Staying Fit
Illustration by Stan Fellows
Chapter Seventeen
When Matthew left his mother and Susan in the damp little cottage by the marsh, he drove back to Barnstaple and parked outside the police station. Inside, he checked the progress the team had made in their initial attempts to trace Christine Shapland.
‘It’s important. She’s a vulnerable adult, she has a learning disability and the mental age of a child.’ He thought Christine was different from Lucy, less confident and more sheltered. ‘She’s been missing for at least one night. And her disappearance might be linked to the Crow Point murder.’ He added the last sentence to make them take the matter more seriously. The young officers saw murder as exciting, sexy. In their eyes, a middle-aged missing woman with a learning disability certainly wouldn’t be. ‘She lived in one of the cottages on the marsh, not far from where Walden’s body was found. She wasn’t there that day — she was with her aunt in Lovacott — so perhaps that’s a coincidence, but I need to find her.’
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‘We’ve checked the hospital and her GP practice. Nobody’s heard from her.’ This was Gary Luke, the oldest member of the team, relaxed, fatherly.
‘Anyone been in touch with the Woodyard?’
‘Yes, Christine was definitely there all day yesterday. Her uncle dropped her off in the morning and they assumed he’d be picking her up. She wandered out with the others to the reception area of the centre and when she didn’t come back, they assumed she’d been collected or gone home with the minibus as usual. The centre’s trying to encourage a degree of independence, so they didn’t actually accompany her to the car.’ Vicki Robb was young, keen. Matthew was already impressed.
‘Has anyone spoken to the aunt and uncle?’
‘Not yet,’ Vicki said. ‘I could go if you’d like me to.’
‘No, I’ll do it. There’s another call I need to make in Lovacott anyway.’ It would be interesting to catch up with Dennis Salter after all these years. And this was a good excuse to leave the office. Walking back down the stairs to collect his car, he wondered if his mother would see his job differently if he managed to deliver Christine back to Susan. And if he failed to find the woman, would his mother see that as just another example of his failure as a man?
Matthew was on his way out when Oldham appeared at the top of the stairs and called him into his office. ‘If you’ve got a moment, Matthew …’
Oldham’s office was like its owner: shabby, untidy. Matthew had always been wary of the man. There was something about his attitude to Matthew that wasn’t dislike exactly, but more akin to distaste. Something Oldham couldn’t help and tried to control, but a prejudice that was always there under the surface. Matthew wasn’t sure if he was a homophobe or he just didn’t like the idea of a new inspector on his patch. He also found the DCI an object of pity. His wife had died of cancer a couple of years before and rumour had it that he’d started to hit the bottle then, that the beer with friends in the rugby club each evening had taken priority over work. They’d had no family. Ross, the son of a good friend, was the closest thing he had. ‘This Crow Point murder.’ Oldham leaned back in his chair. ‘I understand the victim worked at the Woodyard?’ ‘He was a volunteer there.’ ‘And your partner runs the place?’
‘My husband. Yes.’ A moment of silence.
‘And it seems that the woman with Down’s syndrome who’s missing was abducted from there.’
Matthew took a deep breath. ‘I wondered if I should withdraw from the case. I obviously have a conflict of interest. Perhaps you should take over as SIO.’
Another silence. Oldham closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them very slowly. Matthew watched the lids slide up and was reminded of a lizard, or perhaps a crocodile. ‘No need for that,’ Oldham said at last. ‘I trust my team. Just keep me in the loop.’
So, Jonathan had been right and idleness and a need for a quiet life had won, but as Matthew was leaving the office, Oldham spoke again: ‘Just don’t cock up, eh? If you cock up, we’ll both be in the shit, and that’s the last thing I need.’
Matthew carried on down the stairs, collected his car and took the same route as he’d travelled with the bus the afternoon before. The light was fading and the weather was changing. It was still warm but the air felt heavy with rain. He arrived in Lovacott more quickly than he’d expected, surprised to be suddenly there, dropping down to the village. He hadn’t noticed any of the landmarks that he’d glimpsed from the bus. Christine’s aunt and uncle lived in a tall, straight, confident house right on the square. Once, Matthew thought, a merchant might have stayed there, trading in wool, spreading prosperity. Now it was the home of Grace and Dennis Salter, stalwarts of the Barum Brethren. He’d known them since he was a child. Salter’s rejection of Matthew, after his statement of independence at the final meeting he’d ever attended, had hurt. Before that, Matthew had liked the man. He’d been one of the few Brethren to take Matthew seriously when he was a child, to answer his questions. Grace he hardly remembered at all.
He hadn’t phoned ahead, but there was a light on in the front room and he stood for a moment looking inside. He’d been in that room with his parents. Occasionally meetings had been held there. Dennis had led the worship and Alice Wozencroft, the most elderly member of the Brethren, had played a squeaky keyboard so slowly that the singing was always a few bars ahead. There was dark varnished panelling on the walls, a long, polished table. His parents had always found it a little intimidating; it was also where the elders met and decisions were taken.
As Matthew remembered, the Salters spent most of their life in a room at the back, next to the kitchen, and he’d been taken there too on more social occasions. That had been their private space, more comfortable and more welcoming. He rang the doorbell and Dennis appeared, older of course, but recognizable. A generous lion’s head, made even bigger by a mane of white hair, large features.
Matthew held out his hand. ‘Matthew Venn. Perhaps you remember me.’
‘Of course I remember you. Come on in, man, don’t stand out there on the doorstep.’ The arms wide now in greeting. Matthew was astonished by the response. Did Salter think he’d returned to the fold? Or had time mellowed him? Perhaps he was less dogmatic now than Dorothy, Matthew’s mother, despite his position of authority. Perhaps he welcomed sinners into his home as well as the chosen. ‘You’ll be here about Christine.’
‘Yes, she’s still not turned up and we’re getting concerned.’
Of course, Dorothy would have phoned Dennis Salter and told him that she’d called the police in the form of her son. She would probably have asked his permission first. Matthew’s visit wouldn’t be any kind of surprise to the man.
‘You were taking care of her so Susan could go to my father’s funeral?’
‘We were. At least Grace was. I was at the funeral of course. I couldn’t miss that. Dorothy wanted me to lead the service. I can’t tell you how distressed we are about the confusion. I’m still not quite sure how it happened.’ He showed Matthew into the dark front room; this was official, then, rather than a family matter, despite the man’s apparent contrition.
‘Is Mrs Salter at home? If so, it would be useful to talk to her too.’
‘Do you really need to speak to Grace? She feels as dreadful about this as I do, though she wasn’t responsible. Not at all. It was all my fault.’ Salter paused. ‘She’s not a well woman, and the unexpected can throw her off balance. I’d hate this to make her ill again.’
Matthew remembered the whispers surrounding Grace Salter now. There’d been times when she hadn’t been to meetings; there’d been talk about ‘nerves’, a spell in the psychiatric hospital at the other end of the county. Women had been glad to look after Dennis Salter, delivering food parcels and casseroles. Matthew couldn’t remember anyone offering to visit Grace.
‘I won’t keep her for long, but I’d like to ask her a few questions. Christine’s been missing for a day and a night. We’re taking this extremely seriously.’
‘Of course. If you think it’s important to speak to her …
‘We all want Christine found.’
Matthew sat on his own at the long table, while Dennis disappeared to fetch his wife. This house was very different from the little cottage on the edge of the creek and Matthew wondered how Christine had settled here on the night of his father’s funeral. The Salters had never had children and when Matthew knew her, Grace had never worked away from the home. Her only sense of the outside world would have come from Dennis when he returned from his office, and from the other Brethren. How would she have coped with her niece? Matthew wondered how many younger people still belonged to the community and thought Grace might not be used to dealing with people different in age from herself and her husband. He suspected members were all of his mother’s generation now, slowly dying off. In twenty years, the Barum Brethren, which had seemed so powerful in his childhood, would no longer exist. The couple returned. Grace looked like a scarecrow, tall and stick-like, very thin, with wild grey hair. Her eyes were grey too. She wore trousers and a hand-knitted jumper that swamped her. It seemed she’d been crying and she twisted a handkerchief in her hands.
‘It’s such a terrible thing to have happened.’ Her voice was a surprise, more educated than her sister’s, precise. The three of them sat at one end of the long table, as if they were part of a committee, waiting for other attendees to arrive.
‘Could you talk me through the events of the last few days? I understand that Dennis picked Christine up from her mother’s house before the funeral.’
‘Yes, she doesn’t go to the day centre on a Monday.’ Dennis did the talking. ‘She spent the day and the evening here.’
‘And how did she seem?’
‘She has a learning disability,’ Dennis said, ‘and I’m never quite sure how much she understands. Perhaps I’m not sufficiently patient. We didn’t have any real conversation the evening after I got back from the funeral. She loves television so we put it on for her, though we don’t tend to watch much ourselves. She seemed settled enough, didn’t she, Grace? She knows us and she’s spent time with us before.’
‘You’ve known her since she was a baby,’ Matthew said. ‘You’d be able to tell, wouldn’t you, if something wasn’t quite right?’
‘She was missing Susan,’ Grace said.
‘Well, of course she was missing her mother.’ Dennis sounded as if he resented the line of questioning. Perhaps he’d thought he’d be able to control the conversation as he always had with Matthew in the past. Or perhaps guilt at not making sure Christine had arrived back in Lovacott safely had made him defensive. ‘Since Cecil died, there’s just been the two of them. They’re very close. Christine hasn’t stayed overnight here since she was a young child. Susan is very protective.’
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