‘It was nearly a fortnight ago. I’m going through his stuff. It’s taking a while.’
‘If only we could step off this world with no fuss and paperwork.’ Ivan spoke with feeling. ‘I prefer to think of death as a transition, not so much an “after-life” as “another-life”. Our loved ones never leave us. Or so I feel. We find our own way.’
‘He had copied the files for a murder. It’s not allowed but it happens. It must have got to him. Detectives – most police officers probably – are on the lookout for people they didn’t catch or who got off. They can’t let it go. Terry – that’s my dad – was obsessed with the Rokesmith case.’
‘I can relate to that,’ Ivan agreed. ‘I dwell on treatment I might have done differently, or better, particularly if a patient goes against my advice. I’m with your father, I like to see a job to completion. I lie awake at night roaming people’s mouths, picturing the perfect operation that has eluded me. With a crime it must be worse.’ He ate the last of his croissant and wiped his hands on his paper napkin.
Stella was relieved he did not appear to judge Terry for committing an illegal act. She had taken a risk telling him. The problem of clearing out Terry belongings became less onerous as it receded into the business of normal life. It had happened to Ivan. She went on: ‘It was famous at the time, you may have heard of it.’
‘Doesn’t ring bells.’
Stella had decided Ivan Challoner was in his fifties, but his tall figure was trim and muscular, he moved with the suppleness of a younger man. A skilled dentist, he was detached from the basic and disagreeable; the Rokesmith murder had received national attention, yet Ivan had missed it.
‘A young woman called Katherine Rokesmith was out with her son. It’s likely he was there when she died. In those days a detective superintendent from Scotland Yard appointed a local team of detectives including sergeants and detective constables. My father was the senior investigating officer and handled the operational side. Although he wasn’t formally in charge, he was on the ground and so responsible. Career-wise it was a break, except he did not find the killer.’
‘I see.’ Ivan put down the napkin, folding it. ‘He receives credit if he gets his man and plenty of recrimination if he does not. Damned if you do etc. So you have taken over the mantle and are bent on solving it for him. What a good daughter.’
Stella felt awkward. Ivan presumed she was a much nicer person than she was. He thought only the best of people.
‘I got drawn in.’ She cast about. ‘The police are doing nothing, the file is “put away”, as they call it, and no one, apart from Terry, has opened it for decades. There’s no DNA, no murder weapon and no clues of worth. The police can’t tie up valuable resources looking for a needle in a haystack. Now my dad has gone too.’
‘I see.’ Ivan was gazing at Stella. ‘Do you think you can succeed? Don’t mistake my question: I have more faith in you than in the average Met detective. In a short time I have gained an impression of you as resourceful and intelligent; nevertheless Kate was strangled many moons ago. I’d hate you to set yourself up for failure. We can’t answer for the sins of our fathers. We must lead our own lives. The one perk of being “orphaned” is that one is free to be oneself.’
Ivan had never spoken so personally and Stella did not after all dislike it. Nor had she noticed how blue his eyes were.
‘I’m not sure I can solve it, although I have found fresh evidence. I think that Terry had a new lead, which I may be close to discovering.’
Ivan offered Stella a lift. Her first instinct was to refuse, but in the last hour she had begun to see the Rokesmith case as no longer a stifling dream from which she could not escape. Ivan was interested. Besides, the visit to the station had lowered her spirits and she wanted his company a while longer. She also wanted to get back quickly; the weather had caused delays on public transport. In Ivan’s big swish car she could be at her flat in twenty minutes.
As they joined the Great West Road and edged out into the third lane, Stella described the visit to Bishopstone the day before and told Ivan about finding Terry’s camera.
She did not tell him about Jonathan Rokesmith.
52
Sunday, 23 January 2011
At midday Jack was in Stanwell.
He walked each page of the A–Z in order and, apart from one slip, did not skip numbers to get to the areas he preferred. He did not impose significance on numbers where there was none. It would not help to return to what he had missed, the secret would be apparent only if he faithfully traversed the path of each journey. A true reader understands that the only way to appreciate a story is to read each word, from the start to the end.
Over the months Jack had been soaked by rain and stung by sleet; he had greeted streaks of dawn light as he took a left or a right to stay on the path drawn. He’d slithered on footpaths, avoided sick, dog shit and litter. Wind tore at his clothes as he battled across grass, tarmac and the wasteland depicted on his map as blank space. Walking, Jack was never somewhere.
He was nowhere.
One by one he had walked the pages – and today he was on the last one.
He had passed the Hammersmith and City exit minutes before Stella was about to go down the steps after her visit to Martin Cashman. Neither saw the other, although they were so close. When a man stepped in front of Jack, forcing him to give way and without apology ran down the stairs, Jack considered going after him. The man’s indifference was what he looked for in the perfect Host. But Jack had spent months working towards this final journey in the atlas; he would not change plans.
He wished he had not told Stella about the street atlas. She was a police officer’s daughter; she relied on evidence, not fanciful thinking; he worried it had put her off.
Before he found the book, Jack had not had much use for an A–Z. In his driver’s cab the tracks were his guide. But over time the atlas had offered him another way to achieve his quest.
The marked-out routes were a set of instructions: the area of Inner and Greater London was divided into a grid of 144 squares. The numbered grids followed the western reading pattern: from left to right, then down to the next line. A convention broken at square 142, which along with 143 and 144, was tagged on to the left of the grid covering Uxbridge, West Drayton and Stanwell respectively. Of these districts, only Uxbridge was familiar to Jack because it had an Underground station.
Jack had been walking for two and a half hours but did not know this because when he was tracing a route he wore no watch. He did not need to measure time. He had passed the new Terminal Five building at Heathrow, which in his 1995 deluxe edition was described as the ‘Proposed Terminal Five Development Area’. He was on Clockhouse Lane.
This was long and for the most part straight, a line of tarmac demarcated by snow heaped in the gutters. He stayed on the left where he could make out a pavement beneath the snow. He kept hard by the link fence to avoid spray from speeding cars. He had not met another pedestrian but was accompanied by a set of footprints going in the same direction. Whoever had passed this way was not in sight.
The top of the fence was strung with three lengths of barbed wire. On both sides of the lane was scrubland; today a landscape of white mounds. The map depicted a lake, and squares representing warehouses. At the junction with the A30 there were playing fields and an industrial estate. He had seen them; he did not stray outside the pen-line.
He reached the white of grass surrounding a lake glittering in the thin light, with trees punctuating the shoreline: vestiges of countryside that would disappear as the city encroached.
He was on the last grid square, the pen-line, firm and competent, went along Clockhouse Lane and trailed off a square with no coordinate. When he stepped off it, he would be invisible.
One step, two step and he was gone.
Jack found himself by metal railings, through which were tennis courts, their nets slackened within a wire enclosure. He unfastened a gate and crunched over to a bench. Clea
ring off snow, he sat down.
Around page twenty Jack had begun to prepare properly for his expeditions. He carried a flask of hot milk and honey and, since he had met Stella, a packet of digestive biscuits. He was strict about where he stopped; there must be no one nearby and if there were, he moved to avoid conversation. He must not be remembered.
He had once loved snow, but now it was his enemy. Stealthy and insistent, it blotted out clues and signs while giving away his own actions. Lost in his coat, the collar up, his damp hair slicked to his head, Jack sipped his milk, savouring the sweetness, but today it did not work its magic. He was not resting in the middle of a journey full of promise, he was at the end of the line and did not know where to go next.
Stella was right, his conviction that the atlas would give him a clue to his mother’s killer was absurd; he was wasting time. He chucked the rest of the milk on to the ground and it hissed a hole, like a wound, in the snow.
He leafed to page 144. In the top right-hand corner – so small he had initially mistaken it for scribble to check if a pen was working – he saw: ‘242’.
Jack rummaged in his pocket for his timetable. He found this week’s shift pattern. The second set number for his last train on Wednesday had been ‘242’. The train Stella boarded on the day he told her he was at school with Kate Rokesmith’s little boy. Was that a sign?
He fitted the little book back into his pocket and felt something cold and hard. His amulet. Even in the flat light the glass glowed green. Suddenly he remembered: that Mummy had tried to swap it for his engine, telling him it would bring him luck. He had insisted on taking the steam engine. As he tried to gather the loose strands, tenuous images dissolved back into the mists of the past.
He stared at page 144, willing it to give up its secret, but perhaps the secret was not his to know. It belonged to a stranger. Perhaps some mysteries were destined to remain unsolved. Jack was overwhelmed with futility; nothing could alter the main event. It had happened and that was that.
Nothing will bring her back.
He would have to look for real signs to get him to a station. He was off the map and could not go back the way he had come.
Still clutching the green glass, he put it to his lips. His mother had been right: about good luck; the talisman had saved his life.
He willed the A–Z to give up its message and as if his wish was granted he saw a wardrobe in his mind, but, trying to hold it, the image evaporated.
Jack had not told Stella that when he found the man who had murdered his mother, he would kill him.
53
Sunday, 23 January 2011
The car splashed through thawing ice into one of the visitors’ bays outside Stella’s flat. There were no other cars. Ivan turned off the engine and the Schumann violin concerto was cut off; Stella half expected it to continue. Cushioned in the heated leather seat, the music and purring engine had the soporific effect of Ivan’s dentist’s chair and the sofa in his sitting room. She relished playing truant with Ivan; not a soul in the world would find her.
‘Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?’
‘That would be lovely, but then I’ll get going, I don’t want to disrupt your Sunday.’
Ivan came to Stella’s side of the car to open her door. When Paul had done this she had been irritated, but Ivan did not do it to impress. She tried not to think about Paul.
The lift pinged. Paul was not dead; a drowned body was easy to misidentify. Stella felt a surge of hope.
A woman yelped when she saw them, and then recovered herself. ‘It’s rare to meet anyone in this ghost of a building!’
Ivan stood aside to allow her out before ducking into the lift.
Stella did not know what led her to introduce herself: ‘I’m Stella Darnell, I live on the fourth floor.’
‘Oh, it’s good to meet a friendly face. I simply never see anyone. Emma Chaplin, second floor, number twenty-five.’ She peeped into the lift where Ivan was scrutinizing the buttons. ‘Lovely to know you’re here!’ As the doors closed, she called out and put out a hand. ‘Isn’t it…?’
Ivan hit the button again, the doors shut and soundlessly the lift ascended.
‘Did you know her?’
‘She might be a patient. They can’t place me, the white coat confuses them.’
Stella suspected Ivan was unhappy she had encouraged conversation. If he did not want people to think they were together he should not be seen with her in public. In the car he had renewed the cancelled dinner invitation and they were meeting at the French restaurant in Kew where the staff no doubt assumed they were a couple.
Once they were in the flat, Ivan brightened.
‘What a splendid place. I long for such peace but only get it in the country. And you are right beside the river. Perfect.’ He was gazing out of the window. ‘I would have thought these properties would be snapped up.’
‘There’s no tube station. Tea or coffee?’
‘Coffee, if you don’t mind. Where’s that camera? I’ll take a look. I’m good with equipment. One has to know about much that’s not directly to do with teeth in my job.’
Stella had forgotten that Ivan’s offer to bring her home had been prompted by her telling him about Terry’s camera.
‘It’s by the kettle.’ She went into the kitchen and unplugged the charger. Ivan was behind her and took the camera. While liking his enthusiasm – she’d taken a risk in confiding in him; he might have judged her absurd for trying to solve a murder – Stella wanted to check the camera herself.
While the coffee brewed she had a twinge of doubt: the Rokesmith case was a project she shared with Jack. He had advised they keep it to themselves and although she had not officially agreed, she had not even told Jackie, whom she could trust. Jack trusted her, but without asking him, she had told Ivan.
The sun was out, the snow was melting; everything seemed possible. Stella was certain that Jack would understand.
She plunged the coffee and placed it on a tray with milk and two mugs. She had no biscuits but doubted she should offer sweet things to a dentist.
Her mobile was ringing. Stella found it on the dining-room table in the living room; she had no memory of putting it there. Ivan sat at Jack’s end of the sofa, fiddling with the camera. Stella saw what Jack had meant about the plastic. Ivan would never cover his furniture with plastic.
It was Jackie. She did not want to speak to Jackie with Ivan listening. Besides, Jackie should not be working at the weekend.
Ivan sighed. ‘No luck, I’m afraid.’
‘You can’t fix it?’
‘The problem lies with the memory card. There ain’t one, m’lud.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘See for yourself.’ He pulled open a flap in the casing to reveal two slots. Stella recognized the one to connect with a computer. The other was long and thin and empty.
‘Your father must have removed it.’ The plastic shrieked as Ivan got to his feet and laid the camera on the table.
‘Or someone else did.’ She would not see the last pictures that Terry had taken. She would not see what he had seen. Stella’s mouth went dry.
‘Extraordinary – why would anyone steal the card but leave the camera?’ Ivan breathed in the steam from his coffee.
‘It is unlikely,’ she agreed.
‘You’ll come across it amongst his belongings. He must have been infuriated to forget it. What about his computer – did you find pictures there?’
‘No. There was only an interview with the witness, a Mrs Ramsay. It doesn’t matter. The whole thing’s a wild-goose chase. I’ll give it up. How can I find a man the police never found?’
‘Why assume it was a man?’ Ivan sipped his coffee and gave an approving smile. ‘When those we love die, we snatch at gossamer: a voice on an answer machine; a bus ticket in a pocket; shopping lists. The missing card does matter. It might have given you a pointer to the solution to this frightful murder.’
Stella nodded. Maybe
she had been trying to hold on to Terry. To bring him back, if only to tell him he had failed as a father. Had he failed? Jack had asked her what sort of daughter she had been. She could not say. Not that great, though. It was not possible to mourn the loss of a father that you never had, she told herself with lessening conviction.
After Ivan had gone, Stella remained in the hallway watching the entry screen until he appeared. She caught her breath when he glanced up into the lens and smiled as if he could see her. When he had disappeared from shot, Stella thought of Jack. He would mind that she had told Ivan. She would tell him what Ivan had said about the murderer: maybe their wild card was a woman.
She went into the living room. She had been positive that they were on the verge of a breakthrough: Terry had taken photographs; the lens cap proved he had been by the wall.
Before she set off for a job, Stella would draw up a list of all that she needed: brushes, chemicals, spare vacuum bags, client’s key, alarm code. She was prepared. Terry was meticulous; he would not have forgotten to slot in a photo card.
She switched on the camera.
‘Insert card’.
Terry would have seen there was no card as soon as he looked through the viewfinder. He would not have discovered its absence in the graveyard; he would have tested it before he left the house and again by the car. He tested his camera on Stella before using it to take a car or a person. Then there was the lens cap: he had taken it off to use the camera and something had made him forget to replace it.
He had followed the person putting the flowers by the grave.
She sat on the sofa. The plastic squeaked. She leapt up, put the camera on the floor and dug her fingers into the sofa. At first she made only an indentation, stretching the plastic. She dragged her thumbnail along the mark and the plastic rent; the rip travelled a foot. She pulled at the opening. The plastic made the sound of a zip undoing as it tore and soon she was knee-deep in plastic as if she had opened an enormous present. She hefted it into the kitchen and crammed it into a rubbish sack.
The Detective's Daughter Page 35