The Unquiet Dead (30 page)

Deep grey clouds moved east over the Thames basin as Jessie steered her way south, rising higher up the foothills of the South Downs until sunshine
broke through and she sped on to the sea. Finally she turned the bike into a street of modern terrace housing on the outskirts of Hove and edged forward, trying to read the small brass numbers on the brightly coloured doors. It was a sweet, cherry-tree-lined street and Jessie felt a strange gladness seep through her that this retirement had had a happy end. She was coming up to the address. Of course she meant ending, not end. Paul Cook was alive and … Jessie stopped the bike. A young woman was coming out of number 42 carrying a packing box. Two small children trailed behind her. Jessie noticed three things in quick succession. The children were playing cops and robbers, the girl was playing the part of the copper, and their mother had been crying. A beaten-up Volvo estate was parked outside the house. The boot was open and inside were more boxes. Jessie’s excitement was rapidly replaced by apprehension. Just as she was deliberating on whether to turn the bike round, the woman looked up. She had short brown curly hair and a figure that came of being constantly on the move. She smiled naturally at Jessie. Jessie kicked the stand out and leant the bike carefully on to it. The kids stopped playing and ran forward to admire the machine. Jessie removed her helmet.

‘Kids! Don’t pester the lady.’

‘It’s okay,’ said Jessie.

‘Can I help you?’

‘I’m not sure. I was trying to find Paul Cook.’

The woman bowed her head briefly, then looked
up with a brave face. ‘I’m afraid you’ve missed him,’ she said.

‘He’s gone to heaven,’ piped up the smaller of the two children – a boy about her niece Elbe’s age. What would seven days’ captivity do to a child as young as this?

‘I’m very sorry to hear that,’ said Jessie sincerely.

‘Why?’ asked the older girl. ‘Heaven’s a nice place.’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Jessie. ‘I’ve never been.’

‘I’ve never been to Paris,’ said the girl. ‘But I know it’s very nice. That’s where French fries come from. That’s a chip, by the way.’

Jessie resisted the urge to smile.

‘Come on, you two,’ said the children’s mother. ‘You’re supposed to be helping. There are still all the gnomes in the garden.’ She looked up at Jessie. ‘Cookie loved gnomes,’ she explained. ‘He said they kept him company when he couldn’t sleep.’

Another copper who couldn’t sleep. Not such a happy ending then.

‘Cookie being your –?’

‘Father. Their grandfather. I’m afraid they won’t remember him.’ She stared at the empty space where her children had recently filled.

‘When did he die?’

The woman sighed heavily. ‘Tuesday. It was expected, but …’

Jessie couldn’t believe it.

‘Does this seem mad, clearing out the house so soon? I needed something else to think about. He’d
been ill for some time. Everyone says it’s a relief, but … He wasn’t very old …’ Her voice croaked under the strain of holding back her emotions. ‘I’m sorry, you don’t need to hear this.’

‘When my mother died they said it would be a relief, but it wasn’t.’ Jessie stared at the woman whom she hadn’t even introduced herself to. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I have no idea why I just said that.’

The curly-haired lady smiled sadly and stretched out her hand. ‘Emma. Pleased to meet you.’

‘Detective Inspector Jessie Driver. Likewise.’ The boy and girl appeared clutching brightly coloured garden gnomes. Gaiety in resin. ‘You have lovely kids,’ she ventured.

‘You have a lovely career, Detective Inspector.’

‘Sometimes,’ said Jessie.

The children jostled her for attention. ‘Likewise,’ she replied, collecting the offered gnomes and thanking them both profusely. Happy, they ran back for more. ‘What am I going to do with all these? I never understood the fascination in them, myself. A few months after he took early retirement, they started to appear. He was forever talking to his gnomes. They all have names,’ she said, showing Jessie the underside of one of the gnomes in her hand. ‘This one’s called Nancy – poor old gnome, not a very good name for a boy. I don’t suppose you’re in the market, are you?’

It felt like someone had placed a heavy hand on her solar plexus.

‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m sorry I missed him,’ said Jessie, walking backwards to her bike. ‘I should leave you in peace.’

The dead man’s daughter frowned for a moment. ‘What did you come here for?’

‘It doesn’t matter now.’

‘Try me. We were very close. I was in the Force myself.’

‘Why did you leave?’

The kids made a timely appearance. ‘I was a child protection officer,’ said Emma, looking at her offspring. ‘I’d seen too much to leave my kids with anyone. Know what I mean?’

Jessie had seen the footage, listened to the tapes, studied the photographs. ‘Only too well.’

‘My husband earned more than me,’ she shrugged. ‘So that was that. Cookie was the only one who didn’t give me a hard time.’

‘Because he knew,’ said Jessie, comprehending the situation.

‘Only too well,’ said Emma, echoing her again.

‘Maybe I will have one of those gnomes,’ said Jessie, ‘if you’re serious about trying to off-load them.’

‘I am. I have sleepless nights, but not for the same reasons, and my husband isn’t really a gnome kinda guy.’

‘It takes a special kind of man to love a gnome,’ said Jessie smiling. ‘And I think I know just such a man.’

Emma put her hand to her heart. ‘He was special.’

If Jessie was supposed to offer warm words about her father being in a better place, she couldn’t. Instead she picked her helmet off the seat of the bike and pushed it over her head. The mother of two touched her lightly on the shoulder. ‘Detective Inspector, don’t think I’m mad, but you didn’t come here to ask Cookie about the kidnapping, did you?’

Jessie peeled the helmet back off.

‘You did?’ Emma smiled. ‘I thought so. It was your reaction to the name Nancy. That is so weird.’

You’re telling me, thought Jessie.

‘Has Malcolm Hoare been found? Are you reopening the case? It haunted him, you know, I think it may even have killed him.’

So, definitely not a happy ending. ‘Why?’

‘He never forgave himself for not putting Malcolm Hoare behind bars. Mr Scott-Somers never wanted Cookie to go after him; he just wanted Nancy back. He certainly didn’t give a shit about the money. But once a policeman … In Cookie’s defence, the evidence against Hoare was concrete. They caught him trying to leave the country with half the money.’

‘The tracking device?’ offered Jessie.

‘No, Hoare was too smart for that. He dumped the bag immediately. It was the shoe-mould that got him. Cookie matched a shoe-print from near the drop point to one they had on record. Malcolm
Hoare had a limp, you see. The tread of his shoe was as individual as a fingerprint. It’s a statistical fact that most thieves only have one pair of shoes – their lucky shoes. It was a brilliant bit of detection and Cookie was right to be proud of himself. But then, as you know, it all went wrong in court.’

‘I knew about the limp,’ she said truthfully.

‘That poor little girl survived seven days trussed up like a chicken in a disused well, only to be dragged through hell by Malcolm Hoare’s lawyer.’

Jessie had heard enough.
Trussed-up … disused well
. But Emma had more to say.

‘Children were tried like adults in those days, remember. And after all that, he walks on a technicality. I became a child protection officer because of the Nancy Scott-Somers case. Between her parents, the police, Malcolm Hoare and that lawyer, they pulled her apart. They absolutely destroyed that little girl. Cookie played his part, that’s why he feels, I mean felt, so guilty. Right up to the end he was still talking about Nancy Scott-Somers.’

‘What was she like?’

‘I never met her, of course, but Cookie always said she was angelic. The most beautiful child you ever saw. Her personality matched her face too. When they brought her back, she didn’t speak for five days. Cookie and the family doctor stayed with them round the clock. When she did finally talk it was to ask whether Charlotte was okay.’

‘What about her parents?’

‘Couldn’t say. They didn’t really feature much.’

‘I don’t suppose you remember what the doctor was called?’

‘Turnball, Christopher Turnball. Isn’t it on the record?’

‘He wasn’t a witness,’ said Jessie, taking a punt.

‘No, silly me, of course he wasn’t. Cookie liked him. I think he was the only one connected to that household who showed them equal affection; everyone else preferred Nancy. You see, Charlotte was fat with frizzy dark hair and a sleepy eye, or something like that. Not attractive like Nancy, but definitely the spirited one, always in trouble, always running away from the nanny. Even so, imagine blaming a nine-year-old. I don’t suppose you recover from that.’

Jessie was struggling to fit the description to the Charlotte she’d met. She was certainly not unattractive, she didn’t have a sleepy eye, or dark frizzy hair, and she wasn’t fat. Whether Emma was also wrong about her recovery, however, Jessie wasn’t so sure.

‘Honestly, it’s enough to make you believe in the Scott-Somers curse.’

‘Sorry, did you say “curse”?’

‘I know – nonsense. But a lot of bad things did happen to that family. Crashes, early deaths, accidents, childhood illnesses, family rifts. Personally, I think the reason bad luck seems to beset very wealthy families is because they’re the ones skiing and flying and boating and generally living a fast life. Still, they
blamed it on the “curse”. God forbid they should take responsibility for their own lives.’

‘I know the sort,’ agreed Jessie. ‘Listen, thank you for talking to me. My condolences about your father, I know words don’t mean an awful lot right now, but I am sorry.’

‘I’m sorry he died before he met you. I’m sorry it was before Malcolm Hoare was found and brought to justice. I think Dad’s death wouldn’t have been such a struggle, if he’d been able to … I don’t know, forgive himself.’

Someone in here needs forgiveness
. ‘I don’t suppose he kept anything that I could look at? Any personal angle on the case that I wouldn’t find in the police file?’

Emma shook her head. ‘He kept a book of cuttings, but nothing about the Scott-Somers case. It never made the papers.’

‘Isn’t that odd? It ought to have been newsworthy at the time?’ Jessie knew that Niaz had returned from the library empty-handed.

‘The whole thing was kept out of the press. Mr Scott-Somers wanted to protect the girls.’

Jessie wasn’t so sure about that either.

Jessie pulled over in a lay-by and called Burrows and Niaz. She had already told them what had happened with Moore. Suspecting they were being squeezed, she asked them to find everything they could about the Scott-Somers using extreme caution. Now she added a name to that checklist:
Dr Christopher Turnball. They were to communicate only by mobile and she wanted any information dropped off at her flat at the end of the day. There was a spare key in her desk. The name Scott-Somers could not be mentioned anywhere in the station.

‘DCI Moore came looking for you this afternoon,’ said Burrows.

‘What did you tell her?’

‘That you were chasing up the Romano case by re-interviewing Peter Boateng.’

‘I’m sorry you had to lie for me, but thanks.’

‘Actually, it’s true.’

‘It is?’

‘He called here for you. I said you wouldn’t be back until this evening. You’ll find him in the Boudin Blanc in Shepherd’s Market. He said he’d be there till closing time if necessary.’

Jessie looked at her watch. ‘I hope he’s paying,’ she said, ending the call.

By the time Jessie reached the pedestrianised turning into Shepherd’s Market, it was past seven. Drinkers battled with the cold on the crowded corners, late workers rushed through the narrow streets towards Hyde Park Corner and home. She approached the restaurant and peered through the condensation-streaked window. Peter Boateng was nursing a bottle of wine. Gone was the air of self-possession, so too the relaxed gait and the untroubled smile. Peter Boateng had come unravelled.
And it wasn’t just the wine. Jessie pushed open the door; he turned as the cold air billowed into the bustling restaurant.

‘I hope you’re hungry?’ he asked as she sat down. ‘They keep telling me they’re not a wine bar.’ Jessie nodded. Once again, she hadn’t eaten all day. ‘Good. Menu is on the board.’

This she knew. She had often come to the Boudin Blanc for important work meetings and more importantly girly dinners. It was a noisy, busy restaurant, where the waiters threw down wine and bread and never loitered long enough to derail a conversation.

‘You should eat,’ said Jessie.

Peter Boateng shook his head.

‘Clear your conscience and your appetite might return,’ said Jessie.

He cleared his throat. ‘I hope so.’ He emptied his glass, then poured two hefty measures of viscous claret before looking Jessie directly in the eye. She watched him summon his inner strength.