by Ann Cleeves
Then she turned and ran. They must have heard her footsteps on the shingle but she didn’t care. She hoped Michael did hear, that the encounter would be spoiled for him. It serves him right, she thought. Over and over again, spiteful and childish, a schoolyard chant. She stumbled back towards the music, not because she could face going back to the party, but because it was the only way home. A figure was standing outside the building. He leaned against the wall rolling what she realized later was probably a joint. It was Chris. There was an outside light fixed to the bar and she was caught in the glare of it. He saw her tears. He gave a mocking smile and beckoned her towards him. She turned away and hurried down the lane. She didn’t try to get a lift. By then it was pitch black and she had more sense. And she didn’t want anyone to see her crying.
She was home earlier than her mother had expected. Audrey was still watching television, though she’d moved from the sofa to her usual upright chair and there was a plate with some crumbs on the coffee table. The earlier panic was forgotten. She was touchingly pleased to see Hannah, who sat on the floor beside her to watch the end of the programme. She found herself making allowances for her mother’s behaviour now, as she would with someone who was very old or very sick. Audrey seemed not to notice that Hannah was upset until they went upstairs together, then she asked suddenly, ‘Are you all right, my dear?’
‘Of course.’ Audrey would be the last person she’d talk to about her troubles. What could parents know?
‘You should leave this place,’ Audrey said sharply. ‘As soon as your exams are over. I stayed far too long.’
‘Oh yes,’ Hannah said. ‘I will.’ She spoke as if it had been her plan all along but it had never crossed her mind before that evening.
‘Good.’ She shut the bedroom door firmly behind her, but Hannah still heard her repeat the word to herself. ‘Good.’
The next morning Michael phoned. It was Sunday and her mother was still in bed. Hannah hadn’t been able to sleep. She knew it would be him before she picked up the receiver but she couldn’t let it go unanswered.
‘Hannah, I have to see you.’
‘No.’
‘You don’t understand. I’m scared.’ He did sound terrified, as if he’d just woken from a nightmare. But she told herself he was a good actor. ‘No one else will believe me.’
She didn’t say anything.
‘There are things you should know. We should talk.’
‘Talk to Jenny.’ She knew it was petty but she couldn’t help it.
‘This isn’t anything to do with Jenny.’
‘And it isn’t anything to do with me.’
If Chris hadn’t seen her running away from the beach she’d probably have agreed to meet Michael. She wanted to see him. But Chris had seen her and she could tell from the way he’d grinned that he knew about Michael and Jenny. He’d have told Sally. Hannah was proud. She couldn’t bear to be seen scuttling back to Michael after she’d been so publicly betrayed. She wanted to help him but knew it was impossible.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, as firmly as her mother had said the word ‘good’ the night before.
She was replacing the receiver when she heard him say goodbye.
That was the story she told Arthur as they sat on the terrace waiting for Porteous to arrive at The Old Rectory. It was quiet. The newly-weds and their friends hadn’t yet arrived. It was the story they agreed she would have to tell the detectives.
Porteous was late and when he did arrive he was looking crumpled and breathless. She was thrown because he was on his own. She felt she should ask after Stout. It was as if a husband had turned up at a dinner party without his wife.
‘Oh,’ Porteous said. ‘We’re very busy . . .’ She had the impression that he’d been rushing around all day.
‘You don’t mind if my friend joins us. He’s responsible for most of the information.’
‘No,’ Porteous said. ‘Of course.’ Though he seemed surprised. Perhaps he thought she wasn’t the sort to have friends.
They sat in the lounge where he had interviewed her on the evening of the school reunion.
‘I remembered something. Michael once mentioned the cemetery on the coast . . .’
Porteous’s head shot up. He’d been taking notes. It seemed an overreaction.
‘Which cemetery, Mrs Morton?’ The voice as bland and polite as always.
‘Near the lighthouse. Do you know it?’
‘I’ve heard of it certainly.’
‘I looked at the graves, narrowed down the possibilities. I think I’ve found Michael’s mother. She was called Maria Randle. If we’re right, Michael’s first name was Theo.’
Arthur took him through the dates and the family history. Eagerly. A magician pulling each new bit of information from his hat. ‘Theo’s father, Crispin, remarried his secretary Stella. They had a daughter. She died in a fire in the family home. Since then there’s been no mention of the boy.’
Porteous wrote meticulous notes, but Arthur seemed upset by his lack of reaction. He must have been expecting gratitude, to be welcomed with open arms into the investigation.
‘You don’t seem surprised,’ he said. ‘Had you worked all that out for yourself then?’
‘No, Mr Lee, you’ve been very helpful.’ Still polite but dismissive. Porteous turned his attention back to Hannah. ‘When did you say you were at the cemetery?’
‘Yesterday evening.’ She added in a rush, ‘I did try to phone you then.’
‘Did you?’
‘There’s something else. I’ve remembered the party after the school play.’
‘Ah,’ Porteous said. ‘Michael and the young Lady Macbeth. Yes. Mr Johnson told us about that.’
‘Yes. And the next morning Michael phoned me. He sounded anxious, scared even.’
‘Tell me, Mrs Morton, why are you telling me this now? It’s not something you’d have forgotten. Seeing your boyfriend with another girl. Not when you remembered other details so clearly.’
She was saved from the need to answer because her mobile phone rang. It was Rosie.
‘Mum. Something terrible’s happened.’
She was almost screaming and Arthur and Porteous couldn’t help overhearing. They both stared out of the window but Hannah could tell they were listening.
‘What is it?’ Her first thought was Jonathan. A car accident. He drove like a maniac.
Rosie was panting, trying to steady her voice so she could speak.
‘It’s Mel,’ Rosie said. ‘She’s dead. Someone found her body today on one of the footpaths by the cemetery. She was stabbed.’
Hannah’s first thought was, Thank God it’s not Rosie. Then she pictured her daughter frightened and alone in the house.
‘We’re coming,’ she said. ‘Leaving straight away.’
She clicked off the phone and stood up. Porteous was already on his feet, blocking the door. ‘Do you know Melanie Gillespie, Mrs Morton?’
‘Not well. She was my daughter’s best friend.’
‘Why?’ Arthur asked.
Porteous looked down at him as if he were considering whether or not to answer. ‘I’m running the investigation into her murder.’
‘A bit far from your patch, isn’t it?’
Hannah knew what Arthur was up to. Being deliberately provocative in the hope of prising more information from the detective.
Porteous hesitated then chose his words carefully. ‘We have reason to believe that the deaths of Michael Grey and Melanie Gillespie are connected. Go back to your daughter, Mrs Morton. Of course she’s upset. I’ll be in touch shortly when I’ve checked the information you’ve given me.’ He paused. ‘You’ve nothing more to tell me now? About your visit to the cemetery?’
‘No!’ She understood for the first time how Audrey had felt, when she’d crumpled in a heap on the floor.
‘There will be more questions. Of course you understand that.’ He turned and let himself out.
PART THREE
Chapt
er Twenty-Two
Peter Porteous stood in front of them looking more than ever like a teacher at a second-rate college for further education. He’d set up a flip chart and there was an overhead projector to show slides of the victims and crime scenes.
‘If Carver hadn’t done the Gillespie post-mortem we’d probably never have made the link,’ he said. ‘But the Michael Grey inquiry was still fresh in his mind. He’s convinced the same knife was used in both murders. If not the same, so similar that it’s still significant. Not an ordinary kitchen knife. A dagger. Short bladed but wide. Very sharp.’
He flicked through half a dozen slides – grey flesh, Carver’s hands holding steel instruments, wounds which looked now very tidy and clean – then he paused. It was hot again. He’d taken off his jacket, loosened his tie just a touch.
‘So, let’s look at the victims.’ He turned a page of the flip chart. Stuck to the next page was the old photograph of Michael Grey playing Macbeth. Porteous stretched and wrote in felt-tip at the top: Theo Randle. He had no problem accepting the new name of the boy. He had more important things to worry about. He flipped the page again and scrawled a rudimentary family tree. The felt-tip squealed on rough paper.
‘Maria died when Theo was very young. Crispin remarried and had a second child, Emily. She was killed in a house fire when she was still a baby. Two tragedies. Perhaps that explains the family breakdown and the fostering.’
A young DC at the back stuck up a hand.
‘Yes?’
‘How did we get a positive ID on the boy in the end, sir?’
Porteous thought the man already knew the answer and intended to rub salt into the wounds. He was a cocky little sod. And it did come hard to admit that an enthusiastic amateur had got there before him. But he kept his voice friendly.
‘With the help of a member of the public. A psychologist who works for the Home Office. He had information we didn’t have access to, but I’ll come to that later.
‘Let’s turn now to what we know about Theo Randle. Quite a lot, considering how much time has elapsed. He was bright, well educated, personable. He seems to have come from a wealthy family. Just before he died he had a row with his girlfriend because she caught him making love to someone else. He was a talented actor and was starring in a production of Macbeth in the week before he disappeared. One of his props was a dagger. According to witnesses it was very sharp. I’d like to trace it. The school is doing its best but I don’t hold out much hope . . . He was lodging with a couple called Sylvia and Stephen Brice. Everyone says they were very fond of him. There was no question of ill treatment or abuse and I think we can rule them out. They’re dead now, but perhaps we can trace friends who knew Theo, knew how he came to be living there. None of this might be relevant, but I want to know.’
He turned to the next page on the chart. This was covered with a montage of photographs of Melanie Gillespie. Before she’d dyed her hair red she’d been blonde. In the centre there was a picture of her, blown up. She was half turned, caught unexpectedly. She had a wide mouth, high cheekbones and she was supermodel thin.
‘Despite the gap in time these two have a lot in common. Not just their age. The Gillespies are wealthy. They’re both prominent business people, often in the news. Theo’s dad was an MP. Melanie was bright and articulate. Her teachers say she could be moody but she was often charming. She wasn’t into art and acting like Theo, but she was a skilled musician. So they had similar backgrounds. Now, let’s look at the differences. Most obvious, of course, is gender . . .’
The cocky DC raised a hand, languidly, as if it were hardly worth the effort. ‘Is that important?’
Porteous wanted to yell: Don’t be fatuous. Everything’s important. Two young people have been killed.
‘We don’t know at this stage. There was no indication of sexual assault on Melanie Gillespie, according to Carver.’
He turned his back on the audience as he regained control, wrote DIFFERENCES on the flip chart, added GENDER, then AGE with a question mark. ‘Theo was a year older than Melanie, though as they were both in their A-level year, that hardly seems important.’
‘Could we be looking for a teacher?’ Claire Wright asked.
‘Possible, isn’t it? I’d be very interested to know if anyone who taught Theo at Cranford Grammar went on to work at Melanie’s school. Can you take responsibility for checking that out?’
She nodded.
‘Then there are the temperaments,’ he went on. ‘Not so easy to pin down, but we seem to have a difference here. Theo is described as organized and conscientious but he doesn’t seem to have been over-stressed by exams. He still felt able to take part in the school play. One witness says he told stories, you couldn’t believe what he said, but she was his girlfriend and he betrayed her. I’m not sure we can rely on her objectivity. There was no record of any emotional problems, nothing more than you’d expect in any adolescent. On the other hand Melanie was moody, given to bouts of anger and depression. For the past two years she’d been seeing a psychiatrist for an eating disorder.’
Porteous looked out at his team. Some were scribbling notes. He thought that soon they’d have no need for that. Soon they’d know these teenagers as well as they knew their own families.
‘So,’ he said. ‘Two victims. The big question is – Are there any more? Would a killer keep a knife for nearly thirty years, resisting the temptation to use it, then murder again, out of the blue? We need to check the old files and make sure this isn’t a part of a wider pattern. Pull up all the post-mortem reports for stabbings when the victim was a teenager. I don’t want the search restricted to the local area – I’m sure we’d have picked that up. But the killer might have been working away.’
He stopped again, abruptly, and seemed lost in thought for a moment. A fan on one of the desks in a corner hummed. Someone coughed uncertainly. His audience didn’t know him well enough to tell whether or not he’d finished the briefing. He let them sit in an awkward silence for a few minutes longer before continuing slowly.
‘So that’s one theory. We’ve got an undetected serial killer. We’ll find other crimes that fit the pattern – teenage murders and that particular knife. At least it’s something we can check. Carver’s happy to work with us on it.’ More than happy, Porteous thought. The pathologist had almost begged to be involved. He’d seen the chance for fame, mentions in influential journals and the opportunity to star as an expert witness in an important court case.
‘The other theory is that the second murder came about as a result, somehow, of the discovery of Theo Randle’s body, that there was a causal link between the incidents. If that’s the case it won’t be an obvious connection. Melanie hadn’t been born at the time of Theo’s death.’
‘Couldn’t we be talking a random nutter?’ The contribution came from Charlie Luke, who’d been sitting in the front row, his brow furrowed with concentration throughout the presentation. He had the build and squashed features of a boxer. Approaching middle-age he was still a constable and would remain one. No one was quite sure how he’d slipped through the assessment process to get into the service. Claire dismissed him as having the IQ of a gnat, but Porteous didn’t care and rather liked him. He was dogged and did what he was told. He didn’t let the job get under his skin. Beer and sport would always be more important.
‘Nothing’s ever completely random, is it, Luke? The killer must have met these young people somewhere. Their paths crossed even if he only came across them opportunistically, if he had no other motive than the thrill of killing. It should be possible to learn something about the pattern of his life from theirs.’
Luke seemed bewildered by the concept but he nodded enthusiastically.
‘Of course,’ Porteous went on, ‘we’ve already discovered one connection between Theo Randle and Melanie Gillespie . . .’ He turned towards Stout who was already rising to his feet. ‘Eddie, perhaps you’d like to tell us that part of the story.’
‘Hannah Mo
rton,’ Stout said. ‘Maiden name Hannah Meek. She works as a librarian in Stavely nick. She’s recently separated from Jonathan, who’s deputy head of a high school on the coast, the high school where Melanie Gillespie was a student. There’s one daughter, Rosalind, aged eighteen, still living at home and waiting to go to university. On the surface you couldn’t find anyone more respectable than Mrs Morton. Anyone less likely to commit murder. But she did know both victims.
‘We were already interested in Mrs Morton before the Gillespie murder. She was Theo’s girlfriend, the love, she thought, of his life. She caught him . . .’ Stout hesitated, seemed to be searching for an appropriate euphemism.
‘Shagging?’ Luke suggested helpfully.
‘Quite.’ Still Stout couldn’t bring himself to say the word: ‘ . . . the young actress who played Lady Macbeth. They were together by Cranford Water after an end-of-performance party. That’s the last record we have of the boy alive. Mrs Morton claims he phoned her the following day but after all this time it’s impossible to check.’
Stout paused. ‘She has a surprisingly clear recollection of all the details. That, in itself, raises suspicion. She didn’t tell us about Theo two-timing her until she knew we’d find out anyway. She was stage manager for the school play so she’d have access to the dagger which could well have been the murder weapon. She had motive and opportunity. There’s no one else in the frame.’ He rocked back on his heels. ‘But I don’t see it. I don’t see her as the sort of person who’d stab the boy she was in love with, tie an anchor round his body and hoy him in the lake. I certainly don’t see her living with herself for thirty years afterwards—’
‘Unless she’d repressed the memory,’ Luke interrupted. He looked round as if he expected congratulation from his colleagues for the contribution. When none came he added defensively, ‘Well, it happens. I saw this programme on the telly . . . And when the boy’s body was dredged up from the lake perhaps it all came back.’ He looked at Porteous for help.