The Sixth Window Read online

  They began to spend every spare moment together, but she’d had to admit to Ed that she didn’t feel comfortable with him staying at her house, sleeping on Bernie’s side of the bed.

  ‘I know what you mean,’ Ed had said when she told him of her reservations. ‘This is Bernie’s house – and yours and Scarlett’s, obviously. Look, this might be a big step, but when you feel the time’s right, why don’t you both come and live with me? My house has more space, and if you’re not ready to sleep next to me every night you can have your own bedroom. I don’t want to rush you.’

  Natalie had known Ed for as long as she had known Bernie, so it had seemed an easy decision, and two months later she and Scarlett had moved in.

  Megan had cautioned her against the move.

  ‘Are you certain it’s not too soon, Nat? I know it’s difficult adjusting to being alone, but please make sure you’re ready for this.’

  Natalie had ignored her advice. But had Megan been right?

  She heard Ed in the hall below. She hadn’t had time to process what she had seen – to decide what she should do – but if he found her here, leaning against the furniture and staring into thin air, he would know something was wrong.

  At the far end of the landing Scarlett’s door was ajar, and as Natalie hurried towards it she could see her daughter’s red wavy hair spread over the pillow. Just her nose was poking above the bedclothes, the freckles that she hated so much showing against the pale cream of her skin. Natalie’s breath caught in her throat. Scarlett was so beautiful, even if she couldn’t see it herself. She blamed Natalie for the red hair and her father for skin that couldn’t bear too much sun.

  As if sensing that she was being watched, Scarlett’s eyes slowly opened. She stretched her arms above her head and yawned.

  ‘What are you doing lurking in the doorway, Mum?’

  Natalie painted a smile on her face and walked over to the bed. She sat on the edge and reached out a hand to gently push the hair away from Scarlet’s forehead.

  ‘You need to get up, sweetheart. You’re coming into work with me today.’

  Scarlett’s look of horror said it all. ‘What? Why?’

  ‘Because Ed will have things to do, and besides, I like having you with me.’

  ‘But I’m on holiday! Why can’t I stay at home and chill? I’m fifteen, Mum. I am old enough to be left alone, you know, or I could go to Gracie’s. I said I’d call her when I was up.’

  Natalie knew she had probably been overprotective of Scarlett recently and she didn’t want to stifle the girl. But this was different. She stood up and moved away from the bed.

  ‘Well, you can have a look round the shops, and if there are any tops you like I’ll come out with you at lunchtime and we’ll see if there’s anything worth buying. You need some things for the summer anyway. Does that make it sound any more enticing?’

  Scarlett shrugged. ‘A bit, I suppose.’

  Natalie hated what she was doing and turned away before Scarlett could sense her confusion. ‘Just get up, love. We’re out of here in thirty minutes. Okay?’

  She didn’t wait for her daughter’s reply. She made her way downstairs to get on with the breakfast, forcing the images she had seen on Ed’s computer from her mind.

  As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she was surprised to see him walking towards her, jangling his car keys.

  ‘Are you going out?’

  ‘Sorry, Nat. I’ve bollocksed things up a bit. I was supposed to pick Joe up on my way to shift this morning, and when I agreed to swap to nights I forgot to tell him. His wife’s gone off in his car, so now he’s stuck.’

  That was typical of Ed. He took on everyone else’s problems and never let anyone down. So why couldn’t she just trust him?

  ‘Don’t look like that, darling,’ he said. ‘It’s my fault, so I’d better sort it. I’ll only be about forty minutes, but you’ll probably have gone by the time I get back.’

  Ed leaned down and gave her a gentle kiss on the lips. ‘I’ll see you tonight, and I’ll cook before I go to work. I’ll make you my famous lasagne.’ He gave Natalie a smile, and when hers was less cheerful than normal he looked puzzled. ‘Don’t be cross – it’s only breakfast I’m missing.’

  Natalie shook her head and tried to widen her smile as he opened the front door. With one last grin he was gone.

  The smile dropping from her face, Natalie quickly walked through to the kitchen, leaving the door open so she would be able to hear Scarlett coming downstairs. She strode across to the table and lifted the lid of the laptop. The screen sprang to life and Natalie took a deep breath. She shouldn’t be doing this. She had never spied on Bernie in all their time together – she had never felt the need – and this felt so wrong. But she hadn’t been spying that morning. She had never intended to scrutinise Ed’s browser history, but this time there was no excuse. She was actively checking it out. Her hands were shaking so much that she clicked the wrong option and silently cursed herself. Scarlett would be down soon – she needed to be quick.

  She took a breath to calm herself and this time managed to steer the mouse to the history button. She clicked and the list of recent sites was displayed. There were ten items, but the site she had been looking at earlier had gone.

  Ed had deleted it.

  2

  It seemed remarkably quiet in the office for a Monday morning, and DCI Tom Douglas couldn’t help wondering what particular set of circumstances had deterred the underworld of Greater Manchester from causing the usual weekend chaos.

  His thoughts were interrupted as footsteps approached his office, and he struggled to hide his pleasure as he studiously pretended to focus on the spreadsheet of crime figures in front of him.

  The footsteps stopped, and still he didn’t look up.

  ‘Ta-dah!’

  Tom slowly raised his eyes to the figure standing in the doorway, posed with arms spread out from her body as if taking a curtain call on stage.

  Tom said nothing.

  ‘Glad to see me back?’ Becky Robinson grinned at him expectantly.

  Tom was struck by how much thinner she was than before her illness, but her dark hair was as shiny and bouncy as ever, and it seemed she had lost none of her sparkle.

  ‘Beside myself with joy,’ Tom said in a bored voice, dropping his head back to the paperwork to hide his smile.

  ‘Huh. Well, I’ll just go again, shall I?’ Becky asked.

  Tom didn’t have a chance to answer before another body appeared in the doorway, dressed in a dazzling white shirt and a pair of trousers with creases so sharp you could cut yourself.

  ‘Oh. Sorry, sir, ma’am. I hadn’t realised you were busy. I came to see if you would like coffee, sir?’

  ‘Thanks, Keith. That would be great.’ Tom nodded at the newcomer.

  ‘Ma’am?’

  ‘I’m good, thanks.’

  Tom raised his eyebrows and gave Becky a smile as Keith spun on his heel and marched off to make the coffee.

  ‘See how well I’ve been looked after?’

  For a moment Tom thought she was taking him seriously and he felt a stab of remorse. He pushed his chair back and stood up, not quite sure whether he should give Becky a hug or shake her hand. Since she had nearly died after throwing herself in a river in an abortive rescue mission, their relationship had changed. He had realised how much she brightened his days and how much he relied on her spirited determination to get the job done. He covered his momentary confusion by circumventing his desk to pull out a chair for her.

  ‘Sit,’ he said. ‘And seriously, you’ve no idea how glad I am to have you back.’

  ‘Keith not cutting the mustard, then?’ she asked as she sat down, her grin spreading.

  Tom compromised on the hug by giving Becky’s shoulder a quick squeeze as he walked back around his desk.

  ‘Keith’s a perfectly competent DS who we decided might benefit from a temporary DI position in your absence. He makes an excellent cup of coffee.
’ Tom said no more. He wasn’t in the habit of denigrating any of his team, but Keith’s obsequiousness had driven him to distraction. ‘Are you now fully recovered at last?’

  ‘Well, I do apologise for the inconvenience of my absence. But sadly the contents of the River Irwell didn’t agree with my delicate constitution.’

  Tom knew what an understatement that was. After treating Becky for shock and monitoring her vital signs for a couple of days, the hospital had let her go home and, being Becky, she had come straight back to work. But a few days later she had been taken seriously ill again. It turned out she had ingested some vicious parasite. It took time for it to work its way out of her system, and it had left her weak and underweight. In the three months she had been off Tom had missed her, and he was delighted to see her looking bright and cheerful again.

  A sharp knock on the open door diverted his attention for a moment.

  ‘Your coffee, sir.’ Keith placed the coffee, in a cup and saucer rather than in his usual mug, on the desk. ‘Are you sure I can’t get you anything, ma’am?’

  Becky shook her head.

  ‘DI Robinson will come and find you when we’ve finished, Keith, and you can do your handover. Thanks for the coffee.’

  ‘My pleasure, sir.’ For a moment Keith looked as if he was about to click his heels together and salute, but he just lowered his head in acknowledgement and reversed out of the door, closing it softly behind him.

  Becky grinned at Tom, but he ignored her and stuck to business.

  ‘Keith will bring you up to date on any current cases, but it’s been slightly less hectic than usual for some reason. I don’t suppose the peace will last, though.’

  As if on cue, Tom’s phone rang. He shrugged his shoulders and picked it up.

  *

  Becky watched Tom’s look of concentration as he listened to whoever was on the other end of the call. He picked up a pen and started to doodle on his pad – not, as Becky knew, because he wasn’t listening. But the more intense the conversation, the more expressive his doodles became. He broke off in the middle of constructing a particularly elaborate elliptical shape to write a few words on his pad and lifted his eyes to look at Becky.

  Must be a case, Becky thought.

  She wasn’t sure if she was pleased or not. She was keen to get back into the swing of things, but there was something she had to say to Tom, something that was going to be difficult, and she had no way of knowing how he was going to respond. She valued their relationship, but what she was about to do might be going a step too far, and if it all went wrong – if Tom reacted badly – it could seriously screw things up. She could lose him.

  He put the phone down, closed his eyes and shook his head slowly.

  ‘What’s up?’ she asked. ‘New case?’

  ‘No. Not new. Philippa wants to talk to me about the death of a police officer eighteen months ago. Hit-and-run. It was a stolen car, and it was found burned out on Blackstone Edge so it’s always been assumed it was joyriders, although nobody was ever caught.’

  ‘So why are they looking again now?’

  Tom shrugged. ‘Who knows? Maybe someone has developed a conscience and decided to come clean.’

  He smiled at Becky’s expression of disbelief.

  ‘I know, not very likely, but I’d better go and talk to Philippa about it.’

  Becky knew that once Tom disappeared behind the door of Detective Superintendent Philippa Stanley’s office he was likely to be there for a while. Although Philippa was Tom’s boss, it had once been the other way round and they had an intriguing relationship, taking every available opportunity to share thoughts and ideas. Philippa, in theory, scoffed at Tom’s famous gut feelings about cases because she went strictly by the book – at least most of the time – but that never stopped her from asking his opinion. Philippa scared the hell out of Becky, so she kept all contact with the woman to a minimum.

  She stood up to leave and turned at the doorway, hoping and praying she wasn’t about to blush.

  ‘Tom, I know today’s not ideal if you’re going to be tied up with Philippa, but do you think that tomorrow – or maybe later in the week – we could meet up out of work for a drink? There’s something I’d like to talk to you about.’

  Tom looked up from his desk, where he had been attempting to reorder the chaotic pile of papers before leaving. ‘Sure,’ he said with a slight note of surprise. ‘Will Mark be joining us?’

  ‘No,’ Becky said. Mark, her boyfriend, had to be kept out of this. ‘If you can spare the time, I’d really like to buy you a drink. And I might need one myself. Later in the week?’

  She could sense his puzzlement, but as he reached for his jacket he nodded. ‘Okay. Whenever you like. I haven’t got any plans after today.’

  Becky let out a long breath. Mission stage one completed, she thought.

  3

  It had to be said that Natalie’s day in the office with Scarlett hadn’t been a resounding success. Scarlett had been bored and Natalie hadn’t been able to concentrate. Her daughter was clearly not interested in the world of corporate PR, so Natalie had packed up early, knowing she would have time to catch up that evening while Ed was working and Scarlett was stretched full length on the sofa, watching whatever scintillating soap she was currently following.

  Their day together had started badly, with Scarlett’s resentment at having to get out of bed to trail into town with her mum creating a level of tension that Natalie had found hard to break down, but at least the journey wasn’t too long since the new Metrolink line had opened.

  When they arrived in Manchester, Natalie had set Scarlett free to wander the Arndale Centre, but she had turned up at the office halfway through the morning saying it was no fun on her own and, despite an hour of shopping together at lunchtime, Natalie could see that her daughter was fed up.

  Taking Scarlett with her had been a knee-jerk reaction, and she was beginning to feel ridiculous. Ed was a policeman. There were any number of reasons why he might have been looking at that site on his laptop, and she could of course just ask him. That would be the sensible thing to do.

  But Natalie didn’t always do the sensible thing. Sometimes she hid from the truth, hoping it would go away. There had been times with Bernie when she had wondered if he was keeping things from her, but generally – if she ignored her worries – life settled back into its comfortable balance with no harm done. Maybe she should trust her instincts about Ed and think positively.

  Scarlett barely spoke on the way home, but Natalie hardly noticed as she agonised over what to do. Pulling her car into the drive she still hadn’t come to a decision, and she turned to her daughter.

  ‘Do you mind putting the kettle on, sweetheart? I’m going to dump these things in my room and get out of my work clothes.’

  ‘I don’t know why you keep calling it your room, Mum. I do know where you sleep, you know. And it’s fine with me. I like Ed. I keep telling you, I’m not a kid.’

  ‘Of course you’re not, and I’ve never tried to pretend I sleep there. It’s just useful to have a room where I can keep all the things I moved out of our house – especially the boxes of your dad’s stuff. You know what a hoarder he was, and I had to put it all somewhere until I feel like going through it. That’s why I call it my room.’

  Scarlett rolled her eyes as if to say, ‘Whatever’ and got out of the car. As they walked towards the house there was a shout from beyond the hedge. Scarlett’s friend Gracie was walking by. Scarlett grinned for the first time that day and ran off to talk to her. Natalie picked up the discarded carrier bags and unlocked the front door, leaving it open for her daughter.

  She glanced into the kitchen but there was no sign of Ed, so she kicked off her shoes and went upstairs to her room. She pushed open the door and stopped, her hand resting on the doorknob.

  Ed looked up quickly from where he sat on the floor, a half-empty cardboard box resting between his knees, the contents spread around him.

  H
is face flushed. ‘I didn’t hear the door,’ he said.

  ‘Clearly,’ Natalie answered, not bothering to hide the irritation in her voice. ‘Otherwise no doubt you’d have hastily put everything back in the box. What’s going on? Why are you looking through Bernie’s things?’

  Ed looked lost. His eyes were wide and his mouth slightly open, as if he were hunting for the right words.

  ‘I lent him something a few years ago, and I thought it might be in this box.’

  ‘Really? What was it, exactly?’ It was clear that Ed was clutching at straws.

  ‘I lent him a DVD – Reservoir Dogs – and he never gave it back to me.’

  Natalie looked at him. Could that be true?

  ‘Why didn’t you ask me for it, rather than go searching through his boxes?’

  Ed lifted himself off the floor, resting on his haunches, and began putting the papers, notebooks and other odds and ends back in the box, his eyes avoiding Natalie’s as he neatly replaced each item.

  ‘I didn’t realise there were any secrets, Nat. I’m sorry.’

  ‘There aren’t any secrets. But maybe just ask next time,’ she said quietly as she turned and left the room.

  She needed to be alone, to think. Why was Ed being so secretive? She headed for the bathroom and sat down on the toilet seat, resting her head in her hands.

  Her mind flashed back to an occasion a few days after they had moved in. She had gone into what they referred to as her room and stood in the doorway, looking around. Things had been moved. She knew she had put a jumper on top of one of the boxes, but it wasn’t there. It was on the bed. At the time she had assumed Scarlett had been looking for something and thought no more about it.

  But what if it hadn’t been Scarlett? What if Ed had been systematically going through Bernie’s things? And if he had, why?

  *

  Scarlett and Ed were leaning against the island when Natalie finally walked into the kitchen, both laughing at something on Scarlett’s phone. Ed reached out his arm and put it around Scarlett’s shoulders, running his hand up and down the bare skin at the top of her arm.