The Long Call (Two Rivers #1) - Ann Cleeves Page 0,37

separate, but occasionally he was dragged along to meet the great and the good, councillors and potential donors.

‘Hello?’ It was clear that Preece wasn’t accustomed to strangers turning up on the doorstep, but this was a smart stranger so he didn’t just close the door. And perhaps there was a brief moment of recognition too. He smiled, like a politician, anxious not to alienate a voter whom he might have met before.

‘Matthew Venn. Devon Police.’ Matthew held out a card. ‘I’m here about Simon Walden. He was murdered yesterday. He was living in the same house as your daughter and her friends.’

‘Of course. I heard about it. And I’m sorry, of course I should have recognized you. You’re Jonathan’s partner. Do come in.’ A serious frown, followed by the same politician’s smile and a good firm handshake. Preece led him into a back room. A long window looked out onto a lawn, shrubs. Inside, there was an upright piano, comfortable chairs gathered around an open grate. Lots of photos of Caroline, framed music exam certificates, pony club rosettes. It seemed it had been a comfortable childhood. Until her mother had died. Matthew looked for a picture of the mother, but there was just a wedding photograph, formal. Preece and a fair, willowy woman standing on church steps. She wore traditional white and carried flowers. Nothing more recent. ‘Can I get you something? Coffee?’

Matthew shook his head. ‘Did you know Simon Walden?’

‘I met him a couple of times,’ Preece said. ‘Caroline asked me not to interfere, but I wanted to judge him for myself.’

‘Did you see him at the house in Ilfracombe?’

‘Not the first occasion. I saw him in the house a few times later when I’d calmed down.’ Preece paused. ‘I’m afraid I lost my temper when I heard she’d invited him to stay there. It seemed such a very reckless thing to do. But Caroline made it clear that her tenants were none of my business. I might have helped provide the deposit for the place but she said it was her house, her decision who lives there.’ Another of the smiles, self-deprecating, confiding. ‘You see, Inspector, it seems that I’m only welcome if I’m invited. And perhaps that’s as it should be. I still think of her as my little girl, but I do understand that she needs to be independent.’

‘So, where did you meet him first?’

Preece took a while to answer. ‘I asked him to come here. I was worried about a stranger with apparent mental health problems moving into my daughter’s home.’ Matthew wondered what Preece made of Caroline’s career choice – after all, she spent every day working with people with mental health problems – but he was still speaking. ‘As I told you, at the very least, I wanted to make my own assessment of the man.’

Preece stared into the garden. ‘I didn’t want to see Walden in the Woodyard where he was a volunteer. That would have been too formal, too complicated. I’ve always tried to leave the practical business there to the professionals. I wouldn’t want them to think I was meddling. In this case, I was, of course, but in my daughter’s affairs, not the Woodyard’s.’

‘You did get him the place in the Woodyard cafe.’ Surely, Matthew thought, that was interference of a sort.

‘The volunteering was Caroline’s idea, Inspector. Nothing to do with me.’

Matthew imagined Walden here, summoned to this calm and comfortable house. Surely it must have been an intimidating encounter. ‘What did you make of him?’

Preece thought about that. ‘He wasn’t quite what I expected. I liked him.’ He paused for a moment. ‘He told me he’d killed a child. A road traffic accident. He’d been drinking. Not enough to be over the limit but enough to lose concentration for a moment. I was impressed by his honesty. He told me he’d carried the guilt around with him ever since. We had that in common. The guilt. Survivors’ guilt. If you’ve been to the Woodyard, you’ll have heard about my wife.’

‘As you said, Jonathan Church is my husband. He explained that she’d taken her own life. I’m very sorry.’

‘Becca had suffered depression on and off since soon after we met. It was much worse in the last five years of her life. I didn’t understand it. I wanted to help but I couldn’t see how and that was a nightmare for me. I’m a control freak. I make things right. But I couldn’t make her right. And there was