OCTOBER 2010
The duty sergeant flipped through the red soft-covered notebook. Dates. Times. The entries had been made over the last three years, mostly two or three times a month. He began to read, but after a couple of pages, looked across at the woman sitting on the bench opposite his desk.
‘Mrs Latimer?’ She got up. ‘I think you should have a word about this with someone from CID. I’ll take you into an interview room and someone will come down.’
‘So I didn’t do the wrong thing?’
‘You did absolutely the right thing.’
She only had to wait a few minutes.
‘Mrs Latimer? I’m DC Bethan Waites. Can I get you a tea? Coffee?’
They both had tea. ‘Wise,’ the young woman said, sitting down on the small, uncomfortable sofa next to Kath. ‘The coffee’s disgusting. Actually the best is the hot chocolate.’ How many times had she gone through this bit of beverage chit-chat to help settle the interviewee down? But oddly, it usually did.
She’s young, was all Kath thought. Not pretty but nicely presented. Emerald-green jacket, dark skirt, plain blouse, hair neat.
‘Do you ever wear a uniform?’
DC Waites smiled. ‘Not any more.’
‘It is. Now … the duty sergeant filled me in briefly but I’d like you to tell me about this notebook – I didn’t get the full story before he had to take a phone call.’ Not true. They never got the full story. Starting over was what CID did.
Kath told it. ‘That was in late July … she never left the hospital. It was awful to watch her … couldn’t do anything for herself and then another stroke meant she lost her speech. It was a blessing when the next one came and carried her away.’
‘I’m sorry. Always hard to lose an old friend – just as hard as losing a relative sometimes.’
I wonder how many of either you’ve lost though, Kath thought, at your tender age? How do you know what’s hardest?
‘So Mrs Mason died when, exactly?’
‘The third of September … early hours of the morning. I wish she hadn’t been alone. I do wish that.’
‘Yes, indeed. But maybe she …’
‘Didn’t know anything about it? That’s what I tell myself. You see …’
Bethan was adept at getting them back on track without apparent rudeness or any sense of hurry. It was a useful skill.
‘And it’s now the twelfth of October. Why didn’t you bring the notebook in to us sooner?’
‘I just forgot all about it. Truth be told, I’d forgotten about it more or less as soon as she gave it to me for safe keeping and I put it in that drawer.’
‘Did Mrs Mason give you any idea at all why she wanted you to have it and keep it safe for her?’
‘No.’
‘Did she give you anything else to look after?’
‘No.’
‘Did you read through the notebook?’
‘I glanced inside. None of it meant anything except … well, some of the things she wrote down worried me – that’s why I brought it to you. These things about hearing children … hearing them crying … hearing a scream … seeing … I don’t know. It upset me.’
‘Yes,’ the young woman said. ‘Did Mrs Latimer ever write things – stories or poems or that sort of thing? A lot of people do. I was wondering if these were notes for some sort of story …’
‘If she did she never mentioned it and I knew her for over sixty years. She wasn’t like that.’
‘Like what?’
‘Well … arty. Fanciful.’
‘Right. Did she keep any other sort of diary?’
‘Not that I know of. I shouldn’t think so. She had a kitchen calendar, same one every year, from the Donkey Protection place … she had it hanging up in the kitchen but that was just, you know, hairdresser, dentist sort of thing.’
‘And there’s nothing else you can think of to explain this notebook? Anything about Mrs Mason that might help us?’
‘I just can’t think of anything. I’m sorry.’
‘Please don’t be.’
‘It’s only …’
Kath fiddled with her coat button. ‘I feel I’ve let her down, somehow … I don’t know … she gave it to me to keep safe and I’ve … looked into it, brought it here, shown it to you. I feel as if I’ve …’
The DC put her hand briefly on Kath’s. ‘No,’ she said quietly, ‘you haven’t let her down, you haven’t betrayed her. You have done exactly what she would have done if she had been alive.’
‘Are you sure about that?’
‘Yes.’ The young woman held her gaze. ‘I am.’