Chapter Sixty-Four
Dexter and Jane return to Covent Garden an hour later. There is a heaviness around Jane’s heart, for Stuart, for his situation, for the girl in shackles in the photograph, and for poor missing Claire Connolly. A light rain has started to fall outside, and the world seems suddenly oppressive.
“How the hell are we going to find Daisy?” she asks Dexter. “Without going to the police?”
Dexter blows out his cheeks. “We can’t,” he says.
“I mean, I’m sorry and everything, he seems like a lovely guy, and yeah, I feel really sorry for him, but frankly, fuck them, fuck Jessamine and Annie.
Their child, their grandchild is missing, maybe even dead, and they’re just going to have to suck up the consequences of having her found.
I mean, whatever secrets they’re trying to hide, it’s too late now—it’s endgame.
” He casts his eye across the evidence that Jane has collected: the coffee cup, the clown mask, the photos of the school hoodie, of the Black family.
“You have to pass it all over to the police now, Jane. I’m sorry, but I really think you do. ”
Jane looks at the objects too, then up at Dexter. She nods. “Yes,” she says. “You’re right. Tomorrow,” she says. “I promise. I will hand this all over tomorrow.”
Dexter narrows his eyes at her. “Do you swear?”
“I really swear. I really, really do.”
Jane’s laptop trills with a notification an hour later. It’s an email from Tobias:
I’ve had some luck on the poor girl in Winchester who was assaulted by the clown guy.
Her name is Avril Christmas. Easy name to trace.
She’s a sales assistant at a department store in Guildford.
Women’s wear section. Photo of her attached.
If you do track her down, go in easy. I know I don’t need to tell you that because you’re a naturally empathetic person. But just a reminder anyway. Good luck!
Jane looks up at Dexter and then turns her laptop so that he can read the email on the screen.
He exhales after he’s read it. “So,” he says. “I guess we’re going to Guildford?”
Avril Christmas is easy to spot across the rolling sky-blue carpet of the ladies’ wear department.
She has white-blond hair braided into a long plait, a bright slick of letterbox-red lipstick.
She’s wearing all black with the sharp white of a shirt collar peeping from beneath the crew neck of her sweater.
She’s shuffling party dresses into place on a clothes rail in a slightly officious way that Jane would find off-putting if she were here looking to buy something.
“Avril?”
The woman looks up from the dresses and gives Jane the once up and down that she had been fully expecting. “Yes?”
“I’m so sorry to disturb you here at work.
My name is Jane Trevally; this is my assistant, Dexter Lombardi.
I’m a private investigator.” For the first time, Jane doesn’t pause before referring to herself this way.
It feels more natural now. “We’re looking into the disappearance of a young woman called Daisy Black.
We suspect that she’s been abducted by a man called Jasper Black, purportedly her uncle, but now we’re not so sure.
And this man, it appears, may have been…
” Jane pauses, making sure the next words that leave her mouth are exactly right.
“… may be the same man who assaulted you in a park eighteen years ago.”
Jane holds her breath, horribly aware of the terrible wasp’s nest of trauma she is currently poking with a stick.
She watches the woman’s face for signs of her having crossed a line and is taken aback when Avril tips her head slightly and says, “Ha! That little freak. He’s still going strong, is he? ”
Jane sees nothing on Avril’s face. No fear. No pain. No trauma.
“Erm, well. I don’t know. I just… and please feel free to say no—I will totally understand—but I wondered if I could show you a couple of things? That might identify him?”
“Bring it on,” she says. “I always wondered what happened to him. Let’s take a seat.”
She leads Jane and Dexter to a small sofa outside the fitting rooms where they all sit down.
“This is the first thing, and I really hope this isn’t too upsetting for you.
” Jane licks her lips and slowly puts her hand into her large shoulder bag.
“I found this in an abandoned trailer for a circus act called Patch the Clown. Can you tell me if it’s familiar to you at all?
” She pulls the plastic mask out carefully and shows it to Avril, with her breath held.
“Eww,” says Avril, recoiling. “That’s horrible!”
“Yes. I’m sorry. It really is. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Avril holds one hand to her chest and prods the mask with one perfectly manicured fingernail.
“And here,” says Jane, taking the next thing from her bag: the photo of the Black family with Jasper holding the mask on his lap.
“This is Jasper when he was a kid, holding a similar mask. And here…” She takes out the headshot of Jasper in costume as Patch the Clown.
“This is Jasper now, in work mode. Do any of these things ring a bell? Do you recognize him? Or the mask?”
Avril takes both photographs from Jane and stares at them intently for a moment. “That’s the little creep,” she says. “I can tell. And yeah, as far as I recall, that’s the mask he was wearing.” She shudders. “Gross,” she says.
“Obviously, Avril, you do not need to answer this question, but what did he do, exactly? The police report says sexual harassment. Did he hurt you?”
“Hurt me? No! God no, he didn’t hurt me. He just scared the absolute life out of me. Followed me round the park in that stupid mask, miming.”
“Miming?”
“Yes. Like, bizarre. Totally bizarre. Doing tricks. And then he came right up close to me… this close.” She measures an inch between her fingers.
“I could hear his breathing through the mask. I could tell he was getting a massive kick out of how scared I was. I thought he was going to grope me, touch me; I thought he was going to rape me. But no, he…” Avril pauses, then blinks slowly and shakes her head.
“He put one hand over my mouth, and with the other, he… he pulled a silk scarf out of my ear. Then he put his hand inside his trousers and started… pleasuring himself. It was all over in about ten seconds. And then he ran. Just like that. I was shaking, terrified. It was horrific. Even now I’m scared of clowns.
But you know, as time passes, I can look back and laugh.
I mean, like, a silk scarf? What the actual fuck,” she says.
“It’s turned into my party piece. You know, like, ha-ha, let me tell you about the time I was accosted by a tiny clown wanking in a park. ”
“Tiny?”
“Yeah. He’s small. Really small. Like under five six. Maybe closer to five three.”
“Oh, right, I had no idea.”
“Yeah, thought it was a kid at first.” She shudders again.
“And he didn’t hurt you?”
“No, he didn’t hurt me. He was just a pervy, freaky little weirdo.”