The Sleeping and the Dead

Chapter Twenty-Two

Peter Porteous stood in front of them looking more than ever like a teacher at a second-rate college for further education. He’d set up a flip chart and there was an overhead projector to show slides of the victims and crime scenes.

‘If Carver hadn’t done the Gillespie post-mortem we’d probably never have made the link,’ he said. ‘But the Michael Grey inquiry was still fresh in his mind. He’s convinced the same knife was used in both murders. If not the same, so similar that it’s still significant. Not an ordinary kitchen knife. A dagger. Short bladed but wide. Very sharp.’

He flicked through half a dozen slides – grey flesh, Carver’s hands holding steel instruments, wounds which looked now very tidy and clean – then he paused. It was hot again. He’d taken off his jacket, loosened his tie just a touch.

‘So, let’s look at the victims.’ He turned a page of the flip chart. Stuck to the next page was the old photograph of Michael Grey playing Macbeth. Porteous stretched and wrote in felt-tip at the top: Theo Randle. He had no problem accepting the new name of the boy. He had more important things to worry about. He flipped the page again and scrawled a rudimentary family tree. The felt-tip squealed on rough paper.

‘Maria died when Theo was very young. Crispin remarried and had a second child, Emily. She was killed in a house fire when she was still a baby. Two tragedies. Perhaps that explains the family breakdown and the fostering.’

A young DC at the back stuck up a hand.

‘Yes?’

‘How did we get a positive ID on the boy in the end, sir?’

Porteous thought the man already knew the answer and intended to rub salt into the wounds. He was a cocky little sod. And it did come hard to admit that an enthusiastic amateur had got there before him. But he kept his voice friendly.

‘With the help of a member of the public. A psychologist who works for the Home Office. He had information we didn’t have access to, but I’ll come to that later.

‘Let’s turn now to what we know about Theo Randle. Quite a lot, considering how much time has elapsed. He was bright, well educated, personable. He seems to have come from a wealthy family. Just before he died he had a row with his girlfriend because she caught him making love to someone else. He was a talented actor and was starring in a production of Macbeth in the week before he disappeared. One of his props was a dagger. According to witnesses it was very sharp. I’d like to trace it. The school is doing its best but I don’t hold out much hope… He was lodging with a couple called Sylvia and Stephen Brice. Everyone says they were very fond of him. There was no question of ill treatment or abuse and I think we can rule them out. They’re dead now, but perhaps we can trace friends who knew Theo, knew how he came to be living there. None of this might be relevant, but I want to know.’

He turned to the next page on the chart. This was covered with a montage of photographs of Melanie Gillespie. Before she’d dyed her hair red she’d been blonde. In the centre there was a picture of her, blown up. She was half turned, caught unexpectedly. She had a wide mouth, high cheekbones and she was supermodel thin.

‘Despite the gap in time these two have a lot in common. Not just their age. The Gillespies are wealthy. They’re both prominent business people, often in the news. Theo’s dad was an MP. Melanie was bright and articulate. Her teachers say she could be moody but she was often charming. She wasn’t into art and acting like Theo, but she was a skilled musician. So they had similar backgrounds. Now, let’s look at the differences. Most obvious, of course, is gender…’

The cocky DC raised a hand, languidly, as if it were hardly worth the effort. ‘Is that important?’

Porteous wanted to yell: Don’t be fatuous. Everything’s important. Two young people have been killed.

‘We don’t know at this stage. There was no indication of sexual assault on Melanie Gillespie, according to Carver.’

He turned his back on the audience as he regained control, wrote DIFFERENCES on the flip chart, added GENDER, then AGE with a question mark. ‘Theo was a year older than Melanie, though as they were both in their A-level year, that hardly seems important.’

‘Could we be looking for a teacher?’ Claire Wright asked.

‘Possible, isn’t it? I’d be very interested to know if anyone who taught Theo at Cranford Grammar went on to work at Melanie’s school. Can you take responsibility for checking that out?’

She nodded.

‘Then there are the temperaments,’ he went on. ‘Not so easy to pin down, but we seem to have a difference here. Theo is described as organized and conscientious but he doesn’t seem to have been over-stressed by exams. He still felt able to take part in the school play. One witness says he told stories, you couldn’t believe what he said, but she was his girlfriend and he betrayed her. I’m not sure we can rely on her objectivity. There was no record of any emotional problems, nothing more than you’d expect in any adolescent. On the other hand Melanie was moody, given to bouts of anger and depression. For the past two years she’d been seeing a psychiatrist for an eating disorder.’

Porteous looked out at his team. Some were scribbling notes. He thought that soon they’d have no need for that. Soon they’d know these teenagers as well as they knew their own families.

‘So,’ he said. ‘Two victims. The big question is – Are there any more? Would a killer keep a knife for nearly thirty years, resisting the temptation to use it, then murder again, out of the blue? We need to check the old files and make sure this isn’t a part of a wider pattern. Pull up all the post-mortem reports for stabbings when the victim was a teenager. I don’t want the search restricted to the local area – I’m sure we’d have picked that up. But the killer might have been working away.’

He stopped again, abruptly, and seemed lost in thought for a moment. A fan on one of the desks in a corner hummed. Someone coughed uncertainly. His audience didn’t know him well enough to tell whether or not he’d finished the briefing. He let them sit in an awkward silence for a few minutes longer before continuing slowly.

‘So that’s one theory. We’ve got an undetected serial killer. We’ll find other crimes that fit the pattern – teenage murders and that particular knife. At least it’s something we can check. Carver’s happy to work with us on it.’ More than happy, Porteous thought. The pathologist had almost begged to be involved. He’d seen the chance for fame, mentions in influential journals and the opportunity to star as an expert witness in an important court case.

‘The other theory is that the second murder came about as a result, somehow, of the discovery of Theo Randle’s body, that there was a causal link between the incidents. If that’s the case it won’t be an obvious connection. Melanie hadn’t been born at the time of Theo’s death.’

‘Couldn’t we be talking a random nutter?’ The contribution came from Charlie Luke, who’d been sitting in the front row, his brow furrowed with concentration throughout the presentation. He had the build and squashed features of a boxer. Approaching middle-age he was still a constable and would remain one. No one was quite sure how he’d slipped through the assessment process to get into the service. Claire dismissed him as having the IQ of a gnat, but Porteous didn’t care and rather liked him. He was dogged and did what he was told. He didn’t let the job get under his skin. Beer and sport would always be more important.

‘Nothing’s ever completely random, is it, Luke? The killer must have met these young people somewhere. Their paths crossed even if he only came across them opportunistically, if he had no other motive than the thrill of killing. It should be possible to learn something about the pattern of his life from theirs.’

Luke seemed bewildered by the concept but he nodded enthusiastically.

‘Of course,’ Porteous went on, ‘we’ve already discovered one connection between Theo Randle and Melanie Gillespie…’ He turned towards Stout who was already rising to his feet. ‘Eddie, perhaps you’d like to tell us that part of the story.’

‘Hannah Morton,’ Stout said. ‘Maiden name Hannah Meek. She works as a librarian in Stavely nick. She’s recently separated from Jonathan, who’s deputy head of a high school on the coast, the high school where Melanie Gillespie was a student. There’s one daughter, Rosalind, aged eighteen, still living at home and waiting to go to university. On the surface you couldn’t find anyone more respectable than Mrs Morton. Anyone less likely to commit murder. But she did know both victims.

‘We were already interested in Mrs Morton before the Gillespie murder. She was Theo’s girlfriend, the love, she thought, of his life. She caught him…’ Stout hesitated, seemed to be searching for an appropriate euphemism.

‘Shagging?’ Luke suggested helpfully.

‘Quite.’ Still Stout couldn’t bring himself to say the word: ‘… the young actress who played Lady Macbeth. They were together by Cranford Water after an end-of-performance party. That’s the last record we have of the boy alive. Mrs Morton claims he phoned her the following day but after all this time it’s impossible to check.’

Stout paused. ‘She has a surprisingly clear recollection of all the details. That, in itself, raises suspicion. She didn’t tell us about Theo two-timing her until she knew we’d find out anyway. She was stage manager for the school play so she’d have access to the dagger which could well have been the murder weapon. She had motive and opportunity. There’s no one else in the frame.’ He rocked back on his heels. ‘But I don’t see it. I don’t see her as the sort of person who’d stab the boy she was in love with, tie an anchor round his body and hoy him in the lake. I certainly don’t see her living with herself for thirty years afterwards-’

‘Unless she’d repressed the memory,’ Luke interrupted. He looked round as if he expected congratulation from his colleagues for the contribution. When none came he added defensively, ‘Well, it happens. I saw this programme on the telly… And when the boy’s body was dredged up from the lake perhaps it all came back.’ He looked at Porteous for help.

‘You’d have to ask a psychiatrist,’ Porteous said. ‘Not my field.’ Recognizing the irony of the words as he spoke.

‘Unless she repressed the memory,’ Stout said impatiently. ‘But then why kill Melanie Gillespie? She had a motive for killing Randle, but none at all for murdering the girl. Melanie couldn’t have been a witness to the first murder. She couldn’t be any threat.’

‘How did Mrs Morton know Melanie?’ Claire Wright asked.

‘Melanie and Rosalind Morton were best friends. They went to the same school. Hannah met Melanie when Rosalind had friends to the house.’

‘Quite a tenuous connection then.’

Porteous, who’d been leaning against a table at the front of the room, stood up to answer.

‘Quite tenuous,’ he said. ‘And as Eddie’s said, Hannah Morton has no motive for the Gillespie murder. She does, however, have opportunity.’

He picked up the remote control and another slide was projected. It showed a narrow footpath with a stone wall on one side and a hawthorn hedge on the other. The footpath was crossed with blue and white tape. ‘Melanie’s body was found wrapped in black plastic at the bottom of the hedge.’

He clicked the remote and there was a shot of a lay-by on a main road, the entrance to the footpath. ‘Melanie wasn’t killed where she was found. The murderer must have parked here and carried the body the fifty yards or so to where it was dumped. We’ve already said she was anorexic so she wasn’t heavy. But not a pleasant job. It would have taken nerve.’

Another click and the footpath was seen from a different angle, so it was possible to see over the stone wall to a row of headstones.

‘Hannah Morton admits to having been in the cemetery the evening before the girl’s body was discovered. She claims to have remembered suddenly that Randle had told her where his mother was buried. She found the grave and that’s the information Arthur Lee, the Home Office psychologist, used to dig out the boy’s identity. If she’s telling the truth, then it’s some coincidence.’

The screen went blank. ‘All the same,’ Porteous said, ‘I don’t think we should become too fixed on the Morton connection. Not yet. Certainly there are other avenues to explore. I haven’t spoken to the Gillespies today. The doctor said they needed time. But before Melanie’s body was found they gave important information to the team looking into her disappearance. The case was taken seriously from the beginning because it was thought to be a kidnap. Melanie left home some time after ten, and went to a pub, the Promenade. When none of her friends were there she went to a café on the sea front called the Rainbow’s End. We need to trace everyone who was in either establishment that night. It was the last time she was seen alive, though Carver thinks it more likely she was killed the next day.’

He paused for long enough for them to catch up with their notes. ‘There’s someone else we need to get hold of too. A middle-aged man went into the Promenade looking for Melanie the week before she disappeared. Who was he?’

He let the question hang. Luke’s mobile rang. Embarrassed he fished in his pocket and switched it off.

Ignoring the interruption Porteous went on, ‘This afternoon I’m going to see Stella Randle, Theo’s stepmother, his only surviving relative. Perhaps something will come of that. Some other connection to make more sense of both cases.’

Eddie Stout listened and he thought that his boss had no soul. A fish on a slab had more emotion. Porteous spoke about connections and links as if he were forming a mathematical theory. Not as if a young girl had been stabbed to death. He thought of his Ruthie, excited and dressed up to go out, and said suddenly, trying to shock Porteous, ‘Wouldn’t there have been a lot of blood? A stabbing like that.’

‘Certainly.’

‘Not an easy thing to hide then. There’d have been stained clothes, marks on a floor, walls. Someone would have seen. Shouldn’t we put out the usual plea through the press? Wives and girlfriends who noticed anything odd…’

‘Of course, Eddie. It’s already in hand.’

Porteous stayed behind when they all filed out, collecting his papers into an ordered file. On the way to the door he stopped and glanced behind him. Melanie Gillespie, half turned in the photo, her mouth wide in a grin of recognition, seemed to be looking at him. He had an image of her alone and in pain, heard the screaming. He turned his back on the photo, deliberately distancing himself from the smile. That way lay madness.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Crispin Randle, father of Theo, former Tory MP, had died. Porteous thought, with some satisfaction, that the fat psychologist hanging round with Hannah Morton had missed that bit of information. He’d dug it out from the registrar. Crispin had died five years before from liver failure. The doctors Porteous tracked down suggested that alcohol consumption had been a major contributing factor.

Stella Randle, the widow, was living in Millhaven, in a flat close to the sea front, not very far down the coast from the cemetery where Melanie Gillespie’s body had been found. Porteous had made the appointment to visit by phone and she had been strangely uninterested, rather vague, so he turned up not even sure that she’d be in. The flat was in a crescent built around a communal garden. It had always been a poor Victorian imitation of Georgian grandeur but now it looked shabby and down at heel. A locked wrought-iron gate prevented him from parking right outside so he left his car on the promenade and walked. The grass in the garden was long, the borders overgrown.

Stella Randle opened the door to him herself. She had a faded charm, which matched the building. When he introduced himself she seemed not to recollect that they’d spoken earlier in the day and throughout the interview he was unsure whether her vagueness was genuine or an attempt to deceive. She was in her mid-fifties, dressed in what seemed to Porteous to be a parody of the character she was playing. She wore a pleated skirt, a little cashmere cardigan and even a string of pearls. In her youth she would have been pretty, a little foolish but aware of her limitations. Now she still tried to be girlish.

‘Come in. An inspector. What fun! You will stop for tea?’

There was a wide hall, then a huge high-ceilinged room with a bay window looking out to sea. He had been expecting clutter, furniture from a big house crammed into a flat, but the room was surprisingly empty. There was one sofa – well made but modern – and a couple of coffee tables. On one lay a library book, a romantic novel, face down. The floor had been stripped and varnished and in front of the marble fireplace there was a Moroccan rug of a startling indigo blue.

She must have sensed his surprise.

‘Crispin drank everything away,’ she said. ‘If he hadn’t died when he did the flat would have gone too.’ She looked round the room, saw it perhaps through his eyes. ‘Why don’t we go into the kitchen? We’ll be more comfortable there.’

The kitchen was shabby too but less austere. There were herbs in pots on the window-sill, a bunch of flowers and a brightly coloured oilskin cloth on the table. A portable television stood on one of the counters. A plate and a cup were draining next to the sink.

‘Tea then,’ she said and set a kettle on the gas ring. Still she hadn’t asked Porteous what he was doing there.

‘I’m afraid I may have some bad news,’ he said.

‘Oh?’ She seemed untroubled. Perhaps years of living with an alcoholic had inured her to the possibility of bad news.

‘It’s your stepson Theo.’

‘Theo?’ It was as if she barely recognized the name. She seemed to trawl back through her memory before it made sense.

‘Have you seen him recently?’

‘No, no. Not for years.’

‘Had your husband kept in touch with him?’

‘My husband was very ill, Inspector. Long before he died.’

It was hardly an answer but he let it go.

The kettle gave a piercing whistle. She seemed grateful for the distraction. Her attention was taken up then with warming the pot and making the tea. Porteous set the photograph of Theo as Macbeth on the table. ‘Is that him?’

‘Oh goodness, after all this time, really I couldn’t say.’ She’d only glanced at the picture, was more intent on looking in the cupboard for matching cups among a jumble-sale assortment.

‘Please look at the photo carefully, Mrs Randle.’

‘I haven’t seen him since he was a young boy.’

‘All the same.’

He spoke firmly and her resistance went. She sat at the table, took a pair of reading glasses from the pocket of her skirt and studied the photograph.

‘It could be him,’ she said at last. ‘That hair. Yes, I rather think it is.’

‘Do you have any photos of him as a young boy?’

He could tell she was about to say no without thinking about it, then she caught his eye and changed her mind.

‘There was one. He was pageboy at our wedding. Even Crispin didn’t have the heart to get rid of those. Not that they were worth anything…’ She jumped to her feet. He thought she was about to fetch the album, but she poured out the tea and arranged chocolate biscuits on a plate.

‘If I could look at it…’ he prompted.

‘Yes.’ The forced gaiety disappeared quite suddenly. ‘I don’t see why not.’ She left the kitchen, shutting the door behind her. When she returned some time later her eyes were red. He wondered what had made her cry. He hadn’t told her yet that Theo was dead. She hadn’t asked.

She had certainly been happy when she married. She beamed from every shot. The photos were in a red leather album, separated by flimsy sheets of tissue paper. They had been taken in a garden. She hadn’t worn a traditional wedding dress but a short white frock with a lacy white coat over the top. She must have been in her early twenties but had the enthusiastic grin of a school girl. She held a posy of garden flowers and there was a circlet of ox-eye daisies in her hair. Randle stood beside her, proud, rather paternal. His face looked a little flushed and Porteous thought he might have been drinking heavily even then.

‘They were taken at Snowberry,’ she said. ‘That was Crispin’s house. It had been in the family for years. It was foolish of course but I thought I’d grow old there. I imagined it full of grandchildren at Christmas. I was very young. Perhaps I fell in love with Snowberry as much as I did with Crispin.’ She gave a sad little laugh. Her hands had stopped turning the pages of the album.

‘You said there was a photo of Theo,’ Porteous prompted gently.

‘Theo. I did try very hard with Theo. I’d hoped he might dress up for the wedding. I can’t remember now what plans I had…’ She stopped, lost in thought. It seemed to be very important to her to remember what she had wanted the boy to wear. She looked up smiling triumphantly. ‘A sailor suit,’ she said. ‘I think that was it. I’d seen a picture in a magazine… I didn’t have bridesmaids. It wasn’t a big affair. Crispin didn’t want the fuss. He’d done all that the first time round. Anyway Theo wasn’t having any of it. I don’t think he resented my taking his mother’s place. I don’t think it was anything like that. Crispin said not at least, and we always seemed to be good pals. Perhaps it was his age. At the last minute anyway, he refused to wear the costume I’d chosen for him. Had an almighty tantrum.’ She smiled and it seemed to Porteous that she remembered the boy with genuine fondness. ‘Crispin was furious. I said it didn’t matter. Why should it? So Theo came to the wedding in his school clothes. Short grey trousers and a cherry-red tie. Very festive and perfectly appropriate. He was very sweet actually. He came up to me later and said he was sorry for making a fuss. I said I supposed the sailor suit was a bit sissy and he gave me a kiss. First time ever.’

‘Where was Theo at school?’ Porteous asked.

‘A place called Linden House. A little prep school. He went as a day boy. Crispin had been sent away as a boarder as a very young child and he didn’t want that for Theo. Not then.’ There was no hesitation. As she talked, the details of her life at Snowberry seemed to become sharper. She had more confidence in her memory.

‘The photograph…’ Porteous prompted her again.

She turned a page and there it was. A boy of about seven or eight standing on his own, looking into the camera, apparently enjoying the attention and the chance to show off. Instead of a traditional buttonhole he had a daisy pinned to the lapel of his blazer. There was a scab on one of his knees and his socks needed pulling up. He looked as if he’d been eating chocolate sauce.

‘I did want a photo of him,’ Stella said, ‘but I knew he wouldn’t stand being cleaned up first.’

Porteous was looking at the face, at the shock of white hair, the long straight nose. It would take an expert to check both pictures to confirm the identification but he was prepared to bet a year’s salary that Theo Randle had turned into Michael Grey.

‘I’m afraid,’ he said, ‘that Theo’s dead.’

She had been staring at the photograph, apparently lost in memory, and he had to repeat the words to be sure she’d heard. Then she gave a little moan. ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘Not him too.’

‘We believe he died a long time ago,’ Porteous said. ‘When he was only eighteen.’

‘How?’ Her eyes were bright, feverish. The question demanded an immediate and an honest answer.

‘He was stabbed.’

She seemed almost relieved by the words. ‘Quick then?’

‘Oh yes. He wouldn’t have felt any pain.’

‘That’s good.’ She got up from the table and poured more hot water into the teapot. Then she stood at the sink with her hands over her eyes as if she wanted to pretend Porteous wasn’t there.

‘Mrs Randle,’ he said gently.

She lowered her hands and asked fiercely, ‘Did Crispin know about this?’

‘I don’t see how he could have done.’ Unless, Porteous thought, he was responsible. ‘The body was only discovered last week.’

‘Crispin didn’t tell me everything,’ she said. ‘He kept things from me. He didn’t want me upset. He said it was for my own good. But I never knew what was going on. It’s very confusing, Inspector, to be kept in the dark. Sometimes I thought I was going mad.’

‘Would you like me to phone someone to be with you? A relative perhaps?’

She shook her head.

‘I will have to ask questions,’ Porteous said. ‘About Theo and your husband. Would you like me to come back another time to do that? Perhaps now I should call your doctor. You’ve had a great shock.’ He wasn’t sure he should leave her on her own.

‘No.’ Her voice was sharp. ‘No doctors.’

They sat for a moment in silence, looking at each other.

‘Ask your questions, Inspector. It’ll give me an excuse to talk about it. Talking helps. Isn’t that what the doctors say? That’s what they said after Emily died. It was a lie of course. Nothing helped. Except the pills. Crispin drank and I became a junkie. Not heroin. Nothing like that. Prescription medicine. All quite legal. Nothing for you to worry about. Professionally.’

‘Are you still taking medication now?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I took myself off them when Crispin was very ill. I needed to feel angry. The pills stop you feeling very much at all.’

‘That must have been hard.’

‘The hardest thing ever. At least it stopped me blaming Crispin for his drinking. He’d been through more than me. First Maria. Then Emily. How could I expect him to give it up? When I knew what he was going through. It brought us together at the end.’ She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘I did love him, Inspector. People thought I was after him for the money and the house and there was some of that in it. How could you separate them? It was all a part of what he was. But I wasn’t a gold-digger. I loved him. And Theo. I took them on as a package.’ She looked at him across the table, gave him her young woman’s smile. ‘So, Inspector, why don’t you ask your questions?’

‘When did Theo stop living at home?’

‘It was after the fire,’ she said. ‘After Emily died.’

‘Would you mind telling me about that?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t mind but it’s very confused. You mustn’t be cross if I get things wrong.’

‘It’s a long time ago.’

‘No,’ she said impatiently. ‘It’s not that. When Emily was born I was ill. Post-natal depression. I thought it would be easy. Like with Theo. I loved him without any bother. Why couldn’t I do the same with my own child?’

‘Not so easy building a relationship with a baby.’ As if, Porteous thought, I’d know.

‘But she was my own daughter. They wanted me to go into hospital. I refused. I thought Snowberry was the only place I had any chance of getting well. You don’t know what it’s like, Inspector. Sometimes I’d wake up in the morning feeling better. For no great reason. The sun coming in through a gap in the curtains. The taste of toast for breakfast, though they brought me toast on a tray every morning. And I’d think – This is it. The start of the recovery. Sometimes the feeling would last for days. Crispin still had his seat in the House then and I’d send him off to London telling him I’d be fine and I didn’t need him. Then the depression would return, as bad as ever. It was at the end of a really bad period of depression that we had the fire.’

‘Was Crispin at home when it happened?’

‘Yes. He came back that night. It was unusual to see him in the middle of the week. He’d been spending more and more time in London. He had a flat there of course. I think he probably had a mistress though I didn’t ask. I couldn’t blame him. I wasn’t much of a wife.’

‘Do you remember what happened on the night of the fire?’

‘Not very well. As I said, it was all very confused.’

Porteous didn’t push for details. There should be a fire investigator’s report, a coroner’s judgement. But Stella added quickly, ‘I think it might have been my fault. I smoked then, heavily. We had a nanny for Emily. A nice girl. We hired her before the baby was born even. I thought we’d be friends. We were about the same age. I thought we’d be able to share Emily. In the end of course she looked after her pretty much single-handed. But that evening she asked for some time off. She bathed Emily and put her to bed and then she went out.’

‘Do you remember the nanny’s name?’ Porteous asked.

‘Lizzie. Lizzie Milburn. She came from Newcastle. Her parents were teachers and she was crazy about babies. Just as well.’

‘You think your smoking might have started the fire?’

‘No one said. I told you Crispin tried to protect me. But going back over the facts I think that’s most likely. I went to look at Emily. Crispin came with me. There were no baby alarms in those days and I did feel responsible for her. Perhaps if I’d had the nerve to let Lizzie go, if I’d been forced to look after Emily myself things might have been different, but really I don’t think so. I was very ill.’ She paused. ‘I’m sorry, I’m rambling. Crispin and I had dinner together. He’d come back from London in a foul mood. He’d always been ambitious and someone had said something to make him believe he didn’t have a chance of promotion in the next reshuffle. He probably blamed me. I was hardly an ideal MP’s wife. Certainly nothing like Maria, who was perfect apparently in every way. A saint is a hard act to follow. Crispin had a lot to drink over dinner. I had a couple of glasses with him. Not sensible considering the strength of the medication I was on. When we went up to the nursery we were both a bit unsteady. Crispin didn’t stay long. He wanted to get back to the brandy. But I loved to watch her sleeping. That was the one time I could really believe I loved her…’

‘You think you might have been careless with a cigarette?’

‘I think it’s possible. I’m sure Crispin blamed me. I wonder sometimes if he thought I did it on purpose. An act of madness. He thought I was crazy. Certainly he believed I was responsible for the fire one way or another. That’s why he took Theo away. He said he couldn’t trust me to look after him any more.’

Chapter Twenty-Four

‘She says the boy never lived at home again after that,’ Porteous said. ‘I’ve seen the fire investigator and the coroner’s reports. There was no real structural damage to the house. The fire started in the nursery and was contained there, but the girl was trapped in her cot and when the bedding and nightclothes caught, there was no hope for her.’ There had been a photograph in the fire investigator’s report of a small charred body pushed to one end of the cot as if she had been trying to escape the smoke and the heat, the arms raised in the pugilistic stance common in burn victims.

‘I suppose it was an accident.’ It was evening. Eddie Stout had come out to Porteous’s home. It had never happened before. Porteous had reciprocated the Stouts’ hospitality with a meal in a restaurant. He’d told them it was because he couldn’t cook, but that wasn’t true. He liked home and work kept apart.

He’d been home for an hour and had almost finished writing up the notes of his interview with Stella Randle, when his doorbell rang. He’d seen Stout’s car from his window and had gone down, planning to keep him outside, thinking they could talk in the garden, even walk to the pub at the end of the lane if it was going to take a while. But Eddie had been so diffident and apologetic that a response like that was impossible. It called for something more friendly.

‘Of course, you must come in. No, really, it’s a pleasure. I was just going to have a beer. I’m sure you’ll join me.’

And Porteous had found it helpful to describe again his conversation with Randle’s widow. They were still standing, each with a glass, looking at the view down the valley. Stout continued without waiting for an answer to the original question.

‘It couldn’t have been an insurance scam turned tragic? Nothing like that?’

‘No. The fire officer said it was consistent with a cigarette or match having been carelessly dropped, not an attempt at large-scale damage. It started in or near the nursery. If it had been deliberate they’d not have done that. I know the technology wasn’t so precise then, but the officer was experienced and he was confident of his decision. When the fire really took hold the parents were at the other end of the house and hardly conscious – Crispin was drunk and Stella doped up to the eyeballs. Luckily the nanny came home earlier than expected or they might all have been killed.’

‘Where did Randle take the boy?’

‘Stella was very vague about that.’ After her description of the fire and her daughter’s death she’d hardly seemed to hear his questions. ‘Perhaps to stay with relatives until Crispin could arrange a boarding place for him.’

‘We’ve finally found out where he was at school then?’

‘No. Crispin would never tell her where Theo was. Not precisely. It was as if she’d relinquished all her rights over the boy. A way of punishing her for the death of his daughter. Theo came home occasionally for holidays, she said, but she was never allowed to be alone with him. As he got older he seems to have found better things to do. It can’t have been much fun at Snowberry. Randle had resigned his seat in the Commons and was drinking. I presume Theo invited himself to friends’ homes for the vacations. By all accounts he was a charmer. I don’t suppose it was difficult. Or there may have been other relatives.’

‘Where do the Brices fit in?’

‘I don’t know. Stella didn’t recognize the name.’

‘Not much further forward then.’ Eddie didn’t sound too disappointed by the lack of progress.

‘Oh, I think so. We should be able to trace Theo’s school with the information we’ve got now. Two schools probably if he was only ten when he went away. There must be someone who remembers him… I’ve been thinking that the reason for his leaving boarding school could have been financial. Crispin could have run through the family money very quickly. Perhaps he just couldn’t afford the school fees.’

‘Is this background relevant to the murder do you think?’

Is it? Porteous thought, and realized that he’d hardly considered the real business of the murder investigation all afternoon. He’d been wrapped up in the domestic tragedy. They’d all suffered – Crispin, Stella, Theo and Emily. When the wedding pictures were taken they must have seemed an ideal family. Porteous could imagine them posing for a similar photo to go with the constituency Christmas card. But the happiness had been shattered even before the fire.

‘I can’t imagine Stella Randle tracking down Theo and sticking a dagger through his ribs if that’s what you mean. She wouldn’t know where to start. And why would she?’

‘Could she have blamed the boy for the little girl’s death?’

‘She might have been psychotic when she was very ill, and dreamed up something like that, but she didn’t strike me as delusional today.’

‘Perhaps it wasn’t a delusion.’

‘What do you mean?’

Eddie shrugged. ‘Perhaps he did kill his sister. An unsupervised boy playing with matches could have the same result as a cigarette fire.’

‘There was no mention of that at the time.’

‘It would give another slant on Crispin keeping Theo away from his stepmother. Perhaps she was threatening to harm him even then. Much easier to blame the boy than take responsibility for her own negligence.’

‘It’s a possibility…’

‘But you don’t think it’s likely.’ Eddie finished his beer and grinned. ‘It’s OK. You don’t have to humour me. I’m not a kid. I’m…’ he paused. ‘What’s that technique they always use on the team-building courses? Brainstorming.’

‘I’m not dismissing any ideas. It’s just that Stella did take responsibility for Emily’s death as soon as I asked her about it. And she’d almost forgotten about Theo. I don’t think she’d have been able to do that if she’d killed him.’

‘Did you ask her about the Gillespie girl?’

‘Yes.’

On the way out. He’d stood on the doorstep looking across the garden to the wide sweep of the bay, with the lighthouse at one end and the mouth of the Tyne at the other, then turned back to her as if the question had just come to him: ‘Does the name Melanie Gillespie mean anything to you?’

She’d stood with her arms clasped across her chest as if she were cold. A breeze was coming off the sea and her cardigan was thin, but Porteous still felt warm. Then she’d giggled. ‘What’s this, Inspector? A sort of quiz?’ Then she’d gone into the flat shutting the door behind her without answering the question.

The sun was so low now that it shone up at them through the long window of the barn and they were dazzled. They turned away and sat down. Porteous offered Eddie another beer but he shook his head and for the first time Porteous saw how excited he was. It had been a struggle to contain himself in the conversation about Stella Randle.

‘What is it, Eddie? What have you got for me?’

‘I went to see Jack Westcott. You remember, he was the history teacher in the high school. Just retired.’

Porteous nodded.

‘I turned up before opening time this morning. Caught him when he was completely sober. We went for a walk in the park. His wife’s the house-proud sort. You could tell she was glad to have him out from under her feet. He was glad of the company, I think. He’ll miss those kids.’

Porteous nodded again, thought Eddie would get to the point in his own time.

‘I just wanted to get him talking. Claire Wright hasn’t found any teacher who moved from Cranford to the school on the coast, but I thought there might be some informal connections – specialist music teachers, drama festival, sport. That sort of thing.’

‘Anything?’

‘Not that Theo was involved in. So I asked about the other kids in the school. It occurred to me that Melanie’s mother and father would be about the same age as Theo if he’d lived. But Westcott couldn’t remember a Richard Gillespie or an Eleanor of any description, so I could kiss goodbye to that theory.’

‘Worth checking though. And it’s possible that Richard Gillespie was at Theo’s boarding school.’

‘Aye. From what I’ve seen of him on TV he’s got the air of a public-school boy about him… I’d pretty much given up hope of anything useful when Jack said he’d been digging around at home and he’d found some more photos of the Macbeth production. Would I like to see them? Most likely an excuse so he wouldn’t have to face that dragon of a wife on his own, but I thought he might have a sharper photo of the boy we could give to the press, so I went along with him.’

Porteous was finding it difficult to give the story his full attention. He didn’t mind Eddie Stout being here as much as he’d expected, but the evening sun was making him drowsy.

Eddie continued. ‘You’d have thought he was a schoolboy himself, the way he spoke to his wife. He took me upstairs to a sort of den where he hides away from her. There were cardboard boxes full of snaps. There must have been pictures in there of every school play in the past thirty years, but he’d sorted out the ones he thought were relevant.’

‘Anything of Theo we could use for the media?’

‘No. Jack must have had the shakes even then. None of them were brilliant. But amongst them I found this.’ Carefully, holding the picture by the edges with his fingertips, Eddie handed it over. It was a black and white photo of the audience, taken probably from the side of the stage just before the show was about to start. Parents clutched hand-printed programmes on their knees and chatted to their neighbours. There was no indication that they’d been aware of the photographer. Eddie pointed to a couple in the front row.

‘Those are the Brices.’

They looked ordinary, elderly. They could have been anyone’s grandparents. Stephen wore a hand-knitted sweater over corduroy trousers. Sylvia had made more of an effort about dressing up and had a high-necked blouse over a long black skirt. There was a brooch at the neck. They were holding hands.

‘Interesting,’ Porteous said. He always found it helpful to put a face to names. But he couldn’t quite understand Eddie’s excitement. It was hardly worth a trek into the country at tea time.

Eddie took a deep breath. ‘That,’ he said, pointing to a pale, insignificant man sitting next to Sylvia, ‘that is Alec Reeves.’

Then Porteous did understand the excitement. This was Alec Reeves who’d worked as assistant manager in the hardware store in Cranford high street. Alec Reeves, uncle to Carl Jackson, the lad with the learning disability who’d disappeared not long before Theo. Alec Reeves, who, according to Eddie, liked young boys and had gone off to get a job in a children’s home.

‘I thought Sarah Jackson said he’d left Cranford by then.’

‘She did. He must have come back.’

Porteous looked again at the photo. Although Sylvia was holding Stephen’s hand she was talking to Reeves. Her head was turned to him and she was smiling. It was the relaxed conversation of friends. ‘You said they knew him.’

‘Aye,’ Stout said bitterly. ‘You’d have thought they’d have had better taste.’

‘This changes things,’ Porteous said. Slowly. Not wanting to wind Eddie up any further. But Eddie was buzzing already.

‘Of course it does. Alec was there that night. It must have been the last performance, because Hannah Morton says that’s when the Brices were in the audience. No reason why he couldn’t have got hold of the knife. I bet when we check the records we’ll find other lads in his care who’ve mysteriously disappeared.’

‘Theo wasn’t in his care,’ Porteous said. ‘Not as far as we know.’ And Melanie Gillespie wasn’t a lad, he thought.

‘He could have been. Perhaps the Brices asked Alec to have a word with the boy. Perhaps Theo was depressed because of the mess he’d made of his love life and they asked Alec to help. He was always a sympathetic listener. I’ll give him that. Maybe he offered to take Theo out for the day, offered a shoulder to cry on. He was nearer the boy’s age than the Brices. More like a father.’

‘How would he explain Theo’s disappearance?’

‘I’ve been thinking about that.’ Eddie’s words tumbled over each other. ‘Someone told the Brices that Theo had decided to go back to his dad. It must have been Alec Reeves.’

‘It’s certainly a plausible theory,’ Porteous said. Then gently, ‘Where does Melanie Gillespie fit in?’

‘Maybe she’s the last of a string of teenagers who’ve disappeared. We don’t take missing teenagers very seriously, do we? Not the restless, unsettled ones. We put them down as runaways and hope the Sally Army will do the business for us.’

‘Melanie didn’t disappear though, did she? Her body was found. No attempt was made to hide it.’

‘Perhaps Reeves was disturbed. Or all the publicity about the body in the lake made him want to come out into the open. Could be he’s been enjoying the glory.’

Porteous said nothing. He wished he knew more about the subject. Perhaps after all he would have to talk to Hannah’s fat psychologist, ask his advice. He drank his beer absent-mindedly. He hadn’t eaten and felt it go to his head, mixed with the medication he’d taken earlier in the day. Like Stella Randle, he thought, I should take more care.

‘Sir?’ Eddie was on his feet. He was obviously desperate to move the case forward.

‘Peter. Call me Peter here, please.’ He set the glass on the table, stood up too, tried to sound decisive when all he had were questions. ‘I want to know where Reeves is. Don’t go to Sarah Jackson. I don’t want him frightened off. Put a watch on her bungalow. But be discreet. When you find Reeves, don’t pull him in. Tail him but leave him where he is. We’ll need more evidence, any evidence, before we question him. At present he doesn’t know there’s anything to connect him to Theo Randle and that’s how I want it. Show this photograph to the barman in the Promenade who said someone was looking for Melanie. Reeves will have changed since then, but it’s better than nothing. Tomorrow we’ll talk to her parents. See if the name means anything to them.’ He paused. ‘Go easy on this, Eddie. Bet will be expecting you back for a meal. Most of this you can do from home.’

But as Eddie bounded down the stairs Porteous knew he was wasting his breath. Eddie was a man with a mission and was losing the power of rational thought.

Chapter Twenty-Five

When Porteous arrived at the police station the next morning – early for him though he’d still walked, still kept to the same routine – Stout was already there. He looked as if he’d spent all night at his desk. He’d shaved but he was wearing the same clothes and he spoke too quickly, feverish through lack of sleep.

No use to man nor beast in that state, Porteous thought. Then recognized that as the pious sentiment of the newly converted and he listened to the steps Stout had already taken to track down Alec Reeves.

‘There’s an empty bungalow over the road from Sarah Jackson’s. The council were going to do it up before the next tenant anyway. I talked to a chap in building services who goes to our church. He pushed the work to the top of the list. They’re going to start this morning.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Should be there already. I’ve sent Charlie Luke along as part of the team.’

‘Won’t the council workers talk?’

‘No, they think he’s a management trainee. They have to do work experience in every department.’

Porteous smiled at the thought that Luke could pass as management material, but Stout was continuing. ‘He’ll have a key and can let our people in at night. If the neighbours get used to workmen being in the place it shouldn’t cause so much gossip.’

‘Good.’ Porteous thought the plan unnecessarily elaborate. They had no evidence that Reeves would try to contact his sister. But he knew Stout wasn’t in the mood to take criticism. Counselling had taught him the futility of knocking his head against a brick wall.

‘I got an address for Reeves from the DVLA. He lives in a small town in the Yorkshire Dales.’

‘Back to Yorkshire,’ Porteous said. ‘Hannah Morton thought Theo had been at school there but we didn’t get anywhere when we checked earlier. Could Alec have introduced Theo to the Brices, I wonder? I suppose it’s more likely to be coincidence. Theo would have been in a boarding school and Alec a care assistant in a Social Services assessment centre so it’s hard to see where they’d have met. Not that I’ve traced either establishment yet. But it shouldn’t be difficult now.’

‘I’ve found out where Reeves worked.’ Stout was jubilant. Porteous tried to be gracious in his moment of glory. ‘It was a place called Redwood. It wasn’t run by Social Services. Not officially. They bought in places there for difficult kids they couldn’t persuade anyone else to take. It was operated by a charitable trust. It closed about a year ago when the person in charge retired. A woman by the name of Alice Cornish. Apparently she’s famous.’

‘Oh yes,’ Porteous said. ‘She’s very famous.’

He was surprised Stout had never heard of her. Alice Cornish had been committed to providing quality care for children before the improvement of residential services became a fashionable cause. She’d worked in local-authority children’s homes in the late sixties and resigned, very publicly, exposing a series of scandals. The press hadn’t known what to make of her and in some quarters she’d been portrayed as an idealistic but rather hysterical trouble maker. She’d gone on to qualify as a doctor and then to set up an establishment of her own – Redwood – in a farmhouse in the country. Her peers found it hard to understand why she was bothering with grubby and disruptive children when she could be earning a comfortable living within the health service, but her qualifications made them take her seriously. She welcomed research teams into Redwood and they had to admit that her methods worked. She had gone on to be hugely respected in the field of social welfare. She had been made a Dame and chaired committees of inquiry into widespread abuse. Yet still she maintained her personal contact with Redwood and the children who’d lived there spoke of her with great affection. It seemed inconceivable that she would have employed anyone suspected of abuse. Porteous said as much, tactfully, to Stout.

‘She wouldn’t have known, would she? He was never convicted. Never even charged.’

‘I just don’t see how he would have got away with it at a place like that. Dr Cornish’s whole philosophy was about listening to children. The kids wouldn’t have been frightened to talk if Reeves had tried anything on.’

‘He’s clever,’ Stout said stubbornly. ‘Cunning. You don’t know.’

Again Porteous saw no point in arguing. ‘Is Reeves at home now?’

‘I got in touch with the local nick. They sent a community policeman round there yesterday evening. If Alec had answered he’d have got a pep talk about the neighbourhood watch, but nobody was in. According to the neighbours he’s a model citizen, keeps his lawn cut, does his stint driving meals on wheels round the village and – get this – he helps organize the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme at the local high school.’

‘Perhaps that’s how he met Theo Randle,’ Porteous said, almost to himself.

‘Perhaps that’s still how he gets to meet young lads.’

‘Had the local bobbies heard that anything like that’s going on?’

‘They didn’t say.’ Stout sounded disappointed. ‘But he’s known as a loner. Well thought of in the village, but no real friends, no wife, no ladyfriend.’

You could say the same about me, Porteous thought.

‘Did the neighbours have any idea where Reeves had gone?’ he asked.

‘Away for a week to visit an old colleague. They think he’ll be back today or tomorrow.’

‘I don’t suppose they mentioned where the old colleague lives?’

‘No. The old lady who lives next door asked but he wouldn’t say. It wasn’t like him. Usually he was happy to have a cup of tea with her and a chat.’

‘Suspicious…’ Porteous said, but only to please Stout. He didn’t want Reeves to be uncovered as a child-abuser and serial killer. His employment at Redwood would be seized upon by the press. Alice Cornish would lose her credibility. And it would mean that Stout had been right all along. He hated to admit it but an element of competition had crept into the inquiry. Stout had found an address for Reeves, but still Porteous hadn’t discovered where Crispin Randle had taken Theo to be educated after the fire. He didn’t want Stout to be proved right about this.

‘I’ve made an appointment to visit Mr and Mrs Gillespie,’ he said. It would be the first formal interview with Melanie’s parents. According to Richard Gillespie the doctor had said Eleanor wasn’t up to it before. Gillespie still wasn’t keen but Porteous had persisted and he’d reluctantly given way. He must have realized it would have to happen eventually. ‘One o’clock. Is that all right with you?’

‘You want me to come?’

‘I don’t want to miss anything. And while we’re at the coast I thought we’d see Melanie’s friends. Rosalind Morton and the boyfriend. You’re good at teenagers.’ He’d thought Stout would be pleased to be asked. ‘Don’t worry. They’ll let us know if there’s any news on Reeves.’

When Stout left the office Porteous made his decaffeinated coffee and spent most of the next hour on the phone. His first call was to an official in the Department for Education. He needed to find out where a child had been at school thirty years ago. It was urgent. A murder inquiry. Was there any way of finding out? There was a moment of silence and Porteous sensed the usual shock and excitement.

‘State sector or private?’

‘Private.’

Another silence. Then: ‘Did he take any public examinations?’

‘O levels. He must have taken O levels because he went on to the sixth form.’

‘You could try the exam boards then.’ The official hesitated then offered tentatively: ‘If you don’t mind giving me the details I can phone round for you. Call you back later.’

Porteous didn’t mind. He gave both Theo Randle’s names and his date of birth. ‘We think he was in school somewhere in Yorkshire.’

He replaced the receiver and felt he was easing back into contention in the race with Eddie Stout. Then he remembered two kids had died and wondered how he could have been so petty.

The next phone call was to Hannah Morton’s house. It was answered sulkily by a girl who sounded as if she’d just woken up. If anything when he identified himself she was even ruder. ‘Don’t come to the house,’ she said. ‘I’ll be working. The Promenade. A big white pub on the front. You’ll need to talk to Frank anyway and I’ll make sure Joe’s there. Make it mid-afternoon when we’re not so busy.’ She replaced the receiver before he had a chance to object.

He was wondering whether to break his routine and have another cup of coffee when the DFEE officer phoned him back.

‘I think I’ve traced your lad.’

‘Go on.’

‘He took O levels in the name of Michael Grey. Passed seven well. A grades in Art and English. Failed Latin.’

That’s all it took, Porteous thought. One phone call. Why didn’t I think about the exam boards before?

‘Have you got the name of the school?’

‘Marwood Grange. It doesn’t exist any more. I checked.’

‘Where was it, when it did exist?’

‘Out in the sticks. Yorkshire.’ He paused. He was good at dramatic pauses. ‘I tracked down one of the teachers. He works in the state system now. You can phone him if you like. Name of Hillier. This is his number.’ Porteous was just about to replace the receiver, when he added, ‘By the way. There’s no record of A levels.’

‘No,’ Porteous said. ‘There wouldn’t be.’

Hillier must have been waiting for his call because he answered immediately. ‘Marwood Grange,’ he said. ‘What a nightmare. It put me off private education for life.’

‘Do you remember Michael Grey?’

‘No. I was only there for a couple of terms before the place closed down and that was a bit of a blur. Like I said. A nightmare.’

‘Why did it close?’

‘Well, the fire was the final straw, but I don’t think it would have survived long anyway. A couple of parents had complained and several more had taken their kids away.’

‘Tell me about the fire.’

‘It started late one night. I was junior housemaster. It started in a classroom they think, but it spread to the dormitories. We got all the boys out but only because a kid got up for a pee. There were no fire doors. No extinguishers. There should have been a court case. It was gross negligence. I’d have been a witness… The guy in charge must have had friends in high places because it never came to that. He cut his losses, claimed the insurance and agreed not to run a school again.’

‘You’re sure you don’t remember a boy called Michael Grey?’

‘Certainly. I really only remember the boys in my house.’

Porteous saw Stout hovering outside his office door, ready for his trip to the coast, and waved him in. Another fire, he thought. Can that be a coincidence?

Chapter Twenty-Six

The Gillespie house had the dense quiet of an old church. It struck Porteous so strongly because he could tell that usually it wouldn’t have been like that. As they approached the front door he saw through the living-room window an electric guitar and a practice amp, a battered upright piano with music on the stand and scribbled manuscript in a pile on the floor. In the hall the telephone had been unplugged.

Richard Gillespie let them in and took them to a room on the first floor which he called his office. It had a desk and a computer but it was big enough for a leather sofa and a couple of armchairs. He left them there while he went to fetch coffee. The room was at the back of the house and looked over the garden to public tennis courts. Two women were playing a scrappy if energetic game and occasionally shouts of triumph and cries of ‘well done’ floated through the open window, emphasizing the quiet inside.

When Gillespie returned with a tray he was still alone.

‘Mrs Gillespie will be joining us?’ Porteous asked.

‘If you insist that it’s necessary. She’s resting.’

‘It is, I’m afraid.’ Porteous was glad Eddie Stout was with him, solid and unimpressed. He found Gillespie intimidating without being able to work out exactly why. Perhaps it was an impression of anger, only held in check with great self-control. Without Eddie as minder he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stand his ground.

‘While we’re on our own I want to know what’s going on,’ Gillespie said. ‘No one’s told us anything. I’ve a right to know.’

‘Of course. We’re linking your daughter’s murder to that of a boy called Theo Randle, nearly thirty years ago. Does the name mean anything to you?’

‘Any relation to Crispin Randle?’

‘His son.’

‘Crispin never told me his son had been killed.’

‘He didn’t know. We retrieved the body from Cranford Water a couple of weeks ago.’

‘That body?’

Porteous nodded. ‘Did you know Crispin well?’

‘Through business really. We had a couple of boozy nights together, but everyone who worked with Crispin ended up drinking with him.’

‘Was Mr Randle involved in the computer business?’ It was hard to picture.

‘Hardly. No. And I was never a computer scientist or engineer. Still don’t really understand the technology. I trained as a lawyer and worked my way up through the company’s legal department before becoming MD. When I first qualified I worked briefly for a firm of solicitors in town. We sold some property for Crispin.’

‘Snowberry?’

‘No, he’d already sold that. This was a house in Gosforth. We got a good price for it considering it was nearly falling down round his ears.’

‘Tell me about your daughter,’ Porteous said.

Gillespie shifted in his seat. For the first time the suppressed anger gave way to uneasiness.

‘It must seem like prying but we’ll need all the information you can give us.’

Eddie sat with his pencil poised over his notebook, waiting.

‘She wasn’t my daughter.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I mean, not biologically. Legally of course. I adopted her when I married Eleanor.’

Porteous wondered if that explained the anger. His position was compromised, ambiguous. Eleanor’s grief would be more straightforward. Had she made him feel he couldn’t possibly understand what she was going through?

‘Does Melanie’s natural father know that she’s dead?’

‘I shouldn’t think so. We’ve no way of tracing him. He’s a musician. That, at least, is what he calls himself. I think there was a card at Christmas. From North Africa, Marrakesh, somewhere like that. He travels a lot. I don’t know how he supports himself. Not now.’

‘What do you mean? “Not now”?’

There was a pause. Eventually Gillespie said, ‘I gave him money. Enough to last for a while.’

‘Why did you do that, Mr Gillespie?’ Eddie Stout spoke for the first time, shocking them both. Both, too, sensed the disapproval in his voice. Not now, Eddie, Porteous thought. Now’s not the time for a moral crusade.

But though the question seemed to make Gillespie defensive, he wanted to explain. ‘It was when Eleanor and I married. I didn’t want Ray around, dropping in every afternoon with his unsuitable friends, confusing Mel. I wanted to be her dad.’

‘So you paid him to go away?’

‘And to agree to the adoption, yes.’

‘How old was Melanie then?’

‘Five. Six by the time we went through the whole process.’

‘And he just disappeared from her life?’

‘Yes. Look, I thought it was the best thing at the time, all right? Ray Scully was mixed up in all sorts. He’d been convicted of fraud. He’d even been to prison. What could someone like him give Melanie?’

‘Did Mrs Gillespie know about the financial arrangement?’

‘Look, it was no big deal. A one-off payment. I wasn’t stopping him keeping in touch for ever. Like I said, he wrote to her, sent her cards.’

‘So Mrs Gillespie knew?’

‘No. She just thought it was Ray being irresponsible again. He’d been disappearing on and off since Mel was born.’ He stood up and stared blankly out of the window. The tennis game was over. ‘I shouldn’t have told you.’

‘No,’ Porteous said. ‘I’m very pleased that you did.’

‘You won’t tell Eleanor?’

‘I really don’t think that’s any of my business. Though we’ll want to trace the father. Is there any possibility that he’s been in touch with Melanie recently?’

‘She didn’t say anything. But I don’t suppose she would have done. Communication had pretty well broken down here.’

‘You know a middle-aged man went into the Promenade looking for her. It didn’t occur to you that it might have been her father?’

‘No. He knows where we live. He could have come to the house.’

‘That wasn’t part of the deal, was it? You’d paid him to stay away.’

Gillespie shrugged. The fight seemed to have gone out of him. ‘Eleanor thought that was the start of all Mel’s problems. Ray going away.’

‘What problems?’

‘She was never an easy child. Bright of course, but attention seeking, hyperactive. Then in the last few years there’s been the anorexia.’

‘Was she being treated for that?’

‘Oh, she’s been treated for everything.’ He must have realized that sounded callous. ‘We wanted her to be happy. I don’t think she ever has been, really. When we moved here and she started making friends I thought things were looking up. But in the couple of weeks before she died she was more disturbed than I remember.’

‘Who was her psychiatrist?’

‘Dr Collier at the General. He seemed a decent enough bloke, but I don’t know how effective he was.’

Oh, he’s effective, Porteous thought. Trust me. I know.

‘He wanted to treat Mel as an inpatient. She hated the idea. He was talking about sectioning her. Not on the food issue. She was eating enough, just, to keep her alive. But because she seemed to be depressed.’

‘How did that manifest itself?’ Porteous thought he sounded a bit like a doctor himself.

‘Listlessness, insomnia, withdrawal.’ He paused. ‘Sometimes I thought she’d lost all touch with reality.’

‘In what way?’

‘She seemed to hate her mother and me. She couldn’t believe we were trying to help her. There was some fantasy about us trying to control her.’

Just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you, Porteous thought and stopped the facetious words slipping out just in time. It was true. In hospital he’d met a man who was convinced he was about to be blown up by the IRA. The staff thought he was psychotic. A week after leaving the place he’d been killed by a car bomb. He dragged his attention back to the present, was aware of Eddie staring at him. He nodded at Eddie to take over the questions.

‘Had Melanie complained of any unwanted attention? Unusual phone calls, perhaps, strangers trying to engage her in conversation.’

‘I told you. In the last few days before she was killed she didn’t go out.’

‘She hadn’t had a problem with her boyfriend?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They hadn’t had a row, for example?’

Clever Eddie, Porteous thought. On the look out for another connection. But Gillespie shook his head.

‘I don’t know how Joe put up with her but he was always remarkably patient. Eleanor and I like him a lot. He’s respectable, despite the hair and the clothes. Comes from a good family. He was devoted to Mel. It was a relief when they started going out together. It was someone else to keep an eye on her. You know?’

Porteous nodded. ‘Would it be possible to speak to Mrs Gillespie now? We could talk in her room if that would be easier.’

‘No. She won’t want that. But you’ll have to wait while she gets ready.’

‘Perhaps in the meantime we could look in Melanie’s room. Is it as she left it?’

‘Yes. The police said not to touch anything. I’ll show you.’

The room was on the next floor, long and narrow, with two bay windows, each with a padded seat. The furniture was expensive, much of it custom built to fit the space, but the posters and cards on the walls, the candles and joss-sticks, the piles of clothes and papers turned it into any other student pit. On the desk there was a CD player and a rack of tapes. A door in the opposite wall led to a small bathroom.

‘You’ll have to excuse the mess,’ Gillespie said. ‘She wouldn’t let our cleaning lady in. Something else to fight over.’

‘You can leave it to us, sir. We’ll come down when we’ve finished.’

Gillespie turned. They waited in silence until they heard his footsteps retreating down the polished wood stairs.

‘Well?’ Porteous asked. ‘What do you think of him?’

‘He’s told us some of it.’ Eddie had already started on the dressing table. He pulled the top drawer right out and began feeling carefully through an octopus of tights. ‘Thrown us a few crumbs – like the fact that he’d paid the dad to go away. But he’s not told us everything. Not by a long chalk. Perhaps it’s not relevant. If he’s having an affair with his secretary, for instance. I don’t suppose that would have anything to do with the murder. But he’s keeping secrets and I don’t like it.’

‘I’m not sure.’ It was unlike Eddie to get so heated. Lack of sleep, Porteous thought. He felt more sympathy for Gillespie. ‘Perhaps he just feels guilty because he sent the father away and screwed up the kid.’

‘No,’ Eddie snorted. ‘His sort don’t do guilt.’

They sorted through the mess but they didn’t find a hiding place. No cache of love letters. No diary, which Porteous had been hoping for. He’d thought an introspective young woman like that would have kept a written record of her thoughts and feelings. No photo of her father, which he’d been looking for too. He’d have liked something to show the manager of the pub.

In the bathroom there was still a dirty towel on the floor. There was a small wall cupboard empty except for a bottle of anti-depressants on a shelf inside. It was dated a month before but it was still full. Had she stopped taking her medication because she thought she could manage without? Or was she saving the pills for a grand suicidal gesture?

Eddie was replacing the final drawer. ‘Nothing. Still, if Gillespie knew there was anything incriminating he’d have had plenty of time to get rid of it. There’s this… for what it’s worth…’

It was the National Record of Achievement from her school. The academic reports were glowing. There was a number of unaccounted absences, but allowance had obviously been made. The teachers had written sympathetic comments about Mel’s courage in the face of her medical difficulties. Eddie snorted again.

‘You don’t think she had serious health problems?’ Porteous asked.

‘Well, it’s not like cancer, is it? Self-induced and self-indulgent. If you ask me she could have done with a bit of healthy neglect.’ He opened the door of one of the wardrobes. Porteous had already been through the clothes checking the pockets. ‘Look at all that stuff. She didn’t get that in C&A or New Look. My Ruthie would give her eye-teeth for one of those frocks.’

‘Not a justification for murder though, is it?’ Porteous said quietly. ‘Being spoiled by your parents.’

Stout stopped, horrified, his arm still flung out in a gesture of righteous indignation.

‘You’re right. That was crass. I don’t know what came over me. It was that man. I let him get to me. One of the first rules, isn’t it? Don’t blame the victim.’

‘Have we finished?’ Porteous asked, a bit embarrassed to have had such a dramatic effect.

‘Just a minute.’

Stout straightened the cover on the crumpled bed. It was dark blue with gold stars and moons, too young for the sophisticated young woman they’d come to know, perhaps a relic from childhood. He felt under the pillow and came out with a photograph in a small silver frame.

‘The boyfriend?’ Porteous asked. Then more interested. ‘Or the father?’

‘Neither.’

It was of a small girl, perhaps eighteen months old, with blond curls tied with a ribbon. She had a plump face and dimples.

‘There’s no younger sister, is there?’

Porteous shook his head. He slipped the photograph from the frame. On the back of the print was written ‘Em’. ‘Another coincidence,’ he said. ‘The Randle child who was killed in the fire was called Emily.’

‘The photo’s much more recent than that,’ Stout said. ‘Unless they had Teletubbies thirty years ago. Look at that top she’s wearing.’

‘Perhaps the Gillespies will know.’

‘Aye,’ Stout said. ‘And perhaps they’ll tell. Which is another thing altogether.’

Eleanor Gillespie had joined her husband in his office. Porteous thought perhaps they didn’t want their personal space contaminated by the police. Eleanor wore jeans and a big sweater. She seemed very small inside it. She hardly looked up when they came in. Porteous apologized for the intrusion but couldn’t tell if she was listening.

‘It won’t take long.’

She shrugged. ‘We’ve got all the time in the world.’

‘We need to trace your husband, Mrs Gillespie. Do you have any idea where he is?’

She shook her head.

‘Is there anyone who might know?’

‘His mother, if she’s still alive.’ She gave an address.

Porteous handed the photograph of the baby to her. ‘Could you tell us who this is, please?’

Eleanor looked down listlessly, then seemed to jerk awake. She shot a look at her husband.

‘It’s Emma,’ she said. ‘Emma Leese. Just a little girl Mel used to babysit for. Before she got tied up with exams. I didn’t realize she’d kept a photo.’ She gave a sob. ‘It’s so unfair. If Mel had gone away on holiday when she’d planned she wouldn’t have been here. She’d have been on some beach in Portugal soaking up the sun.’

‘What made her change her mind?’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps Joe wasn’t keen. He never seemed very happy about the idea. Perhaps Mel was so low that she just couldn’t face it.’

She turned again to her husband. ‘We should all have gone. As a family.’ An accusation. He turned away and didn’t respond.

Porteous stood to go.

‘Does the name Alec Reeves mean anything to either of you?’

She seemed about to answer but Gillespie stood too and spoke for both of them. ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘I’ve never heard of him. Have you, Ellie?’

She said nothing and stared dumbly after the men as her husband led them down the stairs.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Eddie said he was starving so they queued at a baker’s for a sandwich and sat on a bench on the sea front like trippers to eat.

‘I wouldn’t give that marriage long.’ Eddie cupped his hand to catch the oozing tuna mayonnaise before it splashed on to his lap.

‘No?’ It wasn’t the first time Porteous had been surprised by Eddie’s cynicism. ‘I thought they were well matched. He seemed supportive. Protective even.’

‘Nah. She blames him already for the lassie’s death. I’d give it six months. She doesn’t trust him. We should get her on her own.’

‘What have you got against him? Besides his money?’

‘That’ll do for the time being. And the fact that he was lying.’

After the glare of the afternoon sun the pub was inviting. Rosie had been right. At this time of day the place was quiet. She was on her own behind the bar, chatting to a thin lad with a pony tail. She realized who they were as soon as they came through the door, and went to the back to call a plump, balding man, before greeting them.

‘Do you want a drink?’ It was an offhand snarl. Porteous thought if she was as ungracious as that to all the customers she was lucky still to have a job.

‘Orange juice.’ He raised his eyebrows to Stout, who nodded. ‘Two.’

She poured the drinks then turned to her boss. ‘Can I have my break now, Frank?’

‘Aye. Take as long as you like. We’re hardly rushed off our feet.’

She helped herself to a Coke and led them to a table in the corner. The skinny boy followed after.

‘This is Joe,’ she said. ‘Mel’s boyfriend.’

‘It was good of you to come.’

‘What do you want?’

‘To talk about Mel, that’s all. To try to get a clearer idea what she was like. Her parents are upset.’

‘We’re upset too.’

Porteous wished Eddie would help him out. He hadn’t expected the girl’s hostility. Didn’t Eddie know about teenagers? But Eddie drank his orange juice and seemed content to let his boss struggle on.

‘It’s not just that. She’ll have told things to you that she’d never let on to her parents. Wouldn’t she?’

‘Yeah. I suppose.’

‘So just talk to us. Describe her. Joe?’

‘She wasn’t like anyone else I’d ever met.’

That hardly helps, Porteous thought.

‘She was delicate, fragile. It wasn’t just the anorexia. I mean, I could never get to the bottom of what that was about. It didn’t seem to be about food. Not image even. I mean, it didn’t seem to be about the supermodel thing. She didn’t want starvation chic. She had more about her than that. It was as if she didn’t feel she deserved to eat. Which was crazy when you knew her, because everyone thought she was brilliant. Not just the teachers but her mates. People liked being around her. I couldn’t believe it when we started going out. I was on a high for months.’

Hadn’t that been how Hannah Meek had described her relationship with Michael Grey? Porteous thought. But perhaps it could be a description of any teenage infatuation.

‘Did she talk to you about her dad?’

‘You know about that?’ Joe seemed surprised. ‘My God, you’d have thought he was a murderer the way Richard Gillespie made her keep it secret. I think that made her dream about him even more. She had this romantic notion that Ray Scully, the great musician, was going to turn up and take her away from all that respectability.’

‘Richard wasn’t Mel’s real dad?’ Porteous could tell Rosie was hurt.

‘No.’

‘You never said. Even when she went missing.’

‘I couldn’t,’ Joe said. ‘She’d made me promise…’ Like a six-year-old in the playground.

‘Had she heard from her dad recently?’ Porteous asked.

‘No, I’m sure she would have said.’

‘How were things between you before she died?’

‘I hadn’t seen her for a few days. Her parents said she was too ill.’

‘You’d spoken on the phone though?’

‘They’d said she wasn’t up to it. I don’t know. Maybe she didn’t want to talk to me.’

‘Why wouldn’t she? Had you had a row?’

‘No!’

‘But?’

‘But something had happened to freak her out. I don’t know what it was. Maybe it was something I’d done or she’d thought I’d done, but she wouldn’t say.’ He paused, drank his beer. Porteous thought that despite his grief part of him was enjoying this – the attention, the drama. At university it would make an unusual chat-up story. The murder of the love of his life would demand sympathy. Women would go for it in droves. ‘We were going on holiday. It was her parents’ idea. They thought she should get away. The stress of waiting for exam results was getting to her. They knew someone with a villa on the Algarve.’

‘Eleanor said you weren’t very keen on the idea.’

Joe seemed shocked by the interruption. Porteous thought he’d already conjured a fantasy in which there’d been no disagreements in their relationship.

‘I just wasn’t sure I wanted the responsibility.’

‘She could be disturbed?’

‘Not mad!’ Joe said. ‘Troubled, depressed maybe. I’m not saying she was insane.’

‘So you were all set for a holiday to the Algarve. What happened?’

‘We were in here. All packed. Our suitcases with us. It was an evening flight and we’d arranged for the taxi to pick us up outside at six. We were having a few drinks, saying goodbye to our friends. Not Rosie. She’d gone away with her mum.’

Porteous turned slowly to Rosie. ‘That was the day of the school reunion?’

She nodded.

‘Was the television on in here?’

‘Yes.’ Joe had finished the beer. He put the empty glass on the table. ‘Why?’

‘An idea. Humour me.’

‘Mel started watching it. Suddenly she shouted for everyone to keep quiet. She was ratty. I mean really ratty. The moment before, she’d been laughing, then suddenly she was screaming at people because she couldn’t hear.’

‘What was on the television?’

‘I’m not sure. Local news, I think.’

That was the day they’d issued the press release naming the boy in the lake as Michael Grey and shown the photograph. Porteous felt a hit of adrenalin, breathed slowly to keep his voice calm.

‘Did she say what had interested her?’

‘Not really. Nothing that made sense. She got up and switched off the telly. Not angry any more, but serious. I asked her what was so important. “Nothing,” she said. “I think I’ve just seen a ghost. That’s all.” Then she said the holiday was off. “You go,” she said. “Take someone else. Take Rosie if you like.” But she didn’t mean it. And anyway I couldn’t just fly off and leave her like that. The taxi turned up then and we got it to take us home. The driver was moaning because he’d been expecting the full fare out to the airport and he’d turned down other work. I said we’d pay him anyway. I sat in the back next to her and she was shaking. She wasn’t causing a scene. She was really upset. She wouldn’t let me go into the house with her. “You’ve paid all that money. You might as well get him to drop you at your doorstep.” That was the last time I saw her.’

‘Rosie, did you ever see her after that, after you came back from Cranford?’

She shook her head.

‘Does the name Alec Reeves mean anything to either of you?’

‘Is he the suspect?’ Joe asked, almost with relish. Again Porteous thought the boy would survive this experience without too many scars. He wasn’t so sure about Rosie.

‘Just someone we’re trying to trace.’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘Rosie?’

Again she shook her head.

‘What about Emma Leese?’

‘Wasn’t she the little girl Mel used to babysit?’

‘Do you know her?’

‘No. It was before Mel moved round here. But she used to talk about her. About how cute she was.’

‘When did Mel move to the coast?’

‘A couple of years ago. At the beginning of the sixth form.’ Rosie gave Joe a brave grin. ‘That’s why all the lads fancied her. Because she was new, exciting. Him and me started infant school together. No secrets at all.’

Another connection with Theo, Porteous thought, almost automatically. But his mind was moving on in wider speculation. Wasn’t the relationship between Mel and the baby girl more intense than that between a young babysitter and her charge? Could Mel be the child’s mother, the photograph her only souvenir of a baby handed over for fostering or adoption? It would explain Richard Gillespie’s hostility and his reluctance to answer questions. Even after her death he wouldn’t want details of a teenage pregnancy made public. It might explain too why the family had moved just before she started her A-level course, why Mel was so mixed up.

‘Did Mel ever talk about having children?’ he asked.

Rosie picked up on what he was on about at once. ‘You must be joking.’

‘Where did she go to school before she started with you?’

‘Don’t know. Some private place inland, I think. Did she ever tell you, Joe?’

Or a special unit, Porteous thought, for pregnant schoolgirls. With very wealthy parents. Then immediately – I wonder if Redwood would take a kid like that. But wouldn’t Carver have picked up the fact that she’d had a child at the post-mortem? Perhaps it was in the final report which still hadn’t arrived.

‘Don’t you want to know,’ Joe demanded, ‘about the guy that came in here looking for her?’

‘Of course.’

‘I’ll get back behind the bar,’ Rosie said. ‘Then Frank can come and talk to you.’ She walked away from them. Joe watched her wistfully, unsure whether or not he should follow.

Porteus could tell immediately that Frank wouldn’t be any help. There’d been a brief discussion with Rosie behind the bar. He’d been reluctant to let her take over. Now he did approach them his face was greasy with sweat.

‘Look.’ He held out his hands, palms outward, a gesture to distance himself from the policemen and their questions. ‘I can’t remember anything. Honest. I wish I could. It was really busy. A guy came in asking about Mel. I didn’t tell him anything and he left. That’s all.’

‘Middle-aged, you said. Respectable.’

‘A ye.’

‘Not elderly then? Not an old man?’

‘Compared to these kids they all look old, don’t they?’

Stout had got hold of a recent photograph of Alec Reeves. He’d been in the paper in his home town handing over Duke of Edinburgh awards to a bunch of school children. He looked younger than his years. It must have been all that walking in the hills. He stood, fit and tanned, in the centre of the frame smiling shyly. It was hard to think of him as a monster.

‘Could that be him?’

‘Do you know how many faces I see in here?’

Porteus could feel Eddie beside him, winding himself up for a row.

‘Please concentrate,’ he said quietly.

‘All right. Aye. It could have been him. But I wouldn’t swear to it. Certainly not in court.’

Chapter Twenty-Eight

At the police station in Cranford, Claire Wright was waiting for them. ‘I’ve traced Elizabeth Milburn, the woman who was Emily Randle’s nanny. She’s head teacher now of a nursery school in the city but she lives out this way. She’ll be in this evening after eight if you want to get in touch.’

‘Any news on Reeves?’ Eddie demanded.

‘Nothing. He’s not visited his sister and he’s not gone home.’ She was sitting at her desk and didn’t look up from her computer screen. Eddie walked away. He knocked an empty Coke can off the desk and didn’t bother picking it up. ‘What’s wrong with him?’

‘Reeves,’ Porteus said. ‘Eddie’s convinced he killed a disabled lad before Theo Randle, and he likes him for these two. If there are only two.’

‘Looks that way at the moment. We’ve pulled up all the serious-crime reports that might be relevant. I can’t see anything which fits into a pattern with Randle and Gillespie. Not yet.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Members of the public have been ringing in all day, claiming they saw Melanie on the evening she died. It’s taken time to sort through. We’re following up anything that looks promising this evening. OK?’

‘Sure.’

He went to his office to start tracking down Ray Scully. Scully’s mother still lived at the address given to him by Eleanor Gillespie and she answered the phone on the first ring, shouting a little so he realized she was hard of hearing.

‘Yes? Who is it?’

He explained, repeating the questions louder when she didn’t seem to understand.

‘Ray isn’t here.’

‘I know that Mrs Scully. Where is he? We want to talk to him.’

‘What about?’

It was obvious that she didn’t read the newspapers and the Gillespies hadn’t bothered telling her. He didn’t want to break the news of her granddaughter’s death over the phone.

‘He’s not in any trouble, Mrs Scully.’

‘Are you sure?’ The deafness made her sound truculent.

‘Absolutely.’ Crossing his fingers, wondering if this was true.

There was a long pause.

‘Mrs Scully?’

She made up her mind suddenly. ‘He’s in Cromer. Norfolk. Summer season in the theatre at the end of the pier. Playing in the band for the musical turns.’

‘Has he got a telephone there?’

Suspicion returned. ‘No. He phones me. Once a week. Regular as clockwork.’

‘Can you ask him to contact me? Tell him it’s about Mel.’

He repeated the question to check that she’d understood, but she’d already gone. He left a similar message with the theatre manager.

It was six o’clock. Too early to visit Lizzie Milburn, so he could make a start on finding out everything there was to know about Frank Garrity, the manager of the Prom. A treat to himself after a dispiriting day. There was nothing he liked better than a dig through the files and records. He found what he was after quickly, made himself a celebratory mug of coffee and went to look for Eddie. He was at his desk, engaged in an earnest discussion with Charlie Luke, who was holed up in the bungalow opposite Sarah Jackson’s.

‘Nobody’s been there all day except a bloke selling dodgy dusters.’

‘I know why Frank was so reluctant to talk to us,’ Porteous said.

‘Why?’

‘He was charged with rape twenty years ago. It never came to court. The girl changed her story. But he was held on remand for a few days. It must have made an impression.’

‘Could he have killed Melanie? No one else saw the bloke who asked for her. He could have made it up to muddy the waters.’

‘He could. But he’d have still been in primary school when Theo Randle was killed.’

‘Could Carver be wrong about the links between the deaths?’

Could he? Porteous thought about it. It wouldn’t be the first time a team had wasted weeks following up connections which didn’t really exist.

‘I don’t think so. I don’t like the man, but he’s a good pathologist. And he’s put his reputation on the line.’ Another thought occurred to him. ‘Has his completed report been sent over yet?’

‘I’ve not seen it.’ As if he didn’t really care. As if all he cared about was nailing Reeves.

‘I want you to talk to the Spences and Chris Johnson tomorrow,’ Peter said.

‘Why?’ As truculent as Mrs Scully.

‘Back to basics, I suppose. They were at the party where Theo was last seen alive. Ask them about Reeves. Did they know him at the time? Show them a photo. Both photos. Did anyone see Reeves and Theo together? Has he been knocking around recently?’

‘Yes,’ Eddie said slowly. ‘I could do that.’

Then he was on the phone again, asking for an update from Charlie Luke.

Lizzie Milburn was in her fifties, but rather glamorous in an efficient, power-dressed sort of way. Certainly more glamorous than he’d expected someone who spent her days with three- and four-year-olds to be. But it seemed she ran the Early Years Centre on a big council estate on the edge of the city and spent little time these days with paint and sand. Porteous arrived at her home before her. She had a flat in what had once been a large country house. When there was no reply he was about to walk back to his car to wait, but she drove up, very quickly, and pulled to a stop beside him, scattering gravel. She was in a convertible Golf and the roof was down. She slid one slim leg out and stood up to greet him. She smelled expensive. Her skirt was short. Her shoes were dusty.

‘You wouldn’t believe the mess on the estate,’ she said. ‘It’s like a dust bowl. They’re knocking down most of the flats and putting up houses. A good thing. No one wanted to live in those high rises. But they seem to be taking for ever. And it’s worse in the winter. You need wellingtons to get from your car.’ She didn’t expect any response and went on, ‘Sorry I’m late. Parents evening. In a place like ours it’s hard to get the parents there and we don’t feel we can chase them away.’

At the door she slipped off her shoes. ‘I’m sorry, Inspector, but I really must have a very large G and T. I don’t suppose you…?’

‘Just a tonic,’ he said.

She’d been married, it seemed, but it hadn’t worked out. He had the impression that she’d got rid of a husband who hadn’t lived up to her expectations, re-assumed her maiden name, and carried on as if he’d never existed. There had never been any children but she’d done well financially out of the divorce. All this he gathered in the first few minutes. They sat, without ceremony at the kitchen table and he was reminded of his conversation with Stella Randle. Another kitchen. Two women of a certain age, but remarkably different.

‘What’s all this about, Inspector?’ Her hair was rinsed auburn and cut short. Her make-up was still intact. Despite the difference in their ages, despite the fact that she wasn’t at all the sort of woman he usually went for, he found himself attracted to her.

‘Theo Randle.’

‘Oh? Usually when the police come to see me it’s because one of the fathers has been suspected of abuse. Or the mums have been shifting stolen property on our premises. Or some little vandal has set fire to the place again.’

‘It is about a fire I want to talk to you.’

‘Is it true that the body you found in Cranford Water was Theo?’

‘Yes. He’d changed his name before he died but it was Theo.’

‘Poor boy.’ She went to the freezer to fetch ice for their drinks. ‘You’d have thought he started out with every advantage. Compared with the children I work with now. But he didn’t. He didn’t stand a chance of a normal life.’

‘Why?’

‘Before I arrived at Snowberry he’d been left almost to his own devices. Crispin went to pieces after Maria died. Kept up a show for the constituents but he was hitting the bottle even then. Theo was minded by a series of women whose main job was to keep the house clean. He got whatever he wanted so long as he left them in peace. And it was much the same when Crispin was there. I suppose things were better when he started school but it was a snotty little prep place and I think it must have been pretty bleak. Theo must have been well screwed up even before Crispin married Stella.’

‘Did he resent his stepmother?’

‘No. Quite the opposite. He worshipped her. She took time to listen to him, read him stories, played with him. She wasn’t much more than a girl herself – a bit giggly and silly – but she made a real effort to get on with him. I met her first when she was pregnant. We were about the same age but she made me feel about a hundred and one. She treated the whole thing as a game. As if having a baby was all about parties and presents. She’d been totally sheltered. Mummy and Daddy were friends of Crispin’s. She’d done boarding school, a year’s finishing in Switzerland. The job as Crispin’s secretary was to give her something to do with her time before marriage and of course she didn’t have to look very far for a husband. It was hardly surprising that she went to pieces when Emily was born. Her depression was a nightmare for everyone at Snowberry but especially Theo. He thought he’d found someone who cared about him. Then suddenly she didn’t care about anyone. She couldn’t. The doctors Crispin got in didn’t help. They just pumped her full of drugs. I tried to spend as much time as I could with Theo, but I couldn’t replace her and I was pretty busy with Emily.’

‘Did you keep in touch with him when he went away to school?’

‘I didn’t keep in touch with any of them. Crispin made it quite clear my role in the family was over when Emily died. The day after the fire he gave me a month’s wages in lieu of notice and he sent me away.’

‘Tell me about the fire.’

She swirled the remaining gin in her glass. ‘I’d been out. It didn’t happen often. Snowberry was miles from anywhere. The only entertainment was the pub and those days a woman didn’t go out drinking on her own. One of the lads on the estate asked me to go to the pictures in town. He had a car. That was the only reason I went and I made sure I wasn’t late back. The nursery was at the back of the house and I couldn’t see the fire from the front. The first thing I did was check on Emily but I couldn’t get near her room. You wouldn’t believe the heat and the smoke. Sometimes I wake up at night and I can still taste it. Theo was asleep but I managed to get him out. Crispin and Stella were still up. They’d both been drinking and they hadn’t noticed a thing.’

‘Was anyone else there?’

‘Not in the house itself. There was a couple who looked after the place, but they lived in a cottage at the end of the drive. They didn’t know anything until the fire engines woke them up.’

‘Are you sure it was an accident?’

‘You think the fire’s related to Theo’s murder?’

He shrugged. ‘I hope I’ve got an open mind.’

‘Stella wouldn’t hurt a fly, even in her maddest moments. Crispin had a fearsome temper. I can imagine him lashing out at Stella, but he loved the baby. And even if the fire was his fault, why kill Theo after all that time?’

And what, Porteus thought, could any of this have to do with Melanie Gillespie?

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Porteous had made an appointment to see Melanie’s psychiatrist. Walking from the car park to the day hospital, all glass and concrete like the superstore next door, he tried to walk in her footsteps, see it through her eyes. On the step by the entrance, a young couple stared blankly into space, smoking cheap smuggled cigarettes. In the waiting-room a middle-aged man with wild hair paced backwards and forwards talking to himself about God. Sitting on one of the orange plastic chairs in the corridor a plump woman in a neat, grey raincoat sobbed discreetly into a handkerchief. What would Melanie have made of them? Would she have considered herself different and sat apart? Would she have visited the place alone, her parents too busy to be there? He found it hard to imagine Melanie here at all. He thought Richard Gillespie would have arranged somewhere private, an exclusive clinic where discretion would be guaranteed, the sort of health farm where customers were force fed instead of starved.

The receptionist on the main desk gave him a brief smile of recognition, but when he showed her his warrant card she shook her head. A sort of apology for mistaking him for one of the patients. The waiting-room was unusually busy. The hospital tried to see patients on time. If they were kept hanging around some lost their nerve and walked out. Others turned nasty. Porteous had a sudden qualm of conscience about taking up the doctor’s time.

‘Mr Porteous, the doctor will see you now.’

They watched him, aware he was jumping the queue, but too apathetic or too cowed to comment. The nurse started walking with him.

‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I know the way.’

He followed the corridor with its jolly posters promoting healthy eating and adverts for self-help groups, until he came to the door. He stopped outside, feeling for a moment the old anxiety, the breaker of rules outside the head teacher’s study, then he knocked lightly and went in.

Collier was a red-headed Scot with freckles and blue eyes. He ran marathons and looked horribly fit.

‘Peter. You’re looking very well.’

Despite himself he felt pleased. Collier had always been honest. If he looked lousy he’d have said so. This meant he must be doing OK.

‘I’m not here for me. Didn’t they say?’

‘Yeah. There’s a note somewhere.’ He scrabbled through a pile of scrap paper. Porteous would have loved the opportunity to go through the desk, to reduce it to a series of neat piles. ‘And I had a phone call,’ the psychiatrist continued. ‘From Mr Gillespie.’ He lay back in his chair. ‘What you might call a warning shot across my bows.’

‘Oh?’

‘Oh aye. I’m to respect Melanie’s confidentiality although she’s dead. The cheek of the man. You’d think he was paying me.’

‘Isn’t that odd? I mean Melanie being treated on the NHS. He must have private health insurance.’

‘I’m the best,’ Collier said, quite seriously. ‘If he’d asked around he’d have been told that. And I don’t do private.’

‘I do know. That you’re the best.’

Collier grinned. ‘And they might have gone private before they came here. They said not, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d tried something else. Herbal remedies. Acupuncture. Hypnosis. Any damn thing to avoid having to face what was going on. You’d be surprised by the number of patients who’ve been fooled by some quack but who’re too embarrassed to admit it.’

‘So,’ Porteous said cautiously. ‘There’s nothing you’re prepared to tell me. You’ve been warned off.’

‘I can’t tell you about the lassie’s illness.’

‘When did you last see her?’

Collier opened a desk diary. The pages were covered in scribbled notes and crossing out. The lack of order made Porteous wince.

‘A week ago. It was a house call.’ He paused, frowned. ‘Oh bugger Gillespie! But just be discreet. He says he’ll sue. He couldn’t, of course, but he could make things awkward. Eleanor, the mother, phoned up in a state. She said Melanie was delusional, in the middle of some sort of crisis. She needed to be in hospital. I offered to send in a community nurse but that wouldn’t do. By the time I could get there Gillespie had turned up. He said the same as his wife but more forcefully. I had to treat the girl as an inpatient.’

‘But you didn’t admit her?’

‘No. I wasn’t going to be bullied. I’d have liked to talk to Melanie alone but the parents weren’t having any of it and I didn’t think I could insist. It was an awkward situation. I was on my own. Sod’s law. I’d been trailing a female student around with me the rest of the week.’

‘How was Melanie?’

‘Angry. She’d had some sort of tantrum, throwing furniture around, smashing plates. It was over by the time I got there but I presume that was why Eleanor phoned.’

‘The anger was directed at her parents?’

‘That was the impression I had.’

‘Was it about the anorexia?’

‘Melanie used food as a weapon in every situation. But as to what triggered the scene…’ He shrugged.

‘Could it have had anything to do with her natural father?’

Collier looked up at him sharply then shrugged again.

‘I don’t know. By the time I arrived Melanie was very controlled and she wasn’t giving anything away. She insisted she didn’t want to be in hospital and I don’t have the beds to admit every young person who causes their parents grief. She was perfectly rational and I didn’t think she was suicidal. No grounds for sectioning. I made her an outpatient appointment.’

‘When for?’

‘I would have liked to have seen her immediately. Get her here, away from home territory. I felt there’d been some sort of breakthrough, that, you know, she trusted me for standing up to her father. But I couldn’t make it for a couple of days. I was speaking at a conference in Edinburgh. I gave her a chance to see a colleague but she wasn’t happy about that.’

‘When was the appointment?’

‘The morning her body was found in the cemetery.’

There was a pause. Porteous was aware of the patients in the waiting-room, their nerves twisting to breaking point as the minutes ticked on. He knew Collier was thinking of them too.

‘Had she ever been in Redwood?’

‘The assessment centre? Alice Cornish’s place? Not so far as I know. Why?’

‘One of our suspects was a social worker there. It would be a link. And that’s privileged information too, even if I can’t sue.’

‘They never said. I mean, I took a history. Schools. You know the sort of thing. But I didn’t check. Why should I?’ He paused, tilted back in his chair. ‘Redwood was an amazing place. I did a residential placement there. One of my options. There’s no reason why the Gillespies wouldn’t have admitted to her having gone there. It was harder to get into than Eton. Something for them to brag about.’ His eyes flicked to the clock on the wall and Porteous realized his time was up.

Outside the sun splashed off the big glass windows of the hospital and the superstore. His car, trapped between the buildings, was sweltering. He opened all the windows but didn’t start driving. He couldn’t face Cranford and Eddie’s obsession, the rest of the team expecting answers and leadership.

When he did start it was to go up the coast towards Stavely Prison, knowing he was running away. In the low fields on the coastal plain the combine harvesters moved relentlessly over the crop, followed by swarms of herring-gulls, as if the machines were trawlers. By the time he’d arrived he’d persuaded himself that the trip was vital. Hannah was still the best link they had between the killings.

Because he hadn’t told the prison in advance that he intended to visit, he had to wait at the gatehouse while they found someone to take him to the library. There was a tiny room which he shared with a nervous young solicitor, who farted loudly then blushed. The walls were posted with mission statements about racism and bullying. They weren’t as colourful as those in the hospital but they had the same improving tone.

He’d led the officer on the gate to believe that Hannah was expecting him. ‘No. Don’t disturb her. Just get an escort to take me over.’

The escort was a stocky young woman who seemed new to the job. They walked past a group of inmates who were weeding a huge circular bed, planted with geraniums in the shape of an anchor. The inmates whistled and shouted and the officer turned scarlet. Porteous didn’t think she’d stick it long.

The library was closed and the officer had to unlock it. Inside, an orderly sat at a desk, covering books with transparent plastic.

‘Mrs Morton about?’

‘In the office. Hannah, there’s someone to see you.’

She came out carrying a pile of new books. She seemed so shocked to see him that he thought she might drop them, but she recovered her composure well. She ignored him and spoke to the officer. ‘That’s all right, Karen. You can leave us to it. I’ll see Mr Porteous back to the gate.’

The officer went reluctantly, obviously curious about what he was doing there.

‘Do you want to go out for a smoke, Marty? Just give us a few minutes.’

When they were on their own she turned on him with a ferocity which surprised him.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing here?’

‘I had another appointment on the coast and I thought I’d call in, see if you could spare a few minutes.’ I’m playing hookey. Hiding from my team.

‘You don’t get it, do you? In a prison a visit from the police means arrest, guilt, trouble. It’ll be around the place in minutes that you’ve been to see me. There’ll be rumours, stories. It’s hard enough to work here as it is.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘What do you want?’

‘Really just a few questions. Would you like Mr Lee with you?’ He would quite have liked to talk to the psychologist, get some informal advice about what might be going on with the Gillespies.

‘Arthur can’t be here. He’s taking a class. If you’d phoned in advance we could have arranged it.’

‘Really, it’s no big deal.’

‘Yes, Inspector. It is a big deal. Two murders nearly thirty years apart are linked by the same weapon. I knew both victims. I’m not stupid. I know how it looks.’

‘I talked to your daughter yesterday.’

‘She told me.’

‘They’re nice kids. Her and Joseph.’

‘What is this about, Inspector? Marty and I have work to do. The library opens in twenty minutes.’

‘Did Theo mention anyone called Alec Reeves?’

There was moment before she reacted. He saw that she still wasn’t used to the boy’s new name. Then she shook her head. He was disappointed. If she had met him, he thought, she’d have remembered. She remembered everything else. But he persisted.

‘He was a friend of the Brices. You might have met him at their home.’

‘I didn’t meet anyone else there. They were content with their own company.’

‘He was sitting with the Brices for the final production of Macbeth. In the front row. You told me you chatted to the Brices in the interval. You would have seen him then.’

She sat with her eyes shut and he knew she was trying to re-create the scene. He had heard of photographic memory but he’d never before met anyone with such vivid recall.

‘A little man,’ she said. ‘Nondescript. Grey.’

‘Yes.’ He tried to keep the voice measured but she picked up his excitement.

‘Did he kill Michael?’

‘We want to talk to him.’

‘So you’re looking at someone else? Not just me.’

He smiled. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not just you.’

‘You’re right. He was staying with the Brices. He had been a member of the church but he’d been working away. There was a special service on the Sunday – a confirmation, I think. He’d come back for that and they’d persuaded him to stay the whole weekend.’

‘What did Theo think of him?’

‘He said he was boring. Boring but worthy.’

‘He wasn’t frightened of him? You said Theo phoned you on the Sunday to say he was scared and he needed to talk to you. Could he have been frightened of Alec Reeves?’

‘I don’t know. If he was, he didn’t say.’

‘Mr Reeves worked at a place called Redwood. Did Theo ever mention that to you?’

‘Wasn’t that the name of his school in Yorkshire?’

‘No,’ Porteous said gently. He didn’t want to do anything to stifle her memory. ‘I don’t think it was.’

‘Yes. I’m almost certain. Isn’t it strange? I’d been trying so hard to remember if he ever told me the name and couldn’t come up with a thing. Then you mentioned Redwood and the conversation’s come back to me almost word for word.’

‘Could you tell me? It is important.’

‘It was the George Eliot essay.’ She looked at him. She’d told him so many details of her time with Michael that she thought he knew it all. ‘He was a George Eliot fan. As was I. There was a teacher who inspired him. When I reran the conversation in my head first he talked about “someone in the old place”. But that wasn’t what he said. Not at first. He corrected himself straight away but what he first said was “someone in Redwood”.’

She beamed at him, delighted to have got it right. He could see why the fat psychologist fancied her.

So, Porteous thought, after the fire and Emily’s death, Theo was sent to Redwood. He’d attended Marwood Grange as a day boy. That’s why Hillier the housemaster hadn’t remembered him. He must have lived at Redwood for years, until he moved to live with the Brices. Why? Because it was a place of safety and Randle had thought he was in danger from his stepmother? Or because he was so traumatized by the death of his sister, that he needed long-term help? If they could establish that Melanie had been there too, they’d have their link between both teenagers and Alec Reeves.

Hannah walked with him back to the gate. Marty was sitting outside on the grass. As they walked past him the orderly gave her a look which was almost protective.

Chapter Thirty

When he returned to the station Stout wasn’t there. Claire Wright had sent him home to get a bite to eat.

‘He was bushed,’ she said. ‘He was here most of the night again and then he went over to the old folks’ bungalow to talk to Charlie Luke. And spent the rest of the morning mooching around town.’

‘Looking out for Reeves?’

‘What do you think?’

Porteous thought Stout was driven, losing it, but he didn’t answer.

‘Ray Scully’s been on the phone.’

‘And?’

‘He’s here. At the coast. He came up last night to stay at his mum’s.’

‘Can you go to see him? Check out his alibi of course, but let him talk. Anything Melanie might have told him. Did she write? Has he kept the letters? Find out if there’s any possible connection between him and the Randles. Any gossip on the Gillespies would be useful too.’

‘Sure.’

From his office Porteous phoned Carver. The pathologist was out and nobody else seemed willing to tell him if the report on Melanie Gillespie had been sent. He sat at his desk for a moment then felt the old restlessness creeping up on him and went out.

He found Eddie Stout asleep in his garden. Bet opened the door to him. She’d been washing up and had on big yellow gloves like motorcycle gauntlets.

‘Look at him.’ She pointed through the open kitchen window to a neat patio, sheltered with a trellis covered by clematis and honeysuckle. Eddie sat in the shade in a green garden chair. His head was tilted back and his mouth was slightly open. He was snoring. ‘I came in to make him a sandwich and when I went out he was off. He’s still not eaten.’

‘Leave him.’ Porteous could smell the honeysuckle. ‘He’s been doing too much. It’s not urgent.’

‘No. He’d never forgive me if he knew you’d been and I’d not told him.’

Eddie woke with a start like a small boy startled from a dream. Bet left them. In the kitchen they heard her singing along to Classic FM, the sound of water running into a kettle. Eddie moved stiffly, easing the stiffness from his body.

‘It looks as if you’re right,’ Porteous said. ‘About Alec Reeves.’ But even as he spoke he was trying to make sense of it. What had the Brices been playing at? They must have heard the rumours about Reeves but they’d invited him into a house where a young kid was staying. Then he thought – No, it was the other way round. Theo knew Reeves before he came to live with the Brices. Reeves must have introduced them.

‘It looks as if Theo Randle was at Redwood,’ Peter went on. ‘Hannah Morton remembered his mentioning it. I haven’t checked but I bet Melanie was there too, just before it closed.’

Stout shut his eyes, a silent prayer of thanks.

‘Have they found him yet?’

Porteous shook his head.

‘You’ll be going public then? Tell the press we want to talk to him?’

‘Tomorrow. I promise. I’m still worried about lack of evidence. Coincidence. It could be no more than that. If we come to trial I want nobody saying there can’t be a fair hearing because of the ranting of the press. You can be sure all the old rumours will come out. Publicity works both ways. I’ve arranged to see Alice Cornish and she might have more information on Reeves. In the meantime you could ask again around the town. Discreetly. If he’s come back here someone will know about it.’

‘When are you seeing her?’

‘I’m going straight from here. She still lives in Yorkshire.’

Eddie nodded with approval. ‘I’m seeing the Spences as you suggested. And Chris Johnson.’

‘Any problems?’

‘Not with the Spences. She’s a reporter, isn’t she? All over me like a rash. Johnson wasn’t so happy but he knew better than to object.’

‘Look,’ Porteus said. ‘Take a couple of hours off. The rest of the day if you need it. Those interviews can wait until tomorrow.’

Stout didn’t even bother to answer that. ‘I think Reeves has done a runner. He’s not gone home. He’s not visited his sister. He’s guessed that we’re on to him.’

You’re obsessed, Porteous thought, recognizing the signs. You’re thinking of nothing else. Reeves is haunting your dreams. ‘Alice Cornish might know where he’s hiding out,’ he said mildly.

‘Please do me a favour.’ Eddie leaned forward, put his hand on the arm of Porteous’s chair, almost touching him. Fervent as he’d be preaching in the chapel on Sunday. ‘Give me a ring when you get in. Let me know what she’s said. Even if there’s no news.’

‘It could be late. You’ll need some sleep.’

‘I’ll not be asleep. You phone me.’

Alice Cornish’s house was less grand than Porteous had expected. She was a celebrity of a kind, a Dame, the author of a handful of books and dozens of reports. When he’d spoken to her that morning she hadn’t exactly welcomed his visit. ‘I don’t understand, Inspector, why this conversation couldn’t be conducted by telephone. I value my privacy.’

But he’d wanted to meet her. Not only because he thought he’d get more out of her face to face. He’d admired her work. And still he was itching with the need to run away. When he’d persisted in his request for a meeting she’d given in gracefully and instructed him precisely on his route from the motorway. It was an area he didn’t know, too close to industrial centres to be of interest to second homers and holiday makers. As he left the main road there were views of the Pennines to the east and Emley Moor to the west. He drove down a steep hill into a valley bottom, turned at a disused mill and then he was there. A small stone cottage with a meadow beyond it and a garden in front so tangled with perennials that when he walked up the brick path he scattered pollen with his legs. A ginger cat was sleeping on a window-sill.

‘Inspector.’ She had the door open before he knocked, while he was still stroking the cat, and he was caught off guard and felt slightly frivolous to be petting the animal. But she must have liked cats because her mood was softer than it had been on the phone. ‘Shall we talk in the garden?’

There was a small patch of lawn at the side of the house, the edges ragged with long grass where it hadn’t been properly trimmed. They sat side by side on a wrought-iron bench.

‘What is all this about? You said on the phone it was about Redwood. But I’ve retired. The centre is closed.’

‘You employed a man called Reeves?’

‘Alec, yes. One of our longest-serving employees. By the end he was part of the architecture of the place. He wasn’t a demonstrative man. He never drew attention to himself. But it was impossible to imagine Redwood without him. His retirement and my decision to give up control coincided. I felt that was appropriate.’

‘You liked him?’

‘He didn’t let anyone else get close enough to him for that. Not adults at least. He was very different with the children. But I respected him.’

‘Were you aware when you appointed him that there were rumours he’d been involved in child abuse?’

‘No!’ She turned her face sharply so she was facing him. She wore her grey hair in a severe bob which must have been fashionable when she was a small child in the thirties. ‘I don’t believe it.’

‘You had no suspicion when he was working for you that he had an undesirable relationship with any of the children in his care?’

‘None.’

‘You didn’t think it was odd that he’d never married?’

‘Are you married, Inspector? Because I’m not.’

He could sense her hostility and sat for a moment in silence searching for words which might appease her, but she came at him again.

‘Do you suspect Alec of child abuse, Inspector? A recent case?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘I’m sorry!’ The sarcasm could have come from a ferocious headmistress. ‘I’m not sure that I understand you. What do you mean “not exactly”?’

‘We want to question Alec Reeves about two murders. We’ve been trying to trace him for a number of days. We hoped you might help us find him.’

She sat quite still with her hands folded in her lap, staring ahead of her.

‘You’ve come from the north-east, Inspector?’

He nodded confirmation.

‘Then one of the murders you’re investigating is that of Michael Grey?’

‘His real name was Theo Randle, but yes, I’m the senior investigating officer in that case.’

‘I recognized the name when it appeared in the papers. When you phoned I thought you had questions about Michael… It never occurred to me that Alec was implicated.’

‘We’ve no proof against Alec Reeves. But he was staying in Michael’s home the weekend he was murdered. He had an unsavoury reputation in the town and was linked to the disappearance of another boy, a child with a learning disability of about the same age. You can understand why we want to talk to him. His disappearance is a cause for concern.’

‘Yes,’ she said slowly, ‘I can see that it would be.’ She turned towards him again. ‘But I don’t believe it, Inspector. I’ll cooperate with you because I think that’s what Alec would wish. But you’re wrong about him. It’s not unusual for him to disappear for a week or two in the summer. He’s a hillwalker and he likes wild places and he avoids other people. He’ll appear suddenly from the Highlands or the Peak District and make himself known to you.’

I hope he does, Porteous thought. But I’ll not hold my breath.

‘Can you tell me about the boy you knew as Michael Grey?’ he said. ‘You never knew his other name?’

‘Not so far as I remember.’

‘Perhaps you could check with your files?’

‘There are no files. Not that we kept. It was part of the Redwood philosophy. The files remained the property of the children. They had open access to them while they stayed at the centre and they took all the records with them when they left.’

‘Didn’t that cause problems if you needed to liaise with other agencies?’

‘No. It meant that we all had to involve the young people about their futures from the beginning.’

‘There must be some records. A list, at least, of the children you cared for.’

‘I have an autograph book. The children all signed their names when they left, added any comments they wanted. Towards the end of my time at Redwood there were names that I hardly recognized. I was so busy – lectures, reports, committees. Much of the day-to-day administration was left to my staff. That was when I knew it was time to leave.’ She paused. ‘At the beginning it was very different. We had so little money and we had to do everything ourselves. If it hadn’t been for a generous benefactor the place would have closed only months after we started. It was a round of fund-raising, the school run, keeping the house from falling down and most of all finding time for some very disturbed children.’

‘Was Michael Grey very disturbed?’

‘Not as disturbed as some.’

‘How was he referred? Social Services?’

‘It was a long time ago, Inspector.’

‘But you do remember?’ He was sure that she did. Since hearing the news of Michael’s murder, she would have gone over the details of his stay at Redwood. It was natural, what anyone would do.

‘Michael was a private referral. It did happen occasionally. We were registered through Social Services and most of the children came through them, but sometimes we were approached by desperate parents who’d seen stories about us in the papers. Of course, they kept legal custody. Michael was unusual because he stayed with us for such a long time.’

‘His father brought him to you?’

‘I believe he did.’

‘Don’t you remember?’

‘I wasn’t here. I was in Geneva. Receiving some award.’ She waved her hand as if it were of no importance. ‘I wasn’t keen but the staff thought I should go to raise the profile of the house. We’d not long opened. We were a democratic organization. I went. When I returned there was a new little boy. Michael. White hair, beautiful manners. Very distant. Very withdrawn. He didn’t speak for months. I was told his mother had severe depression and his father a drink problem. A sister had been killed in a fire. The family didn’t want Social Services involved but they thought we could help. I thought we could too. We were a good team…’

‘Why the change of name?’

‘I don’t know. To me he was always Michael. Perhaps the family were in the public eye and afraid of publicity.’

‘Perhaps.’ Porteous thought it an extreme move. Once interest had died down after the fire, would anyone care what happened to a small boy?

‘Did the family visit?’

‘The father. Occasionally. Usually he was drunk when he turned up. When Michael was ready to leave we tried to arrange meetings with family members to discuss his future. But the appointments were never kept.’

‘Michael attended a private school as a day boy?’

‘It was what his father wanted. He made the arrangements. If Michael had been allowed to choose I think he’d have gone to the local grammar.’

‘There was a fire at the school.’

‘Yes.’

‘Was Michael implicated?’

‘Not in any way. The police came here first of course. We housed “problem” children. But he had an alibi. A member of staff was with him all evening.’

‘Alec Reeves?’

‘No. Not Alec Reeves.’

‘How did he end up with the Brices?’

‘Was that the name of the couple who took him in?’

He nodded.

‘When Michael was sixteen we had a problem. Frankly he was taking a bed which could be better used by another child. He’d turned into a bright and well-adjusted young man. He’d enjoyed being at Redwood and he hadn’t wanted to move, and we didn’t want to throw him out. Of course we waited until he’d completed his O levels before thinking about it seriously at all. There was no interest from the family – we’d even had to subsidize his school fees because they’d stopped paying. So what to do with him? The fire in the middle of his lower-sixth year brought matters to a head.’

‘Alec Reeves came up with a solution?’

‘Yes. He’d not long started working with us. There was a retired clergyman and his wife, he said, in his home town. Childless, but full of love. We all met. Michael liked them. It seemed a wonderful solution.’

‘Until he died less than two years later…’

‘I never knew about that. Not until the press reports of his death.’

‘Tell me about Melanie Gillespie.’ If he hoped to shock her into some admission or indiscretion he was unsuccessful. She seemed lost in thought. The ginger cat had moved on to the grass beside her feet and she stopped absent-mindedly to tickle its ear.

‘I’m sorry, Inspector. I don’t recognize the name.’

‘Melanie Gillespie was one of the children in your care. Much more recently. Within the last three or four years.’ At least, he thought, I hope she was. Otherwise I’ve nothing to work on at all.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘She had an eating disorder. Probably another private referral.’

‘I’ve explained that in recent years my contact with the centre has been minimal.’ She seemed tired now, rather than hostile. ‘But we can check. Come inside and I’ll show you my book. My record of achievement you might call it. More precious to me at least, than all the awards put together.’

She took him into a dusty and cluttered study. The book was gigantic, leather bound. It wouldn’t have looked out of place in a cathedral. In it successive children had signed their names, written scraps of verse, drawn pictures.

‘When do you think she left us?’

‘Two years ago. Three perhaps.’

She turned the pages slowly.

‘You see, Inspector. No Melanie Gillespie.’

‘May I look?’ Theo Randle had changed his name. Perhaps Melanie had too.

He found it immediately. Mel Scully written in spiky italics. Beside it a cartoon. A stick figure with cropped hair holding an electric guitar, with a balloon coming out of her mouth. Inside the balloon the words: What now?

‘Scully was her father’s name,’ he said.

‘I do remember her! Very bright. Very articulate. Self-destructive with her eating. A lot of aggression directed at her parents. Not nearly as confident as she wanted everyone to think her.’

‘Had there been a child, do you know?’

‘You think she’d been pregnant? Certainly not while she was here. Before?’ She shrugged. ‘She was someone we never quite got through to. She never felt able to trust us.’ Porteous remembered Collier saying something similar. She closed the book suddenly. The air displaced by the heavy covers stirred the dust. ‘What’s happened to her?’

‘She’s dead too.’

Chapter Thirty-One

Despite his sleep in the garden Eddie Stout was tired. As he drove to The Old Rectory he found his concentration slipping, the car bouncing suddenly on the Cat’s-eyes in the middle of the road. The Spences had agreed to see him at four. That was their quiet time, they said, between lunch and dinner. Sally would leave the paper early especially.

And they were waiting for him. A young woman in a black dress met him at the front door and led him to the lounge where the Spences sat, expectant and curious. Between them a small table was set for tea. There was a silver pot and china cups, tiny sandwiches, a double-tiered plate with scones and cakes.

‘Just in time, Sergeant. I was about to pour.’ Roger Spence wore a white shirt and a red bow-tie. He handed a cup and a plate to Stout, who juggled with them awkwardly, in the end balancing the plate on the arm of his chair. He noticed that Spence’s fingers were very long, the nails beautifully manicured. Spence set down the teapot and rubbed his hands together. ‘Now, how can we help?’

They both turned towards Eddie and smiled in a predatory way. Sally was dressed in a grey silk tunic over trousers. She filled the armchair, a huge grey walrus. He wondered how she would manage to prise herself to her feet. Jack Sprat and his wife, he thought. Throughout the conversation images and words came into his head unbidden as in a dream. Perhaps he should have followed Porteous’s advice and waited until he was less tired. He felt he was no match for these two, especially now.

‘I’ve been hearing rumours,’ Sally said when he didn’t answer immediately. Her tone was confidential, slightly flirtatious. She leaned forward and he could see the top of her bra. ‘People are saying that you’ve linked Michael’s murder – I still think of him as Michael – with that girl on the coast.’

‘We’re ruling out nothing at present.’ The standard line. If she were any sort of a journalist she’d know anyway. And he thought she probably was very good at her job. She had the necessary ruthless streak

‘We didn’t know her,’ Sally went on. ‘The girl on the coast. We’d never met her.’ She seemed very keen to make that point.

Eddie struggled to stamp his authority on the interview. ‘It’s the first murder I’d like to talk about.’

‘Oh?’ She smiled again, took a chocolate éclair from the plate and bit it in half.

Eddie turned to include them both in his question. ‘You were at the final performance of Macbeth? The Friday before Michael disappeared.’

‘That’s right, Sergeant. I was selling programmes and Roger was helping to direct.’

Eddie watched the second half of the éclair disappear into her mouth. He unclipped his briefcase and took out the photograph given to him by Jack Westcott.

‘Do you recognize the gentleman sitting next to Mr and Mrs Brice?’

Roger flicked his eyes towards the picture and immediately away again.

‘I don’t think I do,’ he said casually. ‘Why?’

‘We’re trying to trace as many people as possible who were there that evening. If you could try to remember, Mr Spence.’

‘I know who it is!’ Eddie almost expected her to clap her hands like a little girl who’s just come top in a spelling test. ‘It’s Mr Reeves, isn’t it? You must remember Roger. Alec Reeves, the scout master. There was talk…’

‘Was there?’ Roger licked his fingers with a long, darting tongue and patted his chin with a napkin.

‘Probably all rumour,’ she added quickly. ‘You know what this place is like.’

‘What exactly did the rumours say?’ Stout asked, as if the information was new to him.

‘Oh, you know. That he liked the company of young boys too much. I’d never met him. Not really. He ran the hardware store next to where my father worked, and I went into the shop sometimes on errands. My dad thought he was all right but then my dad said that about everyone. I didn’t think there was anything particularly creepy about him, but then I was only a kid. But I’m sure Mr Reeves had already left the town when Michael disappeared. There was a new bloke in the shop when I was in the sixth form. Younger. Good looking in a dark, moody sort of way…’

‘But Reeves came back for the performance of Macbeth,’ Eddie said.

‘He must have done, I suppose, if the photo was taken that night. But I don’t remember him. I was backstage, helping with the costume changes. Roger was a real dictator. He wouldn’t let us out during the interval.’

She grinned at her husband but he didn’t respond.

‘Do you remember seeing that man, Mr Spence?’

Spence took the photograph, holding it with exaggerated care by the edge of the print.

‘No, I’m afraid not. Quite impossible after all these years.’

‘Of course, he looks a lot older now,’ Sally said.

They both stared at her.

‘You’ve seen him recently?’

‘About ten days ago. Don’t you remember, Roger? He came in here with Paul Lord and his wife. I knew there was something familiar about him. I’m surprised that they stayed friends. Poor Paul, he was tainted by his association with Reeves when he was young. I mean, he was never going to be the most popular boy in the school. Not with that acne. Though I remember one night Hannah coming pretty close to snogging him… And he was a boy scout, wasn’t he? His picture was in the paper when he won some award and he never lived it down. That awful uniform. But then it came out that he was big buddies with Alec Reeves, and when all those rumours started he was teased dreadfully.’

She continued talking but Eddie had stopped listening. Paul Lord was the lad who’d given Alec Reeves an alibi after Carl Jackson had disappeared. Eddie had interviewed the boy himself. He remembered a stuffy sitting-room, a mother, flustered and embarrassed, and Paul, hidden as Sally had said behind a layer of acne, stubbornly refusing to change his story. At last Eddie had given up and soon after Reeves had left the town.

‘Is Mr Lord a regular customer?’

Roger answered. ‘Yes. Mostly at lunchtimes. He’s a businessman. He brings his clients here.’

‘What is his business?’

‘He’s some sort of computer consultant. He and his wife are partners. They work from home. They turned the outhouses of the farmhouse where they live into an office.’

‘The address please?’

But he knew it already. Porteous had phoned there when they were trying to identify the body in the lake. Balk Farm. Home to Balk Farm Computing. Once home to Carl Jackson, the lad with learning disability, and his parents.

In the car Eddie tried to phone Porteous, but his boss’s mobile was turned off. Eddie saw that as an opportunity and didn’t leave a message. He thought he’d be late for his interview with Chris Johnson, but that didn’t seem important. Now he had to speak to Paul Lord, who’d been with Alec Reeves ten days ago, who must know where he was hiding out.

He drove too fast, still in the daze he’d been in since his sleep in the garden, his thoughts woolly, his eyes prickling with exhaustion. He came over the brow of the hill and had a flashback of himself, young and fit, standing in a line with other men and women, searching for Carl, prodding into the heather and bracken with a long pole. They’d improved the entrance to the farm, widened it and he sailed past, seeing out of the corner of his eye a big sign advertising the computer consultancy. It was only as he pulled into a lay-by to turn back that he thought what a fool he was being. Alec Reeves might be hiding out at Balk Farm but what could Eddie do about it, single-handed and without a warrant? Only warn him and drive him away. He drove slowly back to the town, his heart racing with panic at the damage he’d almost done.

He arrived at Chris Johnson’s house without remembering how he’d got there. He was late and the conversation started badly. Johnson had recently moved into a small terraced house on a modern private estate. A woman, very young and very pregnant, opened the door. She wore a sleeveless dress which clung around her stomach and heavy breasts. Her frame looked as if it would snap under the weight.

‘You’re late,’ she said. ‘He’s gone.’

‘But his van’s still here.’ Stout nodded towards a transit pulled on to the pavement.

‘He’s not got time to talk to you. The soundcheck’s in half an hour.’

Stout was too tired to argue. ‘Just let me in. It’ll not take long.’ He pushed past her, not roughly, hardly touching her, but usually he would have been polite, and he was surprised at the change in himself. He walked straight into the living-room. Chris Johnson was watching television. In the corner was a flat-pack cot, still in its box, and a white fur rabbit. Eddie picked up the remote from the floor and zapped off the television. The woman followed him in and levered herself carefully into an armchair. There was nowhere else to sit so he leaned against the door.

‘I want to know where you were one evening last week.’ He gave the date Melanie had been taken, but all the time his thoughts were racing about Alec Reeves. His hands were shaking at the thought of how close he had come to wrecking the whole investigation, and then he imagined Reeves driving down the track to the road by the reservoir before he’d had a chance to have it watched. He should have sorted out surveillance before coming here. He was losing it. ‘Now!’ he snapped. ‘I’ve not got time to mess about.’

‘I was working.’

‘Where?’

‘An eighteenth birthday party. Some village hall out in the sticks. Why?’

‘Can you prove it?’

‘You can check. Some of the kids got a bit wild. The police were called. It was that sort of place. No fun after nine thirty or the neighbours have a seizure. The cops came in and told me to turn down the sound.’

‘What time did you get home?’

‘About midnight.’

‘Can you confirm that?’ To the woman. Going through the motions. Though no way would Johnson have been able to pick up Melanie from the Rainbow’s End and be back here at midnight.

‘Of course.’ There was a mischievous look in her eye which said – But how can you trust me? I would say that, wouldn’t I? Eddie ignored it. Duty done.

‘Does the name Alec Reeves mean anything to you?’ The question was directed at Johnson. The woman wouldn’t have been born when Alec was running the hardware shop in the high street.

Johnson shook his head. Stout got out the photographs. Reeves as he’d been at the performance of Macbeth. Reeves more recently handing out Duke of Edinburgh award certificates. ‘You don’t recognize him?’

Johnson stood up quickly. ‘I’ve told you no. I’ve got to get to work.’ He pulled a leather jacket from the back of his chair, felt in the pocket for car keys.

Running away, Stout thought. What scared him?

‘You weren’t one of Alec’s little boys were you, Chris?’

‘Jesus, are you crazy?’

The blasphemy hit Stout, as it always did, like a slap.

‘Nothing to be ashamed of if you were. Not your fault.’

‘I told you. I didn’t know the man.’

Chris went up to the woman, bent to kiss her on the forehead, stroked her belly, then he stood in front of Stout, challenging him not to let him out. Eddie opened the door for him. He watched for a moment as Johnson slid open the door of the transit, climbed in and drove off. The woman didn’t move or speak. She looked at him from her chair, waiting for him to go.

Chapter Thirty-Two

They decided to go into Balk Farm early the next morning. Not mob handed. Porteous and Stout would knock on the door, very polite, very civilized. There’d be a car at the end of the track and someone on the hill behind the house with binoculars in case Alec tried to get out on foot. Because, as Eddie said, Reeves knew every inch of that hill.

The team had all crowded into Porteous’s office to make the final arrangements, and Eddie stayed, even after the rest of them went. So wired up that Porteous knew he wouldn’t sleep. Porteous wanted to get home and felt the nerviness was contagious. He tried to wind up the discussion.

‘Then a team to search the house,’ he said. ‘Like we decided. Good people. Tidy and careful. It’s all sorted, Eddie. Nothing left to do.’ Still Stout didn’t take the hint, so he added, ‘Let’s go home. We’ll have an early start.’

But Stout wouldn’t move until he’d gone through it all again.

Peter woke before the alarm went off. It was just light, a grey mist in the valley, the first blackbird screaming. No walk to work today. A break from routine. He’d arranged to pick up Eddie from home and knew he’d be awake too, probably already dressed, pacing the floor. Porteous understood his sergeant. He’d been there. Like a reformed smoker he wanted to preach. He wanted to yell: It does you no good. All that stress and adrenalin. It’ll make you crack up. Except it probably wouldn’t make Eddie Stout crack up. He was tough, with a wife who was there when he came in at night, to help him relax and to stroke away the tension.

Peter showered, made tea, toasted a piece of wholemeal bread, forced himself to eat it. He was scared. Not of Alec Reeves, who was probably pathetic, not half the monster Eddie had described. But of cocking this up. If he made a mess of it he didn’t think he’d be able to work with Eddie Stout again.

He was early but Eddie must have been looking out because he was halfway down the drive before Porteous had switched off the engine. He was carrying a foil-wrapped packet, which he threw on to the back seat.

‘Bet insisted on making sandwiches. I told her it would all be over before dinner.’

They met up at the police station and drove in convoy round the reservoir, held up at one point by an ancient tractor. The only other traffic was a post van. They pulled into the lay-by where Stout had turned his car the day before while the team got into place. Stout didn’t mention that. He didn’t mention how close he’d been to going it alone.

At seven thirty exactly they drove up the track. That was the time they’d decided on. Not too early to cause offence if it did all turn out to be a mistake and Reeves wasn’t there at all. Stout dismissed the possibility, but went along with the theory. These were business people, keen surely. They’d be checking their emails, planning their day. But it was still early enough to catch them on the hop, to emphasize that they were here on serious business.

‘This has changed a bit. I don’t think I’d have recognized it.’ Stout was driving. He pulled into a marked parking bay in what had once been the farmyard. A brass sign by the door of a converted barn said ‘Reception’ but they ignored that and went towards the house. Everything was smart, spruce, clean. The garden was landscaped. A conservatory had been added. Porteous took a breath and rang the doorbell.

The door was opened by a child, a boy of about twelve, half dressed for school, his shirt hanging out, his buttons undone. Porteous hadn’t expected that. There’d been no mention of children.

‘Could I talk to your father please?’

The boy grunted. He still seemed half asleep. He led them through the house to a large kitchen, all new oak and terracotta tiles. There was a smell of coffee and faintly of cinnamon. At a table by a big window sat a couple, the woman in a silk kimono, the man, his hair wet from the shower in a short towelling dressing gown. The table was laid for three but it seemed the third place was for the boy because there was no sign of Reeves. Either the couple hadn’t heard the doorbell or they thought the boy had dealt with it because they didn’t look up. They were discussing work, planning a meeting for later in the day. If Reeves was there, Porteous thought they weren’t aware of what he’d done. They had no sense of danger.

The boy stood dreamily. His bare feet had made no sound on the floor. Eventually he seemed to remember what he was doing.

‘Dad.’ Then they did look round and he nodded over his shoulder in the direction of the visitors before wandering off.

Paul Lord must have taken them for potential clients. If he was surprised or annoyed that they’d turned up at such an inconvenient time, he didn’t show it. Perhaps it wasn’t unusual. He stood up, held out his hands, a gesture of welcome, but also of apology for the dressing gown, the half-eaten breakfast. He was confident, rather good looking. There was no sign of the spotty schoolboy. His makeover had been as dramatic as that of the farm.

‘Can I help you?’ Then he turned to Stout. ‘Don’t I know you? I remember, you were a policeman. That dreadful case when I was a boy. Do you know, you’ve hardly changed.’

‘Still am a policeman, sir. Here to ask you a few questions.’

And still Lord remained courteous and composed. Too courteous? Porteous wondered. Wouldn’t most people be irritated, hostile, if they were interrupted in the middle of breakfast. But perhaps it had become a habit to be pleasant. Perhaps that was why he was so successful. He treated them now with a puzzled good humour.

He asked to be allowed to dress first and they let both of them go, because even if Reeves was hiding out somewhere in this big house and tried to do a runner the team outside would get him. That might be better even. Save them having to search and it would look better in court if he had been trying to escape.

‘Does Phillippa have to be involved in this, Inspector?’

Phillippa, the wife, had remained silent throughout.

‘We do have questions for both of you.’

And he accepted even that without a fuss.

While they were waiting in the kitchen the boy came in for breakfast. He shovelled in cereal, then, well trained, stacked the bowl in the dishwasher and returned the milk to the fridge. He showed no curiosity about who they were.

‘Do you need a lift to school, lad?’ Stout asked.

‘No thank you.’ Very polite, very well brought up. ‘I get the bus from the end of the track.’

Like Carl Jackson, thirty years before. Doesn’t that haunt Paul Lord? Porteous thought. He was involved in the case even if it was only as a witness. How can he send his son up that lane every morning without a worry?

They carried out the interview in the conservatory, drinking the best coffee Porteous had tasted for years from chunky, hand-thrown mugs. Stout took the lead. That was what they had decided.

‘A bit of a coincidence you living here,’ he said. ‘After you were involved in the Carl Jackson case.’

‘Not really involved,’ Lord protested mildly. ‘I gave Alec an alibi. That was all. And not really a coincidence. I’d kept in touch with Alec. When Sarah’s husband died he knew she was wanting to sell. I was looking for bigger premises and he knew that too… He put us together. She saved on agents’ fees. We got the place for a good price.’ He shrugged.

‘It’s Mr Reeves we’re here about.’

‘Why?’

‘We’d like to talk to him. He seems to have disappeared.’

‘I mean, why do you want to talk to him?’

Stout paused. ‘It’s in connection with a murder inquiry.’

‘The body in the lake? Michael Grey? You’ve got things all wrong. Again. Alec had left town before Michael disappeared. Before he arrived even.’ He kept his voice amused. Still he wasn’t rattled.

‘He came back,’ Porteous said quietly. ‘To watch a production of Macbeth. It was special because Michael was the star and Alec knew him very well. We’ll call him Michael shall we, though that wasn’t his real name. Michael had been staying at Redwood, where Mr Reeves was working as a care worker. Were you aware of the connection at the time?’

‘No.’

‘Don’t you find that strange? You were the same age as Michael. Wouldn’t Mr Reeves have introduced you? So you could help the boy settle into his new school.’

‘He might have done I suppose, but he didn’t. It wasn’t necessary. Michael was confident, immediately popular. Alec would have recognized that he didn’t need any help from me. Besides, after the business with Carl, all the gossip at the time, my parents didn’t want me to have anything more to do with Alec. I expect he was trying to save me embarrassment.’

There was a pause, then Stout turned to Phillippa, changing his tone. ‘Are you a local woman, Mrs Lord? Had you heard about all this?’

‘Only what Paul’s told me. We met at university.’ When she’d gone off to dress she’d put on make-up. Her lips were glossy, her complexion flawless. She was dressed in a neat little skirt and a sleeveless top. A jacket was hung carefully on the back of a chair.

‘When did you first meet Mr Reeves?’ Stout asked.

She gave a frown, not because the question worried her but because she wanted them to see how irrelevant all this was. It was eating into the important business of her day. ‘He came to our wedding.’

‘Did he?’ Stout raised his eyebrows, a pantomime of surprise.

‘Paul doesn’t have many relatives. His side of the church would have been rather thin.’

‘And Alec is an old friend,’ Lord broke in. ‘He was very good to me.’

‘You’ve kept in touch ever since?’

‘Yes. Phone calls. Christmas cards. If he visits his sister he calls.’

‘Did he talk to you about his work?’

‘A little. Not in detail. He wouldn’t consider that ethical. Confidentiality must be very important in social work.’

‘Quite.’ Stout deliberately set down his mug. ‘You can tell us now, Mr Lord. After all these years. You were under pressure at the time, we all know that. A boy. But now there’s a chance to put things right… Where was Mr Reeves on the afternoon Carl Jackson disappeared?’

‘With me. Just as I said.’

Phillippa looked again at her watch. ‘Look, I’ve got a meeting. I really should go.’

‘A few more minutes, Mrs Lord.’ Stout didn’t even look at her. He continued to hold Lord’s stare. ‘When did you last see Mr Reeves?’ he asked suddenly.

‘I can’t remember the date. He phoned the day after the school reunion. He said he was going to be in the area, he’d like to take us out for a meal. We arranged to meet at The Old Rectory the following evening.’

‘What did he want?’

‘Want? Nothing. Our company perhaps. He’s a kind, elderly man. Occasionally he must get lonely.’

‘Did he talk about Michael Grey?’

‘I think we must have discussed the identity of the body in the lake. It was a matter of interest. Everyone in Cranford was talking about it.’

‘Did you introduce the subject, or did he?’

‘I did. I remember Michael going away in the middle of exams. We all thought he’d gone back to his father.’

‘At the meal at The Old Rectory, did Alec tell you that he knew Michael, that he’d worked with him at Redwood?’

‘No.’

‘Odd that, isn’t it? You were gossiping about the body in the lake. Enjoying the drama even. Nothing wrong with that. But Alec didn’t tell you it was through him that the boy had come to town?’

‘I’ve told you. Alec was scrupulous about confidentiality.’

‘So you did. Did he stay here the night after the meal?’

‘No. We offered to put him up, but he’d made other arrangements.’

‘What were those?’

‘I don’t know. I presumed he’d be staying with his sister.’

‘How did he seem that night?’

For the first time Lord hesitated before answering. ‘He seemed suddenly very old. We wondered if he might be ill. He said not, but it occurred to me that he’d arranged to meet us… almost as a way of saying goodbye.’ He looked up, gave a little smile. ‘Probably just my imagination. All that talk of death.’

There was a pause. Porteous could sense Phillippa’s impatience but still Stout held the stage and she didn’t dare move. When Stout spoke at last he was cheerful, a jolly surrogate uncle who should have been invited to the wedding too.

‘You said you got a good price for Balk Farm. You’ve made a lovely place here, a real family home. Why was the price so low? A payment was it, for backing up Alec’s story all that time ago?’

Lord stood up. At first Porteous thought Stout had succeeded in provoking him into losing control, but he held it together. All the taunting and bullying as a child had held him in good stead.

‘I think you’d better take your sergeant away, Inspector, before he says something else you’ll both regret. You’re welcome to search the house if you don’t believe me about Alec. Phillippa and I will be working in the office. We’ve wasted enough time already.’

The team searched the house but Porteous left them to it. He could tell it would be futile. He had to get Stout back to the police station, find some way to deal with his disappointment. In the car the sergeant sat mute, shaking his head. He didn’t speak until they were in Porteous’s office.

‘I played it all wrong. But I don’t know what else I could have done.’

‘Perhaps he was telling the truth.’

Before Stout could answer the phone rang. Porteous listened, said little, replaced the receiver.

‘You’ll need those sandwiches of Bet’s after all,’ he said. ‘Reeves’s neighbour contacted the Yorkshire lads. She thinks he came home last night.’

Chapter Thirty-Three

Reeves lived in a tidy bungalow at the end of a cul-de-sac of similar houses. Porteous parked at the end of the street and they walked down, but still he was aware that they were being watched. Not from Reeves’s place. The curtains there were still closed. But in the other bungalows neighbours were twitching behind the Venetian blinds and the bleached fancy nets.

‘The old lady next door said it was very late when he got in. One thirty at least. Though according to the local lad who spoke to her she’s as deaf as a post and he didn’t think a car would wake her.’

The car, a red Metro, was parked on the drive, pulled right up to the garage door.

‘She says it must have been late when he got here or he’d have put the car away. He always kept it in the garage. Security conscious. Head of the neighbourhood watch.’

‘A model citizen,’ Stout said sneering.

They knew there was no way out from the back of the bungalow. A thick leylandii hedge separated the garden from a railway embankment. Occasionally high-speed trains roared past, making conversation impossible. Porteous rang the doorbell. They stood back and waited. Nothing happened. He rang the bell again, then tried the door. It opened.

They stepped into a wide hall with a door on either side, and a corridor ahead which led, Porteous presumed, to bedrooms and bathroom. There was a pale grey carpet on the floor, a small table with a telephone.

‘Mr Reeves?’

There was no answer. He opened the right-hand door into a kitchen. A yellow roller blind covered the window, but let in enough light to show empty workbenches, a spotless tiled floor. There were no plates or cups draining by the sink and the dishcloth folded over the mixer tap was dry and hard. Porteous looked in the fridge. It had recently been defrosted and was empty.

‘He must have gone straight to bed,’ Stout said. He couldn’t stand still. He was fidgeting like a kid. ‘Let’s wake the bastard up.’

But Porteous shook his head. He went back into the hall and opened the opposite door into the living-room. The bay windows were covered by thick velvet curtains and it took his eyes a moment to adjust to the gloom. Stout came up behind him impatiently and switched on the light. The room was lit by two lamps on the walls. They had bulbs like imitation candles and heavy fringed shades. The central light was operated by another switch and didn’t come on, but it was a chandelier with similar fittings. It must have been more substantial than it looked, because it supported the weight of Alec Reeves, who hung by a noose of blue nylon rope, twisted around the chain which fixed the chandelier to the ceiling. A kitchen stool, overturned, lay on the floor beneath him.

Stout was about to go into the room but Porteous pulled him back.

‘There’s nothing we can do. It might be a crime scene.’ He wondered why he wasn’t more surprised. Had he been expecting this as soon as he realized the door was open?

‘What are you talking about? He knew we were on to him and he topped himself.’ Stout was almost weeping with frustration. This wasn’t the way it should have ended. He still had things he wanted to say to Mr Alec Reeves.

‘Perhaps.’

‘What do you mean, “perhaps”? He came in last night and killed himself.’

‘Why didn’t he lock the door?’

‘What!’ It came out as a scream.

‘Suicide. It’s a private thing. You wouldn’t want to be disturbed.’ Peter thought he was an expert. At the depth of his depression, he’d contemplated suicide in all its forms. Walking into the sea. Taking pills. Hanging. Jumping off a bridge like his dad. One of the things that had stopped him in the end was the possibility of an audience. The terrible embarrassment of being caught in the act.

Eddie was looking at him as if he were mad. ‘Maybe he just forgot.’

‘He wasn’t that sort of man. He was careful. He had a routine. And the key was in the lock on the inside of the door. He used it to get into the house, took it out and put it in on the inside. A deliberate act. Why didn’t he turn it then?’

‘Maybe he didn’t care.’

‘Oh, I think he cared.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘That I think he was murdered.’ He spoke quietly, apologetically. For thirty years Eddie had thought of this man as a monster, the human form of the devil he talked about in pulpits on Sundays. It was like expecting him to accept he’d got all the other Sunday stuff wrong too.

‘Why?’

‘I don’t think he killed Theo and Melanie. I don’t know about Carl. Perhaps not even him. I think we got it wrong.’

‘Not “we”!’ Eddie bellowed. A child having a tantrum. Wanting to be important, even if it meant taking the blame. ‘If anyone got it wrong it was me.’

‘We need the scene-of-crime team.’

‘Why was he murdered if he wasn’t involved?’

‘To make us think he was. If the house had a Yale lock we’d have been taken in by it. The murderer would have been able to pull the door to behind him and we’d never have known any different. The pathologist should throw some light.’ He paused, turned to Stout. ‘Look, I might be wrong. I’m just saying how I see it.’

‘No,’ Stout said. ‘I don’t think you’re wrong.’ Then, muttering, just loud enough for Peter to hear. ‘I don’t think you’re ever wrong.’

Porteous left him waiting for the local team and went to see the old lady who’d reported Reeves’s return. She took a while to answer the door. She used a Zimmer frame and she was a big woman. Walking was an effort. But she’d moved as quickly as she could, frightened that he’d go without giving her the low down.

‘Anything up?’ she said, moving awkwardly aside to let him in.

‘I’m afraid Mr Reeves is dead.’ She’d see the trolley soon enough.

‘I knew something were wrong!’

‘Why?’

‘Like I told that lad on the phone, he hadn’t put his car away. I know it were late when he got in, but he always did.’ She had a heavy Yorkshire accent. He saw the hearing aid, remembered what they’d said about her being deaf.

‘Did you hear his car?’

‘Saw the lights. I was awake and got up to get a cup of tea. You don’t sleep so well when you get older. I was in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil.’

‘Did you see him get out of the car.’

‘No. I took my tea back to bed. The bedroom’s at the back.’

‘What time was it?’ Just checking.

‘Quarter to two.’

‘It was just the one car?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He didn’t have a visitor? Someone who parked at the top of the road perhaps?’

‘Not that I saw. Anyway he wasn’t one for visitors at any time. Certainly not in the middle of the night.’

He was halfway down the path when she shouted after him. ‘What was it that killed him then?’

He pretended he was deaf too and didn’t turn round.

Eddie was waiting in the kitchen of Reeves’s house, subdued. ‘I had another look,’ he said. ‘Just from the door. You’re right. It’s the way that stool’s lying. If he’d kicked it away it would be further from him.’

‘The old lady didn’t see anything.’

‘The local lads are on their way,’ Eddie said. ‘We’ve made their day. It’s two years since they had a murder.’

‘Do you mind waiting for them?’

‘Nah. Where are you off to?’

‘I want to talk to Alice Cornish. I don’t think we got it all wrong. Redwood’s still the place that links the killings together.’

‘You think she knows something?’

‘I want to talk to her.’ He thought, I don’t want to be waiting here when they cut down Alec Reeves. I don’t want to see Eddie realize it’s partly his fault. He hounded Alec out of Cranford because he was lonely man who only felt comfortable in the company of kids. I want this over, with no more drama.

It was the last thought that stuck with him on the drive to Alice Cornish’s cottage. It made him take the bends too quickly and hit his horn at a slow, elderly driver hogging the middle of the road. He felt the pressure and when he saw a café by the side of the road just before the turn-off into Alice’s lane, he forced himself to stop. It was an ordinary living-room with two tables covered with gingham cloths; a jolly middle-aged woman brought him Earl Grey and a home-made scone with jam which she said she’d bought at the WI market. He ate it and told her how good it was, but he couldn’t face waiting for her to bring him change, so he stuck a five-pound note under the plate when she was out of the room and he left.

He hadn’t phoned Alice Cornish in advance. Partly superstition. If he phoned she wouldn’t be there. Partly because he needed to get out of Reeves’s immaculate bungalow even if it were on a wild-goose chase.

She was there. The cottage door was open. Her briefcase and an overnight bag stood just inside. When she came to greet him she was dressed for a meeting – a smart trouser suit with a loose silk jacket. Her grey fringe was ruler straight. She was wearing lipstick.

‘Inspector, I haven’t time to talk to you now. I’m expecting a taxi to the station.’

‘Alec Reeves is dead.’

‘What happened?’ The colour had drained from her face but her voice was even.

‘I think he was murdered. It could have been suicide.’

‘No. Alec wouldn’t have killed himself. He’d have seen it as an act of cowardice.’

‘Is there anything you have to tell me?’

She looked directly at him. ‘Nothing.’

‘I need to look at your book again. The book with the children’s names inside.’

She hesitated. Down the track came a red Mondeo. It sounded as though the exhaust had a hole in it. He was aware that he’d been listening to it approaching for some time.

‘My taxi. I’m appearing before a select committee. Not something I can put off.’

‘Please.’

She paused again. ‘All right. But you’ll have to see to yourself. Just shut the door behind you when you leave. It’s a Yale lock.’

She picked up her bags and went out to meet the taxi. He stood, watching her. She turned back before getting into the car.

‘Inspector?’

‘Yes.’

‘There’s some coffee in the kitchen. It should still be hot.’

He smiled and waved his thanks.

He poured himself a mug of lukewarm coffee and took it to the study. He opened the big book with its scribbled signatures, its jokes and its drawings, turning the pages slowly, looking for anything he’d missed the first time round. Anyone else would have given up, but this was the only thing he was good at, this persistence, this love of the detail. When he found nothing the first time, he worked through it all again. And this time he saw it, wondered how he could have been so blind not to have picked it up earlier.

He shut the cottage door carefully and sat in his car to call Eddie and then the office. It was late afternoon. The car window was open and he could hear woodpigeons calling beyond the meadow. The ginger cat was back in its favourite spot on the window-sill. In the office he spoke to Charlie Luke.

‘The pathologist’s report has finally come through,’ Luke said. ‘Melanie Gillespie’s never been pregnant. And we traced that kiddie you were interested in. Emma Leese. It all seems like the Gillespies said. Melanie used to babysit for her. But the baby died. Cot death. No wonder she was upset.’

That was it then, Porteous thought. The final piece of information. The tag line to the joke. The final connection.