Death on Daytime: A Tess Darling Mystery (The Tess Darling Mysteries) (39 page)

It had taken her friends to prove it, though. As a swell of pride hit, Tess realized how much Di and Gid meant to her. And what she owed them.

Retrieving the photos, Tess slid them back into their envelope. “Once we hand these over to the police, Sandy, they’ll want to interview witnesses closer to home. How old
are
your twins now? Two, three?”

“No,” paled Sandy. “You can’t do that to the boys. Not Jack, not Tim!”

“He’s called Tom,” said Mark. “The little one is
Tom
.”

Something seemed to give inside Sandy. The steel rod running up her back snapped. Her shoulders sagged, and her stomach sank quietly over the top of her waistband. “I’m so sorry, Mark, so sorry for hurting you. But it all came from love. You don’t know how I – I loved you. So much. I loved watching you, so confident and strong on the sofa beside me.”

She looked adoringly at her husband, so much younger, slimmer and blonder than herself. “Then you’d call Desmond Tutu your ‘bro’–or ask that one from the Backstreet Boys if he’s fat because he’s gay – and I’d just want to ram your head into a wall.”

“Thank God.” Pulling her into his arms, Mark bowed his head over hers. “Don’t cry, my love, I get it, I do. I’m an idiot, a fool. I’m nothing without you.” He murmured through his fall of thick, blond hair, and Tess saw it for what it was: a curtain to hide behind. “Seeing you and Rutger… on that tape back there… I remembered how things used to be with
us
. How things could be again. At teatime peak.”

Mark appealed to his wife. His wife appealed to her agent. Rod screwed up his eyes, perusing and piggy. “
You,
Mr Plimpton, are lucky to still have yer knees after walking out on me,” he said. “But there’s no doubting a peaktime show on ITV
could
bring in a loada cash, especially with the heat your wife will be packing after that there sex-tape.” He turned to Sandy. “Tart yerself oop a bit, woman, and I could market you as a sorta sexy Mrs Robinson figure. Yer know? With jowls.” She nodded. Mark gave a thumbs-up. Rod looked tired suddenly.

“First we’ve got to kill
any
talk of Mrs Plimpton walloping Mr Plimpton.” He turned to Tess. “Seems like we’ve been making a lotta deals recently. What price your silence
this
time?”

A fair one, she calculated. “Miller taken on by a production company that will train him to use a camera, not just swing it about like a club. Gid gets a proper shot at presenting, and Di ….” Tess craned her head back to shout at the gallery. “Di? You still up there? What do
you
fancy?”

“Ooh, you couldn’t get me on
The Voice,
could you?” Di sang through the studio speakers. “I love a bitta Will-i-am. Mad as a box of frogs, he is.”

“Done,” said Rod. “Call my office in the morning, Tess, and we’ll take it from there.” He stuck out a hairy hand. She shook it.

“Give Aaron our best,” she said. “Miller enjoyed the time they spent together.”

“I guessed. Now Aaron keeps asking me for ‘man-hugs’, and wants a trip to Disneyland.
Disneyland?
” he wheezed. “Thousands, I’ve poured into that boy’s education, and he just wants to try another fookin’ flume.”

Watching Rod usher out the Plimptons to meet the press, Tess felt unexpectedly sad. Having caught a killer, she’d been left… empty-handed?

Elbowed out. Studio crew pushed her back. Rutger Aarse was being borne off on a stretcher – but he reached out a hand. She patted it. “It was you, wasn’t it?” she said gently. “Outside Fergie’s hospital room. I saw you watching from the trees.”

“What else could I do? I had got his messages but I was scared. I – I–I wanted to see he was OK. Fuggy, he was good to me, ja?” Rutger’s hand dropped. “Not many are good to me, you know?”

“I know,” said Tess. In the end, he was just another lonely boy on the make. An unwholesome chef, cooking up sex-tapes for who knew next?

“Jayzus wept.” Fergie Flatts pushed himself off from the sofa. “
I’ll
ride with you to the hospital. To get me own feckin’ stitches seen to, mind, nothing else.” Tess watched Rutger’s face light up – with something much stronger than relief – and hoped Fergie saw it too.

As the damaged pair moved towards the fire doors, Tess dared to envisage them together. A shared future might not hold fame, but
could
promise hot nights of disco, then early home for Appelflappen – to catch Di’s star turn on
The Voice.

As for Tess?

“Didn’t I say you’d do it?” Miller swept her into his arms, much as a Grizzly might scoop up a raccoon. “You fought back, and won. You nailed Laura Pound, and got Fat Alan off the hook.”

“For
Colin’
s murder,” said Tess. “But that’s just the half of it.” Blasted by her bombast – and Laura Pound’s fury – not a single person had stopped to ask the question:
Who the fuck killed
Jeenie?

Who the fuck cared? The press had a ‘black widow’ to spin headlines for them now. Woman scorned, baker de-floured, Laura would make for weeks of great copy. Meanwhile, the police could weigh their options in peace. Let Jeenie’s lonely murder pass as a random attack, or quietly pursue Fat Alan? Either way, the case would soon be dead and forgotten by the rest of the world.

But not by Tess. Sod tonight’s TV exposé. Whatever Darcus Darling was planning to hurl at her – poor journalistic practices, mendacious investigating, vodka breath – her father couldn’t berate Tess more than she did herself. She’d failed.

Didn’t say that, though. What did talking get you? Your Dad correcting your grammar. (On live TV).

Instead, Tess buried her head against Miller’s broad, forgiving chest. She wiped her nose on his woolly jumper, put her arms around him, and struck a lumpy buttock. “What the–?” Thrusting her hand down the back of Miller’s trousers, she pulled out a squashed, tatty cushion. “How long have you had
this
down your pants?”

“Since you left me,” he shrugged. “It took a
long
time to free the camera from the boot of the car, you know. It was cold. I did a lot of bending over.”

“But a
cushion
?”

“Josh’s idea. Remember him? He took the photos of Fat Alan?” Taking back the cushion, Miller plumped it reverently back into shape. “Paparazzo’s insulation, he called it – the best way to keep warm when going through Gwyneth Paltrow’s bin. Your bottom keeps going up in the air, you see—”

“You mean you’ve had this on you
the whole time
? You went on national TV with a cushion down your pants – and nobody noticed?”

“Of course not. Nobody was looking at
me
.” He was right. Miller wasn’t beautiful or brash or selling something. No-one had given him a second glance.

“Oh, Miller,” she said. “I love you!” At last, she knew how Jeenie’s killer had stayed invisible. Miller had shown her how. Going up on her toes, she kissed him.

Before he could catch her, she’d gone.

T
en days ago, the deluge had come, bearing death, fear and chaos. Now Tess was back on Squarey Street, and skies were blue. Birds sang, as her cab pulled away. Heading up the path to No.13, Tess felt the house beckoning her in.

The front door was open, for starters. “Hello?” She crossed the threshold. “Anyone there?”

Stepping in from October sunshine, Tess shivered. Here, in 13 Squarey Street, the storm still reigned. Along the floor, leaves shrivelled where they’d been blown in – or stuck, as skeletons, to the walls. Mud smeared the Victorian hall tiles like dried blood. No attempt had been made to restore the home from a crime scene. The dingy Croydon house, in which an unloved star had met her death, lay abandoned by the police. Discarded by the press.

Someone was here though.

Tess stumbled over a scuffed, navy, holdall. She caught a glimpse of clothes stuffed inside – crumpled slacks, curled socks – then heard muffled voices coming from down the hall. From behind the closed door of the sitting room.

Tess opened it. The small lounge was shrouded in gloom; heavy drapes drawn against the day.

But the day was fighting back.

Slicing through the curtains, a lone shaft of light hit two hunched figures. “Tesch!” Fat Alan leapt from his chair. “You
came, Tesch. She came!”
He turned to the room’s other occupant. “You’re right – you’re
alwaysch
right.”

From out of the shadows, wheeled a familiar figure. “Hello dear,” smiled Mrs Meakes. “We’ve been expecting you.”

At the sight of the frail widow, Tess felt a last hope die. “Why?” she asked. “Why do it, Mrs Meakes? Why kill Jeenie Dempster?”

“Because no-one else would, dear. Care for a biscuit?”

Tess followed Mrs Meakes’ shaky gesture to a tray set down on the carpet – biscuits fanned out on plates, china cups set in saucers – clearly
not
the work of Fat Alan. But how had a dying, old lady found the strength to lay out a tea? Fuckit, how had she
killed
?

It was Miller and his cushion Tess had to thank. Not that ‘thank’ was the right word: The past hour had been bleak. She’d run from Backchat, determined to take care of business while Miller looked after Di and Gid. With no better plan, she’d grabbed a cab to Happy Cypresses Retirement Home. There, the care manager had confirmed Mrs Meakes’ condition continued to deteriorate. Accordingly, staff had facilitated Mrs Meakes’ request to return, one last time, to 13 Squarey Street.

“When I heard you were bidding it farewell,” said Tess. “I understood. This was your home for fifty years, wasn’t it? You raised your family here. So I thought you might be wanting this.” From the inside pocket of her Puffa coat, she extracted a small, silver-plated photo frame. “The care manager let me take it from your room – she knew you never liked to be without it.” It had sat on her bedside table, all this time, hadn’t it? The hinged, double photo-frame that showed Mr and Mrs Meakes, newly-wed, in black and white – then fifty years on, in colour…fading fast.

Having placed the treasured frame into the widow’s eager – but trembling – grasp, Tess produced a second, larger picture. “Your daughter and her only child.” Last seen poking out from beneath Mrs Meakes’ pillow: a little girl with curly ginger pigtails, and a mother with tragic eyes. “How
did
your daughter die?”

“Cancer, the doctors said.” Mrs Meakes blinked at the picture. “I called it a broken heart.”

“You alright?” said Fat Alan. Unsure of what was happening, aware only of Mrs Meakes’ growing distress – and Tess’ hostility – he shuffled over to study the picture for himself. Tess blocked him, however, jabbing a finger at the pigtailed girl.

“Your granddaughter,” she demanded. “What came of
her
?”

“You know,” said Mrs Meakes. “You
know
what happened to her. Now the world will know too.” Her voice cracked; her wasted cheeks reddened like the embers of a dying fire. “I’ll go to my grave, shouting the name of my dear girl—”

“Kathy Bush!” A cry of recognition escaped Fat Alan. “Our Kathy!”

He stroked the age-spotted photograph with a finger that was dirty and bitten-down at the nail. His eyes were bright, however, his gaze no longer blank but sharp with recall. “It’sch Kathy in her plaitsch! From when we were at school. Before…before…”

Pulling the photo frame from Tess, Alan sank back down into his chair. He started to rock, as if to dislodge twenty years of buried memories. “Kathy Bush wasch my best friend. Then there wasch Jeenie…” He stopped. He looked up at Mrs Meakes. “Jeenie hurt usch, didn’t she? She hurt me and she hurt Kathy and all the happinesch shtopped. Kathy – she went—” He looked back at the picture – at the little, lost face. “Where did Kathy go?”

“To sea, Alan,” replied her grandmother. “Kathy went to sea – to find that happiness again.”

Alan seemed to accept this. Mrs Meakes never had, though, had she? “I should’ve figured it out sooner,” said Tess. “Alan’s mum
told
us Jeenie Dempster had framed both her
Wacky House
co-stars. Mrs Pattison was in no doubt: Kathy Bush was as much a victim as her son. Then we learned Kathy was dead.”

“And it was Jeenie who killed her – as good as pushed my little girl’s head under the water,” said Mrs Meakes. Kathy never recovered from the shame of what appeared in those newspapers. How could she? My little girl naked for everyone to see.” She struggled for breath, her eyes turning pink and syrupy.

“The worst of it was Kathy couldn’t remember a thing from that terrible night. She’d
never
know what she’d done with those evil boys – what they’d done to
her
. Then her Mum’s cancer took hold, and Kathy blamed herself – the stress she’d caused her. When she lost her Mum, there was no saving Kathy.” Mrs Meakes bowed her head. “It was just a matter of time.”

Time, thought Tess, it had run out. Like a tired magician performing his last trick, she produced a crumpled computer printout from her Puffa. “Miller pulled this off a TV nostalgia website. It’s a screen grab from
Wacky House
,” she said. “Showing Kathy in action.” The fearless TV star was strapped into a tandem parachute with a terrified old man.

“Oh, Reg!” cried Mrs Meakes. “That’s Kathy with my Reg – her Granddad. Kathy adored him, and why not? Her dad took off, having given her nothing but his name. It was
Reg
who made her feel safe, and then taught her to spread her wings.” She smiled. “Never thought she’d take him up with her: that parachute jump must’ve knocked five years off his life!” The smile died. “Jeenie Dempster took the rest.”

Tess looked from the colour printout to the black and white wedding snap: Reg Meakes with the two women he’d loved most in the world. One had killed herself.

The other had killed.

“Justice,” said Mrs Meakes. “That’s all I wanted. Jeenie’s death to pay for Kathy’s. My little girl to rest easy, her killer exhumed. Why not dug up on live TV? All she’d cared about was fame, wasn’t it? Let her have it.”

“But why let
Fat Alan
take the blame?” said Tess. “He was Kathy’s friend. He’d suffered every bit as much as her – and now you were setting him up for Jeenie’s murder?”