Vera Stanhope 06 - Harbour Street (24 page)

What will you find? An attic bedsit. Like Margaret Krukowski.

‘We’ll have to check your story with your wife, of course.’ But Vera thought this time he was telling the truth, or as close to the truth as he could bear to get.

Early afternoon and Vera was back in Kimmerston. An emergency meeting of the core team to discuss the new information. She had picked up a message from Joe when she’d left the Lit & Phil. He hadn’t given any details, but she’d sensed his excitement. They were squashed into her office, and the smell of onions and garlic came from the pile of empty pizza boxes stuffed into her wastebin. Holly looked as if she was about to retch.

Vera was perched on her desk. She preferred to look down onto the rest of them.

‘So, Joe, let’s have it again.’

‘Stuart Booth said that Margaret worked as a high-class hooker out of her flat in Harbour Street. She wasn’t greedy. She had a few well-paying clients. But she
was
a prostitute.’ He frowned.

Vera thought that he was feeling let-down. He’d believed in Margaret the saint, the embodiment of womanly virtue. ‘And Booth was one of her customers? Didn’t he think he should come forward earlier with this information?’

Joe shrugged. ‘He’s in a new relationship. He’d hardly want it made public, would he? It was only when he found out that the second victim was in the same business that he thought we should know.’

‘Very public-spirited,’ Vera said. ‘Or very clever.’

‘You think he’s lying?’

‘People do, pet. He’s got a motive, hasn’t he? If he’s found the love of his life at his age, the last thing he’d want is Margaret Krukowski spoiling it for him.’ Vera spotted a smear of melted cheese on her sweater and tried to scrape it off. ‘Let’s dig around in the past of Mr Booth and see what else we can find. Charlie, that’s the rest of your day taken care of.’

The new, happier Charlie didn’t even pull a face.

‘And it would be useful to track down other people who knew Margaret all those years ago.’ Vera wasn’t sure what to make of the new information about Krukowski, couldn’t make up her mind if it was relevant or a distraction. ‘Any suggestions?’

‘An old lady, a neighbour of Dee’s in Percy Street, talked about one of Margaret’s admirers.’ Joe looked up from his notes. ‘A lad called Ricky Butt. He’d be in late middle age now, but he might remember her. His mother was landlady at the Coble.’

Vera remembered the portrait over the bar. ‘Check that out too, will you, Charlie? See if you can get an address for him.’

‘How did you get on with George Enderby?’ Joe was impatient. Now that they’d finished eating he thought they should be working, not sitting around chatting. The Protestant work ethic again.

‘Hol, what did you make of him?’ Holly sulked if she didn’t get her share of the limelight, and it was only fair that she should get a chance to express her opinion.
She’d
discovered that Enderby had been lying to them.

‘I thought he was a bit pathetic actually. He didn’t even like his wife, so why make such a fuss when she decided to leave him?’ Holly stretched. Vera thought she was too young to feel the real pangs of isolation. It wouldn’t occur to her, so youthful and healthy, that she might die alone.

‘Is Enderby a potential murderer, do you think?’

‘Well, he had opportunity, didn’t he? If you check the timeline, he was in Mardle early enough to be on the Metro with Margaret, and until we check his alibi with Craggs we only have his word for it that he was away from the area when Dee Robson was killed.’

‘Motive?’

A silence. ‘He’s weird, right?’ Holly said. ‘And he hates women.’

But Vera knew that wasn’t enough. ‘You don’t remember seeing him on the Metro, Joe?’

‘Nah, but it was packed. Doesn’t mean he wasn’t there.’ A pause. ‘In the wheelie suitcase, the one he usually carried books in, there was a change of clothes. Waterproof jacket, jeans, boots. Worth taking them in for testing? Just in case of blood spatter. Be interesting to see his reaction when we ask, anyway.’

‘So it would.’ The room was warm and Vera suddenly felt sleepy. It was time to get outside for some fresh air, or she’d end up snoozing, her head on the desk. Like George Enderby in the Silence Room. Time to get the team moving.

‘Hol, I want you out at the Haven this afternoon. I told Cameron that Joe would go, but I want you to do it. Did any of the women know about Margaret’s past? This new information helps us to understand why she was so sympathetic to Dee Robson, doesn’t it? And the girls wouldn’t tell us, unless we asked. That thing about speaking ill of the dead. See if anyone knew Margaret before she started volunteering. They’re all local people. And I’d be interested to hear what you make of Jane Cameron and the women.’ She paused for breath. ‘Joe, you take on Professor Michael Craggs. He misled us too. Why was he still in Mardle that afternoon when he told Holly he’d headed straight back to Hexham? Do a bit of digging today, and first thing tomorrow go and see him at home. Take Charlie with you. He could do with a day in the country after being chained to his desk for days.’

Charlie gave her a grateful smile.

‘You see Craggs as a suspect?’ Joe was sceptical. He’d always been taken in by the educated classes.

‘Why not? He lied to us. And he’s the right age to have been one of Margaret’s customers. And as the head of a happy family, he had a lot to lose if she decided she wanted to go public about her past. Knowing that she was dying might have made her want to set the record straight.’
Which might have made Margaret feel better
, Vera thought,
but would have been cruel to the people around her
.

‘What about you, boss?’ Holly. ‘What are your plans?’ As if it was any of her business.

‘I’m going back to Mardle.’ She didn’t elaborate and they knew better than to ask.

The rest of the afternoon Vera paced around Mardle, unable to settle, getting her thoughts into some sort of order. The knowledge that the church-going charity worker had sold her body for money had already changed the way the team saw the investigation. Changed the way they saw Margaret. There was a danger that suddenly the investigation would become simple for them. They’d be looking for a killer of prostitutes. The case would be reduced to that.

But Vera thought the information only made the murders more complex and subtle. There was the relationship with Malcolm Kerr, for example. Had he known how Margaret earned her living? Surely he must have done. And how had that worked, when he was so obviously in love with her?
He’s protecting her honour even now
, Vera thought, though she failed to define the relationship. Then:
Who else knew?

For some time she’d been unaware of her surroundings and only now realized that she was outside the high school. Ugly brick and concrete, with a fence that made it look like a prison. Bars on some of the windows too. Presumably an attempt to stop vandalism, but they made Vera want to hurl bricks. This was the outside limit of the boundary to the case. A profiler would make a map and put pins in it.
This is where all the major players live
.
Except for the Haven
, Vera thought suddenly. The old rectory was out of the town, but it was at the heart of the case too. Many of the people involved in the case had been there on the afternoon of their winter fair. Margaret had wanted to discuss a problem with Jane Cameron. Her illness or something else? Could one of the older residents have been in the same business and recognized her? Vera would have liked to go to the Haven herself. She would have been patient with the women, teasing out their memories. But how would Holly develop as a detective if Vera never gave her the chance to go it alone?

She turned and headed back towards Harbour Street, her flat shoes beating a rhythm on the pavement. At the Metro she stopped and turned up the alley to Percy Street. The CSIs were still in Dee Robson’s flat. The crime-scene tape twisted outside looked strangely festive against the grey building. Vera knocked at Malcolm Kerr’s door. No answer. Almost without pausing she turned again, carried along by the same beat, the same thoughts rapping in her brain.

Past the guest house. The day so dark that the light was on in the basement kitchen and the domestic scene inside played out like a soap opera for passers-by. Kate Dewar at the table, ladling soup from a bowl.
God, I’m hungry
, Vera thought. And beside Kate stood Stuart. Her lover. Had he confessed to his youthful indiscretions, despite Joe asking him not to?
If I could get a good man like that, I wouldn’t mind what he’d got up to thirty years ago.
He looked serious, but then he always looked serious. There was no clue to the conversation. No sign of the kids, though, and he’d have sent them away before starting to talk.

It came to Vera suddenly that Hector had come to Harbour Street, at the time when Margaret was operating out of this house. He’d known Malcolm Kerr and had hired his boat to raid birds’ eggs. He’d probably been served in the Coble by the fat landlady in the picture over the bar. Had Hector been one of Margaret’s clients? Had he slipped through the shadows from the boatyard and let himself into the big house on the corner? Had he knocked on her door?

A sudden detour. A swerve. Across the road towards the church, because Vera heard organ music. Slow and joyless. A half-remembered Christmas carol, murdered by the organist. No accompanying singing, so there was no service. This was practice, perhaps and Christ, did the organist need it!

Vera pushed open the door. Inside it was dark, apart from a light above the organ. The noise stopped with a screech and a very old voice called out, terrified. ‘Hello, is that you, Father?’ And of course she had a right to be scared because two women had been murdered.

Vera called back. ‘No, I was just looking for the priest.’

‘Father Gruskin went out.’ The woman was still suspicious, but terror was replaced by curiosity. ‘What do you want?’

‘Do you know where he is?’

‘He’s out at that place for fallen women.’ Spitting out the words. Contemptuous.

Vera wondered how Margaret could have continued to worship here, surrounded by all this spiteful virtue. After all, it was easy enough to be virtuous if there was no temptation. She should know. She left the church, allowing the door to close behind her with a satisfying crash. The noise carried her across the street to Kerr’s yard.

The double gates were unpadlocked. Kate Dewar’s lad Ryan was sanding the hull of a dinghy; the grating sound of the machine jarred her nerves and prevented him from hearing her. She went up to him and waved in front of his face and he turned it off.

‘I’m looking for Malcolm,’ she said.

‘He’s not here.’ He smiled at her. ‘Sorry.’ He rubbed his hand along the smooth hull of the dinghy, almost a caress.

‘It’s bloody freezing out here,’ she said. ‘Come into Malcolm’s shed for a minute. I could do with a chat.’

He seemed reluctant to leave the boat, but he followed her.

‘You enjoy your work don’t you?’ she said.

‘Yeah.’ He seemed embarrassed by the admission.

‘Any chance Malcolm would take you on when you leave school?’ She pushed a charred black kettle onto the top of the stove.

‘Maybe.’ He paused. ‘I’m not sure how that would work, though. I’ve got plans. I’d want to be the boss. You could make real money out of the place.’

She raised her eyebrows. Money had never motivated her. ‘Tea?’ She nodded towards the kettle.

‘Eh,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that theft?’

‘Cheeky monkey.’ She couldn’t help grinning. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any milk. We’d best have it black then.’ She looked up at him. ‘Where is Malcolm?’

‘He took the boat out. Some guy wanted to go over to the island.’

‘Prof. Craggs?’ Perhaps she would wait and talk to the academic and save Joe a journey halfway across the county.

‘Nah, some maintenance guy. Something to do with the wardens’ accommodation.’

‘Couldn’t they wait until the weather gets better?’ Vera sipped the tea. The best you could say was that it was warm. ‘There’ll be nobody living out there now.’

‘Don’t ask me! Nobody tells me anything.’

‘But you know things, don’t you?’ Because it seemed to Vera that this boy was like a sponge. People would talk to him. He’d soak up information and confidences and stray pieces of gossip. ‘You’ve lived on this street for most of your life. You’ve seen things.’

‘I have nightmares,’ he said. ‘I don’t sleep well. And then I walk. Mam hates it; she thinks I’ll get into bother out on the streets. And yeah, I see things.’

‘And what do you see?’ Vera asked. ‘What do you see when you’re walking down Harbour Street in the middle of the night?’ She paused. ‘What secrets can you share with me, Ryan?’

He looked up at her, as if he was surprised that she could be so perceptive. He seemed about to answer when his mobile rang. He looked at the caller ID and his face changed and turned blank and hard. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to take this.’ He stood up and went outside.

When she followed him a few moments later he had the sander going again. He waved at her in a friendly way, but she could tell that she’d get nothing from him now.

Leaving the yard, Vera decided there was only one option, weighing up all the possibilities: a sit-down meal of haddock and chips in the Mardle Fisheries.

Holly arrived at the Haven in the early afternoon. A flat landscape facing the sea, and the trees all bent away from the wind. A big grey sky. The house was grey too, stone and square, but crumbling through lack of care. Peeled paintwork on the window frames and gutters with weeds growing inside, slates missing on the roof. A bit of money, though, and it would be a magnificent place. Holly could see it as a smart country-house hotel or converted into luxury apartments. She was a sucker for makeover programmes on television and she read the interior-design mags at the hairdresser’s. She wondered why the charity didn’t sell the place and buy somewhere more convenient for the hostel in town. They’d still end up with a profit.