she reworded the same question. ‘It must be hard splitting your time between the theatre and the big house in the country. Doesn’t it feel . . .’ she paused to find the right words, ‘. . . a bit schizophrenic?’

He laughed again. ‘I suppose it does. But in a good way. I think I’d go a bit mad if all I had was the life of a country gent. The house, the dogs, Harriet playing lady of the manor. This way I can escape the Brideshead myth for a couple of days a week.’

‘You don’t have to be here full-time?’

He shook his head. ‘I job-share with a woman who’s just had a baby. Sophie Blackstock. You met her, I think, because she was one of the guests at the party. I’m covering her maternity leave at the moment, but I’ll go back to part-time in a few months. It suits us both. Even now, I can work a lot from home. I’ve got an office at Brockburn. But if the new project works out, I’ll have the best of both worlds. Bringing theatre to rural Northumberland is something I’m passionate about and there’s something pitifully indulgent about that huge place standing almost empty.’

‘Juliet and Harriet don’t mind?’

‘Juliet’s as excited by it as I am and Harriet realizes it’s the only way to stop the roof falling in, unless she turns the place into a hotel or has glampers in the garden, and she’d hate that. Besides, she doesn’t really have much say. The place is Juliet’s. Her father gave it to her when she was still quite young. Some wheeze to avoid inheritance tax. So, Harriet can like it or lump it.’ Mark sounded gleeful. A schoolboy.

Holly got to her feet. She’d check the cafe where Mark had claimed to have breakfast – Vera insisted on rigour, on not making assumptions – but she couldn’t see that Bolitho would have murdered anyone. And what reason would he have to lie if he’d helped Constance to run away?

The cafe was on the ground floor of the block where Bolitho had his apartment. The building was stylish and cool with a view of the Tyne and the Blinking Eye bridge. Holly wouldn’t have been able to afford a place here and she could see why some Kirkhill residents might consider him minted. The cafe was busy. It was near the Crown Court and there were smart lawyers in suits and business people having a late lunch, women who’d escaped the busy pre-Christmas town centre for tea and cake. Holly ordered coffee and waited for a lull in the service before going back to the counter and introducing herself.

‘You know Mark Bolitho?’

‘The theatre guy? Sure.’ He was in his twenties, confident in ripped jeans and black T-shirt, but still with a trace of adolescent acne, a teenager’s inability to keep still. ‘He’s a regular.’

‘Was he in for breakfast this morning?’

‘Probably.’ He started wiping down the fancy coffee machine.

‘You don’t remember specifically?’ Holly wanted to shout, to tell him to pay attention, to focus. ‘It’s important.’

‘Look, it’s crazy here at breakfast time. I don’t have time to look at the faces. I see the hands with the debit cards, swiping through contactless, the coffees, the orders.’

‘He always has avocado on sourdough.’

‘Ah, he can’t have been here this morning then. We couldn’t get any avocado. There was nearly a fucking riot.’ Now he did look up at her. ‘First-world problems, huh?’

Oh, Mark, she thought and she smiled. Why did you lie?

She was walking away when she turned back. ‘Have you ever seen him here with a woman?’

‘Tall? Skinny? Yeah. Not recently though. Not for a while.’

Joshua Heslop’s friends both worked in the same place, the Baltic Gallery on the south side of the river. Once it had been a ruined flour warehouse, now it housed contemporary art, strange installations, interesting sculpture. Holly tried to imagine Vera here and failed. Oliver worked in the gift shop and Jonnie was an outreach worker, planning projects to hook in kids. They were a couple and they’d both been at university with Joshua. There was a bar overlooking the Tyne and she met them there. They’d just finished their shift and were drinking beer. She ordered a mint tea; any more caffeine and she’d be as jumpy as the barista she’d just been interviewing.

The light had drained away and now the reflections in the river were street lights, the neon signs advertising the bars and restaurants on the north side of the Tyne. There was a hooter and the Millennium Bridge slowly swung open, the eye blinking not to let through a ship but just to show that it could.

‘Joshua stayed with you on Friday night?’

‘Yeah. It was a party, a kind of reunion of the gang we were at uni with.’ Oliver was pale, slender, still. He could have been a sculpture, carved from white marble. ‘Josh was always going to stay. He wouldn’t have been able to get back to the farm by public transport. In the end, of course, the weather made it impossible and he was with us until Saturday afternoon.’

‘You’re close friends?’

‘The best,’ Jonnie said. ‘We shared a student house when we were at Northumbria Uni.’

‘Tell me about him.’ Holly looked at the clock on the wall of the bar. She had plenty of time before the evening briefing. There was no need to rush this.

‘He’s not complicated,’ Jonnie said. ‘There’s no artistic angst. He likes the simple life, his family, the farm. He loves his art too, of course, but that’s all related.’

‘In what way?’

‘He does meticulous watercolours, which draw you into the painting, into the detail. They’re not photographic, I don’t mean that. You’ll have to see them to understand. His work is different from anyone else I can think of. He captures his place in the landscape.’

‘Where could I see them?’

‘Well, not here. They’d get lost in a gallery this size. There’s an exhibition in a little place in Kimmerston.’

Holly nodded. ‘I’ll go and look out

Вы читаете The Darkest Evening
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