by Penny Kline
‘Did Nikki ever mention someone called Ronnie? Someone she worked with.’
‘Ronnie? Why do you ask?’ Her eyes lit up as if at last we were making progress. ‘Did Eric say something? Why didn’t the police … If she’d had a friend, a boyfriend, they’d have found out about it, we’d have heard. I tried to save her, but it was too late. The police are so sure Eric killed her they’ve never even considered any other possibilities. Look, I’ll tell you everything I know. People will talk to you, it’s your job persuading people to talk.’
‘If you know something important you should tell the police.’
For a moment I thought she was going to lose her temper. ‘No, you don’t understand, they think Eric did it. They’ve given up all other investigations. They’re waiting for him to make a mistake.’ Suddenly the fingers that were locked together, and pressed against her stomach, relaxed their grip.
‘What kind of mistake?’ I said and she stared at me, struggling to stay calm but with a desperate, pleading expression in her eyes.
‘You’re my last hope. If you won’t help … but you will, I know you will. Shall I come back in a week’s time? If it makes it seem better I’ll tell you about me and Ted. It was true what I said, about feeling the last twenty-five years have been rubbished, destroyed, and it was terribly difficult for me coming here today, I couldn’t possibly start all over again with somebody else.’
*
Finding Ronnie was surprisingly easy. I phoned Nikki’s old office, asked for the Personnel Department and a deep but definitely female voice inquired how she could help.
‘I wondered if it would be possible to speak to Ronnie.’
‘Who is it calling?’
‘My name’s Anna McColl.’
There was a slight pause, then the same voice came back on the line. ‘Veronica Cox, how can I help?’
Ronnie. Veronica. Faye Tobin had probably known all along it was a woman and thought I would realise too. I was taking a risk getting in touch. Supposing this Ronnie knew Eric and wasted no time in telling him about my call. He would accuse me of interfering, even suggest I find somewhere else to stay, and there would be no way I could tell him about his mother’s visit to my office.
‘It’s about Nikki Newsom,’ I said. ‘I believe you were a friend of hers.’
‘I was her supervisor.’
‘Yes, I see.’ There was no point making up some ridiculous story in order to try and persuade her to see me. ‘I wondered if it would be possible for us to meet?’
Another pause. ‘What was it you wanted exactly?’
‘It’s difficult to explain over the phone. Did Nikki talk about Eric and Charlie?’
‘Of course.’
‘You see, I’ve been helping Charlie and I feel he needs to know as much as possible about his mother’s —’
‘Oh, you’re a social worker?’
‘No, a psychologist. Look, it wouldn’t take long. Perhaps we could meet up during your lunch hour?’
‘I’m afraid that’s impossible. If it’s important I suppose I could see you after work, but it would mean you coming to my home and I live three miles out of the city.’
‘Whenever it would be convenient for you.’
‘Not tonight. Thursday. On Thursdays I finish at half past four. My mother’s an invalid so I don’t like to leave her longer than is absolutely necessary. I don’t have a lunch break, just work straight through. That way I’m home by five. You could come at half past, just for half an hour, while she’s watching Neighbours.’
She gave me her address and directions to find the cottage, then rang off abruptly, as if someone else had come into the office.
*
The car two spaces ahead of me wanted to turn into a petrol station on the right. Since none of the oncoming traffic was prepared to give way the rest of us had quite a wait, then a woman in a camper van — it was usually a woman — let the car through and as it turned I caught a glimpse of a familiar profile. My tank was virtually full but there was no harm in checking the oil. Pulling up clear of the pumps I raised the bonnet and watched out of the corner of my eye as Superintendent Howard Fry climbed out of his unmarked car and strolled towards the shop. He had no idea I was there but when he came out a few moments later, with a glossy car magazine under his arm, I was ready to catch his attention and express surprise at the coincidence of our meeting.
‘Anna, didn’t expect to see you in this part of the city.’ He put up his free hand to smooth back his dark red hair. ‘Been visiting a patient?’
‘I’m living just over there at the moment.’ I pointed in the direction of Eric’s house, then started explaining about the fire in Cliftonwood.
‘So you’re not going to change your mind and join Owen Hughes in Australia. After he came back I thought the two of you might make a go of it.’
‘You mean, like Owen, you think I should have been prepared to give up my job.’
He smiled, adjusting the magazine under his arm, then taking his car keys from his pocket. ‘If it had felt right you’d have gone to the ends of the earth, isn’t that what they say? As it was —’
‘How’s your son?’ I interrupted, choosing the subject I knew was likely to hurt him most, then despising myself for hitting back.
‘He’s fine.’ Howard’s face remained impassive. ‘Started at a new school, a boarding school in Suffolk — his choice, not his mother’s and certainly not mine, although his mother’s new boyfriend may have had something to do with it.’
‘So you don’t see him very often.’
‘No.’ He opened his car door, said something inaudible to the policewoman sitting in the passenger seat, then clicked it shut again. ‘Oh, by the way, I may be in touch in a month or two. Role-playing sessions for new recruits practising their interviewing techniques. Think Martin Wheeler can spare you?’
‘Don’t see why not.’ I was trying to think of a way to steer the conversation round to the subject of Nikki Newsom. It was unlikely Howard was personally involved in the case, but he would know more about it than I did, and I wanted to find out if Eric, and his mother, were right in thinking the police were so certain he was the killer they had stopped looking for anyone else. In the end Howard made it easy by asking if I was staying with friends, while my flat was being repaired, or renting a place.
‘I’m renting the annexe attached to a house belonging to this guy who makes rocking horses.’
Howard raised his eyebrows. ‘Name?’
‘Eric Newsom.’
As expected his expression implied that I might as well have told him I had moved in with Jack the Ripper. ‘You heard what happened to his wife?’
‘Of course.’
‘Maltby’s case, not mine, but as far as he’s concerned it’s just a question of finding more evidence. Newsom never came up with a convincing explanation of what he was doing that afternoon.’
‘Who’s Maltby?’
‘Transferred himself from the Met. Good copper, smooth operator, but doesn’t always see eye to eye with the rest of the team. Don’t tell me.’ He gave me one of his most patronising smiles. ‘Newsom’s convinced you he’s as innocent as a baby. You may be right, Anna, but I’d say it’s a straightforward domestic. At any rate, that’s what Maltby thinks. Wife carrying on with some bloke. Newsom found out about it, lost his rag. You want to watch yourself with all those knives around the place. No, I’m serious, Newsom said he’d been in Cheltenham all day but if he was no one saw him and he didn’t stop for petrol on the way there or back.’
‘He might not have needed any.’
‘It’s possible. The woman he was visiting ran a mail order business. Newsom said she’d confused the dates, which turned out to be true enough, but in that case why had it taken him so long to return home?’
‘He looked round the shops, had something to eat.’
‘That what he told you?’
‘No, but it sounds reasonable enough considering he’d driven about fifty
miles.’ Howard climbed into his car and wound down the window. ‘The murder weapon was a kitchen knife,’ he said, ‘not that it was found but Forensic seemed to think it was the kind you can buy in any shop selling kitchen equipment.’
‘So what you’re saying, you don’t even know if it was one that was in the house already.’
‘Newsom had no idea if one was missing, couldn’t remember how many they’d owned.’
‘Could you?’ But he probably could. And so could I. I had three knives in my flat but only used one of them. Of the other two, one was so blunt it was more likely to squash a tomato than cut through its skin, and the other had a wonky handle.
‘Mrs Newsom tried to defend herself,’ he said. ‘There were gashes on her hands and lower arms, some of them quite deep.’
I was thinking about Eric’s kitchen, trying to visualise the exact spot where Nikki Newsom had been found, wondering how much Charlie had seen, and how long the memory would last.
‘Someone could have broken in,’ I said.
‘No sign of a break in and no one seen entering the house. A neighbour, not an immediate one, thought she might have seen a man hanging about at the end of the road, but she changed her description so often it was worthless.’
‘So Mrs Newsom could have answered the door to a stranger and whoever it was barged his way in. Or it could have been someone she knew. Did this Maltby ever find the mythical boyfriend she was supposed to be seeing? Surely it couldn’t have been too difficult. She worked in the city centre, didn’t she. If she’d been seeing someone there must have been people who knew about it, people from her office.’
Howard’s face was fixed in one of his cold, unsmiling stares. ‘How long till you move back into your flat?’
I shrugged. ‘Four or five weeks. Why?’
‘At the very least make dead certain you don’t get lured into trying to prove Newsom’s innocence.’
The address Ronnie Cox had given was in a village off the Weston Road. Just before the railway bridge a sign welcomed careful drivers, and on the other side an estate of brand new luxury homes filled what must once have been a large meadow. I had no idea what Ronnie would be like, but from her tone of voice I imagined her tall and slightly forbidding.
Turning left past the church, as instructed, I wove my way between parked cars and started looking for Townsend Cottage, about half way down on the right. When I reached the entrance to a farm I realised I must have missed the cottage and the best way to find it would be to leave the car and walk back. If this part of it was anything to go by it was not a particularly attractive village. Sheets of rusting corrugated iron lay in the long grass at the edge of the road and ragged strips of thick blue polythene had caught on the brambles growing up the hedge. Two boys and a girl kept tearing past on roller blades and when one of the boys slowed down a little I managed to call out the words ‘Townsend Cottage’. He wobbled, nearly losing his balance, then pointed to the house directly opposite where I was standing, before shooting off to join the others.
The large, pebble-dashed building had a slate roof and glass porch, and bore no relation to my image of a country cottage. Someone with fluffy white hair was watching from a downstairs window, but as soon as she saw me she disappeared and a moment later the front door was opened by a small, stocky woman, dressed in jeans and a grey hand-knitted cardigan over a red T-shirt.
‘Anna McColl,’ I said, and she nodded, standing back to let me pass.
‘I expect you saw my mother peering out at you.’ She pointed to a closed door. ‘She’s been at the window for the last half hour but her programme’s coming on in a minute so with any luck she’ll leave us in peace. We’ll have to go through to the back.’
I followed her down a passage and into what looked like the original, unmodernised kitchen. A free-standing gas cooker was dangerously positioned so that the slightest draught from the door would have blown the flames, and the sink, with its wooden draining board propped up on a metal leg, was surrounded by a check curtain, drawn back to reveal the usual clutter of scouring pads, sponges and washing-up liquid. Ronnie had reached the far end of the room where a table and three chairs stood close to a small window that looked out onto the garden. Crossing the room, with a sigh, she eased the fridge from the wall until its juddering noise was reduced to a reasonable level, then sat down and began sweeping up crumbs with the side of her hand. I joined her at the table and we sat facing each other.
‘Look, I’m sorry,’ I began, ‘I owe you a proper explanation.’
‘Not really.’ The crumbs had been arranged in a pyramid. ‘You say you’re giving Nikki’s little boy some kind of treatment. I’ve no idea what that would mean but I’m sure you know what you’re doing.’
‘I’m living in the annexe attached to Eric’s house.’
‘But you’re a psychologist so you’re never off-duty.’ There was no sarcasm in her voice. She just wanted to make sure she had the facts straight. ‘Nikki brought Charlie to the office a couple of times, when he was much younger of course. Later she showed us photos. Even as a baby you could see the likeness but as he grew bigger it was incredible.’
‘How long had Nikki worked at your office?’
Ronnie started counting on her fingers, then stopped. ‘How old’s Charlie? She joined us when he was a few months old.’
‘He’s six, nearly seven. So the job was new to her — she hadn’t worked with you before he was born?’
‘She got pregnant while she was still at school, in her last year. I’d have thought Charlie’s father would have told you all this?’
‘He doesn’t talk about her very much.’
Ronnie frowned, glancing up at me then looking away. ‘No, well, I shouldn’t think they’ll catch who did it, not after all this time. You know I often wonder, if she hadn’t been due some holiday, if she’d come to work that day instead of having it off … The police interviewed some of the office staff, all the ones who knew her best, but no one could tell them anything that was any help. Who was it who gave you my name?’
The television in the room at the front was turned up so loud it was almost possible to hear what the characters in the soap opera were saying.
‘Faye Tobin,’ I said. ‘She owns the toy shop in Fish Street. She remembered Nikki talking about a friend at the office called Ronnie.’
‘Really?’ Ronnie looked surprised. ‘Well, I’m glad she thought of me as a friend. Oh, I get it, you thought Ronnie was a boyfriend. Nikki and … well, I suppose extraverts and offices don’t go together too well. We had a few upsets in her first year but after a time we reached an agreement about what was and wasn’t acceptable and most of the time I had no complaints. She was a good worker.’
‘What did she do exactly?’
‘Sat in front of a VDU, answered queries over the phone, typed reports. If she’d stayed on she could have …’ She broke off, winding a strand of curly hair round her little finger. ‘God, what am I saying? The little boy, is he like Nikki, has he inherited her personality as well as her looks? They say that’s all in our genes too, that it makes no difference how your parents bring you up.’
‘He’s rather quiet.’
‘Oh, like his father? D’you want tea or something? I never thought.’
‘No, thanks. I was wondering how much you knew about Nikki’s friends. People at the office, someone she was close to, people she might have seen after work or in her lunch hour?’
‘That’s the kind of thing Charlie needs to know?’ She looked at me suspiciously, then her gaze returned to the pile of crumbs. ‘Most of the staff only do fifteen to twenty hours each week, fix the times to fit in with their children, although Nikki was always adamant she wanted to work full-time, said she needed the money.’
A tractor was passing the hedge at the end of the garden. I could see the driver’s red baseball cap and the sound of his radio was just audible above the noise of the engine.
‘People think village life’s idyllic,’ s
aid Ronnie, standing up to close the window. ‘I was born here, doesn’t seem much point in moving anywhere else. My father owned the local garage, died a year ago, coronary, dropped dead on his way back from the pub.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘He was seventy-five, nearly seventy-six, didn’t get married till he was middle-aged. Going to work, I’d say that’s a mug’s game wouldn’t you? In this society it’s money that makes money.’
‘Perhaps you should have carried on your father’s business,’ I said, then regretted the remark in case it upset her, although she seemed to find it highly amusing.
‘That’s what Nikki said, that’s the kind of thing she’d have liked to do. Had her head screwed on, could have made a success of running a business if she’d had the capital to get it started. Anyway Dad’s garage went under long ago, when they built the by-pass.’
The fridge had stopped its racket and even the television in the front room seemed quieter. Ronnie glanced at the wall clock, a Friesian cow with a head that kept time with the ticks. ‘Must seem like a wasted journey,’ she said. ‘If I could think of anything that might help the little boy … The police always suspect the husband, don’t they, and I suppose they’re usually right, but not in this case or they’d have arrested him by now.’
We sat in silence for a few uneasy moments, then both started talking at once.
‘No, go ahead.’ Ronnie stood up to let a sleepy looking wasp out of the window.
I had been going to ask more questions about the office, but changed my mind.
‘So as far as you know — I’m sure the police must have checked — Nikki had no particular friend she spent time with after she left work?’
‘That’s what everyone wanted to know. Now and again she’d hint there might be someone only I couldn’t tell you his name and none of the girls knew it either. Sharon thought Nikki had made it up.’
