It Could Have Been Her(34)

Jane blanches, thinking of the older man who picked her up in a bar when she was twenty-nine. “What was the grandfather like?”

“Oh, not terribly pleasant, very full of himself, thought he was a cut above. I think the wife, Daisy’s grandmother, I think she threw him out in the end, and I didn’t blame her.”

Jane nods. Of course, she thinks, good for her.

“There were au pair girls, too, from time to time. But I don’t know what happened to them.”

“Au pair girls?” Jane feels something cold creep down her spine.

“Yes, when Daisy’s mother was a young girl. There were often girls staying there. Some foreign, some British, all very young. They never stayed long.”

“Gosh, it sounds like the Bermuda Triangle in there!”

“Ha,” says the Other Jane, “I suppose it was, a little bit. But you know, an area like this, it’s strange. It’s a village, so everyone knows everyone, but also, it’s London, so people keep themselves and everyone else at arm’s length. You only have half the information you need about people to work out who they are, to work out what they’re up to. And if you’re nosy, like me, you just make things up to fill in the gaps. I have stories for all the neighbors, believe me! But that family…” She pauses and sighs. “It’s hard to know where to start.”

“Spencer told us that the police visited there a few years ago?”

“That’s right,” says the Other Jane. “It was during lockdown, Covid time, I think. So many weird things happening back then. I just thought maybe they’d done something wrong, broken one of those stupid rules. But the police were there most of the day, some cars, blue lights spinning. I looked it up on the internet for days afterward trying to find a story, nosed around the few neighbors I was able to talk to, but nobody knew anything. Total mystery.”

“Well,” says Dexter, “I guess that’s a mystery I’ll have to solve if I want to find Daisy.”

“I suppose it is. But you know, Daisy used to tell me the strangest things. She told me her mother had told her there was a ghost that lived in their attic and it hated little girls, that she told her never to go up there. Daisy said she heard it sometimes, at night, banging on the ceiling to scare her. She also said her uncle had run away with the circus. I mean, come on, what strange things for a little girl to say!”

“What was her uncle’s name?” Dexter asks. “She never mentioned him.”

“Jasper, I think. Funny little chap. Gave me the creeps.” She shudders slightly. “Oh well. Sorry I haven’t been much help. Leave me your number, and if by any chance I ever see or hear anything from Daisy again, I’ll let her know you were looking for her, tell her there’s a party. When is it?”

“Oh,” Dexter replies breezily. “Not until Christmas. But you have to plan these things early.”

“Yes,” says the Other Jane. “Yes. You do. And if you happen to find her, do send her my love. She was a strange little girl, but I did always have a soft spot for her. I really do hope nothing bad’s happened to her.”



* * *



It’s gone five o’clock when Dexter and Jane leave the Other Jane’s cottage and head into the warm edges of the late afternoon. “I’ve got some cans,” says Dexter, pointing at his gigantic canvas shoulder bag. “They might not be very cold by now though.”

“What flavor?”

Dexter peers into the bag and reads the cans. “Er, Gin and Tonic. Grapefruit Margarita. Dark Rum and Passionfruit.”

“Sounds great,” says Jane. “Let’s go and find a nice bench.”

They follow a dry path at the bottom of the Vale that leads them eventually toward the busier parts of the Heath. Schools are out, and the Heath is full of mothers and kids, schoolchildren and dogs. They open the cans and Jane toasts Dexter.

“You were amazing, little one,” she says. “Fearless and fleet-footed. I was in awe of you.”

Dexter smiles and clicks at the ring pull of his can with a bitten thumbnail. “If the dancing career doesn’t work out, I could always come in with you.”

“?‘Trevally and Stepson,’?” says Jane, forming quotation marks around the phrase with her hands. “Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“You know”—he turns to face her—“it actually really would be amazing. Genuinely. I think you could rock being a private eye. I could totally see you doing it.”

“Thank you, darling.” Jane sighs and rests her can on the grass at her feet. “But a real private eye would have some sort of a plan and currently I have nothing. So, what next?”

“Well, we need to find out what happened with the police back during lockdown. And we need to find this uncle who joined the circus: Jasper.”

Jane nods. “Yes, absolutely. Should be a breeze with a name like that.” She pulls out her phone and taps her thumbs against the screen. “Hm,” she says, “a tech DJ, looks about twenty-five, maybe not. And… aha, a character from The Walking Dead. And… nope, wrong color… Wrong age… No… not him.”

Dexter sighs. “Might need a bit more of a heavyweight approach,” he says. “Might be time for Dad’s people.”