‘The police think I might be implicated in his murder.’
‘And are you?’ I admired that. She might have been talking to a murderer but she kept her cool. She didn’t shout for her PA. If there was a panic button in the room she didn’t go for it.
‘No. I’d never met him.’
‘I can’t be seen to interfere with a police investigation. Not at this stage. That’s what solicitors are for.’
I didn’t say that in this case a solicitor was the problem.
‘I realize that. That’s not why I’m here.’ Except if I can find out who did kill Thomas it might let me off the hook.
‘Why, then?’
This was the part I had to embroider a bit. I could hardly admit to having opened Shona’s letter to Thomas.
‘Thomas had a girlfriend. She’s young. Seventeen. They’d had a row and she didn’t have time to make up with him, so she’s feeling really wretched. She needs an explanation, you know? Some sort of closure.’ It was American jargon at its worst but Shona seemed to accept it. ‘She asked me to help. I’m a social worker.’ It was true, wasn’t it? Just because I was no longer practising… ‘She said that Thomas had written to you. She’s got it into her head that it could have some sort of bearing.’
For a moment Shona sat very still. ‘Any correspondence between a member of the public and me must be confidential.’
‘Of course.’ I held out my hands. Look, this isn’t me asking. I’m just a go-between.
‘But you would be able to tell the police?’
‘Do the police know that Tom wrote to me?’ The question was sharper than she’d intended.
‘They don’t trust me with that sort of information.’
She smiled again. ‘No, I imagine not. And I imagine your interest is more about getting them off your back than helping Tom’s girlfriend.’
I smiled back, but I was wondering why she didn’t want to go to the police. She hadn’t refused to tell them the details of the correspondence but I sensed her reluctance. Surely she couldn’t be involved in any way with Thomas’s death? I’d never believed in conspiracy theories.
‘Did you know that he’d moved from Absalom House?’ I asked.
‘No. Not until I read the report in the paper.’ She looked up at me. ‘How were you involved with him? Professionally?’
‘He had problems with his mother and stepfather, but, as I said, I never met him.’
‘I only met him once.’ She was speaking slowly. ‘He made a big impression. Part of it was that he was different from most of the lads there. Well spoken, you know. He said his mum was a teacher. I wondered how he could have ended up there. But the others were trying to show off in a loud, lippy sort of way and he was quite cool. For someone so young, he had style. And he seemed to take to me. The power thing probably. People always think MPs have more power than we actually do. It was an informal visit and we had quite a long chat. I was trying to persuade him to go back to college. His GCSEs weren’t bad. With a bit of support he’d have got a university place.’
I had a sudden weird thought. Thomas’s social worker could have placed him with Jess. She could have worked the same magic with him as she had with me. He wouldn’t have had to show off, then. And if he’d been living with us at Sea View, I’d have looked after him. I’d have stopped him being murdered. It was ridiculous but the dream of that parallel universe made me feel more responsible for his death than I had all along.
Shona was continuing. ‘He asked what the law was on whistle-blowing. Who should he go to for protection? That’s what he said. He was very melodramatic, very mysterious. “If there’s something worrying you, tell me now if you like,” I said. But he wouldn’t. “Not here. Not in Absalom House. You don’t know who could be listening.” The melodrama again. “Write to your MP, then,” I said, and I remember writing down the name of the Tyneside MP on a scrap of paper. But he told me he didn’t want to tell a middle-aged man. What could he understand?’
‘So he wrote to you?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He wrote to me. He made allegations, but they were vague, imprecise. Nothing I could really use. I thought perhaps he was attention-seeking after all. Like all those other lads at the hostel. He just had a more sophisticated style.’
‘So you didn’t believe him?’
‘Not all of it, certainly. Perhaps there was some truth hidden away in there. It was hard to tell. I needed proof before I could do anything.’
‘Who was he writing about? Someone at work?’
‘You don’t really expect me to tell you.’ Her tone was light but I could tell she was still thinking about the boy. He’d got to her. ‘It took me a long time to reply,’ she went on. ‘I mean, he got an acknowledgement from my office saying I’d received his letter, but I was actually away on holiday and there was a mountain of stuff to get through before I got round to answering him. And it took me a while to remember him. I meet so many people. He probably never got my letter. It depends when he moved, I suppose. I sent it to the hostel. Perhaps he just thought I couldn’t be bothered.’
‘Will you still have the letter he sent to you?’
‘Sure. It’ll be on file somewhere.’
‘You might want to show it to the police,’ I said. ‘Inspector Farrier in Blyth.’
‘Sure,’ she said again.
But she didn’t write down the name and I wasn’t convinced she’d actually do it.
Chapter Eighteen
Once Harry Pool’s yard had held rail freight but the branch line had closed decades before and the area next to the derelict track had been turned into a small industrial estate. He had the biggest unit, the one nearest to the road. There was a high brick wall with spikes on top, iron gates painted buttercup yellow. The gates were open and I could see a warehouse with office space to one side and a couple of lorries parked up. They were yellow too, with Harry’s Haulage painted in green on both sides.
All that was much as I’d expected. What I’d not expected was the group of people gathered just inside the gates. They weren’t truck drivers and they didn’t look much like potential customers either. There were about a dozen of them, enjoying the sunshine and a chat but just starting to get a bit impatient. From their clothes I’d have put them down as the well-meaning middle classes. They could even have been social workers. Until I saw the microphones, I thought they might be holding some sort of demonstration. Then I realized they were all from the press.
It hadn’t occurred to me that Thomas’s death would still be news, not of sufficient news value anyway to make all these people hang out at his employer’s. Although it was irrational, I thought they might guess who I was. I imagined them chasing me down the street, asking me their questions, waving their microphones in my face. I was about to slip away and come back another time when Harry Pool appeared. A metal staircase led outside the building to a first-floor office. There was a platform at the top with a guard rail around it and he stood there, looking down on us. I recognized him from the photograph I’d seen at Archie Mariner’s. He was a heavy man with the high colour which made me think he’d be a good bet for a heart attack.
The reporters stopped talking about their holiday plans and bitching about their bosses and shuffled to silence. I didn’t have any sense that they were excited. This was routine. I joined the back of the crowd. No one took any notice. Harry leaned against the handrail and started talking. He had a loud voice which carried, despite the background noise of traffic in the street beyond the wall. He spoke clearly and briskly but, like the waiting journos, there was no engagement with his subject. He reminded me of an old-fashioned union leader, just before he was going to sell his membership down the river.