by Penny Kline
‘Some accident. I forget. Oh, I know, the brakes failed – on his car. Something like that Apparently it was all a bit of a mystery. Natalie used to say her mother must have wanted to get rid of him.’
‘Why would she want to do that?’
‘I’ve no idea. I never took any notice. You know what Natalie was like. Enjoyed dramatising everything, turning it into a TV movie.’
‘I never met her,’ said Karen, ‘but she sounds very different from Joanne.’
‘She was. So different it was hard to believe they had the same mother. She loved animals – especially cats – that’s how we met. She brought Dougal to the surgery, after he’d been in a fight.’
‘Dougal?’ Karen remembered the large tabby with the battered ear.
‘He was Natalie’s. She’d had him since he was a kitten. Joanne had a grey one but it was run over just outside the house.’ She sighed. ‘Poor old Nat, I just wish they’d catch whoever did it. However crazy she was she didn’t deserve to die.’
‘No, of course not.’ Karen was thinking about the diary she and Russell had found at the old hut by the railway line. ‘Look, I’m sorry to keep asking all these questions,’ said Karen, ‘but did Glen know Natalie?’
‘Glen? Why d’you ask?’
‘Oh, no reason in particular. I just wondered if they ever met?’
‘I doubt it. All Natalie’s conquests – she liked to tell us about them, count them up like gold stars for achievement. I felt sorry for her, sorry for anyone who has to behave like that. People said it was because she was so attractive.’
‘Well, she was, wasn’t she?’
‘Oh, yes, she was that all right, but she was never happy. At least I didn’t think she was. Sometimes I got the feeling she thought she hadn’t lived up to her father’s expectations, passed all her exams with flying colours, gone to university and become an accountant or something.’
‘What did Natalie want to do?’
‘I don’t know. Something with animals? A job like mine perhaps. She had some terrible rows with her parents, but I think that was because her father didn’t want her to grow up, would have liked her to stay a little girl for the rest of her life.’ She looked at her watch. She was just about to move off. ‘Funny, isn’t it,’ she said, ‘the way people rebel against their parents, but want to please them too. I guess we’re all the same.’
*
Her mother was in the kitchen, preparing something with bean sprouts and strips of marinated chicken. It was the kind of stuff that always gave Karen a stomach ache. She picked up a spring onion, then thought better of it and replaced it on its saucer.
‘All right, love?’ Her mother’s voice was falsely cheerful – or perhaps Karen was being over-sensitive, as usual.
‘Fine, thanks.’
‘You’re back late. Been working in the library?’ She didn’t wait for a reply. ‘I thought you might be going round to Dad’s this evening.’
‘Why? Want to get rid of me, do you?’
‘No, of course not. Look, I know the divorce has upset you but–’
‘Well, you’re wrong.’ Karen made a supreme effort to see things from her mother’s point of view. ‘I suppose part of me hoped the two of you might get back together again. Silly really. Anyway, Dad seems fine. I’m going to ask him if he’d like me to decorate his flat.’
‘That’s kind of you.’ Her mother drew the curtains and switched on the light above the cooker. ‘It was nice to see Simon again,’ she said. ‘I haven’t said anything before but – you and Simon . . .’
‘Look, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’ve been busy lately. We haven’t seen so much of each other.’
Suddenly it felt strange that her mother knew nothing about her investigations. Nothing about the visit to the Stevens’ house and Joanne’s new flat, or the conversation with Olive Pearce and Liam. What would she have said if Karen had told her? It didn’t bear thinking about.
‘Yes, I see.’ Her mother was still thinking about Simon. ‘Well, you know me, I wouldn’t dream of interfering. It’s just that I’ve always been fond of him.’
‘I know. The son you never had.’
‘You can be very cruel, Karen.’ She started chopping up a shallot. In a moment or two the tears would start flowing and she could pretend she was upset about poor Simon.
Karen stood in the doorway, wondering if she ought to apologise. Fortunately the phone rang and saved her making a decision.
‘Yes? Oh, hello.’ It was Russell. He must have looked up her number in the book. It was still under her father’s name but in any case Russell knew where she lived. It wouldn’t be difficult to find the right ‘Cady’.
‘What are you doing this evening?’ He sounded excited. ‘I don’t come off duty until half past but if you like we could meet up. There’s something I want to tell you.’
She hesitated, but not for long. ‘Yes all right. I’ll meet you at the Sports Centre, shall I?’
‘Fine. Sure that’s all right?’
‘Yes, of course. See you soon. Bye.’
Alex strolled out in the hall. ‘Simon’s replacement? What it is to be young. Easy come, easy go.’
‘What?’ She was supposed to react angrily. Accuse him of being patronising, make some sarcastic remark about the ridiculous red and green scarf he had knotted round his neck. But she wouldn’t waste her energy. She had far more important things on her mind.
Chapter Fifteen
She could see Russell talking to the girl at the ticket desk – the one who had taken over the job after Natalie was killed?
‘Just coming.’ He smiled at her, mouthing the words he knew she wouldn’t be able to hear because of the background noise of kids jumping into the swimming pool.
Two boys were playing a video game, shouting triumphantly as they annihilated the enemy one by one. Their faces were fixed in angry snarls – but maybe the game was getting it out of their systems.
Then a group of girls, carrying bags of wet swimming costumes and towels, came out of the changing rooms. One of them waved to Russell, then pushed against her friend, laughing and giggling.
‘Right. Good.’ Russell was by her side. ‘We’ll walk by the river, shelter in that boathouse place if it starts to rain.’ He was cheerful, relaxed, but she could hear the excitement in his voice.
She started telling him how Liam Pearce, befuddled with drink, had incriminated his mother, destroying her alibi – and his own. To her surprise Russell didn’t seem that interested.
‘He’ll tell his mother you went to the house,’ he said. ‘The end of a beautiful friendship.’
‘Finding out who killed Natalie’s more important than staying on good terms with Olive Pearce.’
‘Of course.’
The rain had stopped but there was a cold wind. They crossed the road and walked through the car park of ‘The Bricklayers Arms’. A path led down to the river. One of the street lamps had broken but there was still enough light to see where the swans were sitting on the grass.
‘Have you seen Joanne?’ said Russell, dropping back until they were walking side by side.
‘Not since I told you. The day she showed me her flat. Why, have you heard something?’
‘So she hasn’t been in touch since?’
Karen shook her head. ‘Actually, she said if we met again I was to pretend we were strangers.’
He nodded. ‘What about Ann Stevens, Joanne’s mother – you said you suspected something? Something she said to you, something about her husband.’
‘Oh, I was completely wrong about that. She blamed him for Natalie’s death, but only because he was terribly strict and that made Natalie rebel. She meets up with Olive Pearce, you know, at least she did yesterday.’
‘You saw them together?’
‘Yes, I was going to tell you, only I wanted to hear what you’d found out.’
‘In a minute.’ He took hold of her hand and she tensed, but quickly relaxed. He had done it so na
turally and his hand felt warm and dry, not like poor Simon’s sticky palm the first time they went out on a date. All the things she wanted to feel about Simon . . . Was she attracted to Russell because he was older, more mature, or was it something else? A kind of feeling of being on a knife edge, something between excitement and fear, something unknown, dangerous, almost impossible to resist.
‘Mrs Stevens and Olive Pearce,’ he said, ‘where was it you saw them? What were they doing?’
‘Just sitting in the burger bar – with Justin in his buggy. I suppose Mrs Stevens wanted to see the baby only I should think if Walter found out he’d go raving mad.’
‘If he found out what?’
‘I told you, Russell, you weren’t listening.’
‘Sorry.’
They were passing the new flats, the ones that overlooked the water, the ones where Simon had once said he would like to live.
‘That time you followed Joanne,’ said Russell, ‘when she was seeing round the flat, fixing it up or whatever . . .’
‘What about it?’
‘You said you thought someone was following you.’
‘Not just that time. Oh, I don’t know, you said yourself I was starting to imagine things.’
When they reached the new bridge he let go of her hand. ‘This way. There’s a house over there.’ He pointed beyond the single storey building, where the kids who belonged to the sailing club met up before practising in their canoes and dinghies. ‘Come on, not much further.’
The bridge bounced under their feet. It was still called the new bridge although it had been built when Karen was at primary school. Before that anyone who wanted to cross the river had been forced to go round, adding more than half a mile to their journey. Half way across Russell stopped and they both stared down at the fast flowing current.
‘I enjoy being with you, Karen,’ he said. ‘I expect you know that.’
‘Good.’ She felt a little embarrassed. What was she supposed to say. I enjoy being with you too? But what about Simon? He and Russell were so different. Simon was so easy-going – at least he had been until recently. With Russell it was as if his life up to now had been really hard. He’d had to fight every inch of the way.
‘Russell?’ Suddenly she wanted to know more about him. His family, friends, where he had worked before he started at the Sports Centre. ‘When you left school were you out of work for ages?’
‘What?’ He spun round. ‘Why d’you want to know?’
‘I suppose it’s because you’ve told me so little about yourself. Apart from your father being ill and your mother . . .’
‘She’s dead.’
‘Yes, I know. It must’ve been awful.’
He stared at her and for a moment she thought he was going to cry. Then he smiled. ‘I didn’t know you knew Holly Fisher?’
‘Holly Fisher? How did you . . .?’
‘Saw you talking to her. Took some time off to buy a card for my father. It’s his birthday tomorrow. You were outside the vet’s. I’d have called out but you two looked as if you were discussing something serious.’
‘Not really. I was asking her about Glen. Tessie – she’s the one with the pale blue swimming costume.’
‘Yes, I know who Tessie is.’ He was leaning over the bridge, looking at a clump of reeds. ‘Sorry, thought I saw a shoe but it’s only part of a supermarket trolley. Why would someone go to all the trouble of dragging a trolley down here and chucking it in the river?’
Karen shivered. ‘Who knows? I suppose they must be so bored they can’t think of anything . . .’
He put his hands in the pockets of his jeans. ‘Someone told me Holly Fisher was a friend of Natalie’s. What did she say?’
‘About Glen, d’you mean?’
He shrugged. ‘That and other things.’
It was starting to rain, a fine drizzle that showed up against the lamp at the end of the bridge. Suddenly Russell started walking so quickly it was difficult to keep up with him.
‘Where are we going?’ she called, out of breath and wondering why he was so interested in her conversation with Holly Fisher. ‘It was all a misunderstanding – about Holly and Glen. Tessie was upset – her brother saw the two of them together – so I thought I’d find out if there was any truth in it.’
‘And?’
‘It was nothing. Now, what was it you wanted to show me?’
‘In a minute. Did you see that scum in the river? The factory further up tips waste into the river.’
‘What factory?’
‘The one that pays people peanuts. Leather goods. Smells like one of those places where they turn cows into rump steak. I worked there once – when I was desperate for a job. Only for half a day. Couldn’t stand it any longer.’
‘I don’t blame you.’
‘No?’ His voice was flat, cold. ‘She told you, didn’t she? Holly Fisher.’
‘Told me what?’
‘About me and Natalie.’
She froze. She could feel the cold, prickly skin on the back of her neck. She wanted to run – but where to? It was dark and there was no-one in sight. In the distance a man on a bike appeared from out of the gloom, then took the turning a hundred yards ahead of them and pedalled away, down the path by the canal.
‘She loved me,’ said Russell, and his voice was quieter, softer. ‘She was going to leave Liam and move in with me. And the baby of course. Holly told you. I knew she would.’
‘No.’ She struggled to keep her voice steady, to conceal the terror that was seeping through her body. ‘We talked about Joanne, and Walter Stevens, but she never mentioned you.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘No. No, I’m not. I’d no idea you and Natalie . . .’ If she kept him talking someone would come past, someone else on a bike, someone exercising a dog. ‘Russell?’ She had to know. ‘The last few weeks – was it you following me?’
‘What? How could it be? You said you saw someone up by the railway hut. Can’t be in two places at the same time, can I?’
‘I wondered if you thought I was keeping things back from you. Checking up on people but not telling you about it.’
It was no good. He wasn’t listening. He had a stick in his hand and he was letting it run along the iron railings. ‘Natalie was a bitch,’ he said, ‘but that didn’t stop people falling in love with her. Hundreds I must have spent on her, some of it money I’d borrowed from my father. But it wasn’t enough. We used to go for walks – when the late shift ended. Along the river or out in the country. I trusted her, told her things.’
‘What kind of things?’
‘Yes, I thought you’d want to know. That last time she wanted me to give her the money for a leather jacket. Two hundred it cost. When I said I hadn’t got it she threatened to tell Ken about me.’
‘The manager of the Sports Centre? What was she going to tell him?’
‘D’you know what it’s like being unemployed for months on end? No, of course you don’t. The sort of people you know have well-paid jobs, security for life.’
‘That’s not true.’ In spite of her rising panic she heard herself arguing back. ‘Alex could lose his job any time – and my mother if the shop doesn’t do any better. My father’s set up his own business so it all depends on–’
‘Oh, great,’ he sneered, ‘but they haven’t got someone threatening to tell everyone they’ve been inside. She knew I’d never get a second chance. Knew if she told Ken Davies–’
‘Prison?’
‘All I did was borrow a credit card and take out sixty quid. Could have taken more but I didn’t. Just stood behind the stupid woman and looked over her shoulder. Then I nicked her bag the same way I did yours. Saw it lying on the floor and gave it a kick as I walked by.’
Terror had given way to icy calm. It was as if she was watching herself in a film. ‘You took my bag?’
‘Wanted to see what you were up to.’
‘So you kept the file. But where did you put it? When Laura
and I met you in the street.’
He laughed. It was an unpleasant sound. ‘Oh, by then I’d shoved it in one of those bins near the arcade. Then I took the bag back to the burger bar and dropped it near the toilets. Later on I picked up the file, all safe and sound.’
Anger was giving her strength. ‘People don’t get sent to prison for a first offence,’ she said. ‘It can’t have been the first time you were in trouble with the police.’
It was a mistake. She should have kept quiet, agreed with everything he said, waited until she saw another human being, even someone far off in the distance, then screamed at the top of her voice.
But there was no-one about.
‘Some people have quicker tempers than others,’ he said, talking to her as though they might be discussing the weather. ‘They’re born like it. They’re the ones that get on in life. They’ve got a bit of go. But if something goes wrong, if people threaten them . . .’
‘Yes, I know what you mean.’ If she could convince him she understood how he felt. Really understood. Her eyes were darting in all directions but it was too dark to see more than a few yards ahead.
‘It wasn’t the leather jacket,’ he said. ‘Not even saying she’d tell Ken I’d been banged up. It was when I realised she’d been using me, didn’t feel anything, never had any intention of moving in. I didn’t mean to kill her. I suppose I just hit out. Picked up the first thing I saw and . . . I thought she was dead.’
‘Yes.’
He took hold of her shoulder and spun her round. ‘You think if you humour me, keep sounding all sympathetic . . .’
He had her by the wrist. It hurt but she didn’t cry out. Any minute now and she would feel a blow on the back of her head. Or perhaps she wouldn’t even feel it. It would all be too quick. Her unconscious body would be easy to tip into the water and there would be no evidence. Nothing at all. If Alex had answered Russell’s phone call . . . But he hadn’t. No name had been mentioned. No-one had known where she was going.
‘Don’t!’ She wrenched her wrist free. ‘They saw me at the Sports Centre. They’ll know I was with you.’
His arm locked round her body, squeezing. ‘Who will? The girl at the ticket desk fancies me like crazy. She’ll say I was there till late. She’ll say whatever I want her to.’