Chloe took it and looked squarely at her, pale blue eyes firm and clear. ‘If it weren’t for that school,’ she said. ‘That school, Davey and Annie – especially Annie – God knows where I’d be.’
‘Annie helped you?’ asked Thelma.
Chloe nodded. ‘She gave me a chance. She believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. I started going in see, when I dropped our Mirrel off, when she started in Reception. I used to help out and Annie encouraged me to go for a TA’s job. And I used to catch her watching me, and I was worried I was doing something wrong, till she called me in her office and said, “Chloe, you are a born teacher and I want you to train.” She got me doing this in-service training at the school – and she give me a job.’ Her voice was quietly proud as she gazed over to Roseberry Topping drowsing in the late afternoon sun. ‘I loved that job,’ she said simply. ‘And I love her and I loved Davey Fletcher – so yeah, if anyone were going to drive over to that Hollinby place and give that man what he had coming to him – it was me.’ There was a trace of defiance in her voice.
‘But you didn’t?’ prompted Thelma.
Chloe didn’t answer for a moment. ‘What that man said about us – in that report – it were pure crap,’ she said.
‘Safeguarding is important,’ pointed out Thelma mildly.
Whatever it was she said, it was the wrong thing.
The body tensed; the head snapped up. ‘Just what do you know aboutanything?’ she said angrily and stalked off down the path to the front door of Bretton Hall.
‘I can’t stop to talk,’ said Jax, retreating to the bathroom. ‘I shouldn’t even be here, only the people left early leaving the place a right old mess. I’ve had to dash here from Helmsley.’ Her voice was brusque, annoyed – in keeping with the cool ‘Hello, Stranger’ with which she’d greeted Liz. Had Jax cottoned on to the fact her number had been blocked? And if she had, Liz wondered, would she be able to tell it had only been unblocked five minutes previously?
‘I’m guessing,’ said Liz following her, ‘that Chelsey is still off?’
‘What do you think?’ said Jax, snapping on a pair of rubber gloves. ‘I can’t see her coming back any time soon. So that’s yours truly up shit creek without a paddle.’
The ponytail bobbed moodily and she plunged a yellow-gloved hand into the bath. ‘Oh my God!’ she said, ‘That isdisgusting!’ She held up some greasy-looking white and orange strands.
‘What on earth is it?’ asked Liz.
‘Coleslaw,’ said Jax.
‘Coleslaw?’ echoed Liz. ‘What’s that doing in the bath?’
‘Oh, come on, Liz,’ said Jax not bothering to hide the exasperation in her voice as she contemplated the mess. ‘You know what weird stuff people get off on.’
Liz did not know. In forty years of marriage to Derek, coleslaw had only ever appeared on a plate, accompanied by tomatoes, lettuce and cucumber.
Jax shook her head. ‘I tell you; you don’t want to know the things people get up to on holiday! I think to myself: what is itabout being in a holiday cottage that turns people into feral beasts. The stuff I find, you would not believe!’ She looked in the bath and gave a yelp of frustration. ‘Andit’s all in the plughole. And there’s all smears round the tub! It’ll take me forever; I’ll never get done!’ She sighed a deep, angry sigh. ‘I tell you, Liz, I can’t be doing with it anymore.’
‘The cleaning business?’ said Liz.
‘Every weekend I says to myself: “Jax: this is no life.” Every Friday and Saturday cleaning like a blue-arsed fly, dashing from pillar to post, cleaning up everyone’s ess aitch eye tee.’ Her tone was one Liz recognised of old. She’d sounded exactly the same when quitting St Barnabus – and for that matter when she’d left Neville.
‘Come here.’ Liz took a cloth out of the bucket of cleaning things and sprayed the sink. Jax being Jax didn’t say thank you, but resumed her work on the bath, picking out strands of cabbage and carrot with a loud, disgusted commentary.
‘Anyway?’ asked Jax eventually as Liz scrubbed vigorously at the beautiful porcelain sink with its ornate brass taps. ‘I thought you and your mates had fallen out with me.’
‘Not at all,’ said Liz mildly (and untruthfully). ‘Though it was a shock being confronted by Ffion like that.’
‘That wasn’t my fault,’ said Jax self-righteously.
Liz could’ve replied that actually, yes it was, but that wouldn’t help her find out what she wanted to know.
‘I was talking to Sidrah,’ she said, ‘the woman as lives opposite Neville. Trying to find out if anyone had been to see him the night he died.’
‘And she said she saw Ffion,’ supplied Jax.
Liz shook her head. ‘No, actually. She said no one went in apart from Nev. And that’s with her checking in her CCTV.’
Jax gave a scornful snort as she put the last bits of offending vegetable matter in a bin bag and began running taps. ‘CCTV! That shows nowt! She’ll have gone round the back, I’m telling you.’
Liz nodded, thinking of that black door in the hedge – and that yellow paper flower.
