Vera Stanhope 06 - Harbour Street

by Ann Cleeves

  The flat was, as Kate had said, very small and built into the roof, so one wall was hardly three feet high and joined a sloping ceiling, with three dormer windows looking out over the harbour. There were two main rooms, with a tiny bathroom carved out of a corner of the bedroom. But still it managed to have style. The kitchen, which was also the living room, had a dark polished wood floor with a rug that glowed with colour – blues and greens. Under one window an old desk and a curve-backed chair. A small chaise longue covered with grey velvet. A sink, oven and fridge, separated from the rest of the room by a scrubbed pine table. Most of the pans hung from hooks in the ceiling, and the wooden spoons and spatulas stood in a green glazed pot on the second windowsill. The full wall was all shelves, with books, neatly arranged, interspersed occasionally with pebbles, pieces of driftwood and shells. It was a dark room, because the windows were so small and the walls were thick, but rich and jewel-like, lit only by a lamp on the desk and a spotlight in the kitchen.

  ‘No telly,’ Joe said. Vera could tell he was shocked. He opened the door to the bedroom, eager to see if the television was there. They stood in the doorway to look in. This room was carpeted in pale green. There was a three-quarter bed covered by a handmade patchwork quilt, and chests of drawers on each side of it. A narrow wardrobe. All the furniture had been painted white. No clutter, no dirty clothes. The shower room was spotless.

  ‘No telly,’ he said again. Perhaps that was the only entertainment he and Sal had in the evenings and he couldn’t imagine life without it.

  ‘We’ll get the search team in first thing.’ Vera walked to the window and looked out. It was still snowing, but the flakes were smaller again. She was glad she wouldn’t be the one to pull open drawers and work through Margaret’s underwear. She was nosy, but this would have seemed like a terrible intrusion.

  Joe was looking at the shelves. ‘Only one photo.’ He didn’t pick it up, but pointed to it. The picture was of a couple. A wedding photo. She was in a simple white mini-dress, with fake fur on the hem, white knee-length wet-look boots, a short fur jacket, and she was holding a bouquet of gold and white freesias. The dark-haired man was in a suit with wide lapels, a buttonhole pinned to one of them. In the background, a church door.

  ‘Is this her?’ Vera asked. ‘Is this Margaret Krukowski and the Polish love of her life?’

  ‘Oh yes, this is her.’ The answer was immediate and unequivocal. ‘Our victim has the same mouth and the same cheekbones.’ She saw that Joe couldn’t take his eyes off the photograph.

  ‘A bonny little thing.’ She kept her voice light. Nobody had ever called her bonny.

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ he said and then he gave a little laugh, as if recognized how silly he was being, because he was drawn to a photograph that was fifty years old. But still he continued, ‘That’s a face that men would kill for.’

  Chapter Five

  On the middle landing Kate took her mobile phone from her pocket and phoned Stuart, her lover. The first real relationship she’d had since Rob had died on the rigs. Stuart was more at home in the hills than in a house, but he could play the sax like a dream, and now she was haunted by thoughts of him. There was no reply and she left a message. ‘Please give me a ring.’ Walking down, Kate wondered how she would tell the kids that Margaret was dead. They’d known her for most of their lives. She’d been their babysitter and they’d treated her like a gran. Ryan still spent a lot of time with her. This year, with Stu on the scene, and with Kate full of new plans, they’d already had to adjust to change. Kate slowed her steps to give herself time to compose the words and realized she had no idea what her children’s reaction would be. They’d grown up and away from her and she could no longer trust her judgement where they were concerned.

  George Enderby must have heard her steps, or perhaps he was listening out for her, because the door of his room opened and he stuck out his head.

  ‘Everything all right, Kate?’ His voice seemed genuinely concerned. Then a little embarrassed. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.’

  ‘Margaret’s dead.’ She felt suddenly light-headed and leaned against the wall.

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’ He started out into the corridor before realizing that his door would swing shut and lock automatically behind him. Then he made a strange little hop, holding the door open with one foot, but leaning out towards her. ‘I didn’t know her well, but I never thought of her as an old woman. Was it something sudden? A heart attack?’

  ‘She was murdered,’ Kate said. ‘Stabbed on the Metro on her way home from town.’ Again it seemed as if the world was spinning around her. She sat on the bottom step and put her head in her hands.

  George disappeared briefly and she saw he was reaching inside for his key; then he was sitting beside her with his arm around her shoulder. She could smell his aftershave and the sweetness of the biscuit he’d just eaten. Cinnamon and ginger. Kate wondered how different things would have been if Rob had been as kind as George Enderby. She sat for a moment, enjoying the physical contact, and then she pulled away gently. ‘I have to tell the kids.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said. He stood up and gave her his hand to help her to her feet. ‘If there’s anything at all I can do to help, please do tell me.’ And he vanished back into his room, as if he thought his presence might be contributing to her distress.

  In the basement Ryan was in his bedroom. She heard the sound of his computer. Some game about monsters and the end of the world. Chloe was sitting at the table with a pile of books at one side, scribbling into a jotter. She seemed pale and tired.

  ‘Ryan, come in here. I need to talk to you both!’

  ‘Okay.’ There was no sign of him, though. And that was Ryan all over. He always agreed with her and then went his own way. Chloe had turned in her seat and saw that her mother had been crying. ‘What is it?’ The words accompanied by a brief look of distaste, the teenage default response to parents behaving differently. Then she registered that this was serious and not an overreaction to a domestic drama. She was on her feet. ‘Mum, what is it?’ And, as Kate started to cry once more, Chloe shouted to her brother and this time he did emerge from his room. He stood looking at them with a kind of helpless confusion, as if women were a different species and it was safest not to intervene.

  They shifted the textbooks onto the dresser and sat round the table. Chloe fetched a bottle of wine from the fridge and opened it with an ease that would have had Kate worried in different circumstances. She poured Kate a large glass. ‘Tell us what’s going on.’

  ‘Margaret’s dead.’

  ‘How?’ It was the first time Ryan had spoken. They looked at him.

  ‘I mean how did she die? An accident? She was fine this morning when I was on my way out.’ He frowned and again Kate was reminded of Robbie.

  ‘She was murdered.’ Kate thought this sounded like a refrain, the chorus of one of those songs Ryan played on his iPod. Shouted noise. If she repeated it often enough to all the people she needed to tell, perhaps she would believe it. She looked at the kids. In both faces she thought she saw a flash of excitement, before disbelief and distress took over. Murder was the stuff of stories. She imagined they’d both be on their phones to their classmates as soon as she released them from the table. You’ll never believe what’s happening in our house . . . For a while they’d have a vicarious celebrity, the popularity they both seemed to seek.

  ‘Why would anyone want to murder an old woman like Margaret?’

  Kate looked at Chloe and thought she had lost weight recently. Had Kate been so wrapped up in Stuart and this strange infatuation that she’d been neglecting her children?

  ‘I don’t know.’ Kate paused. ‘I never thought of her as an old woman. She had too much energy.’

  ‘Where was she killed?’ It seemed that Ryan needed details to satisfy his curiosity. She suddenly saw him almost as a stranger. He was a good-looking boy; he’d be a heart-breaker. She’d seen him round Mardle with attractive girls, but he’d nev
er introduced them. Neither of the kids ever brought friends back to the house.

  ‘On the Metro apparently. On her way home from town.’ Kate looked at him. ‘Did she tell you where she was going when you saw her this morning?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Only I expect the police will want to know.’

  ‘The police?’ The question asked with studied indifference. But of course he wanted to hear about the investigation. More snippets of information to stick on Facebook.

  ‘They’re in Margaret’s room. That’s how I know that she’s dead.’

  There was a silence. ‘Poor Margaret,’ Chloe said. ‘Where is she? I mean, where’s her body? Will there be a funeral?’

  ‘I suppose the police have organized a post-mortem. And that there’ll be a funeral eventually. I don’t know how these things work.’

  I expect I’ll have to organize that, Kate thought. Who else would do it? Then it occurred to her that she would have to discuss it with Father Gruskin, a man she’d never liked. She felt suddenly very hungry. ‘I’ll get a casserole out of the freezer. We still have to eat.’ It was a relief to get to her feet and leave the room for a while.

  She was on her second glass of wine and laying the table for supper when the two detectives turned up at her flat. She’d thought she’d seen the back of them, at least for the day. She’d supposed they would let themselves out of the house. Now they stood in the dark basement corridor and she could tell they were about to make more demands.

  ‘You’d better come in.’

  ‘Sorry to bother you again.’ But Vera Stanhope was smiling and Kate thought she wasn’t sorry at all. ‘We’d like to get in touch with Mrs Krukowski’s family and her friends, but we can’t find an address book in her flat. Perhaps you can help.’

  Kate led them into the kitchen. Ryan and Chloe had vanished back into their rooms. Like shy animals, they usually avoided adult company. Chloe would be working again. Ryan might be listening at his door. He was an observer, and she’d caught him eavesdropping before.

  ‘Margaret never mentioned family,’ Kate said. The casserole was whirring around in the microwave to defrost. She wished Stuart would arrive. The oven pinged. ‘As I told you, there was a breakdown in relations when she married. I don’t think she ever saw them again. Her parents would probably be dead now, though I can’t remember her going to their funerals.’

  ‘No brothers or sisters?’

  ‘None that I know of.’

  ‘Did she ever tell you where she grew up?’ Vera Stanhope had settled herself at the kitchen table. She was so big that she seemed to take up all the space there, and to be so comfortable that Kate could imagine her staying all night.

  ‘Gosforth,’ Kate said. ‘One of those grand terraced houses not far from the High Street.’ She saw a glance flash between the two officers and thought the information might somehow be significant.

  ‘What about friends, then?’ Vera asked. She looked up at Kate. ‘She’d lived in Mardle for a long time and she doesn’t seem to have been a recluse, your Margaret. She must have had friends, even if they didn’t come to visit her here.’ Vera smiled. ‘Friends other than you, I mean.’

  Kate thought about that. Margaret had never seemed to feel the need for friends away from Harbour Street, but she didn’t want the detective to think Margaret was some sort of loner or loser.

  ‘I think most of her social life away from here revolved around the church,’ she said. ‘You should ask the priest, Father Gruskin.’

  ‘And where will I find him? Is there a Catholic church in Mardle?’

  ‘He’s C of E. Priest of the church over the road. St Bartholomew’s. But that’s what he calls himself.’ Kate could hear the antipathy in her own voice and wondered if the detective would pick up on it. Instead Vera made a show of looking around the room, at the pile of school books on the dresser and the music stand in the corner.

  ‘How old are your children now?’

  ‘Chloe’s fourteen and Ryan’s just sixteen.’

  ‘Could we speak to them, please? Nothing formal, just a quick chat here in the kitchen, to find out when they last saw Margaret. Joe here can ask the questions. He’s got bairns of his own, similar sort of age. That’s right, isn’t it, Joe?’

  The good-looking sergeant smiled. ‘A bit younger,’ he said. ‘Sometimes they behave like teenagers, though. Not a stage I’m looking forward to.’

  So Kate had no choice but to call the kids in, although by now all she wanted was food and more wine. It felt like some sort of conference, all of them round the table, everyone a bit tense and serious. But the children did her proud. Ryan answered the questions politely and even Chloe gave the detectives her full attention. ‘Tell me about Margaret.’ That was how the sergeant started off. The kids stared at each other, and in the end it was Ryan who answered first.

  ‘She was lovely,’ he said. ‘When we were little she’d take us out. And I still liked spending time with her.’

  ‘Doing what?’ the detective asked.

  ‘She was into good causes,’ Ryan said. ‘Sometimes I’d help her collect. Rattle the collecting boxes outside the supermarket.’ He paused. ‘Old ladies like me, and they were always willing to give.’ Kate thought that was true, but it wasn’t the whole story. Ryan felt safe with Margaret. When he was younger she’d sat with him through the nightmares.

  And then Chloe chipped in with a story of her own, about Margaret taking them to the theatre in Newcastle, their first trip to a grown-up play. ‘She knew about stuff. Plays and films. Most Saturdays when Mam was busy she’d take me to the library. She encouraged me to do well at school. “Women can be anything they want.” Didn’t she say that all the time?’

  Kate nodded.

  ‘What about now?’ Joe Ashworth asked. ‘Now that you’re older. Were you still close?’

  A pause.

  ‘We didn’t spend so much time with her,’ Chloe said. ‘But we knew she was there. If we needed her.’

  ‘I still helped out,’ Ryan said, ‘but not so much. I’ve got this part-time job at the boatyard now.’

  They had never considered of course that Margaret might have missed their company or their confidences. That the older woman might have needed them. Kate thought adolescents were the most self-centred people in the universe.

  The sergeant was moving on to more detailed questions. ‘Did you see Margaret today?’

  ‘I did,’ Ryan said. ‘I saw her on my way out to school.’

  ‘Where was she?’

  ‘She was clearing the tables in the guests’ dining room after breakfast. There were only a couple of people staying last night and they’d already left by then. She saw me through the open door and shouted out to me to have a good day.’

  ‘Where do you go to school?’ The policeman leaned back in his chair. Kate thought he looked tired.

  ‘Mardle High,’ Chloe said. ‘It’s just over the Metro line.’

  ‘The local comprehensive,’ Kate added, wondering again if they would have done better at a different school, somewhere with smaller classes. If she’d continued in her career, perhaps she’d have afforded it.

  Vera interrupted then, a question directed to Kate. ‘These guests? You’ll have their contact details?’

  Kate could tell the sergeant was used to her butting in. ‘Of course. Claire Gordon was on her way to Edinburgh to collect her son from university. She’s a regular, lives in Hertfordshire somewhere, and stays the beginning and end of every term to break her journey. The other was Mike Craggs, Professor Craggs. He’s a marine biologist at Newcastle Uni and he always stays here when he’s doing fieldwork. Claire left early. The weather forecast had said there might be snow and she wanted to be on her way. Mike’s always out of the house before anyone else, when he’s working.’ Kate wondered if this was more information than the inspector needed, if she was coming across as a nosy landlady. But Vera Stanhope nodded and seemed pleased.

  ‘And you?’ Joe turned t
o Chloe. ‘Did you see Margaret today?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I left the house before Ryan. I didn’t see her at all.’

  Then the detectives stood up and Kate thought they’d finally go away, so that she could eat supper, drink the wine and think about Margaret in peace. She wanted to check her phone to see if Stuart had called her back. But still, it seemed, they wanted more from her.

  ‘That chap we met earlier,’ Vera said. ‘He’s a regular, is he?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Kate smiled. ‘George comes once a month and stays for two nights. Then again for another night when he’s finished working in Scotland. He’s regular as clockwork.’

  ‘I wonder, then, if we might have a word with him.’ Vera smiled too, apologetically. It was as if she knew that Kate wanted to be rid of them. ‘Then I promise I’ll leave you in peace.’

  But Kate thought there’d be little peace in Harbour Street until this was all over. Until they knew who’d killed Margaret Krukowski.

  Chapter Six

  Following the women down the corridor and up the stairs, Joe Ashworth was troubled by a sense of déjà vu, a feeling that he’d met this family before or conducted a similar interview on a previous occasion. It was as irritating as when a word was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t remember it. Perhaps something about the kids – polite enough, but wary and watchful – reminded him of his own children when they had something to hide.

  They’d arrived at Enderby’s room and the man had the door open almost as soon as Kate had knocked. It was clear that the detectives wouldn’t be invited in, though. Enderby seemed pleasant and rather shy, but also experienced at getting his own way.

  ‘The lounge would be best for a chat, I think, don’t you, Kate? I’ll switch on the fire again and make it cosy. And I’ll bob down to the kitchen and make us some more tea, if it wouldn’t be too much of an imposition. No need for you to do anything.’