13
When they’d gone, Lyssa continued to roam around, feeling as restless as Bibbie on Bonfire Night.
She knew someone had been here, touching her things, and everything felt contaminated.
Her very skin seemed to itch. Telling herself to stop moping and actually do something about it, she went into the cupboard under the kitchen sink and got out all her various cleaning fluids and rags and proceeded to vigorously clean the apartment from top to bottom.
When she’d finished, she was slightly sticky and exhausted, but felt a little better in herself.
She took a long shower, climbed into her favourite pyjamas, pulled on her oldest and most comfortable dressing gown and slumped on to her favourite chair.
Instantly, Bibbie jumped up and settled on her lap.
She knew she should type up her notes on the Jonas Bannister interview whilst it was still fresh in her mind, but she just didn’t have the energy – or the will – to do it right now.
Instead, she reached for her phone and checked it for messages.
There was just one – a stark, short text from Chloe telling her that her father was in a coma.
And instantly she was aware of feeling afraid.
For she couldn’t help but wonder if she was somehow responsible for what had happened to him.
What if her quest to find out the truth about what had happened to Monty all those years ago was somehow harming people in the here and now?
Angry with herself, Lyssa shook her head. Now she really was in danger of falling down the rabbit hole! She had to get a grip on herself and stay focused on her work and not indulge in sheer flights of fancy.
Feeling grumpy and unsettled in equal measure, she crossly stabbed out the number for Jack Flynn, expecting to get the usual voicemail message. So she was totally wrong-footed when it was actually answered.
‘Yeah? This is Jack.’
‘Oh – Mr Flynn, I’m glad to have finally connected with you,’ she heard herself mumble. ‘This is Alyssa Moore. You might have got my voicemail messages and texts?’ she added, trying to sound more professional.
‘Uh? Probably not – I’ve been really busy lately,’ said the voice, which sounded young and just slightly belligerent. ‘Whaddaya want?’
‘I understand you’re a relative of Deborah Simmonds?’ Lyssa began.
‘Who?’ the voice shot back uncompromisingly, and Lyssa felt her heart sink. This did not bode well.
‘Deborah Simmonds – she’d have been your great-grandmother? On your mother’s side of the family.’
‘Yeah? If you say so.’
Lyssa sighed, all hope now gone, and only going through the motions. ‘I’m writing a book about Amelia Montrose. She and your great-grandmother worked closely together, and I was hoping to gather information on her – your relative, I mean. I take it you never knew her?’
‘A book?’ The voice sounded sharper now. ‘What sort of book?’
‘It’s a biography of Amelia Montrose. She was associated with the Lucky Cuckoos, a pop group in the 1960s.
’ She didn’t bother to ask if he’d heard of them – she doubted the youth on the other end of the line had even heard of U2.
‘Deborah Simmonds helped her run a charity. I was hoping that there might be some family papers or photographs I could use and incorporate in the book.’
‘What, for cash in hand, like?’
Lyssa closed her eyes at the inevitability of that question, but remembered Elizabeth’s willingness to pay for good material, if necessary. But she’d have to be careful. She was beginning to suspect that Jack Flynn might be very adept at relieving people of their money.
‘That would depend,’ she said, careful to keep her voice neutral. ‘If you have any paperwork relating to the charity they ran – it was called the Young Mothers’ Trust, or YMT for short – then there might be something that we can work out.’
‘My mum died last month – there’s still some stuff in her house to clear out. I can take a look if you like,’ he offered.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry to hear about your mother,’ Lyssa said, immediately feeling guilty.
Here she was, allowing her recent upsets to put her in a bad mood and feel antagonistic towards someone she’d never met, and all the time he’d been grieving.
‘We don’t have to do this now, if you like, I can always . . .’
‘Nah, it’s fine. The council’s been banging on at me to clear the place out, so I need to get it done anyway. I’ll go over now and pick up any papers and photos and stuff and look through it. What was that name you wanted? YMTA?’
Slowly Lyssa repeated the name of the charity. ‘Also, any photographs you might have of Deborah, please.’
‘Dunno that I’d recognise her,’ Jack Flynn pointed out. ‘But Mum was a stickler for writing things down, so she might well have written the names of the people on the back. It’s the sort of thing wrinklies like to do, innit?’
‘She sounds like she was a well-organised woman,’ Lyssa said approvingly.
‘Yeah – s’pose she was. She was a bit of a pack rat too. Her house is full of old tat and stuff.’ He sighed, no doubt at the thought of all the work involved in clearing it out.
‘Well, please let me know what you find.’
‘Yeah, I will,’ he said, and sounded as if he meant it. As he no doubt did, if he could smell a profit.
Lyssa rang off and tossed the phone on to the sofa. Somehow, her chat with Mr Flynn had failed to lift her mood!
Instinctively, she reached down to caress the soft silky head of her cat, who had long since fallen asleep. Great. Now she wouldn’t be able to get up until he woke and climbed back off her lap.
Downstairs in his flat, Neville reviewed the conversation he’d had with Lyssa Moore and her friends. He was confident that the lies he’d told her had been accepted and had been taken at face value, which was good. It meant that she trusted him.
What was not so good was the escalation that her home invasion indicated. He reached for his phone and speed-dialled a number.
‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘We need to meet. I don’t like the way things are going.’
In Nuneaton, Jack Flynn left his bedsit and headed out of the door, slinging an empty backpack over one shoulder.
He’d only been out of his last stint in prison for two weeks and hadn’t yet got his own set of wheels, which was annoying, but a few raids on some building sites would soon sort that out.
Besides, he was reconnecting with some old members of his gang, and they had their eye on a warehouse or two, so he should soon be flush.
Of course, he’d have to have eyes in the back of his head, and trust no one. Nowadays narks were everywhere, and it only needed someone with a grudge against him to rat him out to his parole officer, and he’d be back inside. Associating with known criminals was a definite no-no.
So, the idea of making some perfectly legit cash in the meantime, just to tide him over, was sweet.
He rode the bus to the housing estate where his mum had lived her whole life, and let himself into the tiny, mid-terrace council house after carefully glancing around to make sure that he wasn’t being observed.
That was partly out of pure habit, but partly because they were a nosy bunch of losers around here.
He was confident, at least, that none of the local talent would have bothered breaking in here – his mum had been as poor as a church mouse and everyone knew it.
Inside the tiny sitting room, he gazed around with a mixture of sadness and contempt.
He had three sisters, and all of ’em had been the apple of her eye.
Unlike himself. In return, they’d given her all this dross at Christmas time and on her birthday – little china ornaments, tiny wooden carved animals, tea cosies and twee prints.
None of it worth even scrap value, he thought in disgust.
Ignoring the room, he bounded up the stairs and stood on the landing, eyeing the loft door in the ceiling.
By climbing precariously up on the bannisters, he was able to stretch out and put his finger through the little metal ring and detach the hatch.
This he then tossed on to the floor and swung himself up, pulling himself through the opening.
He’d always been a little runt, but his skinny body had a certain wiry strength which had served him well growing up and meant that he could wriggle his way through smaller windows than most of his rivals in his line of business could manage.
And carrying a flick-knife and earning a reputation for knowing how to use it properly when he was out and about had kept him safe from roving scavengers over the years.
Once in the attic, he turned on the dim overhead light and looked around in dismay.
Wonky kitchen chairs with broken legs, vacuum cleaners that would never suck again and a box of toys and stuffed bears, busily moulting.
Why his old mum hadn’t just chucked the lot on the skip, he didn’t know.
It stank of old memories and damp woodwork.
No doubt there was a bloody leak in the roof somewhere.
Well, that was the council’s problem.
He walked over to a pile of big cardboard boxes that had once housed blankets and worn sheets, and saw familiar writing on the side, listing their new contents. Good old Mum!
He pulled the boxes about until he found the name of his grandmother – Alice – written prominently in black felt tip pen.
The woman on the phone had been on about a Deborah Simmonds, so Alice must have been Deborah’s daughter.
And his mum, silly sentimental twit that she was, had kept all her mum’s old stuff up here all these years.
If there was any of this Deborah woman’s stuff going, it would be in here, he reckoned.
He was pretty sure his nan had been a pack rat too.
Why the hell the women in the family bothered to hold on to dead people’s junk he didn’t know, but it was funny to think that it might turn out to be a nice bit of luck for him that they had.