by E C Deacon
He took a last toke on the spliff and flushed it down the lavatory, watching it swirl around the bowl like a tiny canoe caught in a whirlpool, disappearing to God knows where. It reminded him of watching Richie Hart’s blood dripping down the drain, like a bad metaphor for his career. How long ago was that? It seemed like years but it couldn’t have been more than a couple of weeks.
He was getting cold and reached for a towel on the chrome radiator. As he did so, the room shifted ninety degrees on its axis and he tipped forward, cracking his head on the edge of the sink. He came around moments later with warm rivulets of blood running across his face and onto the white-cotton bath mat. Shit, he thought. That’s going to stain. He groaned and got gingerly to his feet, easing the blood-soaked mat into the shower with his foot and turning the faucet on to soak it. For a second, he debated getting back under to wash the blood from himself, then realised he’d be staining the rug again. Fuck, he thought. I’m going to…
He awoke on the floor, took a deep breath, reached slowly up and grabbed the edge of the sink. Hauling himself up, he leant over the bowl and turned on the cold-water tap, letting it run across his face to clean the gaping wound bridging his nose. The pressure wasn’t great with the shower on, but it was still enough to make him wince. He glanced up into the mirror but his eyes refused to focus and the more he tried the more the room began to swim. Even in his confused state, he knew that his nose was broken and that he’d need stitches. But there was no way he could get to the front door, let alone drive. And there was absolutely no way that he was calling an ambulance, Helen or – God forbid – his wife. He fumbled for the bottle of Mount Gay, staggered into his bedroom and collapsed onto the bed.
He finally came to in the Brodie ward of St. George’s Hospital after being in and out of consciousness for three hours.
He’d been found by his downstairs neighbour, a truculent Polish guy he’d barely ever spoken to; who had found water cascading through his ceiling and raced upstairs to remonstrate with Everton. Getting no response, he raced downstairs again to phone Thames Water for advice – a futile gesture – and found half his ceiling on his kitchen floor. One kick from his steel-capped boot had smashed Everton’s front door clean off its hinges. He found the shower still running on the bath mat, which was blocking the plug hole and flooding the floor, and Everton sprawled comatose on the blood-soaked bed, the bottle of Mount Gay rum beside him. Thinking he was drunk, he tried to shake him awake but finally realised that he was unconscious and called an ambulance.
The medics sent him for bloods and a CT scan. The scan revealed nothing but the bloods showed high levels of HTC and alcohol in his system. They therefore deduced that his injuries – a fractured nose and a zygomatic hairline fracture to his left cheekbone – were most likely caused by a fall whilst he was under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol. But when they checked his medical records they found the extenuating cause: he was suffering from Meniere’s Disease, a disorder of the inner ear that affected both hearing and balance.
He learnt from a baby-faced Filipino nurse that his wife and son had been to see him whilst he was unconscious. The nurse promised Pauline not to tell him, but she thought Everton ought to know. After she left the room, he groaned, remembering how much love he’d let go from his life, especially Adam’s. How, as a child, his son taught him what unconditional love was - the joy of giving and receiving it - and as a teenager had withdrawn it and in doing so hurt himself as much as Everton. Everton wanted to believe that his visit was a sign of better things to come.
He had another visitor too. DCI Teal arrived with a cacti and jokey card from Helen that read: from one prickly customer to another; which he knew was her attempt at an apology. Teal didn’t stay long but ordered him to take a week’s sick leave and informed him that he’d be backing his claim for early retirement on health grounds. Everton bit his tongue, aware that Teal would have been informed about his incriminating blood tests.
He heard nothing from Laura Fell and assumed she hadn’t been told of his accident.
That wasn’t the case. Helen had phoned her, ostensibly to let her know Everton would no longer be working on the investigation, but also to gauge her reaction to the news that he was in hospital and might be taking early retirement. Laura asked her to pass on her best wishes, but nothing more. A relief for Helen, since it confirmed her suspicion that Everton’s feelings weren’t reciprocated and vindicated her axing him from the investigation.
Laura’s apparent lack of concern wasn’t born out of indifference but the fact that her own life had skewed on its axis.
She was walking up to the door of Pitt Hancock Solicitors in Isleworth and quite literally bumped into Kieron Allen, who had evidently been delivering some legal documents about proof of his identity. He recognised her immediately and introduced himself as Gina’s brother. Laura was stunned. She’d known Gina nearly twenty years yet had never heard her or her family speak of a brother. Kieron told her that there was a reason for that and if she had time he’d like to explain.
They walked the couple of hundred metres to the London Apprentice, a Georgian pub overlooking the Thames. Kieron insisted on buying a pot of tea and rock cakes. They sat outside under one of the heated awnings, Kieron feeding the swans and mallard ducks with crumbs as he tentatively told his and Gina’s story.
“Eighteen months ago, I saw an advert placed by a woman called Amy Tann in my local newspaper. Actually, you may have read about her in the Evening Standard recently…?”
Laura shook her head, not realising that she’d skipped over the sensational headline, whilst searching for news of Gina’s funeral:
Met detective MURDERER
“Well, anyway, that’s another sad story,” Kieron continued. “She runs – ran – a tracing agency which finds and reconnects estranged families.”
“You mean like adopted children looking for their real parents?”
“Their birth parents, yes. The ad said she was seeking information about Jennifer Allen, my mother, and her daughter, Gina.”
“Are you saying that Gina was adopted?”
“Yes, when she was a few days old. My mother had split up from my father. She couldn’t cope.”
“But… she never said anything to me or anyone.”
“She didn’t know until recently. And when she found out, Mrs Lewis swore her to secrecy before she would give her the name of her real mother. She’d never told her and didn’t want it to come out.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know. I only met them a couple of times. The family didn’t want anything to do with me. I think Mrs Lewis was concerned about her career and the press. Gina and I had to meet in secret.”
“How did Gina find out about being adopted?”
“Her father, Gordon, had a car accident. He lost control and crashed into a parked car.”
“I know, said Laura. “He’s been in a wheelchair ever since.”
“What you don’t know is that he was drunk. He was breathalysed but it got hushed up. He never even went to court.”
“How?”
“Mrs Lewis has powerful connections. Gina was in the front with her so-called father…” Laura was confused, what was he implying, but before she could interrupt Kieron continued, “and they both needed blood transfusions. But when the blood labelled G Lewis arrived, meant for him – Gordon – it was given to Gina by mistake.”
“Wouldn’t that have been dangerous?”
“It could have been. Fortunately, the registrar realised the mistake and stopped the transfusion. But later Gina noticed that something else seemed to be bothering him. He was reluctant to explain, probably frightened about getting sued, but eventually told her that there must have been a mistake with her blood typing. Because her blood was AB rhesus negative, which is extremely rare, but her fathers was an O+DD type and quite common.”
“I don’t understand. What does that mean?”
“That genetically, Gordon couldn’t have been
her real father.”
“God. But that must have been devastating for Gina.”
“She said she felt like she’d been living a lie for thirty-eight years.”
“What about you? Did you know that you had a sister?”
“I only found out the truth three years ago; my mother told me before she died. She said it was the biggest regret of her life, giving Gina up.”
“And you eventually found her. How lucky was that?”
“Yes. I’d been made redundant. If I hadn’t been looking through the job adverts that day, I would never have known.”
He took out his wallet and carefully extracted a neatly folded piece of newspaper with an ad highlighted in yellow. It read:
Lost and Found
“Is this the name of the tracing agency? Lost and Found?”
“Yes. Ironic, don’t you think? She was lost and found and now she’s lost again, forever.” He picked up the remains of his cake, lobbed it into the river and watched it slowly sink below the brown water. “No wonder they call it a rock cake.”
Neither of them smiled at his bleak joke. Laura refilled their cups with the tepid tea and they sat in silence, watching the tiny dace voraciously attacking the cake, now suspended three inches beneath the surface. Laura finally broke the silence.
“Do you know why… she did it?”
“No. Amy, the tracing agent, said she suffered from depression. But I never saw it. She always seemed so happy whenever we were together.”
“She was taking lithium,” said Laura, as if in explanation.
“Lithium? No way.”
“She was. She said she shouldn’t have been prescribed it and was going to come off it.”
Kieron appeared genuinely shocked, and said, fighting to hold back his anger, “Lithium is what they give schizophrenics. My sister was not a schizophrenic!”
“I’m not saying she was,” said Laura, touched by his defence of his sister but needing to make him understand the truth. “But I think she may have been borderline bipolar. She was prone to mood swings… Maybe she was depressed that night and–”
“It’s because of me, is that what you’re saying?”
“No. No, she was obviously desperate to find her real parents – and you. I think it was more likely to have been caused by her “ mother’s” reaction. Mrs Lewis, you know yourself, isn’t an easy woman. She can be controlling. Gina fought against it all her life.”
Kieron took a blister pack of Nurofen from his pocket and popped a couple into the palm of his hand, washing them down with the dregs of his tea. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. I know you’re upset too.”
“The Lewis’ are threatening to sue me.”
“What? Why would they do that?”
“Gina changed her will the day that she died. She left everything to me. The house, her car, everything. Now her parents are contesting the will and the police are investigating.”
“The police? What have they got to do with it?”
“I was outside Gina’s house the night that… she died. I thought I saw someone inside and phoned the police.”
“Inside? Did you recognise them?”
“No. It was just a shadow. A man, I think. We discovered that some things were missing from the house: Gina’s laptop and mobile.”
“Have they found them?”
“No. But the thing is, I kept ringing Gina’s mobile and a man answered and then the line went dead.”
“Are you saying that this man might have had something to do with Gina’s death?”
“No – I don’t know. None of it makes any sense. The police are sure she took her own life but now they think there could be some connection to some other cases.”
Kieron looked totally nonplussed. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I. Any of it… I just want it to be over. It’s been a nightmare. I’ve lost my job, my friends and worst of all Gina.”
Laura missed her appointment at the solicitors. She phoned and apologised, explaining that she hadn’t been well, which was a lie. She spent the rest of the afternoon with Kieron in the nearby grounds of Syon House, a two hundred-acre oasis of lakes and parkland created by Capability Brown in the eighteenth century. Wandering amongst the ancient oaks in the arboretum, they shared their memories of Gina. Kieron was a good listener, something he told her that he’d learnt from experience as a care worker and prided himself upon, and for the first time in weeks Laura felt comfortable about openly sharing her fears.
They were in the Butterfly House, marvelling at the myriads of species that floated like delicate aimless angels and then homed in on any new splash of colour. Laura’s blonde hair and cherry nails were covered in them, much to the delight of Kieron who insisted on taking a video on his mobile.
“Do you know why they’re called butterflies?”
“Is it something to do with what they eat?”
“No. But interestingly, they actually taste with their feet.”
Laura pulled a face, not sure she liked the sound of something tasting her hair, and brushed one gently away from the vermillion balm on her lips. “This one’s getting a bit too friendly.”
“It’s the bright colours. It thinks you’re a flower.”
It took her a moment to realise that he wasn’t just relaying information; he was paying her a compliment. She wasn’t sure how to respond so merely smiled. Kieron looked abashed and changed the subject. “It’s looking for nectar. So, the name. Believe it or not they were actually known as Flutterbys until someone got the words mixed up. Flutterby became butterfly and it stuck.”
Laura laughed out loud and said, “That’s a lovely story, but I’m not sure it’s true.”
“Who knows.” He shrugged. “But I like it. Actually, and this is true, some psychics call them ‘angel calling cards’.”
“You can see why, looking at them.”
“You know my favourite? The Clouded August Thorn. Isn’t that a beautiful name?”
“Yes. What does it look like?”
“Like it sounds. Gorgeous. We used to have them in our garden. Clouded Augusts, Clouded Yellows.”
Laura felt a slight but unmistakable pang at hearing we, signifying that there was someone else in his life, and immediately felt embarrassed by her insensitivity. He seemed to sense something was amiss and felt obliged to explain. “I’m divorced. She liked gardening. I like wildlife. You?”
“Oh,” said Laura, momentarily thrown by the directness of his question. “Proudly single. But like Gina used to say, I’m willing to be convinced otherwise – and now I come to think of it, she loved butterflies too.”
Kieron smiled and held his mobile up for her to view the video. She stood close to him, shielding the screen from the light as she watched it. He caught the scent of spring flowers from her White Linen perfume and pushed the thought of anything more intimate from his mind.
“If you put in your number I’ll send it to you.”
“Great,” she replied, happy that he’d asked, and typed it into his mobile.
DS Clarke wasn’t overly concerned about Megan Howell’s apparent disappearance. There was no sign of foul play and nothing out of place in the flat apart from a pair of women’s panties on the sofa. It looked to him like Megan had removed any personal items, including her clothes, and just locked up and left. Possibly prompted by the death of her dog, which had clearly eaten something poisonous.
DCI Teal ordered him to run a check with Megan’s bank and informed him that from now on he’d personally be overseeing the missing-women case. And that he expected Clarke’s total support, whatever they uncovered. Clarke knew that he’d been shown a yellow card and that he would have to tread softly.
He intercepted Helen on her way out of the detective’s room and asked if he could buy her a coffee and have a chat to clear the air. Helen was reluctant but Clarke seemed to genuinely want to build bridges and she was smart enough to realise she’d be better off,
him working with her rather than against her. She decided to give him the benefit of her very large doubt.
Clarke knew the manager of Maison St. Cassien, a tiny cafe on the corner of Church Road in the heart of Wimbledon Village that served a spectacular brunch, and suggested they walk up for some exercise. Helen was surprised to learn that he was in training for the London marathon, having once toyed with the idea of entering it herself, and agreed.
On the trek up Wimbledon Hill they made small talk about his training regime and the charity he was running for, the Alzheimer’s Society, in honour of his mother who’d died from it, which struck a chord with Helen because of her father’s condition. For the first time, she saw Clarke as a real person, with genuine fears and feelings, rather than an obstacle to her career, so much so that she even offered to sponsor him.
She had no idea that Clarke was lying. Not about running the marathon, but who he was running for. He signed up for Guide Dogs for the Blind but learnt from his ex-detective mate Brian Hoffman about her father’s illness so decided to use it to his advantage.
They sat at the rear of the cafe and ate tortilla melts and salad, Clarke’s favourite dish, whilst they chatted about the case. He admitted he’d been defensive, concerned about being made a fall guy, but insisted he’d had a change of heart, realising now that the only way to stop it happening to another woman was to help solve the case. Helen agreed to wipe the slate clean as long as he accepted her absolute authority when it came to running the investigation and the team. Clarke conceded and began filling her in on the circumstances concerning Megan Howell’s disappearance, informing her that any connection between Megan, Gina Lewis and the other missing women was probably coincidental. Helen wasn’t entirely convinced but agreed they should put it on the back-burner and concentrate on the investigation into Don Hart. The second search of his house had revealed absolutely nothing. Not even a trace of weed – which was odd considering the previous drug-related convictions of his son. Plus, they’d drawn a blank on his phone records and his brief was demanding his release and making threatening noises about police harassment.