The Collared Collection (5 page)

A charming young man, one PC Collins, was entrusted with her care while David was doing his rough and tumble, all-guys-together stint with her sons. Collins brought her probably the worst cup of tea she’d ever tasted and hovered, making polite conversation while she pretended to savour every sip. She had to award him full marks for effort, rather less for achievement – but hey, he bent over backwards to satisfy her every need and he was only just out of short trousers.

Callie got up and went downstairs for dinner, cooked by David and his two assistant chefs. When she walked into the kitchen, she had to step over Jasper, who was patrolling, excited by the smell of fish and waiting for the odd morsel to drop into his jaws.

‘Amazing – I don’t think either of them has ever lifted a finger to help me prepare a meal.’

‘And Sam’s laid the dining table beautifully – he said he hoped it would make you feel better.’

She peered through the serving hatch. ‘Ah, bless – he’s used my best (well, only, she acknowledged mentally) tablecloth, it only usually gets an airing at Christmas. And I had no idea he knew what serviettes are for, let alone where to put them amongst knives and forks – he’s even found some candles!’ Tears pricked her eyes. ‘I feel like Lady Muck!’

‘You deserve to be spoiled for once – now go and put your feet up until everything’s ready.’ He ushered her through to the living room.

When dinner was served, she was deeply impressed. ‘David, this looks fantastic, thank you so much!’ They’d grilled salmon fillets and drizzled them with a shallot, olive oil, and balsamic concoction, then put tiny new potatoes, sugar snap peas, and broccoli into separate vegetable dishes on the table. ‘I usually throw everything onto the plates and hope for the best – and thank you two, as well.’ She sent each of the boys one of her ‘proud mother’ grimaces.

Sam leaned toward her and spoke confidentially, in a stage whisper, ‘You don’t have to worry, Mum – David says you don’t get mad fin disease from fish … I was in charge of the potatoes,’ he added boastfully.

‘That was easy-peasy,’ scoffed Alex, ‘I did the broccoli
and
the sugar snap peas, so there.’

‘Boys, boys – it was a combined effort and it all looks great, so let’s eat, shall we?’

Those few words from David and they were back in line, behaving as Stepford sons – Callie had to look closely, just to make sure her rowdy, argumentative offspring hadn’t been replaced by cardboard cut-outs.

Chapter Eight

David left early for work on Monday morning, after a PC Johnson arrived to take over as minder.

He blew her a kiss goodbye. ‘See you later, Callie – just rest, there isn’t anything that needs to be done.’ His words made her feel all warm and comfy and secure – she knew she could very easily get used to that.

When she wandered downstairs, Sam and Alex were fed, washed, and dressed in their uniforms. ‘Who pressed your stuff?’ she asked.

Reluctantly, Sam dragged his attention away from the cartoons they were watching on TV – strictly against house rules on a weekday morning. ‘David. He’s made our packed lunches too and everything else is done. Don’t sweat it, Mum.’

Any man who knew what an iron looked like, let alone how to use it, was a very rare specimen indeed in her experience – and the boys’ school bags were organised, their lunches made and boxed, and they were ready for the off. Even their shoes were shiny. She could hardly object to the cartoons and so pretended she hadn’t noticed. She felt much better, if a little weak and wobbly, and the pain in her head had reduced to a tolerable, dull ache.

After the boys left – bang on time, for once – she asked her bodyguard, ‘Do you fancy a cup of tea, PC Johnson?’

‘I’ll make us both one, shall I?’ He heaved himself up from a kitchen chair and approached the kettle.

Callie felt redundant. ‘OK, thanks.’

Johnson was way older and a lot more rotund than PC Collins – and rather gruff. It was possible he felt baby-sitting duties were beneath him; she neither knew nor cared, because he did make a very decent cuppa. She sat with him at the kitchen table initially, though quickly tired of his monosyllabic answers to her generic enquiries and with his blessing, wandered off into the garden. She suspected he was itching to have a look at the nudes in the red top newspaper he’d brought with him. Or perhaps he just found it hard to hold a sensible conversation with someone sporting a bright red nose and glorious Technicolor face.

She sat on the bench for a while, watching a robin and a blackbird having a beak fight over the contents of a bag of nuts suspended in the lilac tree. She got up to referee, but since she was blatantly biased toward the under-bird, the blackbird soon flew off in a huff of ruffled feathers, squawking his displeasure and threatening to report her to the RSPB. Next on the agenda came an inspection tour of the beds to spot any weeds amongst the flowers, or vice versa. Quite why it took her so long to notice the body lying there, she had no idea – maybe it was because he was very near the communal wall, which would have shielded him from view most of the time …

As PC Johnson called from the back door, ‘Mrs Ashton, bloke’s here to fix the kitchen window,’ and she turned to answer, she saw Giles lying face up on the grass, his arms spread in crucifixion pose. His face had a deathly pallor, which reminded her of her father’s corpse lying in state at the funeral parlour – and there was a lot of blood caked around a deep wound in his receding hairline.

She screamed, ‘PC Johnson, come quickly! Body next door!’

Without waiting for him – with the vast stomach he carried around, he hadn’t struck her as someone who might move with any great speed – she vaulted the wall and rushed to where Giles lay. Later, she looked at the wall and couldn’t believe she’d made it over in one piece, especially wearing a long, flapping dressing gown. But thanks to an adrenalin rush she did, and knelt down beside him, quaking like a leaf.

‘Giles, please don’t be dead,’ she begged him, ‘everything is going to be alright.’ She felt for a pulse – it was there, just.

PC Johnson – closely followed by the glazier – reached her side, just as she remembered a smattering of First Aid from her Brownie days, and whipped off her robe to tuck around Giles to keep him warm. His body would be in shock and therefore cold, she figured, even though it was another hot day. One look at Johnson and she was worried there would be a second casualty any minute – his face was scarlet, streaming with sweat, and he was fighting for breath, making terminal-sounding wheezy noises. He tugged at his highly-starched collar, which cut cruelly into the flesh around his neck. Thank goodness for the glass man – in the face of total inaction from the PC, he called for an ambulance and – as an afterthought – requested additional police presence.

Not at her wittiest, she paraphrased Humphrey Bogart, ‘Of all the cops, in all the Panda cars …’ when David crashed in through the gate, with Sally Stephens snapping at his heels. She vaguely wondered whether he was the only detective in town. Watching as he threw his arms around Callie, Sally looked both surprised and peeved. She, on the other hand, was both surprised and grateful.

‘Thank God you’re alright, Callie – how’s Giles doing?’ David glanced over to where he lay, surrounded by three members of an ambulance crew in luminous green jump suits, plus all the paraphernalia they’d brought in with them. One guy was on his feet, talking on his radio to a doctor back at the hospital and relaying instructions to the other two, who worked with a sense of urgency on the patient.

‘Not good – he’s had an almighty crack on the head. The paramedics have been trying desperately hard to stabilise him and they don’t want to move him until his vital signs are OK, whatever that means.’ As she talked, David removed his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders – he’d made the sensible call that the world was not yet ready to glimpse her in an antique Donald Duck nightshirt. She could smell David’s scent on the navy pinstripe and tugged it tightly around her.

Gazing up into his face she whispered, ‘David, have you seen what Giles is holding in his right hand?’

As he moved nearer to the group for closer inspection, the stiffening of his shoulders told her he’d spotted it; a black balaclava.

Chapter Nine

That afternoon, while Sally Stephens was doing her stint as resident Rottweiler, they received news that Giles had died. He’d suffered a massive coronary not long after his arrival at hospital and never made it out of the ER. Because she didn’t want Sally to see her cry, Callie kept her upper lip stiff, excused herself, and bolted for the solitude of her bedroom, where she released floods of tears into the duvet for a middle-aged man she really didn’t know that well.

The police presence reduced to the boiler suit brigade working next door, picking over each grain of soil in the garden. Everyone else had left, including the glazier, who suddenly remembered he’d left the gas on and said he’d return the following day … maybe. Sally stayed, of course – she took over from PC Johnson with very bad grace, when David took him back to the station to park him safely at a desk for the rest of his shift. Callie thought an oxygen tent might be more appropriate.

She mulled over the bizarre series of events – less than a week ago, she’d lived in an ordinary house, in an ordinary street, next door to an ordinary married couple with ordinary kids. Now those kids were orphans. Her heart went out to Sarah and Thomas – how could any child (or adult, even) cope with that degree of sudden loss, she wondered? She couldn’t even begin to work that one out.

And now she knew for sure Dee’s death was not suicide – Giles didn’t clobber himself over the head in the garden. What she couldn’t fathom was why these two people should be eliminated like that; she was pretty sure there was nothing iffy about the lives the Symonds led. To the casual observer at least, they were Mr and Mrs Average, to the point of being boring. While Dee was a housewife and mother extraordinaire, leading light of worthwhile causes and admirable deeds, Callie realised she didn’t know exactly what Giles did for a living – he travelled a lot, so perhaps he was some sort of salesman, or rep.

The Symonds owned a lovely house, bigger than Callie’s and detached, whereas hers was a semi. Theirs was tastefully furnished and in contrast to her own rent-a-wreck, they had two late model expensive cars glinting in the driveway. At least once a year – usually more often – all four of them jetted off on an exotic holiday, so presumably the man of the house brought home lots of moolah to pay for all that stuff, as Dee wasn’t in any form of paid occupation. Apart from a couple of kids each, that was about the only thing Dee and Callie had in common – neither of them had worked since they married at a ridiculously young age, fresh out of university. At least, that was what Dee had told her and there had been no reason for doubt.

Sally scoffed a huge helping of beans on toast with Alex and Sam at teatime and returned for seconds. She looked like a gal who enjoyed her food. Callie noticed the boys didn’t offer to help her in the kitchen (though would concede she was hardly preparing a banquet) and she privately acknowledged that David had something she didn’t, even if it was only testosterone. He was not much more than a stranger to the boys, yet had struck up an excellent rapport with them – which made her feel unreasonably jealous.

He’d promised to be back around eight and she was counting the minutes – not only because she was very much looking forward to having him there (OK, especially overnight), but also because she wanted to nail him for details of the investigation into Dee’s death, including the pathologist’s report, assuming she’d finally made her way to the head of the corpse queue. So far he’d jigged around the issue, using dumb excuses, and refused point blank to discuss police business with a mere civilian. No more! She was going to get every sordid detail out of him, no matter how low she had to sink to achieve that end.

When she heard the spare key turn in the lock, she rushed into the hallway. She’d spent some time on her appearance, but knew she hadn’t got anywhere near making herself look gorgeous, because miracles take a little longer …

She went up to him, put her arms around his waist. ‘David, I’m really glad you’re back … it’s so awful about Giles.’

His smile faded, ‘I know; those poor kids.’

On impulse, she reached her hand up around his neck and pulled his face down so she could kiss him on the lips.

He was obviously surprised – pleasantly, she hoped, ‘Hey, that’s what I call a welcome! I’ve missed you too.’ He looked over her head at the two faces peering around the living room door, ‘Hi, Sam, hi, Alex – just let me get a cuppa and we’ll have that game of chess I promised. Sam, you and I can play together and I’ll teach you a few sneaky moves, so you can beat your brother next time the two of you have a match.’

While Sam seemed to approve of that idea, Callie wasn’t nearly so keen, and though she quickly tried to wipe away the disappointed pout from her face, she was too late – Sally had been spying from the kitchen and was looking triumphant, not to mention smug. Callie really couldn’t bring herself to like the woman – belatedly, it dawned on her that Sally might have the hots for David, and regarded her as unwelcome competition. She blamed the bang on her head for the delayed reaction.

Sally eventually took the hint and rode off into the night on her broomstick, so that the house felt homely again. Callie sat in on the chess game, though she’d never learned to play and didn’t really appreciate the tactics. The appeal of moving bits of plastic around a lump of cardboard marked out in squares had always eluded her – she was pretty sure they should be labelled ‘bored games’. The boys, though – all three of them – had a great time pitting their wits against each other and performing devastatingly clever moves to outwit their opponent, while stuffing their faces with bags of crisps. She felt deeply ashamed for being so selfish, wanting David to herself, but could live with that.

The next stage of the evening didn’t exactly follow the blueprint she’d mapped out in her scheming mind. Sam and Alex ran out of excuses not to go to bed and David refused her offer of food, having eaten in the staff canteen – a wise decision on his part, she granted. No problem so far – they each had a full glass of wine and sat snuggling on the sofa – something she could imagine herself doing with him well into old age. She was about to bring up the subject of the investigation, when he drew her to him and kissed her deeply.