Ann Cleeves - Murder in My Backyard

There was a silence.

“So how does he do it?” Ramsay asked, frustrated. “ Is he just lucky?”

“Henshaw’s always made his own luck,” Robson said.

“I doubt whether he’s changed now. Do you want me to find out for you? I’ll talk to a few people. See what I can come up with. I’ll get in touch.”

Again Ramsay was touched by Robson’s eagerness to help.

“Yes,” he said. “ Do that.”

But he left with no hope that the conversation with Robson had achieved anything.

In Brinkbonnie Ramsay drove past the police house, with the communications van parked outside, stopped on the green, and then walked to the post office. Outside of Tom Kerr’s garage there were half a dozen old and rather scruffy cars with hand-painted signs advertising them for sale, but the workshop was empty. From the street Ramsay could hear the waves on the beach beyond the row of cottages. It was almost high tide. He pushed at the post office door before he saw the sign in the window saying it was closed for lunch. He stood on the pavement for a moment rattling at the door, but no-one came to open it.

Fred Elliot’s living accommodation was behind the post office and above it. Ramsay walked through an arch in the terrace of houses into a flagged yard with the sand hills beyond. There was a door from the yard into the house and Ramsay knocked there. It was opened almost immediately by a tense, upright man in his early sixties. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbows and his hands were wet and soapy.

“Yes?” he said. “The post office is closed. We don’t open at dinnertime. Not until the summer.”

“I’m a policeman,” Ramsay said. “I’ve come about Alice Parry.”

“But someone was here last night,” Elliot said quickly. “I talked to him.”

“I know,” Ramsay said, “ but perhaps I could come in.”

Reluctantly Elliot stood aside and watched anxiously while he stamped snow and sand off his shoes. The door led straight into a kitchen, and the floor was spotlessly clean. There were painted wooden cupboards on the walls and a square table, covered in oilcloth, against one wall. A clotheshorse, held together at the corners with binder twine, was propped in front of a solid-fuel boiler and a pair of navy working overalls steamed. The small window was covered in condensation, so it was impossible to see out.

“I was washing up,” Elliot said, as if there was something to be ashamed of in the activity. “Since my wife died… you know.” He nodded to the chairs pushed under the leaf of the table. “ Sit down,” he told Ramsay. He was still holding the towel and scrubbed at his hands, although by now they were quite dry. From the other room came the sound of a television signature tune.

“Are you on your own?” Ramsay asked.

Elliot hesitated, though the noise of the television in the next room made it obvious that someone else was in the house. “ No,” he said. “ It’s my son, Charlie. He works next door at the garage and comes in for his dinner.”

“Perhaps I could speak to him, too,” Ramsay said.

Elliot looked unhappy. “I don’t know that he’ll want to speak to you,” he said. “He was in late and he’s just started his dinner.”

Ramsay looked at his watch. “That’s all right,” he said easily. “There’s no hurry. I can wait. I’ll have a few words with you first.”

There was a silence.

“You musn’t mind Charlie,” Elliot said. “ He had a bad time in the army. He doesn’t like the police.”

Ramsay said nothing. Elliot stood by the boiler, arms by his side, a veteran at a British Legion parade showing his grief by respect.

“I’ll miss Alice Parry,” he said. “She was a good woman.”

“Was she a friend?” Ramsay asked.

Elliot seemed surprised by the question. “Aye,” he said at last. “I suppose she was. We were different, of course. Her folks had a big estate up on the border and she went away to some smart school in the south, but I think she would have thought me her friend. I hope she would.”

There was another pause, then he continued: “She was very kind to me when my wife died. Charlie wasn’t here then and I was on my own. Mrs. Parry saw to everything. I couldn’t have managed without her. That’s why the business with Henshaw was so upsetting.”

“Did you believe her,” Ramsay asked, “when she said she’d sold the land to be used for a small development of starter homes?”

“Of course,” Elliot said angrily. “ Everyone who knew Mrs. Parry believed her. She was an honest woman.”

“What about your son?” Ramsay asked quietly. “ Did he believe her, too?”

Elliot stared at him. “ Why do you want to know?” he demanded. “What have people been telling you?”

Ramsay shrugged. “ That he was angry about the housing development,” he said, “and that he blamed Alice Parry for it.”

Elliot looked tired and confused. “ He hasn’t settled since he left the army,” he muttered. “ I was proud when he joined up, and perhaps it was a mistake. It changed him. Then when he came home there was trouble with a woman.”

“I know,” Ramsay said. “ I’ve spoken to Maggie Kerr.”

Elliot looked up. “Have you?” he said. “ I try to tell myself it wasn’t her fault, but I can’t help thinking she led him on. He came home thinking she would marry him, then she wouldn’t have him. It’s made him a bitter man. It affects everything he does. If he hadn’t blamed Mrs. Parry for upsetting him, it would have been someone else. He’s a good mechanic, but he doesn’t get on with his boss. Tom Kerr’s choirmaster up at the church and he’s well respected, but there’s something hard about him. He’s not as flexible as he might be! Charlie needs careful handling at the moment. He was well trained in the army and thinks he knows best.”

“I’m surprised Mr. Kerr took him on,” Ramsay said, “ in the circumstances.”

“Perhaps he thought he had a responsibility,” Elliot said sharply. “Charlie packed up the army because of that girl.”

“All the same…” Ramsay said.

“I told you,” Fred Elliot said. “Tom Kerr’s a good church man. He will have seen it as his duty. But he’ll never let Charlie forget that he’s done him a favor by taking him on.”

“Is Charlie happy living here?” Ramsay asked.

“He’s happy with nothing at the moment. He thinks he deserves better than living with me. He’d like his own house. I don’t recognise him anymore. He’s not the boy who went away.”

The words poured out in an incoherent stream, released by shock and sadness. He looked towards the door that led into the rest of the house and Ramsay realised he was frightened of his son.

“What’s he like in the house?” Ramsay asked. He spoke gently, but he had the man’s attention. His eyes moved away from the door.

“He’s angry,” Elliot said. “All the time.”

“Do you think he needs a doctor?”

“I don’t know what he needs.” The words were sharp and unhappy, then he reconsidered. “Perhaps he should see a doctor,” he said, “but I’d never persuade him to go.”

“Is he violent? I heard there was a fight with Tom Kerr.”

“No!” Elliot seemed frustrated because Ramsay could not understand immediately. “Tom Kerr started that business. He’s got a wicked temper. Charlie wouldn’t hurt anyone. Especially not Maggie Kerr. But he talks loud. He talks big. He doesn’t make the effort to be polite anymore.”

There was a silence. “He misses his mother,” he said. “ His mother understood him. I could never handle him. I never had the patience. I always lost my temper. My wife said we were too alike, but I never saw it myself.”