Healers (26 page)

Ramsay continued: “We’re planning a reconstruction of James’s walk from the high school to his home, and then on to the cemetery tomorrow. Officers will be in position all along the route to jog memories and ask questions. I’m sure you’ll be co-operative. In the meantime, will any member of the public who feels they can help call the Mittingford incident room.”

There was a shouted question from a crumpled, middle-aged man at the back of the room.

“I can take it, Inspector, that you’re looking for one culprit for all three murders?”

“I’m not prepared to rule anything out at this stage.”

A young reporter from Radio Newcastle, with hair cropped so short that she looked like a baby seal, raised her hand, thrust a microphone towards him.

“Yes?” Ramsay said.

“I understand that you’ve been investigating another death connected with Mittingford Alternative Therapy Centre,” she said in a clear voice. “Can you confirm that?”

Ramsay was obviously thrown for a moment.

“We have been following many lines of enquiry,” he said, noncommittally. “So far none of the leads have been particularly encouraging.”

“Is it true that the person in question was a young girl called Faye Cooper, who drowned last year at a hotel in Cumbria? The inquest verdict was accidental death but you believe there may have been foul play.”

The room was hushed, waiting for his reply.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m not prepared to answer that question.”

“Why didn’t he just deny it?” Hunter shouted to the assembled gathering in the pub. “I said all along someone was trying to piss us about. We know now that the poor kid killed herself.” He fancied himself on the television. His mam would love it. She’d get all the neighbours in to watch.

In the police station the cameras were switched off and the reporters began to gather up their equipment. Ramsay approached the young woman from Radio Newcastle who was checking her tape.

“Where did you get that information about Faye Cooper?” he asked. “From her mother?”

“No,” the reporter said. “At least I don’t think so.” She looked up sharply, smelling a story. “Why? Is it important?”

“It could be.”

“There was a phone call to the news room this morning. Anonymous. No proof of course, but I thought I’d just give it a whirl, see what response I got.”

“Was the caller mate or female?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t take it myself. I can probably find out for you if you like. Give you a ring here later this evening.”

“Please.” he said. Then: “There’s no truth in the story, you know. It’s not worth following up.”

“Why didn’t you say that on air?” Ramsay did not reply. He was not quite sure himself.

When the team trooped back to the incident room the phones were already starting to ring. Ramsay stood by his desk, accepting the cheers and the backhanded compliments.

“You didn’t do bad, sir, even if you’re not the prettiest thing that’s been on the telly this week.”

“At least you didn’t fall off the platform like that DCI at the press call in Newcastle.”

“Well, Gordon?” he asked as Hunter came in. “What did you think?”

“I was wondering why you didn’t scotch the story that Faye Cooper was murdered.” It was Hunter in his most truculent mood, graceless and offensive.

“I think,” Ramsay said, “I wanted to keep the murderer guessing.”

Hunter was not going to give his boss the satisfaction of asking what that meant. He mooched on towards his desk. The inspector called him back.

“Can I have a word? I’ve got a job for you.” Something you’ll enjoy, he thought. Something that’s right down your street.

“What is it?” Hunter asked.

“Let’s get out of here, shall we? I could do with some fresh air. I’ve been stuck in this place all day.”

“If you say so,” Hunter said rudely. “You’re the boss.”

Ramsay led him down the path to the children’s playground by the river. They sat on the bench. There were two teenagers, a boy and a girl standing on the swings, talking shyly, but when they saw the policemen they disappeared.

“Perhaps they recognized you from the telly, sir,” Hunter said snidely. “You must be famous.”

Ramsay said nothing, though of course all the town knew who they were by now. They didn’t need the television for that.

“What do you want me to do, like?”

“Talk to Daniel Abbot,” Ramsay said. “It seems clear now that the girl committed suicide and the diary’s too vague for us to charge him with sexual assault. But let him know that we’re on to him. Make it clear that if anything of that sort happens again we’ll be down on him like a ton of bricks.”

Hunter was staring across the river and did not answer immediately. Ramsay was surprised by the lack of enthusiasm. Usually Hunter jumped at the chance to intimidate.

“Scare him away from Rebecca Booth, you mean,” the sergeant said at last.

“Aye,” Ramsay said. “If you can.”

“Oh, I can manage that all right.” But there was no real pleasure in the thought.

They sat in silence.

“Are you all right?” Ramsay asked tentatively.

“What d’ya mean?” Hunter demanded aggressively.

Ramsay shrugged. “You don’t seem yourself. I

wondered if something was bothering you.”

Hunter frowned, did not answer directly.

“Do you mind if I ask you something, sir?”

“Go on.”

“Do you think there’s anything in this alternative medicine crap?”

Ramsay was amused but knew better than to show it.

“I’m not sure. I suppose I try to keep an open mind.”

“I was wondering, y’kna, if I was missing out on something. Personal growth. Isn’t that what they call it? Finding out about yourself.” He looked at Ramsay earnestly.

“You seem to have survived without it,” Ramsay said.

“But I just can’t see it working!” Hunter went on. “Needles in the hand to cure headaches. Energy forces in the body. And that re birthing -lying on your back for an hour, just breathing. That’s all bullshit, isn’t it?”

“It’s not illegal,” Ramsay said, ‘which is all that concerns us at present.”

But he could see that more than that concerned Hunter. Oh my God, Ramsay thought. He’s fallen for the girl.

Lily Jackman was thinking about Hunter too. When she and Sean had first moved into the Laverock farmhouse they had stayed in the kitchen. They put their sleeping bags on the floor each night to sleep and they washed in the sink. After all, they had come into the kitchen when Ernie was alive. They were more comfortable there. The rest of the house had seemed out of bounds.

Later, however, they took the place over. They even slept upstairs, in the room that had once been Cissie Bowles’s. It still smelled faintly of the moxa herb used in acupuncture and there were pots of homoeopathic remedies on the huge Victorian dressing table. And in the evenings they went into Cissie Bowles’s lounge, with the grandfather clock and scratched leather chairs, and watched the television. They were sitting there, eating beans on toast from a tray, when the police press conference came on.

“Isn’t that the policeman?” Sean said. “Not the one that’s been sniffing round you all week. His boss.”

He switched the sound up, motioned to her to be quiet until it had finished. When it was over he seemed pleased with himself.

“Sean,” she said, “I’ve been thinking …”

Something in her voice made him turn round sharply. “What?” he demanded.

“I wanted to ask you …” she said, then her voice trailed away. “Oh, it’s nothing. Probably it’s nothing.”

At Long Edge Farm the Richardsons were watching the local television news while they were finishing their evening meal. Mrs. Richardson had made a venison stew, braised in brown ale. She still had plans to open a restaurant at the farm for visitors and she’d been practising. She thought the food should have a local flavour.

“What do you think?” she said to Stan.

“It’s all right,” he said grudgingly. “At least there’s meat in it.”

Because she had taken to cooking vegetarian meals, in preparation for when the Abbots took over Laverock Farm. They might pick up quite a few customers from there, she thought. She felt very optimistic about it.

“Look,” she said, ‘there’s Inspector Ramsay on the television.” She giggled. “Doesn’t he look dishy!” She still used words like that. “Dishy’ and ‘smashing’ and jolly good show’. It was as if she were stuck as a schoolgirl in the early sixties. Nothing could shake her enthusiasm, not even her husband’s indifference. She turned to her son who had been eating, steadily and silently. “You never did tell me what he wanted the other day, Peter.”

“You’ve never been here to ask,” he said.

“I have been busy,” she said complacently, knowing that it was only her effort which was keeping the farm together.

Stan Richardson pushed his plate away from him. His attention was still on the television. He watched the young reporter ask her questions about Faye Cooper, saw Ramsay’s awkwardness, the noncommittal reply.

“Didn’t you know a lass called Faye a while back?” he asked his son.

“So what?” Peter said defiantly.

“Nothing. I just wondered if it was the same girl, that’s all.”

“Why should I care? I moved on from that ages ago.”

He slammed his plate on the draining board.

“Can I borrow your car tonight?” he asked his mother.

“Of course, pet,” she said, absentmindedly finishing the last of her meal.

“It’s about time you got a car of your own!” Stan shouted after him as he left the room. “I pay you enough. It’s about time you stood on your own two feet!”

Magda Pocock did not possess a television so she did not see Ramsay’s appeal for information. The inspector saw her, silhouetted against the lighted, sloping window of her flat when he went back to the pub to phone Prue. He would be working for most of the night and he needed a break. From Hunter, as much as anything, who was still self-absorbed and short-tempered. Even a successful interview with Daniel Abbot had failed to cheer him up, though he described it with a gloomy satisfaction.

“I had him snivelling like a bairn,” Hunter said. “He blamed it all on the lass, of course. Said she overreacted to a simple gesture of friendship.

But we’ll have no trouble from him again.”

Magda moved her head, her hands, her feet in slow, fluid movements. Ramsay stood in the street and watched her. She could not see him because it was almost dark. Besides, her concentration was complete. Tai Chi, he thought. Weren’t Chinese parks fun of elderly men at dawn, performing the same sort of actions? What could they hope to get out of it?

There must be something positive. Even the cynical Hunter was wondering if he was missing out.

Ramsay walked on up the street and when he turned back to look at the Old Chapel Magda was sitting perfectly still, in some form of meditation. Perhaps he should give it a go, he thought. Because he had the feeling that he now had all the information he needed to draw the enquiry to a conclusion, and if he was sufficiently focused and concentrated he could come to an answer.

Prue answered the phone immediately so he thought she’d probably had an early night. Often she worked in bed. He could imagine her there, surrounded by books and scripts, a bottle of wine on the bedside table, a packet of chocolate biscuits.

“Saw you on the telly tonight,” she said. “Very impressive.”

“Did you think so?” He was rather flattered.

“Very. You got over what you wanted from the public and gave them no information at all.”

“Oh.”

“When am I going to get you back then?” she said. “I don’t much like being a single woman again.”

“Soon,” he said. “Very soon. I think it’ll all be over tomorrow.”

When he went back to the incident room Magda was still sitting by the uncurtained window, her legs crossed, her eyes shut.

Chapter Thirty-one

As expected there were plenty of calls from cranks and exhibitionists. People with a grudge wanting revenge. People with an axe to grind. The link made by the press of the murders to the Old Chapel gave the venom a particular flavour. Supporters of the Natural Therapy Centre claimed the police investigation had been an establishment plot to discredit complementary medicine. Religious bigots made accusations about New Age ideology: satanic ritual and paganism.

But there were genuine callers, hesitant and embarrassed, who stumbled over their explanations: “I don’t suppose it’s important but …”

When Ramsay returned to the incident room the phones were still ringing. There had been a quiet period after eight o’clock but the appeal for information had been broadcast again at nine-thirty and there was renewed activity.

Rob Newell was sitting at the desk nearest the door. He looked quite incongruous, dressed in a Young Conservative’s idea of casual clothes twill trousers, a shirt in Boy Scout khaki and a tweedy tie.

“Well?” Ramsay asked. “Any pattern emerging?”

“Several people have phoned about a car parked in Ferndale Avenue that Monday evening,” Newell said. “It was parked outside the McDougals’ house for a couple of hours, though no one seems to have seen the driver.”

“Description of the vehicle?”

“Small red hatchback. Nova or Fiesta. We’ll send people out with photos tomorrow and try to narrow it down.”

“What about the day James McDougal died? Was the same car seen then?”

Newell shook his head.

“We’ve had a disappointing response on that,” he said, ‘though a neighbour confirms that Mrs. Abbot was there. Saw her from an upstairs window. Apparently there were residents at home but none of them had any reason to go out into the street. It was early afternoon. Kids were still at school. The people who did venture out only got as far as their back gardens to sit in the sun.”

Ramsay allowed his impatience to show. He raised his voice so the whole room could hear. He wanted them to know how important it was. “Are you telling me that Ferndale Avenue was empty all afternoon?” he demanded. “Because I don’t believe you. What about tradesmen? What about bin men? Window cleaners? Find out what time the post box in Ferndale Avenue is emptied and talk to the postman. Find out if any charity envelopes or advertising junk was delivered in the area that afternoon. Do any of the elderly residents have home helps? You get the idea. Use a bit of no use and imagination.”