Dark Waters Read online

  I was about to tuck in when there was a cold blast of air as the café door opened.

  ‘Hi.’ Jen sat down across the table from me. She looked at me with a slight smile. Her eyes were green, and her hair wasn’t just black, it was jet black. She was wearing a green beaded necklace – each bead was the size of a pebble.

  ‘Hi.’ Last of the great communicators, me.

  She didn’t say anything else, merely sat and smoked as I ate my way through my breakfast.

  Ten minutes later I was mopping up the remnants of the fried egg with my bread. I looked up to see Jen watching me, her lip curled in an amused smile, smoke from her cigarette curling up to the ceiling. ‘What?’

  ‘You. Cleaning your plate like that.’

  I’d hardly heard her speak, but now I realized she had what Mum would call a ‘plummy’ accent. Posh. I stopped mopping and put my bread down.

  ‘It’s frightfully common.’ She smiled and tapped some ash into the ashtray.

  ‘Really?’ I said, arching an eyebrow. Then I picked up the triangle of Mother’s Pride and carried on. Was she flirting with me?

  ‘Look …’ For the first time her confidence seemed to have deserted her.

  I looked up.

  ‘I’m sorry about what Willem did. You know. With—’

  ‘Rachel. My girlfriend. At the time.’ I shrugged. ‘It was a long time ago.’ And it did feel like a long time ago. In the hothouse, fevered atmosphere of Cambridge, time telescoped in and out.

  ‘Yeah. Rachel.’ She tapped her ash into a saucer. ‘So. I’m sorry. And Willem is too.’

  I snorted. ‘Is he? So why isn’t he here?’

  She gave a small smile. ‘He’s not very good at apologizing. He’s a bastard, but when he likes you he’s incredibly loyal.’

  That made me laugh. ‘Evidently he hates me, then. Shagging my girlfriend doesn’t come very high on my loyalty table.’

  ‘And I’d like to get to know you better.’

  I narrowed my eyes as I looked at her. ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’ And she treated me to the full force of her smile. ‘Come for supper tonight.’

  ‘With you?’ My heart began to thud.

  ‘No, with the Queen of Sheba. Yes with me. And Derek and Roger. Willem possibly.’

  ‘I’m supposed to be going to the flicks with Stu.’

  ‘Oh.’ She was silent for a minute. Then she smiled brightly. ‘Bring him, too.’

  Supper at Jen’s house consisted of copious glasses of Cointreau on ice, weed, and chips, stodgy and doused with vinegar. I don’t know what I was expecting, something more sophisticated perhaps, but I didn’t get it, and we were soon all too drunk to care. Even Stu was letting go. His glasses were skew-whiff and there were beads of sweat along his forehead. He was also swaying to non-existent music and playing air guitar. Derek, who I gathered wanted to be a magazine editor some day, kept taking photographs and downing eye-watering amounts of the sticky orange-flavoured liqueur. His jokes became filthier and funnier the more he drank. Roger was a gentle soul. He didn’t drink much or smoke anything but sat quietly reading a book, of all things. I sort of gathered he was what you might call sensitive. He was interesting to talk to. At least, I think he was; I could never remember what we actually spoke about. But we chilled out, breathing in the scents of fried food and pot, sweat and nicotine.

  Through the haze I heard a knock on the door, then it was pushed open, hard. Willem filled the doorway, his arms stretched out wide, a huge smile on his face. His scarf was flung carelessly around his neck, his skin glowed and his blue eyes glittered, pupils dilated.

  ‘Darlings, I have missed you so!’ He frowned when he spied Stu draped along the sofa. ‘Stuey, dear, hop along now. My friends and I have things to talk about.’

  Stu stared at him, his mouth hanging open, drool at the corners.

  ‘Stuey, did you hear what I said? Run along.’ He gave a dismissive wave.

  Stu glanced over at me. I smiled and shrugged. ‘Sorry,’ I mouthed.

  He heaved himself off the cushions and weaved his way out through the door.

  I was ashamed of myself.

  Willem opened his arms to me. ‘Come and hug.’

  I looked at the others, at Derek and Roger. At Jen, who nodded to me encouragingly.

  I hugged.

  16

  Margaret Winwood ushered Alex into the claustrophobic front room again. It was even gloomier than before – the afternoon sun didn’t reach in.

  ‘Thank you for coming,’ she said, perching on the edge of an uncomfortable chair. ‘I know you must be busy.’ She looked past Alex and at the net-curtained window, wringing her hands, a worried look on her face.

  ‘Mrs Winwood?’

  Margaret Winwood turned her head towards her, eyes unseeing. ‘Yes?’

  ‘You wanted to see me?’ Alex asked gently.

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘You called me this morning. You had my number from my business card. I came as soon as I could.’

  Margaret Winwood seemed to mentally shake herself and stand taller. ‘Of course. I hadn’t forgotten.’ It had been a stroke of luck that Mrs Winwood had called, as it saved her having to rack her brains to think of an excuse to visit Twickenham again.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Can I get you something to drink? Tea? Coffee? Something soft?’

  Alex shook her head. ‘I’m fine, really.’

  The woman sat down heavily on one of the over-stuffed chairs. She was obviously troubled. ‘I can’t put it off any longer. It was that note, you see.’ She fished around in her cardigan pocket.

  ‘Note?’

  ‘The police found it on the boat. Addressed to me. They let me see it, so I wrote down exactly what it said. I’ve looked at it so many times.’ She thrust a creased and folded piece of paper towards Alex.

  She opened it up.

  Margaret.

  If you have this it means I am gone. There is nothing else I can do – I have to take this path. I found my faith again in the end and prayed to the Lord Jesus Christ that I was doing the right thing, that He would forgive me as He knows why I am doing something as heinous as taking my own life. Please know it was not a decision taken lightly. I had to do it for you. I pray that one day you will forgive me.

  All my love, Roger.

  Alex looked up at Margaret Winwood. There were tears on the older woman’s cheeks. She reached out and gently touched her hand.

  ‘He obviously loved you, Mrs Winwood.’

  ‘I wanted you to know what he’d written; that’s why I called you.’ She glared at Alex as though she should know what she meant.

  Alex read it again. ‘Do you know what he meant by “I had to do it for you”?’

  ‘No idea,’ she replied, helplessly. ‘I really don’t know why he would involve me in it at all. I find the whole thing so upsetting. I don’t understand why he would take his own life. I knew, absolutely knew, he wouldn’t do something like that. But there you are. People can surprise you, can’t they? Well, more than surprise, really. Shock you. “All my love.” I haven’t heard him say anything affectionate to me in years. I know he wasn’t the happiest of people. All that business after he left the college—’ She stopped, probably realizing she had said too much.

  ‘I went to the college. I saw the name of it on the back of the photo frame.’ Alex indicated the frame that sat on the mantelpiece.

  ‘You went to the college to pry.’

  ‘I spoke to Father Paul Hayes – he’s the principal there now – and he put me on to Father Vincent, who was at the college during your brother’s time.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He didn’t want to say anything. He was very suspicious of the fact I was a journalist.’

  ‘I don’t blame him, do you? I hope you didn’t go along there thinking you were going to get some sort of salacious story about my brother, some startling revelation, Miss Devlin?

  ‘No, of course not,’ she lied.
r />   ‘Good.’

  ‘All I gathered was that Father Vincent wishes he and the college could have helped him more.’

  ‘Yes, they should have done. He needed help and they abandoned him.’

  ‘Why did he need help?’ She knew something had happened at the college, not least because Margaret Winwood hadn’t wanted to give her its name.

  The older woman seemed to collapse in on herself. ‘It happened after he left.’

  ‘What did, Margaret? What happened?’

  The woman let out a long sigh. ‘Roger …’ she paused and looked out of the window. ‘Roger tried to take his own life a few weeks after he left Goldhay. When he was struggling with his faith. And his life. He got himself into a place where he didn’t know what to do. It was more of a cry for help. Anyway, he managed to sort himself out somehow and then he abandoned his vows and his faith. That’s the story really.’

  ‘I see.’ Alex sat back in her chair feeling vaguely disappointed. So Roger Fleet had a bit of history of trying to kill himself, and he had succeeded at last. Big time.

  ‘Mrs Winwood – Margaret – why did you ask me here today? You could have easily told me what was in the letter over the phone.’

  ‘I know. It wasn’t just the note. The thing is you were so kind yesterday and so keen to help that I thought I would show you something.’ She stood up and went over to a bookcase in the corner of the room, bringing out a large book covered in what looked like green leather. Not a book, a photograph album.

  ‘I was looking through photographs of Roger yesterday, you know, just remembering what he was like when he seemed happy, and I found this.’ She opened up the album. The photographs were pressed on stiff cream board between plastic covers. Better than today’s storage, thought Alex. It wasn’t the same scrolling through iPhoto or a computer, promising yourself that you would print out those photographs that were special to you and never getting round to doing it. Then losing half of them in some massive data crash.

  ‘Look.’ Margaret was talking to her. ‘Here’s Roger.’

  It was a photograph of a group of young people taken in the mid- or late seventies, judging from the haircuts and fashion. There was a fresh-faced Roger, head thrown back, laughing. Flares. Cheesecloth shirt, if she wasn’t much mistaken. There was no worry on his face, no cares etched in his features. A young man with his life in front of him. He was in a garden, a beer garden with picnic benches and drinks and empty glasses on the tables. Parasols. The glint of water. Early afternoon, maybe? There were a lot of people in the background and four people – students – in the foreground.

  ‘It’s a lovely photo of Roger, I can see why you like it.’

  ‘Yes, yes, but look at who’s with him. I didn’t realize it at first, but then there have been so many pictures of him on the TV that I finally knew who it was.’

  ‘Roger?’ Alex was confused.

  ‘No, no, that magazine man, Daley. The one Roger, well, you know, the one he was with when he died.’

  Alex looked more closely. Margaret was right. It was a younger Derek Daley, with all his hair. He too looked carefree, starting out in life, the world at his feet. Derek Daley in a photograph with Roger Fleet. A connection, a real connection. Alex fought to contain her excitement.

  ‘Do you know who the other two are?’ she asked. One of them, a woman, was looking at Fleet and Daley, lifting her glass as if in a toast, and the third man – all blond hair and blue eyes – was smoking a cigarette in a cigarette holder, boldly looking straight at the camera and pointing at whoever was taking the picture. The young blond man’s gaze was unsettling, and something nagged at the corner of Alex’s mind about him. But she couldn’t quite grasp it. She shook her head. It would come to her eventually.

  Margaret looked again. ‘No, I’m afraid not. I didn’t know Roger’s friends. I am, I was, that bit older than him and I’m afraid older sisters don’t tend to involve themselves in the lives of their little brothers. Well, I didn’t anyway. Water under the bridge now.’

  Margaret looked more closely at the photograph, the ghost of a smile on her face. ‘I expect the picture was taken somewhere in Cambridge. Roger was a student there. We were so proud of him when he got into university. He was the first in our family to go on to further education, never mind Cambridge. We were so proud. So proud. St Francis’s College.’ Her finger stroked the photograph. ‘He was a lovely little boy, you know. Gentle and thoughtful, used to buy Mother little presents. He wasn’t like those annoying brothers you hear about, fighting and such. Not particularly good-looking. He was happy in his own company. Liked to read a lot. Clever at school. All of that.’ Her smile was sad. ‘You know, I should have been kinder to him these last years.’ She wiped away a tear.

  ‘He sounds lovely,’ said Alex, quietly. ‘A great brother to have.’ She paused. ‘My father was at Cambridge.’

  ‘Really, dear? At which college?’

  Alex smiled. ‘I’m ashamed to say I don’t know. He was only there for a short time – he became ill – and he doesn’t like to talk about it. Probably regrets having to leave.’

  Margaret Winwood nodded. ‘For some, it was a privilege.’ She looked at Alex. ‘Thank you. It does help to talk. About him. And you’ve been the only one to take any interest. The police, well, they don’t really care about Roger, not the real Roger. They just think he’s a suicide and that’s where it ends. Fair enough I suppose, they’ve got real crimes to see to, someone killing themselves will be low on their priorities.’

  Alex did understand. She knew that families wanted to talk about their loved ones, wanted everyone to see them as people, not as a statistic or a victim or a headline. Journalists were often castigated for knocking on the doors of bereaved families, but very often they were the first person the families were able to talk to. However, she couldn’t feel totally virtuous, after all she had gone there with an agenda, wanting to know more about Fleet and if there was any possible relationship with Daley. And she had found it.

  She reached out and touched Margaret Winwood’s arm. The woman’s pain was palpable. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘Have you shown this photograph to the police?’ Alex held her breath.

  Margaret Winwood shook her head. ‘No. As I said, they weren’t interested in Roger the person, so I didn’t feel inclined to.’ She looked up. ‘But I suppose I should?’

  Alex struggled with her conscience, but knew she had to say yes. At least she was one step ahead of Berry at the moment. ‘I think maybe you should. It shows there’s more of a connection between the two of them than only meeting on the Internet.’

  ‘It makes it a little better, somehow, that Roger was with someone he knew. At the end.’

  They sat there for a minute, the older woman lost in her memories.

  ‘Would you mind if I took a picture of the photo?’ Alex asked eventually.

  ‘No. But I don’t know why you want to.’

  Alex wasn’t sure either, but she was becoming more and more certain there was more to this story than anyone had originally thought. She snapped it quickly.

  ‘You never saw your brother with Derek Daley? Or heard him talk about him?’

  ‘No, never.’ She gave a sad smile. ‘As I said, we didn’t have much to do with each other, not really. This,’ she gestured at the photograph, ‘this is the first time I realized they knew each other. Strange, isn’t it? That they should—’ She stopped, unable to go on.

  ‘And you’ve no idea who those other people are in the photo? Roger never mentioned any names?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry. Is it important?’

  Alex shook her head. ‘No, not important.’

  ‘At least,’ said Margaret Winwood sadly, ‘he’s at peace now and we can bury him knowing that. Though …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It must have been something to make him get on a boat. He hated water.’

  Exactly what Mrs Archer had said.

  17

  It was at that time of nigh
t, the time between dreaming and waking, when Alex remembered where she had seen the blond man in the picture before.

  Willem Major. That’s who it was. She sat bolt upright in bed. A much younger version, but you couldn’t mistake the fine blond hair, the blue eyes and the thick eyebrows and eyelashes. And as an older man his face had been splashed across television, newspapers, and websites a few weeks before, accompanied by epithets such as ‘tragic’ and ‘doomed’. He had been what? A businessman? A moneymaker? Something like that. That’s right. He’d built up a successful chain of garden centres, which he sold after the tragedy.

  Alex did what any self-respecting journalist did when first researching a story: she sat down at her computer and consulted Google.

  There were plenty of hits on the name. She pulled up a newspaper article.

  Willem Major … successful businessman … garden centres

  Ah, she had been right.

  family died in arson attack … eldest daughter survived because she was at a friend’s house … arsonist or arsonists never found … recluse.

  Then the latest story from BBC News a month ago:

  An investigation into a fire which killed three members of one family is proving ‘difficult’ and ‘challenging’ Cambridgeshire Police said.

  Two months after Maria Major and two of her daughters, Katherine, aged 16, and 14-year-old Suzie died in the blaze at Owl Farm, Ely, the force has renewed its appeal for information.

  Marie Major’s husband Willem and eldest daughter Charlotte were the only survivors. The blaze, which experts say may have reached temperatures of 800 degrees centigrade, sent thick, choking smoke through the premises. Mr Major and Charlotte Major were not at home at the time of the fire.

  An inquest heard that all the evidence pointed to arson, but firefighters could not rule out an accidental cause.

  Cambridgeshire Police said it was ‘desperate to find answers’ and appealed to any members of the community to come forward with information.