Once she had escaped from the restaurant, she ran to her car, opened all the windows and drove home too fast, mouth dry, her scalp contracting. The sky was clear, the moon bright and high. A fox darted at the side of the verge, eyes glinting. The headlights picked out foaming white hawthorn blossom. She went over what Ali had said about Mortimer. There was nothing she could do about his dashed hopes for his protégé but it added an angle to station politics that she could have done without. It proved that her instincts about Ali were right. She could trust him.
She switched on the radio and listened to a poetry programme. Her heart eased. If only there was a magic potion to heal it.
* * *
It was a glorious, still evening. Alan Vine had walked Monty to the stretch of river nearest to his home, nowhere near the crime scene. The dog was sniffing around the reeds while Vine sat on the grass, watching him. Blackbirds, jays and crows were busy. A flowering currant scented the air. Creamy yellow wild primroses were scattered around.
Vine leaned back on his elbows. Things were shaping up. He’d had several pints and a long chat with Mike Shelton, who was already nicely oiled by the time Vine got to the pub. Mike had filled in some gaps about a little girl called Sophie. Despite the booze, he had an amazing memory. The alcohol had made Vine so sleepy that when he got home he’d snoozed the afternoon away on the sofa. The late-afternoon sun had woken him, beating on his eyes. He’d roused himself and found that he’d been drooling on the cushion. He’d splashed his face with water, got out his old phone book and found the name and number easily enough. He thought about what he’d say over his fish and chips, and when he’d washed up he dialled the number.
They’d spoken for about ten minutes and the information he gave certainly created interest. He was gratified that his call was being taken seriously and treated with courtesy and respect. A meeting had been arranged and he’d agreed to keep it confidential for now because of the sensitive nature of the matter.
The business had energized him. It was good to have something different from the usual run-of-the-mill stuff to think about.
He called to the dog and set off for home, a spring in his step. Life in the old dog yet, he thought.
* * *
For once, Siv had slept in. She came to slowly, and saw that it was almost 9 a.m. She panicked for a moment and then remembered it was a bank holiday. She lay for a few minutes, listening to the silence. Even the river was quiet. No dreams about Ed last night.
It might be a public holiday but the team would be working. She showered, made tea and toast and carried her breakfast outside. She could see Corran and Paul busy in their vegetable garden. While she ate, she opened the envelope Visser had given her and worked through the scant documents it contained. A birth certificate for Susan Nicola Farthing, born in Berminster in 1962 to Harold Farthing and Marie Sampson. Death certificates for Harold and Marie in 1972 and 1983 respectively. So just like her daughter, Susan had been left on her own at a comparatively young age. A handful of exam certificates showing O Level passes, a first-aid certificate from the Red Cross, notification of a degree awarded from the Open University in 1995 — a BA in Modern History and a Sorry You’re Leaving card with balloons on the front and half a dozen signatures inside. No family letters. Nothing about Lauren’s father.
She opened the photo album. There were a couple of pages of black-and-white photos showing a solemn-looking girl, presumably Susan with her parents. Harold had a denim shirt and Marie sported a beehive hairdo and a dress with a mandarin collar. The sixties had knocked on Berminster’s door. Then colour started to creep in with some photos of Susan on her own, her long mousy hair gradually becoming shorter and her puppy fat disappearing. She’d certainly grown into her looks and by the time she was an adult she was a pretty, shy-looking woman. A couple of photos of Susan holding a baby — who had taken those? — and then images almost exclusively of Lauren. A mixture of school shots and others in a back garden. One with her mother sitting under trees on a tartan rug with a picnic basket and some on what could be Cliffdean Point with the wide sky behind her. Judging by the size and colour shades, quite a few may have been taken with an Instamatic. Lauren shared her mother’s serious expression but she’d never had puppy fat.
Siv finished her tea, now cold, and watched Paul trundle a wheelbarrow. The sun was hot in the cloudless sky and he stopped to don a peaked cap. She looked up Monkmere garage and checked the opening times, then washed up and tidied the kitchen, which took all of five minutes.
She arrived at the garage as it opened at 10.30 a.m. It was a sprawling site on the outskirts of town with a huge showroom and repair centre. A young man was polishing the already gleaming cars on the forecourt and directed her to an office inside the showroom, telling her she needed to speak to Mark Lamport.
He was in his sixties, spruce in a suit that was on the big side and warm-looking for the day. ‘Is it just me or are detectives getting younger?’ he asked jovially, waving her to a cushioned chrome chair.
‘Just you, I should think.’ Maybe she should have changed into one of her suits, rather than wearing jeans and a shirt. ‘I’m making enquiries about a Susan Farthing and her daughter, Lauren. I understand that Susan used to work here, over twenty years ago.’
He linked his broad fingers together in front of his chest. He had hairy knuckles and raised blue veins. ‘Indeed she did. Long time ago, though. Haven’t seen Sue in years.’
‘What did she do here?’ Siv asked.
‘Book keeping, invoices, all the routine paperwork. She was like my right arm. I didn’t want to lose her but she wouldn’t stay.’
‘Why not?’
He made a circular motion over his stomach. ‘She got preggers. I was taken aback, I can tell you. She worked until she was about six months gone, then she handed in her notice. She wasn’t married so I wondered what was going on and how she’d manage for money, but she never talked about personal stuff.’
‘She never mentioned the father?’
‘Nope. I was kind of shocked, to be honest. Not because she wasn’t married or anything like that but she was a quiet, buttoned-down type, thoughtful and hard-working. Never saw her flirting with anyone. She’d never come for a drink with the others, just one spritzer at Christmas. I’d have thought she’d have wanted a ring on her finger before she had a child, but maybe it was just one of those things.’
‘So you didn’t think that the father might be someone who worked here?’ Or maybe even you.
His bushy eyebrows shot up. ‘Never crossed my mind. Sue arrived sharp at nine in the morning and left at five on the dot. And as I said, she very much kept herself to herself.’
‘Did you see her again after she left?’
‘Just the once. She called in with the baby. Little girl. Very proud mum, I can tell you!’
‘Did anyone else here keep in touch with her?’ Siv asked.
‘Doubt it. She was the only girl, and you know blokes . . . we’re not ones for knit and natter. How is Sue? What’s this all about anyway?’
‘She died five years ago. Her daughter, Lauren Visser, was murdered last Monday.’
He rocked back in his chair. ‘Oh my God! I saw the news about that on the telly. Never realized there was a connection. That’s terrible!’
‘Yes, it is. I was hoping you or someone else here might know more about Susan’s personal life.’
He raised his hands and dropped them. ‘Sorry. I know it sounds awful, because Sue worked here for more than ten years, but she wasn’t one for talking about herself, and that was fine with me because I prefer just getting on with the work. Before Sue came here, we had a girl called Tracey who never shut up, bonked most of the staff and was always taking days off. Now, if you’d told me she’d got preggers at work I’d have believed you. It’s busy here so I need people who keep their heads down and graft.’
He was glancing over her shoulder at the forecourt and she took the hint and left. There was a thought worrying at the
corner of her mind. She wasn’t sure if it was something she’d seen or heard. She was thinking of driving to the beach for a walk when an urgent call from the station changed the shape of the day.
* * *
Kitty Fairway both loved and loathed bank holidays. It was good to see people getting out into the fresh air and enjoying nature. But so many of them didn’t know how to behave in these ancient and beautiful woods. They left litter, allowed their dogs off the lead, threw food to wild birds, picked wild flowers, used barbecues and let their children paddle in the wildlife ponds. Secretly, she wished that the car park and that bloody ice-cream van with its tinny rendering of ‘Greensleeves’ could be removed, so that the woods wouldn’t be a destination for day-trippers. Let them go to the beach or the park. But that would be doing herself out of a job, and Kitty loved her job and felt lucky to have it.
She loved the woods most in the early morning and late evening, when the visitors had gone and she could roam around, observing the badger sett, listening to the wood pigeons and smiling at the stupidity of the pheasants. Most evenings found her in the secluded northern boundary of the woods, among the dappled shade and soft fronds of the ferns. A palette of every shade of green lay at her feet. She’d researched ferns for her degree in environmental studies and was monitoring the growth and health of a variety of the plants beneath the canopy of oak trees. Their cool greens entranced her, the way the dim light played through them, some lacy, some fan-like or tongue-shaped, others leathery or tapering. In this growing season, she was keeping an eye on the bracken in case she needed to remove some to prevent it dominating the more delicate plants.
She sat for fifteen minutes with Dan and Mia, discussing the activities they were running between eleven and three. Dan was organizing Nature Tots and butterfly-themed face painting and Mia was in charge of the obstacle course in the adventure playground and the stick-whittling. Satisfied that they were on top of things, she headed to the log store and filled a wheelbarrow with wood to take to the frog pond, intending to place the logs around the edges to provide shade and shelter. She navigated past two small boys using sticks as swords and took the path to the pond.
Once she was among the trees, she looked up at the bursting leaves. The days were opening out and stretching, the nights growing soft and warm. The fox cubs would be weaned by now. She felt a surge of joy and vigour. She took off her gilet, threw it on top of the wheelbarrow and trundled on.
It was quiet at the pond, with most children attracted to the activities in the play cabins at the car park. Later, Dan would bring the Nature Tots group here to look at tadpoles. There was a woman and two small children at the far end, peering down into the water, the woman pointing. She noticed that one of the children had a net. She’d have a word about that in a minute. She placed logs at intervals, securing them into the silt. She worked along the edge of the pond, lifting and stooping, saving the last chunks of wood for the area by the thick, tall bulrushes, heavy with their fat catkins. She took the last of the logs, stepped towards the bulrushes ready to position them, and froze.
There was a man there, covered in blood, and she knew his rigid, contorted face. He was lying in the strap-shaped leaves and supported by them, as if he had made a bed in the strong, grey green foliage. But he wasn’t going to wake.
Chapter Twenty-three
The car park at Halse woods was full when Siv arrived, the area teeming with families having a sunny bank holiday outing and participating in the activities. Children were darting and yelling, kicking footballs and swarming in the adventure playground. Ali turned up while she was instructing uniform colleagues to clear the woods and car park, get everyone’s name and address before allowing them to go, and then lock the gates.
‘This is a nightmare,’ Ali said, ‘people trampling everywhere. Forensics are on their way. No Steve, he’s in France.’
They donned protective gear and took the path through beech trees to the pond. It was surrounded for half its circumference by a raised, decked walkway from where visitors could survey the wildlife. The body was just beyond the end of the walkway where dense hazel and holly hedging formed a border. Alan Vine lay amid a mass of bulrushes, cradled by them and half concealed by the arching green leaves. He was face up, his expression a grimace, his neck and chest torn and bloody.
‘Rigor has started in the face.’ Siv looked at the gashes. ‘A knife or scissors.’
‘Same killer then.’
‘I think we work with that for now. He’d found something out, or our killer thought he had.’
Dr Anand and his team were arriving. Siv and Ali moved out of the way and walked back to where Kitty Fairway was sitting at the base of a vast oak tree that rested on a root like a doorstep. Siv and Ali sat on either side of her. Her wellies were covered in dried mud and there were damp patches on her jeans. Her face was drained, with the dramatic paleness of a redhead’s skin, but she was composed, her voice just a touch unsteady.
‘Thank goodness I found the body and not one of the children. There’s a group of little ones coming up here later. That would have been terrible.’
‘Are you okay to talk to us?’ Siv asked.
‘Yes, of course.’
Siv nodded. ‘That’s good. Were you here last night?’
‘Yes, I locked the gates at ten.’
‘Was anyone still here?’
‘Not that I know of. There could have been people around, I suppose, but the car park was empty.’
‘Did you see or hear anything suspicious before you left?’ Siv asked.
‘No. It got really quiet after about eight-ish.’
‘Take us through what happened from when you arrived here today,’ Siv said. ‘Were there any cars around here this morning?’
‘I was the first one here at seven fifteen and I unlocked the gates. I didn’t see any cars. Dan and Mia, my colleagues who are working with me today, arrived at half seven. It’s busy on bank holidays so we have extra people on shift. I made a pot of coffee when I got here and then filled the bird feeders and did some prep for the day with Dan and Mia. We’re running kids’ activities as part of the May festival. People started arriving soon after I did. We get the early-morning walkers and joggers, or people who just like to be here before it gets crowded. Families don’t usually start arriving until around half ten. I came up here around half eleven to check the frogspawn and the hatching tadpoles. Sometimes people try to take some and we discourage that, so I like to keep an eye open. I was stacking logs along the edge for the developing frogs.’
‘Was anyone around?’
‘A woman and two little ones. Luckily, they were at the other end of the pond. I was carrying logs past the bulrushes when I glanced down and saw him. Mr Vine.’ She brushed a hand across her face.
‘How did you know him?’
‘He lives nearby. He walks his dog here sometimes, and he was interested in talking about our plans and the different areas we cultivate. I thought he was a bit lonely. It was hard to close the conversation at times. I haven’t seen his dog, so I don’t think that’s why he was here.’
‘Did you see Mr Vine come into the woods?’
‘No. You could ask my colleagues.’
‘You can access the woods on foot at any time, right?’ Ali said.
‘Yes. The gates are really about access to and from the car park. We don’t want people trying to stay overnight. There are paths across the fields and of course the bridleway. So at least five other ways in.’ She pressed her hands together. Her fingers were mucky, the nails ingrained with soil. ‘That poor man. I wonder if he has any family.’
‘We’ll find out.’
‘That’s three murders in a week, isn’t it?’ She stared at Siv. ‘And in peaceful places that should be safe and restful. Places of sanctuary.’
‘I’m afraid so. I’m afraid also that we’ll have to disturb your pond in a search for the murder weapon. You can go now,’ Siv said. ‘We won’t be allowing anyone near here for th
e time being. You should take the afternoon off. Do you need a lift?’
‘No, thanks. I have my bike. I need to be on my own for a bit.’
‘What about when you get home?’
‘I’m in a flat share in town. It’s okay, I won’t be on my own for long.’
They watched her walk back towards the warden’s office, a slight figure with bent head.
‘Poor wee thing, she’s in shock,’ Ali said.
‘I’m not surprised. And she’s right. Murder is always a desecration but the killings at the river and here — it seems worse, somehow.’
They approached Rey Anand, who was on one knee by the edge of the bulrushes. He rose when he heard them, peering over his glasses.
‘Rigor is established throughout the body, so I would estimate that he died late last night. The stab wounds have been made with a thinner blade than that used at Lock Lane. There are some defence wounds this time, on the palm of the right hand and right forearm. That’s all I can say for now.’
‘Vine had been in the army, he’d have tried to defend himself,’ Siv said as they walked back to the car park. ‘He must have arrived here by foot, as did his killer.’
‘Do you still think this is linked to Lauren’s mum in some way? We’ve found no connection between her and Vine,’ Ali said.
She looked at him. ‘I have absolutely no idea, not the foggiest. Remind me, the background checks into Vine didn’t bring up anything of concern, did they?’
‘Nope. Ex-army, then worked at the Tesco in Bere Place until he retired. Nothing to indicate he’d ever crossed paths with Lauren or Rimas, and he’s never been married or had a child.’
‘Okay. I’m going to go and check out Vine’s home, see if there’s anyone who might be missing him. The rest of the team are coming into the office, so can you get them organized, have some of them here? I want Vine’s description publicized. Ask if anyone saw him or anything suspicious in Halse woods last night. And can you talk to Kitty’s two colleagues and the woman she saw at the pond earlier?’
These Little Lies Page 23