‘And I’d had problems before,’ she said, hesitating. ‘With girls — Pat brought girls back, and that was a problem. Not that I’d mind, but the landlords said if people wanted a flat for two the rent was higher. So no double occupancy. I should have said something earlier, but I let it drag. He was just a kid, and I didn’t hear the girls complain. Quite the opposite.’
There was nervous laughter. Shute was nodding and Shaw guessed he was trying to work out what he should ask next. As coroner he had certain duties — to fix the time and place of death, for example. But he also had a duty to probe the cause and circumstances of that death.
‘Girls?’ he said. He checked the file. ‘The deceased was only in Lynn for a few months before his disappearance — but in that time he had several girlfriends?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘I see. I expect the police will want to ask you more questions about that, Mrs Flowers.’
Shaw watched as Lizzie took a seat.
‘But back to that night — so you went to the door?’
‘Yes. But I couldn’t put the light on because that wakes Frank up, so it took me a minute to get my things. I heard him come down the stairs and go out the door. I followed — right out in the street. It was a cold night, but there was a moon, and so I could see that he’d gone. He must have cut down Jenkyns Street to the river. But I tell you what I heard — one of those suitcase things on wheels, like a trolley. That’s what I heard. So I thought, he’s done a moonlight flit, even though that didn’t make any sense because his mother paid the rent and it was paid a month in advance. So I didn’t call out or anything. I just let him go.’
‘But you didn’t see anyone — how can you be sure it was Pat Garrison?’
‘He left me a note — typed. I saw it when I went back in our flat by the hall light, under our door. Just saying he was leaving, and thanking us for being kind. And that’s what really made me remember it — Frank laughed when he saw it — because we hadn’t been kind. Frank doesn’t like ’em …’ She shrugged, looked around. ‘You know, the blacks.’
There was a brittle silence.
Shute thanked her for her evidence, asked for any more witnesses to step forward and, when none did so, adjourned the inquest.
DC Birley waylaid Jayne Flowers, taking her to a table to fix a time for a formal statement. The room emptied quickly, many people staying out in the bar. Ian Murray appeared, helping two waitresses quickly set out the tables for lunch.
Shaw took a chair and walked over to Lizzie. ‘A quick word,’ he said, and sat beside her. She shook out her hair, then ran a hand through it. Over their heads was a loudspeaker and they heard the opening piano chords of ‘Oliver’s Army’ from the juke box. There was a wire hanging loose from the speaker, within reach, and she took it and with one abrupt tug pulled it out, cutting the music dead.
Shaw waited for her to speak but the figurehead face remained immobile, the piercing green eyes locked on Shaw’s.
‘Pat saw other girls, then?’ he said.
‘I need a smoke — so can we keep this short?’ she asked. She knocked out a cigarette and held it in her lips, and Shaw thought that was one of the reasons her beauty had diminished over the years, that she’d taken on the manners of men, living and working in a man’s world.
‘Kath Robinson?’ Shaw suggested. ‘Was she one of the others?’
Lizzie smiled. ‘Yup — she was the first. Nothing happened. Kath’s always been a bit slow, a bit trusting. These days they’d have a word for it. But we just looked out for her. She fell for Pat. Pat should have walked away, but he didn’t. She tried to play him along a bit. Not clever. She was just looking forward to a first kiss, I think — but Pat had other ideas. Like I said, nothing happened. But Kath was upset. Confused.’
‘She told you this?’
‘She’s always told me everything — we were best friends at school. She spent more time here as a kid than she did at home. Mind you, her old man was in the bar most of his life.’ She took the cigarette out of her mouth. ‘Yes, she told me. This wasn’t long after Pat had arrived. We hadn’t started seeing each other then. I had words. Pat was sorry — he said he hadn’t understood.’
‘She’s a quiet girl,’ said Shaw, offering her the chance to paint a fuller picture.
‘Cursed with beauty,’ she said bitterly, and Shaw thought Lizzie’s abrupt and tetchy manner might hide a fine mind. ‘She wants someone to love her — always has. But men can’t see past the boobs and the Barbie-doll looks. Married a couple of times but she’s not interested any more — she’s taken refuge as Bea’s housekeeper up at the B amp;B, does most of the cleaning, cooking and stuff. She wears a wedding ring — it’s like mosquito repellent. Works, too.’
‘So, despite Pat’s reputation — I presume there were others if Mrs Flowers’s statement is true — you became lovers?’
‘He didn’t cheat on me, if that’s what you’re after,’ she said. ‘Once we were together, that was it. When he went, disappeared, I thought he had found someone else. I admit that. But it turns out we were all wrong. He didn’t run away, did he? He would have stayed if someone hadn’t killed him. So perhaps I was right to trust him.’ She took in a ragged breath, her fingers working at the skin of her neck.
Through the door marked staff her son Ian appeared in his chef’s whites, using his back to push through, with three plates effortlessly held. ‘Three daily specials,’ he announced before heading across the room in response to a waved arm.
The place had filled up quickly with lunch tables and diners. At one of the tables Shaw recognized Pastor Abney from the Free Church, and at another Michael Brindle, the chargehand from the cemetery labour gang who’d walked him to Freddie Fletcher’s office that first morning of the investigation. Shaw was struck again by the claustrophobic intimacy of this small community, even now, in the first years of the twenty-first century, as incestuous as it had been, perhaps, when the whaling fleet was still coming home.
Lizzie’s eyes followed her son across the room.
‘Presumably Pat carried keys, Mrs Murray? A key ring?’
‘Yes. Flashy — like fake gold, in the shape of that mountain with the presidents’ heads on it …’
‘No spare?’
‘No. But he had one for here — Bea gave it him.’
Shaw’s mobile rang so he stood and apologized, walking to the window that looked out onto the cemetery. It was DC Twine: Sam Venn had changed his story. He remembered now. He’d been ill that night — and it wasn’t the first time. His illness, the cerebral palsy, made standing for long periods of time difficult, and he’d often had to leave midway through public performances, because the effort of keeping his bones still, and the stress, made him feel sick. So, yes — he’d gone early that night, after the break, and walked alone to his uncle’s house. But his uncle was dead now, so they’d have to take his word for it.
Shaw agreed with Twine’s recommendation that they release Venn for now; they had no evidence he’d followed Pat Garrison to the cemetery that night, none that would get them past a magistrate’s court hearing, let alone to a trial. Shaw cut the line, troubled that they were uncovering so many lies, and troubled also by that strange detail — that Venn had gone to his uncle’s house rather than his own home. But Pastor Abney had said his parents lived locally, that his father had been a member of the Elect.
When he turned back to Lizzie Murray she was gone.
20
Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital stood on a wooded hill overlooking the estuary of the River Welland — a culvert of glistening black mud with boats beached in pools of water left by the outflowing tide. It was the bleakest spot in a bleak landscape. A stand of cedar trees on its southwest side had been bent over the building by the wind like thinning hair over a skull. Snow and ice lay in the ditches — a mathematical grid traced over a landscape rolled flat by steel-grey snow clouds blowing in from the sea. As Shaw approached in the Porsche he thought how the hospital’s position, eight miles from the nearest town at Sutton Bridge, encapsulated the planners’ attitudes to mental health. Bellevue was as far away from anything as anything could be. And, despite its name, the view was a study in melancholia.