by Tim Weaver
‘That must have been a shock.’
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘It was.’
‘You were close to them?’
‘Yeah,’ she said, but then stopped.
Something lingered in her face.
‘Ms Mae?’
She looked away for the first time, out through the doors into the garden, her gaze following the path of a butterfly as it settled on the conservatory doors.
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she said, ‘I liked them both a lot – I really did – but I was just thinking about some of the … I don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘They were …’
‘What?’
‘Well, they were a little odd sometimes.’
‘In what way?’
Mae was silent for a moment, a look of anxiety on her face, as if she was uncomfortable talking about them in this way. ‘I guess we all have quirks,’ she said softly, pressing her lips together so hard they blanched.
‘What quirks did they have?’
Another long pause. ‘Bob was ultra-quiet, sometimes to the point of being completely mute, at least until you got to know him a little bit. Even then, it wasn’t going to be a conversation for the ages. It was hard to imagine him as this successful Hollywood director. He seemed to have lost all his confidence, his spark. In the time that I knew him, he’d sit there at the table, in the corner of the room, and he’d listen to everybody else talking – just watching them. He was always pleasant enough, but even by the time I’d done the third film with him, I honestly couldn’t say I knew all that much about him. Not really. Part of me wondered if he might have been that way …’ But she stopped.
‘Deliberately?’
She looked at me; nodded once.
‘You mean, he didn’t want you to get to know him?’
She didn’t answer immediately, and I thought of something Wendy Fisher had said: Bob was quiet … I always thought there was more to him than met the eye.
‘Ms Mae?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I think that’s exactly what it was. You’d just catch him looking at you sometimes.’
‘Looking at you how?’
‘When he was on his own, and even sometimes when they were together, this other look would come across his face. You’d catch him staring at you but there wouldn’t be anything behind the look. Does that even make sense?’
‘Like his mind was on something else?’
‘Exactly. For people who didn’t know him all that well, I think he probably came across as impolite and aloof.’ As she paused, I remembered Wendy – who’d never really got to know her brother-in-law – saying exactly that: I’ll be honest, I thought he was damn rude. ‘But I don’t think he was being impolite,’ Mae went on, ‘I really don’t. When he was quiet like that, I often thought that it was something much more complicated than that.’
‘Complicated in what way?’
‘It was like something was weighing on him,’ she said, and then stopped again. ‘Something was weighing on him – and, whatever it was, he found it impossible to let it go.’
‘You never found out what it was?’
‘No. But I always felt with Bob and Lyn … I don’t know … I think there were things going on in their private life.’
‘You think they were unhappy?’
‘Actually, the total opposite of that.’
I frowned. ‘I’m not sure I follow.’
Mae pursed her lips again, changing position in her chair. She had the uneasy air of someone who hated the idea of gossip, of discussing other people – their decisions, their choices. ‘Look, Lyn was a very attractive woman, clearly, so on-set she tended to be right at the centre of everything. And, you know …’ She shrugged. ‘It wasn’t always unwanted, I guess.’
‘In what sense?’
She shrugged again. ‘I mean, I think most days she enjoyed the attention. I’m not judging her, but she would play up to the crowd. You must have seen photos of her, so you know what I’m talking about: she had boobs all the way out here’ – she paused, holding both hands an arm’s length away from her chest, exaggerating for effect – ‘a face like a china doll, this hourglass figure most of us would need a corset to get close to …’ She stopped again, this time for longer. ‘But, despite all that, she was never interested in other people – only Bob. He would sit there watching her, never saying boo to a goose – and not because he was powerless to intervene, but because I think he liked it. Watching her, I mean.’
She didn’t continue for a while, as if gathering her thoughts, and I flipped back in my notes to where I’d quoted Korin’s interview with Marc Collinsky: You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met in my life. You’re a work of art. As I stared at the quote from Hosterlitz, I recalled the way he’d treated Korin in the films I’d watched: his fixation on her, the obsession with the way she looked.
I prompted Mae. ‘Why do you think he liked watching her?’
‘I think he got off on people’s reactions to her. Sometimes I’d catch sight of him watching other men watching her. It’s not like he sat there with this leering grin on his face, like some dirty pervert. It was more that he was enjoying the fact that they were enjoying her. Never once did I see him tell her to stop.’
‘Do you think they were faithful to one another?’
‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘Definitely.’
She was vehement about it, and I remembered something she’d told me just now. I’d asked her if she thought they had been unhappy.
Actually, the total opposite of that.
‘What you’ve got to understand about Bob and Lyn is that, if they chose to do those things, it was because they both chose to do them. As a unit, they were incredibly tight. In fact, they were so well suited to one another that they could sometimes come across as rude. They could appear to be almost paranoid about letting other people in. I mean, Lyn always did such a good job of disguising it – she never made you feel uncomfortable or unwelcome. She was lovely. But I got closer to them than anyone, and I’d watch them sometimes, and they’d look at each other, and it was like they communicated without speaking; and if you got too close, you’d be able to … to kind of …’ She stopped. ‘I don’t know how to explain it, really. You’d just be able to feel them back away from you.’
‘What sort of things would make them back away?’
‘Anything, nothing – I don’t know. It was a long time ago. There were just certain things, certain discussions, that made me think, “That was weird.” ’
I wrote some notes and we talked a little more, but the subject seemed to plateau, so I changed gear. ‘Do you remember anything odd about the end of the films you shot with Robert and Lynda back then? Specifically, a ninety-second scene with Lynda that seems to have been repeated a few times.’
She looked at me blankly. ‘No, not really. I mean, I haven’t seen those films since the eighties. To be honest, a few of them I never even bothered watching when they came out.’ She broke into a smile. ‘I told a lot of my family I was working in Spain as an English teacher for those years, because I didn’t want them watching films like Die Slowly and seeing me running around stark naked and screaming.’
I returned the smile she gave me, but kept pressing: ‘You never felt like Lynda’s scenes got treated differently?’
A frown. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Maybe Robert spent more time on them?’
She eyed me, as if she guessed I was trying to lead her somewhere, but it was obvious she had no idea what I was talking about – not least because those films were made over thirty years ago. I decided not to risk losing her courtesy and backed away from the subject.
‘In the report into Lynda’s disappearance, there’s a photograph of Robert and Lynda that I think you took of them – a Polaroid.’ I grabbed my phone, went to Photos and showed her the picture. ‘Do you recognize this?’
Her face brightened. ‘Wow.’
‘Do you remember taking that picture?’
‘I
do, yes.’
‘The police found it in Lynda’s house. Anyway, I’m interested in that part of their lives – the eleven or so years between the time they met to the time Robert died. I don’t suppose you’ve retained anything from that period yourself – you know, photographs, letters, things you brought back from Spain?’
She frowned. ‘Not that I can think of.’
‘Maybe something they gave you, or another photograph you took of them? Anything that might help me, really.’
I could already see it was a lost cause. She was still frowning, trying to recall something, anything, but it was a part of her life long consigned to history.
‘Final few questions, I promise. Did either of them ever talk to you about a place called Lake Calhoun?’
‘Calhoun?’
I spelled it for her.
She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘You don’t remember anything like that?’
‘No, definitely not. Where is it?’
‘It’s in the States.’
It clearly meant nothing to her.
‘What about the name “Ring of Roses”? Does that mean anything to you? Did either of them ever discuss a film idea that went by that name?’
‘No, but the police officer also asked about that.’
I looked up from my notes. ‘About “Ring of Roses”?’
‘Yes. When he came to speak to me about Lynda, he asked me quite a few times if I knew what it was.’
‘The police came to see you?’
‘Yes.’
‘That was Detective Constable Raymond White?’
‘Uh … I think so.’
‘But you’re not sure?’
‘I can’t remember what he said his name was.’
An alarm started going off in my head.
‘Was it just one police officer?’
‘Yes.’
‘And he asked you about “Ring of Roses”?’
She nodded. ‘It was all he seemed interested in, really.’
I felt my fingers tighten around the pen. ‘Did he show you a warrant card?’ I asked. ‘You know, his police ID?’
‘Uh, I think so.’ But her eyes spoke of conflict, of confusion, of a difficulty in remembering. ‘Or maybe he didn’t, I don’t know.’
There was no record in White’s report of him ever visiting Veronica Mae at home, so I was betting on didn’t. And that really only meant one thing.
The man who had visited her wasn’t a cop at all.
00:07:53
Sirens drift across the afternoon.
In front of the camera, Ray Callson is seated cross-legged, his eyes on the windows. Sunlight shines on his skin. The finger and thumb of his right hand are gently rubbing together – a nervous tic maybe, or the sign of a smoker aching for a cigarette. He takes a long breath and then his eyes shift from the windows to a space just off camera.
‘Anyway,’ he says, a little wearily, ‘I was going to tell you about that one case I had. What do you want to know about it?’
‘You said, in your thirty-two years of being a police officer, it was one of the cases that stuck with you.’
Callson just nods.
‘Can you describe it?’
To start with, it’s unclear whether Callson has heard.
‘Mr Callson?’
‘We got a call to go to the Pingrove,’ he says quietly.
‘That’s how the case began?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What’s the Pingrove?’
‘It was a hotel, not far from here. On the corner of Wilshire and North Camden. It doesn’t exist any more, but back then it was a pretty famous spot. The place to be seen, I guess you could say.’
‘You said “we” got the call – who’s “we”?’
‘Me and my partner, Luis. Luis Velazquez. He’s gone now. Been gone a while, actually. Had a heart attack four or five years back. He was a good man.’
There’s a short, respectful silence.
‘So what happened when you two got to the Pingrove Hotel?’
Callson sniffs, adjusts himself in his seat. ‘It was weird. Everything in there was completely normal – except for the manager. The people behind the desk were carrying on with their jobs, the bellboy, concierge; there were guests milling around all over the place. They didn’t have the first idea what was going on. But the manager – he was out front, waiting for us. He hadn’t told any of his employees what he’d found yet. He was the only one who knew what had happened on the eighth floor – apart from the maid who’d reported it in the first place. I remember he was white as a sheet and he’d sweated through his shirt. He looked like my son used to look when he was a kid – you know, after he’d woken up terrified from some nightmare.’
‘He was emotional?’
‘Emotional. Yeah, that’s one word for it.’
‘How would you describe him then?’
‘No, emotional’s right. He was in shock.’
‘Because of what he’d found?’
Callson nods.
‘What happened after that?’
There’s a pregnant pause. Callson’s eyes are now fixed on a space low down, beyond the camera. ‘If I remember right,’ he says, ‘he told us what he found up there, and Luis started speaking Spanish.’
‘Spanish? Why?’
Callson looks up. ‘He was reciting the Lord’s Prayer.’
23
I was still thinking about what Veronica Mae had said – about someone coming to the house, pretending to be a cop, and asking about ‘Ring of Roses’ – when my phone started ringing on the seat beside me. It was Melanie Craw. The line popped and then buzzed as I answered, and I heard Craw saying, ‘Raker?’
‘Yeah. Can you hear me?’
‘Just about.’
Ahead of me, the road bisected a thick beech forest, like a canyon carving its way through a set of cliffs, and I managed to find somewhere to pull in, next to a gate and a stile. Above the stile, a Forestry Commission sign marked Sherborne Woods was pointing in the direction of a path winding beneath the dense canopy of trees.
The call cut out.
I slid out of the car and wandered up the road, hoping it might flicker back into life. Wind moved silently through the forest as I dialled Craw’s number.
Click. ‘Raker?’
‘Sorry about that. I’m out in the sticks.’
‘How did it go at the doctor’s yesterday?’ Craw said, cutting to the chase.
‘Everything was fine.’
‘Did he examine you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And?’
‘He said things were good.’
‘No chance of you keeling over again any time soon?’
‘No. Sorry to disappoint you.’
‘Did he prescribe anything else?’
‘Just more of the same,’ I lied.
As I turned back towards the car, the faint breeze died away, the branches settling, the leaves doing the same – and, as everything hushed, I thought I saw something move out of the corner of my eye; off to my left, deep in the forest.
There was a drystone wall separating the road from the trees. I stepped up to it and watched the forest for a moment. Leaves and branches began moving again, thin shafts of sunlight appearing and vanishing, pale amber strands criss-crossing along the forest floor.
‘Raker?’
‘Yeah,’ I said, my eyes still on the trees. ‘I’m here.’
‘I’m finishing work at seven tonight and the kids are with my mum. I was thinking of getting a takeaway.’
‘Okay, well, I’ll wait for an invite.’
‘Ha ha,’ she said. ‘I need to talk to you about something.’
‘That sounds ominous.’
She didn’t respond.
‘Is everything all right?’ I asked.
‘Like I said, I need to talk to you.’
I looked at my watch. It was almost midday.
‘I’m down in Somerset at the moment, and I’m n
ot sure what time I’ll be back tonight. But I can give you a call when I’m an hour away.’
‘All right. Don’t get yourself killed in the meantime.’
‘I’ll try my best.’
I looked into the forest again, my eyes moving between trunks and branches, across grass and beds of fallen leaves.
There was no one around.
All I could see was a bird – a rook – on a branch about twenty-five feet from where I was standing, its black eyes and silver beak trained on me.
It squawked once and took off.
24
It took me a while to find the house that Lynda Korin had lived in for thirty-one years. West of the village of Hinton Blewett, it was tucked away on its own at the end of a short country lane, hidden from the road by plump hedgerows, its old, rust-speckled front gate pretty much invisible until I was almost upon it.
Getting out of the car, I fanned the gate open, its hinges moaning, and swung the BMW in through the gap in the hedge. At the end of a sand-coloured driveway pitted with small, uneven holes, a beautiful grey stone cottage laced with ivy came into view. It sat on an incline and looked out across the Mendips. The view was like a shot from a postcard: a carpet of green and yellow squares outlined by stone walls, Chew Valley Lake sitting like a thousand acres of blue ink about three miles away.
There was no alarm on Korin’s place, or at least not one that I could see, which made my life easier. Leaving the car door ajar, trying to keep it as cool as possible, I went to the front of the cottage. It had three windows on the ground floor: one on the left, which looked through to a small sitting room, and two on the right – one, a bedroom, the other a study.
I carried on around to the right, following a flagstone path between empty flowerbeds to a door on the side of the house that led to a utility room. Further around still was the back garden. A raised patio sat directly outside a pair of French doors, stone steps dropping down to a lawn that rolled at a marginal slant because of the way the hill sloped. It was hard to get a sense of whether Korin loved gardening, because it had clearly been untouched in ten months: the grass was knee-length; weeds were crawling up the steps and out between patio slabs; flowerbeds were either empty, like the ones at the side of the house, or overrun, rampant and unchecked.