“It would take considerable control. The separation of the fantasy life and the everyday. It would be exceptional.”
“But not impossible.”
“No. Not impossible.”
Driving back to Elvet, Vera thought she’d made a fool of herself. She should never have gone to the hospital. It had been a spur of the minute impulse, an excuse to get out of the village. She’d over-reacted to Dan Greenwood keeping a few momentos of his last major case. It wouldn’t do to start rumours that Dan was some sort of weirdo. A place like this, that was the last thing he’d need.
She drove through the square and saw that he was working in the forge. She was tempted to stop. Why not just ask him why he’d kept the material on the Mantel case and how he’d come into possession of the photograph? But she continued on the road towards the coast until she came to the crescent of small houses where he lived. She pulled her car into the verge on the main road and walked towards his home. The street was quiet. In one house an elderly woman was watching a game show on the television in her front room. She sat with her swollen legs on a footstool, a Zimmer frame within easy reach. When Vera walked past she kept her gaze fixed on the screen.
Vera stopped before Dan’s place and went up to his neighbour’s front door. She rang the bell. There was no reply. She did the same thing at the house beyond. The street was only built on one side. It curved round a small children’s play area. Satisfied that no one was looking, she approached Dan’s. The door was locked as she knew it would be. She looked under the mat. No spare key. One of his larger pots containing a small evergreen shrub stood next to the doorstep. She shifted it. Nothing. The bedroom window at the front was open, but she didn’t have the build or fitness for climbing drainpipes.
There wasn’t much of a garden, just a square of muddy grass and a low privet hedge to separate it from the houses on each side. No hiding place. Because the Crescent was a terrace, the only access to the back gardens was from the fields. She was about to give up. She wasn’t in the mood for shinning over farm gates or wading ankle-deep in muck. Then she returned to the shrub in the pot and felt around the wood chippings scattered on top of the soil. One mortise lock key. She wiped it clean on her jumper and opened the door. She slipped off her sandals and put them sole up on the carpet. She closed the door behind her and padded barefoot into Daniel’s home.
It’s a skill to search without leaving a sign of the intruder. It takes time. But Daniel’s house was easier to look through than most. He had few possessions and he kept them ordered. Vera started at the top of the house. There was a small bathroom, probably renovated in the eighties, with an avocado suite and black mould in the sealant around the bath. In the mirror-faced wall cabinet, she found a packet of paracetamol and a bottle of antidepressants. These had been prescribed by his GP, not the hospital consultant. Daniel’s room contained a double bed, neatly made with sheets and blankets. No duvet. There was a pine bedside table. He was reading a novel by James Lee Burke, a paperback with a black and purple jacket. In the drawer she found a couple of packets of condoms. Unopened. Wishful thinking? Or had he found a girlfriend? Some secret woman prepared to take him on? He had admitted to bringing Caroline Fletcher home for a drink, after all. Perhaps there was more to that relationship than he’d let slip. His clothes were all folded and neatly hung in a white plastic fitted wardrobe. The laundry basket in the corner was empty. If he had killed Christopher Winter, there would be no forensic evidence to link him to the scene. The second bedroom was at the back and smaller. The curtains were closed. They were heavily lined and when Vera first entered she could see nothing. She switched on the light. In the second before the room was lit, she felt breathless, frightened for what she would find. But at first it seemed there was nothing out of the ordinary. Under the window stood an ornate dressing table, with three mirrors, angled, all surrounded in cheap gilt. Then, next to the wall, a narrow single bed covered in a floral quilt. On the dressing table there was a photograph of a woman. From the style of hair and clothes it had been taken in the early fifties. She was young and smiling into the camera. Daniel’s mother, perhaps? The woman who’d died and left Daniel enough money to buy the forge and set up his business. On the bed lay a pair of women’s panties. Black. Tiny. A heart in sequins sewn on the front. Not the sort of garment Caroline Fletcher would go for. Too brash and down market Vera could see the label inside from where she stood. The garment had come from a chain store which catered to younger buyers. It should be possible to find out when they’d been produced, Vera thought. She hoped they were a recent addition to stock, that they hadn’t been part of the range ten years previously.
Downstairs she found nothing of interest. She was meticulous although she was aware of time passing. Did she want Daniel to find her, so she could confront him and give him a chance to explain? Certainly she took her time, sorting through the CDs in the living room and the drawers in the kitchen, emptying the small freezer compartment in the fridge so she could feel to the back.
At last she was satisfied. She opened the front door and looked out. Still the road was quiet and the playground empty. She put on her sandals and stood on the doorstep. She locked the door and replaced the key. A few bark chippings fell from the pot onto the concrete path. She picked them up and threw them into the gutter as she walked to her car.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Michael knew it was no good going to see Vera Stanhope yet. His mind was fizzing, the thoughts chasing each other, becoming wilder and more fantastic, but he was sane enough to realize that she’d need more than theories and accusations. At the moment she’d see him as a barmy old man with a grudge. Why should she listen to him?
He left the library in a hurry, hardly taking time to thank Lesley, not waiting to put on his bulky coat, gathering it instead under his arm. In the square the men had finished putting up the decorations and were testing the lights. There was nothing magical about them, Michael thought. He couldn’t see the point of all that effort. A whole morning’s work, for what? The bulbs were as big as you’d find in domestic light fittings, but with garish colours, pink, lime green and a sulphurous yellow. There was a snowman which had been cut out of grubby polystyrene and hung from a wife strung between two lamp posts. Its grin leered at passers-by. Michael found the crooked smile disturbing. It followed him down the street to Val’s Diner, where he drank a cup of coffee and tried to order his thoughts. He needed to plan what to do next.
At the bus stop there were a couple of women who’d come into town from Elvet to do their shopping. He heard them talking from a distance. “Only a month until Christmas. Fancy.” They wore little fur-lined suede boots, identical, and there were piles of white carrier bags on the pavement surrounding them, so each was stranded in her own island of plastic. Michael knew them. If he’d allowed himself a moment to think about it, he’d have remembered their names. They’d been friends of Peg’s. But he was still racing after the ideas which seemed to be galloping away from him and nothing else mattered. He stood behind them to form a queue, became suddenly aware that he was being spoken to.
“It’s nice to see you out, Michael. In town on a bit of business?” It was the shorter one with the white bubbly hair. He looked at her sharply, wondering for a moment if there was anything sinister in her question. It even occurred to him briefly that she might be a spy for Mantel. That was the extent of his anxiety. Then he told himself that he was letting his imagination run away with him. He’d spent too long brooding on his own. Still, it was as well to be careful.
“No. Just here to visit the library.”