by Caz Frear
I jumped in beside her. ‘It hasn’t been two weeks, actually, it’s been twelve days.’ I counted them out on my fingers. ‘Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.’
‘All right, smart-arse, less cheek to your mum,’ said Dad, pulling a map of Ireland out of the glove compartment. ‘Here, Ellen, do you think your mam will use this?’
Mum gave Dad the annoyed face. ‘What would Mammy want with a map of Ireland, Mike? She hasn’t left the county since I-don’t-know-when. She hasn’t left Mulderrin for over a year.’
We hadn’t left Mulderrin in twelve days. I didn’t know why Dad needed a map of Ireland either.
And I didn’t know why Mum insisted on calling Gran, ‘Mammy’. It made her sound like a baby.
‘Mum,’ I said, stressing the word. ‘Can Gran come back with us? I think she might like London.’
Dad laughed, shouted over the top of the car hoover, ‘She might, she loves EastEnders!’
I thought it was a good point but Mum put her hands on her hips. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Catrina, where would she sleep?’
But I was ready for this. I’d thought it all through. Gran could have my bed, I said, which meant they’d have to get me a new one and if they weren’t sure which are to get me, I’d seen one shaped like Buzz Lightyear in the Argos catalogue. Or, I suggested, Gran could have their bed because Mum often stayed at Auntie Carmel’s anyway and Dad was well used to kipping on the couch. Then, and this was my favourite idea, I said maybe Noel could move out and Gran could have his room (only after we’d opened the windows for a week though!). My last (and to be honest, least favourite) suggestion was that I give up my room and share with Jacqui again, like I ALWAYS had to do when one of our barmaids lived in.
Not that anyone had lived in since Alina – our Latvian barmaid – had moved out.
That last suggestion was definitely Mum and Dad’s least favourite too because they looked at each other funny and Mum popped the car boot open, saying something grumpy under her breath.
Dad turned off the car hoover, walked over to me and gave one of my curls a ping. ‘It’s a lovely idea, sweetheart, but the World Cup’s starting in a few days and it’d be much too noisy for Gran. And she’d never make it up the stairs. We’ve got a lot more stairs at the pub than Gran has here, haven’t we?’
We had. Fourteen up the fire escape to get to the front door. Another fourteen to get to the kitchen and the living room. And then ANOTHER fourteen to climb when it was time to go to bed.
Dad was right. Gran would never make it.
I was disappointed but at least Dad thought about things and made good points. He didn’t just stand there with a grumpy face or whisper grumpy things under his breath like Mum did.
But suddenly Mum didn’t have a grumpy face anymore.
‘Look, Cat,’ she said, pointing in the boot. I ran over to see what was making her less grumpy. ‘It’s amazing what you find when you actually look for things properly, isn’t it?’
I peered closer. Saw it glittering in between a wellie and one of those sealed brown boxes that Dad warned me I was never to touch.
My Tinkerbell.
But I’d given my Tinkerbell to Maryanne Doyle?
Maybe she’d heard that Mum was cross with me for losing it so she’d done a kind thing and snuck it back? Ever since she’d disappeared people had said mean things about her but if she’d done that, she definitely wasn’t all bad.
Stupid place to leave it, though. In the boot of Dad’s car.
23
‘So you’ve got a better sense of what she was like, you think she was pregnant when she left Ireland, and you remembered how to say “hot chocolate” in French, but that’s about it?’
It’s a fair summation. Steele’s not being snarky either, she just never has the patience for the nuances of the long version.
‘Yup. Report on the back of a fag packet OK for you?’
She raises her hand. ‘Er, quit with the negativity Kinsella. How sure are we she was pregnant?’
‘She had all the early symptoms, and it works as a theory – Irish girl comes to England for an abortion on the QT.’
Steele nods. ‘But obviously something changed her mind as we know she gave birth.’
‘Again, on the QT,’ says Renée, packing up for the day. ‘It’s not registered anywhere, it’s not in her medical records.’
‘Illegal surrogacy?’ I chip in. They both nod like they’ve been discussing it. ‘It’d explain the IVF desperation, anyway. Gina Hicks said that even when she first met “Alice” a few years ago, she was already strung out about the IVF not working, which seemed a bit odd as they hadn’t been trying that long.’
Renée sees where I’m going. ‘Yep, that’s definitely going to sting. Struggling to conceive a child when you already gave a perfectly good one away.’
‘It doesn’t explain why she’d put the brakes on the IVF though,’ says Steele.
It does to me – ‘Maryanne was fierce resourceful.’
‘They’d been through so many rounds already, I think she was giving Thomas Lapaine up as a lost cause, looking elsewhere.’
‘So she came to London to seek a new sperm donor?’ Steele weighs it up. ‘It’s a bit Dick Whittington but I’ll go with it.’
‘Well, it wasn’t just that, remember. She told Gina Hicks that she was sure Thomas Lapaine was having an affair, so I think it was more a case of “you’re cheating on me, and you can’t give me what I want most in the world anyway – a child – so why am I putting up with it? I’m off.’’’
‘Makes sense,’ says Steele. ‘Of course it contradicts his version – the loving note she supposedly left which we only have his word for, but to be honest I think I’d struggle to believe the sky was blue if it came out of Thomas Lapaine’s mouth.’
‘But we’ve definitely ruled him out, right?’
Steele hands me a marker pen. ‘Well and truly as of a few hours ago. Emily took a statement from Abigail Shawcroft’s nosy neighbour and she confirmed seeing him at the house that night and leaving again the next morning.’
I walk over to the incident board, draw a thick black cross through Thomas Lapaine’s name, then change markers and write ‘Illegal surrogacy??’ across the top in red.
It feels like a red kind of theory.
Nate Hicks’ name has already been crossed out. ‘Definitely schmoozing in Cardiff then?’ I ask.
‘Looks that way,’ replies Steele. ‘Hotel confirms him checking in and out. CCTV has him going up to his room at twelve ten a.m. and he doesn’t appear to leave again until breakfast. His car didn’t move from the car park all night.’
‘Bollocks.’
The door opens and Parnell walks in, instantly making a beeline for me.
‘Well, look who it is, the international jetsetter. Glad to be back, are we?’
The answer’s a definite no. Right now, I’d give anything to be back in Mulderrin, strolling up the Long Road, burning off the last of my raspberry mille-feuille. In fact, I want to be Bill Swords. I want to cruise around the county in my rust-bucket of a car, singing along to Dusty Springfield songs and making ‘tosser’ signs at other drivers. Or I’d settle for running a B&B like Manda Moran. Hell, I’d settle for running a B&B with Manda Moran – she looked like she could do with the help.
Basically, I want to be anything other than back here, in this room, soul-deep in this wretched case.
Steele’s feeling the same. ‘How bad is this, folks? There was a woman murdered in Wimbledon on Sunday night, a strangulation, and I was almost relieved thinking it could be linked to our case. I was actually hoping for a serial killer, can you believe that?’ I can, wholeheartedly. ‘Turns out it was some scumbag she’d given the brush-off after a few dates. He walked into Mitcham nick last night, confessed the whole thing.’ She pulls her hair back off her face. ‘We can dream, eh?’
I look at Parnell. ‘Still no Saskia, I
take it?’
There’s a rising worry in his eyes. ‘No. Phone’s still off and there’s no sign of life at the flat. I’ve got a Mrs Stevens across the hall doing covert surveillance’ – a quick smirk at me – ‘so as soon as Saskia or anyone else turns up, we’ll be on it.’
‘Facebook?’ I say. The solution to everything.
‘Can’t find her,’ says Renée. ‘She’s obviously got tight privacy settings.’
I sigh, throw my pen down, agitated. ‘It just feels like we should be doing more. Saskia’s got motive, she lied to us, she’s gone AWOL for God’s sake and . . .’
Steele halts my tailspin with one point of a finger. ‘OK, OK, OK, she possibly has motive – if she thought Maryanne was planning to grass her up to Gina Hicks for either shagging her husband, or shagging other people’s husbands for money, then absolutely, that’s reason to shut her up. But we don’t know Maryanne was planning to do that.’
I take a breath. ‘Gina Hicks specifically told her to make any contact through Saskia, but we know she was in the café down the road on the Friday before she died, so she obviously wanted to speak to Gina without Saskia knowing. What other conclusions can we draw?’
Steele throws her hands up. ‘That she thought the Donatella Caffé did the meanest espresso ristretto this side of the equator? That she was dropping off a Christmas card? That she was lunching with Lord Lucan? We don’t know!’
I bite my cheeks but Steele’s wise to my little angry ticks.
‘Look, we’re all on the same side here, Kinsella, and I agree there’s motive to be explored, but Saskia French hasn’t lied to us any more than anyone else, including Gina Hicks, and at this point we don’t have any reason to believe she’s even gone AWOL. She’s gone to her parents, that’s what she said, isn’t it, Lu?’ Parnell nods. ‘Which is entirely normal at this time of year and given the fact she wasn’t under arrest or even a formal suspect, we had absolutely no right to stop her. No right to even ask for the address.’
Renée asks Parnell, ‘Where do her folks live?’
‘Somerset, apparently.’
‘If it’s rural Somerset, mobile reception’s not great,’ says Renée.
‘Or she’s switched her phone off because she doesn’t want punters calling her at her parents?’ adds Steele.
I’ve got no choice but to nod along. Steele calls the shots and she invariably calls them with a combination of searing logic and calm reason. She’s virtually impossible to argue with.
‘And another thing,’ she continues, ‘I’ve been looking at the CCTV again and yes, I’m going to keep an open mind, of course, but honestly . . . I don’t think it’s a woman. I don’t think a woman could have lifted the body that leisurely. Maryanne, Alice, whatever we’re calling her, she wasn’t exactly tiny, was she?’
‘Five feet six, just under ten stone,’ I say, keen to show I have concrete facts as well as unsubstantiated theories.
‘Saskia French’s a unit, Boss, I wouldn’t rule it out,’ says Parnell.
Steele puts her palms flat on the table. ‘I’m not, Lu. I’m just not prepared to start panicking and canvassing the Somerset countryside just yet.’ She nods towards Renée, who’s packed up, wrapped up, and ready for the off. ‘Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to follow my learned friend’s lead and bugger off home. Tomorrow, we go again.’
But I’m not ready to go home yet. I’m not ready to be alone.
Parnell reads my mind with a resounding, ‘No, Kinsella! No pub today. I’m in the doghouse enough already. Turns out that buying your wife and your mother the same perfume for Christmas is a bit of a no-no.’ He looks to us for sympathy, finds none. ‘I don’t know . . . women . . . it’s a bloody minefield . . .’
*
Aiden Doyle doesn’t knock me back, though. He says he has an appointment with Sky but if I give him ten minutes, he’ll try to change it. Then he asks me if I enjoyed Mulderrin. Did I get a chance to do the open-top bus tour? Have a ride on the Mulderrin Eye?
The joker.
As promised – well, fourteen minutes later, but who’s counting? – he calls me back to say we’re on. An hour later, we’re sitting in the upstairs window of the Chandos, sipping cheap ale while overlooking the relative calm of Trafalgar Square as it braces itself for tomorrow’s New Year’s Eve onslaught. He’s looking even more handsome than I remember. The same distressed jeans but with a white long-sleeved top that shows off a chest that manages to stay on both the right side of toned and the right side of vanity.
‘So you cancelled your Sky Engineer, I’m honoured,’ I say.
It’s tragic but I actually mean it.
‘Ah sure, I hardly watch the bloody thing anyway. What is there to watch? Baking shows and bad news, that’s about it.’ His accent seems stronger, richer, from his flying visit back to Mulderrin – more of a pulse than a lilt. ‘I reckon you’ve saved me forty pounds a month and you’ve introduced me to London’s cheapest pint. You’re like my financial guardian angel.’
I catch myself in the window, wish I’d put my hair up. ‘God, don’t let my boss hear you say that. She’s threatening to second me onto Financial Intelligence as it is.’
‘Don’t fancy it?’ he asks, trying and failing to open a bag of peanuts.
I take over, tear the corner with my teeth and hand them back. ‘Would you? Spending eight hours a day analysing SARs.’
‘SARs?’
‘Sorry, Suspicious Activity Reports.’
‘Sounds like heaven to me, but then I am a bit of a numbers freak.’
I pick up my bag, pretend to leave. ‘Look, if I’d known you were such a nerd, I’d have never called . . .’
‘I am,’ he says, laughing. ‘A proper nerd. I’ve even got a T-shirt that says “I Heart Sums”.’
‘You sure know how to impress a lady.’ I sit back down. ‘So what is it you do then? You don’t look like a banker, or an accountant.’
‘You don’t look like a detective.’
‘What’s a detective look like?’
He struggles to answer. ‘Oh, I don’t know? Long brown mac, dishevelled hair, a big fat cigar.’
A deadpan stare. ‘Columbo, basically.’
‘That’s yer man. You don’t look anything like him.’
‘They’re not wrong about that slick Celtic charm, are they?’ He smiles. We smile. ‘Seriously though, what is it you do?’
‘I work for an online betting company. I’m a risk analyst, well’ – he doffs an imaginary cap – ‘a senior risk analyst, if you please.’
I look impressed even though I have no idea what this means. ‘My dad always used to back a horse for me on the Grand National, that’s about my experience of betting, I’m afraid.’
‘Any luck?’
‘I won thirty pounds once. I was only six, it seemed like a windfall.’
‘I hope you invested it wisely, you being so financially intelligent ’n all.’
‘Very. I bought my dad a West Ham keyring, myself a Barbie Porsche and I gave ten pounds to the PDSA.’ He doesn’t recognise the acronym. ‘Poorly animals, I add’
‘Sweet kid. I send my nephews in Canada fifty dollars every Christmas. All they buy are computer games where you slaughter people.’
‘Well, I don’t know about “sweet”.’ I put my hand out for peanuts and he holds it steady as he pours. It’s nice. ‘As my brother never stopped pointing out, I won the money on a sport that’s cruel to animals and then made myself look good by giving some of it back to animals. Bit Machiavellian, don’t you think?’
He sups his pint. ‘I think that’s a shitty thing to say to a six-year-old, to be honest, but hey, I’m trying to impress you – you know, after getting off to a great start with the whole “I Heart Sums” thing – so I won’t start slagging your brother off as well.’
‘Oh please do, slagging him off will impress me big-time.’
His eyes narrow. ‘Mmmm, I’m not sure, I’m feel like I’m being wa
lked into something I’ll regret later. Can I not just send massive bouquet of flowers to your work with a balloon and a “I Wuv You” teddy?’ Eyes twinkling now. ‘That always impresses, right?’
I twinkle back. ‘Oh every time – flowers, cuddly toys and equal pay, that’s all us women want in life.’
He laughs. ‘For that dig, I might just do it, you know. Send you the biggest, tackiest bunch I can find.’ He starts Googling florists on his phone. ‘Are you based at Holborn all the time?’
‘No I’m not and don’t you fucking dare.’ I snatch his phone. ‘My boss would have a fit if I got flowers from you. She’d have a fit if she knew I was here.’
‘Why?’ He looks momentarily confused before remembering that we aren’t just two ordinary people enjoying an ordinary pint. ‘Christ, I’m not still a suspect, am I?’ Panic with a tiny hint of boyish excitement. ‘Seriously, was I ever really a suspect? Or do you have to go through all that, “On the night in question” stuff with everyone.’
I’m not prepared to answer that. I may be two pints down, and more than a little smitten, but I haven’t completely lost the run of myself.
I do have a question for him though. A serious one.
‘Can I say something?’ He looks ominous, which is the only way you can look when someone utters that statement. ‘You don’t seem that cut up about Maryanne.’
He turns his head and looks out of the window. His Ready-Brek glow extinguished. I instantly wish I could claw my words out of the ether and ram them straight back down my stupid fucking throat where they should have fucking stayed.
I try to make amends. ‘That’s not a judgement, Aiden, honest, it’s just an observation.’
God, that’s worse. Condescending.
He stays gazing towards Nelson’s Column. ‘I don’t know how I feel is the honest truth, Cat. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel. You know, I met her husband in the end.’ He smiles apologetically, warding off a lecture. ‘He’s a strange guy, isn’t he? An awful dry shite, as we say back home.’ Agreed. ‘Anyways, I was pleased, you know, when he said he’d meet me. I thought maybe it’d make me feel closer to her.’