The Seagull (Vera Stanhope #8)

by Ann Cleeves

She was big and she wore a tent-shaped dress covered in purple flowers. Her legs were bare, and on her feet were the kind of sandals that walkers and climbers might wear. He could tell just from the way she stood and stared back at them that this was the last place she wanted to be. She was impatient, and she wanted this over.

The thing about Holly was that she always felt the need to prove herself. Vera had felt the same way as a young officer, but she’d been the only woman in the team, overweight and the butt of all their jokes.

It was a big woman with a dreadful frock and a green fleece. She could be collecting for charity. Or she could have escaped from the local loony bin. A couple of extra stone and twenty years or so, and Patty might look like her, if she didn’t pull herself together. It

So Patty went to open the door. She’d always found it was easier to do as she was told. Or to pretend to. And the fact that the fat woman was so scruffy made her less intimidating. She was the right age to be one of the playground grandmas, but she wouldn’t have fitted in there any more than Patty did.

So Patty sat in the cafe window while Vera made all the arrangements, and she wondered what it would have been like to have an adoptive mother like this woman. Scruffy and big, fumbling in her bag for her change. Instead of sleek and well-groomed and competent at everything.

‘Tell me about him.’ Vera settled herself on the sofa, which hardly seemed strong enough to carry her weight. It was as if she had all the time in the world.

‘They shared an interest, though, didn’t they?’ Vera leaned forward, her elbows on her fat knees. ‘The Natural History Society.’

She thought of the big woman with the crumpled clothes and the brown button-eyes. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’d like it very much.’

Vera tried to walk more these days, scared – despite herself – by her doctor’s dire warnings about obesity and high blood pressure.

Holly managing to look smart and sophisticated, despite her obvious discomfort; Joe intent and anxious, staring at the men carefully lifting boulders from the mouth of the culvert; and Vera – Vera, so big that she dwarfed the rest of them. Sometimes she worried that she swamped them with her personality and her prejudices too, and that she didn’t give them the space or the confidence to make their own decisions.

‘How do you know it’s a man?’ Vera wasn’t questioning the woman’s judgement; she was curious. ‘You get big women.’ Like me. And you.

‘This can’t be a coincidence.’ Vera was standing with her legs apart and her hands on her hips. There was hardly any room left for Joe in the kitchen and he was still standing in the doorway. ‘Two bodies, and now this.’

Vera is so large she literally fills an entire room??

It was Vera, the big detective, and Patty hurried to let her in, pleased to see her because it would be good to have a bit of adult company. She couldn’t wait to tell Vera the good news about Archie’s progress at school.

But Patty thought Vera couldn’t really know, because she couldn’t imagine the big woman giving up her independence for anyone. And anyway she was strong, not needy like Patty. Not desperate to be loved back.

All this made Vera think of Elaine as a different species. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to reach her toenails to paint them and, besides, it had never occurred to her to try.

For a plump woman, she was very light on her feet and Holly was startled for a moment.

She stood up, very nimble on her feet despite her weight. ‘Now it’s time for you to go. I need my bed.’

‘Do we know what he’s up to these days?’ Vera felt lighter, as if she’d shed a couple of stone and could run up a flight of stairs without pausing for breath.

Sitting at the front of the briefing, Joe was worried about her, worried that the emotion – the anger – would trigger a heart attack. A woman of her age and with her weight shouldn’t get this wound up. She’d already been warned about her blood pressure, took medication for it, when she could be bothered to remember.

‘Could you describe Alec Sinclair?’ Joe was starting to feel his way towards a solution. If Alec Sinclair was the man in the restaurant, that might explain Gus Sinclair’s reluctance to help the police when Rebecca Murray disappeared. ‘Obese. Unfit. A heart attack waiting to happen.’ Joe thought that fitted the description of the man Elaine had given to Vera. Another image flitted into his mind: his boss. He thought it was also a description of Vera herself.

The uniformed officer stood in her path. ‘Sorry, love, there’s been an accident.’ His voice not quite rude, but obviously irritated, because the stupid, overweight woman hadn’t realized earlier that he was turning people away. She pulled out her warrant card, feeling a ridiculous moment of triumph because she’d found it immediately.

Inside the cafe a group of half a dozen women sat around a table knitting. A couple of ageing hippies, one with purple hair, and three younger women who talking earnestly as the needles clicked. Joe had those down as stay-at-home mothers stealing an hour away from the kids. He couldn’t blame them. As he watched, they gathered up their belongings and made their way out, shouting goodbye to the girl behind the counter. There were a few drops of rain heavy on the glass roof of the station, then a downpour, rain bouncing off the concrete in the uncovered area of platform. The group of women gathered in the archway leading out to the town, waiting for it to ease, before running for their cars. As he left the cafe he saw that one of the older women was in the road, her face turned to the sky, laughing until she was drenched. The watching women cheered and clapped.

i hope their knitting is in waterproof bags