by LJ Ross
She hadn’t planned to be here, to be anywhere near Megan or the memories she would undoubtedly awaken, despite its being Christmas and the season of perpetual goodwill. She struggled to feel any kind of goodwill towards her sister. It had taken years to try to forgive and she had almost fooled herself that she had forgotten. Still, perhaps the serenity of the tiny island with its scattering of inhabitants could begin to soothe the ache. Tall reeds spread out and waved in the breeze to her right as she drove up the winding road towards the village. Sea gulls circled and swooped above the water, their call loud and comforting. As the first whitewashed cottages came into sight, she saw the trains of Christmas lights draped across the barren trees between the houses and knew they would be festive and cheerful come nightfall.
Anna drove through the village and recognised the Heritage Centre where she had spent every Saturday as a teenager, the gift shops and the tea rooms. Above all, she noticed the pub which sat in the centre, painted white with red trim and cheerfully named ‘The Jolly Anchor’. A six foot plastic Santa stood outside the entrance, waving its mechanical hand and welcoming patrons with a jarringly loud “Ho, Ho, Ho!”
Shaking her head, she swept through the village and was glad she hadn’t seen anyone she knew. In fact, the streets had been surprisingly empty of their usual crowd. Though the island was sparse of people, they usually gathered in the village. She supposed that was the nature of the community – a community she had once been part of.
The car meandered through the narrow streets towards Lindisfarne Castle, the scenic fort on the east of the island. At the foot of the mount was the coastguard’s base. No bright red jeep stood on the driveway but both rescue boats were moored, indicating there had been no emergency at sea that morning. The drama had all been on land.
She pulled up in front of an attractive fisherman’s cottage set in its own small garden. It held a faultless location; the fort stood to the east, the Priory to the west and Bamburgh Castle stood further down the coast to the south. The cottage held unspoilt views of all three and didn’t have to share them with immediate neighbours. That suited her just fine, she thought, as she yanked out a battered black suitcase and dragged it across the gravel towards the house. After feeling around for the key Mark had left under the door mat, she pushed open the door and memories washed over her. The walls had been re-painted, the floors freshly carpeted, but still she could remember the scent of her mother’s perfume in the hallway.
She could remember when her father had taken the perfume bottle and hurled it down the stairs, claiming that her mother had worn it for another man. She remembered the ugly argument which followed and the sound of flesh hitting flesh.
Her skin crawled, icy tentacles snaking up her back as the line between past and present blurred for a painful moment.
Then her vision cleared. All that stood before her was a comfortable cottage with neutral furnishings. It was her canvas to paint however she chose.
* * *
Ryan’s head throbbed painfully as the shiny red door to the Mathieson’s home closed quietly behind him. Informing the family was always the worst, the very worst, part of the job. No amount of training or experience prepared you to withstand the abject grief of a mother and father who had lost their child. It was always an affront but, in these circumstances - practically on their doorstep - it must be almost unbearable.
He walked slowly to the other end of the street, hands thrust in his pockets, as he replayed the conversation.
The mother, Helen, had been completely unaware of who he was. That made it worse somehow, the open welcome she had been prepared to give him when she answered the door.
“Can I help you?” She had still been in her terry cloth dressing gown, pale pink and a bit faded. Her eyes had been a bit cloudy from sleep but they were the same colour as her daughter’s.
“DCI Ryan, ma’am. Is your husband or another family member at home?” Those blue eyes had glazed in confusion when he told her he was from the police, flashed his ID. She had called out for Daniel, a tall, wiry man with long limbs and a slight stoop, who had answered her call with the same confused expression. She had asked Ryan inside, her voice trembling because underneath the social formality she had known why he was there. Instinct told her something was very wrong and she was drawing out the moment, denying the truth of it for as long as she could.
Ryan had followed them through to a tidy living room with a comfortable feel. The first things he had seen were the framed pictures of Lucy, her smiling image on the mantle and the window sill. Helen must have read something in his eyes because her hand instantly groped around for Daniel’s and he grasped it. Ryan stood there and watched them shatter as he had told them their daughter had been killed. He tried to keep his mind detached, his eyes watchful as he had given them the news that their lives would never be the same again. He had steeled himself while he watched Helen Mathieson clutch a hand to her womb, a heart breaking reminder of what she had lost, before she collapsed onto the sofa.
He had watched the father, too. Lucy had been found nude and although he hoped otherwise, the manner of her death wouldn’t rule out sexual assault. Daniel Mathieson had been on the island all night, he said, and Ryan recalled that most victims knew their killers and many lived under the same roof. Knowing that fact had not helped to ease the constriction in his chest while he had questioned a couple who displayed all the signs of complete emotional breakdown.
“Why, why has this happened? Who would do this?” Helen had moaned the words.
“I’m going to do my best to find those answers for you, Mrs Mathieson.”
“No, no, no,” Helen had begun to rock, her sobs guttural, still in denial. “It can’t be Lucy,” she shook her head vehemently, her eyes both pleading and angry. “You’ve made a mistake. It isn’t Lucy.”
“Ssh, Helen,” her husband tried to soothe a pain which he felt keenly himself.
“Your daughter has been identified, Mrs Mathieson.”
Still she shook her head, angry jerks from side to side while her eyes burned into him. “I’ve told you it can’t be. Lucy was out with friends last night and she’s probably staying over at Rachel’s house. I’ll ring her now and then you’ll see.”
Helen surged upwards, her eyes frantic as she looked around for the phone. Her husband scrubbed both hands across his face before pushing himself wearily off the sofa to follow her.
“Come on, Helen, come on now.”
Ryan watched their half-hearted tussle until Helen had simply sagged against her husband, emotionally exhausted and sobbing bitter, vicious tears which shook her body.
He waited patiently for the worst to subside. He knew that any normal person would have left them to their heartache, rather than spectating. He wasn’t a normal person, though, and he had a job to do.
“I’m sorry to have to ask you this now,” he began gently, waiting for them to raise their eyes to his face. He realised they had forgotten he was still there. “I need to ask you some important questions about Lucy, about where she was last night and about her life and her habits so that I can bring her killer to justice.”
“How…how…” Helen couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence, but Ryan knew what she wanted to ask. They always wanted to know.
“We haven’t determined that yet, Mrs Mathieson.” He had a good idea, but until the pathologist confirmed cause of death, there was nothing he could tell her.
“You said ‘killer’,” Daniel spoke quietly. “How do you know there wasn’t an accident of some kind?”
Always sticky, Ryan thought.
“The manner in which we found her doesn’t indicate an accident, Mr Mathieson.”
“Was there…” Helen drew in several deep breaths. “Was she hurt, you know, that way?” Her eyes pleaded with him, begged him to tell her that her baby girl had died quickly and without pain, without the terror of sexual assault. He wished that he could.
“I’m sorry, Mrs Mathieson, we don’t
know any of those details yet. We’ll be working hard to find out.”
Helen dissolved into fresh tears, the knuckles on her hands turned white as she gripped her husband’s arm. Daniel Mathieson drew on some inner strength to face Ryan, to lift his head and meet his gaze squarely.
“We’ll tell you anything we can.” There was anger underneath the misery, Ryan could see. Beneath the mild-mannered man, there was a father, and beneath that there was a hard knot of impotent anger. He could give the man something to focus his anger on.
“Thank you, Mr Mathieson.” He took out his notebook. “Let’s begin with her movements last night. Can you tell me what Lucy did yesterday?”
“Lucy was with me,” Helen whispered. “We drove over to Morpeth and had lunch, did some shopping.” Tears coursed down the woman’s ravaged face, which had aged visibly.
“Around what time was that, Mrs Mathieson?” Ryan kept his voice low and careful.
“We left at about quarter past ten, drove across to the mainland and we got to Morpeth at around eleven. We looked around the shops, I… I…” she covered her face with shaking hands and Ryan looked away.
Minutes passed, until there was another break.
“Could you tell me what time you arrived back on the island after your shopping trip?” Ryan needed to know, had to piece together some sort of timeline.
“It was around four,” Daniel answered for his wife. Ryan cocked his head towards Helen and waited.
“Yes, it was around then,” she agreed. Only then did Ryan pick up his pen and write it down.
“After then?”
Helen Mathieson looked up and seemed to see Ryan properly for the first time. Her blue eyes cleared briefly to assess the man sitting in front of her. She saw a tall, good-looking thirty-something with a serious face and sad, striking grey eyes. Something about his intent expression gave her comfort enough to carry on.
“We had an early tea, because Lucy wanted to get ready and head out to meet her friends. Rachel Finnigan and Ellie Holmes,” Helen added, anticipating him. “They live on our street,” she gestured out of the window, “Ellie’s right across from us and Rachel’s at number 34 at the end.”
Ryan nodded. “Where were they meeting, and at what time?”
“Ellie came by around six to call for Lucy and the girls said they were planning to walk past Rachel’s house and pick her up on the way to the pub. They both left here around ten past six.” Ryan didn’t need to ask which pub; there was only one on the island.
“Was that the last time you saw or spoke with your daughter?”
Helen could barely manage a nod.
“I have to ask,” another sticky question, he thought, “could you please confirm your whereabouts during the hours of eleven-thirty last night and five this morning?”
He looked at both of them, tried to look apologetic although he knew that this was a necessary question.
“We were both in bed, asleep,” Daniel answered.
“I went up to bed around ten-thirty,” Helen agreed.
“I came up half an hour later, I wanted to put the dishwasher on overnight, check the back door and that sort of thing. I like to leave the porch light on for Lucy,” Daniel swallowed.
“Lucy usually let herself back in the house?”
“Yes,” Helen nodded. “She’d done it a hundred times before.” Lucy’s keys? Ryan made a note and circled it twice.
“Did either of you hear anything or see anything else during the night?”
“No, nothing at all,” Daniel said quietly.
Helen paused. “I went out like a light and slept pretty heavily. I always do, but, sometime during the night, I thought I heard an engine backfire. It sounded like it was quite close by.” She looked over at her husband. “Did you hear it?”
“No, I’m afraid I didn’t.”
Ryan looked between the two people in front of him and knew that there would be very little information he could get from them now. Shock had settled in. He rose, took out a card with details of a family liaison officer and set it on the coffee table in front of them. Neither of them moved from their huddle on the sofa.
“Thank you both. I’m very sorry for your loss,” Ryan murmured. Then, to the father, he added that there would be an officer along to take a formal note of what they had just told him and ask some more questions. There would also be a CSI team along to do a standard sweep of the house. They would need to take fingerprints. To himself, he had added that he would need to take another good look at the people in Lucy’s immediate circle; family, friends, lovers.
As he was leaving, he turned one last time. “One final thing,” he said belatedly. “What was Lucy wearing when she left last night?”
“Wearing?” Helen shook her head as if to clear it. “Jeans and the new red top I’d bought her. Some black boots.”
“Were the boots heeled?”
“Why…yes, they were, quite high.”
“Thank you, Mrs Mathieson, Mr Mathieson. I’ll leave you alone now. ”
* * *
Ryan found himself in the main square, standing beside a worn statue of Saint Cuthbert. He looked up at the carved stone and wondered what Cuthbert had seen as he stood vigil over the people of Lindisfarne.
CHAPTER 4
Anna knew her first priority should be to find the Senior Investigating Officer, but nerves fluttered at the thought. Ordinarily, she kept herself to herself and preferred not to become embroiled in other people’s dramas. She understood that was the main attraction of a career as an academic historian, the erstwhile realm of middle-aged, balding men in tweed blazers. When you were looking at the history of a civilisation, speculating about the lives of others who had lived hundreds or thousands of years earlier, you could avoid thinking too hard or looking too closely at your own life in the present and there was no pressure to worry about the future.
She fished out the scrap of paper where she’d written the name and number of the person in charge. Detective Chief Inspector Ryan. Gregson had been vague on the details, come to think of it. He had just told her to report to Ryan, who would give her instructions. Apparently, Ryan was based on the island, but she didn’t remember him. There wasn’t a police presence on Lindisfarne that she knew about but her local knowledge was badly out of date. She fingered the piece of paper for a moment then shoved the scrap back in her pocket. Before she went against every instinct she had and stuck her oar into other people’s business, it was time to face her own past.
Ten minutes later, bundled into a smart black woollen coat and jeans, Anna pushed open the door to the Jolly Anchor. She and the plastic Santa exchanged a long look and she took his jovial welcome as a good luck omen. Anna needed it. Inside, the pub was almost exactly as she remembered it when she’d last seen it eight years ago. Stretched along the wall to the right was a long wooden bar with stools taken by the regulars, the surface polished to gleaming. That was different, she thought. When it had been her father standing behind that bar, he hadn’t often taken the trouble to polish the wood. As a child she remembered counting the tiny bar flies which used to gather around the beer spillages while she watched her father pull pints with his big hands.
Big, hard hands.
She blocked the thought and focused on the present, continuing to scan the room. There were old wooden tables scattered in nooks in the main area and each held a pretty carnation sitting in a miniature vase in preparation for the lunch crowd. The table tops had been polished too, their old scars covered over. It was the kind of thing her mother would have liked to do but the old clientele - made up mostly of gnarled fishermen and the disenchanted - wouldn’t have appreciated it. A log fire blazed cheerfully in the huge fireplace which dominated the bar room and a couple lounged in comfortable leather chairs beside it, drinks in hand. A Christmas tree stood, fully decked, in the corner. All in all, it looked like a pleasant place to pass the time.
Anna moved out of the shadow of the doorway, her boots clicking softly on the
slate floor. She scanned the room and headed for the bar. Bill Tilson, the landlord, spotted her immediately and let out a cheerful bellow in the Scottish brogue he had never quite lost.
“Anna!”
She smiled and tried to relax when he enveloped her in a bear hug. Bear being the operative word, she thought. The man was well over six feet and an easy two hundred and fifty pounds of red-faced charm. The last time she had seen him, he had been the sole bartender working beside her father, underpaid and underappreciated.
“Not a pickin’ on you,” he grumbled, setting her at arm’s length and casting a critical eye over her. “Girl, you’re so thin you could hide behind a lamp post.”
Anna was lost for words, thinking that anyone would appear thin in comparison with his bulk, but she smiled cheerfully.
“I see you haven’t changed, Billy,” she murmured the old endearment and he smiled warmly in response.
“Well, you’ve done nothing except grow even prettier. Must have been breaking hearts all these years, that’s why you haven’t been back to visit us sooner.”
She swallowed the bittersweet pain and tried to keep things light. “You know me, Bill. The folks at Durham University just call me the Heartbreak Kid.”
He smiled, but the look in his eyes was a knowing one. He still remembered a cute little girl with soft dark hair he liked to ruffle and unhappy brown eyes.
Anna glanced uneasily around the bar. “Is she here?”
Bill ran an uncomfortable hand over his bushy hair and didn’t need to ask who she meant. “Somewhere around here but God knows she comes and goes as she pleases. Ah,” he shifted from foot to foot, “you want me to find her for you?”
Anna looked into his worried eyes and shook her head. “I’ll just wait here awhile, grab a sandwich. I guess she’ll be back soon enough.”
Bill nodded, thinking that all hell would break loose.
