The Calling

by Alison Bruce

  ‘No, that’s because I’m a boring bloke and I don’t want a car.’

  Bryn had been drinking at more than twice Gary’s speed, but the sudden display of concern and puzzlement stood out through the inebriation. His friend’s concern was touching, if misplaced.

  ‘I inherited some money,’ Gary explained. ‘Enough to move in here.’

  Bryn checked Goodhew’s expression, looking for a sign that he was being wound up. ‘That’s not the sort of money problem I’ve ever had.’

  ‘Exactly. That’s why I haven’t said anything.’

  ‘Where did it come from, and how much are we talking about?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Some old beliefs about money changing relationships began to surface, and Goodhew hoped he wasn’t going to later regret telling Bryn anything.

  Bryn drained his bottle. ‘As my mother would say, you’re a dark horse.’ He checked his watch. ‘I’d better go.’

  Gary followed Bryn to the door and watched him sway past the rusted Volvo parked directly across the street.

  ‘I’ll pick it up tomorrow,’ Bryn called back. ‘Unless you want to buy it from me?’ he added as an afterthought.

  Gary laughed. ‘Try the scrappy.’

  He closed and bolted the front door and returned to the fire. The fading embers puffed and smoked, leaving shrivelled flakes of newspaper and crumbs of scorched wood in the grate. He slid the guard across the hearth, picked up eight empty bottles from around the room and took them up to drop them in the kitchen bin. He then returned to the second floor and sat on the edge of the coffee table, staring into the fire and sipping the remains of his second bottle.

  He finally switched out the lamp. Small orange glows bloomed and faded in the fire’s final throes. He finished his drink and closed the door on it, leaving it to die and turn to dust.

  CHAPTER 18

  THURSDAY, 31 MARCH 2011

  Gary propped a five-by-three snapshot of Kaye Whiting up on one corner of his desk. She had been looking straight into the camera lens when it was taken, and now her eyes met his every time he glanced at the photograph. He stared back at her and wished she could communicate, but the forensic report would be the only way she’d be telling them anything now.

  Sue Gully and PC Kelly Wilkes sat in the opposite corner of the room, with DC Young perched on the desk next to them. He was regaling them with an account of his house-to-house enquiries. Fragments of it reached Gary. ‘And he answered the door with his flies undone …’ Young continued, grinning broadly, ‘and you won’t believe the next bit …’ He stopped abruptly as Kincaide thumped open the swing door and plonked a wedge of photocopying on to his own desk.

  Kincaide brushed a couple of specks of hole-punch confetti from his suit. Gully meanwhile checked him over. The hems of his jacket and trousers were sharp, and the brogues unscuffed. ‘New suit and new shoes? What’s the special occasion, Michael?’

  Gary smiled to himself. She was always on the ball, and Kincaide never quite rose to her chirpy banter.

  Kincaide cleared his throat and straightened his protruding shirt cuff as he replied. ‘As you know, we’re having a briefing at oh-nine hundred hours. If you make your way along to the briefing room now, I’ll be with you in a few minutes.’

  They all watched the door swing shut after him, Goodhew and Gully raised their eyebrows at one another, and Wilkes shrugged in an I-don’t-know gesture. ‘He’s taking his new suit a bit seriously, isn’t he?’

  Kincaide was in fact taking the whole day very seriously and from the enquiry room ducked into the gents’ toilet. He ran a dash of water into his palms and smoothed both sides of his black hair, studying himself in the mirror as he twisted his head from left to right.

  Looking good.

  He’d watched his wife do that whole self-motivation bit plenty of times before; it had always been easy to dismiss, but right now he was getting it. He stood straighter, shoulders back, chest puffed out.

  Notes: check.

  Thoughts collected: check.

  Preparation: check.

  Own it. He gave himself a parting nod, returned to the corridor and strode towards the briefing room.

  Marks spotted him approaching and waited. ‘Thanks for your notes, Michael.’

  ‘No problem.’ Kincaide beamed, and continued to smile as they made their entrance together.

  Goodhew glanced at the photocopied notes in Marks’ hand and the set that Kincaide held, and knew at once that they were a duplicate. He then squinted at one of the handwritten sections, and recognized Kincaide’s writing.

  He checked his watch and hoped they’d be finished by half-past.

  Marks rapidly covered the key points. ‘The priority is to trace Kaye Whiting’s movements from leaving work on Friday 25th until as near to the time of her death as possible.’ He nodded towards Kincaide, Gully, Clark, Charles and Young. ‘I want you to re-interview most of those at the grandmother’s party, plus work colleagues and the owners of the lake. Leave the victim’s uncle, Andy Burrows, her brother Steve and her sister’s boyfriend, Carl Watkins. Michael will be picking them up.’

  Kincaide was staring at the sheet in front of him, but from where Goodhew sat it looked as though one corner of Kincaide’s mouth twitched slightly with self-satisfaction.

  Marks continued, ‘Gary, go and check out Doreen Kennedy’s lead in Woodbridge. Uniform haven’t come up with anything there yet, but it doesn’t mean you won’t.’

  Packed off to Woodbridge.

  At the end of the briefing, Goodhew slipped past the others to catch DI Marks in the corridor. He fell into step with him.

  ‘Good morning, Gary. I thought you might want a word.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Being sent to Woodbridge, perhaps?’

  ‘It’s a beautiful place…’

  ‘But hardly the hub of this investigation.’ Marks wore a quizzical expression.

  ‘I guess that was Kincaide’s idea?’

  Marks nodded. ‘You and Kincaide need to start working in … harmony.’ He paused and Goodhew wondered whether he’d had trouble not choking on the word. ‘All right, that’s a poetic way to phrase it, but the point is I’m busy, and not about to waste my time on any petty politics from you two.’

  ‘No, that’s fine. I mean Woodbridge is fine. It’s about the phone calls actually.’

  Marks held the notes in front of him and flicked through them as they walked.

  Goodhew shook his head. ‘There was no mention of the calls at all.’

  ‘Yes, there is.’ Marks halted and flicked through Kincaide’s notes. ‘Here’s the list of leads that Clark and Charles are following up. I think they have it covered, don’t you?’

  Goodhew shook his head, again. ‘No, I mean the anonymous phone calls. They’re not highlighted here, and I’d like to look into them if no one else is.’

  Marks shuffled Kincaide’s notes again, and scanned several pages of his own. ‘You saw Peter Walsh and there appeared to be nothing more to pursue. All the calls obviously need following up, but these ones already seem dead to me.’

  Marks’ eyes hardened and Goodhew knew how much he hated having his time wasted. Nevertheless he had little in the way of explanation to offer his boss.

  Goodhew shrugged. ‘Gave Gully the creeps, sir.’

  Marks narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips, as if he was sucking a lemon. ‘That’s pathetic, Gary.’ He glanced at the final page again and then back at Goodhew. ‘Go to Woodbridge first and follow up the calls when you get back.’

  CHAPTER 19

  THURSDAY, 31 MARCH 2011

  Charcoal-scuffed clouds churned above the Woodbridge skyline, threatening to top up the puddles left by estuary storms. Goodhew skirted the heart of the town as he followed the brown tourist signs for the Station and the Tide Mill, and eventually caught sight of the railway line curling its way into a parallel path alongside the road.

  Everything about the day was damp and dirty. On the far side o
f that single strip of track lay the boat yards. Masts poked into the sky from immobile sailboats, laid up for the winter, with their rain-stained tarpaulins and unwashed windows.

  Even the station itself, with its traditional tearoom and its roof capped with a cheery white picket fringe, couldn’t shake off the gloom. The centre of the building housed the tourist information office, its windows facing on to an apron of three car parks filled with commuters’ cars. Goodhew found himself a parking space in the furthest corner.

  He unfolded a two-page fax from the tourist office and checked the name on it. Contact Teresa Armitage was written in black across an indistinct picture of swans swimming beside a pleasure boat.

  He locked the driver’s door and skipped through an inch-deep puddle and on to the footpath. It was just a miserable day.

  As Goodhew crossed the tarmac, the office door opened and a woman raised her hand in a curt salute.

  ‘Teresa Armitage?’ he called, but the wind had risen and snatched his words away. She held one hand in front of her lacquered black bob, to protect it from a rogue gust, and beckoned for him to move faster with the other. Her hand signals and indestructible hair reminded him of an eighties air hostess.

  ‘Shut the door after you,’ she called out and turned away from the entrance. She had already crossed the gift shop by the time Goodhew stepped inside. He followed her navy-blue-suited rear end into the first room beyond the open-plan tourism section, closing the door behind himself before he took the chair opposite her desk.

  She ran through the usual preliminaries and introductions: it was an unstoppable and overused monologue full of theoretically promising words like communication and responsiveness. It probably took less than two minutes for her to reach the end, but long enough to make him prickle with irritation.

  ‘Miss Armitage, as you know I’m here as part of our efforts to determine Kaye Whiting’s last movements—’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ she interrupted. ‘We had the police here all yesterday afternoon. I appreciate it’s important, and we’re quiet mid-week during term time so it doesn’t matter so much, but I must stress how important it is that we don’t have police visible everywhere at the weekend.’

  ‘Well, I’m not guaranteeing that and, if we do have a positive sighting, we’ll be questioning as many of the general public as we can this weekend.’

  She slapped her manicured hand on to the table. ‘Mr Goodhew, I’m the manager of this office. Woodbridge is a centre for tourism. I’m not trying to damage your investigation but I must try to protect the local economy. Asking you to keep a low profile is just me doing my job.’ She rose to her feet and glowered down on him. ‘Coffee?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘It may be off season, Mr Goodhew, but every visitor still counts. It’s vital that people know this is a safe place to visit.’

  ‘Even if it isn’t?’ he asked wryly.

  She glared at him then turned away to switch on the percolator in the corner of the room. Gary let her brew alongside her fresh coffee. The rich smell of freshly ground beans smothered the stale odour of Kaye’s body that continued to linger in his nostrils.

  ‘I need to speak to the staff in as many local shops and restaurants as possible, Miss Armitage. Would your CCTV pick up all the visitors passing through here?’ Gary smoothed the first page of the fax on the desk and indicated the layout of the station area. ‘Can you show me the position of all your cameras, internal and external?’

  She stared at the sketch for a moment. ‘We only have one, situated at the back of the shop, and it catches everyone from the doorway. Once inside there’s a blind corner, around by the free leaflets, but that’s picked up by the station CCTV, which has external cameras fixed in three locations. Between us we pick up most of the public areas.’

  ‘What about other premises around the town?’

  ‘Well, I do know that most of the shops in the town itself and towards the Tide Mill have their own systems. You’re not planning on going through them all, surely?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ he replied.

  ‘There’ll be masses of footage,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ he retorted, ‘but that’s just us doing our job.’

  She stroked the patch of bare skin above her neckline and looked as though she was fighting the urge to make him come back later. She stepped up to her desk and rolled open a deep drawer designed to hold hanging files. She then reached down and pulled out a Sainsbury’s carrier bag and handed it to Goodhew.

  ‘Footage from here and from the station’s cameras. The station manager had them ready, just in case. Tell me, is there any chance that she was killed here, actually in Woodbridge? I mean, it wouldn’t be so bad if we could say she hadn’t died here.’

  Goodhew checked the contents of the bag, ignoring her. ‘Is this all of them?’ he asked.

  He stepped back into the dank car park, and crossed the main road towards the town centre. Staggered terraces of quaint shops climbed the hill on both sides. He passed the junction with the Thoroughfare, where one narrow trading lane crossed another. On the corner of the junction stood a café, its round tables and scoop-back chairs waiting in groups inside full-length windows.

  All but one were empty, and this one was occupied by a forty-something, frothy-haired woman with a cappuccino and a copy of the Daily Mail. She glanced up and Goodhew nodded through the window; but her gaze instantly dropped back to the front page of her newspaper.

  Goodhew knew Kaye’s picture appeared on page seven. He also knew that last Saturday had been cold here and he couldn’t imagine that she’d lingered outside, with icy gusts slicing across the waterfront. If she’d been here in Woodbridge at all, she would have started promptly at the shops.

  The Thoroughfare lay ahead of him, brimming with tourist treats: gift shops, clothes boutiques and antique-shop arcades.

  The street, however, was almost deserted. Two women with pushchairs were in deep conversation outside the hair salon. Goodhew scanned the shopfronts: toys, sweets, pizza, coloured stones, and a shop called Fantasia selling gifts and cards.

  He stepped in through its postcard-lined doorway, mobiles and light catchers twirling above him. He fished Kaye’s photo from his pocket and introduced himself to Mrs Murley, the proprietor, who pointed out that he was the third policeman since yesterday.

  Goodhew nodded patiently. ‘I’m doing a follow-up.’ He placed the picture on the counter. ‘This is a different photo, for one thing.’

  Mrs Murley lifted it by one edge and held it so it wouldn’t reflect the light. She passed it back with equal patience. ‘I don’t think so. Lots of people come in here but, as I said earlier, I didn’t serve her.’

  Goodhew continued from shop to shop, noting the names of the Saturday staff and the names of all the staff that swore they hadn’t served Kaye Whiting. His next stop would be the museum that Doreen Kennedy had mentioned.

  He passed the coffee shop again on the way back down the hill. He turned the corner into the Thoroughfare and noticed the Daily Mail lying open on page five. The frothy-haired woman was at the counter, her hair now subdued by a burgundy-striped waitress hat, and she was serving the two mums and their three toddlers. He’d come back to her later.

  The lady dispensing tickets at the museum smiled apologetically. ‘I am very sorry, but I’m sure she wasn’t here. She’s the same age as my youngest granddaughter you see, and I’ve tried my hardest to remember. I was serving in the gift shop and I’m sure she didn’t come in.’ She handed the photo back. ‘I’m afraid you may be on a wild-goose chase.’

  Drizzle greeted Gary as he left the museum. Every building looked back at him blank and unhelpful, and only the coffee shop staff and the bag of video tapes seemed to stand between him and admitting that Kaye Whiting had never been in Woodbridge.

  Of course he didn’t know then that the waitress had poured herself another coffee, returned to her paper and flicked to page seven.

  CHAPTER 20

  THURS
DAY, 31 MARCH 2011

  She ripped the little hat from her head as she burst through the front door and galloped towards Goodhew with a mass of unruly curls and her ultra-small apron flapping in the wind. She seemed to know exactly who he was and bore down on him with remarkable speed.

  He didn’t catch what she said at first. She was definitely yelling specifically at him though and, as she reached him, she grabbed his elbow and spun him back to face the museum. ‘She’s the Bile Beans girl,’ she repeated.

  ‘Kaye Whiting?’

  ‘That’s right. I’m Zal, and I work in the coffee shop, and she was here last Saturday. I served her first after she’d bought the last Bile Beans advert from the museum opposite.’

  Gary felt the hairs prickle across the back of his neck; he knew a good witness when he saw one. ‘What are Bile Beans?’ he asked.

  ‘No idea, actually, but they’re bound to be foul. She had the advert out on the table and I joked that we can’t put those on the menu. Bile beans on toast? I don’t think so.’ She laughed then and it erupted as a dirty cackle. ‘Has anyone else here recognized her so far?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You poor sod, bet you’ve been from pillar to post. And you asked in the museum gift shop?’

  Goodhew nodded. Zal propelled him through the door of the museum and slapped her broad hand on the counter to attract the attention of the woman behind the desk.

  ‘Ruth, are you the dozy cow that just told this young man he was on a wild-goose chase?’ She steamrollered on without waiting for a reply. ‘Tell me this, then, if it wasn’t that poor dead girl who had you shinning up a ladder for the last decent Bile Beans advert?’