The Long Call Read online

  He was standing by the living room window because that had the best view of the road from the village. As soon as he glimpsed her coming around the corner he’d move away, so she wouldn’t know he was looking out for her, worrying. On the windowsill there was a photo of Lucy, one of his favourites. She was standing between two friends with her arms around them: Chrissie Shapland, who had Down’s Syndrome too, and young Rosa Holsworthy. They were all beaming straight into the camera. He looked outside again, but there was still no sign of Lucy walking down the road.

  The afternoons it was raining Maurice was pleased, because that gave him the excuse to drive up and wait for the bus. Lucy didn’t like getting wet. If it was sunny like today, he waited. He’d always found it best to do what he was told and besides, he loved to see Lucy’s triumphant smile as she rounded the corner, her bag slung across her shoulder, proud because she’d made it home on her own. His mood lifted, just to see her. Today she was a little later than he would have expected. The bus should have been in twenty minutes ago and it was only a ten-minute walk to the house. He was just thinking that he’d walk up to the main road to check that all was well when there she was, dressed in the yellow dress that she loved so much, plump as a berry.

  She gave him a wave as she approached but there was no wide smile. Perhaps the walk had become routine, even a bit of a chore. Luce had never been one for exercise. That was something else the social worker nagged about. We’ve noticed she’s been putting on a bit of weight, Mr Braddick. You should be careful what she’s eating, cut out all the fat and the sugar. No more chocolate! And what about taking her swimming? She loves it when they go from the centre. Or you could both get out for a walk when the weather’s better. Maurice thought it was easy for them. They didn’t have to deal with the sulks when she couldn’t get her way. And really, if she liked a piece of cake after her tea, what was the harm? He wasn’t one for walking much either and he’d never learned to swim.

  He walked around to the front door to greet her as she came in. ‘All right, maid? I’ll put the kettle on, shall I, and you can tell me all about your day?’ Because she had a better social life than he did since he’d retired and he liked to hear her chatting about what she’d been up to. It made a change from the telly. Maggie had been the one who made friends and most of her pals from the village had stopped trying to get in touch with him. Some of them had turned up when she’d first died but he hadn’t known what to say to them. He’d just wanted to be on his own then; now, he thought, he might welcome their company.

  Lucy pulled the strap of her bag over her head and took off the purple woollen cardigan she’d been wearing over the yellow dress.

  ‘The man wasn’t on the bus today.’

  ‘Oh?’ He was in the kitchen now, kettle switched on, not giving her his full attention. He opened the biscuit tin and set it on the table. ‘What man might that be?’

  ‘My friend. Most days he sits next to me. He makes me laugh.’ She’d followed Maurice through to the kitchen and stood leaning against the door frame. Her voice was troubled and now he did listen to her properly. He’d known, he thought, watching her walk towards the house, no smile, that something was wrong. ‘I waited when I got off the bus in case he came to see me there.’

  ‘Do you know him from the Woodyard?’ Lucy wasn’t the only person from the day centre who’d been encouraged to be more independent.

  She shook her head. ‘He doesn’t go to the day centre. I’ve seen him before, though. On the bus. He tells me secrets.’ She frowned again. Her accent was pure North Devon, just like his. Warm and thick like the cream his mother used to make. Not always very clear to strangers, but he was tuned into it, tuned into her moods.

  ‘Where’s he from, maid?’ Maurice didn’t like this. Lucy was a trusting soul. Anyone who showed her kindness was a potential friend. Or a boyfriend. Maggie had tried to talk to her about it, about the people she could hug and the people she should keep at a bit of a distance, but he couldn’t find the right words.

  ‘I dunno.’ She looked away. ‘I just seen him around.’ Making it clear she didn’t want to answer the question. She could be stubborn as a mule when she chose.

  Maurice turned back to face her. ‘Did he ever do anything? Say something to upset you?’

  She shook her head and sat down heavily. ‘No!’ As if the idea was ridiculous. ‘He’s my friend.’ Her face was still red with the exertion of walking.

  ‘And he didn’t do anything he shouldn’t? He didn’t touch you?’ Maurice tried to keep the worry out of his voice. Luce picked up the tone of a person’s voice better than she understood the words.

  ‘No, Dad. He was always nice to me.’ And there was that wonderful smile again that lit up the room and made the world seem better.

  Maurice felt a rush of relief. He didn’t know how he’d manage if someone hurt his daughter. He’d promised Maggie at the end that he’d always look after her. He had a brief picture of the overheated room in the hospice. Maggie, thin and bony with hair so fine he could see her pink scalp through it, gripping his arm. Fierce. Making him swear. She should have known him better than that, known he loved Lucy as much as she did. And perhaps she had known, because afterwards, she’d smiled and said sorry, she’d lifted his hand to her lips and kissed it. He chased the image away.

  ‘He gave me sweets,’ Lucy said. ‘Every day on the bus he gave me sweets.’

  That made Maurice worried again. He thought he’d phone the social worker and tell her it wasn’t safe for Lucy to travel on her own on the bus. If he had to, he’d scrape together the money and pay for a taxi himself.

  ‘Where did he usually get off the bus, this man?’ Maurice set the mug of tea in front of Lucy. She liked it milky and weak.

  ‘Here,’ she said. ‘With me. That’s why I was late. I waited in case he’d got another bus and he’d come back to see me.’

  ‘Maybe you’ll have seen him in the village then.’

  She reached out and took a biscuit from the tin. She nodded but Maurice could tell that he’d lost her attention. Now she was here with her dad and her tea and a biscuit, the man seemed forgotten. Any memory that might have troubled her had disappeared.

  Chapter Three

  THE WOMAN HAD THE DOOR OF the toll keeper’s cottage open almost before they’d got out of the car. There was something hungry, desperate, about her need for information.

  ‘I’m DI Venn,’ Matthew said. ‘This is DS Rafferty.’

  ‘Hilary and Colin Marston. You’re here about the body.’ She looked them up and down. ‘You’re detectives. Unexpected death, your chap out there said, but this isn’t natural causes, is it? Not just a heart attack or an accident. There wouldn’t be all this fuss for an accident.’

  ‘Perhaps we could come in and ask you a few questions?’

  ‘Of course.’ She backed away and they were let into a hall. A pair of wellingtons stood at the foot of the stairs and a waxed jacket hung on a peg next to a smart black coat, which seemed out of place in the cottage.

  It was hard to age her. The hair had been dyed almost black and she was wearing make-up. Late fifties? Matthew wondered. Early sixties? She was big-boned and strong, taller than the man who stood behind her in the passage. She wore black trousers and a black jacket over a white top, office wear for a middle-manager, Matthew thought. The coat must belong to her. Again, out of place, here on the edge of the marsh.

  Her husband seemed more at home. He was short and round, a woollen jersey stretched over his stomach. Matthew thought they must have moved in recently; there was a hint of a Midlands accent and he’d seen the previous residents – an elderly couple who’d come out to collect the toll and have a chat – at Christmas. Perhaps the automatic barrier had been installed because the couple had retired. Or one of them had died. It seemed all he was thinking about today was death. The woman led them into a living room and the man followed. The room was cluttered, a little untidy. Uncared for. It was as if they were camping out here. Mat
thew wondered what had brought them to the house. They all sat awkwardly for a moment, staring at each other across an orange pine coffee table.

  It was Jen Rafferty who spoke first while he was still taking in the surroundings. ‘If you could just repeat your names for our notes.’

  ‘Hilary,’ the woman said. ‘Hilary Marston, and this is my husband Colin.’ Then she started speaking again and Matthew’s curiosity about the couple’s background was answered without need for any questions. ‘Colin took early retirement, redundancy really. He worked in the legal team for a car manufacturer; that’s all changed of course. Everything’s outsourced these days, nobody has any pride in British industry now. And our area had changed – people from outside moving in. One time, you knew all your neighbours. Not any more.’

  Matthew broke in. Jen leaned so far to the left that she’d only recently become reconciled to the Labour Party. She couldn’t cope with intolerance, and he could tell that she was already a bit prickly. ‘What brought you to North Devon?’

  ‘We’d been here on holiday,’ Hilary Marston said. ‘Loads of times. We thought: That’s the place for us to end our days. We never had any kids to think about and we loved it to bits. So quiet and so clean.’ A pause. ‘No foreigners.’

  ‘Well, it’s certainly very quiet here.’ Jen had an edge to her voice that only Matthew picked up.

  ‘Yeah, well,’ Hilary said. She shot a look at her husband. ‘Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. We’re only renting here – it certainly wouldn’t be our choice of furniture – and it wasn’t the best decision we ever made. Maybe we saw the cottage through rose-coloured glasses when we viewed it in the summer. Colin’s a birdwatcher. The marsh is his idea of heaven. It’s not mine. We won’t be staying. We’ve put an offer in on a house in Barnstaple, where there’s a bit more life.’ She paused. ‘A bit more culture. And it’ll be closer to work for me.’

  ‘What is your work?’

  ‘I’m a mortgage advisor with a bank in town. I was planning to retire too, but this job came up. Only part-time, but the extra cash is always useful.’

  Matthew turned to Colin Marston. ‘Were you out on the marsh birdwatching today?’

  The woman, her resentment palpable, didn’t give her husband the chance to answer. ‘He’s out there every day.’

  Colin Marston ignored her. Perhaps her sniping was so common that it had become no more than background noise for him. ‘I do a daily census.’ He spoke with a quiet pride. ‘Real ornithological research is about regular counts of common birds. I’m not just a lister, interested in rarities.’ The last sentence was spoken with a sneer.

  ‘Does your research take you onto the beach too?’

  ‘That’s part of my census walk. I end up there. I count the gulls on the shore and come inland at Spindrift, then back along the toll road home.’

  Spindrift. Our house. Matthew thought now he might have seen the man walking past, anonymous in the waxed jacket and wellingtons they’d seen in the hall, binoculars round his neck. Out in all weathers.

  ‘What time were you there today?’ Jen asked.

  Colin Marston left the room. Through the open door, Matthew saw him take a soft-back notebook from an inside pocket of the jacket. He sat down again and opened it.

  ‘Twelve thirty-five.’ He looked up. ‘I note the time at every watch point. My own way of working. Citizen science in action.’

  In an armchair in the corner Hilary rolled her eyes. Matthew thought it must be a strange marriage if they had so little in common, if she could be so dismissive of her husband’s passion.

  ‘Did you see anything unusual while you were walking today?’ He was aware of a silence and stillness in the room. An awareness of danger or, more likely, excitement. Perhaps it was a shared passive voyeurism that kept the couple together.

  ‘I didn’t see a body on the beach,’ Marston said. ‘I asked your constable where it was and I know that I’d walked that way. I would have seen it.’

  ‘But did you notice any strangers? You’d know the regulars if you’re out every day.’

  There was another silence, broken by the sound of a car pulling up outside. Matthew recognized it as belonging to Sally Pengelly, the pathologist. The barrier was raised and the car drove on.

  ‘Who was that?’ Hilary was on her feet.

  ‘Just one of the team.’ Matthew turned back to the husband. ‘So, Mr Marston, any strangers?’

  ‘There are always one or two people I don’t recognize. Even at this time of year, there are visitors. And I don’t take much notice unless they’ve got a dog that disturbs the birds while I’m counting.’

  ‘But today.’ Matthew was a patient man. ‘You must be a good observer, used to registering detail.’

  The flattery appeared to have worked. Marston looked back at the notebook and seemed to be reliving his walk on the shore. ‘There was a couple, a man and a woman. He was in a suit, not really dressed for the beach. She was a bit younger and she was wearing jeans.’ He paused. ‘I was watching something I thought might be a little gull and they flushed it.’

  Matthew was thinking the man in the suit seen by Marston couldn’t be their victim because the clothes didn’t tally, but Marston was still speaking.

  ‘They were walking hand in hand and they stopped once to kiss. Not just a peck, if you know what I mean. As if they’d not been together for a long time.’ He stared out of the window. ‘I wondered if they might be having an affair, because they came in two cars and there was a sense that they were doing something dangerous. Exciting.’ His voice was wistful.

  ‘You saw the cars?’

  ‘Yes. They climbed the dunes and after a bit I followed them. I wanted a better view of the birds near the tideline.’

  Jen shot Matthew an amused glance. Yeah right! Not that you were hoping to catch them making out.

  ‘I saw them getting into their cars. I didn’t get the reg of either of them, though. Pity, they might have been useful for you.’

  ‘But you do remember the make of the vehicles? The colour?’

  ‘Of course!’ Marston almost sounded offended that the question had been asked. ‘As Hilary said, I used to work in the car industry. Behind the scenes, working on contracts, but it’s still in my blood. One was a red Fiesta. A few years old. That was the woman’s. And a black Passat.’

  ‘You saw them drive off?’

  Marston paused for a moment. ‘I saw the man drive off. The woman was still in her car, looking at her phone, when I dropped down onto the beach.’

  ‘Did you see anyone else?’ The low sun must have been streaming in through the window all afternoon and the heat had been trapped in the small room. It seemed airless.

  ‘One guy in the distance.’ A man, it seemed, held less interest for Colin Marston than a couple.

  ‘Could you describe him?’

  ‘He was a long way off, close to Crow Point.’ Colin set his notebook on the table in front of him.

  ‘And he was on his own?’

  ‘Yeah. Though maybe he was waiting for someone. He didn’t seem to move while I was there. He was still on the beach when I headed back towards Spindrift.’ The man looked up sharply. ‘You live in the house there, don’t you? I thought I knew you. I’ve seen you in the garden and going through the toll.’

  Matthew didn’t answer. Instead he asked another question of his own. ‘How many cars were parked there when you made your way inland?’

  ‘Just a Volvo. They’re regulars. An older couple.’

  Matthew nodded to show he understood. Those would be the people seen by the constable on duty outside. It was so warm in the room that it was an effort to move. He stood up and thanked the couple for their help.

  ‘What happens now?’ Hilary was on her feet too, leaning forward, desperate for more information.

  ‘We continue with our enquiries,’ Matthew said. ‘Someone will be in touch if we need to speak to you again.’

  As he stopped to unlock the ca
r he saw both the Marstons at the window, staring out at them.

  * * *

  The CSIs’ vehicle passed them as they were getting into Matthew’s car, and they must have worked quickly because by the time he and Jen arrived at the scene, the tent had been erected and a white-suited team were doing a finger-touch search of the surrounding sand. Ross was standing well away, still pacing.

  ‘Any ID?’ Matthew was hoping they could inform relatives before the press got hold of the story. He was surprised they hadn’t already arrived. He could imagine the Marstons spreading the news. They’d enjoy their fifteen minutes of fame. Perhaps the long walk from the toll gate had put the journos off, or perhaps the couple hadn’t known who to contact with the story.

  ‘No wallet or credit cards,’ Ross said.

  ‘You’re not thinking a mugging gone wrong? Not all the way out here?’

  Ross continued. ‘There was this in the back jeans pocket.’ He held out a scrap of paper: a pulled apart envelope with a shopping list on the blank side. Tomatoes, eggs, rice, bin bags. On the other a printed address. No name. The Occupier, 20 Hope Street, Ilfracombe. Some form of junk mail. The name of the street rang a faint bell for Matthew, but he couldn’t picture it. ‘Should we check it out?’ Ross was bouncing on the balls of his feet, eager for any form of action.