The Stranger You Know (26 page)

‘A few months after it happened.’ She paused to cough again. ‘I stuck by him afterwards. I didn’t believe what everyone was saying about him. I knew Angela was the one who’d wanted them to sleep together. It wasn’t Josh’s idea. And he worshipped the ground she walked on. He’d never have hurt her. He’d never hurt a woman.’

‘Does that mean he didn’t hesitate when it came to hurting a man?’

‘If you know Josh, you’ll know it was his solution to fight his way through anyone who said he was guilty, which was everyone. And his family kicked him out. He was a lost soul.’

‘It sounds as if you really felt for him.’

‘I did.’ She’d been gazing into the middle distance, her expression wry, but now it snapped back to serious. ‘That doesn’t mean I want to bring him back into my life. I’m happy with things the way they are. I supported him when he needed me, and I’m glad I didn’t let him down. We were just kids, though, and he’ll be different now. I know I am.’

‘I gather you became a mum. You must have had to grow up fast.’

‘Who told you that? Shane?’ She coughed again. ‘I met someone in Birmingham – Mark, his name was – but the relationship was never going to last. I got Luke out of it and that was enough for me.’

‘Does Luke live here with you?’ The living room was so pristine I couldn’t imagine a teenager sprawling on the sofa watching television, but there was a PlayStation behind the TV, the leads unplugged and wound in neat loops.

‘He’s away. He’s a student. At Cambridge,’ she added. ‘Studying engineering.’

‘He must be bright.’

‘Very.’ She looked proud.

‘Does he take after you? Did you go to university?’

‘Not once I was pregnant. They had crèches and my mum would have helped look after him but I was too wrapped up in him to think about studying.’

‘That’s a shame.’

‘It was a lot more important to concentrate on Luke than to indulge myself. I wanted to be a lawyer but I gave up on the idea of having a career.’

‘You work, though.’

‘Just to put food on the table. I don’t love it. No one cares if I run the best card shop in Bromley. They don’t think about whether I’m a good manager or not. I can miss a day or two and nothing bad will happen to the shop, probably – I’ll pick up where I left off and no one will notice I was gone. But Luke needed me to be there every second of every day, and I did it, and I don’t regret it.’

She was self-possessed in a way that I thought was rare – prepared to defend her decisions, devoted to doing the right thing no matter what it cost her.

Claire frowned. ‘How is this relevant to what happened to Angela?’

‘It’s not. Sorry. I just have a habit of asking questions.’ I’d been trying to set her at her ease by talking about generalities. And I had my mother’s need to put people into context, analysing every twig in their family tree until the subject was exhausted.

‘Well, that’s your job, isn’t it?’ She tightened the belt of her dressing gown again. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but you did say you’d be quick.’

‘Can you tell me what you remember about Angela’s death? How did you find out what had happened to her?’

‘Shane rang our house at four in the morning to talk to Vinny. None of us had a mobile phone – funny, isn’t it? It doesn’t seem like that long ago, but they were still a rarity. So he called up on the house phone and woke half the family.’ She paused, remembering. ‘You know when you hear a phone ring and you know, even before anyone’s answered it, that it’s bad news? Yeah. It was like that. No reason for anyone to be calling us then unless it was that someone had died. But I never thought it would be Angela.’

‘Did you see her body?’

‘No. Of course not.’ She looked affronted. ‘It was a closed coffin.’

‘Did you have any suspicions about who was responsible?’

‘I knew it wasn’t Josh. Beyond that, no.’

‘How did you know?’

‘I told you, it couldn’t have been him.’ She sounded definite. ‘He was … sweet. Not the brooding type. He had a temper but it was the sort of thing where he’d shout or punch someone and then spend half an hour apologising. If he was upset it blew over quickly. He’d never have strangled her, even if she’d provoked him.’

Something in her voice made me ask, ‘Were you and Angela close?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘But you all hung around together.’

‘Vinny and I were like that.’ She held up crossed fingers. ‘I got on well with Josh and Shane, but they were Vinny’s friends first and it took them a while to accept me. I was a tomboy. We were like a bunch of lads together – same sense of humour, same interests. Angela wasn’t really part of the gang. Well, she was because Josh wanted her there.’

‘But no one else did.’

‘Vinny didn’t like her. He thought she wasn’t right for Josh. He told me she was always trying to flirt with him when Josh wasn’t there. She just needed boys to fancy her, I think, so she’d know she was attractive.’

‘Did anything happen between them?’

‘No. He’d never have touched her because his first loyalty was to Josh. Anyway, he really didn’t like her, but we were stuck with her. Shane was seriously fed up to have his little sister following us around and I ended up spending more time with him and Vinny while Josh and Angela went off together. Shane didn’t want to see them kissing. He was the big protective older brother, but then he adored Josh, so he couldn’t really get his head around how he felt about them being together. Conflicted, you’d have to say.’

‘He’s not a fan of Josh, even now.’

‘Yeah. Well, Shane wasn’t the brightest.’ She sniffed. ‘Vinny was the only one who could really talk to him. Do you know about Vinny? Do you know he’s dead?’

‘Shane told me.’

‘Such a waste.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘He should have had kids. He should have been around for a lot longer than thirty-eight years.’

‘He must have liked the army, though, to stay in for so long. If he died doing what he loved—’

‘It’s still a waste. Anyway, Vinny was just a creature of habit. He stayed in the army because he couldn’t think of anything better to do. They fed him and housed him and sent him to the ends of the earth and he never had to make any decisions for himself once he’d chosen to join up.’

‘But he did choose that life. He’d travelled, hadn’t he? He’d had a chance to see the alternative.’

‘He was never going to do anything else once Josh did it. All he ever wanted was to be like Josh. Shane too.’

‘Like
Derwent
?’ I couldn’t keep the surprise out of my voice.

‘You don’t know what he was like.’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe he’s different now. He was … he was funny and mad and everyone wanted to be him, or be with him. There were people who didn’t like him, but all he had to do was snap his fingers and they’d change their tune. They didn’t like him because he had no time for them, but they wanted him to notice them. He had a real gift for making anyone and everyone fall for him.’

‘Did you?’ I asked and got a glower.

‘We were friends. That’s all.’

‘And you never thought he was guilty.’

‘Never.’

‘Did Vinny?’

‘No.’

‘Did you have any idea who might have been responsible?’

She sighed. ‘I thought about it a lot. I talked about it with Vinny. Not Shane – he was too raw about the whole thing. You couldn’t say her name or he’d fly off the handle. But Vinny and I – we tried to work out what had happened, and we came up with nothing. I always assumed it was a stranger who happened to see her walking home and followed her, and did whatever he wanted to do.’

‘Had you noticed anyone hanging around? Any cars you didn’t recognise that you saw more than once, or anyone on foot?’

She shook her head, but then stopped for a moment, staring at the ground. ‘There was a guy who got talking to us in the park one night. He said his name was Craig and he was older than us – twenty-eight, he said, but I thought he was shaving a few years off, even though he was wearing pretty trendy clothes. He was trying too hard to look like one of us. You know how teenagers think everyone is ancient, though, so I wouldn’t put too much faith in my opinion.’

I was inclined to believe her, all the same. She’d been seventeen, not a child, and if she had thought he was in his thirties she’d probably been right.

Almost to herself, she said, ‘Funny – I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but now I’m wondering why he wanted to hang out with a bunch of teenagers.’

I was writing it down, knowing that it was probably going to be a dead end. At least it was new information. ‘Can you remember anything else about him?’

‘He had really good gear.’ She grinned and I saw a flash of the tomboy who’d been best friends with Derwent. It was only for an instant, though, and then her expression turned serious. ‘Not much else. He was really interested in us – the girls, that is. He sat between me and Angela and asked us about school and boyfriends. He seemed nice, not creepy. That was about ten days before it happened.’

‘And did you see him again before Angela died?’

‘Around town, once. Not to talk to. He waved.’

‘And after?’

‘Never. He said he was just passing through. He was heading south.’

‘To where?’

‘France, he said. On from there. He wasn’t planning on settling anywhere.’

‘Could you describe him?’

‘Tall. Long neck – he had a really prominent Adam’s apple. White. Brown hair.’ She shrugged. ‘That’s really all I remember. I don’t think I could describe him in more detail.’

‘What about a photofit?’

‘No. I don’t remember the shape of his face, even.’

‘If I showed you some pictures, would you be able to pick him out?’

‘I really doubt it.’ She saw the look on my face. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to help. It was a long time ago, and it was dark, and we were high. I’d forgotten it, you know?’

‘Did you mention him to the police at the time?’

‘No. I’d never have said anything to an adult about smoking drugs.’ She shifted her position. ‘I wouldn’t get too excited about it. He was probably lying about his name and his age, if he was the killer. And if he wasn’t he was just some sad sack who you’ll never trace.’

‘You could be right, but it’s a start. Can you remember if he told you anything else about himself?’

‘He said he’d been up north but it was too cold for him there. He said he could speak French but it was rubbish – he just knew a few phrases and busked the rest. Angela and I took the piss out of him all evening. But he didn’t talk about himself all that much. He was more interested in us. And we were flattered, I suppose, and young enough to talk about ourselves a lot and think that was all right.’ She coughed for a long time. ‘Speaking of talking a lot, this is killing my voice.’

‘I know. I’m sorry. I’ll go soon.’ I hesitated. ‘Is it all right to come back if I think of anything else?’

‘Sure. But alone. Not with Josh.’

‘I’ll respect your wishes, I promise.’

‘Thanks.’ She rammed a knuckle under one eye, catching a tear before it spilled over. ‘I don’t expect you to understand but I left that part of my life behind a long time ago. And I wouldn’t want him to see me like this. Not having achieved anything with my life except turning into a hag.’

‘I don’t think that’s what he’d see, for what it’s worth.’ But I could hear Derwent’s voice in my head.
Shit, she’s got old. How hard is it to slap on a bit of moisturiser now and then?

‘Is he married?’

I shook my head.

‘Girlfriend?’

‘Not this week, as far as I know.’

She sighed. ‘Do you know him well?’

‘I work with him a lot. I wouldn’t say I know him well. He’s senior to me.’
And he’s a wanker, so …
‘We’re not really friends. It’s a working relationship.’

‘Is he good at his job?’

‘Very,’ I said, without having to think about it.

‘Is he still funny?’ She sounded wistful.

‘He has a unique sense of humour,’ I said truthfully. ‘He’s not like anyone else I know.’
Thank God
.

She nodded. ‘Sorry for asking you about him. I’m just curious. I don’t want to see him but I’d like to know how he turned out. Don’t tell him I asked.’

‘I won’t.’

She followed me to the door and watched me walk to my car. Her expression was worried and I knew she didn’t trust me.

Over the time I’d spent in Bromley my bad mood had faded to mild melancholy. There was no one else to hear, so I tuned the radio to a Golden Oldies station and crooned along to love songs all the traffic-clogged way back.

MONDAY

Chapter 21

I’d done the Parsons an injustice. My mobile rang before I’d even left the flat the following morning. In contrast to his wife, David Parsons couldn’t have sounded more eager to be helpful.

‘Sorry for calling you so early but the wife said it was urgent. I’ve got a number for Stu Sinclair but it’s not a landline and I don’t know where he lives.’

‘Mobile will do,’ I said, scrambling for a pen. He read out the numbers slowly, checking that I’d got it right by making me read it back to him.

‘You’ll probably have to leave a message because he never answers it but he’s pretty quick to get in touch usually.’

‘Thanks for your help.’

‘He’s not in trouble, is he? Only we were wondering. The wife said it was a murder investigation you were looking into.’ Curiosity, raw and undisguised. I kept the smile out of my voice.

‘It’s an old case and he was a key witness, that’s all. I do need to speak to him, though, so I’m very grateful.’

‘Any time.’ He sounded as if he meant it too.

I hung up wondering how two people could have such different personalities and yet be married. As he had promised, there was no answer from Stuart Sinclair’s number but I left a message on his voicemail. The office was where I needed to be anyway; the paperwork had been piling up and I had a few phone calls to make. Once again, I found myself thinking about Derwent’s criticism of my failure to keep up with briefings. I wished I could point out to him that my current problem was investigating his girlfriend’s death in my spare time.