The Detective's Daughter (30 page)

‘She lied.’ Jack had a milk moustache.

‘Yes, obviously, but how did she get away with it? How could so glaring a discrepancy not have been spotted? How many villagers were at that opening?’

‘Easy peasy. Although the murder got national attention, it was brief. The Royal Wedding saturated the coverage. I’m guessing that in deepest Sussex, the drama was a councillor ripping his best suit when he slipped.’

‘He tore his trousers.’ Stella mimed wiping her lip. Jack ignored her.

‘Don’t get bogged down with detail.’

‘Just as well I do.’ Stella warmed her hands on the china. ‘The police missed it.’ Terry had missed it.

Jack looked more frayed than ever and Stella suspected that unless he had a stock of black shirts and trousers, he wore the same clothes every day. She was nerving herself up to insist that he put on her uniform. In the meantime she had to reserve him for where the client was out or dead. It was not ideal: Jack was too good to be on the subs’ bench. They were discussing the new timings; Jack did not agree that it locked down Rokesmith as suspect.

‘He left his house at ten thirty and arrived at his mother’s at eleven fifteen, then went out again just before midday for wine and returned about twenty minutes later. He didn’t have time.’

‘I tell you he is our best suspect. He could have killed her any time between, say, eleven and two when she was found.’

‘It would have been mad to have agreed to a walk to the river when he was pressed for time. Is that likely?’

‘If he planned to kill her the walk would have been his idea, and he would have intended time to be tight to give him this very alibi.’

‘There were others at the lunch,’ Jack reminded her.

‘Only from twelve thirty after he returned with the wine.’

‘Kate told him she had a headache: why would she agree to a walk when she didn’t feel up to the lunch?’

‘We only have Rokesmith’s word that she had a headache; actually at one point there’s mention it was the son who was ill.’ Stella blew on the tea to cool it.

‘Why are you fixating on the father?’

‘Why aren’t you?’ she retorted.

The glass was steaming up, gradually fading the view to blotches of whites and greens.

‘I’d ask why Mrs Ramsay put herself into the picture when she was miles away and had a cast-iron alibi.’ Jack wiped his mouth on his coat sleeve. ‘What about your Paul?’

‘He’s not
my
Paul.’ Stella swallowed some tea. Speaking the words out loud made her question the truth of them.

‘By giving that false statement Mrs Ramsay became the key witness. Why did she put herself in the frame?’

‘She made up things all the time, she said her children visited, but a neighbour told me they never do.’ Stella took a gulp of tea; already it was cooling.

‘Maybe the neighbour was wrong.’ Jack murmured. ‘I saw the youngest daughter once and besides when did you last see your mother?’

Stella’s mobile trilled with a private number – Ivan? – and she answered it.

‘It’s Jeanette’s the florist here. You left a message cancelling Mrs Ramsay’s flowers.’

‘Yes, I’m afraid so. ’ Stella shuffled her feet on the wood floor, hot despite the cold temperature. ‘She has died.’

‘I
am
sorry. Normally we would not take a cancellation except from the sender but in the circumstances… I take it the sender knows of Mrs Ramsay’s death?’

‘She can’t cancel them herself.’ Stella could not resist it.

‘Mr Jack Harmon pays for the flowers. Are you in touch with him?’

The summerhouse swooped. Stella gripped her mug, spilling tea on her lap. ‘Yes I am.’

‘Perhaps you wouldn’t mind informing Mr Harmon that we will stop his order and please pass on our condolences for his sad loss.’

Stella put the phone back in her pocket. Jack was draping a skein of milk skin on the rim of his mug, not looking at her.

‘Reasons she would have lied. One: she didn’t want anyone to know where she really was. Two: she was covering for someone.’ Stella struggled out of the deckchair and rubbed the glass in one of the windows. ‘Rokesmith, maybe. Maybe she was having an affair with him. Or with you,’ she added, turning round.

Jack’s fingers were like raw chipolatas. She would have to get him gloves; she could not risk him damaging his hands. Terry’s gloves would fit, but were brown and Jack might insist on black. She should make him wear green: his best way of solving the problem was to tackle it head on.

‘She was forty-eight and he was in his thirties,’ Jack protested. He fell silent.

Stella did not want to think of Mrs Ramsay having an affair. ‘It happens.’ She imagined Mrs Ramsay bored by a precise civil engineer. ‘We should crack on. This evening we’ll get a takeaway and head over to mine and get up to speed with the notes. No use speculating, let’s comb through what the police thought they knew. Already we’ve uncovered a crucial error.’

‘I can’t tonight, I’m busy.’

‘I’ll pay you.’ She had not meant to say that.

‘I’m still busy.’ Jack stalked off up the path.

Stella returned to the sitting room.

Five hours later, Stella hauled down some of the cartons and plastic sacks that she had stacked on the landing the day before. She emptied the contents of Mrs Ramsay’s linen cupboard, her stacks of unused sheets and stuffed them in rubbish bags. Jack had been right. Gina Cross wanted it all got rid of.

The smell of a horsehair blanket put Stella in mind of her nana.

It was never explained to her why Terry had stopped taking her to stay with his mother. The reason, she learnt later, was simple: her nana had died. Stella did not remember this but did remember her nana allowing her milky tea like a grown-up and counting up the buttons in her button box. Terry must have bagged up his mother’s bedding as Stella was doing. Maybe he had cleared her flat and chucked out the objects that lose value once their owner is gone: indifferent, outdated crockery that will never come round again, keepsakes from seaside towns and horsehair blankets smelling of camphor. The blankets were rough and heavy; their weight strained the plastic, splitting it. Stella could only manage one bag at a time. In the hall she could not see or hear Jack and after the third trip stopped at the top of the basement stairs and called: ‘Jack?’

No answer.

‘Jack?’ Louder. He must still be in a huff. Like Paul, he was too sensitive, perhaps due to the business of the green.

The back door was unlocked. She peered out. Beside her was the fire escape – black, ugly and, Mrs Ramsay believed, an invitation to thieves – it ended on a flagged area outside the children’s playroom that, never getting sun, was coated in moss but was now hidden beneath inches of snow. Jack was not on the metal stairway.

To her right, marks on the door frame tracked the heights of the three Ramsay children. When Stella had pointed them out, Mrs Ramsay had wrung her hands in her odd way and lamented that Lucian was not like his father. Stella had presumed she was talking about height.

Stella was as tall as Terry.

She was about to lock the door when she saw Jack huddled by the side of the summerhouse where brambles and weeds had been left to grow because Mrs Ramsay had wanted a place for the bees. He was rubbing something against his trousers. Stella could not make out what it was. He held it up to the light and then put it in his pocket. She would have to explain that ‘Finders’ was not ‘Keepers’, a phrase she had not used since she was little. She supposed it had occurred to her now because Mrs Ramsay had said that the wooded spot in which Jack was standing statue-still was perfect for children to hide.

Jack did what he liked when he liked; he smoked, questioned her decisions and was not available at short notice. She was about to call out to remind him of the deadline, but then reminded herself that Jack Harmon was the best cleaner she had ever had and instead of berating him, she strayed back to the hall, fractious and forlorn. Gone was the grey powder: Jack had washed the walls, the skirting and cornices using bleach and polish, but he had done what she said and kept the doors open so the smells were faint and the air fresh. He had vacuumed the rug and laid it exactly in the centre of the boards as it had been. She did not have to lift it to know that the stains she had laboured over, which for a time the police had thought were Mrs Ramsay’s blood, would be gone. He had buffed up the hat stand till the antlers shone.

Jack’s coat was hanging in the hall.

The last day she saw Mrs Ramsay, the old woman had been fumbling with a coat when Stella was leaving. She had given the impression of sulking, but now Stella realized her mood was agitated. Mrs Ramsay had been pulling at the pockets, trying to get her hand inside. The cloth was rough, like the blankets. Stella sniffed it: an outside smell that somehow lessened her anger. What had Mrs Ramsay been looking for?

She swung the coat around and found a pocket containing Jack’s packet of tobacco. The coat was weighted by a lump in the other pocket. Stella ran to the back door and confirmed that Jack had not moved.

Stitches were broken in the seam and she pulled two more, manoeuvring out a compact booklet encased in brittle plastic which, like his tobacco, was held with an elastic band. She pulled off the band and flicked through the spiral-bound book. Each page was filled with columns of printed numbers: 20.02.15, 21.04. It might have been a timetable, but for three digit numbers under a heading: ‘Set No.’ On the cover was a London Underground train, like in a child’s story book, retaining only the main features: headlights, wheels, windows. One of the pages was marked with a gold paper clip. Stella manipulated the scruffy volume to that page and, holding it at some distance to accommodate her growing long sight, tried to make sense of the numbers.

The fire escape shook; Jack was coming back from the garden. She shut the book. It would not close properly and when she tried to bind it with the elastic band, running it off her grouped fingers, the band snapped and flew towards the garden door where any minute Jack would appear. She rammed the book into the pocket, tearing another stitch, and hurried to the stairs where she did an about-turn as if descending when Jack came in. He paused and wiped his feet on the mat, which he had made look new. He was trembling with cold and did not see Stella.

‘Hi there. All right?’ she enquired brightly, jumping off the last step, one hand on the newel post.

He eyed her with surprise. ‘I went for a smoke.’

He did not smell of smoke.

‘It’s lunchtime, I thought we might wander along to the Ram.’ Only on special occasions did Stella offer staff lunch; she preferred to eat alone.

‘Thanks, I’ll work through.’ Jack indicated the plastic bags. ‘Do you want help bringing down the rest?’

‘I’m fine.’ Stella had completed the upper floors. She stood in the back bedroom on the top floor. Gina Cross had instructed her to be ruthless in the bedrooms; if her siblings wanted anything they would be in touch. If she didn’t hear, she should ‘dump the whole caboodle’. Good, clear instructions: Gina Cross was Stella’s kind of client.

Why did Jack have a driver’s timetable in his pocket? Why had he bought Mrs Ramsay flowers?

Once the vacuum had started up in the basement, Stella checked her mobile to find no messages. Jackie had taken her at her word and was not disturbing her. She would be grateful that Stella was back on the job, but had made several hints about progress on Terry’s house such as grieving could not be swept under the carpet. This was precisely where Stella thought it could be swept, but had instead agreed that time was a great healer.

Jackie picked up on the second ring.

‘You tell me not to answer the phone, where’s thingy?’

‘Beverly. She’s at the dentist – I sent her to your man. She broke a tooth on a pear drop, would you believe!’

‘He’s not my man.’

‘No, I meant… Why are we whispering?’

‘I’m not.’ Stella cleared her throat and raised her voice as much as she dared. She could still hear the vacuum. ‘Could you give me the numbers for Jack Harmon’s referees?’

‘Oh-kay, tell me what’s happened.’ Jackie’s tone implied she had expected a problem and here it was.

‘Nothing, I want to confirm them. Normal procedure.’

‘I have already, I told you. One was lukewarm but basically good and the other man, if I remember rightly, was impatient, though he said he’d have Mr Harmon back.’

If a person wanted to fake a reference they would be clever enough to avoid fulsome praise; Stella kept this to herself. If she were asked, she would have difficulty not raving about Jack. She took the numbers down on an old laundry list of Mrs Ramsay’s, airily enquiring if Jackie had heard from Paul.

‘Not a dicky bird. I’m taking it that he’s not your man either?’

‘You are.’

‘So you’re out if he calls?’

‘I am.’

The vacuum motor went up to a pitch; Jack was using the nozzle on the stairs and would finish soon. Feverishly she stabbed at the buttons, squinting at the digits on the tiny screen. She got one wrong and had to start again, mouthing the numbers as she dialled and pressing the green button with only moments before Jack would appear because the vacuum had stopped.

No one was answering. Downstairs she caught the sound of a standard Nokia ringtone. It was Jack’s phone. That would delay him, and if he was talking he would not hear her.

‘Nick Jarvis.’ The deep voice was clipped and irritable: the sort in too much of a hurry to give a decent brief for a job, but with plenty of time to complain if objectives omitted were not met. She leant on the sill ruminating at the overgrown lawn. The man was breathing as if he was running. Downstairs she heard the back door open.

‘It’s Stella Darnell from Clean Slate Cleaning Services. You offered to give a testimony on a former employee, Jack Harmon. Is now a good time?’ His breathing was irregular and she could hear what could be the shuffling of shoes. Jarvis must be outside somewhere.

Jack was in the garden, tracking his own footprints back to the wall, this time looking back at the house. Stella ducked out of sight.

‘If you’re quick, but I did speak to someone from your company.’ Stella checked her watch: it was nearly five. If Jack turned out to have been sacked from his previous job, it was unwise to confront him alone in a client’s house.