White Lies (6 page)

She logged on to her messenger service to see who was online. She didn’t often talk to people she didn’t know but it was a useful way to have eyes and ears in a number of different spots in town. Few of the names of her list lit up so she left an offline message for her friend Cacoethes, otherwise known as the romance writer Jennifer Brande who used to run the whole town from her study desk until she joined the household at the Larches.

Scribe: Jennifer? I need your specialist knowledge for a case!

She logged off again, wondering who she knew in the Chervil Court area she could ask about John. She’d have liked to go to see the house there but it was pointless without a key. She looked at the clock. Two forty-five. Time to meet Jimmy at Ashgate Road. She powered down her laptop and stood.

Just her and Jimmy Fenstone in an empty house. Meinwen clenched her pelvic floor muscles as a familiar wetness spread through her vagina.

Chapter 6

Meinwen stepped out of her house and struggled with her umbrella until it opened. It was still spitting with rain but not as badly as the earlier downpour. She locked the door and headed to Jimmy Fenstone’s house in Ashgate Road, dancing past puddles on the unkempt pavement.

It took half an hour to get to the house. Huddled beneath her nylon rainbow, her huge carpetbag slung over her arm, she felt far older than her years. She detoured past the shop, where she’d had the foresight to leave a sign on the door with the apology Closed for Autumn Equinox, though that hadn’t stopped the postman leaving a stack of damp mail wedged in the letterbox. She went in and moved them to the little office at the back of the shop, taking a moment to sort them into bills, circulars, catalogs and two requests for help. She stuffed the latter into her bag and left again, locking the door behind her.

Ashgate Road was comprised of post-war brick semis, an upper-middle class neighborhood gone to seed as fast as the economy. Once it would have been the pride of the town, full of white-collar workers with modern, middle class families. Now those same families had grown up and lost what jobs they had clawed themselves into, the street falling into the same decline as its population.

Number fifteen was no exception. Twenty-five feet wide with a two-yard alley up the side and the length of a small car separating the house from the front garden wall. She paused at what would once have been the gatepost. A crazy paving front garden, very popular in the seventies, was cracked and uneven, leaving it a nursery for rose bay willow herb, dandelion, daisies and chickweed. A rose struggled to grow in the center, several late buds closed against the persistent rain.

The house could do with a coat of paint. The protection it would afford the wood would likely offset the increased probability of burglary. She looked down the street. A pair of old shoes dangled from the telephone wires outside number eight and number eleven gave the appearance they were collecting old cars.

The paint peeling from the front door gave it the ominous look of a skull. She skirted past it to go up the flagstone path. A buddleia took up most of the width but whether planted or self-seeded she couldn’t say. There were no butterflies on it, the preponderance of lilac flower spikes long since turned to brown seed. The back door, less exposed to the elements, was in better repair, the single pane of glass giving it the air of a cyclops waiting for visitors. She rapped on the wood and stepped back, glancing past the end of the house to the back garden and a small wooden shed green with moss and rot.

The door opened to reveal a spill of warmth and yellow light. Jimmy Fenstone smiled at her. “Come away in. I’ve got the kettle on.”

“Thank you.” Meinwen shook her umbrella and folded it before stepping inside. She turned sideways to squeeze past into the kitchen, pausing just inside the door to get a first impression of the house. “It’s certainly been neglected.”

“Yes, I thought so too. I don’t understand how he could live like this. He was always so neat and fussy as a kid.” Jimmy closed the door and crossed to the kettle. “I’ve got normal tea but I bought a box of herbal infusions. He picked it up and read from the lid “Four varieties of fruit teas to tantalize your taste buds and invigorate the body.” He winked. “I might have one myself. I could do with a bit of invigorating.”

“Thanks. That’d be great.” Meinwen plonked her bag on the kitchen table then stood her umbrella in the sink to allow the water to drain safely away. It was sweet of him to go to the trouble of buying her herbal tea. Was it possible he reciprocated her desire?

“Do you want it now, or would you rather look round the house first?”

“Leave it for now.” Meinwen dropped into a chair. “Sit down a minute, Jimmy. I’ve been poking about, finding out what I could about your brother. I don’t think you’re going to like some of it.”

Jimmy’s smile faded. “That doesn’t sound good. Best you tell me and have done with it.” He pulled a chair out and turned it around, facing the spindles to rest his arms on the back. He looked as though he was behind bars.

Meinwen took a deep breath. “Before I start, did you manage to get his effects from the police?”

“Aye.” He nodded toward the counter next to the sink. “They’re in a bag there.”

“May I?” She waited for his nod before rising to retrieve them. Clearing a space on the table and setting her own bag on the floor next to her feet, she spread the contents out, setting aside the soiled clothes John Fenstone had been found in.

She was left with a Rolex watch which still showed the correct time, a set of keys, a wallet with thirty pounds in cash, bank, credit and store cards, a handful of business cards, a mobile phone and a thick gold ring. Her heart skipped a beat when she recognized the engraving on the inside of the ring. A pair of letter Rs, one reversed so that the ascender was shared between them, making the monogram reminiscent of a lunar landing pod. The symbol of Richard Godwin, a Master in the local BDSM community

She held up the bunch of keys. “Do you know what all these are for?”

Jimmy shrugged. “I hadn’t looked, to be honest. One will be the door here.” An upward nod indicated the entrance she’d used. “I’m guessing the fancy looking one is his car, though I don’t know where it is. He said he had a Prius.” He leaned forward to look at the other three. “The little one looks like a safe box and I’d guess the other three are his office? I should return those.” Behind him, the kettle clicked off.

“One will be the office, yes.” Meinwen separated the keys as best she could, spreading them flat on the table. She isolated the three remaining ones. “One of these will be for his place in Chervil Court.”

“Another house?” Jimmy turned his nose up. “He hasn’t got another house. This is it. This is our mam’s house. This is where he lived. Here.” He stabbed the table with his finger.

Meinwen shook her head. “I don’t think so. You said yourself you don’t understand how he lived like this. I spoke to his office and they said he was always well dressed, well groomed and the best interior decorator they’d ever seen. Jennie, a colleague of his, said he could sell a house based on the curtains alone.” She looked around the kitchen. “This doesn’t look like the abode of a man who knows his curtains.”

“But there was food in the fridge. Beer, too. Milk that hadn’t gone off and recently bought bread. He lived here.”

“He certainly came here. Perhaps he used this as an official address. Or maybe he hadn’t been here for a while but came to tidy the place up for you, knowing you were about to get out.”

“Nah.” Jimmy’s eyes narrowed and darkened. “There are suits in the wardrobe. Full sets of clothes. Some of them are still in dry-cleaning bags.”

“Are they what you’re wearing now?”

“Yeah. So? Johnny don’t need ‘em no more.”

“But they’re your size. Exactly your size. I think your brother left them here to for you.”

“No. If he lived somewhere else there’d be evidence of it. People would know he lived there. They wouldn’t murder him here.”

“Who found him?”

Jimmy shook his head. “I don’t know. They never said.”

“We need to find out. Chances are it was the police when he didn’t turn up for work. Leave that with me. Sergeant Peters is usually pretty obliging. He’ll tell me who found him.” She tapped the table. “There’s a good chance they didn’t want him found. The longer he was here the less likely any evidence of a murder would be viable.”

Jimmy sat back in his chair. “So you’re convinced it’s murder then? I’m a bit relieved, to be honest. I thought I was going mad. I knew Johnny wouldn’t have killed himself. He was too full of life, see.”

“I think he was, yes.” Meinwen reached and squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry. We’ll get to the bottom of this, I promise.”

Jimmy stood and crossed to the kettle, pressing the red switch to reboil it. “What did you mean about the curtains? You said John was the sort of man to know his curtains.” He set out two mugs.

“It was something the girl in his office told me. He was the life and soul of the place, she said. Could sell an igloo to an Arab. He had a certain style that didn’t sit well with some people but he had a marvelous patter for the customers.”

“I still don’t follow. He was a good salesman, aye.”

“One of the best.” Meinwen tapped a coffee stained newspaper sporting the headline “Police Abandon Search For Missing Student.”
 

“Did you see this?”

“No. What about it?” Jimmy picked up the broadsheet and scanned it. “Some kid goes missing from college and there’s a hoo-har about it? I bet that happens all the time.”

“He was a local lad. He’s disappeared completely. There’s been an appeal for witnesses but no one’s come forward. His mam’s even been on the television asking for help.”

“He’ll be on a bender somewhere. He’ll turn up.” He handed her the paper. “Perhaps he went to Thailand.”

“I hope so. He hasn’t been heard of for three months. Not so much as a Facespace status update.”

“He’ll be fine. Probably failed a couple of exams and just said ‘sod it.’”

“No. He was a good student. Not the best, but doing well.”

“Did you know him?”

“No. Kevin was studying engineering. Not the sort to come looking for witchcraft to solve his problems. It’s generally the arty types who come in looking for love charms and cannabis. It still counts though. I hope nothing bad happened to him.”

“Don’t worry so much.” Jimmy smiled. “He’s a boy becoming a man. Odds are he’ll turn up with sunburn and a nasty rash.”

“Let’s hope so.” Meinwen sighed and put the paper down. “It’s been preying on me. I half recognize him but I don’t see how I could. There’s something I’m missing, something nagging.”

“It’ll come to you. Wait.” Jimmy crooked his head. “You sell cannabis?”

“Of course not.” She looked again at the photograph of the missing lad. He was reminiscent of her old friend, Richard Godwin. “But I do sell earrings and necklaces with the leaf on. That sort of thing. Some people assume I sell the herb, too.”

“You should sell t-shirts. Bob Marley pictures and band names in jagged writing. That’ll help pull the students in.”

“And be part of the Madding crowd?” Meinwen shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

Jimmy held up the box of herbal tea bags. “What’s your poison then? Berry Blush, Invigorating Elderflower, Fantastic Fennel or Ravishing Raspberry?”

Meinwen felt the blood rush to her cheeks, as well as more intimate areas. Had Jimmy guessed that being ravished was high on her list of goals? “I’ll have the berry, please.” She bit her lip wondering how to broach the next subject. “Talking of ravishing, did John ever tell you the name of his lover?”

“No. I told you. I’ve no idea who she was.” Jimmy dropped a berry bag in the second mug and topped them both with boiling water. He put the kettle down. “Why? Did that girl at the office know?” He turned, his eyebrows raised. “Was it her? I could see that being a problem. You should never shag someone you work with, pardon my French.”

“You’re quite right, and no, it wasn’t her.” Meinwen took a deep breath, her heart sinking like an anchor in the Sea of Dashed Hopes. “No milk for me.”

“I would’ve asked first.” Jimmy set the two mugs down and sat again. “So, have you any idea?” He picked up the ring she’d taken from the personnel effects bag. “Is this something to do with it? It looks like a wedding ring, only I know John wasn’t married. He’d have told me.” He held the ring up to the light, squinting at the mark inscribed within. “What’s this mean? A spaceship? You recognized it when you looked at it. Is it a posh designer or something?”