Megan didn’t appear to have spotted his error; she broke off humming to answer. ‘Mum thanked me. I said I didn’t want thanks, he was my dad. I could see she wanted to say it was too late to care for Dad and did I think weeding would make up for what happened.’
‘I’d imagine if your mum was the sort of person who’d think that, then she’d have said it.’ Bette looked frail, but he suspected she was tougher than Lucie. She would take no prisoners.
‘I still love Dad, whatever he did,’ Megan Lawson asserted as if he’d contradicted her.
Jack asked the question. If he was honest – and he would try to be honest – this was why he was here. ‘When you were little, did you know a man called Brian Judd?’
‘I know who he was. Mum said never to tease him because he was frightened of children. That seemed mad, how could you be frightened of children when you’d been one? Now I understand. If you’ve been a child you know how frightening they can be. Judd was harmless. It was Mr Rowlands I didn’t like. He went on the towpath even after his dog died. I thought he chased me once and I ran into the crematorium grounds. But the footsteps were Garry. He rescued me.’
Garry Lawson had threatened to kill Jack if he hurt his sister. Megan expressed worry that Garry would kill himself. Jack noted that, despite their estrangement, brother and sister still loved each other.
‘He’s dead now.’
‘Dead?’ Garry Lawson had said the same.
‘I saw him lying on the towpath. I thought he was asleep. But he wasn’t breathing.’
‘When was this?’ Jack sat up.
‘The Olympics were on. So 2012. Everyone was watching TV; no one was on the towpath. I walked to Kew Stairs and laid flowers for my dad and when I came back he’d gone.’
‘Did you hear what happened to him?’ Jack felt creeping unease. True Hosts played dead.
‘I didn’t ask. No one mentioned anything was wrong. You saying I should have checked on him?’
‘No, I mean…’ It was what he was saying. ‘Have you seen him since that day?’
‘No, but then I don’t go to the towpath much.’ She flicked a look at her watch. Jack got the hint.
*
Despite having a signal, Jack had no messages or missed calls. On a whim, he texted Bella. The ghosts are gone, can I see you? He had walked twenty paces when his phone beeped.
No. The thing he’d liked about Bella was she didn’t mince words. He wished she’d minced them now though. Another beep. Bella had changed her mind.
Jack read Stella’s message twice before, his heart thumping, he called her.
‘This is Stella Darnell, sorry I can’t come to the phone, leave me a…’
‘Stella!’ His shout resounded in the empty street. He started dialling then saw he had no signal. He returned to Megan Lawson’s flats, where he’d had phone reception, and held his phone up in the air. Shit!
Jack broke into a run, swerving down a lane beside the National Archives to the river, his coat flapping like giant wings.
63
Tuesday, 12 January 2016
Stella was inclined to go back to her house after seeing Adam Honeysett and write up the notes of their talk. The only reservation she had was that he’d brought them the case in the first place and she couldn’t see how, if he’d murdered his wife, that benefited him, since they were bound to suspect him. But after her last meeting with him, she ratcheted him higher up the suspect list.
She knocked on the door of number 5 Thames Cottages. She had expected to be turned away but, to her astonishment, Sybil Lofthouse invited her inside and offered her a mug of tea. Stella had had more than enough tea over what was proving a long day so refused.
Jack would have hated Lofthouse’s front room, she told herself. He liked warm cosy rooms full of clutter. The walls were grey, the furniture unyielding as if to discourage visitors from lingering. She’d obviously caught Lofthouse on a good day. The elderly woman was knitting, an occupation that struck Stella as at odds with recording mergers and acquisitions. Stella could see no sign of ‘the Ancient Mutt’ mentioned by Natasha Latimer. Perhaps it was dead.
‘We’d had the Big Bang in October of 1986. There were hiccups around that, computers crashing, some lost their jobs. I was nothing to do with it, not my remit, but we were all affected.’ Sybil Lofthouse concentrated on her stitches.
‘Do you remember Helen Honeysett going missing?’ Stella tried to keep her voice steady.
‘Of course!’ The needles clacked rhythmically. ‘I don’t see what it has to do with me. Nor you, come to that.’ Smiling benignly; her needles barely paused.
‘When we met outside your house, after you so kindly stopped Stanley running away, you said you left at five in the morning in a taxi.’ Stella wouldn’t be put off by the knitting – the woman was eagle-eyed – she ran a finger down her notes and stopped mid-way. ‘You said, quote, “No trains at that time. There was no one on the towpath then except joggers and dog walkers.”’ Stella looked up. A wave of shock ran through her. Sybil Lofthouse was no longer the kindly old woman placidly clacking her knitting needles. Her eyes were cold steel.
‘Did I, dear?’ She loosened a thread of wool from the ball on her lap.
‘How could you know who was on the towpath if you weren’t there?’ Stella’s tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.
‘I walked my dog there. There were no paid dog walkers in those days.’ Sybil Lofthouse smiled comfortably, but the humour didn’t extend to her eyes.
‘What about evenings?’ Stella mustn’t lose the thread. ‘Did you walk your dog then?’
‘I did. How extraordinary that you wrote down what I said to you. Is that strictly legal, dear?’
‘I’m a cleaner, but I’m also a detective. I’ve been hired to find out who murdered Helen Honeysett. As long as I don’t publish your quote without your permission, it is legal. I need to understand, did you go to the towpath the evening that Helen Honeysett was last seen alive? That was Wednesday the seventh of January?’
‘The police asked me that.’ The needles increased speed. Clack-clack-clack.
‘You told them you were at work. But I’m thinking if you were on an early shift you’d have been home by eight that night. That’s the time when Megan Lawson saw Helen Honeysett going to the towpath.’
Sybil Lofthouse laid down her knitting. ‘Do you know what it’s like to be caught up in a major incident that has nothing whatsoever to do with you? I was expected to tell a policeman the intricacies of my life because a silly girl got herself murdered. I was valued at the Stock Exchange for being trustworthy and discreet. I was brought up not to broadcast my feelings, not like people do now, splashing their emotions all over the computer before they’ve barely felt them. I don’t talk about my life and I don’t talk about other people’s lives. I don’t ask personal questions and I don’t answer personal questions. In my job I held secrets that could have brought down banks and ruined companies. People in my line of work can’t be witnesses. I keep myself to myself.’
‘No one is precluded from being a witness if they were there.’ Was she Daphne Merry’s bystander? Stella glanced down at her notes, ‘Miss Lofthouse is the type to keep herself to herself.’ Out loud she read, ‘He was creeping past the crematorium, like he does, stalking that poor Mrs Merry.’
Click-clack. That man should mind his own business. He’s no loss to this street. Click-clack.
Terry had been at ease asking personal questions; he struck up small talk with strangers. Stella would rather bring up the shine on a chest of drawers than probe into the activities of a woman in her seventies who was, by her own admission, intensely private. She forced herself to go on. ‘This is about a murder. If you saw something it was your duty to tell the police.’
‘My duty is to avoid a sordid domestic tangle and a court case. That woman was a menace.’ The needles clacked on.
‘You were seen on the towpath that evening.’ This wasn’t true. Stella held her breath and
watched the woman knitting. Dimly she considered that you could do a lot of damage with a knitting needle.
‘I expect I was.’ Sybil Lofthouse unwound more wool. ‘This nonsense won’t bring anyone back. Instead of focusing on the fat fee you’ll get for stirring up pain, consider the lives you will shatter.’ She began knitting faster.
Stella had absorbed the interrogatory gambits of her detective father and could ride out silence until the other party filled the void. She rested her eyes on the knitted wool, vaguely pondering what garment Sybil Lofthouse was making. The older woman’s lips worked busily as she recited, ‘Knit two, purl two, knit two, purl two.’ Stella waited.
Stanley hadn’t been schooled in the tactics of the Criminal Investigation Department. He stretched, yawned – a prolonged wail like a child in distress – and with a peremptory sniff, pattered to the door.
‘…purl two. Whisky needs to pee.’ Sybil Lofthouse didn’t look up from her knitting. She snapped, ‘Whisky. Sit down!’
‘Why do you call him Whisky?’ Stella enquired airily. She could apply tension every bit as skilfully as Miss Lofthouse was plying her wool.
‘Isn’t that his name?’
‘He’s called Stanley.’ A year ago, when she was ambivalent about being in charge of a dog, Stella wouldn’t have minded what someone called him; now she felt irritation that Lofthouse kept getting his name wrong. Stella recalled Jack’s theory: ‘Did you have a dog called Whisky? Perhaps you’re mixing Stanley up with him.’
‘Whisky! A banal appellation for anything but a drink. My dog was called Timothy Trot.’ Sybil Lofthouse began a new row. ‘Purl two, knit two, purl two…’
‘Follow whatever clues are laid before you.’ Terry could be talking to her via an earpiece. ‘Who owned Whisky?’
‘That fellow called Judd with the beard like an eminent Victorian. Litter bug! Poor Mrs Merry was forever picking up after him. A stickler for taking care, she would have flourished at the Stock Exchange. No flies on her. She sorted him out.’
‘How did she sort him out?’ Stella was channelling Terry. Stanley was attracted to the house on the towpath because he’d picked up the scent of a dog.
The needles stabbed the wool. ‘Carelessness costs lives.’
‘Where did Judd live?’ ‘Ask a question that the subject is happy to answer. Lull them with the dullest facts.’
‘Does live, not that I’ve seen him for a good while. The house looks like a bomb’s hit it. It’s on the river near here. Natasha Latimer tried her damnedest to take it off his hands, but he wouldn’t budge. Stubborn old codger. He could have moved somewhere warm with central heating. He’ll go out of there in a box. Natasha made do with the cottage your man friend is supposedly cleaning. Neville Rowlands, the tenant, was none too happy about going.’ Sybil Lofthouse wound wool around a finger and pursed her lips as if she had said too much.
‘Was it Timothy Trot you walked that night?’ Stella hadn’t heard of a dog having a surname.
‘Timothy was a wonderful character, worth ten of any dog,’ she remarked gratuitously. ‘Of course it was Mr Trot, who else? We saw that wretched man by the river stairs. He obviously didn’t want company. I didn’t let him see me – at the Stock Exchange, you have to read signals.’
‘“Wretched man?” Do you mean Steven Lawson?’ Unconsciously Stella was tapping her pen on the Filofax page in time to the needles.
‘I called him Mr Lawson. We observed formality in those days.’ Sybil Lofthouse talked to the knitting. ‘Terrible thing to take one’s own life. One sometimes came across it at work, those boys on the floor lived at such a pace. If it went wrong, they chucked in the towel, poor fools.’
‘Did you see Helen Honeysett when you were out?’
‘She always went the other way towards Chiswick.’
The same phrase as Neville Rowlands had used. ‘She always…’ ‘Did she go in that direction that Wednesday night?’
‘Yes.’
‘How do you know if you didn’t see her?’ Stella hadn’t noticed that Stanley was back lying at her feet.
‘If you are doing your job properly, you’ll know she got as far as Chiswick Bridge. Daphne Merry found the dog by the Mortlake Crematorium. Daphne couldn’t bear that it was untrained. It would lag behind Helen Honeysett and wander off. It wasn’t neutered, you see. Chased for miles on the sniff of a bitch.’
‘Steven Lawson could have thrown Helen Honeysett into the water by the pier before you arrived.’ Again, Stella thought that a fifty-year-old could push a young woman into the river if that young woman was caught unawares. ‘Oh, it’s you!’
Lofthouse snapped, ‘The police never said she went into the river.’
‘They never said she didn’t either.’ Stella watched the busy needles. Click-clack. Facts took on order. ‘Can you tell me your own routine?’
‘I don’t know why I should, but if it stays confidential…’ Sybil Lofthouse put down her knitting. ‘I walked Timothy T. at seven-forty, after The Archers, washing up and setting out things for my early start. In bed by nine. I passed Mr Lawson sitting on the bottom step of Kew Stairs at eight-oh-five precisely on my way to Kew Bridge. He was crying. Terrible to see a man cry. These days they are always sobbing, but then it was most unusual. I grabbed Mr Trot and we stood still. If you do that, people don’t see you – in the dark I was invisible. But he didn’t leave so we moved on. He was still there on my return. Timothy and I slipped by and were home by a quarter past.’
‘Are you sure it was Ste— Mr Lawson? Did you have a torch? Or did he?’ Stella knew how dark it was on the towpath.
‘The sky in London is never dark. I would take a torch now as I’m unsteady on my feet. It’s why I don’t have a dog: they’re too easy to trip over and need so much walking—’
‘No ancient mutt?’ Stella interrupted. ‘Kew Stairs is the opposite direction to the way that Helen jogged. If you’d told the police Steven was nowhere near her he wouldn’t have been suspected of her murder. You were his alibi!’
‘I would have been inundated by questions from reporters and the police. I couldn’t have that.’ Sybil Lofthouse yanked a needle out of the knitting and unravelled several rows. ‘Pleasant though it has been to chat, it is time for you and Whisky to leave. I retire early.’ She held the needle like a stiletto.
On the doorstep, Stella asked, ‘Where on the towpath did you say you saw Neville Rowlands that night?’
‘I think that you know very well that I didn’t say, my dear. He was creeping past the Kew Stairs, sneaking like he does, stalking that poor Mrs Merry.’ Sybil Lofthouse closed the front door.
*
Shapes resolved into trees, stones and the outline of Kew Stairs; the granite glistened. The river had ebbed. Stanley’s apricot coat was a pale blotch at her feet. She gripped his lead. It was here that Steven Lawson had walked to his death. If he were on the steps now, she’d be able to see him, but where she stood, in the shadows of overhanging branches on the towpath, Lawson wouldn’t see her.
Again and again Stella returned to the fact, sickening and certain. Sybil Lofthouse could have exonerated Steven Lawson. Her evidence was circumstantial, but so were the facts that had as good as incriminated him. Lofthouse said she had seen Steven at Kew Stairs at 8.15 p.m. Megan and Bette told the police that her dad had stormed out of the house at eight. Megan had seen Helen going to the towpath just before her dad. Daphne Merry had reported passing Helen jogging towards Mortlake. Lofthouse and Rowlands had said it was the way Helen always went. As Stella had said to Sybil Lofthouse, the crematorium was in the opposite direction to Kew Stairs. Helen’s dog Baxter had been found by Daphne Merry near the crematorium so it was assumed that Helen had run that far. But the dog often ran off so where it was found might have no connection to where Helen had gone.
Lucy had confirmed that it was a tight time frame for Steven to catch up with Helen and kill her. Sybil Lofthouse had seen Steven sitting on the steps at a quarter past eight, which gave Hele
n at least fifteen minutes’ head start on him. Lawson could have pushed her in the river on her return, but her run took half an hour each way so she couldn’t have returned to Thames Cottages until around nine. Bette had said Lawson was back at twenty past eight. She could have been lying to protect him. But Megan also told the police that she’d seen him return at eight twenty. Given that she believed her father guilty, Stella counted Megan as a reliable witness.
Steven Lawson had to face that his sister had bankrupted him. Enough to make a grown man cry, but was he sobbing because he had killed Helen Honeysett? Stella doubted it. A man cool enough to have killed a woman and somehow dispose of her body wouldn’t sit where anyone could see him – and he had been seen – and cry. That didn’t add up.
She shone her torch app down the riverbank. The tide was on the turn. Soon the steps would be below the waterline. If Steven had been sitting on the bottom step – and Stella didn’t doubt the accuracy of Lofthouse’s report – then the tide had been out that night. If he had pushed Helen off the bank, she would have tumbled down the slope on to the foreshore. She might have been injured in the fall, but couldn’t have drowned. Whoever murdered Helen Honeysett had either lured her somewhere else, or killed her on the towpath and disposed of her body. With the timings provided by Lofthouse Steven Lawson didn’t have time to do either. That fact was insurmountable. Lofthouse had also seen Daphne Merry and Neville Rowlands although they hadn’t seen each other or her. Stella rubbed her forehead. She needed a spreadsheet.
The person that Megan had heard on the footpath that night must have been Lofthouse. Megan and Lofthouse had both hidden. Neither could corroborate the other’s story. Stella knew from her nights round at Jackie’s that The Archers finished at 7.15 p.m. Washing up and preparing for the morning couldn’t take more than twenty minutes. She’d have been out on the towpath by seven thirty-five at the earliest. She said she went out at twenty to eight and saw Steven Lawson just after eight. ‘Eight-oh-five precisely.’ Had she lied? If so why? Stella knew the answer. If Lofthouse had been there longer, or arrived later, she might have seen more. Better to lie than be a witness to murder. She kept herself to herself. Lofthouse might not know who had murdered Helen Honeysett, but she knew who had not. She knew that Steven Lawson was innocent. But what if she also knew who killed her?
The Dog Walker Page 36