The Detective's Daughter

21

Thursday, 13 January 2011

Stella had made her decision; she steeled herself to leave the pub. The man and his parents had already gone. The empty bottle and glasses took her by surprise; she had not seen them leave. Terry missed nothing, however trivial. The barman had disappeared and the three men had moved to a table.

In 1981 the doors and windows were open and the place filled with punters, but no one had heard Kate’s screams or shouts from the river – if she had called for help.

Stella picked up her rucksack and passing the man in Paul’s jacket glanced back to find he was looking at her.

It was still snowing and sharp gusts of wind were bitterly cold. Across the road was the house that she had read once belonged to people called Glyde. The mother was unlikely to be alive, she would be about ninety and the potter-daughter had probably sold up. Stella would check the phone list in the morning and if the Glydes were still there she would get the admin assistant to do a card drop in the street. It would be a way to get in, see what was what. Plus the potter might say something new. Jackie would approve, supposing it was for marketing purposes. If a job came out of it, all the better.

She paused to do up her coat and against her better judgement – for it felt tantamount to sticking a bag over her head – raised her hood.

A footpath along the bank was edged by a wall of arched windows draped with ivy heavy with clumps of snow. The wall was all that remained of a wheatgerm-processing factory demolished around the time Stella was born. Terry had complained about the smell of yeast in the mornings. Or had he? Stella had heard a radio piece about a study that found many childhood memories of events that adults hold dear have never happened. She had wondered how they could know this. She did not know what in her past had or had not taken place; she did not have cherished recollections, real or otherwise.

The pub sign – a ram with curling horns – was buffeted by the wind, the high-pitched squeaking eerie in the snowbound quiet. The clock on St Peter’s Church’s spire read ten forty. If she left now Stella could be home in twenty minutes; she could process Jack Harmon’s details, compile tomorrow’s To Do list, answer Jackie’s queries – they had not had their morning meeting since Terry’s death – and do her emails. Tomorrow she could cold-call the new mailing list and compile a recruitment advert. She could forget about Terry’s unsolved case.

The steps to the river were muddy and unlit; it would be more sensible to come in the light, but that would mean a special journey. Since she was here she might as well take a look.

There were three steps up as a flood defence: an odd feature that Stella had seen before as if in a dream. The streetlight did not reach beyond them, so, edging into the inky darkness, she relied on her key-ring torch to make out terrain that although familiar from the photographs was quite different at night.

The tide had ebbed. This was lucky: she had not considered it might be in; she almost wished it had been so that she could legitimately leave. The torch beam did not extend to the shore. Out in the blackness water lapped, in and out, and the odour of river mud filled her nostrils.

She put the same boot down each time, nervous of falling, not moving until sure of her footing. In the daytime Kate would have had more confidence, oblivious of the danger awaiting her.

A hollow whistle, long and steady, carried out across the river. It reminded Stella of the sound she had heard on the motorway the night that Terry died and it chilled her to her bones.

Unsteadily she raked the beam in a lighthouse sweep across the beach. It caught the sundry detritus of snaps and splinters of wood and plastic, frayed and knotted coils of rope bound by a veil of scum. A muffled shape on the surface of the river drifted through the light. She heard the whistle again. Wind was passing over the neck of a bottle sunk in mud; Stella let herself breathe.

Seconds later a rush of wind unwound her scarf and ripped it from her and in a bid to catch it she teetered, sploshing in icy water, mindful that beneath its soupy surface the current was strong and unpredictable. She struggled up the slope and fell on to something that yielded beneath her palm: a car tyre trapped her foot.

‘That’s it. Lift it so it’s under your arms. There. That was easy, wasn’t it? Come over to the edge. When I say “Jump”, you jump, OK? The ring will keep you floating. I’m here to catch you.’ Stella held the ring obediently. It was the only one in the shop, and was for an older child. Her thin arms just reached over the sides. She jumped exactly when he said the word.

Behind her the wall seemed to pitch forward; the driving snowflakes were disorientated her. At her feet her torchlight caught stones, beer-bottle tops and drink-can rings. Here the lack of snow and sodden ground told her that the tide had not long been out. On a plank of rotting timber she distinguished ‘KE P TO TH RI HT’ in red where the paint had not flaked, the instruction fading as the snow fell faster. Too late she pulled the cord in her hood tight, for water had got in and was trickling down her neck.

She forced herself to focus on her surroundings. Behind her was the garden wall of the house where the two Glyde women had lived in 1981. It was about fifteen feet high and fringed with foliage, a bulbous white in the darkness. Next door a glass panel reinforced with metal replaced the trellis described in the report. There were no footholds on the wall; Kate would have had no means of escape. The Sergeant’s report had stated that from the garden it was only possible to see the beach by leaning far over the wall. Stella was determined to see inside for herself; Terry had the right to go into the house but she had no such right. She would have to find a way.

Kate Rokesmith’s body had been found close to the wall, hard by the steps. Stella had read how, other than the towpath on the south side, it was only possible – assuming there had been no one with binoculars on a boat – to see the beach from public gardens towards the bridge and from the yacht club pontoon. Except no one had.

The area was secluded and few people would know of its existence. The killer had to be local: with his flimsy alibi everything pointed to Hugh Rokesmith. It must, Stella guessed, have infuriated Terry that a guilty man was living his life unpunished.

She stepped out of the shelter of the retaining wall and was hit by a squall; snow blinded her and stung her cheeks. Her hand could not find purchase on the slimy brick and she dropped her key-ring torch. The wind made a sound that was almost human and smacked at her anorak.

With her hood up, Stella did not hear the scrape of shoe leather on the Bell Steps.

At just after ten o clock, the flood tide began at London Bridge. In a few hours the river would fill and water would wash over the snatch of land near the Ram and engulf the first five of the Bell Steps. The snow would slide off smooth granite and float off in the icy water.

Not all movements were tricks of the eye.

A crunch of stones. A tin was kicked. A dark shape glided over the mud; there was the sound of shoes squelching and releasing with a voluble sucking.

A light swooped down and was extinguished.

Stella fumbled for the torch, her hands slathered with snow and mud. Her fingers grazed the spindle of a key. She snatched for it, missed, tried again and grabbed the bunch. It jingled and gave away her position.

She was out of sight and earshot of the lane where there were few passers-by anyway; by now the pub had closed. The three men, heading for the subway, would not give her a thought. If she shouted, her voice would be lost in the wind.

The steps were not the only way up to the road. She could go along the beach to Chiswick Eyot.

Someone was standing on the spot where Kate was murdered.

Flakes flew at her like flies and, reckless, she plunged into the darkness. All the time the snow fell silently around her, covering the ground. Stella wrenched back her hood. She could see no sign of the eyot: she had underestimated the distance. Twice she splashed into water, veering into the shallows – or was the tide coming in?

If she could get to the eyot she could double back to the Mall and slip up a side street to the van as she had on the day she bent her mudguard. Was it the same man? She wished for her bike now.

Keep to the right.

The snow camouflaged dips and drops in the ground and she nearly turned her ankle, her boots heavy with freezing water swilling around her, slowing each step. The tide was almost to the wall, the water deeper. If she went further she would be cut off. She had no choice but to go back.

She saw nothing but dark feathery shapes pursuing her and struck out for the river. He would expect her to keep to the wall. Again her boots were submerged and she could not avoid splashing. He would hear. Careless of where she stepped, keeping the hazy image of Hammersmith Bridge ahead, she struggled forward.

Above the pounding of blood in her ears she heard him, jumping and hopping from one stone to the next in the furred darkness, heading her off.

She could see the Bell Steps, but in the driving snow they got no nearer. She had lost her scarf, her neck was cold and above the gentle trickle of the approaching tide washing over the stones, her anorak swished with each step, marking her position.

Breath, sour with alcohol, warmed her cheek, hands held her tight and frogmarched her to the wall.

Stella saw Jackie at her sunlit desk – the only person who would care about where Stella was – before absorbing the numb realization: It’s over.