by Ann Cleeves
‘I thought suicide,’ Felicity said, shocked. ‘It was all so dramatic, so arranged.’
‘She was strangled,’ Vera said. ‘Hard to manage that by yourself.’
They stared back at her, silent.
‘One last question. Does the name Luke Armstrong mean anything to any of you?’
Nobody replied.
‘I’ll take that as a no, then, shall I?’ she said irritably. ‘Only he was strangled too. Not so far from here.’ She looked at them, waiting for someone to answer. ‘And the cases have certain things in common. I don’t want you talking about this. Not to anyone and certainly not to the press. I hope you understand.’
Still there was no response and she followed Felicity into the house. Watching, Gary, who’d had one or two brushes with the law, thought he’d never come across police like her.
Chapter Twelve
Vera Stanhope drove back to the crime scene. It was a bugger to work, the Crime Scene Investigator said. They just didn’t have the time to deal with it properly. The body had been found at low water. They had four hours before that stretch of the shore would be covered completely. And though it was mid-summer the light had started to go almost as soon as they arrived.
Vera parked by the lighthouse and saw that they’d almost finished. The body had been removed and the sea had slid up the gully and covered the pool. She wondered if they’d managed to retrieve all the flowers, imagined them floating out into the North Sea, tangled in the propeller of the DFDS ferry.
Billy Wainwright, the CSI, was still there, loading his bag into his boot. He was a pale, thin man and seemed not to have aged in the twenty years that she’d known him. She thought now that he had one of those faces which always look boyish. She got out of her car and wandered over to him. Even now, in the early hours, the air was heavy and mild. The beam of the lighthouse swept over their heads.
‘Anything unusual?’
‘A young woman. Strangled. Laid out in a public place in broad daylight. Flowers scattered over her body. Pretty unusual that, I’d have thought. What more do you want?’
‘Would it have been broad daylight?’
‘Must have been. Think of the tide. And anyway she can’t have been there long. The place would have been crawling with people during the day, with the weather we’ve been having. I know it’s a weekday and not school holidays, but all the same the sun always brings people out to the coast. My guess is she was put there not long before she was found.’
Not that public, Vera thought. You had to be right on the lip of the gully before you could see in. Getting her there, though. That would be quite a different matter. Someone must have seen that. And the killer must have wanted her seen before the tide washed all his elaborate stage set away. How would he have felt if James Calvert hadn’t got bored and gone exploring?
‘Do we know how long she’d been dead before she went in?’
‘Sorry, you’ll have to wait for the PM for that. John couldn’t really do much at a scene like this. By the time he arrived we had to be thinking of moving her.’
‘Are they doing it tonight?’
‘I hope not. At least until I’ve had time for a pizza. I was just sitting down in front of a vindaloo when I got called out. I’m bloody starving.’ Billy’s appetite was a standing joke. He was as thin as a bean pole, but voracious. She pondered briefly on the injustice of genetics. ‘We might leave it till the morning,’ he went on. ‘I’m waiting to hear from Wansbeck.’
On cue his phone buzzed. He walked away from her to talk. There were rumours he was having a fling with a new young pathology technician at Wansbeck General and Vera, who was a great one for gossip and saw it as a tool of the trade, tidied away the information about the whispered conversation to pass on to Joe Ashworth. Her sergeant would pretend he didn’t want to hear, but she knew he’d be interested. She wondered how Joe was getting on. They’d tracked down Lily Marsh’s parents to a village just outside Hexham and Joe had volunteered to tell them that their daughter was dead. He’d said he didn’t want just anyone doing it. He was a father himself. He couldn’t come close to understanding what it must be like to lose a child, but thought he’d make a better fist of it than some in the team.
Wainwright finished his conversation and came back to her. Even in the dark she sensed a studied nonchalance which made her want to tell him not to be a muppet. He was a married man. Happy enough, she’d thought. The young technician was lonely, playing games with him. Then she told herself it was none of her business and she was hardly a candidate for relationship counsellor.
‘John would like to do it soon,’ he said. ‘He’s tied up later in the morning. Say an hour?’
‘Fine. I’ll be there.’
She stood, leaning against the bonnet of her car, listening to the waves breaking beneath the watch tower, until he’d driven away.
Her mind drifted back to the group sitting outside that strange white house which seemed so out of place in the Northumberland countryside. She’d gone to visit them because she’d had nothing better to do while the scene of crime team was working. They’d found the body, they’d all be together for the night and after that they’d disperse. The PC first at the scene had established that much. She thought she’d catch them while they were still in the area, check if they’d seen anything odd. She’d been hoping, she supposed, for the description of a car similar to the one Julie had seen in her road the night Luke was killed. But they’d caught her interest. It wasn’t just that there was a connection to the dead young woman. Or that the men reminded her of her father, sitting in the kitchen at home with a bunch of cronies after an illicit raid on the raptors’ nests in the hills. Something about the conversation had made her feel they’d need closer looking into. A smugness which irritated her and had something of a challenge in it. She tried to work out which of the individuals had so got under her skin, but couldn’t pin down the source of her unease. In the end she got into her car and followed Wainwright down the track to the road.
John Keating, the pathologist, was an Ulsterman in his fifties, with a bluff, no-nonsense attitude which scared some of her younger officers. The only time she’d seen him show any emotion during a postmortem was when he was investigating the death of a three-year-old child. And talking about a rugby match to a Welsh sergeant. He’d played when he was younger, still had a squashed nose. He made her coffee in his office before he changed for the autopsy.
‘What were your first impressions?’
‘She was strangled,’ he said. ‘But you’ll have gathered that.’
‘Similarities with the Armstrong lad?’
‘I didn’t have time to do a great examination in the field. Imagine your worst nightmare for a crime scene and this was it. A few hours later and the body would have been washed out to sea.’
‘Then we’d never have seen the flowers, might not even have linked it to the Seaton case.’ She came back to the point which had troubled her at the lighthouse. ‘Is that what the murderer wanted? Was it a private ritual? Or did he gamble on the body being found earlier?’
‘Hey! Don’t ask me. I deal with dead bodies not live minds.’
She watched the post-mortem through the glass screen, not because she was squeamish but because she was conscious of her size and was always worried that she was in the way. There were so many people gathered around the stainless-steel table – the technicians, the photographer, Billy Wainwright.
They unwrapped the corpse from the polythene sheeting and to the flash of continual photography they began to undress Lily Marsh. They removed the blue cotton skirt and the embroidered white shirt. Vera saw she was wearing matching white bra and pants. But hardly virginal. The bra was deep cut, lacy, revealing. The pants had little red-silk bows at each side, a red-silk crotch. While Billy Wainwright bagged each garment, Keating gave a commentary, glancing at her occasionally to check that she’d noted the significance of what he was saying. ‘There was little disturbance to the clothing. No apparent
sign of sexual assault.’
Unless he dressed her afterwards, Vera thought. Let’s wait for the results from the vaginal swabs before we come to a decision. But there’d been no evidence of sexual assault on Luke and she was already certain that the cases were linked.
Keating continued. ‘No bruising. No lacerations. Can we have photographs of the eyes and lids, please. Note the petechiae.’
Vera had already noted them, had seen them at the crime scene – the pinpoint haemorrhages caused by obstruction of the veins in the neck. The classic sign of strangulation.
‘Not manual strangulation,’ Keating was saying. ‘No finger marks. See the line around the neck. It hasn’t broken the skin, so not wire, unless it was plastic-coated. Fine rope, perhaps.’
And that too was the same as in the Armstrong case.
She watched as he continued his external examination, saw Billy take all the samples – a trace of lipstick left even after her submersion in seawater, fingernail scrapings, a clip of pubic hair – but her mind was buzzing with theories and ideas. What could connect these two very different young people? Keating began his dissection and still her thoughts were racing.
When it was over, she sat with him again in his office. Outside, it was just getting light. Soon the hospital staff on early shift would be arriving. There was more coffee. Chocolate biscuits. She realized she was starving. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten.
‘I don’t think there’s much else I can give you,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing to suggest she was assaulted before she was strangled. She’d been sexually active, but not recently. No pregnancy and she’d never had children.’ He paused. ‘She had all that ahead of her. Such a shame.’
‘She didn’t struggle,’ Vera said. ‘Did she know the murderer?’
‘Not necessarily. He could have surprised her.’
‘It could have been a woman.’
‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘Physically a woman could have done it.’
But Vera could tell he didn’t really believe in a woman as a killer. He was a chivalrous and old-fashioned man. Women who missed the opportunity of childbirth were to be pitied. I suppose, she thought, that he pities me.
Chapter Thirteen
The press hadn’t yet tracked down Lily Marsh’s parents, or if they had they were showing more than their usual restraint. The young police officer waiting with them said there’d been no phone calls, no visitors apart from the rector from the village church and Mrs Marsh’s sister.
‘I don’t think it’s sunk in yet,’ he said. ‘The way the mother talks, it’s as if the girl’s just gone away for a while and will turn up any time.’
The couple were more elderly than Vera had expected. Phyllis had been forty-four when Lily was born and her husband five years older. ‘We’d given up, Inspector. It was like a miracle.’
Almost hope for me, then. But Vera knew she’d never have children. And the aching for them had almost passed anyway.
Lily’s parents lived in a neat semi. They’d lived there since they were married. Phyllis explained this as she made them tea. ‘It’s all paid off. We thought it would be something to leave to our daughter. We’ve no other savings.’ For the second time in a week Vera was listening to a bereaved mother talking too much, fending off thoughts and memories with words. When Vera and Joe arrived, the husband, Dennis, was in the small greenhouse in the back garden and they let him escape back there once they’d introduced themselves. Phyllis greeted Joe Ashworth like a friend, but Dennis was finding it harder than his wife to hold himself together. He had a blank, wild look on his face. ‘I’ll come out and chat to you in a bit,’ Vera said, ‘when I’ve had my tea.’
Through the window of the small living room they saw him perched on an upturned box, staring into space.
‘He’s always had trouble with his nerves,’ Phyllis said. Vera thought she caught the hint of accusation in her words. Now, when she most needed support, her husband was falling apart, still making demands on her.
The three of them sat clutching cups and saucers. Phyllis apologized for forgetting the sugar, though none of them took it, and jumped up to fetch it from the kitchen. She was a small, energetic woman, in her late sixties. She wore her hair in a tight white perm. ‘I was always worried that one of us would die before Lily was old enough to be independent,’ she said. ‘It never crossed my mind that she would go first.’ She had to talk about Lily being dead, otherwise she wouldn’t believe it.
Everywhere in the room there were reminders of her daughter. She kept getting up to point things out to them. The certificates for ballet and tap dancing, for piano. ‘She got as far as grade five then she stopped taking lessons. Too much school work. But she was still a lovely little player. She was going to start it up again. She said it would be useful in teaching.’ There were photos on the mantelpiece, the window sill, the upright piano. Lily at a birthday party, aged five or six, grinning out over a cake shaped like a hedgehog. The official school photos. By the time Lily was fourteen she was already so attractive she’d turn heads in the street. Even with a school sweatshirt and no make-up. That was something she had in common with Luke Armstrong. They were both physically beautiful. In all the chat, Vera was listening out for anything else which might provide a connection, but it seemed there was nothing. Then, in an enlarged, framed photo hung on the wall, there was Lily in her hired cap and gown on graduation day, head thrown back, a wide smile.
‘It looks as though she was enjoying herself there,’ Vera said. ‘Did she like being a student?’
‘She loved it,’ Phyllis said. ‘Every minute. I was so glad for her. Not that I wanted to let her go, of course. I missed her something terrible. But there was nothing much for her here. No brothers and sisters. Hardly any young people left in the village. And her father with his moods… He wanted her to live at home, travel in every day on the bus, but I knew that wouldn’t do. I said to him, “Be grateful that she didn’t end up in Kent or Exeter.” They were universities on her list. “It’s time she had some freedom.” He saw sense in the end.’
‘Did she work while she was at college?’ Vera asked. ‘Most students have to these days, don’t they?’
‘She worked in the holidays. Saturdays in term time. She got a flat in town with a couple of other lasses. In West Jesmond. A lovely flat. I wasn’t sure how she could afford it, but apparently it belonged to one of the other girls’ dad. He’d bought it, like, as an investment and rented it out to them. We helped her out as much as we could. Dennis got a bit of redundancy from the slate works when that closed so we had some savings.’
‘Where did she work in the holidays?’ Vera asked.
‘In Robbins, that posh frock shop near the Monument.’
Vera nodded to show she knew the one Phyllis was talking about. She’d never been inside but she’d looked in the window. All tailored linen and crisp white blouses. Jackets £250 a shot.
‘I’d hoped she might find somewhere in Hexham, one of the hotels maybe. Then she could have come home for the summer at least. But, like she said, she had to pay rent to keep her place and she’d never find wages as good as Robbins’ out here. Besides, she always liked to dress well. She had style even when she was little. And she got discount on the clothes she bought from there. She brought me some lovely birthday presents…’ Her hand started to shake, her cup rattled in its saucer. Ashworth stood up and took it from her. Phyllis pulled a tiny cotton handkerchief from her sleeve and began to weep. ‘We thought she would come back now,’ she said, still talking through the tears. ‘She’s a country girl, really, and there are lots of village schools crying out for teachers. I had this picture. Her married to a nice lad. Living local. Somewhere I could get to on the bus, at least. A grandchild before I get too old to enjoy it.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Take no notice of me. Nonsense.’ She paused again, stifled a sob. ‘Just you find out who killed her.’
Vera nodded imperceptibly to Ashworth to take over the questions. He had
more tact in his little finger than she had in her whole body. She’d already put together her own picture of the family. An only child growing up with ageing parents, an overprotective mum, a moody dad. No wonder Lily hadn’t come home in the holidays, had salved her conscience by buying cut-price clothes from Robbins for her mam’s birthday. Who could blame her? But Vera needed details and Ashworth would get them out of Phyllis, without shattering her fantasy of Lily as doting daughter.
‘When did you last see Lily?’ he asked. ‘It’ll have been hard for her to get away from college much, I suppose. It’s an intensive course, the PGCE. Demanding academically and then there’s all the teaching practice.’
Just the right line to take, Vera thought. No implied criticism of Lily. Any of that and Phyllis would clam up.
‘She was over for the Easter weekend,’ the woman said.
‘You had a good time?’
‘Beautiful. It was just like old times. She came to church with me on the Sunday. It was one of those breezy, sunny days. All the daffs out.’
‘You’ve not managed to see her since then?’
‘She wanted to come over for the Whit half-term,’ Phyllis said quickly. ‘But she had an essay to write. She had to stay near to the library.’
‘Of course.’ Ashworth smiled. ‘Her final term. She’d have been snowed under’ He paused. ‘How did she seem at Easter?’
‘Canny. She’d got the teaching practice she was hoping for. A little village school up the coast. You could tell that was the way her mind was working. She was looking for the right experience to get her back this way.’
And Vera saw this was where the dream had come from. The nice lad and the grandchild. The house just down the road. Lily had let slip some comment about her teaching practice and Phyllis had conjured up all the rest.
‘I don’t suppose she brought anyone home with her that time? A boyfriend?’
‘No. I always said her friends would be welcome, but she was always on her own.’