The Anna McColl Mysteries Box Set 2

by Penny Kline

  ‘At the time of your resignation I expect your congregation had mixed feelings about what had happened,’ I said, then because it sounded as if I had been doing some investigating behind his back: ‘I’m just going on what my father told me. He attended your old church last weekend.’

  ‘Mixed feelings? Oh, I suppose there were some who thought I should have stuck it out, argued my case more vociferously.’

  ‘But you wanted to leave.’ It was a statement, not a question. I was only going on what he had told me the first time we met, but he took it badly.

  ‘Look, I don’t know what you’ve heard, but if you think I’ve been hiding something from you … Oh, I know when people get divorced they often describe the breakdown of the marriage as “amicable”, but in my case, my divorce from the Church, well, it really was. You’re the expert, but I suspect when I wrote the book I was really looking for a way out.’

  We had pulled up outside an Edwardian semi. There was off-road parking for two cars, but one of the spaces had been taken by a green van.

  ‘Each resident has their own small flat,’ said Stephen. ‘Well, it’s more of a room in actual fact, but with a basin, electric kettle, you know the kind of thing. Then there’s a communal room so the mothers can meet up. And a play room, I believe. They’re very lucky.’

  ‘That’s one way of looking at it.’

  He had taken his jacket off the back seat and was searching for something in one of the pockets. I wanted to ask what his flat in Kingsdown was like. After living in a vicarage it must seem odd being confined to a couple of rooms, but compared with the loss of status, and of any real purpose in his life, the change in living accommodation was probably the least of his worries.

  He found what he was looking for and held it up: a velvet caterpillar, joined together in four brightly coloured sections. ‘As you know, I have no children,’ he said, ‘but it doesn’t take too much imagination to realize the problems involved in bringing up a child on your own, especially when the father doesn’t want to know. The baby’s a boy, called Cain. For some obscure reason people seem to like biblical names these days.’

  ‘Yes, so I’ve noticed.’ I was thinking about Sally Luckham’s guinea pigs. Matthew, Esther and Salome, the one her father had given her shortly before he died.

  Stephen had jumped out of the car and pulled open the passenger door. He eyed me a little anxiously, wondering if opening the door for a woman was likely to earn him a harsh rebuke, then gave a small, relieved grin. ‘Look.’ His face was very close to mine. ‘I’m sure you had a better way to spend the evening but this shouldn’t take long.’

  ‘I thought they tracked down fathers these days,’ I said, ‘and deducted money at source.’

  ‘If they know who the father is.’

  ‘Does Clare know?’

  He ignored this, pushing open the wrought-iron gate, then returning to the car to make sure he had locked both doors. ‘I think it’ll be best if I get her to tell you what she told me, in her own words,’ he said. ‘I’m a reasonably good judge of character and I think she’s telling the truth. Besides, what reason would she have to concoct such a story out of the blue? But I’d like to know what you think.’

  ‘Yes, all right but I still don’t understand why she waited six months to tell you.’

  We were standing in the front garden, a square of concrete with a small flower bed in the centre, containing a single standard rose that had finished flowering. At the side of the house, halfway down a narrow path, a white-haired man was up a stepladder, trimming a buddleia. Stephen raised a hand to him, then turned back to me.

  ‘Clare’d had some kind of trouble over her benefit and, in her mind, the benefit people and the police seem to amount to much the same thing. You know, anyone in authority.’

  ‘So what’s happened to make her change her mind?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Look, I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job, but I think we should tread rather carefully, let Clare take the lead.’

  ‘I’m not here to do my job,’ I said. ‘I just want to make sure none of this has any connection with Sally Luckham’s attempted abduction.’

  ‘Or the missing girl. It’s just possible something might come out that would help the police trace Geena Robson.’

  I looked up, surprised he had remembered the name.

  ‘It’s been in and out of the local paper,’ he said, sounding a little too off-hand. ‘Do the police have any new leads? I just keep praying the poor child’s still alive.’

  Was I imagining it, or were his eyes open rather too wide and, when they met mine, was his stare a little too unblinking?

  A thin, dark-haired girl stood by the open front door. She had a baby resting on one hip and she was eating an iced lolly.

  ‘We’ve come to see Clare,’ said Stephen. ‘She’s expecting us.’

  The woman looked at us blankly, then hoisted up the baby and strolled away towards the back of the house. I heard a door slam, then a voice raised in anger. A child started to cry. I thought I heard a slap.

  Stephen bounded up the stairs ahead of me and when I reached the top he was standing outside one of the rooms with his hand poised, ready to knock.

  ‘It’s me, Clare.’ His voice had an irritatingly wheedling tone, the kind some social workers adopt when visiting a less than welcoming client.

  The door opened but no one came out to meet us. I could see a cot in the far corner of the room, with a mobile of rabbits suspended above it, but the baby was lying on his back, on the bed, with one arm flung up above his head and the other half across his face. A voice called: ‘Well, come in if you’re coming,’ and when we stepped inside, a girl wearing a very short skirt with bare legs and feet was draping a wet cot sheet over the back of a chair.

  Stephen started to make introductions, but Clare cut him short. ‘One of you can sit on the end.’ She pointed towards the bed. ‘And the other over there.’

  Stephen shot towards the bed and poised himself uncomfortably on the pillow. I sat on a chair near the window. Clare positioned herself cross-legged on the floor.

  ‘This is Anna,’ said Stephen. ‘You remember, I told you how she’s a psychologist and she’s been talking to Sally Luckham.’

  ‘Best stay up here,’ said Clare. ‘If we go downstairs the others’ll be listening in.’

  ‘Yes, good idea.’ Stephen seemed keyed up, excited, and, from the expression on his face, I had a feeling it was not just because Clare had important information to reveal. She was very attractive. Her ash-blonde hair looked natural, and her eyes were an unusual greeny-grey colour and had thick fair lashes. Her short white top revealed most of her midriff, and she was in the process of arranging her few inches of skirt. Before we arrived she had been painting her toenails. One foot had been completed but the other had three more nails to go and the bottle of pale pink varnish was beside her on the floor.

  ‘All right, Stephen?’ She spread out her legs, crossed her ankles and leaned her back against the wall. ‘So what is it I’m supposed to do? Tell this lady what I saw? Except there’s not that much to tell. Knew Tom, did you? Poor bugger, all those things he did to help people, then he goes and kills himself.’ She noticed my face and laughed, realizing she had made it sound as if Tom Luckham had committed suicide. ‘No, I mean the accident.’

  I nodded and she looked at Stephen. ‘What you told her?’

  ‘Nothing. I was leaving it up to you.’

  ‘Yeah, well, what d’you want to know?’ She was enjoying herself, enjoying being the centre of attention. ‘All I said was the day it happened, the day he died, I saw someone in the passenger seat of Tom’s car.’

  ‘What time was it, Clare?’ Stephen knew the answer but wanted me to listen to Clare’s exact words.

  ‘About ten to eight, bit earlier maybe. I was taking the baby to the nursery, only I’d left early ‘cos he’d been yelling his head off since six and I couldn’t stand the noise.’

  ‘And you saw T
om drive past,’ Stephen prompted.

  ‘Hang on, I haven’t got to that yet. It was starting to rain so I was trying to get my umbrella out of the bag, only one of the spoke things had broken and got all caught up, otherwise I’d never have stopped. It was down the end of the road, not the road I was walking in, the one that goes across. I wouldn’t have noticed except he had that great big car.’

  ‘Old Rover,’ Stephen explained. ‘Go on, Clare.’

  ‘Thing was, he was going that way.’ She waved her arm in a direction that might have indicated south-west. ‘So he was on the other side and the passenger was closest to me.’

  ‘Yes of course,’ said Stephen encouragingly. ‘How much did you see of him, if it was a him?’

  She stood up to check the baby. ‘They mustn’t get too hot — little kids. Not too hot, not too cold, not too fat, not too thin. It was still quite dark, so as I said, I couldn’t see that clearly. Might’ve been one of those blow-up dolls for all I know, except why would Tom want one of them? Never any shortage of females happy to have a lift in his car.’

  Stephen gave a tolerant smile. ‘I thought you mentioned something about a hat or a scarf.’

  ‘Could’ve been. Didn’t see the hair properly, but you don’t see much when a car goes zooming past like that. Unless there’s something out of the ordinary. Dark hair I think it was, only I s’pose it could have been covered up, by the scarf. From a distance Tom’s hair looked like … I mean, it could have been fair hair, not grey, well, some of it still was.’

  ‘Stephen said you’d only remembered all this quite recently,’ I said.

  She frowned. ‘Never said that. Just didn’t seem all that important. Like I said, people often had a lift in Tom’s car.’

  The baby was making sucking noises. She picked him up and handed him to Stephen, then sat on the floor again and started screwing the top back on the bottle of pink nail varnish. ‘If you must know, I thought the person in the car might be someone I knew, and don’t ask me who ’cos I could be wrong and it wouldn’t be fair getting everyone talking and all the time it had been a mistake.’

  Stephen glanced at me. The way he was holding Cain it looked as if he was used to handling him, playing with him. How often did he call round to see Clare? Was it just possible … Then it occurred to me that all vicars had experience of babies. They held them over the font and baptized them, splashing them with water, cooing over them at garden fêtes.

  ‘If you know who was in the car,’ said Stephen slowly, dangling the velvet caterpillar in front of the baby’s face, ‘I think you owe it to Tom to tell us.’

  Clare shrugged. ‘Doesn’t mean whoever it was had anything to do with the accident.’

  ‘No, of course not, but at the very least that person needs to be eliminated from enquiries.’

  ‘What enquiries?’ Clare stood up in one movement, without putting her hands on the floor. ‘I’ll think about it, right? Only I’m not making any promises.’ She took the baby and held him above her head. ‘There’s a girl come to the day nursery last week, got twins only one of them’s got something wrong with its foot. They can put it right, it’s nothing serious.’ She gave me a defiant look. ‘Put him in a day nursery, I do, so I can go out to work.’

  ‘Yes. Good idea.’

  ‘You think so? Better than being stuck with me all day. Hey, you never answered when I asked if you’d known Tom well.’

  ‘No, I never met him,’ I said.

  ‘But you’ve met Erica. God, what an old bag. Still, I s’pose in the circumstances … Easy to judge people, then find you never really knew what the fuck was going on.’ She laughed, holding the baby so close to her body that he let out a kind of gurgling squawk. ‘Got to give him a bath, unless one of you two wants to do it. No? Well, they don’t know what they’re missing, do they, Dumbo?’

  ‘Don’t call him that,’ said Stephen.

  ‘Why not? Oh, you think I meant … Don’t be so daft. Brilliant, he is, months ahead of what he’s meant to be. Dumbo, the Flying Elephant, got ears like Prince Charles. They can pin them back, you know, but what’s the point? In good company, ain’t you, Dumbo?’ She picked up a towel that was lying on the floor. ‘Kids, they’re what matters, ain’t that right, Stephen? Without them there’d be none of us left in a hundred years’ time.’

  When we left, the man who had been tying back the buddleia was cutting the front hedge. He approached us, wiping his forehead with his sleeve and leaving an earthy smear.

  ‘Been visiting Clare,’ said Stephen.

  ‘Don’t think we’ve met.’ The man had turned towards me. His face was deeply lined and his hair was pure white, but on closer inspection he was probably only about sixty. Stephen made the introductions and it transpired that the man was a regular attendant at his old church. Wesley Young. The name rang a bell.

  ‘Wesley looks after the garden here,’ said Stephen. ‘Can’t think how you find the time.’

  ‘Nothing to it. Don’t know a thing about flowers but I’m all right with shrubs. Just keep cutting them back.’ When he laughed his eyes almost closed. ‘And it gives me a chance to keep an eye on Clare,’ he said. ‘I do it to please Marion. She has the boy now and again, but not as much as she’d like.’

  ‘You’re not the Mr Young my father met?’ I asked. ‘He was staying with me last weekend and, after the morning service, he had a cup of tea in the church hall. He mentioned he’d been talking to a Mr and Mrs Young.’

  ‘Is that right?’ Wesley thought about it for a moment. ‘Interested in cooking? Told us he’d joined a special class. And photography too if I remember rightly, been looking for a medium-format projector for him for his slides.’

  ‘Yes, he’s been wanting one for quite a time.’

  ‘Don’t produce that many,’ said Wesley. ‘Most people want a thirty-five mill.’ He had started picking up the lengths of buddleia that had landed on the path and laying them in a heap on the concrete. ‘Call round at the shop some time and I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘Antique shop,’ explained Stephen.

  Wesley rubbed his hands on the sides of his trousers. ‘Antiques is putting it a big grand. Cheltenham Road, just past the station. There’s a bloke I know might have just what you need. Would’ve asked him before only didn’t seem much point when I didn’t have your father’s address. I tell you what, leave it a day or two so I can ask round a bit.’

  Back in the car Stephen started explaining how Wesley and Marion’s teenage daughter had died the previous summer.

  ‘Yes, my father said something about it,’ I said. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Terrible thing. Killed herself, after the A-level results came out. They put too much pressure on children these days. I don’t know if you agree, but I think all those league tables have added to the general atmosphere of competitiveness.’

  ‘There’s always been pressure on kids,’ I said. ‘Do they have any other children?’

  He shook his head and we sat in silence for a few moments, thinking about the loss of an only child. Then I asked how long Stephen had known Clare Kilpatrick.

  ‘I told you how she used to attend our youth club. Even after she’d given up coming regularly she used to drop in now and again. She was one of the ones who helped Tom paint a mural on the wall of the coffee bar. He drew the figures and some of the kids painted them in, more or less to Tom’s specifications. He was a very clever artist, could turn his hand to just about anything.’

  ‘Did James help?’

  Stephen turned his head sharply and his voice was unnaturally high-pitched. ‘James? I believe he’s inherited his father’s talent, or perhaps Tom taught him how to draw when he was still a small child, but no, James would never have taken part in anything like …’ He broke off, pretending all his concentration needed to be focused on the flashing amber light on the zebra crossing. When the traffic moved on his tone of voice had returned to normal. ‘I keep forgetting you’ve met James. What did you make of him? I imagi
ne he’s the type girls fall for by the dozen.’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ I said. ‘If they do I should think he gives them hell.’

  Stephen laughed, relieved that my opinion of James appeared to be no better than his own. ‘To be honest, I hardly know him. Tom was always very loyal, but reading between the lines I think there were tensions. He was worried James seemed so aimless, so uncommitted to any kind of a career. You know, some of Tom’s paintings were extraordinary, very original, but also accessible to ordinary people who know next to nothing about modern art. Of course it’s pretty well impossible to make a living out of painting, not that his prints were anything to be ashamed of — there’s four of them in the foyer of that new hotel — but I imagine from Tom’s point of view they were rather formulaic. Italian-style courtyards, with long shadows and plants in pots, you know the kind of thing.’

  I was only half-listening. The rest of my brain was remembering the scene on Coronation Road, just past the garage, where the road bends twice, then straightens out as it approaches the underpass. James Luckham wheeling a buggy and a small blonde-haired girl hanging onto his arm. I was almost certain the girl had been Clare Kilpatrick.

  Chapter Nine

  Five to nine on a rainy Wednesday morning, and as soon as I walked into the building Heather rushed out of her office to ask if I could phone Mrs Bryce. ‘It sounded urgent, Anna.’

  ‘But she didn’t say what it was about?’

  ‘Not really. Something to do with her friend?’

  I groaned. This had happened too much recently. One client, leading to another, leading to yet another. Sometimes it was as if it only took one person to discover the Psychology Service, and the cries for help from their friends and relatives became an epidemic.

  ‘I’d better find out, then,’ I said, wondering why Heather looked so preoccupied. ‘Is everything all right?’

  Her fingers left the keyboard and started drumming on the surface of her desk. ‘Yes. I mean, no. It’s just — well, Dawn upset me a bit but I’m sure she didn’t mean it.’