The Vows of Silence (6 page)

Oak Row was on the very edge of it, six cottages together, in the past housing for workers on the adjacent farm. Similar to the first cottage torched by the arsonist in Kent. Serrailler remembered the acrid smell of the burnt-out building, the sight of twisted and blackened beams and rafters. Two people had died there.

But these cottages were whitewashed and spruce. Number 6 was actually two, Numbers 5 and 6, which had been knocked into one. Beyond were freshly ploughed fields leading to a view of Starly Tor.

The garden was colourful with dahlias and chrysanthemums, a rose in late flower. Two cars were parked outside. As Serrailler pulled in behind them he caught a flicker of movement at an upstairs window.

DS Graham Whiteside’s car turned down the lane.

Nine

The back room of the cottage had an old-style sun lounge extending onto the garden. The door was open, the small enclosure hot under its unshaded glass roof. Beyond the long stretch of grass, with flower beds on either side, was a hen run in which half a dozen bantams were scratching around and what had probably been a ferret cage. Over the fence, fields, hedges, trees and Starly Tor.

Craig Drew sat on the wicker sofa, staring out as if looking at the garden and the view, but Serrailler knew he was seeing nothing, that his views were inward, tunnelled and dark. He had thick, tangled curly hair, a narrow face. His eyes were deadened, sunken down into the sockets. He was unshaven. His hands hung between his knees and the nails were bitten down. The DCS had seen him in his wedding photographs, happy, with his arm round Melanie’s waist,
wearing a morning suit and silver waistcoat, dark blue cravat. A good-looking, confident young man.

His father had brought them mugs of coffee and a plate of assorted biscuits which were on the rattan table in front of them, pink icing and chocolate coating already melting stickily in the heat. He was a man of fifty who looked twenty years older. His skin was weathered. He looked shrunken inside his open-necked shirt and trousers. He had set down the drinks and gone out again, touching his son on the shoulder as he passed. Two well-trained spaniels stayed close to his heels.

Somewhere in the far distance, a tractor turned the earth, droning steadily into earshot and out of it again.

“I don’t understand this,” Craig Drew said without looking up. “I don’t understand any of it.”

“Mr Drew, I’m sorry to have to come here and question you again. I do know how distressing this is. We want to find out who killed your wife. That’s why I’m here. It’s the only reason. Do you understand that?”

Silence.

“You are not under arrest, you are not under caution. You are free to ask us to go at any time and we will leave. But it is in your own interests to try to answer.”

The young man sighed, a long, desperate, agonising sigh. He wiped his hands over his face, back over his hair. Sat up. He did not look at either Serrailler or the DS, but ahead out of the window, still into nowhere.

“I told the others. Didn’t they write it down?—no, hang on, they taped it. Why don’t you listen to the tape? You’d find it all out from that.”

“I need to ask you some things myself. I have listened to the tape but sometimes things are better understood in a personal interview. And you may have remembered something.”

“I wish to God I had.”

He leaned forward to pick up his mug of coffee but his hand shook so hard that the drink spilled and he set it down again.

“I’d just like you to remember again how your wife seemed that morning. I know it’s painful but it is important. Was everything as usual?”

“She was fine. It was fine. She was—we’d only been married a couple of weeks.”

“I know.”

“She was wishing I didn’t have to go back to work—she had another three days of holiday herself. I was wishing it. We’d have liked to go into Bevham together, there was some stuff she wanted to look at—curtains and … we wanted to have a day like that. But there wasn’t anything else. She was fine. Lovely. My wife was lovely.”

“Did she have a serious relationship immediately before she met you?” Graham Whiteside had barked out the question without warning.

Craig looked at him in bewilderment. “I—she’d had boyfriends. Well, of course she had.”

“No, I mean what I say—a serious relationship?”

“I don’t know. Not just before. She’d broken up with a guy called Neil … but it was months before. I think. I don’t know. You’d have to …” He dropped his head suddenly, stared hard at the floor. His hands were still trembling.

You’d have to ask her, Serrailler filled in for himself silently. He was furious with Whiteside, but he let him run with his style of questioning.

“Why did you have to go back to work before her?”

“I said. She had a few more days owing.”

“That wasn’t my question. Why did
you
have to go back? Surely you could have arranged more time off, as well?”

“All right,” Serrailler said sharply, “I think it’s quite clear.”

The sergeant gave him a sour look and reached for another biscuit.

“Craig,” said Simon gently, “I know you have been over and over this in your mind but I do need to ask you again … is there anyone who would have had the slightest reason to harm your wife? Anyone from the past, the neighbourhood—from some time ago even? Had she ever mentioned being afraid of anyone?”

He shook his head, still looking down.

“What about your neighbours in the house? Do you know who lives in the other flats?”

Craig was silent for a long time. Then he looked up slowly. He seemed to have been miles away. To have been deeply asleep. He looked as if he did not know who the men were, where he was, what had happened.

But he said, “No. There’s an older couple in the ground floor. I don’t know their name.”

“Brian and Audrey Purkiss.” The DS had his notebook and flipped over a page. “That them?”

Craig shook his head.

“You don’t know? Not even the name? Isn’t it on their doorbell? Haven’t you noticed that? How long ago did you buy the flat?” He was battering the young man with questions, they were coming at him like rapid fire.

Serrailler jumped in again. “We’ve talked to your neighbours. No one was at home that afternoon. Brian and Audrey Purkiss were away. The house was empty. But whoever came in and went up to your flat, either had the security number to open the front door by the keypad or rang the apartment bell. And Melanie either let him in from upstairs or she came down to let him in.”

“She wouldn’t,” Craig said, at the same time as the sergeant said, “Or her. Him or her.”

Serrailler ignored him. “Craig?”

“Who would she open the door for?” Craig said.

“Well, a friend. Her sister? Or stepsister? There must be plenty of people she would be happy to have come up to the flat.”

“Yes, but … of course there were—but not anyone who would kill her. Not anyone with a gun.”

“She wouldn’t know, would she? She wouldn’t know that the person ringing the doorbell had a gun.”

He shook his head again.

“I’d like you to go on thinking back … we need to know the slightest thing that might come to your mind as seeming relevant. Or odd.”

“What sort of thing?”

“Something she may have said. A person she may have mentioned. Or it might be an incident she referred to.”

“I don’t know.”

“Keep thinking, Craig.”

“Where’s your office?” Whiteside asked.

“Ship Street.”

“There all that afternoon, were you?”

“Most of it. I’ve told them this.”

“You haven’t told me. Were you there all afternoon?”

Craig Drew looked across at Serrailler now, like a child looking to a parent to rescue him.

“Craig, please understand that we need to know everything—if only to get it out of the way. Did you have lunch in your office?”

“Yes. I went out to Dino’s, the café in the next street. I got a sandwich and a coffee. I bought a banana as well if you want to know. I took them back and ate at my desk.”

“Anyone else there with you?” Whiteside asked.

“Yes. Three—no, four of us. We generally stay in the office over lunch … occasionally someone is out showing a client round a property … Stephen was. The rest of us were in.”

“Later on?”

“I caught up—I’d been away from the office, I’d missed what had been sold, what had come on … you have to keep up. Your own properties, other people’s …”

“All afternoon? You’re telling us you were there
all
afternoon?”

Why the aggression? Serrailler wondered. Why was Whiteside treating Craig Drew like a prime suspect?
There were times for belligerent questioning. This was not one of those.

“No. I went out to meet a client—to show a property. It was on the new estate at Ciderholes.”

“What’s his name?”

“She—it was a Miss Bradford …”

“And Miss Bradford will confirm this?”

“I don’t know … I suppose so … I don’t know what happened.”

“Happened?”

“She didn’t show. I went there and waited half an hour and she didn’t turn up. I couldn’t get hold of her on the phone, so I went back to the office—it was getting on for half past five then. I just picked up my bike—I cycle to work—and went home.”

“How did you get to Ciderholes?”

“I borrowed one of the cars—we have a couple of company cars. I couldn’t cycle all that way and back, and anyway, it doesn’t look professional.”

“I bet. Funny this Miss Bedford—”

“Bradford.”

“Ah yes, Miss Bradford—sounds like she might be going for Miss UK, doesn’t it? Funny she didn’t show, didn’t leave a message, you couldn’t get hold of her. Odd that. Don’t you think?”

“No. It happens. We get time-wasters.”

“Ah, I see. So this is what she was? This invisible woman?”

Simon Serrailler had never in his senior police career shown up a junior officer in front of a member of the public. He tried not to do so even in front of colleagues,
though occasionally it was necessary. But he came as close as he ever had by nearly giving Graham Whiteside a dressing-down now, in front of Craig Drew and Craig’s father who had come to offer them more coffee and to hover in the doorway when they refused.

Craig looked across at his father. He had tears in his eyes. His face was flushed. But above all he looked bewildered. He did not understand why he was being harangued, what the questions meant, what he had done wrong.

Nothing, the DCS wanted to say, you have done nothing wrong at all. Because he believed it. Craig Drew had not killed his wife. If there had been any doubt in Simon’s mind earlier—and it had been a shadow of a doubt only—there was none now. Craig Drew was not a killer.

He got up. For a moment, Whiteside remained seated, eating yet another biscuit.

“We’ll leave it there, Craig. Thank you for your cooperation and I’m only sorry we had to come. You understand that we may need to ask you further questions when any information comes to light? If we have any news at all I will contact you of course. We have a photograph of your wife and there’s a poster going up as we speak. You may find that upsetting but it could help us a lot. People think when they see a poster, they remember things and they often come forward.”

“You’ve got to do it,” Craig Drew said clumsily. “You’ve got to. I know that.”

“Thanks. Thank you for the coffee. Oh, and if you
need to talk to me or there’s anything you think might be useful, this is my card, these are my phone numbers, work and mobile. Don’t think twice about contacting me.”

Whiteside’s hand was reaching to the biscuit plate, but on seeing Serrailler’s glare, he pulled it reluctantly back and followed him out of the cottage.

Ten

They had arranged this afternoon together over a month ago. Lizzie finished school at three on a Thursday, Helen had booked the day off.

She spent the morning sorting out her clothes. She ended with three piles: what she never wore, what she occasionally wore and what she often wore. Eventually, there were three bags for the charity shop, one for the clothes recycling bin, one for the drycleaner’s. The rest, brushed and rehung, went back into the wardrobe where a large new space waited promisingly.

She met Elizabeth at the school gates, for the first time in goodness knew how many years, and they drove into Bevham. Three hours and many carrier bags later, they were back in Lafferton and having coffee and toasted teacakes at the new brasserie in the Lanes.

For the entire time, Helen had managed to keep the conversation on clothes and shoes with brief mentions of university entrance and the girl who was doggedly pursuing Tom.

The brasserie was quiet. It had been an immediate hit with local shoppers, office workers, young people, women meeting up for lunch, busy from the first coffee servings at ten thirty through to a lot of afternoon teas. It would be busy again after seven. Now, only a few people were drinking at the bar. They had got a table on the dais in the window which had a view down the Lanes towards the cathedral, and Helen was feeling pleased—pleased to be with her daughter, pleased with her purchases, pleased.

“Right. Spill the beans,” Lizzie said, spooning up the froth from her cappuccino.

“What beans?”

“Well, something’s happened. Come on.”

No point in stalling. Lizzie knew her too well. Lizzie had been the first one to say, “You liked him, didn’t you? It worked out, didn’t it?” a couple of minutes after Helen had stepped in through the door after her first evening out with Phil. “Good,” she had kept saying. “Good,” as she had heard more.

She had also come home the next day and announced that a friend whose brother was at the school where Phil taught pronounced him “Decent” and “Not dumb.”

“Don’t get excited. This is so daft I’m not sure he was serious.”

“
What
is?”

“He’s asked me to go with him to the Jug Fair!”

“Oh. My. God. You are joking!”

“Apparently not. Since he rang again ten minutes later to say he hadn’t been. Joking that is.”

“Actually … I think it’s rather sweet. In fact, definitely it is. You can eat candyfloss together and hold hands on the ghost train and he can win you one of those pink rabbits with goofy teeth on the duck shooting.”