‘In Mardle? Oh yes. I was living in Harbour Street, in a ground-floor flat. Margaret was in the attic. I had a baby, you know, but they took her away. I wonder sometimes where she might be now. She’d be quite grown-up. But it was all for the best. Yes, I’m sure that it was all for the best.’
‘Do you know what Margaret did for a living?’
There was no response. Holly wasn’t sure that the woman had heard the question and she repeated it.
But still Susan didn’t answer. Instead she started humming. At first Holly couldn’t make out the tune and then she recognized it. She’d had a boyfriend once who was into Nineties music. ‘White Moon Summer’ by Katie Guthrie.
When the two of them arrived at the house, Emily was back hovering by the front door waiting for the social worker. Laurie had disappeared and Susan shuffled off too, still humming, to a room at the end of the corridor. There was the sound, very loud, of a television game show. Holly found Jane in the kitchen making tea.
‘Did you get what you wanted?’ The woman turned round. She’d been slicing cake and still had the knife in her hand.
‘I’m not sure.’ And what business is it of yours, lady? Perhaps it was the resemblance to the schoolteacher, but Holly found herself distrusting this woman. Disliking her at least. ‘Tell me about Susan.’
‘Ah, poor Susan. She has a history of depression and psychotic episodes. In and out of mental hospital. They tried everything from talking therapies to ECT, but I’m not sure there’s ever been a reliable diagnosis. She seems quite stable at the moment.’
‘Has she been here for a long time?’ Holly sat down at the table, took out her iPad and discreetly started to make notes. She tapped out what she could remember of her conversation with the women on the walk. Vera liked these things word-for-word.
‘More than two years. We’re supposed to provide temporary accommodation in an emergency, and honestly she should be moving on, but it suits her here and I’m not sure that I’ve got the heart to ask her to leave.’ Jane poured two mugs of tea. ‘Where would she go?’
‘She said she used to live on Harbour Street in Mardle.’
‘Did she? I’m sure she has no family close by. Social services would have checked.’ Jane joined Holly at the table.
‘She told me that she knew Margaret Krukowski years ago.’
‘Really, you shouldn’t take too much notice of what Susan tells you.’ It was Jane in schoolmistress mode again, patronizing. ‘She gets confused, hears things that people say and repeats them, or turns them into a narrative about herself. She’d make a very unreliable witness.’ The words sounded almost like a warning.
Then there was a commotion at the door. It seemed that the social worker had arrived early for Emily after all. The girl rushed into the kitchen with her holdall to say goodbye and Jane went out to the car to see her off.
‘I hope it works out for her,’ Holly said, when Jane returned.
‘Aye, well, I’ll not hold my breath. Last time her mother could only cope with her for one night and was outside social services with her in the morning, waiting for the office to open. She has problems of her own. A new partner with money, but no time for Emily. This time social services will have closed for Christmas, and I expect I’ll have to pick up the pieces.’ Jane must have realized that she sounded hard. ‘Sorry. Compassion-fatigue. I’m just tired.’
Holly thought that she felt tired too – and she’d only spent an afternoon in the place.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Professor Craggs lived in a low stone cottage in a village not far from Hexham and the Roman Wall. All the way there Joe Ashworth was thinking that this was a waste of time. A phone call would have done. But Vera was a great one for face-to-face contact. ‘It’s much easier to lie on the phone,’ she’d said before he set off. ‘And Craggs has known all the players for a long time. Get his take on the set-up at Harbour Street, and dig a bit further for information on Kerr and Enderby. I know Holly spoke to him, but she’s impatient; she doesn’t always give people time to get the words out.’
In the end he enjoyed the drive. Charlie fell asleep as soon as they left Kimmerston, and Joe felt he had every right to play his own music. There was a CD of Jessie’s choir and he had that on as they approached Craggs’s house. He’d chosen the Military Road, built by the Romans. It was straight as the eye could see, following Hadrian’s Wall, and there was little traffic. The soaring children’s voices suited the wide, empty landscape and were only partly spoiled by Charlie snoring beside him. Joe shook Charlie awake as they drove down the narrow road towards the house, a low cottage that could have done with a fresh coat of whitewash. The professor was in the garden, raking dead leaves from an untidy lawn. He heard the gate and turned round, leaning on the rake, faintly hostile. Joe saw that the man had decided they were salesmen or Jehovah’s Witnesses, and he got in first.
‘DS Ashworth. Northumbria Police. And this is my colleague Charles Laidler.’
Craggs was big and square, with cropped grey hair. He hadn’t shaved today and had holes in his trousers and his sweater. A grey mackintosh was tied at the waist with a bit of binder twine. Stick him on Northumberland Street in town, with a ratty dog, and you’d have him down as a well-fed tramp. Joe thought clothes were important, and he wouldn’t have dressed like that even in the garden. The professor and Vera were two of a kind. Maybe she should have driven all this way to do the interview herself.
‘How can I help you, Sergeant?’ Craggs set down the rake.
‘It’s about the murders of Dee Robson and Margaret Krukowski.’
‘I saw on the television that there’d been another killing. A dreadful business. You’d better come inside. I was going to stop soon anyway. Mary was going to make some coffee. Though I’m not sure if I can provide any useful information.’
The professor left his boots in a rackety porch tacked onto the back of the house. It held seed trays on the windowsill, a couple of fishing nets and a child’s bucket and spade. Joe followed him into a long, thin kitchen and on to a living room. There was a table close to a French window, covered with a patterned oilskin cloth and a pile of newspapers. Light came in through the window and fell onto the woman sitting there, but the rest of the room was in shadow. Joe had an impression of paper – books, files, notebooks – on shelves and chairs and on the floor, and of dust. The woman looked up and smiled.
‘My wife, Mary,’ Craggs said. It was a simple introduction, but Joe could tell that he adored her. She was small and her hair was held back from her face with a comb. ‘These men are detectives, my dear, and they want to talk about those dreadful murders in Mardle.’
‘I’ll make coffee then.’ She got to her feet and Joe saw that she wore faded denim jeans and sandals, an Indian cotton tunic in bright colours. She still dressed as she probably had as a student.
Underneath the table there was a box of apples, individually wrapped in newspaper. The room smelled of them.
‘You were lucky to find me in, Sergeant. We’re quite often on childcare duties in the school holidays.’ It was a gentle reproof, a reminder that the detectives had turned up without warning.
‘We need to talk to you about George Enderby.’ The view from the window was from the side of the house. A small orchard and, beyond it, a high wall of old red brick covered in ivy.
‘Ah, poor George. I’m afraid he’s got himself into a bit of a state. When I told Mary, she said it was his own fault and that it seemed as if he’d treated his wife appallingly for years, but I can’t help feeling sorry for him.’
‘You’ve known him for a long time?’ In the distance Joe heard a kettle boiling, cups set on saucers. In a corner Charlie was taking notes.