Hidden Depths--A Vera Stanhope Mystery

by Ann Cleeves

  Vera asked her to point out the exact place where she’d seen the car the night before. She tried her best but her heart wasn’t in it. All the time she was thinking of things she might have done to avoid the loss of her son. She could have moved, or not gone out with the girls, or had Luke put into a special school, a boarding school where he’d have been properly looked after.

  Vera pulled up carefully right outside the house. There was still a policeman on the doorstep, but Julie knew that Luke had gone.

  Chapter Six

  When Vera arrived home that evening, there was a buzzard sailing over her house. The rounded wings were tilted to catch the thermals and the last of the sun caught it, so it shone like polished wood, carved in a totem. The buzzards were only just returning to this part of Northumberland. Common in the west of the county, the keepers here had shot them to buggery, stamped on eggs, put out poisoned bait. Vera knew there was a keeper on a neighbouring estate with murdering tendencies. Let him try, she thought. Just let him try.

  Inside, the house was stuffy and untidy. She’d not been home for twenty-four hours. She opened windows, picked up mucky clothes from the bedroom floor and shoved them in the washer in the lean-to. Then she wondered if there might be anything in the freezer worth eating. Since the death of her father Vera had lived alone and knew she always would now. There was no point considering whether she could have survived a relationship. There had been someone once who’d kept her awake at nights dreaming, but nothing had come of it. It was too late now for regrets. Which didn’t stop her, late at night, with a whisky in her hand.

  She took a beer from the fridge, flipped off the top with an opener and drank it straight from the bottle. Even when she hadn’t bothered to buy in food there was always booze in the old station master’s house. She drank too much. Too regularly at least. Emotionally dependent, she told herself. Not addicted. She carried the beer with her back to the lean-to and ferreted in the chest freezer. Her father had stored the animals and birds for his taxidermy in there; she could do with a smaller freezer now. In the bottom she found a plastic tub of venison stew. The venison had been donated by the same keeper who hated raptors, but she’d accepted it without a qualm. Here in the hills you had to keep up a pretence of liking your neighbours. You never knew when you’d need a tow out of a ditch on a snowy day. She’d spent a wet Sunday afternoon cooking the venison, using lots of root vegetables to keep it moist, bay leaves from the garden and red wine. She’d thought it had all been eaten and finding a portion gave her a brief moment of joy, an uncomplicated pleasure of the kind you rarely experienced as an adult.

  All the time she was stamping around the house, she had the Armstrong case at the back of her mind. Like an actor, she was feeling her way into the characters, living them. She already had a sense of Luke Armstrong. Julie’s words had brought him alive for her, and anyway she’d met boys like him before. Mostly she’d bumped into them in police cells or Young Offender Institutions. The system had failed them, as it would have failed Luke without a mother like Julie to fight on his behalf. Luke had been a boy who had struggled. Everything had been difficult for him – school, relationships and the boring stuff of everyday life. He would have seen the world through a fog of misunderstanding. He hadn’t ever quite made sense of it. He would have been an easy boy to manipulate. A few kind words, the prospect of a simple treat and he would have welcomed a stranger as a saviour. Vera could have understood if he had died in a pub brawl. She imagined him wound up and wound up and then lashing out with the frustration of a toddler. Even a street shooting would have made some sort of sense. He would betray without meaning to and a death like that could be a scrappy mistake or a message to others.

  But this murder made no sense at all. The way Luke had been lovingly laid out in the bath, with perfumed oils and flowers, almost implied respect. It made Vera, who was more imaginative than her appearance suggested, think of sacrifice. A beautiful child. Ritual and reverence. And then there was surely a literary reference. O level English had been a long time ago, but the image was a striking one. Ophelia’s suicide. And how many of Luke’s scally friends and contacts had read Hamlet?

  She had no idea yet what Laura was like. Her mother said she was bright and gobby. Was it credible that the girl had slept through the whole thing? The strangling, the bath being run. Had the murderer even known she was there?

  Vera tried to imagine what might have happened. Someone was standing on the doorstep with a bunch of flowers. Did Luke let him in? Did he know him? Then what? The Crime Scene Investigators hadn’t been prepared to commit themselves as to where the murder had taken place. At the bottom of the stairs? If that was the case, had Luke been carried up to the bathroom? Vera couldn’t picture it. It didn’t make sense. So perhaps the murderer had asked Luke to let him use the bathroom and Luke had shown him upstairs. Then the murder must have taken place in the room next to Laura’s. Vera shivered slightly, imagining the girl still asleep while the boy was dying so close to her.

  She ate her meal on a tray, sitting by an open window. Her immediate neighbours were ageing hippies in search of the good life. They had a smallholding, a couple of goats, one cow for milking, half a dozen hens, a small flock of rare-breed sheep. They had no use for pesticides, despised agri-business and their hay meadow was overgrown with weeds. Vera could smell the hay. There was a flock of twites feeding off the seed heads. She’d opened a bottle of Merlot and was a couple of glasses into it. She felt happier than she’d been for months.

  Recently most of her work had been routine, boring. This was different and a challenge, something to pick over when she spent the evening on her own, something other than a gloomy play on Radio 4 to occupy her mind. God, she thought. I’m a sad old bat. She did feel some guilt in taking such a delight in a bonny lad’s death. She liked Julie, thought she couldn’t have done any better by the boy. But none of that stopped her relishing the case, the unusual details of the crime scene. She had few other pleasures in her life. She sat by the open window until it was dark and the wine bottle was almost empty.

  * * *

  The next day she brought her team together and she talked about Luke as if she’d known him.

  ‘You’ll have met the sort. A bit slow. You’d speak to him and you’d not be sure he’d understood. Say it again and you’d still wonder if he was any the wiser. Not a nasty lad, though. Soft-hearted. Generous. Good with the old folks in the home where his mother works. On the edge of trouble. Not bright enough to get into bother on his own account, but not bright enough either to stay away when his friends dragged him into it. And then only petty stuff …

  ‘Luke witnessed a drowning. Joe has the details and will pass them round. It might be a coincidence of course, but it’s the best lead we have at the moment.’ She paused. ‘The only lead.’

  On cue Joe Ashworth played paper monitor, dishing out sheets of A4. Vera wondered suddenly if she treated him too much like teacher’s pet. Did he resent it? Trouble was, he was one of the few members in the team she could trust absolutely to get things right. Perhaps that said more about her than about them.

  She continued. ‘The lad who drowned after the scrap on North Shields quayside was Thomas Sharp. One of the Sharps. Notorious family and we’ll all have heard of them. Father is Davy Sharp, at present serving three years in HMP Acklington. There was no prosecution after the accident – it seems generally to be accepted as horseplay which got out of hand. It’s possible of course that none of this is relevant, but ask around. Was Luke involved with people his mother knew nothing about? Is someone trying to send a scary message here?’

  She paused again. She liked an audience, but preferred it if the listeners were responsive. No one answered. ‘Well?’ she demanded. ‘Has anyone heard anything?’

  They shook their heads. They seemed stupefied, too well fed, too hot. The room was airless, but she was surprised by their lack of excitement. Wasn’t this what they’d joined up for? It didn’t occur to her that she scar
ed the pants off most of them, that even the ones who shouted their mouths off in the police canteen were too timid to commit themselves to an opinion which she might consider foolish.

  ‘The crime scene,’ she said. ‘You’ll have heard by now it was a tad unusual. The boy was strangled, then placed in a bath of water. Flowers had been scattered over his body. Luckily Julie didn’t empty the bath when she saw Luke. The CSIs spent hours scooping out the water and saving it. There might be something. They’re analysing the bath oil. We might even get a hair from the murderer if we’re lucky. But we can’t rely on that. We need to find where the flowers came from. Were they picked from fields and gardens in the village or did the murderer buy them? We need to know exactly what they were, then get someone to go round all the local florists checking that out. They didn’t seem to me the sort you’d get in a standard bouquet. Mostly wild flowers, I’d say. So where were they picked? Is there a local botanist who can help? Joe, can you find out from the university?’

  She didn’t wait for him to answer. ‘The more important question is why. Why the gesture? It seems a risk, an unnecessary fuss. It’s almost as if the killer wanted to draw attention to himself, make a grand spectacle. Julie was out for the night in Newcastle, but no one knew exactly what time she’d be back. She must almost have walked in on it. Laura, the sister, was in the house throughout. Fast asleep as it happens. Her mother says she could sleep through a bomb dropping. Is that significant?’

  A hand rose tentatively. Vera liked a responsive audience but she could be as cruel to interrupters as a stand-up comedian to unwelcome hecklers. She was gracious to this one.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Does it mean the murderer knew the family? Knew that Laura was a heavy sleeper and that Julie was out for the night? She didn’t often go out, did she?’

  Vera nodded in approval. ‘Maybe. Or that he’d been watching the place for a while, waiting for an opportunity.’

  Another hand. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Could it have been the sister? A row that got out of hand?’

  Vera considered for a moment. ‘You could imagine them fighting,’ she said. ‘A lad like that. It must be a nightmare having him as a brother, especially the age she is. That age you want to be the same as everyone else, don’t you? Last thing you need is a loony in the family. She could have drowned him too. If he was in the bath, it wouldn’t take a lot of strength to push him under. But he was strangled and then put in the water. I can’t see a fourteen-year-old girl doing that. She’s a skinny little thing. Nervy. I don’t think she’s hiding anything, though. Where would she get the flowers from? The mother confirms there were none in the house. I think we can forget the girl unless anything else comes up. Everyone agree?’

  There were a few half-hearted nods. Vera continued. ‘The father, though, is a different matter. It sounds as if he always found it hard to cope with Luke. He and Julie separated years ago, but he’s kept in touch with the family. Nothing formal. He calls in when he feels like it. The kids go to his house occasionally. If he killed the lad, it would explain why there was no sign of a break-in. Of course Luke would open the door to him. Julie says the boy always wound him up. You could think of a scenario when he was provoked to murder, to strangling.’

  ‘You’d have the same problem explaining the flowers, though,’ Ashworth said.

  ‘Maybe. Unless he was clever enough to realize he’d be a suspect and knew that sort of elaborate staging would make us look elsewhere. All the more reason to get some details on the flowers. If they were available in the village, he could have picked them after the murder.’

  Ashworth was sceptical. ‘He’d have to be pretty cool. Dream up the theatricals, go out for the flowers, let himself back into the house. Surely someone would have seen him.’

  ‘You’d have thought so, wouldn’t you? Has there been any joy from the house-to-house? Was anyone seen in the street?’

  She thought that later in the day she would go back to the village herself. Not that it was appropriate for her to be knocking on doors. Not according to her boss. Her last appraisal had mentioned an unwillingness to delegate. Her role, he said, was strategic, the management of information. But she liked to get a feel for what was going on in the neighbourhood. Not everyone was very good at that.

  She looked at the blank faces, waiting for someone to reply. Is it any wonder, she thought, that I’m not keen on delegating?

  At last Ashworth spoke. Teacher’s pet again. Though she guessed they called him a lot worse than that when she wasn’t around. ‘No one saw anything unusual, according to the team who did the house-to-house.’

  ‘What about the car Julie remembers seeing in the street on Wednesday night?’

  He looked at his notes. ‘It definitely wasn’t there at nine o’clock apparently. A woman was bringing her daughter home from Guides. She says she would have remembered.’

  No one else spoke. There was a moment of silence. Vera was sitting on the edge of a desk, as fat and round and impassive as a Buddha. She even closed her eyes for a moment, seemed lost in meditation. They could hear distant noise from the rest of the building – a phone ringing, a hoot of laughter. She opened her eyes again.

  ‘If this wasn’t the father playing silly buggers,’ she said, ‘we have to consider what was going on at that crime scene. It was like a work of theatre. Or one of those art installations. Dead sheep. Piles of elephant crap. The sort of art where the meaning’s more important than what it looks like or the skill that’s gone into making it. We need to know what this artist was saying. Does anyone have any ideas?’

  They looked back at her, rather like dead sheep themselves. And this time she couldn’t blame them. She didn’t have any ideas either.

  Chapter Seven

  It was Friday afternoon and the traffic on the dual carriageway leading from Newcastle to the coast was heavy. People had left work early to enjoy the sun. Windows down, music loud, the weekend had already started. Luke Armstrong’s father lived just off the coast road in one of the sprawling new housing estates on the outskirts of Wallsend. Vera knew it wasn’t her job to talk to him. She should leave the legwork to the rest of the team. How would they learn otherwise? But this was what she was good at. She pictured Julie Armstrong holed up in Seaton with her daughter and her memories, and she thought she wasn’t going to leave this to anyone else.

  The house was a red-brick semi. It had a small patch of front garden, separated from the neighbour’s with a lavender hedge, a block-paved drive, integral garage. The developers had squeezed every inch out of this land which had once held three collieries, but the estate was pleasant enough if you didn’t mind communal living. It had been designed around lots of small cul-de-sacs so children could ride their bikes safely. Trees planted in the gardens were starting to mature. There were hanging baskets outside the houses, spotless cars on the drives. Nothing to sneer at, Vera told herself.

  She hadn’t been sure Geoff Armstrong would be in. When she’d phoned there’d been an answering machine, but she hadn’t left a message. She’d just as soon catch him unprepared. She drove slowly down the street looking for the right house. It was three o’clock and the younger children were coming out of the primary school on the corner. Mothers waiting in the playground looked pink and dazed after an afternoon in the sun. Vera was standing on the step with her finger on the bell, when Armstrong walked into the drive. He was holding the hand of a little girl only just old enough to be at school. An ad-man’s dream cute kid – blonde curls, freckles, huge brown eyes, dressed in a regulation red gingham frock.

  ‘Yes?’ he said. Only one word, but spoken with that undertone of aggression which had scared Julie.

  Before she could explain, the front door opened. A slight woman was framed in the doorway. She was wearing a dressing gown, blinked out at the sunlight, but wasn’t embarrassed to be caught like that. She knew she still looked good.

  ‘Kath works nights,’ Armstrong said angrily. ‘I finish early on Fridays so I
can fetch Rebecca. That way Kath gets an extra hour in bed.’

  ‘Sorry, pet.’ Vera spoke to the woman, not to him. ‘No one said.’ She held out her ID so they could both see. ‘Can I come in?’

  They sat in the small kitchen, leaving Rebecca in the lounge with juice, a biscuit and children’s TV. Kath put the kettle on then excused herself to get dressed. When Vera apologized again for waking her, she waved it away.

  ‘It’s impossible to sleep in when the weather’s like this. Radios in the gardens and the kids playing out. Anyway, this is important. Poor Luke.’ She stood for a moment in the doorway, then went upstairs. They heard her progress: footsteps, a cupboard being opened, the shower.

  They sat on tall stools next to the breakfast bar. Vera thought they must look ridiculous. Two overweight gnomes on toadstools. ‘Did Luke spend a lot of time here?’ she asked.

  ‘Quite a lot, before he was ill. More than Laura. I thought she’d be excited when Kath had the baby. A little sister. But she seemed to resent her. Luke was better with Rebecca even when she was tiny.’

  ‘He hadn’t been here since he left hospital?’

  ‘No. Kath wanted to have him over to stay last weekend, but I wasn’t sure…’

  ‘You were worried about your little girl?’

  ‘Not that he’d hurt her, like. But that if he behaved strange, she wouldn’t understand.’ He paused. ‘I never handled Luke well when I lived at home. Pride, Kath says. I wanted a boy who was strong, competitive, good at games. Like me only better. I suppose I was ashamed because he was different from other lads.’

  Vera thought he’d changed since he left Julie. Kath must be a civilizing influence. Or maybe she’d just taught him how to talk a good game.