Another hotel. Another town. Another identity.
A wave of … something … rose up unexpectedly and crashed around her. It wasn’t quite grief, or sadness, or regret, or anything in particular. It was more as if a low-key version of each of those emotions had been blended together to form something new, something with no name: a general feeling of sad disconnection from the world. For a moment she was lost and drifting. For a moment.
‘Focus,’ she murmured. ‘Focus.’
She washed quickly and, taking a pen, notebook and a pile of plain stationery from her suitcase, she headed down to the dining room.
Dinner was two lamb chops with asparagus spears and potatoes dauphinois, simply prepared but very pleasant. She followed it with a trifle – something she hadn’t had for years. It was what she considered to be ‘nursery food’ – plain but comforting – and none the worse for that. The portions were small, but enough was as good as a feast, as she always said.
While she ate, she started on the next phase of her task. Before leaving the house in London in the tender care of the estate agents, she had carefully combed through Daisy’s letters for the names of friends with whom she was in intermittent contact. Some of her correspondents had drifted away or died over the course of the years, but Daisy was still receiving Christmas cards and the occasional round-robin letter from seven people – old friends or work colleagues with whom she had shared some part of her life. Taking several sheets of stationery, Daisy carefully wrote the same message to each person or family in the almost perfect copy of Daisy’s scrawled handwriting that she had worked on whilst dancing attendance on the old bitch.
I’m sorry that I haven’t been in touch for some time, but life has been rather complicated. I don’t know if you remember my cousin Heather, but she has recently been taken ill. She is currently recuperating at home, and she asked me to come down and look after her and her cats. I don’t know how long I will be away, but I suspect it might be some time. I have let the house out while I’m gone – I was worried that it would be empty, but at least this way I know it will be looked after, and I’ll get some (much needed!) income.
I’ll let you know when I have more information – in the mean time, if you get around to writing to me then please use the address above.
On each letter, Daisy added in the names and some personal details and questions she had gleaned from the letters, in an attempt to make them all seem more personal. She left the tops of the letters blank. When she had settled down somewhere local then she could fill the return address in. Or, if she wanted to really play it safe, she could use a PO Box number.
She read through the letters again. She wasn’t sure if they were too formal, too carefully worded. Daisy had been quite demotic in her speech, but what little writing of hers that Daisy had seen betrayed a sharper mind and a trained writing style. Having been through the house and seen Daisy’s choice in books, Daisy had revised her opinions of the woman. Daisy, she believed, had been putting it on a little.
After dinner she dropped the letters off in her room and walked through into the hall, intending to go for a quiet stroll around the town. The sun had gone down since she had arrived, and the indigo sky of sunset that had acted as backdrop to the drama of the sea was now a black curtain against which the glowing bulbs of the esplanade’s lights were displayed. The bar, however, was just to her right, and she decided that she deserved a drink before setting out. The day had gone pretty well, all things considered.
The room itself was furnished with cane chairs and low glass tables. It wasn’t quite her ‘scene’, but she persevered, walking steadily up to the long bar and asking the barman – a lanky youth who was probably a third of her age – for a small dry sherry.
His thick brows contracted into a single line. ‘Don’t think we do sherry,’ he said without even looking at the bottles.
Daisy was not going to be put off. ‘Then I will have a Dubonnet with lemonade, please.’
He poured it with bad grace, and she took her drink to a table over in one corner from where she could see the entire bar area. It was pretty empty – most people had probably gone out on the town – but one or two of the tables were occupied. A middle-aged woman in a shawl was sipping on a gin and tonic at one table. Her husband, dressed rather uncomfortably in a suit, was sitting across the other side of the table. Neither of them was talking. The woman was staring at her glass as if it contained the secrets of the universe, and her husband fidgeted as if he was constantly on the verge of saying something just in order to break the silence and then reconsidering at the last moment when he realised how banal it would sound.
Daisy found herself holding her Dubonnet like the woman at the table was holding her gin, and she forced herself to stop. She’d already had one moment of slippage. She had to keep a grip on who she was, lest it all slide away from her, leaving her with no character at all. Or a faceless stranger, perpetually reflecting every character she came across.
At another table a lone man sat, nursing a pint of dark liquid. He was burly, florid, with more hair on his knuckles than on his head. A flat cap sat on the table beside him. There was an air about him that made Daisy think he was drinking something old-fashioned and manly, like mild and bitter, or brown ale. She wondered briefly whether she should engage him in conversation, but she decided against it. She never stalked men: it was almost impossible to strike up a friendship without the sexual element creeping in, and there was always that ever-present worry that they were stronger than her should her little poisons not work quickly enough. And, of course, taking on their identities directly was almost impossible: she would have to find some sideways approach to realising their assets when they were gone, and that itself was adding an extra risk to the proceedings. No, best not.
Delicately she drained the last drops of her rather tart Dubonnet and gathered her handbag and coat together. A little walk around town and then bed, she decided.
The air outside was cold. Across the road she could see the metal railings of the esplanade but behind that, where earlier there had been the beach and the sea and the sky, there was nothing. A black void, immense and empty. It was as if the world ended at those railings, and an unwary pedestrian might stumble and fall, pinwheeling for ever through space until the end of time.
Daisy shook herself. Really, the thoughts that were entering her head. It wouldn’t do. It really wouldn’t do.
She let her feet guide her, not planning where she was going. A side street led away from the esplanade and deeper into town. She crossed what she assumed was the High Street – occupied mainly by teenagers who appeared to be migrating from pub to club and back again – and found another side street that was lined with antique and curio shops. Something was pulling her on, some deep, primal attraction towards something sensed but as yet unseen. She stumbled on, letting the shop fronts and the lights all blur together.
Until she found herself in front of a gaudily lit frontage, all blue neon and yellow letters. It looked as if it had once been a cinema, but now it was used for another kind of entertainment.
Bingo.
A session had obviously just finished, and a crowd of women was descending the steps. Some were wearing wraps, some coats, some just low-cut silvery tops and skirts. They were laughing coarsely. Secretaries, Daisy thought, dismissively. Behind them came a gaggle of older women in long coats and woollen hats, walking in ones and twos, and suddenly Daisy’s senses came alert. Her mouth went dry, and every detail stood out as if spotlit. She could smell the lavender perfume, lovingly dabbed on from bottles bought twenty years beforehand. She could feel their rough, hand-knitted cardigans and scarves. She could see the surreptitious gleam of their scalps through their carefully coiffured hair. As they went their separate ways, with goodbyes and waves and little pecks on the cheek, Daisy noted which streets they went down, which directions they left in, who leant on a cane for support and who didn’t, who left in company and who left alone.
These we
re her natural prey.
And tomorrow, the hunt would begin again.
CHAPTER SIX
It was several weeks after the autopsy that Mark Lapslie and Emma Bradbury drove up to Ipswich together in Emma’s Mondeo. Technically, Ipswich was outside their manor, falling within the boundaries of Suffolk Constabulary, but Lapslie had made some phone calls before setting out and they’d been given permission to continue with their inquiries. The roads were busy, but Emma managed to weave her way through the mass of other cars, overtaking where necessary and undertaking where she had to, in order to get them there in good time. Lapslie just let himself sink back in the passenger seat, eyes closed, the roar of her engine sending pulses of marmalade through his mouth and provoking his salivary glands into spasm. He was so used to the sound of his own car engine that he couldn’t taste it any more, but he hadn’t spent long enough in Emma’s car to get used to the noise, or to be able to screen it out. He’d wanted to drive up himself, but it made no sense for them to take two cars on the journey, and police etiquette demanded that a DS drove a DCI, not the other way around.
Once she reached out to switch the radio on. Firmly, he switched it off again. She glanced uncertainly across at him, but said nothing.
After a series of turns separated by shorter and shorter distances, Lapslie opened his eyes to find Emma slowing down to look for a parking space. They were in a wide road lined with a mixture of silver birch and lime trees and, behind the trees, semi-detached houses built some time around the 1970s. Most front gardens had bikes, or scooters, or wheeled toys shaped like small tractors or lorries abandoned on them. The area gave off a welcome sense of prosperity and supportiveness. Not like some of the sink-hole estates that Lapslie had visited over the years. That was the trouble with being a policeman. You ended up getting a distorted view of the world.
Emma parked in a space under a lime tree. As she and Lapslie got out, Lapslie glanced behind them. There were no other cars driving along the road. He wondered what exactly he had been looking for. A black Lexus perhaps? He shook his head and turned back to Emma. He was beginning to take this conspiracy thing a bit too seriously.
Emma cast a dark glance at the overhanging branches. ‘This tree’s going to drip sap all over my car,’ she muttered. ‘I know it is. Sticky sap. It’s a bugger to get off, but it stains the wax if you don’t.’
‘It’s okay,’ Lapslie said soothingly. ‘We’ll stop off at a car wash on the way back.’
She frowned. ‘This car’s never seen the inside of a car wash, and I’m not about to start now. Do you know what those rotating brushes do to your paint-work? I might as well take a scouring pad to it.’
The nearest house had a plate attached to the gatepost with the number ‘58’ attached. A metal climbing frame sat on the recently cut front lawn: fronds of longer grass and a handful of daisies poking up around the frame where it touched the ground. ‘That’s Violet Chambers’ last known address,’ Emma continued. ‘Doesn’t look abandoned. Also doesn’t look as if an old woman lived there.’
‘If she lived with her family then someone should have reported her missing some time ago,’ Lapslie said.
‘Which they didn’t, according to the records.’
Lapslie walked up towards the house. A bedroom window was open, and a maroon Toyota Camry estate sat on the drive. The rear section contained two backwards-facing seats just large enough for two six-year-olds.
The warm taste of vanilla flooded his mouth, and for a moment Lapslie wasn’t sure why. Then he heard the sounds of children shouting from the back of the house. The sound and the taste and the memories they evoked made him suddenly dizzy: he reached out to hold onto the frame of the swing to steady himself.
‘Are you okay, sir?’
‘Fine.’ He straightened up. ‘Let’s get on with it.’
Emma rang the bell, and they waited for a few moments. There were sounds of movement inside the house, then the door opened. A woman in her thirties looked at them curiously. Her brown hair was tied back into a pony-tail, and she wore a flowered silk blouse, tied loosely beneath her breasts, and cord culottes. Her feet were bare. ‘Hello?’ she said cautiously.
‘Detective Chief Inspector Lapslie, Essex Constabulary,’ he said, holding out his warrant card. She glanced at it blankly. ‘And this is Detective Sergeant Bradbury. Sorry to bother you, but we were looking for the house of Violet Chambers.’
The woman shook her head. ‘I know most of the families around here,’ she said. ‘And I’ve never heard of a Violet Chambers.’
‘She was an elderly lady. In her seventies.’
‘We’ve got mostly families around here. There’s an elderly couple across the road – number sixty-seven. They might know her.’
Emma stepped forward, tossing her hair back with a flick of her head. ‘How long have you been living in the area, Miss—?’
‘Wetherall. Mrs Suzy Wetherall.’ She smiled at Emma, and Emma smiled back. ‘We moved here six months ago. We’re renting, but we love it here so much that we’re hoping to buy a house in the road if any come up for sale.’
‘What made you move here?’ Emma asked.
‘My partner’s job relocated from London. We thought we’d take the chance to find somewhere nicer to live.’ She made a vague gesture towards the garden. ‘And we succeeded.’
Lapslie smiled in response. ‘Who are you renting the house from?’ he asked.
‘An estate agents near the station. I can’t remember the name.’
‘Do you know who was in the house before you?
She shook her head. ‘No, but they left it absolutely spotless.’
‘And what about the owners of the house?’
‘I assumed the estate agents owned it.’ She shrugged. ‘I suppose they could be renting it on behalf of someone else, but they never told us who. We just pay them every month.’
‘And you’ve never heard of Violet Chambers?’ Lapslie asked again, just in case the conversation had dislodged a random fragment of memory from the woman’s mind. He’d known it happen before.
‘Never. But ask David and Jean over at number sixty-seven. They might be able to help.’
‘Thank you for your help,’ he said, smiling.
Emma extended her hand towards Mrs Wetherall. ‘Thanks,’ she added, squeezing the woman’s own hand.
They turned to leave. As the door closed behind them, Lapslie said: ‘Instinct?’
‘She’s telling the truth. We can check it with the estate agents—’
‘And we will.’
‘—but I don’t think she’s stringing us along. Looks like the family moved in a couple of months after Violet Chambers died, assuming the post-mortem results are accurate. So – what’s the next step, boss?’
‘We talk to the neighbours over at number sixty-seven to see whether they remember Violet, and then we drive down to the nearest station and check with the estate agents to find out who is renting the house out.’
Vanilla suddenly exploded across his tongue as if someone had squashed an ice cream cornet into his mouth. On the back of the explosion came the sound of shouting from the garden: a sudden argument, a fight, or just a moment of triumph in a game. The shock made him stumble: he caught his stride again but his ankle turned slightly and he staggered sideways, into the grass, before he could catch himself.
Emma was at his side in a moment, holding his arm.
‘Sir – are you all right?’
He felt his face warm up as he blushed. He hated showing weakness. But he probably owed her an explanation, especially if it stopped rumours spreading that he might be alcoholic, or mentally unstable.
‘Let’s get to the car.’
Leaning with his back against Emma’s Mondeo, the heat of the sun-warmed metal comforting through his suit jacket, he took a deep breath. How best to start?
‘Look, sir,’ she said, standing with her hands on her hips and staring out along the road, ‘if you want to talk about it, that’s fine
. If you don’t, that’s fine too. Either way, it goes no further.’
He nodded, and took a deep breath. ‘I’ve had it for as long as I can remember,’ he said quietly. ‘For a long time I assumed everyone was the same as me, but when the kids at school started teasing me, and saying I was crazy, I stopped talking about it. “Crazy bonkers”, they used to say. “Mark’s gone crazy bonkers”.’
‘And the Force know about it? Whatever it is?’
He nodded. ‘Don’t worry – it’s not depression, or psychosis, or anything like that. I’m not going to suddenly sit in a corner and sob for hours on end. My doctor’s aware, but there’s nothing he can do. Nothing anyone can do. It’s not life-threatening, or even life-changing, or anything that would make them do anything about it. It’s just … part of me. Part of who I am.’
Emma nodded, but she looked like she wanted to shake her head instead. ‘So – what exactly is it then?’
‘It’s called synaesthesia. Nobody knows quite what causes it, but it’s as if the nerves in the brain have got short-circuited somehow. Signals going in on one route get rerouted to somewhere else. The best theory is that it all starts in infancy. Babies perceive the world in a mish-mash of sensory impressions, because their brains are not completely developed and they can’t separate out smell, taste, touch and so on – they’re all mixed up. As the brain develops, the senses start to separate from one other. For people like me this separation may not take place for reasons we don’t understand. Some people see different colours when they listen to music. There was a Russian composer called Alexander Scriabin, for instance – he could tie particular notes and chords to different shades of colour, and composed his music not just to sound good, but to look good as well – at least, to him. Others can actually feel tastes. Roast chicken might be sharp spikes on the palms of their hands. Orange juice might cause the feeling of soft balls rolling on their scalp.’
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