‘I don’t see how he could have done the stabbing,’ Vera said, ‘with the arthritis in his hands. But maybe if he was angry enough or desperate enough-’ She broke off and looked at them. ‘But that’s speculation. So let’s sort out the actions for the rest of the day. The greengrocers and the credit cards – any news on that, Joe?’
‘Only negative. If anyone bought the apricots in Jesmond, they paid cash.’
‘Of course,’ Vera muttered almost to herself. ‘They would. Our killer’s too clever to be caught out like that. I don’t think we’re looking for what Charlie would call a loony. Not in the conventional sense, at least. So it’s a question of driving round and asking who bought a big bag of apricots for cash. Flash a few photos around. Try the supermarkets too. Charlie, that sounds like one for you.’
Charlie nodded.
‘Joe, you go out to Myers Farm and speak to Joanna and Jack.’
He looked up surprised. ‘You want me to go on my own?’ He thought Vera would want to be around too.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘They don’t bite.’
He thought he wasn’t so sure, where Jack was concerned.
‘And, Holly, get on the phone to Cumbria. Get them to check out Mark Winterton’s movements over the last few days. If they’re arsey, refer them to me. Or if you fancy a trip out west, go and do the legwork yourself.’
Charlie looked up sharply. ‘I’ve got contacts out west.’
‘I know you have,’ Vera said. ‘And that’s why I’ve asked Holly to do it.’ She smiled serenely in Joe’s direction. ‘We need to take care about apparent conflicts of interest.’
When Joe arrived, Jack was digging over part of the vegetable plot. The soil was wet and it must have been heavy going. A row of black sprout stalks had been flattened by the wind of the previous day. For a while Jack pretended that he hadn’t noticed the detective’s car on the track, though he must have seen it coming for miles. Then he looked up. Despite the raw weather he’d worked up a sweat.
‘Your boss is out,’ he said.
‘It’s you I’ve come to see. You and your Joanna.’
Jack weighed the spade in his hands, held it like a weapon. Then made an effort to keep his temper.
‘You’d better come in then. She’s writing.’ He spoke the last word as if it were a strange and unnatural activity. At the house he sat on the doorstep and began to pull off mud-caked boots. Joe saw that the man would insist on being present at any interview and thought this might be the only chance to talk to him alone.
‘This must be a quiet time on the farm.’
Jack looked up at him, suspicious. ‘It’s not really a farm, like. More a smallholding. And there’s always stuff to do.’
‘You don’t manage to get the odd day away then?’
‘Look, I’ve been dealing with pigs like you since I were a scally lad in Liverpool.’ He sounded tired. ‘And I’m old. As old as the hills. Why don’t you just ask what you want to know?’
‘Someone broke into Nina Backworth’s flat and then into the chapel at the Writers’ House,’ Joe said. ‘The night before last, in Backworth’s place in Jesmond, and late yesterday afternoon at the Writers’ House. Where were you and Joanna?’
Jack looked up at him. He was still sitting with one boot on. ‘Nina Backworth is helping Joanna get a publisher. They’re putting together a book. A kind of collection of Writers’ House work. Why would we do anything to get in the way of that?’
Joe wished he weren’t towering above the man. He felt like a bully. ‘I’m not accusing you,’ he said. ‘I just want to know where you were.’
‘I was out yesterday afternoon,’ Jack said. ‘I went to the agricultural suppliers in Kimmerston. Layers’ mash for the hens. I’m a regular and they’ll remember me. The night before, Joanna and I were both at home.’ He pulled off his second boot and led Joe inside. ‘Come in and talk to Joanna. She’s been at that computer since she woke up this morning. Maybe at least if she’s talking to you, it’ll be a break for her. I’m worried. She seems lost in it. Driven.’
And Joe realized that Jack must be worried, because he almost seemed glad to let the policeman into the house.
Joanna was sitting at the kitchen table working on a laptop. She was wearing big, round glasses that had slid down her nose. There were two mugs half full of coffee next to her; both were obviously long cold.
‘Sergeant Ashworth has come to speak to us,’ Jack Devanney said.
She glanced up, but Joe could tell she was miles away, caught up in her story.
‘I’ll make him some coffee, shall I?’ Jack persisted.
‘Yes.’ But she frowned, looked at Joe. ‘Will you be long?’
‘Just a couple of questions.’ He sat at the table beside her.
‘I’ve got a deadline,’ she said. Her voice was excited. He thought she sounded unwell. Had she stopped taking her pills again? ‘Chrissie Kerr is bringing out a pamphlet of our work. A kind of sampler. To raise publicity for the Writers’ House and its work. Only a thousand words each, but it has to be good. It’s an opportunity to prove I can write. A showcase. I’m writing something new. A crime short story.’
‘Alex Barton is in hospital,’ Joe said.
At last she did drag her attention away from the screen. ‘What’s the matter with him?’
Joe made sure Jack was listening too. ‘Someone stuck a knife in his mother’s cat and laid it out like a sacrifice in the chapel, along with a dead robin. It freaked him out. I suppose it would.’
‘And you think we would do something like that?’ Jack was round the table squaring up to Joe.
‘You wouldn’t be squeamish about killing animals,’ Joe said. ‘It’s something you do all the time.’
‘That isn’t like wringing the neck of a hen that’s stopped laying.’ Jack’s face was so close to Joe’s that he could see the hairs in Jack’s nostrils, the gold cap on one tooth. ‘That’s sick!’
‘Is Alex okay?’ Joanna asked. Both men looked at her, distracted for a moment from their hostility. ‘He’s young and he’s been through so much.’
‘Sergeant Ashworth wants to know where we were late yesterday afternoon,’ Jack said.
‘Jack was out.’ She smiled. ‘His weekly trip to Kimmerston. The one day he gets an escape from me. Shopping for the farm and then supper in the Red Lion. Quiz night with his mates. The highlight of the week, eh, Jack? What exciting lives we lead!’
‘And you?’ Joe wasn’t sure how he should address her. Ms Tobin? Joanna? In the end he left the question as it was and thought it sounded blunt, almost rude. ‘Where were you yesterday?’
‘I was here,’ she said. ‘Where else would I be? We only have one vehicle, Sergeant. Without that I’m stranded.’
Joe thought she’d escaped by taxi once before, but said nothing.
Before leaving the house he glanced over Joanna’s shoulder at the computer screen and read the first paragraph. It was a description of a dead man lying on a beach. His face was covered in scratch marks. ‘As if he had been attacked by a wolf.’ Joanna’s idea of an entertaining read.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chrissie wouldn’t hear of Nina going back to the flat in Jesmond.
‘Really, you can’t! Not with some nutter about. I wouldn’t forgive myself if anything happened to you.’
So Nina allowed herself to be persuaded. And after a few days she found she was really enjoying her stay in the big house in the country. There was no cooking or shopping to do, and the Kerrs employed a cleaner, so there were none of the chores that distracted her from her writing at home. It was like staying in a friendly hotel. She was given a guest room on the second floor, had her own bathroom and even a little study in which to work. Chrissie’s mother was a good cook; she studied recipes with the assiduous concentration of an academic. Her father was pleasant and mild-mannered. Nina felt almost that she was recreating the working atmosphere of her grandparents’ house and imagined herself back during that summer when she’d produced her first book. The crime story was growing. She could see how it might become a novel. Different from anything she’d written before, but perhaps even better. The form of the mystery gave her the structure that had been lacking in earlier work.