Ann Cleeves - 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.