Ann Cleeves - The Sleeping and the Dead

‘It’s Mr Reeves we’re here about.’

‘Why?’

‘We’d like to talk to him. He seems to have disappeared.’

‘I mean, why do you want to talk to him?’

Stout paused. ‘It’s in connection with a murder inquiry.’

‘The body in the lake? Michael Grey? You’ve got things all wrong. Again. Alec had left town before Michael disappeared. Before he arrived even.’ He kept his voice amused. Still he wasn’t rattled.

‘He came back,’ Porteous said quietly. ‘To watch a production of Macbeth . It was special because Michael was the star and Alec knew him very well. We’ll call him Michael shall we, though that wasn’t his real name. Michael had been staying at Redwood, where Mr Reeves was working as a care worker. Were you aware of the connection at the time?’

‘No.’

‘Don’t you find that strange? You were the same age as Michael. Wouldn’t Mr Reeves have introduced you? So you could help the boy settle into his new school.’

‘He might have done I suppose, but he didn’t. It wasn’t necessary. Michael was confident, immediately popular. Alec would have recognized that he didn’t need any help from me. Besides, after the business with Carl, all the gossip at the time, my parents didn’t want me to have anything more to do with Alec. I expect he was trying to save me embarrassment.’

There was a pause, then Stout turned to Phillippa, changing his tone. ‘Are you a local woman, Mrs Lord? Had you heard about all this?’

‘Only what Paul’s told me. We met at university.’ When she’d gone off to dress she’d put on make-up. Her lips were glossy, her complexion flawless. She was dressed in a neat little skirt and a sleeveless top. A jacket was hung carefully on the back of a chair.

‘When did you first meet Mr Reeves?’ Stout asked.

She gave a frown, not because the question worried her but because she wanted them to see how irrelevant all this was. It was eating into the important business of her day. ‘He came to our wedding.’

‘Did he?’ Stout raised his eyebrows, a pantomime of surprise.

‘Paul doesn’t have many relatives. His side of the church would have been rather thin.’

‘And Alec is an old friend,’ Lord broke in. ‘He was very good to me.’

‘You’ve kept in touch ever since?’

‘Yes. Phone calls. Christmas cards. If he visits his sister he calls.’

‘Did he talk to you about his work?’

‘A little. Not in detail. He wouldn’t consider that ethical. Confidentiality must be very important in social work.’

‘Quite.’ Stout deliberately set down his mug. ‘You can tell us now, Mr Lord. After all these years. You were under pressure at the time, we all know that. A boy. But now there’s a chance to put things right… Where was Mr Reeves on the afternoon Carl Jackson disappeared?’

‘With me. Just as I said.’

Phillippa looked again at her watch. ‘Look, I’ve got a meeting. I really should go.’

‘A few more minutes, Mrs Lord.’ Stout didn’t even look at her. He continued to hold Lord’s stare. ‘When did you last see Mr Reeves?’ he asked suddenly.

‘I can’t remember the date. He phoned the day after the school reunion. He said he was going to be in the area, he’d like to take us out for a meal. We arranged to meet at The Old Rectory the following evening.’

‘What did he want?’

‘Want? Nothing. Our company perhaps. He’s a kind, elderly man. Occasionally he must get lonely.’

‘Did he talk about Michael Grey?’

‘I think we must have discussed the identity of the body in the lake. It was a matter of interest. Everyone in Cranford was talking about it.’

‘Did you introduce the subject, or did he?’

‘I did. I remember Michael going away in the middle of exams. We all thought he’d gone back to his father.’

‘At the meal at The Old Rectory, did Alec tell you that he knew Michael, that he’d worked with him at Redwood?’

‘No.’

‘Odd that, isn’t it? You were gossiping about the body in the lake. Enjoying the drama even. Nothing wrong with that. But Alec didn’t tell you it was through him that the boy had come to town?’

‘I’ve told you. Alec was scrupulous about confidentiality.’

‘So you did. Did he stay here the night after the meal?’

‘No. We offered to put him up, but he’d made other arrangements.’

‘What were those?’

‘I don’t know. I presumed he’d be staying with his sister.’

‘How did he seem that night?’

For the first time Lord hesitated before answering. ‘He seemed suddenly very old. We wondered if he might be ill. He said not, but it occurred to me that he’d arranged to meet us… almost as a way of saying goodbye.’ He looked up, gave a little smile. ‘Probably just my imagination. All that talk of death.’

There was a pause. Porteous could sense Phillippa’s impatience but still Stout held the stage and she didn’t dare move. When Stout spoke at last he was cheerful, a jolly surrogate uncle who should have been invited to the wedding too.

‘You said you got a good price for Balk Farm. You’ve made a lovely place here, a real family home. Why was the price so low? A payment was it, for backing up Alec’s story all that time ago?’

Lord stood up. At first Porteous thought Stout had succeeded in provoking him into losing control, but he held it together. All the taunting and bullying as a child had held him in good stead.

‘I think you’d better take your sergeant away, Inspector, before he says something else you’ll both regret. You’re welcome to search the house if you don’t believe me about Alec. Phillippa and I will be working in the office. We’ve wasted enough time already.’

The team searched the house but Porteous left them to it. He could tell it would be futile. He had to get Stout back to the police station, find some way to deal with his disappointment. In the car the sergeant sat mute, shaking his head. He didn’t speak until they were in Porteous’s office.

‘I played it all wrong. But I don’t know what else I could have done.’

‘Perhaps he was telling the truth.’

Before Stout could answer the phone rang. Porteous listened, said little, replaced the receiver.

‘You’ll need those sandwiches of Bet’s after all,’ he said. ‘Reeves’s neighbour contacted the Yorkshire lads. She thinks he came home last night.’

Reeves lived in a tidy bungalow at the end of a cul-de-sac of similar houses. Porteous parked at the end of the street and they walked down, but still he was aware that they were being watched. Not from Reeves’s place. The curtains there were still closed. But in the other bungalows neighbours were twitching behind the Venetian blinds and the bleached fancy nets.

‘The old lady next door said it was very late when he got in. One thirty at least. Though according to the local lad who spoke to her she’s as deaf as a post and he didn’t think a car would wake her.’

The car, a red Metro, was parked on the drive, pulled right up to the garage door.

‘She says it must have been late when he got here or he’d have put the car away. He always kept it in the garage. Security conscious. Head of the neighbourhood watch.’

‘A model citizen,’ Stout said sneering.

They knew there was no way out from the back of the bungalow. A thick leylandii hedge separated the garden from a railway embankment. Occasionally high-speed trains roared past, making conversation impossible. Porteous rang the doorbell. They stood back and waited. Nothing happened. He rang the bell again, then tried the door. It opened.

They stepped into a wide hall with a door on either side, and a corridor ahead which led, Porteous presumed, to bedrooms and bathroom. There was a pale grey carpet on the floor, a small table with a telephone.