by Anita Waller
‘Okay, I give in. I’ll go and clear out the airing cupboard. Maybe make a couple of apple pies.’
Doris and Mouse looked at each and spoke simultaneously. ‘Nesting.’
Mouse watched Kat head towards her car and lever herself into the driving seat. It was clearly a struggle to fasten the belt around the bump. Thank goodness a pregnancy only lasted nine months, she mused, because if it lasted a minute longer Kat wouldn’t get into the car, let alone the seat.
Mouse thought back to the slim stunning Kat of her first acquaintance. They had met when Kat visited her in hospital, complete with the white collar around her neck showing her faith. The bullet and the gun used to try to kill her hadn’t worked, and Kat and Leon, the bastard of a husband, had found her, almost dead, in an alley. But Kat hadn’t given up on her, not for a minute, and had welcomed Nan into her family as warmly as she had welcomed her. Now it was their time to support their friend. They would move back in with her immediately.
Kat walked through into the hall, and Tibby wrapped himself around her legs.
‘Hey, baby, I’ve only been gone a couple of hours. You missed me?’
The cat miaowed.
‘You did then?’
Tibby purred then abandoned Kat for his food dish in the kitchen.
She smiled, and began the mountainous climb upstairs, her stomach reaching the top well before she did. Being eight and a half months pregnant meant never being too far from a bathroom.
She washed her hands, then frowned at the towel on the floor. ‘Come on, Kat Rowe PI, work out how come that’s on the floor. It’s not Tibby, the bathroom door was closed.’
She held on to her stomach and picked up the offending article; it was damp. She thought back to the morning, to gathering up laundry to take downstairs. A clean towel had been hung on the towel rail, and she had dragged the laundry basket downstairs, one step bumped at a time. The damp towel on the bathroom floor was the clean one she had hung that morning. And it should be neither damp nor on the floor.
A shiver ran through her body, and she went into the bedroom. The curtains were closed, despite having been opened before she went to work. She backed out carefully, and walked slowly downstairs. She wanted no accidents at this delicate stage of her pregnancy.
She dialled the shop and Doris answered. ‘Can you come now?’ Kat whispered.
‘You’ve started?’ Doris asked.
‘No, it’s nothing to do with the baby. I’ll be outside in the car.’
There was a pause, then Doris responded. ‘Lock the car doors.’ Her tone was firm, and brooked no argument.
Kat disconnected, picked up her bag and jacket and went out of the door. She moved as fast as she could across to the car, and climbed in, immediately clicking on the lock.
Five minutes later, Mouse’s new Range Rover pulled onto the drive with a screech of tyres, and she jumped out. She ran across to Kat’s car, and Kat unlocked her door.
‘Somebody’s been in the house,’ she said. ‘There’s only five people have keys; Mum, you, Nan, me. And Leon…’
‘Could it be your mum? What am I talking about? They’re in Spain until tomorrow, aren’t they? You think it’s Leon?’
Kat nodded. ‘I was always picking up towels after he’d dropped them on the floor. There’s a damp towel on the bathroom floor, one that was hung fresh this morning. The curtains are closed in the bedroom. He’s been here, Mouse, I know he has.’
Doris had remained in the car, awaiting instructions, so Mouse called her over. ‘Sit in here with Kat, will you, Nan? She’ll explain what’s happened.’
Mouse crossed towards the front door and inserted her key. It opened easily and she stepped inside, wedging it ajar with an owl doorstop. If she needed an escape, she wanted the door open.
She walked swiftly through the downstairs rooms; empty of anything human. Moving back to the bottom of the stairs, she stood and listened. There were no discernible sounds.
Slowly climbing, she headed towards the many doors along the landing. Only one was open. The rest were closed.
Mouse worked methodically through the rooms and finally reached Kat’s bedroom. The closed curtains created a dim light, and Mouse moved across to open them and let in the sunshine. Whoever had been in this house definitely wasn’t still there. She tried to recall what Kat had said, following Leon’s departure. Both Mouse and Doris had suggested having a big bonfire of everything Leon had left behind, and they could burn an effigy of him made by using one of his designer suits, but Kat had laughed and said everything was already packed into a suitcase and stored in his wardrobe.
Mouse walked across to Leon’s wardrobe and opened it. It was empty.
The three women sat at the kitchen table, all of them feeling shocked. Nothing had been heard of the murderous Leon Rowe since the night Nan had blown his hand apart.
‘I’m scared,’ Kat said. ‘I didn’t want him knowing about this baby, but what if he’s been watching for me leaving the house? This bump is huge. It’s obvious I’ve not just put on weight.’
‘It makes no difference whether he’s seen you or not, Kat,’ Mouse said gently. ‘When I went upstairs the nursery door was open. He knows a baby is coming into the house, and he knows how long it is since he left. He’s not daft. To Leon, two and two will make four. I know you resisted it but you have to change the locks, and they need doing today. Then you have to ring DI Marsden. If you don’t, it makes all of us complicit, and we need to be squeaky clean.’
‘Am I ever going to be free of this man?’ Kat looked very pale. ‘I’ll ring George Mears from church, locks are his line of business. He’ll sort everything out for me.’ She picked up her phone and very quickly arranged that George would call around within the next hour.
Mouse spoke at length with Marsden, who promised to send a forensics team out to check for fingerprints and ascertain that it was Leon Rowe who had been Kat’s visitor.
By ten that evening, all their immediate concerns had been addressed, with DI Marsden promising identification by early next morning.
‘Kat, before you go to bed, change your alarm code. I really can’t believe he’s been so brazen as to come back here, but he’s a dangerous man. We need to make it as difficult as possible, he can’t have free access to this house.’ Mouse had already taken the decision to sleep downstairs, and that thought had brought the alarm code to the forefront of her mind.
‘I will. What shall we have? Yours and Doris’s birthdays? Leon doesn’t know them, so if we don’t put anything linked to me he can’t even begin to guess.’
‘Okay, use 0628. We have to remember it, no writing it down,’ Mouse warned. ‘But don’t set it tonight, I’ll be sleeping down here. I’ll be your alarm for the next few hours. It must always be set when we sleep upstairs, we mustn’t take any chances with him entering at ground floor level.’
By midnight all was quiet. Mouse was on the sofa, reading in darkness, thankful her eReader had a backlight. She heard the gravel crunch, and threw back the duvet. She moved silently towards the window and peered around the edge of the curtains.
She breathed a sigh of relief. DI Marsden had ordered the local police to make random checks throughout the night, and she recognised the uniform, if not the man. She also realised if the police visits carried on through the dark hours, she would have to get up and check every time she heard the crunch of the gravel, just in case…
It proved to be a long and restless night, but thankfully free of unwelcome visitors.
2
Despite Kat agreeing to stop working until after the birth, all three of them arrived at the shop together.
Kat explained that she didn’t feel competent enough to be left on her own with the Internet and without Doris, so it would be better for her if she could accompany her two ladies at all times. In reality she was scared of being left at home alone. Her pregnancy made her vulnerable. She promised she would take her hospital bag and her notes everywhere she went, so she would
always be prepared for any situation arising from the huge bump that preceded her every move.
‘We need a meeting in my office,’ Mouse said. ‘All three of us. I haven’t had chance to discuss a new case we’ve picked up because of yesterday, so we need to talk about it now. Kat, I just want you as an observer, because you’re way beyond tackling anything physical. Other than giving birth,’ she added with a grin.
‘This bump doesn’t stop me typing.’
‘Yeah, right. You can’t get near your desk. But unless your brain’s turned to mush, you’re our best thinker. We need you for your logic, Kat, not your running abilities.’
Kat held up a thumb in agreement. ‘So tell us what’s needed. I presume it’s Mrs Carpenter, the lady who came in yesterday.’
‘It is. She’s called Judith but prefers Judy. She lives in Hope, her husband died about a year ago and she wants to trace his birth mother. It seems he was adopted as a tiny baby, and towards the end of his life she says he regretted not having tried to find her. He died from cancer, nothing genetic, but she has decided she’d like to go where he couldn’t, and find this lady. We have nothing to go on, no starting points, and she’s already given us a hefty deposit. I’ve copied her contract for the three of us, as well as the notes I took as I was speaking to her.’
Doris and Kat groaned. ‘Do these notes come translated?’ Doris asked.
‘Nope. If you can’t fathom anything, just ask, and I’ll have a go at working out what it says. I never said I could write legibly, did I.’
She handed out the scribbled sheets and they picked them up.
‘Good Lord,’ came from Kat.
‘Bloody hell, Mouse,’ came from Doris.
‘You’re so picky, both of you. Which bit can’t you decipher?’
‘All of it. But don’t worry, we’ll send it to Bletchley.’ Doris grinned at her granddaughter.
‘Look, basically what it’s saying is that her husband, Thomas Edward Carpenter, died when he was forty, twelve months ago. She called him Tom. He had always understood that his adoptive parents kept the Christian names given to him by his birth mother, along with a tiny silver cross and chain. She no longer has that, but she thinks Tom may have given it to his aunt as a keepsake. Both Tom’s parents have died, although his mother had a younger sister, Alice Small, who is still alive. This is the lady who possibly has the cross and chain. Alice doesn’t know Judy is trying to trace Tom’s birth mother. Tom’s adoptive dad was James Carpenter, his adoptive mother was Margot Carpenter, nee Foster. I’m assuming this means Alice was a Foster, too. The Carpenters, until their deaths, lived in Baslow.’
‘And that’s it? That’s all we have to go on?’ Kat’s eyes were still scanning Mouse’s handwritten sheet, hoping that somewhere in the scrawl there were other snippets of information.
‘That’s it,’ Mouse confirmed. ‘We have his adoption certificate, of course, but because he died before trying to trace her, Judy said he hadn’t applied for his birth certificate or his adoption pack. I actually think our starting point might be with Tom’s aunt, Alice Small. Kat, do you want to take on that part? Ring Judy and get as much information as possible. She’s expecting our call. She didn’t have addresses or anything with her yesterday.’
‘Will do,’ Kat responded, feeling happy she wasn’t being shelved just yet.
Doris and Kat were each dealing with their individual jobs, with Mouse out doing fieldwork following a client’s daughter, when DI Marsden walked into the shop.
‘Mrs Lester,’ she said. ‘You alone?’
‘No,’ Doris laughed. ‘We can’t leave Kat now. Mouse is out on a job, and Kat is in her own office, working on a new piece of business. Do you want her?’
Kat opened her office door. ‘I’m here. You have news?’ She had just finished speaking with Judy Carpenter, and making legible notes of addresses and dates.
‘Only what you’re expecting, I fear. It was your husband who was in the house. You’ve heard nothing from him?’
Kat shook her head. ‘No, but I suspect I might. It seems he saw the nursery, so he’ll know I’m pregnant. He’ll make it his business to find out if I’m nearly due and then he’ll know the baby belongs to him. That will cause problems.’
‘I don’t doubt,’ Marsden said. ‘What will you do?’
‘Tell him to fuck off,’ Kat said angrily. ‘What do you think I’ll do? He can’t resurface, you’ll arrest him.’
‘Don’t swear, Kat,’ Doris said mildly. ‘It doesn’t become you.’
Tessa Marsden tried to hide her smile. Doris Lester was a force to be reckoned with, and she kept a close eye on her two girls. ‘I’m more than a little concerned for your safety, Kat. He’s not going to forgive any of you. He no longer has a wife, no longer has an income, a home… His life is the complete opposite of what it was a year ago. And now there’s the baby. I think that’s going to be a massive problem inside Rowe’s head. That’s the biggie, isn’t it? A child he’s unable to acknowledge, and he knows that once we track him down and arrest him, you’ll be able to serve divorce papers, putting the baby even further away from him.’
‘Don’t worry, DI Marsden. We’ve got Kat’s back.’ Doris spoke with emphasis.
‘I don’t doubt it, Mrs Lester, but I want to have someone out at your home, Kat, installing a panic button. Until we arrest Rowe, I want you to feel a little more secure. You will only be two minutes away from help arriving. They’ll be there at three this afternoon, so make sure you’re there to let them in, will you. They’ll put one in the bedroom and one in the kitchen. Do you need one in the lounge as well?’
‘Yes, she does,’ Doris answered.
Kat looked at the fiery pensioner and smiled. ‘Whatever Nan says is fine with me,’ she said to Marsden. ‘She’s always right. Maybe I should have one in the loo, I spend most of my time in there. I think this baby sleeps on my bladder. You don’t think Leon will come here, to the shop?’
‘No, this is too public. He’ll want you on familiar territory, the home he shared with you.’
‘Then as soon as Mouse gets back we’ll finish here, and work from home for the rest of the day. Thank you for doing this for Kat, DI Marsden. He’s an evil bastard, is Leon Rowe,’ Doris spat.
‘Hey,’ Kat said. ‘Don’t swear, Mrs Lester, it doesn’t suit you.’
Marsden turned to leave, then paused in the doorway. ‘It goes without saying, I hope, that if you do see Rowe you’ll not try to handle it yourselves. We need to know. He’s an evil murderer, Kat, he wants putting away, whether he’s a new daddy or not.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Kat laughed. ‘I want him out of our lives. You’ll be the first person we call.’
Leon Rowe watched as Mouse entered the shop, then stared more closely as Kat and Doris followed Mouse out some two minutes later, and into the Range Rover. His view from the attic of his old pharmacy, directly opposite The Connection Detective Agency, gave him a perfect picture of Kat and the massive stomach concealing a child that was almost ready to be born. The nursery had created the question, the size of Kat’s stomach had shown him the answer.
The baby was his.
The installation engineer for the panic buttons was quite delicious, Mouse decided. And then she realised he was the first man she had looked at in that way since seeing Anthony Jackson killed a year earlier. Watching a head being blown apart tended to put away thoughts of relationships and sex.
She signed the engineer’s paperwork, and escorted him to the front door. ‘Thank you,’ she said, wondering if he would appreciate a quick kiss on the cheek, but deciding against being a brazen hussy. ‘Let’s hope they never get used.’
‘Very few do,’ he responded. ‘But don’t hesitate about using them. The lads would rather come out to a false call, than you not recognise there’s danger and end up dead.’
She thanked him again, closed the door and leaned against it. End up dead? Would Leon Rowe really go that far with the woman who was supposedly the love
of his life?
She knew the answer. He would.
Mouse returned to the kitchen to see Kat leaning forward over the sink, rubbing her back.
‘Do I need towels and boiling water?’ she grinned.
‘It’s backache. He or she is a proper lump, you know. And heavy with it. It’s going to seem a long two weeks.’
Mouse gave her a hug and Kat winced. ‘Sorry, did I hurt you?’
‘No, I just had a twinge. A bit stronger than the last twinge.’
‘Oh my God, you’re having contractions?’
‘No, it’s backache.’
Doris eventually intervened. ‘Kat, stand up straight, stop leaning over the sink.’
Kat slowly pushed away from the sink and as she became more upright she stared in horror at the pool of water appearing on the floor beneath her feet.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she gasped. ‘It’s only five minutes since I last peed.’
Doris shook her head. ‘These ante-natal classes you attended, what can you remember about labour starting?’
‘Contractions?’
‘Before you get to that.’
‘Waters breaking…’
‘And backache?’ Doris smiled.
‘Shit.’ Kat visibly paled.
‘Not yet, that comes later.’ Doris laughed. ‘And stop swearing, young lady, it’s not becoming of a woman of the cloth.’
Mouse was rigid. ‘You mean…?’
‘Kat’s in early labour. Go get a couple of towels, Mouse, and put them on a chair. That will soak up any more fluid, and then we’ll get Kat’s bag and ring the hospital. There’s no rush, I hope.’
Mouse ran upstairs, and returned with the towels, then lowered Kat onto the seat. She was biting her lip.
‘Another one?’
Kat nodded. ‘I’ve been having them on and off all day, but put it down to the stress of yesterday, finding out Leon had been here.’