Lesley Thomson - The Detective's Daughter

‘You have to leave.’

‘I might as well tell you now, I’m having a baby. At this moment I’m not going anywhere except home. Hugh doesn’t know yet, so it’s our secret. I’ve told you first. Jonathan, come on! It’s time to go.’

‘You cannot go anywhere until you say you love me. Especially with our baby.’

‘She lied to me.’ Challoner broke the spell. ‘They did a post-mortem. She was not pregnant.’

‘She owed you nothing, least of all the truth.’

Jack looped his mother’s green scarf under Challoner’s chin and pulled it tight.

‘You gave this to her for her birthday and lucky for you she was wearing it that day. My father had never seen it so did not miss it when he identified her body. There was nothing to link Kate Rokesmith with you except these X-rays of your father’s and her dental records. Police didn’t ask you for those. You were calculating: you left her body knowing the river was filling and the tide would wash it downstream and then you went after me. If you had found me, I would be dead. I am your only witness and ever since you have lived in fear of me finding you. Isabel Ramsay, for reasons of her own, unwittingly did you an enormous favour; she made your alibi watertight.’ Jack did not add that he could not remember what had happened on the beach; he only remembered the colour of the scarf.

He held the fabric taut and pulled the lever on the chair, making it tip up until Challoner’s feet were as high as his head; he was helpless. His voice was thick as the scarf cut into his neck.

‘Did you stay to fight the dragon-slayer, like a brave little soldier? Did you rush to the aid of your beloved mummy?’

The fine green silk was a second skin that he could not shed.

‘No, you ran away. I’m no psychotherapist, but don’t they call it “projection”? You need to put your guilt on me. Go ahead. I am here for you, I always have been.’

He made no effort to loosen the makeshift ligature.

‘Kate was a trophy to your father; he didn’t want her but he didn’t want anyone else to have her. She was merely existing in his tomb. I saved her. Had you stayed, I might have saved you too.’

The sun was bright and made golden arrows on the water. Jonathan had wanted to drive his engine into the river and see if it could be a boat.

Jack let the scarf loosen.

His voice stronger, Challoner continued: ‘You and he leeched her life. If you didn’t get your way, you punched her and threw things at her. Is there a name for mothers abused by their children? I love her for who she is and I won’t let anyone spoil our life, not even you, who, despite everything, she longs to see.’

Challoner’s skin was white against the green silk. Jack moved his hands further up the scarf.

‘As I clasped her to me, a bird – a phoenix, I now believe – beat its way through my rib cage and I fought for breath. She entered my heart. I carried her home.’ Challoner reached behind and stroked Jack’s sleeve. ‘She is upstairs now, Jonny.’

Jack snatched his arm away and pulled on the scarf, making Challoner choke.

‘Cathy – that was my pet name for her – teased me and my sister will tell you that I do not like to be teased. Cathy promised to leave Rokesmith: we would have our life, the mornings waking up together, the rambles by the sea. I gave you my engine to make her think I would love you too. I brought her here to show her the house. You had to come. She adored our bedroom and was ecstatic when I said I was giving you the attic all to yourself. She said I was so generous. You rampaged along the passages, up and down the staircases, crashing through my house like a tornado. She said how happy you were. We toasted our little family with the last of my father’s Château Latour, laid down the year I was born. We did so because she had promised to leave him.’

It had been cold although the sun was out. Jonathan had made a bridge over the rivulet in the sand running into the sea. First he laid a stick along the mud and propped it up with stones, creating supports to make it solid. Then he dug into the mud to narrow the course so that the water flowed faster. When it was finished he called for Mummy to come and see. They were close to each other, walking amongst the ruins of the mill owner’s house. He had meant for his mummy to see it, but Uncle Tony came instead. He said it was very clever. Jonathan wanted him to go away.

He said so.

‘I have to preserve our peace. You are welcome here, but Stella Darnell doesn’t have your sensitivity and blunders in regardless of feelings. She’s like her father. You take after me.’

‘You are not my father. You are no one.’

‘We cannot host Ms Darnell. I have a mind like yours, but you know that, don’t you? We are one, you and I. I took better notice of you at that school than Hugh Rokesmith. I was a better father to you. For him, you were out of sight so out of his mind. I rang up every week to find out how you were.’

‘You’re lying; it would have been to check whether I had given your description to the police.’

‘You would never have done that. I was certain that your guilt had silenced you and I was right. Jonny, you misjudge me, my calls were proof of how I care for you.’ Challoner grimaced and put a hand to his neck, then let it drop. ‘I couldn’t get your house-mother off the phone. She said Simon was your special friend until the bullying. I was disappointed in you then, Jonathan. However, I understood: we all have our “Simons”, mine was Detective Darnell.’

‘Did you kill him?’

‘Jonathan, darling, please! I thought we understood each other. He killed himself: too many beefburgers and beers. Would you pass me my water?’

Jack loosened his grip and gave Challoner his glass.

‘I was with one of my late-night patients when Stella Darnell called her father’s phone. I shouldn’t have answered, a stupid mistake, but after the first call, when I found the phone, I couldn’t resist it. I forgot about background sounds of water rinsing into the sink; still no matter, she wouldn’t have noticed; she is a cleaner, not a detective, after all.’ He tilted the cup; this time he just moistened his lips. ‘She had to be better than her father. She had to poke about in our business.’

‘Stella loves her dad.’

‘She doesn’t understand love. The Stella Darnells of this world do great damage with their lack of insight. They hurt the likes of you and me.’

As the scarf closed on his larynx, Challoner spluttered: ‘If you kill me, you kill her.’

The little boy had collapsed, hot and panting, against the plinth. Unable to reach, Jonathan promised the Leaning Woman he would bring a knife and cut off the plastic box tied to her arm. He promised to set her free.

‘I will save you,’ he told his mummy.

The scent of Eau Savage was overwhelming, the silk of the scarf cool in Jonathan’s hands.

Tuesday, 25 January 2011

The light switch did not work. Stella switched on her key-torch: they were in a cloakroom. Signalling to Sarah, she trod lightly on the tiles but tripped over a wellington boot. Beside this was an industrial-sized top-loading washing machine and on a shelf above were packets of soap powder. Sarah gasped and jolted Stella’s elbow, making the torch dip wildly. Sarah Glyde was a liability; Stella should have sent her back to her car.

‘Those were my mother’s.’ Sarah indicated the soap powders.

‘Ssssssh. How can you tell?’ Stella lifted down a box. It was empty.

‘These boots are mine, that coat was my father’s. Antony has kept everything.’

They crept into a passage which went in either direction. When Sarah stumbled against her for the second time Stella clenched her teeth: for an artist the woman had little spatial awareness.