‘No,’ he said. She could tell he just wanted to get back to work.
‘It doesn’t matter’ Speaking almost to herself. ‘I expect it was before your time.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Vera telephoned Clive Stringer’s home number from her car. She’d parked behind the dunes and was looking out over the beach. An old man was walking along the shore, his head bent. Every now and then he stooped to pick up sea coal and stick it in an Aldi carrier bag. She thought he probably lived in a housing association flat now with central heating, but old habits would die hard.
She pressed the buttons on her phone. It went on ringing – there was no answer service at the other end – and she was about to give up, when a woman spoke. Her voice was faint, breathless. She gave the number.
‘Mrs Stringer.’
‘Yes?’ She was suspicious, used to people selling things. Perhaps her son had told her just to hang up if a stranger called.
‘My name’s Vera Stanhope, Mrs Stringer. I work for the police. Perhaps Clive said I’d be in touch. It’s about that lassie he found dead by the lighthouse.’
‘I’m not sure…’
‘Is Clive at home? Perhaps I could speak to him.’ She crossed the fingers of both hands and her phone nearly slipped from her grasp. Early afternoon, surely he’d still be in the museum.
‘He’s at work. You’d best talk to him there.’
Again Vera thought the woman was about to hang up.
‘Look, I’m going to be around your way in about half an hour. I’ll call in then. We can have a chat.’
‘Really, I’d rather you waited till Clive was here.’ Vera thought she could hear panic in the voice. That meant nothing sinister. Plenty of old people were worried about strangers knocking at the door. They’d watched all the crime prevention ads.
‘It’s nothing to be anxious about.’ Vera heard herself speak with Ben Craven’s You’re mad and I know what’s best for you voice; she winced. ‘I’ll show my identification. You can phone the police station to make sure.’ Then she pressed the button on her phone to end the conversation before Mrs Stringer started to protest again.
The Stringers lived in a low pre-war bungalow in North Shields. Once the street had been a main road, tree-lined, busy, with a shop at each end, but the surrounding area had been redeveloped and a new road system had left it stranded. Now Gunner’s Lane ended abruptly in a breeze-block wall. Beyond that a glass and concrete sports centre threw a long shadow down the middle of the street. Vera knew the area. She’d been there a few times to visit Davy Sharp, had been surprised that he lived somewhere so unassuming and respectable. It was all part of his cover, his ability to fit in.
Mary Stringer must have been watching out for her. As soon as Vera knocked, the door opened immediately, just a crack. She was tiny, her features small, her neck so thin it seemed impossible it could support her head.
‘I phoned Clive. He said he didn’t know anything about you coming to the house.’ Even through the crack in the door, Vera could tell she was shaking.
Vera made no attempt to get in. She fished in her bag for her identity card. ‘You must admit it’s me,’ she said. ‘Look at that picture. There can’t be more than one person in the north east with a face like that.’
‘Clive said I didn’t have to talk to you.’
‘And he’s quite right, but you don’t want the whole street listening to your business, do you?’
There was no reply. Vera could tell she was weakening. ‘H’away, hinny, and let me in. I called at the baker’s on the corner and got a couple of custard slices. Let’s get the kettle on and have a civilized chat.’
The custard slices seemed to swing it. The clawlike grip on the door loosened. Vera pushed it gently and went inside.
The interior of the house couldn’t have changed much since Mary Stringer had moved in. It was clean enough and tidy, but the furniture was old, a little shabby. Vera stood just inside the front door, waiting for the old woman to take the lead. Having taken the decision to allow Vera in, now she seemed almost pleased to have company. She led Vera into a small, over-filled living room and bustled away to make tea. Above the mantelpiece there was her wedding photo. Mary in traditional white and a man, as skinny as she was, looking sharp and pleased with himself in an ill-fitting suit.
Mary came back with a tray and saw Vera looking. ‘He died when our Clive was a month old. An accident at the shipyard. They were good, mind. I had a pension.’
‘Hard for you, though,’ Vera said. ‘Bringing up the lad on your own. Did you have family to help out?’
‘No one close by. The neighbours were smashing. I’m not sure how I’d have managed without them. It was a friendly street in those days. Still is, really.’
‘Clive said you helped out with Thomas Sharp when he was a bairn.’
‘Only as a favour,’ Mary said quickly. ‘I mean, they gave me a few pounds to mind him when they were stretched. You know what it was like – Davy in and out of prison. I wouldn’t want the pension people to know. Or the social – I mean, I was never properly registered as a minder.’
‘You were helping out a friend.’ Vera wondered if that was all the anxiety was about. Mary had broken a few rules ten years before and still got into a panic about it. ‘Nobody’s going to worry about that now.’
And Mary did seem to relax then and to play the hostess. The tea was in proper cups with saucers. There were matching tea plates and Vera prised the sticky cakes from a paper bag, handed one to Mary then licked her finger.
‘Did you ever meet Thomas’s friend, Luke Armstrong?’ An outside chance, but worth asking all the same.
‘I hadn’t seen much of Tom at all recently. Not to talk to. He’d wave when he went past to get the bus into town, but that was it. You can’t blame him. What would he want with an old lady?’
‘Clive would have known him quite well, then?’
‘He was lovely with Thomas when he was a baby. Even changed his nappy sometimes. You don’t expect it of young men, do you? He took him out in his pushchair when he was a toddler.’
Vera thought it sounded as if Mary had done more than a bit of occasional child-minding for the Sharps, but said nothing. She bit into the custard slice; the icing was so sweet she could imagine her teeth crumbling at the roots. The vanilla custard spilled out, squashed between the hard, indigestible pastry. She scooped it up with her little finger and put it in her mouth.
Mary watched her fondly. ‘My Clive likes his food,’ she said, ‘but he never puts on an ounce. He must burn it up.’
‘A bit of a nervy lad, was he?’ Vera asked.
‘Maybe that was my fault. There was only him and me and I always hated being on my own. Perhaps I smothered him a bit. I couldn’t have borne it if anything had happened to him.’ She paused, gave a little complacent smile. ‘He’s a good lad. I had a stroke a while back. Not major, but some sons would take their opportunity to put their mam into a home. Not him. He took time off work, brought me home and looked after me here.’
‘You’re close, then?’
‘Aye, very close.’
‘You’d know if anything was bothering him.’
‘Well, that’s a different thing, isn’t it? He’s not one for wearing his heart on his sleeve, our Clive. I’m not sure I can ever tell what’s going on in his head.’
‘Has he been seeing a lass lately?’
‘No!’ She seemed to think the idea inconceivable. ‘We’re quite happy here, just the two of us.’ Then she added, for form’s sake, ‘Not that it would worry me, mind. I mean, it would be lovely if he could find a good woman to settle down with. I’d love a grandchild.’
‘Has Clive ever had any treatment for his nerves?’
‘What do you mean?’ She was suddenly suspicious. She’d been eating the pastry with small delicate bites, nibbling away at the edges, mouse-like. Now she frowned over the cake at Vera.