Ann Cleeves - Killjoy

‘They’ll be changing gear at the Community Centre,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘Up the hill to the Keel Row… Here they come.’

Suddenly the place emptied into noise and light with the blaring of horns and the flashing of headlights to make the end of the race.

‘Who was it?’ she demanded. ‘Was it your friend?’

He looked at her. ‘Do you care?’

‘Of course I care.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘ It was Baz.’

‘What does he win?’ she asked.

‘Win? Nothing. He does it for the honour and the glory.’

She stared at him but found it impossible to tell if he was being serious.

‘Will you go and congratulate him?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Not today. I just wanted to be here to see him do it.’

‘Is that it?’ she said. ‘ Will there be another race tonight?’

‘It depends,’ he said, ‘if they get the chance.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘That,’ he said suddenly. ‘ That’s what I mean.’

In the distance there was the wailing of a police siren and beyond the houses she saw a flashing blue light.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to get you out of here.’

‘But we’ve done nothing wrong,’ she said. ‘It can’t be illegal to watch them?’

‘Do you think that makes any difference to them?’

All around them the cars were scattering, some driving over the grass towards the school. John switched on the ignition and pushed the gear into place. He drove forward with a jerk, swerving to avoid the battered mesh fence, and down the street away from the flashing blue light. He felt drained and exhausted. Was it worth it? he wondered. For a few minutes of excitement.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘I’d better take you home.’

‘I won’t say anything,’ she said. ‘About tonight. I won’t tell anyone where we’ve been.’

He shrugged. ‘It’s up to you,’ he said. ‘As you say it’s not illegal to watch.’

‘I’d like to come again,’ she said. ‘If you’re going.’

He looked at her in surprise and realized that he was disappointed. He had been hoping to scare her and she had been excited. She had treated it all as a game.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘But next time I go I’ll be racing.’

From the kitchen Prue could not hear the traffic at the front of the house and she went every so often to the front bedroom to peer down the street to watch for her daughter’s return. She found it hard to account for her unease. It was not that she believed John could be involved with the murders but she was unsettled. She told herself that there was nothing wrong with him. He was bright, from a respectable family. Most mothers would be glad to entrust their daughters to a boy like that. But it did no good and she could not relax. Absentmindedly she cooked and ate an omelette.

She told herself she should be pleased by Anna’s new confidence. Hadn’t she spent the past ten years wishing she would be more assertive? Yet as the evening wore on her anxiety increased and she remained in the front bedroom despite the cold, with the curtains slightly open so she could look down into the street below and watch for headlights coming up the hill.

Because of that she saw the car quite clearly, registered that it was new, a bright red Polo. She was surprised when it slowed down and stopped outside the house. Policemen could not be so badly paid, she thought, if they could afford to let their offspring run around in a thing like that, but she felt no real envy. She was just ridiculously relieved to have her daughter safely home. She shut the curtains quickly before Anna could say she’d been prying. Would she invite him in for coffee? Would they kiss? It was not, she supposed, any of her business. When Anna came into the kitchen immediately afterwards she found her mother apparently engrossed in a book.

‘Did you have a good time?’ Prue asked, stretching as if she had been in the chair for hours.

‘Very good, thank you,’ Anna replied politely and before Prue could express any further interest in her evening she said she was very tired and would go straight to bed.

Hunter sat in Ramsay’s cottage in Heppleburn, looked at his watch, and thought that by the time he got back to Otterbridge the pubs would be closed. He would have liked half an hour in his local to unwind, a couple of pints, a flirt with the barmaid, a quick game of darts.

‘What do you make of it all, then?’ Ramsay asked.

It was one of those open questions again, Hunter thought, which were designed to catch you out or make you look foolish. It was bad enough sitting here after a long day’s work, drinking the boss’s Scotch and pretending they were great chums. What was the man playing at?

Ramsay might have said that he was playing at man management, building a team-he had been sent on all the right courses and knew the jargon-but it was more simple than that. The day had been frantic and he needed time to think, to share his ideas, to test them. Hunter’s scepticism, even his prejudice, made him a useful sounding board. Ramsay could sense his sergeant’s suspicion but could think of no way of putting him at his ease without appearing patronizing, so he repeated: ‘Well, what do you make of it?’

‘I don’t know, sir. Too many bloody complications.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like Gabriella’s bag being found in Amelia Wood’s garden. Like the reservation at the Holly Tree being made in the name of the character Gabby Paston was acting. It’s as if someone’s playing games. I’d like to know what it all means.’

‘I suppose it means,’ Ramsay said, ‘that a certain amount of calculation has gone into the affair. Someone’s trying to cover their tracks. Or send us in the wrong direction. Perhaps there was an attempt to implicate Amelia Wood in the Paston murder by planting Gabby’s bag in her garden.’

‘Why kill her then? She’s not much use as a decoy suspect dead.’

‘No,’ Ramsay said. ‘Quite.’ He stood up and prodded the fire with a poker, letting air under the coal, watching the flame with satisfaction. He had lit the fire when they got in and it was only just starting to release some warmth. The curtains at the back of the house were still open and they could see a thin, hazy moon. A tawny owl called very close to the window and made Hunter start. He was glad he didn’t have to live out here in the sticks.

Ramsay returned to his seat. ‘I know it’s unlikely,’ he said, ‘ but I suppose it’s just possible that Amelia Wood killed the girl.’

‘Then why the second murder?’ Hunter thought it was all in the realms of fantasy. Ramsay was taking the idea of considering all the options to extremes.

‘I don’t know,’ Ramsay said. ‘Revenge?’

‘Hardly. No one cared enough about the girl to bother.’

‘Her family?’

‘Those two old biddies. You must be joking.’

‘I suppose so.’ But the thought of Alma and Ellen disturbed him. He could believe Alma Paston capable of anything. ‘I’d still like to know why Gabriella first left home,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we could make some enquiries on the estate.’

‘We could try.’ Hunter was dubious. ‘But that place is like a tinderbox. It’d only need someone to take offence and you’d have a full-scale riot. They’re not known for their co-operation with the police.’

‘Gabriella was one of them,’ Ramsay said. ‘ They’d surely want her killer found.’

‘Was she one of them? She left, didn’t she? They wouldn’t like that.’

Hunter tried to shuffle his chair closer to the fire.

‘I’ve still not found out who gave her the money to start the savings account,’ Ramsay said. ‘All the payments were made in cash so the building society can’t help. Ellen claims to know nothing about it.’