by Ann Cleeves
‘Probably not, pet. Let’s just see what they had to say. Don’t suppose you’ve got a pair of tweezers I could borrow?’
Julie went upstairs to fetch them, glad of the action. Her mother was in the bathroom. Julie could hear the sound of water, then the hiss of the spray cleaner. Every day her mother cleaned the bath, bent over it, rubbing away so you’d think the colour would come off on the cloth. It didn’t make any difference. Julie still hadn’t felt she could use it. But the bathroom door was shut so at least she didn’t have to explain what was going on. Back in the kitchen, Vera held the card carefully with the tweezers and turned it over. The back was blank.
‘Maybe some sort of joke,’ Julie said.
‘Aye. Maybe. But I’ll take it away with me, if you don’t mind. Get it checked out.’
Julie had a fleeting moment of curiosity, but it passed. Really, what did it matter what the inspector was up to? She flicked on the kettle to make Vera coffee. When she returned with a mug in her hand, the card and the envelope had disappeared.
‘You said you had some questions?’ She had no interest, just wanted to get this over as quickly as possible. Why? So she could return to her fantasy world of mindless heavy metal and a boy she’d first chased around the playground when she was six? She opened the biscuit tin and pushed it across the table. Vera took a chocolate digestive and dipped it in her coffee, bit it quickly just before it dropped.
‘Did Luke have a social worker?’
‘There was someone who came round when he first started having problems at school. Nosy cow.’ Julie hadn’t thought about her in years. She’d gone in for long cardigans and flat shoes, thick tights in strange colours. She’d had a mole on the side of her nose. In her head, Julie had called her the witch. ‘I can’t remember her name.’
‘Anyone more recently?’
‘I didn’t need a social worker. I managed fine.’ She looked at Vera suspiciously. ‘And I don’t need anyone sticking their oar in now. It’s bad enough having my mother around the place.’
‘I know you’re managing,’ Vera said, in a way that Julie knew she meant it. ‘But we’re looking for connections between Luke and the lass that was killed. It might help us find out what happened. Did you talk to one of the hospital social workers?’
‘I don’t think so. But it’s possible. I mean, it’s not like a real hospital where the nurses wear uniform and you can tell who everyone is. They all looked the same. Doctors, nurses, psychologists. All so young you’d think they were just out of school. They had name badges, but I never bothered looking at them. My head was so full of crap I knew I’d never remember. And every time I went, there was someone new.’
‘This was a young man,’ Vera said. ‘Not long out of university. Name of Ben Craven. Does that mean anything?’
Julie wanted to help. She wanted to make Vera smile, to please her, but when she thought about those visits to the hospital everything was a blur. All she could remember was the smell – stale cigarette smoke and old food – and Luke’s huge haunted eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘He could have been there. I don’t know.’
‘But he never came to the house?’
‘Oh no.’ Julie was quite sure about that. ‘He never came to the house. Not while I was here.’
‘If someone came while you were at work, Luke would have mentioned it?’
Julie considered that. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘He wouldn’t keep thoughts for very long in his head. He couldn’t pin them down. He wouldn’t mean to keep it a secret, but it just might not occur to him.’
‘Might Laura know?’
‘Luke was less likely to talk to her than to me.’
There was a silence. She could tell the inspector wanted to get off, but after resenting Vera turning up, now she was reluctant to let her go. ‘If you have any news,’ she said, ‘you will come and tell me? Straight away?’
Vera stood up and took her mug to the sink to rinse it.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Straight away.’ But she had her back to Julie while she was speaking and Julie wasn’t sure she could believe her.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Felicity saw James onto the school bus and walked slowly down the lane towards Fox Mill. Since Peter’s birthday nothing concrete had changed. She still washed and shopped and cooked every night. She made sure James did his homework and over dinner she asked Peter if he’d had a good day at work. She lay beside him in bed.
She’d tried the night before to talk to him about the dead girl. Through the open window came the smell of the garden, but underneath cut grass and honeysuckle was an imagined hint of the sea. In her head she was taken back to the watch tower, to the clean salt air, the seaweed and the flowers floating on water.
‘Do you think they know yet who killed her?’ she asked.
She was lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling. She knew he was still awake, but he took so long to answer that she wondered if he was pretending to be asleep.
‘No,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t think they have a clue. They came to talk to me today. That woman inspector and a younger man.’
‘What did they say?’ She turned so she was facing him, could just make out the shape of his face. At one time she would have reached out and stroked his forehead, his eyelids, his neck. His lips and inside his mouth. She’d loved the intimacy of his skin on her fingertips. Now, not even their feet were touching.
‘They asked if I could identify the flowers. I’m not sure… That could have been an excuse.’
‘They can’t think that one of us had anything to do with it.’
‘No,’ he said easily. ‘Of course not.’ And he’d gathered her into his arms as he might have done when they were first married. A father comforting his child. She’d lain quite still, pretending to be comforted.
Walking down the lane, in and out of the shadow thrown by the elders, she thought that while on the surface everything seemed the same, in fact it never would be. Immediately after the idea came into her head she dismissed it as melodramatic nonsense. The trouble was that she had nobody to talk to about it. Of course she’d told her friends about finding the body, in fact over the last couple of days she’d described the incident so often – on the telephone, in different kitchens over mugs of coffee and glasses of wine – that she was no longer quite sure what was true. Had she embellished it slightly for effect? But what she couldn’t share with her friends was the suspicion, right at the back of her mind, that someone she knew might be a murderer. Just as she had confided in none of her friends about her relationship with Samuel.
In the empty house, she thought what she needed was company. Peter’s birthday had been ruined by the murder. She should organize a party, a barbecue, bring the boys back to do it properly. But she recognized an edge of desperation in the plans and knew that if she did go ahead with them the evening would be horrible, worse than the last time. A failure. Then she thought she would invite her daughters to stay, with their partners and families. They could have a grand family celebration. At least in her role as mother and grandmother she felt secure. She would talk to Peter that evening. It would be something to discuss. It would fill the deadly silence over dinner.
When Joanna, her youngest daughter, came to visit she and her husband always stayed in the cottage. It was a tradition which had started when Joanna first went to university. She’d come back one weekend with a group of friends and Felicity had thought they’d cause less fuss there. They could stay up all night drinking and listening to music without disturbing Peter or keeping James awake. Now Felicity decided she would prepare the place for their stay. She put cloths, a dustpan and brush, dusters and polish into a bucket and walked through the meadow to the cottage. Her mother, kneeling on cold stone to polish pews on which nobody would ever sit, had talked about the therapy of cleaning. She would put the theory into practice.
She hadn’t been in there since the weekend, when Vera Stanhope had asked to see inside, and nobody had st
ayed since Christmas. Despite the weather it smelled damp and musty. She hadn’t noticed it so strongly before. Perhaps that had put Lily Marsh off renting. Perhaps that was why she had rushed off without giving Felicity an answer. She propped the door ajar with a pebble and opened all the windows. With the door open the mill race seemed closer. As she worked she could hear the water outside.
She stripped the bed and put the sheets and pillow cases in a pile at the foot of the stairs, dusted the chest of drawers, polished it with beeswax. Then she stood on a chair to clean the bedroom window, lowering the sash so she could reach outside. Her mood was lifting already. She caught herself humming the snatch of a song which James had brought home from school. She fetched a broom from the cupboard in the kitchen and swept under the bed, pushing the dust ahead of her over the bare wooden boards into a pile. She gathered the pile into the dustpan, realized she hadn’t brought bin bags with her and carried it carefully downstairs.
She washed the tiles in the bathroom, scrubbed the top of the oven and inside the kitchen cupboards, brushed more dust into a pile. Then she decided she needed coffee. There was a jar of instant in the cottage and some powdered milk, but she deserved better than that. She left the cottage open to air and went back to the house. The long grass was feathery against her bare legs as she walked across the field.
She put the kettle on and checked the phone. One message. It was Samuel. Bland and distant as he always was. Perhaps you could phone me back if you have a minute. Nothing urgent. But even that contact thrilled her. She thought he wanted to meet, imagined walking into the house in Morpeth, him greeting her. She dialled his direct line. No answer. She was disappointed, but pleased too. She’d try again later and it would be something to look forward to. Delayed gratification. She poured the coffee into a Thermos mug. She thought she would take it to the cottage, drink it sitting on the step looking out over the water. She recognized how childish the morning had been. Mary Barnes would have spring-cleaned the cottage a few months ago, would do it again if Felicity told her Jo was coming to visit. This morning she’d been behaving like a little girl playing house. At the last minute she remembered she’d need a bin bag and went back to fetch it.
Drinking the coffee she thought of Samuel, his long bony spine and his slender back. Behaving like a girl again, she thought. Really, it’s time I grew up. But she smiled to herself. She went back into the cottage and closed the windows. She flushed the toilet to wash away the bleach. She scooped up the dust in the pan and tipped it into the bin bag. And saw something glittering. She set down the pan, stooped and picked the object out. A ring. Very attractive. Blue-green stones in an oval silver setting. An art deco design. Vaguely familiar. It must belong to one of the girls, she thought, pleased to have rescued it. Joanna probably. It was the sort of thing she’d love. How careless of her not even to realize it was missing.
It wasn’t until she was back at the house, in their bedroom, on the wicker chair next to the phone, preparing to call Samuel again, that she remembered where she’d seen the ring. It had been on Lily Marsh’s finger. Felicity had noticed it when Lily had reached out to help James with his violin after they’d got off the bus. She’d coveted it secretly even then. It must have been loose on the young woman’s finger, slipped off sometime during the guided tour. Felicity set it on the bed. The quilt was of thick white cotton and the ring looked magnificent against it. She was tempted to keep it. She slipped it onto her own middle finger. It fitted perfectly. Who would know? Since her friendship with Samuel, all sorts of wickedness seemed more possible. She relished the idea of behaving against type, against the expectations of her family and friends who would have described her as a very good person. With the ring still on her finger, she dialled Samuel’s number. He answered immediately.
‘Parr.’
‘It’s Felicity. Returning your call.’ She always identified herself though she knew he must recognize her voice. Even when there was nobody to overhear they maintained the pretence that there was nothing between them but friendship. Until they were alone together in his house.
‘It was good of you to get back to me.’ He paused. ‘How are you?’
‘Well,’ she said. ‘You know…’
‘And James?’
‘Oh he’s fine too.’
‘I wondered if you’d heard any more from the police.’
‘They went to see Peter at work yesterday.’
‘The inspector came to me too. At the house.’ Felicity felt a moment of disgust. It was almost sacrilegious, that big, ugly woman sitting among Samuel’s lovely things. He continued, ‘I’m not entirely sure what she wanted.’
She didn’t know what to say to that and found herself coming out with the inconsequential information which was still at the front of her mind. ‘I’ve just found a piece of jewellery belonging to Lily Marsh. A ring. It was in the cottage. She must have dropped it while I was showing her around.’
‘Have you told the police?’ She was surprised by the urgency in his tone.
‘No, not yet.’ She kept her own voice light, playful. ‘It is very pretty.’
‘You can’t think of keeping it!’ He was shocked. ‘You must tell them. Straight away. If you don’t, they’ll think you have something to hide.’
‘It can’t be that important. They know she was in the cottage.’
‘All the same,’ he said. ‘They’ll see it as evidence.’
‘All right. I was only teasing.’ She thought he could be very high-minded and preachy.
‘And I was only thinking of you.’ This was as intimate as he got on the phone and she was surprisingly moved. ‘Please phone Inspector Stanhope. Now.’
‘All right.’
‘Promise?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I promise.’ Then, ‘Are you free this afternoon?’
‘No, I’ve got a meeting.’ She couldn’t tell whether he was telling the truth or whether he was still nervous about them being together. Perhaps he imagined the inspector knocking at his door, demanding to be let in, while they were making love. How he would hate that, being caught when he wasn’t entirely in control. She thought that her relationship with Samuel was something which had also been quite changed by the discovery of Lily Marsh’s body.
‘I must go,’ he said. ‘I’m wanted on the desk.’ He ended the call without properly saying goodbye.
She sat for a moment, looking out of the window at the lighthouse shimmering in the heat haze, then picked up the telephone again to speak to the police.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Vera arranged to meet Ben Craven in a day centre for psychiatric patients. He spent one day a week there meeting the clients who’d been discharged from hospital. It was on the edge of a coastal town which had once been famous for its docks. Now, it’s only claim to fame was as the drugs capital of the north east.
On the way, she stopped at the library in the town centre, a Gothic red-brick building, with a clock tower and a huge painting in the lobby of a ship in full sail. She found a collection of Samuel Parr’s short stories on a shelf marked LOCAL AUTHORS. She wasn’t sure what he’d think about being displayed in that way. Was it an honour? Or did it mean he wasn’t good enough to go on the shelves with the real writers? She stood browsing for a moment, but couldn’t find the story she’d heard on the radio. In the end she decided to take it out anyway. When she handed over the book and her ticket the library assistant said, ‘Such a lovely man. He came here to give a reading last year. He’s one of our staff, of course.’
That made Vera think of her last conversation with Samuel Parr. He’d said he’d tell her what Lily had been reading. Still curious, but also interested what Parr’s response to the request would be, she decided to follow it up. Sitting in the car she phoned Morpeth Library and asked to speak to him.
‘Ah yes, Inspector. Let me just check the system. What was the name? Lily Marsh?’
What are you playing at? she thought. Of course you remember the girl’s name. You foun
d her body.
‘There are no books outstanding on her ticket, Inspector. I’m afraid I can’t help you.’
She switched off her phone, feeling unreasonably disappointed.
The psychiatric day centre had once been a nursery school and, walking in, Vera had the uncomfortable feeling that everyone here – even the staff – had regressed to early childhood. In one of the rooms an art class was taking place. The patients wore red aprons to protect their clothes, they used thick brushes and bright acrylic paint. In another, there was some sort of music lesson with tambourines, cymbals and a couple of glockenspiels. But everywhere was the smell of cigarette smoke. She’d never bothered much if other people wanted to kill themselves, but could feel this in her throat and lungs and she knew she’d have to change her clothes to get rid of the stink. She had to walk through the common room to find the social worker. The chairs were arranged in small groups, but nobody seemed to be talking to anyone else. Everyone was smoking. A thin woman was talking under her breath. Some long story about her rent and the council hounding her. The other people in the room ignored her.
Craven had a small office at the end of a corridor. His door was open and she saw him before he noticed her. He was sitting at a desk hitting computer keys with a speed she’d never master. Her first thought was that he looked good. He was the sort of young man you’d notice in the street, follow with your eyes just for the pleasure of seeing him move. Tall, blond, muscular. A tan to show off the eyes. He was squinting at the screen but she knew they’d be blue. He must feature in the fantasies of many of his female clients. No wonder Lily Marsh had fallen for him. What a couple they would have made.
He heard her approaching and looked up.
‘Yes?’ Just one word but that gentle, patronizing tone professionals use to mad people. A smile to make her feel at ease. He thought she was a patient. She wondered if she spoke to witnesses like that. Like they were children.