by Hannah Howe
Boris St John took hold of Ruth’s elbow. With his bulbous nose twitching and his piggy eyes staring at me, he led Ruth to the study door. “You have not heard the last of this, Miss Smith. You will pay. I will make you pay for this, mark my words.”
“Join the queue,” I sighed wearily. “And don’t forget to pack your toothbrush and a month’s supply of sandwiches.”
Then, in a state of high dudgeon, Boris and Ruth left the house.
Henry Chancellor took a moment to compose himself. With his emotions under control, he walked over to his desk where he removed a small envelope from a drawer. “I believe this cheque will cover your services,” he said while handing the envelope to me.
I accepted the envelope with a word of thanks, then added, “I’m sorry there was not a happier outcome.”
He smiled, albeit briefly. “Who says this is not a happy outcome.”
“So you did hire me to uncover the affair,” I reasoned. “The threats against Ruth were a smokescreen; the two of you believed that Peter offered no real threat.”
“We misread the situation,” Henry Chancellor conceded. “Initially, I was not aware that Ruth and Peter had engaged in an affair. Ruth assured me that Peter was playing a game, that he had a childish mind. She failed to understand his mind. As a psychiatrist, she failed in her duty. Of course, with the affair she crossed the line and betrayed her profession, along with the trust Peter had placed in her. Am I unfair to conclude that Ruth is not the woman I thought she was and that she is suffering from a troubled mind?”
I nodded. “I think you are fair to conclude that, yes.”
Henry Chancellor escorted me to my car. I opened the driver’s door and tossed my shoulder bag on to the passenger’s seat. Then I allowed myself one last look at the professor’s grand house. “What will you do now?” I asked while admiring the house.
“I will take early retirement. I work for pleasure, not for money. I have friends in America, astronomer friends. The NASA moon landings sparked my interest in astronomy. Over the years, I have had the good fortune to contribute to NASA’s exploration of space, in particular their Magellan Venus probe; I am something of an expert on Venus, you see. Did you know that Venus is the hottest planet in our Solar System due to its greenhouse effect, that stars are not visible from Venus because of its dense atmosphere, and that the sky above Venus offers a glorious orange glow...but I digress. I have received many invitations to work and lecture in America. Now, I will sell this house and retire to California, to study the stars.” Professor Henry Chancellor offered me a smile as warm and bright as a sunbeam; he was about to realise his dream and, in retirement, find contentment. “And you, Samantha,” he asked, “where do you go from here?”
I shrugged. “I guess I dust myself down and start all over again. Again.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I returned to my office where I found Marlowe asleep on my desk, in the space reserved for my computer; which reminded me, it was time to invest in some reliable technology. Reliable technology, is that a contradiction in terms?
I sat at my desk. I thought about Alan. I have no regrets, I lied to myself. I thought about phoning him...
“Hello, Alan, how are you?”
“Who’s that?”
“It’s me, Sam. You must remember me, I’m the woman who’s turned your life upside down, you know the woman who’s frightened that you might walk out of her life and leave her stranded, yet at the same time is scared that if she commits to you, you will turn into her ex-husband, Dan, and physically and emotionally abuse her, the woman who’s so tangled in her own thoughts she can’t think straight anymore, the woman who annoys the hell out of everyone she meets, the woman who...”
I sighed. Needless to say, I didn’t make the call.
Fifteen minutes later, I walked to the corner shop and bought the evening newspaper. I was snipping a news item from the paper, relating to the disappearance of a local prostitute, when I heard footsteps on the stairs. I looked up and smiled tentatively as Alan entered my office. He did not return my smile. In fact, he looked grim.
“Have you seen Alis?” he asked without any preamble.
“No, what’s happened?”
“She told me that she was spending the weekend with her friend, Melissa, and Melissa’s family. I phoned Alis, just to check up on her art class for next week, and she didn’t answer her phone. So I phoned Melissa and she told me that she had no plans for meeting up with Alis this weekend.” Alan shrugged his broad shoulders. His forehead creased with concern. “Alis has disappeared. I can’t find her anywhere.”
At my desk, my mind froze. My blood ran cold. I swallowed hard, then said, “It’s my fault.” I explained about the meeting with Vincent Vanzetti and Rudy Valentine. “Vanzetti threatened reprisals against Alis because I wouldn’t play ball. I should have told you, but I thought Vanzetti said those words in the heat of the moment. I never imagined that he would hurt Alis...”
Instinctively, I stared at Alan’s hands. He had every right to be angry with me; he had every right to beat me. I had placed his daughter in danger. I closed my eyes and prepared to receive my punishment. Seconds ticked by, maybe a minute. I opened my eyes. Alan was still standing in front of my desk. He looked worried, grim-faced, but not angry. His hands had not curled into fists.
“Do you know where Vanzetti lives?” Alan asked.
I blinked, releasing myself from the paralysis of fear. “Yes. St Donats.”
“Let’s go.”
Alan drove me to St Donats. During the eighteen-mile journey, my mind started to clear, and when we arrived at Vincent Vanzetti’s house, I found myself in the mood to face the mobster.
“Leave this to me,” I said to Alan, “this is my turf.”
I climbed out of Alan’s Jaguar XJ6, scaled Vanzetti’s boundary wall and made my way to his house. There was definitely a flaw in Vanzetti’s security system, but that was knowledge best kept to myself. At the front door, I leaned on the doorbell and, after an eye had blinked through the peephole, Vanzetti greeted me wearing a black tuxedo, a pink frilly shirt and a dapper bow tie.
“I’m on my way to the opera,” he sighed, “make this brief.” Then, as an afterthought, “How did you get in here?”
I ignored his question and said, “Alis Storey.”
“What?”
“Where is she?”
“What the hell...Come in.” Vanzetti opened his front door and I followed him into his playroom. The snooker balls had changed position and the darts were now in numbers ten, double eighteen and twenty, but little else had changed. “What the hell are you talking about?” Vanzetti asked, his glare suggesting that I was walking on stony ground.
“I’m looking for Alis Storey. If you’ve hurt her...”
“I haven’t seen no Alis Storey. I don’t know no Alis Storey. Who the hell’s Alis Storey?”
“You threatened reprisals against her, at the showdown with Rudy Valentine...”
Vanzetti waved a dismissive hand, a gesture of irritation and annoyance. “That was just hot air. What do you take me for; I wouldn’t harm an innocent kid. I spoke out in the heat of the moment.”
My accusation about Alis had offended him and his genuine anger revealed that he was telling the truth.
“I’m sorry,” I apologised. “But you did make the threat.”
Vanzetti shook his head. He gave me a dark look, a frown that combined suspicion with confusion. “I can’t work you out. Okay, you’re a bit thin, but you’ve curves in all the right places, you’ve a face that would grace the movies, and yet you dig around in all this dirt.”
“It stems from my childhood,” I explained, revealing a subconscious truth, “and my obsession with mud pies.”
If anything, the frown on Vanzetti’s forehead intensified, but he did have the good grace to escort me to his front door.
Before I set foot on his drive, I asked, “Did you resolve your issues with Valentine?”
He shr
ugged, then turned away, shamefaced. “Sort of.”
“What happened?”
“Lennie Pascoe stepped forward and challenged George. They went into the woods. George walked out, Lennie didn’t. The police won’t find Lennie. His body has been disposed of, the usual place; the authorities will never know.”
Yikes! The ‘usual place’. This man has his own, private graveyard.
“So Valentine wins,” I reasoned.
Vincent Vanzetti paused. He stroked his moustache then shrugged, “Like you said, when the bullets start to fly, no one wins.”
I nodded, then turned to walk down his cobblestoned drive.
“Hey,” Vanzetti called out as I approached his portcullis of a gate, “you’re still in my black books, I want you to know that.”
“I know,” I replied, glancing over my shoulder. “I’m in everyone’s black books. Infuriating little twerp, aren’t I?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Back in the car with Alan, I said, “Vanzetti says he didn’t harm Alis. I believe him.”
Alan nodded. He stared sightlessly through his windscreen, oblivious to the raindrops as they speckled the glass. “Where do we go from here?” he asked. “Maybe I should contact the police?”
“Let me have one more shot. Let’s have a look at Alis’ computer.”
We returned to the city, to St Fagans and Alan’s house. Alan found Alis’ computer in her room. We stared at the screen for a moment, trying to figure out a password, then Alan suggested, “Try Elin and her birth date, the 5th of January, 1974.”
I tapped the keys and discovered, unsurprisingly, that Alis had used her mother’s birth date as her password. I went straight to her social media folder and scanned her list of contacts. Alis had over two hundred people listed on her page, but one name stood out – Ritchie Szymczyk.
I pointed out the name to Alan and he asked, “Who’s Ritchie Szymczyk?”
“Come on. Let’s return to the car and I’ll show you.”
Following my instructions, Alan drove into the centre of the city, to Cathays and the Excelsior Hotel. As he drove, he glanced at me and asked, “What happened to your face?”
I touched my cheeks, then grimaced. “I had an argument with a wall, and a tangle of ivy; I’ll explain all later.”
We walked into the Excelsior, into the lobby and up to the receptionist, a young woman with a fixed smile and dyed blonde hair.
“My name’s Abigail Szymczyk,” I lied. “I’m looking for my brother, Ritchie. I have some bad news, about our mother...I think I should tell him in person...”
The receptionist stared at me through sympathetic blue eyes. Her smile dimmed as she checked the register. “Room 171. And I’m sorry,” she added, “about your mother.”
“It was expected,” I replied from over my shoulder while dragging Alan towards the lift.
In the lift, on our way up to Room 171, Alan turned to me and said, “Maybe you’d like to explain...”
“Ritchie Szymczyk is an alias. And for the past five years the man who uses that alias has been trying to get me to stay with him at this hotel.”
With a determined look on my face, I rapped on the door of room 171. There was no answer, so I knocked again, loudly this time.
After a pause and the popping of a champagne cork, the door opened and I glared at Mickey Anthony.
“Alis Storey.” I glanced over Mickey’s shoulder, but could see no sign of Alan’s daughter.
“Huh?” Mickey frowned. He was dressed, though his shirt was open to the navel and his hair was dishevelled.
“Where is she, Mickey?” I demanded.
“Look, Sam,” Mickey eased the door towards its frame in an attempt to shut me out, “this is not a good time. Maybe we can chat tomorrow.”
“I know she’s in there, Mickey.” I folded my arms across my chest and tapped my trainers on the plush purple carpet. As Rudy Valentine would say, ‘impasse’, I was not going anywhere.
Then, from the bathroom, Alis appeared dressed in a skimpy silk bathrobe, her beautiful face shrouded in bewilderment. “Ritchie...” she mumbled. Then, “Sam...” as she walked towards the door. Then, “Dad...” as I pushed the door open.
With a sigh of resignation, Mickey held up his hands and said, “You’d better come in.”
We entered the hotel room and discovered Alis’ clothes on the floor. Two glasses were full of champagne while the blemish from Alis’ lipstick kissed one of the glasses.
“What are you doing here, dad.” Alis frowned at her father. Adopting my earlier pose, she folded her arms across her chest then tapped her bare toes on the shag pile carpet. She was indignant. “Can’t I have five minutes of privacy?”
“You lied to me, Alis.” To my ears, Alan sounded amazingly calm, given the situation.
“A white lie,” she conceded.
“You’ve never lied to me before.”
“If I’d told you the truth, would you have let me spend the weekend with Ritchie?”
“His name isn’t Ritchie,” I interrupted.
Alis turned and glared at me. “What are you talking about, Sam?”
“I’ve known this man for five years; his name is Mickey Anthony. He’s a married man who likes to play the field.”
“Ritchie?” Alis looked on nonplussed. Despite the make-up and the fancy hairdo, she appeared innocent and lost; I found myself feeling very sorry for her.
“Tell her the truth, Mickey,” I insisted.
“Okay,” Mickey conceded, “my name is Mickey.” He walked over to Alis and placed his hands on her shoulders. He gazed into her eyes then added, “But that doesn’t alter the feelings I have for you.”
“That’s a line he trots out every week,” I said, “with a different girl every time.”
Alis shrugged her shoulders free from Mickey’s embrace. She drew her right arm back, then brought it forward with all the force she could muster. “You bastard!” she yelled as she slapped him across the face.
“Get dressed, then get in the car, Alis,” Alan ordered and, meekly, Alis retreated to the bathroom.
While Alis dressed and Mickey gulped champagne, I turned to Alan. “It’s not my place and I don’t want to interfere, but don’t be too hard on Alis. She made a mistake, but she’s bright enough to learn from her error. Don’t embarrass her further. Don’t make her resent you.”
“We’ll have words, but I promise you,” Alan reassured me, “I won’t go over the top.”
Fully clothed, and with tears streaking her face, Alis emerged from the bathroom. Alan took hold of her elbow and guided her towards the lift. At the door, he paused briefly to glance at Mickey Anthony. There were daggers in Alan’s eyes and I sensed that this was about as angry as he could get.
I gave Alan and Alis a moment to themselves. Sharing Alan’s anger, I turned on Mickey. “What do you think you were playing at? She’s only a kid.”
“She’s a woman,” Mickey insisted, “and I do love her.”
“You’re old enough to be her father!”
“Okay,” he conceded, his pleasant features slipping into a seductive grin, “so there is an age gap between us. But that doesn’t alter the feelings we have for each other.”
Mickey sipped his champagne. He offered me Alis’ glass, but I declined.
“You got us together, you know that?” he smiled while replenishing his glass.
“How?” I frowned.
“Social networking...I’m connected to you, you’re connected to her father, Alis is connected to her father, Alis’ name popped up in my list of possible contacts...”
“She hates you now,” I pointed out, my words designed to wipe the self-satisfied smile from Mickey’s face.
“That’s your fault, Sam,” he shrugged. After gazing into the depths of his champagne glass, he added, “Is that part of your psychosis? You’re unhappy, so you have to make everyone else unhappy.”
“I am not psychotic. I have fears, true, but there are logical explanat
ions for those fears.”
Mickey held up his left hand while his right hand weaved an imaginary bow. “Let me get my violin while you sing your song about your unhappy childhood.”
“What about your childhood, Mickey; what’s driven you to this point?”
At last, the smile slipped and I saw hatred in Mickey’s mischievous eyes. “I’m tired; you’d better leave.”
I waited, then glanced at the bed. “Don’t you want to invite me to stay the night?”
“Me and you are through, Sam.” Mickey slammed his champagne glass down on the bedside table. He turned away from me, offering his back. “No more favours from me, understand.”
“Suits me fine, Mickey, suits me fine.”
Chapter Thirty
Three days later, and with my new computer on order, I arrived at Alan’s house for dinner.
“Hi, Sam.” Alan greeted me at the door with a kiss on my cheek. “Glad you could make it.”
“How’s Alis?” I asked as I slipped out of my recently dry-cleaned trench coat.
“She’s in the living room; go see for yourself.”
I wandered, somewhat apprehensively, into Alan’s living room and found Alis sprawled on the sofa, listening to music on her personal computer. She glanced up at me, then removed her earphones from her ears.
“Hi,” I smiled, smoothing the back of my skirt, sitting in a chair opposite Alis.
“Hi.”
“How are you?”
“Okay,” she shrugged. Alis glanced down to her computer; she fiddled with her earphones, her eyes studiously avoiding my gaze. After she had tangled and untangled her earphones, she looked up and mumbled, “I guess I made a fool of myself.”
I shook my head and said, “I’m twice your age and twice the fool you’ll ever be.”
Alis gave me a shy smile, then she switched off her computer. She sat up straight on the sofa, her fingers toying nervously with her long, wavy hair.
