A Deadly Thaw (11 page)

Kat walked into her living room and sensed immediately that someone had recently been there. It was the indescribable feeling you get when you know things aren’t as you left them. She sniffed at the air but could only smell the usual fustiness of the house. She walked over to the rear window and looked out into the garden. Was she still feeling Mark’s presence from yesterday? But she hadn’t brought him into the living room, and it was here that she could feel the trace of someone else.

As children, she and Lena had longed to see a ghost in the house. They had tried everything, impromptu seances, harassing elderly neighbours to tell them if anything tragic had occurred within the building. But they had come up with nothing, much to their disappointment.

Kat wasn’t so fanciful as to think that they had a resident spirit in Providence Villa, but someone had definitely been in this room. She could swear it. The question was, had it been Lena?

She stopped and listened.
There’s no one here
, she told herself. Not any more. She needed to talk to someone. Mark? She was an idiot and heading in only one direction with him. That would be a catastrophe. She sat on the arm of the sofa and picked up the phone from its cradle.

The number she dialled rang a few times, and then a husky voice answered. ‘Patricia Meale.’

‘Pat, I’m sorry about this. It’s me, Kat.’

‘Kat. I’m glad you rang. I’ve been thinking about you a lot. I did wonder about sending you a message but, well, you know how it is.’

Kat did. ‘Can I come and see you? There’s stuff I need to talk through.’

She heard the rustling of paper. ‘I’ve got a slot at two. Will that do you?’

Kat left the car in the driveway and decided, instead, to walk the half mile to Patricia’s house. Rather than stick to the main road, she crossed over to the small kidney-shaped park that their house overlooked and walked along one of its side paths. Two children cycled past ringing their bells at her, and she smiled, stepping out of the way. The weather was warm, and a few people were sitting on park benches, their faces turned to the sun, desperate for the blaze after the long winter. Kat wanted to join them. Wanted to rest her aching head and weary limbs. Instead she carried on with her hands thrust into her pockets.

She could feel someone looking at her, and the hairs on the back of her neck began to rise. She stopped suddenly and looked around. No one was paying any attention as far as she could see. Still the same children cycling and the elderly sunbathers. She carried on down the path and glanced across the green space. On one of the far benches sat a boy with a blue hooded sweater pulled low over his face. Kat stopped again and squinted at the figure. He noticed her scrutiny and stood up. She could see that he was tall. ‘Hold on,’ she shouted across the grass. A few people looked at her curiously as she broke into a run. The figure was making his escape through one of the side gates.

She made it to where he had been sitting and looked around, helpless. Had he been following her? Keeping watch on the house? She looked towards Providence Villa. The gable on the left-hand side was visible from where he’d been sitting. As was, perhaps more importantly, the front door.

Her eyes dropped to the bench. He had left something there. A supermarket bag. She reached out to touch it. The thin handles were tied together in a knot. She pulled angrily at it, her fingers tearing through the plastic. Inside was a piece of yellow material, thin and silky. For a moment, she thought he must have been stealing women’s underwear. From a shop or a clothesline perhaps. As she opened out the material, she saw it was a woman’s blouse. A mustard-yellow colour. Kat put the cloth to her nose and inhaled. It smelt old, and the scent brought a pang of fear like a stabbing pain in her chest. Whose was this blouse? Was it Lena’s? If so, she didn’t recognise it. She wanted to sit down on the grass and cry. Instead, she turned towards Patricia’s house and her own place of safety.

‘You’ve been through a lot in the past couple of days. Don’t rule out the possibility that you might be in shock yourself.’

It often came as a surprise to people to hear that therapists had their own counsellors. Kat found this hard to fathom. Doctors went to other medics for their ailments. Dentists needed their own teeth looked after, so why shouldn’t therapists visit their own profession? Of course, she knew what they were thinking.
If you’re so damned good at your job, why do you need to visit someone yourself?
But the monthly supervision sessions were her godsend. She’d have gone more often if she could’ve afforded it. She didn’t always want to talk about her clients. She often wanted to talk about herself, but an hour a month gave her precious little time to do so.

Patricia’s consulting room was almost a mirror image of hers. She’d had this little oasis of peace in mind when she was setting up her own quarters but she’d never managed to recreate that perfect sense of stillness that she found here. Patricia sat opposite, reassuring as always, her calm brown eyes on Kat, waiting for her to speak.

‘I don’t know where to start.’

Patricia shrugged. ‘Start anywhere.’

‘I’ve crossed a professional boundary with a client.’ For a moment, a look of consternation came into Patricia’s eyes. It was quickly gone but it had been there and Kat regretted saying anything. ‘Nothing sexual.’ She told Patricia about the gun and how she had asked Mark to help her.

Patricia listened intently and then shook her head. ‘I can understand how it happened. Who’s to say how any of us would react in that situation? But the question is, where do you go from here?’

‘I’ve told him I can’t be his therapist any more,’ said Kat quickly.

‘And how did he take it?’

‘Calmly, I think. He seemed to accept that the boundaries between us had shifted.’

‘So you think he will accept the fact that he can no longer see you?’

No longer see me
, thought Kat.
I never said that
. Patricia was right, though. Stopping seeing each other inside the counselling room also meant no contact outside. For a moment, Kat considered the implications of never seeing Mark again. He had offered to help her find the origin of the gun and to give her whatever practical help she needed. But he was also offering her something else. Something that Kat, at this moment in time, didn’t feel able to articulate. Call it friendship for now.

She met Patricia’s eyes and realised that more than one relationship was shifting. She couldn’t tell this woman, who she would have said she trusted with the most intimate of secrets, that Mark was helping her on a personal level. It was too much. She needed help managing her professional life. Her personal one would have to wait for another time.

‘What are you thinking about?’

She made for safer ground. ‘About something that happened to me on the way here.’ No need for obfuscation over this. She reached into her bag and brought out the smaller plastic one. ‘The boy who brought me the gun. I saw him again today on the way here. I’m not sure if he was waiting for me. Or following me. Or what. But when he disappeared, he left this.’ She shrugged out the blouse. Again she felt the needle of discomfort. Why was this shirt doing this to her?

Patricia leant forward. ‘May I?’

‘Of course.’ She passed the shirt to Patricia, who examined it closely. ‘It’s silk, I think. Is it Lena’s?’

Kat frowned. ‘I’m not sure. It’s possible, I suppose. I’ve not seen her wearing it though. It smells mouldy. As if it’s been kept in damp drawers.’

She thought of her house. That was damp enough to produce the smell on the garment, but what was the blouse doing on a park bench opposite?

Patricia handed the shirt back to her. ‘You were given, from this boy, first a gun and then a silk shirt. Do you think it’s him who is sending you these items, or are they coming from Lena? Or from someone else, possibly?’

‘I don’t know. If the boy’s to be believed, he knows Lena, but what would he want with a silk blouse? It must be from Lena. It’s like she . . .’

‘Like she’s what?’ prompted Patricia.

‘It’s like she’s giving me a message.’

A rap on his door caused Llewellyn to put down his pen and sigh. He’d deliberately shut the door, giving Margaret strict instructions not to let anyone through. It was his secretary who put her head around the door. ‘I’m going out to get a cappuccino from the new place across the road. I’ll be five minutes. Brenda’s sitting at the desk while I’m gone. Do you want one?’

Llewellyn reached into his trouser pockets. ‘How many shots do they put in a large cup?’

‘Two I think.’

‘Can you get them to stick an extra one in?’

‘Need a pick-me-up?’

‘I need something to help me get through this, certainly.’

For the first time that Llewellyn could remember, his secretary looked uncertain, like she wanted to say something. ‘Come in, Margaret, and shut the door.’

She did as she was told and stood with her back to the closed door.

Llewellyn tapped the report. ‘How much do you know?’

‘I helped gather the files last year. When it all started. I didn’t like it. Going behind people’s backs.’

‘But the files weren’t in this building were they? You’d have gone to the records office.’

‘I still had to lie when I was there. I didn’t like it.’

‘No.’ Llewellyn removed the finger that was keeping his place and inserted a slip of paper to mark the page. ‘Did you see the files?’

‘Only to check that they were the ones I needed.’

‘But you know the substance of them.’

Margaret nodded. She looked like she wanted to escape the room.

‘It’ll come out soon enough, Margaret. It’s better this way.’

‘It’s not it coming out that I have a problem with. It’s that it happened in the first place.’

Llewellyn rubbed his hands over his face. ‘I can’t do anything about that. I can only deal with the doable.’

‘I’m sorry. It’s not really any of my business. I really should go and get that coffee. Brenda has other things she should be getting on with.’

Llewellyn nodded. ‘Fine. Remember about that extra shot.’

She turned to go.

‘And Margaret. It really
is
your business.’

Sadler was on the way out of the station when he heard footsteps running behind him. It must be Connie. Only she ran at him like this. Palmer played it far too cool to come charging at him. Sure enough, he saw her petite figure round the corner.

‘Sir.’ She was panting and had to bend double to get back her breath. ‘We’ve got an ID on the body. A Stephanie Alton from Shallowford House. Palmer’s interviewing the manager at the moment to get more background info. See if we can link her in any way to the Andrew Fisher case.’

‘What do you think are our chances?’

Connie scuffed her feet on the floor. ‘Difficult to say. Something’s not right. From what I heard at the hostel, Stephanie Alton had various problems, but these have been ongoing for a few years. A bit strange she suddenly decides to top herself now.’

‘Did the manager have any idea what might have prompted this?’

‘Not really. Stephanie had been more subdued recently but nothing that rang any alarm bells inside Shallowford House. I’d swear that Julia Miles, that’s the manager, is pretty shocked about what has happened.’

‘Does she have any family?’

‘There’s a daughter. Her name’s Mary, and she lives in Bampton. She’s a teenager but old enough to live on her own. We’re trying to track her down.’

Sadler turned to go. ‘Keep me updated, would you? I need to leave earlyish today. I’ve got a family appointment.’

Connie looked at her watch. ‘It’s gone six. Not exactly early.’

‘It is for me.’ He left her in the station car park looking slightly disconsolate and had to quell the sense of irritation that he felt.

It took him a quarter of an hour instead of the usual five minutes to drive to his sister Camilla’s house. It was market day, and the stalls were gradually packing up and clogging the roads with their vans and four-by-fours. It had been months since Sadler had found the time to visit the place. He relied on the local supermarket, and he briefly wondered what the bland food was doing to his body.

Camilla lived with her family in a large Victorian semi-detached house on the outskirts of Bampton. Superficially, the house was similar to that of the Gray sisters. They would certainly have been built around the same time. They had the same imposing proportions and sense of solidity but Camilla’s house was a well-maintained family home. As Sadler drew up, he could hear the screams of his nephews in the front room.

His sister answered the door. ‘They’re going stir-crazy in there. Roll on the summer when I can throw them outside.’ One of the boys, seven-year-old Ben, ran up to Sadler and threw his arms around his waist. The other, Samuel, twelve, was more cautious and hung around in the doorway looking embarrassed.

‘Uncle Francis. Do you want to see my new Lego?’ Ben grabbed him by the hand and pulled him into the living room, which was strewn with the hard plastic pieces.

‘Don’t take your shoes off,’ warned his sister through the door. ‘It’ll take your feet weeks to recover.’

Behind the living-room door, a woman was sitting on the sofa, assembling a Lego model. It looked like a spaceship. She looked up and smiled as Sadler entered. ‘I don’t remember anything as exciting as spaceships when I was younger. Although I think my brother had a petrol station.’

Sadler wondered if it was by chance that this woman was sitting in the living room when he had told his sister earlier that day that he would be coming around. Camilla continually fretted about his single status, and he had rebuffed any matchmaking overtures she had suggested. It was hardly likely to be this woman’s fault, though. He smiled at her. ‘Hi. I’m Francis.’

‘He’s Uncle Francis.’ Ben danced around the living room.

Samuel looked grave. ‘He’s a policeman.’

A look of alarm flashed across the woman’s face before disappearing. ‘In Bampton?’

‘Yes. You live there?’ He sat down next to her and let Ben climb into his lap. His nephew handed him a model, three wheels stuck together at improbable angles and a wing added to the confusing melee.

‘I used to. I live in Manchester now. It’s easier for work. I’m a solicitor in a law firm there.’

‘Criminal law?’

‘No, corporate. Not very exciting, I’m afraid.’

So her job hadn’t been the reason for her look of consternation, thought Sadler. ‘How do you know Camilla?’

‘Through her work with the Early Birth Trust. She was at a fund-raising event in Manchester, and we vaguely recognised each other. She asked if I was originally from Bampton, and I said I was. You know how insular this place can be. For a decent-sized town there’s not much people don’t know about each other.’

Sadler wasn’t so sure about this. Bampton had grown from its market-town origins to a place of tourism and business. He could go for weeks without recognising anyone in the street. Perhaps it was different for women.

He looked at her more closely. Camilla was involved with the Early Birth Trust because she had lost a baby at twenty-three weeks. A girl. He had gone to see the tiny child in hospital, and, even then, they knew there was little hope of survival. Ellie had lain in this huge incubator like a little sparrow, and he hadn’t dared touch her, even though he’d wanted to more than anything else in the world. Even now, with these two rambunctious nephews, he thought often about Ellie and her short life. Her tiny moment in this world had been as blessed as the lives of his nephews. For the first time, Sadler wondered how often Camilla thought of her daughter.

‘I’m Anna, by the way.’

Anna had fair hair pulled back from her face into a ponytail and pale skin that wouldn’t darken in the sun, only go red. She was dressed casually in blue jeans and a cream cotton shirt. There was a smudge of green down one side. She saw him looking. ‘The boys had peas for their lunch. Ben came for a cuddle afterwards.’

‘You ratbag.’ Sadler tickled his nephew, who squealed with gap-toothed delight.

‘I’ve learnt my lesson. I’ll be wearing dark colours next time.’

‘You don’t have children yourself?’ He kept his voice casual.

‘No. Although I’d like them, I think. Eventually.’ She sounded relaxed as she stood up. ‘I really ought to go. Let you spend time with’, she shot him a look, ‘the ratbags.’

‘I’m not a ratbag,’ complained Samuel from the floor. He was cross-legged in front of the TV and flicking randomly.

‘Do you need to sit so close, Sam?’ Camilla came back into the room. ‘Are you going?’ she asked Anna.

‘I think I ought to. It’s an hour back into Manchester. I’ve probably missed the worst of the traffic though.’

Sadler nodded goodbye to the woman and started to disassemble the Lego contraption his nephew had given him. When he heard the front door shut, he lifted his nephew onto the sofa and walked into the kitchen where his sister was peeling potatoes.

‘Mash all right? It’s Sam’s favourite, and he’s been a bit grumpy recently. I think it’s pre-adolescence. I’ve got all that to look forward to. His teenage years, I mean.’

‘Anna said she met you at an EBT event.’

‘Yes. Her company’s been pretty good. We were their chosen charity for last year. They raised over ten grand for us. One of the partners lost a child last year. I think that’s why we were chosen.’

Sadler watched her put the potatoes into a saucepan and turn on the heat.

She turned to him. ‘What did you think of Anna?’

He shrugged. ‘Nice.’

‘Just nice?’

‘Actually, yes. Just nice.’

Camilla sighed. ‘You go for the wrong type, that’s your problem. Unavailable women, for a start, like Christina.’

But Sadler didn’t want to talk about the married woman he’d been seeing previously. He adjusted the lid of the saucepan. ‘Do you often think of Ellie?’ He glanced up and saw that his sister’s eyes were filled with tears.

‘Think of her? I don’t need to think of her. She’s with me all the time. What a bloody stupid question, Francis. You men really have no idea.’

And she shoved him out of the kitchen.