Dennis must have heard her approaching, but didn’t look up until she appeared at the open greenhouse door. She pulled up a plastic garden chair and sat just outside, facing him. He had the drawn, defeated face of men she’d seen in the cells or sleeping rough. Phyllis would save him from that, at least. She’d make sure he washed and shaved, cut his fingernails, wore clean clothes.
‘Tell me about Lily.’ Vera planted her feet firmly on the grass.
‘I should never have had a bairn,’ he said.
She felt like saying she’d always believed children were pretty overrated herself, but thought that wasn’t what he wanted to hear.
‘I don’t suppose anyone thinks they make a good job of it, bringing up kids.’
‘I can’t even look after myself.’
‘Lily seemed to have turned out all right. University. Going into teaching.’ Vera caught the cheerful tone of the social worker in her voice, hated herself for it.
‘She was never happy, though,’ he said. ‘Not really. Not even when she was at school.’
‘What was she like at school?’
‘Bright,’ he said. ‘Oh yes, always top of the class in the little school. And when she started her A levels they put her down for Oxford.’
Vera was surprised Phyllis hadn’t mentioned that, but understood why it hadn’t come up when he continued speaking. ‘Then she didn’t do as well in her exams as they’d been expecting. There was this lad, I don’t know, she was obsessed by him. Thought she was in love with him. Couldn’t concentrate, it seemed. Got A levels, but not the grades she needed for Oxford.’
‘It happens,’ Vera said. ‘Teenage girls . . .’
‘It wasn’t normal, though,’ he said. ‘Not a normal crush. She was fixated. Stopped sleeping. Stopped eating. I thought she was ill. She needed special help. Phyllis wouldn’t see it.’
Vera said nothing.
‘I knew,’ he said. ‘I recognized it. I’ve been in and out of mental hospital over the years. Not so much now that they’ve sorted out the drugs, but I had my first breakdown when I was Lily’s age. Too much of a coincidence, isn’t it? She must have got that from me. She got her mother’s brains. My madness.’
‘Do you remember the name of the lad she fell for when she was at school?’
He frowned. ‘My memory’s not so good. I blame the ECT but it’s probably just age.’
She waited, hoping it would come to him. She didn’t want to bring this up with Phyllis, cause her even more pain.
‘Craven,’ he said. ‘Ben Craven. A nice enough lad. Not his fault.’
‘What happened to him? Did he go on to university?’
Dennis shook his head. ‘I don’t think I ever knew.’
‘You said you had a couple of spells in hospital, Mr Marsh. Where did you go?’
‘St George’s. That place in Morpeth.’
The first link between Luke Armstrong and Lily Marsh, Vera thought. Tenuous, but something at least to work on.
‘And Lily? Do you think she ever went there for treatment? Once she left home, maybe? Not as an inpatient. You’d have heard about that. But to one of the outpatient clinics?’
‘I told her to go,’ he said. ‘I gave her a card with the name of my doctor on it. But I don’t know if she took my advice.’ He made a brave attempt at a smile. ‘You know what it’s like. Two women in the house. They weren’t going to take any notice of me.’
Chapter Fourteen
‘So what have we got here?’ Joe Ashworth said. ‘Some nutter who thinks it’s OK to go round strangling nutters?’
They were in the car on the way to Newcastle. They’d arranged to see Lily Marsh’s flat and to talk to the two students she’d shared with.
‘Maybe.’ Vera was thinking it was all too elaborate. Some game. Some clever bastard pulling their strings. ‘But forget the window dressing. The flowers on the water. If we had two murders this close, same cause of death, what would you think?’
‘I’d still think it was a nutter.’
‘Serial killer?’
‘Perhaps.’ He was cautious, surprised she’d used the word even to him. Serial killer meant the press going wild, hysterical politicians, and that was the last thing she’d want. It wasn’t something to speak of lightly.
‘But if it wasn’t random, if it wasn’t some psychotic who’d taken against attractive young people?’
He took a moment to think. ‘The second murder could be to cover up the first. I mean, we know that Lily Marsh was around in the area. She worked in Hepworth. What’s that? Six miles from Seaton where Julie Armstrong lives. If we can place her in Seaton at the time of Luke’s murder, we’d have a reasonable explanation. She saw something, heard something. Or she was acquainted with the killer, guessed. Confronted him.’
‘You’re thinking a boyfriend?’
‘Maybe. It’s odd that the parents don’t seem to know anything about him.’
‘So what do we do now?’ Vera shut her eyes as Ashworth drove too fast round a bend and had to brake sharply. A tractor was coming in the opposite direction. He didn’t swear, it wasn’t his style. She did, under her breath.
‘Make the link,’ he said, when he’d pulled into the hedge to let the tractor past. ‘Find out where she was the evening of Luke Armstrong’s murder. Talk to all her friends. Her tutors. The people she worked with.’
‘Nothing difficult, then.’ Vera stretched and yawned. ‘A piece of piss.’ Before he could answer she fell asleep.
She woke when they pulled up outside the house, lucky to find a parking place. It was Saturday morning; shoppers saved paying for city-centre parking by leaving their cars in West Jesmond and taking the metro into town. The flat was the ground floor of an Edwardian terrace; a bit grand, she thought, for a student place. There was blue-and-white tape around the door and Billy Wainwright was inside. She called to him through an open window.
‘You’re OK to come in,’ he said. ‘We’re just about finished. I’ll soon be away to my bed. The search team will be in any time.’
They all stood for a moment inside the front door. Billy seemed tired but too wired-up to relax, fidgeting with the clasp on his case.
‘What can you tell me, Billy?’
‘There’s no sign she was killed here. No break-in. No evidence of a struggle in her room. Apparently the lasses she was sharing with were out for the evening. They’re at a friend’s house up the road now, if you want a chat.’
‘You’ll have had a look in the bathroom?’
‘Of course. There were a few hairs in the drain, but I’d bet a year’s salary they belong to the tenants. There’s nothing to connect this place with the Luke Armstrong scene.’
‘Bath oils?’
‘Plenty. We’ll get them tested, but I couldn’t recognize anything that smelled like the water when we fished the Armstrong boy out.’ He yawned. ‘If you’re going to be here for ten minutes, I’m going. Like I said, the search team is on its way. The victim’s room is the last on the left.’
When he’d gone Vera and Joe stood for a minute in silence. The hall was cool. The floor was tiled, the ceiling high.
‘Not your usual student gaff,’ Joe said. He pushed open a door into the living room. They looked in at the stripped wooden floor, cast-iron fireplace. There was a sofa with a terracotta loose cover, an upright piano. Everything very tidy, spotlessly clean. ‘I couldn’t afford a place like this on my salary. How do they manage it? And I thought students were supposed to be mucky.’