Hidden Depths

Chapter Thirteen

The press hadn’t yet tracked down Lily Marsh’s parents, or if they had they were showing more than their usual restraint. The young police officer waiting with them said there’d been no phone calls, no visitors apart from the rector from the village church and Mrs Marsh’s sister.

‘I don’t think it’s sunk in yet,’ he said. ‘The way the mother talks, it’s as if the girl’s just gone away for a while and will turn up any time.’

The couple were more elderly than Vera had expected. Phyllis had been forty-four when Lily was born and her husband five years older. ‘We’d given up, Inspector. It was like a miracle.’

Almost hope for me, then. But Vera knew she’d never have children. And the aching for them had almost passed anyway.

Lily’s parents lived in a neat semi. They’d lived there since they were married. Phyllis explained this as she made them tea. ‘It’s all paid off. We thought it would be something to leave to our daughter. We’ve no other savings.’ For the second time in a week Vera was listening to a bereaved mother talking too much, fending off thoughts and memories with words. When Vera and Joe arrived, the husband, Dennis, was in the small greenhouse in the back garden and they let him escape back there once they’d introduced themselves. Phyllis greeted Joe Ashworth like a friend, but Dennis was finding it harder than his wife to hold himself together. He had a blank, wild look on his face. ‘I’ll come out and chat to you in a bit,’ Vera said, ‘when I’ve had my tea.’

Through the window of the small living room they saw him perched on an upturned box, staring into space.

‘He’s always had trouble with his nerves,’ Phyllis said. Vera thought she caught the hint of accusation in her words. Now, when she most needed support, her husband was falling apart, still making demands on her.

The three of them sat clutching cups and saucers. Phyllis apologized for forgetting the sugar, though none of them took it, and jumped up to fetch it from the kitchen. She was a small, energetic woman, in her late sixties. She wore her hair in a tight white perm. ‘I was always worried that one of us would die before Lily was old enough to be independent,’ she said. ‘It never crossed my mind that she would go first.’ She had to talk about Lily being dead, otherwise she wouldn’t believe it.

Everywhere in the room there were reminders of her daughter. She kept getting up to point things out to them. The certificates for ballet and tap dancing, for piano. ‘She got as far as grade five then she stopped taking lessons. Too much school work. But she was still a lovely little player. She was going to start it up again. She said it would be useful in teaching.’ There were photos on the mantelpiece, the window sill, the upright piano. Lily at a birthday party, aged five or six, grinning out over a cake shaped like a hedgehog. The official school photos. By the time Lily was fourteen she was already so attractive she’d turn heads in the street. Even with a school sweatshirt and no make-up. That was something she had in common with Luke Armstrong. They were both physically beautiful. In all the chat, Vera was listening out for anything else which might provide a connection, but it seemed there was nothing. Then, in an enlarged, framed photo hung on the wall, there was Lily in her hired cap and gown on graduation day, head thrown back, a wide smile.

‘It looks as though she was enjoying herself there,’ Vera said. ‘Did she like being a student?’

‘She loved it,’ Phyllis said. ‘Every minute. I was so glad for her. Not that I wanted to let her go, of course. I missed her something terrible. But there was nothing much for her here. No brothers and sisters. Hardly any young people left in the village. And her father with his moods… He wanted her to live at home, travel in every day on the bus, but I knew that wouldn’t do. I said to him, “Be grateful that she didn’t end up in Kent or Exeter.” They were universities on her list. “It’s time she had some freedom.” He saw sense in the end.’

‘Did she work while she was at college?’ Vera asked. ‘Most students have to these days, don’t they?’

‘She worked in the holidays. Saturdays in term time. She got a flat in town with a couple of other lasses. In West Jesmond. A lovely flat. I wasn’t sure how she could afford it, but apparently it belonged to one of the other girls’ dad. He’d bought it, like, as an investment and rented it out to them. We helped her out as much as we could. Dennis got a bit of redundancy from the slate works when that closed so we had some savings.’

‘Where did she work in the holidays?’ Vera asked.

‘In Robbins, that posh frock shop near the Monument.’

Vera nodded to show she knew the one Phyllis was talking about. She’d never been inside but she’d looked in the window. All tailored linen and crisp white blouses. Jackets £250 a shot.

‘I’d hoped she might find somewhere in Hexham, one of the hotels maybe. Then she could have come home for the summer at least. But, like she said, she had to pay rent to keep her place and she’d never find wages as good as Robbins’ out here. Besides, she always liked to dress well. She had style even when she was little. And she got discount on the clothes she bought from there. She brought me some lovely birthday presents…’ Her hand started to shake, her cup rattled in its saucer. Ashworth stood up and took it from her. Phyllis pulled a tiny cotton handkerchief from her sleeve and began to weep. ‘We thought she would come back now,’ she said, still talking through the tears. ‘She’s a country girl, really, and there are lots of village schools crying out for teachers. I had this picture. Her married to a nice lad. Living local. Somewhere I could get to on the bus, at least. A grandchild before I get too old to enjoy it.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Take no notice of me. Nonsense.’ She paused again, stifled a sob. ‘Just you find out who killed her.’

Vera nodded imperceptibly to Ashworth to take over the questions. He had more tact in his little finger than she had in her whole body. She’d already put together her own picture of the family. An only child growing up with ageing parents, an overprotective mum, a moody dad. No wonder Lily hadn’t come home in the holidays, had salved her conscience by buying cut-price clothes from Robbins for her mam’s birthday. Who could blame her? But Vera needed details and Ashworth would get them out of Phyllis, without shattering her fantasy of Lily as doting daughter.

‘When did you last see Lily?’ he asked. ‘It’ll have been hard for her to get away from college much, I suppose. It’s an intensive course, the PGCE. Demanding academically and then there’s all the teaching practice.’

Just the right line to take, Vera thought. No implied criticism of Lily. Any of that and Phyllis would clam up.

‘She was over for the Easter weekend,’ the woman said.

‘You had a good time?’

‘Beautiful. It was just like old times. She came to church with me on the Sunday. It was one of those breezy, sunny days. All the daffs out.’

‘You’ve not managed to see her since then?’

‘She wanted to come over for the Whit half-term,’ Phyllis said quickly. ‘But she had an essay to write. She had to stay near to the library.’

‘Of course.’ Ashworth smiled. ‘Her final term. She’d have been snowed under’ He paused. ‘How did she seem at Easter?’

‘Canny. She’d got the teaching practice she was hoping for. A little village school up the coast. You could tell that was the way her mind was working. She was looking for the right experience to get her back this way.’

And Vera saw this was where the dream had come from. The nice lad and the grandchild. The house just down the road. Lily had let slip some comment about her teaching practice and Phyllis had conjured up all the rest.

‘I don’t suppose she brought anyone home with her that time? A boyfriend?’

‘No. I always said her friends would be welcome, but she was always on her own.’

‘Did she mention a lad? A bonny lass like her, there must have been someone…’

‘I didn’t like to pry,’ Phyllis said.

‘Of course not.’

‘They’re very secretive at that age, aren’t they? They’ll tell you nothing.’

‘You’ve been in touch since Easter, though? On the phone?’

‘I phone every week. Sunday. It’s cheap rate then. You couldn’t expect her to phone us, the budget she’s on.’

‘Did you call her landline or mobile?’

‘Mobile. That way she wouldn’t have to stay in specially.’

‘How did she seem?’

‘Really well. Happy. Excited, even.’

‘Do you know why she was feeling so good? Or was she always like that?’

‘Not always, no. We all have our bad days, don’t we? I thought afterwards about what might have made her so cheerful. I asked her if she’d sorted herself out a job for September. “There are things in the pipeline.” That’s what she said. It sounds daft, but you could hear her smiling as she said it. I thought perhaps she’d applied for something locally. Near home, I mean. Maybe even got an interview. But she didn’t want to say anything. Not to get our hopes up, like. In case we were disappointed.’

There was a moment of silence. In the greenhouse Dennis Marsh took a tin of tobacco from his jacket pocket and began rolling a cigarette. Phyllis frowned. She probably thought roll-ups common, something not to be done in front of guests. Not even when your daughter’s just died.

Ashworth leaned forward, caught her attention again. ‘Did Lily ever do a teaching practice in Whitley High?’

‘No, she was a primary specialist. She didn’t do high schools.’

‘So she’d never have taught a lad called Luke Armstrong? Never mentioned him at all?’

‘Why? Is he the one that killed her?’ The words were spat out, so loud and so fierce that she shocked them both.

‘No,’ Ashworth said quietly. ‘Nothing like that. He was murdered too. There are certain similarities.’

Vera left them then. Phyllis was making more tea, just about holding herself together with ritual chat, warming the pot, finding biscuits. She’d have liked Joe Ashworth as a son-in-law, Vera could tell. She might even have been thinking that as she prompted him to take another fig roll. There was a glass door from the kitchen into the garden and Vera went out through that, closing it behind her, shutting out the conversation, knowing she was a coward, but not able to bear it any more.

Dennis must have heard her approaching, but didn’t look up until she appeared at the open greenhouse door. She pulled up a plastic garden chair and sat just outside, facing him. He had the drawn, defeated face of men she’d seen in the cells or sleeping rough. Phyllis would save him from that, at least. She’d make sure he washed and shaved, cut his fingernails, wore clean clothes.

‘Tell me about Lily.’ Vera planted her feet firmly on the grass.

‘I should never have had a bairn,’ he said.

She felt like saying she’d always believed children were pretty overrated herself, but thought that wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

‘I don’t suppose anyone thinks they make a good job of it, bringing up kids.’

‘I can’t even look after myself.’

‘Lily seemed to have turned out all right. University. Going into teaching.’ Vera caught the cheerful tone of the social worker in her voice, hated herself for it.

‘She was never happy, though,’ he said. ‘Not really. Not even when she was at school.’

‘What was she like at school?’

‘Bright,’ he said. ‘Oh yes, always top of the class in the little school. And when she started her A levels they put her down for Oxford.’

Vera was surprised Phyllis hadn’t mentioned that, but understood why it hadn’t come up when he continued speaking. ‘Then she didn’t do as well in her exams as they’d been expecting. There was this lad, I don’t know, she was obsessed by him. Thought she was in love with him. Couldn’t concentrate, it seemed. Got A levels, but not the grades she needed for Oxford.’

‘It happens,’ Vera said. ‘Teenage girls…’

‘It wasn’t normal, though,’ he said. ‘Not a normal crush. She was fixated. Stopped sleeping. Stopped eating. I thought she was ill. She needed special help. Phyllis wouldn’t see it.’

Vera said nothing.

‘I knew,’ he said. ‘I recognized it. I’ve been in and out of mental hospital over the years. Not so much now that they’ve sorted out the drugs, but I had my first breakdown when I was Lily’s age. Too much of a coincidence, isn’t it? She must have got that from me. She got her mother’s brains. My madness.’

‘Do you remember the name of the lad she fell for when she was at school?’

He frowned. ‘My memory’s not so good. I blame the ECT but it’s probably just age.’

She waited, hoping it would come to him. She didn’t want to bring this up with Phyllis, cause her even more pain.

‘Craven,’ he said. ‘Ben Craven. A nice enough lad. Not his fault.’

‘What happened to him? Did he go on to university?’

Dennis shook his head. ‘I don’t think I ever knew.’

‘You said you had a couple of spells in hospital, Mr Marsh. Where did you go?’

‘St George’s. That place in Morpeth.’

The first link between Luke Armstrong and Lily Marsh, Vera thought. Tenuous, but something at least to work on.

‘And Lily? Do you think she ever went there for treatment? Once she left home, maybe? Not as an inpatient. You’d have heard about that. But to one of the outpatient clinics?’

‘I told her to go,’ he said. ‘I gave her a card with the name of my doctor on it. But I don’t know if she took my advice.’ He made a brave attempt at a smile. ‘You know what it’s like. Two women in the house. They weren’t going to take any notice of me.’