The Distant Dead by Lesley Thomson (books for students to read TXT) 📕

Now Jack would return to his old ways. Without a shred of evidence, as he looked across the dark empty street, Jack was convinced that Julia Northcote’s suicide held the key to the Tewkesbury murders.

Parked on the corner of Ravenscourt Square, after the virtual tour and a ramble on Street View, Jack was so familiar with Northcote’s old house, he might already live there. He could imagine mounting the steps, scratching the key in the lock and letting himself in.

Behind him, a wire fence gave on to the tennis courts in Ravenscourt Park, the nets slackened and forlorn.

11.20 p.m. The square would be bristling with CCTV, but Jack doubted they were monitored.

Only Northcote’s old house showed a light. Open shutters displayed the vast soulless downstairs which Jack had explored in his 3D immersive experience. It would not be there that he’d find ghosts.

The thing about estate agents, Jack imagined telling Stella, is, while they are mad to broker a deal, at the end of the day we all take our eye off the ball. Forget to set alarms, lock doors and so… let’s see…

Jack clicked shut the car door and sauntered to a gate that had once been the tradesmen’s entrance. Often they leave the side gate unlocked… Voilà.

No security lights came on as he crept along the side of the house and stepped onto a lawn, the grass grey in the light-polluted dark.

At the end of the garden stood a studio which, from growth on the sedum roof, was several years old. Jack edged up to French doors to the left of a back door and applied himself to the task. A network of drainpipes might serve as a ladder, but the ironwork would be slippery and he wouldn’t survive a fall onto the paving. No fire escape. Jack tried the sash of one of the downstairs windows. Locked fast.

Jack was staring in through the French doors when he saw a face.

*

Stop breathing, don’t look at the person, make yourself cease to exist.

Like a child, he shut his eyes. Idiot.

‘Jack.’ Beverly opened one of the French doors. ‘Hurry up, before someone sees you.’

‘What are you doing?’ Jack was dry-mouthed with fright.

‘Same as you: finding out what Roddy March was searching for in that top room cupboard.’

‘Where’s Cheryl?’

‘At home in bed.’

‘Does she know you’re here?’ Jack asked.

‘No. She’d go nuts. I said I needed to pop into the office. She knows I’m being a desk slave to save Stella’s business.’

‘You lied to your wife? You and Cheryl have only been married a few months.’ Jack was dumbfounded. He needed everyone else to be happy. ‘She’s a lawyer.’

‘Yes, I know that, Mr Perfect Man, but if I’d told her the truth she’d have come too. I won’t let her risk her career.’

‘Have you found anything?’

‘I was about to go upstairs when I saw you flitting about. Hardly subtle – aren’t you meant to be good at this sort of thing?’

‘Not any more.’ He was gruff. ‘Let’s get it done and get the hell out. I can’t let you risk your career either.’

‘What career?’ Bev pulled a face. In the torchlight she looked grotesque. ‘I have nothing to lose.’

‘A clean record is what you have to lose, come on.’

‘Don’t forget these.’ Beverly smacked a pair of latex gloves into his hand.

‘You carried a spare pair?’ Jack snapped on the gloves. Bev really was a mini Stella.

‘I brought them for you.’

On the top landing, Jack rested a hand on the banister from which Julia Northcote had tied the rope. He switched on his torch and shone it on the wood.

‘There’s the faintest disturbance in the grain. If you weren’t looking for it, you’d miss it.’ Beverly sounded as sad as Jack felt. ‘She didn’t tie it in the centre, the weakest place, she secured it above that thicker strut to be sure it held her weight.’

‘She couldn’t risk surviving,’ he murmured.

‘She had this lovely house, a successful husband and young son. She had to have been very unhappy.’ Beverly spoke as if she’d gone over the facts many times.

‘That doesn’t spell happiness,’ Jack said.

The cupboard in the back bedroom where, on the virtual tour, they’d seen March, was now shut. Beverly turned a small brass key in the lock and swung it open.

A clothes rail and shoe rack. Both empty. The carpet inside was different to the one in the room, but the pattern looked nineteen seventies.

Beverly bent and, grabbing an edge, peeled back the carpet. Beneath was dark brown lino which looked new but, with a thrill, Jack saw was original. Lining the bottom of the cupboard, it got no footfall. His hopes were dashed when Beverly sat back on her haunches, having found nothing.

‘Pull up the lino.’

‘It goes right under this shoe rack… wait. Oh, actually…’ Beverly tugged at the wooden rack and suddenly giving, she was sent backwards, still clutching it.

‘This has been disturbed.’ Jack was attacking the lino in the corner that had been beneath the rack. Beverly crawled over and together they wrenched it free.

‘This floorboard’s loose.’ Beverly shifted the only plank that didn’t run beneath the cupboard. ‘Get my make-up bag from my rucksack and give me my nail file.’

‘This isn’t the moment for a manicure.’

‘Nor is it the moment for one of your bad jokes.’ Beverly glared at him.

Rummaging through lipsticks, tampons, mascara, Jack found a metal file. He passed it to Bev and said, feeling the need to regain ground, ‘I left my skeleton keys at home.’

‘Here we are.’ Beverly prised up the plank and reached into the cavity below, producing a cardboard box.

Jack shone his torch. ‘Sea, sand and sun will please everyone. And so’ll Lyons’ Swiss Roll.’ A single line drawing showed a sandcastle in the shape of the Swiss Roll. In smaller letters the address of the factory, Cadby Hall, Hammersmith Road, London W14.

‘My mum liked Swiss Rolls,’ Jack said. Or was that a dream?

‘Who wants a Swiss Roll on the beach?’ Beverly wrinkled her nose.