Hidden Depths

Chapter Thirty-One

Felicity had assumed Vera Stanhope would collect Lily Marsh’s ring and was a little confused to find a young man standing at the door. He introduced himself as Joe Ashworth and, when she still seemed unsure, he showed her his identity card and explained, ‘DI Stanhope’s my boss.’ He could have been the junior partner in a small business. He was well mannered and engaging and she took to him at once. She realized then that she’d been foolish to expect an inspector to turn out on such a trivial matter.

Almost immediately afterwards, James arrived from the school bus. They were still on the doorstep and he ran past them into the house and into the kitchen, shirt untucked, trainers unlaced, ravenous as he always was when he got in from school. Even when they followed, he took no notice of the stranger and continued pulling biscuits out of the tin, talking with his mouth full about sports day. She wished he had given a better impression, been more polite. But Ashworth seemed to understand children and smiled at her over the boy’s head. He sat and made small talk as if he had all the time in the world.

‘Your husband says you’re the gardener in the family.’

‘I suppose I am. He’s very busy. And though he’s a botanist by profession, his real passion is birds. He’d much rather be out on the coast.’

‘We live on a new estate,’ Ashworth said. ‘There’s not much of a garden at all. My wife makes it pretty, though. She watches the makeover programmes on the telly.’

While he was chatting about his wife and daughter and the new baby on the way, Felicity thought what a nice young man he was and how she wished Joanna had married someone like that, instead of Oliver, who worked in television and hardly seemed to notice that he had a child at all.

‘Recently wor lass has got into making home-made cards,’ Ashworth was saying. ‘They had someone to speak at the WI about pressing flowers. Sarah’s started growing plants she can pick for pressing. She sells them round the village. She’ll do a one-off if someone wants a card for a special occasion. There’s not much profit in it, but she covers the costs and she loves doing it.’

‘Goodness! I wish we could attract some younger women to the Institute here. The average age must be about seventy-five and I’m the youngest by miles.’

‘Maybe you had the same woman as a speaker?’

‘I don’t think so. But all those talks on craft become a bit of a blur. I’m not really interested. Two left hands. Any spare time and I’d rather be in the garden. I’ll show you round later, if you like.’

James ran outside to play with the girls from the farm, but Felicity and Ashworth stayed in the kitchen to talk. She set the ring on the table between them. ‘Such a pretty thing.’ She smiled, confessed, ‘I was almost tempted to keep it.’

‘You’re sure it belonged to Lily Marsh?’

‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘As soon as I saw it I knew it was familiar. It was only when I got back to the house that I remembered where I’d seen it.’

‘You didn’t notice Lily drop it?’

‘If I had,’ she said primly, ‘I’d have returned it to her.’

‘Of course.’ He paused. She thought he was more deliberate than Vera Stanhope, slower in his thought and speech. ‘I’m not clear how she might have lost it. Did she use the bathroom there? Take it off, perhaps, to wash her hands?’

She played back in her head the young woman’s appearance at Fox Mill. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, she went to the bathroom here in the house, before we went across to the cottage. Perhaps it had just come loose. If she’d lost weight since it was bought…’

‘Yes.’ He gave a doubtful little smile. ‘Wouldn’t you have heard it drop, then? Unless the cottage is carpeted?’

She was starting to lose patience. She wondered if she had been wrong about this young man. Had he taken her in with his stories of his wife and daughter? Was he trying to trick her? ‘There’s no carpet,’ she said more sharply. ‘Flags downstairs and wooden floorboards in the bedroom. Does it really matter? She must have dropped it. I’m handing it back.’

‘It might matter. If she was still wearing the ring when she left, it would suggest that she returned. We still don’t know where Miss Marsh was killed. You do see how important these details are now?’

Felicity felt suddenly sick. She couldn’t quite get to grips with what the detective was saying. ‘Do you mean she was killed in our cottage? That’s ridiculous. Impossible.’

‘I don’t think it’s impossible,’ he said calmly. He could still be talking about pressing flowers and the WI. ‘It’s not that far from here to where her body was found. We know it was her ring. We know it meant a lot to her. It was a present from someone very close to her. If we can find evidence that it was still in her possession when she left you, that would be significant, wouldn’t it? It would mean she came back. Probably on the day she was killed.’

There was a silence. Felicity realized she was staring at him, that she was expected to speak. ‘I really can’t remember if she was wearing the ring when she left me. But she was a stranger. Why would she come back? Do you think she’d changed her mind about renting the cottage?’

Ashworth ignored the last question. ‘Are you sure your husband had never met her?’

‘Of course. He told you.’ But while she was saying the words she was wondering if that was true. Peter knew nothing of her affair with Samuel. It was perfectly reasonable that he might have a life which was hidden from her. The idea was horrifying. How hypocritical is that? she thought. What right do I have to be jealous or hurt? But Lily had been so young and pretty. Of course there could be no question of her having an affair with Peter, who must have seemed an old man to her. This anxiety was ridiculous. Then she realized the detective was speaking again and she tried to concentrate on his words.

‘I’d like our crime scene investigators to look at the cottage,’ he said. ‘Just in case. You said you found the ring there this morning. Will anyone else have been in since you showed Lily round?’

‘I took Inspector Stanhope in at the weekend.’

He gave a sudden broad grin. ‘Her footprints’ll be distinctive enough,’ he said. ‘Those sandals she wears. The size of elephants’ feet. The CSI won’t confuse them.’

‘They won’t find any footprints!’ She didn’t mean to be defiant, but realized that was how she sounded and she couldn’t stop. ‘That’s what I was doing when I found the ring. I was cleaning. I brushed and mopped all the floors, scrubbed the work surfaces. It’s not worth bringing in your experts.’

He stayed very calm and looked straight at her.

‘What about bedding?’ he said.

‘I washed the sheets this morning. They’re on the line. I told you, you’re wasting your time. You won’t find anything.’

‘Oh you’d be surprised,’ he said, ‘just what we can find. You give us permission, I take it, for us to have a look?’

‘Of course.’ She knew it was too late to retrieve the situation. He must be convinced now that she’d cleaned the cottage to destroy any evidence that Lily had been killed there. ‘We’ll help in whatever way we can. We have nothing to hide.’

From the kitchen window she watched the drama unfold. He stood at the front of the house to make his phone call. He had his back to her and she had no idea what response he was getting. From his car he took a roll of blue-and-white tape. Had he been expecting this outcome? Had he brought it with him specially? He walked across the meadow and stretched it across the cottage door. She wanted to rebuild the rapport they’d had when he first arrived. Should she go out to him, offer him more tea? But she could tell he would consider it an intrusion. They might own the house, but this was his territory now.

He walked back to the drive, sat on the bank where the crocuses and snowdrops grew in spring and waited. He brushed the pollen and grass seed he’d picked up in the meadow from his trousers. His phone rang. She couldn’t hear it from the house, but she could see him answer. A sudden grin. Triumphant. More scary than when he’d been so cool in conversation with her. She thought she should phone Peter at work, warn him what was going on, but when she dialled his direct number at the university there was no reply. The raucous call of a cuckoo came from the kitchen clock. It was six o’clock. He would already have left. She struggled to remember what she had planned for supper, but the thought slipped from her mind and she returned to look out of the window.

James wandered down the drive. The girls from the farm must have been called in for tea. He was wearing shorts and his knees were filthy. The detective raised his hand in greeting and James sat beside him on the grass. He was curious now about what the stranger was doing here. They talked for a few minutes. Felicity thought they were getting on well. They seemed to be sharing a joke. Surely he must realize we wouldn’t commit murder We have a lovely son. Too much to lose. We’re nice, respectable people. People just like him.

James got to his feet and walked into the house. He disappeared from her view for a minute, then appeared in the kitchen. She thought, knowing the image was a silly exaggeration: He’s like a cold-war spy who’s come across from the other side. He might have valuable information. But he opened the fridge and peered inside as if it was any other evening. ‘I’m starving. When’s tea?’

‘Won’t be long.’ She tried to keep her voice even. ‘What were you and Mr Ashworth talking about?’

‘Is that his name?’ He was drinking orange juice straight from the carton. She restrained the urge to snap at him to fetch a glass. ‘He told me to call him Joe. He was asking me about Miss Marsh. What she was like as a teacher. How she got on with the kids in our class.’ His voice grew more excited. ‘They’re bringing in crime scene investigators to look at the cottage. Like on the television. There might be some trace in there to help them find out who killed Miss Marsh. Wait till I tell Lee Fenwick.’ Lee was his best friend and keenest rival. In winter they played chess together every evening.

She heard the faint sound of a vehicle turning in from the lane. She expected it to be Peter. Please keep your temper. Please be polite. He’s only doing his job. But it was a white van. A man and a woman jumped out, greeted Joe Ashworth as if he was an old friend. They pulled on the paper suits she’d seen in films and started lifting equipment from the back of the van.

James had forgotten about food. ‘Do you think I could go out and watch?’

‘No,’ she said sharply, then regretted her tone. Of course he was fascinated. So was she in a horrible, frightening way. ‘Won’t you get a better view from your bedroom?’

James ran off and she felt a sudden relief that she no longer had to pretend that everything was normal. When he’d opened the fridge she’d seen a bottle of white wine, started the night before, and realized she was desperate for a drink. She took it out, removed the vacuum stopper and poured herself a large glass. Her hand was shaking.

Back at the window she saw Peter’s car coming down the drive. His normal parking place had been taken by the van. She saw him get out and prepare to demand it was moved. Then he realized what was happening. He saw the two figures dressed in white walking across the meadow. Their weight was tilted towards each other, because of the heavy metal box they carried between them. Like James, he had watched enough television to understand what they were doing. Felicity saw Joe Ashworth approaching him, hand outstretched, but Peter hadn’t noticed. His focus was still on the cottage, the androgynous figures who had now reached the door. His face was very pale and still. My God, Felicity thought. He looks guilty. Guilty as hell. If I was Joe Ashworth I’d think he’d killed the girl.

She didn’t dare ask herself if she thought the same thing. The thought hovered at the back of her mind and she pushed it away, concentrated on the fish she’d cook for supper and on whether she should make sandwiches for Ashworth and his friends in the cottage. Now Peter and Ashworth were deep in conversation. They walked together towards the house. She prepared herself to be normal and welcoming, took a deep breath as the door opened.

Peter looked at her with the expression he put on when he’d received bad news, a paper rejected, a record dismissed. Aggrieved. She knew he wanted reassurance, but she didn’t have the heart to give it. In the end it was Ashworth who spoke.

‘Dr Calvert’s agreed to come to the station in Kimmerston to have a chat with DI Stanhope. A few points we want to clear up. It shouldn’t take long.’

She forced herself to smile. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I told you, anything we can do to help…’