by Ann Cleeves
After the run, Mel always did a cooked breakfast. It was the high point of his week. Some of their running mates went out for brunch in a cafe close to the park, but Ross could never see the point. It all cost money and, anyway, the food wasn’t great; there was nowhere decent to eat in Barnstaple. And Mel was a great cook. Today, it was scrambled eggs and smoked salmon on sourdough toast. Afterwards, she made a pot of real coffee – on weekdays, they made do with instant – and they took their mugs out into the garden. He sat with his face to the sun and thought this was all he’d ever wanted: to be a good cop and a good husband. Maybe a good father when the time was right. Mel got up from her deckchair and began to pull a few weeds from the flower bed next to the path.
He looked at his watch. ‘I’ve got to go in to the station. We’re working on that murder out at Westacombe and the boss has decided he’s got something important on at home. Who knows what Jen will be up to?’ He rolled his eyes. ‘One of us has got to be there.’
She was still crouched, and turned to face him, her eyes screwed up against the sun.
‘No worries,’ she said. ‘I’ll do the washing-up, shall I?’
He thought he caught an edge to her voice, a touch of sarcasm. ‘Is that okay?’ He wouldn’t want to upset her for the world.
‘Yeah.’ She stood up and smiled. ‘I know how important your work is.’
There was a moment of relief. He should have known she wouldn’t have a go at him. He was overreacting. ‘I won’t be back until late-ish. I’ve got to take a witness statement out at Instow, then there’ll be the briefing.’
‘That’s all right. I might go out for a drink with the girls.’
Again, he thought he caught an undercurrent of resentment, but when he looked at her face, she was still smiling.
* * *
The police station was like a sauna; the sun was streaming through windows that had never been opened and, of course, there was no air con. Ross looked again at the list of the calls Nigel Yeo had made in the previous week. Besides those to Eve and to Lauren Miller, everything seemed work-related. He must have been a sad bastard. Not much social life at all. There was a text sent at six o’clock on the evening before his death by Cynthia Prior: Look forward to seeing you later. Nothing else that day. So, Ross thought, any meeting at Westacombe had been arranged previously. Or Nigel had been contacted on his landline. Or he’d turned up on the spur of the moment. That was speculation, of course. Ross had learned from Joe Oldham to be suspicious of speculation, but Matthew Venn thought it was a useful tool. Our job is all about What if? No harm creating a number of scenarios and seeing if the facts fit. The danger comes when you twist the facts to fit the theory.
It was still a bit early to be heading out to Instow, but Ross left the station anyway. He thought he’d call in at the house, surprise Mel. They might go to bed. Sex in the afternoon had always been his favourite, and, somehow, they’d got out of the way of it. Too busy both of them. He was excited, a schoolboy again, planning illicit jaunts with his girlfriend, as he drove through the new executive estate, past the men washing cars and the kids playing out. But when he got there, Mel’s car wasn’t in the drive. Perhaps she’d popped round to her parents’. He rang her, but when she didn’t reply, he decided not to wait. The moment of uncharacteristic spontaneity had passed.
There were more cars heading away from Instow as he drove there than were making their way to the coast. Family Sunday afternoons were a time of preparation for the week ahead: homework, hair wash, the ironing of school uniform. At least, that was how it had been when he was a boy. And this wasn’t yet prime grockle season. A few people were still in the Sandpiper, but they were lingering over coffee, relaxed. Ross had never been in here. It wasn’t his sort of place. Most of the customers were his parents’ age. A young woman was drying glasses at the counter. Blonde hair. A white blouse, the cotton thin enough that he could see her bra. She moved out to clear a table and he saw she was wearing skinny jeans and Converse sandshoes.
‘Janey Mackenzie?’
‘Yes.’ She seemed to see him for the first time. ‘Oh, you must be the detective. Dad said someone would be coming.’
‘Yes, I need to talk to you about Friday night.’
She was still carrying a tray. ‘Just a minute. I need to get rid of this.’ She disappeared into the kitchen and returned soon after with a middle-aged man. ‘This is my dad. He’ll cover while I talk to you. Do you mind if we walk on the beach? I’ve been stuck in all day.’
She looked at him, waiting for his agreement.
‘Of course, if that’s what you’d prefer.’
She gave him a smile and he followed her out of the door.
Outside, it was early afternoon, even hotter, and despite the cars heading back to Barnstaple, the beach was still heaving. Kids were running in and out of the water, splashing and screaming. Janey took off her shoes and made her way to the sea’s edge, then walked away from the worst of the crowd towards the far end of the beach. He wasn’t sure what to do. He was dressed for work, not for the shore. In the end he followed her, but stayed on the dry sand, just about close enough to speak to her without shouting.
‘Friday night you were at a party with Wesley Curnow?’
‘Yeah. Not exactly my idea of fun.’ She pulled a face that made him smile.
‘Why did you go then?’ Ross wasn’t sure where the question had come from. How could this be relevant to the investigation? But something about her intrigued him. He’d expected her to be confident, arrogant even. She’d been to a fancy university, was good-looking in a way that would catch attention wherever she went, and she had a mother who was a minor celebrity. Ross was always suspicious of people who were better educated than him. He sensed they were judging him. Janey didn’t give that impression, though. There was something of the little girl about her: nervy but precocious. He thought she’d say the first thing that came into her head, no filter, no matter how that might seem to the listener.
She shrugged. She was wearing big sunglasses now and he couldn’t really see her face, couldn’t tell what she was thinking. ‘I was bored. I thought anything would be better than staying in or working. And Wes is a mate. He asked. He didn’t quite tell me what I was letting myself in for.’
‘Did you see Nigel Yeo there?’
She turned her back to the sun. It was white and bright and she was almost a silhouette.
‘Yes. He didn’t stay very late.’
‘Long enough for you to speak to him?’
‘We had a quick chat. He and I were probably the only sober people at the party.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘Middle-aged drinkers. What are they like?’
‘I know!’ They walked on for a moment, in almost companionable silence. ‘How well did you know him, Dr Yeo?’ Ross was trying to put himself into Matthew Venn’s shoes, to ask the questions the boss might ask. He hadn’t wanted to like Venn when he’d first arrived, but the way the new detective had dealt with the body at Crow Point, and all the drama of the aftermath, had earned a grudging admiration.
‘Not well at all,’ Janey said. ‘He was a friend of my parents. At least, a kind of friend. He was trying to find out what happened to my brother, why he was allowed out of hospital to commit suicide.’
‘What do you think happened to your brother?’ Another Venn-like question.
It seemed to surprise her and she paused for a moment. ‘I think he was ill and he killed himself. He had pretty shit treatment from the NHS, but I don’t think anyone could have stopped him if he’d wanted to do it. He was really quite stubborn. I think my parents feel guilty because they couldn’t love him. Not really. He was so fucked-up and so different from them. So, they’re looking for someone else to blame.’
‘Could you love him?’ For a moment Ross was afraid she’d laugh at him. If anyone had asked him a question like that, he’d have been embarrassed and covered it up with laughter.
But Janey considered it seriously. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I
loved him. He was demanding and self-obsessed, and there was no protective wall between him and the universe, so he made everyone around him believe they had a duty to look after him. But he could be joyous and gentle, and he looked after me too. He was my little brother.’ She seemed lost in thought. ‘We came on holidays to North Devon, before we moved down for good and took over the business. Mum spent her first big repeat fees from TV on a little chalet in the dunes at Seal Bay. It was magical. Like something out of a kids’ book. Mack and I ran wild, rock-pooling and surfing. Picnics and ice cream. Long walks on Seal Point. Mum was never really a hands-on parent, and most of the time she was learning lines for the next ep. Dad wasn’t there much. He still had his permanent job in IT. So mostly it was just the two of us. Mack was a weird little scrap even then, but I don’t remember any arguments or sibling rivalry. Nothing like that.’
‘Seal Point was where he killed himself?’
‘Yeah. I guess it was his happy place.’ She looked at Ross. ‘Somewhere he felt at peace.’
They walked on. Ross could feel sand in his shoes, gritty between his socks and his skin, but it didn’t seem the time to take them off. What would that look like, when Janey was so at home on the beach?
‘On Friday night, you gave Wesley a lift home, but not all the way?’
‘I dropped him at the end of the lane leading towards the farm. He was pissed and I thought the walk would do him good. Besides, he didn’t have anything to wake up for and I knew I’d be working on breakfasts.’
‘This is your full-time job? Working in the cafe?’
‘For the moment.’ She walked out of the shallow water and joined him. ‘I’ve got a degree. From Oxford. But there’s not much call for students of Victorian fiction in contemporary Britain.’
Ross didn’t know what to say to that.
‘Wesley says a car passed him, going very fast, coming down the lane from Westacombe, but he was quite vague about it. As you say, he was drunk, so he wasn’t terribly convincing. No details. Something about that might come back to him, but it’s not very helpful at the moment. You didn’t see a speeding car going up towards the farm when you dropped him off?’
‘Not then, but later there was some maniac driving through the village much too fast.’
‘Can you describe the car?’
‘Black. One of those MTBs.’
‘MTB?’
She smiled. ‘Much too big. For the lanes and the roads round here.’
He smiled too, though he wouldn’t mind something solid when he could afford it. A Range Rover. Something of that kind.
‘Did you catch the registration number?’
‘No way. It just flashed past.’
‘Is there anything else you can tell me about Dr Yeo? Any reason why someone might want him dead?’
She didn’t answer immediately and he thought Janey might have something, some little bit of information to make sense of the killing. But as they walked back to the road, she shook her head again.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Nigel was a lovely man. Everyone will tell you that.’
Chapter Twelve
ON SUNDAY MORNINGS, IF SHE WASN’T working, Jen usually stayed in bed until lunchtime. In the past, she’d tried to do the good mum thing and attempted a roast – meat, veg, Yorkshire puddings, the whole deal – but it hadn’t seemed worth it since Ella had decided she was mostly veggie, and Ben made it clear he’d rather be talking to his friends online, playing some computer game. All that effort, she’d thought, for a meal nobody really wanted to eat! She’d given up, and now Sunday was her day for a lie-in.
Today, though, she was up before the kids, and on the phone to her friend Cynthia, who was always awake early. In a way, it seemed to Jen that Cynthia’s party had been at the start of the whole investigation.
‘You’ll have heard about your mate Nigel. Can I come around for a chat? It’s official.’ Though, as Matthew says, gossip has its place too.
‘Of course.’
Jen heard Cynthia take a breath, and knew she was about to fire off a load of questions, so she cut off the conversation quickly. She didn’t want to get into details on the phone. ‘Get the coffee on then. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’
Cynthia’s husband opened the door. Sometimes Roger Prior joined them when Jen went to visit, but more often he hid himself away in his office. He was a tall, dignified man, unremarkable except for a head of very dark, almost black hair, which Jen was convinced must be dyed. It seemed a strange vanity for someone so reserved. Only now did it occur to Jen that, when it came to the investigation, Prior might be an even more useful contact than Cynthia. He worked as something vague but important for the local NHS trust, and, of course, she should have made the connection before.
‘Cynthia’s waiting for you in the garden,’ he said. They were standing in an entrance hall bigger than Jen’s living room, all pale wood and family photos. ‘We’re both rather shaken. The man who died in Westacombe was a neighbour of ours.’
‘I’m on the team investigating his murder.’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I suppose you can’t discuss it then. I understand all about confidentiality.’
‘Nigel must have been your colleague at one time. And he was still looking into a case which involves the trust. You might be able to help.’
‘I don’t think I can,’ the man said. ‘You’ll need to contact the hospital about that.’ He gave a tight, sad smile. ‘I’m governed by confidentiality too, I’m afraid.’ There was a moment of silence. ‘Why don’t you go on through? Cynthia’s waiting for you.’ He disappeared through a door. Jen had a brief glimpse of an office, a desk, a wall of bookshelves, then the door was firmly closed. She’d been to the house many times, but she’d never been inside that room.
In the garden, Cynthia was sitting on a white wooden chair, her head tilted back, her eyes closed against the sun. She was wearing a long silk tunic in blues and purples over white linen trousers. Silver sandals and silver toenails. This week her hair was purple too.
Jen had never thought of herself as a jealous woman, but she envied Cynthia her garden. It could have come out of one of those magazines she read occasionally in the dentist’s waiting room. Everywhere there was colour, and the lawn was as smooth as a carpet, without moss or weed. The beds a mix of exotic flowers and vivid shiny-leaved shrubs. Of course, the Priors could afford a gardener and Cynthia merely supervised. A jug of coffee and two mugs stood on a white wrought-iron table. Cynthia heard Jen approaching and turned to face her. She looked as if she’d hardly slept. The purple circles under her eyes were real, not cosmetic to match the hair.
‘I can’t believe it,’ she said. ‘Wesley phoned me yesterday evening. He thought we should know.’ There was an implied criticism. Why didn’t you tell me?
‘I’m part of the team investigating his murder,’ Jen repeated the words. ‘We were pretty tied up.’ Sometimes Cynthia forgot that other people had kids and full-time jobs.
‘Oh, I can understand. But it was just such a shock.’
‘He was here on Friday night.’ Jen poured coffee. ‘The party didn’t really seem his kind of thing.’
‘It wasn’t! He was only here to see you.’
‘What do you mean? I’d never met him before.’
‘He called in on Friday afternoon. He knew we were friends.’ Cynthia looked up and for a moment she was herself again. ‘It’s quite something having a mate who’s a detective sergeant. A bit of a talking point, a kind of vicarious celebrity. He asked if I’d be able to set up a meeting. Rather urgent, he said. I told him you’d be coming to the party, and he’d be welcome. I wasn’t sure if he’d come along, but there he was.’ A pause. ‘I thought the two of you might get on. He lost his wife to early onset Alzheimer’s, so he was on his own too.’
Jen ignored Cynthia’s implied matchmaking. After the man’s death, the idea seemed hugely inappropriate. Grotesque, as if Cynthia was suggesting she should hook up with a corpse.
‘Wh
at time did he arrive here on Friday?’ It might not be important but Venn would want to know.
‘I’m not sure. Five-ish. Maybe a bit later.’ Cynthia paused. ‘He seemed a little out of sorts.’
‘Did he say why he wanted to talk to me?’
Cynthia shook her head. ‘No, it was all very mysterious, very secret squirrel.’
‘How well did you know him?’
‘Well enough to have had him round for dinner a few times. His wife, Helen, was my real friend. I got closer to Nigel when he cut back his hours to care for her. When he started at Patients Together, he could work a lot from home. I went sometimes to sit with her, to give him a break, and so he could work with Eve on the glass. He was taking some kind of course.’
‘He and Roger must have been colleagues, though, when he was still working at the hospital. That must have been another point of connection.’
‘Oh.’ Now Cynthia seemed deliberately vague. ‘I don’t think so. Roger’s just an admin person, really. Nigel was on the front line.’
‘Until he took up his new investigative role with Patients Together. He must have come into contact with Roger then. Nigel had taken up the case of the Mackenzie boy, hadn’t he? He had some idea that negligence by the trust had led to his suicide.’ A pause. ‘That must have been difficult for Roger.’
There was a moment of silence. Jen had always thought that she and Cynthia were close friends. Very different in lifestyle, of course, and Cynth, with her monthly trip to the hairdresser and her exuberant, expensive clothes didn’t seem to have a clue about the real world until she sat in the magistrates’ court. Then she seemed to have an unusual understanding of the offenders who stood before her. Occasionally, Jen wondered if Cynthia’s family had been dysfunctional too. Perhaps the woman’s empathy came from her own experience.
