“I wouldn’t say that exactly. I only came to Dormouth in November, five weeks before it happened, so I haven’t been doing the job for very long.” Before she could ask her next question he added, “I was in the army and driving a bus is . . .” He paused for thought. “Restful. And the kids are nice, mostly.”
Time was precious so Tabitha steered the conversation back to December 21. “So do you remember anything about that day?”
“What kind of thing?”
“I don’t know. But you were there in the morning and again in the afternoon and I wondered if there was anything you saw that struck you.”
He pondered. “That man running,” he said eventually. “He’s always running in his little shorts with his bare legs even when it’s freezing. Terry in the shop says he runs marathons. He probably goes along that coastal path that goes all the way along the cliff. Oh, and there was a little kid who fell over in front of the bus as I was driving into the village and I had to step on the brake. I know it was that day because of the ice on the road. Maybe there was a man carrying a bag.”
“What kind of man? What kind of bag?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s probably not even true. Or it’s true of a different morning. I see him sometimes walking through the village with his holdall.”
Andy, she thought.
“Then there were Christmas trees lit up in the windows,” the driver continued. “Smoke coming out of chimneys. And the vicar with her dog. I always seem to see them. It’s a nice dog, not one of those skinny little things you could put in your shopping bag. This isn’t helping, is it?”
“I don’t know. Did you see Stuart?”
He shook his head. “Not that I remember.”
“Or his wife?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You mean you might have?”
He gave a small grin. “Don’t get your hopes up. I didn’t even know what she looks like.”
“Nothing else you can think of?”
“It was just an ordinary day. And it was still pretty dark.”
“Of course. Did you see anyone coming into the village as you left?”
“You mean in a car?”
“Anything.”
“I don’t know. Perhaps a van.”
“A van.”
“I said perhaps.”
“I know I’m clutching at straws, it’s just—” She stopped and spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness.
“Sure.”
Tabitha frowned in concentration, thinking of the CCTV footage. Then it struck her that of course most of this was irrelevant: Stuart had more than two hours left to live after the bus had left Okeham. A feeling of glumness settled on her and she tried to push it away and think of anything she could ask that was of any possible use.
“What about Rob Coombe?” she said eventually.
“I’ve told you what I remember, and don’t.”
“No, I mean did you see him after that? He didn’t leave the village.”
“Maybe he was with his girlfriend.”
“I’m sorry?”
“That nice nurse.”
Tabitha leaned forward, gripping the table. “Nurse?” she said.
“I think she’s a nurse. I’ve seen her in her uniform.”
“Rob Coombe is having an affair with her?”
“I’m just the bus driver. But sometimes after he’s dropped his kid off at the bus he drives away and then stops further up the village and walks back to her house.”
“How do you know it’s her house?”
“I saw her answer the door to him once. I had to stop the bus on my way out of the village because one of the kids wouldn’t sit down and there she was. I’m quite high up so I get a good view.”
“I see,” she said.
There was only one nurse in Okeham.
After he left, Tabitha sat forward, her chin in her hands and her eyes half closed. Rob and Shona, Shona and Rob. Did that mean anything? And if it did, what?
Forty-Two
She sat on her bed, knees drawn up, leafing through her notebook. It was more than half filled now with lists and timelines and thoughts, maps and tasks, all written in her meticulous hand.
She examined the map, drew another tiny boat on the sea, hatched the cliff more neatly. She put a small car on the turning circle, and a bare tree at its junction with the track that led to Stuart’s house and her own.
She wrote up the notes from her meetings with Terry, Laura, Dr. Mallon and the bus driver. She wrote down what Michaela had told her. Then she looked at the list of the people who had been trapped in the village on the day of Stuart’s murder. Surely she could cross off Pauline Leavitt, who was in her eighties and sometimes walked with a stick? And the man in his wheelchair, who wouldn’t even make it up her driveway with all its potholes and bumps. And presumably the two sisters with their toddlers. Then there was Terry, who had been in Okeham throughout the day but hadn’t left the shop.
That left Shona—and what the bus driver had said about Shona returned to her; Rob, with his holiday homes that Stuart had tried to put a stop to; Dr. Mallon, who had received Laura’s confidences and whose practice Stuart had left. Then there was Mel the vicar, who had fallen out with Stuart, and who Stuart had complained about to the bishop. Andy, who had told the police she had tried to prevent him finding the body. Luke Rees, who had been bullied by his father and who was protective of his mother.
Tabitha thought about Laura, so angry behind her very English restraint, so lonely. But she had been away that day, with her failed meeting. Once more, Tabitha thought about both Laura’s botched appointment and Stuart’s attempt to leave the village. Where had he been going?
And of course, she had been there all day herself. She tapped the pen beside her own name.
She put the names in a circle and Stuart’s name in the middle, then drew arrows connecting them: everyone except Terry and Andy had one that joined them to Stuart. Then she linked
