Grace Smith Investigates

by Liz Evans

  ‘Don’t fuss, B,’ Clemency said calmly. ‘It’s just another nosebleed. I need ice.’

  ‘Oh dear. I’m so sorry. Sit down. Put your head back.’

  ‘No don’t,’ I said automatically. ‘You need to keep it upright.’

  ‘I know. I’ve had these damn bleeds since I was a kid. It’s a stress reaction.’ From lying down? ‘I’ve been reading the rewrites, with that stupid Easter Bunny plot.’ She wrapped some ice in a towel and sat on a kitchen chair, pinching her nostrils with one hand and holding the icepack over the nose bridge with the other. ‘Do you know,’ she trumpeted through the obstruction. ‘That Easter Bunny looks a bit like you.’

  We all looked at the newspaper photo Bianca had pinned up by Cappuccino’s basket. ‘I can’t see it myself. My ears are much shorter.’ Bianca gave one of her teeth-itching giggles. And then remembered their own big-eared one. ‘I forgot Cappy.’

  She rushed to the hall to release him. He hopped into the kitchen and gave me a dirty look before bouncing into his basket.

  Clemency brayed, ‘I’ve been meaning to ask about the garden. How much longer do you think it will take?’

  We both stared through the glass back door. Chelsea Flower Show it wasn’t.

  ‘A few more days I guess. It depends when I can fit you in. I did explain to your mother-in-law that I was very busy, I’d have to work around other appointments.’

  ‘Really?’ Clemency seemed doubtful that the slash-and-burn gardening style was so popular locally. ‘Damn, who’s that?’ she said at the sound of the front door bell.

  Bianca lumbered away to find out. And returned a few seconds later — with O’Hara in tow. ‘It’s your colleague, Grace.’

  ‘So it is.’ And what the hell did my colleague think he was doing here? He tugged his forelock. ‘Finished the re-turfing job, boss. Thought I’d best come give you a hand here. Know how you don’t like the staff slacking.’

  ‘That’s not necessary. Why don’t you go and lop off something closer to home?’

  ‘No, don’t.’ Clemency cautiously let go of her nostrils. Reassured that the bleeding had stopped, she continued. ‘You’ll be able to get the job done more quickly with help. Do stay, Mr —?’

  ‘Call me Dane.’

  ‘All right, Dane. And thank you.’ She stood with a single graceful movement. ‘I must go and change.’

  I hauled O’Hara outside. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘Saving a small section of the planet from deforestation. Interesting look you’ve got going on out here, duchy.’

  ‘Okay, I’m no gardener. It’s a cover. What’s your excuse?’

  ‘I dropped into the office. I wanted you to come round to Leslie Higgins’s old house with me. Your receptionist gave me this address.’

  ‘Just great.’ I had images of a string of clients trailing up Clemency’s garden path, all asking for ‘the private investigator’.

  ‘Glad you think so. Is this timber a feature?’

  The pile of sawn off branches had grown to an impressive height. In fact if we had a box of matches, we could probably signal France. ‘I’ve been pruning.’

  ‘That’s not pruning. That’s mass destruction.’

  ‘I suppose you have a degree in landscaping?’

  ‘No. But I’m a devil at turning the sod. It’s me Oirish blood. Want a hand?’

  Since he was here and I could trust him to keep his mouth shut about my day job, I figured I might as well make use of him. I handed over the spade and told him to dig over the flowerbeds.

  He looked at the mass of trampled grass. ‘And they would be where?’

  ‘Sort of round all those stumps of plants I sawed off.’

  We gardened in silence until Bianca crashed out of the kitchen. ‘I forgot to ask if you wanted lunch? I didn’t do lunch because Clemency didn’t want any. But I could do it, if you wanted it.’ We both passed on lunch. A decision which seemed to please Bianca. ‘I can start on building the barbecue then.’

  O’Hara said, ‘Trickier than it looks isn’t it, laying bricks?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve done it for years. I always did all the maintenance at Gran’s house. Gran thought it was sinful to spend money on things you could do yourself.’

  Only Gran hadn’t done it herself. Bianca had. Maybe that was where she’d got her taste for being a doormat. O’Hara asked if he could use the lav and, as he went inside, Cappuccino hopped out. His nose twitched and his ears turned like satellite dishes and locked on target: me.

  I grabbed the spade and got it between him and my leg. ‘Oh look,’ Bianca squealed. ‘He’s playing with you. Isn’t that fun!’

  Fun wasn’t the word for it. ‘How old is this rabbit?’

  ‘He must be …’ Bianca counted on her fingers. ‘Nearly two.’

  I had no idea how long rabbits lived, but working on the assumption they were similar to dogs and one rabbit year equalled seven human years, then Cappuccino had reached the age when he should be doing the rabbit equivalent of hanging out with his mates, watching dirty videos, fantasising about models in girly mags and boasting about all the sex he’d wished he’d had. ‘Don’t you think he’d like a friend?’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Definitely. Ring a breeder. Get a female rabbit. Get half a dozen.’ Let the furry sex maniac bonk himself stupid.

  I feigned right. Cappuccino fell for it. I darted left and belted for the kitchen. I made it inside and dragged a chair across the rabbit flap.

  Ignoring Bianca’s startled face, I went to find O’Hara. With no Jonathon, and Clemency hanging around upstairs, I wasn’t going to get anything here but blisters. The downstairs loo was empty. I’d just decided he’d bailed out on me, when I heard the urgent murmur of voices upstairs.

  Slipping off my trainers, I trod very quietly up to the first floor. The door to the white bedroom was open. I had a clear view of O’Hara and Clemency locked together. She was wearing nothing but a pair of pink lace pants with ribbon ties at the side. As I watched she reached down and pulled one of the ties open.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I ran. I set myself a pace that was too fast for someone who’d been neglecting her workouts. Icy sea-salted breezes scalded my lungs. It was easy to concentrate on the pain and blot out the picture of Clemency and O’Hara. It was, after all, none of my business. We were just mates.

  I pounded the mud flats, my trainers flattening the soft worm casts, raising spurts of water as I crashed through the shallow tidal pools, and sending indignant gulls flapping a few feet before they resumed their probing.

  The beach is only about a mile long, so I kept turning and retracing my route. I lost count of how many laps I did before I finally panted back to the soft sand above the high water line. I was drenched with sweat inside my clothes and drenched with sea spray outside them. It meant a detour to the flat to bathe and change before I met Ellie Walkinshaw at West Bay School. Consequently I was a few minutes late, and the kids were already being led away or loaded into cars by their mums when I scooted up.

  Not that Ellie noticed my arrival. She was too busy hanging on to Imogen.

  ‘I want to. Let me go …’ Imogen pulled back, trying to twist out of her mother’s grasp. Ellie was attempting to hold tightly without hurting her. Imogen flung herself angrily left, then right. ‘I want to!’ she screamed. ‘I want to go to Megan’s. I hate you. I hate you!’ Stamping her foot, she folded her arms, leant against the school fence and stuck out her bottom lip in a furious pout. It was like looking at my own sister, twenty odd years ago.

  ‘I don’t think Maria’s here,’ Ellie panted. ‘I didn’t see her at the gate.’

  ‘You’re sure it was Maria Deakin?’ I queried. ‘I mean, if you haven’t seen her since she was fifteen …?’

  ‘Oh yes. It was her. I recognised her right away.’

  ‘But you didn’t speak to her?’ It was odd that she wouldn’t have at least said ‘hi’ to Heidi’s best friend. Her last best
friend.

  Ellie seemed flustered by the question. She hurriedly said, ‘Her daughter is in the reception class. I’ll go and ask some of the others.’ She tried to tow Imogen with her. Imogen didn’t want to be towed. There was another tussle before she managed to haul her down the pavement and into a group of mothers with younger children.

  I was left hanging alone amongst the clusters of mums who’d congealed into clumps of gossips. Their kids were racing around them, screeching at full lung-power. At least they were to start with. I was busy watching Ellie, who didn’t seem to be having any luck with the reception class contingent. Gradually I became aware I was being watched. Looking down, I found a pair of brown eyes fixed intently on me.

  ‘You’re the bunny lady.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘Yes, you are. Look, it’s the bunny lady!’

  I was surrounded by a knee high audience. All firing questions at me. ‘Why aren’t you a bunny any more?’ ‘Where are your eggs? Can I have one?’ ‘Can you paint my face like a bunny?’ By this time, the parents had realised something was going on and were giving me half curious smiles. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Mistaken identity. Must have been some other fluffy tailed person. Excuse me.’ I pushed my way out and across to Ellie.

  She regarded my audience doubtfully. ‘Is there something wrong?’

  Just how much confidence was she going to have in an investigator who ran around dressed in floppy ears and big feet? ‘No, everything’s fine. Did you find out about Maria?’

  ‘I was right, her little girl wasn’t in class today. She only started a couple of weeks ago. Nobody’s said much to Maria. Is it important? If Maria had known anything, she’d have told the police at the time, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘Teenage secrets can be powerful things. Loyalty can make kids hold back. And then later, when they realise they should have spoken out, they get scared they’ll be in trouble for not speaking up at the time.’ And after all these years, who knows? Perhaps Maria had convinced herself it was now too late to do any good.

  ‘I hadn’t thought. If I’d said something to her …’

  I could see more ‘what ifs’ swirling around Ellie’s head. I suggested I came back on Monday. ‘Maybe she’ll be in school then.’

  ‘It’s Easter next weekend. School breaks up for two weeks today.’

  The Easter Bunny outfit should have tipped me off. ‘Did you notice whether Maria was married?’

  ‘She was wearing a wedding ring. I remember thinking, Heidi would be —’ Ellie broke off. Then asked why.

  ‘No point in my looking for a Maria Deakin.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I could see Ellie kicking herself for letting a potential lead get away. Imogen was still in sulk mode and letting us know by keeping her head down and grinding the toe of her sandal into the paving. Ellie shifted her grip on the child’s wrist and cast a desperate look at the remnants of the dispersing reception class. She brightened hopefully when one of the mothers led a child across.

  ‘Olivia knows the little girl you’re looking for.’

  Olivia was the shy type. She hung behind her mum’s jeans. I asked her if she knew the little girl’s mummy’s name. Removing her thumb from her mouth, Olivia told us. ‘Daisy’s mummy.’

  Unsurprisingly, the school staff declined to give out any personal information about a pupil. The best I could do was to leave my contact details and ask them to pass them on to Maria. I didn’t sense any of them were going to make the effort before packing it in for the Easter break. When I came back outside, O’Hara was parked up across the road.

  ‘Yo, duchy. What happened to you? I came downstairs and found you’d bailed out and left me to the mercies of a giant rabbit and the barbecue builder.’

  Not to mention a sex-crazed soap bimbo. Well, they say people grow like their pets, and Clemency sure gave meaning to ‘going at it like a rabbit’. ‘I went for a run. I figured you were big enough to find your own way home.’

  I filled him in on the situation viz: Maria Deakin and asked if he wanted me to keep looking for her.

  ‘If that’s okay with you, duchy.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t it be? You pay, I look. Simple business arrangement.’

  ‘Have I done something to hack you off?’

  ‘No!’ I snapped. Then I took a deep breath. Keeping the relationship at a platonic level had been my choice. I could hardly expect him to stay celibate. I didn’t think much of his taste, but then he hadn’t asked for my opinion — or approval. ‘No,’ I said forcing myself to talk in a normal tone. ‘Everything’s fine. I’m just having one of those days. And don’t ask me if it’s the time of the month, or I’ll bite you.’

  He wanted me to come and see Leslie Higgins’s house. ‘I’m not expecting us to find Heidi under the patio. But I thought it may help to get a feel for the man.’

  The houses in Castle Road were semi-detached, each pair with a small engraved name plaque inset into the deep red brickwork, and their front doors standing side by side inside a recessed porch. The builder had followed the Edwardian fashion for calling these type of houses ‘Villas’. Castle Road’s were all named for flowers. Number forty-eight was one half of ‘Lavender Villas’. Because it was the last house in the row, someone had taken advantage of the spare piece of garden to the side to build a flat topped single garage. Access to the back garden was via a narrow path squeezed between the side of the garage and the large hedge that bordered the garden.

  ‘The garage?’ I began.

  O’Hara interpreted the rest of the question. ‘One of the first places they looked. Nothing sinister in the foundations. Ditto the garden, the house, and indeed all the fields, sheds, outhouses, barns etcetera around here.’ It was to be expected. If it was as simple as that, Heidi wouldn’t still be missing fourteen years later. ‘They checked all the boat owners locally too. None had been hired, stolen, or taken and returned. Anyway Higgins was reputedly scared of the sea. It’s unlikely he’d have taken a small boat out into deep water.’

  And he would have had to dispose of a body. It was a feature of this stretch of coastline that things thrown into it at one tide, were almost certainly going to be washed ashore come the next. If you wanted to ensure your corpse didn’t boomerang, you had to weigh it down and drop it far out in deep water.

  ‘Who said he was scared of the sea?’ I asked.

  He nodded at number forty-six. ‘Next-door neighbour, Mrs Florrie Jennings. She put Higgins away from the house at the time Heidi disappeared too.’

  ‘She still there?’

  ‘According to the electoral roll, she is. Although I’m not too sure how much help she’s going to be. She was getting on a bit, fourteen years ago.’

  *

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with my mind,’ Florrie Jennings snapped. ‘I can remember poems I was taught at school eighty years ago.’

  O’Hara had made the mistake of wondering aloud whether she could recall the events of fourteen years ago and earned that snappy response. Everything about Florrie was snappy. The looks she flashed you with her black eyes; the way her mouth snapped shut at the end of each sentence; the sharp flicks of the walking stick.

  ‘Sit down.’ The stick cracked against the sofa. We both hurriedly sat on it. Like most of the things in the room it was old-fashioned but well cared-for. One concession to modernity was the big gas fire that had been installed in the old fireplace. It was currently keeping the temperature in the sitting room at a level that would have been comfortable had we been lizards that usually hung out in the tropics. I slipped off the large fluffy cardigan I’d picked up from the twenty pence bin at Oxfam. O’Hara had already ditched the leather jacket. Florrie seemed comfortable in her high necked jumper, thick cardigan and tweed skirt. ‘So you want to know about Leslie do you? He was always odd. Social workers tried to make out it was because he lost his mum young, but he was bad long before that.’

  ‘You knew him when he was a child?’ I asked. O’Hara had once again slipp
ed into his usual technique of staying quiet and letting others do the talking.

  ‘Knew him all his life,’ Florrie said. ‘This was my parents’ house. Me and Jim took it over. Same with next door. Winnie and Leslie were both born there. I used to babysit them.’

  I wondered how much of Florrie’s insight into Leslie’s ‘oddness’ was retrospective. Had his behaviour attracted attention before he’d started being arrested for molesting girls? ‘What about when he was older? Did he have girlfriends?’

  ‘He was always a bit of a loner. There were one or two girls when he was much younger. But then I suppose they were the right age for him, weren’t they? But what’s a man in his thirties and forties doing wanting girls not old enough to leave school? It’s not as if he couldn’t have got himself a girlfriend. He was a decent looking young man. And handy too. Could turn his hand to most things round the house. Never marry a man who can’t put up a set of shelves, Florrie. That’s what my mother told me.’

  She cast a wistful look at the dingy paintwork before she pushed herself up, using the stick. My initial impulse to help her was quashed by a glare. Making her way to the sideboard, she opened a drawer and took out a decorated biscuit tin. Returning to her chair, she sat the tin on her knees and levered off the lid. Inside was a jumble of old photographs, letters and postcards. Florrie passed over a black and white photo. ‘See. He was a well set-up boy.’

  It had been taken on the promenade. The café behind them was still there and relatively unchanged. Leslie looked about seventeen. He was narrow-faced with a straight nose, thick curly hair, and a wide smile. The woman next to him had similar features but on her they’d somehow combined to make her appear plainer. ‘Winnie was the older?’

  ‘Five years,’ Florrie agreed, taking the picture back. ‘She was barely sixteen when their mother died. Just started her first job, she had. Worked at the little Co-Op along the road for years until they closed it. Then she fixed herself up with a job at the hospital, serving in the canteen. I knew that wouldn’t do for her, too many people. She wasn’t one to mix much. Doing the tickets up the Smugglers’ Caves was more to her taste.’