The Detective's Daughter (45 page)

Around page twenty Jack had begun to prepare properly for his expeditions. He carried a flask of hot milk and honey and, since he had met Stella, a packet of digestive biscuits. He was strict about where he stopped; there must be no one nearby and if there were, he moved to avoid conversation. He must not be remembered.

He had once loved snow, but now it was his enemy. Stealthy and insistent, it blotted out clues and signs while giving away his own actions. Lost in his coat, the collar up, his damp hair slicked to his head, Jack sipped his milk, savouring the sweetness, but today it did not work its magic. He was not resting in the middle of a journey full of promise, he was at the end of the line and did not know where to go next.

Stella was right, his conviction that the atlas would give him a clue to his mother’s killer was absurd; he was wasting time. He chucked the rest of the milk on to the ground and it hissed a hole, like a wound, in the snow.

He leafed to page 144. In the top right-hand corner – so small he had initially mistaken it for scribble to check if a pen was working – he saw: ‘242’
.

Jack rummaged in his pocket for his timetable. He found this week’s shift pattern. The second set number for his last train on Wednesday had been ‘242’. The train Stella boarded on the day he told her he was at school with Kate Rokesmith’s little boy. Was that a sign?

He fitted the little book back into his pocket and felt something cold and hard. His amulet. Even in the flat light the glass glowed green. Suddenly he remembered: that Mummy had tried to swap it for his engine, telling him it would bring him luck. He had insisted on taking the steam engine. As he tried to gather the loose strands, tenuous images dissolved back into the mists of the past.

He stared at page 144, willing it to give up its secret, but perhaps the secret was not his to know. It belonged to a stranger. Perhaps some mysteries were destined to remain unsolved. Jack was overwhelmed with futility; nothing could alter the main event. It had happened and that was that.

Nothing will bring her back.

He would have to look for real signs to get him to a station. He was off the map and could not go back the way he had come.

Still clutching the green glass, he put it to his lips. His mother had been right: about good luck; the talisman had saved his life.

He willed the
A–Z
to give up its message and as if his wish was granted he saw a wardrobe in his mind, but, trying to hold it, the image evaporated.

Jack had not told Stella that when he found the man who had murdered his mother, he would kill him.

Sunday, 23 January 2011

The car splashed through thawing ice into one of the visitors’ bays outside Stella’s flat. There were no other cars. Ivan turned off the engine and the Schumann violin concerto was cut off; Stella half expected it to continue. Cushioned in the heated leather seat, the music and purring engine had the soporific effect of Ivan’s dentist’s chair and the sofa in his sitting room. She relished playing truant with Ivan; not a soul in the world would find her.

‘Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?’

‘That would be lovely, but then I’ll get going, I don’t want to disrupt your Sunday.’

Ivan came to Stella’s side of the car to open her door. When Paul had done this she had been irritated, but Ivan did not do it to impress. She tried not to think about Paul.

The lift pinged. Paul was not dead; a drowned body was easy to misidentify. Stella felt a surge of hope.

A woman yelped when she saw them, and then recovered herself. ‘It’s rare to meet anyone in this ghost of a building!’

Ivan stood aside to allow her out before ducking into the lift.

Stella did not know what led her to introduce herself: ‘I’m Stella Darnell, I live on the fourth floor.’

‘Oh, it’s good to meet a friendly face. I simply never see anyone. Emma Chaplin, second floor, number twenty-five.’ She peeped into the lift where Ivan was scrutinizing the buttons. ‘Lovely to know you’re here!’ As the doors closed, she called out and put out a hand. ‘Isn’t it…?’

Ivan hit the button again, the doors shut and soundlessly the lift ascended.

‘Did you know her?’

‘She might be a patient. They can’t place me, the white coat confuses them.’

Stella suspected Ivan was unhappy she had encouraged conversation. If he did not want people to think they were together he should not be seen with her in public. In the car he had renewed the cancelled dinner invitation and they were meeting at the French restaurant in Kew where the staff no doubt assumed they were a couple.

Once they were in the flat, Ivan brightened.

‘What a splendid place. I long for such peace but only get it in the country. And you are right beside the river. Perfect.’ He was gazing out of the window. ‘I would have thought these properties would be snapped up.’

‘There’s no tube station. Tea or coffee?’

‘Coffee, if you don’t mind. Where’s that camera? I’ll take a look. I’m good with equipment. One has to know about much that’s not directly to do with teeth in my job.’

Stella had forgotten that Ivan’s offer to bring her home had been prompted by her telling him about Terry’s camera.

‘It’s by the kettle.’ She went into the kitchen and unplugged the charger. Ivan was behind her and took the camera. While liking his enthusiasm – she’d taken a risk in confiding in him; he might have judged her absurd for trying to solve a murder – Stella wanted to check the camera herself.

While the coffee brewed she had a twinge of doubt: the Rokesmith case was a project she shared with Jack. He had advised they keep it to themselves and although she had not officially agreed, she had not even told Jackie, whom she could trust. Jack trusted her, but without asking him, she had told Ivan.

The sun was out, the snow was melting; everything seemed possible. Stella was certain that Jack would understand.

She plunged the coffee and placed it on a tray with milk and two mugs. She had no biscuits but doubted she should offer sweet things to a dentist.

Her mobile was ringing. Stella found it on the dining-room table in the living room; she had no memory of putting it there. Ivan sat at Jack’s end of the sofa, fiddling with the camera. Stella saw what Jack had meant about the plastic. Ivan would never cover his furniture with plastic.

It was Jackie. She did not want to speak to Jackie with Ivan listening. Besides, Jackie should not be working at the weekend.

Ivan sighed. ‘No luck, I’m afraid.’

‘You can’t fix it?’

‘The problem lies with the memory card. There ain’t one, m’lud.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘See for yourself.’ He pulled open a flap in the casing to reveal two slots. Stella recognized the one to connect with a computer. The other was long and thin and empty.

‘Your father must have removed it.’ The plastic shrieked as Ivan got to his feet and laid the camera on the table.

‘Or someone else did.’ She would not see the last pictures that Terry had taken. She would not see what he had seen. Stella’s mouth went dry.

‘Extraordinary – why would anyone steal the card but leave the camera?’ Ivan breathed in the steam from his coffee.

‘It is unlikely,’ she agreed.

‘You’ll come across it amongst his belongings. He must have been infuriated to forget it. What about his computer – did you find pictures there?’

‘No. There was only an interview with the witness, a Mrs Ramsay. It doesn’t matter. The whole thing’s a wild-goose chase. I’ll give it up. How can I find a man the police never found?’

‘Why assume it was a man?’ Ivan sipped his coffee and gave an approving smile. ‘When those we love die, we snatch at gossamer: a voice on an answer machine; a bus ticket in a pocket; shopping lists. The missing card
does
matter. It might have given you a pointer to the solution to this frightful murder.’

Stella nodded. Maybe she had been trying to hold on to Terry. To bring him back, if only to tell him he had failed as a father. Had he failed? Jack had asked her what sort of daughter she had been. She could not say. Not that great, though. It was not possible to mourn the loss of a father that you never had, she told herself with lessening conviction.

After Ivan had gone, Stella remained in the hallway watching the entry screen until he appeared. She caught her breath when he glanced up into the lens and smiled as if he could see her. When he had disappeared from shot, Stella thought of Jack. He would mind that she had told Ivan. She would tell him what Ivan had said about the murderer: maybe their wild card was a woman.

She went into the living room. She had been positive that they were on the verge of a breakthrough: Terry had taken photographs; the lens cap proved he had been by the wall.

Before she set off for a job, Stella would draw up a list of all that she needed: brushes, chemicals, spare vacuum bags, client’s key, alarm code. She was prepared. Terry was meticulous; he would not have forgotten to slot in a photo card.

She switched on the camera.

‘Insert card’.

Terry would have seen there was no card as soon as he looked through the viewfinder. He would not have discovered its absence in the graveyard; he would have tested it before he left the house and again by the car. He tested his camera on Stella before using it to take a car or a person. Then there was the lens cap: he had taken it off to use the camera and something had made him forget to replace it.

He had followed the person putting the flowers by the grave.

She sat on the sofa. The plastic squeaked. She leapt up, put the camera on the floor and dug her fingers into the sofa. At first she made only an indentation, stretching the plastic. She dragged her thumbnail along the mark and the plastic rent; the rip travelled a foot. She pulled at the opening. The plastic made the sound of a zip undoing as it tore and soon she was knee-deep in plastic as if she had opened an enormous present. She hefted it into the kitchen and crammed it into a rubbish sack.

Stella came back and lowered herself gingerly on to the pristine white sofa. The fabric was soft and smelled of ultra-clean cotton. There was no noise when she shifted or patted the material, appreciating the fine weave. She swivelled around and sprawled, as Jack did, her feet propped on the armrest. She was comfortable. There was a piece of paper under the table. The sofa made no sound when she reached for it. The type was single-spaced:

[J. J. Rokesmith, 25 August 1981]

On Jonathan’s next visit, I prepared a place for Walker the Bear at his table. As before I laid out crayons and paper and invited him to make a picture. This time I proposed that he might like to give it to Walker. This idea engendered mild interest. Jonathan neither agreed nor disagreed. He did address the crayons, removing the turquoise-green crayon from the box and snapping it in two. A specific action, free of malice, that I observed as preparation for the activity. He got up from his chair and went into the kitchen and threw the bits into the bin. D. I. Darnell made to object, but I stayed him with a finger on my lips. When Jonathan returned, I waited a moment then asked if he disliked the colour. As before, he gave no impression of having heard. His actions were brisk: he chose the black crayon and pressed hard on the paper, doing stabbing motions, daubing the white space.

He drew a crude house with gables and a hedge depicted with lines coiled like barbed wire and dashes for branches. The house had five windows, one each side of the front door, three on the second floor. He went over these until they were black, his movement of the crayon implied he was making vertical lines over the glass. I asked if he was putting in bars, invisible because he had coloured in the window black. He did not reply or appear to hear but he abandoned the windows.

Darnell asked if Jonathan had seen the man who had attacked his mummy and if the bars were to keep this man out. Would he know him again? The only indication that Jonathan gave of being aware of the detective was by thrusting motions of his crayon whenever Darnell spoke.

I had given him several sheets of A4 paper. In each session he used only one. When he finished he flipped the paper over and stalked into the garden. The garden is where Jonathan goes when he has had enough of the questions.

On this day, when Jonathan came back in he returned to his picture. He has never done this before. Once an activity is abandoned he does not resume it in the same session. He found the black crayon on the floor and with furious strokes stuck what looked like a garage on to the side of the house.He put down the crayon and at last acknowledging the detective, made his fingers into a gun and pretended to shoot him.

This was Jonathan’s fifth session and he has yet to communicate verbally. If Walker the Bear, his transitional object, is moved or addressed by adults in the room, he glares protectively. He shows no interest in anyone else nor in the chocolate biscuit but drinks the milk I give him on each visit. He shows no pleasure in activities and performs them as if out of duty, then goes to the garden or if it is raining sits on the doormat.

Stella looked at the end of the sofa where Jack always sat. She had bought a pint of milk, but he hadn’t been back so it was still in the fridge. She wanted to tell him about the plastic.

She lifted the camera from the floor and balanced it on her stomach. After a bit she closed her eyes, and pictured Terry’s car by the church gate. In the light of the interior lamp above the dashboard she had examined his camera.

The memory card had been there then.

Stella rang Jack. She got his voicemail and asked him to call. She waited a moment and then dialled Ivan Challoner’s number. When she got his voicemail too, she did not leave a message.

Monday, 24 January 2011

Jack was in his study, the fire unlit. He huddled in his coat, although it was damp from the night-time walk. He pulled out the
A–Z
and tossed it on the desk; it fell open at page 144, his last journey. He had spent three-quarters of an hour on Google’s Street View nursing the cursor – Jack imagined the clicks as ‘paces’ – along the route ending on Clockhouse Lane that ‘in real life’ yesterday had taken him a long time to walk. Street View’s photographs were stitched together to create a seamless virtual landscape of streets, houses, open space, roads and sky.