Once the Jukes left, Greg helped me clear away the dishes and then we wandered through to the sitting room. I was so deep in thought I didn’t notice I’d left several dirty glasses on the sideboard, until Greg started to collect them up.
‘Were you ever jealous of Becca?’ I asked him.
‘What kind of a question is that?’
‘It’s just that your mum makes such a fuss of her, with her university place and all that. I just wondered.’
‘Why would I be jealous? University is my idea of a nightmare. You know what I’m like. The thought of being cooped up in a classroom for hours on end. It was bad enough at school.’
‘Your mum is proud of you, you know. Even though she doesn’t show it often.’
‘I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make. Trust me, mum and me are fine as we are. Dad and me too, come to that. Becca gets to do what she’s always dreamed of. Good luck to her.’
He picked up the local paper, suggesting that that particular topic of conversation was over.
‘If I had a sister, I’d want to be close to her, to be mates,’ I said, pushing his feet out of the way so I could sit beside him.
‘For goodness sake, we are friends, we don’t need to see each other every five minutes. Becca’s got her own friends and I’ve got you.’
‘I know, I was just thinking about Zara and Gabrielle. It’s so sad they’re not friends. I understand you and Becca like different things, but they’re twins. I keep going over it in my mind and it doesn’t make any sense.’
‘You think too much.’
‘Probably. When’s your next darts match? Do you want me to come, for moral support?’
‘Thanks, but no thanks. If I’m going to make a fool of myself I’d rather not have an audience.’
I curled my legs up onto the settee and nestled up against him. He put his arm around me and dropped the paper to the floor. ‘Is that what this is all about then?’ he said, turning to look at me.
‘All what?’
‘You and Zara, your fixation with tracking her down. Is it because you wish you had a sister?’
I didn’t answer him, because I couldn’t. I didn’t know the answer.
Chapter 21
‘Not now, not now, mon ami. I have need of reflection. My mind is in some disorder – which is not well.’ For about ten minutes he sat in dead silence, perfectly still, except for several expressive motions of his eyebrows, and all the time his eyes grew steadily greener. At last he heaved a deep sigh. ‘It is well. The bad moment has passed. One must never permit confusion. The case is not clear yet – no. For it is of the most complicated!’
The Mysterious Affair at Styles - Agatha Christie
I’ll admit I was feeling a little overstretched with everything that had been going on. Dad had had a busy few days with patients, so I hadn’t had much time to think about my detective work, or to talk to him about my progress, or lack of it. I kept my notebook to hand and in the rare quiet moments I glanced through it to see if anything jumped out at me that might be worth exploring.
It was the beginning of a new working week, but I was already shattered and as soon as I got home from dropping off the library van I ditched my bag on the kitchen table and went upstairs to run a bath. All day I’d been looking forward to a long soak and a read of some light-hearted nonsense. With the bubbles floating around me I flicked idly through a magazine, glancing at the pictures. I heard the front door go and Greg’s voice calling out hello, followed by him clattering about in the kitchen.
‘You okay?’ I shouted down to him, but then the radio went on and I knew I’d never compete, so I laid back in the warm water and hummed along. Midway through the track, the music stopped and I heard Greg’s footsteps on the stairs. The bathroom door opened and he stood glaring at me, holding my notebook in my hand.
‘What the hell is this?’ he said, looking angrier than I’d seen him in a long time.
‘My notebook,’ I said, tempted to dip down under the water to avoid what I thought would soon follow.
‘This is crazy. You’re expecting our first baby, you’re driving around in that library van and you’re still working for your dad and now you’ve set off on a one-woman campaign to hunt down someone we barely know.’
‘We do know her, she lived with us for a whole year.’
‘Yes, and probably spoke twenty words in twelve months.’
‘Don’t exaggerate.’
‘I’m really cross with you. Don’t you care about Bean?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, of course I do.’
‘You are the one being ridiculous. Does your dad know about this madcap scheme of yours?’
I didn’t want to involve dad, so I chose not to answer, although I did wonder whether Greg would be less angry if he knew dad was monitoring my exploits. He had a lot of respect for my dad and the feeling was mutual.
‘I’m not doing anything dangerous,’ I said, ‘I’m just trying to think laterally and to explore areas the police might not have thought of.’
‘Oh, please, don’t tell me you haven’t shared any of this with the police.’
‘Well, I…’
‘You do know that if you keep anything from them you could be charged for withholding valuable evidence. Do you want our baby to be born in prison?’
‘Oh, now you’re just being silly. Let me get out of the bath and you put the kettle on and we can continue this discussion downstairs. The water’s getting a bit chilly.’
He left me to get dry and dressed, making a point of slamming the bathroom door as he left. By the time I arrived in the kitchen he was sitting at the table holding tight to a mug of tea, with a drink for me being distinctly inconspicuous by its absence.
‘Greg, come on, let’s not argue. This is important, the police have just about given up, you must admit that.’
‘They’ve got new leads, they’re on the case.’
‘No, they have one new lead and that’s the sighting Mr Peters told me about. As I far as I know they’ve done nothing about it.’
‘I need you to promise me you’ll stop this nonsense. Zara will either be found by the police or she won’t, it’s not your responsibility to search for her.’
‘But she’s my friend, our friend.’
‘And you’re my wife.’
‘Oh, for goodness sake, this is the 1960s, not the 1860s.’
The argument was getting out of hand and soon one or both of us would say something we regretted.
‘Greg, I love you and I would never do anything to jeopardise the health of our baby, I promise.’
‘Do you promise to stop looking for Zara?’
‘No love, I can’t do that. I promise I’ll be careful though and not take any risks.’
I slid my hand across the table towards his, but he quickly moved away from me and stood up.
‘I’m going to the pub, I’ll eat there.’
‘Well, that will help a lot, won’t it. Just go and get drunk and then sulk for days on end.’
Before I finished speaking, he’d grabbed his jacket and left.
I was in bed before Greg returned home later that evening. I’d been dozing on and off, so when he got into bed I turned over to give him a hug. Instead he turned his back to me and edged further towards his side of the bed. Within seconds he was snoring loudly and I was left alone with my thoughts.
By the time Greg came downstairs the next morning I’d laid the table for a proper cooked breakfast, hoping a full English would help persuade him to see my side of the argument.
‘Smells divine,’ he said, lifting up the lid I’d put over the frying pan to stop the bacon spitting everywhere.
‘Morning husband,’ I said and slid my arms around his waist. ‘You do realise Bean is quite literally coming between us and it’s not even born yet. Sit yourself down and let me spoil you for once. What would sir like, coffee, tea?’
Over breakfast we chatted about insignificant trivia, both of us carefully
avoiding anything contentious.
‘I’ll wash up,’ Greg said, once we’d shared the last slice of toast. ‘I know you don’t want to talk about it anymore and nor do I, but I just want to say I love you and I worry about you, that’s all.’
‘I know you do.’
‘It’s all very sad, of course it is. Anyone could see how happy Joel and Zara were together. No wonder she went off the rails when he died.’
‘Yes, they were happy, weren’t they?’ I was starting to doubt everything, even my memory of the last few months of Joel’s life.
‘Take that morning when I saw them out running together, they just looked so much in love.’
‘Running? When was that then?’
‘You remember, I’d gone off early to the Mansion House job. They had a big function coming up and they wanted the windows sparkling before the weekend. Anyway, I drove up Upper Park Road and there they were, running together, alongside the park.’
‘Joel and Zara running together, early in the morning?’
‘He was always on at her to run with him, don’t you remember? He kept teasing her about it.’
‘Yes, I know, but she hated the idea. I’m sure you’ve never told me this story, I would have remembered it. So, you saw them running together?’
‘Well, not actually running, but they were both in running gear, at least he had his usual shorts and singlet and she was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, but when I saw them it looked as though they’d just stop for a breather. Mind you, there was more kissing and cuddling going on than breathing, if you get my drift. The point is they looked so happy, so in love.’
I thought a lot about Greg’s remarks. He might have been inferring Zara and Joel showed their love for each other in a way we didn’t, but that wasn’t what bothered me. Greg and I were fine and once he’d stopped worrying about my detective antics he would agree. We didn’t need to shout our love from the hilltops, ours was a quiet love and for my mind all the more solid as a result.
The real focus of my thoughts was that I had never given Zara’s relationship with Joel much critical consideration. She’d met him, fallen in love and moved into his flat. On the few occasions we had been out as a foursome they seemed happy. She would always hold tightly to his arm as they walked. I thought it was rather sweet to see her doting on him. So when he died, I wasn’t at all surprised she fell apart. But now I had to factor in Owen’s relationship with Zara, as well as everything Petula had told me about Joel’s behaviour. Plus, there was something of a contrast between Zara, the doting girlfriend, and Zara, the girl prepared to go on protest marches, with strong opinions of her own.
I couldn’t help thinking I was missing something. There was a niggling thought at the back of my mind that wouldn’t go away. For now, I jotted a few notes down in my notebook. Fortunately, I’d retrieved it unscathed from Greg and made a mental reminder to stash it away in a safer place from now on.
The information I had gained so far provided me with background, but I was no further forward in tracking down my friend. Mr Peters had confirmed that the day she went missing she went to the cemetery. It made sense then to revisit the cemetery to see if it held any clues.
Joel is buried in St Martha’s cemetery, which is walking distance from our house. It was a surprise to me when his parents chose not to take their only son back to Scotland with them, but then the more I discover about people, the more I realise I understand nothing.
The proximity of the cemetery to our house was one of the reasons we thought it strange Zara never visited during her whole time with us. Not a single visit in a whole year, and yet on the first anniversary of Joel’s death it was the last place she had been seen. Perhaps she visited him to say goodbye. Perhaps it was to tell him she’d be with him again soon. I tried to dispel such thoughts from my mind. Zara had to be alive, I wasn’t prepared to countenance the alternative.
St Martha’s is a peaceful place, as I suppose most graveyards are. It’s a place where the dead can rest in peace and the living can visit for quiet moments of reflection. Wandering around the cemetery I read a few of the inscriptions. ‘Gone but not forgotten’, ‘Heaven has another angel’, ‘Always in our thoughts’. All words designed to help the living.
I’ve never thought much about death. On the odd occasion the subject came up during conversations with Zara, I sensed she’d spent time searching for a solid belief system. Although her mother was a strict French Catholic, Zara told me quite early on in our friendship that she’d rejected Catholicism as soon as she was old enough to be allowed her own opinion. When we were at school together she’d made a few remarks about the hypocrisy of Sunday churchgoers. It struck me that she was battling some kind of inner demon that would make her withdraw into herself. Whether that was to do with religion or politics, or her struggle to find her place in the world, I could never work out.
Then, when I met up with Zara again as an adult, I could tell her interests in George Harrison and John Lennon went much further than the music. Once I caught the title on the cover of a little book she was reading, before she slipped it away into her bag; Buddhism was mentioned. I wish now I’d spoken to her about her thoughts on the afterlife. Perhaps it would give me some pointers as to why she might have needed to run away.
Cemeteries are not my favourite place, nevertheless I’d made a point of regularly visiting Joel’s grave. Despite him being well thought of locally, it was doubtful that grateful customers would think to commemorate him and with his parents back in Scotland there was no-one else. On all the visits I’d made since his death I’d never seen any other flowers in the brass vase, except for the ones I brought.
I walked up to it now and for a moment thought I’d made a mistake. I always approached this part of the cemetery from the top path, but today I’d walked the long way around and came upon it from another angle. But, no, I wasn’t mistaken. For the first time since Joel’s death someone else had visited his grave. The little brass vase contained a bunch of chrysanthemums.
I stood beside the headstone and thought about Zara. Perhaps she had visited again, which meant she must be somewhere nearby. I went through a mental list, trying to guess who else might have brought the flowers. Joel’s parents were back in Scotland and I was certain they would have contacted me had they decided to make a trip south. Petula had been at the funeral, but after what she’d told me I couldn’t imagine her visiting his grave.
In the end, I wrote an entry in my notebook with today’s date and then put it out of my mind. The chances were a kindly stranger had a few flowers left over and felt sorry at the sight of a young man’s grave looking bare and unloved. I looked around and spotted a man in a grey raincoat a little distance away from me. He didn’t appear to be walking with any purpose in mind, it was as though he had chosen the cemetery for his afternoon stroll, which was odd.
I unwrapped the flowers from their newspaper wrapping and took the vase over to the water fountain to refresh it. I spent a few minutes rearranging the chrysanthemums and mixing them with the carnations I’d brought and then I bent down to return the vase to its holder at the side of the marble headstone. I’d left a little cloth stuffed in a crack between the vase holder and the headstone. I used it to wipe the marble down every now and then. As I pulled the cloth out something fell to the ground. It was a small piece of card, torn from a cereal packet or similar. One side was coloured, but on the other side were just three handwritten words, ‘Please forgive me’.
Once the man in the raincoat was facing away from me I put the card in my pocket, feeling guilty, but this was evidence and would be more useful to me than poor Joel. When I looked up again the man had gone.
Chapter 22
I hesitated. To tell the truth, an idea, wild and extravagant in itself, had once or twice that morning flashed through my brain. I had rejected it as absurd, nevertheless it persisted. ‘You couldn’t call it a suspicion,’ I murmured. ‘It’s so utterly foolish.’
The Mysterious Aff
air at Styles - Agatha Christie
The next time I called in to pay the paper bill I wasn’t expecting Mr Peters to remember our brief conversation. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
‘Did it help at all?’ he asked, as I handed over a note and some change.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘What I told you about your friend?’
Either I had been less discreet about my investigations than I thought, or Mr Peters knew more than he had led me to believe.
‘You mean Zara Carpenter?’
‘You’re her friend, aren’t you? You must be keen to find her. The police don’t seem to have done much since I told them what I’d seen.’
‘They have their own methods, I guess. But, yes, I’m keen to find her. How did you know we were friends?’
‘Oh, you hear all sorts working in a paper shop. I might be able to help, if you’d like me to?’
There was something vaguely distasteful about Mr Peters and ordinarily I would have kept him at arm’s length, but if he could help then I wasn’t going to turn down his offer.
‘Yes, any other information you might have…’
‘Tell you what, meet me here at the shop tomorrow at 5pm. Once I’ve locked up we can go over to the cemetery together and I’ll tell you exactly what I saw. It might trigger something, give you some clues.’
By the time I got home I was regretting having agreed to the meeting, but decided half an hour spent in the company of an oddball wouldn’t be much of a penance if it got me closer to finding Zara.
The next afternoon, when I arrived at the shop, he was standing outside, looking keen. He was dressed in what could have passed as his Sunday best, with his hair slicked down with Brylcreem and an overdose of aftershave I could smell as I approached. I was still tempted to abandon the whole idea.
The Tapestry Bag Page 14