The Detective's Daughter (29 page)

There was no green to bother him at night. Jack remembered the light blue: Pantone 277 and got it: the two colours, 277 plus 375, added up to 652: tonight’s set number.

He was getting hotter.

He entered Furnival Gardens and skated along the icy path to Hammersmith Terrace, singing softly:

‘This is the dog that worried the cat
That killed the rat that ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.’

Outside Sarah Glyde’s house, by the Bell Steps, he turned on his phone; Stella had left a message asking him to call. He turned to page 141 of his
A–Z
. The next page in his quest took him to Biggin Hill. Too late tonight, but with so many signs he must persevere; he texted that he had to take his mother to Biggin Hill and switched his phone to voicemail.

With insistent stealth, snow fell over the sleeping city, rendering it timeless. No one saw a tall, loping figure, hands in the pockets of a long black coat, enter the subway tunnel that came out beside the statue of the Leaning Woman.

Monday, 17 January 2011

Stella went by train after work to meet Ivan Challoner. It was seven thirty and, waiting on the platform at Hammersmith, she regretted accepting his dinner invitation. Then she recalled the piano music, the peace and lack of complication and was pleased she had agreed. Ivan was, she guessed, about the same age as Paul, who would be fifty this year, but being wiser he seemed older.

The indicator board flashed up: ‘Train Approaching’.

Boarding, Jack Harmon came into her mind. He had not been available to help her at 48 St Peter’s Square on Saturday and had not returned her calls for two days. Had she interviewed him she would have been explicit that she expected flexibility and availability and established his other commitments, making it clear where Clean Slate was on the priority list. He had not signed a contract and behaved as if she was lucky to have him. She had no idea when she might next see him. She dialled him again and left a snappish message insisting he be at the Ramsay house by eight the next morning – Tuesday just in case he was unclear – and resisted adding ‘Or else’ because she was not sure what the ‘else’ would be. She had called Gina Cross and told her they would be finished in a week. She hoped that was true.

On Friday morning Jack had spoken as if they were detectives capable of solving a murder together. Then he had vanished.

She wanted to tell him about the photograph and that Isabel Ramsay had not seen Kate Rokesmith when she said she had which meant there was no firm sighting of the murdered woman and alibis needed to be revisited. Despite her striving for an open mind, it meant that more than ever it was likely Hugh Rokesmith was the killer. Hugh Rokesmith had been at his office that morning but said he had popped back at ten to change and left at ten thirty. Because Mrs Ramsay was supposed to have seen Kate alive at eleven forty-five, the interval after Rokesmith left his house and arrived at his mother’s did not in the end count. The truly grey area had been when he popped out for wine around midday. Now, everything was up for grabs: the article had effectively torpedoed his alibi. The window of opportunity was flung wide.

The only person with a solid alibi was Mrs Ramsay: she had been in Sussex that Monday and there again for the royal wedding party on the Wednesday; it was unlikely she returned to London in between. Yet she had lied, so had to be a suspect of sorts.

The train slowed outside Gunnersbury, and peering into the darkness Stella made out the clamps holding the cables to the walls, one clamp halted in the centre of the glass. They had stopped. She disliked being late and did not want Ivan to consider her unpunctual. The engine ceased throbbing and went silent.

‘We apologise for this delay. A train has broken down at Gloucester Road and we are waiting for it to be towed to the depot which should not take long.’

The driver sounded genuinely sorry and reminded her of Jackie who was excellent at customer service. While Stella could send a text jilting her partner, she never kept a client uninformed of progress. It was ten to eight; if the train moved now she could make it. Seated in the front car behind the driver’s cab she heard tapping, a rustling and a staccato voice over the transmitter.

The cable clamp passed off to her right, then another and another and soon were out of focus as the train gathered speed again. In minutes they were at Kew Gardens station.

Stella crossed the concourse in front of the station and following Ivan’s meticulous instructions she found the restaurant. When she entered she saw immediately that Ivan had dressed up. Stella had changed into dark green trousers and wore a loose linen jacket over a T-shirt; Ivan was decked out in an immaculate suit. As if to emphasise his sharp attire, Ivan shot his cuffs before lifting a bottle of white wine from an ice bucket beside him to fill their glasses. Stella had the sense that until she arrived Ivan had been lingering in the wings and that now she was here, his performance could begin.

A packet lay on her plate, tied with a silver ribbon.

‘What’s this?’ she demanded, refusing the waiter’s offer to take her coat and sitting down.

‘First things first.’ Ivan held up his glass. ‘Here’s how!’

She raised the wine glass, putting it down again without drinking.

‘Open it.’ Ivan’s gold tie pin glinted in the candle flame. He contemplated her over the rim of his glass.

Stella began to rip off the paper. He snatched it away.

‘Not like that!’

Ivan cradled the package, tipping it between his fingertips. He undid the paper and handed her a cardboard box within a sleeve. Inside was a hardback book with no writing on the cover, dusky red and reeking of mould. Stella was reluctant to handle it before giving it a proper wipe. Ivan, like Terry long ago, was watching her expectantly so she could not say she did not have time for reading.

‘It’s a first edition by Duckworth with engravings by Claire Leighton. Her brother, Roland Leighton, was killed in the First World War. He’s the one who features in
Testament of Youth
. As you know, she was well known in her day.’

Stella did not know. She found gold lettering on the spine:
Wuthering Heights
.

‘I remembered you spotted this on your first visit. I’ll be honest, as I am guessing it will make you feel better, I didn’t pay for it. Grateful clients give me presents. I’m sure you know that one!’ He quaffed some wine. ‘You must be constantly receiving gifts. Anyhow, thing is, I don’t need two. I have kept my original, it’s in fairer condition. I could flog this, but it would be tricky, the client would be bound to find out. She’s a rare book dealer; they are a tight web so please do me a favour and accept it?’

‘Even so, it is generous…’ Stella faltered. Her own clients stuck to the baskets of soap, candles and the odd bottle of single malt which she passed to Terry for Christmas and birthdays.

‘It’s not generous. I am offloading an unwanted copy on you and keeping the one with less foxing.’ He bent beneath the table. ‘Now, I am really going to be for it!’ He brandished a bunch of flowers.

Almost euphoric that Ivan Challoner had read her correctly, Stella accepted the slender bouquet, noticing with further relief that he had not got them gift wrapped. She settled in for a pleasant evening.

Anxious about eating in company, Stella ordered soup that could easily be consumed and a risotto which she could cordon off into bite-sized amounts and efficiently demolish. She waived dessert, but agreed to coffee.

She listened to Ivan describing his love of the countryside, days by the sea with his son and his passion for reconstructive and cosmetic dentistry. Some patients came to him after accidents, others with inhibiting defects or damage due to poor oral hygiene. Everyone came dissatisfied with their appearance and left feeling happier. His calling – and it was a calling, he insisted as with dextrous fingers he pulled the tail off a king prawn – was to make patients feel good about themselves. He restored their smiles. He dabbled his fingers in the water dish, drying them one by one, observing that, for some people, his work amounted to a rebirth.

‘It must make you feel powerful.’ Stella surprised herself with this comment; she did not dwell on motivations or feelings.

‘On the contrary, I am humbled,’ Ivan replied, patting his mouth with his napkin. ‘We are in the same business, of course.’ He sat back supping his wine.

‘I don’t see that.’ Stella isolated another portion from the mound of food and embarked upon it, chewing the glutinous mass. The idea of seeing business in terms of improving clients’ opinion of themselves was an anathema to her.

‘You too restore order. As the giver of purity you, or specifically your staff, scour, mop and dust away the accumulated filth in our lives. You and I, with our commitment to perfection, add to the sum of happiness.’

‘I hadn’t thought of it that way.’ Stella regretted the risotto; no matter how much she ate the amount was not diminishing.

‘I can hear how pretentious it sounds, yet you get the point.’ He refilled Stella’s glass before she could stop him. One glass was her limit even when she wasn’t driving.

Ivan, too, was scrupulous in not broaching anything personal. He stuck to discussing business, seeming genuinely curious about how she managed her staff because, he admitted, his management skills were minimal.

Nevertheless Stella was troubled. She cleaned her client’s premises to the highest standards because she despised mess. She could not bear smudged glass, scuffed walls or carpets spattered with tea or coffee or worse, tables stained with food or streaks of grime. She hated creases in fabrics, papers and useless objects on every surface. She went to war on her clients’ homes with an assortment of cleaning weaponry. At no point while she was disinfecting and deodorizing did she consider the owners themselves – other than as an irritating distraction when she was vacuuming around them or an income stream enabling her to continue cleaning. That Ivan strove to improve his patients’ lives was extraordinary. There was no one whose existence Stella wanted to improve – with the possible exception of Mrs Ramsay, and she was dead.

Watching Ivan mop his plate clean with a pinch of sesame roll, Stella reflected how she had cleaned the darkest and most obscure places for Mrs Ramsay. She had never done this to make the old lady happier, she had done it because she loved to deep-clean.

Ivan insisted on escorting Stella to the station, which was, he assured her, on his way. The pavements had not been salted so they walked on the road, retreating to the kerb to avoid cars. The snow had immobilized the population and, picking their way along Sandycombe Road, they were alone.

At the station entrance Ivan was diverted by a tramp listing on a bench outside. Stella was repulsed by his filthy clothes, his wrinkled skin darkened by dirt, and was anxious that his drunken swaying meant he was going to throw up. She wanted to be far away if that happened.

‘Do excuse me, Stella.’ Ivan approached the man. Sure Ivan was going to move the tramp on, Stella felt stirrings of triumph. The seat was for members of the public, not for drunks to pass out on.

Ivan squatted down and, fishing under the seat between the man’s boots, he picked up a coin. He stood over the man and clasped his shoulder, touching the dandruff-speckled wool as he might guide a patient into the operating chair. He had not touched Stella.

‘I think you dropped this, sir.’

The man struggled to focus, squinting blearily at Ivan. Unsteadily he picked the coin out of Ivan’s palm and stared at it. Then he smiled. His front teeth were missing. ‘Verr…very shen-er-russss.’ He worked his lips hard to form the words that Stella herself had used about Ivan earlier.

‘No, not at all, it was yours.’ Ivan let go of his shoulder. He returned to Stella. An expression of sadness passed over his face but, pulling himself together, he breathed: ‘I have enjoyed myself tonight, thank you, Stella.’

On the end of the platform, as she watched a dot far down the line expand into an eastbound District line train, Stella confessed to herself that she quite liked Ivan Challoner. Jackie said she was a bad judge of character and she imagined telling her that her first impression of Ivan had been right; he was someone she could trust.

Stella did not see the driver of the train when his cab slid past her to stop just beyond where she stood, nor did she know that he was observing her in the platform monitor as she boarded his train.

Tuesday, 18 January 2011

A magpie was busy above their heads on the snow-insulated roof, raising flurries of snow in front of the glass doors. There was a beating of wings.

Silence.

Through the glass, the lawn was marked with animal and bird tracks, virginal patches of snow sparkled with a bluish haze in the morning sunshine.

Jack and Stella were in Isabel Ramsay’s summerhouse. Wrapped up, Jack in his greatcoat, Stella in her padded anorak, they lounged awkwardly in motheaten deckchairs beaten free of spider webs and the husks of insects, nursing mugs of tea in Stella’s case, milk with honey for Jack. The semi-circular structure with a glass frontage had sun all day long and, even in freezing temperatures, was warmer than the house where the central heating had died along with its owner. Jack had arrived, punctually at eight as Stella had requested, and she had assigned him the basement. At eleven, by way of a truce, she had brewed tea in Mrs Ramsay’s chipped Woolworths’ teapot, boiled a pan of milk and then bade him follow her down the garden.

Mrs Ramsay refused to sit in her summerhouse, saying, ‘Mark always got there first. He did it to get to me, he hated the sun.’ Lately Mrs Ramsay, apparently having decided that Stella had passed her tests, had initiated beverages mid-shift and made Stella drink the glass of fruit juice – to keep up vitamins – as soon as she arrived. Stella never thought about vitamins and doubted that Jack did. She had rather liked Mrs Ramsay’s caring what she ate or drank.

‘Do you know what it means?’ Stella took too large a mouthful of tea and burned her tongue. Swallowing she panted in cold air.