Ann Cleeves - The Sleeping and the Dead

‘Oh, I think so. We should be able to trace Theo’s school with the information we’ve got now. Two schools probably if he was only ten when he went away. There must be someone who remembers him… I’ve been thinking that the reason for his leaving boarding school could have been financial. Crispin could have run through the family money very quickly. Perhaps he just couldn’t afford the school fees.’

‘Is this background relevant to the murder do you think?’

Is it? Porteous thought, and realized that he’d hardly considered the real business of the murder investigation all afternoon. He’d been wrapped up in the domestic tragedy. They’d all suffered – Crispin, Stella, Theo and Emily. When the wedding pictures were taken they must have seemed an ideal family. Porteous could imagine them posing for a similar photo to go with the constituency Christmas card. But the happiness had been shattered even before the fire.

‘I can’t imagine Stella Randle tracking down Theo and sticking a dagger through his ribs if that’s what you mean. She wouldn’t know where to start. And why would she?’

‘Could she have blamed the boy for the little girl’s death?’

‘She might have been psychotic when she was very ill, and dreamed up something like that, but she didn’t strike me as delusional today.’

‘Perhaps it wasn’t a delusion.’

‘What do you mean?’

Eddie shrugged. ‘Perhaps he did kill his sister. An unsupervised boy playing with matches could have the same result as a cigarette fire.’

‘There was no mention of that at the time.’

‘It would give another slant on Crispin keeping Theo away from his stepmother. Perhaps she was threatening to harm him even then. Much easier to blame the boy than take responsibility for her own negligence.’

‘It’s a possibility…’

‘But you don’t think it’s likely.’ Eddie finished his beer and grinned. ‘It’s OK. You don’t have to humour me. I’m not a kid. I’m…’ he paused. ‘What’s that technique they always use on the team-building courses? Brainstorming.’

‘I’m not dismissing any ideas. It’s just that Stella did take responsibility for Emily’s death as soon as I asked her about it. And she’d almost forgotten about Theo. I don’t think she’d have been able to do that if she’d killed him.’

‘Did you ask her about the Gillespie girl?’

‘Yes.’

On the way out. He’d stood on the doorstep looking across the garden to the wide sweep of the bay, with the lighthouse at one end and the mouth of the Tyne at the other, then turned back to her as if the question had just come to him: ‘Does the name Melanie Gillespie mean anything to you?’

She’d stood with her arms clasped across her chest as if she were cold. A breeze was coming off the sea and her cardigan was thin, but Porteous still felt warm. Then she’d giggled. ‘What’s this, Inspector? A sort of quiz?’ Then she’d gone into the flat shutting the door behind her without answering the question.

The sun was so low now that it shone up at them through the long window of the barn and they were dazzled. They turned away and sat down. Porteous offered Eddie another beer but he shook his head and for the first time Porteous saw how excited he was. It had been a struggle to contain himself in the conversation about Stella Randle.

‘What is it, Eddie? What have you got for me?’

‘I went to see Jack Westcott. You remember, he was the history teacher in the high school. Just retired.’

Porteous nodded.

‘I turned up before opening time this morning. Caught him when he was completely sober. We went for a walk in the park. His wife’s the house-proud sort. You could tell she was glad to have him out from under her feet. He was glad of the company, I think. He’ll miss those kids.’

Porteous nodded again, thought Eddie would get to the point in his own time.

‘I just wanted to get him talking. Claire Wright hasn’t found any teacher who moved from Cranford to the school on the coast, but I thought there might be some informal connections – specialist music teachers, drama festival, sport. That sort of thing.’

‘Anything?’

‘Not that Theo was involved in. So I asked about the other kids in the school. It occurred to me that Melanie’s mother and father would be about the same age as Theo if he’d lived. But Westcott couldn’t remember a Richard Gillespie or an Eleanor of any description, so I could kiss goodbye to that theory.’

‘Worth checking though. And it’s possible that Richard Gillespie was at Theo’s boarding school.’

‘Aye. From what I’ve seen of him on TV he’s got the air of a public-school boy about him… I’d pretty much given up hope of anything useful when Jack said he’d been digging around at home and he’d found some more photos of the Macbeth production. Would I like to see them? Most likely an excuse so he wouldn’t have to face that dragon of a wife on his own, but I thought he might have a sharper photo of the boy we could give to the press, so I went along with him.’

Porteous was finding it difficult to give the story his full attention. He didn’t mind Eddie Stout being here as much as he’d expected, but the evening sun was making him drowsy.

Eddie continued. ‘You’d have thought he was a schoolboy himself, the way he spoke to his wife. He took me upstairs to a sort of den where he hides away from her. There were cardboard boxes full of snaps. There must have been pictures in there of every school play in the past thirty years, but he’d sorted out the ones he thought were relevant.’

‘Anything of Theo we could use for the media?’

‘No. Jack must have had the shakes even then. None of them were brilliant. But amongst them I found this.’ Carefully, holding the picture by the edges with his fingertips, Eddie handed it over. It was a black and white photo of the audience, taken probably from the side of the stage just before the show was about to start. Parents clutched hand-printed programmes on their knees and chatted to their neighbours. There was no indication that they’d been aware of the photographer. Eddie pointed to a couple in the front row.

‘Those are the Brices.’

They looked ordinary, elderly. They could have been anyone’s grandparents. Stephen wore a hand-knitted sweater over corduroy trousers. Sylvia had made more of an effort about dressing up and had a high-necked blouse over a long black skirt. There was a brooch at the neck. They were holding hands.

‘Interesting,’ Porteous said. He always found it helpful to put a face to names. But he couldn’t quite understand Eddie’s excitement. It was hardly worth a trek into the country at tea time.

Eddie took a deep breath. ‘That,’ he said, pointing to a pale, insignificant man sitting next to Sylvia, ‘that is Alec Reeves.’

Then Porteous did understand the excitement. This was Alec Reeves who’d worked as assistant manager in the hardware store in Cranford high street. Alec Reeves, uncle to Carl Jackson, the lad with the learning disability who’d disappeared not long before Theo. Alec Reeves, who, according to Eddie, liked young boys and had gone off to get a job in a children’s home.

‘I thought Sarah Jackson said he’d left Cranford by then.’

‘She did. He must have come back.’

Porteous looked again at the photo. Although Sylvia was holding Stephen’s hand she was talking to Reeves. Her head was turned to him and she was smiling. It was the relaxed conversation of friends. ‘You said they knew him.’

‘Aye,’ Stout said bitterly. ‘You’d have thought they’d have had better taste.’

‘This changes things,’ Porteous said. Slowly. Not wanting to wind Eddie up any further. But Eddie was buzzing already.