9. The Concealed

DS Vega catches a few hours at home before returning to the Stowe's house.

9

‘JESUS…!’
     Vega was barely over the threshold when he stumbled on something. As he went down like felled timber he reached out instinctively but only managed to pull the coat stand on top of himself.
     He groaned from under the stack of jackets and scarves and lay there, unwilling to get up. There was a thunder of footsteps on the stairs and the hall light was thrown on.
     ‘You okay, Padre?’
     ‘Do I look it?’
     Cherry hauled the coat stand off of him and held out her hand. Vega batted her away and got back to his feet, looking for what had tripped him. A battered pair of bright blue Doc Martens had been left on the front mat. He levelled his stare on Cherry, who tried and failed to conceal her smile behind her hand.
    ‘Sorry.’
    ‘Yeah, you look it.’ He limped towards the kitchen and she followed him.
    ‘I did make you dinner.’
    ‘Was that your first attempt on my life?’
    ‘Ouch. That hurt my feelings.’ Cherry took the milk from the fridge and perched herself on the counter, swigging from the carton. Vega was too tired to even call her on it. He sat at the table, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands.
     ‘I can heat it up for you, if you want?’
     ‘All right.’
     Cherry jumped down and poured him a glass of the milk, turning on the oven and taking the plate from the fridge. Roast potatoes, chicken, parsnips, carrots and peas. Two enormous Yorkshire puddings, and even gravy. It wasn’t like her to cook. She had made an effort, he realised, and began to regret being short with her. ‘What’s all this in aid of then?’
     ‘I saw Daria, on the news. I figured you were working the case,’ she said as she slid the plate into the oven. ‘Thought you might want some comfort food.’
     ‘Cheers, Cherry.’
     ‘S’okay.’ She took a seat opposite him, watching him. He leant back and closed his eyes. ‘Long day, huh?’
     ‘The first of many I should think.’
     ‘How’s Daria?’
     ‘Coping.’
     ‘I thought she looked fat on the news.’
     ‘No you didn’t.’
     ‘No, I didn’t,’ Cherry grinned. ‘Thought she looked quite hot actually, but that’s not what you want to hear is it?’
     Richard smiled. ‘Not particularly.’
     ‘Liv said she saw you, at the Grey. I thought you’d missed the show.’
      ‘Nah, never. It was just that the place was rammed, I couldn’t get near you. You were good though.’
     ‘You think?’ she beamed.
      ‘Of course.’ Vega bowed forward, resting his head on his forearms. He closed his eyes, just for a moment. Cherry reached across the table and ruffled his closely cut curls. He groaned, the sound muffled by his arms. They sat together in silence for a few minutes more before she got up to take the food from the oven. ‘Bon appetite,’ she said, placing the plate down with a flourish. ‘…Padre?’
     His only answer was the whistle of his nose. He was solid gone. Cherry tiptoed to the living room and dragged the throw from the back of the sofa, tucking it about the breadth of his shoulders and lowering the kitchen blind. ‘Night, night,’ she whispered, pecking him on top of his head. ‘Sweet dreams.’

He didn’t dream, not that he remembered. That was a blessing. He awoke in the kitchen at three AM and it took him a moment to remember where he was. The throw had slipped from his shoulders and he was cold all over.
     Gradually he realised that the humming he could hear was the fridge, the green glow the LED clock on the oven. He heated his dinner a second time and ate it methodically. The vegetables were a little overdone but it wasn’t the worst meal he’d ever had. He rinsed the plate and slotted it in the dishwasher.
     And so to bed…
     Vega paused as he passed Cherry’s door, opening it a crack and peering in. She was a nocturnal creature. It wasn’t unusual for her to be up at this hour, tapping away on the laptop Daria had bequeathed her, and he wanted to thank her for cooking.
     Cherry’s single divan was empty though, the duvet crumpled on the floor and the sheets pulled half-off the mattress. He padded across the room, stepping over the bundles of discarded clothes, and made her bed for her. Hospital corners.
     Vega had always kept a tidy home, something Cherry seemed to take personal offence to. The bedroom was her space, he’d told her that. She could do what she wanted with it, but that fact wouldn’t keep him from basic housekeeping.
     There was one other invasion of her privacy he had taken to. It was out of care, he told himself, that was all. Sometimes small violations were permissible, if done with good intentions.
     Vega knelt on the mattress, feeling it sag beneath his weight, the springs groaning. He opened the window, just enough to stick his forearm through. The night outside was bitter and when he reached out it felt like immersing his arm in freezing water.
     He reached upwards, towards the guttering. His fingers trawled through leaf mulch, cold and slimy, and groped wet clods of moss before he found the hard edges of the Swan tobacco tin. He brought it inside, his ears ringing with the silence of the house, half-expecting Cherry to appear beside him. She didn’t, she was out, and where he could only guess.
     The tin was in a zip lock sandwich bag which he undid. He hooked his nail under the lid and prised it off. A smell like vinegar emanated from inside. The tin contained tweezers, a broken pen tube, a few scraps of silver foil and a little square of a thick, tar-like substance the colour of cola.
    Last time he had checked, the soap bar had been a little bigger than his thumbnail. Now it was perhaps half that. He put the heroin back, put the lid on the tin, and returned it to its place in the guttering.
    Vega changed into his flannel pyjamas and tried to ignore the fact that the material of them now reminded him of Sam Stowe’s fluid-steeped shirt. He lay there staring at the ceiling tiles for perhaps an hour, seeking sleep. Then he heard, very faintly, the creak of the garden gate.
     Cherry was back, from wherever it was she had been. He heard her on the stairs a few minutes later. Heard her bedroom door close.
    Vega shut his eyes.

 

After what felt like only a minute his alarm shocked him awake. He had managed a few hours of sleep but he wasn’t feeling the benefit.
     He chose an outfit without thinking about it. His wardrobe wasn’t exactly diverse: dark shades of suits and coloured shirts with the appropriate ties wound around the hanger. With age came a perceived sense of seniority, all the time you dressed sharp, but let that slide and seniority could quickly become senility.
     Besides, a structured jacket went a long way towards concealing the effects of fast food and slow metabolism.
      Vega didn’t need to be in until midday, there was an abrupt text from Bishop reminding him as much, and the hours until then were aimless and slow.
     He checked on Cherry. She was asleep, her breathing deep and regular, her brassy blonde hair closed like curtains about her face. He toyed with the idea of waking her with breakfast but he knew that she wouldn’t eat it. The girl lived off of air and Haribo.
     His restlessness took him to his car and back to Horsmonden. Back to the Stowe family home, its Sale Agreed sign still there but the gold-topped gates now wide open and its gravel driveway full of police vehicles.
      There was a uniform on the front step. Vega signed in, and stepped into the hall. ‘Do I need to suit up?’
     ‘No, sir.’
    There wasn’t much activity in the family home. Most of the team would be at the fishing hut still he supposed, although they had evidently searched the house. What little furniture was left had been moved, drawers pulled open and their contents sifted through and then left out on the floor. Vega crouched and prodded through a pile of miscellany. 
     ‘Morning, sir.’
     Vega glanced up. DC Anthony Carmichael was in the doorway looking as he always did, on the verge of farting. ‘All right, Tony? You been here long?’
     ‘Since six.’
     ‘Found anything of interest?’ Vega asked, straightening up. Carmichael shook his head.
     ‘Not a great deal, sir.’
     ‘No note?’
     ‘No. I thought we had determined it wasn’t suicide?’
     ‘We’ve not determined anything yet. Not a damn thing.’ Vega took in the living room, whose windows looked out at the wall which hid the property from the road. Young beech had been trained against it, intended to make a more attractive boundary. They had been planted maybe a year ago at the most, and the plants were still young and faring badly in the frost. The whole house felt new still. The paint had barely dried.
     The Stowe’s circumstances had deteriorated quickly.
     ‘What are your instincts, Tony?’
     ‘Pardon, sir?’
     ‘Your instincts. Your impressions,’ Vega prompted. ‘We’ve got a nice young kid who’s been battered, murdered, and left just like another dead boy was some six years ago. Our victim’s father, a man whose life was collapsing in around his ears, has been offed maybe a week or two before his son…you must have some thoughts about it all?’
     ‘It doesn’t make sense.’ Carmichael joined him in looking out of the window; the sky was dark, the day overcast. The house was quiet and it felt as if even the bricks and mortar were grieving. ‘We’ve looked through Mr Stowe’s finances. He was in debt, hugely, but he owned the house outright so its sale would have taken off much of the pressure. I don’t know, maybe he was ashamed.’
     ‘Have you found any prescriptions? Medications? Any substances of any kind, anything to show he was depressed and seeking help for it, or self-medicating?’
     ‘Not yet, sir.’
     Vega nodded. He looked back into the hall, back to the stairs. ‘Where are the boys’ rooms, can you show me?’
     ‘Course. It’s this way.’
     Deano had cleared out much of what he owned. It was clear he didn’t live here, not in the same way he had before his parents’ separation. There was very little left in the room that could be considered personal. Only the practical remained: changes of clothes, a desk with empty drawers, and a couple of consoles but no games to play on them.
    A few spots of blue tack were left on the walls where favoured posters had been taken down, with the exception of two: one of motocross, the other of West Ham football club.
      ‘What do you want to bet those are things he shared with his dad?’ Vega said, tapping the sun-bleached paper. ‘Motocross and football. He left them here because they were something he had in common with his old man. He’s pledging an allegiance to him, even if he was a mummy’s boy like Jodie seems to think.’ He caught sight of Carmichael rolling his eyes, ever so slightly. ‘What, you disagree?’
    ‘No,’ Carmichael said quickly. He raised his hand to his foppish blonde hair and swept it back. ‘No, I just don’t think there’s anything else we can learn from this room. I’ve been through it already.’
    ‘You think I’m checking up on you.’
     ‘I didn’t say that, sir.’
     ‘Well maybe I am. We can afford exactly zero f**k-ups, Tony. That means checking and then double-checking. Am I clear?’
    ‘Crystal.’
     Vega looked around a moment more, taking in the view. Deano’s room was at the front of the house, overlooking the road. ‘Right. So where is Reese’s?’
     Carmichael led him down the end of a thickly carpeted landing. The eldest brother’s room looked out over the gardens at the back, and because of the slope of the land the edge of the lake was in view. The fishing hut and the white-suited bodies bustling about it were just visible over the tops of the bare trees.
     Reese’s room had been stripped even more ruthlessly than Deano’s. Whether by Reese himself or by one or both of his parents Vega didn’t know. All that remained was a mattress on the floor with a sleeping bag crumpled at the foot of it like a shed skin. A takeaway carton beside it was full of roaches, ash peppering the cream carpet.
     Vega paced the confines of the boy’s space, running his hand along the windowsill, testing it, finding it didn’t move. He lifted the mattress. Nothing. He shook out the sleeping bag and found only an odd sock. Carmichael was fidgeting in the doorway, checking his phone which Vega took to mean he was checking the time.
     ‘Don’t let me keep you,’ Vega muttered as he opened the door to what he’d assumed to be a wardrobe. It was an en suite, and when he flicked on the light an extractor fan began to whir. It was only a small room and fully tiled. The hand-towel smelt damp and the laundry basket was musky. Vega checked the cabinet and found it empty except for paracetamol, floss, and a prescribed acne cream.
     He lifted the lid off of the cistern and saw nothing in the water. He was about to replace the lid when he saw a strip of duct tape on the underside.
     ‘Hmm.’
    He scraped at it with his nail. Carmichael was inside the room now, trying to see around his bulk. ‘What?’
    ‘A SIM card,’ Vega said as he peeled it off the underside of the tape. ‘See what I mean about this double-checking lark?’  
           

Author's Note

All constructive criticism gratefully received.

Reviews

[NoelHC]

Ah, the elusive Cherry returns, and we learn a bit more about her, thank you, as her character was bothering me, who she was, what the connection was, all of that. I note a distinct lack of the roast beef I would have expected with the meal you described. Is she vegetarian?

I had mentioned in a PM about my impressions of Rosen and Vega that I saw Vega as not caring too much about his clothing and appearance, but you dispelled that here.

Cherry seemed to take personal offence to Perhaps end that "with", it seems less dangly.

This is another good chapter, I was sad there wasn't a Next Chapter> arrow at the bottom.

[SLD Bailey]

If you sought out the next chapter arrow, then I have succeeded! I'm pleased that you were intrigued by Cherry, I've been trying to time a more detailed introduction to her. She isn't a vegetarian (she doesn't eat much of anything!) but is consciously trying to get Vega to eat less red meat, hence chicken over beef :) And yes, I didn't want to correct your very thoughtfully composed list of impressions (especially as they were all pretty much spot-on!), but Vega is particular when it comes to his sartorial choices lol

[W.k.kortas]

The layering here, the embelllishment of the Vega-Cherry relationship is very nicely done, sufficiently detailed without slowing down the narrative. The blending of characterization and brisk movement of the plot continues very effectively in this chapter.

[SLD Bailey]

Thanks so much, Kortas :) I'm always hesitant to introduce a detective's personal life/back story as I faced criticism a few years ago for doing too much of this and coming across as "amateurish". The cruellest word an aspiring writer can hear! With that in mind, I'm very pleased the pace is working for you.