Deep Waters (20 page)

‘Some of them
are
the shopkeepers,’ Callie pointed out, thinking about the local Jamaican greengrocer and the Indian family who owned the newsagents’.

‘That’s even worse. In my day we never would have thought of such a thing as a foreign shopkeeper. There was a Welshman who had the butchers’ shop when I was growing up, but that was as far as it went.’

Eventually Callie managed to escape, with a promise of returning next week. Her next call, on the opposite side of the square, was Hilary Dalton’s house, but proximity was not the only reason for the order of the visits. Always a believer in delayed gratification, she preferred to get Mrs Channing out of the way, saving Hilary Dalton as a reward for her endurance—a welcome antidote to the negativity which surrounded Mildred Channing like a dark cloud.

Just about the only thing the two women had in common was living in the same square; beyond that, the contrast between them couldn’t have been more pronounced. It started, for Callie,
with their very houses. Where Mildred Channing’s north-facing house was dark and gloomy, even on the brightest of days, Hilary Dalton’s seemed suffused with light. Colourful paintings covered the walls, and the south-facing windows were unencumbered by heavy curtains, the deep sills populated with begonias and cyclamen in glazed pots.

Though she’d always felt comfortable in Hilary Dalton’s presence, and enjoyed being with her, it had taken Callie several months to put together the pieces of her life story, not because Hilary was reticent but because she was unassuming and outward-looking. She was also, Callie came to understand, a woman who lived very much in the present rather than in the past. That, especially given the circumstances of her life, was a rare and beautiful gift.

Hilary Dalton was an artist—a painter. Back in the heady days of the 1960s, when London was the cultural centre of the world, a young Hilary and her equally young husband were at the heart of the vibrant art scene. She was considered promising while he was widely regarded as gifted, even a genius. But his burgeoning career and their happy marriage were cut short by a fatal accident, and Hilary was left a widow after less than a year of marriage.

To support herself, she had turned her hand to teaching art, becoming one of the most respected teachers in the field. And with her sunny personality she had drawn to herself a large circle of friends—by and large people as interesting, and as interested in life, as she was herself. The Bayswater house, bought with the proceeds of the sale of half of her husband’s surviving paintings, had been a hub of London’s artistic life for decades.

But an aggressive form of rheumatoid arthritis had curtailed Hilary Dalton’s career. The painting had gone first, as her hands had been affected; she’d managed to carry on her teaching at the Slade as long as possible, years longer than anyone had predicted. Now, though, in her mid-sixties, she was in a wheelchair and her fingers were so badly deformed that she could barely hold a spoon, let alone a paint brush. For a while it had been feared that she would have to give up the house and go into sheltered
accommodation. The remainder of her husband’s canvases, kept back for a rainy day, had saved her from that fate: his reputation had grown through the years to virtually mythic proportions and they were now worth an almost obscene amount of money. The sale of just one of them, at a special auction, had brought in more than enough to install a lift in her house—from the ground floor to the open-plan reception room on the first floor to the bedrooms above and the airy studio at the top—and to fund any home care she might need for the rest of her life.

Through it all she had remained cheerful, upbeat, a joy to be around. Her friends had not deserted her either; it was rare for Callie to find her at home on her own.

Today was not an exception. The door was opened by a young woman whom Callie hadn’t met before. She looked to be in her early twenties, with a lively face framed by long, straight honey-coloured hair held back with an Alice band. ‘Hi,’ she said, looking at the dog collar. ‘You’re the lady curate? Cool. Aunt Hil is expecting you. She’s upstairs. Stairs or lift?’

Callie knew that she should take the stairs, but felt she deserved a bit of self-indulgence after her ordeal across the square. ‘Lift, if you don’t mind.’

‘Great.’

They got in and the young woman pushed the button.

‘You’re Hilary’s niece?’

The young woman laughed. ‘Her god-daughter, actually. I’ve just always called her Aunt Hil. She and my mum are great friends. I’ve known her…well, all my life, obviously. I’m Victoria, by the way,’ she added. ‘Victoria Morpeach. You can call me Tori—everyone does. And you’re the lady curate that I’ve heard so much about.’

‘Callie,’ she said, wondering what on earth Hilary Dalton might have told her.

‘Aunt Hil really likes you. She says you’re A Good Thing.’

‘It’s been my privilege to know her,’ Callie said with sincerity.

‘She’s great, isn’t she? I mean, she’s not like an old person. When you’re with her, you don’t think about age at all.’

That was it exactly, Callie thought, impressed at Tori’s insightfulness.

Hilary Dalton was waiting for them in the spacious, open room where she spent most of her days, sitting by the tall Georgian sash windows overlooking the square. Callie crossed to the wheelchair. ‘I hope I’m not intruding,’ she said, bending over to take one of the twisted hands. She gave it a gentle squeeze and felt the pressure returned. ‘I can come another time, if it’s not convenient.’

‘Don’t be silly. I was expecting you. Tori just dropped by a few minutes ago.’

‘I was in the neighbourhood,’ Tori confirmed.

‘And took a chance that I’d be at home.’ Hilary Dalton smiled at her god-daughter and they shared a laugh at the joke: Hilary was always at home.

‘I’ll put the kettle on, shall I?’ Tori offered, flicking her hair over her shoulder.

‘Good girl.’

Tori, her god-mother explained while she was out of the room, had recently got her degree in media studies and had embarked on her first job, as a production assistant for a television production company.

‘That sounds interesting,’ Callie said dutifully, though she had no idea what such a job would entail.

‘She enjoys it, apparently.’

‘I suppose she gets to meet lots of stars.’

Hilary laughed. ‘That depends on what you mean by stars. These days they call them celebrities, and talent doesn’t seem to enter into it a great deal. I must say, though,’ she added, ‘I enjoy watching her programmes more than I thought I would. It doesn’t do to be too snobbish about these things. “All human life…”, you know.’

When Tori returned, carefully balancing three mugs, she explained her job to Callie. She worked for Reality Bites, a production company specialising in reality television. ‘We’re the people who bring you “twentyfour/seven”,’ she said proudly.
‘And “Dancing in the Jungle”, “Celebrity Flight School”, “Pet Swap”, “Take my Teenager—Please”…’

Callie accepted a mug of what looked to be white coffee. ‘What about “Junior Idol”?’ she asked, since it was the only one she’d ever seen, even briefly.

‘Yes, that’s one of ours as well.’ The words were accompanied by a proprietorial smile as Tori helped her god-mother to wrap her hands round her mug.

‘What does your job involve?’

Tori blew on her coffee, then took a sip. ‘Oh, I mostly
conduct
interviews and auditions. Prospective participants, you know. There are thousands and thousands of them, for every programme we do.’

‘People really
want
to have their lives exposed on television?’ Callie couldn’t imagine anything worse.

‘They’re desperate for it. I mean, we have some people who turn up to try out for
everything
. They don’t care what skill is involved, whether it’s playing the kazoo, eating bugs, or having blazing rows in public. They just want to be celebrities. The extents they’d go to…’

‘So you have to sort out the wheat from the chaff,’ Callie said.

Tori nodded. ‘The people who can play the kazoo from those who’d like you to believe that they can. It’s not easy, I promise you. The lies people tell…’

‘Do you use a lie detector?’ Callie was only half-joking.

‘It might come to that one day. I’m pretty good at spotting the out-and-out liars, before they get anywhere close to being selected. But I’m sure that some of them are good enough at it to slip through the net.’ Tori laughed. ‘I had one contestant recently who asked me what would happen if we found out they’d lied about something.’

Hilary leaned forward in her wheelchair. ‘That’s practically an admission, isn’t it? What did you tell them?’

‘Oh, I told her that it would depend on what they’d lied about. If it was just the sort of thing that women lie on their passports about—shaving a few kilos off their weight—then
they wouldn’t necessarily be disqualified. But we have to be very careful these days, with the industry watch-dogs and so forth. We have an accountability to the public.’

‘Oh, there was all that kerfuffle about phone call-ins, wasn’t there,’ Callie remembered.

‘Exactly.’ Tori grinned. ‘Well, it keeps my life interesting.’

Peter would have found this conversation fascinating; Callie told herself she’d have to remember to recount it to him. ‘My brother watches all of those programmes,’ she said. ‘I’m sure he’d like to meet you.’

Tori widened her eyes. ‘I’m sure I’d like to meet
him
. Is he available?’

‘He’s gay.’

‘So are most of the blokes I work with.’ Tori gave an
exaggerated
sigh. ‘That, or already spoken for. Just my luck. The story of my life…’

‘What about all of those thousands of men you interview and audition? There must be some eligible ones.’

‘Oh, God.’ Tori rolled her eyes. ‘Who would want a
relationship
with a self-obsessed, fame-hungry celebrity wannabe? I’m not
that
desperate.’

‘Point taken,’ said Callie.

Mark Lombardi wasn’t answering his phone. To be more precise, he evidently had it switched off, as every attempt Neville made to ring him went straight to voice mail.

No one at the station seemed to know where Mark was, either. He wasn’t at his desk; no one could remember seeing him that morning. It wasn’t like Mark, usually so conscientious, to
disappear
without making sure he could be reached if necessary.

Neville wanted to talk to him before the inquest. It wasn’t essential that he do so, but the more he thought about it, the more important it seemed. He himself had seen Jodee, Chazz and Brenda Betts only briefly on that first day—when none of them were exactly coherent, let alone helpful –whereas Mark
was the one who had spent hours with them. But Mark wasn’t answering his phone, and that was that.

DCS Evans wasn’t particularly helpful, either, when Neville finally managed to see him. ‘Inconclusive,’ he said. ‘Just
remember
that word. After all, this is a coroner’s court, not a press conference. You won’t have to answer any awkward questions. Just stick to the facts, and remember “inconclusive”.’

Eventually he rang the coroner, who was reassuring if brusque. ‘No need to mention any specifics about the post-mortem,’ Dr Rice said. ‘You should know the drill by now. Names, dates, times. I’ll adjourn as soon as you’ve said your piece. I’ve already pencilled the date in my diary—end of April.’

‘Thanks,’ said Neville.

‘See you in court.’

He sat at his desk with a blank computer screen in front of him. ‘Stick to the facts,’ he told himself, repeating Evans’ advice. What the coroner wanted from him was a concise chronology of the events. He’d done this sort of thing so many times before: who, what, where, when. The ‘why’ wasn’t for him to speculate about. That would be dealt with at a later date, and by someone else.

The more Neville thought about it, the clearer it became to him that he was going to have to mention the fact that Muffin had been alone in the house when she died. It was actually part of the chronology: Jodee and Chazz had come home in the early hours of the morning and found a dead baby in her cot. It was a fact.

This wasn’t like the post-mortem results, which could remain ‘inconclusive’ until the actual inquest, when all of the test results would be revealed, made public, interpreted. It had to be said at this point, and made part of the record. Whatever the
consequences
, he had to do it.