Ann Cleeves: Too Good to Be True

She nodded. ‘My daughter Grace is best friends with Lucy. They’re both only children, so it was good that they each had someone to play with. Lucy loved it here. All this space is perfect for children and she enjoyed helping with the animals.’ Gail slid a pan onto the hotplate of the range. ‘Grace is so sad that Lucy’s moved away.’

‘Were you and Anna friends?’

Gail turned away from the stove to face him. ‘Well, we didn’t have a lot in common. Anna was young enough to be my daughter. I was forty when I had Grace. John and I married late. And I’ve lived all my life here, and Anna was English and had moved around. But we got on OK. She was great with the girls and I liked her.’

‘Was she the sort of woman who might have killed herself?’

There was a long pause before Gail answered. ‘I wouldn’t have said so when she arrived in the village last year. She was full of enthusiasm and ideas then. I was pleased that we’d have some-one young and fit to teach the little ones. Freda had been there a long time and she was still teaching in the same way as when she first started in the job. She’d taught lots of the children’s parents.’

‘But later?’

Gail tipped home-made soup into a bowl and set it in front of Perez. ‘Later it all seemed to get too much for Anna. It can’t have been easy dealing with a small child and a full-time job all on her own.’

‘You seem to manage,’ he said.

‘Aye, well, I’m a little bit older and I have lots of friends in the village. Besides, I’m not really on my own. My brother Sandy lives here too.’ Gail looked up from her soup and smiled. ‘But not for much longer, it seems! He’s just got engaged and he’ll be moving into a home of his own.’

‘You’ll miss him,’ Perez said.

Gail grinned again. ‘I will, but he’s marrying a lovely girl and they won’t be living far away. Besides, Grace, my daughter, is great company now.’

There was a knock at the door. ‘That’ll be the feed delivery,’ Gail said. ‘You’ll have to excuse me.’

She went out into the farmyard. Perez wandered around the kitchen. There was a picture of Gail on her wedding day standing next to a giant of a man with a beard. He must be the husband who’d died. They were surrounded in the photo by laughing friends and family.

When Gail returned to the kitchen, it seemed that she’d made up her mind to speak, because she started talking as soon as she came into the room. ‘Did you know that there are lots of rumours about Tom King and Anna?’

‘What sort of rumours?’

‘People are saying that Tom and Anna were lovers. He owns that little house in the village where she lived, after all. And Tom’s wife Sarah took against her as soon as she started at the school. It was as if she wanted to get rid of Anna as soon as she arrived.’

‘Do you know who started the rumours?’ Perez pushed away his soup bowl and put his elbows on the table.

‘Who can tell where gossip begins in a place like Stonebridge? The stories are like weeds, they seem to grow out of nowhere and then they spread, so there’s no way of stopping them.’

Gail was silent for a moment. ‘When my husband died in the car crash there were rumours that he’d been drinking. It wasn’t true and it’s dreadfully hurtful at a time when I’m still grieving for him. I don’t know who started that gossip either.’

‘But you think there might have been truth in the story about Tom and Anna?’ Perez remembered Gail talking in the cafe. It had seemed then that she believed the two had been lovers.

Gail shrugged. ‘They’ve been seen together and they seemed very close. Sarah obviously couldn’t stand Anna. Perhaps we’ve all jumped to conclusions, but it seems to make sense.’ She stood up. ‘I’ll get you back to Stonebridge. The kids will be coming out of school soon.’

As they drove through the open countryside and into the village, Perez felt a stab of dread. It was as if he was being taken back to prison after a brief period of home leave.

Back in Stonebridge, Jimmy Perez went to his hotel room. He wanted to talk to Robert Anderson, the local police inspector, about the cleaned wine glass in the cupboard at Anna’s house. He also wanted to find out why Anna’s parents weren’t taking care of their granddaughter Lucy.

But Jimmy was told that Inspector Anderson was in a meeting and wouldn’t be available all day. Perez left a message for Robert to call him back.

He stood at his window and watched a flurry of snow blow across from the hills. Parents had collected their children from school and were hurrying home. He saw Gail’s Land Rover move away down the main street. Back outside, the light was already fading and it felt colder.

Perez left the hotel and made his way to the school. He found the main door still open. Some older children were practising Christmas carols in the school hall. A woman in reception took his name and showed him to the head teacher’s office.

Maggie Redhead was in her fifties, with fine grey hair pulled into a comb at the back of her head and bright brown eyes.

‘I thought this matter with Anna Blackwell was over and we’d be allowed to get back to normal,’ she said. ‘It was distressing enough for the kids when she died.’

Her office was cluttered, with children’s books on the shelves and brightly coloured paintings covering one of the walls. Perez decided she looked like an energetic granny.

‘There seems to be some question about the cause of death.’ That wasn’t quite a lie, Perez thought. He wondered what Robert Anderson would make of his meddling. ‘I’m just taking another look at the case with a fresh pair of eyes. You know how it is.’

‘Not really,’ Maggie snapped. ‘I don’t usually lose my staff like this. They don’t die suddenly, and if they do, the deaths aren’t followed by gossip and bad feeling. Usually my teachers retire. The children present them with a gift on their last day and we have a party in the staff room.’

Perez smiled. ‘Did you throw a party when Freda retired?’

Maggie narrowed her eyes. ‘You have been poking around.’

‘Is Freda glad to be back as a supply teacher?’

Maggie sat back in her chair. ‘Freda has never married and the school was her life. But she’s got health problems now she’s getting older. She really wasn’t up to coping with a class of four- and five-year-olds. The only way she could keep order was by scaring the life out of them. I was pleased when she agreed to retire. So yes, we did throw a party for her.’

‘But she’s back now?’

‘On a very short-term basis while we appoint another reception teacher.’

‘Did Freda resent Anna Blackwell?’ Perez asked. ‘If the school was her life, it must have been hard for her to see another, younger teacher take her place. Especially if Anna’s teaching style was so different.’

Maggie gave a little laugh. ‘Freda might have resented the teacher who replaced her, but if you’re saying that she killed Anna to get her job back, then that’s quite mad. As I explained, she’ll only be here for a few weeks anyway.’

‘That’s not what I’m suggesting,’ Perez said. ‘I’m trying to find out where the rumours about Anna and Tom King started, and I’m wondering if Freda might be behind the gossip.’

Maggie took a little while to think about this. In the background, Perez could hear the children singing ‘Silent Night’.

‘That might be more Freda’s style,’ Maggie said at last. ‘She was very hurt when I told her it might be time for her to consider leaving. She was going to hate anyone who took her place. And she could be bitchy if the mood took her. I can see her starting the gossip as a kind of revenge.’