Kevin shrugged. ‘He didn’t come in today.’
‘And you didn’t think to call him?’
In the car on the way to Billy’s place, I ignored the rising panic in my chest. He’d taken a day off, that was all. He wasn’t missing. He wouldn’t do that to me.
I rang the bell. Hammered on the door. And just as I was fumbling in my bag for my mobile, my lips already forming the words familiar from my parents’ inquest – this is a fear for welfare – Billy opened the door.
Fine red lines covered the whites of his eyes. His shirt was open; his suit jacket crumpled enough to tell me he’d slept in it. A waft of alcohol hit me, and I hoped it was from the previous evening.
‘Who’s running the shop, Uncle Billy?’
He stared past me to the street, where an elderly couple were making slow progress along the pavement, a wheeled shopping basket in their wake.
‘I can’t do it. I can’t be there.’
I felt a surge of anger. Didn’t he think I wanted to give up? Did he think he was the only one finding this hard?
Inside, the house was a mess. A greasy film covered the glass-topped coffee table in the sitting room. Dirty plates littered the kitchen surfaces; nothing in the fridge but a half-empty bottle of white wine. It wasn’t unusual to find no proper meals in the house – Uncle Billy considered eating out to be the primary advantage of single life – but there was no milk, no bread. Nothing.
I hid my shock. Dumped the plates in the sink, wiped the counters and picked up the post from the hall floor.
He gave me a tired smile. ‘You’re a good girl, Annie.’
‘You’re on your own with the laundry – I’m not washing your underpants.’ My anger had passed. This wasn’t Billy’s fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I know.’ I gave him a hug. ‘You need to get back to work though, Billy. They’re just kids.’
‘What’s the point? We had six punters show up yesterday; all tyre-kickers.’
‘Tyre-kickers are just buyers who don’t know it yet.’ Dad’s favourite saying brought a lump to my throat. Billy squeezed my arm.
‘He was so proud of you.’
‘He was proud of you, too. Proud of what the two of you achieved with the business.’ I waited a beat. ‘Don’t let him down.’
Billy was back at work by lunchtime, putting a rocket up Kevin’s arse and offering a bottle of champagne to the first rep to make a sale. I knew it would take more than champagne to get Johnson’s Cars on an even keel, but at least Billy was at the helm again.
It was Dad who’d had the tinted glass installed, a few weeks after Granddad retired, and Billy and Dad had moved into the office, a desk on either side of the room.
‘Keeps them on their toes.’
‘Keeps them from catching you having forty winks, more like.’ Mum could see through the Johnson boys. Always had.
Billy turns his attention back to me. ‘I’d have thought that man of yours would have taken today off.’
‘It’s Mark, not that man. I wish you’d give him a chance.’
‘I will. Just as soon as he makes an honest woman of you.’
‘It’s not the 1950s, Billy.’
‘Fancy leaving you on your own today.’
‘He offered to stay home. I said I was fine.’
‘Clearly.’
‘I was. Before this arrived.’ I fish in the bottom of Ella’s pram for the card and give it to Billy. I watch his face as he takes in the celebratory greeting, the carefully typed message stuck inside. There’s a long pause, then he puts the card back in its envelope. His jaw tightens.
‘Sick bastards.’ Before I can stop him, he’s ripped the card in two, and then in two again.
‘What are you doing?’ I leap out of my chair and snatch back the torn pieces of card. ‘We need to take it to the police.’
‘The police?’
‘Think again. It’s a message. They’re suggesting Mum was pushed. Maybe Dad, too.’
‘Annie, love, we’ve been through this a hundred times. You don’t seriously believe your parents were murdered?’
‘Yes.’ My bottom lip wobbles and I clamp it shut for a moment to regain some control. ‘Yes, I do. I’ve always thought something was wrong. I never thought either of them was capable of suicide, least of all Mum, when she knew how much Dad’s death affected us all. And now—’
‘It’s someone shit-stirring, Annie! Some jumped-up prick who thinks it’s funny to trawl the obituaries and torment grieving families. Like the shits who look through funeral listings to see when to go out burgling. They probably sent a dozen others at the same time.’ Even though I know it’s the sender of the card who’s wound him up, it feels like his anger’s directed at me. I stand up.
‘Even more reason for me to go to the police with it, then. So they can find out who sent it.’ My tone is defensive; it’s that or bursting into tears.
‘This family never used to run to the police. We used to sort out our own problems.’
‘“Problems”?’ I don’t understand why Billy’s being so obtuse. Doesn’t he see this changes everything? ‘This isn’t a problem, Billy. It isn’t some argument you can settle out the back of the pub. It could be murder. And I care what happened to my mum, even if you don’t.’ Too late, I bite my tongue. Billy turns away, but not before I’ve seen the hurt on his face. I stand helplessly for a while, looking at the back of his head and trying to say sorry, but the words won’t come.
I push Ella’s pram out of the office, leaving the door wide open. If Billy won’t help me, I’ll go to the police on my own.
Someone murdered my parents, and I’m going to find out who.
FIVE
MURRAY
Murray Mackenzie swirled a teabag around a polystyrene cup.
‘Milk?’ He opened the fridge and surreptitiously sniffed three cartons before finding one he could safely offer a member of the public in distress. And Anna Johnson was undoubtedly in distress. She was dry-eyed, but Murray felt uncomfortably certain crying was on the cards. He wasn’t good with tears. He never knew whether to ignore or acknowledge them, or whether nowadays it was politically correct to offer a neatly pressed handkerchief.
Murray heard a quiet murmur that could have been the precursor to sobbing. Politically correct or not, if Mrs Johnson didn’t have a tissue to hand he would come to her aid. He didn’t use a handkerchief himself, but he had always carried one, like his father had done, for these very occasions. Murray patted his pocket, but when he turned around – the polystyrene cup over-full in one hand – he realised the half-hearted squeaking noise was coming from the baby, not from Mrs Johnson.
Murray’s relief was short-lived, as Anna Johnson deftly whipped the baby from its carriage and positioned it horizontally across her lap, before pulling up her top and starting to feed. Murray felt himself blushing, which made him redden even more. It was not that he objected to women breastfeeding, it was simply that he never knew where to look while they did it. He had once adopted what he’d intended to be a supportive smile towards a mother in the café above M&S, only to have her glare at him and cover up as though he were some sort of pervert.
He fixed his gaze somewhere above Mrs Johnson’s left eyebrow as he put down her tea as reverently as if he were serving it in a bone china cup. ‘I couldn’t find any biscuits, I’m afraid.’
‘Tea is lovely, thank you.’
As Murray had grown older he had become less and less able to judge other people’s ages, with anyone the right side of forty looking young to him, but Anna Johnson definitely hadn’t seen thirty yet.