A Dish Served Cold

by Diney Costeloe

  The first thing to do would be to get the police off his back. If only she could find out where Pam was hiding. She’d drawn a blank with the old address book, and when she’d found the up-to-date book in the telephone-table drawer, Sylvia Durston wasn’t even listed in it. If necessary, Karen thought, she could go to Stone Winton, but it might not be necessary if her other plan, Plan B, worked properly.

  She was implementing Plan B now and was on her way to go shopping in Oxford Street. Surely the best way to prove that Pam was still alive, was to activate the new debit card. She had signed the new card herself. Papers in Pam’s bureau had furnished her with a signature to copy, and it was a fairly straight forward Pamela Smith, but she’d practised the signature several times before she’d signed. The problem was the pin number, but she’d found an entry in an old diary in the desk. It said Nathan West 2404. Surely that must be it…typical Pammy, Karen thought, couldn’t even think of a safe way to remember her pin! Nat West!

  I’ll try it in a hole in the wall first, Karen thought, and if it works I’m away.

  By the time she arrived at Paddington Karen had decided what to do. She found an ATM and tried the card using the 2404 pin. It worked, so she checked the balance, which looked fairly healthy, and drew fifty pounds.

  Her plan was to buy a day ticket for the tube, using the card. Then she would buy several different items from various shops, perhaps have a meal paying by card, so that it looked as if Pam had spent the day enjoying herself in London.

  She struggled down into the tube and went to the ticket office where, with no trouble at all, she bought herself a day ticket.

  The day was sunny and warm when she emerged at Oxford Circus and started to wander up Oxford Street window shopping. As she passed a boutique called Grosvenor’s she saw attractive leather handbags in the window and decided this was it. It was the sort of thing Pam might buy. She wandered into the shop and began looking round. It was not the sort of shop she would normally frequent, there was no blasting pop music, no rails crammed with cheap and cheerful fashion. It was not crowded with girls and young women rattling the coat-hangers along the rack as they sorted out the best bargains and matched tops to skirts and trousers. But it was busy, there were enough people browsing, several of them Karen’s age, so that she didn’t stand out. Grosvenor’s sold accessories; smart leather belts and interesting costume jewellery. Disembodied hands displayed gloves and handbags, silk scarves hung from white trellis and there was a corner devoted to hats. Karen walked round slowly, studying the displays. She tried on several hats, posing in front of the mirror so see how each suited her. Most were frivolous, summer creations perched on their stands like so many brightly coloured birds; some were cartwheels decked with flowers, others only dinner-plates. A few were simpler and it was finally one of these that Karen picked. A plain hat of pale green straw with a simple band of daisies. She didn’t like it at all, but she thought it was the sort of thing Pam might have bought. A smart handbag in blue suede caught her eye. It had a fringed strap and decorative stitching and was much more her own style, so she decided to have that too. Taking both to the counter to pay, she had to wait for two other customers in front. She glanced round anxiously, but the shop was filling up with summer tourists and there was no reason to think any of the staff would remember her. When her turn came she waited as the assistant swiped the card through the machine and then asked for her pin. As the machine squawked and chattered Karen found she’d been holding her breath and she let it out surreptitiously. The machine spewed out the receipt and the sales girl passed across the stylish Grosvenor’s carrier bag containing the hat and handbag. She then turned her attention to the next customer and Karen beat a hasty retreat. She moved hurriedly away to mingle with the crowds who thronged the street in the summer sunshine, but there was no hand on her arm, or shout behind her. No one showed the least interest in her.

  As she wandered along amid the crowd of Saturday shoppers, Karen began to enjoy herself. She was tempted to go into her favourite shops, all represented here, but she knew they were not the sort of shops Pam would use and she had to remember it was Pam’s day in London she was setting up. She paused outside Marks and Spencer, and thought, This should be safe enough.

  Pushing her way through the crowds, she went to the lingerie department and bought herself some underwear. The card went straight through and Karen went swiftly out into the street. Her nerves were settling now and she decided to buy one more thing before going to find some lunch.

  Passing a music store she paused again. A compact disc would be nice and there was no reason why Pam might not buy one. The store was crammed with people and there were long queues at the checkouts. Karen fingered her way through the racks of discs and finally chose two CDs she’d wanted for some time. Taking them to the checkout she had to wait some minutes as the harassed staff dealt with the impatient queues which continued to build. When she reached the head of the queue she discovered the reason. The credit card machine was broken and Karen had to sign the receipt. She was being pushed from behind as she scrawled the signature and elbowed aside by the next customer almost before she could gather up the bag containing her purchase.

  Outside in the street once more she felt it was time to look for a nice busy pub where she could have a snack, where no one would pay any attention to her or remember her afterwards. She would continue her walk up Oxford Street and hope to find a pub in a side street somewhere. She felt relaxed now, her purchases all slipped into the big Grosvenor’s bag, and she hardly noticed the woman a little ahead of her. The woman stopped in front of a shoe shop and Karen, who hadn’t been looking where she was going, walked straight into her knocking a parcel out of her hands.

  “Hey, look where you’re going,” the woman said angrily, turning towards Karen as she bent to pick up the parcel. For a moment the two of them stared at each other stunned and then the woman snatched up her parcel and turned away. Karen snapped out of her surprise and grabbed the woman by the arm.

  “Pam!” she cried. “Pam Smith. Wait. I must talk to you.”

  The woman tried to pull away, saying, “Let go! Let go of me. I don’t know who you are. Let go!” She jerked her arm free and began to hurry away.

  Karen was after her in a flash, shouting, “It is you, Pam. I’d know you anywhere. Pam, wait, we must talk.” She grasped Pam’s arm again, but the woman turned on her, speaking viciously through her teeth. “Get away. Leave me alone. I don’t know who you think I am, but I don’t know you and my name isn’t Pam.”

  She pulled free of Karen’s grasp and stepping out into the road hailed a passing taxi. Giving the driver some murmured directions, she climbed into the cab and Karen was left on the pavement, watching the taxi disappear into the traffic.

  The whole episode had taken only a matter of seconds and as Karen stood, rooted to the spot, the other Saturday shoppers and tourists swirled round her like water parting round a rock in a stream.

  “She didn’t want to know you, but I’d sure like to.” The nasal American voice brought her sharply back to where she was and she looked round to find a small, dark-haired man standing beside her and smiling ingratiatingly. For a moment Karen looked at him blankly and then said, “What?”

  “I’d sure like to get to know you,” the American repeated and holding out his hand went on, “Wendell Harwood.”

  Karen looked at the outstretched hand and said, “Oh, fuck off.”

  Turning on her heel she strode away into the crowd, ducking into Selfridges and hoping he wouldn’t follow her. She slipped into the ground floor coffee bar and flopped down at a table to consider what to do next. As she drank her cappuccino and ate her Danish pastry, she relived the encounter. She had been certain at the time that it was Pam, but if it were, she had looked very different from the Pam whom Karen had known all her life. Her hair, a delightful mixture of blondes, had been expensively and stylishly cut. Her face had been carefully made up, the eyes startlingly bright beneath the artful
eye shadow, and the hand which had gathered up her parcel from the ground has been well manicured, with pearl pink nail polish and shapely nails. Pam had never had a manicure in her life; she seldom wore make up of any sort and never, as far as Karen could recall, eye shadow, not even blue. Her hair, always cut in an nondescript style, was mouse liberally streaked with grey, making her look older than her years. How old was she? Karen wondered. Forty-three or forty-four? She couldn’t remember, but this woman had looked younger; she had seemed feisty in her response to Karen’s approach, she certainly wasn’t like the mousy creature Karen had despised for so long. And yet…

  I’ve lived with her for almost nineteen years, Karen thought, and though she’s changed, I know it was her. I just know it was. Dad said she was different when she came back that night for the pearls and he must have been right. The old Pammy I knew would never have fought him like she did, nor taken his car. But this one? I can believe she would. And then there was her voice, certainly not the quiet, placating tones of Cardiff Road Pam, but even so there was a familiarity about it.

  Karen thought again of how their eyes had met for the that instant, and she knew she had seen the recognition in the other woman’s. She had not been wrong about that. The woman had recognised her, and for a split second she had let it show. Karen knew she wasn’t mistaken; the more she thought about it, the more positive she became that the woman she had just encountered was indeed her missing stepmother. For a moment her heart leapt. Now she could tell the police that she’d seen Pam, literally bumped into her into her, in Oxford Street. Her father would be off the hook, they would have to admit he had done nothing to harm his wife, that it was simply as he had said, she had left him. Then another more unwelcome thought struck Karen. How on earth would she make them believe her? How was she ever going to prove that she’d seen Pam? Depressed, her shopping spree ruined by the chance encounter, Karen headed back to Paddington to take the train home.

  It was while she was on the train that the idea came to her. She could tell the police she’d seen Pam coming out of Grosvenor’s carrying a Grosvenor’s carrier bag. They would check with the staff there and discover that Pam had used her debit card. They’d be able to check it with the bank, and the records of all the sales would be there.

  “Yes,” she exclaimed, clenching her fists in delight. “Yes!”

  When Karen got back to Bristol, she went straight round to Cardiff Road to tell Roger about her trip to London and how she had met Pam.

  “It was definitely her, Dad,” she told him. “She pretended not to recognise me, well she would, wouldn’t she?” Seeing the doubt on her father’s face she went on, “But it was definitely her. She’s changed, mind. Tarted herself up a lot…had her hair dyed and her nails done, that sort of thing, but her voice was the same…I just know it was her.”

  “Are you sure? Honestly Karen, sounds a bit unlikely, doesn’t it. Probably just someone a bit like her.”

  “It was her, Dad,” Karen insisted. “For God’s sake, I lived with her for long enough. It was definitely her.”

  “Maybe it was,” said Roger, still sounding unconvinced, “but it won’t help us much, we don’t know where she is now.”

  “We can tell the police,” Karen said excitedly. “We can tell them that I saw her. Dad, this is going to get you off the hook. She’s alive and well and living in London!”

  “What makes you think they’ll believe us?” demanded Roger.

  Karen, annoyed by his defeatist attitude, said angrily, “Well, that’s not all.”

  “So, what else?” Roger was already half way down his bottle of scotch and he was not in the mood for more revelations.

  “We can tell them she was shopping at Grosvenor’s.”

  “Grosvenor’s? What’s that?”

  “It’s a shop, Dad,” Karen said impatiently. “A well-known boutique! I saw her not far from Grosvenor’s.”

  “Doesn’t mean she shopped there,” grumbled Roger. “And anyway…”

  “But I did, Dad,” interrupted Karen, “…with her card.”

  “Whose card? What card?”

  Karen reached across the table and took Roger’s glass from his hand.

  “Listen, Dad,” she said earnestly. “I took Pam’s bank card…”

  “But where did you get it from?” demanded Roger.

  “When I heard she’d left you, I cancelled her card…”

  “Cancelled her card! What the hell made you do that?”

  “Dad, for God’s sake, will you shut up and listen?” snapped Karen. “I didn’t see why she should go on using your money, OK? So I rang the bank and said the card had been stolen, and they sent a replacement.” Roger stared at her but said nothing, waiting for her to go on.

  “They sent it here of course, so now I’ve got it. Today I went up to London and did some shopping on her card, OK? It’ll come up on your bank statement, you can show it to them and they’ll think that it was Pam. They’ll know, then, that she’s alive. I used her card in Grosvenor’s, so if we tell them I saw her coming out of Grosvenor’s with a Grosvenor’s carrier bag, they’ll check and find that the card was used there and think it was her. See, so we can prove that I saw her.

  “You’re mad,” exploded Roger. “What a bloody silly thing to do! How could you be so stupid?” He got to his feet and putting his hands on Karen’s shoulders he began to shake her, “You stupid, stupid cow!”

  Karen broke away, pushing him roughly to one side, so that he staggered unsteadily against the table and then sat down again, dropping his head in his hands.

  “I did it for you, Dad!” she shouted. “I did it for you!” Tears sprang to her eyes and she dashed them away. “Don’t you see? We have to convince the police that Pam is alive and well. We can’t find her, we probably won’t ever, so we have to make them think she’s OK. And if she’s using her bank account, she must be OK.”

  “The trouble is,” Roger said, his burst of anger over, “that they want to see her bank statements.”

  “So what’s the problem?” asked Karen. “They’ll see that she using her card and they’ll think she’s all right.”

  “They’ll see she’s started to use her card, yes,” he agreed wearily, “but they’ll also see that she only began to do so after they’d asked me to produce the statements. Up till then there had been no movement in her account, not since she left. I looked when I got home from the police station yesterday.”

  “Yesterday!” Karen looked startled. “Why were you at the police station yesterday? You didn’t tell me.”

  “I haven’t had a chance, have I?” Roger retorted. “They came round yesterday.” He told he about his visit to the police station and what the police had asked for. “They said someone would come and collect the things.”

  “You said she’s taken money from the safe,” remembered Karen suddenly. “Did you tell them that?”

  “No,” replied Roger shortly.

  “But for God’s sake, Dad, why not? It would explain why she hasn’t touched the bank account.”

  Roger looked across at his daughter for a long moment and then said, “It’s difficult to explain.”

  “To me or to the police?” asked Karen shrewdly. “Come on Dad, I know you’re up to something, but I’m not going to shop you, am I? Look is it really worth the risk of being accused of Pam’s murder not to admit she took money from your safe? They don’t need to know where it came from, and there is no reason why you shouldn’t keep cash in your safe at home. That’s what safes are for, for God’s sakes.”

  “If I have to, I will tell them,” Roger said, “but it would be better if that matter didn’t come up.” His eyes slid away from Karen’s and she thought she saw fear lurking in them.

  “What the hell have you got into, Dad?” she asked softly.

  “Nothing to worry you,” Roger said quickly. “Just a few deals that it would be better the police didn’t discover.” He thought of the frightener’s visit with an inward shudder, but
he didn’t want Karen to get involved, however innocently, so he told her nothing of the terrifying visit, and an awkward silence fell.

  “You could tell the police you couldn’t find the statements, I suppose,” Karen suggested at last.

  Roger shook his head. “Don’t be naïve, Karen. They’d go straight to the bank and get them from there. Anyway, the use of the card won’t be on any that I can give them, will it? You only used it for the first time today…it was the first time wasn’t it?” And when Karen nodded he went on, “so unless they go direct to the bank, it will be another month before they see anything on a statement. That’s not going to help.”

  “Well, I still think we should tell them I saw her,” said Karen stubbornly. “Dad, we have to get this thing sorted one way or another. You don’t want the police round your neck for another month or more, do you?”

  Roger thought of the visit from the frightener and went cold. “No,” he agreed reluctantly, “I’ve got to do something.”

  “Well, tomorrow let’s take the bank statements down to the police station, and tell them about me seeing Pam in Oxford Street. I can say she was coming out of Grosvenor’s carrying one of their bags. They’ll check with the bank to see if she used her card. It’s the obvious thing.”

  Roger began to protest, but Karen cut him short, “For God’s sake, Dad, think! You’ve got to co-operate with the police. If you don’t they can make your life very difficult. If they check with the bank straight away, you should be in the clear.

  The next morning they went together to Hatfield Road police station, taking with them the hand mirror off Pam’s dressing table, carefully placed in a polythene bag, and two combs they had found in her dressing table drawer, each with a little hair caught in its teeth. In a folder Roger carried the bank statements for the joint account and the latest mobile phone bill.

  “Inspector Crozier, please,” Roger said brusquely to the desk officer, Sergeant Butler.

  “I’m sorry, sir. Inspector Crozier isn’t in today. Can I help, sir?”