The Darkest Evening

by Cleeves, Ann

  The phone call wasn’t unexpected. Vera always did need him, his reason and his common sense. He was surprised that it was Holly who called.

  ‘The boss is driving.’

  ‘Is it definitely Browne’s body?’ Sometimes the public called in a pile of bones that turned out to be hundreds of years old, or which had once belonged to a horse or a cow.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ A pause. ‘It was all a bit Gothic, actually. This place in the middle of the forest. If the forester hadn’t found her, Miss Browne could have been there for years.’

  Joe didn’t think that sounded like Holly. She wasn’t usually given to fancies. ‘Cause of death?’

  ‘The boss thinks she was strangled.’

  ‘Different from Lorna Falstone, then?’

  He heard Vera shouting in the background, above the incessant rumble of the Land Rover’s engine. ‘So? What’s he going on about? Does he think there are two killers in a place like Kirkhill? Just because there are different causes of death.’

  ‘No,’ Joe said. ‘Just making a point.’ He thought Vera would be feeling bad because they hadn’t managed to prevent Constance’s death. Guilt always made her ratty.

  Then there came a list of instructions, all sent via Holly, about grid references and padlocks, and keeping a lid on things until they could think properly about a media release. Later he got a text from Holly. The boss stayed with the body on her own while we fetched the team. I think she was knocked by Browne’s death. She seemed very frail when we got back to her. We need to keep an eye on her. You know what she’s like.

  He was in the station before the rest of them, making sure all the demands had been met. Vera breezed in, bright-eyed and eager.

  ‘Eh, pet, do me a favour. Pop out and get me a bacon stottie. I had nothing in the house. Don’t forget the brown sauce.’

  She seemed her normal self. If it hadn’t been for Holly’s text, Joe would have been angry; he thought that sometimes Sal had a point about Vera taking the piss. As it was, he just had a few words of complaint for appearance’s sake and then he went. He brought back coffee and a doughnut too.

  Vera looked at him with suspicion. ‘What’s this then? You not feeling well?’

  Joe didn’t know how to reply. He thought Holly was making a fuss about nothing. ‘Thought you might need a sugar and caffeine boost after a night in the cold.’

  ‘Aye, well.’ A moment of silence. ‘Poor woman. Nobody should be left like that. Let’s find the killer, shall we?’ She bit into the stottie, and brown sauce squirted onto her chin.

  Joe sat at the back of the room and watched Vera take them through the details of Constance Browne’s death.

  ‘As I see it, she got up on Monday morning as usual, expecting to go along to the art class. The CSIs have been into her house and are protecting it as a potential crime scene but I don’t think she was murdered there. She was wearing a thick waterproof jacket when the forester found her, and she wouldn’t have been dressed like that if she was in the house. She’d laid the table for breakfast and the curtains were open, she’d put out food for the cat, so I think she was preparing for a normal day.’

  ‘Could she have been killed on the Sunday?’ Joe had stuck up his hand and was responding to Vera’s nod. ‘I don’t think any of the team saw her that day.’

  ‘Nah, when I went looking for her on the Monday morning the kettle was still warm. Not hot, but it had been used that morning.’ Vera paused. ‘That’s a good point about Sunday, though. Let’s track down what she was doing. I think she was a churchgoer. Let’s check with the vicar. There was a priest at the party at Brockburn the night Lorna was killed, so we’ve got her contact details.’ A pause. ‘The folk from the big house were at church too that day. Did they spend any time with Connie? Share any information about Lorna’s murder?’ She looked around the room. ‘Joe, that’s for you.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘The way I see it, she was disturbed early that Monday morning. Either by someone she knew knocking at the door or a phone call. CSIs in the forest still haven’t found a mobile, though we know she had one. It’s interesting that Lorna’s mobile and laptop have disappeared too.’

  ‘You think the killer has them all?’ Joe asked.

  ‘Or has disposed of them, if they’ve got any sense. We’re trying to track down the suppliers for both victims. Connie was an organized woman, so there should be records in the bungalow, receipts, or bills. The CSIs haven’t found anything like that in Lorna’s house, so it’s possible that they were taken at the same time as her devices. Which would indicate a certain level of planning and intelligence.’ Vera paused for breath. ‘Let’s hope the killer still has them, stashed away somewhere. There was no break-in at Connie’s and the door to the bungalow was locked when I got there. So, as I say, it was most likely someone she knew.’

  Joe looked at his colleagues, all intent, all taking notes. They understood how important it was to Vera that this end quickly. The case had been personal for her from the beginning. It seemed even more personal now.

  ‘So,’ Vera continued, ‘Constance either left the house with the killer, dressed for outdoors in a waterproof jacket and walking boots, or she’d arranged to meet him somewhere. If she drove away from the bungalow with him, did someone see them? Or a car parked close by? If she met him elsewhere, where might that have been? We know her own car is still being investigated as a possible murder scene in the lab, so she didn’t drive herself. She was a fit woman, but she wouldn’t have walked all the way to the middle of Brockburn forest. They’re a nebby bunch in Kirkhill. I can’t believe nobody saw her.’ She stopped and looked out at them. ‘So that’s for the rest of you. Let’s have you all in Kirkhill talking to the locals. We know that any sighting of Constance Browne on the Monday morning will be significant.’

  She was just about to send them on their way, when Holly stood up. ‘You talk about the killer as him,’ she said. ‘Could it have been a woman, do you think? Wouldn’t Constance have trusted a woman coming to the door, or phoning and asking to meet, more easily than a man? We think she might have been killed because Lorna had confided in her, perhaps about the identity of her son’s father. Surely, she wouldn’t have gone off with the man she suspected of being Lorna’s killer.’

  There was a moment of silence. Joe thought Holly had a point and was about to speak up in support, when Vera answered, her voice more conciliatory than he would have expected. Usually, she hated to be challenged. ‘You’re right,’ she said at last. ‘Of course Constance would have been less wary of a woman than a man. We think she was moved from the place where we parked to the patch of clear fell. She could have been driven by someone with a four-wheel-drive and a strong nerve. I wouldn’t have wanted to do it in the Land Rover, but it would be possible. Or she was dragged. A strong woman could have done that as well as a man. So, no closed minds here, please, everyone. Thanks for pointing that out, Hol.’

  Joe thought that perhaps after all the night in the cold had transformed Vera. As Holly had said, they should look out for her.

  But Vera hadn’t finished yet. ‘And on the point of strong women, this morning I’ve been doing a bit of digging into the history of Dorothy Felling. It seems she wasn’t the brilliant lawyer we’ve been led to believe. Apparently, she made a monumental cock-up on an employment case and cost her client, and so her chambers, an eye-watering sum in compensation. She was forced to resign. So, while she might enjoy skivvying at the big house, her move to the country wasn’t entirely voluntary.’

  They stared at her. ‘Well, I had to do something while Joe here was taking so long to organize my bacon stottie, so I got on the phone to her former boss. Again, you were right, Holly. We should have done that earlier.’ She sighed. ‘I’m not quite sure how that could be relevant to Lorna’s murder, though.’

  As they were leaving the room, Vera spoke again. ‘While you’re in Kirkhill, Hol, drop in to Brockburn and speak to Harriet. That’s another strong woman, with secrets to hi
de. I got off to a wrong start with her and she’ll not confide in me. I’m too much of a pleb. See if you can get her to admit her husband was having an affair with Jill Falstone. The rest of the valley knows, so I’m sure she does too.’

  Holly nodded – as shocked, it seemed, as Joe was.

  The vicar was hard to pin down. Joe knew that her name was Jane Grant and she was in charge of four parishes. One church she only visited on the first Sunday of the month; others had more regular services. He had a mobile number for her, but it took five attempts before she answered his call: ‘Sorry! I seem to spend most of my time on the road and this time of year is a nightmare. Every primary school in the county is holding its nativity play this week and they all expect me to be there.’ There was no stress in her voice, though. She seemed to delight in the activity.

  ‘Where will you be today? It is rather important that I talk to you.’

  In the end they agreed to meet at the vicarage in Kirkhill at lunchtime. ‘If I’m not back by the time you get there, my husband will let you in.’

  Joe had been expecting to find her in a large Victorian building close to the church, but it seemed that had been sold and turned into apartments. A new and smaller house had been built in the former vicarage grounds. It was square, functional, and rather ugly. He arrived at the same time as the vicar, who was younger than he’d been expecting, in her thirties, bristling with the kind of energy that got things done. He parked next to her and waited while she pulled a bag out of the boot. She was wearing a soft dog collar under a hand-knitted sweater and a heavy parka.

  She must have guessed his thoughts. ‘Most of our churches are freezing and I haven’t got any formal services today. Come in. There’ll be soup if you’re hungry. I’m starving.’ A pause. ‘I suppose you’re here about Lorna Falstone. Poor little thing. We gave a statement to your colleagues the day after she died, but we couldn’t help much.’

  It seemed the news about Constance Browne hadn’t reached her yet. The team would be starting to canvass Kirkhill now and Vera had asked comms to put out a media release. Soon the information would be everywhere.

  Joe followed her into an untidy house. A couple of small kids’ bikes stood in the hall and they climbed past them into a big kitchen. An older man sat at a scrubbed pine table, a pile of papers in front of him. He got up when they came in, seemed genuinely pleased to see her, gave her a hug and a kiss.

  ‘This is Doug, my rock. He’s an academic, semi-retired. He holds all this together.’ She waved an arm around the kitchen, taking in the clothes horse, the laundry basket, the ironing board, the washed dishes piled on the draining board. ‘This is a detective. Joe Ashworth. I promised him soup.’

  Doug got to his feet and cleared the papers into a tidier pile. ‘You’re in luck then. There is soup.’

  ‘Are you okay talking in front of my husband?’ They were sitting at the cleared end of the table. Doug had ladled vegetable soup into big blue bowls. There was a loaf of home-made bread too. Joe felt swept along by the flow of her energy and had found it impossible to resist the hospitality. ‘If it’s confidential we can go into the office afterwards.’

  ‘I’m happy to talk here,’ he said. ‘Doug might be able to help.’

  ‘It is about Lorna?’

  ‘Did you know her?’

  ‘I knew of her, of course. I visited a couple of times, once when she was pregnant and once when she was back home with the baby, but she was resistant, prickly. She saw me as an interfering do-gooder, which I probably was.’

  Joe paused. ‘We’re trying to trace the father of her child. Do you have any idea who that might be?’

  Jane shook her head. ‘I didn’t ask. I wasn’t there to judge, just to offer help and support.’

  ‘You’ll know the farming families in the valley,’ Joe said. ‘What do you make of Lorna’s parents?’

  The vicar shrugged. ‘I don’t know them well. They’re not church members and they don’t take part in village functions.’

  ‘What about the Heslops?’

  ‘Ah, I know them better.’ Jane smiled. ‘They’re not regulars – I suspect that church for them is more a matter of tradition than faith, something to hold the community together – but they’re always here for the big festivals. I saw Rosemary in the village yesterday and I know she’s worried about Neil. He’s not slept properly since he found Lorna’s body. Sometimes we forget that there’s often more than one victim of a crime.’

  ‘You were at Brockburn the night Lorna was found. Are you close to the Stanhopes?’

  Across the table, Doug gave a kind of snort. Jane grinned. ‘You’ll have to excuse my husband, Joe. He doesn’t enjoy the social obligations of being the partner of a country vicar. We were invited, I suspect, because the family has always asked the parish priest to these occasions. A kind of tradition. Harriet would have preferred an elderly man, of course, but I had to do. Perhaps the Brockburn clan likes the sense that they have God on their side.’

  Joe wasn’t sure what to say about that. ‘You left early?’

  ‘As soon as we decently could. Immediately after dinner. We had an excuse because of the weather. We were walking.’

  ‘Isn’t it a long walk back into Kirkhill?’

  ‘It would be by road. Not by the footpaths.’

  Joe finished the soup in his bowl and set down the spoon. ‘Did you see anything unusual?’ He thought nobody else would have been out that night.

  ‘We saw nothing at all. It was rather beautiful.’

  Doug began to pile up the bowls. Joe spoke before the man left his seat. ‘Yesterday Constance Browne’s body was found in Brockburn forest. She’d been murdered.’

  There was a shocked silence. ‘Are you sure it’s Connie?’ Jane asked at last.

  He nodded.

  ‘It’s just that she always seemed indestructible. I never saw her tired or upset or vulnerable. She was one of those women who can face anything the world has to throw at her.’

  ‘We know she wasn’t married and that she lived alone,’ Joe said, ‘but was there a partner? Someone special we should notify?’

  Jane shook her head.

  ‘Connie’s been single for as long as I’ve known her. We’ve been here for five years. She mentioned men she’d known in the past – there was someone she met at university and they were engaged for a while – but I had the impression that she’d been alone for ages.’ Jane paused. ‘I think she had admirers, but she always said she was too long in the tooth to put up with another person’s mess.’

  ‘When did you last see her?’

  ‘On Sunday. It was ten-thirty Holy Communion in Kirkhill and she never missed if she was home.’

  ‘Did you have a chance to talk after the service?’

  ‘Only briefly.’ Jane got to her feet and switched on the kettle. ‘It was a foul day. Nobody felt like chatting and I had another service to go on to.’

  ‘I had a word with her.’ Doug had hardly spoken throughout the exchange and now he seemed diffident, uncertain. ‘She and I were on sides duty and we put out the hymn books, greeted people as they came in.’ He looked at his wife. ‘She asked if she might pop round sometime. There was something she needed to discuss with you.’ He paused, stared into the distance. ‘I’d forgotten all about it. I said Sunday was always manic but she’d be very welcome on Monday. I invited her to come for lunch. When she didn’t turn up, it just slipped my mind.’ He turned to Joe. ‘If I’d raised the alarm then, might you have been able to save her?’

  Joe shook his head. ‘We think she was killed early on Monday morning.’

  ‘I still feel dreadful.’

  Jane reached out and put her hand on his arm.

  ‘She didn’t tell you what was worrying her?’ Joe said.

  ‘No. She was just about to explain a bit more, when the family from Brockburn came in, Harriet, Juliet and her husband. Connie saw them coming and said she’d tell us on Monday.’

  ‘Did Miss Browne talk to the B
rockburn family at all? Before or after the service?’

  ‘No,’ Doug said. ‘She seemed actively to avoid them. It seemed rather odd, because they’d always been on good terms.’

  ‘But Connie hadn’t been invited to the Friday-night party?’

  ‘No,’ Jane said. ‘I think we were there to represent the whole community. And it was a fund-raising event really. Connie only had her teaching pension.’

  ‘So not worth bothering about,’ Doug said.

  ‘Are the family at Brockburn regular worshippers?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Jane broke in, before Doug could answer. Joe thought that was a pity. Doug might have been more honest.

  In the end the man spoke anyway, muttering under his breath. ‘Bloody parasites.’

  ‘You’ll have to excuse my husband.’ Jane grinned. ‘He disapproves of inherited wealth. I’m afraid he’s a bit of a socialist.’

  ‘As was Our Lord.’

  They smiled at each other. Joe had the impression that there was no real argument between them. This was a kind of dance, a ritual. ‘Are they really wealthy? I thought they were dreaming up schemes to keep the house from falling down.’

  ‘It’s all relative,’ Doug said. ‘If they sold Brockburn, they’d make a fortune.’

  ‘What would the village make of that?’

  ‘They’d hate it.’ Jane was definite. ‘This is a place where tradition matters.’

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  HOLLY WAS ON CANVASSING DUTY IN Kirkhill. She stood for a moment in the main street. Despite being dressed for the weather she felt the wind slice through her clothes and chill her bones. She felt spacy with tiredness. The night before now seemed like a nightmare; occasional images would explode in her brain, monochrome and weird. The twisted roots of the abandoned area of clear fell felt like a dystopian background to a horror film. The memories had disturbed what little sleep she’d managed.