by Ann Cleeves
Vera nodded to Joe Ashworth. The next part of the story was his.
‘When I first walked into the kitchen at Harbour Street, something was familiar,’ he said. ‘There was that sense of déjà vu. You were there, sprawled on the sofa, just a school kid in your uniform. I didn’t connect you with the lads I’d seen on the train. Then I recognized your mother – I’d been a fan when I was young – and I thought that explained the sensation of familiarity. If I’d remembered properly, we’d have had you in for questioning and the thing would have been over. Dee Robson would still be alive.’
Vera thought that Joe would have to live with that for the rest of his life. Thinking he’d been swayed by the soppy words of a popular song. Just dump the guilt, pet. In the end it was Val Butt talking about her violent son that had set them on the right trail. Besides, if they’d arrested Ryan on the first day, they’d never have found the body of Ricky Butt under the shed in Kerr’s yard. She still wasn’t sure what she thought about that, and the consequences for Malcolm. Sometimes perhaps it was better to let sleeping bodies lie. Then she decided that it would be an evil sort of world where a man could kill and get away with it, even if the victim was a toerag like Butt. Besides, this might give Malcolm a bit of peace in his last years. She could imagine him as an orderly in the prison library, catching up on the reading that he’d missed out on as a bairn. Vera thought she might even go and visit him there.
In the interview room the clear winter sunlight was pouring in through the narrow, barred window and Joe was continuing the interrogation.
‘Why did Dee have to die?’
There was no response from Ryan. He continued to stare at the scarred table in front of him.
‘Because she saw you in the Metro that night? She connected you with the lad who’d run away from Margaret in town? And she’d seen you at the winter fair at the Haven – might even have worked out that you were stealing from them.’ Vera pitched her voice a little louder, demanding a response from him.
‘She was on the bus that took us from Partington to Mardle. I couldn’t take the risk that she might tell somebody, could I?’ Ryan looked up now, aggressive again, proud because he’d had the nerve to kill two women, ready to boast. The solicitor touched his arm, a gesture of warning, but Ryan took no notice, and Vera thought the solicitor was as disgusted as the rest of them. Certainly he made no further attempt to stop the boy from talking.
‘Talk us through that, would you, Ryan,’ Joe said. ‘Tell us how you got into her flat.’ The voice bland, a schoolmaster’s voice. He could have been Stuart Booth. Talk us through that equation, would you, Ryan?
‘She invited me in.’ The boy gave a sudden wild, wolfish grin. ‘She was pissed and bumped into me on her way back to Percy Street. ‘Offered me sex. Stupid cow! As if I’d ever had to pay for that.’
‘Go on.’ No accusation in Joe’s voice. Vera felt a moment of pride. He was her protégé and he’d learned to control his emotions. He’d been soft as clarts when he’d first come to her.
‘The flat was a dump,’ Ryan said, as if that was an excuse for what would come later. ‘Filthy. She went into the bedroom to change. I mean, just looking at her made me gag.’
‘And then?’
‘There was a knife on the table in the front room. A kitchen knife. I wasn’t sure if it would work, but I thought it would be safer. Better not to use my knife.’
He flashed a look at Vera. My God, he wants a gold star for being clever. She clamped her mouth shut. Best not to reply. He’d like any response better than being ignored.
‘But the knife did work?’ Joe made it sound as if he was truly interested.
Ryan didn’t answer that at first. ‘I switched up the telly,’ he said. ‘In case she made a noise, then I went into the bedroom.’ He looked up at Joe. ‘The blade was a bit bendy. It took some strength to get it in. But yeah, it worked fine.’
‘What did you do then, Ryan?’
‘I went into the bathroom and washed. I wiped my fingerprints off the door handles and the handle of the knife. Then I went back to school. I had music and I didn’t want Stuart telling my mother that I was bunking off again.’
Chapter Forty-Five
It was midday and they’d finished for the holiday. Stuart Booth had come to collect Kate Dewar. Vera wondered what sort of Christmas there’d be in that house, and if the relationship would survive beyond Boxing Day. Stuart had colluded with Kate to tell her what she wanted to hear: that Ryan wasn’t such a bad lad; the boy was misguided and had got caught up with the wrong crowd, but he was sound really. Had anyone in school seen the bullying and the drug-dealing, the petty cruelties? But perhaps nobody had wanted to see. Ryan came from a respectable family, his mam was Katie Guthrie, who had once been famous and would be guaranteed to pull in crowds at the summer fair. Only Margaret Krukowski was anxious, reminded of another cocky young man who’d thought himself above the law. And finally it was the parallel with Ricky Butt that had helped Vera and Joe to find the murderer too.
They stood in the car park outside the station. Vera, Joe and Holly. ‘Let me buy you a drink,’ Vera said. ‘To celebrate. Or come back to mine. I’ll shout the cabs to get you home.’
Holly looked shocked. Vera had never invited her to her house before. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m spending Christmas with my folks. It’s a long drive and they were expecting me yesterday.’
‘Ah.’ Vera was pleased really. She suspected Holly would disapprove of the state of her home. ‘Joe?’
‘Sorry! Sal’s got plans.’ He raised his hands, a gesture of apology. And to show that he’d have liked to come back with her to talk through the case, but Sal would really go ape if he came back pissed, today of all days.
‘Course she has,’ Vera said. ‘Wish the family happy Christmas for me.’
It was only as Holly got into her car that Vera remembered something. She chased after her, waving. Holly pressed a button and the driver’s window opened.
‘Shit, Hol, we never did that Secret Santa thing.’
‘Nah,’ Holly said. ‘Never mind. It was never going to work, was it?’
Vera got into Hector’s Land Rover and set off alone for the hills.
About the Author
Ann Cleeves is the author behind ITV’s Vera and BBC One’s Shetland. She has written over twenty-five novels, and is the creator of detectives Vera Stanhope and Jimmy Perez – characters loved both on screen and in print. Her books have now sold over one million copies worldwide.
Ann worked as a probation officer, bird observatory cook and auxiliary coastguard before she started writing. She is a member of ‘Murder Squad’, working with other northern writers to promote crime fiction. In 2006 Ann was awarded the Duncan Lawrie Dagger (CWA Gold Dagger) for Best Crime Novel, for Raven Black, the first book in her Shetland series. In 2012 she was inducted into the CWA Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame. Ann lives in North Tyneside.
www.anncleeves.com
@anncleeves
facebook.com/anncleeves
By Ann Cleeves
A Bird in the Hand
Come Death and High Water
Murder in Paradise
A Prey to Murder
A Lesson in Dying
Murder in My Back Yard
A Day in the Death of Dorothea Cassidy
Another Man’s Poison
Killjoy
The Mill on the Shore
Sea Fever
The Healers
High Island Blues
The Baby-Snatcher
The Sleeping and the Dead
Burial of Ghosts
The Vera Stanhope series
The Crow Trap
Telling Tales
Hidden Depths
Silent Voices
The Glass Room
Harbour Street
The Shetland series
Raven Black
White Nights
Red Bones
Blue Lightning
Dead Wat
er
First published 2014 by Macmillan
This electronic edition published 2014 by Macmillan
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-0-230-76812-3
Copyright © Ann Cleeves 2014
The right of Ann Cleeves to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The Macmillan Group has no responsibility for the information provided by any author websites whose address you obtain from this book (‘author websites’). The inclusion of author website addresses in this book does not constitute an endorsement by or association with us of such sites or the content, products, advertising or other materials presented on such sites.
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
About the Author
