by Ann Cleeves
‘I told you,’ Vera said. ‘It’s a stupid idea.’
‘It’s pretty weird stuff. And as you said, very close to the abduction and the murders. Not all the details perhaps, but…’ he paused for a moment ‘… the atmosphere. How does the story end?’
She was pleased he was taking her seriously. Her earlier irritation at his lack of focus in the case was forgotten. For this she would have forgiven him anything. ‘I haven’t got that far. I don’t know. And I’m too busy to sit here reading.’
His attention was pulled back to the pages. ‘What do you need to do?’
‘I want to pin down where they all are,’ Vera said. ‘The people who were there when Lily’s body was found. What are they doing today?’
‘Felicity Calvert’s at home. I went to look in the cottage at the mill. Just in case the girl was being held there. This morning Felicity went into Morpeth. Shopping, only she never bought anything. And nobody saw her. The only proof she was there is a parking ticket from the car park in the town centre. I phoned Calvert at the university. He’s there somewhere. At least, his secretary said he signed in this morning and then went into some sort of conference which was going to last most of the day. She promised to track him down and get him to phone me back, but I’ve not heard anything yet. Clive Stringer’s been at work. I spoke to him in the museum earlier.’
‘Is he still there?’
‘I presume so. It’s not long since I spoke to him. Gary Wright’s in North Shields. He’s not working until tonight. One of the local men called on him earlier.’
‘Did they look inside?’
‘I don’t know. Didn’t ask.’
‘I’m going to check Wright’s flat,’ Vera said. She knew it was probably a waste of time, but she was too restless to wait in her office for the phone to ring. She imagined Laura Armstrong locked in the room where she’d sat chatting to Wright, drinking beer. Even if the girl got out onto the balcony and started shouting, would anyone hear? ‘And Parr? Where’s he?’
‘Nobody knows. He’s taken a day’s leave. Arranged it yesterday. He’s not in the house in Morpeth.’
‘I want to find him.’
Ashworth nodded. ‘Look, do you want me to finish the story? I don’t want to be too far away from home today anyway. Sarah had a few twinges in the night. Could be the baby.’
So that was what it was all about, she thought. He wasn’t supporting her at all, just looking for an excuse to be in the office. She was about to make a sarky remark then thought it wasn’t worth it. Office politics didn’t matter so much with Laura missing.
‘Stay in here,’ she said. ‘Give me a ring when you’ve finished the story. Earlier if anything occurs to you.’ He nodded. She gathered up her bag and left the office. He was already engrossed.
Vera was in the car park when she realized she hadn’t looked at the coroner’s report into Claire Parr’s death. She retraced her steps, ignored Ashworth who was comfortable in her chair, and dug through a mound of paper until she found what she was looking for.
‘Oh Christ,’ she said. ‘Parr’s wife. She did slit her wrists. But lying in the bath. Parr found her.’
Chapter Forty-One
Gary Wright opened the door to her with a sandwich in one hand and she realized that she should be starving. She wasn’t, though. The thought of food made her feel sick.
‘What’s all this about?’ He stood aside to let her in. ‘One of your people turned up this morning, but they wouldn’t say what was going on.’ There was some music playing. Vera didn’t really do music. Occasionally there was a song which stuck in her head, made her feel sentimental. Usually a tune she’d heard as a kid. Mostly she just considered it a distraction.
‘Do you mind turning that off?’
He turned a knob and the music stopped. They were both still standing. ‘Coffee?’ he asked, then, seeming to remember her last visit, ‘Beer?’
‘You’ve not heard from Julie, then?’
‘Not today.’ He paused. ‘She was here last night.’
‘Aye, she said.’ Vera sat down. ‘You’ll not have heard about her daughter?’
‘Laura? What’s happened?’ He’d just finished the last of his sandwich and she had to wait for him to empty his mouth before he answered.
‘Do you know her?’
‘I met her once when I went to the house in Seaton.’
‘What did you make of her?’
‘Nothing. I don’t know. We only exchanged a couple of words.’
‘Interesting-looking girl.’ She nodded to the photo of Emily. ‘And you like them skinny.’
‘For Christ’s sake! She’s fourteen!’ But despite the bluster, Vera thought she caught something under the words. Guilt? Somehow the girl had got under his skin. ‘I felt sorry for her. Being in the house while her brother was being strangled. I was saying to Clive the other day-’
Vera interrupted. ‘She’s gone missing. You don’t mind if I have a quick look round.’
‘What would she be doing here? She doesn’t know where I live.’
‘Humour me, eh, pet.’
She pulled herself to her feet, knowing all the time that she wouldn’t find Laura. If Gary had taken her he’d be too clever to bring her back to his flat and she couldn’t really see it. But now she was here she should go through the motions. She opened the door to his bedroom. The bed had been made and the room was tidy.
‘What time did she go missing?’ he asked.
‘About eight-thirty. She never made it to the school bus.’
‘I was here then, with Julie.’
‘According to her she was sleeping off the effects of a bucketful of wine. Which you gave her’ Vera threw open the bathroom door. There was a row of shower gels and aftershaves on the window sill. More things to make you smell good than she’d ever possessed. No sign of Laura.
‘She was determined to get pissed. I couldn’t have stopped her even if I’d wanted to. And why would I? She wanted one evening when she wasn’t thinking about Luke.’
Vera looked into the kitchen and through the glass door onto the balcony. Nothing. ‘I know. I don’t blame you.’ She stood, quite still, in the middle of the room. ‘You can imagine what sort of state she’s in now. Are you quite sure there’s nothing you can tell me? About Luke, or Lily Marsh? About any of this mess? Have you heard anything from Clive or Peter or Samuel?’
He hesitated for just a moment. Had he been tempted to confide in her about Peter Calvert’s affair with Lily? Had he known about that? But in the end male solidarity took over. He shook his head.
‘Sorry, Inspector. It was all just a horrible coincidence. I can’t help you at all.’
At that, she lost patience with him and walked out. She’d only reached the top of the stairs when she heard the music again.
In her car she punched her own office number into her mobile, having to think for a moment what it was. Joe Ashworth answered immediately. ‘Inspector Stanhope’s phone.’
‘Well?’
‘No news on the girl. I’d have called.’
‘What about the story?’
‘I’m still only halfway through. I wanted to start at the beginning. It’s fascinating, though, isn’t it? The similarities.’
‘I thought I was going mad,’ she said. ‘Obsession can do that to you. I’m going to see if I can track down Parr’ She switched off her phone before he could reply, slipped it onto the passenger seat. She’d never got round to fitting a hands-free set.
When she got to Morpeth, it was early evening. In the quiet street where Samuel Parr lived, his neighbour, a middle-aged woman, was dead-heading roses in the small front garden. Further away, children were splashing in a paddling pool, giggling and shrieking with delight. The woman tried not to watch as Vera got out of her car and knocked at the door. She would think it rude to stare, would hate to be seen as intruding. Vera thought Samuel Parr should be in. This was a time for preparing an evening meal, for the first glass of wine. But there
was no reply.
Vera went up to the wall which separated the houses. The woman looked as if she wanted to escape inside.
‘You don’t know where Mr Parr’s likely to be?’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t.’ Tight-lipped, as if she begrudged the effort it took to form the words.
‘It’s all right, pet, I’m not selling.’ Vera flashed her warrant card, grinned mirthlessly. ‘I need to find Mr Parr. It’s urgent.’
The woman looked up and down the street. ‘You’d better come in.’
They sat overlooking an immaculate back garden. Away from public view the woman seemed to relax. ‘I’m sorry, I really don’t see how I can help. We’ve been neighbours for a long time, but never what you might call friends.’
‘Did you know Mr Parr’s wife?’
‘Claire, yes. So sad. She always seemed happy enough. A little excitable, perhaps. We were all very shocked when it happened.’
‘There was never any question that it was suicide?’
‘Oh no, of course not. Samuel was heartbroken. I’m sure he blamed himself.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘Well, it’s a natural reaction in circumstances like that, isn’t it?’ the woman said. ‘Guilt.’
‘You don’t think that he provoked the suicide? That he was having an affair, for example?’
‘Of course not.’ The woman seemed horrified. ‘Samuel is a librarian!’ As if his profession made the idea impossible.
They sat for a moment in silence, then she said, ‘What are all these questions about?’
‘I’m working on another enquiry,’ Vera said. ‘Mr Parr was a witness. His wife’s suicide probably isn’t relevant. I’m a little concerned for his safety.’
‘Of course!’ the woman said. ‘It’s the anniversary of Claire’s death! My husband mentioned it this morning when he saw the date on the Telegraph.’ She paused. ‘You don’t think Samuel’s done anything stupid? That he can’t face going on without her?’
‘No,’ Vera said. ‘I don’t think there’s anything like that. But if you do see him when he comes in, ask him to give us a call.’
In the car, Vera realized she’d left her phone there when she’d gone in to speak to the woman. She’d had two missed calls, both from Joe Ashworth. She rang him.
‘I’ve finished the story,’ he said.
‘And?’
‘I think you’d better come in.’
Chapter Forty-Two
Back in her office, Joe was as excited as she could remember seeing him. ‘Read the last few pages.’ He moved away from her desk so she could sit down, hovered just inside the door.
Vera returned to the story. There was a description of a garden, where the kidnapped young woman was being held. It was an Eden gone to seed, a place of fleshy leaves, enormous flowers and overripe fruit. Vera found it oppressive, longed for a passage set in the hills, somewhere with lots of sky and a bit of a breeze, thought she’d been feeling like that since the beginning of the case. As the plot reached its conclusion, she grew more tense. She told herself it was fiction, wished she could throw the book aside and return to the reality of forensic tests and reason. But with Joe watching she had to continue reading. At last the inevitable ending occurred. The young woman was strangled. Parr had written the killing as if it was an embrace, a gesture of tenderness. The murderer was still anonymous; any relationship with the victim unexplored. In the final paragraph the body was placed in a pool, surrounded by water lilies.
‘Well?’ Ashworth demanded. ‘What do you think? It must have been Parr.’
Vera didn’t answer. ‘I know where the story is set,’ she said. ‘I’ve been there.’
Vera’s father had been part of the committee which had set up the Deepden Observatory. She wasn’t sure who’d been foolish enough to ask him onto it. His brief flirtation with the birdwatching mainstream hadn’t lasted for long. Hector had been too much of a loner to get on with the other committee members and his attention span had been too short for tedious meetings about fundraising events and the observatory constitution. Besides, he got his thrills from the illegal activities which surrounded his passion – the late-night forays into the hills for raptors’ eggs, taxidermy carried out on the kitchen table. He wasn’t really interested in the gentle and scientific study of bird migration. After about six months he sent an acerbic and libellous letter of resignation.
He had, however, been invited back to a party to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the opening of the observatory. Vera thought the invitation had probably been sent by mistake. He was on a list and nobody in authority had checked the names. The committee wouldn’t have wanted him there. By that time, everyone in the Northumberland birding world had become aware of his illicit activities. He’d never been prosecuted, but it was a small world and there’d been rumours for years about his egg collection. When he was drunk he boasted about it. The best amateur collection of raptors’ eggs in the country, he’d say. Probably the best in the world.
Hector, of course, had been delighted to receive the invitation and insisted on going to the party. She’d known better than to try to dissuade him. He’d always been a stubborn old sod and he delighted in making a nuisance of himself. By that point in his life he was drinking heavily and Vera had gone with him as a sort of minder, to stop him making a scene and to drive him home. It had been the same time of the year as now, another dry, still evening in mid-summer Probably some of the people involved in the recent murders had been there.
What did stay with her was an image of the place. By the evening of the party the garden had grown up and everything was lush and green, an oasis in the parched flat land which surrounded it. There had been a conducted tour of the ringing hut, the mist net rides and through the orchard. Later, she’d stood by the pond, keeping a watchful eye out for Hector, ready to move him on quickly if he started to cause offence. But that evening he’d been on good form. A little loud, perhaps, but good-humoured, entertaining. As the night wore on she was able to relax. She even found herself enjoying the occasion.
She didn’t tell Ashworth that story. ‘I can’t be certain, of course,’ she said. ‘But I think it’s Deepden. Not far from the lighthouse where the girl was found and only just up the road from Seaton, where the Armstrongs live.’
‘What are we waiting for, then? And if Parr’s there with the girl, we’ll need back-up, won’t we? Do you want me to get on to it?’ Now his anxiety about his wife was forgotten. He didn’t want to miss out on the glory of an arrest.
‘Let’s keep it quiet for the moment. Low key. Any hint that we’re on to him and he’ll kill her. What’s he got to lose?’ But it was more a matter of pride for her than concern for the safety of the girl. Pride was her great failing. She didn’t want a song and dance about this, in case they’d got the whole thing wrong. She hadn’t got Samuel Parr down for the murders. She had in mind someone else entirely. And Laura could be dead. Vera imagined the gossip there’d be if she cocked this up publicly. The boss got the idea out of a book. Talk about fairy tales. This time she’s really lost it. She would hardly be able to say then that it had all been Joe Ashworth’s idea. She wasn’t sufficiently sure of his theory to pull people away from the locations her team had come up with originally – Seaton Pond, the Tyne at North Shields, Fox Mill. Those places would still be watched.
‘This’ll be just you and me exploring an outside chance,’ she said to Ashworth.
She could tell he believed the girl was at Deepden, he’d been seduced by the story, the flowers, the water.
She took a large-scale Ordnance Survey map from the shelf in her office and laid it across her desk. ‘This is where we need to park,’ she said, jabbing her fat finger onto the paper. ‘If he’s there, we don’t want to be so close to the house that he can hear the engine.’
Before she left the station, she called into the incident room, sat on the edge of Charlie’s desk, gave him her instructions. ‘Then get off your backside. You could
do with the fresh air and there’s something I want you to check.’
As she drove towards Deepden she tried to recreate a plan of the place in her mind. The bungalow was side-on to the road, with the orchard behind it. The overgrown garden and the pond lay between the house and the flat fields running to the coast.
She didn’t want anyone to know where they were, but Ashworth insisted on keeping his phone on until they got to the observatory. ‘Sarah has to be able to get in touch.’ She felt like screaming at him. What will you do if your wife does go into labour? Leave me here on my own and drive off to play happy families? Or will you stay with me? Be in on the end of it and let your wife give birth without you? She wasn’t quite sure what he’d answer. Perhaps the same thought had occurred to him, because she could sense he was jumpy, sitting beside her, reading the map with his small Maglite torch, keeping his finger on the road.
‘Nobody’s booked into the observatory tonight,’ he said. ‘I checked with the secretary.’ He’d told her that before. He couldn’t cope with the silence. It wasn’t like him; usually he was restful. Perhaps she should have left him in the incident room, so he could contact his wife every ten minutes. But Vera was used to having him with her at important times. She was glad she wasn’t doing this alone. He cleared his throat. ‘Apparently it was quite busy on Monday. There was some rare bird. But this time of year, people really only come for the weekends.’
She pulled into the verge, switched off the engine. There were no street lights and it was so quiet that they could hear the ticking of the car as it cooled. Outside it was almost dark, impossible to see colour or detail, but she could make out the shape of the hedge running alongside them.
‘I’ll walk up the lane,’ she said. ‘See if there are any lights on in the cottage, if there’s a car there.’
Ashworth didn’t answer.
The heat as she got out of the car made her think of Spain. There should be cicadas, the smell of rosemary. Walking down the lane, keeping close into the hedge in case she heard a car turning off the main road, she was reminded again of her father. Until she was old enough to protest, he’d taken her out on his raids. She’d hidden in ditches and behind patches of scrub and drystone walls, keeping lookout for him in case the police or RSPB wardens should appear. She’d hated every moment. The panic. The fear of being arrested, locked up, of getting it wrong. What would she do if someone did turn up? But it had been exciting too. Perhaps that’s why I became a cop, she thought. I got addicted to the adrenaline rush at an early age.