Kind of Cruel (20 page)

‘Killjoys,’ said Gibbs. ‘Sitting quietly in their houses not drinking. Freaks.’

‘The killjoys were delighted that their spokeswoman just happened to be Amber Hewerdine’s best mate, until they found out that Amber, far from being willing to use her influence to help her friend, did the very opposite: told Sharon she was being ridiculous, paranoid and unreasonable. The two of them fell out for a few weeks, didn’t speak. Meanwhile, Terry Bond, not quite understanding why all this trouble was coming his way, withdrew his application. The last thing he wanted was to be hated by all his neighbours. He wasn’t Sharon Lendrim’s biggest fan, as you can imagine, and she wasn’t his. When she was murdered, twelve people contacted Ursula Shearer’s team to say that he must have been behind it. Only one person contacted them to say that Terry Bond definitely wasn’t Sharon’s killer.’

‘Amber Hewerdine,’ Gibbs guessed.

‘After Bond withdrew his application, Amber rang Sharon and asked if they could meet, try to sort things out. Sharon agreed, mainly because Dinah and Nonie adored Amber and were missing her. A lunch was arranged, at which Amber told Sharon a few things about the residents’ association that Sharon hadn’t previously been willing to listen to – that basically they opposed anything and everything they could. Objecting to things was their hobby. They’d protested about an Indian restaurant opening nearby, a French bistro, even an art gallery, on the grounds that it would serve wine at its private views which would lead to drunks staggering out onto the pavement armed with dangerously sharp-cornered framed pictures. Seriously, I’m not joking. They disapproved of anyone having fun, wanted everybody to sit at home in silence drinking water, or at least that was Amber Hewerdine’s take on it. Not dissimilar to yours.’ Sam smiled.

‘Amber presented Sharon with a challenge: to go with her to one of Terry Bond’s specially licensed comedy nights and see how she felt afterwards. According to the statement Amber made after Sharon’s murder, Sharon agreed to go along out of guilt. She was worried Amber was right: that she’d been tricked by a load of Nimbys into panicking when there was nothing to panic about, and destroyed a harmless pub landlord’s dreams in the process.’

‘I’ve yet to meet a harmless pub landlord, but carry on,’ said Gibbs. ‘Or shall I do the honours? Sharon had the best night of her life, she and Terry Bond got on like a—’

‘Choose another metaphor,’ Sam advised.

‘Is that what happened?’

‘Amber says yes. She says Sharon loved everything about the Four Fountains, loved the comedians on the bill that night . . .’

‘I hate comedians,’ said Gibbs. ‘They’re not funny.’

‘. . . remembered that no noise from the pub had ever disturbed her or her daughters, even on special licence nights when it was open till 3 a.m., sometimes. Terry Bond told her why she’d never been bothered by noise. When he’d taken over the Four Fountains, he’d installed new double-glazed acoustic glass windows, soundproofed his walls, he didn’t allow any of his punters to go out into the beer garden after 9 p.m., he’d put up signs all over the beer garden saying that anyone who disturbed the peace would get turfed out and barred . . .’

‘He wanted Sharon Lendrim on his side.’

‘According to Amber Hewerdine, he got her,’ said Sam. ‘She told him to put in another application. This time she’d support him and even speak in his favour at the licensing hearing, as a convert. Bond was delighted, understandably. He gave Sharon a free ticket to the pub’s next comedy night, told her he’d even treat her to a babysitter for the girls, promised to erect a high fence and plant a line of conifers at the bottom of his beer garden, give her house a bit of extra protection.’ Sam realised he’d barely touched his drink. That’d explain the thirst, then. He downed it in two, aware that downing it in one sounded better, even if you were only saying it to yourself. ‘The next comedy night at the Four Fountains was 22 November 2008,’ he said. ‘The night Sharon died. She had a great time, according to Bond. And his teenage daughter, who babysat for Dinah and Nonie. Sharon stayed at the pub until eleven, then went home to bed. Dinah was still up, chatting away to Bond’s daughter. She went to bed when Sharon did, at eleven thirty. Before that, she’d heard the sitter say to Sharon, “You’re back early.” Sharon jokingly replied, “This isn’t early. I’d have liked to stay for the rest, but I’m way too old to stay up all night.” That’s how Dinah knew the pub would still be open, when she and Nonie were running and needed somewhere to go – not because she’s a psychopathic freak-child who hangs around in bars in the early hours.’

‘So the girls not wanting to wake the neighbours . . .’ Gibbs began.

‘Might have had something to do with hearing countless members of the residents’ association bitching about inconsiderate people who don’t care if they disrupt hard-working taxpayers’ sleep,’ Sam finished his sentence for him.

‘So Bond had no motive to torch Sharon’s house,’ said Gibbs.

‘Not if what he, his daughter, Dinah Lendrim, Nonie Lendrim and Amber Hewerdine say is true, no,’ Sam agreed. ‘Trouble is, no one else knew about Sharon’s change of heart or her deal with Bond.’

‘Five people’s not enough?’

‘Normally it would be, if twelve people weren’t saying the opposite: that Terry Bond hated Sharon Lendrim, that she’d never have changed her tune about the extension to the pub’s opening hours, that it must have been a revenge killing contracted by Bond. By the time Sharon was murdered, Bond had put in a fresh application to the council’s licensing department and the residents’ association were swinging into action again to fight it. Amber Hewerdine told Ursula Shearer that Sharon was scared to come clean and tell her Nimby followers she’d switched sides. She’d been putting it off . . . and then she was killed.’

‘And it looked as if Bond wanted her out of the way so he’d stand a chance of winning second time round,’ said Gibbs. ‘None of this answers how come Amber Hewerdine’s got Sharon Lendrim’s kids.’

‘Sharon made a will naming Amber as guardian in the event of her death. She was anxious that her girls shouldn’t go to Marianne, their grandmother and only living blood relation. Now Amber and Luke are trying to adopt them. Marianne’s dead against it, Ursula Shearer says. Social Services have interviewed her about both of them, Marianne and Amber. They wanted her take on the possible adoption and Marianne’s objections to it, since she knows everyone involved.’

‘And?’ Gibbs asked.

‘Ursula likes Amber and trusts her,’ said Sam. ‘Thinks she’s brilliant for the girls, her husband Luke too. Though she did say she can be a handful and likes to tell people how to do their jobs. Nothing Ursula can say will convince Amber that Sharon wasn’t murdered by one of the residents’ association members.’

Gibbs spluttered as his beer went down the wrong way. ‘The puritans?’

‘It’s rubbish, Ursula says. The Nimbys have all been alibied. Amber knows it, but she’s sticking with her theory. Every so often she rings Ursula and tries again to persuade her: someone killed Sharon to blacken Terry Bond’s reputation. Maybe no one could prove Bond was behind it, but suspicion’s a powerful force. It might have been enough to ensure the licensing committee turned down any request Bond made for an extension in the future. If that was Sharon’s killer’s aim, it worked in a way. When Bond heard Sharon had been murdered, he was devastated and withdrew his application immediately. He agreed with Amber’s theory – the only person who did – and blamed himself: decided it was his application to the council that had caused all the trouble. You can imagine how he’d have tortured himself.’

Sam had been able to tell, listening to her story, that Ursula Shearer felt sorry for Bond. It had prompted him to ask her if Bond was still landlord of the Four Fountains. He told Gibbs the answer. ‘The pub never hosted another comedy event after the night Sharon died. In 2009, Bond and his daughter moved away. They live in Cornwall now.’

‘We shouldn’t be here,’ said Gibbs. ‘We should be checking Ursula Shearer’s case notes on Sharon Lendrim against ours on Kat Allen, see if they’ve got any more in common than we know about.’

‘Ursula’s copying everything and sending it over,’ said Sam. ‘My prediction is that, aside from Amber Hewerdine, there’ll be no overlap.’

‘You’re already wrong,’ Gibbs told him. ‘Both are unsolvable. We can’t find anyone who disliked Katharine Allen, never mind wanted her dead. Two years after the event, no one’s banged up for Sharon Lendrim’s murder, DS Shearer’s satisfied it wasn’t Terry Bond or any of the puritans. Has she got unprovable theories, suspects no shit’ll stick to? Anyone she’s got a dodgy feeling about?’

He was right. Sam hadn’t thought of it, and he should have. Simon would have.

‘She’s got no one in the frame at all, has she?’ said Gibbs. ‘Neither have we, for Katharine Allen.’

Sam nodded. It didn’t necessarily mean anything.

Yes, it does. There’s never nothing. Never. Except now, when there’s nothing twice.

The only time you found nothing in a victim’s life to explain their murder was when it was a stranger sex attack. Neither Sharon Lendrim nor Kat Allen had been interfered with sexually.

‘Two murders with no loose ends trailing from what we can see,’ Gibbs went on. ‘In both cases, there’s no solution that makes sense, but there’s nothing that doesn’t make sense either. A murderer who wanted to kill two people without anyone being able to guess why, in either case. Someone whose brain takes nothing and turns it into something, maybe. To everyone else, the reason for killing would appear irrational or nonexistent.’

Sam had to admit it was a valid point. Some motives made sense across the board, and were out there in the world for all to see, like a very public row between a landlord and a residents’ association; others were written on the world in invisible ink, existing only in the embargoed stories their owners repeated endlessly to themselves but never to anyone else. Unless Sam had misunderstood, Gibbs had in mind a killer who would only kill if he were sure there was no chance of the reason being suspected by anybody.

He or she
. Someone private, tidy, careful.

Sam knew what Gibbs was going to say before he said it.

‘Amber Hewerdine killed them both. Don’t ask me to prove it – I haven’t got time. I’m getting sacked tomorrow, remember?’

‘I wish I could be more helpful,’ Edward Ormston said to Simon, adjusting his glasses and the angle of the photograph in his hand. The two of them sat side by side on tall stools pulled up to the breakfast bar in Ormston’s kitchen in Combingham, drinking tea. Simon was trying not to be distracted by the sight of Ormston’s Wellington-boot-clad wife playing with two red setter dogs in the back garden. Dogs needed to be walked regularly, Simon knew that, but he’d never seen anyone cavort with them in the way this woman was, laughing and leaping around. When he left, would Ormston bang on the window and yell, ‘Pack it in, will you? You look like a fucking idiot!’ Unlikely; he seemed a kind man with a gentle voice and no hard edges, which made him an alien being as far as Simon was concerned.

‘No, I’m sorry,’ said Ormston. ‘I couldn’t tell you if she was there or not. I don’t remember anyone’s face from the course. If you think you’re not going to see people again, you don’t bother to file away their images for future reference, do you? I don’t, anyway. They were nineteen strangers, twenty if you count the teacher. I beg your pardon, the facilitator.’ Ormston smiled. ‘Everyone seems to be a facilitator of something or other nowadays, don’t they? There were no facilitators when I was your age.’

‘Her name’s Amber Hewerdine,’ said Simon. ‘She works for the city council, in the Licensing department. She’s got a husband called Luke who’s a stonemason, and two kids.’ Thinking of the message Sam had left on his voicemail, Simon added, ‘They’re not her kids – she’s their legal guardian, since their mum died. Amber and Luke want to adopt them, but they haven’t yet.’

‘How awful – the death of their mother, I mean. Sorry, I don’t quite understand . . .’ Ormston was too polite to ask outright why Simon was telling him a stranger’s life story.

‘I was wondering if any of those details might jog your memory. Her family situation’s unusual . . . Obviously none of it’s ringing any bells.’ Simon tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice. Ormston was the last person on his list to try; all the other people on Amber Hewerdine’s DriveTech course he’d either interviewed in person or over the phone, or abandoned as being uncontactable, for the time being at least. Nobody he’d spoken to remembered Amber’s face, though all had stressed this didn’t mean she wasn’t there. Too much time had passed; they had all seen and forgotten many faces since 2 November. Simon had left Ormston till last, figuring he was the ‘Ed’ Amber had mentioned, the one who had survived the car smash that had killed his daughter.
Louise or Lucy
. There was a framed photograph on the kitchen wall of a blonde-haired toddler. Was that her?