Ann Cleeves - Murder in My Backyard

In the town the shops were beginning to close. Not far from home, Stella’s attention was caught briefly by the clothes in an expensive dress shop. She turned her head to look at a model in the window but moved on, hardly faltering. Ramsay thought at first that she was heading for the Express office. She walked through the abbey ruins and along the riverbank to the town centre. The breeze that blew over the water detached a strand of hair from the clip at the back of her head, but she fixed it without stopping. She came to the market square, which was now quite empty apart from a pile of trestles and tarpaulins in one corner, and even over the cobbles she maintained her pace. By the time she came to Front Street she was almost running with her black handbag held firmly under her arm and the slim black shoes tapping on the pavement. The other people in the street moved to let her pass, then stared after her, at the slender ankles under the expensive coat. She seemed preoccupied and did not thank them for allowing her to move without interruption.

Once, just as she was crossing the road, a middle-aged woman called after her: “Stella, my dear! How are you?” But Stella ignored her and slipped across the congested road behind a lorry full of sheep.

At the far end of Front Street Stella began to move more slowly. She looked about her. Ramsay had to take care not to be seen. As he hid in doorways and stooped to tie already fastened shoelaces, he felt uncomfortable, ridiculous. How could he justify this wasted time? He should be looking for Mary Raven. What would he do if Stella ended up in the smart wine bar in the High Street, sharing a bottle of claret with her husband or one of her friends? Yet as he came closer to her he saw a desperation and an increasing lack of control in her movements that made him think she might be dangerous.

At a street corner she stopped suddenly and looked all around her. She must have seen Ramsay but, in her haste and agitation, seemed not to recognise him. Perhaps she was looking for someone else. He stood, thinking she was on the verge of some crisis as the pale blue eyes searched both sides of the street, then she set off again with her jerky, unpredictable walk.

She’s mad, he thought. She’s quite crazy.

She disappeared then down an alley into a street of small shops. Ramsay’s way was blocked by a group of schoolgirls in the old-fashioned brown uniforms of an expensive Otterbridge day school, and when he pushed through into the street, there was no sign of Stella. Most of the shops were closed. The sun was low and the street was peaceful. A newsagent was bringing papers from a rack outside in preparation for closing and on the far corner a couple of men were sitting on the steps of a pub waiting for it to open. It seemed as if Stella Laidlaw had vanished into thin air. He ran down the pavement, pushing at locked doors, peering into shop windows. When he came to the chemist shop, he thought that it, too, had closed. The window was unlit and only a sign on the door saying that the pharmacist was on the out-of-hours duty rota made him look inside. Stella was there, the only customer. She was talking to a respectable elderly gentleman in a suit, who stood behind a counter where the dispensing took place. It was hard for Ramsay to see what was going on. The shop was disorganised and dusty, and the window was cluttered with bottles of shampoos and boxes of food supplements and milk drinks. A normal exchange seemed to be taking place. The chemist disappeared into a little room behind the counter and Stella waited, pacing between a pile of disposable nappies and a tray of lipsticks. The chemist returned; she took a wallet from her handbag, paid him, and then almost ran out of the shop, although the man called after her that he owed her some change.

Then suddenly the street was full of brown-uniformed schoolgirls tunnelling through the narrow alley, no longer prim and pompous but with all the ambiguity of adolescence. At one moment they were posing, loose-tied and tarty, then they were children again, throwing a schoolbag from one to another, jumping to catch it and showing regulation-brown knickers. Then they were racing to the newsagent before it closed, hoping to buy… What? Ramsay wondered. Cigarettes? Romantic magazines? Gum? They pushed into the shop and the street was empty again, except for Stella Laidlaw hurrying away. In the narrowest part of the alley, framed on each side by high walls, another schoolgirl stood. She was younger than the rest. Her arms were straight beside her, one of them weighed down by a violin case, the other, as if for balance, by a briefcase full of books.

“Mummy!” she called, and if she had not spoken Stella would have walked right up to her without realising who it was. “What are you doing here?”

Stella stopped and smiled at her daughter, as if waking slowly from a dream.

“Why,” she said, “ I thought it would be nice to come and meet you so we can walk home together.”

She slipped her arm through Carolyn’s arm without offering to carry the bag or the violin, her attention fixed on the shops in the main street. The girl hung back, staring down the alley after her friends. She saw Ramsay, who was still standing outside the chemist shop. Their eyes met, but the child gave no sign that she had seen him and did not mention him to her mother.

In the shop the chemist was back in his dispensary. The doorbell brought him out into the shop to the counter.

“Yes,” he said. “ Can I help you?”

“Who was the woman who was here just now?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the chemist said. “ I can’t tell you that, you know.”

Ramsay showed his identification card. “What did she want?” he asked.

“She was bringing a prescription,” the chemist said rather defensively. “There was nothing unusual about it. Tranquilisers. She seemed rather neurotic, didn’t she. It was written by Dr. Laidlaw.”

“His surgery’s on the other side of town,” Ramsay said. “ Why did she bring it here to have it made up?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps it was more convenient.”

“Is it legal for a doctor to prescribe for his own relative?”

“But she wasn’t a relative,” the chemist said impatiently. “At least I had no indication that she was. The prescription was in the name of Raven. Mary Raven.”

On her walk home with her mother Carolyn felt the same panic that she had had some years ago when she had been pushed into the deep end of the swimming pool before she could swim. There was the same gasping breathlessness, the same sense of inevitable pain. Then, she had fought to the side of the pool and saved herself. Now she felt helpless. The sight of Ramsay close to her mother had confirmed all her worst fears. He must know everything.

In the house her mother suddenly became kind and solicitous. Carolyn wasn’t looking well, she said. There was a lot of flu about. Perhaps she should go to bed. But Carolyn was frightened to leave her mother alone and sat with her in the kitchen. Stella’s apparent concern for her well-being made her feel sick and angry, but it was better to put up with that than to be in bed, not knowing what Stella was up to.

“When will Dad be home?” she asked at last. Her mother was frying onions and mushrooms in a pan, and there was a smell of garlic.

“I don’t know,” Stella said. “He should be here by now. Perhaps he’s working late.” She seemed quite unconcerned and Carolyn marvelled at adults’ capacity for deceit. She was desperate for her father’s return.

“Haven’t you any homework to do, darling?” Stella asked. “Or violin practise?”

But Carolyn shook her head. She knew she could not concentrate on anything until she had spoken to her father.

Stella began to chop parsley with a wide-bladed knife, holding the handle with one hand and hitting the blade quickly with the palm of the other. Carolyn watched, fascinated, and when the phone rang, she was unable to move. Stella set the knife down on the chopping board and went out to answer the phone.