Ash and Bone

32

Karen woke before the alarm and lay there listening to the wind rattle the windows and the occasional vehicle going past on the wet road outside; once, twice, she turned over, pulling the covers higher, trying for another ten minutes' sleep, but it wasn't to be. Sooner or later she would have to brave the first cold journey to the bathroom, the shower.

'What's the matter with you, child?' her father had said when he'd visited. 'All this promotion, chief inspector now, and you're still content to live like this.'

Child! She wondered if she would ever reach an age when he ceased, automatically, to call her that? Only when and if, she supposed, she had a child of her own. But there was some truth in what he said, she could afford to move, a bigger flat, bigger mortgage, but where would she move to? And why?

She was happy here. The damned cold aside. What she should do, she told herself for the thousandth time, was pay to have those old windows, which had been there since the days of Methuselah, taken out and new, double-glazed ones put in. Sort out the damp. Get the central heating overhauled, radiators with individual thermostats attached. Radiators, for God's sake, that worked.

In the bathroom she splashed cold water into her face, shivered, and squeezed toothpaste on to her brush.

One reason she didn't do these things, she knew, was the inevitable hassle and disruption. Finding a building firm that wasn't going to mess her around or, worse, rip her off, was the first thing; workmen who would actually turn up to time and do the job until it was finished, instead of the usual two days here, two days there, now you see them, now you don't; the place left looking like a tip while they juggle jobs all over half of London. Someone you could trust.

Karen rinsed her mouth, spat, wiped her face on the towel and sat down on the closed toilet lid.

Someone you could trust.

Someone who would have access to your home, your things; who was adept at climbing in and out, gaining entry, scaling walls and scaffolding.

She was thinking of Steven Kennet, broad-faced, smiling.

Now you know why I lied.

No, she thought, standing up and switching on the shower. Not yet they didn't.

As the water ran over her, bouncing off her shoulders and the back of her neck, she ran her mind back over what she had learned about the possible break-in to Maddy Birch's flat. Nothing taken, barely disturbed, just a sense that someone had been there.

Karen reached for the shower gel.

Yesterday there had been- a message saying that Vanessa Taylor had called, but she'd been too busy to ring back. She would try this morning before the day took hold. A short while later she was dry and partly dressed and spooning coffee grounds into the pot. Not so many minutes past six o'clock.

Elder had contacted Karen from Nottingham, explaining the reason for his absence in as little detail as possible, the bare bones. Back inside the building now, he opted for the stairs instead of the lift and was puffing slightly by the time he reached the fourth floor.

'How is she, Frank?' Karen asked immediately. 'Your daughter?'

Elder hunched his shoulders. 'Good as can be expected.'

He looked tired, she thought; heavy round the eyes.

'You talked to Kennet again?' Elder asked.

Karen nodded. 'We pushed him back and forth about Maddy; this most recent woman, Jennifer. Nothing. Nothing we could use. Oh, sometimes you got the feeling he was close to showing us a little, giving something away, but then he'd clam up. As if he was teasing us almost. Enjoying it.' She shook her head. 'By the time we finally kicked him loose I was with Mike, wanting to smack him in the face.'

'Not enough to hold him?'

'Not really. No.'

'No chance of a search warrant then? Turn his place over, see what we can find?'

'Not without something more solid. Conjecture, that's what the magistrate would say. Supposition. No reasonable grounds.'

'And what do you think?'

'I think he's still our best shot.'

'Denison's not been able to shake anything out about Loftus?'

'Not a thing.'

Karen unwrapped a mint and offered one to Elder, who shook his head. 'I spoke to Vanessa Taylor earlier,' she said. 'A couple of nights ago, she thinks there was someone hanging around outside her flat.'

Elder sat forward sharply. 'She thinks or she knows?'

'She can't be certain, it was dark. One minute he was there, the next he'd gone. No chance of a description, anything like that. If it hadn't been for what happened to Maddy, I doubt she'd have even bothered getting in touch. Her flat, it's not far from where Maddy Birch used to live.'

'You've informed the local nick?'

'Vanessa had done that herself. I checked. They've promised to have a car drive by at intervals through the night; increase foot patrols.'

'How did she sound? Vanessa?'

'A little nervous. Concerned not to be wasting my time.'

'You think one of us should go and talk to her?'

'I'm not sure what she could tell you that's any different. My guess, in the circumstances, it's her imagination working overtime.'

Karen pushed her chair back away from the desk and stretched her long legs. 'I thought I'd drive out and see Estelle Cooper. Talk to her on my own this time. See if I can't get her to loosen up a little. Might learn something useful.'

'Woman to woman,' Elder said.

A smile passed across Karen's face.

'What?'

'Shirley Brown, Stax, '74. I used to play it all the time.'

Elder had no idea what she was talking about.

When Karen arrived in Hadley Wood, Estelle Cooper wasn't at home. The children, according to one of the neighbours, were having a day off school. An inset day, isn't that what it was called nowadays? Estelle had taken them out for the day. Somewhere in London. The Science Museum?

Karen returned to her car. She would try again after the weekend; no sense trying to talk to Estelle when there was a chance her family were around. What she wanted was Estelle Cooper alone.

Maybe, Vanessa thought, she just hadn't been in the mood. Coke and a bucket of popcorn. The Odeon, Camden Town. Wind down. Relax. Love, Actually. They had to be kidding, right? And of course, sitting there on her own hadn't helped. She remembered when she'd been to see Bridget Jones's Diary with Maddy. How they'd loved it, every minute, right down to the slushy ending. Practically wet themselves with laughter.

Poor Maddy. God, she missed her!

Somehow she didn't fancy the Tube home and waited fifteen minutes for a bus instead, her and a couple of dozen others, half of them hungry from the pub and scarfing their way through burgers or chicken chow mein, the stink of onions, kebabs and hot sauce, fast-food litter swirling round their feet. She was just about to give it up as a bad job, walk back to the Tube station after all, when there it was at last, veering towards them from the lights, a 134.

The lower deck was crowded and she went up on top, a spare seat beside the window near the back, and as she sat down a man sat next to her, leaning for a moment quite heavily against her as the bus lurched away.

'Sorry,' he said, and then, 'Vanessa? It is Vanessa, isn't it? Almost didn't recognise you.' A quick, apologetic smile. 'Miles away.'

He was holding out his hand.

'Steve. Steve Kennet. I used to -'

'I know, I know.'

'Haven't seen you since… must be ages. Couple of years, at least.'

Vanessa nodded and said nothing. One of the last times she'd seen Steve Kennet, one evening in the pub, when Maddy had gone to the loo he'd leaned across and said, 'How about meeting up one night, just the two of us? What d'you think?' Afterwards he'd tried to pass it off as a joke, but she'd never been sure.

'Terrible, wasn't it?' he said now. 'What happened to Maddy. Couldn't believe it when I first heard. You don't think, do you? Someone you know.'

Vanessa shook her head.

'So, anyway, where've you been?' Perkier now. 'Tonight, I mean. Not working, I hope?'

'Cinema.'

'Anything good?'

'Not really.'

'Pirates of the Caribbean,' Kennet said. 'You seen that?'

'No.'

'It's good. A laugh, you know?'

'That what you saw tonight?'

'Me? No. Just out for a drink, few beers.'

Vanessa looked out of the window. They were moving slowly along Kentish Town Road, passing close to where she worked. Superimposed on the upper storeys of buildings she could see Kennet's reflection, the thickness of his hair, the collar of his leather jacket turned up against his neck, his eyes watching her. At Tufnell Park she made as if to get up.

'This isn't your stop,' Kennet said.

'Isn't it?'

'Not unless you've moved.'

'How do you know where I live, anyway?'

'We walked past there one night, remember? You and Maddy and me. Going back to her place. That's my street, you said.'

'Well,' Vanessa said, standing. 'Not any more.'

He swung his legs out into the aisle, leaving just enough room to let her pass.

'I'll get off if you like. Walk you home.'

'Don't bother.'

She just made it down the stairs before the doors closed. She stopped herself from looking back up at the bus as it drew away, knowing she would see his face at the window, looking down. She had bought herself a good twenty-minute walk and why? Because she'd been uncomfortable sitting pressed up next to him, certain that any moment he would say something she didn't want to hear, a proposition of some kind?

Two-thirds of the way along Junction Road, she turned right down St John's Grove, cutting through. At the end of her own street, she hesitated, then quickened her pace; it was only as she neared the short path leading to her front door that it occurred to her Kennet might have been the man standing in shadow outside her house a few nights before.

The keys slipped from her hand.

Her skin froze.

Only with the door finally open, did she turn.

Nothing, nobody there.

Vanessa, she said to herself, for God's sake get a grip.

In bed less than fifteen minutes later, she lay listening to each sound; another hour almost before she finally drifted off to sleep.