Peter Robinson - Piece Of My Heart

Annie made a mental note of that while wondering just how long it took this Nick to start “pawing” Kelly. “How did you meet him, then?” she asked.

“In town. Eastvale. Wednesday’s my day off, see, and I was out shopping. He was just coming out of that secondhand bookshop down by the side of the church, and I almost bumped into him. Talk about blush. Anyway, he recognized me, and we got chatting, went for a drink in the Queen’s Arms. He was funny.”

“What happened?”

“He gave me a lift back – I’d come on the bus – and we arranged to meet later.”

“Where?”

“At the cottage. He invited me for a meal. I told my dad I was going out with some girlfriends.”

“And what happened?”

“What do you think? He made a meal – a curry – he wasn’t a bad cook, and we listened to some music and… you know…”

“You went to bed together.”

“Yes.”

“Only that once?”

Kelly looked away.

“Kelly?”

“We did it again on Friday, all right? I got two hours off in the afternoon to go to the dentist but I rearranged my appointment for next Wednesday.”

“What time on Friday?”

“Between two and four.”

That was the afternoon of the murder. Only two or three hours after Kelly had left, in all likelihood, Nick had been killed. “And those were the only occasions you spent with him? Wednesday night and Friday afternoon?”

“We didn’t spend the night together. Not that I wouldn’t have, mind you. Just the evening. Had to be home by eleven. As you might have gathered, my father’s a bit of a Victorian when it comes to matters of freedom and discipline.”

Yes, and you were off shagging some older bloke you’d just laid eyes on for the first time, Annie thought. Maybe Kelly’s father had a point. Anyway, it was none of her business. She was surprised at herself for being so judgmental. “What does he do for a living?”

“He’s a farmer. Can you imagine anything more naff?”

“Plenty of things.”

“Huh. Well, I can’t.”

“Do you know someone called Jack Tanner?”

Kelly seemed surprised at the question. “Yes,” she said. “He lives just down the road from the pub.”

“What do you think of him?”

“I can say I do very much. Think of him, that is. He always seems a bit of a miserable sod, to me. And he’s a total lech as well.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s always looking at my tits. He doesn’t think I know, but it’s well obvious. He does it with all us young girls.”

“Have you ever seen him in the pub?”

“No. CC barred him before I started working there. He can’t hold his drink. He’s always picking fights.”

Annie made a note to look into Jack Tanner further and went on. “What do you remember about the cottage?”

“It just looked like a cottage. You know, old furniture and stuff, a creaky bed, toilet with a wonky seat.”

“What about Nick’s personal things?”

“You must know. You were in there.”

“Everything’s gone, Kelly.”

Kelly gave her a startled look. “Somebody stole it? Is that why they killed him? But there was hardly anything there, unless he was hiding money under the mattress, and I don’t think he was. You could have felt a pea under that thing.”

“What did he have?”

“Just a few books, a portable CD player with a couple of those small speakers you can set up. Not great sound, but okay. Mostly he liked old stuff, but he had some more modern bands: Doves, Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs. And he had a computer.”

“Laptop?”

“Yes. A little one. Toshiba, I think. He said he used it used it mostly for watching DVDs, but he did do some work on it, too.”

“What kind of work?”

“He was a writer.”

“What sort of writer?”

“I don’t know. He never told me about it and I never asked. None of my business, was it? Maybe he was writing his autobiography.”

That would be a bit presumptuous at thirty-eight, Annie thought, but people had written autobiographies at earlier ages than that. “But he definitely said he was a writer?”

“I asked him what he was doing up here at such a miserable time of year, and he said he wanted a bit of peace and quiet to do some writing. I could tell he was being a bit shy and secretive about it, so I didn’t push. I wasn’t after his life story, anyway.”

“Did he ever show you anything he’d written?”

“No. I mean, all we did was have a curry, a chat and a shag. I didn’t go searching through his stuff or anything. What do you think I am?”

“All right, Kelly, don’t get your knickers in a twist.”

Kelly managed a brief smile. “Bit late for that, isn’t it?”

“What did you use for contraception?”

“Condoms. What do you think?”

“We didn’t find any in the house.”

“We used them all. On Friday, like, he wanted to, you know, do it again, but we couldn’t. There weren’t any left, and it was too late to go into Eastvale. I had to be at work. And there’s no way I was going to do it without. I’m not totally stupid.”

“Okay,” said Annie. Once she had got Kelly talking, she had proved to be far less shy and reticent than she appeared in public. So that explained the rumpled bed and lack of condoms. But robbery hardly seemed like a motive. Obviously, if Nick had had something of great value there, he wouldn’t have told some local scrubber he’d picked up in a pub, but why cart anything of value up here in the first place? Unless he was blackmailing somebody. Or making a payoff.

“Did he have a mobile?”

“He did. A fancy Nokia. Fat lot of good it did him, though. They don’t work around here. You have to go to Eastvale or Helmthorpe. It’s a real drag.”

That was a problem in the Dales, Annie knew. They’d put up some new towers, but coverage was still patchy in places because of the hills. There wasn’t a landline at the cottage – most rental places don’t include one for obvious reasons – and both Mrs. Tanner and Winsome had used the telephone box across the road, by the church. “How did he seem when you were with him?” she asked.

“He was fine.”

“He didn’t seem upset, depressed or worried about anything?”

“No, not at all.”

“What about drugs?”

Kelly paused. “We smoked a couple of joints, that’s all. I’d never do anything harder than that.”

“Did he have a lot of gear?”

“No, just enough for himself. At least that’s all I saw. Look, he wasn’t a drug dealer, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“I’m not getting at anything,” said Annie. “I just want to establish some idea of Nick’s state of mind. Was he any different on Friday afternoon?”

“No, not so’s I noticed.”

“He wasn’t nervous or edgy, as if he was expecting someone?”

“No.”

“Did you make any plans for the future?”

“Well, he didn’t ask me to marry him, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Annie laughed. “I don’t suppose he did, but were you going to see one another again?”

“Sure. He was up here for another week, and I said I could get away a few times – if he got some more condoms. He said I could come and see him in London, too, if I wanted. He gets lots of free tickets and he said he’d take me to concerts.” She pouted. “My dad would never let me go, though. He thinks London’s some sort of den of iniquity.”

“Did Nick give you his address?”

“We didn’t get that far. We thought… you know… we’d see one another again up here. Oh, shit! Sorry.” She dabbed at her face again. Crying had made her skin blotchy. Other than that, she was a beautiful young woman, and Annie could see why any man would be attracted to her. She wasn’t stupid, either, as she had pointed out, and there was a forthrightness about her attitude to sex that many might envy. But now she was just an upset and confused kid, and her skin was breaking out.