Paying the Ferryman

by Jane A. Adams

  ‘Description?’

  ‘One older than the other, both wore suits and ties, looked kind of official. She says she thought they might be God-botherers.’

  Laughter in the room. Divers blushed.

  ‘Then she says Mrs Griffin had a row with one of them on the doorstep, but she couldn’t hear what was said. Mrs Griffin slammed the door and the man got into a car that had been parked across the road. A dark car, she says. The other man was driving.’

  ‘Try her again,’ Steel said. ‘See if you can get anything more detailed on the description.’

  Divers stepped down and another took his place. A woman who lived a little further up the road had noticed a dark coloured car with two men inside a few days before the shootings. She had not taken much notice, only that it wasn’t anyone local, and it had only occurred to her it might be important afterwards when they were asked to report anything unusual. She had, as it happened, noticed the make. A Ford Focus, she thought, because it was like her brother’s car, but that was all.

  ‘I don’t suppose there’s any useful CCTV round here?’ someone said. The question was greeted with general amusement.

  ‘There’s a CCTV camera outside the bank,’ Steel said. ‘And one in Robsons, the jewellers on the corner of the market square, but it shows very little of the street.’

  ‘And there’s a camera on the first set of lights, as you come into town,’ one of the civilians standing at the back of the hall told him.

  Steel realized it was Doctor Pauley who had spoken. ‘I didn’t know that,’ he said.

  ‘It’s a school crossing. We had a child knocked down there a few years ago so, after a lot of noise, the local council agreed to install a traffic camera. I don’t know if it’s just triggered by speed or if it records.’

  Steel nodded. It was worth checking out.

  There was little more to be said and the meeting began to break up. A few people hung around to drink tea and exchange thoughts but most were eager to be off home. Steel caught up with Dr Pauley just before he reached the door.

  ‘Mind if I have a word?’ he said.

  ‘About the camera? I don’t know anything more about it, I’m afraid.’

  ‘No. I want to talk about the Winslow Trust.’

  ‘I’m sorry. That’s all confidential. There’s not much I can say.’

  ‘No, I understand that. Look, how would it be if I ask you some questions and you respond to any that you feel you can? Three people are dead, and there’s a young girl left who could do with some answers.’

  Pauley smiled at him. ‘I don’t respond to emotional blackmail, Inspector.’

  ‘And I don’t expect you to.’

  He waited while Pauley considered the options. ‘All right,’ he agreed, ‘you can ask.’

  Steel led the doctor through into the vicar’s office and closed the door. ‘As I said, I spoke to Sarah today. She described a life of being constantly on the move until her mother met Victor Griffin. New jobs, new homes. The impression I got is that Lisanne moved very easily from one job to another, one flat to another. I know the Trust asked you to employ her and I wondered if they had, shall we say, supported this constant travelling, constant change of jobs?’

  Pauley scrutinized Steel carefully. ‘You have to understand,’ he said, ‘that my only contact with the Trust is through my wife; her only contact is through the community she has been part of since childhood. We needed a receptionist, Rachel mentioned it to someone and the next thing I know, we’re being offered someone to fill the job. Understand, she was interviewed and found suitable. We didn’t just take her because the Trust asked.’

  ‘Had you done this before?’

  Pauley hesitated. ‘A few years ago we were asked to look after a young woman for a few days, just until somewhere else could be found. She arrived one night, very late, and stayed three days. I think she was seventeen. I know she was very frightened. I didn’t know where she came from or where she went to. We gave her a bed, fed her and listened when she wanted to talk, and my wife re-dressed the burns on her arms three or four times a day. That’s all I know.’

  ‘Who runs the Trust?’

  ‘Ah, now that’s a matter of public record. They even have a website. They run retreats and a counselling service for kids coming out of care and offenders leaving prison. They offer practical support and help in finding jobs and accommodation. I’m sure you’re aware of the failings in the so-called care system; they are like a great many charities up and down the country who take up the slack in this age of the so-called “big society”. I imagine there are others who, like the Trust, provide an escape route for the desperate, but I don’t know.’

  ‘And Lisanne Griffin?’

  ‘Was pleasant, efficient and friendly. She was discreet and the patients liked her. We didn’t see her much outside of work time but in a small community like this everyone tends to turn up at the summer fête and the school fund-raisers, that kind of thing. I didn’t really know her husband other than to pass the time of day with. I gave the children their immunizations and prescribed antibiotics when Sarah got a bad chest infection last winter. Beyond that – I’m sorry, Inspector. We were happy with Lisanne and we thought she was happy in her job. The kids were well cared for and she and Vic seemed a good partnership. I don’t know what else I can say.’

  Steel nodded. ‘Can you give me the address for the Trust?’

  ‘Off hand, no. But if you Google it you’ll find it.’

  Pauley turned to the door, ready to leave. ‘I hope you solve this quickly, Inspector. This is a resilient community, but you can imagine how shaken everyone is. We’ve always been a bit self congratulatory about the low crime rate and how safe we all are. This is seismic.’

  ‘You off then, boss?’ Sophie Willis grinned at him.

  ‘I thought I’d go and take another look at the house,’ he said.

  ‘Any particular reason?’

  He shook his head. ‘Just want to have a think.’

  ‘You want me to come?’

  ‘No, you get off home. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  He walked with her out to her car. ‘Pauley tell you anything?’ she asked.

  ‘Only that the community is shocked. No, that’s not fair; he told me a bit about the Winslow Trust and I think it’s a lead worth pursuing, though the chances are they just acted like the charity everyone tells me they are, and won’t be able to add much.’

  ‘So, what’s bothering you?’

  ‘The fact that Thea Baldwin knew Victor Griffin way back when.’

  ‘Actually, she’d have been Lisanne Kemp then,’ Willis reminded him.

  ‘She would, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘Not that it’s significant, I suppose.’

  ‘Probably not, but first thing tomorrow see what you can track down about her family from the old case files.’

  Willis shook her head. ‘First thing we did today, trying to find next of kin, remember? Maternal grandparents are both dead; there was possibly an aunt but no one had anything to do with her back then, no address in the files.’

  ‘But now you aren’t looking for next of kin. Now you’re looking for connections.’

  ‘To what?’

  He shrugged. ‘That, I don’t know. Not yet.’

  ‘OK, so first thing tomorrow Alec, Naomi and I will start looking for new connections to … whatever.’

  ‘Night, Sophie.’ Steel smiled at her.

  She returned the smile. ‘Night, boss. If you get an inkle as to what we’re looking for, be sure to let me know, won’t you?’

  Steel walked slowly down the road to the Griffin house. It was only a few hundred yards from their centre of activity at the church and the street was already quiet and empty now his colleagues had departed and most of the media had also given up for the night.

  Earlier that day the mix of TV vans and reporters hauling equipment after them had virtually blocked the street but in the usual nature of such things, they’d had a d
ay of looking at a couple of police officers standing beside a plastic barrier of police tape and slowly their number had diminished. The shortage of accommodation in Ferrymouth had added to the attrition rate, as had the damp and bitter cold blowing in off the estuary. Now, at seven thirty, those reporters who had managed to find places to stay had returned to them, while others had retreated to nearby pubs and eateries and still others had returned inland to find the nearest chain hotel.

  Two police officers sat in a car outside the crime scene. Steel had made sure they’d been fed and watered earlier and, glancing at his watch, realized that they only had about an hour of their shift to go.

  One of them got out of the car as Steel drew level. He was clutching a newspaper and Steel glanced at the headline. ‘Three Dead in Ferrymouth Shooting’.

  ‘All quiet?’ he asked.

  ‘A couple of dog walkers, but I think everyone’s shut themselves up for the night. You going in, sir?’

  Steel nodded. He indicated the paper. ‘Mind if I take a look?’

  ‘Be my guest.’

  Steel read the paragraph below the headline and then turned, as instructed, to page three. Both he and Willis had made statements to camera earlier in the day and Steel had repeated his media appeal for family of Lisanne or Victor Griffin to get in touch. The article made much of this.

  Police have taken the unusual step of releasing the names of the victims before family have been contacted. It is known that Lisanne Griffin lost touch with her immediate family and her daughter, Sarah, is now alone [ … ]

  He handed the paper back. He knew he’d take some flack for revealing the victims’ names, but local knowledge would have put them out there soon enough; Steel was just riding the wave. He wondered what it would wash up.

  He made his way into the crime scene, stood in the hallway and listened to the sounds the house made as it settled for the night. He studied the assortment of locks and bolts that embellished the heavy front door. They had all been fastened when the police arrived, summoned by neighbours who had heard the shots. The first officers had come round the back, directed by those same neighbours, who said the back door was open. The killer had left that way, out through the garden and down the little path that led back to the road in one direction and into the fields in the other.

  Had the killer come in that way too? Would you let someone in through the front door and then refasten all the locks and bolts, knowing that you’d have to unfasten them all in order to let them out again?

  He went through into the kitchen, wishing he’d thought to ask Sarah which door the family most used. It was easy to get from the main road round the back of the house, or if they’d been across the fields on one of the public footpaths Steel had noticed earlier. Beside the back door was a shoe rack. Four pairs of wellingtons and a couple of pairs of trainers. Male slippers. There was an old-fashioned shoe scraper outside that looked as though it had been well used.

  Bolts top and bottom, a deadlock, with the key left in place … Would a late-night visitor really come round the back? Perhaps, Steel thought, but they’d have to know the family, the house, the layout, perhaps. Sarah’s room was at the front of the house and her parents’ room and Jack’s both at the back. Sarah might not have heard someone knocking at the door in the middle of the night but her parents would.

  And they had gone down and let the killer in.

  Why?

  Steel left the back door and went upstairs. He stood in Lisanne and Victor Griffin’s room and looked around once more. Like the rest of the house it was comfortable but still felt like a work in progress. He could almost hear Lisanne Griffin saying of the heavy wooden bed and the bright red rug, and maybe the floral quilt cover, ‘These are what I want’, and of the rather bland, flat pack wardrobe and chest of drawers, ‘They’ll do for now.’

  He crossed to the window and looked down. He couldn’t see the back doorstep, but once he cracked the window open just a little he realized he’d have a good view of anyone standing by the back door.

  ‘So,’ Steel said. ‘He knocked, one of them looked down to see who it was, then went down to open the door. Wouldn’t it be more normal just to call down to find out who it was first? Would you not tell them to go away and come back in the morning? Or did you not want the neighbours to hear?’ Which they would, presumably, if you called to someone out of the window.

  It came back to Willis’s point that you’d only open the door at night to a select few people. A policeman, maybe. But how would you know it was a policeman? So, someone in uniform.

  And how did that fit in with the men seen hanging around, the ones who had argued with Lisanne Griffin? Was this someone different? Or was it one of the men, but wearing a uniform and hiding his face by wearing a helmet?

  Steel sighed and closed the window, suddenly aware that he was bone weary and needed to follow his own advice and get some rest.

  Fact, he thought, as he went back down the stairs. Or at least probably fact: the killer came in through the back door. Fact: they didn’t seem to have hesitated to let him in.

  Fact: Sarah Griffin thought he sounded like her father.

  Why?

  Probably because of what he had said about keeping children from their father.

  Would that be enough to convince her? Would she remember the sound of his voice, even after six years? Add to that the fact that she’d glimpsed him when he passed down the corridor and into her brother’s room. So it made sense that he bore at least a passing resemblance to Terry Baldwin, if only in height and build. Enough that a child who had not seen her father for six years might be mistaken.

  Maybe, Steel thought, you had to add to the mix the fact that Terry Baldwin had been the bogeyman in Sarah’s life. The thing to be afraid of. What then was more natural than that she would superimpose one fear upon another?

  Fact, anyway: Terry Baldwin was still locked up at Her Majesty’s pleasure, so barring a massive conspiracy of governor and staff, it was safe to assume he had not been there when his ex wife, her husband and their baby son had been killed.

  Steel left, pausing for a word with the new crew sitting outside in their car. He checked they had all they required and wished them good night. As he walked back to collect his own vehicle his mind wandered back to the visit he and Naomi had made that morning to Terry Baldwin.

  ‘Why the hell should I care what happened to that bitch?’ Baldwin had said. ‘And the kid wasn’t even mine.’

  ‘Sarah is yours.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘So you might care.’

  ‘He won’t,’ Naomi had said with a cold certainty that had surprised Steel. ‘You don’t, do you Terry? I don’t think you’re capable.’

  He remembered how Terry Baldwin had laughed then, as though Naomi had told some really amusing story. Naomi had said nothing. Steel sat still, waiting for events to unfold.

  ‘Why the fuck should I?’ Terry Baldwin had said when he’d finally stopped laughing.

  ‘True,’ Naomi had said quietly. ‘Any idiot can make a kid. It takes effort to be a father. Capacity to care. I never noticed that you had any of that, Terry.’

  Terry had laughed again. ‘You should get a job writing those stupid verses you get in greetings cards,’ he’d said. ‘Be about your intellectual level that would.’

  Steel unlocked his car door and started the engine. He’d phone the hospital and check up on Sarah when he reached home, and then grab a bite to eat and get some shut eye and hope that by morning he might have something more of an idea about what Willis and Naomi and Alec should be looking for in the old files. And about what bothered him so much in Lisanne knowing Vic Griffin so many years before. And about that feeling he was certain Naomi shared, that Terry Baldwin had known him too.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Driving south, Gregory was exultant. He’d spent too long on the sidelines; too long out of action. He begrudged Nathan none of it, not his time, his energy or his care, but the restlessness had been growi
ng. Gregory needed to be doing, not thinking about doing.

  The first signs of spring had been a long way off in Scotland, but as he moved further south the blackthorn spread white stars on black hedgerows and the landscape flattened out. He took the coast road, rejoicing in his glimpses of the sea, and he thought about his boat, neglected for a lengthy winter spell, and it was as though Gregory could feel himself expanding again, filling up with spring and light and ocean and the readiness for action.

  He did not for one moment speculate that Alec and Naomi would resent his presence. Might not need or welcome him. He hadn’t called ahead to let them know he was on the way and, even if he had, even if Naomi had told him to turn back, Gregory would have ignored her. The fact was Gregory had decided to help, determined to become involved, and even if they had some reticence about that to begin with, he would have assumed he could win them round.

  He paused at mid morning and called Nathan, checking that his friend was settled and everything was in order.

  ‘Computer set up arrives this afternoon,’ Nathan said. ‘It’s not quite what we’re used to, but it’ll do. Jackie is organizing the obfuscation software and she’s brought a couple of associates on board that I’ve worked with before. It’s starting to feel like old times.’

  ‘You mean those old times when people took pot shots at us?’ Gregory grinned.

  ‘No. I’d as soon avoid that part. But you know what we talked about? Well, I’ve run a bit of that past Jackie. She’s in favour. I think we might be able to start our own game.’

  ‘You keep thinking on it,’ Gregory told him. ‘I’ll be in touch tonight.’

  He drove on. The sun came out and a brief blue sky brightened the afternoon. He planned to find a place to stay overnight and arrive in Ferrymouth the following morning, take a good look around and familiarize himself with the lay of the land before going to find Alec and Naomi.

  He found a cliff top hotel just outside of Whitby and stayed the night, asking for a room with a sea view. He spent the early evening walking, the coastal path stretching the kinks out of his legs and back; he was uncomfortably aware that his body ached more readily these days than it had done once upon a time. That driving for long periods inflamed his right knee.