The Shadows in the Street (31 page)

Usually, even at such an early service, the celebrant greeted people as they left, but this morning Miles hurried away so that Cat was at the Webbers’ front door just before half past seven.

She was well used to seeing people in shock, people in states of distress, their worlds turned upside down by an accident, a death, some appalling news, but she was still surprised by the change in Stephen Webber. His face was grey, he had the deep hollows of sleeplessness beneath his eyes, which seemed to have sunk back into his skull, and those eyes were wary and with the odd blank look she recognised in someone who was trying to keep things together without much success.

The kitchen was in chaos. Cat wondered if they had any sort of domestic help because Stephen was clearly not managing. He was looking around for the kettle and cups, and as he found the latter on a tray, knocked the whole lot off the worktop.

‘Stephen, if you clear that up – mind you don’t cut yourself – I’ll make us some coffee. Do you have a dustpan and brush?’

He looked about him helplessly, so that in the end, she made him sit at the table and found everything herself. It took some time.

‘Thank you. I’m afraid I’m in a mess. I can’t function normally, I don’t quite know what I should be doing, but I shouldn’t ask you to come here and then expect …’

She set down a cafetière and two mugs. ‘It’s fine. Are you taking this time off work? I hope so. As you say, you can’t function, which is entirely normal. Just take everything quietly, don’t put any extra stress on yourself.’

‘Miles has taken over some of my work for now. I’d be nowhere without his help – and everyone else’s … People are very good.’ His voice was toneless and infinitely weary and when he picked up his coffee mug, his hand shook.

‘Stephen, you said there was something you wanted to tell me.’

He stared at the table, rubbing his forefinger round and round the wood in a small circle.

‘Is it about Ruth or about you?’

‘I’m not sure what … if I should say anything.’

She waited for a long time, sipping her coffee. His hair was thinning and had wisps of grey, she saw. He had arrived only a few months before as a young-seeming, vigorous, energetic new Dean. Now, the energy and purpose had gone.

‘Ruth,’ he said at last, looking up at her. ‘Ruth is a manic-depressive – has been for some years. No, that’s untrue. Many years. Perhaps she has always been so. I married her without fully realising the extent of her condition and I have often asked myself if I would have done so if …’

He told her the full story quite coherently, as though, having started, he gained confidence and a certain strength. Cat listened carefully, listened to accounts of hospitalisation, Ruth being sectioned after bouts of manic behaviour which had put others at risk as well as herself, and of suicidal depressions, even a couple of attempts, one of them almost successful. The story followed a familiar pattern of someone gradually learning about their condition, accepting help and medication, slipping back when that medication was stopped because it made life, as a patient had once said to her, ‘like grey flannel’. There had been a crisis team, a good London GP, average-sounding hospital care. And, through it all, Stephen had battled to keep her on an even keel, and to hide her condition from others. It was clear that he felt it was a burden he should bear alone, clear that he was both afraid and ashamed of it.

He came to a halt, drank his cooling coffee all at once, and shook his head several times, as if trying to clear it. But the inevitable relief at having talked himself out was evident in the way his shoulders dropped and he slumped in his chair.

‘Stephen, have you told this to the police?’

‘No. I couldn’t … somehow, it felt … it seemed wrong.’

‘Absolutely not. You have to tell them, you have to do it this morning. I’ll drive you down to the station.’

‘No, please, I can’t do that, I can’t go in there …’

‘Why not? They need to know, urgently. This is very, very relevant to Ruth’s disappearance.’

‘It might not be.’

‘Yes it is. Two young women were murdered, another almost killed, and then your wife disappeared …’

‘But it isn’t the same, she isn’t – like that.’

‘Of course Ruth isn’t a prostitute, but the police know nothing about her mental state, her health, so they are mounting a major search with, always in their minds, the fact that she could be dead too. They can’t assume the person is only ever going to attack prostitutes. But if they know what you have just told me it alters the way they’ll deal with this. They already know someone answering to her description was seen in the supermarket in the middle of the night –’

‘It can’t have been her.’

‘Why can’t it?’

‘They asked me to go in and look at the CCTV tapes …’

‘And did you?’

Stephen looked at her. His eyes were full of tears. ‘I couldn’t face it yesterday … I said … I told them I had … that there was … I said I’d go today.’

‘Right. I’ll take you. You’ll look at the tapes, and then you’ll tell them. Stephen, you have to. You have a duty to.’

Now the tears were running down his cheeks, but silently. She reached out and put her hand over his. ‘It will be all right. They’ll understand and they’ll help you. But you can’t hide this.’

He shook his head again violently. It was clear that his normal ability to think clearly had deserted him.

‘Listen, Stephen. You know my brother is in charge of the police investigations? Would it help if I asked him to come here and talk to you – just him? He’s probably still at home – I can get him to come now. That would be easier for you and he’d probably drive you in to the station so that you can look at the tapes. You know this is what you need to do.’

‘Can’t you … would
you
tell them?’

‘No,’ Cat said gently. ‘You know I can’t.’

Fifteen minutes later, Simon was sitting opposite Stephen Webber, looking at him calmly and with understanding, leaning back as if he had all the time in the world to listen. Cat left for the surgery, after suggesting that Stephen come to see her, or her partner, Russell Jones, to get a medical check-up himself. She made a mental note to book an appointment for him later that day, as a matter of urgency.

As she was getting into her car, Miles Hurley came through the side gate of the Precentor’s House opposite, hesitated, then walked quickly over.

‘Is something wrong? Should I go and see him?’

‘No. He just wanted to ask me about something and as I’d been in to the service it was a good time.’ She had no idea how much Miles knew but it was not her business to tell him anything at all, and she did not want anyone interrupting Stephen in his talk with her brother.

‘If you’re sure …’

‘I am.’

He hovered. ‘I have to see the head verger but I’ll be about here today. If Stephen needs me.’

Cat smiled non-committally and drove away.

Forty-seven

Ben and Steph were at the house by eight. Their arrival on the doorstep coincided with Hilary’s.

‘Can I help you?’

‘DS Vanek, DC Mead, Lafferton CID. We’re hoping to talk to Mr Leslie Blade.’

Hilary frowned. ‘Well, he won’t have left for work yet. Have you rung the bell?’

‘We were just about to.’

She put her key into the lock and glanced round. ‘If you’ll wait a moment, please, I’ll ask Mr Blade.’

She did not invite them in, and pushed the door to until it was almost shut.

Vanek shrugged. ‘Just wonder about this, to be honest.’

‘Did you say?’

‘To the DI? Yes. Came from above apparently.’

‘I think he’s floundering, me.’

‘Who wouldn’t be?’

‘Well, I would, but then I’m not a DCS and the officer in charge, am I? And I wouldn’t want to be either, would you?’

‘Certainly would. Let me get my hands on a big op like this. One day …’

Steph Mead rolled her eyes.

‘What’s she doing? Letting him escape over the back fence?’

‘You want me to go round?’

‘Nah, he hasn’t got the bottle. Mother’s boy, this one.’

It was several minutes before Leslie Blade came to the door, dressed in his grey trousers and sports jacket for work.

‘Good morning.’

‘Morning, sir. I wonder if we could come inside for a moment?’

‘Not really. It isn’t convenient. What can I do for you?’

‘It would be better inside, Mr Blade … you know what neighbours are like.’

‘I’m quite happy to speak to you here.’

‘Very well. We’d like you to come with us, if you would.’

‘Where to?’

‘The station, sir. We have a few questions we’d like to go over with you again.’

‘I’ve told you everything I know, absolutely everything. There is nothing more I can possibly say because there is nothing more I know, officer. Nothing has happened since I came to the police station, as far as I know. Nothing to do with me, that is. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help, I wish I knew something about these poor women, I wish I could lead you to whoever is committing these terrible acts, but I can’t.’

‘That’s understood, but we still want to go over your statements, Mr Blade.’

‘Are you arresting me?’

‘No, sir. You would come with us voluntarily.’

‘Then if I am not under arrest, I would be grateful if you would leave and let me go to work.’

Vanek was about to open his mouth but Leslie Blade raised his voice slightly.

‘On the understanding that at the end of the day, I will come into the station and go over whatever you wish me to go over. But I have nothing more to tell you, I cannot have yet more time from my work, we are quite short-staffed at present and it’s our busiest time of the year. If that’s acceptable?’

Vanek hesitated, and again Blade raised his voice slightly. ‘You need have no fear that I will fail to appear, Sergeant.’

No, Vanek thought, I have no fear. You’ll turn up. You’re a decent bloke, even if you’re a bit weird, and you didn’t have anything to do with these murders. If it was down to me, we wouldn’t be here at all.

He said, ‘Thanks, Mr Blade. That’s fine. What time do you think you’ll get to the station?’

‘I’m working split shifts this week. Ten till two, then six till ten tonight. So it will be somewhere between two thirty and three o’clock.’

In the car, Steph Mead said, ‘Wasn’t that a bit of a risk?’

‘He’ll turn up. He’s that sort of bloke.’

‘Hope you’re right. So now what?’

‘Canal. They’ve got the divers going in this morning.’

‘Reckon they’ll find anything?’

‘Not Mrs Webber, that’s for sure.’

‘Not if she was doing midnight shopping. Odd though.’

‘The whole thing’s odd, all of it. It’s going nowhere, Steph, and unless and until we get to talk to Abi Righton it’ll stay this way. It’s bloody frustrating.’

Thirty seconds later, Vanek’s phone rang. He listened, said ‘On our way’ and turned to Stephanie Mead who was driving. ‘There is a God.’ He was smiling. ‘We can have five minutes with Abi Righton.’

Stephen Webber had identified the CCTV footage as almost certainly showing his wife, both at the checkout and then leaving the store, on foot, with two plastic carrier bags. The grey coat she wore was the same as one Ruth had and though the images were blurred, everything about them, her hair, her movements, left him in no doubt.

‘Thank God,’ he kept saying, ‘thank God. That is so good, that is such a relief, thank God.’

Serrailler had come in to look at the tapes again himself, and to look after the Dean, concerned about his fragile state after his long and anguished confession early that morning. Cat had spoken to him quickly as she left, warning him that Webber was close to breakdown. Now, Simon escorted him back to his own room, where tea had been provided by his secretary – tea in a pot with the cups and saucers, reserved for special visitors.

‘Thank you very much for doing that, Dean. I’m very grateful and you do realise, don’t you, what good news this is? I know you can’t take that in yet because we still haven’t found your wife, but the fact that she was caught on camera shopping in Lafferton, albeit in the early hours, means that she was alive then and that was several days after she disappeared. In all the other cases, where the young women have been murdered, or almost murdered, they were killed very shortly after they went missing. We knew your wife didn’t fit the profile of the others and this does confirm that she has very probably gone of her own accord. Given what you told me earlier that seems even more likely. So you do have reason to be optimistic.’

‘I have always had reason, Superintendent, I trust in God, God doesn’t fail us.’

Simon said nothing, only wondered that such confident faith had not been apparent before now. He looked at Webber as he sipped his tea. He seemed strained, anxious and tired, he was strung up, he was the picture of someone who entirely lacked trust and optimism and hope and faith in anything whatsoever. But living with a manic-depressive wife, trying to keep it a secret while holding down a demanding new job, would put years on anyone. He would talk to Cat later. She would tell him in more detail exactly what Ruth Webber’s mental condition meant in terms of her behaviour and her relationships. For now, he waited until the Dean had drunk a second cup of tea and looked slightly restored, then had him driven home.

Half an hour later, he was in his own car, heading for the canal, and as he pulled into the lay-by and looked round, he thought that it resembled nothing so much as a location film set. The entire area had been cordoned off and onlookers were being turned away, or at least held back behind the tapes, by a large number of uniform. But he could see people looking from the back windows of the printworks. Nobody could prevent them seeing whatever they could see.

He went down the grassy slope and onto the towpath, but as he was about to go over to where the divers were making their preparations near the footbridge, someone called his name. The Chief Constable was also on her way down the slope, with a constable hovering, as if unsure whether to treat her as a woman and take her arm, or as a police officer and leave her to her own devices.