LITMIR.BIZ

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He had not been in a good mood; he had been angry, in fact. Understandable, of course. But being rude and refusing even to speak to her was going too far, Sheila thought.

      The phone began to ring again. Four rings before the answering machine cut in. She couldn’t understand why the Vernons were getting so many phone calls. Back home at Wye Close, the phone often didn’t ring from one week to the next, and then it would only be some girl she didn’t know, who would try to sell her double glazing.

      Sheila Kelk was so absorbed in listening to the movements above, that she didn’t notice someone had come into the room behind her until she heard the voice.

      ‘Working overtime, Mrs Kelk?’

      She jumped, her hand going to her mouth as she turned, then she relaxed as quickly.

      ‘Oh – it’s you.’

      ‘Yes, it’s me,’ said the young man. His jeans were grubby, and when he walked across the carpet towards the far door, his shoes left imprints on the pile. Sheila wanted to complain, but knew it would make no impression on Daniel Vernon. He was dark and fleshy, like his father, but sullen and quick-tempered where Graham Vernon was polite and sometimes charming, on the outside at least. Daniel was wearing a white T-shirt with the name of some rock group on it that Sheila Kelk had never heard of. The armpits and a patch on his back were soaked with sweat. She guessed that Daniel had probably walked from the main road after hitching his way from Devon.

      ‘Where’s my mother?’ he asked.

      ‘Taken to her bed and won’t get up,’ said Sheila.

      ‘And I suppose these apes tramping about the house are policemen.’

      ‘They’re looking at Laura’s room.’

      ‘What for, for God’s sake? What do they think they’ll find there?’

      ‘They don’t tell me, I’m sure,’ said Sheila.

      When the phone went again, Daniel automatically walked over and picked it up on the second ring.

      ‘No, this is Daniel Vernon. Who am I speaking to?’ He listened impatiently for a moment. ‘Your name means nothing to me, but I take it you’re some sort of associate of my father’s? Yes? Then, in that case, you can fuck off.’

      Daniel slammed the phone back down and glared at Sheila.

      ‘Oh, I don’t think your father would like you to do that,’ she said, shocked.

      He walked towards her angrily, and she backed away from him, dragging the vacuum cleaner with her so that it remained in between them, like a lion tamer’s chair.

      ‘My father, Mrs Kelk,’ said Daniel, his face contorted into a snarl. ‘My father can fuck off as well.’

      

      Tailby was watching Graham Vernon carefully, not asking too many questions, content to let the silence prompt the other man to talk.

      ‘We’re a very close family,’ said Vernon. ‘We’ve stayed very close to our children. In other families, they start to drift away when they reach their teens, don’t they?’

      Tailby nodded, as one father to another, understanding the way it was with teenagers. In his own case, though, they had done more than drift – they had positively stampeded.

      ‘Charlotte and I, we have … we had a good relationship with Laura. We took an interest in what she was doing at school, in who her friends were, in how she was progressing with her music and her riding. And she took an interest in what we were doing. Not many families can say they have that sort of relationship, can they? Laura used to ask me how business was. She would ask me about some of the people she had met. Business contacts, you know. She was so intelligent. She knew who was important without me telling her. Amazing.’

      ‘She met your business contacts here?’ asked Tailby. ‘They visit you at home?’

      ‘Oh yes. I think entertaining is important. We both do, Charlotte and I. You have to treat your clients right. It’s a question of mixing business with pleasure, if you like. A nice house, a good meal, a decent bottle of wine or two. A normal, happy family around. It makes a good impression on clients, I can tell you. It’s the key to long-term success.’

      ‘Of course.’ Tailby wondered where a happy family came in the list of requirements. Somewhere between the Bordeaux and the beef Wellington?

      ‘And your son, Mr Vernon?’

      ‘Daniel? What about him?’

      ‘Is he part of this … I mean, does he meet your clients when they visit?’

      ‘Well, he has done, on occasion.’ Vernon got up from the chair and poured himself another whisky. He didn’t offer the policeman one, having already been refused once.

      Tailby had noted that there was a drinks cabinet in Vernon’s study as well as in the sitting room, and no doubt another in the dining room. Not that Vernon himself called this room his study. It was an office, and it looked like one – with a personal computer and laser printer, a fax machine, a phone and a bookcase full of presentation folders in tasteful dark blue with gold block lettering. From the high sash windows there was an excellent view of the garden, right down to the avenue of conifers and the rocky summit of Win Low in the distance.

      ‘He’s at university, Chief Inspector. Exeter. Studying politics. Not my idea of a subject, but there we are. He’s a bright boy, and he’ll make a success of something one day, I suppose.’

      ‘He was close to Laura?’

      ‘Oh, very close. They doted on each other.’

      ‘He’ll be extremely upset then, by what’s happened.’

      ‘He was dreadfully cut up when we told him. He’ll take it very hard indeed.’

      Tailby considered this. He wondered if the son would put on a better show of being cut up than the father was doing. Shock and grief took people so many different ways, of course. And Graham Vernon had already had three days in which to go through the range of emotions expected of a man whose fifteen-year-old daughter had gone missing and had then been found again, battered to death. There had been emotions, certainly. Anger most of all – but directed almost obsessively in one direction, towards the boy called Lee Sherratt, who had, it was claimed, lusted after young Laura. The intelligent, innocent, extremely attractive Laura. But if there had been genuine grief in Graham Vernon’s heart, then Tailby had missed it.

      ‘It’s a little early to be back at university, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Surely August is still the summer holidays for these students, isn’t it?’

      ‘Of course.’ Suddenly, Vernon looked as though he might be losing patience. ‘But there are always things to do before the term starts proper. Summer schools, revision, settling into new digs.’

      Tailby nodded. ‘Tell me again about Lee Sherratt.’

      ‘Again? Surely you know enough about him already? I don’t think there’s any more I can tell you that will help you to find him, if you haven’t managed it already.’

      ‘We’re looking as hard as we can, sir. I’m hopeful we’ll locate the boy soon. But I’d just like to get the alleged circumstances clear in my mind.’

      ‘The alleged circumstances?’ Vernon looked a little red in the face.

      ‘His relationship with Laura.’

      Vernon sighed. ‘He’s a young man, isn’t he? Twenty years old. You know what young men are like. Laura was a very attractive girl. Very attractive. You could see by the way he looked at her what he was thinking. I had to get rid of him in the end. It never occurred to me when I took him on – I blame myself for that.’

      ‘So he looked at Laura,’ said Tailby. ‘Anything else?’

      ‘Well … he took any excuse to strip off his

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