Vera Stanhope 06 - Harbour Street (2 page)

Kate stood for a moment and listened to the music in her head. She coaxed the tune to life, hummed it. A song for winter, clear and spare. For love in winter. And again she thought of Stuart and the unlikely infatuation that had hit her in middle age; she was breathless and astounded, aware that at this moment she’d sacrifice everything for her new man. He was more important than Ryan’s nightmares, his prowling through the neighbourhood at night like a feral animal, unable to sleep, his occasional outbursts of temper. More important than Chloe’s exam results and her terrifying ambition. Stuart, old and wiry, more like a mountaineer than a musician, had brought Kate back to life.

On her way back to the flat she bumped into George Enderby by the front door. He had snowflakes clinging to his woollen overcoat and his big, good-natured face beamed down at her. ‘What do you think, Kate? Snow for Christmas. The kids will be excited.’ He had one of those rich, posh, southern voices that made her think of a politician or an actor.

Kate thought that
her
kids were super-cool these days, and they’d consider building snowmen to be beneath them. But George was so innocent with this fantasy of a perfect family life that she couldn’t disabuse him.

‘Yeah,’ she said.

George worked as a publisher’s rep and he travelled with a big wheelie suitcase full of books. Often he left copies for her children. Chloe liked some of them, the thick ones about other worlds, but although Ryan pretended to be interested he wasn’t a great reader. He took the books in order to please. At the back of Kate’s mind there was always a niggle of anxiety about Ryan. He was no real trouble, but despite his easy smile she suspected he was unhappy and she wasn’t sure what she could do about it. And there were occasional flashes of temper that reminded her of Rob. But Harbour Street took up all her time and her energy, and Stuart took up all of her dreams. Ryan had stopped talking to her years before. She told herself that the boy was still young, and that kids were complicated and never confided in their parents.

George had a wife, but they’d never had any children. He’d told her that once. He’d told her a lot of things during late nights, as he took his usual nightcap in the visitors’ lounge. He’d sip whisky and she’d look at her watch and wonder when he’d go to bed. She ran the guest house pretty much by herself. There was only Margaret to help in the kitchen, and the last few days she hadn’t been much use.

‘Have you had a good day, George?’

She knew that business was tough for him. He’d confided that too. ‘I wouldn’t know what to do, Kate, without my work. Books are what I live and breathe.’ She’d sensed that he didn’t need to work to earn a living. He had that laid-back confidence and careless attitude to money that comes with being born rich. She thought he wasn’t happily married, though even when he was very drunk he was never unpleasant about his wife. ‘My Diana is a marvel,’ he’d say, ‘a wonderful woman.’

Now he was shaking himself out of his overcoat. ‘Usual room, Kate?’

‘Of course.’ George liked the big room at the back of the house looking out over the sea and didn’t mind that it was the most expensive in the place.
My bosses are used to London prices, Kate. They never quibble about my expenses.

‘I’m just here for a couple of days this time. Then on my way south again. Unless the snow is as heavy as the forecast. Then you might have an unexpected guest for Christmas dinner.’ He smiled sadly and she thought he’d love that. A proper family Christmas lunch with her and the kids, sitting around the table in the basement, him carving the turkey. But this year there would be Stuart too, and she wasn’t sure what George would make of that. She had a sneaky suspicion that George Enderby fancied her rotten.

‘I’ll put a pot of tea in the lounge.’ This was a ritual too. He’d sit in the lounge with his laptop and his books, drinking tea and eating Margaret’s biscuits. Then, because she didn’t provide evening meals, he’d go out into the street – either to the fish shop or the Coble – for his supper and come back with a few pints inside him, to sit up drinking whisky until midnight.

As she entered the basement she saw the kids were watching telly. She thought perhaps there’d been something else on and they’d changed channel when they’d heard her on the stairs. Something unsuitable. She was a control freak and wanted to know what they were watching. Sometimes she wondered if she was too strict with them. Perhaps that was why they didn’t talk to her any more. They were almost grown-up, after all. She saw the way other kids behaved, what they got away with. But she knew what
she’d
been like when she was young: sex and drugs and the music scene. She’d never finished her exams and she wanted better for them.

They were still in their school uniform and Kate was going to send them to change, but then she held her tongue. No sense starting an argument.
Choose your battles.
She’d seen that in a women’s magazine and thought it made sense.

‘Okay?’

The reply was a muffled grunt from Chloe. Then Ryan turned and gave one of his smiles that always reminded her of his father and made her stomach flip because it was like looking at a ghost.

In the kitchen Kate prepared George’s tray. A cloth, leaf tea in the pot, a cup and a strainer. Milk in a jug. Sometimes Ryan laughed at her efforts. ‘This is Mardle, Mam! You’re not in charge of the Ritz.’ And Kate knew that the kids got teased for her attempt to maintain standards – the cloth napkins at the tea table even though they were just eating pizza, her insistence on manners. But she was sure that the small things mattered, and she wanted to prepare them for the future. She wanted more for them than life in a rundown street in a rundown town. She’d known better than that herself once – her father had been an accountant with his own business, until it had fallen apart in the recession – and it still rankled that she’d ended up like this.

The lounge was empty. George would still be in his room. Kate set down the tray, switched on the gas fire and drew the curtains. The snow had blown into a small drift against the window.

She was thinking that she’d get a casserole out of the freezer for their supper, when the doorbell rang. If it was another visitor, trapped in the town by the weather, she could put them in room six. She opened the door.

Outside there was an enormous woman. She wore a shapeless anorak over a tweed skirt. A wide face and small brown eyes. Her hair was covered by the anorak hood. On her feet, wellingtons. Her hair and her body were covered in snow. Behind her another figure, but hidden by her bulk, so that it was impossible to make out any detail.

The abominable snow-woman
, Kate thought.

The woman spoke. ‘Let us in, pet, will you? It’s freezing out here. My name’s Stanhope. Inspector Vera Stanhope.’

Vera got the call while she was shopping and, when her mobile buzzed in her pocket, she felt a joyous sense of relief. She rarely ventured into Newcastle except for work and this was a nightmare. Christmas shopping: hordes of fraught people with a kind of mad panic in their eyes. Like the rabbits, when her father Hector had gone lamping for meat. Hector had died years ago and Vera had no other family to buy for. Christmas Day she’d go to her hippy neighbours for dinner and they’d all get drunk as skunks, but Jack and Joanna wouldn’t expect presents – except perhaps a decent bottle of whisky – and neither would she.

Then Holly, one of her team, had devised this scheme. Secret Santa: names in a hat and pull out the name of the person who’d receive your gift. Vera had been hoping for Charlie. A bottle of whisky would have suited him fine too. Vera had picked Holly from the hat, though. Holly wore perfume and make-up and smart clothes, even to work. What could Vera possibly choose for her? So here she was in Fenwick’s department store, sweating because she was still in her outdoor clothes, surrounded by smart and shiny people, just wanting to do a runner, when her phone rang. Joe Ashworth on the other end. If he’d been there she would have kissed him.

‘What have you got for me, Joe?’ her voice sang. A sales assistant in a white tunic, who was plastering foundation onto a middle-aged woman perched in a chair like you’d see at the dentist’s, was staring at her.

‘Murder,’ he said and her heart lifted again, before the guilt set in and she told herself that the victim would be someone’s relative and friend. They hadn’t died for her entertainment. ‘A stabbing on the Metro.’

‘Bit of a scuffle got out of hand?’ That seemed odd. It was the sort of thing you might get late at night, but not in the early afternoon.

‘No.’ She knew him well enough to sense that this wasn’t going to be straightforward, and that pleased her too. She liked a bit of complication. A challenge. ‘It’s an elderly lady. I was first on the scene. The CSIs are on their way.’

‘Give Holly a shout too.’ Vera was more careful these days to include Holly, who could strop for England if she felt she was missing out. She paused for breath, already pushing her way through the crowds to get to the exit, feeling in her coat pocket for her keys. ‘And dig Charlie from his hole. Who found the body?’

‘Jessie,’ Joe Ashworth replied. ‘My daughter Jessie.’

It took Vera longer than she’d expected to get to Partington Metro station. A couple of inches of snow and the world went mad. A car had slipped across the road in Benton, blocking one lane of traffic. She was in Hector’s Land Rover, which was against all the police authority rules because it was so old, but today she was glad of it. The station was closed, marked by crime-scene tape and protected by a couple of Metro inspectors, enjoying every minute of their moment of glory. On the platform in the distance she saw Joe Ashworth. Her sergeant and her surrogate son, her protégé. And her conscience. The snow was falling around him and he had his back to her. He wore a black overcoat and was speaking into a mobile. No sign of the daughter. Sal would have whipped her away. Both parents were protective of their bairns. Vera thought Jessie would probably have preferred to stay and watch the action. There was something sparky about the girl that gave Vera hope.

She’d pulled on the wellies that she kept in the Land Rover. It had taken an effort – her legs only just squeezed inside. She’d lost weight, though. The boots were new, and a year ago she wouldn’t have fitted into them at all. The platform was slippery and she walked carefully. If she fell over, it would take a crane to get her to her feet. In the brightly lit train compartment she saw white-suited figures at work. She hoped Billy Wainwright would be heading up the team of CSIs. She couldn’t see the body and wouldn’t be allowed in now until they’d finished.

‘Joe!’ He turned to look at her and started to walk her way, finishing the call and putting his hands in his pockets.

As he approached, Vera saw that he was frowning. He would have had other plans for this evening. A night in with Sal and the bairns. Maybe wrapping the presents when the kids were in bed. Sal would be the organized type; she wouldn’t leave her Christmas shopping until the last minute. But Vera knew that Joe got bored with the perfect domestic life, although he’d never admit it, even to himself. Perhaps this murder had come as a lifesaver for him too.

‘What have you got for me, Joe?’ They moved into the shelter of the station concourse. Joe leaned against one of the ticket machines. The snow was falling so heavily now that they looked at the train through a shifting white curtain.
Not a bad thing
, Vera thought. People would blame the weather, not them, for disrupting the Metro system.

She listened while he described the journey from town, the packed train, the lippy youths and the pissed businessmen. She didn’t take notes at this point. Notes stopped her concentrating. She needed to picture herself in the carriage, listening to the banter.

She waited until he’d finished talking. ‘All good-tempered then? Nothing that could have led to a Christmas moment of madness? The victim hadn’t made a fuss about kids swearing or putting their feet on the seats?’

‘Not that I saw or heard. It was packed in there, but if there’d been any sort of row, I’d probably have noticed. Even when the train stopped and we all had to get out, nobody kicked off.’

‘What do we know about the victim?’ This was Vera’s favourite moment in an investigation. She was nosy, loved digging around in another person’s private life. Perhaps, she was forced to concede, because she had no personal life of her own.

‘Only what we could get from her Metro pensioner’s pass. She was carrying a handbag, but in it there was nothing but a purse, a set of house keys and a hankie.’

‘Money in the purse?’
There were druggies
, Vera thought,
who’d stab their granny for the price of a fix. But probably not in the Metro in the late afternoon
.

‘Fifty quid and a bit of change.’

Not robbed then
. ‘So what do we know about her?’

‘Her name’s Margaret Krukowski and she’s seventy years old. An address in Mardle. One, Harbour Street.’ Joe had stumbled over the surname.

‘What’s that? Russian, Polish?’

Joe shook his head. What would he know? ‘She was nearly home,’ he said. ‘Only one more stop on the Metro and she’d have been safe.’ Vera thought he was the most sentimental cop she’d ever known.

‘Did you see where she got on?’

‘Aye, Gosforth.’

One of Newcastle’s posher suburbs. A long way from Mardle in terms of class and aspiration.

Joe guessed what she was thinking. ‘More Gosforth than Mardle, from her appearance,’ he said.

Vera thought about this for a moment and wondered where people would place her in the social order of things, if they saw her. Bag lady? Farmer?

‘We’ll go then, shall we?’ she said. ‘See if anyone’s at home waiting for Margaret Krukowski.’

They sat for a moment in the Land Rover outside the house. The Harbour Guest House. A wooden sign beside the front door, the letters almost obscured by snow.

‘We bring the kids here sometimes, to the Mardle Fisheries,’ Joe said. ‘A treat. It’s supposed to be the best fish and chips in the North-East.’