Ann Cleeves - The Sleeping and the Dead

‘Alec Reeves is dead.’

‘What happened?’ The colour had drained from her face but her voice was even.

‘I think he was murdered. It could have been suicide.’

‘No. Alec wouldn’t have killed himself. He’d have seen it as an act of cowardice.’

‘Is there anything you have to tell me?’

She looked directly at him. ‘Nothing.’

‘I need to look at your book again. The book with the children’s names inside.’

She hesitated. Down the track came a red Mondeo. It sounded as though the exhaust had a hole in it. He was aware that he’d been listening to it approaching for some time.

‘My taxi. I’m appearing before a select committee. Not something I can put off.’

‘Please.’

She paused again. ‘All right. But you’ll have to see to yourself. Just shut the door behind you when you leave. It’s a Yale lock.’

She picked up her bags and went out to meet the taxi. He stood, watching her. She turned back before getting into the car.

‘Inspector?’

‘Yes.’

‘There’s some coffee in the kitchen. It should still be hot.’

He smiled and waved his thanks.

He poured himself a mug of lukewarm coffee and took it to the study. He opened the big book with its scribbled signatures, its jokes and its drawings, turning the pages slowly, looking for anything he’d missed the first time round. Anyone else would have given up, but this was the only thing he was good at, this persistence, this love of the detail. When he found nothing the first time, he worked through it all again. And this time he saw it, wondered how he could have been so blind not to have picked it up earlier.

He shut the cottage door carefully and sat in his car to call Eddie and then the office. It was late afternoon. The car window was open and he could hear woodpigeons calling beyond the meadow. The ginger cat was back in its favourite spot on the window-sill. In the office he spoke to Charlie Luke.

‘The pathologist’s report has finally come through,’ Luke said. ‘Melanie Gillespie’s never been pregnant. And we traced that kiddie you were interested in. Emma Leese. It all seems like the Gillespies said. Melanie used to babysit for her. But the baby died. Cot death. No wonder she was upset.’

That was it then, Porteous thought. The final piece of information. The tag line to the joke. The final connection.

The afternoon the police came to talk to Rosie and Joe in the Prom, it was hotter than ever. Rosie thought that was why the conversation seemed so unreal. The heat seemed to shimmer, even inside the building, stopping her from thinking clearly.

When they walked in she was behind the bar. It had been one of those quiet afternoons she spent daydreaming. She’d look at the big clock in its heavy wooden frame and see that an hour had gone by and she knew she must have served half a dozen customers but she couldn’t remember any of them. Then Joe had bounced in, excited somehow despite his grief, shaking her out of her reverie, and soon after that, the policemen. She’d never met them but she guessed at once who they were. Hannah had described them as a double act and Rosie knew what she meant. It was hard to imagine them working apart. But she couldn’t work out why her mother had been so scared of them. They looked like two ordinary, middle-aged men. Out of place in here. They were dressed for the office, not the seaside in a heatwave. Doughy faces covered with a sheen of sweat.

They stood for a moment just inside the door and then the younger man came to the bar. He introduced himself and ordered orange juice. He was pleasant enough, but she couldn’t forget he’d upset her mother and found it hard to be polite. Joe took a beer off him then they sat round one of the tables in the corner, staring at each other, not sure how to start.

‘This isn’t official,’ the inspector said. ‘Nothing formal. We just want to talk about Mel.’

Somehow that started them off, so he didn’t have to ask any questions. It was like a real conversation, friends chatting. Frank wasn’t there – he was minding the bar – but the rest of them did what Porteous wanted. They just talked about Mel.

But right from the beginning Rosie couldn’t recognize who they were going on about. Slow down, she wanted to say. I mean, what is going on here? It was as if the person who’d been her best friend throughout the sixth form had disappeared to be replaced in their collective memories by a total stranger. Joe was worse than any of them. Really she wished he wasn’t there. She felt constrained. While he was going on about how delicate Mel had been, how fragile, she wanted to yell at him: No, she was more than that, stronger than that. You know what she was like. She could be a manipulative cow. Ruthless. She had to get her own way. She wasn’t the victim you’re all making out.

But she couldn’t do it to him. Not yet. Someone would have to put him straight, but it couldn’t be her. She had too much to lose. What if he never forgave her? So she sat quiet while they warbled on, pussyfooting around the subject.

‘What about you, Rosie?’ Porteous said at last, leaning across the table, giving her a seriously deep and meaningful look, as if he expected her to give them the truth. ‘What have you got to tell us about Mel?’

‘Nothing new. Nothing that’s not already been said.’

She could tell he was disappointed. They went on to talk about Mel’s music, how talented she was and how she’d already got a confirmed university place at Edinburgh, the same old gushing stuff.

‘They were so impressed,’ Joe said, ‘that they’d have taken her even if she’d failed all her A levels.’

Then Porteous tried again. He wanted to know if Mel had ever been pregnant. Not now, but at some time in the past. The question was so delicately put together that not even Joe was offended.

‘No,’ Joe said. ‘Of course not. She’d have told me.’

‘Would she?’

Joe didn’t answer that because there were lots of things Mel hadn’t liked to talk about.

Rosie though was certain. ‘It’s not possible. Mel would never get pregnant. She was paranoid about it, wasn’t she, Joe?’

Joe nodded sadly in agreement and Rosie continued.

‘She had to be in control of her body. Completely. That was what the food thing was all about. And if there was some accident, some mistake, she’d get rid of it immediately.’

‘Was there ever any accident?’

‘No,’ Joe said. ‘Not while she was with me.’

‘Are you sure?’ When there was no reply, he added. ‘No matter. The pathologist will be able to tell us.’

Rosie was daydreaming again. She and Mel had talked about children on one of their girlie nights together. She’d slept on the sofa bed in Mel’s room and they’d got through a bottle of wine each when they’d got back from the pub. Mel had got a bit soppy about the kid she used to babysit, but she’d made it clear a family wasn’t part of her future. ‘Your life’s not your own if you’re a mother,’ she’d said, shuddering. Though what could she know?

‘Eleanor seems to manage OK.’

‘That’s different. I’m old enough to look after myself. I don’t bother her any more. She wasn’t so keen when I was little.’ She’d paused. ‘I want to be someone. You can’t concentrate on what you want to do if you’re surrounded by screaming kids.’

And then, lying on top of her bed, propped up on one elbow, Mel had squinted across at Rosie. ‘What about you? I can see you as an earth mother. Married. A cottage in the country. Four or five kids, a goat and some hens scratching about in the garden.’ Rosie had laughed then, but something about the image still appealed.