Harbour Street

Chapter Thirty-Six

It turned out that Val Butt wasn’t as old or as frail as Joe had expected. Prof. Craggs’s photograph of the group outside the Coble had been taken in 1975; the date was written faintly on the back in pencil. Margaret would have been thirty-two. Val Butt, large and ungainly, would have been just in her forties, already looking tired and middle-aged, and her son Rick in his mid-twenties. Val would have been hardly more than a child herself when she’d had him, and it would have been hard to be a teenage mother then. Joe tried to take the imaginative leap back to Harbour Street in the year before he was born, but the effort was too much for him. Better to find Val and talk to her.

The woman lived on her own in a single-storeyed miners’ welfare cottage in a small estate on the outskirts of Mardle. It astonished him how many of the players in the case still lived in the town, or had connections with the place. It was as if they’d had no ambition, or lacked the confidence to uproot themselves and try life elsewhere. He wondered if Kate Dewar would move away now, whether she and Stuart and the kids would set up home in a new town, make a fresh start. He hoped they would. He wasn’t given to strange thoughts, but it occurred to him suddenly that Mardle was toxic. There was something unhealthy in the air.

He hadn’t made an appointment and it took the woman so long to get to the door that he was about to turn away. Then he heard a painful wheezing and the door opened slowly. Val Butt was huge. She was still in her nightclothes, and the pink candlewick dressing gown hardly met around her waist. She walked with the aid of a Zimmer frame and, before speaking, she let go of it with one hand and flicked ash from her cigarette onto the path beyond him. ‘Who are you?’ Eyes narrowed. The same look, he thought, she would have given the underage drinkers in the Coble, before serving them anyway.

He introduced himself and showed his warrant card.

‘You’re here about Maggie Krukowski.’ There was a rattle in her voice and she gasped for breath again.

‘And Dee Robson.’

‘Aye, well. I never knew her.’ She backed herself carefully into the corridor. ‘You’d better come in. Dee was after my time. I’d have left the Coble before she was a regular there.’

He made a pot of tea on her instruction. ‘I’m never my best in the mornings.’ She installed herself on the sofa that took up most of the tiny front room, hauling her legs onto a padded stool in front of her. ‘The carers are supposed to get here at eight to dress me, but they’re always bloody late. Most of them don’t speak English anyway.’

‘You knew Margaret in the Seventies and Eighties?’

She ignored the tea and biscuits he put beside her and lit another cigarette. The room stank of smoke and the ceiling was brown with nicotine stain.

Joe put the photo on the arm of the sofa so that she could see it without moving. She picked it up and stared at it.

‘That was 1975,’ she said, without turning it over to look at the date. ‘Billy Kerr’s birthday.’

‘Nothing wrong with your memory then.’ He was genuinely impressed.

‘It was the year I took on the licence.’ She paused. ‘We’d had a place in the West End of Newcastle before that, but it wasn’t easy. There was always trouble. It was tough, especially for a woman. The Coble was a step up. A bit more respectable.’

‘You were on your own with your son?’

She gave a sudden quick grin and the ghost of a wink. ‘On and off. There was the occasional bloke.’ She stubbed out the cigarette in her saucer and gulped the tea. ‘But always my name over the door. I stayed there until I retired.’

‘Margaret Krukowski,’ he said. It was time to get to the point.

‘Aye, the gorgeous Margaret. She could stop a conversation in the bar just by walking through the door.’ There was a niggle of resentment in her voice, which he realized was probably jealousy. Most women would have been jealous of Margaret Krukowski in her heyday.

‘You didn’t like her?’

‘I didn’t trust her.’

‘Tell me,’ he said, remembering advice given by Vera, one night at her house. Get them to tell you a story. It’s all about stories. It might be a pack of lies, of course. But that’ll tell you something useful too.

Val settled back on the sofa and her eyes were half-closed. ‘Maggie thought she was better than the rest of us. She hated being called Maggie, and I only did it to spite her. She had a fancy accent and fancy clothes. I said to her once: “We’re alike, you and me. Both left by our men to fend for ourselves.” The look that she gave me! As if I wasn’t fit to clean her boots.’

‘Had you seen her recently?’ Joe wondered where this story was taking him. He still wasn’t convinced that something that had happened almost forty years ago could have any relevance to the present investigation. He didn’t believe in the body under the boatyard.

‘Nah! I didn’t see her much after that photo was taken. There was a falling-out.’ She paused, drank more of the tea. ‘Things were never really the same after that.’

‘What do you mean?’ Outside, the postman walked down the street. The last delivery before Christmas, his bag fat and heavy. Val saw him too and watched. A moment of hope or anticipation. But he walked straight past her door.

Val lifted her shoulders, an attempt at a shrug. ‘Nothing. Just that she never came into the pub again.’

‘What sort of falling-out?’

‘How would I remember after all this time?’ She glared at him, challenging him to contradict her.

Joe thought she remembered perfectly. ‘Did something happen the night of Billy Kerr’s birthday party?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ She shut her mouth like a toddler refusing to eat her vegetables and they sat for a moment in silence.

‘Did you ever meet Margaret’s husband, Pawel?’

She shook her head. Her hair was very fine and she was bald in places. ‘He’d long gone by the time we moved to Harbour Street.’

Joe thought that in that case Vera couldn’t be right. If Pawel was buried under Malcolm Kerr’s yard, he must have been in Harbour Street the night of the fire. ‘Are you sure? Our information is that he was still in the region then.’

She shrugged. ‘Maybe he was, but he wasn’t living with Maggie Krukowski.’

‘Was Margaret working for Billy and Malcolm Kerr when this photo was taken?’ Joe thought it was hard work, prising information from the woman, and he wasn’t getting anywhere. He was wondering now why he’d come. He wished he was at Kerr’s yard watching the search team. He’d trained with a couple of the lads and it would have been good to catch up.

Val made a strange choking sound that was half-cough and half-chuckle. ‘By the time I knew her she was what you’d call freelance. A professional working woman.’ Each word came out as a separate sneer.

‘What do you mean?’ Joe pretended ignorance.

‘She was a high-class slag. Playing with fire. No man to keep a lookout for her. No protection. If she’d been murdered then, I wouldn’t have been surprised.’

He was surprised by the vehemence of her words. ‘You were a woman without a man to look out for you too.’

‘I had my Rick. He was a good son.’

But he’s left you, Joe thought. A sudden flash of insight. And he doesn’t even send you a Christmas card.

‘Around the time of Billy Kerr’s birthday there was a fire at his yard,’ Joe said. ‘His office burned down.’

She looked at the clock on the windowsill. ‘Those bloody carers. They get later every day.’

‘You must remember the fire. It would have been a big deal round here then. There was a rumour that it was all an insurance scam.’

‘Was there?’ She seemed genuinely surprised. ‘I never heard that.’ Another pause while she fidgeted with a packet of cigarettes. ‘It happened the night of the birthday party. Or early morning the next day. Though I think there was talk in the bar about arson, I never believed it. People always like a drama, don’t they?’

‘You can’t help in any way with our investigation then?’ Joe Ashworth was losing patience and he wanted to be out of the house before she lit another cigarette. He hated the way the smell got into his hair and his clothes. It made him retch.

‘I’ve never been one for helping the police,’ she said. ‘Never trusted them, and they do nothing for the likes of me.’

A car with a council logo pulled up outside and two women in pink overalls got out. ‘You’d best go,’ Val said. ‘Unless you fancy helping them to get me into the bath.’

Joe left the house before the carers had their key in the lock.

In the car his phone rang. Vera Stanhope, her voice chirpy. ‘How’s it going, bonny lad?’ She only ever called him that when she was in a particularly good mood or when she was being sarcastic.

‘I haven’t got much from the ex-landlady of the Coble.’ But he knew Vera wasn’t listening. She’d phoned to share information, not to get it.

‘We’ve found the body.’ Her voice was high-pitched with excitement. ‘It was under Malcolm’s shed. I think he set the office fire not for the insurance money, but to hide evidence of Pawel’s murder.’

Joe didn’t say anything. He was thinking that Val Butt had been lying to him. Pawel had still been around in Harbour Street in 1975, when Malcolm Kerr’s office had burned down, and she would have known that. Joe thought she’d have known everything that was going on in her patch. She’d have been that kind of landlady. And what had actually happened the night of Billy Kerr’s birthday party to trigger a murder? A fight that had got out of hand? Two young men scrapping over Margaret, like dogs over a bone.

‘Well?’ Vera was indignant. She’d been expecting congratulations. ‘Now we have everything: motive, opportunity and a skeleton in the cupboard. Or under the concrete. I’ve sent them to bring in Malcolm Kerr. He’ll talk. No reason not to, when he’ll be forced to plead guilty to one murder. We’ll have it all wrapped up by teatime, and the drinks are on me.’

‘What do you want me to do now?’ Joe looked through the window, wondering if he should go back and talk to the woman inside. He didn’t like inconsistencies, and why would Val Butt lie about Margaret’s husband? What could she have to hide at her time of life? But the carers were already helping her to her feet and leading her towards the bathroom. Her nightdress and dressing gown were caught in the waistband of her knickers and a huge bare thigh was exposed. He decided that old people often got confused and there was nothing to be gained by talking to her again.

‘Come back here,’ Vera was saying. ‘You can sit in on the interview.’

Joe switched off his phone and stood for a moment in the street outside the old folks’ bungalows. He had a second crisis of conscience. Perhaps he should knock at the door and talk to Val Butt again, ask her if she knew anything about the body buried in Malcolm Kerr’s yard.

But the moment soon passed and then he found himself smiling. When Vera was happy, her good humour was infectious. Why not be a part of the celebrations? He started the engine and set off for Kimmerston. Arriving into the station expecting a party atmosphere, laughter and the inevitable release of tension after an investigation, he found instead that Vera was furious. He could hear her swearing from the bottom of the stairs. She was so caught up in her rant about the incompetent scum that made up the police service these days that she didn’t notice him entering the room. He slid in beside Charlie.

‘What’s going on?’ He whispered, but Vera wouldn’t have heard a five-piece jazz band in the corner of the room.

‘Malcolm Kerr’s gone AWOL. They just had one plod on the front door, and Kerr slipped out of the back first thing this morning. She’s blaming me, because I told her I didn’t think he had any spirit left for the fight.’

‘Nah,’ Joe said. ‘She’s blaming herself.’

The room suddenly went quiet and the silence was more terrifying than the storm of noise. Vera was standing in the middle of the room, looking round at them.

‘So,’ she said. ‘Where do we think Malcolm will be hiding? Ideas, please.’

Joe raised his hand. ‘Do we know that he’s hiding? He’ll know that we’ll get him eventually. This isn’t some gangland boss with a villa in Marbella. Sounds to me like he’s broken and depressed, and a cell won’t be so different from that place in Percy Street.’

‘So what are you saying, Joe?’ Vera’s voice was so quiet that there could have been just the two of them in the room.

‘I’m wondering if there’s some unfinished business.’

‘Explain, please.’

Joe wasn’t sure he could explain. He knew that he should have saved this conversation until he’d got Vera on her own. It was never a good idea to question her in front of an audience.

‘I still don’t see Kerr as Margaret’s killer. He loved her, didn’t he? I’m wondering if he’s got his own agenda. He knows who the murderer is and he’s out for revenge.’

‘For Christ’s sake, man, most of the men I’ve nicked for battering their wives claim to love them.’

‘Aye,’ he said. By now he’d lost the train of thought, the faint glimmer of an idea that had made him crazy enough to challenge the boss. ‘You’re probably right.’

There was another brief moment of silence and then she was issuing orders. ‘I want this man caught and brought in within the hour, before we’re slated in the press for incompetence. Again. And if we don’t get him by the end of the day, I’ll be writing the story myself and selling it to the papers. We know he’s in that clapped-out car of his. It’ll be on CCTV somewhere.’ A pause while she glared round the room. ‘Well, clear off, the lot of you!’ Then there was a flurry of activity and a scraping of chairs. Soon Joe was the only one left.

She leaned against his desk. ‘North Mardle beach,’ she said. ‘I want you to go there. It’s where Malcolm goes to think. I’d go myself, but I’ve got to be here to stand between the shit and the fan.’

Joe nodded.

It was midday. Quiet. Not even a dog walker on the long beach. There’d been no sign of Kerr’s old car parked behind the dunes, but Joe had walked through to the shore anyway. Vera had thought the man would be here and usually she was right. But the only figures, right in the distance, were kids chasing a ball.

He phoned Sal from the top of the sand hill, suddenly missing her, thinking that they should bring the children out here sometime over the holidays. They could all do with a blast of fresh air and the sight of the long surf curling onto the beach.

‘How’s it going?’ He knew Sal was wound up about Christmas. She had this dream of how it should be for the family. Everything perfect. And the reality never quite lived up to her expectations. This year she’d be thinking that his parents were judging her too. ‘How are the kids?’

‘Jessie’s gone into town.’ Her voice defiant, knowing that he wouldn’t approve. He thought his little girl was too young to go into Newcastle without an adult. She went on, ‘It’s all right. There’s a gang of them, some older kids too. Sarah’s mother was going to take them in on the Metro and she’ll be in town too. Last-minute shopping to do, and just on the end of the phone if they need her.’

‘Okay.’ Because what else could he say? It had already been decided without him. He stood for a moment watching the low sun on the waves, and then he drove back to Kimmerston.