heavy. People had left work early to enjoy the sun. Windows down, music loud, the weekend had already started. Luke Armstrong’s father lived just off the coast road in one of the sprawling new housing estates on the outskirts of Wallsend. Vera knew it wasn’t her job to talk to him. She should leave the legwork to the rest of the team. How would they learn otherwise? But this was what she was good at. She pictured Julie Armstrong holed up in Seaton with her daughter and her memories, and she thought she wasn’t going to leave this to anyone else.
The house was a red-brick semi. It had a small patch of front garden, separated from the neighbour’s with a lavender hedge, a block-paved drive, integral garage. The developers had squeezed every inch out of this land which had once held three collieries, but the estate was pleasant enough if you didn’t mind communal living. It had been designed around lots of small cul-de-sacs so children could ride their bikes safely. Trees planted in the gardens were starting to mature. There were hanging baskets outside the houses, spotless cars on the drives. Nothing to sneer at, Vera told herself.
She hadn’t been sure Geoff Armstrong would be in. When she’d phoned there’d been an answering machine, but she hadn’t left a message. She’d just as soon catch him unprepared. She drove slowly down the street looking for the right house. It was three o’clock and the younger children were coming out of the primary school on the corner. Mothers waiting in the playground looked pink and dazed after an afternoon in the sun. Vera was standing on the step with her finger on the bell, when Armstrong walked into the drive. He was holding the hand of a little girl only just old enough to be at school. An ad-man’s dream cute kid – blonde curls, freckles, huge brown eyes, dressed in a regulation red gingham frock.
‘Yes?’ he said. Only one word, but spoken with that undertone of aggression which had scared Julie.
Before she could explain, the front door opened. A slight woman was framed in the doorway. She was wearing a dressing gown, blinked out at the sunlight, but wasn’t embarrassed to be caught like that. She knew she still looked good.
‘Kath works nights,’ Armstrong said angrily. ‘I finish early on Fridays so I can fetch Rebecca. That way Kath gets an extra hour in bed.’
‘Sorry, pet.’ Vera spoke to the woman, not to him. ‘No one said.’ She held out her ID so they could both see. ‘Can I come in?’
They sat in the small kitchen, leaving Rebecca in the lounge with juice, a biscuit and children’s TV. Kath put the kettle on then excused herself to get dressed. When Vera apologized again for waking her, she waved it away.
‘It’s impossible to sleep in when the weather’s like this. Radios in the gardens and the kids playing out. Anyway, this is important. Poor Luke.’ She stood for a moment in the doorway, then went upstairs. They heard her progress: footsteps, a cupboard being opened, the shower.
They sat on tall stools next to the breakfast bar. Vera thought they must look ridiculous. Two overweight gnomes on toadstools. ‘Did Luke spend a lot of time here?’ she asked.
‘Quite a lot, before he was ill. More than Laura. I thought she’d be excited when Kath had the baby. A little sister. But she seemed to resent her. Luke was better with Rebecca even when she was tiny.’
‘He hadn’t been here since he left hospital?’
‘No. Kath wanted to have him over to stay last weekend, but I wasn’t sure…’
‘You were worried about your little girl?’
‘Not that he’d hurt her, like. But that if he behaved strange, she wouldn’t understand.’ He paused. ‘I never handled Luke well when I lived at home. Pride, Kath says. I wanted a boy who was strong, competitive, good at games. Like me only better. I suppose I was ashamed because he was different from other lads.’
Vera thought he’d changed since he left Julie. Kath must be a civilizing influence. Or maybe she’d just taught him how to talk a good game.
‘You used to lose your temper with him.’
He looked up, shocked. He was a bereaved father. She wasn’t supposed to talk to him like that.
‘It was a bad time,’ he said. ‘I’d lost my job, no money, Julie and me weren’t getting on. Lately I’d been trying to understand him better. Then that lad he was knocking around with drowned and it freaked Luke out. No one could get through to him then.’
‘Did you visit him in hospital?’
‘Kath and I both went. I’m not sure I could have faced it on my own. First few times you could tell he was really doped up. I mean, I’m not sure he knew we were there. But even then he looked scared. He jumped whenever anyone came up behind him. When he got better we took him out for an afternoon. A pizza and a bit of a walk round Morpeth. He was more chatty then, but still very nervy. He kept saying it was his fault, that lad drowning. We got to the bridge, you know over the river by the church, and he really lost it. Shaking, crying. We’d only just got him calm when we arrived back at the hospital.’
‘Did he say
‘He was never able to explain himself very well even before the breakdown. We asked, but questions only made it worse.’
‘You’d been to see him a couple of times after he came out of hospital?’
‘Yes, and he seemed better. He didn’t like to leave the house, Julie said. But he was more himself.’
‘His sister will have been glad to have him home.’
Armstrong leaned forward across the breakfast bar. His hands were hard and callused, the nails very short. ‘Aye, perhaps.’ He paused, seemed to study his fingers. ‘But it wasn’t easy for her. She found it hard to get on with Luke at times. Maybe she’s got too much of her father in her to make allowances. Maybe she was just fed up with him getting all their mother’s attention.’
They heard a door shut upstairs, more footsteps and Kath appeared. She was wearing her uniform and had put up her hair.
‘Is it OK? Or would you rather talk to Geoff on his own?’
‘Come away in,’ Vera said. ‘I’m just about to get to the hard bit. Could do with a woman’s common sense. Stop your man flying off the handle.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I need to ask you both what you were doing when Luke was killed. That doesn’t mean I think you had anything to do with his death. But I have to ask. You do understand?’
‘Of course,’ she said.
‘Geoff?’
He nodded reluctantly.
‘I was at work,’ Kath said. ‘The gynaecology ward at the RVI. There were three of us on. It was frantic. A couple of emergency admissions from A &E. I didn’t even have time for a break. Geoff was here all night, babysitting Rebecca.’
‘Do you always work nights?’
‘I have done since I went back after Rebecca. It suits us. Geoff’s self-employed. Most of his work comes from a builder in Shields, Barry Middleton. Geoff does all his plastering and joinery. Barry’s well thought of and the work’s regular, but Geoff can suit himself pretty well, fit it in round the family, school holidays. He has Rebecca ready for school in the morning when I get in and Fridays he picks her up. It’s almost her bedtime when I leave for the hospital in the evening. Neither of us gets much of a social life, but it means Rebecca sees plenty of us.’
‘Did your daughter wake up the night Luke was killed?’
The question was directed at Geoff, but it was Kath who answered again. ‘She never wakes up! She’s a miracle. She’s slept through since she was six weeks. Once she’s in her bed you don’t hear from her till seven the next morning.’
There was an awkward silence. Almost as she spoke Kath realized the implication of her words. ‘But he wouldn’t leave her,’ she cried. ‘You’ve seen what he’s like with her. He’d never go away and leave her on her own.’
‘Geoff?’
‘I didn’t leave her,’ he said. She knew he was controlling his temper, to prove to her and to Kath that he could, that he didn’t lose it any more. ‘I couldn’t even go to the end of the road without imagining things. That the house was on fire. That she was sick. I wouldn’t do it. Anyway, I could go to see Luke any time. Why wait till the middle of the night?’
‘Right, then,’ Vera said. ‘Now that’s out of the way, we can move on.’ Though it wasn’t out of the way. Not
