The Heron's Cry

by Ann Cleeves

  ‘I think he’ll be fine,’ Jonathan said. There was no anxiety now in his voice. ‘You know Jen, don’t you? Can I leave you to talk to her? You understand that Eve’s gone missing and we’re trying to find her.’

  ‘Like when you tried to find Chrissie?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jen said. Chrissie was a woman with Down syndrome who’d disappeared from the Woodyard during a previous murder investigation. ‘You helped us then, Luce. We’re hoping you might be able to do the same thing tonight.’

  Jonathan gave them both a little wave and left the room.

  Jen perched on his desk. ‘How well do you know Eve, love?’

  ‘Quite well. She displays her glass here and comes into the cafe. She likes cappuccino and Bob’s carrot cake.’

  ‘Does she? You’ve got a good memory.’

  ‘Customers like it when you remember stuff like that.’ Lucy flashed her a quick grin. ‘And sometimes they leave you a tip.’

  ‘Tell me about seeing Eve today.’

  ‘I was just finishing my shift and I needed the toilet so Bob said I could go a few minutes early.’ Lucy looked up. ‘I’m supposed to be working now. I came back after my tea because there’s an event in the theatre and it started at seven.’

  Jen could tell Lucy was about to launch into a detailed description of the event, so she broke in. ‘You were on your way back to River Bank and went to the toilet and that’s where you saw Eve.’

  ‘Yes. Well, just outside after I’d finished.’

  ‘Let’s play a kind of memory game.’ Jen thought that must sound patronizing, but continued all the same. ‘Tell me everything you remember about Eve. What she was wearing and what she was doing. You pushed open the door from the ladies’ toilets and what did you see outside? Was Eve already there?’

  Lucy shook her head. ‘She must have been using the loo, and she followed me out.’

  Jen nodded and Lucy continued: ‘She noticed me and said, “Hello, Luce,” and I said hello back.’

  ‘Anything else you can tell me?’

  ‘She was wearing a summer skirt.’ Lucy shut her eyes for a moment. ‘It was yellow and white. And sandals.’ A pause. ‘No cardie and no waterproof. If she’s gone outside, she’ll be soaking.’

  ‘She will.’ Jen tried to picture the scene. ‘And you were the only people there, Luce? In the corridor outside the toilets?’

  Lucy shook her head. ‘We were the only people there then.’

  ‘Someone might have been there earlier?’

  ‘No,’ Lucy said. ‘Later. A man came along as we were chatting.’

  ‘Do you think Eve knew him?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Lucy said, ‘but I think the man knew Eve. As he walked down the corridor, I saw his face. It was almost like he was pleased to see her. Like they were friends.’

  ‘But he didn’t say anything?’

  ‘I didn’t hear. I was in a hurry, thinking about what I’d have for my tea.’

  ‘Can you tell me what he looked like, this man?’

  Lucy hesitated. ‘I just walked past him. I didn’t notice very much.’

  ‘How about age? Was he the same age as Eve?’

  On this, it seemed, Lucy was certain. She shook her head vigorously. ‘No! He was much older. He could have been her dad.’ She paused for a moment. ‘But her dad’s dead, isn’t he? So it couldn’t have been him.’

  ‘No, sweetie, it couldn’t have been him.’

  Lucy shook her head, disappointed, it seemed, not to be able to help more.

  ‘Thanks, Luce,’ Jen said. ‘You’ve been absolutely brilliant. I’m sure it’ll be fine for you to go home now. Bob won’t mind. We’ll find someone to take you across to River Bank safely.’

  * * *

  Back in the Woodyard lobby, people were streaming out of the theatre. Uniformed colleagues were showing a photo of Eve to everyone who passed. Jonathan had found the image on a poster they’d made advertising Eve’s glass exhibition and had printed it out. But most people barely stopped to glance at it. They were looking at the downpour, as excited as children, bemoaning their lack of foresight in a failure to bring umbrellas or suitable clothes. Jen paused for a moment, looking around her, and her attention was caught by another image. She had a flashback to one of the briefings, Ross reporting back on one of the interviews he’d done in the early stages of the investigation. Then another image. And a sense, if not of hope, of a resolution, a kind of ending.

  She phoned Matthew and when there was no reply, collared one of the PCs.

  ‘Where’s Venn?’

  ‘He’s searching the empty studios right at the top of the building. Apparently, reception’s crap up there.’

  Jen left without answering and began to run up the bare wooden stairs, beyond the Woodyard’s public spaces, and the offices and meeting rooms, to the giant lofts littered with artists’ materials and dust.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  MATTHEW VENN HAD COMPLETED HIS SEARCH of the attics when he heard footsteps echoing on the steps below him. The Woodyard still felt industrial here, ramshackle and bare, all exposed pipes and untreated timbers. At the same time, he must have come back into phone reception because his phone started to ping.

  There was a text from Ross. Nobody at home in the Prior house. What would you like me to do?

  Venn didn’t answer immediately; he wanted to think about that. At almost the same time Jen arrived, red hair falling over her face, cheeks flushed with the exertion, so they were practically the same colour. They were on a narrow landing with a long window looking down over the town, just where there was a twist in the stairs. Jen was breathless. She could hardly speak and, at first, he struggled to make out what she was saying.

  ‘I think I know where Eve might be. I’m sorry. It’s crazy, I should have realized before,’ she told him, words spilling out like the rainwater pouring down the gutters and the drains.

  ‘You and I will go and check it out.’ Matthew paused. ‘Phone Ross and tell him to stay at the station until we get back to him with instructions. We’ll need someone there.’

  They were on their way out of the Woodyard, pausing for a moment to look out at the rain, when Ross phoned again. This time his voice was triumphant. ‘Steve’s just called and he’s got the name of the Crow. It was really well hidden, but he finally dug it out.’

  ‘Well? Is it someone connected to the investigation?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s the boss of the health trust. Roger Prior.’

  That stopped Matthew in his tracks. He felt all his preconceptions shifting. He’d set aside Prior as a potential suspect, worried that his judgement had been clouded by his antipathy to the man. But after all, Prior could have been the cause of two young men’s deaths, not through negligence, but through a cruel and active provocation. Matthew saw his participation in the Suicide Club as an addiction. Prior had become as much of a gambler as John Grieve, punting on who would live and who would die. He pictured the man in his grand office at home, cruel and entitled, with his sleek black hair and his sharp nose, and thought that the nickname Crow suited him well. They would find out later how he became involved in the group. Perhaps his humiliation following the Luke Wallace affair had caused him to claw back power in the only way open to him. Now, they just needed to track down Eve and to make sure she was safe.

  ‘Find Prior,’ Matthew said. ‘Top priority.’

  ‘You’ll be coming back to the station?’

  Matthew had a moment of indecision before answering. ‘No. You’re in charge there.’ They had to find Eve Yeo before there was another tragedy, and that was worth a gamble too.

  He was just about to run out to the car when he heard Jonathan calling his name. Matthew stopped and turned.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Jonathan was shouting above the sound of the rain.

  ‘We’ve got a possible lead on Eve.’

  ‘I want to come.’

  For a brief moment Matthew hesitated. ‘Sorry. Not possible.’ He followed Jen in
to the storm without looking back to see Jonathan’s reaction.

  * * *

  Matthew drove because he said he knew the way better. He’d grown up with the country lanes, wasn’t thrown by the tall hedges or the grass growing in the middle of the road. It would have been quite dark now, even without the rain, but still the water came, running in streams across the roads, filling ditches, causing ponds where there had been none before. Flash floods spilled out from drains that had been clogged with dry vegetation and blown sand. He drove as quickly as he dared, but had to slow down when he turned off the road and onto a sandy track.

  ‘We’re nearly there,’ Jen said. ‘I think we should walk from here. Even if they can’t hear the engine over the sound of the rain, they might see the headlights.’

  Matthew reached into the back seat and pulled out two waterproofs and passed one to Jen. ‘This is Jonathan’s. It might be a tad too big, but better than nothing.’

  ‘Certainly, it’s better than nothing. I was expecting to be drowned before we got anywhere close.’

  ‘You know me, I’m like the Scouts. Always prepared.’ He said it lightly, as a joke, but he was thinking that he’d never been as poorly prepared as this in a case. This was all guesswork and intuition, and he hated it.

  A minute out of the car, his legs and feet were soaking and rain was seeping into the gap between the collar and his neck. Jen was walking ahead of him, using a torch. Her coat had a large hood and something of the shape it formed reminded him of a monk’s habit. They were walking down a narrow path through dunes, which seemed to tower on either side, and he fancied it was like a religious procession in a monastery or priory. Occasionally a flash of lightning would illuminate the scene with a sharp, white light, then everything would be black again. The sand beneath their feet was sticky, and in places deep puddles had formed.

  With a flashback to his childhood, which was as clear as the lightning strikes, he remembered playing with children from another family on one of their outings to the beach. One of those random chance acquaintances that kids form when they’re playing close to each other. The children were building an obstacle course for their parents, with pits dug deep in the sand and bridges made from driftwood, and when it was completed the adults played along, allowing themselves to be blindfolded and led through. The trips into the holes and the falling off the rickety bridges were accompanied by good humour and laughter. His own parents had sat in their old-fashioned deckchairs looking on, his father with interest and his mother with horror.

  Now, he thought, this was a similar obstacle course. They were blindfolded too, and he had no idea where or how it would end. They were at Seal Bay, in the dunes behind the wide sweep of beach, not far from where his parents had brought him to picnic, and the boy and the man seemed to collide, to become one person.

  Jen broke into his thoughts. ‘I must have got this all wrong. The place is all shuttered and there’s no light inside. When I saw the poster at the Woodyard, I was convinced that this was where they’d be. The theatre group put on the same play at the Sandpiper and, according to Ross, the Mackenzies support them all over the county. So, I thought, members of the family could have been at the Woodyard at the same time as Eve. But maybe I got that wrong, and it was just another coincidence.’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t think you’re wrong.’ He’d seen the glint of a brass numbered keypad on the door. It had been installed instead of a padlock or a bolt. He pointed his own torch at the ground, saw that it had been churned up with tyre tracks. ‘Someone’s been here relatively recently.’

  ‘I was here earlier this week with Janey,’ Jen said.

  He shook his head. ‘I think these are more recent. Let’s see what’s inside.’ He banged on the door; there was no reply but he hadn’t expected one. If anyone was there, they’d be silent, hiding. They wouldn’t expect a stranger to be able to get in.

  ‘It shouldn’t be hard to break down that door.’

  ‘No need for that.’ Matthew had the numbers he’d found in Nigel Yeo’s diary firmly fixed in his head. He’d been carrying them round for nearly a week, knowing that eventually they’d be useful. ‘Yeo had a classic doctor’s handwriting, so I’m not sure which combination is the right one, but let’s try this one first.’ He punched the numbers 8531 into the brass keypad on the door. Nothing happened. He tried again: 8537. This time there was a click and the door opened.

  ‘Eve!’ He stood outside and shouted in. The noise seemed to echo around the space. No reply and he moved inside. It was dark and hot. No air. If someone had been in the shack recently, they hadn’t opened a window. But there was a lot of noise. The rain beating on the plank roof battered his nerves and seemed to drum into his skull. Without thinking, Matthew felt for a light switch, but of course, the chalet had no mains electricity. In the torch beam, he saw matches and a paraffin lamp. He put a match to the lamp, hung it from a hook in the ceiling, which seemed to be there for that purpose, and the room was lit by a gentle glow, which in any other circumstance would have been warm, comforting.

  Matthew saw that there were two rooms. They were standing in the living room furnished by a couple of sagging armchairs, with a folding scrubbed pine table against one wall. On it a camping stove and a small Calor gas fridge. Against another, a dresser, with a cupboard underneath and shelves above. On the shelves a selection of tattered paperback novels and a pile of notebooks and files. Matthew was tempted to look at them, but that could wait. There was no sign of Eve.

  Jen had already moved into the second room, which was furnished with a small double bed and two bunks against the wall. Matthew stood in the doorway and looked in. There was no space to join her. For the Mackenzies, this must have been more like camping than staying in a real holiday home.

  There was no Eve and no possible place where she could have been hidden. It seemed that this drive through the rain had been a wild goose chase. He should have been more cautious, thought things through more steadily. He should be looking for Prior, and what would he be doing here? They’d have to start from the beginning and search for the man elsewhere.

  Matthew tried to bring his thoughts into some kind of order. Nigel had found the code to the door. It had been written in his diary on the Friday before he’d been killed. It made sense to believe that this was where he’d spent that afternoon, and that something he’d found here had made him very angry. So perhaps this wasn’t an entirely wasted trip after all. When Eve had been found, they would come back here and they’d check all the files. But now they had to find the woman.

  ‘Boss.’ Jen’s voice broke through his thoughts. ‘She’s been here. And today.’ She leaned across the bed and picked up a silver earring shaped like a fish. ‘Eve was wearing these when I saw her yesterday.’

  ‘So, where is she then?’ The words came out like a scream.

  ‘When Janey brought me here, she took me up the coast path, onto the cliff. Apparently, that was where Mack jumped off and killed himself.’

  ‘But there’s no car here.’

  ‘I don’t think Eve was brought here by just one person.’

  In the end, Matthew thought, perhaps it all comes back to the family.

  * * *

  They were out in the storm again. Biblical rain and distant thunder, but fewer flashes of lightning and those that appeared seemed further away. Matthew couldn’t see the beach from here because of the mountainous dunes, but he could hear the waves breaking on the shore. He wondered if Jonathan was home yet, sheltering, anxious. Angry about being excluded again. He’d be listening to the breakers too. He paused for a moment to send Ross a text, explaining where they were and sending instructions – a force-wide alert to stop that vehicle – holding the phone under his jacket in an attempt to keep it dry. He was tempted to send one to Jonathan too, something apologetic – and meaningful and sentimental – but that had never really been Jonathan’s style, and Jen was moving ahead of him so he had to walk quickly to catch up. She, at least, seeme
d to know where they were going.

  Then there was a view of the beach, lit briefly by lightning well out to sea. They’d left the lunar landscape of the dunes behind them. The path rose more steeply. In places it was like walking on the bed of a stream, as the water flowed over his shoes, rattling with loose pebbles, thick with eroded soil. The rain was easing, though. He could tell that the worst of the storm had passed.

  Jen stopped. ‘Look.’ There was no longer any need to shout against the weather and the word came out as a whisper.

  Ahead, so far above them that he could scarcely believe they were on the same path, was a moving pinprick of light.

  ‘That must be them,’ she said. ‘Who else would be so crazy to go out on a night like this?’

  ‘We need to be as quiet as we can. At least until we can see what’s happening up there.’ Matthew thought the path was so slippery, so close to the edge of the cliff, that a sudden movement, a shout, would spook the people ahead of them, might send them over. Even if a murder wasn’t committed tonight, there could be a terrible accident.

  ‘Okay.’ Jen pointed the torch down to the path, so there was less chance of it being seen from above, and he followed.

  The rain had stopped altogether now and he pushed back his hood, feeling the force of the wind, and the noise of the sea more strongly.

  They climbed slowly. Neither of them was fit. Ross would have run up like a mountain goat, and stood at the top looking back at them, despising them for their slowness. Smug and triumphant. Matthew thought he’d be glad of that speed now. But because he and Jen moved cautiously, there was no sound. They could choose to put their feet on the cropped grass at the side of the path, to avoid the bare rock and the loose rocks. The small point of light ahead of them came closer. The cloud started to lift and Matthew could make out the Lundy lighthouse beams, even a faint occasional moon, full and pale.

  Jen switched off her torch and got very close to him so she could whisper in his ear. He felt her damp hair on his cheek.