Ann Cleeves - Murder in My Backyard

“She was angry when she got here,” Rosemary Henshaw said. “She was quite rude. I didn’t want to let her in.”

Ramsay looked directly at Henshaw. “What did you say to persuade her that she’d been mistaken about the houses?” he asked.

“There was nothing in writing,” Henshaw said. “She was an old lady. Old ladies get muddled. Besides, it suited her purpose, didn’t it, to let the village think I’d cheated her. Let me be the bad guy. I’m used to it. That way she’d get her money and they’d all still love her.”

“Can you prove that’s the way it happened?”

“No,” Henshaw said. “ I told you, there was nothing in writing.”

“I see.” Ramsay stood up and walked towards the window. The room was so stuffy that he felt he would fall asleep. He did not know what to make of the builder who stood before the gas fire with such confident certainty. “What time did Mrs. Parry leave here?”

“Quarter to eleven,” Henshaw said.

“Are you sure?”

“I looked at the clock,” Henshaw said. “ I knew it was late. I offered to drive her home, but she said she’d rather walk.”

“Did you go out after she went?”

“No,” Henshaw said shortly. “ I’ve told you. It was late. We went to bed.”

There was a silence. Ramsay felt he was getting nowhere with the builder. Henshaw would have an answer whatever question was asked. Ramsay felt tired and incompetent. Hunter, he thought, would have bullied something out of him.

Rosemary Henshaw let Ramsay out of the house. Her husband, unmoved, stayed in the living room and barely looked up to say goodbye. In contrast she was too friendly to the policeman, almost gushing: “ Do let us know if there’s anything we can do to help. Call at any time.”

Then he was gone. She watched him walk down the drive until the only sign of him was the sound of his shoes on the frosty gravel. She realised how cold she was and shut the door.

She was a plump woman, always had been. Built like a dairymaid, Colin had said when they first met. He was a city boy from the west end of Newcastle and he liked to think of her as a country girl, though there was nothing romantic about her childhood.

“We’ll live in the country one day,” he had said when they first moved into their flat in town. He had talked a lot about what he wanted in those days and she had thought he was just dreaming. Now, wanting things had become a habit and he seemed unable to stop.

After seeing Ramsay out, Rosemary Henshaw paused in the hall before an ornate gilt-framed mirror and absent-mindedly studied her reflection. She wanted to confront Colin about the policeman’s visit, but she had left the important things to him for so long that she did not know how to begin. He would accuse her of making a scene, as he did sometimes when she asked tentatively where he had been when he stayed out all night. She knew he had other women and had stopped asking. She did not want to cause a scene. She wanted to offer Colin her help, but even that seemed an impudent thing to do because he was so far above her in intelligence and understanding. She wanted, above all things, to know what was going on.

She looked with more purpose into the mirror, hoping to find there the confidence to persuade herself to face her husband. She was good-looking, she thought, for fifty. Her hair, carefully tinted and curled, suited her. She was a little overweight, of course, but Colin liked his women big. She still had the soft, round dairymaid’s face.

When she returned to the living room, he was sitting on the sofa with a fresh glass of whisky, staring at the fire.

“Colin,” she said, sitting carefully beside him. “ What was that all about?”

“You heard what the man said.” Henshaw looked at her as if she were a complete fool, and when he continued, he emphasized every syllable. “Alice Parry was murdered. We were the last people to see her alive.”

“I know that.” She spoke calmly, trying to be patient, telling herself that he was very upset. “But what does it mean for us?”

“Nothing,” he shouted. “It means nothing.”

“I don’t understand why the policeman asked all those questions.”

“I don’t know,” he cried. “He’d heard we’d had a row over that land.”

“But that was all sorted out,” Rosemary said. “You told me last week that you’d sorted that out. We’d hear no more about it, you said.”

“That’s right,” he said. “ So it was.”

He took a drink from his glass.

“Colin,” she said. “Where were you last night?”

He looked at her sharply. “ What do you mean?” he asked. “I was here. You know I was here with you.”

“No,” she said. “ When Mrs. Parry left, I went to bed and watched the telly. But I heard the car go out. I stayed awake until I heard you come back. It was very late. Where did you go? Whatever it is, I don’t mind. But I must know. I can’t help you if I don’t know.”

He looked at her angrily. She thought for a moment that he was going to hit her. He had knocked her around a bit when they were first married, when he had not got on as quickly as he had wanted and he had taken it out on her. More recently, he had controlled his temper and there had been less to be angry about.

“Don’t!” she said quietly. “Don’t forget the guests will be here soon.”

She was more concerned about his own position than for what he might do to her. He breathed deeply and leaned back in his chair.

“You shouldn’t spy on me,” he said.

“I wasn’t,” she said. “I was worried.”

“I didn’t kill her,” he said. “There was no need.”

“That’s all right then,” she said, like a mother forgiving the misdemeanour of a naughty boy even though she does not quite believe him.

“I do it all for you,” he said suddenly. “All this.” He looked around at the expensive carpet, the furniture, the real gas-flame fire. She moved closer to him on the sofa and put her arm around him, pulling his head onto her shoulder.

“I know,” she said. “I know.”

The front doorbell rang and the guests began to arrive.

Ramsay walked quickly down the hill towards the village. The interview with Henshaw had left him frustrated and undecided. He sensed that the builder was hiding something, but his prejudice against the man made him unsure of his own judgement. It was colder than ever and the air caught at the back of his throat. He passed the drive into the farmyard where earlier he had disturbed the dogs and was surprised by the incongruous sound of pop music coming from an upstairs window. At the entrance to the Tower drive he hesitated but continued down the hill, past the church and the green to the Castle Hotel. It was time to meet a wider section of Brinkbonnie’s inhabitants.

At the pub the lights were on and a couple of cars were parked in the yard at the back. He went inside and pushed open the door that had “lounge” written on it in plastic letters. The room was separated into two by a step. On the raised section, tables were laid with cutlery and cruets and there, at lunchtime, microwaved meals were served. The lower section was carpeted, the furniture dark, imitation antique. There were beams and horse brasses, and the place was empty. Regulars obviously used the public bar.

In the bar the jukebox was playing an old Rolling Stones number, which brought back painful memories of his youth. The floor was stone and the place seemed to be unheated. There were a couple of high-backed settles; the wood was dark and splintered where three old men were playing dominoes. Two teenagers were playing darts. In a corner by the window a squat, red-faced man with huge hands was reading a farming magazine and drinking steadily. On a stool by the bar a fat man, who turned out to be the landlord, seemed to be asleep. He woke up occasionally to drink brandy from a huge balloon glass. A pretty young woman in her late twenties was drying glasses behind the bar.