The Detective's Secret (49 page)

‘I’m not anyone.’

‘No, you are not.’

‘You won’t save me this time, Jack. Justin. It’s your turn to murder.’

He stared through the gap in the reeds at the rushing water below, thinking that the spangles of sunlight would join up and become Simon’s face rising out of the blue-grey water. Right until the end, Jack had refused to do what Simon had wanted. It was his turn to murder and he had refused.

The white stones in his Garden of the Dead glowed in stippled sunlight. Jack took four more stones from his coat and, one by one, added them to the circle.

‘Nathan Wilson. Madeleine Carrington. Rick Frost.’

He held the last stone in his palm.

‘Simon Carrington,’ he whispered as he laid the stone within the circle.

‘As I walked by myself,

And I talked to myself,

Myself said unto me:

“Look to thyself,

Take care of thyself,

For nobody cares for thee.”’

‘What do you call a group of crows?’

‘A murder.’

Stella seemed satisfied by his answer, although he doubted she believed him. She held up the front page of the
Chronicle
.

‘
Detective’s Daughter Does It Again!
’

‘We didn’t actually solve the case.’ She was squatting on the floor in the main room of the tower, where his desk had been. The removers had taken everything back to his parents’ house, leaving the space as bare as it was when Mr Wilson had come here with Simon’s mother.

Stella spread the
Chronicle
on the floor. She had popped in on her way back from the office.

‘We worked it out, but more by luck than ingenuity. We didn’t realize it was Simon until he had captured you. We’ll have to get better at this business if we’re going to offer it as a service. We missed all sorts of clues. Dale saw that Lulu Frost wasn’t what she said she was, but I ignored him. He texted Mum and me to say he’d landed safely.’

Jack saw a cloud briefly pass across her face. He suspected Stella of missing her brother.

‘We did solve it. We discovered it was murder by suicide. We gave the police new evidence.’ Jack was at the north window. He picked up the binoculars from the sill.

‘I still don’t see why Rick Frost ran when he saw Simon. It can’t have been the first time – he was married to his sister after all,’ Stella said.

‘Remember what Nicola Barwick told us? She hid behind the hut one night when they were kids and overheard Simon telling Richard Frost that one day he’d punish him. Richard would know when that day came. The boy was in Simon’s grip: Simon had his glove and over time his threat gained potency. Rick knew Simon was closing in. Something impelled him to text William and go to see him. He saw Simon in the dark at the end of the platform and panicked. Simon didn’t have to do anything. He simply had to be there. Over time he had become a potent threat to Rick, the embodiment of his darker side, the boy who had bullied and humiliated Simon.

‘Martin Cashman said we should have called him in earlier,’ Stella said.

‘You tried and he said he needed evidence.’

‘He said Nicola putting her passport in the bin was evidence.’

‘Maybe he should have listened to William Frost when he came to him in the first place. The main thing is we fulfilled William’s brief and he’s paid us. By hook and by crook we’ve done our first job. Your staff manual says do what the client wants and no more. We’ve closed Terry’s “Glove Man” case too,’ Jack reminded her.

‘Clients don’t ask us to clean and expect us to guess where.’

‘Like we do with cleaning, we’ll improve the more crimes we solve.’ Jack trained the binoculars on one of the plane trees in St Peter’s Square. The St Jude storm had denuded it of leaves. He added, ‘Lucie’s happy. She might never write that book, but she’s done a spread for the
Observer
magazine and been read all over the world. She’s back in the mainstream!’

‘Lulu still loves Simon, even though he killed her real father and her mother. Simon never appreciated his sister’s loyalty,’ Stella said.

‘Actually I think he did. His mother betrayed him, as did his teacher, and by refusing to be his friend, so did I. It poisoned his soul.’ Jack couldn’t bring himself to tell Stella the things he had said to Simon when they were boys.

‘His mother having an affair wasn’t betrayal, she was still his mother,’ Stella said.

‘She lied to her son. If you can’t trust your parents to tell you the truth, whom can you trust?’ Too late Jack thought of Terry and Suzie. They hadn’t lied to Stella; they had avoided telling her truth.

‘Parents don’t have to tell their kids everything,’ Stella replied.

Jack didn’t say that having a brother
was
Stella’s business. She had her own way of squaring things.

‘Rick Frost looked at me before he jumped off the platform because he recognized me. We had met only once, when we were boys. I never forgot his eyes, hazel flecked with green, without a glimmer of warmth or life in them. That night on the station, they were full of fear. I did forget where I’d seen them before.’
You are trespassing.
He had erased the memory.

‘He wasn’t a nice man, but he didn’t deserve to die,’ Stella said. ‘What was that about you denying him three times? Lucie said it’s in the Bible. I didn’t have you down as religious.’

‘I learnt early that if you deny something or someone, you can wipe them away. I didn’t want things to be the way they were. I didn’t want to go away to school and I didn’t want Simon to be my friend. By denying he was, I meant him to go away.’

‘No reason you should have been Simon’s friend. We choose who we like.’ Stella was looking at the photographs in the
Chronicle
. Lucie’s editor had printed the passport-booth pictures of Simon facing the wrong way. Jack had refused to look at them properly when she had tried to show him. Another sign he had passed up.

‘Simon was an engineer. He calculated every stress point, every weakness; he covered every eventuality. When Nicola Barwick slipped through his net, he befriended Liz Hunter. He hadn’t reckoned on William bringing us the case, but his plan was like water: regardless of obstacles, it found a path. He had watched me for decades, biding his time.’ At walking pace, Jack shifted the binoculars out of the square and up to the church on the corner of Black Lion Lane.

‘How could he know where you were?’

‘From up here. Simon delivered those fliers; he knew I wouldn’t be able to resist the chance to live in a tower, my own panopticon. He organised the removers, he made sure everything was exactly where I would have put it. He knew everything about me. Once I moved here, I became his True Host. Simon had stolen Rick’s phone and replaced it with a decoy one for the police to find. William told me Rick had invented an app that tracks wherever you are. Simon stalked you and me. He knew where we were all the time. Chilling thought, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

Jack saw that the idea made Stella uncomfortable. He tried to reassure her. ‘Not any more, though.’

He focused on St Peter’s Church as the bells chimed five times. He had noticed that when he looked at places through the binoculars, even in the soundproofed tower, he heard the local sounds. He shifted to Terry’s house on Rose Gardens North and gave a start.

‘There’s a massive white pantechnicon outside your dad’s house!’

‘You’re not the only one moving.’ Stella wandered out to the kitchen. She called back, ‘I’m selling the flat and moving into Terry’s. The garden will be good for Stanley.’

‘That’s great.’ Jack was stunned. Stella was giving up her high-security flat with its three mortices and London bar for a house on a street with neighbours. He saw that it was fair that Stella give Dale half of the value of Terry’s house, but hadn’t expected her to take action so soon – and not this action. While he was retreating to his childhood house – returning to the ghosts – Stella was moving on. He murmured:

‘
I answered myself,

And said to myself

In the self-same repartee:

“Look to thyself,

Or not look to thyself,

The self-same thing will be.”’

It wasn’t all about ghosts. He had missed the short-eared owl knocker on his door and wondered if she had missed him.

‘Can you see how they’re doing?’ Stella was back.

‘They’re going.’ Jack put down the binoculars.

‘I’ll go down.’ Stella was zipping up her anorak. ‘Listen, I bought sparkling wine to celebrate the end of the case – cases – and that we’re keeping Stanley.’ She gave Stanley a fishy treat. ‘Fancy coming over? I’ve taken Dale’s stew out of the freezer. It just needs a flash in the microwave.’

‘I’ll do a last check and meet you at the van.’ Jack hid his delight.

Stella was on the spiral staircase when he remembered the envelope David had given him.

‘I’m sorry! I totally forgot – Dale going put it out of my mind!’ Jack hung over the railing and handed the letter to Stella. ‘I hope it doesn’t matter that it’s late.’

Stella took it from him. Seconds later, Jack heard the thud of the main door closing.

She had said ‘
We’re
keeping Stanley’. He stopped himself doing a little skip.

Dear Stella,

When I asked you to mind Stanley, you weren’t keen, but you do things properly. You will have cared for him and he will have become attached to you – and I think you to him too, so it is best if you keep him.

I’m going to live far away – somewhere where I won’t see a Clean Slate van in the street and feel sad. I would like to say a proper goodbye. I know you hate them, but maybe just this once you might make an exception.

If you are willing, I’ll be at Stamford Brook station tomorrow at 3 p.m. Please come without Stanley – I couldn’t bear to see him. I’ll wait fifteen minutes, then, if you don’t come, I’ll suppose you didn’t want to see me. Here’s to a Tabula Rasa!

Love,

David

PS You might want to change Stanley’s name because you didn’t choose it.

The letter was dated last Friday. By ‘tomorrow’ he had meant Saturday.

Leading Stanley across the road, Stella walked past her van on down to Chiswick Mall and leant against the railings overlooking the eyot. She folded up the letter and tucked it into her anorak pocket. Once again she reminded herself that ‘Mr Right’ didn’t exist. Her phone beeped.
David
. She snatched it out of her pocket, registering that there were no staring eyes at the top of the screen.

Fancy a drink tonight? x
. It was Liz.

When they were young, Liz had sent her letters to suggest they meet. She never rang Stella. She gave her space to decide. Stella had said she was cleaning or had left it a while before replying and then not replied at all. Liz knew what Stella was like. She didn’t try to change her.

Can’t tonight, tomorrow? You OK?
Liz had liked ‘Justin Venus’.

Nicola Barwick was moving back into her house in Chiswick. Liz was going to buy Stella’s flat in Brentford. Stella had been reluctant to do a deal with a friend, but Liz had persuaded her. The flat was quiet with a view over the river and, with its locks and pass-codes, secure. Liz had said she trusted Stella. Stella’s phone pinged again.

See you at the Ram on Black Lion Lane? Yes I am OK, thanks to you, ’tec! Lxx

Stella shuddered to think what Simon Carrington might have done if he had not drowned before he could make it back to the tower where he had left Liz and Nicola Barwick. Nicola had said that Simon Carrington was once a nice little boy. Stella found that hard to believe.

Jack hadn’t told Stella what had happened between him and Carrington on the eyot and she wouldn’t ask him. There was a lot about Jack that she didn’t know and didn’t want to know. When he came down from his tower, she would say that she had been wrong to ask him to promise not to walk in London at night. Jack must walk where and when he liked.

Stella couldn’t bring herself to admit to Jack that she had used Rick Frost’s stalking app to locate him. She couldn’t bear that she hadn’t trusted him.

If Jack asked her why she had changed her mind about him walking at night, she wouldn’t be able to explain, except that if she had to make a promise not to clean, she would find it hard to keep.

‘You will always be called Stanley,’ she told the dog. ‘It’s who you are.’

Jack put the binoculars back in their case. He would keep them. Simon had given them to him as a present, he wouldn’t reject them. He slotted them back into his bag alongside Simon’s toy train.

He had lived with the darkness of own unkindness to Simon. Like Rick Frost, he had lived with threat, if vague and amorphous. Even though he had assumed Simon was dead. Simon’s death did not lessen the feeling. Jack knew he would always live with the darkness.

Stella was the light. While she could be awkward and insensitive, she would never set out to cause hurt. If someone hurt her, she absorbed it and carried on. She never sought revenge. She hadn’t held it against Suzie, or Terry, that they had kept so important a secret from her. She had accepted Dale into her life. Stella did what was right.

He listened. No glugging sink, no vibration on the spiral staircase and no music seeped from the curving grey concrete walls that had witnessed death and silence.

His mind was his own.

The Tower card had turned up in his Tarot reading on his birthday. It was a sign. He had ignored it. Simon had forced him to experience the chaos and destruction that the card might be said to herald. He had made him face the darkness in his soul. The tower – the card and the building itself – had made Jack see himself. To have posted it through his door, Simon must have been inside his house and taken the card from the pack on the hall table. He was a True Host in more ways than one.

Jack returned to the eyot window. Light sparkled on the Thames, the calm before the ebb tide. A plump seagull perched on the tide marker on the eyot. On the beach at the western tip of the island were two figures. A woman, hands on hips, was watching a little boy pushing what looked like a steam engine down a plank of wood into the water. A dart of sunlight dazzled Jack and he blinked. Thinking to get the binoculars, he looked again and saw that, but for the gull preening itself on the tide marker, the beach was deserted.