Healers (8 page)

At seven-thirty they had a coffee break and trooped off to the cafeteria.

“What’s wrong with you tonight then, Val?” asked one woman, who still wore the white overall she used at work. “Going down with something, pet?”

“Perhaps I am,” Val said. “Some sort of bug.”

“We don’t want you going sick on us, do we, girls? We’d miss our Monday nights. I would anyway. If school had been a bit more like this I might have done something with my life.”

“You’d have been a brain surgeon, would you?” said her friend. “Instead of a packer at Fullertons.” Fullertons made toiletries for most of the big chain stores. You could always tell the women who worked there. They smelled faintly of chemicals and cheap perfume.

“You never know I might and all,” said the first woman, waiting for them all to laugh. “What do you think, Val? Make a good brain surgeon, would I?”

“Why not?” Val replied, although she had only been half following the conversation. They laughed again and shared round the cigarettes. They could not imagine what troubles Val might have. She lived in a big house with a husband who worked at the University and two sons you could be proud of. She didn’t get letters from the Gas Board threatening to cut off the supply or the police at her door because one of the kids had got into bother again.

“Back to the grindstone then,” Val said and led them back to the classroom on the third floor for another hour of simple fractions and decimals.

The class finished at eight-thirty but there were always students who wanted to stay behind to chat. Usually she liked to be home by nine because there was a television programme she enjoyed watching a thriller set in Glasgow which Charles said was trash. Tonight she was reluctant to let them go. She had things on her mind and if she were alone she would be forced to come to a decision. So far she had done nothing, but that, she thought as the last of the women clattered down the bare concrete steps, had been a decision of sorts.

On her way to her car she walked past the lecture hall and saw that the speaker was still on his feet. She thought there’d been a good turn out but it was hard to tell. He’d been showing slides and the body of the hall was in darkness. She contemplated slipping into the back to watch the remainder of the speech there was no one at home to go back to but decided against it. She still found crowds intimidating.

In the car park she hesitated. She was sure the Abbots and Magda would have attended the lecture Daniel Abbot was giving the introduction. Perhaps she should wait and speak to them. She scanned the row of cars briefly but did not see the Abbots’ Rover or Magda’s VW. It was probably just as well, she thought. Probably they were the last people she should speak to.

In the car she switched on the radio hoping to get some local news, but there was only pop music and she turned it off. It had been a lousy weekend, she thought as she drove through the quiet suburban streets. Magda’s invitation to supper had been an honour, but she should have turned it down, explained that Charles always cooked on Saturdays, made some excuse. It hadn’t lived up to expectations anyway. Magda had brought up the subject of Juniper Hall again. She seemed to be probing for information. Val thought that after all this time they should let Faye Cooper rest in peace.

Sunday had been even worse. Usually she loved Magda’s group. Charles had been in such a bad mood that she almost decided to skip it. She wished now that she’d stayed at home.

Perhaps it’s all the lying that’s getting me down, she thought, as she approached her street. All the pretence. Because Charles knew nothing of her connection with the Alternative Therapy Centre. She could imagine the ridicule she’d be tormented with if he ever found out. Quacks or morons, he always said if he read an item about complementary medicine in the newspaper, directing the same scorn at them as he did at organized religion or the kids she taught. She could talk to James, of course, but it hardly seemed fair to burden her son with her problems, especially now when he was preparing for exams. He’d been through enough lately … She realized that her thoughts had been rambling and that she was home. The house was dark and empty. Charles was always back late on Monday nights. He had a meeting of sociology department staff which sometimes went on until midnight. At least that was what he told Val. She suspected that Monday was his night for Heather, his postgraduate student and occasional mistress. Val imagined them sometimes in Heather’s hall of residence bed sit making love in a single bed while the thump of other students’ music came through the walls. She found it hard to picture Charles, so obsessive, so concerned about his privacy, performing in such circumstances, but perhaps these Monday nights had become part of his routine, and if Heather cancelled one he would be as put out as he was with her missing dinner on Saturday.

Usually on Monday nights James was waiting for her. Often he’d have cooked the supper and have a bottle of wine open. He never mentioned the tension between her and Charles but he knew how things stood.

“Come on, Mum,” he’d say. “You need spoiling.”

Now he was away on a week’s geography field trip, roughing it in a youth hostel in Keswick. Oh well, she thought, tonight I’ll have to spoil myself.

The house was not large but it was detached and set back from the road. When they had bought it they had scarcely been able to afford the mortgage but Charles had been determined to have it. It suited his need for privacy and reflected his self-importance. There was a small car she did not recognize parked in the road outside the house. Most of James’s friends had cars and she wondered if someone had come to visit him, not realizing he was away, but the driver’s seat was empty and she thought no more about it. As she pulled her car into the gravel drive the security light came on, illuminating the high holly hedge that Charles had encouraged to separate the house from the street. Although it had been Charles’s choice she had come to like the house too. Was that why she still put up with him, she thought, because she couldn’t face moving?

The front door bad two locks, a Yale and a mortice, and she juggled with keys and an armful of books to get it open. Inside, she felt herself relax and made up her mind to put off any decision until later. She would not upset her prized husband-free evening with gloomy thoughts. She always enjoyed Monday evenings: the appreciation of the women from Fullertons, the sense that after all she was achieving something worthwhile at work, made her feel like celebrating and she didn’t see why she should miss out on that tonight.

She dumped the exercise books on the kitchen table and wandered through to the living room to switch on the television. She must be later than usual because the serial had already started. As she drew the long curtains across the patio doors she thought there was a movement in the back garden. The cat, she thought. The light always attracted him. She expected any minute to hear the cat flap in the utility room door and to feel him rubbing against her legs for food.

She left the living-room door open so she could watch the television from the kitchen. Did youth hostels have televisions these days? she wondered. James had always liked the programme too. It occurred to her that soon he would be away to university and she realized for the first time how much she would miss him. That would be the time to break away from Charles, she thought. She’d discuss the idea with Magda. Magda would know what to do.

She did nothing elaborate for supper. Toasted cheese covered with thin strips of smoked ham, and mayonnaise to go with it. She put the plate on a tray and carried it through to the living room, then returned to the kitchen to open a bottle of wine. The thriller was twenty minutes in and the adverts had started. There was still no sign of the cat. She opened the back door and called to him but the signature tune of the programme attracted her back. She ate the meal and drank half a bottle of wine before the ten o’clock news. The worry of the day now seemed slightly ridiculous. It was all a fuss about nothing.

She might even have started to doze because the front doorbell made her jump, although when she looked at the clock it had still only just gone ten.

Bloody Charles, she thought. That’s all I need. She imagined him rejected for some reason by Heather. Frustrated. Demanding. She knew that Charles should have a key but it was quite in character, if the key wasn’t immediately at hand, to inconvenience her rather than look for it. The doorbell rang again, more insistently.

Sod you, Charles, she thought, still drowsy, stumbling from her chair.

She opened the door, not bothering to attach the chain which Charles had insisted on having fitted. Behind her, in the background, came the noise of the television news. A man’s voice talked of the renewal of the Bosnian Peace Talks. But Val did not hear what he said. The door was pushed open from the outside against her. The babbling television voice hid the sound of her struggles and the muffled screams as the life was squeezed from her.

Chapter Ten

There was nothing at first to connect Val McDougal with Ernie Bowles. They had both been strangled, but the methods used had been altogether different. Bowles had been killed manually. The marks of the fingers on his neck had been quite obvious. Val had been strangled by a piece of thin nylon rope, twisted into a noose. It had been left behind at the scene of the crime but it would be of little assistance in tracing the murderer. It had been cut from a ball which had been left outside on the McDougal’s patio -Val had been tying climbing roses on to a trellis there. All this indicated was that the murderer had not come prepared.

Then what could the victims have in common? They were perhaps of a similar age but there was no indication that they had ever met. Their backgrounds and education would suggest that they led quite different lives. They had lived fifty miles apart and Ernie seldom strayed beyond Mittingford. James McDougal, who might have thrown some light on this, was in a small group on a two-day survival trek through the fells and had not even been informed of his mother’s death.

Charles McDougal had been of so little help that at first he was suspected of killing his wife.

When he was questioned he lied about where he had been all evening. At a university meeting, he told the duty detective who came out early on Tuesday morning, all bleary-eyed from being woken from sleep. A university meeting which had dragged on. Then, when he realized that the detective did not believe him, that he was actually in danger of being arrested, he changed his story and suddenly became very helpful. He said he was sorry to have been so foolish. Shock did strange things to people. The notion that he might have appeared foolish seemed to distress him more than the death of his wife and he made a great effort then to be calm and efficient. He gave the detective Heather’s name and address. She was woken just as it was getting light and confirmed his story. She said that Charles had been with her all evening. Until one in the morning, when he had gone home to find the front door still ajar and his wife’s body slumped at the bottom of the stairs.

“I thought she’d fallen,” he said to the policeman who was taking the statement. “I thought it was a terrible accident.”

Later that day Ramsay came to ask him about possible connections with Ernie Bowies.

“I’m sorry,” Charles said. “I’ve never heard the name before. I suppose he could have been one of her mature students.”

That seemed unlikely from the beginning and when they checked they found out that Ernie had left school at fourteen and had had no education of any sort since.

“Did your wife have any reason to go to Mittingford?” Ramsay asked.

Charles shook his head. “We used to go there when the boys were young. For family picnics, you know. To walk along the river. But we haven’t been there recently. Probably not for years.”

“Did anything unusual happen over the weekend?” Ramsay asked.

“Not really. She went out on Saturday night. Usually we spent that together.”

“Where did she go?” It occurred to Ramsay that Val could have been a witness to the Bowles murder. Perhaps that was the connection.

“I’m not sure. Out for a meal with a friend, she said.”

“And the name of the friend?”

Charles shrugged. “I’m not sure. Someone she met when she was on holiday last year.”

“What did she do on Sunday?”

“I don’t know. I went into the university to do some work. I think she went for a walk. She was here when I got back, helping James get ready to go away.”

“And she didn’t seem at all upset or distressed?”

“Of course not. She wasn’t that sort at all.” But Ramsay thought he would have been so wrapped up in his own affairs that he would not have noticed.

“Perhaps you could give us the names of some of her friends,” Ramsay said. “People who knew her well. People she might have confided in.”

“She didn’t have many friends. Not of her own. Wives of my colleagues, of course, but no one she was close to. Occasionally people phoned to speak to her. Last autumn she went away for a weekend break. Somewhere in Cumbria. She’d had a heavy term and needed time to recharge her batteries. That’s what she said, though her work never seemed that demanding to me. I think she got to know some people then.”

“And they were the people who phoned?”

“I think so. Yes.”

When Ramsay pressed him for details of the weekend trip he could not help. His affair with Heather had been at the height of its passion then and he had been grateful just to have two days to himself.

“It was a really busy time,” he told Ramsay. “The start of the academic year. You know. I expect she told me where she was staying but really I don’t remember. No. I never had the phone number of the hotel. We didn’t live in each other’s pockets. Someone at the college might know.”

But her friends from college knew nothing about her holiday either. They remembered her going away, thought it would do her some good. She was too conscientious. Put her heart and soul into her work. She’d swapped one of her classes so she could have Friday afternoon free. But they couldn’t remember where she’d been going or even if she’d said.