‘Eunice fell for him?’
Leigh nodded.
‘How did she die?’
‘Pummelled, beaten like an animal. She never regained consciousness.’
‘He fled, I believe, this Skellet?’
‘Was gone the next morning.’
‘Charlie found her?’
‘I pray it had been me.’
‘You say it changed him?’
‘Changed him? It ended him, Inspector. There was more of Charlie lost that night than there was left to lose here this evening. He uncoiled, became hysterical, a different man.’
‘I think I’ve heard that man described.’
‘He was taken in for shock, was as good as kept under for a week, then taken to a psychiatric ward — as strong a man as I’ve known, reduced to that.’
‘It must have been tough for you to see.’
‘Then the nurses told us he’d been discharged, and that he’d found a new flat. He took some tracking down, but he never came back to the Hills from that day.’
Until tonight, thought Grey.
‘And then there was his seat on the Town Council. After three months we knew he wasn’t coming back. I handled it; they let me make a statement on the floor. He received a round of applause.’
‘He must have put in some service by then.’
‘Thirty-one years a Councillor. I was elected to the seat next year.’
The man paused before uttering, ‘ In absentia.’
‘Sorry?’ asked Grey.
‘They both left the Council in absentia, if you read the records. It’s a legal term, it means not there. I think Charlie left the Hills, his home, his friends, his whole life in absentia — he was not there from the day he found his daughter.’
Grey was set to leave, though hopefully to speak to Campbell Leigh again some at some point; yet something niggled, something that he couldn’t leave without somehow broaching. He began,
‘Thank you Mr Leigh, you’ve been very helpful; but, I can’t help wondering… all your and Charlie’s work over the years, your efforts on behalf of your community, your striving to build better housing…’
‘All that, for this?’
‘Well…’
‘You see the Hills as a failure?’
Grey knew at that moment that he had said the wrong thing; but the man wasn’t really asking his opinion,
‘People criticise this area, but you should’ve seen what the Hills replaced. That’s what no one understands, Inspector, that we are proud of our community, proud of our estate that others in this town who don’t ever have to set foot in seem so ashamed of. You don’t have the right to tell us whether we should be abashed of ourselves.’
‘Oh, I wasn’t saying…’
‘That was a collective “You”.’
‘Of course.’
He was a big man to be declaimed at in the confines of a parked car.
‘Here is my constituency office card, call the top number any time. Good luck with your enquiries.’
‘Thank you.’
Grey was left amazed and saddened at the recent social history he had been unaware of.
Chapter 9 — Panic
The scene at the Cedars was no less chaotic than that at the murder site… once Grey got there. Making the walk himself might have seemed obvious by day or even closing time, but not at after two in the morning when even the most welcoming road — let alone the fringes of the Hills — seemed alien, unfamiliar, unknown, a photonegative of the oddness of a silent empty residential street seen in daytime by the person usually out at work. Yet this was where he found himself, passing from the lights and excitement of the Prove scene to disobey the accepted wisdom of those in the town by being alone on the Hills estates after dark (albeit at a time where even the least-constrained kids were likely to have gone home).
The Cedars though was lit up like a Christmas tree, not that that bought any comfort. As Grey came around the side to the backdoor an ambulance passed him to get there first, he finding it where Sergeant Smith and Rachel Sowton were waiting. It being a mild night, a scattering of other residents were also milling around inside and out wrapped in bathrobes or silk dressing gowns.
Cori took Grey to one side to explain; as behind them Mr Carstairs accompanied by his invalid wife, herself being helped by a tireless Ellie, were moved into the back of the waiting emergency transport,
‘Sir, Mr Carstairs woke about midnight with chest pains and erratic breathing, his wife then calling for help that left her exhausted. Rachel called the doctor, and by then the whole building was up.’
‘Is he okay?’
‘The doctor thinks it’s just brought on by the stress of the day, but after sitting with him for a while thought it safest for him to go into hospital overnight. Meanwhile…’
‘Charlie Prove.’
‘After the doctor had come and things had settled down a bit, Rachel went around the rooms to check everyone was all right; and Charlie’s flat was empty. Best guess, the same commotion as woke the others roused him from his sedation. A couple of people saw him up with the rest, but in the melee he must have wondered off on his sleepwalk without being noticed.’
‘But the door… the Constable…’
‘He had gone to help the Carstairs, leaving his post.’
‘Well, that was what he was there for: he heard a woman calling, couldn’t be helped. You said sleepwalk?’
‘Someone up with the commotion saw Charlie heading off down the street outside from their front window. They said he look distracted, dazed, but moving at a pace.’ She leant in and whispered, ‘The residents who were up know we’re looking for Charlie, but not that we’ve found him.’
‘I don’t envy their Duty Manager that task in the morning,’ he said as they moved away from the building to talk.
‘The person who saw him outside didn’t see anything else?’
‘No, sir, they’ve no idea where he went, or why he went there.’
‘I’ve got a bit of an idea. I’ve been talking to the leader of the Hills Estate Community Forum — a role Charlie himself must have held for something like seventeen years — before finding his daughter’s body one morning unhinged him to the point where he couldn’t bear to see his home ever again; until tonight, it seems, when some nightmare impulse, maybe brought on by the pills he’s been put on and by the finding of a second body yesterday morning, brought it all back. He would have woken up tonight half-zonked and disoriented to find another friend, Mr Carstairs, in peril and the Cedars in uproar, and so chose tonight of all nights to go mourning, searching — who knows — after the memory of his dead daughter, dashing away to be clubbed across the back of the head not a minute’s walk from the building he and his beloved Eunice once lived in.’
‘How?’
‘A single blow from behind by a blunt object, yet to be found.’
‘You guess a large, strong individual?’ she asked, echoing their thoughts on Stella’s attacker.
‘Charlie was six foot — I guess from the blow they were at least as tall. That’s only my estimate, mind.’
The officer posted there that night then emerged from the building, and Grey went to speak to him,
‘Constable.’
‘Sir.’
‘Everything all right in there?’
‘I think it’s calmed down again now.’
‘Well you did right, rushing to the call. You didn’t see anything of Charlie Prove while this was going on?’
‘No, sir. The corridor was pretty full; half the residents were up. He might have been at the back, or by the staircase.’
‘Yes, I should imagine it would’ve been hard to keep track of anyone in that commotion.’
‘I’ll tell you who I did see though, sir. If you’re interested.’
‘Always.’
‘That woman, the manageress,’ explained the Constable, who arrived to this night watch fresh from the station, and so hadn’t been there earlier in the day.
‘Go on.’
‘Well, I’ve seen her before…’