CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Anne did not sleep well that night. An image kept recurring in her mind’s eye of Owen Shepherd holding little Lynette. Only, it wasn’t Lynette’s face that kept turning towards her but Patricia’s. At the same time, her dislike for Steve Taylor ran the whole gamut from rage to pity and back again. How dare that man come into her life and turn it upside down so? Yet, if I’m honest, I only have myself to blame.
Whatever, she could not and would not believe that Owen Shepherd was some kind of secret pervert. The whole idea was absurd. So why was she even contemplating the prospect and why did ‘seeing’ Owen and Patricia together make her blood run cold?
Meanwhile, the subject of Anne’s darker ruminations lay sprawled on his mother’s bed, fully clothed, in the dark. He sensed her presence. It was a comfort, as was the smell of her perfume. His mother would take care of things. Hadn’t she always?
His whole body ached. Spiritually, too, he felt badly bruised. His head was throbbing, eyes smarting. He had shed so many tears since that debacle in the yard, there were none left. How could Steve Taylor have said such a thing? It had made him feel so…dirty. Even several long, hot showers since had failed to make him feel clean again. What must the others have thought? Why hadn’t he defended himself more robustly? “Oh, mother, why am I so weak?” he moaned aloud, but the Presence made no answer. His
thoughts turned to Anne. But he could not bear to dwell on the potential ramifications there.
A sliver of moonlight crept into the room through the curtains and cast a shadow on the ceiling. He fancied it resembled the shape of a whale, its massive jaws open wide, ready to swallow him whole. “Oh, mother, mother, where are you?” he wailed, shut his eyes tightly and waited for the whale to remove him, once and for all, from the world’s worst intentions.
A sliver of moonlight crept into the room through the curtains and cast a shadow on the ceiling. He fancied it resembled the shape of a whale, its massive jaws open wide, ready to swallow him whole. “Oh, mother, mother, where are you?” he wailed, shut his eyes tightly and waited for the whale to remove him, once and for all, from the world’s worst intentions.
...............................................
Back at Hillcrest, Cathy Taylor took some comfort from the small, warm body snuggled up close to her. She rarely let Lynette share her bed, but had told herself the child was upset and it was the least she could do. Steve had accepted the excuse without argument and agreed to sleep in Lynette’s room. She had heard him leave hours ago, doubtless making for the bar downstairs. On his return, he had been singing a slurred, off-key version of a song they had always thought of as ‘theirs’. One night, on their honeymoon, they were dancing at a nightclub in Paris and Edith Piaf had suddenly started belting out, ‘Non, rien de rien. Non, je ne regrette rien...’ courtesy of a local DJ. No regrets? She sighed. I wish!
In the adjoining room, Steve Taylor slept soundly.
Charley Briggs did not sleep well that night either. She liked to feel Spence’s arms around her. On this occasion, his bruises would not permit this and she felt irrationally excluded and alone. She dozed from time to time, but earlier events at the Shepherd’s continued to haunt even her semi-consciousness. Consequently, she rose early and showered. Without waking Spence, she dressed in a jogger top and bottoms then went downstairs to take breakfast although, for once, she wasn’t ravenous and settled for two slices of toast and several cups of sweet black coffee.
The familiar ring tone of a mobile phone intruded into her thoughts. She reached for it, saw that she had picked up Spence’s by mistake and almost did not answer it. A fleeting glance at the name on the tiny screen changed her mind. “Hello, Charley Briggs here,” the musical voice boomed, causing certain people at other tables to look up with some displeasure as she raised the phone to her ear.
“Oh.” The voice at the other end sounded disappointed and then, ‘It’s Sally Hunter here…”
“Hello, how are you?”
“Muddling along, you know, as you do. But, look, you were asking about the McAllisters…”
“You have some news?”
“My Craig has an address for young Stuart McAllister if you’re still interested.”
“You bet I am. Just let me find a pen.” Charley rummaged in her bag. “Fire away…” she told Sally Hunter and began scribbling on a piece of scrap paper as she took down the details.”
“He may not be there any more of course but I thought you’d want to know, just in case.”
“Thank you so much, it’s very kind of you.”
“No problem. Bye.”
“Goodbye and thanks again,” said Charley and would have probed further but the line was already dead. After indicating to the waitress that she would like her cup refilled, Charley contemplated this latest development. The address, she saw, was in Croydon. Not far away. Spence was in no condition to drive, of course, but she could take the wheel herself or they could take the train. The latter alternative she hastily dismissed, and could only hope Spence would not prove ‘difficult’ about accompanying her. She hated driving alone. On the other hand, his remarks regarding her driving skills had been less than complimentary in the past. He would tell her it was none of her damn business, of course. “I have a duty to Anne,” she would tell him.
“A duty to Anne, you say? You have no such thing!” Spence exclaimed later, “Honestly, Charley, you’re incorrigible. You haven’t known the woman five minutes and already you’re interfering.”
“I am not interfering,” Charley protested, “I only have Anne’s best interests at heart. Aren’t you just a teeny bit curious about Owen Shepherd? ”
“No,” Spence told her flatly. “He seems a nice enough chap. Okay, so he has an Oedipus complex, but that doesn’t mean he goes around kidnapping little girls. It may be your pet theory but, if you ask me, it’s a bloody stupid one.”
“Ah, but look at his history,” Charley pointed out, “not to mention that awful business yesterday. You saw how he clung to that poor child. It was…unhealthy, to say the least.”
“She was upset, you stupid woman. Shepherd was comforting her. End of story.”
“Then there’s the grave in the shrubbery,” she reminded him.
“Probably a dog or a cat or…who knows? No one is daft enough to bury a body in their shrubbery, for crying out loud, except in your daft detective yarns!” he added scathingly.
“Maybe, maybe not, but I still say there’s more to Owen Shepherd than meets the eye and if you call me stupid once more, that beating you took yesterday will seem like a light tap on the wrist!” She pursed her lips, glared indignantly, and braced herself for further protest. To her relief, he merely flung her a sheepish grin that told her victory was hers. “I’ll drive, if only to spare your poor, battered body. But one cheap remark about my driving and you can get out and walk.”
“Yes ma’am.” The boyish grin widened and it was Charley’s turn to cave in. Their embrace quickly developed into having sex on the bed, an experience that both enjoyed immensely despite in spite of Spence’s frequent cries of “Ouch!”
In the event, they caught a train.
The address Sally Hunter had given Charley turned out to be a flat in a block near the Law Courts, not far from East Croydon railway station. The lift was out of order so they had to drag themselves up five flights of winding, concrete stairs before reaching number thirty-one.
“Let me catch my breath before we ring the bell,” Charley gasped.
“Never mind your breath, what about my ribs?” Spence groaned.
“Young bones mend quickly enough,” was all the sympathy Charley was in the mood to dole out. She rang the doorbell. No response. Within, all they could hear was a faint buzzing noise. She tried again, keeping her finger on the button for longer this time.
“There’s no one in,” grumbled Spence, “I told you we should have left things well alone.”
“There’s someone inside, I know there is,” Charley insisted, pressed a finger on the bell yet again…and kept it there.
“Okay, okay, I’m coming,” a disgruntled male voice yelled on the other side of the door, “Keep your hair on!” A man Charley put in his mid-late thirties and wearing only a pair of boxer shorts flung open the door. “Who are you? What do you want?” he demanded.
“Stuart McAllister?” Charley enquired politely.
“Oh, f**k!” the man swore then, “Stu, it’s for you!” Whereupon he disappeared, to be replaced a few minutes later buy another man, this time wearing only a towel around his waist.
“Yeah, what can I do for you?” Stuart McAllister eyed his visitors suspiciously.
“If you don’t mind, we’d like to talk to you about your sister’s disappearance?” Charley volunteered. I’m a freelance journalist. At the moment, I’m researching child abductions. I knew your mother at school. So, you see, I have a personal interest in your sister’s case.”
“It was years ago and, yes, I do mind,” he told her curtly. “Nosey parkers like you make me sick. How would you feel if it was your sister, eh? It’s bad enough having to live with something like that. Do you honestly think I want it rubbed in my face every five minutes?” He spat out a tiny ball of phlegm that narrowly missed Charley’s left shoe.
Spence started forward angrily.
“My name is Charley Briggs.” She continued unperturbed, one hand lightly restraining Spence “and this is Kirk Spencer my…err…assistant. We really would be so grateful for even a few minutes of your time.”
McAllister glared. Charley flung Spence a warning glance. “How much are you paying?” McAllister wanted to know. Charley hesitated, momentarily nonplussed.
“Fifty quid,” said Spence.
“In that case, you can piss off, the pair of you.” McAllister began to close the door.
“A hundred,” Charley cried out in alarm. The door remained ajar.
“Five hundred,” McAllister growled.
“For stale news, you’re joking aren’t you?” Spence met the other’s calculating gaze with another of his own.
“Four hundred or you’re wasting my time.”
A hundred and fifty,” Spence parried, “and that’s our final offer. Take it or leave it,” he added, ignoring Charley’s panic-stricken expression.
“In cash...?”
“In cash,” Spence agreed. It was all the money he had on him.
The door opened and Stuart McAllister stood aside to let them enter. The place was so shabby and untidy that Spence suspected the pair may well be squatters. A look from Charley told him that the same thought had crossed her mind. They were shown into what might have passed for a sitting room but for greasy crockery and discarded clothes just about everywhere.
“Cash first,” McAllister insisted.
Spence counted out some notes from his wallet and replaced it in the inside pocket of his leather jacket. “You get the rest when we leave,” he told the hairy body towering above him. He expected an argument and was relieved when McAllister raised no objections.
“Take a pew.”
Charley let Spence remove some dirty plates and a pair of jeans from a sofa that looked as if its springs were missing before they sat down.
“You look as if you’ve been in the wars,” McAllister told Spence, more than a hint of amusement in the husky voice.
Spence thought he also detected a trace of grudging admiration in the other man’s tone and grinned amiably. “You look as if you’re in the shit.”
McAllister glared and pulled up a hard chair, sat astride it back to front and regarded them with frank curiosity. “So what can I do for you?”
“We’d like your version of what happened to your sister,” said Charley, “also what kind of child she was. For example, was she friendly, the sort easily enticed away or was she a quiet sort, unlikely to wander far from home?”
“She was a cute kid. A bit precious but…she was a good kid.”
“Precious?” Charley was intrigued.
“You know…mature for her age, even a bit flirty sometimes. Thought she knew it all, did our Carrie. But, like I say, she was a good kid.”
“Oh, you mean precocious,” Charley felt obliged to correct the burly figure whose state of undress she found more than a trifle distracting. He may be on the uncouth side compared to his mother but he had certainly inherited a share of her good looks. Nor was he without a certain roguish charm.
McAllister shrugged. “She was a good kid,” he repeated.
So what happened exactly?” Charley gave him her best smile, for all the good it did her.
“If I knew that, we’d know where she is, wouldn’t we? My ma would give her life to know just that. No one knows ‘what happened exactly’ to the poor kid. What kind of stupid question is that?”
“Sorry. I meant…Well, can you at last talk us through events as they happened?” murmured Charley apologetically.
“There’s not a lot to tell. When she didn’t come home from school, Ma called the police. The rest is ancient history.”
"I believe a local man, Owen King, came under some suspicion briefly?
“There was nothing brief about it,” McAllister retorted, “He was prime suspect for a good while. He still is, in my book. Stands to reason, doesn’t it? I mean, he had a history of molesting your girls, for f**k’s sake. Okay, nothing was ever proven, but so what? There’s no smoke without fire.” The tough exterior crumbled slightly and the glaring eyes filled with tears. “Stands to reason,” he repeated, and then pulled out a filthy rag from a pocket in his shorts and blew his nose noisily.
“You say Carrie was a bit of a flirt?” Charley persisted.
“Not a flir. She was only ten for heaven's sake. Carrie just liked people, especially men. She adored Bob, ma’s partner. The cops gave him a hard time too. Ma told them they were wasting their time, and she was right. Carrie was the apple of his eye. You’d have thought they were natural father and daughter. It’s a pity he didn’t stay around afterwards, but Ma wasn’t the same after Carrie disappeared. None of us were. It got to all of us one way or another. I guess Bob couldn’t handle all the hassle any more.”
“And you, how did you handle all the hassle?” It was Spence who broke the long, reflective silence that followed.
McAllister shrugged. “I didn’t…as you can see for yourselves,” he added caustically before leaping to his feet and sending the chair crashing to the floor in the process. “Okay, that’s your lot,” he declared abruptly and held out a large hand to Spence, grubby palm facing upwards. Spence retrieved his wallet and counted out the remaining notes. “Thanks,” said McAllister, “It was nice doing business with you. Now, f**k off the pair of you.”
“We’ll see ourselves out,” Spence told him with a pleasant smile. McAllister bared his teeth.
“Thank you Mr McAllister.” Charley offered to shake hands but met with such a contemptuous sneer that she collected what dignity she could muster and left without even looking to satisfy herself that Spence was close behind.
“Can we find a pub for lunch?” he suggested, “I’m parched as well as ravenous.”
“Then you’ll just have to hold out till we get back to Brighton,” she told him, “I want to browse though the newspaper archives at the Argus. They’re expecting us. We can go to the History Centre too, if there’s time. If not, there’s always tomorrow.”
What in heaven’s name for?”
“I want to know everything that happened at the time Patricia Gates disappeared.”
“Why? What do you expect to find?”
Charley stopped. “How do I know until I find it? Really, Spence, sometimes you can be so obtuse.” She continued walking.
“Why don’t you just ask Anne?”
“How can I, when…?” she faltered.
“When you suspect her boyfriend of abducting her daughter? I suppose not,” Spence agreed in a tone that, to Charley’s sensitive ear, sounded almost as aggressive as it did cynical.
She stopped dead in her tracks again. “He is not her boyfriend,” she declared emphatically. “Heaven forbid. As for suspecting Owen Shepherd of anything…Well, innocent until proven guilty, I suppose. But you have to admit,” she rushed on before he could interrupt, “it does look very fishy.”
“Just stop and think for a second,” Spence pleaded, “The police would have covered everything? If there had been anything to even remotely connect Owen Shepherd or King, whatever, with that child’s disappearance, they would have found it. They wouldn’t have left a speck of dust, let alone a stone unturned. You told me yourself that Mel Harvey said they questioned him more than once.”
“He’s still prime suspect as far as Stuart McAllister is concerned,” she pointed out.
“He’s the girl’s brother, for heaven’s sake. He’s bound to have a pet theory of his own. Besides, you saw the way he lives. Pigs are cleaner. I swear I could smell weed in there too.”
“Weed…?”
“Marijuana….”
“Oh, that,” Charley was scornfully dismissive, “Everyone uses dope these days.”
“I don’t,” Spence snapped irritably.
“Yes, well, maybe you should now and then. It might make you more interesting.” She regretted saying it immediately and his look of hurt reproach upset her more than she cared to admit.
They barely exchanged a civil word until they were already on their way back to Brighton. Even on the train, they sat opposite each other where they would normally have sat together, the better to enjoy more than the occasional cuddle.
“I’m sorry,” Charley apologized, unable to bear the tension between them a second longer.
“Apology accepted,” said Spence but without his customary grin.
“You must see how concerned I am for poor Anne?” Charley put to him gently.
“It’s none of our business,” Spence reiterated, “As for Owen Shepherd, you can’t honestly think he’s a paedophile, surely? He may not be everybody’s cup of tea and he’s certainly not mine. But we’re all different, thank goodness, or the world would be a pretty boring place.”
“There’s Lynette too.” Charley refused to let the matter drop. “We have a duty, given what we know, to keep an eye on that child and make sure Owen Shepherd keeps his distance.”
“But we don’t know anything!” Spence cried out in exasperation, “It’s all in your head, my sweet. You’re over-reacting, getting carried away in that pretty head of yours as usual. Why won’t you see that, woman? You’re acting out some fascinating if implausible plot in one of your bloody detective stories. But this is real life and these are real people. You’re playing with fire, Charley.”
“Alright, don’t help me then,” she said stiffly. “See if I care. I’m perfectly capable of seeing this through on my own. You can huff and puff as much as you like, but I know I have to do this, I just know it…” The wide, sensual moth went into sulk mode.
Spence gave a long sigh and avoided looking at her for a while, not easy since they were sitting opposite one another. He stared out of the window, seeing nothing of the ever-changing landscape rushing past. It was Hobson’s choice. If helped her, it would be against his better judgement. If he didn’t, she was likely to find herself out of her depth in no time.
“Okay,” he said at last, “I guess I’d rather be with you than against you, whatever fine mess you get us into.”
“Darling, you won’t regret it, I promise!”
Spence was regretting it already but went to sit next to her and tried to squash his disquiet with a long, hot, sensual embrace.
“There’s something else we mustn’t forget either,” she reminded him between kisses.
“Oh?”
“That grave in Owen Shepherd’s shrubbery…”
Spence pushed her away. “How many more times do I have to tell you, you daft mare? Get real, for heaven’s sake.
”You can scoff but I have a hunch about that grave, and have you ever known my hunches to be wrong?”
“Yes, frequently.”
“Well, sometimes maybe, but not this time. You’ll see, Kirk Spencer, just you wait.”
Suppressing a groan, Spence silenced her with a passionate kiss and prayed he could make her to see sense before she caused anyone irreversible harm. She meant none, he was certain of that. Tacitly, they agreed to differ…for now, anyway. In the meantime, they would enjoy cuddling up to one another, indifferent to disapproving looks from several fellow passengers.
To be continued on Monday.
