The Darkest Evening

by Cleeves, Ann

  ‘I need to go home.’ She had a deep, educated voice. Not local. Not what Joe had been expecting in a housekeeper. ‘I told Karan, my partner, I’d get back. My baby’s playing up. He needs me.’

  ‘Will you be okay to go on your own?’ That was Vera.

  ‘Of course. I can walk. The cottage is just at the end of the track, where it meets the road. I have a head torch.’ She looked at Vera. ‘That is all right with you? I won’t be . . .’ she paused, ‘. . . contaminating evidence?’

  ‘No, you get off.’ Vera thought for a moment. ‘Billy, you go with her. Make sure she’s safe. You can mark where she’s been walking. Set up an access path a good way from our body.’

  Cartwright seemed about to object but thought better of it and drained the last of his coffee. ‘Just leave me some of that flapjack. I know what you buggers are like.’ The kitchen door opened and the two disappeared. Joe and Holly shed their outer garments and took their places at the table.

  ‘So.’ Joe found a clean mug. ‘Are you going to fill us in?’

  Vera looked at him. ‘I got a bit lost in the snow. There was more of a blizzard than I’d been expecting.’ She sounded sheepish, but moved on before he or Holly could get anywhere near I told you so. ‘A car had come off the road up the bank not far from the main entrance to this house and there was this bairn on his own in the back.’ A pause. ‘I know the folk who live here. At least, I know Harriet, who must own it since her husband Crispin died, and her daughter Juliet, the lass who took away the baby just now. They’re distant relatives. On Hector’s side.’

  Joe was astonished. Vera lived in the cottage which had once belonged to Hector, her father. It was small and scruffy, a hovel perched on the edge of a hill. There’d never been any indication that she might belong in a place like this.

  ‘You can shut your gob,’ Vera said. ‘You just look gormless, staring like that.’

  Joe heard Holly snigger beside him, but he sipped his coffee and waited for Vera to continue. There was no point talking to the boss when she was showing off.

  ‘So, there was a kiddie in one of those child seats. I thought the mother must have gone to get help or a phone signal. But what worried me was that the door had been left open. I couldn’t see that a woman would do that.’

  ‘You were sure it was a woman driving?’ Holly asked. Holly saw it as a mission in life to challenge Vera’s outdated sexist assumptions. ‘It could have been the father.’

  Vera shook her head. ‘The driver’s seat was pulled right forward. It must have been a small woman. I drove on and brought the baby here and arrived in the middle of a social gathering. A kind of weekend house party. There are three couples staying overnight . . .’ Vera looked down at her notes, ‘. . . the Blackstocks and the Wallaces, and Jennifer Abbot and Peter Little. Juliet gave me a list of names and addresses. The only locals at the party were the priest and her husband and they left straight after dinner, before the body was found. We can get someone round in the morning to take a statement. We can chat to the others tomorrow too, see if any of them has any connection with the dead woman.’ She paused and eyed up the remaining pieces of flapjack. ‘Then of course there are the family – Juliet, her husband and her mother Harriet – and Dorothy Felling, the wonder woman who’s been feeding and watering us.’

  Joe shifted in his seat. ‘What’s the husband’s name?’

  ‘Mark Bolitho. I don’t know him. He arrived on the scene long after I had any contact with this side of the family. According to Dorothy, he ran a theatre in Newcastle before moving out here, still does, part-time. He’s a writer and director, apparently. She thought I should have heard of him . . .’ Vera’s voice tailed off.

  ‘I know his work,’ Holly said. ‘He’s done some film and television too. I heard him speak at the Tyneside Cinema.’

  Of course you did, Joe thought. Holly saw herself as the office intellectual.

  ‘Well, you can do the interview with him in the morning then, pet.’ Vera’s voice was bright. ‘It seems he’s dreaming up some scheme to set up a theatre here and the party last night was all about tapping his mates for cash to support it.’

  Holly nodded. ‘Did you speak to the car owner? Was it stolen?’

  ‘Nah. It belongs to a retired woman, a former schoolteacher called Constance Browne. She thought a neighbour called Lorna Falstone might have been driving. Apparently, they had an arrangement. A kind of informal car share. Neil Heslop, the farmer who gave you a lift, found the body and thought he recognized her as Lorna too. We’ll need confirmation – her parents live at Broom Farm further across the valley between here and Kirkhill – but all the indications are that it’s her. It wasn’t an accident or hypothermia. There’s severe blunt-force trauma to the side of the head.’

  ‘That couldn’t have happened when the car came off the road?’ Holly had been taking notes and looked up, pen poised.

  ‘I’ve looked at the body too.’ Keating was an Ulsterman, precise and a little dour. Sentimental when nobody was watching. ‘There’s no way anyone could have staggered nearly a mile from where her car left the road with an injury like that.’

  ‘And there was no sign of damage to the vehicle.’ Vera reached for a flapjack. ‘The kiddie wasn’t hurt at all and nor was the car. It just seemed to have slid off the road. It can’t have been going at any kind of speed.’

  ‘So definitely murder then?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Vera said, and Joe caught the gleam in her eye. ‘Definitely murder.’

  Chapter Six

  JULIET SAT IN THE BEDROOM SHE shared with Mark and looked out at the garden. She’d heard Vera talk about bringing in a generator to light the patch of lawn where the body had been found, but there was no sign of that yet. No rumble of the engine or intense white light. Already a tent had been erected, flimsy enough for Juliet to see a shadow of a person inside, backlit by a torch.

  Their room was on a corner and she could see both to the front – the formal garden – and along the side track that led up to the cottages on the Kirkhill road. She watched a small group of people at work, lifting equipment from the back of a large SUV. Everything was lit by the security light fixed to the wall above the kitchen door. It felt unreal, like wandering into one of Mark’s film sets. She could imagine him following the action from a distance, completely focused, shouting the occasional note, before someone yelled, ‘Cut.’ Now, he was still downstairs in the drawing room drinking with his friends, more interested, it seemed, in their promises of money than in a murdered young woman.

  Thomas was on her knee, wide awake, squirming. Juliet put him on the carpet and he scuttled away, exploring. It was a strange crab-like crawl; the child used his feet rather than his knees.

  Your mother’s dead. What will happen to you now?

  Vera had spoken of grandparents living in the valley, people who might take the child in. ‘The Falstones. An old farming family. You must know them? They’re nearly neighbours.’

  Juliet had muttered something about Robert Falstone being a tenant. ‘They’ve farmed our land for years, but they keep themselves to themselves.’ What else could she say?

  Then Vera had persisted, poking away with her questions, like a disturbed child picking at its skin. ‘You’d have known Lorna though? She was younger than you and I daresay she went to a local school, not that fancy place in Newcastle where you were sent, but in this sort of community you’d all know each other. The New Year’s Day meet, everyone turns out, don’t they? She’d likely have had a pony when she was a bairn.’

  ‘She was a lot younger than me.’ Juliet had tried to be firm. ‘By at least ten years, maybe fifteen. I was aware of her, bumped into her in the Co-op in Kirkhill. As you say she came to the meet from time to time. But I’ve not met her recently.’

  ‘Heard any rumours? Apparently, she was a gentle soul. Given to depression perhaps. Anxiety.’

  ‘I try not to listen to rumours, Vera.’ And that, at least, was true.

  ‘Ah,
rumours are what my job is all about.’ And the woman had given a little laugh, making Juliet wonder what she might have heard about her.

  Dorothy had found an old camping cot, which they kept in the house for guests with babies, and at last, it seemed, Thomas was ready for sleep again. Juliet laid him in the cot, wrapped up in a blanket, and climbed into bed too. She was awake for a long time, waiting for Mark to appear. At one point she considered going downstairs to see what was happening there, but what would that look like? A harridan wife in her dressing gown chasing a recalcitrant husband to bed. Mark would be mortified. In the end, she took a sleeping pill, an over-the-counter remedy that would have no real strength to it but might help a little. She slept fitfully and didn’t properly wake until she heard Thomas muttering to himself. He wasn’t crying, but making odd soft noises that could have been the beginning of speech. Mark was in the bed beside her, still in his socks and underwear, his other clothes and shoes scattered over the floor.

  It was dark and she looked at the bedside clock. Six forty-five. She got out of bed, opened the curtains and stared out of the window. A uniformed officer she didn’t recognize stood by the tent, lit by the light inside it. He was wrapped in a heavy jacket, but she thought he’d be freezing: there’d been no more snow, but it was still and clear and there was ice on the pane. She dressed quickly – a bath could wait – and took Thomas downstairs. They’d told the guests there’d be breakfast at nine and she hoped none of them would be ill-mannered enough to emerge before then. She’d left kettles and tea in the rooms. Dorothy had said she’d be in at eight, but surely Vera and her team would need hot drinks and food now. Juliet felt the old need to please, to make herself useful.

  Vera was in the kitchen where Juliet had left her the night before. She was asleep, her head on her ample chest, snoring lightly. There was no sign of the younger detectives, the pathologist or the crime-scene manager. Vera woke up when Juliet came in. ‘Morning!’ Bright as if she’d had a good night’s sleep in her own bed.

  ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you. I was going to make some tea.’

  ‘Oh, Juliet, my love, you’re a life-saver.’ Vera nodded to Thomas. ‘How’s the little one?’

  ‘He seems fine.’

  ‘I called the duty social worker last night,’ Vera said. ‘She’s going with one of my colleagues to tell Lorna’s parents first thing this morning. Before the news gets out. I’m assuming her relatives will want to look after the kiddie. We should be able to take him off your hands by lunchtime.’

  Juliet didn’t know what to say. She put Thomas on the floor and started making tea. ‘Where are the others?’

  ‘Crashed out in your lounge. Sofas, armchairs. I didn’t think you’d mind. We left one poor chap to mind the scene and he’ll need a hot drink as soon as. I’ll rouse the others when the tea’s ready. They did what they could last night, but they’ll start again this morning when it gets light. We’ll have reinforcements then if the weather holds up. The forecast says no more snow.’

  ‘I hope all our guests can get home.’ Juliet was aware of an edge of desperation in her voice.

  ‘Had enough of them, have you? I don’t blame you. I can’t abide my space being invaded. We’ll need to have a quick word before they disappear, but as long as we have names and addresses, we’ll be happy to let them go.’

  Juliet put a big brown china teapot on the table.

  ‘You’ll have to put up with us for a little while longer, though.’ Vera smiled a wide wolf’s smile. ‘I’m afraid you won’t get rid of us quite so easily.’

  The rest of the morning passed in a blur, leaving Juliet with a sense of mild panic and disengagement. She felt a need to concentrate in order not to lose control. It was a sensation close to seasickness and certainly she couldn’t eat. The smell of frying bacon made her nauseous. Strangers drifted in and out of the kitchen. Dorothy arrived early and coordinated the whole scene like a choreographer, making sure everyone was fed and watered, skipping through the crowds with a mound of toast or thermos flasks of coffee.

  The invited guests sat in the dining room. Most looked wan and hungover, but still excited about being in their very own country-house murder mystery. They didn’t seem in any hurry to rush off. Mark looked remarkably fresh, just out of the shower, hair still damp. He came into the kitchen to find her:

  ‘Come on, darling. You must have breakfast with us. They’re your friends too and we do need them if we’re going to keep this crumbling pile in your family.’

  What family? she’d wanted to ask. I’m the only one left. Officially. Apart from Vera and I doubt she has any offspring hidden away, ready to inherit. But of course Juliet said nothing. She left Thomas with Dorothy and followed him to the dining room, where she drank coffee until the caffeine gave her a headache.

  There was an awkward moment when Harriet arrived. She stood in the doorway, immaculate in a tweed jacket and tailored black trousers, a silk scarf round her neck. Demanding attention.

  ‘What is going on in the garden?’ She looked at Juliet for an answer, and Juliet saw that of course she’d slept through everything, the discovery of the body and the arrival of Vera’s team.

  ‘There’s been some kind of incident, Mummy.’ Burbling. Harriet always made her nervous. ‘Neil Heslop found a dead woman when he came to pick up his girls last night.’

  ‘What do you mean by “incident”?’

  ‘It looks like murder, Harriet.’ Mark stood up to speak across the table to his mother-in-law. ‘There are police all over the place.’

  ‘And nobody thought to tell me!’ She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Who is the supposed victim?’

  ‘There hasn’t been any confirmation yet, but they think it’s Lorna Falstone, and that it was her baby that Vera brought in last night.’

  There was a moment of silence. No expression of grief or shock. But Harriet hadn’t expressed grief even after finding her husband dead in the drawing room, early one morning. He’d had a heart attack the night before, but she hadn’t found him until breakfast time. By then they were no longer sharing a bedroom. ‘How did Lorna get here? To the house?’ As if it was the height of bad manners to appear without invitation.

  ‘We don’t know, Mummy.’ Again, Juliet felt herself to be a gibbering teenager again. ‘That’s what the police are trying to find out.’

  At that point, Vera appeared, crumpled, still wearing the clothes in which she’d fallen asleep, but so full of life and energy that she pulled the room’s attention away from Harriet.

  ‘I think you all deserve a bit of an explanation. Come on in and sit down, Harriet. Dorothy’s just bringing in some fresh coffee, and then we’ll start.’

  Harriet, astonished, did as she was told.

  Vera stood at the head of the table and leaned towards them. ‘First, the good news. The plough’s been down the lane and cleared from here to Kirkhill, so as long as you take it easy up the drive, there’s no problem about getting you all home. My colleagues, Joe Ashworth and Holly Jackman, will join us when I’m done. They’ll take a quick statement from each of you, asking if you saw anything unusual when you drove in. We’re interested in a white Polo that went off the road about a mile from the house. We think the dead woman’s name is Lorna Falstone. She lived in Kirkhill. Does that mean anything to you?’ She paused, looked at them, was met with blank faces and shakes of the head, except from Harriet, who seemed about to intervene. And a young couple, the Blackstocks. The woman was about to speak, but the man touched her arm, warning her to stay silent. Juliet saw that Vera had noticed that too.

  ‘Of course we’ll talk to the family later, Harriet,’ Vera said, meaning, so shut up for now. For a moment Juliet was lost in admiration. She would never have the nerve to talk to her mother in that way.

  And so the morning rolled on. Mark played the jovial host, flirting with the women, joking with the men. The younger female detective took him off to his study for a chat, but he emerged smiling as if he’d enjoyed the encou
nter. Juliet thought he always enjoyed the opportunity to perform. It was as if the body in the garden had been laid on just for their entertainment: See what a marvellous backdrop to drama we have here! There was no sadness, no sense of a tragedy unfolding, but then he was an outsider. Lorna Falstone’s death wouldn’t have the same meaning for him.

  The younger detectives took over from Vera and led each of the guests into a corner of the drawing room to ask their questions. It seemed straightforward enough, though Sophie Blackstock seemed to warrant more attention than the others. Juliet recognized her as one of Mark’s team, one of the bevy of admirers who supported him in his artistic endeavours. Sophie was his job-share. One of the women who always made her feel inadequate.

  Chapter Seven

  Holly thought this was one of the strangest cases she’d ever worked. She was slightly thrown by it: by the big house, the suspects trapped by the weather, the snow. It reminded her of the TV dramas her parents had forced her to watch when she went home for Christmas. They expected her to solve the mystery before they did and were disappointed when she showed no interest.

  ‘You must know who the killer is, darling. It’s what you do for a living.’

  She sat in a small room with Mark Bolitho. A Calor gas heater sent fumes, but not much heat, into the space. It was furnished with a desk and office chair, and three scratched leather chairs grouped around a coffee table. On the wall hung gloomy portraits of people Holly assumed were Stanhope ancestors. There was a computer on the desk, a printer and a pile of scripts next to a landline phone. The view from the window was of an outhouse and the bins. Bolitho was soft, just a little flabby. He might once have been fit, but the beginning of middle-aged spread meant his jersey was stretched tight across his stomach. He had the face of an overgrown, enthusiastic schoolboy.