Healers (19 page)

He looked across at the group of officers at the other table and frowned. They were becoming rowdy. They’d already had too much to drink. He knew they were frustrated. They thought the case was going nowhere. He did not really want the drink Hunter had bought for him, but he took it anyway, finished it off quickly. Hunter was in a mood to take offence.

“I’ll go then,” he said. “See what Peter Richardson has got to say for himself.”

Outside, a group of teenagers stood, looking bored, at the bus shelter. They stared as he walked past and he thought that everyone in Mittingford knew who he was. It was inconceivable in a place like this that someone did not know who had strangled Ernie Bowles. The town was already in shadow, and the air was suddenly cold. He walked quickly past the Old Chapel towards the police station.

In the incident room staff were still on duty, manning the phone, being available to talk to members of the public who came in off the street with scraps of information, most of it irrelevant. “I remember the last time I saw Ernie Bowles at market he seemed very peculiar. Odd, you know. I thought you’d be interested. He bought me a pint and he’s never done that before in his life. He wanted to talk about his mother

…”

It was all written down and processed. Anything of interest was copied and left on Ramsay’s desk. When he saw the paper that had accumulated there in his absence he felt overwhelmed by it. He left a message saying where he was going and drove into the hills.

Chapter Twenty-two

When Ramsay arrived at Long Edge Farm the lights were on but none of the curtains had been drawn. There was enough light from a thin moon to see the family cars pulled up in front of the house: Sue Richardson’s red Fiesta, a Land-Rover and a big Volvo Estate. Either local hill farmers were crying wolf about the Common Market sheep subsidies or the holiday cottage business was booming. Ramsay walked round to the kitchen door and knocked there.

The Richardsons had obviously just finished a meal. Sue was piling plates into a dishwasher, with astonishing deftness and speed. Stan was slumped in his wicker chair watching a small television which stood on the breakfast bar. The smell of the meal something spicy and oriental which Ramsay guessed Stan would have turned his nose up at lingered in the room and made Ramsay realize that he had not eaten.

“Oh, it’s you.” Stan said. “What are you after now?”

“A few questions,” Ramsay said, easily. “Is Peter in?”

Sue turned from rinsing pots in the sink. “He’s in the bath. Just getting ready to go out.”

“You won’t mind if I wait then?”

Stan gave a bad-tempered scowl but Sue jumped in before he could speak: “Of course not. Sit down. Would you like a drink? Tea? Coffee?”

“Coffee, please.” It had been a long day. He could do with a shot of caffeine to keep him going.

“Turn off the television, Stan,” she said chidingly as if he were a child. He grumbled under his breath but did as he was told. Ramsay thought that despite his rudeness he always did. He was probably instructed to keep away from the paying guests. Unless he could be polite.

“I understand that you’re interested in the Laverock Farm land,” Ramsay said.

“Oh aye. Who told you that?”

“It seems to be general gossip in the town,”

“Well, you’re best not believing anything you hear.”

“It’s not true then?”

“Depends on the price,” he admitted reluctantly. “And what sort of deal I can get.”

“Even with a load of “hippies” living in the house?”

He snorted.

“I’ve told Stan I don’t think that will be a problem,” Sue interrupted again. “I’ve seen the sort of operation they run at the Old Chapel. I like to shop there, actually. Some of my guests prefer organic produce. It’s very professional. I don’t think we’d have anything to worry about if the Abbots took over. It might even work to our advantage. Some of our visitors might be attracted by the facilities they’d provide. Anything would be better than Ernie Bowles, with his smelly old dog, swearing at anyone who went near him.”

So Cissie’s plan had backfired, Ramsay thought. She had hoped to upset the neighbours. Instead they saw the Alternative Therapy Centre as a tourist attraction.

“What do you want with the lad then?” Stan demanded.

“Some information,” Ramsay said. “It’ll not take long.”

“I’d best go and fetch him for you. He’d spend all night in the bloody bathroom given the chance. Then I’ll be in the other room watching the television if you want me.”

He stomped out of the kitchen. Sue watched him go with an indulgent smile. Through the open door they heard him yell up the stairs to Peter: “That police inspector wants to see you. Get your arse down here!”

Sue slammed shut the dishwasher door and pretended not to hear. She poured coffee for Ramsay and set it before him with a slice of fruit cake.

Peter swaggered in ten minutes later. He was wearing the trendy Geordie’s uniform for a night on the town: expensive and immaculately fitting jeans, a short-sleeved open-necked shirt and a lot of gold. This was standard dress in Newcastle even when there was snow on the ground and ten degrees of frost.

Sue Richardson looked at her watch. “If you don’t mind, Inspector, I’ll leave you to it. Another family is moving in to one of our cottages tomorrow. There’s a cot to put up and I want to check that everything’s ready for them.”

She flashed him a professional smile and disappeared.

Peter stood with his back to the Aga. “Inspector,” he said sneering. “What a surprise! How can I help you?”

“I want to ask about Faye Cooper,” Ramsay said. “She was a friend of yours?”

It wasn’t what he had been expecting and the mask of arrogance slipped. He played with the gold chain on his wrist.

“Yes,” he said uncertainly. “I knew her for a while.”

“I wouldn’t have thought she was your sort,” Ramsay said.

Peter did not answer.

“But she was your girlfriend?”

“I suppose so.”

“Where did you meet her?” He had been anxious about that from the start. They would hardly have had many friends in common.

“In the Old Chapel.” He seemed almost ashamed of admitting that he had ever been there. It didn’t fit in with his image. “In the coffee place. Mum asked me to get some stuff from the health food shop and I stopped for a drink. She’d been visiting the Abbots. We got talking. She said she was a student in Otterbridge. I’d just finished at the agricultural college. There was something about her … I asked her out. On the spur of the moment, you know.”

“And she agreed?”

“Yes, she agreed. I was surprised. I suppose I was just trying it on.” He paused. “We arranged to meet in a pub in Otterbridge because she didn’t have any transport. I almost didn’t go. She wasn’t my type really. Too serious. Too intense. But, like I said, there was something about her.”

“Did she tell you she already had a boyfriend?”

“Yeah. I thought that was a good sign. I didn’t want to get into anything too heavy.”

“How long did you go out with her?”

“It wasn’t like that. I mean, it wasn’t as if we were engaged or anything. She still had her boyfriend, James, and I was seeing other women … We talked mostly. Went for walks. I didn’t really think of her as my girlfriend.”

The relationship with Faye had obviously confused him. Girlfriends you took out to clubs and pubs. If they let you, you screwed them. If they didn’t, you dumped them. His friendship with Faye had been different, less clear cut. He hadn’t known how to handle it.

“But Faye did consider herself your girlfriend, didn’t she? She told James about you. And last summer she got a job in Mittingford so she could be close to you.”

“I told her not to do that,” he said. I knew it would be a mistake.”

“Cramp your style, you mean?”

“If you like!” The macho lout had returned. “I wasn’t ready to be tied down. Not to a lass like her.”

“Is that what she wanted? To be tied down?”

“Oh,” he said, “I never knew what she wanted.”

“Did your parents know that you were seeing Faye?”

“They knew I was seeing someone called Faye. They never met her.”

“Wouldn’t they have approved?”

“It wasn’t that.” It was because she wasn’t leggy and ornamental, Ramsay thought. She was pretty enough, but she would have worn the wrong clothes, given the wrong impression altogether. He would have been embarrassed to be seen out with her. “None of my friends knew,” Peter said. “They wouldn’t have understood.”

“Did Faye understand?” Ramsay asked. “Didn’t she mind being kept a secret?”

“I don’t think she realized,” Peter muttered. “She really liked me, you see.” Then, trying to be flippant, a man of the world: “Women are such romantics, aren’t they?”

“You went out with her all that summer?”

He nodded. “Not often, though. The Abbots were real slave-drivers. She didn’t have much time to herself.”

“Did she ever meet Ernie Bowles?” The question suddenly occurred to him.

“No. Not when she was with me. Why?”

Ramsay did not answer. “Did you ever consider putting an end to the relationship?” he said. “If she was such an embarrassment …”

“Of course I considered it. But I liked her. She listened. And I wasn’t sure how she’d handle it. She didn’t have anyone else. I suppose I didn’t have the guts. Besides, I knew she’d go back to college at the end of the summer. I thought it would die a natural death.”

“Instead,” Ramsay said, ‘she died a natural death.”

Peter flushed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make a joke. Not about that.”

Suddenly he became almost likeable.

“Tell me about her,” Ramsay said. “You must have known her better than anyone.”

Peter shrugged. He wasn’t used to putting feelings and impressions into words.

“Everything was black or white with Faye. She either loved you or hated you. She hated her stepfather. “I had to get away from that house,” she said, “or I’d have killed him.” The crowd at the Old Chapel were her heroes. She quoted them all the time: Daniel said that or Magda said this. It really got on your nerves …” He paused. He had more to say but he wasn’t sure how to put it. “She didn’t play safe,” he said. “There was no pretence. If she liked you, she said so. If she wanted something, she asked for it. There was no … protective layer between her and the world.”

He blushed again. “This must sound dead stupid. Do you know what I mean?”

Ramsay nodded. “I think so. It would have meant that she’d be easily hurt.”

“That’s why I found it so hard to tell her that I didn’t want to see her again.”

“Did you tell her that?”

“In the end.”

“What happened?”

“Like I said, I expected we’d stop seeing each other so often when she went back to Otterbridge. She’d become too demanding. I wouldn’t have minded meeting her occasionally …”

On your own terms, Ramsay thought. To have your ego massaged. To be flattered by her admiration.

“But that wasn’t enough for her. She seemed to be obsessed. She even phoned me here, begging me to go out to Otterbridge to meet her.”

“I expect she was lonely,” Ramsay said. “It must have been hard to go back to her bed sit after having had company all summer.”

“I suppose it was.” He was so self-centred that the idea had never occurred to him before. “Anyway I thought I should make a clean break of it. Tell her straight that I didn’t want to see her again.”

“When did you do that?”

“I’m not sure exactly. Not long after she left here to go back to college.”

“How did she take it?”

“She seemed all right,” he said. “Quite controlled. She didn’t burst into hysterics or anything, which is what I expected. It was a bit hard to tell because I told her on the phone. I couldn’t face a mega scene in public. At least she stopped bothering me.”

So you could forget all about her, Ramsay thought. You could go back to your mates in the rugby club and making money. And a much more suitable girlfriend.

“Then I heard she was dead,” Peter went on, bleakly.

“Who told you?”

“Mrs. Abbot phoned me. She’d never liked me but she thought I should know.”

“She didn’t blame you in any way?”

“What do you mean?”

“She didn’t suggest that Faye killed herself because of the way you’d treated her?” He realized that was cruel, but he felt vaguely that Peter deserved it.

The boy was defensive and all the bluster returned. “Of course not. I’d finished with her a couple of weeks before that. She’d had time to get over it, hadn’t she? Besides, I thought it was an accident.” He thrust his head towards Ramsay. “You can’t go around making that sort of allegation. What’s this got to do with you anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Ramsay said as he let himself out of the house. “I really don’t know.”

When he returned to the hotel most of his team were still in the bar. He hurried past the door to the stairs so no one should see him. From his room he phoned Prue. She seemed pleased to hear from him and when he replaced the receiver he was comforted, more optimistic.

Chapter Twenty-three

Early the next morning the Abbots sat over muesli and apple juice. Win was still in her nightdress, a long, shroud-like garment. She looked faded; her skin had the dusty, dried out texture of dead leaves. Daniel felt a shudder of irritation, even of disgust. He had never found her sexually attractive. Now her lethargy repulsed him. But not enough, he realized, for him to consider leaving her and risking all that they had achieved together.

The telephone rang. It was Ramsay, requesting an interview.

“I’m seeing a patient at nine,” Daniel said.

“I must see you this morning.” Ramsay was polite but emphatic.

“I could be free by eleven-thirty,” Daniel said. He replaced the receiver slowly.

“He’ll want to talk about Faye,” Win said. She looked at him anxiously.

“Of course …” He paused. “I wonder who’s stirring up trouble after all this time.”

He spooned yoghurt on to his muesli and said, as if he were changing the subject completely: “Do you think Lily would have the boys this afternoon?”

“I expect so. I think it’s her afternoon off. Now they’re staying in the house I could phone and ask.” Win faced him uncertainly across the breakfast table. He realized she was frightened of him and felt an exhilarating rush of energy.