by Ann Cleeves
‘Come on up.’ Keeping the voice light, to show he had nothing to hide.
He checked his appearance in the long mirror. Habit. Reassurance. Like spending a fortune on the right haircut, a decent pair of shoes. Then he opened the door of the flat and stood there, waiting for her to appear. He couldn’t hear the lift and was wondering if she’d been called away on more urgent business, when she appeared at the top of the stairs, wheezing, heaving for breath.
‘I don’t like lifts.’ The words came out in quick accusing pants, as if she was blaming him for living there. ‘I’m never quite sure they’ll carry my weight.’ And he realized her appearance was something she was sensitive about. She’d have been bullied at school and the only way to deal with it would have been to get the jibe in first. Surprised that last night he’d been intimidated by her, he leaned back against the door and let her walk into the flat ahead of him.
Inside, he watched her checking out the flat, saw it through her eyes. It would be tidier than she’d expect. He had lots of electronic equipment but it was all boxed and stacked on shelves along one wall. He didn’t mind a bit of mess but he didn’t like chaos. Against the same wall stood a long desk with a PC and printer, a pair of headphones, a pile of audio magazines. In the middle of the room a sofa and coffee table. In the corner a TV and DVD player. A couple of enlarged black and white photos on the wall. One of the river in the centre of town. Dusk. Looking through all the bridges to the Blinking Eye. But there was nothing really personal, he thought. Nothing to give himself away. He’d allowed himself to keep one photo of Emily, but it was on his desk, small, nothing flashy. The inspector wouldn’t notice that.
‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘Tea? Coffee?’
Her face was red with the effort of climbing the stairs. He didn’t bother with the lift either unless he had heavy gear, but didn’t even have to catch his breath when he got to the top. He told himself not to be such a smug bastard. She was an overweight, middle-aged woman. Hardly competition.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve got a beer, have you?’ she said. ‘I’m not fussy, pet. Whatever you’ve got in the fridge.’
He found himself smiling. Despite himself he couldn’t help liking her. He brought out two cans of lager, a glass for her. She lowered herself carefully onto the sofa. He sat on the floor, legs stretched in front of him, felt her looking him over.
‘Your file says you’re thirty-five,’ she said. ‘You’ve not worn badly. If I was guessing, I’d say five years younger.’
‘Thanks.’ He was annoyed at himself for feeling flattered. It was an odd thing for her to say, an odd feeling to have her eyeing him up. It occurred to him briefly that women must feel like this all the time.
‘This place must have set you back a few quid.’ She looked out towards the window. ‘A view like that.’
‘Not really. I bought it from new six years ago. Everyone thought I was mad moving to Shields. I’d make a canny profit if I sold it now.’
‘Live here on your own?’
‘Yes.’
I’m not so sad, he wanted to say. Not really sad, like Clive. I was engaged once. To Emily. The love of my life. We were going to live together in a tidy flat in Jesmond. And since then there’ve been women. Not living in, maybe. Not real girlfriends. But I’ve never gone without for long. And now there’s Julie.
She tugged at the ring pull on the can. He slipped a look at his watch. He still had that phone call to make.
‘Expecting someone?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he said quickly. ‘Nothing like that. Is this about that student who died? I thought you’d finished with me last night.’
She made him wait until she’d taken a mouthful of beer, straight from the can, not bothering with the glass he’d set on the table in front of her. ‘I’m going to ask you a question,’ she said. ‘You’ve heard it before. This time I want you to think about it.’
He was about to interrupt, to tell her she was wasting her time, that he knew nothing about the student’s death. But she waved her can at him to stop him speaking and he did. She had a way of getting what she wanted. Again she waited until she was sure she had his full attention. ‘Does the name Luke Armstrong mean anything to you?’
‘No. I told you last night.’
‘I said think about it.’
They looked at each other in silence. Gary shook his head.
‘He has a mother by the name of Julie. A sister called Laura. Perhaps that jogs your memory.’
He froze, his beer almost to his mouth. ‘Julie’s son,’ he said at last.
‘Aye, Julie’s son. The lad who’s been ill.’
‘I didn’t mean to mislead you, Inspector.’
‘You did, though.’
‘I never met him. Julie talked about him. I know he’d been having a rough time. But the name didn’t really register. I still think of her as Julie Richardson.’ He looked up at her. ‘He’s dead?’
‘Murdered,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you see it in the press?’
‘I don’t read the papers much. I listened to the radio on the way back from Peter’s this morning. It mentioned Lily Marsh, but not the boy.’
‘We’re not encouraging the media to make a connection.’
‘And he was killed in the same way as Lily Marsh?’
‘Not exactly. But there are similarities.’
‘Oh God,’ he said. ‘Julie will be devastated. She said he wasn’t an easy kid, but I could tell she was crazy about him. I mean, she said she loved both her children, but Luke was special. He needed her most. I don’t know what to do. I was just about to phone her when you arrived. I was expecting her to phone me. She said she would. I thought she’d changed her mind about wanting to see me again. Now I understand.’ He paused. ‘I don’t suppose she’ll want to hear from me now.’
‘Typical man,’ Vera said, speaking to herself. ‘A woman’s lost her son and all he can think about is getting his leg over.’
‘No!’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. I meant maybe she could use a friend. But probably not me. I mean, she’d be better off with someone who’s known her longer, wouldn’t she? I’d just be in the way. What do you think?’
‘Eh, pet, I’m a detective, not a relationship counsellor.’
He looked straight at her. ‘How is Julie?’
‘Her son’s just been murdered. How do you think?’
He stood up and walked towards the balcony. The door was still open. A couple of herring gulls screamed and squabbled outside. He knew it was pathetic, but he felt sorry for himself. He wasn’t really thinking about Julie at all.
Vera heaved herself to her feet and followed him out. ‘You do know he died that night you were out with her?’ she said.
Gary turned, apparently horrified. ‘Wednesday?’
‘Aye, she got home from the night in town and found him.’ She paused, narrowed her eyes. ‘Some people might say it was a bit of a coincidence. You were chatting up the first victim’s mother just before he was murdered and came upon the second soon after.’
‘I’d never met either of them,’ he said. ‘Honestly.’
‘Tell me how you got together with Julie,’ she said. ‘I mean, were you set up? Some friend saw her, maybe, thought you were her type. Someone pulling your strings?’
‘No, nothing like that. Why?’
‘Probably no reason,’ she said. ‘I was just looking for a connection. It crossed my mind it would be a way of keeping tracks on her. Someone bringing you together would have inside information. But I’ve never been a great one for conspiracy theories.’
Gary found himself telling the inspector about the meeting anyway. He wanted to tell it. It was like one of those stories which become family legends, told to grandchildren. They stood together, leaning on the balcony rail and looking down into the street. ‘It was a chance meeting. Pure chance. I saw her in the other bar. At least I heard her first, heard her laugh. She’s got one of those laughs. You know, infectious. Then something
about her was familiar. I’d not seen her since we left primary school, but I recognized her. Amazing, really, after all that time. And suddenly it hit me. That was what I wanted. To get together with someone like that. Someone who could laugh like that. I’ve always gone for younger women. Lookers, you know. But they’ve never stuck around. Thinking of settling down with someone, I suppose it was all part of getting old. Like taking the permanent job at the Sage after swearing I’d never stop being self-employed.’
‘She listened impassively. Aye,’ she said. ‘That’s how Julie told it. But she kept to the facts. Left out the soppy bits.’
‘She told you about me?’
Vera left the question unanswered. ‘Did you tell anyone you were going to meet her that night?’
He couldn’t stop himself grinning. ‘All my close mates. I don’t really do secrets.’
‘All the people who were with you when you found Lily Marsh, they knew beforehand that you planned to meet up with Luke’s mother on the Wednesday night?’
‘Probably. I’d chatted to Felicity about Julie. Then there was a Bird Club meeting on Monday evening. All the lads were there. We went for a pint afterwards. I wanted their advice – how to play it. I probably bored them to death.’
‘I didn’t think men were supposed to talk about things like that.’
‘Yeah, well. I never did the strong, silent thing.’
‘And the others? Do they get touchy-feely too?’
‘We’re close.’ Gary was suddenly serious. ‘Nothing wrong with that.’
‘I should go,’ she said, but she didn’t move. He could tell she was drawn to the view from the balcony.
‘Did Julie tell you what triggered Luke’s illness?’ she asked.
‘Some mate of his drowned…’
‘Down there,’ she said. ‘Just off the Fish Quay. You didn’t hear anything about it?’
He shook his head.
She wandered back into the room, stopped by the desk, nodded to the photo of Emily. ‘Who’s that, then?’
He felt himself blush, couldn’t help it, thought she must be some sort of witch to go straight for the picture. ‘An old friend.’
She stood for a moment looking at the picture. ‘Strange-looking lass,’ she said almost to herself. ‘Pretty enough, if you like them anorexic.’
She was letting herself out of the door when he called her back. ‘What do you think I should do about Julie? Should I phone her?’
She paused for only a second. ‘Not my call, pet.’
Chapter Nineteen
Monday morning Gary woke up to the sound of his pager. He’d set it so it made a noise only when there was a mega alert, when an exceptionally rare bird had been seen somewhere in the country. It was six o’clock, but this time of year and this far north it had already been light for more than an hour. He slept with the pager on the floor next to his bed and scrabbled to reach it, pressed the buttons, screwed up his eyes to read what it said. He didn’t travel all over the country to see rare birds any more, but there was still the rush of adrenaline.
It was a moment before he could take in the information. Marmora’s warbler Deepden Nature Reserve. Northumberland. His patch. The place where he and Clive started ringing with Peter and Samuel. The only place that had provided any retreat from thoughts of Emily. Then there was the intense stab of envy. It should have been me. I should have been the person to find it. And if not me, then one of the others. Really, it should have been Clive, he thought. It mattered to him more than any of us. Clive never really talked about his mother, but you’d been able to tell it was only the weekends at Deepden that had kept him sane. He supported the place long after the rest of them had moved on.
Those thoughts were at the back of his mind, but he was already out of bed with his mobile in his hand. He was the only one with a pager. The others pretended to despise the whole concept. They were into natural history, not ticking rare birds. He dialled Peter’s number first. If they were any sort of gang, Peter Calvert was the leader and, though he pretended to be above keeping a list, he wouldn’t want to miss out on this. He’d been part of the group which had founded Deepden in the sixties.
Peter listened to Gary’s gabbling then swore under his breath. ‘I’ve got a lecture at ten. Still, if it’s showing well and I can get it straight away…’ And Gary knew he would go for it, lecture or not. ‘I’ll phone Sam,’ he went on. ‘He should have time to go for it before work.’ Gary thought Peter was the only one of them to get away with calling the writer Sam.
He ended the call then pressed the button again for Clive’s number. There was no question that Clive would go. He’d throw a sickie if he had to, stay the night at the obs and look again the next morning. But he’d need a lift. By the time Clive answered, whispering, because of his dreadful mother asleep in the next room, Gary had his binoculars round his neck, his scope over his shoulder and he was already down the first flight of stairs.
Gary had heard the tale about the start of the Deepden Observatory hundreds of times. When he was a kid and they’d gone there every weekend, the older observatory members had explained it. Sitting in front of the fire after a day’s ringing, drinking whisky or beer, they’d relived the triumph of raising the money to buy the cottage off the elderly woman who owned the place, the planting of the garden, the digging of the pond, the cutting of mist net rides through the undergrowth. The grand opening of the observatory which had attracted everyone of any importance in the field of natural history. Perhaps once all the work had been done, the excitement had passed, because even then they’d spent more time drinking tea in the cottage than going out into the field. Now a new generation of birders camped out in the two dormitories, staggered back late at night after a lock-in at the Fox and Hounds in Deepden village and found the rare birds.
The four of them had stopped going regularly a few years before. It had been a statement. A stand. Gary was already more attracted to sea watching and had been a sporadic visitor even then. He couldn’t quite remember what the disagreement had been about. Some matter of politics within the Observatory Trust. Or Peter not feeling he’d been treated with the respect he deserved. Peter had resigned as chairman and the other three had supported him. The weekend ritual of staying in the cottage ended abruptly. It was harder on Clive than the others. He had no life at all. Unless he had an alternative existence which he kept quite secret, and Gary wouldn’t have put that past him. They still visited of course, but it was strange to turn up as an outsider.
Clive was already waiting on the pavement outside his mother’s bungalow. ‘We should have gone there yesterday when we left Fox Mill.’ His first words, before even saying hello, before getting into the van. And all the way on the drive north he was tense, hunched up in the passenger seat, his shoulders rigid. Gary talked about Julie, about her lad being killed. They all talked to Clive because they knew he could keep secrets.
‘It must be a nightmare,’ he said. ‘Imagine what it must be like, losing your son like that! And for her daughter. She was asleep in the next room when it all happened.’
Clive didn’t say anything. He only moved when Gary’s pager flashed its red light and then he read out the updated news on the warbler.
The observatory was a quarter of a mile inland, the first patch of cover for migrating birds once they hit the coast. The house was a low bungalow, built before the war as a holiday retreat, with an acre of garden which now formed the reserve. It had been the location that had made it so special. The bungalow itself wouldn’t have been out of place in any seaside town – a squat, rather mean building of brick and white stucco, made a little more attractive now by the clematis which grew around the porch and which was just coming into flower.
They’d driven east from the A1, down a narrow lane, the rising sun in their eyes, through an ugly village and then down a dirt track. The observatory was at the end of the track and when they arrived there were already half a dozen cars pulled into the verge. Gary recognized Peter�
�s Volvo and the sporty little Volkswagen which Samuel had recently bought. Clive was out of the van before Gary had the engine switched off and was heading through the wooden gate into the garden, leaving him to follow and shut it after them. The garden was an oasis in the flat, bare land which surrounded the house. Inland, there was a vast stretch of open-cast mining, a moonscape of rocky ridges and pits; already huge lorries with fat tyres crawled over it. Between the house and a line of dunes which marked the coast, cattle grazed in a long narrow field.
The garden had been designed to attract birds and insects. They’d dug up the lawn and replaced it with a pond. Now vegetation had grown up all around it and over it, so the water was hardly visible. There were the flat shiny leaves of water lilies, a patch of reeds. Where once there had been herbaceous borders, there were huge spikes of buddleia for the butterflies and bushes which in autumn would produce berries to pull in the thrushes.
The mist nets were unfurled, meaning a group of ringers was staying. They must have found the Marmora on their first round of the nets. Behind the house there was a small orchard which had been planted when the house was built and it was here that the group of birdwatchers stood.
The Marmora’s warbler had been seen on the top of a hawthorn hedge which marked the boundary of the reserve. The birdwatchers stood in the dappled shadow thrown by the apple trees, binoculars raised, looking. From a distance it was impossible to tell if the bird was there or if people were searching for it. By the time Gary arrived Clive had his tripod set up and was staring through the scope.
‘It disappeared into the bushes ten minutes ago,’ he said. ‘Nobody can tell me exactly where it went in.’ He sounded murderous.
Gary thought they’d all have been talking when the warbler flew off. On the other side of the group he could see Peter and Samuel, smiling and chatting. Once you’d seen a bird there was a release of tension and you relaxed your concentration. He stared into the hedge, felt his guts as a hard knot of anxiety. He didn’t enjoy this sort of birdwatching. It was too stressful waiting, knowing the bird had been there. Not knowing if it still was. Since Emily, he hadn’t been able to handle stress. He preferred sea watching. That was the most relaxing experience he knew, sitting in the watch tower next to the lighthouse. There was nothing you could do to make the birds fly past, so no point getting anxious. Now, as he felt his heart beat faster, he tried to control his breathing and wondered if he’d been right to come.