‘And what did you find?’
‘You know what I found. She was dead. Beaten. Hacked about. Marianne all over again. Except worse.’
‘So why didn’t you phone us?’
‘Is that a serious question?’
‘Of course it is. She’s dead. This wasn’t an accident.’
‘But you’re telling me a call to you lot can bring her back?’
‘Of course it wouldn’t. But that’s not the point. Someone had killed her. That has consequences.’
‘For whom?’
‘For everyone. There’s someone out there. It happens once. It can happen again.’
‘A serial killer, you mean? A serial disemboweller?’
Suttle shrugged. He wasn’t quite sure where this conversation was going. In some respects it was like talking to a child. Time to move on.
‘So you left her there?’
‘Yes.’
‘For someone else to find?’
‘Obviously.’
‘So where did you go?’
‘Dartmoor. I know it well. Not as remote as Uist but not bad if you need to keep your head down.’
‘And then what?’
‘I saw a paper. By Tuesday my face was all over everywhere, and it was obvious you’d made your minds up. I didn’t want any of that. I dumped the Skoda. Bought an old van from a Polish guy. Cash. Five hundred quid. I could sleep in the back. It did the job.’
‘You were carrying that much money?’
‘More. Lots more. Banks are a conspiracy to rip you off, always have been, but it’s much worse these days. Harriet felt the same. We had thousands between us. Primitive, I know, but it works.’
He said he’d driven north, into Scotland. Then the west coast. Then the ferry out to the Hebrides.
‘That was Thursday night. I spent the weekend in the croft – broke in, kipped on the floor. I started south again on Sunday night. Twenty-seven hours. Door to door.’
‘But why? Why did you come back?’
‘Because you’re right.’
‘About what?’
‘I need to know who did it. I need to know who killed her. She’s never coming back. And neither is Marianne. And neither will that poor bloody baby. I need to mark their passing.’ He offered Suttle a thin smile. ‘Life is an act of separation, my friend. It happens to everyone.’
Thirty
TUESDAY, 17 JUNE 2014, 14.51
Lizzie had suggested a café beside Exeter Central station for the meet with Michala. She wanted somewhere public where she’d feel safe. Michala, when they’d talked on the phone, was at the university. Early afternoon she’d be taking the train back to Lympstone. The Fountain Café? Perfect.
She was already there when Lizzie turned up, tucked behind a corner table next to the window. She was wearing tight jeans and a white vest with a scoop neck. A tiny silver fish hung on a silver chain around her neck.
Lizzie reached across the table and touched it. ‘That’s really pretty,’ she said. ‘Really unusual.’
‘It’s a salmon,’ Michala said. ‘I had it made. There’s a silversmith in Totnes. It was a present from Gemma. She’s got one too.’
Lizzie nodded. Michala was nervous, which came as no surprise, and Lizzie wondered whether she’d shared the fact of this rendezvous with Caton.
‘You’ve been together long? You and Gemma?’
‘Nearly three years.’
A waitress was hovering. Lizzie ordered a latte. So far Michala hadn’t asked why they were meeting like this and Lizzie was happy to take her time. Play the innocent, she told herself. Build the rapport. Try and gloss over what had happened down in Lympstone.
Michala wanted to know whether Lizzie was in a relationship.
‘No. But I used to be married.’
‘Me too.’
This came as a surprise. More, Lizzie thought. I need to know more.
‘This was in Denmark? Back home?’
‘Yes. Years back. It feels like another life.’
It turned out that Michala was older than she looked. She’d married a Norwegian guy when she was nineteen. They’d travelled a lot and ended up in Canada. She’d worked for a time in Montreal, and then she and her husband had taken a bus across the prairies to Calgary.
She bent into the conversation, suddenly animated. This was a story she wanted to share. Ludvik, she said, was ten years her senior. He was a geologist. He was taking time off from his job in the oil industry. At his insistence, they’d gone up to the Athabasca tar sands. She’d never seen anywhere more ruined in her life. Ruined wasn’t a word that Ludvik recognised. He knew the stats by heart. Price per tonne for extraction. Price per tonne on the open market. The tar sands had transformed the prospects of millions of people around Calgary and Edmonton. Even the Inuit in the high Arctic had got a little richer. Cheap energy. Fat profits. Win-win.
‘In the end I didn’t even argue with him,’ she said. ‘One look at that place and you knew it was wrong, but what can you do?’
They’d taken another bus through the Rockies to the west coast, then crossed the border into the US. In a tiny village on the Snake River below Shoshone Falls she’d met Gemma Caton.
‘She was just finishing the research for her book. She’d been all over the area, making contact with survivors from the old tribes. She was a woman you could listen to for ever.’
Michala said she’d stayed in the village for nearly a month. After the first couple of days, bored, Ludvik took a bus down the valley towards the coast. Michala stayed on, helping Gemma with her research.
‘I had a laptop. I was happy to type out her notes every night. The people we were meeting were amazing. Two tribes. The Nez Perce and the Shoshone. They lived on the salmon for more than ten thousand years. They worshipped the fish. Then the Europeans came, two explorers, Lewis and Clark. Then more explorers, and fur trappers, and timber people. They saw a sign for the river that the Shoshones had made. It was really a salmon but they thought it was a snake. That’s how the river got its name.’
One hand strayed to the silver fish. Lizzie asked about Ludvik.
‘I never saw him again.’
‘So where did he go?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
In the nineteenth century, she said, the pioneers arrived, leaving the Oregon Trail and plunging into the backwoods. Then came steamboats and railroads, and soon they were building dams for irrigation and hydroelectric power, transforming the lower river, and soon the salmon didn’t come any more.
‘That’s when the old ways began to die. Ten thousand years. Gone. In less than a century.’
It was Gemma, she said, who had made her understand the real implications of everything she was seeing around her. The arrival of a market economy. Processed food. Pickup trucks. Tourism. Nails in the coffin of a world that had disappeared.
‘She was a fine teacher. She still is. You should come and hear one of her lectures. She’d like that.’
Lizzie nodded. Going anywhere near Gemma Caton was the last thing on her agenda.
‘You became lovers?’ she asked. ‘You and Gemma?’
‘Of course. I knew what she wanted. She made me very happy.’
‘And now?’
‘She still makes me very happy.’
‘And last night?’
‘Last night was a shame.’ She looked Lizzie in the eye. ‘You weren’t really sick, were you?’
‘No.’ Lizzie ducked her head and then looked up again. ‘How did you know?’
‘Because there aren’t any soapstone carvings in the lavatory. That made Gemma laugh.’
‘Because I was lying?’
‘Because you were frightened. There’s no need. We like you.’ Her hand closed over Lizzie’s.
Lizzie nodded, said nothing. She realised she was backing herself up the same cul-de-sac. How far was she prepared to take this thing? She didn’t know.
‘I need a favour,’ she said. ‘Which is why I wanted to meet.’
‘What is it?’
‘There’s a woman called Kelly Willmott. I think you probably know her.’
‘Kelly?’ Michala’s eyes were wide. ‘You knew Kelly?’
‘Yes.’
‘How well?’
‘Very well.’
‘She never mentioned you.’
‘I’m sure she didn’t.’
‘You’re a kitesurfer?’
‘No way. I was a friend. In the end we had a big row. It was horrible. But before that we were very close.’
Michala nodded. Lizzie could see she was trying to absorb the news. Then she looked up. ‘You know what happened to her?’
‘I know she was lost at sea. That’s pretty much it. I was living away last year. I only got back a couple of months ago.’
Michala glanced at her watch. She said her train was due in ten minutes but there’d be another one.
‘You want me to tell you the way it was?’ she said. ‘At the end?’
Suttle and Luke Golding drove across to Middlemoor to conference with Nandy and Houghton before starting the next interview with Alois Bentner. Suttle listed points in Bentner’s account that Buzzard needed to check: was it true that he was intending to buy the property on Uist? Were negotiations in hand? And if so, were there any indications that both Bentner and Harriet Reilly were actively preparing to turn their backs on their careers and journey north with the new baby?
Houghton left the office to talk to the D/S in charge of Outside Enquiries. She had the name of the estate agent in the Western Isles and she’d raise another action to dispatch Buzzard DCs to the Hadley Centre and to Reilly’s Exeter practice. The ticking of the PACE clock would be driving the next twenty-four hours. Before Suttle and Golding tackled the challenge phase of the interviews with Bentner, they needed every shred of evidence they could muster.
Houghton had briefed Nandy on Suttle’s use of the leads raised by his ex-wife. Now the Det-Supt wanted an explanation.
‘I haven’t really got one, sir. Losing our daughter has changed her. And so has success. She’s wealthy now. She’s become a bit of a star. There are bits of her I don’t recognise any more.’
To Suttle’s surprise, Nandy didn’t contest the point. Instead he wanted to know why she’d got herself involved with Buzzard in the first place. This, Suttle knew, was delicate territory.
‘She runs a website, sir. It’s always been a bit of a dream, and now she has the money to make it happen.’
‘What sort of website?’ This was news to Nandy.
‘It’s an investigative thing. She looks for local stories. Dirt, basically. Then starts digging.’
‘You mean interfering.’
‘Yes, sir. But she was the one who took us to Maguire and Russell.’
‘Which went nowhere.’
‘Sure. But we didn’t know that at the time.’
‘That’s irrelevant, son. The real question is this: what the fuck is she up to? Getting in our way? In my book that’s perverting the course of justice.’
‘To be fair, sir—’
‘To be fair, bollocks. There are procedures here. If she wants to become an informant, then she has to be registered, she has to be handled. You know that.’
‘That’s not her way.’
‘Too fucking bad. You’re still on talking terms?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then phone her. Get her back in line. Tell her she either behaves herself or she’s on a nicking. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good.’
Nandy was beginning to calm down. It was a question, he said, of aligning Lizzie’s interests with those of the investigation. Buzzard would obviously welcome any help on offer, but it had to be done properly. Otherwise they’d end up with a pile of evidence that would never make it to court.
‘And another thing, son, while we’re talking of her interests.’
‘Sir?’
‘Might they include you?’
Michala and Lizzie were on their second coffee. Michala was talking about Kelly Willmott. She said they’d met last year at a barbecue in Exmouth. Gemma had contacts at the sailing club where the party was taking place and insisted on Michala coming along. A brilliant evening in late spring, she said. Home-made burgers and good beer, and dancing on the sandbank once the tide had gone out.
‘And Kelly?’
‘She was the centre of everything. She’d just come back from some championship where she’d won a medal, and she was wearing it around her neck. She was a wild woman. She danced like a native. Gemma loved that.’
Afterwards, she said, they’d all gone back to Lympstone. Drunk, Kelly had stayed the night. Within weeks she and Michala had become lovers.
‘Gemma didn’t mind?’
‘Not at all. She loves having people around her. She says it makes her feel alive.’
‘You mean the right people.’
‘Of course. That’s why I asked her to invite you over. And I was right. She likes you very much.’
‘That’s good to know.’ Lizzie ducked her head and did her best to mask a smile. Was this woman some kind of pimp? Scouring East Devon for offerings to lay at Gemma Caton’s door?
She nudged the conversation back to last year. Did Kelly move in?
‘Yes, more or less. Then she got ill. After that she was with us all the time.’
‘Ill?’
‘Skin cancer. She had a little mole on her ankle. It was a tiny thing at first. She showed me when it started to bleed. I told her that she should get herself checked out but she was always too busy. By the time she finally got to the doctor it was too late.’
The melanoma, she said, had spread. First to her lymph nodes, then to her liver. She lost weight. Thin didn’t suit her. Then, always tired, she started sleeping a lot. Michala watched the life draining out of her and knew something had to be done.
‘Kelly agreed. She had no choice. She was in pain most of the time and her doctor was talking about getting her into a hospice when things got really bad. She hated the thought. She didn’t want that and she didn’t want the pain either. She knew that her life was over but she wanted to leave it on her own terms.’
On her own terms. Lizzie nodded. She sensed exactly where this story was heading. First Jeff Okenek’s gay lover. Then Julia Woodman. Then Betty Russell. And now Exmouth’s kitesurfing queen. Lizzie had never met her, had never even heard of her, but there was no way Michala would ever know that.
‘Kelly was always a fighter,’ Lizzie said softly. ‘I can imagine exactly the way it must have been.’
‘It was terrible. She was such a beautiful person. She was so strong, so full of life.’ Michala’s eyes were glassy. Lizzie reached for her hand.
‘Where was Gemma in all this?’
‘She was away a lot. She does lecture tours. But we talked on the phone every day. She knew Alois really well. His partner was a GP – Harriet Reilly.’
‘This was the woman who was murdered?’ Lizzie did her best to feign ignorance.
‘Yes.’ Michala flinched slightly. ‘That was horrible too.’
She’d been to see Alois, Michala said. They’d talked a couple of times over the garden wall and she took the chance to explain about Kelly.
‘Alois was really good, really kind.’ She was staring out of the window. ‘He said there were ways you could plan to end your life. Good ways. Ways without pain.’
‘And Harriet would make that possible?’
‘Yes. She came round one night and sat with Kelly. I was there too. Harriet took lots of notes and in the end she agreed to help Kelly die.’
‘How?’
‘With an injection. No pain. Just a drifting away. Kelly was really pleased, really grateful. She wanted it to happen while she was still able to enjoy life. Does that sound strange?’
‘Not at all. Kelly was always like that. She needed to be in charge.’
‘She did. You’re right. But there was a problem.’
/> Harriet, she said, insisted that Kelly would have to be buried. Michala never understood why, but it seemed to be a legal thing. Either way, Kelly couldn’t bear the thought of ending up in a grave. She had a fear of being in the darkness with the silence and the worms. She wanted to be cremated. She wanted her ashes scattered on the estuary.
‘Sunset on one of those cloudless winter days.’ Michala was smiling now. ‘She’d worked it all out. She couldn’t predict the weather but she’d looked at the tide tables and come up with a list of dates. It had to be a big tide. And it had to be going out. A big tide and maybe some wind as well.’
‘But Harriet said no?’
‘Exactly.’ Michala nodded. ‘She said it was burial or nothing. Kelly was hurt. And then she was angry.’
‘With Harriet?’
‘With everything. The cancer. The doctors. God. But especially Harriet. It was like she’d spoiled Kelly’s party. You only get one chance to die. That woman could have made it so sweet.’
Lizzie said she understood. She could hear the bitterness in Michala’s voice. Harriet Reilly had made enemies of these women. Not just Kelly but Michala too.
She asked what had happened next. By now, said Michala, it was December. Kelly had been working in the kite shop down on Exmouth marina, but even this was getting beyond her. Then one morning she woke up with a smile on her face.
‘It was a week before Christmas,’ Michala said. ‘For once she’d had a good night. No pain. No nightmares. No sweats. She asked me to come with her down to Exmouth. We put her kite and all the other stuff in her car. She said she’d checked the forecast and the wind was perfect. Then she asked me to leave her alone for a couple of minutes.’
‘Why?’
‘It turned out she wanted to write me a note. I didn’t find it until the weekend.’
‘But did you know what she was doing? Why you were both going down there?’
‘I think I’d guessed.’
‘And?’
‘I didn’t try and argue her out of it. A diagnosis like that? I’d probably do the same thing.’
She said they didn’t get down to the beach until early afternoon. It was a beautiful sunny day and there was just enough wind for her to cope with.
‘I helped her blow the kite wing up. She was pretty weak by now but she told me she’d saved up the strength for this one last trip. That was the word she used. Trip. She’d borrowed a weight belt from a diver friend and she made me fit it around her waist. In a way it was a cruel thing to do, but I knew it was what she wanted. We hugged and kissed there on the beach, and then she was in the water, sorting out the rig.’
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