Liars All

by Jo Bannister

  Deacon lowered the window, and Caroline Walsh said, ‘Are you all right, Jack?’

  These days, when Terry Walsh was a wealthy entrepreneur, no one turned a hair at the marriage of an East End barrow boy and the daughter of a professor. But the Walshes were married in their early twenties, when Terry still had his fortune to make. Which meant that either the girl with the cut-glass accent had already spotted his potential, or it really was love.

  Deacon kept his expression wooden. ‘We’re fine. Just admiring the view.’

  Caroline Walsh knew that Deacon’s baby couldn’t see the view and Deacon himself was not much given to aesthetic contemplation. She could have made an intelligent guess at why he was here. ‘Terry’s inside. Come in for a coffee.’

  He was tempted. Terry Walsh’s wife was an easy woman to like – confident, friendly, intelligent. Also, he’d known her for years. Jack Deacon didn’t cry on anyone’s shoulder; but if he’d needed to share his sorrows he could have done worse than share them with Caroline Walsh.

  But common sense intervened. Accepting the invitation would have involved him in explaining to two different authorities. He could probably satisfy Division as to his motives for taking morning coffee with a target criminal’s wife. He wasn’t sure about Brodie. ‘Better not,’ he said, nodding at the baby. ‘His mum’ll be wondering where we’ve got to.’

  ‘All right.’ Caroline nodded her ash-blonde head, her hair curled so expensively it looked natural. She was wearing a cream blazer, a strand of pearls just visible at the neck. She walked round the car and coolly got in at the passenger door. ‘Then I’ll keep you company for a minute.’

  He didn’t think he was being propositioned. He didn’t think either his professional or personal virtue was in any danger. He’d had a wealth of experiences in the last thirty years, but not many of them involved classy women trying to get him into bed. ‘Did Terry—?’

  She didn’t wait for him to finish. ‘No. I was on my way back from the shops and saw your car. Jack…you do know we’re both thinking of you?’

  Deacon always found kindness harder to deal with than violence. ‘Yes,’ he mumbled gruffly. ‘Thanks.’

  Caroline looked at the baby, jaunty in the baseball cap that kept the sun off his empty eyes, and reached a finger to stroke his cheek. There were tears in her smile. ‘Such a charmer…’ She cleared her throat, directed her gaze to the emotional safety zone of the Channel. ‘I know you have to be careful – you can’t take help from just anyone. But Terry’s a businessman. He could find a way to do it that wouldn’t compromise you. You don’t have to choose between your job and your son.’

  Deacon felt as if she’d reached inside him to knead his guts. He was at once startled and immensely touched. ‘I appreciate that, Caroline. For what it’s worth, if I thought it would make a difference I’d take you up on it. But it wouldn’t. It’s not a question of money. Brodie’s seen every expert the world has to offer, and none of them think they can treat him.’

  Caroline Walsh nodded, still looking ahead. ‘How is Mrs Farrell?’

  ‘Bearing up.’ It was all he could think to say. ‘I think she’s pretty well resigned now to what’s going to happen. In a way it was harder when she thought there might be a cure and she only had to find it.’ He gave a mirthless little chuckle. ‘All we’re left with now is prayers. At least you can do that without leaving home.’

  The woman laid her hand on his wrist in a gesture of compassion. ‘Keep praying. Miracles do happen, you know.’

  ‘But not as often as they don’t.’

  ‘No.’ She squeezed his wrist, and got out of the car and walked towards her house.

  Deacon called her name. She looked round, one perfect eyebrow arched. ‘You do know I’m going to get him one day, don’t you?’

  Caroline smiled broadly. ‘As I said, miracles happen.’ She walked on up the drive, the pearls shimmering around her throat.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Jane Moss phoned looking for Daniel. Brodie explained that he wasn’t available but she was familiar with the case and would be able to help.

  But Jane knew what she wanted and it wasn’t Brodie. ‘Do you have his mobile number?’

  ‘Yes.’ Brodie heard herself and winced. She sounded like a jealous mother fending off her son’s girlfriends. ‘It’s here somewhere.’ She read it out. ‘But I doubt he’ll be able to help you any further.’

  ‘I bet he does,’ said Jane calmly.

  After she’d rung off, Brodie sat peering at the phone for a long time, her thoughts unsettling. Daniel was finally doing what she’d wanted him to for most of four years. Why didn’t she feel happier about it?

  This was the first time Brodie had spoken to Jane Moss. Everything she knew about her had come from Daniel. The cool, self-possessed voice at the other end had been unexpected, but she of all people could appreciate strength of character. She didn’t know what had made her hackles rise.

  She wasn’t sure what Daniel would do when he got Jane’s call. Given how she’d spoken to him last night, and the way they’d parted, only one person in a hundred would have felt any obligation to keep her informed. But Daniel was that person. Ten minutes later her phone rang again.

  ‘Jane has an idea for settling things with Margaret Carson. Whether or not it leads anywhere, we can’t bill Mrs Carson for any more work – she ended the commission days ago. You can take the cost of what I’ve done since then out of my wages. Anything else I do for them will be personal.’

  It hurt her to hear him speak to her as an employer when they’d been so close. Closer than family; closer than lovers. Now they were reduced to talking in a manner carefully calculated to avoid misunderstandings.

  ‘Fine,’ she said. She should have left it at that, but the devil on her shoulder prompted her. ‘I’ll issue an invoice for our services to date, you can bill her yourself from here on out.’

  There was a brief silence. Then Daniel said quietly, ‘I’ve never put a price on friendship before and I don’t intend to charge for it now.’

  ‘As you like,’ shrugged Brodie. ‘You’re a free agent.’

  Another, longer pause. When he spoke again there was a yearning in his voice. ‘Brodie, what’s happened? To us – to you? Why are you treating me like this?’

  She pretended not to know what he meant. ‘What happened to me is that my child got sick and I haven’t as much time as I once had to feather-bed your feelings. And maybe I haven’t the patience I once had, either.’

  ‘You never had that much patience,’ Daniel remembered wistfully, and Brodie had to concede that he was right. ‘But we were good friends. Now you talk to me as if I’m your enemy.’

  ‘Oh, get over yourself, Daniel,’ she said tartly. ‘Everything isn’t about you. I’m just a bit too tired and too fraught to tiptoe round you at the moment. If you need someone to hold your hand, try Jane. What idea, anyway?’

  ‘What?’ He was off balance, struggling to deal with her new coldness.

  ‘You said she had an idea about Margaret Carson. What idea?’

  Daniel didn’t want to discuss it. He remained deeply uncomfortable with the idea, even if he could see some merit in it. Now Jane wanted to show him something and wouldn’t tell him what. ‘It’s all a bit off the wall. I’m hoping she’ll have second thoughts.’

  ‘Yes? Well, good luck with that.’ She went to ring off.

  He made one last attempt to get through to her, his voice in her ear plaintive. ‘Brodie…can’t we at least talk?’

  ‘Daniel, we’ve been talking. But I’m busy. There are things I have to get on with. My assistant walked out on me last night.’

  ‘I didn’t…’ He stopped and took a deep, unsteady breath. This wasn’t about who’d said what to who, or who started it. It was much more fundamental than that. They could argue about the symptoms, they could blame the malaise on one another, or they could try to cure it. ‘Don’t throw away what we had. If you’ve no use for it at the momen
t, pack it away carefully so you can find it if you need it later. We’re strong enough to survive this. We’ve survived a lot worse. Don’t push me away. I care about you.’

  ‘Yes? That’s nice,’ she said; and she kept her voice calm and rather patronising, and this time she managed to put the phone down.

  But she went on looking at it for some minutes, appalled at what she’d done, half hoping it would ring again. If it did, she knew she wouldn’t be able to go on with this. She knew she’d tell him everything. But it didn’t. She sniffed, and took the diary out of the drawer.

  When she opened it the first thing she saw was Daniel’s small, precise, rather schoolgirly handwriting. And she burst into tears.

  Jane picked him up at the netting shed. She had an adapted hatchback with sliding doors and hand controls, and her wheelchair was folded in the back. Daniel got in beside her. ‘All right, I’m here. What did you want to show me?’

  ‘Patience,’ she said mysteriously. ‘You’ll see in a minute.’

  She drove up Fisher Hill – Daniel staring rigidly ahead to avoid gazing forlornly into Shack Lane – and near the top turned off into the jumble of little alleys at the back. In Hunter’s Lane she stopped the car and opened the door.

  Daniel looked around. There were a few dusty shop windows – a locksmith, a barber, a charity shop – among the small stone houses. They’d been built for fishermen when Dimmock had a small fleet. But it never had a harbour, and launching the boats from the stony shore was the kind of hard physical labour that people stopped doing when the alternative was the dole rather than the workhouse. Daniel’s home was a relic of the same period. Now there were no fishermen and the little stone houses were mostly occupied by widows and old men who rarely ventured further than Fisher Hill because, whichever way they turned, it was too steep for old knees.

  While he was looking Jane had unloaded her chair and hefted herself into it, leaving Daniel feeling guilty. ‘Er… can I help?’

  ‘No need,’ she said airily. There was no dip in the kerb. She hauled herself up backwards by the sheer strength of her wrists, then spun neatly. ‘This is it.’

  She was indicating one of the front windows. Like Brodie’s office, it was hard to be sure if it was a shop or someone’s front room. A curtain had been drawn across and there was a small brass plate beside the door. Daniel read it. Even then he didn’t understand. ‘He sells cars?’

  ‘No,’ said Jane with a heavy patience, ‘Mr Daimler makes jewellery.’

  Daniel gave a little jolt. ‘I didn’t know there was a jeweller here. When I took Margaret Carson’s commission I reckoned I’d contacted every jeweller within a ten-mile radius. I never even heard the name Henry Daimler.’

  ‘That’s because he’s discreet. He doesn’t need to advertise. His name is well enough known in the kind of circles where they commission good jewellery. This is where Imogen and Tom’s father came thirty years ago.’

  Daniel’s eyes widened. ‘This is where the necklace was made?’

  ‘It wasn’t this Henry who made it, it was his father,’ said Jane. ‘But the workshop’s the same and he still has his father’s pattern books. If he can’t copy Imogen’s necklace, no one can.’

  Daniel hung back. He really didn’t want to do this. Jane gave him no choice. She herded him in with the wheelchair like herding a stubborn sheep with a quad.

  With the result that when Henry Daimler junior looked up and saw the uncertain young man with the thick glasses and the determined young woman in the wheelchair, he thought they were shopping for a ring to mark an engagement only one of them wanted. Rather than produce the pattern books and talk through their preferences and their budget, he thought perhaps he would show them some that he’d made earlier. The reluctant groom might buy something from the cheaper end of the range rather than make a scene, but Mr Daimler was pretty sure that if he left a commission he’d phone up later to cancel it.

  Only when the girl spoke did he realise he’d made a mistake. ‘We were talking on the phone earlier. You’re the young lady who’s interested in star sapphires.’

  Jane nodded. ‘Jane Moss. My friend, Daniel Hood.’

  Daniel hadn’t realised she thought of him as a friend. Or perhaps it was just shorthand, to avoid a lengthy explanation.

  ‘I want a piece making up. I have a picture of the original. It was made by your father about 1980. I want as close a copy as you can manage.’

  Mr Daimler nodded. He reached under his counter, lifted out a tray. ‘I put together some stones after you called. If you see something you like we can start immediately. If not, I’ll ask around, try to find what you want.’

  Pinned to a cream velvet board, carefully angled to the light, was a pocket constellation. The stones varied in colour from nearly black to nearly colourless. The blue ones came in every shade from polar sky to indigo, the black ones from dove grey to charcoal. There were yellow ones as well, and some the colour of fire, and some the colour of blood.

  Daniel caught himself staring. ‘They’re all sapphires?’

  The jeweller chuckled in his beard. ‘Everyone thinks sapphires have to be blue. They can be any colour. We call the red ones rubies, but they’re all sapphires.’

  ‘And the stars?’ asked Jane.

  ‘They’re commoner in some colours. There are star rubies. There are blue star sapphires, the best of them from Burma and India. Black sapphires produce the most stars, and the best of those are mined in Thailand.’ He indicated a smooth oval stone the colour of Indian ink. ‘The rays are gold.’

  Jane was looking intently at the stones. ‘That’s what I want. Gold rays. But I want twelve of them.’

  Mr Daimler blinked. ‘Those are rarer. Dearer.’

  ‘That’s all right.’ Jane looked directly at her companion. ‘Isn’t it, Daniel?’

  Daniel gave an uncomfortable shrug. ‘It has to be twelve,’ he admitted.

  ‘And cut like that,’ said Jane. ‘Round, like a pillow.’

  ‘All star gems are cabochon cut,’ the jeweller pointed out politely. ‘To show off the rays. What about size?’

  She looked around the tray, then pointed. ‘About like that.’

  Mr Daimler’s eyes widened perceptibly. ‘That’s thirty-eight carats. That’s a big stone.’

  ‘It has to be the same as the original.’

  He nodded slowly. ‘Well, you can find any stone, at a price. How deep a black?’ Again she pointed. ‘I’ll make some enquiries. What about the mount? You said you had a picture.’

  She reached into the pocket of her jeans, produced the insurance photograph. Mr Daimler looked at it. Then he looked closer. ‘You want me to copy this?’

  Jane nodded.

  ‘Forgive me,’ said the jeweller slowly, ‘but…does the owner know? Only, people don’t like seeing what’s supposed to be a unique piece of jewellery worn by someone else.’

  ‘I am the owner,’ Jane said sharply. ‘The legal owner. It was stolen from me.’

  ‘Oh.’ He was plainly taken aback. ‘Then obviously I’m mistaken. I thought… I’m sorry. For a moment it looked familiar.’

  This wasn’t what they’d come here for. Even Jane, who’d known they were coming, hadn’t expected this. Daniel felt as if someone had knocked him off a chair. ‘It did?’ he said weakly.

  Jane raised herself on her arms and leant forward until her chin was almost resting on the glass counter. You could have cut diamonds with her resolve. ‘Mr Daimler,’ she purred, ‘tell me where you saw my necklace.’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  After Caroline Walsh disappeared into her house Deacon settled Jonathan back in his car seat. But instead of driving off he found himself indulging in some outside-the-box thinking.

  If Terry Walsh had done what Deacon wanted him to have done, he must have had a damn good reason. It had been out of character: first, to have any dealings with a jumped-up mugger like Bobby Carson; secondly, to make the kind of mistakes that left him exposed to the risk of
discovery; finally, to protect himself in a way that actually drew attention to what had gone before. In ten years’ hard looking, Deacon hadn’t seen Walsh make those kinds of bad business decisions.

  So maybe Voss was right and it wasn’t business. He knew it was nothing to do with the bulk paper trade; the paper was only a fancy wrapping for how Walsh made his money. Drugs, gambling, girls, and dry-land piracy. When Terry Walsh stole from someone, it wasn’t their wallet and their fiancée’s necklace, it was a juggernaut full of cigarettes or whisky that left the motorway one junction short of its destination and turned up twelve hours later and a hundred miles away, empty but for the driver locked in the back in his underwear. Terry Walsh was good at business. If he’d made the kind of errors that waymarked the Carson case, he’d never have stayed ahead of Deacon for ten years.

  But no one’s judgement is foolproof when his emotions are involved. A lot of the things Deacon knew about Walsh he couldn’t prove, but there was ample evidence for the fact that he was a good husband and father. If his family were threatened, Walsh might do anything, however ill-advised, to protect them. Perhaps, for once, the man was thinking with his heart, not his head. It wasn’t much of an edge, but it might be the best Deacon would get. If he couldn’t use it, he might as well resign himself to having Walsh around.

  He found his gaze straying up the Walshes’ drive. Caroline was a woman who wore jewellery. Deacon thought he’d never seen her without at least a strand of pearls and a pair of earrings. And a good watch, and of course her rings, and…

  Never in a hundred years had Caroline Walsh hired Bobby Carson to hit someone with a car because she fancied her necklace. No one acts that far out of character.

  What about the daughter, Sophie? As the keeper of Terry Walsh’s genes it was possible that she took a direct approach to taking what she wanted. But Deacon had met her, and she didn’t strike him as vicious. Anyway, it made no sense. If either of the Walsh women wanted a new necklace, all she had to do was pout prettily and ask for Terry’s credit card. If he was unable to refuse his daughter the horses that could kill her, he certainly wouldn’t draw the line at jewellery.