‘You’re paranoid,’ he said, but his voice was gentle.
She stroked his cheek. ‘And you’re very, very kind.’
There was a noise in the yard below them and they saw Lorraine emerge from the farmhouse. She carried a satchel over her shoulder; inside there would be her paints and brushes. She was wearing jeans and a sloppy hand-knitted jersey, and from this distance she looked about eighteen. Annie felt a stab of jealousy. Sometimes she and Jan speculated that Nigel’s wife had had work done on her face. A tuck or a lift, or Botox. And how could she stay so skinny? But really there was no sign of surgery; it must be down to genes or luck. Something must have made Lorraine aware of them looking down at her, because she turned and waved. Annie opened the window.
‘I’m just going to catch the last of this light.’ Lorraine sounded childishly happy. Annie wondered if she’d been drinking already, or if Vera Stanhope’s disappearance had caused her to relax suddenly too. ‘Isn’t it fabulous?’
‘Should you be going out on your own? The police don’t seem to have caught anyone yet.’ Annie could see what Lorraine meant about the light, though. It was seductive. She felt she could walk into it and drown.
‘I’m not going very far, and I’ll stay on the lane. You’ll hear me if I scream.’ Lorraine gave a little giggle, but Annie shivered at the thought of anyone screaming alone in the valley.
‘Come in for a glass of wine when you’ve finished, so we know you’re safe. We’ll get Jan to come along too.’
But Lorraine was already heading down the track and Annie wasn’t sure if she’d heard her.
Sam was cooking supper when Lorraine called at the house. She knocked at the back door and then came straight into the kitchen, still carrying the satchel. She looked radiant. Annie sensed Sam stiffen. The kitchen was his workspace and he didn’t like anyone other than Annie there. Not even a woman as bonny as Lorraine.
‘Come through,’ Annie said. ‘It gets cold when the sun goes down. I’ve just lit the wood-burner.’ She reached into the fridge for a bottle of Prosecco and followed Lorraine out.
In the living room Lorraine sat on the floor in front of the stove. The sun was low now and the room was in shadow.
‘Did you finish your painting?’ Annie twisted the bottle until she felt the pressure behind the cork and poured the wine into the glasses.
‘Not quite.’
So it would be no good asking to see it. Lorraine never showed her work until it was done. Annie had once asked how she’d got into the painting. Lorraine had said she’d run art classes in prison and it had grown from there. Now it seemed to have taken over all her life. As if any minute not painting was wasted.
‘Shall I send Jan a text?’ Annie said. ‘See if she wants to join us?’
‘No point.’ Lorraine grinned. ‘I walked past her house and she’s fast asleep in the rocking chair with those great dogs at her feet. I could hear her snoring from outside.’
Annie opened the door of the wood-burner and pushed in another log. She had to reach across Lorraine to do so. Even close to, the woman’s skin was smooth and flawless.
‘What did you make of that detective?’ Lorraine had almost finished the first glass of wine.
‘Quite a character.’ Annie decided to be noncommittal.
‘A bit of a monster, I thought, but clever. She makes you think that she’s really stupid, then comes out with a question that surprises you because it’s so perceptive.’
‘Yes!’ Annie thought just then that Lorraine was one of the most perceptive women she knew.
‘What do you think was going on down there in the big house?’ Lorraine narrowed her eyes. ‘Nigel thinks it was what he called “some random loony”, but I’m not so sure. You wouldn’t just wander into the valley by chance, would you? So what actually happened there that led to two murders?’
‘The detective asked us about an older man – the second victim – who was killed in the attic flat.’ Annie found herself being drawn into the conversation despite herself. She’d been terrified of dying since she was a child. Not the reality of pain or illness, but the idea of the world going on without her. She still had nightmares about suddenly disappearing, being swallowed up by the dark. Yet she found herself fascinated by these sudden deaths. Was it because, although they’d happened so close to home, the people involved were strangers? She felt like an extra in a TV drama. It was hard to believe the situation was real.
‘Martin Benton.’ Lorraine reached out and poured herself more wine. ‘The name’s on the BBC news website now. I checked before I came out. The police are asking for information about him.’
‘Did Vera Stanhope question you about yesterday evening?’ Annie could imagine Lorraine giving quite the wrong impression. She could be flippant, and was given to exaggeration. We were all pissed, of course! We always get pissed on party nights. It’s the only entertainment there is out here.
But Lorraine shook her head. ‘She was more interested in earlier in the day. The late afternoon and early evening. Percy found Patrick Randle’s body when he was driving home from The Lamb at teatime, so they think both murders must have happened before then. The police won’t be bothered by a few pensioners partying later that night.’
‘No.’ But Annie thought the fat detective would be interested in everything they did. She was that sort of woman. She allowed her eyes to glance at the clock on the wall. Sam took food seriously. He’d get moody if he thought the meal he’d prepared was spoiling.
Lorraine must have noticed because she stood up and set her glass carefully on the coffee table. She wasn’t always so tactful. ‘I must go. Nigel might be worrying about me. I’m surprised he hasn’t phoned to check that I’m okay.’
Annie thought Nigel would know exactly where Lorraine was. He watched her. He kept binoculars in the upstairs den and pretended they were to look for birds and animals in the woods, but Annie knew better than that. Sometimes she thought it was lovely that he obviously adored his wife, that he couldn’t let her out of his sight. Mostly she thought it was creepy. It occurred to her that if anyone had seen a stranger in the valley the afternoon before, it would be Nigel, staring out of his upstairs window keeping track of them all.
Annie let Lorraine out of the front door so they wouldn’t disturb Sam in the kitchen. On the stone step Lorraine paused for a moment.
‘I know it is horrible,’ she said. ‘Two deaths in the valley. The police nosing about. But it is interesting too, isn’t it? Thrilling to be so close to violence and sudden death. I can’t help being excited by it.’
Chapter Fifteen
Holly drove slowly through Kimmerston, held up by heavy traffic. Roadworks in the middle of Front Street. Stopped at temporary lights, she was close to a cafe where tables had been set out on the pavement for the first time that spring. An elderly woman was sitting there. She was alone and presumably her companion was inside ordering coffee. She had round spots of rouge on her cheeks and her lipstick had seeped beyond her lips into the face powder. Her clothes were bright: a blue coat and a pink scarf. She was holding a rag doll on the table and bouncing it like a baby, talking to it. Holly had her window shut and couldn’t make out the words, but watched with embarrassment and fascination as the woman stopped bouncing the doll and cradled it in her arms and stroked the hair.
The woman obviously had dementia. Alzheimer’s, perhaps. There must be a carer somewhere, because surely it wasn’t safe to leave her alone there so close to the road. A thought flashed unbidden through Holly’s mind. Why do they allow old people like that out in the community? Wouldn’t she be more comfortable in a home somewhere? Knowing that it wasn’t the woman’s comfort that she was thinking of, but her own. Horrified that she could be so cruel and judgemental, that this reminder that even she might end her life being frail and mad, made her suddenly sick with disgust.