“Done,” he said. “When’s the earliest date you could do it?”
Breath stampeded out of me. I could hardly say I’d changed my mind, so I did that thing that plumbers do when they tell you a little job is in fact a big job. Pursing my lips, I blew out through my teeth, and shook my head. In my mind, I said, Some time next year. Mr Noble interpreted it as yesterday.
“I need to use up a day’s holiday. Wondered whether you are free day after tomorrow?”
“To clear the cottage?” I didn’t think he was asking me out on a date.
“Yes.”
Fixated on clearing his gran’s place to the point of obsession, my personal situation didn’t seem to occur to him. I should have refused point-blank. The police had gone quiet but who knew when they’d come back with more confounding news?
I swallowed hard. “I can’t manage this on my own and I’d have to pay my colleague time and a half, or double so it would increase the price for you. It would also mean closing the shop, which would —”
“I can help.”
“But that’s crazy. You’re paying me.”
“So? My time. My choice.”
“Well, I —”
“As long as you feel up to it.” His dark eyebrows drew together in a picture of concern, eyes melting into mine.
“Yes,” I said weakly. “I can do it.”
I kicked myself all the way home. Not the easiest person to grind down, I should have been more assertive. I should have told him to find someone else.
All this was drizzling through my mind as I drove into the carport. Dad had done a good job of cleaning up, the rotten smell replaced by the strong odour of Jeyes Fluid. Didn’t stop me from looking around, or glancing over my shoulder, or asking myself why someone would take such a risk.
Relieved to be back in the safety of my own garden, I trogged off down the path and let myself in through the back door. Kicking off my sandals, the air whooshed out of my lungs. My thoughts blurred. Terror took a chisel to my brain. Embedded and jutting out of the kitchen table, a carving knife, its blade razor sharp. It belonged to me. But I hadn’t put it there.
Chapter 23
I did not sleep.
After prising out the knife, I hung on to it while I investigated the rest of my home. Stupidly, I’d left a window open in the downstairs loo, which explained how someone had gained access. What I still couldn’t explain: why would someone single me out for special treatment? Did someone know about my trip to London and my interest in a dead man, possibly an informer? Had someone rumbled that I wouldn’t rest until I knew the truth about my sister’s secrets? Together, Mr Blade and me waited for the dawn.
Early, the next morning, I drove straight to the scene of the accident. Aside from the ‘serious incident’ sign, announcing a collision, an appeal for witnesses, and a phone number to call, I couldn’t miss it. Mum was right about the flowers. Bouquets, big and small, decorated the verge.
I pulled over a little way up the road, got out, walked back to where my sister had been cut out of the wreckage. Traffic was light and I could hear birdsong and the steady thrum of sunshine on hot telegraph wires. In my mind’s eye, I saw the motorbike speeding along, Bowen without a care and no inkling of what was about to happen, next, both vehicles hurtling towards each other. I wondered what was on each of their minds in the game changing moment when death came calling. Blind surprise versus certain death and destruction? Then there’d be noise, like a bomb detonating followed by an eerie, inescapable nothingness. I pictured the arrival of the emergency vehicles, police redirecting traffic, erecting signs, closing off the road, a ravaged motorbike, blood on the road, the drama and action, something that Scarlet would have found detestable. She was never a centre of attention girl. “Come on, speak to me,” I murmured. “Tell me whether you meant to do it. Tell me why. Tell me who the fuck is sending threats and upending my life.” I swear I heard Scarlet’s silvery laugh rippling through the trees, cut off only by the sound of approaching traffic.
A burst of anger flashed through me. It wasn’t fate I wanted to stick a middle finger up to. It was Scarlet. How dare she cause so much pain and confusion and grief. As I cast a bitter smile to the sky, it seemed ironic that Heather Bowen’s outrage should find a friend in me. Furious and shaken by the strength of my emotions, I stalked back to my car.
Hales Road is a narrow, congested thoroughfare, with vehicles slung up on pavements. I squeezed into a spot in between a people carrier and Mercedes. It took me ages before the traffic calmed enough for me to climb out without being run over. Barely 10 a.m. and blades of sun bounced off the pavement, white and blinding. You could taste the dirt, petrol fumes and heat.
I didn’t know for certain which house, so I grabbed the railing of the nearest possibility, and climbed the steps to a black front door, and pressed the bell. From the other side, I heard the sound of machine-gun fire, mortars and explosions. For some reason I’d assumed that the Bowen kids were little. Judging by the noise coming from the computer game, I’d either gone to the wrong house, or there was a gap in my knowledge. Next, heavy tread on polished wooden floorboards.
Hair was no longer scraped off Heather Bowen’s face but hung, lank and loose, like metal curtains in a butcher’s shop. A heavy-set woman, with wide, open features, she filled most of the doorway.
“Yes?” Her full lips wrapped around the word, as though she’d not quite overcome a childhood lisp. Maybe it only emerged when she was on her guard.
“I wondered if I could have a word. My name’s Molly Napier.”
“Do I know you?”
“I’m Scarlet Jay’s sister.”
Her cheeks sagged, mouth tightened, and her skin turned chalky grey. The door began to close. I stuck my arm out. Stupid thing to do. “Ow,” I let out.
“Take it away,” she hissed.
“I only want to talk.”
“I very much doubt that.”
“Five minutes of your time, that’s all I ask.”
“This is harassment.”
The blood in my chest raced. The pressure increased. She was going to smash my elbow.
“I’ll call the police.”
“Please. I only want to help,” I gasped.
The door swung back with a mighty swoosh. I drew my arm back, rubbing it painfully. The volume on the game shot up several decibels. “Help? Your sister has destroyed my family.” Her eyes narrowed to two venomous slits. “Now GET OUT.”
“Mrs Bowen, I want to talk to you about my sister’s bracelet.”
Her wet mouth dropped open. Her breath came in short ragged gasps. She pressed a hand to her head. “What did you say?” she gasped, and I knew the police must have passed on Nate’s denial about who the bracelet belonged to.
For a horrible moment, I thought she was going to lunge at me. “It definitely belonged to my sister, Mrs Bowen. Please can I come in?”
Chapter 24
Despite an average temperature of 29 degrees centigrade, we drank hot tea in a kitchen cluttered with trainers and football kit in front of a fan that redistributed warm air. Colour had returned to Heather Bowen’s cheeks.
“I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Bit late for that.” She darted a look at the door. “Mind if I have a word with my boys? I’d prefer they didn’t hear.”
She disappeared. I picked up her phone, which lay on the table. It was unlocked and sneaking a look, I grabbed her number and entered it into my mobile.
Taking a guilty breath, I sat back, glanced around. Toast crumbs littered the work surface. A gloopy sauce had splashed from the gas hob down one of the units. The washing machine looked as if it couldn’t make its mind up. Door open, half filled with clothes, the rest grubby and tumbling out onto a basket. The chaos of Heather Bowen’s life reflected in domestic disorder. I’d once had a boyfriend who took apart his motorbike in the middle of the sitting room. No other artefacts or memorabilia. The Bowen’s house felt like that.
I hea
rd a door slam.
“I’ve sent them into town with money for a game. They’ll probably return with something unsuitable, but it should buy us an hour or so.”
“How old are your lads?”
“Dan’s fourteen, Jed almost twelve. And before you enquire how they’re doing, which is what everyone asks, they don’t talk much, not to me at least.” She placed the mug down firmly on the table. Her home. Her rules. “Do you know something I don’t?”
“That depends.”
She flashed a steady, ‘cards on table’ expression. “I was never under any illusions about my husband. Not long after we married, I discovered that Richard was unfaithful. I could have left. We hadn’t had the children then.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Must have taken guts.”
She looked at me straight. “I never chose to stay because I loved him but because the alternative was too painful.”
I didn’t probe. Her reasons were none of my business. I took a sip of tea, scalded the roof of my mouth. “Did you discover anything else, apart from the bracelet?” I asked.
“Like what?”
“Text messages, emails, phone calls?”
Heather shook her head. My pulse skipped a beat. I was hoping for something clear, substantial and tangible. Dad always said you had to look at the evidence. “Doesn’t mean a thing,” Heather said scornfully. “Wouldn’t put it past him to have a second phone.”
“Surely, the police will look into the possibility?”
“Good luck with that. Richard, God rest his soul, was sneaky.”
I filed away the observation. “Richard’s movements on the morning of the accident.”
“What about them?”
“Wasn’t he heading in the wrong direction from home?”
“Nothing odd about that. Richard would often go for a spin after work.”
“After a night shift?” If I didn’t get a straight eight hours, I was finished.
“He never needed much sleep. Me? I could sleep the clock around.” Surely, he must have been knackered. And tiredness caused accidents. Heather continued with a thin and bitter smile. “Truth is, he had another life away from us. Another woman. Another child. Reckon that’s where he was heading. Been penned up here with a bad dose of flu. Couldn’t wait to escape.”
Relief made me dizzy. If Scarlet had a mystery lover, it wasn’t Bowen. He couldn’t possibly have room in his life for a demanding job, a wife and sons, a mistress, and Scarlet? I put this to Mrs Bowen. My voice came out all weird, strangled by uncertainty. But then how did the blasted bracelet fit?
Heather regarded me with mild amusement. “He could handle it. My husband had a high sex drive.”
I never believed all that highly sexed bullshit. When male celebs confess to a gullible public, usually via snazzy magazine articles, that they are being treated for sex addiction, I never think ‘what a guy,’ I always think ‘poor, sad bastard.’
What she said next felled me.
“Never speak ill of the dead, but I’m afraid to say that Richard could be what you might describe as predatory when it came to the opposite sex.”
“You mean he actively solicited female attention?”
“No money passed hands, if that’s what you mean.”
I didn’t, but had Scarlet’s vulnerability and unhappiness with Nate made her prey for a man like Bowen? I asked if he was ever violent.
“God no, never needed to be. Richard was only ever seductive and persuasive.”
“Got what he wanted?”
“Always.”
Most serial shaggers are saddos searching for love and security. The impression I got was that Bowen was not a man with a fragile ego. “No insecurities at all?”
“Richard insecure?” She briefly smiled. Are you nuts? Her expression said.
“No hang-ups?”
“I had enough for both of us.”
“Did Richard ever mention a trip to London?” I recalled my conversation with the man in the tile shop. Barking up the wrong avenue, love. The she was a he.
The lines on her forehead contracted. “When would this be?”
“Roughly three weeks before the accident.”
“Not unless he crawled out of bed when I wasn’t looking.”
Of course, he’d been laid low with the dreaded ‘flu. Every time I came up with a possible lead, some unseen force slammed a door in my face.
I asked her if she worked.
“I’ve got a little part-time job in a shop selling artist’s materials in town.”
Perhaps Richard had snuck off, ill or not. I took the torn slip of paper from my bag with Charlie Binns’ name and address on it and handed it to her.
She took it, looked at it and frowned. “That’s Richard’s writing.”
“You’re sure?”
“Certain. I can tell from the capital ‘R’ in ‘Charlie.’ Richard always wrote like that. Where did you find it?”
I ignored her question. “Does the name ring a bell?”
She shook her head, perplexed. “Never heard of the man. Who is he?”
“I’m not sure.” Which was true in one way and a whopping lie in another.
“You’ve got an address. Why don’t you ask him yourself?’’
Because dead men don’t talk. I smiled in seeming agreement, took a sip of tea, wondering how to couch my next question. “Richard, did he have a close circle of friends?”
“Why do you want to know?”
Time to turn up the heat. “Because someone left roadkill on the bonnet of my car and, last night, embedded a carving knife in my kitchen table.”
Heather’s expression contained a mixture of alarm and bewilderment.
“I think it was meant to send a message.”
She greeted my remark with irritation. “No way. Richard’s only friends, if you could call them that, were his colleagues at work.”
“Police officers are not above the law.”
“You’ve been watching too many crime dramas.” Her old-fashioned look told me that I was out of my depth and drowning. “Like I said, he didn’t have close friends, police or otherwise.”
“Nobody he’d confide in?”
“Richard, confide?” She gave a half-laugh.
“He never had any problems?”
“None that he cared to discuss.”
“Debts, drink, gambling?”
“Money was always an issue, which comes as no surprise with another woman and kid to support,” Heather observed dryly. “He was always coming up with money-making schemes.”
I flicked a smile to cover my physical response. Had Richard tried to inveigle Scarlet into one of them? Was this why she’d wanted £25k?
“Stable childhood?” I was shooting in the dark. Never had myself down for an amateur psychologist.
“Richard was adopted, but yes.”
“That worked out for him?”
“He was lucky. Had lovely adoptive parents. His dad died some years ago, but he had a great relationship with his Mum, a smashing woman.”
“She must be devastated.”
Heather lowered her gaze, a minute movement, yet it told me I wasn’t getting the whole picture.
“Did he ever search for his biological parents?”
Heather glanced up, scrutinised me. I didn’t flinch. I needed her to trust me enough to tell the truth.
“He never stopped looking, actually. It became awkward. He didn’t want to hurt the people who’d brought him up.”
“And did he find them?”
“Only his dad. Pity really, the old boy was dying by the time Richard caught up with him. Passed away six months ago.”
The timescale seemed significant, but I couldn’t quite work out why. “How did Richard handle it?”
“Sad but resigned. And then you know the rest.”
“Except we don’t, do we?”
Heather leant back in her seat. “If you’re looking for some dee
p meaning in all this, forget it. I didn’t know your sister but the women he fucked all wanted to hang on to him. He could be very charming. I’ve lost count of the ones I told to piss off. Ringing him night and day, some of them. I suspect your sister met him at the hospital when their paths crossed at work, got snared into a relationship, found out about his other woman, couldn’t stand the competition and cut up rough.”
Unsurprisingly, Heather Bowen had given it a great deal of thought. It also had a ring of plausibility about it – apart from the fact that it didn’t add up with the sister I knew. “You really think that?”
“What else is there to believe?”
I scratched my chin. “My sister was not prone to emotional decision making.”
Heather frowned. “I was told that she was depressed, drunk, out of her mind.”
“Drunk, yes. Out of her mind, no.”
Chapter 25
Despite the oxygen-sapping heat, the brilliant sunshine, the buzz of insects, it felt as if storm clouds gathered directly over Mum and Dad’s house. Mr Lee barely raised a flicker; too busy panting to keep cool as I let myself in. I gave his ears a stroke, told him he was a gorgeous boy, and wandered through to the living room where Mum was helping herself to the first drink of the day. I followed Dad’s reproving yet helpless gaze. A pulse above his left eye flickered. I read the sign: say nothing. Nate sat in the corner, crumpled. You could slice through the atmosphere with a rusty spoon. Distinguishing one bad vibe from another, when all feels futile, is not simple. In my gut, I recognised something else was going down. It put me on high alert.
“Nate, can I interest you in a G&T?” Mum said.
“Why not.”
Oh great, I thought. Dad must have glimpsed the irritation on my face and felt the need to explain. “Nate’s received an email from Heather Bowen’s solicitor, threatening to sue him.”
Crafty cow. She never mentioned a word. “Surely, she can’t do that.”
“Apparently, she can,” Nate said.
“We don’t know for certain,” Dad said evenly.
“On what grounds? Scarlet drove the car, not Nate.”
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