Harbour Street

Chapter Seven

Vera watched Joe Ashworth drive away in his taxi. She could tell he was torn and that he’d almost have preferred to be standing out in the cold with her. It was so easy to wind him up that really there was no sport in it. She shouldn’t torment him. There was a light in St Bartholomew’s Church and for a moment she was tempted to go inside and ask for the Father Gruskin mentioned by Kate Dewar. But she was starving and could never work properly when she was hungry.

It was so cold that she was gasping for breath and, talking to Holly on her mobile, she could see spurts of vapour coming from her nose and mouth; caught in the street light, it almost looked as if the steam had been turned to ice.

‘Where are you, Hol?’

‘Liaising with CSI, Ma’am, just as you told me.’ Classic Holly, tart and chippy at the same time.

‘Can you make it over to Mardle? Joe’s gone back to the bosom of his family and I could do with a hand. I’ll be in the fish shop close to the harbour. Shall I order anything for you?’

‘No thanks, Ma’am, I’ve eaten.’ And she would have done. A Tupperware box full of salad leaves and an apple. No saturated fat for health-conscious Holly. ‘I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’

Vera walked on down the street, drawn by the smell of frying fish. A woman, big and blowsy in laddered tights and a short skirt, stumbled out of the pub. Vera thought she’d catch her death. From inside someone shouted at the woman, the words indecipherable, but the tone abusive and faintly amused. Vera felt a stab of sympathy for her. Underfoot the freezing snow squeaked.

In the Mardle Fisheries Vera took a seat at a table – more than half the space was set out as a restaurant. It felt good to walk past the queue at the takeaway counter, to have a waitress approach her immediately for her order. Vera wondered if class was so ingrained in England that even here in a Mardle fish shop she was tainted by it, if feeling slightly superior was a natural – if guilty – pleasure. Inside it was warm, condensation running down the windows, a television with some daft chat show on in the background. The waitress came with a tray. Tea in a pot, bread and butter on a china plate, the batter crisply thin and the haddock soft. Oh yes, Vera thought, this is class!

Holly arrived just as Vera had finished the meal. She was skinny and stylish, even now, dressed for the weather. Was it possible to get a designer parka? If so, Holly was wearing one. She sat opposite her boss, wiped the table in front of her with a paper napkin.

‘Have they finished at the crime scene?’

‘They’ve taken the body to the mortuary.’ Holly had a southern, educated voice. Not her fault. ‘And the train back to a shed in Heaton. Billy Wainwright says it’s a nightmare. So many traces and footwear prints. They’ll be in there for a few days yet. Maybe longer. But at least the Metro line’s clear. They’ll reopen it later this evening if there’s no more snow.’

‘She’s an interesting woman, our victim.’ Vera leaned back in her seat. ‘Married a Polish guy straight out of school. Divorced a couple of years later and since then seems to have lived alone. Given to religion and good works, apparently. Stayed rent-free in a guest house just up the road here, in return for helping out in the place, but it seems to me she’s more like one of the family. The landlady is Kate Dewar, a widow with two teenage kids and a new bloke who doesn’t live in.’

‘Not a natural victim then.’ Holly had some sort of electronic gadget on the table and was typing into it.

Vera resisted the urge to ask what was wrong with an ordinary notebook. ‘No.’ The early-evening rush was over and the chip shop was quieter now, the queue had dissipated. Vera got to her feet. ‘Come with me.’

‘Where are we off to?’ Holly turned off the device and slid it into her handbag.

‘We’re going to see a priest.’

There was still a light in the church and when they pushed the heavy door it opened, though the building seemed empty inside. It smelled of damp and mould and incense, and the same furniture polish as had been used in Kate Dewar’s house. Vera wondered if Margaret Krukowski had cleaned in here too. If so, they’d need to look for another member of the congregation to take on the domestic chores. Here there was no Christmas decoration, and the only colour came from a stained-glass window over the altar.

‘Hello! Anybody home?’ Churches always made her feel irreverent.

There was a scuffling noise ahead of them and a dark figure emerged from a door to their left. Vera thought this was probably the ugliest man she’d ever met. He was younger than she’d been expecting, perhaps in his early thirties. Black hair, black caterpillar eyebrows, thick lips that moved, even when he wasn’t speaking, and narrow eyes. A large and shambling Mr Bean. He should be a stand-up comedian. He’d just have to walk onstage and there would be horrified, rather nervous laughter.

‘Yes?’ He was wearing a black cassock with a black cloak over the top. A man who liked his uniform. There was nothing welcoming about the way he approached them.

‘Father Gruskin?’ She didn’t wait for him to answer, but flashed her warrant card in front of him. He squinted at it as if he was short-sighted. ‘I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news about one of your parishioners.’

He took them into the vestry, where it was warmer. A Calor gas heater hissed and the fumes from it caught in the back of her throat.

‘Yes?’

‘Perhaps you’ll have heard already,’ Vera said. ‘There was a murder on the Metro early this evening. The victim was Margaret Krukowski. I believe she was one of your regulars.’

He stared at them with horror, before collapsing into a chair at a plain wooden table and putting his face in his hands. ‘I can’t believe it.’ It seemed to Vera that he was genuinely distressed and she felt a brief moment of sympathy for him. ‘What have we come to, when a fine old lady is murdered in public?’ He was posh, but local. Brought up in the city, Vera decided. Coddled. He looked as if he could do with a walk in fresh air.

‘You knew her well?’ Holly was sticking her oar in, but at least the priest looked up and answered, and he hadn’t responded to Vera’s comments.

‘She attended regularly and she was always willing to get involved,’ he said. ‘These days most churches only keep going because of the efforts of elderly women. My father was a clergyman and I grew up in a parish in the city. It was much the same even then.’ So there was a family tradition of dressing up in frocks.

‘We’re trying to trace her family.’ At least Holly wasn’t fidgeting with the electric gadget, but was giving the man her full concentration. ‘Can you help with that at all?’

‘I don’t think I can. She lived over the road in the Harbour Guest House. Perhaps Mrs Dewar would know. They were almost like family. Margaret used to bring the children to Sunday School.’

They sat for a moment in silence.

‘Margaret worked as a volunteer with you?’

‘Yes.’ He seemed preoccupied. Vera wondered if he was trying to rearrange the cleaning rota, to think of another old woman to take Margaret’s place. At last he gave his full attention to the matter. ‘Yes, at the Haven.’

Vera decided it was time for her to take over. ‘The Haven is a refuge for battered women?’

Again, it seemed that a simple answer was beyond him. ‘No, not really. It’s a hostel for homeless women. Some of them might have left home because of domestic abuse, but we care for any woman in trouble who needs accommodation. Some have been in prison, some have been in care.’

‘And it’s run by the church?’

‘It’s run by a charitable trust. I’m one of the trustees, along with a senior social worker and a local accountant. But, as a church, we support the project. Financially, practically and with our prayers. Margaret worked miracles with some of the women. She became a surrogate mother to them, I think. They’ll miss her very much.’

‘Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt Margaret?’ The fumes from the gas fire made Vera feel light-headed, almost faint.

‘Of course not!’ The response was immediate. ‘This couldn’t be the action of a rational person, Inspector. This was an evil and random act of violence. A sign of the times.’

‘Did she have any close friends among your congregation?’ Holly’s tone was respectful, and again he answered her in a more considered way. He faced her so that his back was turned to Vera.

‘Close friends? No.’ He hesitated and then seemed to choose his words carefully. ‘A church is a community of different personalities. Of course we should treat each other with Christian charity, but we’re only human.’

Vera interrupted. ‘And get a bunch of women together and you have cliques and bitching. Must be a nightmare!’

He turned to her and for the first time he smiled. ‘It’s not always easy.’

‘Did Margaret belong to any one group?’ Vera again. The stuffy atmosphere in the small room was oppressive. She’d prefer to be out in the clear, cold air, and she wanted to move the conversation on.

‘No,’ the priest said. ‘She hated the gossip and kept herself rather apart. That’s what I mean when I say she had no close friends. She was always perfectly pleasant and played her part fully in the life of the church, but I don’t think she confided in anyone.’

‘Not even you?’

‘No.’ This time the smile was a little sad. ‘Not even me.’

‘And this hostel. The Haven? Where can we find it?’

‘It’s the former rectory.’ This time Gruskin’s smile was tight-lipped, even resentful. ‘In different times it might have been my home, I suppose. When the status of the clergy was rather different. Even in my father’s day the parish priest lived there. But now it’s hard to justify such a large house for a single man, and the diocese lets it to the charity at a reasonable rent. It’s a little way out of the town. That’s where the main settlement was, before commercial fishing took over from farming.’ He gave a sigh and Vera thought he would have been much happier as a Victorian priest, living in the big rectory, mixing socially with the gentry and delivering sermons to the peasants in the back pews.

‘You won’t get there tonight,’ he said. ‘There’s not much of a road and in this weather… The women always grumble about the isolation. I’m not sure it’s the best place for them to be.’

Outside it was quieter. The chip shop had closed and all the curtains in the Harbour Guest House had been drawn. The snow was covered with a hard sheen of frost. Gruskin shivered. For a long while he didn’t move. Vera thought he must be freezing, with only the thin cloak over his shoulders to keep him warm. At last he set off down the pavement away from them. When Vera turned to look at him she saw that he was talking into a mobile phone.