On impulse she walked back to the Harbour Guest House. She saw that George Enderby was eating breakfast in the dining room, at his usual table in the window. She’d forgotten that he’d told her he was staying an extra night. He glanced out and saw her and looked suddenly anxious. I have that effect on people wherever I go. She waved to him and smiled, then climbed the steps and knocked on the door. Kate Dewar answered. It seemed that she was in the middle of a conversation and something had made her laugh. She was still smiling when she saw Vera.
‘Inspector?’ A little wary, but not worried. Vera hadn’t seen her so happy. Then she noticed Stuart Booth standing in the shadow just behind Kate. The woman had been talking to him when Vera had arrived. Vera guessed that Booth hadn’t told her about his earlier relationship with Margaret Krukowski. Sensible. Vera had always thought honesty was an overrated virtue. Except during a police investigation.
‘Is your son in, Mrs Dewar?’
Now Kate was suddenly worried. ‘Why do you want Ryan? What’s he done?’
‘Nothing!’ Vera smiled in what she hoped was a reassuring way. ‘I’m looking for Malcolm Kerr, who seems to have gone AWOL, and I thought Ryan might have some idea where he might be.’
‘The kids are both downstairs having breakfast. We’ve just finished.’
‘Is it okay if I go down? You come along too.’
The kitchen was the warmest room in the house and, after being outside, it felt like walking into a greenhouse. Chloe and Ryan were at the table. It was laid for four, all very proper, milk in a jug and marmalade in a bowl. Perhaps it was running a guest house for all those years that meant Kate couldn’t cope with cartons of juice, butter still in its wrapper. Or perhaps she was still trying to impress her lover. Vera was surprised that the kids were up at all. Teenagers in the school holidays – shouldn’t they still be in bed at lunchtime? Or perhaps Ryan was planning to work for Malcolm again today.
‘The inspector has some questions for you.’ Kate’s voice was a warning.
Ryan was reading a music magazine and had toast in his hand. He looked up. ‘What is it?’
‘Malcolm Kerr.’ Vera sat down. The toast smelled wonderful and she was suddenly a child in Hector’s house again. Toast was one of the few things he could cook well. ‘I’ve been to his house and to the yard, but I can’t find him. Any idea where he might be?’
‘Sorry.’
‘Had you arranged to work for him today?’ She couldn’t keep her mind off toast, dripping with butter, and the sharp fruitiness of marmalade, spread very thick.
‘Yeah, but not until a bit later.’
‘Have you any idea where he might be?’ This time she directed the question towards the girl too. She was sitting with her elbows on the table. Vera thought how young she looked, but too serious for a girl of that age. Troubled. Someone else burdened with secrets. A looker. When she was older you might mistake her for that photo of Margaret Krukowski on her wedding day.
The boy shrugged again and his glance slid back to the magazine. Hector would have slapped him for that. Show a bit of respect, boy.
Kate Dewar said sharply, ‘Answer the inspector, Ryan.’ She looked at Vera and rolled her eyes as if to say: Kids these days. What would you do with them?
‘I don’t know where Malcolm is. Really.’ He looked at her with a wide-eyed innocence. Vera thought he could be hiding something, protecting his occasional employer. Boys this age, she could never tell what they were thinking.
‘Malcolm might be on the beach,’ Chloe said.
It was the first time she’d spoken. She rolled her napkin in her fingers, so that it looked like a fat Christmas cracker.
Bloody Christmas. This time of year you can’t escape it. Even in your head.
They all stared at Chloe and she went on defensively. ‘I’ve seen him there before. Just walking.’
‘Which beach?’ Vera kept her tone chatty.
‘North Mardle,’ Chloe replied as if the answer was obvious. ‘He parks by the dunes and then he walks.’
‘Ryan?’ Vera’s voice was sharper now. So why didn’t you tell me? Why leave it to your sister?
‘He goes beachcombing,’ Ryan said. ‘Sometimes you get wood washed ashore from the Norwegian cargo boats. Long planks that he can use in the yard. He goes early to find the good stuff.’
Vera looked at them both and nodded. Something was going on in this family, a tension between brother and sister, and she didn’t understand it. She had no siblings. As far as she knew. So no experience of the way they worked out their differences. She thought it could just be rivalry, both of them wanting their mother’s attention and approval. But at their age, shouldn’t they be over that? Then she thought of Joe and Holly and decided that some people never grew out of it. She smiled briefly at the idea that her team were like a big, dysfunctional family.
She turned to Ryan. ‘Have you got a key to the yard?’ There was a possibility that Kerr had been there all night, holed up drinking in his bothy. Best try that before a wild goose chase to the beach.
He nodded and pulled a key from his pocket. ‘Do you want me to come with you?’ Suddenly he seemed eager to get out of the house. To be walking again? Soaking up secrets?
‘Nah, you’re all right.’ She took the key from him and walked up the stairs to the hall. Stuart Booth was still there, standing awkwardly, not a paying guest, but not part of the family, either. She walked past him without a word.
In the street it was quite light now. She unlocked the padlock and let herself into the yard, the metal sticking to her glove because it was still icy. All the time she was thinking about the family in Number One, Harbour Street. Perhaps they were all still mourning Margaret and the awkwardness she’d imagined was no more sinister than that.
Kerr’s shed was empty and she left quickly, locking the yard behind her. She headed for her vehicle and for the beach. His elderly car was parked in the sandy space behind the dunes and she left the Land Rover next to it. Nobody else was about. She climbed the sand hills, pulling on the marram grass in places to help her up. There were patches of frost in the hollows. More memories of Hector. This time of a trip away, a beach in North Wales with breeding little terns. They’d stayed in a dreadful B&B. Slimy nylon sheets, shelves covered with glass ornaments: cats and rabbits and a row of blue owls with bulging eyes. Hector had flirted with the landlady in the hope of a discount. Then they’d climbed the dunes, Hector with an egg box in each pocket of his long Barbour coat. They’d peered over the top of the dune to find a warden sitting just below them. A young man, frozen because he’d been there most of the night, huddled in a cheap anorak. Hector had pulled her down beside him. ‘We’ll wait. He’ll have been drinking coffee all night to keep warm and awake. He’ll soon need a piss.’ The words whispered, his face so close to hers that she’d felt his prickly chin on her cheek.
And at last the warden had stood up. By now there were dog walkers at the far end of the beach and he’d jogged past Hector and Vera’s hiding place to the public toilets in the car park, deserting his post through embarrassment or a sense of decency. Immediately Hector was on his feet and amongst the tern colony, raiding the nests on the shingle beach. They passed the warden on their way back to their car and he smiled and said hello. Because who could be suspicious of a middle-aged man and an overweight girl.
Back in the present, Vera reached the last sand hill and stood looking down at the long beach. A big orange sun over the horizon, and space that took her breath away. Rolling breakers and the smell of the sea. So much space that it made you dizzy to look at it. And in the distance a stooped figure, dragging a plank of wood behind him. He was on his way back to the car and she waited, taking in the view. She thought Chloe was probably right and he came here often. This was where he’d walked with Margaret Krukowski, discussing her illness.