Robert Goddard - Name To a Face

“I don’t know where she is,” Nathan murmured.

“Tell me as much as you can. That’s all I ask. Starting with exactly what kind of deal you struck with Barney.”

“Deal?”

“Hayley said you and he had some kind of… understanding. In relation to Kerry, I assume.”

Nathan’s face was a picture of bafflement. “Hayley… knows about that?”

“Evidently.”

“Hold on.” Nathan’s powers of reasoning were slowly reasserting themselves. “If you’re a friend of Barney’s, why don’t you… ask him?”

“Because I’m not sure he’ll want to tell me.”

“Well, maybe I don’t want to tell you either.”

“Maybe not. But you should bear in mind it’s not only Barney who’ll cut up rough if he hears what Hayley says you did to her. I guess Veronica might take it badly as well. There’s something of the Foxtons’ looks in her, isn’t there? I suppose that’s what attracted you to her. Another substitute for Kerry.”

“It’s not like that.”

“I’m sure it isn’t. But it’s a question of how it looks , isn’t it?”

“Fucking hell.”

“What was the deal?”

“I should never have…” Nathan chewed his lip for a pensive moment, then quietly closed the door leading to the lounge and pointed towards the kitchen. “We can talk in there.”

The kitchen was narrow and windowless, fitted out with an excess of marble and brushed steel. The pristine condition of most of the culinary gizmos on show suggested cookery was not one of Nathan’s pastimes.

“Who are you?” he asked, squinting at Harding in the harsh overhead light.

“Someone you can get off your back with the answers to a few simple questions.”

“There’s never been anything between me and Hayley I swear it.”

“I believe you.”

“But it isn’t… years… since I last saw her.”

“No?”

“Did she give you Veronica’s name?”

“She might have.”

“Shit.” Nathan soft-landed a punch on the door of the Smeg fridge. “I must have… let it slip.”

“Hayley came to see you?”

“Yeah. This was… a few months ago. Veronica and me had just…” He rubbed his forehead. “Never mind. You don’t need to know about that.”

“What do I need to know about?”

Nathan sighed heavily. “OK. You may as well hear it. Not much point keeping it secret now. Hayley had done some digging. She’d found out I’d paid Kerry’s bills at the Horstelmann Clinic in Munich.”

“You?”

“I told her parents I wanted to do everything I could to help Kerry recover. The Horstelmann was supposed to be the biz in coma cases, but a bed there didn’t come cheap. Fortunately I could cover her costs because I’d landed one of those fat City bonuses you read about in the papers.” Nathan shrugged. “I wish.”

“You’re saying… you didn’t pay?”

“No. ’Course not. Why would I-even if I could afford to? Kerry had ditched me months before her accident. We were finished, as she’d made crystal clear. I was just the front man.”

That was the deal, of course. It was obvious now. “For Barney?”

“Yup.”

“Why didn’t he want the Foxtons to know he was paying?”

“He made it worth my while not to ask. But if I were to guess, I’d say it was because he was afraid people might suspect he had a guilty conscience.”

“D’you think they’d have been right to?”

“Dunno. What do you think?”

“Maybe he was worried the Foxtons wouldn’t accept the money if they knew it came from him.”

Nathan allowed himself half a smile. “Yeah. Right.”

“But you let Hayley go away believing it confirmed Barney’s guilt, didn’t you?”

“Don’t try to lay what she’s done on me, mate.” Nathan braced his shoulders pugnaciously. “I gave her the facts. What she made of them… was up to her.”

“You knew from Kerry she’d had psychiatric problems.”

“So?”

“That makes your… openness with her… a tad irresponsible, don’t you reckon?”

“She’d already guessed who I was covering for. There was no point denying it.”

“You must have wondered why she wanted to know so badly.”

“I assumed she was keen to make sure she wasn’t in my debt. She didn’t like me, you see. Never had. The one time I met her-with Kerry-she didn’t leave me in any doubt what she thought of me.” Nathan chuckled mirthlessly. “Which was pretty much what Kerry ended up thinking of me, as it happens. That’s twins for you, I suppose.”

“Do you know what story Kerry was working on in Cornwall?”

“No. Like I told you, we’d split by then.”

“She might have been working on it before you split.”

“Might have. Might not. She wasn’t big on sharing stuff. Y’know? Never had been. And I never pressured her to, anyway.”

“Jealous of her glamorous career, were you?”

Nathan stared at him levelly “Fuck off.”

“I will, if you’ll answer one last question. Who’s Shep?”

“Christ.” Nathan rolled his eyes. “You’re not going to tell me that old tosspot’s mixed up in this.”

“Who is he?”

“Who was he’s more like it, considering his state of health when I met him, which must’ve been at least eight years ago. Jack Shepherd. Kerry’s editor on the first paper she worked for, down in Kent. The Messenger. The Mercury. Something like that. She kept in touch with him after she’d moved on to bigger and better things. Went to see him every now and then. Took me along one time. He’d retired from the paper and was living in Deal.”

“Got an address?”

“Why would I have? He was Kerry’s friend, not mine.”

“Could you find where he lived if you went back to the town?”

“Maybe. But I’m not about to, am I?”

“Not if you can describe it well enough for me to trace, no.”

Nathan sighed. “Will that get rid of you?”

“Yes.” Harding nodded emphatically. “It will.”

A poky ground-floor flat facing Deal Castle, near the sea front.” Such had been Nathan Gashry’s succinct description of Jack Shepherd’s retirement abode. There were, as Harding had expected, several J. Shepherds listed in the phone book covering Deal. But only one had an address in Deal Castle Road.

“Hello?” The man who answered the phone sounded old and wary but reassuringly alive.

“Jack Shepherd?”

“Yes.”

“Former editor of the, er… Messenger?”

“ Mercury. Kentish Mercury. Part of the Kent Messenger group. Not the same thing.” Reassuringly sharp, too.

“Right.”

“What can I do for you, Mr…”

“Harding. Tim Harding. I’m phoning about… well, in connection with… Kerry Foxton.”

“Kerry?” There was an edge of something in Shepherd’s voice: regret, maybe; or loss; or nostalgia. “You were a friend of hers?”

“No. I’m a friend of her sister, Hayley”

“Ah. Kerry’s twin.”

“That’s right. Do you know her?”

“No. We’ve never met. But… I recall Kerry… mentioning her.”

“Did Kerry mention Hayley’s psychiatric problems?”

“Yes,” Shepherd replied cautiously.

“I’m trying to help her get over them. The thing is, could we meet, Mr. Shepherd?”

“To what purpose? As I say, I’ve never met Hayley so-”

“It’s Kerry I want to talk to you about.”

“Really?”

“The loss of a twin is a hard thing to get over.”

“I’m sure it is. But-”

“I could explain myself much better in person. I’m in London at the moment. I could come down to Deal on the train this afternoon, if that’s convenient.”