When the Dead Speak

by Sheila Bugler

  He moved away from the door and wandered into the sitting room. Dee followed him, shutting the front door behind her and glancing upstairs. The landing light was on and both children’s bedroom doors were open, lights off inside.

  ‘They’re asleep,’ Martin said. ‘I put them to bed about an hour ago and I’ve checked them a few times since. I’m not quite the rubbish father you think I am.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re a rubbish dad,’ Dee said.

  She sat down on one of the sofas and suggested he might like to sit down too.

  ‘Tell me what’s happened.’

  ‘It’s simple enough. My wife is having an affair. I didn’t want to believe it. I’ve done everything I could to tell myself it’s not true. But then I saw her this morning. I was driving home after dropping the kids to school. I thought it was a mistake, that it was just someone who looked like her. But it wasn’t.’

  ‘Where was she?’

  ‘On the seafront. She was getting into someone’s car. I couldn’t see the driver, not properly, but enough to see it was a man. When I realised what was going on, I turned the car around to follow them, but I was too late. They’d already gone.’

  Nigel. Louise had arranged to meet him on the pier, but they must have changed their plans because of the bad weather. Although no amount of rain explained why Louise was still with Nigel. If that’s where she was.

  ‘She must meet all sorts of people for work,’ she told Martin. ‘How can you be sure it wasn’t a work appointment?’

  ‘Because I’ve spoken with the people she works with, and she didn’t go in today. She called in sick. And now she’s somewhere in the middle of the South Downs National Park with some other man, instead of at home with her husband and children.’

  His voice rose as he spoke. Worried the children would wake, Dee stood up and closed the sitting room door.

  ‘Sorry,’ Martin said, in a more regular voice. ‘Can’t you just tell me, Dee? She’s my wife, for Christ’s sake. I need to know. Is this it? Is she leaving me? What did she think? That she could just run off and not come home and somehow that would be okay?’

  ‘If I knew where she was,’ Dee said, ‘or who she was with, I swear on the children’s lives that I would tell you, Martin. But I don’t.’

  She tried to work out where Louise and Nigel could be. And why Louise would have called in sick to spend the day with a man who’d tried to blackmail her.

  ‘What sort of car was it?’

  ‘White Merc. A-class, I think. Although I didn’t get a proper look.’

  A-class didn’t mean a thing to Dee. She didn’t know what sort of car Nigel Shaw drove, but she imagined it would be something expensive – like a Mercedes.

  ‘I’m going to get her.’ Martin stood up. ‘Will you stay here and keep an eye on the children? You can stay the night if you want. The bed in the guest room is made up.’

  Dee opened her mouth to speak but he shook his head.

  ‘No. Don’t try to talk me out of this. I’ve stood by and done nothing for too long. I’m going to find her and make her tell me what the hell she’s playing at.’

  ‘Hang on.’ Dee took her phone out of her bag. ‘Let me call her. Maybe she’ll speak to me, even if she doesn’t want to talk to you.’

  She dialled Louise’s number but got her voicemail. Dee left a message, asking Louise to call her back, and hung up.

  ‘We need to call the police.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Martin said. ‘She hasn’t been gone long enough, they won’t be interested.’

  But Dee held a hand up, stopping him from saying anything else. She dialled the police emergency line and waited for her call to be answered. But instead of a real person, she got a recorded message, thanking her for calling and telling her she was in a queue and her call would be answered as quickly as possible.

  She ended the call. They didn’t have time to wait.

  ‘Right,’ she told Martin. ‘Before we do anything, you’re going to sit back down and tell me how the hell you know where Louise is if you haven’t spoken to her?’

  Thirty-seven

  Ed walked into the bar of the Aldrington Hotel and looked around. He saw Kyle almost immediately, sitting on his own at a table near the window. He’d called Kyle several times this afternoon. An hour ago, when he’d almost given up hope, Kyle had called him back and asked if Ed was free to meet.

  ‘Sorry I’ve been ignoring you,’ Kyle said, when Ed sat down opposite him.

  ‘How have you been doing?’ Ed asked.

  ‘About as bad as you’d expect. She was my life.’ He looked miserable. His face was pale and he had deep, dark rings beneath both bloodshot eyes. ‘I know everyone says she was too good for me and we’d never have lasted, but those people don’t know shit. She loved me, and I loved her, and now she’s gone. My parents don’t care. They pretend they do, but really all they care about is trying to prove Nigel killed her. And I’ve gone along with that because I’m scared. I’m bloody terrified the police will think I killed her. But I didn’t. I wouldn’t ever have hurt her.’

  ‘I know.’ Ed put his hand on Kyle’s arm.

  ‘Nigel didn’t do it, either,’ Kyle said. ‘I feel sick because I’ve told the police that I think he could have done it. But it’s not true. He can be an idiot sometimes but he did love her, you know. He didn’t think I was good enough for her, and I hated him for that. But I can’t carry on saying he could have killed her when he didn’t.’

  ‘If that’s what you believe,’ Ed said, ‘then you need to be honest, Kyle. You need to tell Rachel what you really think.’

  ‘I know.’ Kyle nodded. ‘I’m sick of all the lies and bullshit.’

  ‘I’m glad you got in touch,’ Ed said. ‘You’re not an easy man to track down, you know that?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Some of my colleagues are trying to find your parents. Do you have any idea where they are?’

  ‘Not a clue. Why?’

  ‘We’re trying to find out what’s happened to Joana Helinski. She used to clean your house, is that right?’

  Kyle nodded, looking more miserable by the second.

  ‘Mum asked me not to tell anyone. She said it was no one else’s business. And she was right. Joana’s done a bunk, that’s all. Mum was rightly pissed off when she didn’t turn up for work.’ Kyle frowned. ‘Is that why you’ve been trying to get hold of me?’

  ‘I need your help with something.’ Ed leaned forward. ‘It’s important. I wouldn’t ask otherwise. I know Lauren found a letter when she was going through Annabelle’s things.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I think the letter was from my grandmother.’

  ‘Nigel said it was a letter too,’ Kyle asked. ‘How come both of you know what she found, but she wouldn’t tell me? When she first decided to write about Mary’s murder, she spoke to me all the time about it. She was so determined. She thought this story could be her big break. Then she had that row with Nigel and everything changed after that. I knew it was to do with what she’d found in Annabelle’s house, but whenever I asked her about it she just clammed up.’

  The flicker of hope he’d had since Kyle got in touch fizzled and died.

  ‘She didn’t tell you what she found?’

  ‘Sorry, Ed. I can’t help you. Whatever Lauren found, she didn’t want anyone else finding it. The police have already searched my house. It’s not there. And it can’t be at her parents’ house because Nigel keeps hassling me about it. I get the impression he’d like to find it before the police do. But I can’t help him, or you, because I don’t know where it is. I’m starting to think she destroyed it.’

  ‘Shit.’ It was unbearable, knowing he’d got so close to finding the truth only to discover the letter was gone.

  ‘Unless…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s one other place,’ Kyle said. ‘I can’t be sure, but if you want I can let you have a look?’

  ‘If I wa
nt?’ Ed stood up. ‘What are we waiting for? My car’s outside. Where are we going?’

  ‘You don’t need your car.’ Kyle stood up as well. ‘Come with me.’

  As he followed Kyle through the bar and across the ornate lobby of the five-star hotel, flashes of Ed’s childhood ran through his mind. Memory after memory, all of them tinged with the guilt and sadness that had travelled down through his family ever since Mary Palmer’s body had been found on a church altar sixty years ago.

  * * *

  ‘If she wanted to hide something,’ Kyle said, ten minutes later. ‘I think she might have chosen this place.’

  They were on a mezzanine floor of the Aldrington. A narrow, dark space accessed by a set of stairs at the back of the building, hidden from the public areas.

  ‘My mum makes Dad keep a close eye on me,’ Kyle said. ‘She’s a total control freak. And because he’s scared of her, he does what she tells him to. When Lauren and I started going out, this is where we’d come. It was the only place we could be by ourselves without him looking over our shoulders every few seconds. It looks a bit grim but it’s not too bad really.’

  Ed followed him along the corridor to a space at the end that had been set up as a sort of living area. There was a sofa and two mismatched armchairs, a coffee table and a small fridge that had clearly served as a minibar at some point.

  ‘I was a teenager when I first discovered the mezzanine,’ Kyle said. ‘I think it was used for storage, years ago. But no one ever comes here now. I swear, it felt like the best secret ever. Even now, I love it. Sometimes, I think this is the only place I can really be myself.’ He glanced at Ed. ‘Sorry. I’m a bit emo at the moment. Can’t stop sharing everything I’m feeling.’

  ‘I have no idea what being emo means,’ Ed said. ‘But telling people how you’re feeling sounds pretty healthy to me.’

  ‘Lauren was always on at me to be more open about stuff like that. Normally, it’s not something I find very easy to do. But recently… well, maybe she’s, I don’t know, maybe I’m finally being the person she wanted me to be.’

  ‘I’m sure you were already that,’ Ed said gently. ‘She wouldn’t have gone out with you otherwise.’

  He looked around the room, trying to find something else to talk about.

  ‘Where did all this furniture come from?’

  ‘Some of it was already here,’ Kyle said. ‘Other bits, like the fridge, I brought myself. We’re always replacing furniture in the rooms. When something is damaged or there’s a stain you can’t get off, it has to go. I’ve brought lots of stuff here over the years. Look at this.’

  He opened the mini-fridge, and a glow of blue light escaped. Inside were two bottles of beer and two small cans of gin and tonic.

  ‘Lauren didn’t drink beer.’ Kyle slammed the door shut, moved past Ed and switched on a floor lamp Ed hadn’t noticed before. Light flooded the space and Ed saw that it was bigger than he’d first thought.

  ‘We used to come here all the time,’ Kyle said. ‘Until Lauren said she didn’t like it any more. She said it was dingy and why spend time here when we could hang out at mine? That’s why I hadn’t thought of it before.’

  Ed’s chest ached with pity. He could picture them here – Lauren and Kyle, holed up in their secret hideaway, full of youth and life and plans for the future. It was heart-breaking to see how brief that future had been for them.

  ‘My mum was so strict back then,’ Kyle said. ‘But over the last year, she finally accepted that Lauren was my girlfriend and it was okay for us to share a room when she stayed over. She never really approved, though. She thinks girls should save themselves for marriage. It’s bullshit, but what can you do? You can’t make someone believe something else if they don’t want to.’

  ‘But you’re… what? Twenty-three? Why haven’t you moved out?’

  Ed thought back to when he was Kyle’s age. There was no way he’d have let anyone tell him how to live his life. Yet Kyle seemed oddly dependent on his parents. Ed knew if he’d been brought up in that claustrophobic family environment, he’d have been gone long ago.

  ‘We were saving up to buy a place,’ Kyle said. ‘Lauren wanted us to rent in the meantime, but I was against it. I didn’t see any point throwing money away on rent. We’d almost got enough. Next month we were going to start looking at apartments together.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Everyone’s sorry,’ Kyle said. ‘It doesn’t change anything though, does it? She’s still dead.’

  ‘I know. But from everything you’ve told me, Kyle, she was very lucky to have found you.’

  ‘You think?’

  The longing in the boy’s eyes made Ed want to look away, but he forced himself not to.

  ‘I really do.’

  ‘Thanks. That means a lot. You’ve always been good to me, Ed. I used to love playing rugby. I know I was never any good, but you never made me feel rubbish.’

  ‘You weren’t rubbish,’ Ed said.

  Kyle grinned. ‘I hope you don’t tell lies like that to your girlfriend.’

  ‘I’m too scared to lie to her,’ Ed said.

  ‘I like her, you know.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Ed smiled. ‘Me too.’

  ‘I suppose we’d better start looking,’ Kyle said. ‘You sure it’s a letter we’re looking for?’

  ‘Pretty sure.’ Ed looked around the room, but couldn’t see any obvious hiding place. ‘Any idea where it could be?’

  Kyle shook his head. ‘I guess we try everywhere.’

  They spent an hour searching, without any luck. By the end of it, Ed was hot, covered in dust and despondent. He’d been foolish to believe it could have been this easy.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Kyle slumped down on the sofa, looking as bad as Ed felt.

  ‘At least we tried,’ Ed said. ‘What about the rest of the hotel? Could she have hidden it somewhere else?’

  ‘I guess,’ Kyle said. ‘But the hotel is huge. There must be hundreds of places you could hide a letter where no one would ever find it.’

  He said something else, but Ed had stopped listening. His mind was racing ahead, trying to work out how he could persuade Rachel to get a search warrant.

  ‘Kyle, I need you to do something for me.’

  But Kyle had got off the sofa and was crouching down on the uncarpeted floor, pulling up one of the plain, wooden floorboards that creaked each time Ed and Kyle walked on them.

  ‘I used to hide my dope in here,’ Kyle said. ‘Sorry, probably shouldn’t tell you that. I don’t do that any more. Lauren didn’t approve. Hang on.’ He reached down into the space beneath. ‘What’s this?’

  A moment later, he pulled his hand out and Ed saw he was holding something.

  ‘It’s not a letter,’ Kyle said. ‘But this definitely wasn’t here when I used to store my dope in there.’

  It was a leather-bound notepad, the leather faded and aged so it was impossible to know what colour it had once been.

  ‘Looks like a diary.’ Kyle held his hand out, but Ed couldn’t move.

  The air in the room seemed to thicken and he struggled to breathe. Another rush of memories, more vivid now. Her sharp humour, her inability to suffer fools, the bottle of gin under the kitchen sink that got her through the days. Her single-minded determination to prove that her only son wasn’t a killer. And her diaries. The collection of leather-bound notebooks she kept in a box in the cupboard underneath the stairs. The box his grandfather had thrown out after she died.

  ‘Ed? Are you okay?’

  Ed leaned forward. He put his hand out. And he took the diary.

  Thirty-eight

  ‘Find my iPhone.’ Martin’s eyes slid away from Dee as he spoke. Not before she saw shame there.

  ‘Find my what?’

  ‘I set it up on her new iPad,’ he said. ‘When I first suspected she was seeing someone.’

  ‘Hang on,’ Dee said. ‘The iPad you bought for her. It was a birthday present, right?’

 
; Martin nodded.

  ‘And you got it so you’d be able to spy on her?’

  ‘No. I haven’t used it before this evening. Not even this morning when I saw her getting into that car and driving away. Even then, I was going to wait and talk to her when she came home this evening. But she hasn’t come home, so what was I meant to do? Just sit back and do nothing?’

  ‘How does it work?’

  ‘It’s simple.’ Martin took out his own phone and tapped something on the screen. ‘This is a map of the area where she is right now. This blue dot here? That’s her iPad. Charlton village, in West Sussex. And I’m going to get her. Right now.’

  ‘You can’t.’ Dee grabbed the car keys off the table in the hall. ‘You’ve been drinking. I smelled it on your breath when I arrived.’

  ‘So what?’ He lunged for the keys, but Dee was too fast for him. She held them out of his reach.

  ‘We’ll go together,’ she said. ‘I’ll drive. But first we need to get someone to sit with the kids while we’re gone. Let me call Ella.’

  While they were waiting for Ella to arrive, Dee went into the garden – so Martin couldn’t hear her – and called Ed.

  ‘Where the hell are you?’ she said when she got his voicemail, not bothering to hide the irritation in her voice. ‘Call me as soon as you get this message. It’s important.’

  She hung up, annoyed. He was the one who’d pushed to meet up this evening. And now he’d disappeared without any proper explanation. Well sod you, Ed Mitchell, she thought.

  She called Rachel, who, unlike Ed, answered right away.

  ‘Dee? Is everything okay?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Dee said. ‘Sorry to phone, but I can’t get through to Ed. I wasn’t sure what else to do.’

  ‘You can call me any time,’ Rachel said. ‘You know that. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Louise is missing,’ Dee said.

  ‘How long has she been gone?’

  ‘Since this morning. Her husband doesn’t know where she is, and neither do I. I know it’s not long enough for you to treat this as a missing person case, but I’m worried.’