Turning Nasty (Anna McColl Mystery Series Book 4)

by Penny Kline

  ‘Not really. It might be worth trying to pre-empt her visits. Make regular phone calls to check everything’s all right, the occasional visit to the house to let her know you’re taking it seriously.’

  ‘Wouldn’t that mean the complaints would increase?’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not. Sounds as though she wants to prove to herself and everyone else that the police won’t help. If you inundate her with help and advice she may switch to the other extreme.’

  ‘The police are always interfering? Good. Thanks.’ He smiled to himself, as if he thought I had given him the kind of crazy suggestion he might expect from a psychologist. Then his expression changed. ‘Incidentally, you haven’t found out anything about Dr Hazeldean? We’ve made enquiries, but as far as we can tell she didn’t have any particular enemies, apart from the people who might have objected to her outspoken views on racial harassment.’

  ‘How do you mean outspoken? Teaching art in a club hardly — ’

  ‘Oh, there was a bit more to it than that. Apparently she made no secret of her views.’

  ‘So your first theory about the fire was right. Any hope of finding out who did it?’

  He was leaning against a filing cabinet, with his hands in his trouser pockets. ‘We were hoping to find a witness,’ he said. ‘Someone who’d spotted a figure carrying a petrol can. No joy. No one noticed a strange car either. We brought in a couple of known troublemakers, but it was pretty much a waste of time. If they knew anything there was no way we were going to hear about it.’

  ‘My interviewing techniques?’

  He laughed. ‘You can work miracles? How much do you know about these right-wing groups, apart from the obvious, of course? There’s a very high turnover of membership so any list we keep soon becomes out of date.’

  ‘They preach respect for law and discipline.’

  ‘While practising unrestrained violence. What kind of a society are they after? One where all the Asians and Afro-Caribbeans have been repatriated, even those who were born here?’

  ‘I know,’ I said, ‘it’s insane. But you know as well as I do, they’re not just interested in immigration and race. It’s more of a revolution against the trendies.’ ‘People like Dr Hazeldean?’

  ‘I told you, I didn’t know her. Perhaps. People who see juvenile crime as the logical outcome of economic hardship. People who object to the idea of sticking young offenders in secure units.’

  For several days I had been debating whether or not to tell him what Heather had said about Maggie’s phone call to the office. The fact that Heather had thought she sounded afraid provided nothing in the way of evidence, although it might add credence to the idea that the fire was intended to frighten Maggie, rather than the previous occupants of the house.

  ‘I don’t know if it’s of any significance,’ I said, ‘but Heather remembered something about Maggie Hazeldean’s call, when she made the appointment to see me. I wouldn’t take it as gospel truth — Heather’s inclined to let her imagination run away with her — but she thought Maggie sounded afraid.’

  ‘What of?’

  ‘Oh, come on, how could Heather know that?’

  Howard cast his eyes upwards. ‘I meant, generally afraid of nervous about making an appointment?’

  ‘Who knows?’

  He sat down at the desk again, pulled open a drawer and took out a packet of biscuits. ‘You think she might’ve been going to tell you something important. Well, I suppose she could’ve wanted advice on how to handle racial harassment, although I suspect the police would’ve been more use to her than a psychologist.’ He tore open the packet. ‘Have you eaten?’ ‘No.’ Just for a moment I thought he was going to ask me out to dinner. Some hope. I took a choc-chip cookie and returned to the subject of Rod. ‘So no one called Rod springs to mind? If you think of anyone… ’

  ‘You haven’t told me why you want to know. Who are these people with joyriders racing past their front door?’

  ‘Just a married couple with two children,’ I said. ‘Anyway, if it happens again I’ll tell them to make a formal complaint.’

  He nodded. He was thinking about something else. ‘I’ll ask around, see if the name Rod rings any bells.’

  ‘Thanks.’ There was one question I had to ask before I left. ‘Maggie Hazeldean’s body — there were no signs of injuries, were there? Injuries inflicted before the fire?’ ‘No, nothing like that. As I said, it was inhalation of fumes that killed her. Apart from that she was unharmed.’

  ‘But why didn’t she leave by another exit, as soon as she saw the smoke?’

  He stared at me for a long, uncomfortable moment. ‘Maybe there wasn’t time. Maybe she tried to save her lap-top computer, and the pile of questionnaires on a table near the front door.’

  ‘Yes, I see. What happened to the questionnaires? No, it doesn’t matter. I suppose they contained data not yet fed into the computer. She was desperate to save them and didn’t realize about the toxic fumes.’

  Asking about Maggie had been a mistake, aroused his curiosity. He wanted to know if I had met Maggie’s husband.

  ‘Yes, as a matter of fact. I have I’ve been helping their son, Ian.’

  ‘What about her colleagues at the university?’

  ‘What about them? Owen knew her a bit, hardly at all.’

  Back at the flat I switched on the answering machine, half hoping, half dreading there would be a message about Rod, but all I heard was my friend Chris shouting at the children, followed by something incomprehensible that might have been a request to baby-sit. I made a move to call her back but there was another message on the machine. This time from Grace Curtis.

  ‘Sorry to bother you, Anna. This is Grace. I feel awful asking another favour but if you get the chance to talk to Bill… His bedroom’s full of unopened packets of clothing. A towelling dressing gown, Aran sweater, and some kind of khaki waistcoat thing with pockets for gun cartridges. And it’s not just that. I saw him briefly when I took in some shopping. I’m really worried about him. He looks so unwell.’

  Chapter Nine

  Heather had put the idea into my head, not that I was particularly interested in illegal videos or even a few legal bargains, I just thought a car boot sale on a Saturday morning was the kind of place Max might be likely to frequent.

  The sports ground was less than a mile from where I worked. The car park had been turned into a market, with twenty or thirty people selling from their cars, although the greater proportion looked like professional traders. If I did bump into Max what would I say? Are you the guy who instructed your dog to fasten its jaws on to my leg? He would stare at me for a brief, nasty moment, then tell me I wanted to watch my step, going around making serious accusations.

  Grace’s message on the answering machine had made me realize how hard I had been trying to convince myself that the fire was the work of strangers, mindless yobbos, people like Max. But what if the police were wrong? What if Maggie had been killed for a completely different reason? The effect of Grace’s call had been to re-activate an anxiety Ian had already put into my mind. Dad used to say Mum leaving was worse than if she’d died. Had Ian been dropping a heavy hint? It seemed unlikely. If he really suspected that one of his parents had been responsible for the other’s death wouldn’t he either have kept quiet or voiced his fears to a close relative? But as far as I could tell there were no close relatives, certainly no one who lived in Bristol or anywhere within two hundred miles or more.

  It had even occurred to me that Ian might have sent the message about Rod. Look for Rod. It could be some kind of code. One of Ian’s cryptic clues?

  At one end of the car park a group of young men sat on a wall, watching three black and white puppies roll about on the grass. I moved closer, looking for the brown dog, half bull terrier, half something else. Maybe it was asleep, resting after one of its attacks, getting its strength back. But the owners of the puppies looked harmless enough. Thin, dressed in dungarees and hand-knitted sweaters, and with l
ong matted ringlets, they were about as unlike the shaved-head brigade as you could get.

  I wondered if Heather and Kieran might put in an appearance, but for all I knew there were dozens of car boot sales going on all over Bristol. Two men in bikers’ gear strolled past, both nearer forty than thirty with fat round red faces, both looking bored out of their minds. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of the one person I least expected to see. A tall, elegant figure, accompanied by another tall, well-dressed girl, who was almost a clone apart from her dark curly hair. Imogen Nash and friend.

  Stepping behind a camper van I watched them pause while the friend bent down to shake a stone out of her shoe. Imogen was talking and laughing. The big red bag had been replaced by a black sack covered in tiny round mirrors. From my position just behind the camper van I watched her loosen the drawstring of the bag, take out a strip of foil, press out a couple of tablets and pop them in her mouth. If she saw me she would have a fit — it would mean explaining to her friend who I was and how the two of us came to know each other — but she was far too preoccupied with making sure her friend hadn’t noticed the tablets.

  The next stall they inspected was one I had looked at myself. It was covered with old tapes and CDs, mostly compilations. Eighties revivals of sixties hits. Gene Pitney, the Beach Boys, Bobby Darin. On the scrap heap for the second time around. Imogen’s companion picked up a tape and twirled round, singing something I couldn’t hear. Then she moved on to the next stall and started trying on a green velvet hat. Was she Rachel, the flatmate, or just another student on the same course? Imogen had led me to believe she had hardly an friends, that she didn’t fit in, but she had provided me with so many conflicting impressions it was difficult to build up a true picture of her life at university.

  As I watched her mouth trembled and she looked close to tears. Then the girl in the hat turned round to ask her opinion and Imogen’s face broke into a grin and the two of them fell against each other, squealing with laughter.

  One of the good things about Owen — he forced me to go for long walks, even in freezing cold weather with the kind of stuff coming down from the sky that the weatherpeople refer to as ‘wintry showers’.

  We came out from the trees on to the flat open space in front of Blaise Castle, a part of the estate I had never visited before. Here the wind was even colder but, for reasons known only to Owen, we had to follow a particular route to the bitter end before we were allowed to call it a day and return to my flat.

  Miracle of miracles he had bought himself a new coat, dark blue with shiny black buttons, a reefer jacket, wasn’t that what they used to call them? Under it he was wearing a cream sweater with a roll-neck collar, and with the right trousers he could have modelled for the colour mags. His kind of face was in fashion too. Straight nose that looked as though it had once been in a fight, strong jawline, jutting chin, clear blue eyes. I laughed out loud and he took hold of my hand and shoved it in his coat pocket.

  ‘What’s the joke?’

  ‘Nothing. I like your coat. Suits you.’ ‘Some dark secret, is it? Don’t look so bad yourself.’ He released my hand and started walking across the grass.

  ‘Listen,’ I hurried after him. ‘I forgot to tell you. Nick’s mother died. She had a stroke on Wednesday evening, then two more the following day.’

  He slowed down. ‘Probably for the best, wasn’t it? Better than being paralysed, losing the power of speech.’

  ‘Better for her, maybe. What about Nick?’

  ‘He’s taken it hard?’

  ‘I don’t know. He hasn’t been back yet. I’ll see him on Monday.’

  ‘Good.’ He didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t want to think about how the death of a parent, especially a mother, made you realize that, ceasing to be anyone’s child, you had become part of a different generation. Owen’s parents had split up when he was nine. His mother had remarried and gone to live in Edinburgh, and his father had moved to France where he had scraped by, doing up derelict outbuildings, then letting them out as holiday homes. Owen had lost touch.

  ‘Look, over there,’ he said suddenly. ‘That boy in the shiny green anorak.’ ‘Where? What about him?’

  He took hold of my shoulders and twisted me round. ‘There, by the trees, where the ground starts to slope away.’ The figure in the distance seemed to be attacking the undergrowth, beating at the long grass as if he was trying to kill something. With a kind of low growl he lifted the length of wood high above his head and hurled it into the bushes, then he turned round, wiping his hands on his trousers, and noticed us standing not too far away. He had a pair of binoculars round his neck and a khaki-coloured bag hanging over one shoulder. A moment later he started waving — his eyesight was better than mine, he had recognized me long before I realized who it was — then he broke into a trot.

  Coming to a halt in front of us, he clicked his heels to attention. ‘Didn’t expect to see you here,’ he said, and for a split second I thought he was going to give us a salute.

  ‘Hello, Ian.’ I turned to Owen. ‘It’s Ian, Owen. Ian Hazeldean.’

  ‘Bird-watching,’ said Ian, tapping the binoculars. ‘Identified a few winter visitors.’ Owen moved closer, inspecting the binoculars and nodding approvingly. ‘What should we look out for?’

  ‘Bramblings are your best bet. Orange breasts and white bars on their wings. You might see a firecrest but they’re more difficult to spot. Tiny little things, like wrens, with a red stripe over each eye.’

  While I tried to keep warm the two of them exchanged notes, about the birds that could be seen on the estate and on the banks of the Severn Estuary. I had expected Ian to tell us why he had been beating at the rough grass. Was he trying to keep warm? Had he seen a rare bird in the distance and wanted to get a better view? Obviously he didn’t see the need for an explanation.

  The discussion about birds continued for some time. My feet were frozen and the wind was blowing sleet into my face but I was pleased Ian and Owen seemed to be getting on so well. It was a side of Owen I had never seen before. When he told me he had never wanted children, that he didn’t have enough patience, perhaps he had been thinking of tiny babies, not large, spotty adolescents.

  Just when I was beginning to think they had forgotten I was there I suddenly became aware that Ian was staring at me. Perhaps he wanted me to say something about my visits to the house in Henbury. I had decided it was better to stick to bird-watching but Ian might see it quite differently. By avoiding any mention of our sessions together I might give the impression I liked to keep business and pleasure quite separate: he was a client, not a friend.

  ‘I was wondering,’ he said, turning his head to watch a skinny grey whippet chase after a ball. ‘If the police are working on a case, do they keep people informed of what progress they’re making?’

  ‘You mean the fire?’ I said.

  His jaw muscles clenched. ‘Not specially. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Just a book I was reading. I expect it’s different in America.’

  ‘I’m sure they’ll keep in touch with your father,’ I said. ‘Was there something in particular you wanted to know?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, not really.’ Then he turned to Owen. ‘You see, my mother was doing research. Left-wing stuff, the sort of thing some people dislike intensely.’

  Owen looked intrigued. ‘When you say it was left wing… ’

  ‘She thought people who behaved badly weren’t really responsible for what they did, not if they hadn’t much money, not if life had been unfair on them. Of course, not everyone agrees with that view. Some people would say if you start thinking along those lines you’re in trouble, moving towards anarchy.’

  ‘What about you?’ Owen was smiling. I willed him not to say something patronizing.

  ‘Me?’ said Ian. ‘Oh, I think everyone should be treated exactly the same, as far as the law’s concerned.’

  Later, when Ian had started for home, I asked Owen what he thought of him.
Wasn’t he slightly unusual for a boy of fifteen, with his formal good manners and old-fashioned clothes? Owen hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary.

  ‘He seems a nice enough boy. Doesn’t appear too upset by his mother’s death.’

  ‘How can you say that?’ I said crossly. ‘How do you know what’s going on in his head?’

  ‘I don’t.’ He lost his footing on the slope and slid down several feet, hanging on to a branch in a vain attempt to stop himself from landing in the mud. ‘I go on the evidence in front of my eyes. The rest I leave to people like you.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean? People like me?’

  ‘You know what it means. Whatever you want to make of it.’

  We walked back to the car in silence. A smell of stagnant water rose from the muddy pools on either side of the stream. It had started raining quite hard but the denseness of the trees protected us from the worst of it. Here and there the ground looked firm enough but turned out to be a squelchy bog that came up over our feet and easily penetrated the place where one of my boots had come unstitched. Owen had his hands in his pockets and was making sure he kept a few paces ahead. The rigid line of his shoulders told me that if anyone was to blame for the bad feeling between us it was me. It was always me.

  *

  Back at the flat my phone was ringing. I rushed through the front door, snatched it up, then discovered it was Terry Curtis wanting a word with Owen. It was the first I knew that Owen had given Terry my number, but, if Owen’s face was anything to go by, once again I was being unreasonable. Terry seemed to be in the process of organizing a conference that was to take place during the summer vacation. He wanted Owen’s advice on foreign visitors and how best to entertain them at weekends. I still couldn’t see why he had to phone on a Saturday evening.

  ‘Grace is away visiting her son,’ said Owen, replacing the receiver, pouring himself a drink and settling himself down in ‘my’ chair. ‘Terry’s in the house on his own, working through some admin. He hates admin.’