It wasn’t going to plan. After school, Megan had gone through the gate in the back fence to see Mrs Merry, but Mrs Merry had trodden on poo which belonged to Baxter, the Honeysetts’ dog. She had sent Megan away with no De-Cluttering.
‘Can it speak?’ Helen Honeysett kissed the bird. Megan tried not to mind.
‘I don’t think so,’ she faltered. ‘I fed her from a pipette when she was little or she would have died. My dad says I have a way with animals.’
‘Your dad has a way with the ladies!’ Helen Honeysett did a funny laugh. ‘Where is he? I thought he’d be here.’
‘He had an emergency. He gets more money for those ones.’ Megan remembered a conversation the night before between her parents. ‘Daddy wishes that people had more floods.’
‘I bet he does,’ Helen Honeysett hooted.
‘He’s left me by myself, but he said to go to Daphne. She’s through the garden. But she’s busy with clearing up and…’ Megan remembered her exciting idea from earlier that afternoon during the nature lesson. ‘Actually I’m saving up for a corn snake.’
‘A snake will kill you.’ Helen Honeysett blew on one of the budgerigars swinging on the perches and clinging to the miniature ladders. The bird began frantically preening itself.
Suffused with disappointment about Helen Honeysett’s reaction to the corn snake, Megan tried to take Mindy back from her, but Helen Honeysett didn’t see. ‘I think they’re hungry. Garry’s late giving them their supper. He’ll be back any minute.’ This was a warning to make Helen Honeysett go. Garry would be cross with Megan, not with Helen Honeysett for being there.
‘Gorgeous Garry is the little entrepreneur, isn’t he!’
Megan had no idea what that was, but guessed it was to do with budgies. Garry wasn’t ‘little’. ‘He’ll be thirteen in May. That’s a teenager.’
Helen Honeysett flicked at one of the perches, making it swing. The yellow budgerigar tipped off. It flapped wildly and then flew up and clung to a ladder. Helen Honeysett said, ‘Let’s feed them!’
‘I’m not allo— It’s Garry’s turn.’ Megan couldn’t admit she wasn’t even supposed to be in the aviary. She didn’t want Helen Honeysett to know she had brought her without permission. She remembered another thing she could tell her. ‘My dad made this aviary. He’s a plumber not a carpenter so he says it’s “a bit of a lash-up”.’
‘A “lash-up”!’ Helen Honeysett did another funny laugh. ‘I wonder though, isn’t it cruel to keep birds in cages? I might let this one fly free.’
‘That’s what I think too!’ Megan agreed with a heartiness she didn’t feel. In a small voice, she cautioned, ‘Except not outside cos of cats.’ And not Mindy.
‘Cats can’t fly!’ Helen Honeysett blew on Mindy’s feathers. Maybe it was all right to do that? Helen Honeysett must know about it, she knew everything.
‘Adam’s getting me a Victorian cage for my birthday, the sort they used to put linnets in. To go with my grandmama’s chaise longue. I’m going for a nineteenth-century feel in the house. Do they need all this clobber? It’s not aesthetic.’
‘No they don’t!’ Megan assured her fervently. Plastic toys and tufts of feathers were scattered on the ground; the wire sides sagged. Poo was splattered on platforms nailed crookedly to the central pole that no longer looked to her like tree branches. Suffused with shame, Megan wished she’d cleaned and tidied before she came. But how was she to know she was coming? Garry would be angry just for that. Scrutinizing the cage with the eagle eye of a De-Clutterer Megan saw a terrible muddle.
Megan urged the yellow bird, still clinging to the ladder, back on to the perch where it resumed picking and nuzzling at its feathers. Helen Honeysett shouldn’t have blown on it, but Megan didn’t want to spoil things by saying this
‘Got to run!’ Helen Honeysett declared. ‘Tell your dad I came. Tell him our ballcock is stuck. He’ll understand!’ She thrust Mindy at Megan and unlatched the door, letting it swing wide after her.
‘Me too.’ Megan grabbed the door and shut it. She realized that Helen Honeysett might mean a real run and not that she was busy and felt foolish. In a rush she deposited Mindy in her nest box and latched the aviary door. She caught up with Helen Honeysett in the kitchen. Helen Honeysett flung aside the bead curtain, setting it swinging in all directions. Following her, Megan got tangled up in it. At the front door Megan heard Helen Honeysett swear without noticing, ‘Shit, I’ve left my pager in your dad’s lash-up!’
‘I’ll get it.’
‘It’ll only take a second.’ Mrs Honeysett pushed through the curtain again; strings of beads trailed over her shoulders. A draught whistled through the house when the back door opened, rustling dried flowers in a vase in the hall and making the bead curtain sway as it gathered strength. The front door slammed shut as she reappeared.
‘Did you find it?’ Her pager was another reason why Helen Honeysett was quite different from everyone else.
‘Yes. Can’t be without that. My lovely boss’ll have my guts! Does Steve have a pager?’ She seemed more interested in that than about the corn snake.
‘Yes he does!’ Megan gasped at her impromptu untruth.
‘Cool. I’ll page him. I have his card.’ At the gate Helen Honeysett blew Megan a kiss.
Megan felt a rush of happiness. It made up for the fact she’d forgotten to say she was Mrs Merry’s Trusted De-Cluttering Assistant. The visit was a success after all.
*
Dusk was drawing in. The reporters and the police had gone from the towpath. The tide had covered all but the top step at Kew Stairs.
Megan had seen his coffin trundle into the furnace, yet ten years on she still looked for her dad. Now she scanned the towpath, yearning to see him strolling towards her out of the shadows with Smudge loping along by his side. Instead she saw Daphne Merry with her dog. She passed Megan without recognizing her. Daphne Merry didn’t have a De-Cluttering Assistant any more. Her mother said that losing her seven-year-old daughter had driven her mad. Did losing someone you loved drive you mad?
*
Through a hole in the hedge, she saw a face. Megan rushed inside and straight up the stairs. Ignoring the ‘Trespassers Keep Out’ sign she barged into her brother’s bedroom. ‘Garry!’ He wasn’t there. The bed was a heap of sheets and blankets, covered with bird breeders’ magazines and the Transformers he said he was too old for, but wouldn’t let her play with. His school uniform was crumpled on the carpet. The room smelled of him. Garry would make the man stop staring. So would her dad if he wasn’t in Hell. Because of her.
Her heart knocked against her chest. Megan went to her parents’ bedroom and tried to see into the park, but the hedge was too high. Exhausted, she sat on their bed.
She was still there an hour later when Bette Lawson came home from her shift at the hospital.
‘What are you doing in here?’ she demanded not unkindly as she began to change out of her uniform.
‘Sitting,’ Megan replied blankly.
‘I can see that.’
The man from number 1 was in the park again. Megan rehearsed the sentence, but couldn’t say it. After her dad, she was scared to make trouble and Mr Rowlands was only sitting. Helen Honeysett had said he was a sweetie.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘Lovely, thanks, Megs.’ Bette was bundling her uniform into the snake charmer’s washing basket by her dressing table. She went to the wardrobe and pulled out a pair of jeans and a jumper. She lingered in front of the open wardrobe and then eventually said in a faraway tone, ‘I need to get rid of these.’
Megan saw her dad’s best suit that he wore at Aunty El’s wedding. ‘The shortest marriage in history,’ he had laughed when her aunty divorced. Megan said, ‘I’ll help you.’
‘You’ve done enough.’ With a tight smile, Bette shut the wardrobe.
Filling the kettle, Megan didn’t know if her mum had been nice or cross. Garry was always cross. Had he known Helen Honeysett visited his
budgies before she went missing, he’d be crosser. Her mum came into the kitchen. She chucked her pager down on the table.
‘Does… did Daddy have one of those?’ Surprised by her own question, Megan stood with the fridge door open.
‘Wish to God he had...’ Bette Lawson poured hot water into her mug. ‘I could have paged him…’ She heaved a sigh. ‘Wake up and pass me the milk, Megs!’
‘Helen Honeysett had a pager.’
‘Shame she forgot it when she went to the river.’
‘She forgot it in the lash-up.’ Megan pictured the bird poo in the aviary. Her time with Helen Honeysett and the budgies – over a year ago – had gained mythical signifance to the eight-year-old.
‘What are you on about now, Megan?’ Distracted, Bette took the milk bottle from her daughter.
‘I wish I had a pager.’ Megan had forgotten that Helen Honeysett’s visit was a secret she must never tell.
‘We’re not forking out…’ Bette trailed to silence. She returned the bottle to the fridge and went out to the living room.
Megan followed her. She twitched the curtain. It was too dark to see Mr Rowlands, but she knew he was there.
*
Megan was leaving home tomorrow. She was going to Sydney. Her childhood friend Keith had emigrated there when they were six. She didn’t know where he lived, Australia was a vast place and she didn’t expect to find him. But it was something to have a friend of a kind somewhere.
Megan pictured the word printed in blood red on the posters ten years ago. Missing. No one would miss her.
Who am I and what have I done?
43
Monday, 11 January 2016
The spots of rain spattering the windscreen were insufficient to lubricate the wipers and the rubber blades squeaked across on the glass. The sound was like the squeaking of the digger’s claw. Jack shivered at the memory.
The clock on the van’s dashboard said five past eight as they pulled in to a car park in Kent Road off the South Circular. A car was leaving. Jack caught the muffled chorus of ‘Starman’. All the radio stations would be playing Bowie.
Megan Lawson lived in a shabby block of eighties-style flats with greying-white plastic trim around the rim of the flat roof. Each flat had a Juliet balcony and a picture window.
‘Read me the number on that dog collar you found in the digger.’ Stella pulled up the phone app on her handset.
The ringing came through the speakers. Jack counted nine rings then silence. Stella reached for the red button. He stopped her.
‘Hello? Anyone there?’ Nothing. He reached to the dashboard and turned up the volume. Someone was breathing into the mouthpiece. The quality of the silence changed to dead air. He said, ‘Someone was there, then they cut the line.’
‘Why do that?’
‘Curiosity overcame a judicious intent I’d say, at a guess.’
‘What?’
‘Whoever answered knew they shouldn’t pick up the phone, but they couldn’t resist hearing who was calling.’
‘If they had spoken we could have told them who we are.’ Stella pressed redial.
‘True.’ Jack knew that urge to step from the shadows to see who was there.
Stella tried again and this time the phone rang on. No one picked up.
‘Waste of time.’ Stella took the phone off the dashboard cradle and got out of the van. ‘Anyone could have left the collar in Latimer’s basement. Probably the person’s frightened of con men and kept quiet to avoid getting embroiled in some scam.’
‘Maybe.’ Jack wasn’t convinced.
He joined Stella as she was pressing a button on a door panel. The top half was glazed wired glass giving a view of an insipidly lit lobby. Junk mail lay scattered across the concrete floor. Jack read Miss S. Benson on what looked like a bill.
Stella said, ‘The line I suggest we take is we don’t think her father is guilty or she’ll clam up.’
‘We don’t think he is guilty, do we?’ Jack said. ‘We have open minds.’
‘Yes, but if we say that she’ll probably interpret it to mean we think he’s guilty. Best to seem to come down on her side. Do you want to lead?’
Stella was suggesting a less-than-honest approach and Jack’s unease at the change in her increased. ‘You do it. I’ll be the friendly sidekick there to reassure her that we’re nice.’
Stella frowned. Jack guessed she was considering that might be a tall order.
Her phone buzzed. ‘Hi, Mum.’ He heard twittering through the handset. ‘Are you OK?’ Stella changed the phone to her other ear. ‘Have you fallen? Don’t move! I’m coming!’ More twittering. ‘Oh, is that all… Oh dear! But it might be too late.’
Jack wondered what was too late. What had Suzie done or not done? The possibilities were endless.
‘Give me a date and I’ll send round a van.’ Stella rang off.
‘What’s happened?’
‘You know Mum got Daphne Merry to declutter her flat? She regrets it. She says she doesn’t know who she is and she’s lost her bearings.’ Stella chewed her lower lip. ‘She wants her clutter back.’
Wanting clutter would make no sense to Stella. And she had a very clear idea of who, and where, she was.
‘It makes sense to me. The flat looked like it had been raided. All Mum’s treasured possessions had gone.’
Jack groaned inwardly. Stella had confounded him again. ‘Won’t Daphne have thrown everything away?’
‘Seems she has a cooling-off period. Suzie rang her. She was upset by Merry’s response.’
‘Was she rude?’ Jack imagined that Daphne Merry would be professional about failure. Feeling vaguely that he must defend her, he murmured, ‘It was a nice Jamaican ginger cake.’
‘She was probably fine. I think Mum was hoping they’d be friends.’ Stella’s expression could be horror at the idea of a new friend or sympathy for Suzie. ‘Could you be there when it’s collected? It’ll be a reason to talk to her again.’
‘It will.’ Stella was thinking like a detective. Jack didn’t say that he too hoped that Daphne Merry might be a friend.
*
Megan Lawson’s sitting room was a testimony to decluttering. There were no pictures, no television or sound system. Even Stella’s house, while intended to give nothing of herself away, reflected the Stella he knew. Or thought he knew. This room was a negation of self, anonymous and unlived-in. Megan Lawson had to fetch two chairs from elsewhere in her flat for them which suggested she seldom had guests. Jack wondered what it had cost her to let them in.
‘At this stage we have absolutely no idea what happened to Helen Honeysett,’ Stella assured Megan Lawson.
‘My father killed her.’
‘Pardon?’ Stella dropped her Filofax on the floor.
‘My dad couldn’t live with the guilt. He killed himself. The Metropolitan Police have no proof, but they know it was him.’
Megan Lawson was slight, and, Jack calculated, about his own age, late thirties. However, lines around her eyes and long greying hair made her look older. She was not much over five feet and when she opened her front door he and Stella had towered over her. Her sparsely furnished sitting room was as chilly as Latimer’s basement, but not, Jack guessed, due to soulless design, but because Lawson skimped on heating. Her fleece, worn jeans and scruffy trainers suggested she skimped on most things. She avoided eye contact and stared at a spot above Stella’s head when she talked. At one point, Stella glanced up to see if there was something there. Megan Lawson had the disconcerting habit of humming under her breath when she wasn’t talking. Jack was redundant; she wouldn’t care if he and Stella were nice, she was barely aware of them.
He felt he had seen her before, but couldn’t place her. He encountered many people, passengers on his trains. He would study the rows of blank faces of the people waiting on platforms in his search for a True Host. Megan Lawson had probably been a passenger.
‘Your mother doesn’t agree.’ Stella was taking a comb
ative tack.
‘Do you always agree with your mother’s view of your father?’ Megan Lawson retorted. ‘Mum’s obsessed with proving my father innocent. She won’t accept the obvious. He murdered a woman and disposed of her body. My aunt said Mum won’t move on until she does.’ She resumed her tuneless humming.
‘You put on your application form you lived in Australia. It wasn’t true,’ Jack said.
‘I said to Mrs Darnell: go on, sack me.’ Megan Lawson shot him a hostile look. ‘If your father was a murderer, wouldn’t you want to be someone else?’
Jack could only agree with this.
‘Jackie Makepeace told you we won’t sack you.’ Stella tapped a blank page of her Filofax with her pen.
‘I did go to Australia,’ Lawson said abruptly. ‘I got my dad arrested. It might have been the right thing, but it’s never felt right. I tried to kill myself. Twice. The first time I stepped under a train at Wynyard Station in Sydney. They took two hours to cut me out. All I have to show for it is this.’ She pushed up her sleeve to reveal a livid scar from her wrist to her elbow. She fixed on the ceiling above Stella again. ‘When I came back to London, I kept away from the river. One day I checked in to a hotel near Charing Cross Station and overdosed on paracetamol. I shovelled down enough to kill me. My liver’s shot: I’m on the slow train there.’
Jack regarded the pale wispy woman. Megan Lawson wasn’t an imposter, she was struggling to live her shattered life.
‘Why do you believe Steven Lawson killed Helen Honeysett?’ Stella asked gently.
‘Dad was a killer.’
In the silence, Jack heard kids shouting outside. ‘Get him. Wanker!’
Stella put down her pen. ‘What do you mean?’
‘He killed his family on the day he drowned. My brother breeds budgerigars and sulks in his room like the teenager he was in 1987. No need for suicide, he’s dead already. Mum’s a survivor, she works at the hospital and keeps the home going unaware that it’s already gone. We meet at her canteen sometimes. She can’t have me in the house or Garry will go mad. Madder. I’m sure she’d rather I’d died. Dad’s suicide put us in grooves: we go round and round like wind-up toys. My aunty used to be proud of me for speaking out. Truth is we’re all in Hell.’ Megan Lawson stared at the ceiling, humming. ‘My aunty’s too busy to see me.’
The Dog Walker Page 23