Darkness Falls (Kate Marshall, #3)(29)

The door was opened by a small, plump lady who looked to be in her midthirties with shoulder-length blonde hair and oversize red-framed glasses. She had an open, smiley face and soft brown eyes, and when she welcomed them inside, there was a tinge of Birmingham in her accent. Music came floating out behind her from a kids’ TV show, a song about counting to ten. Kate noticed she had a Chinese symbol tattoo on her wrist, and her fingers were adorned with silver rings, two of which were set with large amber stones. “I was about to put the kettle on, if you’d like a cup of tea?” she said.

“Thank you,” said Kate.

“Lovely,” said Tristan.

There was a large antique sideboard in the hallway with a spotted mirror. The shelves were filled with secondhand books, and a row of naked Barbie dolls were propped up against the books. They were all in stages of undress with hopelessly tangled hair, and one had a shaved head.

“This is Megan and Anwar,” said Shelley as they reached the entrance to the living room, where the floor was strewn with toys. A boy and a girl, who must have been around seven or eight, were watching the CBeebies channel on TV. They looked up at Kate with cautious eyes.

“Hello,” said Kate. She liked children but never knew how to speak to them. She always felt she was being formal and standoffish.

“Are your toys enjoying watching TV?” asked Tristan, indicating a LEGO fire station where a mixture of LEGO men, Barbie dolls, and cuddly toys were lined up on the roof, facing the TV. Anwar grinned sheepishly and nodded.

“After this program finishes, we’re having a tea party,” said Megan, picking up a teapot.

“With cake!” added Anwar, grinning. They turned to Shelley.

“Yes, I only just put the cake in. It’ll be ready in a little bit,” she said. “Will you two please watch telly quietly while we go in the kitchen?” she added. They nodded, and Shelley led Tristan and Kate down the hall toward the kitchen. “I’m a foster parent,” she added. “When we spoke yesterday, I was in the middle of a chaotic playdate. Lots of fun but hard work.”

The kitchen was just as messy and cozy, with a long wooden table and a bright-blue AGA, where the smell of a baking cake made Kate’s mouth water. There were herbs in pots along the windowsill, which looked out over a large garden filled with a swing and climbing frame.

“Have a sit down, please.” Kate and Tristan pulled out chairs at the end of the table. “I haven’t heard anyone ask about David Lamb for a long time. Not that many people seemed bothered when he went missing,” said Shelley, starting to make tea.

“How did you know him?” asked Kate.

“We grew up together in Wolverhampton. Lived next door to each other in the Kelsal Road. You know you live in a rough area when the locals put the on the front. It was one of the few terraces of two-up two-downs which weren’t demolished during slum clearance in the sixties. In our terrace, you could climb up into the loft and get through to the house next door. Some of the neighbors put up partitions in their lofts. Between my house and David’s, there wasn’t one. I used to go up into the loft, and we’d meet up at night. No hanky-panky, of course—he was gay. He was a very good friend . . .”

“How did you end up in Exeter?” asked Tristan. Shelley hesitated. Kate could see this was hard for her to talk about.

“We ran away together. Neither of us came from loving families, to put it mildly . . . We pooled together what money we had. I had some from birthdays and my paper round. It was the best thing I ever did—probably saved my life—and I couldn’t have done it without David.”

“How old were you when you ran away?” asked Kate.

“We were both sixteen. We were going to go to London, and then we saw an advert for a commune in Exeter in the back of Time Out magazine.”

“What year was this?”

“1996.”

“What kind of advert did you see?” asked Tristan.

“The advert asked for young people of a liberal persuasion between eighteen and twenty-five to come and join a working commune.” Shelley laughed. “It actually said that: liberal persuasion. We were very green and thought it was something to do with politics. The commune was on Walpole Street in the city. When we arrived and knocked on the door, we found it was mostly gay men. There were no women. I could make bread, which seemed to stand me in good stead, as the woman who cooked had just left to go traveling in India.”

“Did anyone ask how old you were?” asked Kate.

“No. We lied and said we were eighteen, but no one seemed that bothered. I enjoyed it for a time, and we had very different experiences of it when we arrived. I was the lone girl, and David was fresh meat. He was very handsome . . . Nothing bad happened. The men weren’t predatory, but David was quite the heartbreaker. I got a job almost as soon as we arrived, and I moved out after a year, when I met Kev, my husband . . .”

Shelley indicated a collage of photos on the wall beside the fridge that showed her over the years with a stocky ginger-haired man.

“He died, seven years ago. Cancer.”

“Sorry to hear that,” said Kate. There was a silence as Shelley went to the AGA and opened the door, checking the cake, which was turning golden on a shelf. She then poured them each a mug of tea and placed them on the long table.

“Who’s hired you to look for David?” Shelley asked, sitting opposite them. This was the first time she’d looked less open and more cautious.