‘It may not have been molestation. We don’t know.’
His eyes flashed. ‘You don’t know! You don’t know! You’re like a weasel politician, circling the issue, never getting to an answer!’
She could see where Lily got her taste for melodrama. ‘Would you rather I made something up to keep you happy? Have you ever had any dealings with Steiner’s Removals?’
‘Never. I bought this house in 1969. I’ve had no need of a removal company, nor have I worked with one.’
‘What was your job, before you retired?’
‘I arrived in this country in 1967 and set up a business importing the beautiful icons you see around you. Many people collect them as works of art. That silver and gold St Nicholas by the window is rare, and worth thousands.’ He gestured at the walls with satisfaction. ‘I worked all hours, and was very successful for many years. My beautiful wife came here with me. We raised our son and he was a fine boy, mannerly and intelligent. If his poor, dead mother knew what had become of him . . . Although I miss her, I’m glad she didn’t live to see the shame he brought on us.’ He gazed longingly at the Madonna and Child. ‘Is there anything else? I have a lunch appointment.’
‘You haven’t mentioned your grandson, Mr Dimas.’
He sat up straight. ‘Tcha! Adam is lost to me, living with those perverts. I expect they’re turning him into one of them.’
Siv’s hands were clammy with sweat. She could achieve nothing more here. She’d already read the information he’d given her in the case files. She stepped with relief into the air and bright sunlight, her eyes smarting, the aroma clinging to her hair and clothes. Still, she’d smelled of far worse things after home interviews. In the car, she opened the windows and watched a van driver unload crates of shopping.
This area was called Poets’ Piece and was slowly becoming gentrified. The house that Bartel was interested in was in Wordsworth Road. She was due to view it with him the following day, and might as well drive by it now. She stopped the car for a minute. The house was mid-terrace, shabby, and she could see that the windows would need replacing, but Bartel was practical and wanted a fixer-upper. There was a side entrance after every sixth house, leading to an alley that ran along the backs of the terraces. When she was fifteen, she’d gone to a wild party in a house somewhere along this road, where she’d smoked a lot of dope and had unmemorable sex with a boy she didn’t even fancy that much. A neighbour who’d had enough of the thumping music had called the police in the early hours. She’d slipped out the back gate as they were coming through the front door. Her father had been too exhausted by Rikka’s arrest for shoplifting that week to notice that she hadn’t crept into the house until 3 a.m.
She recalled her father’s constantly perplexed expression. He’d been living a quiet, academic life until two adolescent hooligans descended on him without warning. He’d done pretty well, considering, kept them healthy and more or less attending school apart from brief episodes of truancy. Rik had carried on shoplifting after her caution but she had never been caught again. Siv wondered if she was still at it, cruising the aisles of shops in Auckland, her deft fingers magicking items into pockets or bags. Old habits die hard.
Before she drove away, she rang Lily Aston’s home number.
‘Aston Software Solutions,’ Lily said in a bright voice.
‘Hi, Lily, it’s DI Drummond. How are you doing?’
Her voice dropped. ‘All right, I suppose.’
‘Just a quick question, and it might seem strange, but do you remember if your mum was having a period the night she went missing?’
‘Sorry?’
Siv repeated the question. ‘Sometimes, mothers and daughters share that kind of information.’
‘I’ve no idea. Why are you asking me that?’
‘We’ve found some DNA evidence. It would be helpful to clarify.’
‘You could ask Izzie Sitwell. She and mum were great pals. I could imagine them doing girly talk and sharing out tampons.’
Spiteful. Siv remembered the name ‘Izzie’ from the reports — one of Lily’s ‘girls.’ Such a juvenile concept for grown women to be clinging to, and so suited to the vacuous Lily. ‘Is Izzie one of your Damsels?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Can you still be a Damsel if you’re married?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘A damsel is an unmarried woman.’
There was a long pause while Lily computed this and then replied sulkily, ‘It’s just a name that we decided on when we were at school. We can call ourselves whatever we like.’
‘Of course you can. I can be the Duchess of Berminster if I want. Can you text me Izzie’s number?’
‘Okay.’
‘Thanks. Talk soon.’
* * *
Up the steps, in the door, open fridge, pour a glass of akvavit. Bliss.
Am I turning into an alcoholic? It wasn’t the first time she’d asked herself that question. Before Ed died, they’d had a couple of glasses a week. Now she craved a nightly supply. She’d have to consider this situation properly but she was too exhausted to bother about it now.
She changed into Ed’s sweatshirt and heated the tortilla she’d bought on the way home in the microwave. Then she slumped on the sofa. Her food was only just warm enough, but she didn’t care. The visit to Theo Dimas had been hard going. She’d kept back forensic details because he was still a suspect, explaining only that DNA results indicated Lyn’s presence and possible sexual activity at Steiner’s. He’d sunk back in his chair.
‘So, what — Lyn might have been seeing someone? Meeting someone? In that place?’
‘That’s one scenario. The evidence could indicate that. She may have been there before the night she vanished.’
He’d bent his head and gone quiet. When he spoke, his reaction hadn’t quite been what she’d expected.
‘What a rotten, hypocritical bitch! She gave me hell about falling in love with Monty, and went on about loyalty and respecting marriage vows. Yet she was sneaking off to see someone! All those things she said about me to the kids, and she was shagging in a crappy deserted building like some wayward teenager!’
He had a point and she could see how, after the damaging lies that Lyn had spread about him, that belief would bring him gratification.
‘I’ve said that it’s a possibility, not a certainty. I have to consider it seriously. Take me back to before you left — maybe a couple of years, if you can. That premises had been empty for some time. Did Lyn ever give any sign that she was seeing someone else? Unexplained absences, odd phone calls, anything?’
He’d shaken his head, stared at the carpet. ‘Hang on . . . the previous summer, 2012, she was having facials and trying out different hair colours. Just one of those things women do.’
‘And maybe you weren’t that interested in what Lyn was doing. Would you have noticed if she’d been having an affair? You were seeing Monty by then.’
He’d had the grace to blush. ‘You’re right. I didn’t pay her much attention. I wouldn’t have blamed her for having an affair — but then turning on me if she had, as if she was innocent of playing away herself! Talk about two-faced — one rule for me and another for her! I just don’t get it, though. Why would she agree to meet anyone in that abandoned place? Lyn was so . . . particular. She kept this house spotless.’
Maybe she’d felt abandoned and wanted to experience abandon. Misery had clouded Dimas’s eyes. She’d steered him away from the topic of Lyn’s double standards and asked about her previous workplace. He’d told her that Lyn had worked at a clinic called Foot Heaven in Seaford, but she hadn’t been happy there. He had been vague about the reason, saying that she didn’t rate the way it was managed and she’d had to write a report. She’d left when she became pregnant with Adam and decided to stay at home until he went to school. Then she’d got the job at Brookridge.
Siv had left him bewildered and drove home. Now she finished her tortilla, poured another
drink and saw that she’d had an email from Rikka, a reply to one she’d sent weeks ago. Her sister contacted her infrequently. She’d always been unpredictable and enigmatic, but she was even more of a mystery woman these days. Siv had no idea what she worked as. She’d never had a career, but had dabbled in various alternative health interests. After she’d moved to Auckland, she’d mentioned aromatherapy, but there’d been no other reference as to how she made a living, or in fact to any details of her life. Siv knew better than to ask. Rik would flinch from direct questions as if she’d been invited to an interrogation meeting. She hadn’t attended Ed’s funeral, saying that she couldn’t afford the fare back, but then Siv hadn’t expected her to be there. Hers wasn’t that kind of family. She read the brief missive:
Hi, Siv. Must be hard, having mad Mutsi living round the corner. Maybe you should move again and change your name. The cops can give people new IDs, can’t they? Hope you’re keeping Berminster crime-free and arresting lots of shoplifters! R x
A true-to-form Rikka communication, saying almost nothing.
The evening was fine but chilly, so she fetched logs from the stack that Paul left her and stood for a moment, watching the glint of the river through the trees. A bright crescent moon lit the sky and smoke was drifting from Corran and Paul’s tall chimney. Corran’s goats were bleating and she could hear him faintly, chatting fondly to them and clattering the bucket as he fed them. He had four goats now and she’d been introduced to them: Judy, Ella, Barbara and Nina. They didn’t sound as harmonious as the legendary singers. Corran had explained that they were highly intelligent. Their bleats carried a range of emotional tones, and they could register moods in one another’s voices. He claimed that they had different calls when they were hungry or wanted to be milked. Siv could only hear a generic maah, but didn’t doubt their intelligence. However, it didn’t stop them having terrible breath, and she tried to make sure she stood upwind if she was near them.
Last year, the background to her life had been the hum of London traffic. Now it was this rural soundscape. How quickly a coin flipped. Next thing, you’ll be riding to hounds and calling, ‘Tally ho!’ Ed laughed in her ear.
The brisk air nipped at her skin. She shivered, headed back inside and lit the wood-burner. The room soon smelled of smoky apples. She poured more akvavit, put her feet up on the stove, and wondered about Lyn Dimas choosing to hang out at Steiner’s, her tinted hair and her cleansed skin glowing amid the garbage and broken furniture. Now that she’d built a better picture of the dead woman, she could understand more readily why Lyn might lower her standards and rough it. She’d had guts and a temper, as well as being a good mother and the reliable homemaker Joe Dimas had valued. Being the backbone of a family could become wearing if that family didn’t seem to notice or appreciate your constant support. Maybe Lyn had never pushed any boundaries, and turning forty had made her willing to regress and transgress. Midlife crisis territory. She’d been aware of ageing and taken for granted, her husband had lost interest, and her daughter had been scathing towards her and found her embarrassing. Maybe drinking and screwing at Steiner’s had been a way of saying, Look at me, I can get down and dirty and be a rebel.
It was a theory, and one worth bearing in mind, but if it was the case, whom was Lyn beautifying herself for and rebelling with?
Siv hadn’t intended to, but ideas of self-enhancement led her to open her laptop and google 60Chic. She found her mother’s blog and was dazzled by a photo of her on a sun-drenched beach, dressed in a shocking pink-and-black-striped tunic, white jeans, pink wedge heels and a necklace of huge black beads.
Hi, I’m Crista Virtanen and you might not believe it from my photos but I’m sixty-eight. I’m from Finland, but now I live in Sussex, UK. I started this blog because I want to be pro-ageing! Hey, age is just a number and we older women should EMBRACE it. Be proud and bring it on!
Come on, all you girls of age. You’ve got miles to go and you’ve gotta look good in the sunset! Be badass and strut your stuff!
I used to be a dancer (see the photos of me as a rock chick in Hair!) and I want to share with you how you can twirl and glide through your senior years.
I’ll give you loads of style tips, as well as some smoke-and-mirrors hints for distracting the eye from those difficult patches of crêpe-y skin or the unsightly bumps caused by gravity.
As we used to sing in Hair: Let the Sunshine In!
Mutsi’s first name was also Siv but she’d always used ‘Crista,’ her confirmation name. She’d gone by that name as a dancer, saying it was more attractive.
There were videos of Mutsi advising how to transition your wardrobe and build a capsule collection according to shape, talking about and demonstrating hydrating and moisturising, applying smudgy eyeshadow for a softer effect, curling eyelashes with a heated toothpick, the clever use of concealers and brightening the skin with lemon juice. She demonstrated dance exercises in a skintight leotard, and showed how to make highly nutritious and energising salads with broccoli spears, chicken, alfalfa and feta.
There were about thirty videos, numerous photos of Mutsi through the years, and page after page of her style secrets. The woman was incorrigible, and Siv had to admit grudgingly that she was attractive. She was waiting for a comment from Ed but none came. She slammed the laptop shut. She was edgy and raw. It was hard, being unsure of when Ed might murmur in her ear. She longed to hear him, but when he went silent, she was bereft again. Well, if he was going to absent himself for now, she’d contact someone who’d chuckle. She emailed Rikka a link to the blog with a one-line message: Mutsi’s new incarnation as third-age guru. The pensioners’ Gwyneth Paltrow.
She needed to escape into her folding zone. The design she was working on was laid out on the kitchen table. She sharpened her pencil and reviewed her drawing so far. She was designing a kusudama piece, a modular creation made of multiple units fitted together. A software programme would make the work easier, but she preferred to have a pencil between her fingers, and the intricate grey marks fanning out on the whiteness of the paper.
She’d started folding when she was eight, motivated by a need to block out Mutsi’s confusing shenanigans with yet another ‘uncle.’ Her skill at maths meant that she was good at working out complex patterns. Concentrating on designs had helped to bring order to her chaotic childhood. This thing that she could do so well was just hers, and a world that she could enter at will. Paper creations were a crutch and a comfort for a transient girl, because if they were left behind during a rapid flit, she could quickly make new ones. Folding had become her therapy and salvation. Recently, she’d received some commissions and there’d been growing interest in her work. This modular creation was destined for an architects’ practice in Ealing.
She worked quickly, absorbed, unaware that it was well past midnight. She didn’t hear the wind rising, the frenzied yowls of two cats fighting or a fox barking on the other side of the river. When she was folding, she tuned out noise and was lost in a place where time was suspended. And while she focused on lines, creases and symbols, she forgot about her grief.
Chapter 13
Scott Darnley checked Mr Shakespeare’s respiration and blood pressure. They were behaving nicely. He wondered if the man was any relation to the bard. He had a high forehead, so maybe he was. Scott might ask him when he woke up, minus his colon polyps.
He watched the flickering monitors while the surgeons finished up and listened to Gregorian chant, sung today by the monks of Buckfast Abbey. Brendan Edgeworth, the surgical registrar, always played it when he was operating. Scott found it soothing, but it had occurred to him that if a patient regained consciousness during anaesthesia — and it had been recorded — they might hear the melodic voices and assume they’d died and were listening to a celestial choir.
His mind wandered to Justin, who’d suddenly dumped him last month and hadn’t replied to any of his calls, texts or emails. When he’d spotted Scott in the hospital car park or a corridor, he
’d hurried away. After more than a year together, Justin’s pathetic line, ‘It’s not working for me, I’m stifled, we both need to move on,’ just didn’t cut it. Scott wanted a proper explanation. He was entitled to more than a brush-off.
They’d just come back from a week in Barcelona when Justin had told him it was over in the taxi from the airport. And how cowardly was that? Announcing that in a public space and then just blanking him. He’d said there was no one else, but Scott had his suspicions. He’d seen Monty Barnwell talking to Justin a couple of times, once by the lifts and then outside the doors of the orthopaedic ward. They’d been standing close, heads bent. They’d been friends for a long time, so they definitely had history, but that had made him sick to the stomach. He’d had to brush away tears and wash his face in the loos.
It was hard too, because they worked in the same place, and news travelled fast in the hospital community, zipping along on the trolleys, travelling in the lifts and murmured over the steam rising from coffees. Scott had been aware of curious glances. Maybe colleagues had known about Justin and Monty long before he had. It was horrible that he might have been an object of pity without realising. In his head, he’d been playing a conversation that Justin and Monty might have had before Barcelona. I owe him this holiday, Monty, and anyway, it’s all booked. I’ll make sure he enjoys the week and then I’ll tell him it’s over.
Since then, Scott had been picking over the relationship, recalling slights both real and imagined. He realised how much he’d always given in to Justin, letting him take the lead and make decisions about what films they saw, where they went on holiday, which restaurants they visited. He fixated on it, fuelled by hurt and resentment. He’d been dwelling on a night some years ago, when he’d seen Monty and Justin outside the Flare Bar in town as he was driving past. Monty’s arm had been around Justin then. He’d been heading to a date himself and hadn’t paid much attention, but the news reports about Lyn Dimas’s body had jogged his memory regarding that night, particularly one online that recounted Theo Dimas’s alibi. He’d seen a paragraph that said that Mr Dimas was estranged from his wife, and had been at home with his new partner that evening.
NEVER CAME HOME an addictive crime thriller with a twist you won't see coming (Detective Inspector Siv Drummond Book 2) Page 16