Ann Cleeves - Killjoy

When Prue Bennett returned to the house in Otterbridge where she had lived as a child she opened a bottle of wine. She and Anna sat at the kitchen table and drank it, quickly.

‘I nearly brought out three glasses,’ Anna said. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the fact that she’s not around.’

Everywhere in the kitchen there were reminders of Gabby’s presence-her underwear strewn to dry on the radiator under the window, a jersey thrown over the back of a chair, a self-portrait stuck on the fridge, which had been a present to Prue on her last birthday. It occurred to Prue that Gabby must have made an impact wherever she went. Anna had lived in the house for most of her life yet there was little indication of her existence.

‘Isn’t it strange,’ Prue said suddenly, ‘that you were such good friends. You were really terribly different.’

‘You mean that she was amusing, friendly, and attractive, and I’m dull,’ Anna said sharply.

‘No, of course not.’ Prue was shocked by the bitterness.

‘I’m sorry,’ Anna said. ‘I didn’t mean it to sound like that. But sometimes it was hard not to be jealous. Not of the life she’d had. It must have been dreadful to lose her parents like that. But because she was always so popular.’

‘Did she have a boyfriend, at the moment?’ Prue asked. ‘I suppose the police will want to know.’

‘Oh,’ Anna said. ‘Gabby always had a boyfriend.’ She paused. ‘ I don’t know how serious it was,’ she went on, ‘but I thought she was rather keen on John.’ She kept her voice even. ‘I don’t know if anything came of it. And she’d always had a crush on Gus, of course. If he hadn’t been old enough to be her father she might have had a go at him.’

‘She liked John Powell?’ Prue’s voice was tactfully calm. ‘I didn’t realize.’

‘She never talked about it,’ Anna said. ‘She never talked about anything that was really important to her, if you think about it. She made everything out to be a great joke.’

‘Didn’t she even talk to you?’ Prue said. ‘I thought you two were so close. I could understand her not confiding in me…I thought perhaps I intimidated her…’

‘Oh, Mum,’ Anna said. ‘Don’t be so silly. She liked you. She really liked you.’

‘Did she?’ Prue looked up from her glass. ‘As you say, with Gabby it was impossible to tell.’

When the bottle was empty Anna went to bed. She had to step over the slippers shaped like seal pups which Gabby had left at the bottom of the stairs and in the bathroom she stood for a moment, quite transfixed. The smell of Gabby’s perfume still lingered there, so Anna felt that if she called out Gabby would answer her.

Prue stayed in the kitchen until past midnight. She opened another bottle of wine, which she began to drink more slowly. The cat jumped on to her lap and she stroked it absentmindedly, shivering slightly. She realized that the heating had gone off an hour ago, that she was very cold and a little drunk.

Joe Fenwick left the Grace Darling Centre at 11.30. The relief security man had been there for an hour but he had hung on, afraid of missing something, brewing tea for Ramsay and his men in the cupboard where he kept his things. There were no lights on in Hallowgate Square. Even the curious neighbours, who had heard of the murder on the telly and watched out for the police cars, had gone to bed. Usually, when he left work, Joe liked a quick drink in the Ship in Anchor Street. He liked the warmth, the conversation, even the piped Christmas music. He was well known in there. But tonight the doors were shut and the windows were dark. He walked on down the hill towards the river.

Joe Fenwick had lived in a basement flat at the bottom of Anchor Street for more than twenty years. During that time he had shared it on and off with Sal Grainger, the barmaid in the Anchor. She had been a big, impulsive woman who disappeared occasionally with other lovers, but they had got on well when she was there. They had shared a lot of laughs. Her death after a sudden illness had shaken him more than anyone realized. It had left him lost and lonely.

He was thinking of Sal when he was fiddling with the keys to his flat. He missed the anticipation of seeing her, sharing the news of the day, sitting in the stuffy little room in front of the gas fire, drinking tea or whisky. He was so lost in thought that the screeching brakes of the car turning from the square into Anchor Street shocked him. The car hurtled down the road, swerving from one side of the street to the other.

Bloody hooligans, Joe Fenwick thought, moving into the steps down to his flat, frightened that the car would mount the pavement and hit him.

The car sped past him. He saw that there were three people inside. The face of the driver was vaguely familiar, but disappeared so quickly that Joe could not place it. He swore again, under his breath, and opened the door to the cold and empty flat.

The next morning Ramsay arrived at Hallowgate police station early. It was an impressive grey-stone building close to the quayside next to the Seamen’s Mission. Along the street in the greasy café fishermen were eating breakfast and their laughter spilled out into the street. It was just getting light and very cold. Against the grey sky floated the white shapes of herring gulls, calling continuously. It was all very different from the inland county town of Otterbridge where he was usually based and he enjoyed the novelty of the surroundings, thought again that a new patch might rekindle his enthusiasm for the job.

Inside he was offered a bare, cold room on the first floor with a faulty radiator and no view but he accepted it gratefully. He would need somewhere away from the noise and hysteria of the Incident Room to collect his thoughts. Most of the morning was spent in meetings, organizing manpower, a press conference, negotiating overtime. Gabriella Paston was almost forgotten.

In the canteen Detective Inspector Evan Powell was giving Hunter a lecture about joy riding and ram raiders. There had been three more cases of TWOC in the night and a ram raid on the Co-op Hypermarket on the Coast Road, during which thousands of pounds’ worth of small electrical goods, spirits, and cigarettes had been taken. Powell had had little sleep.

‘It’s all a symptom of the same lawlessness,’ he said, his Welsh voice rising in passion as he spoke. ‘There were villains on the patch in the past. Of course there were. But they came from the same families. We knew where to find them. We could control them. This is a different thing altogether. Far more widespread. On some of these estates there’s a generation of kids who’ve been brought up without hope…’

Hunter, who had been hoping to enjoy a bacon sandwich in peace, muttered that Powell sounded like a bloody social worker. Powell, a Presbyterian, frowned in disapproval at the swearing, then continued:

‘Their parents haven’t got the wit or the interest to care about them, the schools can’t control them, they live in a dump that the council tries to pretend doesn’t exist… And then there’s the boredom factor! They’re not all dumb, you know, those kids. The Home Office like to think they’re stupid. But they need a challenge like the rest of us. I know some of the joy-riding gangs go specially for the cars with the most elaborate security. Would you believe it? It gives them status, you see, in the eyes of their friends. And the ram raiders! Well, man, they’re really at the top of the heap. Everyone on the estate knows who they are. They’re heroes. You’d think every one of them was Robin Hood!’

He paused for breath. Hunter looked around him, searching for some means of escape. He was a policeman not a sociologist. All this talk made him uneasy. But Powell was going on.