“Jealous of her glamorous career, were you?”
Nathan stared at him levelly “Fuck off.”
“I will, if you’ll answer one last question. Who’s Shep?”
“Christ.” Nathan rolled his eyes. “You’re not going to tell me that old tosspot’s mixed up in this.”
“Who is he?”
“Who was he’s more like it, considering his state of health when I met him, which must’ve been at least eight years ago. Jack Shepherd. Kerry’s editor on the first paper she worked for, down in Kent. The Messenger. The Mercury. Something like that. She kept in touch with him after she’d moved on to bigger and better things. Went to see him every now and then. Took me along one time. He’d retired from the paper and was living in Deal.”
“Got an address?”
“Why would I have? He was Kerry’s friend, not mine.”
“Could you find where he lived if you went back to the town?”
“Maybe. But I’m not about to, am I?”
“Not if you can describe it well enough for me to trace, no.”
Nathan sighed. “Will that get rid of you?”
“Yes.” Harding nodded emphatically. “It will.”
TWENTY-SIX
A poky ground-floor flat facing Deal Castle, near the sea front.” Such had been Nathan Gashry’s succinct description of Jack Shepherd’s retirement abode. There were, as Harding had expected, several J. Shepherds listed in the phone book covering Deal. But only one had an address in Deal Castle Road.
“Hello?” The man who answered the phone sounded old and wary but reassuringly alive.
“Jack Shepherd?”
“Yes.”
“Former editor of the, er… Messenger?”
“Mercury. Kentish Mercury. Part of the Kent Messenger group. Not the same thing.” Reassuringly sharp, too.
“Right.”
“What can I do for you, Mr…”
“Harding. Tim Harding. I’m phoning about… well, in connection with… Kerry Foxton.”
“Kerry?” There was an edge of something in Shepherd’s voice: regret, maybe; or loss; or nostalgia. “You were a friend of hers?”
“No. I’m a friend of her sister, Hayley”
“Ah. Kerry’s twin.”
“That’s right. Do you know her?”
“No. We’ve never met. But… I recall Kerry… mentioning her.”
“Did Kerry mention Hayley’s psychiatric problems?”
“Yes,” Shepherd replied cautiously.
“I’m trying to help her get over them. The thing is, could we meet, Mr. Shepherd?”
“To what purpose? As I say, I’ve never met Hayley so-”
“It’s Kerry I want to talk to you about.”
“Really?”
“The loss of a twin is a hard thing to get over.”
“I’m sure it is. But-”
“I could explain myself much better in person. I’m in London at the moment. I could come down to Deal on the train this afternoon, if that’s convenient.”
“It isn’t. I have my daughter coming over. With my grandchildren.”
“This is very important. More important than I can get into on the phone.”
“My grandchildren are important too, Mr. Harding.” A silence ensued, during which Shepherd’s thoughtful breaths fanned the receiver. Then he said, “Come tomorrow. If you catch the first train, you can be with me by eleven. I’ll expect you then. But let me warn you: I don’t discuss my friends with strangers, even when they’re dead. You’ll have your work cut out shifting me from that principle.”
Shepherd sounded as if he might be a hard nut to crack. Harding had no means of forcing him to disclose what Kerry had been phoning him about in the days and weeks before the accident. He could only rely on his powers of persuasion. Even if they proved sufficient, the answer might be of little help in his search for Hayley. And he would have to kick his heels until Sunday before he could even hope to find out. Which left him with no excuse for failing to do what he had known he would have to do, sooner or later, since waking in the small hours of Friday morning.
His destination was close to Hanger Lane Tube station, out towards the western end of the Central line. He had realized he would have to go back there one day. A settlement with the past could not be postponed forever. But this was sooner than he had expected-sooner than he was ready for. When his phone rang shortly after the train had emerged from the underground part of the line, several stops short of Hanger Lane, he caught himself hoping the call, whomever it was from, would prevent him completing his journey.
“Hello?”
“Hiya. It’s your good friend Darren here.”
As surprises went, this was a big one. Harding was struck momentarily dumb.
“Knock, knock. Anyone at home?”
Anger rushed in to swamp Harding’s astonishment. He found his voice. “What the hell do you want?”
“Any idea where Hayley’s taken off to, man?”
“No, and even if I had I-”
“Wouldn’t share the news with me? I know. I guess you’ve figured out by now she hired me to pull a few moves on you.”
“Yes. Ring to apologize, did you?”
“Nothing to apologize for, the way I see it. It was just a bit of business. No hard feelings, hey? Thing is, we could do a bit of business ourselves, you and me. Know what I mean?”
“No. I don’t. And we couldn’t.”
“Don’t be so hasty. Hayley quit town owing me money, see.”
“Your fee, no doubt. For stealing my phone.”
“That and the other things. Point is, I don’t like being left in the lurch.”
“Who does?”
“So, if someone else-you, say-picked up the tab, I’d be willing to tell them what I know about the burglary at Heartsease.”
“What do you know?”
“Who stole the ring. I was there, see, keeping an eye out. I saw who took it, man.”
“Perhaps you took it yourself.”
“Nah. Not me. Someone else. You’ll never guess who. You’ll need me to tell you.”
“In exchange for what Hayley owes you.”
“Yeah.”
“Which is?”
“A grand.”
“Come off it.”
“Barney can afford it. He’ll see you right. You think it over, Mr. H. Or clear it with your multi-millionaire boss. Whatever. I’ll give you a bell Monday to fix the details. It’ll have to be a cash deal, so you and me’ll have to meet up. Nice to have the excuse, hey?”
“Now, just-”
“Catch you later.” The line went dead.
Harding had his doubts about whether Hayley owed Spargo any money at all, far less a thousand pounds. But it did not really matter. If Spargo knew the identity of the Heartsease burglar, Barney would be happy for Harding to pay him that and more to be let in on the secret. The devious Darren was onto a good thing. And he probably knew it.
Consulting Barney about Spargo’s proposition would have to wait. The phone call had, after all, done nothing to deflect Harding from his destination: a storage depot near the Hanger Lane roundabout on the A40. His only other visit had been six years ago, at the wheel of a hire van loaded with such contents of the house in Worcestershire he had shared with Polly as he could not bring himself to sell or throw away after her death.
They were all still there, boxed and stacked in a small, securely locked, CCTV-monitored room, where, as far as Harding knew, no one had set foot since he had closed the door on its hoard of tangible reminders of Polly and their life together.
Now, in eerie silence halfway along a gantried corridor, he was reopening the door, in search not of Polly, but of Hayley and her particular place in his past.
The overhead light flickered into life. Harding stepped into the room. The air was fresh enough, thanks to the ventilation gaps between the walls and suspended ceiling. There was only the thinnest layer of dust on the crates. He glanced from one to t
he other of them, noting the words he had scrawled on their sides to indicate what they contained. BOOKS. CLOTHES. MUSIC. ROCKY. Ah yes. Rocky the rocking horse, treasured by Polly since childhood. Tears sprang into Harding’s eyes. Suddenly the years that had passed dissolved to nothing. He leant forward, hands on knees, breathing deeply to compose himself. A minute or so passed. Then he was in control again.
The box he wanted was one of three marked PICTURES. Polly had been a talented painter, though not talented enough to make a full-time living as one. She had sold a few pictures in her time, however. Those she had hung around the house, along with others that had slowly accumulated in her makeshift studio, were stored here, apart from some that friends had asked to take as mementoes. And Harding was certain the picture he was looking for had stayed with the rest.
After a few minutes, he located the right box and hauled it out into the centre of the room. Beneath PICTURES he had written Art Therapy, a reference to the period when they lived in Harrow-on-the-Hill and Polly had worked as an art therapist at various clinics and day centres around west London. She had painted some of the patients she had met. He remembered these anguished, expressive portraits of people who possessed none of Polly’s own robustness of mind, which had served her so well-if Harding less well-in the end.
He ripped off the strip of brown tape and opened the box. He was close now. He knew it. He had only to see it again to be absolutely certain. He began lifting out the pictures to examine. No. No. No. No. Yes.
There she was. Younger, angrier, weaker, but instantly recognizable nonetheless, something of her essence captured along with her features. He turned the picture round. On the back, Polly had written Tooting, November 1994. She would not have been so unprofessional as to record the subject’s name. But Harding did not need her to have done so. He knew Hayley Foxton when he saw her. He had all along-without realizing it.
Did Hayley know? he wondered. There was no reason why she should remember a fleeting encounter with Polly from twelve years ago, far less connect it with Harding’s uncanny conviction that they had met before. For they had not met, except vicariously. He had seen her face long before he had set eyes on her in person. She had gone as far as suggesting he might have known Kerry in another life. But nothing so fanciful lay at the heart of his unreciprocated sense of familiarity. He had often looked at the picture and pondered the enigma of the troubled young woman Polly had depicted, about whom, as he recalled, she had claimed to know virtually nothing. Never would he have imagined, never in a million years, nor even an alternative universe-
The trilling of his mobile sliced through his thoughts. He slid the picture back between the two others he had been holding apart and pulled the phone out of his pocket.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Harding?”
“Ann?”
“Yes.” She sounded uneasy. There was a faint tremor in her voice. “You asked me to call… if I heard from Hayley.”
“And you have?”
“Yes.” There was a moment of silence, followed by a whisper of static. Then she said, “I know where she is.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Let’s go through what she said again.”
Harding was sitting with Ann Gashry in a café just round the corner from Victoria station. She had agreed to travel in from Dulwich to recount in person the details of Hayley’s out-of-the-blue phone call. The change of venue had diminished Ann. The noisy crowded, grubby purlieus of Victoria were not her natural domain. Just as telling Harding everything Hayley had told her was evidently not something she relished having to do.
“I need to be clear about this. She was definitely phoning from Munich?”
“So she said,” Ann replied, in a voice so subdued it seemed she was afraid people at nearby tables might be listening in on their conversation.
“Where in Munich?”
“That she didn’t say. Just that she’d flown there from Nice on Thursday. She assumed I’d heard what she’d done in Monte Carlo and wanted me to know she was as horrified by her behaviour as everyone else. She emphasized that I wasn’t to blame myself. Her exact words were ‘It’s all down to me.’ I asked why she’d gone to Munich. ‘Kerry died here and I have to come to terms with her death. There’s nowhere better to start.’ Again, her exact words. I asked if she was alone and she said, ‘I’m getting help, Ann. You don’t need to worry about me.’ Then she rang off.”
“Just like that?”
“Well, no. She said, ‘I’ll call again.’ Then she rang off.”
“Who is she getting help from?”
“I don’t know.”
“The Horstelmann Clinic, perhaps.”
“Perhaps.”
“Is Kerry buried in Munich?”
“I believe she was cremated.”
“But in Munich?”
“Yes. As far as I know. There was certainly no funeral in Dulwich. With her parents dead, there were no close relatives left. Apart from Hayley of course.”
“And nobody bothered to let her know.”
“I only heard of Kerry’s death after the event. I would have contacted Hayley if I’d been given the chance. I should have enquired what was to happen to Kerry after her parents were killed, of course. I should have done more to help Hayley. I realize that. If I had, this might never have happened.”
“But you believe Barney murdered Kerry. So nothing happening wasn’t really an attractive option for you, was it, Ann?”
Ann flushed. The accusation that she had encouraged Hayley to avenge her sister’s death hung unrefuted between them. “I never meant it to go so far,” she murmured.
“Then let’s hope we can stop it going any further.”
Harding had promised to alert Barney as soon as he had any news of Hayley. He phoned him from the concourse at Victoria station after seeing Ann Gashry off on her train back to Dulwich. Barney’s initial reaction was predictable enough, though Harding’s discovery that he had paid Kerry’s medical expenses made even the predictable seem faintly suspicious.
“Munich? What the hell’s she doing there?”
“Mourning her sister, I think, Barney.”
“What are we going to do?”
“I’d better go after her.”
“Where will you look? It’s a big city.”
“I’ll start at the Horstelmann Clinic.”
“Yeah. I suppose that… makes sense.”
“Ever been there?”
“Where-the Horstelmann Clinic?”
“Yes.”
“Why should I have?”
“I spoke to Nathan Gashry He told me who paid the Foxtons’ bills.”
There was a freighted pause. Then Barney said, “I should have filled you in on that.”
“Yes. You should.”
“Sorry Tim. This is getting to be a habit, isn’t it? Me apologizing for keeping you in the dark about something.”
“A habit you promised to break, as I recall.”
“Yeah. Well, that’s the last secret blown now, I give you my word.”
“Why did it have to be a secret?”
“Because of how it looks. Which is bad, right?”
“It looks guilty, Barney. You don’t need me to tell you that.”
“Does Hayley know?”
“Oh yes. Nathan spilled the beans to her months ago.”
“I suppose that helped convince her I’d murdered Kerry.”
“I should imagine so.”
“And then, to her mind, I murdered Kerry all over again, by cutting off the payments after her parents were killed.”
“Well, you did, didn’t you?”
“Shit, what a mess.” Barney sighed heavily. “OK. Time to face the music. I’ll join you in Munich. We’ll sort this out together. Once and for all.”
Barney’s sudden determination to take a personal hand in resolving the crisis Hayley had precipitated brooked no delay. It was agreed he and Harding would both fly to Munich in the morning. This ruled out Harding�
��s planned visit to Jack Shepherd, but it could not be helped. Tracking down Hayley mattered every bit as much to him as it did to Barney possibly more so. And Shepherd was going nowhere. He would wait. Harding left a message on his phone, saying he would ring again in a few days to rearrange. What he did not say was that he had no idea what those few days might bring. When they found Hayley, if they found her, all bets were off.
He had imagined meeting Hayley alone. Now he faced the prospect of refereeing a confrontation between her and the man she believed had murdered her sister. Worse still, he did not know for certain that she was wrong to believe it. And worst of all, he was unsure what he really felt for her. He should pity her, perhaps, or fear her. He should want to see her only to help her-to save her from herself. But he knew he truly wanted to see her for another reason altogether.
Ann Gashry had not asked what was in the large, flat parcel he was carrying. If he had told her, she would have been incredulous, understandably so. He should logically have left the picture at the storage depot. He did not understand why he had taken it away with him. Or perhaps, he admitted to himself as he removed the wrapping paper in the privacy of his room back at the Great Western and stared once more into Hayley Foxton’s eyes, he did not want to understand.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Harding’s plane was due to land in Munich a quarter of an hour before Tozer’s. It touched down on schedule, giving him just enough time to lodge the carefully re-wrapped painting at the left-luggage office before joining the crowd of people waiting at the arrivals gate.
Tozer was the first Nice passenger to emerge from the customs hall. He looked, if anything, worse than when Harding had visited him in Monte Carlo on Friday-tired, rumpled and preoccupied, his face knotted in a frown that lifted only faintly when he spotted Harding.
They shook hands, Tozer adding a hefty clap to the shoulder as if to confirm their unity of purpose. “Wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d decided to stand me up, Tim. This is all basically my fault.”
“I don’t know about that, Barney. I made a few mistakes myself. Let’s just try to sort it out.”
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