by Louise Voss
‘Don’t worry,’ she repeated. ‘It’s going to be fine.’ She held my hand and I gripped hers tightly, unspeakably relieved that she was there.
‘How many times have you been arrested?’ I asked, and she looked skywards, counting off on her fingers.
‘Four,’ she said. ‘And never charged.’
That made me feel a little better.
‘It’s my birthday today,’ I announced, as the coach rumbled through the main gates onto the Newbury Road.
‘Oh WOW!’ said Samantha, kissing my cheek effusively, like we’d known each other for years. ‘Happy birthday, gorgeous girl! Eighteen?’
‘Seventeen,’ I said sheepishly, and she blanched slightly.
‘Jeez. Listen,’ she leaned into me and whispered in my ear, ‘when you’re booked in, for God’s sake don’t tell them you’re underage.’
I was surprised. I’d been planning to milk it, in the hope they’d take pity on me as a child.
‘Why not?’
‘Because the whole thing will take ten times longer! I’m serious. There was a sixteen-year old kid last time, and my God, the hassle. They had to get someone in to be an appropriate adult for her, and it took hours.’
‘Oh. Right.’ I mentally rehearsed my fake year of birth in case I was asked: 1965, not 1966. 1965, 1965, 1965…
Half an hour or so later, we arrived at Reading Police Station. I was dying for a pee, having not been since the train, but dreading what the arrangements would be. I’d seen Porridge on TV, the steel toilet in a corner … I couldn’t.
All sixteen of us were escorted into the station and herded up to the desk. The young arresting officer (whose face had returned to milky white again) announced to the custody sergeant: ‘These ladies were caught at twenty-one nineteen on April the first, trespassing on MOD property, contrary to Section Five of the military defence law, and brought here to be detained…’ I tuned out after that, still fretting about Pete’s rucksack, my swelling bladder and my parents’ reaction when I rang them to admit where I was. But then I heard him announce that we were all to submit to a full body search.
Shit! No. I felt my bowels turn liquid, and I clutched Samantha’s furry sleeve. ‘I can’t do that!’ I said, in a small panicky voice.
She hugged me. ‘It’s fine, really. It’s over real fast.’
I was so glad she was there, but it didn’t make me feel a whole lot better.
We shuffled forwards to be booked in, and when it was my turn, I stared into the custody sergeant’s weary bloodshot eyes as he cautioned me: ‘You’re entitled to a solicitor free of charge, and you’re entitled to have someone informed of your arrest. Do you want us to inform someone?’
As advised by Samantha, I shook my head, but I couldn’t prevent tears of longing rolling down my face at the thought of Mum and Dad coming to my rescue. It would be worth all the inevitable shouting, the disappointment, the grounding, just to be home tucked up in my own bed – after a long sit on the toilet, in my own bathroom…
But she’d told me not to let the police tell them, and I trusted her.
I signed my acknowledgement of the caution – which, Samantha said, meant I’d be released sooner – then joined another queue of women waiting to be searched by two WPCs. We were being taken one by one into a room. The door was shut, I noticed, which was a relief – at least there’d be privacy, I thought. The women emerging again wore a variety of expressions from weariness to grumpiness. Nobody seemed traumatised though. My turn came, and I was ushered into the room, which was empty except for a desk with an overhead projector and two bored-looking female officers. My stomach was churning.
‘Oh look, another teddy bear,’ said the taller of the two – a woman with a ferocious, blonde Vera Duckworth perm. ‘Slip that off for me, love.’
I unzipped the front of my bear costume and let the furry shoulders drop to the floor so I was standing quivering in my bra and pants. It was cold in here, and I felt goosebumps sweep across the bare skin of my chest and stomach.
‘Good girl. Just pull your pants forwards; let’s have a quick check.’
It was the most humiliating moment of my life. Even worse than when I got my period as I walked into town wearing white jeans.
I hooked my thumbs into my flowery M&S knickers and pulled them away from my abdomen, staring hard at the ceiling tiles and trying very hard not to cry. But it was a) painless, b) over in a second, and c) neither of the women donned rubber gloves and stuck their fingers inside me as I’d feared they might, so that was a win. They were the first people ever to see my pubic hair.
I told Samantha that later, in a blurt of confession, and she laughed, which made my heart leap.
‘Funny old world,’ she said affectionately, in a mock-British accent.
19
Present Day
Meredith
Meredith heard them clatter down the metal steps from the carpark to the wharf – a man and a woman, unmistakably detectives; dressed like middle management, walking with authority. The man was broad-shouldered and morose, his jacket sleeves too short for the length of his arms. The woman was younger and friendlier-looking, with a mass of curly blonde hair and slightly protuberant front teeth.
‘I’d like to live on a boat,’ the woman was saying. ‘So cosy. Wood-burning stove, sunrises on the water…’
‘Icy decks in winter,’ her colleague retorted. ‘Rats running up the ropes. Can’t think of anything worse.’
So he was as cheery as he looked, then. Meredith ducked out of sight behind a porthole, wondering if she had time to get dressed. The PC who’d come to Minstead when she’d rung 999 had said someone would come and interview her, but not who or what time.
It was Saturday morning – late enough for the sun to have burned all the summer mist off the water, but still, she’d have thought, too early to go round to interview people.
‘Which one’s her brother’s?’ the man said, consulting his phone. ‘It’s called Bruton Bee.’ Even though Meredith could no longer see him, she could hear the sneer in his words, as if he thought they were particularly ridiculous.
‘Not sure. We can always ring her if we can’t find it.’ The woman dropped her voice, but Meredith still heard. ‘Hopefully she’ll be in less of a state than she was the other day. Emad said she was in bits. Is she staying here with her brother, then?’
‘Dunno.’
There was a pause, and then a confident rap on one of the boat’s portholes. Reluctantly, Meredith tied her short dressing gown tighter round her waist and went to let them in.
They were both flashing badges at her.
‘Meredith Vincent? DS Mark Davis and DC Gemma McMeekin,’ said the man. ‘May we come in?’
‘Of course. Sorry, I didn’t sleep last night, and now I’ve only been awake long enough to make coffee … I didn’t know what time you were coming. My brother’s gone to his workshop already, he’s got a big commission to finish. But I suppose you don’t need to speak to him, do you?’
Shut. Up, she mentally commanded, realising how hideously rambly and defensive she must sound.
She stood aside to admit them as they hunkered down and squeezed through the low door, which was particularly difficult for the guy, who must have been about 6’5”. He almost had to fold himself in half to get in. Her left hand was on the door frame, and the woman, Gemma, clocked her scar as she came past her into the barge.
Meredith saw Gemma’s eyes widen and hastily pulled her arm behind her back, furious with herself for blushing.
‘Please, sit down,’ she said, gesturing towards Pete’s faded, saggy old corner sofa next to the wood stove.
They all sat, Meredith at one end, DS Davis’s long legs a trip hazard as first he stretched them out across the kelim rug, then crossed them, then decided again and went for a manspreading stance instead. She didn’t warm to the man at all.
‘I’ll just get a few details down, if I may,’ Gemma said, taking a notebook and pen out of her shoulde
r bag. Now that she was closer, Meredith saw that she had braces on her teeth, which made her voice sound a little thicker than it probably was normally. She couldn’t have had them on for long, because her teeth were still quite prominent. She had a plump, guileless face which, with the braces, made her look much younger than she probably was.
Davis gave a sudden exclamation. Gemma and Meredith both looked up to see what he was looking at. His eyes were bulging out of his head with a sort of delighted awe as he seemed to drink Meredith in.
‘No way! I don’t believe it. It’s you, isn’t it! You’re Merry Heather! Fuck m— Um, sorry. I mean, wow, that’s amazing. I am a huge fan.’
Meredith felt the blood drain from her face. No. Surely not … Nobody, but nobody had recognised her in years! How could this guy, who didn’t even look old enough to have been buying records when the band were famous…?
For so long it was what she had been dreading more than anything; far more so since Iain’s phone call last year. She sat on her hands to stop them shaking. It’s OK, she told herself. If anyone’s going to recognise you, it’s good that it’s a policeman. Safe. Nothing bad will happen.
Gemma stood up, concerned. ‘Are you OK? You’ve gone a funny grey colour. Let me get you some water.’ She turned to Davis. ‘Merry Heather?’
‘Merry Heather!’ he crowed, slightly less effusively now that he’d witnessed Meredith’s shock. ‘Lead singer of Cohen, one of the best bands on the planet!’ The excitement in his tone ramped up again. ‘My big brother had all your records, and I really got into you through him. I don’t think I’d have made the connection though, if I hadn’t spotted that.’ He pointed at a mug on the coffee table, with the logo COHEN emblazoned on it. ‘You look very different.’
Yes, that was certainly her intention, Meredith thought, scowling at the offending mug. Pete had had it for so long, she’d forgotten it was there.
‘God, I adored you when I was a teenager.’ He was practically gushing now, and Meredith had the urge to punch him in the throat.
‘It was a very long time ago,’ she said eventually, in a voice that she hoped did not invite further discussion. ‘I don’t talk about it. It’s all in the past now.’
Gemma had found a glass on the draining board and filled it. She brought it over and handed it to Meredith who took an obedient sip, but Gemma hadn’t let the tap run first and the water tasted warm and brackish.
Meredith still couldn’t figure out, even with the aide-memoire of the mug, how Davis could have made the connection. In the band’s heyday she had resembled a female Robert Smith from The Cure, with wild backcombed black hair, not the mousy short bob that she had now worn for years.
Davis stood up, wandering around Pete’s boat in a proprietorial sort of way that Meredith found doubly infuriating. He peered at book titles on the shelves and even, when he thought she wasn’t looking, flicked through a large stack of vinyl next to a turntable. He still looked like all his birthdays had come at once.
‘So what did you need to ask me?’ she enquired pointedly, setting the glass back on the coffee table with a too-loud clatter, glaring at Davis until he came and sat down again. For a horrible moment she thought he was going to ask for her autograph.
‘I know our colleague, PC Khan, took some details from you on Thursday at the scene. We thought we’d come and see how you’re feeling today?’ Gemma said. ‘Could you talk us through it again, what happened? In case we missed anything important.’
Meredith opened her mouth to speak, but had a shocking mental image of Ralph’s mouth, gaping, full of green slimy water, and felt as if she was being choked by it. ‘I still just can’t believe it,’ was all she managed. ‘I just can’t…’
‘It must have been a terrible shock to find him like that.’
Meredith wrapped the dressing gown tighter around her body. She could see Davis trying not to stare at her legs. Under normal circumstances, she was sure he’d never fancy someone like her – older than him, lines around her eyes, no make-up. She bet his usual type was a WAG in vertiginous stilettos, she thought bitterly, trying to rid herself of the memory of Ralph’s bloated body.
‘Do you go down to that pond a lot when you’re at work?’
She nodded slowly. ‘I quite often eat my sandwiches there in summer. There are no tourists. A bench with a view that gets the sun. The shop’s so hectic at this time of year that I crave a bit of solitude, you know? To not speak to anybody for half an hour.’
‘How long have you worked at Minstead House?’
Meredith thought about it, counting off the years on her fingers. Her brain felt like soup. Or like slimy pond water. She’d got the job two years after it happened.
Two swans sailed majestically past the porthole, the movement making Gemma jump.
‘Over twenty years … twenty-one now.’
‘Wow. Long time to be in the same job.’
Meredith wondered if the woman meant it to sound that patronising. It was a long time, though. Twenty-one years ago was 1997.
They must have been wondering how – or why – she’d gone from being at the top of the music business to being a gift-shop manager. She was well aware it was an odd choice of post-fame career.
‘Do you enjoy your job?’ Davis asked, a slightly high break in his voice betraying that he wasn’t over his rush of starstruckness.
‘I adore it,’ she said, her eyes suddenly brimming with tears. ‘It’s everything to me. Nothing like this has ever happened there before; it’s just so horrible.’ She sniffed hard. ‘I’m sorry. I almost never cry. But I don’t seem to have stopped since … since … it happened. I can’t believe he’s gone.’
To her own ears, the words sounded shallow and insincere. She hoped they didn’t to the two officers.
Gemma put a sympathetic hand on her leg, but Meredith twitched it off. Davis glared at his colleague.
‘Can you tell us about your relationship with Ralph Allerton?’
Meredith panicked for a moment, thinking, Shit, how do they know? Then she realised he just meant a work relationship. Her heart pounded in her ribcage, and she felt sweat break out on her forehead. Stay calm. From the way they were both regarding her, it was clear that they had both noticed her reaction.
‘He was my boss,’ she said flatly. ‘Sorry, I thought you meant were we in a relationship! And obviously, no we weren’t – he’s married to my best friend Paula. Was married to … She’s beside herself.’
‘I’m sure,’ Gemma said. ‘So which came first, Paula becoming your friend, or Ralph becoming your boss?’
‘The latter. He invited me round to dinner a couple of months after he started – about ten years ago? Paula and I hit it off straight away, and we’ve been friends ever since. I’ve been on holidays with them. They … they both made me laugh. I’ll miss that…’
‘I see,’ Davis said. He seemed to have pulled himself together a bit. ‘Can you talk us through the last few days before Ralph went missing? I mean, when did you last see him?’
Meredith stared straight ahead, at a kitsch knitted deer’s head trophy on the wall of the boat. One of Pete’s ex-girlfriends had made it for him. Rhiannon, that was her name. Meredith had liked her. She was earthy and fun and always making stuff: earrings and candles and body lotion. But Rhiannon went the same way as all the others – dumped.
‘The last time I spoke to him was in his office a week last Thursday. We’d had our monthly staff lunch, although I wasn’t on the same table as him; he was sitting in between the Earl and Sebastian – that’s the Earl’s son. They were all drinking quite a lot – they always do. I went to his office later that day to discuss a new line of gardening equipment I’m buying in, and to ask if he’d spare some of the gardeners to do a photoshoot showing them using it, but he was pretty legless by that time. I couldn’t get much sense out of him to be honest. I’ve talked to Paula about my concerns over his drinking. He shouldn’t have been drunk at work. She’s worried too.’
&nb
sp; ‘Does everyone go to the monthly lunch?’ Davis asked, as Gemma scribbled frantically.
Meredith shook her head. ‘Only the senior staff, and people like Ceri, Ralph’s PA, who’ve been there for donkey’s years. There’s dozens of staff; we couldn’t all meet at the same time. We only do that at the summer party. Ralph established it – the monthly lunch – a few years ago, with the Earl’s blessing. Pretty sure it was so that they could all legitimately get pissed at lunchtime once a month.’
‘What’s Ralph got to do with the house’s gardeners?’
‘He’s – he was – head of estates, so that means he was line manager to the head gardener, Eric Nicholson, who all the other gardeners report to. It’s the same with me in the shop: the head of HR makes all the hirings, but all my volunteers report to me.’
‘Thanks. So what time did you leave Ralph’s office last Thursday?’ Gemma’s pen was poised over her notebook.
‘About five-thirty, I think? I had a whisky or two with him, tried to make him drink some water – and I wanted to be sure he didn’t try to drive home. I’d have taken his car keys, but he wouldn’t let me have them. He did promise not to drive though, so when I saw his car the next morning I assumed … I assumed he’d got a cab home. I didn’t leave the house myself till about nine-fifteen. My twin and I were planning to go for a drink, so I decided to stay late to catch up on some invoicing. So I was in my own office till he – Pete – arrived. He was late, as usual. He was meant to come and meet me at eight-thirty. By then we decided we couldn’t be bothered to drive to the pub, so we just went back to my cottage.’
‘And neither of you saw Ralph again before you left?’
‘No. Only Leonard, the security guard. Everyone else had gone home. I thought they had, anyway.’
‘How do you think Ralph could’ve been found in the pond a week later, Meredith?’ Gemma asked. ‘Do you have any idea?’
Meredith stared down at her unscarred hand. She was still sitting on the other one. ‘I’d imagine he just fell in; he was definitely drunk enough. But I don’t understand what he was doing down there in the first place. There was no reason for him to be in that part of the grounds. Unless he wanted some fresh air or something … But he was never one for walks…’ She tailed off.
