Hidden Depths--A Vera Stanhope Mystery Read online

  Felicity climbed on into the tower. James jumped off the bench and came up to her, pulling a face. She could tell he was bored and restless.

  ‘Can we go home now?’

  ‘Go and have a look at the rock pools. As long as you don’t go too far…’

  Samuel stood up too. ‘Why don’t we all start back? It must be dinner time.’

  She smiled at him. He could be such a kind man. ‘It’s a lovely evening. And Peter’s birthday. Let’s enjoy it for a while.’

  When James started screaming her first thought was that the noise would make Peter irritated and he was in such a pleasant mood that that was the last thing she wanted. James did like drama. He’d probably found a live crab or a jellyfish stranded by the tide.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’ll sort him out. And then perhaps we should start back.’

  When the screaming continued she found herself panicking, imagining a dreadful accident, that he’d slipped and cut himself on a sharp rock, broken a limb. At first she couldn’t see him. The noise was disembodied. It was as if her son had disappeared into thin air and that only added to her panic. She scrambled across the rocks, felt the seam of her dress rip as she slipped. Then she came upon him, found herself looking down on him. There was a deep gully with a shallow pool at the base and he was standing there, apparently unharmed.

  Felicity saw the flowers first. They were scattered across the surface of the water close to the edge where her son stood, mouth open, rigid. There were poppies and buttercups, ox-eye daisies and pink clover. Someone must have waded in and placed them carefully on the surface. That, at least, was how it seemed to her. There was no breeze. She didn’t think the blossoms could have drifted so far if they’d been thrown from the bank. They formed an irregular circle. Then she saw, in the middle of them, the blue cloth of the skirt and the corn-coloured hair. The pool was so shallow that the body lay just under the surface, and the water lifted the flimsy fabric and stirred the hair. But the gully was deep and the whole scene was in shadow. It was like looking at a painting a long way away.

  ‘James,’ she said. ‘Climb back. Darling, come here to me.’ She didn’t think she’d be able to make it down and most of all she wanted to stop him screaming. Her voice seemed to wake him from a spell and he turned and clambered back towards her. She took him in her arms, looking over his head at the figure in the pool.

  If Lily had been wearing the peasant dress of the previous day, Felicity might have recognized her, but she was convinced that this was a stranger. She stood, her arms clasped around her son, frozen. She knew there were things you should do. She’d seen the medical dramas on the television, doctors thumping on the chest and breathing into the mouth. But all that seemed beyond her. Small and ridiculous objections came into her head. If I was wearing jeans I’d try. If I had on sensible shoes.

  Then the rest of them turned up. And they seemed no more able to act than she was. She had a horrible temptation to laugh at the four of them peering down into the bowl of rock. Then James pulled away from her and looked up into her face.

  ‘Mum,’ he said, his voice quite controlled now, just a little unsteady as if he was struggling for breath. ‘What’s Miss Marsh doing in the pond?’

  And that was when she saw quite clearly that it was Lily.

  Chapter Eleven

  They were all sitting at a long table on the veranda at Fox Mill. It was dark and the scene was lit by fairy lights, which Felicity must have strung up along the outside of the house earlier in the day, and one fat candle, almost burned down now. Gary was feeling seriously weird. He thought this could be a stage set. Opera. The whole evening had that sense of melodrama. He could imagine some fat lass wandering in and belting out a tune, arms outstretched towards the dark garden. He sometimes did the sound for opera at the City Hall. Bits of it he quite enjoyed, but it was so over the top that you could never pretend it was real, could you?

  He was drunk. He’d made an effort to cut down lately. It wasn’t like the old days, just after Emily had left him. Then, the only time he was properly sober was when he was out birding. But tonight he had an excuse. Peter’s birthday. And being involved in a murder. He pictured the body, spread out like a starfish just under the water, covered with flowers. It made him think of a collage, something you might see hanging on the wall in the Baltic Art Gallery in Gateshead. Bits of net and lace cut into pieces, seaweed and shells. Beautiful. If you liked that sort of thing. He reached out and topped up his glass from a bottle of red, pleased that his hand didn’t shake and none of it spilled.

  Felicity served the meal and it was amazing, just as it always was. A big pot of chicken smelling of lemon and herbs. He didn’t know anyone else who could cook like her. Since he’d met up with Peter, he’d thought this was what he wanted – not just the food, of course, but the family, the wife. That was what he’d imagined when he’d proposed to Emily. Now he wondered if it was all too good to be true. It was as though they were part of a show. The Calvert family at home. I could do the sound, he thought, and imagined clipping the mic into the top of that simple black dress she was wearing. Her skin would still be warm. He’d be close enough to smell her perfume, the shampoo she used. He thought they’d all had dreams about Felicity, especially when she was younger. Even now they all fancied her. Sometimes he caught Clive staring at her, his mouth slightly open. He wondered if Clive had ever had a woman. Gary had offered to take him into town a couple of times, but Clive always refused. Perhaps he preferred fantasies of Felicity to the real thing.

  It was late to be eating, even for him and he was used to meals at strange times. They’d had to wait for the police to arrive at the lighthouse, explain who they were, give their names and addresses. Then there’d been the walk home. Across the table from him, James, Felicity’s son, was almost falling asleep over his food. The boy roused himself at one point to talk about the dead woman.

  ‘What do you think happened to her?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Felicity said. ‘Some dreadful accident.’

  Gary knew that wasn’t true. All the adults knew it was no accident. The flowers showed this death had been intended.

  ‘If she’d come to live in the cottage,’ James said sulkily, ‘she’d have been able to help me with my homework.’

  Gary didn’t know what lay behind that comment and was too pissed to work it out. Felicity persuaded James to bed then. She put her arm around him, almost carried him into the house, and the men were left alone. Somewhere behind them a tawny owl screamed in the tall oaks up the lane. The dark shadows of bats flew in and out of the light. Other occasions, other birthdays, this was the time Gary loved best. The four of them sitting together after the meal, relaxed in a way he could be with no one else, sometimes quiet, sometimes following a conversation about old glories or making plans for the future – trips abroad, the definitive book about the county’s birds. Tonight, though, there was an awkwardness. It was as if the dead young woman lay on the table between them, dripping seawater and demanding to be remembered.

  ‘What did James mean?’ Samuel asked. ‘Was the dead woman going to come and live here?’

  ‘No!’ Peter said. ‘It was just the boy being foolish.’

  And they lapsed again into an uneasy silence.

  Then Felicity came back and cleared the table. She brought out a plate of cheese and offered them coffee. Peter opened another bottle of wine. She took her place beside him. Samuel returned to the dead woman and how James had known her, but this time the question was directed at Felicity.

  ‘Her name was Lily Marsh,’ she said. ‘She was a student teacher at James’s school.’ She was about to continue but was interrupted by a shout so loud that it made them all start. Gary could feel his pulse racing, wondered if he was old enough for a heart attack, thought again that he should drink less. He wasn’t ready to die. Not now.

  ‘Hello! Anyone at home?’ The voice was deep and brusque. Gary wasn’t sure if it came from a man or a woman. A fi
gure appeared at the French window that gave on to the veranda. A woman. Tall and heavy, but wearing a skirt. She’d switched on the light in the room and she was silhouetted in front of it. ‘You shouldn’t leave your front door on the latch like that,’ she continued in the grumbling tone of a teacher talking to idiots. ‘Even when you’re home, you never know who might walk in.’

  They all stared at her, still shocked. She stepped down towards them until she’d reached the table. The candle shone upwards onto her face. She paused before she spoke again. Gary thought this was someone else who liked a drama.

  ‘Inspector Vera Stanhope. Northumbria Police. Senior Investigating Officer in the case of that lass you found tonight.’ She pulled out the chair where James had been sitting and lowered herself cautiously onto it. It was a director’s chair with a wooden frame. The canvas creaked. Gary watched closely, expecting a ripping, tearing sound. Perhaps she was expecting it too. This was a woman who’d be able to carry off farce. But the canvas held and Vera continued cheerfully, turning to Felicity. ‘I understand you knew her. The young woman who died, I mean. Weren’t you just saying…’

  Felicity answered, hesitating at first. She kept looking at Peter. Gary wasn’t sure what that was about. She repeated the sentence she’d begun before Vera Stanhope’s dramatic entrance.

  ‘Her name was Lily Marsh. She was a student teacher at my son’s school, the primary in Hepworth. She turned up here yesterday, on the bus with him. It seemed that James had said she could live in our cottage until the end of term. Without consulting us, of course.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me,’ Peter said.

  ‘There was nothing to tell. She looked at the cottage and left.’

  ‘You’d said she could stay, then?’ Vera Stanhope asked.

  ‘I don’t think either of us came to a decision. I couldn’t even tell if she liked the place. She said she’d think about it.’ Felicity turned to Peter. Gary could tell she was willing him not to make a scene, not to get all arrogant and pompous. Gary loved Peter to bits, but he could do pompous better than anyone he knew. ‘Of course if the girl had decided she was interested, I’d have discussed it with you before deciding whether or not to rent. James really liked her.’

  ‘Had any of the rest of you met this Lily Marsh?’ The woman stared around the table at them. Gary thought she could make you feel guilty even if you’d done nothing wrong. ‘Seems she was a bonny lass. You’d not forget her in a hurry.’

  There was a murmured denial, shaken heads.

  ‘Take me through finding the body. The boy found her first, then you went to look. Was there anyone else about?’

  Clive raised his hand from the table. As if he was still a kid, Gary thought. A shy nervous kid. ‘There was a family on the flat bit of grass by the burn. A father and two boys, I think. Playing football.’

  ‘Any cars parked next to the lighthouse?’

  Clive answered again. ‘A people carrier. One of those big Renaults. Maroon. I don’t remember the number, but registered last year.’

  ‘Why would you remember something like that?’

  ‘I notice things,’ Clive said defensively. ‘Detail. It’s what I’m good at.’

  ‘What were you doing in the watch tower anyway? It’s hardly the right time of year for sea watching and the tide was right out.’

  ‘What do you know about sea watching?’ The words came out before Gary could stop them.

  She looked at him, laughed. ‘My dad was a bit of a birder. I suppose you pick it up. It seeps into the blood. He took me to the coast sometimes. Really, though, he was happier in the hills. He was a bit of a raptor freak.’ She paused. ‘Is that what brought you all together? The birding?’

  ‘Aye.’ Gary wondered if she really wanted to know and how he’d explain it. He’d always been interested in birds. Since seeing an old copy of The Observer’s Book of Birds in the school library when he was ten, it had been a sort of obsession or compulsion. Music had done it for him too, but not in the same way. Music had been social, something to do with friends. At first the birding had been a secret passion. He’d started off collecting eggs in the park. Then at high school he’d met up with Clive Stringer. They had nothing else in common and now he couldn’t remember the chance conversation that had brought them together. He must have made some remark which had given his interest away. Usually he was careful about what he said. He wouldn’t have wanted what he did at weekends to be general knowledge in school. He had a reputation to keep up. It had been a revelation that someone felt the same way as he did about the natural world. He and Clive had started to go out birding together. Places they could get to on the bus. Seaton Pond. St Mary’s Island. Whitley Bay Cemetery.

  And one day, sitting in the hide at Seaton, waiting for a Temminck’s stint to emerge into view, they’d met Peter Calvert. The famous Dr Calvert, who’d written papers for British Birds and had once been the chair of the Rarities Committee. He was dressed in black, a suit, a tie, a white shirt. Not the usual birding gear. Perhaps he’d seen them staring and thought it needed explaining. Perhaps that was why he started talking to them. He’d said he’d just been to a funeral. The wife of his best friend. Everyone else had gone back to the house for drinks, but he couldn’t face it. Not yet.

  Then he’d suggested that they might become trainee ringers. Casually. Not realizing that for them it was the most exciting suggestion in the world. There was another trainer, he’d said. Samuel Parr. He’d look after them. It was Sam’s wife who’d just died and he’d need something else to focus on. Besides, they could do with some new blood in the Deepden team. After that Gary and Clive had spent most of their weekends up the coast at the Deepden Bird Observatory, sleeping on the bunk beds in the dorm at the cottage, waking at dawn to set nets and ring birds. They’d all become friends.

  Gary realized the detective was still staring at him. ‘Well?’ she said. ‘What were you doing in the watch tower if you weren’t sea watching?’

  ‘There’s always a chance,’ he said, ‘that something good will fly past. But we’d gone for a walk. It’s Peter’s birthday. We do it every year.’

  ‘A ritual?’

  ‘Yeah. Kind of.’ Gary wondered why someone else couldn’t join in the conversation. Why had they left it to him?

  Vera continued to look at him. She had her legs stuck out in front of her, big, rather grubby feet in sandals.

  ‘What’s your name, pet?’

  ‘Gary Wright.’

  She took a notebook out of a big, soft, leather handbag, flipped a page, looked at the squiggles written there. But Gary thought that was just for effect. She knew the facts already, had probably worked out who he was as soon as she’d sat down at the table.

  ‘You live in Shields?’

  He nodded.

  ‘You’re sure you didn’t know the lass? Only it seems to me you’re a bit of a party animal. You’ve got a history. A couple of cautions for drunk and disorderly, a conviction for possession.’

  Gary looked up, suddenly sober. ‘That was years ago. You’ve no right—’

  ‘This is a murder investigation.’ Her voice was sharp. ‘I’ve every right. Are you sure you never came across her?’

  ‘I don’t remember her. The town’s full of students.’

  ‘You didn’t meet her while you were working?’

  ‘I don’t mix business and pleasure.’ He couldn’t understand why she was picking on him, felt an irrational panic. The mellowing effect of the wine had quite left him. ‘I’m serious about my work.’

  ‘Tell me about that.’

  ‘I’m a sound engineer. Self-employed. It could be anything from an opera gig at the City Hall to the Great North Run. There are a couple of bands I do the sound for and I go on tour with them.’

  ‘Glamorous.’

  ‘Not really. Folk clubs, small arts centres. The same mediocre musicians singing the same boring songs. A night in a Travelodge before unloading the van somewhere equally forgettable.’ Until he’d
started talking he hadn’t realized just how much he’d come to dislike it. He reached a decision he’d been hesitating over for a week. ‘I’m giving it up. The freelance work. I’ve been doing quite a lot of work at the Sage Music Centre, Gateshead, and now they’ve offered me a permanent job. Regular wages, holiday pay, a pension. Suddenly it seems quite attractive.’

  ‘So you’re going to settle down? Why now?’

  ‘Age,’ he said. ‘I suppose that’s it. The late-night curries in small towns have lost their appeal.’

  ‘Not a woman, then?’

  He hesitated for a moment, then thought: What business is it of hers? ‘No, Inspector,’ he said. ‘Not a woman. Certainly not Lily Marsh.’

  He wondered if the use of the name was a mistake. Did that imply previous knowledge? But Vera Stanhope let it go and turned her attention to the others gathered at the table. Gary was relieved that he’d had to go first. He took a drink from his glass, surprised to find it still almost full. Now it was his turn to be the audience. Vera was about to speak when her phone rang. She got up, walked away from them to take the call and stood at the end of the veranda in complete shadow. They began to talk among themselves to prove that her conversation was of no interest to them, but when she returned they fell silent.

  ‘Sorry, folks,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I’ll have to go. Don’t worry, though, I’ve got all your addresses. I’ll catch up with the rest of you another time.’

  But she stood there, not moving.

  Felicity stood up. ‘I’ll just see you to the door.’

  ‘Are you interested in how she died?’ Vera asked, looking at them all.

  ‘I thought suicide,’ Felicity said, shocked. ‘It was all so dramatic, so arranged.’

  ‘She was strangled,’ Vera said. ‘Hard to manage that by yourself.’

  They stared back at her, silent.

  ‘One last question. Does the name Luke Armstrong mean anything to any of you?’

  Nobody replied.

  ‘I’ll take that as a no, then, shall I?’ she said irritably. ‘Only he was strangled too. Not so far from here.’ She looked at them, waiting for someone to answer. ‘And the cases have certain things in common. I don’t want you talking about this. Not to anyone and certainly not to the press. I hope you understand.’