Staying Fit
Illustration by Stan Fellows
Listen to chapters 25-30 narrated by Jack Holden, or scroll down to read the text.
Chapter Twenty-Five
JEN WOKE TO A mild and blustery day, and the sound of rain on her window. She’d done a brief recce of Imogen Holt’s gaff the night before, but there’d been no lights on and she hadn’t wanted to go creeping round the place in the dark. She’d persuaded herself that this was a fool’s errand.
She helped herself to the buffet breakfast – hard fried eggs under warming lamps, and greasy tepid bacon – and drank several mugs of tea. She had the place almost to herself. Perhaps visitors to this part of the Wirral wanted more than a budget hotel. She decided to walk to Imogen Holt’s place. The rain was showery, intermittent, it wasn’t far and she’d brought her old waterproof jacket – which she wouldn’t be seen dead in at home – and her boots. This way, she’d avoid the problem of residents’ parking, and she needed the fresh air and exercise.
The road was quiet, tree-lined, not far from the estuary, with its smell of mud and salt. There were back gardens with trampolines and smart wooden climbing frames. These would be the newcomers Joan found so disturbing. A young father in running gear turned out of a wide drive and jogged along the pavement followed by two preschool boys on scooters. Jen would bet there was a super-mum inside, rustling up a breakfast for their return. Something healthy. Homemade granola and fresh fruit. Natural yoghurt. And the children would eat it without complaint. Jen could never aspire to that. It was probably as well that she’d never be a mother again.
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Imogen Holt didn’t live in a house, but a large ground-floor flat. There were two bells by the door. HOLT in neat printed writing next to one. SAVAGE next to the other. Not Rosco. Jen had wondered if Rosco might have been a close neighbour and that Imogen had been persuaded to accept the post for him because he travelled so much, but it seemed not.
There were wooden slatted blinds at the front windows and it was almost impossible to see inside without getting very close. This would be a neighbourhood of bored and vigilant old ladies, and Jen didn’t want to raise suspicion.
An unbolted gate through a high wall led into the back garden, which was small, overgrown, with dripping shrubs and long grass. A fence at the end to keep out prying eyes, and a slimy crazy-paving path. More blinds at the back windows, except at the kitchen. On the draining board, there was a mug, half-filled with tea, a film on the top. A plate and a knife. Somebody had left quickly without clearing up. Jen had a moment of disquiet, her imagination running wild. She pictured another body. A beautiful woman with long blonde hair. A pool of blood. She saw again the blood in Rosco’s bath. There was a door leading from the kitchen into the garden. Jen rattled it but it was firmly locked.
She moved on to the last set of windows. The blinds hadn’t quite been closed and she could squint through to see something of the room beyond. It was a bedroom, cluttered and colourful, nothing like Rosco’s spartan room in Quarry Bank. A double bed, the quilt thrown back, empty. Beyond the bed, something, which might just be a pile of clothes. The angle of the blinds made it impossible to see properly. The disquiet grew into something close to panic.
A small upper window was slightly open, held on a catch. No way would she be able to climb through – a small five-year-old would struggle – and she couldn’t quite reach to open it properly. If she could do that, she’d be able to move the blinds to get a better view into the room. She’d seen an aluminium stepladder next to the back door. Only three steps but she’d be high enough.
The ground was a little uneven, and the steps were light. She rested against the frame to stop herself wobbling, and lifted the catch on the window, pushed it in, and the blinds to one side. At last, she had an uninterrupted view of the room. She was focused on what was inside, and she didn’t hear the soft footsteps on wet grass. The steps were pulled suddenly away from her, and she fell. She hit her shoulder on the paving and the pain made her feel light-headed. As a kid, she’d always fainted when she hurt herself. She knew she had to stay awake, to face the person who’d attacked her, but the garden spun around her as if she was the worst kind of drunk, and in the end everything went black.
Chapter Twenty-Six
JONATHAN LED THE WAY out of the village and onto the headland. They were walking with a blustery breeze behind them, the waves blowing back white foam. Soon, Matthew thought, there would be rain. The path led along the edge, with steep cliffs to one side and, inland, open ground of browning bracken and yellow gorse. The whole place was windswept and wild.
The headland was narrow, a finger of land jutting into the sea, and there was no way of getting down to the rocky beaches below. At the furthest point, they stopped to look at the view. From here, they could see back into Greystone with its jetty and cottages, and, in the other direction, on towards North Cornwall. Jonathan shook off his rucksack and pulled out a flask of coffee and two bars of chocolate. Now, Matthew almost took his husband’s competence for granted.
Looking down to Scully Cove, he tried to work out where the Moon Crest tender had been anchored. He’d looked on maps and charts, but thought he should have come here sooner. It made more sense to see the place in reality. Ground-truthing. Wasn’t that what the experts called it?
He pointed to a spot in the water. ‘I think that’s where they found Rosco’s body.’
‘I thought it might be.’ Jonathan was already on his feet, the flask stowed, eager to go on, bouncing on the balls of his feet. ‘Look, I’ll show you what I meant. There’s a place where I think the killer might have come ashore. It’s hard to tell on the map, but Guy mentioned it when we had lunch in Morrisham.’
‘You wouldn’t be able to get up from there.’
‘Be patient! You’ll see. Guy drew a little sketch for me.’
Despite his words, there was nothing patient about Jonathan. He set off at a pace that left Matthew breathless.
They’d travelled the length of the further edge of the headland when Matthew did begin to see. There was a gully, almost hidden by rocky outcrops, the end of a valley which led inland, a fold in the land. In the distance, at the top of the valley, stood a house, at once familiar but strange because of the different perspective. ‘That’s Ravenscroft Farm, where Davy and Matilda Gregory live.’ Matthew tried to picture the map, to recreate in his head the view he’d seen from the farmhouse’s garden.
And where the valley morphed into the gully to fall into the sea, there was a steep path down to a shingle beach, only visible now because they were almost at the top of it.
‘Ready to give it a go?’ Jonathan was like a puppy, straining at a lead, wanting to be let free. ‘According to Guy, it’s not too tricky.’
Matthew was about to be disapproving, to talk about contaminating crime scenes, to tell Jonathan that they should get the CSIs in before they did more damage. But there’d been a force-ten gale since any potential murderer had climbed up here, and anyway, what evidence did they have that this was the route that the killer had taken?
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Why not?’
And so, Jonathan was away.
The path was, as Jonathan had said, less sheer than it had appeared from the top of the cliff. It snaked down the gully and there were shrubby trees to provide handholds.
‘It wouldn’t be possible to drag a boat up here,’ Matthew said. They’d stopped for a moment. Every few yards, he was taking photos on his phone. ‘I’m still not sure how it would have worked. Surely it’s still more likely that there was another vessel, to tow out the dinghy, anchor it and then continue back to Greystone or even go on to Morrisham?’
‘I reckon you’d be able to wade ashore if the tide was dead low.’ Jonathan was convinced by his theory now, wanted it to be right, to have made an important contribution to the investigation.
‘In that weather? Surely you’d be swept off your feet?’
‘So, you think it’s more likely that there were two people involved?’
‘Honestly? I don’t know what I think yet. The whole thing seems so overblown and melodramatic.’ Matthew paused. ‘A bit like the man himself.’
‘We’ll go to the bottom, though, shall we? No turning back?’
‘Oh yes,’ Matthew said. ‘Definitely no turning back.’
On the shingle beach there was a little shelter from the wind, but further out, beyond the headland, the waves were bigger, and spindrift was blowing like a blizzard over the surface. Matthew thought there would be nothing to find here. There was a thin strip of sand where footwear prints might have formed, but any physical evidence would have scattered long ago. There was nothing to confirm or repudiate his husband’s theory. Even after the climb down the path, Jonathan was restless, unable to keep still. He ranged across the beach, his boots clattering on the pebbles, jumping across the rockpools on each side of the narrow cove, occasionally picking up stray pieces of driftwood, as if they might provide insight into what had happened a little way out to sea.
Matthew called across to him. ‘How close is the top of the path to any sort of track or road?’ It seemed that the nearest house was the Gregorys’ place. It might be possible to park a car in the track which led to it, but it would be a long walk across country to reach that, especially in the dark, and when tired and wet. He was still keeping an open mind about Jonathan’s theory that the killer had waded ashore.
‘I asked Guy about that. He said there’s a lane less than a quarter of a mile away. It leads to a small parking place for people who want to walk the coastal path. Only room for two or three cars, so I doubt it’s marked on any of the tourist maps, and I’m sure nobody would be using it at night. Not on a wild night like that.’
‘Cool. We’ll check when we’ve finished here.’ Which wouldn’t, Matthew thought, take very long. Something about the place creeped him out. It was the gloom, the black kelp and the grey water, the haunting call of the scavenging gulls. The fact that a short way offshore, Jeremy Rosco had been left naked in a small boat, posed for the lifeboat crew to find him.
Jonathan had been scrambling over boulders to the south of the cove. There was a spur of black rock, jutting into the bay, and he’d disappeared beyond it. Now he turned back and Matthew thought they’d be able to start back up the cliff. His mind was on lunch somewhere a bit classier than the Maiden’s – perhaps that cafe bar in Morrisham – and a large pot of coffee. And on the fact that he’d need to talk to the Gregorys again, now he had a clearer idea of the geography.
‘Look at this!’ Jonathan was standing where the shingle merged into rock, staring down into a pool. Something was caught there, half covered by water. Sodden fabric. Clothes, Matthew thought. His mind was racing. Could the killer have died trying to wade back from the dinghy where Rosco’s body had been left? Could the case be over?
As he got closer, he saw that this was no body. It was a large bag, navy blue canvas, waxed to make it waterproof. Jeremy Rosco had been carrying all his belongings in this bag when he first blew into the Maiden’s Prayer. And his killer had carried him in it, wrapped in a shower curtain from the little house at the top of Quarry Bank to Sammy Barton’s tender. Then the murderer had dumped it, waded ashore and climbed up the steep path to the lane. The bag had been washed up here.
‘There should be a plastic shower curtain.’ He spoke under his breath, but Jonathan was off, climbing further round the rocks until he was out of sight, a hunting dog wanting to please its master.
Matthew was taking photos. The bag was on the tideline but could be washed away by the next high water. Sodden and unwieldy, it would be too awkward to carry back up the path. It would be best to pull it further up the beach and get one of Brian’s team to look at it there, before arranging for it to be brought back to the lab.
Jonathan appeared round the curve of the cliff and started making his way towards Matthew. He was waving.
So, Matthew thought, he’s found the curtain. More evidence that it happened as I thought. The right scenario to move us forward. Jonathan seemed to open his mouth to shout, but no sound came out. He didn’t speak until he was close enough to reach out and touch his husband’s arm.
‘You have to see this.’ Then he turned away, ran over the shingle towards the shallows and retched into the water. ‘I’m sorry.’
Matthew had never seen him so shaken. Jonathan was never ill. Still the man seemed unable to speak. Perhaps there was still blood on the curtain. So much blood that its use was obvious. Jonathan took Matthew’s hand and pulled him across the beach to the rockpools. Here the cliff was sheer above them, with only narrow ledges pocked by white muck, evidence of the birds that had nested in the spring. At high tide, the water would almost reach where they were standing and it would be a struggle to escape back to the beach and the path to the top.
At last Jonathan stopped. At his feet a body. Twisted. Limbs broken and out of shape. A face nibbled in places. There must be rats here. Or perhaps it was the work of gulls. Matthew could understand why Jonathan had been sick. Now, though, his husband could speak. It seemed the reality wasn’t as shocking when Matthew was with him. Or that his imagination had conjured up a sight that was even worse on his scramble back to the beach. ‘He must have fallen from the top. Slipped, I suppose. A dog-walker, do you think, out in the gale?’ He turned to Matthew. ‘Or is it related to Rosco’s death? A bit of a coincidence that he’s here, so close to where they found his body. Could this be your killer, drowned on his way back from the Moon Crest tender?’
‘This didn’t happen in the gale.’
Matthew thought this had happened more recently than the night of Rosco’s murder. There was too little animal damage, and the clothing was bone dry, even, as far as Matthew could tell, beneath the body. Besides, he’d seen this man since Rosco’s body had been found. Only a glimpse then, but he recognized him now from the photograph Ross had shown the team at their last meeting in the Maiden’s Prayer snug. One of many he’d downloaded to his laptop. The equivalent to the office Murder Wall.
‘His name’s Bartholomew Lawson,’ Matthew said. ‘His wife is Eleanor Lawson. Nelly Wren. Jeremy Rosco’s first love.’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
MATTHEW STOOD FOR A moment staring out to sea, the wind blowing into his face, but he couldn’t shift the image of Bartholomew Lawson from his head. He breathed in the salt and the stink of rotting seaweed and at last his brain started to work again, to consider the practicalities. This was a logistical nightmare. Just getting the body back up the cliff would take a specialist team. He looked at his phone. Of course, there was no signal, here in the shadow of the cliff.
He looked at Jonathan. ‘Could you go back up the path? You’ll be quicker than me. As soon as you get a signal, call it in. Jen will still be on Merseyside, but you’ll get Ross on his mobile and then let the team know in Barnstaple. If you can direct them to the parking space you mentioned and lead them down the path.’
Oh God. This is a health and safety disaster. A whole search team scrambling down that path! He should probably do a risk assessment. But they needed Lawson’s body shifted before high tide made it even more dangerous.
‘Can you see if anything’s already parked in the space? Make a note of the registration and call that in too?’
‘Sure.’
‘When’s high water?’ Because Jonathan would surely know. That competence again.
‘About three this afternoon.’ The man had taken in the instructions, nodded, and was already moving away to start the climb up the path.
So, they had just under four hours, Matthew thought. It could be a lot worse. Jonathan was out of sight now. Matthew could hear his boots rattling the shingle, the noise sending gulls into the air. He was running.
Soon, everything was quiet again, except for the sound of the waves on the shore. Matthew sat on a dry rock, still with his back to Lawson’s body, and tried to make sense of the man’s death. Lawson was on the periphery of the case. He’d known Rosco when they’d been boys, but the pair had never been close. If anything, there’d been hostility, barely concealed. And he was the husband of Eleanor, Rosco’s childhood sweetheart, haunted by her, it seemed, until his death. It would just make sense if Lawson had murdered Rosco, though the elaborate staging of the body seemed completely out of character, but why would anyone want to kill both men? Matthew rejected the idea immediately that this was an accident; that Lawson had slipped and fallen to his death. From Ross’s description he wasn’t the sort of person for bracing country walks. And he’d never quite believed in coincidence. Not when it came to murder.
His thoughts then turned to Eleanor. If her husband had died late the night before, or early this morning, she might not even know that he was missing. He could even have been in the habit of disappearing when he was drunk, ending up on a friend’s sofa or in a strange woman’s bed. Matthew hoped the team would arrive soon, so he could be the person to notify Eleanor of his death.
The woman connected both victims. It can’t have been easy living with Bartholomew and of all the people involved in the case, she was the closest to him, the person with a motive. She could have stood next to him at the top of the cliff and pushed him. If he’d been drinking, it wouldn’t have taken any strength. Matthew could believe that of Eleanor: an impulse when she was stretched beyond endurance by his selfishness, wanting at last some peace, but not the pantomime with Rosco. He’d believed her when she’d said she’d loved him.
He started to feel cold. The breeze was stronger and the clouds had darkened. Perhaps the forecast storm was on its way. Matthew got to his feet and started to move, frustrated now to be here waiting. Powerless. There was no doubt that Bartholomew had fallen from the top of the cliff; nothing else would explain the extensive injuries. It was possible, of course, that the man had already been dead before he was tipped over. Would a pathologist be able to tell the difference between trauma to the head caused by a weapon, and from injuries sustained as a body fell from height, bouncing into sharp rock as it fell?
Matthew looked at his watch. Time seemed to be crawling, but only half an hour had passed. Then, above the natural sounds of wind and waves, he thought he heard another. A siren at the top of the cliff above him. A little while longer, and there was the scuffle of boots on the steep path. He left his post and climbed over the rocks to the beach. He saw two uniformed officers, panting, because they’d been moving as quickly as they could and they weren’t built for the job: Jimmy Rainston again, and his friend; the officers he’d met in Greystone that first morning, who had been part of the search team in the village.
‘This way.’
The three of them stood, looking down at the body.
‘It won’t be easy getting him up the cliff,’ Rainston said.
‘He’s a big bloke. A fall then, was it? Your mate wasn’t clear.’
Matthew ignored the question. ‘His name’s Bartholomew Lawson. Have you come across him?’
‘Big cheese in the yacht club.’ A pause. ‘Boozer. Lucky not to have lost his licence.’ He looked up at Matthew. ‘Not the sort, I’d say, to be walking the coastal path. I only ever see him in a car or propping up the bar in the club. Unless he’s changed his ways and suddenly gone in for healthy living.’
‘I can leave you to it then?’ Matthew didn’t want to speculate about what might have happened. ‘And we treat it as unexplained until we know any different. I don’t imagine you get many people down here, but there might be some rubberneckers when we take him up.’
It struck him that if it hadn’t been for Jonathan’s restlessness, Lawson’s body would probably never have been found. There was a gale forecast and a high tide, and anything left by the rats and the gulls would soon be swept out to sea. Even if the tide hadn’t taken it, time would reduce it to bone. The killer, if the man had been killed, had chosen the perfect spot. Surely this was the work of a local, someone who understood the coast.
Jonathan was waiting for him at the top of the cliff.
‘Do you want to see the layby, the nearest spot to the road?’
‘Sure. Then we’ll need to get back to Greystone to our cars. I want to inform his wife.’ Because it was the kind thing to do, before she heard through the media, but also because he wanted to see Eleanor’s response to the news.
They could see the road after a couple of hundred yards. It was running parallel to the coast and would have been invisible, bounded by a hedge, apart from the top of a lorry, moving along it. After ten minutes the lane swerved and almost hit the path. There was a thin spinney of windblown trees separating the two, and a pull-off where the police car was parked.
‘I should have told them to park elsewhere. We need to check for tyre marks. I’ll let the team know to keep it clear.’ There was no other vehicle parked there.
‘So, Lawson definitely didn’t drive here.’ Matthew was still talking to himself as much as to Jonathan. ‘Surely not an accident then? Even if he fancied a midnight stroll, he wouldn’t have walked here all the way from Morrisham.’
Matthew made his way through the trees to the marked coastal path, close to the cliff edge. He didn’t go too close. He could feel the tug of the wind.
‘This must be where he went over, don’t you think? If he was already dead, the killer wouldn’t want to drag him any further than they needed. And if you look at the layout of the bay, this is where you found him.’
‘Definitely.’ Jonathan was nearly at the edge, looking over. Matthew was tempted to call him back. But Jonathan was a risk-taker and hated him fussing. At last, he turned and walked away.
Ross May was approaching, just as they arrived back at the parking spot. Matthew motioned for him to keep the spot clear and park on the lane. ‘We need an officer to keep any vehicles away. There are two below. They’ve got radios. Can you get one of them back up?’
‘So, what’s going on?’ Ross was already out of the car, looking very smart and sleek after his night at home.
‘Just wait until we have someone to secure this place. Then you can give us a lift back to Greystone and I’ll tell you.’
+++
‘You just stumbled over his body?’ They were almost at the village and Matthew had explained what had happened. Ross sounded suspicious, as if Matthew had some secret form of intelligence that he wasn’t passing on. ‘By chance?’
‘Purely by chance,’ Matthew said, ‘and if Jonathan hadn’t found out about the path down to the beach, it could have laid there, rotting, and we’d never have known the man was dead.’
‘What do you want me to do now?’
‘Go back and supervise the removal of the body. We need it up before high tide. And we’re treating this as a crime scene. Even if a coroner comes up with an open verdict, this is a murder.’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
JEN OPENED HER EYES slowly. The garden had stopped spinning.
‘What the fuck do you think you were doing?’
It was a woman’s voice, clear, theatrical. There was no sympathy. Jen could see brown bare feet, slightly muddy. She pushed herself up to a sitting position, rubbed her arm and looked at Imogen Holt, who was wrapped in a dressing gown. She was staring down at her victim with the unfocused look of somebody who has just woken up. But she was lovely all the same, even without the make-up of her publicity photo.
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