Crow Trap

by Ann Cleeves

  ‘I feel responsible in a way.’

  ‘Do you?’ It was the last thing she had expected.

  ‘I should have realized it was all getting too much for her. Looking after Dad, the farm. Something must just have given. At least . . .’

  ‘At least what?’ she demanded.

  He shook his head. Some expression of distaste on his face prompted her to complete the sentence for him. ‘You were going to say that at least the violence was directed at herself and not at your father?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘All right.’

  ‘You knew about her conviction?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘When did you find out?’

  So it was you, she thought. You made her kill herself. Somehow you found out and you couldn’t bear the thought of her looking after your father. But again his reply surprised her.

  ‘It was years ago, before they were married. I was invited to tea. This room was just the same. We sat here, drinking tea and eating walnut loaf and she said, “I think you should know. I’ve a conviction for manslaughter.” Quite calmly, as if it was a bit of news she’d picked up at the mart.

  ‘Then I remembered the case. It was when I was a kid but it was all over the papers and they talked about it at school. Charlie Noble had been a pupil there a couple of years before. She’d told Dad the night before, had offered to leave at once if he wanted her to. Of course he said she should stay, but she insisted on telling me too.

  ‘I said it was up to them, their lives. That was what they expected and I’d have wanted the same response from them if it was the other way round. But it wasn’t easy. I thought she was after a meal ticket.’

  ‘She wasn’t like that.’ But Rachael wondered how she’d feel if Edie took up with an ex-con.

  ‘No. I realized that later. I’d have found it hard to like her anyway at the time. She wasn’t my mother. And my father seemed happy with her. Much happier than I’d ever been able to make him. I was probably glad of an excuse to disapprove.’ He smiled. ‘I came to terms with it when my father was ill. It would have been churlish then to keep up the icy formality. I started to visit, to stay overnight occasionally.’

  So Neville’s room really was Neville’s, Rachael thought.

  ‘It was true what I told you at the funeral. We did get on very well at the end.’

  ‘I’m glad.’ But she wasn’t glad. She was jealous. How could Bella have confided in Neville Furness and not in her? And she wasn’t even sure she believed him.

  In the distance there were voices. Vera Stanhope and Joe Ashworth had returned. Even from here Rachael could sense their anger and frustration. Doors were slammed. Vera swore. It seemed the meeting in Kimmerston hadn’t been a success.

  ‘I want you to have something,’ Neville said quickly. He looked at the door as if he expected Vera to burst in. ‘Something of Bella’s. She’d want that.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know . . .’

  ‘Are you allowed away from this place?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Come to dinner with me. Not tonight, there’s a meeting. Tomorrow.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘My car’s at the garage.’

  ‘I’ll pick you up. Of course.’ He moved to the door. ‘I’d better see what they want with me.’

  Then she realized that Vera had summoned him to Black Law for an interview. He hadn’t said he was there because he loved the place; that was the impression he’d given. She felt cheated. She had wanted to ask Vera what news she had on the car which had rammed her, but now she left immediately and went back to Baikie’s to work.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  In the garden at the Priory Anne was weeding. She was wearing shorts and knelt on an old folded towel, standing up occasionally to stretch and move on to the next patch. The sun was hot on her back and shoulders. The weeds pulled out easily and she could shake off the sandy soil before throwing the ragwort and the groundsel into her barrow.

  She had paid a man from the village to come into the garden every week to water and cut the grass but he’d done nothing else and the plants seemed to have thrived on the neglect. The place had a riotous tropical feel. There were large overblown blooms and under the fruit-net berries had ripened and dropped from bushes and canes, so as she crouched in the border she smelled decay as well as heady perfume.

  And all the time she felt that the weeding was a futile gesture because she couldn’t imagine being in the Priory in twelve months. Left to himself Jeremy would either allow the place to become a wilderness or he’d invite one of his arty friends up from London to consider a landscape design. She imagined that they’d pull out all the plants and devise something minimalist and oriental with gravel and strange statues.

  It was Edie’s idea that she should take a day off. Anne decided that she got on so well with Edie because, although she hardly liked to admit it, they were of the same generation. They were somehow less hung up than the youngsters with all their principles.

  Anne had confided to Edie that the thought of leaving Baikie’s to return to her life at the Priory and Jeremy was making her panic. Of course she hadn’t told Edie about Godfrey but she had guessed about an affair that had gone wrong.

  ‘The trouble is I haven’t really thought it through,’ Anne had said. ‘While I’m here I forget that there’s anything going on outside. I mean, I know we have to put up with Vera’s antics but that’s almost seemed like part of the survey. It’s all about digging around to find answers, isn’t it? But now we’ve got a date for leaving, well, I can’t put off making decisions for much longer.’

  Then Edie had said, ‘Why don’t you take a day off and go home? It might put things into perspective.’

  Anne had taken the advice and while she squatted in the sun untangling the goosegrass and the columbine, she had been trying to sort out the more difficult mess of how to spend the rest of her life.

  ‘You have to decide what you really want,’ Edie had said. Which was all very well except that she knew that what she really wanted was Godfrey Waugh and she still wasn’t sure whether or not he was a murderer.

  At lunchtime Jeremy arrived home. He had interests of some description in an antique shop in Morpeth and had gone in, he said, to check that the manager had priced some new stock correctly. The manager was young and pretty.

  ‘Roland has no idea,’ Jeremy said. He stood on the flagstone path, very dapper in his Ralph Lauren shirt and his St Laurent blazer, sweating slightly. He had to shout because he wouldn’t venture onto the grass in case his shoes got mucky. Anne refused to stop weeding to go to him. There was something reassuring about the rhythm of stooping and pulling and of seeing the ground clear in front of her.

  ‘I mean, he’s a first-class salesman. I’ll give him that. But he knows nothing about the period.’

  She wondered briefly which period but knew better than to ask. Jeremy liked to lecture.

  ‘You’ll never guess,’ Jeremy went on excitedly, hands flapping, a parody of himself. ‘We’ve been invited to a do at the Hall.’

  That did make her stop. She stood up, felt the muscles in her shoulders pull, the tingle where the sun had caught the back of her legs.

  ‘What sort of a do?’

  ‘Oh, nothing really formal. Nothing really posh. I mean, I expect everyone and his dog will be there. It’s some sort of celebration for the youngest brat’s birthday. But Livvy Fulwell did come here specially to ask.’

  ‘You’re such a snob, Jeremy,’ she said gently.

  ‘Darling,’ he said, ‘I can’t help it. Are you going to stop that now and come in for lunch?’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘I can’t wait until you give up that dreary business in the hills. Won’t it be wonderful when everything’s back to normal again?’ She caught the anxiety in his voice and thought that Jeremy was probably panicking too. He wasn’t stupid and hated any change or disruption. He was a kind and funny man and she thought she would miss him. But it wouldn’
t do to stay.

  ‘What shall we have for lunch?’ She couldn’t face a confrontation now, even about when they should eat. This was her day off.

  ‘Oh God!’ He was distraught. ‘I didn’t think. I meant to pick something up on the way back.’

  ‘Let’s go to the pub,’ she said, then smiled when Jeremy pulled a face. Home-made leek pudding or jumbo sausage and chips weren’t really his taste. He didn’t feel at ease with the lunchtime boozers.

  ‘Oh God,’ he repeated. ‘All right. If we must. But I wouldn’t do it for anyone else but you.’

  In the house he followed her upstairs, waited in her bedroom, shouting through the door to her when she stood in the shower. This is what it must be like, she thought, to have a clinging child who follows you everywhere. She heard his words sporadically through the sound of the water. At first it seemed he was talking about the Fulwell party again. The idea of being invited to the Hall had delighted him. She caught: ‘I suppose we’ll have to get it a present.’

  But when she emerged, wrapped in a towel, she realized he was talking about something else.

  ‘You will phone her, won’t you? I can’t face putting her off again.’

  ‘Phone who?’

  ‘The woman who’s been trying to get in touch with you. I just said.’

  She was sitting at the dressing table rubbing the towel over her hair. The sun had made it brittle and the roots needed doing. ‘I didn’t hear.’

  ‘Oh God, Jeremy, talk to yourself,’ he said. He was sitting on the bed behind her. She saw his reflection in the dressing table mirror, put out but trying not to show it.

  ‘I’m sorry. Can you tell me again?’

  ‘A woman phoned for you several times. She presumed I could get a message to you. I didn’t like to tell her I hardly ever see you these days.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she repeated to keep the peace. She thought – what right’s he got to make me feel guilty? He’s usually in London anyway. Then, because he was still sulking, she asked, ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Barbara something. She said you’d have the number.’

  ‘Waugh?’ she asked. ‘Barbara Waugh?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘What did she want?’

  ‘Oh, she wouldn’t tell me. I presumed it was girly stuff. You will phone her before you go back to that hovel in the hills?’

  ‘I will, but not until I’ve eaten.’

  He grimaced. ‘Come on then. Let’s get it over.’

  She was tempted to take him into the bar where Lance, the young mechanic from the garage, would be eating boiled ham and pease pudding sandwiches with oily hands. A juke-box playing rock music tried to compete with Sky TV. Instead she took him to the lounge. There were only two other customers in the room, sitting at a table in the corner. At first they were so engrossed in conversation that they didn’t see Anne and Jeremy come in. But Anne saw them immediately. It was Godfrey Waugh and Neville Furness. Godfrey had his back to her but she recognized him at once, the grey tweed sports jacket he wore when he was trying to be casual, the thinning hair. A glass of orange juice stood untouched beside his elbow. Neville was drinking beer and when he looked up from the conversation to take his glass, he saw her.

  He must have said something to Godfrey, because although he didn’t look round he quickly drank the juice then he stood to go. Anne wondered what they could be doing here. Perhaps another meeting with the opposition group, another concession, another bribe? Neville nodded to her as he walked past, but Godfrey, staring straight ahead, would not catch her eye.

  Jeremy was farting about with menus and showed no sign that he had noticed the men. She said, ‘Order me a G&T. I’m just going to the ladies.’

  She caught up with Godfrey in the car park. He stood with his keys in his hand by the side of his white BMW. Perhaps he’d wanted her to catch him up, had been deliberately slow, because Neville was already driving away. She thought though, as he looked in his wing mirror before pulling out into the road, that he must have seen them.

  ‘I can’t stand this,’ she said. ‘What do I have to do?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You’re saying it’s over between us then?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No. Trust me. Not much longer.’

  ‘When can I see you?’

  ‘Soon.’ He reached out and touched her face, stroked it from her forehead down her cheek to her chin. She felt the rough skin of his thumb and fingertips. ‘You will wait?’

  ‘I don’t have much bloody choice.’ To keep some remnant of pride she turned away before he did and stormed back into the pub.

  The gin was on the bar, the ice already starting to melt in the glass.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Jeremy said. She must have looked pale. She felt weak and shaky.

  ‘Fine, just too much sun.’

  When she returned to the Priory, several gins later, Jeremy bullied her into phoning Barbara Waugh and she didn’t have the energy to resist. At least, she thought, I know Godfrey’s not there. The phone was answered by the child. Anne was thrown for a moment. She was never quite sure how to speak to children.

  ‘Can I speak to your mother?’ She realized she sounded abrupt, rude.

  ‘Who shall I say is calling?’ It was as if the girl had learnt to articulate the words at an elocution class.

  When Barbara answered she was breathless. Perhaps she was worried that Anne would hang up before they had a chance to speak.

  ‘I was in the garden. Such a beautiful day. I am so sorry to have disturbed your husband with my calls. He must think me very foolish.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘I wonder if we could meet?’ The voice seemed to break and she apologized again. ‘I’m sorry but I don’t know where else to turn.’

  ‘Why not?’ The gin had made Anne reckless.

  ‘What about Thursday? Could you come here? Or if that’s not convenient I could come to you.’

  This from Barbara who never went out. She must be desperate, Anne thought. ‘No, Thursday’s fine. And you’ll never find Baikie’s. I can come to you. In the afternoon?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ The relief was obvious. ‘You’ll be able to meet Felicity. Come for tea.’

  At least, Anne thought, there’ll be home-made cake.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  When Anne returned to Baikie’s that evening the effects of the gin were wearing off. She regretted having agreed to meet Barbara. She shouldn’t have let Jeremy persuade her to phone in the first place. The encounter with Godfrey had been unsatisfactory but it seemed he had plans. Perhaps having afternoon tea with Barbara would cock them up? What would Godfrey think if he found out? And still she had come to no conclusion about what she should do when the project was finished.

  The thoughts, jagged and unformed, danced in her mind as if she had a fever. She had spent too long in the sun and was restless and spoiling for a fight. Rachael was in the living room, working at the table. Her papers were in neatly symmetrical piles.

  ‘Well?’ Anne demanded. ‘Did you tell Stanhope what we agreed? We’ll stay until the weekend and no longer.’

  Rachael looked up, but seemed preoccupied. ‘I couldn’t.’

  ‘You promised you wouldn’t go all weedy on me. An ultimatum we said. You promised you wouldn’t let Stanhope intimidate you.’ Anne flung her bag onto the sofa, releasing a faint cloud of dust.

  ‘I didn’t. I didn’t even get the chance to talk to her. Neville Furness was there.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘I’m not sure he wanted anything. I think Vera asked him in to answer some questions.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘How on earth would I know?’

  ‘He must be a suspect.’

  ‘Perhaps. But Vera disappeared again this afternoon and Joe Ashworth wouldn’t tell me anything.’

  ‘Neville was in the pub in Langholme at lunchtime with Godfrey Waugh. Reporting back to his lord and master, I suppose.’


  ‘Was he?’ Anne seemed flushed and jumpy and Rachael wasn’t sure what to make of the information. At one time she would have been excited by this evidence of Neville’s perfidy. Now she was confused. She didn’t like the thought of Neville obeying Waugh’s orders. She pictured him suddenly on the hill working the sheep with a dog and found that image more pleasing. ‘It’s possible he won’t be working for Slateburn Quarries for much longer.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He was talking about coming back to Black Law to farm.’

  ‘Has he actually handed in his notice?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I bet he hasn’t. You weren’t taken in by that, were you?’ She was pacing up and down, practically ranting. ‘It’s a knack he has. He tells people what they want to hear and then they trust him.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  Anne was still for a moment. ‘I’ve met other people who’ve come under the Neville Furness spell. Do you think Vera would drag him out here if he weren’t involved in the murder?’

  They stared at each other. Rachael was embarrassed by her impulse to rush to Neville Furness’s defence. In the garden there was a burst of birdsong. Upstairs a cistern was flushed and they heard Edie’s footsteps in the bathroom, water running, tuneless singing.

  ‘He’s asked me to dinner,’ Rachael said. She could feel herself blushing.

  ‘You didn’t say you’d go!’

  Rachael didn’t reply.

  ‘But you blame him for Bella’s suicide!’ Anne cried.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Well then. Are you crazy?’

  ‘Perhaps I was wrong about Neville having put pressure on Bella. She told him and Dougie about her conviction years ago, before they were married.’

  ‘And perhaps you’re deluding yourself.’

  ‘No. Why would Neville drag the information up after all this time?’

  ‘I don’t know. Because of the quarry. Because he wants to get his hands on the farm. Anyway, you only have his word for what Bella told him. Dougie’s hardly in a position to contradict. How can you know he’s telling you the truth?’