Paul had his back to the security camera lens almost out of shot. Stella spoke into the receiver: ‘Hello.’ She released the lock; the figure vanished and through the intercom she heard the thud of the lobby door.
A rat-a-tat-tat inches from her face made her jump and instinctively retreat along the passage. Paul had run up the stairs. Not for the first time she was grateful there was no letterbox. She regretted letting him in. He did not knock again, but he was still there. She pattered back to the door and squinted through the spy hole.
She was staring at Jack Harmon.
She opened the door suddenly and was gratified to see him start with surprise.
He was dressed the same as the day before: black wool trousers, a black polo neck and a baggy black jacket draped from his thin frame as from a hanger. His leather shoes – Crockett & Jones’ Oxfords – surprised her for despite scuffed toes and frayed laces they lent substance to the unkempt appearance.
‘I said not to come.’
‘I’ve brought your scarf.’ He hung it on a hook in the little vestibule by the door and stalked past her down the passage, behaving as if he was at home. Stella hurried after him into the living room.
Landing with a crash, like a small boy, Harmon sprawled on the sofa, one leg dangling over the arm, the plastic covering protesting as he wriggled to get comfortable. Although he had shaved and washed his hair, she was relieved that Ivan Challoner was unlikely to meet him and hoped that any encounter would take place after she had issued Jack with his Clean Slate uniform.
At nine Jackie had rung to relate what she had missed at work the day before. Stella told her she would be sorting out Terry’s house which might go on until Monday so would take no calls. She wanted to say this applied particularly to Paul, nor must Jackie take pity on him and make him tea in the office, but could not bear to say his name or think about him. Jackie had been pleased that Stella was getting on with her father’s things and had offered to help, which made Stella guilty because she had never lied to Jackie. Now it occurred to her that were Harmon to attack her, no one would know he had been here. No one would hear and the flat, equipped with every cleaning agent, was an ideal space in which to erase all trace of violent crime. She dismissed the thought.
‘What’s the point of this?’ Jack slapped the plastic on the sofa.
‘It protects the fabric. Look, thanks for bringing the scarf, but—’
‘From what?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘If you never take off the cover, it’s a plastic sofa.’
‘Now you’re here, do you want tea or coffee?’ Stella had bought the sofa at a good price simply for sitting on. Plastic could be wiped down and she would do so after Jack Harmon had gone.
‘I don’t drink tea or coffee.’
‘Let’s get to business then.’ Stella pulled out a chair from under the dining table and reached down for the file boxes.
‘Please could I have a glass of milk?’
In the kitchen Stella poured half of what little was left in the pint container into a glass and took it back to Jack. He drained it in one go and wiped the milky moustache off his upper lip with the sleeve of his coat.
A film of condensation on the window pane merged the sky, the river, the trees and the snow into a stratified white-grey mass. With a plastic squeak, Jack leapt up, holding the empty glass and rubbed the pane with the milk-stained sleeve. Through the porthole the only movement in an otherwise static scene was a cyclist speeding along the towpath on the far bank. This angle was unfamiliar to Stella; she was never here in the day and, preferring to eat at the kitchen counter, had not until now sat at the table.
‘This isn’t everything surely?’ It was not a question. Harmon settled himself at the head of the table and waved a hand at the two boxes beside Stella’s laptop.
‘The rest is at the house.’
Harmon sighed. ‘Have you been through them?’
‘I read the docket which contains the report Terry wrote, and an index to the papers with a front sheet listing reasons officers gave for signing the file out of the General Registry.’
From the depths of his overcoat Jack Harmon produced an envelope of tobacco bound with an elastic band and set about rolling a cigarette with nicotine-stained fingers while he read.
He laid the completed cigarette in a slim silver cigarette case where three others were already in a row and read on. Soon he had made six cigarettes and had nearly finished Terry’s report. He was fast. After a bit, without taking his eyes from the page, he shrugged out of his coat, letting it fall over his chair. Stella wanted to hang it up in the hall, but was not keen to touch it.
She took out some papers from the second box and prepared to work, but he had her notes and, besides, she couldn’t concentrate. The angular pale man was like a ghost in her flat, the bleak morning light emphasizing his cheekbones and racoon circles around his eyes. He scanned her pages of neat script, sniffing at intervals.
A box of tissues lay beside a flat-screen television and DVD player on the shelf unit. Next to these were various illustrated books on plants and flowers that, despite her having no garden, Terry kept giving her. Stella fetched them and put them beside Jack but he ignored her.
‘You have been thorough,’ he murmured eventually. It had taken him twenty minutes, and still disgruntled at him being there at all Stella was tempted to test him.
‘So you are carrying on where your dad left off?’ He rolled another cigarette although the case was full. Suddenly Stella knew where she had smelled the tobacco before.
She dragged her rucksack out from under the table and found the plastic bag in one of the many zipped side pockets. She shook the squashed cigarette end out on to the glass top.
‘You’ve been to Mrs Ramsay’s.’ She managed a whisper. ‘You were in her house. I thought this was hers.’
Jack licked along the strip of paper with a tongue coated yellow, and looked at the filter. ‘Yes, that is mine.’ He shot her a boyish grin. ‘I was using it as a bookmark.’
‘I assumed she was going mad when she said someone was there.’ Stella gripped the sides of her chair. ‘She was telling me about you. I ignored her.’ She swallowed hard.
‘I wouldn’t beat yourself up. Isabel lived in another time and I literally “played” along. She was happier with men and children. You gave her what she wanted too.’
‘I was supposed to be there, I was invited.’ Mrs Ramsay had not invited her; she paid her on a monthly basis to be in her house.
‘So was I. The difference being, no money changed hands.’ He was haughty.
‘The police think she was murdered.’
‘Since when did you believe the police?’
‘There’ll be proof you were there, a fingerprint, a—’
‘A cigarette rich with DNA?’ He flicked the butt at her. It spun over the polished wood and landed in Stella’s lap. ‘The book was a message for you. I was too clever there, it was lucky you turned up when you did.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Our Mutual Friend, but you ignored the sign. I realize now that the direct approach works better with you.’ He gave a throaty laugh.
‘She said she heard doors creaking, and the fifth stair, and she fretted about children playing: in the basement, the garden. She got scared – and all the time it was you.’ Stella remembered how Mrs Ramsay had been tormented by losing stuff; she had tried to tell Stella but Stella had humoured her and congratulated herself on doing a few extra hours for nothing. Mrs Ramsay had known she was being mollified; she never waved goodbye.
‘We can’t work together if you break the law.’
‘I was invited. How is that breaking the law? Besides, you’re not so squeaky clean. Compromising a crime scene? When did you plan to hand this evidence to Cashman? You shouldn’t even have been there, but hey, special treatment for the detective’s daughter! As I said last night, we are a match.’ He brandished Terry’s report: ‘Did you see, yo
ur dad was the last person to take the file out.’
‘Yes.’
‘Monday, the twenty-second of June 2009 at three p.m.’
‘He retired on the Friday of that week.’
Jack sniffed. ‘It must be when he copied it.’
‘He would have had to give a reason.’
‘Says here that he was going to see the man who found the body: a Charles Jenkins.’ Jack was matter of fact.
Stella typed the name into Google, adding ‘Rokesmith’ to narrow the search.
‘Jenkins died in 2010 aged eighty-five, he’d had Alzheimer’s for fifteen years.’ She pointed at her screen. ‘Says he never got over finding her and took early retirement. Odd that Terry bothered talking to him. Kate was dead when he found her.’
‘Jenkins might have lied. If you were a murderer, wouldn’t a great way to deflect suspicion be to pretend you found the corpse of the victim you’d just killed?’
‘Too much of a risk.’ Stella wished the theory hadn’t come to Jack so easily.
‘Anyway, Jenkins was only Terry’s excuse to see the files. He could have written anything, he was the boss, no one questioned him.’
‘He stuck to the rules,’ Stella snapped. Jack was right; she had been granted respect and leeway because of Terry. Cashman had trusted her: a trust that was misplaced; she would not help the police. Terry had been working alone: the rules he stuck to were his own. She did not say this.
Jack returned to the sofa and flopped down, scrutinizing the list. ‘It was accessed in December 1992. Someone reported a blue Ford Anglia on the North End Road in Fulham. “The vehicle was registered to a sixty-four-year-old spinster resident in Munster Road. Miss Joan Fellows. She had bought a 1967 model second-hand in 1975 and in 1981 was deputy head at a primary school off the Fulham Road.” So what?’
‘That’s the computer doing it’s job: it is matching it with a blue car, possibly a Ford Anglia, seen by a witness.’ Stella rifled through her notes. ‘Mrs Hammond, aged seventy-four, coming out of Black Lion Lane that day. She was on the Great West Road going to the Broadway, so it was a glimpse. Might have been nothing, but it can’t be eliminated until someone comes forward. The fact that no one has, despite the publicity, makes it likely to be suspicious. Hugh Rokesmith drove a blue car.’
‘So?’
‘It’s clear Rokesmith did it.’
‘Boring!’ Jack jabbed at the plastic on the sofa. ‘You’ve made up your mind. Why go on?’
‘I was thinking the same thing.’
‘Wasn’t that why the police failed? Deciding the guy was guilty and forcing everything to fit their theory.’ He sniffed. ‘What about having an open mind?’
‘There’s no mystery. It’s obvious he did it, motive, opportunity, means…’
‘Motive? What did he gain? The police had nothing: he wasn’t even on bail.’ He poked at the plastic again. ‘This is no fun, you’re not doing it properly.’
‘He remained a suspect. It says so.’ Stella waved her notes. ‘They had no evidence. His mother was his alibi; naturally she was protecting him. Hugh Rokesmith had a high-flying career, building bridges all over the world, all that was in jeopardy. She perjured herself to save her son’s career.’
‘His work dried up, and it’s impossible to be in two places at once. The police got that right, yet still you think him guilty.’
‘He left at ten thirty, what was he doing for forty-five minutes?’ She batted at the box of tissues.
‘Like it says here: sitting by Kew Bridge doing calculations in peace. He was a busy man, he rarely got time to himself.’
‘We only have his word for that, no one saw him.’ Terry knew Rokesmith had got away with it. ‘I have a client in Strand on the Green; it takes a minimum of fifteen minutes to get there. Half an hour to plan a bridge? I don’t think so!’
It had taken her slightly less time to drive between the two points but she would not give Jack’s theory that Rokesmith was innocent ammunition; he was taking over.
‘Maybe you’d like to explain why you broke into Mrs Ramsay’s house.’
‘I didn’t.’ Jack sucked ruminatively on the arm of his glasses and perused other papers. ‘She was my friend. More than that really.’ He looked up. ‘By the way, why do we think you didn’t murder Isabel?’
‘What did I have to gain? I’ve lost a client. I will have to tell the police about you.’
‘Can we stop? You have no time for your dad’s army and you’d have to explain why you purloined valuable evidence. What do they call it… obstructing officers…?’
‘… in the execution of their duty.’
‘Exactement!’ He put on a French accent and twirled his spectacles happily. ‘Like me – like Terry – you prefer to work alone.’ He shuffled the papers and Stella caught a trace of Terry’s aftershave. ‘You’ve changed the habit of a lifetime letting me help and we’ll only succeed if we approach it like a, well, like a clean slate. Don’t be high-horsey!’
Stella covered up a yawn. Over the last days she had slept little more than eight hours and hardly recognized herself. Her previous self would not have given the time of day to Jack, let alone allowed him into her flat. Terry’s death had thrown everything up in the air.
‘You have the mind of a forensic scientist. Like a detective you will leave no stone unturned.’ Jack closed the cigarette case with a snap. ‘Don’t squander that with blinkered thinking.’
Harmon was right; she had made up her mind. Jackie said Stella jumped to conclusions. Her mother accused Terry of shutting his ears to any other point of view.
‘What mind have you got?’
I have the mind of a murderer.
Her mobile rang and without meaning to she answered.
‘Hello there, Stella. How are you on this Arctic Friday?’
She could not place the voice.
‘It’s Ivan Challoner. I do hope I’m not disturbing you.’ His tone was intimate, the voice so close he could have been in the next room.
‘I’m in a meeting, but it’s fine, unless you’re ringing to say I need another filling.’
‘Your teeth are perfect! I hadn’t thought of cleaners having meetings.’ Paul would have made this sound patronising.
Stella stepped into the passage. ‘You’re not with patients?’ Ivan was easy to talk to. Trailing towards the front door, she felt a coil of excitement.
‘In a moment. The only promise I made to myself as a student that I have kept is not to work on Mondays or at the weekend. I’ll be quick to let you get back: would you join me for dinner on Monday?’
Stella agreed to meet him at a French restaurant by Kew station. Unlike Paul’s first suggestion of a burger, nothing in Challoner’s manner implied it was a date. If he had been flirtatious she might not have accepted his invitation.
She returned to the room, her mood lighter, where she found the sight of Jack Harmon, leafing through her notes, his wire-framed glasses perched on his nose peculiarly reassuring.
‘You lie with impunity,’ he murmured.
‘You should not be eavesdropping. Besides, I am in a meeting.’
He turned a page. ‘I’m thinking it would be wise not to tell anyone about this, including your new man.’
‘I wasn’t planning to and Ivan Challoner is a client, as you know.’
Jack snatched off his glasses, an action that reminded Stella of Terry. ‘Perhaps don’t let that man – Paul – get wind of it. He was totally in the thrall of the green-eyed monster.’
‘I won’t see him again.’
‘Like I said, he won’t give up on you that easily.’ Jack flapped the sheet he was reading. ‘Isabel Ramsay was the last person to see Katherine Rokesmith alive. It’s a coincidence her being your client and your dad’s star witness. He never mentioned her to you? Did you seek her out?’
Stella did not admit that, despite reading the notes, until Cashman told her, she had not realized that Mrs Ramsay was so important a witness.
; ‘Of course not. Her daughter contacted us initially; Mrs Ramsay was dead set against a cleaner. I never talked to Terry about work, his or mine. And if you were close, how come she didn’t tell you?’
‘She did,’ he replied simply. ‘Read this.’ He pushed a slip of newspaper towards her.
It was dated Monday, 21 May 2007. Stella had missed it.
MURDERED KATE HUSBAND DIES
Hugh Rokesmith (65) lost his battle with lung cancer in Scarborough General Hospital yesterday. The civil engineer saw his career designing bridges and viaducts, predominantly in South-East Asia, dwindle after the murder of his wife in July 1981, almost twenty-seven years ago. Kate Rokesmith was found dead by the River Thames on the day that Diana, Princess of Wales, also destined to die young, rehearsed her marriage to Charles. Questioned by detectives, Mr Rokesmith, who in a BBC interview claimed he was ‘utterly devastated’, stated he was at his mother’s birthday lunch two miles from where Kate’s body was found. The couple’s son, Jonathan (pictured left), who as a four-year-old may have witnessed his mum’s death, is said to have visited his dying father in hospital. Believed to live in Sydney, Australia, he has refused to comment on his mother’s murder, which a police spokesman has described as ‘still an open case’.
‘They are guarding against the son doing them for libel or they’d come right out and say Rokesmith did it. I found a website in the States that said a previously normal man is more likely to kill his wife if he finds out she’s having an affair, especially if she was younger than him and good-looking. I’ve written it somewhere.’ Stella picked up her notes. ‘An affair can be the last straw.’
‘What makes you think Katherine Rokesmith was having an affair?’
‘I’m guessing. Like you said, keeping an open mind.’
‘Let’s stick to facts. For example, did you know that a bunch of flowers is always by Katherine’s grave?’
The way Jack referred to Kate as ‘Katherine’ was getting on Stella’s nerves, it made Kate distant and unreachable.
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