“DCI Miller,” she said slowly. “Didn’t I always tell you that Jocasta was dead?”
Miller had to admit that this was true. He had always assumed it was some sort of self-preservation. Expecting the worst so that anything else would come as a relief. But had she really been sure?
“I always knew Jocasta would never leave her family,” Martha said, her gaze now focused on an invisible point outside of the window.
“Why were you so sure?” Newbold asked, returning her hand to rest on Martha’s.
Martha let out a long sigh and then returned her gaze to the room. “Jocasta wasn’t like other kids,” she said. “I know all mothers think that about their children, but Jocasta was different. She had a purity.”
Newbold’s eyebrows involuntarily rose.
“I’m not saying she was perfect,” Martha said, a smile of fond remembrance crossing her face. “We had all the childhood tantrums and arguments all parents have at one time or another. What I mean is that she had a pure spirit. She had a good heart.”
“But children grown into adults,” Miller said. “They change.”
“Of course they change,” Martha said. “And Jocasta was maturing into a beautiful, bright and goodhearted young woman. But she retained that same purity of soul.”
“Did she have friends outside of Whitby?” Newbold asked. If Martha thought this change of tact strange, she made no sign.
“A few. There was a family who moved to York who she had kept in touch with and there are her cousins here in Sheffield.”
“So it’s possible she may have considered moving away.”
Martha looked puzzled for a moment, but then her face cleared. “You don’t understand,” she said. “I’m not saying Jocasta would not have left Whitby – in fact I think that was her plan one day. What I’m trying to tell you is that she would have never, never left without telling us where she was going. It was just so completely out of character.”
Miller thought he understood. Jocasta had been a serious, family orientated teenager. From what he had learnt at the time, she had been if not devout, then someone who had taken her religion very seriously. Her decision to study theology was a way for her to gain a deeper understanding of the Christian faith that played such an important part in her family’s life.
Martha took a long, deep breath before sitting up straight in her chair. “So,” she said, locking eyes with Miller. “What sort of accident was it?”
Newbold exchanged an alarmed glance with Miller.
“Accident?” Miller said. “It wasn’t an accident. Your daughter was murdered.”
Outside, the Orchard Square clock chimed one thirty, its sound mixed with the terrible, piercing sound of Martha Heath’s despairing scream.
*
It was fifteen minutes later that Miller found himself in the bookshop’s coffee shop. Newbold was still upstairs with Martha Heath. It had taken ten minutes to get her to calm down to a level that they could even hold a conversation. The manager had offered to let her go home, but Martha had said that the last thing she wanted to be was on her own. Miller thought she was probably right. He had agreed to give her as long as she needed to collect her thoughts, but had firmly, if kindly insisted that he speak to her again.
Miller glanced at his watch. It was almost ten minutes before two. He really should check in with Riddle, but he wanted to be available as soon as Martha was ready to speak.
“Black coffee?”
Miller looked up to see a smiling face holding out a drink. “Yes. Thank you,” he said. He was hardly concentrating and burnt the roof of his mouth on the drink. “Damn,” he said as he reached for a glass of water.
“You all right?” a female voice said beside him. He looked up to see a member of the bookshop’s staff looking down at him. She had striking blue eyes and a genuine smile that made Miller feel strangely foolish.
“I’m fine. Just a little too eager to drink my coffee.”
The woman seemed about to say something else, but was distracted by a customer who wanted to know where books on local history were kept.
Miller watched her walk away. For some reason she had reminded him of Dr Alice Laine. He knew she was in Sheffield at the moment. It was even possible that she was in the city centre. Perhaps she had decided to buy a book. Perhaps she was in the shop right now.
The thought brought a series of emotions cascading through Miller. Excitement, longing and fear danced around him in a dizzying procession of confusion. He took another drink of coffee. What was wrong with him?
“Sir?”
Miller turned around.
“You OK?” Newbold asked.
Why did people keep asking him if he was OK? Was it that obvious that he wasn’t?
“I’m fine, constable. How is Mrs. Heath?”
“Ready for us,” Newbold said, unable to hide from her voice the fact that she thought Martha Heath was anything but ready. How could she be? “She’s obviously very upset, but she understands that time is a serious consideration.”
Miller nodded. She was right. Her daughter may have been dead for at least four years, but there must be a reason that her body had suddenly appeared on the strip of sand underneath the headland. And Samantha Thompson had only been murdered a couple of days ago. If there was a link, Martha Heath may be able to provide a clue to its nature.
“Let’s go,” Miller said, as he stood up. He picked his coffee up and followed Newbold back up to the manager’s office.
Chapter 13
Martha Heath was sitting in the same chair as she had been when Miller and Newbold had first arrived, but the change in her appearance was staggering. Her eyes were bloodshot from crying, but colour had returned to her face and her whole demeanour seemed to suggest a level of resolve that had been wholly missing just an hour ago.
“I’m sorry about my reaction,” she said as Miller sat down in the opposite chair.
“You have nothing to be sorry about,” he said, waving the apology aside.
“Perhaps,” Martha said, “but what you need now is help finding out who murdered my beautiful daughter…” she broke off. It was clear to Miller that the veneer of determination was perilously thin. She was obviously focusing all her energy into keeping it together in the knowledge that the police needed her help. He doubted very much that it would last the afternoon out.
“If it’s OK with you I need to ask you some questions,” Miller said. “I know it’s probably the last thing you want to do now, but please accept my word that they are very important.”
Martha nodded her head. “Ask me anything you want.”
“Thank you. First I want to ask you if there’s anyone who may have wanted to hurt Jocasta?”
Martha shook her head. “That’s just the thing,” she said. “Why would anyone want to hurt her? She was popular, kind, loving. People like that don’t have enemies.”
“People can be jealous of someone like that,” Newbold said. She had resumed her position next to Martha, but now had an A5 pad out to take notes.
Martha thought about this for a moment. “True,” she said. “I suppose that can happen. But it’s a long way from that to…” she left the sentence unfinished.
“It is,” Miller agreed. “Which is why I need to be sure that there was no one from your time in Whitby who you can think of.”
Martha shook her head.
“What about Jocasta’s father?” Newbold asked.
Martha snorted. “What about him? He left me over two years ago.”
Newbold smiled with what she hoped was understanding. “But might he know of anyone?”
“It’s possible,” Martha conceded, “but we knew the same people. I don’t see how that would be the case.”
“OK,” Miller said. “Can you tell me about the last time your saw Jocasta? Anything you can remember could prove useful.”
Martha thought for a moment. “It was summer. It had been really warm and the town was busy. Jocasta was on vacation from
university, but she had still been studying. One of her tutors had been helping her out with some extra work.”
“Really?” Miller asked. He had a faint recollection of this, but from memory the tutor had been dismissed as a suspect as he was away for the summer. “What was his name?”
“Martin Charles,” she said, her voice cracking.
“Go on.”
“Well he had left Jocasta a whole reading list, but more than that he had suggested some practical work. Volunteering, that sort of thing.”
“And did she volunteer anywhere?”
“She had looked into it, but something seemed to change her mind. She focused on the books. She loved books…”
Miller nodded. He was beginning to understand why Martha was working in the bookshop. It must be like having hundreds of little pieces of Jocasta around her every day.
“So was she reading on that day?”
“She had been in the morning. But she had said that there was something she needed to sort out.”
“And that was the last time?”
“Yes. She just walked out of the house and then she was gone.”
“Did she have anything with her?” Newbold asked. “A bag, perhaps?”
“No. She didn’t even take her handbag. She gave me the impression that she’d only be half an hour or so.”
Miller sighed. It was just as he remembered it at the time. Jocasta had left the house to see someone or do something – no one was quite sure – and was due back in no more than an hour. Where the hell had she gone? At the time there had been a few sightings in the town centre. Someone had seen her on the swing bridge and there had been a couple of conflicting reports, but nothing concrete. The problem had been that the town was at the height of the tourist season. Everywhere was crowded and most of the people were tourists and day-trippers.
“And you never found anything that might have suggested where she had gone?” Miller already knew the answer to the question before he had asked it, but he just wanted to confirm his memory.
“I looked,” Martha said. “I looked through everything I could find in the days after she went missing, but there was nothing.”
“She didn’t keep a diary?” Newbold asked.
“No. She never had done. All I found were lecture notes and her summer reading list.”
“The books set by her tutor?” Miller asked.
Martha looked out of the window as a pigeon landed on the windowsill. “Yes,” she said.
Miller thought back to the last party he and Alice had been to at the university. He could remember a theology lecturer, but that had been a woman. “Is he still at the university?”
“No. He left at the end of the autumn term.”
“Where did he go?” Miller asked, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling. Could there be a connection? Although if her tutor had been involved, why did he not leave in the summer? Why wait another three or four months?
“He took some big job with the church,” Martha said.
Newbold looked up from the manager’s computer. “Here we are,” she said. “Martin Charles. Lecturer in theology 2004-2010 Whitby University. 2011 to present chief adviser to the Archbishop of Greater London.”
“That’s one of the most influential positions in the modern church,” Miller said. “Well paid as well, I would imagine.”
Martha didn’t respond. She was still staring out of the window.
“You say he wasn’t in Whitby during the summer Jocasta went missing?”
Martha turned around. Her eyes were full of tears. “No. He left at the end of the summer term and didn’t come back until six weeks later when term started.”
“He was in Rome,” Newbold said.
“How do you..?”
“It’s on his website. Summer 2010 he spent the whole summer chairing a conference on God and the Internet.”
“Let’s check to make sure he didn’t fly home,” Miller said.
“Is there anything else?” Martha asked.
It was clear to Miller that the last vestiges of restraint were collapsing. “Just one more question. Did you and Jocasta get on?”
Martha’s face turned red. “Of course we got on. What kind of question is that? My daughter’s body has just been found and you ask me if we got on. What the hell are you trying to say?” Martha’s breath was coming in short sharp blasts.
Newbold looked surprised at the outburst, but Miller just smiled sadly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I need you to answer.”
Martha stared at Miller for a moment before answering. “I loved her very much. We were a very close family.”
“Thank you,” Miller said. “I’ll arrange for someone to take you home.” He lent out of the door and beckoned a member of staff who had been waiting awkwardly in the corridor. “Could you make sure Martha gets home?”
He stood back to let Martha out of the office. “Oh, just one more thing. Is your husband still in Whitby?”
“My ex-husband,” Martha corrected. “Yes. He lives at the top of St Hilda’s Terrace. But he won’t be able to tell you anything else.”
“We’ll arrange for you to come to Whitby to formally identity your daughter,” Miller said. “How’s tomorrow morning?”
“Christmas eve?” Martha said and started to cry.
*
“Spit it out, constable.”
Miller and Newbold were retracing their steps down York Street towards their parked car. Ever since they had left the bookshop it had been clear that there was something on Newbold’s mind.
“I don’t want to talk out of turn,” she said.
“No?” Miller said. “Well, anything’s better that your sullen silence.”
Newbold looked as if she couldn’t make up her mind and the indecision was causing her some distress.
“PC Newbold,” Miller said, his voice tired. “Spit it out.”
“It’s the way you just threw in the fact that she would have to identify her daughter’s body. It was…”
“Go on.”
“Callous. It wasn’t like you.”
Miller shrugged. “You think so?”
Newbold was suddenly unsure. “You know something, don’t you?”
“Only what you know,” Miller said, pausing beside the night entrance of the newspaper building. “You heard exactly what I heard.”
“I don’t understand,” Newbold said. She was feeling wretched. First she had been upset by a perceived callousness and now she had the unpleasant feeling that she had missed something.
Miller stood aside to let a man in his mid-forties enter the building. He had a hard-backed envelope under his arm. Miller watched him walk past the security guard’s office and head up a flight of stairs. “I’m not sure I understand,” Miller said. “At least not fully. Come on,” he added as he set off across the road, “you’re going to have to make a couple of calls on the way back.” He glanced at his watch. “We should be back in Whitby by six.”
As Miller drove towards the M1, Newbold was on her mobile. “Yes. I see. And you’re certain of that? I see. Well thank you. No. Nothing to worry about. Just routine. Thanks again. Goodbye.”
Miller indicated and turned left onto the motorway slip road. He pressed down on the accelerator as the car joined the northbound M1. “Well, what did the Archbishop’s office have to say?”
“Martin Charles spent the whole summer of 2010 in Rome. The course was residential and so he had to be there all the time. I spoke to one of his colleagues who was on the same course. They both arrived in July and didn’t return to England until the end of September.”
“So we know that Martha was correct when she said Jocasta’s tutor was out of the country for the whole summer and didn’t return until the beginning of the autumn term. So unless Jocasta spent six weeks or so in hiding and then was murdered by him on his return, he can’t have been involved.”
“Unless Jocasta flew out to Italy,” Newbold said, sounding unconvinced.
�
��Not too easy to murder someone in Italy and then fly their body home.”
“I know,” Newbold said. “Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for,” Miller said. “I’d rather hear a dozen wrong ideas than you keep something to yourself.”
Newbold smiled gratefully. “But doesn’t that put us back on square one?”
Miller didn’t answer for a moment. “I’m not so sure,” he said. “Call Jocasta’s father. Tell him I want to see him. He should have been contacted by Riddle, so I would guess he’ll be at home.”
Newbold dialled the number.
*
It was fully dark by the time Miller and Newbold arrived back in Whitby. As Miller drove up Chubb Hill Road, he glanced to the right. Pannett Park was impenetrable in the dark, except for a solitary light coming from the empty university campus. For a moment he thought Dr Alice Laine might have returned, but he soon put the foolish thought out of his mind.
He turned right at the roundabout and parked at the top of St Hilda’s terrace. The road was home to some of the most handsome houses in the town, their charm only increased by the fact that few visitors ever ventured to this part of Whitby.
Simon Heath lived in a four storey Victorian villa. Now divided into flats, Jocasta’s father lived in a second floor apartment, which looked over the Park and university campus. The imposing house was illuminated by period gas lamps, which guided the visitor to large double blue doors.
Just as Miller and Newbold approached, the doors opened and a middle-aged man appeared. He was handsome in a dishevelled way, with fair shoulder length hair. He was wearing jeans with cowboy boots and a black sports jacket over a black t-shirt. As he emerged he lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply.
When he spotted the two figures approaching he stopped and squinted. Miller guessed that he probably needed glasses, but chose not to wear them. As he got closer, he saw that Simon Heath’s eyes were bloodshot.
“You the police?” he asked. His accent was less noticeable than Martha’s.
“DCI Miller and PC Newbold,” Miller said showing his warrant card. “I am ever so sorry.”
Better the Devil You Know Page 10
