by Ann Cleeves
I started back towards my car but at the main road turned onto the flat area of grass they call the Links. I thought it might be possible to get to the back of the Pool house. There were a couple of kids kicking a ball around and a woman being pulled by a dog on a lead. I stuck my hands deep in my jeans pockets and walked as if I was lost in thought, like I’d had a row with my boyfriend and needed to be alone. No one took any notice. The kids picked up the ball and ran off. The woman disappeared towards the Sea Life Centre. I gave a quick look round, then climbed the fence onto the metro line embankment. The fence was wire mesh, high but buckled in places. It had been climbed before. The other side was wild, trees and shrubs had been allowed to grow thickly together to repel vandals and graffiti artists. No one would be able to see me, even if a train went by. I undid my jeans and crouched to have that piss, taking care not to sting my bum on the nettles, but so desperate by then that nothing else mattered.
The houses by the church were separated from the embankment by a big wall with glass cemented into the top. I thought they’d have burglar alarms and security lights too. I stood by the wall, knowing that Harry Pool’s back garden was on the other side, but all I could see were the upstairs windows. I thought I could hear children’s voices, but I couldn’t tell if they came from a neighbouring garden. It was dead frustrating, not being able to see in, and in the end it was too much for me. I threw my jumper onto the top of the wall and rooted around in the undergrowth for something to stand on; all sorts of rubbish had been thrown in there. In the end I found a plastic bin. It was split down the side, but firm enough to hold my weight when I turned it upside down. I was able to haul myself up far enough to look over.
At my end of the garden there was a fruit cage and some apple trees, which broke the line of the wall and gave me some cover. Then a vegetable plot, then down a couple of steps to a lawn and flower beds, with a patio next to the house. Everything very tidy. The lawn had stripes down it. Not Philip Samson’s style at all. I’d been looking in books and magazines since I’d found out what he did for a living and he liked wilderness, everything blurred together, overgrown. The embankment was more his sort of place.
Harry Pool was sitting on the patio, watching the children whose voices I’d heard earlier. They must have been his grandkids but they were just as much at home as if they’d been in their place. I remembered the children’s seats in the VW and thought that Harry’s wife must look after them while their parents were at work. Harry had mentioned that after Tom’s funeral. There were two of them, a girl aged four or five and a younger boy, still unsteady on his feet. They were playing on a yellow plastic slide and occasionally Harry got up to help. A French window from the house was open. A light had been switched on in the room inside and a woman was laying the table. Because of the light I could see her clearly. She was middle-aged but still very smart, younger than Harry by about ten years. Something disturbed her in her task because she left the room by a door I couldn’t see. A little later she returned and walked to the French window.
‘Come on, you two. Your mummy’s arrived.’ Harry chased them inside but didn’t follow them. He sat down again and lit a cigar. I could smell it above the garden smells of cut grass and honeysuckle. A little later the woman joined him and sat beside him on the white, wrought-iron bench. The neighbourhood was very quiet and I could just make out what she said.
‘Supper’s ready when you feel like it.’
He seemed lost in thought and didn’t reply.
‘You look sad tonight.’ I saw her take his hand. She was wearing white linen trousers. Her hand on top of his rested on her knee. ‘What is it?’
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Nothing at all.’
He stood up and they walked hand in hand into the house. I slid down the wall, pulling my jumper behind me. The glass had snagged a hole in the sleeve. It was only Matalan but it was a favourite and I was well pissed off that I’d ruined it for nothing.
I phoned him the next day at the yard. I still didn’t have a proper game plan but I did have a vague script in my head. He didn’t answer himself. I spoke to Kenny, who didn’t seem to recognize my voice.
‘Mr Pool please. It’s personal.’
I could sense Kenny’s curiosity but he didn’t say anything. There was a moment’s silence then, ‘Harry Pool.’ Booming, so I had to hold the receiver away from my ear.
‘Mr Pool, this is Lizzie Bartholomew. We met at Thomas Mariner’s funeral.’
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘So we did.’
‘We had met before actually. I was one of the reporters when you gave the news conference at the yard about Mike Spicer.’
‘Were you, though?’ Noncommittal. Amused, rather than hostile, I thought.
‘I wondered if I might do a more in-depth piece.’
‘Bit young to be a hardened reporter, aren’t you? What are you? Some sort of trainee?’
I adapted the script in my head. ‘Yes. I have to submit a piece for college. I mean, obviously I hope I can sell it too. But it’d be really great if you could spare the time to talk to me.’
I knew I sounded overeager, but it didn’t matter. A student hoping for an exclusive would be. And how old did he think I was? Eighteen? Nineteen?
‘Why not?’ he said. ‘You’ll not make a worse hash of it than the professionals.’
‘When can we meet?’
‘Might as well get it over with. Can you make it today? Not at the yard. I’ve got to be home this afternoon anyway. I’ll give you the address.’
I almost said it was OK, I knew where he lived, but I shut up just in time.
So at two o’clock I was back in Cullercoats, driving along the sea front towards the big house next to the church. And this time I could park outside and walk up the gravel drive and ring the doorbell. The VW wasn’t there and, though Harry didn’t say, I guessed his wife was out. When he opened the door he was in shirtsleeves with a mug of tea in his hand. I wasn’t important enough for the grand lounge at the front with the piano and the flowers, or even the dining room with the French window. Instead he took me into a big kitchen, which was just what you’d expect – quarry tiles on the floor, everything fitted, a long pine table. He waved the teapot at me and, when I nodded, poured out a mug. He pushed a tin of biscuits across the table towards me.
‘Help yourself,’ he said. ‘What I know of students, they’re always starving.’
I’d dressed carefully. A trainee, trying to make an impression. Knee-length skirt and cheap white shirt. Hair pinned up.
‘You said you were a friend of Thomas’s family,’ he said casually. He sat at the table opposite to me. ‘How do you know Kay, then?’
Panic. It couldn’t be through work. She was a teacher and I was studying journalism. ‘Church,’ I said. ‘We met at church.’
‘My,’ he said. ‘And I thought Methodists didn’t drink. You put away enough the day we buried Thomas.’
‘It’s more my parents’ thing,’ I admitted. ‘The church, I mean. I don’t often go now.’
‘Kay was a bit prim even when she was your age,’ he said. ‘She was a Sunday school teacher when all the other lasses were out enjoying themselves. We knew her very well at one time, Bridget and me. She baby-sat when the children were small.’ He looked up, smiling. ‘And now they’re grown up with kids of their own.’
I took another chance. ‘It must have been a shock when she found out she was pregnant.’
‘Aye, so it must, but we’re not here to talk about that. There was gossip enough at the time.’ He smiled to take the edge off the rebuke. ‘We’re here to talk about poor Mike Spicer. Now tell me, Miss Bartholomew. What do you want to know?’
‘Before we look into the details of Mr Spicer’s case, would you mind giving me some details about your company? How you came to set it up, that sort of thing. You’re the Road Haulage Association representative and the background would give readers a great understanding of the pressures on the industry.’
Most peo
ple like talking about themselves. Harry Pool certainly did. ‘I took redundancy from the shipyard,’ he said, ‘and I could see there was no chance of more work in that field. It seemed a good time to set up on my own. I’d always liked the idea. I started off with one wagon, doing local runs down to Teesside and up to the Borders. Then I sold my car to buy a second, a bit bigger, a curtain-sider. Now I’ve a mixed fleet of twenty-five and we’ve a certificate for international work.’
‘So you run the risk of bringing illegal immigrants into the country too, like Mike Spicer?’
It was a random question to support the fiction that I was doing a follow-up piece on the Spicer news conference, but Harry Pool’s attitude changed. He didn’t lose his temper, nothing like that. But he suddenly became alert. Before he’d been laid-back, humouring a student, now every word was spoken with care.
‘What exactly are you implying, Miss Bartholomew?’
‘Nothing. Just that working overseas must involve more risk, more complications. Not just because of the dangers of unknowingly carrying asylum seekers.’
He conceded that I was right. There was a lot of red tape. ‘We had to think very carefully before expanding into Europe. Previously we occupied a niche in the market. Big companies don’t like delivering to the Borders. There are no motorways and transport time is slow. Obviously there’s a lot more competition now, and not just with British firms.’
‘They have lower fuel costs?’
‘Much lower.’ He quoted some of the figures I’d heard from Kenny. ‘The price of fuel is crippling for a medium-sized business like ours. How can I compete with local firms in Germany and France?’
‘Don’t the French hauliers have higher overheads?’ I asked. ‘National insurance? Tax?’ I’d been reading up on the subject. I hadn’t wanted to look a complete prat.
‘Maybe they have.’ He would have preferred to be allowed to continue unchallenged. ‘If they have to pay them. A good accountant and you can get round most of that. There’s no avoiding the duty on diesel.’
‘Isn’t there? I’d heard there was a black market trade in the red diesel farmers use.’
‘That’s all talk and rumour.’ For the first time the good humour slipped. I didn’t tell him the talk and rumour had come from Kenny. ‘Reputable hauliers couldn’t afford to get mixed up in that.’
‘Someone must buy the stuff, though. I read that it’s smuggled in. Through Ireland, they say.’
‘Shady outfits with nothing to lose. Not me. I prefer to play it straight. That’s why I’ll have nothing to do with convoys and blockades.’ He looked pointedly at his watch. ‘Is there anything else? I’m expecting an important call.’
I closed the notebook. ‘How did Thomas feel about all that?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The convoys and protests. He was a Countryside Consortium supporter. They backed the fuel protesters, didn’t they. They see cheap fuel as a countryside issue.’ According to the leaflets Marcus had given me at Wintrylaw.
Harry didn’t seem inclined to discuss the finer points of the argument. ‘I didn’t care what Thomas did in his own time. In my time he was there to work.’
‘Did he enjoy it?’
He gave an awkward laugh. ‘Does anyone enjoy work at that age? I know damn fine I didn’t.’
‘But nothing was bothering him? He got on OK with everyone?’
‘Of course. We all did. They’re like family, my lads.’
He stood up. I felt I was being chased away, as he’d chased his grandchildren back to their mother the night before. As he shut the door behind me, I heard the phone ring.
It was as I was on my way back to the car that I realized how relieved he’d been to see me go. He didn’t seem to notice that he’d given me no new information on the Spicer case.
Chapter Twenty-eight
I had a shock when I got back to Sea View. There was Inspector Farrier sitting in the kitchen, drinking tea and chatting to Jess like he was one of the Newbiggin Mafia and they’d been friends for ever. I’d got right into the room before they saw me. Farrier looked up first. His face creased into a cross between a smile and a wink, but Jess was so wrapped up in what she was telling him that she didn’t notice me. ‘Our Lizzie’s a sensible girl, Inspector. A bit headstrong at times, but that’s hardly surprising, is it, after all she’s been through? And really, she’s not been a peck of bother since she arrived.’
I could feel myself blushing, at least my skin turning hot. Farrier was enjoying every minute. He grinned and that’s when Jessie realized I was there. She was startled – ‘Hey, man, Lizzie, don’t creep up like that.’ But not embarrassed. She made an excuse about nipping to the shop to pick up extra milk, but Farrier said he’d been sat all day and maybe I wouldn’t mind a walk either. We could pick up the milk on our way back.
I let him out through the front door. He admired the little garden and the view, but I wasn’t listening. I was thinking about what he could be doing there. He must have found out that I’d left the pub with Marcus Tate that evening before he died. There were a couple of lads in waders fishing from the beach, and a father and daughter flying a kite, but no one to overhear us. A breeze was blowing from the water, gusting so the kite swooped and dived, and we started walking along the sea wall. It wasn’t sunbathing weather.
‘I should have been round before,’ Farrier said, ‘to apologize in person. I believed Howdon. I couldn’t see what he had to gain by lying.’
‘He’s a lawyer. You should have known better. It’s what they do for a living.’ It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate the gesture, but I felt awkward. Apology doesn’t come naturally to policemen and, despite the warm and fuzzy image, that’s what Farrier was. Then I realized. ‘You’ve not come all this way just for that.’
‘I had a phone call from your MP,’ he said. ‘Shona Murray. You went to see her.’
‘I had to do something.’ Defensive, because I was sure he was going to warn me about meddling. ‘You thought I was a murderer.’
‘No,’ he said, so softly I could hardly hear the words above the water breaking on the rocks and the wind. ‘I never did.’
I wanted to believe him. ‘Did she show you the letter Thomas wrote?’
‘Aye. It took her a bit of time to get round to it, the silly woman, but she got in touch eventually.’
‘I told her to. I gave her your name.’ It’s not my style to crawl, but I needed the brownie points. I wanted him to tell me what was in the letter.
He stopped, leaned his back against the painted railings. ‘You could have come to me, Lizzie. I’d have chased it up for you.’
I looked at him. Couldn’t help it. I could hardly walk on without him. He was dressed like a student who’s come to learning late, in middle age. There were a few of them at university. Nerdy jeans, too baggy round the legs, a hand-knitted sweater, ribbed, beige with little brown flecks. In the winter he’d probably wear a duffel coat. Whenever I’d seen him before he’d been in a suit and tie, and I couldn’t work out what the scruffy gear was all about. Was this his day off or had he dressed down on purpose, a way of persuading me to lower my guard?
‘What do you want from me?’
I knew I sounded rude, but the persuasion was starting to work. I could feel myself being seduced by the fatherly voice, the patience and the kindness. I’m a sucker for older men. Look at Ronnie Laing. I’ve got the discrimination of a rabbit. Manic depressives are always being taken in by unsuitable people.
The wind was making his eyes water. He took a white hanky from the jeans pocket and wiped them.
‘I want to know who else you’ve been talking to, what else you’ve found out.’
‘Picking my brains?’
‘Yes. Just that.’
‘Why isn’t this official, then? Why aren’t you with the skinny cow with the notebook? Why not get me down to the station, take a proper statement?’
‘Is that what you’d prefer?’
‘I just
want to know where I stand.’
He didn’t answer.
‘They still think I did it, don’t they? They think it was done by a crazy, so it must be me.’
‘Some of them think that,’ he said. ‘Not me.’ He looked out at the sea. ‘Did you ever meet Marcus Tate?’
‘At Thomas’s funeral.’ It was a relief. I thought I’d have a chance now to share my anxieties. Suddenly I didn’t feel quite so lonely. But he didn’t follow it up, he just started walking again. I stood where I was and shouted after him, not caring now who could hear. ‘Marcus Tate . . . Do you really believe that was an accident?’
He stopped and turned. ‘There’s no reason to believe otherwise.’
‘But you?’ I was screaming and not just to be heard above the tide. ‘What do you think happened?’
‘Why don’t you tell me what you think?’ His voice was measured, but I wasn’t taken in. He’d stuck his neck out coming to see me. He was as obsessed by the case as I was. He’d have his own reasons for that – things to prove at work, old scores to settle – but he was committed to digging away until he found reasons he could believe in. It kept him awake at night too. A sharp gust of wind blew a shower of spindrift. I could taste the salt on my tongue.
‘Do you fancy a coffee?’ I asked. ‘There’s a new place along the prom that does a decent cappuccino.’
He’d been tense, standing there, waiting to see if I’d confide in him. He nodded uncertainly, not sure whether or not he’d got an answer. Let him wait a bit longer.
The café was on a square, part of the same development as the new promenade. Brick and block paving and Victorian-style street furniture. Bland and unimaginative, it had nothing in common with the original east coast fishing village. I wondered if the architect had been there since it was built, if he woke up with nightmares. I knew Steve, the lad who ran the café. He’d sunk his redundancy from Ellington pit into the lease of the building and the purchase of a seriously impressive Italian coffee machine. He’d probably bought into the council’s dream that a couple of wrought-iron lampposts would bring the tourists flocking. I’d been there on the opening night and he’d talked about turning it into a classy, cosmopolitan place, hiring a chef to serve Mediterranean food in the evenings. But it wasn’t going to turn him into a second Harry Pool. Anyone could have told him that people from outside wouldn’t leave their cars unattended in Newbiggin at night.