by Ann Cleeves
When Ramsay arrived at Minsmere it was nearly dark and the street lights were on. It was already very cold. Through the living-room window, where the curtains had not yet been drawn, he saw the shape of a grand piano and the stool where Mrs Bennett had perched to give music lessons. He knocked at the door and wondered why he had never bumped into Prue in a place as small and intimate as Otterbridge. He did not flatter himself that she had been avoiding him. He had not been as important to her as that. Perhaps he had seen her shopping in Front Street on a busy Saturday morning with her daughter and not known her. The thought distressed him.
She opened the door to him almost immediately then stood in the doorway staring out at him, waiting for him to take the initiative. She was still slim and straight and wore clothes she might have chosen as a girl—denim jeans and a long jersey.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ he said, taking refuge in formality. ‘ I explained that I’d need to see you again.’
‘Come in,’ she said. ‘We’ll go through to the kitchen. It’s still the only warm room in the house.’
She was wearing flat leather slippers which slapped against the red-tile floor as she walked ahead of him through the dusty hall to the back of the house.
He was disappointed that the room was different. It had been dimly lit, with old-fashioned painted cupboards. He had spent a lot of time there, drinking coffee, watching Prue cook, listening to the piano music, knowing that when it stopped they would be interrupted. Now there were new stained-wood units and the window seemed bigger. There were spotlights instead of the flickering neon, and pictures and posters and plants. On a cork pinboard he saw a photo of Anna and Gabby together, their arms around each other, grinning and waving madly towards the camera. Gabby was a small, slight figure, who only came up to Anna’s shoulder. But the scrubbed wooden table, marked with the greasy rings of coffee cups and red wine bottles, was the same, and sitting on the boiler in the corner there was a black cat as there always had been.
He wondered what had happened to her parents and before he could phrase a tactful question she told him. They were both dead. Her mother had died suddenly when she was still at Cambridge. Prue had come back, eventually, to care for her father. He had died five years before and she and Anna had stayed on in the house.
‘Was there nothing to keep you in the south?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘I was glad of the excuse to leave,’ she said. ‘There was never any prospect of settling down with Anna’s father. We never married.’
‘Where is Anna?’ he asked. The girl was a reminder that he could make no assumptions about Prue, that things had changed.
‘She went to school. I tried to persuade her to have a day at home but she thought she’d be better off with her friends.’ She shrugged. ‘ It’s hard sometimes to accept that she’s reached an age when she can make decisions for herself.’
Ramsay did not know what to say. He stood by the boiler, feeling the warmth dull his brain, and stroked the cat until it started to purr.
‘I was just going to make some tea,’ she said. ‘Will you have some?’
He nodded and sat at the end of the table, watching her fill the kettle and spoon tea into the pot. He tried to concentrate on the investigation, to form questions which he would normally put to a witness, but he was too interested in her.
‘What happened after Cambridge?’ he asked.
‘I got caught by the theatre bug at university,’ she said. ‘ Not acting. Producing. I’d never done anything so exciting. When I left Cambridge I got taken on as an assistant in a rather good provincial theatre in East Anglia. Then I blew it all by getting pregnant.’ She paused. ‘ I tried to carry on working,’ she said, ‘but it wasn’t so easy then. I couldn’t find a reliable childminder and my friends all thought I was crazy to have the baby in the first place. In the end I gave up and became a full-time mother. It was a dreadful time, wretched. I was so bored and lonely. As I say I was quite glad of the excuse to come home and look after Dad.’ She stopped again, then continued: ‘I’m sorry. You don’t want to hear all this. You’ll want to ask some questions about Gabby.’
He could have said that in a murder investigation he was interested in any background information on the witnesses, but that would have implied that she was a suspect, and although it was true it would hardly be tactful to say so. It was impossible to pretend that they were strangers. Perhaps he should use her inside knowledge. Hunter would have no scruples about using a friend to further an investigation.
‘Tell me about that place,’ he said. ‘What’s the set-up there? How’s it organized?’
‘The Grace Darling?’ She poured the tea into mugs and absentmindedly put a tin of biscuits on to the table. ‘The building’s administered by a charitable trust. It’s supported by grants from the local authority and Gus and I are paid by the council but the trustees like to think they’re independent.’
She hesitated and he picked up a trace of irritation.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘I’ve just remembered that one of the trustees was there last night, talking to Gus. I was wondering what she wanted. She’s a particularly active member of the trust. They’re the ones that can make life difficult.’
‘Ah yes,’ he said. ‘Mrs Wood. Do you remember if she was there when you found Gabriella’s body?’
‘She was with Gus when I went to ask him for the programme. That’s why he gave me the car keys and asked me to fetch it for myself. But when I went back to the Centre to phone the police she’d gone.’
‘Did you see her leave?’
‘No, but Gus’s car was at the far end, away from the door. I wouldn’t have done.’
‘Tell me about Amelia Wood,’ Ramsay said.
‘Oh,’ Prue said. ‘She’s an active citizen. A magistrate. On the council. You know the sort.’
‘Would it be usual for her to call into the Centre in the evenings?’
‘I can’t remember seeing her there in the evening before but it would be her style. She had a bee in her bonnet about us using the trust’s resources efficiently. She might see it as a spot check. To make sure we were all on our toes. She was certainly giving Gus a hard time last night.’
‘You don’t like her,’ he said. It was a statement not a question. She smiled—
‘Amelia’s all right,’ she said. ‘ I suppose. She’s one of those women with too much energy. Hyperactive. Interfering. Inclined to be bossy. Good at her job, though. Even I’ll admit that. When the council was poll-tax capped we thought the Centre might have to close but somehow she found the grants to keep us going. She wangled some sponsorship deal with some local businesses too. I don’t know the details … But it is hard to like her. She thinks we should only use the Centre to house events which will attract a big audience and pay their way. She considers anything experimental as left-wing propaganda.’
She stopped, quite breathless, then smiled awkwardly. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘That’s only my opinion, my prejudice I suppose. I got carried away. I almost forgot you were here professionally. I wouldn’t want you to take what I’ve said too seriously.’
‘How does Gus Lynch get on with her?’ he asked.
‘He doesn’t like her dictating artistic policy but there’s never been any real confrontation. She knows that if he leaves they’ll never get anyone else as famous to head up the Grace Darling Centre.’
‘Did Gus mention yesterday that he had a meeting with her?’
‘No. I had the impression that he was as surprised to see her as me.’
‘Tell me about the famous Gus Lynch. How do you get on with him?’ He tried to keep the question flat, his voice light, but was aware, despite himself, of an edge of mockery. Can I really be jealous, he thought, of a man because he works with the woman I made love to twenty years ago?
‘It’s hard to be objective about one’s boss,’ she said. ‘Especially one with as high a public profile as Gus Lynch.’ She smiled. ‘ Doesn’t every a
ssistant believe that they do all the work while their supervisor takes the credit?’
He smiled back. ‘And you feel that about Lynch?’
‘Let’s just say that he’s not very generous about acknowledging other people’s contribution to his work.’
‘But you’ve never thought of leaving? Of finding another job?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I love it. Especially the work with the kids. It’s a real challenge. I learn something every day. I can handle having a boss who’s so insecure about his own abilities that he has to put everyone else down.’
Is that how Hunter feels? Ramsay wondered suddenly. That he does all the work while I take the credit? That I’m so insecure that I’m always putting him down?
‘Did Lynch have a special relationship with any of the girls in the group?’
‘Gabby, you mean. No, I don’t think so. He admired her talent, of course, but he kept his distance from all the kids.’
‘How did she come to be living here?’ he asked.
‘She asked if we’d put her up,’ Prue said simply. ‘ She said that things weren’t working out at home and she wanted to move out.’
‘Was there a row? A specific incident which led to her leaving?’
‘She wouldn’t say, but I think there must have been. Before that I had the impression that she was happy enough. The Pastons gave her more freedom than she was allowed here. There must have been some upset, I think, to make her decide to move so suddenly.’
‘Why did you decide to take her on?’ he asked. ‘ It was quite a responsibility to provide a home for a teenage girl.’
‘I felt sorry for her, I suppose,’ Prue said. ‘It can’t have been much fun living with two single women, one of them quite elderly. But it wasn’t only that. She was good for Anna. Anna was always solitary and withdrawn, even as a small child. She found it hard to make friends. It was a worry. I didn’t know how to handle it. I even thought of getting professional help but that seemed an over-reaction. I suggested that she came to the Youth Theatre when I started working there because I thought performing would give her confidence, but it was meeting Gabby that made the real difference. Gabby made her laugh. They became real friends. That’s why I’m so worried about how Anna will cope with her death.’
‘Gabby told one of her schoolfriends that she had been invited out to lunch yesterday, to the Holly Tree in Martin’s Dene. You’ve no idea who might have made the invitation?’
‘No,’ Prue said. ‘ None. And she didn’t mention it to me. Perhaps for some reason she thought I wouldn’t approve.’
‘Tell me about Gabby,’ he said. ‘What was she like?’
‘She was an extrovert,’ Prue said. ‘Lively, fun, an instinctive actress.’ She paused.
‘Yes?’ he prompted.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I suppose I’ve got a superstitious feeling that it’s wrong to speak ill of the dead. Besides, I can’t quite put it into words.’
‘Try.’
‘She had no sense of morality,’ Prue said. ‘ I don’t mean that she was wicked. On a personal level she could be immensely kind, generous. But she didn’t have an intellectual’—she groped for the right word—‘ an abstract perception of right or wrong. She wouldn’t hurt anyone deliberately but if she wanted something badly enough she would go for it without considering the consequences. She had no code of behaviour to live by.’ She paused again. ‘I’m not explaining very well. And perhaps most young people are like that.’
‘Is that why she didn’t bother with her family?’ he said. ‘ Because she couldn’t see the point? Because she had no idea of duty or responsibility?’
‘Yes,’ she said, pleased that he had understood. ‘ Yes, I think that’s a good example of what I mean.’
She looked over his shoulder to the kitchen clock on the wall.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘If you want to look at Gabby’s things would you mind doing it now before Anna comes home? I really don’t want her upset.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘ Of course.’ He stood up, wondering if she was bored by his presence. Perhaps she just wanted to be rid of him.
Away from the kitchen the house was cold, and smelled a little damp. Ramsay supposed that the job in the Arts Centre paid peanuts. Prue led him up two flights of stairs to a room in the attic with a sloping roof and a small bay window. It was a big room, the width of the house. There was a sofa, a heavy old desk marked with ink stains, shelves full of teenage clutter. The single bed, in one corner, was almost hidden by cushions.
‘It was Anna’s playroom,’ Prue said. ‘Then as she got older I turned it into a sitting room for her. I thought it would be somewhere she could bring her friends, play her music without disturbing me, but until she met Gabby there were no friends to bring.’
‘Anna didn’t mind Gabby taking it over?’ Ramsay asked carefully. Giving up the room was hardly a motive for murder and he did not want to offend Prue.
‘Not at all. And Gabby didn’t take it over. Anna was always welcome here. Lots of the things are hers.’ She looked around at the clothes piled on a chair, the desk spread with tapes and magazines. ‘I suppose I should sort it all out,’ she said helplessly.
‘Not yet,’ he said more sharply than he had intended. ‘If you don’t mind. I’d prefer not to have anything touched until we’ve checked it.’
‘Yes,’ she said. She was shocked as if a guest had committed some rudeness. ‘ Of course. I expect you’d rather I left you to it…’ And he heard her leather slippers flapping on the wooden stairs as she disappeared to the ground floor.
It was hard to know where to start. Every surface was covered and many of the objects could have belonged to Anna. There were the remnants of childhood—soft toys, a bookshelf full of Arthur Ransomes, coloured felt-tip pens which must long ago have dried up. But, Ramsay thought, Gabby Paston had been a private person. She had given nothing of herself away. Still no one knew what she had really thought or felt. A girl like that wouldn’t have left anything personal around where Anna might read it.
He began with the desk. There were files with Gabby’s name written on in a decorative script holding essays on a variety of subjects. The comments on the bottom were encouraging but the marks were hardly impressive. There was a pile of text books which looked as if they might once have belonged to Prue and had hardly been opened. There were birthday cards, post cards from friends, pop magazines. There was a typewritten script entitled The Adventures of Abigail Keene with the main character’s words marked in orange highlighter. He looked at each item and set it aside on the bed. He piled the cassette tapes together and moved them on to the bed. Many had lost their plastic cases and the scribbled identifying labels meant nothing to him. He supposed that ‘Bald Mice’ was a group and it was while he glanced at the others, trying to find another, even more outrageous name, that he came across the Teach Yourself Spanish tape. Why, he wondered, did Gabby want to learn Spanish? Was it some romantic idea of recovering her roots?
By now the top of the desk was clear except for a swirling pattern of dust and Ramsay turned his attention to the desk drawers. He was afraid that the top one was locked but it was just stuck and when he lifted it and pulled at the same time it came out altogether. Ramsay set it beside him on the bed. It contained a diary, two sheets of paper, an envelope, and a building society passbook. This must be all that Gabby needed to keep from prying eyes.
The diary was small, of the size to fit in a handbag, and there were none of the teenage outpourings which Ramsay might have expected. In it Gabby noted her appointments, rehearsal times, the dates when essays were due to be handed in. The only inclusion of any interest was an E which appeared at approximately fortnightly intervals. Beside it was a time, usually different. Was E for Ellen, Gabby’s aunt? Ramsay wondered. If so, why the secrecy. Unsatisfied, he moved to the other items in the drawer.
The first sheet of paper was a printed programme for Romeo and Juliet, a Youth Theatre production. Gabby had been p
laying Juliet. The programme had been autographed by each member of the cast and she had kept it, Ramsay supposed, for sentimental reasons. He noticed briefly that John Powell had played Romeo and wondered if that was Evan’s boy. The second sheet was a lined piece of A4. He would have to check the handwriting but he presumed it was Gabby’s and thought it was the draft of a letter. It was a love letter in which Gabby pleaded to be noticed, to be taken seriously. It was addressed to ‘John’ and Ramsay, whose memory of his own teenage pain was heightened by his meeting with Prue, thought that it had probably never been sent.
The building society account had been opened three months previously with £500 and payments had been made since then to bring the total to almost £800. Ramsay wondered where the money had come from. Her family? A holiday job? The timing of the opening of the account at the end of the summer would suggest that. He would have to check with Prue.
The envelope, which had been at the top of the pile in the drawer, contained no letter. It was cheap and white with Gabby’s name and the Bennett’s address printed in blue ink. It was post-marked the day before her death. Why had she kept it? Ramsay wondered. What had it contained that was so important? And where was the letter that had been inside? He straightened and returned to the warmth of the kitchen.
Anna was there, still in her outdoor jacket, already drinking tea, fending off her mother’s concern about how she was feeling.
‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Really. Please don’t fuss.’ But she looked tired and unhappy and had nothing in common with the girl who beamed out at him from the photo on the noticeboard.
‘John Powell,’ Ramsay said. ‘Was he a boyfriend of Gabby’s?’
‘She liked him,’ Anna said. ‘I don’t think they ever went out together.’ She shivered slightly and dipped her head over her mug.
