by Roberta Kray
Reaching over his thigh, she took another picture from the box. This one was of Tony standing with a girl in a back yard. She studied it for a while. The girl was pretty. She was wearing a short navy dress and Tony had his arm around her. They were both smiling. Maddie flipped it over and found some writing on the back. She read it and then looked at the photo again.
‘Was she his girlfriend?’
‘I guess,’ Zane said. The joint was finished and he stubbed it out in the ashtray. He was still sitting close to her and she could feel his warm breath on her neck. ‘Angie says that it was all Grandpa’s fault.’
Maddie thought it was cool that he called his mother by her Christian name. She could never imagine doing that with hers. ‘Why’s that?’
‘She says that if he hadn’t been shagging that cheap little slut it would never have happened.’
Maddie frowned at him. The dope had turned her thoughts fuzzy and she couldn’t make the connection between this remark and the story that had gone before. She had the feeling that she’d lost the drift, that maybe other things had been said that she’d already forgotten. ‘Right,’ she mumbled, worried that he might take offence at her lack of concentration.
But Zane already had his mind on other things. As if the mention of shagging had reminded him of what he should be doing, he took hold of her shoulder, leaned forward and kissed her. For a while she enjoyed the sensation of his lips against hers, of his gently probing tongue. She could feel the thrill run through her body. Her breathing grew faster and his grew more urgent too. Then his hands, as they always did, began to roam. They travelled the length of her spine, around her hips and up towards her chest. As his palm cupped her right breast and squeezed, she quickly pulled away.
‘What’s wrong?’
Maddie heard the peevish irritation in his voice – he didn’t like not getting what he wanted – but she wasn’t prepared to let him go any further. ‘Nothing,’ she said.
‘What is it?’ His tone had become gentle again, almost wheedling. He gazed into her eyes and stroked her hair. ‘Come on, babe. You know I’ll be careful.’
She was tempted, as ever, to give in to him and had to call on all her willpower to resist. Maddie might not know much about boys but she knew not to give away too much too soon. Girls who did that got themselves a reputation. Scrambling to her feet, she looked down on him, touched the crown of his head and smiled. ‘Sorry, I’m running late. I’ve got to go.’
He gazed sulkily back up. ‘You fancy meeting up tonight?’
Maddie did fancy it but knew it was impossible. Gullible as her mother might be, she couldn’t afford to push her luck. Saturday afternoons spent with her girlfriends were fine but late-night absences were out of the question. Unless strict arrangements had been made, her mother expected her home by six and if she wasn’t there all hell would be let loose.
‘I’ll call you,’ she said.
‘We’re going up West,’ he said. ‘It’ll be a laugh.’
‘Yeah,’ she said, pulling on her coat and heading for the door. ‘I’ll let you know.’ She couldn’t get into a discussion about it; she only had ten minutes to get to the station and didn’t want to miss her train. Later, she would think up some excuse as to why she couldn’t make it. It wasn’t as if she could tell him the truth. Zane was fifteen and thought that she was fifteen too. If he ever saw her without make-up, she’d be doomed; it wouldn’t take a genius to work out how old she really was and a thirteen-year-old girlfriend wouldn’t do much for his street cred. However, she had no intention of allowing that to happen.
So long as she was careful, her secret should be safe.
Chapter Thirty-One
By Monday the bruising around Harry’s eye had subsided and he looked more like he was in need of a good night’s sleep than the recipient of a punch in the face. His leg was improving too although he wasn’t yet sure if he could trust it with a brake pedal.
He stared out of the window at the scrap of back garden. An empty crisp packet blew aimlessly in the wind, occasionally catching on the twiggy branches of the few shrubs that were planted there. He didn’t enjoy having time on his hands. What was he going to do with himself? It crossed his mind to go and visit his father; it had been over six months since he’d last seen him. He could get a cab to the station, catch a train down to the coast and be with him by lunchtime. Why not?
But already he could imagine the conversations they would have, his father’s familiar look of disapproval and the way he would poke suspiciously at any plate of restaurant food that was placed in front of him. And Harry’s recent injuries, although fading, would only increase the tension between them. Inevitably, they would return to that well-worn debate about why he should want to waste his life ‘snooping into other people’s business’ when a perfectly good desk job had been on offer from the police. No matter how often Harry said that the very thought of it made his blood run cold, he wouldn’t understand. There would be inquiries about Valerie too – questions he would need to deflect – and he really wasn’t in the mood.
Harry leaned his forehead against the cool glass. It would be better to leave it, surely, until his face had healed. After all, there was no point in worrying him unnecessarily. It was a cheap excuse but one that he readily embraced. Once the decision was made he felt guilty but relieved. Henry Lind, he reflected, was not an unkind man, just a disappointed one. The problem was that Harry seemed to be the cause of most of his disappointments.
His mobile rang and he left the window to go and answer it.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘They let you out then?’ Jess said.
‘No, I’m serving fifteen long ones in Parkhurst and trying to look on the bright side.’
Jess expelled one of her loose breathy laughs. ‘Hey, you’re adaptable; I’m sure you’ll survive. You just need to make some friends. I’m sure there must be lots of nice boys in there.’
‘What a comforting thought.’ He grinned and sat down on the sofa. ‘So what can I do for you?’
‘I hate to disturb your busy life but I need to check something out.’
Harry’s smile wavered. She sounded worryingly upbeat and pleased with herself. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Or maybe not. Do I really want to hear this?’
‘Of course you do,’ she said, ‘unless you’re the kind of man who has an aversion to the truth.’
‘In my experience the truth isn’t always an uplifting experience.’
‘Just answer me one simple question and I’ll leave you in peace. Did Ellen Shaw tell you that her father died last year?’
‘Why?’
‘It doesn’t matter why,’ she said. ‘Did she or didn’t she?’
Harry shrugged. He’d been hoping that she might have come to terms with Curzon’s death and ditched the conspiracy theories by now. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps. She might have mentioned that—’
Jess swiftly interrupted. ‘Oh, come on! There’s no perhaps about it. She told you that she’d gone to visit Paul Deacon because he was a friend of her father’s. She told you that her father died last year.’
‘I suppose,’ he grudgingly admitted.
‘Right,’ she said.
‘And that means?’ Harry said.
She paused only long enough to inhale a small victorious breath before spilling it gently down the line. ‘That means, my friend, that Ellen Shaw is an out-andout liar. She lied to the police and she lied to you.’
Harry laughed. It came out sounding less cynical than he’d intended. ‘And how, exactly, do you come to that conclusion?’
‘You don’t want to know,’ she said.
But Harry always wanted to know, especially when his own judgement was being put on the line. He wasn’t happy about the idea that Ellen Shaw might have deceived him. He was even less happy that Jess might be about to prove it. ‘So where’s the evidence?’
‘I’ve got the proof sitting right here in my hands.’
‘What kind of proof?’
He could hear the confidence in her voice but, unwilling to fold without a semblance of a fight, he resorted to basic tactics. ‘Which, seeing as you’re on the end of a phone, doesn’t actually mean that much.’
‘You want to see?’ she said. ‘I’ll show you if you want.’
Harry knew that he shouldn’t rise to the challenge; if past experience was anything to go by, a meeting with Jess Vaughan was bound to end in grief. The whole Grace Harper business was a tragedy best left alone. Jess was pursuing a legacy that could only ever end in tears. He quickly made a decision. ‘No’ was what he needed to say and he needed to say it firmly. He didn’t want to have anything more to do with it. Pressing the phone closer to his ear, he cleared his throat.
‘Just tell me when and where,’ Jess taunted.
‘I’m at home,’ he said. ‘Come on round.’
The bell rang half an hour later. Jess waltzed through the door, dressed in a black leather jacket, blue jeans and black polo neck. Her eyes were bright. ‘You won’t believe this,’ she said. She stopped suddenly and glanced over her shoulder. ‘Hey, you’re looking a bit better.’
He raised his brows. ‘Why do I get the feeling that it isn’t going to last?’
‘Don’t be like that,’ she said. ‘The quest for the truth is a good and noble one.’
‘You’ve been reading those mind-improving books again.’
Smiling, she went through to the living room and took an envelope from her bag. She pulled out a piece of paper and passed it over. ‘Here. Look at this.’
Harry unfolded the sheet and stared down. It was a photocopy of a cutting from the Irish Times, a short article about a Dublin car crash with two fatalities. ‘And?’ he asked after he had read it through a couple of times. He recognized the names of the victims but still couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about.
‘You see the names?’ she said.
‘William and Rose Corby. Ellen’s parents, I presume. But so what?’
‘Read the date,’ she urged impatiently.
His eyes lifted to the top of the page and finally the penny dropped. ‘Twelve years ago.’
‘Exactly!’ Jess said triumphantly. ‘And she told you that her father died last year. Why should she lie about something like that?’
It was a good question. Harry frowned down at the cutting, considered some possible answers and then gave a shrug. ‘You shouldn’t jump to conclusions. There could be a perfectly logical explanation.’
‘Yeah,’ Jess said. ‘There is. And it’s that Ellen Shaw’s a grade one liar.’
‘Not necessarily.’
Jess took off her jacket and threw it over the back of the sofa. She sat down and gave him one of her exasperated looks. ‘And how do you work that one out, Mr Detective?’
‘Maybe when she talked to me, she wasn’t referring to her real father. Maybe, after her parents died, she was adopted or fostered by somebody else.’
‘What?’ Jess said. ‘No way! That doesn’t make any sense. She would have been fifteen when they died in that crash so even if someone else did take her in she’d hardly start calling him Dad. No, there’s only one rational explanation and that is that she was deliberately trying to put you off the scent.’
‘The scent?’ he said. ‘I’m not a goddamn blood-hound.’
She grinned at him. ‘Obviously not.’
Harry frowned and lowered himself into one of the chairs. Unable to refute her logic, he tried a different tack. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘so maybe she lied. She’s not the first and she won’t be the last, especially when there’s a murder inquiry going on. That still doesn’t mean that Ellen Shaw is Grace Harper.’
‘No,’ Jess agreed, ‘but it does mean that she could be. Maybe it’s a simple case of identity fraud. Grace could have been using Ellen’s name for years; birth certificates are easy to come by. In fact, the real Ellen Shaw could be out there somewhere, completely unaware of what’s been going on.’
It all sounded pretty far-fetched to Harry. ‘What about National Insurance numbers?’ he said. ‘If what you’re suggesting is true, it should have been spotted by now.’
Jess groaned. ‘Oh, do you always have to be so negative! It’s just an idea, a theory – let’s not get bogged down by all the boring detail.’
He snorted. ‘Spoken like a true journalist.’
Jess pulled a face. ‘At least I’m trying to solve this mystery.’
‘If there even is a mystery.’ Harry leaned back and put his hands behind his head. ‘So Ellen wasn’t completely honest, fine, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t who she claims to be. It’s a mighty leap from one small lie to what you’re suggesting. And the reason for the lie could be quite straightforward – perhaps there is something more intimate going on between her and Paul Deacon, a relationship that she’s trying to keep secret from her husband.’
‘What, some kind of dangerous liaison?’ Jess scoffed. ‘Sweet nothings whispered across a prison table, promises of a beautiful future together?’
‘It’s a less preposterous theory than yours,’ he snapped back.
‘Well,’ she said smugly, ‘I might be tempted to agree with you if it wasn’t for the fact that Paul Deacon had this press cutting in his cell and he only received it recently. Don’t you think that’s a little odd? If William Corby was such a great friend, why should he suddenly need a reminder of how he died all those years ago?’
Harry narrowed his eyes and stared at her. ‘And are we talking about this exact press cutting,’ he asked, holding it up, ‘or another copy of it?’
‘Does it really matter?’ Then, seeing the expression on his face, she sighed and raised her hands. ‘Okay, there’s no need to look like that. So maybe I didn’t obtain it by entirely righteous means. BJ acquired it for me. You know, the guy in Maidstone that I went to see on Friday.’
‘Stole it, you mean.’
Jess could hardly dispute that but she lifted her chin and tried to brazen it out. ‘I didn’t ask him to,’ she said. ‘I didn’t even know it existed. Anyway, there’s no need to look so outraged; it’s a press cutting, not a private letter or classified information. I could have found it myself if I’d spent the next three years trawling through the back issues of the Irish Times’
‘That’s not the point,’ Harry said. ‘Once you start believing that the end justifies the means, then—’
‘Yes, I know. It’s the thin edge of the wedge. I get your point and it’s a very worthy one. But don’t tell you’ve never once broken the rules, never once crossed that strictly moral line of yours?’
Harry hesitated.
Jess laughed. ‘There you go! Look, you don’t mind if I make a drink, do you? I’m in desperate need of a coffee.’
He followed her through, leaned against the table and watched as she switched on the kettle and then quickly gathered mugs, coffee, milk and a spoon. Everything she did was imbued with a raw nervous energy. Harry felt a surge of admiration: he envied her single-minded determination and passion. He wasn’t convinced that she was right but at least she had the courage of her convictions.
Jess glanced over at him. ‘So how’s your case going?’
‘There is no case. As of Saturday, the services of Mackenzie’s are no longer required by Mr Stagg.’
‘Bummer,’ she said. ‘You can’t be too pleased about that.’
‘It happens.’
‘Very philosophical.’ She dumped a heaped teaspoon of coffee into both of the mugs and poured in the boiling water. ‘I’m not sure if I could drop a case that easily. I mean, someone comes to you with a problem, employs you to investigate, you get halfway down the road and then …’ She put the kettle back, picked up the spoon and began to stir the coffee. ‘I’d feel kind of cheated.’
Harry couldn’t deny it. ‘There’s nothing I can do,’ he said. ‘The client’s terminated the contract. On top of which, Mac’s laid me off for the we
ek.’
She nodded, sympathetically. ‘And there’s still no news on Agnes?’
‘Nothing.’
Jess continued to stir. ‘You must want to know where she is, what happened to her. Now that, for me, would be the cause of endless sleepless nights.’
Harry skirted round the table and took the spoon from her fingers. ‘I take it you’re trying to make a point here.’
‘Actually, I was thinking we could help each other.’
Harry heard a warning bell go off in his head. ‘By which, presumably, you mean that I could help you.’
‘It’s not a one-way street. I was thinking more along the lines of mutual benefit. You can’t drive but I’m sure you want to go places. I’d be willing to play chauffeuse.’
‘And in return?’
Jess paused and took a sip from her mug. ‘Seeing as you’ve got some free time, you could always pay another visit to Ellen.’
‘And say what?’
‘You could ask her why she lied to you. You could ask why she was really visiting Paul Deacon.’
Harry didn’t feel a complete aversion to the idea. The prospect of seeing Ellen Shaw again had its attractions. However, he wasn’t prepared to appear too keen. ‘And how, exactly, would I get her to answer those questions?’
‘Guile, wit, charm.’ Jess gave a quick shrug. ‘You’re a private eye, aren’t you? I’m sure you’ll think of something.’
Harry pulled out a chair, sat down and leaned his elbows on the table. Getting involved with Jess Vaughan again was probably not the smartest move in the world but the proposed arrangement did have its advantages. ‘Well, all right,’ he said eventually, as if she had twisted his arm, ‘but only on the condition that we split the time between your case and mine.’
She sat down opposite and smiled. ‘And that would be the case you’re not working on any more.’
‘As opposed to your completely imaginary one.’