The Darkest Evening

by Cleeves, Ann

  ‘And you needed to be there to tell it was important to Lorna.’ Vera had turned back to Holly. ‘You could see it was a love nest.’ She pinned a couple of pictures onto the board.

  Holly saw a pile of sheepskins, some ancient wooden furniture. It didn’t look much like a love nest to her, but she knew better than to say so.

  ‘Got any photos of the other room, Billy?’

  ‘It just so happens . . .’ He moved to the front of the room, added half a dozen images to the board.

  Holly saw the brass bedstead he’d mentioned. Tarnished, but clean, with proper bedding, not a manky sleeping bag of the sort a dosser might use. She moved closer to the board and pointed. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A wooden cradle. An old-fashioned thing with rockers.’

  ‘That’s where they’d have put the bairn,’ Vera said. ‘Harriet said she’d seen Lorna walking down the back drive towards Dorothy’s cottage. She would have come from there. They call it Jinny’s Mill, by the way. You can still see the old mill wheel in the burn.’

  ‘Did you find Constance’s fingerprints?’ Holly thought Vera was making assumptions again.

  Cartwright shook his head. ‘No matches. We checked.’

  ‘And if Constance was killed there, we wouldn’t find prints.’ Vera seemed carried away by her theory. ‘It was early morning, bloody freezing. She’d have been wearing gloves.’ She turned back to face the room. ‘Did you find anything else, Billy? Lorna’s missing diary, for instance? Her phone or her laptop?’

  Billy shook his head. ‘Unfortunately not. They’re still searching the surrounding area, but there’s nothing like that in the building.’

  In the end, it was Joe who said what Holly was thinking. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t see how this takes us much further forward.’

  ‘Because I’ll bet my pension that there were other prints in the place,’ Vera said. ‘The lass didn’t go there for quiet contemplation and to further her art. And if we can find out who fathered her child, we’ll have a decent idea who killed her.’ She turned back to the CSI. ‘I am right, aren’t I? You did find other prints?’

  Billy gave a little bow. ‘Of course you’re right, Vera. We all know you’re always right. There was one other set of prints all over the place. We haven’t got a match yet, though.’

  ‘Well, in the morning we’ll invite all the men involved in the case to give us their fingerprints. And then we’ll have these murders cracked.’

  There was a cheer. Holly couldn’t bring herself to join in. Most of the men in the community could have had reason to go to the cottage over the years. No way would a case based on a flimsy coincidence stand up in court. Vera might well be right that they’d get a suspect from her discovery today, but she’d need more evidence than some fingerprints in a derelict cottage to prove their guilt. And Holly still thought they should keep an open mind about the gender of the killer. This was a community of strong women, and one of them might have been provoked so far that she could contemplate committing murder.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  VERA DROVE SLOWLY INLAND TOWARDS THE hills. She needed time to think and to process her reaction to the news that young Thomas Falstone wasn’t a relation after all. She was alone in the world again, with no blood relations except Juliet, who was an adult and had no need of her. No obligations. She’d never liked kids and she should have been pleased.

  Yet there’d been a sudden emptiness when Charlie had passed on the news that Lorna couldn’t have been Crispin’s daughter. Vera had found the idea that she could be a guardian angel for Thomas, at a distance of course, and a mentor as he got older, strangely appealing. She understood the Falstones, liked their reticence and she admired their determination to carry on with their lives without wallowing in self-pity. She’d hoped that they might have become family of a sort too.

  She pulled into the track that led to Broom Farm and parked the Land Rover. When she opened the door, the wind was northerly cold. No moon and no stars. Low cloud shut out the lights from Kirkhill. Inside the farmhouse, the couple must be in the kitchen, because there was a bright square marking the uncurtained window. Vera checked the time. It was nearly eight o’clock. Perhaps the bairn would already be in bed and she could talk to the couple without distraction.

  Vera knocked at the door and pushed it open without waiting for an answer. Jill and Robert were just finishing a meal at the kitchen table, watching the old television mounted on a shelf in the corner as they ate. A plastic container on the bench showed they were eating a microwaved lasagne. She thought how different they were from the Heslop family. In Home Farm there’d be laughter and silly chat, a home-cooked dinner.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you,’ Vera said, ‘but I’ve got some news. I thought you’d want to hear it from me.’

  ‘You know who killed Lorna?’ Robert reached out for the remote control and turned off the TV.

  Vera shook her head. ‘But I don’t think we’ll be long now.’ She paused. ‘This is about your lass.’

  They stared at her, waiting. Neither spoke.

  Vera looked at Robert. ‘She was your lass. Your daughter. We took DNA from Juliet Stanhope and they weren’t related.’

  She wasn’t sure what she was expecting. Tears, perhaps, joy, anger at all the years of uncertainty. She’d have been angry. Lorna might not have starved herself nearly to death if it hadn’t been for the rumours, the cruel jeers from the teenagers who should have been her friends.

  But in the end, there was a moment of silence as the couple looked at each other. Robert reached out and took his wife’s hand. ‘She always was my lass. It was other people who had the problem with that.’

  Vera waited while Jill cleared the plates and put on the kettle.

  ‘Did Lorna ever show you her paintings?’ The three were all sitting at the table now, mugs of tea in front of them.

  Jill shook her head. ‘I knew Connie Browne persuaded her to go to the class, but I never saw what she did there.’

  ‘Josh Heslop taught the group. I told you before that, he and Lorna had become good friends. Apparently they’d become very close.’

  ‘Oh, that’s lovely! I always hoped she’d make friends in the village.’ Jill’s face lit up. ‘Friends of her own age at last. I know she was close to Miss Browne, but that’s not the same, is it?’

  Vera thought about that for a moment and had the whisper of an idea. ‘She never talked about Josh to you?’

  Jill shook her head. Robert reached out again and took her hand. This time he didn’t let go.

  ‘She did lots of paintings of one particular building, a little house in the woods not far from the big house at Brockburn. Is it somewhere she might have gone as a child?’

  The couple looked blank.

  ‘I think at one time it might have been part of a mill,’ Vera persisted.

  ‘I’ve heard of it,’ Robert said. ‘Jinny’s Mill. But I’ve never been there and I don’t remember Lorna talking about it. She didn’t stray much from the farm when she was younger, except for the riding.’

  Vera nodded to show she understood. ‘Maybe she took to exploring more when she was on her own with the bairn.’ But she couldn’t see Lorna pushing a buggy down the final narrow path to the cottage, not on a whim, just to go exploring. The woman must have been taken there by the man who’d made love to her. The man, with whom, it seemed, she’d still been infatuated, who she’d been desperate not to lose. Vera got to her feet.

  ‘Thanks for coming.’ Now Jill was standing too and she gave Vera an awkward hug. ‘It means a lot. We’re so pleased. So pleased.’ Jill pulled out of the embrace and stood behind her husband, then put her arms around him too, stooping because he was still in his chair. She bent and kissed his hair. Vera let herself out of the house.

  Her next stop was at Brockburn. She supposed they had the right to know the truth too, though she was tempted to let them stew for a bit longer, to think that Lorna’s son might have a claim on the estate. It was quick
er from Broom Farm to take the drive to the front of the house, but Vera went on and turned down the back lane past the cottages. Dorothy’s car was outside their place, but Vera drove straight past. Billy’s team must have finished because there were no vehicles at the fork in the track where the path led on to Jinny’s Mill. Vera parked at the back of the big house. There was a light in the kitchen window and she knocked.

  ‘Who is it?’ A nervous voice. Juliet. Perhaps they were all nervous with a murderer still not caught, though the Falstones hadn’t bothered locking their door.

  ‘It’s me. Vera.’

  There was the sound of a key turning, a bolt rattling and the door opened.

  Juliet was on her own in the room. She looked as if she’d been crying.

  Vera felt a stab of impatience. Of irritation. And I thought you were an adult!

  Juliet took a tissue from her pocket and wiped her eyes. ‘Don’t mind me, I’m just being silly.’

  ‘What’s happened?’ Vera made no effort to sound sympathetic. The last thing she needed was to be dragged into the emotional entanglements of the family at Brockburn. No way was Juliet her responsibility.

  ‘Oh, just Mother being beastly as always and then Mark and I had a bit of a row. Nothing serious. It’s the stress. Nothing feels normal at the moment.’

  ‘I’ve got some news.’ Vera didn’t sit. She didn’t want to be here for very long. She was dreaming of a beer, a fire and her bed. ‘We’ve had the DNA results back. We fast-tracked them.’

  And that took a chunk out of my budget.

  Juliet looked at her, fragile, doe-eyed. She was wearing a loose black dress that seemed to swamp her.

  ‘You’re no relation to Lorna. You’re not half-sisters. Crispin wasn’t her father.’ Hoping to make it clear, all in one sentence, so there wouldn’t be questions, uncertainty. When the woman didn’t respond Vera added, ‘Thomas isn’t your nephew. He has no claim on the estate.’

  ‘Oh.’ Juliet’s voice expressed shock, confusion, but no real sense of relief. In fact, Vera thought, Juliet was feeling the opposite. A sadness. Perhaps Juliet too would have welcomed a connection with the child. ‘Mother will be pleased. Do you want to talk to her?’

  ‘No need for that.’ The last thing Vera thought she needed was an encounter with Harriet. ‘I’ll leave you to pass on the good news. I just thought you should know.’

  ‘Have you told the Falstones?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve just come from there.’ Vera paused. ‘They were pleased.’ She turned to walk out, but stopped at the door. ‘Do you know a cottage called Jinny’s Mill?’

  Juliet smiled. ‘Of course. I used to play there when I was little. It was a place my father took me to. I treated it as a sort of Wendy house. In the summer, you can dam the burn and make a pool deep enough to swim. The water was straight from the hills and freezing, but I loved the wild swimming. Even Dad came in sometimes. Just paddling, his trousers rolled up to his knees. Then Dorothy and I hung out there when we were teenagers and wanted to escape the adults.’ A quick grin. The memories seemed to have cheered her. ‘It was where I first got drunk. On sherry we nicked from my father’s drinks cabinet. I’ve never been able to touch the stuff since.’

  ‘Did other youngsters in the area use it too?’

  ‘I expect so. Occasionally we’d find empty beer cans, signs that someone had lit a fire in the range. I don’t remember us bumping into anyone else there, though.’

  There was a moment of silence and Juliet seemed lost in memory. ‘I took Mark there too, when he first came to Brockburn. It was the end of May, and it’s very beautiful then, with the meadow in front of the cottage full of buttercup and clover.’ There was another brief pause. ‘It was where Mark proposed to me a few months later. It was September and the leaves were starting to change colour. All very romantic.’ Now there was a sour note in her voice.

  ‘Have you been back there recently?’

  ‘No.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘Not for ages.’

  ‘Would Mark have a reason for going there?’

  ‘Oh, I shouldn’t think so.’ Juliet’s tone was light, brittle. ‘Unless it featured somehow in his plans to turn Brockburn into a theatre and arts centre. That’s been his main preoccupation in the last six months. We don’t go walking together these days.’

  Now Vera did open the door to leave. As she walked towards the Land Rover, she could hear the bolt slammed shut and the key being turned in the lock.

  At the cottage, Vera locked her own door. She’d been more careful about security since the fire earlier in the year, when work had come far too close to home and the place had been wrecked. The wind rattled against the house and battered the windows. She could hear the roar of it even after she drew the heavy curtains. A sound like the sea in a storm. She put a light to the wood in the grate and put on the kettle. The beer could wait and she’d been yearning for tea and digestive biscuits all the way back from Brockburn. She also needed a clear head, because she was groping her way towards an idea, a solution of sorts. This whole case, even the murder of spinster Constance Browne, was about families, about what held them together and what ripped them apart.

  The call came just after midnight. Vera was still dressed, dozing in front of the embers. It came on her work mobile and made her start, the sound jerking her awake, making her aware of every pulse of her heart. Who phoned at this time of night if it wasn’t an emergency?

  She didn’t recognize the voice at first, because the words were tumbling over each other, jumbled, and because she was still caught in the place between sleep and wakefulness. She only heard the panic.

  At last the words made more sense. ‘He’s gone! We were in all night but someone must have got in and taken him. We can’t lose another child.’ It was Jill Falstone, beyond herself with fear.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  HOLLY WAS IN BED BUT STILL awake when Vera rang. She never slept well. At night, the control that made her life ordered and predictable during the working day slipped away and she was overcome by unwelcome anxieties, jumbled misgivings. Her muscles tensed and her thoughts raced. She’d started running in the hope of stilling her mind, becoming physically tired, but even so most nights she struggled to sleep.

  When her phone rang, she knew it would be about work. She had a few friends, but nobody sufficiently close to call her in the early hours of the morning.

  It was Vera, speaking as she was driving. The signal cut out occasionally and Holly could hear the background rumble of the Land Rover’s engine.

  ‘I need you to go to see the Falstones at Broom Farm. The little lad’s gone missing. Thomas, Lorna’s bairn. I was only there this evening and now it seems he’s vanished into thin air.’ A pause. ‘Get Joe Ashworth out too.’

  ‘Are you on your way there?’

  There was a moment of silence and Holly thought she’d lost phone reception. In the end she caught the end of Vera’s reply.

  ‘I’m better looking for the boy. I think I know where he might be.’

  The line went dead. Holly tried to return the call, but there was no answer. She dressed and hit Joe Ashworth’s number. She thought Vera had phoned her first so she’d be the one to disturb him at home. There was a delay, then his voice.

  ‘Yes?’

  In that one word she could tell he’d been asleep. ‘I’ve just had a call from the boss. She wants us at Broom Farm, the Falstones’ place.’ Holly was already running down the stairs to the lobby, car keys in hand.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The little boy, Thomas, has gone missing.’

  ‘How did that happen?’ Now he was wide awake.

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t get through to Vera for more details.’

  Holly heard a muttered conversation in the background. Joe must be explaining to Sally what was happening. Holly heard him raise his voice, a response to something Sally had said. ‘How would you feel if one of ours had disappeared?’ There was a brief silence before he came back onto the line
. ‘I’ll be there.’

  When Holly arrived at the Falstones’ farm, Joe was already in the house. He’d been there before and the satnav had taken her a long way around, but still he must have driven ridiculously fast to have arrived ahead of her. She saw him through the window, sitting at a farmhouse kitchen table. As she got out of her car, she felt a sting against her face, tiny darts of ice, more like hail than snow. She knocked and went straight in.

  Joe introduced the Falstones to her. They were still in the clothes they’d worn during the day. ‘This is my colleague, DC Jackman. Holly.’

  She sat next to him. ‘I know you might already have explained to Joe, but could you tell me what happened?’

  The couple sat opposite, radiating tension. Rigid. Holly could almost taste their anxiety, bitter on her tongue.

  ‘I put Thomas to bed at seven-thirty,’ the woman said. ‘He’s a good little sleeper. Usually he doesn’t move until morning. Your boss turned up not long after and we chatted for a bit. Robert and I watched the ten o’clock news and were about to go to bed ourselves, but somehow, we got to talking. Things maybe we should have said a long time ago. It was gone eleven-thirty by the time we made a move. I love looking at Thomas when he’s asleep.’ She gulped back a cry. ‘But he wasn’t there.’

  The man was making an attempt to hold things together. ‘The lad’s been sleeping with Jill and I moved out to the spare room. Not for any reason other than that we thought he needed to be with someone.’ He looked at them both to understand they got the message: There’s nothing wrong with our marriage. ‘We thought if he woke and found himself in a strange place, he should have his gran there. We couldn’t get his cot from Lorna’s house until your forensic chaps had finished and then it didn’t seem urgent right away.’

  ‘So, he could have climbed out if he was in your bed and not in a cot?’ Holly tried not to turn the words into an accusation. The couple were obviously distressed and guilty enough.