Walk Like You

by Linda Coles

  Alan pulled it closer and slit the zip fabric to gain entry. It contained almost identical belongings: a couple of changes of clothing, a black dress, a pair of black stilettos and toiletries. There wasn’t a wig in Susan’s bag. The similarity between the contents of the two cases made Alan sit back on his heels and stop for a moment. There were too many things adding up in a way that was as murky as the small pond at the bottom of his grandmother’s garden. So much so that the thought sparked something in the back of his mind: had they been travelling in the same carriage on purpose? A coincidence, maybe? He reached for his phone and called Bridget.

  “Yep?”

  “Bridget, I need a quick favour. Can you double-check if two passengers were travelling in the same carriage for me? Susan Smith and Tabitha Child?”

  “Hold on, won’t be a mo.” Alan held his phone with one hand and tried to unscrew his flask with the other, holding it between his thighs. By the time Bridget had the news, he was sipping from his mug and enjoying the taste of his own brew. He needed a biscuit.

  “They were. Susan Smith was a handful of rows behind Child. Why?”

  “Don’t you think it odd that the two women who look fairly similar are in the same carriage? With identical cases containing almost identical items? And one is missing, one dead? And one of those has a locked file?”

  “Wow. They were up to something!”

  “I’d say so, yes. Can you do me another favour and put an alert on Tabitha Child’s credit cards and passport? I want to know if either get used again.”

  “Already done.”

  Alan rang off and went back to Susan’s bag. He felt around the edges of the case, feeling the lining, running his fingertips over the cloth, his suspicions on high alert that there was something else to find. He needed to look closer. There was more to this than what was obvious on the surface. He slipped his fingers inside a small fabric pocket and they froze on contact. The unmistakable feel of an envelope, firm, rigid, level-edged. He pulled it out. It was sealed. There was nothing on the front. Alan held it up to the light, but the hangar was not a bright space, there was no need for it to be. Since he was looking for a missing woman, there was no harm in opening it to see what was inside. His inner antennae were sparking like firecrackers bouncing down an alleyway.

  Carefully, he prised it open, rolling the sticky edge of the flap back and pulling out a fine, film-like item. It wasn’t greaseproof paper, but it was similar in its flimsiness.

  There was no mistaking what it was.

  It was a tattoo transfer. And it was identical to the one on Tabitha Child’s thigh.

  “Holy hell.”

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Detective Alan Davies didn’t hear the grey-haired, older man enter the hangar with his own coffee mug and a plastic tub of assorted biscuits in hand. The discovery of what the envelope contained had knocked him off balance a little, and he was pacing up and down the area he’d cleared of luggage. Walking helped him to think.

  “You’ll wear a hole in the concrete if you keep that up,” the man said, smiling. But it broke through Alan’s trance-like state.

  He lifted his head, eyes refocusing like a telescopic lens. “Sorry, I was miles away.”

  The man offered the tub of biscuits Alan’s way and the detective took a couple at random.

  “Time for a break. I thought you might like the sugar, only I didn’t see you bring anything other than your flask,” he said and sat down on a large upturned case and sipped on his own coffee.

  While he didn’t need the distraction, Alan appreciated the gesture, his stomach grateful for the fuel. He could spare five minutes to talk to the man and ease his boredom of guarding a largely unoccupied building.

  “Have you found what you were looking for?” the man enquired, dunking a shortbread into his hot coffee and letting it soak for a brief moment.

  “I’ve found the relevant luggage now. Though I doubt I’ve found any answers, only more questions.” Alan sat on an adjacent bag, poured coffee from his flask, then stuffed the first biscuit into his mouth, allowing crumbs to fall into his lap. Brushing them away, he added, “Just when you think you’re getting somewhere, the proverbial fly drops in the ointment.” He bit into the remaining biscuit.

  “Life’s like that sometimes, my friend. If you’re at the base of the wrong tree, you should stop barking.”

  Alan puzzled at his philosophy and watched him finish his shortbread. “That’s a bit deep isn’t it?”

  “Depends on your perspective. I’m full of great advice; it’s a shame I never take any of my own,” he said, grinning. “My favourite is this: ‘woman with skirt up can run faster than man with trousers down’. I find it covers most eventualities in life, and if you’re worrying about something unnecessarily, it’s a great distraction for the mind. You can’t help but visualise it.”

  Alan couldn’t help grinning at the man’s logic. “Well, it seems I’ve got a woman with her skirt held high above her waistline, and I appear to be the man with trousers around his ankles. She’s off and running, and I’m sipping coffee here in a draughty hangar, pondering her next move.”

  “So what’s puzzling you? What isn’t making sense?”

  “I was barking at the wrong tree until just before you came in. So at least I can stop barking at that one now. The problem now is, I need a new tree.”

  “And you need to pull your trousers back up and get going, am I right?”

  “Something like that. Do you always talk in riddles, indirectly?”

  “I find it stimulates my mind, keeps me sharp. A bit like doing puzzles, but I add them to conversation. More fun too.”

  The two sat in silence while they sipped their coffee and pondered. Alan felt like the Karate Kid, recipient of Mr Miyagi’s uniquely bestowed wisdom, and waited for the older man to say something else. Instead, he stood, drained his mug and picked up the plastic biscuit tub.

  “I’ll let you get back to it then,” he said and headed back out from where he’d come, leaving Alan to wonder what the answer would be. Like in the story of the Karate Kid, the solution wouldn’t appear overnight, it would take time and effort. He just needed to know where to spend his efforts.

  He needed a new tree.

  And he needed to make a phone call. He dialled, ready to ask the pathologist a question.

  “Dean, it’s Alan Davies here, have you got a minute?”

  “Of course, have you some news on our mystery woman back here keeping cool?”

  “Maybe. But first I need you to double-check something.”

  “I’m about to get on with another autopsy, but I can check for you in a couple of hours or so. What do you need?”

  Damn, Alan was hoping for an answer while he waited.

  The pathologist picked up on the delay. “Sorry, mate, best I can do.”

  “No, I understand. Listen, can you double-check the tattoo on our mystery woman is real, see if it smudges? I’m guessing you will need more than water to do the job.”

  “Not been asked that one before. Everything all right?”

  “Not sure yet, but I’m looking at a different tree to bark at.”

  “I’m sure that makes sense to you. I’ll call you back when I’ve done it, okay?”

  “Thanks, Dean, I appreciate it.” Alan was about to hang up when Dean added something he wasn’t expecting.

  “She seems to be generating a bit of interest, our mystery woman.”

  “Oh? How so?”

  “Can you believe I had Detective Chief Superintendent Morton stinking the place out with his cigar odour last night? And he wanted to see her specifically. Unusual, don’t you think?” Alan could hear a woman calling Dean somewhere in the background, back in the lab he assumed. “Look, I’ve got to go, but I’ll call you later.”

  Alan was left with an empty line again. Slipping his phone back into a pocket, he wondered about the interest the woman was attracting. After his conversation with the chief superintendent the previo
us night, and the locked file they couldn’t get access to, he was starting to feel uneasy about the whole thing. And with his latest discovery rattling around his skull, he had to be careful who he let into his circle of trust. Dean, the pathologist, was on his side, as was Bridget. But Carl had asked to be kept informed, why? As had the chief super, why? And was anyone else watching from a distance?

  Perhaps he needed to look at things differently, because since he’d found the contents of Susan Smith’s suitcase, there could only be one explanation.

  The two women not only knew one another, they had something planned.

  He had to find out what.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  It was both exciting and frustrating news, all at the same time. The service station where Tabby had been dropped was an hour outside Paris and a common meeting place for those that used the roads up and down to the ferry.

  “We need a vehicle,” Julie said, stating the obvious but excited at the news.

  “And when we get to Paris? What then? Because even if we show her picture at the service station, we already know she’s gone to Paris. Before we set off, is there any point to this? Are we really going to knock on every Parisian door and ask if Tabby Child has been by?” Chrissy was trying to figure out their next move, a move that would preferably propel them forward instead of maintaining their current pace of creeping. It wasn’t happening fast enough for her. They desperately needed something else.

  They were walking slowly back to their hotel. It wasn’t even lunchtime, but the sunshine was bright and hot in the sky. Chrissy turned to Julie. “So put yourself in her shoes again. You’ve woken after a night’s sleep and a meal, and grabbed a lift to just outside Paris. Where are you heading and why? And, remember, you’ve likely not much money or belongings, and you’ve a shiner of a bruise on your face. What’s your plan?”

  Julie looked up at the blue sky, feeling the heat on her shoulders. “And it’s summer and I’m free, on the run from a bore of a husband that I may or may not know tracked me. Oh, and I’ve been lonely for some time, and if I had a phone, I’ve not called anyone.”

  Chrissy added Julie’s extra information to her own thinking and the two women stayed silent, quietly focusing as they walked back.

  “You know, Shirley Valentine came up earlier. Maybe she really has gone off on holiday to Greece and is thinking of staying,” Julie said, remembering.

  “What, you think Susan is like her? A bored, suburban, middle-aged woman with a mundane and routine life. Chips and egg on a Tuesday teatime, or whatever night it was?”

  Julie took the bait, “And she met a gorgeous man that turned out to be a bit of a fake, and only after one thing. But she fell in love with the place anyway and worked in a café for a while before her husband went to find her and try and take her home.” Julie looked as if she was daydreaming as she recited the bones of the plot. Chrissy couldn’t help but smile. Julie’s husband, Richard, was a bore, but she couldn’t see her sister running off to a fishing village in the sun, not without her heels and nail varnish.

  “What are you smiling at?” she enquired.

  “I was thinking about you actually. I couldn’t see you running off; strappy sandals are of no use on a Greek beach.”

  “Ha, ha, very funny.”

  They were back outside the hotel now, and it looked as gloomy as it had the previous day when they’d arrived. They really needed to modernise the place, plant something cheery in the flower beds at least, give the front some street appeal.

  “Let’s carry on walking,” Chrissy said. “I fancy an ice cream, and we’ve still some thinking to do.”

  “Oh, not for me, but I’ll sit with you.”

  “Come on, sis, a single chocolate scoop won’t hurt. Let your hair down.”

  Instinctively, Julie touched her stiff head of hair. She relented. “I’ll have one scoop then. In a cup, not a cone.”

  Life was full of concessions. Chrissy wanted to slap her sister on the back, in a congratulatory gesture, but was conscious she’d think she was taking the micky. There were tiny cracks, however, of Julie relaxing and being less formal the more time they spent together. Their trip was doing her sister good.

  Sitting on a stone wall, looking out at the beach in the distance, both women slipped ice cream into their mouths from tiny wooden spoons and savoured the taste. The summer season would be in full swing in a few more weeks, the sun too hot to bear for some, but the temperature right at that moment was perfect, and Chrissy pushed her legs out in front of her to allow the sun to work its magic.

  “You know, if it was me in Susan’s place, I wouldn’t be headed for a city, not at this time of year.”

  “Oh?”

  “No. Would you? Think about it, Julie. You’ve been lonely and cooped up in a big tasteless house with a husband you deep down know doesn’t love you any more. After she’s got over the shock of the accident, she’ll want to explore a little. Though not here, it’s too close to home.” She took another spoonful and teased it off in several sweeps with her mouth, deep in thought. “So she’s on the move, and I’m betting, as each hour passes, enjoying her newfound freedom and gaining a little more confidence as she goes.”

  “You think she’s happy about this then?”

  “I think she’ll be learning to be, yes. And I’m also betting that the more time passes, the more likely it is that she’ll slip up and make a mistake. It’s clear Marcus isn’t going to chase her, and the police aren’t too bothered, she’s simply another adult gone AWOL. In another week, nobody will be looking for her with any vigour.”

  “That’s sad, don’t you think?”

  “That’s life is what I think. And that brings us back to: where has she gone? And where will she be in a week?” Chrissy scraped the last of the chocolate from the tub, disappointed she’d only had two small scoops and not three. Getting up off the wall and tossing her tub into a nearby bin, she added, “I’d head down south for the summer. Not to the coast or Greece – too busy and I wouldn’t want to risk being seen. But I’d find a happy middle place to hide in for a while. But Paris? Not a chance.”

  “And if she hasn’t got a suitcase as big as mine with her,” Julie said, smiling at her own dig, “then I’d agree with you. There is no draw to Paris itself. Cities can be lonely places, and that’s one of the things she’s perhaps running from. She wants some time to readjust, reinvent and revitalise. Like a butterfly,” she said, adding enthusiasm with her arms raised in the air.

  Chrissy rolled her eyes at the drama of it all. She smiled at her sister and said, “Come on. Let’s find a large map and see what the best options would be to do just that.”

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Dominic had the same problem as the two women did. Just how do you find a person that doesn’t want to be found? If they are not using credit cards or anything else that transmits a digital footprint, it’s virtually impossible. But Dominic had put so much work into this – he didn’t want it to fall apart now – and the phone call from his boss, Morton, had rattled him somewhat. He pondered his next move. In reality there was nothing much he could do from where he was right now: he had no resources handy and no obvious direction to go in. Paris was a big place. If she was, indeed, still in Paris. Had she ever been? It didn’t make any sense. He had to believe that Tabitha Child was alive and well, and was up ahead, though he had no idea how close or how far away.

  He could have kicked himself. His chief super had been right to ask if he’d actually spoken with, or set eyeballs on, the woman, because no, he hadn’t, not for a few days if not longer. And that had been before, back in Kent, at the house. He should have seen this coming and he was left feeling like a complete fool.

  His phone vibrated in his hand. It was Morton again. Dominic didn’t fancy picking it up and getting another dressing-down, so he let it go to voicemail. He needed the space; he didn’t need somebody clambering around the inside of his head kicking rocks around. If Tabitha Child was dead, somebo
dy was impersonating her. If Tabitha Child was alive, he was going to find her. He wasn’t going home empty-handed. When Morton rung off and the voice message had been received, Dominic dialled in to listen to what the man had to say. What he heard turned his blood stone cold. It wasn’t the news he wanted or expected. Morton had been to the mortuary and had seen for himself the woman lying in the fridge, complete with the tattoo that confirmed exactly who she was. The pathologist was anxious to give the woman her identity back after the train crash, but Morton hadn’t confirmed her name. He had merely said it wasn’t the woman he was looking for and left it at that. No one was any the wiser.

  Dominic couldn’t believe it. There was little point going on now. Tabitha Child was dead and that meant the case was over. As was his own reward. Whoever was using Tabitha Child’s identity, sending texts, didn’t matter any longer because it wasn’t the woman they’d been protecting all along, the woman now unable to supply the vital evidence. Dominic turned to head back, feeling totally defeated and somewhat angry at his own stupidity, that he could have been taken in in such a way. He hailed a taxi back to the airport. A flight home earlier than scheduled and an expensive taxi ride were going be the least of his worries when Morton got hold of his collar. It would probably be the end of his career.

  Dominic was sitting in the departure lounge when he had a thought. Maybe there was another way around this. Tabitha Child was lying in the mortuary, yet somebody had successfully gone through passport control impersonating her. Morton had told him her passport had pinged. He needed to find out who had used it. It didn’t take him long to come around to a conclusion. If somebody had Child’s passport, and, probably, her other belongings, it would likely be somebody that had been travelling on that train with her or near her. In the same carriage, maybe. But who?