False Tongues (17 page)

‘Oh.' Jane's eyes widened: she was going to be a granny. A
granny
.

‘I know it's a bit of a shock, Mum. Out of the blue like this. But you'll cope. And,' he added smoothly, ‘I'll leave it up to you to tell Dad. When you think he can handle it. You'll know when the time is right to tell him.'

Simon went on for another minute or so in that vein, breezily conveyed Ellie's love—which Jane knew to be insincere—then rang off.

Jane stood with the dead receiver in her hand for what seemed like hours, staring at the phone on the wall. She felt numb.

Just a few minutes ago she'd been thinking about how she was going to tell Brian that he was going to be a father. Now she had something else to break to him. Now she would have to tell him that he was going to be a granddad as well.

***

‘Lilith Noone!' said the furious voice on the other end of Mark's mobile phone. ‘Why in God's name didn't you tell me she was on to it? You must have known.'

Mark had never heard Neville in a lather like this, at least not directed at him. ‘I'm sorry,' he said straightaway. ‘She was hanging round the mortuary when I took them there. I should have mentioned it to you.'

‘Damn right you should have.'

‘I'm sorry,' Mark repeated contritely.

Neville sighed down the phone; his next remarks were in a more reasonable tone. ‘Not that it would have made any difference. That pestilential woman—she just seems to have a sixth sense. For making my life a misery.'

‘I haven't seen the story,' Mark admitted.

‘Neither had I. But Evans had. You can imagine.'

Mark could: Evans didn't like being bested by the press in any form, and Lilith Noone was the worst of the lot. He was glad he hadn't been in Neville's shoes at that particular interview.

He was on his way to Westminster Coroner's Court for a meeting with the coroner to discuss on behalf of the parents the plans for the inquest into the death of Sebastian Frost. As it was a beautiful morning, he'd decided to go on foot, admitting to himself that he was in no great rush to resume his duties at the Frosts' house.

‘Anyway,' Neville went on, ‘there's to be a news conference this afternoon. A bit of damage control at this point, as well as seeing if anything useful to the investigation comes out of it.'

‘You don't have anyone in the frame at the moment? One of his friends, maybe?' Mark suggested.

‘Nothing. No one. No witnesses, and no one claims to be able to think of any reason why Sebastian Frost was stabbed.'

Mark wove between two people who were walking abreast on the pavement; they both glared at him. ‘But someone did stab him.'

‘Thanks for pointing out the bloody obvious,' Neville snapped.

‘Sorry,' Mark repeated.

Once again Neville sighed. ‘I'm sorry, mate. I shouldn't be taking it out on you. I just don't know where we're going with this thing. With the school holidays, tracking down every one of his classmates and talking to them is impossible. Half of them are probably abroad, for God's sake. It's a bloody nightmare. At this point, the news conference is just about our only hope of coming up with something.'

‘Will you want the Frosts to be there?'

‘Yes. It might help.'

The grieving family was now a set-piece in most news conferences of this sort, Mark knew. An impassioned plea for information from a bereaved parent or spouse, tugging at the heart-strings, occasionally elicited some crucial clue from a member of the public. In this case he wasn't sure it would work: if they remained self-controlled and subdued, as they'd been yesterday, their presence wouldn't have the desired impact.

‘All right. I'll make sure they're there,' he said.

‘I'll be sending a team to the house this morning,' Neville added. ‘To do a thorough search of the boy's room. Bring in his computer for Danny to have a look at, and that sort of thing. Diaries, papers, anything that might have a bearing.'

‘Right. If you could hold off for a bit, it will give me time to get back and prepare the Frosts for the invasion.' Mark explained his current errand of liaising with the coroner.

‘I'll give you an hour,' Neville stated. ‘I can't afford any more delay than that.'

‘Thanks.'

‘And if you could ring me if there's
anything
I need to know—'

‘Yes,' Mark promised guiltily. He had almost reached the Coroner's Court building, where he was due for the meeting in Hereford Rice's office. But there was one thing he needed to do first. He popped into the newsagents across from the court and bought a copy of the
Daily Globe,
its front page emblazoned with the headline ‘A Father's Agony.'

***

Miranda came down the steps, heading for the kitchen, when she heard the rustle of a newspaper in the front room. She put her head in the door; Richard was on the sofa, reading his
Guardian
.

‘Nothing in there about…Sebastian?' she asked.

He didn't look up. ‘No.'

‘Is the policeman here?' She knew his name was Mark; he'd invited them to address him that way, but Miranda didn't yet feel comfortable using his Christian name. It gave him a status that she didn't feel he had earned.

‘No,' Richard repeated. This time he glanced up at her. ‘Mark told me last night that he was meeting with the coroner this morning. And he's unplugged the phone,' he added. ‘He warned me that the press would probably be on to us first thing this morning.'

She held up the mug of cold coffee. ‘He didn't make the coffee, then?'

‘I made it,' her husband admitted.

Miranda's eyes widened. ‘You used my coffee machine?'

He nodded. ‘I thought you'd want some coffee when you woke up.'

Anger flared in her, pure and hot. ‘But I've told you not to touch that machine! It's delicate! You could break it if you pushed the wrong button!'

‘It's not that complicated. I'm a grown-up.'

For some reason that made her even angrier; she had an almost irresistible urge to dump the cold coffee on him, curbed only by the realisation of what it would do to the furniture and the carpet.

‘Don't you ever touch it again!' she snapped, turning her back on him and stalking to the kitchen.

How dared he? She set the machine in motion, fuming at her husband's audacity. His insensitivity.

Using her coffee machine. Then sitting there reading the paper, like it was an ordinary day. What sort of a monster was he?

Her first cup of coffee, quickly gulped down, helped to restore her and put things into some sort of perspective. Maybe he
was
just trying to be helpful and considerate, Miranda told herself begrudgingly.

She made herself another cup and carried it up two flights of stairs to the top floor, where on either side of the landing, under the eaves, was tucked a small room serving as an office. Hers was on the right, and Richard's on the left. They each had their own books, their own computer.

Miranda was awake now, and wanted to see whether anything about Sebastian's death had been picked up yet online. She switched on her computer, waited for it to boot, then googled “Sebastian Frost.”

A moment later she stared at the screen, unable to believe what she was reading. ‘A Father's Agony.'

Richard had told a reporter, for all the world to read, that his wife was too wrapped up in her own grief to realise that he had lost his son as well, that he was hurting as much as she was.

Unbelievable.

Outrageous.

She went to the top of the stairs and shouted down. ‘Richard! Come here—now!'

***

Margaret made an effort to get to her desk early on Tuesday morning, before the first session was due to begin, determined to show her secretary that she was working hard. She wasn't sure why Hanna Young brought out these feelings of guilt and inadequacy in her. Hanna didn't usually say anything, but she had a way of looking at Margaret that made her feel she was being judged, and often found wanting.

The look she gave Margaret this morning, though, was slightly different: her brows drawn together, as though something was worrying her. ‘All right, Hanna?' Margaret said cheerfully. She couldn't help it. Last night she'd slept better than she had in weeks, unhaunted by troubling dreams. Today was another beautiful day, and she was planning to enjoy it.

‘Yeees…' Hanna paused by Margaret's desk, seemingly on the brink of asking or telling her something.

Margaret decided that whatever it was, she didn't want to hear it. ‘I'll be away from the office for most of the day, of course,' she said briskly. ‘It's important for me to be there for the sessions, even just as an observer. So is there any post I need to look at before I have to go?'

‘Nothing urgent,' Hanna said. She indicated a neat pile of opened post in the centre of Margaret's desk. ‘There's a card from your son. I've put that on top.'

Margaret smiled as she opened it. An Easter card—very thoughtful of Alexander, even if he hadn't managed to post it soon enough to get here in time. It was signed ‘with best love from Alexander and Luke.' She propped it up on her desk where she could see it.

‘Well, then,' she said, getting up, ‘I suppose I'll—'

‘Actually, there
is
something,' Hanna interrupted her. ‘Something I think I should tell you, to be honest.'

She was going to hear this whether she wanted to or not, Margaret realised, resigned. ‘Yes?' She turned her face toward her secretary, assuming an expression of interest.

‘It's about—' Hanna stopped and looked in the direction of the door, which was swinging open.

Keith Moody came in, sharing a tentative smile between the two women. ‘Hope I'm not interrupting anything,' he said apologetically.

‘No,' said Hanna. She turned and retreated to her own office, shutting the connecting door after her.

Keith raised his eyebrows at Margaret. ‘Was it something I said?'

‘I don't think so.' Margaret couldn't help feeling relieved at the interruption, and grateful to Keith for providing it, however inadvertently.

‘Anyway, I didn't mean to intrude. If it isn't convenient, just tell me to go away.'

She smiled. ‘Actually, I was just leaving. For the lecture hall. If you're heading that way, we can walk over together.'

‘Perfect.'

He fell into step beside her. ‘I wanted to ask you something. You like music, don't you?'

‘Of course.'

‘When I found out that John Kingsley was going to be here this week, I ordered a couple of tickets for tonight's concert at King's College Chapel. Ensemble Sine Nomine—that fantastic early music group. It sold out almost immediately, so I was lucky to get the tickets.'

‘He should enjoy that,' she said.

Keith gave her a rueful smile. ‘The thing is, when I told him about it at breakfast, thinking he'd be really pleased, he said that he doesn't go out much in the evenings these days. Too old, he said, and he needs to save his strength.'

‘Oh!' Margaret felt guilty; were they demanding too much of an old man? Canon Kingsley didn't seem that frail, and his mental acuity wasn't lacking in the least, but he
was
getting on in years.

‘So I was wondering,' Keith went on, ‘whether you would be free to go with me this evening? So the ticket doesn't go to waste? It should be an excellent concert,' he added.

‘I'd love to,' she said promptly. ‘You don't need to convince me. I'd love to go.'

***

Interlude: From the Metropolitan Police website, Tuesday morning

Investigations are underway in the stabbing death of a teenage boy.

Police were called at 12:13 hrs on Monday morning re: a body found on Paddington Green. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene and was later identified as Sebastian Frost, age 15, of Paddington. A post mortem gave cause of death as a stab wound to the throat.

DI Neville Stewart heads the investigation, based at Paddington Green. He is appealing for any information which could lead to the apprehension of the perpetrator. A news conference will be held at 14:00 hrs on Tuesday.

Chapter Ten

Coroner Hereward Rice was a busy man—as he constantly reminded anyone who would listen—so Mark had to wait a few minutes outside the inner sanctum of his office before his turn came to speak to him. That gave him a chance to read the lead story in the
Daily Globe
, then put the paper in the bin.

It was bad. Really bad. No wonder Evans was having a coronary. The only good thing about it, Mark reflected, was that Miranda Frost was unlikely to see it. She didn't strike him as a
Globe
reader, and in any case they were shut up in their house, not wandering down to the local newsagents. Unless some well-meaning person called her attention to it, she might never know.

Nonetheless he wasn't exactly looking forward to getting back to the Frosts' house. They probably weren't going to be best pleased about the invasion of Neville's team, and he wasn't sure how they would feel about appearing at the news conference.

The meeting with the coroner was straightforward and to the point: an inquest would be opened on Wednesday afternoon, and unless the police made a huge breakthrough within the next twenty-four hours or so, it would be adjourned to a future date. The parents' attendance was not necessary, though they could come if they wished.

He made his way to Paddington by Tube, and walked quickly to St Michael's Street, where he was relieved to see that there were neither press photographers in waiting nor evidence of police presence.

Richard Frost let him in with a thin smile and a semi-apologetic shrug.

Over the last few months, within his own family, Mark had become sensitive to atmosphere within a house. And this morning the Frosts' house possessed an atmosphere you could cut with a knife.

‘Miranda's not very happy with me, I'm afraid,' Richard told him.

That was an understatement. Miranda was not speaking to Richard, which, from Mark's point of view, was perhaps a good thing. She had evidently given him the full blast of her fury before Mark's arrival, and was now ignoring him.

‘My husband couldn't talk to me about it, but he saw fit to tell some stranger—some scumbag of a tabloid journalist—that I wasn't sufficiently sensitive to his feelings of bereavement,' she told Mark, with a sideways glare in Richard's direction.

‘But…how did you find out?' he blurted, realising as he said it that he was betraying his own knowledge.

‘Internet,' she said succinctly, then turned her back on him—on both of them—and stalked toward the kitchen, presumably to refill her coffee mug.

Of course. He should have thought of that, Mark berated himself. Of course she would have been on Google to see what was going on.

It was a funny thing about humans, he reflected: sometimes you bonded with them, and sometimes you didn't. You never could tell which way it was going to go.

In the course of his job, working with people who had suffered a loss very close to them, Mark possessed a natural sympathy, generally accompanied by empathy. Even in cases where the family members were themselves suspects, possibly guilty of murder, he could find himself liking them, rooting for them to be innocent.

When it came to the Frosts, though, Mark was struggling. Of course he had sympathy for them—they had lost their only child, and in brutal, horrible circumstances—but the empathy wasn't there. Richard seemed to him to be ineffectual and self-pitying, whilst Miranda was brittle and controlling. And he had the feeling that they didn't like him much either, resenting his presence in their life. It made it so much more difficult to carry out his job. He didn't ask for gratitude—that was a bit much to expect—but a semblance of cooperation would be useful.

‘I don't want to go to the news conference,' Miranda stated when he put it to her. ‘I don't want to be a grieving parent for the benefit of the gutter press. My husband has already done a good enough job of that.'

‘We never know what may turn up from a news conference,' Mark attempted. ‘You
do
want us to catch Sebastian's killer, don't you?'

That elicited a withering look.

‘I think we should go,' Richard put in, touching her arm. ‘I'm going to do it, even if you don't. I think we need to help the police as much as we can.'

Miranda jerked away from him. ‘Oh, all right then. But only for Sebastian's sake.'

The doorbell rang. Mark went to answer it.

Sid Cowley was lounging against the railings, smoking a cigarette, with two other officers behind him. ‘The Guv sent us,' he said, dropping his fag and grinding it out with his heel. ‘To get the computer and have a butcher's at the lad's things.' He stepped through the door, into the entrance hall.

The poisonous look Miranda had given Mark was nothing to the one she now directed at the unfortunate Cowley. ‘Out!' she commanded, adding to Mark, ‘I will
not
have that man in my house. It's outrageous. Get him out of here—
now
.'

***

Callie had found the morning session interesting, if a bit intense. There had been role-playing, and this time she hadn't managed to get out of it: she'd had to impersonate a difficult parishioner in conversation with Tamsin.

After lunch she escaped to her room for a bit of downtime. Much as she enjoyed being with her friends, it
was
wearing, she admitted to herself, and she felt she needed to be on her own for a few minutes.

She collapsed into the comfy chair and got out her phone to ring Peter. First she tried her home number; when there was no reply she rang her brother's mobile. He answered after a couple of rings. ‘Where are you?' she asked him.

‘In the park. Walking Bella. See, Sis—I told you I'd take good care of her.'

Callie was impressed; she hadn't expected him to be that conscientious. ‘How is she?'

‘Not missing you in the least,' he said callously. ‘We're having a grand time.'

‘I hope you aren't spoiling her. With treats and things.'

Peter chuckled. ‘Just the odd sausage. Did you know she loves sausages?'

‘Oh, Peter! You mustn't give her sausages.' She'd
known
it was a bad idea to leave Bella with Peter. Now she wouldn't be able to eat a meal without Bella begging at her feet.

‘But she loves them. They make her happy. Why shouldn't we have things that make us happy?'

It was, Callie told herself, a reasonable philosophical question. Theological, even. If it had been anyone but Peter asking it…He was just trying to wind her up. Time to change the subject, she decided.

‘Is everything else all right? Any messages, or urgent post?'

‘You had a visitor,' Peter said. ‘Yesterday afternoon.'

She hadn't been expecting anyone. Frances knew she was away, as did anyone else who was likely to drop by. ‘Well, who was it?'

‘The new vicar of St John's, Lancaster Gate. Said he was just calling by to introduce himself.'

‘Oh!' Callie knew that her neighbouring church had a new vicar; Brian had been invited to the induction a week or two ago and had told her about it. ‘Michael something, isn't he?'

‘That's right. Father Michael.' Peter sighed loudly and expressively down the phone. ‘Sis, he's gorgeous!'

‘Gorgeous?'

‘No mere clergyman has the right to be that fanciable. It's against the laws of nature.'

Callie hoped, fervently, that he was just winding her up. That was the last thing she needed—to have her brother pursuing a colleague in the next parish. ‘Oh, Peter, don't,' she said.

‘I'm just telling you the truth. A dish in a dog collar. And he has a dog, as well,' he added. ‘A black lab. I was rather hoping we might meet by chance, walking in the park.'

So that explained the conscientious dog-walking: Bella was being used in pursuit of a romantic dream. She should have known it would be something like that.

‘Leave him alone,' she said sternly. ‘I mean it.'

‘Got to go now, Sis,' Peter said, as if she hadn't spoken. ‘I think I see a black lab in the distance.'

Disconnected. Callie stared at the symbol on the phone screen, shaking her head. What was she going to do with him?

While pondering that question, she leaned back in her chair and looked at the stone fireplace. It was original to the room, and once would have been the sole source of heat for its occupant. Some years ago the building had acquired central heating in the form of rather old-fashioned radiators, and the fireplace chimneys had been blocked up, removing their functionality but retaining them as a decorative feature. When this room had belonged to Callie, she had put a basket of flower-bedecked fairy lights in the fireplace to provide a bit of atmosphere; the current resident was more practical, using it as a storage space for theology books. A guy? Probably, she thought idly, examining the room for clues to its inhabitant's gender.

There weren't any other clues in evidence. The curtains and bedspread were generic, provided by the college, and no personal belongings—other than the books—were visible. Callie knew that between terms the students were expected to remove their possessions from their rooms so that the college could utilise the accommodation for conferences, retreatants, and tourists on a tight budget. Somehow the books had been left behind, tucked into the fireplace.

Something tugged at Callie's memory. A hiding place…

A little shelf, up in the chimney. She remembered it now: she'd discovered it at some point during her first year, and had used it to secrete things she didn't want Tamsin to see. Had the current resident found it as well?

Curious, if guiltily so, Callie got up from the chair and kneeled on the hearth, sticking her hand under the hood of the fireplace and up the chimney. Her fingers encountered stone, then the hard edge of the shelf, and finally something that felt like a bundle of paper. Feeling really guilty now, she grasped the paper and pulled it out into the light of day.

***

News conferences: Neville hated them. He'd hated them back when they were called ‘press' conferences, and attended largely by print journalists. Now they were far worse, with the inevitable presence of television cameras, not to mention bloggers and people posting live updates via Twitter—or so he'd been told.

This news conference, he was sure, would attract more than a normal amount of attention. Teen stabbings were flavour-of-the-month anyway, and this one was out of the ordinary. Not a street kid, not a gang fight, but a middle-class boy with professional parents.

And no obvious suspects. No one in the frame.

The press would be salivating, out for blood. The police's blood—
his
blood.

Neville hadn't had time to prepare his statement properly, to his liking. He'd been working away on it at his desk when he'd been called back to the Frosts' house. Emergency: bloody Miranda Frost wouldn't allow Sid Cowley through the door. Sid and his big mouth, buggering things up. So Neville had had to drop everything and do the job himself.

Now it was almost showtime, and Neville was in the gents', trying to make himself look respectable. If he'd thought about the news conference when he got dressed that morning, he'd have been more careful about his wardrobe. He'd have put on a telly-worthy suit, rather than his old beat-up tweed jacket. As it was, he'd even had to borrow a tie off a fashion-conscious DC. He draped it round his neck and squinted into the mirror above the basin, attempting to make a good job of tying it in the horrid glare of the fluorescent lights. He adjusted the knot, ran his hand over his chin—should have shaved with a bit more care—and over his head, smoothing his hair into some semblance of shape.

He'd run out of time. Now he just had to get on with it.

***

Callie stared at the bundle in her hand, her brain refusing to believe what she was seeing. It was a thick wad of papers and photos, tied round with a silver ribbon.

Hers.

She went hot, then cold, then hot again.

After a minute she realised how uncomfortable she was, kneeling on the hearth, and found her way back to the chair, where she rested the bundle in her lap and plucked at the ribbon with trembling fingers.

The bow came undone; Callie closed her eyes, then opened them again.

Still there, loose now on her lap. Photos, notes, cards.

Without volition she picked up the top photo. It showed a smiling Callie, a smiling Adam. His arm tightly round her shoulders as she stretched her left hand toward the camera. On her finger was the only ring he'd ever given her, fashioned out of a gold metallic sweet wrapper in a moment of romantic high spirits. All he could afford…

Beneath that were various scribbled notes in Adam's nearly illegible handwriting, passed to her during theology lectures. Ragged-edged, torn out of his notebook. Undated, but through them it was possible to trace the progression of their relationship. The early ones were mostly just funny; they grew increasingly romantic, and the later ones were declarations of love, festooned with doodled hearts and flowers.

More photos of them together.

And greetings cards, with printed sentiments of love. Signed with hugs and kisses.

She'd kept them all, treasured them. Tied them up with a silver ribbon.

And hidden them in the safest place she could find.

Why were they still there?

Callie tried to think. Why hadn't she removed them, destroyed them?

Adam's bombshell—that he had fallen in love with someone else during his parish placement—had occurred right at the end of their time at Archbishop Temple House, as they all prepared to move out and relocate in their new parishes. She'd been in shock, obviously. She hadn't seen it coming, and it had knocked her sideways, into a state of denial for weeks. In the midst of that she'd packed up and set off to start afresh in Bayswater.