Then Mrs Hooper’s sausage dog, determined as a freight train, beetled over the bleached-out lawn and squeezed under the gate. Fearing she could come to harm in the lane, the girls took a small detour to say hello. They knelt to appreciate the satin-smooth of Laika’s huge hanging ears, and stroking the little dog made the upsetting thoughts of Ellie and the reprehensible Dean Fry melt away, temporarily giving them back their smiles.
Horses. Their shifting shapes stamped against the brindled light of evening. They meandered to the fence at the bottom of Pillowell’s garden. Alone, Joanna was aware of the advance of shadows – an invading army, crowding from the corners to take possession of the light – and tilted her neck to watch slow-moving clouds, pink as candyfloss.
Feeding the horses on her own this evening, she held her hand flat in a way she’d been shown. Up close these creatures smelled of warm digestive biscuits, their broad muzzles with their velvet nap insistent and vaguely disconcerting. Something moved within the frail webbing of mist that was adhering itself to the trees.
It made her jump. The empty colander swinging at her side.
Dean Fry.
His face, waxy as the moon, rose before her, and she saw a pile of spliff-ends – not that she identified them as this – littering the base of a tree.
‘What you doing here?’ Joanna, startled by his presence.
‘What ?’ he snapped, unusually brusque. Joanna thought he looked funny, drunk perhaps, like her mother sometimes was when they came home from school.
‘What time is it?’ he asked gruffly.
‘Dunno, but there’s people looking for you.’ Joanna took a step back to distance herself, saw his messy hair was strewn with bracken and bark.
‘People ? What people?’ A flash of fear as he scanned in all directions. Then, grabbing his leather jacket, he was gone.
Present Day
Joanna wants to utilise every moment before she catches the train home. Still playing detective, she picks out the 24-Seven store across the road from the description given by the police. A brief lapse in concentration and a Lambretta buzzes past as she steps out in front of a double-decker bus. Dumbstruck, she stares after it. Then, adjusting herself, she aims for the pelican crossing a little further along. Passing racks of souvenirs set out to tempt the tourist, she grimaces at the tacky black-cab key rings, the Queen Elizabeth fridge magnets. On a superficial level, the district of Bayswater has barely changed in all the years she’s known it, but scratch the surface and it becomes clear this London postcode has evolved into one of the city’s most bustling and cosmopolitan. Of course, nowadays everything is subdivided into flats and boarding houses, and if not, then converted into hotels. How else are people supposed to afford to live here? Had Dora not left Caroline a cushion of money and a mortgage-free flat, there’s no way she could have done.
Picking up speed, she smells the aroma of food spilling on to the street and slides a sidelong glance at the condensation-streaked window of a Cantonese takeaway. It makes her smile. The tawny-lit interior, garnished with glistening roast ducks as leathery-looking – or so her sister used to say – as their father’s old slippers. Mrs Hooper was right – even if it was only something Joanna glimpsed occasionally, Caroline did have a sense of humour. It was the darker side of her personality, her mood swings and debilitating negativity, that made their relationship so hard to navigate. Well, that and the stupid lie Joanna told, that for some reason Caroline never forgave her for.
Sudden tears as she steps inside the mini-market. They make the captions on the rows of trashy magazines wobble: 15 Mins from Death, Knifed to Death by Own Son, Raped and Killed by Dad . ‘Real Life Stories’, the blur of blackened taglines claim. Aren’t they just, she thinks miserably, imagining herself to be standing only yards from where her sister bled to death.
The young Asian man at the till gives Joanna a shy smile. Watching him assemble her purchases into a neat pile, she works out ways to ask if he knew her sister. Was the night Caroline died the first time she shopped here? Did the two of them ever exchange more than a please and thank-you? Coins from her purse tumble over the counter and bounce to the floor. As fluid as water, he bends to scoop them up with his slender fingers, returning them to her one by one.
‘I don’t know if you were here that night, but I’m–I’m Caroline Jameson’s sister,’ she falters, unsure where to start. The change in his expression is enough to tell her he knows exactly who Caroline was.
‘I told the police everything what happened,’ he says, snapping shut the till.
‘It’s okay,’ she reassures, pressing a hand to his fine-boned wrist. ‘I’m not here to cause trouble, I just wanted to talk to someone who was there. I need to find out what happened. I’m struggling to piece things together, you see. And the police … ’ Tears sprout again, and she fishes a tissue from her pocket.
‘I was here.’ His voice trembles against the piped music that fills the otherwise empty store. ‘It was terrible. Terrible.’ He leans his back against the shelves of cigarettes and alcohol as if needing the support. ‘It happened so quick. I saw her come in—’
‘Oh, so you recognised her then? Carrie.’ Joanna, immediately encouraged, interrupts his narrative like a rock thrown into a stream.
The young man nods. ‘Yeah, she used to shop here a lot. We never said nuffin much to each other, but she was definitely one of me regulars. Late-night shopper mostly; always on her own. She looked kinda sad. I s’ppose I felt sorry for her.’ Joanna sees his knuckles whiten as he grips the edge of the counter. ‘I could tell she liked sweet things.’ He throws out a tight ball of a laugh that bounces against the horror of what went on here a month or so ago. ‘It was like she was always shopping for some kid’s birthday party or summit. Chocolates, ice cream, cakes, jellies, sweets, crisps … them cooked chipolata things. Dead weird for a grown woman. Not that she was old, was she? Yeah, she looked old,’ he adds, ‘the way she dressed, her hair, but that was because she didn’t bother with herself much, innit? But up close, I was surprised, she was much younger-looking.’ Realising his observation may be inappropriate, he pulls himself up, and shoots a look at Joanna. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude or nuffin—’
‘No, I know.’ She helps him out, feeling his awkwardness. ‘It’s good to build a picture, it’s what I wanted. Me and Carrie, we’d lost touch, it’s why I’m here – I’m trying to … I don’t know, make sense of it all?’ She stares at the floor, her gaze travelling with a split in the linoleum as it disappears under the cooler cabinet. ‘Did she look stressed or troubled to you that night? Can you remember?’
He waits before answering. Seemingly feeling the importance of Joanna’s question, his mouth moves as if to assemble the right words before he dispenses them. ‘It was bizarre,’ he starts, then moistens his lips. ‘I hadn’t seen her for weeks, honestly.’ He looks her in the eye. ‘She’d not been in here for ages, and I noticed ’cos like I said, she was in dead regular, like. Anyway, it weren’t like she was ever chilled or nuffin when she come in before: always chewin’ her nails and shit, but she was definitely different that night. Really edgy and wired, like. Checking over her shoulder all the time, like she was frightened someone was followin’ her.’ He throws his head to the ceiling tiles, takes a breath. ‘But it was her who pulled the knife on him. Had it in her bag ready, she did. Went for him like some mad woman. I told the police … I told them she really meant business, innit?’ Joanna shows she does know. ‘And that was some piece of kit, man. Where do a woman like her get a knife like that? Well dangerous.’ He shakes his head in sorrowful bemusement.
‘You saw it all then? You saw what happened?’ Joanna tips out the question she isn’t sure she wants the answer to.
‘Yeah.’ He purses his lips, tussling with the memory. ‘Over in a flash, it was. Weren’t time to do nuffin. But people tried to help, giving her mouth-to-mouth and stuff. There was so much blood. So much blood,’ he says, his eyes landing on Joanna again. ‘Someone ca
lled an ambulance, but there weren’t nuffin no one could do. That bloke she tried to stab, he was lucky, y’know – she nearly had him. Dead determined, she was. All fierce, like. I’d never seen nuffin like it.’ He shoves his hands deep into his trouser pockets. ‘I’ll never forget it. Never. Police had the shop shut for over a week … all that scene of crime tape … like CSI stuff, innit.’ His look is wretched. ‘I weren’t even sure if I wanted to work here again after that.’
‘I don’t think I’d have done either. I’m so sorry you had to witness it,’ Joanna says, feeling strangely numb.
‘Yeah, gotta earn a livin’ though, and this is me uncle’s place, yeah? So ain’t really got no choice in the matter, like.’
‘Look.’ She moves aside to allow a woman to pay for a box of Maltesers and a puzzle book. ‘You’ve been so helpful, thank you. I’m sorry I made you rake though it all again.’
She steps backwards, out through the automatic doors; a befuddled daze beneath the streetlights quivering against the encroachment of night. Then it hits her. And images of what went on in there fire at her like missiles she can’t avoid. Blood, he said, so much blood … and they tried to help her, but no one could do anything. She slumps against the trunk of a plane tree, stares up through the jigsaw-patterned boughs. Rigid amid the abuse of car horns and the burn of diesel, her mouth full of the questions she still wants answering.
Then a voice. Shouting through the crowd. She swings around to pinpoint it but is blocked by a photograph of her own face. Captured on one of her publicity fliers, it flaps in the wind and shows off her clear complexion, her Pre-Raphaelite twist of hair. The spit of your mother . Joanna filters the lopsided compliment she is frequently given and wonders what it must have been like for Caroline to see her younger sister adorning lampposts and billboards from here to the Wigmore Hall. Joanna, ‘the favoured one’, with hair their mother loved to brush at bedtime. She chews the inside of her mouth and pushes the unwanted images of her only sibling deep into the folds of her heart. The regularity with which Caroline was rejected as a child is why Joanna works so hard to be impartial with her sons; observing her own mother’s contempt – something that was in direct contrast to the barefaced favouritism she exhibited towards Joanna – must have broken her sister’s spirit.
‘Miss ?’
That voice again. Closer this time. Startling her out of her retrospection.
‘Yes?’ she replies, looking into the face of the young man from the mini-mart again.
‘I forgot something … it might be important,’ he gushes, a little out of breath. ‘Your sister … she shouted something when she pulled the knife on that bloke. I’m not sure, but it sounded like … oh, I dunno, I might’ve got it wrong.’
‘What?’ Joanna, mouth open, ready to catch it when it comes. ‘What did she shout?’
‘Dean … I’m pretty sure she said Dean.’
PART TWO
But our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them.
There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds
Clamb’ring to hang, an envious sliver broke,
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook.
Queen Gertrude on Ophelia.
Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act IV, Scene VII
Summer 1990
After a Sunday afternoon spent with Mrs Hooper, the sisters drifted into Dora’s kitchen through the back door. Subdued, their thoughts with the still missing Ellie, who, failing to return home at all last night, meant the roads around Witchwood were teeming with patrol cars and TV vans sporting huge satellite dishes. They stared at the empty wine bottles, the debris of lemon for the ritual evening’s G&T, and frowned. Who was their aunt entertaining now, and why wasn’t she out looking for their friend? Caroline and Joanna tried to join in with the rest of the village, but the vicar told them to go away, said it was ‘adults only’.
A rumble of voices from deep inside the cottage. They identified Dora’s, but not the others. Wanting to find out, Caroline left Joanna with a packet of Hula Hoops and a can of pop from the fridge and crept along the shadow-filled hall to peek around the sitting-room door that, slightly ajar, allowed her to remain hidden.
A chink of sunlight, thin as a blade, sliced between a brace of male police officers. And tuning into the snippets of their dialogue, Caroline quickly grasped the subject of their discussion.
‘ … a roller skate was discovered this morning.’ The younger of the two-uniformed officer’s attention was momentarily seized by a surge of sparrows from nearby shrubbery. Caroline saw how his eyes followed their journey across the garden.
‘And you think it belongs to Ellie Fry?’ Dora mopped beads of sweat that had bloomed on her forehead with an embroidered handkerchief.
‘Her parents have confirmed it to be so, yes.’
‘Where – where d’you find it?’
‘In the woods.’ The policeman removed his helmet, held it in front of him like a begging bowl.
‘In the woods ?’ Dora yelped. ‘But Carrie and Jo play in there.’
‘Carrie and Jo?’ The other, the scribe: eclipsed by his bobble-top helmet. Notebook ready, he dragged a fist across the empty page as if to clear the way ahead. ‘Who are they?’ he asked, pen poised.
‘My great-nieces.’ Dora brandished her wine glass while Caroline, still hidden from view, swung her head from one to the other as if watching a game of table tennis. ‘Their mother’s not well; I’m looking after them for the summer.’
The policeman flicked back a few pages in his notebook. ‘Ah, Carrie – is that Caroline –’ he referred to his notes again – ‘Caroline Jameson?’ He waited for Dora’s confirmation. ‘Ellie’s mother mentioned that Caroline had some information regarding her daughter.’
‘Information – what information?’
‘That’s what we’d like to establish. Could we possibly speak to her, do you think?’
‘I’m sorry, the girls are with my neighbour, Mrs Hooper. Marvellous arrangement … ’ Dora broke off and lowered her eyelids as if to analyse the quality of the silence before speaking again. ‘Lillian gives Jo piano lessons.’
‘Right.’ A nod, as this was jotted down. ‘And how old are your great-nieces?’
Dora supplied the necessary ages and waited for them to be recorded in cheap blue biro. ‘But what’s all this about? Are you saying Ellie’s been abducted ?’
The word whirled about the room like a Catherine wheel. Caroline took a step back and shuddered. What’s happened to Ellie? Where was she? The idea she might have come to harm was sharpening into a spike. What was also sharpening were the things she told Liz about Dean hitting Ellie and racing off after her on his bike – as it now looked like she was going to have to tell the police these things too. Warm and airless in the hall, the conversation made Caroline feel woozy. She needed to sit, to feel the cool of the kitchen linoleum under her feet, but she couldn’t move, daren’t move, fearful of missing something crucial.
‘Please understand, Miss Muller,’ the police officer reminded Dora as he scanned the room, appreciating – or so Caroline thought, moving back into position to spy on them again – the Delft ceramic mantel clock, the vitrines sagging under the weight of silver curios, the oil paintings of Dutch tavern scenes and watercolours that left hardly the space for a hand between the frames, ‘we’re here to ask you questions – we’re not at liberty to discuss the specifics of the case.’
‘Oh, so it’s a case now, is it?’ Dora gasped. ‘That must mean Ellie’s been officially reported as missing.’
The policeman dispensed an accusing look, which was duly ignored by Dora, who put her glass down on the sideboard.
Peeping in at the pairs of polished black boots rucking up Pillowell’s Persian rugs, Caroline, careful to keep out of sight, followed the journey of a stain that had dried as dark as old blood. It drew her gaze under the sofas and low oak coffee table piled with books: places eluding the nozzle of the vacuum that were doo
med to remain thick with grime.
‘If we could return to the subject we discussed earlier.’ The officer stabbed his biro into the notepad.
‘Yes, of course.’ Dora pursed her little mouth. ‘Although, you must understand, I can’t be entirely sure what’s been taken – it’s just that some of my smaller items of jewellery, the odd silver ornament, that kind of thing … well, they’re missing.’
She knows things are missing ?
A coldness settled around Caroline’s heart as she loitered in the umbrageous hallway. It was as if some other hand had reached inside her and clasped it. Gawping at Dora, at her crumb-speckled chest and lack of lipstick, Caroline tried to work out what this meant, but couldn’t get beyond the idea that her aunt must have been caught on the hop by these two men in their proud-black uniforms and vaguely menacing air. Her mind, swirling with the dust motes in the shafts of sunshine, landed on the knickknacks she’d been stealthily procuring and secreting among the bulrushes. How could Dora know, when she’d been so careful only to take things she wouldn’t miss; things buried under so much junk, they’d surely been forgotten?
‘If you could be more specific – provide us with a list of what’s been taken?’ The scribe turned over a new leaf of his notebook as a gust of wind from the garden made the chandelier tinkle above their heads.
‘I would, but I can’t be sure … ’ Dora floundered. ‘Like I said earlier, it’s more of a hunch.’
‘A hunch .’ The tone bordered on sardonic. ‘We’re going to need rather more than a hunch, Miss Muller.’
Caroline’s mouth went dry. Frightened Dora was indeed on to her, she scrabbled for ways to get out of this, deciding, if challenged, she would lie. Lie at all costs.
‘Yes, yes, of course you do … ’ Dora fidgeted with her hair. ‘And I realise you’ve far more important things with little Ellie missing. But if Dean Fry’s been stealing from me, then I’m sorry, much as I like the lad, I can’t simply turn a blind eye. It might be a precursor to more serious crimes, don’t you think, officer?’
A Place to Lie Page 17