And then her mother had taken Chloe away and she’d never seen her alive again.
I was fairly sure I wouldn’t be allowed to interview Eleanor when she eventually turned up, given the investigation into Kate Emery’s death. All the more reason to have a drive around the area myself to see if I could spot her or the family car. I had set up a locate/trace marker on the police national computer so if the registration triggered the number plate recognition in a patrol car, they’d get pulled over. I also left Derwent and Una Burt a message each, telling them what Bethany had told me. There was no mobile phone reception in the morgue, something that I didn’t really mind when I was there.
I was getting back into my car when I saw a thin figure moving up the road towards me: William Turner’s mother. Her face was vacant, her eyes staring at nothing. For a moment, I thought she was sleepwalking, but then her head turned and she saw me watching her. I crossed the road.
‘Mrs Turner, I don’t know if you remember … I met you last week.’
No flicker of recognition. A thin string of drool hung between her upper and lower lip. Her hair hadn’t been brushed. I reached out tentatively and took her arm. Her skin was papery under my fingers, her bones sharp.
‘Mrs Turner, I’m so sorry about William. Can I take you home? Or wherever you were planning to go?’
‘William,’ she said. ‘William.’
‘I know, Mrs Turner. I’m very sorry for your loss.’
‘He never did anything wrong.’ It was as if she was starting to wake up, her eyes focusing on me. ‘Give a dog a bad name and hang him. That’s what they say, isn’t it. You never gave him a chance.’
I suspected she meant the police rather than me personally. ‘We did want to speak to him, knowing that he’d come to police attention before, but he was just one line of enquiry, Mrs Turner. We had to investigate whether he was involved. He and Chloe were close.’
‘They barely knew each other.’
I didn’t want to argue with her – what was the point? I nodded. ‘We spoke to William a few times and we took a sample of his DNA, but I believed he was telling me the truth.’
‘He always did. He was a good boy.’
I wondered for a fleeting second if Ben Christie’s mother would agree with that. Mrs Turner had gone back to staring into space.
‘He was a good boy. A bright boy. He had everything going for him except his health.’ Abruptly she started to cry, horrible rasping sobs. ‘I kept him alive. I was there in the middle of the night when he was scared. I took him to hospital when he couldn’t breathe, and I promised him – I promised him – I wouldn’t let him die.’ She looked back at me. ‘Do you think he was scared? Do you think he called out for me?’
‘Mrs Turner,’ I began, and stopped. What could I say that would give her comfort? What could anyone say? ‘I’m so sorry.’
She blinked. ‘He was everything to me. He was everything, and now I have nothing.’
The traffic was heavy. It was a flat, grey day, oppressively warm and humid, and even though the sun wasn’t shining there was a glare off the tarmac that made me squint behind my sunglasses. I cruised around the streets, scanning pedestrians and parked cars, coming up with nothing more than a headache. Where did they go, the Norrises? The supermarket, the gym, their church. Oliver had called Eleanor and she had gone to him. He was probably at work.
Swearing under my breath, I inched towards the big, dingy building that housed the Church of the Modern Apostles. The car park was empty. They weren’t there. I drove in anyway to turn the car around, frustrated.
Why weren’t they there? It was a working day. How had they slipped away at the very moment I needed to talk to them?
I parked the car and walked around to the back of the building, past the side door and the bins, and there it was: their car, parked where it couldn’t be seen from the road.
Hidden.
Why was it hidden?
I went back to the door and let myself in as quietly as I could. The corridor was cool and dark and completely silent. I went right, towards the office, and found it was deserted. The computers were off, the desks tidy and neat. No sign of Gareth or the secretary. No sign of Oliver Norris.
No sign of his wife.
Maybe she had been jealous of Chloe – pretty Chloe, with her uncomplicated, naive enjoyment of male attention. What had it been like for Oliver Norris to have his lover’s daughter living in his house? She was old enough to fantasise about, I thought, with her long legs and pretty face, and if she wasn’t clever that made her more accessible, not less. Eleanor devoted a lot of time to being obedient but I didn’t think it came naturally to her. Chloe was sweetly biddable, docile. Uninhibited, when Eleanor was hemmed in by doubt, shame, suppressed emotion, secrets.
There was no one in the kitchen. I went on down the corridor and found there was only one way out from there: through the door that led to the main hall. I leaned against the heavy soundproof door and it opened a millimetre or two – not enough to draw any attention to me, I hoped, but enough so that I could see what was going on inside the hall.
I needn’t have worried about being noticed. The two people in the hall were fully occupied with what they were doing.
All the lights were on, blazing down on the velvety red carpet as if it was a stage. Oliver Norris stood in the centre of the platform, his shirt soaked with sweat down his back and under his arms. His attention was focused on the woman who lay in front of him with her hands on his feet, a supplicant.
‘Tell me.’
‘Oliver, please.’ Her voice was barely audible, her face pressed against the carpet.
‘I need to know who. You owe me that much, Eleanor.’
‘Please forgive me. Please.’
‘There’ll be a time for forgiveness but you have to earn it, Eleanor. You have to purge yourself of your sin first.’ He was as matter-of-fact as if they’d been talking about what to have for lunch.
‘I’m sorry … I should never have done it. I should never have lied.’
‘An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who brings shame is like rottenness in his bones.’ Oliver leaned forward. ‘On your knees, Eleanor.’
Slowly, painfully, she pushed herself back on to her hands and knees. He waited. It seemed to take a long time for her to sit back on her heels and turn her face up towards him, and when she did I felt the shock run through me like a current. Her face was bloated with bruising. I’d seen what Oliver was capable of before, but the violence he’d shown to Turner was nothing compared to what he’d done to his own wife.
‘Now, I’m going to ask you again. Who was it?’
She shook her head, very slightly, and opened her mouth to answer him and didn’t even get the chance. He backhanded her viciously so she pitched to one side, almost losing her balance.