by Ann Cleeves
She shut her eyes. Perhaps she was getting the picture clear in her head. Perhaps she just wanted to shut it all out.
‘He was really excited. Eager, bouncing around like some puppy or something. Wanting you to pat his head and tell him he was a good boy. “You won’t believe what’s happened, Nell. You won’t believe what I’ve found out.” And it was too much. He was always too much. That was what attracted me in the first place and that’s what I couldn’t cope with in the end.’ She looked up at me. ‘I expect you think I’m a heartless bitch.’
I shook my head. ‘How could you possibly know what was going to happen?’
‘I knew he was desperate to talk to me, but I couldn’t face it. I’d had the shitty exam and another in the morning to revise for and I knew how it would be. He’d go over the same stuff again, about how he hated Ronnie and about how things might have been different if he’d had a real father, and he’d suck all the energy out of me. At the start I found it flattering. That he needed me so much. But I couldn’t take it any more.’ She composed herself to complete her story. ‘A friend drove out of school. She stopped and offered me a lift. I just shouted to him, “Sorry, Tom, can’t stay and chat.” And we drove off. That was the last time I saw him. That’s the picture I have of him. Staring after me as if I’d just spat in his face.’
‘Did he try to get in touch with you again?’
‘He left a message on the answering machine at home. It was much more controlled. Quite weird. Sorry to have missed you the other day, but probably it’s as well we don’t meet until I’ve got something definite to report. Be in touch soon. That was it. Weird, as I say. One of the reasons I wrote to him was to make it clear that I wouldn’t go out with him again. That I hadn’t wanted to hurt him, but I wasn’t going to change my mind.’
‘Did you tell Inspector Farrier about the meeting and the message?’
‘It didn’t come up. He just wanted to know where I was the morning Thomas was killed. And it’s not the sort of thing you’d discuss with a stranger.’
I didn’t ask her what she’d told Farrier, though I was curious. He’d have checked out any alibi. And I didn’t really think she was capable of stabbing Thomas with a knife. Her guilt was more subtle than that.
‘Do you have any idea what Thomas was on about? What he’d found out?’
She hesitated, and for a moment I thought she might have something useful and important to say, then she shook her head. ‘Something about his father perhaps. It was a real obsession with him.’
That would fit in with what Ellen had told me. But why would Thomas’s discovery that Philip Samson was his father have triggered his murder?
Nell was gazing through the leaves of a giant umbrella plant out of the window. Suddenly her face relaxed and she stopped being angry and haunted. Dan was walking along the pavement towards the bar, moving easily round the people, taking the last of the evening sun. He caught her eye and stopped, tentative, wondering if he’d given us long enough to talk. She smiled and waved at him. He came into the bar and started to pull over a chair to join us, but I stood up to make my excuses. I’d have only been in the way. I was almost at the door when something occurred to me, a question which had been niggling away at the back of my mind since I’d chanced on the news conference at Harry Pool’s yard and which took on a sudden and surprising relevance.
‘Those Eastern European girls at the hostel, where exactly did they come from?’
I didn’t think Dan had heard. He was looking at Nell, eyes glazed, thinking of sex.
‘Romania,’ he said in the end. ‘I think that’s it. It could be the Czech Republic. They don’t have much English.’
‘Were they placed by social services?’
He was still finding it hard to concentrate. ‘You know what Ellen’s like. She’ll take anyone. No questions asked.’
Chapter Thirty
I didn’t know anything about asylum seekers. Only what I’d read in the papers and seen on the news, and there was precious little factual reporting in that. And I didn’t mind the paucity of fact. It saved me having to think through the issue clearly. My sympathy lay with the immigrants. Of course. What else would you expect? I’m a social worker, all liberal conscience and fuzzy sentiment. Just the sort of person Doreen at the Consortium despises. And there was more to it than that. A lot of the Eastern European immigrants are Roma, gypsy, and I have some fellow feeling. If the popular Newbiggin myth is to be believed, we could be related. When I hear people slagging them off, I take it personally.
I phoned a mate who worked for social services. A sort of mate. She’d trained with me, but she knew all the right games to play and she was already a team leader. That meant she didn’t have to visit grubby flats any more, or think up new excuses for not drinking tea, or play with the snotty kids of her clients. It took a bit of persistence to get through to her and when she did make herself available her voice was wary. It only occurred to me later that she probably thought I was on the scrounge for a job.
‘Lizzie. Hi. It’s been a long time. How are things?’
‘Fine,’ I said, trying to sound it, only managing that mad jollity which sounds natural to infant teachers.
‘We should meet up sometime.’ That was the last thing either of us wanted. She’d be embarrassed to be seen with me and she’d always bored me rigid.
‘Really, I was just after a favour.’
‘Yeah?’ The tone had turned distinctly chilly.
‘Some information. It’s something I’m working on. A kind of project. It’s about asylum seekers.’
‘Oh, right.’ She was too relieved to ask what kind of project.
‘Is North Tyneside one of the official dispersal areas? If so, do you know who’s in charge of resettlement?’
This was a test of her competence, a sort of challenge. ‘I haven’t heard of the borough becoming involved. County Durham is, of course. I’ve read about the problems there. Let me ask around and phone you back.’
She did. Almost immediately. She was like that. Conscientious, the sort of student who always got her essays in on time. Mine usually were given higher marks, though, and that’s why she didn’t like me. She told me smugly that it was as she’d thought. No formal resettlement programme in our area, no one specifically responsible for immigrants. ‘Sorry not to be more help,’ she said as she replaced the receiver, not sounding at all as if she meant it.
Of course, that didn’t mean the sad-eyed girls weren’t legitimate residents of Absalom House. They could have been students. They could have been born here. But I was starting to weave a fantasy in which they had starring roles, and I was already so committed to it that the social worker’s reply was pleasing.
I’d put together a story in my head, lying sleepless in Sea View watching the beams from the light buoys bounce off the ceiling. This is how it went: Harry Pool was smuggling people into the country. That’s why his attitude towards me had changed when I’d asked him about bringing in asylum seekers. That’s why he wasn’t putting more effort into defending Michael Spicer. He wanted the issue to go away. His trucks went to Eastern Europe, didn’t they? A trade in illegals would explain his affluence, the big house in Culler-coats, the flash car. Smugglers made a fortune. The papers I’d read on the subject all said that. And once the people were here perhaps Ellen helped them, the younger ones at least. As Dan had said, she’d not ask any awkward questions or check papers too carefully. She wouldn’t want them ending up on the streets and dying like her son. Perhaps she was so eager to see me, that day in Cullercoats, not to give me information, but to find out how much I knew.
And perhaps Thomas had found out about it. He was in a better position than anyone to put together what was going on. He worked in the office at the yard. Even if Harry had tried to keep him out of it, there could be overheard conversations, mysterious phone messages. Nobody had ever said that Thomas was dumb. He’d work it out. Maybe he’d even seen the lorries come back and watched them unload.
I ran it in my head, saw it like one of those cheesy cop shows they have on the telly on a Sunday night, all shadowy lighting and eerie electronic music. I pictured Thomas hiding behind a stack of containers, watching the dark figures climb over the tailboard of the truck. And he was living at Absalom House, so when the immigrants turned up there he’d not be taken in by whatever cover story Ellen and Harry had hatched up for them.
You can’t blame me for getting excited, for being seduced by the theory. I mean, it was beautiful. Everything slotted right into place, even Marcus’s idea that Thomas saw himself with a new future at work. Perhaps Harry had offered to cut him in on the deal. Perhaps Thomas had tried blackmail. OK, it didn’t explain Marcus’s sudden death, but perhaps that was an accident after all.
The only problem was, I couldn’t see Harry or Ellen stabbing him. I mean, Ellen, come on! There might be something scary about her appearance. That dyed hair and scarlet lipstick always made me think of vampires. But she was a sweetie. She was genuinely fond of the kids in her care. She couldn’t knife anyone to save her life, especially a lad who’d reminded her of her son. And I’d seen Harry playing with his grandchildren. Perhaps I’m a sentimental fool, but he didn’t strike me as a violent man. That afternoon when we’d all been in the pub after the funeral threw me too. Could he possibly have gone through that charade if he’d been the cause of it? I didn’t think so.
My first instinct was to go to Farrier and share my theory. The thought gave me the same feeling as when I was about to hand in an essay to my tutor at college. Please like it. Please approve. Of my ideas and me. Then I thought that was pathetic, and I needed something more concrete to give him anyway. At the back of my mind was the fear that, as he’d warned me off meddling, he’d be cross. He’d only be pleased if I had a really solid piece of information to hand to him, not a wild accusation against two respectable people. Otherwise, like all the other cops, he might think I was crazy.
I decided on a trip to Absalom House. It might be possible to speak to the foreign girls without bumping into Ellen or Dan. And in Sea View I was restless. I couldn’t settle to anything. My prowling around the house was starting to worry Jess and she’d begun muttering about it having been a long time since Lisa had been round, and maybe I should ask her in for coffee.
She stopped me on my way out. I thought she was going to ask an unsubtle question about when I was due to see the psychiatrist next, but all she said was, ‘Are you doing anything next Friday night?’ It slipped out really casually and I was preoccupied, or I’d have taken more care in the answer.
‘I don’t think so.’ I was fishing through my bag for my car keys.
‘Oh, that’s good. There’s a ceilidh. Some friends of Ray’s are getting engaged. You’re invited too. It’ll be a chance for you to get to know them all.’
And she beamed, delighted, so how could I refuse?
I arrived at Absalom House late in the morning and it was quiet, as I’d hoped. Dan had told me that most of the residents were expected to take on work or training. ‘It’s not just a doss house,’ he’d said, giving me the party line. But surely the sisters wouldn’t be at work or college. Not yet. Not if they were hiding from the authorities. I tried the front door, but it was locked. The windows at the front of the house were covered by net curtains and I couldn’t see in without going right up to the glass. It was a busy street, a sunny day, and I didn’t want to draw attention to myself.
Absalom House formed a block in the middle of a terrace and there was no access to the back from the street. I had to walk round the end of the terrace to a narrow lane, just wide enough for a car to pass through, which gave access to gardens and ramshackle garages. I made my way along it, trying to look as if I belonged, past a shed full of pigeons and a fierce dog on a long chain. I knew when I’d reached Absalom House because of the glass lean-to built onto the kitchen. There were double wrought-iron gates leading onto tarmac. No cars. Then a patch of overgrown garden. I let myself in and listened. No sound except for the barking of the dog, still furious because I’d walked past its territory.
The door into the lean-to was unlocked. It was in full sunshine and inside it was steamy, smelling of vegetation and compost. There were Gro-bags of tomatoes on the window-sill, on the floor pots with the sort of tropical plants you get in conservatories, a couple of white wicker chairs and a table. It would be a pleasant place to sit in the winter but now it was unbearably hot. I could see into one end of the L-shaped kitchen. It was much cleaner than when I’d sat there drinking tea with Dan. Suddenly a large woman in a long white apron came into view. She was vigorously wiping down surfaces with a cloth. I felt the shot of adrenaline, as if I’d drunk five espressos in one gulp, and tried to breathe deeply to relax myself out of the panic. What if I were caught? I had an imagination, didn’t I? Surely I could come up with a story for Ellen and Dan. I couldn’t quite think of a plausible one now, but something would come to me. The woman wrung out the dishcloth and hung it over a tap, then untied her apron, rolled it into a ball and stuck it into her bag. I was still shaking, convinced that she’d use the back way out into the lane, even when she disappeared from view again. I gave her five minutes, then went to the door so I could see the whole of the kitchen. She’d gone.
The kitchen floor was still tacky underfoot where it had been mopped. There was a smell of disinfectant. In a corner a washing machine grated and churned. The rest of the house seemed quiet. I looked out into a long corridor. At one end was the front door, at the other the big room where the kids played pool and watched television. The hum of the washing machine seemed a long way off and there was something unsettling about the silence. It wasn’t natural, like a school in the holidays or a pub before opening time.
If the girls were in the house, where would they be? I left the safety of the kitchen and moved down the corridor towards the common room. There were other closed doors on the way and I listened at each one. Nothing, not even the shuffle of papers or the clunk of a keyboard. The common room was empty. It was a gloomy, shabby room with a smell of stale smoke, but the woman I’d seen in the kitchen had been there too. It was tidy. The carpet had been hoovered and the pool cues lay in line on the table, the magazines piled, edges together, on a veneered coffee table.
I remembered the startled faces of the girls as Dan had led me on his conducted tour of the house. They hadn’t been here, with the other kids. They’d been peering out of their room on the first floor. I thought that’s where they’d be now. I imagined them hiding out there, bored and scared, listening to the alien sounds of a world they didn’t understand.
I ran up the stairs and along the first-floor landing. I’m not sure what prompted the hurry, the sudden sense of urgency. The fear of more bodies, more blood? I was still tormented by the thought that if I’d not put off my visit to Thomas’s, if I’d not drunk coffee that morning, I might have reached him while he was still alive. All the time I was trying to get my bearings, to remember the only time I’d seen the girls who looked so similar that they could be twins, the glimpse through the door just before it closed. When I found it I recognized it immediately. A wide door, painted pale yellow, next to a fire extinguisher and a sign pointing to the emergency exit. I knocked. There was no answer. I listened but heard nothing and knocked louder.
‘It’s all right.’ A whisper, but in this silence it seemed to echo. ‘I just want to talk to you. I’m a friend.’
I turned the door handle and pushed. It caught for a moment on a shred of frayed carpet, then opened. No one. No blood-spattered walls, no cowering girls. No sign that they’d ever been there. The beds had been stripped. The duvets were neatly folded on top of the pillows. There were no clothes in the wardrobe and, though I searched the drawers, under the bed and in the bathroom, there was nothing which might give me an identity or a clue to where they’d gone.
I went back onto the landing and shut the door behind me. The anticlimax had left me washed out, so when I heard the front door open a
nd voices in the hall below me, the response wasn’t fear but a petulant irritation. I just wanted to go home.
‘I really think we should tell them.’ It was Dan, the tone wheedling, as if this was an argument which had been going on for a long time. He was in it for the long haul.
‘No.’ It was Nell, sharp and assertive. That confidence again, which made me want to weep with envy. If I’d spoken to Dan like that, would he have cared more about me? ‘Not yet. There’s too much to lose.’
‘But if you’re right . . .’
‘I don’t know if I’m right. It’s a guess, speculation. When I know I’m right we can come to a decision.’
I could have wandered down the stairs. Hi, you two. I was just looking for you. I could have asked them what the row was about. I could have asked them where the Romanian girls had moved on to. But I was still shaking and drained, and I couldn’t face them yet. I didn’t want to explain what I was doing there. I waited until I heard them go into the kitchen, the water filling the kettle, the click as it was switched on. I hurried down the stairs and slipped out into the street.
Chapter Thirty-one
I’d parked my car at the end of the road, tucked behind a brewery lorry which had been delivering to the hotel on the corner. I got in but I didn’t drive straight home. Although the lorry had moved away I didn’t think the car would be recognized from Absalom House and I sat there and waited, going over the girls’ disappearance, slowly becoming more relaxed. It was lunchtime. A few lads wandered past, sharing a bag of chips, but they were in school uniform and they didn’t go towards the hostel. I didn’t care. Perhaps because I could convince myself that this was a purposeful activity, the restlessness had gone.