‘Is there anything that has come to you over the last few days? Any little thing, no matter how inconsequential it may seem to you?’
To West’s surprise, she nodded. ‘That’s why I was going to ring you. There is something. I found it this morning, just a few minutes ago actually. Your visit was fortuitous, Sergeant West, I think it may be quite important.’ She stood, ‘Wait a moment. I’ll get it.’
He heard her footsteps recede, fade and then slowly hesitantly return. She entered the room reading a piece of paper she held in her hand. Then she held it to her chest and looked at West. ‘It’s the last thing he ever wrote.’
West stood and walked over to her. Gently, he held out his hand. ‘I’ll keep it safe.’
Nodding, she handed him the piece of paper, a page from a lined jotter, torn roughly so that the top of the page was jagged. Not knowing what it was, he handled it gingerly by the edges, just in case. He scanned it quickly. ‘It’s a recipe,’ he said, puzzled at first, enlightenment dawning when he read one of the ingredients. Cassava.
‘Where did you get this?’ he said, his voice sharp.
‘In one of the cookery books. I was packing them away this morning. They’re a very painful reminder, you see. They all belong to Gerard. He was addicted to buying them. Especially fad, healthy diet ones.’ She leaned over and pointed out the date. ‘Ger was always copying recipes from magazines, or getting them from people he met. He was very methodical; he’d date it, write what he thought of the recipe if he actually went ahead and made it, and then he’d rate it one to ten.’
West nodded. ‘So he wrote the date. And this comment. But the rest, that’s someone else’s writing?’
‘The person who gave him this drink,’ she said, ‘the person who murdered my husband.’
There probably wasn’t any point dusting it for fingerprints but, just in case, West asked Mrs Roberts for some cling film and wrapped the paper carefully.
‘You will keep it safe,’ she said.
It was an easy promise to make. It was an important piece of evidence providing as it did irrefutable proof that Gerard Roberts was deliberately given the Manihot Esculenta by the woman he met outside the vegetable shop. No longer was it speculation. And if it didn’t, as such, give them a suspect, at least, he told Andrews when he arrived back in his office an hour later, they could stop wasting their time looking at other people.
‘And yes, I do know that stopping Greg McGrath and his nasty little habit was important, but we need to focus on the cases we have. Not go looking for others.’
Andrews frowned and opened his mouth to speak.
West he held up his hands. ‘Yes, I know it was important to Jim Reilly too. And I am pleased you sorted that out. Really, I am. But I’d be happier if we got the Roberts’ case sorted.’
Andrews smiled. ‘I just wanted to ask you what Roberts had written. The comment. You haven’t told me what it was.’
‘You set me up for that,’ West said, with a shake of his head.
Nobody could do innocent like Andrews. ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Sometimes, West thought, you had to know when to quit. ‘Right,’ he said, deciding that fencing with Andrews was always a waste of time, ‘the note. I gave it in to forensics to see if they can pull anything off it but I photocopied it first.’ He took the copy from his pocket, spread it out on the desk. Andrews leaned in to have a look, peering at the unknown woman’s spidery writing.
West read it aloud. Five hundred grams Manihot Esculenta, grated finely. One hundred grams red onion, grated finely. One hundred grams broccoli, broken into small florets. One hundred grams cooked beetroot, chopped roughly. Place all contents into a liquidiser with one pint of water and pulse until smooth. Drink as soon as possible.
Underneath Gerard Roberts had written in small, neat precise writing, the day’s date and the comment: I met a very nice lady outside the vegetable shop, she recognised the vegetable I was putting in my carrier basket and told me she knew a recipe for a healthy drink using it. She promised to give me the recipe if I called to her house later. I called on my way back and not only did she give me this recipe but she’d made it for me. It looked disgusting and tasted foul but she’d been so kind I felt obliged to down the lot. Don’t think I will be making it again though unless I am filled with energy and look ten years younger when I get up in the morning.
‘If only he’d written down her address, ‘Andrews said, finishing the note and sitting down.
‘He was on a bike; he wouldn’t have had a pen and paper on him. Anyway she probably gave him directions rather than an address.’
‘The yellow house with the green garage that’s around the corner from the pub and across the road from the undertakers?’ Andrews said with a smile.
‘Something like that,’ West said absently, rereading the note.
‘We need to find this damn woman. We’ve not had much success with that yet.’
‘Pat’s description isn’t going to help, I’m afraid. She didn’t appear to remember the woman at all so we’re stuck with what she told us on the day, blonde around five six, talks funny.’ He told Andrews about the mornings meeting with the vegetable shop duo, was surprised when he didn’t laugh. ‘Perhaps you had to be there,’ he muttered to himself. Looking down at the page before him, he read it through yet again. ‘Definitely a woman though, Peter. Pat might be fooled by a lady-boy...’
‘I don’t think there’s any might about it, Mike.’
West smiled. ‘True. But leaving Pat aside, I don’t think Roberts would have been fooled. And another thing, I don’t think he’d have gone, let alone take some dodgy sounding drink, from someone looking a bit iffy.’
Andrews reply was an unconvinced, ‘Mmmm.’
‘Pat couldn’t give us an age range for the woman she saw but read this again, Pete. He writes that he met a very nice lady. Not a girl or a woman. Who would you normally use the word lady to describe?’
Andrews perched on the side of the desk, looking suddenly interested. ‘An older woman.’
‘Exactly,’ West agreed, and Gerard Roberts was...how old?’
Andrews stood, walked to the murder board and quickly found the information he wanted. ‘He was fifty eight.’
‘So a blonde woman, around five six, who speaks funny and who is at least in her late fifties.’ West caught Andrews’ eye and this time both of them laughed. ‘Bloody Hell, Peter, this case will drive me to an early grave.’
‘If we go with that age range, there is a slight problem,’ Andrews said, skimming through other information on the board.
‘Please, Peter, don’t I have enough? What now?’
‘We’ve eliminated every woman on our list.’
22
Kelly Johnson woke on Wednesday, puzzled. It was bright. Rolling over, she stretched her hand out, grabbed her mobile phone, fingers seeking for the right button even as she moved it in front of her face. What she saw stunned her. It was nine o’clock. She had slept all night long.
Contrarily, she felt a sudden loss for all the nights when she had woken and grieved, when she had laid there in the dark wondering what she was going to do. Some mornings she was too tired to function, bleary eyed, mind-dull. If someone had told her she was wallowing in and almost relishing the tiredness, she would have told them they were wrong. Her happy solid world had proven not to be, and she had done a Humpty Dumpty, fallen off and broken into a million jagged never-to-be-put-together-again pieces.
But now she’d slept the whole night long so maybe the pieces weren’t irretrievably broken. And maybe the world wasn’t so scary after all. She curled up on her side. ‘Come on Kelly,’ she admonished in a whisper, ‘be honest. You had sweet dreams about the nice Garda West, didn’t you? Big strong, Garda Sergeant Mike West chased all your fears away.
With a squeal she pushed off the duvet and jumped out of bed, refusing to think about him. Anyway, she thought, wasn’t it silly to see the one night’s good s
leep as more than it was. She probably wouldn’t sleep for the rest of the week. And, she thought crossly, if she was going to start seeing Mike as the glue needed to stick poor old Humpty Dumpty back together she was in more trouble than she knew.
A quick shower, toast and coffee and she was ready for the day, sitting in her office, computer powered up. She had told her publisher there would be no more children’s books. If he wasn’t thrilled, he hid it well and by the end of the conversation she had promised to give him the first look at the novel she’d started.
‘I’m not promising anything, Kelly,’ he had said, ‘But if your adult work is as good as your children’s, perhaps we could do business.’
So here she was reaching for the keyboard and pulling up that novel she had started months before. She read the first page, made a couple of minor changes, read through the next few, kept focused, put any thought of West firmly out of her head as soon as it popped in.
She knew she was in trouble when she typed the words jeans or dress instead of what she was supposed to have written. Her mind wasn’t on her work. It was on Sunday. She sat back, dropped her hands to her lap. Maybe if she went and decided what she was going to wear on Sunday she could concentrate on her writing. That decision made, she saved her work and went back to her bedroom.
Opening the wardrobe she allowed herself to think about the night before. The out of the blue phone call had surprised her. He had sounded like the man she remembered, the one she’d found attractive so she had agreed to meet him. and then, when she did, it was as if the last few meetings, the ones where he was rude and dismissive, had never taken place. So now she was completely confused. Which man was he really? She thought it was worth trying to find out.
So, here she was searching through her wardrobe, trying to find something to wear for what she supposed would count as their second date. ‘Date,’ she said, reaching into the wardrobe. ‘My God, how old am I?’ But she kept looking. Whatever she called it she couldn’t go naked.
An hour later she had tried on several outfits, the pile of clothes on the bed testifying to the fact that none of them were suitable. She wanted something casually chic. An outfit that worked, but looked as if she hadn’t really tried. ‘Admit it, Kelly,’ she said, standing in front of the full-length mirror, twisting one way and then the other. ‘You want to look stunning; you want him to go wow!’ She did another twist and turn, ‘Well, he’s not going to go wow to this outfit, that’s for sure.’
No way was she shopping for new clothes, she decided, even as the very thought flashed neon-like in her head. ‘For goodness sake,’ she said addressing the pile of clothes, ‘it’s a walk down the pier followed by something to eat. Ok. Jeans.’ She pulled out a pair of narrow-leg jeans. ‘Check. A long sleeved jumper.’ She moved to a chest of drawers and took out a cashmere jumper she hadn’t worn for a long time. It was baby-blue, round necked, soft as snow. Perfect. ‘Check. Now, comfortable shoes.’ She dug into the bottom of the wardrobe where her shoes were piled higgledy piggledy and with a lot of pulling and pushing managed to find a pair of flat, walking shoes. ‘Check.’ she said putting them on the floor in front of her bed.
That would do, she thought, looking at the outfit. She had a navy jacket she could wear over the lot. She opened the wardrobe door again and looked for it. It was there, hanging next to the yellow one Simon had loved, one she couldn’t bear to wear, couldn’t bring herself to give away. She had been wearing it on the day he vanished.
She ran her hands down its sleeve and thought of Simon with a shiver of regret. A shiver, she realised with a return of the morning’s sadness, not the deep regret of the last few months, not the searing sadness of loss. Just a shiver of regret for the what-might-have-been, for all the what ifs, and if onlys that had started her sentences for so long. But not any longer. It was, she realised for the second time in a day, time to move on.
Spurred on by the thought, she gave the sleeve one last stroke, pulled the coat off its hanger and folded it in on itself, hiding the memorable yellow in its lining of grey. She would give it to the charity shop sometime. Meanwhile she put it into a bag, shoved it up onto a shelf.
She felt energised. Almost elated. And hungry. Checking the time she saw it was after one. Damn, she’d planned to have written a few chapters by this time. She made herself a sandwich and a mug of tea and took it back up to her office, ate while her computer woke up again, read a few pages, munched a bit, read some more. And then the rest of the sandwich was forgotten as she immersed herself in her story. She became the heroine of her tale, lived her life of drama and excitement, remembering why she loved to write. The power over lives, over what they would do, what they would say. If only life were that easy, she thought with a brief return to her own world before losing herself once more.
By five, she had worked her way through five chapters, adding paragraphs, more details, deleting sentences that didn’t work, puzzling over sentences that didn’t mean what she had wanted to say, wondering what it was she had wanted to say. Deleting a sentence, making the rest make sense.
She stretched, rolling her shoulders, flexing her wrists. She needed to stop and take a rest, maybe another mug of tea. But she was on a roll and she knew it, her eyes flicking to the screen, her fingers typing the next word. Then reading back over the page, seeing a change she wanted to make. Her fingers moving almost despite herself, adding an adjective here, a noun there, deleting a comma, adding a semi-colon.
When the phone rang, she was startled to see it was almost eight. Reaching for the phone, her right hand finishing a sentence she had struggled for a few minutes to get right, she muttered a distracted hello.
‘It’s Heather,’ the rather breathy voice said. ‘Heather Goodbody.’
Sorry she had answered, Kelly swallowed a groan and said, ‘Hi, Heather.’ And waited, wondering how to get out of whatever Heather wanted.
‘I was wondering if you were free to do a shift on Friday. Barbara has pulled a muscle or something and has had to pull out.’
Kelly made a face. ‘I’m really not free, Heather. In fact, I was going to tell you at the meeting on Saturday that I wanted to stop volunteering. I don’t think it’s for me.’
A high-pitched squeal made Kelly hold the phone away from her ear. ‘You can’t, Kelly, so many depend on you. Mrs Roberts and Sophia will be distraught. And Mrs Mathews. And Mrs Lee. Think of them.’
Annoyed at the guilt-trip Heather was putting on her, Kelly took a deep breath. ‘Sophie Roberts’ friends have made up a rota to stay with her, so I am superfluous there. Mrs Roberts’ sister has moved in to stay with her so I am no longer required there. I called to Mrs Mathews and got the distinct impression she wanted to forget completely about what happened to young Jake, she was almost rude, in fact, and I certainly won’t be going back there. And I thought you knew, Mrs Lee’s daughter has arranged a live-in carer for her, a Polish girl. So,’ she finished, ‘my presence is not required by anybody and I think this would be a good time for me to say goodbye.’
The silence lasted so long she thought the other woman had hung up. Just when she was about to follow suit, a breathy voice thick with what Kelly guessed were tears, said, ‘Oh goodness, we will miss you.’ The voice coughed, cleared and came back a little louder, ‘But you will come to the meeting on Saturday, won’t you? Viveka will be there, you know.’
It was, in fact the only reason Kelly wanted to go to the meeting. She hadn’t met the Swedish woman again since her first induction day. She was curious to see if the woman’s charisma and magnetism still worked. ‘Yes, I’ll be there,’ Kelly answered, and then added firmly, ‘to say my goodbyes to everyone.’
‘Oooh,’ squealed Heather Goodbody, ‘we may persuade you to stay, Kelly. Viveka can be very persuasive.’
‘Oh there’s the door,’ Kelly lied. ‘Must go.’ She hung up without waiting for a reply, shook her head, more determined than ever to have nothing further to do with Offer. On second thoughts, she decided, she did
n’t really have to go to the meeting on Saturday. What was the point? They would be full of Offer chat and volunteering and would, perhaps, try to persuade her to stay. It wasn’t for her. All that hanging about waiting for disaster to strike, all that sitting around, getting glances of disdain from that big lump of a garda behind the desk.
Was she being selfish, she wondered absently?
Volunteering with Offer had pulled her out of the doldrums, had given her the jump-start she had needed. And now that she was up and running she was going to leave it behind? Selfish? Well, if it was so be it. It was time, she decided, to put herself first for a change. And that thought, in itself, told her how far she had come. For the first time, in so long she couldn’t remember, she was listening to the energising call of the future rather than the siren call of the past.
And if some of her new positive attitude was due to Mike West, well, that was ok too. Her computer screen had gone into hibernation and staring at it she saw the little smile that curved her lips, a smile that she guessed appeared every time she thought of him. It was a shame she had to turn him down for Saturday night. She was going to explain, to tell him about the meeting, but remembered he hadn’t been too keen on Offer and didn’t want to spoil the moment.
Anyway, she shrugged and addressed her reflection sternly. ‘It’s never good to be too available.’ But...Saturday...there was something about having a date on Saturday, she thought. And conversely there was something sad about sitting at home.
Especially if she were at home thinking about Mike West. Damn it, she thought with biting regret, why had she turned him down. He probably had a black book full of women to take out, women who would be only too keen to oblige.
‘That’s it.’ she said aloud. Anything would be better than sitting around feeling sorry for herself, wondering what Mike was doing on a Saturday night and who he was doing it with. She’d go to the Offer meeting, meet the charismatic Viveka, give her thanks, regrets and goodbyes and try very hard to avoid Heather Goodbody.
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