The Detective's Daughter (24 page)

She forced herself to focus on her surroundings. Behind her was the garden wall of the house where the two Glyde women had lived in 1981. It was about fifteen feet high and fringed with foliage, a bulbous white in the darkness. Next door a glass panel reinforced with metal replaced the trellis described in the report. There were no footholds on the wall; Kate would have had no means of escape. The Sergeant’s report had stated that from the garden it was only possible to see the beach by leaning far over the wall. Stella was determined to see inside for herself; Terry had the right to go into the house but she had no such right. She would have to find a way.

Kate Rokesmith’s body had been found close to the wall, hard by the steps. Stella had read how, other than the towpath on the south side, it was only possible – assuming there had been no one with binoculars on a boat – to see the beach from public gardens towards the bridge and from the yacht club pontoon. Except no one had.

The area was secluded and few people would know of its existence. The killer had to be local: with his flimsy alibi everything pointed to Hugh Rokesmith. It must, Stella guessed, have infuriated Terry that a guilty man was living his life unpunished.

She stepped out of the shelter of the retaining wall and was hit by a squall; snow blinded her and stung her cheeks. Her hand could not find purchase on the slimy brick and she dropped her key-ring torch. The wind made a sound that was almost human and smacked at her anorak.

With her hood up, Stella did not hear the scrape of shoe leather on the Bell Steps.

At just after ten o clock, the flood tide began at London Bridge. In a few hours the river would fill and water would wash over the snatch of land near the Ram and engulf the first five of the Bell Steps. The snow would slide off smooth granite and float off in the icy water.

Not all movements were tricks of the eye.

A crunch of stones. A tin was kicked. A dark shape glided over the mud; there was the sound of shoes squelching and releasing with a voluble sucking.

A light swooped down and was extinguished.

Stella fumbled for the torch, her hands slathered with snow and mud. Her fingers grazed the spindle of a key. She snatched for it, missed, tried again and grabbed the bunch. It jingled and gave away her position.

She was out of sight and earshot of the lane where there were few passers-by anyway; by now the pub had closed. The three men, heading for the subway, would not give her a thought. If she shouted, her voice would be lost in the wind.

The steps were not the only way up to the road. She could go along the beach to Chiswick Eyot.

Someone was standing on the spot where Kate was murdered.

Flakes flew at her like flies and, reckless, she plunged into the darkness. All the time the snow fell silently around her, covering the ground. Stella wrenched back her hood. She could see no sign of the eyot: she had underestimated the distance. Twice she splashed into water, veering into the shallows – or was the tide coming in?

If she could get to the eyot she could double back to the Mall and slip up a side street to the van as she had on the day she bent her mudguard. Was it the same man? She wished for her bike now.

Keep to the right
.

The snow camouflaged dips and drops in the ground and she nearly turned her ankle, her boots heavy with freezing water swilling around her, slowing each step. The tide was almost to the wall, the water deeper. If she went further she would be cut off. She had no choice but to go back.

She saw nothing but dark feathery shapes pursuing her and struck out for the river. He would expect her to keep to the wall. Again her boots were submerged and she could not avoid splashing. He would hear. Careless of where she stepped, keeping the hazy image of Hammersmith Bridge ahead, she struggled forward.

Above the pounding of blood in her ears she heard him, jumping and hopping from one stone to the next in the furred darkness, heading her off.

She could see the Bell Steps, but in the driving snow they got no nearer. She had lost her scarf, her neck was cold and above the gentle trickle of the approaching tide washing over the stones, her anorak swished with each step, marking her position.

Breath, sour with alcohol, warmed her cheek, hands held her tight and frogmarched her to the wall.

Stella saw Jackie at her sunlit desk – the only person who would care about where Stella was – before absorbing the numb realization:
It’s over.

Thursday, 13 January 2011

‘Why are you here?’

Stella braced herself. She could not struggle: his grip was like iron. Water lapped around her ankles, a continual running like a tap; she clung to the sound to blot him out.

‘Answer me.’ He shook her. She bit her tongue as her jaw clenched.

‘It’s none of your business.’ Wrong answer.

‘It
is
my business.’ He let go, brushing his sleeves as if he had ‘dealt’ with her. In the half-dark of the intermittent moonlight he rubbed under his chin with the back of his hand.

Paul.

‘You frightened me!’

He stroked her face. Then closed in, his coat collar tickling her ear he went to kiss her, his tongue pushing between her teeth. Stella shoved him away but he pressed himself against her.

‘I love you, Stella,’ he bleated into her neck. ‘You haven’t answered my calls. I miss you.’

If only he weren’t so sensitive. Her fear gone, Stella was furious. Paul had ruined the operation: she had been close to seeing what it had been like for Kate and a few minutes more might have got it, but the image was fragile and Paul had destroyed it.

‘You deliberately scared me.’

‘You knew it was me, you saw me when you came out of the pub. What are you doing here? Who are you meeting?’ His words fizzed though his teeth.

‘No one.’ Stella heard the guilt in her reply. Even if she had owed Paul an explanation, she could not explain why she was there: he would not believe she was meeting a dead woman. He had never believed her when she worked late in the office or subbed for her team and he quizzed her about every client. When she had made the mistake of telling him about Mrs Ramsay sending herself flowers, he had sent a bunch to the office every week until she said it would be over if he did it again. Jackie said Paul loved her.

‘I saw you talking on the phone. What happened? Did he stand you up? Sitting there with your eye on the door like a lovesick kid. Who did you ring?’ Paul was in tears now.

‘You’ve been spying on me.’ His crying meant she couldn’t be angry with him.

‘I won’t be made a fool of.’

‘You’re not a fool, Paul, I don’t think that, but please go.’

‘So you can see Lover Boy?’ He did not move. His efforts to sound threatening were impotent. Jackie would feel sorry for him. Stella told herself that she did not feel sorry for Paul.

She tried to conjure up Ivan’s room with its spotless surfaces, tasteful objects and subdued lighting. Ivan would deplore such a scene, so far removed from Beethoven and Mark Whatsit. Mrs Ramsay would have dealt with the Pauls of this world with a tip of the hand while she whirled around her dining room clasping the vase of lilies like a lover. Stella’s shame redoubled. ‘I’ll call the police. This is stalking.’

‘Call Daddy?’

She had never seen Paul like this and was thrown. He
was
stalking her. Women were killed by possessive ex-partners who would not take no for an answer. Paul had rung her bell the previous night, he had been outside Terry’s house, he texted and called her every hour. He had come to the office, left her heavy breathing messages and now he had attacked her. Stella felt afraid.

‘Let’s talk tomorrow.’ A concession she had no intention of keeping.

‘And leave you to betray me?’

‘I’m not betraying you.’

‘He’s stood you up.’ He was vicious.

‘For the last time, I am not meeting anyone. I need space, time alone.’

‘Oh, please! Alone here? Don’t give me that shit. We love each other. Let’s go home and talk in the warm.’ He put out his arms. ‘You’re grieving; you’re in shock about your dad.’

He seemed to have forgotten that a moment ago he had taunted her about Terry. He was losing his mind. Stella edged towards the steps. ‘There’s nothing to say, Paul, leave it. Go to bed—’

‘A woman was once murdered here, did you know that? No, you didn’t. I was there! I watched them drive her off in an ambulance.’

Stella stopped. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I remember it.’ Cramming his hands into his jacket pockets, Paul went on: ‘I was on the mini-cabs then and working in the area. The cops interviewed everyone at my firm except me because I wasn’t on the books, doing a favour for a mate.’ He did his braying laugh. ‘Your dad was in charge, but he never talked to me.’

Stella clenched her teeth to stop them chattering. She had not known Paul had driven a cab: he was a computer engineer now. He would have been twenty-five in 1981. Jackie would say Paul was not capable of murdering a mouse.

‘Why didn’t you come forward?’ Jackie knew nothing about Paul; nor, Stella realized, did she.

‘Interested in me now, are you?’ He grabbed her by the shoulders. ‘How long has this little affair been going on?’

‘I’m calling the police.’ Stella wriggled free and patted her pockets for her phone but it was not in any of them. Despite the cold, she was sweating. She must have dropped it on the stones. It would be under water; if not, then buried in the snow. Her only hope of locating it was to ask Paul to ring her number.

His face was lit from below with a greenish glow; his jowls hung heavy; his eyes were cavities.

The light came from her phone.

‘What will you use to call them?’ He sounded pleasant, even interested. Stella did not recognize him.

‘Where did you find it?’

‘You left it in the pub.’ He tutted. ‘Anyone could have nicked it. Imagine losing those confidential numbers, all those contacts. I’ll say this, well done for emptying your text boxes.’

‘Oh, Paul, don’t do this.’ Stella was tired. ‘Let’s meet for coffee after work and talk.’

‘Today we have naming of parts. Yesterday,

We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow morning,

We shall have what to do after firing. But today,

Today we have naming of parts…’

Stella cast blindly about, but could not tell from which direction the voice came. Nor could Paul. He wheeled around sharply, stumbling. Stella snatched the phone.

She smelled smoke: roll-ups. She knew the distinctive brand although couldn’t place where she had smelled it. The voice intoned:

‘ … Japonica

Glistens like coral in all of the neighbouring gardens,

And today we have naming of parts.’

A figure was pacing the stones near the wall with sure-footed ease, the words – intimate in the snow-blanketed air – enunciated like an actor, every syllable stressed, each emphasis precise. Stella could make out only that he was tall and thin.

Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, a swollen dead thing, and she bit down on it to summon saliva. The pain focused her.

‘He was at your office.’ Paul gestured at the man. ‘You’re meeting
him
. I was right!’

‘I don’t know who he is.’ But she did.

The way he was moving, his steps economic and sure like a dancer, crazily reassured her.

Soon Stella was picking out stones of the right shape: not too big with flat sides. She grubbed them out, not caring that her hands were getting dirty.

‘You’re a mud lark,’ he told her.

‘What’s a mud lark?’

‘Long ago, kids your age would roam the shores of the Thames on the lookout for bones and lumps of coal to sell for fuel.’

She stared at the place where she had thrown the stone into the water and said it was dead and gone forever.

‘Stell! You come out with the funniest ideas.’

One day she would ask a question he couldn’t answer.

‘So,
Paul
, I gather you’re not wanted here.’ Jack Harmon had his back to them.

‘I’m not leaving her here with you.’

Paul’s speech was slurred. Stella could tell that he was frightened and wanted to comfort him. The feeling was fleeting.

‘Oooh, I think you will leave.’

Harmon trudged over to them. It might have been a summer’s morning, the sun beating down, not a cloud in the sky; he gave no sign of feeling the cold.

Paul lunged at Harmon and in moments, after some swiftly executed moves, Harmon twisted Paul’s arm behind his back and held him fast from behind. Stella had seen Terry do it to a man not unlike Harmon in an alleyway off Hammersmith Broadway, when he broke up a fight on their way to her ice-skating lesson in Queensway. The restraint was a police manoeuvre for a person resisting arrest and every time Paul struggled, Harmon hitched his arm up a fraction, which she could see was causing Paul excruciating pain. She was astonished: it seemed Paul’s judo classes had done him no favours.

‘When I let go, you will go away,’ Harmon whispered into his ear.

On the steps Paul turned back to Stella. He dared not ask her to go with him, but obviously hoped she would. Impassive, she watched him mount the steps. Jack was beside her, the tip of his cigarette glowing in his cupped palm. Nonchalantly he drew on it.

‘I did that at school,’ he remarked.

‘Self-defence?’ She coughed, her throat felt constricted as if it had been compressed, although Paul had not touched her.

‘Naming of Parts.’

Terry said that killers often came back to the scene of their crime.

The clinking had stopped: the bottle had floated off on the incoming tide. The river was nearly at the steps.

Kate Rokesmith had known her killer so did not run. Up to the last moment she trusted him not to hurt her. Had Paul followed her, or had he been here already?

‘You OK?’ Jack flicked the stub away. It hit the ground with a hiss and the light went out.