forty-five

Rivendell was nearest to the Prestbury Road end of Windsor Street. A woman in her late fifties, who I assumed to be Mrs. Mason, opened the door. She had a wide face, wide smile, and wide hips. She wore a pink and grey rugger shirt and her cerise-coloured jeans clung to her thickset legs like sausage casings.

“Yes?”

“I wondered whether it’s possible to talk to Ashley?”

“And you are?”

I pushed a smile. “This is a little convoluted. I’m a clinical psychologist. My name’s Kim Slade. Mimi Vellender was one of my clients.”

Her cheeks fell into folds. “I heard she died.”

“Afraid so.”

“Dreadful business. So how is this connected to Ash?”

“Your daughter was a friend of Mimi’s brother, Nicholas.”

“Ah, Nick,” she said, light in her eyes.

“I’d like to talk to her about him.”

“I see.” She frowned.

“It would only take a few minutes of her time. I’m quite happy for you to sit in with us.”

“It’s not that,” Mrs. Mason said. “Ash is away at Uni.”

“Oh,” I said, deflated that I’d fallen at the first. “Then I’m sorry to trouble you.” I turned to go.

“Is there anything I can help with?”

I turned back. She looked earnest and genuine. The desire to help is one of the more attractive human traits and I got the impression that Mrs. Mason had it in spades.

“Nick spent a fair bit of time with us. I don’t know what you want to ask but I’ll do my best to answer.”

“You’re an angel,” I said and genuinely meant it.

I followed Mrs. Mason through a wide corridor, past a downstairs room with an upright piano, and into a homely lounge with deep built-in bookcases flanking a Victorian fireplace. A collage of family photographs hung over the mantelpiece.

“I’ve made a brew. Want one?”

“That would be great.”

“Milk and sugar?”

“No sugar, thanks.”

“Make yourself at home.”

While Mrs. Mason went to get another mug, I studied the photos. Ashley took after her mother with her blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and smiling mouth.

“That’s my Ash,” Mrs. Mason said with pride, handing me a mug. “She’s studying medicine at Edinburgh.”

“Clever girl.”

“So?” she said, sitting down. “What do you want to know about Nick?”

“Is that what Ash called him?”

“That’s what we all called him. Can’t speak for his mum and dad, naturally.”

“You say he spent time with you?”

“Almost part of the family.”

A revelation. I wondered why Troy Martell had neglected to mention the Masons to me.

“Aside from his friendship with your daughter, was there a specific reason for that?”

“Common knowledge he didn’t get on with Mr. Vellender.”

“Do you know why?”

“They didn’t understand each other. It happens in families.”

I reasoned that Mrs. Mason, a nice woman, was reluctant to speak ill of others, particularly when those others have suffered as much as the Vellenders.

“They were different individuals, is that what you’re saying?”

“Nick was a quiet, dreamy fellow, thin-skinned for a boy, a little bit artistic. Do you know what I mean?”

I nodded. “He enjoyed success as a writer, I believe.”

“Yes.” She beamed. “I’m not much of a reader but he had a couple of novels published. Always had his nose in a book, that’s for sure. Wait a minute,” she said, getting up. “I’ve got a photograph of them together somewhere.” She crossed to a set of drawers, opened the bottom one, and rifled through it. “Here,” she said, handing me a print of Ashley with Nicholas Vellender. He looked happy and carefree. Somehow, it made his vanishing act worse.

“So Ash clearly liked having him around?” I smiled, handing it back to her.

“She looked up to him, I think.”

“Why was that?”

“He was different to the rest of her mates. A deep thinker, had a strong sense of moral steel running through his body, if you know what I mean.”

Thinking back to my conversation with Jim, I wondered how that worked with Nick as potential murder suspect. Maybe he felt intimidated by his parents with their dysfunctional family dynamics and modern lifestyle. “It must have left a tremendous hole in Ash’s life when he went missing.”

Acute lines appeared on either side of Mrs. Mason’s eyes. She spoke slowly, painfully, as if each word hurt her throat. “We thought he’d gone off on his own, to sort himself out, but when the days turned to weeks …” She faltered. I gave her space to compose herself. “After a month,” she continued, “we knew that something more serious had happened. Nick wasn’t picking up his calls. Ash went to see Paris to find out, but she was told not to worry.”

“His mother didn’t seem concerned?”

“Not overly so.”

This didn’t compute with a full-scale police investigation to find him, but it certainly stacked with the delay in reporting him missing. “Was she in denial?”

“Possibly.”

“Ash must have thought it odd.”

Mrs. Mason flicked a smile. “The Vellenders are not like us. My husband’s a plumber and I’m a carer. They lead different lives. They play by different rules.”

I thought about that. Different rules meaning different values? “But as the months rolled on, didn’t the Vellenders get in touch with you?”

“Once.”

“And?”

Mrs. Mason, all soft cheeks and smiles, visibly stirred with anger. “They advised her to leave it.”

“Leave what?” I said, baffled.

“Ash put up lots of messages on social networking sites and so on to try and find Nick. Got quite a following. Some of her mates created posters and plastered the town with them. The Vellenders didn’t like the attention.”

“I see. She must have been hurt.”

“Livid, more like, and so were we.”

“And his mother, what was your impression of that relationship?”

“He adored her.” She leant forward confidentially. “Personally, I thought it wasn’t that healthy.”

“Do you mean it was intimate?”

Mrs. Mason broke into an expression of alarm and pressed a hand to her mouth. “Oh, nothing like that,” she said. “Nothing perverse.”

“Simply too close?”

“Too close for comfort for either of them.” She sipped her tea.

Then why didn’t Paris go crazy when he went missing? There was only one answer to that, the one I’d suspected from the beginning. They’d never lost touch. “What you said about Nick’s moral streak.”

“Yes?”

“How did Nick take to his mother’s lovers?”

“Not well at all.” Her mouth was tight with censure, as if she approved of Nick Vellender’s judgement. Did Nick feel badly enough to kill, I wondered? “Some were only a few years older than him.”

“Could it be a reason for his disappearance?” I thought of my own flight from home to escape my father’s lovers.

“I hate that word. It’s so final.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re probably right,” she sighed. “Your heart hopes for the best. Logic tells you something else.”

“You think something bad happened?”

“No,” she said. “I refuse to believe it. It wasn’t the first time he’d gone astray. He used to go off to punish his parents.” So that chimed with Otto’s story. “Deep down, he was on a personal quest, I think.”

“To find himself ?”

“Goodness, no. Nick knew who he was.”

“To discover happiness?”

“To find his real dad.”

Astounded, I gave a start. “His biological father?” This was news to me and it shouldn’t have been.

“That’s right,” she said with an easy smile.