Forgotten Voices

by Jane A. Adams

  ‘To leave?’

  ‘Oh, for the Lord’s sake, man.’ Hilly was impatient now. ‘Ellen and Jeb took over and Daphne was still living there. Well, I wouldn’t want another woman in my kitchen. Neither did either of them. Jeb sold off some bits of land and a plot he’d got building consent for, set Daphne up with a house of her own. She didn’t want to go and I know it nearly broke them doing it. You ask me, they should have got shot of the whole lot, divvied up the money and all gone their separate ways. Jeb was never a farmer, not at heart. He’d have loved to have just up sticks and gone, but Daphne wouldn’t hear of it. And what Daphne says …’

  Ellen loved the place, William thought. She was happy, with her husband and her children. Heartbroken when she lost him, of course, but determined to carry on.

  ‘Did Ellen seem worried? Apart from that one night. Did she say anything?’

  ‘Like we told the police, she said nothing to us. We could go weeks and barely see her. I’d pop in for eggs from time to time, but apart from that, we’d got no reason to see one another.’

  She set her mug down on the tray and held out her hand for William’s. ‘If you’ve done with that?’

  William had barely sipped his coffee, but he surrendered the mug anyway. He rose from the deep armchair that he guessed was usually Hilly’s. ‘The police say she left in a hurry, that night. That she was really frightened.’

  Hilly frowned again and then nodded. ‘She’d pulled her jeans on under her nightie and got her dressing gown on top and an old pair of trainers with the laces gone. Said she’d got out through the living room window and run across the back way. Fortunately it was a dry night, had been dry for weeks, or she’d have been muddied up to hell coming across the path that way.’

  Trent nodded. Hilly was ushering him towards the door. He went out on to the porch and sat down to put on his shoes. The front door closed behind him, but he could feel Hilly’s presence, still in the hall, standing guard until he should actually leave.

  William retied his laces and then wiped the muck off his hands again. His boots would need scrubbing when he got home. He was used to picking up a fair bit of mud on the ridge, even when the weather had been fair. The trees created deep areas of shadow, wonderfully cool in the summer but rarely completely dry. Today the mud had been supplemented by muck of another kind that seemed to have a particular attraction to his laces.

  He was back on the road, thinking about what Hilly and Toby had told him when it struck him. Old trainers without laces, they had said. He was certain he knew the pair they meant. She had kept them in the back porch, a covered area just off the kitchen, slipped them on when she had just little jobs to do outside, such as fetching in the washing or watering those great tubs of flowers she loved so much. She said she liked the fact that she could slip her feet into them quickly and then slip them off again before going back into the house. No laces to untie, no fuss.

  But that policeman had said she had avoided the kitchen. So she couldn’t have fetched them from the back porch.

  William thought about it as he walked and the more he thought about it the more it bothered him. He tried to think of a reason why Ellen might have taken that old pair of shoes upstairs and therefore had access to them that night. Maybe she’d forgotten to remove them? Gone upstairs still wearing them and just left them in her room?

  But no. That wasn’t Ellen. Everyone knew you took off your shoes before going into the house. The kids did it automatically. Occasional visitors would be let off, provided they’d not tramped too much mud into the house, but regular visitors, like William, sat on the bench seat and removed their shoes.

  He’d walked back along the road rather than trek back through the cow field. It was a longer route and it took him about twenty minutes to get to Ellen’s farm. He turned up the lane intending to cross the stile that led across the field adjacent to the house and back on to the ridge. Trent rarely used that path, tending instead to just come down between the trees and over the low fence that delineated the farmyard. No police car stood in the lane and Trent wondered if there was anyone left at the house after all. Instead of crossing the stile, he opened the five-bar gate and walked into the yard.

  The kitchen window had now been boarded over and crime scene tape fluttered pathetically on the fence, indicating the path the killer had taken that day.

  ‘Oh, Ellen,’ William breathed. ‘Life is just not fair. Just not bloody fair.’

  The door to the back porch was ajar. Never designed with security in mind but only as a means of keeping out the weather, William knew it just fastened with a roller catch. There was a bolt inside and hook and latch on the outside, purely to stop it blowing open in the bad weather. A strong wind could send it crashing wide and once, so Ellen had told him, had broken the hinges. Gingerly, William pulled it open now and peered inside. The inner door leading to the kitchen was closed but the bench seat and the collection of Wellingtons and outdoor shoes were still in their usual place. Late afternoon light streamed in through the little window and William recalled vividly just how it felt to sit on that rough bench, sun warming his back, Ellen calling to him from the kitchen that she’d just made cake, that she’d get the kettle on. Ellen used instant coffee too, William thought, but unlike Hilly’s offering, it was served with a smile; served in friendship and that made all the difference. His gaze fell on what he realized had really brought him here. Ellen’s old, laceless trainers were still tucked at the side of the bench, toes facing the wall so she could push her feet straight into them as she went out to attend to her chores. He bent down and picked them up, looked at the soles. Ridiculous to think the mud and muck from that night would still be there. Ellen would have scrubbed them, just like he intended to scrub his own shoes when he got back to the cottage.

  But the more William looked, the more he realized that was wrong. The soles were a little muddy, true. Fragments of dried clay flaked from between the treads as he touched them, but the familiar staining on the old white leather, on the pink fabric, that was still the same. He would have bet his life on it. These shoes had been nowhere dirtier than the gravel yard and the surrounding verges or at most into the tiny scrap of a kitchen garden where Ellen grew her herbs and a bit of salad. Anything else she needed for the kitchen would have been collected from the market garden and if she’d gone to see to the chickens she would always have worn her Wellingtons. He glanced over at the boots standing side by side against the wall. A tiny smear of chicken shit and a wisp of straw adhered to the right one.

  No, these trainers had been used for quick jobs in the yard only. Though, he supposed, Hilly could be correct. It hadn’t rained for a while before Ellen’s night time visit to their house and the cows were one field further over, so …

  ‘I’m being an idiot,’ William told himself. ‘Looking for clues where there are none.’ It was, he realized, because he felt so damned helpless. So utterly impotent. He wanted this to be solved and he wanted to be the one to solve it, however ridiculous that sounded.

  ‘Can I help you, sir? You shouldn’t be there, you know.’ The young police officer seemed a little put out but also curious. ‘It’s Mr Trent, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is, yes. And I’m sorry. I just—’

  The officer nodded. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but you can’t be here.’

  ‘I didn’t touch anything. Only the seat and the trainers.’

  ‘It’s all right, sir. Forensics have done here.’

  Trent nodded. He thought about telling the officer about the trainers and then thought better of it. What could he say that would make any sense?

  Trent left, aware that the officer watched until he was out of sight. No doubt he’d get another visit from one or other of the policeman he’d seen so far or maybe just the uniformed division if he proved unworthy of the detectives. He tried to turn his mind to other things on the walk home, to his research, to the book he had yet to finish, but Ellen’s face seemed to be blocking his sight, Ellen’s voice in his h
ead preventing all other thought.

  He had loved her, of course. William had acknowledged that long ago, even as he had accepted that Ellen would never see him as more than a dear friend. Perhaps he hadn’t recognized until now, just how all consuming that love had been.

  William Trent was tired when he reached his cottage. The walk had been a long one. He took off his walking boots, dropping them on the threshold and walked in his socks to the kitchen. The trainers would not be dismissed though and Trent knew he had to find something out before he could put it to rest.

  He called directory enquiries and a few minutes later was on the phone to the farm next to what had been Ellen’s.

  ‘Mr Jenkins. It’s William Trent, here. Yes, that’s right. No the cows were fine, but that’s what I want to ask you about. I know it may seem a strange question, but how long have you had them in that field? Two weeks. Right, and before that?’

  Trent listened. ‘So, just so I have this right. You moved them up from the field closer to the road. The field crossed by the other public footpath.’ The path Ellen must have used if she’d come from her house across to the Richardses’ place.

  William replaced the phone on its cradle and stood for a moment, unmoving and deep in thought.

  She could have cleaned her shoes. Of course she could, but the doubt, once sowed, would not go away. Something was wrong here. With the story the Richardses had told him or, possibly, though he found that harder to accept, with the story Ellen had told them.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Chris Shaw, Philip Soames’ probation officer, was a harried-looking man. He summoned Mac into his office at precisely ten minutes to five and informed him that he really could only spare him until five precisely.

  Mac got to the point. ‘Any concerns about Soames?’

  ‘None. He keeps to the rules, checks in with me according to our agreement and according to his employer is satisfactory.’

  ‘Satisfactory?’

  ‘Inspector, I’m happy with that. My expectations don’t extend to anything spectacular.’

  ‘Does he talk about his personal life?’

  ‘No. He mentioned going to the pub with one of his work colleagues. That’s all.’

  ‘Is that unusual?’

  ‘That he doesn’t talk about his personal life or that he goes for a drink after work?’

  Mac glared at him. ‘He’s never mentioned Ellen Tailor to you. She took out a court order against him.’

  ‘Twelve years ago. I’ve been a little more concerned with his more recent career. And no, he didn’t mention her.’

  ‘Did he mention how he heard about the Marsden scheme?’

  Chris Shaw paused and then nodded. ‘I asked him, of course, when his case notes were transferred to this office. His first response was that a prison visitor had mentioned it to him. His second, later, response, was that the education officer had told a group of them about it. Either or both could be true. Neither could be. I didn’t think it important at the time.’

  ‘Strange coincidence, though, that Soames ends up down here, within spitting distance of someone he once persecuted.’

  ‘Persecuted is an emotive word. As is stalking or harassing. Coincidences do happen, Inspector. Their relationship was a very long time ago. The trouble they experienced was, presumably, resolved. No one can guarantee that the past won’t come back to bite them one day, wherever they move to or whatever life choices they make.’

  ‘A woman is dead, Mr Shaw.’

  ‘And I’m sorry for that. But if you had any evidence, even the hint of evidence that it was Philip Soames, then I’d already be passing his file over to his court-appointed solicitor, wouldn’t I? So it seems to me, Inspector, that you are merely fishing. In a pond where there are no fish to catch.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘You have time for one more question, then I have to leave.’

  Mac stood up and laid a business card on Shaw’s desk. ‘Call me if you think of anything,’ he said. ‘Soames may not have pulled the trigger, but he still turned up at the victim’s home unannounced, he could still have—’

  ‘Set up a hit?’ Shaw laughed. ‘Get real, Inspector. Where would a man like Soames find the money? Why would he bother? What was the woman to him now? It strikes me that Philip Soames has the sense to know that running as fast and as hard away from the woman that caused trouble in his past – and no, Inspector, I’m not blaming the victim, merely seeing it from Soames’ perspective – would have been the sensible move. How do you know he visited her anyway?’

  ‘He really doesn’t talk to you, does he,’ Mac said. ‘I know,’ he said, ‘because Ellen Tailor called the police. Goodbye, Mr Shaw.’

  Mac walked back down the busy shopping street to where he’d parked his car. He wasn’t proud of such a cheap shot, but Shaw had irritated him and it had been a long and, he felt, unproductive day. One phone call between Shaw and Soames would destroy any impact Mac’s words had had, but still, it felt like a small if petty victory in a day singularly without any real and solid ones.

  His phone rang as he reached his car. It was Kendall.

  ‘Go and meet Frank Baker at Daphne Tailor’s place, will you. We had a call out to a domestic about half an hour ago. The address was on the open case list, so it flagged up. Uniform is there already and I asked Frank to take a look.’

  ‘A domestic?’

  ‘Yes. It seems Daphne and Diane went to the solicitors today to see what Ellen had put in her will. I don’t think it was what Daphne expected.’

  It took Mac about fifteen minutes in the evening traffic to make it to the house. He arrived to find two patrol cars parked outside and a young officer standing self-consciously beside one of them. Inside were the Tailor children, tearful and distressed.

  From inside the house a woman could be heard shouting. She was calling someone a bitch and a tart and a treacherous little whore. Mac guessed this must be Daphne Tailor.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Neighbours reckon she’s been yelling like this for an hour or more before we got here. Sergeant Baker arrived about a half hour ago. He suggested we get the kids out of the way. She was chucking stuff about too.’

  Mac nodded. ‘And the aunt?’

  ‘Still in there. Ask me, she’s enjoying the show a bit too much.’

  ‘And do we know what started it?’

  ‘Apparently, the grandmother didn’t get custody of the kids in their mum’s will. That’s what I can gather from all the shouting anyway.’

  Mac nodded. He opened the front passenger door of the police car and sat inside, twisting round so he could talk to the children in the back seat. ‘It’s a daft question,’ he said. ‘But are you two all right?’

  ‘Suppose,’ Jeb shrugged.

  ‘I want my mum,’ Megan whispered. She’d obviously been crying and the tears began again now. Jeb, doing his best to be big brother, put his arm round her shoulders and hugged her but his gaze never left Mac’s face.

  ‘Do we have to stay here,’ he whispered. ‘Can’t we just get in your car and go?’

  Mac had the odd impression that he’d asked this question before. That it was a wish expressed often – and as often been denied. He remembered what Diane had told him, about the children asking her if they could just flit before their grandmother noticed and he also remembered her smile, her satisfaction when she had told him about her sister’s will and the fact that she would be getting custody.

  ‘You want me to try and get your aunt out here?’ he asked.

  Jeb thought about it and then shook his head. Megan’s sobs grew louder and she buried her face in her brother’s side.

  ‘You need a break from both of them, is that it?’

  Jeb nodded gratefully.

  ‘OK, I’ll see what I can do.’

  Through the front room window, Mac could see Frank Baker and another officer trying to calm the scene. Diane stood beside the fireplace, leaning against the wall. Mac thought that the expression on her face look
ed oddly triumphal. He called Kendall.

  ‘Can I borrow Yolanda and can we get a family liaison officer down here. No, the adults can take care of themselves. But the kids have had it up to … yes, I just want to get them out of the way for an hour while the so-called grown-ups get themselves calmed down. But I could do with an appropriate adult.’

  Mac tucked the phone back in his pocket, smiling at the last comment Kendall had made. ‘And you think that’s Yolanda? You must be feeling desperate.’ He turned to the officer. ‘I’ve got a female officer coming down, then we’ll take the kids off for a bit while tempers calm.’

  ‘You can do that?’ Jeb was leaning forward over the driver’s seat, listening in to the conversation.

  ‘Only for a little while, Jeb. Just until everyone is in a better mood.’

  ‘Like that’s going to happen now.’

  ‘I’m going into the house for a few minutes,’ Mac told the officer. ‘Hold the fort; I don’t think I’ll be long.’

  Mac took in the scene from within the room this time. Diane spotted him and her smile broadened. ‘Inspector, come in, see the show.’

  Daphne turned on her. ‘Deceitful cow. Bastard fucking … I’ll bloody kill you.’

  She leapt at Diane, was intercepted by Frank Baker and wrestled back into a seat.

  ‘Enough!’ Mac took himself by surprise with the volume of his shout but silence fell as everyone turned to look at him.

  ‘You pair are supposed to be the adults here. You are supposed to be looking out for those kids. I don’t give a damn what your differences are or who did what to whom, but right now all the pair of you are doing is inflicting pain on a couple of kids that have already had enough of it, don’t you think?’

  Mac realized, belatedly that he was still shouting at the two women. That his anger and frustration had boiled over into a very unprofessional display. He tried and failed to feel bad about it, but continued a little more quietly. ‘Now, you both sit down and calm down.’