to stay near to the library.’
‘Of course.’ Ashworth smiled. ‘Her final term. She’d have been snowed under’ He paused. ‘How did she seem at Easter?’
‘Canny. She’d got the teaching practice she was hoping for. A little village school up the coast. You could tell that was the way her mind was working. She was looking for the right experience to get her back this way.’
And Vera saw this was where the dream had come from. The nice lad and the grandchild. The house just down the road. Lily had let slip some comment about her teaching practice and Phyllis had conjured up all the rest.
‘I don’t suppose she brought anyone home with her that time? A boyfriend?’
‘No. I always said her friends would be welcome, but she was always on her own.’
‘Did she mention a lad? A bonny lass like her, there must have been someone…’
‘I didn’t like to pry,’ Phyllis said.
‘Of course not.’
‘They’re very secretive at that age, aren’t they? They’ll tell you nothing.’
‘You’ve been in touch since Easter, though? On the phone?’
‘I phone every week. Sunday. It’s cheap rate then. You couldn’t expect her to phone us, the budget she’s on.’
‘Did you call her landline or mobile?’
‘Mobile. That way she wouldn’t have to stay in specially.’
‘How did she seem?’
‘Really well. Happy. Excited, even.’
‘Do you know why she was feeling so good? Or was she always like that?’
‘Not always, no. We all have our bad days, don’t we? I thought afterwards about what might have made her so cheerful. I asked her if she’d sorted herself out a job for September. “There are things in the pipeline.” That’s what she said. It sounds daft, but you could hear her smiling as she said it. I thought perhaps she’d applied for something locally. Near home, I mean. Maybe even got an interview. But she didn’t want to say anything. Not to get our hopes up, like. In case we were disappointed.’
There was a moment of silence. In the greenhouse Dennis Marsh took a tin of tobacco from his jacket pocket and began rolling a cigarette. Phyllis frowned. She probably thought roll-ups common, something not to be done in front of guests. Not even when your daughter’s just died.
Ashworth leaned forward, caught her attention again. ‘Did Lily ever do a teaching practice in Whitley High?’
‘No, she was a primary specialist. She didn’t do high schools.’
‘So she’d never have taught a lad called Luke Armstrong? Never mentioned him at all?’
‘Why? Is he the one that killed her?’ The words were spat out, so loud and so fierce that she shocked them both.
‘No,’ Ashworth said quietly. ‘Nothing like that. He was murdered too. There are certain similarities.’
Vera left them then. Phyllis was making more tea, just about holding herself together with ritual chat, warming the pot, finding biscuits. She’d have liked Joe Ashworth as a son-in-law, Vera could tell. She might even have been thinking that as she prompted him to take another fig roll. There was a glass door from the kitchen into the garden and Vera went out through that, closing it behind her, shutting out the conversation, knowing she was a coward, but not able to bear it any more.
Dennis must have heard her approaching, but didn’t look up until she appeared at the open greenhouse door. She pulled up a plastic garden chair and sat just outside, facing him. He had the drawn, defeated face of men she’d seen in the cells or sleeping rough. Phyllis would save him from that, at least. She’d make sure he washed and shaved, cut his fingernails, wore clean clothes.
‘Tell me about Lily.’ Vera planted her feet firmly on the grass.
‘I should never have had a bairn,’ he said.
She felt like saying she’d always believed children were pretty overrated herself, but thought that wasn’t what he wanted to hear.
‘I don’t suppose anyone thinks they make a good job of it, bringing up kids.’
‘I can’t even look after myself.’
‘Lily seemed to have turned out all right. University. Going into teaching.’ Vera caught the cheerful tone of the social worker in her voice, hated herself for it.
‘She was never happy, though,’ he said. ‘Not really. Not even when she was at school.’
‘What was she like at school?’
‘Bright,’ he said. ‘Oh yes, always top of the class in the little school. And when she started her A levels they put her down for Oxford.’
Vera was surprised Phyllis hadn’t mentioned that, but understood why it hadn’t come up when he continued speaking. ‘Then she didn’t do as well in her exams as they’d been expecting. There was this lad, I don’t know, she was obsessed by him. Thought she was in love with him. Couldn’t concentrate, it seemed. Got A levels, but not the grades she needed for Oxford.’
‘It happens,’ Vera said. ‘Teenage girls…’
‘It wasn’t normal, though,’ he said. ‘Not a normal crush. She was fixated. Stopped sleeping. Stopped eating. I thought she was ill. She needed special help. Phyllis wouldn’t see it.’
Vera said nothing.
‘I knew,’ he said. ‘I recognized it. I’ve been in and out of mental hospital over the years. Not so much now that they’ve sorted out the drugs, but I had my first breakdown when I was Lily’s age. Too much of a coincidence, isn’t it? She must have got that from me. She got her mother’s brains. My madness.’
‘Do you remember the name of the lad she fell for when she was at school?’
He frowned. ‘My memory’s not so good. I blame the ECT but it’s probably just age.’
She waited, hoping it would come to him. She didn’t want to bring this up with Phyllis, cause her even more pain.
‘Craven,’ he said. ‘Ben Craven. A nice enough lad. Not his fault.’
‘What happened to him? Did he go on to university?’
Dennis shook his head. ‘I don’t think I ever knew.’
‘You said you had a couple of spells in hospital, Mr Marsh. Where did you go?’
‘St George’s. That place in Morpeth.’
The first link between Luke Armstrong and Lily Marsh, Vera thought. Tenuous, but something at least to work on.
‘And Lily? Do you think she ever went there for treatment? Once she left home, maybe? Not as an inpatient. You’d have heard about that. But to one of the outpatient clinics?’
‘I told her to go,’ he said. ‘I gave her a card with the name of my doctor on it. But I don’t know if she took my advice.’ He made a brave attempt at a smile. ‘You know what it’s like. Two women in the house. They weren’t going to take any notice of me.’
Chapter Fourteen
‘So what have we got here?’ Joe Ashworth said. ‘Some nutter who thinks it’s OK to go round strangling nutters?’
They were in the car on the way to Newcastle. They’d arranged to see Lily Marsh’s flat and to talk to the two students she’d shared with.
‘Maybe.’ Vera was thinking it was all too elaborate. Some game. Some clever bastard pulling their strings. ‘But forget the window dressing. The flowers on the water. If we had two murders this close, same cause of death, what would you think?’
‘I’d still think it was a nutter.’
‘Serial killer?’
