The Detective's Secret (41 page)

‘Yes—’

‘So whoever has his phone can find out where anyone they want is and stalk them?’

‘If they have their number, yes.’

‘Where is Simon now?’ Stella shouted at Lulu. Simon was the name of the boy Jack said he had known at school. Jack said there was no such thing as coincidence.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Where does he live? You must know!’

‘I don’t.’ Lulu sobbed, waving her hands in front of her face as if clearing away cobwebs. ‘He’s very private. He takes me out for meals. I don’t go to where he lives. His father left the house in trust to my mother – he cut me out of his will because I wasn’t his. Simon gave me half the value of the house. He’s a fair man, you see. The other day I walked past the house and saw it’s up for sale.’

‘They used to live next door to Jackie, in Corney Road,’ William said quietly.

‘Why didn’t you say?’ Stella demanded

‘Why would I? I didn’t think it was anything to do with who killed Rick.’

‘There were two children next door, a sweet boy as thin as a rail and his cute sister, think her name was Lulu, something like that. Their parents’ marriage was on the rocks, the dad was a psychiatrist with a fancy car, chap never passed up a chance to be sarcastic about his wife – talk about airing dirty linen! The boy was playing substitute husband, protective little mite. I made Graham promise that those parents wouldn’t be us one day. I think we’ve succeeded! The boy – or man – moved out years ago, he rented the house out and is only selling it now. We’re holding our breath as to who buys it. Good neighbours are gold
.
’

Stella remembered Jackie’s words. She let the information fall into place.

‘Stay here! Lock the windows, don’t answer the door to anyone! If he has Rick’s phone, he’ll be using his app and will know you’re both here. He knows we’re all here.’ She looked at her phone. There was a pair of staring eyes at the top of the screen. ‘Turn off your phones!’

Stella snatched up the framed photographs and, shoving them into her rucksack, ran down the stairs and out of the house. Despite her instruction, she didn’t think to turn off her own phone.

Monday, 28 October 2013

The wind whistled down Chiswick Mall, its screams and whines punctuated by bangs and smashes as flower pots, garden ornaments and benches were dislodged from window ledges and hurled on to the ground.

Shrouded in a billowing cagoule, hooded and shapeless, Liz Hunter could have been mistaken for being drunk or a passenger on the deck of a ship tossed and rolling in high waves. She swayed and staggered, to the left, to the right, into the gutter, stopped and set off again, quickening her pace. She kept close to garden walls and hedges. She paused every now and then and consulted her phone to reassure herself she was following Justin’s directions. She looked up and saw the tower. She was here.

She checked her phone again; Stella hadn’t replied to her text.

‘Let’s see the letter?’

She jumped. A man stepped out of an alley. It was Justin. She nearly hugged him, but he didn’t like being hugged. He looked annoyed.

‘Can we get out of this wind?’ Liz shouldn’t have texted Justin and told him about the returned letter. She had hoped he would have advice, but he seemed cross. Maybe he minded after all that she hadn’t told him Nicola’s address. She had been so pleased with herself for demonstrating to him she could be trusted to say nothing. She should have waited for Stella. She should have done what they agreed and waited to see if Nicola would come for it.

Although she had been looking forward to this, their first meeting in his home, Liz was suddenly sure she shouldn’t have come.

‘No need to worry about the letter. Indeed, from now on there’s no need to worry at all.’ Justin remarked pleasantly. His crossness apparently gone, he took her hand.

‘That’s marvellous!’ She laughed, although she didn’t feel in the least like laughing.

‘This way.’ He led them down a narrow passage that smelt of rotten leaves and urine. The bricks glistened in the lamp-lit dark.

‘I feel bad, Justin. You see, I decided to open it. It’s from the man who died at Stamford Brook station whom Nicola knew when she was little. It’s a list of numbers. Twenty-seven altogether. Justin, are you any good at deciphering codes?’

‘As you say, let’s get out of the storm. I’ve brought us a bottle of champagne and cheese and biscuits. I hope you like brie. Come up to my tower!’

‘This is
your
tower! How amazing!’

Fleetingly, Liz Hunter considered whether it was wise to have told no one where she was going. Then Justin drew her close and she breathed him in.

Monday, 28 October 2013

A strong gust of wind buffeted the van. Forecasters were warning people to stay inside unless their journeys were strictly necessary. A storm called St Jude was going to hit southern Britain tonight. It was strictly necessary to find Jack.

Stella saw she had a text. Jack always contacted her in the end. It was from Liz.
Call me.

Liz would have to wait.

In the dark, headlamps in her rear mirror dazzled her. She couldn’t tell if she was being followed.

There was no point going to Jack’s tower, he had told her he was driving. He didn’t answer his phone when he was on the trains. She drove around Hammersmith Broadway twice to try to lose Carrington if he was out there, and then pulled off into Sussex Place. Immediately she saw her mistake: it was a dead end. She flung the van around and headed back towards the Apollo on the Broadway. She slowed down and checked her mirror again, although Carrington couldn’t be behind her. She’d stopped in a parking bay opposite a mansion block, confirmed the doors were locked. Just in case, she kept the engine running.

Stella forced herself to think rationally. If she called Martin Cashman, he would remind her he required evidence that Nicola Barwick was missing, that Rick Frost had been killed by Simon Carrington. If he had, Lulu Carr and William Frost would be unreliable witnesses at a trial. William had lied about his glove and not been honest about his relationship with Lulu. Even if the glove was matched to the one on the dead man, it wasn’t a link to Simon. Lulu didn’t know truth from reality. The Piccadilly line driver might identify the photo of Simon, but his testimony wouldn’t stand up in court because he had initially thought the man on the platform was Jack. Simon Carrington had been clever; he featured nowhere.

Simon. Stella’s heart was palpitating. This was like a game of Patience: the cards were falling into place, with one card blocking a suit.

She reached into her bag and lifted out the pictures. In the light of the street lamp, Simon looked nothing like Jack. His mother was smiling off camera at someone to her left. Stella could see a snippet of shoulder. Someone had been cropped from the image.

Out of the blue, Stella smelled Dale’s scones. She trusted her olfactory sense. She had seen the woman’s face before. The sight of her mother holding Dale’s album flashed up. Stella realized where she had seen the woman. She texted Suzie:
Send photo of first page of D’s life story.

There was one person who would help her get evidence for the police. Stella drummed on the steering wheel, dismissing the idea. The van was hit by a vicious squall, it lurched and she dropped her phone. She scrabbled for it in the passenger footwell.

She had run out of options. She brought up her contacts list and found the number. Against any better judgement Stella had ever had, she pressed ‘Dial’.

‘Stella Darnell here. Are you free?’ She waited. Then: ‘I’m on my way,’ she said.

Monday, 28 October 2013

There were no rattling casements or creaking joists. Jack couldn’t hear loose tiles crashing off roofs or recycling bins and bottles clattering along empty streets, hurtling and twisting. The only sign of the storm were murky grey clouds that streamed across the sky, joining and re-forming, and flurries and blusters tearing at the surface of the Thames.

Jack sat in the Hammersmith Bridge window, resting his binoculars on the heel of his palms. A coil of steam rose from his mug of hot milk. The domestic scene belied his mood: he was full of foreboding.

He had been positive that he had lost his phone in the tower. But he had looked everywhere and not found it. He had tried to email Stella, but the storm must have caused his internet connection to break. He had decided to find a phone box and ring her, but when he stepped out on to the walkway, he was blown over to the rail by the force of the wind and admitted defeat.

Though Jack knew he was safe in the tower – if he couldn’t get down, no one could come up, yet he didn’t feel safe. When Stella had shown him the passport photo of the back of the man’s head, he had said he didn’t recognize him. He recalled the image. It wasn’t so much the head, but the back of neck, above the shirt collar. It might be nearly thirty years, but Jack knew who it was. His senses attuned to the slightest sound or movement, he trained the binoculars on Chiswick Eyot.

Somewhere out there, Simon Carrington was alive and he was watching.

Monday, 28 October 2013

‘It’s the Detective’s Daughter!’ An electronic cigarette cocked above her shoulder, Lucille May exhaled a cloud of vapour. Stella caught a whiff of peach.

Stella had expected this. Lucille May relied on sex appeal, she didn’t relish female competition. Least of all from the daughter of the man who, Stella suspected, was the love of her life. Stella had convinced herself that Lucille May wasn’t Terry’s type, but she didn’t know what his type was.

‘Come in, since you’re here.’ Lucille waved the cigarette in vague invitation and sashayed on pink leather pumps to her sofa.

‘Tea, coffee, water? If you’re still off the booze.’ Lucille twisted the top off a bottle of mineral water, gulped from it and flopped back, apparently exhausted, lending little weight to her offer.

‘No thanks.’ Stella ignored the jibe that was prompted by her refusing triple gin and tonics on previous visits. The water and the electronic cigarette suggested that Lucille May was on a health drive. Stella caught the buzz of a text. ‘Excuse me.’ She opened her messages.

‘Social networking is vital these days. Not for me, of course, I’m established.’ Lucille blew a peach-scented cloud towards Stella.

Suzie had photographed the whole newspaper cutting from Dale’s album. Laboriously, moving the text into view on the small screen, Stella read:

FEARS MOUNT FOR MISSING TEACHER

Five years to the day since English teacher Nathan Wilson vanished, police say they have no clue to his whereabouts. The forty-year-old bachelor, on a sabbatical from Menzies High in exclusive Vaucluse, set off last October on a three-month walking tour of New Zealand to ‘feed his soul’ and never came back.

Apart from a possible sighting in the NZ town of Wangherie and another on Manley’s Shelley Beach early one morning, no one has seen or heard from Wilson, described by colleagues as a loner with no living relatives. Neighbour Byron Carter, who lived in the same apartment block in Cremorne, said Wilson introduced him to his fiancée (pictured left). ‘The girl was quick to say he was “jumping the gun, they were just friends”. Nat looked pretty crook, bloke was smitten.’

Inspector Todd Mangen of the NSW Police Force told a packed press conference at the Local Area Command on Pacific Highway this morning that Wilson’s bank account has remained inactive and the mystery ‘fiancée’ has not come forward. They have no reason to suspect foul play, but with no contact from Wilson, they fear for his safety and welfare.

‘We are in the dark,’ Mangen said. ‘It’s as if Nathan stepped off the planet.’ He appealed to anyone with information or who recognizes the woman to contact Harbourside LAC.

I
n the photo, the woman was resting her head on Wilson’s shoulder. Some friend, Stella observed. Wilson was ducking to ensure he was in the frame.

‘Don’t mind me.’ Lucille May regarded her nails.

‘Read this.’ Stella handed her the phone.

Amid a plume of steam, Lucie May languorously scrolled down the screen.

After what seemed to Stella a frustratingly long time, Lucille waved the phone, ‘Jack said you knew, so why come to me?’

‘Sorry?’ Jack wasn’t there when she was looking at Dale’s album.

‘The Prodigal Son! Doesn’t Darnell Junior look like Simon Le Bon. What a dish!’ She fanned herself with a hand. ‘Get you, Miss Marple. First you solve Terry’s biggest unsolved case and now you’ve found his long-lost son.’

‘What do you mean?’ Stella’s windpipe constricted.

‘Terry went to his grave without finding his boy. I pulled strings like a crazed puppeteer, but nothing – and Mr By-the-Book wouldn’t bend police rules. He dies and the Cleaner flies in on her magic broomstick and conjures up the lovely Dale!’

‘Dad knew about Dale?’ The words battered Stella’s skull like brick bats.

‘Mrs Darnell says to Terry, “Here’s your new daughter, oh and by the way I gave away our son!”’ She swigged some water. ‘Sorry, I know it’s your ma!’

‘I meant the article next to it.’
Stick to the basics
. ‘The one about the missing teacher.’ Her dad didn’t come to see his newborn baby daughter in the hospital for three days. He had always said it was because he was called up to hunt for the killer of the three police officers in Braybrook Street. Was it because Suzie had told him he already had a son?

Lucille May scrabbled under a cushion, retrieved a pair of black-framed glasses and jammed them on her face with one hand. Gone was the flaky manner; she studied the article with a frown, e-cigarette held aloft.

Terry had known about Dale. Stella looked about the room and made herself do a cleaning estimate, although there would be nothing to do. Lucille cleaned like a pro. Was that why Terry liked coming here? Was it in this room that he told her he had a son and swore her to secrecy because his daughter didn’t know?