Ann Cleeves - Hidden Depths

She crouched to get closer to the water. Began to make out the shape of a young woman’s body, arms outstretched, when Ashworth switched on his torch. As the narrow beam swung over the surface, the image changed. She saw flat, waxy leaves, balls of tangled vegetation sucking in the light, but nothing human. Nothing dead. She realized she’d stopped breathing and took a lungful of air. She felt her head swimming.

The girl might already have been killed but she hadn’t been posed. Not yet. She hadn’t been used for effect, turned into a piece of art which had nothing to do with the real Laura. At least Julie had been spared that.

Vera straightened and tried to keep her thoughts clear, to remember the detail of what had happened during the Deepden party. Because she’d been determined to keep Hector on the straight and narrow, she’d been perfectly sober. The memories should be sharp. There’d been the guided tour: a walk through the orchard, sunlight sloping through the trees, a look into the cottage, which had been freshly painted for the occasion, a ringing exhibition.

The ringing exhibition. They’d stood in a semicircle while a tall man in a blue smock reached out a bird for them to see. A yellowhammer, loosely held, the head caught between his second and third fingers. Through the door, they’d seen him weigh it. He’d slid it head first into a plastic cone which clipped onto a spring balance. He’d measured its wing with a metal rule. With his free hand he’d taken pliers from a shelf and a silver ring from a string hanging on the wall. He’d fitted the ring on the bird’s leg, then squeezed it carefully into place. Then he’d stood at the door, the bird resting on the palm of his hand, until it had flown away.

It hadn’t been the cottage door. She was sure of that. She dug in her memory for a picture of it. A flimsy wooden door held shut by a padlock which the ringer had unlocked when he’d returned from catching the birds. A door into a hut, the size of a big garden shed, made with stained wood panels. A corrugated iron roof. And surrounding the hut a thicket of bramble and buckthorn, so it was hidden from the garden and the house. They’d been surprised when the tour guide had led them there down a path cut through the undergrowth. The bushes had been cleared close to the front of the structure and that was where the group had stood, an audience waiting for the show to begin.

Now she tried to get her bearings. Standing next to Hector on the night of the party, while the ringer did his stuff, she’d felt her father start to get restless; he could only take not being the centre of attention for so long. She’d thought that he might escape, show his boredom by making an obvious run for it. It would have been easy enough for him to do that. The hut was right on the edge of observatory land, on the boundary with the field of rough grazing which led to the sea.

She began to move along the edge of the grass, looking for a gap in the vegetation. It seemed to her that the moon was brighter, or perhaps her eyes had adjusted to the dark. Then she found it, a narrow path leading through the bushes. She made herself walk slowly. She knew if she hurried, he’d hear them coming. If he was listening out for them he’d hear them anyway. Some noises she couldn’t prevent – her laboured breathing, the snapping of dry undergrowth as it snagged on her clothing. The path was so narrow, she couldn’t help that. But perhaps he wouldn’t be listening out. Perhaps, locked in the hut, he hadn’t seen the light from the cottage. Her fear was that if he knew they were there, he might be goaded into some grand gesture. It would upset him to be denied the water and the flowers, but he’d love a live audience.

He’s forgotten why this started. He’s become seduced by the glamour of it. He probably keeps a scrapbook of newspaper cuttings. Where will we find them?

The hut was just as she remembered it. Perhaps the paint had faded, the roof rusted, but in this light it was impossible to tell.

They stood on the edge of the clearing. Vera put her mouth so close to Ashworth’s ear that she could feel his skin briefly against her lips.

‘Wait. Until I call.’

She inched her way across the grass, aware of the weight she carried, the space she took up. As if, inside the hut, he’d sense the vibration of her feet on the ground, the displacement of the air.

At the door she stopped. There was no padlock. It had been pulled to from the inside, but she didn’t think it had been bolted. She listened. No voices. Then she heard a rhythmic creaking, metal not wood, then a hissing. A white light appeared in the crack between the door and the frame.

Opening it, she tried to imagine she was visiting her neighbour. No fuss, quiet and easy. Wanting a favour. I’ve run out of booze. Don’t suppose you could spare a bottle of wine?

Clive Stringer stood beside a narrow wooden table, his face lit by a tilley lamp. That had been the sound she’d heard, the creaking had been the pump as he’d primed it, the hissing the noise as it caught. Beside the lamp lay a bunch of flowers, mostly ox-eye daisies, their stems wrapped in damp newspaper. She tried not to look at them, or to peer into the shadow to look at the girl. Rolled up in bags in the corner, the mist nets used for catching migrant birds. And tucked inside, the thin nylon rope used as guys to anchor the poles. There’d been a mist net in Clive’s room. She was sure now he’d used a guy rope to strangle his victims. She was glad of her size, blocking the doorway. He seemed very slight.

‘It’s all over now, pet,’ she said. She kept her voice friendly. She didn’t expect him to put up a fight, thought he might even be relieved to be caught. ‘You’d just as well come with me.’

He stared at her without speaking.

She went on talking, keeping her voice even. ‘You were the obvious suspect once I knew Lily was involved with Peter Calvert. You linked both families. But I couldn’t work out why. You did it for them, didn’t you? For Tom and Peter. Your friends.’

She thought he would answer, but he took the lamp by its wire handle and flung it against the wall. The glass smashed and the wood caught immediately; the paint bubbled and blistered and the flames licked along the line of the spilled paraffin. Stringer backed away from Vera into a corner. She ignored him, all her focus now on the girl, a still figure lying on the floor at her feet. Laura was wrapped in a blanket. Her face was covered. Vera picked her up, felt how thin and light she was. Ashworth was at the door, yelling for her to get out. Vera passed the bundle to him and turned to Stringer. He was almost surrounded by flame, though none of his clothing was burning. The red light was reflected in the lenses of his glasses. She wanted to get through to him.

‘Come away out, man. Your friends wouldn’t want this.’

He gave no indication that he’d heard her.

She was going to move towards him, but Ashworth took her by the arm and pulled her outside.

He’d laid the girl on the grass. Her face was filthy, her mouth covered by parcel tape, her hands and feet bound. Vera ripped the tape from her mouth, felt for a pulse. She didn’t see the hut crumble in on itself, the heavy roof fall onto the man inside, trapping him so even if he’d wanted to escape he couldn’t. If he screamed she didn’t hear.

Vera had dreamed of taking Laura back to Julie. From the moment she realized the girl was missing that picture in her head had kept her going. She’d seen herself in the kitchen, her arm around Laura’s shoulders. Look who’s here, pet. I told you I’d get her back to you safe and sound. And of course Julie had been grateful. In the dream.