by Ann Cleeves
‘Something someone said. You?’
‘The same. Then a memory to confirm it. I feel like a fool.’
Another flurry of sleet rattled against the windscreen. It was so noisy that she had to ask Joe to repeat his next words.
‘What now?’ he asked.
‘We go quietly,’ she said. ‘We need proof this time. No press and no fuss. You just find your Jessie.’
Emily lived in a big house on the outskirts of Tynemouth. It was new and grand, built of raw red brick with porticoes at the front. Through the big living-room window Vera saw a white leather sofa and a flat-screen television. An artificial Christmas tree that almost looked real and a pile of wrapped presents underneath. It came to Vera suddenly that, for Margaret Krukowski, a place like this would be like hell. Much better the life of a call girl operating out of a shabby house in Mardle. And that she still hadn’t bought the Secret Santa gift for Holly. She rang the doorbell.
The door was opened by a man in a polo shirt and chinos. The heat spilled out from the hall. Inside he’d need no warmer clothes. ‘Yes?’ His voice posh Geordie. A businessman in mufti, Vera thought.
‘Could I speak to Emily, please?’ She was aware that she looked even scruffier than usual. No sleep and a hangover, and no time to wash any clothes during the investigation, never mind iron them. She gave what she hoped was a winning smile.
The man looked at her as if she was a tinker selling clothes pegs and didn’t bother wasting words on her. Instead he yelled into the house, ‘Jackie, there’s someone here to see your daughter.’
Your daughter. So he must be the stepfather. And the girl was getting in the way.
He didn’t invite her in. Vera stood on the doorstep and waited. Eventually a large woman with an unseasonal tan and a lot of gold jewellery appeared. Her blonde hair was fake, but the tan seemed real. Vera wondered if Emily had been admitted into the Haven to allow the adults to take a holiday somewhere hot.
‘Yes?’ Emily’s mother wasn’t as hard as she first appeared. A troubled woman with a nervous tic and a tense smile. A woman who felt obliged to mediate between the two important people in her life.
Just dump him, Vera wanted to say. There are worse things than being single. She decided that there were different forms of prostitution. Maybe Margaret’s form wasn’t the most degrading.
‘I think Emily might be able to help me,’ Vera said. ‘She’s not in any bother, but I wonder if we might have a chat.’
‘Are you a social worker?’
Good God, do I look like a social worker?
‘No, I’m the police. But, as I say, Emily’s not in any trouble. I think she might have some useful information.’ Vera took a breath. It wouldn’t do to scare this woman by rushing her. This was the time for some common politeness. ‘How’s she getting on at home?’
‘Oh, you know. One day at a time.’ The woman seemed grateful that anyone was taking an interest.
‘But well enough to chat to me?’
Jackie didn’t answer, but she stood aside to let Vera in. ‘I don’t know how we came to this,’ she said. ‘She was such a good girl at school. Easy. Biddable, you know. We had no idea that she was having problems.’ There was a pause and a moment of honesty. ‘I should have given her more time. But I was going through the divorce, and work seemed the only way to stay sane. She was quiet, but she’d always been quiet. And quiet’s good, isn’t it? Quiet’s well behaved.’
Vera was aware of time passing. She was no priest paid to give absolution. ‘If I could just talk to Emily, Mrs James . . .’
‘Of course.’ The tic had returned. Did she think Vera would judge her by the state of her daughter? Perhaps she thought Vera would accuse her of being a dreadful parent because Emily cut herself. And perhaps Joe and Sal thought the world would hate them because they’d let their Jessie have a bit of freedom.
Emily seemed okay, less jittery than when Vera had last seen her. She was a beauty. Her long curly hair reminded Vera of a Pre-Raphaelite painting she’d seen in the Laing Art Gallery when she’d been at school.
‘Should I stay?’ Jackie asked. She seemed still more nervous and keen to do the right thing. She was more tense now than her daughter. Vera thought things might work out for them.
‘Why not?’ Vera said easily. ‘We’re just having a chat after all.’
Later, outside in the gloom, she checked her phone. She’d switched it to silent on going into the house. There was a missed call from Holly. She’d left a message to say that CCTV in the Metro system had flagged up Malcolm Kerr earlier in the day, but they’d lost him again. The trains were so crowded now that it was impossible to pick up individuals and there was no sign of Jessie. ‘Can you get in touch, Ma’am? We’re not quite sure where we should go from here.’
Vera left the Land Rover in Harbour Street and got a lift to North Mardle beach in an unmarked car. A hunch. This was where Malcolm had made promises to Margaret Krukowski, and this was where he came to think. She needed to talk to him before he did anything stupid. The light had almost gone, but the sky had cleared. As the cloud thinned the temperature had dropped, and there were strange white ponds in the bowls formed by the sand at the top of the dunes. Places where hailstones had pooled and frozen. There was a big white moon. Perhaps Kate Dewar would write another song just for the season.
Vera found a vantage point in the dunes. She could see the car park behind her and the beach in front. Further south there were the lights of Mardle town centre and the harbour wall. Out in the bay a boat was moored and on the horizon was a huge container ship making its way towards the Tyne. No sound. Not even of surf on the beach, because there was no wind and the tide slid in like oil. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve and it seemed that everything was breathless, waiting.
Vera’s phone pinged. A text from Holly: Kerr has collected his car from Partington. One passenger. A name. Which meant, Vera thought, that Malcolm wasn’t thinking straight if he hoped to avoid being picked up. More likely, he no longer cared what happened to him. She sent a text in return: In place. Keep your distance.
She supposed that she was taking a risk. Perhaps they should pick him up immediately, go in mob-handed, blues and twos. The press and her boss would like that. But she still sensed that Malcolm felt trapped and desperate and had no concern for his own safety. Again, like a mantra or a popular song, the chorus flashed into her head: No more killing.
She waited. Nothing. No sound of a car in the distance, and surely they should be here by now if Malcolm had come straight from Partington. It was only a couple of miles away. Occasionally she believed she heard something – footsteps in the frozen sand, or the rumble of an engine – but it was all in her imagination. She was chilled despite her thick coat and her gloves and boots. If Malcolm should appear now, she wasn’t sure that she’d be able to move.
The headlights appeared first, sweeping like searchlights over the flat coastal plain behind the dunes, across the reclaimed subsidence ponds where once there had been pits. Vera crouched, because her silhouette might be seen on the horizon against the full moon. The car parked below her. She heard the doors open and shut. Both doors, so there were two people, just as Holly had said. But even in the moonlight it was impossible to make out individual forms. They were just dark shapes. And it was impossible to tell if they were both there voluntarily or if one was the prisoner of the other. There was no other activity on the narrow road leading to the coast. She’d given orders that the officers following should wait on the main road and make their way in carefully on foot. She didn’t want to frighten these people. No more killing. And she hoped it would all be over before they arrived.
She couldn’t see the figures now. They’d started to climb the dunes to the beach and all the shadows had blurred. She strained to listen. Out in the bay she saw the light buoy marking Coquet Island, and again her mind went back to Hector and his raids to collect terns’ eggs. He’d trained her well. What better training could there be for this kind of work
?
Then she heard the sand shifting and slipping so close to her that she almost felt that she could reach out and touch the walkers. Grunting and heavy breathing: Malcolm out of condition and out of breath, and the frozen air making him wheeze. His companion seemed fitter. Vera waited. Sometimes it seemed she’d spent her childhood waiting, heart thumping. Waiting for Hector or for the police, startled by the noise of sudden wingbeats or heavy footsteps.
Now there was an expected sound: her quarry sliding the last few feet onto the flat beach. And at last she could see them, two dark figures walking towards the water, shadows in the moonlight. Vera shifted her stiff and frozen limbs and began to move. For such a heavy woman she walked quietly. She’d been a heavy child and Hector’s jeers had made her conscious of every footstep. For Christ’s sake, girl, do you want us both to end up in prison?
At the bottom of the dunes she paused. Now she could hear voices. One voice. It was Malcolm, and it seemed that he would never stop or even pause for breath. This was a slow, relentless stream of bitter accusation, a rasping whisper, the voice almost of a lover betrayed. Vera thought he would only stop speaking when the object of his hatred was dead.
And that was when she raised her voice and bellowed too, shining her torch towards them, each word spoken slowly and given equal emphasis. ‘No more killing.’
Chapter Forty-Two
Joe finished his phone call to Sal and headed back to Mardle, driving too fast along the icy roads. It was the day before Christmas Eve and the gritters would be on double time, so the council hadn’t called them in. He felt responsible for Vera; she thought she was invincible, that she could control any situation with the power of her personality. She could be an arrogant cow, with no sense of danger. He couldn’t allow anything dreadful to happen to the boss.
He pulled into the lay-by opposite a petrol station that was putting up Closed signs. The roads were almost empty now. Stepping out of the car, he was hit by a sudden cold that took away his breath for a moment. The moonlight made everything monochrome and dreamlike and the shadows were very sharp. He headed away from the road and towards the beach. After a few minutes he heard the sound of an engine, moving down the track towards the car park, and he was close enough to recognize Malcolm’s car, the rattling, spluttering sound of it and the shape of the model. There was a bank of bramble and he hid behind that and watched two figures head towards the beach. Joe waited until they were far enough into the dunes not to hear his footsteps and then he followed. He must have got lost in the strange dunescape, because suddenly he found himself facing the wrong way and looking down towards the main road and the lights of the town in the distance. Perhaps Jessie had inherited his sense of direction. Then he had another moment of panic, imagining Vera dealing with this situation alone. He wished he knew where she was.
At last he reached the highest sand hill and from there he had a view of the beach. The white curve of the softly breaking waves catching in the moonlight. The same two figures, very close, walking towards the water. Did they intend to continue walking, heading towards Scandinavia, until they were killed by drowning or by the cold? Some odd suicide pact.
This was like the set of a black-and-white silent movie. There was no sound apart from the occasional distant rumble of a truck on the main road. It was so quiet that when the words came they were shocking.
‘No more killing!’ A bellow like a bull elephant.
And he saw Vera, recognizable because of her bulk, moving across the sand at a speed that seemed physically impossible for someone of her size. A giant hovercraft, hardly seeming to touch the ground. And the two companions must have been shocked too, because they stopped moving and watched her running towards them.
Then he was moving too, sliding down the sand, the frozen grains like sandpaper against the skin of his wrists and ankles, trying to keep below the line of the horizon and not make too much noise, because perhaps this time Vera herself might need saving. Even for her, two killers might be too much to tackle.
On the flat, hard sand he stopped and watched. The moon made a path across the water and over the wet ridged shore. Three figures in conversation. Malcolm Kerr, hunched and broken. Vera Stanhope, triumphant. And Ryan Dewar, the teenage boy who had killed two women and had threatened Joe’s daughter. Kerr had his arm around the boy’s throat. As Joe watched, Kerr shoved the boy towards Vera and raised his hands in grateful surrender.
Early Christmas Eve and they were in the police station in Kimmerston. Vera and Joe were preparing to interview Malcolm Kerr. They’d leave Ryan until later, once his mother and the lawyer had arrived. Thinking about what Kate Dewar must be thinking, Joe felt sick and sad. Malcolm Kerr had brought his daughter to safety. Kate was another grieving parent, but for her there would be no happy ending, no happy families.
Now Vera was in her element, part mother superior and part Mystic Meg, reading the past like a mind-reader. There was a plate of bacon sandwiches on the table between them. God knows where she’d found them at this time of the morning. He could smell the bacon and the coffee and, when he replayed the scene later, describing it to colleagues as an example of Vera working her bloody miracles, it was the smell that remained with him. They’d offered Malcolm a solicitor, but he’d just shaken his head. ‘No need for that.’ Joe thought he was glad that it had ended like this. Prison wouldn’t seem so bad after the soulless house in Percy Street.
‘Ricky Butt,’ Vera said. ‘A horrible young toerag.’
‘Ricky was a psychopath,’ Malcolm said. Joe might just as well not have been in the room. All the prisoner’s answers were directed at the inspector. Joe was back in his role of observer – Vera’s second pair of eyes. ‘He liked hurting people. Dealt heroin. Dealt women. We weren’t angels in Harbour Street, but we weren’t used to that. Not his mother’s fault. Val was a bit rough, but her heart was in the right place.’
‘And he was making life difficult for Margaret?’
‘He’d only been in Mardle for a few months and he was throwing his weight about. He had this attitude. You know, cocky. But cruel with it. Always carried a knife to show he meant business. He said he couldn’t have Margaret working freelance on his patch. She should work for him or leave. Or he’d change her looks so that she’d never work again. You could imagine him, his knife on her face. He’d have loved the excuse.’ Malcolm’s voice was flat and hard. Joe believed every word he said.
‘So you decided to sort him out.’ Vera wasn’t asking a question now, just acting as straight woman, moving the story along.
‘I decided to have a word,’ Malcolm said.
‘The night of your father’s fiftieth birthday party. The night that photo was taken.’ Vera leaned forward across the table and her eyes were bright. You wouldn’t have thought that she’d had no sleep for forty-eight hours.
I asked him to meet me in the yard,’ Malcolm said. ‘Told him I thought we might do some business together. That was the only language he understood. Business.’ Coughing out the last word like an oath. He paused for a moment and then he continued. ‘It was hot. During the day so hot that the tar on the road had melted. The heat made everyone crazy. It made me crazy. Butt was just a boy, but he had no respect. No sense of how things worked in Harbour Street.’
‘Your dad had a certain position,’ Vera said. ‘Cox of the lifeboat. It had run in the family. And you had a certain position too.’
Malcolm nodded briefly to show that she’d got that bit right. ‘Ricky Butt offered me a cut,’ he said. ‘He sat swinging back and forth on his chair in the office in the yard. Smirking. Talking about Margaret as if she was shit. “She’s got class. Worth a fortune, a bit of class. Bring her onside and you’ll get your cut.” But Margaret wasn’t that sort of woman.’
It was still dark outside, but Malcolm was staring out of the window.
‘So you lost your temper.’ Vera’s voice hardly more than a whisper.
Another pause, then a nod. A brief triumphant grin. ‘I hit him
. He wasn’t expecting it. Not time to get out the knife. He tilted back in his chair and hit his head on the floor. I think that might have killed him. It was a hell of a crash and there was blood and brain everywhere . . .’
Joe thought Malcolm might have meant to continue, to confess to another blow, just to make sure the man was dead, or because he was crazy with the heat and the temper, but Vera interrupted. She raised her hand to stop him in mid-flow.
‘Not murder then,’ she said. ‘Manslaughter, if you didn’t mean to kill him.’
Malcolm gave a little shrug to show that he no longer cared.
‘Then you fetched your dad and he organized things for you. Dealt with the mess. Because that’s what parents do.’
‘He wrapped the body in a bit of tarpaulin and hid it in a rusting old trawler we had in the yard.’ Malcolm was obviously still proud of his father, and still a little bit in his shadow. ‘Then he set fire to the office. The next day, when the cop and the fire officer turned up, they were only interested in the office. Nobody looked in an old boat waiting to be cut up for scrap.’
Vera nodded. ‘And later you were able to bury the body, and you concreted over the grave and built the shed over it. Every day you sat there, you must have remembered Ricky Butt.’
Malcolm thought about that for a minute and then he shook his head. ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘That night felt like a dream. I couldn’t believe what had happened.’
‘Did you tell Margaret that you’d killed the boy?’
This time the denial was immediate. ‘No. I told her we’d frightened him off.’
‘But she guessed?’ Vera pushed the question.
Malcolm nodded. ‘You couldn’t get much past Margaret. I told her it wasn’t her fault, but she felt responsible, blamed herself.’
Of course she did, Joe thought. And it was guilt that had made Margaret Krukowski who she was. It wasn’t the prostitution that had turned her to the church and to helping other women. She hadn’t been ashamed of her profession, of the service she provided. It was the knowledge that she’d led to a man being killed.