COVER THE LIES: A TREGUNNA CORNISH CRIME NOVEL

by Carla Vermaat

  I call her office, but a tinny voice explains that she has called in sick that morning. I scribble her address on a slip of paper and take my coat, hoping that Guthrie or Maloney won’t notice me sneaking out.

  A skinny teenager with red spots on a pale face opens the door. An unruly tuft of greasy dark blond hair falls across his forehead almost covering one eye. With sullen grey eyes, he stares at me in the hope that I will dissolve on the doorstep and he can continue with whatever he was doing. Playing on a tablet or mobile phone, probably. As I retrieve my ID card and hold it up for him, his face reddens, his spine stiffens and his eyes shoot from left to right and back, checking if the neighbours are paying attention. Or perhaps he half expects an army of uniformed policemen to appear, just waiting for my sign to storm the building.

  ‘Is it possible to speak to Denise Shaw?’

  ‘Mum’s having a shower.’ His voice comes out in randomly uncontrolled high and low notes.

  ‘I can wait,’ I say gently. Relief appears in his eyes as if he hopes I will wait in my car.

  'Can I come in?’ I suppress a smile. Subtlety seems lost on him.

  ‘Uhm … I dunno.’

  A woman’s voice calls from the dark interior of the house. ‘Jake? Who is it?’

  ‘Police.’

  ‘Oh. Tell them to come back later, will you, darling? I can’t …’

  Bare feet and the lower part of slim legs appear at the top of the staircase, the hem of a faded black bathrobe just covering her knees.

  ‘Jake?’ She sounds hesitant, less confident. Clearly, she can feel the draught from the open front door.

  ‘He’s here, mum.’ The boy sounds as if he knows he’s done something wrong.

  ‘Mrs Shaw? Denise Shaw?’

  She descends the stairs until she can see my face. Her dark hair is wet and hangs on her shoulders in curly wet strands. Eyes matching her son’s in colour and expression, she stares at me, clearly wondering about the best policy to get rid of me. Her eyelids are swollen and her nose is red and wet.

  ‘Is it about …?’ She stops, sniffs. She can’t speak her friend’s name without bursting into tears.

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid I have some more questions, Mrs Shaw. Since your memory is still fresh, it is important that we get as much detail from you as is possible under the circumstances.’

  ‘Oh.’ Tiny drops of water from her hair have gathered on her forehead. She wipes them with the side of one hand.

  ‘Okay, give me a few minutes. Uhm … Jake can make you a coffee?’

  The boy looks less pleased. His mother disappears upstairs and, with a sullen shrug, he steps back and I follow him to an open-plan living room.

  The room is warm and colourful with one wall full of mostly abstract paintings in all kinds of shapes and sizes. Whoever painted them, Denise Shaw must have a preference for bright colours. There is a red leather sofa and two armchairs in a patchwork of red, blue, yellow and black pieces of leather, sewn together with big stitches, scattered with corduroy cushions. In the middle sits a coffee table of dark brown wood with sculpted legs, carved on its top surface and inlaid with ivory. A large, pale wool rug covers the polished wooden floor.

  ‘Coffee?’ Jake offers. ‘We’ve just made some.’ A lopsided grin on his face gives him a completely different personality. ‘Filter coffee. Mum’s got one of those new machines.’

  Upstairs floorboards creak and footsteps can be heard moving about. I sit in one of the armchairs which is as comfortable as it looks and, muttering ‘no milk, no sugar’, I watch Jake into the kitchen area.

  There is a pile of glossy magazines on the floor and a book lies open, upside down. The cover shows a young woman with a veil, leaving only a pair of black eyes that have no expression. The title and the author mean nothing to me.

  Jake returns with two red mugs and a biscuit tin tucked under his arm. Placing my mug on a small table next to me, he puts his furthest away. He opens the tin and offers me a biscuit from a chocolate biscuits selection. I shake my head and he takes a handful of them, not minding which ones. It is obvious where the greasy spots on his face come from.

  He piles them up behind his mug and picks a magazine from the pile. Outdoor Living. He doesn’t open it and stares at the cover that has an abundance of pink flowers surrounding a set of garden furniture that is draped with cushions and blankets in matching colours. It is only then that I notice that there is no TV in the room. And Jake doesn’t appear to be addicted to his mobile phone, as most young people are.

  ‘Is this about Alicia?’ He glares at me.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mum’s pretty upset about it.’

  ‘I understand they were good friends.’

  ‘Yes.’ He opens the magazine randomly, clearly uncomfortable where to put his hands. ‘Have you found the murderer?’

  ‘Not yet. But we will.’

  ‘Mum’s a bit scared. She thinks he might come after her as well.’

  ‘Why does she think that?’ I ask casually.

  ‘Dunno. She thinks she might have seen him when they were out.’

  ‘Do you think she might know him?’

  A small smile creeps over his face. ‘She would have told the police, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘I hope so. Sometimes people withhold information. For no particular reason.’

  ‘Like because she is scared?’

  ‘For example, yes. But some witnesses are just scared because they don’t want to be involved. Like they would rather not go to the police because they might have to give evidence in court.’

  He nods, seriously. ‘Mum’s not like that. She wants Alicia’s murderer locked up in prison.’

  ‘And we will do our best to get him there.’ I pause. ‘Did you know Alicia well?’

  He shrugs with the indifference of his age, not at all interested in the friends of his parents’ generation. ‘A bit. She is … was alright, I guess. I mean, she and mum were good friends.’

  ‘But you didn’t particularly like her?’

  ‘She’s mum’s friend. Was. Not mine.’

  A short silence. In the absence of the all too familiar sounds of a TV, we listen to the silence that is interrupted by his mother moving from one room to the other. Denise Shaw seems to need some time to get ready before she feels able to speak to me.

  ‘Do you know Mrs Poole’s daughter? Briony?’

  ‘She’s younger than me.’ Another statement indicative of his age. A five-year gap is unbridgeable. To him, they are from different generations and it would be embarrassing for him to admit that he is friendly with a 9-year-old girl. ‘She can be awkward,’ he continues after a hesitation. ‘But sometimes … I kind of feel sorry for her.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Sometimes … I thought that Alicia was … unkind to her.’

  I nod, waiting for him to go on.

  ‘Like last summer, when we went on holiday to Portugal. Mum and me and Alicia and Briony. We were on the fourth floor in one of those modern apartments buildings, which wasn’t too bad considering the lifts were never working. It could have been worse; the building was twelve storeys high.’

  ‘You are young, you wouldn’t have a problem with that,’ I say, smiling sympathetically.

  ‘Alicia was complaining about it all the time.’

  ‘I can sympathise with that.’

  He shrugs, uncertain.

  ‘I guess you went out every day? Any places of interest you visited?’

  He pulls a face. ‘Mum and Alicia were only interested in sunbathing and going to the clubs at night. And all Briony wanted was to read her books. Alicia bought her an eReader.’

  ‘So you didn’t enjoy your holiday?’

  ‘I could have, if they’d let me go out on my own.’ He shrugs, anger on his face. ‘I made some friends and it was alright in the daytime, but I could never join them in the evenings, when they met somewhere on the beach or at the swimming pool.’

  ‘How old are you?’


  ‘Nearly fifteen.’ He examines the red coffee mug from every angle. There is something in the way his eyes are avoiding mine that alerts me.

  ‘Most evenings I had to stay in the apartment because Alicia couldn’t leave Briony there on her own. I didn’t really see the point, because she was always reading or watching TV or playing on her mobile phone. I knew she didn’t mind that I went out, but …’ He stops abruptly, his spots blazing on his pink face.

  I hunch forward in my seat. ‘What happened, Jake?’

  ‘Well … I’d better not talk about that. She will never forgive me.’

  ‘Your mother?’

  ‘No. Alicia … oh … sorry.’ His eyes drift to the door. Clearly, he is hoping that his mother will come down to his rescue and he’ll be able to escape.

  ‘Is it something the police should know, Jake? In relation to the investigation? Not in direct relation to her death perhaps, but to help us with a background picture?’

  He picks up his mug and stares into it, regretting his earlier slip of the tongue.

  ‘I don’t know if I should tell you this.’ He hesitates, torn between loyalty and excitement about getting involved somehow, getting noticed, which, at his age, would have made him feel important. I wait. I let him make up his mind. His thoughts are chasing across his face like clouds on a blustery day. He has already made the decision but doesn’t know it himself.

  ‘Well, I guess you’ll discover it anyway.’ He says eventually, lowering his voice as he continues. ‘She was arrested by the Portuguese police when we were on holiday.’

  ‘Arrested? Who?’

  ‘Alicia. Well, she was nearly arrested, but even so.’ He grins. ‘Mum was frantic about it.’ His eyes sparkle, but suddenly his face turns pale, then red, and pale again. Stumbling to his feet, he almost forgets that he's still holding his mug. Coffee spills over his hand and drips on his shoes.

  7

  ‘What was I frantic about, Jake?’

  Her voice cold and sharp-edged, Denise Shaw sizes me up in the doorway, as if she’s not sure whether I’m the person she was expecting to see. She’s wearing black jeans and a yellow turtleneck jumper. Her bare feet slipped into green cotton espadrilles with soles made of straw. Her dark, shoulder-length hair has undergone what PC Ally Poldeen quirkily calls a ‘blow-job’: blown dry by a hairdryer switched onto the highest and hottest level making her hair look like a fuzzy halo. She has applied so much make-up that I can only just see that she’s been crying.

  ‘Mum! I didn’t hear you coming down.’ Jake rises from his seat, realising that what he has just said has really annoyed her. Tugging at the cuffs of his shirt, he seems anxious to get away. He twists around on his heels, trying to find an excuse to leave the room, then he heads for the coffee machine, while Denise turns to me.

  ‘I’ve already spoken to the police. Or is there something else?’

  It is a rather an odd question, almost as if she knows that she’s been holding back some information but she’s not sure what it might be.

  ‘I hope I’m not interfering with your plans, Ms Shaw.’

  ‘No.’ She barely looks at my ID.

  ‘If this is about … Alicia … then it is difficult for me,’ she says defensively, touching her hair with her fingertips that are slightly trembling. Clearly, her cold exterior can’t disguise her shattered inner emotions.

  ‘I have read your statement about what happened last Saturday evening, Ms Shaw, but there are some points I would like you to explain to me. If you don’t mind?’

  She can’t stop her eyes filling with tears. ‘I find it very difficult to talk about it.’

  ‘I appreciate that but we need your help. You were one of the last people who saw … your friend on Saturday night.’

  She nods, accepting the situation, and steadies herself as she lowers herself slowly on the arm rest of the sofa, folding and unfolding her arms and absentmindedly turning a ring round her finger. ‘But I thought …’ Her voice drifts of as if she’s forgotten what she wanted to say.

  ‘I am sorry that you will have to go through all this again, Mrs Shaw. As I said, I have read your statement which is very helpful but now, with more witness statements, we’re able to compare and check everything and …’

  Her eyes flare up in anger. ‘Are you saying I lied?’

  ‘No, no, it’s just that some of your answers have raised additional questions. And it’s just that we’d rather check and double-check than make mistakes or miss something.’

  ‘Okay.’ She opens and closes her hands, unsure whether to leave them on her lap or put them in the pockets of her jeans. She smiles briefly when Jake emerges with a steaming yellow mug of coffee for his mother. He raises his eyebrows in a silent question and she responds by telling him to leave her alone with me. A flicker of doubt and concern crosses his face, but he shrugs and disappears with the biscuit tin tucked under his arm, closing the door behind him with a soft click.

  ‘I’m sure you want us to catch the person who did this to your friend, Ms Shaw,’ I say gently, glancing at my watch. I have a feeling that this visit will take longer than I anticipated and I foresee that I might not be back at the station in time for the next briefing. The report about Kenneth Poole is on Penrose’s desk. If she isn’t back in time, someone will find it there.

  ‘Call me Denise, please, inspector.’ She smiles faintly, but I can see her thoughts are far away. 'How can I help?’

  She runs her tongue over her lips. A speck of red lipstick is stuck to her front tooth.

  ‘I’d like you to tell me everything about last Saturday.’

  ‘Oh.’ She picks up her mug and blows the steam away before recounting what happened on Saturday in a monotone voice. At eight o’clock, she went to the local swimming pool where she swims every morning, then picked up her shopping which she’d ordered online the previous day. Then she came home and had breakfast with her son, and did some house work until Alicia Poole arrived.

  I interrupt her. ‘What time was that?’

  ‘After twelve o’clock. Jake had just popped out to see some friends.’

  ‘Did she arrive in her own car?’

  ‘Yes of course she did.’ For the briefest of moments, amusement lights up in her eyes. ‘Alicia wasn’t particularly sporty. She would never walk a step if she could avoid it.’

  ‘And her car is a VW Beetle?’

  ‘Yes. Light blue with a soft black top.’

  I nod and she continues, creating images of a day in the lives of two friends who know each other well. They had a long chat and laugh in the afternoon, and later, when Jake came home they ordered an Italian takeaway and did each other’s hair and make-up until they went out in the evening. By that time Jake had also gone out again to see another friend to watch horror films in a small cinema in the basement of his friend’s father’s house.

  ‘Everything was normal? Alicia didn’t seem distressed or anxious about anything?

  ‘No. We just had a good time together.’

  Thinking about it and realising that it was the last time she would ever see her best friend, makes her take a deep breath. Fighting tears that seem to have dried for a bit, she stares at me blankly, miles away in her thoughts.

  ‘What time did you go out?’

  ‘About half past nine, I suppose.’

  ‘Did you go by car?’

  ‘Of course, as I said, she would never walk a step if she could avoid it.’

  The set of keys Josh Warren found at the lake’s car park have been identified as Alicia’s by her husband but, as far as I know, the car hasn’t been found yet.

  ‘Where did you park?’

  ‘In the car park opposite the cinema. First we went to the Central Bar. We met a couple of friends there and we had a few drinks before going to some other bars.’

  I can’t recall that she mentioned in her statement that they had met friends in the Central Bar.

  ‘I will need their names.’ I say, almost sounding like an angry
school teacher. ‘That also applies to the bars you went to after you left the Central Bar. Was it normal that you went from one bar to another?’

  She frowns as if something has occurred to her. ‘We do, actually. I mean, we used to. Everyone else does that and it’s good to mix with different friends rather than staying with the same ones all evening.’

  ‘Was there something, that night, that you felt was different?’

  ‘Not really, no.’ She shakes her head thoughtfully. A strand of dark hair falls across one eye and she flicks it away hastily. She looks worried as is she’s afraid she’s missing something.

  ‘We saw each other about once a month. Briony goes to her father every fortnight and we regularly meet and go out on a Saturday night.’

  ‘And you are certain that everything was as it should be? Nothing happened?’

  ‘No, but … well, now that you mention it, there was something, but it’s more of a feeling.’

  ‘Feelings can also be important.’

  ‘At one point Ali was in conversation with a man. I had been to the Ladies and, when I came back, he was sitting at our table. But I bumped into an old school friend and it must have been about ten or fifteen minutes later when I came back to our table. She was alone then but … I knew something was different.’

  ‘The man was gone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did she say anything about him?’

  ‘I asked who he was, but she said it wasn’t a friend. She said it was just someone who had come and pestered but for some reason I thought she was lying. When I saw them together, I thought they were … they seemed to know each other. It wasn’t like he was a good friend, but I could tell that he wasn’t a complete stranger either. You know.’

  ‘Did you get his name?’

  ‘Wouldn’t I have told the police that already?’

  ‘Perhaps, but I’d prefer to ask rather than find out later that certain information is missing because I didn’t ask.’