Local Artist
Page 9
“Someone explained it to me like this, Rob. Love isn’t a hole you fall into. It’s a wall you build together. Or maybe a bridge would be a better picture? Either way, it’s made of bricks and cement. The bricks are the shared experiences, the things you do together. The cement is commitment. Keeping your promises to each other. You commit to each other, and you share your life, and sometimes you feel great about it but sometimes you don’t, but you keep on sharing. And eventually, you find you’ve built something. You’ve built love. And that’s the thing that lasts.”
I watched him think about it. It reminded me of when I’d first tried to explain poetry to him.
“It’s just an illustration,” I added. “Perhaps it helps, perhaps not. It doesn’t work for everyone.”
“No, I get it. It does help. It’s just that you make it sound like hard work!”
I spread my hands. “Good. I’m glad you get that. It is hard work, Rob. Not all the time, but definitely sometimes. And of course it’s other things as well. There’s a lot of joy, and laughter, and companionship. But it’s also hard work, and you need to be clear about that from the beginning. You need to ask yourself, ‘Is June worth that much hard work?’ Do you want to be with her that much?”
He sat back and thought about it for a moment. When he started to open his mouth, I held up a hand.
“Don’t tell me.” I closed the box and pushed it back across the table towards him. “Take this home, think about it some more, and tell June. Either way. She should know.”
He took the box and put it back into his pocket. “Right. OK. I’ll do that.” He stood and headed for the door. “Thanks, Sandra. I really appreciate being able to talk to you.”
“That’s OK. Any time I can help.”
Then, as he was halfway through the door, a question dropped into my mind and straight out of my mouth.
“Have you ever been to Coren Hall Village?”
He stepped back in. “That new place? All incredibly expensive houses?”
“Yes. There’s a pub there – used to be a farmhouse – the Farmer’s Rest.”
He nodded. “Had a job over there a while back. The village was still half built then. I thought I’d go in the pub for a bit of lunch, but the look the waiter gave me put me off! That and the prices.”
“Yes. I think the waiter’s still there. I just wondered if you knew anything about the background to the place. Like who owned it before it became a pub?”
“No idea. I only went there to drop off some equipment. Someone who’d just moved into one of the houses and wanted a whole lot of security stuff fitting, all top of the range. The leccy doing the work got us to deliver to the site. They do that sometimes if it’s a big order or a rush job, and this was both. Huge house.”
“Most of them are. Anyone living there must have money to spare!”
“Well, this one was owned by a ‘Sir’, no less. Or so the leccy said. Sir Arthur. That stuck in my mind. I don’t get many knights on my round. Long days, but no knights!” He laughed at his own joke, then noticed I wasn’t joining in.
“I don’t suppose that was Sir Arthur Templeton?” I asked, wondering if this could possibly be as significant as it felt. “Only he’s the patron of the art club that was supposed to be putting on the exhibition.”
Rob snapped his fingers. “Yes, of course! Templeton! I wondered why that name seemed familiar. Bit of a coincidence, eh?”
I remembered my morning’s word. “Just a scintilla.”
Rob raised an eyebrow.
“Just a little thing.”
DAY 5: AMBAGE
There was a lot I wanted to talk to Graham about, but he didn’t get home till late and was very tired when he did. Too tired even to tell me off for not calling him as I’d promised, which worried me. His health is more fragile than he’ll admit. So there wasn’t much conversation had that evening.
In the morning, I left Graham sleeping in while I contemplated the day’s word over my toast.
“Ambage: noun: a style that involves indirect ways of expressing things: circumlocution.”
I didn’t see much possibility for using that word: as soon as Graham was up and ready, I intended having a clear and direct conversation with him. About the past and its results. My expedition, and the conversation with Rob, had brought some things into focus.
But before Graham was even moving about upstairs, I had a call from DI Macrae.
“Good morning to you, Mrs Deeson. I wanted to let you know that we’ve now released the scene, and you’re free to get your library back in order. Sorry for the delay.”
“That’s OK, Inspector. Thanks for telling me. I’ll get the cleaning company in.”
“Ah, yes, there will be a wee bit of that to do, I’m afraid.” He paused before moving on to a new topic.
“Apart from that, there was something I wanted to talk to you about. In person rather than over the phone. Some further developments. And information that has come to light.”
There was a leap of hope inside me. “Have you found Emily?”
“Ah, no. Not as yet. But I can tell you more at the station. Could you come down for about ten this morning?”
I glanced at the kitchen clock. How had it got to nine-fifteen already? “Yes, OK. Ten. Or perhaps a little later. I’ve got a few things to do first.”
“That’ll be fine, Mrs Deeson. I’m in the office all morning, in any case. Till later, then.”
He hung up, and I wondered if that conversation could count as “ambage”.
I got to work on the phone, contacting the cleaning company and updating Yvonne. It left me precious little time to get myself presentable and drive into town. And Graham was just awake, but still groggy. Our conversation would have to wait.
In spite of my rushing, it was nearly ten-thirty before I pulled into the visitor’s car park at the Central Police Station. I was lucky to find a space – every time I’d driven past it before it had been filled with marked-up police cars. I took an extra moment to check my hair in the mirror.
A younger face stared back for a moment, the blonde hair – no grey streaks – plastered to her head with rain and fear. I hadn’t worried about my appearance then, when Godfrey parked in approximately the same place and took me inside to make my report.
The old wooden doors had been replaced with steel and glass that slid smoothly aside at my approach. The counter had been remodelled as well, and the blue light that had been outside now perched incongruously above the computer screens and keyboards.
There was a short queue ahead of me: a respectable middle-aged man and a wild-looking lad with an over-abundance of rings and tattoos. The middle-aged man, it transpired, was there to fulfil his bail conditions, and the wild lad was reporting a burglary. This was a lengthy process, as it may have happened sometime last week, and may have been through the back door or an open window, and a laptop may have been stolen or possibly not. It took a quite some time for the woman on duty at the desk, a person equipped with saint-level patience, to extract all this information. I was trying not to appear to be listening, but was getting quite interested in finding out what had happened to the laptop, when Macrae appeared from the door marked “Authorized Personnel Only”, caught my eye, and nodded towards the front door. I followed him out.
“I saw on the CCTV that you’d arrived,” he said. “It looked like you might be there a while, so I came to you. I needed to get out of the station anyway, and there’s something I’d like you to see. If you don’t mind a wee trip out, that is?”
“No, that’s fine. I expect you must get a bit bogged down with the office work sometimes.”
“Oh, aye. You’ve got to expect it, of course, but I didn’t join the force to stare at a computer all day!”
“Is Sergeant Henshaw coming as well?” I glanced around, but there was no sign of June.
“No, I’ve given her the day off. I’m afraid you’ll have to manage without a chaperone!” He smiled broadly and led the way to the car park.
“Columbo didn’t,” I pointed out.
“Well, it’s nothing fancy, just transportation,” he said, in what might have been intended as an American accent.
I smiled. “You’re very good at this. Making small talk to ease the tension.”
“It’s an essential skill. People talk more readily when they’re relaxed, and it’s these little social rituals that help to do that.”
He pulled out of the car park and onto the main road. At the roundabout, he took the first exit and was quickly brought to a standstill by the traffic backing up from the next roundabout. A well-known local phenomenon, but I supposed that he hadn’t had time to get used to the traffic patterns yet. I’d have warned him if I’d known where he was going.
“So, this information you mentioned – it’s not Emily, then?”
He gave me a sympathetic look. “Well, her car’s been found. I can tell you that much. But keep it to yourself, if you would.”
“Of course. But – if you’ve got her car, that’s good, isn’t it? It can help narrow the search?”
“I’m afraid not. Not in this case. It was in London. Near Heathrow, in fact.” The brake lights on the car in front went off, and Macrae eased forward a few inches, but there was no further movement.
“But – she wouldn’t just get on a plane, would she? Would she? Where would she be going?”
“We’ve no reason to believe that she did fly out. They’re still checking passenger lists and the like. But Heathrow is a major transport hub. From there she could have gone anywhere in the world. If she was there at all.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just because it was her car, it doesn’t mean she was in it. Someone could have dumped it there.”
There was some definite movement ahead, and we shuffled along for two or three car lengths before coming to a halt again.
“I’m very worried about her.”
“Aye. So am I. We’ll not stop looking.”
Behind us, someone hit their horn several times, a totally useless gesture. Macrae glanced in his mirror and shrugged.
“You know, I’m often fascinated by how people react to things. Like that idiot back there. He can’t do anything by blowing on his horn like that, but he does it anyway.”
“Just venting his frustration, I suppose.”
“I suppose so. But you can learn a lot about someone from how they react to things.” He glanced across at me. “I’m minded of how you reacted to finding a body in your library.”
“I fainted.”
“Which is no more than natural, in the circumstances. But it was how you were afterwards that impressed me. When I spoke to you the following day, I thought how well you were coping with such a terrible experience.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I just shrugged. I had a feeling he was leading up to something. I didn’t like where he might be going.
“But then I found out that it wasn’t the first time you’d had such a thing happen to you, was it?”
I met his eyes. “You’ve been checking up on me.”
He nodded. “I’m a detective. It’s what I do.”
“I don’t see how all that’s relevant. It was a long time ago. There can’t be any connection…” Except, of course, through the picture, but I hadn’t told him about that yet. I blundered on, hoping not to reveal that I’d been withholding information. “In fact, I’m surprised there was even anything left to find.”
He laughed, gently, and moved the car forward again. “You should know that the police hate throwing anything out. Certainly not murder files. And, in any case, you’d be surprised at how much is still out there in the public domain. Just Google yourself under your maiden name.”
“That was a long time before Google.”
“A lot of records have been put on the internet now. Newspaper reports, for example.”
“It’s not something I want to revisit.”
“But it seems to have revisited you.”
The traffic moved on further. Staring past Macrae, I saw two young lads in a Golf with a customized paint job. No ghosts in their past, I thought. Too young to have a past.
The boy I’d found hanging hadn’t had much of a past either. They estimated his age at seventeen. Possibly younger. Not much past and no future at all.
One of the lads saw me staring and made a rude sign in my direction. I looked away.
The traffic flow improved, we finally reached the roundabout, and Macrae took us out onto the ring road, where things were at least moving steadily, if slowly.
“OK. Perhaps I should have told you. I know it seems weird, the same person finding two unidentified bodies. But there’s thirty years between the two incidents! It’s just a bizarre coincidence.”
“I don’t like coincidences. Not in a murder inquiry. Using the ‘coincidence’ label can be just an excuse to ignore awkward facts.”
“What awkward facts are those?”
We were passing the exit into an industrial area. Macrae had to brake sharply as a van made a late decision to leave. He said something under his breath, pulled out, and accelerated past it. When he spoke again, he made one of those sudden shifts in the conversation that I’d noticed before.
“When I started looking into that past business, there were two things that particularly struck me. The first being your persistence.”
He paused, inviting a comment, but I ignored him and stared out of the window at the warehouses and industrial units we were passing.
“It was impressive. You practically put your life on hold to try to identify this laddie and find out who killed him. You wrote letters, you sent out photographs, you put up posters… you must have interviewed every person living in a ten-mile radius. Even tracked down some of the ones that had moved! And you stayed with it for over a year.”
Another long pause.
“Why was that, Sandra? What made you carry on when everyone else wanted to draw a line and forget about it? When the police investigation had been closed, and you were being threatened with prosecution if you persisted?”
“It wasn’t just prosecution,” I heard myself say. “Some people were much more… direct… in their threats.”
“Because you wouldn’t shut up about it?”
“Somebody must have known something!” And suddenly, it all came back, a wave of raw emotion that had been penned up for thirty years. “Somebody KNEW! He had a name, he was a person, and SOMEBODY KNEW WHO HE WAS!”
I was shouting. I felt like sobbing. It was hard to hold it back.
“He was just left there, hanging there, like a piece of meat, but somebody did that and somebody knew him and he must have had a NAME!” I swore, dredging up the worst words that I knew and spitting them out, and hammered on the dashboard as I did so. “They wouldn’t talk – none of them would talk, they just let it happen – but somebody MUST HAVE KNOWN SOMETHING!”
Macrae wasn’t at all disturbed by my outburst or my language. No doubt he had heard much worse. And it was probably what he wanted anyway, I realized, as I began to calm down again and sat back, feeling exhausted. That was the entire point of this trip: to crack me open and let out some more information.
My eyes were wet. I fumbled in my handbag for a tissue. Macrae leaned across, opened the glove box, and handed me a full box.
“You came prepared for this, then,” I said, trying to sound light and matter-of-fact.
“Used to be a Boy Scout. Always prepared!”
We came to another exit road and he pulled off. I didn’t know this route, still couldn’t work out where we were going.
“You were right, you know.”
We were on a B road, narrow and winding, so his concentration was on driving. But I knew that he wouldn’t miss the slightest flicker of reaction from me.
“About what?”
/> “Somebody knew something.”
“Nobody ever said anything. Not to me, not to the police.”
“Aye. Which tells me that those who knew had an interest in keeping it covered up.”
I nodded. “That was obvious. From early on. But it didn’t make any difference. There was no evidence, nothing to point in anyone’s direction.”
“Well, that was the other thing that struck me. No evidence. None at all. No leads, no information. Not just dead ends, but not even any beginnings. In a case like that, I’d have expected that there’d be at least some line of inquiry to follow, however weak. But not according to the case files. Tell me, Sandra, what did you think of the police investigation at the time?”
“It was OK at first. There was a DCI Farrow in charge.” He’d interviewed me back at the police station, after I’d been to hospital to be checked. A big man, blunt in his approach but he got things moving. They had dogs out in the woods and forensic teams all over the farmhouse before the end of the day, and they were back again at first light. “But then another officer took over. DCI Greer.” Thin, acerbic, always behind his desk. “Different sort of person, different approach. Very by the book, and he didn’t much appreciate me getting involved. He was the one who threatened me with prosecution when he closed the case and I wouldn’t leave it alone.”
“By the book. Aye, that’s just the words that came to mind when I looked through the files. It was all done exactly by the book, all the boxes ticked – and that was all. Nothing you could point at and say, ‘That wasn’t done right,’ but if you read between the lines, nothing was done that didn’t absolutely have to be done. I’ve been in this job long enough to know when someone’s just doing the bare minimum. And that was what Greer was at.”
“That was the impression I had. But I couldn’t understand why he was so negative about it.”
“I don’t either. But he was close to retirement, not in good health, and basically just marking time until he could finish with the police for good. My guess is that he was given the case for that precise reason – because he could be relied on to wrap it up neatly and without any fuss. The real question, of course, is who was responsible for taking the job from Farrow and putting Greer in charge. And that’s something we can’t know. It’s not in the case files. Farrow and Greer are both dead, and even the younger officers on the case are all retired now. I haven’t been able to find anyone who knew anything.”