50
Thursday, 3 May 2012
‘Jack!’ Stella bellowed. Through the steamy windscreen she saw the stable door open and the same man as earlier, a ghost in the fug, lead out a horse decked in the Metropolitan Police livery; the gigantic animal dwarfed the tall officer. The thought – a bad joke – occurred to Stella that it was too late to shut the stable door.
Jack would be raking through her mother’s rubbish searching for an item Suzie had lost years ago or never owned. Stella should rescue him. But despite the acrid whiff of urine-soaked hay drifting into the van, she didn’t move.
‘Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow.’
A memory of her dad singing her to sleep floated like gossamer across the misty screen. Terry had taken her to see the horses. She had said the raised squares on the stable floor were like chocolate. Something was nagging. She got the blue folder out of her bag and opened it at the first photograph.
Stella was startled by a rap on the window. Marian Williams was outside.
You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned…
About to start the van and drive away, she forced herself to press the window button. Nothing happened. She fiddled with the ignition key and the glass slid down.
‘Did I frighten you?’ Marian Williams enquired.
‘No.’ Stella held the folder to her chest to hide how frightened she was.
‘I hoped you’d be here.’
‘I have forms to complete, calls…’ Stella gabbled. Marian had come to lead her back inside.
‘I really hope I didn’t upset you the other night, talking about fatalities, suicides and all. Terry and me, we used to say we’d learnt to deal with terrible things. With you being his daughter, I forgot that these things upset ordinary people.’
The printout was inches from Marian. Stella snatched it up and crammed it into her rucksack, tearing a page. ‘Not at all. I mean, it’s upsetting, but…’ She bounced the folder on her knee. She didn’t relish being called ordinary, but being called a criminal was far worse.
‘Do you fancy going over the road for a coffee? I’m owed some time.’
If Marian planned to arrest her for breaking into the police system, she was choosing her moment. Her kindly smile gave nothing away. Hemmed in by guilt, Stella could not refuse. ‘Perhaps the office could spare me.’ She gathered up her rucksack and stumbled out of the van. They went at Marian’s slower pace around to Hammersmith Broadway.
The café was busy with office workers queuing for takeaways or holding huddled meetings at tables strewn with papers and laptops. Marian insisted on buying the coffees so Stella bagged a table near the door while she got them. An umbrella was propped against her chair, but there was no other indication the seats were taken so she sat down.
Stella felt the buzz of a text in her anorak. She had forgotten her meeting with Jackie. If she rang, Jackie would get the truth out of her. Stella looked about her. She recognized the place. She’d come here last year with another client. She should not make it a habit. A woman at the next table was engrossed in a paperback; a middle-aged man and a woman sat over a pile of croissants: neither was speaking or eating, they were looking out at the Broadway. Never fall in love, Stella resolved. Although being in love was better than falling foul of the law.
‘I used to manage the admin on our cases, but since my promotion, it’s less hands on, more’s the pity.’ Marian put down two mugs on the table. ‘I don’t judge, but faced with the frailty of human nature, it’s hard not to have a view. Trick is not to get jaundiced.’ The leather armchair squelched when she landed in it. She whacked a sachet of sugar against her mug, ripped off the end and showered granules over the chocolate on her cappuccino.
Stella was alive to threat in her innocuous words. The printout was in her rucksack at her feet. Marian knew. Stella tried to look nonchalant.
‘…life has a way of sorting itself… everything balances…’ Marian stirred in the chocolate and sugar and licked her teaspoon placidly.
‘So you think it’s right?’ Stella should keep the conversation light and get out as soon as possible. Recklessly she ploughed on. ‘Drivers who have killed a child committing suicide.’ She could not remember what Marian had actually said. It might be better to confess and get it over with.
‘I think people should face their punishments. Killing yourself is the soft way out.’ Marian Williams took a sip of her drink and smiled benignly. ‘You cleaned my desk.’
Reeling, Stella dimly recalled Jack saying that the best liars tell the truth most of the time. ‘I gave it a wipe.’
‘You have an eye for detail. Like your father. Do you do a lot of the cleaning? Martin says Clean Slate is very successful.’ Marian settled into her seat and contemplated Stella peaceably over the rim of her mug. She had a moustache of foam, but Stella could not tell her.
‘Only the important ones.’ Stella had not meant to flatter.
‘Terry said you take trouble, you miss nothing. Chip off the old block, he reckoned.’ At last Marian patted her mouth with a serviette. ‘He was proud of what you had accomplished, and impressed. He said he didn’t have a head for business; you got that from your mum. ’
‘Horses for courses,’ Stella quipped stupidly and picked up a tube of sugar, remembered she didn’t take sugar and put it back. She gulped her coffee. Terry would change his mind now. No amount of deep cleaning would salve her guilt. ‘Do you like your work?’ she countered. Any minute she would be frogmarched out.
‘I take pride in it, which is not the same as liking it.’ Marian shrugged. ‘I used to love it.’ She looked bleak for a moment. Stella guessed she was thinking about the husband.
A young man carrying a laptop case, a newspaper and a cardboard tray of coffees struggled along the queue. The bag swung out when he stuck out a leg to keep the door open and glanced against Marian’s shoulder, jolting her cup. She shot around. ‘Look where you’re going!’ She reddened and glared out of the window at the departing offender. ‘That’s what I mean,’ she fumed.
‘Are you all right?’ Stella asked. Marian Williams’s chair jutted out into the gangway so it could happen again. They should leave before it did.
‘You have taken in everything I told you.’ Marian watched the Broadway, two pink blotches on her cheeks.
‘Have I?’ Stella went cold.
‘People like that poor Hampson woman won’t accept their loved ones would give up and end their own lives. You saw how that gentleman was too cowardly to offer a simple apology. Imagine what he would do if he killed a child.’
‘What you said disturbed me, maybe that’s why I remembered.’ Lying came too easily. Marian was exaggerating; the laptop-bag man’s carelessness was not going to lead to death by dangerous driving.
‘They have no remorse.’
‘Odd they chose the same way to kill themselves. It’s not as if they knew each other.’ No mention of the printout so far. ‘Hampson and Lauren chose long straight roads like Marquis Way with no cameras or passers-by. There were two deaths in that street. Not an obvious way to commit suicide.’ She was a motormouth. Stella drank her coffee to stop herself. She was sailing right into a high wind.
Marian Williams placed her hand on Stella’s. Her touch light, but firm. ‘Don’t think about this, Stella. As your dad said, we try to make the world cleaner and brighter.’ She took away her hand and remarked: ‘I don’t recall saying anything about Marquis Way. Lauren was killed in Tolworth Street.’
Stella banged the tip of the umbrella on the floor. ‘In my job, you pick up stray facts.’ She lifted her mug to her mouth. It was empty so she pretended to drink. ‘I have a meeting in… in fact I’m late.’ She leapt up.
‘Perhaps Terry told you?’ Marian chatted on.
Stella took another sip from the empty mug to avoid another lie. Terry had never discussed his cases with her. She would not implicate him.
‘I miss my chats with Terry.’ Marian mopped up stray sugar with her napkin. ‘This has been nice.’
Marian did not know about the printout. In her relief, Stella was expansive. ‘We must meet for a meal.’
Marian had worshipped Detective Chief Superintendent Darnell, and for him she had worked tirelessly. Since he had died the pleasure in her job had died too. She would think it inconceivable that his daughter would enter the database. Stella did not believe it herself. Marian had a violent husband, and had lost her knight in shining armour. She wanted to impress Stella with nuggets of information, but Stella kept undercutting her, demonstrating she knew facts that were Marian’s to process, file and store up for a rainy day.
On rare visits to the police station as a child, Stella had occasionally experienced unfriendliness. A receptionist’s reluctance to tell her dad she had arrived; some who did not delight in the little girl clutching their boss’s hand. They all wanted a bit of Terry. She had never met Marian on those visits. Marian Williams had treated her with respect, even brought her flowers. Stella had abused her authority. The poor woman got enough of that at home. She sat down again and asked, ‘Could they have been murdered?’
There was a momentary lull in the shop, a silence with no correlation to external events into which her words landed. She looked about but no one appeared to have heard.
‘Why do you say that?’ Marian looked pleased to be consulted.
Jack would have seen that the trick was not to be clever. Stella lost her nerve. ‘My phone is ringing.’ Stella took refuge in her rucksack. In the comparative quiet there was no sound.
‘That’s an interesting idea. But who would murder them?’ Marian persisted.
Stella saw the text from earlier. Jack. He was still at her mother’s.
‘Sorry?’
‘Terry would say: “Who profits by a death?”’
‘The family of the child?’ Stella had not thought of this before.
‘So the families got together and killed these two men? Great idea, didn’t Agatha Christie do it? In reality it’s more difficult. No one would get away with it.’ Marian Williams picked up her bag. ‘Do answer your phone.’ She stood up.
Stella looked at the silent telephone in her hand.
‘It’s a text.’ She got to her feet.
‘Those crashes. Technically they were accidents.’ She patted her hair and stepped into the gangway. ‘I do what I can, but ultimately I’m powerless.’
Stella guessed Marian was thinking of her marriage. She was tempted to tell Marian about the green glass, but she mustn’t do so without talking to Jack. He had asked her not to. She pictured Marian in the toilet, confused and shocked, her arm a mass of purple. She opened the door for her.
Marian took Stella’s arm as they walked to the police station. Stella disliked the intimacy, but was glad that Marian wasn’t arresting her.
‘I would love to have a meal with you,’ Marian said.
‘How is your arm?’ Stella was voluble at the prospect of imminent freedom. She should not have mentioned the toilet incident. It was pointing up Marian’s own untruth.
‘I am sorry to have caused you bother.’ Marian let go of her arm.
‘If you need anything, call me.’ Marian would not call.
‘I will.’ Marian trotted up the steps and into the station without looking back.
Stella was getting into her van when she saw she was holding the umbrella from the café. She could return it, but was already late for Jackie. A horrible thought occurred. Marian Williams had seen her steal it. She knew Stella was a thief. If she left the umbrella at the front desk, Marian wouldn’t know; the deed was done. Stella tossed it into the back of the van. She was pulling out of the compound when she remembered Jack’s text. She stopped and, shielding the phone from the blinding sunshine, opened her Inbox:
Found what your mum lost.