In Black Lion Lane Stella trod gingerly; she could not afford to break an ankle. Even when Sarah Glyde’s house was in sight, Stella did not let herself increase her pace. Jack, his coat unbuttoned, flapped ahead of her, silhouetted against the lamplight like a great bat.
Stella gave the knocker two sharp raps. She craned up, certain that she would not like to live in such a large house on her own. Mrs Ramsay had managed it by filling her draughty home with dead people and making up others for company – except she had not made up everyone: Jack was real.
‘You made it! Come out of this perishing cold!’ Sarah Glyde ushered them in.
Jack stepped into the light and Sarah Glyde stopped smiling. The moment was brief and, shaking her hand, Stella decided her impression that the woman had for a moment been terrified was mistaken.
38
Thursday, 20 January 2011
They parted outside Sarah Glyde’s house and again Jack refused a lift. This time she did not argue; she knew where to find him. Neither of them suggested a debrief about the meeting; since the afternoon, despite a slight improvement in his mood at the statue, Jack had been heavy and sullen and Stella was as keen to part with him as he seemed to be with her. Jonathan Rokesmith might have been his friend, but if they stood a chance of solving the case he had to put his own feelings to one side and be professional.
They arranged that Jack would be at Stella’s flat the next afternoon; he was busy in the morning. Stella stopped herself pointing out that he had said he only did late shifts on the Underground. Jack was one of those people who liked to weave a mystery around themselves to appear interesting, so she would not indulge him by quizzing him.
Jack set off down the path to Hammersmith Bridge; he would have to double back, perhaps via the Great West Road. Grasping gateposts, walls, even hedge branches, Stella snailed her way along Black Lion Lane.
Every few paces she checked behind, as she had done on the way to Sarah Glyde’s, looking out for Paul. Jack would not be suspicious were he watching. Paul’s silence since her visit to his flat was making her nervous. Just before the ramp, she clambered over a mound of snow in the gutter and hid behind a four-wheel drive.
Jack would pass by on her right; she was ready to move around the large vehicle to avoid him. She arched her back to alleviate the stiffness. She had concentrated on the Rokesmith case over the past week so had not picked up cleaning shifts which she relied on for exercise; she was out of condition. She gave up and stepped into the road.
Jack was by the Bell Steps. He was staring at her. She had been stupid: he had reeled out his line, let her swim towards the bait, now he was winding her in.
He moved and she realized he was facing the other way and had not seen her. She took her chance and, careless of injury, scooted into the subway.
It took Stella ten minutes to stumble through the snow and ice to St Peter’s Square, by which time she had decided what to do about Jack.
39
Thursday, 20 January 2011
After the Clean Slate people had gone, Sarah Glyde went outside without sufficient warm clothes. She did not think Antony would visit now, yet she hesitated on the brick coping step, her lungs hit by cold air. A thick mist lowered the sky and shrouded the river. The country was complaining about productive hours lost, injuries, traffic jams, car accidents and cancelled trains. As she had told Antony, the white-out afforded an opportunity for meditation. She had cleared a path to the garden wall by smashing up one of the blocks of salt she kept for children’s sculpture classes and sprinkling it on the bricked surface but had left snow on the path to her studio so she would know if Antony had been there. With enough work she could sit tight and share in the joyful spirit of those adults who had taken to the hills on tea trays and – willing huskies – dragged their offspring on toboggans through streets to stock up on provisions. These people had souls; Sarah was not alone.
She had willed him to come to her and tonight he had; the strength of her powers scared her. He was called Jack Harmon and would come to her house every week. She would not tell Antony; he would spoil it.
She had planned to go out to the studio and continue with Jack Harmon’s head. She felt naughty; her mother would have disapproved and if he appeared Antony would tell her it was too cold, too late, she should take more care. The idea that she was flouting their authority should not have mattered to a woman in her fifties, but old habits die hard and the fact that her behaviour lacked parental sanction added spice to her decision.
She leant on the garden wall and damp crept through her father’s Aran jumper, making her bones ache; she pulled the cuffs over her hands, hugging herself, comforted by the ghost of his smell.
Her mother had been dead ten years, her father longer, but still Sarah’s sense of freedom was tenuous. She jealously guarded her slivers of independence: people came to the studio as models; when the piece was fired, their relationship, such as it was, ended. They paid for their time with her.
Jack was different. Sarah was prepared to pay a high price for him.
With no buildings there were few lights on this stretch of the Thames. The surface of the river was black as oil; slick and treacherous. On the horizon it reflected the kindling lights of Hammersmith Bridge like stars leaping, vanishing and reappearing when chill gusts whipped the water. The whoosh of traffic on the Great West Road was in counterpoint to an irregular tink-tink at the river’s edge of a bottle washing back and forth on the encroaching tide, tipped against a brick jutting out of the mud. The insidious sound was a warning to those who ate, drank and were merry in the cafés, pubs and clubs of London amidst the rigour and tumult of the city, that mortality awaited them as it had their forebears. The metronomic sound pointed up the hubris of human endeavour as mere flotsam and jetsam. The river had flowed when hansom cabs, broughams and horses dragging carts log-jammed the thoroughfares of London. The tide came in. The tide went out.
The man was there again. Sarah’s euphoria ebbed with the tide. He was by the shoreline, negotiating the slippery stones, squelching through mud with the poise of a dancer, behaving as if the terrain was his own. Sarah ripped at the fronds of ivy, their leaves stiff with ice, and the man looked around. She kept still. He continued to the yacht club pontoon.
It was never truly dark in London and she could make out that he was by the shallows, letting water wash around his ankles, unafraid of the river. Sarah imagined the freezing water parting for him as for Canute.
She went into her studio and, leaving the light off, made her way to her work table. She switched on her mother’s standard lamp. The colours of the shade were dulled with clay dust and sunlight. The cloth was draped like a veil over Jack Harmon’s unformed head.
Antony’s visit had cast a pall over her studio, his presence a contamination. She needed to air the place. Jack Harmon would make the house finally hers.
She whipped off the material with a waiter’s flourish and perched on her stool. The light illuminated only her corner of the room; the rest was in shadow. She did not need to see to create his features; she could have worked blindfolded.
The river filled. The relentless pull and draw of the tide hitting slime-hung walls gave a base rhythm as, methodically, mechanically, Sarah Glyde worked on.
The face that gazed back at her in the blue light of dawn was a face she had not seen for thirty years.
40
Thursday, 20 January 2011
Someone was leaning on the bonnet. Stella, cursing under her breath that she had parked outside Terry’s house, crept forward. Her steps squeaked on the crisp ground. At any moment the man – she was sure it was a man – would come over and search the bushes. She lowered a branch.
It was Paul.
Stella struggled to her feet. If Terry were here he would send him away. She was grateful he was alright.
If Paul had been following her, he would have been outside Sarah Glyde’s house. Perhaps he had not liked to confront Stella with Jack there – he would
n’t want a fight – but as soon as they separated he might have tackled her and he had not. He could not have been following her. Paul had expected to find her clearing Terry’s belongings; he knew her well enough to be certain that, anxious not to lose time in the office, she would come in the evenings. Seeing her van, he must have congratulated himself on being right. Jackie was right, if Stella bothered to get to know people she would feel the benefit. Stella appreciated this pearl of wisdom, although not in the way intended. Had she taken the trouble to know Paul she would have anticipated that he would become too involved and avoided him.
He looked frozen. Stella guessed he had been there for some time.
She thought back to how Paul had been by the river. She had been relieved that Jack – and there was little about him that reassured – had seen him off. For a split second she had been convinced that Paul would kill her. It was an extraordinary idea: he was mild-mannered, cowardly and indecisive. Or so she had assumed. Such an underestimation of the capabilities of a lover or an ex-lover could cost a person their life. Paul had been in the area on the day of the murder. She should grill him, but to do so alone in the dark was plain stupid. Why had he not gone to the police? Terry had said murderers returned to the scene of their crime; supposing Paul had not followed her to the river, but was going there anyway? She pulled a face; having an open mind was doing her no favours.
Paul was keeping vigil; it was not Stella herself he wanted, he wanted to stop her discovering the truth. The van told him she was there, or that if she was not, that she would return.
She could go up Black Lion Lane, take a left into the square by the Cross Keys and get to the Rokesmiths’ house from the north side. It would take her fifteen minutes with the snow. That was too long; Jack would come any minute.
Paul would see him.
She should warn Jack. Or should she warn Paul?
Jack had lied. He had not told her he was a train driver or that he had known Jonathan Rokesmith; he had promised that they would be a team, but did not answer her calls or do what they had agreed.
Paul was fiddling with an object; Stella saw too late that it was his phone as her own handset buzzed. She had five seconds before it would ring, faintly first, then louder. Frantic, she scrunched up her anorak, feeling for it; she had too many pockets.
She found it, but dared not take it out, or Paul would hear. She fumbled at the keys, sliding the flat of her thumb over them. All the time the harp melody she had assigned to Paul’s number was increasing in volume. She found the mute button. She was sweating in the padded jacket and, wiping her face, dared to shuffle on her haunches to ease her muscles.
Tinny chatter came through her gloved fingers and she held the handset close to prevent light penetrating the bushes. Paul’s name was on the screen. Digits counted up: 30 secs, 31 secs… She had not cut off the call, she had answered it.
Stella closed the line but too late; Paul was walking towards her. She was unable to move. She had to maintain a sense of proportion; it was Paul, he could not kill anyone; and surely not her. She shut her eyes. The phone buzzed again; she let it go to voicemail.
When she opened them Paul was by her van, cupping his hands around his face to peer inside. He tried the doors and then to her horror resumed his position by Terry’s gate. He was going nowhere.
She scrambled along the undergrowth until she reached the edge of the flower beds. Ahead was the subway. She cleared her throat quietly before she dialled Paul’s number.
He answered: ‘I’ve been trying to get you. Why were you ignoring me? I knew you were there all the time.’
‘I didn’t hear it ring.’ Stella knew she did not sound convincing.
‘I know you’re in there. Your van’s outside.’
Paul spoke coldly. If Stella had not been able to hear his voice carrying across the snowbound street she would have doubted it was him. There was a nasty edge to his voice.
‘I’m at the pub, the one by the river,’ she replied without thinking.
‘I can’t hear anyone.’
‘I’m on my own.’
‘It’s open just for you, is it?’
‘No, I mean, I’m outside. That’s why I didn’t hear you ring. I came to check my messages and saw you had called.’
‘Nice of you to call back. Is he with you?’
‘No.’ This bit was true. ‘Why don’t you go home?’ He would know she was lying if she agreed to meet him. Paul understood her better than she did him.
‘I’m coming. We need to talk; I need to explain.’
‘I won’t be there.’ Without intending to, Stella rang off.
She flitted into the shadow of the trees. They would not hide her if he looked her way, but Paul was running to the subway looking at the ground. Near the statue he skidded but recovered himself. He might have spotted Jack and Stella’s footprints leading from the van towards the river, but he was no detective.
As soon as he entered the subway, Stella broke cover and crunched over the frozen turf to St Peter’s Square. The steps up to number 49 were covered in snow: Jack had not been back. Her own footprints would give her away. There was no other way to the front door, except the surprise element was essential. She looked wistfully over at Mrs Ramsay’s house, dark and empty, next door.
She still had her keys. In a snap decision, Stella walked as if on a tightrope at the edge of the path, leaning into the hedge dividing Mrs Ramsay’s garden from what had been the Rokesmiths’ thirty years before. Inside the porch she took a stride to the doormat and, peeping around the column, checked behind her. A halo of light had formed around the lamp-post beside the park and within this shapes appeared and disappeared. It was snowing again.
Her prints would be covered.
Inside the tang of cleaning agents sharpened the still air. In the light from the landing windows the balustrade coiled into the darkness. Her heart crashing against her chest, Stella began to ascend, gripping the beeswaxed wood. After her experience at Terry’s house she was relieved to find the doors on the first landing still shut as she had left them. In the sitting room the partition doors were open wide; the French windows lit the sweep of polished space on which Mrs Ramsay had danced the night away.
There would be no more parties, she had informed Stella on her last visit, implying it was punishment. Stella had become a stand-in for one of Isabel Ramsay’s children just as the vacuum hose had been her substitute dancing partner, so the punishment was intended for the children. Perhaps, after all, her mind had been going; Stella had heard it said that presuming your family were stealing from you was an indication of dementia. Mrs Ramsay’s agitated search for the dolls’ house fitted this picture.
The glass in the French doors was so clean it was invisible. She had done this room. She was still good.
Outside she could not see Jack or Paul.
All the doors on the top floor were ajar. Stella had purposely closed them to cut down the risk of fire spreading. She felt panic rising; Jack had no reason to come here; she had taken the top floors. Had he broken in after all?
He kept insisting that Mrs Ramsay invited him. For some reason Stella believed this. She tried to stop the jumble of questions and doubts: perhaps she was going mad herself. Jackie said grieving could make you mad; Stella had wanted to say she was not grieving.
A scattering of grit lay on the carpet at the top of the stairs. She had cleaned the landing so the only way it could have got there was through an open window. The landing window across the stairwell was nailed shut and even if it had been possible to open it, the grit was only in one area. If it had come through the window it would be on the stairs too.
She had forgotten the attic. Her least favourite job, it had slipped her mind, as it had at Terry’s, even though she had longed to have a go at it when she cleaned at Mrs Ramsay’s. For some reason Mrs Ramsay never included it in her lists.
Stella gave the hatch a push and caught it as it swung down; peeping over the hole was a wooden ladder.
She tried not to think of the last time she had climbed into an attic but already a cold fear was uncoiling. The wooden rungs strained when she put weight on them, but held. She was surprised to find no dust; the ladder was tacky as if it had been wiped down.
Stella poked her head through the hole, cautiously, blood hammering in her head. There was something attached to a vertical support. She went all the way up and gingerly stepped on the joists. It was a Bakelite switch; she flicked it and filled the loft with light.
Piles of boxes, books, riding hats, a child’s scooter and roller skates were amongst heaps of clothes, the material greyed with dust. The attic was a dumping ground for broken or discarded objects: the clobber of living. Here were the toys Mrs Ramsay had insisted her children had lost: a deflated Space Hopper, a child’s painting of an aeroplane flying over fields, a naked Sindy doll and, behind a rickety wheelchair, a gigantic house. She had found the dolls’ house, but it was too late.
Someone had laid down boards and moved boxes and bags to create a walkway; Stella followed this makeshift path and got an answer to her question.
Jack had not needed a key or an invitation to Mrs Ramsay’s house. Once he had broken into the Rokesmiths’ house next door, he could come and go from Mrs Ramsay’s as he pleased.
There was no fire wall.
41
Thursday, 20 January 2011
Paul Bramwell had spent the evening drinking Famous Grouse, a Christmas present from his brother, and – adept at adopting motives to disguise real ones – convinced himself he needed to clear his head. As soon as he’d left his flat he knew he really wanted to see Stella. He knew also that he had drunk too much to drive, although for a moment the smack of night air fooled him that he was sober. Still he hesitated: the side roads were not gritted, he could not afford to lose his ‘no claims’.
The Detective's Daughter Page 28