by Danuta Reah
The woman wrote something down. ‘What did you do?’ she said. ‘Did Stacy miss anything important.’
‘It was French.’ What had Marie told her? She remembered her own panic. ‘We had a test,’ she said.
‘And Stacy never said anything to you about this person she was going to meet?’
Kerry shook her head.
‘OK, Kerry, thank you for telling me that. You should have told us as soon as we asked you – keeping it secret didn’t help Stacy.’ The woman paused. Kerry could feel her looking. ‘Listen, Kerry, would you like us to take you home?’
Kerry kept her head down and shook her head again. Mum would think that was great, Kerry arriving home in a cop car.
‘I’ll take you, Kerry.’ That was Mrs Sandison, and now Kerry was really crying. She was thinking about her dad, about Ellie and about Stacy, and suddenly she felt as though there wasn’t anywhere in the world where she wanted to be any more, that somehow, something was broken and she couldn’t see any way at all of mending it.
THIRTEEN
The chance encounter with Daniel Flynn nagged at Tina’s mind as she drove through the city centre. She should have said something to Farnham. As soon as the possibility of a connection between the images in Flynn’s exhibition and the deaths associated with the gallery had been identified, she should have told him. Why hadn’t she? She knew why she hadn’t. The coke. OK, there was no proof, and Flynn would be admitting as much as she was if he told anyone, but somehow, that wasn’t a comforting thought. She got the impression that he wouldn’t give a damn about it, that whatever he might have to lose by making such an admission, he didn’t care about. But she – she wasn’t sure what the implications would be. Some SIOs might be prepared to turn a blind eye, but that wasn’t Farnham, she felt pretty sure. She shouldn’t have gone anywhere near the gallery at all, not in a social capacity. But people did get involved, did get personally entangled during an investigation. It happened. That wasn’t the point, though. It was the coke…
She should have said something straight away, got her retaliation in first. If Farnham found out and she hadn’t told him…he’d know why, if Flynn mentioned the drugs. But even if he didn’t…things like this got out. Private views. And even though there had been no reason why she shouldn’t have got involved with Flynn at the time it happened, it would still reflect badly on her judgement because it would muddy the waters of the case. Maybe Farnham would want her off it. She couldn’t investigate Flynn. Her usefulness to the team would be compromised. DC Barraclough? Oh, she got taken off that case because she shagged a suspect. Because she shagged a killer…
A car horn sounded behind her and she realized the lights had changed. Oh, very bright, Barraclough. So busy sorting out your personal life – your personal mess – that you cause a crash. Good move. She moved off and forced herself to concentrate on what she was doing. She could decide what to do about Flynn after the briefing.
She turned off the Parkway towards the lower Don Valley. She was still checking on the mystery boat. So far, she’d drawn a blank. Of the four cabin cruisers that had been moored on the canal – the Eleanor, the Lady Grey, the Lucy and the Mary May – only the Mary May and the Lucy remained as viable possibilities. The Eleanor was disabled with a broken steering mechanism, and the people moored next to the Lady Grey were residents who confirmed that she’d been at her mooring until at least midnight the night Cara died. The owners of the Lucy were away and hadn’t yet responded to her attempts to contact them.
She was here to check Steven Calloway’s story and take a look round the Mary May, the cabin cruiser that was moored below Tinsley locks with a For Sale sign in the cabin window.
The boatyard office was small and cluttered. There was nowhere to sit, apart from a cracked stacking chair in front of the desk that had a pile of folders on the seat. ‘We can’t get the staff,’ the broker explained vaguely as he moved stuff round on his desk. ‘Charlie Norton. How can I help?’
Tina explained about the sighting of a cabin cruiser, and the problem of identifying which one had been out on the canal that night. He grinned at her. ‘If no one’s come forward, they’ll have been up to no good,’ he said.
Which, Tina thought, was rather the point.
‘Someone after a bit of leg-over, something like that,’ Charlie Norton went on.
Tina ignored that. ‘I’ve got to check the Mary May,’ she said. ‘I’ve talked to the owner.’
‘Well, she weren’t out that night,’ he said, with some emphasis. ‘We don’t take people out in the middle of the night in winter.’
‘Is that how it works?’ Tina said. ‘If someone wants to look at a boat, you take them over there?’
He shifted some piles of paper round. ‘Yeah, something like that.’ He sat on the edge of the desk. ‘Anyone can go and look. The boat’s there. But if someone’s interested, they get in touch. I arrange for them to view the boat, then one of us’ll take them across to it.’
‘What if they want to take it out?’ Tina said.
‘No problem. We go with them – let them run it around a bit, check it out. Then take it back to the mooring and set it up again.’
‘OK.’ Tina thought. ‘Would you let anyone take a boat out on their own?’
‘No. Well, I might if I knew them, but not in the general run, no.’
‘Who’s taken the Mary May out recently?’ Tina said.
‘There’s not been…’ He opened a drawer in the filing cabinet and took out a large notebook. ‘It’s…’ He flicked through the pages. ‘Someone had a look a couple of months ago – and then they came back, a week later, took her out on the canal. Bill dealt with that. Apart from that, nothing.’ He shook his head. ‘She’s old, the Mary May. Not been properly maintained. He’d be better scrapping her. Might get a bit for her that way.’
There had been no potential buyers taking the Mary May out the night of Cara’s death – but anyone at the broker’s office could have got the key. ‘Who has access to these?’ she said.
‘Me,’ he said, ‘and Bill. There’s no one else. And we keep the keys in the safe. There’s some valuable boats on our books. Do you know how much a classic narrow boat would set you back?’
Tina shook her head. She had no idea.
‘You’d be looking at fifty grand at least. We keep these keys secure.’
‘Could you tell me where you were on the night of the fourteenth?’ The night Cara Hobson had died. If the keys were secure, then maybe the brokers weren’t.
He gave her a flat stare, but he seemed less offended by her question than he had by her suggestion that someone could have helped themselves to the keys. ‘Am I a suspect now, then?’ he said.
‘No,’ Tina said with honesty. There was nothing she knew of to link this man with Cara Hobson. ‘But I need to account for those keys.’
He nodded. ‘The fourteenth’s our wedding anniversary. Me and the wife and Bill and his wife went out to eat, then we went on to their place till late. OK?’
It sounded convincing. She’d need to check it, but if he was telling her the truth – and it had the ring of authenticity to Tina – then neither of the partners at the brokerage had been on the canal on the night in question.
‘I’ll need to have a look at the boat,’ Tina said. The Mary May sounded like a dead loss as far as the mystery cabin cruiser went, but she had to tell Farnham she’d checked it out.
‘I know. Steve Calloway phoned, said it’d be OK,’ he said. He went to the safe and got out the keys. Tina noticed that he kept the safe locked. ‘I’ll need to lock up,’ he said.
‘That’s OK. I know where she’s moored. You don’t need to come with me if you’re busy.’ Tina reached for the key ring in his hand.
He held it away. ‘No, she’s my responsibility, the Mary May. I’ll take you up there.’
Tina waited, hiding her impatience as he locked up and set the alarms. The security system seemed excellent. He noticed her watching as he was securi
ng the door behind him. ‘I told you,’ he said. ‘There’s valuable stuff we’re responsible for. We take our work seriously.’ He was clearly still offended by her question about the keys.
‘We can go in my car,’ she said. She didn’t want the hassle of following him through the heavy traffic.
He seemed about to object, then nodded. ‘As long as you drop me off back here,’ he said.
They drove out towards the moorings in silence. He whistled quietly through his teeth as she negotiated her way through the traffic, as though he was thinking something over. She left him to it, and as they approached the signs for the big cinema and entertainment complex where she hoped to be able to park, he said suddenly, ‘Why all this interest in the boats? The lass was drowned – you don’t need a boat for that.’
‘We need to eliminate something from our inquiries,’ Tina said. The rote response, and it didn’t convince him.
‘The boat people,’ he said, ‘they don’t cause trouble, you know, just because they live on the river, on the canal.’
‘I know,’ Tina said as she swung the car into the concrete acreage that was Valley Centertainment. The bright colours and the lights seemed to emphasize its windswept bleakness. Eating, dancing, cavorting! the lights flashed. Well, she’d done her share of that, she supposed. She parked near the tramline, and they walked towards the bridge that would take them to the canal.
‘You could have parked closer,’ he said. ‘On the other side.’
Tina nodded. ‘I knew there’d be space here,’ she said.
The sky had the leaden dullness of a winter afternoon, and the lights on the towpath were already lit. The air was chill now, and Tina hunched herself into her jacket, wishing she’d put an extra jumper on.
The mooring was quiet. There were three boats: two narrow boats that looked abandoned, and a small cabin cruiser with faded paint and dirty curtains in the cabin window. ‘Here she is,’ Charlie Norton said. ‘The Mary May.’ He offered the keys to Tina. ‘That’s for the padlock, and those two are for the engine. One of them’s faulty,’ he said.
She stood and looked at the boat for a minute. It was old and shabby. ‘Does it look OK to you?’ she said.
He shrugged. ‘She’s still on top of the water,’ he said. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Does it look as if anyone’s been on board since you were last here?’
He shook his head. ‘Go and check,’ he said. ‘But she’s locked up tight.’
She looked round it from the water’s edge, then stepped carefully on to the deck. A plunge into the canal was exactly what she didn’t want. These waters were dangerous and deceptive. They looked still, but there were underwater sluices and machinery, the unpredictable currents caused by passing boats. The Mary May was secured by a heavy-duty padlock. She checked it carefully. There were no scratches or distortions to suggest that anyone had tampered with it. The hasp was solid, the screws rusted into the wood.
The deck vibrated slightly under her feet as the broker jumped aboard beside her. He didn’t say anything as she unlocked the padlock and went down the steps into the cabin.
But there was nothing there. It was exactly as the broker had told Steven Calloway. The cabin was spartan and clean, though it smelled faintly of damp – unavoidable in a boat, Tina supposed. She checked the locks on the windows. They were closed tight. It would be no serious challenge to break into the Mary May, but not without doing some damage. The boat was secure.
She looked at the engine and the controls. Again, you’d need a key, and those were in the possession of the broker and, presumably, Steven Calloway. ‘Could you hot-wire the engine?’ she said.
He laughed. ‘It’s diesel, love.’
‘So how would you start it without a key?’
‘You wouldn’t.’ She waited. ‘Well, you’d have to use the handle, and…You could do it, but it’d make a hell of a mess.’
She looked round the pristine cabin and shook her head, puzzled. The only candidate that seemed possible for the mystery third boat now was the Lucy. She’d have to step up her attempts to track down the owners.
Eliza parked her car outside the narrow gennel that led to Maggie’s front door. She left the car in gear – the hill was steep – and opened the back to get the shopping that she’d picked up on the way. She noticed a small box that had slid half under a seat. She pulled back the lid – more photographs. She must have left this in the car from her last trip to Maggie’s. She could check through them today. She tucked the box under her arm and locked the car door.
The gennel smelt damp and no one had cleared away the autumn leaves. She struggled up the steps and pushed open the gate into the garden, almost dropping the box. The branches of the shrubs slapped wetly against her as she walked up the path to the door. She dumped the box on the front step as she fished in her bag for the key. When she unlocked the front door, a draught blew round her and the dank chill of an empty house enveloped her.
Her mind had equipped her with a picture of careful order: the remaining files to be sorted placed neatly on the table, the stuff she’d already been through arranged into piles – things to be discarded, things to forward to Maggie’s solicitor, things Eliza wanted to keep. But one pile of folders had fallen over, disturbing the carefully organized papers. Some of them had slid to the floor.
She checked her annoyance – she should have been more careful, but she’d been in a hurry before. She put the stuff she’d brought back with her on to a chair, and stretched. The draught was still blowing, and she went through the flat looking for the source to see if she could block it off.
The small bedroom at the back of the flat was just as she remembered, but the draught was worse here. It seemed to blow straight on to the bed. Eliza went through to the off-shot kitchen. She found the source of the draught here. The window, an old sash-cord frame, was slightly open at the bottom. It was jammed at an angle, as though it hadn’t slid shut evenly. She was surprised she hadn’t noticed it before. She wrestled with it, shaking the window to free it. She had to open it, and then have two goes at closing it before it slid shut. It needed some serious renovation work, which she doubted it was going to get. The latch was clogged with paint so she couldn’t lock it. She made a mental note to let the landlord know. She checked the back door. It was firmly bolted.
She went to the front room and sat at the table, trying to decide where to begin. She was reluctant to get started. Her eyes felt heavy, and the temptation to sink into one of the armchairs and sleep was almost irresistible, but she didn’t want to sleep now, and then find herself awake in the small hours going over and over the events of the night before. The business of getting to Maggie’s, planning what she was going to do, trying to remember what she had done last time, had helped to distract her, but now she was alone, they came crowding back. She took a deep breath and made herself focus on the here and now.
She picked up the folders that had fallen off the table, checked through the papers and made sure that everything was still more or less in the right place. Now she could get on with what she had come here to do.
Her visit to the shops ensured that she had coffee and bread and cheese to keep her going. She’d forgotten about heating, though. The electricity was still on, but she had instructed the landlord to turn off the gas, and the only source of heat in the small flat was a gas fire in the front room, unless you counted an infrared ceiling heater in the bathroom. For a minute, Eliza toyed with the idea of working in the bathroom under that meagre heat source, but dismissed the idea. She could keep her coat on.
She made coffee and sat down at the table, holding the mug between her hands to warm them. She spent a few minutes familiarizing herself with the papers – where had she got to? – then set herself a work schedule. Most of the papers were sorted. The business papers – insurance, bank statements, invoices, would need closer attention.
She picked up one of the letters:…would be grateful if you could add your support…She looked at
the next one…for your donation of £5…They all seemed to be copies of letters either soliciting support or thanking people for contributions. Was there any need to keep them? Any need to even read them? Probably. People had given money, and now the campaign was halted. Eliza couldn’t think of anyone who was likely to carry it on.
She began skimming them, putting the ones that gave any useful information to one side. There were letters from people offering support, letters from people who thought that Maggie might support their own causes:…more severe forms of justice. The Bible tells us…;…only answer is to bring back the rope…The dark hallway was in front of her again, and the moonlight shone, briefly, illuminating the lobby where the figure swung in the shadows, only now it was the figure from the Brueghel, transported from the painting into her life…
Maybe letters from cranks weren’t the best things to be looking at now. She decided to take a break and made herself more coffee, then, realizing she was hungry, she cut a slice of bread and a piece of cheese. Her diet was going to pot – croissants for breakfast, bread and cheese for lunch.
She wandered round the flat as she ate, trying to bring back the memory of the younger Maggie, not the woman she’d known in the last year of her life, old before her time and defeated – no, not defeated, still fighting, but burning with a flame of anger and hatred that had consumed her in the end. Maggie.
She wandered into the bedroom. This room was lighter, it got the afternoon sun, unlike the front room that was shaded by foliage. She wondered if Maggie had had any real companions in the last years, apart from Ellie’s shade; any lovers who might have given her another reason for going on, apart from avenging her daughter’s death. There had been nothing, or nothing Eliza was aware of. Suppose the wishes of the letter writer had been realized. Suppose Mark Fraser had hanged for his crime. Would Maggie have been any more able to come to terms with what had happened? Somehow, Eliza doubted it.
She looked at her watch. She needed to get back to work, get this lot finished and out of the way today. She had finished the pile of letters. She turned to the box of photographs, which were arranged in date order, each envelope carefully labelled. Cornwall, ‘96; Christmas concert ‘96; Ellie, summer ‘97. From winter ‘97, the writing had been partly erased, scratched out with heavy lines of ink. Ellie, K—,—k, Ellie, Ke—. Names that Maggie no longer wanted near her daughter’s name. The last wallet was unlabelled. She opened it and looked at the top one. A man with two girls. The picture suddenly resolved and she recognized Ellie. The man standing behind her – that must be Mark Fraser. In the newspaper photographs, his eyes were shadowed, he looked surly and unshaven. Here, he looked ordinary, a bit tired. He was smiling, one hand on Ellie’s shoulder. A second photograph was of Ellie again, this time with another girl. They had their arms round each other and were pulling faces at the camera. The river was in the background, the water shining in the sun. The day on the river.
