The Villain’s Daughter (20 page)

‘Yes,’ William said apologetically, as if her sigh had been directed at him. ‘More correspondence as regards Mr Hills, I’m afraid.’ He laid another pile of papers on her desk. ‘I think he might be with us for quite some time.’

Iris thought of Connor Hills, chilling quietly in the basement, and felt a stab of annoyance at the warring relatives, the wife and son, who couldn’t come to a civilised decision about the poor man’s place of rest. ‘Why don’t they just cut him in two and have half each?’ she snapped. Then, aware that her comment was somewhat lacking in compassion, she quickly added, ‘Sorry, but it just doesn’t seem right.’

Surprisingly, William smiled. ‘No, you’ve got a point. Something along the lines of the judgement of Solomon? It might work a treat. Perhaps I’ll suggest it in my next letter.’

‘I suspect you’d find yourself at the bad end of a writ.’

‘Could be worth it,’ he said.

Iris smiled back up at him. Over the past few days, she’d been revising her opinion of William Grand. Perhaps he wasn’t quite as dull as she’d originally thought. As he returned to his office, it occurred to her that he wasn’t the only one she’d got wrong: Michael’s recent revelations had revealed another side even to her nearest and dearest. How had they managed to keep their secrets from her for so long? Perhaps she wasn’t quite the judge of character she’d always believed herself to be.

The radio was playing in the basement. Alice, who had her back to the steps, jumped as Toby came up behind her and slid his arms around her waist. ‘Hey, gorgeous.’

‘What are you doing?’ she whispered, turning to glance anxiously over his shoulder in case someone might be following.

‘Don’t stress. I’m on my own.’ He laughed as he flapped the papers in front of her. ‘And I’ve got a perfectly good excuse for being here: Grimm Junior needs your autograph on these.’

But Alice couldn’t help stressing. Naturally she felt fearful about their relationship being discovered - Gerald Grand, she was sure, would put a stop to it - but another, more pressing cause for anxiety was laid out on the embalming table behind her. It wouldn’t take Toby long to notice who she had almost finished working on and when he did . . .

‘What’s wrong?’ he said, letting go of her and stepping back. ‘Aren’t you pleased to see me, babe?’ His teasing tone lasted only a moment before his gaze came to rest on the table. ‘Shit!’ he exclaimed. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

Alice, who hated any kind of conflict, felt a lump come into her throat. She stammered out her reply. ‘W-William told me it was urgent, that she needed attending to today.’

‘But I called you. We talked yesterday. I told you to leave her, that she was the one. I
told
you that, Alice, and you agreed.’

She bowed her head. ‘I know but . . . but William insisted it was done this morning. I couldn’t refuse.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ he spat back at her, his face creased with anger. ‘You could have made some excuse, told him you had an emergency at home. You could have said that you’d come in this evening and do it.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Alice murmured. ‘I didn’t think.’ She gazed down at the young, blonde woman lying on the table. Catherine MacDonald was a pretty nineteen-year-old who had died tragically from an overdose. A post-mortem had been done before William had collected her from the hospital on Saturday. On Sunday, Toby had come in to see if she was ‘suitable’.

‘Didn’t think?’ he repeated sarcastically. ‘Well, that makes a fucking change, doesn’t it?’

Two deep crimson patches burnished Alice’s cheeks. She was lying about William’s insistence on having the embalming done this morning. In truth, having seen her, Alice had simply felt unable to go through with Toby’s plan. Hadn’t the poor girl suffered enough? The thought of Danny Street being anywhere near the body filled her with revulsion.

Toby glared at her. ‘She would have been perfect and now you’ve gone and ruined it all.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said again, reaching out to touch his arm. Alice always found herself apologising even when she wasn’t in the wrong. In the back of her mind she could hear her mother’s familiar reproaches: ‘Why do you let people walk all over you? Haven’t you got a mind of your own?’

He shrugged off her hand. ‘It’s a bit late for that.’

‘But there’ll be others,’ she said defensively. ‘You know there will.’

‘I’ve already told him,’ Toby retorted bitterly. ‘I’ve made the arrangements. What the fuck am I supposed to say now?’

Alice bit down on her lip. ‘Just tell him the truth - that her parents are insisting on seeing her this afternoon, that there’s nothing you can do it about it.’ She hoped Toby wouldn’t check with William or Iris, but didn’t think he would. He wouldn’t want to draw attention to his interest in Catherine MacDonald.

Toby’s eyes flashed. ‘You know what he’ll do to me if he thinks I’m messing him around? He’ll break my bloody legs, Alice. Is that what you want?’

She instantly shrank back. ‘Of course I don’t. I wouldn’t ever do anything to—’

‘But you already have. Can’t you see that? I thought you cared about me. You said you did. And now look what you’ve gone and done.’ His gaze slid back to the body of the girl. ‘You’ve landed me right in the shit.’

Alice was aware at this point of the contradiction in her feelings for him. The anger had dissolved from Toby’s face to be replaced by a sulky, self-pitying expression. She thought it was curious how you could love someone and at the same time not actually like them very much. Toby was selfish, self-absorbed and utterly insensitive to others. In fact, it was doubtful if he had ever felt any real emotion towards anyone else. And yet, despite knowing all this, she still wanted him more than any man she had met before. It was perverse . . . and yet oddly exciting too.

Toby threw the papers on to the counter and sighed. Eventually, grudgingly, he shook his head and said: ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have had a go at you. It was just . . . just the shock.’

‘He’ll understand, won’t he? Danny Street, I mean.’

Toby shrugged. ‘Are you kidding? He’s hardly the understanding type.’

‘But I can back you up. I can tell him what happened.’ Alice was surprised by her own audacity. The thought of talking to a psychopathic gangster like Street filled her with dread, but if it meant that Toby could be spared . . .

‘No,’ he said, forcing out a smile. ‘Thanks, but there’s no point in you getting your legs broken too.’

Before Alice had a chance to respond, Toby quickly turned away and headed back up the steps.

It was a good ten minutes before Toby reappeared. Iris looked up, expecting him to stop and chat, but he walked straight past without even acknowledging her. There was a dark scowl on his face. She wondered what could have happened in the basement to have changed his mood so drastically. Mild-mannered Alice was hardly the type to cause offence. She watched as he paced restlessly around reception. His lips were moving but no sound came out; it was as if he was rehearsing a conversation he was about to have. After a while, he pulled his phone out of his pocket, stared at it and then abruptly put it away again.

‘You okay?’ Iris asked.

Toby visibly jumped. ‘What?’

‘Has something happened?’

‘Why should anything have happened?’

Iris thought his voice sounded unusually defensive. ‘Because you look like you’ve just been handed a death sentence.’

‘Yeah, well,’ he said bitterly, ‘that’s the business we’re in, isn’t it - death and despair.’

Iris stared at him. ‘And since when did that ever bother you?’ Toby Grand had all the sensitivity of a brick wall. He didn’t do sympathy or compassion. Death, for him, usually meant only the happy ching ching of the cash register.

‘I’ve got a call to make, okay? You know, one of those
difficult
kind of calls - discussing arrangements with a relative.’

Iris didn’t believe him. There was no reason for him to be making a call like that from his mobile. Why wasn’t he using the office phone? And anyway, Toby rarely dealt directly with the public. He left all that to his father and William. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I was only asking.’

Toby gave her a look as he pulled on his overcoat. He crossed reception, yanked open the door and glanced back over his shoulder. ‘Do us a favour, will you? Tell Grimm Junior that I’ve had to go out.’

‘Where shall I say—’

But the door had already closed behind him. ‘Don’t mention it,’ she murmured. Iris wondered what he was up to - something dodgy knowing Toby. She hoped it wasn’t connected to the Streets; those two sharks would eat him up and spit him out without a second’s thought. She was reminded of the threats that had been made at Columbia Road Market. Her stomach shifted at the memory. The Streets were dangerous, unpredictable men who would stop at nothing to get what they wanted. It wasn’t a happy thought. Just how far would they go in their attempts to flush out her father?

It was a question she didn’t dare dwell on.

Iris returned her attention to the letter she was typing and tried her very best to concentrate.

 

It was shortly after one when Iris went to the kitchen. She found Alice sipping on a mug of soup, one of those packet things that you added water to. Her dark hair, freshly cut, was sleek and glossy, and she was wearing more make-up than usual. In fact, everything about Alice Avery seemed slightly different: her clothes were smarter and she’d even gone to the trouble of painting her nails.

‘Hi,’ Iris said, before delving into the fridge for her pasta. She put the kettle on and sat down on the opposite side of the table. ‘How’s it going? Don’t usually see you at lunchtime.’

‘My mother’s out with friends. It didn’t seem worth going back to the flat so . . .’

Iris nodded towards the soup. ‘Is that all you’re having?’

‘I’m on a diet.’ She patted her stomach and smiled. ‘Trying to lose a few pounds.’

Ah, Iris thought, so maybe there was a man on the scene after all. She was about to come out with one of those confidence-boosting phrases, something along the lines of her being absolutely fine as she was, but then changed her mind. It might sound rather patronising. Instead she ripped the plastic fork off the back of the carton and began to eat. ‘So what’s bugging the beautiful Toby today?’

There was a short pause. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, one moment he’s absolutely fine, joking around like he usually does and then he goes downstairs to see you and comes back looking like he’s just had his face slapped.’ She laughed. ‘You didn’t, did you?’

Alice, looking flustered, picked up her mug and promptly put it down again. Her eyes remained firmly focused on the table. ‘Of course not. He only dropped off some papers. I-I barely talked to him. It wasn’t anything to do with me.’

‘Oh, that’s weird. I wonder why—’

‘It wasn’t anything to do with me,’ Alice repeated, her voice rising to a thin anxious squeak. ‘Nothing at all.’

Iris stared at her and nodded. Clearly Toby wasn’t the only one feeling defensive. ‘No, I’m sure it wasn’t. I didn’t . . .’ She shook her head. Whatever had happened in the basement - and she was certain something had - Alice wasn’t prepared to share it. ‘All I meant was that you shouldn’t take him too seriously. He’s a pain in the ass, but he doesn’t mean any harm.’ Iris, even as she was speaking the words, wasn’t entirely convinced that the latter part of the statement was true. Toby, for all his charms, had a mean streak; there was a thin line between teasing and bullying and he had crossed it on more than one occasion.

‘I don’t,’ Alice said. She forced a smile, but her lower lip was trembling.

Iris was beginning to wish she’d never raised the subject. The last thing she’d wanted to do was upset her. ‘Look, if there’s ever anything you want to talk about . . .’

‘I’m fine, really I am.’ Alice hurriedly scraped back her chair and stood up. ‘I have to get on.’

‘You haven’t finished your soup.’

But Alice, like Toby before her, was already making a hasty exit.

 

At five o’clock precisely, Iris put on her coat, said goodnight to William and headed for home. Outside, what remained of the snow had gathered in the gutters and turned to slush. She crossed over and walked quickly along the High Street, pausing only once to gaze into the window of the jeweller’s. The reason for this, she told herself, was that she was thinking of buying Luke a new watch for Christmas. But this wasn’t the only reason she stopped. Worried that she might be being followed again, and unwilling to glance over her shoulder continuously, she had come to an abrupt halt outside Ruby’s in the hope of catching out any shadow.

But no one behind her faltered. No one stopped dead in their tracks or did anything even faintly suspicious. Iris couldn’t deny she was afraid - who wouldn’t be with the Streets on their case? - but knew she had to stop the fear from overwhelming her. If she wasn’t careful she would become completely paralysed by fright.

She didn’t hang about for long. Apart from the fact she was in a hurry - she was due to meet Guy Wilder at six - she wasn’t really in the mood for considering what gift to buy Luke. She’d received only one curt text since he’d left that morning:
Arrived safely.
Not even a kiss. Not even a ‘Call later’. Despite his good mood of the previous evening, she was still, she suspected, in his bad books after abandoning him for Michael. Her doubts about his fidelity started niggling again. Frowning, she pushed them to the back of her mind. She already had enough to deal with.

Iris passed by the café, its windows steamy and opaque, and continued along the High Street. Across the other side of the road, the small Green had a scattering of pure white Christmas lights twinkling in its trees. At any other time she might have found the sight entrancing, but in her present mood she couldn’t conjure up much festive spirit.