The Darkest Evening

by Cleeves, Ann

  ‘Just a minute.’

  ‘Hello.’ Josh Heslop’s voice, similar in inflexion to the recording of Lorna Joe had played at the briefing. A rural Northumberland accent that was quite different from city Geordie.

  Holly had explained who she was and asked if they could meet. ‘I wondered if you’d mind coming into Kimmerston. Not to the station, it’s not a formal interview. This is a bit cheeky, but I understand you have an exhibition in the gallery in the Chantry. I’d love to see your art. Could we meet there?’ Not flirty exactly. Holly had never been able to do flirty. But interested and young men always seemed to like that.

  ‘Sure.’ An immediate response. Holly thought Vera might be a cow, but she was a wily cow. She knew how to reel in her witnesses. Holly had a brief image of Vera in thigh waders, standing in a river, a fishing rod in hand.

  They’d arranged a time. The gallery had a coffee shop attached. Holly sometimes had lunch there. It was a solid stone building with its foundations in the river, a view over the water to the old houses on the other bank. She’d suggested that they meet in the cafe. ‘You can show me the exhibition after we’ve chatted.’ By the time the call had ended, Holly thought she’d had him eating out of her hand.

  Tuesday morning, she got there early, bought herself a skinny cappuccino, and expected to wait, but he arrived soon after she did. Eager. She recognized him from the photo on the board in the ops room. Tall, fine-featured, dark-haired, dark-eyed. She had a moment of disappointment when she realized how young he was. Only twenty-three and not long out of university. Too young for her even if he hadn’t been a witness. She thought he’d smartened himself up for the meeting. He had that scrubbed, just-out-of-the-shower look, the jeans were clean and there was an ironed shirt and a jacket. His mother would certainly have thought he was out to meet a new girlfriend, unless he’d told her who Holly was. She waved, offered to buy him coffee, but he insisted on going to the counter himself.

  The place was quiet. A couple of women, of Connie Browne’s vintage, were gossiping in a corner, but they were totally engrossed in their own conversation about plans for Christmas.

  ‘I’m not really sure how I can help,’ Josh said. ‘I explained to the other woman.’

  ‘My boss.’ Holly gave a little grimace. Not out of real disrespect to Vera. Of course not. But to encourage Heslop to talk, to make him feel she was different from the older woman, more on his wavelength.

  ‘She does seem quite a character.’ A shy smile because he didn’t want to be rude about a colleague whom Holly might admire.

  ‘That’s one way of describing her!’

  Now the smile was shared.

  ‘Tell me about your home,’ Holly said. ‘The farm near Brockburn. I was speaking to your friends, the guys who work at the Baltic, and they said you loved it and wanted to get back as soon as you left university. I must admit I’m more a city girl. I live in Newcastle.’ She paused and when he didn’t answer immediately, continued. ‘Isn’t it a bit oppressive, living somewhere so small, so enclosed, where everyone knows you?’

  Still, it took him a little while to answer. ‘It doesn’t feel like that to me. I find the city oppressive, claustrophobic. All those people. I love the space around Brockburn, the lack of noise, the dark skies. Even though the forest can make you feel closed in at times, that seems comforting to me. Or mysterious. And I get on very well with my family. I’ve never felt the need to escape from them.’ There was a moment of hesitation and she thought he had more to say, but he remained silent.

  ‘But that sense that everyone’s interested in your business?’ Holly was genuinely interested in his opinion. People celebrated the North-East for being friendly, but she felt the curiosity almost as a kind of assault. ‘Doesn’t that annoy you?’

  He shrugged. ‘I grew up with it. I suppose I’m used to it.’ He paused. ‘I think it just means that people care. And really, it’s not that hard to keep the important things secret. If you need to.’

  She gave a little laugh. ‘Well, Lorna seems to have managed well enough. We still haven’t managed to find out who Thomas’s father might be.’

  He didn’t bite, so she moved on. ‘Your old uni friends Ollie and Jon said you had a mysterious girlfriend. You managed to keep that to yourself pretty well too.’

  He blushed. The colour rose from the collar of his shirt to his hairline. ‘They’ve got good imaginations.’

  ‘My boss, Inspector Stanhope, the woman who came to the farm the night of your sister’s party, thought that might have been Lorna.’ Holly raised her hands, palms up, a gesture of helplessness. ‘Look, I know she’s a bit eccentric, but she’s in charge and she told me to ask. I’m sorry if it’s intrusive, but you do see we need to know.’ She thought again how young he was. He seemed so naive, hardly more than a schoolboy.

  ‘Lorna was a friend,’ he said. ‘I saw her more often than I told your inspector, but that was because my mother was there when she asked. My mother disapproved. She thought Lorna would be trouble. Hard work. I don’t know . . . I’m not sure why she took against her. Usually Mum’s the first person to support folk on hard times.’

  The cynic in Holly thought that if Josh was the murderer, this would have been clever. He’d know his fingerprints would be in Lorna’s house, so best to admit to having been there at least once. But she couldn’t see him as that calculating and he was admitting to Holly now that he’d been a regular visitor. Besides, he’d been in Newcastle when the woman had been killed.

  ‘Perhaps the history of anorexia concerned her?’

  He nodded, gave a wry smile. ‘Mam said I didn’t need that sort of responsibility when I was starting off, that I’d only get hurt. You know what mothers are like.’

  ‘And you are her only son. And the oldest.’

  He nodded again, pleased that Holly understood. ‘Nettie and Cath seem to get away with murder.’ The last word seemed to catch in his throat and the blush returned. ‘I mean they can wrap Dad round their little fingers.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw Lorna?’

  ‘She was at the art class the Monday before she was killed. Afterwards I went back to her house for coffee.’ He paused. ‘She didn’t want people to know we were getting friendly, so she left the village hall with Thomas and I went along when I’d cleared up. There’s an alley behind her house and a back gate into the garden. I always used that.’ He looked at Holly. ‘I know it sounds ridiculous, but she’d been the subject of so much talk in the village – the anorexia and then being so secretive about the baby – that I could understand all the cloak-and-dagger stuff.’

  ‘Maybe it made it a bit exciting?’ Holly suggested.

  ‘Yeah, maybe.’ He paused. ‘The best times were when we could get away together, leave everything behind. I’d pick her up with the baby and we’d head out somewhere miles from the village. Once we went out to the coast. It was one of those beautiful days you can get in September. We went to Druridge Bay, I put Thomas in the sling and we walked all the way along the beach, then stopped for ice cream in Cresswell on the way back.’

  ‘That was what you wanted,’ Holly said. ‘To be a real family?’

  ‘I wanted it more than anything.’

  What a romantic he was, Holly thought. What did he picture? Himself and Lorna farming in the valley, just as his parents had done? More children perhaps? Or setting up some artistic venture together.

  ‘Lorna wasn’t interested?’

  ‘We weren’t even lovers.’ There was a touch of bitterness in his voice. ‘Sometimes I thought she was using me, because she was lonely, others we felt really close.’

  ‘You aren’t Thomas’s father?’

  ‘No! I was still at university when Thomas was born. I only started seeing Lorna regularly when I came home in the summer. She never talked about the man and I never asked. Really, I didn’t want to know.’

  Joe had phoned Holly just before she’d come out to the gallery: Someone gave Lorna a lift back to Kirkhill a
fter she had the meeting with Olivia on Thursday. Can you find out if it was Josh Heslop?

  ‘Lorna met a friend in Kimmerston the morning before she died. We know she got a lift back to Kirkhill from someone she knew. You’re saying that the person who drove her home definitely wasn’t you?’

  ‘Definitely,’ he said. ‘I remember the last time I saw her.’ A pause. ‘I’d asked if she wanted to come to the party in Newcastle with me, to meet my friends. I thought she’d enjoy it. She never really had a chance to be young, to let her hair down. Never did the whole student thing. I said we could take Thomas if she liked. I promised I wouldn’t drink and I’d look after the baby, so she could have some fun.’

  ‘You asked her on the Monday, after the art class?’

  He nodded.

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘That she’d think about it.’ He paused again. ‘And she smiled, as if she was glad to be asked. That was the last time I saw her. It was one of those clear, frosty days we had at the beginning of the week and the sun was shining through her living-room window, catching one side of her face, and she had Thomas on her lap. I let myself out of the house, and walked down to the village hall. There was still ice on the pavement.’

  Holly saw that every moment of that last meeting was imprinted in his mind. ‘Did she phone you to say she wouldn’t be coming?’

  ‘She sent me a text.’ The bitterness of rejection was back in his voice. ‘I’d been trying to call her all week, but she finally texted me on the Thursday afternoon, to say she wouldn’t make it.’ He got out his phone, clicked a few buttons and passed it to Holly.

  Sorry. It’s been a shit week. Can’t make tomorrow, but all fine now.

  ‘I thought it was the most self-centred message ever,’ he said. ‘It seemed as if she didn’t care about me at all. It was probably my fault – I’d built the party up into something important, a chance for her to be part of my life away from the valley, and perhaps she hadn’t realized.’ A pause. ‘But it wasn’t all fine, was it? Now she’s dead.’ There were tears in his eyes.

  Holly went back to the counter for more coffee, a chance for him to regain control. When she returned, his eyes were dry and he was looking out over the river.

  ‘How well do you know Constance Browne?’

  He seemed surprised by the question, but he answered readily enough. ‘She’s always been there,’ he said. ‘A part of my childhood and my growing up. She’s like that with all the kids in the valley. She’s never had children and perhaps we’re a substitute family. She certainly encouraged my art. When she was our teacher, she saw it as her mission to broaden our minds. She took us on trips to the theatre and to museums in the city. She said we might end up farming with our families, but we had to know there were options.’

  ‘So, the special interest she took in Lorna wasn’t unusual?’

  Josh shook his head. ‘Though perhaps Lorna needed her more than the rest of us.’

  Holly framed the next question carefully. ‘You were late arriving at the art class this Monday. Why was that?’

  ‘Trouble with my car,’ he said. ‘It’s clapped out and a nightmare.’ He looked up. ‘You can check with my mother. I needed to borrow one.’

  ‘Were you surprised when Connie wasn’t there?’

  ‘Yeah, but she’d been so close to Lorna, I thought she might not be up to it.’

  ‘Miss Browne seems to have disappeared,’ Holly said. ‘Any idea where she might be?’

  He shook his head. ‘Connie Browne’s adventurous. Brave. Last year she travelled through India on her own. Not a trip with an organized group. She might just have wanted to go away.’

  Later, they walked together round the gallery. Holly was impatient. She felt she’d got everything she could out of the man and she wanted to get back to the station to pass the information on to Vera. But it was almost as if she’d lured him here with her interest in his work, and she didn’t feel she could just walk away. He was shy, awkward, and stood back, not soliciting any response. When she turned around, halfway through the gallery, he’d disappeared altogether.

  The paintings were very different from Lorna’s: small, detailed, domestic. Strange points of view and changes in perspective made Holly see the landscape where Josh and his family lived and farmed in a new light. Often, the forest provided the backdrop, circling, dense, overwhelming the buildings and the people. Holly wondered if this was some kind of message about the strength and importance of nature, but she was given to over-analysing and didn’t want to ask Josh in case he thought the idea ludicrous. Occasionally a view was seen from the edge of the forest and then the light was startling, dazzling, a moment of revelation.

  She walked round both rooms of the gallery, hoping that she might see the cottage which had featured in Lorna’s paintings, but there was nothing that resembled it.

  Josh was waiting for her by the main door into the building. He was wearing his coat and seemed in a hurry to leave before she could make any comment on his art, but Holly asked him to give her another couple of moments.

  ‘Do these pictures mean anything to you? I assume you recognize the paintings?’ Holly got out her phone and showed him the photographs she’d taken of Lorna’s work. ‘I found them in Lorna’s spare room.’

  ‘No,’ he said. He sounded genuine enough. Sad. ‘She didn’t show me all her stuff.’

  ‘Do you recognize the place? The building?’

  He hesitated and she thought he might provide the answer, but he shook his head. ‘No. Sorry.’

  ‘She called one of the paintings “The Darkest Evening”. Does that mean anything to you? I think it’s a quote from a poem.’

  He shook his head again.

  ‘Well, if anything comes to you, do get back in touch. If I email the pictures perhaps you could ask your family.’ She held out her hand. ‘Thank you for meeting me.’

  ‘It was good to speak about Lorna. It’s hard to do that at home. My sisters are sorry she’s dead, of course, but they didn’t really know her and they’re at that age when everything just seems funny. My dad’s still traumatized by finding her and my mother just wants to pretend nothing’s happened, for everything to get back to normal.’ He paused. ‘You know it was Cath’s birthday party at the weekend. None of us really felt like celebrating, Dad especially after finding Lorna’s body, but Mam insisted we go ahead. Maybe she was right. Things can’t just stop because she’s dead.’

  Holly wasn’t sure how to reply to that. ‘If you think of anything that might help us find out who killed her, you will get in touch?’

  He hesitated again and she thought he might be about to share something relevant, but he just shook her hand briefly and hurried away.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  IT WAS VERA’S FIRST VISIT TO Broom Farm, the place where Lorna had grown up. She must have driven past it a few times, on those trips to Brockburn with Hector, because it lay on the road between Kirkhill and the big house, but nothing stirred in her memory as she approached. It was low-lying, with meadows that would flood when the river was high, but the hill rose sharply behind the farmhouse, with rocky outcrops. To the west, the inevitable line of Sitka spruce broke the horizon.

  The house seemed quiet. A child’s clothes – sleepsuits, dungarees and vests – had been pegged on a washing line behind the house. Somewhere in the distance a dog was barking. Vera hoped that meant Robert Falstone was out on his land. This was a conversation she’d prefer to have with his wife on her own.

  She found Jill in the kitchen with Thomas. The toddler was on a rug in front of the Aga playing with plastic bricks. Vera supposed they were new. The Falstones hadn’t been given permission to go into Lorna’s house in Kirkhill. Joe had described this place as dirty, but Vera thought it was no grubbier than most farmhouse kitchens she’d known. Joe’s Sal was obsessive about housework. Vera thought she should find something better to do with her time.

  Vera introduced herself. ‘Your man not about?’


  Jill shook her head. ‘There’s a fence that needs fixing down by the river. He’s just gone out.’ She moved a kettle onto the hotplate. ‘Tea or coffee?’ Her eyes were red as if she’d had little sleep, but she seemed to be holding things together.

  ‘Tea, please.’ Vera nodded towards the child. ‘How’s it going?’

  The woman smiled. ‘He’s good as gold.’

  ‘Keeping you awake at night?’

  ‘Nah, I don’t sleep much, but that’s grief. Guilt. Thinking of all the things I might have said. Might have done.’

  ‘Eh, pet, you have to let go of the guilt. That way lies madness.’

  Jill set the pot on the table, added mugs, a milk bottle and a packet of shop-bought biscuits.

  Vera felt at home. She’d never been at ease with perfect housewives, perfect families. Home-made biscuits. ‘Tell me about your fling with Crispin Stanhope.’

  The woman stared at her, frozen.

  ‘Now, I’d normally say it was none of my business what you got up to with the lord of the manor. Unless you’d been forced into it. But this is different. Your lass was murdered and we have to look into all sorts of possibilities. Her body was found on Brockburn land, after all. You do understand?’

  Jill nodded.

  ‘Did he force you?’

  ‘No!’ At last the woman did seem able to speak. ‘No, it was nothing like that.’

  ‘Because he did have a bit of a reputation.’

  ‘I think he loved me,’ she said quietly.

  ‘But not enough to leave Harriet for you?’

  Silence again. Jill bent and built a tower with the bricks. Thomas knocked them down and chuckled.

  ‘It wasn’t easy for him.’ Again, the words seemed to take an age to be spoken.

  ‘Eh, you don’t have to make excuses for him after all these years.’

  ‘He felt the responsibility, not just for Harriet and Juliet, but for the estate. For his position.’