Vera Stanhope 06 - Harbour Street Read Free

telly. She thought perhaps there’d been something else on and they’d changed channel when they’d heard her on the stairs. Something unsuitable. She was a control freak and wanted to know what they were watching. Sometimes she wondered if she was too strict with them. Perhaps that was why they didn’t talk to her any more. They were almost grown-up, after all. She saw the way other kids behaved, what they got away with. But she knew what
she’d
been like when she was young: sex and drugs and the music scene. She’d never finished her exams and she wanted better for them.
    They were still in their school uniform and Kate was going to send them to change, but then she held her tongue. No sense starting an argument.
Choose your battles.
She’d seen that in a women’s magazine and thought it made sense.
    ‘Okay?’
    The reply was a muffled grunt from Chloe. Then Ryan turned and gave one of his smiles that always reminded her of his father and made her stomach flip because it was like looking at a ghost.
    In the kitchen Kate prepared George’s tray. A cloth, leaf tea in the pot, a cup and a strainer. Milk in a jug. Sometimes Ryan laughed at her efforts. ‘This is Mardle, Mam! You’re not in charge of the Ritz.’ And Kate knew that the kids got teased for her attempt to maintain standards – the cloth napkins at the tea table even though they were just eating pizza, her insistence on manners. But she was sure that the small things mattered, and she wanted to prepare them for the future. She wanted more for them than life in a rundown street in a rundown town. She’d known better than that herself once – her father had been an accountant with his own business, until it had fallen apart in the recession – and it still rankled that she’d ended up like this.
    The lounge was empty. George would still be in his room. Kate set down the tray, switched on the gas fire and drew the curtains. The snow had blown into a small drift against the window.
    She was thinking that she’d get a casserole out of the freezer for their supper, when the doorbell rang. If it was another visitor, trapped in the town by the weather, she could put them in room six. She opened the door.
    Outside there was an enormous woman. She wore a shapeless anorak over a tweed skirt. A wide face and small brown eyes. Her hair was covered by the anorak hood. On her feet, wellingtons. Her hair and her body were covered in snow. Behind her another figure, but hidden by her bulk, so that it was impossible to make out any detail.
    The abominable snow-woman
, Kate thought.
    The woman spoke. ‘Let us in, pet, will you? It’s freezing out here. My name’s Stanhope. Inspector Vera Stanhope.’

Chapter Three
     
    Vera got the call while she was shopping and, when her mobile buzzed in her pocket, she felt a joyous sense of relief. She rarely ventured into Newcastle except for work and this was a nightmare. Christmas shopping: hordes of fraught people with a kind of mad panic in their eyes. Like the rabbits, when her father Hector had gone lamping for meat. Hector had died years ago and Vera had no other family to buy for. Christmas Day she’d go to her hippy neighbours for dinner and they’d all get drunk as skunks, but Jack and Joanna wouldn’t expect presents – except perhaps a decent bottle of whisky – and neither would she.
    Then Holly, one of her team, had devised this scheme. Secret Santa: names in a hat and pull out the name of the person who’d receive your gift. Vera had been hoping for Charlie. A bottle of whisky would have suited him fine too. Vera had picked Holly from the hat, though. Holly wore perfume and make-up and smart clothes, even to work. What could Vera possibly choose for her? So here she was in Fenwick’s department store, sweating because she was still in her outdoor clothes, surrounded by smart and shiny people, just wanting to do a runner, when her phone rang. Joe Ashworth on the other end. If he’d been there she would