‘Was that unusual?’ Still Joe kept his voice gentle. He had the sense that the woman was on the verge of an emotional meltdown, that Shirley and her work at Hope was all that was keeping her together. ‘I mean, did she usually tell you where she was going?’
‘She wrote down the addresses of all her visits in the big diary,’ Sharon said. ‘Health and safety. Some of our clients could be aggressive. I wanted to know where she was going. Just in case.’
Joe thought the volunteer might be emotionally frail, but she wasn’t stupid. ‘And did you have a system where she phoned in after the visits? So you’d know she was safe?’
‘She didn’t phone,’ Sharon said. ‘She’d always text. After each client. Visit over. Then the time.’
‘So she must have texted yesterday then. Because you didn’t panic and call us out.’ He gave a little smile to show it was almost a joke.
‘No!’ Sharon looked at him as if he was stupid now, as if he’d got hold of the wrong end of the stick altogether. ‘Shirley wasn’t going out on a work visit yesterday afternoon. It was personal. When she left, she said, “That’s me for today. I’m taking back a bit of lieu-time. See you tomorrow.” And she collected her coat and went out.’
‘You don’t know where she was going?’
‘We didn’t have time to chat.’ Sharon looked up at him and her narrow face seemed more pinched and grey than ever. ‘I was sorry about that. I’d wanted to tell her about Aidan and the asthma tests. She’s the only person I can talk to about stuff like that. My mam just says he’ll grow out of it and that I’m ruining him by fussing.’ A pause. ‘I don’t know what I’ll do without Shirley – what any of the folk at Hope will do without her.’
‘How did she seem last week?’
There was a long pause before Sharon replied. ‘Not herself.’ Joe didn’t say anything and at last she continued, ‘Before she was always such a laugh. I mean, she was serious about her work, but she could have run this place standing on her head, so she never stressed about it. She’d been a senior probation officer, managing a whole team. She’d worked in a prison with lifers, and had to stand up in court to give evidence about hard-core clients. Nothing threw her. Nothing worried her. Not usually.’
‘But recently she’d been worried?’
‘At first I thought she was just upset, like. With Martin dying. We all loved Martin. I mean he was a bit weird. A bit of a geek. But he had a good heart.’
‘But later you thought something else was troubling her?’
There was another silence as Sharon chose her words carefully. This was a witness who needed patient handling. ‘After Martin died she got snappy. The least thing and she’d fly into a temper. And that wasn’t like Shirley. Like I said, usually she was a laugh. Easy to get on with.’ She looked out of the window. A small group of teenagers had gathered for a smoke on the pavement. Presumably soon they’d try to come in for a session, expecting to find Shirley here to run the show.
‘And she didn’t give you any idea what was bothering her?’
‘I did ask her,’ Sharon said. ‘She said it wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle. “And nothing that’s not my own fault.”’
‘What did she mean by that?’ Joe was finding this conversation tantalizing. All second-hand. All the impression of a woman who had plenty of problems of her own.
‘I don’t know. She wouldn’t say.’
The crowd on the pavement was growing and he knew he’d soon have to go down and tell them that the centre would be shut for the day. The CSIs would want to come in for a search. The computers would be taken. Then Sharon would lose concentration and start telling herself stories about Shirley, trying to make sense of the woman’s death by forming a narrative. There’d be gossip all over the town. The first response to news of her death would be lost.
‘Any of her clients have a grudge against her?’
‘No!’ Sharon was on the verge of tears again. ‘We all loved her.’
You all loved Martin, and he’s dead too. What does that tell us?
‘Can I see the diary, the one where Shirley wrote down her appointments and the addresses of her visits?’
Sharon reached under the desk and pulled out a big hard-backed notebook. She was pushing it across to Joe when there was a sudden noise on the stairs, the clatter of boots, the door pushed open. Frank appeared; his face was red and his huge tattooed fists clenched, as if he was about to hit something or someone.
‘I’ve just heard that Shirley’s dead. That some bastard’s killed her.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Vera was on the phone to Alicia Randle. Before making the call she’d planned a gentle enquiry about any possible reason why Alicia or her son might have written to a former probation officer who ran a ragbag charity in an ex-pit-village in Northumberland. But when the phone was answered, Vera found herself asking a very different question.
‘I wonder if I might come to visit you?’
‘When?’ The veneer of politeness was being slowly eaten away by grief.
‘As soon as possible.’ Vera thought if she could get a decent pool car and start at once she could be there in five hours. ‘I’d like to come today.’
‘If you have news, Inspector, you could give it over the telephone.’ The voice was icy. Perhaps Alicia didn’t want her pleasant home, and all the memories of her son as a boy, sullied by the arrival of the woman who was investigating his death. But surely her elder son had already contaminated the place by committing suicide there.
‘There’s been another suspicious death,’ Vera said. ‘We think it might be related to Patrick’s murder. I know this a difficult time, but I have to talk to you.’
When she put down the phone Vera felt suddenly overwhelmed by exhaustion. In a conversation with Alicia Randle every word had to be chosen with care. She picked up her bag and went out to the open-plan office. ‘Charlie, you’re with me. I need you to share the driving. We can’t have the North-East losing its best detective because she’s fallen asleep at the wheel. Let’s go and see how the other half lives.’
She slept most of the way and woke when they had pulled off the motorway and had started driving down country roads. The satnav had a posh southern voice not very different from Alicia Randle’s. The hedges were high and lush and everything seemed very green. In cottage gardens and orchards, fruit trees were already in blossom. There was a village with ancient black-and-white houses tilted towards a green and a squat stone church.
‘Eh, pet!’ As soon as she’d spoken Vera wondered if she were emphasizing the accent because she was nervous, very much out of her comfort zone. ‘It’s all very Midsomer, isn’t it?’
Charlie chortled, but she saw that he was very tired. ‘You have a kip in the car while I talk to her. Probably best not to go in mob-handed anyway.’
The house had once been a rectory. It was old redbrick and seemed to hold the heat of the afternoon sun. There was a garden, not as big or as organized as that of the Hall at Gilswick, but plenty of space to keep the neighbours at bay. For a small child to set his moth traps. There was long grass in an orchard that still had a rope-swing tied to one of the trees. Vera thought of Simon, the boy who’d committed suicide, and thought she’d have got rid of that. It reminded her too much of a gallows. But perhaps Alicia had been looking forward and was still thinking of a grandchild. There’d be no hope of that now.
Alicia had a man with her. ‘This is Henry.’ Her lover and intended husband. He was just as Vera would have expected: tall, grey-haired, distinguished. He spoke with the sort of voice that had once commanded obedience through half the globe. And it seemed he had been a diplomat of some sort. ‘I was posted to every continent in the world, but I’ve never been to north-east England. Shameful, I know.’ Then he gave a little laugh that made Vera think that he wasn’t ashamed at all.