The train slowed outside Gunnersbury, and peering into the darkness Stella made out the clamps holding the cables to the walls, one clamp halted in the centre of the glass. They had stopped. She disliked being late and did not want Ivan to consider her unpunctual. The engine ceased throbbing and went silent.
‘We apologise for this delay. A train has broken down at Gloucester Road and we are waiting for it to be towed to the depot which should not take long.’
The driver sounded genuinely sorry and reminded her of Jackie who was excellent at customer service. While Stella could send a text jilting her partner, she never kept a client uninformed of progress. It was ten to eight; if the train moved now she could make it. Seated in the front car behind the driver’s cab she heard tapping, a rustling and a staccato voice over the transmitter.
The cable clamp passed off to her right, then another and another and soon were out of focus as the train gathered speed again. In minutes they were at Kew Gardens station.
Stella crossed the concourse in front of the station and following Ivan’s meticulous instructions she found the restaurant. When she entered she saw immediately that Ivan had dressed up. Stella had changed into dark green trousers and wore a loose linen jacket over a T-shirt; Ivan was decked out in an immaculate suit. As if to emphasise his sharp attire, Ivan shot his cuffs before lifting a bottle of white wine from an ice bucket beside him to fill their glasses. Stella had the sense that until she arrived Ivan had been lingering in the wings and that now she was here, his performance could begin.
A packet lay on her plate, tied with a silver ribbon.
‘What’s this?’ she demanded, refusing the waiter’s offer to take her coat and sitting down.
‘First things first.’ Ivan held up his glass. ‘Here’s how!’
She raised the wine glass, putting it down again without drinking.
‘Open it.’ Ivan’s gold tie pin glinted in the candle flame. He contemplated her over the rim of his glass.
Stella began to rip off the paper. He snatched it away.
‘Not like that!’
Ivan cradled the package, tipping it between his fingertips. He undid the paper and handed her a cardboard box within a sleeve. Inside was a hardback book with no writing on the cover, dusky red and reeking of mould. Stella was reluctant to handle it before giving it a proper wipe. Ivan, like Terry long ago, was watching her expectantly so she could not say she did not have time for reading.
‘It’s a first edition by Duckworth with engravings by Claire Leighton. Her brother, Roland Leighton, was killed in the First World War. He’s the one who features in Testament of Youth. As you know, she was well known in her day.’
Stella did not know. She found gold lettering on the spine: Wuthering Heights.
‘I remembered you spotted this on your first visit. I’ll be honest, as I am guessing it will make you feel better, I didn’t pay for it. Grateful clients give me presents. I’m sure you know that one!’ He quaffed some wine. ‘You must be constantly receiving gifts. Anyhow, thing is, I don’t need two. I have kept my original, it’s in fairer condition. I could flog this, but it would be tricky, the client would be bound to find out. She’s a rare book dealer; they are a tight web so please do me a favour and accept it?’
‘Even so, it is generous…’ Stella faltered. Her own clients stuck to the baskets of soap, candles and the odd bottle of single malt which she passed to Terry for Christmas and birthdays.
‘It’s not generous. I am offloading an unwanted copy on you and keeping the one with less foxing.’ He bent beneath the table. ‘Now, I am really going to be for it!’ He brandished a bunch of flowers.
Almost euphoric that Ivan Challoner had read her correctly, Stella accepted the slender bouquet, noticing with further relief that he had not got them gift wrapped. She settled in for a pleasant evening.
Anxious about eating in company, Stella ordered soup that could easily be consumed and a risotto which she could cordon off into bite-sized amounts and efficiently demolish. She waived dessert, but agreed to coffee.
She listened to Ivan describing his love of the countryside, days by the sea with his son and his passion for reconstructive and cosmetic dentistry. Some patients came to him after accidents, others with inhibiting defects or damage due to poor oral hygiene. Everyone came dissatisfied with their appearance and left feeling happier. His calling – and it was a calling, he insisted as with dextrous fingers he pulled the tail off a king prawn – was to make patients feel good about themselves. He restored their smiles. He dabbled his fingers in the water dish, drying them one by one, observing that, for some people, his work amounted to a rebirth.
‘It must make you feel powerful.’ Stella surprised herself with this comment; she did not dwell on motivations or feelings.
‘On the contrary, I am humbled,’ Ivan replied, patting his mouth with his napkin. ‘We are in the same business, of course.’ He sat back supping his wine.
‘I don’t see that.’ Stella isolated another portion from the mound of food and embarked upon it, chewing the glutinous mass. The idea of seeing business in terms of improving clients’ opinion of themselves was an anathema to her.
‘You too restore order. As the giver of purity you, or specifically your staff, scour, mop and dust away the accumulated filth in our lives. You and I, with our commitment to perfection, add to the sum of happiness.’
‘I hadn’t thought of it that way.’ Stella regretted the risotto; no matter how much she ate the amount was not diminishing.
‘I can hear how pretentious it sounds, yet you get the point.’ He refilled Stella’s glass before she could stop him. One glass was her limit even when she wasn’t driving.
Ivan, too, was scrupulous in not broaching anything personal. He stuck to discussing business, seeming genuinely curious about how she managed her staff because, he admitted, his management skills were minimal.
Nevertheless Stella was troubled. She cleaned her client’s premises to the highest standards because she despised mess. She could not bear smudged glass, scuffed walls or carpets spattered with tea or coffee or worse, tables stained with food or streaks of grime. She hated creases in fabrics, papers and useless objects on every surface. She went to war on her clients’ homes with an assortment of cleaning weaponry. At no point while she was disinfecting and deodorizing did she consider the owners themselves – other than as an irritating distraction when she was vacuuming around them or an income stream enabling her to continue cleaning. That Ivan strove to improve his patients’ lives was extraordinary. There was no one whose existence Stella wanted to improve – with the possible exception of Mrs Ramsay, and she was dead.
Watching Ivan mop his plate clean with a pinch of sesame roll, Stella reflected how she had cleaned the darkest and most obscure places for Mrs Ramsay. She had never done this to make the old lady happier, she had done it because she loved to deep-clean.
Ivan insisted on escorting Stella to the station, which was, he assured her, on his way. The pavements had not been salted so they walked on the road, retreating to the kerb to avoid cars. The snow had immobilized the population and, picking their way along Sandycombe Road, they were alone.
At the station entrance Ivan was diverted by a tramp listing on a bench outside. Stella was repulsed by his filthy clothes, his wrinkled skin darkened by dirt, and was anxious that his drunken swaying meant he was going to throw up. She wanted to be far away if that happened.
‘Do excuse me, Stella.’ Ivan approached the man. Sure Ivan was going to move the tramp on, Stella felt stirrings of triumph. The seat was for members of the public, not for drunks to pass out on.
Ivan squatted down and, fishing under the seat between the man’s boots, he picked up a coin. He stood over the man and clasped his shoulder, touching the dandruff-speckled wool as he might guide a patient into the operating chair. He had not touched Stella.
‘I think you dropped this, sir.’
The man struggled to focus, squinting b
learily at Ivan. Unsteadily he picked the coin out of Ivan’s palm and stared at it. Then he smiled. His front teeth were missing. ‘Verr…very shen-er-russss.’ He worked his lips hard to form the words that Stella herself had used about Ivan earlier.
‘No, not at all, it was yours.’ Ivan let go of his shoulder. He returned to Stella. An expression of sadness passed over his face but, pulling himself together, he breathed: ‘I have enjoyed myself tonight, thank you, Stella.’
On the end of the platform, as she watched a dot far down the line expand into an eastbound District line train, Stella confessed to herself that she quite liked Ivan Challoner. Jackie said she was a bad judge of character and she imagined telling her that her first impression of Ivan had been right; he was someone she could trust.
Stella did not see the driver of the train when his cab slid past her to stop just beyond where she stood, nor did she know that he was observing her in the platform monitor as she boarded his train.
28
Tuesday, 18 January 2011
A magpie was busy above their heads on the snow-insulated roof, raising flurries of snow in front of the glass doors. There was a beating of wings.
Silence.
Through the glass, the lawn was marked with animal and bird tracks, virginal patches of snow sparkled with a bluish haze in the morning sunshine.
Jack and Stella were in Isabel Ramsay’s summerhouse. Wrapped up, Jack in his greatcoat, Stella in her padded anorak, they lounged awkwardly in motheaten deckchairs beaten free of spider webs and the husks of insects, nursing mugs of tea in Stella’s case, milk with honey for Jack. The semi-circular structure with a glass frontage had sun all day long and, even in freezing temperatures, was warmer than the house where the central heating had died along with its owner. Jack had arrived, punctually at eight as Stella had requested, and she had assigned him the basement. At eleven, by way of a truce, she had brewed tea in Mrs Ramsay’s chipped Woolworths’ teapot, boiled a pan of milk and then bade him follow her down the garden.
Mrs Ramsay refused to sit in her summerhouse, saying, ‘Mark always got there first. He did it to get to me, he hated the sun.’ Lately Mrs Ramsay, apparently having decided that Stella had passed her tests, had initiated beverages mid-shift and made Stella drink the glass of fruit juice – to keep up vitamins – as soon as she arrived. Stella never thought about vitamins and doubted that Jack did. She had rather liked Mrs Ramsay’s caring what she ate or drank.
‘Do you know what it means?’ Stella took too large a mouthful of tea and burned her tongue. Swallowing she panted in cold air.
‘She lied.’ Jack had a milk moustache.
‘Yes, obviously, but how did she get away with it? How could so glaring a discrepancy not have been spotted? How many villagers were at that opening?’
‘Easy peasy. Although the murder got national attention, it was brief. The Royal Wedding saturated the coverage. I’m guessing that in deepest Sussex, the drama was a councillor ripping his best suit when he slipped.’
‘He tore his trousers.’ Stella mimed wiping her lip. Jack ignored her.
‘Don’t get bogged down with detail.’
‘Just as well I do.’ Stella warmed her hands on the china. ‘The police missed it.’ Terry had missed it.
Jack looked more frayed than ever and Stella suspected that unless he had a stock of black shirts and trousers, he wore the same clothes every day. She was nerving herself up to insist that he put on her uniform. In the meantime she had to reserve him for where the client was out or dead. It was not ideal: Jack was too good to be on the subs’ bench. They were discussing the new timings; Jack did not agree that it locked down Rokesmith as suspect.
‘He left his house at ten thirty and arrived at his mother’s at eleven fifteen, then went out again just before midday for wine and returned about twenty minutes later. He didn’t have time.’
‘I tell you he is our best suspect. He could have killed her any time between, say, eleven and two when she was found.’
‘It would have been mad to have agreed to a walk to the river when he was pressed for time. Is that likely?’
‘If he planned to kill her the walk would have been his idea, and he would have intended time to be tight to give him this very alibi.’
‘There were others at the lunch,’ Jack reminded her.
‘Only from twelve thirty after he returned with the wine.’
‘Kate told him she had a headache: why would she agree to a walk when she didn’t feel up to the lunch?’
‘We only have Rokesmith’s word that she had a headache; actually at one point there’s mention it was the son who was ill.’ Stella blew on the tea to cool it.
‘Why are you fixating on the father?’
‘Why aren’t you?’ she retorted.
The glass was steaming up, gradually fading the view to blotches of whites and greens.
‘I’d ask why Mrs Ramsay put herself into the picture when she was miles away and had a cast-iron alibi.’ Jack wiped his mouth on his coat sleeve. ‘What about your Paul?’
‘He’s not my Paul.’ Stella swallowed some tea. Speaking the words out loud made her question the truth of them.
‘By giving that false statement Mrs Ramsay became the key witness. Why did she put herself in the frame?’
‘She made up things all the time, she said her children visited, but a neighbour told me they never do.’ Stella took a gulp of tea; already it was cooling.
‘Maybe the neighbour was wrong.’ Jack murmured. ‘I saw the youngest daughter once and besides when did you last see your mother?’
Stella’s mobile trilled with a private number – Ivan? – and she answered it.
‘It’s Jeanette’s the florist here. You left a message cancelling Mrs Ramsay’s flowers.’
‘Yes, I’m afraid so. ’ Stella shuffled her feet on the wood floor, hot despite the cold temperature. ‘She has died.’
‘I am sorry. Normally we would not take a cancellation except from the sender but in the circumstances… I take it the sender knows of Mrs Ramsay’s death?’
‘She can’t cancel them herself.’ Stella could not resist it.
‘Mr Jack Harmon pays for the flowers. Are you in touch with him?’
The summerhouse swooped. Stella gripped her mug, spilling tea on her lap. ‘Yes I am.’
‘Perhaps you wouldn’t mind informing Mr Harmon that we will stop his order and please pass on our condolences for his sad loss.’
Stella put the phone back in her pocket. Jack was draping a skein of milk skin on the rim of his mug, not looking at her.
‘Reasons she would have lied. One: she didn’t want anyone to know where she really was. Two: she was covering for someone.’ Stella struggled out of the deckchair and rubbed the glass in one of the windows. ‘Rokesmith, maybe. Maybe she was having an affair with him. Or with you,’ she added, turning round.
Jack’s fingers were like raw chipolatas. She would have to get him gloves; she could not risk him damaging his hands. Terry’s gloves would fit, but were brown and Jack might insist on black. She should make him wear green: his best way of solving the problem was to tackle it head on.
‘She was forty-eight and he was in his thirties,’ Jack protested. He fell silent.
Stella did not want to think of Mrs Ramsay having an affair. ‘It happens.’ She imagined Mrs Ramsay bored by a precise civil engineer. ‘We should crack on. This evening we’ll get a takeaway and head over to mine and get up to speed with the notes. No use speculating, let’s comb through what the police thought they knew. Already we’ve uncovered a crucial error.’
‘I can’t tonight, I’m busy.’
‘I’ll pay you.’ She had not meant to say that.
‘I’m still busy.’ Jack stalked off up the path.
Stella returned to the sitting room.
Five hours later, Stella hauled down some of the cartons and plastic sacks that she had stacked on the landing the day before. She emptied the contents of Mrs
Ramsay’s linen cupboard, her stacks of unused sheets and stuffed them in rubbish bags. Jack had been right. Gina Cross wanted it all got rid of.
The smell of a horsehair blanket put Stella in mind of her nana.
It was never explained to her why Terry had stopped taking her to stay with his mother. The reason, she learnt later, was simple: her nana had died. Stella did not remember this but did remember her nana allowing her milky tea like a grown-up and counting up the buttons in her button box. Terry must have bagged up his mother’s bedding as Stella was doing. Maybe he had cleared her flat and chucked out the objects that lose value once their owner is gone: indifferent, outdated crockery that will never come round again, keepsakes from seaside towns and horsehair blankets smelling of camphor. The blankets were rough and heavy; their weight strained the plastic, splitting it. Stella could only manage one bag at a time. In the hall she could not see or hear Jack and after the third trip stopped at the top of the basement stairs and called: ‘Jack?’
No answer.
‘Jack?’ Louder. He must still be in a huff. Like Paul, he was too sensitive, perhaps due to the business of the green.
The back door was unlocked. She peered out. Beside her was the fire escape – black, ugly and, Mrs Ramsay believed, an invitation to thieves – it ended on a flagged area outside the children’s playroom that, never getting sun, was coated in moss but was now hidden beneath inches of snow. Jack was not on the metal stairway.
To her right, marks on the door frame tracked the heights of the three Ramsay children. When Stella had pointed them out, Mrs Ramsay had wrung her hands in her odd way and lamented that Lucian was not like his father. Stella had presumed she was talking about height.
Stella was as tall as Terry.
She was about to lock the door when she saw Jack huddled by the side of the summerhouse where brambles and weeds had been left to grow because Mrs Ramsay had wanted a place for the bees. He was rubbing something against his trousers. Stella could not make out what it was. He held it up to the light and then put it in his pocket. She would have to explain that ‘Finders’ was not ‘Keepers’, a phrase she had not used since she was little. She supposed it had occurred to her now because Mrs Ramsay had said that the wooded spot in which Jack was standing statue-still was perfect for children to hide.
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