Darkness & Light: A Frank Elder Mystery (Frank Elder Mysteries) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright © John Harvey 2006

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

  www.hmhbooks.com

  First published in Great Britain by Random House UK Ltd.

  Selection from D. H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers

  courtesy of Random House, Inc.

  Excerpt from “Dante’s Tomb” from Collected Poems: 1937–1971 by John Berryman. Copyright © 1989 by Kate Donahue Berryman. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Harvey, John, 1938–

  Darkness & light/John Harvey.—1st U.S. ed.

  p. cm.

  “An Otto Penzler book.”

  1. Ex-police officers—Fiction. 2. Nottingham (England)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6058.A6989D37 2006

  823'.914—dc22 2005037771

  ISBN-13: 978-0-15-101133-9 (alk. paper)

  ISBN-10: 0-15-101133-8 (alk. paper)

  eISBN 978-0-547-62800-4

  v2.0313

  For my editor, Susan Sandon, without whom...

  She said to me, half-strangled, “Do that again.

  And then do the other thing.”

  —John Berryman,

  “Dante’s Tomb”

  The thought of being the mother of men was warming to

  her heart. She looked at the child. It had blue eyes, and a

  lot of fair hair, and was bonny. Her love came up hot,

  in spite of everything. She had it in bed with her.

  —D. H. Lawrence,

  Sons and Lovers

  Chapter 1

  1965

  BEHIND HIS SPECTACLES, THE BOY’S EYES WERE LIKE bevelled glass.

  Alice Silverman turned in her chair and adjusted the window blind so that the late summer light fell muted into the room. All the surfaces—the pale wood table, the backs and arms of both chairs, the long low cabinet of shallow drawers—hummed with a shimmer of honeyed dust. Each drawer in the cabinet was marked clearly with the name of the child to whom it belonged; some, those of the youngest, had an animal brightly painted beside the handle, a dolphin, a diplodocus, a brown bear with outsize feet and a big red bow at its neck.

  Close to Alice’s slim wrist rested the unlined pad on which, occasionally, she noted down words or phrases in a neat hand, or otherwise doodled, crosshatching dark corners that might be clouds or trees. Between herself and the boy there were sheets of unmarked paper, some coloured, some plain, and near them a wooden box filled with pencils, chalks, and crayons.

  “There’s plenty of paper here,” Alice said. “You could draw something. Make me a picture.”

  Barely a flicker of response in those eyes.

  “It’s difficult, isn’t it?” Alice said. “Part of you wants to, but part of you doesn’t.”

  Still nothing.

  She had asked him before, not asked him, chivvied him, told him. Needing a response. Something she could push against. Not wanting him to be too comfortable. None of those namby-pamby social-worker questions—What had he done in the holidays? What was his favourite group, the Beatles or the Stones?

  Alice looked at him and the boy shuffled awkwardly on his chair until he was sitting almost sideways, head down, face angled away.

  The Stones, she thought, it had to be. For her, at least. The words to “Mother’s Little Helper” running through her head. The thrust of Jagger’s skinny hips, the cruel lewdness of his lips.

  A shiver ran through her and she sensed the boy stiffen as if somehow he had noticed.

  THE REFERRAL HAD COME FROM THE BOY’S TEACHER INItially, not based on any one particular thing, more an accumulation of incidents that had alerted her to some underlying malaise that went beyond the norm. Sudden mood swings, outbursts of temper, tears; several occasions on which he’d soiled himself in the playground, or once, in class, an incident, quite possibly misinterpreted, between himself and the school secretary when they had been alone in her office, something vaguely sexual.

  Alice had read the reports, hummed and hawed, finally found a place in her schedule. Almost five years now since she had finished her training, three since taking up her post with this authority. The younger children, seven, eight, nine, she felt less anxious with, more in control. Boys like this, though, edging eleven, slightly built but with something threatening about them nevertheless, something confrontational beating just beneath the skin...

  Sensing the allotted time drawing to a close, Alice allowed herself to glance down at her watch; capped and uncapped her pen, then told herself not to fidget. A cup of tea and a biscuit: two more sessions and then she was through. Another day. Tonight there was a Buñuel at the Film Society. Viridiana. Maybe she’d go along, take her mind off work, relax.

  “All right then,” Alice said, as brightly as she could. “I’ll see you again next week.”

  Chapter 2

  WHEN ELDER HAD FIRST TAKEN RETIREMENT AND MOVED down to Cornwall—could that really be close to four years ago?—one of the things he’d promised himself was that he’d learn the names of all the trees and flowers that grew close to wherever he set down roots. But high in the peninsula between Zennor and St. Ives, on a narrow strip of land between moor and sea, there were no trees—or precious few—and the flowers that pushed through, hardily, each spring, remained for the most part anonymous. Red campion he knew, and foxglove; bluebell, of course, and primrose, but little else. The pocket guide he’d picked up secondhand was tucked, half-forgotten, among the books that were crammed, higgledy-piggledy, along his shelves.

  This morning the sky was pale over the sea and smudged with gray inland, darkening over the old tin mine at Sperris Croft; the only sign of sun a faint reddening blur around the hills to the southeast. On the radio the night before, the forecast had been for a dip i
n temperature by as much as ten degrees, and, over the higher ground, rare for April, a light fall of snow.

  Elder made coffee and toast and hunkered down in the one comfortable chair with a book: The Fox in the Attic by Richard Hughes. The farm labourer’s cottage he rented had lain empty for the better part of a year before he had moved in, its owners’ plans to gentrify it for the holiday trade stalled amid family recriminations and a shortage of cash. The stone walls, thick enough to withstand the wind, were still, in places, unplastered, and where plaster had been slapped haphazardly into place it remained unpainted, taking on a pinkish hue that reminded Elder of faded marble. An oil-fired stove, on which he cooked, was the main source of heat, adequate to the needs of someone living alone, as long as he was prepared to wear several layers of clothing through the winter and required no more than a single shallow bath a day.

  For the first eighteen months, the radio had been his only link with the outside world, but then, under some pressure from his ex-wife, Joanne, and the few friends who insisted they wanted to stay in touch, he had a telephone installed. A land line, there being no signal for anything else. It scarcely ever rang.

  After the better part of an hour, Elder set aside his book, stretched, and stepped outside. Colder, yes, but not by that much: Perhaps the forecast had been wrong. Fifteen minutes later, boots laced, waterproofs fastened, woollen hat pulled down over his ears, he set out on a path that would take him through Nancledra to the opposite coast and within sight of St. Michael’s Mount. Now into his fifties, Elder had chosen a lifestyle that kept him fit at least.

  Returning that afternoon, fortified by a pastry from the baker’s in Marazion and the two apples, Coxes, he had taken with him, he saw, from the top of the lane, a swathe of white moving fast across the sea, a band of palpable hail and snow.

  Secure indoors, he shucked off his coat, eased off his boots, and set the kettle on the stove to boil. Before the tea had brewed, pieces of hail the size of quarters were rattling against roof and windows, sufficient to drown out the first tones of the telephone from the corner of the room.

  Elder covered one ear with his hand as he spoke.

  Joanne’s voice in reply was faint at first, but clear enough to make his stomach lurch. His first fear always, that something had happened to their daughter, Katherine. Something else.

  “What’s wrong?” Elder asked.

  Joanne’s laugh was quick and not altogether true. “Does something have to be wrong, Frank?”

  Probably, Elder thought. “You’re all right, then?” he said.

  “I’m fine.”

  “And Katherine?”

  “Katherine’s fine. She’s got exams coming up soon.”

  “She’ll do okay?”

  “She’s working hard.”

  Katherine was taking her A/S levels at college and hoping to go on to university that autumn, either Loughborough or Sheffield Hallam, to study for a degree in sports management. Well, why not? In Cornwall, Elder was certain, it was possible to get degrees in surfing and wave technology. And athletics, running, had for a long time been an important part of his daughter’s life.

  “How’s Martyn?” Elder asked.

  There was no reply.

  The owner of a small chain of hair stylists and beauty salons, Martyn Miles was both Joanne’s employer and her erstwhile lover, the man with whom, unbeknown then to Elder, she had enjoyed a lengthy affair. When Joanne and Elder separated, she and Martyn Miles had set up house together, since which time he had moved out again, once if not twice. Elder was reminded of the painted wooden figures who had lived in a model Swiss chalet on his parents’ sideboard, popping in and out with each change in the weather.

  “You remember Jennie?” Joanne said. “Jennie Preston?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “Petite. Blond. She’s in sales. Beauty products. Hair care, you know? We met her for a drink in the Lace Market. A couple of times.”

  “No, I’m sorry.”

  “She’s got a sister called Claire. Older. Bit of a sad case, according to Jennie.”

  Get to the point, Elder thought.

  “It seems she’s gone missing. Claire.”

  “Missing?”

  “Almost a week now. No note, no message, no phone call: nothing. It’s not like her at all. Poor Jennie’s going crazy.”

  “She’s reported it to the police?”

  “They didn’t seem very interested.”

  “She did report it, though?”

  “Yes. And all they said, basically, was she’s a grown woman, no sign of foul play, there’s not a great deal we can do.”

  “That’s probably true.”

  “Frank, it’s driving her crazy.”

  “You said.”

  A slight pause. “She wonders if you’d help.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “She lives up there? The sister? Claire?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’m three hundred miles away.”

  “You don’t have to be.”

  “Don’t I?”

  “When was the last time you were here?”

  “Round Christmas.”

  “So come up for a few days. See Katherine. You could meet Jennie; talk to her, at least.”

  “What good would that do?”

  “I don’t know. Set her mind at rest, if nothing else. Maybe there are things she can do herself, things she hasn’t thought of. Just having someone else to talk to, someone who takes her seriously, that would help.”

  Elder could feel the helplessness of it, rising like cold water over his feet and around his ankles.

  “Come on, Frank. It’s not as though you’re actually busy down there, after all.”

  That’s the point, Elder thought, a lot of it at least.

  “Let me think about it,” he said. “I’ll get back to you.”

  “You promise?”

  Your promises—what did his mother used to say?—they’re like pie crusts. His mother had said a lot of things. “I promise,” Elder said, and set down the phone.

  HE DID RING, TWO DAYS LATER, ON MONDAY. IN THE meantime, he’d contacted the Nottinghamshire force and, after exchanging a few barbed pleasantries with officers he used to know, got himself put through to the sergeant in charge of Missing Persons.

  Claire Meecham had been reported missing by her sister on Tuesday the twelfth of April. A statement had been taken but no follow-up set in motion. After all, it was little more than a week. And how many thousands disappeared each year? Just walked away, without so much as a by-your-leave. Hadn’t Elder done so himself, in a way? And the proportion of cases in which some crime was involved was, he knew, small.

  But Katherine—his relationship with his daughter had not always been the best these past few years, and this business with Jennie’s friend, it was a good excuse to see her again. He would drive up the next day.

  AT THE LITTLE CHEF ON THE A46, MIDWAY BETWEEN Evesham and Stratford-upon-Avon, he stopped for a pot of coffee and an Early Starter, a breakfast special that seemed to be always available, no matter how late in the day. After that it was a short distance to the Fosse Way, the old Roman road that would take him, straight as a die, to the outskirts of Leicester; a short stretch of motorway beyond that and he would see the signs for Nottingham South, then follow the single carriageway in past the power station, the old training college, the Clifton estate.

  He’d heard this radio programme about a writer—Graham Greene, was it?—his centenary. How he’d lived in Nottingham early on and not thought much of it, a bit of a dump, drab and dark by his account, but something about it nonetheless, something that meant once you’d lived there, it never quite let you go.

  Elder eased left off the overpass and followed the broad curve of road round and down into the city centre; five minutes, ten at most, and he would be at Joanne’s home in The Park, a private estate of large, mostly Victorian houses in the lee of the Castle walls. Not
that there was anything Victorian about the narrow, architect-designed space that presented little more than a flat, gray wall and two small windows to the passing world.

  Joanne answered the door with a promptness that suggested she’d been half-waiting for his arrival—his or someone else’s—and gave him a quick smile as she stepped back for him to enter, the wood floor of the hall so pale and unblemished, he felt almost obliged to kick off his shoes.

  Elder followed her through into a living area made spacious by dint of a raised ceiling and an almost sheer glass wall that gave out onto the stone patio and garden beyond.

  “How was your journey?”

  “Oh, you know.”

  “What was it? Six hours?”

  “Nearer seven.”

  “You must be exhausted.”

  “I’m okay.”

  She was wearing a silver dress that scarcely seemed to touch her body save, perhaps, at her hips. Her hair—darker now?—had been spun into a soft coil at the back of her head, a few stray hairs reaching down to rest against her neck.

  “Let me get you something. Tea? Coffee? A glass of wine?”

  There was a glass of white wine on the low centre table, half-empty or half-full? A little short of three in the afternoon.

  “No, it’s okay. I’m fine.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, sit down at least.”

  For Christ’s sake, he just stopped himself from saying, I’ve been sitting down half the bloody day—uncertain what it was about her, about this house, that was weevilling so rapidly under his skin.

  He perched at one end of a long settee that in his memory had been white, but was now a delicate shade of mauve, toning in with the faint grayish blue of the walls.

  Joanne disappeared into the kitchen and returned with her glass close to full; sitting opposite him in a cushioned S-shaped chair, she lit a cigarette and released a slow wraith of smoke into the air.