Hidden Depths

‘Did you know Mr Parr’s wife?’

‘Claire, yes. So sad. She always seemed happy enough. A little excitable, perhaps. We were all very shocked when it happened.’

‘There was never any question that it was suicide?’

‘Oh no, of course not. Samuel was heartbroken. I’m sure he blamed himself.’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘Well, it’s a natural reaction in circumstances like that, isn’t it?’ the woman said. ‘Guilt.’

‘You don’t think that he provoked the suicide? That he was having an affair, for example?’

‘Of course not.’ The woman seemed horrified. ‘Samuel is a librarian!’ As if his profession made the idea impossible.

They sat for a moment in silence, then she said, ‘What are all these questions about?’

‘I’m working on another enquiry,’ Vera said. ‘Mr Parr was a witness. His wife’s suicide probably isn’t relevant. I’m a little concerned for his safety.’

‘Of course!’ the woman said. ‘It’s the anniversary of Claire’s death! My husband mentioned it this morning when he saw the date on the Telegraph.’ She paused. ‘You don’t think Samuel’s done anything stupid? That he can’t face going on without her?’

‘No,’ Vera said. ‘I don’t think there’s anything like that. But if you do see him when he comes in, ask him to give us a call.’

In the car, Vera realized she’d left her phone there when she’d gone in to speak to the woman. She’d had two missed calls, both from Joe Ashworth. She rang him.

‘I’ve finished the story,’ he said.

‘And?’

‘I think you’d better come in.’

Chapter Forty-Two

Back in her office, Joe was as excited as she could remember seeing him. ‘Read the last few pages.’ He moved away from her desk so she could sit down, hovered just inside the door.

Vera returned to the story. There was a description of a garden, where the kidnapped young woman was being held. It was an Eden gone to seed, a place of fleshy leaves, enormous flowers and overripe fruit. Vera found it oppressive, longed for a passage set in the hills, somewhere with lots of sky and a bit of a breeze, thought she’d been feeling like that since the beginning of the case. As the plot reached its conclusion, she grew more tense. She told herself it was fiction, wished she could throw the book aside and return to the reality of forensic tests and reason. But with Joe watching she had to continue reading. At last the inevitable ending occurred. The young woman was strangled. Parr had written the killing as if it was an embrace, a gesture of tenderness. The murderer was still anonymous; any relationship with the victim unexplored. In the final paragraph the body was placed in a pool, surrounded by water lilies.

‘Well?’ Ashworth demanded. ‘What do you think? It must have been Parr.’

Vera didn’t answer. ‘I know where the story is set,’ she said. ‘I’ve been there.’

Vera’s father had been part of the committee which had set up the Deepden Observatory. She wasn’t sure who’d been foolish enough to ask him onto it. His brief flirtation with the birdwatching mainstream hadn’t lasted for long. Hector had been too much of a loner to get on with the other committee members and his attention span had been too short for tedious meetings about fundraising events and the observatory constitution. Besides, he got his thrills from the illegal activities which surrounded his passion – the late-night forays into the hills for raptors’ eggs, taxidermy carried out on the kitchen table. He wasn’t really interested in the gentle and scientific study of bird migration. After about six months he sent an acerbic and libellous letter of resignation.

He had, however, been invited back to a party to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the opening of the observatory. Vera thought the invitation had probably been sent by mistake. He was on a list and nobody in authority had checked the names. The committee wouldn’t have wanted him there. By that time, everyone in the Northumberland birding world had become aware of his illicit activities. He’d never been prosecuted, but it was a small world and there’d been rumours for years about his egg collection. When he was drunk he boasted about it. The best amateur collection of raptors’ eggs in the country, he’d say. Probably the best in the world.

Hector, of course, had been delighted to receive the invitation and insisted on going to the party. She’d known better than to try to dissuade him. He’d always been a stubborn old sod and he delighted in making a nuisance of himself. By that point in his life he was drinking heavily and Vera had gone with him as a sort of minder, to stop him making a scene and to drive him home. It had been the same time of the year as now, another dry, still evening in mid-summer Probably some of the people involved in the recent murders had been there.

What did stay with her was an image of the place. By the evening of the party the garden had grown up and everything was lush and green, an oasis in the parched flat land which surrounded it. There had been a conducted tour of the ringing hut, the mist net rides and through the orchard. Later, she’d stood by the pond, keeping a watchful eye out for Hector, ready to move him on quickly if he started to cause offence. But that evening he’d been on good form. A little loud, perhaps, but good-humoured, entertaining. As the night wore on she was able to relax. She even found herself enjoying the occasion.

She didn’t tell Ashworth that story. ‘I can’t be certain, of course,’ she said. ‘But I think it’s Deepden. Not far from the lighthouse where the girl was found and only just up the road from Seaton, where the Armstrongs live.’

‘What are we waiting for, then? And if Parr’s there with the girl, we’ll need back-up, won’t we? Do you want me to get on to it?’ Now his anxiety about his wife was forgotten. He didn’t want to miss out on the glory of an arrest.

‘Let’s keep it quiet for the moment. Low key. Any hint that we’re on to him and he’ll kill her. What’s he got to lose?’ But it was more a matter of pride for her than concern for the safety of the girl. Pride was her great failing. She didn’t want a song and dance about this, in case they’d got the whole thing wrong. She hadn’t got Samuel Parr down for the murders. She had in mind someone else entirely. And Laura could be dead. Vera imagined the gossip there’d be if she cocked this up publicly. The boss got the idea out of a book. Talk about fairy tales. This time she’s really lost it. She would hardly be able to say then that it had all been Joe Ashworth’s idea. She wasn’t sufficiently sure of his theory to pull people away from the locations her team had come up with originally – Seaton Pond, the Tyne at North Shields, Fox Mill. Those places would still be watched.

‘This’ll be just you and me exploring an outside chance,’ she said to Ashworth.

She could tell he believed the girl was at Deepden, he’d been seduced by the story, the flowers, the water.

She took a large-scale Ordnance Survey map from the shelf in her office and laid it across her desk. ‘This is where we need to park,’ she said, jabbing her fat finger onto the paper. ‘If he’s there, we don’t want to be so close to the house that he can hear the engine.’

Before she left the station, she called into the incident room, sat on the edge of Charlie’s desk, gave him her instructions. ‘Then get off your backside. You could do with the fresh air and there’s something I want you to check.’

As she drove towards Deepden she tried to recreate a plan of the place in her mind. The bungalow was side- on to the road, with the orchard behind it. The overgrown garden and the pond lay between the house and the flat fields running to the coast.

She didn’t want anyone to know where they were, but Ashworth insisted on keeping his phone on until they got to the observatory. ‘Sarah has to be able to get in touch.’ She felt like screaming at him. What will you do if your wife does go into labour? Leave me here on my own and drive off to play happy families? Or will you stay with me? Be in on the end of it and let your wife give birth without you? She wasn’t quite sure what he’d answer. Perhaps the same thought had occurred to him, because she could sense he was jumpy, sitting beside her, reading the map with his small Maglite torch, keeping his finger on the road.