The Darkest Evening

She needed a bath and sleep before an early briefing the next day.
‘The day before she died. Thursday. She phoned first thing to ask if I’d look after Thomas for a couple of hours. Something urgent had come up.’
‘And did you?’
‘Yes. I’m a busy woman, busier than I ever was before I retired, but I was free that morning and the child’s a delight. Very sunny and even-tempered. A credit to his mother.’ Constance broke off. ‘Where is Thomas now?’
‘With his grandparents.’
Constance stroked the cat once more. ‘I suppose that’s for the best. To be with relatives.’
‘You don’t sound too sure. You don’t think they’ll make the same mistakes twice?’
‘No,’ the woman said. ‘I’m sure that they won’t.’
‘Did Lorna tell you where she was going? Why she needed you to babysit?’
‘No, and I didn’t ask. As I said, I tried not to intrude into her private life. I was her friend, not her mother. And certainly not her teacher any more.’
Vera lay back in her chair, was tempted to close her eyes, just for a moment. ‘Did she borrow your car when she dropped Thomas off?’
‘No.’
So, wherever Lorna had gone that day it had been on foot or public transport. They would need to track her movements.
Before Vera could ask another question, Connie continued.
‘She texted me at about eleven-thirty to say she’d been a bit delayed. Would I be okay to give Thomas some lunch and she’d be back at one-thirty at the latest? It was a little inconvenient because I had plans for the afternoon, but I said it would be fine. Usually she was always on time. She never took advantage of me. I knew it must be something important.’
‘How was she when she came to pick up Thomas?’
‘I don’t really know. She was back at exactly one-thirty, but I was all ready to go straight out. I even had my coat on and the baby’s things all packed. Not to make a point, but because I was worried that I’d be late. I’d planned to meet a friend in Corbridge. An author we both enjoy was talking in the bookshop there. So, it was just a question of doing the handover.’ Connie sat very still. ‘I should have taken more time to ask if everything was well with her. To give her the chance to talk. I have this ridiculous compulsion to be punctual. What would a couple of minutes have mattered?’
‘The next day . . .’ Vera had never bothered about punctuality unless she was the person doing the waiting. ‘The day that Lorna died. Did you see her then?’
Connie shook her head. ‘Friday’s one of my busy days. I help at the over-sixties lunch club. We take it in turns to cook, and I was on the rota. It was our last meeting before Christmas, so a little bit special. We gave them afternoon tea.’
‘Did you notice that the car wasn’t there when you came back?’ That would at least give them a timeline, an idea when Lorna had set out.
‘No, but I wouldn’t. I came up the lane at the back of my house and the car was parked on the road in front of the bungalow. I wouldn’t see.’
‘But when you drew the curtains, you would have realized it was missing?’ Because Vera had seen the cars parked in the street through one of the windows when she’d first come into the room.
‘I’m not sure that I would have done. It was snowing by then and the visibility was poor. The street lamp is further down the road. I was thinking about the weather.’ Connie paused. ‘I’m afraid I just can’t be sure whether it was there or not.’
‘Did Lorna have her own set of car keys?’
‘Yes, it made sense. I never thought she’d abuse it. She never had. And it was reassuring to know that somebody had a spare.’ Again, Connie paused. ‘It must have been urgent for Lorna to take the car without asking. Very, very urgent. You have to understand, Inspector, that wasn’t like her at all.’
When Vera arrived back at her house, it was freezing, much colder than the milder wind that had been blowing in the valley. Her hippy neighbours, who lived in the smallholding next door, had cleared the track, but there was still snow here, and ice on the cottage windows. Hector had never seen the point of central heating when the house was so small. He’d been brought up in the big house at Brockburn with its draughts and temperamental boilers and had been sent to a boarding school where it had been a point of honour never to complain about the cold. Until he was expelled.
Vera had considered installing central heating when her house had been damaged by fire, earlier in the year, but in the end, she’d decided against. She’d had to move out for a few weeks when the builders were bringing the place back to life. She’d stayed next door with Joanna and Jack, camping out in one of their spare rooms, eating supper with them at the cluttered table in the farmhouse kitchen, drinking too much of Jack’s homebrew. She’d been grateful. The alternative would have been a B&B and that would have been worse. But still, she’d longed for the chaos to be over and to move back into her own space, so she’d told the plumber not to bother with the central heating and just to replace the hot-water boiler. Moments like this, she wondered if that had been a mistake.
She kept her coat on while she lit the fire, had a moment of panic when she thought she’d run out of kindling, but got it going at last. Joe Ashworth was always telling her she should get a log-burner, because the fire stayed in longer and gave out a better form of heat. His Sal had got one installed in their suburban house in Kimmerston; Sal had loved the idea of it, seen them in the fancy interior-design magazines she