The Heron's Cry

by Ann Cleeves

  * * *

  They drifted away then and Jen walked home, through the evening streets. People had spilled out of the pubs onto the Newport pavements. At home, her children were in their rooms, each on a screen, each preoccupied and scarcely responding when she looked in on them.

  How can I tell what they’re looking at? Would I know if they were depressed? If some sick bastard was persuading them that suicide is a grand gesture, a final escape?

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  MEL WAS ON AN EARLY SHIFT but Ross got up before her. He’d seen little of her since Nigel Yeo’s murder and he had an ill-defined, worrying sense that she was unhappy. When he’d got in the night before, she’d already eaten and was ready for bed, sitting in the living room in her nightie and the silk dressing gown he’d bought for her last birthday, watching television. There was cold meat and salad in the fridge and she set it out for him and put a jacket potato in the microwave, but seemed reluctant to talk. When he joined her in bed, he tried to take her in his arms, but she turned away, tense and silent. Now, he went to the kitchen while she was still asleep, before the alarm clock had woken him, made tea and brought it up to her.

  ‘That’s kind.’ She seemed more herself. He loved her like this, tousled, bare-faced. She’d pulled herself into a sitting position and her nightdress had slipped over one shoulder.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ He wanted to reach out and stroke the shoulder, but her coldness of the night before made him reluctant. He didn’t know how he’d feel if she pushed him away.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Everything’s fine. Sorry if I seemed a bit grumpy last night. It was a long day. One of my residents died. We were expecting it, but she’d been with us for years.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ But still he didn’t touch her and still he wasn’t entirely reassured.

  * * *

  Ross found Cynthia Prior in the magistrates’ court. He arrived just before the morning session ended for lunch and slipped in at the back. Cynthia was chair of the bench and Ross heard her sentence a young woman to probation for shoplifting. He knew the woman and the family she’d come from and thought she was bloody lucky not to have got at the very least a suspended prison term. He stood with the faded solicitor and the scattering of the defendant’s relatives, as the magistrates left the court, then went to wait in the lobby.

  Cynthia Prior emerged on her own. She was wearing an orange linen dress and carried a big straw bag. She recognized him immediately and wasn’t pleased to see him.

  ‘Detective Constable May, do you have a case this afternoon? I thought it was just traffic for the rest of the day.’

  ‘I was hoping to talk to you.’ The lobby had cleared of people now, and a shaft of sunlight caught motes of dust. ‘About Wesley Curnow.’

  ‘Ah, poor Wesley. I’ll miss him so much.’ She turned away from him, perhaps to hide her distress, and continued to walk to the entrance. ‘I was just going to lunch. I don’t have a lot of time. If you must ask your questions, why don’t you join me?’

  He followed her around the corner of the street and into a little tea shop where she was clearly well known. A small table furthest away from the window had a reserved sign on it and she sat there. When the waitress came, she ordered smoked salmon sandwiches and Earl Grey tea without looking at the menu. Ross was hungry, but he wasn’t sure about the etiquette of eating with a potential suspect, who was also a member of the magistracy. In the end he went for coffee and a teacake. He couldn’t see a teacake as proper food.

  ‘Wesley was a good friend,’ Cynthia said, once the waitress had left them. ‘What would you like to know?’

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘The Friday night of my party. He was one of the last to leave. I did speak to him, though, on the Sunday that he died. He phoned me in the morning, obviously upset about Nigel’s murder. He asked if we could meet up.’

  The waitress arrived with a tray, then had to return with cutlery. She was elderly and slow and Ross struggled to contain his impatience.

  ‘Did you agree to see him?’

  Cynthia cut her sandwich into smaller pieces. ‘No. Of course, I wanted to. I could tell how upset Wesley was, but Sunday’s our family time. Inviolable. And my husband’s not finding things easy either at the moment; you’ll know all about Nigel’s witch hunt. I didn’t feel I could desert him. So, I cooked a proper lunch, which we ate mid-afternoon, and we opened a bottle of good wine, and then another, and that was our Sunday.’

  ‘Why did you invite Nigel to your party, and arrange for him to meet Sergeant Rafferty, if you thought his investigation was a witch hunt?’

  She shrugged. ‘I wasn’t sure why exactly Nigel wanted to meet Jen. If he’d seriously thought Roger and his team had committed a crime, he’d have made a more formal approach.’

  ‘What did your husband make of your relationship with Mr Curnow?’ Ross knew he would never be able to cope with Mel hanging out with another bloke, trips to London, meals in restaurants where all their friends could see what was going on. Making a tit of him.

  ‘Oh my God, it wasn’t that sort of relationship.’ Cynthia gave a choking burst of laughter. ‘I didn’t fancy him! I didn’t even like him that much. It was a friendship of convenience. I don’t enjoy going to the theatre or to exhibitions on my own. What’s the fun in that! And he did know about art. He could be entertaining too if he set his mind to it. Roger was just glad that he didn’t have to turn out unless it was really something he enjoyed.’

  ‘What about Wesley’s other lady friends?’ Ross asked. ‘Did they have friendships of convenience too?’

  ‘Oh, I think some of them imagined they were in love with him. He could be charming and he had a way of making them feel special. In return for a free meal and a few glasses of wine. He had rather expensive tastes in booze. But it would have taken a very classy offer – a Scottish castle or a New York apartment – to persuade him to give up his freedom. He was genuinely a free spirit and he did love his art and his music.’

  ‘Would he have called one of his other women on Sunday morning, do you think? As you were unavailable?’

  ‘He might have called Eve. They might not have been close friends, but they respected each other’s work. Really, he saw the other, older women he hung out with just as meal tickets.’

  ‘What about Janey Mackenzie?’

  She gave another little laugh. ‘I think Wes was finally coming to realize that Janey was a bit beyond him.’

  ‘She went with him to your party.’

  ‘She did, but she made it quite clear all night that she was bored out of her skull. Wesley’s closer to her parents in age and I think she saw him as a family friend, a kind of quite hip uncle, rather than a potential partner.’ Cynthia looked at her watch. ‘I’m sorry, but I really should get back to court.’

  ‘Did Wesley ever discuss Alexander Mackenzie’s death with you? Wes was a friend of the family and he lived and worked with Eve at Westacombe. He must have been curious.’

  Cynthia got to her feet. She’d already paid the bill, for his share as well as her own, which had made Ross feel uncomfortable, as if he was playing the role that Wesley once had, of kept companion. He thought Matthew Venn would never have allowed himself to be put in this position. She stopped, poised by the table, for a moment.

  ‘Wesley didn’t really do curiosity. Not about things like that. He really only cared about himself, his own interests and his own comfort.’ She pulled her bag onto her arm. ‘Perhaps we’re all like that when you come down to it. But some of us are better at hiding our selfishness than others.’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  JEN TRACKED DOWN RATNA JOSHI TO the psychiatric unit in the grounds of the general hospital, where Matthew and Ross had spoken to her the day before. When she finally got through on the phone, after forcing her way through a series of receptionists and a medical secretary, the doctor sounded busy, distracted. ‘Is this really necessary? I talked to your colleagues yesterday.
’

  ‘More information has come to light,’ Jen said. ‘I do need your help.’

  ‘I’m on a long shift today. I won’t be free until eight this evening.’

  ‘Why don’t I come to you?’ Jen could sense Joshi dreaming up excuses and continued before she could speak. ‘I’ll be there at ten.’

  * * *

  Gorsehill, where Mack had been treated, was a modern building not far from the main hospital building. It was run by the same trust. Jen wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting: locked doors, mad people howling at the sky. Instead it could have been any health centre in the country. There was the same wide entrance, with the trust’s logo on a sign outside, the same reminder about parking charges. Outside, a group of men in tracksuit bottoms and T-shirts stood smoking. They ignored her as she walked in.

  Ratna Joshi came to reception to collect her, and they walked together along a corridor to her office, past a nurses’ station, where a woman in her thirties was in tears, apparently inconsolable. As they passed, grief seemed to turn to rage and the patient started yelling at the staff, her words incomprehensible. Ratna approached her and put her arms around her. ‘Hey, Lizzie, take it easy. We’ll get you home soon. I promise. But you’re not quite ready yet. Let’s get you back to your room.’ The woman sobbed into the young doctor’s shoulder and Ratna held her until she grew calm. At last the patient pulled away and looked around her, blank-faced, suddenly completely unemotional. She walked off, straight-backed down the corridor away from them, without another word.

  ‘What was wrong with her?’ Jen had found the encounter, the transformation, shocking.

  She didn’t expect an answer, but as the doctor stopped to unlock her office door, she responded. ‘Postnatal psychosis. She was so unwell that she threatened to stab her two-month-old baby. We had to admit her for her own and the baby’s safety. She has a toddler at home too.’ She stood aside to let Jen in. ‘We have a limited number of beds and community care is stretched. Those are the decisions we have to make every day: do I admit Lizzie or a young man with severe depression and a family to support him?’ She nodded for Jen to take a chair. ‘I assume you are here about Alexander Mackenzie and Nigel Yeo.’

  ‘I am.’ Jen tried to order her thoughts, still shaken. ‘But not to criticize. I don’t know how you do this. People think police officers have it tough, but I wouldn’t be in your shoes for a day.’

  ‘I’m going to make coffee,’ Ratna said. ‘Only instant, but better than nothing. Would you like one?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Someone walked down the corridor outside singing. The noise was loud, tuneful and joyous. Patient or carer? Did it matter? Somehow, Jen thought, within these walls, it felt as if they were all in it together, all maybe a little bit crazy and a lot under pressure.

  ‘So, what was so urgent?’ Ratna asked.

  ‘Nigel had been in touch with the mother of another young guy, Luke Wallace, who committed suicide. Mrs Wallace was convinced that her son was failed by the medical staff who should have been caring for him. He lived in Camden and at the time the trust was managed by Roger Prior.’ A pause. ‘Mr Prior was the subject of a social media hate campaign and vilified in the local press there.’

  Ratna was listening – Jen supposed a psychiatrist would have to be good at that – but she said nothing.

  Jen went on: ‘I spoke to the woman too. She’d told Nigel that her son had accessed a website that encouraged patients to kill themselves. I wondered if Mack had admitted to doing that too. If he had, it might explain Nigel’s anger when you saw him on the evening before his body was found. Perhaps his fury wasn’t directed at you and the trust, but at the people behind the website.’

  ‘You believe that was why Nigel Yeo was killed? Because

  he’d discovered the identity of the individual who persuaded Alexander Mackenzie to jump into the sea that day?’

  ‘I believe it’s one explanation.’ Jen took a sip of the coffee. ‘What do you think? Might it be feasible? Could Mack have been using a site like that?’

  Silence. Ratna was frowning, thinking. Nothing she did was hasty or ill-judged. The office looked out onto a courtyard, with a square of green space in the middle. A group of women sat on the grass, chatting. An older woman with a lanyard and a pass seemed to be leading the conversation. Some sort of group therapy session? Jen couldn’t hear the words, but was fascinated all the same. She was glad that Ratna was taking time to consider the question seriously.

  ‘He might have done, but I’m not sure if any of us would know if he’d been getting those kinds of messages through a group on the internet. If he was determined to kill himself, he’d have lied, pretended, made up the stories he thought we’d want to hear so we’d discharge him. Or let him discharge himself.’ She paused. ‘I was taken in. I honestly didn’t think he was so sick. He was severely depressed, but he told me he wasn’t having suicidal thoughts. He was lying and I should have pressed him.’

  ‘He could have done that? Pretended he was less ill than he really was?’

  This time the answer came more quickly. ‘Sure. He could have created a narrative in his head that we were the bad people, the people who were trying to stop him finding peace or rest. Or whatever he’d been persuaded by the group that death would bring for him. If he’d bought into that story, he’d see it as his mission to mislead.’

  Jen tried to process that. ‘Why would anybody do that? Get other people to kill themselves?’

  ‘Not all the websites are persuasive. Some are there genuinely to give support to people with suicidal thoughts, to take the ideas seriously and not to judge. Others might be more dangerous. They could attract people who are very sick themselves and see it as a God-given mission to help sufferers into another world. A messiah complex isn’t unusual in psychosis.’ She nodded towards the door and gave a little smile. ‘Any number of my patients think they’re Jesus. Some might join because they’re teetering on the edge of suicide and hope the group will help them find the courage and the means.’ Ratna paused for a moment. ‘I suppose there might be occasional individuals who get off on the power over life and death. Who aren’t ill in the sense that we understand the word. Who are just there to provoke another person’s death.’

  Jen felt winded, as if she’d been punched in the gut. If you could target a vulnerable individual in that way, wouldn’t it be murder? An almost perfect murder. ‘That would be evil.’

  ‘Yes,’ the doctor said. ‘Truly evil. But not, I understand, against the law.’

  ‘Have you come across any patients who have admitted to using one of the suicide forums?’

  Ratna shook her head. ‘But I probably wouldn’t. As I said, if someone’s that serious about killing themselves, they’re not going to discuss it with one of us. We’d be seen as restrictive, part of the conspiracy preventing them from having the freedom to make their own choices.’

  ‘Did Mack have any special friends while he was here? Any of the staff members he was particularly close to?’

  ‘He was only here for one night before he died, so there was no real chance for him to make friends. And it’s hard for severely depressed people to connect with other individuals, especially if they’re ill too.’

  Jen remembered Mack as Janey had described him: the restless pacing, the incomprehensible muttering, the isolation in a world of his own. She’d called Mack self-obsessed too. Of course, real friendship with another person would be impossible for someone that ill. If Mack had turned to the internet suicide forums, with their wild ideas, they would give an impression of community, permission to be entirely selfish. He could take in the comments and the encouragement without needing to give anything in return.

  ‘Was there a staff member he connected to?’ Jen asked the question without expecting any positive response and Ratna shook her head.

  ‘This is an acute hospital. Most patients aren’t here for long enough to form useful relationships. We’re stretched. Impossibly stretched.�
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  ‘One last question,’ Jen said. She was starting to sense Ratna’s impatience. ‘When you saw Nigel Yeo on Friday as you were leaving for the day, did he give you any idea where he’d spent the earlier part of the afternoon?’

  The doctor shook her head. ‘No idea at all.’

  * * *

  Jen’s car had been parked in full sunlight and she got the air con blasting as she got in. She sat for a moment before deciding to drive to the coast and to the Mackenzies’. She couldn’t think why they might want to hide Mack’s laptop or computer, or delete his browsing history, but she didn’t want to take any chances.

  Martha was just where Jen had seen her on the previous visit, standing on the balcony, looking out at the beach, cigarette in hand. She waved at Jen. ‘You’re becoming a regular!’ Her tone was ambiguous. It didn’t make Jen feel that she was welcome.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you again. I’m hoping you might be able to help me.’

  ‘George and Janey are working. They’re both busy and I wouldn’t want to call them home.’ Again, the actress managed to give the impression that Jen was intruding. ‘But I’ll see what I can do. Just wait there and I’ll let you in.’

  Once more, Jen was led into the sunlit kitchen, but this time the place was tidy, almost sterile. It was hard to imagine the family together here, eating a late breakfast, as they’d been when she’d visited on Sunday. The found objects on the yellow shelf seemed out of place, relics of former days. Martha sat at the table. There was no offer of coffee. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Before he was killed, Nigel Yeo spoke to a mother whose son also died from suicide. We have no exact record of the call, but they discussed a website chatroom where people considering suicide were given tips and encouragement to carry it out. Do you know if Alexander visited a similar site?’