‘And? Do you think it is a sympathetic operation? Do you think people travel there to die in peace and tranquillity at a time and in a manner of their own choosing?’
She realised that she had no clear idea, only knew what she had picked up on odd television programmes and in a newspaper feature.
‘I – I don’t know.’
‘But you ought to know, don’t you agree? You’ll be a fully qualified doctor shortly. You may have patients who want to discuss the subject with you. Who may want to take themselves there? What would you say?’
Molly glanced quickly round.
‘Do you want to go back? You seem anxious.’
‘No.’
‘Good. Then tell me what you think. Come and sit down here.’ He gestured to the bed and the chair beside it.’
‘I should get back. They need me to help with things.’
‘It’s your lunch break. There’s nothing to help with, they’ll all be asleep. What is this room for, Molly?’
‘I … for a patient who has to be kept away from the others?’
Fison smiled. ‘Like the old isolation wards you mean? History of Medicine, Part 3. Come, you know, don’t you? You know what I am setting up. You know because you were listening outside my door earlier.’
‘No, I …’
‘I have a mirror in front of my desk. I could see you.’ He had folded his arms and was standing in front of the white-sheeted bed, his eyes never leaving her face.
Anything might have happened. Or nothing. He might have taken hold of her, or not, attacked her, or not, blocked her exit, or not, gone on talking, asking her questions, or stayed silent, arms folded, and looking, looking at her. She did not think, or hesitate, or give herself a chance to find out, she turned and ran, out through the door, and out, down the narrow path, between the trees, over the grass, round the corner to the back of the main house. She was fit. Her heart pounded so much that it burned inside her chest but not with the strain of running. With panic. With fear.
At the corner, she glanced over her shoulder, expecting to find Fison on her heels, just emerging from the trees. But the way behind was deserted. No one else was about. Molly stopped, in the safety of the side door and looked back again. But he had not followed her. There was no sound of footsteps.
She was on her own. She bent forward and vomited onto the gravel.
Forty-five
SIMON CALLED IN at the Cypriot deli on his way out, picked up a good espresso. He checked his phone but there were no messages.
‘Beautiful morning,’ John Lowther had said, long ago. And now, at last, Simon noticed it. The air was warm, there was no cloud, the trees were a thick new green. They had mown the banks on the bypass. Simon opened the car roof and smelled the fresh sap.
His phoned beeped a text but he was cutting fast up the outside lane, then turning off and looping back down a couple of side roads and a long avenue towards Rachel’s house. It was several minutes before he could check.
‘Best if we don’t meet again. Unfair to K. Unfair to you. Please don’t try to see me. Don’t reply. But with love, R.’
He clutched the small ordinary phone as if it were a lifebuoy and he seconds from drowning. He was about a hundred yards away from her.
When it rang the phone seared his palm.
‘Serrailler.’
‘Guv. Remember a Deena from Warsaw? Deena Wanowska. Well, she phoned. Name before she married was Deena Dokic. Sister of Agneta Dokic …’
Simon’s tyres scorched the drive so that the housekeeper was at the door before he had reached it.
‘You’ve found someone,’ she said. ‘You’ve come to tell him you’ve found someone.’
‘Mrs Mangan –’
‘And now Sir John isn’t here, he’s on a plane, he’s flying to America. He’s only just left. This would happen when he wasn’t here.’
Yes, he thought furiously, oh yes, he would be flying to America.
‘Can we go inside for a moment?’
‘I do apologise, yes of course, Sir John would want me to ask you in, I know that. Can I get you a cup of tea, Inspector?’
‘Tea would be wonderful.’ He needed the housekeeper on his side. ‘And maybe a biscuit?’
‘I can do better than a biscuit. Would you mind coming into the kitchen?’
‘I’d prefer it. Kitchens are always more friendly, aren’t they?’
He waited until a pot of tea, a fruit cake and a plateful of shortbread were in front of him before he asked her.
‘Have you been with Sir John many years, Mrs Mangan? It feels as if you have.’
‘Why is that, Inspector?’ She sliced a thick wedge of the fruit cake, poured the tea.
‘I just got a sense that you’d belonged with the family for a while. I’m right, aren’t I?’
‘Twenty-four years.’ She stood back, pride and satisfaction on her face.
‘So you were here …’
‘I was. I was here when she went missing. Yes. I came when Harriet was a little girl of eight. She and I spent a lot of time together, one way and another, with her father working, and going away a lot. Mrs Lowther – well, she was Mrs then, before he got to be Sir John – she went with him on a lot of his business trips, especially abroad, so Harriet stayed with me. We were very happy together, we used to play all sorts of board games, we used to cook, I taught her to knit, I taught her to crochet … I was married for twenty years until my husband passed on, but we had none of our own, and Harriet was like mine, felt like mine. They trusted me with her. They were my family to me. Still are. Well, Sir John is. This isn’t where I work, this is my home, Inspector. So yes, I was here.’
Serrailler set down his cup and nodded as she lifted the pot to refill it.
‘And I used to say I’d give anything or do anything to get her back safe and sound and then, when you found her poor little body, even though we didn’t know exactly what had happened, but it was obvious it was something terrible, then I said what I keep saying, and I’ll say to you, that I’d give anything and do anything to find out who harmed her, and if I could put him to rot in hell myself, put him there with my own hands, I would. There now, I’ve said it.’
She turned away so that he could not see the expression on her face. But he could picture it.
‘Mrs Mangan, I need to find something urgently. Sir John said he had cleared out most of Harriet’s things, after her mother died.’
‘That’s true, and I couldn’t blame him, you know. Lady L had wanted everything kept, she believed Harriet would come back and just walk into her room again and expect to find everything, just as she’d last left it. She wouldn’t have anything moved or changed round or touched, but I knew he found it hard, I knew he wouldn’t leave it. When she died, he started clearing out her things, all the old Christmas and birthday cards she’d painted and made when she was little, you know how children do, all the models and the drawings, and then all her stories and schoolwork, her reports and certificates and so on. He burned all of those. He gave her books and clothes away but he burned the personal things. “No one wants these, Mrs Mangan, and I don’t want them to go to anyone. These are for the bonfire.”’
‘Did everything go? Absolutely everything?’
‘I think it did. He kept her clarinet and some little bits of jewellery she’d had – christening presents, he kept those, a little silver bracelet she had for being a bridesmaid. Bits and pieces.’
‘Nothing from school at all? Magazines or things about the school? Her school reports?’
‘No. All that went. And of course the school closed down anyway, it closed a few years ago.’
‘Where would the things he did keep be?’
‘In a drawer of the dressing table in her room. That’s the only place. Did you want to look? I’m sure it would be in order for me to show you, Sir John would want me to. I don’t know that you’d find it of any use though.’
‘No,’ Simon said, getting up, ‘I don’t either but I need to try.’
r /> ‘What is it you’re looking for exactly?’
‘Names,’ he said. ‘Names, addresses, phone numbers, pencilled notes about teachers, friends. A diary maybe.’
Mrs Mangan led the way up the wide flight of stairs. ‘You won’t find anything like that. She never kept much of a diary and anything on paper went on the bonfire in any case. There were postcards and letters from school friends, the sort of things young girls keep, birthday cards and so on, but they all went. This was her room.’
He had been into enough of them, the rooms of the dead, the rooms kept like shrines and the rooms stripped of every trace of them. This was almost but not quite the latter. The window looked out to the side garden. The bed was unmade but had a plain blue coverlet. No pillows. There was a desk. A chair. A dressing table. A set of empty bookshelves, and a display shelf on the wall, also empty. He lifted the lid of the desk. Nothing was inside. A picture of a pony in a field was on the wall. A photograph on the dressing table, of the Lowther parents somewhere on holiday, wearing sunglasses.
‘Nothing left,’ Mrs Mangan said. ‘But it’s still her room to me. Or it was. Funny – once you found her, it started to slip, that feeling. That sense of her. Funny.’
‘You said her clarinet was still here?’
‘Yes. That’s down in the sitting room in its case. I can show you.’
‘Please.’ Though he was unlikely to get anything from a clarinet in a case.
There was a piano, the lid propped open. A long stool. A music stand which was empty. Shelves of books. An armchair. A clarinet in its black case was on top of the piano.
‘No point in it being here, is there? I don’t know anything about them but surely someone could get a use from it?’
Simon opened the case. He knew nothing about them either. The clarinet looked new. Well cared for. He lifted its pieces out carefully. Turned each one over in his hand. Inside the case was Harriet’s name and telephone number and the name of her school, on a metal tape printout glued to the lid. Nothing else. He put it back.
‘Did anyone else play the piano? Lady Lowther?’
‘She had as a girl apparently. This was the piano she had from her own home, I was told. She always said it was a nice instrument but I don’t know any more about them than about the clarinet. She didn’t play at all by the time I came. Just Harriet. She loved her piano. Loved it. She was always in here, tinkling away. Sounded so lovely.’
‘Did you know her music teachers at all?’
‘Oh no, they were at the school, same as all her other teachers. She just did her playing practice at home on her own.’
‘Did Sir John give away all her music as well?’
‘There’s some left in the stool compartment but he gave most of it to the charity shop, like all Harriet’s books.’
He lifted the lid of the upholstered piano stool as far as it would go. It had a double compartment with music in each. LRAM Examinations Grade 5 Piano. LRAM Examinations Grade 6 Piano Chopin Waltzes. J.S. Bach: The Little Book of Anna Magdalena. J.S. Bach: Preludes Book 3. John Rutter: Christmas Music arranged for Piano. Christmas Carols arranged for Piano.
He flipped through the piles. Harriet Lowther. Harriet Lowther. H.P.E. Lowther. Harriet P.E. Lowther. Harriet Lowther. All the music was named in pencil on the top right-hand corner. Schubert: Eight Pieces. Harriet Lowther. Then: ‘Wednesday 9th, 3.30’. Harriet Lowther. H. Lowther. Jenny R. and Katie. Sat. Harriet Lowther. Miss W’s copy. H. Lowther. Harriet Lowther. Different handwriting and red pen not pencil. L.W. 486990. Harriet L … Harriet Lowther …
He flipped back. Quickly. Handel: 2 Concerti Grossi arr. for Piano.
‘Mrs Mangan, may I borrow this?’
‘One of the old music books? How can that be any use? Is it for fingerprints? Even after all this time? You’d only find Harriet’s, and maybe Eileen’s, she was a cleaner we had … she might have moved stuff when she was doing the piano.’
Simon wrote quickly on the back of one of his cards, stating what he had taken and signing it.
‘I’ll confirm it with a full receipt. Keep this for now.’
He went out fast, Mrs Mangan behind him, puzzled. Alert to everything. At the door he said, ‘Thank you for your help. You’ve been wonderful. And for that delicious cake.’
‘Should I let Sir John know you’ve been? If he rings me later. He usually does to let me know he’s arrived safely. He’s a very considerate man.’
‘Just tell him I’ll be in touch, would you?’
‘Shall I say when?’
Simon shook his head as he started the car.
He stopped again beside the village green. Took out his phone.
The music was beside him on the seat. He drew a deep breath. Knowing. Sure. So near. Surely, so near.
486990.
‘The number you are calling has not been recognised.’
He dialled again slowly. The same.
Bugger. Number changed then.
No. He had dialled the Lafferton code. But it would be on the Bevham exchange.
Again, with the different prefix.
It rang for a long time, but no machine cut in. He was about to give up when a woman answered.
‘Hello?’
He disconnected quickly. Dialled again. He had to be sure.
This time, it rang only twice. ‘Who is this? Please have the politeness to give your name.’
He disconnected without speaking, then rang the station. Gave the name and address. ‘Get me details of all vehicles registered to this owner going back to 1990? And it’s urgent.’
When he hit the bypass he took the Audi up to eighty-five in the outside lane.
Forty-six
THE MESSAGE CAME through as Simon pulled up in the lane. He wrote it down.
‘Just what I wanted to hear. Thanks very much.’
He punched the air.
The van was still there, in exactly the same spot. The hens still scratted in their patch of grass among the groundsel. The sun had come out again. It was warm. And very quiet, except for the soothing sounds of clucking and pecking.
How was she going to react? Calmly, one way or another, whatever she chose to tell him; he was sure she would not show anger or panic.
The kitchen door was open, and as he approached, she came out, carrying a couple of wet towels in a plastic bowl, and, calm or not, she jumped as she saw him. The bowl fell.
‘Let me.’
Lenny said nothing as he picked it up and set it on the table behind him. She watched.
‘This number isn’t in the phone book,’ she said.
‘I need to talk to you again, Miss Wilcox.’
‘I told you everything about her.’
‘About who?’
‘I told you. She stole from me, from the other people, she was caught, and she did a bunk. Nothing else to say.’
‘We could sit out here and talk? In the sun.’
‘I don’t want to sit in the sun, I’ve got plenty to do and I’ve told you everything there is to tell you about her. Agneta. I don’t know why you’re here again.’
‘It isn’t Agneta I want to ask you about. Not just for the moment.’
A flicker across her face. Her eyes wary. But then gone.
‘Oh?’
Simon sat down on the metal bench and indicated the basket chair to her. In the end, she sat, but forward, as if wanting to be ready to get up again any second.
‘You teach music, Miss Wilcox?’
‘No.’
‘You did.’
‘Once.’
‘When did you give up? Retire?’
‘Years ago. I went on too long as it was.’
‘How many years ago?’
‘Six? Seven? What’s this to do with anything?’
‘Did you teach Harriet Lowther?’
He looked at her intently as he asked. Her expression did not alter.
‘I taught lots of girls. Hundreds of girls probably.’
‘Yes. Including
Harriet Lowther.’
Silence. She stared in front of her, her body rigid in the chair.
‘I’m sure you know that Harriet was missing for sixteen years until her skeleton was found after the storm had shifted the earth in which she’d been buried. And that we found what we now know is the body of Agneta Dokic in the same area, in a shallow grave.’
Silence.
‘You gave Harriet private music lessons, didn’t you?’
Silence.
‘You taught her at school, of course.’
Silence.
‘Was she very talented? Is that why you felt she should have extra piano lessons? Out of school hours?’
‘What makes you think I know anything about this girl?’
‘She was having private piano lessons.’
‘Well, there are plenty of others. I’m not the only local teacher. It could have been half a dozen.’
‘No.’
‘Of course it could.’
‘You taught her the piano at school.’
‘Doesn’t mean I taught her outside it.’
‘So you did teach her at school?’
She flicked her eyes to him and away. ‘For goodness’ sake, man, I taught dozens of girls. I was at that school for fourteen years.’
‘Which school?’
‘Freshfield.’
‘Which Harriet attended and where you taught her the piano.’
‘I’ve said. I could have done. It’s a long time ago. How am I supposed to remember?’
‘Not remember the girl who disappeared while waiting at a bus stop sixteen years ago? The girl there was a huge national appeal about, a massive local search for – face in every paper, on posters, on television?’
‘We don’t have a television.’
He waited. The hens clucked and scratched. She had her hands on the table now. They were not the hands of a woman who gardened and cleaned out hen houses and did domestic chores, they were not the hands of a woman of her age, they were hands with long, well-shaped, well-flexed fingers, carefully rounded short nails. Clean.
‘Tell me about her,’ Simon asked, putting his left leg over his right knee and clasping it. Eyes no longer on her face. ‘It must be quite rare for a piano teacher to have a gifted pupil. A teacher of anything, actually. Most of them must grind away, hating every minute of it, never practising. I know my sister did. Her teacher asked her to give it up, she was so hopeless. So I can guess it must be a joy to find a pupil like Harriet. You’d offer her extra lessons like a shot.’