53
Thursday, 3 May 2012
‘Jamie Markham was my schoolfriend.’ Jack contemplated his milk.
Stella tapped sharply on the floor with the umbrella, but he ignored her. She should not have left the strategy to Jack; pretending to know the road traffic victim was a bad idea. Lucille May was a journalist. Like a detective, she would be programmed to smell a rat and root it out.
‘My dear, you don’t look old enough.’ Lucille May patted Jack’s knee. In a short dress topped with a baggy man’s jumper, her stockinged feet tucked under her, she faced him on a leather chesterfield set in a bay window. On a coffee table in front of the sofa lay a London street atlas and the latest copy of the Chronicle and a heap of files containing Lucille May’s articles. They sipped their drinks.
‘I’m older than I look,’ Jack demurred.
‘My condolences about Jamie.’
Stella thought Lucille May might try to sound as though she meant it. She left her hand on Jack’s knee a little too long. Jamie Markham was twenty-nine in 2003 so would now be thirty-eight. This meant it was plausible they could be schoolfriends. Still Jack’s ruse was risky; she would have said so if he had told her what he planned to say.
‘We lost touch after school.’ Jack looked regretful.
At least he was resisting embellishments: unlike her, Jack was a skilled liar. The coffee was lukewarm and sweet. Stella put it down.
Lucille May’s flirty, rather skittish manner didn’t suit either her or her name. She was the woman who had interviewed Stella about her father’s death, the article that had prompted David to call. Their conversation had been on the phone, Stella having refused to let her come to the office, so she had not seen her until now. She had mumbled her name at the door, but May’s eyes were on Jack. Stella had to hope the journalist didn’t recognize her from the photograph used in the article. May had a careworn air that, like Jack, made it hard to guess her age, mid-fifties, Stella decided. She was tall. Stella was always surprised to meet women as tall as herself at six feet. May had invited them in before they could finish explaining why they were there. Stella thought back to the woman’s probing questions about Terry and shuddered. ‘Lucie, please!’ Ushered ahead of her into the kitchen, they waited while she made the drinks so had no chance to confer.
The kitchen had not been decorated for decades. Stella had eyed with distaste chipped blue Formica surfaces, shrunk and faded floral curtains that hung limply. The living room was dingy, the furniture tired and outdated. Despite the rooms having been knocked through and French doors added, foliage around lattice windows let only a dim greenish light filter in.
Jack’s ‘open sesame’ had been his dead friend, Jamie Markham. Fiddling with the cutting on Markham’s death, May needed no encouragement to talk.
The room was that of a busy professional. Although worn, it looked unlived-in. A gigantic television divided the room by a green-tiled fireplace. The wall above and the mantelpiece were filled with cheaply framed photographs of May with various low-grade celebrities spanning at least thirty years. They put Stella in mind of Terry’s basement wall with pictures of herself. A warped laminate bookcase was packed with garish true crime paperbacks and back copies of the Chronicle. Trying to sit properly in a squashy oatmeal settee, Stella saw no sign of a partner or children, although Lucille May wore a ring on her wedding finger, implying there had been someone at some stage.
‘The Markhams were newly married and she was pregnant. Well, you’ll know that.’
‘Not until I read your article. I’d appreciate hearing anything you can tell me about Jamie.’ Jack looked sorrowful.
Stella got up and fled to the other end of the room where doors opened on to a garden. So much for teamwork. Since Jack had found the printout, they had not made eye contact.
The garden was a meadow. The grass was too long for a domestic machine; were she doing the job, she would bring in their new rotary field mower. Stella’s eye was drawn to a swing. The chains were hanging from a rusting metal frame, the seat green with mildew. Lucille May had at least one child.
Stella got the picture: ‘empty nesters’ holding on to their kid’s stuff for hoped-for grandchildren. No child should use that swing; it belonged in a skip. Lucille May needed Clean Slate’s gold garden package. She would get Beverly to pop a leaflet through. She turned back to the room.
‘…Markham’s son had reared some creature… Let me see.’ May was rootling through her files. ‘Here we are. A sweet lad. Bit like my brother – how we change!’
Stella returned to the settee. Clearly old, it had recently been professionally cleaned. She could just detect the musky scent of leather cleaner.
‘He looks like Jamie.’ Jack leaned in and looked at the cutting.
‘Nonsense, darling. Kid’s fair and Markham had dark hair.’
Stella shot Jack a look, but he was deliberately avoiding her. He read aloud: ‘“… Damian Markham, aged seven, is now the same age as little Chris Mason was when James Markham’s Peugeot RCZ hit him on Shepherd’s Bush Road nearly eight years ago to the day in 2002. Markham was cleared of dangerous driving despite a witness reporting he had exceeded the speed limit. Damian, pictured here with a blackbird he reared singlehandedly, never knew his dad. Markham died months after Chris when his car smashed into a tree one night on Britton Drive, North Hammersmith. Why Markham was there late on a Sunday remains a mystery.”’
‘Must have put a dampener on Damian’s fifteen minutes of fame,’ Jack observed drily.
‘Chris Mason’s death was the bloody dampener. A little boy’s life cut short through carelessness.’ Lucille May was stern. ‘Friend or not, he destroyed the Masons. They didn’t have other kids.’
Marian Williams had talked about families being destroyed, Stella thought. Both women were on the sidelines of law and order. Terry tried to make a difference, stop the crime that wrecked ordinary lives. He must have known Lucille May. Stella thought her more his type than Marian; good-looking, a laugh, May would take no prisoners. Something stopped Stella asking her. If Terry had wanted to, he could easily have got May to help. He had not wanted it, she was sure.
‘Was it Jamie’s fault?’ Jack finished his milk.
‘There was no film in the security camera. Your man said Chris dashed out without looking. A witness corroborated his story. Technically it was not.’
‘Could Markham have committed suicide?’ Stella chipped in. Lucille May looked surprised. Perhaps she had forgotten she was there.
‘Sophie, his lovely young wife’ – her tone was acid – ‘said he was upbeat the week before he died, so no, more’s the pity. Sorry, sweetie.’ She patted Jack’s knee again.
‘People are often in great spirits before killing themselves. The decision’s made, they can be at peace,’ Jack said.
‘His wife insisted he was full of the future. They were moving to a bigger house, he had put a down payment on a Jeep. Sophie Markham said it was like he’d won the pools. I wheedled that out of her by fussing over her boy and his scraggy bird. She wrote to complain after the piece was out.’ She puffed her cheeks. ‘Not like the Masons have the luxury of sticking f*cking pipettes down blackbirds’ gullets!’
Stella noticed that Lucille May spoke without care for Jack’s supposed feelings. Like Marian she did not mourn these men. Working on the same cases, if from different perspectives, it was likely the two women had met. She didn’t see them getting on. May seemed to view other women as competition. Marian might think May had a hand in the mess she and Terry had tried to clear up.
‘My editor wanted something on this house, but I’m saving it for the book. You don’t get anywhere in this game by squandering what took hard-won graft.’
‘Why did he want you to write about this house?’ Jack put down his empty glass.
‘You don’t want to know.’
Stella leaned forward on the umbrella. They did want to know. A good detective treats everything as important. To her surprise Jack got up.
‘Do you mind if I go for a smoke?’
‘Be my guest. I could do with some fresh air. I’ve given up, but once in a while…’ Lucille May swiped up a packet of cigarettes and a lighter from the arm of the sofa.
Stella thought there would be more fresh air if she stayed where she was, but grabbing the umbrella she trailed after them.
‘Poor you, you’ve covered a lot of fatalities.’ An unlit cigarette between his lips, Jack cleared spiders’ webs from the seat of the swing and, sweeping up the skirts of his coat, sat down and gripped the chains. Stella had to admit he drew people out. Particularly women old enough to be his mother.
‘I’ve lost count. Two in Marquis Way – I highlighted that to the police. Paul Vickery and that crook.’ Lucille lit a cigarette and, cupping her hand, the cigarette between her lips, proffered the flame to Jack. He shook his head and began to swing to and fro.
‘What crook?’ Stella asked. May didn’t seem bothered that Jack wasn’t smoking.
‘Harvey bloody Gray. Blew his company’s pension fund and then himself. No loss.’
‘What did the police say when you pointed out the two deaths?’ Jack twisted the swing full circle one way and then the other. The frame creaked ominously.
‘They hate you doing their job. The “fatacs” were over twenty years apart so the location wasn’t a black spot. Fine, have it your way, said I, gives me free rein.’ One eye shut, she drew long on her cigarette. ‘One day you’ll all come crawling.’
May’s gaze fixed on the end of the garden. Stella looked. A bike leaned against the fence, tyres flat. The saddle was the same colour as the seat on the swing. Stella’s stomach fizzed. Perhaps May’s child would not present her with a grandchild. Her child had died. She tried to get Jack’s attention, but kicking with his feet he swung higher. Anyone would think the swing was why they were here.
‘It gets to you. The kiddies’ deaths, same story over and over, some tosser thrashing his motor. Gives a crap excuse, gets off with a fine or a ban and saunters off into the proverbial whatsit. It’s all about speed. Meeting deadlines, beating journey times. Shave off an hour here, seconds there. Keeps the world revolving and the coffers filling and the rest of us as powerless as ants.’
Jack swung between them. ‘In fact ants aren’t power—’
‘Didn’t Gray have the outlet factory on Britton Drive?’ Stella intervened. It would be woodlice next.
May whipped around. ‘Someone’s done their homework.’ She regarded Stella for a moment and then said, ‘Shoes had crap soles.’
Although it was early spring, the air was cold. A wind had got up. Stella should have put on her anorak. Woodlice made her think of Mafeking Avenue where Denis Atkins had died. May had covered that too. She wouldn’t be happy about the blue folder: it was treading on her toes. They should leave.
‘Don’t say you knew Harvey Gray too.’ May brushed an invisible speck from Jack’s coat. ‘Darling, that’s ghastly luck.’
‘No, I didn’t.’ Jack’s feet momentarily pointed at the sky. ‘Both Gray and Jamie died on a street at night. Both were involved in fatal accidents with children.’
Stella wanted to grab the swing. Beneath the flirty persona Lucille May was as sharp as a pin.
‘You should be doing my job!’ May gave a corncrake laugh. ‘Gray killed a boy called Robert Smith. Gray died on the seventeenth of March 2003, my ex-husband’s birthday. Bastard.’ She narrowed her eyes and drew on her cigarette. ‘Gray, that is. Although the husband was a close second. People say you marry your father. My old dad was OK, despite favouring my butter-wouldn’t-melt brother.’
‘So you don’t think the deaths were coincidence?’ Stella waved away smoke when Lucille May wasn’t looking. Assuming she would be ignored, she was surprised when May replied.
‘In my game you get to see that apparent coincidence is exactly that: coincidence. Take my advice and let your friend go and move on. No good comes of raking the coals.’ She flashed Stella an on-off smile, put her cigarette in her mouth and, going behind Jack, gave him a push. ‘The day Mr Slip-Shod killed Rob Smith was Guy Fawkes. Poor bloody parents were going to have a party. Rob had made the Guy. Just before your lovely Jamie died.’ She pushed Jack harder, amidst a plume of cigarette smoke.
Jack flew up and then down like a great black bird.
‘Now I’m free to do what I bloody well want,’ she said apropos of nothing and gave another clattering laugh.
‘There was a witness for Gray’s death. Did he ever come forward?’ Stella stole a look at Jack, who was swinging back and forth in a world of his own.
‘What did you say you did?’ May blew smoke towards Stella.
Stella did her best ‘Jackie’ voice: warm, open. ‘I’m a cleaner. I read your articles regularly. They’re more interesting than homework.’ This was rubbish. They needed to back off fast.
‘Stella suggested I talk to you.’ Jack landed between them. ‘She said it would help me move on, as you say.’ Welcome back, Jack! Stella’s mind buzzed with how to end this and get out.
‘A woman called in the accident, a lady of the night, shall we say. Carol Jones saw a man on Marquis Way before she came upon the crash.’
‘Your article said it was an elderly person. It doesn’t say it was a man.’ Stella couldn’t help herself.
‘If he existed at all, he was a man.’ Smoke clouded out of May’s nose and mouth. ‘Jones said he was tall, possibly drunk because he wasn’t steady on his feet. He was coming from the crash site. Timing-wise he would at least have heard the collision. Suspected suicide. No one will ever know.’ She lit another cigarette with the tip of the glowing stub. ‘Nine years on and the trail is cold. Jones is dead. Found out when I chased her up. Too slow. My best hunting days are nearly over.’
‘This swing is brilliant,’ Jack piped up. Feet thrust out, toes to the clouds, he gathered momentum.
‘Careful,’ Stella cautioned. She brandished the umbrella. She affected a stroll and made for the bike.
‘Nice to see it being used.’ Lucille May spoke as if Jack was a visiting seven-year-old. ‘This place needs life.’ She stabbed at the air with her cigarette. ‘Oozes misery some days.’
It was a girl’s bicycle, its blue paint chipped. On the metal chain guard Stella read ‘Trusty Pavemaster’. It was an exact replica of the bike Stella had had when she was a child. Her mum still complained that Terry was prepared to foist stolen property off on his daughter. Stella didn’t care who had owned the bike before her. She loved the fat tyres, the vibrant blue frame and the bell on the handlebars. She hadn’t been allowed to take it to Barons Court. It was a treat for when she visited her dad on his weekends. The bike wasn’t in the house now. Stella had the whirling idea for a second that this was it. She exhaled deeply. Of course it was not. If May had lost a daughter she ought to feel sorry for her.
Beyond the fence she recognized the back of England House: a detached mansion at the end of St Peter’s Square that abutted Terry’s old garage. She knew most streets here; over the years she had cleaned in houses and flats all over Hammersmith.
Something glinted beneath a holly bush. Stella lifted a branch, avoiding the spikes. A mosaic in the coiling pattern of a snail shell had been pressed into the soil. In the centre was a marble decorated with a twisting of orange snakes.
‘Did you make this?’ she called.
Lucille May came over with Jack behind her. He stared down as if he had seen a ghost.
‘Like I have time for garden design!’ Lucille May dropped her cigarette on to the soil by the mosaic and ground it out.
Jack was on his haunches. He traced the shell with a forefinger. ‘A child did this, it’s too na?ve for an adult.’ He stood up.
‘Hate to hurry you, but I have to get on.’ Lucille May waded through the long grass to the house.
‘But…’ Stella began.
‘Leave it.’ Jack went after May, giving Stella no choice but to follow.
Stella knew why he had gone pale. What had attracted her attention was not the mosaic, but that it was made with chips of green glass.