The Other Child (19 page)

‘But they don't normally lead t' anonymous calls. Anyroad, Fiona couldn't work it out.'

‘And you?' Valerie looked attentively at the old man. ‘Can you work it out?'

‘No. I told Fiona what I suspect. Someone disturbed, who found random victims int' telephone directory. A harmless madman who enjoyed this strange power game. Mostly it's types like that who're behind such calls.'

‘Of course. Except that their victims do not normally find themselves murdered soon afterwards in a gorge in a wood. We have to take this seriously as a lead, Mr Beckett. If anyone springs to mind, who you think could be the caller, you should let me know their name.'

‘Of course,' said Beckett.

His face was grey, and his skin glistened slightly. It looked as though he was not well. Talking to him, Valerie had discovered how long he had known Fiona Barnes: since he was fifteen. She had arrived at the Beckett farm as an evacuee during the war. They had become friends for life. The way his friend had died seemed like something out of a nightmare to Beckett, but he was the kind of person not to talk about it. He would deal with the whole thing on his own, and whatever sleepless nights he suffered, whatever horrific images filled his days, he would not open up to anyone.

Valerie said goodbye and stepped out of the study. She met Leslie and Jennifer at the front door. They had been talking quietly. Valerie decided to bring up the calls right now.

‘Dr Cramer, I'm glad to see you again. Did your grandmother mention anything to you about receiving anonymous calls?'

‘No,' said Leslie, ‘she didn't, but …' she remembered, ‘this morning I got a strange call. Someone was just breathing down the line and then hung up. I didn't think anything more about it.'

‘That is pretty much exactly the way Fiona Barnes described the calls to Mr Beckett on the evening of her death,' said Valerie. ‘No words, just breathing. You were called in your grandmother's flat, were you?'

‘Yes,' said Leslie.

Valerie thought for a moment. She had gathered all the people on the farm in the living room to talk about the fatal Saturday evening. She had then talked with each one of them individually. She had asked about enemies that Fiona Barnes might have. No one had thought of anyone. It really seemed as though the only claimant to the title was Dave Tanner. By all accounts, Fiona had humiliated him deeply. However, everyone declared that they could not imagine it had caused him to murder her.

‘He's just not that kind of guy,' Jennifer Brankley had said. Valerie had avoided saying that you could rarely see who was or was not likely to commit criminal acts. She had come across brutal murderers who seemed so lovely you could easily have entrusted yourself to them along with everything dear to you.

‘But if this strange anonymous caller was Fiona's murderer, then he wouldn't have called this morning,' said Jennifer. ‘He'd have known she was dead.'

Valerie listened to her absent-mindedly. The problem was that at this point she could not exclude any options, and yet nor did she have anything that really seemed like a likely lead. An anonymous caller who wanted Fiona dead? How would the caller have known that late on Saturday night she would be walking along a lonely road that led to the Beckett farm? No one could have foreseen that. Only the people who had taken part in the unfortunate engagement party could have known of it. But which of them could have gone and murdered the old woman so brutally, and why?

She said goodbye to Leslie and Jennifer and stepped out into the farmyard. In spite of its rundown state, it looked almost idyllic in the light of this glorious day. The wind blowing from the sea brought the smell of seaweed and the taste of salt.

Valerie started to think.

Leslie Cramer, the granddaughter, had by her own account left the farm a good while before her grandmother and had gone to the Jolly Sailors in Burniston, to drown her sorrows with a few whiskies. That would be easy to check up on. Valerie knew that around here a woman who went into a bar on her own and got plastered would stick out more than a sore thumb.

Chad Beckett had chatted to Fiona in his study, and she had told him of the calls which were obviously troubling her. Chad had reassured her. According to Chad, they had then talked about this and that before she had decided to go home and he had gone to bed. Of course it was possible that he had followed her, but Valerie doubted it. Firstly, she saw no sign of any motive, and secondly she saw how difficult it was for him to get around. It was obviously painful for him to walk. He was an old man struggling more and more with his body. Fiona Barnes, on the other hand, had been described to her as unusually fit and mobile for her age. It was hard to imagine that Beckett could have made it to the gorge and then found the strength to beat a woman to death who could easily have run away from him.

Colin Brankley. The holidaymaker who had called the cab. He had said goodnight to Fiona and gone to bed. His wife could not confirm this, as she had taken the dogs for a walk. Mentally, Valerie put a question mark by Colin's name. He was an intellectual, a bookworm, for years he had spent his holidays on this wretched farm.

‘My wife is very attached to the dogs,' he had explained. ‘So we don't have much choice about where to go. Besides, Jennifer and Gwen are friends.'

All right. That did not sound implausible. However, two facts remained. Colin was in his mid-forties, strong and agile; he certainly had the physical ability to kill an old woman. And he did not have an alibi. Valerie decided to check what he had done and where he had been at the time Amy Mills was murdered, although she already guessed that it would not lead to much. He would say that he had been asleep in his bed at home, and his wife would confirm that.

His wife. Jennifer. Valerie could not have said why exactly, but there was something inscrutable about her. Her eyes darted about restlessly. It was as if she was under great pressure, ready to blow her top, and only her extreme force of will kept a lid on it. Something was not right. And the name Jennifer Brankley rang a bell with Valerie. She had come across it once before, but she could not put her finger on when.

She would find out.

Jennifer Brankley had spent the first hour and a half after the dinner's sudden end in Gwen's room, consoling the distraught young woman.

Then she had persuaded her to go for a walk with her and the dogs. They had gone walking for a good hour and a half, Jennifer had said.

Unfortunately they had taken the opposite direction to the road, and gone over the hills and down another gorge to the sea.

‘Wasn't it too dark?' asked Valerie, raising her eyebrows questioningly.

‘The moon was shining,' replied Jennifer, ‘and I know the path well. The dogs too. When we're here, I go that way two or three times a day. I've got a torch with me for emergencies.'

Gwen Beckett had confirmed the story. She had not wanted to go, but Jennifer had said the exercise would do her good. She could not, however, say how long they had been out.

‘I was … somehow numb,' she had said quietly. ‘I had been looking forward to the evening so much, and then it all went wrong. I was in despair. I thought everything was over.'

Valerie took a few steps across the farmyard and sat down on a pile of firewood, letting her gaze wander over the eastern horizon. The farm lay at the foot of a gently rising hill, which was crisscrossed by old stone walls. Here and there were a few trees, shining fiery red and golden yellow in the sunlight. According to Jennifer a path, a dirt path, went part of the way up the hill and then straight south, ending at a gorge which a wooden hanging bridge crossed. Beyond the bridge there were steps which wound their way down into the gorge. You had to walk along the bottom for a bit. There was a path but it was very overgrown. Then the gorge opened out onto the beach and you found yourself in the little bay that belonged to the Beckett farm.

‘Can you swim there?' Valerie had asked.

Gwen had said you could. ‘But it's pebbly. A long time ago my father planned to have sand brought in, to make a little bathing beach for our visitors. But it never happened.'

The farm is a gem; all it needs is for someone to make use of it and its possibilities, thought Valerie, not knowing that she was following the exact same train of thought as Fiona. Tanner, she thought, must have seen this when he started to woo Gwen Beckett. How far would he go to stop a meddling old woman from trying to pull his fiancée and her property away from him?

And Gwen had felt threatened too. No longer the youngest of women, suddenly an interesting man had appeared in her life and wanted to marry her. Valerie had sensed immediately that Gwen saw Dave as her only chance, and she might be right. That made Fiona a danger to her. If Fiona had continued to stir things up at every opportunity without showing any tact, when would the moment have come when Tanner would not take any more and give up? But would someone like Gwen Beckett go and kill a woman she had known all her life, whom she loved and was attached to? Gwen seemed to be suffering and in shock. Unless she was a very good actor, then the news of Fiona's death had surprised her and thrown her off kilter.

I'm going round in circles, thought Valerie. She felt that she did not yet know the real motive for Fiona Barnes's murder. She only knew about the fight with Tanner, the scandal at the engagement party. But that was not enough. The murder was carried out with a brutal violence that far surpassed the venom of Fiona's aggression. She had ruined everyone's evening, but she was an old woman who would have been eighty on her next birthday. Who seriously thought she had the power to influence other people's lives in a major way and possibly even to destroy them?

And how did all this relate to Amy Mills's murder?

Forensics, next, thought Valerie. I have to know whether both crimes were committed by one and the same person. Then the argument Fiona started would be completely irrelevant.

And Tanner would have to become the centre of her investigation again. He was the only person she knew who was connected to both cases, even if the connection to Amy Mills's case was rather labyrinthine and elaborate, as she had to admit.

It would be interesting to know whether Amy Mills had also received anonymous calls. And then there was Paula Foster, who had perhaps been intended as the victim. Someone might have known that she came to the shed every evening. Just as someone had known that Amy Mills walked late at night on her own through a deserted park every Wednesday evening. Two young women, not dissimilar types. That would mean Fiona's death was not planned. Because she had disturbed someone? Why would she have taken the path to the gorge instead of going to Whitestone Farm? Or had she met her murderer on the road, recognised him and so he had not been able to let her live? Although it was a puzzle why someone out to get Paula Foster would have been around at half past ten. Paula was out at different times.

Valerie stood up and walked to her car. She had to talk to the pathologist. When she had time, she wanted to put Jennifer Brankley's name into the police computer. It might not be relevant to this case, but she wanted to find out where she had come across the name before.

She opened the car door. She was tired. All the pieces of the puzzle were mounting up in her head in a confused pile, and she was afraid that she would never manage to order them.

She forced herself to heed the old rule of thumb she had once worked out: not to look at the mountain of pieces, but just the next step. Then the next one. And the next one. She had a tendency to panic when everything piled up too high above her and became too confused and unfathomable.

And she harboured a terrible fear of failure.

Not exactly beneficial in her line of work, and she only hoped her colleagues did not suspect anything.

Valerie turned her car around and drove off.

5

‘Dr Cramer? Can I talk to you for a moment?' Colin Brankley appeared at the door to the kitchen. He was holding a pile of papers in his hand and looking around uneasily, as if he wanted to be sure that no one was around.

Leslie was at the sink, running water into a glass. She was thirsty, tired and numb, and at the same time excited. Her nerves seemed to be humming under her skin. She wondered to herself when she was going to cry or scream or break down. She must seem strangely calm to other people, as if it had not touched her. But she knew that all the emotions relating to her grandmother – to her violent death, but also to her life – were working away deep inside her. Images kept popping into her mind, scenes, episodes, moments, which she had not thought of for ages, which had been completely forgotten. It was like a fever.

Probably that was why she needed water so much – and as cold and fresh as possible.

‘Leslie,' she replied. ‘Just call me Leslie.'

‘All right.' Colin stepped into the kitchen. ‘Leslie. Do you have time?' He pulled the door to behind him.

‘Yes. Of course.' She put the glass to her lips, realising as she did that her hand was trembling slightly. She put the glass down. She did not want to spill it on her with Colin watching, even though it was just water. ‘There's probably a lot I should be doing, but I don't know …' She paused, undecided. ‘At the moment I don't know what to do next.'

Colin looked at her, feeling for her. ‘I can understand. It was a terrible shock. For all of us, but especially for you. None of us … can really believe it.'

His friendliness was what she needed. She felt a choking in her throat and swallowed, painfully. It would be good to cry, but not now. Not in this kitchen, not in front of Colin. She barely knew the man. She did not want to break down in front of him.

‘Do you have something for me?' she asked calmly, pointing to the papers in his hand.

‘Yes.' Hesitantly he laid the pile on the kitchen table. He looked around again, as if he were expecting someone to come in at any moment. ‘It's something which … well, it probably should be handed over to the police but …'