Peter Robinson - Cold Is The Grave

“I didn’t know that.” Annie would have been the first to admit that she didn’t know much about religion except what she had read, and she had read mostly about Buddhism and Taoism. Her father was an atheist, so he hadn’t subjected her to Sunday school or any of the usual childhood indoctrination, and the people who came and went in the commune carried with them a variety of ideas about religion and philosophy. Everything was always up for debate, up in the air.

“I mean, if whatever happens to you is God’s will, good or bad, then you’ve no call to be complaining to God about God, if you see what I mean.”

“I think I do.”

“They were just a bit old-fashioned, that’s all. People used to laugh behind their backs. Oh, nothing vicious or anything. It was mostly good-humored. Not that they’d have noticed. That was another thing that wasn’t in their religion. Humor. I did feel a bit sorry for young Ruth sometimes.”

“Why?”

“Well, there wasn’t much fun in her life. And young people need fun. Even us old ’uns need a bit of fun from time to time, but when you’re young…” She sighed. “Anyway, the Walkers’ values were different from other folks’. And they didn’t have much money, with only him working.”

“How did they get by?”

“Parsimony. She were a good housekeeper, Pauline, I’ll give her that. Good budgeter. But it meant that young Ruth could hardly stay up-to-date with fashions and whatnot. You’d see her in the same outfit year after year. A nip here and a tuck there. And shoes. Good Lord, she’d be clomping around in the most ugly things you could imagine. Pauline bought her them because they were durable, you see. Sturdy, sensible things with thick soles so they’d last a long time. None of these Nike trainers or Reeboks, like the other kids were wearing. Like it or not, love, fashions are so important to children, especially in their teens.” She laughed. “I should know; I’ve brought up two of them.”

“What happened?”

“The usual. The other girls at school laughed at her, called her names, tormented her. Children can be so cruel. And they’d no time for music or telly, either – wouldn’t have a record player or a television set in the house – so poor Ruth couldn’t join in the conversations with the rest. She didn’t know all about the latest hits and the popular television programs. She was always a bit of a loner. It wasn’t as if she was a great beauty, either. She was always a rather pasty-faced, dumpy sort of lass, and that kind are easy to pick on.”

It was starting to sound like a pretty miserable household to grow up in, Annie thought. The artists’ colony where she had grown up herself didn’t have a television, either, but there was always music – often live – and all sorts of interesting people around. Some nights they would sing songs and recite poems. She could hear them from her bedroom. It was all mumbo-jumbo to her then, of course, none of it rhymed or anything, but they seemed to enjoy themselves. Sometimes, they let her sing for them, too, and if she said so herself, she didn’t have a bad voice for traditional folk music.

Still, she thought she could relate to Ruth’s feeling of being an outsider. If you’re different in any way – no matter whether your family’s too strict or too liberal – you get picked on, especially if you aren’t up on the latest styles, too. Children are cruel; Mrs. Tattersall was right about that. Annie could remember some of their cruelties of her own childhood very well indeed.

Once, when she was about thirteen, a gang of classmates had waylaid her in the lane on her way home from school, dragged her into the trees, stripped her and painted flowers all over her body while they made remarks about filthy, drug-taking hippies and flower power. They had then run off with her clothes and left her to make the rest of her way home naked. Cruel . You could say that again. She had found her clothes hanging on a tree by the side of the lane going to school the next day. And that was in 1980, when hippies were history and the sixties was something her classmates could only have read about in books or seen on television documentaries. The people who lived at the commune were artists and writers, free thinkers, yes, but hippies ? No. Annie’s only sin was to be different, to wear the kind of clothes she wanted to wear (and that her father could afford, artists never having been among the richest members of society). Yes, in an odd way, she could sympathize very easily with Ruth Walker: two sides of the same coin.

“Ruth went off to university, didn’t she?”

“Yes. That’s what changed everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, they wanted her to go to Manchester, like, and keep on living at home so they could keep an eye on her, but she went to London. They thought university was a den of iniquity, you see, full of sex and drugs, but they also knew you don’t get very far in this day and age without a good education. It was a bit of a dilemma for them. Anyway, she got her student grant or loan or whatever they get, so she had a bit of money of her own for the first time, and in the holidays she usually got a job. It gave her her first taste of independence.”

“What did she do with her money?”

“Bought clothes, mostly. You should have seen her when she came back after her first year. Had all the latest styles. Whatever they were wearing at the moment. It all changes far too quickly for me to keep up with it. Anyway, she looked like any other rebellious young lass her age. Had her hair dyed all the colors of the rainbow, rings through her ears and eyebrows. Looked awfully painful. She’d found her brave new world, all right.”

“How did her parents react?”

“I don’t know. They never said anything in public. I can’t imagine they were pleased, though. I got the feeling they were ashamed of her.”

“Did you hear any rows? Through the walls.”

“They never got angry. Against their religion. I think they pleaded with her and tried to get her to switch to a course at Manchester and come back home, but she’d changed too much by then. It was too late. She’d had her taste of freedom and she wasn’t about to give it up. I can’t say I blame her.”

“So the matter went unresolved?”

“I suppose so. She spent that summer working at the local supermarket, general floor washer and shelf stacker, that sort of thing. She was a bright lass and a hard worker, and to do her justice, even when she looked like a tearaway she didn’t cause any trouble. She was always polite.”

“So she just looked strange?”

“That’s about all. I think she’d reacted against the religion, too. At least she didn’t go to chapel with them anymore. But kids do that, don’t they?”

“They do,” Annie agreed. “I was talking to one of the firemen, Mr. Whitmore, earlier.”

“I know George Whitmore. He was a friend of my Bernard’s. They used to enjoy a game of darts down at the King Billy on a Friday night.”

“He said they didn’t see any need to investigate the fire.”

“That’s right. I can’t see why they would. That’s why I was wondering what on earth you were doing here. Nobody would want to hurt the Walkers.”

“Mr. Whitmore said it was probably started by a cigarette left smoldering down the side of the sofa.”

“Well, that was a bit odd,” said Mrs. Tattersall slowly. “Being religious and all, the way they were, you see, the Walkers didn’t smoke or drink.”

“But I’ll bet Ruth did,” said Annie.

Clough looked a little the worse for wear after his night in the cell, though the kind of suit he wore hardly showed a wrinkle. He had chosen not to shave, and the stubble, along with the tan, the gold and the elegant dress, made him look slightly unreal, like some sort of aging pop star. His lawyer, Simon Gallagher, however, who had no doubt spent the night in Burgundy House, Eastvale’s poshest and priciest hotel, had taken the opportunity to clean himself up a bit, and now he looked every inch the high-priced solicitor. He still had the twitchy, perky manner of a habitual cokehead, though, and Banks wondered if he’d snorted up a couple of lines before the interview. He didn’t say a lot, but he just couldn’t sit still.