by Sarah Hilary
Dan drew a deep breath when he’d finished, putting the book away from them, reaching for his beer. ‘Okay, so . . . Certain people collect artefacts with dark or violent associations because they’re seen as charms against darkness and violence. Sections of the hangman’s noose were sold to bystanders after public hangings to guard against meeting with the same fate, you know the sort of thing. That’s what this feels like to me.’
Charms against darkness and violence.
‘Talismans.’ Dan balanced the beer bottle in the hollow of his hand. ‘It feels superstitious. He’s scared, that’s what I’m getting from this.’ He nodded down at the sketchbook.
‘These women he drew,’ Noah said. ‘They’re writing to him, demanding his attention. They don’t see how little he thinks of them. It’s as if he’s cast a spell, and not just over them. Over prisoners, over a prison officer. One of the inmates committed suicide.’
The young man’s bare feet, kicking.
‘Lost people,’ Dan murmured. ‘Thinking he’d immortalise them?’
‘Instead he did this.’ Noah held the cool of the beer bottle to the side of his face. ‘Reduced them to black scratches in a sketchpad. So much contempt for their dignity and privacy, everything that affirmed their lives.’
Michael Vokey had stolen from Julie and Natalie, taken family photos and pinned them to the wall in his dead mother’s house. Like the burglar who’d targeted elderly people on another housing estate, robbing their precious memories of ever having been young or valued or loved, leaving behind only puzzlement and shame, indignity.
‘He isn’t happy,’ Dan said. ‘Not that I’m advocating sympathy, but this is someone who’s feeling very lost. And scared. Are you getting that?’ He nodded at the sketchpad. ‘Fear?’
‘I hadn’t thought of it in those terms,’ Noah admitted. He’d been preoccupied with Julie’s fear, and his own at the thought of Vokey out there, free to do whatever he liked. ‘Did you have any dealings with him, for the prisoner art project?’
Dan shook his head. ‘I’ve seen Break Out, of course. But that’s as close as I’ve come. Unless you count the catacombs.’
‘Which catacombs?’
‘Underground exhibition in Camden. Under the market, a couple of years ago. I’m pretty sure that’s where I first saw his work. It’s funny none of the press reports have mentioned his art.’
‘Not really.’ Noah swallowed a mouthful of beer. ‘He’s an escaped prisoner, and he’s dangerous. He attacked a young mum in her own home. Why spoil that story by mentioning he has a talent for anything less violent?’
‘Not that much less.’ Dan nudged his toes at the sketchpad. ‘I bet he’s good at hiding.’
‘Oh, he’s good. And he’s got help, at least that’s what we think.’ Noah rolled the cold bottle at his cheek, thinking of Sol who was also lost and good at hiding. Or he had been, until Noah put him in a place where hiding was impossible. ‘He’s obsessed, isn’t he? That’s what these drawings look like to me. Obsessed with – ownership?’
‘Or oblivion. Art as an escape, his way of not having to live with himself any longer.’ Dan moved his hand to Noah’s neck, subduing the new stress which was building there. ‘You need to let it go,’ he said softly.
‘Vokey?’
‘Sol.’ Dan’s thumb moved in small, warm circles. ‘You have to give yourself a break.’
‘How? When he’s in there, and I’m out here.’ Out in the cold. Disowned by his mother, and by Sol. ‘It’s about to get worse, too. They’re questioning him about firearms.’
‘That’s bollocks.’ Dan didn’t hesitate, his thumb circling. ‘Sol and guns? Bollocks.’
‘I should have seen it coming. Harry warned me about the gang. I knew it wasn’t just pills or weed. Now he’s saying it’s firearms.’
‘That dishy DS?’ Dan had met Harry briefly, when he’d called round to keep Noah informed of Trident’s case. ‘He doesn’t believe Sol’s running guns. He’s too smart for that.’
‘Smart and dishy.’ Noah allowed himself to be distracted, knowing this was Dan’s objective. ‘Are you developing a detective kink, Noys? Only I have a cure for that.’
‘Hmm. I was hoping you might have.’
26
Lara Chorley lived in a cottage of weathered grey stone set inside a dry wall bordered by fields. The front of the cottage was a sinuous mass of green creeper bleached by floodlights which blazed into life as DCS Ferguson’s Range Rover swept onto the drive.
The sudden brightness was an assault, disorientating because dusk had fallen so thickly an hour ago, swallowing the fields and woods around the cottage, which frowned its floodlights down on them as if they were escaped prisoners. At either side of a shallow porch a blue glazed pot stood planted with wind-beaten daffodils. It was eerily quiet, the kind of quiet London never knew, so that when a wood pigeon rattled out of the trees it was like a brick thrown with force through a window.
‘Escape to the country,’ Ferguson said sourly. ‘You’ll have to find it first.’
It had been a long drive, the satnav twice steering them to a dead end. Marnie eased the ache from her shoulders, looking to where Joe Coen and the Cumbria Police had parked their cars. They should have trusted Joe to conduct this interview but Ferguson was determined to be here, staking her claim to what might prove a breakthrough in the case. The drive had been a chore which Marnie was not looking forward to repeating, her head already throbbing at the prospect of the trip back up the motorway. Hard to believe one woman could own so many musical theatre CDs.
‘Come and find me.’ Ferguson was still grumbling about the location. ‘She wasn’t kidding. I’ve had an easier time finding clean needles in crack houses.’
Joe Coen answered the door with a grave look on his face. Laughter lines said it wasn’t his usual expression. He was Noah’s age, five foot six, dark-haired and brown-eyed, upset by whatever he’d found in the cottage. ‘She won’t leave,’ he told Marnie. ‘He’s not here, we’ve searched the house and the outbuildings. But she won’t leave.’
‘She isn’t hurt?’ None of the unmarked vehicles in the driveway was an ambulance.
‘She isn’t hurt,’ Joe confirmed. ‘But she isn’t well either.’ He was wearing navy trousers and a blue shirt, its sleeves rolled free of his wrists. No jacket or tie, and he’d removed his shoes. He glanced down at his socked feet. ‘No shoes in the house, her rule. I thought it best to play along.’
‘He’s not here.’ Ferguson clicked her tongue. ‘Has he been here?’
Joe shook his head. ‘Nothing to suggest it, Ma’am. She’s saying not.’
‘Of course she is.’ Ferguson adjusted the collar of her shirt and took a step deeper into the cottage, her heels flinting at the slate floor. ‘Well, let’s have a little chat.’
Joe must have caught Marnie’s expression because he said, ‘Actually, Ma’am? My super was asking if she could have a word, couple of things she needs to check with you.’ He beckoned one of the uniforms, who escorted Ferguson to the back of the cottage.
When she was out of earshot, he told Marnie, ‘Sorry, but Mrs Chorley’s not up to an interrogation right now. She’s having a hard time of it.’
It was the first time anyone had referred to Lara as Mrs Chorley, reminding Marnie that Lara was a mother of two. ‘I’ll be careful,’ she promised Joe.
‘Thanks.’ He nodded. ‘She’s up here.’
He led the way through a sitting room where the ceilings were low and beamed, walls the colour of skimmed milk. A deep fireplace was filled with a black range, pale linen sofas to either side. Shelves and tables had been planted with pottery vases, adding muted notes of colour. Windows looked out onto the blackened fells and woods which ran in all directions from the front door. The range was cold but the cottage was well insulated; there was money here and plenty of it. Artwork on the walls, rugs and antiques, and not the kind left by grandparents – these had been picked up in French markets over a long weekend by f
erry. Years ago this had been a holiday cottage, and it clung to a little of that impersonal appeal even now. Colin had unearthed a cached website whose photos predated the French makeover, back when the furniture was small and shabby, the view described as ‘heart-wrenching’. The clean scent of cut lilac was everywhere, but it must have been room spray because each vase was empty.
Marnie followed Joe up a slim stairwell to a bedroom at the front of the cottage. Joe knocked at the door, saying, ‘Mrs Chorley, it’s me. Can we come in?’
The murmur of a woman’s voice, her words inaudible, came from the other side of the door.
Joe nodded, and they went into the room, Marnie following a pace behind him.
What had she expected to find? The letters and photographs, sketches in Vokey’s art book, none of it prepared her for the woman seated at a desk whose lamp sent her shadow up the wall, so much larger than Lara herself. She was big and fair, her head bent over the pages of a book, her finger following the words the way a child’s does when she’s first learning to read. The room was pretty, with floral curtains and a primrose bedspread, a big mirrored armoire against one wall. Lara had covered the mirror with a modest black dress on a hanger. Her reflection peeped from the edges of the glass, a slice of her face frowning in concentration, the heels of her stockinged feet. She wore a green moleskin tunic, long-sleeved, a silver pendant at her throat, a matching cuff on her right wrist. Her hair was freshly cropped, elfin-short, showcasing her wide cheekbones and the lines on her face. She looked every one of her fifty-three years. She pressed the book firmly open with the heel of her hand, moving her lips determinedly as she read.
‘Mrs Chorley,’ Joe said. ‘This is Detective Inspector Rome, from London.’
Lara nodded, concentrating on the page. ‘In a minute.’
Calm and cultured, but not quite right. Her voice, her tone, misfired. It was like watching a hologram projected onto the sweetly floral backdrop, a hologram with a glitch which made the image jump every few seconds, as if to remind the viewer it was an illusion.
Marnie crossed to the desk, holding out her right hand. ‘Mrs Chorley.’ A zap of static from the carpet made the ends of her fingers jump. ‘I’m DI Rome. Marnie.’
‘Lara,’ she said automatically, then covered her mouth with her hand as if she’d lied, or given up a secret she’d sworn to keep. Her hair grew in a spiral pattern at the crown of her head, the way a baby’s does. It made her look vulnerable, despite her size. She gazed up at Marnie, keeping her finger on the page she was reading, her eyes the colour of camouflage, their lids heavy, lashes short. Her nose was broad at the bridge, her mouth deeply creased, a smoker’s mouth. Small pierced ears. The pink skin of her face held the morning’s make-up in its wrinkles, flickering with that glitch again as she held Marnie’s stare. ‘Yes?’ she asked after a moment. ‘Can I help you?’
‘I hope so. May I sit down?’
‘We’re in my bedroom.’ She stayed like a rock, solidly behind her desk. ‘Where would you sit?’
Marnie moved to the window seat. ‘Here is fine.’
Lara turned in her chair to face her. ‘Tea, please.’ She nodded at Joe. ‘You offered and I said no but I think we should have tea.’ She clipped the words pleasantly, as if ordering in a restaurant.
‘I’ll bring it,’ Joe said. He left the room, leaving the door open by a crack.
The window seat was less than two feet from the desk, close enough for Marnie to see her own reflection in the woman’s green-brown eyes.
‘You were expecting someone else,’ Lara said. ‘Someone different. Another kind of woman.’
Marnie shook her head.
‘Yes, you were. Taller, slimmer. Sexier.’ She put each word into the space between the desk and the window seat, as if building a barricade. ‘Younger. Or older. But sexier, obviously.’
‘Obviously?’
‘The letters,’ Lara said matter-of-factly. ‘You were expecting a boudoir.’ She glanced at her bed. ‘Satin sheets. Or a sex dungeon, were you expecting a dungeon? Not a frilled valance, anyway.’
Marnie said, ‘I don’t find expectations very helpful in this job.’
‘Images, though. In your head. You can’t help those.’ She pulled the silver cuff from her wrist and set it down on the desk, lifting her arms to unfasten the silver pendant. ‘Would you . . .?’ She bent forward, exposing the freckled nape of her neck.
Marnie reached out and freed the clasp, watching as Lara pooled the chain in the palm of her hand. She smelt of the same leather seating as Ferguson’s Range Rover. It struck Marnie that they smelt the same. Of long car journeys, creased clothes and weariness.
‘I’ve been trying to get undressed,’ Lara said. ‘Ever since I got home. Isn’t that odd?’ She blinked at the pendant in her palm. ‘I managed my shoes, but I can’t work out the order of anything else. This dress.’ She lifted her shoulders. ‘I can’t remember how it comes off. I know how that sounds, but do you never have days like that? When you can’t work up the energy to get dressed or undressed. And there’s so much more now. Spanx and bodywear.’ She stopped, as if the wall she’d built with her words was in danger of toppling. ‘But you have questions. That’s why you’re here.’
She hadn’t wanted Marnie to get started until the battle lines were drawn between them. Key words and phrases – sex, undressing, images in your head – her way of defusing the weapons she feared Marnie was about to use against her. By getting there first, she’d claimed ownership of the least comfortable aspects of the conversation. Like Ruth, she didn’t want to be considered out of control, someone Michael Vokey had exploited. A victim.
‘When did you get home?’ Marnie asked.
‘Before dark, but not much before. I needed fuel, and food. I was in Edinburgh with friends.’ Reeling off the information she’d already provided, sandbagging her alibis.
‘And you travelled to Edinburgh alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘And home, alone.’
‘Yes.’
Behind Marnie, night was packing the window tightly, binding the cottage with its silence, sliced through with the sounds of mating or warring animals. No breath of wind, just the dark pressing its face against the leaded window. A whole forest of darkness, leaning its full weight into the walls. ‘You live here on your own?’
‘You make me sound like a recluse!’ She laughed. ‘Or am I just lonely? Is that your point?’
‘I wasn’t attempting to make a point. I would like to get the facts straight.’
‘Then yes. I live here alone. My husband and I separated six years ago, my children have their own homes. But I’m far from lonely and can I just mention one other thing?’ She leaned forward, her stockinged feet rubbing drily together. ‘It’s about a fire, a few years ago. It may not seem immediately relevant, but bear with me. My husband’s rather well off, he always was.’ She injected a little of her ex-husband’s money into her accent, as if to underline her point. ‘We were in a hotel in Cape Town when a fire broke out. Adrian didn’t need to lift a finger before the manager came and took us away down a private stairwell at the side of the hotel.’ She blinked ferociously. ‘People died. Those on the lower floors, and many higher up the building. But we were safe because Adrian knew the manager, who wanted to protect his investment. We were never in any danger. The door to that stairwell was kept locked but we had a private key because of who Adrian was. People died. Do you understand? I’ve never forgotten that. I’ve been thinking a lot about privilege just lately. And while it may not seem relevant, I’m here today because of privilege. It’s the same for you. But Michael Vokey . . .’ Her face spasmed. ‘He isn’t here, feel free to search, but he was never here, and he never could be. Because it’s another world. That’s another world.’
Joe had come back into the room during the tail end of the speech, setting down a tray of mugs on the bedside table, careful not to crowd Lara. He understood how fragile she was beneath the show of solidity. Marnie met his eyes
and nodded her thanks.
‘How long have you lived here?’ she asked Lara as Joe handed them each a mug of tea.
‘Six years, it will be soon. We separated, and this cottage was my settlement. I was in London before.’ She held the mug in her hands, like Ruth’s hands, big and callused. ‘For a long while. It’s changed, I imagine. I don’t go back. They say you shouldn’t, and I can see the sense in that.’
‘Your children are in London?’
‘Fabian, yes, at college. Hannah moves around a lot, for her job.’
‘You don’t work?’ Marnie wanted to get the measure of the woman’s isolation.
‘I used to. Weekends in a reclamation yard. More of a hobby than a job, that’s what most people would say.’ She dipped her little finger into the tea and shook it, as if removing an invisible insect. ‘It was a vast yard, full of fireplaces and mirrors and doors, hundreds of doors, mostly riddled with worm but I was taught to do the key test.’ She mimed pressing the teeth of a key to the wood of a door, the gesture theatrical, as if by play-acting she could delay the moment when she must speak frankly. ‘Unless it gives, it’s good. I’ve often thought they should have a key test for people.’ She moved her head towards Joe. ‘Don’t go, please. I’d rather you didn’t.’
Joe waited for Marnie’s nod before settling himself a few feet away, unobtrusively.
‘I liked working in the yard,’ Lara said. ‘I remember this porch from a church, carving so deep you could bury your fingers up to the knuckle in it, and just— Oh, fifty or sixty doors, hung on wires so you could walk between rows of them. We sold sheets of stained-glass too, but it was the doors I loved. Bedroom doors and kitchens, front doors with letter boxes, back doors with cat flaps. Once, we had a devil’s door. Do you know what that is?’ She sipped her tea, looking at Joe.
‘A devil’s door?’ He shook his head. ‘What is it?’