The Detective's Secret

by Thomson, Lesley

  Stella had drunk the second cup of coffee and eaten all the biscuits without noticing.

  ‘Rather strange for you, perhaps?’ She looked at Stella with concern.

  ‘I’ve hardly seen him. When he goes back to Australia, everything will get back to normal.’ When Dale Heffernan had gone, her mum would return to her job at Clean Slate. They would resume their trips to Richmond Park every other Sunday with fish and chip suppers on Thursdays.

  She heard a sploshing. Stanley was drinking out of a dog’s bowl on a mat by the back door. Stella had forgotten about him. Liz had given him water. He caught her eye and, tail flapping, trotted over and put his paws on her knees. Stella stroked sodden fur back from his muzzle, drops of water dampening her trousers.

  ‘He can lie on this while we eat.’ Liz returned with a cushion from the front room and dropped it in the corner by the fridge. ‘Lie down.’ She invited him nicely.

  Stanley approached the cushion, nosed it about, dragged it away from the fridge to the middle of the kitchen and climbed onto it. He flumped down and, heaving a sigh, went instantly to sleep.

  Stella had assumed the food was for Liz and was about to say it was too early to eat, but her watch said it was five to one. They had been talking for three hours.

  ‘You’ve trained him well!’ Liz laid out tubs of olives and hummus, a plate of hot pitta bread and another of sliced meats. ‘Stanley! Lovely name.’

  ‘I’m minding him for a friend. Stanley was his father.’ Liz had told her about her husband and his affairs, how she had had it with the ‘sting of betrayal’. If she had stayed, Lulu could have joined in. Stella wasn’t ready to swap stories about the Mr Rights who went wrong. David had not been Mr Right. That morning she had ignored another text. She wondered how she could give Stanley back without meeting him or involving a third party.

  ‘Tuck in, Stell.’ Liz took two bottles of mineral water from the fridge, one still and one sparkling. No one but Jack and Jackie called her ‘Stell.’ Liz had been the first to do so.

  ‘Thanks.’ Stella picked up her knife and fork and unfolded one of the triangles of kitchen towel that did for napkins, relieved there was no fuss and formality.

  ‘He’s going to miss you. Any chance your friend might let you keep him?’

  ‘No chance. Stanley is attached to him.’

  ‘He’s attached to you, he’s fixed on your every move!’

  Stanley wasn’t asleep. He was watching her. Without a dog to walk or think about, she would get more done, Stella reminded herself.

  Stella scooted a helping of avocado salad onto her plate. She had first tasted avocado at the Hunter house. Liz’s mother had coaxed her. ‘Just a smidgin, love, you can’t dislike what you’ve never tried.’

  Liz’s family didn’t call her dad a failed detective. Liz’s dad had said he wished all the police were like Terry, a ‘people-person’.

  On the few occasions Stella had eaten avocado as an adult – generally at Jackie’s – she would think of Liz and wonder where she was.

  Liz poured mineral water from the still bottle into Stella’s glass, a green tumbler dotted with air bubbles. Jack said imperfection was a sign of perfection. Liz hadn’t offered the sparkling bottle. She must have remembered that Stella hated fizzy drinks.

  ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help your friend.’ Liz was tipping the leftovers into plastic boxes and stowed them in the fridge. Stella had completely forgotten about Lulu Carr, neither of them had referred to why Stella was there in the first place.

  It was an hour and a half later and Stella was washing up the lunch things.

  ‘I did try to tell her.’ Stella didn’t say again that Lulu wasn’t a friend. She would have to explain about the case and Liz would think she was trying to be a detective like her dad and feel sorry for her.

  ‘I’ll drop Nicola a line and let you know what she says.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘To be honest, Stell, I was cautious because, when she left Nicola made me swear to tell no one where she was staying. Very cloak and dagger.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Stella rinsed the last bowl and fitted it into the draining rack. She knew why. She should level with Liz. Nicola Barwick had been involved with Rick Frost and, when he died, she had guessed Lulu had found out or that Frost had told her. She knew Lulu would want to see her. Stella saw suddenly that the floaty, feminine manner was a front. Lulu worked like a steel trap.

  ‘I don’t know Nicola well, we worked together. When I needed somewhere to rent, she offered here. A friend had died and she needed a change of scene.’

  ‘What did you mean by “cloak and dagger?” A detective, she probed deeper.

  ‘At work she was as cool as a cucumber, ahead of the game, but nice with it. One of the few you could trust. When I came to see the house, she was quite different – nervy, talking fast, she seemed hardly aware of me. She hustled me inside as if someone was out there watching her. When she gave me her forwarding address, she confessed that she was being hassled by an ex. I had to promise not to give it to anyone. I presumed her friends and relations knew. But then this man turned up asking for her and now you’ve come. Nicola doesn’t seem to have told anyone but me.’

  ‘What friend?’ Stella asked sharply. Stanley sat up.

  ‘A guy she’s known since they were kids – not the scary ex, I soon established that. He said they were only friends. He asked for Nicola’s address – so difficult when you have to refuse someone nice. He told me she had asked him to check I was OK and that he would handle anything I needed. He was the only person in touch with her. I’ve found out since that he was testing me to make sure I didn’t give away her address. I passed! To be honest I couldn’t have given it to him because at that point I’d managed to lose it!’ She dried the plates and put them back on the shelf. ‘He warned me not to trust anyone – even murderers are charming!’

  ‘He said that?’ Stella pulled off the rubber gloves, finger by finger. She wondered at the comparison.

  ‘He’s rather put me on alert.’ Liz laughed. ‘Little traffic goes down this road and, except at weekends, hardly anyone walks by, so I catch every footstep. At night, it’s as quiet as the graves over the road! My mum used to say I had a vivid imagination, you remember!’

  ‘Has this man been back?’ Mrs Hunter had told Stella she kept Liz’s feet on the ground. Stanley’s chest was pigeon-puffed, head back, ears pert as if he had heard something. The relaxed mood of lunch had gone.

  ‘Yes! I was coming to that.’ Liz rocked on her heels. ‘We’re seeing each other! Nothing serious. Justin – that’s his name – understands that after Gary I can’t rush into anything. Although between you and me, this time I don’t mind if I do! I’d joined one of those dating websites and what happens? I meet a guy without leaving the house!’

  ‘That’s great. What does he do?’ Stella’s mind raced. Was Nicola Barwick frightened of the same person as Rick Frost?

  ‘You sound like Dad, he used to quiz me about boyfriends!’ Liz was girlish. Not the girl Stella remembered, who had been cool-headed about boys, but more like the sort of girl Liz had little time for at school, who lost interest in talking to other girls when a boy she liked came over.

  ‘Justin’s an engineer, he’s passionate about his work. Gary was down on everything so it’s refreshing.’

  ‘How do you know he’s a friend of Nicola Barwick’s? Despite what he told you, he could be the ex.’ Detectives had to take risks, even if it meant losing the friend she had only just found. If Lulu was right and Nicola Barwick had killed Frost, she had gone to some effort to cover her tracks.

  ‘If you met him you’d understand. I trust Justin.’ Liz filled the kettle and flicked down the lever; it began to hiss. ‘He and Nicola were close, he says.’

  Stella wasn’t sure she trusted anyone. Not even Jack, it seemed.

  ‘Were?’ she echoed.

  ‘Are!’ A shadow passed across her face. ‘Justin talks as if he’ll never
see her again.’ Liz put the bottles of mineral water back in the fridge.

  ‘I thought you said he did see her.’

  ‘He says she’s stopped answering his calls. He’s upset she doesn’t trust him – as I say, he thought they were close.’

  ‘Is he sure she’s OK? Suppose this man has found her?’ Stella said.

  ‘She told him not to contact her again. She says it’s a risk.’

  ‘What’s the name of this ex?’ Stella mentally put him at the top of their list of suspects.

  ‘Nicola didn’t say.’

  ‘Doesn’t your guy know? Justin.’

  ‘He says she never introduced her men to him. I can imagine that; Nicola never talked about her private life to me either.’

  ‘Do you have a number for her?’

  ‘She only left a postal address. She told me to take any repair bills off the rent. I had a problem with the boiler, but Justin sorted that. He doesn’t just build bridges and tunnels, he can turn his hand to anything!’ Liz was fiddling with the fridge magnets. She straightened two and closed the gap in the top row that had irked Stella, who had forgotten that they had shared a liking for order.

  ‘That’s odd.’ Liz held up a bright red magnet.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Nicola’s address isn’t here.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Stella might suggest that leaving the address on the fridge for all to see was unwise, but then Jack said that the best place to conceal something was in plain sight.

  ‘Yes.’ Liz got down on the floor. Sensing a game, Stanley beetled over and snuffled around her. ‘It can only just have fallen off, I found it last week and finally posted off a letter that’s been sitting here for weeks, making me feel guilty.’

  ‘You said this man – Justin – has it. Couldn’t you have asked him?’

  ‘I couldn’t admit I’d lost it; he’s adamant that we must tell no one. Now I’ve lost it again!’ she wailed.

  ‘It must have fallen off.’ Stella doubted this as soon as she said it.

  ‘Maybe it’s losing strength.’ Liz examined the magnet as if she could tell by looking.

  ‘Magnets last forever if you keep them away from power lines and don’t expose them to high temperatures. It must be here.’ Stella dragged the chairs away from the table. In the snugly fitted kitchen there were no crevices or cavities. The truth dawned.

  Lulu had not received a text from her brother. She had gone looking for a clue to where Nicola Barwick might be and she had found it on the fridge. She knew where to look: she hid keys in plain sight. She hadn’t been near the toilet. She had got Nicola Barwick’s address and would be on her way there now.

  ‘Liz, there’s something I need to tell you.’ Stella took the plunge and told Liz who Lulu was and how she suspected Nicola Barwick of having an affair with her husband. She left out the bit about Lulu accusing Nicola Barwick of murdering Frost – no need to make Liz feel worse than she did.

  ‘Where did you forward the letter to?’ she asked Liz.

  ‘I can’t remember.’ Liz clamped the magnet back on the fridge.

  ‘We need to warn her!’

  ‘I’ve only sent on one letter.’ She was staring at the magnets.

  ‘Try to think, was it in this country?’ Stella must not hurry her; Liz had always thought before she spoke, a trait Stella respected.

  ‘It made me think of drawing,’ Liz said eventually.

  ‘What?’ This was like being with Jack.

  ‘The word was something you use for a… charcoal, that was it!’

  ‘Is it a place?’ Stella pulled out her phone; she would call Lulu Carr and hold her off.

  ‘It’s not the name, it’s what I associated with it.’

  Stella got Lulu’s answer machine.

  ‘I’m in mourning, I can’t talk. Please don’t leave a message after the beep, I shan’t call back.’

  Stella prevented herself letting out a wild scream.

  ‘Charbury!’

  Stella dabbed Charbury into Google Maps. There was one near Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire and one in East Sussex.

  ‘What was the county?’ She forced herself not to shout.

  ‘East something.’

  East Sussex then. Stella knew the name. Two years ago, Isabel Ramsay, her favourite client, had been buried in the churchyard at Charbury. The Ramsay family had invited Stella to the funeral but, unable to face another funeral so soon after her dad’s, Stella had done a cleaning job instead. Jack had gone alone. For a mad second Stella believed that if she had gone, she wouldn’t be facing this problem now. She should leave the magical thinking to Jack. The length of the journey to Charbury – one and a half hours each way – had been her excuse for not going. Lulu had been gone over five hours, ample time to find Nicola Barwick.

  45

  Saturday, 26 October 2013

  Jack laid the tray on the wood veneer table. Tea for Darryl Clark and hot milk for him. The canteen wasn’t large, about twenty-six metres by ten, and today there was only one other person there, a middle-aged black man in a blue driver’s polo shirt reading an Evening Standard by the serving hatch.

  The staff canteen at Earl’s Court was a bland combination of pinkish quartz screed flooring and salmon walls, with faux wood tables and red plastic chairs. Fluorescent lights chequered a tiled drop-ceiling, casting an even light and ensuring that drivers relaxed, yet remained alert.

  A used tea bag lay soaking into a napkin on the table, a plastic stirrer placed beside it – like items of evidence in a crime, Jack found himself thinking. Pulling himself together, he gathered up the tea bag and tossed it into a flip bin by the food hatch. He caught an item on the noticeboard. Three flats for rent in West London, all apparently within easy distance of the District line. Nothing matched the Palmyra Tower; he had been lucky.

  The driver by the servery lounged with his chair tipped back, arms folded, seemingly unaware of Jack. Nevertheless, to avoid their conversation being overheard, Jack moved closer to Darryl Clark.

  Clark sat like an obedient child, hands on his lap, the shadow of a smile on his face as if determined to be cheerful. Jack recognized a man suffering from trauma. Clark unloaded the tray and propped it against the table leg, but made no move to drink his tea. Instead, he picked up his stirrer and with trembling hands swirled it back and forth in his tea, although he hadn’t sugared it. He stopped abruptly.

  ‘How are you doing?’ Jack asked softly.

  ‘OK now.’ Darryl lifted the mug with both hands and drank in gulps. ‘I started back on the Piccadilly, but coming out of Hammersmith, I felt like shit. That was with a co-driver doing the driving. At Stamford Brook, I swear I felt the train go over a bump where he fell. I kept quiet about that, didn’t want them thinking I’m mad. Bloody feels like it.’ He blew too hard on his tea and, without noticing, slopped it over the side. ‘They fast-tracked the transfer to the Wimbledon line.’

  ‘You’re not mad.’ Jack swept away the spill with his napkin.

  ‘You OK? Were you off work too?’ Clark’s eyes flicked from side to side.

  ‘No, but it’s different for the driver.’

  The man cleared his throat. ‘Have you had one before?’

  Jack understood Clark’s need to ask a question that only a driver who had had a One Under could ask another.

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s my second. About twenty years ago.’ Clark snapped his stirrer in two. ‘A young woman. Joanna Hayward, she lived in Barking. She “got off” at Earl’s Court.’ He had a stolid expression. ‘Turned out it was her third attempt. She was alive when she went down. They often are. I shouted down to her to keep away from the rail, the juice was still on. She never took her eyes off me as she put out a hand and grabbed it. Just like that.’ He snapped the stirrer into smaller pieces. ‘In those days, as I remember, they had you back on the trains sharpish.’

  ‘Tough,’ Jack agreed.

  ‘Yes and no. I was young, I was pissed off with her for c
hoosing my train!’ Clark shook his head. ‘It’s like cooking with a knife and then slitting your wrists with it. Or, well, maybe not—’ He picked up Jack’s stirrer and broke it in half.

  Jack was reluctant to join in, unsure it would help Clark to discuss the pros and cons of suicide.

  Shaking his head, Darryl picked up the remaining sachet of sugar and poured it into his tea. The man was on autopilot.

  Jack remembered Clark had sought him out. ‘How are you now?’

  ‘It hits me at night, like a film going on in my head. You get that?’

  Jack didn’t say he had a song replaying every night when he went to sleep, or mention the hum on the spiral staircase, the mythical birdsong and the glugging sink. Clark wouldn’t want to know about his ghosts. He looked over at the hatch: he might get an apple muffin to take to the tower. Two even.

  ‘It was harder for you. You were with him,’ Clark remarked.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘All that time waiting for the train and then he jumps. Did you see anything odd about him? I had him for a split second, so in my statement for the inquest I couldn’t even say what he looked like. You were waiting on the platform with him.’ He looked hostile, as if Jack had been remiss.

  Jack felt a change in the air. He glanced again at the hatch. It was shut. The other driver had gone. The only witnesses to the death had been himself and Darryl Clark. The novice driver in whose cab he had travelled hadn’t seen a thing. Still, he had been affected; he had since handed in his resignation.

  ‘I wasn’t on the platform.’ He was careful not to embarrass Clark by pointing out his mistake. ‘I was in the District line train.’

  ‘I saw you.’ Darryl was implacable. He snapped Jack’s stirrer into splinters.

  ‘You saw me afterwards. I was in the office.’

  ‘You were on the platform, at the Hammersmith end. I didn’t know you were with the Underground until I saw you clearing the station.’

  ‘I was on the other train,’ Jack repeated gently. He put down his mug. ‘Are you saying there was someone else on the platform other than Rick Frost?’