The Anna McColl Mysteries Box Set 2

by Penny Kline

  ‘No, I don’t think I have. It tends to be the kind of thing people keep within the family.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what Azim says but I thought — well, do you know of anyone we could talk to? All four of us if that’s how they do it. He doesn’t like her going out at night either, says she should be home by nine only, of course, she won’t go along with that.’

  I felt in my pocket and gave her a card with my office number. ‘If you think it might help.’

  ‘Thanks, love.’ She turned the card over in her hand, then pushed it half under a plate. ‘A brown Allegro, you say, and a big brown dog to match. Can’t say it rings a bell but I’ll ask around. Ring you, shall I, if I find out anything useful?’

  ‘I think the man could be called Max,’ I said. ‘And he’s got a friend. Another guy, also with a shaved head.’

  ‘Anna McColl,’ she said, retrieved the card, turning it over and scribbling something on the back. ‘I’m Paddy — oh, I told you that, didn’t I? Paddy Jinnah, and Sibi’s father’s called Azim. He drives a minicab.’

  ‘Yes, I see,’ I said, wondering how to phrase what I wanted to ask next. Wondering if Paddy Jinnah had strong views on white Caucasians who thought it their duty to help ethnic minorities. ‘Margaret Hazeldean, does the name mean anything to you?’

  ‘Hazeldean? Margaret Hazeldean?’ She stood up, then licked her finger and rubbed at a mark on the shiny surface of the table.

  ‘I knew a Margaret Haslett but that was back in the Midlands.’ She was staring at me intently, as though she was trying to memorize the way I looked. ‘As I say, I’ll be in touch, love. One way or another I’ll be in touch.’

  Chapter Five

  Janice Baker had a purple bruise just below her cheekbone. As she talked she fingered the place, trying to cover it but only succeeding in drawing attention to the injury.

  ‘What happened?’ I said, interrupting a long-winded explanation about how Trev had to do an extra shift because Darren who usually worked on Mondays had a dental appointment.

  ‘Oh, this.’ She touched her cheek again. ‘Walked into a door. Isn’t that what they all say? Actually it was Bradley, fooling around with his rocket launcher.’

  ‘How is Brad?’ I felt slightly irritated that Trev had agreed to work the extra shift, seeing it as more important than his appointment. On the other hand, they probably needed the extra money.

  ‘Brad?’ said Janice vaguely. ‘It’s his teacher I blame. Too young, hasn’t learned how to keep them in order. He’s no trouble at home, you’d hardly know he was there, so why should he play up at school?’

  ‘I thought you had difficulty in getting him to go to bed at night.’

  ‘Did you?’ A smile spread across her face. ‘Took your advice, didn’t we? What was it you said? Make some rules and stick to them. Worked like a charm.’

  ‘Good.’ Why did I find it hard to believe a single word she said?

  She pointed at my plant, the one Howard Fry had diagnosed as suffering from too much light and not enough warmth. ‘Won’t flower properly now,’ she said happily. ‘Left it too late, should’ve kept it longer in the dark.’

  ‘I know. I’m not much good with plants.’

  ‘I can see that. Want to get a book, buy those gardening magazines that build up into an encyclopaedia.’

  She was enjoying herself, hitting back at me, as she saw it, for imagining I knew more about bringing up children than she did.

  Glancing at her watch, she checked it against the time on the clock on my desk. ‘No, Brad’s a little angel now.’

  ‘But he still gets in trouble at school.’ ‘As I said, they don’t know how to handle him. Let the kids have too much freedom, don’t show them who’s boss.’ ‘Yes, perhaps you’re right.’ Now didn’t seem the best time to explain that kids who behave badly at school but act like ‘little angels’ at home usually have a fair number of problems. ‘So you feel things are easier now you and Trev have come to an agreement about what kind of behaviour Brad can and can’t get away with?’

  ‘Oh, we didn’t need a psychologist to tell us that. How d’you get a job like yours? Have to go to university, do you? No one from my school went on to college.’ She was glaring at me. Suddenly she laughed and started drumming her fingers on the arm of the chair. ‘Take no notice. Got out of bed the wrong side. Know what I mean?’

  ‘Perhaps you’re feeling you’ve missed out. Things have changed, there are classes, for adults I mean. If you wanted to you could study, take some exams — ’

  ‘Classes!’ She spat out the word. ‘Do I look the type? Thick as a plank, I am, thought you realized.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘You what?’ Against her better judgement her face broke into a broad grin. ‘Anyway, I’m happy the way I am.’

  ‘Good. How’s the pet shop?’ I was wondering if her hostility, and Trev’s absence, had been her way of saying she no longer wanted to come and see me. But I needed to give her a chance to say so for herself. In spite of her off-hand manner I had a feeling she was the kind of person who could be easily hurt.

  There were dark smudges below her eyes that had nothing to do with the bruise, and she seemed thinner each time I saw her.

  ‘You want to hear about the shop?’ she said. ‘You’re fond of animals then?’ She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Yes, well there’s a black velvet chinchilla in the shop just now. Beautiful little thing. Then there’s dwarf lop-ears, chipmunks, two cockatiels and a border canary. Oh, and a South American green that says, “Oh, poor thing,” every time someone comes through the door.’

  ‘A parrot?’

  She nodded. ‘Phil’s hoping it’ll stay where it is for the time being. Brings the customers in. Anyway it costs over two hundred. Who’s going to pay that?’ ‘Phil owns the shop?’

  ‘That’s right. Started it up when her husband buggered off five years ago. See, you thought Phil was a man!’ The worry lines between her eyes had returned. When she spoke again her voice sounded flat, expressionless. ‘Trev’s not really working an extra shift. Wouldn’t come with me, couldn’t be bothered.’

  ‘Why do you think that was?’ Tension pains were creeping up the back of my head. ‘You seem to be feeling quite angry.’ ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that.’ She took hold of a piece of her purple sweatshirt, and started twisting it in her clenched fist. ‘Anyway there’s a lot worse off than us. All those wars, smashing up people’s homes, mutilating their bodies, kids with nothing to eat.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true, but I wonder if there’s something particular that’s making you feel bad, something it might be easier to talk about now you’re here on your own.’

  Her hand moved up to the bruise. ‘You think Trev did this? Some hope. I’m not one of those stupid cows who’d put up with a man knocking me about. Just let him lay a hand on me and he’d be out. Not that he ever has. Strikes you as the violent type, does he?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, then.’ She looked relieved. ‘PMS,’ she said slowly. ‘Premenstrual Syndrome. Used to call it PMT. Like renaming things, they do, so they can confuse you, catch you out. I’ve always been the same. Every symptom in the book and try asking the doctor, you can see his eyes glaze over before you’ve even started.’

  ‘You could change to another doctor.’ ‘Oh, I’m all right.’ She tossed her head, then ran her fingers through the short fair hair that looked as though she cut it herself with a pair of blunt scissors. ‘And I’m not anorexic if that’s what you’re thinking.

  Too fat, too thin, these days you’ve got it wrong whatever you do.’ She laughed but the sound was uncomfortably at odds with the anguish in her eyes. ‘Remember those questionnaires I was telling you about? People studying bad behaviour in school.’

  ‘Yes, I remember.’

  ‘The woman who signed the letter… ’ She broke off, noticing my expression and realizing I knew about the fire, ‘Awful weren’t it? House in Bishopston. Trev delivers furniture all round t
hat area. He knows the street where it happened. Says some kids did it — for a bit of a laugh.’

  Terry Curtis had invited us to dinner. Owen disliked dinner parties but I was looking forward to it. I wondered if the evening was Grace’s idea, or perhaps talking about Bill and Ian Hazeldean meant that Owen had been forced to admit he and I knew each other pretty well.

  I was hoping to find out more about Maggie. And about Terry and Grace. How long they had been together, where they met, all the things Owen could never remember because he wasn’t sufficiently interested. If I told Grace how Maggie had made an appointment perhaps she might have some idea why she had wanted to see me. It was on my mind all the time, but discussing it with Owen had been worse than useless. Probably some psychosomatic symptom, he had suggested, headaches, stomach cramps, or maybe she had a phobia about going up in lifts. The building where she worked had about fifteen floors.

  Terry and Grace lived in Clifton, the smart part with large expensive houses, many of them divided into flats although, according to Owen, Terry had bought his place before the boom and subsequent slump. Now it was going up in value again.

  ‘Lucky Terry,’ I said. ‘Rare combination, ivory-tower academic and sharp businessman.’

  Owen let go of my hand. ‘Oh, come on, universities are just another business venture these days.’

  ‘Yes, so you keep telling me.’

  We were on our way, on foot, expected any time between seven-thirty and eight. It was nearly five to, but Owen seemed in no hurry to arrive. During the evening the topic of student grants and student loans was sure to be raised yet again. It was one of the perennial arguments between the two of us, one of the disagreements that stood in place of all the unresolved aspects of our relationship we avoided like the plague.

  ‘How long have Grace and Terry been married?’ I asked. ‘Are they actually married? Grace strikes me as fairly conventional, the type of person who likes to do things properly.’

  ‘Oh, they’re married all right. I’m not sure… about two years I should think. As I said it was all rather fraught at the time, but I imagine things calmed down quite quickly, sorted themselves out.’

  Owen believed in things sorting themselves out.

  ‘I don’t really know Terry all that well,’ he said. ‘He sees himself as a bit of a whiz kid. Not yet forty but expected to be given a chair in a year or so. Grace treats him as some kind of genius. They met at a conference in the Midlands, attended by doctors and nurses as well as academics.’ He was peering through the dark, looking up front paths trying to make out the house numbers. ‘Oh, we’re nearly there. Number thirty-four. Terry gave a party a few years back. Of course he was on his own then, but he liked filling the house with people.’

  I looked at him but he had his head turned away. ‘You went there when your wife was still alive?’

  He grabbed my hand and squeezed it hard. ‘You’ll like Terry. He’s just your type, bursting with energy, full of ideas.’

  ‘Good. It’s Grace I’m worrying about. Do nurses ever really come off duty? In my experience they’re rather like teachers, find it hard to switch into a different mode.’ Terry answered the door. Owen and I had made a token effort to dress up but Terry was wearing jeans that stopped an inch above his shoes and a shapeless lime green sweater that seemed to be unravelling around the bottom. I found myself comparing him with Bill Hazeldean. Terry, with his thinning hair and skeletal body was about as unlike Bill as it was possible to get. Where Bill’s eyes had been dark and deep-set, Terry’s were blue and spaced wide apart. Where Bill was stocky, even a little overweight, Terry looked the type who can eat whatever’s on offer and never put on an extra ounce.

  ‘Come along in,’ he said, putting an arm round each of us. ‘How are you? You walked? Yes, I s’pose it’s only a mile or so.’ His glasses had slipped down his nose and as he stood back to let us by he pushed them up, then threw back his head, giving a kind of snort. ‘Come to think of it, I’m not too sure exactly in which direction you came. Owen’s kept you rather quiet, Anna, and I’m not one to pry.’

  There was no sign of Grace but I could hear sounds in the kitchen. Terry led us into a large high-ceilinged room that looked, and smelled, newly decorated. The wall at the far end had a continuous row of glass-fronted shelves, stuffed full of old books, some of them with faded leather covers. One of the doors was open. Terry banged it shut, then started explaining how his mother had spent the last years of her life looking for bargains in secondhand bookshops in the Cotswolds.

  ‘Your mother lived here?’ I asked. Owen had given the impression Terry had lived on his own until he met Grace.

  ‘That’s right. Died three years ago.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  He looked surprised. ‘She was seventy-three.’ Then, in a softer tone of voice: ‘Not that it makes it any better. Do you know, I’ve never said this before but I missed her like hell.’

  Owen was inspecting a silver christening mug with an engraved pattern of roses and thistles. The room was full of ornaments and knick-knacks. On first sight I had assumed they were Grace’s. Now I realized they must have belonged to Terry’s mother. What must it have been like for Grace, taking over another woman’s home? But it had been Terry’s home as well.

  Grace was standing in the doorway. She had a shiny flowered apron over her black skirt and royal blue blouse. Her hands looked damp, from something she had been doing in the kitchen, and as she moved towards us, with a welcoming smile, she searched for a tissue in the pocket of her apron.

  ‘Anna, how nice to see you. And you too, Owen.’ She kissed Owen on the cheek, hesitated a moment, then decided to kiss me as well. I wondered if she would mention our phone call, but I had a feeling she would see my visits to Ian as something quite separate, almost like part of her work at the health centre, not a suitable topic for a social occasion.

  ‘Haven’t seen you for ages,’ she said, pulling out a chair for Owen to sit down, then glancing back at me. ‘Isn’t it terrible how it sometimes takes a tragedy to bring people together?’

  So at least Maggie Hazeldean’s death wasn’t going to be a taboo subject. Terry was waiting impatiently by a cupboardful of drinks. ‘Right then, who’s having what? Vodka, gin, sherry, whisky, Bacardi, whatever you fancy.’

  Now I could see him properly I guessed he was five or six years younger than Grace. His hair was light brown and sparse, cut fairly short but brushed forward into a wispy fringe. He reminded me of someone but I couldn’t remember who. A character actor? Someone who had played the part of a schoolteacher in a sitcom? I almost expected to discover his glasses had been mended with sticky tape.

  During the meal he talked more than the rest of us put together. There were no longueurs, no awkward pauses when each of us struggled to think of a topic of conversation. Politics, education, ecology: he had strong opinions on most subjects, and although I knew many of them were anathema to Owen he seemed to have decided to let Terry hold forth, unchallenged. It was only when Terry made a brief reference to a group of racists, who had been active in the city during the last three or four months, that the conversation came round to Maggie Hazeldean’s death.

  ‘Anna knows the investigating officer,’ said Owen. ‘Isn’t that what he calls himself?’

  ‘Howard Fry,’ I said, turning my back on Owen and addressing my remarks to Grace. ‘He’s not actually the investigating officer, but as far as I can tell the CID seem fairly certain the arson attack had a racist motivation, although it seems possible whoever did it may have made a mistake, chosen the wrong house.’

  ‘How awful,’ Grace looked horrified. ‘So Maggie could have died just because she rented that particular house.’

  Would it have been better if Maggie had been the intended victim? But I knew what Grace meant.

  Pausing with a spoonful of food halfway to his mouth Owen suggested that most arson attacks had less to do with racial prejudice, or any other kind of vendetta, and more to do with the bored
om of being unemployed.

  ‘Oh, I can’t agree there.’ Terry shook his head vigorously, tipping back his chair, then noticing Grace’s frown, and returning all four legs to the floor. Her attitude towards Terry was almost like a mother with her son. She either agreed with his opinions or made no comment. He was the Great Man and she was there to make a comfortable home for him and encourage him on his way up the academic ladder. Or was I jumping to conclusions, making snap judgements simply on the basis of a few disparaging remarks from Owen?

  ‘Scapegoating,’ said Terry. ‘Anna’s the psychologist, she’ll know more about prejudice than we do, but if you want my opinion people can’t find enough outlets for their aggression. They identify a group, blame them for whatever comes to hand, and make them a target for all that frustrated energy.’

  He didn’t wait to find out if the rest of us agreed. Almost without drawing breath he changed the subject and started asking about the research I had completed the previous month.

  ‘Owen’s told me about your work on false confessions,’ he said, resting his elbows on the polished table, knocking a knife to the floor but not bothering to pick it up. ‘Sounds fascinating. Tell us more.’

  I paused, choosing my words carefully. There was something about Terry that made me want to impress him. No, not impress, just make sure he never managed to get the better of me. Owen would have said it was physical attraction, a kind of mating game, but then Owen put everything down to biology. Grace had stood up to retrieve Terry’s knife. I should have been irritated by her attitude towards him but there was something oddly endearing about the way she gazed at him with such devotion.

  ‘So why do they do it?’ said Terry, reaching for the bottle of wine and nearly knocking over my glass in the process. ‘I imagine there must be a whole sub-culture of nutters, wasting hours of police time and obscuring the genuine evidence.’