by JANICE FROST
“Sorry, it’s none of my business.”
“No, it’s alright. He contacted me almost immediately after we interviewed him. I suppose there was a kind of mutual spark when we met.”
“Well, be careful, Sergeant. He struck me as a bit of a ‘smoothie.’”
“A smoothie?” Sergeant Merry’s face was a picture of delight, “Did you just say ‘smoothie?’ I thought that word went out with the ark. And what’s with the fatherly tone? You’re not that much older than I am.” It was Neal’s turn to be embarrassed, and Ava wasn’t about to let him off lightly either.
“While we’re on the subject, what about you and Anna Foster? I saw the way you were looking at her. Beware of cougars, sir.”
“Cougars?”
“You know, predatory older women.”
“My interest in Anna Foster is purely professional, Sergeant. Her son is a suspect in a murder case.”
“Yeah, right,” Ava teased.
Anna Foster was at least ten years older than him, but Neal was attracted to her. He would deny this to Ava until he was blue in the face, but he had to be honest with himself. Ava’s talk of predatory women was wide of the mark; there was nothing remotely predatory about Anna Foster. She was reserved to the point of shyness, petite and vulnerable. Neal cringed at his own description. He didn’t want to be a stereotypical male looking for a little woman to protect. Maggie would have had a lot to say about that.
At this time of the afternoon the Long Hill area was uncharacteristically quiet. The rain had started up again with a vengeance, keeping all but the most steadfast shoppers away. In this sort of weather, the crowds tended to flock to the centre of town with its big stores and heated shopping centre offering shelter.
As Neal and Ava crossed the slippery cobblestones towards Anna Foster’s bookshop, a particularly heavy shower battered on their umbrellas. The word, ‘dreich,’ rose to Neal’s lips, though even that Scottish adjective fell short of summing up the miserable weather. The rain, he noted, still in Scottish mode, was ‘stottin’ off the ground,’ and he was glad to step over the threshold of ‘Books Now,’ after shaking the excess water off his brolly. Across the street, sheltering in another doorway near her habitual spot, was the Big Issue seller he had seen on his last visit to Anna’s shop. She gave Neal a shy wave, which he returned.
Ava stepped inside first. Anna Foster was sitting at her desk near the doorway, tapping away on a laptop. She looked up as the doorbell sounded, her fingers still darting over the keyboard. The customer-ready smile on her face waned when she saw who her visitors were.
“Good afternoon, Sergeant Merry, Inspector Neal,” she said, her tone neutral. “Do you have some news for me or are you looking for a second hand copy of ‘The Virgin and the Vampire,’ like most of my customers today?” The novel had just been released as a movie, starring one of those young actors who had made his name playing vampires — or was it werewolves? “We just have a few questions, Ms Foster,” Ava said. Anna Foster sighed, but she didn’t repeat that she had already told them everything she knew about Simon’s whereabouts.
“I’m sorry,” Ava said, “This won’t take long.”
“Let me just call Maya down to take over here. She’s upstairs unpacking some boxes of books I picked up at a house contents sale.”
The young ‘goth’ woman appeared within seconds. Recognising Neal, she said, ‘hi,’ then turned to look at Ava.
“Maya, this is Detective Sergeant Ava Merry. Inspector Neal you’ve met before.” Maya and Ava stared at each other, each possibly seeing her mirror opposite. Ava’s blonde hair tumbled loose over her shoulders and she was wearing a pretty yellow blouse under a beige Mac. She looked healthy and her make-up was subtle and understated. Maya’s dyed jet-black hair was arranged in an untidy coif; her face was pale, powdered nearly white and her clothes were black and lacy. But both women had ruby red lips, and they smiled at each other as if in mutual admiration.
“Cool. I was a Goth for a bit,” Ava said, “God I miss the scene sometimes.”
“Now look at you, totally mainstream!” Maya said, but there was no hostility in her voice.
Anna led them upstairs and into her flat. She offered to make them a drink, but even Ava had had enough caffeine to last her quite a while.
“Ms Foster,” Ava began, conscious that Anna had been looking in Neal’s direction, expecting him to take the lead. Now she turned her big, sad eyes to Ava.
“I know you feel that you’ve told us all you can about Simon, but I’d just like to take you back to the weeks before his disappearance.” She tactfully avoided any mention of Amy’s death.
“Did you notice any change in Simon’s behaviour? Did he seem quieter or more agitated?”
“He was a little distracted,” Nancy admitted. “Not his usual self.”
“Can you relate that to anything he’d been doing, any incident in his life, however unimportant or irrelevant it might seem?”
Anna seemed to have given up being defensive about her son, Neal thought. Perhaps she had rid herself of any lingering doubts about his innocence, and no longer felt the need to reassure herself as well as others.
“Simon did act a little strangely the first time he met my friend, Nancy Hill,” she said at last. “It was at my book group meeting, here in this room a couple of months ago. I can let you know the exact date if you think it’s important.”
Ava nodded and Anna reached for a notebook on a bureau by her chair. “It would have been a Wednesday evening at eight o’ clock, first Wednesday of the month. Yes, here it is, Wednesday the second of September. Simon doesn’t always attend the group, but he was at that one because he particularly liked the choice of book: ‘The Master of Ballantrae’ by a writer who is probably dear to your own heart, Inspector: Robert Louis Stevenson.” She smiled wanly at Neal, a smile that touched her lips but left her eyes unmoved. Neal responded with a faint nod.
“Can you tell us what happened at the meeting?” Ava asked.
“It was just that Simon seemed to keep staring at Nancy, as though he knew her from somewhere.”
“Could he have recognised her as someone from his past, do you think? Someone he knew before he was adopted? Before his father murdered his mother?” Neal flinched at Ava’s bluntness, but he would have asked the same question.
“No. Nancy told me she never lived in London. I remember going into the kitchen to make tea and he followed me in and asked about her. I almost thought he was attracted to her, but after that evening he didn’t mention her again. It was about that time that he stopped coming around as often. I assumed he was spending more time with his friends at uni.”
“And his behaviour?”
“As I said, he seemed distracted. I suppose I thought he was just busy with his course and his social life, like any other student his age, especially once term started up. Is this kind of information really helpful to you?” Anna Foster looked from Ava to Neal, a puzzled expression on her face.
“Ms Foster,” Ava said, gently, “Was Simon really here with you all night when Amy was murdered?”
It was so silent in the room that Neal imagined he could hear the Big Issue vendor across the street dripping in her doorway. From downstairs, muffled by the thickness of the building’s old walls, came the sound of the chimes ringing to admit a customer and Maya’s cheery greeting. Anna’s reply was so soft that Ava had to ask her to repeat it.
“No.”
“Are you sure this time, Ms Foster?” Ava asked, clearly trying to keep the eagerness out of her voice.
“Simon wasn’t here. I don’t know where he was. I’m sorry I lied to you.” The words tumbled out punctuated by sobs. Anna Foster had wasted police time, but Neal couldn’t find it in his heart to blame her. For one thing, he couldn’t be sure how far he would go to protect Archie if he were in trouble, something he didn’t like to consider too deeply. Besides, he was uncomfortably aware of his urge to comfort the woman before him. He cleared his throat.
<
br /> “We’ll need you to formally confirm that you’ve changed your statement, Ms Foster. I must ask you; do you know of Simon’s current whereabouts?”
“I don’t know where he is. I’m sorry. There’s only the postcard I gave you on your last visit, otherwise I’ve heard nothing from him.”
Neal and Ava waited without speaking as Anna Foster made a list of Simon’s friends. When she was finished, she handed it to Neal, her hand shaking. Neal wanted to tell her that Simon was no more of a suspect than he had been before, but he knew it wasn’t true. Simon Foster had just moved up a notch on the list. Instead, he said, “We’ll find your son,” in a voice that was, he hoped, more reassuring than ominous.
Downstairs, Maya was saying goodbye to a customer, a regular it seemed, for she addressed him by name. “I’ll look out for Punch books coming in, Mr Dalton, and let you know if there are any from your list.”
“That was Mr Dalton. Lovely old boy,” she said to Ava and Neal, when the elderly man had left the shop, umbrella at the ready. “He collects Punch books and Anna always alerts him when we get some in. Have you come about Simon?”
“Do you know Simon?” Ava asked.
“Of course I know Simon! I work here, don’t I?”
“We still don’t know where he is. How well did you know him?” Maya’s blush brought a hint of pinkness to her white-powdered face.
“I . . . not that well . . . I don’t think he even noticed me.”
She’s not exactly hard to miss, Ava thought.
“Was there someone he did notice?” Ava asked less casually than she meant to, Neal thought.
“You mean the dead girl, don’t you?” Maya said. “Simon didn’t do that. It’s not in his nature. He’s a very gentle person.”
“So we’ve heard. Do you know where Simon is, Maya?” Neal asked, watching her closely for tell-tale signs of lying. The girl shook her head, but she also turned away.
Neal left the shop in frustration: at Anna for taking so long to confirm what they had long suspected; at the mystery of why meeting Nancy Hill had so affected Simon; at the weather which was still chucking cats and dogs down from a seemingly limitless rescue home in the sky. As they walked past the bedraggled Big Issue vendor still sheltering in a doorway, Neal bought a soggy copy of her magazine out of pity and a kind of solidarity with her mission.
There was no conversation until they reached the shelter of Neal’s car.
“Anna Foster claims she spoke to Nancy about Simon’s reaction to meeting her, and Nancy told her she had no idea why Simon would recognise her. To her knowledge she’d not met Simon before and she’s lived in Shelton for years, long before Simon arrived. Perhaps she just reminded him of someone?” Neal said.
“That’s probably it. Or, maybe he’d been following Amy and seen her with Nancy? Seeing Nancy in his mother’s flat would have given him a jolt, especially if he felt guilty about stalking Amy. He might even have been worried that Nancy knew about it.”
Eyes fixed on the road ahead, Neal nodded his agreement. He said, “I still have a feeling that Anna Foster knows more than she’s telling us. I’ll have PC PJ talk to her, just in case she’s able to give us any more information.”
He didn’t feel confident that this would push the case forward, but things were moving so slowly that they were obliged to pursue the slimmest of leads. Neither said anything for a couple of miles. It was late afternoon and already growing dark, daylight having given up the ghost in deference to the overall gloom.
“I’ll drop you at the station,” Neal said. “I’m going to pick Archie and my sister up. We’re going bowling.”
“I love bowling,” Ava said.
“Come with us,” Neal found himself saying, without having meant to. Nothing had been further from his mind than inviting his colleague along to a family outing, but he was aware that he and his sergeant had not bonded on anything other than a professional level, and he was a believer in cops forging strong relationships. Like soldiers, they needed to know that they had each other’s back. He could hear the hesitation in Ava’s voice when she answered.
“Are you sure? I wasn’t fishing for an invite. I don’t want to intrude on your family time.”
“Maggie’s keen to meet you. I’m pretty sure you two will get along. And Archie won’t mind at all.”
“In that case, sure, I’d love to come along. Thanks, sir”
* * *
Maggie and Archie were good to go as soon as Neal pulled up outside his house. He noted Maggie’s amused, questioning look as she jumped in the back seat, and he introduced Ava, noticing a grin spread over his sister’s face as he referred to Ava as his detective sergeant. Archie strained forward as far as his seatbelt would allow, to give Ava a high five.
For a heartbeat, Neal worried that his forthright son would ask if Ava was his girlfriend. Neal had been extremely discreet when he dated women, to the point that Archie had never even met any of the few he’d gone out with recently. He didn’t want his son to become attached to anyone who was not likely to be around for a while.
By the time they arrived at the bowling alley, Maggie and Ava were well on the way to becoming friends. It never ceased to amaze Neal how women seemed to have the knack of connecting so effectively and quickly on a personal level. Sometimes he envied them that skill. Neal caught a glimpse of his son in the rear view mirror and saw Archie looking sideways at Ava in admiration. Not yet, Neal thought to himself, though he knew that his son was fast approaching that moment when girls are suddenly at least as interesting as football.
At the bowling alley, they teamed up; boys against girls. The girls won by a narrow margin, and Neal and Archie had to endure a round of sisterly high fiving before the victors calmed down and they all settled into a booth for a post-match carbs boost. Over burgers and fries, Ava and Maggie exchanged contact details and arranged to meet up to go clubbing together, making Neal a little uneasy. He would need to have a tête a tête with Maggie about the need for her to be discreet. All he needed was a direct gossip line between his private life and the office.
Neal dropped Ava back at the station where she could pick up her car.
“She’s nice,” Archie said, as they drove home. “Why don’t you ask her out?” Nothing like being direct.
“She’s a colleague, and I’m her boss,” Neal answered quickly.
“So? What difference does that make?” Neal glanced at Maggie for support but to his annoyance, she was staring pointedly out of the window.
“Our relationship needs to stay professional, not personal. It wouldn’t be appropriate,” he said, at last, “Even if I wanted to — which I don’t.” This time Maggie did look in his direction, her eyes full of amusement. As for Archie, he’d caught sight of a new registration Porsche in his side window and his interest switched to cars.
Sleep eluded Neal that night. He lay awake going over the morning’s meeting with George Lowe in his head. Lowe was a reasonable boss, but there were pressures on him too. An investigation that threw up so few leads as this one was frustrating for all. It was a relief that media reports about Amy’s death had been so low-key. She was just the sort of victim journalists liked to hype up — young, white, attractive woman. It could so easily become a high profile national case. Lowe was eager to avoid this happening.
To her credit, Nancy Hill had shunned all publicity to the point of becoming a semi recluse. Just how long their luck would hold out on this was a matter for concern, and Lowe had made it clear that he wanted results. He’d been particularly critical of Neal’s failure to track down Simon Foster. Hence the trip to London. Just what interviewing Simon’s father would accomplish, Neal was not certain. From what Anna Foster had told him, Simon had never contacted him, but parents don’t always know what their offspring are up to. And children sometimes keep secrets in order to protect their parents.
As always, thoughts about other people’s children led him to his own. Archie was a great kid at the moment, doing well
at school, no behavioural issues, a little on the quiet side but that wasn’t a bad thing. Neal wasn’t fool enough to think that it was all his doing. He had seen too much in his line of work to be naïve about the lasting effects of good parenting. Was he even a good father? His job often meant long hours away from home and he was a single parent. No, not going there, he thought, mindfully redirecting his thoughts. Eventually Neal worried himself into a restless sleep. Outside, it was still raining.
Chapter 15
Ava’s mobile vibrated against her thigh and she pulled it out of her trouser pocket to check her latest text. Christopher Taylor. Again. He had texted her countless times since their date two days ago, and as yet she had not responded. To tell the truth, she was at odds with herself over how to proceed with their relationship.
That she had been attracted to him in the beginning was forgivable; the man was gorgeous to look at, but right from the start, he had caused alarm bells to sound in her head and Ava feared that she might have exercised bad judgement in going to bed with him.
It was not that she felt guilty about exploiting his attraction to her, nor did she regret their night of passion; it just made her uneasy to think that she was the kind of person who was ready to use another as a means to an end. Then there was the fact that she had no really concrete evidence that he was guilty of anything but vanity and arrogance. Most of all, she wondered that she could have sex with a man who both attracted and repulsed her in equal measure. Whichever way you looked at it, her behaviour appeared shoddy, particularly for a police officer.
Since her visit to the community centre in Sheffield, Ava had tried unsuccessfully to track down Rohina. Stromford did not have a large Asian population, and Ava had made some enquiries, but so far she had drawn a blank.