'The Long Call' Chapters 39 & 40

There was a torchlight in the distance now, coming closer: it would be Jonathan doing the characteristic fast walk that was almost a run. He arrived more quickly than Matthew could have hoped, his arms full, throwing him off balance. There was a waterproof coat, which he put on the sand for them to sit on and a blanket, a flask. ‘I had coffee already made.’ He was sitting beside Lucy, wrapping the blanket around her on top of Ross’s coat.

‘I don’t like coffee,’ she said. She turned her head. Matthew could tell it was painful for her to twist her neck. ‘Have you got any biscuits?’

‘It just so happens …’ And Jonathan pulled a packet from his pocket, like a conjuror.

She munched, almost content, almost enjoying the adventure and the attention now Jonathan was here.

Jonathan looked up, spoke in a whisper to Matthew. ‘Who did this? And what happened to you?’

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Matthew didn’t answer that. ‘I’ll leave Jen with you. If Lucy speaks about it, will you both make notes? Or even better, take a recording. But no questions yet. An interview on a beach in the middle of the night with a woman in shock wouldn’t be admissible in court and I don’t want this cocked up.’

They nodded. Matthew looked out again towards the water that still crept slowly up the sand towards them. He thought that with the strength of the tide here, Lucy’s body might never have been found. He too might have been dragged out into the channel, still alive, but unable to save himself. Drowning in the dark water, sucked under by the currents. The stuff of his nightmares. ‘The ambulance will be here soon. I need to go.’ Matthew was already walking away and if Jonathan replied, he didn’t hear.

It was Ross who shouted after him. ‘Wait! You had concussion. You need to go to the hospital too.’

Matthew stopped and looked back at him. ‘No time for that and I’m fine.’

A silence. He thought Ross was going to insist, but he said, ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Take the car. I’ll pick up Jonathan’s from the house. Find the Marstons and the Salters. Bring them into the station as soon as you track them down. Tonight. Don’t wait until the morning. Jen was right. This is all about conspiracy. Entitled people more worried about their own reputations than the people in their care, losing any sense of humanity along the way. A kind of collective madness. They’re all involved to some degree.’ He’d reached the top of the bank and could see the flashing lights of the ambulance.

‘Where are you going?’ ‘To speak to a witness.’

On the track, he stopped to point the ambulance crew in the right direction. The toll keeper’s cottage was still in darkness. Matthew took a moment to check that nobody was there then made his way to Spindrift, to his home. There was still the strange clarity that felt almost like a dream. He lifted Jonathan’s car keys from the hook in the kitchen. There was a file on the table labelled ‘Woodyard Finances’. There was a coffee stain on the cover and the pages were a little dog-eared.

Jonathan had obviously had the report for a while and struggled to get to the end of it. But even if he’d read every word, Matthew thought it was unlikely he’d find a record of the sum made out to Janet Holsworthy.

It was nearly midnight when he got to twenty Hope Street, but there was still a light showing through the glass panel in the front door. He knocked loudly. As usual, it was Gaby who answered.

‘What’s happened? Have you found Lucy?’ ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We found her. Is Caroline in?’

‘Yeah, we were watching a film.’ Gaby led him through to the living room.

It was less than a week since he’d first been here, but the place, colourful, cluttered, student-chic, already seemed familiar. Caroline was on the sofa, legs curled under her. The film end-credits were rolling. He turned back to Gaby. ‘Could I speak to Miss Preece on her own, please?’

‘Of course.’ He saw she was about to make a joke, to ask why he was being so formal and dramatic, but she thought better of it. She gave one last, curious glance at the two, and then she left the room.

Caroline uncurled her legs and sat upright. ‘What’s this about, Inspector?’ She took off her glasses and polished the lenses with the edge of her cardigan, then replaced them. The only sign that she might be nervous.

‘You knew that your boyfriend had assaulted a vulnerable woman.’ This wasn’t a question. Matthew was sure Craven would have told her; he would have left the day centre immediately afterwards, run to her and confessed. That was the relationship they had.

‘I don’t think assault is the right word.’ So, she was prepared to fight. Good. He was in the mood for confrontation.

‘What word would you use?’

Silence. At last she spoke. ‘He will never do anything like that again.’

‘Can you be sure?’

‘Yes.’ She was confident that she could fix Edward Craven, that she had the power to reform him. Where had that arrogance come from? Her religious faith? A guilty and doting father who’d told his only daughter that she could achieve anything she wanted?

‘You did know that Simon Walden had found out what had happened? That he was threatening to go public? He’d been planning to leave a will in the Woodyard’s favour, but he changed his mind. He saw that as condoning the cover-up. And he was consulting a lawyer about the next step to take. He had proof.’

Her face was white. Stony. ‘Edward didn’t kill Simon.’

‘How do you know?’

There was a moment’s silence. ‘Because Ed was as shocked as I was when he found out Simon was dead. And because he’d have told me. He can be a fool, a bit pathetic, but he doesn’t lie.’ The eyes behind the round spectacles were almost fanatical. Matthew saw that Edward Craven would be her mission in life. She’d be there, waiting for him when he came out of prison. She thought she could cure him and she’d make sure he was dependent on her forever. Caroline stared up at him. ‘What would you do, Inspector, if someone you loved made one stupid mistake? If there was one instant when he lost control? Wouldn’t you want to protect him?’

He didn’t answer that. He didn’t like to think about it. He wasn’t quite sure how he’d answer. ‘Somebody tried to drown Lucy Braddick tonight.’

‘I’ve told you, Inspector. Ed isn’t a killer.’ She was rattled, Matthew could tell.

‘But I think he could have been a part of her abduction, and he was certainly responsible for the capture of Chrissie Shapland.’ Because the men in charge would want him tied into the plan. Edward would be the weak link, the one most likely to break down and talk. They’d have to give him a reason not to confess, make sure he had too much to lose.

Silence again.

‘We showed Chrissie his photograph.’ Of course, Chrissie hadn’t recognized Edward Craven. In the photograph he’d been dressed in a cassock and she would have been looking at the strange clothes, not at the man’s face.

‘He was scared,’ Caroline said. ‘They bullied him. They said it was vital to find the evidence Simon had been holding, the evidence that could lead to Edward’s arrest. They told him that Lucy was the key to finding it.’

‘He’d already assaulted a woman with a learning disability, but they put another in danger.’ Perhaps it was the blow to his head, but Matthew felt his mind fizzing with rage, not just about Craven and the person who’d knocked him out on the dune but the group of powerful men who’d been so thoughtless about the results of their actions.

‘She wasn’t in danger!’ Caroline was almost shouting now.

Matthew ignored her and continued talking. ‘Edward picked up the wrong woman, though, didn’t he?’

She nodded. Matthew thought part of her despised the man’s incompetence. She continued quickly: ‘He let Christine go, though, and then he phoned the police and pretended to have seen her from the Lovacott bus. He knew that you’d find her.’

After holding her for two nights, scaring her witless and putting her mother through hours of misery.

‘And this morning? Did he take Lucy?’

‘No! He was in the church office, having meetings with parishioners. Just as he told you. You can check with them.’

‘He’ll be at the police station now, and he’ll be charged with rape and abduction.’ Matthew stood up. He wasn’t even sure why he’d come to the house in Hope Street. Perhaps because this was where the investigation had started, because he’d felt that Caroline should be forced to take some responsibility for the events that had rolled out. If she’d persuaded her boyfriend to admit to the assault on Rosa immediately after it had happened, a man would still be alive.

‘I’ll come with you!’ She was on her feet too, scrambling for her bag.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I think you’ve done quite enough damage already. Don’t you?’

When Matthew returned to the police station, Edward Craven was being interviewed. He’d been held in a cell until Ross and Jen had returned.

‘Jen’s talking to him now,’ Ross said. ‘She got a lift from the hospital. Maurice is there and Jonathan’s still with Lucy. Apparently, Craven seemed almost pleased to see the arresting officer. Like it was a weight from his mind.’

Or an albatross falling from his neck. ‘Is Preece still here?’

‘Yes. He’s called a fancy solicitor.’ Ross paused. ‘All these respectable people …’ He could scarcely get his head around it. He’d been brought up to believe that respectable people could do no wrong.

‘It’s the respectable ones who have most to lose. That’s why they got tangled up in the conspiracy to hide what happened. If they’d told us about the assault when it happened, the Woodyard would have hit the headlines for a few days and then it would have all been forgotten.’

‘It’s a bloody shame you and Jonathan were away when Rosa Holsworthy was assaulted.’

‘I know.’ Because Jonathan wouldn’t have cared about the Woodyard’s reputation. He’d have been only concerned to protect the people in his care.

A phone rang. Ross answered.

‘British Transport Police have picked up the Marstons. They were at St David’s station in Exeter, waiting for the first train north. They’ll hold them in Exeter overnight.’

‘Do we know how they got to Exeter?’ ‘Taxi, according to the guy I spoke to.’

‘We need to talk to the driver, find out what time he picked them up. It’s possible that they gave up the use of their house, but I don’t see that they can have played any part in the abduction or attempted murder of Lucy Braddick. Marston might have been proud to be consulted in the role of legal advisor, but he wasn’t so emotionally involved in the success of the Woodyard that he’d think it was worth killing for. I think Walden’s murder so close to their home seriously freaked the couple out. That’s why they had such a morbid curiosity about what went on there, why they tried to be so helpful.’

It was two in the morning. Matthew was still in the big office with the remaining members of the team, but he phoned Jonathan. He didn’t have the energy to walk to his own office. ‘Are you home?’

‘Yes, they let Lucy go back to Lovacott with Maurice. Poor chap, the shock nearly killed him. He looked ten years older. But so glad to have his daughter back.’ A pause. ‘She’s looking after him, not the other way around. He seems more of a victim than she does.’

‘Go to bed,’ Matthew said. ‘I won’t be done here for hours.’ He’d just clicked off his mobile when the phone on Ross’s desk rang again. Ross put his hand over the receiver to pass on the message. ‘Gary Luke’s in an unmarked car on the square in Lovacott. The Salters have just returned home. They drove round once as if they were checking to see if anyone was watching the house, but they’ve gone in now. Do you want him to pick them up?’

‘Not yet. We’ll go and speak to them there and bring them back with us. You come with me, Ross.’ He thought he’d fall asleep at the wheel and anyway, he needed someone with him to keep him straight and controlled. He was too close to the Salters to be impartial, too close to losing his temper. ‘Tell Luke to stay there, though. I’ll doubt they’ll be going anywhere else tonight, but just in case.’

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