by John Harvey
“You saw what he was like,” Leonard said. “Something like this, you can’t believe he was responsible.”
“He’s done it before.”
“That was a one-off.”
“That’s what you believe?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
“I don’t see how you can be so sure.”
“Look, someone like Dowland, it’s all up here.” Leonard tapped the side of his head. “Fantasy. Okay, he’ll watch, if he can. Get close. But where it plays out, it’s in his head. Whatever happened with Eve Ward, whatever triggered him off, in part that was down to the fact that he knew her, he’d been with her before. In his mind, they had some kind of relationship. Lover, mother, whatever. Ask me, that’s why he reacted as extremely as he did when she turned on him, why he snapped.”
“I still don’t see why that couldn’t happen again.”
“This woman,” Leonard said, “Richard didn’t know her, did he?”
“We don’t know that.”
“You ought to. Somebody ought to.”
Prior shook her head again and sighed. “You’re talking to the wrong person. Lewis Reardon, he’s the SIO. Talk to him. Or Tom Whitemore, you know him after all.”
Leonard looked at her; drew a breath. “Okay. I’ll talk to Tom.”
The conversation was over but neither of them moved.
“The other night...” Leonard began.
“Don’t...”
“The other night... I really should learn to bite my tongue. I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does. To me.” He grinned, the tension broken. “I was having a pretty nice time...”
“Well, thanks.”
“I enjoyed your company.”
“I can’t think why.”
Leonard smiled. “You want me to count the ways? All right. You’re your own person, that’s one. That’s important. You’re dedicated to your job, I like that, too. I like talking to you. It’s hard work sometimes, but that’s okay. I don’t mind that. I’m used to it, you could say. And you’re attractive.” He laughed. “I think you do your best to hide it sometimes, but it’s true.”
Prior was shaking her head. “You know what?”
“What?”
“You’re full of shit.”
Leonard clung to his smile. “So are we all.”
“Yes, well, I’ve got enough shit of my own, thanks very much. I don’t need somebody else’s.”
“Sometimes it helps.”
Prior’s mouth set in a line before she spoke. “I don’t want analyzing, Ben. That’s not who I am. A prospective client, is that what you call them these days? A customer? Someone to be analyzed and saved and, okay, if you can screw them on the side, that’s a bonus.”
“Maureen, listen. That’s not...”
“Because I’ve been analyzed. Five years of it. More. And, as for me, it was all a waste of space and time and I’m not about to go down that road again. I’m not going to get even close. Is that clear?”
“Yes, I suppose...”
“Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now what I suggest you do, you’re really worried about Dowland, get in touch with Tom Whitemore ASAP.”
“Okay,” Leonard said quietly. “I’ll do that. Thanks.”
Once he’d left, Prior went to the Ladies and locked herself in one of the cubicles so that no one could see her tears.
AFTER SEVERAL HOURS OF INDECISION, ANNA INGRAM phoned Elder and left a message on his cell. Fifteen minutes later, he called her back. “Last night’s murder, you said you might have some information.”
“It may not be anything,” Anna said, “but when I heard about what had happened on the radio...”
“Where are you now?”
“At work. At the castle.”
“Okay, I’ll come to you.”
“You’re sure? Because I can always...”
“No. Give me half an hour. I’ll be there.”
Elder broke the connection and dialled Maureen Prior’s number. “I’ve just had a call from Anna Ingram...”
“Blaine’s friend?”
“That’s right. She says she’s got some information about last night.”
“You passed her on to Reardon?”
“I thought I’d go and talk to her myself. Only thing, I don’t want Reardon to think I’m going behind his back, poking my nose in.”
“I shouldn’t worry. He’s busy sweating Dowland. But I’ll make sure he knows what you’re doing. Anything pertinent, you’ll pass it on?”
“First thing.”
ANNA INGRAM’S OFFICE, WHICH SHE SHARED WITH TWO others, was at the top of several flights of winding stairs and along a high, narrow corridor. When finally you arrived, the panelled door opened on to a good-sized room with ornate plasterwork in need of some significant repair. In one corner, a bucket stood ready to catch the drips which came quite liberally through the roof whenever the wind drove the rain in the wrong direction. A large vase of dried flowers stood at the centre of a tiled fireplace. Exhibition posters hid any suggestion of damp on the walls.
Anna was wearing the same purple skirt as when Elder had last seen her, this time with a loose-sleeved lavender top; her red hair had been allowed to fall, long, to her shoulders.
One of her colleagues was down in London, a meeting at the Hayward; the other, at Anna’s request, was enjoying a longer-than-usual coffee break in the cafeteria.
“I hope this isn’t going to be a waste of your time,” she said, shaking Elder’s hand.
“I doubt that,” Elder said, and smiled.
From where he sat, partly facing the window, he could see strips of pale cloud straggling across the sky.
Anna fidgeted with some pencils on her desk before beginning, her voice unusually hesitant. “What it was,” she said, “something happened the other evening. Monday. I wasn’t going to say anything about it, report it or anything, but then after what happened...”
Breaking off, she looked at Elder uncertainly.
“Go on,” he said.
“Well, I was out walking, where I live, Mapperley Park. It was quite late, I suppose. Half past eleven, perhaps. I’d just come back from seeing Vincent, and there’d been a bit of a row. I felt I needed to clear my head.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It was when I was walking up toward the Woodborough Road; I had this feeling—I don’t know—not that I was being followed exactly, but that someone was watching me. Silly, really. I mean, I looked around and there didn’t seem to be anyone there. All the same, I got sort of spooked, and then I thought I heard this sound, behind me, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw something moving—farther back along the street, but close, quite close, behind this doorway, and when I looked—maybe I shouldn’t have, I don’t know, perhaps it was foolhardy—but there was somebody there, staring out. Staring back at me. And I ran. I didn’t think, I just ran.”
“And what happened? He followed you?”
“No. No. I don’t think so. I didn’t see him again. I just ran and ran on down the hill until I bumped into Brian.”
“Brian?”
“Brian Warren. He’s Vincent’s accountant. At least he used to be. Until he retired. They’ve been friends for years.”
“And you bumped into him?”
“Yes. On the corner of Cyprus Road.”
“What was he doing there?”
“He’d been playing bridge. The club where he plays, it’s not far away.”
“So he was what? On his way home?”
“Yes. He’d just walked a friend home first.”
“And then he met you.”
“Yes. You can’t imagine how relieved I was, seeing him. Well, not at first, of course. When he grabbed me...”
“He grabbed you?”
“To stop me crashing into him. I was running full pelt.”
Elder shifted his weight on the chair. “The other man, the one whose fac
e you saw, do you think you’d be able to recognize it again?”
“Oh, yes, I think so.”
“Can you describe him now?”
“I can try.”
“Was he white? Black? Asian?”
“White, definitely white. His face was thin; sallow, I suppose you’d say. Pale. His skin was pale and sort of yellowish, though that could have been the effect of the street light, of course. And he had what looked like a swelling around his eye. His left eye.”
“How about his hair? What colour was his hair?”
“I don’t remember.”
“And how old was he, would you say?”
Anna looked toward the fireplace. “That’s difficult. It was one of those ageless faces. You know, not young, not old.”
“Thirties, forties?”
“Thirty rather than forty, I suppose. I can’t be more definite than that, I’m sorry.”
“You would recognize him, though? You’re certain of that?”
“I think so, yes. It is important, then?”
“It might be.”
“You think he might be the same person who attacked that poor woman?”
“It’s possible.”
Anna shuddered. “Do you know who he is?” she asked. “Do you have any idea who he is?”
“We might.”
She sighed. “I just hate the idea of being frightened; frightened to go outside my own home.”
“I know.”
“And I hate it when all these people go on about how everywhere’s becoming more violent, more dangerous. You know, how you daren’t go into the city centre on a Friday or a Saturday night. If you do go out, be careful not to look anyone directly in the eye, don’t speak to anybody you don’t know. It’s ridiculous. You can’t live like that; I don’t want to live like that. And I’m always telling people it’s not really that bad, you’re exaggerating. But then something happens—that man, for instance, it was in the paper just a few days ago—somewhere innocuous, Nuneaton, I think—he remonstrated with this group of youths who were damaging his sister’s car and they turned on him and killed him. Just like that. Beat him until he was dead. It’s unbelievable. You’d like to think it was unbelievable, but it happened. It’s happening.”
She was shaking a little and there was a suggestion of tears in her eyes. Elder made to go and comfort her, but she waved him away. “It’s all right, I’m all right.”
“Do you want to go and get a cup of coffee or something? Some fresh air?”
Anna smiled. “Now that I have an escort, you mean?”
Elder smiled back. “I’m sure you’ll be safe here.”
Anna pushed back her chair. “If a woman can’t feel safe in her own castle, where can she?”
They walked down past the swathe of lawn and the ornamental flower beds, along the path toward the bandstand, trees on either side.
“So,” Elder said, remembering, “how’s the work on Harold Knight coming along?”
“Oh, slowly. More slowly than it should, I’m afraid. My publisher’s already let me slip past one deadline and now it seems I might have to try and renegotiate another.”
“Your publisher? That’s not Vincent?”
The thought made Anna smile.
“Not his kind of book?” Elder said.
“Not really. Photography, that’s Vincent’s niche. And he does well at it. As well as a small publisher can. But the idea of having yet another way to earn Vincent’s disapproval...” She laughed. “It doesn’t bear thinking about.”
A little way past the bandstand, they stopped and sat on one of the wooden benches. Despite a wavering sun, there was still a clear nip in the air. Anna had slipped a cardigan over her shoulders when she left the office and now she put her arms through the sleeves and buttoned it at the front.
“When we were talking before,” Elder said, “you mentioned something about yourself and Vincent having a row.”
“Oh, yes...” Anna wafted a hand. “It was nothing.”
“But enough to upset you.”
“Did it upset me? I suppose it did, a little.”
“Enough to give you a headache. Send you out of the house to clear your head.”
Anna waited until a slow crocodile of small, blazered children had filed past.
“I can’t even remember what it was about now, what set him off. Nothing probably.” She made a slight sighing sound. “It doesn’t seem to take much nowadays. Mondays especially.”
“Why Mondays?”
“It’s when he goes to see his mother. Margaret. Every Monday without fail. Sometimes other days as well. But Mondays always.”
“And this is in Dorset?”
“Oh, no, Derbyshire.”
“I thought you said something about a family place in Dorset? Maybe I misunderstood?”
“No. That’s right. It’s been in Vincent’s family since, oh, the twenties. Earlier, perhaps. But they moved up to Derbyshire when Vincent was ten or eleven, I think, and that’s where he lived until he went off to university—not that you’d know it to hear him speak. The house in Dorset they kept on for holidays.”
“And Derbyshire’s where his mother still lives?”
“Yes. Quite a way north, between Buxton and Bakewell.”
“His father...?”
“His father died when Vincent was quite young. I suppose that’s one of the reasons why he and Margaret have always been close. Despite everything.”
“What d’you mean?”
“Oh, nothing too unusual, I suppose. She was in a nursing home for a while; she’d been finding it difficult to cope on her own. But she was never really happy there, and somehow Vincent found the money to have her looked after at home. I don’t think it’s been easy for him.”
“Financially, you mean?”
“Not just that. I’ve only met Margaret a few times and she’s not what you’d call an easy woman. That’s my impression, at least.” Anna gave a rueful smile. “Like mother, like son. And what makes it worse, sometimes now I think she hardly recognizes him. Mistakes him for his father, things like that. Babbles on, you know, about the past. When Vincent’s father was still alive. And then at other times she can be completely rational. So Vincent finds it hard; he doesn’t say much, but you can tell. I can tell. So much depends on whether his mother’s had a good day or a bad.”
Elder nodded, thinking that he understood.
“How about you?” Anna said. “Your parents, are they still alive?”
Elder shook his head.
“I’m sorry.”
“You?”
“Oh, yes. My father still plays golf and swims year round. My mother’s on the local church committee and flirts happily and quite openly with the vicar, despite his being married with seven children and that he’s had his right leg amputated below the knee. My not-quite-whole holy toyboy, she calls him. I think she’s paying Daddy back for all the silly little flibbertigibbets he used to fool around with when he was younger.”
They could hear the bell on the roof of the Council House sounding the hour.
“I should go,” Elder said. “I’ve taken enough of your time as it is.”
They walked together toward the Castle gate, and at the point where the path went off in different directions, Anna stopped. “It was nice to see you again,” she said. “Even in circumstances like these.”
Elder looked in her face. “There’s nothing else you want to say to me, is there?”
“What about?”
“I don’t know. Vincent, perhaps?”
She tried to hold his gaze, but failed. “No,” she said. “No, I don’t think so.”
WHEREVER MAUREEN PRIOR WAS, SHE WASN’T AT HER desk, she wasn’t answering her phone, her cell was switched off. At the third attempt, Elder managed to get Lewis Reardon on the line.
“I’ve just been talking to a woman who was frightened by someone up in Mapperley,” Elder said. “Monday night. He was following her; stalking her, I suppose you could
say. Maureen Prior was meant to have told you.”
“I got a message, yes.” Reardon sounded impatient, tired.
“From the description she gave me, I’m pretty sure it was Dowland.”
“She’d ID him?”
“I think so.”
“Okay, thanks. Maybe useful, maybe not.”
“How come?”
“Gould be too late for that,” Reardon said. “Got the okay from above, hold Dowland another twelve hours. Way things are going he’s gonna cough. Nice little confession. Murder of Lorraine Game on a plate. Thanks very much.” Reardon chuckled. “I’ll make sure you get invited to the piss-up, Frank. Help us celebrate.”
Chapter 36
THE CEMETERY WAS ON THE SOUTHERN PERIMETER OF the city, bordered by trees; gravel paths wound between gravestones, carefully tended flower beds, and close-cropped grass. When the trees were in leaf, the crematorium, close by the Garden of Remembrance, was out of sight from the road.
Jennie Preston, wearing a smart black suit and a black hat with a broad brim, was standing with Claire Meecham’s children, greeting guests as they arrived, accepting condolences. Guests? Was that the word?
Claire’s daughter, Jane, was tall and slim, dark haired, stooping a little when she spoke; Claire’s son, James, still feeling the aftereffects of his long flight, was stockier, rounder of face, less than comfortable in a suit borrowed or bought for the occasion.
Elder had spoken to them earlier, done his best to reassure them about the progress of the investigation, without laying out too many false hopes and promises. Jane had looked at him throughout with flinty eyes, disbelieving. James had nodded, smiled, crushed his hand in his, and thanked him for everything he was doing. “Just get the bastard, eh?”
When Elder dipped his head to kiss Jennie’s cheek, he had been startled by the depth of shadow around her eyes. Organ music drifted, faint, from inside the chapel, underscoring the hushed and stilted conversations, the sporadic chatter, and song of birds. Jennie’s partner, Derek, was standing out on the perimeter, silent, smoking a cigarette.
Glancing at his watch several times, Elder thought that Joanne had changed her mind, but then, as people were starting to file inside, she arrived, almost elegant in a long black coat and red shoes, dark glasses with large frames that covered much of her face. There was no sun and scarcely a patch of blue in the sky.
