Grace Smith Investigates

by Liz Evans

  ‘He’s at the flat. Cleaning. We’re keeping it really nice, honest.’

  ‘I’ll mention that to Annie. The owner, remember?’

  ‘Yes.’ She looked even more miserable. Basically Mickey was not a natural-born scrounger. ‘We will go soon. Soon as Figgy gets a job.’

  ‘As a matter of interest, what does Figgy do for a living?’

  ‘He’s an ice-skater.’

  ‘Well, that should narrow down the choices at the job centre.’

  ‘He doesn’t expect to get a job skating. But if he could get something that let him have time off to practise ... He’s ever so good ...’

  ‘I know. I caught your performance the other day. I was impressed.’

  Mickey flushed with pleasure. ‘Were you? Honest? I’ll tell Figgy. He nearly got a part in Starlight Express once, you know. But he had to say no, on account of his ankles. Busting them. Because of the ice-skating, see?’

  I didn’t really. Wheelies on rock-hard pavement struck me as rather more dangerous than roller-skating on a professional stage.

  Retrieving a couple of cream and jam jumbo doughnuts from the showcase in response to a shouted order, I asked Mickey if they were still performing, in view of her condition.

  ‘Figgy is. He’s got regular spots: mornings outside the post office - when people are doing their shopping, see? Then afternoons on the prom; that’s for the beach babies, he says. And then two evening sessions outside the amusement park six o’clock and ten thirty.’

  ‘What’s he doing for music?’

  ‘He takes the radio cassette now.’

  ‘Annie’s radio, you mean?’

  ‘Well ... yes ... but ...’

  ‘I know ... you’re taking ever such good care of it.’ Mickey looked guilty. Then the pinched look changed to wide-eyed alarm. She slapped a hand over her mouth.

  ‘Loos are in the back.’

  With a moan, Mickey fled.

  I checked out the cafe. My shadow had taken the opportunity to slip into one of the spare seats by the window whilst I was chatting with Mickey and was now lurking behind a newspaper held at face height. I was tempted to go over, knock it down and shout ‘Gotcha!’ - but I figured we’d go on playing the game for a while longer.

  Mickey reappeared looking several shades paler.

  ‘Better?’

  She nodded. ‘The doctor said I should try weak black tea, ’cos I didn’t want to take tablets in case it hurts the baby.’

  ‘Right.’ I thrust a mug under the spout and released hot water in a cloud of steam.

  Mickey delved into her - or rather Annie’s - pockets and counted out a collection of small coins.

  ‘On the house,’ I said, ever generous with Shane’s profits.

  She sipped the scalding liquid like I’d just offered champagne. ‘That’s where I’ve been. Up the doctor’s. Signing on. That’s why I took the clothes. If you look like you’re sleeping rough, they say the lists are full.’

  ‘The health authority would make someone take you on, Mickey.’

  ‘Crap doctors, Figgy says. The ones no one else wants to go to. You’ve got to have a good address to get on the list at a decent surgery, Figgy says.’

  ‘Right little know-it-all, isn’t he, your Figgy?’

  Some colour came back to her face. ‘He takes care of me.’

  ‘Lucky you. I wish someone would take care of me.’

  ‘Do you?’

  She seemed surprised. That made two of us. I didn’t know where that had come from. Before I could do any in-depth analysis, the phone rang.

  It was Annie. She’d spent the day tracking down a cookie who’d lied his way through his entire application for the bonds and securities company and she was anxious to tell me just how smart she’d been.

  I, on the other hand, wanted Kristen Keats’ home address. Shane wanted to exercise his vocal cords by running through his rock-and-roll repertoire.

  ‘So would you believe there are eight men in this family - all called Amin?’

  ‘Lack of imagination is obviously hereditary. Have you really got Kristen Keats’ address?’

  ‘Sure. I found this computer buff who hacked into the files on former students for me. You owe me the price of a couple of drinks in the students’ union bar, by the way. Anyway, this Amin, the one I was tracking ...’

  I fished for a pencil. ‘What’s the address?’

  ‘Most of them were living in the same house. That was part of the problem. I mean, the address checked out. And there’s four cousins around the same age’

  ‘Not that address, Kristen’s address. You can tell me the rest when you get back’

  ‘So anyway ... you’ll never guess how I tripped him in the end’

  ‘I gotta a girl called ...’ Shane sung whilst drumming on a saucepan lid.

  ‘SHUT UP!’

  Well, it worked. The only sound in the cafe was the hiss of frying fat. I looked out over a room of surprised faces and the top of one head whose owner had apparently dropped something under the table.

  ‘Sorry ... er ... carry on ... Annie, you still there?’

  ‘Yes. But one of my eardrums isn’t. You can do your own leg-work in the future, you ungrateful ratbag.’

  ‘Deepest grovels and I’ll even buy the pizza next time. Brownie’s honour. Just give me Kristen’s address.’

  ‘You were never a brownie. Got a pen ...?’

  I pinned an order pad to the wall with my elbow and scribbled. ‘Is that R-O-C-H-E-L-L-E? As in western France?’

  ‘No. It’s R-O-Z-E-L. It’s not in France. It’s in Jersey. There’s a phone number too.’

  Out of the corner of my eye I’d seen the plates were piling up on the serving counter as Shane whisked cooked orders through to the rhythm of ‘Hot Dog Buddy Buddy.’ I’d also sensed the natives were getting restless. Being well-bred, reserved British types, most of them had kept their moans to themselves. One table finally cracked.

  ‘Oi, Blondie ... our chips are getting cold.’

  ‘Well come get them, then ... you glued to the seat or what?’

  I punched in the Jersey number. Now I was this close, there was no way I was being diverted.

  ‘Isobel Keats speaking.’

  I nearly did a cartwheel. At last I’d got a hook on the elusive Kristen. ‘Hello, we’ve not met, but I’m trying to trace a Kristen Keats.’

  ‘This is Kristen’s mother speaking.’

  Jackpot!

  I checked. The Kristen I wanted had worked for AD Aerospace and Okranshaw Electronics.

  ‘Yes, that’s correct. My daughter worked for both those companies. Before she joined the voluntary agency. May I ask what your interest is, Miss ... Mrs ...?’

  ‘Grace Smith. I’ve been hired to find Kristen by ... a friend who’s worried about her. Kristen hasn’t been in touch for the past few weeks ... and before that they’d been in pretty regular contact since Christmas, so ...’

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Smith, there seems to have been some sort of mistake.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because our Kristen died over a year ago.’

  CHAPTER 23

  ‘It might have been better if Kristen had never been born.’ Isobel Keats’ hand shook slightly as she poured a thin stream of pale-biscuit-coloured tea into a translucent china cup. The set-up suited her. Everything about her, from her porcelain skin to her pale-blue eyes and white hair, had a transparent air. She made me think of an insect husk after the juice had been sucked from its occupant.

  But there was plainly still a spark of life burning inside somewhere. When I’d explained on the phone about ‘Kristen’ working at Wexton’s and living in Seatoun until a few weeks ago, she’d been initially suspicious - and then some other emotion had cut in. Part anger, but part something else I couldn’t quite identify - then.

  She’d asked if I’d be prepared to come to Jersey. ‘We should like to meet you face to face, Miss Smith, but I’m afraid my husband is unable to travel
far.’

  ‘Well ... I ...’

  I could come, of course. But I wasn’t entirely sure Henry was going to cough up for the fare. Isobel must have read my mind.

  ‘We shall be pleased to cover your expenses. We should be most grateful. Kristen is ... was ... very precious to us. If someone is using her name ... well, we should like the matter resolved.’

  ‘Fair enough. If you can fix up a flight, I’ll come out.’

  She’d rung back half an hour later with instructions to collect the ticket from the British Airways desk at Heathrow. I took down the flight details to the rhythm of Shane begging us not to step on his blue suede shoes, and bawled them back to her whilst he bemoaned that damn hound dog.

  I have a theory that when calculating times for any journey that involves negotiating the M25, it’s best to double the number you first thought of - and then add in today’s date for good luck. By this method, I just managed to dump the car in the long-stay car-park at Heathrow the following morning and hitch a lift to the terminal as the information screens were flashing the final boarding call for my flight.

  By the time I’d sprinted to the relevant gate and been welcomed aboard by a set of gleaming teeth and immaculate make-up, the rest of the passengers were already seated.

  Taking my seat at the back of the plane, I passed the thirty- five-minute flight nibbling on the courtesy packets of roasted peanuts, sipping ginger ale and watching the cabin staff going for the Olympic record for distributing and collecting plastic glasses. They just managed to hurl the last cup into the trash sack as the ‘fasten seat belts’ sign flashed on and the tannoy thanked me for flying British Airways and hoped to see me again.

  I have to say that Jersey was seriously gorgeous. No high-rise buildings or wide, featureless fields; instead, the taxi wove through narrow roads bordered by stone walls and thick hedgerows all sprinkled with nodding clusters of wild flowers enclosing tiny patchwork fields.

  Rozel Bay was the seaside for those with taste. A small beach and harbour fringed by a few tiny streets of old cottages. The commercial section was discreet: upmarket antiques and outfits in the shops; cream teas and seafood salads served in patio gardens beneath fringed umbrellas.

  The Keats’ cottage was in a row of six, all built of the warm pinkish-tinged blocks I’d noticed in a lot of the older houses on the taxi journey.

  ‘It used to be the traditional building material of the island,’ Isobel explained when I commented on it. ‘Did you notice the marriage stone over the front door?’

  She drew me back into the narrow street to point out the carved initials: ‘I & C 1721 AD’.

  ‘We took the initials as a good omen, Isobel and Charles. It was as if the house had been waiting for us. Somewhere warm and safe to grow old and welcome our grandchildren. Now we just ... grow old.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Look, I didn’t mean to cause you any further upset.’

  ‘I rather doubt you could, Miss Smith.’

  ‘Grace, please.’

  ‘As you wish. Would you excuse me a moment while I settle Charles.’

  She’d carried a tray out into the slightly overgrown tangle of back garden. Her husband was sitting by a small folding table. Through the leaded window, I saw him say something to her and shake his head violently.

  We’d been introduced briefly when I first arrived. Flesh pared to the bone, a tall frame permanently stooped and dull brown eyes were my first impressions. My second was that while the engine was running, some of the spark plugs had given up a while ago.

  Isobel had more or less confirmed this by excusing her husband. ‘He doesn’t wish to talk about Kristen. There are some days he prefers to act as if she hadn’t existed. In some ways it might have been better if Kristen had never been born.’

  We both looked out of the window to the figure seated in the garden, his head turned stubbornly away from the window.

  ‘How did Kristen die, Mrs Keats? If you don’t mind my asking.’

  ‘I doubt it would make any difference to you if I did.’ The colourless lips suddenly tilted in a fraction of a smile. ‘I’m sorry, that was unpleasant. Please forgive me. It’s not your fault. It’s simply ... you look around for someone to blame. To hit out at. Do you understand?’

  I nodded. ‘Kristen?’ I prompted.

  ‘Kristen.’ The name came out like a long sigh. ‘She wasn’t wanted. I suppose when we married we both thought there would be children, but when none came ... well, we had a good life. We were content with each other. Then, on our silver wedding anniversary, I discovered I was expecting.’

  I didn’t want to know any of this. But I sensed Isobel needed to talk. And until she’d gone through this mental flagellation, we couldn’t reach the answers that I needed.

  ‘I considered an abortion. We both felt we were too old for children.’ Moisture gathered along the inner rims of her eyelids and spilled over. ‘I don’t know when she became the centre of our existence. One, two weeks after we brought her home?’

  ‘Bath was home then?’

  ‘Yes. Charles’s dental practice was in the city. Although we are both from Jersey originally. We returned here when Kristen went to university. A relative left us this cottage. It seemed so providential. Somewhere that our grandchildren could come - would want to come for their holidays. Now we just sit here and wait.’

  ‘Wait for what?’

  She turned surprised eyes, glinting through a film of tears, on me. ‘To die, Grace. What else is there left to wait for now?’

  I knew I ought to say something comforting, but frankly I couldn’t think of a damn thing.

  Isobel smiled bleakly. ‘It’s all right. There is nothing to say.’

  ‘You didn’t have any more children? After Kristen?’

  ‘No. There was only Kristen. If she hadn’t been born, Charles and I would probably have grown into a contented old age together. But once we’d had her ...’

  She gave herself a shake. I almost expected to see flakes of dried skin rise in a cloud around her and drift out into the shaft of sunlight streaming through the window to dapple the floor in diamond patterns.

  ‘Charles adored her. He was so determined not to let his age become a handicap to her. He didn’t want to be an old- fashioned father, the sort of man who saw girls as only fit for marriage. So he pushed her in the opposite direction. He insisted she take scientific studies at school: maths, computer studies, physics. Poor Kristen ... she tried so hard to please him, but the truth is, her heart wasn’t in it. It’s ironic really. When there were so many girls fighting for success in male professions, Kristen would, I suspect, have been quite happy to sit at home practising embroidery and playing the piano. She was born a hundred years too late, my poor love.’

  ‘She took engineering at Leicester, though?’

  ‘Yes. She had considered dentistry like her father, but her grades weren’t sufficiently high. She managed to scrape through with a two-two degree, but she hated every job she had afterwards. Until she joined the voluntary agency.’

  ‘She really worked for the Third World Initiative Team?’

  ‘No. She was with a small agency called Childscope. They sent her to Central America. Initially it was to provide assistance with a water purification scheme, but they were desperate for someone to teach basic maths at the local school. The original volunteer had changed her mind at the last minute ...’

  ‘So Kristen stepped in?’

  ‘It was the first time she’d been really happy for ages. It just shone out of her letters. She enjoyed the children so much. She was even talking of training as a teacher when she returned to England.’

  ‘I take it she never did?’ I said gently.

  ‘No.’

  Isobel sat silently staring ahead for a moment. I could feel the effort going on inside her as she tried to gather together enough strength to talk.

  ‘Her appendix burst. They think she’d been in pain for several days and hadn’t said anything. They operated,
but peritonitis had set in. It was all so fast...’ The tears spilt now in huge drops on to her lap. ‘We didn’t even get to say goodbye ...’

  I took her hand. There didn’t seem anything else to do. ‘We scattered her ashes out there. The children helped us. When you rang ... when you said ... I knew it was quite absurd ... we saw the body ...’

  I finally identified that other note I’d caught in Isobel’s voice whilst we bawled at each other over Shane’s rock repertoire on the cafe phone. It had been hope. For a brief second, I’d raised the prospect that Kristen might still be alive.

  In a few minutes I’d stripped away the healing of fourteen months and laid the wound raw. Now that pain and disbelief and anger had to be worked through all over again.

  ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry, Mrs Keats ... I didn’t think ... I mean, I’d no way of knowing ...’

  ‘It’s all right.’ She sat up straighter and fixed her trembling lips in a thin line. ‘This woman who claims to be Kristen, are you certain it is not merely a coincidence? Someone with a similar name, perhaps?’

  ‘With exactly the same schooling and employment record?’

  ‘No. I suppose not.’

  ‘It’s more common than you think. Get hold of a few documents and you can have a whole new identity. Half a dozen if you like. Can I ask what happened to Kristen’s papers? Birth certificate? Driving licence? Passport?’

  ‘They’re upstairs. In her bedroom.’

  ‘Did you register her death? In Britain, I mean?’

  ‘No. We were advised it wasn’t necessary.’

  It must have been a real bonus to Kristen’s doppelganger. A whole new life and no corresponding death if anyone chose to cross-check.

  Isobel rose abruptly and excused herself for a moment. Through the window, I watched her fit an old panama hat on her husband’s head. It bobbed and shook slightly under her attentions before sinking even further on to his chest.

  ‘He sleeps a great deal now,’ she explained, resettling herself in the back parlour, but leaving the door to the garden open.

  ‘You must get lonely.’

  ‘Yes.’ The single word was a dismissal of the entire subject. I was getting to the crux of my visit.