by Ann Cleeves
Ramsay cut through the rambling. “The lad, Peter, drives his mother’s car,” he said. “And he is a bit daft. But let’s see what he has to say for himself.”
There was no Fiesta standing outside the farmhouse. A full moon had come up over the hills and they could see quite clearly. The living-room curtains were drawn and there was the sound of the television, rather loud, a burst of canned laughter. Ramsay led Hunter round to the back door.
Through the uncurtained kitchen window they saw Mrs. Richardson. She was dressed in a fluffy pink dressing gown and her hair was wrapped up in a towel. She was sitting at the table, obviously working on the farm’s accounts. There was a calculator on the table beside her and she pressed at the buttons quickly and efficiently. She was wearing pink-rimmed spectacles. Ramsay watched her through the window when Hunter knocked at the door. She remained seated and still concentrating on the figures in front of her called: “Come in!” She sounded a little surprised to be disturbed so late at night, but not anxious. Perhaps she was used to the guests from the cottages turning up at all hours, but Ramsay thought there was more to her calm response than that. Owning land gave people confidence. It wouldn’t have occurred to her to be frightened.
He pushed open the door and walked in ahead of Hunter.
“Inspector,” she said, and frowned. “What is it? It’s not Peter, is it? There’s not been an accident?” Still she remained quite composed.
“No,” he said. “Nothing like that.”
“Can’t it wait until the morning, Inspector? It’s been a very long day.”
“I’m afraid not.”
“You’d better sit down then.” She set the papers with their rows of figures aside and suddenly became more of her old self. “Would you like a drink? Tea? Coffee? Or could I tempt you to a whisky?”
He shook his head.
“Did you know Val McDougal?” he asked.
“The teacher who was killed in Otterbridge? No, I don’t think so.”
“She was about your age,” Ramsay persisted. “Perhaps you met her before you married. Her maiden name was Brown. Or perhaps you came across her at Otterbridge College where she worked. They run courses for people setting up in the holiday business. I’ve checked.”
“I haven’t been on any courses, Inspector,” she said, good-naturedly. “I never found the time. I’ve had to pick it all up as I went along.”
“Can you explain what your car was doing outside Mrs. McDougal’s house then, on the day she died?” It was Hunter, blunt and impersonal. She looked at him in surprise. People she invited into her kitchen didn’t usually speak to her like that.
“Of course not,” she said. “Because it wasn’t.”
“Where is your car tonight?” Ramsay asked, politely.
“Peter asked to borrow it.”
There was a pause while the implication of the words sunk in.
“Did he borrow it on the night of Monday May 10th?”
“I’m not sure,” she said, uncertainly. “That’s more than a week ago, isn’t it? I’d have to check my diary. See what I was doing that night.”
“Perhaps you would do that for us, Mrs. Richardson.”
“Yes,” she said. “Of course.”
She was fumbling in her handbag for the diary when they heard a car come too fast down the drive, the squeal of brakes, the crunch of gravel.
“I’d not let that lad drive any car of mine,” Hunter muttered.
“There’s Peter,” she said gratefully. “You’ll be able to ask him yourself.”
The door opened and Peter stood, blinking and a little unsteady, just inside the room. Ramsay thought it unlikely that he would pass a breath test but that was hardly his concern now.
“Peter,” he said, “I’d like to talk to you.”
“Well I don’t want to talk to you!” The boy was full of beer and mock bravado. “I’m off to my bed.” He swayed slightly forward. “Unless you’re planning on arresting me.”
His mother gave a nervous little giggle.
“I’ll do that too if I think it’s necessary,” Ramsay said calmly. “Sit down.”
Peter sat.
“Did you know James McDougal?” Ramsay asked. “He was Faye’s boyfriend, before you.”
“No.” Peter was dismissive. “She told me about him. He was only a kid, wasn’t he?”
“And Mrs. McDougal? She taught at Otterbridge College ‘
He shook his head, yawned in a parody of disinterest.
“Do you often borrow your mother’s car?”
“Yeah,” he said. “She doesn’t mind.”
“Did you borrow it on the evening of May 10th?”
“I don’t know. I might have done. Why?”
Ramsay slammed his hand flat on the table. “Because that’s the evening when Mrs. McDougal was killed and a car like your mother’s was parked in the road outside her house.”
“It’s a common car that. Thousands of them about. It could have been anyone’s.”
“But I don’t think it was anyone’s. I think it was yours. Where were you on that Monday night?”
“I don’t know.” The aggression had gone but he was sullen and determined not to co-operate.
“He was with us, Inspector.” Mrs. Richardson had retrieved her diary and was peering at it through her spectacles. “Don’t you remember, pet? It was the FWAG do at the agricultural college.”
“What’s a FWAG when it’s at home?” Hunter asked.
“The Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group,”
Sue Richardson said. “Stan’s not very keen on it, but I thought we ought to belong. It looks good on the publicity we put out for the holiday cottages. And you can get some useful information. On set-aside, how to create a pond or maintain woodland. You know the sort of thing.” Her tone was determinedly cheerful.
“And there was a FWAG meeting on the 10th?” Ramsay asked sceptic ally He couldn’t imagine Peter Richardson going along to a talk on the rise and fall of the corn bunting.
“Not a meeting,” she said. She gave another of her little giggles. “You’d not get Stan along to a meeting. No, it was the annual dinner. The college put on quite a good spread, didn’t they, pet? And there was a bar. It was just a good opportunity to meet old friends.”
“Were the three of you there all evening?”
“Of course,” she said. “It went on longer than I expected. It was gone midnight when we got home.”
“Which car did you go in?”
“Not the Fiesta,” she said quickly. “The Volvo.”
“You left the Fiesta parked outside the farmhouse?”
“Of course.”
“Was the car locked?” Ramsay asked.
She laughed. “I don’t expect so. We’re rather naughty about security out here, Inspector.”
“Did you notice if the car had been tampered with? If there was extra mileage on the clock?”
“No,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“You wouldn’t have left the keys in the ignition?”
“Of course not, Inspector. I’m not a fool.”
“Did you keep a spare set in the house?”
“Yes,” she said. “On the hook over there.” A row of mugs hung on hooks from the dresser.
“And I don’t suppose you always bother locking your back door?” Ramsay said.
“No, Inspector. I’m afraid I don’t.”
“So someone could have stolen your car, and replaced it without your noticing?”
“What a ridiculous idea, Inspector! Why would anyone want to do that?”
They sat for a moment in the car, looking out over the moonlit valley. Hunter shivered. All that space made him uneasy.
“What was that about?” he demanded.
Ramsay spoke slowly. “The problem was always how he covered the distance,” he said. “How he got all the way to Otterbridge without transport. At least now we’ve got a possible explanation.”
“Who are you talking about, man?�
�� Hunter said impatiently.
“Slater,” Ramsay said. “I think it was Slater.”
“So it was that bastard all the time.” Hunter was ecstatic. “Mind you, he couldn’t have nicked Mrs. Richardson’s car on the afternoon James was killed. It was broad daylight and there’d have been folks in and out of the house all the time.
It’d be too risky, that.”
“He didn’t need to steal a car then,” Ramsay said.
“What do you mean?”
“Think, man! Can’t you work it out?”
Hunter thought and only looked nonplussed.
“You took a phone call, didn’t you, on the afternoon of James’s death, from a drunken farmer who said he’d seen Ernie Bowles’s ghost in Mittingford. What exactly do you think he’d seen?”
“A bloody hallucination.”
“No,” Ramsay said. “Not a hallucination. Ernie Bowles’s Land-Rover. If he’d seen it from a distance he’d have recognized the vehicle there aren’t that many farmers let their cars get in that sort of state but not the driver.”
“And by then Slater had moved into the house at Laverock Farm and he’d found the Land-Rover keys!”
“Quite.”
“What about motive though, sir? I can see why he would have wanted Bowles out of the way, but not the McDougals. And what about his alibi?”
“I’ve got an idea about that,” Ramsay said.
Chapter Thirty-two
They went to Laverock Farm that night. Hunter, knowing Ramsay’s reputation for caution, for sticking to the rules, insisted on it, pushing the argument to the point of insubordination.
“We’ve got to take Slater in tonight,” he said stubbornly, although in fact Ramsay had voiced no disagreement. “Charge him with the car theft, if nothing else. Anything to get him out of that house, prevent another death. Then, his voice almost hysterical: “Come on, man, you must see that Lily Jackman’s in danger! We can’t take the risk of leaving it until the morning.”
“No,” Ramsay said quietly. “I don’t think we can.”
It was almost midnight when they got to Laverock Farm and there were no lights on. Washing still hung from the line in the orchard and a white sheet billowed in a sudden breeze like a sail in the moonlight. They parked in the farmyard and waited.
There was a sudden noise in an upstairs room. Slater pushed open the sash window and the sound of the creaking wood running up the cords was shocking in the still air.
“Who is it?” he shouted. “What do you want?”
A lack of control in his voice made Ramsay cautious. He opened the car window and shouted back: “It’s me. Ramsay. Why don’t you come down? We can talk.”
“Are you on your own?”
“No, Sergeant Hunter’s with me.”
“That’s the bastard that’s been hassling Lily. Keep him out of this.”
“All right,” Ramsay said easily. “I’ll come in on my own.”
“No,” Slater said. “Just stand in the yard where I can see you. You can talk from there.”
“It would be more comfortable inside.”
“Maybe it would. But you’ll do as I say.” He swung round violently and they saw he was carrying a shotgun. He waved it wildly out of the window and repeated, “You’ll do as I say.”
“Where’s Lily?” Ramsay asked.
“She’s here with me. Where she belongs.”
“Is she alive, Sean?”
“Of course she’s alive. Do you think I’d hurt Lily?”
“Why don’t you bring her to the window? So I can see her.”
“No!” Slater said. “Just sod off!”
In the silence that followed Ramsay heard Hunter on the radio, calling for back up, specialist officers. He knew that the nearest firearm officers were in Otterbridge and it would be hours before they’d get out here. He thought it would all be over by then.
“Where did you get the gun, Sean?” he asked,
for something to say, just to keep him talking. It hardly mattered now and shotguns were two-a-penny in the countryside.
“It was Ernie Bowles’s,” Sean shouted back. “I found it in the glory hole under the stairs. Your blokes must have missed it when they searched. I knew he had one and it must be somewhere.”
There would be plenty of questions asked about that, Ramsay thought. Recriminations. Passing the blame.
“I know why you did it, Sean,” he shouted. “I know why you killed the McDougals.”
There was a brief pause.
“You know nothing!” Sean yelled back angrily. He pointed the shotgun into the air and fired it. The noise was like an explosion and made Ramsay turn away. It was followed by a screech as a barn owl was frightened from its roost in the tractor shed. The big white bird glided across the farmyard and settled on a tree behind the house. Everything was quiet and still again.
“Well, why don’t you tell me then?” Ramsay asked. “Why don’t you tell me how it happened?”
He moved closer to the house, away from the car, hoping to establish a more intimate contact. He stood under Slater’s window and spoke in a lower, conversational voice. He’d gene once to a seminar on hostage situations but he could remember nothing now of what he’d been taught. He didn’t even know if this was a hostage situation. From where he was standing he could not see inside the room.
“Well, Sean? Why don’t we hear your side of the story?”
“You wouldn’t understand!” Sean screamed. “You wouldn’t bloody understand!”
“I might,” Ramsay said. “If you explained. Just put the gun down and tell me.” He might have been speaking to a child throwing a temper tantrum.
“They didn’t think I was good enough for her.” Sean turned his head so the light caught his face. Ramsay saw that he was crying. His voice became broken by sobs. Just because I wasn’t taken in by them, by their talk. Because I wouldn’t go to their bloody groups. Inner knowledge and inner healing. What does that mean anyway? I didn’t need all that. I always knew what I felt. I bloody showed them.”
“But that wasn’t why you killed them, Sean, was it?” Ramsay’s voice was quiet, considered, interested.
“I did it for her!” The words came out as a bellow and reverberated around the valley, sending the monkey-faced owl into the air once more.
Hunter watched Ramsay move away from the car. When he was sure the Inspector held the boy’s full attention he opened the passenger door slowly. Then waited. There was no response from Slater. The car was parked sideways on to the house and the passenger door was out of his line of view. Hunter rolled out of the car and into the shadow of the tractor shed. He lay still, breathing heavily. In the distance he heard the conversation between Ramsay and Slater continuing. There was a smell of grain and old sacking. The floor was covered with dried hen droppings.
He crawled on his stomach away from the car, keeping to the shadow, thinking that this jacket had cost him a fortune and that the force had better cough up for a replacement. He knew he had to find a way into the house. The kitchen door was no good. He couldn’t get to that without Slater seeing even if a sudden, miraculous cloud covered the moon. He knew there was a front door with a storm porch, on the side of the house that faced the garden, and decided to make for that. When he reached the orchard he stood up. He was round the corner of the house and out of Slater’s line of view. But he knew he had to be quick. Slater might notice at any time that he was no longer in the car. He pushed his way past the washing and through a tangle of overgrown shrubs.
The door of the storm porch was unlocked. It was stiff, as if it had warped and was seldom used, but it gave way at last to Hunter’s tugging. The inner door had panes of bubbled glass and it was impossible to see inside. Hunter stood still for a moment, trying to hear if the conversation between Ramsay and Slater was going on, but
Ramsay had lowered his voice so much that he could not tell. Perhaps Slater had come downstairs and was waiting on the other side of the door, with the shotgu
n in his hand. He turned the handle and pushed. The door was locked.
Swearing under his breath he looked about him for a hiding place for a spare key. The front of the house was in shadow, and though his eyes had become accustomed to the gloom he could make out nothing in detail. He felt along the window ledge. His fingers found nothing but a thick layer of dust. There was a filthy doormat on the floor of the porch but no key underneath it. He retreated into the garden.
On each side of the porch was a large terra cotta pot, which in Cissie Bowles’s day might have held a flowering plant. Now each contained soil and a few dried up weeds. Hunter lifted each pot and felt underneath. Nothing. He scrabbled around in the dry soil and in the first pot he tried there was a large key. He cleaned off the muck and returned to the path. The key was rusty but it fitted.
“Open, you bugger,” he muttered, thinking that all he needed now was for the door to be bolted on the inside.
The key turned remarkably easily. He put his shoulder against the door, turned the handle and pushed it slowly open.
At first it seemed pitch-black inside. He could hear a clock ticking, Slater’s voice ‘insistent but indistinct upstairs. Then he saw he was standing in a wide hall. Stairs, with a banister to one side, led away from him. He hesitated. Sod the heroics, he thought. Let’s get Lily out and let the cavalry deal with the lunatic upstairs. But he was pleased to think that for her he would be the cavalry.
He felt his way around the downstairs rooms. There was a lounge, crammed with furniture, a dining room, damp and cold as a cellar with a huge mahogany table but no chairs, the kitchen which was flooded with moonlight. No sign of Lily. The bastard’s got her upstairs, he thought, and felt a rush of adrenaline.
He stood in the hall listening, but he could only hear Slater, relentless as a politician, going on and on about never having been understood.
Perhaps she’s dead, he thought. He started up the stairs, testing each tread with his foot before putting his weight on it, listening after each step for some sound from Lily. A cry or a movement from one of the other upstairs rooms.
