Paternoster Page 20

  A change of luck. Wasn’t it just.

  ‘How did your father die?’ she asked.

  ‘Broken heart. Not me, well, not all me. My sisters died of the smallpox, one after another. All gone within a month. It killed my father, especially when Lizzy died. He adored Lizzy.’ Darby puffed out his cheeks. ‘But it meant the money that had been set aside for their dowries was back in the family coffers. I’ve only got mother left to support now. She’s moved into the Dower House, and to be honest, she’s so upset about father’s death and the girls, that I wouldn’t be surprised if she goes to meet them soon.’

  Rachel could think of nothing to say. She thought of her own mother, dead ten years ago now. If her mother had lived, she wouldn’t be here, at Mrs Bedwin’s, haunted by the shadow of the thief-taker.

  ‘Still, it’s an ill wind, as they say,’ Darby added, breezily. ‘So I’m here on a spot of business. Made some money at cards. I used to do card tricks at school. Kept the boys off me and I made a few shillings. Turned those skills to good use.’

  ‘Cheating?’ Rachel said.

  Darby grinned. ‘Sleight of hand.’

  He pulled his shirt over his head. ‘There’s a fellow here, Ellison, into property. That’s where the money is, you know, building the new town. He’s got it all sewn up. If you’re not part of his circle, you get nowhere.’

  Darby flopped on to the bed. ‘Come to me, sweet Rachel. How I’ve missed you.’

  She joined him. ‘Do you, Darby? Do you miss our old home together?’

  ‘Oh, I do, my angel,’ he said, nuzzling her neck.

  ‘We could make a new one, just like the old one. You could visit and we’d be together again, with our funny little maid Kitty to look after us.’

  Darby barked with laughter. ‘Kitty? That wretch? She’s long gone.’

  Rachel stilled. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She stole from me, when she left the house. Took some silver and some of the jewellery I’d bought you. Bangles and rings and such like. Quite a haul.’

  Rachel bit the inside of her cheek. The girl had learned some tricks from her, it seemed. But not all of the missing jewellery was pinched by Kitty; she’d made off with some of it herself. Good job, too, or she’d have been in the gutter and probably dead by now.

  ‘I soon found out what was missing and sent the thief-taker after her,’ Darby continued. ‘She wasn’t hard to find. Stupid girl still had a silver carving set and some rings on her when he caught her.’

  Rachel’s throat was dry. ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘She was lucky. Seven years.’

  ‘Prison for seven years?’ That was lucky: Kitty could have been hanged.

  Darby gave a short laugh. ‘No, transported for seven years.’

  A stone fell in Rachel’s heart. Kitty would never come home. She’d never raise the money for the ship back to England. The shadow of the thief-taker taunted her again. It could be her.

  Darby’s face hardened. ‘She deserved it. She should’ve hanged.’

  She used to adore this face. Used to wait to hear his step on the stairs. Now she looked at the weak chin and hard eyes and wondered what she’d ever found to love. His money, she supposed. But now he’d told her what he’d done to Kitty, even his money wasn’t enough to make her love him. He’d thrown her out on the street once, he could throw her over, or worse, again. She saw, at last, the man he was.

  Still, he had his uses.

  ‘Mr Ellison is the man to know, you say?’ she murmured in his ear, her breath fluffing his hair in the way he couldn’t resist. ‘What makes him the big man, eh?’

  And Darby talked. When he left, he said suddenly, ‘You know, Rachel, what I’ve said, it’s supposed to be a secret. Ellison would be furious if he knew what I’d told you.’

  ‘Oh, Darby, don’t be silly,’ she said, planting a kiss on his cheek and ushering him out of the room.

  ‘I’ll send up my friend,’ he said at the door. ‘Be ready for him, won’t you, he’s a good fellow and likes a bit of rough.’

  And with those words, any last vestige of fond memory was gone.

  ‘Does he?’ Rachel thought to herself. ‘We’ll see about that.’

  Darby’s friends did like it rough, and she gave it to them, beating out of them more details about Mr Ellison and his select group who stood to make a mint out of building the new town of Cheltenham. And with that information, Rachel intended to secure her future.

  ‘The person to get to know is Mr Ellison,’ she told Rodney, when he called to see her the following day.

  ‘Mr Ellison? The man who owns Greville House?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve heard some odd things happen there,’ Rodney said.

  Rachel’s mind slid back to the Paternoster Club, to the chained-up girls, and something stalked over her grave. At the end of the night she’d been handed twenty guineas and told to keep quiet. Not talking about it was easy, not remembering was quite another.

  ‘You don’t have to be involved in that,’ she said to Rodney. ‘You’ve got the money to buy land, haven’t you?’

  ‘I’ve seen just the parcel of land that I want.’

  ‘I’ve heard that Mr Ellison is the man who controls who can buy land and develop round here. If you’re not one of his friends then the land goes for inflated prices so whoever buys it can’t make a profit. If you get to know Mr Ellison, as a businessman, then he could see you get the land for a fair price.’

  Rodney tugged his upper lip. ‘You’re very good at this. You’ve got a good business head, sweet Rachel.’

  I’m a whore, Rachel thought, it’s all about business. But that wasn’t strictly true. She was growing fond of Rodney, with his gentle manners and soft words. His concern for her pleasure was touching, too, in a life where most clients thought only of their own. She wanted him to get on in life, to do well for himself. Besides, he’d promised to take her away from all this once he made his fortune.

  ‘And when you make your fortune and build the nicest houses in Cheltenham, perhaps we could live together in one of them,’ she murmured in his ear. ‘You could be my own special Rodney, and I would be your own dear Rachel.’

  ‘I would like that, Rachel. I want you to have everything,’ he said. ‘A carriage and a maid to look after you, and I don’t want you to worry about a thing.’ He set his mouth. ‘I shall find out Mr Ellison, and see what the deal is with this land.’

  ‘That’s my Rodney,’ she said, and lay down quietly beside him.

  CHAPTER

  SEVENTEEN

  Friday, 27 February 2015

  07:56 hours

  The phone ringing awoke her. Eden lifted her head from the pillow, groggy and disorientated. For a heightened moment she couldn’t work out who or where she was. Memory crashed back in place.

  Close by her ear, the phone rang on. She hesitated before she answered, checking the caller ID. Not a number she recognised. She pressed connect, praying it was neither Hammond nor Miranda.

  ‘Hello?’ She struggled to sit up in bed, squinting at the clock. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so long.

  ‘Is that Eden Grey, the detective?’ A male voice, young, rough.

  ‘Who’s asking?’ Not the best way to start a conversation with what might be a potential client, but after the past few days she was cautious. It could be another of Hammond’s lackeys, trying to frighten her. If so, it was working.

  ‘You were at my house yesterday. My mum …’ The voice broke. ‘They told me she … someone’s killed her. You said you’d help.’

  She chased the connection round her mind for a second before realising who the caller was. ‘Is that Wayne?’

  A gulp the other end. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘I can’t tell you on the phone.’

  ‘Are you at home?’

  ‘Nah, I daren’t go there. The police …’ His voice trailed away.

  ‘What about the
police?’ Eden asked.

  ‘They’ll think I did it. You said you could help.’

  ‘Where can I meet you?’

  ‘Not here,’ he said, quickly. ‘I’ll come to you.’

  Eden scooped back her hair with her hand and scratched her scalp. ‘I’ve got an office off the High Street. Want to come there in about an hour?’ She gave him directions and Wayne hung up.

  Wayne Small was the sort of boy whose mouth hung open loosely when he wasn’t using it, adding to the overall impression of gormlessness. He sloped into her office, banging the door shut behind him. Despite the nip in the air, Eden wished they could keep the door open: Wayne was rank.

  He slumped into the clients’ chair opposite her desk. His hair hung in lank ropes about his face, and his eyes, sunk into grey pouches, were like poached eggs in a pan of salted water.

  ‘You were in my house yesterday,’ he started.

  ‘I wanted to find out what happened there,’ she said. ‘Where’ve you been?’

  Wayne shrugged. ‘About.’

  ‘Why did you call me?’

  ‘The house … it’s a right mess … and what happened to Mum …’ Wayne sniffed. ‘I’m frightened. I don’t know what to do.’

  Eden rose from behind the desk. Wayne flinched. She softened her voice. ‘Would you like a coffee?’

  ‘Yeah. Thanks,’ he added, as an afterthought.

  ‘When did you last eat?’

  Wayne pulled a face.

  ‘Hungry?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Come on, I’ll get you a sandwich. There’s a place just along here.’

  She left the kettle to boil and took Wayne to Tony’s sandwich bar. Tony raised his eyebrows at Wayne but said nothing when Eden ordered him a breakfast bap and a carton of orange juice.

  Back in her office, Wayne set about the breakfast bap in a way that would impress a starving tyrannosaurus. Maybe he hadn’t eaten for days, Eden wondered. He even guzzled the orange juice, tipping it down his throat as though parched, and finishing it off with an orotund belch.

  ‘Pardon,’ Wayne said, wiping his mouth with his fingers. ‘That was great. Thanks.’

  He looked better. Looked as though he could take a bit of questioning now, anyway.

  ‘What is it you want me to do, Wayne?’

  ‘They told me Mum died.’ He choked on the word. ‘Someone killed her.’

  ‘Who’s they?’

  ‘The police. They called my mobile. I don’t know how they knew the number.’

  Eden hid a smile. ‘They can find out stuff like that really easily, Wayne. What else did the police say?’

  ‘They said they needed to talk to me. I can’t do that. They think I killed Mum.’

  Eden sipped her coffee. ‘Why should they think that?’

  Wayne’s gaze skittered away, his hand creeping up to his cheek. ‘We had a fight,’ he mumbled.

  ‘A fight? An argument?’

  ‘Yeah, and a … fight. She got a bruise and the police will think I killed her.’

  ‘You hit her?’ She fought to keep the distaste out of her voice. ‘You hit your mother?’

  Wayne nodded, unable to meet her eye.

  ‘Did you kill her?’

  Wayne shot to his feet, shouting, ‘You’re as bad as everyone else! I thought you’d help me, but you think I killed her!’

  ‘Sit down, Wayne,’ Eden said, quietly. He slumped back in the chair, rubbing away tears with a grubby paw. ‘I had to ask. Tell me what you were fighting about.’

  ‘She said I wasn’t working hard enough at school. Just kept nagging me and nagging me. Saying it was the best opportunity I’d ever get in my life and I shouldn’t throw it away.’

  ‘Sounds like most mums,’ Eden said, a memory of her own mother doing the same bringing a wave of homesickness.

  ‘It was every day, on and on and on. It was always “Do your homework, you’re not going out until you show me your homework”. She drove me mad. She wouldn’t even let me go out at weekends. It was all just school, all the time.

  ‘I wanted to go and see my mates. My real mates, not people from that school, and she tried to stop me. The school had rung her and said I’d been playing truant. She was really mad. She stood in front of me, with her hands on her hips, trying to stop me leaving, and I pushed past her. She grabbed hold of me, and I was trying to get away, I just wanted to see my mates, and we’re there struggling by the door, and … I hit her.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Wednesday evening. She was ready to go out, all dressed up, and she was saying I couldn’t. It’s not fair.’

  ‘Did she go out much?’

  ‘All the time. Some bloke or another.’

  ‘How was she when she was at home? Anything worrying her?’

  ‘She wouldn’t listen. I tried to tell her about that school and she wouldn’t listen! She was always out, or at home drinking, or crying. She wouldn’t listen to me.’

  Eden topped up his coffee cup. ‘All right, Wayne. So your mum was stressed and drinking and crying a lot. When did that start?’

  He shrugged. ‘A few months ago, maybe? I don’t know. ‘

  ‘After you hit her on Wednesday, what happened then?’

  Wayne rubbed his hands together between his knees, avoiding her eye. ‘Everything just sort of went into slow motion, you know? I think my heart stopped. I’ve never hit her before. It was horrible. She was all soft, like a girl is, you know, so soft, and I’d hit her. My mum. And she gave me this look. I’ll never forget it. She didn’t say anything, just looked at me. I couldn’t stand her looking at me like that, not saying anything, so I ran out the house and away.’

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘I got the bus to Gloucester and met up with some mates and got drunk, slept on someone’s floor.’

  ‘What were you doing back home on Thursday morning?’

  ‘I’d come for my stuff.’ Wayne sniffed. ‘I knew she’d be at work, and I was just going to leave her a note, say sorry, and get out of there.’

  She watched him crying and silently handed him a tissue. He took it without a word and scrubbed his face.

  ‘Wayne, when did you start at the Park School?’

  ‘After primary school. I thought I was going to Bournside with my friends, but then one day Mum announces I’ve got a place at the Park School.’

  ‘Who pays your fees? Is it your dad?’

  ‘Dad?’ Wayne spluttered. ‘Hardly. He pays child support to Mum for me, but he can’t afford what they charge there.’

  ‘What does your dad do?’

  ‘He’s a plumber. He’s remarried now. Got a kid.’ Wayne glanced up, his face pinched with fear. ‘He didn’t kill Mum, did he?’

  Eden shook her head. ‘I don’t know, Wayne. Why should he? Did they argue?’

  ‘Didn’t have anything to do with each other. I used to go and stay with him, but she never saw Dad.’

  ‘So if it’s not your dad, who pays your school fees?’

  Wayne shrugged. ‘Dunno. I wish they wouldn’t. I hate that place.’

  Eden drummed on the desk with the end of her pen. ‘You said your mum was drinking and crying a lot. What was that about?’

  ‘She wouldn’t say. She was jumpy, too. Jumped out of her skin if the phone rang, wouldn’t answer it half the time, just let it ring. One time she ignored it like that and her boss came round, all mad, and gave her a load of work to do. Shouting that he’d been ringing her for ages and why didn’t she answer.’

  ‘Her boss?’

  ‘Greg. Right ponce.’

  ‘How often did he come to the house?’

  ‘A couple of times that I saw. He’d give Mum work to do at home.’

  Eden recalled the photos of Donna and Greg together on holiday. ‘Did she and Greg have a relationship?’

  Wayne flushed scarlet. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Stupid. He’s married. I think his wife found out and he ended it with Mum.’

  ‘When was that
?’

  ‘Last summer.’

  Before she started seeing Paul. A relationship with her boss, who then thought he could call round at her house and deliver work. Work? She was a secretary, what did she need to do at home that couldn’t be done in the office?

  ‘There was something else,’ Wayne said. ‘Mum kept on telling me about insurance. If she’d been drinking, she’d get all scared and crying and start telling me she had insurance.’

  ‘Life insurance?’

  Wayne shook his head. ‘She said once, “They can’t touch me. I’ve got insurance. I know too much and I’ve written it all down. And they know it. Anything happens to me, it’s all there. That’s why I’m safe.”’

  She wasn’t safe, though, was she? Someone killed her, and someone turned her house over. Looking for the ‘insurance’?

  Eden stood and grabbed her coat. ‘Come on, Wayne. We’ve got work to do.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘We’re going to find out what your mum knew that got her killed.’

  Wayne let them in through the back door. The house was in the same mess as before: drawers emptied on to the floor, cupboards swinging open, the sofa tipped upside down. Wayne gave a low moan when confronted by the state of the house. He crouched down in the middle of the floor and picked up shards of china and glass. He was still for a long time. Eventually Eden touched his shoulder, and said, kindly, ‘Come on, Wayne, help me find out who did this, huh?’

  He swiped his sleeve across his eyes and watched her wriggle her fingers into latex gloves.

  ‘Why do you need those?’

  ‘Just in case we find something with someone else’s prints on it.’

  ‘The person who killed Mum?’

  Eden didn’t answer. Wayne picked up a bowl from the floor and placed it on the shelf, a futile, tender gesture that flooded her heart with sympathy. He was only fifteen, his mother had been killed; he was facing this alone.

  ‘Your mum said she had insurance,’ Eden said. ‘She must have hidden it somewhere: I think that’s what whoever turned over the house was looking for.’