Grace Smith Investigates

by Liz Evans

  Her bruising had a head start on mine. It had lost its puffiness and faded to dirty yellow. Dabbing a sponge, she quickly pressed some all-in-one cover over the worst of the damage, flicked the hair forward and thrust on a pair of designer sunglasses.

  The ringer had retreated by the time she got the door open again. He was adjusting the driving seat in a white Mercedes convertible. Amelia jumped, wiggled and waved at the same time, shouting that she’d be right there.

  ‘Don’t you just love soft-tops? I hired one in LA. That drive along the Pacific Highway ...’

  ‘Fabulous?’

  ‘Heavenly.’ Amelia skipped towards the waiting car. ‘Don’t know how long I’ll be. Help yourself to coffee or wine or whatever. Ciao.’

  The last I saw of her was the sun glinting off the bracelet as she waved with one hand and accelerated from 0 to 60 in three seconds.

  Bemused, I went back inside and shut the door. The woman seemed to be a total flake. She’d just left a complete stranger alone in a house full of valuables.

  Deciding I’d better look the part while I snooped, I opened the cupboard under the stairs in the hope of finding a vacuum cleaner. I actually found the cellar Amelia had missed out on the whistle-stop tour.

  Flicking on the light switch, I trotted down. The room had been hewn from the chalk. It was at least as old as the original farmhouse, perhaps even older; although a few modern refinements such as electricity and a new floor had been added.

  The Bridgemans used it as a storage area. For form’s sake, I poked amongst the kids’ bikes, discarded furniture, sports equipment and old toys. There was enough dust to tell me no one had disturbed this lot for years. Except for one small area. A couple of old deckchairs and a picnic basket were jumbled together. However, there was a cleaner rim of floor along one edge; as if they’d been moved recently and not quite realigned with their previous position. Dragging them clear, I felt along the wooden block floor. One section responded to pressure and opened to reveal a recessed handle. Pulling it swung up a section about eighteen inches square. I’d found the Bridgeman family safe. It was set in concrete inside the original stone cavern floor and - I tried it - securely locked.

  Rearranging things as near as I’d found them, I dusted myself down, went back to the cellar stairs - and found another door under them. It was a bit like being inside one of those Chinese puzzle boxes. By a quick mental walk around the upstairs rooms, I figured that the room I’d been exploring must be under the TV room and library, whilst the one under the cellar stairs must be beneath the kitchen.

  Oddly enough, it had a solid metal door with a security keypad instead of a conventional locking mechanism. Need-less to say, it was also shut tight.

  ‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ I muttered in my best Alice voice, trotting back to ground level.

  I located the vacuum in a narrow cupboard in the utility section of the kitchen. Polishes, dusters and sprays were on the top shelf. Gathering up an armful, I stowed them in the pouch pocket of a striped apron, tied it on and plugged the vacuum in, strewing flex down the hall. Once the scene was set, I helped myself to a glass of red wine from a half-full bottle in the kitchen and made another round of the house at a slower pace, vaguely swishing the duster and squirting sprays at odd intervals.

  It didn’t yield much. There was the usual assortment of magazines, books, discarded letters, bills and accumulated junk of life in the drawers and cupboards. Oddly enough, most of the photographs that spilled from folders and leapt from overstuffed drawer seemed to be of Amelia and Stephen or Joan and an older man who was probably the long- departed Derek Reiss.

  Perhaps the kids had grown up to be so spectacularly odd that not even their mother could love them. From the framed photos scattered around the house, I guessed the Bridgemans must have four - two of each - but none of them seemed to have faced the camera after the toddler stage.

  My best shot at finding some trace of Kristen’s trail was going to be in Stephen Bridgeman’s study. If it was a no-no, for Amelia, then it was almost certainly a yes-yes for anything her husband didn’t want her to find. Such as a handy contract for a new flat elsewhere. Or perhaps a few credit-card receipts for dinner a deux somewhere local. You never know, maybe Kristen ran off with an Italian waiter.

  The door to the study was locked. Returning to the kitchen, I started rummaging in the dresser drawers. I hit pay dirt in the third one. A plastic container full of assorted keys. Don’t ask me why, but people always seem to keep their spare keys in the kitchen.

  Stephen’s bookcases mostly contained scientific magazines and books on such fascinating subjects as cellular data technology, protocol analysers and virus sentinels for the twenty-first century. I decided I’d wait for the films and turned my attention to the desks. He had two. They were almost excessively tidy. Pens, papers, personal files, all neatly lined up and stored in their correct places, but sadly no notes on the lines of ‘That b***** Mario at La Traviata has been chatting up Kristen again.’

  Since he hadn’t even bothered to lock it, I doubted there was going to be much of interest in there, but I flicked through the filing cabinet anyway. Insurance, taxes, pension plans, bank statements, credit-card statements, school fees. A routine life documented by metres of paper. Most people couldn’t disappear no matter how hard they tried. The electronic trail they leave behind is too thickly layered. So why on earth was Kristen Keats proving so elusive?

  More in hope than expectation, I glanced down the last credit-card statement. There was a hotel - the Heathrow Sheridan - shown as a charge on 30 April. More promising. Maybe they’d had a final fling before Kristen slipped away.

  I’d been so absorbed that I’d filtered out all external sounds. Now I became aware of a car engine approaching.

  One side of the study windows overlooked the front drive. Glancing through, I saw Stephen’s silver Mercedes slowing in front of the double garage. The electronically operated doorway tilted and opened to swallow it.

  Thrusting things back into place, I relocked the door, sprinted to the kitchen, replaced the keys and seized the vacuum cleaner, which was still plugged into the hall socket. I was just about to hit the ‘on’ button when I realised there was already a faint humming sound coming from the front sitting room.

  Cautiously I slid the door ajar. The kid lying on his stomach flicking through the television channels gave me an incurious look and returned to the remote control. He’d muted the sound so cartoon characters fought, screamed and snarled to a background electronic hum.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hello,’ he said, never taking his eyes from the screen.

  ‘So who are you?’

  ‘Patrick.’

  ‘I’m Grace. I’m the new cleaner,’ I added, in case he was scared at finding himself alone with a total stranger. If he was, I have to admit he was hiding it well. ‘When did you get here?’

  ‘I’ve been here all the time.’

  He deigned to look at me for a moment. He was a good- looking kid; dark-haired and dark-eyed. About eight or nine years old.

  ‘You were looking in my daddy’s study. That’s not allowed.’

  ‘Isn’t it? Well, your mum didn’t really explain where I was supposed to clean before she left. Listen, Patrick I dropped down beside him. ‘Do me a favour and don’t tell anyone. I might lose my job.’

  He shrugged, bending and flicking one leg back and forth. ‘OK.’

  I breathed a silent thanks as the curtains ruffled in the breeze created by the opening front door.

  It wasn’t Stephen. It was Joan Reiss, carrying a bag of groceries in her arms. Today it was navy silk palazzo pants and matching tunic with gold chains.

  ‘Good afternoon, Grace. Stephen mentioned you might ... Good heavens, my dear, whatever’s happened?’

  ‘She had a car accident, like Mummy,’ Patrick said from the carpet. The kid must have been listening ever since I arrived at the house.

  ‘I see. How unfortunate. Where is your m
other, Patrick?’

  ‘She’s testing another car.’

  ‘And have you been out in the fresh air today?’

  ‘No.’ Patrick switched the sound back on and flopped his chin on his hands.

  His grandmother gave me a tight ‘children - whatever would you do with them?’ smile.

  She moved across to the kitchen and started unloading her shopping. ‘Has my daughter arranged hours and such with you, Grace?’

  ‘Well, not really ... I mean, the car came and ...’

  ‘Really, that’s so typical.’ Straightening up, Joan folded her brown paper sack with crisp snaps and slaps into eight symmetrical squares. ‘The last girl did two mornings, usually Monday and Thursday, although that could be altered if it doesn’t suit. The pay is seven fifty an hour. Do you iron?’

  I did. Extremely badly. But since I’d no intention of making a career of this, I gave a smile that could have been interpreted as Just point me at the steam button and let me loose on them shirts, lady.

  ‘Good. It’s just a question of keeping the dust down, really. It doesn’t get too dirty. The children are at school during the week. Do you have commitments, Grace?’

  It took me a moment to work out she was asking if I had a family waiting at home. ‘No.’ I trotted out the cover story I’d been working on: dead-end job, redundancy, going back to college to get qualifications. ‘This is just for some extra cash.’

  ‘I see. Well, that’s very commendable. So you wouldn’t object to some additional hours? I’m giving a party for my daughter on Wednesday. We’ll use outside caterers, of course, but there’s bound to be extra work. Waitressing, washing-up.’

  ‘Sure.’ I started thrusting the vacuum and sprays back into their cupboards.

  ‘Good. Patrick, have you had your lunch?’

  ‘No.’ The kid slouched in and cuddled up to his gran.

  ‘Well, how about I make you a nice cheese salad? Would you like that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No, I didn’t think you would. Pizza?’

  ‘If you like.’

  Patrick kept his head lowered and kicked at the table leg. He wanted it understood he was upset about something. On the other hand, he wanted to be fed.

  His grandmother unwrapped a frozen pepperoni pizza and slid it into the oven with brisk, efficient movements. ‘Set the table for me, please, Patrick. Three places.’

  ‘Is she having some too then?’

  ‘The lady’s name is Grace,’ Joan reproved gently. ‘And no, she isn’t. Your sister is around somewhere. Ah, there you are, we’re just fixing lunch,’ she added to someone in the hall. ‘This is my granddaughter Eleanora, Grace.’

  I turned with a pleased-to-meet-you smile; and froze.

  It was Bone.

  CHAPTER 21

  At least she didn’t go for ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Instead I got a casual ‘Hi’ before she wandered across to the fridge and took out a can of Coke.

  The sound of a car drawing up outside, followed by slamming doors and Amelia’s light ‘Ciao’, provided a welcome distraction.

  ‘It’s Mummy.’ Patrick shot across to the window. ‘You won’t forget, will you, Gran? You’ll ask her. You promised.’

  Joan was briskly dealing out place-mats on the kitchen table. ‘Yes, all right, Patrick. I hadn’t forgotten. But you must let me choose the right moment.’

  ‘She won’t say yes anyway,’ Bone said, tilting the can to her lips.

  ‘Yes she will.’

  ‘Won’t.’

  ‘She will. She will.’ Red-faced, Patrick rushed out.

  Joan told her not to tease her brother. ‘And use a glass, please, dear.’

  Bone raised her eyebrows at this attempt to enforce ladylike manners on her. But I noticed she also poured the Coke into a tumbler. Evidently Joan ruled the roost around here and the chicks stayed in line.

  Amelia arrived a second later in a breathless whirl of tossing blonde locks, giggles and jangling jewellery. ‘That car is just unbelievable. I told the salesman - his name’s Raoul, isn’t that great - that I just had to have it by my birthday. He says there may be a premium for early delivery, but Stephen won’t mind. He’s such a generous sweetie.’

  Joan remarked that he needn’t have been quite so generous if they’d have had Amelia’s previous car to trade in.

  ‘But I was just so bored with it. You know how it is.’ She’d heaved herself on to a work surface and was swinging her legs backwards and forwards. I half expected Joan to tell her to ‘sit up properly, dear’ but instead she asked me if I’d finished cleaning. She dragged her fingertips over the top of the fridge as she asked, and frowned at the dusty digits.

  ‘Em ... well ... you know ... you didn’t exactly say what you wanted ...’I mumbled, edging towards the door. ‘Maybe if you made a list or something ...’

  ‘If you think that’s really necessary ...’

  ‘Yeah ... right ... great ... I gotta go now ...’ I’d reached the hall, but Bone was following me out. Now her back was to her family, she started jerking her eyebrows up and down and mouthing instructions to meet her out back.

  I was half tempted to make a run for it, but I didn’t want her blurting out anything to her nearest and dearest in case I had to nose around Wexton’s again, so I dutifully sauntered casually out of the front and round the side of the house.

  Bone grabbed my wrist as soon as I appeared at the back. ‘This way.’ She dragged me along the path bordering the terraced patio, and down a winding route that wove between clumps of bushes and flowerbeds towards what looked like the barn of the original farmhouse.

  Bone flicked on a switch, activating the underwater illuminations in the turquoise pool and picking out the swirl of dolphin mosaics endlessly following each other’s tails on the bottom.

  There were several assorted exercise machines ranged down this end, and a row of wooden cubicles opposite which I assumed were changing rooms until Bone instructed me to ‘hang on’ and marched across to bang one of the doors open.

  I caught a glimpse of a sun-bed before she marched to the next and threw it back to reveal the slatted wooden seats of a sauna. ‘You know you’re not allowed in here by yourself. Get lost.’

  ‘Won’t.’ Patrick hunched his knees into his chest and pouted.

  ‘Gran wants you. Your lunch is getting cold. She says if you don’t go eat it right now, she’s not asking Mummy.’

  ‘She didn’t? Did she, Bone?’ Patrick’s huge eyes widened even further. The poor kid looked really scared. ‘Honest?’

  ‘Honest.’

  Disentangling himself, Patrick fled.

  ‘What’s up with him?’ I asked.

  ‘He hates school. He wants to go and live with Gran so he can be a day pupil instead of boarding.’

  ‘Will your mum let him?’

  ‘No, of course she won’t. Make it bloody obvious she didn’t want us here, wouldn’t it? She could easily run us into school each morning. Or we could get a taxi. Loads of kids do. But she only wants us around at weekends when Daddy’s home. No sense us being here in the week when he’s at work all the time. So she makes out boarding school is good for us. Builds self-reliance and all that psycho-babble rubbish.’

  I asked her if she hated school too.

  ‘Me? No. I quite like it.’ Abruptly she remembered it wasn’t cool to like St Aggie’s, so she added a bored shrug. ‘I mean, it’s OK, you know. Better than hanging around this dump.’

  ‘Some dump.’

  Bone threw a bored look around the expensively converted room. ‘Claudia’s folks have a flat in Knightsbridge and another overlooking Central Park in New York. As well as the country house, of course. She says it’s brill. You can just walk straight out the front door and go clubbing. Daddy said we could get a flat in London, but maybe I’ll talk him into an apartment in New York instead. Claudia says the club scene’s dead brill in the States.’

  Kicking off her shoes, Bone sat on the edge of the
pool, flicking waves over the glinting surface with her toes. She was dressed in slightly over-large jeans and loose chequered shirt today. Combined with a lack of make-up it made her look a lot younger than she had previously. I had a sudden nasty thought and asked her how old she was.

  ‘Fourteen, why?’

  ‘I thought you were sixteen or seventeen.’

  ‘Everyone does. Brill, isn’t it?’

  I wondered if Tom Skerries had known her age. If he hadn’t, finding out might have been another powerful reason to drop out of sight.

  ‘Course he did,’ Bone said in answer to my question. ‘What’s the big deal anyway?’

  ‘You’re under-age. He could have been arrested. That might have been a pretty big deal for him, Bone!’

  The toes became even more agitated, sending a mini tidal-wave slopping over the opposite edge. ‘I never said we did it, did I?’ She threw me another pout over her shoulder and asked if I’d found him yet.

  ‘No. I’m still on it. But it’s not going to be easy. Maybe you should line up an understudy for Claudia’s party. Aren’t there any other blokes available?’

  ‘Sure. Dozens. But I want Tom. I said he was taking me.’ She stopped kicking, drew her legs up, and started picking at the soft skin around one of her big toes. Without looking at me she asked: ‘Did she do that? The sister?’

  It dawned on me that she thought my face was the result of a punch-up with Nola whilst chasing Tom on her behalf. She didn’t even seem to find it odd that I’d come to report when she’d never given me her home address. No doubt she put it down to my hotshot powers of deduction. I mumbled vaguely about the problems of the job.

  Bone abandoned her toes. ‘I’ve been thinking, what if I paid his wife? I could give her fifty pounds for him to take me out. I mean, it would be just like hiring a car or something for the evening, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘I’ve told you, Bone. She doesn’t know where he is.’

  ‘She might. If you offered her the cash. Will you?’

  It seemed simplest to agree. At least it would stop her from nosing around trying to find Donna’s address and causing more trouble. In the meantime, Bone wanted me to go on looking for Tom. She didn’t ask; she ordered. There was a lot of her grandmother in Bone.