Then She Vanishes(50)

I rearrange my legs, which are starting to go numb. ‘So, you weren’t aware of any enemies he might have had?’

‘Hmm. Well, the landlord of the Funky Raven for starters. And there might have been others.’

‘What’s the landlord’s name?’

‘Stuart Patterson. He’s a nice guy. Friendly. I don’t know what Clive did to get on his wrong side because, as far as I’m aware, it’s quite hard to piss off Stu.’

I decide that’s our next destination. I stand up. Jack does too, looking relieved to be going.

Netta follows suit, glancing at Jack’s camera fearfully. ‘You don’t want to take my photo, do you?’

Jack grins. ‘No, don’t worry.’

‘Phew. I look a mess.’ She pats her expensively highlighted waves. Even though she’s ill, it’s still obvious she’s an attractive woman.

‘Thank you for your time,’ I say, as she shows us out. ‘And you’re happy for us to name you in the newspaper?’

‘Of course. My fifteen minutes of fame.’ Her gaze goes over my shoulder to Jack. ‘And if you want a photo, do come back another time when I’m in a better state.’ I’m sure she winks at him. Then she closes the door on us.

‘Think you’ve got a fan there.’

He laughs. ‘Well, you’ve either got it or you haven’t. Maybe she likes the vulnerable look.’ He indicates his black eye that’s now turning purple. I’m just about to retaliate when I freeze. There’s a man in Clive and Deirdre’s front garden. He’s bent over a dying bouquet of daffodils, anger on his face, a fluffy dog that looks like a bear at his feet. I prod Jack in the shoulder blades and incline my head towards him. Jack widens his eyes and clears his throat.

There’s only a small wired fence between the two front gardens and the man looks up. He’s tall and lean, with receding grey hair. He’s wearing a scarf wrapped tightly around his neck and a padded black coat. His face is long, thin and weathered.

‘Hi,’ he says, looking a little shifty and leaning back on his heels. ‘I’m not trespassing. My brother and my mum used to live here.’ He indicates the dog. ‘This is Hulk.’

I recognize his voice instantly from the phone conversation we had. He looks older than I imagined, though, and more scraggy. ‘Norman? I’m Jess from the Herald. We spoke last week.’

His eyes light up in recognition and he shakes my hand heartily over the fence. ‘What are you doing here?’

I quickly explain about the card I found with the flowers. ‘So I’ve just been asking the neighbours if they know if anybody had a grudge against him.’

Something dark passes across Norman’s face. ‘And what have they been saying?’

‘Oh, nothing really. That Clive kept himself to himself.’

He seems satisfied with this response. I daren’t tell him I’m on the way to the Funky Raven to ask the landlord why Clive had been barred.

He thrusts his hands into his pockets and toes the lawn with his boot. ‘Yes, well, I think Clive made a few enemies along the way, if truth be told. He got into something dodgy back in Bristol. He didn’t say what – but I got the impression he was running away, hence the move out here.’

‘Do you think the woman who killed Clive and your mum was hired?’ Jack pipes up from behind me. I turn to glare at him. I’m the one who’s supposed to be asking the questions. Why is Jack so obsessed by that ridiculous, far-fetched theory?

Norman looks shocked. ‘But why kill my mum? She’s done nothing wrong. She was just an old lady.’ He runs his hand along his bald patch, and mumbles, as if to himself, ‘To be shot like that by a woman. I’ve heard the suspect is a wife and mother. Clive’s no angel, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t help but think they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, y’know. This woman obviously has a screw loose and just snapped.’ He bends down to pat Hulk’s head.

I haven’t even mentioned to Jack yet what Margot told me the other night. That Deirdre had once stayed at the caravan park and Heather had met her. Was that just a coincidence?

And if Heather had just ‘snapped’, why had she got into the car and driven here? Why had she been in Bristol – near Clive’s house – earlier that morning? Had she been looking for him?

Norman turns away, his face set, and begins picking up the dead flowers strewn on the lawn, throwing them into a black bin liner, Hulk at his heels. But I can tell from his body language there’s something he’s not saying.





27




August 1994


Flora peered out of her bedroom window. On the lawn below, shaded by the huge oak tree, Heather and Jess sat, sketchpads on their laps, their pencils flying across the pages. They were always drawing, those two. Their artwork had turned darker this summer: Gothic headstones and gargoyles, their faces distorted and ugly. They were obviously going through a phase, as her mum would say. They had Heather’s portable tape player between them on the lawn, and she could hear the faint, tinny strains of ‘Lovesong’ by the Cure. She knew that her sister was keeping guard, stopping her sneaking out to meet Dylan. She tried to pretend otherwise, of course, but Flora wasn’t stupid. Every time she ventured outside, Heather and Jess were there, like her own personal bodyguards, with their insincere greetings and pretence of asking her to help them with the horses, or to clean one of the caravans or any of the other mind-numbingly boring excuses they kept coming up with. She felt like a prisoner in her own home. And it was always there, unspoken between them: Heather’s veiled threat to tell their mum. So Flora found herself humouring Heather and playing along. She should never have smoked that joint – Heather was even more disapproving of Dylan now.