The Long Call

by Ann Cleeves

  ‘No!’ Craven was spluttering in his panic. ‘No! I didn’t know who the flat belonged to. I was just following orders. I didn’t know that Walden had anything to do with Rosa. As far as I knew, he was a homeless man with mental health problems. Someone who’d turned up drunk to the church and whom we’d helped. Someone Caroline had taken pity on.’

  Another of her lame ducks. Someone like you. Jen thought about that. But really, you had nothing in common with Simon Walden. He was on the side of the angels.

  ‘Someone searched Walden’s flat after you dropped Christine at Lovacott. Was that you?’

  ‘No!’ Now he was crying.

  Jen couldn’t tell if they were tears of fear or frustration. They certainly weren’t tears for Simon Walden. ‘Where were you this afternoon?’

  ‘I was with Caroline this morning. Then I had a series of meetings with parishioners. People who wanted to organize baptisms and funerals. Their names and phone numbers will be in the office. You can call them, check.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then we spent the afternoon together.’ He paused. ‘Really, I couldn’t go through that again. The stress of picking up the woman and asking questions that she didn’t seem to understand. You don’t know what it was like. I was on the verge of a breakdown. I still dream about it.’

  And I expect she does too.

  ‘Someone tried to kill Lucy Braddick this evening,’ Jen said.

  ‘That wasn’t me!’ He screamed the words and she saw that he was unravelling, that his control and his reason were slipping away. She knew that she should stop the interview, before she pushed him over the edge. She didn’t believe that he’d killed Walden or attempted to drown Lucy. He didn’t have the courage or the strength to have hit Matthew on the head so hard that he was knocked out. They had his phone and that should give them some idea of his movements.

  She looked at her watch. ‘Interview terminated at two a.m.’ She stood up. She felt unclean, desperate for a shower. Suddenly, she didn’t want to be in the same room as him.

  He looked at her, suddenly calm. ‘You hate me. Now everyone will hate me.’

  She didn’t know what to say, then remembered a form of words used by one of the nuns who’d taught her. ‘I don’t hate you. I hate what you’ve done and what it led to.’

  She left the room and didn’t look back.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  ON THE WAY TO LOVACOTT, MATTHEW was still wired, fizzing. It was the end of the case, the shock of survival. There was no light at the front of the grand house on the square at Lovacott, but when Matthew leaned on the bell and Dennis Salter answered the door, he was fully clothed.

  ‘I expect you’re surprised to see me,’ Matthew said. ‘I should be dead.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Imperious. Dennis had always put on a good show. If Matthew was alive, he must know that Lucy would be safe too. Did Salter think she’d be so cowed she wouldn’t speak? Or that the authorities would take no notice of the evidence of a woman with a learning disability? And it had been so dark on the beach, he’d know Matthew wouldn’t have been able to identify the man who’d hit him, that he’d have no proof.

  ‘You’re up late,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve been visiting the sick.’

  ‘The same brother you had to take to A&E on the evening that Chrissie went missing?’

  ‘I’ve explained that Chrissie’s abduction had nothing to do with me. Really, Matthew, this is verging on harassment. Have you seen the time? As you say, it’s very late and I need my bed.’

  ‘We know that you didn’t abduct Chrissie. That’s one reason for the visit. To explain what happened.’

  Dennis looked at him warily. ‘I’m sure an apology could have waited until a reasonable hour.’

  ‘This is serious.’ Matthew felt his temper rip, pulled apart like threads on a torn piece of cloth. ‘I need to speak to you and to Grace.’

  ‘You can’t speak to Grace. She’s been in bed for hours.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me, Dennis.’ He knew he was yelling but now he didn’t care. ‘We’ve been watching the house. We know you both arrived home forty-five minutes ago. Now are you going to let me and my colleague in, or shall I continue shouting so we wake all the neighbours?’

  Dennis Salter stood aside and let them in. Grace was standing at the bottom of the stairs watching.

  ‘Shall we all go into the kitchen?’ Matthew said. Taking charge. Taking over their territory. ‘We’ll be more comfortable there and this might take a while. This time of night we could probably all use some coffee to stay awake.’ He pushed ahead of Dennis and through to the back of the house. It was as he remembered: a table covered with a green oilcloth, a couple of easy chairs and at the other end the kitchen proper with a stove and sink. The window was curtained, but he knew it looked out over a small walled garden, with a gate into an alley beyond. He sat at the table and nodded for Dennis and Grace to take the armchairs. Occasionally, after meetings, his father and Dennis Salter had drunk small tots of whisky here. His father had liked Salter, admired him; they’d been friends. That idea made Matthew feel ill. ‘Stick the kettle on, Ross.’

  He waited until the instant coffee had been made before speaking again. ‘I see you’re both wearing slippers. Very sensible to change as soon as you get into the house. I’m always trying to persuade Jonathan – my husband Jonathan – that would be a good habit to get into. Very Scandinavian.’ He knew he was rambling and wondered if that was the result of his blow to the head. A pause and a sip of seriously dreadful coffee. ‘My constable needs to see the shoes you were wearing when you arrived home this evening. Don’t move. He’ll find them himself, if you tell him where they’re likely to be.’

  Dennis and Grace shot a look at each other and Matthew knew that they’d been on the beach, tying up Lucy Braddick, dragging her below the tideline in the hope that she’d drown. There would be sand in the treads of their shoes, even if they’d wiped them carefully before coming into the house. He wondered briefly what his mother would make of that when the news got out, if it would dent in the slightest her faith in the Brethren. Or had she always guessed that Salter was a tyrant and a bully but been too frightened of upsetting the group to speak out? Had her loyalty to the Brethren been more important than anything he might have done? Ross left the room without waiting for them to speak.

  ‘Someone tried to kill me tonight,’ Matthew said.

  ‘And you think that was me? Really, Matthew, I think you must be mad. Your mother said that the stress of university made you ill. It seems this investigation has been too much for you too.’ Salter gave a strange little laugh.

  Matthew, who had never had a violent impulse in his life, pictured himself punching Salter; he imagined the dull crunch of his fist on bone and skin, the blood and the shards of bone protruding from the man’s face. But in that moment, he saw that was exactly what Salter wanted. He wanted to make Matthew crazy. Who would believe the allegations of a violent psychotic and a woman with Down’s syndrome? Was that how he’d controlled Grace all her life? With the threat that people would think she was mad if she spoke out against him?

  ‘Let me tell you a story.’ Matthew kept his voice even. The impulse to violence had passed, but he still felt charged, lightheaded, that he had the power of the story-teller, the preacher. The couple in front of him gave him their full attention; they were hooked. ‘Once upon a time a good man arrived in Barnstaple. He was sad and lost and thought he’d found salvation when he moved in with two young women. One was his project worker and one worked at the Woodyard Centre. He’d been weighed down by guilt because he’d killed a child in a road accident, but he started to turn his life around. He started to suspect that an abuse had taken place in the Woodyard. Perhaps he overheard a conversation between the perpetrator and his girlfriend when he first turned up at the church and they thought he was too drunk to understand what they were saying. Perhaps all his information cam
e from the woman with Down’s syndrome he befriended in the Woodyard cafe.’ He looked up. ‘This is a true story, so you must tell me where I go wrong.’

  He was aware of Ross coming back into the room. He held a pair of women’s trainers in one hand and men’s walking boots in the other. He slipped them into a large evidence bag and took off his gloves. He gave a brief nod to show there was sand on the soles. The Salters were still staring at Matthew, almost entranced, waiting for him to continue.

  ‘Simon Walden carried out his own investigations. Nobody took much notice of him. Who was he? A homeless alcoholic, who’d made a mess of his life. But he wanted to do something important, to make things right. What would you call that, Dennis? Atonement? A need for redemption?’ He looked at Salter, but still there was no response.

  ‘In the weeks before his death, Simon started to travel here, to Lovacott on the bus. At first, I thought that was to give him a chance to chat to Lucy. He’d recruited her to help him, because she was a friend of Rosa Holsworthy, the victim in the assault. And I’m sure they did chat through plans. But that wasn’t why he was making the trip. Each evening he’d get off the bus and sit in the pub over the square from here. The Golden Fleece. The landlady thought he was in love, waiting for a woman. And each evening he’d be disappointed when the woman failed to show and he’d just get the bus back to Barnstaple.’ Matthew saw that Ross was giving him his full attention too. Some of this story was new to him.

  ‘And Simon was waiting for a woman. But not for a lover.’ He paused and turned to Grace. ‘How did he even know you existed?’

  ‘Oh, Dennis talks about me,’ Grace said. There was an edge to her voice. ‘I’m part of the reason he’s so admired. The devoted wife at home. The wife with mental health problems he has to take care of. I’m part of the story.’

  ‘How did you first meet?’

  ‘He came here,’ she said, ‘when he knew Dennis was at a trustees meeting.’

  Dennis stared into the room; his face showed no emotion at all.

  ‘And he asked for your help, didn’t he, Grace? He didn’t realize how cruel Dennis could be, how controlling he was. He treated you like a strong woman, able to make your own decisions. He thought that once you knew what was going on, that Preece and Dennis had covered up the sexual assault of a vulnerable woman, you’d be ready to act.’

  ‘I said I couldn’t tell him anything,’ Grace said. ‘That there was nothing I could do.’

  ‘But he didn’t give up, did he? He said he’d be in The Fleece every evening until you were ready to talk to him. And the week before he died, you plucked up enough courage to go over there. Did you tell him what you knew?’

  ‘We went for a walk,’ she said. ‘Out to the pond where you found Chrissie; it still felt like winter then, just before the good weather came. There was thin ice on the water. Frost on the trees.’ She paused. ‘I couldn’t be seen talking to him in the pub. Someone would tell Dennis. They think so highly of him here in Lovacott. They think he’s a great man, a kind man.’ Again she allowed emotion, a sneer, into her voice.

  ‘And you told Simon what you knew?’

  She nodded. ‘I told him.’ She paused. ‘Simon was a good man. He wanted to do the right thing.’

  ‘Did Dennis find out that you’d spoken to him? Is that why Simon Walden had to die?’

  There was a silence. No traffic outside. No birdsong. Then Dennis’s voice, affable and persuasive as always. ‘You can’t trust what Grace says, Matthew. You know that. She’s always been emotionally frail and given to strange fancies.’

  ‘I told Dennis,’ Grace said. ‘He was here when I came back and he wanted to know where I’d been. I can’t lie to him. He knows when I’m not telling the truth. I don’t have my own life any more. He said I’d done a wicked thing, telling him our business. The man could wreck all the great work at the Woodyard. If he died, it would be a form of sacrifice. It would serve the greater good.’

  ‘I didn’t kill Simon Walden.’ Dennis was still confident and easy. ‘You know that, Matthew. I was celebrating your father’s life at his funeral. In front of your mother and many of their friends. I spent all morning with your mother. I felt that she needed my support.’ A pause. ‘As you weren’t there to give it. In different circumstances, if you were a more attentive son, you might have been at the service to vouch for me.’

  Matthew didn’t say that he had been there, at the chapel of rest, at least, and that he’d said goodbye to his father in his own way. ‘But you didn’t need to kill Simon Walden, did you, Dennis? You just had to let Grace know that it would be convenient if he died. As she said, you control her. Like a puppet-master. Like the king who let it be known that he wanted Thomas Becket killed in Canterbury, you set up the train of events that led to murder without getting your hands dirty yourself. Because your wife doesn’t have her own life any more. She hasn’t for years. She’s so terrified of you that she’ll do whatever you want.’ Matthew turned to the woman, his voice gentle. ‘What did you do, Grace? How did it work?’

  She turned away from her husband and started speaking. ‘Simon had given me his mobile number. I called him and told him that I’d found something that would incriminate the trustees. A copy of the cheque they’d given to Rosa’s mother. We arranged to meet.’

  ‘Why did you choose Crow Point?’

  ‘I used to go there with my parents. They had a little boat that they kept at Instow. We had picnics there when I was a girl. I thought it would be a good place to die. I would like to die there, listening to the wind and the waves.’

  ‘How did you get there?’

  ‘I drove there in Dennis’s car. He’d got a lift to the funeral with a friend. I can drive, although I seldom do these days. I’m a capable woman.’ A pause. ‘I was a capable woman.’

  ‘What about Christine? That was the day before she was snatched so she was here with you. She wasn’t at the Woodyard that day.’

  ‘I left her at home, watching television.’ Grace’s voice was very calm. ‘She was happy enough and I knew it wouldn’t take long. I’d be back before Dennis was home.’

  ‘So, you drove to Braunton. What happened next?’

  ‘I didn’t drive down the toll road,’ Grace said. ‘Dennis had become friendly with a couple who lived in the cottage there and I thought they might recognize the car. I parked at the other side of the point, the seaward side, behind the dunes at Braunton Burrows, and I walked from there. Simon was waiting for me. I saw him in the distance. He was looking out.’ She lifted her head. ‘I think Dennis is right and I’m mad. I must be mad.’

  Matthew pictured her, lanky and awkward, with her scarecrow straw hair and her staring eyes, walking over the sand towards the man she was going to kill.

  ‘I knew nothing of this.’ Dennis spoke for the first time since Matthew had begun his story. His voice was as Matthew remembered from his childhood. Deep and rich. The sound of God. ‘Of course I wasn’t pleased that Grace had gone behind my back to speak to Walden about our affairs, but I didn’t threaten her. It’s ridiculous to suggest that I asked her to kill him.’

  Grace ignored him. It was as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘I’d brought a knife with me; it was in my bag. An ordinary kitchen knife. I sharpened it before I left home. I wanted it over quickly.’ She looked up at Matthew. ‘It was over quickly. He had no idea what was happening.’

  ‘And when it was over, what did you take from Simon’s body?’

  ‘Anything that might identify him. His phone and his wallet. A letter with his address on. An address in Braunton.’ Grace looked up. ‘You see, Matthew, I was thinking quite clearly at that point. Perhaps I wasn’t mad after all. There can be no excuse.’

  ‘Did you take a key from Simon’s body?’

  ‘Yes, there was a key. I brought it home. I haven’t seen it since.’

  ‘What did you do then?’ Matthew felt suddenly relaxed, almost disengaged. This was almost over. Soon he’d be back at the house on the shore with J
onathan. They’d lie in their bed and watch the sun come up over the marsh.

  ‘I drove the car back here. I arrived just before Dennis. I told him what I’d done.’

  ‘What did Dennis say?’ Matthew tried to picture that. Grace opening the door for her husband, sand on her shoes, blood on her hands. The meeting in the dark hall, the explanation. And all the time Christine Shapland had been in the kitchen at the back of the house, watching television. Had the man been pleased? Or horrified?

  ‘He said that we should pray.’

  There was another silence, deep and dense. Matthew couldn’t bring himself to ask what they’d prayed for. Forgiveness? Walden’s soul? Or that they wouldn’t be found out?

  ‘Where have you been this evening?’ Matthew made the words conversational, a polite enquiry to cover his anger.

  ‘We were out to dinner with friends.’ Dennis would take over now. This was dangerous for him. In Lucy Braddick’s attempted murder he was at least as involved as his wife and he would have constructed a story. Perhaps he’d convinced himself in part that it was true. But then Matthew had blundered in, climbing the dune. He would have found Lucy if the clouds had parted to let the moonlight through. But this wasn’t about him.

  ‘Which friends?’

  ‘Colin and Hilary Marston. You might know them. You’re almost neighbours. They’re newcomers to the area, but Colin has become a valuable part of the Woodyard.’

  Matthew nodded. It was too soon to tell him that the Marstons had been picked up in Exeter, and though they might have let him use their house, Salter couldn’t implicate them in the attempted murders. That could wait for a formal interview.

  ‘Your car was seen, driving off at speed, from a parking spot behind a bank of trees. Not long after I was assaulted. Can you explain that?’

  A pause. Was Salter starting to realize that he wouldn’t be able to escape this time, that his power and his charm would no longer be enough? ‘There must be a mistake, Matthew. That wasn’t us.’