Alice Clark-Platts is a former human rights lawyer who has worked at the UN International Criminal Tribunal in connection with the Rwandan genocide and also on cases involving Winnie Mandela and the rapper Snoop Dogg. She studied at Durham University and is a graduate of the Curtis Brown creative writing course whose fiction has been shortlisted for prizes.
Tristan Snow switched on the lamp and eased himself out of bed, the scratching of the material of his pyjamas against the polyester sheets causing him to involuntarily shiver. The early light of the day lay quiet and undisturbed outside the boarding house. His mouth was thick with sleep.
Once upright, Tristan inhaled deeply through his nostrils and swallowed, centring himself. He came to standing and moved to the middle of the small room. Bending stiffly after a night in repose, he moved the prayer stool on to the damson-coloured rug at the end of the bed, noticing as he did so, that in several corners, clumps of its wool were gummed together with indiscernible dirt. Tristan concentrated on one particular patch in which something wriggled. He forced himself to watch as a louse emerged from the fibres. He continued to breathe steadily, lowering himself to bring his knees on to the worn and polished wood.
He remained there, his back as a mast on a ship, feet together behind him; his soles pink and bare. He pushed his hands together in the familiar pose, his index fingers in the shape of a steeple, as the words of the prayers rippled through his mind like a chattering stream. He fought to still the waters, to make each word count, trying to ignore the extraneous thoughts which fizzed resolutely on the periphery of his brain. His mouth was closed along with his eyes. The prayer began to work its magic.
A few moments later, Tristan started sharply at the clatter of something crashing into the window. Wings beat against the glass, causing him to open his eyes, a small furrow between his eyebrows. A bird of some kind – confused, perhaps, by the sudden noise of the railway tracks overhead.
He closed his eyes again. Breathed once more, finding his way back to that place where the clouds cleared and he was in that state of blissful, silent white. He remained there for some time, calm and still.
He didn’t notice the door opening quietly behind him. Nor the shadow falling over him in the burgeoning light of the room. He failed even to register the blood trickling down his face as he fell forward on to the floor, so peaceful was his entry into eternity.
The dying red of the sun struck Erica Martin’s face as she reached for a glass of retsina. Sam and she sat behind a stone balustrade, overlooking a verdant valley as the last strands of daylight weaved their way through the treetops. As the sky changed colour Martin removed her sunglasses and glanced to the right, where Sam was having to squint at his book.
‘Shall we order?’ she said. ‘We’ve run out of wine.’
Sam looked up at her with a smile. ‘Sure.’ He shifted forward and gestured to the waiter who came over with a confident smile, the menu a familiar friend. Soon plates of stuffed olives, octopus salad, grilled sea bass and a basket of bread lay before them on the table. Martin watched Sam as he tucked in, spooning food on to his plate, his brow unlined and tanned, the creases on his forehead smoothed out by the calm of the last few days. She found tears pricking at her eyes all of a sudden, a storm of something passing through her, wrenching her gut into a knot. With effort, she put her fork gently on to the white linen tablecloth and reached for her replenished wine glass. Without seeming to notice any of this, Sam put his hand on her free one.
‘It’ll be all right, you know. When we get back.’
Martin nodded, not understanding why she suddenly felt so at bay.
‘Jim will be reasonable about us. He has to be.’ Sam looked out at the vista as the last red streaks of the sun finally disappeared behind the distant hills. ‘He left you, after all.’
Martin’s stomach muscles clenched at that and, just as quickly, the sadness ebbed. She put down her glass and reached for her fork as candles were lit, popping into flame around like them like fireflies. ‘And what about us?’ she said, almost lightly, nearly as casual as a shrug.
Is there an ‘us’? she thought, not daring to ask the question, pressing her lips together with a leaden pause.
He moved his eyes back to her and squeezed her hand. ‘If that’s what we want – what we decide – then of course there will be. No question.’ He moved his glass to chink against hers. ‘Here’s to holidays,’ he said, holding her gaze as he drank. ‘Here’s to the future.’
Martin waited a beat before tipping her glass back to his. ‘Salut,’ she said, with a sad sort of a smile. ‘To the future.’
Detective Inspector Erica Martin was already at her desk when the call came in that a body had been discovered at the Riverview boarding house. Snatching her keys from her desk, she made to exit the Major Crime Team office as soon as she heard the address from the uniformed police officer on the scene.
‘Hold your horses, Martin,’ DCI Sam Butterworth called after her, causing her to halt at the door.
‘Jones is already on site with the Forensics Manager,’ Martin protested, edging past the door jamb. ‘It’s my rap.’
Butterworth followed her through the door to stand in the corridor outside the main MCT office. ‘Take it easy, Erica,’ he said in a low voice. ‘We’re just back from holiday. Are you sure you want to dive straight back in? What with . . . everything else going on?’
Martin looked at him for a moment, her eyes bright and determined. ‘This is what I do.’
Sam didn’t reply, his shoulders stiff, arms folded.
‘Honestly,’ she repeated, ‘it’s what I need,’ and she gave a small smile, her unspoken plea hanging in the air.
‘Management meeting as soon as you’re back, then,’ Sam said, his shoulders drooping. ‘And if it gets too much . . .’
‘I’ll shout.’ Martin nodded swiftly, turning her back and pushing through the double doors that led to the stairwell out of the building.
The Riverview boarding house was under the Durham viaduct about twenty minutes’ drive away from the MCT, which had moved to Chester-le-Street a year after Martin had joined it. Far from having a river view, the building sat halfway up the steep hill which led to Durham’s railway station. It was old, from some indeterminable period, its walls dirty white, with musty bay windows wrapping around its front and a scrappy patch of garden leading on to the street.
Wearing a blue paper suit with white polythene bags over her shoes and two sets of latex gloves, Martin jogged up the stone steps to the front door, which had patches of peeling paint curling down it like faded party streamers. She acknowledged the constable standing there, who indicated that she should proceed immediately up the narrow staircase to an even thinner corridor; a few more uniformed officers were tucked in against the walls, a sombre guard of honour. The house was dark and sallow its palette dull. Martin walked alongside clammy brown wallpaper, feeling a sense of pendulous quiet pulsing softly. A blast of something would come, she could feel the certainty of it emanating from the walls.
Entering the bedroom at the end of the corridor, Martin ignored the others in the room. She approached the body with the weighted respect she gave to all the tasks connected with her profession. This was what she loved about her job, the pulling of the world on to a pinhead, grasping the fibres of life which swarmed in the air and rolling them into a ball, tumbling it along the ground to where a solitary spotlight shone; blocking everything else out apart from this moment, the now.
The man’s body lay in that focus. Martin’s eyes travelled over him keenly, from his head to his feet, which were splayed awkwardly out from the rest of his body. It looked as though he had been kneeling on a small stool, now overturned, and had been shunted forward by force, on to his face. She studied the back of his head, the bald patch at its crown but otherwise thick black hair, small scales of dandruff clinging to his scalp, remnants of life persisting.
Martin breathed out a small sigh before crouching down on her haunches. She let her gloved fingers move lightly over the collar of his dark blue pyjamas where blood had dried hard and stiff, the product of the dark spot on his skull below the baldness. There, the bone had been shattered, punched in like a splintered hole through a wooden door.
Martin swallowed. She could see the man’s dead, still brain.
Detective Sergeant Emma Jones stood by the window of the small bedroom. Blue-flowered curtains were closed across them, thin as tissue paper, the morning sun putting her in shadow. ‘Reverend Tristan Snow,’ she said, folding her arms. ‘He’s well known. Got an MBE . . . self-help guru and preacher. Works with kids. Have you heard of him?’
Martin gave a small shake of her head.
‘His wife’s downstairs,’ Jones continued. ‘They’ve been staying here for a week. He was found first thing this morning by his daughter. She’s with the mother.’
‘Have I missed Walsh?’ Martin asked, not wanting to look at Jones yet. Her – what was it, a fling? – with DCI Sam Butterworth wasn’t public knowledge yet, if it ever would be, and she wasn’t yet prepared for the piss-taking she knew was inevitable from her team. If they dared.
Jones nodded, her voice normal. ‘Yup. He said he’d see you at the post-mortem.’
‘Morning, DI Martin.’ Carl Partridge, the Forensics Manager, introduced himself from the other side of the room, where he stood with a camera. Martin turned to nod an acknowledgement to him. She’d worked with Partridge before and he was nice enough, albeit with a loud and often inappropriate laugh. Still, he was good at his job and Martin was pleased to see him here.
‘We’ll need blood spatter analysis,’ Partridge said, and gestured towards the floor. ‘On first look, seems likely he was kneeling on that stool.’
Martin said, ‘He’s not dressed. What time did the daughter find him?’
‘Must’ve been just after 7 a.m.,’ Jones answered. ‘She came in to bring him a cup of tea. Says she found him like this. Didn’t touch anything. Ran and got her mother. Called us.’
Martin peered forward at the crevasse in Snow’s skull. ‘Some whack,’ she said. ‘Wonder how many blows it took. Any obvious weapon?’
‘Not that we’ve seen yet,’ Partridge replied.
Martin stood up and shoved her hands in her pockets. ‘How many people are staying here? Have we got a list, Jones?’
‘One of the lads is on that now. Getting names. Landlady – a Mrs Quinn – says there were five people staying here last night. So six, all in, including her.’
‘Any sign of a break-in?’
‘Doesn’t look like it. No windows smashed. Landlady says the doors were all locked from the inside this morning. She’d checked them last night before bed, around nine-thirty.’
‘The guests have a key though, presumably?’ Martin said. ‘So that might not help us, timing-wise.’ She scrutinized the body again. ‘And his watch is still working, so no clue there. We’d better get them into the station while we wait for Walsh’s report. Get their clothes, DNA, prints. How old’s the daughter?’
‘Eighteen,’ Jones replied. ‘Domestic, do you think?’
Martin looked around the room without answering. The air in the room was dense with the funk of stale blood and perspiration. She forced herself to breathe through it, to take in what she was seeing. A mahogany headboard was fixed to the top of the single bed, which she pointed towards. ‘The wife wasn’t sleeping with him, then?’
‘Could mean they were scrapping?’ Jones suggested.
Martin murmured to herself, continuing to look around the room. A dark-wood wardrobe loomed over the room from an alcove. A small desk sat under the window, a pointless blotting pad placed on its top, given the five or so biros which lay scattered across it. She walked around the body to the side of the bed, where books had been placed on a bedside table. The lamp was still on, its light negligible against the pale sunlight rinsing into the room. She picked up the top book, giving a quizzical exclamation.
‘Hostage to the Devil?’ Martin turned to show it to Jones, then looked again at the pile. ‘The Devils of Loudun by Huxley; Michael Pearl. The guy has some eclectic interests.’
‘What’s this under here?’ Partridge asked from where he was crouched on the floor, looking under the bed. ‘Can you see, DI Martin? It’s more on your side.’ Martin bent down, reaching into her jacket pocket to retrieve a pen. Stretching one arm under the bed, she managed to fish around and inch out the object.
‘What the hell is that?’ Jones asked.
Martin touched it with her pen, moving it around a little. Its dark grey wings were glossy but rigid, spread wide. The breast feathers gradually darkened up to the black of its head, from which a milky eye stared blankly at Martin.
‘It’s a dead bird,’ she said. ‘Some kind of carcass.’ She looked up at Jones and Partridge, her mouth turned down, puzzled. ‘It looks like a pigeon.’
‘Why would a pigeon be under the bed?’ Partridge asked. He walked across the room and pushed back the curtains to reveal the window, which was slightly ajar. ‘Window’s not open enough for it to have flown in. The gap’s too small.’
Martin straightened to standing. ‘Maybe it was put there for some reason? Or it flew in before the window was shut?’
Jones nodded and then frowned, observing Martin’s stance, the clench of her jawline. ‘Nice welcome back, Boss.’
Martin caught her eye and something passed between them, the merest whisper of comprehension and support. She smiled with a shrug. ‘Ah well. All good things . . .’ She touched the books on the bedside table briefly before heading out of the room.
Violet watched her mother. They sat opposite each other on the lumpy sofas in the ‘best room’, as the landlady of the boarding house had described it. There was nothing best about the room, Violet thought. Unless you considered it marginally more amenable than the rest of this scummy place. She and her mother had looked at her father in surprise when they’d turned up here a week ago. This was far below par, in comparison to the places they normally stayed.
‘Talk to Fraser about it,’ her father had muttered, lumbering up the front steps, leaving her and her mother to carry in the bags. They had walked into the dark entrance hall, the beady eyes of the landlady following them from the door all the way to the best room like a repugnant Mona Lisa – no smile whatsoever.
Sitting in the best room now, Violet studied her mother in the manner of an auctioneer looking anxiously at a Grecian vase about to topple from a pedestal. Would she move fast enough? In time to catch her mother when she tumbled? Sera was doing okay at the moment but it would only be a matter of time, Violet was sure of it. Soon, she would fall.
Violet heard a cough at the door and snapped her head round to establish the source of the noise. What looked like a policewoman was standing there. She had on a beige mackintosh with a white shirt and black trousers on underneath. Her red hair was drawn up, away from her face. Her eyes were green, cat-like. Violet sniffed surreptitiously. The woman smelt like authority. Like those ones at school. She was probably called Dorothy. Violet gave her best look of haughtiness and then turned back to her mother. Sera had also noticed the policewoman and shifted as if to stand.
‘Please, don’t get up,’ the policewoman said, flattening her hands, palms down. Violet knew that gesture. It was submissive, designed to be used on approach with wild animals. Don’t trust her, Violet thought.
Sera sank back down on to the sofa, her eyes wide like those of a discarded doll. As she did so, her foot caught a mug of undrunk tea on the floor. Its contents spilled all over the garishly patterned carpet. Violet stood up with a sigh and left to get a cloth from the landlady in the kitchen.
Eileen Quinn was standing pressed to the kitchen door, and got a mouthful of wood as Violet pushed it open to enter.
‘Sorry,’ she said without remorse, barging past the landlady to get to the sink.
Eileen swung round to follow her with her eyes, rubbing her face ruefully. ‘I was just wondering . . .’
‘What?’ Violet asked. ‘What were you wondering?’
‘Well.’ Eileen shrugged. ‘What’s going on? The police . . . Will they want to talk to me? Your poor father,’ she shook her head in disbelief.
Violet leaned back against the kitchen counter, a J-cloth in her hand. She narrowed her eyes, studying the woman before her. Eileen Quinn was swollen from her ankles to her lips. Probably her toes too, although Violet couldn’t see them, given as they were always encased in a pair of slippers. Gold hoops swung sturdily from Eileen’s earlobes, and a gold cross nestled in the dip in her throat.
‘My father is dead,’ Violet said at last, watching Eileen grow increasingly uncomfortable at her scrutiny.
‘Yes, dear. I know.’
‘So I can’t say I really give a fuck whether the police need to interview you or not,’ Violet said. ‘I’ve got more important things to worry about.’ She swept past Eileen, through the open kitchen door and back down the hall to the best room. She halted just by the doorway, leaning forward to catch the conversation. It seemed weirdly quiet. At once, the policewoman appeared in front of her in the corridor.
‘Ah, Violet,’ she said, reaching for the cloth with a smile. ‘Grateful if you and I could have a word.’
Martin gestured for Violet to come in and sit down next to her mother, noting Sera Snow’s immediate grasp of her daughter’s hand. Martin took the J-cloth and dropped it on the ground, tapping over the tea stain with her foot before sitting down herself on a hard-backed seat opposite them.
‘I was just saying to your mum that I’d like you to come down to the station with us,’ she said. ‘We’ll need to move your father soon, and it would be best if you weren’t here then. Would that be okay?’
Sera glanced at Violet and she nodded.
Martin inclined her head towards Sera. ‘We’d like you to make a formal identification of your husband once we’ve moved him.’
Violet looked confused. ‘But I saw him. Upstairs. It’s him all right.’
Martin paused, not wanting to reveal anything in front of Sera Snow about the position of the body, about the fact that he had been found lying face down. ‘I’m sorry, but it has to be done.’
Violet shook her head. ‘Well, my mother can’t see him. She can’t take that. I’ll do it.’
Martin looked at Sera, who caught her eye briefly before staring down at her twisting hands and shrugging almost imperceptibly. ‘If Violet wants to . . .’ her voice trailed away.
Martin leaned back in her chair, puzzled by this capitulation by the mother. Something about Sera’s voice sounded familiar, although she couldn’t put her finger on it just then.
‘The SOCO van is here, Ma’am,’ Jones said, appearing at the door. ‘We should probably get going.’
‘There’ll be press,’ Sera said dully. ‘They’ll want to talk about it. My husband was revered, Inspector. We’ll have to say something.’ She looked defeated by the prospect.
‘You leave that with us, Mrs Snow,’ Martin said, standing up. ‘After you.’ She gestured to the doorway.
‘What about our stuff?’ Violet asked.
‘You’ll be able to come back later. But everything needs to be left as it was for the moment,’ Jones explained. She looked down at her notes. ‘Your sister is also staying here, Mrs Snow, so I believe?’
‘Aunt Antonia stayed out last night. I’m not sure where,’ Violet said.
Martin looked quickly at Jones. Find out where.
‘Okay then, let’s go.’ Martin hung back to let mother and daughter leave the room first. Sera glanced up the stairs for a second, to where her husband lay, before she seemed to shudder and hesitate. ‘Come on, Mum,’ Violet said, hustling Sera out into the daylight, squinting after the gloom of the interior. ‘Here, take my hand down the steps.’
Martin and Jones followed them out to the car waiting in the street. As they left, Martin looked back to the bay window of the room they had just left. A shadow flitted across it, marring for a moment the sunlight that poured on to the glass. Seeming to notice Martin’s stare, Eileen Quinn moved quickly away from the window as a train rumbled overhead on the viaduct, its noise reminiscent of passing thunder.
Violet looked down at the waxy mask of her father, her fingers flexing a little as if to move to touch him, yet unable to bring herself to do so. The grooves in his face, running perpendicular to the hard line of his mouth, were static. No longer jiving and sparking, imbuing his face with a life that never seemed authentic – even when he was actually alive. It dawned on Violet that his hair was wrong; it was swept back from his head into a mane. It should flop irritatingly in front of his eyes. Those water-filled eyes. Water and fire. The fire that burned into her – and everyone else – day after day after day. Flicking the black curly hair back with a toss of his head, a smirk. That’s how she would remember him. Not like this. Flat on a bed covered in a starched white sheet.
The policewoman was in the room – close but unobtrusive against the pale walls of the mortuary. Violet didn’t look at her as she forced herself to touch the sheet. She could feel where the material rose, the mound of her father so silent and still. She had watched him when he slept on a few occasions. Even in slumber, he had seemed so vital. But now he was stone. Where had he gone? she wondered. To the kingdom he’d eulogized for so long? That pretend paradise – a dreamland of the fulfilment of childish hopes. To those golden and pearly gates, to his Father? Violet shivered. She could feel his eyes bore into her, blister at her through his lids, appalled at her blasphemy. No, it was impossible. He was dead.
‘Violet?’ Martin’s voice punctured the silence.
‘His gold cross is missing,’ Violet said. ‘He always wore it around his neck.’
‘It may have been removed. I’ll check,’ Martin replied, a flash of alarm shooting through her, knowing as she spoke that nothing would have been taken from the body at this stage.
Violet slowly turned away from the body to appraise Martin. ‘Well anyway,’ she said coolly. ‘This is Tristan Snow. My father.’
Afterwards, Martin drove Violet from the mortuary to Durham police station, where her mother was waiting for her in a bleak interview room off the main reception.
‘I’m afraid that I’ll need to interview you separately,’ Martin explained.
‘Procedure again?’ Violet’s question was curt.
‘We need to find out about your father,’ Martin answered levelly, the words of her mantra drumming in her head – to find out how they live is to find out how they die. She studied Violet, searching her face for chinks of light, for any kind of vulnerability, but the girl was as closed off as her mother. ‘Let me do my job in the best way I know how, and then you can go. I realize this is extremely upsetting for you.’
Violet shook her head as if to say you know nothing about us.
‘May I pray?’ Sera spoke suddenly.
‘I’m sorry?’ Martin asked.
‘I normally pray around this time of day,’ Sera went on. ‘If you could provide me with a space?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Martin recovered swiftly from the surprise. ‘We have a prayer room here that you can use. Come, I’ll show you.’
As they made their way towards the prayer room, Martin felt she towered above Sera Snow. The woman only came up to Martin’s shoulder, despite wearing pumps with an inch on the heel. She had dressed for the August weather in a mid-calf linen skirt with a short-sleeved blouse, and shivered in the controlled temperature of the police station. She wore various chains and necklaces, which jangled as she walked. For such a mouse as she appeared, much of the jewellery was garish – amber and turquoise, a large silver medallion. Her grey hair was tied loosely in a bun at the nape of her neck.
Where were the tears? Martin wondered, as she led Sera down the corridor. Where were the signs of grief, of disbelief? Even of fear – if they thought a stranger had broken into the boarding house? Both Sera and her daughter seemed mute, although Violet had a simmering anger. Had they shut down in shock? Or was their reaction something more chilling; a considered response to a death that they themselves had had a hand in?
‘It’s here.’ Martin stopped in front of a door in a small alcove. ‘Take all the time you need.’
‘Thank you,’ Sera replied, putting her hand on Martin’s arm before entering the room. ‘He is always with me, you see.’
Martin inwardly shuddered at the touch and, nodding, moved away from the door, recognizing that Sera wasn’t referring to her husband. The hand on her arm had been sanctimonious, patronizing; it had made Martin feel revulsion. And yet, simultaneously, a feeling of envy at the woman’s faith, at once so powerful but equally so futile, came over Martin, and she felt her knees almost buckle with the strength of it. Spying the sanctuary of a Ladies’ toilet a few doors down, she made her way there and braced herself at the sinks, looking at her reflection in the smeared mirror on the wall.
Her hands gripped the edge of the basin, her knuckles curved to the sky. She had to focus. Get on with things. A homicide. She had to lead them all. She screwed up her face. Like the Pied bloody Piper.
It had been nearly a year ago that her husband Jim had left. He’d packed up his bags and moved to Newcastle. Living on his own in one of the new apartments on the Quayside as if he were twenty years younger, as if he were back on the market. The anger she felt about it was disproportionate to the simultaneous feeling of release she had undergone. That he could leave so easily. Ask her for a divorce, as yet unsettled. Abandon the marriage, shake it off as if it had been little more than a dalliance. And despite everything she’d ever said about the pointlessness of the ceremony, the ridiculous tradition, she had actually married him. In a church. Not in some registry office or on some beach. She had loved him and so she had done it. They had stood in front of her family, who’d never thought anyone would take her, and promised themselves to each other until death.
Not just until five years down the track when it all got too hard.
Martin pushed the heels of her hands into her eye sockets. And then there was Sam. They’d only just started seeing each other, feeling their way around the outlines of this fledgling relationship. They were a right pair: her with her impending divorce; Sam with his reputation for being . . . God knows what. And then the small fact that he was her boss.
There had been a near miss. A late period, a few uncomfortable days touched with a glimmer of excitement before relief had come. Well, she’d laughed at Sam, she was used to blood in her job. He’d looked at her, appalled. Martin’s cheeks flushed again now, to think of it.
He’d surprised her with a long weekend in Crete to forget about it, to move on. To make some decisions about what they were doing. But it all still seemed so unresolved.
What were they doing?
And all she could hear, over and over again, was that fucking cello. The music they’d played as she’d left the church on that October day in that white dress. It danced through her head, that music, the lower registers stabbing her in the gut, the shaft of the bow on the chords pulling on her, twisting her resolve into fairy dust, puffs of nothing, floating away into the air, leaving her with nothing but tears.
Fucking Bach.
Fuck.
Detective Constable Phil Tennant sat at his computer, a venti cappuccino next to his elbow on the desk. He typed in the name Tristan Snow and sat back, letting the results emerge, taking a gulp of his coffee as he waited. Absorbed in what he was reading, he didn’t notice Jones sit down quietly on the chair next to him, spinning it around a little as she did so.
‘What have you got?’ Jones asked.
Tennant turned his head towards her and leaned backwards, scratching his chin. ‘Tristan Snow. Reverend of the Deucalion Church in Blackpool. Tons about him on the web – has got his own website, you name it.’ He frowned. ‘I saw him once. On Richard and Judy or something. D’you remember?’ He pushed back to the desk and scrolled down the screen. ‘He was like their resident psychic. Used to talk to the dead, predict the future. Absolute codswallop,’ Tennant pursed his lips. ‘All very happy clappy. TV played down the religious aspect of course. But it says here blatantly’, he gestured towards the screen, ‘that he performs miracles.’
‘Miracles?’
‘Hmm. And exorcisms.’ Tennant looked at Jones, saying nothing more. ‘The church he ran, the Deucalion? It’s known for the work it does with kids. Abandoned kids, kids with problems. He got the MBE for it, services to charity.’
‘So . . . what’s he doing here?’
‘Came to Durham as part of his UK tour.’ Tennant tapped his knee with a biro and drank more coffee.
‘UK tour? Is he really that much of a celebrity nowadays?’ Jones remarked. ‘Wasn’t he famous, like, fifteen years ago? Who’s interested in him now? What does he even do?’
Tennant shrugged. ‘All the rage, isn’t it? Nostalgia for the eighties and nineties. And he does hypnotherapy, miracles, self-help books. Like that McKenna chap. All give you an easy way out. Save you grafting and trying to make something out of your life yourself. Bloke’s got, like, a hundred thousand followers on Twitter, social media, whatever.’
‘If that’s the case, then why’s he staying in that shitty B&B?’ Jones observed.
Tennant clicked on another part of the screen. ‘Fair point. He’s sold out the Gala Theatre for two nights, booked in for three. He’s been down south already. Heading up to Scotland next. He was doing that, anyway.’ Tennant sighed a little, the philosophy of murder threatening to encroach on his thoughts.
Jones pushed her chair back. ‘Come on Tennant, the boss is with the family. Let’s show a little initiative. Head down to the theatre and see what’s what.’
‘Has she said anything to you?’ Tennant asked, as he locked the computer screen and grabbed his jacket. ‘About what’s going on with her and Butterworth?’
‘You must be joking,’ Jones answered. ‘None of our business, is it?’
‘There she is: Saint Jones,’ Tennant scoffed. ‘Fights crime and leaves mundane gossip to the rest of us.’
‘That’s a big word for you, Phil,’ Jones said. ‘Been practising it at home, have you?’
Tennant shrugged. ‘Opens her up to some piss-taking, is all.’
‘From a pensioner like you?’ Jones said. ‘I’m sure she’s terrified.’
‘Aye. Call me romantic, Jones, I just like to know who fancies who . . .’
Jones cuffed him round the shoulder as they left the incident room. ‘Everyone fancies you, Phil. Didn’t you know?’
While Sera was praying, Martin headed back to the interview room where Violet waited. This room was brighter than the ones downstairs situated next to the holding cells. There was even a window. Once, the walls had been painted cream, although now various stains and patches of dirt provided a dismal mural.
‘Apologies for the lack of air,’ Martin said. ‘A fan’s on its way. The air-con has broken in here, for some reason.’ She smiled ruefully, knowing that there would be no fan coming. The heat was intentional.
Violet looked cool, however, unbothered by the temperature. She took a seat opposite Martin, who could feel sweat dripping down her back and longed to take off her jacket. She resisted the impulse and switched on the tape recorder.
‘You are absolutely entitled to a solicitor if you’d like, Violet. But I’m only taping this to help us both, so that we don’t forget what you’ve said. Nobody’s being arrested or charged with anything, at the moment.’ She smiled at the girl, at the moment left floating in the air.
Violet, though, remained impassive.
‘You’re eighteen, is that correct?’ Martin asked, making notes as she talked, and the girl assented. She was striking, with bobbed dark hair cut to her chin, a pale complexion and rosebud cheeks. She reminded Martin of a china doll she had been given once as a child. A cold face, hard to the touch, but that could shatter at the slightest impact. She remembered treating that doll so gently and carefully that, in the end, it was useless as a plaything. As rigid as it had seemed, in actuality it had been as delicate as a moth’s wings.
‘Have you left school then? Finished your A levels? Results are out soon, aren’t they, I think?’
‘I didn’t do A levels.’
Martin waited.
‘I need to look after my mum. In the church . . . she needs me. I’m going to carry on working for the church until . . .’
‘Until what?’ Martin prodded, after a beat.
‘Until, you know, things are settled.’
Martin considered this. ‘Until the end of your father’s tour?’ she prompted. Make her my friend, she thought. Since she had been separated from Sera, Violet seemed to have dropped her veneer a little. Use it.
‘Yes, if you like,’ Violet said, blithely.
What did that mean? Martin wondered. ‘Tell me about this morning,’ she asked gently, pulling Violet in. ‘Tell me what happened.’
Violet took a breath. ‘I woke up early. Too early. The room I’m in has these rubbish curtains. They don’t hide the light. Although actually, I was awake already . . .’ her voice trailed off.
‘Your room is . . .?’ Martin asked.
‘Next door to Dad’s. In between his and Mum’s, on the same floor.’
‘They don’t share a room?’
Violet shrugged but said nothing more. She put her hands on the table and looked at her fingers as she continued. ‘I lay there for a while but couldn’t get back to sleep, so I got up in the end. I went downstairs to the kitchen. The landlady – Mrs Quinn? She sets out the breakfast things in there. So I made two cups of that rancid tea she gives us, for me and Dad, and took them upstairs.’
None for the mother, Martin observed.
‘I left mine outside my door on the carpet and came back along the corridor to where Dad was sleeping.’ Violet swallowed, and paused.
Martin said nothing.
‘I knocked quietly, but there was no answer. I looked at my watch and saw that it was just seven. Dad, well, he likes to be woken up at the same time every day. He likes a routine.’
Martin noticed, finally, a reaction in the girl to the warmth of the room. A faint patina of sweat now lay on her forehead as she gave a thousand-yard stare to the back wall, clearly bringing to her mind the events of the morning.
‘I opened the door,’ Violet continued in a small voice. ‘And there he was. Bent over in the middle of the floor.’ She looked up at Martin. ‘I dropped the tea on the ground and ran to get Mum. I mean I could tell. I could see . . .’
‘I know this is hard, Violet.’
The girl moved her head from side to side, an animal in distress. ‘It doesn’t seem real. That he’s gone. He was always . . . there, you know?’
‘I’m sorry.’ Martin inclined her head, waited a fraction. ‘Did you hear anything odd last night? What time did you go to bed?’
‘As soon as we got home from dinner. I said good night to Mum and Dad and read for a while in my room. I turned my light out about 11 p.m. I didn’t hear anything.’
‘And Antonia, your aunt? Did she have dinner with you?’
A shadow passed across Violet’s face as she shook her head. ‘No. I don’t know where she was. Out somewhere else.’
Martin hesitated for a moment before continuing. ‘What was it like?’ she asked. ‘Seeing your dad on TV? Watching him do those shows? I don’t know,’ she said, ‘it must be odd having a parent in the public eye like that.’
Violet stared at Martin. ‘Everyone loved him.’
Was there something there? Martin wondered. The merest suggestion of bitterness? ‘Were you a believer? Did you believe in the things your father said and did?’ Again, Martin waited, let the silence roam through the heat of the room.
After a moment, Violet exhaled impatiently. ‘Look, Inspector Martin,’ she said. ‘Everything you need to see, you can find on the internet. Dad has a YouTube channel. You can see his website, the Deucalion Church. It’s all there for you to see,’ she repeated.
Martin weighed this statement up. Violet had dodged the question. What did she intend Martin to find on the internet? Violet was a child, she could tell, in spite of appearances. Her energy betrayed her, showing her not quite at the full maturity of adulthood where things could be fully hidden or battened down. She had tried, when they had met – she had attempted to be as indifferent as her mother – but she had dropped her guard. The act might be that of a child, Martin thought, but the ruthless reality was that she would not be considered one in the eyes of the law. ‘I absolutely will, Violet. And how did you get on with your dad?’ she asked lightly.
At once, the shutters came down. Martin could see Violet’s eyes change as if she had closed them. One minute, they were soft, easily meeting hers. The next, the blank look was back, her lips together, hands in her lap. Martin had lost her.
‘He was my father,’ Violet answered, a brittle tone to her voice.
Martin cocked her head to one side. Yes.
Violet shrugged. ‘What more do you want me to say?’
She could push her. Try to break behind the steel shutters, prod and tease information out about their relationship. But then she would make an enemy of her.
Martin called it.
‘Okay, Violet. Thank you for talking to me. I’ll speak to your mother once she’s finished with her prayers. In the meantime, you’re free to leave.’
Martin left the room, checking her watch. If Sera Snow was still praying or doing whatever it was she did, she had time to get an update from the team before she interviewed her. She would take a different approach with Sera: a wife in the same house where her husband had been murdered was a prime suspect.
She wouldn’t try to make friends with Snow’s wife as she’d done with Violet. Instinctively, Martin felt that Sera was not a woman you’d befriend easily in any event. Something in her reigned cold and sharp. The thought flashed into Martin’s head that this quality would be invaluable to a man so exposed to the world as Tristan Snow had been. But was that hardness what Sera had used to defend her husband against the spotlight? Or was it, in fact, what had driven her to kill him?
‘If someone doesn’t tell me what the fuck is going on, I swear to God, I’m going to have to crack some skulls!’
Despite the soundproofing required of a venue as large as the theatre auditorium, Jones and Tennant could hear the blistering voice coming from within as they stood outside the entrance doors to the stalls. The front-of-house staff had said that that Tristan Snow’s business manager was on stage. The crew were in place; the choir were in their dressing rooms, waiting to start the technical rehearsal for tonight’s service. But Snow hadn’t arrived as scheduled, and Fraser Mackenzie was steadily working himself up into a rage.
Jones opened one of the doors at the top of the auditorium, and she and Tennant began to descend the long set of steps which led to the stage.
‘I’ve been waiting here for over an hour. Nobody’s answering my calls. I’m standing here like a fucking lemon. Where is he?!’
A soft murmuring from a speaker on the stage seemed to be trying to answer the inferno of words, to no avail. The angry man was centre-stage, whirling this way and that, as if looking for a target. The set-up for a band was behind him, the silver of the drum kit gleaming, defiantly silent. Choir stalls rose up on either side of the stage. They, too, were ghostly. The man was alone on the stage, bathed in the glare of a spotlight focused on him, his balding pate shiny with sweat.
‘It’s not fucking good enough . . .’
His voice halted as the shapes of Jones and Tennant appeared at the edge of the stage. He was a short, middle-aged man in an expensive-looking navy blue suit. His hair was cut close to his scalp in a semicircle – an attempt, Jones surmised, to disguise his hair loss. Although he’d stemmed the angry flow of words, the man’s mouth remained fixed in a snarl, his lips curled in a sarcastic wave. His eyes were a pale blue, and appraised the figures of Jones and Tennant quickly. As the fact of their presence registered in his brain, the man took a visible breath.
‘Shit . . .’ he muttered to himself. He licked his lips and straightened. He turned to face them head on, hands in his pockets and shoulders squared. Jones was brought to mind of the image of a man facing a firing squad.
Jones showed him her identification. ‘Would you like to come with us, Mr Mackenzie? Somewhere where we can sit down.’
‘Whatever you’ve got to say, you can say it here,’ Mackenzie said.
Jones paused before deciding. ‘Okay then. I’m afraid we have some bad news. This morning, the body of a man was found in the Riverview boarding house.’
Mackenzie’s nostrils flared, his eyes locked on Jones.
‘It seems clear that the body is that of Reverend Tristan Snow,’ Jones said, detecting some kind of odour from Mackenzie as he swayed a little on his feet. What was it? Fear?
‘Body?’ he muttered, out of one side of his mouth. ‘He’s dead?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’ Jones hesitated. ‘Are you all right, Mr Mackenzie? Would you like to sit down?’
Mackenzie moved his head to one side as if trying to shift the liquid of the knowledge to another part of his brain that could better understand. ‘How? I mean,’ he took his hands from his pockets and folded his arms, ‘how did he die?’
‘We’re looking into that at the moment, Mr Mackenzie,’ Tennant said. ‘Right now, we’re wanting to talk to anyone who might have seen Reverend Snow last night or this morning.’ He paused. ‘Can I ask where you were, Mr Mackenzie? At those times?’
Mackenzie shifted his sights on to Tennant and narrowed his eyes. ‘Is this a formal interview, officer?’
‘Nothing formal as yet, Sir,’ Jones answered him, easily. ‘Just making our enquiries. As you would expect.’
Mackenzie exhaled silently, his chest deflating underneath his crisp white shirt. The effort to bring himself under control was clear as the lights under which he stood. ‘Sure, sure,’ he said, giving a forced smile. ‘Anything I can do to help, of course.’ He tilted his head. ‘How are the girls?’
Jones met his gaze impassively. ‘I’m certain they’ll be wanting to see you, Sir. Terrible thing for them, as you can imagine.’
Mackenzie released his arms from their locked position and seemed to relax somewhat.
‘Have you had an injury of late, Sir?’ Jones asked, suddenly identifying the aroma emanating from Mackenzie.
‘Uh, yes, actually.’ Mackenzie looked surprised. ‘My shoulder. I hurt it playing squash. How do you know?’
‘Recognize the smell,’ Jones answered. ‘Deep Heat. Remember it from my netball playing days.’ She studied his face carefully. ‘So, where were you last night, Mr Mackenzie?’
‘I was here.’ His face crumpled. ‘I can’t believe it. Tristan’s dead?’ He rubbed his hand over his head, sniffing, before looking up and coming to focus on his surroundings. ‘Tonight. What are we going to do? We’ve got five hundred people with tickets.’ His eyes darted from side to side as thoughts clanged into his head one after another.
‘Mr Mackenzie,’ Jones said, putting a hand on his arm, ‘let’s take a seat. Come on. It’s obviously a shock for you.’
She led him down off the stage to the first row of seats in the black and red auditorium. Mackenzie sat next to Jones, concentrating on her. He ignored Tennant on his other side.
‘You say you were here last night?’ Jones asked, gently. ‘What time did you leave the theatre?’
‘Um, about 1 a.m., I’d say. Tonight’s the first night, and we only had the get-in yesterday. Had to wait for some folk singers to get their kit out before we could set up.’ Mackenzie’s face was the picture of disdain.
‘And was Reverend Snow here with you until then, as well?’
Mackenzie shook his head. ‘No. He had been here from about 7 p.m., but all he needed to do was go through his sermon and walk through his marks on the stage. You know,’ he said, looking at Jones, ‘to work out where to stand for the lighting cues.’ He sighed. ‘So he did all that, and everything was great. And then he went to go and get dinner with Sera and Violet. Although he’d been a bit sick earlier, so in the end I think they just went home. Must’ve been about ten that he left.’
‘But other people were here with you until 1 a.m.?’ Tennant asked.
Mackenzie didn’t turn to face him. ‘Do I have an alibi, do you mean?’ His tone was scathing. ‘Yes. Other people were here. The lighting techs, the band and most of the choir.’
‘You went straight home after the rehearsal?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘And you didn’t check in on Reverend Snow this morning? What time did you get up and leave the boarding house?’
‘No, I didn’t see him. I don’t know, I must have left just before 7 a.m.?’
‘And you came directly here, to the theatre?’
‘Yes, yes,’ Mackenzie’s eyes flitted from one place to another.
‘Is the theatre open that early?’ Jones asked. ‘Brutal start for you, Sir, if you were in bed so late last night.’
‘I’m used to it.’ Mackenzie’s voice was curt. ‘The venue always gives me entry via the stage door so I can come and go as I please.’ He gestured behind him. ‘I’ve got my laptop set up backstage. I treat the theatre like my office when we’re on tour. Need to sort out logistics of the next few locations when we’re on the move like this.’
‘Sure, of course,’ Jones replied. ‘And when did you arrive in Durham?’
‘Three days ago. We got here on Friday. We’re supposed to do shows for three nights and leave on Thursday morning.’
Jones leaned forward on her knees, looking out towards the stage. ‘It was going to be a big show, was it? Tonight and the rest of the week?’
Mackenzie shrugged. ‘He’s had bigger, but yes. Five hundred people tonight. Same again tomorrow. Wednesday’s quieter, but we were hopeful we’d drum up some business in the meantime. Tristan has a lot of followers in the north-east.’ His face fell again. ‘Had a lot of followers, I mean . . .’
‘And in the show, what happens?’ Jones asked. ‘Reverend Snow would give a sermon. Is that it?’
Mackenzie gave a withering smile. ‘You’ve never been to a healing service, then?’ Jones said nothing, her answer obvious. He stood up and stretched his arms above his head. ‘Gah! I’m going to have to get busy and sort all this. Fuck!’ Some of Mackenzie’s old spirit seemed to have returned; he had colour in his cheeks again.
‘What happens in the services?’ Jones repeated, as she stood with him. ‘Why do so many people want to come?’
Mackenzie gave a laugh. ‘Why?’ He opened his palms to the heavens. ‘Why wouldn’t anyone want to come? Miracles, Sergeant Jones. That’s what would’ve happened in here. Miracles.’ He turned to face her, to send her a bullet with the nub of the case written on it. ‘Tristan would’ve performed miracles here. He would have healed the sick and raised the dead. Who wouldn’t want to buy a ticket to see that?’
The air was humid and clammy: pregnant clouds hung ominously outside the incident room windows, obscuring the midday sun. Martin positioned herself on the desk, which faced the large, square table in the middle of the room, around which the team sat settling themselves, passing takeaway cups of coffee and assorted biscuits to each other.
This investigation into Snow’s murder – Operation Malta – had been allocated the larger of the rooms at the MCT. It was bright, if the sun ever battled its way through the inclement north-east weather, and its pale cream walls were empty except for leftover globs of Blu-tack and edges of Sellotape, reminders of previous investigations, the ghosts of which rambled through the room. After the interview with Violet, Martin felt back in the fray, more focused. She took a breath and a sip of sweetened tea, and allowed herself to enjoy being back. This was what she did.
The room turned dark as a crack of thunder boomed. Strip lighting flickered into action as Martin’s phone vibrated next to her mug. She lifted it up to look at the caller identity and, frowning, put it face down again on the desk. Behind her head was a whiteboard covered with a large Venn diagram of concentric circles. As she gathered her thoughts to address the quietening room, one word shone in her head; the last word she had written on the board.
Motive.