by Penny Grubb
He’d relaxed so much, she felt emboldened to say, ‘But you can’t show me the note?’
‘Sorry, no.’
Bastard.
She smiled extra sweetly and glanced at her watch. ‘Not to worry. Listen, I’m expecting Pat back any minute with that sister of hers.’ Her words brought a certain immobility to his expression. The two sisters were a double act that didn’t make for relaxing company. ‘They won’t stay long. Let’s go through to my room. We can keep out of their way. D’you fancy a beer?’
Annie had known from first setting foot in it that her room was tiny, but it wasn’t until she led Scott in and closed the door, she realized just how small it was. There was no chair, no room for one, to invite him to sit on. They both had to sit on the bed.
This was appalling, their sudden proximity, what he must make of it. She’d meant him to make assumptions about this invitation into her room, but the way the walls pressed in made the enticement all too blatant.
She’d intended to settle him comfortably with his beer, then slip briefly out of the room on some excuse. I’ll just nip and get my bag … She only needed seconds. She could work through his pockets quickly, grab a look at the note. One rapid skim read would lodge it in her head. But they weren’t settled comfortably. He hadn’t taken the ring-pull from his beer. The tension was palpable. She scrabbled desperately for something to say, something that would get a conversation going, allow the stress to ease.
‘So it’s definitely suicide?’ It was the question she’d asked Jennifer.
‘I can’t see the coroner coming up with anything else. Annie …?’
His answer was hurried, distracted. She felt the change of direction as he spoke her name.
‘Jennifer told me it couldn’t have been anything to do with the woman in the building,’ she gabbled out, speaking across him. ‘But could it? How sure can you be?’
‘Very sure.’ He spoke calmly, damn him, and with an undercurrent of amusement.
She busied herself with the ring-pull in her beer can, hoped he’d follow her lead and open his. Her mind blanked. There had to be more to say about the case. She concentrated on making space on the tiny bedside cupboard. ‘The killer was Edward Balham, wasn’t it?’ She shot the question almost at random, her nervousness showing in more hostile tones than she’d intended. ‘Um … I mean the woman on the cliff.’
‘Annie …’
‘OK, OK, you don’t have to say anything. I know it’s under wraps till you get a positive ID.’
This would be so much easier if she didn’t fancy him; if she hadn’t fancied him from the first time she’d looked at the grim expression on his face and known how a smile would light him up. Motives sat uneasily together. The flimsy excuse of being out of Pat’s way; the obvious intention of inviting him into her bed; and the real reason of separating him from his jacket and Tremlow’s note.
‘D’you think Tremlow knew what Balham had done?’ She sought to stay in the safer refuge of messy deaths. ‘I mean, could that have been what Terry confronted him about that night?’
‘Not that I know of. He wrote a suicide note, not a life story.’
‘I wonder how he nerved himself up to it. He seemed so fearful.’
‘No mystery there. He was drunk. If he’d survived, he’d be facing a drink-drive charge. He must have been almost as drunk as Terry Martin.’
Annie remembered the comment – I don’t believe in drink – with which Tremlow had accepted the colonel’s offer of a nip of whisky. Oh no, he wouldn’t have been drunk – Doris Kitson about Terry Martin.
Aware that Scott had bent towards the floor to put his beer down, Annie glanced across wanting to read his expression while he wasn’t watching her. But as though he’d guessed what she’d do, she found his face turned towards her, a smile meeting her gaze. No mistaking the look he gave her. She looked down, feigned interest in a non-existent stain on her jeans, as she felt her heart pound. This wasn’t the way she’d planned things.
‘Uh … drunk, was he? I didn’t get the impression he was much of a drinker usually, so–’
‘Annie?’
He’d moved closer to her. She couldn’t look up. ‘Uh huh?’
‘This is a pretty small room, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but …’
‘How about we leave the population of Milesthorpe outside just for now?’
He reached across her and lifted her beer can out of her grasp. She watched his hand, fingers long and slender, as it placed the can into the space she’d so painstakingly cleared on the bedside table.
The move brought his body close to hers. She gulped and felt a shiver run down her insides. Her psyche played traitor, told her it didn’t matter about finding out whether she liked him or not. She wanted him more than the note now. When his hand touched her face to move it round to his, she didn’t resist, let him take control. He held still for a moment, their faces almost touching, so close his features blurred. He kissed her softly until she began to kiss him back and then he pulled her close as her hands went to his head to drag him into her, to devour him as avidly as he devoured her.
Annie surfaced from a deep sleep. A feeling of wellbeing enveloped her. Her face formed itself into a smile as she turned her head. Scott lay beside her, his head resting back into the pillow, his mouth slightly open as he snored gently. He must have been tired enough before she’d enticed him through here. He lay on his back, out for the count, and looked as though he’d sleep for hours yet. She flexed her fingers wanting to reach over and run the back of her hand gently down the side of his face as he slept. But she mustn’t risk waking him. This was her opportunity to find out what Tremlow had said about Terry Martin.
Getting out of bed without waking him wasn’t a problem. He’d taken up the centre of the mattress and left her barely clinging to the edge. One out-flung arm was across her. She eased herself sideways from under it and slid to the floor where she gathered up her clothes and crept out.
With her hand on the door to the living room she was met with a sudden vision of Pat and Barbara walking in to find her naked rifling through the pockets of someone else’s coat. Scott slipped into the image, appearing half-dressed and yawning. Pat would laugh, but the thought of Barbara’s face made Annie stop to pull on her clothes and straighten them down.
She’d slept deeply but not for long, and was confident Scott wouldn’t wake for ages. His jacket lay over the back of the settee. Her hands ran themselves quickly through the outer pockets and found nothing of significance. She reached inside and felt her eyebrows rise at the number of inner pockets that met her touch. How many pockets did a person need for heaven’s sake! Zips, Velcro, buttons.
It was the rip of the Velcro that melded into the click of a door.
Annie’s head shot up expecting to see Barbara, but the door to the hallway remained shut. Oh no! She felt the flush of guilt rush up her neck and face as she turned.
Scott stood behind her, his expression hard. Not half-dressed as in her mental image, she noted inconsequentially, but fully dressed. He even had his shoes on. She knew he’d come through that door with a smile on his face, but the sight of her with his jacket had obliterated it and left only amazement and anger.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’
Even if she could have controlled her expression, she couldn’t pretend she’d been doing anything other than going through his pockets.
‘Well, I have to go and face the Martins with all this. I need to know what happened.’ She tried attack as a belated form of defence.
His expression didn’t soften. It grew an air of incredulity and worse, a measure of distaste as he stared at her. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Why couldn’t you have just shown me the note? He said something about those two missing days, didn’t he? I need to know. His mother needs to know.’
‘The note?’ He looked blank for a moment. ‘You mean the old guy’s suicide note? I don’t have it.’
&nbs
p; ‘You don’t …? But when I asked about it you looked at your jacket.’
‘Oh, I looked at my jacket, did I?’ She heard cold anger in his voice. ‘A single look and the great detective surmises that I’m withholding evidence from her. Bloody drama queen! And what did you surmise from the way I looked at you? No need to answer that one, is there? Is that how you get all your evidence?’
‘No, it wasn’t like that …’ She stopped, because he was right. It had been like that, but not the way he implied.
He marched across towards her and, with a scything sweep of his arm, snatched the jacket from her hands as he headed for the outer door.
As she opened her mouth to try to speak, he cut across her. ‘I heard the note read out, OK? I never even got to hold it.’
‘You didn’t …?’
In the open doorway to the hall, he turned and looked her up and down. His words came in measured tones. ‘There was nothing about Martin’s missing two days. He heard him out there, heard him come down from the scaffolding platform. Sounds like he didn’t fall, he jumped, or something fell from the platform. Tremlow grabbed the stick and went out in a panic. Hit out and found he’d killed the guy. And before you ask, it’s not clear whether he pushed the body into the hole or if it just fell. Whatever Martin hit his head on down there disguised the blow from the stick. If he’d burnt it, no one would ever have known.’
He stared at her hard as though waiting for her to speak. No words would come.
‘That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Will it do?’
‘Will it …?’
‘Well, I’ve no cash on me.’ He spun on his heel and strode out.
It took Annie a second to understand, then she hurled herself after him into the hallway and shrieked. ‘Fuck off!’ at the door as it slammed behind him.
Tears of anger and humiliation stung the backs of her eyes. The bastard! She’d show him. Should have stuck with her instinct. So much for not being sure if she liked him or not. She was sure now. And the bastard had called her a drama queen! She didn’t care what he thought of her. She really didn’t. The only emotion he spawned within her now was fury.
Tremlow’s note. She had what she needed. Nothing else mattered.
She pictured Scott’s smile, the way he looked at her when he relaxed. Deep inside there was a nub of hurt that wouldn’t harden into anger.
Chapter 20
After the echo of the door slamming and the stomping footsteps receded, Annie was left in a silent bubble that was the empty apartment. She turned slowly, let her gaze move from the still of the room to the expanse of water outside.
Pat and Barbara would be home soon. She tried to rehearse the conversation. Pat was bound to ask, did you get lover boy to cough up the goods, or something like that.
Her shoulders straightened. She had the information and would meet Pat’s eye unflinchingly. ‘Oh yes, I know what was in the note …’ Well, perhaps she wouldn’t meet her eye; maybe she would busy herself in the file, pretend to be distracted as she answered. ‘Uh … what’s that? Oh, Tremlow’s note? Yeah, sure, I’ve got what I need on that …’ She tried to talk herself through a scenario where she answered Pat without embarrassment flooding her until she glowed like a beacon; where there was even a slim likelihood of Pat failing to notice something was wrong. No chance. Not now, not so soon after Scott had walked out like that, the bastard!
She had to get out, to get something else in between now and the inevitable discussion with Pat to blunt the edge of what had happened with Scott.
So much for her useful contacts. Scott wouldn’t speak to her again and nor would Jennifer once she’d heard Scott’s side. One week she’d been here. She told herself the next five couldn’t pass quickly enough.
It was with a moment’s misgiving that she grabbed her phone. She ought to leave it on charge. A glance at the screen decided her it would last out. Pat might want to ring her and she wouldn’t mind having the initial conversation about Tremlow’s note by phone rather than face to face.
She ran down the stairs to the car, not able to relax until she was out on Hedon Road and beyond the risk of running into Pat and Barbara returning. As she drove along the dual-carriageway that swept her east out of Hull, her hands tapped impatiently on the wheel. This had become a familiar route, but today its 40 m.p.h. limit irritated her. She wanted to put her foot down, to increase the distance between her and that awful moment when Scott had walked in on her going through his pockets.
Small factories and business units hid the huge estuary behind a bleak industrial landscape. So much hidden …
Salt End roundabout, with its forbidden exit road to the chemical works, slipped by. The limit dropped to 30 m.p.h., then rose again to 40. Stupid bloody road, twisting and turning through an endless parade of settlements. Thorngumbald melted into Camerton without a break. Trees, a vein that snaked through the built-up area, thinned to nothing. On and on. Keyingham, Ottringham. Anger rose, even against Tremlow. If he hadn’t done this, she wouldn’t have invited Scott round. Why had Tremlow done it? How dare Scott call her a drama queen! Where had Terry Martin disappeared for two and a bit days?
Signs she’d passed every time she came this way now jarred on her consciousness. Sunk Island … Fort Paull …Who had ever needed a fort out here? What use an island that had sunk? Even the landscape mocked her.
At last, a familiar white oblong sign appeared propped in the hedge. Its peremptory order, Visit the Lighthouse, signalled the Withernsea boundary and the end of her journey.
She should have waited for Pat to come home to tell her about Tremlow’s note. It was too soon to come to the Martins with her fragments of information. As she pulled up outside the house, she wondered about setting off again and heading back to the city, but she saw a shadow move behind the heavy curtains. Martha had spotted her.
Both Bill and Martha met her in the hallway.
‘There’s been a development,’ Annie said. ‘I don’t have all the details but I thought I’d let you know.’
‘Come through and sit down, love.’ Bill waved her towards the small sitting room.
She took her seat in Terry’s chair and told them about Tremlow; how his body had been discovered that morning and how he’d left a note in which he’d confessed to killing Terry.
‘But he’s a church warden,’ Bill said, bewildered.
Annie looked to where Martha sat at the end of the small settee, her face as still as though someone had pressed a pause button. It took only a second to realize why she couldn’t read anything of Martha’s feelings; Martha herself didn’t know what she felt. It was one blow too many. In the turmoil of the day’s events Annie had forgotten that Tremlow might not be a stranger to the Martins. The church was a tight network across the area.
‘Did you know him well?’ she asked.
Bill shook his head. ‘I don’t think we ever met him, did we, Martha?’
‘And the other two who were there that night, Colonel Ludgrove and Doris Kitson, did you know them?’
‘No, love. We never met any of them. We know of them, of course, through the church.’
Annie breathed an inner sigh of relief. She didn’t analyse why it would be worse to have handed over this news if they knew their son’s killer, but it would have been. She waited for the flood of questions. Why? How?
Bill grasped the arms of his chair and pulled himself to his feet. ‘Tea’ll be brewed by now.’ He looked neither at Annie nor his wife as he spoke then clumped out of the room.
Annie saw that he wasn’t going to ask anything she didn’t volunteer. Until this awful calamity, he’d swum with the tide, done as he was told and bowed to authority in whatever guise it came. Out of his depth now, he could only flounder along and accept whatever the tides washed over him.
Annie watched him leave the room. She wanted Martha to follow. They needed each other and they needed their own space without her sitting in the middle of it. She began to rise. ‘I’ll go now, but if you wan
t–’
‘Wait.’ Martha’s upraised hand stopped her. ‘Did he … the man who did it … did he say where our Terry was on the Monday?’
‘No,’ said Annie. ‘Just what happened on the Tuesday evening.’
‘You say he left a letter?’
‘A suicide note, yes.’
‘Have you read what he wrote?’
‘No, but I spoke to one of the policemen who was involved. I made sure I got everything from him.’
‘Will we be able to see it?’
‘I don’t know. I expect the police will come here to tell you about it.’ She saw Martha’s lips purse. They’d had enough of officialdom on their doorstep. ‘You should ask them. I might be able to get hold of it later. It depends who they release it to. I’ll try.’ As she spoke, Annie wondered who Tremlow had addressed his note to. Had he any family? She didn’t think so. Maybe it wasn’t addressed to anyone.
‘What do you think?’ Martha stared at her hard. ‘Did he really kill our Terry?’
‘Well, he said so … it seems consistent with … the police think …’ Annie floundered as Martha’s words painted a picture in her mind of Tremlow hitting out in blind terror. She tried to imagine how it might have happened but a viable scenario wouldn’t gel. And she still hated the feel of those two blank days.
‘It’s only just come to light,’ she told Martha. ‘I’ll make more enquiries. I’ll find out more about Mr Tremlow.’
Martha looked up at her, the expression in her eyes overshadowed by the heavy weight of defeat that the loss of her son had etched there, but something else, too. Just for a second, the light of battle sparked. ‘I want to know,’ she said. ‘I want to know where he was those two days.’
She feels it, too, thought Annie. Not an investigator’s muscle in her body, but a mother’s instinct has faced her the same way I’m looking. There’s something wrong about all this. Very wrong.
She thought back to the last time she’d seen Tremlow and scoured her mind for a report from anyone of a positive sighting between then and his being found this morning. Someone must have seen him. Of course, they must, she just didn’t know about it.
