Harbour Street

Chapter Fourteen

Holly tracked down Margaret’s GP to a practice in Gosforth. An efficient receptionist said that Margaret had visited a couple of times in the last month, but not on the afternoon of her death. If they wanted more details they’d have to make an appointment to come into the surgery and talk to the doctor. When Holly rang Vera to tell her, expecting at least to be thanked for her efforts, the boss only seemed disappointed.

‘Oh well, it can’t be helped, but I really need to know what the woman was doing in Gosforth yesterday.’ There was a pause before Vera added, ‘How’s it going there otherwise?’

‘I think the press conference went okay, but I’m going bog-eyed here, boss. It’s a nightmare trying to collate all the info we’ve got through so far, but I’m pretty well up to date. I don’t think we’ll get another surge of calls until after the six-thirty news.’

It was already late afternoon. After the buzz of the press conference Holly had spent the next couple of hours in the police station, plotting names onto large pieces of graph paper. She’d tried to map the location of passengers in the Metro carriage electronically, but in the end it worked best to spread the graph paper over a double desk, each large square marking either a seat or a space. Still there were gaps. Some of the people Joe had remembered – the smooching kids and the partying businessmen – had failed to come forward. Other passengers had seen Margaret get onto the train at Gosforth, but hadn’t noticed if she’d been followed onto the platform.

There was a moment of silence on the end of the line, so Holly wondered if she’d get a bollocking again for complaining. She felt every contact with Vera Stanhope was like an approach to a large and unpredictable dog. You never knew whether it would lick you to death or take a chunk out of your leg.

‘Do you want a break from the desk work?’

‘I wouldn’t mind!’ Holly regretted the words almost as soon as they were spoken. The trouble with Vera was that she took advantage. Holly might be sent off on a wild goose chase that had no relevance at all to the investigation.

‘Have a word with Professor Michael Craggs,’ Vera said. ‘I can’t see him as any sort of suspect, but he’s on the edge of the investigation. He stays regularly at the guest house where Margaret lived and worked, and he might be able to provide an alibi of sorts for Malcolm Kerr.’

‘And who’s Kerr?’ Again Holly wondered if she might have missed something, some detail of the briefing, and waited to be yelled at for not paying attention. Vera always made her feel like a school kid.

‘Sorry, Hol. I should have explained. Kerr’s a boatman. He has that scruffy yard close to the harbour and lives in Percy Street, just behind the Metro line. Margaret Krukowski worked for him when she was a young woman. Kerr turned up at Kate Dewar’s place this morning in a bit of a state. She had the impression that he and Margaret might have been lovers. Anyway, he claims to have been out collecting samples of the North Sea with Craggs when Margaret was stabbed. So check out the alibi, but see if Craggs can tell us anything new about our victim too. At the moment we still have no family and no close friends, and the professor has been a regular at the Harbour Street guest house for years.’

Holly replaced the receiver, shell-shocked, because she’d had an apology from the boss, and checked out the number for the university. She was told that the professor wasn’t in the building today, but was working with a group of undergraduates at the Dove Marine Laboratory in Cullercoats. She collected a pool car and set out for the seaside.

Cullercoats was on the coast south from Mardle, a pretty cove between the wide sweeps of beach at Tynemouth and Whitley Bay. On the front a couple of restaurants and a wine bar looked out to the sea. In the summer it was a place for eating and drinking at tables on the pavement, watching the kids play on the beach. Holly had spent happy evenings in the village with friends. Now, as the light was fading and cold rain blew in from the sea, it was grey and dismal. She parked in a side street and crossed the main road that followed the coast. A light marked the end of the pier. The occasional car splashed through the icy puddles, but nobody else was out.

The laboratory was a red-brick villa with a modern extension, built almost on the beach. Inside, the students were calling it a day, pulling on outdoor clothes and packing equipment into bags. Craggs was a gentle Lancastrian in his sixties. Holly thought he looked too old and heavy to be clambering around in small boats. She found the group in a small room kitted out with lab benches and metal stools and he stood at the front, calling goodbye to the young people, wishing them a happy Christmas. Holly felt a pang of regret. She’d been a graduate entrant into the police service. She’d enjoyed her time at university. Perhaps, after all, she’d have been better suited to life as an academic. Then reality kicked in: Nah, you’d have been bored rigid.

He looked up and saw her. ‘Hello! Anything I can do?’ He was friendly and sounded genuinely helpful. But Holly seldom found older men unfriendly. They were flattered by the attention of a young, attractive woman, even when they discovered what she did for a living. Now the room was clear of students and she identified herself.

‘What’s this about?’ No anxiety. He turned to glance at a row of test tubes behind him.

‘You haven’t heard about Margaret Krukowski?’ But perhaps, after all, it wasn’t so hard to believe. The students wouldn’t be interested in the death of a woman who would appear to them impossibly old. They’d be gearing up for the end of term – this was obviously their last seminar before leaving for the Christmas holidays – and the main preoccupation for everyone seemed to be the weather. And even now Craggs seemed focused on his research. He moved his attention to the microscope on the table in front of him as if he longed to get back to it. He frowned. ‘Kate Dewar’s Margaret? No. What’s happened?’

‘She was murdered,’ Holly said. ‘Yesterday afternoon. Stabbed while she was in the Metro on her way home.’

She’d expected an expression of grief, horror. Even strangers seemed to think a response was needed when they heard of a violent death. But Craggs’s reaction seemed dramatic. The colour appeared to drain from his face and he sat suddenly on the stool by his side.

‘Poor Margaret. What a terrible way to die.’

‘You knew her well?’

He took a while to answer. ‘I’ve been researching in the waters off Mardle since I was an undergraduate, and I’ve stayed at the guest house in Harbour Street at least one night a month since it opened. Kate and Margaret felt almost like a second family. Kate must be devastated. Even now that she has a new partner, I’m not sure how she’ll cope there without Margaret.’ A pause. ‘Do you know who killed her? I’m not sure how you think I could help.’ He sat with his elbows on the bench. Holly saw that his blue rib-knit sweater had been neatly darned. There was a splash of something that might have been egg on the front of it. He looked like an absent-minded professor from children’s stories.

‘We’re talking to all the regulars at the guest house.’

‘Of course.’

‘When did you last see her?’ Holly took a seat herself. They faced each other across the bench. There was a background smell of chemicals and something organic.

‘At breakfast yesterday. She cleared my table as usual.’

‘How did she seem?’

‘Just as she always seemed.’ Craggs played with his wedding ring, turning it on his finger. ‘Polite, helpful, cheerful. I had an early breakfast because I had a full day ahead of me. If there were other guests, they hadn’t appeared by the time I left.’

‘You didn’t have any impression then that she was upset or anxious.’

‘No, but then I probably wouldn’t have noticed. We don’t often notice the people who look after us, do we? Though we’d miss them if they weren’t there.’

Holly thought he was a strange man. She wondered if he was quite as sharp as a modern professor should be. She couldn’t imagine him fighting his corner with university politics or pulling in overseas students prepared to pay high fees. ‘We’re having problems tracing her family,’ she said. ‘Did she mention anyone to you?’

Again he took a while to consider before he answered.

‘All the years that I’ve been staying at Harbour Street I only once had a real conversation with Margaret. She had a flat upstairs and rarely came into the visitors’ areas except for work. But one evening we came into the house together. She’d crossed the road from the church, I think, and I was chilled after a day on the water. I invited her to join me for a drink, and we sat together in that dark, gloomy lounge.’ He paused. ‘I probably talked about my work, my family. I’ve been married for forty years and have grandchildren of whom I’m ridiculously proud. Happy people can sound very smug, and I thought suddenly that she wasn’t happy at all. That the quiet efficiency was a show, and underneath there was a terrible desperation. I asked her about her husband. Did she ever see him? “Oh no,” she said. “He’s long gone.” Then she said something very odd. “Secrets are all I have left.” I didn’t ask her what she meant. I could see that she wouldn’t tell me.’

Holly made detailed notes. Some of it didn’t mean much to her, but Vera had been in the guest house and it would all mean more to her. She turned back to the professor. ‘You spent yesterday with Malcolm Kerr?’

‘Yes. He took me out to Coquet Island. My research is into water temperature and how small changes can have an impact on microorganisms and therefore affect things further up the food chain. We collected samples. It’s meticulous work – some might say tedious. It took until the middle of the afternoon.’

‘You don’t have a student to do the fieldwork for you?’ Holly had once gone out with someone doing a PhD, who was always complaining about doing the donkey work for his supervisor.

Craggs gave a little laugh. ‘I’m what you’d call a control freak. I like to be in charge of my own data.’ He continued to twist the ring on his finger. ‘Besides, I enjoy being on the water. That was what drew me to the subject in the first place. A passion for ecology and for open spaces. I’m due to retire next year. I’m not quite sure what I’ll do with myself. Write a book, perhaps, like all retired academics.’

‘You must know Malcolm Kerr well then?’

‘We’ve certainly spent a lot of time together since I began the research. I started working with him when I was doing my Master’s, and his father was in charge of the business then. Malcolm was a bit of a tearaway in those days and could lose his temper in a second. He came in a couple of mornings with a black eye after scrapping with other lads in the Coble.’ Craggs smiled. ‘He settled down, as most of us do when we find a good woman, and it’s only recently that things have gone wrong for him. His wife left and he lost his house and doesn’t get to see his children much. Started drinking more than was good for him. Some days he’s been turning up for work looking as if he’s slept in the clothes he was wearing. He lost his job as coxswain of the lifeboat because the crew thought he’d become unreliable. He’s still an excellent boatman, though.’

Holly wondered if any of this was relevant. ‘What time did you and Kerr get back to Mardle yesterday afternoon?’

‘Three-ish. I’d hoped to be out longer, but the weather forecast was awful. Originally I was going to spend another night in Harbour Street, but I decided to get home. We live in the Tyne Valley and it’s a bit of a trek.’ He looked at his watch again. ‘I’m sorry, I really should get there now. It’s the grandchildren’s school play, and I promised that I’d be back in time for that.’

Holly walked to the door with him and waited for him to lock up. His vehicle was a dirty 4x4 parked on the slipway. By now it was dark. ‘What car does Malcolm Kerr drive?’ The question casual and last-minute, as if it didn’t really matter. Joe had mentioned that Margaret had been dropped off at the Haven in an old car, the day before her death. Showing off with perhaps the one piece of concrete information that they’d had all day. Holly knew that Joe would check with DVLA, but it’d be good to get the information before he did.

Craggs paused for a moment, his hand on the car door. ‘A battered old Golf. His wife got the new Toyota. That was another source of bitterness.’

In the darkness Holly grinned. Margaret had been driven to the Haven in a Golf. ‘How come Malcolm Kerr got such a bad deal out of the divorce?’

She sensed, rather than saw, the shrug. ‘Something to do with the fact that her new man is a lawyer?’ He paused, as if wondering if he should go on. ‘Or that she once accused Malcolm of hitting her.’

‘Had he hit her?’

Another shrug. ‘I don’t know? Perhaps. He’s not the most stable of men. With a drink inside him, he might be capable of it.’

Back in her car Holly phoned Joe Ashworth and Vera, but neither of them was picking up. She felt a stab of the usual paranoia about Joe and Vera – that they were a team and she was deliberately excluded – but tried to ignore it. She left a message for each, saying that she thought she’d traced the identity of the person who’d dropped Margaret at the Haven on the day before her death. Even inside the car she could smell food cooking in an Italian restaurant nearby and felt suddenly hungry, but refused to give in to temptation. It was easy to put on weight during a major inquiry – most detectives lived on a diet of takeaway pizzas and chocolate – and soon she’d be home for Christmas, and her mother would feed her up too.

She drove back to Kimmerston. In the police station colleagues were in a meeting room gathered around a television set, waiting to see the coverage of the press briefing. She arrived just in time for the opening titles and there was a cheer when there was a shot of her at the top of the programme, plus lots of ribald comments when it was over. Holly thought she’d handled it well. She’d come over as professional and hadn’t given anything away. As soon as the piece on the press conference was over, the phones began to ring.