by Clare Chase
I was gazing at the end of the garden, where a sparrow was rustling around in the clematis, when suddenly something caused it to take fright, and it flew straight out of the foliage and back towards the house, making me turn my head.
That was when I saw her.
And suddenly I was reeling, my legs threatening to give way underneath me, stomach contracting, breath gone. Bile rose up, filling my mouth.
Down in the well of the stairs that led to the basement French windows, slumped against the glass, hands with fingers outstretched, her wild black hair sticky with blood and tissue, was Maggie.
Chapter Twenty-Five
‘She was obviously trying to break in when she was attacked,’ DI Johnson said, sitting up straight on the sofa in the drawing room. ‘She’d brought a couple of tools with her: a chisel and a crowbar. Used the crowbar to force the gate by the look of it.’
I was still shaking, couldn’t keep my teeth from jittering away like a pair of castanets on overdrive. ‘How long had she been there?’ I said, hearing the tremor in my voice.
‘Two or three hours, I’d guess,’ Johnson said. ‘Were you at home earlier this afternoon?’
‘I went off into town at around four-thirty to keep a solicitor’s appointment at five, up on Castle Park.’
‘Ms Cook’s car’s been found,’ DS Brookes said. ‘Parked on pay and display in Auckland Road. Time on her ticket’s one forty p.m. She’d paid for the rest of the day.’
I looked across at him. ‘You mean she’d arrived early, prepared for a wait?’
‘Hoping you’d go out at some stage?’ DS Brookes said. ‘Looks quite likely. Probably forced her way into the garden as soon as she saw you head off up the river. Was the code for the burglar alarm ever re-set after she got in that time previously?’
I shook my head. ‘No. Damien Newbold just arranged for the front door lock to be changed.’
‘So she’d have been able to disable it, if she’d got that far.’
I nodded. There was a keypad next to the French windows in the basement.
‘Do you know of any reason why Maggie Cook might want access to the house?’
I rubbed my forehead. ‘She thinks – thought – that Damien Newbold had made another will. One that revoked the one in Samson Newbold’s favour, and left everything to her.’
DI Johnson’s eyes fixed onto mine. ‘And how do you know this? It’s information we’d have been interested to have.’
And if I’d made time to give it to them straight after Nate had told me to, they’d have contacted her then and there. She’d have been at the police station all afternoon, answering questions. It would have saved her life …
I told them about Maggie’s visit and her asking me to look for any new will. ‘I didn’t take her seriously. If I had, I would have come to you, and this wouldn’t have happened.’
I saw Brookes and Johnson exchange a glance.
‘We’ll talk to your neighbours in due course,’ DI Johnson said. ‘With any luck they saw something. Most people don’t just crowbar their way into someone’s garden without attracting attention, even if that garden is tucked away like this one is.’
But given Emily’s appointment with the university counselling service, and Fi’s with her boyfriend, I had a feeling he might be disappointed.
The basement and garden were taped off and out of bounds, and when I looked out of the window all I could see were officers in white suits, picking their way over the paving stones. Although the police were finished with me, the journalists weren’t finished with them, or with anyone else associated with the house. At last DI Johnson went out to make a statement and appeal for witnesses.
Nate came back. I could see him hovering behind the crowd, taller than the rest, waiting for the cameras to stop flashing. When he reached the door his face was drawn, cheeks pale, accentuating the blue of his eyes and darkness of his hair. It seemed to me that his own memories were etched on his face.
He didn’t speak but followed me through to the kitchen, where his gaze rested on the scenes of crimes officers. Another reminder. And then he turned to look at me.
‘You know,’ I said, ‘there’s a hell of a lot more to this house-sitting business than meets the eye.’ I don’t know why I said it. Usual thing I suppose – nervous tic; a fine bit of flippancy coming to the rescue. And then I let out an awful, hiccoughing sort of laugh that was loud and high pitched. One of the SOCOs outside must have heard. He looked up at me, his eyes wide, startled and magnified behind dark-rimmed glasses, his head framed by its white hood. I looked back at him and found myself roaring with uncontrollable laughter, thrusting its way into the quiet kitchen. It was as though I was watching myself, creating this awful scene, and then suddenly, thankfully, my body realised what it was really supposed to be doing, and the sobbing took over.
Nate pulled me into a strong hug, holding me tight as I cried.
‘Oh God,’ I said, when I could. ‘I’m sorry; and it must be so much worse for you, with all your memories. As for me, I think I’m cracking up.’
‘Crack away,’ he said, giving my arm a little extra squeeze as he let me go. I felt his warmth leave me as he stepped back. ‘If you can’t crack up under these circumstances, when can you?’
‘The guffawing first was bad. That police officer will think I’m a callous bitch.’
‘He won’t; he must have seen the full gamut of human emotion in his time. And who cares what he thinks anyway?’
After that we talked for a long time at the table.
‘I was going to go and call the police after I’d drunk my coffee,’ I said. ‘I thought I could arrange a time to go in and tell them about Maggie coming here, and about the possible extra will. God, I was treating it like I was scheduling in a haircut or something. I excused myself from going earlier, because I was busy with Emily, and then I had to go out. I thought I was just giving Maggie a few extra hours of peace. By being a wimp I probably cost her her life …’
Nate clutched my hand and held it hard. ‘Her murderer cost her her life. No one else.’
But he knew as well as I did that my actions had made a difference.
‘I keep wondering …’ I had to pause for a moment. ‘I keep wondering how long it took her to die. I mean, if I’d gone to put some rubbish out as soon as I got home, or if I’d watched the news in the basement … Maybe she was still conscious, waiting for someone to help her.’
Shadows made patterns that moved across his face as his expression changed. He wanted to reassure me, but couldn’t do so without being dishonest. He didn’t know if she’d lingered. I remembered, as a child, seeing a deer once, after it had been hit by a car. It twitched and writhed whilst the driver wrung his hands. I didn’t know either.
The following afternoon, Nate sent me out of the house. ‘Just go off and have a change of scene. When you’ve had to cope with this kind of trauma, it makes sense to put some distance between yourself and this place for a while.’
I hesitated. ‘What about you?’
‘I’ll hold the fort.’ The police were still with us; they’d come back as soon as it was light to finalise their work.
But my mind had leapt to the need to go back to Saxwell to pick up some stuff. I explained. ‘So could I swap your offer for some time out tomorrow?’ I finished. ‘I just don’t quite feel equal to driving over there today. I think I need to limber up, mentally, and I’d like to call Steph and arrange to meet her too.’
‘Do both,’ Nate said. ‘Get some fresh air now and make your arrangements for tomorrow.’ He shepherded me out of the kitchen. ‘Go on; bugger off!’
As I walked across the hall, another police officer entered Damien Newbold’s study. I’d told DI Johnson that Samson had had the opportunity to hide the paperwork whilst he’d been in there, and they were still searching.
Nate was right, it did feel good to be out. To my right, the Common was turning a rusty brown. The summer storms we’d had hadn’t been enough to compen
sate for weeks of drought. I avoided Midsummer Passage, with its police tape and van, and skirted round the houses in the other direction instead, watched by a few goggling onlookers. When I reached Maid’s Causeway I turned right towards town. On the railings next to the Common there was a series of posters. One was advertising some kind of summer extravaganza on Parker’s Piece, another a show at the Arts Theatre, and a third an art exhibition. Imelda West. There was a small head-and-shoulders shot of her grinning, her bright, bird-like eyes alive with good humour. The poster said she was a renowned ceramicist and retired head of art at the Philip Radley School. That rang bells. I spooled back through the conversations I’d had over the last weeks and, suddenly, I had it. It was the school where Saskia Amos had worked. I remembered how she’d mentioned the name, as though I ought to have heard of it and been impressed.
I peered again at the poster. The gallery was on Gwydir Street. It wasn’t a long walk, and it would give me an objective. I didn’t really feel like wandering round the shops.
I reached Gwydir Street from the Norfolk Street end. It was home to pleasant Victorian terraced houses – their window boxes filled with geraniums – and a couple of well-kept pubs. But at its other end the residential buildings gave way on one side to antique shops, a gallery and a cafe, all housed in a large, red-brick edifice with arched windows: Dale’s Brewery. The smell of coffee from the cafe almost put me off my objective, but I dragged myself past and walked into a smallish exhibition space with Imelda West’s poster on the door. Inside I recognised Imelda herself, talking to another gallery goer, which gave me a chance to look round without having to make small talk.
I thought at first that I wouldn’t be able to focus, but the atmosphere in the gallery was calm, and the work was right up my street. Large, crackle-glazed bowls in deep sea greens and blues sat alongside tiny buttons decorated with fish; pendants, brooches and tiles with intricate designs, and a jug, which I immediately fell for, but which cost – hmm – three hundred pounds. The other member of the public, a tall man in a dark pinstripe, was leaving now, and Imelda looked over to me and grinned.
‘Your work’s beautiful,’ I said, gesturing round the room.
‘Thank you so much,’ she said, coming over. ‘What a very kind thing to say.’
‘How do you get such intense colours?’
She explained to me about the processes that she used and I listened, whilst wondering whether I could afford one of her hand-painted tiles.
‘And how did you hear about the exhibition?’ Imelda said. ‘It’s always useful to find out which bits of publicity are effective.’
I explained about the poster. ‘I met a woman recently who used to work at the Philip Radley School,’ I said, ‘so it caught my eye.’
‘Oh, really,’ she said, her eyes dancing. ‘I wonder if we overlapped. I was there for thirty years.’
‘I got the impression she wasn’t there for long,’ I said, ‘though I only exchanged a few words with her. Her name’s Saskia Amos.’
Imelda’s face changed in an instant. It was like watching a landscape that’s suddenly been plunged into shade by a large cloud. ‘Be thankful your conversation was short!’ she said, then laughed. ‘There, I shouldn’t have said that really. It’s all a long time ago.’
‘If it makes you feel better, I didn’t take to her much myself.’
She laughed again, a quick, sharp bark. ‘Much better. And you’re spot on. She was only at the school for around eighteen months, and then only as the headmaster’s secretary, so we didn’t have a lot of direct contact. Goes to show how quickly she made an impression on me though.’
A blonde woman and a man with a beard came to the door of the gallery, hesitantly, arm in arm.
‘Do come on in,’ Imelda said to them, her voice ringing out like a bell. ‘I won’t bite. Look around. No need to buy.’ She turned back to me. ‘I must sound awfully petty, saying that about Saskia Amos after all these years, but I’m afraid she was totally unsuited to work in a school.’
‘She admitted that to me.’
Imelda raised an eyebrow. ‘I am surprised. Anyway, she left, shall we say, under a cloud. She could have caused a very great deal of trouble for a fine, old institution. In the end that didn’t happen, so we all breathed a sigh of relief.’
The blonde woman had worked her way to the far corner of the room and was going for one of the tiles. She must be on a budget, like me.
‘Excuse me just a moment,’ Imelda said, and went to sort out the sale.
I went over to pick out a tile for myself.
The blonde woman was having hers tissue-wrapped and put into a blue carrier bag when I glanced up and saw Paul Mathewson come in. He didn’t see me, standing well back in the shadows, and made straight for Imelda.
‘Paul!’ She drew him into an embrace, kissing him on both cheeks. ‘You came! You are good.’
‘Wouldn’t miss it,’ he said. ‘And I told you I’d come when we met at Julia Brockham’s. You never seem to believe a word I say!’
‘It’s only that I know how busy you are. I do appreciate your loyalty, you know. How are those awful brothers of yours? They never come, I may say. It’s been so long since I’ve seen Tom, I’ve almost forgotten what he looks like.’
‘I’ll have a go at him for you,’ Paul said, laughing.
I decided I’d better take my tile over to the counter and make myself known, otherwise it would look as though I’d been hiding.
‘Ah,’ said Imelda as I drew near, ‘you’ve chosen the one with the oystercatcher. I enjoyed making it. Did the sketch up in Norfolk.’
‘Ruby!’ Paul came over and gave me a quick squeeze on the shoulder. His eyes were full of concern, and his face was tired and pinched. He must have heard about Maggie. It would be all over the local news already of course, probably national too, given her career.
‘Oh, how lovely,’ Imelda said, unaware of any undercurrents, busy as she was with the tissue paper and sticky tape. ‘I didn’t know you two were friends.’ She parcelled up my tile expertly and slipped it into another of the blue bags. ‘If you want to go and get a drink together at Hot Numbers I won’t hold it against you.’ She looked up at Paul. ‘Not so long as you come back and look at my work afterwards, naturally.’
Hot Numbers was the same coffee shop I’d smelled on my way to the gallery. Inside we ordered and then took bench seats at one end of a long, expansive wooden table. At the other end, a couple of students were talking about the ball they’d been to the night before.
‘How are you?’ Paul said. ‘The news said it was you that found her. It must have been awful.’
I gave an involuntary shudder. ‘It was such a beautiful evening, Paul, and I was just standing in the back doorway, looking at the birds, and the sky, and then suddenly … suddenly there she was. And all that time I’d been thinking how idyllic it was, when in fact it was actually the most horrific of days, and I didn’t even know it.’
He reached out and touched my hand for a moment, whilst I did battle with tears, threatening to show me up in front of the other clientele.
‘I’m so sorry.’ He reached in his pocket and brought out a business card, pushing it across the table towards me. ‘Contact of mine,’ he said. ‘Specialist counsellor. You should see someone, Ruby, after what you’ve been through.’
I put the card into my jeans pocket. ‘I’ll think about it. Thanks.’
‘You might even find it helps with all the other things you’ve had to deal with recently.’ He let out a long sigh. ‘God, what a basinful you’ve had. And all through no fault of your own.’
‘Just one of those things,’ I said. Suddenly I could see what Emily had meant. Paul seemed so sorry for me that I almost felt he was the one who needed support. ‘Maggie’s death is so incredible I can hardly take it in, but as far as the other stuff goes, I’m moving on. Honestly. I’m getting used to the new status quo, sorting out practicalities. I’m planning to go over to Saxwell St Andrew tomorr
ow and fetch some of my stuff.’
‘That’s good. Will you and Luke be able to talk things through?’
I shook my head. ‘To be honest I’m banking on sneaking in whilst he’s safely out at work, then hopefully I’ll pop over to see my friend, Steph, who lives opposite, and make good my escape before he’s anywhere near coming home. I can’t quite face a proper discussion yet. But we’ve spoken on the phone, and I’ll arrange a meet up soon.’
‘That all sounds like good news. How was the phone call?’
‘It wasn’t great, to tell you the truth. I still don’t think he’s really conscious of what he’s done.’ I didn’t want him to ask me any more. Sometimes talking helps, but not always. ‘What about you?’ I said, quickly. ‘You look exhausted.’
‘Work stuff. Nothing of any import. Do you feel like cake?’
I glanced down the table to where the students were tucking into enormous Chelsea buns. ‘That would be good. Maybe something a bit less extreme than they’re having though.’
We went to the counter to look and I chose home-made German cake.
‘Have you seen Emily since I saw you last?’ Paul said, when we were back at the table.
In the wake of Maggie’s death I’d almost forgotten about the visit to Oswald House. ‘Yes I have, Paul.’ I weighed my options for a moment. ‘In fact, there’s something I think I ought to tell you.’ And I explained about what Fi had called Emily’s ‘knight-in-shining-armour complex’.
‘You think she’s developed a crush on me?’ He’d gone pale, his eyes wide, and it was clear that Fi was right. He’d had no idea at all.
I nodded. ‘I’m sorry. It’s quite clearly nothing you’ve done. I think it’s just her vulnerable state at the moment. I thought I ought to warn you.’
‘Dear God,’ Paul said, staring into space. ‘This is terrible! I should have seen it coming. It just didn’t occur to me for a minute.’
‘It wouldn’t.’ It was awful, seeing the pain in his eyes.
‘I’ve made things even worse for her.’
