all right.”
“You’re definitely not. You need to talk, Molly.”
“Do I?” A dangerous, defiant note entered my voice. Not quite certain how it got there. I was done with talking.
If Lenny had taken a tight swig and looked offended, I couldn’t have blamed her. She told me about a sale from the shop’s website and we discussed delivery arrangements. It felt odd to talk about something normal and routine and graspable. Undeniably, a small part of me was desperate to cling to the things that gave meaning and form to my life despite Scarlet’s death bending and bashing them out of shape.
We fell into awkward silence. I retreated into the shadows, the pub the kind of place where sunshine rarely penetrated. I doubted it had been refurbished since the smoking ban. A thick, claggy atmosphere heavy with dirt and sweat, and punctuated by the clatter of a fruit machine at full throttle. I welcomed it. Anything to drown out the chaos in my head. I never had Scarlet down for the suicidal type, if there were such a thing, let alone a person who would callously take the life of another in some crazy act of passion or revenge.
Lenny took a long swallow of cider with no visible ill effects. “You had a posh visitor at the shop this morning,” she said brightly.
“Me?”
“His teeth were that white they nearly blinded me.”
“Sounds like Chancer,” I said puzzled. “Did he say what he wanted?”
“To check if you were all right.”
“That’s because I made a fast getaway from Zach’s yesterday.” Although why Chancer would want to track me all the way to Malvern seemed beyond the call of duty.
“And what does Mr Colgate do when not hanging out in clearance shops?”
“He’s a banker.” A profession I put on the same dizzy level as dark arts and magic. As a teenager, Chancer had shown a remarkable head for figures and percentages.
“Might have guessed. Typical ex-schoolboy with sociopathic tendencies.”
I let out a nervous laugh. “You’re not serious?”
“Deadly.”
“Unlike you to go all chip on the shoulder. Considering his folks practically live in a stately home, I think he’s incredibly grounded.”
“Ever visited?”
“Several times.” I remembered Chancer’s dad, Stephen, a man possessed with a fierce, daunting intellect, which served him well at the bar. Apart from Dad, everyone else was terrified of the man, including Chancer. On the rare occasions I’d seen Stephen Chancellor laugh, it was always at someone else’s expense, usually his sons. I didn’t know how Stephen’s wife, a gentle, kind-hearted woman, put up with him.
“Pretty easy to see why you’ve got the hots for Chancer,” she teased.
“I have not.”
“Minted, good looking, what’s not to like?”
“The fact he’s still married, for one.”
“Still?”
From the mischievous way she spoke, Lenny scented blood. “He and his wife are having difficulties,” I said, madly underplaying it.
“What’s his missus like?”
“Beautiful, brilliant, bloody good at cricket. Played for county, once upon a time.” Lenny made to stick her fingers down her throat. I pictured Edie: one of those delicate looking creatures that exuded vulnerability. Underneath the fragile exterior she was a demon cricketer.
“So you and Chancer—”
“Go back decades.”
“How old is he?”
“Same age as Zach.”
“I’d never have guessed.”
I knew what she meant. Pushing forty, Chancer had already started on the slippery slope into middle age. Zach, with his washboard abs and simpler lifestyle, had largely kept his youthful appearance, despite his history of drugs.
“Why does he hang around with Zach?” She didn’t say ‘loser’, although her tone implied as much.
“Like I said, underneath that brash exterior, Chancer is a decent, loyal individual.”
“Yeah, right.”
“It’s true. He and Zach have been mates for years.” I told Lenny about the day Chancer came to my rescue after Za
ch lured me into a tunnel in their grounds.
“Lost in the pitch-black, it frightened the crap out of me. I’ve been afraid of dark enclosed spaces ever since,” I confessed.
“Nice brother you have there.”
“Chancer seems to think so. Zach was best man at his wedding.”
“Came out of rehab to do the honours, did he?”
Had anyone else said it, I’d have torn off several strips. But this was Lenny. I glanced around the bar, caught my breath. Lenny sat back and spread her legs astride. “Before I forget, did you call Mr Noble?”
I described the conversation, how off-beat he’d been and what we’d agreed.
Lenny jolted forward, fine eyebrows rushing up to meet her hairline. Seems she could be shocked after all.
“But, Molly, this is mad. You’re in no fit state. Let me sort him out.”
“What else am I going to do? Mope at home?” I had no intention of sitting around. “Anyway, I’ve agreed it with Rocco.”
“Rocco?” she exclaimed.
“Not his fault his parents had weird taste. Bearing in mind some of the names foisted on kids today, it’s not that peculiar.”
“Might not be in L.A. but this is Worcestershire.” She looked hugely amused. “And if he’s paying, what else does he expect?”
“What are you implying?”
“Isn’t it obvious? He fancies you.”
“What’s wrong with you? Me and Mr Noble have barely exchanged more than a few paragraphs.”
“So back out.”
“I can’t.” Except I knew I could. I knew I should.
Chapter 28
Rocco Noble, dressed down in a black Superdry T-shirt and skinny jeans, looked quite different. His easy on the eye physique belonged to a plasterer: strong arms, slim hips. Expensive sneakers too, with a crocodile embossed pattern on the leather, and zips up the side. Lenny’s voice echoed through my head. He fancies you. I did my best not to gawp.
“You’re keen,” he said.
“I’m early. I’d like to get on with—”
“It’s okay, I get it.”
I looked in the direction of a fat mahogany sideboard glowering from behind a dining room table with thickset legs. “We’ll start with the heavy pieces.”
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