Glyde’s fingers must have been on familiar ground as they manipulated and shaped his eyes to life; the eyes on this head were like his own. He passed a hand before them, half expecting them to blink. Her mouth was perfect, her lips slightly parted, her hair snaked around her neck and over her shoulders. Unlike his sculpture, this piece did not stop at the head, but continued to the swell of her bosom.
It was Kate Rokesmith only days before she died.
‘I hid it in there as a surprise. Ssssh! It’s our secret.’
He had only been interested in the aeroplane on the back of her shoulder and insisted on inspecting his mummy’s real shoulder to see if one was there too. No one had drawn on her skin or marked her out for jointing.
‘I don’t like it when you kiss like that.’
‘Kiss who, darling? Daddy?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t be silly, Jonny.’
The temperature was bitter in the bedroom and Jack hugged into his coat. He picked up her blue plastic hairbrush from the dressing table and played it along the terracotta tendrils on the clay head. There was no hair in the bristles; he had clawed off what there was and kept it in his trophy tin. For the first time in thirty years, Jack risked turning to stone, and met his mother’s gaze.
Sarah Glyde had lied when she had claimed not to know Kate Rokesmith. She had known Kate and Jonathan. Kate had commissioned a bust of herself as a present and they had visited her regularly. She had been their Host.
He had been right to keep faith with the London A–Z: it had led him to the Host. She had visited his mother’s grave in a silver BMW; she had lured his mummy and him to the river to see the lovely colours and shapes.
Sarah Glyde would not be Jack’s Host because this time he would not be staying.
58
Monday, 24 January 2011
Jack let himself in through Stella’s basement. The scrap of thread he had wedged in the jamb drifted down; no one had been here since he’d used the exit to avoid Paul Bramwell.
He was unlikely to meet anyone in the lift, but just in case he used the stairs, the box clasped to his chest.
He put his ear to Stella’s door. It was a ridiculously thick security door and he did not expect to hear anything, but a particular stillness confirmed she was out. Stella was becoming as unavailable to him as she had been for the drowned Paul. He rang the bell, pressing the button and holding it. Stella did not come.
Jack had taken Stella’s key off her ring when he handed back her car key the day they escaped from Paul. He had had a copy cut and it was back before she could notice it had gone.
‘Stella?’
No answer.
Jack’s footsteps and the click of the front door were deadened by the carpet, the fire doors and the triple glazing. It gave him the irrational sense that he was a ghost, and entering the living room he coughed to dispel this impression. He half expected to find Stella among the files, trying to solve the case by herself, but the room was empty.
He tried Stella’s mobile number and left another message: ‘I’m in your flat.’
The sun had almost set and streaks of orange across grey sky tinged the river a dusty pink. Jack Harmon watched the yellow disc sink below a bank of smog on the horizon. The light faded incrementally until his own reflection – holding the bust of his mother in his arms – stared back at him.
He was startled when the answer machine snapped into action; Stella had turned off the telephone bell.
‘I’m not able to take your call. Leave a message. Thanks.’
Jack shifted his mother’s head and sat in his corner on the sofa.
‘Hi, Stella. Martin here. Martin Cashman from Hammersmith? I ran a check on that item we discussed? Like I said, it’s an early plate, the second year into that scheme which started in 1963. It’s 1964. The present owner bought it new, so now it’s a classic, although must be on private property as no tax paid since, oh wait a sec.’ Jack heard a shuffling and breathing. ‘Here it is: 1981 and the owner is S. A. I. Glyde, address at the time was Fullwood House, Church Lane, Bishopstone, Sussex. If I can do anything else any time at all, please just ask, I insist… It’s Martin speaking, by the way.’
The machine went quiet. Stella had not told him she was going to trace the number plate; in fact she had behaved as if it was not important. He had believed her.
In the dimming light his mother’s head was more lifelike than ever: her features fluid, her mouth on the brink of a smile. Katherine Rokesmith’s clay facsimile was moulded by the woman who murdered her. Some murderers collected trophies as mementoes of their crimes. Sarah Glyde had crafted a clay bust of her victim.
He had given Stella a chance to stop him. He had come to the flat, trusting they were a team, to tell her about Sarah Glyde. But like Terry Darnell, Stella worked alone – or no: it seemed, despite her avowed dislike of them, she worked with the police.
Jack was on his own.
He sprang up and roamed the flat, still holding Kate’s head, convincing himself Stella had forfeited her right to privacy. In the spare room was a desk, as basically furnished as Terry Darnell’s, lit by a lamp shaped like a spider’s leg, the bulb the size of a bullet.
Jack was surprised to find a novel by Stella’s bed: Wuthering Heights. A postcard three chapters in marked her place. He held open the place with his thumb and took out the card. It was of Queen Charlotte’s cottage in Kew Gardens; he had been there during page seventy-one of his street atlas expeditions. He turned it over: ‘T, Five. “Cathy” x’.
It was his mummy’s writing but her name was spelt wrong. He had other cards like this in his biscuit tin of trophies.
Twenty minutes later the Clean Slate van was outside Sarah Glyde’s house where a solitary light shone in an upstairs window. At last Jonathan Rokesmith was doing what for most of his life he had planned he would do.
This time he did not ring the bell first. He opened the door with his key.
59
Monday, 24 January 2011
Stella paid the bill when Ivan was in the toilet; he had insisted on covering it the last time. She was enjoying herself: Ivan had unwittingly offered her a refuge from Terry, from the office and from the Rokesmith murder. Jack had called her, but typically not left a message. Paul used to do that; she had no time for games. Her mobile was in her rucksack; if it rang she would not hear it. She sipped her frosted glass of Sancerre and silently toasted her respite. She might have been mistaken about the memory card in Terry’s camera; she was tired.
‘Will you do something for me?’
‘Of course.’ She had not heard Ivan return.
‘Come to Fullwood House.’
‘I’ve been, haven’t I?’ He surely had not forgotten.
‘Not my flat, that’s a billet for when I’m working. I feel nothing for it, as you probably gather. It’s sterile.’
Stella liked sterile but did not say so.
‘I want you to see the house where I was born. It’s a beautiful place. I seldom take guests there. Most would not understand, but you would. Come!’
‘If you’re sure… that would be nice.’ Stella felt her reply was inadequate to his enthusiasm. She had never seen Ivan so animated. He must have lived with his wife and son in the house. He was coming out of the shell of grief. She should not knock him back by refusing his invitation.