by T S Hunter
“I know that,” Joe said, defensively. “But this is what she looked like.”
“So who was she?” Russell asked. “Because it can’t have been Violet. Look how much the other two have changed since this was taken.”
Joe studied the photograph closely, shaking his head.
“I think we should see what Violet has to say tomorrow,” Russell said. “I might come with you, after all.”
4
Joe stepped onto the escalator behind Russell, leaning his hip against the railing as they rode up out of the underground. He was glad Russell had decided to come along. He felt quite unsettled at the thought of meeting Violet on her own after seeing that photograph.
He knew it sounded crazy, but he was absolutely positive that the woman he’d seen in the club was the same woman in the picture. And if it wasn’t Violet herself, it was someone who knew exactly how she’d looked back in the sixties and had deliberately dressed like her to kill Danny. But why? Who was she?
As they neared the top, Joe glanced across at the downward escalator and his heart skipped. There she was again. Was he going mad? It was the same person, dressed the same way. He was sure of it.
“Russell,” he said, urgently. “Look. That’s her!”
Russell looked where he was pointing. The girl noticed Joe pointing at exactly the same time and panicked, taking off down the escalator as fast as she could.
Joe and Russell ran up the last few treads, barged past the people coming in from outside as they rounded the top of the escalators, and followed her down as fast as they could, trying not to knock anyone flying.
Joe reached the bottom first and sprinted to the platform just in time to see the doors closing on a train leaving the station. The woman’s face was framed in the window as the train pulled away. She looked frightened.
“Shit!” Joe shouted as Russell caught up with him on the platform. “We lost her.”
Russell bent double, trying to get his breath back.
“You saw her though, right?” Joe asked. “She looks exactly the same, doesn’t she?”
Russell leaned against the wall, still sucking in breath, but he nodded. He’d seen her. Joe wasn’t going mad. Joe thumped the wall with the side of his fist.
“Dammit,” he said. “What was she doing here?”
The realisation suddenly hit him.
“Jean.”
And he was off again, sprinting towards the escalator back to the surface.
“Jesus. Wait,” Russell called after him.
“I’ll see you there,” Joe shouted back.
There was no time to waste. Whoever that woman was, she had deliberately dressed like Jean’s sister, Violet, in order to kill Danny and now she had been in to see Jean. There must be a reason, and whatever it was, it could only be malicious.
Joe pushed through the ticket barriers and out onto the street, his heart pounding. The only possible explanation for that woman being here was if she’d come to do the same to Jean as she had to Danny.
Joe ran faster towards the hospice, already convinced of the worst. He stopped at the front doors and looked behind him—there was no sign of Russell, but he couldn’t wait. He had to check on Jean.
He strode into reception to find it abandoned. Strange, he thought. He hovered nervously for a moment before looking around the corner to see if there was anyone there. Maybe the nurse was just away from her station. But no, the corridor was empty too.
Not willing to wait, Joe made his way quickly down the empty corridor towards Jean’s room, feeling sick with worry. He knocked and, when there was no answer, pushed the door open.
Jean lay perfectly still on her back, mouth slightly open. He was too late. There were no alarms sounding, no rushing staff, but it looked like Jean was already dead.
He stepped into her room, letting the door swing closed behind him and stood for a moment, listening. Where was everybody?
Further up the hall he could hear voices, hurried and urgent, a trolley banging against a door. A shout. But inside this room, all was silent.
He stepped forward, his trainers squeaking on the linoleum floor, and cringed. The noise felt so wrong in this awful silence.
“Jesus, it’s like Piccadilly-bloody-Circus in here this morning,” Jean said, tilting her head and half-opening her eyes to look at him. “I’m supposed to be resting.”
“Oh Jean,” he said, the relief washing over him. “You’re alive.”
“Not for long at this rate,” she tutted. “Can’t a girl get any sleep? What do you want anyway?”
“I...” Joe didn’t quite know what to say. “I spoke to Violet yesterday,” he blurted out. “I said I’d meet her here, bring her in to see you.”
“Yeah? Well, you just missed her,” Jean said. “She didn’t stay long. Always in a rush, that one.”
Joe frowned. Jean coughed. Joe waited for the fit to pass. She spat her phlegm into her handkerchief and smiled weakly at him.
“Thanks for calling her,” she said, her voice cracked and sore. “You didn’t need to come all the way back down here though. We’re big girls. We can sort out our own troubles. I’m glad she came back again.”
There it was again—that lack of clarity.
“Jean?” Joe asked. “Has Violet been to see you here before? At the hospice, I mean.”
“Of course she has. She came as soon as Danny told her I was sick. We may have had our differences over the years, but I’m still her little sister.”
“It’s just that when I spoke to her on the phone yesterday, it seemed like the first she’d heard of it.”
Jean coughed violently again, collapsing back into her pillows. She was in no state to be having this conversation, but something strange was going on and Joe wasn’t willing to leave without answers.
He edged closer to the bed, handing her the metal bowl by her bedside to spit in. When she had, she looked at him, eyes watering from the effort of coughing.
“I’m sorry, love. Disgusting. Just chuck that in the sink, will you? One of the nurses will deal with it.”
Joe did as she said, but he rinsed the bowl under the tap before leaving it in the sink. His own Nan had died of lung cancer, he knew how it would be for Jean in the end, and he could tell she didn’t have many more weeks, or maybe even days before her body just gave up.
“Jean,” he began, tentatively. “You said Violet came in to see you this morning?”
“Of course she did,” Jean sounded incredulous. “Just like you asked her to.”
“What was she wearing? Can you remember?”
Jean looked confused, angry.
“What’s all this? I’m not simple, you know? I haven’t got memory problems,” she said. “She wore what she always wears—plain dress, brown cardi. What do you care, anyway?”
Joe didn’t really know how to answer. She’d just described the woman from the tube.
“It’s just that...”
He didn’t get the chance to finish the sentence before the door opened and Russell stuck his head round.
“Is she alright?” he asked.
Joe nodded, looking back to see that Jean had nestled back into her pillows, eyes closed. She was exhausted. This was all too much.
Russell opened the door and stepped in, looking flushed and flustered.
“Look who I found outside,” he said, sounding falsely cheery.
Violet, the real Violet, stepped cautiously into the room. She looked nervous. Her hair was cropped short, dyed a deep, cheap red. She was wearing a uniform from a chain supermarket, obviously on her way to work.
“Is that her?” Violet whispered to Russell.
Russell nodded.
“Is she dead?” Violet asked, a little louder.
“No,” Joe said. “She’s just tired.”
“Well, I haven’t got long,” Violet said, peering at her sister. “Can you wake her up?”
“Can I have a word?” Joe asked. “Outside.”
He hustled t
he two of them back out into the corridor, with some tutting from Violet.
“Violet,” he said, knowing that there wouldn’t be much time to talk before the nurses found them all there. “Listen, Jean’s had a bit of a strange morning.”
“Well, what’s that got to do with me? I came down here like you asked.”
“The thing is,” Joe said. “Jean believes you’ve been coming to see her for weeks.”
“Well, she’s lost her mind then, ain’t she?” Violet said, ready to walk away. “Because I haven’t seen her for best part of fifteen years.”
“No. But someone has been visiting her,” Joe persisted. “Pretending to be you. And we saw her here, just now, as we were coming off the tube. She was dressed just like you.”
“What, she also works in Sainsbury’s?”
“No, I don’t mean like you now. I mean how you used to look.”
Violet looked blank. Russell took her arm.
“I went to Danny and Jean’s house,” he said. “Looking for any kind of reason why he might have been killed. While I was there I found this photo of you all together, moving in to Cumberland Terrace.”
He took the photograph out of his pocket and held it in front of her.
“So what? I lived with them for a while. It didn’t work out.”
“Why not?” Joe asked.
“None of your business,” Violet said. “What is all this? Is this why you brought me down here? You think I had something to do with Dan dying? Is that it? What are you, coppers or something?”
“No,” Russell said quickly. “No, we’re not the police. And we’re not accusing you of anything. We’re just trying to understand what’s been going on.”
“On the night Danny died, I saw a woman in the club who looked exactly like you do in this photo,” said Joe.
Violet frowned.
“Well, that don’t make any sense. That was taken twenty years ago.”
She took the photograph from him, looking at it for a moment before shoving it back in his hand angrily.
“It’s nothing to do with me, alright?”
But Joe sensed some reluctance in her denial. What did she know?
“Can you think of anyone who would do this, Violet? Anyone who might dress up like you deliberately? To make a point to Danny, or to Jean?”
“No.”
But she couldn’t meet his eyes. So she did know something. He pushed her further.
“It’s just that we saw this same woman again this morning. Right here. In the tube station. And we think she’s visited Jean before, pretending to be you. So, who would do that, Violet? Who would know that she was here, and come to visit her, dressed like you used to look back in the sixties?”
“I don’t know, alright?” Violet shouted.
She turned and started walking away, but stopped. She stepped right up to Joe, angry and upset.
“I told you I didn’t want to come down here. I said I didn’t want to go opening things up again. So you can tell Jean to shove it. I don’t want anything to do with her, or her money, or that bloody house. She can keep it all.”
Joe and Russell watched her stalk away.
“She knows something,” Russell said.
“Shall I follow her?”
“No. Give her some space. We’ve got her number if we want to talk to her again. We need to figure out what we’re missing first.”
“Everything alright here?” A nurse had appeared behind them in the corridor.
“More or less,” Russell smiled reassuringly. “We brought Jean’s sister to see her, but she lost her nerve at the last minute.”
The nurse frowned.
“I thought she only had the one sister,” she said, questioningly. “Violet, isn’t it?”
“That’s right,” Joe replied.
“Well, she’s been in a handful of times now. She was in this morning, in fact.”
“She told you her name was Violet?” Russell asked.
The nurse noticed his tone of voice and became anxious, feeling interrogated.
“Yes,” she said cautiously. “And so did Jean. It really cheered her up that her sister had got back in touch. It’s not good to let those old wounds fester.”
“I hate to tell you this,” Russell said, “but whoever has been visiting Jean is not the real Violet.”
The nurse’s face went ashen.
“The woman we were just talking to was Violet, and she hasn’t seen her sister since the sixties. Not long after this picture was taken.”
He showed her the photograph and watched her fear turn to shock and confusion.
“But...” she stammered. “That’s her. That’s the woman who’s been visiting. She said she was Violet. What’s going on? Who is she?”
“We’re not sure,” Russell said. “But we think it has something to do with Jean’s husband’s death, and we’re trying to find out who she really is.”
“You don’t think she’d try to hurt Jean, do you?” the nurse asked.
“She hasn’t yet,” Russell said. “So that obviously isn’t her intention.”
He tucked the photograph away again.
“Look,” he said. “If she turns up again, can you call me straight away? And don’t leave her alone with Jean.”
“Of course,” she replied. “But, shouldn’t we tell the police?”
“I will,” Russell said. “I’m a retired officer, I know the detective in charge of Danny’s case. I’ll let him know. He may want to talk to you about it all.”
“Right,” she said. “I hope it doesn’t get the staff into trouble.”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Joe said. “No harm done. Just keep an eye out in case she turns up again.”
“Do you mind if we just have a quick word with Jean about it,” Russell asked. “We won’t be long.”
“Please do,” the nurse replied. “I’ll just be at the desk there, if you need me.”
She was obviously shocked to think that they’d been letting some potentially dangerous imposter into a patient’s room. But at least she felt that Russell and Joe were trustworthy, which was good enough for now.
Jean stirred as they closed the door.
“You again?” she croaked.
“I’m sorry to keep disturbing you Jean,” Joe said quietly. “I just wanted to ask you a couple of quick questions and then we’ll be out of your hair.”
“I don’t know what else I can tell you,” she replied. “But alright. Pass me some water first, will you?”
Joe filled her glass from the jug at her bedside and held it gently to her lips as she took a sip. Her hands were stick thin—papery skin over bone and vein. The disease had stripped away all of her vitality. She looked more tired, paler, and less present than she had done even fifteen minutes ago when Joe had first arrived.
“Fire away then,” she said, smiling through thin lips.
“I was wondering how things were with Violet?” Russell asked, stepping closer to the bed. “I know you’d had a falling out, but you say she’s been visiting you. Is that all settled now?”
“I think so, dear,” Jean said. “I needed to apologise to her. I hurt her, you see? But I’ve said sorry now. So all is mended.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Russell said. “You must have had a lot to catch up on, after all those years apart.”
Jean frowned a little, blinked slowly. She was fading fast.
“She’s hardly changed a bit, you know,” Jean said. “Not like me. Mind you, she always was the strong one.”
“What happened between you two, Jean?” Joe asked.
“It’s not important any more,” she said sadly. “I made a mistake. But it’s all done and dusted now.”
She broke into another coughing fit, and when it ended she closed her eyes, this time keeping them closed. Sleep taking her again.
Joe and Russell looked at each other and shrugged. What now? Joe lifted the empty water glass from her hands and placed it on the bedside cabinet. He not
iced Jean’s handbag on the floor, and crouched down beside it.
“What are you doing?” Russell hissed.
“Shh,” Joe said. “Just looking.”
He carefully opened the bag and looked inside, taking out the address book Jean had used before. He opened it up and found Violet’s name.
“Violet Cole,” he whispered. “Got an address in King’s Cross.”
“Good thinking,” Russell said. “Now put it back.”
Joe tucked the address book away, but noticed a folded brown envelope tucked in the bag. He took it out.
“Joe!” Russell warned. “That’s private.”
Joe unfolded the envelope and opened it up, lifting out the contents.
“This is a letter from her solicitors,” Joe said quietly. “Acknowledging receipt of the changes to her will.”
“What?”
“Dated last week.”
“Does it say what changes?”
“No, it just says to find enclosed a revised copy of the will, duly notarised.”
“Well? Is it there?”
“No,” Joe said, putting the letter back in the envelope and tucking it into the bag. There was nothing else in there but some tissues, an old lipstick, a pen and some house keys.
“I wonder what she changed?” Russell asked.
“I suppose it’s not that unusual to start putting things in order at this stage in a terminal illness.”
“But to change it just before Danny was killed? Don’t you think that’s a bit of a coincidence?”
“You don’t think she...?”
“No, that’s not what I meant. I just wonder whether she is being manipulated.”
“By our mystery woman?”
“Quite possibly.”
“Do you think the solicitors would tell us?”
“Not while she’s alive. But, given that Danny’s is a murder case, they might be compelled to disclose something to the police.”
“You’re not thinking of digging out your old uniform are you?” Joe smiled.
“God no,” Russell laughed. “There’s no way it would fit me now, anyway. I was actually thinking I would share some of what we’ve learned with the lovely Detective Skinner. See if we can’t cast some more doubt on his conviction that Matthew is guilty.”