The Detective's Secret (38 page)

When she ended the call, Stella apologized again to Liz.

‘Don’t mind me. Justin’s just texted, suggesting I visit him at home, that’s a step forward!’ Liz looked radiant.

Stella rang the number Lulu had given her.

‘Chris Howland?’ A woman answered with the preoccupied tone of someone too busy to talk.

‘Stella Darnell here, I’m looking after Nicola Barwick’s house in London.’ Embarrassed by her fib, she flashed a look at Liz, but she was texting on her phone. ‘You returned Nicola’s letter.’ She paused. Nothing. ‘Nicola didn’t mention leaving Charbury so, like you, we’re surprised.’ She went for a point of commonality.

‘I should have kept it. She’s coming back.’

‘She called you?’

‘No. I was doing a last tidy – incredibly I’ve got a new tenant – and I found her purse and her passport in the kitchen bin of all places. She’ll be back, she can’t get far without her passport!’

After the call, Stella turned to Liz. ‘Something isn’t right. Why would Nicola throw her passport and money in the bin?’ But Liz wasn’t listening.

‘Stella, could I just use your phone? I was in the middle of replying to Justin and my battery has gone. It would be simpler to ring him.’

Stella watched Liz weave her way through the café to the street. Her coat billowed out when she stepped on to the Broadway. Whoever this Justin was, he was making her smile. Jackie said that was her definition of ‘Mr Right’.

‘He sounds nice,’ Stella remarked when Liz returned. ‘What’s his second name?’ She felt suddenly duplicitous; Liz might not be inclined to answer if she knew the true reason for her interest.

‘It’s rather Mills and Boon. Venus. Justin Venus. Lovely, don’t you think?’

‘Yes.’ And familiar. But with so many clients, most names struck a chord. Although Stella did think she might remember someone named after a planet.

‘Confession, Stell! I’ve done that thing we did when we were girls – I practised writing Elizabeth Venus!’ Liz gave a harsh laugh. ‘It’s not like I want to marry him and if I did, I’d keep my name. Don’t say a thing!’

Stella didn’t have a memory of doing this at school or whose name it had been if she had. She came to a decision. ‘Hold on to the letter. If you see Nicola, tell her Christine Howland’s got her purse and passport. If she doesn’t turn up in the next twenty-four hours, I’ll tell Martin Cashman.’

Outside the café, Stella texted Jackie to say she was running late for their catch-up meeting. Afterwards, she watched Liz crossing the Broadway at the pedestrian lights, her light eager walk unchanged since they were sixteen. Liz had always been optimistic. To her, good things had happened before, and they would again. Liz would put Justin Venus in this bracket. Stella should feel happy for her, yet she didn’t.

Had Stella watched her old friend a moment longer, she might have noticed a man in a long dark coat with pale features step from the shadows of the arcade and follow Liz into Hammersmith Underground station.

When Stella returned to the police station compound where she had left her van, she received two texts. Jackie wanted to shift their meeting to later in the week and Suzie wanted her to come to her flat as soon as she got the text. With no meeting, Stella now had time.

Ten minutes later she parked outside her mother’s flat. Her phone rang, but she didn’t recognize the number on the screen.

‘I’ve lost my phone. I’m in a call box.’ It was Jack.

‘Can you remember where you last had it?’ The sort of annoying question Suzie would ask; if Stella had lost something she never knew where or when.

‘My flat. This morning at eight thirteen.’

‘Have you given it a thorough search?’ Suzie again. Stella glanced up to the top floor of the mansion block, almost expecting to see Suzie and Dale framed there. There was no one at the window. ‘I’m sure you have. It’ll turn up, it’s a small space.’ She was conciliatory.

‘I’m not so sure, it’s like I’m living in a vortex. I’ve lost that paper with the numbers on it too.’

Stella was surprised, despite his floaty way of being, Jack was always good with actual objects, he never lost things. He sounded distressed, but it was usually she who assumed the worst. It occurred to Stella that he was quite like Liz: he had faith that something good would happen, although his optimism couldn’t be based on what had gone before.

‘I’ll get you to ring when I’m in the tower so I can trace it. That’s if the battery hasn’t drained.’

‘What about that “Find my phone” app?’ It was rare for Stella to offer Jack technical advice.

‘Never thought I’d need it; I’ve never lost it before.’ He did sound upset.

Stella told him about her conversation with Chris Howland and her decision about the letter. He said nothing about the letter; she knew he would have opened it there and then. She guessed he’d have no trouble opening other people’s post if required.

‘Is he a relation of Alice?’ he asked.

‘Who?’

‘A girl in Charbury went missing in the sixties. Big case at the time. Lucie May did a follow-up on it. He
must
be related to the girl. Things come full circle; in the end there’s only one story, although we always hope for a different ending.’

‘Chris Howland is a “she”. She’s a forensic scientist,’ Stella added for no good reason. Lucie May filled Jack’s head with unpleasant stories; Stella brought him back to the present. ‘It means Nicola Barwick’s alive. It also means she’s still a suspect for murdering Rick Frost.’

‘She’s in trouble.’ Jack was grave.

There was a series of beeps.

‘Jack?’ Stella looked at the phone screen. The call was still live.

‘Here I am. I’ve fed in more coins.’

‘I’ll call you.’ Stella swept the glove box for loose change before realizing how absurd she was being; it wasn’t her that needed the coins. Lack of sleep did not agree with her.

‘No need, I’ve got plenty.’

‘How do you make out she’s in trouble? Doesn’t this imply Nicola Barwick has something to hide?’

‘Chris Howland didn’t actually speak to Nicola. She’s right – a typed note is official. It’s easier to trot out a message with a ballpoint on the back of a circular. Howland thought they had a rapport so the typing jarred.’

‘Suzie types faster than she writes – her handwriting is unreadable. I wish she would type the lists she leaves for me.’ Suzie hadn’t left one of her lists since she went to Sydney.

‘A typed note might be written by anyone.’

‘She signed it. Odd, though, when I did the cleaning estimate for Liz, I saw a laptop on the desk in Nicola Barwick’s study. Liz said it was Barwick’s, so what did she use to type it on?’

‘She could have had a tablet. But did she have a printer? I vote we get that letter and steam it open. Please can I be the one who does it? I love doing that. Or I think I would,’ he added quickly.

Stella raised her eyebrows. Jack would steam open his own post – if he could bring himself to open it.

‘No, it’s illegal. I’ve told Liz we’ll wait for Nicola Barwick to call her. Why would she throw her purse and passport into the bin? It’s like the man who sat the wrong way in the photo booth. How could she do that by accident?’

‘Accidents don’t happen. She wanted Howland to find them. She
hid
them in the bin. The note was intended to make us think Nicola Barwick had gone abroad. The passport and purse are signs that she hasn’t.’

‘Are you saying she’s been kidnapped?’

‘Maybe not bundled unconscious into a car boot. She probably walked out of the cottage, but found a pretext to go back into the house and that’s when she dropped them in the bin. Clever.’

‘A risk. Christine Howland mightn’t have seen them.’

‘She had to act quickly. You said Howland is in forensics; Barwick guessed she’d check the bin. I’d know you’d check through the contents of my rubbish bin.’

‘I’ll call Martin. He said to if we had proof.’ Jack knew how she would behave. Stella liked that.

‘The note isn’t’ “proof” – the opposite in fact – so he won’t be impressed.’

Stella could imagine Martin telling her that it added up to sweet nothing. When he had promised Terry to be there for his daughter, he hadn’t bargained on nuisance calls from her.

‘Where are you?’ Jack asked suddenly.

‘I’ve just got to my mum’s. She wants to talk about me. It’ll be about investing in Dale’s business.’ Strange question, Jack never asked where she was.

‘Are you going to invest in it?’ He sounded far away.

‘The guy can cook, it might work.’

‘Stella, those photos you found in that passport booth at Stamford—’

Jack’s voice was drowned out by more beeping. Stella waited for him to drop in some coins. When the beeps stopped, she remembered. ‘Does Justin Venus mean anything to you?’

Her question fell into phone silence.

Monday, 28 October 2013

Please may we meet? We need to discuss Stanley.

Stella reread the text. David had softened his request by implying he would negotiate. When he had asked her to look after his dog, she had refused, relenting only when the alternative was kennels. A dog required endless walks and tireless games with tuggy rope spiders and squeaky toys. Months on, she had built into her routine the blowy strides on Wormwood Scrubs common or Richmond Park with Suzie, and now with Dale too. Her mum had advised training classes: Stanley needed discipline. After weeks of these, it baffled Stella that he would ‘sit’ and ‘stay’ at her command and come when she called. She began to take care of his toys, restoring Mr Ratty – the stuffed rat he took to bed with him – to his original cream colour with sluice washes.

Stella had brought Stanley for their afternoon outing to Wormwood Scrubs common. Dale hadn’t been at Suzie’s that morning. Stella wondered if he was in on Suzie’s proposal, typed and bound, ‘ready for the bank’. The document was in her rucksack. Suzie seemed to have forgotten that she had advised Stella to stick to the core activity of cleaning and not risk ruin.

In her old bedroom, Stella had seen an album like the one displaying the history of Dale’s business. She guessed that Suzie had bought it for volume two of his life story. No doubt she was going to put herself and Terry – his lost parents – in it.

Some women might have been upset by their mother’s obsession with a long-lost son. Stella, ever practical and expecting little, took it in her stride. She hoped, though, that her mum would at some point return to her job at Clean Slate.

Stanley was bounding around on the grass with a stick three times his size, desperate to impress her. She pressed the ‘rapid shutter’ button on her phone and took pictures – although she wondered if she would want to look at them after she had handed him over.

Stella realized she didn’t want to give Stanley back. Then she revisited her earlier observation; despite David’s text, there was no room for negotiation.

S will be at the police memorial in Braybrook Street on Friday @ 2pm.
She pressed ‘Send’ before she could cancel the text. It was two o’clock now, she had four days to pack Stanley’s things. Tonight she would wash Mr Ratty.

The text had dented her good mood. An hour ago Jack had emailed an account of his findings. Although heartened that he had laid out all the information gathered so far, Stella was worried too: a typed report wasn’t Jack’s method. She had some sympathy with Christine Howland’s response to Nicola Barwick’s typing. Maybe talking about his school friend and finding the toy train had shaken Jack up more than he had let on. Jack had been about to say something about the photo-booth pictures when he was cut off, but had put nothing about them in his report. She opened it again. He had used the Courier font as if he’d written it on a typewriter.

U
pdate Report for Clean Slate Investigative Agency (CSIA)

Jack Harmon (agent) 28/10/13

• A boy called Richard Frost reported a man and woman entering the tower on the night of the 1987 hurricane. When police followed up, he said it was two men in Chiswick House grounds. (Source: Lucie May – Terry thought first story true.)

• A boy, William Frost, was interviewed about missing glove. Glove Stanley took has crown motif like first one. Police failed to connect WF to RF – see first bullet point. (Source: Lucie again.)

• After Rick Frost’s inquest William and Lulu rowed in street then kissed. Proper kissing. (Source: Lucie.)

• Darryl Clark – Piccadilly line driver of train that hit Rick Frost thought I was on platform. (Link: Station inspector and Simon Carrington.)

• Meant to say that the den where you found 2
nd
carriage was used by Frost’s gang in the eighties. (Lucie told me.)

• To do:

• Ask William Frost about his relationship with Lulu C. It changes everything.

• Ask William Frost about Rick F’s childhood gang. Who was in it? Ask him for advance on expenses. (Jackie said about expenses. I’ve just thought about gang.)

• Ask Liz Hunter the name of Nicola’s friend.

• Check out Rick Frost’s study at his home – ask Lulu Carr (Frost-whatever)for access to his computer.

• Jack x

Stella pictured Jack in rolled shirt sleeves, glasses on the end of his nose, pecking the keyboard with two fingers like a private investigator, around him a semi-circle of screwed-up balls of earlier drafts. A good image, although he could touch-type and didn’t have a printer in his tower. Without having been to his house, Jack assumed that Rick Frost had an office in his home; he thought like a detective, she thought. On the other hand, it was a safe assumption that a man involved in surveillance had a computer.

Stella looked up. A man was under the trees. Stanley was heading towards him. She blew on her whistle. Stanley hesitated and then trotted with renewed purpose towards the man. The man didn’t have a dog with him. Not everyone liked dogs. Since minding Stanley, Stella had become suspicious of anyone walking on commons or in parks without a dog. She whipped the lead from around her neck and hurried over the grass.