Vera Stanhope 06 - Harbour Street (36 page)

Then he was moving too, sliding down the sand, the frozen grains like sandpaper against the skin of his wrists and ankles, trying to keep below the line of the horizon and not make too much noise, because perhaps this time Vera herself might need saving. Even for her, two killers might be too much to tackle.

On the flat, hard sand he stopped and watched. The moon made a path across the water and over the wet ridged shore. Three figures in conversation. Malcolm Kerr, hunched and broken. Vera Stanhope, triumphant. And Ryan Dewar, the teenage boy who had killed two women and had threatened Joe’s daughter. Kerr had his arm around the boy’s throat. As Joe watched, Kerr shoved the boy towards Vera and raised his hands in grateful surrender.

Early Christmas Eve and they were in the police station in Kimmerston. Vera and Joe were preparing to interview Malcolm Kerr. They’d leave Ryan until later, once his mother and the lawyer had arrived. Thinking about what Kate Dewar must be thinking, Joe felt sick and sad. Malcolm Kerr had brought
his
daughter to safety. Kate was another grieving parent, but for her there would be no happy ending, no happy families.

Now Vera was in her element, part mother superior and part Mystic Meg, reading the past like a mind-reader. There was a plate of bacon sandwiches on the table between them. God knows where she’d found them at this time of the morning. He could smell the bacon and the coffee and, when he replayed the scene later, describing it to colleagues as an example of Vera working her bloody miracles, it was the smell that remained with him. They’d offered Malcolm a solicitor, but he’d just shaken his head. ‘No need for that.’ Joe thought he was glad that it had ended like this. Prison wouldn’t seem so bad after the soulless house in Percy Street.

‘Ricky Butt,’ Vera said. ‘A horrible young toerag.’

‘Ricky was a psychopath,’ Malcolm said. Joe might just as well not have been in the room. All the prisoner’s answers were directed at the inspector. Joe was back in his role of observer – Vera’s second pair of eyes. ‘He liked hurting people. Dealt heroin. Dealt women. We weren’t angels in Harbour Street, but we weren’t used to that. Not his mother’s fault. Val was a bit rough, but her heart was in the right place.’

‘And he was making life difficult for Margaret?’

‘He’d only been in Mardle for a few months and he was throwing his weight about. He had this attitude. You know, cocky. But cruel with it. Always carried a knife to show he meant business. He said he couldn’t have Margaret working freelance on his patch. She should work for him or leave. Or he’d change her looks so that she’d never work again. You could imagine him, his knife on her face. He’d have loved the excuse.’ Malcolm’s voice was flat and hard. Joe believed every word he said.

‘So you decided to sort him out.’ Vera wasn’t asking a question now, just acting as straight woman, moving the story along.

‘I decided to have a word,’ Malcolm said.

‘The night of your father’s fiftieth birthday party. The night that photo was taken.’ Vera leaned forward across the table and her eyes were bright. You wouldn’t have thought that she’d had no sleep for forty-eight hours.

I asked him to meet me in the yard,’ Malcolm said. ‘Told him I thought we might do some business together. That was the only language he understood. Business.’ Coughing out the last word like an oath. He paused for a moment and then he continued. ‘It was hot. During the day so hot that the tar on the road had melted. The heat made everyone crazy. It made me crazy. Butt was just a boy, but he had no respect. No sense of how things worked in Harbour Street.’

‘Your dad had a certain position,’ Vera said. ‘Cox of the lifeboat. It had run in the family. And you had a certain position too.’

Malcolm nodded briefly to show that she’d got that bit right. ‘Ricky Butt offered me a cut,’ he said. ‘He sat swinging back and forth on his chair in the office in the yard. Smirking. Talking about Margaret as if she was shit. “She’s got class. Worth a fortune, a bit of class. Bring her onside and you’ll get your cut.” But Margaret wasn’t that sort of woman.’

It was still dark outside, but Malcolm was staring out of the window.

‘So you lost your temper.’ Vera’s voice hardly more than a whisper.

Another pause, then a nod. A brief triumphant grin. ‘I hit him. He wasn’t expecting it. Not time to get out the knife. He tilted back in his chair and hit his head on the floor. I think that might have killed him. It was a hell of a crash and there was blood and brain everywhere . . .’

Joe thought Malcolm might have meant to continue, to confess to another blow, just to make sure the man was dead, or because he was crazy with the heat and the temper, but Vera interrupted. She raised her hand to stop him in mid-flow.

‘Not murder then,’ she said. ‘Manslaughter, if you didn’t mean to kill him.’

Malcolm gave a little shrug to show that he no longer cared.

‘Then you fetched your dad and he organized things for you. Dealt with the mess. Because that’s what parents do.’

‘He wrapped the body in a bit of tarpaulin and hid it in a rusting old trawler we had in the yard.’ Malcolm was obviously still proud of his father, and still a little bit in his shadow. ‘Then he set fire to the office. The next day, when the cop and the fire officer turned up, they were only interested in the office. Nobody looked in an old boat waiting to be cut up for scrap.’

Vera nodded. ‘And later you were able to bury the body, and you concreted over the grave and built the shed over it. Every day you sat there, you must have remembered Ricky Butt.’

Malcolm thought about that for a minute and then he shook his head. ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘That night felt like a dream. I couldn’t believe what had happened.’

‘Did you tell Margaret that you’d killed the boy?’

This time the denial was immediate. ‘No. I told her we’d frightened him off.’

‘But she guessed?’ Vera pushed the question.

Malcolm nodded. ‘You couldn’t get much past Margaret. I told her it wasn’t her fault, but she felt responsible, blamed herself.’

Of course she did
, Joe thought. And it was guilt that had made Margaret Krukowski who she was. It wasn’t the prostitution that had turned her to the church and to helping other women. She hadn’t been ashamed of her profession, of the service she provided. It was the knowledge that she’d led to a man being killed.

Vera was moving on, jumping ahead by forty years. ‘Ryan Dewar must have reminded you of Ricky Butt,’ she said.

Malcolm Kerr didn’t seem to hear for a while. It took him longer to move into the present. He was still remembering a hot summer’s night. He lifted his head to look at Vera and she repeated the sentence.

‘I didn’t want to think that way,’ he said. ‘I wanted to believe the best of the lad. But yes, he’s a psychopath too. Cleverer than Butt, and more plausible. No conscience and no shame.’

‘When did you know that he’d killed Margaret?’

‘I didn’t know. I guessed. Worked it out. It clicked for certain when I saw him in the Metro yesterday, watching those school kids talking about the murderer. He looked full of himself. As if he was a pop star or something. A celebrity. When we had that last walk on the beach Margaret told me that Ryan was . . .’ he tried to remember the word ‘. . .
irredeemable
, and she might have to go to the police. Somehow he’d worked out about her past and was trying to get money from her.’ Malcolm looked up. ‘Before that, she thought she could save him. Turn him round. Or that we could save him together.’

‘You guessed he was trouble, but you still took him on to work at the yard.’ Vera leaned back in her chair. For the first time throughout the interview Joe thought she seemed tired.

Malcolm raised his shoulders. ‘Margaret asked me to,’ he said.

‘I know.’ Vera gave a very sweet smile. ‘And if she’d asked you, you’d have swum three times round Coquet Island.’

He nodded and returned the smile. ‘Naked,’ he said.

‘Oh, pet, I do hope that she was worth it.’

On the way out of the interview room Joe paused and turned back. ‘You saved my girl,’ he said. ‘Thanks. Can you tell me what happened? She was a bit confused when they got her home to her mam.’

Malcolm looked up. ‘That was your lass? A polite little thing. She was in the Metro chatting to her friends, talking about finding Margaret’s body. But Ryan Dewar was there too. I saw him as soon as I got on the train. Fate, I thought. Or Margaret sending me a message. Out of the Metro, your lass got separated from her friends and he was following her. Maybe he thought she’d be able to identify him.’ The man paused. He was staring out of the window replaying the scene in his head ‘Ryan was chatting to her when I found them. Putting on the charm. Offering to get her home safely. But she’d recognized him and was starting to get scared. There was a community-support officer walking past and I asked her to help get your lass home. I got hold of Ryan – he wasn’t going to make a fuss there in the street, with the law looking on – and took him back with me. He thinks he’s a hard man, but he’s a kid. No match for me.’

‘Would you have killed him on the beach if the inspector hadn’t turned up?’

Malcolm looked up sharply, but didn’t answer.

Kate Dewar was on her own in the house when she heard a knock on the door, familiar like the personalized ringtone of a phone. Chloe had said she was out with a friend: Kate suspected a boy, but she hadn’t asked. Ryan was away on his wanderings. He’d talked about going into town with some mates and she hadn’t seen him all day. Stuart would come along later. Kate opened the door, recognizing the knock and knowing that Inspector Vera Stanhope would be standing outside.

The woman looked exhausted and she didn’t have her sergeant with her.

‘Come in!’ Kate showed her into the lounge. ‘Would you like a drink? Whisky?’ Because this seemed like an informal visit. It was something to do with the expression on the inspector’s face. She seemed softer and more human.

‘I’d better not, pet. I’m still working. Maybe you should have one, though, eh?’

And that was when Kate had the first idea that something dreadful was about to happen and that her world would never be the same again. ‘What’s wrong? Is somebody dead?’ Because the policeman who’d come to tell her about Robbie’s accident had looked at her in exactly the same way.

Vera shook her head. ‘We’ve got your Ryan in custody. He’s been charged with murder.’

‘No!’ Kate cried. ‘He wouldn’t. Not Margaret . . . he loved her.’ But even as she spoke the words, Kate wondered if they’d ever been true. If her son was capable of loving anyone.

Vera said nothing for a while. She just looked. Then she shook her head again. ‘He wanted to make money out of her. He’s a great one for money, your Ryan. Money and lasses, and being his own boss.’ No judgement behind the words. It was just as if she was listing the facts of the case. And Kate knew that Vera was telling the truth. Perhaps she’d been frightened of hearing this knock on the door since Margaret had been killed. Frightened of hearing that her strange, prowling, angry son was a murderer.

‘What happened?’ Kate was staring into the other woman’s face. Vera had poured her a drink and Kate held it with both hands.

The detective sat down opposite to her. ‘Ryan had been thieving,’ she said. ‘Stealing when he was out on his night-time wanderings. Stealing from Margaret’s charity collecting boxes too. I checked with the vicar over the road. The last six months, Margaret’s takings had gone down. She made some excuse, but she must have guessed. Had Ryan been stealing from you? From Stuart and Chloe?’

‘Sometimes I thought he’d taken money from my purse,’ Kate said. ‘But he was clever. It was never much at once, and I couldn’t be certain.’ She thought she wouldn’t have been able to admit that to anyone else in the world.

‘He stole from your Stuart,’ Vera said. ‘Maybe not money, but he took a photograph. A compromising photograph. He used it to try and blackmail Margaret.’

‘I don’t understand.’ Kate drank the whisky and felt it hit the back of her throat. ‘What would Stuart have to do with Margaret?’ One sip and she felt that she was drunk, that the room was spinning out of control around her.

‘No need for you to know the details now,’ Vera said briskly. ‘Time for that later. Ryan stole from the Haven too. That winter fair they organized for the kiddies. George Enderby was there, throwing his money around like water, and at the end of the day Jane Cameron couldn’t work out why they’d made so little. Your Ryan made off with the profits. Dee Robson was there too. She might have had learning difficulties, but she was sharp enough when it came to money.’

‘And that’s why he killed them? Because of
money
?’ It seemed such a mean and pathetic motive to Kate.

‘Because of the things that money could bring,’ Vera said. ‘Power, control, influence. We think he’s been dealing drugs too. He’s a bit of a bully, your lad. He likes his own way.’ She paused. ‘Margaret thought she could save him. She felt guilty because of something that happened a long time ago, and she thought if she could persuade your boy to behave well, she’d find some peace. But she was fooling herself. I think she realized that in the end.’

Kate stared at the inspector. These were just words. Sounds like humming in the middle of a song. She couldn’t understand what they meant.

There was the sound of a key in the lock. They both looked round and, through the open door, they saw Stuart standing in the hall.

‘I’ve just heard the local news on the radio,’ he said. ‘They’ve made an arrest. A juvenile.’ He walked towards Kate and held her in his arms. She thought he’d guessed about Ryan already. Nobody was surprised, yet nobody had done anything.

Vera Stanhope stood up and walked towards the door. ‘You mustn’t blame yourself,’ she said. ‘You didn’t kill those women.’

But Kate knew that in some way she was responsible. And she thought the inspector knew that too.

They waited until later in the day to interview Ryan Dewar. ‘Let the boy have his beauty sleep,’ Vera said. ‘He’s still a juvenile. Just. We don’t want some flash lawyer saying we haven’t followed procedures.’ Joe hadn’t offered to go with her to talk to Kate Dewar and she hadn’t asked him.