by Ann Cleeves
When Joe Ashworth had left the room, Vera switched on the kettle again. She made more coffee and found a tin with a few home-made biscuits still inside. It’d be a shame for them to be wasted. Her phone rang. Holly.
‘I’ve just had a call from the incident room. A member of the public wants to talk to you.’
‘Oh, aye.’ People who fancied they had vital information always wanted to speak to the senior investigating officer. They didn’t trust the person at the end of the phone to pass it on. Not without reason. If Vera read every scrap of gossip, she’d get nothing else done. ‘So what’s so urgent that they contacted you?’
‘It came from a politician. An MEP.’
‘Let me guess,’ Vera said. ‘Paul Rutherford.’ Joanna’s ex-husband.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Joe Ashworth knocked on Nina Backworth’s door and waited to be invited in. She’d been lying on top of the bed and was scrambling upright when he opened the door. He felt as embarrassed as if he’d walked in on her in the shower. He knew she would hate to have her private space invaded.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Were you trying to get some sleep?’
‘Trying,’ she said. ‘Not very successfully.’ She swung her legs onto the floor. ‘I can make you some tea or coffee, if you’d like. Miranda always made sure the rooms were well stocked.’
‘Better at running this place than she was a writer, you reckon?’
‘Would it be very bitchy if I said she was?’ Nina had gone into the bathroom to fill the kettle and looked round the door to get his answer.
‘You’ve already told us you didn’t think much of her books.’
She plugged in the kettle and switched it on, giving herself time to form a reply. ‘That was while she was still alive. I thought they were pretentious and overwritten. Like poor copies of other people writing literary fiction at the time. But it seems much worse to be rude about her when she’s dead. And perhaps I got her wrong.’
‘I need you to be honest with me,’ Joe said. ‘That’s the most important thing now.’ He sat on the desk chair and watched Nina play with the small cartons of milk and the teabags on strings. Her fingers were very long and white.
‘I haven’t lied to you at all,’ she said. ‘Why would I do that?’
He left the question unanswered. She poured boiling water into a mug and looked at it. ‘How strong do you like it? Do you want to fish it out for yourself?’
‘Last night,’ he said. ‘After Jack Devanney kicked off in the dining room, you went with the others to the lounge to listen to them read their stories.’
‘To the drawing room.’ She corrected him absentmindedly. A teacher correcting a bairn’s grammar. ‘Yes, I didn’t think I could get out of it.’
‘Did they all read from their own work?’
‘I didn’t,’ she said. ‘Inspector Stanhope has already asked me that. I couldn’t face it, after the scene over dinner. It just seemed like a sham. Whoever set up the scene on the terrace must have looked at my notes without my realizing.’
Joe saw she was blaming herself for Miranda’s death; somehow she felt she had made it happen by imagining the crime scene and writing it down. Like a bizarre kind of magic.
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ he said.
‘It feels as if it is. I was writing for entertainment. A bit of fun. I didn’t expect my story to be brought to life.’ She fished in her pocket for a tissue.
‘At the moment I’m more interested in the others.’ Joe kept his voice low and leaned towards her. ‘For example, you said Miranda read from her own work last night.’
‘Yes!’ Nina’s eyes were feverish and Joe thought she needed to get away from this place. She’d have some sort of breakdown if she was locked in here for much longer. ‘Miranda did read. I wasn’t taking much notice. I was very tired and I kept looking at my watch, hoping that it would be over soon. All the students had done their pieces and I thought: Hurrah! At last! I can escape to my room. And then Miranda stood up and my heart sank. But it was good. The writing, I mean. Only a couple of paragraphs, but so good that I even wondered if she’d written it. I thought she might have stolen it. We all hope that we’ll get better as we practise, but this was so different from her published novels that I couldn’t believe it came from the same person.’
‘What was it about?’ Joe wondered briefly if stealing fiction was a crime in the technical sense. There’d be copyright law, but surely that would be a civil matter.
It took Nina a while to answer. ‘I’m not sure what it was about,’ she said. ‘Not really. You can see for yourself. She left her reading copy in the drawing room and I picked it up. She’d have it saved on her PC of course, but she’d probably want it back. You can’t be too careful about copyright.’
Nina got to her feet and fetched a sheet of paper from a drawer. It was A4, double-spaced, and still the writing only covered three quarters of the paper. Although Joe could have read the words for himself, Nina continued describing them. He thought it was the teacher in her.
‘Miranda described a woman walking into an empty house. No furniture except one kitchen chair. There was little background or context. We didn’t know who had lived there before or why the writer was there, but in a few words she managed to conjure up such a sense of bleakness. Despair. Just by following the woman as she opened the door and walked inside.’
‘How did the group react?’
‘It was astonishing. Miranda made everybody forget Jack Devanney’s tantrum in the dining room. The first couple of sentences hooked us in. And from then we were completely silent. Listening.’ Nina paused. ‘Partly it was shock, I think. We hadn’t expected her to come up with anything so moving. When she finished there was a moment of complete quiet and then somebody said: Come on, Miranda, read some more. You’ve got to tell us what happens next. But she just shook her head and said goodnight to everyone. People started to clap. I went to bed.’
Joe tried to picture the scene. The residents were all tired and this was their last night. Jack had disrupted the meal. Everyone had had his or her few minutes in the spotlight, and tried to be generous when the others had theirs. Then the dumpy, middleaged woman had begun to read and had immediately grabbed their attention. Another bizarre kind of magic.
‘Who asked Mrs Barton to carry on reading?’
Nina looked at him strangely, as if the question could have no relevance. ‘It was Joanna.’
‘I thought she, Jack and Giles Rickard were on the terrace while the reading were going on.’ Vera had told Joe she’d seen the three of them outside.
‘So they were at the beginning. But they came into the drawing room later.’ Nina gave a little smile. ‘Joanna handled it very well. Jack here’s sorry for being a prat.’ Nina spoke using Joanna’s grand voice. If he’d had his eyes shut, Joe thought he wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart. Nina continued, as herself this time: ‘Then Jack gave a little bow. You could imagine him as a performer of sorts. He reminded me of a circus ringleader. By then we’d all had a lot to drink and we were willing to be forgiving. Both Joanna and Jack listened to the other readers and stayed until the party broke up.’
‘Did Miranda read more of her work?’
‘No,’ Nina said, ‘and that surprised me. I always thought she loved being the centre of attention.’
‘What about Giles Rickard?’ Joe asked. ‘Was he there?’
‘Mr Rickard didn’t come in with Joanna and Jack,’ Nina said. She stood up and walked to the window. Joe thought she was playing the evening before in her mind like a film, as he’d done earlier. ‘But he must have slipped in quietly at some point later, because he was there while Miranda was reading. He went up to speak to her. I presumed he was congratulating her on the work. It seemed a kind thing to do. He’s something of a celebrity and it would have meant a lot to her.’
They looked at each other. Joe pictured Miranda Barton flushed with pleasure at the response to her work. Perhaps she’d see the m
oment as a new start to her career. A few hours later she’d be dead.
‘Did you know that Mrs Barton was still writing?’ Joe asked. ‘It’s ten years since she’s had anything published. You’d think she’d have given up.’
‘I don’t think writers ever really give up,’ Nina said. ‘But I didn’t know she was writing seriously. We weren’t close in any way. She wouldn’t have confided in me. She left the paper she was reading from in the drawing room. I picked it up to give back to her. Now she won’t have the opportunity to finish her story. Would you like it?’
He took it from her. It would be something to keep Vera happy.
‘The handkerchief that was under the table on the terrace,’ he said. ‘It had a little red heart embroidered in one corner. I don’t suppose you’ve seen anything like that while you’ve been here?’
She shook her head.
‘Aye, well, worth a try.’ He put the magazine article in its plastic bag onto the dressing table. ‘Would you mind looking at this? Does it mean anything to you?’
She looked at it and he thought there was a moment of recognition. ‘Nothing beyond the obvious,’ she said. ‘Miranda obviously tried to cash in on the publicity for the television film. I don’t remember seeing the article.’
‘Nothing else?’ Something about the way she stared at the photo made him think there was more on her mind.
‘I remember seeing her around St Ursula’s occasionally when I was there,’ she said. ‘I’d forgotten how attractive she was in those days. Like a different woman.’
He turned to go.
‘When can I leave?’ she cried suddenly. ‘When can I go home?’
He paused at the door. Bugger Vera, the woman was in pieces. ‘Have you got your own car?’
She nodded.
‘Go now then,’ he said. ‘We’ve taken your statement and we know where to find you. I’ll tell the guys on the gate you’re free to leave.’
She smiled and for an instant he thought she would take him in her arms and kiss him. Walking down the stairs to meet Vera, he found himself trembling at the idea.
* * *
Vera reacted remarkably well to the news that he’d sent Nina Backworth home. There was a poke in the ribs. ‘Eh, Joey, you’ve always been a soft touch when it comes to a pretty lassie. Though I wouldn’t have put her down as your type.’ But it was all good-humoured. There was no edge to it. She was preoccupied by the prospect of her meeting with Paul Rutherford.
‘You’re going all the way down to London just to chat to Joanna’s ex?’ Not hiding the disbelief. The disapproval. He thought Vera had her own agenda here. How could she be objective, interviewing the man who’d beaten up her neighbour? Her friend.
‘No need, bonny lad. He’s coming to see me. The mountain to Mohammed. Well, he claims he had a meeting in Newcastle anyway. I’m not so sure.’
‘What do you want me to do now?’ He could tell there was no point in trying to persuade Vera against the meeting. Through the kitchen window he saw Nina Backworth walk across the yard towards the car park. She had a little suitcase on wheels that juddered over the cobbles. It was red, the same colour as her lipstick.
‘Get off to the Coquet Hotel and see how Holly and Charlie are getting on with the statements.’
‘What will I do with the residents, once the statements are taken?’
‘Send them home,’ Vera said. ‘We can’t have one rule for Nina Backworth and one for the rest of the party.’
* * *
The Coquet Hotel in Seahouses had been built in the Seventies when there were still pits and shipyards, and the Northumberland coast had seemed an exciting place for Scottish workers to come for their holidays. Joe had been taken to the hotel once by his nana. She’d dragged him along on an over-sixties coach trip one summer, when he was off school, and he’d complained of being bored. Even to a seven-year-old the place had looked shabby. They’d had afternoon tea in the lounge after being shown round Bamburgh Castle. He remembered a knickerbocker glory so tall that his spoon wouldn’t reach the bottom of the glass. His nana had complained that the scones were hard. In the coach on the way home she’d pulled off her shoes, and her feet were swollen to twice their normal size, her toes all twisted and bent.
‘Never grow old, Joe lad,’ she’d said, though she hadn’t seemed upset and she’d joined in the singing of ‘Ten Green Bottles’ all the way back to Blyth. She’d never been able to carry a tune, and he’d stared out of the window pretending she had nothing to do with him.
The hotel was on the edge of town looking down over the harbour. It had been painted recently, so the stained concrete of his memory was a clean, bright white. But closer to, you could tell that it hadn’t been well done. The paint of the fascia boards had leached into the white walls. The last throw of the dice, Joe reckoned, before the owner gave up. There were empty hotels all along the coast.
The Writers’ House party was sitting in a lounge that reminded Joe of somewhere institutional. An old folks’ home or a doctors’ waiting room. Upright chairs set around the wall. There were huge picture windows and the sunlight showed the streaks of salt on the glass outside. He thought they probably hadn’t been cleaned since the gales at the beginning of September. The room was big enough for Holly and Charlie to have set up camp at one end and not be overheard by the people at the other. There were empty cups, screwed-up napkins and on low coffee tables a couple of trays with a few sad remaining sandwiches. Lunch had been provided then. Joe wondered if that had come out of Vera’s budget.
When he pushed open the door they all looked at him. Even Charlie and Holly. And stared, as if he was an exhibit in a zoo. The detective sergeant, a strange and alien specimen. Did they expect him to bite or scratch? He must be tired. His mind was working in peculiar ways.
‘Everyone who has already given a statement can go home,’ he said. ‘We’ll provide lifts back to the Writers’ House so that you can pick up your cars. We’re sorry to have inconvenienced you. If you wait outside, a minibus should be here in a few minutes.’ He’d expected cheers of jubilation but they all seemed subdued and there was little response. They gathered up bags and started to wander out. Joanna and Jack were last to leave. Joanna had her arm around Jack’s shoulder, a protective gesture. You’d have thought he was the one who’d been accused of murder.
It seemed that Holly and Charlie only had Lenny Thomas and Mark Winterton still to interview. The men sat at opposite sides of the room. Lenny grinned and shrugged and moved closer to the ex-policeman. ‘And then there were two, eh, Mark?’ He waved at Joe to show there were no hard feelings. As he joined his colleagues and began to read through the witness statements, Joe heard Lenny’s voice in the background, asking questions about crime scenes and procedure, and Mark’s patient replies. Tired and strung-out, he thought the muttered voices sounded like waves on shingle, and he remembered again his earlier encounter with Nina Backworth. It came to him that he had her home address and that he might find an excuse for going to visit her.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Joe Ashworth turned to his colleagues. ‘So everybody went to bed once the party had broken up, and no one saw or heard anything,’ he said. He kept his voice low, but Lenny and Mark were still deep in conversation at the other end of the room and were taking no notice of them. He looked at Holly and Charlie and waited for an answer.
‘Pretty much,’ Charlie said. ‘Jack got up in the middle of the night for a piss and thought he heard music. The Beatles’ album Sergeant Pepper.’
‘What time was that?’
‘About two in the morning. Does it really matter?’
‘It shows someone was still up. A possible witness.’
‘If you think you can believe anything that man says.’ Charlie rolled his eyes.
Holly jumped in. ‘And they all thought Miranda Barton was a wonderful woman, and nobody had met her before this week.’
‘Not even Giles Rickard?’ Joe Ashworth asked. ‘They were writing
at the same time.’
‘Different sort of material, apparently. She was considered a literary novelist. He wrote detective stories. They’d have no reason to bump into each other.’ Holly paused. ‘And nobody can remember seeing a handkerchief with a red heart in the corner.’
‘You need to have a word with the boss,’ Charlie broke in angrily. It seemed to Joe that he hadn’t even been listening to this last exchange. He got that way sometimes, for no reason. Since his wife had run off there were times when he was angry at the whole world.
‘What about?’ Joe said, though he could guess.
‘She’s making a fool of herself over those hippies.’ Joe thought Charlie had eaten lunch too. Tuna sandwiches, from the smell of his breath. ‘It’s obvious that they’re behind it all. The woman’s tried to kill before, and the bloke’s as mad as a snake. Sergeant Pepper! And look at the way he stormed into the place last night, shouting the odds.’
‘Everyone says that he calmed down and apologized before the end of the evening.’ Joe didn’t know why he was standing up for the hippies. Because Vera didn’t think they were behind the murders? Is that what he’d become? Vera Stanhope’s representative on Earth?
‘Doesn’t mean the chap still didn’t have murder on his mind.’ Charlie was chuntering just loud enough for Joe to hear him.
Joe thought if they didn’t get on with the next two interviews they’d be here all day, and the hotel, with its Seventies colour scheme and his nana’s ghost, was already freaking him out.
‘Why don’t you get off, Charlie?’ he said. ‘I can sit in with Holly for these. It won’t take three of us.’
Charlie brightened. ‘I’ve arranged to go over to Carlisle tonight to have a beer with my mate. The one who worked with Winterton. Despite what the boss says, I don’t see why I should do it in my own time.’
