The Shroud Maker (19 page)

‘Who do you mean, Lisa?’ Wesley said softly. ‘Who did you warn her about?’

He could see fury in Lisa’s eyes. And frustration, maybe directed at a friend who hadn’t listened to sense and had paid with her life. ‘His name was William de Clare. He was quite a bit older than her and she fell for him in a big way.’

‘William?’

‘That’s right.’

‘You didn’t approve of him?’

‘No. I didn’t.’

‘Why was that?’

‘Because she changed when she met him. She became…’ She searched for the word. ‘Cowed. As if she was afraid of putting a foot wrong. I used to see her when she came back from uni. Go out for a drink or meet for coffee.’

‘What do you do?’ Rachel asked.

‘I’m at the university here doing a doctorate. Economics. I’m from Manchester originally and I decided to come back.’

‘How did you know Kassia?’

‘After her parents died she moved in with her gran and we were in the sixth form together. Then I went to uni in Leeds and she went to London. She was studying history. Medieval history.’

‘She didn’t study music?’ Wesley asked.

‘No but she was heavily into it. She was a really talented violinist.’ She smiled. ‘She made quite a bit from busking during the vacations actually and when she was in London she joined an amateur orchestra. She had an old instrument which had belonged to her dad – a viol she said it was. I often wondered why she hadn’t opted to go to music college but she said it was more of a hobby.’

‘Just before she died she joined an early music group down in Tradmouth in Devon.’

Lisa nodded. ‘She would have loved that.’

‘When were you last in touch with her?’ said Wesley.

‘It must be about five months ago. When it was her birthday last November I sent a card to the last address I had for her in London. I let her have this address and asked her to keep in touch and I did get a card on my birthday in January with a note saying she was about to move to South Devon and that she’d let me have her address once she’d settled in. But I never heard from her again after that.’

‘That’s how we found you. She kept the birthday card you sent her – she must have taken it with her when she moved.’

A slight smile appeared on Lisa’s lips, as though the thought touched her. Then the smile vanished.

‘I was worried about her.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she changed when she met William. I sometimes went down to London in those days and we’d meet up. But once he’d really got his claws into her she kept putting me off. I’ve heard some men like to take women away from their friends so they can have them to themselves. Control them.’ She shuddered.

‘And you think that was happening to Kassia?’

‘Yes. I saw it once with someone else I knew. It made me angry. I suppose I was annoyed with Kassia for letting it happen.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘But there was nothing I could do about it. In the end it was her choice.’

‘Did you say anything? Try to make her see sense?’ Rachel asked. Wesley could sense her disapproval.

‘Of course I did but she wouldn’t listen.’

‘So she dropped out of university after her second year? Do you know what she did between then and the time she moved to Devon?’

‘I’m afraid not. We lost touch for a while. In fact I’m surprised my card got to her. I thought she might have moved in with William but I could be wrong. If she’d sent me her new address in Devon I would have written and tried to catch up but…’

‘Did you ever meet William de Clare?’ asked Wesley. If this man was responsible for Kassia’s death, a decent description would help them no end.

But Lisa shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t know him from Adam. Do you think he killed her?’

Wesley didn’t answer the question. ‘Do you know what he did for a living?’

‘I’ve no idea but I think he was well off. Maybe that’s what she saw in him. Although I wouldn’t have said she was the mercenary type.’

Wesley knew from long observation of human nature that even the least materialistic of souls can have their heads turned when the realities of wealth sink in. The comfort of good hotels, the ease of first-class travel, all those tempting trappings that one wouldn’t necessarily miss until they were gone. Kassia was probably no exception, although there was no evidence that she’d benefited in that way, not while she was living at Bolton Hall with Scarlett and Pixie.

‘I take it he had a car. Did she mention what kind?’

‘No. She wasn’t really into cars. She didn’t really say much about him at all, come to think of it. Just how wonderful he was. Not that I think the way he treated her was very wonderful. Creepy if you ask me. If any guy treated me like that…’

‘What do you mean?’ Rachel asked. Wesley could tell she was preparing to bristle with feminist indignation.

‘He used to insist she wore clothes he’d chosen. He even bought her this gorgeous medieval gown – blue velvet. She was really thrilled with it. Tried it on for me once. That must have been the last time I saw her, just before she dropped out of university,’ she said. ‘It was made properly, like a theatrical costume.’

‘She was wearing it when she was found,’ Wesley said softly.

Lisa said nothing for a few seconds. Then she looked Wesley in the eye. ‘Look, I’m really sorry I can’t tell you more but, like I said, she kept him well away from me. I think he was one of those guys who didn’t like his woman having any life of her own. He wanted to own her.’

‘Maybe the relationship turned sour,’ said Wesley.

‘It probably wouldn’t have taken much with someone like that.’

Wesley saw the gleam of nascent tears in her dark brown eyes.

‘What do you know about her family?’

‘She lived with her gran but I don’t think they got on too well.’

‘What about her parents?’

‘They died in some sort of accident when she was fifteen. She never spoke about them.’

Wesley caught Rachel’s eye. This matched Scarlett Derringer’s story.

‘You don’t know why she decided to move to Devon?’

‘She used to talk about the Southwest sometimes. Said she’d been happy there when she was a kid. I asked her how long she’d lived there and she said she hadn’t really lived anywhere. I thought it was a funny thing to say.’

‘Did she ever mention Tradmouth? Or the Palkin Festival?’

Lisa pulled a tissue from her pocket and dabbed her eyes. ‘The name Palkin rings a bell. Maybe it was something this William was into. I wish now that I’d taken more notice of what she told me. But, to tell you the truth, I was disgusted with the whole situation so I tried not to pay much attention to what she said about him. I’m sorry.’

‘Quite understandable,’ said Wesley. He knew it was natural to blot out the unpalatable, to ignore the sordid details of a friend’s path to self-destruction.

Lisa stood up and went to a cupboard by the fireplace. She opened the cupboard door and took out a photograph album. After selecting a page she placed it in Wesley’s hand. ‘That’s us, me and Kassia.’

Wesley looked at the photograph. Two laughing teenage girls, arms linked, standing in a sunny pub garden, raising their glasses to the unseen photographer. The image made Wesley feel unbearably sad. The last time he’d seen that face, those generous lips had been contorted in pain and the smiling eyes had been pecked at by hungry gulls.

‘I hope you find who killed her, I really do,’ Lisa said in a whisper.

Wesley handed the album back to her. It was time to visit Kassia’s grandmother.

Wesley was glad that Rachel was there beside him as he steered the car towards Mrs West’s house. She was good with grieving relatives; calm and sympathetic. He himself was dreading the encounter, and yet he was interested in why grandmother and granddaughter had lost touch. However, he’d given up wondering about the strange ways of families years ago.

From Didsbury village they drove down a wide road lined with large Victorian villas, mostly converted into flats. The area where Mrs West lived had clearly been prosperous in Manchester’s heyday when cotton had been king, but in recent years it had become the haunt of students after cheap rented flats. There had been an effort to make the district vibrant and Wesley noticed an array of bistros, galleries and takeaways on the main street.

Mrs West lived down a side street of tall Victorian terraced houses but her house was one of a pair of 1960s semis squeezed between their loftier neighbours.

They climbed out of the car and a few seconds after Wesley rang the doorbell, the glazed front door opened to reveal an elderly woman with dyed black hair showing grey at the roots. She wore a trouser suit that would have been fashionable in the 1980s and her pencilled eyebrows and heavy make-up only served to emphasise the deep lines on her face.

She peered at Wesley over her glasses and as soon as he introduced himself her eyes focused beyond him on the car. ‘You haven’t come in a police car. How am I supposed to know you’re who you say you are?’

Wesley held out his warrant card. She took it from him and examined it closely, comparing the photograph with Wesley’s face. She didn’t bother with Rachel’s.

‘You’d better come in,’ she said after a while. ‘What’s this about?’

‘Can we sit down?’ Rachel’s voice was soothing. The voice she used to break bad news.

The first thing Wesley noticed about Mrs West’s living room was that it was surprisingly modern with sleek, pale furniture and a large abstract rug on the wooden floor. The pictures were frameless canvases, close-ups of flowers. A perfumed candle burned on the sideboard giving off a heady odour that made the room oppressive. There were no photographs. No memories of Kassia.

Mrs West invited them to sit and sank down on the chair opposite, her head tilted slightly as she waited for them to speak. Wesley allowed Rachel to explain why they were there. He watched the woman’s reaction, surprised when, after an initial gasp of shock, she swiftly rearranged her features into an emotional blank.

‘Thank you for telling me,’ she said formally, staring ahead.

‘I’m very sorry for your loss, Mrs West,’ said Wesley. ‘Would you like us to contact anybody or —’

‘I’m quite all right, thank you.’

Wesley waited a few moments before asking the next question. ‘You hired a private investigator to find your granddaughter?’

The woman looked a little sheepish, as though Wesley had spoken of some embarrassing weakness. ‘I thought I’d better try to trace her. We’d parted on bad terms and…’

‘Why was that?’ Rachel asked.

‘She’d left university. Never finished her degree. It was such a waste. She’d become involved with some man, not that she ever told me anything. She was wasting her life. Throwing away her opportunities. I wish I’d had her chances, I really do.’

Wesley listened to her chattering on in the same vein for a few minutes, almost as though she hadn’t taken in the enormity of the news.

‘I blame my daughter,’ she continued. ‘She went off with that Jake, sailing round on that boat like a pair of gypsies. Kassia never went to a proper school until she came up here to live with me.’

‘Do you know anything about the man Kassia was involved with?’ Rachel asked.

‘Only that she met him in London when she was at university. I don’t think he was a student. I think he was older. But she never confided in me. We were never really close.’ Wesley detected a wobble in her voice, as if the shell was beginning to crack. ‘Did she suffer?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Wesley lied. The truth seemed pointless.

‘Do you know who did it?’

‘Not yet. But we will. I believe her parents were killed in an accident. It must have been a terrible time for you.’

She bowed her head. ‘I’d just lost my husband and the last thing I needed was a difficult teenager about the place, staying out late and worrying me sick.’

There was an awkward silence. Then Wesley asked a question. ‘What was Kassia like?’

Mrs West looked up, as though his voice had shocked her out of a trance. ‘She liked to wear her hair like the girls in those Pre-Raphaelite paintings in the City Art Gallery. Didn’t live in the real world if you ask me. But that was how she’d been brought up. All that airy-fairy hippy stuff.’

‘What about her parents’ accident? Can you tell us what happened?’

‘There was a gas leak on their boat. Jake and Linda – that’s my daughter – went on board and they think Jake lit a cigarette. That was typical of him – always smoking, he was. There was an almighty bang and…’

‘You blame Jake for what happened?’

‘Of course I do. I don’t know what Linda saw in him. But she was stubborn. She wouldn’t listen to sense.’

‘And Kassia came to you after her parents were killed?’

‘I had to take her in. She had nobody else. She was in a terrible state. I didn’t know what to do with her for a while.’

‘Did the private investigator, Mr Darwell, report back to you at all?’

She nodded. ‘He said he’d found her. He’d seen a picture of her in a programme for some festival.’

‘Do you know if he actually met her?’

‘If he had, he hasn’t mentioned it to me.’

‘Did he tell you anything else?’

‘Only that he was following a new lead and that he’d be in touch as soon as he knew more.’