Ramsay 06 - The Baby-Snatcher

by Ann Cleeves

  ‘So there was a car, then? Like the others?’

  ‘Either that or he was carried piggy back. And that’s hardly likely.’ Hunter grinned. ‘Still, it’s for some other bugger to sort out now. We’ve got enough on our plates.’

  ‘He was all right, the boy? Unharmed?’

  ‘So it seems.’ Hunter paused. ‘The woman in charge saw a bloke hanging round outside at about quarter past five. She thought he must be one of the dads. They’re trying to trace all the parents who were there. So far no one’s identified him.’

  ‘Did the woman give a description?’

  ‘Nothing worth having.’

  ‘Did she see a car?’

  ‘Na.’

  ‘It’ll all come down to the boy, then?’

  ‘Aye. And the strange thing is, he’s not talking. Not a word. He doesn’t seem frightened or upset, and he’s not known for keeping his mouth shut, but he’ll not tell them a thing.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  The next day Mark escaped school at lunchtime. He didn’t go into town because it was market day and he couldn’t face the crowd. He bought an apple and a Mars Bar from a corner shop near the school. The place was packed with kids. They weren’t supposed to leave the grounds at midday and it was a shock for them to see him there. He had a reputation for being strict. One of them muttered, ‘Here we go. Detentions all round.’

  But he didn’t say anything. He just bought his apple and his Mars Bar and pretended he hadn’t seen them.

  He took his lunch to Prior’s Park and sat on a bench near the children’s playground. On the way he had the same sense of being followed as he had the night before, but he put it down to nerves. And to a guilty conscience. If he’d managed to talk to Brian perhaps he’d find it easier to relax.

  In summer he hated the park, the regimented rows of bedding plants, the semi-naked teenagers lounging in the sun with their transistor radios and their cans of lager. At this time of year it was windswept and neglected. Tolerable. Banks of dead leaves still lay under the trees. The river was full.

  There were no children playing on the swings, but a woman pushing a pram walked past him and sat on a bench next to his. He would have liked to get up to look at the baby. He could tell that it was very tiny, tightly wrapped in a white blanket and covered with a quilt. The quilt was blue so he supposed the child was a boy. One hand had escaped. It was covered in a cotton mitten to stop the nails scratching the face. A middle-aged woman could have gone up to the pram and asked for a peep and the mother would have been delighted to show her baby off but Mark knew this was out of the question for him. It was not considered normal for men to like babies.

  He had spoken to Sheena about children. Hypothetically. Not wanting to put any pressure on her. Afraid, as always, of boring her. From the very beginning her reaction had been one of revulsion.

  ‘Oh, God no. Don’t worry, Mark. I’ll spare you that at least. Really, darling, I’m not the broody sort. Never have been. Can you imagine the process of giving birth? I’d die!’

  And, of course, she had died, though not through childbirth.

  Occasionally he had heard friends talking without realizing he could hear them.

  ‘At least,’ they said, ‘there were no children.’

  Only Emma had seemed to understand the pleasure he took in baby Helen Scarlet and to her it was perfectly natural. She was potty about the baby, entranced by the way she stretched her hands, unseeing, groping for food. Why shouldn’t Mark be? It was Brian’s lack of interest which had astounded her.

  ‘Tell me, Mark,’ she demanded. ‘How can he bear to spend so much time in the office? He’s missing everything. Her first smile. She’ll be crawling soon and then she won’t be a baby any more.’

  She had been delighted when Mark held Helen against his shoulder to wind her after she had been fed, when he jumped her up and down on his knee to make her laugh.

  On his recent exile from the Coastguard House he had missed the baby as much as he had his contact with Emma.

  The woman stood up from the park bench. She leant into the pram and put her hand on the baby’s forehead to check presumably that he was not too cold. The baby woke and began to grizzle. The woman walked on briskly.

  It was then that Mark noticed the tall man in the heavy raincoat. He had been standing by the wire mesh fence surrounding the playground for some time, though Mark had been too taken up with the baby to realize.

  ‘Mr Taverner?’

  He walked across the grass and sat beside Mark who had the sudden thought that they were like spies in a Le Carré novel. He almost expected a password.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I hope you don’t mind. One of your colleagues pointed you out. I thought it would be more discreet to talk here than at school. I’m the detective in charge of the Kathleen Howe case.’

  So, Mark thought, he had been followed. Ramsay had watched him leave the shop and walk to the park. Then he had waited for the woman to leave so they would not be overheard. A patient man. Mark admired that.

  ‘Do you have time to talk now?’ Ramsay was asking. ‘If you prefer I could make an appointment to see you at home this evening.’

  ‘No,’ Mark said. ‘I’ve a free period first thing this afternoon. There’s no rush to get back.’

  ‘I know you gave a statement to one of my officers but there are a few points I’d like to clear up.’

  ‘Of course.’ Now that the moment had come, Mark felt quite calm, clear-headed. There was none of that ridiculous panic he’d felt last night on his way to meet Brian.

  ‘Did you know Mrs Howe well?’

  ‘Not well. I’d met her at parents’ evenings. She came to school concerts.’

  ‘You would have recognized her?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘But you didn’t see her on the day she disappeared?’

  ‘No. I said so in my statement.’

  There was a brief silence.

  ‘What was your opinion of Mrs Howe?’ Ramsay asked. ‘I mean as a parent.’

  ‘She was supportive. Involved. I wish all our parents were as well motivated.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But on occasions her interference could be irritating. And it didn’t do Marilyn any good.’

  ‘Perhaps you could explain.’

  ‘Marilyn’s a competent violinist. She works hard, passes all her exams, but there are other, more talented musicians in the school. Last term Mrs Howe barged into a rehearsal and demanded that Marilyn should be moved from second to first violins. It was perfectly true that Marilyn could have coped quite adequately with the music, but so could many of the others in her group.’

  ‘How did you deal with the situation?’

  Mark smiled, briefly. ‘I left it to Mr Scott, our head of music, to sort out. That’s what he’s paid for.’

  ‘What did Marilyn make of the fuss?’

  He shrugged. ‘Naturally she would have liked to play first violin. She’s a competitive child. But she was profoundly embarrassed by the incident. I tried to make light of it, to make the others see that Marilyn could hardly be held responsible for her mother’s … over-enthusiasm. All the same it can’t have been easy.’

  But Ramsay thought that his sympathy would have made it easier. No wonder the girl had a crush on him.

  ‘Did you ever meet Mr Howe?’

  ‘He was dragged along, rather reluctantly I suspect, to some events.’

  ‘Is Marilyn popular at school?’

  The question seemed to throw him.

  ‘She’s conscientious, well behaved. I’m sure most of the staff would welcome her in their class.’

  ‘That’s not really what I asked. Did she have friends? Close friends of her own age?’ Or was she, as she had described herself, a Billy No Mates?

  Mark Taverner considered. ‘ No. Not in the way that you mean. You mustn’t assume, though, that she is unhappy at school. That there’s bullying, for example. I don’t believe there is anything
of that sort. Some children are naturally solitary. Or they find it easier to form relationships with adults. I was like that myself. I didn’t develop any close friendships until I left home and went to university.’

  ‘When you met Mr Coulthard?’

  ‘Brian. Yes.’

  ‘And Mrs Coulthard? Would you consider her to be a close friend?’

  ‘Very.’ The answer came easily.

  ‘Brian’s marriage didn’t affect your friendship?’

  ‘Why should it?’ Mark asked.

  ‘Oh,’ Ramsay said lamely. ‘ There can be an awkwardness sometimes in a threesome, can’t there?’

  Certainly he had felt awkward with some of Prue’s friends. She had been single for years and had become very close to the women who had supported her. One or two resented the time she spent with him. Their jealousy had perplexed her.

  ‘Why can’t they just be pleased for me?’ she had demanded, almost in tears, after one particularly hurtful remark.

  Because they can’t get a man of their own, he had wanted to reply. Only half flippantly. Knowing that was what Hunter would have said and not caring. But he hadn’t been entirely sure that Prue would have found it amusing so he had kept his mouth shut.

  ‘Not in this case,’ Mark said firmly. ‘Emma has always understood that Brian’s friends were important to him. Besides, we weren’t a threesome. I was already married when Brian and Emma met.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘My wife died five months ago. She had cancer. Brian and Emma have been wonderful. I really don’t know how I could have carried on without them … That’s how I came to the Headland the afternoon Mrs Howe was killed. Since Sheena’s death they’ve been very good about including me in family events.’

  ‘You drove there, straight from school?’

  ‘Yes. That’s how I came to give Marilyn a lift.’

  ‘What car do you drive?’

  ‘A blue Volvo estate. I told the other policeman.’

  He was beginning to lose his patience. Ramsay ignored his irritation.

  ‘How did Marilyn seem to you? She wasn’t anxious? She didn’t express concern for her mother’s safety? I thought she might have confided in you.’

  ‘Look, Inspector. Marilyn Howe’s not the sort of girl to confide in anyone. She might possibly have talked to her mother. She certainly didn’t talk to me.’

  That night Stephen Ramsay took Prue to Marco’s to celebrate her return. They were given the table near the window where he had sat with Marilyn and Claire. The town wall was floodlit from below and long shadows were thrown across the courtyard.

  ‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘ it’s an anti-climax. Coming back here. After all the admiration and the glory.’ Her group had taken a prize at the festival. There had been rave reviews in the Scottish press.

  ‘At least I can catch up on some sleep.’

  But not, Ramsay thought, tonight, I hope.

  ‘And you’ve been kept busy? Gordon Hunter hasn’t had you out clubbing in town, picking up unsuitable women?’

  ‘Unfortunately not. He thinks I’m past it. It would be an embarrassment to be seen with me.’

  She laughed. Marco himself came up with the wine, made a great fuss of Prue, then melted away.

  ‘I have been busy though. This murder inquiry.’

  ‘So you haven’t missed me?’

  ‘Hardly at all.’ After a few drinks he might have answered more honestly but she hated it when he got heavy.

  ‘How’s the inquiry going?’

  ‘Not very well. We can’t trace an important witness – a man who stayed in the Headland the night before the murder. The victim was a middle-aged housewife. The family seem very respectable, quite ordinary I suppose. We can’t dig up a motive. Why would anyone have wanted to kill her?’

  ‘A meaningless act of violence, then?’

  ‘No. I don’t think it was that.’

  Why not? he wondered. Because she disappeared so absolutely. Because the Headland wasn’t like Newcastle on a Friday night. Because he had the sense, for some reason, that the murder had been planned.

  ‘I think you know one of the witnesses,’ he said. ‘Mark Taverner. Didn’t you work with his wife? You both sat on a Northern Arts committee?’

  ‘That’s right. She was a writer. She died last September. I went to her funeral.’

  ‘Were you friends?’

  ‘I don’t think Sheena had friends. Not really. She didn’t have time for them. She had admirers, though. Plenty of them. She was quite stunning in a dark anorexic way. She was desperately skinny even before she was ill.’

  ‘You didn’t like her?’ He realised it was the same question he had asked Brian Coulthard.

  ‘I think I might have done if she’d given me a chance. She was very driven, absolutely convinced that she could be a great writer. Nothing was allowed to stand in her way. Certainly not a night in the pub with a mate.’

  ‘And was she a great writer?’

  ‘I didn’t think so. I found her too self-conscious.’ Prue paused, considered. ‘Perhaps she might have been if she hadn’t taken herself so seriously. She came once to run a workshop for the kids in the arts centre and she was brilliant with them, very witty, very funny. They all ended up writing nonsense verse and laughing out loud. I asked why she didn’t do more of that kind of thing. Why didn’t she produce a book for children, for example? She said she’d love to but it would only be a distraction. As if something enjoyable couldn’t possibly be worthwhile.’

  ‘But her books were published. They sold.’

  ‘Oh yes, she was published and she was well reviewed. I’m not sure what sort of living she made from them. I know she taught some adult education classes for the university though they wouldn’t have paid a fortune. I don’t think she could have survived without Mark’s income.’

  ‘She and Mark were happy?’

  ‘He doted on her. More than was good for her I thought. Apparently she was an only child. Spoilt rotten. He took over from her parents. I didn’t think it would last. You can’t be a doormat for ever. Then we found out she had breast cancer and she died very quickly.’ Prue looked up from her wine. ‘She was only thirty-six. Younger than me.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  Emma Coulthard had become obsessed with her inability to sleep. She thought of little else even during the day. She could have understood it if the baby had been keeping her awake but Helen had slept right through from the age of six weeks and was no trouble at all. The boys had been terrors as babies. They’d hardly seemed to know the difference between night and day but Emma had staggered cheerfully out of bed to feed and change them, then returned to fall immediately and deeply asleep.

  This was different. She could not rest. Even if she put up her feet during the afternoon while Claire had the children she could not relax. At night she lay tense and still listening to Brian’s breathing. The bedroom curtains were thin and sometimes moonlight shone through so she could see him. His skin was very white and the layer of fat just beneath it reminded her of the goose he had once persuaded her to cook at Christmas. As the night wore on she became more startlingly awake. She watched the red flashing numbers on her bedside alarm clock mark the hours. Sometimes at four or five in the morning she would fall into a troubled doze. Sometimes she stayed awake to see the sky lighten over the sea.

  Eventually Brian noticed her drawn face, the rings round her eyes, her short temper.

  ‘What the hell’s the matter with you?’ he demanded. Then, in a panic when she didn’t reply, ‘ You’re not ill, are you?’ She knew he was thinking of Sheena. His concern did not stretch, however, to ironing his own shirts.

  At his insistence she had gone to the doctor, a fatherly Scot, who knew Brian from the rugby club.

  ‘I’m not sure what you can do,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have come.’

  ‘How long’s this been going on for?’

  ‘Oh,’ she replied. ‘A couple of weeks.’ Though she could time
it exactly back to David’s birthday. She had not slept on the night before that.

  ‘Anything troubling you?’

  Well, she thought, you could say that.

  ‘No, no,’ she said. ‘Everything’s fine.’

  ‘You were a close friend of Sheena Taverner, weren’t you? Perhaps that’s it. Bereavement can take a long time to have an effect.’ Then, a sort of joke: ‘You’re not worried, are you, that the police still haven’t caught this murderer?’

  ‘No!’ she said, smiling to show that she would not be so foolish. And that, at least, was true.

  ‘I’ll prescribe you some sleeping pills. They’re very mild. Don’t use them every night or they won’t work. But don’t worry. You’re not the sort to get hooked!’

  He had known her during her time as a career woman, seen her through the trouble-free pregnancies and thought she was entirely sensible.

  So now she had the pills; which were a secret from Brian. She took them when she was desperate. They did knock her out but they left her feeling doped up and befuddled the next day, so she still could not think clearly about what she should do.

  Brian phoned at a quarter past four to say he would be late again.

  ‘You said you’d be back before the boys went to bed.’

  ‘I’m sorry, pet. Really. There’s a chap I’ve got to meet. He can’t make it earlier. I’ll definitely be home for supper at eight. Look. I’ll bring a bottle of wine. Something decent. We’ll have a quiet night together like the old times.’

  She said that would be very nice though there was scarcely an evening when he didn’t open a bottle of wine and drink most of it himself before the end of the News at Ten. She felt a sudden urge to be out of the house.