A Dark Devotion

by Clare Francis

  From the way Ramsey’s investigation was proceeding, I guessed that he too was finding little of significance. Scene-of-crime officers and forensic specialists were still drifting in and out of Reed Cottage and Marsh House and the barns at Upper Farm, examining or removing cars, clothing and miscellaneous objects in what appeared to be haphazard fashion. All this gave me reason for hope, though, once again, I wasn’t counting on it.

  Maggie cast me an apprehensive eye. ‘You won’t let me say anything I should not say, will you?’ She grasped my arm and pleaded with strange intensity, ‘Please…kick me or something. If I say the wrong thing. You will? Yes?’

  I was looking for an answer when the door opened and Ramsey came noisily into the room. ‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, Mrs Dear-den,’ he said. ‘Roadworks on the way from Norwich.’

  Sweat gleamed at his temple, his collar was crooked, his little eyes danced with excitement. He ignored me completely until I said, ‘I would remind you that Mrs Dearden was admitted to hospital three nights ago with breathing difficulties. Her doctor doesn’t want her subjected to unnecessary stress.’

  ‘I understand.’ He waved his team into the room impatiently, as if they had been responsible for keeping us waiting. There was Barbara Smith again, and the languid DC Wilson, along with an officer we hadn’t seen before, an older man with an embittered face and a bad complexion.

  Ramsey took the seat opposite Maggie and placed some typed pages on the table in front of him. Wilson sat at his side with a statement pad and pen.

  Ramsey wiped a limp handkerchief over his forehead and straightened his tie before positioning his plump hands precisely at the edges of the typed sheets and sayings ‘Mrs Dearden, in the light of subsequent events I need a more detailed statement from you concerning your daughter-in-law’s movements on the eighteenth of February.’ He inclined his head solicitously. ‘DC Wilson will take it down for you, if that’s all right?’

  Maggie glanced briefly in my direction for approval and nodded.

  ‘No problem. Then we can get it typed up and, once you’ve read through it, we will ask you to sign it, if that’s acceptable.’ Without waiting for an answer, he gave a fleeting smile that didn’t touch his eyes. ‘Coffee?’

  Stubbing out her cigarette, lifting her chin, Maggie gave a regal shake of her head that didn’t entirely conceal her nervousness.

  While Ramsey leant across and murmured something to Wilson, I tried to work out why he was so animated. A combination of excitement and fear, I guessed. Excitement at having what he hoped was a murder, fear of messing up the investigation. Live on your fear, I found myself thinking combatively. Get used to it, because if you try to get Will in your sights I’m going to block your every move, I’m going to use every trick I know.

  Paul’s voice sprang into my mind. Too involved, Lexxy. That’s your trouble. Too emotional.

  ‘So…ready to start, Mrs Dearden?’

  Maggie nodded and pulled another cigarette out of the packet in front of her.

  Ramsey picked up the first of the typed sheets. ‘This is your previous statement, Mrs Dearden. I thought it might be helpful to have it in front of us.’ He glanced at it. ‘You are Margherita Claudia Dearden, of Reed Cottage, Salterns Lane, Deepwell Staithe?’

  It wasn’t until he reached the evening of Grace’s disappearance that Maggie stopped him.

  ‘No,’ she interrupted abruptly. ‘No—Grace arrived with Charlie at four. She stayed just two minutes, just two, three, then she was gone again. Gone by five past.’

  ‘Ah.’ Ramsey’s little jaw emerged from the folds of his plump neck. He frowned with the air of someone who wished to be absolutely clear. ‘So, not four fifteen as you said previously?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And she was gone by four five p.m.?’

  Wilson bent over his pad and took it down slowly, in a schoolboy’s script, everything well spaced, almost nothing joined up.

  Referring to Maggie’s previous statement again, Ramsey said, ‘So then at about five fifteen you discovered that there was a flood on the meadows.’ Ramsey looked up. ‘Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You saw this flood, did you?’

  Maggie blew out a slow plume of smoke. ‘Yes.’

  ‘From your cottage?’

  ‘The top windows. You can see from there.’

  ‘It wasn’t too dark?’

  A tiny shrug. ‘There was still some light. But I went out to see. To make sure.’

  Ramsey surveyed the transcript and put on an expression of puzzlement. ‘You went out to see…Did you mention this before?’

  ‘Perhaps. I cannot remember.’ Her tone was deliberately offhand.

  Ramsey’s eyes skimmed the page and the next. ‘No,’ he said heavily. ‘You didn’t mention it. So…at five fifteen you saw the flood from the upper window, then went out to have a look.’

  ‘Yes.’

  We were forced to wait again while Wilson got it down. Bent low over his writing, lips pulled in, I was again reminded of a schoolboy, doing his best to be neat.

  ‘And then?’ Ramsey prompted.

  ‘Then I came back for the sluice handle. I—’

  ‘One moment…’ Wilson’s pen moved ever more slowly across the page.

  Eventually Ramsey was able to say, ‘And then?’

  ‘I found that the sluice was not working.’

  ‘When you say not working?’

  ‘It was broken.’

  ‘Could you explain where this sluice was exactly?’

  ‘The first one. On the embankment of the Gun Marsh.’

  ‘What about the second sluice?’

  She looked blank.

  ‘Did you go there at all?’

  ‘No. It was the first sluice that was broken.’

  He regarded her for a moment before taking up her story again. ‘,’ called my son to tell him about the flood. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You called his mobile telephone?’

  She drew the end of her cigarette slowly across the bottom of the ashtray, scraping off ash. ‘First I tried the house, to know if he was back from Norwich.’

  Another search of the transcript, another frown. ‘You called the house first?’ Ramsey echoed, as though he were fated to repeat everything that wasn’t in the script.

  Maggie nodded.

  ‘And when you called the house, was there any answer?’

  Maggie’s eyes narrowed, she quivered slightly: irritation or nerves. ‘Grace answered.’

  Ramsey repeated with heavy emphasis, ‘Grace Dearden answered?’ He looked conspicuously at the transcript, but he already knew he wasn’t going to find it there. ‘Why didn’t you mention this before, Mrs Dearden?’

  ‘I thought I did.’

  Ramsey shook his head slowly. ‘No.’

  ‘I thought you understood this, when I said I called my son.’ She made a gesture implying a certain lack of intelligence on Ramsey’s part. ‘It was Grace who told me Will would be in the car. That is why I called the car.’ She added, in an offended voice, ‘I did not think I had to explain this!’

  Ramsey stared at her. He couldn’t make out whether she was being purposely obscure, or whether it was simply in her nature to be equivocal. ‘Mrs Dearden, if Grace answered the phone she must have been in the house.’

  Maggie looked for the catch in this statement and found none. ‘Of course.’

  ‘And what time did you make this call?’

  Maggie waved a hand. ‘Something like five thirty.’

  Letting it go for the moment, looking unsettled, Ramsey went back to the typed sheet. ‘So then you called your son in his car?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This has when?’

  ‘Well…straight away.’

  I interrupted, ‘According to the Cellnet records the call was logged at five thirty-six p.m., and the mobile was within range of the Costessey transmitter on the outskirts of Norwich.’r />
  There was a pause while Ramsey eyed me coolly. ‘Thank you for that information.’ He returned his attention to Maggie.

  ‘And what did you say to your son?’

  ‘Say?’ She searched her memory. ‘I said…the sluice was broken, the meadow was flooding.

  He must come quick. Something like that/

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then…I tried Frank Yates, at the next farm. He was not there. So then I could do nothing. So then I waited for William.’

  ‘And he arrived at six thirty?’

  ‘Six twenty, six thirty. Some time like that.’

  Ramsey gestured to Wilson, who picked up his pen again. They began to record the new material, Ramsey checking each sentence with Maggie before Wilson set it down on paper. When the task was done, Ramsey pushed the transcript aside and rocked back in his seat in a conspicuous attempt to set a less intimidating tone. ‘Did anyone come to the house during the time you were waiting for your son?’

  With a quiver of impatience, Maggie stated, ‘Grace, you mean? No. Though I was out some of the time looking at the flood, so it’s possible that she…’ She left the remark hanging in the air.

  I felt my lips give an involuntary twitch.

  Uncertainty stole back into Ramsey’s face, he sat forward again. ‘You went to look at the flood a second time?’

  ‘I took Charlie, yes.’

  I was careful to hold on to my expression, to maintain a neutral gaze aimed at a point somewhere over Ramsey’s right shoulder.

  ‘I would like to understand correctly, Mrs Dearden…At some point between telephoning your son in his car and the time he arrived at your cottage, you took your grandson out to the marsh to look at the flood a second time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Barely containing his irritation, Ramsey said briskly, ‘Mrs Dearden, why didn’t you tell us this before?’

  I looked towards Maggie as she replied, ‘You did not ask me.’ She made one of her Italian gestures, a raised shoulder, a spread hand, a widening of the eyes. ‘I did not know it was important.’ There was openness in her expression, but also obduracy.

  Ramsey’s button mouth tightened still further. ‘What time was it, then, when you went out to look at the flood?’

  ‘After I spoke to Will.’

  He asked, ‘So it could have been five forty?’

  ‘It’s possible. I cannot be sure.’

  ‘And you didn’t notice Grace’s car, either when you left or when you returned?’

  She gave the question consideration. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I did not notice any car. But, then, we went out by the kitchen, Charlie and me. We came back the same way. If the car was at the fronts well…’ She shrugged. ‘But I think if Grace had come back, she would have come into the house. She would have come to find us. No?’ She looked to me as though for confirmation. ‘I think so,’ she stated ingenuously to the room at large. ‘I think she would have come in.’

  ‘And later, when your son arrived?’ Ramsey

  asked. ‘You didn’t notice Grace’s car then?’

  ‘I did not look at the front, so…’

  Ramsey exhaled heavily. He was getting the picture. ‘So Grace could have come and gone and you wouldn’t have been the wiser?’

  Maggie frowned slightly, as though this idea was new to her. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But you were aware of your son arriving?’

  ‘Yes. I heard the horn, I followed Will out to the sluice.’

  Maggie’s energy was ebbing visibly, her eyelids were dipping, she seemed to be sinking lower into her chair.

  ‘You followed immediately?’

  ‘Yes, I follow his torch along the sea bank. I arrive at the sluice just after him.’

  Ramsey took a steadying breath. ‘Then?’

  ‘I stayed with him,’ she replied, rediscovering the past tense. ‘Maybe fifteen minutes, maybe a little more. Until he saw what the problem was, you know. Until he went to bring tools from the barn.’

  ‘This is the barn at Upper Farm?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He went by car, then?’

  She sighed, making no attempt to hide her weariness. ‘Yes, in the Range Rover.’

  ‘How long was your son away?’

  ‘Ten minutes. Fifteen maybe.’

  ‘You saw him return?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Then?’

  ‘Then he worked on the sluice. I helped him.’

  ‘And how long did you help him for, Mrs Dearden?’

  ‘Until he finished. Almost three hours, I think…Though I came back to make sure my grandson was all right. Twice I came back.’ Her lids drooped again, a vein like a knotty thread beat at her temple, she touched a hand to her neck.

  I bent towards her. ‘Would you like a rest?’

  ‘Yes,’ she breathed instantly.

  ‘Some coffee would be welcome,’ I said.

  Barbara Smith and DC Wilson got up, took our orders and went out. Ramsey surveyed Maggie thoughtfully before beckoning the older, sour-faced officer towards the corridor.

  While everyone was in motion, I murmured to Maggie, ‘Are you okay to go on?’

  ‘Have I said anything wrong?’ she whispered anxiously. ‘Tell me.’

  Something sank inside me as she said this. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I’m so nervous that I will say the wrong thing.’

  ‘Just stick to what you know.’

  ‘Yes, but sometimes I can’t remember, Alex. Sometimes I get in a confusion.’

  I was moved by the sort of helplessness you feel when someone you love is in trouble and there’s nothing you can do to extricate them. ‘You’re doing fine,’ I said.

  She cast me a doubtful look. ‘You’ll remember everything I say, won’t you? So that I make no mistakes.’

  ‘We’ll read through the statement carefully before you sign it. We can take all the time in the worlds we can amend anything we like.’

  The coffee arrived. As soon as everyone had reassembled, Ramsey went through the additional material and clarified a few details while Wilson took it down in his laborious longhand. After fifteen minutes we moved on.

  ‘So…’ Ramsey’s animation had been replaced by a rather sullen look. ‘Apart from when your son went to fetch the tools, and from the two times that you went back to the cottage to check on your grandson, you were with your son from the time he arrived at six twenty or so until the time the repairs were completed at nine thirty.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘My son came in to have a bath and to eat, then he went back to drain the marsh.’

  ‘He could do this on his own, could he, the draining?’

  ‘It’s an easy job.’

  ‘What does it involve?’

  ‘Involve?’ She frowned at this strange question. ‘You open the sluice at low tide. You empty the water out.’ She spoke in a deliberate tone, with pauses, like a teacher who suspects her pupil might be a bit slow. ‘Then you close the sluice again. Yes?’ She waited for Ramsey to show he had understood.

  ‘Your son came and went during much of the nighty then?’

  ‘Came and went?’ Maggie repeated in a cold voice, getting his drift all too well. ‘No. Just three times he went. He went once at ten thirty to open the sluice. He went again at half past midnight to close it again. Then he checked the gate at four to make sure it was holding against the tide. He was away just minutes each time.’

  Ramsey looked towards the high-set window, as if something had caught his attention there. ‘Just minutes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He looked back at her. ‘You saw him leave and return, did you? Each time?’

  She hesitated while she gauged the dangers in the question. ‘I saw him go out at ten thirty and return a few minutes later. Ten minutes he was gone, that is all.’ She paused as if to examine this statement for flaws. ‘Later, at twelve thirty, I heard him getting ready to go out. I went to th
e top of the stairs, I spoke to him as he went out…’ She inhaled, drawing her cheeks in against her teeth, looking frail. ‘I heard him return later.’

  ‘Heard him?’

  ‘It’s very small, the cottage. You hear everything.’

  ‘How long was he out that time?’

  Her long fingers twitched and shifted in her lap. ‘I…It must have been…I…Yes…Before one. Yes, I think—ten minutes before one.’

  Ramsey watched Wilson write this down. Maggie’s hand stole across and touched my leg. Her eyes followed: a plea, a lament.

  Taking my cue, I asked, ‘Are you feeling all right? Would you prefer to stop?’

  ‘Almost there,’ said Ramsey easily. ‘If you can bear with us for another minute or two, Mrs Dearden.’

  Maggie looked from me to Ramsey and back again, recognizing the opportunity for escape yet seemingly unable to grasp it.

  Ramsey said with false cheer, ‘Literally another three questions, Mrs Dearden.’

  ‘But not if you’re not up to it,’ I said.

  Mutely Maggie signalled her willingness to go ahead.

  ‘So you were awake when he returned at ten to one?’

  ‘I heard him, yes.’

  ‘Later, during your son’s last outing, the one in the early hours, you say he went out at four?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You know it was definitely four?’

  ‘Yes, I heard him. I looked at the time. It was close to four. Perhaps five minutes before. Five minutes after.’

  ‘When you say you heard him go, you heard what exactly?’

  ‘I heard the door,’ she said firmly. ‘I heard him go out.’

  Ramsey’s eyes glinted momentarily. ‘And his return?’

  ‘I heard him come back also.’

  ‘A door again, was it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Ramsey sat back and arranged his face into the semblance of a smile, a motion that pushed his fat cheeks upwards and creased his eyes but conveyed no suggestion of sincerity. ‘Thank you, Mrs Dearden.’

  Maggie stiffened abruptly. ‘Not just a door,’ she protested. ‘Not just a door! Other things. The bolts on the inside, they make a big noise. And the bathroom door…the water running, the loo. Other things! Please…’ She pointed a fierce forefinger at Wilson’s pad. ‘I want it there, in the statement.’