Vera Stanhope 06 - Harbour Street

by Ann Cleeves

  ‘What about her?’ Jodie was very thin, with a ratty face and narrow eyes.

  ‘She’s a neighbour.’

  ‘The social set her up in that flat upstairs. All the old biddies in the block want her out.’ She put the child on the floor and he pulled a train from the toy box.

  ‘And you?’

  She shrugged. ‘Live and let live.’

  ‘You weren’t worried that she was attracting unsuitable men into the flats?’

  The woman gave an unpleasant laugh. ‘Have you met her? How many men do you think she attracts? Those too drunk to get up the stairs. She hangs out in the Coble because the locals feel sorry for her and buy her drinks. She might have done a bit of business a few years ago, but now she’s just a laughing stock.’

  ‘Are you in the same line yourself?’

  She laughed again. ‘I’m a reformed character. Check my record.’

  ‘Dee’s dead,’ he said. ‘We think she was killed sometime yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘Poor cow.’ She scooped the child into her arms and held him tight, kissing his hair. ‘She was as mad as a snake, but she didn’t deserve that.’

  ‘When did you last see her?’

  ‘I haven’t seen her for a few days, but I heard her yesterday. Her flat’s above mine and the ceiling’s like cardboard. Usually there wasn’t much noise. The telly, but I have it on most of the time anyway.’ She sat on the sofa with the child still in her arms and watched the children’s presenter pretending to be a lion.

  ‘But yesterday you heard something,’ he said. ‘People shouting? A row?’

  She shook her head. ‘Nothing like that. Music. Could have been on the telly, but very loud. I’d put Alfie down for a nap and I was worried she’d wake him up. I banged on the ceiling with a broom handle and it stopped. She must have gone out then, because I heard her on the steps outside.’

  ‘But you didn’t see her?’

  Jodie looked horrified. ‘Oh my God, you think it was the killer going past the door?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Ashworth said. ‘What time was it?’

  She shook her head as if time didn’t mean anything to her. ‘I didn’t see anything. I mean, I didn’t look out of the window.’

  He left her sitting with her son on the sofa and staring at the television.

  Peggy Jamieson was expecting him and knew who he was. Her friend on the ground floor must have phoned her, and anyway by now the neighbouring flat was swarming with people and the blue-and-white tape was across the corridor, blocking her way to the stairs. Ashworth bobbed underneath it, nodded to the PC who was standing guard, and knocked on the door. There was no sign of Vera. Peggy opened the door and immediately started talking. She was short and round, and the stairs must be a trial to her.

  ‘They never should have put that woman to live there. She couldn’t look after herself.’

  Her flat was spotless and it glistened. There was a view from the living-room window over the top of the Coble and to the harbour. Behind the pub a man carried a crate of empties into the yard. Joe let her talk for a while.

  ‘How long has Dee Robson been there?’

  ‘About six weeks. But long enough for me to know it wasn’t going to work out. Staggering back drunk at all hours. Men. And I could see when she opened the door that it was an absolute pigsty in there.’ The state of the flat seemed to bother her more than Dee’s habits.

  ‘How many men?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t see that many. But I’m not always in. And I’m not as nebby as some.’

  Joe thought Dee’s reputation had arrived at Percy Street before her, and that Jodie’s assessment of her ability to attract customers was probably accurate. He wondered about Jason, who’d taken Dee on the Metro on the day of Margaret’s death. Had he been very drunk? Very desperate? Certainly he’d dumped her as soon as he’d sobered up. Joe smiled at Peggy. ‘Were you here yesterday?’

  ‘Aye, all day.’

  ‘Did Dee have any visitors?’

  ‘You were in there,’ Peggy said sharply. ‘You and a fat woman. I saw you from the window.’

  ‘We could have been going to any of the flats.’ Joe thought this was just the sort of witness Vera had been hoping for.

  ‘You could,’ she said, ‘but you didn’t.’

  ‘And after us?’

  She shook her head. ‘Then it was Countdown. I don’t like it so much since the old presenter died, but I still watch every day.’

  ‘Did you hear anything?’

  ‘No.’ He could tell she wished that she could help. ‘There’s the stairwell between the flats and my hearing’s not as good as it used to be. Just as well. The things that used to go on in there.’

  He stood up. He wished Peggy had said that she was sorry Dee was dead. Even Jodie had expressed some sympathy. Then he thought that Dee had caused the elderly woman nothing but nuisance and he was getting as soft as Vera.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Vera waited until the scene was secure and then she ran down the stairs. Running didn’t come naturally, and halfway to the first landing she paused to rest and shouted back to the constable on duty, ‘Tell Sergeant Ashworth that I’ve gone to Holypool and I’ll catch up with him later.’ She was so breathless that she wasn’t sure if the words had carried far enough for him to hear.

  She drove straight past the Haven on her first attempt to find the place. She’d never gone in for satnav – more trouble than it was worth. By now it was late afternoon and the countryside surrounding the house was in shadow, so it was easy to miss the entrance. Vera could see why Dee hadn’t settled in the Haven. If she’d felt she was in alien territory a couple of Metro stops from Mardle, this would be way outside her comfort zone. This was wide, flat coastal country, where the wind blew straight from Scandinavia and only the Cheviots broke the horizon inland. Vera parked the Land Rover in the courtyard next to a blue minibus and tried to calm her thoughts. She’d been swept here on a wave of righteous indignation, angry on Dee’s behalf, but now she had to decide how she should play the meeting. She was still thinking when there was a rap on the window. She opened the door.

  The woman was plump and cheerful and Vera recognized the voice from the earlier phone call that she’d made to the Haven. ‘Are you lost? Do you need directions back to the village? This is a dead end, I’m afraid, even though some maps show a way through.’

  ‘I’m not lost.’ Vera climbed out. Again she felt the stiffness in her knees. And they said that exercise was good for you. ‘I’m exactly where I wanted to be. You’ve already met my colleague, Joe Ashworth.’

  ‘And you are?’ Jane Cameron was on the defensive, but her smile didn’t shift.

  ‘Eh, pet, I’m his boss, Vera Stanhope. We’ve already spoken on the phone.’

  ‘And I explained that we have no vacancies at the Haven.’ The response was sharp. This woman wasn’t accustomed to having her judgement questioned.

  Vera waved her hand. ‘No need to worry about that now.’

  ‘You’ve found other accommodation.’ Jane sounded relieved. ‘That’s good.’

  ‘No need for other accommodation,’ Vera said. ‘Dee Robson’s dead.’

  They talked in Jane Cameron’s office. The house seemed unnaturally quiet. ‘What have you done with your women?’

  ‘Most of them are in town. Last-minute Christmas shopping. We don’t keep them locked up.’

  ‘How did they get there?’

  ‘We’ve got a minibus. I gave them a lift to Mardle Metro. They’ll ring when they want picking up.’ Hostility prickled between them. Joe would say they were two strong women marking out their territory, but Vera thought it went deeper than that.

  ‘I found Dee Robson in the flat that the social found for her when you chucked her out.’ Vera went first. ‘Lying on her back with a kitchen knife in her neck. Blood everywhere.’

  ‘And you blame me for the murder because I wouldn’t take her back here?’

  ‘Nah,’ Vera said. �
��She was already dead when I called you.’ She narrowed her eyes and made her voice quieter. ‘I blame you for throwing her out in the first place. Did you really think she’d manage on her own in the big bad world?’

  ‘Not my responsibility.’ Cameron leaned across the desk towards the detective. ‘My responsibility is to this place and to the existing residents. Making it run smoothly. As a therapeutic community, helping the women find their feet before moving on to take more independence. One of our residents is a teenage schoolgirl, who fell in with the wrong crowd, was bullied and tried to kill herself. The last thing she needed was Dee Robson pissed and shouting in the middle of the night, or men turning up in taxis looking for pretty young things to abuse. Dee was never going to be independent. I took her in against my better judgement as an emergency placement. I knew we wouldn’t be right for her and she wouldn’t be happy with us. It was never meant to be a long-term arrangement, and the social worker knew that.’

  ‘But once he’d got Dee into the Haven, he stopped trying to find somewhere more suitable.’ Vera was starting to understand how it had worked. The judicial system played games of shifting responsibility too. Like pass the parcel: the one supervising the offender when the music stopped was left to carry the can.

  ‘Of course. From that moment his client became my problem.’

  They grinned at each other, a sudden moment of contact. Vera could understand why Jane had been reluctant to take Dee Robson back, even for Christmas. A lazy social worker would heave a sigh of relief, and Jane might never get rid of her again.

  ‘I thought social services would come up with a better solution,’ Jane said. ‘And I’ve felt guilty since I heard that they’d dumped her in a flat with no support. But we couldn’t keep her here. And if I made any contact with her, I’d be landed with the responsibility for her. Margaret thought I was a monster and that I was just washing my hands of Dee. She brought Dee along to our winter fair just a couple of weeks ago. Making a point.’ She paused. ‘Come into the kitchen and I’ll make some tea.’

  This sounded like a peace offering and Vera followed. ‘We think she was killed yesterday afternoon,’ she said. ‘Can you account for all your lasses?’

  ‘I’m afraid that I can’t.’ Jane put teabags into a big pot. ‘I wasn’t here. But they’re not great ones for walking and they’d have to get to the end of the track to catch the bus. I doubt they went very far.’

  ‘And where were you?’ Vera eyed the tin of biscuits as Jane Cameron opened it. She hadn’t had lunch.

  ‘I was summoned to a meeting with Peter Gruskin. He was panicking about Margaret’s murder and how the publicity might reflect on the trust. He’s always looking for an excuse to shut us down. In the past it’s been about money. We’re operating on very tight margins here. Now he thinks he’s got a better reason.’ She paused. ‘But I won’t let that happen. For some women we’re the only place they can be safe. Later I met up with some friends in Jesmond. We went to the pub, had something to eat and too much to drink. What you do at this time of year, I suppose. I got the last Metro to Mardle and then a taxi home. Laurie was still up. She’s pretty sensible as long as you keep her away from cars, and she said everything had been fine.’

  ‘What do you make of Gruskin?’ Vera was on to her second biscuit and was already feeling more human. Hunger always made her crabby.

  ‘He’s not very comfortable around women, unless they know their place.’ Jane grinned again. ‘Fine if they’re cleaning the church or listening to his sermons with rapt attention. Otherwise, forget it. Only child with a doting mother and a clerical father who acted like God. Single-sex school where he was probably bullied.’ She paused. ‘Sometimes I wonder if some men become pricks because they’re bullied, or if they were bullied because they were pricks in the first place.’

  Vera chuckled and thought this woman wasn’t so different from her after all. They were in the same business. Clearing unpleasantness from the streets so that respectable people could continue their daily lives in blissful ignorance.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Jane said. ‘I shouldn’t be making light of this. Two women dead, and both with connections to the Haven. Are we looking for a man who doesn’t like women? I don’t mean Peter Gruskin – there are still lots like him around, and I don’t see violence as his thing – but someone with a deep, psychological hatred of single women.’

  Vera didn’t answer immediately. She thought that this room was quite similar to her kitchen at home. Bigger of course and probably cleaner, but she felt at ease here. She had the sense that if she stayed here long enough, talking through the case with this woman, she might come to a conclusion. She wondered what her boss would make of that as a case-management strategy.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Maybe that has something to do with it.’

  In the office the phone rang, obviously amplified throughout the rest of the house because it sounded very loud. Jane got up to answer it. Vera took another biscuit, then on impulse a couple more, which she put in an evidence bag and into her pocket.

  When Jane returned she was halfway into her coat. ‘That was the girls. They need a lift home. Do you want to stay here and talk to them? You’d be very welcome.’

  Vera shook her head and got to her feet. ‘I’m not supposed to do the hands-on stuff. Strategic planning, that’s my role. Not what I came into the job for, though.’

  ‘Like me.’ Jane was walking through the house to the front door. ‘If I’d stayed in social services I’d have been promoted away from the front line years ago.’

  At the vehicles Vera paused. ‘Will you talk to the residents? They trust you, but most of them will have reasons to dislike the police. Any bit of gossip . . . And I’ll send someone round tomorrow to do a more formal interview.’

  ‘The lovely Joe?’

  ‘Aye, why not?’ Vera had the Land Rover door open, when she turned back to Jane. ‘Tell your women to keep safe, eh. No wandering around Mardle on their own.’

  Jane nodded and drove off. It was dark now and the headlights of the minibus swung across the damp farmland all the way to the road.

  The team came together for the evening briefing in Kimmerston police station. More photos on the whiteboard. Dee Robson’s body. No dignity in death and not much more when she was living, Vera thought. The only photo they’d found of her alive was with Margaret Krukowski, taken in a booth, both women grinning. Margaret thirty-five years older, but still more attractive. Poor lass. I know how that feels. Perhaps it had been taken on their shopping trip into Newcastle. They’d found the picture in Dee’s purse, along with four pounds thirty in loose change.

  Vera looked out at the team. There was no sign of Joe Ashworth, but it was time to make a start. ‘So what have we got? Two women. Both isolated. Connected through the Haven, where Margaret had been a volunteer, and through geography; they lived two minutes’ walk from each other in Mardle. And by the fact that they were on the same Metro when Margaret was killed. How significant is that? Did they both see something that led to their deaths? Or did Dee recognize Margaret’s killer? Thoughts anyone?’

  She looked out into the audience. They seemed sluggish and unresponsive. Holly raised a tentative hand.

  ‘Hol?’

  ‘Apart from the geography they don’t have much in common, do they? I mean Margaret was an educated woman. Why would she choose to spend her time with someone like Dee?’ The disdain was obvious and Vera wanted to yell at her. Do you think Dee Robson wanted to live like that? Do you really think she had a choice? But Holly was right, and this wasn’t the time to teach her the facts of life.

  ‘Good point, Hol. Any ideas?’

  ‘Krukowski was a Christian. Getting down with the sinners.’ Charlie, trying for a laugh and missing the mark.

  ‘Why not?’ Vera said. ‘We don’t come across them very often, but there are some good people out there.’ The door opened and Joe slid in at the back. ‘Anything for us, Joe?’ To show him that she’d registered
the fact that he was late.

  He grinned and her heart gave a little leap. Ah, my Joe, my little teacher’s pet, what have you got for me?

  ‘I’ve been chatting to the guys manning the phones. A few bits of information in the last couple of minutes.’

  ‘Well, don’t keep it to yourself, man.’

  ‘Jason, the guy who took Dee Robson back to his flat on the afternoon Margaret died, has just got in touch. He saw a picture of Dee on the early-evening news. Had to wait until his girlfriend went out to her mam’s before making the call.’

  ‘And?’ Vera was almost hopping with impatience.

  ‘Corroborates Dee’s story. He’d just been made redundant from a place in the Mardle industrial estate.’ Joe looked at his notes. ‘Mardle Foods. They make own-brand cakes for the supermarkets. His shift finished at one and he headed for the Coble with the sole intention of getting pissed. Achieved the aim big-style. Somehow allowed himself to be picked up by Dee and took her home. Realized it wasn’t such a good idea when he sobered up a bit, and he bundled her out of the flat before his girlfriend got back. Later that evening he carried on drinking with mates, who can vouch for him.’

  Vera nodded. She’d always believed Dee and she couldn’t see how that got them much further forward. Ah, Joe, you shouldn’t have raised my hopes like that. But Joe hadn’t finished.

  ‘We know where Margaret Krukowski went the afternoon that she died.’

  She beamed. She should have had more faith. ‘Well, put us out of our misery!’

  ‘To see a Mr Edwin Short, who has an office in Gosforth High Street. He’s been away for a couple of days – a city break in Barcelona. Not short of a bob or two, Mr Short.’ Joe looked up and grinned. ‘He’s a solicitor from the firm Medburn, Liddle and Short. Margaret Krukowski went to see him because she wanted to make a will.’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  They caught up with Edwin Short at home because Vera was too impatient to wait until his office opened the following day and she swept Joe along with her. The only parking space was at the end of the street and they walked along the grand Edwardian terrace, catching glimpses of the affluent domestic lives inside: a specky lass practising the violin; a woman laying a table for dinner, carefully polishing glasses and silver before setting them on a dark wood table; an elderly gent with his eyes closed listening to something classical on the radio. Vera thought that Margaret must have lived in a street such as this as a child.