Touching the Dark by Jane A. Adams

Author:Jane A. Adams [Adams, Jane A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 2015-02-11T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Six

Alec was back at work studying the minutia of a rash of local burglaries when Rose Palmer called him.

“It’s probably nothing,” she apologised, “I thought about it after you’d gone.”

“Tell me anyway,” Alec encouraged. “If it’s not relevant, no harm done.”

“Rose Palmer paused and then she said, “it was when Tally went away to Sheffield, she did a photo journalist course there, though you probably know that. Anyway, she had this friend when she was there. A young man she used to introduce as her brother. She called him Jack.”

“Her brother?” Alec confirmed. “Why would she do that?”

“Heaven knows. She passed it off in the end as some sort of practical joke. Covered for herself by saying that he was a friend from home who was like a brother, only I know he wasn’t, Detective Friedman. He wasn’t from here, she met him there.”

“Did you talk to her about him?”

Rose Palmer laughed. “If you knew my daughter then you’d know that you don’t talk to Tally as in have a conversation, you receive from her what she wants you to know and you give back that which she requires.” It sounded harsh, bitterly put and she must have realised that because she continued more gently, “I love my daughter, Detective Friedman, but I don’t begin to know her, not even after all this time.”

Alec let the silence grow between them then he prompted her, “How do you know about all this if Tally didn’t tell you?”

“Because it caused sufficient anxiety for her tutor to get in touch and ask me about this Jack. Her tutor, a Mr Blake if I remember right, he told me there were rumours about this man and Tally, that if they were indeed brother and sister that their relationship was, how did he put it, inappropriate.”

“They were lovers?”

“They slept together. Not always the same thing, but yes, that’s what he meant. Tally was challenged, and that’s when she tried to backtrack. I imagine it took a while for the fuss to die down, but she was only in her first year and as far as I’m aware behaved herself the rest of the time.”

“And this Sheffield Jack,” Alec asked. “You have a last name for him?”

Rose laughed uneasily. “His first name wasn’t Jack,” she said. “It was Robert. Robert Principle. He worked in construction or something. Not part of the university crowd at all which I suppose was how Tally got away with her story for so long.”

She could tell him little more, but it shed new light on Tally Palmer and on her Jack obsession. Though what light, Alec wasn’t too sure. Had she kept in touch with this Robert Principle? Had he followed her here to Ingham? Did he have a record? And was he the man who’d threatened Naomi? Rose had never met him and had no description to give but a few phone calls had him put through to Professor Blake, Tally’s tutor from her student days and he confirmed Rose’s story.

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