What every body is saying: DI Tregunna Cornish Crime novel

by Carla Vermaat

  ‘Why lie about it? Mr Carter? You know as well as I do that there was no sleepover party.’

  He moves forward quickly, waving his index finger in front of my eyes. ‘What else do you know, Mr Tregunna?’

  ‘I know where the girls were. And who with.’ It is slightly untrue, but I don’t care any more. The man is frustrating me to the core.

  ‘And are you going to tell me?’

  ‘I’m here to ask questions.’

  He chuckles uncomfortably. ‘Is this some sort of game, Mr Tregunna? Like Cluedo? Is it my turn now to make a guess? Where and how and by whom?’

  ‘I find it strange that you don’t seem to want to know the truth, Mr Carter. Why are you lying?’

  ‘Is it a crime to protect my daughter? If so, arrest me if you like.’ With a dramatic effect he holds up his wrists as if challenging me to cuff him. His father mutters something in protest and it occurs to me what is happening when the patio doors are pulled open and a girl appears on the doorstep. She stops mid-step, staring at me, face flustered and eyes wide. Accusingly. Angry. Scared.

  ‘Siobhan, would you mind? Can’t you see that we are in a meeting?’ Victor Carter smiles, but not with the warm gaze of a loving father. Then he turns his back on me, gesturing to the bodyguard with his thumb. ‘Accompany Mr Tregunna to his car, please, will you, Tony?’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  Reluctantly accepting defeat, I nod. I have nothing on him and he knows it. Only in this case, I’d prefer to have the benefit of the last word.

  ‘You haven’t told me why your men are watching the building where I live, Mr Carter.’

  ‘Goodbye Mr Tregunna.’

  19

  Mr Grose’s house at Treworran Hill seemed a big and impressive building when I was eight years old, but it’s really a normal size family home which sits between two similar-sized houses, albeit each one set higher up the hill than the next. Throughout the years, different occupants have tried to adapt their homes to their own style and taste. The house on Grose’s left has light pink paint on the original granite bricks, with similar painted pots of geraniums lined up on both sides of the four steps that lead to the front door. The house on the other side has been updated recently, the walls plastered and painted white, the original wooden frames replaced by plastic ones.

  Mr Grose’s house looks old and gloomy with its weathered granite bricks, paled remains of brown paint that must have been the original colour on the wooden window frames decades ago, and unwashed windows with curtains closed behind them.

  Vehicles stop behind me, waiting for the traffic light on top of the hill to change. An impatient driver hoots. Fumes of burnt diesel carry through the street. I smile a little sadly when I climb the four granite steps that lead to his front door.

  Memories float through my head as I use my mother’s key and go in, for a few moments standing still in front of the kitchen door. It has a big padlock, for which Mr Grose entrusted me with the key before I left him in the hospital.

  I weigh the key in my hand and, picturing the eight-year-old boy who pushed open the kitchen door without knowing what he’d find, take in a few sharp breath before opening it. When I do, I can’t make myself look at the table in the middle. The kitchen, with the cupboards and drawers open and empty, and Venetian blinds at the only window, is surprisingly clean. There is some dust gathered over the months since Mr. Grose has been in hospital but it is not at all as bad as I feared. I had visions of being in a horror film, threads of dust clinging to every surface, brushing against me as I force my way to the middle of the room, where the remains of his wife sit motionless at the table.

  The first thing that strikes me is the smell. A faint hint of disinfectant mixed with the sweet smell of roses. Wiping the dust from the seat I sit down opposite her and take the plate with paled food away, dumping it in one of the bin bags I brought with me. The knife, still resting in her hand, clatters on the hard Formica surface of the table, startling me as it falls. Gently, I remove the fork from the other hand. Only then I look in the face. It’s a horrible grey colour under a brown wig. Blue eyes are staring at me intently as if she is debating whether to tell me her secret. There’s a smile on her lips that resembles her expression in a framed discoloured photograph on the window sill behind her. It adds to the morbid atmosphere.

  I sit there for several moments, reliving my first view of her, sensing the dread and fear, yet stricken by the anti-climax of it now. I rise to my feet. Somehow I must have knocked the table as I get up. Her arm falls aside and a hand crashes on the floor shattering into a pile of pieces. A gold wedding ring, half hidden, is still smooth and shiny.

  Seeing the small pile of bits on the tiled floor spurs me into action and frees me from the sense of secrecy. When I lift her head from a wooden frame that has been made to keep the rest of her together, one of the eyes falls on the table with a dull thud. It’s a glass eye like those used for teddy bears or dolls, a strip of metal glued onto the back to keep it in place. The wig is still attached to the head, even as it crumbles at the touch of my hands.

  Mr Grose once told me he would love to have been an artist. Sculpture being his favourite. I remember very clearly how I had sniggered behind my hand. Artists were a bit odd to me then. I thought of them as bohemian dressed in strange colourful clothes and spending all their time in bars or their studios with naked women lounging on sofas. Now I feel a bit ashamed about my ignorance.

  Seeing the accuracy with which he had sculpted his wife’s face, I can’t deny my admiration for him and it makes me feel sad that I never really knew him. In hindsight, I would have liked to have visited him more often. Get to know him.

  He would have been a great sculptor. He had made from dull grey clay a perfect replica of his wife, at least of her head and hands. The rest of her was made of newspapers, now more than thirty years old, to form her shape beneath her clothes.

  It takes two bin bags to remove Mrs Grose from where she'd been seated all those years. Then I make a phone call to the police station and ask the desk officer to stick a note on the crime scene board in the incident room, to find an artist of some sort to create a facial reconstruction of the head that was found near Hawkers Cove on Lauren’s birthday.

  I climb the stairs for the first time in my life. Check Mr Grose’s bathroom, empty his dirty laundry bin, clear his bed and chuck the sheets in a third bin bag. Whoever will be dealing with the task of emptying his house won’t be finding dirty socks and pants. I will always remember Mr Grose as a proud and dignified man.

  When I lock the front door behind me, three black bin bags at my feet, a woman emerges from the porch of the pink house next door. She is small and skinny, with a long and narrow face and a pronounced chin. Her dull brown hair is cut too short across her forehead which makes her look as if she’s been trying on a wig for a fancy dress party and forgot to take it off.

  ‘Are you his son?’ she asks suspiciously, taking an e-cigarette from between her lips and planting her hands on her hips.

  ‘No, I am …’

  ‘Then who are you?’

  Her voice has the sharp edge of someone short-fused.

  ‘I’m Andy,’ I say, trying to sound friendly. ‘And you are …?’

  She points at the pink house. ‘Neighbour. When’s he coming back?’

  I open my mouth to tell her that she wouldn’t need to ask that question if she had bothered to see Mr Grose in hospital but he might not be grateful for her visit. All the same, she deserves some kind of truthful answer.

  ‘I'm afraid he won't be back. He’s …’

  ‘Dead?’ She interrupts bluntly.

  ‘No, no, he is still in hosp …’

  ‘Very good.’ She seems to have the annoying habit of interrupting every sentence at the most crucial word. ‘He’s a weirdo.’

  I freeze. ‘What makes you say that?’

  She shrugs, her lips drawn in a thin, tight line. ‘Me kids. He always stared at them … like … you know.�
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  ‘No.’

  ‘I have always … what?’

  ‘I said: no. You'll need to explain what you mean by implying that he’s a weirdo.’

  For a few moments she is speechless. Perhaps the conversation has become too difficult for her to comprehend. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m a police officer.’

  A shrug is followed by a self-confident smile. ‘Oh. Police. So you do know what I mean.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  Offering a smile for the first time, albeit a wry one, she arches an eyebrow and cocks her head to one side. ‘I understand that you lot don’t want to talk about it. Which, to me, is outrageous! Those’ - she jerks her head in the direction of Mr Grose's house – ‘people get more protection from police and society than the poor victims.’

  ‘Mr Grose did nothing …’

  ‘Is he on the list?’

  ‘What list?’ I know what she means but her behaviour ruffles my feathers. Putting Mr Grose’s key in my pocket, I pick up one of the bin bags, wondering if she’s ever peered through a tiny gap in the curtains and spied on Mr Grose – or his wife.

  ‘The list of sex-offenders and paedophiles.’

  ‘Mr Grose is on no such a list.’

  She snorts. ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Do you have any reason to believe he should be on that list, Mrs …?’

  ‘Foster. Jill Foster.’ She jerks her head. ‘That’s what they say. We keep an eye on him. For the safety of our kids.

  ‘How long have you known him?’

  ‘Not long. We moved in here about a month before he … left.’ She shrugs. ‘Someone said he was taken to prison. Just as well, I thought. A relief for the neighbourhood.’

  ‘Mr Grose is a respectable man. He isn’t a weirdo or a paedophile, or whatever people want to believe.’

  She isn’t convinced. ‘Is that evidence?’ she asks, pointing and staring at the bin bags.

  ‘Evidence? For what? The poor man is in hospital. I’m just clearing some stuff …’

  ‘You said you are police.’ She sounds like she doesn’t believe me and is putting me in the same category as Mr Grose.

  ‘I am,’ I say curtly, aware that I am slowly losing my temper. ‘If you had any grounds for suspicion, why didn’t you go to the police and make …?’

  ‘What would they have done? They’d rather protect him, not our kids.’

  I take a deep breath. ‘How many kids do you have?’

  ‘Three. Two girls and one boy. It’s the boys he’s after, I am sure of that.’

  ‘Has he ever done anything to your son?’

  ‘No, but I recognised his type as soon as I saw him and I’ve made sure he couldn’t do anything to hurt my Dan.’

  ‘So there is no reason whatsoever why you believe Mr Grose is a paedophile. What made you …?’

  ‘I knew, Officer,’ she interrupts again. ‘First time I saw him, I went to introduce us. Me and the kids. He didn’t even look at the girls, only had eyes for Danny. Asked how old he was and when Dan said he was eight, he said he once knew a lovely boy of eight years old, but he disappeared from his life.’

  A lump comes to my throat and I feel a shiver between my shoulder blades. ‘You may have misunderstood what that …’

  ‘I’ve got eyes and ears, officer. I’m not stupid. I know men like that. They behave like normal people, but they have dark, secret thoughts.’

  ‘I’m sure if you had …’

  ‘What will happen to the house?’

  I pick up the second bin bag, remembering the fondness in Mr Grose’s eyes. Whether or not he was ever involved in sexual abuse, he never laid a hand on me and I can’t believe he has done anything to other boys. Still I make a mental note to ask my mother if there had been any such suspicions about Mr Grose years ago.

  My mobile vibrates in my pocket and with shameful relief I retrieve it and answer the call. Maloney.

  'Tregunna. You called.' He sounds tired and annoyed.

  ‘Yes.’ I look at Mrs Forster. She hasn’t moved and doesn’t seem to be bothered about listening to my conversation. 'I think we ought to find an artist who can do facial reconstruction.' I stare at Mrs Forster. ‘Of the skull.’

  Her mouth falls open and her eyes are immediately drawn towards Mr Grose’s house.

  ‘In which decade are you living, Tregunna?’ he snorts. ‘We don’t need artists to do that. We have experts and computer programmes to do that for us. Much quicker and cheaper, and more accurate.’

  I have my doubts about the last bit, but know better than to correct him. He is right though about the costs; I must have been side-tracked by Grose’s unexpected sculpturing skills.

  ‘Anyway.’ He hesitates. ‘I think you are right in this case, Tregunna. I see no point in waiting for people to come forward on the basis of a rather vague description. In the end, the cost of having a facial reconstruction done by some computer nerd, will be less than wasting our time following up useless leads.’

  'Okay.'

  ‘What’s going on?’ Mrs Forster demands, before I have put my mobile back in my pocket. ‘What did you say about a skull?’

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with Mr Grose, Mrs Forster.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Her eyes widen. ‘Was it true then what they say? About that eight-year-old boy who disappeared?’

  I am still grinning when I drive to the cemetery, to fulfil Grose’s last request. In the distance I can see the blue-grey smoke from the old steam train that has been reinstated by train fanatics and now runs through the valley from Bodmin to Wenford Bridge for the benefit of the tourists and hobbyists.

  There is a funeral going on. There are men in black suits, white shirts and grey ties, the women dressed in black skirts and matching stockings. The odd one is wearing a white blouse, but generally they are all in black. Clearly, they are the deceased’s family. Another group is made up of friends, with long hair and beards, wearing leather jackets and trousers, and knee-high boots, carrying black helmets with logos hand-painted on them. The groups don’t mix. They belong to different worlds, which makes me wonder how the deceased would feel if he knew.

  I turn and I gaze at a weathered headstone. A branch with two roses is engraved above the name: Elizabeth Amy Grose-Liddell, beloved wife of Archie. The date of her death tells me she'd already been dead for two years when I first saw her in that cold kitchen.

  Without looking over my shoulder for prying eyes, I kneel down and bury Mrs Grose’s wedding ring in the soil of her grave.

  20

  Sunday. The day stretches out endlessly dark before me. I have called my mother that I had to decline her invitation for an old-fashioned Sunday roast after all. Work. I wish I hadn’t, but it’s too late now to change my mind. I can’t go to Lauren’s either. I desperately want to, but it wouldn’t be fair on her. Perhaps Ray Campbell, one of the pathologists, will have time for a drink in the pub later. He is perhaps closest to being a friend than anyone else. I can call him. Invite him for a pint. I consider this, then discard the idea with one of the worst excuses: I wouldn’t want to ruin his wife’s plans for the day. Ray and I occasionally met for a drink before he got to know his wife and his lifestyle changed gradually. I suppose they do their best. Every so often they invite me to their house parties, most of which I decline politely. I shouldn’t have done that. There is a limit to the number of invitations you receive when the response is always the same. I’m no longer on their guest list. I need to put my name back on it. In one way, I desperately want to talk to him, share my worries and concerns with him, and listen to his reassurances that I am seeing problems lurking round every corner. On the other hand, he will probably lecture me about being more open to people, talking openly about my cancer and stoma. He means well, but he can be so scarily truthful, not hiding behind senseless clichés, that I fear his words before they’re spoken.

  Work. Concentrate on your job.

  From day one Carter has lied. And I want to know why.<
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  The girls planned the trip in advance. They invented the sleepover party at a classmate’s home in Newquay, using Carensa Pencreeks’ name for the sole reason that she lives in Newquay, which gave them the opportunity to travel to Newquay without being questioned. They pre-planned Sally Pollinger’s home as a safe place to spend the night with the intention of going to school the next morning as usual. It could have worked. No questions asked. What went wrong was the fact that in Plymouth they missed the last bus back.

  Leanne’s story that she slept at Stacey’s house becomes less believable when I think it through. Her claim that she had to wait for the girl’s mother to go to work in the morning before she could leave herself, doesn’t add up either. If she had been so desperate about getting back to school in time, she would have sneaked out early in the morning, even before the girl’s mother woke up. She would have caught the early bus, thinking there was still a fair chance that her trip would have remained unnoticed.

  And there is Siobhan Carter. I must find a way to speak to her. I simply can’t believe that Leanne went to see the pop star on her own. Her best friend would have been part of it. Both Sally Pollinger and the teacher, Gerald Davey, said that the two girls are inseparable. Siobhan must have been part of the whole plan. Or at least she knew about it in detail.

  I call the station and ask the desk officer to text me a phone number. The message comes up almost instantly. Still not convinced that I’m doing the right thing, and more importantly for the right reasons, I press the number and wait.

  A voice with a laugh in it answers. Some people enjoy a free Sunday, a day to relax and do lazy things without feeling guilty. I can’t do that any more. Walls are closing in on me. Eating away at me. I would stay in bed all day, staring into oblivion and thinking about my life and subsequently sink deeper and deeper in the all too familiar swamp of depression and self pity.

  I clear my throat. ‘Mrs Pencreek. I’m sorry to bother you, but I am in the process of closing the file relating to the alleged disappearance of Leanne Lobb. Ehm … Can I ask you a quick question?’