Killing a Stranger Read online

  ‘Sure. What’s the trouble?’

  ‘Rob Beresford, I would say.’

  ‘Patrick and his friends found something.’

  ‘Patrick did. The others freaked, as they say, when they started to uncover truths they didn’t like.’

  ‘Understandable. What do you have?’

  She made more tea and fresh toast for Harry while he read from the printouts, starting with the one about Jennifer and her lost brother. He moved on to the notes Rob had kept about Adam’s movements. Finished with some of Rob’s observations on the friends his mother met, her work colleagues, the grocer down the street.

  ‘And there’s more,’ he told her.

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘Yes, that’s pretty much what I thought. Patrick wasn’t sure what to do. I told him we had to speak with Alec. We talked about this for a long time last night.’

  ‘I can imagine. Good that you talked though.’

  ‘Good that we talked. Do you realize how talented my son is? What an amazing artist? No, how could you? I’m sorry, I forgot there for a moment.’

  ‘Actually,’ Naomi said, ‘I do. Patrick tells me a lot about what he’s doing. Harry, I may not be able to see the finished work, but I know what he feels about it. I know how committed he is and I believe you that he’s good.’

  ‘I never looked before. I thought, oh yes, it’s all right, let him do it, get his qualifications, then talk to him about life getting serious and the need to get a job and all that ordinary stuff.’ He laughed. ‘I’m only glad I didn’t get to do it.’

  ‘Patrick will do just fine,’ Naomi said. ‘He’s just never going to be an accountant.’

  ‘Lucky him.’

  ‘It’s not too late to do something else.’

  ‘Hmm, well, that’s a discussion for another time. I don’t hate it; I just don’t like it that much, that’s all. Anyway, what do we do about this stuff?’

  ‘We talk to Alec. I think it’ll have to be his call. What do you want on your toast?’

  They chatted for a time over breakfast, but the conversation spiralled round to the same subject again.

  ‘You know, while you’re here, you can do something for me.’

  ‘Of course. What do you have in mind?’

  ‘Well, you remember Jodie, the woman you took me to see in Pinsent.’

  ‘Not easily forgotten.’

  ‘Well, she came up with a lead. A woman who calls herself Angel, though actually her name’s Angela. Anyway, Adam Hensel was one of her clients. It seems he also used her website. She gave me the address, but I’ve not had a chance to see what’s on it yet. Alec got a call and had to go and,’ she laughed, ‘I thought you might draw the line at Patrick helping on that kind of job.’

  ‘Hmm, yes I would rather. You’re telling me this is a … er … pornography site?’

  ‘Well, more of a peep show, I believe. But don’t worry, we won’t be able to get in that far. It’s a subscription site, though we know that Adam was a regular subscriber. All I want to know, Harry, is what the site looks like, and Angel too. You could say it’s idle curiosity on that front.’

  Harry took a deep breath. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘In for a penny. What do I have to do?’

  ‘Read what it says here when I tell you.’ She handed him the slip of paper upon which Angel had written her web address, then fired up her machine and waited for the screen prompt beep Patrick had set up for her. Then she switched on the microphone. ‘Internet.’

  ‘I say. You can talk to it now?’

  ‘Search.’ She covered the microphone. ‘Can you read the web address to me?’ She listened, then repeated it into the microphone.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be quicker if I do that?’

  ‘I doubt it. It’s voice recognition software. Took me an age to train the blasted thing. Patrick’s registered as a second user and he’s pretty good. Though I still make him type his essays.’

  ‘Oh, I think we’re in,’ Harry said.

  ‘OK, you take over with the mouse.’ She switched off the microphone and vacated her seat. ‘What do you see?’

  ‘Um. Well, there’s a young woman in a bikini doing exercises in the middle of the screen and various options I can click on around that. One is for vitamin supplements. One is for Life Coaching. What’s that when it’s at home? And there are exercise routines. Then there’s the members only section.’

  ‘OK, have a play, click on some of the options and see where they take you.’

  ‘Oh, all right. Now let me see.’ For the next half hour they played around on the site, discovering ‘The Herbal Alternative to Viagra’ and exercises that promoted sexual harmony between partners. Harry was amused and slightly shocked. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I don’t believe you can really do that. It must be trick photography.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Well, she’s sort of lying on her back with one leg straight up and the other one out to the side and her hand is sort of … um, well. One is up by her head and the other is reaching round. No, you can’t …’

  ‘Want to try?’

  ‘Naomi, I was never that supple, not even when I was young and slim.’

  ‘When who was young and slim?’ Alec said.

  ‘Oh hello. We didn’t hear you. What are you doing here at this time of day?’

  ‘I’m not surprised you didn’t hear me. I can hear the pair of you down the hall, giggling like a pair of schoolgirls. What am I missing? Oh, that’s what I’m missing. Our sweet Miss Angel.’

  He kissed Naomi. ‘God, what a morning. I needed a break and I need tea and this is better than the canteen. Anyone want to join me?’

  ‘Harry has something for you. Patrick found some stuff on Rob’s computer.’

  Over tea and yet more toast, they exchanged information. Alec allowing Harry in on what had been going on in the Hensel household and knowing it would go no further.

  ‘Do you think he was the father?’ Naomi asked.

  ‘I’m not so sure. Neither am I sure they didn’t have sex. Jennifer swears she can’t remember and apparently it was quite a common thing for her to stay over at her uncle’s place. My feeling is, Adam took the pictures when they’d both had too much to drink, pretty much as Jennifer said. That she did think he’d erased them. I also got the impression things were getting a bit too heavy for her. Maybe it went further, maybe she was afraid it might.’

  ‘Or that it might not?’

  ‘That too. Who knows? Unless Jennifer clarifies the situation there’s not a great deal anyone can do, but these latest revelations haven’t exactly smoothed familial relations chez Ryan.’

  ‘So, what happens next?’ Harry wanted to know.

  ‘With Jennifer or Patrick?’

  ‘Either, both.’

  ‘Jennifer … who knows? Ernst will keep me in the loop, that’s if Beth keeps him in the loop. Patrick? He’s done a good job. Harry, I hate to involve him more than I have to but if you could help him compile a list of everyone Rob was interested in, I can take it to Clara. That way, we might be able to find out just how deep this obsession went and if he had any other near misses in the past. I can’t think Adam Hensel was the first person who noticed him hanging around.’

  Thirty-Five

  That afternoon Alec called Ernst. ‘How are you?’ Alec asked.

  ‘Tired. But I can’t seem to sleep. If anything I feel worse now than I did in the days after he died. Alec, can I ask you to drop this. I don’t want to find out anything more. I just want to let things lie.’

  ‘I can understand that. Look, Ernst, I’ll involve you and your family as little as possible from now. I promise that.’

  ‘I appreciate the sentiment. You’ll understand if I don’t really believe you. I phoned Suzanna, Adam’s ex. I asked her if she remembered any odd behaviour. Sexual behaviour.’

  I’ll bet that was a fun conversation, Alec thought.

  ‘Suzanna … she finally admitted that for the last years of their marriage there was
nothing at all. She doesn’t know why. It was one of the things that broke their relationship. I … told her about the pictures. I needed to know, Alec, if there was ever anything. If she ever suspected anything might be going on between Adam and Jennifer. She was appalled that I should even ask and so am I now. I suppose I should be thankful, when Suzanna divorced Adam, Jennifer would have been only twelve years old. I don’t think I could have born it if she’d said yes, she felt there might have been.’

  Alec didn’t quite know how to respond. He murmured something he hoped was soothing.

  ‘If Jennifer decides to say anything …’

  ‘I’ll let you know. Oh, Alec, there’s something I meant to say. The boy, Patrick.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He was nice to her. The night we all met at Clara’s he said she should get in touch if she wanted to talk. He wrote something for her on a little slip of paper. Not a phone number. Perhaps his email. He felt sorry for her, I think, but he was kind.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Alec said. ‘That’s very like the kind of thing Patrick would do.’

  He didn’t say that he’d ask Patrick what he knew, that Patrick could be as tight mouthed as anyone he knew where confidences were concerned, and he wasn’t about to make promises to Ernst on his behalf. But he hoped Patrick would have the sense to realize what should be told if Jennifer did disclose anything new.

  He put down the phone feeling oddly drained and ever so slightly soiled.

  He thought it was me so I could understand him being angry, but … I never did anything. All I wanted was to be friends. He’s the one Jen said. Got her that way, took mucky pictures of her even though she was drunk and too out of it to know better. I asked him: That the way you get your kicks is it? But he said nothing, just stood there looking important and I thought I’d just go … this was getting us nowhere.

  He said, where was I going and I said home and he said, no, no I wasn’t not until I’d come back and told them all what I’d done and then I understood it. She’d told him. Told him one thing and me another and we’d both believed her and I got mad then. With her, with him, all self righteous when he was the one. Him. And when I looked up the street she was there, all that blonde hair and long legs and everything and she was saying, no, no, I never told him any of that. But I know. Yes, I know.

  Thirty-Six

  Jennifer was on MSN waiting for him when he signed in. Inwardly, Patrick groaned. He felt he could do without this just now, but he tried to be bright and cheerful, mentally telling himself that maybe he should think about blocking her.

  Good day?

  No lousy. She added an emoticon with a turned down mouth

  Oh? Why?

  Because my granddad brought me home yesterday and this f***ing policeman turned up with him this morning. That Inspector we met at Clara’s place saying all sorts of stuff about Uncle Adam and Mum got upset and she blamed me and said it was all my fault and the rows went on all morning.

  ‘What sort of bad things? Patrick was amused by her use of asterisks. Did she think he’d be offended?

  Oh Emoticon with upwardly rolling eyes this time. There were these pictures on his computer, but it was all pretty stupid you know. Mum reckons they’re trying to slur his name and he’s really the victim and this policeman he was trying to get me to say all these things about Uncle Adam and Mum was throwing a real wobbly and Granddad Ernst just sat there looking sad and it was all a mess.

  Weeping emoticon this time followed by another with rolling eyes.

  Patrick knew Alec well enough to read between the lines of what she was saying. Alec would never try to make her say something that wasn’t true.

  Has it all settled down now?

  No such luck. Mum is in her room crying again and Dads gone off down the pub though he says he’s got some meeting or something but that’s down the pub anyway and I’m here on my own. As usual.

  It’ll all blow over, Patrick soothed. The police just have a job to do.

  Yeah right and it’s making trouble for us all. Why can’t they just piss off and leave us alone? Rob’s dead and so is Uncle Adam and nothings going to change that. Anyway mums right they just keep dragging up the dirt and they won’t stop til were all broken up in little bits.

  Patrick felt he had to defend Alec but was pretty sure she wouldn’t take any notice anyway. He wanted to ask questions. ‘What photographs? What sort of things did you think he wanted you to say?’ But Jennifer wasn’t going to give him straight answers to any of those things so what was the point? Anyway, he wasn’t sure he had the patience to deal with her tonight. He let her rant for a little longer, sending emoticons rather than words in return. She didn’t seem to notice that he had so little to say. Finally he told her:

  Look I’ve got homework and it always takes me ages so ive got to get on ok.

  Sure right. I’ll let you get off then.

  She sent another tearful emoticon, just in case he should fail to notice how neglected she now felt and Patrick logged off and shut messenger down. He had no wish to talk to anyone else tonight and the task he had next was not homework exactly but the list Alec had asked him to compile. Patrick wasn’t sure he was up to doing it alone. He would, he decided get his dad to give him a hand. Harry’s handwriting was so much better than Patrick’s anyway and if he could just dictate the names and any addresses and stuff, it would save no end of time.

  He flopped back on his bed and stared at the ceiling. A small water stain in the corner, where a loose roof tile had once let in the rain, was bleeding through the last coat of paint Harry had applied. It looked like a mouse, Patrick decided, with something roughly birdlike pecking at its tail.

  He could use the shape, take a picture with his digital camera and then play with it in Photoshop. Elements had been another Christmas gift from Harry.

  He closed his eyes and his thoughts turned back to Rob, his pond skater friend. The Rob he’d thought of as skimming upon the surface of life it seemed had more legs dangling down into the vicious depths of water than any of them had realized.

  He’d been living this double life and none of them had known. Not even Becky had known. Rob had, it seemed, become so skilled at managing both his everyday existence – school, friends, parties, fun – and this other one. Snooping, gathering facts and information. Stalking people. That was what it amounted to.

  Patrick shifted restlessly and opened his eyes again to stare at the mouse bird on his ceiling. How long, he wondered, if ever, before he could regain that image of Rob as someone joyful and complete and able to skim across the surface? He had, he realized, counted on their being people like Rob. People whose happy-go-lucky nature he could aspire to, even if he knew it was not his way of being.

  Rob, it seemed, was, after all, just another drowning soul.

  Thirty-Seven

  Clara read through the list of names Alec had brought. She shook her head. ‘What is all this?’

  ‘Do you recognize them. Are the names familiar?’

  ‘Um, most, yes. Some of these people I barely know. Ian Henderson … I think that’s the Mr Henderson at the post office, but I’m not sure. And this man here. I’ve no idea who Colin Shorter might be.’

  Alec checked through the supplementary information Harry and Patrick had given them. Several pages of it; it must have taken hours, he thought guiltily. ‘Apparently he’s a courier who sometimes delivers stuff you order from a catalogue.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Clara was mystified. ‘So what does he have to do with me? He must deliver and pick up from half the people round here.’

  ‘Probably, but I don’t think that mattered to Rob. You had contact with him and that’s what counted.’

  ‘I still don’t understand.’

  ‘Rob … was checking up on people. This list, it’s people we found on his computer. Details hidden inside other files and folders. Rob practically stalked Adam Hensel in the weeks before they died.’

  ‘Rob? God, Jennifer said something simi
lar, but I couldn’t believe it then and I’m not sure I do now.’ She looked to Alec for confirmation, reassurance. ‘No. I don’t believe that. I don’t believe any of it.’

  Gently, Alec began to take her through what Patrick and his friends had found. Harry had printed out relevant sections and cross referenced information with names. Or started to. Alec had already realized this was a bigger job than any of them had suspected.

  ‘No,’ Clara said again. ‘No, I still don’t believe it. What was he trying to do?’

  ‘I think,’ Alec said, ‘that what started out as very natural curiosity became unbalanced, somehow. It tipped over into secrecy and obsession.’

  ‘So you’re saying it’s my fault. I should have told him who his father might be. I should have noticed something. I should …’ She broke down. ‘When he was a little boy he’d go up to men in the street and ask them, “are you my daddy?”. It was embarrassing at the time, but I’ve known other single parents whose kids have done the same. They grow out of it. They begin to understand that you don’t do that sort of thing. I thought Rob had just moved on. Oh, he’d ask from time to time and I knew, when he turned eighteen, I’d have to tell him more.’

  ‘Didn’t he ask your family? Your mother? Sister?’

  ‘My sister, yes, but she didn’t know anyway. She couldn’t, wouldn’t tell him anything. My mum. I don’t know. I doubt it, we hadn’t seen her in years.’

  ‘But he knew where she lived?’

  Clara nodded. ‘He’s not on the list though. James Scott.’

  ‘No, he’s not. Which, considering how thorough Rob seems to have been, surprises me.’

  ‘So it wasn’t just Aiden he was trying to make contact with.’

  ‘No, it seems not, but I think events overtook him this time. He got involved with Jennifer and the notes on his computer indicate they’d become very close.’

  ‘And her uncle might have objected?’

  ‘He may have done. There are a number of possibilities, but nothing concrete just now. Clara, there were never any complaints from anyone that Rob was making a nuisance of himself. Hanging round, asking questions.’