Ramsay 06 - The Baby-Snatcher

by Ann Cleeves

  Bello:

  hidden talent rediscovered

  Bello is a digital only imprint of Pan Macmillan, established to breathe life into previously published classic books.

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  Contents

  Ann Cleeves

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Ann Cleeves

  The Baby Snatcher

  Ann Cleeves is the author behind ITV’s VERA and BBC One’s SHETLAND. She has written over twenty-five novels, and is the creator of detectives Vera Stanhope and Jimmy Perez – characters loved both on screen and in print. Her books have now sold over one million copies worldwide.

  Ann worked as a probation officer, bird observatory cook and auxiliary coastguard before she started writing. She is a member of ‘Murder Squad’, working with other British northern writers to promote crime fiction. In 2006 Ann was awarded the Duncan Lawrie Dagger (CWA Gold Dagger) for Best Crime Novel, for Raven Black, the first book in her Shetland series. In 2012 she was inducted into the CWA Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame. Ann lives in North Tyneside.

  Chapter One

  The knock at the door surprised Ramsay. He received few callers at the cottage in Heppleburn and Jack Robson, who turned up occasionally to take him to the pub, knew better than to come this early. Ramsay seldom arrived home from work before eight and then he had to eat. If he arrived home at all. These days there was Prue, the woman in his life, and he was just as likely to stay at her home in Otterbridge.

  He went to the door expecting to find someone collecting for good causes and on his way he looked through a pile of mail to see if there was a charity envelope he’d overlooked. It was just starting to get dark and he switched on the light in the storm porch.

  He recognized the girl who waited on the step but for a moment he could not place her. Then he realized she was one of the walkers. That was how he thought of the couple who seemed to carry out most of their business on foot. There was this girl and an older woman. They walked miles. He had passed them on the roads out of Heppleburn and wondered about them. He was surprised that a teenage girl would choose to spend so much time with her mother. He assumed that the older woman was the mother. There was a family resemblance. They had the same large, unblinking eyes, and there was the walk, purposeful, long-strided, fast.

  The girl was attractive. She had been bonny enough at least to catch his eye, to make him look again as he drove past them on the long, straight road from Otterbridge to Heppleburn. She was fifteen or sixteen, with very blond hair, white and frizzy, which might have been considered angelic in a toddler, but in the young woman seemed unnatural. Of the mother he had taken less notice.

  Ramsay stood inside the porch and waited for the girl to speak. She was wearing the uniform of Otterbridge High School in a manner which was unusually chaste and tidy. Often the skirts came up to the girls’ buttocks and the ties were loose, bulky knots. Her respectability made him think again that she was probably collecting. For the Guides perhaps or a church group. He looked over her shoulder expecting to see the mother. He’d never seen the girl on her own before. Then he realized she was nervous, shaking.

  ‘Yes?’ he said kindly, then, sensing that it wasn’t shyness which roused the trembling, but fear, he asked, ‘Is anything wrong?’

  ‘You are a policeman?’ Her voice was not what he had expected. It was educated. There was hardly a trace of accent. Before tonight if he’d had to place the women socially he’d have put them down as the deserving poor. A single mother and her daughter struggling to make ends meet in a council house. Walking everywhere to save the bus fare. Now the voice as much as the question confused him.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. He did not ask how she knew. In a village like Heppleburn that sort of information was common knowledge.

  ‘It’s my mother.’ She spoke in a rush. ‘I’m worried about her. I didn’t know what to do.’

  ‘You’d better come in.’

  As he opened the door wider he wondered if he was being entirely sensible. There were rules about this sort of thing. But he could hardly leave her on the doorstep when she was so distressed and she didn’t seem the attention-seeking type. He couldn’t imagine her running off and crying rape. All the same he sat her in the chair by the window so the table was between them and said, ‘ If it really is police business, you know, you should call the station. Or 999 if it’s an emergency.’

  ‘We haven’t got a phone at home. Anyway, I thought she might be in the dene. Then it started to get dark and I saw the light in your window. I thought you’d know what to do. I’m sorry. I suppose I’m being silly. I expect she’s all right.’

  ‘Tell me what happened.’

  ‘She wasn’t home when I got in from school.’

  He waited for a further explanation but that, it seemed, was it.

  ‘Doesn’t she work?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh no!’ She seemed quite shocked by the notion. Ramsay wondered what Prue would make of that. She had taught her daughter to be independent.

  ‘And she’s usually there when you get in?’

  ‘Always. I’ve got a key for emergencies but I’ve never had to use it before.’

  ‘And how old are you?’ He didn’t quite manage to keep the surprise from his voice.

  ‘Fifteen.’ Then, in a pompous, rather preachy way, ‘Mummy thinks family life is important. We all do.’

  ‘So it’s not just you and your mother?’

  ‘Of course not. But my father’s working tonight. I don’t know exactly where so I can’t get in touch with him. Then there’s Claire. It didn’t seem fair, to worry her too.’

  ‘Claire’s your sister?’

  ‘My aunt. My mother’s younger sister. She lives with us.’

  They sat for a moment in silence. To his embarrassment she began to cry.

  ‘Look,’ she said. ‘I know it’s unusual. Other people’s mothers go out all the time. But Mummy wouldn’t. Not without leaving a note saying where she was going. Not when she was expecting me back from school. I know something’s happened to her.’

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘The Headland.’

  That too was unexpected. His perception of her shifted again. The Headland was an odd, isolated community on the coa
st, hardly considered part of Heppleburn at all. Young women who lived there did not usually speak of their mummies. The Headland had been formed when a Victorian pit owner had cut a channel in the rock and built a canal so he could ship out his coal, effectively splitting a small promontory from the surrounding land. Now the canal had been filled in and all the gully contained was a sewerage outflow. Ramsay supposed that the double row of terraced cottages had been put up to house the workers on the canal. There was no other reason for them to be there. The Headland was still separated from the main road, though now it was by a railway track which had superseded the canal and carried coal to a power station up the coast.

  People had no reason to visit the Headland. There were no scenic attractions, no beach. All that remained were the two rows of redbrick houses, facing each other across the single road, and a redbrick social club, grotesquely large in proportion to the number of people who used it. There was also, Ramsay thought, some sort of coastguard building but he could not be sure of its purpose. It had been years since he’d crossed the railway line.

  ‘What time did you get in?’ he asked, then, before she had a chance to answer, ‘ I’m sorry, I don’t even know, your name.’

  ‘Marilyn Howe.’

  He thought Marilyn was a very flighty name for such a respectable girl. Reading his thoughts she said, ‘ My father liked the pictures.’

  ‘Ah.’

  She muttered something under her breath.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  She looked up at him and repeated it fiercely, angrily: ‘At school they call me Billy No Mates.’ She saw that he was confused. ‘That’s what they call people without any friends.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, awkwardly. It seemed a desperate sort of confession.

  ‘I get in at 4.40.’ She answered his original question as if the outburst had not occurred.

  ‘How did you get there?’

  ‘School bus. It stops at the club.’

  ‘And there was no sign of your mother then?’

  ‘No. At first I wasn’t worried. Not really. I mean I thought it was odd but in a way I was pleased. It meant she was letting go. I mean I suppose she is a bit clingy.’

  ‘Where might she have gone? Into Newcastle? To a friend’s for coffee?’

  ‘Oh no.’ Marilyn seemed slightly amused by the idea. So, Ramsay thought, the mother was a Billy No Mates too.

  ‘What made you look in the dene?’

  ‘She’d talked about going blackberrying.’ It was the second week of September. The blackberries were past their best but there were still some for the taking. ‘I waited until six, then I was really worried. I thought she’d walked through the dene, fallen, had an accident.’

  ‘So you went to look?’

  She nodded.

  The dene was a wooded valley which ran from the base of the Headland right into Heppleburn Village. Ramsay’s cottage looked over it.

  ‘I walked along the main footpaths shouting,’ Marilyn said. ‘ I met a couple of horse riders and a jogger but they hadn’t seen her. Then I saw your light. I’m sorry. I suppose you’re off duty. If you could just tell me who I should ring and let me use your phone.’

  ‘Why don’t you let me take you home first,’ Ramsay said. ‘ Perhaps after all this time she’ll have come back.’

  ‘Oh God!’ Marilyn clapped her hand to her mouth. Her eyes were round and shiny as marbles. ‘If she’s arrived home and I’m not there she’ll be frantic.’ There was a pause, a small, confiding smile. ‘She’ll probably have called the police.’

  The road to the Headland ran parallel to the dene. There was a farm with a lot of empty out-buildings and a big sign which read: ‘FOR SALE, BARN SUITABLE FOR CONVERSION’. The paint on the sign had faded. It had been there since Ramsay had moved into Heppleburn. As it approached the coast the dene flattened into scrubby grassland. The stream ran into the cut to the sea.

  When they came to the railway line they had to wait at the level crossing. The train moved very slowly and Ramsay sensed that Marilyn’s impatience was turning into hysteria. She tapped long fingers on the dashboard, muttered under her breath.

  The last truck rattled past and the barrier lifted. The road became single track. It led first to the jetty where the coal boats had once been loaded, with the social club beside it, then to the houses. The Headland was a promontory which rose slightly at its tip. Beyond the houses and above them was the whitewashed building which Ramsay remembered as a Coastguard Station. It too apparently had been suitable for conversion because now it was a private house. The sky was quite dark but clear and there was a moon. There was something mythic about the view through the terraced houses to the white house on the hill beyond, with the full moon behind it.

  ‘Our place is on the left,’ Marilyn said. ‘At the end.’

  ‘Well, someone’s in.’ Ramsay was relieved. ‘There’s a light on. Or did you leave it like that when you came out?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  When they got out of the car Ramsay could hear the sea on either side of them and a snatch of music from the club. Marilyn in her school uniform was shivering.

  ‘Go on then,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a key.’

  The front door opened into a narrow hall. The light Ramsay had seen had come from there and shone through the small glass panes in the door. Steep stairs led to the first floor. The door into the living room was open. Ramsay had expected the house to be tidy. A full-time housewife surely would care about that. But it was small and cluttered. In the centre of the floor stood a large wooden spinning wheel and a box of uncarded sheep’s wool.

  Ramsay expected Marilyn to call out for her mother but she walked quietly down the passage to a room at the back. It was as if she were afraid of disturbing someone. She opened the door and switched on the light. There was a dining table folded against one wall; a sofa with a crocheted rug thrown over; a standard lamp with a fringed shade; and a rocking chair. It reminded him very much of the back room of his parents’ house when he was a child. Before his mother started reading women’s magazines and bullying his dad into DIY. Nothing in it had been bought after 1960, though Marilyn’s parents would have been children themselves then, perhaps not even born.

  In the rocking chair sat Marilyn’s mother. She was dressed as he had always seen her out walking, in a grey skirt and a faded pink anorak and little suede ankle boots lined with fur. Her skin was smooth, unlined as a girl’s and the hair, dusty brown, unfashionably long for a woman of her age, fell loose over her shoulders. At first he thought she was asleep. Then he saw that she was so astonished to see them, so shocked by the sudden light, that she could not speak.

  ‘Mummy!’ Now Marilyn did shout. ‘Where were you? I was worried.’

  ‘Who’s this?’ Mrs Howe asked. She stood up.

  ‘He’s a policeman. Don’t you realize? I was so worried I went to the police.’

  The woman stood, blinking furiously. Ramsay wondered if she were ill. Depressed. Schizophrenic. She seemed lost in a world of her own. Then she seemed to regain awareness of her surroundings. She took a small, apologetic step towards her daughter.

  ‘Darling,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I must have fallen asleep and you startled me.’ She turned to Ramsay. ‘You know how that can disorientate when one wakes up suddenly …’

  ‘But where were you earlier?’ Marilyn demanded. ‘You never go out.’

  ‘Don’t exaggerate, darling. I went for a walk. I told you I might. For blackberries.’

  ‘But I came to look for you.’

  ‘Then we must have missed each other.’ The voice was firm. She would tolerate no further argument. She turned to Ramsay. ‘I’m so sorry to have troubled you, Constable.’ He did not correct her about his rank. ‘I’m afraid Marilyn panicked. Perhaps she’s come to rely on me too heavily.’

  ‘So long as everything’s all right now.’ He looked at them both. It was almost a question.

  But it seemed to Ramsay that
things in the little house were far from fine. He could see through a door to the back kitchen, to the formica-covered units and the white enamel sink. There was a door with a lift-up latch which would lead to the back yard and the outhouse where once the lavatory had been. Where perhaps it still was. On one unit, quite out of place, stood a microwave oven. But there were no blackberries.

  Chapter Two

  Emma saw her pregnancy as an act of rudeness. How inappropriate, how impolite to be blossoming at this time of grief! Brian had invited Mark Taverner to stay with them for a few days after the death of his wife and whenever she saw him she felt herself blushing. But then Mark had always possessed the knack of making her feel awkward.

  Emma had come to motherhood relatively late and took to it with a passion and energy which surprised her colleagues. They’d expected her back in harness straight after maternity leave. Not for the money. Husband Brian more than provided. But because they couldn’t imagine the Human Resources Department without her.

  She didn’t return to work. She had two boys in quick succession and now she was pregnant again. Hoping for a girl, of course, she confided to her new mumsy friends, but happy to take what came. And then Sheena Taverner had died sooner than they had expected, and the pregnancy seemed some sort of dreadful social gaff.

  Emma had suggested to Brian that she might stay away from the funeral but he had insisted that she should be there. He said Mark would want it. Brian and Mark had been friends at university and had stayed close since, which was odd, Emma thought, because they had nothing in common. So she went. At least it was cold for September and she could wear a loose woollen coat which hid the eight-month bump. From a distance you wouldn’t have been able to tell she was expecting. And Mark did seem pleased to see her. Outside the church he hugged her, held on to her with a desperation she had not expected. She pulled away from the embrace feeling quite shaky, with a surge of emotion which had little to do with missing Sheena. Hormones, she told herself. And wondered if the friend who was looking after the boys would remember about Owen’s allergy to oranges.