Forgotten Voices

by Jane A. Adams

  ‘Dave, I’m fine,’ Mac told him a little impatiently as though following Kendall’s train of thought. ‘It’s the kids I feel sorry for. You can’t unsee something like that.’

  At Rina’s house the radio was tuned to one of the local channels, Stephen Montmorency enjoying the gossip and music while he cooked, even though tonight there were so many people in the kitchen that they almost drowned it out. But a headline on the local news bulletin had him calling for silence.

  A sudden quiet fell in the kitchen.

  ‘Oh, what is it, dear?’ Eliza asked anxiously.

  ‘The news. Something about a shooting.’

  ‘Here, oh that’s …’

  ‘Hush, dear, just listen.’

  The fatal shooting of a woman close to the village of Cranstock. The shooting is believed to have taken place at a remote farmhouse, a few miles from the village. The police have not confirmed the identity of the victim, but she is believed to be a mother of two who lived at the farm. In other news …

  ‘Well, we know where Mac will be,’ Tim commented. ‘A domestic incident or whatever they call it?’

  ‘Possibly,’ Rina agreed.

  ‘Oh, Rina.’ Stephen looked fondly in her direction. ‘What a nasty piece of news to come home to. And it’s been so quiet while you’ve been away.’

  ‘Stephen, you sound as though Rina was responsible,’ Eliza scolded.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure he didn’t mean that,’ Bethany intervened. ‘It’s sad though, isn’t it? A mother with little children.’

  Tim met Rina’s gaze and smiled conspiratorially. ‘I know Mac hoped to call in tonight,’ he said. ‘I don’t think that will happen now.’

  ‘Probably not,’ she agreed and felt oddly put out and then guilty for feeling put out. A woman had died, that took vast precedence over a mere social visit. She refilled the teapot and carried it through to the dining room, setting it with the second pot of hot water on the sideboard. Joy followed her in.

  ‘Tim’s missed you terribly,’ she said.

  ‘And I’ve missed him. I’ve missed everyone but … Well, you know.’

  ‘I know.’ Joy was fully aware that Rina regarded Tim very much as the son she had never had. She leaned over and kissed Rina gently on the cheek. ‘And you know that you will always be welcome in our house, don’t you?’

  ‘Thank you, Joy. That means a great deal.’

  But it won’t be the same, Rina thought. For all that she wished the young couple happiness, she still grieved in a way. And for all Joy’s assurance of welcome, Rina knew that she would never intrude on them uninvited, even though she hoped they would continue to just drop into Peverill Lodge as and when they wished. She remembered her precious time with her husband Fred. How wonderful it had been just to close the door and be alone. How they had treasured their privacy and she wished Tim and Joy the same precious time and hoped, fervently, that for them it would not come to so swift an end.

  A family liaison officer came to collect the children just after seven and told them that their aunt was coming down from York and their nan was now at home. She got their grandmother on the phone to talk to them and there were more tears. Hilly Richards stood on the doorstep and waved them off. Toby watched from the window, his face grave and anxious. He knew what his wife was going to say before she came back into the living room.

  ‘I know,’ he told her. ‘Maybe we should have said something.’

  ‘There’s no maybe about it!’

  ‘Then why didn’t you? Why don’t you now?’

  She frowned and closed her lips in a tight, tense line.

  ‘The Inspector left his card,’ Toby pointed out.

  He watched as his wife stalked, stiff-shouldered into the kitchen, then looked back at the tiny scrap of card left on the telephone table beside the window. He wheeled his chair over and picked it up. For a full minute, he stared at the phone, listening to his wife clattering about in the kitchen behind him. She seemed to be making far more noise than was necessary for a bit of tea and sandwich making and he guessed that she was crying and didn’t want him to hear.

  She had cried a lot since his accident but she seemed never to want him to hear and so he always tried not to listen.

  Sighing, he lay the card back down beside the phone. Yes, they probably should have said something, but would it make a difference? Or would it just cast suspicion in the wrong direction and waste police time? Ellen hadn’t been specific in her accusations after all.

  He really didn’t know, but soothing himself with that possibility, Toby wheeled away from the phone and retrieved the remote control from where it had slipped down beside the seat cushion of his favourite chair. He transferred awkwardly from wheelchair to armchair, terribly aware that this was where Ellen Tailor’s children had huddled beneath the plaid blanket not a half hour before.

  Poor little sods, Toby thought. Both parents gone now. Then he put them from his mind and pressed the on button on the remote control.

  FIVE

  Day after Ellen’s death

  Mac had left his car parked at the police station the night before and walked home around the headland. It was something he often did. There was a small space, enough for three cars if you knew just how to arrange them, behind the station and it was about a ten-minute walk to work from the tiny flat above the boathouse that he shared with Miriam. Frantham old town, unlike the Victorian creation that had become Frantham New, had no vehicle access. It was a fairly sizeable settlement, scrambling down the hill from the main road to the tiny harbour. Still predominantly occupied by locals and fiercely resisting development it had largely escaped the holiday and second home brigade because, as Mac well knew, it was so damned awkward to get into.

  A small car park had been established at the top of the hill a few years before he had arrived but a lot of people, like Mac, parked somewhere in Frantham New Town and made their way back and forth along the headland path, at least when the weather permitted.

  Mac loved his walk to work; it gave him time to think and to get ready for the day. The old boathouse had once been the lifeboat store and the slipway was still in place. The first part of his walk ran down past the slipway, along by the harbour wall and then across a bit of beach. The wooden walkway that led around the cliff, suddenly rising up from the beach and separating old settlement from new, was treacherous in winter but for the rest of the year, Mac considered it a joy. Looking down through the slats he could see the ocean roiling and bubbling beneath, eating away at the rocks that footed the cliff. Looking out, leaning on the wooden handrail, he could take in the full expanse of Frantham bay. He was, Mac realized, somewhat in love with this little backwater, with its peace and its people and when violence intruded he became quite unreasonably resentful.

  The walk to work ended on Frantham beach and then a few brief steps along the promenade. He was unsurprised to see Rina Martin leaning against the rail and looking out at the quiet sea.

  Mac kissed her cheek and then took a good look at her. ‘You’re looking well. A bit tired though?’

  ‘A lot tired. But I’ve enjoyed myself more than I thought I would.’

  Mac leaned beside her on the railing. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t manage to come round last night. By the time we’d finished up the initial interviews and the paperwork and had time to talk to the family it was well after nine and, well—’

  ‘I don’t suppose you were in any mood for social chit-chat by then either.’ She clasped his arm. ‘I didn’t expect you, but I thought it would be nice to catch you before work. I’ve missed my early morning walks. And our conversations.’

  ‘Me too,’ Mac admitted. Rina had become part of his routine and it had seemed strange when a hole had appeared in the daily fabric.

  ‘I’m going to see what Joy and Tim have done with their house, later. Joy is very excited.’

  They turned together and wandered along the promenade towards the coffee shop halfway down. ‘I went over last week,’ Mac told her. �
��Joy has been having a hard time keeping Bridie in check. Someone had told her there was a West Country tradition of painting cottages pink … well you can imagine …’

  ‘Oh, Lord. Can I! Bridie is a wonderful woman but she does have her own distinctive style. I take it Joy won that one?’

  ‘She did, yes. But Bridie did come up trumps in the end. She went to an auction and bought a scrubbed pine table, a smaller version of the one you’ve got in your kitchen. Lovely old Victorian thing with a little drawer. Joy was delighted.’

  Rina smiled. ‘I heard on the news,’ she said, ‘about the poor woman at the farm.’

  ‘The kids found her, Rina. When they came home from school. I talked to them yesterday … or rather, when Frank talked to them yesterday. I must admit, I let him get on with it. I just stood around looking useless.’

  ‘We each have our skills, Mac. Frank is a people person. Folk trust him instinctively. They also trust you to get the job done.’

  ‘Well, anyway. The poor little buggers, they were in bits. Just utterly shattered. Can you imagine what this is going to do to them? They lost their father to cancer a few years back and now this.’

  ‘Any leads?’

  Mac shook his head. ‘Not as yet. No one would have heard or seen anything. The farmhouse is right back from the road and pretty much hidden from view. On the face of it, though, it looks to have been a cold crime. Whoever it was came over the fence, shot her through the window and then walked away. There was no theft, no obvious motive.’

  They had arrived at the coffee shop and Mac ordered his usual morning takeaway. When he had first arrived in Frantham, his predecessor, Inspector Eden, had still been a few months off retiring. Like Mac, he’d ended up in this backwater after a series of personal and then professional tragedies had knocked him for six. Frantham had been viewed as a place he could safely and quietly work out his final years. Eden had always started the day with a morning briefing and gallons of very strong, very black coffee. Since Mac had taken over he had maintained the morning ritual of coffee, but purchased from Tonino’s on the promenade.

  ‘I’d best be off, then,’ Rina said. ‘The family will be wanting breakfast.’

  ‘Who cooked it when you weren’t there?’ Mac smiled.

  ‘Apparently, they had a rota.’ Rina rolled her eyes. ‘None of them are morning birds, so I don’t dare ask how that one worked out. Do try and come round, won’t you? And Miriam. I’ve not asked how she is.’

  ‘Doing well,’ Mac said. ‘Not so many bad dreams, and she’s started her doctorate so the boathouse is full of books. But I think it’s helping.’

  ‘Good.’ Rina patted his arm and turned back along the promenade, heading towards the little general stores at the end.

  Mac watched her for a moment and then began to walk back in the other direction, carrying his holder and three cups of coffee. He was due to return to the farm later that morning and then go on and join the team interviewing friends and neighbours. DI Kendall would hold a briefing late afternoon and Mac hoped something would have broken by then. Something he could tell the family. Some reason he could give the children for why their mother had to die. Though the truth was that Mac could think of nothing that could excuse such an act. Nothing that could ever make it right.

  ‘You think you can scare me? You’re even more pathetic than I thought.’

  He turned his back on me then and that’s when I did it. I don’t think I went out with the intention of killing him, but then, you never know what you’re really capable of until it’s done. But I just wanted some acknowledgement. Some consideration. Some sense that the bloody man actually understood what he was going to do to people if he carried on. To good people, honourable people. Not like him. He was not a man who even understood the concept of honourable.

  So I killed him.

  And I’m not sorry.

  And I’m not going to give myself up.

  SIX

  ‘She was a lovely woman. Always willing to help out.’

  Martha Brigstock had spoken to Ellen Tailor just before she had died. That fact, Mac decided had heightened her sense of shock, made it personal.

  ‘And she said nothing to indicate that she was worried. She’d not mentioned anything. No strangers hanging about. No strange telephone calls or letters. Nothing out of the ordinary?’

  Mrs Brigstock shook her head emphatically. She wore elephant earrings with crystal beads suspended from the feet. They jangled each time she moved her head. ‘She was just normal. Just her usual self. She told me the children had been auditioning for the Christmas performance at the school. Jeb plays the clarinet and Megan is in the choir but she wanted an acting part. We just chatted. You know?’

  Mac nodded. ‘I’m asking people to make a list of anyone Mrs Tailor was close to or that she saw regularly. Any groups or clubs she was a member of, any hobbies. Her family don’t live close by and the children are finding it hard to answer questions at the moment.’

  The earrings jangled again and Mrs Brigstock pulled a large white handkerchief from her sleeve and rubbed at her already reddened eyes.

  ‘Finding her like that. Can you imagine anything more terrible? What’s going to happen to them now? The family have farmed here for generations. That will all be gone now. Jeb and Megan, they’ll lose the farm as well. Oh, the poor children.’

  Mac looked over at the young officer he had brought with him. She had been lent to him by DI Kendall but, to be frank, wasn’t proving to be any better at comforting and soothing than Mac himself. She looked back, helpless. Mac sighed and leaned forward, patted Mrs Brigstock’s hand. ‘We all feel sorry for them,’ he said quietly. ‘All we can do now is try and find the person responsible.’

  She sniffed loudly, but the handkerchief disappeared back up the sleeve and Mac was relieved to find that he had said the right thing. He got up, ready to leave. ‘So, a list of anyone or anything would be really useful,’ he reiterated.

  ‘I’ll get right on to it. And I’ll call Julia Howell. She’s on the flower committee too. Have you spoken to her?’

  She was on the list, Mac assured her. Someone else was doing that interview.

  Yolanda, the PC Mac had been assigned, slid into the front passenger seat with a great sigh of relief. ‘Sorry, sir. I’m not much good with old ladies. Not much good with kids either. I never know what to say.’

  Mac sighed. Tried to be patient. ‘You’ll learn,’ he said. ‘Just be sympathetic. Say you are sorry for their loss and how terrible it must be, that sort of thing.’ He tried to remember how it had been for him, starting out and if he had been so pathetic. Was that being fair, he wondered? For the moment, Mac gave up and focused on the issue at hand. ‘OK, who’s next on the list?’

  ‘Someone called William Trent. At some place called Stone End. Shall I programme the satnav?’

  Mac shook his head. ‘It would just tell you to go to the middle of a field,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got directions and there’s a map in the glove compartment, already marked up.’

  ‘A map?’

  ‘Yes, big paper thing with roads and rivers and fields marked on it.’

  ‘I know what a map is. I just never … I’m just—’

  ‘Let me guess. Not very good with them.’

  He saw her blush and regretted his harshness. Then reminded himself that she was a serving officer, not a school kid. ‘Give me the map,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you where we’re going. You never know, you might find it a useful skill.’

  For the next few minutes he talked Yolanda through the route they were going to take and tried to curb his sense of irritation. The trouble was, he decided, he’d been working in such a small team for this past eighteen months or so – not counting a brief while on secondment to his old beat – that he had grown unused to having to explain or interact with anyone who didn’t know what he was thinking almost before he thought it. Besides, Frank Baker and Andy Nevins, the young PC also based at Frantham, were born and
bred in these parts. They knew the people, knew the area. Yolanda, from her accent, was another blow-in as Frank would call it.

  ‘Where were you based before you came down here?’ he asked as they drove away.

  ‘Nottingham, guv. I’m aiming to go back there eventually. All my family are up there and—’

  She glanced across at Mac, a faintly embarrassed expression on her face.

  ‘And it’s more you?’ He smiled.

  ‘Yeah, I guess so. I grew up there … did you … how long have you been here?’

  ‘Not that long,’ Mac said. ‘But I’ve been lucky. It felt like home very quickly.’

  Yolanda nodded. ‘I hoped I’d like it down here,’ she said. ‘I came down on holiday for a couple of weeks, but that’s not like working here, is it. I mean, there are just too many bloody cows for a start.’

  Mac laughed. ‘Why did you come down?’ he asked.

  Yolanda rolled her eyes. ‘Boyfriend,’ she said. ‘We broke up three weeks after I got here.’

  ‘Tough.’

  ‘Believe it! Teach me, won’t it. My mum said I was an idiot, but you know how it is?’ She peered down at the map. ‘We take the next left, I think, then a sharp right and then … then the road stops.’

  ‘There’s a bit of a farm track,’ Mac told her. ‘Then we walk the last bit.’

  ‘There’s bound to be cows,’ Yolanda said. ‘I’ll just bet there are cows.’

  Martha Brigstock had barely shut the door on the inspector before she was on the phone. Her first call was brief and left her with ruffled feathers. The man should be grateful she had thought to call him before the police arrived.

  Her second was to Vera Courtney who, Martha knew, would be far more grateful for her call.

  ‘I’ve just had he police here,’ she announced. ‘Yes, about poor, poor Ellen. Oh, makes me sick to my stomach, just thinking about it. And you. You were so much closer to the poor girl than the rest of us. Are you sure you’re all right?’