She'd reached the door and opened it, letting in a blast of wind and most of the debris from the street outside.
“What sort of things?” Rita asked after her, but the client had disappeared into the filthy morning.
*
As she bore the trouser suit into the Super-Express cleaning cabinet and re-checked its pockets, Rita also recalled her first meeting with the Perelmans. How considerate the lad with the yellow hair had seemed, and how, unlike her younger kids' mates, he'd had time for his mother. A bit of a charmer, she'd decided afterwards. Good looking too, though in an unconventional way...
She wondered what Louis Perelman was doing now, three years on and what exactly had that luxury home revealed to its next occupants. She had to admit she'd felt a bit sorry for him with that odd Dad of his, bashing away on the piano, when he should have been helping out his wife and son with the police enquiries. Who, when she'd called round to see the precise spot where Jez had drifted, had done a runner.
With hindsight she realised that Constable Jarvis and Jane Truelove hadn't taken much notice of him at all. Maybe a mistake. Rita's chest began to tighten. She had to see Barbara Fletcher again, and something deep down said Friday might be too late. She swiftly set the controls to Man Made then watched the ON light begin to glow, before turning on the extractor fan. The process didn’t take long, and when the Super-Express clean had finished, she was ready.
*
Rita left work bent against the wind driving down Farnham Street, tearing at the trouser suit's flimsy polythene cover and, instead of getting off the bus at her usual stop, stayed on to the next, and crossed North Barton Road into Meadow Hill.
No balls on the pillars she noticed, and only one flickering street light near the Zellers. However, everyone seemed to have a posh Christmas tree in their windows, winking away, while some had fairy lights strung up outside along their garages and on the wind-battered saplings. Number 14 too, boasted a tree full of tiny, silver lights in the lounge’s bay window, while on the front door, a real wreath swayed on its nail, reminding her of Jez’s funeral.
Although there was no car on the drive, Rita prayed someone was in. She pushed the letterbox inwards and shouted.
"Mrs Fletcher? It's Rita Martin here, from Best Press. Thought you'd like your trouser suit back nice and early."
"Er, excuse me,' a guttural voice from behind made her spin round. "Why are you here in Meadow Hill?"
Rita saw sagging flesh and a face full of disapproval. Frau Zeller, buried inside a sheepskin coat, eyed her plastic clothes cover.
"I’m looking for Mrs Barbara Fletcher," she explained.
"She's not home yet. And who, may I ask, are you?"
Of course, Rita reasoned, why should she recognise her with her hair straightened and pulled back in a silver-coloured scrunchie? A natty suede jacket over a navy suit, and patent leather heels?
"Remember when we collected our dead dog from your garden, I told you I was Mrs Jones? Well, I'm actually Jez Martin's mother.”
"
Mein Gott."
The cruel wind revealed bare patches of Frau Zeller’s scalp. "What a terrible business for you,” she muttered. “And still we live in bad times. Gunther and I should have moved away just like Mrs Perelman and that boy of hers. Funny business, them leaving so quickly after the father. Number fourteen was the first For Sale sign in the development. And the first death.”
Rita blinked that last remark away.
"So he never came back?"
"
Nein
. Whoever would have thought it? That family had everything.”
Rita rang Barbara Fletcher’s bell again, increasingly concerned about the time.
"Mind you, I have to say,” the German continued with more enthusiasm.“ there’d been several incidents while they lived there.”
"Incidents?"
"Just before that
soirée
, you know, before your…”
"Go on, please." Yet the knot in Rita's stomach tightened as it always did when Jez came to mind.
"An unholy row was going on between the three of them. I heard every word."
“Lots of families have rows."
"Not like this, and I did inform the police. Dr Perelman was yelling at the top of his voice about their boy possessing a dangerous knife."
"Knife?" Rita tried to match it with the image in her mind of the polite, concerned lad she’d called on with Constable Jarvis. And this was Meadow Hill, for God's sake. Not Scrub End where blades were ten a penny.
"What did he say to that?" she asked, frowning.
"He'd never owned a knife in his life. It was his father's. Stolen from a shop."
Rita’s bones were beginning to freeze under her clothes.
"Where's he living now?” She shivered. “The boy I mean. I often wonder."
Frau Zeller shrugged.
"Who knows? Mind you, I did telephone North Barton Boys’ School soon after they'd moved, making out I had a little gift for him."
"And?"
"They said he wasn't a pupil there any more and wouldn’t reveal where."
"Data protection." Rita said, checking her watch. She was three minutes late. "Sorry, Frau Zeller, I've got to get back, I worry about my kids, specially when it's dark."
The older woman proffered her plump hand and Rita took it. "What the police won't do, we must do ourselves."
Rita countered by saying that Jarvis now a detective constable, and PC Jane Truelove were almost family. How, despite the still-missing Toby Lake, and Malcolm Wheeler's unsolved murder, the Briar Bank CID could prove Jez's death was probably nothing other than a tragic accident.
"Time will tell, Mrs Martin. Mark my words. To me, they’re throwbacks."
Rita was about to argue again, when suddenly, a night-coloured car swept into the development, drenching them in an acid blue light as it swung onto the drive of number fourteen.
Frau Zeller wobbled away across the open plan-lawns while the engine died and a pair of shapely legs appeared from the driver’s side.
Barbara Fletcher.
“Hi it's me,” Rita waved the body-sized polythene package in front of her. "I cleaned this today for you, pronto, just in case."
If she expected gratitude, none was forthcoming. The young woman had been crying. Her blurred eye makeup at odds with her tailored suit and her blouse’s sharp, white collar. She forgot to lock the car, her steps unsteady on the path.
"You keep it, OK?' She said, fumbling for her key and only just switched off the house alarm in time. "Bigwigs have given me the push, haven't they? Just after I'd won a decent contract with our American suppliers. Fuck the lot of them."
Rita stared open-mouthed. But that wasn't all. Barbara Fletcher rummaged in her trendy bag and brought out two tenners. "Here," she said. "For your trouble."
"Thanks, but I’ve no change."
"Oh, what the heck?" The woman then turned to face her visitor. "Would you like a cuppa? Mind, I could do with a bloody double vodka. The bastards."
"Thank you, but I'd best be off. My kids are waiting." It was already twenty past four and the darkness outside seemed darker than ever. However, she couldn’t leave now. This might be her last chance.
*
The open front door let the wind power its way through the immaculate house, slamming other doors, making the flimsy chandeliers sway in their sockets. Nevertheless, its occupant simply plugged in the swanky kettle and pulled a used Habitat mug out of the dishwasher.
"I know you've enough to worry about," Rita began, "but please tell me what exactly you found when you’d moved in?"
The woman held her head in both hands.
"Oh Hell. Memory needs a brain. Hang on..."
Eventually, she looked Rita's way. "You really want to know?"
"Yes." Even though it was 4:28 p.m.
Barbara Fletcher left the kitchen and returned with a Monsoon carrier bag sellotaped into a compact parcel. This she handed over.
“Make of it all what you will. We came across it while re-decorating what must have been Dr. Perelman's bedroom. My husband suggested calling the police, but I didn't want any trouble.
Like I said, it took us long enough to find the place."
Having thanked her again, ending with the hope she'd find a new job soon, Rita closed the front door, aware of a strange smell seeping from inside the package.
As her steps quickened to reach North Barton Road, a nagging intuition told her that from now on, number 14, Meadow Hill wasn't going to go away.
33
The wintry gale pursued Rita along the footbridge down Needle Walk, almost willing her to get home; her imagination in overdrive as to what might be happening there in her absence.
She broke into a run until the entrance to Wort Passage, where the one street lamp cast a dull glow on its dark dwellings, the newly dumped cars. Suddenly, she heard heavy breathing behind her. Felt a hand on her shoulder.
She spun round ready to attack.
"It's me, Frank. Gotta talk. I waited an hour at that bloody caff. Was going to call at your shop…”
“You do, and that's the end of me. Now scoot."
“I can't.''
"WeII, try a bit harder."
The lights came on in the flat above, while below, a One Direction song sounded far too loud. Her options with Frank running out. "Give me Kayleigh's drawing back first," she said, barring his way.
"I need it, like I said. Please, Reet, believe me."
"OK. Five minutes, but that's five too many in my book."
"Ta." He let her go.
"So, are you living round here then?"
"If I say, I'm offed."
"More like you don't want the CSA sniffing." She hunted for her key.
"Think what you like."
Together they mounted the steps to the door. She smelt beer and cheap aftershave which Denise Monk had doubtless made him wear. He looked rough alright and nothing could disguise the fact he'd lost weight. With his sunken cheeks and hunched-over walk, he looked nearer sixty than forty.
“This could do with a lick o' paint,” he said, picking off a strand of top coat then squashing it into fragments.
"Not by you it doesn't.”
"Warren then, eh? “That why ye look so bleedin' smart?"
Without replying, she inserted the key in the lock and pushed open the door. The noise and brightness of the kitchen hit her like a brick. So did the unexpected tidiness. Everything in its rightful place.
A boyish figure in cropped denims was standing on a chair, singing along to the boy band, wiping the top cupboard shelves in time to the beat. The tinsel round her ponytail glittering under the light. When she saw them both, she shrieked in delight.
"Dad!"
Kayleigh leapt down into his arms, almost as tall as him. Freddie left his bedroom to join them and the three stayed locked together. However, it wasn't love or relief that swept over Rita who stood watching, but, once that happy song had ended, a creeping sense of foreboding.
*
The five-minute deadline had expanded to an hour, then another. Finally, with the kids in bed, and nothing left of Kayleigh's carefully criss-crossed fruit tart, she and Frank sat opposite each other at the kitchen table, a can of beer each. Just like old times, except neither was drinking.
His stubble was grey in parts, and his once-lively eyes which he'd passed on to his kids, had lost their colour, nestling in a bed of lines. Both hands were cross-hatched by cuts and not all had healed. Once, she'd have worked instant magic with Savlon and plasters, but when she visualised these same fingers on Denise Monk's body, any sympathy faded.
"You've been dumped, haven't you?” She said first.
He turned his can round on the table, avoiding her eyes. "Look, Reet, why I'm ‘ere. I got some news.”
"Denise, Queen of Tarts? Do me a favour."
"Ain't seen ‘er since Jez's funeral. I couldn't. And as for a decent night's kip, what's that, eh?"
Rita sniffed. The one thing about Frank was he knew how to tap for sympathy.
"You had some news," she reminded him.
“Cops called round first thing. Said they'd found a knife by The Loop.”
"So? There's enough stuff there to fill a hundred skips." Then Frau Zeller's Iess-than-neighbourly observations came to mind.
“Why tell you, not me?"
"Couldn't get through. Your landline was engaged, so they said."
“They know my mobile number.”
He shrugged. Inhaled sharply. "Wait for it, this knife still `ad Walton-on-Sea burnt into the handle. Even after all this time. No sheath, mind."
Rita got up and went over to the window as if the darkness outside was preferable to the lit-up kitchen.
"Where's it now," she asked quietly.
"Bein’ kept for tests. I told the cops again `ow I’d bought Jez one for workin', one for spare. And a box…”