style="font-size:15px;"> ‘I don’t know, and you would be a brave man to print it; those people have got the money to ruin you,’ Hunter said. ‘But if you want my theory, I’ll tell you: Claude Gilbert is dead.’
I raised my eyebrows. ‘You sound pretty certain,’ I said, and hoped that he wasn’t, because that would be the end of my story, apart from some human interest piece on a female hoaxer.
‘He boarded a ferry, I’m certain of it, and that’s why his car was left behind,’ Hunter said. ‘Remember that he wouldn’t know his wife’s body would be found. It’s a long voyage from Newhaven to France, plenty of time to think about things. Where was he going? How would he live? How much had he left behind?’ Hunter shrugged. ‘So he jumped.’
‘Killed himself?’ I queried.
Hunter nodded. ‘Gilbert was a cowardly man. He hid behind his father, and then behind his wig and gown. He buried his wife because he couldn’t cope with the killing part, and so he let Mother Nature do the job. But when it came to it, to the thought of life on his own, maybe even some guilt, he couldn’t cope.’ He raised his cup in salute. ‘I think he ended up in the English Channel somewhere, drowned by his own misery.’
But if that was true, I thought to myself, who was in London trying to get me to broker a newspaper exclusive?
Frankie Cass was looking out of his window, as always. In winter, the hills that overlooked Blackley glistened like sugar when it was cold, the parallel strips of stone terraces like slashes in the ice, but he preferred it like this, in the summer, when it was warm enough to open his window and let the sounds from outside waft into his room. Birds sometimes rested in the sycamore and horse chestnut trees outside his window, and in spring he watched the gardens around come alive with flowers.
He checked his watch. It would be change of shift soon at the rest home across the road. There had been some new staff members, pretty young girls. Polish, he thought, or Romanian, judging from their accents as they walked past his house, laughing and talking, their speech fast and clipped. Sometimes they didn’t bother to close the curtains when they got changed in or out of their white uniforms. If it was hot, they showered.
His tongue flicked to his lips as his binocular lenses crawled along the wall, looking for a glimpse, a flash of skin.
He heard the car before he saw it. It was the way the engine strained that caught his attention as it battled to climb the steep hill. He swung the binoculars to the road and smiled. A convertible, bright red, a seventies relic, the number plate showing white on black. He scribbled down the number and made a note of the time, before watching as the driver climbed out. He saw the camera and notebook and made another note: reporter.
He raised the binoculars to his eyes again. He would keep watch. It’s what he did.
Claude Gilbert’s house wasn’t what I expected.
I had always known of the story—most people did around Blackley and Turners Fold—but I’d never had cause to visit the house. It was on a road that climbed a steep crescent away from the town centre, the houses large and imposing, shielded by trees and bushes, just the high slate roofs visible and the occasional bay window.
The Stag didn’t enjoy the climb though; I could hear every rattle with the roof down, every scream of the engine. But it made it, and once I’d switched it off, the only thing I could hear was the ticking of the engine as it cooled down. There was no one else around, and as I looked over my shoulder, I realised that Blackley had disappeared behind the high walls and the trees.
I looked over at Claude Gilbert’s house. The walls were taller than me, with ivy creeping along the top and only the tips of conifers visible from where I had parked. I took a few pictures and then I walked towards the gates, but I was surprised when I got there. I had expected some closed-off shell of a house, the centre of national notoriety, but from the sign on the gate I saw that time had moved on and the house had a new life: Blackley View Residential Care. I looked around again, and I noticed signs on other gates or fixed between trees. Accountants. Surveyors. A housing association. It seemed like no one lived on the street any more, all the grand old houses of Blackley given up for business use. The good money must have moved out of town, to the rolling fields and old stone hamlets of the Ribble Valley.
I gave the gate a push and it swung open slowly, screeching on its hinges and coming to a halt as it brushed against the gravel on the drive. The Gilbert house was different to the others on the street. Rather than blackened millstone, it was painted in a sandstone colour, the corners picked out in white, just like in the photographs I had seen whenever the story had been reported. The paint looked jaded though, the windows flaky and worn out.
As I got closer to the house, I saw the alterations. There was a ramp to the modern front doors, which swished open as I approached them. As I stepped inside, I saw that a grand old hallway had been transformed into an entrance lobby, laid out with plain chairs and low tables on a thick flower-patterned carpet. Stairs swept imposingly up to the next floor, the balustrade thick and strong with twisted spines, but the elegance was undermined by the stair-lift that ran along the wall and disappeared around the bend at the top.
I heard movement, and when I looked, I saw a woman walking briskly towards me, middle aged, her hair dyed dark brown and her figure trim in a tight white tunic. She smiled and asked if she could help. I checked out her name badge, and I saw that she was the assistant manager.
‘Hello, Mrs Kydd. My name is Jack Garrett. I’m a reporter.’
Her smile faded. ‘What can I do for you, Mr Garrett?’
‘I’m doing a piece on Claude Gilbert,’ I said, and gave her an apologetic smile. ‘I know you’ll get this a lot, but the story starts here.’
‘We do get this a lot,’ she said, her tone brusque. ‘We can’t just keep on giving up our time to show reporters around.’
‘I know that,’ I replied, trying to be conciliatory, ‘but I promise I’ll include a picture of the sign. Call it free advertising.’
‘They all say that too,’ she said, and then she shook her head in resignation. ‘C’mon on then. I’m on a break, so let’s get rid of you.’ She set off towards a room just off the hallway. As I followed her in, I saw that the edges were crowded with high-backed chairs, all centred around a large television against one wall. There were a few old people in them, wrapped up in cardigans despite the stifling heat generated by large radiators. A couple of them watched the television, the volume almost deafening, but the others just looked down at their laps.
I smiled a greeting, and one old lady glanced at me, a twinkle in her eyes, but no one else seemed to notice I was there. Or perhaps they didn’t care.
Mrs Kydd led me to a corner of the room that overlooked the garden, visible through a large conservatory that ran the full width of the house. I could see two long lawns outside, a wide path between, and a glass and steel summer house in the corner of the garden.
‘This is where Mrs Gilbert was attacked,’ Mrs Kydd said, pointing to a spot by an old cast-iron radiator.
‘How did they know?’
‘There was blood on the skirting boards and walls. There wasn’t much, as if he had tried to cover
