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Absolution. Caro Ramsay
Читать онлайн.Название Absolution
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781786898746
Автор произведения Caro Ramsay
Жанр Ужасы и Мистика
Серия Anderson and Costello thrillers
Издательство Ingram
‘You look awfy peaky, you should get out more.’ Only Nan could say that to someone who had been out of jail for a matter of hours.
‘How are things?’ he said, keeping his voice low and steady. It had been four long years since he had hatched the plan, and a faint flicker of doubt passed through his mind for the first time.
Nan nodded. ‘All is fine.’ Uneducated she might have been, but she was shrewd, very shrewd. ‘And business is very well, very smooth,’ she said, opening her palm on to the tabletop and looking down. ‘Paintings are selling well. The staircase is just as you left it. Do you want to see the house?’
He cast his eyes left and right before nodding.
‘I’ve photographs.’
‘Not a painting, then?’
‘Not too old for a slap, son.’ She handed over a Kodak envelope.
He opened it, fanning out the fresh prints. A photograph of a dog, a huge silver husky, its intelligent blue eyes black-rimmed in a white mask.
‘Gelert,’ he said.
‘By name and nature.’
‘The brave and faithful hound. That was always my favourite story, you know. You used to tell it to us –’
‘In the cleaning cupboard, aye.’ Nan gave him a rare smile. ‘He’s a big dog now.’ She tucked a roll of used twenty-pound notes into his fist with covert skill. ‘Next one shows how far we’ve got with the veranda.’
A whitewashed cottage on a beach, the seaweed scar of the high-tide line black against the sand, big windows, a half-built wooden veranda bleached blond by strong west winds and weak Scottish sun.
The house looked exactly the same; so did the beach and the castle. Only the husky lying on the front step had grown.
He stared at the picture for a long time, aware that Nan was waving her fingers at him, wanting the photographs back. Two minutes and a quick trip to the toilet later, the money had been folded into his shoe.
‘I’ll see you around.’
‘I’m sure you will.’ Suddenly he wanted her to stay. ‘Pass on my . . . regards.’
‘Get that soup in you.’ She ruffled his hair with her hand; she had been doing that since he was four years old, and she used to check him for lice. And then she was away, the photographs leaving with her.
He lifted his cup, looking at the milk separate on the top of the coffee. He leaned back, relaxing. It was all so close. He was happy. Miss Peroxide said something. Maybe if he closed his eyes...
‘Excuse me,’ Miss Peroxide repeated, ‘do you have the time?’
Prettier with her mouth shut. He looked across to her table. Her Betty Boop watch was gone.
Fair enough. He thought about his nice new bedsit, with its hot running water and crisp white sheets. He’d done enough time at Her Majesty’s pleasure. He wanted some of his own now.
McAlpine hated doing this. I’m sorry, it’s about your daughter. ‘Ready?’ he asked.
Costello had been checking out the street. Affluent, middle class. She had no problem placing Elizabeth Jane here. ‘Ready,’ she agreed.
The door was opened by a squat gargoyle of a woman, blazing with anger, gold chains on her wrists rattling as she waved them away. ‘Enough, I’ve told you. Enough already!’ The closing door halted as she caught sight of two warrant cards. ‘Oh, I am sorry,’ she said, her eyes darting from one to the other. ‘We’ve had reporters, knocking at the door, standing in the drive. No respect, some people.’
‘It’s a very difficult time,’ Costello agreed, smiling her charming smile.
The gargoyle nodded, smiling too now. Not the mother, then. ‘Oh, it’s been a terrible day,’ she said with thinly disguised relish. ‘A terrible day. I mean – you never think, do you? Not someone you know, not in their own home. Do come in.’
They followed her into a large hall, terracotta-tiled floor, a winding staircase overhead. Elizabeth Jane’s parents were not short of a bob or two.
‘Betty and Jim are in there. The minister is with them.’ She looked at her watch, a copper-brown fingernail tapping the face as if she was timing the visit. ‘He hasn’t been in very long.’ She seemed reluctant to interrupt them.
‘And you are?’ asked Costello, sensing McAlpine’s impatience.
‘Isabel Cohen. I live next door. Twenty years I’ve known that girl, twenty years . . . since she was knee-high to a grasshopper.’
‘It must be very difficult for you, Isabel. Do you mind if we...’ Costello opened the door without waiting for an answer and then stood to one side, letting Mrs Cohen go through first. A smile passed between the two women. Clearly there was plenty Mrs Cohen could say, but she was too well brought up to say it.
‘Betty?’ she inquired quietly round the door. ‘Some more police, detectives. They want a word.’
McAlpine and Costello walked into a room that was as sterile as an operating theatre, three brilliant white walls, the fireplace wall a deep cobalt blue. Only one picture broke the colour, a professional portrait of Elizabeth Jane above the fireplace. On the mantelpiece below it an array of photographs of her throughout her life was lined up with regimental precision, a shrine to an only child. In the middle sat a gold anniversary clock, its weights spinning this way and that. Incongruously, behind it, McAlpine noticed, someone had propped up an invitation to a wedding. He was sure it was the same one that Elizabeth Jane had had; it bore the same stylized Mackintosh rose. He inclined his head to read covertly inside: Mr and Mrs Vincent Fulton ...
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