Weep a While Longer

by Penny Freedman

‘Not at all.’ He allowed himself a smile. ‘It’s not a fashion item, you know.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘In a family where the women wear full niqab it is quite common for the men to do all the shopping.’

  ‘But you can’t buy a niqab in Marlbury, can you?’

  ‘No. London would be the nearest place. Or they can be bought online. I can give you the names of some online sites.’

  ‘Thank you.’ This world, Scott thought, was odder than he could have imagined.

  *

  In Butchery Lane, trapped in the maze of crooked, narrow streets behind the abbey, Paula, with Sarah Shepherd beside her, drove slowly, scanning the crowded terrace of house fronts for the discreet sign that read The Samaritans. There was nowhere to park and she wondered how the volunteers managed. She parked round the corner on double yellow lines, then they walked back and rang the doorbell. An elderly woman opened the door, looked flustered when Paula waved her ID, said she would have to talk to the director and closed the door on them. After some time she returned, allowed them into the tiny hallway and directed them up the narrow stairs.

  ‘Right up the top here,’ a voice sang out as they reached the first landing, and they climbed an even narrower flight to a sloping-roofed eyrie with a single window and a startlingly close view of the abbey tower. The woman who stood up to greet them confounded Paula’s expectations. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but it wasn’t this. The woman was tall, blonde and manicured, slightly blowsy but expensively dressed, vaguely theatrical. Her voice had a smoker’s rasp to it and a half-smoked cigarette burned in an ashtray on the desk. She stubbed it out before moving out from behind the desk.

  ‘Filthy habit,’ she said. ‘Estelle Campion. I’m the director.’

  ‘DS Paula Powell and DC Sarah Shepherd,’ Paula offered, shaking hands.

  ‘Lovely.’ She beamed at them. ‘Would you like coffee? I’m sure one of the volunteers downstairs would bring us some.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to interrupt—’

  ‘Oh, it’s an easy gig, the morning slot. We’re rarely busy at this time.’

  She moved to the phone on her desk. ‘Milk, sugar?’

  ‘Both milk, no sugar, thanks.’

  ‘Fred, my darling,’ she purred into the phone, ‘if you’re not busy, could you bring us three coffees, two with milk, mine the usual? Brilliant!’

  Paula and Sarah seated themselves on a small sofa under the window, while Estelle Campion pulled a handsome leather swivel chair from behind her desk and sat down facing them.

  ‘Orthopaedic,’ she said, by way of explanation of the chair. ‘Bad back.’

  ‘I’m afraid,’ Paula said, ‘that I really don’t know much about the Samaritans. I know what you do, of course, but … is this a full-time job, being director?’

  Estelle Campion gave a hoot of laughter. ‘If only!’ she said. ‘I’m just a volunteer like everyone else. I do this for three years and then return to the corps de ballet.

  ‘So how much time do you spend here?’ Sarah ventured.

  ‘Oh, I’m here most days. It’s how I choose to do the job. Some directors have full-time jobs, of course, and can’t give the time, but I’m fortunate in having a husband who can keep me in the manner I enjoy being accustomed to, so I can give this my full-time attention. I want to make a difference. It’s mainly fundraising, if I’m honest. We have to raise money all the time just to keep going. This is my latest project.’ She gestured at the room. ‘It was a storeroom full of junk up till six months ago, and now voilà! Of course, it helps that my husband is in business locally. I have connections.’

  Feeling that she was getting more information than she needed but unwilling to start on the substantive business until the coffee arrived, Paula said, ‘Lovely view.’

  ‘Yes,’ Estelle Campion said, frowning slightly. ‘The bloody bells can get you down, though.’

  The clinking of china signalled the arrival of coffee and a small, neat, silver-haired man arrived with a tray.

  ‘My favourite man,’ Estelle murmured, patting his arm as she took her coffee. Black, Paula noticed, and with quite a bit of sugar in it to judge from the way she stirred it. A woman who liked to be wired, then.

  ‘So,’ Estelle asked as Fred disappeared, her eyes suddenly sharp, ‘what is it I can do for you?’

  ‘You’ll have read about the murders of Karen and Lara Brody,’ Paula said, putting her coffee down to cool. ‘We are aware that Karen made several calls to the Samaritans in the week before she died, the last of them very shortly before she was killed.’

  ‘And who gave you that information?’ The geniality had quite disappeared from her voice.

  ‘We have Karen’s phone records,’ Paula said. ‘The calls are there.’

  Estelle Campion sipped her coffee. ‘So, you know about them. What more do you expect me to tell you?’

  ‘I would like to know what she said. We believe it’s information that will help us to find her killer.’

  ‘Ha! You really don’t know much about us, do you, if you think that I’m going to tell you what a caller said to us in confidence?’

  ‘I know that you can be subpoenaed to give that information in evidence in court. And you know that too.’

  ‘And I know that there is no court case in the offing.’

  Paula sighed. ‘Karen Brody is dead,’ she said. ‘I think your duty of confidentiality ends with death, doesn’t it? Don’t you have a duty now to help us find her killer?’

  ‘Our duty of confidentiality doesn’t end with death. Sadly, we lose some of our callers – some do kill themselves – but what they said to us remains confidential.’

  ‘So you won’t help us to find a murderer?’

  ‘No.’

  Sarah stood up and moved towards the door. ‘You keep notes on your callers, don’t you?’ she asked.

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘When I was at school. We had a talk. Two people from the Samaritans came and talked to us. Someone asked if they kept notes and they said yes.’

  Estelle looked her in the eye. ‘We have no notes on Karen,’ she said. ‘I destroyed them when we heard that she’d died.’

  ‘How could you be sure that it was the same woman who had talked to you?’ Paula asked. ‘Was there anything she said that made you think she was in danger?’

  ‘The names. She told us her name was Karen and her daughter was Lara.’

  ‘Just that?’

  ‘Just that.’

  They stared at each other.

  ‘I’m just going to pop downstairs now, Mrs Campion,’ Sarah said suddenly. ‘I’m going to take a look at your records. You can give us access or you can wait for us to come back with a search warrant. If we do that, you’ll have a couple of marked police cars sitting outside for several hours and I’m not sure what that will do for your public image.’

  Go Sarah! Paula thought as she heard her start down the stairs. It was a card she hadn’t intended to play just yet but it was obviously going to work. Estelle Campion picked up her phone. ‘There’s a policewoman coming down to look through the log, Fred,’ she said. ‘You know the procedure, don’t you?’

  Paula heard the emphasis on log and procedure. Fred was being given instructions to hide everything except the log. On the other hand, she was prepared to believe that notes on Karen had been destroyed. What would be the point of keeping notes on a dead woman? She stood up.

  ‘Did you ever talk to Karen yourself?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you knew about her? You discussed her with other volunteers?’

  Estelle gave a slight nod.

  ‘Did you think she was in danger?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She wasn’t suicidal.’

  ‘And not in danger from anyone else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So why was she calling?’

  Estelle gave a sigh. ‘You’ve only got to read th
e papers to know why. Husband serving a long prison sentence, young child, no money, lonely. Who wouldn’t be depressed?’

  ‘But she had been in that situation for months, and she was finding her way out of it, getting a qualification. Why did she suddenly start calling?’

  ‘She had something she was trying to sort out. A problem. She was cagey about it. Said it was about divided loyalties – something like that.’

  ‘And that was it?’

  ‘That was it.’

  She stood up and took a raincoat off a hook on the back of the door. ‘And now I’ll just see you off the premises before I go. I’m due out at Hartfield Hall. They’re very kindly putting on a fundraiser for us – a strawberries and champagne tea.’

  Paula found Sarah in a small, messy room with four telephones. She was completing her check of the log. ‘The dates and times tally,’ she said, ‘and this Y/N column here is for suicidal or not. She’s always an N.’ Under her breath, she murmured, ‘No sign of any other records. They’ve spirited them away somewhere.’

  Paula turned to Estelle Campion, who was standing in the doorway with her raincoat on. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘If you think of anything else, I’m sure you’ll let me know.’

  Outside, at the car, she said to Sarah, ‘You did well in there. Quite changed the weather.’

  Sarah flushed scarlet. ‘Was that all right? I was worried I was out of order.’

  ‘Just don’t try it too often,’ Paula said. ‘OK?’

  Her phone rang.

  ‘David?’

  ‘Paula. Are you finished at the Samaritans?’

  ‘Yes, Not much joy. She—’

  ‘Can you get up to the hospital right away?’

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘Jamilleh Hamidi has just been taken in. We don’t have much detail yet. She was found semi-conscious on the university campus. Someone appears to have tried to strangle her.’

  ‘Will she be all right?’

  ‘They don’t know yet. She tried to say something, apparently, according to our guys who responded to the 999 call.’

  ‘This has to be to do with her talking to me yesterday, doesn’t it, David?’

  ‘It’s … possible.’

  ‘And it links her assailant – Karen and Lara’s killer – to the university.’

  ‘I think that’s moving too fast. There are a lot of unknowns.’

  She was in the car now, with Sarah driving. ‘David, it doesn’t have to be the killer who attacked her, does it? What she told me made it more likely that Karen and Lara were killed by a Muslim man. If Jamilleh told anyone – her husband, for instance – what she told me, do you think she could have been punished for directing us towards the Muslim community?’

  ‘Paula, we don’t know and we can’t know yet. We need to hear from her, which is why I need you and Sarah at the hospital.’

  ‘Have you got a guard on her there, or are we it?’

  ‘Mike Arthur’s there. He was on the 999 call and I’ve told him to stay.’

  ‘OK.’ Just about to ring off, she had a sudden thought. ‘What about Jamilleh’s friend – Farah? She was there that afternoon and there yesterday when Jamilleh talked to me. If it was the killer who attacked Jamilleh, Farah could be in danger too.’

  There was silence on the other end. Then he said, ‘For that matter, Gina would be in danger too.’

  ‘So? What do we do?’

  ‘We can’t offer protection – we haven’t the resources. But they should be made aware.’

  ‘Do you want me to do that?’

  There was a silence.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ll do it.’

  14

  Wednesday 25th July

  Safety Catch

  Although Freda and I get off to an early start, I am slow-moving from lack of sleep and it takes us an age to be ready to leave the house. For a start, there is a fair bit of clearing up to be done in the kitchen. I heard Annie’s troupe return and crash about last night, and the evidence is here in the form of malodorous burger wrappings, bloody ketchup smears and a small puddle of beer. Then we make eggy bread for breakfast, which necessitates further clearing up; I require a second cup of coffee and take longer than my allotted ten minutes to do the quick crossword; Freda gets bored and goes to find some morning rubbish on the television, from which she has to be prised away. In the end, it is after nine before I get her strapped into my bike’s child seat and we set off for the campus. I am dropping Freda at Acorns. Although term has finished, there are children’s holiday activities going on in venues around the campus, and activities for the under-fives happen at Acorns. This morning, Freda is looking forward to dance and percussion sessions – less messy than yesterday’s potato prints.

  I drop her off and as I’m wheeling my bike through the car park I spot a familiar figure unloading a toddler from a shiny green four-by-four. It is Lavender, my ex-husband’s newish wife, looking as fragrant as ever, despite having produced two sons in quick succession. This morning she is wearing tailored cream trousers, a crisp tan-and-cream-striped shirt, a tan bow tying back her discreetly streaked blonde hair and pearl earrings. Earrings, even? For the nursery run?

  I have nothing against Lavender, actually. She is a sweet, if not very bright young woman and Andrew and I were long divorced before he met her. If anything I feel a bit guilty towards her; I feel I should have warned her what hopeless husband material Andrew is. She looks cheerful enough, though. It all depends on what you want, I suppose. I am surprised to see her here; I assumed she was going for total immersion motherhood.

  ‘Good morning,’ I call as I approach. ‘Is Arthur a regular Acorns attender these days?’ I flash an obligatory smile at the solemn infant.

  She leans in to mwah mwah me. ‘I’m getting him used to it,’ she says, blushing slightly. ‘I’m starting a course next term – just part time – Art Appreciation.’

  ‘Lovely,’ I say.

  ‘Well …’ the blush deepens ‘… I thought I should have something to talk to Andrew about in the evenings. Don’t want to be a drudgy wife who can only talk about nappies, you know.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I say, not adding that in my experience Andrew prefers talking to being talked to. ‘Well, good luck with that!’ and off I go.

  As I’m wheeling my bike past the Student Union towards the English Language block, my eye is caught by activity over to my right, near the dance studio. There are flashing lights. An ambulance and a police car. I swerve round and steer in that direction, trying not to look like an obvious rubbernecker, keeping my eyes to the ground as though deep in thought. When I’m close enough, though, I look up, just in time to see someone being loaded into the ambulance. She is being carried feet first, so I see first the folds of a grey chador, and then her face.

  I am so shocked that I let my bike fall to the ground and the clatter alerts one of the policemen, who comes bustling towards me, waving me away.

  ‘This is a possible crime scene,’ he calls. ‘No nearer, please.’

  ‘But I know her,’ I call, moving closer. ‘I’m her teacher.’

  ‘Well, good for you,’ he says. ‘We still don’t need you all over the crime scene.’

  ‘I can identify her,’ I say. ‘I know who she is.’

  ‘We know who she is, madam. She had ID on her. Now if you wouldn’t mind—’

  ’Of course,’ I say. ‘Sorry.’ But I linger as I pick up my bike, until he turns back and scowls at me and I am forced to wheel it away.

  Jamilleh. A crime scene. What the hell is going on?

  There is one person who could definitely tell me and he is the very person I have sworn not to contact. I have decided, since yesterday’s meeting in Malcolm’s office, that I am not speaking to David any more, and that it – whatever it was – is over between us. I am not being unreasonable. David has been back from London for almost a week now and he has not contacted me once. All attempts at communication have come from me and the only ones he has responde
d to have been those relating to the murders. Otherwise, he has not answered his phone, he has ignored my texts and has sent automatic out of office replies to my emails. I didn’t expect the affair, relationship, folie à deux or whatever else you like to call it between us to end like this. I fully expected it to end some time, but by mutual agreement between two mature adults. I didn’t envisage one of us dumping the other as though we were a pair of hormone-crazed teenagers. When I think about it, though, David has played this cleverly. He wants to be rid of me but hasn’t the guts to dump me, so he is ignoring me, knowing full well that I won’t be able to stand that and so will be the one to dump him. He walks away feeling virtuous – even hard done by – and I have no-one to shout at.

  I am pondering this, and probably snarling a bit, as I round the corner of the English Language building and come face to face with Margaret Jones, current head of the USLS and putative director of the new, amalgamated unit. This is a situation which is beyond even my social aplomb, and it is certainly way out of her league. We stand and stare at each other until she ducks her head, performs an odd little scamper and heads off in the direction of the registry. I watch her go. Those sandals! As I walk upstairs to my office, I’m reminded of a scene I had with Annie when she was fourteen and insisted on giving up GCSE Physics. ‘Miss Proctor’s shoes,’ she said. ‘I cannot spend another year looking at those shoes. There is a distinct possibility that one day I shall throw up.’ I rebuked her, of course, and told her how immature it was to let such trivia get in the way of her education, but today I’m with Annie all the way.

  In my office I can’t settle to anything. I need to know what happened to Jamilleh. Would Paula tell me? Unlikely, I know, but there’s no harm in trying. I don’t have her mobile number, so I ring the police station, to be told, brusquely, that DS Powell is out of the station and they can’t say when she will be back. So where is she? At the hospital? Well, I can ring the hospital, can’t I? I ring reception and I explain, in my most authoritative tone, that I am the director of the English Language Unit at the university (for how much longer? an insidious little voice in my head asks me). ‘I have been informed,’ I say, ‘that a student of ours, a Mrs Jamilleh Hamidi, has met with an accident and has been taken to A&E. I wanted to enquire about her condition and the circumstances of the accident as I may need to inform her family.’