He loaded the washing machine — how come a six- and an eight-year-old produced so much dirty clothing? — stuck a couple of potatoes in the microwave, grated a hunk of cheese and opened a can of baked beans. He leaned back against the counter, downed the cider and watched the spuds spinning. The hand holding the can trembled. What a day . . . If it’s not one thing, it’s another. He’d seen Jock Keyes when he was delivering a parcel late afternoon. The man had been walking along the street, head down, a crumpled carrier bag hooked on one finger. Jock had gone completely grey now. Hardly surprising with his son banged up for a long stretch. Bertie’s heart had started thumping. He’d got back in the van and closed his eyes for a bit, then drank a bottle of water straight down, as if he’d reached an oasis in the desert. Just as he’d got a grip and started the engine, he’d had a call from the police about Henry.
Bertie paused the microwave and turned the potatoes. If only he could have moved away to a place where no one knew him. Consigning bad memories to the past. A real fresh start. But he was well and truly trapped here, and the kids needed him. They stayed with him now for two nights a week. He was lucky that his ex had forgiven him. Some exes would have been tricky about access after a jail sentence, but she had a new man and it suited her to have the kids gone regularly.
He knocked back the last of the cider. God, he’d gone from hero to zero in the blink of an eye — from prison officer at HMP Berminster to being detained himself for almost two years at Her Majesty’s pleasure.
His job at the prison had suited him down to the ground. He’d liked wearing a uniform and being part of a team, the tight structure. He had a weak nature though, and he’d always been something of an outsider, one of those people others took for granted. In the prison, he’d been able to blend in and play his part, head down. You didn’t need to be talented or witty or a bit of a character. You just turned up, stuck to the rules and did the hours. And all of that had been fine until the day when, supervising the library visits, he’d been taken to one side and reminded of his past associates. He could no longer play by the rules, at least not the official ones.
Since then, he’d been like a fly caught in a web, and he’d learned that if he tried to struggle, he’d become even deeper enmeshed. Ever since he’d finished his sentence last autumn, while he might have been released from his cell, he was still a captive, long term with no parole in sight. He did as he was told, kept appointments and passed messages, still working for the prison, but this time for the inmates. He’d never be free of it, but he’d told himself that if he kept his head down, he’d be OK. Look how well that was going. Now the police were back in his life, thanks to Henry. He’d just have to tread carefully. He flicked open another cider.
He split the cooked potatoes, loaded them with cheese and stuck them in the oven to brown. There was a loud thump from the living room, followed by a pitiful cry of ‘Daaaaad!’ He went through, calmed the fuss and sat between his daughters on the ropy old sofa. He was sure he could smell mud in here.
‘Dad, your telly is so small,’ Carrie said.
‘Haven’t you heard that small is beautiful, like you two?’ He kissed the top of her head. She was a pernickety child. Last week, she’d complained that his flat was smelly and yucky. Well, she was right. He winked at Alice, who was staring at him anxiously.
He leaned his head back on the worn fabric and gazed at the uneven ceiling. At least he had the warmth and weight of his children within his grasp.
Chapter 6
Bartel was making rye bread — his Polish grandmother’s recipe. He’d treated himself to a bread maker, but after a few failed attempts that had been discarded quite quickly in favour of the tried and trusted method of kneading the dough with his huge hands for a few minutes.
‘My babcia would be disgusted with me for even thinking about using a machine, but she’s not mending roofs all day in the freezing wind. And, of course, she’s right.’
Siv was eating a thick slice of the bread he’d baked the previous day, topped with Oscypek, a smoked cheese made of sheep’s milk. Polska, the Polish centre in town, had a little shop where emigrants needing a taste of home clustered. She’d layered the cheese with the dill pickles that Bartel’s mother had sent him and washed the feast down with tea. Bartel had offered her a malty golden lager from Krakow, and she’d eyed it but refused — reluctantly — in case she was needed later. She’d intended to call in briefly for a pit stop and a quick cuppa because she hadn’t seen Bartel for a couple of weeks, but it was never that simple with him. You always had to eat and drink, and if you could be merry too, that was encouraged. His glass was always half-full, and no matter how low Siv’s mood, her heart lightened when she saw his tank-like frame. They’d met when she’d been investigating murders by the river. Bartel fished there and he’d provided useful information. Now, it felt as if she’d always known him.
He’d bought and moved into this small Victorian house in the Poets’ Piece area of the town in mid-December and spent Christmas dismantling and renovating the kitchen. He’d replaced the damaged cabinets and worktops and was repairing the original floor tiles. He was a huge man, tall and powerfully built. Siv had wondered how he’d manage in these narrow spaces designed for smaller people, but he got by, and he was planning to knock through the two downstairs rooms.
‘There!’ He put a cloth over the dough and left it to rise, then made himself an open sandwich and brought it to the table with his lager. The cat, who’d turned up one day in late December and adopted him, stalked in and jumped onto his lap. Bartel had named him Pumpkin because he was a rich mix of gingery fur. Siv noted his colouring was rather similar to Toby Foxwell’s.
‘You got through the funeral, madame?’
‘It was OK, but Mutsi turned up with Mortimer.’
Bartel caught a slice of pickle and dropped it in his mouth. His pointed reddish beard glowed in the light. ‘She’s like a pimple. Pops up when you don’t want her.’
Siv smiled. ‘Exactly.’
Bartel put his head to one side and rubbed the bald dome of his head. ‘She’s not going away.’
‘No. At least, not for a while. Her pace has slowed with age.’
‘So, you have to deal with the problem.’
‘You think I’ve been ignoring it?’
Bartel pursed his lips. ‘Hiding from it, maybe. You might make your peace with her sometime. It’s not healthy to be on bad terms with your mother.’
Siv chewed on a crust. There was so much history. If this were a book, Bartel had only got through half a page; she doubted it would have a happy ending.
‘Reconciliation has to work both ways, and I can’t see Mutsi wanting to be friends — or, at least, not for long. If there was peace, I’d always be expecting her to tear up the treaty and conduct a surprise attack. There’s a constant hidden agenda with my mother. You’ll find that hard to understand.’
‘That’s true. But I can see it’s a problem now that she’s cosying up to your boss. Do you reckon that will last?’
Siv considered all the men Mutsi had romanced down the years. All the ‘uncles’ she and her older sister, Rik, had been introduced to. They’d usually lasted at least six months. The longest relationship had been with Bjork von Essen, a baronet who lived in Helsinki. He didn’t care for children, so Mutsi had dumped Siv and Rik with their father in Berminster before she married him. Siv had never met the baronet, but she’d always been grateful to him because he’d inadvertently secured her a stable adolescence, after a chaotic, hither-and-thither childhood.
She ticked her boss’s advantages off on her fingers. ‘Mortimer’s got a boat, which Mutsi can grandly refer to as a yacht. He has a handsome house with sea views near Cliffdean Point. A good salary and attractive pension prospects. And he’s besotted with her, for some reason — can’t believe his luck. Mutsi’s not getting any younger and she must worry that her sell-by-date is approaching. So, it might work out, as long as she doesn’t decide he’s boring, m
ean or selfish — her usual criteria for moving on when it suits her.’
Bartel scratched his beard, then took a bite out of a slice of yesterday’s loaf. ‘This bread needed a couple of minutes longer in the oven.’
‘Tastes fine to me.’
‘Says the woman who never cooks.’
‘Lies. I make scrambled eggs and I heat things in the microwave.’
Bartel tutted. ‘Appalling. No wonder your bones show through your skin. Have more cheese.’
‘No more cheese, but I’ll eat another pickle. They’re amazing.’
‘My mother puts in extra mustard seeds. Fire in your belly for January.’
‘If Mutsi gave me home-made pickles — which is about as likely as the Pope converting to Judaism — they’d probably make me ill. She often neglected me as a child. She was more like a wicked stepmother in one of your tales than a mother.’
Bartel reached over and patted the back of Siv’s hand. ‘Mutsi’s the glamorous witch, the one who seems trustworthy, but has gone to the dark side. Have I ever told you the story of ‘The Hare’s Heart’? I don’t believe so.’ He coughed, patted his chest.
He was ready to tell her one of his long folk tales. Really, she should ring Patrick and Ali, catch up with them. But the funeral had knocked her back and it was warm and cosy in the kitchen, the yeasty bread mix smelling like home. Pumpkin had shifted to Siv’s lap and was weighing her down as he dozed. It would be cruel to wake him. So, she sat back, eased her feet up on a chair, so as not to disturb the cat, and listened to Bartel’s sonorous voice.
‘Many years ago, a large castle stood on an island in the middle of the River Vistula. A rich, proud knight lived in the castle. A trumpet sounded over the entrance gate whenever he returned victorious from battle.
‘His prisoners were kept in the castle’s dark dungeons. They were forced to work hard. Among them were an old woman and her husband. The old woman was a witch, and she was determined to take revenge on the knight. She waited for an opportunity to find him alone.
‘One day the knight returned to the castle and fell asleep on the grass outside. The witch crept from her hiding place and sprinkled poppy seeds over his eyes to make him dream deeply. Then she struck him on his chest with a twig of an aspen tree. The knight’s chest opened, and the wicked witch could see his brave heart beating. The malicious woman took out the heart so quickly with her bony fingers that the poor knight never woke. Then she put in its place the heart of a hare, closed the opening, hid herself among the thick bushes, and waited.
‘When the knight woke, he realised his heart had grown timid. He, who had never been afraid, now trembled. As soon as he got up, he heard, with terror, the barking of the dogs. He ran away like a frightened hare. As he fled to his room, the clatter of his armour alarmed him so much that he threw it away. From then on, he was terrified of everything.
‘After a time, the knight’s enemies besieged his castle. He heard the roar of fighting and he fled to the ramparts and trembled at the sight. He shook from head to toe, and he ran and hid in the deepest vault. His army, however, was victorious. His soldiers searched for their cowardly leader and they found him in a cellar, half-dead from despair.
‘The unhappy knight did not live long. One day, he opened his window that he might breathe fresh air. A martin, which had built its nest near the roof, caught him on the head with its wing. The poor knight fell down, as if struck by lightning, and died.
‘A year afterwards, when some witches were being punished for spoiling crops, one of them confessed that she had removed the knight’s heart and put a hare’s heart in its place. Then the people understood how a once courageous knight had become a coward. They wept bitter tears over his cruel fate, and, as a punishment, burned the wicked witch over his grave.’
Bartel smiled as he finished his story and fingered one of his gold earrings. ‘I can guess what you’re going to say. The witch was misunderstood.’
‘Too right. The knight was a show-off and cruel to his prisoners. She was a clever old woman who beat him at his own game. Also, she made the punishment fit the crime. I like that.’
Bartel threw his hands up in the air. ‘The magic of my tales is lost on you.’
‘I love them. I wonder why she caved in and confessed.’
‘Perhaps she was questioned by someone like you, madame. She had nowhere to hide.’
Siv’s phone rang. Patrick. She put Pumpkin on the floor, much to his disgust, and stepped into the hallway to take the call.
‘Guv, hi, I’m at Ms Kilgore’s. She knows our dead guy. He’s called Eugene Warren. He and Henry were at school together, so are about the same age. She hasn’t seen him for ages, says he’d moved away from the area. As far as she can tell, Henry lost touch with him once they left school and he never mentioned him. Warren’s parents are dead, but he has a sister, Tara, in Berminster. Shall I find her?’
‘Leave that to me. Is Ms Kilgore OK?’
‘Bit shaky. Last time I checked, there was no news of her son, but IDing Warren has thrown her a bit.’
Siv saw the time and was guilty because she’d been chatting cosily with Bartel. ‘Make sure Ms Kilgore is all right, then go home. You’ve had a long day.’
She rang off, feeling clear-headed now that there was a link between these two men. She leaned against the grubby woodchip wallpaper, searching for Tara Warren in the phone directory and saw that she lived just four streets away from Bartel. When she called Ali, Siv could tell immediately from the background music that he was in Nutmeg. He didn’t like his own company and often hung out there when Polly was on an evening shift.
‘Uniforms visited Bertie Greene,’ he reported. ‘No sign of Henry Kilgore and Greene confirmed that he never showed up last night.’
‘Wasn’t he worried?’
‘Apparently not. He had his kids staying and was glad that he could get to bed. He said Kilgore sounded drunk, so he assumed he’d gone home to sleep it off. Uniforms walked the likely route that Kilgore would have taken to Greene’s. It’s a little network of side streets with no CCTV. There’s a tiny pocket park at one point, Larch Dell, with a kids’ playground. They didn’t find anything. Greene’s got form, by the way. Used to be a prison officer, but he did time for smuggling mobile phones to inmates. He’s been out a couple of months.’
She told him Patrick’s news.
‘Maybe Kilgore killed this Warren and now he’s done a runner,’ Ali said with relish.
Despite having had the same idea herself, she warned him, ‘No jumping to conclusions. I’ll meet you at Ms Warren’s. She lives in Milton Road.’
She gave Ali the address and went to say goodbye to Bartel, who was feeding Pumpkin tiny bits of cheese and singing softly to him in Polish.
* * *
Tara Warren lived in a compact first-floor flat. She was quiet, in shock after hearing the news of her brother’s death, walking in circles around her sofa. Siv felt a little dizzy watching her. Ali had made three mugs of tea and Siv was relieved when he brought them in from the kitchen and Tara finally sat down.
Tara stared into her mug. She kept stirring it, as if mesmerised by the swirling liquid. ‘I don’t get it. Why would Eugene have been here? He hasn’t been in town for years. He didn’t even come back for our parents’ funerals.’
Where was he living?’ Siv asked.
‘No idea.’ Tara had a low, whispery voice. ‘I’ve never had an address or phone number. Just an email.’
Siv could see that Ali was mystified by this. In his world, families clung to each other like burrs. His were farmers in Derry, but he was in frequent contact with them, as if they lived up the road. He spoke to them most nights, conversations that often lasted for more than an hour. He knew the price of livestock in their local market. Siv occasionally had brief email conversations with Rik, her sister, but knew almost nothing about her personal life, only that she lived in Auckland and had mentioned an interest in aromatherapy. Rik hadn’t returned for Ed’s or
their father’s funerals. She had her reasons for living on the other side of the world and Siv understood them. There were usually deep-seated causes for fractured families, and it was possible that Eugene Warren’s death was rooted in old feuds.
She asked, ‘How was your brother’s relationship with the family? You said he didn’t go to your parents’ funerals. Had they argued?’
Tara lifted some tea in the spoon and dribbled it back into the mug. ‘Argued? No, not really. He sort of detached himself. It was just the four of us — him, me and our parents. He was such a sweet, happy-go-lucky little boy. We got on well, but then he seemed to change overnight . . . turned into a stroppy teenager. There were the usual disagreements about loud music and staying out too late. But it was as if his personality altered. He became unhappy, dissatisfied. He started to moan that Berminster was a backward dump, and said when he left home he was never coming back. It just seemed like the kind of thing bolshie adolescents say, but he stuck to his word. He’s never been back, not since he left suddenly, the May before he was due to finish school. He just bailed out on his A levels.’
‘Were your parents in touch with him?’
‘They couldn’t get hold of him other than trying his email, and he never answered those. His phone number was disconnected. They were terribly upset, but what could they do? Mum died a year after he left, Dad five years ago. There was some inheritance for Eugene, and I emailed him about it, but he didn’t respond. When I moved in here last summer, I sent him my new address, just in case, but there was no reply.’ She shrugged. ‘I never imagined I’d end up in my twenties with my parents dead and my brother murdered.’
MURDER IN MALLOW COTTAGE an addictive crime thriller with a twist you won’t see coming (Detective Inspector Siv Drummond Book 3) Page 7