The Elephant Girl (Choc Lit) (16 page)

When she entered Ealing police station, her heart beat a little faster. Last time she was here she’d screamed the building down when she realised her mother was dead, and she tried hard not to look at the door she’d come through then. Instead she headed straight for a clerk behind a glass partition who informed her that Wilcox had long since left and was now a Chief Superintendent working at Scotland Yard’s Homicide Unit.

‘I can call him if you like,’ he offered.

‘That’d be great, thanks.’

The clerk disappeared to a room behind the reception, was gone for ages and left her wondering whether his absence meant good news or bad news, but when he returned, he was smiling.

‘He says he remembers you and would be happy to see you this afternoon if you’re not busy.’

Not busy? Helen could hardly believe her luck. Could it really be that easy?

At Scotland Yard she made her way to Back Hall as instructed, where she was asked to empty her pockets and step through a metal detector. Then she waited. Eventually a uniformed officer showed her upstairs.

Chief Superintendent Barry Wilcox rose as she entered his office. Looking every bit the career detective, he wore a grey suit, a smoky-blue shirt and tie. His hair was blondish-grey, his eyes sharp, and Helen took him to be in his mid-fifties now.

When he held out his hand, she almost expected him to give her another tube of Smarties.

‘Little Yelena Stephanov. This
is
a surprise.’

She shook his hand. ‘I’m not so little any more. I grew up very fast.’

‘I bet you did.’ His eyes searched her face. ‘Please sit down.’

‘And I haven’t gone under that name in years.’

‘You’re married?’ he asked.

‘No, just Anglicised.’

That produced a laugh. ‘Fair enough. It was quite a mouthful.’

‘It was my grandmother’s idea,’ she said. ‘In the children’s home they had me down as Helen Stephens. Apparently she was afraid I’d be teased. New identity, new life, and all that.’

Not that it did her much good. Some things you couldn’t run from.

Wilcox nodded sagely.

‘No Smarties today, Detective?’

If her comment wrong-footed him, he didn’t show it. Instead he grinned. ‘No, but I can offer you a cup of tea. And please call me Barry. That’s how you knew me back then.’

‘I’m fine, thanks. How well do you remember the case?’ It felt odd saying ‘the case’ but it helped her to get straight to the point.

‘Well enough. Some cases you forget quickly, others stay with you. This was one of them. And when I knew you were coming, I read up on it.’

‘The thing is,’ she began, ‘lately I’ve … well, I’ve started to remember some things from that morning. Stuff that doesn’t quite make sense.’

Wilcox raised his eyebrows but didn’t interrupt her.

‘I want to talk about my mother’s bag.’

‘Her handbag? Nothing was taken as far as we could tell.’

‘Not her handbag. The other bag. It was a cloth bag or shopping bag, something like that, on the back seat. It had an elephant on it.’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t think there was another bag at the crime scene. The SOCOs, sorry, that’s Scene of Crime Officers, will have photographed everything they found. That’ll still be on record. I can dig it out for you, but you do understand that I can’t show you the file.’

‘I understand. I just need to know what happened.’

He nodded. ‘I’ll tell you everything I remember.’

He explained how he was called to the scene. ‘Uniform was already there, acting on a 999 call. Ambulances too, although by then your mother was beyond help. They found Fay Cooper in hysterics and covered in blood. You were slumped on the back seat. The postman who’d called 999 thought you were dead, but one of the paramedics recognised the aftermath of an epileptic seizure.’

Helen swallowed, and for a moment Wilcox’s room tilted on its axis.

‘Mrs Cooper was taken into custody,’ Wilcox continued. ‘We never found the knife, but you were able to describe it for us. A fancy inlaid paper knife. Actually, you drew it for me. Do you remember that?’

‘Vaguely.’ So she hadn’t imagined that bit.

‘To cut a long story short, your grandmother was able to supply us with details of your mother’s knife set. When we showed a picture to Mrs Cooper, she broke down and confessed that the knife was hers, something her husband was able to confirm. Ironically, your mother had given it to her. We were able to make a replica – and I’m sorry for the grisliness – but the blade matched the defensive wounds on your mother’s arms and hands. The only problem was we couldn’t find the damn thing. Mrs Cooper had no recollection of what she’d done with it. We also couldn’t find your mother’s remaining knife amongst her possessions, but in the end it was irrelevant. Mrs Cooper’s presence at the scene, her own knife unaccounted for, and the fact that she’d been stalking your mother for months … well, it was pretty cut and dried as far as we were concerned. Premeditated murder. Your mother even had a restraining order against her. I think it was just luck that she was so hysterical over what she’d done that she didn’t attack you as well.’

Helen shuddered. It made a morbid sort of sense, except it didn’t tally with the picture she was beginning to form in her own head. Only this morning Fay had given her some shampoo because she’d run out. A small thing perhaps, but done as if kindness came natural to her. Fay killing her mother, yes, that she could picture, but a five-year-old child?

Then there was the missing bag.

‘No jury would’ve failed to convict on that kind of evidence,’ said Wilcox.

Helen nodded. ‘Yeah, I get that. Problem is, the more I think about it, the more I see a bag with an elephant on it, yet you don’t remember it.’

‘Not off-hand, no.’ A defensive undertone crept into his voice. ‘Like I said, I’d have to check the files.’

‘But don’t you see, if Mrs Cooper took it from the car then you’d have found it with her at the park. I can understand the knife going missing, it was much smaller, but this was a big bag. So if she didn’t take it, then who did? The same person who took the knife maybe?’

Wilcox regarded Helen with undisguised pity and something else, which was better hidden. Irritation perhaps. ‘Do you still suffer from epilepsy?’

She flashed him a look. ‘It’s not like a cold which goes away. It’s how my brain works. Anyway, what’s that got to do with it?’ she said, ignoring the fact that she’d asked herself the same question. She hated the idea that the condition made her into a less than reliable witness.

‘Nothing, I suppose. I don’t mean to patronise you, but this was a long time ago, and you were five years old. Couldn’t you have got things muddled up in your mind? We all do it sometimes. Written records are important, because they help us to remember.’

His irritation and defensiveness she could deal with, but his pity got up her nose. ‘And because I was a sick child and have no written records, you can’t take me seriously? I’m telling you, the bag was there.’

‘No, it wasn’t.’

‘There was a dog. Did you speak to the owner?’

‘You were the only witness, Helen …’

‘There
was
a dog,’ she insisted.

He sighed. ‘What sort of dog?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, a big brown one!’

‘Be reasonable.’ His voice was kind. ‘What do you expect me to do?’

‘Maybe we can find the dog owner and ask if he saw anything.’ Helen set her mouth in an obstinate line.

He shook his head. ‘We appealed for further witnesses. No one came forward.’

‘They wouldn’t if they’d stolen the bag, would they?’

‘The car was checked for fingerprints. We only found yours, your mother’s, Mrs Cooper’s, and a colleague’s, but he had an alibi and no motive. We checked with your mother’s local garage. She’d recently had the car valeted.’ He gave an exasperated shrug. ‘I’m a police officer. It’s my job to build a case, and the courts pass judgement. Fay Cooper killed your mother in a fit of jealous rage. It’s small and sordid, I know, but it’s life. You have to let it go.’

‘Where is the bag, then?’ Helen’s eyes stung, and she blinked.

‘Among your mother’s things, I imagine.’

‘Everything’s been sold. It’s like she never existed.’ She brought her hand to her mouth.
I’m not going to cry. Not here, not now.

Wilcox put his hand on her arm. She wrenched it away from this unwanted pity.

Get a grip.

‘What’s so special about that bag anyway?’

Unformed images flitted around in her head like bats on a summer night. Why was the bag so important? She’d only thought of it recently when Fay inadvertently jogged her memory. Nothing sentimental had been in it as far as she knew, just stuff, but it had belonged to Mimi, and that made all the difference.

‘It was pretty,’ she whispered, ‘and it’s about the only thing I can remember of my mother.’

Trevor called Jason two days after his visit. Balancing a spirit level on top of a kitchen cabinet, Jason stretched to pick up his mobile which was within reach, but only just.

‘Yeah?’

As usual Trevor didn’t beat about the bush, a trait Jason both admired and found a little un-English at the same time.

‘I’ve had a nosey ’round,’ he said, without elaborating where this nosing-around had taken place, ‘and there’s no connection between someone named Helen Stephens and a dead kid, at least not something she’d have gone inside for. It could be a cot death, but that’s gonna be a helluva job digging up. It’d show on the kid’s medical records, but as I haven’t got a name, that’s a non-starter. You’re gonna have to give me a bit more info than that, mate.’

‘I under’and,’ Jason replied with a pencil between his teeth. He tugged the phone under his chin and began to mark the required drill holes with his pencil, when the cupboard slipped out of his grasp and landed on the work surface below, smashing a teapot he hadn’t had the foresight to move. Dropping his phone, he cursed loudly.

‘Everything okay?’ Trevor asked when he picked it up again.

‘I’m just trying to do two things at once.’

‘Multi-tasking is the key.’

‘Some things are not meant to be multi-tasked, unless you’re an octopus.’

Trevor laughed. ‘Exactly
what
are you doing?’

‘Putting up a kitchen cupboard. A heavy bastard from Wickes.’

‘Best there is if you’re on a budget. Solid, not made of cardboard, like some crap I can think of.’

‘You sound like an advert. Wickes paying you?’

Trevor snorted.

Enough man-talk, thought Jason. ‘Listen, I appreciate what you’ve done. Could you check something else out for me?’ He could almost hear Trevor roll his eyes. ‘Does the name Mimi Stephanov mean anything to you? I’ve googled it, but nothing came up. I’m guessing she was around before Internet news was a big thing. What I need you to check for me is if there’s any link between Helen Stephens and this Mimi.’

‘I can’t say that it does.’ Jason detected a cautionary note in Trevor’s voice. ‘’What I can say is it’s an unusual surname, sounds Russian, and I’m not altogether comfortable with this Stephens woman having a Russian connection. That always smells of bad news to me.’

‘Not all Russians are Mafia. Anyway, it was only something she was reading but I got the feeling it was important to her.’ Jason quickly gave Trevor the low-down of what he’d seen in Helen’s folder. ‘A five-year-old daughter was mentioned in the headline. It was in what used to be called the
Evening Standard
.’

‘
Now
you’re giving me something proper to go on. Shouldn’t be too difficult to work that one. I’ll give you a buzz when I’ve finished.’

Trevor rang off, and Jason picked up the sorry remains of the teapot and tossed them in the bin. It was a particularly nice teapot too, a traditional glazed Brown Betty, which his aunt Lucy had given him years ago when he left home, claiming that it made the best cuppa.

‘She’d better be worth it, whatever her story is,’ he muttered. Recalling their kiss and the way she’d responded, he thought she might be.

And then some.

Chapter Eleven

Helen woke early Monday morning, annoyed that she’d have to spend the day working instead of sleuthing.

Reluctantly she had to agree with Detective Wilcox. Her mother was murdered a long time ago, and Helen had brooded, fantasised and searched for clues in her own head. Perhaps her mind
was
playing tricks on her by planting images which had no basis in reality. She had to let it go, but just couldn’t. Not yet.

She dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt as Letitia had told her to do, dreading the prospect of having to eventually shop for smarter clothes. She hated clothes shopping, saw it as an unnecessary expense and a waste of time too, but she wanted to fit in and would have to bite the bullet at some point.

Charlie was in the kitchen.

‘How come you’re up so early?’ Helen asked, then regretted it immediately.

‘You mean because I don’t have a job to go to?’

‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

Charlie shrugged. ‘I guess I’m hoping that someone will call me about a job, and then I’ll be ready to go.’

Helen finished her coffee and left her mug on the draining board. She should’ve eaten breakfast, but the coffee had been like sand in her mouth, and she knew from experience that food wouldn’t taste any better. It never did in the mornings.

She turned in the doorway. ‘If you like, I can ask at work if they need someone.’

‘Yeah, I’d like that.’ Charlie smiled, but didn’t sound hopeful.

Arriving at the auction house, Helen walked through a large wrought-iron gate at the back. An eclectic mix of vehicles were parked in the enclosed yard, including a couple of dark green vans with the company logo, an old Ford estate, a nimble hatchback, a scooter and a bright yellow Lotus Elan, which was probably Letitia’s.

So Letitia hadn’t been putting her in her place after all –
everyone
came in around the back.

A gangly youth in a thin, light brown overcoat was smoking a cigarette by the loading bay. Pale and spotty, he wore a surly expression as if he’d got out on the wrong side of the bed, or perhaps even the wrong bed.