#YouToo

by Candy Denman

  If he had been in the room, Jo would have been tempted to hug him.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Rickard.’

  As she put down the phone, Jo heaved a sigh of relief and went upstairs to tell Dr Grantham the good news – but not until after she had called Ben to tell him first.

  Chapter 26

  It had been the first Friday night in months, if not years, that Jo had had three different invitations to go out. The first had been easy to turn down; a visit to her parents for a family dinner she knew would just end up with her mother niggling at her about her single state, and she certainly didn’t feel ready to tell them about Billy just yet. Her rush to tell her mother about the consultant gynaecologist she dated previ- ously had resulted in extreme embarrassment when he turned out to not only be a nasty piece of work, but also married. It would be a long time before she lived that one down.

  The second was for her regular Friday night out with Kate, who was currently between men.

  And the third was with Billy. A proper date for dinner at Webbes. She had been sufficiently surprised by the request to say yes before she remembered her vow never to go out with someone she worked with again. Too late to back down. She just hoped she was right and that he wasn’t the type to cause problems when it all went horribly wrong. As it always did, in Jo’s experience.

  ‘Hi Kate?’ she said into the phone as she riffled through her ward- robe trying to decide what to wear. It was a long-held rule for both of them that dates came first on a Friday, but only if they met up the next morning for brunch and a post mortem of the event in their favourite café.

  ‘So, eleven o’clock in The Land of Green Ginger? You’re paying.’ Kate had agreed and left Jo to her indecision about clothes.

  They met in the Crown, which was crowded, and it was difficult to find a seat. Fortunately, the weather had improved and they took their drinks outside.

  ‘Are you sure you’re warm enough?’ Billy asked.

  ‘Yes, fine, thank you. It’s nice to get away from the noise.’

  Unfortunately, some of the crowds and noise had followed them outside and there was the added irritation of cigarette smoke.

  They moved a little further along the pavement.

  ‘At least it’s stopped raining,’ she ventured and he nodded. They both sipped their wine. It was strange how she and Billy had found conversation so easy when they were just out as friends but that now they were on an actual date, it was much harder; even stilted. She looked down at her outfit. Her decision to go casual, in jeans with a silk blouse, seemed too dressed down compared to the smart chinos and jacket that Billy was wearing.

  Jo took another sip of wine. A little alcohol would undoubtedly make the conversation flow more easily, but she didn’t want to get drunk. Not on a first date, anyway. Why was dating so hard? she asked herself.

  ‘It’s hard, isn’t it?’ Billy said with a smile, mirroring her thoughts. ‘This whole first date thing.’

  ‘Very,’ she agreed with a smile. ‘Knowing what to wear.’

  ‘You look perfect,’ he said gallantly. ‘I am overdressed by contrast.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I was nervous.’

  ‘About what?’ Jo knew it wasn’t only women who had dating anxi- eties, but this openness about it, from a man, was a first.

  ‘What to wear, where to go,’ he admitted. ‘Is Webbes okay, by the way?’

  ‘Perfect,’ she reassured him, then wiggled her glass. ‘And there’s knowing how much to drink or not to drink.’

  He laughed.

  ‘The things we worry about.’ He shook his head and checked his watch.

  ‘Want to call it a day already?’ she asked, only half-joking, anxious- ly playing with her glass.

  ‘I was thinking we could stand here for an hour and then go to Webbes and make excruciating conversation for an hour, each trying not to say anything out of turn, wondering if we want to go further or not, or if the other might not want to, or alternatively, we could grab a takeaway and bottle of wine and go back to yours, or mine, whichever, and just see where the evening leads us.’

  He looked anxious as Jo didn’t reply for a moment while she thought about his suggestion. All in all, it seemed a very sensible one. ‘Mine. It’s closer, just up the hill,’ she finally said. ‘I have wine and

  we can call for a takeaway.’

  He grinned and grabbed her hand. They left their drinks and hur- ried up the steps to the top of the East Hill.

  In the event, they never did get around to ordering a takeaway.

  Billy left early the next morning for football training with the five- a-side team he played for, promising to see her for Sunday lunch and a walk if the weather was fine. That all meant that Jo had had a leisurely morning, with tea in bed and a smile on her face.

  She was still smiling as she entered The Land of Green Ginger Café and saw Kate sitting at a corner table.

  ‘No need to ask how the date went then,’ Kate said and went back to perusing the menu. The waitress gave them some time to decide before coming over.

  ‘Very well, thank you,’ Jo replied regardless and also picked up the menu, although they both usually ordered the same.

  ‘Sausage breakfast and a large latte, please,’ Kate ordered when the waitress came over for their order.

  ‘Poached eggs and tomatoes on wholemeal toast,’ Jo ordered. ‘And tea. Thank you.’ The waitress sighed. It was exactly what they always wanted.

  Once Jo had finished telling Kate how wonderful Billy was and Kate had stopped pretending to gag, a move that had worried the wait- ress so much that she had come over to ask if their breakfast was all right, and they had reassured her that Kate wasn’t gagging because of the food, they moved onto the subject of the lawyer incidents and what Jo was doing about it.

  ‘Have you told Steve Miller everything yet?’ Kate asked, as she wiped her plate clean with a piece of toast.

  ‘I still think it’s too early. I want to give Ms Ponting the chance to find out a bit more about Fiona, although,’ she said with a glint in her eye, ‘I do have an address for her.’

  ‘It was on the disk?’ Kate asked in amazement.

  ‘Yup.’ Jo answered smugly. ‘I went to find Mervyn Bartlett’s home address, so I checked for hers as well and there it was, Markwick Ter- race, in St Leonards.’ Just as it had when she had first seen the address, she felt a little ping of recognition but she couldn’t for the life of her remember where she had heard the name before.

  Kate wiped her mouth decorously with a napkin and reached for her coat.

  ‘Right by the park? What are we waiting for? Let’s go and check it out.’

  The house on Markwick Terrace wasn’t hard to find. Far from being one of the imposing, white-painted terrace of Edwardian villas that were built when the road was new, Fiona’s address was a rather later addition, a detached house in need of some repair and a good garden- er, if only to cut back some of the bushes. There was a builder’s van parked outside. As well as a sign from a local estate agent telling them the house had been sold. Jo’s heart sank.

  Not so easily put off, Kate walked up to the open front door and called out:

  ‘Hello?’

  A middle-aged man wearing a grubby tee shirt that was stretched over an enormous beer belly and failed to reach his sagging, paint- stained jeans, came out to speak to them.

  ‘Yes, love?’ he enquired as he hauled his jeans up, attempting and failing to get them to meet the bottom of his shirt.

  ‘I saw the Sold sign outside and wondered if you could tell me who had bought it?’

  The builder scratched his head. ‘Not sure about that, love.’

  ‘Only you see I was out of the country, otherwise I would have bought it myself as I’ve always wanted to live here, since I was a child. I thought I might offer to buy it off them.’ She looked around. ‘As they obviously haven’t moved in yet.’

  The man smiled.

  ‘Could be you’re in luck then, only it was a builder what bo
ught it. My boss. He’s doing it up to sell. Terrible state it was in. Old lady had lived here for years, never done a thing to it since her hubbie died in year dot.’ The builder paused to scratch himself in a delicate area.

  ‘I knew the daughter once and I would have thought she would have wanted to lived here, but perhaps it had too many memories.’ Kate was really getting into her role.

  ‘Don’t know nuffink about a daughter. The boss might. He bought it after the old lady died. There was delays though, something legal had to happen.’

  ‘Probate?’ Kate asked, ever the solicitor.

  ‘Yeh, somefink like that.’ He seemed to have grown bored of the conversation and rummaged about in his front pocket and finally pulled out a creased and dirty business card. ‘You’ll need to speak to the boss. Let him know you want to buy the place. It might save him estate agent fees, which will please him. His number’s here, I gotta get back to work.’ He handed over the card and disappeared back inside.

  ‘That was a bit of a dead loss,’ Jo said as they walked away from the house.

  ‘Not at all,’ Kate said brightly.

  ‘But she doesn’t live here any more.’

  ‘No, but where there’s probate there’s probably a will, or at any rate, an awful lot of paperwork that is part of the public record. I’ll be able to look it all up for you. Who owned the house, who she left all her worldly goods to, who the solicitor was who settled everything, including sorting out the money going to the legatees. If he handed out the money, he must know where to find them.’

  ‘You’re thinking that Fiona lived here with her mother.’

  ‘It’s got to be a possibility, hasn’t it? She gave it as her address on the electoral roll. Leave it with me, I’ll see what I can dig up.’

  ‘Knowing my luck, old Mrs Hutchins left it all to a cats’ home.’ Kate smiled.

  ‘I had a client once, left it all to Battersea Dogs’ Home. Now that I can understand.’

  The conversation had rung another bell with Jo and this time she remembered why.

  ‘Lady Markwick!’ she exclaimed. Kate gave her an odd look. ‘Who?’ Kate asked. ‘And what about her?’

  ‘I knew the name rang a bell. It was the name of Mrs Townsend’s dog – well, one of them, anyway.’

  ‘So, she names her dogs after local landmarks, or historical figures.

  It’s not unusual.’

  ‘But it’s a bit of a coincidence she chose a name closely connected to our main suspect, don’t you think?’

  ‘You think she’d name her dog after the place where her husband’s lover lived?’

  ‘It does seem unlikely,’ Jo agreed. ‘Even if she didn’t like him very much.’

  But as they drove back towards Hastings and Jo dropped Kate off at her cottage, Jo couldn’t shake the coincidence from her mind.

  Mrs Townsend’s house was just as imposingly neo-gothic as she re- membered it. The day’s earlier, brief sunshine had given way to cloud and it was a damp, grey afternoon which suited the location perfectly. It almost made it seem quite threatening. Half-expecting Count Drac- ula to suddenly appear from the bushes, Jo was relieved to see a car parked outside the front door, so at least it seemed likely that someone was at home.

  The cacophony of dog barks that greeted her door knock was no different from the last time she had been here. This time it managed to dispel the aura of gloom, now that she knew it wasn’t the hound of the Baskervilles waiting on the other side of the door.

  ‘Oh. I wasn’t expecting you.’ Mrs Townsend answered the door with her usual degree of bluntness.

  ‘No, I was just passing and popped in because I wanted to ask you something, I hope you don’t mind,’ Jo answered, restraining herself from asking exactly who Mrs Townsend might have been expecting. In turn, Mrs Townsend didn’t ask her how on earth she was ‘just pass- ing’ when the house was not on the way to anywhere.

  She showed Jo into the same room she and Mike Parton had sat in when they visited before. It seemed much the same apart from a different half-chewed dog toy left on the armchair.

  ‘You are all right with dogs, aren’t you?’ Mrs Townsend asked but didn’t wait for Jo to reply before going back to release the dogs from their imposed exile in the back of the house.

  As Tucker and Lady M came bounding in, Jo prepared herself. She was glad she was wearing jeans and not easily shreddable tights this time around, particularly as it was a second meeting and both dogs assumed that meant she was a friend of the family; probably a long- lost friend of the family. Tucker jumped up on the chair beside her and Lady M, once she had stopped bouncing up and down on the spot and turning in circles of joy, settled down and rested a paw on Jo’s knee.

  ‘Hello again, Lady Markwick,’ Jo said, shaking the proffered paw with one hand and holding off the over-enthusiastic welcome from Tucker with the other.

  Harriet Townsend sat in the chair opposite Jo. If she was surprised at Jo remembering her dog’s name, she didn’t show it.

  ‘Down, you two. Leave Dr Hughes alone,’ she said half-heartedly. ‘It’s fine,’ Jo answered, lying. It wasn’t Lady M she was concerned

  about but Tucker, who was being an absolute nuisance in an effort to lick her face. ‘I like dogs.’ She smiled to back up this statement and thought that Mrs Townsend looked at her with a slightly friendlier air. It seemed to have a magic effect on Tucker, too. It was as if he realised that he wasn’t going to get a reaction from Jo so he might as well give up and he jumped down and went to sit at Mrs Townsend’s feet. Lady M just rested her nose on Jo’s knee and looked at her with an expres- sion that said: please, please love me. Jo found herself gently stroking the dog in response.

  ‘So why are you here, Dr Hughes? I take it you didn’t just come to see my dogs.’

  ‘Well, in a way, I have come to see you about the dogs,’ Jo an- swered. She had thought long and hard in an effort to come up with a plan to ask about Lady Markwick’s provenance without seeming to, but in the end had decided that all her ideas were ridiculous and that honesty was probably the best policy. ‘I came to ask you about Lady M here, and how she got her name?’

  If Mrs Townsend was surprised by the question, she hid it well. ‘I’ve no idea. I didn’t name her,’ she replied bluntly. ‘I do know that the Markwick family were related to the Eversfields, who were local developers in the nineteenth century I believe, so I suspect it was after them.’

  ‘Perhaps the person who named her was actually associated with the Markwick family?’ Jo fished but Mrs Townsend looked blank. ‘Or perhaps lived near the park?’ she suggested as she looked into the dog’s liquid eyes and gently rubbed the bridge of her nose. Lady M closed her eyes in ecstasy.

  When she looked up, Jo saw that Mrs Townsend was looking at her in a hard and appraising way, as if deciding what to do, and say, next. A small shiver ran through Jo as she realised that perhaps it had not been such a good idea to come out to such an isolated house on her own, especially as she had not told anyone where she was going. Mrs Townsend could have been involved in the murder of her own hus- band. After all, she had been damaged by his actions as well as Fiona. But if she was involved, Jo thought, she would have done something not quite so damaging to her own reputation.

  ‘You are quite right, of course.’ The reply came eventually. It seemed that Mrs Townsend had decided that a little honesty was in order as well. ‘I inherited Lady M when her owner, whose family lived near Markwick Gardens, had to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Sad story. Her mother couldn’t cope with the dog, so I said I’d take her in.’

  ‘And she was happy with that? Fiona, I mean?’ Letting Mrs Townsend know that she knew who the dog’s previous owner had been. Jo had put the story together on her way over; it was just too much of a coincidence otherwise. At least she hoped it was.

  ‘Oh, good heavens, no. She would never have allowed me to have her. Not after-’ Mrs Townsend stopped short of actually saying after what. ‘I believe her mother told he
r the dog had gone to a rescue centre and been rehomed. As far as I am aware, she never knew where.’

  ‘You knew her mother?’

  ‘I got to know her when Fiona was clearly unwell. Someone had to do something. The girl was a danger to herself, going around saying such silly things. Mrs Hutchins understood.’

  Jo wondered just how much money had been wafted under Mrs Hutchins’ nose to help her understand. However, it seemed a pretty good explanation of how the dog had come to be in Mrs Townsend’s possession.

  ‘I can understand why Fiona would never allow you to have Lady M, after all why would she let her rapist’s wife take her dog?’ There was a tense silence which Lady M seemed to sense and turned to look at her new owner, her eyes asking if everything was all right – was it still okay to take affection from this visitor?

  ‘I think you will find rape implies a lack of consent.’

  ‘She may have consented to having sex with your husband but only to save her career. Sex under duress is still rape in my world.’

  ‘You only have her word for the duress. My husband had a differ- ent story. She threw herself at him and when he turned her down, she started inventing these stories.’ Her voice was so laden with contempt that Lady M gave a little squeak of distress. ‘I take it you’ve spoken to her?’

  ‘No!’ Jo was surprised into saying. ‘I’ve been trying to find her. I thought you might be able to help.’

  ‘And why on earth would I want to help you find that – that bitch?’ ‘Because I think Giles’ murder had something to do with her.’ That shocked Mrs Townsend into silence.

  ‘What on earth makes you think that?’ she asked eventually.

  ‘As you say, she accused him of rape. I mean, look at the personal nature of the way he was killed, and the way she has also done her best to make things embarrassing for you, and the firm.