Laying the Ghost (31 page)

‘Why didn’t you just ask Steve for the other key back?’ Kate asked her the next day when she and Nell met in the Ham House car park to walk the dachshund and Alvin along the riverbank again.

‘Because I’d never know if he’d had more copies made,’ Nell told her. ‘I don’t want even the slightest smidgen of doubt. I’m seeing him tonight. I told him I wouldn’t be at the class but could meet him in the gym bar immediately after. And the minute I’m in the car leaving there, I’m going to call Ed to let him know I’m on my way home, just in case. I’ve told him the whole stupid, sorry story. If nothing else, those classes have sharpened up my personal-security skills no end. I suppose I’ve got Steve to thank for that at least.’

‘Yes, but you’ve also got Steve to thank for the fact that you
need
those security skills. You are sure it’s him, aren’t you? Are you a hundred per cent certain it couldn’t be anyone else?’

Nell laughed. ‘I’m sure. Well, unless it’s you … you’re the only other one who knows I was even looking for Patrick!’

‘God no, it’s not me. I couldn’t be arsed! And anyway, I want to know what happens next, not stop it happening.
A
woman like me, bogged down with a surprise infant and the daily domestic grind, has to get her thrills secondhand. Tragic, isn’t it?’

‘OK, so that’s you out. Mimi has her own computer and doesn’t even know my passwords so it isn’t her – not that she knows anything about Patrick anyway. I think I know now why those letters were in the cupboard. Steve must have stuffed them in there, that time he was doing the lock. There’ll be one missing – the one he nicked to copy the handwriting.’

Kate shivered. ‘Spooky! But how are you going to make sure he doesn’t keep up the pursuit? He might keep at it now he’s getting a response.’

‘Oh, I don’t think he will. I bet he has a target in every class. It’s probably a challenge he sets himself each time a new course begins, see how far he gets with it. If he’d really fancied me that much he could have leapt on me that time I went back to his flat.’

‘And he didn’t!’ Kate sounded outraged. ‘How insulting. What a cop-out!’

‘Well, I was a bit pissed; it would have come under Taking Advantage.’

‘Yeah? And? Why didn’t he?’

‘I wondered about that. Biding his time, I put it down to. And you know, if he’d made the right kind of effort I’d have been a pushover, that day,’ she giggled. ‘Literally! Maybe he prefers to work for it.’

They stopped close to the Thames Young Mariners lagoon and walked down a path cut into the riverbank, right to the water’s edge. The dog raced into the river and swam around, his long ears trailing and dragging and his tiny legs whirling beneath him. Alvin was released from his buggy and ran along the narrow strip of gritty shore, splashing in the river’s shallows and throwing bread to squawking mallards that were pushing and shoving each other out of the way.

‘Greedy buggers,’ Nell said, as some of the braver ones stepped out of the water and strolled right up to Alvin. They weren’t much smaller than him, really. How did tiny children manage to grow, in what seemed like twenty short minutes, into great big adolescents with all their tricksiness and trouble?

‘Man there!’ Alvin shouted, pointing towards a clump of low trees behind him. Nell froze, almost scared to turn and look. There was no one else around, and this side of the Thames, with no buildings other than the securely locked Gun Club headquarters and with the woodsy fields of Ham Lands beyond, suddenly seemed a dangerously isolated place. Bloody Steve, she thought, blaming him for this edgy nervousness and wishing for a moment that they were all safely on the opposite bank, close to the residential main road through Strawberry Hill.

Alvin was staring, open-mouthed and fascinated, at a boy who was sitting on the ground, leaning against a tree, the
warmth
of the sun on his face. He was about Seb’s age, reading the
Daily Mail
and calmly lighting a hand-rolled cigarette. He waved at Alvin and smiled, inhaling deeply. The sweet scent of cannabis smoke filled the air.

As Nell, Kate and Alvin strolled back towards the car park, Nell commented, ‘That’s not something you see every day, is it?’

‘What, someone smoking a spliff?’ Kate laughed. ‘I think it is! Even the kids on the way to school light up in the bus shelter.’

‘No – I meant a spliff
and
the
Daily Mail
. It just doesn’t match up, somehow.’

‘Ah – I see what you mean! Young people today, who can understand them?’

Nell was early. If she walked through the reception area and on towards the spa and the studios, she could look through the studio’s glass doors and watch her own classmates having their final session. Steve had told her that she wasn’t going to be missing a lot – most of it was simply a recap of what they’d already learned. ‘Just banging in the message,’ he’d said. It had made her laugh, thinking of Abi’s lump-hammer. She waited for him in the bar, dawdling over a glass of iced white wine and adding more and more water till the taste of the Sauvignon was almost lost.

He’d sounded so cheerful on the phone, as if this was
going
to be a fun date, and she hadn’t said anything to give him the impression that it wasn’t. Perhaps he’d thought, when she’d told him she had something else to do that overlapped into the class, that she couldn’t bear to finish the course without seeing him here one more time, or that she was coming to the gym to make sure he knew she wanted them to stay in touch. Tricky one, this. Maybe she should have dealt with it all by email – but then she wouldn’t have been able to see how he reacted. She needed to be there, no question.

She looked at her watch. Only minutes to go. All around her, the thirty-something after-work gym bunnies were scuppering their health regimes by sinking bottles of wine and munching bar snacks. There was a gossipy, social buzz, and Nell felt disconnected from the comparatively youthful networking. She tried thinking it looked a bit Bridget Jones-like, all the girls in sexy post-workout ensembles that were not as carelessly casual as they pretended to be. Obviously, going to the gym you didn’t do the full-scale glam-up straight after, but she supposed that if you were in the dating marketplace you also didn’t fling on just any old thing, even if you were only hanging around before heading home for a solitary evening of microwaved food, a Johnny Depp DVD and an early night.

‘Nell! You missed the class – how come you’re out here but weren’t in there?’ Abi came bounding up to Nell’s
table
and sat beside her. ‘I was going to get your phone number from Steve! We should stay in touch. Let’s swop them now.’ She pulled out a notebook, tore off a page and handed it to Nell.

‘Yes, definitely,’ Nell agreed, scribbling down her address and phone numbers. ‘We can go out on the town, safe in the knowledge that between us we could fight off all comers.’

‘I’ll bring my hammer. You bring the scary torch.’

Nell glanced past Abi to see the other class members drifting into the bar in groups. Mike grinned at her, approached the bar and signalled to her to see if she’d like a drink. She smiled back and shook her head, pointing to her own full glass. This was something she hadn’t thought of, that there might be a kind of end-of-term drinks session and that it might not be easy to get Steve to herself. There’d be a moment though, somehow. She knew he’d make sure there was.

‘Hey Nell, you missed a good one,’ Patsy came and told her. ‘Steve had Wilma pinned against the mirror and she threw him, like really
threw
him, against the wall! I don’t think he was too delighted!’

And there he was, suddenly, doing that materializing-from-nowhere trick that he was so good at.

He said, mock-solemn, ‘I think you’ll find, Patsy, that I
let
Wilma throw me. Just so she knows she can do it. I could have stopped her – but someone who doesn’t
know
how to would land up on the floor, just like I did. Don’t let on though, if you see her.’

‘Ooooh! Sir’s got the hump!’ Patsy giggled. ‘I’m getting a drink. Anyone want one?’

‘Not for me, ta,’ Abi said. ‘I’m off home to see what the little sods are up to. They’d trashed the kitchen last week. Said they were cooking pasta. Now can anyone tell me how such a simple thing can leave a trail of cheese from the front door to the back one? No, I thought not.’ She got up to leave, nudging Nell hard in the ribs and whispering, ‘Whatever you’re having with Steve – and don’t deny y’are – have a real screamer for me, will you?’

‘If I was …’ Nell grinned at her and gave up. ‘OK, I’ll do my best,’ she said; there was no point arguing the toss now.

Only a few of the class were left and they were at the bar, looking at the menu. Steve sat beside Nell, handing her another drink. She looked at it and at him, questioningly.

‘According to what you’ve taught us, I shouldn’t drink that. I didn’t see you buy it, didn’t see whether you put anything in it.’

‘Ah, but we’re friends, aren’t we?’ he said, reaching across and putting his hand over hers. She slid hers out from under it.

‘I don’t know, Steve, are we? Aren’t friends honest with each other? I’d have thought that was the absolute basic, wouldn’t you?’

Steve put his glass of wine down. ‘What do you mean, Nell? What are you getting at?’

‘Steve – you’re the detective, I’ll grant you the expertise. But you’re not the only one who can work things out by deduction. Means, method and motive – aren’t they the things you look for when you’re solving a mystery? Or have I just read too many crime novels? And even if I have – what’s good enough for Hercule Poirot is good enough for me. I know what you did.’

Steve sighed and leaned back, folding his arms across his enviable abs and pecs. Abi would be salivating, Nell thought. He was quite something, if this was the something you were looking for. He was being checked out by several of the gym girls – he could have had his pick of them. Or perhaps he already had.

‘How did you know?’ Was he calculating that he’d get points for not denying?

Nell laughed. ‘When I had that horrible response from “Patrick”, did you really think I’d leave it at that? After twenty years, do you think I’d let it rest with a slap in the face? I wrote to him again.’

Steve frowned. ‘It was just delaying tactics. I … well, I wanted to have more time for us to get to know each other better.’

‘
Know
you better? Why would you think I’d want to “know better” someone who deliberately stole my private mail, faked a reply and then
pounced
the moment they
knew
I’d be most vulnerable? You knew that time you invited me out to lunch that the postman would have delivered your fake letter! Were you watching him walk up my path? How could you do all that and not expect me to find out? How stupid do you think I am?’

In her head, Nell conceded that maybe she had been pretty stupid. No;
vulnerable
, possibly close to
needy
, were the right words. If she hadn’t been so acutely single, so keen to blot up any drops of male appreciation, she wouldn’t have been caught out. But he’d been persistent too, and clever and cunning.
Pounce
was exactly the word for what he’d done. She’d been a grazing antelope. Steve was a highly efficient lion.

‘You can’t say I really took advantage.’ He smirked. ‘I mean, I probably could have …’

‘In your dreams, Steve,’ Nell said angrily. ‘In your fucking dreams. But you know, the silly, sad thing is that I liked you. I liked you a lot. If you’d behaved like a normal, non-controlling, non-crazy, non-stalking human being, you could easily – as the saying goes – have been a contender. I don’t think I need to ask you not to contact me again.’

Out in the car park, Nell didn’t dither around wondering where her car was, and once inside it, she quickly locked the doors, checking who was around her as she drove off. You never knew who might be following. Once she was clear of the gym area, she pulled over to the side of the road and called Ed.

* * *

‘I can’t go out, Joel. You know that. I’m grounded.’ Mimi lay on her bed thinking, oh, this is just like some American teen movie. She loved knowing that her life had some theatrical content to it. She even loved knowing she had something – in the form of not being allowed out – to complain about.

‘It’s not after school or at night though, not this time.’ Joel was becoming persuasive. ‘Your mum will never know. We’ll be there and back by the end of school; well, just about – it’s tight, timewise, but the trains should work out. I looked it all up. Oh
please
, Mimi. Seaside? Ice cream? Candyfloss?’

‘Donkey rides?’ she giggled.

‘Er … I don’t think they have those. Not where we’re going.’

‘So are you going to tell me where that is this time? I’m not good with all these mysteries.’ Secretly she was thrilled that he still wanted to play these secretive games with her – or she would be, if this one didn’t end up as cold and terrifying as the last one.

‘I don’t want to sleep another night with the ghosts and angels,’ she told him. ‘My mum will kill me if I do anything stupid again. Especially this soon. She’ll say it’s
becoming a habit
. And she’ll tell Dad like she did last weekend and he’ll say I’ve got to have
therapy
or something.
That’ll
be his girlfriend’s solution, I bet you anything,
so
New York.’

‘Wow – would they make you have therapy for taking one little trip on a train?’ Joel sounded mystified. ‘I mean, people use them every day – they haven’t all turned into crazies.’

‘They might have. Look, I’ll think about it, OK? I can get out early in the mornings and …’ She heard her mother’s key in the front-door lock.

‘Gotta go. She’s back.’

‘Where’s she been?’

‘Out. She’s always out. Bye.’ Mimi went down the stairs to greet Nell. It might be a good plan to soften her up a bit, maybe cook her something. She very much wanted to go on Thursday to wherever it was Joel wanted her to go. She felt close to him now, bonded by the overnight in the cemetery.

‘You OK, Mum? Hungry?’