by Ann Cleeves
Nell could have been another installation. She was curled on a huge purple cushion on the floor. There was more plaster on her hair and her jersey. When she heard us come in she sat up.
‘This is Lizzie,’ Dan said.
We stared at each other.
‘Look, coffee, yeah?’
He ran away through an internal door. He seemed very at home in the house. I presumed Nell’s parents were at work. Left alone, we continued to stare at each other.
She was very small and dark. Black hair, which I don’t think had been dyed, chopped in a jagged cut around her ears. A little face. Dark eyes made even bigger by the panda shadows which surrounded them. Even as she was sitting, cross-legged, I could tell she had that dancer’s grace which Dan always went for.
‘You found him,’ she said.
I nodded. There were no chairs, and no way would I sit on the floor with all the crap. I was wearing a decent pair of trousers you could only dry-clean. I pulled out one of the stools, dusted it with my sleeve while my back was to her and sat on that.
‘I’m not sure why you want to see me,’ I said. ‘He was dead when I got there.There’s nothing I can tell you.’
‘You must have spoken to him to arrange the visit. I want to know how he was. If he was OK, perhaps I won’t feel so bad. Now I just remember how I betrayed him.’
I know all adolescents are intense. I’d been intense myself in my search for justice, my mother and the great Newbiggin dream, but no one had ever looked at me before with such haunted and piercing eyes.
‘No.’
‘What did you want to see him for?’
I could have lied, but I didn’t see the point any more. The only people I’d have any qualms about hurting or offending were already dead. I told her the whole story. ‘My problem now is that the solicitor claims never to have heard of me. It makes my position a little . . .’ I hesitated ‘. . . uncomfortable.’
‘The police think you might have killed Thomas?’
I nodded again.
‘That’s ridiculous.’ She was scathing. ‘Why would you?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t think they need to prove a motive.’
‘At least I wrote to him,’ she said. ‘To apologize. We’d had a dreadful row. At least he still knew I cared about him.’
I didn’t say anything. No point in stirring that up either. I moved the conversation on quickly, thinking that Dan might come back any minute and the last thing I wanted was talk of letters.
‘Did Thomas ever mention his father?’
‘Not his real dad. He talked about Ronnie. His mum always wanted Thomas to call him Dad, but he never would.’
‘What did he say about Ronnie?’ I tried to keep my voice casual, but I knew it was important. The relationship between Ronnie and Thomas mattered in all this. It could explain why Kay had kicked him out of the house.
‘Thomas said he despised Ronnie. He said Ronnie let Kay walk all over him.’
‘But?’
‘I’m not sure. He was pretty screwed up about the whole parent thing, you know.’
I knew.
‘I mean, I think deep down he wanted Ronnie to like him.’
‘Is that why Thomas started volunteering for a conservation charity? Ronnie’s into the countryside too, isn’t he?’
She looked at me. One of the nuns in the kids’ home I’d been in when I was seven had looked at me like that. Appraising, judging. I’d thought she’d been able to tell exactly what I’d been thinking. It had scared me rigid.
‘What do you know about that?’ she asked.
‘Only what Dan told me. That Thomas volunteered as a fund-raiser.’
‘I didn’t approve,’ she said.
‘Oh, Dan thought you’d introduced him to the charity.’
‘I don’t think of it as a charity. More a lobby group. Field sports. Hunting. Political, really. I was surprised when he went for it. He said I didn’t understand. If I understood properly what was going on there, I’d approve.’
I remembered what Ray had said after my meeting with Ronnie Laing. ‘Are you saying Thomas worked for the Countryside Consortium?’
‘Only as a volunteer. Marcus organized it.’
When she spoke she opened her mouth wide. The words were very defined. An actor doing a voice exercise. Another drama queen. I thought she’d suit Dan fine.
‘Marcus?’
‘He worked for the Consortium in his gap year. We both knew him, though he wasn’t at our school. I was surprised when Thomas got involved. He’d made fun of the whole thing at first. Ronnie was a supporter. That was enough to turn Thomas off. And he knew my feelings on the subject. But he seemed to get sucked in. When he started with them he didn’t talk about it much. Like it could have been some secret society. Like it was some big deal and he was saving the world. He liked being mysterious.’
‘Do you have an address for Marcus?’
‘His father owned the house in Seaton Delaval. Thomas was living with him. I didn’t realize until he died and the address was in the paper.’
She turned away, so I couldn’t tell what she thought of that.
‘What about his paid work at Harry Pool’s? Did Thomas have any friends there?’
‘Drinking mates,’ she said. ‘People to go to the pub with when they all finished on Friday nights. I never met any of them. Not my thing.’
‘Did he enjoy work?’
‘I think it embarrassed him. It was ordinary. Thomas always thought he would be famous. He talked about what he’d do if he got the chance – journalism, television, music.’ She paused sadly. ‘And now he’s made the front page, he’s not around to appreciate it.’
Dan came in then, clutching three mugs by the handles, spilling coffee on the way. He handed the first to Nell, carefully, and set mine on the trestle. He sat beside her on the dusty purple cushion, put his arm around her and held her close. She looked at me over his arm and she smiled, not a horrid smile but gentle, pitying, as if she was able to sense my jealousy and didn’t want to hurt me.
‘I should go,’ I said. ‘Jess will be worrying.’
He didn’t move. That made me cross. I was only there because of him.
‘You don’t mind taking me, Dan, do you? Only I don’t really want to wait for a bus.’
‘Right.’ He got reluctantly to his feet. What else could he do? ‘If there’s nothing else . . .’
He looked at Nell. I thought there was something else I wanted to ask. About Shona Murray, the MP, and what Thomas might have been writing to her about. But mention of an MP might trigger a memory of a House of Commons stamp on the back of a letter, so it would have to wait.
On the way back to Newbiggin he asked me what I thought of Nell.
‘Bonny,’ I said. ‘She’s really bonny.’ It was true.
Chapter Seventeen
When I arrived back at Sea View, Jess was in the kitchen ironing. She always stood up to iron, her feet planted firmly apart, and she attacked the washing with the same sort of energy as if she’d been doing aerobics at the gym. I stood for a moment watching her, thinking about her and Ray and whether they’d get married, and Dan and Nell, and wondering if I’d ever have sex again with someone I cared about. Then Sally, the pensioner who lives on the estate round the corner, turned up with her shopping trolley of News Post Leaders. She’s seventy-five if she’s a day and our paper girl. Jess always makes her tea because we’re about halfway through her round, and anyway she knows the old girl’s lonely and it’s an excuse for her to chat. Sally’s a spinster and I wondered if she’d ever had sex at all.
I sat with them at the kitchen table, drinking tea and flicking through the paper while they gossiped about people I’d never met. The Leader’s a free sheet but there’s usually plenty of local news in it. It’s not all advertising features and car sales. Today there was a full page on Shona Murray, headlined ‘A Day in the Life of Our MP’. A reporter had followed her round the constituency until she took the night t
rain from Newcastle to get to the House in time to vote on an education bill. According to the article she was specially interested in education because she’d been a lecturer in a sixth-form college before she joined Parliament. A lot of her shadowed day had been spent visiting schools.
I stood up and slipped out of the room, taking the newspaper with me. Jess and Sally seemed not to notice. They were talking about Jerry, the community policeman, and Sally’s hairdresser, Trish. According to Sally, they were having an affair. There’d even been a passionate weekend away in a hotel in Scarborough. Sal might never have had sex, but she loved to talk about it.
I’d hidden Shona’s letter to Thomas in my knicker drawer. Jess never came into my room without asking, but I hadn’t wanted to take any risks. I pulled the letter out and read it again before turning my attention back to the article. It said that Miss Murray was holding her regular monthly surgery in Newbiggin Sports Centre the following evening. It wasn’t necessary to make an appointment. When I returned the paper to the kitchen, Sally and Jess had moved on to the funeral of Mattie Watson, who used to keep the pub next to the post office. I’d never met Mattie, but by the time Sally went I felt I knew him as well as they did. If I’d had any relatives of my own he’d have felt like a favourite uncle.
When I got to the sports centre the next day, there were already half a dozen people in the queue ahead of me. I was the youngest by about thirty years. Shona was using one of the meeting rooms as an office and we sat in a corridor outside. I felt as if I were waiting for a job interview, nervous and strangely competitive. I eyed up the other candidates, thinking that none of them could have as interesting a reason to see Shona as I did. A smart young woman who didn’t identify herself asked for my name. I gave it half expecting a reaction, if not from her, then from the listening people waiting – Eh, aren’t you that lass that found the body in Delaval? But there was nothing. Thomas’s murder was already old news.
‘Shona’s running a bit late,’ the young woman said. ‘The trains again.’ Her voice was pleasant enough and she flashed a smile, but she didn’t look at me. I said I didn’t mind but she was still looking at the sheet of paper in her hand and I’m not sure she heard.
I sat on an orange plastic chair of exactly the same design as the one in the interview room at the police station, took out my library book and got lost in a Celtic dream world of a beautiful maiden and her seven brothers who were turned into swans. OK, so I like fantasy, right? I know it’s sad, but it’s harmless and I don’t care. When my name was called I looked up and saw with a start that all my competitors had disappeared. Even the young PA had gone. Shona Murray had put her head round the door to call me. I recognized the red hair from the television. She seemed tired but she managed to smile and look at me at the same time. Perhaps she was relieved I was the only one left. I followed her into the room.
She didn’t sit behind a desk but on a low easy chair by a coffee table. When I went in she was arranging her skirt around her. It was long and full and already crumpled. She motioned for me to take a seat beside her. I was reminded suddenly of my forced therapy sessions with the elderly psychiatrist. The layout of the room was much the same. So was the initial question; each time it seemed he’d forgotten who I was and what I was there for.
‘Well, what can I do for you?’
I’d always been tempted to give a flip reply: Sign my sick note and tell the court I’m complying with the order. I never had, though. In some situations you have to be prepared to go with the games. With Shona I wanted to play it reasonably straight. When she came out with the question I paused for a moment, then answered, ‘I’m the person who found Thomas Mariner’s body in Seaton Delaval.’
Her interest until then had been professional and courteous. I was aware now of something else. She was more alert.
‘I read about it,’ she said. ‘It must have been terrible.’
‘Had you ever met him?’
She didn’t answer directly. ‘He wasn’t my constituent.’
I pushed it. ‘But you had met him?’
‘I visited Absalom House, the hostel where he was living.’ She paused. ‘It’s an interest of mine. Young people who’ve dropped out of formal education.’ She was more confident talking about herself than about Thomas.
‘The police think I might be implicated in his murder.’
‘And are you?’ I admired that. She might have been talking to a murderer but she kept her cool. She didn’t shout for her PA. If there was a panic button in the room she didn’t go for it.
‘No. I’d never met him.’
‘I can’t be seen to interfere with a police investigation. Not at this stage. That’s what solicitors are for.’
I didn’t say that in this case a solicitor was the problem.
‘I realize that. That’s not why I’m here.’ Except if I can find out who did kill Thomas it might let me off the hook.
‘Why, then?’
This was the part I had to embroider a bit. I could hardly admit to having opened Shona’s letter to Thomas.
‘Thomas had a girlfriend. She’s young. Seventeen. They’d had a row and she didn’t have time to make up with him, so she’s feeling really wretched. She needs an explanation, you know? Some sort of closure.’ It was American jargon at its worst but Shona seemed to accept it. ‘She asked me to help. I’m a social worker.’ It was true, wasn’t it? Just because I was no longer practising . . . ‘She said that Thomas had written to you. She’s got it into her head that it could have some sort of bearing.’
For a moment Shona sat very still. ‘Any correspondence between a member of the public and me must be confidential.’
‘Of course.’ I held out my hands. Look, this isn’t me asking. I’m just a go-between.
‘But you would be able to tell the police?’
‘Do the police know that Tom wrote to me?’ The question was sharper than she’d intended.
‘They don’t trust me with that sort of information.’
She smiled again. ‘No, I imagine not. And I imagine your interest is more about getting them off your back than helping Tom’s girlfriend.’
I smiled back, but I was wondering why she didn’t want to go to the police. She hadn’t refused to tell them the details of the correspondence but I sensed her reluctance. Surely she couldn’t be involved in any way with Thomas’s death? I’d never believed in conspiracy theories.
‘Did you know that he’d moved from Absalom House?’ I asked.
‘No. Not until I read the report in the paper.’ She looked up at me. ‘How were you involved with him? Professionally?’
‘He had problems with his mother and stepfather, but, as I said, I never met him.’
‘I only met him once.’ She was speaking slowly. ‘He made a big impression. Part of it was that he was different from most of the lads there. Well spoken, you know. He said his mum was a teacher. I wondered how he could have ended up there. But the others were trying to show off in a loud, lippy sort of way and he was quite cool. For someone so young, he had style. And he seemed to take to me. The power thing probably. People always think MPs have more power than we actually do. It was an informal visit and we had quite a long chat. I was trying to persuade him to go back to college. His GCSEs weren’t bad. With a bit of support he’d have got a university place.’
I had a sudden weird thought. Thomas’s social worker could have placed him with Jess. She could have worked the same magic with him as she had with me. He wouldn’t have had to show off, then. And if he’d been living with us at Sea View, I’d have looked after him. I’d have stopped him being murdered. It was ridiculous but the dream of that parallel universe made me feel more responsible for his death than I had all along.
Shona was continuing. ‘He asked what the law was on whistle-blowing. Who should he go to for protection? That’s what he said. He was very melodramatic, very mysterious. “If there’s something worrying you, tell me now if you like,” I said. But he wouldn’t. �
�Not here. Not in Absalom House. You don’t know who could be listening.” The melodrama again. “Write to your MP, then,” I said, and I remember writing down the name of the Tyneside MP on a scrap of paper. But he told me he didn’t want to tell a middle-aged man. What could he understand?’
‘So he wrote to you?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He wrote to me. He made allegations, but they were vague, imprecise. Nothing I could really use. I thought perhaps he was attention-seeking after all. Like all those other lads at the hostel. He just had a more sophisticated style.’
‘So you didn’t believe him?’
‘Not all of it, certainly. Perhaps there was some truth hidden away in there. It was hard to tell. I needed proof before I could do anything.’
‘Who was he writing about? Someone at work?’
‘You don’t really expect me to tell you.’ Her tone was light but I could tell she was still thinking about the boy. He’d got to her. ‘It took me a long time to reply,’ she went on. ‘I mean, he got an acknowledgement from my office saying I’d received his letter, but I was actually away on holiday and there was a mountain of stuff to get through before I got round to answering him. And it took me a while to remember him. I meet so many people. He probably never got my letter. It depends when he moved, I suppose. I sent it to the hostel. Perhaps he just thought I couldn’t be bothered.’