Ann Cleeves - Murder in My Backyard

“Who are you?” Rosemary Henshaw repeated suspiciously when Mary gave her fictitious name, as if she recognised the voice on the telephone and did not believe the fiction.

“Perhaps you could tell me where I can get hold of him,” Mary persisted.

“No,” Rosemary Henshaw said shortly. “ I’m sorry. I’ve no idea.”

So Mary went back to the list of contacts, and encouraging the Mini with soft words and endearments, she set off round the region again, feeling the shape of the story growing more solid with every interview she did, already seeing her name on the front page of the London dailies.

When she got back to the flat late that night, triumphant, needing coffee, whisky, the biggest Chinese take-away in the world, there was a note from James Laidlaw asking her to make sure she reported to the office the next day.

Sod you, she thought. One more day and I’ll have this cracked. Then I won’t need you anymore. You’ll be finished.

Of Max there was no word.

Ramsay was in his kitchen, drinking coffee, spreading some of his mother’s homemade marmalade on a piece of toast when Jack Robson appeared at the cottage. The interview with Mary Raven the night before had depressed and frustrated him. He had expected more from her. He had thought she would provide all the answers he needed. If she had not killed Alice Parry, why was she being so obstructive? Ramsay was sure Max Laidlaw was her secret lover and his failure to persuade her to tell him that had left him feeling incompetent. She was hardly the sort to be coy about sex. He could not help feeling that Hunter would have made a better job of it.

When the knock came on the front door, it was still early, before eight o’clock, and Ramsay supposed it was probably the postman with a circular too big to fit through the letter box. Instead it was Jack Robson, his face glowing after the walk from the other end of the village. He stood, his hands in his pockets, waiting to be let in.

“Hey, man,” Robson said. “ You’re a hard person to get hold of. I was here several times yesterday evening and I couldn’t catch you in.”

“No,” Ramsay said. “I was working late.” He did not know what to make of Robson’s appearance. In a serious investigation there was always the pressure of time, and once he let the old man into the house it might be hard to get rid of him. Yet there was always the possibility that he had useful information.

“Come in,” he said. “ I’ll make you some tea.”

“Well,” Robson said. “If you’re sure you’ve time.” He scrubbed his boots on the doormat and stepped in, looking around him with unembarrassed curiosity. “You’ve a nice place here. And a canny view.”

“Aye,” Ramsay said. “Unless Henshaw gets planning permission and there’s a new estate built at the end of the garden. There’ll not be much of a view then.”

“You don’t want to worry about that,” Robson said. “Building out there would extend the boundary of the village and that’s not in the structure plan.”

“The structure plan didn’t count for much in Brinkbonnie.”

“No,” Robson said. “ Well, I’m here to talk about that.”

Ramsay took Robson into the kitchen and made strong, sweet tea the way Jack liked it.

“Have you come up with anything?” he asked. He felt suddenly optimistic. Surely Jack would not be here so early in the morning if he did not think he could help.

Robson sat on a painted wooden chair. “I’ve no evidence,” he said. “Nothing I can lay my finger on. But I’ve got a theory.”

Ramsay was disappointed. He wanted something more concrete than theories.

“Go on,” he said.

“I’ve been through all the records,” Robson said. “I’ve gone back five years. I’m sure Henshaw’s found some way of manipulating the system. He even managed to get planning permission for sites where other developers had previously been turned down.

“So how’s he doing it?”

“It’s nothing to do with the council,” Robson said. “ I’ve already told you I’m certain of that.”

“Is it one of the officials then? Someone in the planning department?”

“No,” Robson said. “I think the corruption is more grassroots than that. You can have a village with a well-organised community group that successfully fights off any development, then along comes Henshaw and miraculously all the opposition disappears. It seems to happen again and again.”

Ramsay was listening impassively. “ Tell me your theory,” he said.

Robson paused and poured out more tea.

“Most protest groups have one or two activists who do all the work,” he said. “ The rest turn up at the meetings-if the weather’s not too bad and there’s nothing good on the telly. It’s the same in any political organisation, and in most places you find the same people running everything-they’re school governors, on the parish council, even running the WI. If Henshaw managed to threaten, bribe, or blackmail the activists in each group, there would be no real opposition left. The organisation would fall apart. Then the Department of the Environment inspector would think that no-one cared sufficiently about the development to make a fuss and he would let it go through.”

“But to prevent your activists from being effective, Henshaw would have to have detailed information on people all over Northumberland. It hardly seems likely.”

“He’s got a lot of contacts,” Robson said. “A lot of people owe him favours. And we know he’s used dirty tactics in the past. Besides, he wouldn’t have to do it in every case. Only when it seemed likely that other methods wouldn’t work.”

Ramsay had been standing throughout the conversation and moved to the window to look down the dene. His mind was working very quickly and he felt suddenly light-headed. For the first time he had a plausible motive for Alice Parry’s murder. She had the confidence of everyone in the village. If Henshaw had chosen leading members of the Save Brinkbonnie group as victims of his persuasion, it was quite possible that Alice would have heard about it. Perhaps, when she went to see Henshaw in an attempt to buy back the land, she had tried some gentle blackmail of her own. Ramsay imagined her standing up to the developer: “ Sell me the land or I’ll tell everyone what methods you’ve used to get your own way. My nephew’s a newspaper editor. He’ll be glad of the story.”

Rosemary Henshaw had said that Alice was angry when she came to the house. Nothing could be more daunting, Ramsay thought, than a middle-class lady spurred on by righteous indignation. But perhaps Henshaw had called her bluff. Perhaps he had pointed out to her that the people most likely to suffer from exposure were the people whose indiscretions had made them potential victims of blackmail. That would explain her distress in the pub after she had left him. Then perhaps he had decided that her knowledge was too dangerous, and he had followed her and murdered her before she reached home. There was a lot of conjecture in the theory, but it fitted the facts. Ramsay was attracted to it, too, because it made Henshaw the most likely suspect. If he were convicted of murder, Ramsay’s view would be safe.

“Well?” Robson demanded, breaking in on his thoughts.

“What do you think?”

Ramsay turned back slowly to face the room. “ It’s very interesting,” he said noncommittally. “ I’m grateful for all your help.”

“I don’t want your gratitude, man. I want to know if you think I’m right.”

“I think it might be worth following up,” Ramsay said.

Jack was thrilled. “ What do you want me to do? I’m a well-known man in this county. I could speak to a few people.”