The Detective's Daughter

40

Thursday, 20 January 2011

Someone was leaning on the bonnet. Stella, cursing under her breath that she had parked outside Terry’s house, crept forward. Her steps squeaked on the crisp ground. At any moment the man – she was sure it was a man – would come over and search the bushes. She lowered a branch.

It was Paul.

Stella struggled to her feet. If Terry were here he would send him away. She was grateful he was alright.

If Paul had been following her, he would have been outside Sarah Glyde’s house. Perhaps he had not liked to confront Stella with Jack there – he wouldn’t want a fight – but as soon as they separated he might have tackled her and he had not. He could not have been following her. Paul had expected to find her clearing Terry’s belongings; he knew her well enough to be certain that, anxious not to lose time in the office, she would come in the evenings. Seeing her van, he must have congratulated himself on being right. Jackie was right, if Stella bothered to get to know people she would feel the benefit. Stella appreciated this pearl of wisdom, although not in the way intended. Had she taken the trouble to know Paul she would have anticipated that he would become too involved and avoided him.

He looked frozen. Stella guessed he had been there for some time.

She thought back to how Paul had been by the river. She had been relieved that Jack – and there was little about him that reassured – had seen him off. For a split second she had been convinced that Paul would kill her. It was an extraordinary idea: he was mild-mannered, cowardly and indecisive. Or so she had assumed. Such an underestimation of the capabilities of a lover or an ex-lover could cost a person their life. Paul had been in the area on the day of the murder. She should grill him, but to do so alone in the dark was plain stupid. Why had he not gone to the police? Terry had said murderers returned to the scene of their crime; supposing Paul had not followed her to the river, but was going there anyway? She pulled a face; having an open mind was doing her no favours.

Paul was keeping vigil; it was not Stella herself he wanted, he wanted to stop her discovering the truth. The van told him she was there, or that if she was not, that she would return.

She could go up Black Lion Lane, take a left into the square by the Cross Keys and get to the Rokesmiths’ house from the north side. It would take her fifteen minutes with the snow. That was too long; Jack would come any minute.

Paul would see him.

She should warn Jack. Or should she warn Paul?

Jack had lied. He had not told her he was a train driver or that he had known Jonathan Rokesmith; he had promised that they would be a team, but did not answer her calls or do what they had agreed.

Paul was fiddling with an object; Stella saw too late that it was his phone as her own handset buzzed. She had five seconds before it would ring, faintly first, then louder. Frantic, she scrunched up her anorak, feeling for it; she had too many pockets.

She found it, but dared not take it out, or Paul would hear. She fumbled at the keys, sliding the flat of her thumb over them. All the time the harp melody she had assigned to Paul’s number was increasing in volume. She found the mute button. She was sweating in the padded jacket and, wiping her face, dared to shuffle on her haunches to ease her muscles.

Tinny chatter came through her gloved fingers and she held the handset close to prevent light penetrating the bushes. Paul’s name was on the screen. Digits counted up: 30 secs, 31 secs… She had not cut off the call, she had answered it.

Stella closed the line but too late; Paul was walking towards her. She was unable to move. She had to maintain a sense of proportion; it was Paul, he could not kill anyone; and surely not her. She shut her eyes. The phone buzzed again; she let it go to voicemail.

When she opened them Paul was by her van, cupping his hands around his face to peer inside. He tried the doors and then to her horror resumed his position by Terry’s gate. He was going nowhere.

She scrambled along the undergrowth until she reached the edge of the flower beds. Ahead was the subway. She cleared her throat quietly before she dialled Paul’s number.

He answered: ‘I’ve been trying to get you. Why were you ignoring me? I knew you were there all the time.’

‘I didn’t hear it ring.’ Stella knew she did not sound convincing.

‘I know you’re in there. Your van’s outside.’

Paul spoke coldly. If Stella had not been able to hear his voice carrying across the snowbound street she would have doubted it was him. There was a nasty edge to his voice.

‘I’m at the pub, the one by the river,’ she replied without thinking.

‘I can’t hear anyone.’

‘I’m on my own.’

‘It’s open just for you, is it?’

‘No, I mean, I’m outside. That’s why I didn’t hear you ring. I came to check my messages and saw you had called.’

‘Nice of you to call back. Is he with you?’

‘No.’ This bit was true. ‘Why don’t you go home?’ He would know she was lying if she agreed to meet him. Paul understood her better than she did him.

‘I’m coming. We need to talk; I need to explain.’

‘I won’t be there.’ Without intending to, Stella rang off.

She flitted into the shadow of the trees. They would not hide her if he looked her way, but Paul was running to the subway looking at the ground. Near the statue he skidded but recovered himself. He might have spotted Jack and Stella’s footprints leading from the van towards the river, but he was no detective.

As soon as he entered the subway, Stella broke cover and crunched over the frozen turf to St Peter’s Square. The steps up to number 49 were covered in snow: Jack had not been back. Her own footprints would give her away. There was no other way to the front door, except the surprise element was essential. She looked wistfully over at Mrs Ramsay’s house, dark and empty, next door.

She still had her keys. In a snap decision, Stella walked as if on a tightrope at the edge of the path, leaning into the hedge dividing Mrs Ramsay’s garden from what had been the Rokesmiths’ thirty years before. Inside the porch she took a stride to the doormat and, peeping around the column, checked behind her. A halo of light had formed around the lamp-post beside the park and within this shapes appeared and disappeared. It was snowing again.

Her prints would be covered.

Inside the tang of cleaning agents sharpened the still air. In the light from the landing windows the balustrade coiled into the darkness. Her heart crashing against her chest, Stella began to ascend, gripping the beeswaxed wood. After her experience at Terry’s house she was relieved to find the doors on the first landing still shut as she had left them. In the sitting room the partition doors were open wide; the French windows lit the sweep of polished space on which Mrs Ramsay had danced the night away.

There would be no more parties, she had informed Stella on her last visit, implying it was punishment. Stella had become a stand-in for one of Isabel Ramsay’s children just as the vacuum hose had been her substitute dancing partner, so the punishment was intended for the children. Perhaps, after all, her mind had been going; Stella had heard it said that presuming your family were stealing from you was an indication of dementia. Mrs Ramsay’s agitated search for the dolls’ house fitted this picture.

The glass in the French doors was so clean it was invisible. She had done this room. She was still good.

Outside she could not see Jack or Paul.

All the doors on the top floor were ajar. Stella had purposely closed them to cut down the risk of fire spreading. She felt panic rising; Jack had no reason to come here; she had taken the top floors. Had he broken in after all?

He kept insisting that Mrs Ramsay invited him. For some reason Stella believed this. She tried to stop the jumble of questions and doubts: perhaps she was going mad herself. Jackie said grieving could make you mad; Stella had wanted to say she was not grieving.

A scattering of grit lay on the carpet at the top of the stairs. She had cleaned the landing so the only way it could have got there was through an open window. The landing window across the stairwell was nailed shut and even if it had been possible to open it, the grit was only in one area. If it had come through the window it would be on the stairs too.

She had forgotten the attic. Her least favourite job, it had slipped her mind, as it had at Terry’s, even though she had longed to have a go at it when she cleaned at Mrs Ramsay’s. For some reason Mrs Ramsay never included it in her lists.

Stella gave the hatch a push and caught it as it swung down; peeping over the hole was a wooden ladder. She tried not to think of the last time she had climbed into an attic but already a cold fear was uncoiling. The wooden rungs strained when she put weight on them, but held. She was surprised to find no dust; the ladder was tacky as if it had been wiped down.

Stella poked her head through the hole, cautiously, blood hammering in her head. There was something attached to a vertical support. She went all the way up and gingerly stepped on the joists. It was a Bakelite switch; she flicked it and filled the loft with light.

Piles of boxes, books, riding hats, a child’s scooter and roller skates were amongst heaps of clothes, the material greyed with dust. The attic was a dumping ground for broken or discarded objects: the clobber of living. Here were the toys Mrs Ramsay had insisted her children had lost: a deflated Space Hopper, a child’s painting of an aeroplane flying over fields, a naked Sindy doll and, behind a rickety wheelchair, a gigantic house. She had found the dolls’ house, but it was too late.

Someone had laid down boards and moved boxes and bags to create a walkway; Stella followed this makeshift path and got an answer to her question.

Jack had not needed a key or an invitation to Mrs Ramsay’s house. Once he had broken into the Rokesmiths’ house next door, he could come and go from Mrs Ramsay’s as he pleased.

There was no fire wall.