Ann Cleeves - Murder in My Backyard

She had longed to know what Alice had to say so urgently to her husband, yet this morning she had handled the whole thing badly. She had wanted to force him to honesty. Instead she had come across as a nagging shrew. She felt excluded and unimportant, a failure.

The television cartoon finished and she persuaded Peter to go to bed. He did not argue and allowed her to undress him, moving his limbs when she told him to but making no effort himself.

“Mum,” he said. “ When will the policeman come to see me?”

“When you’re ready,” she said. “ Tomorrow, I expect.”

She tucked the blankets around him, but he seemed unwilling to settle to sleep.

“Aunt Alice was murdered, wasn’t she? Someone killed her?”

“Yes,” Judy said. “ The police think she was murdered.”

“I saw her go out,” he said. “ She banged the door and went off down the drive.”

“You can’t have seen her,” Judy said. “ You were asleep.”

“I wasn’t,” he said. “ I was pretending.”

“So you saw Aunt Alice walk down the drive to the road?”

He nodded.

“Did you see anything else later? Did you see your aunt coming back?”

Perhaps the urgency of her voice distressed him. He seemed suddenly frightened and pushed his head into the pillow. She held him and turned him gently to face her.

“You’re quite safe here,” she said. “You can tell me. Did you see anyone else that night?”

But his loyalty to Carolyn prevented him from sharing his fear.

“No!” he said, almost hysterical. “ No!”

She held him tightly until he sobbed himself to sleep.

The kitchen was in the basement. It was the length of the house. At the front it was below the level of the street, but at the back there was a door into the garden. On one wall hung a red, cream, and black rug that they had brought home from a holiday in Portugal. There was a small sofa covered in an Indian bedspread bought in an Oxfam shop when Max was a student and a long oak table that had been made by a friend. There was a notice board made of cork tiles where the children’s paintings and drawings were pinned, together with postcards, magazine articles, concert tickets. Max walked into the silent house and down the bare wooden stairs to the kitchen. He was later than usual and tried to think of some excuse if Judy should ask him where he had been.

The room was lit only by a spotlight over the table and another near to the cooker where Judy was standing. The mess of unironed clothes and half-completed models had become invisible in shadowy corners. The table was laid for dinner, with cutlery and a wooden bowl of salad. There were wineglasses. It was all quite different from what he expected. They seemed to live now on a children’s diet of sausages and baked beans. He shut the door behind him and pulled across the heavy curtain that shut out the draughts from upstairs. He wanted to acknowledge the effort Judy had made.

“This looks nice,” he said, realising at once how inadequate it sounded. Judy lifted a tray of baked potatoes from the oven and prodded one to make sure it was cooked.

“I put them to bed early,” she said. “They were so tired.”

He took off his coat and put it over a chair.

“There’s some wine in the fridge,” she said. “Would you like to open it?”

Why do we have to be so polite to each other? he thought. Do we have to start from the beginning again?

“Did you have a busy afternoon?” she asked.

“Hmm.” He took white wine from the fridge, opened it, and poured her a glass. “Not too bad.” He expected her then to ask why he was late, but she said nothing.

“Do you want to eat now?”

“If it’s ready.”

He sat at the table and she brought out the food. She had changed into a loose brown top and her hair was brushed out in chestnut curls. If only it were always like this, he thought. But he realised it could not be that easy. Now there were other complications, deeper anxieties, and he could not think clearly. They ate for a while in silence.

“Peter was very upset tonight,” she said. “Did you realise he was still awake when Alice went out to see Colin Henshaw? He watched her from the window.”

Max looked up sharply. “ No,” he said. “I didn’t realise. How long was he awake? Did he see Alice come back?”

“No,” she said uncertainly. “He says not. But he was so distressed it was hard to tell.”

There was another period of silence. Judy’s attempts to please had confused him. He supposed she would want something in return for her efforts-some reassurance that he still cared for her-but he no longer knew what he wanted.

Suddenly the doorbell, which was worked by an old-fashioned pull, jangled above them. Max jumped to his feet, glad of an excuse to leave the table.

He expected it to be one of Judy’s friends. They turned up regularly, often in tears, with tales of insensitive husbands, uncaring boyfriends. Sometimes he overheard the women talking together. “Of course,” one of them had once said, “ if I only had a husband like Max, things would be quite different!” He wondered what Judy could have told them about him. Was it loyalty that prevented her from sharing her dissatisfaction or pride that would not allow her to admit that she had made a mistake in her marriage? He was so certain that he would find a woman on the doorstep, probably a distraught woman with a child, that he greeted Ramsay almost with pleasure.

“Come in,” he cried. “It must be cold out there.”

“I wondered,” Ramsay said, “ if I could talk to your son. I thought it might be better to do it now, so he can return to normal as soon as possible.”

“He’s in bed,” Max said. “He was worn out.”

“Oh, well,” Ramsay said. “Don’t disturb him. I’ll come back another day.” But he did not move from the doorstep.

“Come in anyway now that you’re here,” Max said. “ Judy’s making coffee.”

“Thank you,” Ramsay said. “ There are a few questions…” Through the door he had a glimpse of a warm, untidy house and he wondered how he could have found the Laidlaws so unappealing at the Tower. The cottage in Heppleburn was empty and uninviting in contrast. He was in no hurry to return home.

They walked down the stairs from the brightly lit hall and the kitchen seemed dark and gloomy.

“Let’s have a bit more light in here,” Max said, and switched on the central electric light. The muddle and dust were illuminated and the sense of intimacy was lost. Even Judy looked different. He could see the dark rings under her eyes and the sharp nose and pinched chin. The chestnut curls looked matted and untidy. He stood behind her with his arm on her shoulder, aware that they looked to Ramsay like a perfect, happily married couple.

“I came to talk to your son,” Ramsay said, “but your husband says he’s asleep.”

“Yes,” she said. “We don’t have to wake him, do we?”

“No,” Ramsay said. “ It’ll do another day.”

He sat on the sofa, still wearing his overcoat, to show them that he did not intend to take up too much of their time. He was jealous of their companionship, their home, their children. If he sensed any tension between them, he put it down to the shock of their aunt’s death.

“We’ve discovered that Mrs. Parry returned to the Tower at about midnight,” Ramsay said. He turned towards Max. “You were the last person to go to bed. Were you still up at midnight?”

Max seemed uncertain and confused. “Yes,” he said. “I think so. I told you I was watching the television.”

“But you didn’t hear Mrs. Parry come into the house?”

“No,” he said. “ I suppose she might have come in through the kitchen. I wouldn’t have seen her then.”