Shadow of a Doubt

by Michelle Davies

  The doorbell peals again.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ says Tishk with a sigh, getting up from the sofa.

  ‘Tell them she won’t talk for anything less than £10,000, like those supermodels,’ Lisa calls after his retreating back.

  ‘What?’ I laugh.

  ‘It was a famous quote – one of them said they wouldn’t get out of bed for less than ten grand.’ She gives me a look. ‘Aren’t you tempted to sell your story? The money would come in handy while you’re not working.’

  ‘No way, I couldn’t profit from Matty’s death like that, it would be wrong,’ I say with a shudder. Quickly, I change the subject. ‘How was your mum this morning?’

  Karen’s been staying away while the reporters have been swarming around and we decided it would raise Gary’s suspicions if Lisa stayed at mine any longer, so for the past two nights she’s also been at home with her parents. We figured the press attention should put him off sneaking in as Limey Stan for the time being.

  ‘She’s doing her best to hold it together, but it’s really hard. She hates being around him, it’s crucifying her.’

  ‘It can’t be much fun for you either.’

  ‘It’s not. I’m scared to be in the same room as him. I know you want proof, but part of me wishes we could just go to the police. I think Mum’s wishing the same.’

  ‘They won’t believe it,’ I say. ‘They’ll say I’m making it up. I know this is hard for you both, but I need you to let me do this.’

  Tishk comes in holding a box. ‘It’s the spy cameras you ordered.’

  I sit up, excited. ‘Brilliant. Open it.’

  ‘Were there any reporters out there?’ Lisa asks.

  ‘Nah, they’ve obviously moved on to something far more interesting than Cara.’

  I smile, not in the least bit offended by Tishk’s remark. I’ve grown to love his company and every day we spend together is better than the previous. I never thought returning to Heldean would bring into my life new friendships I would want to treasure, but he’s making the painful truth that I was unjustly banished for twenty-five years a fraction easier to bear. I only hope he can forgive me when he finds out what we’re keeping from him.

  ‘Good,’ says Lisa firmly. ‘Let’s hope they leave you alone now, and that bolshy estate agent too.’

  Ian Leonard hasn’t reacted well to being told I don’t want to continue with the sale. First he’d tried to cajole me into changing my mind when I rang to tell him, but when that didn’t work, he turned up on the doorstep ranting that I’d signed a contract and had to honour it and I should sell up as I had committed to doing. If it hadn’t been for Lisa telling him to leave, I don’t think he’d have backed down until he’d bullied me into changing my mind.

  He hasn’t quite relented though – the steady stream of emails and texts I am receiving are a testament to that. He says at the very least I owe him his fee. If I do decide to sell again, it certainly won’t be through his agency.

  But, for now, I am very happy to stay put in Parsons Close. As devastated as I am about my mum letting me take the blame and Limey Stan not being the ghost I thought he was back then, the knowledge has also brought with it a sense of peace. I have no reason to be frightened of being here now – there is nothing lurking in the shadows any more for me to fear. My only wish is that Matty was here so I could tell him that. I wish I could say sorry for making him hide with me that night.

  Blinking back tears, I watch as Tishk finishes unpacking the cameras. These ones are perfectly tiny, barely the size of a thumbnail, and will be easily hidden. They have a night-vision function too, but the downside is that the battery might drain after about 90 minutes of recording. However, if I’m prepared to wait up, I should be able to activate them using my phone the moment I hear Gary step inside the house, meaning I won’t waste precious minutes recording thin air.

  I am prepared.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Cara

  Tishk and Lisa offer to stay with me overnight, but I decline, knowing that if there are people in the house with me I cannot bring this nightmare to an end, as ‘Limey Stan’ will not come. Besides, this is my ending to my story, not theirs, and I need to see it through alone. I tell them I will call them if I need help and, reluctantly, they each depart: Tishk next door and Lisa to the friend’s place she was originally meant to be staying at. She doesn’t want to stay with her parents tonight because if she hears Gary leaving, she might not be able to stop herself confronting him first. Karen, meanwhile, dropped it into conversation with Gary that the press has dispersed and I’m staying on at the house. She said he didn’t react, but the point is he knows I’m alone now.

  I while away the hours until bedtime looking through my old belongings stored inside the boxes in Matty’s bedroom. I’ve decanted them onto my bed though, as I find it too upsetting to sit in his room. I am grieving for both of us now – for his death and for the life we should’ve had growing up together.

  Among the contents are some of my old schoolbooks and it amuses me to see I had an aptitude for maths even back then. I do not recover any English work though, because the stories I wrote in class were sent to the Peachick as evidence of my febrile imagination. I know this because there is mention of it in my medical notes.

  I once again lift out the little box containing my and Matty’s hospital ID bracelets. As I delicately hold each one, I wonder why Mum packed Matty’s with the rest of my things and why it’s not amongst his. I can understand why mine is here, much as it pains me to say it – all my other belongings were dumped in boxes, why would this be any different? But Matty’s? A precious memento like this, I would’ve expected her to––

  My mind suddenly fizzes as it connects the thought I’ve just had to something said to me a few days ago. The girl in black who was with Timothy Pitt, the one called Jenny, who claimed to be a medium, what was it she said? My face screws up as I force myself to piece her comment together, all the while cursing myself for not paying more attention at the time. I know it was something about not ignoring what is precious from the beginning and something about a road. I turn Matty’s ID bracelet over in my palm again. It was given to him within minutes of his life beginning and Mum left it in a place where I couldn’t ignore it. But all that medium prophesising is hokum, isn’t it? It’s about as real as Limey Stan was.

  And yet it niggles at me as I sit here, the message Jenny claimed to have from my mum. I am tempted for a moment to contact Pitt, asking him to get Jenny to call me, but I backtrack immediately, knowing it would be a terrible idea to willingly invite that man and his acolytes into my life.

  I put the ID bracelets back in the box and my eye catches the lettering on the inside of Matty’s again: HL72QR. When I first saw it, I assumed it was a hospital reference number, but what if it’s not?

  I open the search engine on my phone and seconds later I want to slap myself for being so stupid for not recognising what it was the moment I saw it.

  HL7 2QR is a Heldean postcode.

  With trembling fingers, I click on the first link and what I read sends shockwaves barrelling through me. HL7 2QR is the postcode for a street on the other side of town – a street called Limestone Road.

  It can’t be …

  Limestone …

  Limey Stan?

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Cara

  ‘It must be,’ I say aloud, my pulse at full throttle as I read again the name ‘Limestone Road’. Mustard, napping on the carpet beside me, head on his paws, does not react – then again he’s used to me talking to myself. ‘What if I misheard Uncle Gary saying Limestone Road and that’s how I came up with the name Limey Stan?’

  I grab my phone again and clamber to my feet. On my way downstairs, I call Karen. It is half past eleven, but I don’t think twice about disturbing her so late. I have to ask her.

  ‘What connection does Uncle Gary have to Limestone Road?’ I blurt out as soon as she picks up.

  ‘I don�
��t know where that is.’

  ‘It’s on the other side of town.’

  I can hear the hesitancy in her voice when she answers. ‘I honestly don’t know, Cara. I swear I’ve never heard him mention it. Are you okay? You sound upset.’ Her voice drops to a whisper. ‘He’s here still, watching telly. I was about to go to bed and leave him to it.’

  I ignore her. ‘Someone wrote the postcode for Limestone Road on the inside of Matty’s ID bracelet from the hospital when he was born and I looked it up and I think Limestone Road is where I got the name Limey Stan from.’

  I’m aware I sound a bit manic, but I can’t help it. I am elated I’ve finally worked out the provenance of the name. But Karen’s not convinced.

  ‘It sounds like a coincidence, Cara. The lettering on the bracelet is probably something to do with the hospital.’

  ‘No, it’s a postcode,’ I say, frustrated she’s querying it. ‘I think it was put there as a clue for me to find.’

  ‘By who? It won’t have been your mum, because we know she wanted you to take the blame.’

  ‘My dad?’ I venture. ‘Maybe he suspected all along and this was his way of helping me find out the truth.’

  ‘If your dad thought for even a second you’d been falsely accused he would’ve moved heaven and earth to prove it, not leave an obscure clue that might or might not have been found decades later,’ Karen reasons. ‘Besides, like I said, Gary has no connection to Limestone Road.’

  Is she lying or is she wondering why I am trying to connect her husband to a street she knows nothing about? I don’t give her the chance to explain her thinking: I say a curt goodbye, then hang up. I have bigger concerns right now than her marital secrets.

  Unable to calm myself, I pace the downstairs of the house, back and forth, up and down. When that does nothing to pacify me, I head for the fridge and the bottle of wine chilling inside it. I had decided not to drink tonight, to keep a clear head, but the frustration burning in the pit of my stomach needs extinguishing so I can think straight, and this is the only way I know how to salve it. I pour myself a medium glass, down it in one, then pour myself another. By the time that glass is drained, I am feeling marginally more relaxed. I pour another, just to be sure.

  Glass in hand, I go back upstairs to my bedroom. I need to give the impression that I am asleep. I have even turned off all the lights in the house tonight. I was scared at first, my natural reaction to plunging myself into the darkness being to panic. Then I reminded myself that there was nothing to fear in the shadows now: I know who my bogeyman is and I am ready to confront him.

  I settle on the bed and wait. Mustard is asleep on his. He is uncharacteristically docile tonight and it occurs to me I’ve been so distracted I forgot to take him to the vet’s to have him checked out after locking him in the car. Feeling guilty, I lean down and ruffle the fur on his head.

  ‘I’m sorry, mate. I’ll take better care of you when this is all over, I promise.’ He remains still, but his tummy expands and contracts as he breathes. I ruffle his head again. ‘Mustard?’

  He’s unconscious, I realise with horror. I slide off the bed onto the floor and gently raise his head with both hands. As it lolls heavily to one side, Mustard emits a loud snore, followed by a sigh. He’s breathing, but it appears as though he’s heavily sedated. Frantically, I think back over the day. Who has had access to him to administer a sedative? My only visitors today have been Lisa and Tishk. I gently lower Mustard’s head back on to his paws and as he snores again, I ask myself the question I probably should have posed much sooner than this, given she’s admitted she was in the house the night Matty died and it was her who first pointed the finger at Uncle Gary and convinced me and her mum that he could be Limey Stan.

  Am I stupid to trust my cousin?

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Karen

  Karen can barely look her husband in the eye as he fusses around the kitchen preparing his usual fare of chicken paste sandwiches to take to work tomorrow for lunch. Gary’s not oblivious to it though, asking her three times if anything’s the matter.

  ‘I’m coming down with a cold,’ she lies. ‘In fact, I think I’ll sleep in the spare room so I don’t keep you awake all night snuffling.’

  Gary’s face registers shock. In thirty years of marriage, they can count on both hands the amount of times they have slept apart. Although, Karen thinks bitterly, there have been many nights where he hasn’t crawled into bed until the early hours, when she assumed he was downstairs watching television but instead could have been sneaking in from her sister’s house.

  Bile rises in her throat as her mind conjures up unpleasant images of Gary and Anita together. But what hurts her most isn’t the thought of them being lovers but the lying that cushioned it. How they must have laughed behind her back at her naivety. Her misplaced trust in them gave them licence to do as they pleased and what really kills her is that Anita didn’t care about the damage it would inflict on Karen if she found out, because she knew Karen well enough to know that Gary cheating would devastate her.

  And it has. Every time she does manage to force herself to look in his direction, she wants to scream at him for humiliating her and for putting Lisa in the awkward position of catching him with Anita in the garden. Then there’s what Cara went through as well, although how Karen feels about that has become conflicted in the past few days. Gary’s complicity in the Limey Stan hoax seems in no doubt, yet she cannot bring herself to believe he went as far as to kill Matty. She knows he wouldn’t hurt any child, let alone one he was close to, spent time with and loved. However, despite her misgivings, she is prepared to go along with Cara’s plan in trying to unmask him because her niece deserves to clear her name.

  She flinches as Gary places his palm against her forehead.

  ‘You don’t feel hot, so it can’t be serious,’ he says. ‘Are you sure you want to sleep in the spare room? I don’t mind if you’re a bit bunged up.’

  ‘I’ll mind, because you say it’s okay now, but tomorrow you’ll be moaning that you’ve had no sleep. I know what you’re like, Gary.’

  She’s not usually as abrupt with him and she can see he’s a bit taken aback, but he shrugs it off. ‘Well, if you’re still feeling dicky in the morning, I’ll bring you breakfast in bed.’

  He gives her a wink as he says it and she wonders how many other women including Anita have been on the receiving end of that gesture over the years. She hasn’t been blind to his flirting, but she trusted he would never go beyond that. Flirting was almost like a hobby he indulged in, a pastime that enhanced his life with her rather than detracted from it.

  ‘You don’t have to do that … I doubt I’ll be hungry,’ she says. ‘My stomach is all over the place.’

  ‘I thought you said it was a cold.’ He eyes her warily. ‘Are you sure nothing else is wrong?’

  What, aside from finding out you might have killed our nephew and let his nine-year-old sister take the blame? Oh, I’m just peachy. She bites down hard on the words she’s dying to say to him and forces herself to shake her head.

  ‘I’m fine, honestly. I’m going to go up now.’

  ‘Are you sure I can’t tuck you in?’ he grins. ‘Or how about a fireman’s lift up the stairs?’

  Jokey banter has always been a cornerstone of their marriage and normally she would laugh along with him, but not tonight. If his guilt is confirmed by the footage that Cara records during the night, she wants to be the one to call the police and report him – and when they send him to prison, she won’t be visiting.

  ‘Goodnight,’ she says.

  He goes to peck her on the lips, as is customary every evening before bed. The past four nights she’s endured it for the sake of appearances, but now it occurs to Karen that this might be the last time they are alone together.

  ‘Don’t kiss me,’ she says, turning away from him. ‘You might catch something.’

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Cara

  I dig out
the number for an out-of-hours vet. I don’t care that the hidden cameras are primed: getting Mustard checked over supersedes everything I had planned for tonight. The vet I am put through to, however, seems only concerned with finding out whether Mustard has thrown up or not.

  ‘No, he’s fast asleep,’ I say.

  ‘Not whining or whimpering in his sleep?’

  I crouch down beside Mustard again. ‘No, but he is snoring louder than normal.’

  ‘Do you take sleeping tablets yourself?’

  ‘Um, I do.’

  ‘It’s not uncommon for dogs, or cats for that matter, to gobble up pills left lying around the house,’ the vet says. ‘Chances are your dog has eaten one of your sleeping tablets and it’s knocked him out.’

  I look over at the chest of drawers. There is a bottle of sleeping tablets on the top, but the lid’s screwed on, so I must’ve dropped a tablet when I was taking them and Mustard found it on the floor. But as angry as I am with myself that it’s my carelessness which has put him in this position, I’m also relieved it’s dispelled my fear that Lisa might have been behind it.

  ‘Isn’t it dangerous for him to swallow a sleeping tablet?’ I ask.

  ‘It can be, yes, but if your dog hasn’t shown any signs he’s experiencing toxicity by vomiting and he hasn’t had any convulsions, he’s probably okay just sleeping it off. You can obviously bring him in right now if you’re really worried, but I would suggest monitoring him throughout the night and then getting him checked out first thing tomorrow. I can book you in for the first appointment of the morning, at seven-thirty.’

  Mustard is shifting in his sleep now, but he’s still out for the count. Should I really risk waiting until morning? I’m about to question the vet’s advice again when a loud bang rings out downstairs, like a window or door slamming shut. I go rigid, my phone gripped tightly in my hand, my mouth hanging open.