Dirty Secrets

by JANICE FROST

  Val had tidied Cam’s toys into a big plastic tub, and he made a beeline for this, while Ruth sank, exhausted, into the sofa. Her depression wasn’t as bad as it had been, during those endless dark days after Cam’s birth when she’d felt drained and empty, going through the motions of new motherhood without enthusiasm or even love. Fin had been the one who coped with it all.

  Cam wasn’t the only one who missed Fin. Ruth pushed herself up from the sofa and went into the kitchen to make a cup of camomile tea. She could hear the clock tick on the wall, and the tinkle of a toy Cam was playing with in the lounge. Otherwise, the house, enwrapped by the walls of the old hall, was hushed and still in a way that their little Cambridge house never was. The silence felt like a pause. As if she had no past or future, only that moment in the middle of the night. Some lines from Eliot came to her mind. “A still point in a turning world.”

  The tinkling was in the room with her now. Cam tottered over to her and clung to her leg. She stroked his head. He rubbed his eyes, fighting sleep.

  “Come on,” Ruth said, and they returned to the sitting room. Ruth carried her mug of tea, though she knew she shouldn’t. She, of all people, should know never to assume that the worst wouldn’t happen. But she returned to the sofa, and Cam to his box of toys, unscathed. No scalded child, no tea stains on the creamy carpet.

  Cam pulled some trains and pieces of wooden track out of the box and began building a railway. Ruth sipped her tea and waited for him to grow tired. At least he was playing by himself, not tugging at her to join in. Her eyes closed and she drifted into a light, fevered sleep.

  Will’s pale, accusing spectre swam into view, and Ruth woke with a jolt, spilling hot tea over her thighs. She looked around dazedly for Cam and saw the abandoned, half-built train track, and Thomas the Tank Engine lying on his side, one reproachful eye staring fixedly at the ceiling. “Cam?”

  Ruth roused herself, and went in search of her son. In the hallway, she found a trail of discarded toys leading into the study.

  She found Cam, sitting on the floor by her father’s desk. Somehow he’d managed to reach the bronze horse that Ruth had so coveted as a child. He was turning it over, wonderingly, in his hand.

  Ruth suppressed an urge to snatch it from him. That’s mine, whined a small, mean voice inside her head. Almost immediately, she felt a rush of shame.

  She crouched on the floor beside Cam, and told him that the horse had belonged to his grandad, and how she’d loved playing with it as a child. But Cam wasn’t interested. Ruth tried to coax the statue from him, but he grasped it tighter in his little fist and refused to let go. In a sudden fit of temper, he raised his arm and hurled it across the room. Ruth watched in horror as it struck the corner of the marble fireplace with a sickening crack.

  “You horrible child!” She picked up the horse and inspected it. It appeared to be undamaged, but tears pricked her eyes anyway. She felt like shaking Cam. Instead, she shouted, “You horrible, spiteful little boy!”

  “Ruth!” Ruth spun around to see her mother standing in the doorway, wearing the Chinese silk dressing gown that Ruth’s grandfather had brought back from Malaya where he did his national service in the fifties. It had red-and-gold dragons down either side, and had once belonged to Ruth’s grandmother. It, too, Ruth had coveted in her childhood. She sniffed. Might as well give Cam a pair of scissors and let him rip it to shreds. He spoiled everything.

  “Go back to bed!” Val ordered in that stentorian voice Ruth remembered so well from her childhood. “I’ll see to Cam.”

  Ruth opened her mouth to protest, but at that moment she couldn’t even look at the wailing Cam, so she slouched from the room, only just remembering to thank her mother.

  In the quiet of her bedroom, she cried into her pillow.

  After her father’s body was released by the coroner, after his funeral, she would go back to Cambridge. But was it really going to be that straightforward? Two people were dead.

  “Oh, Dad,” she whispered into the darkness. “I don’t know if I can keep our secret for much longer.”

  * * *

  PJ and Tom met Nathan Brewer at his house share. It was his day off work and he was spending it catching up on chores. He was in the middle of ironing when they arrived. “Sorry about the mess,” he said, showing them into the kitchen. “My housemates aren’t all as tidy as me.”

  Tom had lived in house shares in London, and in Hertfordshire. He knew what it was like. Now he could afford to rent a place of his own in Stromford, where his salary went a bit further. He smiled. “No worries, mate.”

  Nathan cleared stuff off the chairs so they could sit. “I was gutted to hear about Dana. Do you know who did it yet?”

  Tom shook his head. He brushed the seat before sitting down. “I know you split up a while ago, but it would be interesting for us to hear your impressions of Dana. You met at Glastonbury, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah. She’d travelled from Essex with a friend, but the friend got a text from her mum saying her boyfriend had come off his motorbike and was in a pretty bad way. So Dana was on her own. She sort of latched onto me and my mates.”

  “Lot of drugs at these festivals,” Tom said. “Was Dana into all that?”

  “That’s kind of why I split up with her,” Nathan said. “I don’t want to sound disrespectful or anything now that she’s dead, but she had a bit of a problem with drugs.”

  “When did you first realise that?”

  “Well, at the festival. She was trying to get me and my mates to smoke dope, but we weren’t interested.”

  Nathan struck Tom as being a nice, conservative boy, unimaginative and rather old-fashioned. The type to fancy the girl next door. His use of the expression ‘latched on’ was interesting. It suggested Dana’s company had not been entirely welcome. He suspected she’d sensed an opportunity to exploit in the mild-mannered Nathan.

  “Dana travelled back to Stromford and sort of stuck around, didn’t she?” PJ said. All of this they knew already, from the PC who had taken a statement from Nathan previously.

  “Yes. She kind of attached herself to me. I agreed she could stay here for a couple of days, but she took that to mean she could stay as long as she liked. She wasn’t really my girlfriend as such . . .” Nathan coloured.

  “Sorry to have to ask you this, Nathan, but did you have a sexual relationship with Ms Schell?” PJ asked. Nathan’s colour intensified.

  “Yes.”

  “Was Dana using when she stayed here?” Tom asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know what she was taking?”

  “Cannabis. Pills. Legal highs.”

  “Cocaine?” Tom asked.

  Nathan shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “So, would it be fair to say that Dana was quite open about her drug use?” PJ said.

  “She didn’t make a secret of it. My housemates gave me an ultimatum, get rid of Dana, or they’d tell the landlord.” Nathan wasn’t the brightest. It took a moment or two for him to realise what he’d said. His eyes widened.

  “Relax,” Tom said. “We know you didn’t mean that literally. So you asked Dana to leave. Was that the end of your relationship as well?”

  “It was never really a relationship,” Nathan reiterated.

  “Did Dana make any other friends in Stromford that you were aware of? Either when you were with her, or afterwards?” Tom asked.

  “I saw her in town once with an old bloke. He looked well-off. His suit, like, it wasn’t from Next or Primark. Know what I mean?”

  “Can you describe him?” Tom said.

  “Old. Like fifty or something? Good-looking, though. Distinguished. Grey hair . . . Not young.” Nathan seemed to struggle to move beyond the man’s age. He shook his head. “Sorry, just old and well-dressed.”

  “Average height? Tall?” Tom prompted.

  “Average?”

  Could be Paul Cornish, but he wasn’t the only well-dressed, middle-aged man in town. Tom had
been hoping for a description fitting Hector Cornish.

  But Nathan wasn’t quite finished. “She worked for Ruth Marsh’s dad’s business partner, didn’t she? I read it in the Courier.”

  “You know Ruth?”

  “Not really. I knew her cousin, Will. He was a mate of mine at school. He died. In a fire.” From his expression, Nathan was still cut up over the loss of his friend. “Ruth Marsh went to the private school, the posh one up at the cathedral. I went to Stromford Hill High, just along the road.”

  Just along the road. A million miles apart. Tom sighed inwardly.

  “I used to see her waiting for her mum to pick her up from school. She smiled at me once. When I was with Will.” He’d fancied Ruth, Tom realised. “Poor old Will. Wonder what he’d be doing if he was here now?”

  “Sorry, mate,” Tom said.

  “I never bought it, what they said about that fire.” Nathan looked at Tom, and then PJ. “They reckoned it was started by a cigarette end, but Will was like me, he was never into smoking, it made him sick. And he was an athlete. He was training for a triathlon at the time. He’d never have taken up smoking.”

  “Did you raise your concerns at the time?” Tom said.

  Nathan shook his head. “Should have done. Wouldn’t have brought him back, though, would it?”

  “Thank you for your time, Nathan.” Tom extended a hand.

  Nathan shook it. “I’ll get back to my ironing, then. My mum’s always offering to do it for me, but I don’t like to burden her. She’s got enough to do with my brothers and sisters still at home.”

  “So who did the cigarette end belong to?” PJ asked, the minute they were outside and walking away from Nathan’s place.

  “Probably was Will’s. Nathan isn’t the brightest, is he? Will could have been concealing it from him because he knew Nathan would disapprove. He’s an old-fashioned sort of lad, isn’t he?”

  PJ nodded. “Reminds me of my little cousin, Bruce. Nineteen going on forty. Might be worthwhile checking out the reports on that fire, though, don’t you think?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “How are you getting on with Lesley Curran?” PJ asked, sneaking a glance at him.

  “Er . . . She asked me to accompany her to a restaurant the other night. Said it was work related, but made it clear she had plans for afterwards. Wasn’t best pleased when I made my excuses.”

  PJ smiled. “She’s an attractive woman.”

  Tom stared at her with a look of disbelief. “She’s like fifty-five!”

  “Fiftyish, more like,” PJ said.

  “Well, I’m twenty-six. I prefer women closer to my own age, thank you.”

  “You know, if she makes you feel uncomfortable, you don’t have to put up with it,” PJ said. “Tell Neal. He could appoint Ava or me as her main contact instead.”

  “Thanks, PJ.”

  “Yeah, well, we women have had to put up with that sort of thing for ever. We’re used to finding ways to support each other. No reason for anyone, male or female, to suffer in silence.”

  * * *

  Fin held the curtain aside and watched the two police officers retreating down the street. Had he managed to convince them? Ever since Ruth had called to tell him about Hector’s request, he’d been seething with rage. Hector had made a promise. You don’t renege on a promise. Even in the murky world of drug dealing that he’d inhabited in his youth, your word counted for something.

  Fin’s life seemed to be unravelling at a frightening pace. Ever since that chance meeting with Hector Cornish and Dana Schell in the Grafton Centre, he’d worried that everything he’d worked so hard to achieve was being undermined by factors outside his control.

  A couple of days after Hector and Dana came round for dinner, Fin encountered Hector again. Not by coincidence, Fin suspected. Hector had crept up on him as he was walking across New Square Park. He’d tapped Fin on the shoulder, making him jump.

  “Hey, Fin. Great night the other night.”

  Was it? Fin didn’t think so. Hector had made him feel threatened in some vague way, even before he’d claimed to know a secret about Ruth’s past. Then there’d been Ruth’s odd behaviour (prompted by Hector’s remark about a secret?) She hadn’t returned to excuse herself after leaving the table. This lapse in good manners had surprised Fin. He’d found her curled up in bed. “Did Hector say something to upset you?” he asked, only to be met with a stony silence.

  Hector and Dana overstayed their welcome by a big margin, finally leaving at around two in the morning, having exhausted all the alcohol in the house.

  The following morning, Ruth apologised to Fin for leaving him to entertain their guests alone. Sensing that she didn’t want to talk about it, Fin simply nodded. He hoped they’d seen the last of Hector Cornish.

  Turned out Hector had other plans. Hence the ‘chance’ encounter in the park. He invited Fin to have a chat, selecting a seat away from the lunchtime workers, out in force to enjoy the unexpected sunshine.

  “I’ve got a proposition for you,” Hector began. “A business proposition.”

  “No” was Fin’s immediate, instinctive reply. He didn’t trust Hector and he had an inkling of what Hector was about to say. He wondered how much Hector knew about his past. Ruth’s father was in business with Hector’s father, so he could easily have told him about the private investigator and his findings. “I’m a full-time student and I’m about to be a father. I don’t have time for anything else.”

  Hector sat, legs splayed, arms stretched out along the back of the bench. He let out a long sigh. “That’s a real shame, Fin, my man. On more than one level.”

  Fin followed Hector’s gaze to a trio of young women sitting a few benches along, on the opposite side of the path. They all had sandwich boxes perched on their mini-skirted thighs, knees tightly clenched. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, squinting in the midday sun.

  “That ‘little secret’ of Ruth’s that I referred to the other night.” Hector gave a slow smile, his eyes never leaving the group of young women. “You know. The one you know nothing about.” Hector turned his head slowly towards Fin and their eyes met. Hector’s gaze was like a cold dart.

  “Ruth and I don’t have secrets from each other.”

  A mocking laugh. The dart pierced Fin’s armour, its chilly poison sapping his confidence.

  Hector spread his legs still wider. “Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was a fire . . .”

  Anger surged through Fin. “Stop!” he said, loud enough to attract the attention of the young women opposite, who all looked in their direction. Hector gave them a half-wave and one of them waved back. The others giggled, and they resumed their conversation.

  “So? What? You don’t want to know Ruth’s secret?” Hector said.

  “No.” Fin choked on the word. If Ruth had a secret, he would hear it first from her lips, not from this arrogant bully.

  “Tell you what,” Hector said. “You go home, talk to Ruth. I’ll call you tomorrow. Then we’ll do business.” A pause. His gaze was full of malice. “Or not. It’s up to you.” Hector sighed. “Ruth’s such a fragile flower, isn’t she? Mentally, I mean. Has been ever since . . . Oops, sorry, you don’t want to know, do you? All I’m saying is it would be a shame if something pushed her right over the edge, wouldn’t it?”

  With that, Hector stood up and walked off, swaggering as he passed the trio of women. He bowed slightly and Fin heard him say, “Ladies.” No doubt they thought him very galante.

  So Fin and Ruth talked, late into the night. No more secrets. And when Hector called him the following morning, Fin was ready to do business.

  He’d already guessed what Hector’s business proposition would entail.

  “We’re going to London. I want you to introduce me to your mate, Liam Sharp.” Fin recoiled silently. Hector must have spoken with the PI that Russ Marsh hired. “I’ll pick you up in half an hour.” He cut Fin off before he could protest.

  Hector ar
rived exactly thirty minutes later. “He’s here,” Ruth said dully, turning from the window. There were dark shadows under her eyes. She had lost that aura of mystery that had first attracted Fin. To his surprise, his feelings for her, though more complex now, were unchanged. If anything, he loved her more.

  “This is crazy,” she said. Fin nodded. “How does he even know about your past and . . . and Liam Sharp?”

  “I think you can work that one out,” Fin said dryly.

  “My father must have talked to Hector’s parents about the PI. But he must know you’ve had nothing to do with Liam or the drugs scene for years! And why Liam? It’s easy enough to get hold of drugs in Cambridge if you want them.”

  “I don’t think Hector wants drugs for himself. He talked about a ‘business proposition.’ I think he wants to meet a supplier and set himself up dealing in Cambridge.”

  Hector’s car was parked on the double yellow lines outside their front door.

  “Back soon,” Fin said to Ruth. She’d returned his kiss but he could tell she was distracted.

  “You know this is crazy, right?” Fin said to Hector, pulling on his seatbelt. “Liam might not even be living on the same estate.”

  “Don’t think I haven’t done my homework. Russ Marsh’s PI was more than willing to talk,” said Hector, confirming Fin’s worst suspicions, “and he was happy to let me have Liam’s details for a small fee. Your mate’s still living in the same area. I’ve got his address.”

  “He won’t remember me, and even if he does he won’t want anything to do with me,” Fin said. “I told him years ago that I was through with everything.”

  “He remembers you.”

  Now Fin gazed at Hector in astonishment. “You’ve spoken with him?”

  “He can’t wait to see his old buddy. And he’s happy to do business, as long as you’ll vouch for me. All I need from you is an introduction. Did you really take the flak for his kid brother? How stupid are you?”

  Fin said nothing. How could he explain that taking the fall for Darren Sharp had rerouted his life? He glanced nervously over his shoulder, at a black leather sports bag resting on the back seat, fat with Hector’s money. He wanted nothing to do with any of this. He thought of Michael Corleone in The Godfather, and that line about being pulled back in just when he thought he was out.