Ann Cleeves - The Crow Trap

At the door Vera hesitated. “Do you ever go into that coffee shop in the precinct?”

This time she was sure Anne flushed. “Occasionally. Why?”

“Bella Furness used to go in every Wednesday. At lunchtime. Did you ever meet her?”

“No. I’m sure I didn’t.”

So who did you meet, Vera thought. Edmund Fulwell or someone altogether different?

At home she drank whisky because there was no beer, phoned Edie to make an appointment to see her the following day, watched an Orson Welles movie on the television and fell asleep before the Aberdeen sleeper rumbled past. As she drifted off she thought of Neville Furness.

Dreaming, she confused him with a pirate she’d read about as a girl in a favourite picture book. She must have had a last moment of lucidity before sleep because she wondered suddenly why it had been so hard to pin him down for an interview.

Conventional policing had drawn a blank. Even her boss who was a believer in persistence and routine, who was convention personified, who knew nothing else, had to admit that. By the time the team met the following morning they had contacted everyone on the Holme Park guest list but they were no further forward. It seemed that the heat and the drink had dulled the partygoers’ senses. They could remember snatches of gossip an amusing conversation with an ex-diplomat from Tokyo, a ravishing frock, a tired and emotional old woman eating strawberries but nothing outside this social contact. Certainly nothing as prosaic as whether a car had been parked outside the semis at the end of the Avenue.

Vera’s instinct was always to keep important information to herself until she was sure of it. As a young detective other people had taken credit for her work, mocked her when details hadn’t checked out. Now she built a case privately, discussing it, if at all, with Ashworth. He accused her of paranoia, occasionally protecting her when her refusal to cooperate got her into bother. Now she realized secrecy wouldn’t do. The team was dispirited. The troops needed something to keep them going. A story they could believe in.

“Once upon a time,” she said, grinning at their confusion because it was the last thing they expected. “Once upon a time there were two brothers. Let’s call them Robert and Edmund. Good old-fashioned English names. The elder brother was good and dutiful and did as his mother told him. As a reward he inherited the big house and the family business. He married a pretty young girl who gave him sons. The younger brother was a wastrel and a drunkard. He got a local lass pregnant and had to marry her. Then he ran away to sea. The wife committed suicide and the daughter, who if she wasn’t beautiful was certainly clever, was taken away by social workers.

“Now when the younger son returned from his adventures he wasn’t treated like the prodigal son in the Bible story. Nobody loved him.

Nobody except his daughter and the barmy old woman who’d looked after him as a boy.” She looked up at them, asked sharply. “With me so far?”

They nodded at her, compliant as kids in a kindergarten. They might think she was a barmy old woman but no one was prepared to risk a confrontation.

“I’ve come to realize that what Edmund loved, more than his clever daughter even, was the countryside where he grew up. He loved it so much that when his enemies planned to build a quarry there he forced his daughter to tell lies for him. They wanted to bring machines to dig out the rock and he couldn’t stand the thought of it. It became an obsession.”

She paused and her audience shuffled, embarrassed, because this wasn’t the way inspectors were supposed to carry on. They hoped that she’d finished. But she just took a swig of the coke from a can on the desk in front of her and continued.

“Someone else was as passionate about that countryside as Edmund the woman who farmed the land adjoining the estate. Her name was Bella Furness and her stepson was one of the wicked businessmen who wanted to dig a pit in the hillside. And surprise, surprise! Bella and Edmund knew each other. They met more than ten years ago when they were both patients in St. Nick’s. Both crazy people. Perhaps. They’d stayed friends ever since. Not lovers because Bella married Doug and they’d lived happily ever after. At least until Dougie had a stroke and the banks and the bailiffs gathered like birds of prey around the carcass of the farm. But very close friends.

“Perhaps Edmund confided in Bella, told her what his plans were. Who was scaring him. Perhaps if we asked she could answer all our questions and tell us who killed Edmund.” Vera stopped abruptly. The tone of her voice changed from storyteller to someone who meant business. “But she can’t, because in the spring, very inconveniently, she committed suicide.”

A hand was tentatively raised. She frowned as if annoyed to be interrupted. “Yes?”

“Are you certain it was suicide?”

“If it wasn’t, Fraser, I’d have told you.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“So we need to find someone else to answer our questions. In the hospital a group of people met for therapy and support. Bella and Edmund were part of that group. We know that after leaving St. Nick’s they kept in touch and regularly had lunch together. Occasionally they were joined by another woman. We need to trace her. Without even realizing, she might know who killed Edmund and Grace. It won’t be easy. She might not want to be found. Perhaps her friends and family don’t even know that she spent a period in a mental hospital. But we have to talk to her.”

“Can’t the hospital help?” A brave question, shouted from the back of the room.

“Their records show which patients were on each ward but not who attended the group. The psychologist who ran it is compiling a list at the moment but she’s not sure where her notes are and she’s got other things on her mind. In the meantime we need to work on finding the woman. Let’s be subtle at first. No publicity to scare her off. No “Were you a loony in the 1980s?” posters. Talk to the people at the Harbour Lights restaurant again, to the other staff and the regulars.

Perhaps our woman goes there to eat. And what about local GPs? The woman might have a recurring psychiatric problem.”

She watched them scribbling notes and thought she’d succeeded. They’d come to life. She banged on the table again and moved in front of the white flip chart. “The other angle I want to pursue is the quarry.

Somehow these deaths are linked to the bloody great hole Slateburn want to dig on the moor. These are the main movers in that business.” She began to write in unsteady capitals with a thick felt pen.

“Godfrey Waugh. He owns the company. I want to know whether the development was his idea or whether he was approached by the Fulwells.

Talk to both lots of staff and see what you can find out.

“Neville Furness. Stepson of Bella. At one time he was land agent for the Fulwells. Then head hunted by

Godfrey. He did all the preliminary negotiations for the quarry but now he’s gone all green and soppy. He’s talking about moving back to his father’s farm, even though it’s in debt. Has he really converted?

If not, what’s he up to? For the moment you can leave him to me. I’ve got an appointment to see him when I leave here. But talk to the people who know him and work for him. We need everything we can get.

He used to live in the house where Edmund died and word is he still has a key.

“Peter Kemp. Environmental consultant. He’s changed sides too but he’s gone the other way. Started off working for the Wildlife Trust and now sells his skills to big businesses. How much did he stand to gain from the quarry? How much would he lose if Waugh decided not to go ahead?”