Beneath the Ashes Page 23

  Nancy laughed. “It made us the most popular kids at school. For a week.”

  “Only because you announced it on Facebook.”

  She nudged him with her shoulder. “Your parents came home early. I’ll never forget your mum’s face – I thought they were going to kill us.”

  They both chuckled. The water sloshed about in her glass and Nancy wavered to avoid a spillage. Her head felt warm and heavy. “Was worth it though, wasn’t it? The beer we hid kept you going for ages afterwards.” They both laughed again. Ryan tipped his head to the side, knocking it gently on hers. She could smell his shampoo, sporty and sweet. Closed her eyes. His lips touched hers, soft and inviting.

  Nancy pulled back quickly. Too quickly. “What are you doing?”

  “I… I don’t know.” He looked genuinely surprised.

  Nancy shook her head. “I think you’d better leave.”

  Ryan stood. “Nance, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I think it was talking about…”

  Nancy stood as well. “You should go, Ryan.”

  He followed her out into the hallway. “I’m really sorry, Nance.”

  After she’d closed the door behind him and checked the locks, she retrieved the glasses from the lounge and washed them up, her eyes burning. It had been lovely to sit with Ryan, comfortable. Just like old times. But it was all too soon. What about Evan?

  Sleep evaded Nancy for some time that night, in spite of fatigue to the point of exhaustion cocooning her body. When it finally did take a hold it was errant and divisive, filled with broken dreams, old memories morphing into new. She woke several times. It wasn’t until the daylight splintered through the gaps in her curtains that she finally fell into a deep all-encompassing slumber.

  ***

  The smell of barbequed meat wafted through the air as Jackman got out of the car later that evening. He walked past the front door and entered at the side gate, shouting his greeting.

  An ever-keen Erik bounded around to meet him, his tail circling. Jackman gave him a pat and edged past him into the back garden.

  “Hi!” Celia waved a pair of tongs at him from behind the BBQ. With her fair hair tied messily behind her back and her slender figure, she looked just like her mother. Alice had loved to cook too and from a young age, Celia had felt compelled to join her.

  “Hey,” he called. “I was going to take us all out for dinner since it’s your last night.”

  “I’ve got burgers,” Celia said. “Homemade. Hungry?”

  “Am now.” He crossed the lawn to the patio and planted a kiss on his daughter’s cheek. “Where’s the soft lad?”

  “Dad, stop it,” she said, although her voice melted into a chuckle. “He’s just getting us some beers.”

  Almost on cue, Adrian emerged from the back of the house carrying two bottles. He raised one of them to Jackman. “Hi. Didn’t realise you were back. Want one?”

  “There’s some mineral water at the bottom of the fridge for Dad,” Celia said.

  Adrian placed the beers on the table. “I’ll just get you one.”

  “I’ve made some extra spicy chilli burgers, just for you,” Celia said as Adrian disappeared.

  “Great.” He settled himself into a chair.

  “Well, I did say we had something special planned.”

  “Thanks. What else have you guys been up to today?” he asked as Celia started placing the food into buns.

  “We had lunch with Sam and Mikey.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Adrian emerged with Jackman’s mineral water. Dinner was served. They chatted away as they ate, Adrian even made a joke about shoes which made them all laugh.

  Erik sat underneath the table patiently waiting for any scraps to fall, then flitted off and returned with a tennis ball, dropping it at the end of the patio. Adrian grabbed it and threw it down the garden. The dog immediately retrieved it.

  “Think you’ve made a new friend there,” Jackman said.

  Celia shot him a thankful smile and Jackman relaxed back in his chair. The burgers had gone down easily and as the time passed, he could feel his eyes growing heavy.

  “You look tired,” Celia said. “Late night?”

  “You could say that.” He stood, stretched his arms out. “Think I’ll turn in.”

  “Sure you’re okay for the airport run tomorrow?”

  “Of course,” he said, suppressing the sadness in his voice.

  Chapter Forty-One

  A taxi pulled up behind Jackman as he pulled the last case out of the car and closed the boot. “Are you sure you’ve got everything?” he asked Celia.

  She looked down at the luggage. “Think so. But they do have shops in Sweden too, Dad, so it’s not the end of the world.”

  He encased her in a tight hug. It would be at least six weeks before he saw her again and although he’d grown accustomed to her long absences at university, the thought of her being in another country held a finality about it that was strangely disconcerting.

  Jackman pulled back and shook Adrian’s hand. “Sure you’re okay here?” He wanted to see Celia to her plane, but it wouldn’t be fair. Adrian was going to miss her too and they needed time together. Alone.

  “Yeah, I’ll get the train after Celia’s plane leaves.”

  Jackman nodded and watched as they rolled the cases towards the entrance. The doors swung open. Celia suddenly stopped, rushed back and flung her arms around him. The single moment folded back the years and brought a knot to Jackman’s chest. “I’m going to miss you,” she said, reached up and kissed his cheek. “Look after Mum for me.”

  Jackman waved until the doors slid closed behind them. Back at his car, he sat for a moment, staring into space when a thought pushed into his mind. He opened the glovebox. Carmela’s folder was still in there, tucked away from the day before. He leafed through the papers until he found the details of the woman who’d phoned the incident room. He checked the clock on the dashboard. Almost 12.30pm. He pulled out his phone and dialled.

  ***

  Jackman turned off the M1 and made his way through the outskirts of North London. Victorian terraces were interspersed with modern eclectic-looking buildings and ancient churches. Shops lined the streets, punctuated by lines of residential housing. So many years had passed since he’d lived here. He’d forgotten what it was like to live in the midst of a hub, traffic and chatter constantly in the background. As he drove through Hampstead the houses became larger, detached with shiny Porches and BMWs on the drive, then back into the terraces, packed tightly together utilising every ounce of space. He slowed at the traffic lights and smiled to himself as a red Ferrari pulled up next to him – that wasn’t something he saw on Stratford High Street.

  The lights changed and he continued on for another ten minutes, winding in and out of the traffic until he turned off the main road into Holloway. Tufnell Park Road was a line of terraces that overlooked parkland surrounded by metal railings. He pulled in on the left, climbed out of the car. Hanging baskets filled with red geraniums swayed in the afternoon breeze as he approached a white front door. There were two bells in the small porch and he rang the top one marked 822a.

  Footsteps descended stairs. A woman with short brown hair opened the door. She wore a loose cream top over black denims; a single gold locket hung around her neck. Gold flip-flops clad her feet.

  Jackman held up his card. “I’m looking for Mrs Kerry Shaw. I phoned earlier.”

  The woman gave a kind smile. Her eyes were surrounded by more lines than Jackman would have expected at her age. “Kerry, please,” she said. “Come on in.”

  She moved aside for Jackman to enter and waved him up the steep stairs. “The kitchen is straight ahead.”

  Jackman padded across the laminated flooring and into a square kitchen that was neatly fitted with pine cupboards.

  “Do sit down.” She gestured towards a small table at the end beneath the sash window. “Tea, coffee, or something cold?”

  “
Tea would be lovely, thank you. Milk, no sugar.”

  As Kerry busied herself with the drinks, Jackman glanced out of the window at the garden below. It was laid to lawn, the borders well-maintained and planted with a mixture of perennial bushes and summer impatiens creating a merry splash of colour.

  Kerry placed a teapot on a mat and proceeded to pour it into the cups. It reminded Jackman of his visits to his grandma as a kid.

  “You said you have some information about Evan Baker?” he said. The name made Kerry pause. The lid of the teapot rattled slightly. “Or should I say Richard Garrett?” he added.

  Kerry waited until she had finished making the tea and sat in the seat opposite Jackman. Her face tensed as she spoke. “I’m guessing you know our history?”

  Jackman nodded. “I know that your daughter reported rape and her alleged attacker was acquitted at trial.”

  Kerry swallowed and shut her eyes momentarily. “Jason Anders. That man’s face will be for ever etched on my brain.” Kerry took a deep breath, opened her eyes. “You’re probably wondering why I called you. It might be nothing, but… about a month after the trial I was surfing the net when I found a local support group for families whose daughters had been attacked. It was run by a woman called Nicola Wallis from Rugby. Her daughter had been attacked and her assailant was acquitted in 2011. I was still living in Warwickshire at the time.”

  Jackman gave a single nod.

  “I was having a bad day so I emailed her and she sent me the details of their next meeting.” She paused and took a sip of tea. “But when she emailed back I went off the idea. My daughter, Sammy, was a mess and I didn’t have the energy or the capacity to think about anything else so I declined. But then as the months folded past, and Sammy didn’t seem to improve…” Kerry’s voice cracked slightly. “I don’t know, I was at my wits end. We had doctors and counsellors coming out of the woodwork, but it didn’t seem to make a difference.”

  She stared out of the window.

  Jackman pressed his lips together. “Take your time.”

  “Do you know what’s it’s like to watch somebody you love fall apart bit by bit? She stopped going to work, wouldn’t go out on her own and eventually wouldn’t go out at all. I was frightened to death I was going to lose her. That I’d come home one day and she’d have…” She cleared her throat. “The counsellors said she would work through it, that it was temporary, but when I couldn’t see any improvement I started to look further afield. And then I remembered the email from Nicola. There was a telephone number at the bottom of it. I called her up and she was nice and supportive. She listened to me for over an hour on that first phone call and I agreed to go to one of their meetings.

  “It wasn’t easy, I had to arrange for Mark, Sammy’s brother to come and stay. He was the only other person she felt safe with. And I still wasn’t sure. Anyway we met at Nicola’s house. There were four of us altogether, all family of women who’d been attacked. I found the first meeting very hard, listening to their stories. I wasn’t sure I’d go back, but the second meeting was more helpful. They suggested things to help with Sammy, little strategies like taking her to the park, just for a few minutes at a time. It took a while, but I did start to see some improvement. So I carried on for a bit.”

  “Why did you stop?” Jackman asked.

  “A number of things really. Sammy was improving, getting some of her confidence back. Except she wouldn’t go out alone. She was always worried that she might see him, bump into him, that he’d hurt her again. We took a holiday, went to stay with my brother in Barcelona. She was different there, more confident, more like her old self. When we came back I could see a change in her. She was somehow happier there, where nobody knew what had happened to her. Anyway, eventually she moved out there. She still lives with my brother’s family but she is working now and seems to have regained some independence. I go out to visit two or three times a year, when I can get a cheap flight. And I came here to look after my mother. Decided to keep the flat on after she died.”

  “And the support group?”

  “I stopped around March last year. It had certainly helped, but there was also a dark side to it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A kind of bitterness. I suppose it’s understandable with what we’ve all been through but instead of discussing strategies on how to help each other cope, the talk switched to injustice and how the law had let them down. I came home from the last meeting feeling a bit tainted by all the negativity.”

  “What sort of negativity?”

  “Oh, you know. If they could take justice into their own hands, what they would do. Daydreams really. I just couldn’t see how it could help.”

  They sat in silence for a moment before Jackman eventually spoke up. “Where were the others from?”

  “Angie was from Coventry and Joni from somewhere in Stratford I think. Nicola was the only one from Rugby, like me.”

  “And you haven’t heard anything from them since?”

  “Nicola contacted me when I didn’t attend the next meeting. I said I was busy. I never really gave them a reason why I left, I suppose I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. It just petered out.”

  “So why contact us now?”

  Kerry scratched the side of her nose. “It’s probably nothing. I’ve been away in Spain this past month with Sammy. My son still lives in Warwickshire. He phoned me when I arrived back on Thursday evening and was telling me about the fire and the body in the barn. The name Richard Garrett sounded familiar. It reminded me of the support group. I can’t be sure, but I’ve a feeling he might have been mentioned.”

  Jackman remembered that Alicia Wainwright’s family lived in Northampton. He hadn’t been made aware of any links to Warwickshire.

  “Then when he told me Angie was found dead…”

  “Sorry, what?”

  “Angie Fraser. She killed herself, jumped off the Erskine Bridge four weeks ago. Had been missing for a few days beforehand, according to the news.” Kerry’s eyes filled with tears. “Such a sweet woman. She used to come to the meetings with Joni. Angie was the gentler one of the three. It was such a coincidence, that I thought I should tell somebody.”

  “Can you remember Joni’s surname?” Jackman asked.

  Kerry stared at the table for some time before she raised her eyes. “No, I’m sorry. I only learnt of Angie’s because it came up in conversation once – both our mothers grew up in Glasgow. Nicola would know. She was the one who contacted people, organised the meetings.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Jackman climbed back into his car and sat motionless for a moment, pondering the situation. Russell had been out and visited Alicia Wainwright’s family after they’d returned from their holiday on the Saturday morning. All of them had alibis for the night of Richard Garrett’s murder. He’d asked her to take it wide and check with any extended family they were in contact with, but nothing had come to light.

  He reached for his phone and tried Russell’s mobile. When it switched to voicemail, he tried Davies. She answered almost immediately and listened while Jackman relayed Kerry’s story to her.

  “That explains why I couldn’t find the papers,” she replied.

  “What?”

  “I’m at work. Left John and the baby having an afternoon nap and thought I’d come in and look at that London lead. You beat me to it.”

  “Have either of these names been mentioned as part of Alicia’s extended family?”

  He heard a rustle of papers in the background. A brief hesitation. “Not that I can see,” Davies said. “Not mentioned in Russell’s report or the details sent across from Northampton.”

  “There’s something odd about this,” he said. “We’ve an address for Nicola Wallis. Get uniform out to see her, will you? To check her movements for last Sunday evening. Is there anything on the system about Angie Fraser?”

  He heard Davies heave forward, the tapping of keys. “She was reported as a missing person
in Rugby just over a month ago. Her body was recovered from the banks of the River Clyde a few days later. Recorded as suicide. Looks like she jumped off the Erskine Bridge.”

  “Right. They must have interviewed friends, family close to her. See what you can dig up. And we’ll also need full contact details for this Joni woman. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  ***

  Nancy was surprised when she woke and stared at the red digits on the clock beside her. It was 3pm. She reached for her phone, pulled up a text from Becca:

  Thinking of you. Text me when you’re awake.

  She punched out a quick reply and scrolled down to read a text from Ryan:

  Sorry about last night. Hope you’re okay. x

  Memories of the evening before flooded her brain, merging with the broken dreams that disturbed her night. Her head was brimming, but there was something she needed to do.

  Nancy hesitated. Something told her to call Cheryl, sort things out. But she stopped short of pressing the call button.

  Nancy had just made it through to the sitting room, the steam still rising from her mug of coffee, when the doorbell sounded. She rested her head against the back of the sofa, ignored it. It rang again. She clenched her teeth. When it sounded for the third time she marched out to the hallway and wrenched it open.

  The woman that faced her made her start. She cleared her throat. “Oh, I’m sorry. I was expecting someone else.” She looked up as the woman that towered over her gave a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

  When she spoke her voice was surprisingly low. “I was an acquaintance of one of Richard Garrett’s girlfriends. I saw your piece in the newspaper.”

  “Oh.” An awkward silence followed. Visitors were the last thing Nancy fancied at the moment, strangers even less so. But she stood aside. “Would you like to come in, Mrs…?”

  The woman ignored the question and marched into the flat. The door to the sitting room was open and she made straight for it, as if she was an old friend visiting. Nancy followed her. By the time she had reached the sitting room, the woman was ensconced in her seat on the sofa.