Uncaged

by Lucy Gordon

  She felt his firm, vigorous embrace, and perhaps he would have kissed her, but there was the sound of Mrs. Cooper’s voice just outside the door, and they drew apart self-consciously. The landlady’s head came around the door. “I expect you and your friend would like some tea,” she said cheerily. “The kettle’s on.”

  She withdrew before they could answer. Megan looked at Daniel, swept by indescribable feelings. It wasn’t possible that she should love him. Too many barriers stood in the way. But the emotions flooding her broke down barriers, sweeping them away like twigs. Bert had known. That nice, uncomplicated man had recognized the truth because he didn’t muddle the issue with irrelevancies—like the fact that the two of them had ruined each other’s lives.

  “Where on earth have you been?” Daniel asked. “I’ve been gnawing my fingers, waiting for you.”

  “I went to catch a glimpse of Tommy.”

  “I should have thought of that. Did you see him?”

  “Yes, but only from a long way off. I felt so bad coming home, I thought you’d deserted me.”

  He looked suddenly self-conscious. “So that was why I got such a welcome?”

  His awkwardness communicated itself to her, and she found herself blushing. Tiger Lady, who’d always had men at the snap of her fingers, suddenly didn’t know where to look. “You’re my only chance, Daniel,” she said self-consciously. “Without you, I’ve no hope.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I thought that was it. Well then, I may have some good news for you. I haven’t been wasting my time or forgetting you—” His gaze seemed to penetrate right into her.

  “Daniel, you just vanished from the earth,” she burst out. “You weren’t there when I called you and you never called me. I didn’t know what to think.”

  “So you thought the worst. Perhaps I shouldn’t blame you for that, but we have to start trusting each other, Megan. Otherwise we’ve no chance of...of making everything right.”

  “‘Making everything right,’” she echoed, half noting his ambiguous choice of words. That could mean several things. “Daniel, do you think everything will ever be all right again?”

  A look she didn’t understand briefly touched his face and was gone in a moment before he replied, “Of course, it will. That’s what I’ve been working on these last few days. You couldn’t get me because I’ve been away, working for you.”

  Before he could say more, Mrs. Cooper came in with a tea tray. It was clear that Bert had been talking to her, because she beamed on them before announcing, “Now I’ll just go and leave you two alone. You’ll let me know if there’s anything you want, won’t you?”

  They promised her they would, and she crept out, elaborately tactful.

  “Daniel, have you turned up something?” Megan begged.

  “I might. It’s a long shot, but anything’s worth a try. Listen, one of the strongest parts of the case against you was that there weren’t any other suspects. The only person who stood to gain by Grainger’s death was his nephew, Jackson, who inherited a substantial property.”

  “I was always sure he must have had something to do with it,” Megan remembered. “I know he needed money because Grainger told me so. They were always at daggers drawn. Grainger would have willed the property away from his nephew if he could, but it was tied up in a settlement. I heard him gloat about how Jackson would love to see him dead so that he could inherit. He used to say, ‘But it’ll be a long time yet. I’m as tough as old boots.’”

  “Unfortunately for you, Jackson had a cast-iron alibi. He spent the night at his girlfriend’s house, and her brother corroborated it.”

  “They could both have been lying,” Megan pointed out.

  “Sure, they could. Mary Aylmer might have lied in the hope of marrying a rich man, and her brother could have supported her to get a share of the pickings. But there was no way to shake them—at least, so I thought.

  “After you left the house I went through all the statements again with a fine-tooth comb, and something came back to me. About a year ago I was involved in another case, involving a hospital doctor who specialized in spinal problems. He had to prove where he was at a certain time, and he showed me hospital records showing he was on duty during certain hours. Rather indiscreetly he let me see the names of some of his patients. I’m almost certain that one of them was John Baker.”

  “But wasn’t that—?”

  “The brother’s name is John Baker, and since he fell off a ladder he spends his life in and out of a wheelchair. The point is, if I’m right, he was in hospital on the night he swears he saw Jackson Grainger with his sister.”

  “But surely—when this happened...?”

  “Megan, try to understand,” he pleaded, “when a case is over, it’s over. You go on to the next case, and the old ones are dead and gone. There was no reason to make a connection. I must have had this buried in my subconscious for a year. The point is, I may not have remembered the right name, or the right date, or it might be a different John Baker. It’s a common enough name—”

  “But if it’s the same one...” she broke in eagerly.

  “Then we’ve caught him out in a damaging lie. But it’s a big if. There’s another thing. Jackson Grainger never married Mrs. Aylmer. It took me a couple of days to track her down. She and her brother are living in the north. That’s where I’ve been, running them to earth.”

  “But surely he’d have had to marry her to ensure her silence?”

  “Not necessarily. She can’t implicate him without incriminating herself and her brother. Besides which, she was still married to Mr. Aylmer at the time.”

  “Daniel,” she said desperately, “where does this get us?”

  “I’m not sure. It’s a gleam of light, but I can’t pursue it alone. I need your help. Tell me, did you ever meet either Mary Aylmer or John Baker?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure they never set eyes on you?”

  “Quite sure.”

  “In that case, we may stand a chance. We need to do a bit of searching around their house, and I can’t approach them openly because they’d remember me from before.”

  “You think I can do it? But surely, they’ll know me, too?”

  “It’s a risk, but I think you can get away with it. They never saw you in the flesh. They only know you as Tiger Lady, and even that was three years ago.” He searched her face keenly. “And Tiger Lady can be an actress when she has to be. I’ve been studying those magazine pictures of you. You manage to get a different mood in each one, and you know how to change your looks to get a certain effect. But just how wide is your range? Could you look dull and dreary if you had to?”

  “Just watch me,” she breathed. “I can do anything I have to. Anything.”

  “Then here’s what we’re going to do....”

  Eight

  John Baker ran a finger along the windowsill and surveyed it in disgust. “That new woman you hired is a slattern,” he snapped. “Get rid of her.”

  “You must be joking,” his sister said sourly. “Do you think it’s easy to find someone who’ll live in and put up with your nasty moods? The word’s got around this neighborhood about what you’re like. The advertisement had been up in the news agent’s window for six weeks before she answered it, and if you think I’m going to—”

  “All right, all right. Stop carrying on.”

  “She may not dust brilliantly but—”

  “She doesn’t dust at all.”

  “Give her time, will you? She’s only been here three days, and she’s got all the other work to do. And even you said that meal with the funny foreign name she cooked was tasty.” John Baker grunted, evidently unwilling to be mollified. “Just shut up about her,” Mary Aylmer told him. “She’s a godsend.”

  “You mean she lets you lie around with your feet up,” he jeered.

  “Well, I’m entitled to put my feet up after looking after you,” Mary told him crossly. “It’s no picnic being stuck in this house
with a moaning so-and-so and not enough money to live on.”

  “Well, you should have played your cards a bit better, shouldn’t you?” he told her nastily.

  “Don’t start that again.”

  “Start it again? I never stop thinking of it. You had a gold mine there for the taking, and you let it slip through your fingers.”

  “It wasn’t there for the taking,” Mary Aylmer said, speaking wearily because they’d had this conversation a thousand times. “It was all a con. He was using us. Anyway, he sends us money regularly.”

  “Every three months,” Baker sneered.

  “Well, every three months is regularly.”

  “Hah! You call that money? A damned pittance. It’s nothing to what should have been yours—” He broke off because his sister had given him a warning look.

  “What is it, Lily?” she asked sharply of the woman who’d appeared in the doorway.

  It was hard to tell how much, if anything, Lily Harper had overheard, or what she’d made of it. Sometimes it seemed impossible that intelligence could live behind those blank eyes and lifeless face. “Do you want the tea now?” she asked after a pause during which she seemed to be trying to remember what she’d been going to say.

  “Yes, bring it in here,” Mary said.

  “And take that fag out of your mouth,” Baker shouted at her. “How many times do I have to tell you? Filthy habit.”

  “Sorry.” Lily Harper stubbed out her cigarette, but even as she moved away her hand was reaching for another one.

  “Dear God!” Baker muttered. “Is that the best you can get?”

  Mary was too fed up to answer him. Instead she got up and went out into the kitchen where Lily was clattering teacups. “I swear I’ll do that miserable so-and-so an injury one of these days,” she said bitterly.

  “You should get out more,” Lily ventured.

  “How can I? He can’t manage for himself.”

  “I’m here.”

  Mary’s eyes lit up with hope. “You’d look after him for me, just for an evening?”

  “Don’t mind,” Lily said. Nobody could have told from her voice whether she was resigned or enthusiastic, and her features were unrevealing, being mostly hidden behind a curtain of mousy hair that swung around them. Mary had gotten little impression of Lily’s face beyond the fact that she slapped on makeup far too heavily without making much improvement.

  “Tonight?” Mary said. “Just to let me have a few hours in the pub.”

  “You go on. I’ll manage.”

  As soon as the evening meal was over, Mary wasted no time in escaping from the house. Lily concentrated on washing up until a slight tap on the kitchen window made her move cautiously toward the back door and open it a crack. A man slipped noiselessly inside and mouthed “Any luck?”

  “She keeps everything in a desk in the back room,” came the whispered reply. “But it’s locked, and the key’s on her key ring.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not a policeman for nothing. I was taught to pick locks by Jake the Snake.”

  “Jake the Snake?”

  “The best in the business—before I put him inside. Show me the way.”

  While her visitor got to work, Lily put into action a plan of her own. Slipping up to her room, she came down again with a bottle of whiskey and a glass, and proceeded to pour herself a measure, letting them chink together a good deal. After a while she was rewarded.

  “Lily, come in here,” Baker yelled. She went into the downstairs room where he was watching television, still holding the bottle and glass, and he eyed her nastily. “Are you stealing my whiskey?”

  She considered the glass for a long while before answering. “No, Mr. Baker. This is mine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I keep a little by me for when I’m feeling low,” Lily explained sadly.

  “Feeling low,” Baker scoffed. “What would you know about that?”

  “We all have our crosses to bear,” Lily confided. “When I think of mine I just need a little sip to set me up again.” Her stupid face brightened. “Would you like some?” She held up the bottle so that he could see the label and appreciate that it was a superior make.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” he growled. “How the hell can you afford a brand like that?”

  “It’s the only treat I allow myself,” Lily informed him mournfully. She poured him a generous measure and set the glass beside him. Baker drained it quickly and held up the glass, which she refilled without protest. Nobody could have told from her impassive manner that she’d already seen this man the worse for wear and knew how little alcohol it took to make it happen. “We all suffer in our own way, Mr. Baker. I expect you suffer, having to live in that wheelchair.”

  “Terrible,” he confirmed, draining the glass again. “I’m a hero, you know. I got like this saving a child’s life.”

  Not by so much as a blink did Lily betray knowledge of a fall from a ladder. “That’s very brave of you, Mr. Baker.”

  “There was talk of awarding me a medal, but nothing came of it. I’ve always been unlucky, Lily.”

  “Some of us are. If I had my rights I’d be a rich woman. As it is...” Lily roused herself so far as to give a shrug.

  “Rights?” Baker growled in a voice that was already becoming slurred. “Hah! Nobody’s been cheated of their rights the way I have.”

  Lily refilled his glass and settled herself nearby. “Tell me about it, Mr. Baker,” she invited.

  * * *

  “You took a helluva risk,” Daniel said as they drove south later that night.

  “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Megan said. She tried to speak casually, but in truth she was walking on air.

  Daniel heard the exhilarated note in her voice and tried to bring her back to earth. “What exactly did he say?” he asked. “Did he actually admit he’d lied to get Grainger off the hook?”

  “Not in so many words,” Megan admitted. “But he said he’d ‘taken a risk for a friend’ who’d turned around and betrayed him. ‘Palmed him off with fourpence’ he said. That’s good enough for me.”

  “For me, too,” Daniel agreed. “But not for the court.”

  “All right, what did you get? Was he in the hospital at the relevant time?”

  “I couldn’t find that out for sure, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, God!” In an instant Megan came crashing down from the heights.

  “Wait, don’t despair. I did find a letter from that particular hospital, which makes it clear he’s been treated there at some time, so it’s a fair bet that he’s the patient mentioned in those notes. Which means it can be proved with a little further investigation. And I found something else. Someone’s been paying five hundred pounds into Mary Aylmer’s bank account every three months.”

  “I could have told you that,” Megan said. “I heard them talking about it.”

  “But I’ve got the account number and the dates the payments were made. If it ties up with Jackson Grainger’s account, I think we’re on our way.”

  “‘We’re on our way,’” she repeated. “We’re on our way.”

  “Megan, don’t raise your hopes too high,” he pleaded. “It’s a start, but only a start.”

  “All right, I’ll try to be realistic, but you don’t know how it makes me feel to have done something positive after three years staring at walls.” Megan gave a wry smile. “It was a relief to get rid of that awful wig, and it was even nicer to scrape that thick gunge off my face.”

  “I nearly didn’t recognize you,” Daniel said, grinning, “not just because of the wig and thick makeup, but those shapeless clothes and down-at-the-heel shoes.”

  Megan laughed and stuffed the wig into her bag. “Lily Harper, R.I.P.,” she said triumphantly.

  She dozed for an hour and awoke when they were on the outskirts of London. “Feel better?” Daniel asked.

  “Much better, thank you.”

  “I’ll have you home soon, although it might be an idea
—” Daniel broke off suddenly, cursing under his breath. Looking ahead, Megan saw what had startled him. Another car was coming straight for them on the same side of the road, its headlights almost blinding them as it weaved violently about....

  Daniel reacted with the speed and skill of a police driver, swerving into the opposing lane just in time to avoid a collision. For a terrifying second they were directly in the path of a truck, then he swerved back onto his own side of the road. There was a grinding sound as he clipped the car that had been heading for them, and the next moment they shuddered to a standstill.

  Megan released her breath. Looking back, she could see that the car had slid into a ditch at the side of the road, and Daniel was sprinting toward it. She hurried out and caught up as Daniel yanked open the door. “What the hell do you think you’re...?” His voice died. Megan saw a deathly pallor come over his face and the next moment he reached inside and hauled out the man behind the wheel, thrusting him back against the car to steady him. The man could hardly stand.

  “He’s drunk!” Megan exclaimed.

  “Of course he’s drunk,” Daniel snapped in a voice full of murderous contempt. “He thinks it’s clever to drink himself silly and get behind the wheel, don’t you? Don’t you?” He was shaking the man like a rat. “That’s your idea of fun, and if anyone gets in your way that’s their hard luck, isn’t it?”

  The other driver stared at him stupidly, but after a moment the shaking he was receiving seemed to clear his head and recognition dawned in his eyes, followed by alarm.

  “Yes, you know me,” Daniel grated, “and you’re scared of me, aren’t you? And you’re right to be scared. They stopped me getting to you three years ago, but there’s nobody to stop me now.”

  The man mumbled something out of which Megan could only discern the word “accident.”

  “It wasn’t an accident, it was murder,” Daniel raged. “You didn’t care who you hurt, you just wanted to impress your lady friend. She wasn’t concerned about your victims any more than you.” He slammed the drunkard back against the car. His head lolled and Daniel steadied it by holding on to it. Suddenly Megan was afraid. Daniel’s hands were dreadfully near the man’s throat, and they were shaking with the violence of his emotion.