Ann Cleeves - Murder in My Backyard

One of the other tenants of the house had let him into the hall and he stood there by the ugly Victorian sideboard, clasping an armful of flowers. He looked worried and very serious and she thought he would put on a face like that when he was telling one of his patients that they had some dreadful illness.

“What are you doing here?” she asked roughly. She would not allow herself to seem pleased to see him. She could not forget the days of anxiety.

“I had to see you,” he said. “ Can’t you let me in?”

She had a carrier bag in each hand and set them on the floor while she felt in her jacket pocket for her keys. A can of lager rolled out and he stopped it with his foot and picked it up. She opened the door and led him into her living room. It smelled damp and stale. He took both bags from her in one hand and carried them through to the kitchen while she lit the gas fire and drew the curtains. He still held the flowers carefully in the other hand.

“What happened to your aunt?” she asked. She was standing with her back to the fire, but she felt very cold. “ I have to know.”

He set the flowers carefully on the scratched wooden table.

“You can’t think I had anything to do with that,” he said.

She shrugged. “ I don’t know what to think. On Saturday night I thought it was all over. I’d come to terms with that, and now you’re here. What the hell am I supposed to think?”

“That I can’t do without you. I need you.”

“Don’t give me all that crap,” she said, but as the fire warmed her feet and fingers, she felt her resistance melting, too. She longed for the old elation and felt that after all it was still possible. Would it make any difference to her, she thought, if she found out he was a murderer? In her confusion and her pleasure in his company, she came to no conclusion.

“What about your wife?” she asked. “ Can you do without her?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s not only that. I have responsibilities. There are the children, my work. And now there’s the problem of Alice.”

“So you’ve still not made a choice,” she said. “ You’re here, but you’ve still not decided.”

“How can I decide,” he cried. “I care for you both.”

“That’s impossible,” she said. “Really. It’s impossible.”

He moved away from the kitchen door and walked towards her. She knew she should be strong and tell him to go back to his bloody wife and his bloody kids, but she said nothing. He stood very close to her.

“I need more time,” he said quietly. “ You don’t understand. Things have changed. Someone saw you in the churchyard on Saturday night. It could be dangerous. If the police find out…”

“I know someone saw me,” she said. “I recognised him. It was that man from the meeting, Charlie Elliot. But don’t worry. He was drunk. He won’t remember anything, and if he does the police won’t believe him.”

“He saw you?” Max demanded. He was shocked. “ How could you let that happen?”

“I didn’t know then,” she said, “that it would be so important.”

“How can you say that?” he said, then seeing the surprise on her face, wanting to reassure her, he continued more reasonably: “No, of course not. How could you?”

“You can’t think I had anything to do with your aunt’s murder?” she said. His reaction to learning she had been seen in the churchyard frightened her. “ I liked her. I wouldn’t have done anything to hurt her.”

“No,” he said flatly. “ I know you had nothing to do with that.” He reached out and stroked her face and neck, just under her ear where he knew she liked it. She could not respond to the caress and turned away.

“Look,” she said. “This business has made me feel really uptight. Why don’t we open some wine?”

“I don’t know,” he said, tempted. “I don’t think I should stay. Judy will be expecting me home. She’s worried about the kids. Peter found the body…”

“Oh, fine,” she said, suddenly angry. “You were feeling guilty because you put me in such a bloody awkward position on Saturday night, so you bring me flowers and think everything’s hunky-dory. Now you can go back to your wife and children and forget about me again.”

“It’s not like that,” he said. “Really.”

“It seemed like that on Saturday,” she said, “while I was waiting for you.”

“I’ll phone you tonight,” he said, “ when Judy’s in bed. Will you be in?”

“Yes,” she said. “ Of course I’ll be in. Where the hell am I likely to go?”

But she allowed him to put his arms around her and kiss her, and it was only after he had gone and she was arranging the flowers haphazardly in water that she felt she had been deceived.

When James arrived home he found Stella calmer, returned almost to her normal self, though he could tell by her restlessness that she was still under considerable stress. She seemed to find it impossible to sit still. She had lit a fire in the living room and made him stand in front of it to thaw out, while she brought him whisky and slippers.

“You’re losing all the heat into the garden,” he said, nodding towards the window. “Why don’t you draw the curtains?”

But she refused. The ice in the moonlight was so beautiful, she said, and lasted such a short time. They should make the most of it.

“Where’s Carolyn?” he asked.

“In her bedroom, watching television.”

“You should be more careful what you say in front of her,” he said. “You hurt her at lunchtime.”

“Nonsense,” Stella said. “ She didn’t say anything. She’s a tough little lady.”

“No,” he said. “ She’s not as tough as she makes out. She keeps all her feelings bottled up and that’s dangerous. We expect too much of her.”

He was genuinely worried about Carolyn. Since the weekend she had not mentioned Alice and he found her silence unhealthy, even if it was easier for him than tears or difficult questions. He wondered if he had gone too far in talking about the girl. Stella usually reacted to any implied criticism of her ability as a mother with tears. But now she seemed strong enough to cope with anything.

“I expect you’re right,” she said. “ She’s so grown up now. I forget sometimes how young she is.”

Ramsay went to speak to the Laidlaws that night without any clear idea of what he hoped to achieve. He had nothing to ask them that would not wait until the following day. He was grasping for some shred of evidence that would move the investigation forward. From his car he contacted the communications centre. There was still no news of Charlie Elliot. He admitted to himself later that he also went because he had been so affected by the warmth of Max and Judy’s home. He needed evidence that marriage was not always as happy as theirs seemed to be, that he was not really missing out on anything of value. Perhaps he hoped to find that evidence in the elegant house in Otterbridge. There was also an element of needing to propitiate James Laidlaw, of what Hunter would call “sucking up to the press.”

When he first entered the tall Georgian house behind the abbey, it seemed to Ramsay that he would be disappointed. He was met with an image of domestic contentment. Stella was curled up in a large armchair in front of the fire reading a book and the little girl was playing with a jigsaw on the floor. James opened the door to him and showed Ramsay into the room, taking obvious pleasure in his family. Yet throughout the conversation Ramsay felt uneasy. Stella talked too much and too quickly, and this was odd in comparison with her silence of the previous day. James watched her protectively. He answered Ramsay’s questions quickly, before Stella could come in, as if he were afraid of her making a fool of herself. More disturbing to Ramsay was the child, who watched him with an intense and unblinking stare, motivated, he thought, either by hatred or fear.