Ann Cleeves - The Sleeping and the Dead

‘Was there?’ Roger licked his fingers with a long, darting tongue and patted his chin with a napkin.

‘Probably all rumour,’ she added quickly. ‘You know what this place is like.’

‘What exactly did the rumours say?’ Stout asked, as if the information was new to him.

‘Oh, you know. That he liked the company of young boys too much. I’d never met him. Not really. He ran the hardware store next to where my father worked, and I went into the shop sometimes on errands. My dad thought he was all right but then my dad said that about everyone. I didn’t think there was anything particularly creepy about him, but then I was only a kid. But I’m sure Mr Reeves had already left the town when Michael disappeared. There was a new bloke in the shop when I was in the sixth form. Younger. Good looking in a dark, moody sort of way…’

‘But Reeves came back for the performance of Macbeth ,’ Eddie said.

‘He must have done, I suppose, if the photo was taken that night. But I don’t remember him. I was backstage, helping with the costume changes. Roger was a real dictator. He wouldn’t let us out during the interval.’

She grinned at her husband but he didn’t respond.

‘Do you remember seeing that man, Mr Spence?’

Spence took the photograph, holding it with exaggerated care by the edge of the print.

‘No, I’m afraid not. Quite impossible after all these years.’

‘Of course, he looks a lot older now,’ Sally said.

They both stared at her.

‘You’ve seen him recently?’

‘About ten days ago. Don’t you remember, Roger? He came in here with Paul Lord and his wife. I knew there was something familiar about him. I’m surprised that they stayed friends. Poor Paul, he was tainted by his association with Reeves when he was young. I mean, he was never going to be the most popular boy in the school. Not with that acne. Though I remember one night Hannah coming pretty close to snogging him… And he was a boy scout, wasn’t he? His picture was in the paper when he won some award and he never lived it down. That awful uniform. But then it came out that he was big buddies with Alec Reeves, and when all those rumours started he was teased dreadfully.’

She continued talking but Eddie had stopped listening. Paul Lord was the lad who’d given Alec Reeves an alibi after Carl Jackson had disappeared. Eddie had interviewed the boy himself. He remembered a stuffy sitting-room, a mother, flustered and embarrassed, and Paul, hidden as Sally had said behind a layer of acne, stubbornly refusing to change his story. At last Eddie had given up and soon after Reeves had left the town.

‘Is Mr Lord a regular customer?’

Roger answered. ‘Yes. Mostly at lunchtimes. He’s a businessman. He brings his clients here.’

‘What is his business?’

‘He’s some sort of computer consultant. He and his wife are partners. They work from home. They turned the outhouses of the farmhouse where they live into an office.’

‘The address please?’

But he knew it already. Porteous had phoned there when they were trying to identify the body in the lake. Balk Farm. Home to Balk Farm Computing. Once home to Carl Jackson, the lad with learning disability, and his parents.

In the car Eddie tried to phone Porteous, but his boss’s mobile was turned off. Eddie saw that as an opportunity and didn’t leave a message. He thought he’d be late for his interview with Chris Johnson, but that didn’t seem important. Now he had to speak to Paul Lord, who’d been with Alec Reeves ten days ago, who must know where he was hiding out.

He drove too fast, still in the daze he’d been in since his sleep in the garden, his thoughts woolly, his eyes prickling with exhaustion. He came over the brow of the hill and had a flashback of himself, young and fit, standing in a line with other men and women, searching for Carl, prodding into the heather and bracken with a long pole. They’d improved the entrance to the farm, widened it and he sailed past, seeing out of the corner of his eye a big sign advertising the computer consultancy. It was only as he pulled into a lay-by to turn back that he thought what a fool he was being. Alec Reeves might be hiding out at Balk Farm but what could Eddie do about it, single-handed and without a warrant? Only warn him and drive him away. He drove slowly back to the town, his heart racing with panic at the damage he’d almost done.

He arrived at Chris Johnson’s house without remembering how he’d got there. He was late and the conversation started badly. Johnson had recently moved into a small terraced house on a modern private estate. A woman, very young and very pregnant, opened the door. She wore a sleeveless dress which clung around her stomach and heavy breasts. Her frame looked as if it would snap under the weight.

‘You’re late,’ she said. ‘He’s gone.’

‘But his van’s still here.’ Stout nodded towards a transit pulled on to the pavement.

‘He’s not got time to talk to you. The soundcheck’s in half an hour.’

Stout was too tired to argue. ‘Just let me in. It’ll not take long.’ He pushed past her, not roughly, hardly touching her, but usually he would have been polite, and he was surprised at the change in himself. He walked straight into the living-room. Chris Johnson was watching television. In the corner was a flat-pack cot, still in its box, and a white fur rabbit. Eddie picked up the remote from the floor and zapped off the television. The woman followed him in and levered herself carefully into an armchair. There was nowhere else to sit so he leaned against the door.

‘I want to know where you were one evening last week.’ He gave the date Melanie had been taken, but all the time his thoughts were racing about Alec Reeves. His hands were shaking at the thought of how close he had come to wrecking the whole investigation, and then he imagined Reeves driving down the track to the road by the reservoir before he’d had a chance to have it watched. He should have sorted out surveillance before coming here. He was losing it. ‘Now!’ he snapped. ‘I’ve not got time to mess about.’

‘I was working.’

‘Where?’

‘An eighteenth birthday party. Some village hall out in the sticks. Why?’

‘Can you prove it?’

‘You can check. Some of the kids got a bit wild. The police were called. It was that sort of place. No fun after nine thirty or the neighbours have a seizure. The cops came in and told me to turn down the sound.’

‘What time did you get home?’

‘About midnight.’

‘Can you confirm that?’ To the woman. Going through the motions. Though no way would Johnson have been able to pick up Melanie from the Rainbow’s End and be back here at midnight.

‘Of course.’ There was a mischievous look in her eye which said – But how can you trust me? I would say that, wouldn’t I? Eddie ignored it. Duty done.

‘Does the name Alec Reeves mean anything to you?’ The question was directed at Johnson. The woman wouldn’t have been born when Alec was running the hardware shop in the high street.

Johnson shook his head. Stout got out the photographs. Reeves as he’d been at the performance of Macbeth . Reeves more recently handing out Duke of Edinburgh award certificates. ‘You don’t recognize him?’

Johnson stood up quickly. ‘I’ve told you no. I’ve got to get to work.’ He pulled a leather jacket from the back of his chair, felt in the pocket for car keys.

Running away, Stout thought. What scared him?

‘You weren’t one of Alec’s little boys were you, Chris?’

‘Jesus, are you crazy?’

The blasphemy hit Stout, as it always did, like a slap.

‘Nothing to be ashamed of if you were. Not your fault.’