The Heron's Cry

by Ann Cleeves

  In the front row, Ross May had stuck up his hand. He looked young and eager, a schoolboy trying to impress a teacher. Matthew thought the constable had realized that his mentor and guardian, superintendent Joe Oldham, would soon be forced into early retirement, and was trying to curry favour with his more immediate superior. As soon as this idea came into his head, Matthew thought he was being unfair. With more experience, Ross would make a good detective.

  ‘Yes, Ross.’

  ‘Might we have more of an idea of the time of death after the post-mortem?’

  The irritation deepened. This was going over old ground, a lesson not properly learned. ‘Most unlikely. Can anyone tell me why?’

  Jen answered immediately. ‘Research shows that it’s impossible to pinpoint time of death with any accuracy.’

  Matthew gave her a little smile. ‘Quite right. As Dr Pengelly never fails to tell us. So, we have to rely on old-fashioned policing, not a pathologist’s magic or guesswork. Jen, you were actually the last person we know to see Dr Yeo alive. What time was that?’

  ‘It was at a party held by Cynthia Prior in Newport. I can’t be positive about time but I’d say between ten thirty and eleven p.m.’ She looked at Matthew for understanding. ‘I’d had a few drinks. I wasn’t looking at my watch.’

  ‘Can you talk to any of the other guests? See if we can pinpoint it more precisely? Or find out if he told anyone what his plans were for the rest of the evening?’

  ‘Yeah, sure.’

  ‘Although Wesley Curnow, another of the Westacombe residents, claims to have seen the vehicle leave the farm in the early hours, we can’t assume that the killer was someone from outside. Curnow could have made up the story, or the car might have strayed up the track by mistake. So, we need more information on the residents. Ross, you were going to do a background check.’

  Ross stood up and faced the room. Practising, Matthew thought, for the promotion he felt he deserved. Then he chided himself again for his meanness of spirit.

  ‘Wesley Curnow. Aged forty-two. He’s been cautioned once for possession. Cannabis, a small amount. The officer assumed it was for personal use.’ A moment of silence to express his disapproval. ‘No other offences, apart from road traffic violations, one for speeding and one for bald tyres. As far as I can see, he’s never married and never had children. Eve Yeo, our victim’s daughter, hasn’t been involved with us in any way. Neither has the couple who live in the cottage, John and Sarah Grieve, or the house owner Francis Ley.’

  ‘Thanks, Ross.’ It was much as Matthew would have thought, and didn’t take them any further forward.

  ‘I have managed to prise some info out of his mobile provider. Calls and texts were much as you’d think. Lots to his daughter. I haven’t had a chance to look at all the others in detail, but there’s one recurring number, which appears even more frequently. To someone called Lauren Miller.’

  The name seemed familiar to Matthew. He remembered he’d seen it on the NDPT website. ‘She was one of his colleagues at Patients Together. You’d expect that.’

  ‘Some of them were very long calls. Made late at night.’ Ross allowed the implication to sink in, before taking his seat.

  ‘Ah, that is worth following up, but of course, we won’t jump to conclusions.’ Matthew paused. ‘Did Yeo take any calls yesterday evening? Something must have prompted him to go to Westacombe that late at night.’

  Ross shook his head. ‘Last one was to Lauren Miller late afternoon.’

  Matthew thought about that. So, there’d been no urgent, last-minute call summoning him to Westacombe. He turned to his sergeant. ‘Jen, did you dig out anything interesting?’

  ‘There’s loads of archive news material on Ley. You just have to google and you come up with pages of the stuff. He made his fortune by selling the shares he’d bought cheaply in the years immediately before the financial crash, but there’s no evidence of him breaking any rules. He doesn’t seem to have been involved in anything dodgy. He just recognized the risks before other people. I had an interesting conversation with Sarah Grieve this afternoon. Her husband’s desperate to move away from Westacombe to some Exmoor hill farm, but she’s not so keen. She likes the arty set-up and would miss her mates, especially with a new baby on the way.’ She caught Matthew’s eye. ‘I’m not sure how relevant all this is, but I know you like background.’

  ‘Oh, I certainly do. Gossip is our friend.’ He scanned the room. ‘I’m tied up over lunchtime tomorrow. Important family occasion. Jen, can you talk to the party-goers, see if we can get a precise time of Nigel’s leaving and some idea what took him to the farm that late? Ross, I’d like you to head round to the Sandpiper. Apparently, early afternoon is best. I talked to George Mackenzie today, but his daughter wasn’t available. We need a statement to confirm Curnow’s story, but also anything she might have on the Westacombe residents. I’ll see what I can make of Nigel Yeo’s home. He might have kept work records there.’

  I can do that early in the morning. Leave Jonathan the kitchen to himself. Still be back for lunch.

  The nauseous sense of dread about his mother invading his home ground returned. He smiled at his team, sent them on their way and made his way to the hospital mortuary, where Sally Pengelly and the corpse of Nigel Yeo were waiting for him.

  Chapter Nine

  EVE DIDN’T GO STRAIGHT BACK TO the farm after meeting Jonathan at the Woodyard. She couldn’t face Sarah’s smothering love, Wes’s awkward pity. She had another coffee after the centre manager left, then chatted for a moment to Lucy Braddick, whose smile could light up any room. Eve started crying again, despite herself.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘Not really. My dad just died.’

  She saw a shadow pass over Lucy’s face and the smile fade. Because Lucy’s dad was in his eighties and Lucy was aware that nobody lived forever.

  Eve gathered up her bag and made her way to the car. There’d been no shade left to park in and it was roasting inside, the seat burning even through her dungarees, the steering wheel almost too hot to touch. On impulse, she went to the woodland burial site, where her mother had been put to rest in a willow coffin. It was inland from Barnstaple, on the back road to Ilfracombe, a small copse of newly planted trees close to the river. She and her father had planted a sapling on top of the grave, and their friends had given a lusty rendition of ‘Yellow Submarine’, led by Wesley. She and her father had chosen the song. It was what they’d always sung on journeys when she’d been a child, and this, they’d decided, was a journey of a kind. There were no stones or memorials, but she knew where the grave was. The last time she’d visited, she’d been with her father and there were pools of bluebells.

  Sitting in the shade, with the noise of the river running low over pebbles, it was her mother she thought about now. Helen had been a medic too, a GP, passionate about her patients and a furious activist, fighting for the NHS. Spiky and funny, given to bright unprofessional clothes and angry letters to the papers. It was Helen who’d first suggested her husband should consider taking on a new role, her tone flippant, only half serious. Eve had just come home from Sunderland after completing her MA and she remembered the discussion. They’d been sitting at the dinner table, eating boeuf bourguignon cooked in her honour, drinking smooth red wine. After a student house in the north-east, it had felt wonderfully luxurious.

  ‘You need a new challenge,’ Helen had said to her husband. ‘You’re starting to get bored.’

  ‘You’re not suggesting management, are you? Can you imagine?’

  They’d all laughed, but perhaps that conversation had sown a seed, given Nigel permission later to give up medicine. Not long afterwards, Helen had started to notice the first signs of early onset Alzheimer’s. She’d gone secretly to a specialist for tests, kept the panic to herself until she was sure of the diagnosis. Excluding them both.

  Then there’d been another dinner. More good food. More wine. The revelation which would change all the
ir lives: ‘I could tell I was losing it,’ Helen had said. ‘The first tests weren’t conclusive, but I knew.’

  And there’d been another discussion about Nigel’s future.

  ‘I’m thinking of applying to head up Patients Together.’ He’d taken Helen’s hand across the table. ‘You said I needed a new challenge.’

  ‘You’re doing it because you think I’ll need a carer.’

  ‘I’m thinking of it because I want to spend more time with you. That was what we always planned for this stage in our life. This’ll be office hours, no ridiculous shifts.’

  There’d been a silence. Eve had felt herself holding her breath, waiting for her mother’s reply. Certainly, she’d been trying to hold back the tears.

  ‘Your decision,’ Nigel had said, his attention completely focused on Helen. For the first time in her life with her parents, Eve had felt in the way, that she was intruding.

  Helen had nodded. Decision made.

  ‘Of course, there’s no guarantee that I’ll get the job.’

  ‘You’d better fucking get it.’ At that point, Helen had still been very much herself.

  The illness had taken hold very quickly and soon Helen had become frail and confused. There’d been occasional flashes of her old self, but they’d become scarcer. Her mood had swung between frustration and good humour, but Nigel had always been there, patient and uncomplaining. Eve had often visited, of course, and Helen had seemed pleased to see her. There’d been moments of laughter. One day, however, she’d arrived and Helen had treated her as a stranger. She’d died soon after, only months after Nigel had taken over his new role at Patients Together. A relief, everyone agreed, that it hadn’t dragged on, that she hadn’t had to go into care, but Eve knew her father hadn’t seen it like that. She’d wondered if he’d go back to a post in the hospital, lose himself in medicine again, but Helen had wanted him to take the job in NDPT and so he’d stuck to it.

  Now, as a slight breeze brought some relief from the heat and moved the leaves above her, scattering light across the undergrowth, Eve wondered if that decision was what had killed him.

  Chapter Ten

  SALLY PENGELLY WAS WAITING FOR MATTHEW in the mortuary, gowned and booted.

  ‘Thanks for doing this so speedily at a weekend.’ Matthew knew she had a family: a husband who was head teacher of a village primary school, and at least three children. He and Jonathan had been invited once to a barbecue at their home, a rambling place with a garden and orchard, a paddock with ponies. There had been a lot of children there, all running wild, and he hadn’t quite worked out which of them belonged to Sally. It had been a chaotic and good-humoured evening. Jonathan had loved it; Matthew not quite so much. There had been insects and they’d had to sit on the grass.

  ‘This suits me better than tomorrow morning,’ she said. ‘Finn’s got running club and Jo’s at youth orchestra. Freddie says the surf’s looking good, so he has to be at Croyde. Bloody kids rule our lives.’ A pause. ‘And we didn’t want to leave Dr Yeo at the locus longer than necessary. That poor young woman, with her father’s dead body on her doorstep. In her workplace.’

  Matthew nodded.

  ‘You don’t need to stay throughout.’ Sally was already focused on the body on the stainless-steel table. The mortuary technician moved quietly and efficiently beside her. ‘Cause of death is pretty clear and, of course, we have an ID.’ She looked back at Matthew. ‘You’ve had quite a day. You’ll be glad to be home. So, let’s get on with it, shall we?’

  Her assistant started cutting away Nigel’s clothes and Sally provided the running commentary:

  ‘In the trouser pockets, we have a handkerchief and two sets of house keys. No car keys.’ She turned again to Matthew, a question.

  ‘They’d been left in his car,’ Matthew said. He wondered if that was significant. Had Yeo been distracted when he arrived? Did he trust the Westacombe residents not to steal the vehicle? But wasn’t locking a car automatic? Matthew kept a running log throughout an investigation, and now he opened the blue, hardback notebook and wrote a reminder to check with Eve if her father usually left his vehicle unlocked when he was at the farm.

  Sally was still speaking. ‘The cause of death is a stab wound to the neck, and severing of the artery and critical nerves controlling cardiac and brain function. Bleeding will have been brisk, at least until the blood pressure dropped, and we noted the pulsatile nature of the spatter on the workshop wall.’

  Matthew closed his eyes for a moment and pictured the crime scene, the blood. It was hard to imagine that one man could produce so much.

  Sally continued. ‘The murder weapon was this piece of glass. The axial strength meant that it didn’t shatter, though there is evidence of deformation where it hit the bone.’ She turned to Matthew. ‘Really, this is all as we thought at the locus.’

  ‘I did wonder,’ he said, ‘if the glass was window dressing, there for effect.’

  She shook her head. ‘Glass can be remarkably strong. I did part of my training in Aberdeen. Plenty of glassings in pub brawls there.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Go home to your husband. I’ll get my report to you as soon as I can, and I’ll be in touch immediately if I come across anything unusual.’

  For a moment he hesitated. Duty had become a habit, almost reassuring, an excuse to avoid the personal. But Sally was right. There was nothing more for him to do here.

  * * *

  It was dark when he got home, but Jonathan was still in the kitchen, music playing. Something cool and bluesy that Matthew didn’t recognize. Jonathan was at the sink, peeling vegetables. He turned and took Matthew briefly into his arms. No words until they’d separated.

  ‘I met Eve today. She told me what had happened.’

  ‘Will she hold it together, do you think?’ Matthew took a seat at the long table.

  ‘Yeah, in the end. But to lose her father so soon after her mother…’ Jonathan paused. ‘I invited her to come and stay. I don’t think she should be on her own there, so close to where her father was killed.’

  Matthew looked up sharply. For a moment he couldn’t quite believe what Jonathan had said. ‘She’s a witness to a murder. A potential suspect. You can’t see that it would be impossible to have her here?’

  ‘You really believe that Eve could have killed her father?’ Jonathan’s face was set, stubborn. ‘And that protocol is more important than kindness?’

  ‘The rules matter!’ Matthew was aware of his voice rising, that he was almost shouting, and made an effort to remain calm, reasonable. ‘Sometimes they’re the only thing between us and chaos.’

  They stood staring at each other in silence. Matthew broke it first. He nodded towards the sink. ‘I’m sorry but I’m really not that hungry.’

  ‘This isn’t for tonight,’ Jonathan said. ‘I’m getting prepped for tomorrow. Your mother’s grand lunch.’ His voice was brighter. In his mind, at least, the tension between them was over; he was clearly looking forward to the occasion. He put his arm around Matthew and kissed him lightly. That was Jonathan all over. He hated confrontation and never saw the point of letting an argument drag on. He thought that a moment of tenderness could make everything better. Matthew felt the old dread settle like a headache, but said nothing.

  Chapter Eleven

  ROSS AND MEL HAD A ROUTINE for Sundays if neither of them was working. Sometimes she had to go in; she was manager of an old folks’ home and took her job seriously. It wasn’t fair, she said, for the care staff to work shifts if she didn’t take her turn. She’d started working there when she was sixteen, fitting it in around taking the care qualification at the FE college on the edge of the town. They’d already been going out then. Childhood sweethearts. She’d worked her way up from care assistant, from wearing the ugly pink tabards to her own clothes. Always smart. Ross hadn’t liked to think of her wiping the old men’s bums, had been a bit embarrassed about her job, but he was proud of her now.

  Mel and Ross had met at school. She had alw
ays been the prettiest in the class and not just good-looking, but easy-going and even-tempered too. Not one of the stuck-up girls who thought it was clever to bad mouth or tease. Not pushy or overly academic either. Despite her looks, he had never found her intimidating. They’d first started going out when they were fifteen and had been married in their early twenties.

  Ross’s parents had been through hard times, and he didn’t want that for himself. He’d already mapped out his life before Mel walked down the aisle to be his wife. Security was important. He and Mel had bought their own home while their friends were still renting or spending their cash on travel and flash cars, instead of investing in their future. Ross had grand plans for his future: promotion, a bigger house. That would be the time for fancy holidays.

  Sunday morning started with the Park Run. Ross liked his sport. In the winter it was rugby; Joe Oldham had introduced him to the club when Ross was still a boy, and the super- intendent came along to cheer at most of the important matches. Though he usually retired to the bar at half-time. This time of year, Ross still wanted to keep fit. He had a horror of ending up like his dad: flabby, his belly hanging over his belt, taking no pride in his appearance.

  Mel was a good runner too and went out with her mates some mornings, coming back glowing, laughing just with the pleasure of the exercise. Ross thought that was when he loved her most. She was a credit to him. He’d tried to persuade Jen Rafferty along to the Park Run, but she’d looked at him as if he was crazy. Are you joking? On a Sunday morning? Ross wished Jen would take him more seriously – everything was a joke to her – because he only had her best interests at heart. At her age, she could use more exercise and it wouldn’t hurt if she cut down on the booze. Not that he said anything about that. Jen had a way with words that made you wary, that could cut into you like a knife. With one sentence she could slice away his confidence and his self-belief. If he’d known her at school, she’d have been one of the girls he’d have avoided like the plague.