by Faith Martin
The walls were covered, not with paintings, but with photographs of local scenes and wildlife. A grey heron, caught on a misty morning on a recognizable bank of the River Cherwell at Oxford, was framed in pride of place above the sofa. A close-up of a wagtail, perched on a stone in the middle of shallow stream, sat on the wall above the kitchen sink. They looked not quite professional, but all of them had merit, and she wondered which one of the Becks was the amateur photographer.
Hovering by the sofa, they found Martina Beck waiting for them, wearing the same strained smile as her husband. She looked younger than her spouse by some years, but that could have been put down to good clothes and flawlessly applied make-up. She too had white, rather than silver hair, but in her case she’d kept it long, and held up in a becoming chignon. She had large dark brown eyes and a face a little too rounded for conventional beauty. Like her husband, she wore well-fitted slacks, this time of a deep velvet brown, with a rose-pink pullover, very similar in design to that of her husband.
Wordlessly, William Beck set about making tea.
‘Thank you for seeing us, Mr Beck, Mrs Beck,’ Hillary began formally.
‘Please, sit down,’ Martina said, retrieving two kitchen chairs from beside the kitchen island, rightly assuming that the two women would prefer not to sit crammed together on the sofa with their hosts.
‘We were surprised but very pleased to get your phone call yesterday,’ she continued, returning to the sofa and sitting down at the same time as Hillary and Claire. ‘Naturally, we’ve always wanted to get justice for Michael, and we’re only hoping that you can find who did it this time.’
Hillary didn’t take the implied slight personally. ‘As do we, Mrs Beck,’ she simply said gently.
Without prompting, Claire got out her notebook and pen, and proceeded to somehow disappear into her surroundings. It was a talent Hillary appreciated.
‘And I’m glad that you feel that way about a second investigation,’ Hillary added. ‘Obviously, we’re aware that taking a second look at cases such as your son’s is bound to stir up a lot of pain and bad memories, and that not everyone is happy to rake over such times.’
‘Oh, we don’t mind that, if it means you might catch whoever did it,’ William assured them, coming forward with a tray of steaming mugs. Hillary accepted one, took a sip and then set it down on the small coffee table between her and the sofa, Claire doing the same.
Neither of the Becks, she noticed, had elected to drink themselves. They were probably feeling way too tense and anxious to do so.
‘As I said yesterday, I’m a former detective inspector, working as a civilian consultant for Thames Valley Police,’ Hillary began to explain. ‘No unsolved murder case is ever officially closed, and every now and then the Crime Review Team will take a second look at these cases. We find, with the passage of time, and with a fresh set of eyes, it’s sometimes possible to tease out some new lines of questioning, or unearth facts that might not have been uncovered by the original team. This doesn’t mean that Inspector Weston’s original investigation was flawed or shoddy in any way,’ she emphasized clearly, ‘it’s just that in the first rush of a new case, of a necessity, some things tend to get prioritised. And under the pressure to get as much done as quickly as possible, sometimes minor things don’t get scrutinized as much as we’d like. As you are probably aware, the first forty-eight hours of a murder investigation are crucial. That puts an enormous pressure on officers working the case. Where we have the advantage over them is in having the luxury of being able to take much more time and care, and explore everything that perhaps didn’t look very promising at the time.’
She paused to take a sip of tea. ‘And this is going to be the focus of our investigation this time. There is no point, obviously, in simply going over the same things that DI Weston did back in 2011.’
The Becks were watching and listening to her intently, and Hillary paused to take another sip of her tea, giving them time to process what she’d said.
‘Also, after a long period of time has passed, witnesses that might have been reluctant to speak at the time, for whatever reason, might now be persuaded into speaking more candidly,’ she added, and let that sink in too.
Martina nodded, her face tight. ‘They might not be so inclined to lie or cover up for people, you mean?’
‘Well, that too, yes,’ Hillary said, careful to keep her voice calm and unemotional. ‘Also, sometimes their priorities change. What might have seemed so important or significant to them at the time could seem less important now. For example — witness “A” might have been having an extra-marital affair, and if he or she saw your son on the day he died, he or she might not have said so, for fear of being discovered in their infidelity. Their evidence might or might not be relevant, but until we uncover it, we have no way of knowing. But now, years later, they may have divorced or separated, or be more willing to be helpful.’
William Becks nodded, but said nothing. His wife merely sighed.
‘You’d also be surprised how much people hold back simply because they don’t want to get mixed up in a murder investigation. And again, here, the passage of time is a help to us. Things are less raw or frightening, and they find the courage to actually be cooperative. Then there are those people who simply didn’t realize that some little snippet of information they had might have been of interest to the police, and so they didn’t come forward because they didn’t want to waste police time. Again, years later, if we come knocking on their door and actually ask them to talk about the day Michael died, they’ll quite happily tell us.’
‘Yes, I can see how that could happen,’ Martina agreed.
Hillary, watching her closely, said casually, ‘Then there are those who didn’t want to say anything in case it caused trouble for people that they were sure could have had nothing to do with what happened to Michael. And in this, they may be right — or of course, they may not. But it’s still an interesting psychological fact that these people often feel safer to talk about such things when a lot of time has passed than they did when a full-on murder investigation was under way. That’s why these second looks into cases are so important.’
‘Yes, we can see what you’re getting at,’ William Beck said, a touch impatiently.
‘Do you have any reason to think that your neighbours or Michael’s friends, or anyone else for that matter, had been less than honest about what they told DI Weston at the time?’ she asked curiously, watching Martina more closely than her husband.
Michael Beck’s mother flinched slightly, and cast a brief, questioning glance at her husband. ‘We can’t be sure. You have to understand, our emotions were all over the place at the time. But I never liked that girl Michael was seeing.’
‘Mia de Salle?’ Hillary clarified.
‘Yes. She never seemed right for him somehow. I felt they were totally mismatched. I was glad when Michael broke up with her, to be honest. What’s more, I don’t think she was ever a particularly truthful person.’
At this, her husband stirred a little uneasily at her side. ‘But that was just an impression we formed, you understand,’ he added scrupulously. ‘We never caught her telling outright lies.’
Martina laid a hand across her husband’s knee and patted it. ‘My husband is right, of course. But even he will admit that she was rather odd.’
‘Can you be a bit more specific?’ Hillary appealed.
‘I don’t know if I can. She just seemed to be not quite . . . I mean, oh, what’s that expression? Off with the fairies?’
At this William sighed, but didn’t contradict her.
Hillary thought about this statement for a moment, and decided it still needed clarifying. ‘By that, do you think she was . . . what, mentally ill?’
‘Oh no, I wouldn’t go that far,’ Martina said at once. ‘She seemed to function perfectly well. And she was very clever, of course, getting a PhD in environmental studies and all that. It’s just that . . . Oh, it’s hard to describe. You�
��d have to have met her yourself to understand what I mean. It was as if she wasn’t really living on the same planet as the rest of us somehow.’
‘Did Michael say anything about Dr de Salle’s, er, eccentricities?’
‘No, not to us,’ Martina admitted reluctantly.
‘Did they ever argue violently?’
‘No, not that we saw,’ again the answer came grudgingly. ‘At least, not while they were a couple. After they split up, she became . . . well, the only word I can use is obsessive.’
Hillary turned her attention to William. ‘Do you agree with that, Mr Beck?’
William shrugged. ‘I suppose so. She had a very strong personality, which made her very passionate about things. Especially about saving wildlife. I think that’s probably what attracted Michael to her in the first place.’
He indicated the photograph of the heron. ‘Michael’s first and enduring love was always ancient history, but he loved animals and nature almost as much. Whenever he took up a new hobby he always threw himself into it with everything he had. Researched it, read all about it. He was a born scholar, that boy.’
‘Michael took all these,’ Martina broke in, indicating the photography on the walls. ‘He was only twelve when he started. They’re quite good, aren’t they?’
‘They certainly are,’ Hillary agreed, but wasn’t to be distracted. ‘Do you know why he broke off their relationship?’ she asked bluntly.
‘Not really. I think she just got too much for him,’ it was the boy’s father who answered. ‘From what we hear about her now and then, she’s made a success of her life, but she could be a bit . . . intense, I think is the best word for her; a bit over the top. I think Michael simply found it a bit overwhelming after a while. Our son was very much a normal sort of chap, and she was . . . well, not.’
He shrugged helplessly.
‘I understand she didn’t take the break-up well,’ Hillary tried next, and Martina all but snorted.
‘She certainly didn’t! For ages afterwards she kept ringing here, asking to speak to him. He’d blocked her calls on his mobile, and on social media and all that sort of thing,’ Martina said. ‘It got embarrassing in the end, having to pretend he wasn’t in when she called.’
‘Might it not have been easier for him to talk to her — convince her that it was over?’ Hillary asked mildly.
‘Oh, he tried,’ William said sharply. ‘But the woman just wouldn’t take no for an answer.’ He sighed wearily. ‘Or perhaps that’s being a bit harsh. I have no doubt that she was deeply hurt by it all. To be fair, she did care, very intensely, for Michael. But she just didn’t seem to have the coping mechanisms in place that most of us have. When Michael left her, it seemed to shock her to the core. It was as if she just couldn’t believe it was over.’
Hillary nodded, then said calmly, ‘Do you think she killed him?’
For a moment, there was an electrified silence, and the two older people looked first at her, then at each other. Some kind of silent communication passed between them, because Martina gave a small sigh and a shrug.
‘We simply don’t know, do we, William? Somebody killed our son, and they must have had a reason for doing so. And it seems to us that she was really the only one who might have done it, the only one with a motive, you know? Michael hadn’t an enemy in the world — he wasn’t the sort of boy who got people mad at him. He was into his history and his latest favourite hobby, but apart from that he kept pretty much to himself. He wasn’t a womaniser, or someone who went to the pub and drank too much and became a pest. If he wasn’t studying or applying for jobs, he was here at home with us for most of the time. Apart from anything else, he didn’t have much money to go gallivanting around. So where would he have crossed paths with someone capable of killing him?’ she asked, the question clearly rhetorical. ‘Mia, on the other hand, was . . . well, like I said. She was odd.’
Hillary decided she’d learned enough about Mia de Salle for now, and it was time to shift the focus. ‘But Michael did have one enemy, didn’t he?’ she ventured.
‘You mean that lecturer who groped him?’ William Becks said, and his wife made a brief sound of disgust.
‘Oh, that pervert,’ she said grimly.
CHAPTER THREE
Hillary waited patiently, and eventually William Beck sighed heavily. ‘Dr Durning,’ he said with a grimace. ‘But DI Weston was never able to place him and Michael together on the day that Michael died.’
Hillary, who’d read the file, knew that. But what she wanted from these people were their own thoughts on their son’s life around the time of his death.
‘Michael accused Dr Durning of making improper advances towards him in Dr Durning’s office. Is that right?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ Martina said with another grimace. ‘Michael was really upset about it. Apart from anything else, he said it really surprised him.’
Hillary blinked a little at this. She could tell Claire found the comment unexpected too, since her pencil momentarily stilled over her notebook.
‘I’m sorry,’ Hillary said, ‘I’m not quite sure I understand.’
The dead boy’s father smiled briefly. ‘No, sorry, let me explain. After the incident happened, Michael returned home for the weekend. This was during the final year of his BA studies — the spring term. He was due to sit his final examinations that summer. He’d always liked Dr Durning, that was the thing, and he felt, apart from being shocked and repelled and angry and all the obvious things, as if he’d been really stupid in not realizing what must have been going on. At least, what had been going on in Dr Durning’s mind.’
Hillary nodded. ‘I think I understand. He felt somehow culpable because he felt that he’d been naïve in not realizing that his tutor had a predilection for him?’
William Beck shifted a little on the sofa, and sighed gently. ‘Michael admired him as a teacher, you see, and Dr Durning had always been his favourite tutor. Our son was really into ancient history, right from the time he was a little boy. He grew up on the legends of King Arthur and the whole Camelot thing, and from that, his interest grew into the realms of proper history and became a real passion of his. And he always said that Dr Durning felt the same way. That he hadn’t allowed himself to become jaded or bored, like a lot of his tutors had. Michael was particularly interested in the Saxons and Romans, but also in pre-history. He spent as much time as he could at the Rollright Stones, for instance, and Dr Durning always encouraged his research.’
Hillary nodded. She knew that the small, ancient circle of standing stones wasn’t that far away, being just within the Oxfordshire border out near the pretty Cotswold villages known as the Tews. Nowhere near as famous or impressive as Stonehenge, of course, or the circle at Avebury, they were nevertheless still fascinating in their own right. ‘Was that because they’re close by?’
‘Partly, yes, and also because they’re less well-studied. He also loved visiting the white horses,’ William said.
Again, Hillary immediately understood the references. There were ancient depictions of horses that had been carved into the chalk hills by ancient man in several nearby locations in Oxfordshire, such as Uffington, and even more in the nearby county of Wiltshire.
‘And Michael wanted to make ancient history his career. He wanted to go on to do a PhD and teach it to university standards. Maybe even write text books,’ William continued. ‘Which is why he allowed himself to become so close to Dr Durning, in all innocence, because Durning always encouraged his ambition.’
‘I imagine that’s a tough field to break into,’ Hillary murmured. ‘So few good appointments, and far too many candidates. Not many people with degrees manage to get university postings, surely?’
‘No, you’re right. So many of them have to settle for jobs in related but lesser fields than pure academia. And Michael knew that. But according to him, Dr Durning was always very supportive of his chances of achieving his goals, and sponsored him all the way. And Michael, up until that mom
ent in his office, had always thought that his encouragement was genuine. And . . . well, pure, for want of a better word.’
‘But it seems Dr Durning had other, less altruistic motives?’ Hillary supplied.
‘Yes,’ William said flatly. ‘When he asked Michael to come to his office that last time, he used the excuse that he’d found some rare books in a private collection that he thought would interest Michael. But when they were alone . . . Well, according to Michael he seemed to think . . . well . . .’ But here the older man seemed to be lost for words.
‘He asked Michael for sexual favours in return for access to the books?’ Hillary encouraged.
‘No, not in so many words,’ William said carefully, as if anxious to be seen to be fair. ‘From the way Michael explained it to us, it was more as if Dr Durning thought and fully expected that Michael would be interested in starting a relationship with him. It surprised Michael no end, because, well, for a start, he’d been seeing Mia for a while by that time, and he was sure Dr Durning must have been aware that he wasn’t gay.’
‘So what happened?’ Hillary asked. Of course, Michael Beck’s version of what had happened next, along with the subsequent investigation by the university, were all included in DI Weston’s files, but Hillary wanted to see if the Becks’ memories of that time contained anything new.
‘Well, Michael said at first that he was just stunned. He couldn’t think what to do or say. He said he just stood there, speechless and embarrassed.’
‘Perhaps,’ Martina injected, ‘that might have given the wretched man the wrong impression. Maybe he mistook Michael’s silence for acquiescence. Anyway, he tried to seduce Michael. Physically, I mean,’ she finished disdainfully.
‘He tried to kiss him?’ Hillary asked, more bluntly.
‘Yes,’ William said. ‘And he pushed him against the wall, touching him inappropriately.’ It was said in a quick, flat tone, as if the older man had had to say the words before, but didn’t really want to hear them.
