The Dog Walker

by Lesley Thomson

  Stella sat in what had been her bedroom before her mum left Terry and took her to the flat in Barons Court when she was seven. When she was too grown up for access weekends, her dad had converted the room to his office. Terry Darnell had died in 2011 and left Stella his house. She had taken over the room (she didn’t think of it as reclaiming) and Terry’s new computer. At 3.30 a.m., with an early start, there was no point going to bed so, armed with an instant coffee, she opened Honeysett’s lever-arch file. Stella had stressed that she wouldn’t accept the case before discussing it with her partner, Jack. Honeysett had appeared hacked off, but hadn’t argued.

  Honeysett had only printed archive material from the internet in the last days and it didn’t date back years. St Peter’s Church chimed four and then five; Stella read on, stopping to jot notes in her Filofax. In his tartan-covered bed by the radiator, Stanley slept, four legs stuck straight up, his head twisted at an impossible angle.

  There were several articles by Lucie May along with many from the nationals. Again and again, Stella came across the photo­graph of Helen Honeysett that was framed in the Honeysetts’ living room; it was repeated in newspapers and news bulletins on several anniversaries of her disappearance. Sipping cold coffee, Stella read a piece from the Sun from 1997. Headlined Fairy Tale Couple, describing Honeysett and Honeysett as an eighties power couple, glamorous and gorgeous in Galliano and Westwood, cruising London in a red VW cabriolet with the top down. They had frequented New Romantic clubs and the coolest restaurants. Honeysett topped sales targets at Harrold and Sons and her husband made loadsamoney designing packaging for fast-moving consumables like confectionery and shampoo. Until the morning of Thursday 8 January, they’d had it all. Until, as Lucie May said in one of her luridly couched articles, a monster stalking the banks of the Thames ripped their lives apart.

  Stella had worked for couples like the Honeysetts. People her own age, with nannies for their children and cleaners and gardeners for their homes. She never judged clients, any observation was to ensure that Clean Slate did the best possible job. She wondered now who had cleaned for them. Perhaps no one. Adam Honeysett had said he was good at cleaning.

  In an article written in 2007, twenty years after the dis­appear­ance, was a picture of Adam on the footpath where a neighbour called Daphne Merry had found their dog. Husband still yearns for Helen’s return. He was gazing out at the Thames as if the river was where Helen Honeysett would ‘return’ from. He was quoted: ‘I know she’s alive.’ When had he stopped thinking this? Stella pondered. Or had he said it to keep the press interested?

  She needed Jack. Jackie said Stella was logical and methodical while Jack was intuitive. She amassed and ordered facts; he saw signs everywhere: in telephone numbers, digital clocks, in shadows and the shape of chewing gum on pavements. He said he heard voices from the past in subways and old houses. She had chosen him for the Latimer job because he believed in ghosts and, especially, because he could clean. Stella didn’t hold with making decisions based on squashed Doublemint gum but did admit that somehow Jack arrived at the truth. As detectives, they were least efficient when they worked alone. She reached for her phone and stopped, hand in mid-air. Again she decided that Jack would be with Bella Markham. He had met her when Stella and he were on the Kew Gardens murder case. Jackie said Bella was Jack’s girlfriend, although, secretive about his private life, he hadn’t told Stella this. Bella was teaching Jack to draw dried plants. He said it made him see life differently. He talked about patterns on leaf surfaces, in the patina of tree bark and hairs on a stem. It helped him ‘deconstruct reality’. Stella had no wish to do anything to reality except face it head on. When she looked at a surface she wanted to see a polished sheen.

  Jack would be pleased they had another case. They were a team. What if Jack brought Bella with him? No, he wouldn’t. When they had a case they told no one except Jackie – and Lucie May if they needed her help.

  For no good reason, Stella felt that Adam Honeysett had kept something back. She couldn’t explain this suspicion. Jack was good at nuance. It wouldn’t be the first time a client had lied, but why would he lie? She let it go and before she could change her mind, she dialled Jack.

  ‘This is Jack, who are you? Tell me after the beep.’

  Puffing out her cheeks, Stella cut the line. She reviewed the columns in her Filofax. Adam Honeysett said the police hadn’t linked Honeysett to the Lamplugh case because they’d arrested a man with an alibi for when Suzy Lamplugh went missing. The man was called Steven Lawson. She went back through the file, but found nothing about Lawson being a suspect. She rolled back on her chair, thinking to get another coffee and heard crackling. The wheels were on a newspaper cutting that had fallen from the file. She got up and pushed the chair off it.

  Lucie May had been busy on this case. As she read, Stella was increasingly bemused: the article was biased even for Lucie. She generally managed a nod to balanced reporting. Steven Lawson had been thirty-five in 1987, a plumber married with two children, Garry twelve and Megan aged seven. Stella had put on her map that the Lawsons lived at number 2 Thames Cottages. The Honeysetts were at number 4. Lucie described how, on Christmas Day 1986, Lawson had saved Honeysett’s dog from the river. Lucie angled the story to suggest that Lawson deliberately put the dog in danger before he rescued it. Megan Lawson had seen her father following Honeysett to the towpath on Wednesday night, 7 January. May urged readers not to be fooled by Lawson’s baby-faced Paul Young looks. Forget that his kids claimed to love him. Monsters come in all shapes and sizes. There was a picture of Lawson being led away by officers. Stella made out two faces, presumably Megan and Garry, at an upstairs window. In another photo – of Lawson with his wife Bette on their wedding day – she saw the resemblance to Paul Young. Bette Lawson reminded her of someone too, but Stella cleaned for many people; one client was likely to look like another.

  She was puzzled by the police focus on Lawson because Adam Honeysett had left her sleeping the following morning, the 8th. Why did Megan Lawson’s sighting the previous evening matter? Lawson was a neighbour, he had a dog and went to the towpath, but so did Daphne Merry and the man dubbed ‘Old Grouch’ by Helen Honeysett. Neville Rowlands lived with his elderly mother in the house that was now Natasha Latimer’s.

  Stella supposed that the police had allowed for the possibility Honeysett had broken her routine and, instead of jogging, abandoned her dog and gone away. It might be out of character, but Stella knew not to depend on people doing what was expected of them. Honeysett could have been abducted from her house and the dog let out.

  ‘Presume nothing. Start as if with a clean slate.’ Stella dimly recalled it was Terry’s advice that had given her the name of her company. Suzie maintained it was her idea.

  A brief report from the Guardian stated that after two weeks of questioning the plumber was released without charge due to lack of evidence. Lucie wouldn’t have eaten her words, she ‘didn’t do mistakes’.

  The church clock struck six. Caffeine zinged through her blood and, despite no sleep, Stella was ready for the day. She went for a shower.

  Hot water pounded on her scalp and streamed down her face. Lack of evidence didn’t absolve someone from murder. Absently soaping herself, Stella decided to interview the plumber, Steven Lawson.

  It was only as she and Stanley were crossing the dark street to her van that, with a guilty jolt, Stella recognized that without consulting Jack, she had decided they’d take the case.

  16

  Saturday, 17 January 1987

  ‘What are you doing here on your own?’

  Megan jumped. She hadn’t heard Mrs Merry come along the towpath. ‘I’m taking Smudge out for a walk,’ she announced decisively. Hands on hips, she pointed at the Labrador rootling about by the slope to the river.

  ‘It’s dangerous. Anything could happen to you and no one would know.’ Mrs Merry was fierce. ‘Remember Mrs Honeysett.’

  Megan felt herself grow hot. She mumbled, ‘So
rry.’

  ‘Don’t apologize to me: it’s yourself you should be thinking about – and your poor parents. What if I hadn’t come along? People don’t think of the consequences of actions. Those left behind.’ Mrs Merry frowned at where the dog was now circling. ‘Is Smudge doing his business?’

  ‘Yes. I’m to bring him back after.’ Megan hoped Mrs Merry would see that she was doing what she’d been told.

  ‘You must go and clear it up. A declutterer is always working.’

  Miserably regarding the heap of brown mess, Megan proceeded towards it. She had never thought of poo as clutter and didn’t know what to do with it. Did Mrs Merry mean use her hands?

  ‘I’ll do it.’ Daphne Merry went down the bank, clutching branches and not once slipping. As if she had performed magic, she climbed up again in record time with the poo in a Marks & Spencer’s plastic bag. ‘Would you let your dog mess in your home? No, you would not!’ She secured the bag with a knot.

  Megan nearly said that her dad didn’t clear up Smudge’s poo but didn’t want him to be in trouble with Mrs Merry. In the gathering gloom, balancing on one leg, her other foot against the back of her calf, Megan was puzzled: since Mrs Merry was always right, her parents must be wrong. They didn’t know about clutter. Eyeing the bag swinging from Mrs Merry’s hand, Megan felt a surge of excitement. She blurted out, ‘I saw Helen Honeysett this week!’

  ‘What?’ Daphne Merry dropped the bag of poo and didn’t seem to notice. ‘She’s dead, how can you have done?’ She gripped Megan’s shoulder.

  ‘On the towpath before school. She was running exactly where Smudge just did his…’ The word ‘poo’ was probably rude. ‘…made clutter.’

  ‘That was a police reconstruction! Didn’t you realize?’ Mrs Merry took her hand off Megan and clumsily stroked at her hair. ‘It was a policewoman dressed up to make us remember. I prefer to forget very bad things. It was a waste of time and money. Still, they must think it works.’

  ‘Um. Yes, I didn’t remember anything.’ Megan felt hot with stupidity. ‘It did look like her.’

  ‘It was meant to.’ Mrs Merry stalked on back towards Thames Cottages. She had forgotten the poo. Megan hesitated, and then bent and grabbed it. There was a ‘Missing’ poster flapping on a tree trunk by the side of the path. She glanced up at it and then ran after Mrs Merry. What with the Poo and the Reconstruct-shon she didn’t dare think of her as Daphne.

  Wherever she went Helen Honeysett watched her. Crumpled on pavements, soaking in a puddle, on the lamp-post near her school, on every lamp-post around where she lived. The poster on the noticeboard in the park was upside down making Helen look scary so until she’d seen her jogging Megan hadn’t been sure – a secret she’d saved for Mrs Merry – that she wanted Helen Honeysett to come back. Although she knew a photograph wasn’t real, Angie’s comment about it being wrong for Helen Honeysett to smile considering she was missing still haunted Megan. In bed, unable to sleep, the little girl was positive that were she missing in the cold and dark she wouldn’t smile at all.

  ‘…we must clear up as we go along. Never let clutter collect,’ Mrs Merry was saying.

  ‘Then you wouldn’t have anything to do,’ Megan stated brightly, swinging the bag of poo as she trotted to keep up. ‘My daddy says people who mend their own pipes put him out of a job.’

  ‘It’s not about me, it’s about clutter. It’s about taking care.’

  Megan nodded fervently; then, thinking of her dad and keen to offer up a subject that set him firmly in Mrs Merry’s camp, she announced, ‘Daddy comes to the towpath all by himself. I bet he shouldn’t do because it’s dangerous, but he does brave things. He took care of Helen Honeysett the night before she was Missing.’

  Mrs Merry stopped by the Kew river stairs. For a terrible moment, Megan feared she’d made her cross again. Then Mrs Merry asked kindly, ‘What did you say, Megan?’

  ‘Only that Daddy comes here on his own at night which is dangerous. Like you said. Except that time he wasn’t really by himself because Mrs Honeysett was there. Garry and me saw her with our own eyes.’ With Mrs Merry it was important to be accurate. ‘He was after her.’

  ‘Did you tell the police?’ Mrs Merry was looking at her intently.

  ‘No. Daddy was safe with Mrs Honeysett.’ The notion that her father would be in danger was astonishing.

  ‘That means your father was the last person to see Mrs Honeysett alive.’ Daphne Merry regarded the bag of poo in Megan’s hand. ‘Here, give me that.’

  ‘No. That was Mr Honeysett.’ Megan and her friends were authorities on the facts of the Missing Neighbour. ‘He’s hand­some, I think. Do you think so too?’

  ‘Come with me.’ Mrs Merry snatched the poo off Megan. She took her hand and frogmarched her past her house and up the path to her own cottage.

  *

  ‘We saw her on Wednesday night,’ Megan declared.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Detective Inspector Harper was back at the kitchen table. Megan felt he wasn’t as friendly as the last time.

  ‘Yes, I am sure. I told Daphne. We had to go upstairs so that Mummy and Daddy could have one of their private chats. Me and Garry were watching out of the window. We saw Mrs Honeysett go racing past our house to the river. I was worried about her being on her own in the dark because Daphne says it’s dangerous.’ Megan paused because this wasn’t strictly true, Mrs Merry had told her not to walk there alone after Helen Honeysett went missing. But she would have thought it at the time if Mrs Merry had said it, she decided. She resumed her account, speaking slowly and clearly to the policeman so he understood. ‘Daddy banged the front door and went after her. That was good because he would have rescued her dog if he fell in the river.’ Megan took in a gulp of air and added grandly. ‘He’s called Baxter.’

  ‘So you both witnessed Helen going to the towpath from the window. What room would that be?’

  ‘I think they were in our bedroom.’ Bette Lawson’s voice was barely audible. She sat squeezed between her children, hugging herself as if cold. She had told the police that Steven Lawson was still at work although she didn’t know where he was.

  ‘I see. Why did you go there as opposed to – instead of – your own bedrooms?’

  ‘I like it there,’ Megan said simply. She couldn’t articulate that when her parents disagreed being in their bedroom made her feel better.

  ‘How soon after Mrs Honeysett went to the towpath did you see your daddy follow her?’ The officer smiled at Garry. The boy stared down at his hands, clamped between his thighs, his face chalk white.

  ‘I didn’t see anything,’ he muttered.

  ‘Yes you did, Gal, you were by the window too.’ Megan leant across her mother, perplexed. ‘You pointed out the Plough up in the sky.’

  ‘I was looking at the sky, not at the ground.’ Garry was firm.

  ‘It’s good if you can be accurate, Garry. It’s best for everyone.’ The officer was stern.

  ‘I was looking at the sky,’ Garry said again. ‘I didn’t see Dad. Or, or anyone.’ His sister seemed about to speak but, wriggling on her seat, said nothing.

  ‘Did your husband leave the house that evening?’ DI Harper addressed Bette Lawson.

  ‘He needed to clear his head. His business is having a few problems. Nothing he won’t sort out.’ She bit her lower lip.

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘After we’d had tea.’

  ‘At what time?’

  ‘About eight.

  ‘That’s quite late for tea,’ Harper commented. ‘For the kiddies, I mean.’

  ‘We wait for Steve, we like to eat as a family. I don’t see what this is about? And it’s upsetting my kids. Helen Honeysett was seen on the Thursday morning by her husband,’ Bette protested. ‘How can it matter what happened the previous evening?’

  ‘We’re looking at every angle, Mrs Lawson. Anything that will help to cast light on the disappearance of this young woman. Please try to think what you can tell us. Megan
has been very obliging.’ He raised his eyebrows at Megan and she patted at her hair with ill-disguised pleasure, picturing recounting the scene to Angie tomorrow at school. Then recalling her chat with Mrs Merry, she enunciated proudly, ‘Dad is brave about the tow­path, he often goes by himself, usually with Smudge.’

  The detective dashed something down on his pad, flipped it shut and tucked it in his pocket. He got up and slid his chair under the table, leaning on it. ‘I’ll need to see Mr Lawson, to clear up a few loose ends. When is he back?’

  Bette Lawson remained sitting. In a monotone she said, ‘He goes to the towpath with the dog.’

  ‘In the dark?’

  ‘He has a torch.’ Bette tried to pull herself together. ‘He takes him out last thing.’

  ‘Megan, you said “usually”. Did your daddy not have Smudge that night?’ DI Harper gathered aside the bead curtain; he eyed it as if he fancied one himself.

  ‘No he didn’t! That’s what I must have meant,’ Megan exclaimed. ‘He forgot Smudge. That’s funny, isn’t it, Mum?’ She was beside herself; it was always Garry who knew things.

  ‘It does seem as if Mr Lawson might be able to answer a few queries.’ The officer nodded at Bette. ‘What time is your husband due to return, Mrs Lawson?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Bette mumbled.

  ‘I’ll call back. Please, don’t come to the door, I’ll see myself out.’

  All three huddled in silence watching the bead curtain strings fall still. Suddenly Garry, eyes blazing, spat, ‘Megan, see what you’ve done!’

  Megan felt a wave of hot shame. But what had she done?

  17

  Tuesday, 5 January 2016