Ann Cleeves - Murder in My Backyard

“I suppose she was closer to Judy than to the others,” Olive went on. “They had the same sort of interests and sometimes they went to meetings together, but I don’t think Mrs. Parry liked her anymore. I don’t know that she liked any of them, really.”

“Are either of the nephews short of money?” Ramsay asked, then wondered if he had been tactless and too abrupt. But Olive Kerr’s loyalty to Alice Parry did not extend to her nephews. She shook her head, disappointed almost that she had no positive information to give.

“No,” she said. “James always seems well off. They’ve just bought a big new house in Otterbridge. Stella’s got expensive tastes, but I expect her family sees her all right. She’s a Rutherford, you know. From Rothbury.” Ramsay nodded. Everyone in Northumberland had heard of the Rutherfords. Between them they owned half of the county. “Max and Judy were always moaning about money but only in the way those sort of people do. Doctors aren’t badly paid. They bought that house in Otterbridge when Max first qualified, so there can’t be much of a mortgage.”

It occurred to Ramsay that Olive had said the same thing before, that she and Mrs. Parry had often discussed the nephews’ financial and domestic arrangements. He imagined the women sharing coffee and moral superiority: “These young people don’t know what hard work means… Opportunity handed to them on a plate… It wasn’t the same when we were young. You had to make your own way then.”

There was another pause. “ I didn’t have to work there,” she cried suddenly. “ It wasn’t the money. She was a lovely woman.”

She started to cry and rubbed her eyes with a handkerchief clenched in a hard, red fist.

“Tell me about yesterday afternoon,” Ramsay said. “What time did you arrive at the Tower?”

“At about five o’clock,” Olive Kerr said. “I said I’d give Mrs. Parry a hand with the dinner. She was a good cook but messy. She needed someone to clear up after her.”

“Was she on her own then?”

“Yes. Max and Judy arrived about half an hour later.”

“Did she mention a reporter who had come to do an interview about the meeting?”

“Mary Raven, you mean. I saw her. She was walking back towards the village. I don’t think Mrs. Parry would have said anything about her if I hadn’t asked who she was. She was quite cagey about her and what they’d been talking about. It wasn’t like her. She never usually minded publicity.”

“Did anyone else come to the house that evening? Apart from the Laidlaws.”

“I didn’t see anyone, but then I wouldn’t have done. I hardly moved from the sink. Mrs. Parry had used every pan in the kitchen and I wanted to leave the place straight before I went home.”

She looked at her watch. “ That beef’ll be burnt to a cinder,” she said. “You’ll have to let me go or we’ll have no lunch today.”

“Yes,” he said. “ I’ve nearly finished.” She stood up in an attempt to persuade him to go, but he remained where he was for a moment.

“Mrs. Kerr,” he said, “ why didn’t you have dinner with the family last night? Wasn’t it usual for you to join them?”

“Yes,” she said. “ I usually had dinner with them on St. David’s Day. Mrs. Parry always invited me. But I had my own problems and I wouldn’t have been very good company.”

Then Ramsay did stand up and say that he would not take up any more of her time. As he left the house he saw Tom Kerr at the end of the corridor, peering out of the shadows to be sure that he had gone.

Ramsay walked back to the Tower slowly, his hands in his pockets, taking in every detail of his surroundings. He might have been a tourist. At first there was no-one else about. Even the Castle Hotel seemed almost empty. Inside, he supposed, Olive Kerr’s daughter would be serving the customers who had no Sunday dinner to hurry home to. By the main gate into the churchyard was the bus shelter where Stella had seen the teenagers on the night of Alice Parry’s death, and Ramsay stood there for a moment to shelter from the wind. As he waited, unnoticed, two boys dressed in black leather walked past. They seemed young, all the teenage bravado driven out of them by the cold, and they were whispering together, more like gossiping girls than boys. As they walked past he heard one of them say with the extravagance of the young: “ If my dad finds out he’ll kill him.”

Then they were gone. Ramsay wondered if he should chase after them to find out if they had been in the bus shelter on the previous night, but he turned back towards the Tower. There was more to be done there and the boys would be easy enough to trace in a place the size of Brinkbonnie. He walked into the churchyard and followed the path Alice Parry would have used on the day of her death coming back from the village hall. Ramsay wished he had known her. He thought he would have liked her.

Olive Kerr lifted the heavy meat tray out of the oven and clucked over it before setting it on top of the cooker to keep warm. Tom had followed her back into the kitchen and stood, waiting for her to speak, prepared to offer any comfort or reassurance she needed. But when she turned to face him, she said nothing about Alice Parry.

“You shouldn’t blame Maggie about that business with Charlie Elliot,” she said. “ I’ve been thinking we haven’t been fair to her. It’s not her fault.”

“She could have stayed with her husband,” Tom said. “ That would have provided a stable home for her boys and saved us all a lot of trouble.”

“But she was unhappy!” Oliver Kerr said. “You could see how unhappy she was. And all those arguments weren’t doing the boys any good.”

“I know,” he said. “I know I’m hard on her.” He paused. “But don’t you realise that her separation started it all? Charlie Elliot told me that he would never have left the army if he hadn’t known she would be free. That’s the only reason he came home.”

“All the same,” she said. “You can’t blame her. She gave him no encouragement.”

“I can’t stand him hanging around the house,” he said suddenly. “I see enough of him at work. Whenever I go out, he’s there, waiting for her. If she wants nothing to do with him, she should tell him.”

“She has told him,” Olive Kerr shouted back. “ She was engaged to Charlie Elliot when they were both eighteen. She broke it off after three months and she hasn’t been interested in him since. She’s told him so a dozen times. It’s not her fault that the man’s as daft as a ship’s cat and won’t listen to her.”

“Then why doesn’t he leave her alone?”

“I don’t know,” Olive said. “ He’s stubborn, lonely. Perhaps he’s hoping that she’ll change her mind. But pestering her will do no good. She’s as stubborn as he is.”

“It’s not a joke anymore,” Tom Kerr said. “A couple of nights ago I couldn’t sleep. It was two o’clock in the morning. And he was still out there in the street staring up at her window.”

“Why don’t you talk to Fred?” she asked. “ Perhaps he’d speak to him.”

“No,” Tom Kerr said. “He takes no more notice of his father than he does of me.”

There was a silence. She took a heavy meat knife from a drawer and began to carve the beef.

“You know,” she said, “you could do something about it if you want to.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“If he had no work in Brinkbonnie, he’d have to leave. There’d be nothing to keep him here then.”

“I’ve no grounds for sacking him,” he said, shocked. “ He’s a good enough worker. What excuse could I use for sacking him? And you know why I took him on.”

“You don’t need an excuse,” she cried. “You’re the boss. Why should you feel guilty?”