‘That house in Harbour Street had become a second home for both of us. There was something very appealing about the company there. Kate and her children. Margaret Krukowski, so gracious and welcoming. The regular guests. It won’t be the same now of course, but then I fancy it would have changed anyway. Kate has found other interests: Stuart, who seems to have made her very happy, and a renewed enthusiasm for her music. From my own point of view I was rather glad that they were all moving on. It made my decision to retire much easier. Less to miss.’
‘Was Margaret moving on?’ She was dying, Joe thought. But that’s moving too.
‘You know, I think there was a change in her,’ the professor said. ‘She seemed distracted on my last visit. Somehow disengaged.’
‘Could you go through your movements again, for the afternoon that Margaret was killed?’ Joe couldn’t imagine this man as a murderer, but Vera had found discrepancies in his evidence and she’d slaughter him if he didn’t check. ‘You were out in the boat with Malcolm Kerr?’
‘That’s right. Part of my regular fieldwork off Coquet Island.’
‘And what time did you get back to Mardle?’
‘I told that young woman who came to the laboratory to talk to me.’ There was no resentment in his voice, but a kind of resignation. ‘It was about three o’clock.’
‘And what did you do then?’ This was the important question. Craggs had told Holly that he’d driven straight home, but Enderby claimed that they’d met up in Harbour Street later in the day.
‘I went to the Dove Laboratory in Cullercoats. I had equipment to drop off there.’
‘And then?’ Joe leaned forward across the table.
‘Then I went back to Mardle. It was a nuisance. It was snowing heavily and I wanted to get home. But I’d left my briefcase in Malcolm’s yard – one of those senior moments that seem to happen more frequently these days – and I had an important phone call to make the following morning. I knew I’d need the papers. I have a key to the yard and to Malcolm’s shed, so I didn’t need to disturb him. And in Harbour Street I bumped into George. He seemed so miserable that I couldn’t leave him there alone. We had one drink in the pub. I thought if the snow was really bad I could always stay the night at Kate’s. In the end it seemed to have cleared a bit, so I drove home.’
The words came easily. Too easily? Joe wondered if they might have been rehearsed. ‘And you invited Mr Enderby to spend a night here with you?’
‘Not that night, but two days later, yes. He’d got himself into a state. He’s obviously told you that his wife has left him. He’d run away to Harbour Street, still pretending that he was working. Because he couldn’t face telling Kate what had happened, I invited him here on the day that he claimed to be in Scotland.’
Mary arrived with coffee and melted discreetly away.
‘How did he seem when he was here?’ Joe asked.
‘Distraught. He drank too much of my whisky and became incoherent. We knew that Margaret was dead by then, of course. Her death seemed to have upset him almost more than his wife’s leaving him. We spent a lot of time talking about her.’ The professor drank coffee, leaning back in his chair.
Joe thought he was reliving that evening in his head. ‘And what exactly did you say about her?’
‘That she was a wonderful woman. We couldn’t understand why her husband had left her all those years ago. And that there was something mysterious about her.’ Craggs smiled. ‘George is a romantic, I’m afraid. Perhaps he reads too many novels.’
‘Did you ever meet Margaret’s husband? If you’ve been working with Malcolm Kerr for such a long time, you might have come across him.’ Joe was struggling to work out the timeline for this. When he got back to the office he’d make a chart with dates.
‘No. I never stayed in Mardle in those days. There was no guest house, and Harbour Street was rather disreputable. Most nights there seemed to be fights spilling out of the Coble. I travelled out from Newcastle when I needed to go out to the island.’ He paused. ‘Of course the Metro wasn’t opened until 1980, so I used to drive before then. I had a wreck of a minivan that was always breaking down.’ He smiled at the memory. ‘Good times.’
‘Did you know Margaret Krukowski before the house in Harbour Street became a guest house?’ Joe thought the area must have been a small and tight community thirty years ago. There’d be the people living in the bedsits and those working at the fisheries. Even before the Metro came, it would have been cut off from the rest of Mardle by the disused railway track. He wished he had a better picture of the town in those days.
‘Oh yes. For a short while she worked as a bookkeeper and receptionist for Billy Kerr, Malcolm’s father. Then he decided that he didn’t need her. I suppose money was tight. Later we’d see her occasionally in the Coble or walking down the street.’ Professor Craggs smiled. ‘Always dignified. Always immaculately turned out. Kate Dewar didn’t take over the place until about ten years ago, and I’ve been making regular visits for my research since I was a post-doctoral student. But I’m pretty sure Margaret’s husband had left even before that. I always knew her as a single woman.’
Joe had a sudden idea. ‘Do you have any photos? I’m interested in what Harbour Street looked like then.’
‘Probably. If you think it’s important.’ He seemed surprised and a little sceptical. Had the detectives come all this way just to look at some snaps? ‘I had the camera to record specimens on the island, but I know I took photos of some of the characters in the street too.’ He got to his feet and rifled through the drawers of an elderly dresser. Joe was about to tell him not to bother, that it wasn’t important, when the professor pulled out an album almost falling apart at the seams. He put it on the table and Joe stood up to get a better look. Charlie stayed where he was.
And there, suddenly, was Harbour Street, familiar but subtly changed, the images slightly faded. A young Malcolm Kerr standing by the harbour wall with an older man and in the background the fisheries building, sparkling and new in bright sunlight. The older man grinning and the younger glaring. On the opposite page a woman was pushing a big, old-fashioned pram down the road past the church. She had a cigarette in one hand and controlled the pram with the other.
‘Why did I take that?’ Craggs frowned. ‘After all this time, I really can’t remember.’
He turned the page of the album and there was a group of people posing outside the Coble. Summer. The women in sleeveless dresses and sandals, the men squinting into the sunshine. In the middle Billy Kerr, with a big drunken grin, next to a large woman in a shapeless floral dress.
‘I remember that day,’ Craggs said. ‘Billy’s fiftieth birthday.’ He pointed to the fat woman. ‘That’s Val Butt. She was the landlady. And that’s her son, Ricky. Local wheeler and dealer. Always seemed to have cash, and none of us knew where it had come from. Flashy. He moved on very quickly. I’d guess that Mardle was too tame for him.’
Joe looked at the image of Ricky Butt, a dark-haired young man, dressed in denim, but his attention was immediately drawn to the woman who stood in front of him. Margaret Krukowski. No longer the young woman of the wedding photograph, here aged in her thirties, but still lovely. On her face a smile that was tense and unnatural, as if she hated having her picture taken.
Craggs turned the page again and this time it was a long shot up Harbour Street, with the big house at the end. Even from that distance it looked as if it was falling into disrepair. And on the same page, Kerr’s boatyard. In place of the corrugated-iron shed there was a Portakabin, rather smart, a sign on the door saying Kerr’s Charters. Joe supposed this was the office where Margaret had answered the phone and booked in customers, before she became too expensive.