Ann Cleeves - Murder in My Backyard

“Or perhaps he was staying at the Tower,” Hunter said. “It could be Max Laidlaw or James.”

“We’ll go to her flat later this evening, when she’s likely to be in,” Ramsay said. “ She’s approached Henshaw, too, and worried him. I’d like to know what that’s about.”

“Blackmail?”

“I don’t know,” Ramsay said. “ If so, she’s putting herself in a lot of danger.”

“I’ve been thinking blackmail might have been the motive for the Elliot murder,” Hunter said tentatively. “If Charlie saw something on Saturday night and worked out who killed Alice Parry, it might have occurred to him that he could put the information to his advantage. It would explain how the murderer found him in the barn on the hill. Perhaps they arranged to meet there.”

Ramsay considered the idea carefully. “Why didn’t he tell us? That way he could clear himself.”

Hunter shrugged. “Perhaps he thought we wouldn’t believe him. Perhaps he thought he could turn his knowledge to profit.”

“Yes,” Ramsay said. “ It’s possible. Dangerous. But I can see Charlie Elliot as a man who would enjoy taking risks. We’ve only his father’s word that he stayed in after eleven. He could easily have gone out again and seen Alice Parry on her way home from the pub.”

“Did you inform Fred Elliot of his son’s death?” Hunter asked.

Ramsay shook his head. “ I got the village policeman to do it,” he said. “They’ve been friends for years. It seemed better.” He stood up. “We’ll go and see Fred now. Get it over with. Then I want a word with Maggie Kerr.”

On the way to the post office Ramsay was tempted to send Hunter immediately to wait for Mary Raven. It was not only that he was afraid of missing Mary, but he was irritated by the other man’s presence. He would have preferred to work alone. Hunter chatted about the conflicts and power struggles within the Otterbridge police station, turning the trivial gossip that comes out of any workplace into high drama. Ramsay wanted to concentrate.

The kitchen behind the post office was much as it had been when Ramsay had last visited. There was washing airing in front of the stove and clean pans on the table. Fred Elliot was tidily dressed, with black shoes immaculately polished. Yet there seemed to be no connection between the postmaster and the physical world around him. In his grief he had become clumsy, and when Ramsay walked into the room, he seemed at first not to recognise who was there. The village policeman had opened the door and sat quietly in one corner while they talked. It seemed to Ramsay that he had been crying. Brinkbonnie was a close village.

“Oh,” Elliot said. “ It’s you.”

“I’m sorry,” Ramsay said, “ about everything that’s happened.”

“He didn’t do it,” Elliot said. “ He wouldn’t have murdered Alice Parry. You’ll have to believe that now.”

Ramsay did not answer directly. “When did you last see Charlie?” he asked.

“You know that,” Elliot said defiantly. “ You were here.”

“Didn’t he ask to meet you? Before he went up the hill. Didn’t he ask you to bring food and a sleeping bag? He had no-one else to ask.”

There was a silence and the old man struggled for control. “ I met him late yesterday evening,” he said. “By the Otterbridge by-pass. I took everything he wanted.”

“Did he telephone here to arrange the meeting?” Ramsay asked. “What exactly did he say?”

“Not much. He didn’t have much change for the phone. He’d just made another phone call, he said, and used all his ten p’s. He wouldn’t wait for me to phone him back.”

“Who else did he phone?” Ramsay asked. “Did he say?”

The old man shook his head. “I presumed it was Maggie Kerr,” he said. “She was always on his mind.”

“And when you met him by the Otterbridge by-pass,” Ramsay said, “did he tell you where he was going?”

Elliot shook his head again. “He was waiting for me when I arrived,” he said. “I was afraid you’d have me followed, so I drove miles out of my way round the lanes before I got there. I tried to persuade him to come back with me, to give himself up. I said you’d believe him, but he was too frightened. And he was wild, excited. There was nothing I could say that would persuade him. He just took the bag and drove away on that motorbike, laughing.”

“Tell me what was in the bag,” Ramsay said. “In detail.”

Elliot began to list the equipment he had provided. “ There was a knife,” he said. “Not a bread knife. I’ve only one of those and I couldn’t spare it. But there was a big, old kitchen knife at the back of the drawer. I gave him that.”

“Would you recognise it again?” Ramsay asked. No knife had been found in the barn during the detailed examination. But it seemed that Elliot might have provided the means used to murder his son.

“I expect so,” the old man said, unaware of the implication of the questions. “We’ve had it for years.”

There was another silence and Ramsay could sense Hunter’s impatience. He wanted to be out on the streets, knocking on doors, making things happen. He hated this waiting. But Ramsay could tell that Elliot had something else to say and that he wanted to say it in his own words.

At last the old man spoke. “ There’s something you don’t know,” Elliot said. “ I didn’t tell you. On Saturday night Charlie came in at eleven like he said, but he went out again. I heard the door slam while I was in bed. He wasn’t gone long, not long enough to kill her, a quarter of an hour at the most.”

Later Ramsay was to see this admission of Fred Elliot’s as a turning point in the case. Everything else developed from it. Now Ramsay nodded sympathetically. There was no recrimination because Elliot had not told them before, though Hunter might have made threats about wasting police time.

“Where did he go?” he asked.

“Just out on the green,” Elliot said. “ I looked out of my window and saw him. He walked over towards the Castle.” He paused. “I suppose he was waiting for Maggie Kerr.”

“Did he meet Maggie?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t wait to see. I’d lost all patience with him. But I’ve told you he wasn’t gone long. Just a quarter of an hour.”

“And he didn’t say anything the next day?”

“No,” Elliot said. “ Neither of us mentioned it.”

Hunter, unable to sit any longer, got up and walked to the kitchen window. There was nothing to see and he turned back to face the room.

“Mr. Elliot,” he said. “ What were you doing between five and half-past six this morning?”

Ramsay knew that the question had to be asked, but he thought Hunter brutal. He would have done it differently. But Elliot was so confused by unhappiness that he was not offended. He did not even ask why the question had been put to him.

“I was here,” he said simply. “ Putting up the papers for the delivery boys. The van from Newcastle comes at six and the first boy at half-past. There’s never enough time.” He shook his head, then repeated, as if it were a statement of profound belief, “There’s never enough time.”

Out in the street Hunter stamped his feet. “What did you make of all that then?” he asked.

Ramsay shrugged. “If Charlie Elliot was out on the green late on Saturday night or early Sunday morning, it adds weight to your theory that he was blackmailing Alice Parry’s murderer,” he said. “He might have seen something.”

Then, just when Hunter was wondering if he would be able to claim the credit for making a breakthrough in the case, Ramsay added: “But it’s still too early to be certain of anything at this stage. If Charlie did go back to the pub to walk Maggie Kerr home on Saturday night, why didn’t she mention it to us?” He was talking almost to himself, and Hunter did not bother to reply.