A lot of being a private investigator was boring, she hadn’t realised that when she started. Waiting, watching and online snooping took up a lot of time, then there was this, staring at her laptop sifting through footage from the cameras in Vanessa’s place.
She looked around the busy Skylark. She’d turned up at the Chalmers twins’ place too early, to catch them unawares. One of the dumb secrets of PI work was to catch folk by surprise. But there was no answer. She toyed with the idea of breaking in but decided against for now. She still couldn’t get a handle on this case. They were employing her yet they seemed the most suspicious people involved. She knew of cases where the perpetrator of a crime called in an investigator to prove how much smarter they were, that they could get away with the scrutiny. But that didn’t fit Maria and Matthew, they were too weird, too stupid.
She looked at her laptop, checked the kitchen footage first. The files on the Cloud were time-stamped and the cameras were motion sensitive, so only worked when something moved in the room. Thankfully they didn’t have a cat or dog, Jenny had made that mistake before, sat through hours of Rover licking his balls. But the kitchen stuff was just Francesco cooking and tidying up, preparing stuff for Vanessa and himself. She watched closely in case he was slipping something into the food, but she didn’t see anything. Frankie spent a lot of time in the kitchen, Italian men love their food.
A tattooed young waitress with black eyeliner, fringe and a Black Lives Matter T-shirt took Jenny’s empty coffee cup with a smile. Jenny watched her walk away thinking that Hannah’s generation were so much more clued up than she was. She’d gone on marches and held placards, but the organised resistance and protest of millennials was a hundred times more effective.
She switched to the bedroom footage, but there was loads of Vanessa reading in bed, dozing, sipping water. Jenny fast forwarded, narrowed her eyes, looking for anything. The room got darker, bedside lamp came on, then Francesco was there, climbing into bed with her, disappearing under the covers as he went down on her, his head bobbing comically in fast forward. For a long time. Vanessa’s face contorted in pleasure, her hands gripping the covers. Jenny checked the clock on the footage, eight minutes, ten, fifteen, twenty. Jesus, lucky woman. Then he stripped off, the covers fell away and he started gently fucking her. Jenny paused the video and looked around. She felt dirty. The young mum at the next table had two toddlers fighting over a piece of pasta and a crayon. The place was small, tables close together. She looked at the frozen image on the screen, Frankie’s arse in the air, lighter than the rest of his skin, a beacon of light in the gloom. She thought about fucking Liam and couldn’t believe it was a year since she had sex. How had that happened? She used to be so confident about her body, her sexuality, but Craig destroyed that once when they divorced, again when he tried to kill her. Maybe her abandoning Liam was a cowardly act, something to keep a distance from real emotion, from possible love.
The mum at the next table glanced at Jenny’s laptop and couldn’t hide her surprise, turned too quickly to settle her kids, cheeks flushed. Jenny shut the laptop and gathered her things, paid at the bar and left feeling flustered.
She’d calmed down by Durham Avenue, smiled at that pampas grass in the garden, wondered if a healthy sex life ran in the Chalmers family, or if these two were as weird in the sack as they seemed out of it.
Maria opened the door without speaking, holding a roll of parcel tape, and walked back to the kitchen. Jenny followed. Matthew was at the computer, Maria parcelling ceramic ornaments and knick-knacks in bubble wrap and packaging.
‘What did you find?’ Maria said.
There was no introduction, no offer of a cuppa. Jenny wondered how long the twins had been in this house together, no fresh air, no normal conversation. They were wearing the same shapeless outfits as before, more stains, a smell of sweat and burnt meat in the kitchen, frying pan on the dirty stove, pile of dishes in the sink. Jenny was no house-proud freak but these two needed to get their shit together.
‘I asked you a question,’ Maria said.
Jenny thought about her laptop, the frozen image of Frankie’s pale bum as he fucked their bedridden mother. ‘I’m still working on a few things.’
Matthew stopped scrolling on the computer and stared at her, giving her the creeps. Maria held the parcel tape like a gun.
‘Did you put cameras in the house?’
Jenny wanted to get up and leave. ‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘We haven’t found anything yet.’
‘I want to see the footage.’
Jenny’s fingers tightened on her bag. ‘We’re still analysing. There’s a lot of dross to go through.’
Maria stared at her. ‘As soon as you’re done. We’re paying, I want to see it all.’
Jenny wanted to pull her computer out, show Francesco at work, but she stayed still.
Maria held out her hand. ‘Keys.’
‘What?’
‘The house keys, I need them back.’
‘Of course.’ Jenny scrambled in her bag, fished them out and placed them on the table. A ceramic mouse dressed as a peasant girl stared up at her. She flashed back to Queenie’s embalmed mice on her shelf. She went to touch the ceramic and Maria grabbed it.
‘That’s worth a lot of money,’ she said.
Jenny couldn’t help shaking her head.
‘You don’t approve,’ Maria said. It was not a question. ‘You think you’re better than us.’
‘That’s not true,’ Jenny said, though it was a hundred percent true. She wasn’t fucking perfect but she didn’t live like this and spend her time snooping on her own mother.
Maria threw a glance at Matthew, who held her gaze for an uncomfortable time. ‘We’re going to declare her mentally incompetent. We’re putting her in a home.’
Jenny let out a laugh and covered her mouth. ‘Sorry, there’s no evidence for that.’
‘There is,’ Maria said. Matthew had his head down now. ‘She’s lost her mind with grief, first Dad, now Gran.’
Jenny shook her head. ‘You’re crazy.’
Maria tensed up.
‘We’re not crazy,’ she shouted. ‘Mum is.’
Jenny stood up. ‘This is pathetic. Have you even seen Vanessa since your gran’s funeral? She’s physically ill, not mentally. She needs her family around her, not this shit.’
Having said that, Jenny doubted Vanessa needed these two skid marks anywhere near her. Getting fucked by Frankie seemed to suit her just fine, even if she was ill and getting worse. She thought about Craig’s change of plea in prison, to diminished responsibility. Was it that easy to make out someone was crazy, so they didn’t have to face any legal consequences? Fuck that shit.
‘I can’t work on this case anymore,’ Jenny said, straightening her shoulders.
Maria took a step forward, parcel tape at her side. Jenny kept an eye out in case she swung it at her face.
‘We’re in the right,’ Maria said.
‘You’re not,’ Jenny said, ‘and I’ll have no part in what you’re doing.’
‘We won’t pay you.’
‘I don’t give a shit.’
‘And I want that camera footage.’
Jenny laughed. ‘No chance.’
‘We’ll take the Skelfs to court.’
Jenny shook her head and stepped up to Maria. ‘Just fucking try.’