‘Virginia?’ she asks. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Nothing’s happened. I’m fine. I just want to know what time the Christmas lights are being switched on.’
‘Why?’
‘Oh, you know, congestion in town and so on. I’m wondering whether to take a taxi from the station or if it’s better to walk.’ (When did I become such a smooth liar?) ‘Could you have a look in the local paper for me? It’s in the recycling probably, but it’ll be near the top.’
She is away for ages and Shepton Halt is approaching. I’m just deciding I’ll get out come what may when she is back on the line, a little breathless. ‘Four o’clock at the clock tower,’ she says.
‘Excellent. I’ll be home soon after five, I should think. And don’t worry, I’m absolutely fine.’
The steps up to the bridge at Shepton Halt are icy and I’m negotiating them with care when a thought occurs to me. The train I’ve just got off is the London train. Anyone getting the London train from here has to cross the bridge to get to it. How did Glenys get over here with a sprained ankle on that fateful afternoon when her daughter died? Her ankle was too bad for her to drive, so Colin drove her. Presumably he helped her over the bridge too. I have an absurd but arresting image of him picking the little woman up and carrying her over the bridge.
No-one has swept the drive at Charter Hall. There are tyre marks but no footprints in the virgin snow, I notice. The house looks secretive, shuttered and, under a sky that’s now metallic grey, deeply unwelcoming. I crunch up the drive as fast as I can and head round the side of the house. To my right are the stables where I saw the DVDs, and I dodge inside. Initially, I think I’ve lost my bearings and gone to the wrong place because it looks quite different: the stalls are all there but they are completely empty. I run up and down, looking hopelessly into each as though I can conjure back the stacks of boxes. I was right: the police have screwed up and the whole lot are now at the bottom of the river. Or were they moved weeks ago? Were they moved on the day I saw them, even, a few days after Marina’s death? Was that what Cunningham and Driver were arguing about in the Morgan that afternoon? Whatever is the case, this has been a fool’s errand and now I’m facing forty minutes standing around on a freezing platform waiting for the next train.
I might, at least, be able to get a look at the studio. I emerge from the stables to look around and see that, over to my left, in contrast to the untouched drive, the snow has been trodden underfoot. I walk over to have a look. I was a rotten girl guide and failed to win my tracking badge but even I can see that someone has walked between the outhouse here and the river bank several times.
‘White man he go that way,’ I murmur and I walk towards the little quay where – and I don’t know why I should be surprised by this – I find the blue boat, bobbing innocently on the water, packed with what looks, at first sight, like the contents of a rather naff pre-teen girl’s bedroom. There is a Little Miss Sunshine duvet, a pink, fluffy rug rolled up, a rocking horse, a heap of furry animals and what looks like a folded backcloth. As it dawns on me what this is, I think I’m going to vomit. Saliva rushes into my mouth and I lean over, preparing to throw up, but I am stopped in mid-heave by something more alarming: the sound of someone walking up the drive towards me through the snow.
Well, of course they are. If I can follow footprints in the snow, so can they. Cunningham and Driver. David, no doubt, rattled their cages this morning and they’ve been here to destroy the evidence, and what a bonus! Here’s nosey parker Gina Gray, who inconveniently survived being knocked on the head the other night, presenting herself for another pop. What will they do with me? Knock me out and dump me in the freezing river, I assume.
I turn round and head for the outhouse to my right, slithering and half running but keeping my feet, as much as I can, in the tracks that are already there. I find myself in a genuine theatre store, the acceptable face, one might say, of the Aphra Behn presence at Charter Hall. There are flats stacked against the walls, a chandelier and a full moon hanging from hooks in the roof, a leafless tree, a throne and a painted screen in the middle of the space, with a welter of chairs and stools filling the rest of it. I edge in, looking for a hiding place, sweating in spite of the cold, holding my breath, desperate not to knock anything over.
Slowly, slowly, I edge my way round the tree, the throne, the chairs, aiming for a door standing ajar at the far end. As I go, I’m straining my ears for the sound of those footsteps in the snow and I think whoever it is has followed my tracks into the stables, which gives me a couple of minutes but not more – it doesn’t take long to search empty stables. Forcing myself to breathe slowly, I edge my way through the door into the room beyond.
It’s darker in here and I have to stand still, listening to the bouncy thumping of my heart, until I can look around. It’s a smallish room, maybe ten feet square, and it has nothing in it but a tall cupboard – locked, as I soon discover. I’ve got no doubt that this is the studio. This is where it happened, I think, and with the thought come images which threaten again to have me throwing up. Don’t be so bloody wet, woman, I mouth silently and I home in on a second door, which stands next to the cupboard. I don’t want to open this door. I’m rattled enough by this time to be panicked at the thought of what I might find there. What do I imagine? Well, anything, really. If this were television, there’d be a child tied up in there, or even a body. Is it ridiculous to think that’s what I might find? Just how vile is this business I’ve stumbled on? I have no idea.
I don’t like the fact that there’s a key in the lock. I turn it, listening intently for any movement inside. Nothing. I push the door open a few inches and cold air rushes in on me. There’s no room, no cupboard, no horrors beyond, just the world outside and the back door of Charter Hall facing me and a lit window beside it. Through the window, I can see someone moving about, someone standing at a sink, washing up. Renée Deakin. Without thinking, I rush across and hammer on the back door. All I can think of is that in there, in that bright kitchen with Renée, I’m bound to be safe. When the door opens, I almost fall inside.
Renée stares at me, puzzlement and alarm written almost comically on her face. She reminds me of an Edwardian manual for actors I saw once, which gave examples of appropriate facial expressions for different emotions – grief, joy, anger, surprise et cetera – all ludicrously overplayed. I take a deep, wobbly breath and laugh unconvincingly. ‘I’m so sorry, Renée,’ I say. ‘I must have given you an awful shock banging on the door like that. Someone chased me up the drive –’
I see her face close in disbelief. I’m afraid she thinks I’m mad and I remember what odd clothes I’m wearing – the red hat, the fur coat, the après-ski boots. With sudden inspiration, I say, ‘Boys! Throwing snowballs. Nasty ones, packed hard.’ Her face relaxes infinitesimally but I know she needs more. ‘I was coming to see Glenys,’ I say, and then I can think of nothing more. Inspiration fails my figuring brain. I can come up with no reason, no reason at all, why I should be visiting Glenys Summers whom, as far as Renée knows, I’ve never met.
‘Glenys is in Marlbury,’ she says. ‘She’s switching on the Christmas lights.’
‘Of course she is,’ I cry. ‘How stupid of me.’ I’m no longer watching Renée’s face, though, because I’ve seen another one, at the window, pale against the gathering gloom outside. Neil Cunningham. ‘You seem to have another visitor,’ I say.
She glances at the window. ‘Oh, it’s Neil. They’ve been moving some props to take down to the theatre, for the pantomime.’
Neil Cunningham’s face moves away from the window and then there’s a light tapping at the door. As Renée goes to open it, I back further into the room, towards a knife block which stands near the cooker. He doesn’t come in, though. He stands outside but his voice comes through clearly. ‘Renée darling, I’m off. Taking the boat. I’ll be back with it tomorrow. Thank you for the lovely cuppa earlier. Warmed the cockles it did.’
‘You’re very w
elcome, Neil. You know it’s always a pleasure to see you.’ Renée’s voice sounds different – breathy, stagey, the vowels over-careful. ‘I’d offer you another cup but you should get going before you’re frozen in.’ She gives a little gurgle of laughter.
‘Oh yes, Captain Shackleton, that’s me,’ he says, and she gurgles again.
‘Bye!’
‘Bye!’
She closes the door. ‘He’s such a charmer,’ she says. ‘He always calls me darling like that. I don’t care so much for Alex but Neil always goes out of his way to be pleasant.’ She fills the kettle, switches it on and goes back to the sink.
Wasn’t there something odd and contrived about that conversation? Wasn’t Neil Cunningham really sending a message to me? Telling me he was going, that it was safe for me to leave, when all the time there’ll be someone else out there in the winter evening, waiting for me? I look at my watch. It’s a quarter past four. If I don’t leave soon, I’ll miss the train and then I’ll be stuck for an hour waiting for the next train, prey to anyone who’s after me, if not to hypothermia. My only chance of safety is to leave with Renée. They can’t attack me while I’m walking down the drive with her, can they? Unless –
A wave of sweaty terror sweeps over me. Suppose she’s in this with them. You’d need a woman around, wouldn’t you, if you were luring children out here? Someone to deal with the model agencies and reassure parents? She’s star-struck enough, isn’t she, to do what Neil tells her? Or Glenys tells her. Could she – and the thought makes me sit down suddenly on a kitchen chair because my legs feel as though they might go – could she be the person who killed Marina? She didn’t have much of an alibi, did she? What did she say? That she drove by that afternoon on her way to pick up the boys, but didn’t call in because the doctor’s car was there. But she could easily have been there earlier, couldn’t she? The police wouldn’t have checked out her alibi all that carefully because they’d no reason to suspect her. And she could have been the woman who made the call from the phone box in the morning – called her own number and left a message on the answer phone, which she wiped later.
I hear the sound of an outboard motor starting up. The boat’s leaving. She turns to look at me, drying her hands on her apron. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she says. ‘You don’t look very well, if you don’t mind me saying. Very pale. I hardly recognised you when you came in the door. Have you had flu or something?’
Her tone is reassuringly normal, but then it would be, wouldn’t it, if she’s a clever killer? I don’t know what to think and I’m so tired now that I can’t go on making the effort. I’ve used up all my energy getting here and if I’m in a trap, then I am. I undo my coat, lean back in my chair and close my eyes.
‘Thank you, Renée,’ I say. ‘I’d love a cup of tea, if you don’t mind. As a matter of fact, I’m not feeling wonderful. I haven’t had flu or anything but I did have a rather nasty experience the other night.’ I prise my eyes open so I can watch her face. ‘I was mugged. Someone hit me over the head as I was walking through the abbey cloisters in the dark. They didn’t steal my bag though – only a DVD I had with me – a DVD of Amy, actually. Luckily, I was wearing a big, thick fur hat, otherwise I’d still be in hospital, I should think – or dead.’
There is unfeigned shock on her face, I’m sure of that. She certainly didn’t know about this, even if she is working with them, and if she’s so shocked by the idea of my being mugged, can she possibly be the person who hit Marina over the head? I don’t know. My head feels so fuzzy I have to stop thinking. I take my tea, which is bracingly strong, and put some sugar into it. Renée watches me with the disapproval of a woman for whom calorie counting is a basic tenet of existence. She sits at the table and chats about her boys, and I murmur agreement, admiration, sympathy, surprise. I let myself relax. This is only a temporary reprieve, I know. There’s still the walk to the station to be negotiated, but I’m glad of this respite at least.
Eventually, Renée says, ‘Well, I must be getting going. My husband will be home with the boys.’ I wonder if I can ask her for a lift to the station, but as she’s putting her coat on she says, ‘I didn’t bring the car today. I didn’t fancy the roads round here, so I walked.’
That’s it then. We walk down the drive together, she chatting inconsequentially, I alert to every stir and breath. At the end of the drive, she says, ‘You take care of yourself, now,’ and she turns to the left and walks away, leaving me to turn right and face the terrible shadows in the lane ahead. And then, before I’ve gone more than a few yards, there’s a sweep of headlights and a crunch of wheels and a car squeals to a halt beside me. I can’t run. I’ve no strength for running, but as the driver’s door opens and someone gets out, I close my eyes, open my mouth and prepare to scream my head off.
‘Get in the car,’ a man’s voice says.
24
FRIDAY 19th NOVEMBER
08.30: OPERATION
‘The first step is the DVD,’ Scott said. ‘Everything else follows from that. If we can’t get hold of one then we’ve no grounds for search warrants.’
It was eight-thirty in the morning. He and Andy Finnegan had just parked behind the Aphra Behn Theatre; Steve Boxer and DC Sean Lytton were drawing up beside them; a squad car was parked in the boatyard next door; Paula Powell and Sarah Shepherd had gone to Marlbury Abbey School to talk to Edmund Carson.
‘There’s a light on,’ Finnegan said. ‘Someone got in there early.’
‘Let’s see who it is.’
The stage door had a key pad on it but there was a bell beside it, which Finnegan leaned on. There was a light patter of feet from inside and the door opened to reveal a young woman, no more than five feet tall, wearing dungarees and carrying a large bunch of keys on her belt. She peered at them through small steel-rimmed glasses; they flashed their warrant cards.
‘Detective Chief Inspector David Scott. We’d like to talk to Neil Cunningham or Alex Driver.’
‘They’re – they’re not in yet.’
‘When do you expect them?’
‘Alex is usually in by nine, Neil a bit later.’
‘Fine. We’ll wait outside then.’
Scott turned away and then turned back. ‘There is just one thing you can probably help us with,’ he said, pleasantly. ‘We’re wanting to get hold of a DVD of the stage show, Amy. I believe it was recorded here and you have some copies.’
‘Well, I don’t know if I can –’
‘It is quite important,’ Scott said, taking a step over the threshold. ‘It’s in relation to a serious assault that took place two days ago in the abbey cloisters. A DVD like that was one of the items stolen. It’s important that we get hold of another – for comparison.’
Andy Finnegan pushed in past the girl. ‘Where do you keep them?’ he asked. ‘Down here is it?’ He set off down the passage with the girl in pursuit.
‘I think I’ve seen them in Alex’s office,’ she was saying, ‘but – well – OK, it’s the one on the left at the end there.’
Scott followed and she unlocked the door with one of the keys at her waist. Inside, the office was tidy – pathologically so, Scott thought. The desk was empty but for a phone, a clean memo pad and a neatly-stacked in-tray; books and files stood upright on shelves; a cafetière and two mugs stood, clean and shiny, on a small table; a filing cabinet was topped by a single, glossy plant. The only item in the room that seemed even slightly out of place was a large cardboard box, standing behind the desk, under the window.
‘In here, are they?’ said Finnegan and thrust a hand into the box. ‘Thanks very much,’ he said, pocketing a DVD. ‘Do you want a receipt?’
‘Oh no, I expect it’s all ri –’
‘I think we’ll give you one,’ Scott said, and he sat at the desk and wrote briefly on the memo pad. ‘Mr Driver will see that when he gets in.’
Outside the stage door, Scott said, ‘Let’s have it then, Andy. I’m going straight back to look at it. You and Boxer wai
t for Cunningham and Driver. When they arrive, take one each. Keep them pinned down in their offices till you hear from me. Keep them talking. Ask Cunningham again about the evening of the mugging and see how much you can rattle Driver about the DVDs. If this DVD’s as incriminating as we think, once they know we’ve got it, they’ll be desperate to get away. Don’t let them.’
Back at the station, he headed for the room occupied by Marlbury’s small vice squad. Only Sanjay Gupta was in there. ‘Mind if I watch something in here, Sanjay?’ Scott asked.
‘Be my guest. Want me to join you?’
‘I don’t know. I’m taking a punt. It may just be a naff musical.’
‘Sounds fun.’
Scott slipped the disc into the DVD player and they sat and watched for a few minutes. It was odd, Scott thought, that it felt less embarrassing to be watching with another officer than it would have been to watch it alone. After a while, he pressed pause. ‘There’s no doubt what it is, is there?’
‘No. I’ve seen a lot worse. This is pretty soft as these things go, but no-one’s going to be able claim it’s just a home movie.’
‘How do you stand it, Sanjay, week in, week out? Doesn’t it get to you?’
‘The day it doesn’t get to me I’ll apply for a transfer. If I didn’t feel outraged I couldn’t do the job.’
Scott stood up. ‘Well, I’ve got a call to make. I guess the fall-out from this will be coming your way.’
‘We’ll be waiting.’
Back in his office, Scott called Andy Finnegan. ‘Andy? Where are you?’
‘I’m talking to Mr Driver.’
‘Good. Bring him in.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. Have you got Lytton with you?’
All the Daughters Page 22