Remix (2010) (6 page)

“Are you going to the police like you told Phil?”

“If I turn myself in, they won’t investigate. Why should they? I need to give them evidence it was someone else.”

“How? If you go round interviewing witnesses and suspects it may just occur to them you’re not dead…”

“You’re right, I can’t do it.” I could feel his eyes on me. “But you could, Caz.”

“I could not.”

“You can say you’re a journalist writing a book about the Orr murder.”

“No.” I wanted to make myself absolutely clear on this one. “Ric, you are looking at the worst liar in England. Probably the world. I’d give myself away before I got through the door. I’m not doing it.”

“I’ll tell you what to say. You can record the interviews and I’ll know when they were lying.”

“No. Seriously bad idea. Anyway, I can’t afford the time. I have to earn my living.”

He gave me a long look, and said no more for the rest of the drive.

After lunch I spent the afternoon updating my website, loading photos of the latest horses, and writing a bit about them. It’s worth spending time on this, because an appealing description with lots of detail can make the difference between selling a horse or not. People can choose one from the photos and send me a cheque, or narrow their choice before they visit the showroom. The home page has a pleasing picture of me nailing a mane on a J & G Lines, smiling winsomely at anyone visiting my website. As well as Horses For Sale, I have pages on Rocking Horse Makers, one on Identifying Your Rocking Horse, examples of my restorations, Before and After, and a page on my own designs, Modern Classics.

Ric stayed downstairs playing his guitar. I could just hear it from the flat. He came up to make himself coffee. While the water boiled he peered over my shoulder.

“Thunder, Athena, Biscuit…they have names.”

“Yes, it’s easier to remember than numbers.”

“D’you sell to shops?”

“In theory I do. At sixty per cent of these prices. I must do a sales trip. I’ve been putting it off. I’m not much good at selling.”

Ric poured water, added milk and sugar and picked up the packet of chocolate digestives. “I’ll have this downstairs. I’m on a roll.” He dropped something beside the keyboard. “Half of what I got from Phil. For food and that.”

Sunday passed in the same peaceful co-existence as Saturday afternoon. I’ve had friends to stay here who were under my feet the whole time; exhausting. Ric was surprisingly easy to live with. I didn’t see much of him, and he didn’t bother me. He even put away the duvet and cleared his own dishes. Mostly he played his guitar or lay on the roof sofa. Not asleep; he seemed to be thinking. When I brought a horse up to the roof to sand, he went inside to get away from the dust and used my laptop and printer.

Monday morning I heard Dog barking at the pigeons in the Yard. He derived a simple doggy pleasure from startling them into flight. He and his owner were off for a morning walk. An hour later I buzzed them back in. Ric was holding a big Marks & Spencer carrier bag. Ten minutes later he left again, this time without Dog. I watched from the upper workshop window as he emerged into Fox Hollow Yard. Incongruously, he was wearing a suit, a normal dark grey one, with a white shirt and black shoes. I thought this a clever idea. Ric really isn’t a suit sort of guy; no one who knew him before would expect to see him wearing one. Though I’d have guessed he’d reject M & S in favour of a more exclusive tailor like Paul Smith.

He hadn’t said where he was going. I was curious. In spite of all he’d told me, I felt I hadn’t heard anything like the full story yet. Dog pattered up the stairs, and settled near my workbench in a friendly way.

I kept finding myself at the window, watching for Ric’s return. I suddenly wondered whether he’d gone to the police - but why would he buy a cheap suit to do that? He might have disappeared for good…but I didn’t think he’d leave Dog behind. I went down to the office/showroom. None of his things were lying about. I opened the cupboard by the shower. The Strat was there, and his new clothes, folded, the Converses lined up beside them, as neat as a suicide’s pile of belongings on a beach. No note.

I went back upstairs, thoughtful. The thing was, though I’d now known Ric for four days, and he was living in my house, in some ways he was still the stranger I’d found asleep on my rooftop. I knew very little about him. I liked him in spite of this. The fact that he was so attractive didn’t help me to form an objective opinion. He had that quality which earns stars in Hollywood twenty million dollars a film; you couldn’t take your eyes off him; it was as if he glowed under his own personal spotlight. And, when he wanted, he had those warm eyes, whose gaze made you feel you were basking in the sun.

I hoped he was all right.

The doorbell rang at tea time. I let him in. He came into the flat carrying a small bright yellow Selfridges bag and looking pleased with himself, and went straight for the chocolate biscuits. In the suit he made me think of a male model in a colour supplement fashion shoot. I was determined not to ask him where he’d been. He sat on a stool and grinned at me.

I crumbled before he did. “You’re looking incredibly smug. Spill.”

He got some papers out of his jacket pocket and handed them to me. I unfolded the top one. It was on Selfridges headed paper; a signed order for one of my Modern Classics, large size. The next was an order from Harrods, for three of my horses, one in each size, small, medium and large.

“I told them I’d left my order book in the car,” he said. “They want delivery this week. I said that would be okay. I’ll give you a hand.”

“You’ve been selling my horses? My own designs? To Harrods and Selfridges?”

“Yeah. I sold the fifth one to a shop in Notting Hill.” He felt in his pockets and produced a card:
Ollie and Grace: The Children’s Store
. “They’ll pay on delivery, tomorrow. I gave them a discount for cash, ten per cent.”

“That’s…amazing. Fantastic.”

I’d not managed to sell even one of my own designs in the five months since I made them. I’d begun to think they were a mistake, unsaleable, and I should stick to restorations; I regretted the time I’d spent on them. Now he’d shifted the whole lot in one day; over eight thousand pounds’ worth of horses. My quarter’s turnover - and profits - would be transformed. And if they sold quickly, the shops might reorder; I might get a steady source of income from them. I was thrilled. He must have planned it, printed off pictures to show the buyers, bought the suit specially…how very kind of him to go to such trouble…

“Ric, I don’t know what to say. I’m really grateful. Thank you so much!”

He sat back. We beamed at each other. I could have hugged him. Suddenly the penny dropped. I stopped smiling.

“You did this to put me in your debt - to make me go round sleuthing for you!”

Ric leaned down, got a box out of the Selfridges bag, and laid it on the counter in front of me. It contained a brand new Olympus digital voice recorder.

“Yup,” he said.

“No.” I glowered at him. “I’m not doing it. No way. Forget it, Ric.”

Chapter

8

*

My hand trembling, I picked up the phone and thumbed in the number.

“Dave’s a pussycat,” Ric said. “He won’t give you any grief. That’s why we’re starting with him.”

I nodded. I was as ready for this as I was ever going to be. We’d been over it so many times, with me trying to think of all the awkward questions Dave Calder might ask.

“If it’s a total fiasco I’m not doing the others, okay?”

“Chill out. There’s no reason this won’t work.”

“Suppose he remembers the original interview?”

“Why should he? I don’t.”

A man’s voice answered the phone.

“Hallo? Is that Dave Calder?” They say people can tell you’re lying more easily if they can’t see your face. My voice had gone high, the way it does when I’m anxious. I tried to bring it down, and the next words came out in an absurd low-register purr. “My name’s Vikki Wilson. Phil Sharott gave me your number. I did a piece about The Voices in
La Vista
magazine a few years back.”

“Oh, hi, Vikki, I think I remember you. Short blonde hair?”

“It was then. It’s a bit darker and longer now.”
This isn’t going to work. He’ll know I’m not the same woman.

“What can I do for you, Vikki?”

“I’ve been commissioned to write a book about the Bryan Orr case. I want to talk to all the people who knew him. I wondered if I could come and see you?”

“Sure, if that’s okay with Phil. He likes to check out stuff before it goes into print.”

“Yes, he told me that. That’s fine. So when would be a good time for you?”

“How soon d’you want to come?”

“As soon as possible.”

“I could do Tuesday morning? Or I could fit you in tonight, if you like, round about nine o’clock.”

Bloody hell. Tonight. Still, get it over with. Less time for him to mention it to Phil.

“That would be great. Where shall I come?”

He gave me an address in Hampstead. I wrote it down, my hand shaking so much that my handwriting verged on indecipherable. “See you this evening, then. Bye.” I clicked the phone off, and looked at Ric.

“Nine tonight.”

Less than three hours away.

I made an extra effort with my appearance, to boost my confidence. Did I mention I’m not bad-looking? If you divided people into sheep and goats, according to their looks, I’m definitely on the sheep side. Slim, nice proportions, big eyes - genetically fortunate. It’s quite useful sometimes.

So that evening I washed my hair, put on skinny jeans and a clingy filmy top that shows off my figure, and applied lots of smoky eye make-up. When it was time to go, I went to the showroom to collect Ric, keys in one hand, digital recorder in the other; nervous.

He went, “Whoa!” appreciatively, eyeing me up and down.

“Let’s get it over with.”

I didn’t enjoy the drive to Hampstead. Every time I thought about meeting Dave Calder my stomach lurched. I had this awful vision of letting slip something that would give me away; he’d then know I was a fraud, but I would still be there, face to face with him, having to somehow make my excuses and get out of the house. It wasn’t that I thought he’d call the police or get nasty with me. It was the social embarrassment I dreaded, and being asked for an explanation I couldn’t give. Though come to think of it, there was also, I supposed, the chance that Dave Calder was the murderer, and might get very nasty indeed if he didn’t like my questions…

“What shall I say if he sees through me?”

“He won’t see through you. It’ll be cool.”

We drove down a narrow sloping road right on the edge of Hampstead Heath, near the Ladies’ Pond. The trees were green and gold in the evening light.

“This is it,” said Ric, as we passed a driveway. “Park here.”

I drove on till I found a space, and reversed into it. I sat for a moment, hands cold and sweating. I was making too much of this. I’d be fine. I got out of the van, and walked towards Dave Calder’s house.

It’s strange meeting someone for the first time whose face you know. You always expect them to be bigger, too, if they’re famous; larger than life.

Dave Calder was only an inch or two taller than me, and had a face like a clever monkey’s, with a shock of brown hair. He opened the front door to me himself. He was wearing grey sweat pants and a baggy tee shirt, and bare feet. In his hand was a can of Budweiser.

“Hey, Vikki, come in,” he said. His eyes flickered over me. “I remember you now. Even with the hair different.”

Smiling nervously, I followed him up a short flight of steel stairs into a vast white-painted space, its expanse of pale wood floor nearly empty. Handy if you wanted an impromptu game of football, or suddenly needed to learn to rollerblade. Star-like lights dotted about the ceiling competed with the fading daylight; half a dozen huge windows showed a view of trees. There wasn’t much in the room, but what there was, was big. Like the plasma television let into one wall playing
Police, Camera, Action
, a pair of speakers my height, a white sofa that curved on for ever, and a soft brown rug that must have used up a whole flock of sheep. Not what you’d call cosy.

Dave picked up a remote and switched off the television. “What’ll you have to drink?”

“Er…white wine, please. This is amazing…”

He glanced around. “Yeah. Champagne do you?” A door in the wall opened to reveal a fridge. Dave got out another can of Budweiser and a bottle of
Moet
& Chandon. He put down the lager and eased the cork out of the champagne. Foam dribbled as he got out a glass, poured, and handed it to me.

“Cheers.”

We sat on the white sofa.

“So, Vikki, what d’you want me to tell you?”

I got the digital recorder out of my bag. “D’you mind? Save me writing it all down.” When he said it was okay, I switched it on and placed it between us.

I cleared my throat. “I’d like it if you could talk a bit about the day Bryan Orr died.”