Chapter Eleven
MATTHEW WAS IN HIS OFFICE EARLY. Vicki had sent through as much information as she’d been able to dredge from the internet about Geoff Kinzalow.
There was a surprising amount of material to work through.
The man had worked first as a reporter on a small-town newspaper in Massachusetts, then moved on to The Boston Globe.
His articles were easily available, and they seemed to Matthew to be well-researched and interesting.
Kinzalow had been interested in politics from the start, even the politics of the school board and community groups.
He’d moved on to The Washington Post for a few years, and had lived in London as their correspondent there, but had resigned to write his book.
Vicki had tracked down Geoff’s interview with Paul Armstrong.
It seemed to Matthew to be intelligent but uncontroversial.
There was a lot about the politician’s early life in the North East of England and his work as a doctor.
It had been written years before and was a background piece about a new MP, introducing the man to a US audience, suggesting that he was charismatic, already in the public eye and already destined for greater things.
The headline read: Could this be the UK’s next prime minister?
Vicki had found out a little about Kinzalow’s personal life too.
His wife, Karen, had been a teacher, working with younger children, changing jobs whenever the journalist moved for work.
The couple had two daughters – Emma was a little older than Hannah and Lottie, Elizabeth the same age.
Matthew wondered if this could be another connection.
He wondered what school the Kinzalow girls had attended when the family lived in London.
Paul and Cath Armstrong might remember the journalist’s name and Cath at least would know if the girls had been friends.
London was a big city, and it would be quite a coincidence, but he made a note to check it out.
In the police station, he found Vicki at her desk. ‘Can you dig out a UK address for the Kinzalows? We know they’ve held on to a place in London.’
‘Sure. I’ll try.’
‘Did you get anything on Tessa Brennan, from the farm?’ The fact that the woman had grown up in the North East was another coincidence, another connection with the Armstrongs.
‘No criminal record of any kind. She grew up in Ashington in south-east Northumberland.’ A pause.
‘Her grandfather was a miner, an activist, and his father worked for a union too. He did have a record. Scuffles with the police on a picket line at a protest outside some council building. He died a few years ago.’
‘Okay. Useful to know.’ Though it was hard to see how this might be relevant.
Matthew passed on the information about the Kinzalows at the morning briefing, crediting Vicki with the research and making her blush. He moved on to actions for the day.
‘I’m going back to Millscombe for at least an hour or two. I’d like to talk to the Kinzalows myself.’ Because internet research wasn’t always accurate and besides, he preferred personal contact. The research had prompted more questions.
‘Jen and Ross, did anything new come out of your chat with the Brennans?’
‘There was someone else at the gathering at the farm on Sunday night,’ Jen said. ‘A musician called John Kemp. I’ve spoken to him, and he confirms their version of the evening.’
Matthew nodded. Corroboration was always useful.
‘Could you both go to Torr and speak to the Armstrongs in their hotel. Jen, I’d like you to act as family liaison.
Ross, can you check out the place where the Americans were staying before they decided to camp out in Millscombe.
Did they leave earlier than expected? Then see if you can track down the elderly drinkers Jen saw in the Fisherman’s Arms. Pick up all the Millscombe gossip.
That’ll be for you too, Ross. They’ll probably talk more freely to a local. ’
Venn paused then. He was distracted for a moment by a memory of his breakfast conversation with Jonathan. His husband had come in from his swim both elated and anxious about the prospect of meeting his birth mother.
She’ll be a stranger. I’ll know nothing about her.
It occurred suddenly to Matthew that he could do a background check on the woman, at least find out if she had a record of any kind. But he was too much of a rule keeper to use the PNC for his own purpose, and Jonathan would hate it if he ever found out.
There was a silence in the room and Matthew was aware suddenly that the team were staring at him, surprised by his unusual lack of focus. He asked the crime scene manager if the team had found anything useful.
‘Nothing yet. They’ll continue searching this morning.’
‘Any information on the post-mortem?’
‘Sally’s doing Lottie this morning,’ Jen said. ‘Hannah tomorrow.’
Matthew nodded and made a mental note to contact the pathologist at lunchtime.
‘Can we find out if Lottie’s mother has arrived yet?
’ he went on. He’d tried to call her the evening before using the phone number Cath Armstrong had given him, but it had always gone straight to voicemail, and she hadn’t called him, although he’d asked her to do so.
‘Cath Armstrong was trying to arrange accommodation for her in the same Torr hotel. I assume she came yesterday evening. I’d like to talk to her. ’
Jen nodded. ‘I’ll check with the Armstrongs when I set up the meeting.’
‘Thank you.’ Matthew thought he should probably say something more. Something stirring to send them on their way. But all he could come up with was: ‘Let’s meet up again this evening. Good luck.’
He took his own car to Millscombe. Jen Rafferty and Ross would go straight to the seaside town of Torr. He parked outside the cordon at Tide House and talked to the officer who’d been on duty overnight. Asked him if he’d seen anything.
‘Nothing,’ the man said. Venn recognized him.
He was older, comfortable in his own skin.
He wouldn’t have minded doing the overnight shift.
He’d be the sort who could catch up on his sleep easily during the day.
‘Dead quiet here, isn’t it? You wouldn’t believe there’s a beach full of grockels just round the headland.
A couple of reporters turned up first light, but they’ve gone to find breakfast.’
‘The quiet before the storm. The invasion will come soon.’ Matthew wondered if he was being overdramatic, but this felt ominous. Two pretty young women and a minister in the public eye would be catnip to the press.
Matthew walked to the farm. This time, he’d come prepared for the heat. No jacket and no tie. A short-sleeved shirt.
Tessa Brennan was outside in the farmhouse garden hanging washing on the line. Sheets, pillowcases and towels. The sun reflected off them and made him close his eyes for a moment against the brightness.
‘A good day for it,’ he said.
‘I’d love a bit of a breeze, though.’ She looked across at him and smiled.
‘Never happy, are we? Last year it was stormy all summer and we didn’t like that either.
’ She picked up the laundry basket. ‘Bob and Jake are away into Barnstaple. We have a stall at the Pannier Market, and they go every week. I thought it might do Jake good to be distracted for a day. But you’re very welcome to come in for a coffee. I was just about to make some.’
‘I’m really here to chat to your American campers,’ he said. ‘If that’s okay?’
‘Oh, my dear, I’m afraid you’re too late. They came into the house last night and told us they were leaving. They settled up then and when I got up this morning they’d already packed and gone.’
‘I thought they were planning on staying the rest of the week.’
‘They were! And they paid up until then. Insisted on it.’
‘Did they give a reason for the decision to move on?’
She shook her head. ‘Nothing I quite believed in. We wouldn’t want strangers about the place after the recent tragedy, they said.
They’d leave us in peace. I thought it was kind at the time, but it was so rushed.
It was as if they were scared. I suppose the thought of a killer on the loose would do that to you. ’
She started to walk back towards the house. Matthew followed her.
‘Did they say where they were going?’
‘They didn’t say very much at all.’ Tessa paused.
‘I suppose it makes our life easier. It’s one less thing to worry about.
I’ll go and clean the pod once I’ve had my coffee.
There’s another couple arriving next week and it’s nice not to have the rush on turnaround day.
’ A pause. ‘If they decide to come that is. We’ve had a load of cancellations.
The killings have been a nightmare for the business. ’
‘Would you mind if I had a look inside before you go in there to clean?’
‘Sure.’ They’d arrived at the back door. ‘These deaths are unsettling for everyone. I hope you get things sorted soon.’
He was walking away when Tessa called after him. A thought had come to her. ‘Jake said you wanted to look at the emails he had from Hannah. He’s happy for you to see them if it’ll help. Let me have your details and he’ll send them across.’
When Matthew reached the group of buildings at the far end of the meadow, he realized that they were more stable than they looked from a distance.
He’d not noticed in any detail when he’d first met Jake outside with the Kinzalows.
They had the look of ramshackle structures, thrown together from driftwood and canvas, charming but not very comfortable.
In fact, they seemed solid enough to withstand a westerly gale. He walked round the outside first.
Behind the buildings there was a narrow copse and the stream that would flow on to the combe, the old mill and the beach.
A log-fired hot tub, shaded by the trees, wooden, with a crooked chimney.
Each of the glamping pods had something similar, but the structures were spaced out, and the stream meandered, so the residents would have had a sense of privacy.
Close to the yurt where the Kinzalows had been staying the grass was flattened where a vehicle had been parked.
A woman’s swimsuit hung from an overhanging branch.
He presumed that Karen had put it there to dry after using the hot tub and forgotten it.
Another indication of a hasty decision to leave.
They hadn’t seemed to Matthew the sort of people to be easily scared away, and he wondered again if there was something more sinister in their rush to escape.
Inside the tent was almost palatial, in a colourful, boho kind of way.
There was electricity. A switch for a light on a wooden post that held up the yurt at its centre and a socket to charge phones and laptops.
Venn pressed the switch. The small window let in little light despite the brightness of the sun outside.
It would be cool in here on the hottest of days, and a wood-burning stove in the corner would keep it warm enough in a North Devon winter.
A double bed stood in the middle of the room.
The Indian patterned throw had been tidily pulled back.
It was richly coloured in reds and blues and matched the rug on the wooden floor.
A small, battered sofa stood next to the stove.
It had been recycled from a former life.
He supposed that the Brennans would have made a virtue out of the second-hand furniture, the sustainable vibe of the place.
Everything was clean and tidy. Even the waste basket was empty.
Venn switched off the light and went outside to check the open-sided kitchen.
There was a small tabletop oven, a microwave and a fridge, a couple of electric hobs.
Again, everything was spotless, gleaming.
All the crockery and cutlery had been replaced in the wooden cupboard.
Was this the sign of considerate visitors, or of people wanting to leave no trace of themselves?
He moved on to the shower and toilet block.
Each pod had its own. A composting toilet with a bucket of sawdust beside it and a separate stall with a rudimentary shower.
It occurred to him that Jonathan would love it here after all, and that when the case was over, he should book it for a weekend.
A surprise. Matthew wouldn’t mind roughing it just for a couple of nights.
He was about to leave the site when he was pulled back into the main yurt, hooked by the memory of something a little out of place.
He’d been careful not to touch anything.
A routine almost superstitious anxiety about leaving a trace of himself in a crime scene, though there was no evidence that anything untoward had happened in here.
Now, he took out his handkerchief and used it to open the wood-burning stove.
Everything else had been spotlessly clean, but there were traces of soot on the glass door.
In the stove, it seemed that there’d been a recent fire.
It had been hot for weeks and he couldn’t imagine Tessa Brennan not cleaning the grate between visitors.
Certainly, there’d been no need for the Kinzalows to light a fire to keep warm.
Inside, not everything had been burned to ash.
There was still a stick of kindling, charred but remaining.
And a scrap of paper that had stuck on the metal frame of the stove just inside the door.
He lifted it out carefully, still using the handkerchief, and put it in a plastic bag that he had in his pocket, keeping it as flat as possible, worried that it would disintegrate.
He had enough restraint not to look at it now. It could wait.