Chapter Twenty-Seven
VENN STILL HADN’T HEARD BACK FROM Jen when he got to the Victoria Hotel, but Cath was there, on the terrace close to reception, with a glass of wine.
It was early evening now, still light and warm but the shadows were lengthening, and the sun was lower in the sky over the sea.
Everything rosy, the colours muted and strange.
Jonathan would be home soon, and Venn felt a sudden pang of regret because he wasn’t there first for a change, to welcome his husband, to be the one to start preparing a meal.
‘Paul and I have been taking turns to look out for you,’ Cath said. ‘He’s put on a film for the boys. He’s seeing if one of the hotel staff will keep an eye on them, then he’ll come down and join us.’
Venn was glad that he had a chance to talk to Cath on her own.
He could never trust a politician to be entirely honest. Cath might lie.
She might, as he’d thought before, be aware of the optics, but she wouldn’t be quite as good at the deception.
And now he knew more about the relationship between the Kinzalows and the Armstrongs.
After the conversation with Appleyard, he could guess what Karen had wanted. But first he needed to find Jen.
‘What happened this afternoon?’ The background sound here was of gulls, not blackbirds.
‘I was talking to your colleague about Lottie. She wanted to know more about her, about the lasses’ friendship, and then I saw Karen, peering through the lounge door at me.’
‘It was definitely her?’
‘Oh yes! Your sergeant saw her too and chased after her. Did she catch her up?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. He was starting to get a little worried about the lack of communication from his sergeant.
If Karen had given her the slip, Jen would surely have called in.
And if she’d caught her, Jen would have asked her to come to Barnstaple for an interview.
As a witness or a person of interest. ‘I haven’t heard from her yet.
’ He tried to keep any anxiety from his voice.
Jen wasn’t the most organized of detectives. Perhaps her phone was out of charge.
Cath sipped her wine. She was stressed, her body tense, one of the muscles in her face twitched.
‘Why might Karen have wanted to see you?’ He was hoping Cath might finally be straight with him.
It was odd, this Kinzalow appearing and disappearing trick.
The couple, who’d started off as relatively relaxed observers, had become potential suspects because of their link with the family and their strange behaviour.
If they’d stayed at the campsite in their luxury glamping pod, Venn might just have seen their presence there as a coincidence to be explored, but not necessarily suspicious.
Cath shifted in her seat. ‘I don’t know.
’ She didn’t look at him and he knew this was a lie.
She might not know, but she had a pretty good idea what Karen was after.
She wanted more information surrounding Elizabeth’s fall.
She wanted the truth. ‘They’re behaving very bizarrely.
I think they’ve been following us. Paul was on the beach this morning with our sons, and they were there.
He couldn’t chase after them because he didn’t want to leave the boys on their own. ’
The memory seemed to trigger a moment of panic, and Venn thought that at last he might persuade her to talk.
Then, something in the distance caught her eye, and her attention shifted. Venn turned to see Paul Armstrong strolling towards them. One of the other guests recognized him and he stopped for a moment to talk, to accept their condolences.
‘He never stops working.’ Cath’s voice was bitter. ‘He says you only have to be distant and unresponsive once and you get a reputation for being rude and pompous.’
‘It must be hard always to be performing, always on show.’
‘These days, I don’t think he knows any other way to be.’ Cath paused for a moment. ‘Nothing matters so much to him as protecting the reputation of the party. He’s forgotten why he came into politics in the first place.’ She clamped her mouth shut because Armstrong was approaching the table.
He bent down and kissed her lightly on the cheek. Venn wondered if that was performance too. A show of family unity for his adoring public.
‘Pia, the lovely housekeeper, is in with the boys,’ Armstrong said. Then he turned his warm, politician’s gaze to the detective. ‘Do you have children, Inspector?’ As if he was really interested.
Venn shook his head. He knew that Jonathan would have loved a child. They’d talked about adopting. But in the end, Jonathan had realized that Matthew would be taking the step just to please him, and they’d agreed that wouldn’t ever work.
‘Cath tells me you’re being stalked by the Kinzalows,’ he said.
‘Stalked? That’s rather a melodramatic way of putting it.’ Armstrong looked at his wife before giving a little laugh.
‘I didn’t say we were being stalked, Inspector. I said that they were on the beach when Paul was there with the boys.’ Cath’s words came out in a rush.
‘So, a coincidence you think? Surely more than that? This afternoon, it seems that Mrs Kinzalow came to the hotel specially, hoping to speak to you.’ Venn looked at Cath. ‘Have you any idea what that might have been about?’
For a moment, she hesitated, and again he thought she might be about to speak, to come out with the whole story, but she caught her husband’s eye and shook her head.
‘No, sorry, I’m afraid that I haven’t a clue.’
‘You don’t think they’re here to ask you about their daughter’s accident? Hannah and Lottie were present after all, when Elizabeth fell?’ His voice was as mild and unthreatening as he could make it.
Of course it was Armstrong who answered. ‘Really, I don’t know why they would be. The police investigated fully at the time. It was a terrible tragedy, of course, but it happened more than two years ago. Why would they start harassing us for information now?’
Venn looked at Cath, but she didn’t speak.
They talked for a little longer, but the Armstrongs stuck to the official line, and Venn knew that he’d get no more out of them.
He had a sense, though, that they were haunted by the Americans.
The Kinzalows drifted on the edge of the investigation like ghosts.
All these Londoners had their own reasons for fleeing to North Devon.
At last, they ran out of things to say. Venn knew that Armstrong would stick to the party line, even if it meant that there was no resolution to his daughter’s murder. Optics and politics mattered more.
Cath was the first to her feet. ‘I’m sorry, Inspector, but we have to give the boys their supper. It’s hard but we need to keep as close to their usual routine as possible.’ She turned and walked into the hotel.
Armstrong stayed behind for a moment. ‘We’re going home soon,’ he said. ‘Back to the city. I need to be there for work and as Cath said, the boys will be better in their own space, with their own friends. We’ll stay for the weekend, but head back on Monday morning. I assume that is okay with you?’
‘Of course.’ Because Venn had no valid reason to detain them. But that date, coinciding with the Kinzalows’ flight back to the States, had become an even more important deadline. He wanted the investigation over before they all disappeared.
Armstrong sauntered after his wife, followed by the sympathetic gaze of the remaining customers.
Venn stayed where he was on the hotel terrace. A waiter came and asked what he’d like to drink. He was tempted by the prospect of white wine, very cold and very dry, but he asked for sparkling water.
‘With ice, please, and lime if you have it.’
He checked his phone, but there was still no news of Jen. He called Ross.
‘Any idea where Jen is? I can’t get hold of her.’
Ross was still in the big office in the police station in Barnstaple. Venn could hear muttered voices, a phone ringing.
‘I haven’t heard from her. Wasn’t she going to interview Daniel Miller? I presume he’ll be back now.’
‘She left me a voicemail,’ Venn said. ‘She was chasing after Karen Kinzalow. There’s been no word since then.’ Jen might have gone straight to the Millers’ place, but he thought she would have got a message to him or to Ross to let them know what she was doing.
Perhaps Ross heard the anxiety in Venn’s voice. Or perhaps he was just bored by being stuck in the office. ‘Want me to come across?’
‘Yes,’ Venn said. ‘Yes, please.’
He paid his bill and made his way back to the car park.
Jen had driven here from Barnstaple to speak to Cath Armstrong.
Venn walked down the row of cars until he found Jen’s vehicle.
He stood for a moment thinking through the significance of its still being there.
Jen would have followed Karen Kinzalow on foot, but surely the woman would have had a car of her own, or her husband would be waiting for her?
Unless Geoff didn’t know about Karen’s attempt to talk to the Armstrongs.
That was a possibility, Venn thought. There’d been something secretive about her approach, her search through the hotel for a chance meeting with Cath.
So, had Karen given Jen the slip between the hotel and the car park?
Or had Jen caught her? None of it made sense.
He knew there was no way that his sergeant would have walked to the Millers’ house to interview Daniel.
The new estate where his family lived was a mile from the town centre and up a very steep hill.
Jen wasn’t famous for her love of exercise.
His phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket, certain that it would be Jen with a reasonable explanation for the lack of contact, certain that his anxiety would immediately seem ridiculous. But it was Ross, talking from his car on the hands free.
‘I’ve been in touch with Daniel’s mother,’ Ross said. ‘He’s home. Jen hasn’t been in touch. What do you want me to do?’
Venn thought for a moment. Daniel’s evidence was crucial. Venn was certain he’d been in Tide House with Lottie on Sunday night. What else could explain the panic, the alibi he must have known wouldn’t hang up, then his flight from the area? His reluctance to let them take his fingerprints.
‘Go straight to the Millers’. Someone must talk to Daniel. Make him see that lying to the police is a serious matter. Get him to tell you exactly what happened after he and Lottie left the festival on Sunday evening.’
‘Okay, boss.’
Venn could tell that Ross was excited. He wasn’t usually given such responsibility. ‘Ask if you can record the conversation. If he refuses, bring him back to Barnstaple and do it formally in the station.’
‘Sure,’ Ross said. ‘Sure.’ There was a crackle as reception failed and Venn thought the constable had finished the call, but after a pause Ross continued again.
‘Let me know when you hear from Jen. It’s not like her to go silent on us.
’ A weak joke, but an attempt, Venn thought, to boost both their spirits.
He returned to the hotel and questioned the waiting staff in the lounge and the young man behind reception.
Had they seen a woman running away from the building?
They would surely have noticed her. She had long, red hair.
But it seemed that shifts had changed since the meeting between Jen and Cath, and all he got were bewildered shakes of the head.
Outside once more, he found himself unable to think with any clarity. He didn’t have Ben’s mobile number, and besides, he didn’t want to share his anxiety with Jen’s son until it was strictly necessary.
His phone rang. No caller ID. He listened to the voice at the end of the line and ran towards his car.