The Detective's Daughter

23

Friday, 14 January 2011

The buzzer went. Stella flicked a dishcloth over the counter and draped it on the dish-rack. She stopped to straighten it unhurriedly; it would be Paul. She would let him in and get it over with. She dried her hands and squirted a bead of hand moisturizer into her palm from a wall-mounted dispenser. On her way through the sitting room, she did an unconscious sweep for anything she did not want him to see. The files. She scooped up the papers, crammed them in the boxes and put them behind the table next to her rucksack. She decided to leave her laptop; it gave nothing away.

Apart from the furniture there was nothing else, although Stella did not consider that the picture-less walls, uninterrupted grey carpet, and bland, blond furnishings would reveal more to any visitor than an empty coffee mug, pieces of opened post or a battalion of ornaments could. She nudged a coaster in line with another.

Paul had his back to the security camera lens almost out of shot. Stella spoke into the receiver: ‘Hello.’ She released the lock; the figure vanished and through the intercom she heard the thud of the lobby door.

A rat-a-tat-tat inches from her face made her jump and instinctively retreat along the passage. Paul had run up the stairs. Not for the first time she was grateful there was no letterbox. She regretted letting him in. He did not knock again, but he was still there. She pattered back to the door and squinted through the spy hole.

She was staring at Jack Harmon.

She opened the door suddenly and was gratified to see him start with surprise.

He was dressed the same as the day before: black wool trousers, a black polo neck and a baggy black jacket draped from his thin frame as from a hanger. His leather shoes – Crockett & Jones’ Oxfords – surprised her for despite scuffed toes and frayed laces they lent substance to the unkempt appearance.

‘I said not to come.’

‘I’ve brought your scarf.’ He hung it on a hook in the little vestibule by the door and stalked past her down the passage, behaving as if he was at home. Stella hurried after him into the living room.

Landing with a crash, like a small boy, Harmon sprawled on the sofa, one leg dangling over the arm, the plastic covering protesting as he wriggled to get comfortable. Although he had shaved and washed his hair, she was relieved that Ivan Challoner was unlikely to meet him and hoped that any encounter would take place after she had issued Jack with his Clean Slate uniform.

At nine Jackie had rung to relate what she had missed at work the day before. Stella told her she would be sorting out Terry’s house which might go on until Monday so would take no calls. She wanted to say this applied particularly to Paul, nor must Jackie take pity on him and make him tea in the office, but could not bear to say his name or think about him. Jackie had been pleased that Stella was getting on with her father’s things and had offered to help, which made Stella guilty because she had never lied to Jackie. Now it occurred to her that were Harmon to attack her, no one would know he had been here. No one would hear and the flat, equipped with every cleaning agent, was an ideal space in which to erase all trace of violent crime. She dismissed the thought.

‘What’s the point of this?’ Jack slapped the plastic on the sofa.

‘It protects the fabric. Look, thanks for bringing the scarf, but—’

‘From what?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘If you never take off the cover, it’s a plastic sofa.’

‘Now you’re here, do you want tea or coffee?’ Stella had bought the sofa at a good price simply for sitting on. Plastic could be wiped down and she would do so after Jack Harmon had gone.

‘I don’t drink tea or coffee.’

‘Let’s get to business then.’ Stella pulled out a chair from under the dining table and reached down for the file boxes.

‘Please could I have a glass of milk?’

In the kitchen Stella poured half of what little was left in the pint container into a glass and took it back to Jack. He drained it in one go and wiped the milky moustache off his upper lip with the sleeve of his coat.

A film of condensation on the window pane merged the sky, the river, the trees and the snow into a stratified white-grey mass. With a plastic squeak, Jack leapt up, holding the empty glass and rubbed the pane with the milk-stained sleeve. Through the porthole the only movement in an otherwise static scene was a cyclist speeding along the towpath on the far bank. This angle was unfamiliar to Stella; she was never here in the day and, preferring to eat at the kitchen counter, had not until now sat at the table.

‘This isn’t everything surely?’ It was not a question. Harmon settled himself at the head of the table and waved a hand at the two boxes beside Stella’s laptop.

‘The rest is at the house.’

Harmon sighed. ‘Have you been through them?’

‘I read the docket which contains the report Terry wrote, and an index to the papers with a front sheet listing reasons officers gave for signing the file out of the General Registry.’

From the depths of his overcoat Jack Harmon produced an envelope of tobacco bound with an elastic band and set about rolling a cigarette with nicotine-stained fingers while he read.

He laid the completed cigarette in a slim silver cigarette case where three others were already in a row and read on. Soon he had made six cigarettes and had nearly finished Terry’s report. He was fast. After a bit, without taking his eyes from the page, he shrugged out of his coat, letting it fall over his chair. Stella wanted to hang it up in the hall, but was not keen to touch it.

She took out some papers from the second box and prepared to work, but he had her notes and, besides, she couldn’t concentrate. The angular pale man was like a ghost in her flat, the bleak morning light emphasizing his cheekbones and racoon circles around his eyes. He scanned her pages of neat script, sniffing at intervals.

A box of tissues lay beside a flat-screen television and DVD player on the shelf unit. Next to these were various illustrated books on plants and flowers that, despite her having no garden, Terry kept giving her. Stella fetched them and put them beside Jack but he ignored her.

‘You have been thorough,’ he murmured eventually. It had taken him twenty minutes, and still disgruntled at him being there at all Stella was tempted to test him.

‘So you are carrying on where your dad left off?’ He rolled another cigarette although the case was full. Suddenly Stella knew where she had smelled the tobacco before.

She dragged her rucksack out from under the table and found the plastic bag in one of the many zipped side pockets. She shook the squashed cigarette end out on to the glass top.

‘You’ve been to Mrs Ramsay’s.’ She managed a whisper. ‘You were in her house. I thought this was hers.’

Jack licked along the strip of paper with a tongue coated yellow, and looked at the filter. ‘Yes, that is mine.’ He shot her a boyish grin. ‘I was using it as a bookmark.’

‘I assumed she was going mad when she said someone was there.’ Stella gripped the sides of her chair. ‘She was telling me about you. I ignored her.’ She swallowed hard.

‘I wouldn’t beat yourself up. Isabel lived in another time and I literally “played” along. She was happier with men and children. You gave her what she wanted too.’

‘I was supposed to be there, I was invited.’ Mrs Ramsay had not invited her; she paid her on a monthly basis to be in her house.

‘So was I. The difference being, no money changed hands.’ He was haughty.

‘The police think she was murdered.’

‘Since when did you believe the police?’

‘There’ll be proof you were there, a fingerprint, a—’

‘A cigarette rich with DNA?’ He flicked the butt at her. It spun over the polished wood and landed in Stella’s lap. ‘The book was a message for you. I was too clever there, it was lucky you turned up when you did.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Our Mutual Friend, but you ignored the sign. I realize now that the direct approach works better with you.’ He gave a throaty laugh.

‘She said she heard doors creaking, and the fifth stair, and she fretted about children playing: in the basement, the garden. She got scared – and all the time it was you.’ Stella remembered how Mrs Ramsay had been tormented by losing stuff; she had tried to tell Stella but Stella had humoured her and congratulated herself on doing a few extra hours for nothing. Mrs Ramsay had known she was being mollified; she never waved goodbye.

‘We can’t work together if you break the law.’

‘I was invited. How is that breaking the law? Besides, you’re not so squeaky clean. Compromising a crime scene? When did you plan to hand this evidence to Cashman? You shouldn’t even have been there, but hey, special treatment for the detective’s daughter! As I said last night, we are a match.’ He brandished Terry’s report: ‘Did you see, your dad was the last person to take the file out.’

‘Yes.’

‘Monday, the twenty-second of June 2009 at three p.m.’

‘He retired on the Friday of that week.’

Jack sniffed. ‘It must be when he copied it.’

‘He would have had to give a reason.’

‘Says here that he was going to see the man who found the body: a Charles Jenkins.’ Jack was matter of fact.

Stella typed the name into Google, adding ‘Rokesmith’ to narrow the search.

‘Jenkins died in 2010 aged eighty-five, he’d had Alzheimer’s for fifteen years.’ She pointed at her screen. ‘Says he never got over finding her and took early retirement. Odd that Terry bothered talking to him. Kate was dead when he found her.’

‘Jenkins might have lied. If you were a murderer, wouldn’t a great way to deflect suspicion be to pretend you found the corpse of the victim you’d just killed?’

‘Too much of a risk.’ Stella wished the theory hadn’t come to Jack so easily.

‘Anyway, Jenkins was only Terry’s excuse to see the files. He could have written anything, he was the boss, no one questioned him.’

‘He stuck to the rules,’ Stella snapped. Jack was right; she had been granted respect and leeway because of Terry. Cashman had trusted her: a trust that was misplaced; she would not help the police. Terry had been working alone: the rules he stuck to were his own. She did not say this.

Jack returned to the sofa and flopped down, scrutinizing the list. ‘It was accessed in December 1992. Someone reported a blue Ford Anglia on the North End Road in Fulham. “The vehicle was registered to a sixty-four-year-old spinster resident in Munster Road. Miss Joan Fellows. She had bought a 1967 model second-hand in 1975 and in 1981 was deputy head at a primary school off the Fulham Road.” So what?’

‘That’s the computer doing it’s job: it is matching it with a blue car, possibly a Ford Anglia, seen by a witness.’ Stella rifled through her notes. ‘Mrs Hammond, aged seventy-four, coming out of Black Lion Lane that day. She was on the Great West Road going to the Broadway, so it was a glimpse. Might have been nothing, but it can’t be eliminated until someone comes forward. The fact that no one has, despite the publicity, makes it likely to be suspicious. Hugh Rokesmith drove a blue car.’

‘So?’

‘It’s clear Rokesmith did it.’

‘Boring!’ Jack jabbed at the plastic on the sofa. ‘You’ve made up your mind. Why go on?’

‘I was thinking the same thing.’

‘Wasn’t that why the police failed? Deciding the guy was guilty and forcing everything to fit their theory.’ He sniffed. ‘What about having an open mind?’

‘There’s no mystery. It’s obvious he did it, motive, opportunity, means…’

‘Motive? What did he gain? The police had nothing: he wasn’t even on bail.’ He poked at the plastic again. ‘This is no fun, you’re not doing it properly.’

‘He remained a suspect. It says so.’ Stella waved her notes. ‘They had no evidence. His mother was his alibi; naturally she was protecting him. Hugh Rokesmith had a high-flying career, building bridges all over the world, all that was in jeopardy. She perjured herself to save her son’s career.’

‘His work dried up, and it’s impossible to be in two places at once. The police got that right, yet still you think him guilty.’

‘He left at ten thirty, what was he doing for forty-five minutes?’ She batted at the box of tissues.

‘Like it says here: sitting by Kew Bridge doing calculations in peace. He was a busy man, he rarely got time to himself.’

‘We only have his word for that, no one saw him.’ Terry knew Rokesmith had got away with it. ‘I have a client in Strand on the Green; it takes a minimum of fifteen minutes to get there. Half an hour to plan a bridge? I don’t think so!’

It had taken her slightly less time to drive between the two points but she would not give Jack’s theory that Rokesmith was innocent ammunition; he was taking over.

‘Maybe you’d like to explain why you broke into Mrs Ramsay’s house.’

‘I didn’t.’ Jack sucked ruminatively on the arm of his glasses and perused other papers. ‘She was my friend. More than that really.’ He looked up. ‘By the way, why do we think you didn’t murder Isabel?’

‘What did I have to gain? I’ve lost a client. I will have to tell the police about you.’

‘Can we stop? You have no time for your dad’s army and you’d have to explain why you purloined valuable evidence. What do they call it… obstructing officers…?’

‘… in the execution of their duty.’

‘Exactement!’ He put on a French accent and twirled his spectacles happily. ‘Like me – like Terry – you prefer to work alone.’ He shuffled the papers and Stella caught a trace of Terry’s aftershave. ‘You’ve changed the habit of a lifetime letting me help and we’ll only succeed if we approach it like a, well, like a clean slate. Don’t be high-horsey!’

Stella covered up a yawn. Over the last days she had slept little more than eight hours and hardly recognized herself. Her previous self would not have given the time of day to Jack, let alone allowed him into her flat. Terry’s death had thrown everything up in the air.

‘You have the mind of a forensic scientist. Like a detective you will leave no stone unturned.’ Jack closed the cigarette case with a snap. ‘Don’t squander that with blinkered thinking.’

Harmon was right; she had made up her mind. Jackie said Stella jumped to conclusions. Her mother accused Terry of shutting his ears to any other point of view.

‘What mind have you got?’

I have the mind of a murderer.

Her mobile rang and without meaning to she answered.

‘Hello there, Stella. How are you on this Arctic Friday?’

She could not place the voice.

‘It’s Ivan Challoner. I do hope I’m not disturbing you.’ His tone was intimate, the voice so close he could have been in the next room.

‘I’m in a meeting, but it’s fine, unless you’re ringing to say I need another filling.’

‘Your teeth are perfect! I hadn’t thought of cleaners having meetings.’ Paul would have made this sound patronising.

Stella stepped into the passage. ‘You’re not with patients?’ Ivan was easy to talk to. Trailing towards the front door, she felt a coil of excitement.

‘In a moment. The only promise I made to myself as a student that I have kept is not to work on Mondays or at the weekend. I’ll be quick to let you get back: would you join me for dinner on Monday?’

Stella agreed to meet him at a French restaurant by Kew station. Unlike Paul’s first suggestion of a burger, nothing in Challoner’s manner implied it was a date. If he had been flirtatious she might not have accepted his invitation.

She returned to the room, her mood lighter, where she found the sight of Jack Harmon, leafing through her notes, his wire-framed glasses perched on his nose peculiarly reassuring.

‘You lie with impunity,’ he murmured.

‘You should not be eavesdropping. Besides, I am in a meeting.’

He turned a page. ‘I’m thinking it would be wise not to tell anyone about this, including your new man.’

‘I wasn’t planning to and Ivan Challoner is a client, as you know.’

Jack snatched off his glasses, an action that reminded Stella of Terry. ‘Perhaps don’t let that man – Paul – get wind of it. He was totally in the thrall of the green-eyed monster.’

‘I won’t see him again.’

‘Like I said, he won’t give up on you that easily.’ Jack flapped the sheet he was reading. ‘Isabel Ramsay was the last person to see Katherine Rokesmith alive. It’s a coincidence her being your client and your dad’s star witness. He never mentioned her to you? Did you seek her out?’

Stella did not admit that, despite reading the notes, until Cashman told her, she had not realized that Mrs Ramsay was so important a witness.

‘Of course not. Her daughter contacted us initially; Mrs Ramsay was dead set against a cleaner. I never talked to Terry about work, his or mine. And if you were close, how come she didn’t tell you?’

‘She did,’ he replied simply. ‘Read this.’ He pushed a slip of newspaper towards her.

It was dated Monday, 21 May 2007. Stella had missed it.

‘They are guarding against the son doing them for libel or they’d come right out and say Rokesmith did it. I found a website in the States that said a previously normal man is more likely to kill his wife if he finds out she’s having an affair, especially if she was younger than him and good-looking. I’ve written it somewhere.’ Stella picked up her notes. ‘An affair can be the last straw.’

‘What makes you think Katherine Rokesmith was having an affair?’

‘I’m guessing. Like you said, keeping an open mind.’

‘Let’s stick to facts. For example, did you know that a bunch of flowers is always by Katherine’s grave?’

The way Jack referred to Kate as ‘Katherine’ was getting on Stella’s nerves, it made Kate distant and unreachable.

‘How do you know?’

‘It’s here. Terry’s put it in the margin of his report. It must be recent, he could not have known at the time.

Stella looked closer and, sure enough, there were the words with a date three weeks before Terry’s death scrawled beside them. ‘Flowers by grave, check.’ She had read them before but had made little of it; flowers were often by graves, it was no big deal.

‘Who’s putting them there?’ Jack asked.

‘All we need to do is keep a watch on the grave.’

‘They appear at odd times with no apparent pattern.’

‘Have there been any since the husband died?’

‘I’m presuming so, if you go by the date of Terry’s marginalia.’

‘That doesn’t prove anything. It may not be the killer, it’s more likely to be a cranky well-wisher. I clean for plenty of those.’ Stella stopped. Harmon had not answered her question. How did he know that the flowers were always there? Her mobile telephone rang and this time Stella checked the number; although unfamiliar she risked it: ‘Hello?’

‘Gina Cross. The police in their wisdom say my mother had an aneurism. She was not murdered. My husband says I should sue, but it’s paperwork and bother. So back to Plan A. I want your Platinum package as I see it includes outbuildings and attics. I want you to get going right away. Can you do that?’

‘I can send a team there now, we’ll go into the weekend.’ Stella signalled to Jack to put on his coat. Languidly he slid two more newly made cigarettes off the glass table top into his case.

‘I don’t want to pay double time.’

‘You won’t,’ Stella replied.

The buzzer went as they were leaving. Stella brought up the video and Paul’s contorted face filled the screen, his mouth moving – with the intercom off they couldn’t hear him – like a bloated fish pressing up to the glass of an aquarium.

‘Is there another way out?’ Jack was businesslike.

‘Only the stairs which come out in the lobby.’

‘A basement?’

‘It will be locked.’

‘Let’s not make that an obstacle.’ He shouldered his way through to the stairwell.

Less trouble had been taken in constructing the stairs and, racing down the eight short flights, their feet clattered on cheap tiles. At the ground floor they ducked below the window in the lobby door to avoid Paul seeing them and then took the last steps to the basement.

Jack tried the lever handle on a metal-plated door, but as Stella had anticipated it was locked. He groped under the alcove beneath the stairs and extracted a key dangling from a chain; he turned the key in the lock. When he depressed the handle again, it still did not move.

‘Lift it?’ Stella suggested.

He cranked it up forty-five degrees and the door gave way with a grinding shriek, tracing a rust-coloured curve in the stone. Stella stooped and rubbed it with her forefinger but it made no difference; it would need a stringent agent and could not be done by hand.

Jack removed the key and made the chain a bracelet around his wrist.

‘What are you doing?’

‘We might need it again.’

They were blasted by a fuggy heat when they went in and the dull hum that was ever present in the lobby grew loud. It came from a generator from which sprouted tentacles of pipes, some bare, others swaddled in silver; they were in the building’s engine room. In the centre stood the lift housing with a door giving into the shaft. A grubby notice tucked into a plastic folder listed the date of the last service: five months ago. Judging by fluff and dust coating the pipes, Stella doubted anyone had been down here since. When she moved in she had suggested that the basement be included on the cleaning rota – she knew the value of cleaning what is rarely seen – her request was ignored.

Jack had disappeared. She walked around the lift and found another door. He was already halfway down a breeze-block-lined passage. After twenty yards it turned to the left and stretched ahead to a dead end. Stella fumbled with her anorak and did up the zip; the temperature had dropped considerably.

Recessed into the wall on the right was another door; when she reached him, Jack was unwrapping the key chain from his wrist. He turned the key and cautiously pushed the door. They were confronted by a blast of icy air and dazzled by the glare of snow. An icicle had formed over the doorway, a sharp blade pointing downward; they stepped to the side and found themselves in the garage compound. They crept to the corner of the flats.

They saw Paul attempting to get around the other side of the block, presumably for a view of Stella’s kitchen. Any minute he would try their end of the building.

‘You have to stop him.’ Stella retreated and trod on Jack’s foot.

‘Me? How?’

In the stark daylight, Jack Harmon was paler still, lost within his black coat, puffing and stamping with cold. She worried that Paul would fold him up like a deckchair.

‘Pretend you live here. Take these.’ She stuffed her door keys into his hand.

‘He’ll recognize me.’

‘No, he won’t. It was dark last night and he was upset. He’s crap with faces. Let him inside.’

‘Into your flat?’

‘Of course not. Go into the lift with him and get out at a lower floor. Come out through the basement or he’ll see your footprints. Lock everything after you – and yes, keep the key.’

‘You think he’ll attempt to break in around the back?’

‘Yes I do, he’s not stupid. Now go or he’ll find us both!’

Jack put his collar up and sweeping a hand through his hair walked around the corner.

‘Oh, and Jack?’

‘What.’ He stamped a foot but did not look round.

‘Try to be nice. It’s possible Paul murdered Katherine Rokesmith.’

‘How do you make that out?’ Jack hissed.

‘He was in the area at the time and wasn’t interviewed.’

‘Now you tell me. Anything else I should know?’

‘Hurry!’

Stella watched Paul see Jack when he reached the path, sauntering towards him, kicking up scuffs of snow, the keys swinging carelessly, supposedly deep in thought. She noted that Jack Harmon was a consummate actor, giving no sign of having noticed Paul until he was at the door. Paul in the meantime had adopted the role of someone who had just arrived, exaggeratedly patting his pockets as if for keys. Apparently discovering that he did not have them, he hit the buzzer in the resigned manner of a person who hates to trouble others. He made instant way for Jack to indicate he did not expect to be admitted. Jack addressed him, as Paul must have known he would; in his work suit and staid Aquascutum mac he was every inch the man on legitimate business. Stella tried to hear the exchange. Jack laughed: a low modulated sound in the held silence. Then it seemed to her, peering along the side of the building, that the men walked like phantoms into the wall and were gone.

Stella grew cold and chilled further by creeping doubts; she shivered. She had given Jack her keys – what if he didn’t return? Paul might recognize him from last night, and if he had been following her he would have seen Jack too.

She started towards the lobby. If she pressed all the bells she could get help. Except so few people lived here it was unlikely anyone would answer. Anyway, what would happen next if she did? Panicked, she raced back to the basement door. It was locked. Suddenly the handle shot up. She pressed herself against the wall behind the door desperately hoping that Paul would not see her.

Jack appeared and saw Stella immediately.

‘You’re supposed to be getting the van – he’ll be here any second!’ Jack exclaimed through stained front teeth. Irrelevantly Stella thought he should visit a dentist.

‘You have the van key.’ She snatched the bunch off him and, skidding on the slippery ground, made for the garages. Responding to the remote control, the door rose with a prolonged screech.

Jack took up position by the flats. There was no sign of Paul.

Stella started up the van and shunted the gearstick into ‘drive’. The door shuddered its way down, narrowly missing the roof rack as she accelerated forward.

‘He’s outside!’ Jack mouthed to her and then more urgently: ‘He’s coming!’

He grabbed the van door, wrenched it open and threw himself in, jolting against Stella. He reached out to shut the door but it slipped from his fingers and swung wide when Stella swung the van to the left. It slammed shut when she veered to the right and sped down the drive, the wheels spinning. Jack pushed through to the rear and fell against a tub of detergent. He crouched out of sight.

‘Stella! It’s me, Paul!’ The shout broke the swaddled silence. ‘Sto-op.’

She squeezed on the accelerator, driving as fast as she dared, the tyres slithering on the ungritted surface. Too slowly the drive gates jerked apart. Paul lumbered down the path, clumsy in his smart clothes, yet he was gaining on them. He cut across the lawn and floundered into the ha-ha. Stella braked, her instinct to help him.

‘Keep going!’ Jack shouted from the back.

She trickled the van through the entrance. In her rear mirror she watched Paul clamber out of the hidden ditch and resume the chase. They had to wait for a break in the traffic. Paul was ten feet away; Jack stretched over the headrest and activated the central-locking system. A lorry flashed its lights and, waving acknowledgement, Stella slung the van out, missing Paul’s car by inches. He had parked it facing the other way and he would never catch up with them.

‘He didn’t recognize you?’

‘He was chatty. Rather a nice man, I thought.’ Jack struggled into his seat and did up the belt. ‘He asked if I knew you. I said only by sight and that you were mostly at work so I hardly saw you. I acted suspicious of him, which shut him up, although he did say “Good to meet you” when I got out. He’s a genuine guy.’

Stella drove on in silence.

Isabel Ramsay’s hedge resembled a gigantic meringue. One end of the police tape fluttered in the wind. There was no one around and the snow on her path was untrammelled.

Stella turned off the engine. The church bells struck quarter to midday. She glanced at Jack, but he was busy with rolling another cigarette. He lined it up with the rest. Nevertheless, she wondered if he was thinking that it was exactly this time when Kate Rokesmith set off for the river with her son thirty years ago.

Stella kept Mrs Ramsay’s keys on her own ring; she never knew when she might call. Chubb in hand she hurried up to the front door.

A bundle lay in the porch. Almost obscured by a drift of snow was a bouquet of white lilies.