Darkness Falls (Kate Marshall, #3)(7)

Kate and Tristan sat down and watched as Bill and Bev got things ready. Bev had trouble opening the white cupboard doors, which sat flush, with no handles, and twice she got the wrong door for the fridge.

“How long has she lived here?” murmured Tristan. Kate shook her head and busied herself with getting out her notebook and pen.

A few minutes later, Bill and Bev brought over a large french press of coffee and a three-tiered cake stand filled with cupcakes and biscuits. Bill sat on the floor, with his back against the stone fireplace. Bev perched on the edge of an armchair next to him.

“Do you mind if we take notes?” asked Kate, indicating her notebook. “Just so we don’t miss anything.”

“Yeah, go ahead,” said Bill. Bev pushed the plunger down on the french press and poured the coffee. The room was suddenly thick with silence. Bev’s hands were shaking so badly that Bill had to take over, passing Kate and Tristan their cups.

“It’s all right,” said Bill, leaning forward to rub her leg. Bev grabbed his hand. Hers was tiny and birdlike in comparison.

“Sorry. I’ve been dreading having to talk about this,” she said, pulling her hand away and wiping it on her trousers. “I don’t know where to start.”

“Why don’t you tell us about Joanna?” said Kate. “What was she like?”

“I always called her Jo,” said Bev, sounding surprised at being asked such a simple question. “She was a wonderful baby. I had an easy pregnancy. A quick birth, and she was so good and quiet. Her dad was an older guy I dated for a bit. He was twenty-six to my seventeen. He died when Jo was two. Heart attack, unusual for such a young bloke. He had a heart defect he never knew about. We never married, and he was never really in the picture, so I brought Jo up on my own. We were very close. More friends, really, especially when she was older.”

“What job did you do?” asked Kate.

“I was a cleaner for Reed, the company who rent out offices. They had two big spaces in Exeter and Exmouth . . . I had a council flat for years, on the Moor Side Estate. Then I rented a flat a bit closer to town. I only moved in here two months ago. My landlord gave me notice he was selling up. This is all Bill’s.”

Bill looked up and smiled at her. “This is your home now, girl, as much as mine.”

Bev nodded and pulled a ratty piece of tissue from her sleeve and wiped her eyes.

“How long have you two been together?” asked Tristan.

“Gawd. On and off for, what? Thirty years? We never married. We liked having our own space,” said Bev. Bill nodded. She blushed again, and Kate thought how hollow it sounded. Like a practiced line.

“Did Jo always want to be a journalist?” asked Kate.

“Yes. When Joanna was eleven years old, there was this kiddies’ typewriter. The Petite 990. It worked like a proper typewriter. Do you remember the advert? There was this young girl dressed up like Dolly Parton typing away, and the song ‘9 to 5’ played.”

“I remember,” said Kate. “When was that?”

“1985.”

Kate did a quick calculation. If Joanna was eleven in 1985, she’d been born in 1974. That meant she had been twenty-eight when she went missing in 2002.

“In 1985, I was still four years off being born,” said Tristan, putting up his hand. They all laughed, and the tension in the room eased a little.

“As soon as Jo saw that advert, she wanted that typewriter for Christmas, but back then, it cost an arm and a leg—thirty quid! I said to ’er, ‘What are you going to use a typewriter for? It’ll just end up in the cupboard on Boxing Day, collecting dust.’ And Jo said, ‘I can be a news reporter.’ I scraped together the thirty quid, begged and borrowed, mainly from Bill . . .”

Bill chuckled at the memory, nodding.

“And I got Jo the typewriter for Christmas. And she kept her word. Every week, she’d type out a newsletter, silly stuff about what had happened to us, or at school. She never stopped writing and asking questions . . . She was clever. Passed the eleven-plus and got into the grammar school. Jo went on to study journalism at Exeter University and worked as a reporter at the West Country News. Back then, it sold half a million copies a day . . . She’d been applying for jobs up in London at one of the national newspapers, and she even got an interview . . .” Bev’s voice trailed off. “And then, she went missing.”

“In the months or weeks leading up to Joanna going missing, did her behavior change? Was she depressed or worried about anything?”

“No. She was happier than I’d ever seen her.”

“And you saw her a lot?”

“A few times a week. We’d talk on the phone most days, more than once. She’d just bought a house in Upton Pyne, a small village on the outskirts of Exeter, with her husband, Fred.”

“What did you think of Fred?”

“Fred was—is—a lovely guy. He didn’t do it,” said Bev instantly. “He was home all day. And there were so many witnesses. He was painting their house, and up a ladder . . . Lots of people saw him in the village and gave him an alibi.”

“Did anything unusual happen in the run-up to her going missing?” asked Kate.

“No.”

“What was she working on? I read that she was an investigative journalist.”