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“She didn’t say.”
“How much?”
“Twenty-five thousand pounds.”
“And you lent it?” I was aghast. What the hell would Scarlet need that kind of money for? Ironic, really, considering I’d had a go at her for accepting a free handout from Mum and Dad to buy their house in Cheltenham.
“I would have but, ten days later, she changed her mind. Said she’d found another way.”
A way that meant money would never be a problem again? My mind careered into overdrive. “How did she seem when she told you everything was okay?”
“Relieved. Good. Her mood lifted. She seemed better.”
Isn’t that how people who are about to commit suicide behave when they finally make up their minds?
It seemed important to understand the chronology. I had to understand. Mentally, I built a timeline of Scarlet’s last weeks and months on earth. By my estimation, Scarlet’s change of mind occurred after her trip to London. Fliss crashed through my thoughts.
“How’s Zach taken the news?”
“Like Zach takes any news, as if he’s impervious.”
She tilted her chin. “Scarlet often talked about him, more so lately. I think she worried he was about to relapse.”
It would be a miracle if Scarlet’s death didn’t tip him over the edge. I reflected on my visit to my brother yesterday. Subdued, a little odd, but no more weird than usual, yet there had been something. I’d neither forgotten his opening question: What’s she done? Nor that sense he knew something I didn’t.
Fliss angled her face at the sun, a light warm breeze lifting her long hair. “He was quite twitchy the last time she visited.”
“When was this?”
Fliss frowned in concentration. “Must have been shortly before she told me she no longer needed the cash.”
Fear tripped through me. That didn’t fit with what Zach had told me. Which meant one of them was lying, and I didn’t think it was Fliss Fiander.
Chapter 14 (#ulink_bb720b15-8885-5f70-842b-89750e3e8ebc)
Dazed, I wondered what twenty-five thousand pounds would have bought my sister; freedom from her adulterous husband, or something else? And how did Charlie Binns figure? If he figured at all in this unravelling mess. As for Zach, was his inexplicable memory loss the residue of a druggie past, or because he was deliberately hiding something from me?
I climbed into my car and called the grotty hotel in which Scarlet had stayed. My enquiry was greeted with a yawned, wish I was still in bed “Can I help you?”
“I hope so,” I said brightly. “My name’s Molly Napier, and my sister Scarlet Jay stayed in room seventy-three.” I gave the exact dates. “Thing is, her companion mislaid his sunglasses – they’re rather expensive – and he’s sure he last had them at your hotel. It’s a long shot but I’m coming to London next week and wondered whether I could collect them.”
“Hold one moment.” A tinny rendition of the soundtrack from the Titanic cut in. Mercifully, on the second chorus, the guy on the desk returned. “No, nothing found.”
“You’ve spoken to the housekeeper?”
“Yup.”
“For Room seventy-three?”
“That’s right.”
“You’re absolutely certain?”
“Miss, I already told you. We don’t have a gentleman’s sunglasses and, in fact, there was no gentleman registered to that room.”
I thanked him and cut the call. It wasn’t what you’d call hard evidence either way. For that I’d need to take a road trip. Next stop: Kensal Rise and the mysterious Charlie Binns.
It took me the wrong side of two hours to drive to Paddington, where I parked the car at a rate that made my eyes water. From there, I headed for the underground where I hopped onto a tube on the Bakerloo Line. Twelve minutes later, I was standing with my back to a big cemetery, squinting against the sun and looking at a map on my phone that told me I needed to walk via College Road and Leigh Gardens to Chamberlayne Road.
If I’d been less focused on locating Charlie Binns, I’d have noticed that this area of the borough of Brent was up and coming and lively, that there were plenty of pubs, restaurants and bars, and had a cultured, arty vibe. All of which appeared to escape Mr Binns, I thought, standing outside a door sandwiched between a tile shop and bookies. Big ugly picture windows with thick heavy curtains, which were drawn, loomed down from the maisonette above. Not a promising start. I rang the bell, inclined my face so that my mouth was close to the speaker. I hadn’t rehearsed a speech. I’d have to blag my way in.
No reply.
I tried again, with the same result. Maybe the people in the tile shop would be able to help. I wandered inside and approached a middle-aged man at the counter. He had a pencil tucked up behind his ear and was avidly studying a holiday brochure. “Wonder if you could help me,” I said, “I’m looking for Charlie Binns.”
He licked the pad of his thumb and flicked over a page. “Funny, but you’re the second punter to come knocking on his door recently.”
My heart gave a little thump. “Did she give a name?” The thought of me following in Scarlet’s footsteps excited and terrified me in equal measure.
“She did not.”
“Was she tall, slender, pretty, in her thirties?”
“Barking up the wrong avenue, love. The she was a he.”
“Oh,” I said, crestfallen.
Settling on another page, he removed the pencil from behind his ear and made a mark against Tenerife.
“I do need to talk to Mr Binns and it’s quite urgent.”
Rattled by the interruption, he looked up, his deep-set gaze fixed on mine. “I’ll tell you what I told him. Unless you have supernatural powers, you’ll have a job. Charlie got offed a month or more ago. The only place you’ll find him is at the cemetery.”
I almost choked. “Murdered?”
“Shot dead, a few streets away.”
As the shock of the revelation hit me, two thoughts swam to the surface. Why did Scarlet have the name of a murdered man in her bag, and who the hell was the guy asking exactly the same questions as me?
Chapter 15 (#ulink_3c43207d-6450-5785-8aec-684e8b80e7da)
“YES?” A lorry driver had just cut me up and boxed me in. I was so bloody strung out and exhausted, I’d failed to screen the call.
“I owe you a huge apology.”
His voice was the equivalent of chucking a bucket of crushed ice over my head. I checked my rear-view, flicked on an indicator, shoved my foot down hard and pulled out. Fuck you. Let Mr Noble dig himself out of the hole he’d dug.
“It was unforgivable.”
“I’m not in the business of granting absolution.” To be fair, I had one too many sins of my own.
“I completely understand but I wanted to apologise for my rude behaviour and say how sorry I am for your loss.” The sentiment sounded respectful and genuinely meant. Creep. “You caught me unawares, I’m afraid. I know what it’s like to lose someone.”
I only felt marginally less pissed off. I definitely didn’t appreciate him doing an emotional number on me.
“Long time ago.” And yet from the tone of his voice, I reckoned it still felt like yesterday to him. Is this how I would feel in ten or twenty-years’ time?
“Does it get better?” I wanted him to assure me that it did, that this raw, helpless feeling would one day disappear, that the guilt would shift too.
He paused, appeared to choose his words with care. “Don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise, but you never get over it. In time, it doesn’t feel so powerful and overwhelming, but the pain is still with you. Always. Does that make sense?”
“Kind of.” I had no idea.
“I’m calling about my grandmother’s house clearance.”
I pulled a face. What a selfish prick.
“It’s pretty small but she had a lot of stuff.”
Stuff was right up my street. A stranger’s crap my bread and butter, I was the human equivalent of a magpie. Occasionally, I unearthed gems. But Holy Christ, what was I thinking? My sister was dead. My parents needed me. Nate needed me. I needed to fathom why Scarlet would have the name and address of a murdered man zipped inside her rucksack.
About to open my mouth to reject his business offer, he reeled off an address on the Wyche, a village and suburb of Malvern, the name derived from the fact that it was once part of an Iron Age salt route. “Drop by any time after five. Any day this week is fine.” With which, he killed the call.
“How did it go, this morning?” I was with Mum, after driving straight to my parents, following my alarming trip to London.
“Grim. Painful. Horrible.”
She looked so bereft, I felt bad for letting the side down. “I’m sorry I wasn’t with you.”
She made no comment, simply carried on as if she were talking to the dead. “We took her favourite roses from the garden. The verge was a sea of flowers. She was loved by so many. Such a bright, intelligent girl.”
Mum was right about that. Out of the three of us, Scarlet had been the only one to go to university and get a degree. Zach, who was extremely bright, could have surpassed her academically, if only he’d applied himself, but drugs and taking the piss came before education. Me? I’d floundered. Briefly consumed by my own sense of inadequacy, I almost missed Mum’s next remark.
“Most were for the police officer that died.” A deep note of recrimination etched her voice. “And did they have to be so awful?”
“Who?”
“That man’s colleagues. We felt like lepers.”
Dad’s words echoed in my ears. It could have been a friend of Richard Bowen. “Feelings are running high right now. It will pass.” I said neutrally.
“Will it? I know how we were made to feel. I was there. You weren’t.”
Red-faced, I stammered an apology.
“Oh Molly,” she said abruptly contrite. “It’s me who should be sorry. We mustn’t fall out with each other.”
I blindly agreed. I had no such reservations about my brother.
“Truly, I’m glad you weren’t with us this morning,” she continued, trying to make amends. “I still can’t understand what happened.”
A thought flickered in my temple. “Did you see tyre marks on the road?” I needed to know if Scarlet had tried to brake or swerve, basically to avoid what happened.
“None on Scarlet’s side. It’s odd, isn’t it?”
Scarlet’s death, or rather her life, had created questions with no slick answers for all of us. My sister wouldn’t be the first person to die and leave a legacy of secrets behind, yet the questions that remained over a murdered man, a loan asked for and rejected, together with the carnage in my carport that morning elevated Scarlet’s death to a whole new level. Neither a sick joke, nor retaliation for a life lost. Was the dumping of roadkill symbolic? A message to back off, a warning? It was small consolation that the individual responsible had made his first mistake. For who in their right mind would, a little less than twenty-four hours since Scarlet’s death, act with such reckless and ruthless speed? It spoke of someone running scared and intent on issuing a warning, for reasons as yet unknown. That person banked on a blatant threat intimidating me. Who else knew that I had misgivings about the accident? What was it they feared? But that didn’t quite make sense because only I knew what was going on inside my head. I’d expressed my reservations to nobody. As hard as it was to admit, my wild imagination was probably getting the better of me. Strung-out over Scarlet’s death, I was thinking ‘threat’ rather than ‘sick joke’.
Either way, as shaken and frightened as I was, it was the biggest come-on ever.
Chapter 16 (#ulink_c149fd40-c3e9-5d69-a486-4b7431761038)
I barely noticed the dawn as it crawled out of bed, or the birds bashing out a chorus, or even whether I was awake or asleep. I had so much stuff circling my mind, I couldn’t tell the difference. When the first blade of sunshine stabbed a hole in the curtains, I sloped off to the bathroom.
After making a pot of builder’s tea, I switched on my laptop and scoured for news of Charlie Binns’ murder. I found it care of the local Brent newspaper. ‘A murder investigation has been launched after the shooting of a sixty-eight-year-old man in Gladstone Mews, Brondesbury at 10.47 p.m. on 5 June. Armed police officers arrived at 11.00 p.m. after neighbours reported hearing several shots fired. The victim, who was shot at close range, was pronounced dead at the scene in what has been described as a ‘professional hit.’ Detective Inspector Neil Judd said, “Detectives are at the scene, working to build a clear picture of the circumstances of this attack. A contract killing is one of several lines of inquiry that police are pursuing. I want to appeal to anyone with information to contact the police as a matter of urgency. No arrests have been made.” A police spokeswoman later refused to confirm claims that Mr Binns was an informer.
A friend who did not wish to be named said that Mr Binns was a very private individual, a true gentleman and would be greatly missed.’
I sat back, wide-eyed. What was Scarlet’s interest in this man? Was it sheer happenstance that Bowen was a police officer, or did he have a professional connection to Binns?
Reaching for my phone, I checked through my last texts from my sister. Anodyne and unrevealing, nothing leapt out. I had absolutely no inkling of what she was up to. If Scarlet had a wild, secretive side, she’d kept it hidden. Nothing conveniently explained the tragic turn of events. All I saw was difficulty and complication. All I remembered was bitter rivalry and angry words. Was this what was really driving me, a strong desire to relieve my guilt for accusations that I should never have made?
I made a brief call to the shop to check that everything was ticking along. If it weren’t for Lenny, I’d have stuck a closed sign on the door and locked up for the week, the month, the year, however long it took to work things out.
Afterwards, and still trying to think the angles through, I scavenged the fridge for eggs and milk and knocked up an omelette. My mobile rang as I fished breakfast out of a frying pan. It was Nate.
Speaking in a dark, urgent tone, he didn’t mention the potential booze in Scarlet’s system, or the alleged affair, his or hers. He didn’t muck about. “There was no note.”
“But —”
“I burnt it.”
I sat bolt upright. “You did what?”
“Had to be done.”
“You destroyed potential evidence, Nate. You’re interfering in a police investigation.” Making me an accessory by default.
“Destroying it doesn’t materially alter the enquiry.” It sounded like my father speaking, except Dad would never condone Nate’s action. “The cops will still do what they have to,” he said, scratchy, heading off any argument from me. Damn right, my responding protest was loud and long.
“Do you want Scarlet’s name to be dragged through the mud any more than it is already?” Nate demanded.
“Of course, I don’t.”
“What with drink driving and killing a police officer, it’s intolerable.”
Never mind Scarlet’s interest in a man shot dead miles away. I went to interject but Nate beat me to it.
“It’s best we never had this or any other conversation on the subject,” he finished. Breathless. Furious. Desperate.
