by Liz Evans
‘Remember what his neighbour, Mrs Jennings, said? Winnie Higgins worked here for a while. She could have left a set of keys behind when she skipped off to the Lake District. I’ll bet the investigating officers didn’t give her a second thought. They may not even have known about her working here. Why should they go into the employment record of Higgins’s sister, especially when she’d been gone for years? Higgins was a jobbing builder, he’d could easily have taken those bars out and replaced them.’
‘There’s no security patrol at night?’
‘For what? It’s not like anyone’s going to steal a big hole in the ground or a box of out-of-date souvenir fudge.’
‘Hmm.’ O’Hara ran an assessing gaze over the scene. ‘He’d have had to lay planks across to work on. Chiselling out the bars wouldn’t have been a problem. Debris would have fallen …’ We both looked down into the base of the ‘well’: the bottom was covered in rubbish chucked down by visitors. ‘This is the tunnel that comes out mid-way up that cliff where we had our romantic moonlight drink by the sea, right? Is there access from that side?’
‘No. They used to get kids sliding down on ropes to get inside the caves. The Council blocked off the seaward entrance about forty years ago.’
‘Not completely. I can feel a draught.’ He swung one leg over the barrier and leant out, craning his head backwards. ‘This is a natural rift in the chalk. The base has been widened for some reason.’
‘Local legend has it that those who crossed the smugglers’ brotherhood were thrown down there to rot.’
‘Local legend is bollocks.’ O’Hara swung back. ‘There’s an air current. There must be a fissure overhead somewhere that goes up to ground level. The air flow seems to be from here out to the cliff. I guess it might reverse direction if there was a strong on-shore breeze.’
‘Is that relevant?’
‘Smell, duchy. Rotting bodies tend to make themselves known. But we’re a fair distance from the coast back here. If you left the body up near the cliff entrance, the stench would mostly go out to sea. It’s a closed-off beach; not too many noses. Probably pass as rotting seaweed or a dead gull. Return to the cave, make good the bars. Quick-setting resin would do it. Plaster some dirt on to hide the new colour. Collect up the planks, relock after you. Only danger zones are someone spotting you coming in with the body or leaving with the planks.’
We were the last to leave. Gripping O’Hara’s arm, I steered him across the street. Five minutes later the attendant emerged, locked the outer door, and dropped the keys into her raincoat pocket.
‘You see? I’ve seen her lock up before. She takes the keys home with her. Winnie would have done the same.’
‘Wouldn’t she have turned them in when she left?’
‘You wouldn’t just have one set. Not for a so-called tourist attraction. Maybe she lost the spares down the side of the couch or something. Look, I know it’s not a perfect theory, but it’s worth a shot, isn’t it?’
‘Let’s discuss it over dinner. Your place. I’ll cook. What do you fancy? French? Japanese? Russian?’
I didn’t need to ask what we’d be eating. O’Hara had a black belt in stew. It was the only thing he could cook. When he asked what country I wanted my cuisine to originate from, what he was actually enquiring was whether I wanted him to slosh in red wine, sake or vodka?
We settled on French. He bought a spare bottle of red for us to drink while we waited for the diced meat and vegetables to absorb enough alcohol to classify them as health hazards. But first I had to get through the tricky having-a-bath-with-O’Hara-the-other-side-of-an-unlocked-door scenario. I was cold and wet because it had tipped down as we walked back from the caves. I needed a hot bath. O’Hara was in the same condition. Logically, therefore, he probably wanted a hot bath too.
Lying back in the steam, I listened to the sounds of preparation beyond the door. At one point O’Hara’s footsteps came towards the bathroom door. My stomach muscles tensed. The televisions news joined the other sounds. His feet retreated away. Damn.
I knew my attitude didn’t make sense — even to me. Most of me was yelling ‘yes please’ and my mind was saying ‘no way’. Okay, there was the issue of Clemency Courtney’s pink lacy pants between us. But it was more than that; there was an edge to the guy that I found unsettling. I didn’t want to go full on with someone who seemed to know way too much about disposing of dead bodies. And that thought, in itself, was depressing. I’d always had this mental image of myself as an adventurous, unconventional type. So why was I holding out for a bloke who’d tell me his whole life story? I decided the whole damn thing was getting way too complicated. Taking a deep breath, I slid under the bubbles.
The seating arrangements at my flat were awkward for entertaining. Mostly because I didn’t actually do any entertaining there, unless you counted Annie coming round for a pizza.
When I’d moved in (okay, technically speaking, when I’d started squatting) I’d found a jumble of furniture in the basement which looked as if the builders had stored bits from the upper floors down here prior to disposing of them at the end of the conversion. The four upright dining chairs around the table were fine for eating but no good for relaxing. I had a selection of large cushions which were fine for leaning against if you didn’t mind the fact that the polished flagstones could be kind of cold on the butt until you warmed them up. Or I had the bed …
I slung cushions down where the sideboard would make a convenient back rest. O’Hara lowered himself beside me and passed a glass of wine. ‘Cheers, duchy.’
‘Cheers.’ We sipped without speaking. Our bodies were touching from hip to ankle. He’d dried off while cooking. I could detect slight aromas of damp clothing and soap rising in the heat from his skin. Speaking of heat, the temperature in the flat seemed to have climbed faster than normal. I could see us both reflected in the television opposite. Maybe it was a distortion of the curved screen, but O’Hara’s mouth seemed to be tilted in a smile.
I tried concentrating on something that would put me off him — like Clemency Courtney’s butt in pink lace panties. It didn’t work. A trickle of sweat slid between my breasts. It was tickling my skin, like a finger drawn slowly down the swell. Oh hell … ‘Why’s it so important to you to sort out brother Dec’s screw-ups?’ I blurted out.
He shifted fractionally, breaking the contact between us. Talking about his brother always sent him to a dark place inside himself. It was a mean trick, but if a girl doesn’t want to be just another pair of panties on O’Hara’s bedpost, she has to learn to fight dirty.
‘Dec was the one that was there for me when I was growing up. I was an afterthought. My parents were … disinterested.’
‘Were there just the two of you?’
‘I have a sister. We talk, occasionally. What about you, duchy? Brothers? Sisters?’
‘You mean you still haven’t checked me out? I’m hurt.’
He leant closer and did the legs together thing again. ‘All right, I did check you out. One brother, one sister, right? You close?’
‘No. Yes.’ It was hard to explain. We weren’t close in the way Annie’s brothers and sisters were close. But when I thought back to our years of growing up together, I found myself in a place that was full of private jokes, shared memories and secrets. The three of us knew each other in a way that no one else ever would.
O’Hara’s arm had found its way round my waist while I was thinking that one through. I let myself relax against him. ‘If they weren’t there any more it would feel like there was a great big hole in my life that couldn’t be mended — ever. Is that how it is for you now that Dec’s … gone?’
‘You can say “dead”. And yes, I guess that sums it up. He was always out there — somewhere — and now he isn’t.’
I felt a surge of sympathy and turned to lay off some of that feeling in a consoling kiss. And found myself looking straight at those scratches gouged down his neck. I pulled myself upright. ‘So how come you can spend so
much of your life righting all Dec’s wrongs? Don’t you have a job to go to?’
‘Nope.’
‘So what do you do for money?’
‘I have money.’
‘How much?’ I really hadn’t intended to say that. It was a reflex action.
‘Enough.’
His tone didn’t encourage me to probe any further. We watched a film, ate ninety percent proof chicken stew, and drank the rest of the wine. Outside the rain crashed down, drumming a frantic rhythm on the metal staircase and flinging itself against the barred windows of the flat. I started to feel warm and safe again. And tingly in odd places. So what if he’d seen Clemency’s pink panties. I bet my butt would look even better in lace panties with tie sides. In fact, I had a black pair like that somewhere. When I found myself mentally searching the wardrobe for those panties, I knew displacement activity was called for — urgently.
‘So what do you think of my theory about Higgins hiding Heidi’s body in the caves? Do we take it further?’
‘We do.’ His arm had got round behind my waist sometime during the film. Now he put the other one across the front and pulled me into his chest. ‘But first, duchy, I want you to do something I’ll bet you’ve never done before.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
‘As a matter of interest, when did you last do this?’
‘Who said I had?’
We both looked through the windscreen to the ugly concrete and glass building that housed Seatoun’s police force. It was taking the full brunt of the rain that was being driven in horizontally across the sea by a mean north wind. O’Hara wanted me to report my theory on Heidi’s whereabouts to the law’s finest, and leave the investigating to them rather than trying to fly it solo. Even if we skipped over the fact that I’d been invited to resign from the force, the last time this lot had seen me I’d been dressed as a big fluffy bunny. Moreover, I was a bunny with a record of causing Grievous Bodily Harm.
While I was debating with myself, a car pulled into the police parking area. I knew that car. The driver got out, beeped it locked with the remote, and dashed for the shelter of the station. Leaving O’Hara in the Micra, I ran after him.
Detective Chief Inspector Jerry Jackson was one of the good guys. I was never sure whether he believed the stories about me selling out to the pond life, but he’d always acted like I was a friend. He was about the same age as O’Hara but, as comparisons go, he was the antithesis of O’Hara. Jerry was the sort of man your mother wants you to bring home. He kept his light brown hair cut short; he wore suits; he didn’t bend the rules; he said what he meant without any teasing or ambiguity. Sometimes I had the worrying sensation that I fancied him and, if he hadn’t been happily married with two kids, the attraction could have been mutual.
I caught up with him as he was being buzzed through the reception security door into the main body of the station.
‘Jerry, can I have a word? It’s important.’
He paused with the door half open. ‘Is this about the Heidi Walkinshaw case?’
Jerry’s contacts were always better than you expected. ‘Yes. I’ve got some information.’
He signed me in and led me upstairs to the CID area. His own office overlooked the front of the building with a great view out over the sea. Jerry had positioned his desk so he had his back to the windows. At the moment it wasn’t an issue, rain poured down the panes giving everything outside a distorted, half melted, effect. Jerry removed his overcoat, placed it neatly on a wooden hanger and hung it behind the door. Seating himself opposite me, he interlaced his fingers on the desk top and said, ‘Now, Grace?’
I explained my theory about Winnie Higgins and the Smugglers’ Caves. Jerry’s brown eyes stayed calm and expressionless throughout.
When I finally came to a halt, he said, ‘Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I’ll see that the information reaches the correct department.’
‘That’s it? Aren’t you going to take a look? This is a hot tip, Jerry.’
He pointed to his in-tray. A skyscraper of files were waiting for his attention. Every one of them was neatly aligned with the one below it.
‘I have to prepare the department’s budget for the next two months; complete the crime analysis figures for Area; go over my evidence for three major cases that are coming to court next week; and do ten staff appraisals. And in between all that, I have to check that my department is actually solving some crimes occasionally. So no, I shan’t be excavating lumps out of council property just at present. I will follow it up, but not right now.’ The professional detachment thawed slightly. ‘Grace, is everything all right with you?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Your injuries. You can tell me, you know. It needn’t go any further unless you want it to.’
‘I can go as far as you like, Jerry. I jumped out of the way of an idiot on a motorbike and fell down my outside staircase.’
‘I see. Well, you take care of yourself.’ I got the impression he didn’t entirely believe me.
‘He didn’t buy it,’ I reported back to O’Hara. Which was not strictly true, but there was no way I was waiting for this one to fight its way to the top of Jerry’s priorities. I’d done the responsible citizen bit, now I wanted action.
Luckily so did O’Hara. ‘Where can we get some eight-foot planks and a cold chisel around here?’
The DIY Superstore was on the farthest edge of Seatoun, adjacent to the road that led to Winstanton. They’d added in the family-friendly element with a tropical fish room, pets corner and small restaurant.
I left O’Hara to go and find the correct plank for the job while I paid a visit to the loos adjacent to the restaurant. When I came out, I found myself staring across the silver tables into the eyes of Major Eh-Eh (aka Roger Nesbitt). I’d forgotten the pretentious poser was the manager of this store. Given that our last meeting had ended with me kneeing his nuts into his throat, I was prepared for a return bout. Instead he flushed, muttered something to the woman sitting at the table and scuttled away into bathroom fittings. Wimp!
A small girl in red jeans and a red and white T-shirt was browsing the cages of birds, reptiles and small furry animals. I recognised Imogen Walkinshaw at the same time as Ellie Walkinshaw reached across to take a paper napkin from a nearby holder and saw me. I didn’t really want to talk to her with my head full of pictures of what we were about to do, but ignoring her wasn’t really an option. I got a coffee and joined her.
‘Hello, doing some decorating or visiting Graham?’
‘Neither. Graham’s on the later shift today. Imogen and I often come up here. Immy likes to look at the animals. Roger’s promised her one for her next birthday.’
‘Roger seems very … protective of you.’
She shot me an odd look and said, ‘It’s not what you think.’ I hadn’t thought anything until that moment. Now I did. Graham Walkinshaw had been in prison for a long time. And Ellie was an attractive woman. She tucked wings of fair hair behind her ears and said, ‘Roger was very kind when Graham was … away. It sounds a little pathetic, but there are things around the house you need a man for; practical things I mean. But I always made it clear I was going to wait for Graham. I owed him that. Roger understood. In fact, I suspect he was rather relieved. It’s quite sad really, he’s rather shy, behind that façade. I introduced him to a couple of my single girlfriends, but nothing came of it. He’s one of those men who finds it terribly difficult to talk to women, the poor love.’
Yeah, poor sensitive old Roger. ‘Was he really in the army?’
The corners of Ellie’s mouth twitched. ‘Territorial Army. He had to leave. He was allergic to the dye they used in the uniforms. It gave him eczema.’ Her relaxed manner suddenly stiffened. She drew a sharp breath; her eyes darted frantically at something behind me.
I glanced round. There was no sign of Immy amongst the cages. Ellie’s chair was already scraping back when her daughter reappeared behind a large bird cage. Ellie sank back
, an audible sigh of relief escaping from her parted lips. ‘I know I’m over-protective, but I can’t help it. The way Heidi went, it was so quick. One moment I had a daughter, and by the evening she was gone. Forever.’
‘You knew that soon? That she wasn’t coming back?’
‘No,’ Ellie admitted, pushing her sleeves back. She was in a man’s shirt again, tucked into jeans. ‘I thought she was hiding at one of her friends’ houses.’ She did some more of the sleeve fiddling, before saying in a rush, ‘It wasn’t true what I told you, about there being no problems at home.’
‘I know. I found Maria Deakin.’
Her brown eyes locked on to mine. ‘What did she say?’
‘That you and Heidi were having arguments. Heidi felt you were too controlling.’
‘I loved her. I wanted the best for her. Good qualifications so she could have a real career. And I hated the way she dressed. She made herself look like a little tart. I used to worry that if a man saw her, looking like that …’ Something between a sob and a laugh choked her. ‘It’s ironic isn’t it? When it did happen she was wearing school clothes and it was broad daylight.’ She made an obvious effort to get herself under control. ‘She’d been an absolute pain for weeks; moody, sulky, barely talking. That Sunday evening when she came in, she didn’t say a word to me, just stomped off to her room and shut herself in. She had an expression on her like a smacked bum. My last memory of my daughter is an overwhelming urge to slap her face. God, I wish I’d seen her that morning. Just one last time.’
‘Before she left for her paper round you mean?’
‘No.’ She crumpled the napkin and pushed it into her sleeve. ‘Sometimes I’d pass her cycling back as I drove into work on my early starts. But I didn’t see her that day. Do you think you and Mr O’Hara can find her?’
Saying ‘yes’, would bring to mind pictures of what Heidi would look like if she was in the caves. But saying ‘no’ would be treading on any fragile hope Ellie was clinging on to. I compromised. ‘I hope so.’