‘What happened to your hand?’ The blood on his knuckles had not been there at Sarah Glyde’s.
‘I slipped.’
‘You were lucky not to break your wrist.’
Jonathan Rokesmith had known Mrs Ramsay all his life. He had not been an intruder; she had invited him; they were on first-name terms. He did not work for her. Stella dismissed these thoughts. She had liked working for Mrs Ramsay.
‘Do the neighbours know who you are?’
‘Only Isabel; it was our secret. The rest know me as Jack Harmon. I keep myself to myself. Of course your dad suspected.’
Stella swallowed tea. The liquid travelled like a fireball to her stomach.
‘You spoke to Terry?’
‘I got rid of him.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘He knocked on the door about two months ago, asking for Jonathan Rokesmith. I told him I had moved in recently so couldn’t help. Being a detective, he asked about Isabel and kept me talking. Isabel wouldn’t speak to him. Like you she avoided the police.’
‘Terry didn’t guess who you were?’
‘He worked it out.’
‘I doubt that.’
‘Out of the blue he asked me if I had seen Our Mutual Friend on the telly. I said no. He asked if my parents had named me after the character, John Harmon. He knew who I was.’ Jack drank the rest of his tea. ‘I rather admired him for that.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘You would not have known what to say. You would have been awkward, like everyone else. We would have got nowhere.’ He took their empty mugs over to the sink.’
‘I’m not everyone else.’
‘Yes, I know that now.’ He had his back to Stella. ‘I don’t want sympathy.’
‘I’m not sympathetic.’
Jack washed the mugs and dried them. He replaced them on the shelf next to the others. ‘I don’t trust anyone.’
‘Fair enough. Not sure I would if I were you,’ Stella replied peaceably. ‘Nor do I,’ she added.
In the strained features of the thirty-three-year-old man, she saw the ghost of little Jonathan Rokesmith with his unfathomable brown eyes and home-made haircut.
‘Terry must have discovered that the house had not changed hands since Kate’s death. The press gave the impression it had been sold and the family moved away. He worked out I was Jonathan Rokesmith. He knew my name was John Harmon, probably from the electoral roll. What’s more he had met me before – albeit thirty years ago. Terry did not forget faces.’
Jack emptied the tea leaves into the bin. Stella looked up from her phone, absently registering that like Mrs Ramsay Jack did not use tea bags. Paul had still not called; it was not like him.
‘The house came to me when my mother was murdered. My dad had put it in her name when he started his business to exclude it as an asset if anything went wrong. Wise move because of course everything went wrong.’
‘That would be a reason for him to kill her. He would get it back.’
‘You will not find a motive any more than your dad could. Stop trying.’
Jack was surely mistaken. Terry would not have made the connection between the two names. Plodding up the stairs behind him, she asked: ‘Did Terry tackle you about your name?’
‘He pretended to take me at my word.’ Jack stood aside to let Stella into his study.
The small room was filled by a large desk, with a chair and an armchair. Stella relaxed.
‘When he did not come back, I was surprised. I’m rarely wrong.’ He turned on his laptop, and added gently: ‘I read about his death on the BBC website.’
‘That must have been a relief.’ Stella did not want Jack’s sympathy any more than he wanted hers.
‘Far from it. I regretted I wasn’t honest the first time. Between us all maybe we could have got somewhere.’
‘Where exactly would that have been?’
‘He wanted you to help – Peterson as good as said that.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘You heard Peterson. He wasn’t surprised to see you. Terry had talked about you. He wanted to show you where he grew up.’
‘I should go. Are you still going to work for Clean Slate, or was that just a ruse to get to me?’ Stella could not move.
‘It was.’ Jack pushed back his hair. ‘There’s no doubt where your priorities lie!’ He liked that about her. ‘I’ll go on with Sarah Glyde; we might learn something.’ He had a feeling about the middle-aged potter, but would say nothing until he had evidence. Stella liked facts.
‘What about Ivan Challoner?’
‘How does he fit into this?’
‘He is expecting it to be you that comes.’ Ivan would not care who came to clean but Stella did not say this. Ivan would, however, demand the best.
‘We’d better not let him down then.’ Jack tapped in his password and the laptop sprang to life. ‘Can’t have you doing his cleaning.’
‘He’s just a client.’ Stella knew no more about Ivan than she had about Paul but liked herself better when she was with him. Ivan made people relax; he wanted them to be happy. Suddenly she understood. ‘She knew him.’
‘Who?’ Jack looked up.
‘Your mother. She knew her killer. She didn’t put up a fight because she did not expect him to attack her. She didn’t take him seriously until it was too late.’
‘You said, but it wasn’t my dad.’
‘OK, for argument’s sake, suppose it wasn’t Hugh Rokesmith, but I am sure she knew her attacker.’
‘How can you be so certain?’ Jack got up and, making up twists of newspaper, began arranging them around logs in a small grate.
‘That other night at the river, I was so relieved when it was Paul, I knew he would not hurt me, but I was way off. If you hadn’t turned up I don’t know how far he would have gone. He is an obsessive.’ Why had she gone out with Paul?
‘What were you doing with him if he was obsessive?’ Jack asked.
He could read her thoughts. Was that the mind of a murderer? She thought not.
‘I assumed he was a normal everyday computer engineer. He took my computer apart without fuss, diagnosed the problem and screwed everything back into place. After he had gone, it was as good as new.’
‘From such minute considerations is love kindled. You think my father was like Paul?’ Jack lit a match and hovered the flame beneath a chunk of firelighter.
‘We said we’d leave your dad out for a minute. Your mother recognized her killer so did not put up a fight. I’m sure she had gone there to meet someone she knew. Don’t you remember any more than her banging her head? Think!’
‘How much do you remember from when you were four?’ Jack fixed a sheet of newspaper over the fireplace. ‘He had on his best blue gum boots. There was a problem with the Leaning Woman and his mummy had promised to look after her but she didn’t.’ Jack watched the newsprint glow orange as oxygen fed the flames.
The newspaper caught alight and flaming scraps floated out into the room. Stella rushed forward and, flailing, sent them towards the fire. Leaping flames licked up and snatched them.
Jack had not moved.
‘So he didn’t save his mummy,’ he finished.
From the hall below came the steady ticking of the grandfather clock.
‘You saved me from Paul,’ Stella offered eventually. ‘You were a kid, what were you supposed to do?’
Jack went to his desk. ‘OK, who have we got? Paul, Mark Ramsay and I’ll add my father for your sake.’
‘There’s also the wild card.’
‘Like the Joker?’ He frowned.
‘The person no one has thought of: a woman, for instance.’
‘We have to stick to the facts, you know that. Add whoever Terry suspected.’
‘That was your dad.’ Stella was apologetic.
‘No, I don’t think it was.’ Jack stared at his screensaver: the statue beside St Peter’s Church, taken from the ground up t
hrough the crook in her arm. It was a child’s perspective. ‘I think Terry had a new lead. When Peterson mentioned the steam engine I remembered it. Bright red metal, made by Triang and in its original box. He was right, it was special: not the sort of toy for a kid. I drove it into the river.’
‘What about your Uncle Tony? Maybe you didn’t make him up.’ Stella was being sympathetic, but hid this from Jack.
‘What are you talking about?’ he snapped. She was rubbish at pretending.
Stella blundered on: ‘Maybe there was an Uncle Tony. Peterson thought the boy was trying to be like him, but that doesn’t explain making up pretend relatives.’
‘Both my parents were only children. I don’t have any uncles.’
‘Concentrate! Was there a Tony?’
‘There was no Tony.’ He went to the fire and rearranged a stick; placing it in the centre of the flames then he returned to the desk.
‘Was there another person that morning apart from you and your mum?’
‘The Lady.’ Jack tapped the keyboard and up came Google Street View displaying a street in Stanwell. ‘The Leaning Woman told them to stay with her but his mummy ignored her and kept on going down the ramp.’
‘Jack, now you are being weird.’ It was best to tackle his behaviour head on. ‘We’re talking about you, stop saying “he”.’
‘You sound like your dad.’
‘I sound dead on my feet. I’m going to bed. Don’t forget you’re at Sarah Glyde’s tomorrow – today. I’ll complete Mrs Ramsay’s. We’ll go to my flat when you finish and take stock. Come for me next door. Or are you “busy”?’
‘I’m on annual leave for two weeks. I’m all yours.’
When Stella opened the front door, wind blasted into the hall and snowflakes fluttered on to the wrinkled kilim.
It was a blizzard. She struggled through the swirling mass and only when she climbed into her van at Rose Gardens North did she think of Paul. She scanned the area, but he was nowhere to be seen.
At Chiswick High Road, it occurred to Stella that she had not asked Jack if he had liked Terry, either when Terry had come to the Rokesmith house or when Jack was little. She had not asked if Jack had noticed if her dad had seemed unwell. Presumably he had not noticed anything wrong with him because he had expected him to return. She did no more than twenty miles an hour on the deserted road to avoid skidding.
Jack, like Stella, had not expected Terry to die.
44
Friday, 21 January 2011
Sarah tidied up before Jack arrived. Antony would laugh at her for cleaning for the cleaner. She explained to her absent brother as she scrubbed at a pan, excavating years of burnt food, that a cleaner was not there to do her washing up or tidy up after her. Yet as she scoured her blackened cooking utensils, rinsing a film of grease off glassware with scalding water, cleaning for Jack Harmon was precisely what she was doing. Sarah would hide from Jack how careless of hygiene she was.
Antony had a dishwasher; if it broke he got in an engineer.
You solve your problems with a phone call and a cheque.
She ground the wire pad into the sides of the stewing pot. Calling Clean Slate had been a passing idea that she might have abandoned, but for her brother’s dismissive response.
Shovelling papers and unopened post into the cutlery drawer, she declared to Antony that it had paid off. She had found who she was looking for. She did not care what he thought, she uttered firmly, keeping to herself that she had booked Jack Harmon for the days when Antony was in the country.
This is my house and you are welcome to visit, but only when I invite you.
She chucked out a two-year-old packet of dried apricots and a tin of rock-hard cocoa powder.
I can do what I like.
She flurried about her bedroom, throwing shoes into the wardrobe, hanging her kimono behind the door. She was in the bathroom dusting incense ash off the sill into her palm when there were three knocks on the front door.
Jack Harmon was not talkative. When she invited him to have coffee before he started, he shook his head and got straight to washing down the kitchen cupboards.
Sarah retreated to the sitting room to consider her next move. She could not go to her studio with Harmon in the house. She wanted his photograph and had an hour to obtain it.
She would wait until he was vacuuming the top floor and take him unawares. A photograph was a poor substitute for him modelling for her, but would allow her to study his face and make a sketch which would define him in lines and shade. Asking his permission was out of the question.
Jack was not real to Sarah Glyde. Not until the head under the damp cloth on her work table was complete would he gain life.
She unclipped the lens cap and rubbed the glass and viewfinder with the corner of her blouse, aimed the camera at the marble fireplace that, preferring the intimacy of her studio, she seldom lit. The battery was charged; it was ready.
Jack was in the doorway, his hand poised to knock. His soundless presence reminded her of Antony and she suspected he had been there some time.
‘Miss Glyde, sorry to bother you, but the back room is locked and there’s no key.’
‘Sarah, please.’ She attempted to be airy and tried to hide the camera under a sofa cushion, but it tumbled to the floor. Jack pulled it up by its strap and kept hold of it.
‘I’m sorry if I gave you a start.’
Sarah felt heat rising in her cheeks.
‘It looks OK.’ He turned it over and switched it on. ‘So, the top room?’
She wanted it cleared out and filled with sunshine.
‘It’s not mine.’ Sarah patted her hair, fitting a strand behind her ear that immediately fell forward. ‘ The room. I should have said.’
‘You did say to give everywhere an “overhaul”.’ He repeated her term without mockery, apparently to mollify her.
‘My brother has the key – it’s his old bedroom. He’s older than me. It’s ridiculous but that still counts so there’s nothing I can do about it.’
‘Not a problem.’ The lens zoomed out; Jack retracted it.
‘Tony has his own house. Two actually.’ Sarah could not stop herself and offloaded oft-rehearsed phrases of injustice like ballast. ‘One in London where he works and a country cottage, yet he still has his room in my house. It shouldn’t matter because there’s loads of space. My mother took his side, you see. She believed he was fragile and needed extra support. He could eat what he liked, while she rationed my food because it was family lore that I was fat. He never put on weight. The silliest things upset one, don’t they?’
‘It’s working.’ Jack handed her the camera.
‘I’ll have a word and see what he wants doing.’ As she said the throwaway line, Sarah imagined that this was possible. She had only to say: I want it as a guest room.
You don’t have guests.
That’s because I don’t have a room for them.
It’s my room.
Dad said it could be mine when you left.
He’s dead. I’m in charge now.
‘Let me know when you want me to do in there.’
Sarah sank on to the sofa. Jack had switched the camera to display mode and his clay head, its shape defined, his jaw kneaded and moulded, was on the screen. She had smoothed the clay, working and reworking it, wiping it down, shaping it; caressing it. This would be her best creation. Jack Harmon must have seen it.
Jack Harmon. The name was familiar. She gazed at the face, the unformed features ghostly in the poorly lit image, seeking to reassure herself that Jack could not have recognized himself. Few recognized their own beauty.
She heard squirts of an aerosol, bumps and scrapes: above her Jack was shifting furniture in her mother’s room. Her bed – single once Sarah’s father had died – squeaked and rumbled as he manoeuvred it. Stella Darnell was right, he was thorough. The vacuum motor droned, overlaid with taps of the nozzle probing along the skirting boards.
By the time Sarah had
nerved herself to creep on to the landing and up the stairs, Jack was in the bathroom. The window was painted shut and, like Antony’s bedroom, it overlooked the river. He had the best view in the house.
Keeping out of the way of the door, she confronted the vacuum: one of those red spherical machines with eyes and a mouth on its body. It was coy, grinning at her from the sink pedestal, its tube snaking out of sight. The lavatory lid banged.
He was using the lavatory. Sarah wanted to see him pissing. She wanted to hear him. She wanted that knowledge of him. Switching on the camera, she raised it to her face and inched closer.
Jack was standing on the lavatory seat with his back to her, his face pressed to the bathroom window set high in the little room, which unlike the lower panes was not frosted.
In the mirror above the sink Sarah had a perfect shot of his profile. She snapped, once, twice and then a third time. The shutter made no sound. She ran down the stairs, out of the house and into the studio where she collapsed on her work desk, panting and heaving to get her breath, exhilarated by her temerity.
Only when she had printed the pictures and placed them in a folder marked ‘Suppliers’ – that Antony would never pry into – did it occur to her to wonder what Jack Harmon had been doing. What was he so interested in looking at?
After he had gone she went up to the bathroom. The ceramic sparkled; the limescale that had stained the bath since her mother died had gone, as had the grime around the pipework. The taps shone. The room looked as it had when her father was alive.
The lid was still closed. Gripping the downpipe on the overhead cistern, Sarah climbed on to the lavatory. Below her, the river flickered with black and silver when wind rippled its surface. It was low tide, the muddy shore was exposed; she craned down, but could not see what had attracted Jack Harmon’s attention.
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