‘Inspector Mariner, I’m so sorry to keep you waiting.’ The manager appeared, in a tight-fitting suit and too much make-up, with a range of paperwork for Mariner to sign, and in ten minutes it was all over. Charles and Lottie’s wedding plans scrapped for ever. Travelling down again to the ground floor, Mariner felt a wave of sadness for poor Lottie. Walking down past the railway station, Mariner made his way through the exclusive Mailbox, Anna’s favourite shopping centre, and to Brindley Place where he dropped down on to the canal. Anna was living near here when they’d first met. It seemed that everywhere he went there were stinging reminders. It took him a couple of hours to walk back along the waterside, away from the city centre and to his house, and once there he felt unaccountably tired. The remaining bottles in the beer carrier that Kat had bought him sat untouched and inviting in the kitchen, and, after a couple of bottles to ease the pain, he fell asleep on the sofa.
When he woke up it was dark, and after a while he dropped back to sleep again. Then something woke him with a jolt. This time he found his watch. It was three in the morning. Christ, he’d been asleep for nearly eight hours. As he lay in the dark Mariner heard a milk float rumble by. He thought about the surveillance op and wondered who was on shift tonight. Were they just wasting time and resources with that? His mind skimmed over all their suspects, and for some reason came to rest back on those wedding planner awards. There had been something about that one. And that was when it came to him.
CHAPTER TWENTY
After scrambling for his mobile, Mariner called through to Tony Knox. His sergeant was groggy when he answered, woken from his own slumber.
‘What day is it?’ Mariner asked.
‘Jesus. That you, boss? Are you -’
‘What
day
is it?’ Mariner demanded again. ‘And who’s on surveillance?’
‘It’s Wednesday, and I think it’s Millie, boss, but -’
Mariner cut him off and punched in Millie’s number. She answered almost immediately.
‘I know what we’ve missed,’ he said. ‘I know who it is, and they’re coming today. I’m coming over. I want you to let me in.’
‘But, boss, you could blow our -’
‘It’s still only three am and I’ll be careful. Just be ready to let me in.’
The roads were deserted as Mariner drove to the Manor Farm estate. After parking his car in a cul-de-sac close to the entrance, he locked it and continued on foot, staying close to fences and hedges along the way. Under cover of a high fence he stopped at the end of Hill Crest and stood for several minutes, waiting and watching. It was a freezing morning, his breath steamed the air and a light mist cast halos round the sodium lights. A cat padded across the road ahead of him casting wary glances from side to side, but there was no other movement. Slowly and silently Mariner proceeded along the road, pressing himself into the shadows. All the houses, including Bonnington’s, were in darkness. Mariner crept cautiously up the side of the drive of number nineteen and as he got to the door it opened without a sound, drawing him inside.
‘Up here, sir.’ After closing the door soundlessly, Millie led him up the stairs and into the front bedroom, where in the darkness Mariner could just make out the silhouette of the night-surveillance equipment on its tripod in the window. Millie passed him some binoculars. There was a light crackle as she activated her walkie-talkie. ‘DI Mariner safely admitted,’ she said, and the recipient rogered and signed off.
‘Who have you got?’ Mariner asked, his voice low.
‘Solomon and Evans tonight, sir. Poor guys; they definitely got the short straw. They’re tucked in behind the bins round at the side of the house. They’ve fixed a temporary security light down there too, for when it all kicks off - if it ever does. You want some tea, sir?’ She lifted a flask.
‘I’m fine,’ whispered Mariner, lifting the binoculars to scan the front of the house. ‘Where’s Jarrett?’
‘Went to bed hours ago. We’ve hardly seen him since we’ve been here. I’m starting to think this whole thing has been a complete waste of time. Three nights now and not a tickle. The DCI will do her nut.’
‘That’s because it’s tonight,’ said Mariner, still watching the street.
‘But how can you be so sure, sir?’ Millie had joined him now, and they stood, side by side, two pairs of night-vision binoculars trained on the drive below.
‘What’s the thing that Lucy Jarrett and Rachel Hordern have in common?’ Mariner whispered.
‘Nothing, boss.’ Millie was confused. ‘That’s the whole point.’
‘No, I’m not talking about Nina,’ Mariner said, exasperated. ‘Lucy and
Rachel
; what do they have in common?’
‘They’re both young women. They’re both married?’ said Millie eventually, uncertain of where this was going.
‘Exactly,’ said Mariner. ‘And they both -’ He stopped. ‘Did you see something, there, on the left?’
Millie jerked her binoculars over to where Mariner was looking. ‘Are you sure? There’s - Yes! I’ve got it! Wow. That’s way too big to be a cat.’
They both watched as a shadowy figure crept along the hedge bordering the Jarretts’ house, tucking in behind a large shrub.
‘When’s the milkman due?’ Mariner asked.
‘The other days he’s come between half-three and four,’ said Millie. ‘Could be here any time.’ She took out a mobile.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Solomon’s got his mobile set to vibrate. It’s the signal. God, I hope those two have stayed awake.’
It seemed that no sooner had Millie replaced the phone than they heard the distant whirring of a milk float and, as they watched, dull headlights appeared at the end of the road. ‘Shit, this is it,’ Millie breathed, the tremor in her voice matching the pumping of adrenalin through Mariner’s own body.
Millie held out the walkie-talkie. You want to give the signal, sir?’
‘No, this one’s yours.’
The milkman was making his tortuous way along the street, hopping off the float every few yards to make his deliveries. Finally he got to number nineteen and they watched as he hurried up the drive, deposited the bottles with a clink and moved on. Step by step, the milk float chugged its way to the end of the road and disappeared, leaving behind a deafening silence. Mariner and Millie stood rigid, binoculars fixed on the shrub below. Nothing happened. Minutes passed.
‘Christ, have we missed -’ But as he spoke Mariner saw movement, a dark figure emerge from the shadows and approach the front door.
‘Go, go, go!’ Millie hissed into the handset, and instantaneously the front garden was flooded with light. Mariner and Millie thundered down the stairs to the sound of shouting and scuffling outside, followed by a strangled cry. Mariner flung open the door to see Solomon lying on the ground and Evans running towards the street and after their culprit.
‘He stabbed me,’ Solomon was saying, in disbelief.
‘Call an ambulance!’ Mariner shouted to Millie, already running. ‘And stay with him. Then call for back-up.’ And he followed Evans, hot in pursuit of their perpetrator.
The chase was never going to be about speed, but, in the darkness, the housing estate provided plenty of cover, and rounding the corner from Hill Crest their quarry seemed to vanish into thin air. Without adequate support it was an impossible task to search the maze of roads and driveways in the dark, and, when Mariner heard the distant sound of a car engine igniting, he know they had lost. He and Evans returned to Hill Crest empty handed and despondent, arriving as Solomon was being driven off in the ambulance. By now Will Jarrett was awake and one or two neighbours had appeared to see what the commotion was. Officers in two squad cars were awaiting instructions, but Mariner shook his head. ‘It’s too late,’ he said.
‘We’ll get prints from the syringe,’ said Millie. ‘Solomon’s sure his attacker wasn’t wearing gloves. Will he be all right?’
‘I’m sure he will,’ Mariner said. ‘We need to get to Brackleys. What time is it?’
‘It’s quarter to five, sir. Brackleys won’t be open for hours,’ Millie said uncertainly. ‘Why do we -’
‘Then we need to get the manager out of bed.’ Mariner was pacing the pavement trying to work out what to do next. Tracking down the store manager would take time, as would getting him or her into the store at this early hour to retrieve what Mariner needed. Suddenly he stopped. ‘No, it’s simpler than that. We just need to get back to the station. Meet me back there as soon as you can.’ And he was off running back down the street to pick up his car.
Mariner had a head start on Millie, had found what he wanted from Tony Knox’s desk and was hurrying back down the stairs when he met her coming up.
‘I’ve got it,’ he said. ‘All we need now is a piece of luck. Come with me.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘You’ll find out.’
Driving too fast through the suburbs, Mariner drew up in a narrow street of terraced houses.
‘I don’t understand. What are we doing here?’ Millie asked.
‘Hitting lucky,’ said Mariner with some satisfaction, and Millie followed his line of vision to where a silver Honda was parked some way down the road, its boot open, while the driver loaded things in. ‘I didn’t know if she would still be living at this address, but for once we’ve had a break.’
‘Pam?’ Millie was mystified. ‘But she’s the cleaner.’
‘That’s a relatively new career direction for her,’ Mariner said. ‘Up until recently she was a wedding coordinator at Brackleys.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Anna’s friend Becky asked me to cancel Charles and Lottie’s wedding planner, so yesterday I went to do it. On the wall there was a certificate, for planner of the year, awarded to Pamela Rasen. There was something familiar about that name, and then, this morning, it came to me. I remembered the phone call Tony made to that ballet-school mother whose child had died. Jonquil’s an unusual name, and I saw it again, in the crematorium book of remembrance. Jonquil Rasen died exactly five years ago.’
‘How did you know she would turn up this morning?’ Millie asked.
‘Remember what Bonnington said when we asked him what was special about Wednesdays? He said,
My house is clean.
That was the day she cleaned his house, and made full use of his computer.’
‘But she gave me the names of her clients and Bonnington wasn’t one of them.’
Mariner shot her a smile. ‘Do you really think she’d have handed you that?’
‘And what about Kerrigan? She gave us him, too.’
‘Of course she did; to direct us away from her. She must have witnessed the altercation with Lucy outside the health centre and used it to implicate Kerrigan. He was never on the estate at the time she said he was.’
‘But why would she hold Lucy and Nina responsible for her daughter’s death?’
As Millie spoke, there was a bang from across the road as Pamela Rasen slammed down the boot of her car and went back into the house, closing the front door behind her.
‘Time to go and find out,’ said Mariner, releasing his seat belt.
‘How do we play this, boss?’ Millie asked.
‘Carefully,’ said Mariner.
Pamela Rasen seemed remarkably composed, and not overtly surprised to see Millie and Mariner on her doorstep, even at this hour. She showed them into a compact and sparsely furnished lounge, the fireplace dominated by dozens of photographs of a young girl at various stages of development, instantly recognisable from her thick, red curly hair.
‘Would you like a drink, some tea perhaps?’ she offered politely.
‘No, thank you,’ said Mariner.
‘I’m parched, do you mind if I -’
‘No, go ahead. That’s fine.’ Now that they were here, they had all the time in the world. ‘Go with her,’ Mariner murmured, and Millie got up and followed Pam into the kitchen.
While Mariner waited, to the accompaniment of the kettle, cups and spasmodic background conversation, he picked up one of the pictures. He was still studying it when Millie and Pamela came back into the room. ‘She was a pretty little girl,’ he said, stating only what was obvious.
‘Jonquil was beautiful,’ Pamela agreed, sitting in the chair beside the fire and motioning for them to sit too. ‘Exquisite and delicate, exactly like the flower she was named after. But she had the life crushed out of her.’
‘How did it start, Pamela?’ Mariner asked gently, moving across to sit beside Millie. As he nodded towards her, she surreptitiously took out her notebook and pencil. But she needn’t have worried. Pamela was already lost in her own thoughts.
‘She always loved dancing,’ she said, of her daughter. ‘Practically as soon as she could walk she used to skip and dance around the house all the time. She was completely unselfconscious you know. For her ninth birthday we took her to see
The Nutcracker
. From then on she had her heart set on being a ballet dancer. So we enrolled her at ballet school to have proper lessons.’
‘Nina Silvero’s school,’ said Mariner.
‘It was a big mistake. Jonquil’s dad and I knew that she might never be a professional dancer, but Nina Silvero had to come out and say it right in front of her. “I really think you’re wasting your money,” she said to me while Jonquil was standing right beside me. “She’s too big and clumsy to ever be any good at it.” Imagine saying that in front of a young child? I wanted to hit her. I wish I had.’
‘And how about Lucy Jarrett?’
For a moment she seemed puzzled. ‘Ah, Lucy Copeland and Julie-Ann Shore; Jonquil idolised them. They were the coolest girls in her class at St Felix. Anything they had, she had to have too. She thought they were so sophisticated. She knew that they called her “little fat Rasen”; they did it to her face, even though she wasn’t really fat. And she laughed along, even though I knew it really hurt her. That was when she began to want to lose weight. She was heartbroken when she couldn’t be a cheerleader, but she knew that if she stuck to her diet she could fit into the costume and they would have to let her join. That was when it really started. At first it was all right. She just began eating lots more salads and cutting down on potatoes and biscuits. She shed a few pounds and you could see her confidence sky-rocket. We encouraged her too at first, because it seemed to make her so much happier about herself. But then, before we knew it, it had become an obsession. She was weighing herself every day before she went to school; ecstatic if she’d lost a few ounces and desperately upset if she had gained any weight at all. And if she had put on weight then she would hardly eat all day. By this time she was routinely cutting out meals and we were doing everything to try to persuade her to eat. Even though she looked like a skeleton, she was still convinced that she was “little fat Rasen”.