The companion, p.1
The Companion, page 1
THE
COMPANION
Also by Lesley Thomson
Seven Miles from Sydney
A Kind of Vanishing
Death of a Mermaid
The Detective’s Daughter Series
The Detective’s Daughter
Ghost Girl
The Detective’s Secret
The House With No Rooms
The Dog Walker
The Death Chamber
The Playground Murders
The Distant Dead
The Runaway (A Detective’s Daughter short story)
THE
COMPANION
LESLEY THOMSON
www.headofzeus.com
First published in the UK in 2022 by Head of Zeus Ltd,
part of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © Lesley Thomson, 2022
The moral right of Lesley Thomson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (HB): 9781801109260
ISBN (XTPB): 9781801109277
ISBN (E): 9781801109246
Head of Zeus Ltd
First Floor East
5–8 Hardwick Street
London EC1R 4RG
WWW.HEADOFZEUS.COM
For Philippa Brewster who set me on this road.
Thank you, dear friend.
All day within the dreamy house,
The doors upon their hinges creak’d;
The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse
Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek’d,
Or from the crevice peer’d about.
Old faces glimmer’d thro’ the doors,
Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
Old voices called her from without.
She only said, ‘My life is dreary,
He cometh not,’ she said;
She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead.’
“Mariana”, Stanza 6, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Contents
Also by Lesley Thomson
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Acknowledgements
About the Author
An Invitation from the Publisher
1
‘Boys’ day out. Let’s do it.’ Bouncing on his heels, James Ritchie rubbed his hands.
‘You haven’t shaved and you’re late.’ Opening the front door only inches, Anna Petty groused, ‘Wilbur’s been ready over twenty minutes.’
‘It’s a beard. Hey, cut me slack, Anna.’ James saw himself as a punctual person who was inexplicably never on time. Today he’d stopped to, as he called it, farm Facebook. A ‘like’ here, a laughing emoji there to show the good guy he was. He’d been gratified to see that his post on the page for old pupils of his school – Who remembers that music teacher Mr Braid who chucked board rubbers at the boys for looking out the window? – had garnered eleven comments and twenty likes. Ridiculous how happy it had made him, if only for a few minutes. He’d checked to see if Anna had liked it – loved it – she hadn’t.
Lots of forty- and fifty-something men had been hit on the head by the rubber’s wooden grip. A woman had posted that Mr Braid ‘sadly passed in 1994 of a brain tumour which might explain his unpredictability.’ ‘A brain tumour without a brain? How’s that work?’ James finger-typed, infuriated by the sanctimonious tone of this Susan Parker. She’d apparently started at school the year he’d left, what did she know? He’d heard Anna’s voice in his head saying how James always had to be smarter, cooler and nastier and deleted it. To bolster his dipping mood, James had scrolled through his friends, last count 403. That’s when he saw that Anna had unfollowed him.
Now, he told Anna, ‘Mr Braid, you know, the music teacher with the bad skin? He died of a brain tumour.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I saw it on Facebook.’
‘Sorry, did we tear you away from social media for a day out with your son?’
Crap.
‘You’re not my friend any more. Why’s that?’ James couldn’t help himself.
‘Jamie, don’t let’s do this now.’ Anna touched his arm.
Anna had cited James’s hours of tweeting and facebooking as one reason for wanting a divorce. ‘There are three of us in the marriage; ooh, silly me for forgetting. I mean four and counting…’
Twenty minutes past eleven on Saturday and Anna wore make-up, a short tweed skirt topped with a Fair Isle polo-neck, undyed blonde hair carefully twined into a careless bun. James’s beard was spur of the moment, he hadn’t washed or shaved. His hair, grey since his twenties, was finger-raked. He’d slept in his shirt.
‘Are we going?’ The dark patches under Wilbur Ritchie’s eyes were more typical of a depressed sleep-deprived adult than a nine-year-old boy. His parents, thrashing through the thorns and tangles of their own lives, were blind to the toll it was taking on their son.
‘Let’s go fly a kite…’ Singing the Mary Poppins song in a rich baritone, workman’s flat cap at an angle, James was Dick van Dyke. Anna covered her smile with a hand, James had always been able to make her laugh.
‘Don’t let him near the cliff, a man went off there flying a kite.’ The day before when James had rung to propose the trip and Anna had objected, she’d agreed not to mention the tragedy – some years before – in front of Wilbur. ‘It’s a common accident.’
‘Mum, come with us.’ Wilbur became animated.
‘It’s just us, remember?’ James said. Then, because he too wanted Anna to come, ‘You can if you want.’
‘I’m going shopping. When you’re back tomorrow, we’ll have roast chicken for tea, your favourite. A treat even though it’s a school night.’ Anna was showing James she knew what Wilbur loved. The hectic outings, go-karting, paintballing, kite-flying, were for James, not his son.
Wilbur pecked his mother on the cheek. He wouldn’t let his dad see he wanted to stay with his mum. ‘Mummy’, when it was just them. Heart heavy, Wilbur trotted to his father’s Toyota Aygo – the flashy Qashqai a casualty of their separation – and numbly strapped himself in the front seat.
‘He loves this stuff. Spoiling him with food will make him fat.’ James spun on his heel.
Anna Petty waved at Wilbur, the wan face like something out of Turn of the Screw burned into her memory. The image would alter over time, from brave little soldier to scared eyes to abject terror until Anna came to believe Wilbur had mouthed Help through the glass and would blame herself for staying behind.
‘If you had, you’d be dead too,’ people said.
2
Freddy
‘…Lord God, Lamb of God, you take away
the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lord God, Lamb of God, you take away
the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lord God, Lamb of God, you take away
the sins of the world, grant us peace…’
Freddy Power dropped her voice to a whisper to better hear Rex, sitting next to her in the pew, recite the Communion Rite after Father Pete, robe swishing, had raised the host, showing it to each of his communicants. A retired defence counsel, Rex Lomax’s voice conjured liquid chocolate; the crack in his timbre must easily have swayed many a jury to let a criminal walk. Just seventy, in a powder-blue suit, Rex still had it.
Brought up a Catholic,
She was not, she had insisted to Toni, returning to God.
Taking Rex to Mass had prompted a gear change in Rex and Freddy’s acquaintanceship. Until then Freddy Power had been Rex Lomax’s mobile fishmonger. Their exchanges were limited to the weather, how Rex might cook his fish, a run on smoked salmon due to a recipe on MasterChef. They hadn’t discussed each other’s lives. With much to hide, Freddy was grateful, although Rex knew the Powers had owned a fish processing factory on Newhaven Harbour, but then, everyone knew. It was also common knowledge that one of Freddy’s brothers was in prison and the other had drowned at sea, but Rex never referred to this. However, last year, when Power Fisheries – the name retained because it carried currency – was destroyed in an electrical fire weeks after it was sold, Rex had expressed his sympathy. Freddy had made light of it – she could get her produce from Newhaven’s other fishery. She didn’t say this suited her because, although Fred Power senior had been dead decades, for her, his presence had still darkened the business.
Freddy knew that Rex’s wife Emily had died in a car crash five years ago, on the lane near Blacklock House soon after the Lomaxes had moved there. Freddy had been told that by Garry Haslem, another resident of Blacklock House, while he was humming and hah-ing over which fish to buy. ‘Poor Emily’s Citroën shoots off the road, hits a tree and… boom.’ Garry never pulled punches. ‘After that, Rexy lost his mojo, poor bugger.’
Whatever mojo Rex Lomax had lost, Freddy supposed he’d found it because driving him to and from Our Lady of Sorrows on Sundays, Rex had become chatty. He told Freddy Emily had been his soulmate, she’d kept him on the straight and narrow and wasn’t afraid to tell him when he was wrong. ‘We all need that, don’t we?’
Freddy, plucking up courage to try a dating app, wondered if she should put that she wanted to meet a woman who would tell her when she was wrong. Sarah had been good at that and Freddy had not needed it. When Freddy had come out to her family, her father had not only told her she was wrong, he’d called her ‘a freak of nature’ and kicked her out. Since his death when she was twenty, Freddy had been free to be herself and to love women. If she could meet the right one.
Last week, Rex had said the lawyer in him was still tortured by unanswered questions. The police had found nothing wrong with Emily’s car. The afternoon of the fatal accident the roads were dry, thin cloud had filtered dazzle from the low winter sun. In short, there had been excellent visibility. Emily didn’t drink and wasn’t on medication. Before impact, she had not suffered a brain bleed nor had a cardiac arrest. Rex used medico-legal language, his inner lawyer having scoured the reports on Emily’s death. Freddy felt for him; beyond asking God why he allowed terrible things to happen, Freddy herself had no unanswered questions.
The first time they’d gone to Mass, Freddy had cancelled brunch with Toni, her best friend since convent school. With no more faith now than she’d had then, Toni had objected to being ‘blown out’ for God. She warned Freddy that if Rex was a father figure, ‘He’ll likely turn out as rubbish as your actual dad. Whatever, I don’t like him taking advantage of your lovely nature. He can afford to live in Buckingham Palace, surely he can afford a cab to go and confess his sins.’ Freddy had explained that she loved the drive through country lanes and villages while not selling fish.
Father Pete’s voice lulling her, Freddy’s mind drifted again as it occurred to her that Toni was envious of her friendship with Rex. No, that couldn’t be. Nicky Kemp – who had died when they were kids – was everyone’s favourite dad, certainly Freddy’s. More likely Toni – Detective Inspector Antonia Kemp now – was looking out for Freddy. They were each other’s person.
One day at Blacklock House, leaning on the fish van, Garry Haslem had hoarsely whispered that Rex had Parkinson’s. Freddy had seen an occasional tremor in Rex’s hand. He no longer came down for his fish, instead Freddy delivered it to his flat. She was caught out by how sad Garry’s news made her feel.
Today must be a good day. Rex had given the first reading, standing straight at the lectern. Looking nearer sixty than seventy he still resembled the younger handsome Rex in the wedding photograph of decades ago, displayed on his mantelpiece.
While Rex was reading, Freddy had glanced down and spotted something under the pew in front. Twisting, she’d scrabbled up not a coin, but a devotional medallion.
Follow the footprints of the Lord. They will lead you through troubled times and brighten your life.
Freddy’s mother had kept a St Benedict medallion in her purse. Vade Retro Satana. Satan Be Gone. Once, when they were kids, Freddy’s brother Andy had asked Reenie if Satan was one of the pets lodged in Reenie Power’s small animal hotel, a garden shed housing rabbits, gerbils and the like. Overhearing, Fred Power had smacked Andy on the head for being blasphemous. Neither Andy nor Freddy understood the word nor dared ask. Freddy did know a St Benedict medal wasn’t a talisman to ward off evil, but a reminder that you served God, yet from that day she’d prayed for Vade Retro Fred Power. A prayer answered unexpectedly when, at his surprise sixtieth birthday party, her dad’s surprise was a fatal heart attack.
Sweeping her too-long fringe away from her eyes, Freddy caught Jesus gazing down from the altar and crossed herself.
Follow the footprints of the Lord. They will lead you through troubled times and brighten your life.
After her mum’s death, Freddy had found her St Benedict medallion in her purse. Despite considering herself ‘lapsed’, Freddy carried it in her own purse, comforted by knowing it was there.
‘…but only say the word…’
‘and my soul shall be healed.’ Freddy hurried out the end of the response to the invitation to communion. On a whim, she turned to Rex and pressed the medal, warmed by her grip, into his palm. He examined it and reddened. She’d embarrassed him.
‘How lovely, Freddy.’ Rex’s face broadened into a smile. ‘How lovely of you.’
Thank God. Freddy felt Rex tense when Father Pete had spoken Emily’s name at the start of Mass. Now Rex knew Freddy was there for him. Moments later she nearly gasped out loud. She’d given Rex stolen goods.
Suppose the owner came looking for their medallion? She could not claim it was the thought that counted. She should have handed it in to Father Pete.
‘The Body of Christ.’
Suffused with guilt, Freddy choked out, ‘Amen.’ She scrambled from the pew and pattered after Rex up the aisle to Father Pete. When it was her turn, she crossed her arms over her chest as a sign she wouldn’t take communion.
As Father Pete anointed her forehead, his eyes rested on hers. He never put pressure on Freddy to re-join the church. Until she did, she couldn’t take communion.
Thou shall not steal… and then pass off your ill-gotten gains as a present.
Watching parishioners mill around Rex in the shadow of an imposing statue of Mary, Freddy enjoyed seeing him the centre of attention. Although Rex had left Newhaven to ‘downsize’ in an apartment in Blacklock House, he and Emily had lived in the town for decades, with Rex commuting to London when he was a QC. As Rex once joked, he had a triple-A pass to Our Lady of Sorrows.
The milling parishioners were a varied group made up of many generations of Newhaven families, some who had known Freddy as a child and retirees in genteel poverty fleeing from London to eke out their capital. One such elderly woman, possessed of a BBC Home Service accent and steely determination, had established herself as the go-to reader to rival Rex. Not that Rex cared, it was Freddy who competed on his behalf.
As Rex circulated, a hand occasionally steadying him, people making way for him as if he was a visiting dignitary, Freddy glimpsed the man whose heavyweight criminal cases had bankrolled a staunch defence of poorer clients. Garry had told her Rex’s nickname was ProBono Lomax. Rex and Sarah were entirely different: Rex motivated by justice for all, Sarah by a dollar sign.
‘I won’t be needing you next week.’ Rex clipped on his seat belt and, pulling a face as if in pain, stretched out his legs; a short man, the footwell of the fish van had ample space.
