Chapter Twenty-Six
APPLEYARD HAD SUGGESTED THAT HE AND Venn should talk over lunch, away from the police station.
It seemed an unorthodox way to behave, sidelining Oldham and the rest of the team completely, but Appleyard never seemed to care too much about offending his subordinates.
He’d served in the army, and as soon as he’d left, he’d joined the police.
He had a soldier’s bearing and steady eyes.
A spy’s inscrutability. He’d rapidly risen through the ranks, both as a soldier and policeman.
Venn respected him but didn’t understand him.
They met in a restaurant in a village in the Taw Valley, ten miles from Barnstaple centre, and were the only diners.
‘They’re usually only open in the evenings,’ Appleyard said, ‘but I know the owner.’ He gave no more details.
They’d driven into the car park at almost the same time.
The place was right by the river shaded by trees.
Venn saw an angler on the opposite bank.
The chief was based in Exeter, so Venn was surprised by the local meeting place.
The place was small, almost like a cottage living room, but the food was simple and delicious.
A chilled soup, fresh homemade bread, good butter, followed by an asparagus tart and salad.
No choice and no offer of alcohol. The food was laid on a side table for them to serve themselves.
Small windows and thick walls kept out the heat and the glare from the sun.
A pregnant woman let them in and then disappeared.
Appleyard started speaking as soon as they were alone.
‘You asked for more information about the American couple.’
‘Yes. They seem to be following the Armstrongs around, and now they’ve disappeared. I can’t believe that’s a coincidence. Did your contacts find anything?’
‘Nothing criminal. No links to any terrorist group or extremist, left or right wing. The man was a journalist, as you already know. Left leaning. I’d think he’d get on with Armstrong. Certainly, there’d be no political hostility.’
‘Any other link with the dead girls’ families?’
‘There’s a daughter, Elizabeth, their youngest child …’
‘She was at school with our victims.’ Venn’s voice was impatient. Tell me something I don’t already know.
‘She had an accident.’ Appleyard continued speaking as if Venn hadn’t interrupted. ‘A fall.’
‘What sort of fall?’
There was a moment’s silence. Appleyard wiped an invisible trace of soup from his lip with a napkin.
‘Down a steep railway embankment on the west edge of Hampstead Heath in north London. Lottie Cauldwell called the emergency services. According to her, it was an accident. She said that they’d been messing about, Elizabeth lost her footing and tripped.
The parents thought it was more complicated than that.
They made a fuss. Contacted the local police. ’
‘What did they suspect? Suicide attempt?’
‘Perhaps.’ A pause. ‘Or perhaps some sort of game that got out of hand. Hannah Armstrong was there when the girl jumped. Or slipped. She backed up Cauldwell’s story.
’ Appleyard set down his napkin. ‘Of course, it would be very embarrassing for the daughter of a minister in the Health Department to be implicated in something like that.’ The pause lengthened.
‘There was alcohol in Elizabeth Kinzalow’s blood.
A lot of alcohol. All three girls had been drinking heavily. ’
‘There was pressure to keep the story out of the press.’ It wasn’t a question. ‘But the Kinzalows blamed Lottie Cauldwell for the incident?’
Appleyard nodded. ‘Elizabeth Kinzalow was left with life-changing head injuries. She’ll always need care.’
‘What did the school say?’ But Matthew suspected he knew what the school had said.
That they were in no way to blame. No wonder that the head teacher had been so tight-lipped.
Had she really believed that they wouldn’t find out about the incident?
Venn supposed that without Appleyard’s help, they might not have done.
‘The school gave a statement to the press: Elizabeth was a valued student, bright and outgoing,’ Appleyard said.
‘She was a confident and well-loved member of the school. There had never been any sign of depression. The fall had happened outside school hours, and there was no evidence that it was anything but an unfortunate accident.’ He paused.
‘The local police couldn’t see that any crime had been committed, so no further action was taken. ’
That could have been the night that Hannah was late home, Matthew thought. The evening that she went missing.
‘Will you send me over the police report?’
Appleyard shrugged. ‘Sure. What there is of it.’
‘How is the girl now?’ Matthew asked. ‘She’s not in Devon with the parents.’
‘No. She’s back in the US in supported living.
Her sister visits regularly while the parents are back in the UK.
’ Appleyard looked across the table at Venn.
‘It seems the Kinzalows have return flights booked for Monday. I can’t imagine having to deal with that kind of tragedy, but it seems it had become a sort of obsession – to find out what really happened to their daughter.
’ A pause. ‘That gives us a deadline, doesn’t it?
We don’t have enough to charge them with, and we certainly don’t want to trigger some international incident.
But we need to be certain that they’re not double killers before they fly home to their girls. ’
Venn chased possibilities in his mind on the drive back to Barnstaple.
The day that Hannah had gone missing, the day that her brother Alex remembered her arriving home late, the day of Elizabeth’s accident.
It would be possible to confirm that had happened that night.
If Lottie had been responsible for the incident, how had Hannah remained friends with her afterwards?
They knew that Lottie was a manipulative and bullying young woman.
Had she put pressure on Hannah to keep quiet?
Or had the tragedy of a terrible accident genuinely brought them closer together?
He felt the extra pressure of time and expectation.
Appleyard needed an answer before the end of the weekend.
He knew, though, that he couldn’t allow himself to be panicked so he continued with his plans.
He drove straight to Millscombe and parked at the Fisherman’s Arms. The lunchtime rush was over, but tourists still sat outside in the garden behind the pub.
He hadn’t realized on previous visits the extent of the outside space.
It was shady there on the edge of the combe that ran past Tide House to the old mill and the sea.
The schools were still open so there were few families and the place was peaceful, the customers bright young things who’d run away from the city for a few days’ break in their holiday homes or the wealthy elderly.
It must be, he thought, a profitable business.
At least in the summer. On the far edge of the garden, where it might be possible to push through the undergrowth and get to the old mill, a uniformed constable stood guard.
Inside, some of the tables in the restaurant still had customers.
Marigold was behind the bar. There was no sign of Jim.
He was probably in the kitchen. Soon the early diners would arrive.
It was, though, Marigold who Venn wanted to speak to.
There was another scenario playing out in his head and he thought he’d get more sense out of her than her husband.
She’d seen him come in. That would be her style, her eyes always on the door, ready to greet newcomers with a smile, loyal regulars by their names: The usual, is it, my dear? Making the lonely ones feel as if they were a part of the place. Important.
Venn thought Mag was as much an asset to the business as her husband’s cooking.
She smiled at him too, but there was little warmth in it. Mechanical.
‘I take it you’re not here for a pint?’
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘More questions, I’m afraid.’ A pause. ‘Is there somewhere we can chat?’
She sighed. A middle-aged woman was serving in the public bar. ‘Can you keep an eye in here, Janie? I won’t be long.’ Then she turned back to Venn. ‘Let’s go upstairs.’
She didn’t suggest that her husband should come with them.
She would have realized that, with his short fuse and sullen glares, he’d be a liability.
That his record as a juvenile would make him an object of suspicion.
Or perhaps she had other reasons for keeping him away from Venn.
There must have been a way to the flat from the inside of the pub, but she avoided the backstage areas by leading Venn outside and up the stone steps.
She took keys from her dress pocket and let him in.
‘I fancy a coffee,’ she said. ‘Want one?’
‘Thanks.’
The making of the drink in the fancy machine, the noise and the steaming of milk seemed to take a long time. Venn was a patient man, and he waited.
‘So,’ she said at last when they were sitting in the bright and comfortable room. ‘What are your questions?’
‘You got some bad reviews on Tripadvisor last weekend. Not all, apparently, from the same person.’
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘We know. There were cancellations. It didn’t matter so much at the weekend because we were tied up with the music festival, but that sort of thing can be a nightmare. People take notice of them. The last thing we need is a hit to our reputation. Especially now.’
‘Why now?’
‘We’re up for an award. Gastropub of the year.’
‘Would a few poor reviews influence the judging?’
She shrugged. ‘We wouldn’t want to take the chance. It’s a big deal. Something like the award would pull people in all winter. The villages round here are dead out of season, and we need the locals from Torr and Barnstaple to make up the slack.’
‘We’ve discovered that the people posting the poor reviews were all followers of Lottie Cauldwell.’
‘So, she did set them up. Vindictive little madam.’