Dead Secret (20 page)

They were interrupted by the constable bringing tea. Ava gazed enviously at the steaming mug, thinking of her coffee, left untouched, back in Neal’s office.

“I’ll take that,” she said, stepping forward. She placed the mug on a heart shaped coaster on the coffee table in front of Turner. “Mr Turner, try to have a sip of this. It might help.”

Turner gazed up at her in bewilderment. “The love of my life has just killed herself. How could a cup of tea possibly help?” he asked.

“I’m sorry,” mumbled Ava, “I can’t begin to understand what this must be like for you.”

It was obvious that Turner was in no fit state to be questioned further, and the fact that Nancy’s death seemed to be a textbook suicide suggested that there was little to be gained from continuing.

“Mr Turner,” Neal began, gently, “If there is anything about Nancy’s past that you think might be relevant to our investigation, please give me or my colleague a call. Even if it seems insignificant, don’t hesitate.”

“Nancy didn’t talk about the past. It’s as if her life began when she and Amy moved to the village. She was barely twenty-three then. Before that she lived in France, before that, London and before that she was in foster care for four years. Her parents were killed in a car accident when she was twelve.” Neal nodded, and Ava jotted down some notes.

“Thank you, Mr Turner. Like I said, if you think of anything else, let us know.”

Ava felt her head clear as soon as they walked out the door of the cottage into Nancy’s small front garden. “That was intense,” she commented. “So much emotion in one room.”

“Ours is often a sad business,” Neal said, quietly. He was, she noted, looking around the garden. Neal was known to have green fingers. The small plot would have looked pretty in the summer, she thought. There was evidence all around that Nancy had been a keen gardener, but already the garden was showing signs of neglect. Soggy brown leaves lay un-raked on the grass and across the path, roses un-pruned and plants that should have been moved indoors before the first winter frosts stood withering in their pots. Only a cheerful fuchsia and some flourishing winter jasmine hinted that life goes on.

“I’ll check information on Nancy’s background now that we know it may be relevant,” Ava said.

“Right,” he answered. “I want details of her foster carers and any foster siblings. It shouldn’t be that hard to ferret out. In the meantime, I’m going to pay Anna Foster another call, see what she has to say about any prior ties to Nancy.”

* * *

They drove back to the station in near silence. Neal had popped a disc into the CD player, some kind of Celtic music that he was fond of playing, melancholy and plangent, that did nothing to lift the mood. Ava’s ankle was aching and she squirmed in her seat trying to find a comfortable position. It was bothering her a lot lately. Perhaps she should take Neal’s advice and see a ‘proper’ doctor.

At the station, they went their separate ways.

PC Polly Jenkins caught Ava the moment she walked through the door. “Have lunch with me. I’ve been on desk duty all morning and I’m itching to get out of here.”

“I’ve just got back,” Ava said, though just at that moment her stomach rumbled audibly, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since six that morning.

“So what? You’ve been working, haven’t you? And I heard that racket — you need carbs — now. Don’t fight it.”

“Let me just . . .” Ava began.

“I said now. I know you, the minute you sit down at that computer of yours you won’t stop ‘til you faint from hunger.”

Ava laughed, “You win. Just give me five minutes.” Before Polly could moan, she pointed and whispered, “Ladies’ room.”

“Five minutes and I come in there and haul you out.”

“Five minutes and you won’t have to.”

Three minutes later, Ava was rubbing her hands together vigorously under the dryer when she felt her mobile buzzing in her pocket. A text. She looked at it quickly, intending to reply later, but when she saw the caller ID, she felt a thrill of excitement. It was from Rukhsana Begum from the community centre in Sheffield, saying that she was in town and that she wished to speak with her about Rohina Ali.

“Is it that obvious?” Ava said to Polly apologetically as she emerged from the women’s loo.

“I know that look,” Polly said, dejectedly. “I shouldn’t have let you get past me.”

“I’m sorry, PJ. I’ve just had an urgent text. Could be a lead. Some other time, okay?”

“Oh, yeah. Like you’re available twenty four seven, aren’t you?” Polly called after her, but Ava had no time for more apologies. She had already texted Rukhsana back and agreed to meet her at the train station, and she had precisely eleven minutes to get there.

* * *

Rukhsana was standing near the door of her train, glancing nervously at her watch, when Ava, sprinting along the platform, caught sight of her. The connection to Sheffield was due to leave in a couple of minutes. Whatever she has to tell me, Ava thought, she’ll have to talk fast.

“I have an address for you,” Rukhsana said as Ava approached, her lungs exploding from the sprint.

“Rohina Ali?” Ava gasped. Rukhsana looked around as though she was afraid they would be overheard.

“Here, take this,” she said, pushing a small envelope into Ava’s hand. “In case the whistle blows — there’s not much time to talk.” At that very moment, the guard put his whistle to his mouth and motioned to the two women to either get on or off the train.

“Thank you,” Ava mouthed through the window. Rukhsana nodded solemnly, her face already blurring as the train moved slowly down the platform.

Ava ripped the envelope open, tearing the note inside in her haste. She stared, astonished, at the address on the slip of paper; it was right here in the city. Rohina Ali was a student at Stromford University.

Chapter 19

For the first time in weeks, the temperature was beginning to drop and the sky did not look overcast. Perhaps soon there would be the first real frost of the season, a welcome change after so much rain. Neal parked his car at the bottom of the Long Hill and walked up, admiring the partial view of the cathedral straight ahead. As part of an ongoing programme of repairs and restoration, much of its magnificent west front was obscured by scaffolding, but at this distance, none of that was evident; only its jutting towers were visible, piercing a startlingly blue sky, and they were flawless.

Perched at the top of the Long Hill, the gothic structure could be seen from miles around. Soon after moving to Stromford, Neal had realised that, whenever he drove towards the city, he began searching the skyline from as far away as twenty miles, looking for the familiar towers to guide him home. Years before, pilots returning from bombing missions in Germany had done the same, using the cathedral as a beacon to guide them to the airfields in the flat countryside surrounding the city. For almost a thousand years the cathedral had stood as a symbol of hope, a manmade edifice that seemed to embody the permanence of a natural landmark.

Anna Foster’s shop was a short distance ahead across the cobblestone street, as Neal reached the hill’s half-way mark. A few afternoon shoppers, pausing for a break in their ascent of the relentlessly steep hill, looked in the window then continued on. The shop seldom seemed to be busy, but as Neal drew closer, he could see that there were one or two customers browsing the shelves nearest the door.

Reluctant as he was for Ms Foster to lose precious custom, he was going to request that she turn her ‘open’ sign to ‘closed,’ so that he could be sure of conversing with her free of interruptions. Neal pushed open the door and breathed in the alluring scent of books old and new, full of knowledge and wit, facts and fantasies, beginnings and endings.

“Good afternoon, Inspector,” Anna Foster greeted him from her desk. Today, he noticed, she looked her age. Dark circles underscored her eyes; her hair was caught up carelessly in a ponytail held in place by a scruffy blue scrunchy, loose strands hanging limply around her face, which was paler than usual. To Neal she still looked attractive — delicate and vulnerable, as though she needed looking after, and it troubled him slightly that he was drawn to her.

Ava teased him that he had a weakness for damsels in distress, and he feared that she might be right.

“Is Maya here today?” he asked, still hoping to save Anna from losing custom.

“Maya doesn’t work here anymore. I had to let her go.”

“Then I’m sorry but I must ask you to shut up shop for a bit. I need to speak with you.”

“More questions, Inspector? I’ve nothing new to tell you. I haven’t heard from Simon.”

Neal nodded at the door, “If you wouldn’t mind.”

Anna Foster took a set of keys from her desk drawer and locked up, having first ushered out the remaining disgruntled browsers. From across the street, the Big Issue seller gave her a wave.

“I usually take her a cup of coffee and a sandwich around now,” Anna explained. “She’s a dear girl. Romanian. I’d offer her a job, but things being as they are — well, you can see business isn’t exactly booming. Shall we go upstairs?”

Neal followed Anna Foster up the creaky winding staircase to her flat above the shop, the property’s age evident in the exposed timbers and heavy stone walls. Being on the historic Long Hill, her premises, like others located there, was a listed building and few alterations were permitted that would accommodate modern standards of comfort or style, but the period features more than compensated for their lack.

While she fixed some coffee, Neal looked out of the window at the street below. It was a quiet morning, not really the time of year for tourists. The Christmas market would change all that; it attracted coachloads of visitors every year, giving a much-needed seasonal boost to local businesses. Already preparations were underway with strings of festive lights stretching across the narrow cobbled street of the Long Hill, leading up to the cathedral and castle.

At the beginning of December some local celebrity or other would be called upon to do the honours and switch the lights on, instantly transforming the Long Hill into a twinkling hub of festive commerce.

Looking down, across the cobbled street, Neal saw the Big Issue seller shuffle from foot to foot in an effort to keep warm. She really needed her cup of warming coffee, he thought, guiltily.

“Half a teaspoon of sugar, no milk, that’s right, isn’t it?” Anna Foster asked, a little too breezily, Neal thought. Perhaps her nerves were on edge. She handed him a dainty china cup and saucer with a pretty floral design; the handle was one of those fancy loop-shapes that made it hard to slip your fingers through, especially if, like Neal’s, they were on the large size. They sat facing each other in Anna Foster’s mismatched, worn leather wing chairs.

“I haven’t come to ask about Simon — well, not directly anyway,” Neal began. “I need you to be honest with me now, Ms Foster. You’ve lied to us before and I must caution you that hindering a police investigation is a serious offence.”

Anna Foster nodded, holding her poise though her teacup rattled tellingly in its saucer.

“I would like you to tell me what you knew about Nancy and Amy Hill, particularly what you knew of them before moving here, and whether their residing here had anything to do with your decision to move to Stromford.”

“First of all,” Anna Foster said quietly, “apart from giving Simon a false alibi, I haven’t lied to you about anything else.”

“But you have withheld information.”

“Only because I didn’t think it relevant to the case.”

“That’s for us to decide, Ms Foster. Tell me what you know, even if it seems irrelevant. When did you first suspect that Simon and Amy were brother and sister?”

“I suppose that was going to come out sooner or later.”

Anna Foster leaned back in her chair as if she was making herself comfortable before beginning on a long tale. But really she was deflating, letting go of pent up anxiety. Neal had witnessed guilty people react in just this way, as though telling the truth at last would free them of their oppressive burden of guilt — or in some cases simply give them an opportunity to share the burden.

“I always knew that Simon had a sister. Once or twice, a woman, not the children’s mother, brought them into the library and read to them. We used to chat a little but I never knew her name. She was young, pretty. She was very fond of the children, especially Simon’s baby sister, Emily. Besotted with her, really.”

“This was Nancy?” Neal prompted.

Anna Foster nodded, “She looks very different now, of course, put on a lot of weight and changed her hair colour. I almost wouldn’t have recognised her, except for the fact that Amy was so like her mother — her birth mother, that is. I’d seen her picture in the local paper at the time of her death. Of course, you must know that there was some mystery surrounding Emily’s whereabouts? Nothing was ever proven, but it was commonly believed that the father, Wade Bolan, was responsible. If nothing else, he was guilty of beating his wife to death. Simon was found cowering in the bedroom cupboard but there was no trace of Emily. It was assumed that Bolan killed her too, though he denied it and no body was ever found.”

“Was Simon a witness to his mother’s death?” Neal asked.

“He was three years old, Inspector; it wasn’t possible for him to give a coherent account of what happened. He did tell the police and social workers that his father had hurt his mother.”

“And Emily? What did he know of what happened to his sister?”

“It was the strangest thing. He said that an angel took his sister to heaven.”

Neal stared at Anna Foster, puzzled. “Was anyone able to make any sense out of that?”

“He was questioned by the police and by child psychologists but that’s all he would ever say. It was suggested that the trauma of witnessing his mother’s beating caused him to block the memory of what took place. And, of course, he was very young — who knows what was real or fantasy to him?”

“You told my colleague and me that Simon reacted strangely to meeting Nancy Hill at your book group. Do you believe that he recognised her?”

“I believe that seeing her stirred some kind of memory in him. You have to realise, Inspector, that Simon remembered nothing of his mother’s death and the disappearance of his sister other than the ‘angel’ vision — a kind of protective fantasy.

I was advised by child psychologists who worked with him that Simon might be permanently affected by his early childhood trauma — and there were difficult behaviours to deal with in the early days, as I’ve already mentioned. I like to think that it was because my late husband and I gave him such care, such love, that he has grown into a wonderful young man.”

Anna Foster’s voice trembled, her eyes tearing up, and Neal resisted a strong impulse to comfort her. For all he knew she might be manipulating him; he had to remain detached.

“You’re probably thinking that Simon’s early experiences damaged him, predisposed him to some kind of psychopathic behaviour — that’s what people think nowadays, isn’t it, that mistreated children grow up to be monsters?”

“That’s a kind of populist view that has been given credence by misleading accounts that skew the facts,” Neal said. “It’s a much more complex issue really, Ms Foster, and believe me, I would not suspect Simon of murdering his sister on such a basis. Besides, as far as I have been able to ascertain, Simon’s birth mother, though not a model parent, was not cruel to her children, only neglectful to an extent.”

“But you do suspect Simon, don’t you? That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? All these questions? You’ve decided he’s guilty without even giving him a chance.”

“Ms Foster, our investigation into Amy Hill’s death is on-going. Simon’s continued disappearance does not necessarily point to his guilt, but he can’t be excluded from our investigations until we have questioned him. He was quite possibly the last person to see Amy alive.”

“Allegedly,” Anna hissed.

“You gave him a false alibi for the night of Amy’s murder. Did you ask him where he really was?” Neal asked, beginning to feel frustrated.

“He wouldn’t say, just got angry that I even needed to ask him to justify his whereabouts; then he disappeared. I let him down, betrayed his trust in me. It should never have entered my head that he might have had anything to do with Amy’s death.”

“Ms Foster, why did you track Nancy Hill down after all those years? How did you even find out where she was?”

“I told you I’d seen her in the library with the children. I knew the estate the family lived on; it was in all the papers. For some time I’d been obsessed with Simon’s past. I thought if I tracked down some of the people who knew him back then I could piece together some of his history for him.

I had a friend who worked at the Council and she had access to old tenancy records that were being scanned and digitised. I went through his mother’s records and came across Nancy Hill’s name twice — once in connection with a repair that she’d reported, and once when she’d asked about moving Debbie Clark to keep her safe from Wade Bolan.”

Neal nodded, acknowledging her skilled detective work and remembering the records she was referring to.

“Of course, there were other names in the files, which I followed up, but eventually, clutching at straws, I came to Stromford, and the minute I walked into ‘In Stitches,’ I knew I’d found Simon’s ‘angel.’ Of course, I was astonished when I met Amy and realised what her resemblance to Debbie Clark must mean.” Anna paused, as if expecting a question from Neal, but he nodded for her to continue.

“Simon was studying for A levels and considering universities. I persuaded him to apply to Stromford in the hope that he might run into Amy and get some kind of closure.”

Neal snatched a look at his watch as though symbolically assessing how much Anna Foster had delayed the investigation by not telling him all this to begin with.

“Even the smallest things can be relevant in a murder investigation, Ms Foster. This is pretty huge. Did it really never occur to you to tell us any of this before?”

Anna Foster stared at her untouched coffee. Her answer was so quiet that Neal had to lean forward to hear it.

“I was protecting Simon.” She looked at him defiantly. “You have a son, Inspector. How far would you go to protect him?”

Her words irritated Neal. He looked at Anna Foster with sudden clarity, wondering why he had ever felt attracted to her. For the first time, he realised that what he had taken for vulnerability was really a kind of armour, and that maybe she was tougher than she seemed. Then, just as suddenly, his anger dissipated. The answer to her question was obvious. Of course he would defend Archie to the ends of the earth, but if his son were guilty of a heinous crime, how far would he then be prepared to go to protect him?

“To the extent that the law would allow,” he answered. “For his own protection and that of others.”

“How very noble of you, Inspector,” Anna Foster said, her voice replete with sarcasm, “I sincerely hope that your son never gives you cause for doubt.”

Ignoring her comment, Neal pressed on. “You encouraged Simon to apply for a place at Stromford University and you took out a lease on this place so that you could stay near him, and so that you could make a connection with Nancy and Amy Hill.”