The Woman In Blue: The Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries 8 (5 page)

‘Very happy,’ says Julie. ‘Always smiling. Everybody loved her. She was an angel, that’s what her childminder said. Her problems . . . well, they didn’t start until later.’

Tim waits. ‘She was too pretty for her own good,’ says Alan. ‘She was scouted by a model agency when she was only fourteen. I didn’t want her to take it up. I wanted her to have a proper career. She was a very bright girl. She just didn’t try at school.’

‘I made her wait until she was sixteen,’ says Julie, with a flash of spirit. ‘But I couldn’t stop her. She wanted to be a model. Her head was quite turned by it all, and no wonder really.’

‘At the age of sixteen she was travelling all over the world on assignments,’ says Alan. ‘Drugs were everywhere. Chloe always found it hard to say no. By the time she was eighteen she had a real problem.’

‘That must have been hard for you as parents,’ says Tim.

‘It was awful,’ says Julie. ‘At first we didn’t realise. We didn’t know the signs. But then I actually saw her taking the drugs. Here in her bedroom. Snorting them with a fifty-pound note! I confronted her, Alan confronted her, even Lauren begged her to get help. And, eventually, she agreed.’

‘She went to this special rehabilitation place for teenagers,’ says Alan. ‘It was tough but it worked. She got clean. She was our little girl again. She even started studying for her A-levels.’

‘What happened next?’ asks Tim.

‘She met him,’ says Alan. ‘Thom Novak.’

This time there is real anger in his voice. Julie looks at her husband apprehensively. ‘She went back to modelling,’ she explains to Tim. ‘We didn’t want her to, but they were offering such good money. She met Thom on a shoot. He’s an actor and a model too, he’s really handsome. Well, he is!’ This to Alan, who makes a derisive noise. ‘You can’t say he’s not handsome. And charming too. We liked him at first. You know we did, Alan.’

‘He was all right,’ says Alan. ‘A sight too pleased with himself, I always thought. Public school type. But he got Chloe back into drugs. He was part of that “in the gossip papers every weekend” set. We were always seeing him and Chloe falling out of some nightclub.’

Tim has seen the pictures too. There are some in the crime file. Chloe, wearing nothing much more than a brilliant smile, clinging on to Thom’s arm at red-carpet events. Chloe stumbling out of a taxi. Chloe in dark glasses at the airport. Chloe at a pop festival, flowers in her hair.

‘So when did you suspect that she was taking drugs again?’ he asks.

‘It was Thom himself who told us,’ says Julie. ‘He rang us one weekend and just said “We need help.” He was crying on the phone. We drove to their flat. They had this really nice place in Chiswick. Well, it was a tip. Bins overflowing, empty wine bottles everywhere. Chloe was lying on the bed. I thought she was dead at first. She was so thin, the marks on her arms . . .’

‘I phoned the Sanctuary at once,’ says Alan, in a voice that suggests he took charge of the situation. ‘We drove her there that night.’

‘What about Thom?’

‘I called his parents. They got him into a rehab place in Switzerland. I suppose he’s still there. He wasn’t our responsibility.’

Tim remembers speaking to Thom on the day that Chloe’s body was found. He had wept then, too.

‘How did Chloe get on at the Sanctuary?’ he says. ‘I understand you went to see her.’

‘She seemed to be doing well,’ says Alan. ‘It was early days, but she liked Holly, her therapist, and the main doctor. She’d made some friends there, she said. Adults, not stupid young models.’

‘She looked so much better,’ says Julie, ‘after only a few weeks. She’d put on weight, her eyes were brighter. She was talking about taking a course. Chloe was always taking courses. It was a sign that she was feeling better.’

‘What was she taking a course in?’

‘I can’t remember,’ says Julie. ‘Something spiritual. Chloe was very spiritual.’

‘The coroner told us that there were no drugs in her bloodstream,’ says Alan. ‘Sounds strange, I know, but that was a real comfort to us.’

‘I can understand that,’ says Tim. He looks around the room, at the perfect furniture and the florist’s arrangements in muted, funereal colours. Despite the cards and the flowers, he thinks that comfort must be hard to come by.

*

Ruth rings Nelson as soon as she gets back to the university. He answers on the second ring.

‘Ruth. Is anything wrong with Katie?’

Ruth counts to ten. Not only does Nelson always assume she’s ringing with bad news, he always insists on calling their daughter Katie when he knows full well that her name’s Kate.

‘Kate’s fine. I’m ringing about something else.’

‘Oh?’ Ruth thinks that Nelson sounds nervous. Does he think that she’s about to demand that he leaves Michelle and marries her? Not likely after all this time. Not least because she knows he’d say no.

Ruth explains about Hilary and the letters. ‘I told her to contact you. I hope that’s OK.’

Nelson is silent and Ruth wonders whether she has crossed some invisible line. Maybe he thinks it’s too trivial a matter for a DCI? Maybe he’s just annoyed because she has given his name to a third party.

Then Nelson says, ‘Do these letters mention Walsingham?’

‘I haven’t read them yet. I’m going to do it tonight.’

‘When you’ve read them, can you ring me?’

‘OK. Is something up?’

‘Have you read about the woman found dead just outside Walsingham?’

‘Yes. She was an actress or a model or something, wasn’t she?’ Ruth seems to remember a lot of pictures in the papers. Easy to get coverage if you’re beautiful, blonde and dead.

‘It’s probably nothing, but if there’s some nutter threatening women . . .’

‘This guy – if it is a man – seems to be fixated on women priests, though.’

‘Yes. There’s probably no connection. Tell your friend to give me a ring. There are laws against this sort of harassment now.’

‘I will. Thanks.’

‘And call me when you’ve read the letters.’

‘I will.’

*

Nelson puts down the phone, feeling thoughtful. Ruth’s letter-writer may have nothing to do with Chloe Jenkins’ murder, but it’s worrying that there might be two woman-haters focusing on Walsingham. He has learnt to ignore such vitriol at his peril. Equally he knows that it can be fatal to assume that people who write violent letters are always violent themselves. That was the mistake the police made in the Yorkshire Ripper case. And the thought that Ruth actually knows a woman priest is surely the most astonishing aspect of all. They were at university together, says Ruth. Well, you get all types at university (so he’s heard; he left school at sixteen), but, even so, he can’t imagine Ruth being friendly with anyone overtly religious.

The case is frustrating him. He still has no idea why Chloe was wandering around Walsingham last Wednesday. He has spoken to Chloe’s therapist, Holly Barrett, on the phone and she seemed to have no particular insights into her patient’s state of mind. Chloe appeared to be making good progress, she was in a ‘good place’, no she hadn’t complained about any stalkers or sinister ex-boyfriends. Maybe Chloe’s friends from rehab will be more forthcoming. Nelson is seeing them at the Sanctuary this afternoon.

Even Nelson’s hunch about the gravestone is proving inconclusive. Intel have traced Doreen Westmondham. She was a local woman from Houghton St Giles, married with three children and five grandchildren, a former school dinner-lady and, according to tributes following her untimely death from cancer at sixty-two, ‘loved by all who knew her’. Doreen and her husband had also fostered over a hundred children. Her funeral at St Simeon’s Church was standing room only. What was Doreen’s link with Chloe Jenkins, model, socialite and drug addict? It’s hard to see the connection.

At one o’clock Tim returns from his trip to Surrey. Nelson accosts him before he has had time to eat his lunchtime salad. Salad! Sometimes Nelson worries about Tim.

‘Did you get anything from the family?’

Tim puts down his plastic fork. ‘They’re still in shock. But they’re nice people, very respectable. They seemed to have done their best to help Chloe. They’re heartbroken.’

‘Did you find anything that might help with the enquiry?’

‘Well, they weren’t keen on the boyfriend, Thom Novak, but he’s got a pretty solid alibi. He was in Switzerland. I spoke to him myself.’

Nelson grunts, trying to work out how long it would take to get from Switzerland to Norfolk. He doesn’t believe in solid alibis.

‘Anything else?’

‘Well, one interesting thing. Did you know they were from Norfolk?’

‘No,’ says Nelson, ‘I didn’t.’

‘Yes. They lived near here when Chloe was little. Alan was stationed at RAF Skulthorpe. They moved when she was eight.’

‘That’s interesting.’ It could explain, thinks Nelson, how Chloe was able to find her way to Walsingham at night across the fields. Isn’t RAF Skulthorpe quite near Walsingham?

‘I’m going back to the Sanctuary this afternoon,’ he says. ‘Do you want to come?’

‘OK,’ says Tim, turning back to his salad.

‘For God’s sake,’ says Nelson, ‘have a burger to go with that. You’ll never make a detective inspector living on lettuce.’

Chapter 8

Tim remembers Alan Jenkins saying that Chloe’s new friends were ‘adults, not stupid young models’. Even so, he is surprised by the two people waiting for them in the television lounge of the Sanctuary. Stanley and Jean are middle-aged and, not to put too fine a point upon it, dowdy. Jean, a food technology teacher, has dyed red hair, grey showing at the roots, and a round placid face. Stanley, who doesn’t vouchsafe his occupation, is thin and stooped, fiddling nervously with a Styrofoam cup of coffee. Both are dressed in tracksuits. The boss’s face gives nothing away as he makes brisk introductions, but Tim is sure that he too is surprised by the friends Chloe made while having her treatment. Surely she should have palled up with that pop star that Cloughie’s always going on about, Foxy something?

‘Holly Barrett says that you were particular friends of Chloe Jenkins,’ says Nelson.

Tim almost expects the two impostors to deny this, but, instead, Jean says in a voice trembling with emotion, ‘Dear Chloe. I just can’t believe she’s gone. We loved her, didn’t we, Stanley?’

‘Yes.’ Stanley too looks on the verge of tears. ‘We loved her.’ He tears a large portion of Styrofoam off his cup and coffee starts dripping onto the carpet.

‘Here. Give that to me.’ Jean is motherly and capable, tipping the coffee into a plant pot and handing Stanley a tissue (all the rooms in the Sanctuary are equipped with large boxes of tissues). Is this why Chloe liked these people, because they were substitute parents? Maybe more accessible parents than the smart, attractive couple in the room dominated by pictures of airplanes?

‘How did you get to know Chloe?’ asks Tim.

‘We hit it off right away,’ says Jean. ‘I sat next to her in one of the group sessions and we just started chatting. She was so open and easy to talk to. Not like some of the younger ones here.’

‘She was like an angel,’ says Stanley.

What had Julie said? That Chloe’s childminder had thought she was an angel. There are getting to be too many angels around for Tim’s liking.

‘I know this is very difficult,’ says Nelson, ‘but we’re looking for any reasons why someone might have wanted to kill Chloe. Did she ever tell you about anyone threatening her? Maybe someone from her past?’

Jean shakes her head. ‘She talked about her boyfriend Thom. Poor thing, he sounded like another troubled soul. But she wasn’t scared of him, if anything she felt she needed to protect him. She was a very caring person.’ She reaches for the tissues.

‘Did Thom contact her while she was here?’ asks Tim.

‘I don’t think so. Visitors aren’t encouraged. You’re meant to purge yourself of all influences. Chloe’s parents came once. They seemed a nice couple. Chloe only had good to say about them. A lot of addicts, they blame their parents. I used to do it myself before I went into therapy.’

Jean looks too old to have parents living, let alone culpable for their daughter’s lifestyle. Before Nelson can stop her Jean has launched into her life story.

‘. . . blamed myself because I was never good enough. My sister was always my mother’s favourite. I did everything to win Mum’s approval, even becoming a teacher like her. I started drinking at teacher-training college. I coped for years, drinking and taking drugs at the weekend, teaching all week. Then my marriage broke up and it all unravelled. I was coming to work hungover, drinking in my lunch break . . .’

She stops for a sip of coffee, and Nelson takes his chance. ‘Can you think of anything else Chloe said or did that might have relevance here? It could be the smallest thing, something that didn’t seem significant at the time.’

He is looking at Jean, but it’s Stanley who says, ‘She was religious.’

‘Was she?’ says Nelson encouragingly.

‘Yes. I don’t mean that she was any particular religion, but she was very spiritual. She used to pray. A lot of people here meditate, but she actually used to pray. She’d light candles in the recreation room and pray every night. She said that she thought her guardian angel was looking after her. Turns out he wasn’t,’ he adds, with sudden bitterness.

‘Her mother said that she wanted to take a course,’ says Tim. ‘Something spiritual, she said. Do you know what that was?’

Jean and Stanley look at each other and smile. ‘It was a course in angel therapy,’ says Jean. ‘You tap into the healing vibrations of the angels.’

More angels. Tim doesn’t dare look at Nelson. ‘Where did she find this course?’ he asks.

‘Online,’ says Jean. ‘You get a certificate and everything.’ She obviously thinks some sort of explanation is needed because she says, ‘Chloe loved angels. She collected pictures of them. She gave me this beautiful angel brooch. I’ll never take it off.’ She points at her chest, where a little gold cherub nestles in the grey fleece. ‘She was interested in all sorts of spirituality, though. As an ex-teacher I recognised a truly curious mind. She meditated, as Stanley says, she did mind, body and spirit courses and she went to conventional C of E church services.’

‘She went to church?’ says Nelson. ‘Where?’

‘St Simeon’s in Walsingham,’ says Stanley. ‘I went with her sometimes. Doctor McAllister drove us, but she never came into the church.’

‘That figures,’ says Jean. ‘Fiona McAllister’s an atheist if I ever saw one.’

‘Did Chloe ever talk to you about anyone she met at St Simeon’s?’ asks Nelson.

‘She said she used to see her guardian angel there,’ says Stanley, in a matter-of-fact voice.

‘What do you think she meant by that?’ asks Tim.

‘She said she’d seen a vision of her guardian angel,’ says Stanley, ‘in the graveyard.’

‘Did you believe her?’

‘Oh, yes,’ says Stanley. ‘She was telling the truth, I’m sure of it. I’ve learnt to spot true mystics in my line of work.’

‘What line of work is that?’ asks Nelson.

Stanley gives him a sad smile. ‘I’m a priest,’ he says.

*

‘Bloody hell,’ says Nelson, driving back through the darkening lanes. It’s still afternoon, but already the daylight is fading. ‘You don’t expect to find a priest in a drying-out clinic.’

‘I don’t know,’ says Tim. ‘They must come under tremendous strain. People dump all their problems on their ministers. I don’t know if they have enough training or counselling to help them to cope. I should imagine it’s enough to make you turn to drink.’

It’s a characteristic, measured Tim response. ‘Is your family religious?’ asks Nelson.

‘My mum is,’ says Tim. ‘She goes to church every Sunday. All her social life is bound up in the church too. I don’t believe myself, but her faith’s got Mum through some very bad times. It’s been a real support to her, a real community.’

Nelson wonders what the bad times entailed. Tim never mentions a father – perhaps he died or deserted the family. It’s typical of Tim to answer a question in a very open, friendly way and yet not tell you much.

‘My mum’s religious too,’ he says. ‘Roman Catholic. We were all brought up as Catholics but none of us practise now. For my mum, though, it’s the centre of her world. She’s like your mother, never misses a Sunday.’

She goes on Fridays too, for some obscure reason that Nelson can never remember. Something to do with collecting brownie points for the souls in purgatory. He has a superstitious impulse to cross himself. He remembers Cathbad saying, ‘You’re still such a Catholic, Nelson.’

‘Stanley wasn’t a Catholic priest, though,’ he says aloud.

‘“Anglo-Catholic”, he said.’

‘It’s not the same,’ says Nelson. ‘Anglo-Catholics are still Protestants.’ He can still hear his mother criticising her parish priest, Father David, who’s a Church of England convert (‘He only came over to us because he couldn’t stand the thought of female priests’). She’d adored the previous incumbent, Father Damian. Come to think of it, Damian went back to Ireland to recover from a drink problem. Maybe Tim’s right: there’s more of it around than you think.

He’s about to ask Tim what he thought of Stanley and Jean, when his sergeant says, so urgently that Nelson turns to look at him, ‘Boss. I’ve got something to tell you.’

‘What?’ Nelson swerves to avoid a fallen branch.

‘I want a transfer.’

‘What?!’ Nelson swerves again, causing Tim to say, recklessly, ‘Look out!’

‘Don’t tell me how to drive,’ growls Nelson. ‘What do you mean, you want a transfer?’

‘I want to move. Away from Norfolk.’ After a pause Tim adds, ‘I’m sorry.’

They have come to the outskirts of King’s Lynn. Nelson slows down, but only slightly. He says, ‘You’ve had a tough few months, what with that business at Blackstock Hall.’

He’s referring to the time when Tim shot a man. There has been an inquiry, and Tim was completely cleared (there were extenuating circumstances, like the fact that he saved Nelson’s life), but there’s no doubt that the whole business was incredibly stressful for everyone involved.

‘Take some time off,’ says Nelson. ‘Think about it.’

‘I have thought about it,’ says Tim. ‘I’ve really enjoyed working for you, but I think it’s time to move on.’

‘Where will you go?’

‘Maybe back to Essex. To be near my family.’

Nelson understands this. He sometimes feels a real pull to go back to his home, Blackpool, away from Norfolk and its flat, alien fields. But Tim doesn’t sound like a man yearning for home. He sounds disconsolate, as if he’s got nothing left to look forward to. When Tim first moved to Norfolk Nelson assumed it wouldn’t be long before he got himself a girlfriend and settled down. As far as Nelson knows, this hasn’t happened, although Tim’s a decent-looking boy who keeps himself fit.

‘We’ll miss you,’ he says now. ‘Cloughie will have no one to wind up.’

‘He’ll find someone,’ says Tim. But he still sounds depressed.