There was nothing.
She took a deep breath.
‘I went to school today, Mum,’ she said. ‘I thought it might help to follow my usual routine.’ She laughed. ‘I know you often think I’m not spontaneous enough, and sometimes I even agree with you – I’m half-Spanish, so just where is my fiery Spanish temperament? – but we are what we are, and what I am is a very orderly person. I find routine soothing. I can’t help it.’ She paused. ‘And it’s a good job one of us is orderly, isn’t it, Mum, or goodness knows what kind of a mess we’d have found ourselves in by now.’
She stood up, and walked over to the window. The hospital was built on a rise, and from there, she could see quite a lot of the town. It wasn’t much of a place, she thought, really not much of a place at all.
People were always complaining that there was nothing to do and nothing to see. And she agreed with them, in many ways. Yet when she’d been offered the possibility of escape – been offered not just a place at Cambridge, but a scholarship – she’d turned it down, partly because she really did want to be a police officer, but partly because she didn’t want to leave Whitebridge behind.
She went back to the bed.
‘I did playground duty, Mum,’ she said. ‘Well, it was my turn. And I saw something really interesting. There was this group of girls of very different ages in this really serious conversation, and I know for a fact that one of them – you don’t know her – virtually never speaks to anybody. In fact, she reminds me a lot of Mary Green. Mary doesn’t – didn’t – ever really want to join in with things. She didn’t work very hard, either. I’m sure she was at least as bright as John, but while he’s always been near the top of the class, she’s seemed happy just to coast along. And that’s strange, isn’t it, considering how close they are?’
A moan – as deep and miserable as any moan was ever likely to be – drifted down the corridor and through the door.
Louisa shivered, and though the room was not cold, she turned up the collar of her blazer.
‘And then the strangest thing happened, Mum,’ she continued. ‘John Green went over to the girls, and suddenly all their worries seemed to just melt away. Do you think that’s because he’s so good looking that they just go gooey at the sight of him? Or do you think it’s something else? Does he have the power to inspire calm? Because some people do, you know.’
There’d been absolutely no change in her mother since she’d entered the room, she thought. She’d talked about her day, and tried to make it interesting, but she might just as well have talked mumbo-jumbo.
She might just as well not have been there at all!
That’s not true, she told herself. Even if Mum can’t hear me – or can hear me, but can’t make any sense of the words – I’m sure it helps her that I’m here.
‘I want you to get better, Mum,’ she said, feeling her lower lip tremble as she spoke. ‘I want you to get better – because if you don’t, I just don’t know how I’m going to handle everything.’
EIGHT
They had all already decided, independently, that it would be an act of cowardice not to return to the Drum and Monkey, so when Beresford had suggested it, the other two had immediately agreed.
Now they were sitting at that usual table, pints of ale in front of Beresford and Crane, a bitter lemon in front of Meadows – and a gap where there should have been a neat vodka.
‘Rhino has done no canvassing of the neighbours, and he hasn’t talked to anybody at the school that Mary attended,’ Beresford complained. ‘Instead, he fixated on this motorcyclist, and has gone charging after him like a … well, like a bloody rhino.’
‘To be fair, sir, it is more than likely that the motorcyclist is the murderer,’ Crane pointed out.
‘Yes, it is,’ Beresford agreed, ‘but that shouldn’t mean we abandon all other lines of investigation. And even if he is the killer, Rhino doesn’t know why he wanted to kill her, or why he chose to drive her out to the stately home to kill her, when it would have been easier – and probably much safer – to kill her near her home. And why does that matter, Jack?’
‘It matters because all the evidence we have so far is circumstantial, so unless something else much more concrete turns up, we’re going to need a confession,’ Crane said.
‘Exactly,’ Beresford agreed. ‘Now, we all know there have been cases where the moment the feller’s in custody, he breaks down and confesses. But most of the people we arrest – especially if they’re amateurs, who still think they’re smarter than we are – will deny everything, and it’s only through patient, painstaking investigation that we get them to break down. And to conduct that kind of interrogation we need facts – which we don’t bloody have.’
Jesus, he thought as he finished, that sounded just like the boss – and he didn’t know whether to feel proud or depressed about it.
‘There’s something very wrong about everyone I’ve met connected to Mary Green and her family,’ Kate Meadows said. ‘They’re all odd in their own ways, it’s true, but, at the same time, there seems to be an overarching net of strangeness that unites them.’
‘Are you telling us that you think they’re all part of a conspiracy?’ Beresford asked.
‘Yes, I rather think I am,’ Meadows confessed.
‘And that it was this conspiracy which murdered Mary Green?’
‘Good God, no!’ Meadows exclaimed. ‘The idea of Mr and Mrs Green and Mrs Brown being part of a murder plot is ludicrous. But the conspiracy may have been a contributory factor in her death – in other words, she might have been killed because she was connected to the conspiracy.’
‘I’d like to hear more about these people,’ Beresford said.
Meadows told him about Mary’s parents, and how they seemed to defer in everything to their son, John. Then she outlined the meeting she and Higgins had had with Mrs Brown.
‘An old woman, with chronic arthritis, decides to move away from her home to a place where she has no friends,’ she summed up at the end. ‘That, you have to admit, is insane. But as chance will have it, she lands on her feet – or on her swollen ankles, anyway. A girl – whose name she can no longer remember – volunteers, through some unspecified process – to look after her at the weekends. And when this girl can no longer do the job, Mary Green – a sixth former who has both her work to do and her life to live – agrees to spend every weekend with her. How’s that for improbable?’
‘And you think this Roger Smith feller is part of it, too?’ Beresford asked.
‘Yes, because not only does he seem to have spent quite a lot of time with John, Mary’s brother, but he was so keen to deny he knew Mrs Brown that he didn’t even bother to establish which Mrs Brown I was talking about.’
‘The first thing in the morning, we start doing the sort of canvassing that Rhino should have done already,’ Beresford said. He grinned, wryly. ‘It would be good if we could leave most of the donkey work to the rest of the team, but there is no rest of the team.’
‘We’ll manage, sir,’ Crane said. ‘How could we not, when we’re all such smart cookies.’
‘You’re right,’ Beresford agreed. He sighed. ‘I wish Monika was here.’
He was not even aware he’d said those last five words aloud, until he noticed that the other two were nodding.
‘I could have had anyone I wanted,’ Doris Dixon used to say in the early days of their marriage.
And he’d believed her, because she’d been a pretty thing – maybe even beautiful – and he’d noticed the way that men turned their heads towards her when she walked into a room.
‘Yes, I could have anyone, William,’ she’d say, ‘but I like big men, and you were the biggest I knew, so I chose you.’
At first, he’d sometimes still found it hard to believe that a woman like her could select someone like him (even if he was the biggest man she knew!).
He’d considered himself very lucky, indeed, for well over a year – and then the honeymoon feeling st
arted wearing a bit thin.
He no longer considered himself lucky. He no longer believed she could have had any man she wanted. Other men, he now thought – men who were better looking than him, and knew that they had more than one shot at winning a good-looking girl – had seen beyond and below the surface. They had recognized the vinegary harridan who lurked within Doris, and had shied away – leaving the ground clear for him to fall right into the trap.
He could have divorced her, but he was a strict Catholic and did not believe in divorce.
He could have murdered her, but he had been in the job long enough to know that it was almost impossible to get away with a domestic murder.
He sometimes prayed – though he knew he shouldn’t – that she would catch some lethal, but mercifully painless, disease, and he would be shut of her. But in the meantime, there was nothing to do but endure her – deflecting the barbs as best he could, and just getting on with life.
As he arrived at his home, an hour after the raid, he was hoping that Doris had gone out with some of her friends, but then he saw her waiting for him on the doorstep.
‘You’ve been on television,’ she said.
That was the reason she was standing where she was – because she couldn’t wait to rub it in – he thought.
‘Yes, I know I’ve been on television,’ he said wearily, brushing past her and heading for the living room, where the cocktail cabinet was located.
‘Tell me about it,’ she said, following him.
He took a bottle of whisky out of the cabinet, and poured himself a generous measure.
‘You don’t want to hear about it,’ he said.
‘But I do,’ she insisted. ‘I want all the details.’
He sighed. ‘There was a motorcycle caught on CCTV that we suspected was being ridden by the killer. We ran down the license plate, and found it belonged to a Jim Coles. We went round to his house—’
‘Quite a lot of you went round to his house,’ Doris interrupted.
‘That was no more than a sensible precaution. If he was our killer, there was a good chance he’d turn out to be violent.’
‘But he wasn’t, was he – because he was dead.’
‘Yes, he was dead.’
‘He’d been dead for more than six months, it said on the news. He crashed his motorbike – the one you thought you saw on camera – into a big wagon. The bike was a complete write-off. So maybe it was a ghost bike you saw on the tape.’
‘It wasn’t a ghost bike,’ Dixon said, taking a deep swig of his whisky. ‘It was a different bike, using Jim Coles’ plates.’
‘Well, you have got egg on your face, haven’t you?’ Doris asked. ‘I can’t see any of the other men I might have married getting themselves into such a pickle.’
He really hated her at that moment, he thought – but not as much as he hated DS Higgins and DI Marsden.
Elena was out for the night, and Louisa had just put the twins to bed when she heard the knock on the front door. She expected the caller to be either Kate Meadows (who’d said she’d call in later) or one of the neighbours, so it was something of a surprise, when she opened the door, to find John Green standing there.
For a moment, he just looked at her blankly and helplessly, as if he’d had his script all worked out mentally, but it had somehow slipped out of his head during his walk up the garden path.
Finally, he did speak.
‘Hi,’ he said.
‘Hi,’ Louisa replied.
‘I just called to find out … you know … how your mother is getting on,’ John said awkwardly.
‘There’s been no change,’ Louisa said.
‘That’s a pity,’ John said, ‘although it’s a lot better than if there was a change, and it was, you know, a change in the wrong direction.’ He shrugged, helplessly. ‘I shouldn’t have put it like that. In fact, I really shouldn’t have come here at all, should I?’
He had been rather gauche, she thought, but at least he seemed to mean well. They had never really had much to do with each other in school, even though they were both members of the Upper Sixth, but at that moment, she felt a real sense of warmth for him.
‘Why don’t you come inside for a coffee?’ she suggested.
He shrugged. ‘I don’t want to be any trouble.’
‘You’ll be no trouble at all,’ she told him. ‘I was going to make one for myself anyway.’
They had their coffee at the breakfast bar in the kitchen. For a while, they chatted about the inter-house competition (they were in rival houses, and the battle to win the school house of the year trophy was currently on a knife edge between them), but neither of them could raise much enthusiasm for the subject at that moment, and Louisa began to regret ever asking him in.
Finally, just as she was about to remark that she’d probably kept him there far longer than he’d been intending to stay, John said, ‘Listen, Louisa, I wasn’t being strictly truthful earlier.’
‘Oh?’ she said, noncommittally, wondering why else he could possibly have called. ‘Is that right?’
‘Yes, it is,’ he said. ‘When I said I’d come here to ask about your mother’s health, I was lying. Or rather, I was and I wasn’t. I want your mother to get better – we all do – but that wasn’t why I came.’
‘Why did you come?’ Louisa said.
‘I want to ask you a favour.’
A favour! How could she do a favour for him?
‘I’m listening,’ she said.
‘They’re cremating my sister tomorrow,’ John said. He forced back a sob. ‘I loved her very much.’
‘I’m sure you did,’ Louisa said.
‘The funeral would have been much easier to bear if I’d had her by my side.’ John laughed bitterly. ‘But, of course, if I’d had her by my side, there wouldn’t be any need for a funeral.’
‘You wanted me to do you a favour,’ Louisa reminded him gently.
‘My mum and dad can’t face going, but I want somebody by my side for support, and since we’ve both lost … sorry, I didn’t mean that, you still haven’t lost your mother yet, of course … What I meant was, you’re in a better position than anyone to know how I’m feeling, and I’d really appreciate it if you could be there for me.’
It wasn’t an easy request to turn down, Louisa thought, but maybe, since she really didn’t want to do it, she could find a way to get him to withdraw the offer.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘we’re in the same year in school, and we’ve chatted now and again, but I’m not sure I’m the right person for this.’
‘You don’t want to do it,’ John said. He stood up. ‘That’s quite understandable, Louisa, I can see that now, and I should never have asked.’
‘It’s not so much that I don’t want to do it as that there must be lots of people who would be more appropriate,’ Louisa protested.
‘There aren’t,’ John said firmly. ‘We’re a very close family, and we don’t really know anybody else on a personal level.’
‘There were those four girls in the playground, earlier in the day …’ Louisa began.
‘Which girls?’ he demanded. ‘Who are you talking about?’
His sudden vehemence took her by surprise. ‘You know the ones,’ she said. ‘Jennifer Black was one, and there were three other younger ones whose names I don’t know.’
‘You saw me talking to them,’ he said.
‘Yes, I did.’
He relaxed a little. ‘They were just upset about Mary,’ he said. ‘Perhaps she’d been kind to them at some time, because although she didn’t make a great song and dance about it, she was a kind girl at heart.’
‘I’m sure she was,’ Louisa said.
‘But I didn’t really know them myself,’ John continued. He looked straight into her eyes. ‘And I hardly know you, either – but at least we both know what it’s like to suffer.’
‘All right,’ Louisa said, ‘I’ll do it. But if you change your mind, I won’t be in the least offended.’
‘I won’t change my mind,’ John said, and then he leant forward and kissed her lightly on the cheek. He jumped back, as if his lips had been scalded. ‘There I go making a mess of things again,’ he said bitterly.
‘No, it’s all right, I’m not offended,’ Louisa told him.
‘I’d better go before I do anything else foolish,’ John said. ‘It’s really very kind of you, and if you ever need me to do something …’ He shook his head. ‘I really had better go. I can find my own way out.’
In his youth, Stan Kershaw had been able to knock back six or seven pints before going to bed, and still sleep through the night. Those days were long gone. These days, if he had more than a couple of gills at the Crown and Anchor, he could pretty much guarantee he’d have to get up two or three times in the night.
He didn’t mind these nocturnal journeys, because he always fell asleep again as soon as he was back in bed. Besides, he rather liked being up at a time when everyone else was out for the count.
It was peaceful.
It was quiet.
And when he looked out of his bathroom window down onto Dardanelles Road, he could picture – without any aspects of modern life getting in the way – the old days, when horse-drawn carts from the countryside trundled down it on their way to Whitebridge market.
He was out of luck that night, as far as peace and quiet to pursue his memories went, he told himself, as he watched a black van make its way along the street, and come to a halt at number seventeen.
It must be two o’clock in the morning, he thought. That was a bloody funny time to be calling on anybody.
No sooner had the van stopped, than the front door opened, and two people emerged carrying suitcases.
That would be Mr and Mrs Jones, Stan thought, and realized that though they’d lived opposite him for five years, he still didn’t know their first names. He didn’t know what Mr Jones did for a living, either. Occasionally, he’d notice him leaving the house with a leather briefcase, but that could mean he was anything from a bookie’s runner to a bank manager.
Mrs Jones climbed into the van, and Mr Jones went back to lock the front door.
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