Charlie (71 page)

Charlie wanted to scream with delight, but she had to restrain herself to just a wide grin.

‘Did you hear that, Dad?’ Wendy laid her hand on her father’s cheek and pinched it gently. ‘Guilty on all charges.’

His eyes opened wide, the pale brown irises and the yellow whites all blending together to give that curious cat-like look Charlie had noticed on their first meeting. His mouth curved into a smile.

‘So they believed me,’ he said. ‘Thank you, God.’

He drifted off again and Wendy asked them if they would leave. ‘You’ve done your bit for him,’ she said resolutely, but her lip was trembling and her eyes glistening with tears. ‘It’s time you went.’

Charlie bent to kiss Dave, her eyes welling up. The grief she felt at that moment was as keen as she’d felt at her father’s funeral. ‘You’re a good man,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t thank you enough for giving me back my dad. I’m going to miss you so much.’

She went round the bed and hugged Wendy, too choked up to speak, then quickly turned and followed Andrew out, struggling not to break down.

Rita was waiting, and as Charlie came towards her, she ran and flung her arms around her. ‘We did it,’ she said, her voice squeaky with excitement. ‘We got them what they deserve.’

It was the strangest moment for Charlie. She shared Rita’s jubilation, together they’d struck out for justice, and today they’d seen it done. But she couldn’t scream and shout with joy when the man who had been instrumental in bringing that verdict was dying.

‘It’s wonderful, marvellous, and no one was braver than you,’ Charlie said softly, hugging her friend with tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘You’re the best friend anyone could ever have.’

She wanted to get away from the hospital, to feel her joy unrestrained, but as soon as the three of them were outside the main doors, Charlie stood still. ‘I can’t go,’ she said. ‘You two go on home on your own.’

‘But Wendy doesn’t want you there, and we should be celebrating,’ Andrew argued. ‘I want to tell you about Daphne’s face –’

Charlie cut him short. ‘It’s not going to be long,’ she said. ‘And I’m not going in there again. I just want to be waiting for Wendy when she comes out. She hasn’t got anyone else.’

Rita nodded in understanding. ‘We’ll see you back at the flat then.’

It was half past seven when Charlie got home. Dave had died just half an hour after Andrew and Rita had left. Wendy said he woke again, told her he loved her and just slipped away.

They had sat together in the waiting room, cried and comforted each other for some time, until Wendy said she must go back and see a friend of Dave’s who lived near him. As Charlie saw her into a taxi, Wendy said she would phone the following evening.

Andrew hugged Charlie as she related what had happened. ‘Well, that puts paid to any celebrations,’ he said in a husky voice, his eyes soft with sorrow. ‘I’ve already rung Beryl and my folks. They’ll be opening a bottle of sherry, Beryl’s probably giving everyone drinks on the house by now. But we’ll have to wait.’

Charlie thought for a minute, leaning her head on Andrew’s shoulder. She felt drained and exhausted, yet as Wendy had weepingly pointed out, her father had gone out on his cloud of glory just as he hoped.

‘We will celebrate,’ she said, looking up and smiling. ‘That’s what he would have wanted us to do.’

Rita beamed and rushed out into the kitchen, coming back with a bottle of sparkling wine. ‘I couldn’t run to champers,’ she said as she poured three glasses. ‘Maybe when I sell my story!’

‘To Dave,’ Charlie said, lifting her glass. ‘For his courage and honesty.’

‘Dave,’ Rita and Andrew repeated, clinking their glasses.

‘A second toast,’ Charlie said with a smile after they had all taken a large swig. ‘To golden futures for us all.’

‘To golden futures for us all,’ Andrew and Rita said. ‘And happy-ever-afters,’ Rita added with a wide smile.

They topped up their glasses and sat down. ‘And now,’ said Charlie. ‘Tell me about the bitch’s face.’

‘She just crumpled,’ Rita laughed. ‘She couldn’t believe it! I never knew revenge could taste so sweet.’

‘She went all tense first,’ Andrew said, standing up to demonstrate. ‘She kind of puffed up, like this.’ He took a deep breath and held it, his neck stiff and his eyes almost coming out of his head. ‘She looked around at the jury like she really didn’t believe what she’d heard, then it was like someone stuck a pin in her. She just seemed to shrink before our eyes. Rita laughed really loudly. I had to put my hand over her mouth.’

Charlie looked from one joyful face to the other and laughed too. ‘What about the twins?’

‘They just stared, then bent their heads,’ Rita giggled. ‘I felt like yelling out it was too late to say their prayers. You could have heard a pin drop in the court. But then, once they’d been led away and the judge went too, it all went wild. People were cheering and crying, I went down and hugged Underwood, and sneered at Cunningham. I wanted to kiss every member of the jury, but they’d been led out by then.’

‘I wish I’d been there,’ Charlie said enviously, yet with a pang of guilt she remembered the thoughts she’d had down by the river. That seemed so long ago now, and so pathetic.

‘Underwood was very sorry you weren’t, he told me to tell you to try and put it all aside now. He wished you every happiness.’

While Andrew and Rita reminisced gleefully about things which had been said in the courtroom, Charlie sank into reflection. It was so very sad that Dave had died, yet he had passed away content and without pain. Rita would never lose her scars, but facing what had happened to her had freed her. What of herself, however? She’d avenged both her parents’ deaths, and discovered so much about both of them, but what now?

Looking across to Andrew, all at once she saw the answer. His dark hair was flopping in his eyes, his face was radiant with happiness as he talked to Rita. He had been beside her throughout all this, making her laugh when she was sad, calming her when she got overwrought, loving her with passion and tenderness. All these past months she hadn’t projected her thoughts beyond the trial, almost as if she was on a path through woods which ended with a brick wall.

But there was no brick wall. She had stepped out of the woods on to a far wider path bathed in sunshine. She had Andrew by her side, Rita as a friend for life, she had almost got through her business studies classes, a great deal of money would eventually come to her from her father’s life insurance, and she had those treasures still in the vault in Exeter – something she had never told Andrew or Rita about.

Suddenly she felt lighter, warmer and bubbly inside. ‘Let’s go down to the pub,’ she called out, making Andrew and Rita turn in surprise. ‘I want to get totally legless, and kiss the whole world.’

‘Well, you can start with me,’ Andrew said, catching hold of her hands and pulling her up to her feet. ‘Cunningham might think I’m a daft boy scout, but I’ve got the most beautiful girl in the world, and he’s been defeated!’

As Andrew kissed her, tears of joy prickled at Charlie’s eyes. Of all the good things in store for her, he was the best of all.

‘Have I ever said how lucky I think I am to have you?’ she asked, smiling into his eyes.

‘No, you haven’t,’ he said, grinning a little sheepishly. ‘But I had intended to remind you.’

Chapter Twenty-two

January 1977

Detective Inspector Ozzie Hughes parked his car at the end of Church Road, Paddington, slipped on his sheepskin coat and walked back studying the shops as he went. It was a bitterly cold afternoon and already dark, but many of the small shops still had their Christmas displays in the windows, and with the bright lights from within, it looked festive and cheering.

Hughes had come to this area because of Charlie Weish but today he wasn’t on duty, just out shopping for a silver wedding anniversary present for Ursula, his wife. Shortly before Christmas, Ursula had shown him an article in a magazine about shops which specialized in unusual gifts. She had been attracted by a very pretty early Victorian candelabra, which was available at ‘Charlie’s’ in Church Road. Ozzie felt it had to be more than a strange coincidence that a shop of that name was right in the same street where Charlie Weish had once lived with Rita Tutthill. He had decided to check it out.

Over the last four years, Ozzie Hughes had often wondered how life had treated Charlie since the Dexters’ trial. Normally he never gave witnesses, victims or even villains another thought once a case was brought to a satisfactory end. But his association with Jin Weish at the start of his career, all those years he’d spent investigating the Dexters, and indeed his admiration for Charlie’s spirit and determination, had kept her in his mind. He’d smiled back at the time of the trial when he read in the newspapers how Charlie had vowed that if Daphne Dexter was acquitted, she’d be on the woman’s back for the rest of her life. He reckoned she would have been too. She’d been like a little terrier from the outset.

No one had been happier than himself when the Dexters got sent down for life. He considered it one of the high points in his career, if not
the
highest. Other criminals had already stepped forward to take their place, sometimes he felt he was swimming in treacle, but it still gave him a rosy glow to think of Daphne Dexter locked up in Holloway.

Ozzie stopped dead in his tracks when he spotted the shop across the road. It was impossible to miss, painted a rich dark green with brass spotlights above the two large windows, and he stood for a moment appraising it. Even from the distance he was from it, it beckoned to be visited, for it was like an Aladdin’s cave stuffed with curios, furniture and huge oriental ginger jars. A stuffed bear wearing a Santa Claus hat and a tinsel collar standing in one of the brightly lit windows added an appealing and comical touch which was irresistible.

As he watched a couple came out, the man carrying what looked very much like an Edwardian lady’s writing desk. They laid it in the back of an estate car, covered it with a blanket and then drove away.

Ozzie walked across the street and peered in through the window. A girl in a red dress was bent over a desk at the back of the shop writing something down. Her hair gleamed like black satin under the shop lights, swinging forward and concealing her face, but it was unmistakably Charlie.

As she straightened up and turned, Ozzie’s heart gave an odd little flutter to see that the pretty young girl he remembered had grown into a very beautiful woman. She looked so elegant yet dramatic in red. Her high cheekbones seemed more prominent, and her skin was like pale gold. When she spotted him, she inclined her head to one side, as if considering why he looked familiar. Then suddenly she smiled and ran to the door to open it.

‘Detective Inspector Hughes!’ she said. ‘Are you casing the joint, passing by, or actually looking for me? Whichever it is, do come in, it’s freezing out there.’

Ozzie hadn’t had a moment of shyness since he was a lad, but the unexpected warmth of her welcome, the way she grabbed his hand and drew him in, threw him for a moment. A little awkwardly, he explained about the article in the magazine.

‘So you didn’t hear on the grapevine that I’d followed in Dad’s footsteps then?’ she asked, her almond eyes alight with real interest.

‘No,’ he admitted. ‘I often wondered about you, but heard nothing. You look as if you are doing well.’

‘I am,’ she said, but there was no trace of smugness in her face. ‘Now let me make you a cup of tea and then we can chat. I’m sure I can leave a senior police officer alone in my shop without a few goodies ending up in his pockets?’

While she nipped out to the back of the shop, Ozzie roamed around looking at everything. She had an enormous stock, antiques mixed superbly with reproductions and many oriental items which looked ancient, but probably weren’t. Locked glass cases held jewellery and smaller valuable items, small trinkets were grouped under spotlights. Everything was displayed to perfection, from an old wicker doll’s pram full of plants to a buttoned-back chair seating a collection of old dolls and teddy bears, and a dresser loaded with pretty china. He thought he could be in here for a week and not see everything.

‘Now, sit down and tell me how you are,’ she said as she came back with tea and fruitcake. She put the tray on the desk and cleared a chair for him. She perched on the edge of an old club fireguard.

‘I’m the one who asks the questions,’ he laughed. ‘Anyway, there’s nothing new in my life, just plodding along as always.’ He spotted a wedding ring on her finger. ‘You got married!’

‘Yes,’ she laughed. ‘To Andrew, of course. Just after he got his honours degree.’

Just the way she had to mention the ‘honours’ said how proud she was of him.

‘And what’s he doing now?’ Ozzie asked.

‘Working for IBM. He’s a bit of a hot shot,’ Charlie said. ‘Always off to Japan and America to study the latest in technology. But he’s at home at the moment, and I’m really happy because he won’t be going away again until the spring.’

‘So how did all this come about?’ Ozzie waved a hand at all the stock. ‘Early influences?’

She nodded. ‘I guess, but I’ve had to learn as I go along. My basic rule of thumb is only to buy what I like.’

They chatted for some little time about antiques and Ozzie said how much his wife would like the shop. ‘How did you manage to get it though?’ he asked curiously – at his rough estimation the stock alone must run into thousands of pounds.

‘Dad,’ she said simply. ‘He was a very canny buyer. You remember the stuff the Dexters stole from him? Well, that’s what really got me going.’

‘But I thought it was mostly rugs and jade?’ he said.

‘It was. But I auctioned it once it became mine.’

Over their tea she explained how she started off the summer after the trial with a stall in Chelsea antiques market selling bric-à-brac. ‘It was a real hand-to-mouth business,’ she giggled. ‘Lots of fun, but I wasn’t getting anywhere, and Andrew and I wanted to get married. We did it on a shoe-string anyway, down in Salcombe, with just a week’s honeymoon there afterwards, and found a couple of rooms in Paddington which we furnished from junk shops. Then just before I was twenty the money finally came through from Dad’s life insurance, but I was shocked to find I wasn’t allowed to touch it till I was twenty-one. That made me really mad! We needed it right away, our rent was so high we had a job to make ends meet, and I had nowhere to store anything. It seems preposterous to me that I was expected to wait another whole year.’