by JANICE FROST
“Good afternoon, Inspector,” Anna Foster greeted him from her desk. Today, he noticed, she looked her age. Dark circles underscored her eyes; her hair was caught up carelessly in a ponytail held in place by a scruffy blue scrunchy, loose strands hanging limply around her face, which was paler than usual. To Neal she still looked attractive — delicate and vulnerable, as though she needed looking after, and it troubled him slightly that he was drawn to her.
Ava teased him that he had a weakness for damsels in distress, and he feared that she might be right.
“Is Maya here today?” he asked, still hoping to save Anna from losing custom.
“Maya doesn’t work here anymore. I had to let her go.”
“Then I’m sorry but I must ask you to shut up shop for a bit. I need to speak with you.”
“More questions, Inspector? I’ve nothing new to tell you. I haven’t heard from Simon.”
Neal nodded at the door, “If you wouldn’t mind.”
Anna Foster took a set of keys from her desk drawer and locked up, having first ushered out the remaining disgruntled browsers. From across the street, the Big Issue seller gave her a wave.
“I usually take her a cup of coffee and a sandwich around now,” Anna explained. “She’s a dear girl. Romanian. I’d offer her a job, but things being as they are — well, you can see business isn’t exactly booming. Shall we go upstairs?”
Neal followed Anna Foster up the creaky winding staircase to her flat above the shop, the property’s age evident in the exposed timbers and heavy stone walls. Being on the historic Long Hill, her premises, like others located there, was a listed building and few alterations were permitted that would accommodate modern standards of comfort or style, but the period features more than compensated for their lack.
While she fixed some coffee, Neal looked out of the window at the street below. It was a quiet morning, not really the time of year for tourists. The Christmas market would change all that; it attracted coachloads of visitors every year, giving a much-needed seasonal boost to local businesses. Already preparations were underway with strings of festive lights stretching across the narrow cobbled street of the Long Hill, leading up to the cathedral and castle.
At the beginning of December some local celebrity or other would be called upon to do the honours and switch the lights on, instantly transforming the Long Hill into a twinkling hub of festive commerce.
Looking down, across the cobbled street, Neal saw the Big Issue seller shuffle from foot to foot in an effort to keep warm. She really needed her cup of warming coffee, he thought, guiltily.
“Half a teaspoon of sugar, no milk, that’s right, isn’t it?” Anna Foster asked, a little too breezily, Neal thought. Perhaps her nerves were on edge. She handed him a dainty china cup and saucer with a pretty floral design; the handle was one of those fancy loop-shapes that made it hard to slip your fingers through, especially if, like Neal’s, they were on the large size. They sat facing each other in Anna Foster’s mismatched, worn leather wing chairs.
“I haven’t come to ask about Simon — well, not directly anyway,” Neal began. “I need you to be honest with me now, Ms Foster. You’ve lied to us before and I must caution you that hindering a police investigation is a serious offence.”
Anna Foster nodded, holding her poise though her teacup rattled tellingly in its saucer.
“I would like you to tell me what you knew about Nancy and Amy Hill, particularly what you knew of them before moving here, and whether their residing here had anything to do with your decision to move to Stromford.”
“First of all,” Anna Foster said quietly, “apart from giving Simon a false alibi, I haven’t lied to you about anything else.”
“But you have withheld information.”
“Only because I didn’t think it relevant to the case.”
“That’s for us to decide, Ms Foster. Tell me what you know, even if it seems irrelevant. When did you first suspect that Simon and Amy were brother and sister?”
“I suppose that was going to come out sooner or later.”
Anna Foster leaned back in her chair as if she was making herself comfortable before beginning on a long tale. But really she was deflating, letting go of pent up anxiety. Neal had witnessed guilty people react in just this way, as though telling the truth at last would free them of their oppressive burden of guilt — or in some cases simply give them an opportunity to share the burden.
“I always knew that Simon had a sister. Once or twice, a woman, not the children’s mother, brought them into the library and read to them. We used to chat a little but I never knew her name. She was young, pretty. She was very fond of the children, especially Simon’s baby sister, Emily. Besotted with her, really.”
“This was Nancy?” Neal prompted.
Anna Foster nodded, “She looks very different now, of course, put on a lot of weight and changed her hair colour. I almost wouldn’t have recognised her, except for the fact that Amy was so like her mother — her birth mother, that is. I’d seen her picture in the local paper at the time of her death. Of course, you must know that there was some mystery surrounding Emily’s whereabouts? Nothing was ever proven, but it was commonly believed that the father, Wade Bolan, was responsible. If nothing else, he was guilty of beating his wife to death. Simon was found cowering in the bedroom cupboard but there was no trace of Emily. It was assumed that Bolan killed her too, though he denied it and no body was ever found.”
“Was Simon a witness to his mother’s death?” Neal asked.
“He was three years old, Inspector; it wasn’t possible for him to give a coherent account of what happened. He did tell the police and social workers that his father had hurt his mother.”
“And Emily? What did he know of what happened to his sister?”
“It was the strangest thing. He said that an angel took his sister to heaven.”
Neal stared at Anna Foster, puzzled. “Was anyone able to make any sense out of that?”
“He was questioned by the police and by child psychologists but that’s all he would ever say. It was suggested that the trauma of witnessing his mother’s beating caused him to block the memory of what took place. And, of course, he was very young — who knows what was real or fantasy to him?”
“You told my colleague and me that Simon reacted strangely to meeting Nancy Hill at your book group. Do you believe that he recognised her?”
“I believe that seeing her stirred some kind of memory in him. You have to realise, Inspector, that Simon remembered nothing of his mother’s death and the disappearance of his sister other than the ‘angel’ vision — a kind of protective fantasy. I was advised by child psychologists who worked with him that Simon might be permanently affected by his early childhood trauma — and there were difficult behaviours to deal with in the early days, as I’ve already mentioned. I like to think that it was because my late husband and I gave him such care, such love, that he has grown into a wonderful young man.”
Anna Foster’s voice trembled, her eyes tearing up, and Neal resisted a strong impulse to comfort her. For all he knew she might be manipulating him; he had to remain detached.
“You’re probably thinking that Simon’s early experiences damaged him, predisposed him to some kind of psychopathic behaviour — that’s what people think nowadays, isn’t it, that mistreated children grow up to be monsters?”
“That’s a kind of populist view that has been given credence by misleading accounts that skew the facts,” Neal said. “It’s a much more complex issue really, Ms Foster, and believe me, I would not suspect Simon of murdering his sister on such a basis. Besides, as far as I have been able to ascertain, Simon’s birth mother, though not a model parent, was not cruel to her children, only neglectful to an extent.”
“But you do suspect Simon, don’t you? That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? All these questions? You’ve decided he’s guilty without even giving him a chance.”
“Ms Foster, our investigatio
n into Amy Hill’s death is ongoing. Simon’s continued disappearance does not necessarily point to his guilt, but he can’t be excluded from our investigations until we have questioned him. He was quite possibly the last person to see Amy alive.”
“Allegedly,” Anna hissed.
“You gave him a false alibi for the night of Amy’s murder. Did you ask him where he really was?” Neal asked, beginning to feel frustrated.
“He wouldn’t say, just got angry that I even needed to ask him to justify his whereabouts; then he disappeared. I let him down, betrayed his trust in me. It should never have entered my head that he might have had anything to do with Amy’s death.”
“Ms Foster, why did you track Nancy Hill down after all those years? How did you even find out where she was?”
“I told you I’d seen her in the library with the children. I knew the estate the family lived on; it was in all the papers. For some time I’d been obsessed with Simon’s past. I thought if I tracked down some of the people who knew him back then I could piece together some of his history for him. I had a friend who worked at the council and she had access to old tenancy records that were being scanned and digitised. I went through his mother’s records and came across Nancy Hill’s name twice — once in connection with a repair that she’d reported, and once when she’d asked about moving Debbie Clark to keep her safe from Wade Bolan.”
Neal nodded, acknowledging her skilled detective work and remembering the records she was referring to.
“Of course, there were other names in the files, which I followed up, but eventually, clutching at straws, I came to Stromford, and the minute I walked into ‘In Stitches,’ I knew I’d found Simon’s ‘angel.’ Of course, I was astonished when I met Amy and realised what her resemblance to Debbie Clark must mean.” Anna paused, as if expecting a question from Neal, but he nodded for her to continue.
“Simon was studying for A levels and considering universities. I persuaded him to apply to Stromford in the hope that he might run into Amy and get some kind of closure.”
Neal snatched a look at his watch as though symbolically assessing how much Anna Foster had delayed the investigation by not telling him all this to begin with.
“Even the smallest things can be relevant in a murder investigation, Ms Foster. This is pretty huge. Did it really never occur to you to tell us any of this before?”
Anna Foster stared at her untouched coffee. Her answer was so quiet that Neal had to lean forward to hear it.
“I was protecting Simon.” She looked at him defiantly. “You have a son, Inspector. How far would you go to protect him?”
Her words irritated Neal. He looked at Anna Foster with sudden clarity, wondering why he had ever felt attracted to her. For the first time, he realised that what he had taken for vulnerability was really a kind of armour, and that maybe she was tougher than she seemed. Then, just as suddenly, his anger dissipated. The answer to her question was obvious. Of course he would defend Archie to the ends of the earth, but if his son were guilty of a heinous crime, how far would he then be prepared to go to protect him?
“To the extent that the law would allow,” he answered. “For his own protection and that of others.”
“How very noble of you, Inspector,” Anna Foster said, her voice replete with sarcasm, “I sincerely hope that your son never gives you cause for doubt.”
Ignoring her comment, Neal pressed on. “You encouraged Simon to apply for a place at Stromford University and you took out a lease on this place so that you could stay near him, and so that you could make a connection with Nancy and Amy Hill.”
Anna Foster nodded. “Simon needed to confront his past. He’s always suffered from anxiety and bouts of depression, mood disorders, a kind of PTSD, I suppose. I thought that seeing his sister alive and well might help lay some of his demons to rest, so to speak.”
Neal thought but did not say that, far from being laid to rest, Simon’s demons might just have jumped out of the box with the shock of seeing Nancy and Amy. He realised suddenly that Anna Foster had no idea that Nancy Hill too, was dead.
“I’m sorry to have to give you more bad news, Ms Foster. Nancy Hill took her own life last night.” For a moment, Anna did not react at all and Neal wondered if she had heard him.
“Ms Foster? I’m sorry, that was a bit abrupt. It must be a terrible shock for you. I know that you and Nancy had formed a friendship.”
All of a sudden, Anna Foster’s face crumpled, all her defiance and bravado wiped out by Neal’s news.
Neal felt himself stir, begin to stand; confusingly his feelings for the woman before him were rushing back, urging him to go to her and take her in his arms. With a force of will, he rooted himself in his chair and watched, as Anna Foster wept.
“It’s all my fault,” she said, “I should never have moved here with Simon.”
“Ms Foster . . .”
“No, don’t say anything. I should have told you everything. It’s not true that I didn’t think any of it was relevant. I just didn’t want to make things look worse for Simon, and now two people are dead and it’s all my fault.”
“Please don’t distress yourself. None of this is your fault.”
Neal remembered how he had laid a comforting arm on Nancy Hill’s shoulder when she was bereft over the news of her daughter’s death. Why did he feel the need of such restraint when faced with Anna Foster’s grief? Because he feared that if he touched her, it would not end with a gesture of comfort? Neal did not enjoy feeling conflicted.
He left her then, conscious that she had given him as much information as she could for the time being. She saw him to the door, and closed it without changing the sign. The Big Issue seller looked across, hoping, perhaps, for that cup of coffee at last, but Anna Foster seemed not to notice her.
Hesitating for a moment outside the shop, Neal slipped into a nearby tearoom and bought a large coffee to go. The woman was much younger than she had first appeared in her shapeless long black skirt, headscarf and oversized grey wool coat that had obviously come from a charity shop. She thanked him, her pretty round face glowing with gratitude, and he felt obliged to buy a copy of her paper.
“You are looking for Simon, yes?” she asked, as he was about to walk away. Neal looked at her in surprise.
“You know Simon Foster?”
“Not so well. His mother is very kind lady, and I know his girlfriend a little. She volunteers some evenings helping with English at hostel.” Neal stared at her, in amazement. Why had it never occurred to him to speak with her before? She stood on this patch of the hill every day; of course she would be familiar with all the comings and goings.
“Simon has a girlfriend?”
“Oh yes, Maya. She used work for Ms Foster sometimes.” Neal tried to suppress his excitement,
“Are you positive they are in a relationship?” he asked, “not just friends who work together, colleagues?” The Big Issue seller snorted indignantly, giving Neal a patronising look.
“Is obvious when young people more than good friends: holding hands, kissing, know what I mean? Mrs Anna not know. I think she not like Maya so much. Maybe she worry Maya turn Simon into Goth like her.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know your name,” Neal said.
“My name Ileana. Ileana Vasilescu.”
“Pretty name, Ileana,” Neal said and was rewarded with a beaming smile.
“Ileana, what evenings does Maya work at your hostel?”
“Only Wednesdays, but I know where she live. Sometimes she give me extra lessons, help with my English. I want to stay here, find good job one day.” It took only a second for Neal to learn Maya’s address. He said goodbye to Ileana, thinking that for the price of a cup of coffee, he might just have gained the biggest break in the case so far.
Back in his car, Neal texted Ava and requested that she meet him at the address given to him by Ileana. Then he put his car in gear and headed towards it with his first feeling of optimism since the sad discovery o
f Amy Hill’s body several weeks ago.
* * *
Around the time that Neal was interviewing Anna Foster, Detective Sergeant Ava Merry was driving northwards in the direction of an estate on the outskirts of the city. Once owned by the council, it was now partly privatised as a result of ‘right to buy’ legislation, and those properties still classed as social housing were now managed by a local housing association simply named Stromford Homes. Rohina Ali lived in a three bedroom privately owned house that was being rented out as a student let and managed by the university accommodation office. She shared with two other women, both postgraduate students at the university, as indeed, was Rohina herself. All this, Ava had established with a quick call to the station.
It was hard to say who was more startled when Rohina opened her front door to find Ava standing before her holding up her police ID. Presumably Rohina was surprised to see a police officer on her doorstep; for Ava it was the shock of coming face to face with a Rohina who was utterly different from the newspaper picture. So different was this woman’s appearance from the shy-seeming Asian girl in traditional sari and headscarf that, at first glance, Ava was convinced she had the wrong address, or at least the wrong flatmate.
“Rohina Ali?” she asked uncertainly, staring at the spiky pink- haired girl in front of her. If ever there was a classic punk look, Rohina fitted it to the letter: drainpipe tartan leggings and Doc Martens, studded leather jacket, piercings and tattoos; she had the lot.
“I prefer ‘Roxy,’ these days, the girl answered, finally taking her eyes off Ava’s badge and looking her steadily in the eye. If Rohina had appeared reserved and submissive, there was no hint that her alter ego was similarly afflicted. Everything about her was kick-ass.
“Can I come in?” Ava asked, intuiting that Roxy would respond better to a non-authoritarian approach. Roxy shrugged,
“Place is a mess.”
“That’s ok, I’m not here to inspect your domestic standards,” Ava answered, smiling, “You should see my place.”