The Woman In Blue: The Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries 8 (3 page)

Chapter 4

It’s nearly nine o’clock by the time that Nelson leaves the station. He races through the quiet streets, feeling tense and strung up, as he always does when involved in a murder investigation. The fact that, this time, the victim is a young girl – and, what’s more, a young girl who bears a striking resemblance to his oldest daughter – brings the whole thing closer to home. He thinks of Chloe’s parents, her father saying, ‘she was a good girl really’. His daughter Laura is a good girl. Well, both his daughters are, but Laura always seemed to lay special claim to this title. Laura is beautiful, clever (by his lights, anyway) and sporty. As a child she reminded Michelle of Beth in
Little Women
, sweet and domesticated, happy to help around the house. Not having read the book, Nelson was horrified when he saw the film of
Little Women
. Why had no one warned him that Beth actually dies? He had been forced to leave the room and blow his nose loudly in the hall. Afterwards, he had asked Michelle not to compare Laura to Beth any more. In any case, her late teenage years saw Laura become slightly less sweet and domesticated. She acquired a boyfriend and a penchant for short skirts and late nights. She still managed to get to university, studying marine biology at Plymouth, to Nelson and Michelle’s mingled bemusement and pride. Now she’s working as a holiday rep in Ibiza. ‘A three-year gap year’ is how Nelson’s younger daughter, Rebecca, describes it. It’s not quite what Nelson expected when he attended Laura’s degree ceremony in a wind-swept marquee on Plymouth Hoe, but it could be worse. Thinking of Chloe Jenkins, he concedes that it could be a lot worse.

Michelle’s car is in the drive when Nelson reaches the house. He’s pleased. Over the last few months Michelle has been working later and later at the salon. He knows that the hairdresser’s is expanding and that she is assuming a lot of responsibility but, deep down, he’s a northern man who likes his wife to be waiting for him at the end of the day. Sure enough, as he opens the front door he can smell cooking and hear the television (
Masterchef
, that’s the only downside).

‘Hi, love. I’m home.’

‘Harry.’ Michelle appears in the sitting-room doorway. ‘You’re late.’

‘I did text you. Got a big murder enquiry on. Did you see the news?’

‘No.’ Michelle’s not a great one for the news. When the news jingle comes on the radio she usually switches over to another station.

‘Young girl found dead just outside Walsingham.’

‘How awful.’

‘Yes.’ Nelson decides not to tell Michelle about the resemblance to Laura. She’ll know soon enough when Chloe’s picture is in the papers. In fact, in her TV-watching clothes of baggy jumper and leggings, Michelle herself looks hardly older than Chloe.

Nelson goes into the kitchen and gets a can of lager from the fridge. Michelle goes to the oven. ‘I’ve kept your steak warm. Do you want some salad with it?’

‘No thanks.’

‘Have you heard from the girls?’ he asks.

‘Rebecca sent me a text asking for a cupcake recipe.’ Rebecca is living in Brighton and working for a training company. It’s not very well paid, but at least it’s making use of her degree and Rebecca loves her adopted town. She’s sharing a flat with three other girls and has recently developed an interest in baking.

‘What about Laura?’

‘She’ll Skype us on Saturday.’

‘But have you heard anything today?’

Michelle looks surprised. ‘She put a picture on Facebook. She was in a club with Andre.’

Nelson breathes a sigh of relief. That was the way of the world now. You rely on Facebook to tell you that your daughter’s alive and well, even if she’s in the company of Andre, a public schoolboy who thinks he’s an American gangster DJ.

‘Are you OK, Harry?’

Nelson adds ketchup to his steak and chips. ‘I’m fine. It’s just this case.’

‘I hope you catch whoever did it,’ says Michelle, but she says it vaguely, as if she’s more interested in who won
Masterchef
. They’ve been married for twenty-five years; she’s used to murder.

*

Ruth is trying to write. Kate is in bed (after a seemingly endless reading from
Josie Smith at School
) and Ruth is at her desk with a brain-boosting packet of chocolate biscuits to hand. Three years ago she wrote a book called
The Tomb of the Raven King
about a dig in Lancashire. Rather to her surprise, she acquired a publisher, an editor and something called a ‘two-book deal’. Now she is desperately trying to write the second book, about a Bronze Age dig in Norfolk which became inextricably tangled up with the discovery of a body from the Second World War. The first book came easily, partly because no one was waiting to read it (Ruth dreads the cheery ‘Hi there’ emails from her editor, Javier), and partly because it was a story that ended with a satisfactorily juicy discovery. The new book,
The Shadow Fields
, is proving much more difficult, the story is fractured and complicated and the archaeologists involved are still some way off a final discovery. Ruth is trying to work on her book for an hour a night. If she writes a thousand words a day, she calculates, she will have the book finished in eighty or ninety days. So far she has written 15,000 words.

Ruth stares at the screen. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to check her emails. Maybe there will be one from Frank, the American academic with whom she had . . . What? An affair sounds too steamy, a fling too casual. But, for some weeks last year, she had almost believed that she and Frank might have a future together. Frank was going to come to England. He too was writing a book. They were going to write, go on dates, have sex, spend weekends together. Maybe they would even move in together . . . Frank could be a stepfather to Kate, who adored him. Only one thing had stopped them. Ruth, for some stupid reason, couldn’t get Nelson out of her head. Nelson with whom she has spent precisely two nights. Nelson, the father of her daughter. Nelson, who is married. It seemed that Ruth couldn’t embark on a future with Frank whilst Nelson remained in the background. That’s the trouble with Nelson, he never seems to stay in the background. He’s always there, annoying her, nagging her about Kate, yet making it impossible for her to contemplate life with another man. Ruth clicks to open up her emails.

The first word she sees is ‘Walsingham’. Flint jumps onto the desk and tries to sit on the keyboard. Ruth pushes him off. She is looking at another email from Hilary Smithson.

Hi, Ruth!

Wondered if you’d got my last email? I’m arriving in Walsingham on Sunday. Perhaps we could meet on Monday for a coffee at the Blue Lady? Say 11? I really would like to see you. Hilary x

What does she remember about Hilary, this woman who signs herself with a kiss? She was another graduate student at Southampton. Where had she studied before? Somewhere impressive like Oxford. Ruth’s first degree and her MA are from University College London, impressive enough, but somehow real life as opposed to ivory tower. Hilary had been earnest, she remembers, but with a surprisingly good sense of humour. Their PhD advisor had been the great Erik Anderson, a charismatic Norwegian archaeologist of whom Ruth was much in awe. Hilary, she remembered, admired Erik, but sometimes used to tease him in a daringly iconoclastic way. She remembers Erik talking about sacred landscape, how the same particular stretch of ground was important to different peoples over hundreds and thousands of years, and Hilary saying, ‘Or it could just be coincidence’. She can still see the dangerous flash of Erik’s light-blue eyes before he had answered, ‘And it could just be coincidence, Miss Smithson, which is another word for serendipity.’

Is this a coincidence, two mentions of Walsingham in one day? And isn’t Cathbad in Walsingham at the moment, house-sitting for one of his mad, religious friends? That’s three things and, as Cathbad is always saying, bad news comes in threes.

Despite living near the famous shrine, Ruth has never visited it. Religion is not her thing, probably the result of being brought up by evangelical Christian parents. Mind you, her parents view shrines and pilgrimages with extreme suspicion. Anything Catholic or Anglo-Catholic is almost worse than Satanism (although at least a Satanist will offer you a good fight, with the chance of talking in tongues and probably an exorcism too). But Ruth tries to avoid anything to do with churches. Kate goes to a secular primary school and though she had both pagan and Catholic christening ceremonies (to please her godfather, Cathbad, and her actual father, Nelson), Ruth is determined that her child will have no religious indoctrination whatsoever. Christmas is about presents, Easter is about chocolate and she’s hoping that birth, sex and death will wait a few years before rearing their ugly heads.

She Googles Walsingham (anything to avoid going back to the book), and finds that it was once two villages, Little Walsingham and Great Walsingham and that it is famed for its religious shrines in honour of the Virgin Mary. Confusingly, the bigger village that contains the ruined priory is actually Little Walsingham. Another site tells her that the 2001 census recorded a population of 864 in 397 households. She scrolls down, looking for references to archaeology and finds one to a dig in 1961 which excavated the site of the original holy house. The holy house, built on what is now the abbey grounds, was panelled in wood and contained a statue of the Virgin and – apparently – a phial of her breast milk. For years Walsingham was a centre of pilgrimage. Many kings, from Henry III onwards, trod the pilgrim path to Walsingham. Henry VIII paid a visit to celebrate the birth of a son to Catherine of Aragon, but the little prince died and eventually, of course, Henry destroyed the English monasteries. Walsingham Priory at first escaped the dissolution of the monasteries thanks to the abbot, Richard Vowell, doing some serious crawling to Thomas Cromwell. However, the sub-prior, Nicholas Milcham, protested against the destruction of the smaller monasteries and, in 1537, was executed for his pains. In 1538 the priory was dissolved and a private mansion built on its ruins. The abbey’s treasures were sent to London and the statue of the Virgin was burnt.

Ruth skips the next few hundred years and clicks on the link ‘Walsingham Now’. She learns that Walsingham is now a centre of both Anglican and Catholic worship. There’s the Anglican shrine in the village itself and the Roman Catholic Slipper Chapel a mile away. There’s even a Russian Orthodox chapel in an old railway-station booking office. Thousands of pilgrims come to the village every year and there’s a Passion Play in the abbey grounds at Easter.

Ruth remembers taking part in a dig near Walsingham a few years ago. They’d hoped to find the site of the original Roman shrine but, in the end, the land had yielded nothing apart from some rather dull pottery shards, some glass and a coin or two. What is this conference that Hilary is attending? Is she still an archaeologist? And what is this ‘tricky matter’ about which she needs some advice? A very Hilary word, ‘tricky’, she seems to recall. Ruth’s finger hovers over the mouse. Should she send a polite response, regretting that she’s not available next week? Delete it? Answer that she’d be delighted to meet, can’t wait to catch up, whatever happened to old so-and-so?

As she hesitates another email appears on the screen. It’s from Hilary.

Ruth – did you get my last email? I really would like to see you. I’m in trouble and I think you’re the only person who can help me.

Cathbad was right; third time means bad news. Ruth sighs and clicks ‘Reply’.

Chapter 5

Cathbad celebrates his last day in Walsingham by having lunch with his friend Janet Meadows. They are eating in The Bull, an old pub in the market square, which is actually an odd rhomboid shape with a brick pump-house in the centre. Cathbad likes The Bull because the walls are a palimpsest of prayer cards, black-and-white photographs and articles from long-forgotten magazines on subjects like the mystical Body of Christ. A sign outside the pub welcomes pilgrims from St Thomas More Church, Tring, and inside a bishop in full regalia is finishing a large ploughman’s.

Janet, though, is not impressed. ‘Couldn’t we go somewhere else?’

‘Not in Walsingham,’ says Cathbad. ‘Anyway, I thought you liked religion.’

He is referring to the fact that not only is Janet a local historian, but she’s also a prominent member of her parish church. She often invites Cathbad to Christingle services and harvest festivals. Cathbad, who loves ritual, usually accepts.

‘I don’t like Walsingham,’ says Janet. ‘It has a nasty atmosphere. When Tom was little he had friends here. Perfectly nice people, but whenever I went to pick him up from their house I felt as if I couldn’t get him away quickly enough. The whole place seemed to be closing in on us.’

Cathbad is interested by the mention of Janet’s son, Tom. He knows that Janet doesn’t see Tom, who is now grown up, also that Janet (whose name was once Jan) is not Tom’s mother, but his biological father. Janet is open about her gender realignment surgery, but rarely mentions her old life.

‘I know what you mean,’ he says. ‘St Simeon’s Cottage is beautiful but, when I sit there in the evenings, I feel as if the ceiling’s getting lower and lower. I wake up at night struggling to breathe.’

‘Some people say that Walsingham was cursed by the monks who were executed by Henry the Eighth. They swore that darkness would descend on the place and never leave.’

Cathbad shivers. He’s always susceptible to a good phrase and this seems particularly chilling. Was it that same darkness that he felt pressing down on him in the cottage?

‘What about that woman you told me about?’ says Janet. ‘The one in the churchyard.’

‘Did you see today’s paper? They’ve identified her. She was a young model, a patient at the Sanctuary. Strangled and left for dead. Peace be upon her.’

‘I wonder.’ Janet gets a book out of her handbag. ‘I wonder if that was really what you saw.’

‘What do you mean?’

Janet opens the book at a place marked by a dried leaf. Cathbad’s attention is momentarily distracted because the menu arrives at the same moment. He chooses fish pie and looks back at the yellowing pages. ‘“The Blue Lady of Walsingham,”’ he reads out loud. ‘What’s this?’

‘It’s a legend,’ says Janet, who is still perusing the menu. ‘I’ll tell you about it in a minute. Is the sole fresh?’

Having interrogated the barman (who disclaims any knowledge of the sole), she turns back to Cathbad. ‘You know that Walsingham has been a centre of pilgrimage since the eleventh century?’

‘Yes. The priory must have been built at about that time.’

‘The priory was established in 1156, but before that there was the holy house. Do you know about that?’

‘I’ve heard of it.’

‘The whole thing started in 1061 with a Saxon noblewoman called Richeldis de Faverches. Richeldis had a vision of the Virgin Mary, who told her to build a replica of the Holy Family’s house in Nazareth. That’s why Walsingham is called England’s Nazareth.’

‘What happened to the holy house? Was it an actual building?’

‘Some legends say that it appeared magically in the night while Richeldis was praying. But there was definitely some sort of structure. It’s said to form the basis for the priory. There was an excavation in 1961, and a more recent dig too. Ruth might know something about it.’

‘And the Blue Lady is the Virgin Mary?’

‘That’s what people say. She’s appeared to various people throughout the centuries and it occurs to me that St Simeon’s must be very near the site of the original structure. After all, it’s very old, eleventh century.’

‘The cottage isn’t so old, though. Fifteenth century. Added on later.’

‘I’m sure there are some old graves in the churchyard, though.’

‘There are. I love looking at old graves.’

‘The thing is,’ says Janet, ‘when the Virgin Mary appears to someone it’s usually because she wants something. Think of Bernadette in Lourdes, those children in Fátima.’

‘Yes,’ says Cathbad thoughtfully. He remembers his first sight of Chloe, how he had crossed himself, thinking that there was something unearthly about her. He likes the idea that he might have had a holy vision, rather than just a tragic sighting of a murder victim. But then he thinks back to the woman’s face, her sweet, sad smile. He felt a connection, but it was a very human connection. He remembers now that the woman reminded him of someone. Someone who is very definitely alive.

‘I think I saw the dead girl,’ he says. ‘And I think she wanted me to help her.’

*

The morning press conference was, from Whitcliffe’s point of view, a moderate success. Nelson, managing to sound fairly civil, informed the press that, no, he hadn’t caught the killer yet. Press questions had been respectful and, though Nelson had glowered alarmingly throughout, he had answered them in a concise and professional manner. Tim had been there for back-up. ‘You’re Whitcliffe’s pin-up boy,’ Clough had told him, but Tim knows that the superintendent values him simply because he’s the only black officer on the team. Still, Tim is ambitious too, so he went along with it, nodding and looking appropriately serious as Nelson told the assembled journalists that there were several ongoing lines of enquiry, please respect the family’s privacy and give them time to grieve.

Now Nelson is driving to the Sanctuary. He wants to see the place for himself and to interview the doctor in charge, Fiona McAllister. He hopes that seeing the Sanctuary will help him to re-create Chloe’s last journey. So far they have had no sightings after Cathbad’s vision in the graveyard. What made a recovering addict – doing well, according to her parents – sneak out at night and walk a mile across several fields to visit a country churchyard? And who did she meet after she left the church? Chloe’s body was found near the Catholic shrine, the Slipper Chapel, a good twenty minute walk from Walsingham. Chloe was brought up C of E, according to her parents. ‘We don’t really go to church,’ said her mother, ‘but we do believe in God.’ Typical Anglicans, Nelson’s mother would say. Well, Nelson hopes that, whatever faith they have, it’s giving them some comfort now.

Like Clough and Tim, Nelson is impressed with the building, though the outside reminds him of a prison or magistrates’ court, places where he’s spent rather too much of his adult life. As he waits impatiently in the hall, he looks at the oil paintings, flower arrangements and soft furnishings and tries to work out how much this place costs per week. More than most people can afford, that’s for sure. On the other hand, it stops rich drug addicts from cluttering up NHS wards. It’s not that he’s not sympathetic – he’s seen enough of the misery that drugs can cause – but he can’t help thinking that it’s almost a lifestyle choice for some people, the sort of people who go on reality TV programmes, the sort of people who come to the Sanctuary.

‘Detective Chief Inspector Nelson?’

He turns. A short-haired woman in glasses is holding out her hand. ‘I’m Doctor McAllister.’ She has a faint Scottish accent and a disconcertingly straight gaze behind the glasses.

‘Good of you to see me, doctor.’

She inclines her head, but doesn’t say that it’s a pleasure or her duty or anything like that. ‘Shall we go to my office?’

She leads him up the stairs (more gloomy oil paintings and a stag’s head or two), through several doors and finally into a modern office that was once obviously part of a bigger room, the fireplace neatly bisected by a plasterboard wall. She offers coffee, which Nelson politely declines.

‘How can I help you, Detective Chief Inspector?’

‘Tell me about Chloe Jenkins,’ says Nelson. ‘How long had she been here?’

‘Just over three weeks,’ says Doctor McAllister. ‘She arrived here on Monday 27th January.’

‘Did she check herself in?’

‘Her parents brought her, as I recall, but she was selfreferred, if that’s what you mean.’

‘And what sort of treatment would she have had?’

‘We offer a mixture of medical and psychotherapeutic treatment.’

‘Which means?’

‘We can prescribe opioid medications such as methadone or buprenorphine, but we also offer various therapies such as cognitive behavioural therapy or motivational interviewing. Basically, prescribing drug substitutes won’t work unless the patient actually wants to change.’

‘And did Chloe Jenkins want to change?’

Doctor McAllister is silent for a moment. ‘Yes, I think she did. She’d been in rehab before, of course. Not here. I think the first time was in a specialist centre for teenagers and the second time somewhere abroad. But I did sense a real will to get her life together at last. That’s what makes it so sad . . .’

Doctor McAllister’s voice doesn’t break, but she does look momentarily stricken. Encouraged by this first sign of humanity, Nelson says, ‘What was Chloe like as a person?’

‘You should talk to her personal therapist. She knew her best. But I would say that Chloe was a bright girl. I don’t think she had any formal qualifications, but she was a great reader, keen to learn more about the world around her. This sometimes led to rather strange enthusiasms, but basically she just wanted to improve her mind. And she was charming. But a lot of addicts are charming. That’s how they persuade friends and family to collude with their addiction.’

‘I’d like to speak to her therapist.’

‘I’ll give you her number. Her name’s Holly Barrett.’ She scribbles on a Post-it note.

‘Did Chloe have any special friends here?’

Is it his imagination or is there a slight hesitation? ‘She was friendly with another couple of patients, yes.’

‘Could I speak to them?’

‘I’ll let you have the names.’ But, unlike Holly Barrett’s, it seems that she doesn’t have the names to hand.

‘Doctor McAllister.’ Nelson tries to sound confiding, the way Judy does, but he has a feeling that it’s coming out wrong. Fiona McAllister, at any rate, does not look reassured. ‘I know this is a difficult question, but do you have any idea who could have killed Chloe Jenkins?’

The doctor looks surprised. ‘But wasn’t it just some random madman?’

‘Random madmen are rarer than you’d think. Victims usually know their murderers.’

‘What are you suggesting?’

‘Was there anyone she was scared of? Did she mention someone, maybe in her past, who was threatening her or making her feel uncomfortable? She was a very attractive woman, maybe someone had become obsessed with her or was stalking her.’

‘I don’t know,’ says Doctor McAllister. ‘She never mentioned anyone like that to me. But maybe she spoke to Holly or one of the other patients.’

‘And have you any idea why Chloe left her room on Wednesday night?’

‘No.’

‘When was the last time you saw her?’

‘That morning. It was a group therapy session. Chloe seemed her usual self, quite bouncy and happy.’

‘Bouncy?’

Doctor McAllister twitches impatiently. ‘It was how she was. I didn’t mean she was manic or anything.’

Interesting, thinks Nelson. ‘What was the group session about?’

‘Families. Sometimes we do family therapy too. Often the problems with addiction go back to childhood and the family dynamic.’

‘What was Chloe Jenkins’ family like?’

‘They seemed supportive enough. They visited last week. We try to discourage too many outside influences, but Holly and I felt that a visit from her parents wouldn’t do Chloe any harm. And it seemed to go well.’

Nelson remembers Julie Jenkins saying ‘She seemed well’, and Alan describing the happy journey home, both parents thinking that their child was getting the help she needed.

‘I’ve just met her parents,’ he says. ‘They seem nice people.’

‘Oh yes,’ says Doctor McAllister. ‘Chloe had a privileged background, nannies, boarding school, pony club etc. No lack of money.’

Nelson thinks of the well-dressed couple in the quiet room. He can imagine them being part of a prosperous, middle-class set. But something in Doctor McAllister’s voice makes him feel as if a judgement is being made. Maybe it was just because the Scottish accent became more pronounced.

‘What was there a lack of?’

The doctor shrugs. ‘I don’t know. Time maybe. But the family were very supportive of her problems, they paid for rehab several times, bought her a flat, tried to keep her out of trouble. It’s wearing, having an addict in the family.’

‘What about the boyfriend, Thom Novak?’

‘I never met him. I know he has problems with addiction too.’

‘He’s in rehab at the moment.’

‘It’s a real problem when addicts get together. A kind of
folie à deux
situation. They enable each other. For Chloe’s rehabilitation to work, I think she would have had to break up with Thom.’

‘Did you say that to her?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what was her answer?’

‘She said that she loved him. And I’m sure she did. Sadly, sometimes love isn’t enough.’ Now she really does look sad. Nelson wonders about Doctor McAllister’s background. He can’t see a wedding ring; maybe she’s married to the job.

He thanks Doctor McAllister for her time and says that he can see himself out. She doesn’t seem too keen on this and calls a member of the ground staff to escort him. Even with the man’s surly chaperonage Nelson is able to see that Chloe would not have found it difficult to leave the hospital unnoticed. There are several fire exits, presumably unlocked, and, although you need a passcode to open the doors from outside, from inside all you have to do is press a red button marked ‘Open’. It’s hardly
The Great Escape
.

When he gets back to his car, there’s a message from Chris Stephenson saying that he has the preliminary autopsy results. Nelson rings him back and tries not to wince when the pathologist calls him ‘chief’. ‘It’s much what you’d expect, chief. Death by manual strangulation. No sign of recent sexual activity. Deceased had no traces of alcohol or drugs in the bloodstream. One odd thing. We found traces of cleaning fluid on her hands and under her nails. Do they have them scrubbing floors in the Sanctuary?’