Killing Rachel (27 page)

She didn’t know and wasn’t going to ask.

As it grew dark the rain started properly. It seemed to throw itself against the windscreen and blurred the view for a split second before the wiper cleared it. Other cars came towards them with a halo of light that dazzled for a moment, then lessened as they passed. Rose closed her eyes. She could hear the music, the straining of the engine and the splash of water as they drove through wet roads.

In Brandon she sat up when the car stopped at a level crossing. A train thundered past; just one carriage, lit up like a fairground ride. They went through the town stopping and starting, the evening traffic heavy. She glanced over at Joshua, who looked tired.

‘You OK driving?’

Rose turned to grab some water from her bag on the back seat of the car. She noticed the padded envelope and picked it up.

‘I’m fine,’ Joshua said, glancing at her. ‘What’s that?’

The envelope looked old, the corners of it crumpled up as though it had been sitting somewhere for a while.

‘Mrs Abbott gave it to me. Rachel’s parents had it apparently. They found it among Rachel’s things. It should have been posted to me but never was.’

‘You opened it?’

‘No. Not just yet,’ she said. ‘Maybe when I get back home.’

She replaced it on the back seat.

‘You feeling any better?’

‘A bit. The further we get away from the school the better I’ll feel.’

‘Another hour or so. Then we’ll be back in London.’

They continued along pitch-dark country lanes. After a while they joined a dual carriageway where the traffic was heavier and then on to the motorway heading for London. The rain was spearing down and spray rose up at them from passing vehicles. Rose stretched her arms out, moving her head from side to side to stop getting stiff.

‘Not long now,’ Joshua said. ‘When’s your gran getting back?’

Rose found herself smiling at Joshua’s use of the word
gran
. It conjured up a completely different person from Anna. Someone tactile, easy, someone who made people laugh and who called their grandchild by a loving nickname;
Honey
or
Sweetie or Love
or even just
Rosie
, like Joshua did.

‘She’s coming back this evening. I guess I’ll see her then. Can I come back to yours for a while?’

‘Sure. Let’s get a takeaway. We’ve got a lot to talk to Skeggsie about. Are you sure you want to do this tonight? After everything that’s happened?’

‘I need to do this tonight. I need to get all this other stuff out of my head.’

‘Good.’

Joshua was looking for somewhere to park. After a while they found a spot a short walk away from the flat and they got out, picking up their bags. They walked along crowded pavements, falling into single file as they turned on to Camden High Street and headed for Lettuce and Stuff and the door to the flat.

‘We’ll get settled in and then I’ll go for a takeaway.’

Rose nodded, standing in front of Joshua’s front door, looking forward to seeing Skeggsie with his heavy black-rimmed glasses and buttoned-up clothes and room full of computers. They had information to swap and things to do. After being mired in the details of Rachel’s last hours Rose was pleased to be away, submerged in the noise and crowds of Camden, and keen to get more involved in The Notebook project. The door to the flat opened. Rose was expecting to hear the bolts pulled back but then she remembered that Skeggsie had stopped locking himself in.

He stood there in front of them. He had an odd expression on his face.

‘What’s up, Skeggs?’ Joshua said, pushing past him, making his way up the stairs two at a time.

‘Hi, Skeggsie,’ Rose said, stepping into the hallway.

Joshua was already at the top.

‘You’ve got a visitor,’ Skeggsie said. ‘But don’t worry. All the notebooks stuff is under lock and key.’

‘Visitor?’

Rose started to walk up the stairs. She could hear Joshua’s voice from above. When she got to the top she saw a man standing in the middle of the hallway. He was wearing a Crombie coat. He looked familiar and yet she couldn’t place him.

‘Rose Smith. It’s been a long time. Five years I think.’

She narrowed her eyes. Her hip was still feeling sore from the roughing up they had had on Sunday evening. And she was stiff after sitting so long in the car. She knew this man. There was something about him. Then it came to her.

‘Chief Inspector Munroe.’

He smiled. ‘Ex-Chief Inspector. I left the force a couple of years ago. I’m a civil servant now. Hence the city clothes.’

He had a jolly expression on his face as if he was a double-glazing salesman. She remembered him sitting across the coffee table in Anna’s drawing room, telling her that the police would not stop searching for the truth, that they would find out what had happened to her mother and Brendan. She turned to Joshua. He looked confused. He didn’t know Chief inspector Munroe.

‘What do you want?’ Joshua said abruptly.

‘Is there somewhere we can sit and talk? Your flatmate has kept me standing in the hallway for the last ten minutes.’

Joshua pushed open the kitchen door. James Munroe walked in ahead of them. He unbuttoned the Crombie but didn’t take it off. He sat down, his coat dipping on to the floor.

‘What do you want?’ Joshua said.

Skeggsie was standing in the doorway. James Munroe turned to look at him.

‘This is a confidential matter.’

‘He stays,’ Joshua said. ‘He’s family.’

‘Right.’

Skeggsie moved into the room and pulled out a chair and sat on it. James Munroe ignored him, looking at Joshua and then Rose and then back to Joshua.

‘I understand that you’ve just come from Norfolk. In particular from Stiffkey and while there you were at the cottage. You are no doubt surprised that I know where you’ve been. It seems that there’s an awful lot I need to explain to both of you which is why I am here. I need you to come with me tomorrow. We will be heading for Childerley Waters in Cambridgeshire where there is an outreach Cold Crimes Ops Resource.’

‘Why?’

‘I think it’s time you both knew a little more about what happened to your respective parents. If you were aware of all the facts then the scene at Stiffkey could have been avoided.’

‘You mean with Lev Baranski?’

‘Lev Baranski is a young man who has lost his father. You lost your father. There was bound to be some kind of stand-off.’

Rose narrowed her eyes at James Munroe. He was talking as though it was just Brendan who was involved. What about her mother, Kathy Smith? Hadn’t James Munroe told her that he had known her mother from when she first joined the police force? Didn’t he have anything to say about her?

‘It was you people who cleared out the cottage?’ Joshua said. ‘Who moved the boat?’

‘We can’t have anything like this happen again. You both need to know the whole truth and that is why you will come with me tomorrow to Childerley Waters. I’ve already spoken to your grandmother, Rose. I will send a car for you and then it will pick up Joshua.’

‘No,’ Joshua said. ‘We’ll come in our car. That all right, Skeggs?’

Skeggsie nodded. James Munroe sighed.

‘You have satnav? I can give you coordinates.’

He pulled out a pad from his pocket and wrote out a postcode.

‘Look it up on Google Maps. It’s an out of the way place but all the better to have a research facility there. Shall we meet there at, say, eleven o’clock? It’s about an hour’s drive from here, give or take the traffic. Here is my card. My mobile number is on it. I already have yours, Rose.’

‘
You
got my text? What about Frank Richards?’

‘Ah, Frank. That’s another bit of the story. You will find it all out tomorrow. There will be documentation. At last, Rose, Joshua, we are in a position to tell you what we know. Eleven o’clock.’

He stood up. ‘I’ll see myself out.’

‘Until tomorrow. I’ll see myself out.’

He walked out of the kitchen. Rose stood still. Joshua followed after him.

‘He got here about ten minutes before you,’ Skeggsie said. ‘Like he knew you were about to arrive. I left him in the hall. I put all our stuff away. He never saw a thing. Not one thing.’

The front door slammed and then there was the sound of Joshua coming back up the stairs.

‘What about that? We are definitely getting somewhere. A senior policeman is going to
tell us the truth
.’

‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that,’ Skeggsie said.

But Joshua’s face was rapt. Rose saw excitement there. Rose didn’t feel the same. She felt a kind of foreboding. Five years before Chief Inspector James Munroe had told her the truth.
Your parents are most certainly dead, killed by an assassin, paid for by organised crime
.

Now even though he no longer worked as a policeman he had something else to tell them. A new truth.

She did not trust him.

TWENTY-EIGHT

The journey to Childerley Waters took just over an hour. They arrived early and found themselves a couple of miles outside a village, sitting at the perimeter fence of a place called The Cambridge Centre. It was a square one-storey brick building about the size of a tennis court. In front of it was a parking area, the lines of each space sharply painted. The tarmac was smooth, no weeds or ruts. It looked pristine – as if it had never been driven on. The windows of the building had vertical blinds which looked crisp and smart. The entrance doors were closed.

There wasn’t any sign of life.

The fence was solid and the only way in was via a gate on top of which was a CCTV camera. At the side of the gate, at about the height of a driver, was a speaker pad. A red light blinked on and off. It was the only sign of activity in the whole place.

They parked across the lane from it and sat and waited. There was tension in the car. The mix of anxiousness and excitement they had felt the previous evening had flattened out on the drive. Skeggsie had driven and the satnav had guided them there. Skeggsie coughed from time to time in between the monotone voice telling them to
Keep ahead
,
Join the motorway
or
Take the third exit at the roundabout
. Joshua was the only one who had a lot to say. He said he had spent all the previous night thinking about the notebooks so he talked about national security, spies, and international terrorism. The fact that James Munroe was no longer a policeman had given him fuel for his theories. ‘He’s a civil servant!’ he said over and over. ‘That’s code for the secret service. Spooks.’

Rose had spent most of the previous evening thinking about her mum and Brendan and the sudden appearance of the ex-policeman. From time to time her thoughts had been interrupted by the events surrounding Rachel Bliss’s death. She wondered what had happened to Molly. The idea of her being arrested seemed cruel and unjust yet she
had
pushed Rachel into the water. She
was
the cause of Rachel’s death. She’d pictured all the girls at lunch as they’d had been on the previous Friday when she’d first arrived. The news about Molly Wallace would be the main topic of conversation. They would all look at Molly in a new way, in awe of what she’d done and scandalised by the results of her actions.

Her grandmother, Anna, had spent some time with her, telling her about ex-Chief Inspector Munroe’s phone call and his wish to inform them all about what had happened to Kathy Smith and Brendan Johnson. Rose and Joshua were to be told first. Then Munroe had told Anna that he would visit her in the afternoon and give her the relevant information about her daughter. Anna was slightly miffed that she was not to be included in the trip to Childerley Waters but she said that she had patience and she would wait. At last she would know what had happened to Kathy.

Rose was apprehensive about what James Munroe would say.

That morning, when she was waiting for Skeggsie to come and pick her up, she got cold feet. She didn’t want to go. The previous few days had drained her and she didn’t know if she wanted any more emotional turmoil. When the car pulled up she said goodbye to Anna and left, pulling her grey coat around her and putting a black wool hat on her head.

Now, sitting in the Mini waiting for James Munroe, Joshua and Skeggsie had gone quiet. They had ten minutes or so until the meeting time. Rose was in the back and she looked out of the window at The Cambridge Centre and wondered what story they were here to find out about. The last thing they had heard from Frank Richards was that her mother and Joshua’s father were alive. Rose had a terrible feeling inside her that this would not be confirmed today. She stared at the building, her eyes trying to make some sense of it. There was a stillness about it, as if nothing had ever happened there. The lane was silent; no cars had passed since they’d parked. The trees were static, not a breath of wind anywhere. There was a funereal mood. Even Joshua looked gloomy.