by Ann Granger
‘There have been some developments in the Duke murder case,’ she went on chattily, as if we’d been talking about shopping.
‘Like what?’ I mumbled suspiciously through cake.
‘We’ve been checking Duke’s business records.’ She glanced up and waved the fork at me. ‘He was a methodical chap, kept proper files, all his receipts, tax returns. Makes our work easier. We went through the lot but didn’t turn up anything immediately interesting. However, we’d handed his computer over to our experts to see what they could find in that. They found the draft of a letter, addressed to a Mrs Elvira Marks. Now, Mrs Marks doesn’t warrant any cross-reference in the paperwork and Duke’s wife denies any knowledge of her. That seemed odd to us, Rennie being such a tidy-minded chap.’
I put my cake fork down on the little marble-topped table, leaned back in my chair, crossed my arms and sighed. It was a bit of a pantomime but I couldn’t for the life of me see where this was leading, and I was tired. I should have known I’d have to pay for the cake in some way before I even got halfway through it.
Morgan gave me a look which told me she was about to produce a rabbit from a hat. The cake had begun to lie on my stomach like lead. I knew I was never going to be able to finish it.
‘Especially as he’d asked Mrs Marks if he could go and see her for a little chat in respect of Mrs Eva Varady.’
The cake in my stomach gained a pound in weight and seemed to have swelled to double its dimensions. I hoped I wasn’t going to throw up. Just what I didn’t need, another complication. I kept quiet, waiting for the punchline.
‘So we went to see Mrs Marks,’ said Morgan briskly. She’d managed to finish her strudel and pushed the plate to one side. ‘The name means nothing to you, I suppose?’
I told her it didn’t mean a thing. What was more, I wasn’t Madame Rosa, the crystal-ball gazer. ‘What you need,’ I said, ‘is a good medium. Then you and Sergeant Cole and her can sit round holding hands and get in touch with Rennie himself. Ask him all these questions. Get him to rap on the table. How am I supposed to know what he was up to? He was a private detective. Just like you, he must have been working on more than one case.’
‘Probably,’ said Morgan. ‘Glad you’re remembering that, Fran. But this has to do with this one. Now, it may be painful for you,’ Morgan’s tone told me she didn’t care if it was, ‘but can we go back to the time your mother left home?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘It was fourteen years ago and you have to be on a fishing expedition. You’re stuck. You’ve tried grilling me. Now you’re feeding me with coffee and cake, hoping I’ll kick-start your investigation. I can’t. My mother went, just disappeared out of my life. I went to bed one night and she was there. I got up in the morning and she wasn’t. I was seven years old. No one told me anything, only that she’d gone away. For a long time, I believed she’d died.’
‘When you discovered that she hadn’t died, did you have any reason to suppose your father or any other family member was ever in touch with her after she left?’
‘If he was, he never said. I don’t think he was. He was too broke up.’ I didn’t want to talk about this. It wasn’t Morgan’s business. The police always think they have the right to know everything.
She carried on as if I hadn’t objected. ‘So you must have had a lot to talk about with your mother during your recent visits. After all this time, catching up, finding out about each other, getting to know one another—’
I interrupted. ‘What is this? A rehearsal for The King and I?’
Morgan said firmly, ‘Your mother had asked Duke’s agency to find you. She clearly wanted to set the record straight, make it up to you for all the distress she’d caused you way back then.’
I thought I could now see the way the wind was blowing. They couldn’t question Mum, but they reckoned Mum had talked to me, unburdening herself of all the things on her mind. The worst of it was, they were right. But I wasn’t going to tell them so.
‘She’s not up to long talks.’ I met Morgan’s gaze. ‘My visits only last minutes. That’s how long she can manage. Some of that time, I just sit there holding her hand. I tell her things like about the job I’ve got lined up in a pizza parlour. That’s about it. Why don’t you just tell me who Mrs Marks is and put us both out of our misery?’
‘Didn’t I say?’ She gave me a bland look. All around us people were stuffing their faces. Cups clattered. Spoons chinked. Voices rose and fell in a warm wall. ‘Mrs Marks is a registered child-minder. She’s cared for a number of babies over the years. They come and go. Some stay longer than others. Mrs Marks is getting on but she’s always enjoyed her job and she’s got pretty well total recall of all the children who’ve been in her care. It seems that about thirteen years ago, or a little less, Mrs Varady brought a baby girl to the crèche, under a month old—’
‘What?’ I exclaimed, so loudly that several heads turned. I didn’t care. So Flora and Jerry had both been lying! My mother wasn’t now and never had been crazy. She’d left the hospital with a live baby and the Wildes’ child had died, just as she’d told me. I felt elated, no other word for it. I hadn’t been on a fool’s errand out there at Kew. I hadn’t been acting on the word of a sad, deluded woman. Mum had told me the truth, and the Wildes had lied, both of them, through their teeth. I wanted to shout out I knew it! I just managed not to.
Nevertheless, Morgan had realised something was going on she hadn’t anticipated. She looked less confident. ‘Did you know your mother had had another child?’
‘How should I know what my mother did after she left?’ I pulled myself together. I could blow it if I didn’t watch out. ‘Why don’t you just go on telling me?’ I suggested. ‘You seemed keen to do that.’
She gave me a fishy look. ‘Well, Mrs Marks was a little unsure about taking on a child so young, but the mother was desperate. She needed to go to work. She had no one else to care for the child or support her. Mrs Marks remembers the child’s name, Miranda, because, she says, it was so pretty. But then, after only a few weeks, Eva Varady removed the child. She had decided to give her baby up for adoption. At least, that was the reason she gave.’
Morgan’s voice hardened. ‘Now, the odd thing is, so far the relevant social services department hasn’t been able to turn up any record of this child, Miranda Varady, being put up for adoption. So we checked hospital records, and yes, Eva Varady gave birth to a baby girl, who, if she is still alive, would be going on for thirteen years old now. So, Fran, you see my problem? In addition to investigating the death of Rennie Duke, it turns out I’m also looking into the case of a missing baby.’ She sat back. ‘Still got nothing to tell me, Fran?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Not a damn thing. But thanks for the cake.’
I walked home, putting the new information into place. The euphoria at knowing the Wildes had lied had faded, and now a bleak picture was forming. Morgan hadn’t spelled it out to me, but she didn’t have to. The cops thought baby Miranda Varady was dead. They suspected Mum was responsible. Desperate women, finding themselves alone, and often suffering post-natal blues into the bargain, had done such terrible things before. I could have put matters right with a single sentence: If you check out the Wilde family, you’ll find Miranda is alive and well, but she’s now Nicola Wilde.
Had I spoken the words? Of course I hadn’t. But I needed to see Mum again urgently and set her on her guard. When it had only been the death of Clarence Duke they were investigating, they’d been prepared to accept my mother was too ill to be interviewed and unlikely to be involved. If they believed she’d had a hand in the death of a child, no matter how many years ago, they weren’t going to be so easily put off.
Increasingly the truth about Nicola was becoming impossible to hide. Perhaps, for my own protection, I might finally be forced to speak up. I couldn’t forget that of the people who knew that secret, one of them, my mother, would soon no longer be around. Another had already left the scene: Duke, who’d been on the trail. W
hy else would he have wanted to talk to Mrs Marks? That left me, and I didn’t need an interview with Jerry Wilde to be told that the knowledge I had was dangerous. My mother had handed me a ticking bomb.
I couldn’t see my mother until the next morning. In the meantime, I could follow up the lead Morgan had given me – though she wouldn’t be seeing it like that.
I fished in my pocket, fingers searching for a vital piece of card, praying it hadn’t fallen out. I found it and drew it out. Clarence Duke’s business card. Time to make use of it.
Chapter Eleven
The address on the card led me to a flat on the top floor of an old-style low-rise council block. It was nightfall by the time I got there, and the whole area was so poorly lit I found myself peering at the ground to see where I was setting down my next step. The asphalt surrounds were cracked and holed, the debris had been blown by the wind into small heaps against brickwork. I was particularly worried about discarded needles lying unseen in the shadows. If you step on one of those, it can pierce straight through any thickness of bootsole into your foot before you’ve had a chance to realise what’s happening.
Inside the block, lit by a cheerless neon glare, the lift was out of order. I toiled up the grubby staircase, with its graffiti-strewn walls, and stepped out on to the balcony which ran the length of the building past the front doors of the flats on this level. Out here it would always be draughty, but tonight the wind cut like a razor through my clothing as I sought the right number. It was at the far end, its blue-painted front door protected by a metal grille. The wall by the door was splashed with virulent green paint, the letters GR followed by a wavy line downwards and a splodge, as if the artist had been disturbed. Either Rennie had made enemies in his time as a PI or the neighbours were a little rough. The surroundings made it obvious that detection hadn’t paid Rennie very well. He may have found blackmail a necessary evil to supplement his slender means. I contemplated the scrawl. Private investigators did make themselves unpopular, and so did blackmailers. Perhaps Duke’s death had nothing to do with me, my mother, the Wildes or any of it. The man had probably had more enemies than you could shake a stick at.
There was only one way to find out. I rang the doorbell. After a few moments, the door opened and a welcome tidal wave of heat engulfed me. A woman appeared in the lighted hallway, staring sullenly at me through the security grille. She was a thin bottle-blonde, wearing black leggings and a sweatshirt. There was a whiff of booze about her which seeped out on the warm air. She squinted at an unfamiliar caller and the smudged scarlet outline of her lips turned down.
‘Yes?’ she asked discouragingly.
‘Mrs Duke?’ I’d caught sight of a wedding ring. ‘Can we talk? My name—’
She slammed the door, cutting short her own abusive refusal.
I leaned on the bell. Eventually she couldn’t stick it any longer and the door flew open again. I was quite glad of the grille between us at that moment. She looked pretty mad.
‘You a bloody journalist?’
‘No,’ I told her. ‘I’m Fran Varady. Rennie was keeping obbo on me when—’ I sought for a tactful way to say when the little squirt got croaked.
‘When we found him,’ I substituted. ‘Me and a friend of mine. We called the cops.’ I pulled out Rennie’s card. ‘Look, he gave me this the first time I saw him.’
‘Hang on,’ she said. She unlocked the grille and stood back. I squeezed past her into the hall. She closed the grille and the front door, but not before giving the green lettering on the wall a disdainful kick with her trainer toe.
‘Neighbourhood’s going downhill,’ she said. ‘Kids mostly. Pinch anything not nailed down. They want the money for drugs. Vandalise the place too, if they could. Just out of spite, you know? Because Rennie was a private investigator, they thought he might be a grass too. Stupid . . .’ She broke off at this point and led me into a small sitting room.
It was ferociously overheated. A gas fire in the hearth sent out rays hot enough to toast a crumpet from the doorway. The radiators were also belching Saharan temperatures. From chilled I went to sweltering in an instant.
‘Do you mind if I take my coat off?’ I asked, feeling the sweat break out on my body.
She shook her head. ‘Whatever you like. Siddown.’
She sat down herself, shook a cigarette from a crushed packet and put it to her lips. An ashtray on a coffee table held a pile of lipstick-stained butts. There was a glass on the table too, and a gin bottle. Two supermarket own-brand tonic-water bottles, one empty, one half full, lay on the carpet.
Yet the room, though untidy, wasn’t a dump. The furniture and carpets were clean. The three-piece suite in blue velvet-type material looked quite new. A row of carefully dusted flamenco dolls pranced across the mantelpiece, and in the hearth stood a pottery cat wearing a pink bow. Its glazed green eyes crossed slightly. The television flickered in one corner but it was unlikely she’d been watching it. Her eyes had a bleary look compounded of booze, grief and sleeplessness.
‘Want a drink?’ she asked. ‘I’m going to have another.’ She lit the cigarette and, with it dangling from her lips, got up to rummage in a cabinet for another glass. I took the opportunity to grab the remote and turn the volume on the television down low so we could hear one another without the constant interruption of synthetic enthusiasm from overpaid presenters. (A job I’d like, by the way.)
She turned back holding the glass. ‘Run outa ice,’ she said. She was doing her best to be a good hostess. ‘I’ve got half a packet of cheese straws but they’ve gone soft.’
‘No problem,’ I assured her.
She slopped gin into the glass, filling it to nearly a third, and added a splash of tonic. She pushed the mix towards me and poured a similar one for herself.
‘Cheers!’ she said, raising her glass with its lipstick-stained rim. Her mascara was also smudged. She looked a mess.
I returned the toast and sipped cautiously. The gin ripped down my throat and I burst out coughing. When I’d stopped, eyes watering, she’d nearly finished hers.
‘I’m sorry to come and bother you at a time like this,’ I began hoarsely.
‘Every bloody person’s been bothering me,’ she returned morosely. ‘Cops, tabloids, chap in a dog-collar. Don’t know where he came from.’
‘The police are bothering me too,’ I told her.
She sympathised. ‘It’s a bugger, isn’t it?’
I agreed that it was.
‘I used to tell Rennie,’ she said, ‘to give it up, all of it. It’s a risky business. But he always said it was the only business he knew. What else could he do? And we did all right out of it. Made a decent living.’ She glanced round the room. ‘I know it’s not much, but lots of people have got less, haven’t they?’
I had, for a start. It seemed I’d been wrong about Rennie’s business not turning in a profit. But did his wife know where all the money came from? Morgan had told me what a good record-keeper Rennie had been, and that, to me, smelt fishy. If you keep that watertight a set of books it’s because you think someone might want to ask questions. I’d be willing to bet that somewhere was another set of accounts that no one but Rennie saw. Whether his wife did or didn’t know about Rennie’s less legit side, the odds were that now he was dead, she’d swear he’d been the next best thing to an uncanonised saint.
‘We always had enough money to pay the bills, go out for a drink on a Saturday night. Took a holiday most years. Had the odd bad patch, of course. Bound to. But it was all right, like Rennie said. Only, we were both of us getting older. “You can’t run fast enough no more, Ren,” I told him. He just laughed. But I was right, wasn’t I? Someone caught up with him. Always thought it might happen. Well,’ she frowned, ‘thought it might but sort of didn’t believe it would, you know?’ She looked even sadder. ‘We had the money saved up to go to Ibiza this year. Now it will all go on Rennie’s funeral. They cost a lot, do funerals, but I want to give him a decent send-off.’
> I muttered again that I was sorry. I was intruding on her grief, but maybe she needed someone to talk to.
‘Mrs Duke,’ I asked, ‘you seemed to recognise my name. Did Rennie tell you about me?’
She squinted at me through a rising column of smoke. ‘You’re Eva’s girl, right?’
‘Yes. You know my mother?’
‘Used to know her. Haven’t seen her in years. She worked for Rennie for a few months. It was when I had my hysterectomy and couldn’t do anything, couldn’t even lift a kettle, let alone tramp round the streets doing house-to-house. I worked in the business too, you see. Sometimes you need a woman operative.’
‘But Rennie told you all about me?’ I persisted.
‘I guessed you must be Eva’s kid. She’d got hold of Rennie and asked him to find you. He told me about that. He said he had found you. He was good, was Rennie.’