Ann Cleeves - Murder in My Backyard

“You didn’t lock any of the doors?”

Max shook his head again. “No,” he said. “Alice saw to all that.”

“And you didn’t go outside?”

There was perhaps a momentary hesitation. “ No,” Max said. “Why should I have done?”

Ramsay paused, then the focus of his questions became more general. He could sense their relief but was unsure if it was because one of them had been implicated in the murder or because, after all, they felt some shame in having let an old lady wander about alone so late at night.

“Did any strangers come to the house yesterday evening?” he asked.

“Not while we were here,” Judy said. “Olive Kerr was here until we sat down for dinner. Alice asked her to join us, but she said she wanted to go back to her own family. I suppose the letter must have been delivered by someone. And of course that reporter was here in the afternoon.”

“The reporter from the Otterbridge Express ? She came to the Tower as well as to the meeting in the hall?”

“I think so.” Judy looked around at the family for confirmation. “Isn’t that what Alice said? That she had a discussion with Mary Raven after the meeting?”

But the others, it seemed, could not remember.

“You didn’t see any strangers at the house?” Ramsay persisted. “There was no-one hanging around the drive or in the churchyard?”

Stella Laidlaw smiled suddenly and spoke for the first time.

“Only those teenagers who hang around the bus stop on the green,” she said. “They were there, I think.”

“Can you see the green from the house?”

“Oh,” she said, “ you can see most of the village from our bedroom window.” She remembered the moonlit figure pacing between the gravestones and smiled again, hugging the information to herself. Ramsay saw the smile and thought how heartless the woman was. She had nothing, after all, to be pleased about. All four Laidlaws would be under suspicion and subject to intrusion and prying questions until the investigation was over. Every family had secrets and he would know most of the Laidlaws’ before the thing was finished. The thought gave him no pleasure.

“Will both Max and James benefit under Mrs. Parry’s will?” he asked, and as he had expected the question provoked righteous indignation.

Could he really think, they asked, that they would hurt Alice? They all loved her.

“You do see why I have to ask?” Ramsay said mildly. “ If you don’t wish to discuss it with me, I can talk to Mrs. Parry’s solicitor.”

“The Tower comes to me with the understanding that it’s to stay in the family,” James said. “I’ll respect her wishes, of course. She hadn’t a lot of capital, but what there is goes to Max. Neither of us stands to make a fortune from her death.”

“This is ludicrous,” Max said. “You should be talking to Henshaw. He must have been the last person to see my aunt alive. And what about the maniacs in the village who called that meeting yesterday and want to stop the building? What about the lunatic who wrote that letter?”

Ramsay ignored the outburst and stood up abruptly. He felt he had spent enough time with them. In other circumstances he would have muttered something about leaving them alone with their grief. But grief seemed beyond them.

“Thank you for your attention,” he said. “ Please stay in the Tower until one of my officers has taken statements from you. Then you’ll be free to go.”

As he left the room he could sense their resentment.

In the playroom at the top of the stairs the children had finished the jigsaw puzzle and were talking with an earnest intensity that would have surprised their parents. It was a small cluttered room with a bare wooden floor and faded print wallpaper. The toys were mostly old, strange, unlike the bright plastic ones they had at home. There was a fort with carved soldiers and a large metal spinning top. On a trestle table along one wall there was a model railway with peeling papier-mâché hills and houses made of balsa wood. It had belonged to Peter’s father and had been built by Anthony Parry, but Peter had been told that he was still too young to play with it unsupervised.

As Carolyn spoke to him he looked at the trains with longing. It seemed a terrible injustice that he could not touch them, and that thought on top of all his other misery made him cry suddenly. Carolyn watched in frustration as tears ran down his cheeks.

“It’s no good crying,” she said crossly. “ I’m only trying to help you.” She felt so much older than he and knew she would have to take all the responsibility. “ We must sort out what we’re going to tell them.”

“I won’t tell them anything!” he cried, looking up at her. “I promise.” For the first time ever he was frightened of her. He had loved his cousin ever since he could remember, but the violence of her words made him wish she would leave him alone. Yet he still wanted to please her.

“Of course you’ll have to tell them something,” she said. “They won’t ignore us just because we’re children. Not this time. You found the body. The police will want to talk to you.”

“Will they?” She seemed so clever. He knew he would trust her judgement. She had always protected him from unpleasantness. He stood up and wandered to the window. A pile of old annuals were stacked on the sill. Before he had started school Carolyn had read them all to him. Outside the policeman who had spoken to his parents appeared on the grass. Frightened, Peter turned back to the room and his cousin.

“Answer all the questions about finding Aunt Alice,” she said. “Tell them just what happened. That won’t matter. But when they ask you about last night, this is what you must say…”

She took his hand and pulled him close to her, so he could feel her fine hair on his cheek, then he listened carefully as she repeated her instructions.

Ramsay had banned them all from the kitchen until it had been checked forensically. If Mrs. Parry had been stabbed, he said, the murderer might have gone into the kitchen to clean himself up. And the knife. They were to look for bloodstains on the floor and by the sink. Banished from the kitchen, Hunter took shelter in an open shed, which was attached to the house. Logs were stacked against one wall and there was a heavy saw hanging on a nail. Ramsay found him there, drinking tea from a flask with the civilian scene of crime officer. When the S.O. C.O. saw Ramsay, he melted into the garden and Hunter was left to explain.

“It’s bloody cold outside, sir,” he said. “You can’t blame him. The village P. C. is keeping an eye on the site.”

Ramsay said nothing and Hunter continued: “ He’s got a police house in the village. You’ll be welcome to use it as a base, he says.”

“Thank him,” Ramsay said. “ I’ll see him later.”

“Do you want some tea?”

Ramsay shook his head. “ I’ve finished with the Laidlaws now,” he said. “You can take their statements. Where’s Olive Kerr?”

“Upstairs in the bathroom, washing her face. She was a bit upset.”

Outside, the scene of crime officer was bending diligently over the body. Hunter had been right. It was very cold.

“Can you give me any information about the murder weapon yet?” Ramsay asked.

The man looked up, eager to be helpful.

“We’re looking for a smooth, wide-bladed knife, I think,” he said. “The sort you’d find in any kitchen for cutting meat. Something sturdy but not at all unusual.”

“Anything else of use?”

The man shook his head. “Nothing yet.”

Ramsay went back into the house and found Olive Kerr standing uncertainly in the hall. Her eyes were red from crying.