Chapter Twenty-Eight
Vera arranged to meet Ben Craven in a day centre for psychiatric patients. He spent one day a week there meeting the clients who’d been discharged from hospital. It was on the edge of a coastal town which had once been famous for its docks. Now, it’s only claim to fame was as the drugs capital of the north east.
On the way, she stopped at the library in the town centre, a Gothic red-brick building, with a clock tower and a huge painting in the lobby of a ship in full sail. She found a collection of Samuel Parr’s short stories on a shelf marked LOCAL AUTHORS. She wasn’t sure what he’d think about being displayed in that way. Was it an honour? Or did it mean he wasn’t good enough to go on the shelves with the real writers? She stood browsing for a moment, but couldn’t find the story she’d heard on the radio. In the end she decided to take it out anyway. When she handed over the book and her ticket the library assistant said, ‘Such a lovely man. He came here to give a reading last year. He’s one of our staff, of course.’
That made Vera think of her last conversation with Samuel Parr. He’d said he’d tell her what Lily had been reading. Still curious, but also interested what Parr’s response to the request would be, she decided to follow it up. Sitting in the car she phoned Morpeth Library and asked to speak to him.
‘Ah yes, Inspector. Let me just check the system. What was the name? Lily Marsh?’
What are you playing at? she thought. Of course you remember the girl’s name. You found her body.
‘There are no books outstanding on her ticket, Inspector. I’m afraid I can’t help you.’
She switched off her phone, feeling unreasonably disappointed.
The psychiatric day centre had once been a nursery school and, walking in, Vera had the uncomfortable feeling that everyone here – even the staff – had regressed to early childhood. In one of the rooms an art class was taking place. The patients wore red aprons to protect their clothes, they used thick brushes and bright acrylic paint. In another, there was some sort of music lesson with tambourines, cymbals and a couple of glockenspiels. But everywhere was the smell of cigarette smoke. She’d never bothered much if other people wanted to kill themselves, but could feel this in her throat and lungs and she knew she’d have to change her clothes to get rid of the stink. She had to walk through the common room to find the social worker. The chairs were arranged in small groups, but nobody seemed to be talking to anyone else. Everyone was smoking. A thin woman was talking under her breath. Some long story about her rent and the council hounding her. The other people in the room ignored her.
Craven had a small office at the end of a corridor. His door was open and she saw him before he noticed her. He was sitting at a desk hitting computer keys with a speed she’d never master. Her first thought was that he looked good. He was the sort of young man you’d notice in the street, follow with your eyes just for the pleasure of seeing him move. Tall, blond, muscular. A tan to show off the eyes. He was squinting at the screen but she knew they’d be blue. He must feature in the fantasies of many of his female clients. No wonder Lily Marsh had fallen for him. What a couple they would have made.
He heard her approaching and looked up.
‘Yes?’ Just one word but that gentle, patronizing tone professionals use to mad people. A smile to make her feel at ease. He thought she was a patient. She wondered if she spoke to witnesses like that. Like they were children.
‘Vera Stanhope,’ she said. ‘Inspector. We’ve got an appointment.’ Brusque enough for him to feel awkward. A silly power game, which she’d usually despise.
He reached out and shut down the computer, stood up in the same movement, held out his hand.
‘Inspector. Tea? Coffee?’
‘No, thanks,’ she said.
‘Is it about one of my clients? Perhaps we should get my boss to sit in.’
She ignored that. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Is there anywhere else we can go to talk? Maybe get some lunch?’
‘Do the mentally ill make you uncomfortable, Inspector?’
‘Don’t be daft, lad. I’ve worked with more loonies than you’ve had hot dinners. And I don’t just mean the offenders.’
He smiled and she thought he might be human after all. ‘I usually take a break around now.’
They walked out into the street. On the other side of the road was a narrow stretch of dune then the sea. In the distance a power station in the process of demolition. He led her down a terrace of double-fronted Edwardian houses, still stately despite their surroundings, and into a pub. The Mermaid. A carving like a ship’s prow over the door. At night time they probably dealt drugs here, like everywhere else in the town, but now it was quiet, restful. A couple of old men with pitmen’s wheezes playing dominoes in one corner. A middle-aged couple at a table eating steak pie and chips.
Craven ordered orange juice and a sandwich. She went for a half of Workie Ticket and a burger. Standing at the bar to pay, she looked at him, caught in the dusty sunlight, until she realized she was staring and turned away.
‘Luke Armstrong,’ she said, as soon as she sat down. ‘Does the name mean anything to you?’
‘Isn’t that the lad who was killed in Seaton?’
‘You knew him, then?’
‘No, I never worked with him. But I heard other staff in the hospital talking. Gossiping. That’s how I know he’d been an inpatient at St George’s. I don’t think he was ever referred to the social work department.’
‘You didn’t see him in hospital?’
‘I might have done in passing while I was visiting someone else on the ward, but I certainly don’t remember. Look, you really would be better talking to my boss. She’d know if there was any social work input with the family.’
‘What about Lily Marsh?’ Vera said. ‘You
He sat in complete silence. Still as a statue. Gilded by the sunshine. A bit of art she’d have in her house any day, she thought, only half as a joke.
‘I haven’t seen Lily since I was eighteen.’
‘You heard she’d died too?’
‘My mother phoned at the weekend,’ he said. ‘She told me there’d been some sort of accident. Lily was drowned. Up the coast somewhere.’
Vera wondered if that was the story Phyllis had spread round their village when she’d first been told of her daughter’s death. Did she think it was shameful to be a murder victim? Not quite nice? It wasn’t a fiction she’d be able to sustain for long.
‘Lily was strangled. Just like Luke Armstrong.’
‘You’re saying the two deaths are connected?’
‘We don’t get that many violent deaths in this part of Northumberland,’ she said, not hiding the sarcasm. ‘Not in one week anyway.’ Then, watching him. ‘You don’t seem very shocked. It’s a nasty business. You were very close to her at one time.’
‘Of course I’m shocked.’ He looked up at her. ‘But not surprised. Not really. I don’t believe in natural victims, but she wasn’t an easy person to be close to. There were times when I felt like killing her. Not her fault. I saw that even then. I wanted to understand. Perhaps that’s what pushed me into this line of work. But it didn’t stop me feeling like strangling her.’
‘Tell me.’
‘I was in love with her,’ he said. ‘That mad, passionate obsession that you only get when you’re a teenager. I wanted to write poems to her, spend every minute with her-’
‘Fuck the pants off her,’ Vera interrupted helpfully.
He laughed. ‘Well, that too, I suppose. But in a very tasteful and romantic way. We’d been reading Lawrence. I imagined it in moonlight, on a pile of hay. Something like that. Young people are so pretentious, aren’t they?’
Vera thought of Luke Armstrong and Thomas Sharp, stealing from building sites, mucking around on the quayside, standing up for each other when the bullying started. Not all young people, she thought. A plump, motherly woman walked up with their food. Vera waited until she’d returned to the bar before continuing.
‘Did it live up to expectations?’ she asked.
‘At first.’
