by Penny Grubb
‘Um … I understand you were round at Mr Tremlow’s house the night he found Terry’s body?’ Annie tried to haul the conversation back on track.
‘Oh yes. I wanted to speak to them both. I saw Charles’s car go by so I knew they were back and I wanted to know what was happening about the church gates. You’ll have seen the state of them. Hanging by a thread. No? They’re the ones you pass when you head for the Green if you come down from the top road by—’
‘I know where you mean now,’ Annie lied, as waves of detail threatened to overwhelm the rest of the morning. She would have to work hard to get what she wanted but at least there was no problem with getting Doris to talk. ‘So you went round to Mr Tremlow’s?’
‘Well, I wanted to know. These church gates have been hanging on for long enough …’
Annie wanted to say, I thought they were hanging off. The thought made her smile.
‘I’d been down to the cemetery. Just to tidy up for Elizabeth. Elizabeth Atkins, you know. She has no one, you see, and you wouldn’t expect men to know what’s what. I’m surprised you people weren’t here then. I went to the police at the time, you know. I told them, she was right as rain only a day ago. And found dead, just like that. Her heart they said. Well, I know she had a heart condition, but that doesn’t mean to say it was natural she just dropped down dead like that.’
Annie’s head spun. She was torn between dragging Doris back to the night Terry Martin died and finding out more about this previously unsuspected death. Terry Martin, the woman on the cliff top and now someone called Elizabeth Atkins. She remembered Mally’s comment about dead bodies everywhere. She stemmed the flow with a raised hand. ‘Sorry, could you just clarify who Elizabeth Atkins is … uh … was?’
It’s all good practice, she told herself, squeezing data out of difficult witnesses.
Annie allowed Doris to go uninterrupted through her last meeting with the mystery Elizabeth Atkins. A misgiving underlay everything that Doris said, her whole tale coloured by an unspoken suspicion of foul play. Was there anything to it? Annie might have discounted it as the imaginings of an old gossip entirely irrelevant to the case at hand, except that Terry Martin’s name crept in. She’d heard no hint of anything like this before.
‘Did you say that Terry Martin had been asking questions?’
‘Oh yes, he asked me straight out if I was on the Parish Council—’
‘I meant about Elizabeth Atkins.’
‘Yes, of course, that’s what I meant. Well, I mean he didn’t ask outright. He couldn’t, could he? He never knew Elizabeth.’
‘But he wanted to know how she died?’
Doris looked puzzled. ‘Not that I know of. Why would he?’
Annie paused to take a sip of her tea. Reliable as a witness, Scott had said of Doris Kitson, if you could fight through the smokescreen.
‘Can I just get this straight? How long ago did Elizabeth Atkins die?’
‘Just over three years. It’ll be almost—’
‘And cause of death was…?’
‘Heart failure they said. Found dead in her bed. I didn’t like it. I told the policeman at the time—’
‘And she was a friend of yours?’
‘More a friend of my mother’s, but of course—’
‘Your mother’s? Uh … how old was she when she died?’
‘Let me see. She’d had her ninety-seventh birthday in the April. And she had a lovely cake. It was …’
Annie struggled not to raise her eyes to heaven. Suspicious death from heart failure at ninety-seven. It’d make a good story for Scott, but time was getting on. She mustn’t leave Tremlow too long.
She sat up straight and cleared her throat. ‘About the night Terry Martin died, the night you went to Mr Tremlow’s….’
‘Oh yes, that’s what I was telling you. You’ll never believe who’s just gone down there.’
‘What?’ Annie felt the stirrings of defeat as even this direct question led on another detour. Was she sentenced to listen to this woman ramble on forever? ‘Who’s gone down where?’
‘Down there!’ Doris spoke impatiently. ‘Just before you called in. I was on the telephone … about the church. His car must have passed you but you said you didn’t see it. Young Mally’s father, the colonel’s ex-son-in-law. And her away. What’s he doing going down there with her away, that’s what I want to know.’
A connection sparked at the back of Annie’s mind. ‘Do you mean the house next door to Mr Tremlow’s? Someone’s gone down there?’
‘Yes. Him. The husband. Drove down there bold as brass and her away. Frank’ll have something to say if he catches him.’
The pieces clicked together. Away camping. ‘Is it Colonel Ludgrove’s daughter who lives next door to Mr Tremlow, who does his cleaning and things?’ Had she missed something the colonel had said, or hadn’t be been clear?
‘And that was a come-down for her, but she hadn’t a brass farthing to rub together after the divorce case.’
Annie felt as though she were hauling a heavy weight up a slope, but she’d uncovered one point of interest: the woman who ‘did’ for Tremlow and the colonel’s daughter were one and the same. That meant Tremlow hadn’t been deserted and it was someone else in the building on the cliff top.
‘The night Terry Martin died?’ Annie tried again with a glance at the clock. If she could prise out Doris Kitson’s side, she might hone a sharper point to some of her questions to Tremlow.
‘I was on my way round when it happened. I can see from the front here. The houses stand up at the back and it was close on a full moon that night. He was up on that construction the builders left. I don’t think it’s safe. I said to her only the week before she went away, I said I wouldn’t leave a house with builders.’
‘Terry Martin was up on the scaffolding?’
‘That’s where he fell from. And up to no good obviously. I was on the footpath at the back, almost at Charles’s gate when I heard the crash.’
Needing only small prompts now to keep the story on a straight path, Doris told Annie how she’d arrived just after the colonel who was trying to get the story out of Tremlow.
‘White as a sheet he was. Kept saying, “Frank, it’s terrible”, over and over, and “Why won’t they come?” Frank had got him to call the emergency services you see, so he expected them arriving. Of course they took an age. Do you know where they have to come from now to get to Milesthorpe, it’s a scandal. They have to come from—’
‘Mr Tremlow must have been very upset.’
‘He was in shock, of course. Frank and I went out on our own. We saw young Terry at the bottom of the hole. I said to Frank, it doesn’t look good, Frank, and he checked. He said to me, I’m afraid he’s had it, Doris, and I said we’d better get Charles to ring 999 again.’
It fitted with what Scott had told her. Tremlow had rung the emergency services twice.
‘Do you know how he fell? Did he stumble? Did he step off the edge without realizing?’
‘The metal bar gave way. We saw it up there hanging off. Shoddy workmanship, of course. Now when my neighbour had the builders in to do her roof she had a firm from town … and I’m sure she told her insurers it was the storm that took the tiles off but I know for a fact that—’
‘So he was probably drunk. Terry Martin, I mean. That’ll be why he fell. But why do you think he went up there in the first place?’
‘Oh no, he wouldn’t have been drunk. I know his parents. They’re strictly teetotal.’
‘Do you know them well?’ Annie asked, surprised.
‘Oh no, dear. Only through the church. I don’t think we’ve ever met. You can’t count the funeral.’
It didn’t mean anything. Teetotal parents didn’t mean their son didn’t drink. He was nearly forty and he’d certainly been drinking that night. Annie told herself not to read anything into it as she pushed Doris for the detail of the rest of that evening. It matched what she’d learnt from the colonel without any
significant additions.
Doris came out with Annie and walked with her to the car. ‘I’ve somewhere to go,’ she said.
Annie looked across the street in the direction of the crescent where Tremlow lived. Houses obscured her view.
‘Up here.’ Doris grabbed her arm and steered her up the road. After twenty metres she stopped. ‘There. Look.’
Through a gap in the houses, Annie could make out the rear elevations of the buildings at the base of the crescent. She saw both Tremlow and the colonel’s daughter’s houses as she squinted against the glare of the sun.
They walked back together to the car where Doris said a quick goodbye and sped off. Annie sat and watched her march down the road. Off to spread the tale of her visit maybe.
In a small change of plan, she pulled out her phone and punched in Tremlow’s number. A phone call might be more effective than a visit if it contained a veiled threat that she would call round if he didn’t come across with the information she wanted. And it would avoid the chance of physical contact. There was something about Tremlow that repulsed her.
She listened to the ringing tone and imagined Tremlow, his hooded eyes swivelling at the sound, giving the phone a spiteful glare for disturbing him. He’d pull himself to his feet and make his way across the floor. He wouldn’t hurry.
On the ninth ring it was answered.
‘Yes,’ said a clipped voice that Annie took a moment to recognize.
‘Ah … Colonel Ludgrove. It’s Annie Raymond.’ Damn. The colonel said he’d phone. Maybe Tremlow had begged his old friend to come round again, instinct telling him Annie’s attack wasn’t finished. ‘I … uh … I was worried about Mr Tremlow. How is he?’
‘Afraid I can’t tell you that. He isn’t here.’
‘Not there? But where is he?’
‘Popped out to the shop maybe.’ The colonel sounded uncertain. ‘I had no reply when I telephoned so I came over.’
‘But will he be all right?’
The colonel barked out a laugh. ‘Of course he’ll be all right. The chap has a temper on him. From what you told me you’ve riled him and he’s gone to walk it off I shouldn’t wonder.’
Annie remembered the upset, how she’d sensed Tremlow’s humiliation at breaking down in front of her. There’d been the makings of an angry outburst in the middle of it, but … ‘But he seems such a mild man.’
‘And they can be the worst when they blow. You’ll learn that as you grow up.’ The colonel laughed again. ‘Don’t you worry. Tremlow’s tougher than he looks. You’ve not done him any damage.’
‘OK, thanks.’ Annie ended the call and allowed herself a grunt of frustration. She could hardly tell the colonel she’d counted on having another go at his friend to find out what he had hidden about the night Terry Martin died.
A sharp rap at the window made her start up in alarm. It was Doris Kitson back again, her eyes narrowed, her mouth set in a conspiratorial smile.
‘That was a short visit,’ she said without preamble, as Annie slid the window down. She leant in closer so Annie could smell the chocolate on her breath. ‘By the time I was round he’d already gone off again. No sign of the car. What do you make of that?’
Annie pushed back an urge to say, ‘That you’re an old busybody’. Doris Kitson had hurried round to see what Mally’s father was up to at the ex-marital home and to gather in any gossip ready for picking. She’d now be off to spread the tale of the lightning visit leaving Annie with precious little of use in her search for Terry Martin’s lost hours.
‘Did you see Mr Tremlow?’
‘No, no. I didn’t go right down when I saw the car had gone.’
Tremlow couldn’t have gone far. Annie started up the engine and decided she would scour the lanes of Milesthorpe for him.
A fruitless search ended at the village shop where she found herself greeted like an old friend. She ordered a sandwich and asked, ‘Has Mr Tremlow been in? I went to call on him but he was out.’
‘No, we haven’t seen him this morning.’
When she left the shop, she drove once more round the village and then parked the car and set off on foot. At the bottom of the crescent she hesitated at Tremlow’s gate and then went round to the back garden. Feeling like an intruder, she tried the door. Locked. She peered through the kitchen window. The room lay empty. She walked down the side of the small lawn and pushed her way through the tangle of vegetation until she reached the boundary wall. From here, there was nothing visible of either Tremlow’s house or any other. The tangled bushes grew too high. At the other side of the wall ran a footpath bordered by a field high with crops.
She jumped down and looked back. From this angle, a quirk in the twisted branches of the high vegetation opened a window on the scaffolding tower. Her mind pictured Terry Martin up there.
After a moment, she turned and made off down the path, feeling hemmed in by the tall stalks to her left and the garden walls to her right. The colonel’s house would be that way across the field where a rough path by a ditch led off at right-angles. She looked back. He wouldn’t have been able to see anything from here, but Doris Kitson who’d come the other way had the advantage of the hill and would have had a grandstand view as she hurried round.
Annie didn’t head for the colonel’s, but followed the course of the ditch the other way and was surprised to find herself behind the row of houses where the Beckes lived. This, then, was the brook of Terry Martin’s clever headline.
She made her way up to the road near the Beckes’. Further along was the entrance to Balham’s farm, and if she were to turn up the hill and take one of the lanes that led from there, she’d be in the really prosperous end of Milesthorpe where she’d find the Tunbridges’ house. She felt a mild curiosity, but had no excuse to call round, and the time she’d allotted to Milesthorpe for today was now up.
With rising frustration she tried to push aside the feeling she’d spent a whole day out here and moved no further forward. What was it she’d told Pat yesterday? Terry Martin vanished for two days and then he died. That was all she knew then and it was all she knew now.
CHAPTER 14
ANNIE HOPED THE Earle case might prove more productive. How much did she tell Pat about what had happened last night? And what exactly had happened? She had a theory on the latter and before she went back to the apartment, would test it out.
Back in Hull, Annie headed away from the river and towards Orchard Park. She drove to the tower block, left the car and headed for the lobby. Once inside, she joined two people waiting in the lift bay. When the lift doors opened and they stepped inside, she half followed, keeping her foot in the door to hold it open, and peered at the panel, swiftly counting up the buttons and looking for the discreet holes that allowed special access to key holders. She stepped back out again and allowed the doors to close. She’d seen all she needed.
Outside again, she returned to the car and cruised round the area looking for a vantage point. A traffic island in the middle of a busy junction looked about right so she pulled the car off the road on to waste ground and climbed out.
It was several minutes before a gap in the traffic allowed her to cross to the middle of the junction. Once there, she pushed her way over lumpy and uneven ground through a tangle of grass and brambles that snaked through a clump of low bushes. The fight to find a way through reminded her of Doris Kitson. Had she learnt anything from all the chatter, all the meandering diversions? More to the point, had she missed anything?
She stood in knee-high grass with the roar of traffic in her ears and the sickly tang of exhaust fumes in her nostrils. Prickles of sweat stippled her skin. A haze of pollution shimmered in the air. The heat was oppressive in town in a way it wasn’t out in Milesthorpe. The temperature gauge in the car had climbed to twenty-six.
Her hands held the binoculars she’d used to watch the livery yard at the bottom of the hill in Milesthorpe. She lifted them to her eyes and focused on the distant roof of the tower block. Dori
s Kitson was mistaken: there was nothing wrong with her powers of observation; she hadn’t registered Mally’s father’s small blue car because she had no reason to and had other things on her mind.
The shapes on the high roof made no immediate sense. She’d never been on the roof of a tall building to know what was normal. There could be a miniature estate hidden away, a self-contained village. She liked the idea of trees and green spaces unseen by the city below, but all she saw was a concrete landscape with a couple of small brick built huts in amongst a forest of wires and aerials.
It would be the lift machinery, things to do with the heating systems, the means to keep these blocks of hundreds of homes operating.
And that was where those men had gone. She hadn’t seen them press any of the buttons, not that she’d been looking, but her memory should have shown her two sparks of light on that panel. It didn’t. It showed her only one. She didn’t know when they’d used the access key. Didn’t care. As she’d tangled with the woman in the flowered print dress, she’d heard the lift stopping and thought she was mistaken. It had stopped on the hidden upper floor; they’d gone up to the roof.
There was an inexplicable familiarity in the high landscape. Her view was obscured by the shimmer of a heat-haze, but the angular shapes of the miniature buildings and the curves of wires that glistened like giant spider-silk threads held her attention just like the baffling familiarity of the men the dealers brought with them. She stared perplexed. Two men she’d never set eyes on before still pestered her subconscious telling her she knew them. And now this. Alien shapes far above the ground tugging at a memory that couldn’t exist.
She became aware of a more constant scrutiny than the casual perusal from a stream of motorists. Dropping the binoculars from her eyes, she spun round and found herself returning the intense stare of an adolescent boy who stood on the far verge. A rush of cars separated them, but the intensity of his gaze held Annie. There was no hostility in his stare and it took a moment for her to realize who he was.
The joy-rider who might be called Maz. The one who’d disrupted Terry Martin’s funeral; the one who’d shouted at her outside the tower block the first time she’d visited Mrs Earle. He looked different, younger, more vulnerable without his cloak of arrogance. What did he want?