Vera Stanhope 06 - Harbour Street (26 page)

‘How can I help you, Sergeant?’ Craggs set down the rake.

‘It’s about the murders of Dee Robson and Margaret Krukowski.’

‘I saw on the television that there’d been another killing. A dreadful business. You’d better come inside. I was going to stop soon anyway. Mary was going to make some coffee. Though I’m not sure if I can provide any useful information.’

The professor left his boots in a rackety porch tacked onto the back of the house. It held seed trays on the windowsill, a couple of fishing nets and a child’s bucket and spade. Joe followed him into a long, thin kitchen and on to a living room. There was a table close to a French window, covered with a patterned oilskin cloth and a pile of newspapers. Light came in through the window and fell onto the woman sitting there, but the rest of the room was in shadow. Joe had an impression of paper – books, files, notebooks – on shelves and chairs and on the floor, and of dust. The woman looked up and smiled.

‘My wife, Mary,’ Craggs said. It was a simple introduction, but Joe could tell that he adored her. She was small and her hair was held back from her face with a comb. ‘These men are detectives, my dear, and they want to talk about those dreadful murders in Mardle.’

‘I’ll make coffee then.’ She got to her feet and Joe saw that she wore faded denim jeans and sandals, an Indian cotton tunic in bright colours. She still dressed as she probably had as a student.

Underneath the table there was a box of apples, individually wrapped in newspaper. The room smelled of them.

‘You were lucky to find me in, Sergeant. We’re quite often on childcare duties in the school holidays.’ It was a gentle reproof, a reminder that the detectives had turned up without warning.

‘We need to talk to you about George Enderby.’ The view from the window was from the side of the house. A small orchard and, beyond it, a high wall of old red brick covered in ivy.

‘Ah, poor George. I’m afraid he’s got himself into a bit of a state. When I told Mary, she said it was his own fault and that it seemed as if he’d treated his wife appallingly for years, but I can’t help feeling sorry for him.’

‘You’ve known him for a long time?’ In the distance Joe heard a kettle boiling, cups set on saucers. In a corner Charlie was taking notes.

‘That house in Harbour Street had become a second home for both of us. There was something very appealing about the company there. Kate and her children. Margaret Krukowski, so gracious and welcoming. The regular guests. It won’t be the same now of course, but then I fancy it would have changed anyway. Kate has found other interests: Stuart, who seems to have made her very happy, and a renewed enthusiasm for her music. From my own point of view I was rather glad that they were all moving on. It made my decision to retire much easier. Less to miss.’

‘Was Margaret moving on?’
She was dying
, Joe thought.
But that’s moving too.

‘You know, I think there was a change in her,’ the professor said. ‘She seemed distracted on my last visit. Somehow disengaged.’

‘Could you go through your movements again, for the afternoon that Margaret was killed?’ Joe couldn’t imagine this man as a murderer, but Vera had found discrepancies in his evidence and she’d slaughter him if he didn’t check. ‘You were out in the boat with Malcolm Kerr?’

‘That’s right. Part of my regular fieldwork off Coquet Island.’

‘And what time did you get back to Mardle?’

‘I told that young woman who came to the laboratory to talk to me.’ There was no resentment in his voice, but a kind of resignation. ‘It was about three o’clock.’

‘And what did you do then?’ This was the important question. Craggs had told Holly that he’d driven straight home, but Enderby claimed that they’d met up in Harbour Street later in the day.

‘I went to the Dove Laboratory in Cullercoats. I had equipment to drop off there.’

‘And then?’ Joe leaned forward across the table.

‘Then I went back to Mardle. It was a nuisance. It was snowing heavily and I wanted to get home. But I’d left my briefcase in Malcolm’s yard – one of those senior moments that seem to happen more frequently these days – and I had an important phone call to make the following morning. I knew I’d need the papers. I have a key to the yard and to Malcolm’s shed, so I didn’t need to disturb him. And in Harbour Street I bumped into George. He seemed so miserable that I couldn’t leave him there alone. We had one drink in the pub. I thought if the snow was really bad I could always stay the night at Kate’s. In the end it seemed to have cleared a bit, so I drove home.’

The words came easily. Too easily? Joe wondered if they might have been rehearsed. ‘And you invited Mr Enderby to spend a night here with you?’

‘Not that night, but two days later, yes. He’d got himself into a state. He’s obviously told you that his wife has left him. He’d run away to Harbour Street, still pretending that he was working. Because he couldn’t face telling Kate what had happened, I invited him here on the day that he claimed to be in Scotland.’

Mary arrived with coffee and melted discreetly away.

‘How did he seem when he was here?’ Joe asked.

‘Distraught. He drank too much of my whisky and became incoherent. We knew that Margaret was dead by then, of course. Her death seemed to have upset him almost more than his wife’s leaving him. We spent a lot of time talking about her.’ The professor drank coffee, leaning back in his chair.

Joe thought he was reliving that evening in his head. ‘And what exactly did you say about her?’

‘That she was a wonderful woman. We couldn’t understand why her husband had left her all those years ago. And that there was something mysterious about her.’ Craggs smiled. ‘George is a romantic, I’m afraid. Perhaps he reads too many novels.’

‘Did you ever meet Margaret’s husband? If you’ve been working with Malcolm Kerr for such a long time, you might have come across him.’ Joe was struggling to work out the timeline for this. When he got back to the office he’d make a chart with dates.

‘No. I never stayed in Mardle in those days. There was no guest house, and Harbour Street was rather disreputable. Most nights there seemed to be fights spilling out of the Coble. I travelled out from Newcastle when I needed to go out to the island.’ He paused. ‘Of course the Metro wasn’t opened until 1980, so I used to drive before then. I had a wreck of a minivan that was always breaking down.’ He smiled at the memory. ‘Good times.’

‘Did you know Margaret Krukowski before the house in Harbour Street became a guest house?’ Joe thought the area must have been a small and tight community thirty years ago. There’d be the people living in the bedsits and those working at the fisheries. Even before the Metro came, it would have been cut off from the rest of Mardle by the disused railway track. He wished he had a better picture of the town in those days.

‘Oh yes. For a short while she worked as a bookkeeper and receptionist for Billy Kerr, Malcolm’s father. Then he decided that he didn’t need her. I suppose money was tight. Later we’d see her occasionally in the Coble or walking down the street.’ Professor Craggs smiled. ‘Always dignified. Always immaculately turned out. Kate Dewar didn’t take over the place until about ten years ago, and I’ve been making regular visits for my research since I was a post-doctoral student. But I’m pretty sure Margaret’s husband had left even before that. I always knew her as a single woman.’

Joe had a sudden idea. ‘Do you have any photos? I’m interested in what Harbour Street looked like then.’

‘Probably. If you think it’s important.’ He seemed surprised and a little sceptical. Had the detectives come all this way just to look at some snaps? ‘I had the camera to record specimens on the island, but I know I took photos of some of the characters in the street too.’ He got to his feet and rifled through the drawers of an elderly dresser. Joe was about to tell him not to bother, that it wasn’t important, when the professor pulled out an album almost falling apart at the seams. He put it on the table and Joe stood up to get a better look. Charlie stayed where he was.

And there, suddenly, was Harbour Street, familiar but subtly changed, the images slightly faded. A young Malcolm Kerr standing by the harbour wall with an older man and in the background the fisheries building, sparkling and new in bright sunlight. The older man grinning and the younger glaring. On the opposite page a woman was pushing a big, old-fashioned pram down the road past the church. She had a cigarette in one hand and controlled the pram with the other.

‘Why did I take that?’ Craggs frowned. ‘After all this time, I really can’t remember.’

He turned the page of the album and there was a group of people posing outside the Coble. Summer. The women in sleeveless dresses and sandals, the men squinting into the sunshine. In the middle Billy Kerr, with a big drunken grin, next to a large woman in a shapeless floral dress.

‘I remember that day,’ Craggs said. ‘Billy’s fiftieth birthday.’ He pointed to the fat woman. ‘That’s Val Butt. She was the landlady. And that’s her son, Ricky. Local wheeler and dealer. Always seemed to have cash, and none of us knew where it had come from. Flashy. He moved on very quickly. I’d guess that Mardle was too tame for him.’

Joe looked at the image of Ricky Butt, a dark-haired young man, dressed in denim, but his attention was immediately drawn to the woman who stood in front of him. Margaret Krukowski. No longer the young woman of the wedding photograph, here aged in her thirties, but still lovely. On her face a smile that was tense and unnatural, as if she hated having her picture taken.

Craggs turned the page again and this time it was a long shot up Harbour Street, with the big house at the end. Even from that distance it looked as if it was falling into disrepair. And on the same page, Kerr’s boatyard. In place of the corrugated-iron shed there was a Portakabin, rather smart, a sign on the door saying
Kerr’s Charters
. Joe supposed this was the office where Margaret had answered the phone and booked in customers, before she became too expensive.

‘Was Margaret working there when you first knew her?’ he asked.

Craggs shook his head. ‘No, that was before my time. Soon after this photo was taken, the building they used as an office burned down. Rumours were that it was some sort of insurance scam. It was widely known that the Kerrs owed money all over the town. They’d over-committed themselves buying a new boat. Malcolm’s makeshift shed appeared soon after.’

The next page was blank. ‘That’s all there is,’ Craggs said. ‘Unless you’re interested in seaweed . . .’

Joe shook his head and smiled. He felt that he had a better understanding of the background to the case, but he was here to check more recent movements.

‘George Enderby stayed with you the night Dee Robson was murdered.’

‘Yes,’ Craggs said. ‘It must have been that day.’

‘What time did he arrive?’

‘It was late. Eight o’clock. Mary had left us a casserole and I was starving. I’m used to eating earlier, and I almost started without him.’

So Enderby had no alibi for Dee’s murder, either. Joe thought he would achieve nothing more here and moved towards the door.

Mary Craggs must have been watching them, because she appeared again from the kitchen. ‘Have you got everything you need, Sergeant?’

‘Yes, your husband’s been very helpful. Thank you.’ Then he reconsidered. ‘Might I borrow the photo album, Professor? I’ll return it as soon as I’ve shown my boss.’

Craggs nodded and returned to the house to fetch the book. Then the elderly couple walked together with Joe and Charlie into the garden and stood, looking over the gate, the professor with his arm around his wife’s shoulder, watching until they drove off.

The evening briefing. Outside it was dark and the traffic was heavy. The start of the long Christmas weekend and people making their way south to visit family and friends. Vera had shut herself away in her office and only emerged as the meeting was about to begin. She’d run her fingers through her hair so that it stuck up at the back, but nobody dared tell her.

She stood at the front of the room, with her legs apart, her eyes bright. ‘Let’s get this cleared up by Christmas, shall we, folks? Then you can all go home to your bairns in time to open the stockings.’

In the room a few sceptical cheers. Vera wasn’t known for her family-friendly policies.

‘I’ll go first, shall I?’ Defying them to contradict her. She pointed to the photo of the young Margaret Krukowski on the whiteboard. ‘Our first victim. Seventy-year-old woman, member of St Batholomew’s Church, committed to the work of the Haven, a hostel for homeless women. From the beginning we wondered if there might be a clue there. Had she been in an abusive relationship? Was that why she’d befriended our second victim, Dee Robson?’

From the back of the room Joe Ashworth thought he’d never seen Vera looking so animated. She seemed ten years younger. He wondered if she’d been at the secret stash of whisky that she kept in her office drawer. Or if she had some information of her own to share with them.

Vera continued: ‘But yesterday a witness came forward and has thrown a very different light on the relationship between Dee and Margaret. As you all know now, it seems that there was another connection between the women.’

Vera paused. The room was silent. She looked out at them, and Joe could tell that she was loving the attention. ‘Thirty years ago Margaret Krukowski was a call girl, working out of the house in Harbour Street, where she was living when she died. Discreet and classy, despite the neighbourhood. Successful too, because I reckon the money in her savings account probably came from that time. Seems to me that this answers a lot of the questions we’ve had about this woman. She sometimes talked about secrets and implied that she had a mysterious past. It explains, at least in part, Malcolm Kerr’s reluctance to be straight with us. He fancied the pants off her and wouldn’t want her memory sullied by rumours that she’d been a sex worker. And it explains her fondness for Dee Robson. I’m assuming Margaret went into business when she was deserted by her husband. And when she lost her office job with the Kerrs. Sad that she preferred selling her body to going to her parents and admitting that she was wrong about him, but she was a proud woman. And it seems that she was in control of her own business. Booth didn’t mention that a man was involved. Margaret valued her independence.’