The Detective's Secret (11 page)

‘I’m guessing you’ve decided against taking this case?’ Frost folded his arms. ‘Jackie said you’d hear me out, so thanks.’ He nodded to Stella.

‘We’ll take it,’ Jack said. He reached out and, picking up Rick Frost’s phone, put it in his coat pocket.

‘Will we?’ Stella was aghast. She was tempted to snatch back the phone and slam it down on the table.

‘We will need to talk to his friends and relations, starting with his wife.’ Jack jumped up, indicating the meeting over. Stella got up too.

‘I can give you my sister-in-law’s details, but she won’t meet you. She’s refusing to see me. Guess I remind her of Rick.’

Jack beamed at him. ‘We can find ways in.’

Stella didn’t think she would like Jack’s ‘ways’.

William Frost pulled on his jacket. ‘I have an idea for getting into her house. Go undercover as a cleaning company and ask questions incognito. Clean Slate
is
a cleaning company so you have carte blanche to do a search and gather clues.’ He was animated.

‘Not a bad idea.’ Jack was watching the dog nosing at his feet. ‘However, we don’t just turn up on doorsteps with our brooms, we have to be invited.’

‘Cold call her.’

‘For domestic jobs we post leaflets. We only call businesses after we’ve sent an email,’ Stella intervened. They hadn’t made cold calls since her mum had gone to Australia.

‘Post her a leaflet.’ Frost had an answer for everything.

The atmosphere had cooled.

‘It’s unethical,’ Stella insisted. ‘We don’t clean under false pretences. As Jack said, we’ll find another way to speak to Mrs Frost.’

‘You’re making it harder for yourselves. What if she’s my brother’s killer?’

‘You are welcome to find another investigation agency.’

‘I admire your approach.’ Frost’s face was stiff as a mask. He made a show of getting out his own phone and consulting it as if about to call a competitor in front of them.

‘Do you think she is?’ Jack looked away from the dog.

‘Sorry?’ Frost put away his phone.

‘Mrs Frost – Tallulah – do you think she murdered your brother? It would save time if you told us your suspicions,’ Jack said.

‘She’s not the killer.’ He folded his arms. Jack said it was a sign of defensiveness, but, big and broad, William Frost would win any fight.

‘Is she a beneficiary of his estate, life insurance, the house, death-in-service pension?’

‘Yes, but why make a murder look like suicide? She won’t get his life insurance.’ Frost shrugged his shoulders. ‘You have to fight fire with fire. You need to get into his house and knocking on the door all nice and polite won’t do it.’

‘It’s possible she would get his life insurance.’ Stella dredged up an unasked-for lecture from a client who was a lawyer, while cleaning his bathroom grout. ‘Providing the policy was taken out a significant period before death and your brother disclosed any mental health issues.’

‘Exactly!’ Frost exclaimed as if Stella were corroborating his point.

‘Did he have enemies?’ Jack wasn’t giving up. Although the question cropped up in crime dramas, Stella found it unconvincing. She could number her friends on one hand – two fingers – but she didn’t think in terms of how many enemies she had. Clean Slate’s operatives, including Stella herself, had upset clients – cobwebs missed, bleach used instead of tea tree oil, rival companies hunting for tips that mystery-shopped their service – yet they couldn’t be described as enemies. Or could they?

‘Rick installed recording devices in air-freshener dispensers and alarm clock radios. He fitted those intruder alarms that collect stats on staff entry and exit. They lead to sackings, divorce, shattered reputations. Lots of reasons for revenge.’

‘Would that be aimed at your brother’s clients rather than him?’ Jack queried.

‘Who do you suspect?’ Stella was pleased by the question. It would tell them as much about Frost as who might have killed his brother.

He pursed his lips. ‘I don’t point fingers.’

‘It would help if you did?’ Jack said. They were being a team.

‘Look into his business. As I say, I bet he had a lot of enemies. He certainly had no friends. I’m sure the reason the army refused him was he had “psycho” stamped on his forehead.’ He hadn’t answered the question.

‘Who do you—’

‘If anything occurs to you let us know.’ To Stella’s surprise Jack got a Clean Slate card from his coat and scribbled a number on the back with the stub of a pencil.

When Stella shook William’s hand, she was surprised that it was without grip.

After he had gone, she asked Jack, ‘Why did you say we’d take it?’

‘If it’s not suicide, like I said, it’s the perfect murder. His idea about going in undercover was good. Please tell me you were pretending when you said we wouldn’t do it?’

‘We’re not compromising Clean Slate. People need to trust their cleaners.’

‘Still, I’d like to know why Mrs F. isn’t speaking to William. That stuff about looking like his brother is nonsense. I saw the picture at the inquest, I thought then how they didn’t look like they were brothers,’ Jack mused. ‘We only have his word that he was at home all night.’

‘The police went round.’

‘Hours after his brother died.’

‘Why would William ask us to solve a murder he had committed himself?’

‘A clever murderer flirts with capture. He or she can’t help themselves; they want to test their brilliance and stave off boredom. Behind his charm, Frost is ruthless. He didn’t like your refusing his idea one bit.’

‘And who is called
Tallulah
?’ Stella groaned.

‘Tallulah Bankhead, the actress,’ Jack replied promptly. ‘She laid a foundation stone in St Peter’s Square when they built the Commodore Concert Hall. You must have seen it.’

Stella despaired of having an ordinary conversation with Jack. Although the name was familiar, so perhaps she had seen it. Terry had taken a photograph of the Commodore on fire when it was being demolished: she did remember that.

Stella reproached herself for her impatience. Jack had seen a man die; she should cut him some slack. If he believed this was a case, she would go along with it. But despite William Frost coming via Jackie, Stella did not trust him.

‘If Tallulah was alive she’d be a hundred now.’ Jack glanced at his watch. ‘Goodness, I’m on the Underground in one hour, forty-three minutes and fifty seconds. Come on!’ He stuffed the street atlas in his coat and jumped up.

‘Where to?’

‘Stamford Brook station. I’ll show you where Rick Frost died.’

October 1987

The quarry moved along Burlington Lane. He kept a distance of ten metres, already composing his report for the unit. A woman in a black coat and high-heeled boots and a black handbag is walking fast along…

Simon’s mother was visiting Mrs Henderson, the lady with the fishpond and a hundred knitted animals. She always gave him cake when he went too, but his mum said he was to stay at home with his sister because when he was working, his father forgot she was there.

‘She usually comes with us.’

‘No she doesn’t.’ She squirted perfume on her wrists. This lie had made it easy to steal her wedding ring from the lacquered box with the tiger’s face. As soon as she had gone, Simon grabbed his mac from the rack and rushed after her.

She was crossing at the lights, the wrong way for Mrs Henderson’s.

He could catch up and demand to know where she was going, but she would lie. Simon admitted to himself that she had been lying to him since he left Marchant Manor and was back living at home.

Traffic on the Great West Road slowed to a stop; a girl was staring at him from the back seat of a car. Simon smiled at her. She poked out her tongue and ducked out of sight. Simon stopped. Then the lights changed and the car moved off. When he looked again, the pavement was empty. He had lost his mother.

The tide was out. Disconsolate and unwilling to go home, Simon crossed the causeway to the eyot and, scrambling up the bank, slumped against the trunk of a weeping willow. He looked back at Chiswick Mall through the reeds. There was no one about. Stuffing his hands in his mac pockets to keep warm, Simon felt something. Her ring. Since stealing it, guilty and ashamed, Simon had put it out of his mind. He held it to the sky: there were letters engraved on the inside, ‘Vita Nuova’. This didn’t make sense. His mother was called Madeleine not Vita.

Obscurely, this unfamiliar name convinced Simon that he had been tracking the wrong woman. His real mother would be eating cake with Mrs Henderson. If the ring belonged to someone called Vita, why was it in her drawer?

At his feet was a white stone, smooth as if polished by water. Inchoate with emotion, the boy snatched it up and, stepping across the clearing to a gap in the reeds, he hurled it as hard as he could into the river.

The front door was opened as he scratched his key at the lock.

‘Where have you been?’ She was wearing the National Trust apron he had bought her for her birthday.

‘I went to see Mrs Henderson.’ A master stroke. He stared at her, unblinking.

A clock ticked in the living room; somewhere his sister was laughing.

‘What do you mean?’ She wasn’t looking at him.

‘I had banana cake.’
Tell me I can’t have. You were there, you didn’t see me. Say it!

‘Simon, we agreed you’d stay here. I left Mrs Henderson early and went shopping.’ She was walking away from him. ‘Sweet of you to go, but tell me next time. I do love her banana cake!’

‘Actually it wasn’t banana, it was a Victoria sponge.’ Demons urged him on.

‘We’re eating in five minutes,’ she said as if to no one.

In the bathroom, Simon ran the gold ring over the fingers of his bad hand, his special trick. It was lighter than a coin. He told himself that his mum had been at Mrs Henderson’s and then gone shopping. Next time he would give her ring to the Captain and say his mother’s name was Vita. Next time he would lead the unit to the tower.

Monday, 21 October 2013

‘There was a man of double deed,

Who sowed his garden full of seed;

When the seed began to grow,

’Twas like a garden full of snow.’

Jack’s voice was amplified under the railway bridge. The wind had got up since they’d been in the Ram; it funnelled under the bridge, smacking Stella’s hair across her face and flattening the dog’s ears to his head. A train clattered above, wheels clunking on the tracks. Stella tugged the dog’s lead to chivvy him, for the grey-encrusted pavements implied that, prompted by the racket, pigeons roosting on the girders might shit on them. It would not be a sign of luck.

Jack skipped out of the way as a straggle of late commuters came out of Stamford Brook station. Stella’s acute sense of smell identified a mixture of scents and body odours and she hurried after Jack into the ticket hall.

‘Single to Barons Court. Please.’

Stella was nine when she had made her first solo journey on the Underground. Terry had been called to a job, so she had to return by herself to the flat her mum had rented since their separation. Terry had folded a ten-shilling note into her purse with the lion motif and, crouching, patted her down and stroked her cheek with his thumb as if she was crying. She must
not
talk to strangers, she must be polite to anyone in uniform, even if they were strangers, and she must keep away from the edge of the platform.

‘
It will be an adventure!’
He had tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

‘
I wish you were coming.’

‘Next time, Stell. We’ll go to Upminster and back!’

Perhaps to sweeten the dull misery of access weekends, Terry told his daughter he would grant her three wishes – proper wishes, not things like wanting to fly or live with him and her mum like ‘before’. Since these were her greatest wishes, Stella generally plumped for an ice-cream sundae at the Wimpy Bar or feeding ducks in the park, which was really for babies. The last time she had seen Terry alive, he asked if she remembered the wishes. She hadn’t. The station brought them back. Too late. Terry was dead. No amount of wishes changed that.

Art deco glass lampshades hanging from the ceiling cast a washed-out light over the ticket hall. In 1975 it had been dingy and grim, and bristled with the possibility of bad people that her dad worked long hours to put away.

She heard a popping; Stanley jerked the lead. It came from a photo booth by the entrance. The curtains were shut; she couldn’t see legs beneath. It was an odd time to get your photo taken, she thought. Stanley growled.

‘Ssssh!’ In here a bark would be deafening. She snatched him up and stroked him to distract him. Jack had started his chanting again:

‘When the snow began to melt,

’Twas like a ship without a belt;

When the ship began to sail,

’Twas like a bird without a tail.’

He flourished his pass and swiped them through the barriers. ‘This way!’

‘I must pay,’ Stella protested.

‘We’re not going anywhere.’ Jack was running up a wide staircase. ‘It happened at six minutes past twelve, later than tonight,’ Jack said when she joined him on the platform. ‘There’re three more trains after that. He used his Oyster card, he didn’t buy a ticket.’

‘Why bother, if he wasn’t going anywhere.’ Stella frowned at her quip. If an inspector asked to see her ticket, she didn’t want to explain she was looking at where a man had killed himself.

Jack broke into her thoughts. ‘A single or return ticket might have indicated his state of mind.’

Suicide wasn’t an option, but if it were, Stella would approach it like cleaning. Clear the decks, identify materials and equipment, allow for the unexpected – damp, cockroaches or cancelled trains. An Oyster card saved money; even if there was to be no future to save it for, she would factor it in.

‘An Oyster card says business as usual. It might mean he didn’t expect to die.’ Stella looked across to the eastbound platform where that afternoon she had waited as a child, avoiding the gaze of strangers. It was deserted now. Then she had been fearful of forgetting to get off at the right station or sitting next to a stranger. Most of all she had fretted that her mum would be cross that Terry had let her travel alone. That came true; Suzie still referred to how he had ‘abandoned his daughter’.