Echoes of Silence Page 17

  It occurred to her that this wouldn’t necessarily stop him.

  She said very carefully, through stiff lips, ‘What you’re saying is that Mrs Austwick held this over my mother – that my mother repeatedly hit Beth until she died?’

  ‘We’ve no means of knowing that, have we, Mrs Winslow? What I do say, since it appears your mother was disabled by her arthritis even then, is that someone else must have been involved in the removal of her body.’

  ‘She could never have hit a child deliberately! Whatever she says in the letter – whatever she was pretending – I doubt if she even raised her stick. I cannot recall one single instance when she ever lifted a finger to any one of us – and we were normal children, we must have given her cause to get angry from time to time.’

  She didn’t feel it necessary to add that Freya’s displeasure had always been expressed differently. A cold, disapproving silence, to shame you, to make you shrink inside. A silence you remembered, long after a smacked bottom would have been forgotten. Withdrawal of parental approval, far more devastating, just as cruel in a different way.

  ‘Then if she was lying we can only assume that she did it to protect someone. A person close to her, it must have been. You’d have to love someone very much to admit to murder in order to save them, wouldn’t you?’

  At last. Out in the open. ‘You mean Peter. My brother.’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  But she knew he did. And Peter had thought so too, last night, when he’d rushed away from Low Rigg, unable to bear what his mother had taken it upon herself to do. ‘Listen,’ she said, suddenly angry, ‘my brother went through hell ten years ago. Nothing was proved against him, but it’s screwed up his life. It’s haunted him ever since. I’ll ask you one question, Chief Inspector. Why should my mother have written this letter if it isn’t in some way true? The case has been closed for ten years. This only throws out even more suspicions, puts Peter under more pressure. Why would she risk that?’

  ‘As I’ve said, it was unlikely she would have known what I’ve just told you about the post-mortem. I can only assume she expected the document Mrs Austwick was threatening her with to turn up among her papers after she died, and knowing that it would implicate the Denshaw family in some way, she was prepared to take the blame. I have to tell you we haven’t yet found any such document.’

  ‘You mean it doesn’t exist?’

  ‘No, only that we haven’t found it.’ He pulled the thick file towards him and opened it at where a marker had been inserted between the pages. ‘I see you weren’t there, on the day Beth disappeared?’

  ‘I wasn’t living at home then, I was at teacher-training college.’

  ‘Yes, of course. I see the permanent household at that time consisted of Mr and Mrs Nagle in addition to the family – your mother, your uncle, Philip Graham Denshaw. And Elvira Graham …’ He paused. ‘She’s not technically a member of your family?’

  ‘We’ve always regarded her as such. She came to us as a baby, when both her parents were killed in a pot-holing accident in North Yorkshire. There were no other relatives to take care of her, so she came to live with us.’

  ‘Elvira Graham, yes. I see. Graham,’ he repeated. ‘Does that have any significance?’

  Significance? Graham? What did he mean? And then she saw. It suddenly seemed to have become very hot in here.

  ‘Open the door,’ Richmond instructed the WDC. ‘It’s got rather warm in here since we shut the window. Are you sure you wouldn’t like some coffee, Mrs Winslow? I can have some fresh sent in.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, thanks. I’m fine.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  She’d let him relieve her of her red coat and bright scarf when she came in even though, draped as she was in layers of soft dark materials underneath, she knew she’d look sallow under the fluorescent lights. But she now felt a tide of colour sweeping up her neck, helpless to control it. ‘What exactly do you mean, significant?’

  ‘I’m asking if your uncle could be related in any way to Elvira?’

  She had to break the silence at last. She felt a sense of outrage, coupled with a strong desire to kick herself for her own – perhaps deliberate – obtuseness. ‘He used to make a lot of her when she was a child, but he likes children, anyway. They really don’t have much of a relationship now.’

  ‘Is that so? What happened to change it?’

  ‘It happens, as you grow up, you change.’ She shrugged, too casual in an effort not to give anything away.

  But she knew it was more than that, though all she could be certain of was that their estrangement had something to do with Peter. That summer, before Peter had dropped out of art school, Elf and Peter had been as thick as thieves. And then, suddenly, it was all over. Over between Elf and Philip, too, that trusting friendship Elf had never enjoyed with anyone else. And a coolness between Philip and Peter that never seemed to have been resolved.

  ‘OK, maybe being named Graham is just a coincidence,’ he said easily.

  ‘What does it matter, anyway? What’s it to do with Mrs Austwick’s murder?’

  ‘I don’t know there’s any connection at all – but it’s my job to collect all the bits and pieces I can and one day, who knows, one of them may be the missing piece I’m looking for.’

  One of those bits and pieces had been Elvira Graham’s name, jumping right out at him, staying with him, ever since he’d begun to reread those reports. She had been the last person to see Beth alive.

  ‘I helped her to build the snowman,’ her statement had read. ‘I went indoors to find a hat and scarf and so on to finish it off while she rolled the snowball for the head. It was about quarter past two. Her stepfather, Peter Denshaw, was due to pick her up any moment. It took me longer than I thought to find the things, and he was late. He had just arrived when I got back with them, but Beth had already disappeared.’

  ‘May I go now?’ Polly was already half-way out of her seat.

  ‘Yes, for the moment.’

  ‘You do believe me – about Mrs Austwick? Whatever it looks like, whatever you believe, I didn’t harm her when I went to see her.’

  He allowed a small smile to appear. ‘That wasn’t my purpose in bringing you here. But since you are here, I can tell you that she may have been alive after that.’ He looked down at his foolscap pad, still blank. ‘Unless, of course, you returned later.’

  She said with dignity, ‘No. I swear I didn’t.’

  ‘Well, I hope you’re telling the truth this time. As it is, I could charge you with obstructing police inquiries, but I won’t.’ He stood up to end the interview. ‘DC Jenner will have your statement typed and then you’ll be asked to sign it. Thank you for your time.’

  He held out his hand and, after a moment’s hesitation, she took it. He was scarcely aware that he held hers fractionally longer than necessary.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Winslow.’

  And what else isn’t she telling us? he asked the empty room after Sally had escorted her out. The feel of her hand, small and warm, in his palm, stayed with him, her scent lingered faintly on the air. He hoped it wasn’t the smell of treachery.

  Would it matter, he thought, if it was? Yes, it would. It would matter a lot. Damn this to hell! Polly Winslow was a complication he could do without.

  He sat for some time after that, trying to put his thoughts into order, then picked up the photocopy of the letter Freya Denshaw had written to return it to its file. And thought again of something that had lodged in his mind when the drowned duckling in the solicitors’ office had found her lost conveyance, and had been eluding him ever since. Too many things chasing across his mind. He passed a hand across his face, troubled. He wasn’t sleeping well, and he desperately needed clarity, the kind that comes from good sleep. He fell into bed at night, poleaxed from lack of it the previous night, but it didn’t prevent the dreams. The recurrent dreams he’d suffered for months after Beth’s body was discovered, which had eventually stopped,
only to return since he’d come back here. Nightmarish fantasies, hideous with demons, which he couldn’t remember when he woke up, thrashing, sweating, feeling on the verge of calamity …

  He poured himself some vile, stewed coffee from the jug keeping hot on his desk, and slugged it down, thinking Polly had been right to refuse. The bitter brew puckered his mouth, but he felt better from the jolt it gave him after drinking it, and got to grips with what it was that had been escaping him. Forget it, it’ll come to you, he’d told the duckling, advice which hadn’t worked for him. But solid concentration, now, eventually did. He sent for Manning and instructed him to have someone go through Austwick’s files again.

  ‘We’ve been through them twice.’

  ‘Go through them again. Every single one. Not only those that seem relevant this time.’

  No murderer worth his salt would have left that paper lying around. On the other hand, Austwick hadn’t struck him as the sort to leave anything to chance. There’d be a copy, somewhere. He’d had someone go through the papers in the Denshaw files minutely, and got Manning to prove his expertise on the computer by endeavouring to find out if she’d transferred the information on to disk, and thereafter disguised it in some fashion, but with no results. But perhaps it wasn’t as complicated as that. If you wished to hide something, as the duckling had proved, the best way was simply to file it in the wrong place.

  And of course, there it was, eventually. Hidden in the Whitfield file, clipped together with other papers relating to events at the Girls’ High School, a mere programme, nothing to excite comment, unless you realised what it was, scribbled on the back. It was what he expected – a poor photocopy, since the original, as he remembered, had been written in pencil. Nothing but a scrawl, in Freya Denshaw’s distinctive loopy writing. Three attempts she’d made, the last one making it clear that the document had evidently been destined not as a letter at all, more a sort of promissory note, to the effect that Eddie Nagle was to be paid a stated annual sum of money by Freya Denshaw. ‘For services rendered’, she had written in one of the drafts, before prudence had intervened and she had crossed it out. He thought it unlikely he would ever see the original again: and this rough scribble could hardly be classed as hard evidence. But it had demonstrated Freya’s intentions, and services rendered were, by definition, actions which couldn’t be revoked, a matter of history. And in view of that letter she’d left, it seemed pretty conclusive what those services were.

  ‘Well, there you are.’ Manning handed it over, scarcely troubling to conceal his surprise that Richmond should consider such rubbish at all. Flimsy evidence indeed, around which to construct a theory, but it was a starting point. Richmond had worked with less before. ‘Let’s have him in again,’ he said.

  Polly sped through the archway which spanned what had once been the gates of Roydholme Mill, then across the shopping concourse, hoping Ginny wouldn’t see her: no time to chat. Red coat and hair flying, wings on her feet. Across to where the lift ascended to the flats above, hoping that Elf – sorry, Elvira – would be, as she sometimes was, home for lunch, and that she’d be in time to catch her. Much rather here than at Steynton Fine Art, which intimidated Polly, for reasons unknown.

  The lift hummed to the top floor and opened in the corner by a window, high, high above the town, the blue-carpeted, recently vacuumed corridor stretching before her with polished wood doors opening off it at intervals, all bearing neat name-plates. In an alcove, a bank of flowering pot plants with a picture above them. A hushed, air-conditioned, privileged ambience, a far cry from the mill’s original purpose, that world full of deafening machinery, flying dust and fluff and the overpowering smell of greasy wool. Polly paused for a moment to look out of the window. Had the operatives working here, when the place had occupied its true function, ever had time to gaze out over this long perspective of the valley, narrowing between the steeply sloping hills, the river like a slash of silver below, disappearing into the distance? Of course not, how fanciful! Mill owners had not been inclined to encourage idleness or to remind employees of a sweeter world outside by leaving their windows transparent: clear double glazing was part of the reconstruction and transformation that had taken place.

  She’d brought wine with her that Leon might have approved of, though not Lachryma Christi, there might be tears enough without that. And handmade chocolates, of a make endorsed by Ginny – ridiculously expensive, priced at so much each - to show good intentions. A pause for thought there: when had she started feeling that necessary? Conscience? Why Elf, when she didn’t go bearing gifts to Ginny, not all the time? Followed by a wish, too late, that she hadn’t done so now.

  Elvira. She would try to remember.

  No answer to her first, or her second, ring. Damn!

  She made her way back to the concourse and went to Ginny’s shop. ‘Here,’ she said, thrusting the wine and the chocolates at her sister. ‘Another load of sin on your hips.’

  ‘What have I done to deserve this, you sadist?’

  Polly laughed and kissed her cheek. ‘Call it a thank you, for having me and Harriet. May I use your phone?’

  Elf was at the gallery. ‘Come and have some lunch with me,’ she said immediately, and when Polly hesitated, added, ‘It’s from Alessandra’s, she always sends enough for an army.’

  ‘In that case … be with you in five minutes.’

  Alessandra, an Italian mama owning her own restaurant and delicatessen round the corner from the gallery, delivered sandwiches or appetising pasta dishes on request. Weighing fourteen stones herself, she believed Elf needed fattening up, consequently the dishes she sent round inclined heavily towards carbohydrates, butter and cream. Polly’s mouth watered. Food had not been a priority recently.

  Delicious smells greeted her as she went in via the back premises. The inner door into the shop was firmly closed, lest peasant odours of garlic and onion should waft into the studied elegance of the gallery. There, now that it belonged to Elf, everything, apart from the gilded sign outside, was neutral or a muted grey, not to detract from the works of art: pearly grey paintwork, charcoal carpet, perspex columns topped with sculptures, glass cases containing more, smoke grey walls against which pictures hung in gilded frames. Less of everything, but in better taste, and correspondingly more expensive. Polly wondered who bought it all. The populace of Steynton was not on the whole well heeled, whatever its taste might be. But executives with highly paid jobs in Leeds and Bradford, and sometimes further afield, were seeing the advantages of commuting from Steynton, which was beginning to have a lot to offer besides easily accessible, unspoilt countryside: good schools, fashionable dress shops, London-trained hairdressers …

  Elf cleared a space on a table otherwise occupied with a newly arrived work of art and some of the packing materials it had been despatched in. It was bronze and tortuous and Polly forbore to ask what it was supposed to be. They ate farfalla with mushrooms and smoked salmon in a rich sauce, and spoke of arrangements for the funeral, about Polly’s search for a house, about Harriet’s new school, but skirted wider issues.

  The food was wonderful. She’d been right about the cream, Polly thought, demolishing most of what there was with gusto, while Elf toyed with the rest. No wonder she was so thin. She was doing her hair differently these days, her well-shaped head shown to advantage by the sleek, pointy short cut, like a boy’s. So neat she was, so well put together. Beautiful suit. Italian shoes. Looking not at all as Polly felt by comparison, dressed from somebody’s ragbag.

  There was a difference in Elf herself, too. She was less prickly and defensive nowadays, but around her there was still tension, as if she were holding her breath.

  As a child, Elf had been regarded as a handful: impish and mischievous, nothing more really, though Freya had chosen to see it as badness. Difficult, yes – smiles and dimples when people laughed at her antics, kicking her heels and screaming when they found her too much – but never bad. Rightly regarded as a pesky little sister when sh
e wanted to tag along, but great fun when she wasn’t bent on being a demon … Until she reached her teens. When, with devastating suddenness, she’d changed, become withdrawn and edgy. Finally, she had seemed to reach some sort of compromise with herself, but it was still a case of allowing you to get so far, and no further.

  Now she looked as assured and successful as she undoubtedly was, attested to by this gallery, previously owned by Lance Armitage, for whom she’d worked. Where had the money come from to buy it? The question had been a topic of unending family speculation, with Armitage as a possible lover well to the forefront of the scenario.

  Polly wondered how any of them could possibly have believed that, realised they probably didn’t, had guessed the truth, that she was the only one naïve enough not to have realised it was quite on the cards that it was Philip who’d stumped up. Belatedly honouring his responsibilities, perhaps. She could hear Ginny: ‘Oh, Poll, haven’t you always known? But no, you wouldn’t, you never stop long enough to listen, do you? You never notice anything.’ Admit it, it was often true. Even Tom Richmond had figured it out: Philip Graham Denshaw, Elvira Graham. But why the secrecy? Philip had been a free man shortly after Elf was born, when his wife had died. Polly could make a guess at that one, anyway, and the answer wasn’t one she cared for. She was wondering whether she dared ask Elf directly – no, she dared not, not yet, anyway! – when she was asked which she’d prefer of the dozen or so herb teas on offer, and the moment was lost.

  While they sipped the blackberry and nettle brew – not half bad, really – Polly examined an unframed picture leaning against the wall. Disturbing, not something she’d want to live with, but she looked at it for a long time. It hadn’t been here on the last occasion she’d visited. ‘It’s Peter’s, isn’t it?’ she hazarded.