White Nights

Chapter Twenty-nine

Roy Taylor went with Stella Jebson to visit Jeremy Booth’s wife. The woman lived on the Wirral, way out of Jebson’s patch, but for some reason the DC had seemed keen to go with him. Perhaps like the rest of them she’d become intrigued by the man who’d died, without explanation, so far from home. She wanted to see how the mystery worked out.

‘I heard back from the Inland Revenue,’ Jebson said. ‘Booth’s business was on the verge of going under, if his tax returns were anything like accurate.’

Taylor thought that would need looking into. There’d be nothing new in someone self-employed declaring a fraction of what he earned, but if Booth had been short of cash, why disappear to Shetland, leaving the business in the care of some sort of student? Had he thought he had a chance of making money there?

Taylor had visited the Wirral when he was a kid. A very young kid, when his mother was still at home, before she’d run away with her fancy man to north Wales. There’d been trips out to the seaside in Hoy-lake and West Kirby; he remembered them as happy times. Picnics and ice cream, fishing in the rock pools with little nets on bamboo sticks. His dad had never been with them. He didn’t mention any of that to Jebson on the drive across. There was nothing as boring as other people’s reminiscences.

Booth’s wife was called Amanda. She’d remarried, a man called Stapleton, a teacher. Taylor wasn’t sure if the trip would be worth the effort. Booth had run away years ago. Why would his ex-wife be involved in his murder after such a long time? Surely she had too much to lose. Yet Booth had left home quite suddenly. He’d completely changed the direction of his life and had relinquished any contact with the child. Taylor knew that families could haunt you, resentments grow with time. And why had the relationship fractured in such a dramatic way?

The family lived on a pleasant estate of 1950s houses near Arrowe Park Hospital. It was anonymous, a straight tree-lined road of semi-detached homes. A place you could lose yourself, Taylor thought. Yet when they parked he thought the elderly woman working in her garden opposite had taken note of them. So it wouldn’t be that easy to hide.

It was early evening but Amanda Stapleton was on her own in the house. She seemed to belong to the time it had been built. A comfortable blonde in a sleeveless summer dress and sandals, she made Taylor think of women with big skirts and permed hair. His mother had been a great one for the pictures and for watching old films on the telly in the afternoons. This woman could have been a minor film star.

‘Thank you for your time,’ he said. ‘I hope it’s not inconvenient.’

‘I’m a stay-at-home mum,’ she said. ‘Sometimes I think I should look for work now the children are older, but I love being here for them when they get back from school. John got promoted to deputy head last year, so we can afford it.’

She’d been told about Booth’s death, but seemed unaffected. Taylor wondered if she would get round to mentioning it. She took them into a living room at the back of the house. The door was open into the garden.

‘I’ll make tea, shall I?’

She returned with a tray, home-made biscuits on a plate, a teapot, milk jug, sugar bowl.

‘The boys have cricket practice tonight,’ she said. ‘John will pick them up after work. It’s not usually this peaceful.’

‘What about your daughter?’

‘Oh, Ruthie makes her own way home. She’s in her last year at school. A grown-up really, or so she thinks. She’ll be here soon. She doesn’t know yet that her father’s dead. I’m not sure how she’ll take it.’

She settled herself on a straight-backed chair, a cup and saucer balanced on her knee, her legs neatly crossed at the ankle. ‘I haven’t seen Jeremy since he left in the middle of the night more than sixteen years ago. He took one suitcase. Left me with a daughter. And a note which said he was very sorry, but this wasn’t the life he wanted.’ She looked up at them. ‘You can’t expect me to be grieving about his death.’

‘He’d given you no warning that he was leaving?’

‘None.’

‘Was there another woman?’

‘He didn’t mention one in the letter. But there could have been. He was an attractive man. I fell for him, after all.’ She paused. ‘He was the love of my life.’

Taylor didn’t know where to look. He felt himself flush with embarrassment. He hated people who spilled out their feelings, and this woman had seemed so controlled that it was unexpected.

Jebson leaned forward towards the woman. ‘Tell us about Jeremy,’ she said. ‘We haven’t met anyone yet who really knew him.’

‘I’m not sure I can help you with that either. I’m not sure Jeremy knew himself. It was all dreams and stories with him. He featured in his own dramas. In his head of course. None of it was real.’ She stared out into the immaculate garden. ‘He’d have quite enjoyed this. Being the object of so much attention.’

‘Where did you meet him?’

‘At work. We were both teachers. He taught English and I worked in the technology department, doing craft and cooking. That summed us up really. I was the practical one; he was into fiction, words. He swept me away with his words. In his spare time he ran the school’s youth theatre. That was his real passion. He’d done a lot of acting when he was a student, got into the Central School, but couldn’t get funding to do the course. He was very bitter about that.’

‘We haven’t been able to trace any other family. Is there anyone else we should inform about his death?’

She shook her head. ‘He was an only child. The classic only child: spoiled rotten and left to play too much on his own. His parents were quite elderly when we married. They’re probably dead now.’

Taylor felt he was losing control of the interview. He’d brought Jebson along to observe, not to take over.

‘You say you hadn’t seen Mr Booth since he left sixteen years ago,’ he said. ‘Have you communicated with him at all?’

‘He’s paid maintenance for Ruth since he left. Not a lot. He’s never had steady work. Since he set up the drama-in-education company things have been a bit better. I never wanted to make a fuss about the money and we had no direct contact over that. It was as if he preferred not to think about us.’

‘Did you try to find him when he left?’

‘Of course I did! I worshipped him. But he’d left his job at the school too. Just walked out. Gave no notice, asked for no reference. I thought he must be going through some sort of breakdown, tried psychiatric hospitals, the police, the Salvation Army. I imagined him sleeping on the streets, in some horrible hostel.’

‘Did you ever find out where he went after he left you?’

‘To his mummy and daddy.’ She sounded very bitter. ‘Hardly the great romantic gesture, was it? Running home like a scared child. Of course I contacted them but they told me they hadn’t heard from him. He got them to lie for him.’

‘And there was nothing, really, that precipitated his going?’

‘It was when Ruth was born,’ she said. ‘That was when things started changing.’

She paused, and Taylor wished she’d get to the point.

Perhaps Jebson sensed his impatience, because she cut in with a question. For such a big, ungainly lass, she had a gentle voice.

‘In what way did things change, Mrs Stapleton?’

‘I don’t know what he’d been expecting. He was so excited when I found out I was pregnant. Maybe some ideal of family life. A child who would adore him. Certainly not nappies and crying, coming home to an exhausted wife who suddenly made demands on him. And then Ruth wasn’t the perfect baby he’d visualized for himself.’

‘In what way wasn’t she perfect?’

‘She was born with a cleft palate. You wouldn’t know now. She’s a beautiful young woman. But there have been lots of spells in hospital. And when we first brought her home she was an ugly little thing. I think he was repulsed by her. And disgusted with himself for feeling that way. Perhaps that’s what brought matters to a head. He couldn’t face the reality, couldn’t lose himself in theatre any more. So he just ran away. He pretended she’d never been born.’

‘Can you think why anyone would have wanted to kill him?’

‘I’d probably have killed him,’ she said. ‘If I’d tracked him down to his parents’ house. If I’d caught him there, being waited on by them while I was struggling to keep things going at home.’

‘Did he have any family and friends in Shetland?’

‘No family. If he made friends there it was after my time.’

She offered them more tea, handed them biscuits, smiled to show she really didn’t care any more. There was the sound of the key in the door.

‘Hi, Mum.’

‘Shall we leave,’ Taylor said, ‘so you can talk to Ruth on her own?’

‘No. She’ll probably have questions. You’ll be able to answer them better than me.’

Ruth was, as her mother had said, a beautiful young woman. Dark-haired, full-breasted, with a wide smile. She stood in the door and looked at them. She was wearing jeans and a loose white top, easy with her body. She was curious about who they were, but too polite to ask.

‘These people are detectives,’ Amanda Stapleton said. ‘They have some news about your father.’

The girl looked at them, horrified. ‘What about him? What has he done?’

Stella Jebson got up and stood next to the girl. ‘Why don’t you sit down?’ she said. ‘We’ve got some bad news.’

The girl perched on the arm of the nearest chair. ‘What’s happened?’

‘He’s dead,’ Jebson said. Perhaps she’d realized that Amanda would find it hard to say the words. ‘I’m really sorry, love.’

‘How did he die? Was he ill?’

‘He was murdered. We’re here because we’re trying to find out who killed him.’

The girl started to sob, taking in great gulps of air. It was hard to tell if it was grief or shock. Taylor thought it was a dramatic way to carry on when she hadn’t seen her father since she was born, but that was teenage girls for you. They were all drama queens. Her mother got to her feet, awkwardly put her arms around her daughter, held the girl to her, stroked her hair.

‘I’ve told them you wouldn’t be able to help them,’ Amanda said. ‘But I wanted them to be here if there was anything you wanted to know.’

Again, Taylor found himself disturbed by the show of emotion. ‘We’ll leave you,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you my number; call me if you think of anything.’

They were standing at the car when Ruth ran out of the door to join them. Amanda was at the front window watching them.

‘I want to talk to you,’ Ruth said. Her eyes were very red. ‘But not here. Not with my mother around.’

‘Where then?’

‘There’s a coffee shop in the main street in Heswall. It’s open until seven. I’ll see you there in an hour. I’ll tell her I’m meeting my boyfriend.’

The last thing Taylor wanted was to kick his heels in the Wirral for an hour, but there was something so fierce about the demand to meet that he couldn’t refuse.

The girl turned up ten minutes late, looking harassed and drawn. The coffee shop was one of a chain, all brown leather sofas, piped bland music and hissing machines. Taylor stood up to buy her a coffee and when he got back from the counter with her cappuccino she was already deep in conversation with Jebson.

‘Ruth’s been in contact with her father recently,’ Jebson said. ‘That was what she wanted to talk to us about.’

‘Why did he get in touch with you?’ Taylor asked.

‘He didn’t. I found him.’

‘How?’

‘Interact, his theatre company, came to do a gig at school. Drug awareness. You know the sort of thing. He wasn’t there but his name was all over the publicity and there was a phone number. I knew he’d gone into acting, thought it was probably a coincidence, but I gave him a ring anyway. Plucked up courage when I had an afternoon’s study leave and no one was about. I didn’t tell my mother. I knew she’d go ape. She’d just be worried about him pissing me about… And I didn’t want to hurt John, my stepdad. I love him to bits.’

‘What did you say when you phoned?’ Jebson seemed genuinely interested.

‘“I think you might be my father.” Something like that. I thought, Why not go for the direct approach?’

‘Was he pleased to hear from you?’

‘I think it was a shock, but yeah, he said he was pleased. We were on the phone for ages talking. It cost me a fortune – it was my mobile and he never thought to call me back. Classic Dad.’

‘What did you talk about?’

‘Oh, you know, it was just catching up. What he’d been doing. Where I was at in school. Plans for the future, that sort of thing.’

‘What were his plans for the future?’ Taylor asked.

‘He said he was going away. To Shetland. He asked if I’d ever been there and I said I hadn’t. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure where it was. I went on to the computer later and looked the islands up. He said they were beautiful. Very bleak but beautiful. He couldn’t wait to go back.’

‘Did he say why he was going?’

‘Basically business, he said. He was going to do some work there. Not really the sort of gig he usually took on, but it would give him a chance to catch up with old friends.’

‘Did he mention the names of the friends?’

‘I don’t think so. If he did I don’t remember.’ She’d been speaking very quickly, answering Taylor’s questions as soon as they were asked, but now she paused. ‘We’d arranged to meet. He was going to come here when he got back. He said he wanted to be a proper father again, to help me follow my dreams.’ She looked up and smiled at them. ‘That was how he spoke, the sort of thing he said. I’d emailed a photo of myself, so he’d know me. And there’s a picture of him on his website. It was weird to see him after all these years of imagining what he’d look like. There’s a resemblance, don’t you think? You’d know I was his daughter.’

She paused. ‘I phoned him at home a few days ago. I thought he should be back by then. Some woman answered.’

They were on their way back to Yorkshire when Taylor took the call from Sandy Wilson, saying there’d been another death. He dropped Jebson in Huddersfield and began the drive north. Excited to be on the move again, but sick that he wasn’t there to take control.