Vera Stanhope 06 - Harbour Street

by Ann Cleeves

  Joe thought he was reliving that evening in his head. ‘And what exactly did you say about her?’

  ‘That she was a wonderful woman. We couldn’t understand why her husband had left her all those years ago. And that there was something mysterious about her.’ Craggs smiled. ‘George is a romantic, I’m afraid. Perhaps he reads too many novels.’

  ‘Did you ever meet Margaret’s husband? If you’ve been working with Malcolm Kerr for such a long time, you might have come across him.’ Joe was struggling to work out the timeline for this. When he got back to the office he’d make a chart with dates.

  ‘No. I never stayed in Mardle in those days. There was no guest house, and Harbour Street was rather disreputable. Most nights there seemed to be fights spilling out of the Coble. I travelled out from Newcastle when I needed to go out to the island.’ He paused. ‘Of course the Metro wasn’t opened until 1980, so I used to drive before then. I had a wreck of a minivan that was always breaking down.’ He smiled at the memory. ‘Good times.’

  ‘Did you know Margaret Krukowski before the house in Harbour Street became a guest house?’ Joe thought the area must have been a small and tight community thirty years ago. There’d be the people living in the bedsits and those working at the fisheries. Even before the Metro came, it would have been cut off from the rest of Mardle by the disused railway track. He wished he had a better picture of the town in those days.

  ‘Oh yes. For a short while she worked as a bookkeeper and receptionist for Billy Kerr, Malcolm’s father. Then he decided that he didn’t need her. I suppose money was tight. Later we’d see her occasionally in the Coble or walking down the street.’ Professor Craggs smiled. ‘Always dignified. Always immaculately turned out. Kate Dewar didn’t take over the place until about ten years ago, and I’ve been making regular visits for my research since I was a post-doctoral student. But I’m pretty sure Margaret’s husband had left even before that. I always knew her as a single woman.’

  Joe had a sudden idea. ‘Do you have any photos? I’m interested in what Harbour Street looked like then.’

  ‘Probably. If you think it’s important.’ He seemed surprised and a little sceptical. Had the detectives come all this way just to look at some snaps? ‘I had the camera to record specimens on the island, but I know I took photos of some of the characters in the street too.’ He got to his feet and rifled through the drawers of an elderly dresser. Joe was about to tell him not to bother, that it wasn’t important, when the professor pulled out an album almost falling apart at the seams. He put it on the table and Joe stood up to get a better look. Charlie stayed where he was.

  And there, suddenly, was Harbour Street, familiar but subtly changed, the images slightly faded. A young Malcolm Kerr standing by the harbour wall with an older man and in the background the fisheries building, sparkling and new in bright sunlight. The older man grinning and the younger glaring. On the opposite page a woman was pushing a big, old-fashioned pram down the road past the church. She had a cigarette in one hand and controlled the pram with the other.

  ‘Why did I take that?’ Craggs frowned. ‘After all this time, I really can’t remember.’

  He turned the page of the album and there was a group of people posing outside the Coble. Summer. The women in sleeveless dresses and sandals, the men squinting into the sunshine. In the middle Billy Kerr, with a big drunken grin, next to a large woman in a shapeless floral dress.

  ‘I remember that day,’ Craggs said. ‘Billy’s fiftieth birthday.’ He pointed to the fat woman. ‘That’s Val Butt. She was the landlady. And that’s her son, Ricky. Local wheeler and dealer. Always seemed to have cash, and none of us knew where it had come from. Flashy. He moved on very quickly. I’d guess that Mardle was too tame for him.’

  Joe looked at the image of Ricky Butt, a dark-haired young man, dressed in denim, but his attention was immediately drawn to the woman who stood in front of him. Margaret Krukowski. No longer the young woman of the wedding photograph, here aged in her thirties, but still lovely. On her face a smile that was tense and unnatural, as if she hated having her picture taken.

  Craggs turned the page again and this time it was a long shot up Harbour Street, with the big house at the end. Even from that distance it looked as if it was falling into disrepair. And on the same page, Kerr’s boatyard. In place of the corrugated-iron shed there was a Portakabin, rather smart, a sign on the door saying Kerr’s Charters. Joe supposed this was the office where Margaret had answered the phone and booked in customers, before she became too expensive.

  ‘Was Margaret working there when you first knew her?’ he asked.

  Craggs shook his head. ‘No, that was before my time. Soon after this photo was taken, the building they used as an office burned down. Rumours were that it was some sort of insurance scam. It was widely known that the Kerrs owed money all over the town. They’d over-committed themselves buying a new boat. Malcolm’s makeshift shed appeared soon after.’

  The next page was blank. ‘That’s all there is,’ Craggs said. ‘Unless you’re interested in seaweed . . .’

  Joe shook his head and smiled. He felt that he had a better understanding of the background to the case, but he was here to check more recent movements.

  ‘George Enderby stayed with you the night Dee Robson was murdered.’

  ‘Yes,’ Craggs said. ‘It must have been that day.’

  ‘What time did he arrive?’

  ‘It was late. Eight o’clock. Mary had left us a casserole and I was starving. I’m used to eating earlier, and I almost started without him.’

  So Enderby had no alibi for Dee’s murder, either. Joe thought he would achieve nothing more here and moved towards the door.

  Mary Craggs must have been watching them, because she appeared again from the kitchen. ‘Have you got everything you need, Sergeant?’

  ‘Yes, your husband’s been very helpful. Thank you.’ Then he reconsidered. ‘Might I borrow the photo album, Professor? I’ll return it as soon as I’ve shown my boss.’

  Craggs nodded and returned to the house to fetch the book. Then the elderly couple walked together with Joe and Charlie into the garden and stood, looking over the gate, the professor with his arm around his wife’s shoulder, watching until they drove off.

  Chapter Thirty

  The evening briefing. Outside it was dark and the traffic was heavy. The start of the long Christmas weekend and people making their way south to visit family and friends. Vera had shut herself away in her office and only emerged as the meeting was about to begin. She’d run her fingers through her hair so that it stuck up at the back, but nobody dared tell her.

  She stood at the front of the room, with her legs apart, her eyes bright. ‘Let’s get this cleared up by Christmas, shall we, folks? Then you can all go home to your bairns in time to open the stockings.’

  In the room a few sceptical cheers. Vera wasn’t known for her family-friendly policies.

  ‘I’ll go first, shall I?’ Defying them to contradict her. She pointed to the photo of the young Margaret Krukowski on the whiteboard. ‘Our first victim. Seventy-year-old woman, member of St Batholomew’s Church, committed to the work of the Haven, a hostel for homeless women. From the beginning we wondered if there might be a clue there. Had she been in an abusive relationship? Was that why she’d befriended our second victim, Dee Robson?’

  From the back of the room Joe Ashworth thought he’d never seen Vera looking so animated. She seemed ten years younger. He wondered if she’d been at the secret stash of whisky that she kept in her office drawer. Or if she had some information of her own to share with them.

  Vera continued: ‘But yesterday a witness came forward and has thrown a very different light on the relationship between Dee and Margaret. As you all know now, it seems that there was another connection between the women.’

  Vera paused. The room was silent. She looked out at them, and Joe could tell that she was loving the attention. ‘Thirty years ago Margaret Krukowski w
as a call girl, working out of the house in Harbour Street, where she was living when she died. Discreet and classy, despite the neighbourhood. Successful too, because I reckon the money in her savings account probably came from that time. Seems to me that this answers a lot of the questions we’ve had about this woman. She sometimes talked about secrets and implied that she had a mysterious past. It explains, at least in part, Malcolm Kerr’s reluctance to be straight with us. He fancied the pants off her and wouldn’t want her memory sullied by rumours that she’d been a sex worker. And it explains her fondness for Dee Robson. I’m assuming Margaret went into business when she was deserted by her husband. And when she lost her office job with the Kerrs. Sad that she preferred selling her body to going to her parents and admitting that she was wrong about him, but she was a proud woman. And it seems that she was in control of her own business. Booth didn’t mention that a man was involved. Margaret valued her independence.’

  She fell silent and looked around her. Joe wondered if she was expecting a round of applause for her expert summing-up. Holly stuck up her hand.

  ‘How does this move the investigation on, boss? It was a long time ago. How many people still around knew that she was on the game?’

  Oh, Holly! Joe thought. When will you learn? You don’t question Vera Stanhope when she’s on a roll.

  But Vera must have been feeling generous and today there was no cutting put-down. ‘This is still relevant, Hol. Because you’re a babe-in-arms you don’t understand how the dim and distant can come back to haunt you. Maybe Margaret wanted to go public about her past before she died. To set the record straight. And there were respectable people – ex-clients – who didn’t want her to do that.’ She paused. ‘How did you get on at the Haven?’

  ‘One of the residents there claims that she lived in the house in Harbour Street at the same time as Margaret.’ Holly looked at her notes. ‘Susan Coulson. She’s a bit confused, and was talking about having had a child that was taken away from her. But she did say that she knew Margaret’s boss.’

  ‘Okay. That’d be Malcom Kerr. Or his father, Billy. Let’s get Malcolm in tomorrow. I can’t believe that he didn’t know how Margaret was earning her living at that time. He’s always seen himself as some sort of confidant. I don’t see him as a pimp, though. Anything else?’

  Holly looked again at her notes. ‘Not from the Haven, but I spoke to Enderby’s wife.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She confirmed that she’s left him. Posh Diana has fallen for a guy who runs the stables where she keeps her horses.’ Holly grinned. ‘He’s very fit apparently. She went into some detail . . . And I asked Enderby if we could take the outdoor clothes that he was carrying around in his wheelie suitcase for testing.’

  ‘How did he seem when you asked him?’

  ‘Hurt. “How can you believe that I would do something like that?” He didn’t kick up too much of a fuss, though.’

  Vera looked around the room. ‘Anyone else like to contribute to this investigation? Or is this just a case being run by the women on the team?’

  Joe slowly raised his hand.

  ‘Yes, Joe. You and Charlie have had a nice day out in the country visiting our professor.’ She pointed to Mike Craggs’s name on the board. ‘What did you get from him? He was knocking around in Mardle at the time. A young research scientist. Was he one of Margaret’s customers, do you think?’

  ‘Craggs admitted that he admired her,’ Joe said. ‘But nah, I don’t think so. He was already married to his wife then, and you can tell that he loves her to bits.’ He saw that Vera was about to sneer – any talk of romance and she pretended to puke – so he moved on quickly. ‘Craggs did pass on one interesting bit of information, though.’

  ‘Get on with it, Joe man.’

  ‘The Kerrs were in financial difficulties in the Eighties. They owed money all over the town and when the office building burned down, it seemed a bit too convenient. Rumour had it that it was an insurance scam.’

  Joe could see Vera processing this and dismissing it as unimportant. He suspected that she’d developed a theory of her own. That would explain her excitement. She was just waiting for the right moment to share it. Still he persisted. ‘Margaret would have known the Kerrs’ financial position. She kept their books, after all. If she was planning to come clean about the past, maybe she was going to talk about that too.’

  ‘That’s petty stuff. I don’t think anyone would give a toss so many years later.’

  So, Joe thought, that’s put me in my place. Vera might have given the idea at least a moment’s consideration.

  She moved forward, a star preparing to step into the spotlight. ‘Could the professor tell you anything about Pawel Krukowski, the husband?’

  ‘Nothing. He was already off the scene by the time Craggs got to know Margaret.’ Joe was going to offer up the photo album to Vera, but thought that the mood she was in now, elated and carried away with some theory of her own, she would only mock him for implying that it had any significance.

  There was a silence. Vera looked out at them, and Joe saw that at least she was gearing up to share her grand idea. ‘I don’t believe that Pawel suddenly disappeared off the face of the Earth,’ she said. ‘Margaret could have been hiding more than the fact that she sold sex for a living.’ She looked around her and again she seemed to be expecting applause.

  ‘You think that she killed her husband?’ Joe thought Vera was entering the realm of fantasy now. Margaret Krukowski wasn’t a killer, but a victim.

  ‘I don’t know exactly what to think at this point.’ She glared at him. ‘We’re telling stories. Creating theories. But tomorrow we need to check some facts.’ She was back at the whiteboard and she wiped out a bare patch and started making notes. ‘Pawel Krukowski. What’s happened to him? I’m betting that he’s dead and, if he’s still alive and living happily in Warsaw, then I’ll be buying the carry-outs for the next five years. Charlie, you take over tracing him. First thing in the morning. Get our European colleagues to help out. Hol, you see if you can find any record of the fire at Malcolm’s yard, but don’t waste too much time on it.’

  She stopped, her hand raised, holding the marker pen. ‘This Susan Coulson, did you meet her when you visited the Haven, Joe?’

  Joe reeled back his memory and saw a grey-haired woman stirring soup, the tears rolling down her cheeks. He’d thought she was odd, overreacting to the death of a virtual stranger, but if she and Margaret had been friends for more than thirty years that would make more sense. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I met her.’

  ‘Chat to her. Away from the hostel, if you can manage it. Jane Cameron’s a control freak. It takes one to know one. And I don’t want her listening in.’ Vera paused again. ‘Bring her back to Harbour Street. Buy her a fish-and-chip dinner or a port and lemon in the Coble. See if you can jog any memories.’

  ‘I really don’t think she’d be an admissible witness, boss. Any defence brief would eat her for breakfast.’ Holly had jumped in again. Joe wondered if she was resenting the fact that her witness had been taken away from her, though he knew Holly would have little patience with Susan, who was old and confused.

  Vera kept her voice mild. ‘At this point I’m not worrying about the court case, Hol. I just want to know who killed these two women.’

  When Joe arrived home the kids were looking out for him. Sal’s parents had taken them to see a panto at Whitley Bay Playhouse and the two oldest were full of it. Michael had been onstage and a clown had pulled a live rabbit from his ear. They were full of wonder, even Jessie, who claimed that she was a bit old for magic these days. He wondered how he would cope with her as a teenager, stroppy and defensive, and remembered again the schoolgirls he’d seen in the Metro on the afternoon Margaret Krukowski had died. Simpering and playing up to the boys. It was hard to imagine that they’d ever been excited by a pantomime.

  In bed, he found it difficult to sleep. He was planning how he might carry out Vera’s instructions to get
Susan Coulson away from the Haven. He’d been intimidated by Jane Cameron, and he could hardly kidnap the woman. And something about the picture of the older woman, her eyes streaming with silent tears, seemed very moving to him. He wasn’t sure now if she was weeping for Margaret Krukowski or for the child that had been taken away from her. Later he replayed his conversation with Michael Craggs, anxious because he felt that he’d missed something important. The last image in his mind, just before he slept, was of the elderly couple leaning over their garden gate, their arms around each other and waving goodbye to him.

  When he woke, it came to him, almost as part of a dream, that he hadn’t passed the photo album on to Vera.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The next day was clear and frosty and Vera was in Mardle before it got light. It felt like truancy. She should be in her office coordinating the actions, supervising. An inspector’s role was strategic. Except that she’d always been seduced by the detail. She told herself she’d be back at the station before lunchtime. It was time to reel in Malcolm Kerr. He’d been playing silly buggers with her, and she hated being taken for a fool.

  The first stop was Percy Street. The curtains were drawn, so she assumed that she’d find Kerr in, but when she knocked on the door there was no response. An alley ran along the back of the houses, separated from the gardens by a wooden fence. The street light caught the frost on the overgrown grass and when she went in, there was ice on the concrete path. She banged on the kitchen door and again there was no response. When she tried the handle it was locked.

  A man came out of the house next door. He wore an anorak and a Newcastle United knitted hat and matching black-and-white striped gloves. He was on his way to work and he regarded Vera with suspicion.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘You don’t happen to know where Malcolm is, do you, pet? Only I can’t get an answer.’ Her breath came as a cloud in the strange, white light.