Crow Trap

by Ann Cleeves

  ‘Fine,’ she said again.

  ‘Don’t you find him really spooky?’ Anne went on. ‘For one thing he doesn’t have any friends, does he? Not that I could tell. You said there didn’t seem to be any of his mates at Bella’s funeral.’

  ‘So? I don’t have many “mates”!’ She lengthened her stride, tried to pull ahead but Anne kept pace with her.

  ‘I think he gets off on power, manipulating situations behind the scenes. You know your trouble, Rache, you won’t face up to things. It wouldn’t surprise me if he were still working for Livvy Fulwell. The Fulwells are the people who’ll get most out of the quarry. And Neville’s definitely pulling Godrey Waugh’s strings.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Now it was impossible to ignore the conversation. Rachael stopped abruptly. She was wearing shorts and bent to massage the muscles in the back of her legs.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Anne stopped too.

  ‘How do you know what’s going on between Neville and Godfrey Waugh? Anyone would think you had some sort of inside information.’

  That shut her up at last. She walked on without answering but for Rachael the walk was spoiled.

  The final quadrat to be collected was in the lime spoil close to the mine building. From the hill they looked down on the site. With the grey block of the mine, the dark moss of conifer, the pale snake line of the burn, it was like looking down onto a map. They could see the curve in the burn where Grace’s body had been found. All the debris used by the police – the blue and white tape, the plastic sheeting – had been cleared, but it had been there long enough for Rachael to pinpoint the spot accurately. Neither of them mentioned it, even when they had to walk close by.

  They couldn’t see the quadrat from the hill because it lay in the shadow of the engine house, next to the mill chimney.

  ‘Someone’s moved it,’ Anne said as they approached. The frame looked as if it had been kicked or tripped over. ‘It’s just as well the survey’s finished. That could really have cocked things up.’

  ‘Perhaps it was the police?’

  ‘No. They haven’t been here for days. Besides, I brought Vera up the day the investigation started and showed her what was going on. She told them to be careful.’

  ‘A walker then.’

  ‘Perhaps. Some ghoul interested in seeing where the murder took place. Or a protester from Langholme wanting a closer look at the mine before it’s turned into Godfrey Waugh’s operations centre.’

  ‘Or a ghost.’

  ‘I thought you were a scientist. Never had you down as a believer in the supernatural.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘What’s with the ghosts then?’

  ‘Nothing. A flip remark.’

  ‘There must be more to it than that.’

  ‘Occasionally, when I’ve been walking the burn I’ve had the feeling of somebody watching me. Or following. And I saw a woman once on top of the cairn.’

  ‘Who was it?’ Anne asked. Rachael looked at her, thinking she must be taking the piss but she seemed serious.

  ‘I don’t know. Couldn’t tell.’

  ‘You must have an overactive imagination, pet. Living with Grace was enough to give anyone the willies.’

  Anne crossed the culverted stream towards the square, stone room which had once held the engine which powered the mine. She turned back towards Rachael. Reflected fragments of light from the water bounced onto her face.

  ‘Could it have been Grace?’ she asked. ‘We never knew exactly where she was.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Though Rachael knew it hadn’t been Grace she had seen by the cairn that day.

  The room was almost intact. It had been roofed with corrugated iron. At the mouth of the ragged rectangle where once the door had been, flowers had been laid – hothouse blooms, white daisies and huge white chrysanthemums. They were perfect. They hadn’t started to wilt, despite the heat.

  ‘It must have been a walker then,’ Anne said, ‘marking the spot of Grace’s death. Or near enough. That’s touching. Perhaps we should have thought of it.’

  ‘There were flowers here before. The day the woman was on the cairn.’

  ‘Your ghost again?’

  ‘No.’ Rachael was irritated. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t a ghost this time.’ Anne had walked into the building. The floor was of bare earth covered by loose stone flags. ‘Unless ghosts eat chocolate digestives.’ Anne came back towards the door, holding up a biscuit wrapper.

  ‘Perhaps that’s why Grace was never hungry. She pigged out on chocolate.’

  ‘It couldn’t have been dropped by Grace. The police searched here and took everything they found away. It must be more recent than that.’

  Anne had moved further into the room. She was poking in a corner with one of her marker canes. ‘I think someone’s been camping out. This looks like ashes. The remains of a campfire.’

  ‘Wouldn’t we have seen the light?’

  ‘Not from Baikie’s. Not if they stayed inside.’

  ‘Someone’s been watching us then.’ Rachael backed away from the building so she was standing in sunlight and had a clear view all around her. The crow, she thought. The driver of the white car. He’s been here all the time watching every move we make. He’ll know when the police are in Black Law. He can see the cars moving down the track. He can see us sitting in the garden or setting out for the hill. ‘Come on,’ she called to Anne. ‘We should go.’

  But Anne seemed unaware of any danger. She lingered by the entrance, looking in. ‘Unless this is where Edmund Fulwell’s been holed up. Imagine him here, all the time, while Vera Stanhope’s been chasing round the country after him. Though you saw a woman, didn’t you? Perhaps cross-dressing is one of his vices too.’

  ‘The woman was weeks ago.’ Rachael wanted to run back to Baikie’s, couldn’t understand Anne’s lack of urgency.

  ‘But Edmund’s a boozer and there aren’t any cans or bottles. And if it was him, where is he now?’

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  They found Vera in Black Law with her team. When they told her about their find at the mine she erupted into a violent and entertaining fury directed at the colleagues who stood around her.

  ‘What’s wrong with you all? You’re professionals, aren’t you? We thought those women might be targets but nobody bothered to go and check the only cover for miles around. Are you scared of getting your feet wet? Happy that two women have to do your dirty work for you?’

  Then she gathered up Joe Ashworth, climbed over the stile at the end of Baikie’s garden and strode up the path to the mine. From the cottage Anne watched them – Laurel and Hardy in silhouette – disappearing into the bright sunlight.

  The incident left Anne amused but unsettled. She hadn’t expected Vera Stanhope to take a biscuit wrapper and a pile of ashes so seriously. And why was Rachael like a cat on hot bricks? For the first time Anne felt unsafe. She wished she could wait for their return to hear the outcome of their investigation but it was her day for tea with Barbara Waugh and it wouldn’t do to be late.

  Perhaps because of Vera’s response she told Rachael where she was going.

  ‘Just in case,’ she said, though she hardly expected Barbara and her daughter to hold her hostage in the gloomy and immaculate house in Slateburn.

  Rachael looked at her strangely and again Anne wondered if Neville had said something about her and Godfrey.

  In the sunshine the house looked as austere as it had before. The lawn had been mowed, the edges trimmed, the gravel raked. The door was opened by the child. Despite the heat she was dressed in a grey pleated skirt and a uniform sweatshirt. She was so tidy that she looked as if she was just setting off for school. Her white knee-length socks were unrumpled and stainless. Her black patent-leather sandals were shining.

  ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘Mummy’s expecting you.’

  She stood aside to let Anne in, but seemed to regard her progress with disapproval. For a moment it occurred to A
nne that even Felicity could have guessed about the affair, then she turned to wheel a large doll’s pram up the hall, and the idea seemed ridiculous.

  God, Anne thought. Talk about paranoid.

  In the kitchen Barbara was lifting scones from a baking dish onto a wire cooling tray. She seemed flustered. The kitchen was very hot.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m running a bit late.’

  Felicity must have been playing there because besides the pram there was an attaché case full of doll’s clothes, a real baby’s cup, bowl and spoon in blue moulded plastic on the table. Anne thought Felicity was too old to be playing with dolls. She was pale, lardy. She looked as if she could do with fresh air. What were the two of them doing on top of each other in this stifling kitchen? I suppose, she thought, if Godfrey and I get together we’ll have to have the brat to stay for weekends. She’ll get on my tits in an hour. I know she will.

  ‘Felicity’s been helping me to bake,’ Barbara said.

  ‘Great!’ Anne smiled at the girl, who simpered back.

  Not an hour, she thought, five minutes.

  ‘Why don’t you go upstairs and get changed,’ Barbara said. Her voice had a pleading quality as if she was worried that the child would argue. Felicity did as she was told but at the door she stopped and pulled a face at her mother’s back.

  ‘I’m sorry to have phoned you at home,’ Barbara said. ‘You must think I’m very foolish.’ The words were conventional enough but her voice was desperate. ‘Sometimes I wonder if I’m quite sane. I didn’t know who else to talk to . . .’

  The sun was streaming through the window and the oven was still hot. Anne felt faint, as if she was hearing Barbara in a dream. She tried to compose an appropriate response but the woman went on.

  ‘I’ve tried to talk about it to Godfrey, but he’s been so strange lately. I suppose that’s worried me too.’

  ‘In what way strange?’

  ‘Tfense, jumpy. He’s not sleeping properly. He often gets up and wanders around in the middle of the night. Sometimes he takes the car out. I worry that he’s so overwrought that he’ll have an accident. He’s even started to get angry with Felicity and that’s never happened before.’

  She seemed close to tears. She filled a kettle at the sink and plugged it in.

  ‘I’ve suggested that he should go to see a doctor,’ Barbara went on. ‘How can he function like that? Never sleeping. Hardly eating. But he won’t listen. Not a medical problem he says. Things at work which he’ll soon have sorted.’

  ‘What about you?’ Anne asked. ‘How are you sleeping?’

  ‘Not well. I have the feeling that everything’s breaking down all around me and despite my effort I’m not going to be able to hold it together.’ She managed a smile. ‘Godfrey says I’m menopausal. He’s probably right. But then men blame everything on hormones, don’t they?’

  ‘Have you thought of seeing a doctor?’

  ‘God, no. I hate them.’

  Barbara lifted the tray of scones onto a bench and began to wipe down the table with a violent scrubbing motion. Anne wished she hadn’t come. She didn’t want the responsibility. The woman was cracking up and she didn’t want to think that it might be her fault.

  ‘Isn’t there someone you can talk to? Family? Friends?’

  ‘Of course not. Why do you think I got in touch with you?’ She stopped abruptly. ‘I’m sorry. That was rude. I don’t have any family and all my friends know Godfrey too.’

  She made tea in a white pot. From the fridge she took out a plate of sandwiches covered in cling film and a Tupperware box of small cakes which she arranged on a doily-covered plate. The action seemed to calm her.

  ‘I’ll let Felicity have hers on a tray in front of the television,’ she said. ‘A treat.’

  ‘Perhaps we could have ours outside?’ Anne suggested. ‘It’s so hot.’

  ‘Outside?’ The idea seemed to horrify her. ‘Oh, I don’t think so. All those bugs.’ She continued to lay the kitchen table with plates, knives and napkins. Anne moved her chair so the sun wasn’t shining directly into her eyes.

  ‘What exactly is worrying you?’ she asked gently.

  Barbara concentrated on spooning jam into a bowl and seemed not to hear.

  ‘Do you know,’ she said. ‘After all this, that girl dying and the police at his office asking questions, Godfrey’s still determined to go ahead with the quarry.’

  ‘I suppose there’s no reason why he shouldn’t. Certainly nothing in our report will stop it.’

  Barbara stood quite still, the jam spoon poised in mid air over the bowl. She looked up at Anne with something close to despair.

  ‘Neville Furness will have got his way then.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Anne said, ‘but I don’t understand what Neville’s got to gain from it. I don’t understand why he affects you so much.’ She paused. ‘You’re scared of him, aren’t you?’

  Barbara nodded, but didn’t speak. Anne felt like shaking her.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, why?’

  ‘Because of what he’s doing to Godfrey.’

  ‘You said that when I was last here but it doesn’t make sense. Godfrey’s the boss. There must be something that you’re not telling me.’

  Barbara looked at her dumbly.

  ‘Don’t bother then,’ Anne said crossly. ‘It’s nothing to do with me anyway.’

  ‘No,’ Barbara said. ‘I’ve got to tell someone.’

  There was a movement in the hall which Barbara must have seen through the frosted glass door because she stopped. The door opened and Felicity came in. She had changed from her school uniform into pink shorts and a pink T-shirt. She was large for her age and the outfit didn’t flatter her.

  ‘I’ve come for my tea,’ she said.

  ‘Of course, darling. I’ll put it on a tray. You can have it in front of the television.’

  ‘I want it here with you.’

  Barbara’s hands, setting the tray, started to shake. ‘Not today, darling. I want to talk to my friend.’

  ‘Why can’t I talk too?’

  ‘You can,’ Barbara said. Anne thought she was showing remarkable restraint. ‘But not today. Here, I’ll carry it into the living room for you.’

  They looked at each other for a moment. Felicity seemed to consider putting up a fight but thought better of it. She scowled and followed her mother from the room.

  When Barbara returned to the kitchen the impulse to confide in Anne seemed to have passed. Anne wondered irrationally if the child had some evil influence over her. She poured tea, urged Anne to eat, as if the earlier outburst had never occurred.

  ‘You were talking about Neville,’ Anne said. ‘I don’t understand why he’s so committed to the project. What can he hope to get out of it?’

  ‘Money, of course. That’s obvious. That’s why he left the Fulwells because Godfrey offered him a financial incentive. He’s easily bought.’ The answer came readily but Anne thought there must be more to it than that.

  ‘Does he need money that much?’

  Barbara seemed confused by the question.

  ‘Did you know that he’s talking about resigning from his job at Slateburn?’ Anne said. She thought Barbara might be pleased by the information. Didn’t she want Godfrey out of Neville’s clutches? But it seemed to disturb her further.

  ‘No! Where will he go?’

  ‘He’s planning to take over Black Law farm.’

  ‘Godfrey never said.’

  ‘Perhaps Godfrey doesn’t know.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  Anne paused. ‘We have a mutual friend.’

  Barbara was thrown into panic. ‘You won’t tell Neville that you’ve been here? That I asked to see you?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  But Barbara was almost hysterical. ‘I invited you because I wanted to ask you something specific. Now I don’t know that I can. If you’re a friend of Neville’s.’

  ‘I’m not a friend of Neville’s.�
�� God, Anne thought. Let me out of here. The sun had moved so it no longer shone directly into the kitchen but she felt as if she’d been locked up in the room all day.

  ‘I can trust you, can’t I?’

  ‘Of course you can.’ Apart from the fact that I’ve slept with your husband and I’d shack up with him tomorrow if he gave me half a chance.

  ‘The three of you working on the report, living together in the cottage. You must have been very close.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Anne answered lightly. She had no idea where the conversation was leading. ‘When you’re living and working on top of each other like that it’s important to keep your privacy.’

  ‘But the girl who died, you would have known where she went, who she saw?’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  ‘Did she ever meet Neville Furness?’

  ‘Not that I knew. Why?’

  Barbara didn’t answer.

  ‘What are you saying? That Grace and Neville had a relationship?’

  Although there was a dishwasher under the bench Barbara left the table and filled the sink with hot, soapy water. Anne waited for a reply but Barbara was giving all her attention to the cups and plates.

  Anne stood behind her. ‘Do you suspect Neville Furness of killing Grace?’

  Barbara rubbed the dishcloth hard inside a cup. Although it must have been clean she didn’t lift it onto the draining board. She stood up to her elbows in suds.

  ‘If you have any evidence that’s what happened you must go to the police. The detective in charge of the case is a woman, Vera Stanhope. She’s very sympathetic. If you like, I’ll come with you.’

  And how will I ever explain that one away if Godfrey and I get together, she thought.

  ‘Barbara, are you listening to me?’

  But if Barbara was listening she wasn’t answering. Felicity came in with her tray. Barbara, shaking the soap from her hands, turned round from the sink and said in her normal, mumsy voice, ‘Could you show Mrs Preece out, darling? It’s time for her to go and as you can see I’m rather busy.’

  Anne didn’t put up any resistance. She hoped never to see Barbara Waugh again.

  Chapter Fifty