Deadly Secrets (Detective Erika Foster #6)(82)

Moss made for the door again. It was stiff, but she managed to turn the handle and get it open. She came out into a brightly lit hallway, and slammed the door behind her.

She could see the hallway had old-fashioned wooden panelling, and that she had exited through a secret door. When it was closed, it blended into the wall. There was an old Singer sewing machine table in the hall, covered in books, plants, plus a bowl for keys. Moss dragged it, squealing, across the stone floor, keeping her eye on the door, thinking that it would open. She pulled it across the door, hoping that it would do for now.

Then she ran for it, down the corridor and into the front of the photographic studio. It was now dark outside and the door was still locked, but she picked up one of the tripods for the photography lights, and with almost hysterical fear, hurled it through the plate glass window. The window exploded outwards. She kicked aside the glass with her foot, climbed through and ran for it, down the path and out into the street.

Her car was gone, and she didn’t have a phone. She staggered down the street, the adrenalin pumping, feeling the blood pouring from the back of her head. She tried to find a phone box, but there was nothing on the road.

Moss ran to the end of the road, where it curved around to New Cross station. The road was busy with young teenagers piling out of the station, all dressed up for a night out. The noise was deafening. She pushed her way through the crowds, and saw an old phone box next to the station. She grabbed the receiver and her first impulse was to speak to Celia. She dialled 100, for the operator, and then she asked to make a reverse-charge call.





Sixty-Three





Erika was sad to see Isaac leave. He set off back to London late in the day, and she hoped that he wouldn’t hit any more snow storms. She lit a fresh fire in the stove and checked her phone, but there was nothing about Moss. She felt restless, and so far away from everything. She thought back to her visit to the old house. In the past few years, she had thought of London as temporary, a place she was exiled to after what had happened in Manchester, but she realised now that London was now home to her. Life up north was in the past. She no longer belonged here.

She flicked through the TV channels, but there was nothing she fancied watching. She pulled on her coat, an old hat and a pair of gloves, and set off to the graveyard, which was a short walk across the fields. It was a clear, starry night, and as she climbed the hill, she could see the houses in the village spread out below, their lights glowing in the windows. The moon sailed out from behind the clouds as she reached the entrance to the graveyard, meaning she was able to see as she picked her way through the rows of graves to find Mark’s.

His headstone was made of polished black granite, and it glittered in the moonlight:

IN MEMORY OF

MARK FOSTER

1ST AUGUST 1970 – 8TH JULY 2014

LOVED AND REMEMBERED ALWAYS





Erika took a Jack Daniel’s whisky miniature from her pocket, undid the cap, took a small sip, and then poured the rest into the soil.

‘I never thought this was how we’d end up,’ she said. ‘I miss you every day…’ She wiped a tear away with her gloved hand. ‘I’ve told you this so many times before, but I have to live my life, and go on living my life. If it were me, I wouldn’t want you to stay here on earth and be miserable… I’ve decided I’m going to sell the house. I went back today, and it’s not the place I remember any more. It’s not our home. I’m going to buy a new place, and make it my home…’ Erika swallowed back the tears. ‘Because you’re not here, and I can’t carry on living my life with a space beside me that needs to be filled. You’re never going to be forgotten, and I will always love you, but I can’t carry on being half a person.’

Clouds slid across the moon, plunging her into darkness.

‘I sometimes check on Jerome Goodman. I wonder where he is. If he even thinks about all of us. I run his name through the computers at work, but he’s vanished. If I ever got the chance to spend time in a room alone with him… I’d kill him, slowly, for what he did to you, and me, and…’

A freezing cold chill blew along the path, and she felt the cold seeping into her shoes and gloves, and on the small of her back. ‘I’m going to look after your dad. I’m getting a carer to come in, and I’m going to keep more of an eye on things, and visit more.’ She pressed her fingers to her lips and put them against the gold letters spelling out his name.



* * *



When Erika arrived back at the cottage, the fire had died down. She raked the ash in the stove and put another couple of logs on. Just as she closed the stove, her phone rang. It was Melanie.

‘Erika, there’s been an incident with Moss,’ she said, without preamble. Erika listened as Melanie explained what had happened with Moss, and that she had been found, barely conscious, in a phone box in New Cross.

‘Is she okay?’

‘I hope so. She’s just in the A&E, having a scan. She has bad concussion. We’ve arrested a thirty-five-year-old man called Taro Williams, who runs a photography studio in New Cross. Moss had been to talk to him, based on a lead she’d got from the Forest Hill Jobcentre. Apparently, Joseph Pitkin worked as his assistant in early 2016.’

Erika felt exhilarated, and then frustrated that she wasn’t there. ‘I’m up north; I can’t leave my father-in-law.’