The Sleeping and the Dead

Porteous turned slowly to Rosie. ‘That was the day of the school reunion?’

She nodded.

‘Was the television on in here?’

‘Yes.’ Joe had finished the beer. He put the empty glass on the table. ‘Why?’

‘An idea. Humour me.’

‘Mel started watching it. Suddenly she shouted for everyone to keep quiet. She was ratty. I mean really ratty. The moment before, she’d been laughing, then suddenly she was screaming at people because she couldn’t hear.’

‘What was on the television?’

‘I’m not sure. Local news, I think.’

That was the day they’d issued the press release naming the boy in the lake as Michael Grey and shown the photograph. Porteous felt a hit of adrenalin, breathed slowly to keep his voice calm.

‘Did she say what had interested her?’

‘Not really. Nothing that made sense. She got up and switched off the telly. Not angry any more, but serious. I asked her what was so important. “Nothing,” she said. “I think I’ve just seen a ghost. That’s all.” Then she said the holiday was off. “You go,” she said. “Take someone else. Take Rosie if you like.” But she didn’t mean it. And anyway I couldn’t just fly off and leave her like that. The taxi turned up then and we got it to take us home. The driver was moaning because he’d been expecting the full fare out to the airport and he’d turned down other work. I said we’d pay him anyway. I sat in the back next to her and she was shaking. She wasn’t causing a scene. She was really upset. She wouldn’t let me go into the house with her. “You’ve paid all that money. You might as well get him to drop you at your doorstep.” That was the last time I saw her.’

‘Rosie, did you ever see her after that, after you came back from Cranford?’

She shook her head.

‘Does the name Alec Reeves mean anything to either of you?’

‘Is he the suspect?’ Joe asked, almost with relish. Again Porteous thought the boy would survive this experience without too many scars. He wasn’t so sure about Rosie.

‘Just someone we’re trying to trace.’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘Rosie?’

Again she shook her head.

‘What about Emma Leese?’

‘Wasn’t she the little girl Mel used to babysit?’

‘Do you know her?’

‘No. It was before Mel moved round here. But she used to talk about her. About how cute she was.’

‘When did Mel move to the coast?’

‘A couple of years ago. At the beginning of the sixth form.’ Rosie gave Joe a brave grin. ‘That’s why all the lads fancied her. Because she was new, exciting. Him and me started infant school together. No secrets at all.’

Another connection with Theo, Porteous thought, almost automatically. But his mind was moving on in wider speculation. Wasn’t the relationship between Mel and the baby girl more intense than that between a young babysitter and her charge? Could Mel be the child’s mother, the photograph her only souvenir of a baby handed over for fostering or adoption? It would explain Richard Gillespie’s hostility and his reluctance to answer questions. Even after her death he wouldn’t want details of a teenage pregnancy made public. It might explain too why the family had moved just before she started her A-level course, why Mel was so mixed up.

‘Did Mel ever talk about having children?’ he asked.

Rosie picked up on what he was on about at once. ‘You must be joking.’

‘Where did she go to school before she started with you?’

‘Don’t know. Some private place inland, I think. Did she ever tell you, Joe?’

Or a special unit, Porteous thought, for pregnant schoolgirls. With very wealthy parents. Then immediately – I wonder if Redwood would take a kid like that. But wouldn’t Carver have picked up the fact that she’d had a child at the post-mortem? Perhaps it was in the final report which still hadn’t arrived.

‘Don’t you want to know,’ Joe demanded, ‘about the guy that came in here looking for her?’

‘Of course.’

‘I’ll get back behind the bar,’ Rosie said. ‘Then Frank can come and talk to you.’ She walked away from them. Joe watched her wistfully, unsure whether or not he should follow.

Porteus could tell immediately that Frank wouldn’t be any help. There’d been a brief discussion with Rosie behind the bar. He’d been reluctant to let her take over. Now he did approach them his face was greasy with sweat.

‘Look.’ He held out his hands, palms outward, a gesture to distance himself from the policemen and their questions. ‘I can’t remember anything. Honest. I wish I could. It was really busy. A guy came in asking about Mel. I didn’t tell him anything and he left. That’s all.’

‘Middle-aged, you said. Respectable.’

‘A ye.’

‘Not elderly then? Not an old man?’

‘Compared to these kids they all look old, don’t they?’

Stout had got hold of a recent photograph of Alec Reeves. He’d been in the paper in his home town handing over Duke of Edinburgh awards to a bunch of school children. He looked younger than his years. It must have been all that walking in the hills. He stood, fit and tanned, in the centre of the frame smiling shyly. It was hard to think of him as a monster.

‘Could that be him?’

‘Do you know how many faces I see in here?’