The Long Call (Two Rivers #1) - Ann Cleeves Page 0,85

of the other.

‘Can you tell me anything about them?’ Matthew repeated. ‘Anything that might us help find out who took Christine?’

‘This is difficult,’ Maurice said. ‘And I hate gossip. Everyone in Lovacott says that Salter is a fine man. He has that way about him that makes you believe in him. Whenever he speaks, people listen. If I meet him in the street, he greets me as if I’m an old friend, as if I’m special.’

Matthew nodded. ‘I knew him when I was a child. He always did have that skill. A kind of warmth. An empathy.’

‘I think that he hits his wife.’ Maurice looked up, challenging Matthew to believe him. ‘I know he hit her at least once.’

Matthew tried to make sense of that, to match it with the Salter he knew, the man who greeted everyone with an embrace, arms wide open. The man who’d made him laugh and given him confidence as a teenager. The man who’d rejected him when he could no longer believe in Salter’s version of God. ‘Tell me about it.’

Maurice was staring at him, still troubled, still reluctant to speak. ‘Grace Salter turned up here one night when my Maggie was still alive. Tears running down her face. No coat, though it was the middle of winter. Maggie sent me out. Why don’t you have a drink in The Fleece, Mo? Don’t come back until closing. So out I went.’ He flashed a quick smile at Matthew. ‘I always did as I was told where Maggie was concerned. She knew best.’

‘And what had happened?’

‘I don’t know,’ Maurice said. ‘Not in any detail. But the bruise was already coming out on her eye when I left the house and there was dry blood on her nose. Maggie had promised Grace she wouldn’t tell anyone and she never did. I feel awkward talking about it to you now. As if I’m letting Maggie down. That’s why I didn’t say anything when you were here before.’ He paused. ‘And because of Salter’s reputation as a kind man, a good man. I wasn’t sure I’d be believed.’

‘I do need to know as much as you can tell me.’ Matthew thought Maggie was still a part of the man’s life, a voice in his ear, a hand on his shoulder. Although Matthew had lost his faith years before, he’d been brought up with a belief in the afterlife. Perhaps this was as near as it got, influence beyond the grave.

‘When I got back from the pub, Grace had gone. Maggie was as sad as I’ve ever seen her. I think she tried to persuade her to leave her husband, but it would have been hard for the woman. They belong to this odd religious group. Strict. Maybe, if she’d left her man, she might have been forced to leave that too. And all her family.’

Oh yes, I know how that feels.

‘And nobody else in Lovacott knows about that night?’ Matthew thought in a place like this, there’d surely be rumours.

Maurice shook his head. ‘I don’t think anyone knew that Grace Salter ran away from her husband and came here. It was dark so there wouldn’t have been many people about. And I’ve never heard any gossip about him being cruel to his wife. Grace always seems a shy sort of woman. Quiet. But Dennis has such a big personality, you can see that she might be overshadowed. I wonder if she’s scared of him, though, and if she’s so quiet because she doesn’t dare speak.’

‘You did the right thing,’ Matthew said, ‘telling me what you know.’ He thought this was all getting too complicated. There was too much coincidence. Too many people circling round each other, without quite touching. They had no evidence that Simon Walden had known either Christine Shapland or Dennis Salter. The only connection was the Woodyard, and again that was too close to home.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

JEN RAFFERTY SAT IN THE SHAPLANDS’ small, dark cottage, which seemed to have grown out of the marsh, listening to her boss’s husband talking to Christine. She’d met Jonathan a few times before – at a work’s Christmas do and once at their house when she’d picked Matthew up for an early shout – but Matthew liked to keep home and work life separate and she’d never really got to know the man. Dorothy Venn, who’d stuck with Susan Shapland throughout the hospital visit, wasn’t there. Matthew had said that he’d been rejected by his family long before his marriage,