The Silent Girls (23 page)

Chapter Sixteen

Derek Sellars pulled the tray of jewellery towards him, picked up his loupe and focused on the first item. A cameo, probably a fake, and not much of a popular item these days. He assumed that it must be a fake, a front facing Medusa would be a pretty rare find, and one made from shell in an 18 carat setting even rarer. He had to admit that whoever had reproduced it had done exquisite work, such a shame that talent like that was wasted on a con. The thing was filthy, obviously uncared for and he had no choice but to use a mild solvent on the back to see the assay marks, if there were any. There were none, but there was a signature – Aniello Pernice. Derek put the piece down, stared at it for a moment then picked it back up and re-examined it. There was no doubt now that he was looking at something rare, not a fake and an item of exceptional quality. He found himself entirely shocked, nothing this good had come through the door in years and it gave him a quite a buzz.

Eagerly he rooted through the rest of the tray, most of it looked like typical junk, a gold charm bracelet only good for scrap, a few rings, nothing special, cheap stone chips in unfashionable settings that wouldn’t fetch much even on eBay. The paste caught his eye and he disentangled an earring, gave it a quick clean and examined it using the loupe – his eyesight was so bad now he almost needed the loupe to be a permanent attachment, he felt as though he needed binoculars to find his own desk these days.

Once cleaned, the earring caught the light and refracted it beautifully, casting rainbows on the walls of Derek’s cluttered workspace and illuminating the room with more colour and excitement than it had seen in years. This was not paste, it wasn’t cheap tat and was possibly one of the finest, largest diamonds that Derek had ever seen. It was practically flawless. With mounting excitement he separated the rest of the set from its tawdry companions. Once examined he laid them out on his desk and called for his son, ‘Bernie, shut the shop and get in here. You need to look at this!’

Bernie laid down his paper and sighed, what was it now? ‘Can’t it wait, I’m busy,’ he called, annoyed that his focus on the day’s racing line up had been interrupted.

He was surprised to see his father emerge from the cavern at the back of the shop and bustle to the door, where he swiftly locked it and pulled down the shade. Bernard couldn’t remember the last time his father had ventured out of the back room, let alone looked animated. In fact he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen him move that fast. ‘What’s up, are you ill?’

Derek turned a frustrated yet excited face to his son. ‘Don’t be daft boy! Go out back, and take a look at what’s on my desk, tell me what you think.’

Bernard rolled his eyes and slid off his stool. It was clear that his father was all wound up about something and that he would get no peace until he indulged the old man. ‘Oh for God’s sake, what is it now?’

Derek ushered him through, and hovered like an impatient imp while Bernard looked at the jewels. Bernard examined each piece carefully and laid them back on the desk with unusual reverence. ‘Bloody hell!’

Derek nodded, his head bobbing up and down like a demented meerkat’s. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’

Bernard was confused, ‘Right about what?’

‘They’re the Van Pelka diamonds.’

Derek’s gleeful enthusiasm did little to answer Bernard’s question. ‘The what? All I know is that they are diamonds, and good ones at that.’ He thought back to the unassuming woman who had brought them in, his mind trying to equate her and her humble appearance with the possession of something so valuable. It wasn’t adding up. He turned to his father, who was rifling through a filing cabinet and muttering.

‘I know it’s in here somewhere, I always keep them, because you never know… aha!’ He pulled out a sheaf of paper and waved it at Bernard. ‘Police bulletin, fifteen years ago. Those diamonds. Stolen.’

Bernard snatched the papers and looked through them, comparing the grainy photocopied image with the necklace and earrings spread out before him on the desk. His father was right, they were the same – no wonder the old boy was hyperventilating. The Van Pelka diamonds had been part of a private collection and had been stolen from a country house fifteen years previously along with some other items of jewellery and a large quantity of bearer bonds. Bernard often wondered why people bothered stealing diamonds; they were almost as unique as fingerprints and impossible to sell on any market, let alone the open market. If he’d been the thief he’d have stuck with the bonds and dumped the jewels. Anyone could cash a bond, no questions asked. He was aware of his father dancing about like a hyperactive pixie behind him.

‘Go and put the kettle on Dad, and for God’s sake calm down. I’ll call it in.’

***

Whenever Lena had contemplated the prospect of her life flashing before her eyes, she had always imagined that it would be a rapid thing, a series of flashbacks whipping past her at breakneck speed. This slow, tortuous reliving of things she had long tried to forget was not what she’d envisaged. This wasn’t retrospection – it was punishment, and it had to stop.

When she’d left the house that morning she’d had no idea where she was going to end up, it was a toss up between the church and the police station. Either one would provide someone to hear her story, but neither was likely to bring much in the way of redemption. She wasn’t even sure she deserved redemption, so it became a choice of which place was better for getting it off her chest. The church was cold, draughty and she had never been a frequent flier there. Funerals, weddings and christenings had been her limit, though she understood that God would always embrace the truly penitent. The police station was warmer, marginally more comfortable and at least she wouldn’t have to endure any attempts at empathy. Not even the most hardened man of God would willingly attempt to put himself in her shoes and she could live without any bumbling attempts to do so. No, if she was going to unburden herself, it had to be to the law. They could deal with her as they saw fit. With a degree of stoicism she hadn’t previously believed that she was capable of, she made her way to the police station and presented herself at the desk.

The young lad behind the counter looked bored, distracted and as grey and pallid as the chipped paint on the walls. Lena suspected he might have drawn the short straw that morning, manning the front counter had to be the least desirable job in the place. The poor kid had probably grown up watching episodes of The Bill and imagining a life fighting crime and upholding truth and justice. She doubted that he had anticipated long hours of dealing with people’s neighbour problems and logging in lost property. Ah well, what she had to say might relieve his boredom and give him something to tell his girlfriend when he got home that night. She assumed a girlfriend because he didn’t look old enough to have a wife. From her point of view it seemed that the police were recruiting from primary school these days. She approached the counter and gave a small cough to get his attention. The two-second delay between the noise and his looking up at her seemed to emphasise the level of his disinterest, and his slow appraisal of her before speaking only served to make her more determined to shake up his morning.

‘How can I help you?’ he said, eventually.

‘I doubt that you can, son, to be honest. I need to speak to someone a bit more senior.’

She watched as one of his eyebrows began to rise and a look of mild indignation spread across his thin face. ‘If you’d like to explain the nature of your enquiry, madam.’

‘I’m here to confess to a crime.’ she said, noting the change in his expression, which was mutating into a subtle smirk.

‘And what is the nature of the offence you wish to confess to?’

At least she had his attention now, even if he was intrigued more than concerned. She supposed that from his point of view there wasn’t much that she might be capable of, she was old, weak and invisible to people like him. But it hadn’t always been that way. She said it in a matter of fact tone and watched with detached amusement as his face paled.

‘Could you repeat that please madam?’

‘Yes. I said, murder.’

***

The house seemed inordinately quiet, as if a blanket had settled over it and had muffled out any sound. Edie called Sophie’s name and was met by a thick, uncomfortable silence. ‘She must still be in bed,’ she said to Matt, ‘I’ll go and turf her out, the lazy madam.’

When she was halfway up the stairs she already knew that the girl had gone, she could feel it. A quick check of the tiny bedroom and the absence of Sophie’s bag and her usual clutter confirmed it. She sat down on the narrow bed and sighed, feeling more bereft than she had ever felt. When Will had left home it had stung, but had felt like a natural progression, the logical emptying of the nest, and she had felt wistful and nostalgic. Sophie’s disappearance without a word felt so much worse, like a blow or an insult. Edie felt the sting of tears as she contemplated how attached she had become in such a short time, and how ridiculous it was to have invested so much into a stranger. She heard Matt’s steady tread on the stairs and braced herself. As he leaned through the door, his face suffused with concern, Edie closed her eyes.

‘She’s gone, hasn’t she?’ he said.

All she could do was nod. She could sense his hesitation and knew that he wanted to sit next to her and offer some comfort. Nice as it was to know that he understood, she couldn’t have borne the sympathy. ‘Ah well, bound to happen I suppose. No point stewing over it. Might as well get on.’ She checked her watch. ‘I have a woman coming round to collect some stuff in a minute. I’ll take it downstairs.’

With that she got up, made the few short steps to the door and sidled past him. With Sophie gone there was only one thing that she could do, get on with the task of clearing the house and shut the door on the whole damned thing.

Matt watched as she walked into Dolly’s old room and started to organise the boxes; he was at a loss to know what to say or do. It was clear that the girl’s absence had hit her hard. He wanted to comfort her, offer some reassurance, but there was such an air of vulnerability about her. It felt like a force-field, an impenetrable and brittle shield that might shatter irretrievably if he breached it. Guessing that she wanted to be alone, he wandered into Dickie’s room and stood in the middle surveying the chaos and wondering what kind of man had inhabited this space. He remembered Dickie of course, a quiet, solitary sort of man who had been shy and avoidant. The kind of man who would cross the road rather than come face to face with a neighbour and have to look them in the eye. Matt wondered if living in Frank’s shadow had made him that way? Like plants that struggled to grow in the shade, Dickie and Dolly had seemed like thin weeds that had given up trying to reach the light.

The automata were fascinating, rows and rows of them on the shelves gathering dust. Some were basic, some more intricate; all were delicate, miniature representations of activity and movement. It was clear to Matt that Dickie had been a consummate observer of life, replicating what he saw in these little mechanical sculptures. Matt reached up and pulled one down, he blew the dust off and set it on the desk then turned the bent wire handle. It was a hare, cut from flat metal, its hind quarters attached with tiny cotter pins. When Matt wound the handle it sprang to life, replicating the power of the real animal as it strove to spring free of its fixed wooden plinth. Was that what this had all been about, control? Had Dickie, in his innocence, made these things because he could contain and restrict them in a way that couldn’t happen in real life? It was an interesting thought.

He left the hare where it was and perused the shelves, eventually spying one small model that stood out. It was delicate, more complex than the others and was unusual in that it represented a person – not many of them did. He moved some clutter out of the way and retrieved it. The thing was thick with dust, a tiny cobweb stretched from the raised arms of the female form and spanned down in delicate strands to a prone figure that had been pinned to the plinth. The female figure held what looked like a shovel or a spade. Matt wound the handle to see what would happen and watched in fascination as the arm of the figure on the plinth rose to fend off the blows of the shovel. He stopped, leaving the tiny figures mid movement, then wound the handle again fast, then slow. The tiny arm coming up to defend itself again and again from the relentless attack by the female figure. It was both grotesque and compelling, a moment of sheer aggression confined and contained in what was little more than a toy. What in hell had Dickie witnessed that had motivated him to make such a thing?

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a sharp rapping on the door. Edie’s voice cut across the landing. ‘That must be the woman come to fetch the wigs. Would you get the door while I bring them down?’

Two figures hovered on the doorstep, their outlines distorted by the pattern on the dirty glass. As he opened the door he could hear Edie on the stairs behind him, her breath coming in short gasps as she manoeuvred the heavy box. He should have helped her and not left her to struggle on her own. He should have done a lot of things.

The last thing he had expected on opening the door was to be confronted with an outstretched arm and a warrant card being waved in his face. ‘Good morning sir, I’m here to see Edith Byrne, is she in?’

Bemused Matt turned to look at Edie, who was now at the bottom of the stairs, balancing the heavy box on the newel post. ‘I’m Edie, what’s happened? Is it Sophie?’

Her first thought always seemed to be the girl.

Two officers pushed past Matt, ignoring his presence completely, another two followed. ‘Mrs Byrne, we’d like to ask you some questions relating to the jewellery that you left in the care of Sellars and Son. May we come in?’

As they were already through the door Matt had no choice but to close it behind them. Edie looked confused and worried. ‘Of course, but what’s the problem?’

The one who had presented the warrant card frowned and introduced himself and his colleagues. ‘Some of the items have been identified as items from a robbery. It might be better if we discussed this at the station, do you have any objection to accompanying us?’