Ann Cleeves - The Crow Trap

The cloud thinned slightly to let through a diffuse and milky moonlight. There were no sharp lines or edges. It was like viewing the scene darkly through a photographer’s filter. At one point she thought she saw the shadow of her quarry disappearing ahead of her, but imagined it was probably her imagination, the mist playing tricks.

Either the woman had run too quickly, had too big a start or Vera was quite wrong about where she was heading. Now it hardly mattered. She took the same path as she had walked that morning but without the exhaustion or irritation. She had the energy of a ten-year-old and could have gone on all night. From the top of the bank she could see the faint lights of Langholme. The pub would still be open. People would be in their homes watching television, enjoying a late, relaxed Friday night meal, drinking beer.

Then, before she could believe it she had reached the five-barred gate and the stile. There were no street lights in the lane behind the church, but there were in the village’s main street, and headlights and the noise of traffic.

Above the porch door of the Priory there was a bulb energy efficient elements encased in a wrought iron mounting. Parked on the drive was Anne Preece’s Fiat, but not Jeremy’s Volvo. That didn’t mean it wasn’t there, tucked away for the night in the garage.

She moved closer, walking on the lawn not the drive, so her footsteps wouldn’t be heard. There was a light in the room which faced the lane.

It was uncurtained and the sash window was wide open. From inside came a voice, Anne Preece’s, anxious but slightly tetchy, as if she had been landed with a problem which she didn’t want to handle.

“You look dreadful. Whatever’s the matter?”

There was a mumbled response which Vera couldn’t make out, but which seemed to make sense to Anne, which seemed to knock the heart from her.

“He did that to you?” she said. “Look, you must go to the police.”

Vera moved to the front door, turned the handle. It opened without a sound. The occupied room was to her right and that door was already open. She planted herself in the doorway, put on her jolly maiden aunt’s voice.

“Who said you could never find a policeman when you needed one? At least a policewoman. I hope I’ll do.”

Anne looked up. She was shocked and pale. It was a pleasant room which Vera hadn’t seen on her previous visit. A comfortable sofa with lemon and white striped covers. Two chairs in the same print. Lots of plants and cut flowers. The other woman sat in one of the chairs with her head in her hands. Barbara Waugh, smartly dressed in her black skirt and jacket and her leather boots, but bedraggled, tearful, shaking.

Anne said, “She’s run away from her husband. He must have terrified her. Look at the state she’s in.” “Oh no,” Vera said. “It’s not her husband who’s terrified her.” She shot an amused, rather self-satisfied look at Anne. “If it’s anyone, it’s me.” And standing where she was, legs apart, hands on her hips to block the door, she cautioned Barbara Waugh, told her in a flat, indifferent voice that she was under arrest. Then she waited for Ashworth to send in the troops.

They met at Baikie’s for old times’ sake, though Edie would have had them to Riverside Terrace, and Rachael, who seemed to spend most of her time in the farmhouse and was already acting as if she owned the place, had invited them there.

Edie had her doubts about the Black Law connection. She’d thought lately that Rachael cared more for the place than the man. But as she’d said to Vera she’d hardly made a success of her own personal life so it wasn’t really for her to say. Rachael was even talking about having Dougie back to live with them, which Edie didn’t think was healthy at all. Talk about trying to live another person’s life.

Rachael wasn’t Bella Furness reincarnated and never would be. Thank God.

Ashworth was the only man present. Rachael had wanted to invite Neville along but Edie had put her foot down at that. “He was never a part of it. Not really. And I’m sure you’ll pass on all the details anyway.”

So they sat in the room with the stuffed fox and Connie Baikie’s mountainous armchairs and they waited for Vera to tell another of her stories. Edie had lit a fire not because it was cold but because outside it was damp and drizzling and they wanted the comfort. Because it had been raining when Grace was killed.

Perhaps they drank for comfort too. Certainly by the time Vera got going there were two empty wine bottles on the table. Joe Ashworth, who would have to drive Vera home, had stuck to tea. He said he knew he was only there to be chauffeur.

Vera started with a tribute, generous for her. “Rachael was right all along. It all started years ago when Bella and Edmund met in hospital.

There was another woman on the same ward and attending the same therapy group who was being treated for depression. She’d been desperate for a child. After a number of miscarriages she’d finally given birth, but the baby died after a few hours. He was buried in St. Cuthbert’s churchyard. The grave is still there. She had a severe breakdown. They tried to treat her at home but on a number of occasions she went missing for days. Her husband found her out on the hill, starving and exhausted. That was when she was sectioned and forced to go into hospital.

At the same time as one of Barbara’s disappearances, a toddler disappeared. His mother and her boyfriend had brought him for an outing to the hills. It was spring and they wanted to show the boy the new lambs. While the pair were otherwise engaged the boy vanished. If you believed the local newspapers he’d been swept away by a large hawk into its eyrie. If you believed me at the time he was drowned in the Skirl which was in flood.

“In fact we were both wrong. The boy was taken by Barbara Waugh on one of her crazy moorland wanderings. We don’t know what she did with him while we were searching the hill, but later she took him to the old mine and kept him as a pet, a toy, a replacement son.” Vera’s voice showed no emotion. Weren’t fairy tales always gruesome? But she was thinking, I was there, I could have made more effort to find him. “We don’t know yet how he died. Perhaps she killed him. Perhaps he starved to death when she was taken into hospital. At some time, either then or later, she buried him under one of the flagstones in the engine house. She tried to forget him but couldn’t quite, although she had a child of her own and a husband who stuck by her.” Again, Vera kept her flat storyteller’s voice but she threw a knowing look towards Anne, because investigations always dug up more than people realized. A husband who had been so frightened by her manic outings on the hill, never knowing where she might be, that he tried to persuade her to stay at home as much as possible. He didn’t like her going out.”

“Did he know about the little boy?” Anne asked.

“He never even guessed.” Vera poured more wine. “So Barbara put the boy’s death at the back of her mind. Buried it like she’d buried the body. Sometimes she visited the mine, brought flowers, but I think she’d convinced herself by then that she wasn’t responsible for his dying. Perhaps she confused him with her own son. She took flowers to his grave too. And so things would have continued if her husband hadn’t decided to develop the site as a quarry. Because then there would be a risk that the grave would be discovered. The unpleasantness which she’d tidily hidden away under the engine-house floor could be brought to light. She wouldn’t be able to pretend any more that it wasn’t her fault. So what could she do?

At first she encouraged the opposition. She spread rumours that her husband had come under the evil influence of Neville Furness and Olivia Fulwell. She thought that if the public inquiry came out against the quarry everything could continue as before. She wound up her old friend Edmund Fulwell about the project. He was an easy target. She played on his love of his ancestral estate and he played on Grace’s affection for him to rig her otter counts.