The Heron's Cry

by Ann Cleeves

  That would be for Ross’s friend Steve.

  ‘Did you pass all this information on to Nigel?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Was that soon before he died?’

  ‘Not immediately before. Perhaps a couple of weeks.’

  Venn wondered about that. If Yeo hadn’t only recently dis- covered the impact of the Suicide Club, what had made him so angry on the Friday afternoon before his body was discovered? Ratna had described his mood as changing dramatically in the course of the day. Still they had no idea of his movements that afternoon, except that he’d told Reed that it was a matter of life and death. Nothing quite made sense.

  ‘Had Nigel learned anything new about the Mackenzie case on the day that he died?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I didn’t see him. He’d asked if I wanted to go to Cynthia’s party. He said he wanted to chat to her friend, the woman who’s a police officer. I told him I’d rather wait until we’d told Eve we were a couple.’ She looked up at Venn. ‘I think I explained all that when you were last here. In the end, Mother and I went out to dinner instead to a rather nice new restaurant in Appledore. I did have a text from him that Friday lunchtime, but there was nothing work-related. It was

  only catching up, just saying he was looking forward to seeing me over the weekend.’

  ‘We really need to track his movements that Friday afternoon. He had a meeting at the hospital in the morning and then another there at four thirty, but we don’t know where he was in between. Do you have any idea where he went?’

  Lauren shook her head. ‘Sorry, I’m afraid I can’t help.’

  ‘Nigel had told Paul Reed, the Spennicott campaigner, that he’d go there that afternoon, but he called him to cancel. Do you know anything about that?’

  ‘Ah.’ She looked out of the window and into the garden. ‘Nigel got involved in the Spennicott old people’s home against his better judgement. In the end, he considered that the decision to close the Mount was justified, though he said Frank could have been less hasty and should have involved the residents earlier.’ She paused. ‘Nigel was sure he’d be able to negotiate a compromise, some sort of deal which would make everyone happy. He said that the writer, Paul Reed, was a poisonous little man, stirring up trouble out of spite. But really, I have no idea why Nigel cancelled the visit.’

  ‘Do you know why Mr Ley was in such a rush to convert the place?’ Matthew wasn’t quite sure how that could be relevant to the investigation, but Frank’s disappearance made him a potential suspect.

  Lauren thought for a moment. ‘I think Frank saw Spennicott in the abstract, almost as a mathematical equation: the boutique hotel would benefit the community more than the old people’s home, so that was the route to take.’ She looked up. ‘He was looking at the greater good. If he’d actually visited the home and chatted to the residents, his perspective would probably have changed. He was passionate in his support for the campaign to get justice for Mack’s family because he’d known him. I think Frank just didn’t have the ability to make the imaginative leap, to put himself in the place of people he’d never met, like the care home residents.’

  Venn nodded. There were people like that in the police service, people who understood the abstract better than the personal. He could well be one of them.

  They sat in silence for a moment. The shadows thrown by the trees in her garden were already lengthening. It would be a little cooler there. Soon, he’d have to go back to Barnstaple to meet up with the team and to see if Ley had reappeared.

  ‘Have you heard that there’s been another death?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. Wesley Curnow. I read about it earlier this week.’

  ‘Did you know him?’

  ‘I’d met him a couple of times, when Frank invited me to one of his Westacombe gatherings.’ She paused and looked up. ‘But really, I can’t think why anyone would want to kill him.’

  ‘What did Nigel make of him?’

  ‘Not very much. It wasn’t in Nigel’s nature to dislike people. He tried to understand them. But I think Wesley rather irritated him.’

  ‘Did Nigel try to understand the other staff at Patients Together?’

  Lauren laughed out loud. ‘Perhaps not as hard as he should have done. But Steph and her cronies are very set in their ways. A lot of gossip goes on in that office, and not a lot of work. I think Nigel was frustrated because he thought the organization could achieve so much more.’ A pause. ‘And all the doctors I know have a confidence, a certainty that can make them appear arrogant.’

  ‘What will you do now? Will you continue working for them?’

  ‘I still have to decide,’ Lauren said. ‘I might even apply to take over as CEO. It’s Nigel’s legacy in a way. I’d hate it to slide back to the way it was, to become a self-satisfied talking shop again. I couldn’t remain in my present role with another boss. I’d find that impossible.’ She gave a little shake of her head.

  ‘I do have to ask,’ Matthew said, ‘because you knew both victims. What were you doing on Sunday afternoon, the afternoon Wesley died?’

  ‘Of course you do, Inspector.’ She gave the matter a moment’s thought. ‘Mother and I went to visit a National Trust garden near Torrington. She might not be able to see, but she loves a garden, the scents and the touch of the plants. We had afternoon tea in the cafe there and arrived home at about six o’clock.’

  So, it would be impossible, Matthew thought, for Lauren Miller to have stabbed Wesley Curnow in the shed behind the Woodyard. He was pleased to have the confirmation, but he couldn’t imagine the calm, thoughtful woman sitting opposite him as a killer.

  It was dark by the time Matthew arrived home. Driving back, he was thinking of his husband, picturing the peace of the house, hoping that the tension of the previous day had disappeared. He found Jonathan just where he’d imagined, sitting on the wooden bench outside the kitchen door, a glass in his hand. He would have heard Matthew’s car, and there was a glass of very cold, white wine waiting on the table beside him. The tide must be low, because there was no sound of water from the beach or the river. They sat without speaking, looking out at the stars.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  JONATHAN WOKE EARLY AND HAD BEEN for a swim before Matthew got up. It had become a ritual in these hot, heavy days, a quick run into the sea, a kickstart to the morning. It set him up for the meetings that filled much of his time at the Woodyard. Today, there was a gentle swell, and after ten minutes of vigorous crawl, he’d lain on his back, held up by the saltwater, looking at the sky until the cold had eased into his bones and sent him home.

  Back at the house, Matthew had made coffee and seemed to be waiting for him.

  ‘I thought you might already be in town.’ Jonathan knew how much work, how much this particular murder, meant to his husband. He’d expected him already to be in Barnstaple, at his desk.

  Matthew didn’t answer directly. ‘Are you busy this morning?’

  So, Matthew didn’t want to talk about the investigation. He was shutting Jonathan out again. Jonathan tried not to care. ‘No, I thought I’d go in a bit late. I’m owed masses of time.’

  ‘I wondered if you’d come back to Westacombe with me. I’ve just phoned Jen and it seems Frank Ley still hasn’t turned up, and there’s been no sighting of him. We can’t justify a big team to look for him – he wasn’t a major suspect in either murder – but I’d like a proper search of the grounds around the house. It was dark before we could do it properly yesterday. You’d be on public ground. A volunteer. We sometimes ask volunteers to help in searches. It would be nothing official.’

  ‘Of course.’ Jonathan knew this was a big deal. A kind of peace offering.

  ‘He phoned me yesterday morning and sounded a bit low,’ Matthew said. ‘I’d hate it if he came back to a major fuss, uniformed officers doing a fingertip search, when all he needed was some time on his own.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘I didn’t answer his call,’ Matth
ew said. ‘Perhaps it was my fault that he went off on his own.’

  Dump the guilt, Jonathan wanted to say. Just dump the guilt.

  * * *

  Jen Rafferty was already there, waiting for them. Despite the heat, it was still early. The rest of the farm was quiet.

  ‘How far did you go yesterday?’ Matthew asked her. ‘We can carry on from there.’

  ‘Only as far as the wall. I didn’t want to trespass.’ She looked sheepish. ‘Besides, there might have been cows in the field.’

  Jonathan couldn’t help teasing. ‘You’re scared of cows?’

  ‘I’m a city girl. Freaked out by any animal bigger than me.’

  ‘It’s common land,’ Matthew said. ‘There’s a public right of way and there were no cows when I was there last time.’ A pause. ‘But you go and check the garden properly. We’ll do the common and the wilder areas beyond the wall.’

  They waited until she’d made a start before setting off.

  ‘I’ll take the path down to the Instow road. Can you check the fields on either side? You find anything, you just call me. You don’t touch anything.’

  Jonathan nodded. He watched Matthew set off along the path through the garden before following. There was a hedge of lavender and the scent made him giddy, almost faint. In the wild flower meadow, he slowed his pace. The path through was clear, but the clover and buttercups had grown so high that they might hide evidence that Ley had been here. At the stile across the wall leading to the common, Jonathan paused. Standing on the wooden frame, he had a better view. He could see the roof of the Westacombe farmhouse behind him, the ribbon of road below him, and Matthew, straight and purposeful, marching towards it.

  On the other side of the wall the grass was shorter. Perhaps animals – sheep or horses – were allowed in to graze, but no animals were here now. The gorse was a sunburst of colour, so bright that it hurt his eyes. Jonathan crossed the common horizontally to his left, following the line of the wall. Soon he came to a barbed wire fence, with a field of cows beyond. This land must be part of the farm. He retraced his steps to the right and came to a crumbling wall, much less well maintained than that separating Ley’s garden from the common. On the other side of it was a patch of deciduous woodland, shadowy and inviting.

  With the geography of the common fixed in his head, he began a proper search, moving backwards and forwards over the grass, peering into gorse thickets. All the time, desperate to find something. Knowing it was ridiculous, childish, but wanting to prove to Matthew that he could be useful. It almost felt like some sort of weird treasure hunt, with Matthew’s approval as the reward.

  In the end, the man was lying not far from the footpath, but he was hidden by one of the thickets of gorse. He was lying on his back, staring up to the sky, just as Jonathan had done earlier, when he was floating in the sea. He was about to feel for a pulse but remembered what Matthew had said. And this man had clearly been dead for a while. No need to touch him. Standing upright, he felt faint again for a moment, a little nauseous. It was the heat, the sound of bees on the blossom, the sweet honey smell of the gorse. He made a mental note of the position of the body and ran to find Matthew, shouting down the hill at him until he turned and began to walk back, knowing that nothing he could say to his husband would make him feel better about Francis Ley’s death.

  * * *

  They stood together at a distance from the body. Matthew had already been on the phone, calling his team, the pathologist, the crime scene manager. The police officer taking over.

  ‘No glass,’ Matthew said. ‘If it’s murder, it’s not the same MO.’ He was talking to himself. No intelligent answer was expected.

  ‘Do you want me to go?’ Jonathan didn’t want to cause Matthew embarrassment by being here.

  ‘Of course, if you’re busy, if you should be at work, but you’ll probably have to make a statement later.’

  ‘No,’ Jonathan said quickly. ‘No, there’s no rush.’

  Matthew kept at a distance from the body, but he began to take photos on his phone of Frank Ley, the surrounding gorse thicket, and a wide shot of the common. He was entirely concentrated on his work.

  ‘He looks very peaceful,’ Jonathan said. He’d never been very good at silence.

  ‘Yes.’ Matthew turned to look at him as if he’d said something of deep significance. ‘You’re right.’

  Jonathan was about to walk back to the house when Matthew’s phone rang. Matthew rolled his eyes as he answered, then put it on speaker phone and mouthed, ‘It’s the boss.’ Oldham’s words reverberated around the valley:

  ‘You told me you were close to making an arrest. And now we have another bloody body.’ The man seemed to pause for breath. ‘And not any bloody body. Some high-profile wanker. The press will be here in swarms. Wasps round a bloody jampot. Mosquitos round a fucking open wound.’

  Jonathan had met Oldham a couple of times and had taken an instant dislike. He pictured the man, tomato-faced, with as little self-control as a toddler in the middle of a temper tantrum, yelling into his phone.

  Oldham was still shouting. ‘So, get on top of it, Venn! When I took you on – which was against my better judgement – they told me you were clever. So, prove it! I need a result.’

  The last sentence came out as such a scream that Matthew held his mobile away from his ear. Jonathan heard the line go dead. He felt fury on Matthew’s behalf.

  ‘How can he speak to you like that?’ When you’re already feeling guilty about missing the call from the man.

  Matthew shrugged and put his phone away. ‘He won’t be there forever.’

  ‘Good.’ Jonathan looked up and saw a white-suited figure heading towards them. ‘Good.’

  ‘Brian Branscombe,’ Matthew said. ‘The crime scene manager.’

  ‘What have we got?’ Branscombe was a local, his voice relaxed, easy.

  ‘Not sure yet. I’m not convinced this is murder. Can you have a quick look, check his pockets? See if there’s anything that tells us what’s happened here.’

  Jonathan watched Branscombe bending over the body. He felt like a voyeur or that this was a piece of theatre. He thought again that he should go, that he was only in the way, but something held him at the scene. This was exciting. Distasteful but compulsive.

  Branscombe reached into an inside pocket and pulled out an envelope. He held it up so Matthew could see what was on the front. ‘I think this is for you.’

  In old-fashioned script and written with a fountain pen: Detective Inspector Matthew Venn.

  ‘And then there’s this.’ Branscombe held up a plastic medicine bottle. It was empty. He looked at the label. ‘Amitriptyline. Regularly prescribed antidepressants. And I think Sal Pengelly will confirm that taken in sufficient quantity, they can kill.’

  * * *

  They sat together in Jonathan’s car while Matthew opened the letter. Jonathan had offered again to go back alone to Barnstaple, to leave his husband to work in peace. He knew Matthew had always lived his life in compartments, and although his worlds had clashed big style in the previous investigation into the death of Simon Walden, his husband hated bringing together the personal and the professional. Asking Jonathan to help him look for Ley had been a gesture of reconciliation, a small step to allow their worlds to mix. Neither of them had expected the search to end like this: with a body and a letter from the dead man. Now Jonathan wanted to be here to offer support – he knew Matthew was obsessed by the fact that he hadn’t spoken to Ley the day before – but he hoped Matthew wouldn’t later regret the bending of rules.

  Matthew slit the envelope carefully along the top and he pulled out a single sheet of heavy, high-quality paper. The letter had been written with the same pen and ink as the name on the envelope. Matthew held it with gloved hands and read it out loud.

  ‘Dear Inspector Venn, I must apologize for confusing your investigation with this act of suicide. I’d hoped to explain in person, but when I couldn’t get hold of you writing se
emed more appropriate after all. Life isn’t worth living. My acts of generosity are no longer sufficient to make me less guilty and the people that I cared for and felt I could help – Mack, Nigel and Wesley – no longer need my support. I’m glad that I have the courage to find peace at last.’

  Then there was a signature.

  ‘He doesn’t mention Lauren Miller,’ Jonathan said. ‘You said she’d rejected him. Wouldn’t that have been a trigger to his suicide?’

  ‘Of course. But he wouldn’t have wanted her to feel the guilt that had haunted him.’ Matthew was quiet for a moment and the next words were spoken almost in a whisper. ‘How will I tell her?’

  Then he was out of the car, suddenly strong and decisive again. ‘You should go,’ he said. ‘Of course, you won’t discuss this with anyone. I need to make that phone call.’

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  EVE WAS WALKING FROM THE HOUSE to her workshop when Jen Rafferty appeared around the side of the farmhouse. Something about her face, and the way she was hurrying, made Eve certain that there was bad news. Another blow. After believing that life couldn’t get worse than this, she’d be battered again.

  ‘Can we go inside?’ Jen’s voice was breathless.

  So, they were once again in the big ground-floor kitchen, sitting almost exactly as they’d been after her father’s death, and the whole episode came crashing back into Eve’s head. She was paddling in blood again, staring at the shard of glass, feeling the heat of the furnace.

  ‘What?’ she demanded. ‘What’s happened now?’

  ‘We’ve found Frank. I’m really sorry, but he’s dead.’

  At least, Eve thought, Jen had come straight out with it. None of those awful euphemisms people had used when her mother had died. Passed on. Passed away. Passed. As if, her father had said dryly after the visit of a particularly gushing neighbour, Helen had been asked to give a urine sample. The image of her father came bright and sharp into her head and she had a brief moment of gratitude. She’d worried that she might lose a clear picture of him.