When You Are Mine(83)
‘Did Darren ever talk about Imogen Croker?’ I ask.
‘I know they were engaged. I looked her up online and found a photograph. She was very beautiful.’
Opening my phone, I pull up the image of Imogen’s sapphire ring.
Alison gasps softly. ‘That’s my ring. Darren gave it to me.’
‘When?’
‘Years ago. It was after an argument. He could be very sweet sometimes.’
‘Where is the ring now?’
‘I stopped wearing it when Chloe was born because my fingers swelled up and I didn’t want to scratch her. To be honest, it’s too blingy for me.’ She shows me her simple wedding band. ‘Why do you have a picture?’
‘Imogen Croker was wearing that ring on the day she died. It was given to her on her eighteenth birthday.’
Alison takes a moment for the information to register and then her entire body shudders. ‘Are you saying he gave me a second-hand ring?’
‘When they found Imogen’s body at the bottom of the cliff, the ring was missing.’
She blinks at me, still struggling to comprehend what I’m saying.
‘Where is the ring now?’ I ask.
‘In my jewellery pouch. The suitcase was too big to fit through the window. Remember? I put it under Nathan’s bed.’
‘If we could get that ring—’ I say, but before I can finish the statement, Alison is shaking her head.
‘I’m not going back to the house.’
‘You’re right. Stupid idea.’
‘It must be a different one,’ she says tentatively. ‘He wouldn’t give me a dead woman’s jewellery.’ The statement is almost a question.
Mentally I’m considering my options, holding them up to the light, as though looking for the flaws in a glass. Even if I could convince the police to investigate, there isn’t enough evidence for a search warrant. And if Goodall gets wind of this, he’ll destroy the ring or hide it until people stop looking.
‘Darren keeps a spare set of keys in his car,’ says Alison, trying to be helpful. ‘He locked himself out one day and I wasn’t home. God, he was angry. He broke the downstairs window and then complained about the cost.’
She steps out of the car and the children run to her, clinging to her legs. I feel something tug and almost break inside me. Nothing crucial or vital. A single thread, attached to my heart.
46
Finbar whistles through his teeth and slowly walks around the Fiat, examining the ruined paintwork. He’s wearing bib and brace overalls, work-boots and a baseball cap.
‘It needs a respray and new seals around the windscreen.’
‘My insurance will pay.’
‘Don’t worry. A guy owes me a favour.’
‘What sort of favour?’
‘The sort that you don’t ask about.’
We’re at a garage in Shoreditch, one of those places built beneath railway arches where trains rumble overhead every few minutes, shaking the walls.
‘What colour?’ he asks.
‘The same red.’
‘It’ll fade.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘Is this why you needed a lawyer?’
‘No.’
Finbar makes a note. ‘I’m gonna need it for a few days. In the meantime, you can borrow the bug.’ He points to a VW Beetle which is just visible beneath a tarpaulin. ‘Hope you can drive a stick-shift.’
He is walking around the Fiat again. ‘Did you report this to the police?’
‘I’m going to.’
‘You’d better take some photographs. What about the brake light?’
‘Fix that as well. I have a defect notice.’
He looks surprised. ‘You got pulled over?’
‘It’s a long story.’
I take some pictures with my phone while Finbar fills out the paperwork. He starts talking about the number of acid attacks in London, most of them gang-related.
‘That’s what happens when you take away handguns,’ he says.
‘I don’t see the connection.’
‘Well, your general, garden-variety scumbag and gangbanger will always look for another weapon. That’s why they’re all carrying knives, or throwing acid.’
‘You’d prefer guns.’
‘Not necessarily, but mankind has been making weapons for sixty-four thousand years – Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Nuclear Age. You ban one weapon and they’ll find another.’
‘Finbar and the Art of War.’
‘I read books,’ he says, sounding affronted. ‘I know your dad thinks he’s the only pseud in this family, but you don’t need a diploma from a whatnot to know things.’
‘A university?’
‘Yeah. How many Shakespeares have you read?’
‘You mean the plays?’
‘Plays. Sonnets. Tragedies. Comedies.’
‘Three, maybe. Four. I studied them at school.’
Finbar taps his chest. ‘All of ’em.’ He begins to recite a sonnet. ‘“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, and summer’s lease hath all too short a date.”’ He adds. ‘OK, I’m not sure what temperate means, but I know he’s talking about love and the weather and how the two are pretty similar.’