Death on Daytime: A Tess Darling Mystery (The Tess Darling Mysteries) (31 page)

“Ignore her, she’s concussed,” said Violet. She pulled up her daughter’s duvet, gently, so as not to hurt Tess’ laddered and bleeding knees. “Didn’t I tell you to be careful? Didn’t I say? When Sergeant Selleck phoned to check you’d got home safe, I just
knew
something terrible had happened. He offered to drive straight back and look for you. Such a nice, polite man. Such a shame about your date.”

“You went on a date?” asked Miller. “You said you didn’t do dates.”

“Tonight, I remembered why.” Gingerly, she touched a huge bruise on the back of her skull. “So you can stop match-making, Mum, I’m sure DS Selleck was just doing his duty. He’s good at that.”

“Well, dear—”

“He’s no Prince Charming, believe me,” said Tess. “Besides, only a big twit would try to carry
me
off into the sunset.”

“Thank heaven, he turned up when he did,” said Violet.

It took a second for Tess to place the ‘he’; another to believe it. In twenty years of knowing Miller, her mother had shown only wary revulsion. When asking him to get off her cushions as a boy, Violet had rarely used his name. Since reaching manhood, she’d treated his presence in her daughter’s life much as she would an escaped bear. Now suddenly, she was thanking heaven?

“
Dear
Miller told DS Selleck to hold off until we’d taken a look round the block You often found the last yards the hardest. Imagine if we hadn’t found you?” Violet wrung her hands. “Your attacker might’ve come back to finish the job.”

“I doubt it,” said Tess. “I was probably just clonked by some teenage mugger.” It’d certainly explain that smell of glue. “They were probably high on adhesives and hairspray.”

“Bollocks,” said Violet. Tess almost fell off the bed. (What had got
into
the woman? She’d spent the past few months flitting round their flat like an agoraphobic ghost. Suddenly she was best mates with Miller, and talking like Dirty Harry?) “Cut the crap, girl. DS Selleck told me Colin Pound’s death
was
murder – why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want to worry you.”

“Please, Tess.” Violet slapped the duvet. “You sound just like your father. I’m not a child.”

“Well, what
are
you then?” Tess wanted to ask. “Help me out here, Mum. I know nothing about you, so tell me: Do you sing along to
The Sound of Music
? Have you read
Fifty Shades of Grey
? Did you ever have
any
hopes or dreams other than to stand next to Dad and disapprove of my jeans?” But fuckit, what would be the point? Tess was tired. Her whole body hurt – and she was scared of creating yet another open fissure in her small, raw life. “I’ve been fired, Mum.” She dropped her head back on to the pillow. “
That’s
what I didn’t tell you this afternoon”.

Miller sat down on the bed, felled. So much for raising the roof, thought Tess sadly. “Fired?” he said.

“That’s me. Reporting career over. Back to temping.” She tried to sound pleased. “Pressure’s off, Miller. I don’t have to catch a murderer. I just have to kill my next typing test.”

Her friend blinked behind his specs. Just for a second. Then his gaze settled back on her, keen and trusting. It made Tess want to cry. She swore instead. “I’m a fucking monkey, Miller, a fucking, stupid monkey—”

“Tessie—”

“
I GOT
YOU
FIRED TOO,” she howled. “I’VE LOST YOU YOUR JOB, MILLER, AND SANDY’S GOING TO MAKE SURE YOU NEVER WORK AS A CAMERAMAN AGAIN. IT’S ALL YOU’VE EVER WANTED, AND—”

“Stop it.” Miller gripped her leg. “I get it.” His voice was hard; so was his hand on her thigh. For the first time since she’d known him, Tess felt overpowered.

“Perhaps your father could help?” said Violet, and Miller promptly disappeared.

“Dad?”
said Tess.

“He rang this evening, asking to see me. He’s been missing me, he says, thinking about me.” A blush suffused her cheeks. “He wants to talk about where things went wrong.”

Hearing the hope in her mother’s voice, Tess bit back a put-down. What did
she
know any more? Perhaps Mum, at least, could win her Prince Charming.

Even if he
was
an evil penis-head.

“Your
father
could find you a new television job,” said Violet. “You were so proud to be his researcher before, dear, before… everything changed.” She turned to Miller. “I’m sure Darcus could always do with another cameraman.”

“Forget it Mum,” said Tess. “Dad does his own filming now: Why hire a cameraman when you’ve got a tie?” Pulling herself up in bed, wincing at the pain, Tess told them. “Darcus Darling is back on primetime.
Panorama,
9pm on BBC 1, he’s fronting an undercover documentary on the decline of modern journalism – the tawdry tabloidisation of the news.”

Violet and Miller just stared at her. They weren’t getting it. “Crap in a bag people, he’s going to expose me.”

“Expose you as what?” said Violet.

“A piece of crap.” How hard could this be? “IN A BAG.”

“But he… I…. what’s to expose?” said Violet. “You’re doing a fantastic job of cracking the case, just look at you.”

“I’m covered in blood, Mum.”

“Exactly,” said Violet. “So stop talking nonsense about teenage muggers. Be honest: do you believe the evil person who killed Jeenie Dempster – who killed Colin Pound – did this to you?” Reluctantly, Tess nodded. “Well, isn’t that a
good
thing?”

“I get attacked – and that’s a
good
thing?”

“Very good. It proves you were getting close enough to the killer to threaten them. So try not to look so… so beaten”.

“I
have
been beaten. Over the bloody head.”

“Heads heal. It’s hearts cause the trouble,” said Violet. “I spent thirty years terrified your father would leave me, and you know what? He did. All that fear, it stopped nothing but myself. I am very grateful for the way you took me in when I needed help, Tess, but your father and I have been chatting, and we are agreed: I’m not to get in your way anymore.”

“You’re not
in the way
, Mum. If we got a telly for your bedroom—”

Violet held up a hand. It shook slightly. “Yesterday, Darcus agreed to transfer some money into my bank account – from the sale of our house – enough to cover a few months’ rent on a little place of my own. I’ve been thinking I might try to get a job, you see. Your father agreed.”

“He
did?
”

“I’m telling you, dear, he’s changed. He’s sorry. Our whole marriage, Darcus never talked to me like he did, last night. He made me feel I could do something,
be
something.”

“Oh, Mum.”

“It’s OK. I’m OK.” Violet busied herself with her daughter’s duvet. “Better than I’ve been in a while. And I
won’t
let you sit here and give up like I did. You’re a fighter, dear, and a rather dirty one at that. You’ve got the killer’s interest? Don’t get scared.”

“Get angry?”

“You do it so well dear.” Violet risked a smile. Tess couldn’t return it.

“It’s too late, Mum. Any clout I had on this case came from having my face on TV, reporting for
Live With Sandy and Fergal
. Who’s going to talk to me now I’m out of a job?”

“I’m sure, if you approach people nicely—”

“They’ll laugh in my face.
Panorama
goes out, night after next, remember?
You
may still believe in him, Mum, but Dad wants my scalp. That show airs, and I’m through.”

“Good.” At last, Miller spoke. “I’m pleased”.

“You are?” Tess felt a lump rise in her throat. He hated her, didn’t he?

He nodded. “You only
ever
do stuff at the last minute. And, this way, you’ll
have
to let me help you. It’ll be like
Fort Boyard
but with toilet breaks.” He frowned. “There
will
be toilet breaks?”

Tess stared at him. Was he suffering from shock? Or having a period? Else why wasn’t he flipping the bird, toggling his duffle coat, and walking out on the woman who’d ruined his life? “Don’t you get it, Miller?” she said gently. “It’s time to give up. No-one wants us. We are off the job.”

Gravely, he saluted her. “Welcome to my world.”

“But I’m injured. I’m defeated. I have—”

“A visitor,” he grinned, loping from the room. “Now you’ve stopped bleeding and yelling, I can let him out of the lounge.”

Before Miller could bring in his surprise guest, however, a noise intruded: a deafening bang shook the flat, followed by another – and then another.

Getting louder each time.

Tess had little experience of military warfare, but she was pretty sure someone was ramming her front door. Facing violent onslaught, and in the absence of any better ideas, she reached into her bedside drawer for some Nurofen.

“I know you’re fookin’
in
there Tess!” The letter-box could be heard clattering open, the better for Rod Peacock to shout through it. “We’ll knock politely for five more seconds, then me boys are gonna burn yer fookin’ door down.”

Tess watched the colour drain from her mother’s face. “Bog off, Peacock,” she said, munching her Nurofen. “Go away.”

He didn’t. Instead, they heard the unmistakeable noise of petrol being slopped about in a can – and a match being struck.

“You heard him, dear,
please
.” Violet backed for the bedroom door. “We must do what he says.” So much for Dirty Harry, thought Tess, as her mother padded off down the hall to lock herself in the bathroom. Just the
threat
of another male bully was enough to turn her Mum back into a shrinking Violet. Tess was, once more, alone. And opening the door to an idiot bloke.

“It’s one in the morning,” she told Rod, letting him in. “Don’t you agents ever sleep?”

“I’ll give you sleep.” Rod pushed her up against the hall wall. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out? Where the fook is he?”

“I – who -?” Tess tried to push back, but his grip was too strong. Fury possessed him: his eyes were bulging in their sockets; the sinews of his neck straining, thick as rope. Two burly thugs were flanking him. One, she recognised as a bull-headed extra from
Eastenders.
In the popular soap, he ran a market stall. In Tess’ hall, he swung a can of Castrol GTX, and looked like he fancied being careless with the lid.

Rod’s second enforcer was less familiar. In her current
extremis
, it took Tess a moment to place him. But, yes, it was him, she was sure: Business reporter for BBC Lunchtime News. He was wearing a suit and carrying a leather briefcase, from which he pulled out a packet of Ferrero Rocher and a hammer.

“We can play nice.” Peacock tightened his grip. “Or we can forget about playing altogether. So tell me, where the
fook
is he?”

“Who?” choked Tess. “I don’t know what—”

“Tell me!”
Rod smacked her head against the wall – just where it had hit the pavement an hour before. Tears sprang into her eyes. Tess hated herself for them – for being so scared and alone. Blinking them back, she saw Miller. He was striding down the hall towards them. He was stopping to give her a reassuring smile, then raising an enormous fist to bring it down on Rod’s head.

“Never”–
bang—”
shake”–
bang
—”a lady.”

It was one of the best moments of Tess’ life. But a moment was all it was. “Miller,” she cried. “Behind you.”

The BBC Business reporter had moved from the doorway. He was swinging up an arm to strike, but in a terrible moment of misjudgement, brought down not the hammer but the box of Ferrero Rocher. As the Ambassador’s chocolates flew everywhere, Miller braced himself for a fight. It never happened. Rod had let go of Tess. Raising one hand to stop his enforcers, he pointed the other down the hall.

“I knew it,” he said quietly. “I fookin’
knew
it.” A thin, young man had emerged from Tess’ kitchen. He looked pale and weak, with skinny arms emerging from a loose T-shirt. He appeared bowed under a mass of frizzy, sandy-coloured curls: when he threw his head back to look at Rod, they shook.

They kept shaking. The young man emitted a sinister intensity that seemed to vibrate through every screwed-up hair. “Hello Father,” he said. “I’ve come for you”.

W
hile Miller showed Rod’s two thugs from the flat, Tess bundled father and son into the kitchen.

Emboldened by the resultant drop in noise levels, Violet Darling emerged from the bathroom, and started making a pot of Earl Grey tea. “I forget, dear,” she said to Tess. “Do you take yours with milk?”

“Nope. Campari.” Taking a bottle from the breakfast bar, Tess ushered Rod and Aaron Peacock into the living area beyond. Pouring a few measures of the ruby liquid into a mug, she sank onto the sofa. Rod joined her. Also declining Violet’s offer of tea, he unzipped his flying jacket, and set about self-medicating with a hip flask and packet of indigestion tablets. Aaron
tried
to take his tea, but the cup clattered so loudly against the saucer in his hand, it was a relief to everyone when he put both down and began to speak.

“You’re Tess Darling? The one investigating Jeenie Dempster’s death?” The voice high, and uncertain; the speaker even more delicate than she’d pictured. His goatee was gone, for starters, (and recently too: From the red raw skin on his chin, Tess could imagine he’d torn it off). Stripped of any facial hair, the student’s features looked unnervingly feminine. His delicate face and frame must come from his dead mother, she presumed, sizing him up for the dralon jacket which Mrs Meakes had found outside 13 Squarey Street. A perfect fit?

One thing was certain: He sure looked different without a hat on. Released from baseball hat – or mortarboard – his ringlets proclaimed their ancestry: The wiry curls, which Rod Peacock so proudly crimped and lacquered, sprang from his son’s scalp in a wild, gingery halo. The overall effect was of a deranged choirboy.

And he was ready to sing. “The truth will out,” Aaron told his audience on the sofa. “It is time.”

Tess drew in her breath. Rod spat out an indigestion tablet.

“You’ll keep your bloody mouth shut,” he said. “Or I swear, I’ll—”