Shallow Be Thy Grave (38 page)
“You would probably have got away with it - only, do you know what gave it away?” Lily stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray on the mantelpiece. She picked it up. It was heavy, made of some black kind of pot. Heavy and cold. “The ashtray.”
David lifted his head, confusion evident on his face.
“You washed up the fucking ashtray. No one washes up ashtrays,” she sneered at him. “Except you.”
He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his nose. He took his glasses off and wiped those too, before putting them back on and staring at his eldest child, like he’d never laid eyes on her before.
“She did ring me,” he said eventually, his voice small, mean sounding. “That Thursday night. She was so upset and afraid. I got a flight the next day. Only by the time I’d got there, she’d decided it was all going to be alright. She was going to have the baby, stay in France. Stay in that revolting flat.” He shook his head, stood up. Lily took an involuntary step backwards. “She wasn’t thinking properly. How was she going to manage a baby and go to University? It didn’t make sense.”
“So, because she wouldn’t come back to England, you killed her?”
“I didn’t mean to.” He took a step towards Lily. “I swear it was an accident. We were arguing. I tried to grab her. She fell, caught her head on the edge of the worktop.”
“You strangled her. The police said.”
“She was going on and on about how it was all my fault. How my life had collapsed, how useless I’d been. I tried so hard to be a good dad.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Not to you, I admit that. But to Fiona, I gave her everything.”
“And when she didn’t want you any more, you killed her.”
“Five minutes.” He held up one hand with his fingers outstretched. “The only time in my whole life, I lost my temper. Five minutes.”
“Does Alice know?”
He sank back into the armchair. “I came back here. I knew I needed an alibi. I told her what happened. My dad…” he faltered for a moment, then continued, “Your granddad, he overheard us. He came into the room and went for me. I wanted him to, I wanted him to beat me up. I kept saying ‘go on, hurt me, I deserve it.’ He punched me, your grandmother tried to pull him off. And then he just keeled over, fell on the floor like someone had shot him.”
“Jesus.” Lily allowed herself to wonder for a moment how a person lived with the fact he’d killed not one, but two members of his own family. “What are you going to do?”
He reached for his glass of whisky and she realised she hadn’t seen him without a glass in his hand all day. He raised his eyes to hers. “Are you going to tell the police?”
“No.”
His shoulders sank a half centimetre, small but Lily noticed.
“You’re going to tell them,” she said. “Because you can’t live with this. It will kill you, slowly but surely, if you don’t.”
She knew he knew the truth in what she was saying. She didn’t need to spell it out for him.
“Ruth’ll kill me.”
“You’ll have to explain. Tell her what happened.”
He looked at her like she was crazy. “I’ve missed her so much.”
Lily wasn’t sure whether he was referring to his ex-wife or his youngest daughter. She didn’t want to know. She watched him, his head in his hands, crying drunken tears of self pity and knew there was nothing she could do to comfort him. She heard Fiona’s voice in her head. “Come on, Lil. Get out of there. Life’s too short.”
She took one last look around the room before she headed out into the cool of the summer evening. As she shut the front door, she heard the sounds of her grandmother washing up in the kitchen.
Lily caught the train back to Leeds, each passing mile made her more desperate to get home. Back to where she belonged. The first thing she did when she got in was ring the number Yvette had given her.
“I’ve checked them both. Alain Durant, was working all day Friday, dozens of witnesses. And Carlos, that’s not his real name. His real name is Mickey Banks. He’s got a couple of convictions in England, one for driving under the influence and one for resisting arrest. But his alibi is cast iron.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m completely sure. He’s got four police officers who can vouch for him.”
“What?”
“He was in custody. He’d been brought in on suspicion of handling stolen goods. Released Saturday afternoon, pending further investigation.”
That explained his relationship with Commissaire Charbonneau, thought Lily. He must have gone to the station after Brigitte had stood him up on the Saturday morning and asked Carlos to help him out. Probably in return for turning a blind eye to his handling of stolen goods.
“What about the girl in Amsterdam?” asked Lily.
“There’s not a lot we can do about that, without the girl willing to give us a statement. And the fact it happened in another country. But he did confess, like you said he would, so we got a warrant, searched his house. Found some cannabis, only personal use, but he’s agreed to community service. I’ll try and make sure he’s put with this female probation officer I know. I’ll make sure she makes it her mission to teach him about how to treat women.”
“What did Yvette say?” said Jo, coming into the front room with the wooden tea tray and a ready rolled spliff.
“It wasn’t Carlos.” Lily knocked the receiver off its base. She didn’t want any more calls today. “We knew that already.”
“Have you told her boss where the tape is?”
“I imagine he’s on his way to the airport as we speak.”
Jo poured a cup of orange tea and passed Lily the spliff and the lighter. “Well done for today, Lil. You were amazing.”
Jo put her legs up on the coffee table. She’d had a bath and was in her pyjamas and her eyelids were puffed and heavy. Her bright pink mohican had lost some of its colour, was more pastel pink than shocking, these days.
“Thanks, Jo.”
Jo ducked her head onto Lily’s shoulder as they sat side by side on the settee. Lily lit the spliff and took a couple of deep drags. She exhaled the smoke slowly.
“You were pretty cool too,” said Lily.
Jo yawned, “I’m sorry we didn’t catch the killer. Do you think they ever will?”
Jo pulled a cushion from the end of the settee and pushed into the gap between them. Then she pulled her legs up onto the settee and rested her head on the pillow. Lily looked down at her, her eyes closed, no make-up. She looked about twelve.
“Jo?”
“Yes?” Jo opened an eye and looked at Lily. “What?”
“Nothing. Doesn’t matter,” Lily inhaled another lungful of smoke and let it out slowly. “Go to sleep. I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
THE END
Coming Soon
Thy Time Has Come
By AJ Taft
Bert the Perv has met the woman of his dreams and Lily’s pleasantly surprised to discover she’s not artificially inflated. It’s about time someone lived happily ever after.
But Bert has a problem and only Lily can help him. He needs to find his wife, who disappeared, while he was sleeping, on their wedding night. And he needs to find her fast - his new girlfriend’s not going to hang around forever.
Lily’s reluctant to get involved - her search for missing people so far hasn’t exactly brought happiness into her life. But then Bert cared for Lily’s mother in her final, korma-filled days. She does owe him something.
When Lily learns Bert’s wife is Thai, and Bert convinces her that the best place to start looking for his missing missus is on the other side of the world, it starts to sound appealing. Jo’s busy playing happy families with Andy. Lily’s sure the guy at the dole office is hardly likely to miss her and there’s the small matter of a murder trial looming. If that isn’t a reason to get the hell out of the country, she can’t think what is.
So Lily heads to Thailand and soon becomes embroiled in a dangerous world, where nothing is how it first appears.
Another fast-paced, funny and moving adventure featuring Lily Appleyard and her best mate, Jo.
Born and raised in Burnley, Alison has dreamed of becoming a writer ever since reading Harriet the Spy by torchlight under the bedcovers, aged about eight.
After completing a degree in Social Policy, Alison lived in Crete and spent time in the Middle and Far East. In the mid-nineties she was a keen supporter of the free party network. She has worked in a variety of jobs but after being sacked once too often for gross insubordination, Alison decided to heed the words of one employer who described her as ‘unmanageable’, and became a full time writer.
Alison now lives in Leeds with her partner and two children. She spends her days arguing about whose turn it is to sort out the washing, and her evenings at the computer, sipping mint tea and plotting her revenge. Shallow be Thy Grave is Alison’s third novel but the second in the Lily Appleyard series
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