Burying the Past (12 page)

There was a tailback of people leaving the car park, but only him wanting to get in. He ID'd himself, the huge barrier admitted him, and he pulled into his marked space. He eased himself out of the car before he spoke. ‘Dave, I've not the slightest idea what you mean. I want to marry Fran because we want to spend the rest of our lives together. In our jobs, that might not mean very long. As far as the Loose house is concerned, I want access. It's not just my property locked in there, remember. There's a lot of Fran's. And yours. It's not Sammie's house to occupy. When I die, it'll be shared between you and Sammie.'

‘I thought you wanted to sell it.'

‘For God's sake, don't take things so literally. I need to sell it now. But you'll have equal shares eventually.'

‘Uh, uh. She'll have first claim.'

‘She?'

‘Your new wife.'

‘I think we have such things as wills, Dave.' In case Dave thought he was talking in philosophical terms, he added, ‘Bequests. You'll be legatees. Now, let me take you through to your car. Will you remember the way to your hotel or would you like me to lead?'

‘Satnav.' Suddenly, he sounded like the sulky boy who'd been made to tidy his room.

‘Very well. We'll see you there in the bar at eight? Maybe a bit later? How's the jet lag?' Maybe everyday questions would take some of the poison from the air, he thought as he signed Dave out and walked through to the public car park. As he'd always done, he patted the top of the car in farewell and waved till Dave was out of sight. Dear God, what had gone wrong there? It'd need one of Janie's miracles to get the family back together. Meanwhile, should he go back to his office for one last check? Then he thought of Fran, curiously forlorn and vulnerable amidst all those boxes, and he headed straight back to his own car.

‘Dear God! You call this a camper van?' Arms akimbo, Mark stared at the vehicle occupying –
parked in
was too feeble an expression – their parking area.

‘Caffy's word, not mine.' Fran staggered from her car and joined him, almost collapsing into his arms, but more, he thought, with pain and exhaustion than any amorous intent.

But he kissed her all the same. ‘I'm sure there's a proper literary term for understatement that Caffy would supply us with. How on earth did they get it down here?' He smacked his head. ‘Of course, the traffic jam the other morning! It wasn't some farm vehicle, it was this!' Was it only yesterday? He blinked at their once gated entrance – now there were no gates and no stone supports. The stonework stood in neat stacks, against which the gates were propped. ‘Oh dear.' He pointed at a couple of new additions to the site: an orange plastic boundary fence declaring that within was a hard-hat area, and listing all the site regulations, including boots, confronting familiar blue and white police tape indicating a crime scene. The fence and tape were millimetres apart, two frail armies squaring up to each other, knowing the big guns were in the rear and at the ready.

‘Silly cows,' Fran declared, almost under her breath – rightly, since Paula and Caffy were no doubt lurking to watch their reaction. And to guard the huge Winnebago, the keys of which hung in the side door. She smiled at him. ‘We have to put on a show, Mark – they'll be hoping you carry me across the threshold. Tell you what – you hold me and I'll jump.'

‘So long as you keep your eyes shut – I want us to see the interior marvels at exactly the same time,' he said ironically. It would be pop-star vulgar, wouldn't it, a vehicular Elvis, all diamanté and fringes?

Obediently, she put her hands over her eyes, waiting just inside until he was beside her, closing the door.

‘So we're very lucky with the caravan,' Fran, waiting for Mark to bring over their wine, told a coke-drinking Dave, glad to have someone to share it with. ‘It's quite upmarket and pretty spacious.' She lied, of course. It was extremely upmarket and very spacious, with a well-appointed mini-kitchen and a bijou shower-room; they could live in it without any problems as long as it took. Everything was top of the range, from fluffy towels and fine bedlinen to bone china, lead crystal and the sort of cooking pots she favoured, still mysteriously in their cardboard box in the self-store.

Kindly, she attributed Dave's total lack of interest in anything she might say to the zombie-like state induced by long-haul flights. Since she wasn't far short of the same state herself, she could only manage chatter and banalities, but she remembered the way to a parent's heart was usually his or her children, and she detected a slight softening of his chill when he showed her picture after picture of two all-American youngsters, their grins broad despite the ironmongery in their mouths. She asked about their grades and interests and everything an ex-babysitter and potential step-grandmother needed to know, even if she doubted if she registered half of what he was saying, since his accent seemed to have thickened and her brain most certainly had disintegrated into cotton wool some time during the day.

In fact it must have done so pretty early on: she stopped herself clicking her fingers and tutting aloud when she recalled exactly what she should have been talking to the agreeable young man at the self-store about. He'd told her he'd be back on duty at eight next morning. Provided she ever woke from the slumbers she could rely on the superbly sprung double bed to provide, she'd arrive not long after.

‘L
ost more boxes, have you, love?' the young man – Ed – asked as she rolled up the next morning.

‘I'm searching for a bit more than a box,' she said, fishing out her ID and wishing the sight of it hadn't made him go visibly pale. ‘How long has this place been open?'

‘Years, miss. I mean, like, I've been here for three, but yonks before that. Why?' he asked, eyeing her with a mixture of fear and hostility.

‘I'm looking for someone else's boxes,' she said, patting the ID and putting it back in her pocket.

‘You'd better talk to the boss, miss. Shouldn't be long, now. Honest.'

‘No problem. I'll go and have another look for my saucepans while I'm here.' Not that she needed them, of course, but there was no point in further rattling poor Ed unless she had to.

Tom, his boss, was so relaxed and expansive, pressing on her a plastic cup of truly evil coffee which reminded her why she was supposed to be sticking to green tea, that she immediately suspected him of something underhand. But he cooperated readily when she asked him about the firm's rental records, producing a dog-eared set of computer printouts dating from the days of daisy-wheel printers. Living history! Licking his index finger each time he turned a page, he worked his way through what appeared to be scores, if not hundreds, of entries.

‘Thank God for proper computers,' he said, sweating as a result of his exertions. ‘But even in them days we was thorough – see, we've got a record of everyone's name, address, phone, and driving licence or passport number, just in case. Here's the dates they dropped the stuff off, and here's the dates of each visit after that until the contract ended.' By now he was breathing stertorously. But, eventually, he had to confess he'd no record at all for a Dr or even a Miss Lovage some twelve to fifteen years ago. His face showed as much disappointment as she felt.

‘We chose this place because it was nearest,' Fran mused. ‘Do you have other branches?'

With a flourish, he produced a pile of flyers, listing locations in half a dozen towns in the south-east. Some he crossed out before she could even look at them as being too new for her requirements. But even as she thanked him for his help, she felt a frisson of disappointment that her own moment of detective work hadn't pulled even a rather grey rabbit out of a mouldy hat. Worse, trawling through the other depots' records was clearly going to be the task of the lowliest on Kim's team.

On the other hand, she had a meeting scheduled in Folkestone first thing, and her route could take her very close to Ashford and, on the way back, not all that far from Canterbury. Why not? Especially if she could phone ahead and bum a cup of tea from Janie.

Mark cut the call politely, but he could have thrown the phone across the desk. How on earth could he have agreed to have lunch with Dave, when he had to be on the thirteen eighteen from Maidstone East for a London meeting involving the election of police commissioners? Eventually, he'd suggested a sandwich on the station, not great family PR, but the best he could do. Would such unpromising surroundings make for a more meaningful conversation than the others? Fran had toiled last night to establish some – any – point of contact, but he had a terrible fear that the harder she'd worked, the more Dave had withdrawn into himself. And none of them had mentioned Sammie.

Would it make matters easier if he phoned Ms Rottweiler – damned if he could remember her real name! – and told her to back off? Or should he urge a speedy resolution, so that Dave would be there to pick up any pieces? But now wasn't the moment to do either: he was being summoned to the Wren's den again. No, it was the Wren's nest, wasn't it? For the first time in the day he laughed aloud.

If ever a woman deserved a treat, Fran sighed as she headed north up Stone Street, it was she. Despite Tom's assurances, the Ashford self-store, once she'd run it to earth, turned out to have come too recently on the scene to have been the place where Dr Lovage had left her belongings. But even such a short diversion had made her marginally late for the CID meeting in Folkestone, something she always found embarrassing. Her colleagues had heard plenty of rumours about Wren and were, unsurprisingly, either alarmed or surly. To try to reassure them that all would be well but that they should be prepared for difficulties required an ability to walk the tightrope of truth she wasn't sure she wanted to possess. At least she left her colleagues believing that in her and in the ACC (Crime) – so long as such a post existed, of course – they had officers who would fight dangerous cuts with every fibre of their corporate bodies.

Although she'd have loved to stride along the Leas for ten minutes to get a healing blast of sea air, she returned dutifully to her car, even if her destination was less than appropriate for someone of her rank. She should absolutely be above such routine enquiries – but after the meeting she felt that she was honour bound to cock a snook at management, even if no one would ever know of her gesture.

Janie laughed when she heard of Fran's one-woman mutiny, but became serious as soon as their conversation touched on her protégée.

‘This Cynd business is really troubling me,' she said, pushing over a plate of leaden flapjack Fran knew from experience would test every filling in her head. Somewhere Janie had got hold of the idea that anything with oats in it must be healthy, managing to ignore the Golden Syrup and butter that held the oats together. ‘You know more about street drugs than I do, but I'm wondering if she didn't imagine the whole thing while she was away with the fairies.'

Fran merely said, ‘The forensic tests will tell us more.'

‘Haven't you had them already? On TV—'

‘On TV they don't have vice-tight budgets,' Fran said flatly. ‘But a bit of corroborating evidence would be nice – from CCTV or whatever other source. Even someone turning up in A and E with a hole in his side might have been helpful.'

Janie's eyes narrowed. ‘Take care what you wish for. Take me, now – I always wished I had smaller tits, and now I'm due a mastectomy. I might go for broke – have a double,' she added with what might just pass for a grin.

Fran cried out: Janie was supposed to be immortal! But this wasn't about her own needs. So, as if she herself was the strong one, she reached for Janie and hugged her until she could feel her friend relaxing in her arms. At last Fran asked, ‘How long have you known?'

‘Wednesday night. Not news you'd want me to break in front of Cynd, now, was it?'

Did Cynd know? But Fran wouldn't interrupt her.

‘I go in first thing on Monday. As luck would have it, instead of popping into the Kent and Canterbury, I've got to pound across to the William Harvey. For seven, would you believe?'

‘I'll take you.'

‘With your schedule? We'll argue about that later.'

‘No, we won't. I'll pick you up at six fifteen, which should get us into Ashford with time to spare. Should. OK?'

Raising work-worn hands in surrender, Janie smiled. ‘OK. I can see how you got to be a chief superintendent.'

‘Being a steamroller doesn't always work – not when it came to finding our temporary accommodation. But this is about you, Janie, not me.'

She rocked her head in reluctant acquiescence. ‘Would you believe it, good is actually coming out of this? My wee sister and I have hardly done more than send Christmas cards for twenty years, but now she's coming down to nurse me, having had the same problem herself. The good news is they think it's not spread.' Fran didn't like the word
think
,
but she held her tongue. ‘So I shall be able to officiate at your wedding.'

Fran gaped. ‘How did you know about that? Because I was going to tell you today, since it's another thing we could hardly discuss in front of Cynd.'

‘Your old boss phoned.'

‘Shit and double shit! I know he's an old dear, but just now he's an interfering old bastard.'

‘He seemed a polite old gentleman to me. Full of Dickensian charm.'

‘That says it all – he's only in his sixties! And he had no right—'

‘Loving people gives you a lot of rights, and even if love's too strong a word in this instance, he's very fond of you and Mark. Anyway, he phoned to ask if I'd be able to officiate in the Cathedral. In your dreams, sonny, I told him. I mean, I would be able, if given permission – but you two probably wouldn't be eligible anyway. Sorry. But I take his point about St Jude's. You want something a bit more photogenic, Fran, for your big day.'