by Liz Evans
He indicated the muted television. I looked. And then looked again. My face was filling the screen. It was a slightly younger me, with longer hair and less peroxide, but definitely yours truly. I thought I recognised it as the picture from my police personnel file.
Peter flicked the remote control and the announcer’s voice boomed over the whirr of the spin cycle on the washer.
.. The police are particularly anxious to speak to Grace and anyone with information on her current whereabouts should ring their local police station or Seatoun CID office on…….’
27
‘So what’s the plan here? Do we hijack the cross-Channel ferry and tell him to head for Rio? Or will you spill your guts and cop a plea?’
‘I think that’s an American arrangement, Peter. We don’t do that in downtown Seatoun.’
‘Just trying to lighten the mood. You look like you’re facing the Lord of Death’s icy breath. That’s Oscar Wilde, by the way. The Ballad of Reading Gaol. I was up for that part once.’
‘Stage or film?’
‘Deodorant advert. Didn’t get it. The director was an ignorant S.O.B. who thought Oscar should talk Thames Estuary. Know wha’ I mean, darlin’?’
He flicked the wipers and windscreen wash on. They swished in a desultory fashion over the glass before clearing it to give us a view of the squat, soulless building that housed Seatoun’s police. I’d ended up having to accept a lift back because as soon as I’d retrieved the bike from Faye’s garage, my legs had told me she was right. There was no way I could have cycled.
My first instinct when I’d heard that the police were looking for me had been to make darn sure they didn’t find me. Then common sense had kicked in. I hadn’t done anything wrong - well, not recently. It had to be some kind of mistake. I had to call the Law.
But I intended to make contact on my own terms. I’d have marched into the front office of the station accompanied by a lot of self-righteous indignation and my lawyer - but I didn’t have either - so I had to resort to Plan B, viz., use any edge you can get.
‘Ask for DCI Jerry Jackson,’ I instructed Peter. ‘Say you need to speak to him personally. About Luke’s death. And block the sender number on your mobile.’
‘Already ahead of you.’ He dialled with one thumb whilst I watched the sun sparkling on the ocean. From up here (illegally parked on double yellow lines), we had a good view of the deeper grey swell bucking and rising beyond the small harbour wall. The storm cycle had passed whilst I’d been making out with the botulism bugs, and the British summertime had reverted back to another run of sunshine-filled, breeze-fresh days. It was almost spooky.
‘I’m through,’ Peter whispered. He held the phone against my ear for me to confirm that it was Jerry’s voice calling: ‘Hello? Is anyone there? Who is this?’
Nodding at Peter, I slipped out of the car, ran across the road and fronted up the constable on the reception desk.
‘Grace Smith. Jerry Jackson’s expecting me. Hurry it up, will you, I haven’t got all day.’
Luckily he was green and easily intimidated. He also didn’t react to my name. So much for being notorious.
Rather than send someone to collect me, Jerry came down personally. I was touched. Jerry was annoyed.
‘Are you all right? And where the devil have you been?’
‘Fine. In bed. Next question?’
‘Do you have any idea of the trouble you’ve caused me?’
‘No. How come I’m featuring on the most-wanted list?’
‘Grace, you are not wanted by anyone. Particularly me. I’m quite busy enough without this.’
‘I was on the telly. I saw it. Anyone who’s seen me to contact you lot.’
‘Did you listen to the entire broadcast?’
I admitted to missing the beginning.
‘Pity. You’d have found out we were worried about you. “Missing in worrying circumstances” was the phrasing we used.’
‘Who’s worried?’
‘Your namesake, the other Miss Smith.’
‘Annie?’
‘Quite so.’ Jerry’s voice took on a sharper edge as he told me he’d appreciate some straight answers. ‘I’ve wasted a lot of valuable time on you in the past twenty-four hours, Grace. Not to mention having to pull in several favours at the local television station to get them to broadcast that appeal. I think the least you could do is come up with a credible explanation. Where were you?’
I was sprawled in his visitor’s chair, doing my best to give it the cool, unconcerned, funky-chick attitude. Looking down at my hands, I found I’d twisted all his paperclips into a necklace. I guess I wasn’t getting the unconcerned segment quite right.
Linking it over his pen-holder, I muttered that I’d already told him. ‘I was ill. Food poisoning.’
‘In hospital?’
‘No. Friend’s house.’
‘What friend?’
‘No one you know.’ I stood up. ‘Well, if that’s all, I’ll be off. Thanks for your concern and all that. But I’m a big girl now, Jerry. I can look after myself.’
He held out his hand to shake goodbye, and like a mug I took it. Once he’d got me pinned, he said, ‘If there is anything wrong, Grace, the best thing would be to tell me now. I may be able to help.’
‘Appreciate the well-meant lie, Jerry, but we both know that’s not true. If I was mixed up in anything dodgy - which I’m not, incidentally - the best thing I could do would be to get myself an ethically challenged solicitor and lie like hell.’
I twisted free and made for the corridor. Jerry stopped me before I reached his door.
‘Just a moment. There is something we need to ask you. Where were you last Friday?’
It didn’t take a genius to make the connection. ‘Luke’s death? You can’t think I had anything to do with that? I told you, I barely knew the bloke. And those other two telephone calls weren’t from me. Believe me.’
‘I’m trying to,’ he said quietly. ‘But you don’t make it easy, Grace.’
‘Did you ever find out where they came from?’ I asked.
‘A telephone box in Seatoun. On Friday night. Do you mind telling me where you were, Grace?’
I did a mental back-flip. ‘I was in London Friday.’
‘Can anyone confirm that?’
Well, Peter could confirm the morning, couldn’t he? MP’s son in bizarre slaying mystery - not quite the anonymity my new client was hoping for. And then there were the other tenants of the block who’d seen me breaking into Daniel Sholto’s apartment. Or what about his bitch of a secretary, who was convinced I had the hots for her boss?
‘Nope,’ I said. ‘Unless you count the several hundred commuters I ended up sharing sleeping space with at Victoria on Friday night. But we never really introduced ourselves. So if that’s all .. .’
This time I did manage to reach the office door before he could intercept me. And found myself sharing the corridor with Frosty-face Emily.
She was ushering a middle-aged woman towards me. The narrowness of the space meant I had to step back into Jerry’s doorway again. Giving him the opportunity to whisper very quietly into my ear, ‘Last chance, Grace. I want to help. Tell me what’s going on.’
Leaning slightly backwards, I put my lips near his own ear and murmured: ‘You first. Why are Customs and Excise asking after me?’
‘Who said they were?’
So he wasn’t going to play. ‘No deal, Jerry. This confidence stuff works both ways. Nice playing verbal footsie with you again. And by the way, I’m glad we’re getting cosier. You didn’t ask me if you could call me Grace once.’
Frosty-face had reached reception and was showing her visitor out by the time we got there. Frosty said loudly: ‘Lively-looking corpse, isn’t she, sir?’
It was obviously directed at me. I hadn’t a clue what she was talking about. Jerry enlightened me. ‘That was Luke Steadman’s mother Emily has just shown out.’
I felt illogically annoyed with Luk
e for lying to me like that. Heaven knows why I should have expected total truth from a sixty-minute acquaintance. I heard myself apologising to Jerry and assuring him Luke really had told me his parents were dead.
He held open the outer door and told me not to let it bother me. ‘I gather the family had problems in their relationships.’
So did mine. But I didn’t go around claiming my mum was dead. It occurred to me that his mother might provide a good lead on any enemies Luke might have - in addition to his nearest and dearest, that is.
She’d already disappeared. Peter seemed to have achieved the same trick. Faye’s silver Volvo had gone. And with it, Vetch’s bike. It was beginning to feel like that damn cycle had a life of its own.
I headed back into the town, with one eye open for the car and the other scanning for Mrs Steadman’s grey jacket and brown hair. The place seemed oddly busy even for a good day in the high season. The parking places along the prom were already taken, with other cars circling in the hopes of picking off a newly vacated space. I was nearly at the end of the prom walk when the hard blare of a car horn, followed by several more variations on the same theme from the motors forced to brake and swerve behind him, caught my attention.
Peter leant across and flicked the passenger door open. ‘Hi. Sorry about having to split like that, but the yellow perils were on my case.’
I slipped in because unloading the bike wasn’t an option here. Peter drove away purposefully.
‘Where are we heading?’ I asked.
‘St Biddy’s. I thought we could start our investigation there.’
‘Sorry? We?’
‘Why not? I could be the Watson to your Holmes. The Lewis to your Morse—’
‘The Nit to my Wit.’
‘Great; I’ve never had first billing before.’
My instincts told me to dump him now. But my muscles had other ideas. Even that short walk from the police station had left me more drained than I would have believed. The enervating effects of the bug and enforced fasting had wiped out my inclination to discourage a free chauffeuring service.
‘Circle around the town again. I’ve some thinking to do.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
He threaded into the traffic nudging along the teeth-itching one-way systems. I helped myself to his phone and dialled the office.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ Annie’s angry voice crackled from the mobile. ‘And why didn’t you let anyone know where you were going? I got back yesterday and found no one had heard from you since Tuesday morning. And it hadn’t even occurred to this dipstick Vetch employs to man the phones that there was anything wrong with that situation. I even called your parents.’
‘I rang them. Come to think of it, I left a message on the answerphone asking them to ring me back.’
‘It’s not working. There’s just a load of garbled rubbish on it. I’ve had people chasing in all directions here looking for you.’
‘I know. I’ve just seen Jackson. Thanks for caring.’ I said it with sincerity and meant every syllable. I gave Annie the edited version of my trot with the trots (without specifically mentioning Faye) and asked after Zeb.
‘He’s on the mend, thanks,’ Annie said, her tone slightly mollified. ‘You’d better phone your parents, incidentally. I tried to keep it casual but think I might have spooked them. Are you coming into the office?’
‘Later perhaps. Things to do. STOP!’
I cut off Annie’s whimper of pain as her eardrum exploded and congratulated Peter on his reflexes.
‘Do you have a death wish?’ he gasped breathlessly. ‘I only ask because that bus braked at least three centimetres from our rear bumper. I could take the scene again a fraction slower if you like. It will give us a better shot at being shunted into that rock shop.’ ‘A gumshoe’s sidekick needs a thick hide and fast reflexes.’
‘A rhino on speed would be your preferred choice, then?’ Peter called as I abandoned him again and darted after a familiar grey suit. She was carrying a small tartan suitcase that she hadn’t had at the police station.
‘Mrs Steadman!’
She looked around her as if she wasn’t quite sure I was yelling at her. Which, as it turned out, I wasn’t. Luke’s mum had remarried years ago. She wasn’t Mrs Steadman, she was Mrs Bowman.
I offered sympathy and a vague relationship with her son. ‘Are you driving back right away?’
‘I don’t drive. I’m getting the train. Change in London.’
‘Have you got time for a quick coffee?’
‘I could murder a cup of tea.’
‘Terrific.’ I steered her through the expanding crowds, leaving it to Peter to sort out how he was going to follow me.
Pepi’s was rocking with chatter, laughter and Chubby urging us all to twist again. It wasn’t the ideal setting for a spot of sensitive interrogation of a grieving mum. I’d have backed out, but she jostled forward, using her case to bag a couple of window seats that were just being vacated.
I got the teas and two cheesecakes piled with mounds of desiccated coconut strands. ‘Sorry about the noise,’ I yelled.
‘I like it. We used to dance to this one when I was in my teens. Seems like a lifetime ago. I look in the mirror and don’t recognise the old bat staring back at me.’
She certainly didn’t look anything like the teenage tease Atch had described. She’d aged badly, with deep lines from nose to mouth and poorly dyed grey hairs amongst the brown.
‘How did you say you knew Luke?’
‘Friend of a friend. Peter knows him better. They’re both into films, acting, that sort of thing.’
‘He was forever going on about being a film producer. Daft idea, my Roy thought. He wanted Luke to get a proper job.’ She starting sawing the cheesecake in half, buttering the split sections with frowning concentration.
‘Roy’s your second husband?’
‘Yes. Although I never really counted me first marriage. It was over before the confetti melted. I met him when he was stationed at the American base. Fancied him rotten in his uniform. But truth to tell, I married him to spite my mum. She was always trying to split us up. Said he was just a loser who’d never amount to anything. It’s funny, I can hear myself sometimes saying exactly the same things to my Miranda my mum used to say to me.’
This didn’t seem to be tying in with Luke’s version of his childhood. My tentative suggestion that his dad had owned a meat company brought a snort of laughter.
‘He never did. Drove a truck that delivered for them, that’s all. Still does, as far as I know. I tried to stay in touch for a while. For Luke’s sake. But he never showed that much interest. I suppose it’s what with him and his wife having kids of their own.’
‘Luke never lived with him, then?’
‘Born and bred in Suffolk, same as the rest of my lot. He went out there for a couple of holidays. Stayed in their place in Chicago, but he didn’t like it. The local kids bullied him; him having a funny accent as far as they were concerned.’
‘I thought he’d experienced the wide-open spaces? Cowboy country ... yeehah and all that?’
‘That was the second time. We saved up. Bought him an air ticket so he could go camping with his dad. Had one of those camper vans, what they call them - Winnie ...?’
‘Winnebago.’
‘That right. Hired one for a week.’
‘One week?’ So much for experiencing the wide-open spaces.
The jukebox displayed a previously unsuspected talent for irony by breaking into ‘Red River Rock’. She started swaying in time to the music, humming the melody under her breath. And then caught my eye.
‘I suppose you think I’m not behaving like a mum whose son has just died?’
I gave a noncommittal shrug.
‘Truth is, I lost Luke a long time ago. I married Roy when Luke was five, and God knows, he tried to be a good dad. But Luke didn’t want to know. Right from when he was little, he always acted as if he was better than us. Smar
ter. And he had a tongue on him. Used to say clever things and then sit there with this smirk on his smug little face. To tell the truth, it was a relief when he left home.’
‘When was that?’
‘Disappeared one morning when he was sixteen. Took all the money I’d put by for bills, and Roy’s car. We never did get it back.’
‘Do you know where he went?’
‘London, I expect. He was always talking about going there.’ ‘You didn’t try to find out?’
‘No.’ She took a mouthful of tea, using her thumb to clean off the smear of lipstick she left on the rim. ‘I know that sounds hard, but we’d the other four by then and things between me and Roy were getting so bad that I don’t think we’d have stuck together much longer. Once Luke had gone, it was like an infection had been removed from the house. All that scratching and tearing at each other stopped. We became a real family, the six of us. That makes me sound like a bad person, but sometimes you have to sacrifice one kid for the sake of the others.’
‘Did you ever hear from Luke after he did a bunk?’
‘Not until Uncle Eric died. That’s the first we knew he’d been seeing him. He left the lot to Luke, you know. Me and my brothers were his only close relatives. No reason why he should leave it to us, of course. Like I said to Roy: we hadn’t taken no notice of the old boy for years and he could leave his cash to anyone he chose ...’
‘And he chose Luke.’
‘Yes. Wicked, isn’t it, to hate your own son. But I did . .. Roy’d not worked for over two years and a bit of extra cash would have been a godsend. Roy’s gone now - God bless him. That policewoman thought that if Luke hasn’t made a will, me and his dad will probably inherit. His real dad, I mean.’
I started toying with wild ideas about checking the movements of a Chicago truck driver, and then realised the police would already have gone down that route. Just like they would have discreetly made enquiries about this woman opposite me and her second husband.
‘Have you been out to St Biddy’s, Ginny?’
‘The police took me to see if I could see anything unusual in the cottage. But like I said to that policewoman, how would I know - it’s years since I’ve been out there. How did you know my name was Ginny?’