Someone was making their way down the path from the house to the shore. The figure was tall, wearing a full-length black coat. It took a while for Joe to realize it was Nina Backworth.
‘What the shit’s she doing here? Who let her onto the beach?’ He was glad to have an outlet for his frustration. Nobody answered, and he took off suddenly and strode towards the woman, allowing the salt water and the wet sand to splash his trousers.
‘You shouldn’t be here, you know,’ he said, while she was still at some distance away from him. His voice was raised.
‘Why?’
She was very pale. He knew she’d found the body. Her story had predicted the murder. Her sleeping pills had knocked out Tony Ferdinand. And now she was here. Checking they’d found the coat and the knife? But still he couldn’t imagine her as a killer.
‘Because the area’s forensically sensitive,’ he said.
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ She spoke to him as if he were a particularly stupid student. ‘The tide’s been over here this morning. Any evidence will be halfway to Norway.’
They stared at each other. He didn’t know what to say to her.
‘I’ve been sitting in the library all bloody morning,’ she said at last. Tears began to roll down her cheeks and he saw how tired and scared she was. ‘Nobody will tell me anything. Holly talks at me, but there’s no information, just fatuous empty words. Am I under arrest? Do you all think I killed Miranda Barton?’
‘No!’ As he had in her room the day before, he wanted to put his arms around her shoulders. If it hadn’t been for the audience in the shadow of the cliff he might have done it. ‘But you can’t stay here. Come back with me, and I’ll try to find out if you’re free to go. Or at least if you can join the others in the hotel.’
‘No!’ She was standing very close to him. The refusal, an echo of his own word, reminded him of his daughter in one of her stubborn moods. At those times, nothing would persuade the child to change her mind. She’d just repeat herself: No, no, no.
‘Don’t you see?’ Nina cried. ‘One of those people is a killer. They slashed Miranda’s throat. How can you expect me to sit in a room with them all? To drink tea and make polite conversation.’
She turned away from him and stamped back towards the house. He had to run to catch her up.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Vera climbed the narrow stairs in the Bartons’ cottage and dipped her head under a low beam to reach a landing. A narrow passage with three doors off. It was almost dark; the only light slanted up from the kitchen below. She presumed Alex Barton was still there, sitting in the rocking chair, still not communicating with the uniformed officer she’d called back to mind him. Vera pulled on gloves before opening each of the doors and looking inside. There were two bedrooms and a bathroom.
She checked out the bathroom first. It was tiny, with a small corner bath and a shower built over it, a basin and lavatory. No room for a chair or a cupboard, except for a small unit fixed to the wall above the sink. Mirrored doors. Inside a wrapped bar of soap and some toothpaste. Over-the-counter medicines, remedies for colds and flu, indigestion. No sleeping tablets. Had Alex Barton come here last night and showered? Had he stood in the bath and washed his mother’s blood from his skin? If so, they’d find traces of it perhaps, in the outflow pipe. But the room seemed spotless to Vera. There was a smell of bleach. Not in itself suspicious. Perhaps the Bartons were naturally very clean. She wasn’t that way inclined herself, but it was known.
Alex had the smaller bedroom. It was built into the roof at the front, with a view over the yard. There was no double-glazing and Vera could hear the talk from below, could sense the anticipation even from here. There’d been a discovery. She knew she’d be excited later, but at the moment the chatter was just background noise in her head and she tried to filter it out. Now she wanted to focus on these people and the strange relationship that there’d been between them. A single parent and an only child. It could make for the closest relationship in the world. But it could be a deadly combination.
The young man’s bedroom was functional and so tidy that it made Vera uncomfortable. A psychologist might say it indicated a need to control. There was a three-quarter-sized bed against one wall, the duvet folded back at exactly halfway of its length to air the bottom sheet. Under the window, in the part of the room where the ceiling was most low, a small desk held a PC. There was no printer. Probably no need. All young people communicated electronically these days. Did Alex Barton have friends of his own age? People he texted and shared jokes with on Facebook? She couldn’t see it. He’d grown up here, would have been to school with everyone of the same age in this part of the county, but it was hard to imagine him getting pissed on a Friday night on Newcastle’s Quayside. It was as if this place had sucked the life and the youth from him and turned him into a loner. Yet when she’d first met him, she’d thought him confident, competent. Perhaps he was only comfortable in this house, on home territory. Perhaps work had been his saviour too.
Vera sat on the swivel chair in front of the desk. From here, Alex would see everyone who came down the track to the house, but there was no view of the terrace or the beach. Next to the bed was a chest of drawers. Not old like the furniture in the big house, but flat-pack from a major chain and self-constructed. Was that Alex’s choice or had his mother needed to save money? On top of the chest stood a small, flat-screen television.
What did he watch? Vera wished there was some way of finding out. Maybe that macho survival stuff. Living in the forest with only a knife and a water bottle. She couldn’t imagine him chilling out in front of soap operas or escapist drama. Comedy? He hadn’t displayed a sense of humour in any of the interviews, even before his mother’s death, but then not everyone thought it fitting to laugh about murder.
In the drawers, the clothes were ironed and neatly folded. Two sets of chef’s whites and underwear in the top drawer. Casual T-shirts and jeans in the rest. A wardrobe in the same style held one suit, a formal jacket and two pairs of grey trousers. Four shirts, again immaculately ironed. Vera knew that a couple of women came in from the next village to clean the big house each day, and that the bed linen and towels went to a laundry at the end of each course. But Vera thought this was Alex’s work. The control thing again. He’d want to look after his own possessions. Maybe she shouldn’t make too much of the spotless bathroom. If this was how Alex kept his bedroom, it would be in character for him to clean the bath and sink every day. It didn’t necessarily mean that he’d been awake all night washing away his mother’s blood.
She looked under the bed and felt behind the wardrobe. No porn. No girlie posters on the walls. In fact there were no pictures on the walls at all, only a framed certificate from his catering course. What did he do for sex? Probably used the Internet, like most of the UK’s male population. It came to Vera that more than likely he was a virgin.
In contrast, Miranda’s room was surprisingly big. Opulent and glamorous in an old-fashioned way. It held a double bed, piled with pillows and silk-covered cushions, in various shades of purple. These seemed to have been artfully arranged – another sign, Vera thought, that Miranda hadn’t been to bed the night before. There was a small wrought-iron grate, just for decoration now. Where the fire would once have been laid stood a candle in a big blue candle-holder, identical to the one on the table on the terrace. Was that significant? Vera tried to remember if she’d seen one like it in the main house. On one side of the chimneybreast, bookshelves had been built into the alcove, and on the other stood a big Victorian wardrobe. There was a dressing table with an ornate framed mirror under the window, and an upholstered stool in front of it. No PC.