The Dog Walker

by Lesley Thomson

  ‘That Merry bitch was out with her dog. She said she saw my dad. It’s her that made Megan hand him in to the police.’

  ‘Daphne Merry only did what she thought was right,’ he said gently. ‘Have you thought it might not have been your dad? Neville Rowlands’ mother was dying; she might have lied for her son. She had nothing to lose.’ Someone, maybe the detective who had asked Jack lots of questions after his mother’s death, said his mother had distracted her killer to enable Jack to escape. Jack had never corroborated this. Jack might have made it up.

  ‘Mum wouldn’t lie for me. Or Megan. She tells the truth.’ Garry Lawson sounded tired, his fury spent.

  ‘So she wouldn’t say your dad was innocent if he wasn’t.’

  ‘My dad was innocent.’ Garry scrubbed at the thinning hair on his scalp.

  ‘What about Brian Judd?’

  Garry shook his head. ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘No he’s not,’ Jack nearly shouted.

  ‘Have it your own way.’ Garry released the budgerigar into the aviary and trudged back up the path to the house.

  Outside on the front-door step, Jack tried again: ‘Judd wasn’t dead when Helen Honeysett went missing.’

  ‘All I know is it wasn’t my dad.’ Garry shut the front door.

  Jack’s thoughts buzzed about in his head. He knew that Brian Judd wasn’t dead. If a True Host vanished it meant they were planning something. Brother and sister shared the awful sus­picion that their father was a killer. Jack felt a weight of sadness. Megan had told the police, but Garry had lied. Steven’s children’s fear of his guilt stopped them seeing he might be innocent. On that January night, a fatal confluence of circumstances had placed Steven Lawson in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  The other estranged siblings in the family were Bette Lawson and Lucie May. Lucie, like her nephew, was shackled by fierce emotion. Unlike Garry, Lucie had staked everything on Steven Lawson. Meanwhile, whoever had killed Helen Honeysett was out there waiting to kill again.

  Jack texted Stella. We need to speak to Judd. Jx. A message popped up. You are offline. Disinclined to wait for her, he climbed the steps to the towpath. In the river’s swirling currents, he saw the capering figures of a little boy and his mother. He heard her singing,

  ‘Here we go up, up, up,

  Here we go down, down, downy;

  Here we go backwards and forwards,

  And here we go round, round, roundy.’

  57

  Tuesday, 12 January 2016

  ‘Over!’ Stella essayed an arc with a cube of boiled chicken. Her voice echoed in the draughty equine centre. Stanley ignored her. Suddenly he lit upon Kirsty the behaviourist who ran the agility class at the edge of the course. He circumnavigated the jump, galloped across the sand and leapt on to her lap. Kirsty commanded, ‘Off!’ He bounded down instantly and sat at her feet. ‘Heel.’ Kirsty escorted Stanley back to Stella and said, ‘Try again. I’ll go up into the stands where he won’t spot me.’

  Stella gave a tight smile. It wouldn’t matter where Kirsty went or how many times Stella tried, Stanley wouldn’t do what she asked. So much for Suzie saying he was good at ‘working away’ – Stanley wouldn’t even work with her. So far that evening he’d done no agility.

  ‘Stay,’ she instructed Stanley. The chicken was greasy in her fingers. Again she sketched a wave to remind Stanley of the reward for leaping over the hurdle. There were three hurdles after this one, a tunnel – wired hoops encased in plastic – and lastly the seesaw. The small poodle, seeming even smaller in the vast sanded ring intended for prancing horses, regarded her with detachment.

  ‘Over!’ Stella heard her command, devoid of Suzie’s authority. She was preoccupied. In the office, the sentence in her notes had struck her as crucial, but now she wasn’t sure. She felt bad for seeing Rowlands without Jack and worse for coming away empty-handed. The question on the screensaver hadn’t been Honeysett’s killer, but Lucie May leading a campaign of petty revenge. She should have gone to Jack. Terry wouldn’t have put their dog Hector before work. Stanley was washing his paw, nibbling at his pads with concentration. Stella rapped, ‘Ov-er!’

  Stanley took off. He galloped away from the jump and away from Stella to the far side of the arena. He wove between poles arranged in two staggered lines with precise fluidity. He plunged into the tunnel. A ripple of laughter from dog owners waiting for their pets’ turn carried across the chilly auditorium. Stanley trotted back and forth along the seesaw, keeping balance at the pivotal point. Up, along, down. Stella was mesmerized. Up, along, down. Jack’s words niggled at her. ‘Are you sure David Barlow reported Stanley missing?’

  ‘Had that been the correct course, Stanley would have got full points.’ Kirsty was beside her. ‘He’s used to working with Suzie. In time he’ll accept you.’

  Stella led Stanley to her seat. David reported finding Stanley to the police, but no one had claimed him.

  ‘Of course I’m sure.’ Stella pulled out her phone and with swipes and jabs found a phone number. David Barlow was the first ex she hadn’t ‘erased’ from her Contacts list after she left him.

  Please could I see you? Stella Darnell. She put her name in case David had wiped her details or knew more than one Stella.

  A text winged in by return: Come now! Dxxx. The kisses appalled Stella. Before she could change her mind, she made excuses and left the equine centre.

  58

  Tuesday, 12 January 2016

  ‘Hi, Daphne, I’ve brought back your tin.’ On the towpath, Jack had been filled with a need to see the woman who had once been a mother, as he had once been a son. ‘I do hope it’s not too late to call.’ Stupid thing to say; it was only seven.

  ‘Jack! How kind, most people wouldn’t bother! Woof, sit!’ Holding her dog by his collar, Daphne waved Jack inside.

  Unlike Latimer’s cottage there was no hall, Jack stepped straight into her sitting room. He had expected that, as a declutterer, Daphne Merry’s home would be as sparse as Latimer’s basement. But he could hardly move for clutter. Boxes were stacked on the carpet – what he could see of the carpet – ornaments, figurines, vases, lamps, bowls crowded every surface.

  ‘This is a client’s clutter.’ Daphne had sensed his dismay. ‘It goes to the hospice shop tomorrow.’ Whisking a heap of coats from a chair, she gestured for him to sit by the fire. ‘Hot milk with honey?’

  Jack felt a flood of happiness. ‘How did you know?’

  Daphne Merry smiled warmly. ‘You drank that when I brought my cake.’

  While she was in the kitchen, Jack surveyed the clutter. A wooden tea-light holder fashioned as a mouse, with leather ears and a curling thong for a tail, sat next to a blue fish jug with a gaping mouth. Stella had said that Suzie was upset because Daphne had been frosty when she asked for her things back. She’d refused to invoice. ‘There is no charge, I have not decluttered.’ Daphne had insisted on hiring a van and returning everything. Whose belongings were these? Jack was unsurprised that Suzie had been put out; she liked to be liked even by those she didn’t like (she claimed not to have cared for Daphne), but he felt for Daphne; by her response, he guessed she’d call that job a failure.

  The mouse and the fish were bound for a new home among strangers. Jack’s throat constricted and he willed their owner to ring Daphne and reclaim them. Suzie had said, ‘Daphne Merry’s taken my life!’ He understood that too. Doubtless someone was missing the fish and the mouse. Jack was prey to experiencing others’ feelings – they probably didn’t care. He gazed into the blackness outside.

  Someone was out there. He jumped up.

  ‘What have you seen?’ Daphne stood in the doorway holding two mugs.’

  ‘Nothing.’ He didn’t want to frighten her. It was freezing; no one could be out there. He took his milk and sat down again. ‘Who lived in Natasha Latimer’s house before her?’ He warmed his face in steam from the mug; suddenly he didn’t fancy drinking it. Milk was for babies. It was a nice thought. He stretc
hed out his legs, and came up against a nest of occasional tables.

  ‘Why are you interested?’ Daphne Merry seemed surprised.

  ‘Cleaning a place is an intimate relationship, I learn every inch as I work. I wondered who else the house had known.’ Involuntarily he cast a glance at the sitting room, no skirting board was visible behind boxes and sundry objects.

  ‘I won’t have a cleaner; they’d never do a proper job. I’m sure you’re an exception, Jack.’ Daphne had read his mind. She said neutrally, ‘Neville Rowlands had to leave when the house was sold.’

  ‘I’ve some post for him, but have no forwarding address.’ Daphne knew he was lying. Jack gulped his milk, quelling sudden revulsion. It seemed he’d gone off milk. ‘It must have been a wrench to leave, after such a long time.’ Daphne had told Suzie that her family had died in a car crash: how had Suzie got her to confide? Suzie was a perfect detective’s sidekick; no wonder Terry Darnell never got over her leaving. If someone was in the park they were invisible. A True Host. Brian Judd. Jack stared at his ghostly image staring back. Daphne’s dog Woof, settled in a cramped space by the fire, seemed to sense nothing outside.

  ‘Mr Rowlands and I exchange Christmas cards.’ Daphne zigzagged between boxes and bags to a corner cupboard and returned with sheet of blue Basildon Bond notepaper.

  ‘Did he write this?’ Jack kept his breathing regular as he regarded the printed capitals. A True Host’s hand.

  ‘I imagine so.’ Daphne Merry held the paper while Jack photo­graphed the address with his phone.

  ‘Were it me, I couldn’t bear to stay in the area.’ Jack froze. Suzie had said Daphne used to live in Hammersmith. She’d moved to Kew after her daughter died. Jack knew well what it was like to stir up very bad memories.

  ‘Mr Rowlands was born in that cottage. The family dogs are buried in the garden. Were buried; I expect she dug them up for that basement.’ If Daphne Merry disapproved of the graves or the basement, she betrayed nothing.

  ‘They’re still there. Hercules died in 1987. Perhaps you remember him.’

  ‘I do. You’ve got the date wrong. I’m good on people’s dogs, Hercules didn’t die until the mid-nineties. Mr Rowlands didn’t have another dog for some time after that. A spaniel that he named Max, he died in 2009.’ Daphne Merry gazed at her spaniel, dozing contently on the rug. A wave of unutterable sadness passed across her face. ‘Woof isn’t long for this world.’

  Jack had a photographic memory. He pictured the headstones:

  MAX 2000–2012

  LOST TO US

  HERCULES 1981–1987

  A FAITHFUL COMPANION

  STILL MISSED

  There was no reason why Daphne Merry should remember the dates when Neville Rowlands’ dogs had died. But if she was right, then who was buried in those graves?

  59

  Tuesday, 12 January 2016

  All the way from Ealing to Hammersmith Stella invented excuses not to see David Barlow. Suzie needed her. Not that Stella relished admitting how badly she had done with Stanley at agility. She should update Jack; he didn’t know she’d found Rowlands.

  Jack would look for a sign. If the next set of traffic lights were red, she would go to him. The lights stayed stubbornly green until she had passed through them. All the way to Aldensley Road there wasn’t a single stop light. If she couldn’t park in the street, it was a sign to leave. There was a two-car space outside David’s house. David was on his doorstep. There was no turning back.

  Stella had forgotten that David Barlow had reminded her of David Bowie. With Bowie having died two days earlier and with ghosts on her mind, she found the resemblance uncanny. Except this David, in his early sixties, looked very much alive and if anything younger than when she’d last seen him. His still brown hair was immaculately trimmed, he wore tailored wool trousers, a plaid cotton-silk shirt buttoned to the neck with a tie. His Italian loafers, unlike Rowlands’ scuffed shoes, were highly polished.

  ‘You look lovely,’ he breathed.

  Hot and tired, her trousers streaked with sand from the equine arena, Stella didn’t feel lovely. She had intended to be polite but, catching the irresistible tangy scent of David’s aftershave, was thrown. ‘I have to ask you a question.’

  ‘Come in out of the cold.’ David was already walking into his lounge.

  Stella nearly shouted with dismay. Wispy cobwebs hung from cornices. The windows in the conservatory extension were opaque with salt. She wouldn’t need to do her finger test to prove that the riser-recliner – a legacy of David’s late wife – was veiled in a haze of dust. The carpet was stained. Lurking beneath the aftershave, Stella detected the greasy odour of grime. It would be easy to clean the room because, apart from the recliner, a television and a hard wooden chair, David’s lounge and conservatory were empty.

  David had cancelled the contract with Clean Slate when Stella broke up with him. Thus saving her from cancelling it. However, it seemed that David hadn’t starting doing the cleaning himself. Stella would never try to worm her way into a man’s life by cleaning his home. She liked to clean for its own sake, whether it be a blotch on the chemist’s counter where she’d bought a freezer pack for Suzie’s ankle or a plastic sushi tray dropped on a pavement. She liked to tackle mess and restore order. Jackie said it was why she was a good detective. Stella knew every inch of David’s lounge. He had commissioned deep cleaning. She’d steam-cleaned his carpet, washed skirting boards and walls, polished his furniture and even vacuumed behind the bath panel. Everywhere were stains, dirt and spiders’ webs. She stopped herself from fetching in her equipment bag from the van and setting to. Something else struck her. It wasn’t her policy to ask personal questions, especially of an ex-partner, but she demanded hotly, ‘Where are all your things?’

  ‘I’ve decluttered!’ David looked about him as if baffled by this. ‘I’ve brought air and light into my life.’

  The room was dingy and the air was stale. Stella didn’t suggest he clean the windows and open the doors to achieve air and light because the phrase struck a chord. Where had she heard it? The day had been long, but too many things were eluding her.

  David was talking. ‘Tea? I have wine, but I remember you rarely drink.’

  Irked by this – Stella was uncomfortable with him remembering anything about her – she was tempted to ask for wine, but she was driving and besides she wanted tea.

  ‘Tea it is.’ David left the room. Had Stella wanted to take the opportunity to open cupboards and examine objects while he was absent, as she had with Neville Rowlands, she couldn’t have. There were none.

  When David returned, she got to the point. ‘Did you report finding Stanley by the river to the police?’ The tea was milky just as she liked it. This too irked her.

  ‘I told you I did.’ He was clearly aggrieved at her doubt. ‘They said he belonged to an old lady who’d died. Her relatives had reported he’d run away, but didn’t want him back. The police said I could keep him.’

  Stella had no memory that he had told her, but he must have. She knew where she had heard about light and air. ‘What’s the name of your declutterer?’

  Perhaps expecting her to press him further, David looked surprised at the change of subject. ‘Mrs Merry. Not that she was merry. When I said “call me David” she reacted like I’d made a pass!’ He guffawed dryly. ‘I’ve not seen inside your new house, but Mrs Merry would be hard pressed to find clutter there! Why do you ask?’

  Stella was loath to tell him her mum had employed Daphne Merry. She regretted the visit; she should have texted. But she was stuck: the tea was hot and it would be rude to leave it. ‘She’s done a thorough job.’

  ‘Hasn’t she! I agreed to all her suggestions – she was like my wife, I was scared to upset her!’ He smoothed his tie, perhaps concerned that mention of Mrs Barlow was a tactical error. He could have relaxed; Stella wasn’t threatened by her partners’ pasts. Mrs Barlow was dead and Stella was alive: it was illogical to be jealous. Anyway, she
and David had broken up.

  David Barlow swirled his wine in his glass. ‘She wouldn’t be upset. I suppose lack of empathy is a must for a declutterer. She can’t be bowing to every protest. There’s things I miss. A mouse candleholder I’d only just bought. She assumed it was clutter and said it had to go. She told me at the start that she gets annoyed when clients object to throwing out things despite inviting her to get them to do just that. I was determined not to be one of those customers.’ He was regretful. ‘She said memories drag you down. I need light and air.’

  ‘How did you hear about her?’ Stella was astounded by the coincidence. Jack would say it was a sign.

  ‘I saw an advert in the local paper. Cut down on cleaning? Clear out clutter from your home! Not that you want anyone cutting down on cleaning!’ He eyed Stella over his glass. ‘She decreed that recliner was clutter but when I pointed out it would leave me with only one chair, she relented.’ He ran his forefinger around the rim of his glass. An insidious whine filled the room. ‘It feels like a tomb.’

  ‘You get a cooling-off period.’ Stella realized she shouldn’t know this, but he hadn’t noticed the slip.

  ‘I “cooled off” immediately, but didn’t dare ring, I was sure she’d kill me!’ David’s finger went faster around the rim; the whine rose in pitch. Stella thought of Natasha Latimer’s supposed ghost. If ghosts existed David would have a few.

  ‘Don’t waste any encounter. Salient information comes in all guises.’ Stella’s own ‘ghost’, Terry was whispering in her ear. Incredibly, David had met Daphne Merry. A suspect – if not top of the list – in the Honeysett case. Stella shouldn’t pass up a chance to learn about her. Merry had been kind to Megan Lawson when Megan was little; that didn’t fit with a ‘cold fish’. She had brought Jack cake. Jack and Bette Lawson had reckoned Merry liked the little girl because her own daughter had died. David thought her scary and distant. Terry said ‘How’ questions drew the subject out. ‘How was Daphne Merry like your wife?’