40
Tuesday, 1 May 2012
‘Ring when you get this. Tell me how you are. No, come round and we can catch up. Take stock,’ she added. Jack would not come if it was only to tell her how he was. She rang off and finger-dabbed up the last of the shepherd’s pie, a habit her mother had disliked when Stella lived with her, but now did herself. Jack had not been in touch all day; she would rather he was sulking than was upset about Amanda Hampson. She couldn’t shake the idea, either, that he somehow knew about her tea with David. So what if he did?
Jack was not the only man who hadn’t called. Nor had David. She checked her messages again although she hadn’t missed any. It was five and a half hours since she had opened the bath panel and, squatting on her haunches, stared unbelieving into the dark space.
A treasure trove. Three crucifixes and five pictures. One of a golden sunset; another of an electric blue sky, the sun obscured by dark clouds with bright edges. Something about Faith being the Light of the Soul was printed along the bottom. One showed a long-haired Jesus holding a child on his lap, a dove fluttering top right and red roses in the foreground. Blood red. Sickened, Stella had sat back on the floor, her back to the toilet. Unlike the jacket, she had no doubt these belonged to the Barlows. The objects, stacked beneath the bath – the panel was screwed tighter than the one upstairs – were what David Barlow had claimed was stolen in the burglary. Had literally claimed.
She started to put back the panel, when she considered that David Barlow expected her to remove vents, panels, move furniture to get everywhere. He wanted a deep clean. He would know she had seen behind the panel and what she had found there. He would know she had said nothing. She was implicated; her silence complicity. He was right about the silver: the crosses were plated and worth little. The pictures were crude depictions of spiritual and religious moments; ‘creepy’, he had called them. Stella came across them in some clients’ homes; they were not her taste but she didn’t judge. She was not one for pictures at all. They gathered dust.
She thought back to what Barlow had said about not being religious. He had wanted rid of them but couldn’t bring himself to throw them out. When his wife made him go to the police station to report the theft, he must have feared they would find them and charge him with wasting their time. He had talked about prison. When his wife died he had claimed for goods that were not stolen. This afternoon she had seen how annoyed he was that the company wouldn’t pay out.
The pictures were arranged against the back wall and propped on the pipes. The crosses lay in order of size on the cement floor. The bath cavity was a shrine.
Yet it didn’t add up. Barlow had been obliged to claim because the police had given him a crime number. When he asked her to deep clean he knew she would do under the bath. If he hadn’t known, he would have been alerted when she found the jacket. Stella got it. The burglars were interrupted. They had hidden the loot under here, intending to return. She must warn David.
Stella had arranged the crosses and pictures on David’s kitchen table. She was tempted to restore everything to their hooks in the lounge, but she had wiped away the dusty outlines so would have to guess their positions. David hadn’t liked them; he would probably only take them down again. She had tried to call him, but like Jack his phone went to voicemail. She had waited beyond the time of her shift – she would rather tell him in person, but by six he had not returned or responded to her messages. Stella needed to get to Terry’s, she was late. She wrote David a note and placed it next to a picture, her eye catching the words:
…while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us…
David would call when he read her message. ‘Call any time, I’m here.’ She had not said where ‘here’ was.
In the harsh electric light of Terry’s immaculate kitchen, his white china gleamed. Stella washed his plate, knife and fork and slotted them on his draining rack. She had trusted David. Jackie would approve of her for taking a risk. Still no call. It was half past nine. Surely not too late for David to call. Odd type of burglars who in a rush made time to stow everything away neatly. She would be that kind of burglar herself, but that was not the point.
Now distinctly uneasy – David couldn’t still be walking Stanley – she set the kettle to boil, popped a tea bag in a mug from the box of Brooke Bond Choicest Blend, noting there were five tea bags left. She would buy more. She had resolved to sell Terry’s house after she had exhausted his cupboards. Jackie had warned this wouldn’t happen if Stella kept renewing the contents.
She had not told Jack about David because he would work out that she had been with him when he rang on Friday evening and had cut his call. She could explain that she couldn’t interrupt another date with David, but then Jack would realize it was the second date. So what? Not that it was a date. Stella gave up; most problems disappeared if you ignored them.
The kettle boiled. She dunked the tea bag and stirred in the milk. The pint should last a week and then she would think about selling the house.
Perhaps David had gone to tend to his wife’s grave. She felt a stirring in her gut. He had not told her. She pulled out the bag before the tea got too strong. If she was the jealous sort, she would mind. After finding Mrs Hampson’s body by her temple, coming across Marian Williams in the police station toilet that morning and, this afternoon, discovering the stuff under David Barlow’s bath, she could do with his company. She wouldn’t even mind the dog.
In the brooding silence of Terry’s kitchen, Stella got the blue folder out of her rucksack, unclipped the spring binders and extracted the photographs. She laid them on the table in number order and sat sipping tea contemplating the fifteen images. The mug was hot so she rubbed her fingers on her trousers. The bruises on Marian Williams’s arm were fingermarks. Four fingers gripping so hard they bruised.
Marian had not fallen. Her husband or partner was violent. She worked in a police station; she could easily have him charged. She must be afraid her colleagues would find out. Ashamed even. Stella had seen enough of Marian Williams to guess that she would keep her troubles to herself. She must have been mortified that Stella had found her. Stella decided that when she saw Marian next, she would act as though it had not happened.
She heard a tapping. An irregular drip. The kitchen tap hadn’t dripped since she replaced the washer. Stella ignored it and rummaged in her rucksack for her Clean Slate sticky notes. She flicked through her Filofax to the grid. Jack had found a second collection of glass in Marquis Way, but had no idea who, if anyone, had died there. She filled in the line for the photograph indexed six and wrote ‘Marquis Way’ in the ‘Street’ column, then scribbled ‘Hit a telegraph pole’ in the same line. She printed each street name – on sticky slips and fixed them to the photographs. She was a detective.
All the men had died in crashes, most of them into trees. At each crash site they had found seven green pieces of glass.
No such thing as an accident.
The dripping was insistent. Two clicks then two close together in a steady beat. No leaking tap did that. Stella got up and crept down the passage. Her heart tumbled in her chest. A shape filled the frosted glass door panels. The letterbox flap lifted slightly and dropped. Her back to the wall, Stella edged along the passage. A neighbour would press the bell. Someone was trying to frighten her. They had succeeded. Her body was liquid with fear. Call the police!
Stella flung open the front door.