Secret Sins: A Callie Anson (24 page)

‘Hellooo?’ A woman answered after three rings, and what nearly derailed Alex from her purpose was the unexpected wave of nostalgia and longing at hearing the Scottish accent. She clutched the phone and swallowed.

‘Hellooo?’ repeated the woman.

Alex recovered herself and lowered her chin, which at least psychologically helped her to speak in a passably deep voice. ‘Good afternoon,’ she said. ‘Would it be possible to speak to one of your…um…residents?’ Were they called residents, or patients? Alex wondered, adding, ‘Mrs. Harriet Hamilton.’

‘There’s noo one of that name here,’ was the reply. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Oh. Sorry to have bothered you.’

Well, Alex told herself philosophically, she couldn’t expect
success
on the very first try. At least the woman hadn’t denounced her as an impostor. She went to the second number on the list.

Everything had changed for Neville. This case, which had from the beginning seemed to him like a cut-and-dried bore, was suddenly interesting. Turned on its head.

Not just a random opportunistic crime, then, but something cunningly planned and executed.

He sat at his desk for a long time after Yolanda left, just thinking through the possibilities before he talked to Sid about it, scribbling a few notes on a bit of paper as he brainstormed.

A murder. A real murder. Cold-blooded and calculated, though if he were right about the way it had happened, the choice of victim had an element of randomness involved. Someone not unlike Trevor in build and appearance; someone similar enough that Rachel’s identification of the body wouldn’t be questioned, but not a specific person.

It was strange; it was unlikely. It would have required cunning and more than a fair bit of luck.

Okay, thought Neville. Say Trevor killed some poor sod, shoved him in the canal, and then did a runner.

Who
? he wrote.

That one word didn’t just pose one question: it raised quite a few.

Not just the little matter of who the body belonged to, but a host of allied puzzles. For instance, if the body wasn’t Trevor’s, but some other bloke’s, then why had no one else been reported missing? Why hadn’t some other worried wife or girlfriend been on the phone?

It would be worth checking that out, to make sure there weren’t outstanding missing person reports at other stations.

And the CCTV footage would have to be looked at again. Looked at in a new light, with a different interpretation. Would it be possible for the wonks and computer geeks to enhance the images at all, to get a better look at the two men involved? It had just been assumed that the jogger was Trevor Norton; that hadn’t been in question at that point. Might they be able to get a better look at him if they tried?

That sent Neville’s thoughts down the path of Trevor’s computer. Again, the data which had been retrieved from his machine had been taken at face value. Business stuff. Accounts,
appointments. That’s what the geeks had said. Nothing of a suspicious personal nature.

But what if that business stuff revealed some sort of financial trouble or some serious impropriety? If you looked at it a
different
way, would it tell them something new and unexpected? Something important?

Computer
, Neville wrote, followed by
Telephone
.

Those mysterious calls to Rachel: the one Yolanda had just
overheard
, and the one she’d intercepted a few days ago. Whether they had been made to a land-line or a mobile, they should be traceable. It might take time to get the phone records, but eventually they ought to be able to track down the source of those calls.

Maybe he was barking up the wrong tree, Neville told himself. Perhaps this was the wild goose chase to end all wild goose chases.

Maybe. If so, though, it still gave him something to do, something to think about. A new direction to take. And that couldn’t be bad, even if it led him nowhere in the end.

He pushed back from his desk and went to look for Sid Cowley.

It had been a couple of days since Alex had heard anything from Kirsty. That hadn’t worried her too much, especially as she’d had other things to think about.

She had just crossed another possibility off her list when her computer pinged to notify her that she had incoming e-mail.

Jack, she thought with an odd flutter in her stomach. But it was a message from Kirsty, who had of late—since the escalation of her regrettable association with Ewan Fraser—adopted the strange all-caps style which had originated with text messaging and made teenagers’ communication all but incomprehensible to anyone else.

Alex had become fairly adept at translating, though she had vowed to herself that she wouldn’t sink to that level in her own communication. She quickly grasped the fact that Kirsty was going to the school’s Christmas disco with the objectionable Ewan. And that she was happy about it.

A year ago, things had been so different, Alex recalled. She and Kirsty had laughed together about the girls who tried so hard to get boys to notice them, and who set such stock in the Christmas disco.
They
wouldn’t be caught dead there, they’d agreed. Least of all with Ewan Fraser, she added to herself,
picturing
him in her mind. Either she had been very wrong about him, or he had changed beyond recognition.

Or maybe Kirsty had gone blind, and hadn’t bothered to tell her.

When Callie got home from her afternoon calls in the parish, rubbing her hands together to warm them, the flat was empty: no Peter, no Bella. He’d got off his backside at last and taken the dog for a walk, then, she concluded gratefully. She could use the time to work on her next sermon. First she made herself a warming cup of tea—the traditional way, with a guilty sideways glance at the shiny new machine—and carried it through to her study, turning the thermostat up a notch as she passed it.

But no sooner had she sat down at her computer and pulled up the file than the phone rang.

‘Callie?’ said her mother’s voice, on a querulous note.

Oh, Lord. Mum. ‘Hello, Mum,’ she replied with as much
cheerfulness
as she could muster as she quickly calculated how long it had been since she’d talked to her mother. She and Peter had been to see her last Friday; she certainly hadn’t rung her since then.

‘I just wondered if everything was all right,’ Laura Anson said. ‘Since I hadn’t heard anything from you.’

Guilt, guilt, guilt. How did her mother do it?

‘Oh, I’m fine.’ Callie’s voice was unnaturally hearty; it was a tone she often adopted with her mother, as a defence mechanism against sounding too apologetic.

‘I haven’t heard anything from Peter, either,’ her mother went on. ‘And he’s not answering his phone.’

‘Have you tried his mobile?’ suggested Callie.

‘You know I hate those things. And they’re so expensive to ring. Have
you
talked to him?’

Now there was a loaded question, if ever there was one. ‘As a matter of fact, he’s staying with me at the moment,’ Callie said neutrally.

‘With
you
?’

‘He’s had a problem at the flat, and needed a place to stay for a few days.’

‘Oh,’ said her mother, investing that single syllable with a wealth of meaning.

Knowing her mother as she did, Callie picked one unspoken question at random and went with it. ‘I’m sure he didn’t want to put you out. He comes and goes at odd hours, you know. The life of a musician…’

Her mother gave a loud, disapproving sniff. Peter’s choice of career was a source of ongoing pain to her; she had wanted him to follow his father into the Civil Service, and she never missed a chance to mention her disappointment. On the other hand, her way of dealing with Peter’s homosexuality was to ignore it. She went on, ‘Well, I’m hoping that he’ll be able to come round one evening next week. My friend Ida’s daughter is home from university, and I think she’d suit Peter very well. She’s a bit young for him, of course, but she’s reading medicine, so she’ll have a good, steady career. It’s about time he settled down.’

Callie had long since given up trying to point out the folly— and the utter futility—of trying to pair Peter up with eligible girls. ‘I’ll tell him to ring you, shall I?’ she suggested.

‘He’s not there, then?’

‘Not at the moment. He’s out with Bella.’

‘Bella?’ Her mother asked sharply.

‘My dog,’ Callie clarified.

‘Oh. I’d forgotten you had a dog.’

That reminded Callie that her mother had not yet been to visit her flat; she seemed always to have an excuse. ‘Listen, Mum,’ she said on impulse. ‘Why don’t you come round here tomorrow? It’s my day off. Peter will be here, and I could make lunch. You could meet Bella, and see where I live. I could even take you round the church.’

‘Oh, no,’ her mother said promptly. ‘That wouldn’t be
possible
. I have a bridge afternoon tomorrow. It will have to be some other time.’

Well, thought Callie, who had regretted her gesture as soon as the words were out of her mouth, at least that let her—and Peter—off the hook for tomorrow. She wouldn’t have to spend her precious day off trekking across town to Kensington for a tedious maternal visit. Maybe she could do some Christmas shopping instead: it wasn’t that long till Christmas, and it was high time she got to grips with it. ‘Some other time,’ she echoed, hoping she didn’t sound as relieved as she felt.

‘Will you get that brother of yours to ring me? As soon as possible?’

‘Yes, I’ll tell him.’

‘Maybe you’d better not tell him why,’ Laura Anson said, adding petulantly, ‘He doesn’t seem to appreciate all I do for him—how I put myself out to find the right girl for him. Since he doesn’t seem capable of doing it for himself.’

There wasn’t really an adequate answer for that, reflected Callie. With impeccable timing, the doorbell rang. Not Peter: he had his own key. ‘There’s someone at the door, Mum,’ she said. ‘I’d better go. Talk to you soon.’

Yolanda needed Trevor’s toothbrush, and she needed it as soon as possible. While she drank a second cup of tea she thought about how to obtain it, and in the end decided that the straightforward approach was the best one; after all, Rachel had no idea of her suspicions, and would have no reason to think that this was anything other than routine.