Hidden Depths (17 page)

The mist nets were unfurled, meaning a group of ringers was staying. They must have found the Marmora on their first round of the nets. Behind the house there was a small orchard which had been planted when the house was built and it was here that the group of birdwatchers stood.

The Marmora’s warbler had been seen on the top of a hawthorn hedge which marked the boundary of the reserve. The birdwatchers stood in the dappled shadow thrown by the apple trees, binoculars raised, looking. From a distance it was impossible to tell if the bird was there or if people were searching for it. By the time Gary arrived Clive had his tripod set up and was staring through the scope.

‘It disappeared into the bushes ten minutes ago,’ he said. ‘Nobody can tell me exactly where it went in.’ He sounded murderous.

Gary thought they’d all have been talking when the warbler flew off. On the other side of the group he could see Peter and Samuel, smiling and chatting. Once you’d seen a bird there was a release of tension and you relaxed your concentration. He stared into the hedge, felt his guts as a hard knot of anxiety. He didn’t enjoy this sort of birdwatching. It was too stressful waiting, knowing the bird had been there. Not knowing if it still was. Since Emily, he hadn’t been able to handle stress. He preferred sea watching. That was the most relaxing experience he knew, sitting in the watch tower next to the lighthouse. There was nothing you could do to make the birds fly past, so no point getting anxious. Now, as he felt his heart beat faster, he tried to control his breathing and wondered if he’d been right to come.

‘There it is.’ Clive, still bent over the telescope, spoke so quietly that only Gary could hear. ‘About four metres in from the fence, on the bare branch just below the top.’ And then Gary was on to it and it was filling his scope. He could see the inside of the bill when it began to call and the colour of its eye. Mind-blowing. Only the sixth British record and it was here in Deepden. Worth falling out of bed at six in the morning and the tension of the drive.

Around him other people had picked up his excitement and they were looking at it too. Then the bird disappeared behind the hedge again and they were all standing around grinning. Some people started wandering off, talking about bacon sandwiches and work. Clive remained focused, though, and when the bird reappeared, further away on a dead tree by the lane, he was the person to find it.

Peter Calvert was full of it. You’d have thought he’d found the bird himself.

‘Every year we get at least one
British Birds
rarity. A reserve this small. And when we started they all said we were wasting our time.’ Gary thought with amusement that he was still claiming credit for something that had happened forty years before. It didn’t bother him, but he could see why the man got up some people’s noses.

‘I’ve got to go,’ Peter said. ‘I’m giving a lecture this morning. Can’t disappoint my students. Are you coming, Clive? I can give you a lift into town.’

And though you could tell Clive would have liked a bit longer with the bird, he twisted the legs on his tripod and followed Peter to the car. Peter was still his hero. Gary thought he’d have run into a burning house if Peter had given the order. Outside in the lane cars were still arriving. One of the observatory committee was standing at the gate with a bucket, demanding money before he’d let people in.

Samuel and Gary went into the house. They were still paid-up observatory members, so no one could stop them. Once inside the door, Gary was taken back to the time when they’d been regulars. It still smelled of wood smoke in there, though it must have been months since the fire had been lit. Wood smoke and the waterproofing you rubbed into Barbour jackets and leather boots. They made tea, stole a couple of soft biscuits each from the tin in the cupboard and sat outside on the rusty wrought-iron chairs by the pond.

‘What did you make of that business on Friday night?’ Samuel asked.

It took Gary a moment to realize he was talking about the girl by the lighthouse. ‘That business’ seemed an odd way to describe the discovery of a body.

‘I don’t know. That detective turned up at my flat on Saturday. The big woman who was at Fox Mill. The lad who died in Seaton was Julie’s son. She was with me in town on Wednesday night, then she went home and found him. It must seem a strange coincidence, but she appeared to believe me when I said I didn’t know anything about the girl.’

Samuel took a moment to speak. Gary had read a couple of his stories. It always shocked him that Samuel, so good-humoured, so ordinary, could write stuff like that. Stuff that haunted you, so you’d wake up in the night with the pictures still in your head. It was impressive, but a bit scary.

‘You didn’t know Lily Marsh, did you?’ Samuel said at last.

‘No! I’d never seen her before.’

Samuel seemed pleased by the answer. ‘Perhaps we should start coming back here,’ he said. ‘Show them how it’s done.’

But Gary thought Deepden had too many memories for him, of how he’d nearly lost it when Emily had left him. He’d needed the place then and the three good friends who’d held him together. But now, he thought, it was time to move on. Although he didn’t have to be in the Sage until the afternoon, he told Samuel he had to get off to work. He went back into the house to drop off his mug, then he went to his van. The lane was so jammed with cars that it took him nearly half an hour to turn it round.

It was Monday morning. Vera woke up as she always seemed to these days with a faint hangover, a sense that she hadn’t slept properly. Her window was open and her neighbours’ cockerel was drowning out every other sound, seemed to be living somewhere just behind her eyes. She realized she was an object of curiosity to the couple who owned the smallholding. They’d moved from the city and had made an effort to get on with her, had this ridiculous notion that country people had a wisdom about nature, saw it as almost mystical. Then they found out Vera was police and she could tell they thought they should disapprove. They’d gone on marches, saw the police as the enemy. Vera didn’t bother one way or the other. Except occasionally she dreamed about strangling the cockerel.

She shut the window and went to the kitchen to make tea, ignoring the pile of dirty plates in the sink. The first sip of tea and she was already engrossed in the case, her mind buzzing, the guilt about her drinking forgotten. The cockerel dismissed. This was what she was made for.

Today she was planning a trip to Newcastle, the big city. That was how she’d seen it when she was a girl and still thought of a visit to town as an adventure. She collected Joe Ashworth from home on her way through. She knew she wasn’t fit to be let loose on the academic world on her own. She was too loud and brash and she’d end up offending someone. Joe lived in a small estate on the edge of Kimmerston. He too had grown up in the city and this was all he’d ever dreamed of: a new house, professional neighbours, a family. His wife was pregnant again, nine months and uncomfortable. When Vera turned up she’d just emerged from bed, huge belly and swollen tits wrapped in a cotton dressing gown, bleary-eyed. Joe was giving his daughter breakfast to the background noise of Radio 2. The little girl sat in the high chair beaming, while Joe spooned in Ready Brek on a plastic spoon. More happy families, Vera thought. There was all that talk of family breakdown, but wherever she went there were people making a go of it. Making her feel inadequate and depressed.

She’d phoned Peter Calvert at home on Sunday night and made an appointment to meet him at the university. She wanted to see him away from his ideal home and his ideal wife. She used the flowers as an excuse. ‘It would be useful for us to know where they might have been collected. It will take time for the forensic people to release them. You saw them, at the second crime scene at least. It could give us a head start . . .’

And he’d been delighted to be asked. She could tell that. ‘I understand you’re an expert,’ she said and had almost heard him purring.

They arrived at the university a little early and he was at the end of a lecture. They stood at the back of the theatre, listening. Vera didn’t take in what he was saying, just watched him perform. She’d been sent on a course once. Body language. She tried to remember what the psychologist had said about it, but nothing of it came back to her. What she could tell now was that Peter Calvert liked the young women. There were a couple of pretty lasses sitting a couple of rows from the front. They wore frilled muslin skirts and lacy tops you could almost see through, and he seemed to be directing his words straight at them. When one of them asked a question he complimented her on making an intelligent point and gave a little frown, to show he was taking her seriously. But maybe all sixty-year-old men would be the same, Vera thought. No harm in looking, even if you did make a fool of yourself. She didn’t mind looking at young men, though she tried to be discreet.

Calvert still seemed to be in a good mood when he took them into his office. He fiddled with a filter coffee machine which stood on the window sill.

‘I can only offer you black, I’m afraid. I don’t take milk myself. Though I could probably borrow some from a colleague. You wanted to ask about the flowers.’

‘Informally,’ Vera said quickly. ‘Not as an expert witness. We’ll deal with that later if we need to. But speed is important at this point in an enquiry.’

‘Of course.’

‘You did see the flowers when your son found the body?’

‘Yes. I mean, my first priority was to move James away. He was upset enough as it was. Bad enough to come across something like that. Even worse when we found out he knew her. So I didn’t have time to study the blooms in detail, but of course I noticed them.’

‘What did you make of them?’

‘There seemed to be a mixture,’ he said. ‘Some wild flowers, the sort you’d find in a hay meadow. Poppies, ox-eye daisies, buttercups. The rest garden flowers. Perennials. I didn’t see anything exotic or unusual.’

‘Not the sort of thing you buy in a florist, then?’

‘Oh no. Nothing like that. Picked. And fairly recently. Or kept in fresh water. They hadn’t wilted. At least I don’t remember them looking dead or tired.’

‘Were there any you’d have in your own garden? I was thinking you could show us. We can look them up in a book, but it wouldn’t be the same. And it might trigger your memory.’

‘I’m not sure,’ he said easily. ‘You’d think I’d know, but Felicity is the gardener. You’re very welcome to come round and have a look. Any evening you like. We’re usually both in.’

‘And you’re absolutely certain you can’t tell us anything about Lily Marsh?’

‘Positive, Inspector. As you can see, this is a big community. Our paths never crossed.’

There was a knock at the door. A young man stuck his head round. ‘You said you wanted to talk to me sometime today, Dr Calvert. Is this a good time?’

‘Ah yes, Tim. Just give me a minute. If you’ve finished, Inspector . . . This close to the end of term everything’s pretty hectic. There are some students I have to see.’

Vera thought this was too convenient. She wouldn’t have put it past Peter Calvert to arrange the meeting with the student so the interview with the police didn’t drag on. That didn’t mean he had anything to hide, of course. He could just be an arrogant bastard who thought his time was too precious to waste on catching a killer. She smiled sweetly and led Ashworth out of the room.

Along the corridor there was an open-plan office where three middle-aged women sat in front of PCs. There were plants on the shelves, photos of grandchildren. They seemed to be having an intense conversation which had little to do with the university. Vera thought these might be people who enjoyed gossip as much as she did. She tapped on the open door and walked in, leaving Ashworth lurking outside. The room fell silent, but she thought they were curious, not hostile.

‘I wonder if you can help me. My name’s Vera Stanhope. I’m heading up the investigation into the murder of one of your students.’ That had them gripped, as she’d known it would. It would keep them talking through until the lunch break. ‘Dr Calvert’s been giving us some expert advice. He’s with a student and I don’t want to interrupt him. I was wondering if one of you looked after his diary. I need to check a couple of dates, see when he’s next free.’

A plump, motherly woman with grey hair waved her hand, like an excited child at the back of the class with the answer to a difficult question. ‘That’s me, for my sins. Marjorie. Marjorie Beckwith.’

Vera beamed. ‘He updates it on the PC, I presume.’

‘He’s supposed to,’ Marjorie said indulgently, ‘so the rest of the department knows what he’s up to, but he’s not one for following guidelines, I’m afraid.’ And she reached to a shelf behind her and handed a black, hard-back book to Vera. It was that easy. Vera took it to an empty table, sitting so she had her back to the room and flipped through the pages. The day of Luke’s death, Peter Calvert had attended a meeting of the department in the morning. At five o’clock he’d planned a tutorial with two students. There were no names, only initials. The entry had been scored through with two lines and someone had neatly written
cancelled
in the middle of them. The following Friday – the day of Lily’s murder – he had a lunch appointment. No name. Just
12.30–2.00 lunch out, unavailable.
Presumably that was for Marjorie’s benefit. The rest of Friday was clear. Vera flipped back the pages. It seemed the lunch appointment was a regular feature.