by Anita Waller
Mouse struggled to find anything about Michael Damms for the first two years after he graduated, but then he arrived on the scene once more, as a pharmacist in one of his friend’s shops.
Damms had been married, but Mouse easily tracked down the wedding and divorce dates, five years apart, almost to the day. He hadn’t re-married since.
It seemed that he was still employed by Anthony Jackson, deceased, and she wondered who would be taking over the set up. She would have to check on wills; she suspected Michael Damms might feature in it somewhere.
She left him alone once she had the basic information and moved on to Isla Norman.
‘Take a break, Mouse,’ her nan instructed. ‘Just ten minutes, go for a walk around the garden, give your brain and your eyes a rest.’
Mouse smiled. ‘I will. You coming with me?’
‘We’ll all go, have ten minutes in the summer house,’ Kat said. ‘And you can tell me what you’re beavering away at. I wish I could help, but I can’t.’
‘Leave it to us,’ Mouse said. ‘And unless something is glaringly obvious, this information we’re gathering is for our eyes only. Tessa Marsden gave us nothing this morning, in fact our statements were taken, and she’d gone within a quarter of an hour. What was that about? So whatever we discover is for us. We can talk about what to do with it when we’ve collated everything.’
They linked arms to head down the garden, both of them supporting Doris, who was being careful with her damaged leg.
They settled around the little table, and Kat lit the citronella candle. ‘I’ve no idea if this actually does keep bugs away, but it looks nice,’ she said, looking up at the grey sky. The sun had been missing today, and the bottom end of the garden was dark anyway, with the tree canopy behind the summer house.
‘So,’ Kat said, ‘fill me in on what you’re doing, what you’ve found out. And tell me what I can do. And then tell me why we’re doing anything when we have a police force who seem to be working on it anyway.’
Mouse stared at Kat. ‘You think they’ll find out what I can find out? Or what Nan can find out? The top levels in the force, the IT section, probably could, but ordinary detectives, not an earthly. What I’m doing is kinda… illegal, I think is the right word. I can dig deep, I can hack, and so can Nan. Everything I’ve found out, the school stuff, isn’t freely available, and I promise to wipe everything when we’ve found out who the little turd was who saw my knickers without my permission in that back alley. This is personal, Kat, and he’ll know about it when I have his name.’
‘So what have you done to trace him?’
‘I’ve gone back into Anthony’s school life, tracked down seven people he kept in touch with after school and university, and now I’m looking at their lives. It won’t happen overnight, because I have to be careful, leaving no trace of where I’ve been, and Nan’s looking at Anthony’s business in much the same way.’
‘Have I met up with the two cleverest people on this planet?’
‘Course you have.’ Mouse’s laughter was infectious. ‘Horses for courses, Kat, I couldn’t stand up in that church on Sunday and give a sermon. We all have our different talents.’
‘Yes, but I can’t do anything to help.’
‘You saved my life! And you’ve given Nan and me a home while we recover. You think that’s not helping? And you’re a listener. That’s a massive thing. I can talk things through, knowing you’ll have on your sensible head, and you’ll point me in the right direction. So don’t knock your gifts, Kat. I can’t listen, I talk too much and interrupt people constantly.’
‘She’s quite right about that,’ Nan said quietly, a smile on her face. ‘Never been any different.’
Chapter 18
‘So has anything jumped out?’ Kat asked.
‘Not yet. I’ve done some pretty close checking into the first one on the list, a Michael Damms, who is a long-time friend of Anthony’s and a pharmacist in one of his shops. Anthony’s funeral is tomorrow, at your church, isn’t it? I imagine Damms will be there.’ Mouse pushed back her hair, tucking it behind her ears.
‘It is tomorrow, but I’m not taking it. It was felt it wouldn’t be appropriate. Should we go as mourners? We’ll have to tell Leon, I think he was going to show his face, and he’ll not be happy if we turn up and he didn’t know we were going.’
‘Good plan. If we mingle, I’m sure we’ll find out who this Damms fellow is, maybe get an up-to-date photo of him. We need a big scrapbook or something, to keep our information in one place.’
Kat smiled. ‘I don’t think Leon would appreciate a big board in the dining room with pictures of potential murderers stuck up on it. I’m sure I’ve got something we can use. I’ve a fair-sized stationery cupboard we can raid.’
They sat in near silence for a few minutes, listening to the gentle sound of the birds and the cascade of the stream, now flowing more strongly after the torrential rain brought on by the storm.
‘What if we set this up as an office,’ Nan suggested. ‘Or even my bedroom? It’s big enough. And Leon won’t see anything then. What he doesn’t see can’t upset him, can it?’ There was a definite twinkle in her eye.
‘You’re right. If we’re going to be printing off some stuff, we need it away from prying eyes, because he won’t approve of us getting involved. What do you need?’
‘Couple of small tables. Ordinary chairs will do. It’s not as though this is a lifetime thing, we’re just trying to find one man who attacked my granddaughter. We can use the top drawer of that massive chest of drawers for putting anything in we don’t want on display. Leon could come into the kitchen at any time, and he’d blow a fuse if he thought we were still involved, especially after yesterday. The awful thing is he’s in the right. We were in danger, and Mouse particularly.’
Kat stood. ‘Right, tea break over. I’ll go and find some sort of table. Get you two techno kids set up. And I’ll tell Leon later we’re going to the funeral so that you can see if anything jogs your memory.’
Doris held up her hand. ‘Can we just bear in mind that the killer could be there, and he’s looking for Mouse. He might not know where she is at the moment, but he can soon work it out if he sees us.’
‘Then we’ll not go together. I’ll keep away from you two.’ Kat’s brain was in overdrive trying to work out the logistics.
‘It would be better if I didn’t go,’ Doris said. ‘I’m a bit immobile currently, as you know, and to be honest I stand out with all this bandage stuff, so I’ll stay home. You two can walk down and back, can’t you? Just do it separately, or go down early and wait in the church. It won’t seem odd Kat being in there anyway. Can you follow the stream from the bottom of the village, Kat? Maybe that’s the way Mouse could get back here, and you walk up the road.’
Kat acknowledged the sense in the plan. ‘It’s actually quite a pleasant walk, following the side of the stream. Can be a bit muddy in places, but it shouldn’t be too bad.’
By three, they had moved everything up to Doris’s room, and Kat had ordered a new printer. ‘We can’t really take Leon’s,’ she said with a laugh. ‘He might think we’re up to something. This one will be here tomorrow. Are you okay up here?’
They both held up a thumb, intent on what they were doing.
Isla Norman, the second on Mouse’s list, proved to have a husband and two children. She was called Isla Yardley, married to a haulage contractor and living in Stoney Middleton. It seemed she hadn’t gone on to university, had started work at the haulage company when she was sixteen and ultimately had tied the knot with the boss’s son, Gerry. Nice one, Mouse thought. She had remained in Anthony’s life through her husband; Gerry and Anthony played in the same cricket team.
Mouse tried hard to find additional information on her, but it seemed the idyllic life she had garnered suited her, and the contact with Anthony once school was over for them was minimal.
She put Isla on a backburner; sometimes the hairs standing up on the nape of
her neck meant something, and she knew she would return to this woman, or her husband.
Mouse relaxed in her chair for a moment – how had Kat managed to find two typists chairs in the house without stepping foot outside the door? – and let her thoughts roam. She felt she knew the name Peter Swift, but pinning it down to why she knew it wasn’t happening.
Peter Swift… Swift… This was somehow connected with her dad, and she couldn’t bring it to mind. Had her parents known him? They’d both been dead nearly five years so she could hardly ask them, but she tried to bring her dad’s voice into her mind. Peter Swift?
Mouse decided to leave the thought meandering around her head, and moved on to number four. Keith Lancaster. She almost felt she could write him off when she discovered he had emigrated to Australia, but she persevered. Just in case, she told herself, just in case.
He had been very much in Anthony Jackson’s life until three years earlier, when he had left his homeland. He had worked for Anthony in an administrative position, and when she checked his bank statements she saw he had been on a hefty salary, whatever his admin role had been. What had made him leave such a generous employer? She saved copies of the bank statements, ready for printing when the new printer arrived, then came out of the website. She didn’t like going into bank’s websites, too much hard work.
Mouse knew Keith Lancaster would bear deeper scrutiny; leaving for Australia, on the surface, didn’t seem like a sensible plan, so what had made him leave? She would need to check if he had family there, if there had been some pressing personal reason for travelling all those miles, or if he had to leave for some other reason.
He wasn’t the murderer, she acknowledged that, but had he had some connection to the taxi driver?
She pushed her pen behind her ear, and took a deep breath.
Typing in Oliver Merchant’s name, still puzzling over why Peter Swift linked to her dad, Mouse discovered that Oliver Merchant was no more. He had taken one of Derbyshire’s many bends too fast, once too often. She tutted when she saw he had written off a Ferrari in the process of losing his life. She made a note to go check out his headstone after seeing he was buried in Eyam churchyard.
Kat was sitting quietly in the corner of the room, her Bible open and a notepad by her side. She had a Bible Study course coming up, and had decided it was a good time to get in front with the six-week event.
‘Peter Swift,’ Mouse said and closed her eyes.
‘What?’ Kat swivelled round to see Mouse’s head resting on the back of the chair.
‘Peter Swift,’ Mouse repeated.
‘Footballer, plays for Stoke City, I think. Is that what you wanted to know? He still plays for them, if I’m remembering correctly.’ Kat frowned, trying to remember if there was anything else she knew about him.
‘He was a footballer your dad met at some point, and he really admired him. Don’t you remember?’ Doris said.
Mouse’s face lit up. ‘Of course I do. I knew I’d heard the name somewhere, and it was something to do with Dad. He was definitely in Anthony’s life in his late twenties, so I’ll look him up. Thank you, ladies.’
She recognised there would be quite a lot of information on Peter Swift, so left him till the end. Caroline Phillips was next on her list.
Mouse gasped aloud when the picture of Caroline came through.
Chapter 19
Caroline Phillips, nee Boldock, born 23 May 1986, Rotherham, South Yorkshire. The picture was of the girl Mouse knew as Caroline Boldock, the same one she had accompanied on a couple of occasions when they had to double up as escorts.
Caroline Phillips? Surely she hadn’t married. Mouse had thought they were around the same age; it came as something of a shock to realise she was thirty, not twenty as Mouse had thought, wrongly assuming a shared university life meant a similar age. She followed the routes she had taken to find information on the others on her list, and all became clear. Caroline’s father, Clive Boldock, had died when Caroline was only ten years old, and her mother had subsequently re-married. Caroline had changed her name by deed poll to Phillips, her stepfather’s name. She had presumably used her original name for her escort life.
Mouse pulled some paper towards her and made notes. She was getting confused; Caroline Boldock seemed to have thrown a bit of a spanner in the works, because it seemed that everyone on the list had actually been in the same class throughout their school life. What linked them now? Knowledge? Of what?
Mouse leaned back and closed her eyes, letting her thoughts wander.
‘What are you working through?’ Kat’s voice interrupted her thinking.
‘They’re all the same age, all eight of them, including Anthony. Did something happen at school that bound them together?’
‘You okay, Mouse?’ Doris asked.
‘I’m fine. Just needed to stretch. Let me talk through what I’ve managed to find out, and find out very easily.’
She outlined the seven people on her list, saying she still had one to check, Peter Swift. All seven had gone to school and been in the same class as Anthony Jackson. After leaving school they had lived separate lives, but had kept in touch; all of them, including the deceased Oliver Merchant.
‘Something kept them together, something or someone they knew, possibly. None of the names or the photographs mean a thing to me, so I’m not convinced any of them could be the one who attacked me.’
‘Should we pass this information on to DI Marsden?’ Kat asked.
Mouse grinned. ‘No, Kat, we can’t do that.’
Kat thought for a moment and then quietly said, ‘Oh.’
‘Kat, we’re on our own with this. I want my time with this man who tried to kill me, before DI Marsden gets what’s left of him. And when I go for him, there’ll be no bullets involved. Leon may have given us a gun, but we won’t need that.’
‘So what will you need?’ Kat discomfort was showing in her voice.
‘A black belt,’ Mouse said quietly.
‘And we don’t need to buy one,’ Doris spoke equally quietly, although pride in her granddaughter showed in the way she looked at Mouse.
‘You have a black belt?’ Kat’s surprise showed in the way she raised her eyebrows.
Mouse smiled. ‘I do. I’ve been attending karate lessons ever since I could walk. Mum and Dad wanted me to be able to protect myself. I don’t think they ever thought for a minute that it would be from a bullet, but I’m getting the use of my shoulder back, and while I think I would struggle at the moment if any attack came, give me a couple of weeks and I’ll be as good as I ever was. Which is bloody good.’
‘Mouse Walters, you’re an amazing woman,’ Kat said. ‘Can I learn?’
Mouse laughed aloud. ‘Of course you can learn, but you’d never use what you’d learnt. You’re too nice, Kat, you’d probably say a prayer for your assailant before you lifted an arm.’
Kat sighed. ‘Am I really so obviously useless?’
‘No, you’re the brains of this outfit. You’re the thinker.’
With Leon’s arrival, the three women relocated downstairs. Nothing was said about what they had discovered, and they opted for pizza for their evening meal, to save anyone having to cook.
Sitting out on the patio listening to the trickling water and the evening sounds of the village, they felt at peace.
‘I’m going to the funeral tomorrow,’ Leon casually remarked.
‘So are Mouse and I,’ Kat just as casually answered.
‘What?’
‘We’re going. Mouse needs to view the mourners, see if she recognises anyone, a stance, a way of walking, anything at all she can pass on to the police. We have to give it a go, Leon, whether you agree or not. There are five people dead now, two of them children. Doris will stay here, she needs to rest. We’ll only be away an hour or so, she’ll be fine.’
Leon wasn’t convinced he liked this attitude coming from his wife. ‘I don’t think you should go. What if the killer is there, he’ll see Beth and kn
ow she’s with you.’ He was steadfastly refusing to call her Mouse.
‘No he won’t. We won’t be together during the service and interment, and afterwards Mouse will come back here using the path at the side of the stream. I’ll come home using the main road.’
‘I’m not happy.’ His eyes flashed at his wife, and she smiled.
‘I knew you wouldn’t be, but it’s my decision, Leon, so forget it. I’ll have you there anyway, won’t I? You’ll be my protector. Stop worrying, it’s just an exercise really in trying to see a stranger who could have killed the poor man. Mouse and I know we’re not likely to see him, because we don’t really think he would be that stupid. He’ll know there’ll be a police presence, so that makes it safe, I reckon.’
‘Let’s hope he thinks like that. He’s not that bright, he’s had three goes at killing Beth, and he must be feeling desperate. Don’t you realise he thinks she can identify him.’ He looked directly at Mouse. ‘Can you?’
‘Not yet. And that’s the truth, Leon, but what’s also the truth is that I think I’ve seen him before. I thought it when Anthony and I got into that blessed taxi, and I couldn’t put my finger on who he was then. But I will remember, one day.’
Leon sighed. ‘You three women scare me. Can I trust you to leave this to the police, and not go investigating this yourself?’
They nodded, their faces serious.
He hoped he could believe them.
Chapter 20
The skies were cloudy, but the weather forecast had showed no rain was imminent. It was warm, and as Kat headed for the church, she was thankful she’d worn her ordinary clothes.
She saw several people as she walked down the main road, and they all asked if she was taking the service. They knew of the part she had played in finding the body, and she had to explain several times why she wasn’t officiating, before reaching the sanctuary of the church.
