by Oliver Tidy
Not relishing the rebuff of an ignored phone call, he instead composed a text message explaining things, hoping that she would understand and apologising for something that he felt in his heart he didn’t need to do. It was a measure of his feelings for her. He pressed send and drove home.
***
6
Romney was at his desk early the following morning struggling with a profound sadness that had settled over his spirits: a pall of negativity. He was angry with himself for it. He hardly knew the woman and here he was acting on the inside like some pathetic teenager.
Julie had not replied to his text the previous evening and there was nothing on his phone, or in his email inbox, that morning. No news might be considered good news by some, but today it didn’t feel like it. He was on his second mug of coffee when the shift started dribbling in. Spying Marsh he beckoned her over.
Marsh had decided that it would be professional, appreciated and prudent if she simply said nothing about the previous evening, even though her inclination was to thank him again for the meal and the company.
Sitting at home with a glass of wine and her book later that night, she had reflected on an evening that had been worth braving the scrappy winter’s night. It had been nice to get out for once and enjoy some good company. But the embarrassing way things had ended made her believe that least said would be soonest mended.
After they’d said their good mornings, Romney said, ‘I thought we’d take a trip out to see Mrs Stamp senior this morning.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Call her in an hour, would you? Give her a chance to wake up. Find out where we can get hold of her. Don’t let her fob you off either. And speak to whoever accompanied her to the identification of her daughter. Find out how she took it.’
*
They were on their way by mid-morning – twenty-five minutes up the M20. Romney had made the courtesy call to his opposite number in the Ashford station, Detective Inspector Crow – a man who Romney had a good working relationship with – to inform him that he would be interviewing on his patch. Marsh had discovered that Mrs Stamp would be at home, same as most mornings since she lost her job in the town.
After negotiating the busy early morning traffic of the town centre and achieving the ring road that would lead them on to the motorway, Romney said, ‘How did she take her daughter’s death?’
‘She didn’t cry. Didn’t become an hysterical grieving wreck. PC who chaperoned her said she seemed very angry. She didn’t talk much, just identified the body and left.’
‘Was there a Mr Stamp with her?’
‘No, she saw the body alone.’
‘How about our call this morning?’
‘She wasn’t happy about it, but she seemed resigned to the idea that someone would be calling on her.’
It seemed to Marsh that the elephant in the car that was their shared meal the evening before had grown to take up most of the back seat by the time they had travelled the twenty miles or so from the station to Mrs Stamp’s front door. Despite the continuing seasonal grey drizzle and cold she was glad when she could step out of the car’s oppressive atmosphere.
Mrs Stamp lived in a small terrace of mock Tudor houses with railway tracks running behind. The front garden was well tended and tidy, even though the weather must have kept all but the most dedicated of gardeners on the warm side of the windows.
The curtains twitched as they got out of the vehicle. Before they had had a chance to ring the bell the door was opened to admit them.
They stood in the small entrance hall, the strange smells of someone else’s home crowding in on them.
‘Wipe your feet, will you?’ said Helen Stamp. ‘These carpets are new. Go through into the lounge.’
She pointed to the first doorway that led off the narrow passageway. She hadn’t offered to take their coats and she didn’t offer them refreshment. It was not the most hospitable welcome that either visitor had received, but then, as police officers on duty entering someone’s home against their will, it wasn’t the worst.
‘Sit down,’ said the woman. They sat. ‘Before we start, you can save your sympathy. I don’t want to hear a load of insincerities that mean nothing to any of us.’
‘Never-the-less, Mrs Stamp,’ said Romney, feeling the need to assert some authority, ‘we both met your daughter and I’m sure that I can speak for both of us when I say that her tragic death is truly regretted.’
The woman’s jaw was set in a show of defiance and her eyes glittered. What was it, thought Romney, that made her feel such animosity towards the law?
‘Why are you here?’ she said.
‘We are investigating your daughter’s death, Mrs Stamp,’ said Romney.
This seemed to confuse the woman. Her brow knitted. ‘Her suicide, you mean.’
Romney was unsure whether this was meant to be a statement or a question. ‘Our enquiries are ongoing, Mrs Stamp. We are exploring various avenues of investigation.’
‘Can’t you just talk straight?’ she said, irritably.
‘Your daughter may well have committed suicide,’ said Romney ‘She may also have fallen accidentally, or she may have been pushed to her death.’ His own tone had hardened slightly in response to the woman’s belligerence and he instantly regretted it.
‘What? Murdered? Is that what you’re suggesting?’ Her voice had risen in pitch and volume.
‘As I said, we are exploring various possibilities. It’s our job to do so when we have reason to.’
‘What reason? What makes you think she was murdered? Murdered.’ She repeated the word almost as though she were talking to herself. ‘My daughter raped and then murdered.’
Helen Stamp seemed to be undergoing a physical transformation in front of their eyes. Her gruff exterior was crumbling and Marsh thought that she caught a glimpse of a woman on the edge of imploding with grief.
‘I’m afraid that we are not at liberty to discuss details of the case,’ said Romney, ‘but I hope that you can see your way to understanding we are only interested in finding out the truth of what happened to your daughter. We believe that you are one of the last people to have seen her alive. You spent time with her on the day she fell to her death. Your unique relationship to her puts you in a position to help us determine her state of mind. Did she give you any indication that she might be intent on taking her own life?’
The woman sat still, numbed from the shock of what Romney had suggested.
‘Mrs Stamp?’ repeated the DI.
‘No,’ she said, her voice little more than a whisper. ‘No, she didn’t. Of course, she didn’t. Do you think that I would have left her if I’d thought anything like that? My own child? She might not have looked it, but she was a strong girl up here.’ She tapped herself on the temple. To the officers’ surprise she began to talk. ‘She was clever and she was strong. I admired her. We didn’t get on well. Not all mothers and daughters do, you know. But I loved her in my own way and I respected her. The rape, it’s strange, I mean it’s such a personal and awful ordeal for a woman, she didn’t give me the details, wouldn’t, but she dealt with it quickly. She wasn’t going to let whoever did that to her have her mind and her fears as well as her body.’
‘That’s the impression she gave me when I talked to her,’ said Marsh. ‘She was very brave about it.’ Sensing that she might have made an opening for herself, Marsh continued and Romney let her. Perhaps the psychology of woman to woman would encourage her to be more open with them. ‘I saw her after you’d left,’ continued Marsh. ‘We bumped into each other and had a cup of tea together on the seafront. She told me she was going away – that she’d probably go and stay with her sister for a while. She didn’t strike me as someone who was planning on taking her own life. She said you left not long after we’d been to see her in the morning. Is that right?’
The woman nodded. Her voice was softer. ‘After I saw you leave I went back up there. You could have told me he was back,’ she said, shooting an
accusatory look Romney’s way. ‘I’d only met him once before, but it took me all of two minutes to work out he was trouble. What she saw in him I don’t know. Horrible little git. When I got up there they were having a row. He’d been drinking. He gave me a mouthful and that was it. She knew where she could find me if she needed me. I grabbed my bag and left. Came back here.’
Romney leaned forward to emphasise the importance of what he was about to say. ‘Did your daughter give you anything to look after for her, anything at all, just for safe-keeping?’
If Marsh didn’t have the experience to catch it, Romney did. He knew from the way her features tightened slightly and her eyes slipped downwards that she was going to lie to him. She’d probably been practising the lie ever since she knew they were coming and she still wasn’t nearly good enough.
‘No,’ she said, meeting his stare with a defiance that dared him to question her honesty. ‘She didn’t give me anything. Like what anyway?’
‘We have no idea. It’s just one of those lines of enquiry we are following up. Not long after your daughter died the flat was completely ransacked. We’re pretty sure that whoever did it was looking for something and it’s possible your daughter had it and had hidden it away somewhere. If we are right, we don’t think it was found. It is possible, and I stress that it’s only a theory, that if she was murdered then such an artefact, if it exists, has something to do with it.’
Romney had decided to share this information with the woman in the hope that, if she had it, she might either be tempted to see that in handing it over, whatever it was that he was now certain she had taken possession of, she might incriminate Avery in her daughter’s death – it couldn’t be anyone else – or see that in holding on to it would endanger herself. But the seeds of doubt that he aimed to plant fell on stony ground. She once again grew tight-lipped and seemed to be recovering herself.
‘She gave me nothing,’ she repeated.
‘Well, all the same, it’s possible that if our theory is accurate then there is a good chance someone not as friendly as us might follow the same train of thought we have and turn up here looking for it. You need to be mindful of that. I’ll leave my card in case you either remember anything or have any trouble. Don’t hesitate to get in touch, Mrs Stamp.’
Romney was suddenly impatient to be out of the woman’s home and out of her company. She disgusted him. He knew why she was hanging on to whatever it was she’d got her hands on. He found himself half hoping that she was paid a visit by Avery.
*
In the car Marsh said, ‘She was lying wasn’t she?’
‘You noticed? Good, Sergeant. Yes, she was lying. Her daughter gave her something. I’m sure of that and I’m equally sure she was killed for it. And you know what? That makes me sick. That her own mother won’t hand over something that might prove fundamental to finding and convicting her daughter’s killer; she won’t take that chance to see justice done for her own flesh and blood. Do you know why she won’t take that chance, Sergeant?’
Marsh could see that the DI was quietly seething. ‘No, sir.’
‘Because she thinks that if it was important enough for her daughter to entrust it to her then it must be valuable to whomever it belongs to. That woman is going to try to profit from her own daughter’s death. Take the A20 back. There’s a cafe serves a decent mug of tea and I require one. I need to wash the taste of that creature out of my mouth.’
*
Romney’s dark mood was not improved by the news that none of the mouth-swab tests performed on the acquaintances of Claire Stamp, who had been located thus far, had provided a rapist. But then, as they agreed, no rapist who’d gone to all the trouble of concealing himself as this one had would turn up voluntarily for a test like that. They would have to wait and see who didn’t accept the invitation extended to them by Dover police.
A report of the statements taken from those involved in the altercation at The Castle was sent up to Romney. More than one witness had testified to timings and sightings of Simon Avery that would have made it impossible for him to have been at Priory Towers when Stamp had pitched off the balcony of her apartment within the window of the time of death the pathologist had finally settled on.
On top of these, Julie Carpenter had not replied to his message, and he was gradually, if a little despairingly, resigning himself to the idea that that relationship was over before it had barely begun. Well, so be it, he thought, trying to remain philosophical about things. If it was doomed, better now with only his toe in the water rather than later when he may have been caught splashing about in some emotional rip tide and been pulled out of his depth.
*
The rest of the day was uneventful. A round of meetings, more paperwork and some report writing. The garage rape and robbery investigation seemed to have ground to a halt with no leads to pursue other than those already in motion. The death of Claire Stamp seemed fated, through lack of evidence of involvement of any other party, to be declared at the forthcoming coroner’s enquiry as either suicide or misadventure. The images that had been sent to her phone, one of which had been opened before her death – presumably by her – contributed to the notion of suicide.
When it came time to knock off that evening for the weekend Detective Inspector Romney was a professionally and personally frustrated man. He wandered over to the newsagents opposite the police station for a copy of the local paper that would have been out since the afternoon.
The incident at the garage made page two with a photograph and a couple of inches of vague text. A short paragraph on the opposite page recorded that a young woman had fallen to her death from the fourth floor of a building in the town centre in the early hours of the morning of the day before. There was no link made between the two incidents.
Tucking the paper under his arm, he pulled his collar up against the chill and went home.
*
The following morning started as many lately had for those who had been up early enough to witness them: a bright clear sun lulling the unfamiliar into thinking that perhaps the day would be a warm dry one.
Romney had not slept well. He’d drunk more beer than he should have, grazed unhealthily on snacks as he’d watched an awful film that he felt obliged to finish in the hope that it would miraculously improve and astound him. It hadn’t. He had gone to bed wondering how such rubbish could be made when there must be thousands of brilliant scripts waiting to be discovered.
There had been no word from Julie. Half-way through his third can, he’d picked up his mobile with the intention and booze-fuelled stupidity of calling her to try once more to explain things. In the cold, bright light of this day, he was relieved he had got no further than staring at her number before slinging the offending object across the sofa.
He stood on the front step of his country pile and breathed in the cool early morning air. He stuffed the house key under a half brick and, starting his stopwatch function, began his run.
Running was as good for Romney’s mind as the exercise was for his body. The solitude and exertion of pounding the narrow country lanes around his home had often proved beneficial to his thinking. The combination of aloneness and an activity that came so automatically to him that he didn’t need to think about what he was engaged in allowed his mind to wander and pick over things. He felt sometimes that the activity created a state of mind and equilibrium in which he could think more deeply and more creatively than at any other time.
He had planned, on this weekend off, to press on with tiling a shower enclosure that he had installed recently. He had everything that he needed: tiles, spacers, adhesive, cutting tools, except one thing: the motivation to do the job. It needed doing, but he just didn’t feel like it.
As he ran, he reflected that had he had even some small success with either of the cases cluttering his mind then he would probably have felt more inclined to have undertaken the task that he knew from experience was painstaking, repetitive and tedious. But, with the frustration
s of both niggling at him, he didn’t want to confine himself to a task and space that would inevitably only irritate him further. There was also the Julie Carpenter consideration. He needed to be busy, with people, distracted, and doing something that he enjoyed.
Before he’d managed half of his statutory three miles he had his day planned out and felt uplifted for it. Run, bath, fix of coffee, dress in his weekend town clothes and head into Dover for a good breakfast before scouring the charity shops and the few second hand bookshops for some delight waiting to be discovered. He needed diversion. He needed cheering up. He needed a break. His mood improved with every step. The tiling could wait until tomorrow. It had waited three weeks already.
*
Breakfast at Tiffany’s was never a disappointment. The little café at the back of the high street missed much of the passing trade and was the better for it. The proprietor, Sammy Coker, had been serving up full English breakfasts to the locals of the town since before Romney had joined the local police force – longer ago than he cared to remember.
Over the years Sammy had given up more than the odd gobbet of useful information to the DI out of his strong sense of community spirit rather than for any personal gain. He had no need, or desire, to join the ranks of paid informers. Anything that he passed on to Romney he would not be ashamed of. In return Romney allowed Sammy to not make a secret of the fact that a Detective Inspector was a regular customer of his establishment. That kind of publicity kept out undesirables that Sammy would seek to discourage. Besides, since the DI had been frequenting the place several other officers of the local constabulary had also become regular customers and money was money and times perpetually hard.
