The Detective's Secret (33 page)

Stanley was running towards her. It really was him. His movements were jerky, back legs flinging up and then down. Stella remembered the dead rat; he had something forbidden – anything he found here was forbidden. Ecstatic at his transgression, he wouldn’t let her put his lead on and would refuse treats and ignore commands. They would be here for hours.

Stanley cavorted away in the direction of Corney Road, pausing every so often to confirm she was coming. The trick was to go the other way. Stella had no choice but to go further into the cemetery because, lacking traffic sense, if she pursued him to the road, Stanley would see a car and give chase.

Stella walked towards the boundary wall, not looking to see if he was coming or he would race away. Poodles possessed a lethal combination of intelligence and tenacity; she must keep her wits about her.

In front of her was a brick building. In the light of street lamps beyond the wall, she made out graffiti tags sprayed on the brickwork. A silver stencil of a skull and crossbones gleamed in the thin light. A grille was fitted over the doorway, another covered a half-moon window.

Intent on ignoring Stanley, Stella pulled on the grille and it swung open. Something pushed against her calves and she nearly shouted with fright. Stanley dropped whatever was in his mouth and nosed through the gap.

Got you!
Stella swiped up the discarded bunch of dead flowers and tossed them into the bushes. She remembered that Jackie had put a torch app on her phone. Switching it on, she went in after him.

The air was chill and dank. High up in the wall a semi-circular window let in pinkish light. Even without a door, the hut offered shelter from the wind, which was now a distant moan.

She clipped on Stanley’s lead and shone the light about her. In one corner was a warped and dirt-encrusted cupboard. Through mesh doors she saw two cans of Coca-Cola and a bag of crisps. A flea-bitten deckchair and three broken packing cases were grouped around a table. There were no leaves or rubbish on the floor, no tell-tale cigarette butts: it was as if someone had swept it recently. Probably a kids’ den – house-proud kids. Stella approved, although a cemetery wouldn’t be her choice.

She heard the whistle again. Stanley growled.

‘It’s the wind.’ Hearing her voice, feeble and hollow in the crypt-like hut, Stella was less sure. Surely it was late to be putting flowers on a grave. She scooped Stanley up and, tripping on the deckchair, hurried to the doorway.

Two things happened. Her torch went out and the grille shut with an ear-splitting clang.

Saturday, 26 October 2013

‘Sorry, wrong house.’

It wasn’t the wrong house, it was the wrong year. The man regarding Jack with an enquiring smile was Terry Darnell. Not the Terry Jack had met briefly, but a middle-aged Terry with life still to lead. A ghost.

‘You all right? You look like the driven bloody snow!’ The timbre of the voice was Terry with the West London accent swapped for North Shore Sydney. In a minute Jack would pinpoint the suburb. It wasn’t Terry Darnell, it was the Brand-new Brother.

‘You wanting Stella?’
Stellah
. The man lounged against the door jamb, a tea towel on one shoulder, as if he had all day. Jack, who did not have all day or night, considered barging past him.

‘She’s expecting me.’ He was terse. ‘I texted.’

‘Sure. Come on in. I’ve just got the central heating working – place was cold as a tomb!’ He stood aside to let Jack in.

‘Crows’ Nest, zip code NSW 2065,’ Jack murmured, looking up the stairs and into the living room, expecting Stella.

‘Bang on, Professor Higgins! Stella tell you?’ Dale banged shut the front door. The man was noisy.

‘I worked it out from your accent.’ Jack frowned to hide his pride. No one had called him Professor Higgins before.

Dale continued, ‘You know Sydney?’ He whipped the tea towel off his shoulder and began flexing it between his hands as if exercising his pectorals. Jack guessed he was one of those men who need always to be testing themselves and, more annoyingly, testing others.

‘Yes.’ He stared into the sitting room. The table lamps and side lights were on. He caught lavender oil. Stella preferred plug-in deodorizers; essential oils were liable to stain. He went on down the passage to the kitchen where, it being exactly eight, Stella would be microwaving her shepherd’s pie. A cloud of garlicky steam billowed out when he pushed open the door. It made him aware he was hungry. Stella would heat up a ready meal for him too, but it had never smelled so good as it did tonight.

‘She’s due any time now.’ The Brand-new Brother trod on his heel. While aware it was an absurd notion, Jack had hoped he had gone. Why was he here?

‘Is she expecting
you
?’ Jack nearly voiced the question.

‘The more the merrier, unless you’re a veggie?’ Dale was clattering at the stove. ‘If so, I can rustle up the finest omelette this side of – where are we? –
Ham
-mer-
smith
!’ He flapped his towel as if his pronunciation were a linguistic triumph. Place of my birth!’

‘Sometimes I’m vegetarian,’ Jack said haughtily, ignoring the last comment. Did Dale think being born in the same borough as Stella gave him carte blanche to her house?

A large pan was bubbling on the back ring of the stove. Light drifted through the glass panel in the oven door. Jack pinpointed background whirring to the oven fan. He perched on the edge of a chair and fished his phone from his coat. No text from Stella. Last night she hadn’t said the Brand-new Brother would be here. No reason she should, yet he was put out. Stella couldn’t have known.

‘Is today a meat-eating day? We’ve got lamb stew with baked potatoes. Big surprise for my little sister. Her favourite, Suzanne says. It’s my old man’s recipe and goes down a bomb at our pop-up café on a winter’s night! Too rough and ready for my restaurant crowd!’ He let out a guffaw. He must have seen Jack’s face because he said, ‘The dad I knew as my dad, not my biological dad. The dad that dealt with the daily shit and footed the bill!’ He gave another hooting laugh and, diving forward, sipped on a spoon of stew and smacked his lips. He picked up a clean spoon, dipped it in the mixture and passed it to Jack. ‘Catch the cumin – hope you like raisins!’

Jack couldn’t come up with an excuse to refuse. He took the spoon and blew on it, then put his lips to the bowl of the spoon. It was the most delicious food he had ever tasted. Garlic, cumin, lemon with coriander as an aftertaste. Each herb and spice had kept its separate taste while blending to create perfection.

‘’S nice,’ he admitted.

‘Oh, wait on, I never introduced myself! Guess you know all about me from Stell.’ Dale thrust his hand out to Jack. ‘Dale Bardia Heffernan. And you are the train driver?’ He gave a toot-toot. Presumably this was a joke.

‘Jack.’ Jack shook the outstretched hand, mindful to clasp tight. For a moment the two men were in a contest, each gripping the other’s hand as if their lives depended on it. Jack let go first because he felt silly.

‘Bardia?’ He arched his eyebrows, disliking himself for asking the question that had begged to be asked.

‘Yeah, don’t hold back, everyone has a view! Dad was a bit of a hero in the Second World War. The guy was forty-three when I was born – I’ve got three older sisters. Dale Senior was part of Operation Compass; he took part in the liberation of the port of Bardia in 1941. My sister has it as a middle name, but when the longed-for boy came along, they dusted it off and gave it to me too! My party quip is: Thank God he wasn’t at Dunkirk!’

Jack refrained from asking why that name would be worse. He noticed it would be easy to miss that Heffernan had been adopted: he spoke of his Australian family as ‘real’. Jack wondered if he spoke this way with Stella and her mother.

‘Stella generally heats up a ready meal. She hates fuss,’ Jack pronounced, arms folded.

‘I’m on that. The coriander garnish is optional, but I recommend it. I had a tussle with the garlic, then went for it. D’you think she’ll hack it?’

‘I don’t know.’ Jack was honest. Stella liked honesty. Dale appeared concerned to please Stella, but if he wanted a share of her legacy – the man was a bounty hunter – he was wrong to think cooking a slap-up meal and heating up the house was the way to her purse.

In the two years since she’d inherited the house, as far as Jack knew, Stella had never turned on the heating or the oven. She maintained Terry Darnell’s synchronized lighting, on timers to fool burglars. She had changed nothing. For a time, at the end of the Blue Folder case, he had thought she would sell up, but then she slipped back to the old routine of being custodian, as if keeping it clean for the day when Terry returned. Or so Jack believed.

After Dale’s cooking spree, Stella would have to air the house to chase out the stale stew odour or it would hang about for days. In Terry’s house her adherence to rituals – cloths and sponges laid out in readiness for cleaning – was votive. All the signs of Terry that she had worked to preserve had been erased. His cereal bowl, spoon and coffee mug that she kept on the draining board had been tidied away. In one evening the Brand-new Brother had obliterated everything.

Jack felt grim satisfaction that Dale and his lamb stew would get short shrift from Stella. She would be stunned by the warmth, the mood lighting and the smell. Jack dreaded the hurt that would flit across her face and her stilted efforts to hide them. He couldn’t bear to witness her struggle to make sense of the transformation. He considered leaving, but that would be the act of a coward.

Despite seeing Heffernan’s true motive, Jack did feel rather sorry for the fellow. No one was going to enjoy the next few minutes.

‘Fancy a drink while we wait?’ Dale held up a bottle of De Bortoli, a New South Wales Merlot, and a glass. Jack’s stomach did a flip; Heffernan’s smile was Stella’s when she was relaxed. He was about to refuse, he wanted to keep a clear head, but if he was to help Stella he must be more relaxed than he felt. He nodded.

‘Jack, help me out here. I’m wondering…’ Dale held the bottle at the base, a hand behind his back like a waiter.

‘What?’ Jack signalled for Dale to stop pouring.

‘Stella is like me.’

Jack bristled. ‘How?’

‘Reliable, does what says she’ll do. She was meant to be here at seven fifteen. What’d she tell you?’

Jack shrugged. Stella wasn’t expecting him. Terry had kept the wall clock three minutes fast, but even so that made it ten past eight. She was late.

‘Are you worried the food will spoil?’ he sniped.

‘Hell no! It’s a stew, the longer it mulches the better. I’m bothered by Stella being late. Suza— my mother told her about tonight. She agreed to be here.’

‘Here or at her flat?’

‘Jackie said to come here; Suzanne asked her to give me a key. Stella’s not the type of girl to bail out, is she? You know her well.’

‘I don’t.’ But he did. Stella fulfilled agreements, she saw contracts through, however difficult. She never ‘bailed out’. A trawling dread overtook Jack’s trepidation about Stella’s reaction to home cooking and a functioning central-heating system. He grabbed his phone.

‘This is Stella Darnell, please leave me a—’

He felt a wash of shame that, overtaken by his own feelings, he hadn’t considered Stella’s safety. She was never late. Not unless something had happened—

‘I don’t want to ask Suzanne, that’ll worry her. Jackie’s not at the office any more,’ Dale said as he turned off the heat on the hob and the oven.

Stella had gone to see Nicola Barwick that morning. Although it was hot and steamy in the kitchen, Jack shivered. Stella hadn’t been in touch with him since – why had he only just noticed?

A loud rap on the door startled both men. A shadow filled the glass in the door, silhouetted in the porch light. Obliquely Jack observed there was a porch light. He had the crazy notion that this time it really was Terry’s ghost.

Dale got there first. He flung open the front door. ‘Hey, sis!’ With a flourish of his tea towel he welcomed her inside.

Jack found he couldn’t move.

‘Sorry, I couldn’t find my key. That lamb stew smells brilliant.’ Stella stopped rummaging in her rucksack and came in, Stanley at her heels.

‘It was meant to be a surprise!’ Dale crowed with mock disappointment.

‘Stella has an acute sense of smell. She could tell you all the ingredients,’ Jack said, but no one heard.

Stella looped her rucksack over the newel post and nodded to Jack with an expression he couldn’t fathom. With Stanley pattering at her heels, she went after Dale down the passage to the kitchen. Jack trailed after them.

‘It’s my favourite.’ Stella was sluicing her hands under the tap. ‘I’m very hungry.’

Stella was never hungry. She ate when she was empty or because it was on the schedule; she regarded food as a nuisance. Tonight Jack was inclined to agree that it was.

‘Hey, little feller!’ Dale swept the dog up and held him on the other shoulder to the tea towel. He fired up the ring on the hob.

‘He will bite – he doesn’t like being held. It’s best to warn him…’ Jack subsided into silence. The dog was systematically licking Heffernan’s face.

He stood in the doorway. Brother and sister were chatting and joking, moving around the room, getting out plates, knives and forks, filling wine glasses as if they had known each other forever, rather than three days. Jack was the odd one out, the stranger.

He was opening the front door when Stella called to him. He would walk and walk and never stop. This was worse than if she had found him in Lulu Carr’s cupboard.

He nearly didn’t answer. ‘What?’

‘There’s a litre of milk in my rucksack. Bring it through. We’ll need it for your hot drink in our meeting after supper.’

Jack shut the door and, fending off an impulse to cry, lifted the bag off the post. He sat on the bottom step, the bag between his knees. The milk was cold; Stella must have just bought it. Was that why she was late? The bag tipped open; he clamped his legs together and caught something in his lap.

Even if Dale had not switched on all the lights, Jack would have recognized what he held in his hands. The Pullman carriage belonged to a train exactly like the one he had owned when he was little.