Ann Cleeves - The Sleeping and the Dead

Rosie stopped. Without the noise of their footsteps they could hear the tide dragging back the shingle.

‘That stuff I told you about my mother being a suspect in a murder inquiry. It was a joke, right?’

‘Of course it was a joke.’ He sounded amused. That was all she was to him. One big joke.

‘It’s just she’s had enough to put up with. Everyone talking about my dad…’

‘I know.’ He squeezed her hand.

Of course her mother hadn’t killed anyone. She was the least violent person in the world. When Jonathan walked out on her, she hadn’t even raised her voice in anger. But it was odd all the same. Her mother couldn’t have told the full story. Something had happened.

They had come to the lighthouse, which had been converted years before into an art gallery. It still had a whitewashed wall around it. There was no need for the light now. The rocks in the bay were marked by navigation buoys on the water. Looking back towards the town, they saw the flashing neon which marked the entrance to the funfair, the strings of street lamps, the inevitable blinking blue light of a police car. From the lighthouse a footpath led inland, skirting the cemetery and arriving at last at the housing estate where Rosie lived. The free drink and the walk seemed to have cheered Joe up. He didn’t mention Mel again, or the stranger who had been looking for her. As they sauntered past the cemetery he started making howling, ghostly noises. There were houses banking on to the footpath and Rosie had to tell him to shut up.

Outside her house Joe lingered. If she’d invited him in for coffee, he’d have accepted like a shot. She could tell he was too wired up to go home. But Rosie couldn’t bear any more confidences. Not tonight. She might end up confiding in him. A small wind had got up. Down the street a Coke can rattled against the kerb and startled them. The trees threw strange shadows.

‘You’d better go,’ she said. Then she imagined him turning up at the Gillespie house, making a scene. ‘You’re not going to try to see Mel?’

‘God no.’

He kissed her on the cheek as if she were a favourite aunt. She gave him a quick hug. Then he loped off. Inside her mother was still up, watching a late film on Channel Four, half dozing.

‘Sorry I’m late.’ Since the drama after the school reunion Rosie had been sporadically worried about her mother. She wasn’t getting much support. When Rosie had told her father about the police investigation he’d had difficulty in stopping himself laughing. ‘Hannah! Mixed up with the police. God, she’ll hate it.’

Yet if the murder had happened recently, everyone would have considered it horrifying. Rosie could tell that the past had become very real to her mother. She seemed to have become lost in it. Hannah said nothing, but Rosie could tell that in the long silences she was reliving it. Now, half asleep in front of the television, she was probably dreaming it too. To bring her back to the present Rosie offered her a piece of information. Usually she never told her mother anything about herself unless she could help it.

‘Joe walked me home.’

Hannah stirred at this but wasn’t, Rosie thought, sufficiently distracted. Not as distracted as she normally would have been. Usually she took an unhealthy interest in Rosie’s relationships with men.

‘The police phoned,’ she said. ‘They want to come here to talk to me. More questions. After work on Monday.’

‘I’m sorry. It must be shitty.’

Hannah was usually prudish about language and Rosie expected her to object to the word. Instead she repeated it. ‘Shitty. Yes, it is, rather.’

‘It can’t be important if it can wait until Monday.’

‘I suppose not.’

At the top of the stairs there was a landing window which looked over the street. She stopped and looked out, not expecting to see anyone because Joe walked very quickly and would have been long gone. But someone was there, half hidden by a windblown sycamore on the pavement opposite. Her mother called downstairs to ask if the front door was locked. Rosie turned away to answer her. When she looked again, the figure had gone.

That Monday the weather broke and Hannah went back to work. She woke too early, unrested, to bright sunlight, but by the time she went out to the car the sky was hidden by thin cloud like smoke. She ran back to the house to fetch an umbrella just in case. The prison was five miles to the north. She drove along the coast road towards mountains of cloud. The first rain started just as the barrier lifted to let her into the staff car park. The drought which had brought Michael’s body to the surface of Cranford Water was over.

Apart from the weather it was just like any other morning. She queued at the gatehouse with the officers. Some spoke, others didn’t. No one realized she’d been away. After she’d collected her keys she bumped into Arthur, who was sheltering from the downpour, blocking the doorway so the officers had to squeeze past. She thought he’d enjoy being an irritation.

‘I thought it might blow over. It was fine when I left home. I’m not really prepared.’ Grinning at himself, liking looking such a mess.

He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, jeans and open sandals. Everything was dripping. His dress was another excuse for the education department’s disapproval. The principal thought it set the wrong tone. Hannah had heard comments from the inmates too. They didn’t know what to make of him. The officers were openly hostile. Despite his lack of hair there were muttered comments in the mess about ageing hippies.

She opened her umbrella and they ran together towards the education block. The rain was a deluge which had already formed a lake over the hard-packed ground. Inside, she walked with him as far as his room.

‘Did you have a good break?’

She paused. ‘It’s a long story.’

‘I’m not doing anything for an hour. I can make you a coffee.’

‘My orderly will be waiting. Perhaps I could meet you at lunchtime.’ She thought she sounded like a teenager suggesting a date, regretted the words as soon as they were spoken.

‘Sure,’ he said easily. He unlocked his door and went inside, his sandals squelching on the tiled floor.

Marty was waiting outside, his face pressed to the glass door to see if anyone was in the room. There was no porch and by the time Hannah had opened the door he was soaked. He was wearing a thin, prison-issue shirt which clung to him.

‘Oh God.’ She pulled the hand towel from her cupboard-sized cloakroom and threw it to him. ‘I’m so sorry. I went in the other way and I was talking.’

He rubbed his hair and looked like a five-year-old just out of the bath.

‘I’ll make some tea,’ she said, realizing she was staring. ‘Warm you up.’

‘It’s OK, really.’ He folded up the towel and handed it to her, pulled his sodden sleeves away from his wrists.

‘Everything been all right?’

‘I’m glad you’re back. The guy they sent didn’t know the ropes. And he didn’t want to be told.’

‘No bother then?’

He shook his head.

‘The lad that kicked off before I went on leave wasn’t in?’

‘Don’t worry. He’ll not be back.’

‘You’ve not done anything stupid?’ She was thinking threats if not actual violence.

‘Nah. Too much to lose. He’s out soon. Doing his pre-release course now. He’s lucky you didn’t say anything and that Dave’s a good sleeper.’

Hannah made the tea, handed a mug to Marty.

‘I could get used to this,’ he said.

‘Don’t tell anyone. You don’t want to spoil my reputation.’ Which was, she knew, as a tough bitch, a bad-tempered cow who was OK at sorting out books, would move heaven and earth to track down a requested title, but who wouldn’t listen to excuses about lost or damaged copies, would have you up on report for a bit of chewing-gum stuck to a page.