The Darkest Evening

wall, and holly and ivy spread along the mantelpiece. Cards with snow scenes and penguins had been stuck underneath. Everything was tasteful, ordered and in its place. Bookshelves had been built on each side of the chimney breast, the books neatly aligned: the sort of novels which won literary awards and slim volumes of poetry. Vera looked at the spines while Constance was in the kitchen organizing the tea. Competent watercolours, painted presumably by Constance, hung on the walls. The house was pleasant enough, but there was nothing startling to give away the owner’s secret preoccupations. Nothing that leapt out. Vera wondered if she’d manage her life in this way if she was retired. Would she clear out her house in the hills? Dust and declutter? Start home-baking and take up a hobby? She knew the answer before the thought was fully formed and restrained a laugh. She’d hate retirement. She needed her work and she needed her team. And she’d never take to housework.
Constance came in, carrying a tray, interrupting Vera’s thoughts.
‘Tell me about Lorna,’ Vera said, once the ritual of tea-pouring was over. ‘You must have known her very well.’
‘I taught her of course. She was one of those quiet, shy little things. Not particularly academic, but certainly not a child who struggled. A reader. I hoped she might blossom later. Some children do. She was stunning to look at, but had no confidence at all. She was passionate about animals and I assumed she’d join the family farm when she grew up. Many of my pupils had their lives mapped out for them in advance. Even the rather grand ones from the big house. They might have a spell of freedom – university, travel, work – but then they’d be pulled back to take over the reins on the estate.’
‘Did you teach Juliet from Brockburn?’
‘Yes, but only for a couple of years. Later she went to an independent day school in Newcastle. I think she stayed with a friend of her mother’s or a distant relative during the week so she didn’t have to travel every day. But she was at the village school in Brockburn before that.’ Constance paused. ‘She’s older than Lorna though. They wouldn’t have been there at the same time.’
Vera nodded.
‘You might be related to Juliet and her mother.’ Constance spoke as if this was a joke because surely it couldn’t possibly be true. How could there be a connection between the smart people in the big house and this scruffy middle-aged cop? ‘The same name. I just wondered.’
‘We are actually,’ Vera said. ‘Distantly. Round here, if you go back far enough, we all have the same ancestors.’
‘Not me,’ Connie said. ‘I came to Newcastle as a student from Sussex and I never went home.’
‘You caught up with Lorna again when she came to live over the road from you?’
‘Yes.’ The light had gone now and Constance got out of her seat to switch on a standard lamp and close the curtains. Vera saw this was a ritual too, which would be performed at the same point every evening. ‘I’d heard she’d been ill, of course. Anorexia. A place like this there’s always gossip. Then I saw her across the road and invited her in for tea. I thought she’d refuse at first – I’d seen her a few times in the village and she’d always hurried away as if she was ashamed – but she came. Perhaps I was a familiar face and I reminded her of a time when things were easier.’
‘You must have put her at her ease.’
‘I hope so. I like the company of young people. I enjoy talking to them. She was an interesting woman.’
In the dim light, sitting in a comfortable chair, Vera felt relaxed, almost sleepy. ‘In what way was she interesting?’
There was a moment of silence. A tabby cat pushed through the half-closed door and settled on the arm of Connie’s chair. The woman reached out to stroke it.
‘I thought she was brave,’ Connie said, ‘to fight the illness and come back from it stronger. She wanted to learn. She was interested in life away from the village. We talked about art, travel. I gave her books. She’d been an only child of two doting but not terribly emotionally intelligent parents. They were practical – if she asked for something, they gave it to her. But she couldn’t ask for what she really needed. She didn’t know how.’
‘And what did she really need?’ Vera wasn’t sure about the turn this conversation was taking. It seemed to her a lot of waffle and guesswork, amateur psychology of the worst kind. Had Connie seen Lorna as a surrogate daughter? The child she’d never had? But maybe that was psychobabble too. She reached out for another home-made biscuit and looked at the woman for an answer.
‘Confidence,’ Connie said. ‘Reassurance. A close friend of her own age. Permission to talk about the things that were worrying her when she got to the high school. I don’t think anyone talked very much at all in that house. Unless it was about sheep prices and horses. Robert would have hated a discussion about anything more intimate.’
‘When I phoned to ask about the car, you said that Jill Falstone did just what her husband told her. Did you ever suspect domestic abuse?’
Another silence. ‘Not physical violence,’ the woman said at last. ‘I think he was just one of those men who assume that within the house their word is law. He’d grown up in that sort of home and had never changed.’
‘Did Lorna ever talk to you about Thomas’s father?’
‘No.’ The answer came quickly. Too quickly? But it was an obvious question and perhaps Constance had been expecting it. ‘I didn’t ask. She’d have been subject to enough prying in the village. I didn’t want to be just another nosy old woman.’
‘When did you last see Lorna?’ As comfortable as she was, Vera knew it was time to move the conversation on.