In the Shadows (The Outsiders Book 1) (18 page)

“Can you talk Coralie into loaning us her car so we can get away?”

Jeannette looked flabbergasted. “Mon dieu! You can’t drive! Have you lost your mind?”

Fabienne motioned toward the stairs.
“She can.”

“You don’t have to leave with her. Dear Fabienne, I never meant that you should go away. You can tell the gendarmes that you didn’t know about the girl’s problems until last night. You
can tell them that she took off during the night and you don’t know where she went.”

Fabienne shook her head hard.
“I’m going with her. Dave wouldn’t forgive me if I didn’t. Besides, I trust her. Now, are you going to ask Coralie to loan me, us, the car?”

Jeannette pouted
. Her face looked red as a tomato even from Maurelle’s vantage point midway up the stairs.

After a brief pause, Jeannette said, “All right. But on one condition: I’m going with you.”

“Are you crazy? Why would you want to put yourself in the middle of our problem?”

“Well, first of all, you’re my oldest and dearest friend, and second, no one has taken me on a road trip in years and I am not about to miss my chance, and third, who on earth will look after you if I don’t?”

Fabienne suddenly burst out laughing and crying at the same time, and the two women hugged.

Maurelle stared in disbelief. It was bad enough that Fabienne wanted to go, but Jeannette? Jeannette didn’t even like her.

“I’ll pack my things,” Fabienne said to Jeannette. “I guess you better get busy, too. We don’t have much time.”

D
ave had already
mapped out the tube route to Hampstead, but Greg had other ideas: he wanted to ride on one of London’s famous double-decker buses.

“The t
ube will be faster,” Dave said.

“Not necessarily.
Nigel says the buses here are better than in Chicago.”

After making inquiries, the men discovered they could catch the bus at Euston, which wasn’t far from their hotel. By the time they reached their destination, Dave had to admit he
had enjoyed the ride. The top deck gave them a great view of the city along the way.

They exited at Flask Walk, Hampstead’s pedestrian mall, a kind of an alley of specialty shops, chic boutiques, and the ubiquitous pubs. From there, they walked through the residential area.

When they passed Hampstead tube station and the Finchley Road station, Greg said, “I guess we should have taken the subway after all. Would have saved us a lot of walking.”

Dave chuckled. Greg had always been hardheaded. “Next time. Walking around the area
was a great way to get ourselves oriented.”

Ten minutes later, they reached Willoughby
Crescent, the cul-de-sac where Maurelle had lived for several months. Number eleven, the Raybourne home, was a purplish brown brickwork house of average-size for the neighborhood, two-stories tall, square, with the middle one-third of the face pushed out about two feet to make a bay window. The five front windows, all mullioned, were trimmed in white.

“Damn,” Dave said. “I wish we could get inside and look around.”

“You thinking of breaking in?” Greg poked at his friend.

“No
, of course not. Just thinking.”

He turned around and looked at the neighbor’s house across the street and the houses on either side of the
Raybourne house. “What do you say we head over to Ian Waitley’s house and ask him a few questions?”

“Who?”

“A neighbor. I have a list of names, addresses, and phone numbers.”

“
Ah, okay.”

Since n
o one was home, they went to Alice Rickards’ house. No one answered there either.

“Now what?” Greg asked.

“The house on the other side. Judy Winston.”

Dave rang the doorbell and waited. After a few minutes, he turned to leave at the same moment the door opened
. A gray-haired woman said, “May I help you?”

“Sorry to bother you,” Dave said. “Are you Judy Winston?”

“I am.”

“Well, my friend here is a detective from the U.S. and I’m a writer. He’s helping me do research for a book I’m working on
, a book set here in the U.K. and with a similar plot to the Jared Raybourne murder case. We hoped we might talk to neighbors and ask questions to get some insight.”

She looked from one to the other. “What sort of questions?”

“Just general background.”

“Did she go to America, then?”

Baffled by the leap she had taken, Dave opened his mouth but didn’t answer.

Greg said,
“No, although there may be an American connection.”

“You’d better come in,” she said, looking past them into the street. She led them into her living room
. “Would you like some tea?”

Greg said, “That would be nice.”

She smiled. “Please sit and make yourselves comfortable. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

Five minutes later, barely long enough to boil water for tea, she returned
carrying a silver tray with three cups and a plate of cookies. She handed them each a tea cup. Dave took a sip. It was coffee.

“Please have some biscuits,” she said, holding out the tray
of cookies for them.

Dave realized then that
‘biscuit’ was the British word for cookie. He took one and nibbled it. Greg took two.

She said, “I’ve always wanted to write a book. My daughter says she’ll help me write my memoirs when she has time.
But I suspect I’ll be long gone before that happens.” She chuckled.

Dave studied the woman. Her short gray hair looked as if she’d come straight from her hairdresser, and although her pale blue eyes looked tired, she seemed younger than sixty
, remembering Maurelle having indicated her age.

“What do you want to ask me?”

Dave said, “Well, where were you the night of the murder? Did you see anything suspicious?”

“Dear me, no. I was on a trip to see my daughter and her children in Edinburgh. I got home a week after the murder.
I must say, when I heard about it, I was in shock. Murder right here in our quiet little neighborhood! I thought I’d moved away from the high crime areas. The estate agent assured me this was a safe area. But we’ve had one thing after another—and finally murder. I’m afraid to go to sleep at night.”

“What other kinds of problems has the neighborhood had, Mrs. Winston?”

“Graffiti, thefts, vandalism. That sort of thing. Some of us think it was that boy who was responsible for most of it.”

“That boy? Do you mean Jared
Raybourne?”

She nodded. “We haven’t had any trouble since he was killed.”

“Who do you think killed Jared?”

“Me? Well, I wouldn’t know really. I mean . . . I wasn’t here, after all, and I didn’t know him. Gangs, I suppose.”

“You haven’t heard anything?”

“I’ve heard reports on the news, of course. Who hasn’t? And in the newspapers. The boy’s parents are certain it was Maura Barrington—she rented a room from Elizabeth
Raybourne.”

“Do you know Maura?”

“I met her. She was nice, but kind of shy.”

“Do you think she killed Jared?”

Judy Winston shrugged. “It’s hard to imagine, but I suppose people can be pushed to extreme action. If anyone could push someone, it was that boy. It’s a good thing I’m not home much, because someone—maybe Jared—vandalized my home once, and I can tell you if I’d caught him vandalizing it again, I might have been pushed to throttle the little so-and-so myself.”

Dave
and Greg exchanged glances, and then Dave asked, “Did he have a lot of enemies?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised. Gangs
, I expect.”

“Can you think of anyone else in the neighborhood who might be willing to talk to us and answer our questions? Anyone
who knew Jared or the teacher?”

“There’s Brittany Stevas. She’s a pupil at that school. I don’t know if she had any classes with Jared
. I do know she was in one of Maura’s classes. Her mother told me that, right after the police began questioning everyone.”

She gave them the address
. They thanked her for her help and left.

At the Stevas’s residence, Dave rang the doorbell. A young woman with long blonde hair answered.

“Hello,” Dave said. “We’re looking for Brittany Stevas.”

“I’m Brittany.”
She was slender and wore jeans and a tee-shirt with ‘Plan B’ on the front.

“Sorry to bother you,” he said. “A few minutes ago we spoke to one of your neighbors, Judy Winston. She suggested we come here and talk to you.
I’m a writer, and my associate and I are conducting research for a book.”

“You’re Americans?”

“Yes, we are,” Greg said, moving up one step so that he was now standing next to Dave on the porch.

“I plan to visit the U.S. someday. What part of the country do you come from?”

“Illinois,” Greg said. She frowned, then shrugged as though it meant nothing to her.

Dave said, “Mrs. Winston told us that you went to school with Jared
Raybourne and that you knew the schoolteacher, Maura Barrington. Is that correct?”

She eyed him speculatively. “Why do you want to know that?”

“As I said, I’m a writer. This might be the sort of thing to get dramatized, you know?”

“Wow, I wouldn’t have thought the case was important enough to be on American television.”

Dave smiled. “Oh, we didn’t actually hear about it until we got over here. We’ve spoken to an inspector from Scotland Yard and he told us about some interesting cases in the area, this being one of them.”

She nodded, seemingly satisfied with his answer.

“Jared and I went to school together, but we weren’t in the same classes.”

“Did you hang out together outside of school?”

“Nooo waaay.” She shook her head. “I may have spoken with him two or three times the whole time he lived in the neighborhood.”

“How long did he live here?”

“I dunno. Maybe five or six years.”

“What about the teacher? Did you know her?”

“Yes, she was my English teacher.”

Greg asked, “Do you believe she killed Jared
Raybourne?”

Brittany shook her head. “No, but there are plenty of people who think she’s guilty. I guess we might never know.”

Dave asked, “Why is that?”

“She disappeared. Some people think she ran, others think the killer got her, too.”

“What about the boy’s mother? What do you know about her?”

Brittany shrugged. “
Don’t really know hardly anything about her. I never met her. I saw her sometimes in the street, you know? That’s all.”

Dave asked, “What about your parents? Do they know her? Are they friends?”

“I don’t think so. I mean, they talk occasionally, but I wouldn’t call them friends or anything.” A dog started barking and ran up to her from somewhere in the house. “Sorry, I better get going.” She grabbed hold of the dog’s collar and pulled him back.

Greg smiled. “Thanks for talking with us, Brittany.”

She started to close the door, then pulled it open again and shouted at them as they were walking away. “Hey, if you’re really interested, you might talk to Ian Waitley, the old man across the street from the Raybournes. He’s always looking out his windows. Gets on my nerves, you know? Like he’s perving. He has eagle eyes and sees more than anyone else round here. Don’t get me wrong, though. Ian’s all right for an old guy. He’s funny and we talk sometimes.”

Later, in the
afternoon, Dave searched online for K. L. Hill and found numerous articles written by her, and a few about her. K. L. stood for Kate Louise Hill. She was a fifty year old journalist who had at one time, according to one article, worked for a big newspaper, but went out on her own because she apparently disagreed far too often with her bosses; the writer of the piece hinted that this was more due to her than to her editors.

He found her website and read everything that was posted.
Her photo looked younger than fifty, but he figured it might be an old photo. He clicked on the contact link, and sent her an email. An hour later, while Dave sat in a pub with his laptop on the table next to his meal, Kate sent a reply. Yes, she would meet with him tomorrow at noon. Her office was in her home in Putney.

Maurelle carried her
bags downstairs and stood facing the front window, though she stayed hidden behind the curtain. The house was quiet except for the ticking of the grandfather click. A man walked past the window, and she held her breath, waiting for a knock on the door. Nothing happened. Her instinct pressed her to flee now, but that’s what she always did and it hadn’t worked out. She’d also promised Dave she wouldn’t disappear while he was investigating in England. And what about Fabienne who was placing herself in harm’s way for her?

Maurelle turned around and
glanced at the stairs, then stared at the front door. Fabienne was still in her bedroom gathering things for the trip. When Dave made her promise not to leave, he certainly hadn’t anticipated this turn of events. Would he want her to stay and let the gendarmes take her into custody? Would he want her to drag his grandmother into hiding? Either way, Fabienne could be at risk for harboring a criminal. And what of Jeannette? So far, she was not involved at all. Taking her away from Reynier could get her into trouble as well.

“I’m ready,” Fabienne said.

Turning abruptly, Maurelle watched the older woman pad down the stairs, dragging a suitcase that looked like it was at least fifty years old.

“Here, let me get that for you,” Maurelle said
, rushing up the stairs.

“Thank you, dear. Jeannette should be here any minute. Would you mind helping me water the newly planted flowers? We don’t want them to die while we’re gone.”

Maurelle set the bag down in the living room. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and for the umpteenth time hoped she was making the right decision; her track record wasn’t good. “Of course. Maybe Coralie will agree to come over and water them periodically while we’re away.”

“That’s a good idea. I’ll ask her.”

After watering the plants, they stood together, looking out the front window and waiting for Coralie and Jeannette. The silver BMW pulled up and Fabienne clapped her hands.

Coralie was already getting out of the car when
Maurelle opened the front door. She looked up at them and waved. As the duo assembled their luggage and struggled out the door, Coralie placed a hand on Fabienne’s shoulder and said, “Maman tells me she insists on going with you. Are you sure you want to do this?”

Fabienne nodded.

“I don’t know how much mother told you, but I’m going with you as far as Orleans. If anyone asks, Simone will say that Maurelle took off on foot during the night, and that the three of us have gone to visit my sister, Brigitte, in Orleans.” Looking at Maurelle, she said, “I’ll get out at my sister’s. Brigitte is expecting me. She’ll drive me back in a week or two. You can continue on from her house.”

“You told Simone?” Fabienne asked
, holding her hand on her chest. “Can we trust her?”

“She’s sworn that she’ll stick to the story. I don’t think she would betray her own family.”

Fabienne eased her elderly frame carefully into the car. “Does Simone know that it’s not true?”

“She does. But she doesn’t know where you’re going. For that matter, mother hasn’t told me.”

“And what about Brigitte? How much of this does she know?” Fabienne asked.

Coralie pulled away from the house and drove down to the main road.
“I told Brigitte simply that I’m visiting her for a week or so, while you are going on vacation elsewhere. She doesn’t know anything more.”

The drive to Orleans went by quickly,
with everyone chattering, and Maurelle almost forgot that this wasn’t actually a pleasure trip but a criminal getaway. When Coralie pulled up outside Brigitte’s house, everyone climbed out of the car and met with Brigitte who was standing near the road watching them. Coralie took her own bag out of the trunk and closed the lid, then stood by, watching her mother and Fabienne out of the corner of her eye. They were talking excitedly as they stretched their legs.

After the women said their goodbyes and the trio climbed back into the car,
Fabienne and Jeannette both opting for back seats, Coralie handed the car keys to Maurelle. “Drive carefully. And keep a close eye on those two. They are old and fragile, but they can still get themselves in trouble.”

Maurelle smiled and nodded.

Coralie added, “For some reason unknown to me, they appear to trust you. I hope they’re right in doing so.”

“I won’t let you or them down, I assure you. I appreciate everything that you’re doing.”

Coralie nodded. “Be careful, all of you, and don’t forget to call me when you get to wherever it is you’re going.”

Maurelle had been wondering all morning about
their eventual destination, but she didn’t ask. She wondered, too, how the older women would get back home and how Coralie would get her car back since the two older women didn’t know how to drive.

As she stuck the key into the ignition and started the engine, the enormity of the situation hit her hard. Since she—being from England—had to sit on the wrong side of the car and drive on the wrong side of the road, this wasn’t going to be an easy drive regardless where they were going. It didn’t help that her companions didn’t know the least bit about driving
, from what she could tell. “Where are we going?” she asked.

Jeannette said, “Follow Fabienne’s instructions for now. She knows how to get us out of Orleans. We’ll tell you more when you need to know.” She leaned back in her seat and folded her hands in her lap. As Maurelle’s eyes locked with Jeannette’s via the rear-view mirror, Jeannette’s mouth twisted into a smug smile and Maurelle gritted her teeth, wishing the redhead hadn’t insisted on tagging along.

Following Fabienne’s instructions, she drove south from Orleans, and to her relief she adapted quickly to the difference in driving. She was also pleasantly relieved to find that Fabienne was good at map reading.

At
the city of Bourges, Jeannette asked if they could stop for lunch. During lunch Fabienne spread the map over the table and pointed out the route they would take to the Languedoc-Rousillon region of France.

“Where are we going?” Maurelle asked. “Do you have a destination in mind?”

Jeannette said, “Saint-Julien-du-Tarn.”

Looking closely at the map, Maurelle found the town, which seemed
even more isolated and remote than Reynier, potentially making it a good hiding spot. But getting there involved driving over rugged mountainous terrain, which might not be so easy. After studying the route a few minutes more, she decided she would make it work somehow. What choice did she have?

She folded the map,
and sat listening to the older women chat excitedly. Apparently, this was a great adventure for the two. When there was a lull in conversation, she asked, “How did you find this place? I mean, what made you decide on Saint-Julien-du-Tarn?”

“Oh, dear me,” Fabienne said, looking flustered. “Let me see. My husband, Claude, inherited his parents’ house
there.” She paused. “Heavens, that would have been just about thirty years ago now. It’s hard to believe it was that long ago. Anyway, after that we would go there often on holiday, usually bringing Jeannette and her husband, Charles. Those were the good old days.”

“Oh, you are so right,” Jeannette said. “Do you suppose
the village has changed over the twelve years since we were there last?”

“It’s hard to know.
I’m afraid many of our friends may be gone. And of course no one has lived in or even visited the house in years since we stopped going there after Claude became ill. I pay an agent to check on the house once a year, you know, but it will not be wonderful. I hope we can clean it up enough to stay for a week or two until we hear from Dave.”

Maurelle frowned. “How are we going to hear from Dave now that we’re on the move?”

Fabienne’s eyes widened. “Oh, dear. I didn’t even think about that. What are we going to do?” She wagged her hand at no one in particular. “We can’t go back, we can’t call Dave, and we won’t have any way for him to call us when we do get to Saint-Julien.”

Jeannette asked, “Where is he? Can’t you call him on his mobile phone?”

“We can’t call him,” Fabienne said. “It’s complicated. He didn’t take his regular mobile. In England, he’s either going to buy one of those disposable phones or a phone card that he can use from his hotel room phone or any public phone. We don’t know his number, and he instructed us not to call his hotel.”

“He could call Coralie and then we could
—” Maurelle stopped herself. “He can’t call Coralie, either, can he? He doesn’t know she’s in Orleans. That means Simone is the only person he might be able to reach, who knows what is happening.”

Jeannette said, “Perhaps when we get to Saint-Julien, I could call Simone and let her know where we are.”

Fabienne’s eyebrows shot up. “No. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“
Then what are we going to do?” Jeannette asked.

Maurelle said, “I don’t know. Well, maybe we’ll figure out something after we arrived in Saint-Julien.”

Dave sipped his
morning coffee and watched as Greg flirted with the one of the women working in the coffee shop. Today, they would go back to Hampstead and try again to talk to more of the neighbors before meeting with Kate Hill. Dave still needed to buy a disposable cell phone or a phone card, although he didn’t have any real news to share with Maurelle and Fabienne. No sense telling them about the meeting with Greg’s detective friend; it would only worry them. He probably wouldn’t tell them about Kate Hill either. It was too soon to know if that connection would be useful.

An hour later, when they exited the tube at the East Finchley station, Dave paused outside a Post Office. 

Greg said, “What’s up?”

“I need to get a
phone card or disposable phone.”

Greg looked at him curiously, and
a moment later said, “Oh, yeah. You’ve gotta call
her
, right?” He smiled and jabbed his friend in the shoulder. Dave queued up and then, immediately after getting the disposable phone, went into the phone box outside and closed the door to give him privacy and quiet. Before dialing on his phone, he glanced at Greg waiting outside and found him watching a pretty woman swing her derrière as she walked into the Post Office. Dave pulled out a paper with his grandmother’s phone number and dialed. The phone rang and rang. He sighed. Probably at the café. He had a busy day ahead, which meant he would likely have to wait until evening to try again. He felt a bit irritated and even slightly worried, though he told himself both emotions were irrational.

Arriving a
t Ian Waitley’s front door, Dave rang the doorbell and tried to put his grandmother out of his mind.

A white-haired man opened the door a few inches and peered around.
“What do you want?”

Dave said, “Are you Ian
Waitley?”

“Who wants to know?”

“I’m Dave Martin and this is my associate, Greg Saunders. We’re writing a newspaper article and conducting research for a book. We’d like to ask you some questions regarding Jared Raybourne and his family. May we come in?”

Ian
opened the door wider, stuck out his head, and glanced up and down the street. Having apparently satisfied himself that nothing more appeared to be going on, he opened the door and motioned for them to enter. “Sorry about that. Awhile back we were bombarded by news crews with cameras. They were a nuisance.”

Dave asked, “Are you Ian
Waitley?”

“That’s right.”

“We met one of your neighbors yesterday, a school girl. She says she knows you—Brittany Stevas.”

The old man’s eyes lit up. “Such a lovely girl, she is.”

“Brittany suggested that we talk with you.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so
afore?”

He led them down the long hallway and through the living
room with a navy blue sofa, a red recliner, a green recliner, and a wood coffee table that had been painted turquoise. On the lime green walls hung bright deco paintings.

Finding the décor particularly without a theme,
as well as unattractive and worn, Dave said, as an opener, “Your home is quite colorful.”

Ian turned his head to look back at Dave, and smiled.

“It used to be drab in here. Too depressing. Wanted a bright and cheerful house—though I go outdoors whenever I can. I prefer the outdoors. Always have. Gardens, fresh air, freedom.”

“It certainly is bright in your house.”
Dave heard Greg cough slightly and saw him turn his head away from Ian to hide his expression, revealing what he really thought of the gauche room.

Ian opened the glass door off the dining room. “You gents can have a seat outside.
Be back with tea and biscuits presently.”

Ian’s white hair was unkempt, and his alert blue eyes darted back and forth as he flitted around with amazing agility. Dave remembered Brittany’s description of Ian’s eagle eyes and he
agreed that the avian description fit not only his eyes but his whole appearance and behavior as well. There was something essentially bird-like about the man, though it seemed to him more sparrow-like than eagle.