The Calling

by Alison Bruce

  ‘Don’t apologize. She’ll just think you like her after all.’ Bryn smiled and took Goodhew’s mug from him and poured both drinks down the sink. ‘Come on, let’s have a pint and a game of pool.’

  They walked to the Anchor pub and sat on the balcony with their first round of drinks. Goodhew rested his elbows on the railing and gazed down at the rows of punts tethered in the Mill Pond for the night. Further down the Cam, two students struggled with their craft, as the flow forced them back upriver towards Silver Street Bridge.

  Punting had been seen on the Cam for the last hundred years. The colleges had been there for the last eight hundred, and Cambridge itself for two thousand. And, amidst it all, people lived and died trying to make their mark.

  Or in this case, lived and killed.

  Bryn bought them a second round and placed the two bottles next to the pool table while he racked the balls. Goodhew stepped back in through the French windows to watch Bryn potting a run of three yellows. His thoughts wandered back to Shelly.

  ‘Girls like Shelly think they’re smart, and that makes them really vulnerable. Every time I’m investigating an assault case, I notice how many girls wander around alone.’

  The fourth yellow stopped short of the pocket, and settled against a cushion. Bryn straightened up. ‘Shelly would insist she’s got the right to walk around on her own.’ He rubbed more chalk on the cue. ‘I had two shots, didn’t I?’

  ‘Yes, and in theory she’s right, of course, but that’s not going to keep her safe, is it?’

  Bryn hit the same yellow again with a relaxed shot that rolled it parallel to the cushion and left it hanging across the lip of the pocket. He returned to his bottle of lager. ‘This case is really getting to you, isn’t it?’

  Goodhew chalked his cue. ‘Not getting anywhere with it is getting to me.’ He potted his last red and rolled the white smoothly into the black, toppling it into the middle pocket. ‘My round. Same again?’

  ‘Get two bottles each, if it suits you. I’ll set them up again.’

  Bryn pushed another coin into the slot and waited until the balls had made their rumbling journey to the front of the table. He rattled them into the triangle and gave the black a spin before replacing the triangle on the lip of the light shade.

  Goodhew’s mobile rang as he waited at the bar to be served.

  Bryn noticed that a commuter had left an Evening Standard lying on an empty chair. He took it over to the pool table and opened it out on the empty end, flicking over each page after a cursory glance.

  On page eight he came face to face with Stephanie Palmer, under the headline ‘Police probe connection with earlier deaths’. Two smaller photos – of Helen Neill and Kaye Whiting – accompanied the article.

  As Goodhew returned with the fresh bottles, Bryn folded the newspaper and dropped it back on its chair.

  ‘Cheers. Your break.’

  Goodhew nodded and cracked open the pack.

  Bryn wondered if Goodhew would still be able to concentrate if he knew his investigative work was slapped across the pages of a major newspaper. Bryn potted two reds and looked up just as Goodhew welcomed Sue Gully by passing her his second bottle of beer.

  She grinned at Bryn and he raised his cue in greeting. She had turned her attention back to Goodhew before Bryn could line up his next shot. ‘It’s in the paper again,’ he heard her say.

  ‘I know. I saw it,’ Goodhew replied. ‘I wonder who else has.’

  ‘Yeah, me too. I just hope it stabs someone’s conscience.’ Sue pulled the cue away from Goodhew. ‘I’ll take your go this time. I shouldn’t have brought the subject up.’

  Sue potted one yellow and left the cue ball safely behind another. ‘The problem is,’ she confided to Bryn, ‘we won’t get any conversation out of him at all now. He’ll be incapable of thinking about anything else.’

  Gary Goodhew wasn’t the only one whose thoughts were focused on three dead girls.

  Just over a mile away, in a silent unlit room, the BBC News Channel was currently displaying their photographs. Julie Wilson’s hand reached for the remote control and increased the volume enough to catch the newscaster’s broadcast. In her photo, Stephanie Palmer wore a white T-shirt with turquoise sleeves and the slogan ‘I’m No Angel’ across the front.

  ‘Well, you are now,’ she sniffed and pressed the off button. The picture vanished but the screen continued to glow in the dark. In the end she turned it on again, fed up with seeing the ghost of Stephanie’s photograph in her head. She flicked between the five channels; avoiding the news on BBC1, then sport on both BBC2 and ITV, and a documentary about American crime on Channel Five. She settled therefore for a ‘made for TV’ potboiler on Channel Four.

  After another twenty minutes, she wished she owned a gun. She could then be like Elvis and shoot a hole in the TV set.

  Julie fell asleep in her chair and awoke to the late news. Again the three images flashed across the screen.

  ‘Not my problem,’ she told herself.

  But it was then that a cold, hard sabre of guilt unsheathed itself and sliced its steel blade into her conscience.

  CHAPTER 55

  MONDAY, 13 JUNE 2011

  Pete Walsh eyed the time display in the bottom right-hand corner of his PC monitor; it was two minutes past twelve noon and he was counting the minutes until five past, when he knew that Donna would have already left Reception for lunch. Then he would be running only the Karen gauntlet.

  It was still raining outside, and from his desk he could just see the grey sheen of the sky reflected in the beige pavements below. Only a week ago it had seemed like the middle of summer, but now the day couldn’t look more dismal if it were relayed back to him in black and white. Things had to brighten up soon, he assured himself.

  He unhooked his jacket from the coat-stand and slipped it on as he waited for the lift. As the doors opened, he was pleased to find it full of other employees heading out to lunch. Safety in numbers, he thought wryly. As he headed towards the main doors, he noted Karen sitting alone at the main desk. He busied himself with his jacket zip, hoping she wouldn’t notice him – and, if she did, that she wouldn’t bother him.

  ‘Pete!’ her voice hissed at him.

  He nodded, and gave a brief half-smile in her direction, but carried on walking.

  ‘Pete, where’s Donna?’

  Pete’s glance flicked swiftly around. Two women waiting at the lifts were talking quietly. One watched him over her colleague’s shoulder, but the man waiting on the sofa continued to gaze rigidly out through the smoked glass.

  Pete walked back over to Karen. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Is she still off sick? She hasn’t phoned in or anything.’

  He shrugged. ‘No idea.’

  ‘I’m worried about her. She was off all last week, too.’ Karen’s gaze scanned his face.

  ‘We both were,’ he sighed.

  ‘And is she OK?’

  God, she’s persistent, he thought irritably. ‘Look, Karen, I don’t know, because we split up.’

  Karen flushed. ‘Sorry, I had no idea.’

  ‘And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t announce the fact to everyone else in the building. I’m getting fed up with all the speculation that goes on about our private lives.’

  ‘I don’t know what—’ she began.

  ‘You do know. It wasn’t my decision for us to split up, but the sooner it’s all forgotten about the better, as far as I’m concerned.’

  Karen watched him hurry across the pavement outside, bowing his head under the beating rain. She was glad that Donna had dumped him. She’d hadn’t been able to decide whether she liked him or not, until today, but he’d always been moody and she didn’t like people who were shitty with her. Still, she decided, turning back to answer the ringing phone, it would be a good bit of gossip to brighten the afternoon.

  Once outside, Pete relaxed a little. He’d never warmed to Karen and wished their last conversation hadn’t happened. He need
ed time with his own thoughts.

  He didn’t notice the few quickening footsteps that splashed behind him, but slowed as they approached him.

  ‘Hi!’ called a woman’s voice.

  He scowled as he looked up, but regretted it at once as he recognized Fiona and saw her smile fade into a look of uncertainty.

  ‘How are you?’ she continued, with less enthusiasm now.

  ‘Sorry, I was miles away. I bet I looked really ratty just then.’ He laughed.

  She wrinkled her nose. ‘A little bit.’

  ‘Now, I feel like I’ve been rude to you.’

  ‘No, really, not at all,’ she answered.

  ‘Monday at work and this weather, it’s a miserable combination, you know.’

  ‘It’s fine, really. Everyone’s rude to estate agents, anyway. I need to go inside, I’m getting soaked through.’

  ‘I know. Let’s get a coffee, then.’ And, before she could argue, he took her arm and they were dashing across the road and up the steps into the Flying Pig.

  From her table by the window, Marlowe had observed their entire exchange. A new girl with Pete? He’d been taking lunch breaks on his own for weeks now, since his last outing with Paulette. And, as far as she knew, there had been no one since. Until today. From her viewpoint she could just make out his expressions through the rain. He was flirting.

  Suddenly they turned and started to run towards her.

  He’d never come in here flashed through her mind, before her frantic reflexes sent her hurtling in an involuntary reeling motion towards the ladies’ toilet.

  In her wake, her coffee cup teetered for a moment before crashing to the floor.

  She slammed the cubicle door and snagged her nail as she fought with the lock.

  She sat, balanced on the edge of the toilet bowl, and concentrated on taking slow, deep breaths. The thudding of her blood pulsated through her head, and she wondered how she had ever ended up in such a mess.

  CHAPTER 56

  MONDAY, 13 JUNE 2011

  Marlowe wondered why she couldn’t will her heart to stop. It was hers after all, and it would have seemed right that it should obey her commands.

  She could hear it beating out its strange slow-quick, fluttering rhythm. It never supplied enough oxygen, always leaving her yawning or drawing in quick, short gasps. And her limbs floated, drugged with lethargy.

  Why couldn’t she just tell it to stop?

  But Marlowe knew there was no such easy release from her nightmare.

  She returned to her desk, late again. She had made-up excuses ready but, as with most times she turned up late, nothing was said and the excuses went unused.

  Mr Butler emerged from his office with a clutch of notepaper and passed it to his PA. They spoke a few syllables each, but nothing audible to Marlowe above the slowly creaking hands of the wall clock. He tilted his head as he spoke, but in a neat way, and Marlowe could see he wasn’t prepared to ruffle his meticulous appearance even to deliver a sacking.

  He turned to her and smiled, with the smallest flicker at the furthest corners of his mouth. ‘Marlowe, can I see you for a few minutes, please?’

  It wasn’t a question, more a demand, and she followed him into his office.

  ‘Your timekeeping and lack of concentration are becoming a serious problem. You do realize that, don’t you? As the senior partner in this firm …’

  Marlowe tried to stop her eyes wandering into mid-nowhere.

  ‘… it is important that all our employees are treated fairly, and the law states…’

  Is he sacking me or not? she wondered, not quite able to pin down his words and assemble them in the correct order.

  ‘… You’ve been here for several years and you’re clearly a very able young woman …’

  Perhaps he’s not, she mused and tried to make better eye contact, but his mouth ran on and on and still she couldn’t focus on his words. There was only one downside to losing her job: she’d be left with too much thinking time, and that was one hell of a downside. Agree and be humble, she decided.

  She stared down at her lap and tried to appear remorseful.

  ‘The last time I spoke to you, we both agreed that issuing you with a final written warning would be the appropriate course of action.’

  Marlowe nodded.

  He strummed the tips of his fingers on the desk blotter. ‘You do remember, don’t you?’

  She nodded again and looked up, trying to read his placid features. ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘So I would be within my rights to dismiss you right now. But what I really want …’ he stalled, following the line of Marlowe’s gaze to the front page of the Cambridge News which lay on his side table, at an angle of one hundred and eighty degrees.

  She leant forward and, with an involuntary thrust of her hand, snatched it up from the table. She rose to her feet and staggered backwards to collapse into his guest chair, tearing her gaze from the picture and trying to read too much of the text too quickly.

  ‘No, no,’ Marlowe whispered. She held it in her lap, with her head bent over and her hair falling in a curtain around the half-folded newspaper. Her finger ran across the grainy photograph and she struggled to breathe under the weight of emotion that clenched her lungs tight. ‘I knew her,’ she gasped in a jagged whisper.

  ‘It was in the daily papers this morning.’

  She shook her head. ‘I didn’t read one today. I just saw her picture now.’ She read through the article, commenting out loud. ‘She took her car through the car wash as she was leaving Cambridge, and paid for their top programme, with wax and wheel wash and everything. Why would she do that?’

  She looked up briefly and saw Mr Butler eyeing her oddly. She knew she’d just divorced herself from him and their conversation. He stared at her with a mix of revulsion and morbid fascination.

  She continued to talk. ‘It says they’ve interviewed a guy at the garage, who remembers her. And so does the teenager in Wells that served her lunch. He thought she seemed “pleasant”, and she had a pot of tea and sandwiches.’

  She saw a tear drop on to the paper, but it hardly felt like one of her own.

  ‘This is a shock to you, isn’t it, Marlowe?’ he asked quietly.

  She blurted out a few garbled words between sobs, then drew a deep breath and tried again. ‘She ate lunch and had her car polished, and probably made her hair and make-up look nice too. Do you know why?’

  ‘No,’ he replied, with a quick sideways glance at the clock.

  ‘Do you know Cromer?’ she asked, changing tack.

  ‘It’s on the Norfolk coast, about twenty-five miles north of Norwich. I think Veronica and I once walked along a coastal path near there.’

  ‘What’s it like? Is it pretty?’

  ‘Striking I’d say. I don’t remember much. You can’t walk on the beach, because the cliffs are falling away. At the bottom, which is probably a hundred feet down, there’re just rocks and mud and sand.’ He coughed and clasped his hands together, the way she knew he always did when he was closing a meeting. ‘But that was a while ago, Marlowe.’ He’d already slipped too far from his own agenda. ‘Marlowe, about the job …’ he began.

  ‘Forget it.’ She cut him short. ‘It won’t work out. I’ll go and clear my desk.’ She passed him the paper. ‘She made everything nice because she needed to feel she’d got something right.’

  Marlowe clicked his door shut, and then he read the article about Julie Wilson in its entirety for the first time. The most graphic statement came from a couple out with their dogs.

  We were walking back from Happy Valley and saw a car parked at the top of Light House Hill. We walked past it and I noticed the stereo was playing and a woman was sitting in the driver’s seat. She was facing the sea and her side window was open. I didn’t think anything was odd but then, as I walked on, I heard the engine revving loudly, and I turned back and saw her drive off the cliff. There was a huge crunching sound. A load of dust flew up and we could still h
ear her stereo playing, but by the time we reached the edge it had stopped. There was nothing we could do.

  CHAPTER 57

  TUESDAY, 21 JUNE 2011

  Pete Walsh had framed Fiona Robinson’s photo and placed it on the low table beside the television, where it would be easy for him to see. By that point she had become the only girl to adorn his sitting room.

  The sunlight lit up her hair, and her eyes were bright as they twinkled at him through the camera lens. He picked up the picture and touched his index finger to her cheek. As he stared straight into her face, the estate agent stared directly back and he could almost hear the whisper of her voice. His heartbeat quickened a fraction as the words escaped from his lips: ‘I love you, Fiona.’

  He glanced at his watch yet again, and found that only moments had passed since he last looked at her. She had done that, changed time for him.

  But she had done so much to change him.

  Since meeting her, he had become uplifted and filled with a giddy spirit that bubbled up inside him and carried him along through the monotony of his work. She’d pulled away the blanket of melancholy that had smothered him now for … He paused. For how long?

  He wiped over the television screen as he considered this question. He didn’t know the answer, but he guessed it was longer than he’d like to admit.

  The dust vanished from the glass; he hadn’t realized that it had built up so much.

  He studied the room more closely then, trying to view it with a fresh eye. He felt that the simplicity of the two large armchairs combined with the plain walls and wooden floor gave the room a sense of tranquillity, but to ensure this didn’t translate into sterility to the female eye, he had added a large vase of flaming-orange and yellow chrysanthemums.