Taste of Blood

Chapter Sixteen

The following morning, before going to the station, Jane called the number she had for Angelica Martinez, but there was no answer. She then called the care home and was eventually put through to her.

‘Hi, it’s Jane Tennison. I was just wondering if I could have a quick chat with you, not now, but when it’s convenient.’

‘I’m at work until after lunch.’

‘I could come and collect you.’

‘Well, I have an appointment this afternoon at two, so I was going to go straight there from work.’

‘This appointment, it’s not with Vera James by any chance, is it?’ Jane asked.

‘Yes, it is!’ Angelica said brightly.

‘You know, after you gave me her card, I went to see her myself. I have to say I was very impressed,’ Jane said. ‘I could give you a lift there this afternoon, if you like.’

Angelica hesitated before replying. ‘That’s very kind, but it might not be permissible to bring someone. Perhaps I should ring her first.’

‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ Jane said quickly. ‘I’m not just someone. I’m sure she won’t mind.’

‘Oh, OK then. I will be waiting by the main gates, just after one o’clock.’

‘Great,’ Jane said. ‘I’ll see you later.’ She paused. ‘Oh, one other thing. Could you let me have your ex-husband’s phone number? It’s just to do with some details of the property purchase, nothing to worry about.’

‘Well, I’m not sure... we haven’t been on very good terms, and I haven’t spoken to him for a while.’ She sounded nervous and Jane wondered if she’d pushed her luck too far.

‘I understand, but it’s just admin really, nothing personal.’

‘I suppose that would be all right. Can I call you back? My address book’s in my handbag which is in the locker room.’

‘Yes, of course, I’ll wait. I am at home, not the station.’

After giving her the number, Jane hung up. She was excited, but at the same time worried that gatecrashing Angelica Martinez’s appointment with Vera might cause trouble for her.

Taking a shower and washing her hair, she kept the bathroom door open to enable her to hear the bedroom extension if it rang. It was another thing that Eddie had organised, and the thought made her sad for a moment. She was finishing blow-drying her hair when the phone rang. She sat down on the bed to pick up the receiver.

‘Hello?’

‘Is this Miss Tennison?’

‘Speaking.’

‘Victor Hoffman here. My ex-wife contacted me. You wished to speak to me?’

Surprised that Miss Martinez had called him, she sat up on the edge of the bed, opening a small drawer in her bedside cabinet.

‘This is very kind of you. I hope it is not inconvenient.’

She grabbed a pencil and notepad from the drawer.

‘Not at all. We are just one hour difference. And it is more private here at my home before I go to work.’

He had a strong German accent and sounded very formal.

‘What is it that you wished to discuss with me?’

‘I don’t know if your ex-wife told you that I have been working on a case that involved one of your old neighbours.’

‘I’m not sure. We had a very brief conversation.’

Jane found her pencil and opened the notebook. ‘I can’t go into details, but I need to know exactly when you sold the courtyard to Mr and Mrs Larsson.’

‘It is very simple. We rarely if ever used the courtyard, and we would have had to maintain the area for the other properties’ use. It required extensive resurfacing.’

‘Wouldn’t it have been better financially to have retained the rights to the courtyard if your intention was to sell?’

There was a pause as he took a deep breath.

‘I don’t feel that I should have to explain to you my reasons; as I said earlier, it would have been costly to maintain not only the courtyard but also the drive. I also had personal reasons for wanting to extricate myself from residing in England and required certain finances. So I agreed a simple cash transaction with the Larssons; and as it turned out, I sold our property quite quickly to a Mr Caplan.’

‘I understand, because I am aware you were getting divorced and...’

‘There were other issues, and I was under a great deal of pressure that involved my son.’

‘Sebastian?’

‘Yes, he was unfortunately having a relationship with the daughter of one of our neighbours.’

‘Have you seen him recently?’

‘No, I have not. We arranged for him to leave before the house was sold and he went to Mexico. I don’t know what Angelica has told you, but my relationship with Sebastian had become very strained. He found the move from Germany difficult... he was such a talented musician but couldn’t settle at the school...’

‘Angelica seems deeply concerned about him,’ Jane said.

‘I know, she always has been overprotective of him, to the point of being suffocating, and I partly blamed her for the situation. The girl was underage and I was threatened that he could be arrested... they wanted him gone, and in truth so did I...’

Hoffman sighed, and Jane knew enough to stay silent.

‘I simply wanted to get out of England, out from my divorce. I am presently working for my brother and in a good relationship, but at the same time I am saddened for Angelica, who remains in a kind of vacuum waiting for Sebastian to come to her. He is everything to her. He looked like her first husband and she never got over his death, but I had to try and get my life back on track.’ He paused. ‘I hope that answers your enquiries.’

Jane had been scribbling notes, but had still not got what she was after, and it felt as if Victor was about to end the call.

‘Just one more thing. You have been very helpful, and I really appreciate your time, but I just need to clarify something. Did you agree to sell the courtyard to the Larssons because of the relationship between your son and their daughter?’

‘Well, that is partly true. Fortunately, I was insured to cover the damage from the fire, but not enough to make the necessary repairs to the roof and the first floor. So I needed the money also.’

Jane remained on the phone for another five minutes. She managed to get from Hoffman the dates the transaction went through, but he refused to tell her the amount he had been paid. He also confirmed the arrangement for Sebastian to fly to Mexico.

When the phone call was over, she hurried down the stairs to the kitchen to double-check in her file. She had two further outstanding queries, underlining them in red felt-tipped pen.

Jane chose a grey cashmere sweater, and one of her best suits, and was just selecting a pair of shoes when she heard some loud hammering outside. Looking out of her bedroom window, she saw Eddie’s old white van parked outside. She was in two minds whether to go out, but as her car was parked next to the van, he would know she was at home, and realised it would seem churlish of her not to go and talk to him.

Letting herself out of the backdoor, she saw the garden shed open. There was a step ladder propped up outside.

‘Eddie?’

One of his workmen came out from the shed with a plank of wood.

‘Morning, miss, I’m just collecting the cans of emulsion. I’ve already taken out a lot of gear, and he wants the ladder.’

Jane frowned. ‘It would have been polite to inform me first, but carry on.’

‘I just need to hammer this in place. The fence needs quite a lot of new sections, but this should sort it out for now. Bloke next door’s worried about his dog getting through because it could run down the alley and onto the road.’

Jane was about to return to the house when she saw Vi. She was wearing a long flannel nightdress and had bare feet.

‘Vi, where’s Gerry?’

She put her hands to her ears, her face crumpled. ‘The hammering. I can’t stand the noise.’

Jane turned to Eddie’s workman. ‘Excuse me, I’m sorry I don’t know your name, but can you just stop for a minute, I need to go next door.’

‘It’s Don... I’ll take the ladder out and then come back.’

Jane hurried down the alley and turned into next door’s front garden. The gate was open and so was their front door. She stepped inside, calling out for Gerry, but there was no reply, so she went down the hall to go into their kitchen just as he appeared.

‘I’m here, I’m here, sorry about this, but Wilma got out and ran up the road. Eddie’s friend said he’d help out and block the gap in the fence.’

Gerry had the runaway in his arms, and she was wearing one of Jane’s old sweaters, its skinny front legs protruding from rolled-up sleeves, the rest wound around her trembling body.

‘Vi’s in the garden. I think the hammering frightened her.’

Wilma was thrust into Jane’s arms and immediately began to whimper as Gerry hurried down the hall and into the kitchen.

‘Shush... shush... it’s all right.’

Gerry returned after a moment, holding Vi’s hand as if she were a child. As soon as she saw Jane with Wilma she broke into a beaming smile.

‘My doggy, my baby.’

Jane thought Gerry was so gentle and calm as he took his wife into the drawing room. ‘You can have her with you as soon as you are in your chair and wrapped up nice and warm,’ he said.

Vi was helped into a big armchair with an attached footrest, a duvet was tucked around her, and then a blanket. She held out her arms, her hands clutching, as Gerry took Wilma from Jane and lifted a flap of the blanket to tuck the dog inside beside his wife.

‘Baby, baby, back,’ Vi said, smiling.

‘You be gentle with her, Vi, stroke her softly and she’ll go to sleep.’

It was touching the way the dog snuggled close, one little paw over the edge of the blanket.

Gerry turned to Jane. ‘Can I get you a cup of tea?’

‘No thanks, Gerry. I’ve got to get to work.’

He walked with her to the front door.

‘It was my fault she got out. I thought Eddie was back so I went to see if he could help with the fence, but it was Don and I left the door open.’

‘He’s making it escape-proof now. He stopped hammering when Vi came out, but I’ll tell him to finish.’

‘Very kind of you, can you give him...’ He reached into his pocket for his wallet, but Jane quickly told him that she would take care of it, and that he should go back to be with Vi until the hammering stopped.

Don accepted two pounds from Jane and said he would only take another ten minutes to fix the board against the fence. She locked the kitchen door, annoyed that Eddie was intent on keeping his distance. After all, he had walked out on her.

Jane didn’t want to go back to the station and explain that she was going to see Vera, so called in sick, explaining that she had a migraine. To kill some time before meeting with Angelica Martinez, Jane selected clothes for the dry cleaners, and then went to collect the laundry. She parked outside the care home main gates at twelve forty-five, having bought herself a takeaway coffee and a chicken roll at the bakery next door to the dry cleaners. She watched people coming and going, the gates manned by the same elderly gent. She was just finishing her roll when she saw Angelica Martinez inside the gates, waiting for them to be opened. She was wearing her hair in the same style as before, two thick braids wound round her head, but this time threaded with an emerald-green silk scarf.

Jane gave the horn a single toot and Angelica crossed the road and got in the car, giving Jane a warm smile before closing the door.

‘I had a very good conversation with Victor earlier this morning,’ Jane said as she pulled away.

‘Yes, I thought it best that I should call him as he had so many different numbers, so he could contact you directly.’

‘He was very concerned about you still being in London.’

‘I know, he said I should return to Mexico, and I will sometime.’

‘Do you still have family there?’

‘I have a brother who runs a restaurant in Puerto Vallarta. But he did not approve of my first husband, so we have not been on good terms.’

‘What about Victor?’

She let out a throaty laugh. ‘No, nobody liked Victor.’

Jane glanced at her watch. They were going to be early for the two o’clock appointment, but she continued to drive towards Swanley.

‘I asked Victor if he had seen Sebastian.’

‘I used to call him every week until he became angry and said that he had never received any call or seen him since he left to go to Berlin. So, I stopped. I always doubted that my son would want to see him, but there was just a possibility.’

Jane drew up outside a small cafe and asked if Angelica would like a coffee, as they had fifteen minutes before her appointment.

‘I’m fine, thank you. Tell me about your session with Vera.’

Jane thought for a moment. ‘It was quite emotional. She talked about my brother. I hardly knew him, he was just a toddler when he died, so I rarely think about him. She told me to pass on a message to my parents.’

Angelica nodded. ‘Only those who have a connection to you and have passed come forwards. When my beloved husband came through, it was an answer to my prayers. She described him wearing a white scarf around his head. When he was working on intricate silver items on his machine, he would use the scarf to protect his face from sparks. To know he was at peace... to know his love for me had never diminished...’

‘So does he still come forwards?’

‘Oh yes, many times. He wants to know about Sebastian.’

Jane started the car. That meant that Angelica’s husband was on the other side but not Sebastian, meaning that he was alive. If she really believed in all this, then her suspicions were unfounded.