The Heron's Cry Page 12

  Matthew was confused too. He’d received garbled stories about the 999 call and the discovery of the body. Initially, it seemed that the first officers at the scene had assumed they had their perpetrator. A woman crouched over the body, a piece of glass in her hand. Blood on her clothes. But the glass in the woman’s hand hadn’t been the murder weapon. That was still in the victim’s neck. And this was Eve Yeo, who had just lost her father. Matthew couldn’t see her as a serial killer. The idea was ludicrous.

  When he arrived at the Woodyard, Jen got out of the car to talk to him. Matthew thought she looked drained and white. This had hit her personally. He wondered if she’d had a closer relationship with the victim than she’d let on.

  ‘No way could it have been Eve,’ Jen said. ‘The caretaker saw her drive in at four twenty. The 999 call was made ten minutes before that. Curnow had been dead for a while before she got here.’

  Matthew saw now that Eve was sitting in the passenger seat of Jen’s car. She was frozen, her face too drained of colour. Was this another woman who’d been taken in by Curnow’s charm? He considered the logic behind Jen’s statement. ‘I suppose she could have made the call before coming to kill him, but I agree that it’s unlikely.’ He paused. ‘Was the call made by a man or a woman?’

  ‘You can hear the recording. Hard to tell apparently. The voice is muffled, disguised. We’ll need to get it analysed.’

  Matthew nodded towards the car. The glass maker was as still as stone, staring ahead of her. ‘What did you get from Eve?’

  ‘Not much. She’s still in shock. I’ll take her home and we can chat again there. I asked if she’d prefer to go back to her dad’s house now the CSIs have finished there, but she said she’d rather be at the farm. The house in Barnstaple has too many memories. That’s about her mother, I guess.’

  Matthew nodded. He looked at the group of uniformed officers standing close to the main building of the Woodyard. Ross May was with them. ‘I suppose our eager young DC led the charge.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Jen said. ‘You can’t blame him, though. I was in the office when we got the shout from emergency services. You get a call, apparently from a witness, saying that someone related to the Westacombe murder has been attacked, you don’t hang about. The guy could still be alive, the attacker could still be at the scene.’

  Matthew didn’t respond immediately. You could hang about long enough to consult the officer in charge of the case. But then Matthew had said he shouldn’t be disturbed unless it was urgent. His team. His responsibility. ‘Did he talk to you before gathering the troops and setting out?’

  Jen gave a quick grin. ‘Yes, but he took charge on the ground. I stayed behind for a moment to call for back-up and to phone you.’

  Matthew nodded to show that she, at least, had got it right. ‘Did Eve tell you how she came to be here?’

  ‘She got a text. Apparently from Wesley asking her to meet him here. But his phone’s not on his body.’

  ‘So, someone set her up. The killer sent her the message using Wesley’s phone?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  Matthew was suddenly furious. These changes of mood hit him sometimes, scaring him with their ferocity. Not a red mist, but a clear flash of white light, a lack of control, a rush of energy and aggression. Calling Eve to the murder scene seemed wilful, almost playful. The killer must have known that the police would check the voice on the 999 call and the timing of the text. This wasn’t setting the woman up as a realistic suspect. It was cruel. A child pulling the wings off a living fly. Matthew took time to breathe slowly, counting the seconds, trying to release the tension in his body. ‘Did the caretaker see anyone else in the yard this afternoon?’

  Jen shook her head. ‘No. He had the afternoon off and only came back to check the place was empty before locking the main gates into the centre car park. This yard is always left open in case staff want to use the place after hours.’ A pause. ‘There’ll be CCTV, though.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Matthew wasn’t so sure. Jonathan was running the place on a shoestring. He’d maintain the security in the main building and the areas surrounding the day centre, but perhaps not here. He was about to pull on his scene suit, then thought he should give Eve some reassurance, and the last thing she’d need was some anonymous figure in a hood and mask. The suits made his kindest officers look sinister. He opened the car door and sat beside her, perched sideways, his feet still on the cracked concrete, not wanting to crowd her. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, ‘that you had to go through this again. I can’t imagine what it must be like.’

  Eve turned to face him. ‘It doesn’t hurt yet. It’s unreal. As if I’ve wandered onto a film set.’

  ‘Of course. One shock too many. We’ll need to hang on to your car, just for the moment, but we’ll get it back to you as soon as we can. It’s just routine. Nothing to worry about.’

  ‘The blue glass vase, the one that was in there.’ Eve made a vague gesture with her hand, but couldn’t look at the shed. ‘It was one of mine. I gave it to Frank Ley as a birthday present. He’d filled it with flowers on the evening we spent with him, the night before I found my father in the studio.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Oh yes!’ She sounded offended. ‘They’re all slightly different, my pieces. Individual. I can recognize each one.’

  * * *

  Brian Branscombe, the crime scene manager, walked Matthew round the locus. He was middle-aged, diffident, unwilling to commit himself without reason, meticulous. He had a reputation for being slow, but Matthew would rather have slow than impulsive. They stood for a moment at the wide sliding door into the shed and looked in. The pathologist hadn’t yet arrived and Wesley’s body still lay in the middle of the space next to the workbench. Shattered blue glass glinted in the shaft of sunlight. The room could have been a piece of installation art.

  ‘So, we assume he was killed here?’

  ‘Oh, I think so.’ Branscombe was local. The accent somehow comforting. ‘All that blood.’

  ‘It looks staged somehow. More staged than the Westacombe stabbing.’

  ‘Maybe they had more time.’ Branscombe stepped through the doors and stood next to the wall. A CSI was moving through the space, a fingerprint powder brush in his hand. Matthew assumed it was a man, but it was hard to tell. More would turn up soon, but this was a Sunday, the county was big and the team was small.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve heard back from you.’ Matthew thought he should be used to wearing the mask by now, but it felt uncomfortable and the scene suit seemed to trap the heat and made him feel unbearably hot. ‘Did you get any workable fingerprints from the green glass, the piece used to kill Yeo?’

  ‘Only a smudge, which came from the daughter.’ Branscombe moved closer to the body. ‘And you’d expect that. She made the thing.’ He sounded distracted. All his attention now was on this locus. ‘I think our victim was standing here at the bench. Look, he’s wearing headphones, so he was probably listening to music. He might not have heard the killer approaching. Not until it was too late at least.’

  ‘But he’d have heard if the perpetrator smashed the vase on the bench, and seen what was happening too.’ Matthew was trying to picture the scene. Wesley had been focused on his work. There was a plank of timber, which could have been part of an old roof joist, lying across the bench and held by a vice. A handsaw lying on the floor looked as if it had fallen out of his hand when he was killed. In headphones he might not have heard the attacker approaching, but the shattered vase was in his line of sight.

  ‘The vase could have been prepared in advance,’ Branscombe said. ‘Smashed elsewhere and brought in in pieces. One used for the stabbing and the rest left here for effect.’

  And to point us back to Westacombe.

  ‘Wesley would have been listening to music on his phone’ – now Matthew was talking to himself – ‘and we haven’t found that.’

  ‘There’s a chance of DNA. In this weather our killer could have been
sweating. Even if he was wearing gloves, droplets might have fallen from his forehead onto the surface or the glass.’

  ‘If it’s there, I know that you’ll find it.’ This wasn’t flattery. There was no need for Branscombe to answer. He knew how good he was at this.

  Matthew went on, putting his first thoughts into words. ‘I have a sense of someone overconfident, willing to take risks. The general public don’t come to this part of the Woodyard, but he could have been disturbed at any time. The killer might not have been so cautious or careful this time.’

  ‘Let’s hope.’

  ‘If your theory works,’ Matthew said, ‘and the killer came up behind Wesley and surprised him, we’re looking for someone who’s right-handed, aren’t we?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Branscombe was definite now. ‘They must have been.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll leave you to it. You’ll give me a shout if there’s anything important?’

  Branscombe remained silent as if the answer was too obvious to be worth speaking.

  * * *

  Outside, there was a slight movement of air, but still it was hotter than they were used to. Matthew stripped off the scene suit. A taxi pulled up in the road outside and Jonathan was there, dressed as he had been at the lunch, in shorts and T-shirt, flip-flops on his feet. For a moment, Matthew wondered what that must be like: to dress for comfort, to be so loose and easy. But he felt more comfortable in a shirt and tie, real shoes, highly polished. His clothes gave him confidence, support. He went over to Jonathan, partly to stop him wandering into the area, which still hadn’t been completely taped, partly because his husband’s presence was always calming, a reassurance that in the end all would be well.

  ‘I got your mother home okay.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He paused for a beat. ‘And thanks for looking after her so well, for making her feel special.’

  Jonathan shrugged. ‘It’s easy, isn’t it, when you’re not too close. You’re better around my parents than I am.’ He nodded towards the activity, the officers in their white zombie suits. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Wesley Curnow.’ Matthew waited for a reaction, but there was none. ‘Of course, you’ll have known him, if he rented the shed from you.’

  ‘We never saw much in the way of rent!’

  Matthew was surprised by the coldness of the response. This was Jonathan, who had sympathy for losers, drifters and dropouts of every kind. ‘You didn’t like him?’

  ‘Perhaps I liked him too much and that was the problem. I should have turfed him out ages ago.’ Jonathan paused. ‘I knew he was taking the piss. He used people, but somehow, they didn’t mind. He was like a spoiled kid, desperate to be loved. Charming, but in the end entirely selfish.’

  Matthew didn’t say anything. He knew his husband well enough to realize there was more to come.

  ‘An example. Wes would wander into the day centre sometimes if he’d been working here at the Woodyard, and he’d chat to our learning-disabled chaps there. He’d sit and listen to them and make them laugh, appear to be giving them all his attention. I thought it was kind. Then I saw he only came in the afternoon, and on the days when they were baking. He came for the tea and cake. It was that simple.’

  ‘Maybe he came for both.’ Matthew wondered how such a small act of selfishness could have got under his usually tolerant husband’s skin. Had Wesley provoked such a response in everyone who’d known him?

  ‘Yeah, perhaps I’m just being cynical.’

  Matthew knew that was unlikely. Jonathan thought the best of everyone. The insight was useful. ‘I’ll be late back,’ Matthew said.

  Jonathan turned and saw Eve in Jen’s car. ‘What’s Evie doing here?’

  ‘She found Wesley’s body.’

  ‘Oh no!’ Jonathan said. ‘Not again. Not after finding her father. Can I take her back to our house? Really, she can’t go back to Westacombe on her own tonight.’

  ‘Of course not!’ Now Matthew was impatient. ‘I explained. She’s a witness. A possible suspect.’

  ‘It’s a strange sort of job you have. Eve wouldn’t hurt anyone.’

  There was a moment of silence.

  ‘When this is all over,’ Matthew said, ‘we’ll have her to stay then. You can work your magic, feed her up, bring her back to life. That’s when she’ll need a friend.’

  ‘She needs a friend now. I’ll go with her back to Westacombe and stay with her there until she’s ready to be alone.’

  Matthew thought for a moment and nodded. ‘Jen can drive you both.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  ALL THE WAY BACK TO WESTACOMBE, Eve remained silent and still. Jonathan sat next to her in the back of the car. He put his arms around her and pulled her in close to him. He was surprised by the warmth of her skin. He’d almost expected it to be as cold as ice, because she sat white and motionless as if she was frozen. He had a sudden picture in his head, as strange as a surrealist sculpture, of Eve thawing, of the grief flowing out, filling the car and drowning them both.

  They were driving against the flow of traffic, a stream of cars on their way back to Barnstaple after a day on the beach, or a long, lazy afternoon in the bars and cafes. Jen made no effort to talk either. Jonathan thought she would become as fine a detective as Matthew one day; she understood emotional trauma and knew that victims had to be allowed their own time frame, their own healing process. Everyone was different.

  Jonathan had never previously been to Westacombe, and when they pulled into the farmyard, he was struck by the beauty of it all, distracted for a moment from his reason for being there. The low sun made the place glow, seem magical. Every colour was heightened, more intense: the red of the brick and tile at the big house and the green of the field next to the lane where black and white cows grazed. From a distance, the thatched cottage could have been a poster for the North Devon Tourist Board. It was all too perfect and not quite real. It seemed flat to him, like a painting or a stage set. In this odd light, it had no depth. The car came to a stop, but Eve made no move to get out.

  Jen sat still too. ‘You ready?’ she said at last. ‘No rush, though.’ But she unclipped her seat belt and made to step out of the car.

  ‘I’ll go in with Eve,’ Jonathan said. ‘No need for you to come.’

  ‘I really should talk to her.’ Jen’s voice was kind enough, but she seemed prepared for battle. This is police business. Nothing to do with you.

  ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘You must have got all you needed from Eve at the Woodyard. For now, at least.’ He saw she was about to argue again. ‘An hour,’ he went on. ‘Surely you can give her that to come round, to come to terms with what’s happened?’

  Jen seemed to think about it, and Jonathan wasn’t sure what he’d do if she didn’t agree – Matthew would be furious if he upset one of his core team of detectives – but finally she nodded. ‘Okay.’

  Jonathan leaned over and undid Eve’s seat belt, then helped her out of the car. ‘Come on, my love,’ he said. ‘Let’s get you home.’ He still had his arm around her shoulders as she led him through the big kitchen and up the stairs to her flat.

  * * *

  They sat together in the airy sitting room, with the window open and a breeze blowing the curtain. Eve still seemed numb. She allowed Jonathan to settle her on the sofa, a cushion at her back, as if she were an invalid.

  ‘What can I get for you?’ he said. ‘Might you like a cup of tea?’

  She smiled and the muscles of her face seemed to be working for the first time since he’d arrived at the Woodyard. ‘I’d much rather have a glass of wine. There’s a bottle in the fridge.’

  He fetched it, found a corkscrew in a drawer and glasses in a cupboard, and opened the bottle. He sat on the floor, a low coffee table holding the glasses between them. ‘I was never sure how things were between you and Wesley,’ he said. The words had come out without his thinking about them in advance.

  ‘I was never sure either.’ She gave another little smile and took a drink.

&nb
sp; Jonathan waited for her to speak again.

  ‘I liked him,’ she said, ‘but not as much as he wanted. Wesley needed adoration, or at the very least a captive audience. I think that was why he couldn’t settle to anything. He made interesting art, but he didn’t believe in it unless somebody told him it was amazing. It was the same with his music. He was less interested in his work than in the reaction it created.’ She looked up. ‘I suppose he just wanted to be loved and perhaps we’re all like that.’

  ‘Did he love anyone?’

  ‘Certainly not me, if that’s what you’re asking!’ Her glass was empty. She stood up, went to the fridge in the corner and filled it. She waved the bottle at Jonathan, but he shook his head.

  ‘Maybe he was a bit in love with Janey,’ Eve said. ‘I saw the way he looked at her and I’d never seen him like that before. He was always hanging round the Sandpiper and he kind of lit up when she was there.’

  ‘Did she reciprocate his affection?’ Jonathan knew the Mackenzie family. Sometimes there were artistic links between the Sandpiper and the Woodyard. They had different audiences and musicians coming to the region played both venues. He’d always dismissed Janey as hardly more than a schoolgirl, pretty but immature, a bit of a show-off, and he found it hard to imagine the pair as a couple.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so. I’d have thought she was well out of his league.’ Eve paused. ‘I don’t know her very well. She’s not been back from university long. I always thought I should make more effort to become friends with her. It can’t have been easy, losing her brother and then being stuck, working in the family business. But somehow the glass always seemed to get in the way.’

  Jonathan stood up and paced around the room. He didn’t want to stay where he was, staring at Eve across the table. Even though he was sitting on the floor, it still felt like an interrogation. Besides, he was always restless and could never sit without moving for long. There was a big family photograph over the mantelpiece and he settled in front of that. He recognized Nigel and Eve and assumed that the attractive middle-aged woman smiling out at him was Helen, her mother. In the background there was a line of dunes, the spikes of marram grass. He wondered where it had been taken.