The Beauty of the End

by Debbie Howells

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  It’s a man’s voice and I turn to look at him. He’s stocky, in an ill-fitting suit and open-necked shirt. “Detective Sergeant Ryder.” He lifts his ID. “Could I have a word?”

  I take an instant dislike to him. He’s too loud, too substantial for this place of frail, damaged bodies and shattered lives.

  I follow him anyway, back along the corridor and into a small room, where so many have sat before, where their desperation and hope still hang in the air, cling to the papered walls. Closing the door, he gestures to me to sit in one of the upright, plastic chairs, then gets straight to the point.

  “I understand from one of the nurses that you’re a friend of Ms. Rousseau’s?”

  “That’s right.” I send silent thanks to the friendly, brown-haired nurse for not telling him I’m her lawyer. Until I find out where he’s coming from; for leaving that pleasure to me, when I find out where he’s coming from.

  “In that case, sir, I’d like to ask you a few questions. Could I take your name?”

  “Noah Calaway.”

  He writes it down, as he does my home address and phone number, adding that of the B&B where I’m staying, before he goes on to ask about my occupation.

  “Writer,” I tell him.

  “You got anything published?” He stares, clearly curious.

  “A couple of books.” I shrug.

  “Should I have heard of you?” His gaze unflinching.

  “Possibly.” I hold his gaze. “I write under my own name, Detective Sergeant. If you’d read one of my books, I’m sure a man of your ability would have remembered.”

  A frown flickers briefly on his face; then, his interest short-lived, he goes on. “Have you had any contact with Ms. Rousseau in recent weeks?”

  “To be honest, not for some time. A mutual acquaintance called me and told me what had happened. That’s why I’m here.”

  “Can I ask where you were the night of the murder, sir?”

  “At home. Alone,” I tell him bluntly, because he’ll ask.

  Ryder pauses. “In Devon.”

  “Yes.”

  Frowning at me, he puts down his pen. “Long way to come, just to see an old friend you haven’t seen—for how long?”

  “About sixteen years.” I hold his gaze for a moment. “Our mutual acquaintance seems to think that she’s the only suspect. That her phone was in the car, with presumably fibers from her gloves all over the murder weapon.”

  I’m guessing, but I can see his discomfiture—that this writer of whom he hasn’t heard has the balls not to be intimidated by him; even worse, stands his ground.

  “Look.” He shuffles his pages slightly. “All I can say is that so far, with the evidence we have, we’re not looking at anyone else.”

  “So everyone tells me.” Because I already know this from Will. Folding my arms, heartened, because whatever he says it’s not as conclusive as he wants it to be. Anyone can wear gloves. “But you must be considering the possibility?”

  Ryder looks up sharply.

  “Well, if you don’t find anything, I guess the trial will be straightforward,” I add, not letting on that I know more about the legal process than he thinks.

  Leaning back in his chair, Ryder actually smirks. “Assuming there is one.”

  I know what he’s saying. Assuming she comes round. I like him even less.

  “What do you write?” Hostile words, because he’s not asking out of pure interest.

  “Crime.” I watch him digest this, the cynical curl of his lips, as if it explains everything.

  “Right.” He smirks. “Fancy yourself a bit of an expert, I suppose.”

  “I have my own opinion. That’s not a crime, though, is it, Detective Sergeant?” Keeping my voice intentionally light, by now not caring if I rile him.

  He pauses, before saying nastily, “It’s horseshit.”

  “Excuse me?” I stare at his narrowed eyes.

  “What those nurses always tell you—you know, about how they can hear.” He says it coldly, and as he watches me for a response, I see his comment for what it is. The ugliest, clumsiest of tactics—Ryder’s been in his job too long.

  “Unless you know otherwise?” Casually, like an afterthought.

  When he already knows I haven’t been allowed into April’s room. I’ve no time for this, nothing more to say to him. Getting to my feet, I speak through gritted teeth. “If you have everything you need from me, Detective Sergeant, I’ll be on my way. Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .”

  “Care to tell me what you know?” He calls after me as I turn my back on him and walk out.

  “We’re all busy, Calaway. Don’t waste everyone’s time. . . .” His voice fades as the swing doors close behind me.

  * * *

  The dubious moral compass of creeps like Ryder, which influenced my departure from the legal world, strengthens my resolve to prove him wrong. It’s Ryder I’m thinking about as I drive the couple of hours it takes to get to Musgrove. It’s not hard to imagine his logic. A phone, April’s glove, and the murder weapon hadn’t got into that car on their own.

  The next place I needed to call was the North Star, just reopening after the conclusion of the police investigation there. Where the price of information is alcohol. where it seems also I’m remembered. I push the familiar door open and wander over to the bar, catapulted back to my teenage years, until I see John Slater, the owner. That he has aged so markedly somehow shocks me.

  “Well, I never . . . You youngsters don’t half make me feel old,” he says, dimly recognizing me, but then people—and beer—have been John’s trade for most of his life. “What are you having?”

  “Hello, John. Beer.” I add, “I don’t mind which,”, resisting the allure of the line of spirit bottles, as he nods toward the names I don’t recognize.

  Slowly he pulls me a pint, which seems to take immense effort, while I look around, taking in how little has changed.

  “It’s the same old place.” He grunts. “People are always telling me what fancy nonsense I should do with it. Can’t see the point in changing it when it works just fine the way it is. Anyway, truth is, I won’t be here much longer. I’m selling up.”

  I thrust a ten-pound note at him but he waves it away.

  “On the house. So what brings you here?”

  “Work,” I tell him. “The murder the other night. I wanted to talk to you—about the victim.”

  His face folds into wrinkles as he frowns at me. “Never had you down as a copper.”

  “I’m not. I’m a writer—but I used to be a lawyer.”

  He nods, as if somehow seeing that suits me better, pours himself a half, then nods toward a table in the corner. “Shall we?”

  He’s slow on his feet as we cross the room, where he pulls out a chair and, with a sigh, sinks into it.

  “I’m trying to remember who your mates were. My memory isn’t what it used to be.”

  “There were a few of us, but usually I was with Will Farrington.” Nodding as I watch him place me, recognition dawning on his face.

  “I always knew the pair of you were underage, you know.”

  “You did?”

  “Oh, everyone tried it in those days! Mind you, if you’d misbehaved, you’d have been out of here faster than you’d have liked. Done well, hasn’t he? Your mate?”

  “Will? I suppose he has.” I’m amazed that John remembers both Will and me, but in his next breath I discover why.

  “No suppose about it.” John looks more serious. “Has a magic touch, that bloke. Happens he’s a bit of an expert on this heart condition my young grandson has. If you ask me, it was him that single-handedly saved him.”

  Will’s presence seems to be everywhere I turn.

  “To be honest, we’re not in touch.”

  John raises his eyebrows.

  “We fell out. Years ago.” I add dismissively, “History.”

  “Well, he did all this surgery,” John says. “Tou
ch and go it was, for a while, but it’s done the trick. My grandson’s like any other lad now. He really is.”

  “That’s good news,” I say politely, imagining Will glorying in the adulation of the families he helps, all of them oblivious to his ruthless, selfish streak.

  “He’s a bloody miracle worker,” John says. A shadow crosses his face. “Not all the kids are so lucky. He comes in now and then—Mr. Farrington. Seems to work in hospitals all over the country.”

  Since when did John call him Mr. Farrington? But I haven’t come here to talk about Will.

  “That night, John . . .” I pause. “Did you see—or hear—anything unusual?”

  “Not particularly. Norton came in. He wasn’t a regular, but he’d show up, from time to time. He sat over there.” Pointing to a table near the door. “He wasn’t looking so good, but then he never did. Always thought there was something shifty about him. . . Anyway, then this woman came in—attractive, she was. Younger than him, with long red hair. They talked. Thought she looked upset at one point.” He frowns. “In fact, I nearly went over. He was a strange bloke. I didn’t think any more of it until late that night when I was locking up. There was this car out there. I’m used to that, people leaving their cars when they drink too much.... Only the thing was, there was someone in it. Thought it was just a bloke sleeping it off, but when I got closer . . .” Slowly shaking his head, he grimaces. “Won’t forget that in a hurry.”

  He falls silent. I give him a minute to clear the image of Norton’s bloodied body from his head.

  “The red-haired woman—did you recognize her? She came in here, once or twice, with me and Will, but it was a long time ago.”

  John frowns. “I thought I might have, but to be honest, I couldn’t say for sure.” Then he adds, “I remember you two well enough, but back in those days, you were always in here, weren’t you?”

  I suppose, thinking back, we probably had been, though it hadn’t seemed like that at the time. “Do you remember seeing either of them leave?”

  “I remember her leaving. She looked terrible. After, he came over to the bar and had a couple more drinks. I remember seeing his keys on the bar and thinking he shouldn’t be driving. But that was about it.”

  “Any idea what the time was?”

  He nods slowly. “Must have been tennish when she left, maybe a bit later. Norton was in here till closing.”

  I frown. “Can you tell me anything about him?”

  John looks blank. “Not really. Last I heard, he was living with a woman called Fiona Draper. Nice lady by all accounts. But then I can’t say I really knew the bloke.”

  . “What about security camera footage? I saw you had a camera outside.”

  He shakes his head unhappily. “The police are looking at what there is. Only some young bugger cut the cables a couple of weeks back. One of those hoodlums from across town, I wouldn’t mind betting. I had to throw a few of them out a while back. Their idea of revenge, I don’t doubt. I hadn’t got round to fixing it.”

  * * *

  I try to push John further, but apart from giving me an address for Fiona Draper, there’s nothing he can tell me. After thanking him for the beer, I leave him my number, asking him to call me if he remembers anything else.

  As I get in my car, I’m thinking about what John told me, which isn’t as much as I’d hoped. I know that April and Norton were in the pub that night, at the same table, that she left before he did and whatever they talked about upset her. At the moment, much though I don’t like it, the likelihood is their meeting was prearranged. Even to me, it would have to be some coincidence that brought her all the way from Kent the same night he was killed.

  And there’s the security camera. It’s not impossible that whoever killed Norton disabled that, too, in advance—perhaps the only indication of premeditation, rather than an act in the heat of the moment.

  * * *

  But whatever Norton said to her, however upset she was, even though there’s been a murder and an attempted suicide, linked by a phone and a single glove, I’m unable to picture April with a knife in her hand stabbing him.

  As I drive away from the North Star, recognizing Will’s old road, impulsively I turn into it, taking in the huge, elegantly proportioned houses, mostly Georgian, positioned at the end of smart drives and indicative of their owners’ wealth. Then I pass the house his parents used to own—may still own, for all I know—for the first time acknowledging the difference in our backgrounds that was always there, that I’d never seen.

  Was this where his arrogance and conceit had taken root? I hadn’t seen it in his parents, just as I hadn’t seen it in him, missing it, as I’d missed so much. Then curiosity takes me farther, across to April’s side of town, which spreads untidily westward. Where it’s shabby, the houses are smaller, uniformly reproduced in matching narrow streets, turning into Magnolia Way, now wearing the cheap, gaudy clothes of someone who’s trying too hard. The new playground and incongruous flowerbeds, a too thin layer of gloss through which I glimpse the same surly mouths and lines of discontent.

  * * *

  Back at the B&B, I get out the file I took from April’s cottage, pull out the list of clients I made yesterday, then reach for my phone to continue down it. The first three numbers I try go unanswered and a couple more result in people hanging up on me. I’m rapidly losing heart, until I come to Nina Hendry, who, fortunately, is prepared to talk.

  “I was given her number by my GP,” Nina tells me. “I’d lost two babies—it wasn’t a good time. April helped me through it.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?” I ask.

  “It was about two years ago. After my baby was born, but I never forgot her. I don’t think I’d have got this far without her.”

  From what she tells me, I assume that once her baby was born, Nina no longer needed April. That this is the nature of the relationship between client and therapist; even after entrusting your most intimate fears to a stranger, it’s transient. After she’s gone, I look at her notes again, briefly surprised to register she wasn’t seen at the Princess Royal; imagining a simple explanation—probably she’d moved.

  The next two clients I speak to say much the same about April. How she helped them, how indebted to her they felt. And the more I hear, the more it confirms the profile of the compassionate, caring woman I remember.

  I’ve deliberately avoided reading the more detailed notes April’s made, not wanting to pry into the privacy of her clients. But in the absence of any other source, I’ve no choice but to look more deeply. The date of each appointment and April’s observations are carefully recorded, but it soon becomes apparent, not one of these clients has seen her in the last year.

  The notes fit with her diary, where more names are listed—names I don’t have notes for. Which means there must be another file.

  21

  I wait for the cover that near dusk affords me, when there’s still enough natural light for me to search the cottage. But as I draw closer, I see the police have now secured it. There’s a police car parked outside, and tape across the entrance to April’s garden. I drive past, waiting until I’m round the corner and out of sight before pulling up at the side of the lane.

  There has to be another way in. Farther up the lane, I find a gate into a field. Climbing over it, I head in what I hope is the right direction. Like last time, I feel myself seduced by the silence. Apart from the sun, slipping lower by slow degrees, nothing moves. Not the air, heavy with the sweet scent of a honeysuckle that’s grown through an overhanging branch; not a leaf. As I take it all in, the effect is hypnotic. As if for a moment, the world is still.

  A blackbird’s cry breaks the spell. I carry on walking, noticing that the soft down of the same willow seed that plagued me in Devon has reached here, too, in the stillness settling like the lightest of snowfalls.

  As I reach the edge of April’s garden, seeing a light on inside the cottage, I pause, hidden among the trees, until the light’s
switched off and two policemen emerge. I wait as they make their way down the path, and I hear the gate click shut followed by the closing of the police car doors.

  Seizing my chance, I climb over the hedge. The key is where I left it, under the stone. Quickly I let myself in, close the door behind me, but even in the poor light, the mark of police disrespect is obvious everywhere I look. Some kind of a search has been carried out, drawers left callously open, papers rifled through and left scattered, the contents of cupboards spilling out. I feel a flicker of anger, wonder why they have to leave it like this, as I hurry through to the sitting room, where it’s the same. April’s furniture has been moved, her books have been disturbed and I go to her study with the sinking feeling that whatever was here to find, it’s most likely the police will have taken it.

  I try to think if April may have had anything to hide, trying to remember all those years back her small attic flat. The old bedstead that came with it; the small kitchen table and two chairs she got rid of when we moved, because she said that furniture should be either beautiful or loved, and these were neither.

  April had been adept at hiding secrets from me. So adept that I still don’t know what they were. And with the perspective that comes only from time, at last I understand, that no matter how much I’d loved her, it hadn’t been enough; that she’d done the right thing leaving me, all those years ago. That my own blinkered naivety had been bad enough, but unspoken secrets are worse.

  Looking around the room, I frown. If the police haven’t found them, somewhere here are more client notes. If they’re hidden, they’re most likely important. And knowing April, it’ll be an obscure place that she knew for certain would never be found. Carefully I go through the study again, but find nothing.

  Deciding I need to search upstairs, I pass the bookcase and something catches my eye. At the same time familiar yet out of place, I recognize one of my old law books, a large, hefty tome I’d never missed. After sliding it out, I turn its yellowing pages and know I’ve found something.

  Inside the book is what I’ve been looking for. April’s notes, loosely slotted between the pages of the book. It’s a genius hiding place. I run my eye briefly over the first three or four, checking the dates, before safely placing them back inside.