‘Not that I saw or heard. It was packed in there, but if there’d been any sort of row, I’d probably have noticed. Even when the train stopped and we all had to get out, nobody kicked off.’
‘What do we know about the victim?’ This was Vera’s favourite moment in an investigation. She was nosy, loved digging around in another person’s private life. Perhaps, she was forced to concede, because she had no personal life of her own.
‘Only what we could get from her Metro pensioner’s pass. She was carrying a handbag, but in it there was nothing but a purse, a set of house keys and a hankie.’
‘Money in the purse?’ There were druggies, Vera thought, who’d stab their granny for the price of a fix. But probably not in the Metro in the late afternoon.
‘Fifty quid and a bit of change.’
Not robbed then. ‘So what do we know about her?’
‘Her name’s Margaret Krukowski and she’s seventy years old. An address in Mardle. One, Harbour Street.’ Joe had stumbled over the surname.
‘What’s that? Russian, Polish?’
Joe shook his head. What would he know? ‘She was nearly home,’ he said. ‘Only one more stop on the Metro and she’d have been safe.’ Vera thought he was the most sentimental cop she’d ever known.
‘Did you see where she got on?’
‘Aye, Gosforth.’
One of Newcastle’s posher suburbs. A long way from Mardle in terms of class and aspiration.
Joe guessed what she was thinking. ‘More Gosforth than Mardle, from her appearance,’ he said.
Vera thought about this for a moment and wondered where people would place her in the social order of things, if they saw her. Bag lady? Farmer?
‘We’ll go then, shall we?’ she said. ‘See if anyone’s at home waiting for Margaret Krukowski.’
They sat for a moment in the Land Rover outside the house. The Harbour Guest House. A wooden sign beside the front door, the letters almost obscured by snow.
‘We bring the kids here sometimes, to the Mardle Fisheries,’ Joe said. ‘A treat. It’s supposed to be the best fish and chips in the North-East.’
Vera had her own memories of Mardle. Hector bribing some boatman to take them out to Coquet Island in the middle of the night. Lights still on in the warden’s house at one end of the island. Music and noise, some party going on there. Her terror that they’d be discovered, while Hector was caught up in the chase for roseate terns’ eggs. He’d always loved the risk. She thought he’d been motivated more by the danger than by the obsession that led him to steal and trade in rare birds’ eggs.
‘Well,’ Joe said. ‘Are we going in? I’ve got a home to go to.’
She nodded and climbed out of the vehicle, trying to remember if the guest house had been here when she’d been a kid. She remembered the street as rundown, almost squalid, but that had been more than forty years ago. She rang the bell.
The woman who answered was about the right age to be the victim’s daughter. Late thirties, early forties. Curly black hair and brown eyes, the colour of conkers, a pleasant, almost professional smile. She reminded Vera of a nurse. When Vera introduced herself, she stood aside to let them in. ‘Is there some problem?’
When the police turned up at the door people felt either guilty or scared. Vera couldn’t work out which the reaction was here. She followed the woman to the back of the house, into a warm lounge furnished with heavy furniture that would have seemed out of place in a smaller room, and they sat down on plush, velvet sofas. There was an upright piano against one wall, music on the stand, and against another a sideboard with decanters and bottles of spirits. Vera thought a tot of malt whisky was just what she needed after hanging around on a cold Metro station, but she knew better than to say anything. The curtains had been drawn and the place decorated for Christmas, with holly and sprayed silver pine cones along the mantelpiece and tall red candles on the occasional tables. It looked like a Victorian drawing room.
The lounge was empty, but there was a tea tray on a small table. The presence of the tray seemed to bother their hostess. She kept glancing towards it apologetically. Joe followed them and took a seat by the gas fire.
‘Nice place,’ he said. ‘Cosy.’
The woman smiled and seemed to relax a little.
‘Could you give us your name, please?’ Joe again.
‘Dewar.’ The woman had her back to Vera now. ‘Kate Dewar.’
The door opened and they were interrupted by a large, bald man with a pleasant smile and an easy manner.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘More guests, Kate? More waifs from the storm?’ He turned so that his smile included Vera and Joe. ‘You’re very welcome.’ It could have been his home. ‘Would you like tea? I’m sure there’s plenty in the pot, and Kate will bring more cups.’
‘These aren’t guests, George. These are police officers.’ Was there a warning in the words? Watch what you say.
‘Ah,’ he said. He stopped for a beat and looked round awkwardly. ‘I’ll be in the way then. Don’t want to intrude. I’ll take the tea to my room, shall I?’ Picking up the tray, he walked out without a backward glance. Vera thought she’d have been too curious to do that. She’d have asked if she could help, found some excuse to hang around and find out what was going on.
‘A guest?’ She nodded towards the door.
‘George Enderby, one of my regulars.’
‘And Margaret Krukowski? Is she one of your regulars? Only she’s given this as her address.’
‘Margaret? Is she ill? Is that why you’re here?’
Vera sensed relief in the voice and wondered what else the woman might have to fear from a visit from the police. ‘Margaret does live here then? A relative, is she?’
‘Not a relative. A friend. And an employee, I suppose. She helps out in the house. We run the place together.’ A flashed smile. ‘I couldn’t manage without her.’
Vera leaned forward and kept her voice gentle. ‘Margaret Krukowski’s dead,’ she said. ‘She was stabbed in the Metro on her way home from town this afternoon. I need you to tell me all about her.’
Chapter Four
Vera wondered, as she sat in the hot lounge, if it was still snowing. If it was, she thought she probably wouldn’t get up the steep hill to the house where she’d lived since she was a child, even in the Land Rover. But this would probably be an all-nighter anyway, so there was no point worrying about that.
Kate Dewar was sitting on the edge of one of the heavy sofas, crying. No fuss or noise, but silent tears. Joe Ashworth had provided her with a small packet of tissues. He was like a Boy Scout, Joe. Always prepared.
‘How long have you known Margaret?’ Sometimes Vera thought it was best to start with simple facts. Something for the person to hang on to, to pull their thoughts away from the shock and the grief.
Kate dabbed at her eyes. ‘Ten years,’ she said. ‘The kids were small. My aunt died – she was some sort of distant relative by marriage. I never knew her, and we lived up the coast. But she’d left me this house in her will. It wasn’t a guest house then, but it had been converted into a bunch of bedsits and flats. All tatty. Most empty. Margaret was the only tenant with any sort of lease.’ She paused for breath. ‘I was bored. It wasn’t the best time of my life. My husband worked away a lot. Ryan was already at school, Chloe at playgroup. I thought it would be a project, that Mardle was on its way up and that soon the tourists would arrive. Got that one wrong, didn’t I?’
She shrugged wryly.
‘At first I thought having Margaret here would be a problem – that she’d, sort of, get in the way.’ Kate stopped again and gave a wide and lovely smile. ‘But that couldn’t have been further from the truth. She was wonderful, and it would have been a nightmare without her. She was like a mother and a best friend all rolled into one. We negotiated a deal. She’d keep her little flat in the attic, rent-free, and help out in the house. And I’d pay her when I could. She’s been on a proper salary since the first guests arrived.’