Darkness & Light: A Frank Elder Mystery (Frank Elder Mysteries)

by John Harvey

  “Katherine not coming?” Elder said, crossing to meet her.

  “She had lectures,” Joanne said, then shook her head. “She didn’t want to.”

  Death, Elder thought, still a bit too close to her for comfort.

  He and Joanne sat together, listening as the clergyman spoke in a soft Irish voice of Claire’s life as a wife and mother, her quiet devotion, the unstinting, uncomplaining way she had nursed a loved and loving husband. Then Jennie herself spoke with affection about the childhood she and Claire had shared and the way in which Claire, as the older sister, had looked after her when the need was there. More like a mother than a sister.

  “Perhaps the saddest thing for me,” Jennie said, finally, “is that after half a lifetime spent looking after others, Claire was just beginning to forge a life for herself when that life was taken away.”

  Throughout the hymn that followed, Jane Meecham’s tears were brittle and loud.

  Elder’s thoughts drifted to his own parents’ funerals, his mother cremated as she had wished, but his father buried in hard, cold ground. A granite headstone marked the grave. A plot Elder visited seldom and never without feelings of grief and regret: things he had said, things he had thought but left unspoken.

  His father’s coffin had been closed, the dead separated already from the living, screwed down safely beneath expensively bought and burnished wood.

  Better that way?

  When he was still only a child—eleven? twelve?—his mother had taken his hand and led him into the heavily curtained front room—the parlour—of his grandmother’s house, where the older woman lay, eyes closed, in an open coffin. He remembered staring down at her empty face, noticing the way her lips puckered in as if drawn together by an unseen thread.

  When he didn’t think his mother was looking, he had touched a finger against his grandmother’s cheek and immediately pulled it back, the tip white from the powder dusting her face.

  “Say goodbye to your gran, now,” his mother had said. And then, “You can kiss her if you want.”

  Elder hadn’t wanted.

  Unable to get back to sleep this morning, in the early hours he had read the scene toward the end of Sons and Lovers, in which Paul Morel gazes down, by the light of a single candle, at his dead mother as she lies on her bed, waiting for the undertaker to come. The sweep of the sheet—what does Lawrence say?—like a clean curve of snow. And the mother, to Paul’s eyes, young again and beautiful, as if a kiss might wake her: a fairy tale that, when he did kiss her, was shattered by the unforgiving coldness of her mouth.

  Kiss her if you want

  Elder’s mind ran back to Claire Meecham as she had been when first he’d seen her, her body laid out at the centre of the bed, her own bed, her clothes arranged just so, her hair neatly brushed and combed.

  Laid out.

  Joanne nudged him and he bowed his head for the final prayer.

  HE LEFT A MESSAGE ON ANNA INGRAM’S ANSWERPHONE, but she failed to call him back. At six-thirty he assumed she might be home from work and looked up her number in the directory. It seemed to ring for a long time and he thought she wasn’t going to answer, but then she did.

  Apologizing for disturbing her, Elder asked if they could talk.

  This evening?

  This evening.

  He found the house without difficulty, set back, as most of those houses were, a little way from the road behind blackening stone walls overhung with greenery. The house itself seemed a little tatty round the edges, in need of some exterior repair. A number of small squares of tile were missing from the path leading up to the door. The large circular bell push, fatter than his thumb, looked to have been there since the house was built, well over a hundred years ago; Elder wondered if it still worked, yet it did. From the suddenness with which Anna Ingram appeared, he thought, in all probability she’d seen him approach and had been waiting in the hall.

  The second-floor living room was spacious and tall, framed posters and what Elder took for original paintings on the walls. A large bookcase that sagged a little under the weight of its load. Velvet curtains that, here and there, had faded. A deep red carpet on the floor.

  “I was just having a glass of wine,” Anna said. “Nothing special, but if you’d care to join me.” She laughed nervously. “I suppose it depends on just how official this is.”

  “A glass of wine would be nice,” Elder said.

  Eschewing the old-fashioned settee with no support at one end, he chose an armchair that proved less comfortable than it looked.

  The wine was pale and slightly sharp and he sipped it and set it aside. Anna Ingram fidgeted with one of the small pearl buttons on the sleeve of her blouse.

  “Vincent Blaine and his mother,” Elder said. “I was just wondering if there’s anything else you can tell me.”

  Anna looked surprised. “I don’t know,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “I really don’t know that there is. I don’t know what kind of thing you mean.”

  “You implied there was some kind of tension between them.”

  “Well, yes, there is a little now, this last year or so, ever since he agreed to take her back out of the nursing home...”

  “And that’s because of what? The expense?”

  “That’s part of it, certainly. That and the worry. Finding anyone qualified who’ll stay for any length of time isn’t easy. His mother’s moods can vary a great deal and sometimes she can be very rude indeed. People won’t stand for it, being spoken to that way; they leave. And at nighttime often all Vincent can get are slips of girls without any real training who try to smuggle their boyfriends in whenever they can.”

  “And the responsibility for this, it’s all Vincent’s? There are no brothers or sisters?”

  Anna shook her head.

  “It seems a shame,” Elder said, “he can’t persuade her to go back into some kind of care.”

  “Vincent and his mother...” Anna smiled. “She’s the one person he can’t bully or cajole or shame into doing what he wants. A real old-fashioned matriarch, that’s Margaret. Too used to having her own way. But if I ever dare to say as much as a single word against her...”

  Anna sipped some wine.

  “When they moved,” Elder said, “from Dorset up to Derbyshire, was that after his father died?”

  “Not straight after. I don’t think so. No, in fact, I’m sure of it. Vincent’s father died when he was only three—a car accident. He scarcely seems to have any memory of him at all.”

  “And they moved, I think you said, when Vincent was ten or so?”

  “Yes, ten or eleven. But why? Why do you want to know all this?”

  “You know what it was,” Elder went on, sidestepping her question, “that caused them to move?”

  Anna shifted in her chair. “Not really, no.”

  “Something to do with his mother’s work, perhaps? I assume she worked. Or maybe at the time she thought she’d sell the place in Dorset for some reason? Move right away.”

  Anna shifted again, unsettled by Elder’s gaze. “I think... I think... Vincent said something once... 1 think perhaps it had something to do with the school. Vincent’s school.”

  “What? It wasn’t good enough? Poor results, that the kind of thing?”

  “No, I think Vincent... he’d been in some kind of trouble...”

  “Trouble?”

  “Yes.”

  “He doesn’t seem like the kind.” Elder smiled. “Unless it was for knowing more than the teachers, that is. Taking over the class.”

  Anna smiled back. “He was always bright, of course. I think that may have been part of the trouble. You know, he got bored, misbehaved, children do. Maybe he was trying to get noticed, get attention, I don’t know, I’m only guessing.”

  “Do you know what kinds of things he did?”

  “Not really.” Anna reached for her glass of wine. “You’ve got to understand, it’s not something we’ve talked about a great deal. Hardly at all.” Sh
e laughed. “Being excluded from school—not exactly one of the high points of Vincent’s illustrious academic career.”

  “He was actually excluded? Suspended?”

  “For a while. I don’t know how long, but not long. I think it was a gesture as much as anything else. To convince his mother the problems were serious.”

  “And that’s why they moved? A new school somewhere else?”

  “Not immediately. Vincent was referred for some kind of treatment, therapy. He really won’t talk about it. But it went on for quite a while, I think. The best part of a year?”

  “It didn’t work then, the therapy?”

  “Who’s to say? As far as I know, he didn’t get into trouble later on, after they’d moved, so perhaps it did. Or maybe it was just the change of school, who knows?”

  Elder leaned back in his chair. “My daughter,” he said, “Katherine, when we moved up to Nottingham at first, she was just about to change schools anyway, junior to secondary, but at least in London she’d have been moving up with a lot of her friends, whereas here...” He leaned forward again and lifted his glass from the floor. “We practically had to carry her to school the first week or so; it took her ages to settle in. Ages.”

  “But she did in the end?”

  “Yes. In the end it was fine.”

  “It’s difficult, things like that. When you’re young. Changes. For some people it can be really traumatic.”

  Elder nodded. “I think that’s right.”

  “Can I offer you a refill?” Anna said, nodding toward his glass.

  “No. No thanks. It was very nice, but I’d better not.”

  “Just as you wish.”

  Five minutes of inconsequential chat and she was escorting him back downstairs.

  Chapter 37

  AT AROUND THE SAME TIME THAT ELDER WAS GETTING himself ready to attend Claire Meecham’s funeral, Lewis Reardon was strutting around in a sharp suit, loud shirt, and spotted tie, exchanging high fives up and down the Force Crime Detectorate building: the rat, as someone observed, that’d gotten the cream. Not exactly flavour of the month with everyone, Reardon, since he’d piggybacked his way over several others on his way to promotion, though, as even his detractors grudgingly admitted, one way or another the bastard got results.

  “Maureen, thanks for the help, yeah?”

  Maureen Prior, who’d helped, in her estimation, little if at all, shook the proffered hand. Pumped up as he was, even Reardon realized she wasn’t about to join him in a high five.

  “All the forensics in, then?” Prior said. “Signed and sealed?”

  “Got him on tape, haven’t we? That’s what matters. Pleading to it, the whole fucking works. Begging for forgiveness at the same time. Pathetic bastard!”

  “You’ve charged him then?”

  “Bet your fucking life.”

  There was spittle, damp, round Reardon’s mouth, reddening the small cut where he’d nicked himself shaving.

  “You’ll be down at the pub,” Reardon said, more of a statement than a question. “Later.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Come on, get yourself legless for once. Never know...” Reardon winked, “you might pull if you’re lucky.”

  THERE WERE THREE CALLS FROM BEN LEONARD ON HER cell, and when Prior arrived back at her own office she half-expected him to be waiting to ambush her in the lobby.

  Instead, it was Wayne Johns.

  Johns, just outside the building and looking as if he’d come straight from the gym. “This where I make a complaint?” he asked with a cocky grin. “Spying, defamation of character, that sort of thing?”

  “No,” Prior said, “that would be County Police headquarters. Make an appointment first, if I were you.”

  She made as if to walk past him, but Johns shifted position and blocked her path.

  “Get out of my way,” Prior said.

  Still grinning, Johns stayed where he was.

  “Get out of my fucking way.”

  “Naughty, naughty.”

  The grin had become a leer. Prior’s hand had formed into a fist.

  “Sending that mate of yours off down to Barcelona,” Johns said, “sniffing round. Seeing what bits of dirt he could dredge up. You didn’t think I’d get to know about that?”

  Prior said nothing.

  “Little birdie tipped me the warning,” Johns said. “Abrogation of my human rights, that’s what I’ve been told. Slap-on-the-wrist-time from your chief constable at the very least, once my lawyer gets on it. Lucky to hang onto your job.”

  “Look,” Prior said, “you’re not funny, and you’re wasting my time.”

  “Funny? No, I’m not being funny. This is serious, yeah? Barcelona, that’s not the half of it. Going round my customers, seeing what you can dig up. Old girlfriends. Neighbours. Stirring up trouble, talking to people who might have a grudge. All behind my back. You want to know anything about me, you come straight to me, right?”

  “For the last time,” Prior said, “get out of my way.”

  “You know what?” Johns said, moving closer. “You get a real glow on you when you’re riled. Attractive that. Makes me think we could get a little thing going, me and you—’less, of course...” he laughed, “you’re tied up already.”

  Prior brought her right leg up fast and hard and Johns gasped and staggered back, hands clutching between his legs.

  “What’s the matter?” Prior said. “I thought you got off on a little pain? Or is it just when you’re handing it out?”

  “You bitch,” Johns said through gritted teeth.

  “You got that right,” Prior said.

  FOR THE REST OF THE DAY, SHE FELT A WHOLE LOT better. Better enough that, come four o’clock, she returned Ben Leonard’s call.

  “Thanks for getting back to me,” Leonard said. “Can we meet and talk?”

  “We can talk now.”

  “This is important.”

  “Then say what you have to say.”

  There was a sigh of exasperation at the other end of the line. Then, “Richard Dowland, it doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Go on.”

  “I’ve been talking to him, once, twice a week. All that stuff he’s got going round in his head, that’s where it is, where it stays. Like I said before, it’s all fantasy. Pure fantasy.”

  “Not so pure.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “And you know what I’m going to say, the same as I did when we had this conversation last—what he did to Eve Ward wasn’t fantasy. If you don’t want to believe that, maybe you should talk to her instead of him.”

  “You’re convinced then, is that what you’re saying? The murder the other night—he was responsible for that?”

  “I’m not saying anything.”

  “Because I don’t think you believe it, any more than I do.”

  “Don’t tell me what I believe.”

  Prior held the phone away from her ear for a moment and looked across the room. Officers with heads bent over sheets of paper, the now eternal filling in of forms, or peering at the small print on their computer screens, scrolling up or down. The number of cases the unit was dealing with increasing daily, hourly it sometimes seemed, the number that got solved, sorted, resolved, diminishing to the same degree. Bernard Young had been banging on in his office the other morning: “What I need’s a result, a nice fat headline-snagging result, something that will get the ACC feeling good about himself, take the vultures off the chief constable’s back, and give the press department something to scream about. And if you can’t give it to me, God’ll bless whoever will.”

  “You’ve talked to Tom Whitemore,” she said to Leonard, “like I suggested?”

  “He told me it’s out of his hands; there’s nothing he can do.”

  “There’s your answer then.”

  Leonard cursed softly at the other end of the phone. “Jesus, Maureen, come on. I don’t believe you’re just going to sit there and let this farc
e go ahead.”

  “It’s not my case. Not my call.”

  “It’s the rest of a man’s fucking life.”

  “Ben, Ben, if it’s wrong, if it’s not safe, that’ll become clear.”

  “When?” Leonard scoffed. “Like that poor sod got released a few weeks back? After ten or more years inside?”

  “There’s a call on the other line,” Prior said. “I’ve got to go.”

  Breaking the connection, she leaned back into the relative silence.

  AWARE HER ABSENCE WOULD BE NOTED, PRIOR SHOWED her face at Lewis Reardon’s party, having first persuaded Elder to join her. Just a quick one, Frank, two at most. Now it was her turn to get them in, and, flushed with the afterglow of a successful result and a succession of single malts, Bernard Young kept her talking at the bar. Behind them, in the far room, karaoke was in full swing, Reardon up on the small stage and giving his best Elvis, chest puffed out, shirt front undone, “Suspicious Minds.”

  “Dowland,” Elder said, once Prior had finally sat back down. “What do you think?”

  “Don’t you start.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s none of our business, right? Somebody else’s concern, not ours.”

  Elder shrugged and lifted his glass.

  Reardon, hips gyrating, sweat falling off him, had switched to “Jailhouse Rock.”

  Earlier, Elder had taken a quick look at the postmortem report: the pressure exerted on Lorraine Carne’s neck when it was twisted to one side had been sufficient to snap several vertebrae. Did Dowland, even worked up as he would have been, have that kind of strength?

  “I’d like you to run a couple of checks for me, Maureen, if you would,” Elder said. “A couple of favours you might call in.”

  Reardon, on his way back from the Gents and less than steady on his pins, intercepted Elder later. “Frank, Frank...” throwing his arm round Elder’s shoulders, “didn’t expect to see you here, don’t know why.”