by Liz Evans
‘I wonder if they have a missing soap stars’ database?’ I said to Annie when the police had driven away. ‘Clemency never went back to her house after she left the cottage. There’s no way she’d have left that computer intact. The police might have wanted to examine it after they discovered Jonathon’s body.’
‘Why no statement?’ Annie said bluntly, ignoring my theory on Clemency’s movements.
I shrugged. ‘I’ll do it. Later.’
‘You’re feeling sorry for Bianca, aren’t you?’
‘No. Yes.’ It didn’t make sense, but I was. Ellie Walkinshaw was standing at her front door watching. ‘Hang on.’
She didn’t move out to meet me or step back to let me in when I arrived on her step. Her eyes were expressionless.
‘I’m very sorry. But at least you know now.’
‘Yes.’ Something glinted in the dead eyes. ‘Those people, they were in league with Leslie Higgins.’
I was startled. ‘Did the police tell you that?’ Had I missed a connection somewhere?
‘No. But it’s obvious, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t think there was any tie up there, Ellie. But if you’re worrying about what Graham did …’ I stopped. How could I tell her her husband hadn’t beaten an innocent man to death? Their whole relationship had been based on that lie for the past fourteen years.
Ellie’s chin rose defiantly. She’d made her choice. And it was to believe the lie. ‘I’m proud of what Graham did. Leslie Higgins preyed on young girls. If Graham hadn’t killed him, then he’d have taken another one sooner or later. It’s just like exterminating vermin really. The law should do it.’ Behind her I could hear the sounds of quiet sobbing.
Two small hands appeared on Ellie’s hips and Imogen peeped around the gap between her mum’s hip and the door frame. Her eyes were dry and bright.
‘Hello. They’ve found Heidi. She’s my sister.’
‘That’s good, isn’t it?’
Immy wrinkled her nose in thought and delivered her verdict on the fourteen-year search. ‘I don’t care. We’re going to the beach to hunt for Easter Eggs tomorrow.’
*
We swung past the flat again. There were no messages from O’Hara on my phone and his mobile was still on voicemail. I bought Cappuccino a carrot from the grocery store.
‘Nothing on the news about Clemency,’ Annie said, checking the teletext service on the television. ‘And you couldn’t keep the arrest of someone that well-known off the media circuit for long.’
‘This is getting weird. It’s as if they both dropped off the face of the world.’ I used an old belt to make a lead for the rabbit.
‘Tell me you aren’t taking that thing for a walk?’
‘He needs exercise. I thought I’d take him for a hop along the beach. Are you coming?’
‘Only if you promise to pretend we aren’t together.’
Cappuccino did need exercising, but the truth was I’d had trouble holding it together several times this morning. I’d nearly lost it, being crushed among the hordes in the DIY aisles. I needed to stand where open space stretched to the horizon and the over-riding smell was of salt water.
The threat of a miserable Easter had disappeared, blown away by the freshening westerly winds. Small white clouds scudded over an eggshell blue sky and the sea, which is never blue in Seatoun, sparkled and glittered with silver lights gilded on the grey. It wasn’t warm, but there was enough sunlight to tempt families on to the beach. The striped windbreakers were being hammered into place and the channels were being excavated to flood the moats around the sandcastles.
Cappuccino hopped over the softer sand quite happily, but as soon as we reached the wet ridges below high water mark, he started digging his paws in. ‘Shift it, big ears. Ozone is good for you.’
Rabbits were the theme of the beach today. Most of them were on those flaming T-shirts. There was even a bloke hawking them around the deck-chairs. He was stooped over, taking one from a large bag on the sands. Something about the wide butt was familiar. Ditto the back of the fleshy neck below the baseball cap.
‘Rosco!’
He turned. ‘Smithie. Didn’t think you’d be on your feet yet.’
‘You rat. Who the hell said you could put my picture on those bloody T-shirts?’
‘It’s just a laugh. Where’s your sense of humour?’
‘Same place yours is going to be when I complain. Does the station know you’re carrying on another business outside work?’
The shifty expression sliding over his chops said it all. ‘You wouldn’t report me, would you? It’s all down to you I’m having to do this.’
‘How’d you figure that one?’
‘You nutted me; twice. Gave me them two black eyes. I had to work inside the station for days. I couldn’t pick up any overtime. You’ve no idea how much four kids cost. You wouldn’t report me, would you, Smithie? We’re mates.’
‘No we’re not. And I won’t report you.’ He beamed. ‘But I’m on for half the profits.’
‘You can’t do that!’
I could. And I did.
*
The three of us headed back to the office. Annie because she needed to get some files, me because I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go, and Cappuccino because when you’re a pet rabbit you don’t get many life-plan choices. Stepping through the front door we were confronted by a bizarre sight. Jan working on a public holiday.
‘Why?’ Annie asked.
Jan shrugged and stretched. The several yards of metal links she was wearing as a necklace, bracelets and earrings clanked like a chain-gang doing a break dance. ‘You have to fill in these entry forms online, I’ve not got a computer at home.’
‘Does Vetch know you’re doing this?’
‘Dunno. He wasn’t here when I came in.’
‘Any messages?’ I asked.
‘That O’Hara bloke called.’
My heart flipped. ‘What did he say?’
‘He said you’re dead.’
Chapter Thirty-Eight
‘This is pretty damn amazing.’
I wriggled my back into a more comfortable position on the sun lounger and took another sip of my cocktail. The temperature was a balmy eighty degrees; blue water was lapping at my feet and I was surrounded by lush tropical vegetation which echoed to exotic bird calls. ‘I like a man who takes my fantasies seriously.’
‘Share some more with me, duchy, and we’ll work on them together.’
I rested my cheek on the thick white towel under my head and looked at the next lounger. He was already looking better than he had when Annie and I had found him sitting outside the hospital in Ashford a week ago.
*
After his phone call to the office announcing my death, we’d tried to ring back his mobile to explain I was still alive and kicking but it kept diverting to voicemail. Eventually we left Jan to keep trying the phone, while Annie drove me up there to present him with the living proof.
‘Always assuming he hasn’t already left for … well, wherever he lives,’ I said as we followed the hospital signs in.
‘Nope. And it looks like Jan got through.’ Annie nodded through the windscreen.
He was perched by the car park, his face turned towards, his attitude suggesting he was expecting us. As we pulled in he strolled over and opened the car door for me.
‘Should have known it would take more than a truck to flatten you, duchy.’ He’d given me a small, tight smile and pushed his fingers through his fringe in a familiar gesture.
His hands were red and raw and encased in clear plastic gloves. The front of his T-shirt was patterned by tiny holes, their ragged edges charred and still releasing a hint of smoke.
‘That’s what hit her was it? A truck?’
‘She ran a red light. It broadsided her.’
He’d been on his way back to Vetch’s offices when he’d picked up on the Micra on the outskirts of Seatoun. His recognition ‘hello’ of flashing headlights had h
ad the effect of causing the car to suddenly accelerate. ‘It was all over the place. I got this notion someone was in there with you, maybe forcing you to drive somewhere. Because let’s face it, duchy, you have an uncomfortable habit of interpreting “don’t do anything until I’ve checked this out” as an instruction to go out and bag the bad guy single-handed. Something which I’d forgotten when those words came out of my mouth that morning. So I tailed you. I figured, while the car’s moving, you’re safe. Soon as you pull over …’
‘You were going to swing in there like a superhero and rescue me from the bad guys?’ I took one of his hands between mine, holding it lightly. ‘You pulled her out?’
‘No. I was too far back in the traffic. Time I got there, the car doors were open and I’m figuring whoever held you hostage has legged it. Someone else had pulled her out. Flash fire outside: petrol. I tried …’ He held up his hands. ‘There was an ambulance passing. They got her loaded and away soon as the flames were doused. I followed them in.’
‘And booked her in as Grace Smith,’ Annie said. She didn’t sound too impressed.
O’Hara raised one shoulder in a so-what kind of shrug. ‘Grace’s clothes, Grace’s car. She was face down on the pavement with her top half in flames. And she wasn’t wearing a seat belt, she’d slammed into the windscreen. Next time I saw you — her — the face was burnt and swollen and covered in gel and plastic sheeting. Believe me, you wouldn’t have been able to identify her either.’
‘And you didn’t think to ring us? Tell us Grace was dying? So we could contact her family?’
‘She wasn’t. The hospital had sedated her, but they said she’d make it. I was planning to ring you when she came round, told me who she wanted there. Then she suddenly had a massive heart attack. They couldn’t get her back. I sat here for an hour wondering how to tell you.’
‘Which is presumably when you decided to turn your mobile phone on?’ Annie snapped.
‘I couldn’t use it in the hospital.’ O’Hara’s voice was also acquiring a gritty edge.
I knew they were both mad because they were recovering from shock. O’Hara had just watched me die and come back to life, and Annie was realising that, had it been me in the car, she’d have missed her chance to say goodbye. I decided to get the discussion back to more important matters. ‘What happened to my car?’
‘It was pretty well trashed. Police impounded it I guess, since it was involved in a fatal accident.’
‘Bloody great,’ Annie muttered. ‘They put it on their database and it’s already in their damn pound. Have you told the hospital their corpse is Clemency Courtney?’
‘Nope.’
With an impatient hiss of breath through clenched teeth, Annie swept inside.
I slipped an arm through O’Hara’s. ‘She’s upset you didn’t ring. Next time I’m dying she’d like to be there. I’d like her to be there too.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind. Do you realise what this means, duchy?’
‘What?’
‘I’ve just spent the entire bloody night talking to the wrong woman.’
‘Really? Who?’
‘You, you idiot. Or at least the person I thought was you. Since I’m your fiancé, they let me gown up and sit in the corner of the room.’
‘You are?’ My heart lurched. That was a commitment too far. Could taser shock, double laxatives and the sheer terror of being buried alive bring on amnesia?
‘Don’t panic, duchy. Our engagement was purely for the hospital’s benefit. I was talking in case you could hear me, I wanted you to know you weren’t alone in there.’
‘What did you say?’
He gave a crooked smile, leant over and whispered in my ear. ‘I promised you the date of a lifetime when you got better.’
*
And that’s what I’d got. I stretched my bare legs a little further and admired the healing bruises. I’d worn my shortest dress for the date; a sleeveless oyster-coloured silky material splashed with red poppies that just about skimmed my butt. The killer pair of red heels that I’d added were now lying discarded by my sun lounger.
My assorted cuts and bruises were already fading and the panic attacks were receding, although I still had to sleep with the lights on and the radio playing. Even the breaking and entering charge for our adventure in the Smugglers’ Caves had gone away — courtesy of Jerry Jackson’s influence I suspected, although he’d never admit that.
‘Ellie Walkinshaw thinks that Leslie Higgins was in league with Clemency and co.’ I hadn’t meant to say that, I should have said something sexy.
‘That’s bollocks.’
‘I know. But it’s the way she lives with the fact that her husband beat an innocent man to death.’
O’Hara sat up and swung round to sit on the edge of his lounger. ‘And you want to know how I live with the fact that it was my brother who really did it?’
‘I guess.’
‘I just do. Dec’s dead and the Walkinshaws have a body to bury. It’s all I can offer. And Leslie Higgins did have items of Heidi’s, remember. Perhaps she would have been his next victim.’
‘I don’t think so. I’ve been thinking about Maria Deakin. Heidi used to leave her alone at the amusement park when she went off to charm money from the galloping major. Maria hadn’t Heidi’s confidence; she was shy, nervous around boys.’
‘Perfect fodder for Higgins, in fact.’
‘They were best friends. Best friends swap things like hair ornaments. I always had the sense that there was something Maria was holding back.’
‘But she never said anything?’
‘Imagine the shock of opening the paper and finding out that the nice man who bought you coffee at the Arcade was a convicted sex attacker? You’d figure your parents would never let you out again. And later … well, later, everyone said Higgins had taken Heidi. So she just buried it, I guess.’
‘So we could take the view that Dec saved Maria?’
I swung round on my own lounger so we were knee to knee. ‘We could.’
‘Shall we?’
I’d made my statement and Bianca and Jonathon would both be charged. Della had — incredibly — paid my bill despite my proving her son was an accessory to murder. And Imogen Walkinshaw had adopted Cappuccino. It was time to move on.
Except there was one thing that was getting in the way.
‘I need to ask you something.’
He gave a small sigh. ‘I thought you might.’
‘You said you didn’t know Jerry Jackson, but he doesn’t like you for some reason.’ O’Hara gave a barely perceptible shrug. ‘I get the impression — Annie and I both got the impression — that he was trying to warn me off you. He knows something about you, doesn’t he?’
‘Probably.’
‘Something he found out from police sources?’
‘As I said, probably.’
‘Are you going to tell me what?’
He looked directly into my eyes. ‘No, I’m not. Do you trust me, duchy?’
I did a quick internal check of my feelings towards O’Hara and decided that, despite his sometimes infuriating habits, ‘Yes, I do.’
‘Good. One day I will tell you about it, but not now. So the ball’s in your court. We can call it quits now, or we can move on? Your call.’
I didn’t have to think about it. There are times when you just have to jump in and hope you’ll enjoy the adventure.
I clinked my glass with its little paper parasol and bendy straws against O’Hara’s. ‘What did you say this was called?’
‘Sex on the Beach. Want another?’
‘Please.’
‘I’ll go mix them.’ He stood up and pushed his way through the potted greenery.
I lay back and listened to the birds calling over the piped sound system, the gentle slap of the water against the pool side, and the far off distant hum of the traffic beyond the floor-length blinds that covered the glass walls of the room. Okay, it wasn’t a Caribbean beach, but how m
any blokes have friends with a swimming pool decorated to resemble a tropical paradise? The question started a few niggling worms in my head.
‘This does belong to a friend of yours, doesn’t it?’ I demanded, when he returned with two glasses clinking with ice and sunset-coloured liquids. ‘I mean, the owners aren’t about to walk in and ask awkward questions — like “Who the hell are you?”’
‘Relax, duchy. They won’t be back for at least a month.’
‘Oh …’ I took a long draft of Sex on the Beach. ‘But you do know them?’
O’Hara lifted his glass in an ironic toast and grinned. The black eyes, split lip, and neck scratches were still there if you were looking for them. I nearly asked for an explanation. And then decided I didn’t care. Being bricked up alive concentrates the mind on what’s important.
I stood up, undid the dress and stepped out of it. Unhooking my bra, I let it drop. I’d altered a pair of panties specially for the date. Taking hold of my hand-sewn ribbons, I pulled. The knickers fell away. O’Hara reached for the buttons on his soft grey shirt.
‘Let me. Buttons can be tricky with burnt fingers.’
I sat on the lounger and took my time, working down the buttons. When I had them all open, he sat forward and let me ease his shirt off. His skin felt hot and smooth, the scar around his ribs gleaming silvery against the fading tan. He’d kicked his loafers off. Deliberately I unfastened his trousers and hooked my thumbs inside the waistband of his pants. He lifted his bottom off the lounger and I eased them down, over his buttocks. I had to stand up and move to the end of the lounger to drag them free over his feet. He lay back, watching me, waiting for me to make the next move. Despite the healing bruises and black eyes, I felt sexier than I’d ever done before.
Instead of going to him, I walked across to his jacket, which he’d flung on another lounger. Feeling in the inside pocket I took out his spectacle case, removed the glasses and came back to him. I pushed the gold rimmed specs on his nose. ‘You look hot in those.’ Leaning down I kissed him hard.
He kissed me back and then took my arms and held me away. ‘I’m not a steady-relationship type of guy, duchy.’
‘I’m an investigator. I figured that out.’