by Ann Cleeves
‘And prison provided that?’
‘Offenders are unlikely to kick off, if there’s an officer standing in the corner.’ She paused. ‘Usually it was the adult equivalent of child-minding. Providing meaningful activity, in the jargon, though actually it was pretty meaningless. Sometimes there was a man with a spark of interest. But it was a way of earning a living without the stress of being in a school.’
‘How did you meet Nigel?’ Vera thought the question was hardly necessary. Lorraine was telling her life story, was glad to have the chance perhaps, as her time ran out.
‘It was at a social event. An awards-do for arts and crafts created in prison. Nigel’s company was one of the sponsors and I had a student shortlisted. It was one of those dinners where the food’s dreadful and the speeches go on forever, and everyone survives by drinking too much cheap wine. We sat next to each other and started talking. He was very charming and thoughtful.’ She paused for a moment. ‘It wasn’t love at first sight. Not for me. But I’d had that with my first husband, and look how that had ended.’ Another pause. ‘Honestly, it helped that Nigel was rich. I liked everything that went with that. The lack of worry. The treats, like weekends away in Paris. Meals in the very best restaurants. I got used to being spoiled.’
‘What’s not to like?’ But Vera thought she couldn’t sell her independence so cheaply. ‘You carried on working, though?’
‘Until I was ill. It was a matter of pride, I think. I didn’t want to be entirely a kept woman. And there was no question of children. We were both in our mid-forties when we met.’
Another silence. Outside the drip of water, regular as the ticking of a clock.
‘Did you ever meet Jason Crow?’ The question sounded rather brusque after Lorraine’s gentle telling of her life story, and Vera added, ‘He owns the company that renovated these buildings.’
Lorraine looked up and stared at Vera. Her eyes blue and glittery like her blouse. ‘No, I don’t think so, but Nigel dealt with all that. He’s the practical one in the relationship. He looks after me very well.’
Chapter Forty-One
Janet O’Kane looked old. The white streaks in her wire-brush hair seemed more pronounced. Vera decided it had been a stroke of genius to bring the witnesses to the big house. At home it had been possible to define them by their surroundings; here the layer of domesticity had been stripped away from them. Janet seemed tired but very alive, rather wired. And now that she was without her talk of hens, dogs and garden she was clearly fiercely intelligent. Vera saw the woman she’d been before retirement.
‘Is there any news?’ Janet ignored Holly and Joe.
‘I’m afraid we can’t talk about the progress of the investigation.’ Vera realized she sounded just like one of her bosses, a man called Potter. Whenever Vera saw him she had an irrational but almost overwhelming urge to hit him.
‘Does that mean there’s been no progress, but you won’t admit it?’
Vera didn’t answer.
‘This is dreadful. You don’t know how it’s affecting us all. Whenever I go to the village now, people avoid me. Or they want all the gruesome details of that poor woman’s body, and that’s even worse. It’s as if we’ve been touched by the plague.’ Janet pushed her hair back from her face. ‘As if they’re all just waiting for somebody else we know to die.
‘I understand it’s hard for you, because you found her.’
‘It’s hard for all of us.’
‘Can you take me through that day again? I know you’ve given a statement, but it’s important that we know exactly where you all were throughout the afternoon and evening.’ Vera heard the despised Potter’s voice in her head as she spoke. The precise, rather nasal intonation.
‘John and I were at home all day. John was working in his office upstairs. That’s what he calls it. Work. He’s planning another book. But the sales of the last one were disappointing and I doubt very much if he’ll find a publisher.’ The woman’s voice was hard. Vera wondered what had gone on between the couple to change Janet’s attitude to her husband. Perhaps her proximity to violent death had made her see him more honestly.
‘And you?’ Vera asked. ‘What were you doing?’
‘Do you really want to know, Inspector? It’s intensely boring.’ A pause. ‘I took washing from the machine and put it on the line. It dried very quickly, so I brought it in and ironed it. I put clean sheets on our bed – taking care to do it quietly, so John shouldn’t be disturbed. I prepared lunch, ate lunch and washed the dishes.’
‘Did you go out at all?’
‘I took the dogs for a walk. The highlight of my day.’ The words were hard, sharp as slate.
‘Did you go up onto the hill?’ Vera was thinking of the footpath, hidden from the development by a dip in the land, where Shirley Hewarth’s body had been found.
Janet realized the implication of the question. ‘No. I went the other way. Down towards the burn. Are you saying she might already have been dead by then? That her body was already on the hill?’
‘It depends what time you went for your walk.’
‘I went just before lunch. John took the dogs out later in the afternoon.’
‘Then Mrs Hewarth wasn’t on the hill when you went out. She was in her office all morning.’ Vera kept her voice matter-of-fact. ‘Why did your husband go out in the afternoon? Was that usual?’
Janet didn’t answer for a while. Vera saw that she was gripping the arms of her chair and her knuckles were white. ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘Not usual.’
‘So why the change of routine?’ Vera used her quiet voice, her psychiatrist’s chair voice.
‘Because I’d threatened to leave him, if things didn’t change.’ Janet looked up. ‘I said I was bored rigid and he couldn’t treat me as a domestic slave. I reminded him that I had a good degree from Cambridge and, if I didn’t leave this bloody valley and escape these bloody neighbours and start using my brain, I might go very noisily mad. And that might disturb his life and upset his writing routine.’
Outside, the rain continued to drip from the broken gutter. Vera thought the Carswells would have to get that sorted as soon as they got back or they might go mad. ‘I thought the move to the country was your idea,’ she said. ‘The good life. Returning to nature.’
‘It was. That’s what’s so infuriating. John would have been happy to stay in the city. I thought a change was what our relationship needed. That we might become closer. More honest. But when we got here everything between us stayed the same. Life’s just much more inconvenient in the valley. And rather boring. I pretended I loved it because it was my idea. I couldn’t admit the experiment was a total failure.’
‘Who dealt with the negotiations of buying your house?’ Again Vera changed subject quickly.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Once you decided you wanted to live in Valley Farm, how did things proceed?’
‘Oh, I saw to all that.’ Janet pushed her hair back from her face again. ‘John hates the detail of everyday life. And he was still working then. I suppose he had an excuse.’
‘Did you deal directly with the developer?’ Vera looked up at her.
‘I met him once, to discuss the final finishes. Tiles, paint colour – that sort of thing.’
‘Where did you meet Jason Crow?’
‘Onsite. He walked us through the place.’
‘So John was with you then?’ Vera slid a glance at Holly to make sure she was still keeping notes.
‘No, he got held up at the university. Annie and Sam were with me. Jason showed us round both houses. It was the first time I’d met our neighbours.’
Vera imagined how that would have been. Sam and Annie shown round the house they’d just bought, by the man who’d ruined their business. Had they been aware, before they turned up, that Jason Crow was the developer? Surely they must have known the name behind Kimmerston Building Services.
‘You and John never had children?’ Another swift change of dir
ection, but again Janet didn’t seem thrown.
‘No.’ There was a long silence. ‘I would have liked a child. In fact I was quietly desperate, as the biological clock ticked away and I approached my forties. But John had made it clear before we married that he didn’t want a family. I went into the relationship knowing that, and didn’t feel I could change the rules.’
‘Why did you marry him?’ Vera had wanted to ask the question since Janet had first started talking.
‘He was the most beautiful man I’d ever met.’ It came out as a cry. ‘And he needed me. I suppose he became the child I never had. How can I complain that he’s too dependent, when I made him that way?’
‘Tell me about your work.’
‘After my first degree I trained to be a social worker. I specialized in fostering and adoption and more recently worked as a mediator for the family court.’ The words came out easily. The standard answer given at dinner parties. No emotional engagement. Then: ‘I loved it. I really loved it.’
‘Did you ever meet Shirley Hewarth professionally? She worked as a probation officer before she took over the ex-offender charity in Bebington.’
Vera was expecting an immediate answer, but Janet seemed uncertain. ‘I don’t think so. When I worked in fostering and adoption it’s possible that our paths crossed. I might have placed one of her clients’ children with a foster family. Offenders often have multiple problems and lead chaotic lives. There can be safeguarding issues. But really I don’t remember.’ There was a long pause. ‘When I saw her body, I only saw her face briefly. Even if she’d been a close friend I don’t think I’d have recognized her.’ A pause. ‘Last night I had a nightmare. I was on the hill and I came across the body again. But in the dream I was lying there with the stab wounds in my chest. And it was my face that I saw.’
John O’Kane had decided to be charming. He slid into the chair opposite and gave them the smile with which he’d been seducing women since he was a student. ‘The last time I was in this kitchen I was drinking the major’s very good malt.’ Letting them know he mixed in the best circles.
‘But this isn’t a social occasion, Mr O’Kane.’
‘Of course not.’
He still dressed like a younger man. Expensive jeans. Designer stubble not grown long enough to show the grey. Vera wondered if he dyed his hair. She wouldn’t be surprised. He must miss his audience of attentive students and young lecturers.
‘This is a terrible business. I’m not entirely sure how we can help, though.’
‘What attracted you to the house in the valley?’ She couldn’t see why he’d have given up his coterie of friends, the bars and restaurants that seemed to be his natural habitat.
‘Janet felt we needed a move, and I could see the attraction. I needed to concentrate on the new book. Where we lived before there were too many distractions. I had the feeling that this was my last chance to write something of value. Something that might outlive me. A book to define a place and a period in time.’ He frowned. ‘That probably sounds ridiculous to you, Inspector. Overblown. But it’s been my ambition since I was a young man and I’ve never achieved it. If I could focus on the writing, I have a sense this book might just come close.’
‘So you were happy to move.’ Vera wondered what her legacy might be. She’d locked up a few criminals. Trained a few good coppers. Perhaps that was enough.
‘It was a joint decision,’ O’Kane said. ‘Jan has always had a romantic hankering after the good life. She saw the site first, when it was still not much more than a barn, and came back raving about it. The view. The peace.’
‘How do you get on with your neighbours? With your fellow retired hedonists?’
‘We rub along very nicely on a superficial level. Socially, you know. A few drinks on a Friday night. Major Carswell’s an amateur historian, so perhaps I have more in common with him than with the others.’
Snob.
‘These murders . . .’ Vera looked at him. ‘Are you certain you haven’t come across any of the victims before?’
‘I saw the house-sitter once in The Lamb and we had a bit of a chat.’
‘You didn’t tell us that before.’ Her voice so sharp that he seemed almost chastened.
‘Didn’t I? Sorry. But perhaps you didn’t ask.’ He paused. ‘I escape to The Lamb sometimes after a day at the computer. I need other company. Background noise. I’ve decided I’m more of a city boy after all.’ He made another attempt at the winning smile.
‘What did you and Patrick talk about?’ Vera thought this was the first person she’d met, besides Patrick’s mother, who’d had any real conversation with the young man.
‘Academic life. He was hoping to return to Exeter to do postdoc research and I asked him why he’d decided to take a break. I wondered if he had aspirations to be a writer too. There was something about him. A way he put words together.’
‘What did he say?’ Vera tried to imagine herself in the pub. Gloria would be behind the bar gossiping. Percy and the other old boys would be huddled over their domino board. Patrick was in a strange place where he didn’t know anyone. The retired professor might seem the closest he’d get to a kindred spirit in his new home.
‘That he might write something one day,’ O’Kane said. ‘That he had a brilliant story to tell. But that wasn’t why he’d come to Gilswick.’
‘Did he tell you what had brought him to the place?’ Vera found she was holding her breath.
‘Not really. He said he was doing his own kind of research.’
‘Did he mention Martin Benton?’
O’Kane shook his head. ‘No, I’m sure he didn’t.’
‘Can you tell us anything else at all about your conversation?’ Vera was losing hope that she’d gain anything useful from the man. She looked out of the window. There was still a fine rain blocking the view of the garden.
‘He said he was going to set some moth traps under the trees here. He invited me to come down one night and see what he’d caught. I said I’d like that. I wasn’t really bothered, but it sounded like a diversion. And he was so keen. It seemed a real passion. I could tell it would please him.’
Chapter Forty-Two
Joe sat next to Vera in the kitchen at the Hall and watched her perform. This was a masterclass in witness interrogation. The individuals who’d seemed little more than puppets previously – the dutiful wife, the jolly husband, the dying artist, the grumpy academic – seemed to become real in front of his eyes. Her words blew life into them. He resented the skill, which seemed to come to Vera so easily.
When John O’Kane had left the room Vera sat back in her chair. ‘What did you make of that? Not just the professor, but the whole bunch.’
‘It makes the “retired hedonist” thing sound a bit hollow,’ Holly said. ‘A sham. They all seem pretty miserable.’
‘The effect of having three murders on your doorstep, do you think?’ Vera was bright-eyed. She knew she’d conducted the discussions brilliantly. ‘You can see that might be a bit of a downer.’
‘If anything, you get the sense that the killings just provided some relief from the boredom.’ Holly was looking down at her notes. ‘Janet O’Kane seemed genuinely upset, though.’
‘What have you got to contribute, Joe?’
He turned to his boss and his mind emptied, all rational thought flushed away. Sometimes Vera had that effect. He’d described the experience to Sal and she’d laughed. ‘Sounds like a kind of intellectual enema,’ she’d said. ‘Like colonic irrigation, only of the brain.’ Now the vacuum in Joe’s mind didn’t seem so funny.
‘They all had some contact with Jason Crow, even if it was only through his company,’ he mumbled at last. ‘Seems another weird kind of coincidence.’ He knew his offering was pathetic.
‘Aye, well, you know what I think about coincidence . . .’ Vera looked at her watch. ‘Where are Annie and Sam? And it’d be good to chat to the terrible Lizzie, if she’s there too. I’d like to meet her for myself.
You did phone and ask them to get their arses down here?’
‘They were out,’ Joe said. ‘I left a message on their answerphone.’
‘Well, phone again. Let’s talk to them while I’m on a roll. And if there’s nobody there now, try their mobile number. With a fair wind, we could have this over by this time tomorrow.’ She shut her eyes. A fat, complacent Buddha, keeping her own counsel and her thoughts about the case to herself.
Joe went outside to ring the Redheads. He’d visited a demented elderly aunt in a care home once and the calls of the woodpigeons in the trees sounded like the moaning of old people there. Gentle and plaintive. He stood in the shelter of the house. Through the window he saw that Vera hadn’t moved. There was no reply from the Redheads’ house phone and so he tried Annie’s mobile. She answered immediately, obviously not recognizing his number. ‘Yes?’ The voice almost panicky.
He explained that the inspector would like to see them in the big house at their earliest convenience.
‘We’re in Newcastle for the day, Sergeant. I’m afraid we won’t be back until later this afternoon. That is alright? Nothing else has happened?’
‘No, nothing else.’ Because what more could he say? Vera might have demanded their presence, but he couldn’t insist that they return to Gilswick immediately just to suit her. Annie was about to end the call. ‘Perhaps we could talk to your daughter?’ he said. ‘Will she be at home?’
‘No.’ The answer came quickly. ‘She’s visiting friends in Kimmerston. And I don’t know how Lizzie can help you. She wasn’t even here when these dreadful things happened. I think you should leave her alone.’
They ended up in the pub for a late lunch. Joe thought there were other things they could be doing; it was ridiculous to be hanging round in the valley just to wait for Sam and Annie Redhead to return. Vera had gone gnomic on them. Turned in on herself. Uncommunicative. They sat in the corner of the lounge and he could tell she was earwigging the conversation in the bar. Percy Douglas was there with an elderly mate, talking about the good old days when the Carswell estate still sustained tenant farmers and there were decent EU headage payments for sheep. Holly was rereading the notes she’d made during the interviews. Joe felt excluded. If Holly hadn’t been there, Vera might have talked to him.
