The Sleeping and the Dead (34 page)

‘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.

The afternoon the police came to talk to Rosie and Joe in the Prom, it was hotter than ever. Rosie thought that was why the conversation seemed so unreal. The heat seemed to
shimmer, even inside the building, stopping her from thinking clearly.

When they walked in she was behind the bar. It had been one of those quiet afternoons she spent daydreaming. She’d look at the big clock in its heavy wooden frame and see that an hour had
gone by and she knew she must have served half a dozen customers but she couldn’t remember any of them. Then Joe had bounced in, excited somehow despite his grief, shaking her out of her
reverie, and soon after that, the policemen. She’d never met them but she guessed at once who they were. Hannah had described them as a double act and Rosie knew what she meant. It was hard
to imagine them working apart. But she couldn’t work out why her mother had been so scared of them. They looked like two ordinary, middle-aged men. Out of place in here. They were dressed for
the office, not the seaside in a heatwave. Doughy faces covered with a sheen of sweat.

They stood for a moment just inside the door and then the younger man came to the bar. He introduced himself and ordered orange juice. He was pleasant enough, but she couldn’t forget
he’d upset her mother and found it hard to be polite. Joe took a beer off him then they sat round one of the tables in the corner, staring at each other, not sure how to start.

‘This isn’t official,’ the inspector said. ‘Nothing formal. We just want to talk about Mel.’

Somehow that started them off, so he didn’t have to ask any questions. It was like a real conversation, friends chatting. Frank wasn’t there – he was minding the bar –
but the rest of them did what Porteous wanted. They just talked about Mel.

But right from the beginning Rosie couldn’t recognize who they were going on about. Slow down, she wanted to say. I mean, what
is
going on here? It was as if the person who’d
been her best friend throughout the sixth form had disappeared to be replaced in their collective memories by a total stranger. Joe was worse than any of them. Really she wished he wasn’t
there. She felt constrained. While he was going on about how delicate Mel had been, how fragile, she wanted to yell at him: No, she was more than that, stronger than that. You know what she was
like. She could be a manipulative cow. Ruthless. She had to get her own way. She wasn’t the victim you’re all making out.

But she couldn’t do it to him. Not yet. Someone would have to put him straight, but it couldn’t be her. She had too much to lose. What if he never forgave her? So she sat quiet while
they warbled on, pussyfooting around the subject.

‘What about you, Rosie?’ Porteous said at last, leaning across the table, giving her a seriously deep and meaningful look, as if he expected
her
to give them the truth.
‘What have you got to tell us about Mel?’

‘Nothing new. Nothing that’s not already been said.’

She could tell he was disappointed. They went on to talk about Mel’s music, how talented she was and how she’d already got a confirmed university place at Edinburgh, the same old
gushing stuff.

‘They were so impressed,’ Joe said, ‘that they’d have taken her even if she’d failed all her A levels.’

Then Porteous tried again. He wanted to know if Mel had ever been pregnant. Not now, but at some time in the past. The question was so delicately put together that not even Joe was offended.

‘No,’ Joe said. ‘Of course not. She’d have told me.’

‘Would she?’

Joe didn’t answer that because there were lots of things Mel hadn’t liked to talk about.

Rosie though was certain. ‘It’s not possible. Mel would never get pregnant. She was paranoid about it, wasn’t she, Joe?’

Joe nodded sadly in agreement and Rosie continued.

‘She had to be in control of her body. Completely. That was what the food thing was all about. And if there was some accident, some mistake, she’d get rid of it
immediately.’

‘Was there ever any accident?’

‘No,’ Joe said. ‘Not while she was with me.’

‘Are you sure?’ When there was no reply, he added. ‘No matter. The pathologist will be able to tell us.’

Rosie was daydreaming again. She and Mel had talked about children on one of their girlie nights together. She’d slept on the sofa bed in Mel’s room and they’d got through a
bottle of wine each when they’d got back from the pub. Mel had got a bit soppy about the kid she used to babysit, but she’d made it clear a family wasn’t part of her future.
‘Your life’s not your own if you’re a mother,’ she’d said, shuddering. Though what could she know?

‘Eleanor seems to manage OK.’

‘That’s different. I’m old enough to look after myself. I don’t bother her any more. She wasn’t so keen when I was little.’ She’d paused. ‘I want
to be someone. You can’t concentrate on what you want to do if you’re surrounded by screaming kids.’

And then, lying on top of her bed, propped up on one elbow, Mel had squinted across at Rosie. ‘What about you? I can see you as an earth mother. Married. A cottage in the country. Four or
five kids, a goat and some hens scratching about in the garden.’ Rosie had laughed then, but something about the image still appealed.

She was brought back to the pub by a sudden blast from the jukebox, a couple of bikers laughing. Porteous gave her another pleading look but she ignored it. She told him she had nothing else to
say and offered to look after the bar so they could talk to Frank.

Frank must have realized that Porteous would want to talk to him about the bloke who’d been in the Prom asking after Mel, but he didn’t seem very pleased about it.

‘Look, I don’t think I can be much help . . .’

‘Don’t be daft, Frank. No one else can remember him.’

And she gave him a playful little push, sending him out into the room. He looked shaky, panicky, walking towards the policeman as if he were already about to go into the witness box. From the
bar she couldn’t hear exactly what the group in the corner were saying, but Frank was facing her and she saw him staring blankly, occasionally shaking his head. His eyes were unfocused,
wandering. It was as if he wasn’t really thinking about the questions and the answers. He was just trying to survive the interview, waiting for it to be over.

The next day she tackled him about it. She’d been thinking about it all night. Frank had liked Mel, in the way that he seemed to like all the young people who came into the Prom.
He’d joked with her, acted sometimes as father-confessor, standing at the bar for ages listening to all her troubles. So why had he been so reluctant to discuss her with the police?

She waited until about five o’clock when they had their meal break together and she could get him on his own. They sat in the little staff-room which led off the kitchen. They propped the
outside door wide open and sat beside it on old bar stools, their plates on their knees, looking out at the pavement. Families were already trailing back from the beach, the children fractious and
covered in sand, the parents loaded with towels and toys. There was the hot smell of drying seaweed and frying onions from the burger stall at the fair.