by Fiona Grace
Lacey highly doubted Beth would follow through with Turner’s instructions, even if she did have the grounds for it. He was clearly lashing out, since she’d damaged his ego. It was a shame he had it out for her, considering how much she’d actually helped him solve crimes.
DCI Lewis looked back at Lacey, her mouth hanging wide open. “I’m sorry about him. He’s being even crabbier than usual. This whole investigation is getting the better of him. He really ought to think about retiring soon.”
Lacey chuckled. “I think it hurts his pride that I’m quicker at his investigations than he is.”
Beth didn’t look impressed. “Well, you don’t do yourself any favors, do you?” She gestured to the Volvo. “Come on, let’s go.”
Lacey frowned. For the first time, she felt a niggle of worry that Beth might actually be about to follow Superintendent Turner’s outrages request and arrest her.
“You’re not actually going to book me, are you, Beth?” she asked.
But rather than answer in the negative, Beth scratched her neck awkwardly. “I don’t actually have a choice.”
“Wait,” Lacey said, shocked. “You mean you’re actually going to book me for… what was it … interfering in police business?”
“Karl’s my superior,” Beth replied. “He gave me a direct order. So … I guess I should tell you I’m commandeering your vehicle for police work. Shall we go?”
Lacey couldn’t believe it. “This is madness.”
But Beth was unrelenting. She gestured toward the Volvo. “Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”
Lacey, realizing she had no choice, relented with a sigh. “Fine. But let me drop Chester at home first, please? He hates the kennels at the station.”
DCI Lewis rolled her eyes. “You really should think about that before you take him out on your sleuths. Karl would like nothing more than to see that pooch impounded.”
Lacey slunk into the back of the Volvo, grateful for the small mercy that Beth was showing her. She patted Chester’s fur as they began her journey back to Wilfordshire, not to continue to the investigation as originally planned, but for the police station…
*
Lacey drummed her fingers nervously on the table in the dingy interview room of Wilfordshire station. It was chilly, now that evening was beginning to fall.
But at least she wasn’t in a cell. That meant Beth hadn’t actually booked her officially. Maybe she was holding out for Karl Turner to get back from his interview with Callum Pike and see sense—that arresting someone while they were simply walking their dog in a different part of town would look extremely bad for him, and entirely unjustifiable.
Just then, the door opened and Detective Lewis entered. She was holding a plastic vending machine cup with steam coiling out. “Hot chocolate,” she said, handing it to Lacey.
“Thanks,” Lacey replied. She wasn’t the biggest fan of the station’s vending machine beverages, but she was grateful for the warmth.
“So, Turner wants to charge you for defying police orders,” Beth said, taking the seat beside her.
“I thought he wanted to book me for interfering with police business,” Lacey replied.
“He did, but that was a non-starter for obvious reasons,” Beth replied. “So he changed to defying police orders, since you were specifically asked not to leave town.”
Lacey narrowed her eyes, curiously. “Why do I feel like there’s a but coming?”
Beth Lewis smirked. “But, the address you visited was technically in town. The outskirts of town, yes. But the postcode is a Wilfordshire one. Technically speaking, you haven’t done anything wrong.”
Lacey let out a long breath. “Thank goodness for that. I take it I have you to thank for checking the postcode…”
Beth nodded, once.
“I’ve seen the footage,” she added. “From your security cameras. I’m on your side. I don’t believe you were out to cheat anyone.”
“Thanks, Beth,” Lacey said, meaningfully. “I really appreciate it. Does that mean I can go now?”
“Yes,” Beth said, standing.
Lacey stood too.
“But Lacey,” Beth said. “You have to start playing by the rules. You have to keep your nose out of this. Let us handle the investigation.”
“With respect,” Lacey said, “you guys are always two steps behind me. And it’s my business on the line, not yours. I need this case solved as quickly as possible.”
“Just don’t leave town again,” Beth said. It was almost in a pleading tone. A sort of exasperation.
Lacey had no intentions of breaking the rules again. Or even bending them. She couldn’t afford to waste any more time sitting around in a police station, when Ronan’s killer was still out there on the loose. Not that she’d say that part aloud to Beth.
To Beth, she said simply, “I won’t.”
DCI Lewis gave her a nod, and both women motioned to the door, only for it to be suddenly flung open, and in marched … Frank?
“Excuse me!” Beth shouted. “Who are you?”
But at the same moment, Lacey shouted, “Dad! How did you get back here?”
Beth looked at her, surprised. “This is your dad?”
Lacey didn’t get a chance to explain. Frank was on a rampage.
“How dare you hold my daughter at the station like this?” he screamed. “It’s completely unwarranted!”
“We’re not holding her,” Beth tried to explain, but her words fell on deaf ears.
“I will sue you!” Frank cried.
Lacey’s cheeks burned with embarrassment. She took him by the arm and tugged him to the door. “Dad, there’s no need to sue anyone! I’ve not been arrested. I’m free to go. DAD!”
Frank stopped ranting. He looked at Lacey, huffing and puffing like a man coming back to his senses. “You’re allowed to go?”
“Yes,” she told him, firmly. “So let’s go.”
She ushered him toward the door, looking back over her shoulder at Beth as they went, and mouthed, Sorry!
DCI Lewis looked shocked, and Lacey couldn’t help but feel extremely embarrassed as she guided her father out of the station and for the car. She was desperate to get her dad out of sight, so she could take a moment to calm down from the humiliation.
But no sooner had they left the station than they bumped right into Tom, racing up the steps. Right away, Frank’s demeanor changed. He fell silent and glowered at Tom, folding his arms angrily.
“Lacey?” Tom cried with anguish, as he reached her and hugged her tightly. “Are you okay? What’s going on? Where’s Chester?” He looked painfully concerned.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Lacey told him, reassuringly. “Chester’s at the cottage. We’re both fine.”
“Fine?” Frank piped up. “The cops arrested you unjustly!”
“They didn’t arrest me,” Lacey told him for the millionth time. “It was just a misunderstanding.”
“Huh,” Frank scoffed. “They had her in a holding room! Goodness knows what would have happened if I’d not come along when I did. And where were you?” He was looking at Tom now, as if directing the same fury he had previously had toward Beth onto a new target: her fiancé. “You’re supposed to protect her!”
“How is this anything to do with me?” Tom replied, affronted.
It wasn’t often that Tom lost his cool, but Lacey could tell Frank was pressing his buttons. Indeed, he’d been pushing them ever since he arrived in Wilfordshire. There was only so much pressure one man could take. Or one woman, come to think of it. Lacey felt like she herself was on the verge of losing her cool.
“Can we please just go?” she said. “I hate to leave Chester alone.”
“Yes, let’s go,” Tom said, putting his arm around her shoulder. “The car’s just around the corner.”
“Let’s take my van,” Frank said.
“I think my car will be more comfortable,” Tom replied.
“I have my own car,” Lacey told them. T
his was the last thing Lacey needed, Tom and Frank butting heads again over something petty. And on the steps of Wilfordshire police station, no less. “I can drive myself.”
They fell silent as they descended the steps. Only when they reached the bottom, Frank attempted to loop his arm through Lacey’s, directly muscling Tom out of the way. Poor Tom was so taken by surprise by Frank’s rude and uncalled for intrusion, he lost his footing and bashed his ankle on the step as he stumbled.
“Ow!” he cried, hopping in pain.
That was it. Lacey had reached the end of her tether. All the small frustrations that had been bubbling up ever since her father had come to stay came racing suddenly to the surface.
She wrenched her arm free from her father and turned on the spot, glowering at him.
“Lacey, what’s wrong?” he said at the sight of her expression.
“You!” she cried. “You’re what’s wrong!”
Frank looked stunned. He opened his mouth but Lacey didn’t give him a chance to speak.
“You push my husband-to-be on the ground, you plant spy cameras in my store, you yell at my friends! I didn’t find you after all these years so you could treat me like I was twelve. I just wanted to get to know you…” She’d spent so many months searching for him and wanting him back, yet she’d had no idea it would be like this, that after being gone for decades he’d try and make up for all his lost daughter-disciplining time in just a few days. “You can’t just walk back into my life like nothing’s happened! You can’t just be a dad when it’s convenient!”
Frank looked stunned. He took a step back. “That’s what Naomi said, too,” he replied, sullenly.
Then he turned and headed off into the dusk, leaving Lacey floundering.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
As the sound of Frank’s cattle truck rumbled into the distance, Lacey felt a terrible, awful feeling of guilt and shame overcome her.
“Tom, I feel so bad,” Lacey said, turning back to her fiancé.
He was now sitting on the steps of the station, rubbing his sore ankle. “You lost your temper, that’s all,” he said, looking up at her. “It happens to the best of us.”
Lacey came and slumped down onto the step next to him. “But I snapped at my dad!” she exclaimed. “I should’ve told him how I felt before I let it get to that point.”
Tom reached an arm around her, rubbing her shoulder affectionately. “What’s done is done. No point lamenting on what could have been done differently now.”
“I need to phone Naomi,” Lacey said, suddenly.
Tom frowned. “Why?”
“You heard what Dad said. Naomi said the same thing to him as me. I hadn’t realized they’d been communicating. Besides, she hasn’t spoken to me since the whole laundry room fiasco. She’s really fragile when it comes to Dad. I knew him suddenly appearing out of the blue would affect her badly, but what if it’s worse than I originally thought? I need to know what she said to him. She might have told him to…go.” She felt tears begin to collect in her eyes as she looked mournfully out toward the spot Frank had last stood, recalling the look of hurt in his eyes when she’d spat her cruel words out at him. “What if he’s gone for good? What if that was the last thing I ever said to him? What if I never see him again?”
“It was one argument,” Tom tried to reassure her.
“Sure, maybe to a stable person it would be,” she cried emphatically. “But this is my dad we’re talking about. The guy who disappeared for thirty years! Remember?”
Tom looked perplexed. “Then call Naomi, if you think it will help. I don’t see how, though.” Then he stood, as if to leave.
Lacey frowned up at him. “You’re going?”
“You don’t need me to sit here listening to one half of your conversation,” he replied, simply. “And you said yourself that you have your car here, so it’s not like we’re driving back together anyway.” He shrugged.
“So you’re leaving?” Lacey cried, staring up at him with shock. “Just like that. When I just told you I think my dad might have walked out on me again? Now, you suddenly have somewhere else to be?”
She couldn’t believe it. She was hurt. Beyond hurt. She was shocked and confused, and deeply offended.
Tom leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “…I’ll speak to you later.”
And with that, he walked away.
*
Lacey felt utterly dejected as she got into her car and drove the short distance home, her mind ticking over the stressful events outside the police station. The fight with her dad had been horrible, and now Tom had suddenly abandoned her too. Added to that was the case, which continued to perplex her. She was starting to feel like it would never be solved.
It was dark as she pulled up to Crag Cottage. Her father’s cattle van, as she suspected, was not in the driveway. A horrible, hollow feeling opened in her stomach that Frank really had left for good.
“Chester?” she called out, as she entered her home.
She heard a bark of greeting coming from some distant part of the house, and a moment later Chester appeared at the end of the corridor. He came bounding toward her, greeting her with a wagging tail and plenty of head-boops.
“At least I can count on you,” Lacey said, feeling truly grateful, as she scratched him behind the ears.
Chester wove his way through her legs as she trudged wearily into the living room, sank into the couch, and pulled her cell phone from her pocket. She took a deep, steadying breath, then called Naomi.
Her sister picked up the call after a couple of rings.
“Hey,” she said, despondently.
“Are you okay?” Lacey asked, immediately feeling bad for not having made this call earlier, for getting so distracted by her own troubles she’d failed to support Naomi with hers.
“I’m fine,” Naomi replied, sounding anything but. “You?”
“I’ve been better,” Lacey admitted. “Hey look, I wanted to ask you a question. Have you spoken to Dad since the weird speaker-call family reunion?”
“Why don’t you ask him?” Naomi replied, thinly. “Since you two are such great chums now.”
Lacey winced. She knew her sister was pissed, but it still hurt to hear the pain in her voice. “He’s not here… right now,” she explained. “So? Have you talked?”
Naomi sighed loudly. “He called me earlier today.”
The swirling fear in Lacey’s stomach grew stronger. “And what did you talk about?”
“What do you think we talked about?” Naomi snapped. “I told him to leave me alone. I told him you were the one who wanted to find him, not me. That I’d coped perfectly well without him since I was five years old, and that he couldn’t be my dad now that it was convenient.”
Lacey’s chest sank. Her fears were true. Both she and Naomi had both blown up at him, had told him he couldn’t be a dad now just because it was convenient. What were the chances that Frank would get over this and choose to stay in their lives? Or would he take the easy way out and disappear, just as he had before, the moment things got tough?
“Look, Naomi,” Lacey said through a weary exhale. “I’m really sorry about this whole thing. I didn’t mean to spring it on you. Mom kind of caught me off guard.”
“How long have you been looking for him?” Naomi asked.
“Ever since I moved to Wilfordshire,” Lacey admitted.
Naomi was silent for a moment. Lacey decided not to jump in; it was best to give her the space to think things through.
“I just wish you’d told me before,” Naomi replied. “Because you’re getting married next month, and I’m going to have to face him whether I’m ready to or not.”
Lacey’s hold of the phone tightened as she thought, sadly, that the likelihood her father was still going to walk her down the aisle had diminished. It was not something she was willing to admit out loud.
“I’m sorry,” was all Lacey could say.
“Look, I have to go,” Naomi said then, and
a moment later the call cut out.
Lacey sighed heavily and sank back into the couch. Chester rested his head in her lap, whining as if in sympathy.
It was at that moment that Lacey spotted something unusual; her laptop, sitting half open on the coffee table, whirring away. She was always careful to turn it off, to save on electricity and the environment. Her father must have been in here using it when she’d dropped Chester off earlier. She’d not realized, since she hadn’t actually come inside the house, rather opening the door with her key and shooing the pooch inside before locking up again. No wonder her dad was so confused at the station—he must’ve seen Lacey being accompanied by a detective and gotten the wrong idea. In fact, he must’ve abandoned whatever activity he’d been in the middle of to come to her aid. The thought only made Lacey feel worse about the events that had then transpired.
Curious, she grabbed her laptop and opened the lid fully. The screen pinged on and a website popped up before her eyes. It appeared to belong to some kind of chemical company.
Lacey frowned. Why was her father researching chemicals?
Then she froze, as a dawning overcame her. Frank hadn’t been researching chemicals per se, but the chemicals used in the composition of paper. And lying on the coffee table, beneath where the laptop had previously been, was a fax.
Lacey snatched up the paper and gasped with surprise. “Chester! This is it! The report from Lord Fairfax’s private authenticator!”
Chester’s head sprang up and he barked in response to her sudden enthusiasm.
“Hounslow must’ve faxed it through while I was out,” Lacey continued. “And Dad took it upon himself to do some research…”
Her stomach clenched again. So, not only had her father stopped his task to come and rescue her from the station, but the task he’d been in the middle of was for her in the first place! Now she felt doubly terrible about the argument.
But she pushed her feelings aside and quickly read the report.
In order to maintain good writing quality with ink, Victorian paper required the presence of additional chemicals to give a degree of water resistance. This was achieved by adding a compound of rosin mixed with alum. Indeed, this remained common practice until 1980, some one hundred years following Queen Victoria’s death, until the manner of production was switched to chalk instead of china clay as filler. Today, mainly AKD (alkyl ketene dimer) and ASA (alkenyl succinic anhydride) are used. As the paper analyzed showed the presence of AKD, we conclude it is entirely incompatible with the type of paper Queen Victoria would have written on, and thus indicates the forgery was produced some time after 1980.
