The Long Call

by Ann Cleeves

  ‘Really, I’m not sure that I do. He came across as rather a strange chap. A bit intense. At first it seemed a straightforward matter of writing his will. He had no living relatives and he was considering a charitable donation.’

  ‘Do you know where he thought he might leave his money?’

  ‘To the Woodyard centre. I looked it up. It’s run by a charitable trust. You’re quite right, if he didn’t have huge assets, it would have made more sense for him to consult a firm of local solicitors. I did suggest that and thought he’d taken my advice, because I didn’t hear from him for a while. Then he called back and asked if he could come to see me. He was insistent and told me it was urgent. He said that he was having second thoughts about the will. And that there was another, related matter that he thought I could help with.’ Cramer looked up and smiled. ‘I explained our fee structure, thinking that might put him off. We do tend to charge a bit above the going rate. I suppose at that stage I had him down as a bit of a fantasist. North Devon seems to attract the weirdos, don’t you think? Present company excluded of course.’

  ‘What kind of fantasist?’

  ‘There was nothing specific, but I sensed a paranoia. He came across as the sort who might be into odd conspiracy theories.’ Cramer looked up sharply. ‘But just because one’s paranoid it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. Isn’t that the saying, Inspector? It seems that I misjudged the man. Because somebody was certainly out to get him. And they clearly succeeded.’

  There was a moment of silence. The image Matthew had created of Simon Walden seemed even more insubstantial, slippery, shifting with every conversation about him. ‘There’s nothing else you can tell me about your conversation? Nothing that might help me to understand why he was so anxious to see you? What had made him paranoid? Any detail would be useful.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Inspector. Nothing about the conversation. I was rather irritated that he’d demanded to speak directly to me without making the appointment through my secretary. It seemed that the paranoia had spread to his being reluctant to speak frankly on the telephone. Or perhaps Mr Walden was phoning in a place where he might be overheard or interrupted. There was some background noise.’

  ‘What kind of background noise?’

  Cramer shook his head, an indication of frustration. He would like to have helped. ‘I’m sorry, Inspector. A murmur of voices. He could have been in the street or in a room. Beyond that, I couldn’t tell.’

  Matthew was about to let the man go, to thank him for his time and let him get back to his friends in the golf club, to catch up with them for gin and professional gossip, when Cramer put an envelope on the table. He had a sly grin, as if he was hoping to astonish and please.

  ‘There is this, though. It arrived at the office on Tuesday morning.’

  The day after Walden’s body was found on the beach at Crow Point. He must have posted it on the morning of his death.

  It had already been opened. Inside was a handwritten note and a building society cheque for £200,000 made payable to the solicitors’ business name, Sandford and Marsh. The note read:

  Please keep this safe for me. I’ll explain when I see you.

  ‘It’s been a busy week,’ Cramer said. ‘I didn’t get around to asking my secretary to put it into the clients’ account. You do understand why I found Walden rather an unusual chap? Usually we have to fight to get money from our customers. They don’t send us large cheques in the post.’

  Matthew looked again at the cheque. It had been made out by the Devonshire Building Society.

  * * *

  When Cramer had left, Matthew sat for a moment at his desk. It was clear that Walden had experienced some sort of crisis in the weeks leading up to his death. Something that had led him to take the bus to Lovacott with Lucy Braddick and go back to Cramer to firm up an appointment. And to send a large cheque to the lawyer. Matthew wondered what might have triggered the strange behaviour. Was it possible that Walden could have experienced some kind of psychotic episode as the lawyer had implied? But the women in the Ilfracombe house hadn’t mentioned that Walden had been less stable or rational in that time and Caroline was a professional. She would certainly have picked up on anything unusual or dangerous.

  There was a knock on the office door and Ross came in. He started speaking before he’d got into the room, eager, it seemed, to redeem himself in the eyes of his boss.

  ‘I’ve found out where Walden kept his money.’

  Well, about time! But I think I know that now already. Matthew said nothing. There was no need to rain on the man’s parade and anyway, Ross wasn’t in listening mode.

  ‘Have you got the details there?’

  ‘Of course.’ Ross laid printed sheets on the desk between them and pulled up a chair. He was so close to Matthew that he could smell the gel on the slicked-up hair. ‘He actually had two accounts, a current account with NatWest, where his wages from the Kingsley Hotel were paid and a savings account with—’

  Now Matthew couldn’t help himself. ‘The Devonshire Building Society.’

  ‘Yes! How did you know?’ Ross looked so disappointed that Matthew almost felt sorry for him.

  ‘I found out from Cramer, the solicitor.’ Matthew hardly noticed Ross’s reaction to the news. He was too busy asking questions of his own in his head. Why had Walden felt the need to send Cramer all that money? Was it just a coincidence that Walden had deposited the cash redeemed from his Bristol home and business in the building society where Dennis Salter had once been manager? Why had he decided to withdraw the whole amount? And what had happened to make him change his mind about leaving all his money to the Woodyard centre in his will?

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  GABY HAD AGREED TO SPEND THE afternoon with Caz and her father, Christopher Preece. Gaby still wasn’t quite sure how she’d allowed herself to be talked into it. Caz had taken her aside after her appearance at the jazz cafe the night before.

  ‘What are you doing tomorrow afternoon?’

  ‘Nothing much. I don’t work on Friday afternoons.’

  ‘Will you come out with Dad and me?’ Her voice had been strangely pleading and Gaby had thought Caz didn’t ask many favours, so she’d go along with it, but it had seemed an odd request. ‘He’s suggesting a walk,’ Caz said. ‘A bar meal afterwards.’

  ‘Don’t you want some time on your own with him?’ They’d looked across at Christopher who was standing at the bar, buying drinks for them all. Gaby had thought she wouldn’t mind the man as a father.

  ‘It’s the anniversary of my mother’s death,’ Caz had said. ‘I couldn’t bear it if he got sentimental about her. He won’t if you’re there.’

  Gaby had been made receptive by the response to her singing, and several glasses of cava. ‘Okay,’ she’d said. ‘Why not?’ She’d thought that at the very least she’d get a free meal.

  Now, in the quiet house, drinking coffee together before leaving to meet the man, Caz started talking about her mother’s death for the first time in any detail. Gaby just listened.

  ‘I was away from home,’ Caz said. ‘A retreat for the weekend with the church youth group. We’d all left our phones behind. It was part of the deal. The guy running the centre came to my room and told me my mother was dead. No other details. Not how she’d died. A friend drove me home, but I told her not to come in. Dad was there, waiting for me. He told me my mother had killed herself, she’d hanged herself.’ Caz paused for a moment. ‘I lost it. Started yelling. Blaming him.’

  Gaby found it hard to imagine Caz, usually so controlled and contained, losing it, but her friend was still talking.

  ‘I said some hateful stuff: I thought we were in this together. Working to keep Mum safe. How could you let this happen? He’d tried to take me into his arms but I pushed him away. I know I should forgive him, but part of me can’t quite.’ She looked up at Gaby, her eyes very big behind her glasses. ‘It’s ten years, so perhaps we should make our peace. But I don’t want to be on m
y own with him. Not on this particular day. Do you understand?’

  Gaby wasn’t quite sure that she did understand – weren’t Christians supposed to forgive? – but she nodded anyway.

  They met Christopher in the National Trust car park, with a view of the sea and the cliffs, as they’d arranged. Because it was so early in the season there were very few people, only a scattering of cars. There was a footpath leading down the cliff to the beach and the air seemed very thin and light.

  ‘This was my mother’s favourite place,’ Caz said.

  Christopher was there before them, and was already out of his car, staring out towards the island of Lundy, apparently lost in thought. He seemed surprised to see Gaby; Caz couldn’t have told him she’d be there and Gaby thought that was unkind. But Christopher covered his shock well.

  ‘What do you both fancy?’ he said. ‘A walk over the headland? Then a pub supper?’ He was dressed like a country gent in a checked shirt and round-necked jersey.

  ‘Sure. Cool,’ Caz said. Gaby thought she seemed cool too. To the point of iciness. Gaby still wasn’t sure why Caz had wanted her there. As a witness to their reconciliation? To keep matters civil? Whatever the reason, she felt that, somehow, she was being used.

  The cloud and fog had lifted and spring had returned again. The low sun turned everything warm and gold. Caz started talking as soon as they took the path onto the point. There was the honey smell of gorse.

  ‘I have such wonderful memories of my mum here. She was well then, easy, relaxed. We came to the beach together while you were working, Dad.’ Caz turned to Gaby. ‘Dad was in full business mode then, doing his deals, developing his plans.’ Christopher walked on in silence and Caz continued. ‘I loved exploring the rock pools, and do you remember when she bought me a little surfboard? I was so excited.’

  ‘I do remember.’

  ‘Do you, Dad? I wasn’t sure you took much notice of what we were doing those days. You seemed to have other things on your mind.’

  Again, Gaby wondered why Caz was being so cruel, and why she’d felt the need for an audience. ‘Perhaps I should go back,’ she said. ‘Leave you two to it.’

  ‘No!’ Now Caz was being the bossy big sister again. ‘Please, Gaby, I need you here for this.’ They walked on for a while in silence. ‘I have this picture of my mother,’ Caz went on. ‘I was in the sea on the beach down there and Mum was watching. She had bare feet and her trousers were rolled up to her knees, a loose white shirt and brown arms, and sunglasses hiding most of her face. She was laughing.’

  Gaby looked at Christopher, waiting for him to respond, but his face was impassive, almost quizzical, as if he wasn’t quite sure what was going on either. She felt so uncomfortable that it almost made her feel faint. There was something dizzying about the sound of the water way below them and the wheeling gulls.

  When Christopher did speak to Caz at last, it was about Simon Walden.

  ‘Have the police spoken to you again? Do you know if they’re any closer to finding the killer?’

  ‘I saw the red-haired woman, Sergeant Rafferty, at St Cuthbert’s,’ Caz said. ‘She was asking if any of our clients had come into money. She didn’t explain why.’

  Gaby wondered if Caz would mention the key she’d found in Simon’s washing but she said nothing about that. In fact, Caz didn’t have the chance to say anything else at all, because Christopher Preece stopped suddenly and turned towards his daughter, blocking her way along the path.

  ‘You do know that everything I do is for you. That you matter more to me than anything in the world.’ A pause. ‘I’d do anything for you.’

  Gaby watched with a mixture of fascination and extreme embarrassment. What was going on here? That sounded almost like a confession.

  Christopher moved away from the footpath and sat on the grass. Gaby, who had never seen Preece as anything other than immaculately turned out, thought he’d get stains on his trousers. He turned to his daughter.

  ‘I did love your mother. You do know that.’

  ‘I know that you loved her at first,’ Caz said. ‘Before she was ill. Before it got hard.’

  Another silence, broken by the sound of waves and the long call of gulls.

  ‘Did you love her at the end then?’ Christopher turned towards Caz and it sounded like genuine interest, not any kind of accusation. ‘When she was so angry, and unpredictable?’

  ‘She was my mother! Of course I loved her!’ The words came out as a cry at the same pitch as the gulls’ screech.

  ‘Really? Is that true? Did you love Becca when she turned up at your school? What did she tell your teachers? That she needed to take you with her because it was the end of the world and you both needed to be here at the beach to be safe from the disaster? It didn’t seem as if you loved her when I turned up to take her home. You looked horrified. Because she looked truly crazy, didn’t she? With that wild hair and the velvet dress that she always wore when she was going through a crisis, weeping in the corner of the headmaster’s office?’

  Caz didn’t answer. Neither of them was taking any notice of Gaby now. It was as if she wasn’t there.

  ‘I did try to help her, to understand what she was going through,’ Christopher said at last. ‘But you’re right, it was too hard in the end. I escaped into my work. I told myself I needed to earn enough money to look after you both, to provide care for your mother.’

  ‘And with other women?’ Caz shouted at him. ‘Was that how you escaped too?’

  He looked as if he’d been slapped, but still he kept his voice even, so quiet that Gaby struggled to hear it above the sound of the gulls and the waves.

  ‘What about you, Caroline? Didn’t you have your own means of escape? At first it was the pony club and then it was the church. You always liked your form of entertainment to be organized. A hierarchy. A ritual so you didn’t have to think too hard for yourself.’

  Caroline seemed on the verge of tears, but Gaby couldn’t bring herself to intervene. She felt a horrible fascination watching the encounter unfold.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Christopher said. ‘That was unfair. You were young and of course you wanted some structure in your life. There wasn’t much at home and it wasn’t your responsibility to look after Becca. That was down to me.’ He paused. ‘She would have been proud of what we’ve both achieved at St Cuthbert’s, wouldn’t she? And she’d have adored the Woodyard. All the terrific work that goes on there. The music and the theatre. The art. Don’t you remember how she used to dance?’

  ‘Yes, yes, she would.’ Caz turned to face him. ‘Is that why you got so involved in it?’

  ‘Of course. You must have realized that.’

  ‘We’ve never discussed it,’ Caz said.

  ‘I’ve tried to talk to you.’

  ‘I suppose that’s true. But I was always busy. A levels and then university.’

  ‘I wondered why you came back to North Devon after university,’ he said. ‘You could have lived anywhere. It must have such dreadful memories for you.’

  ‘Happy ones too, and this is where I remembered Mum best. Besides, I missed it when I was away from home.’ Caz seemed suddenly to make up her mind about something. She turned to her father. She was still standing and looked down at him, accusing.

  ‘Did you kill her?’

  Gaby thought that was why she was here. As some kind of witness, in case Christopher was forced to admit to a ten-year-old crime.

  ‘No! Of course not!’ There was shock and immediate denial. ‘Is that what you’ve been thinking? All these years?’

  ‘I saw you,’ Caz said, ‘with a woman. You were all over each other. In a bar in Barnstaple when you believed I was at home. I’d sneaked out to meet my friends.’ A pause. More honesty. Gaby thought this was like one of the truth games she’d played as a student. ‘You thought I was there keeping an eye on Mum, but she was sleeping and I couldn’t face another night in.’

  There was a moment of silence. ‘She was called Sophie.’ Ch
ristopher Preece spoke very quietly. ‘I thought she was beautiful. She worked with me. She had a law degree and dealt with all our contracts. She was very bright, full of ideas.’

  ‘You fell in love with her mind,’ Caz said. Gaby thought that sounded like a cheap sneer.

  ‘I fell in love. But there’s no way I would have killed your mother to be with her.’

  ‘Did Mum know? You weren’t exactly discreet.’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. She wasn’t seeing any of her friends by then. Who would have told her? And I was very careful at home.’ He turned to his daughter. ‘I didn’t want to hurt her.’

  ‘It was convenient, though, with Mum suddenly off the scene. What happened? You were free to be with Sophie. Do you still see her? Do you hide her in the attic when I come to visit?’

  ‘I think for Sophie, I was just a bit of fun. She didn’t want a long-term relationship and she certainly wasn’t ready for a teenage stepchild. Besides, I didn’t think I deserved to be happy. I didn’t kill your mother, but she died because of me.’ He’d found a stray piece of long grass and was pulling the dead seeds off one by one. ‘I tried to lose myself in the businesses again, to get the same buzz about the developments, but it didn’t work. So, after a few years I got rid of them and set up St Cuthbert’s, then I joined the campaign to found the Woodyard. I put all my money and my energy into that. Into providing a space where people who suffered like your mother could be safe.’ He looked at her. ‘I wanted you to be proud of me.’

  There was a moment of silence.

  ‘I am proud,’ Caz said. ‘Of course I am.’

  Her father scrambled to his feet and started walking again. Caz joined him. Gaby hung back, then followed them. Her attention was caught by the light on a piece of the cliff face. There was lichen and some kind of prickly bush. Sea buckthorn? She was thinking how she might paint it. Then she realized that the couple ahead of her had started talking again.

  ‘I met Simon Walden,’ he said.

  ‘I know you met him. You came to a couple of the Friday feasts.’