Ann Cleeves - Killjoy

‘How did you sell it on?’ he asked. ‘You never leave the house. Did the customers come here?’

She opened her eyes and looked at him disapprovingly. ‘I’d not be such a fool,’ she said.

‘Sarge!’ There was a shout from the hall. The DC was standing on a short stepladder with his head stuck through a square hole in the roof. ‘I think this is what we’re after!’ He descended, wiping the dust from his hands, and Hunter took his place and shone a torch into the roof space. There, neatly piled in boxes on the floor, was a variety of stolen goods. Most of the boxes contained radios and cassette-recorders, but there were briefcases, ladies’ handbags, leather gloves. He could see boxes of wine, jewellery, small electrical household items. Alma was standing at the foot of the ladder.

‘It’s a canny storeroom, isn’t it?’ she said with satisfaction. ‘That’s all Ellen’s work. I can’t get up there myself.’

‘Where did you get the toasters, then?’ Hunter shouted down. ‘And the booze? The kids’d not have found that in stolen cars. Not all of it at least.’

‘No,’ she conceded. ‘Well, we found we’d saturated the market with in-car entertainment-that’s what they call it you know, the radios and cassettes. So we decided to branch out.’

‘The ram raids,’ Hunter said. There was a grudging admiration in his voice. She had nerve, you had to give her that, and she’d been conning them all for years. ‘ Was Powell involved in that too?’

He climbed down to join her.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I think you can say that Johnny was the leading light behind the ram raids. The moving force.’ She touched Hunter’s arm conspiratorially. ‘The attack on the Coast Road hypermarket on the night Gabby died,’ she said. ‘That was all his own work. I wasn’t pleased about that. I thought the timing lacked respect. But he’s always had a flair for organization.’

‘You were telling me how you get rid of the stuff,’ Hunter said.

‘Was I?’ She was teasing him, pleased by his interest. ‘ Perhaps I’ll let you work that one out for yourself. We don’t want to make it too easy for you.’

‘You’ll stop mucking me about,’ he said.

‘I run a sort of franchise,’ she said proudly, not intimidated in the least. She had wanted to tell him anyway. ‘I suppose that’s what you’d call it. I have agents who do the selling for me. I take a commission.’

‘That bloke who was in court on the afternoon Mrs Wood died,’ Hunter said. ‘Tommy Shiels. Was he one of your agents?’

She nodded. ‘Not one of the best, though, hinnie. You mustn’t think I only deal with the losers.’

‘At least he kept his mouth shut,’ Hunter said. ‘He never let on he was working for you.’

‘Oh, they all keep their mouths shut, hinnie,’ she said. ‘ They know that some of my friends are…unpredictable.’ She touched his arm again with her thick soft fingers. ‘ You might not believe this, but they’re frightened of me!’

She seemed to find the idea hilarious and burst into laughter, rocking backwards and forwards. Hunter, watching her felt suddenly sick and chill. Like Ramsay he could believe her capable of anything.

Before he could settle to the investigation Ramsay phoned Prue Bennett at the Grace Darling Centre. The disappearance of Anna disturbed him, nagged at his subconscious all day. He did not see how she could be in real danger but knew that he would always blame himself if anything happened to her. Prue had been determined to go in to work and had left Otterbridge at her usual time. If she stayed at home she’d just mope, she said. She needed to keep busy. Anna would know where to find her.

‘Any news?’ he said.

‘Yes. I was just going to ring you.’ She sounded almost drunk with relief. ‘ She phoned in to say she was all right.’

‘Where is she?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know. She wouldn’t speak to me. Her pride, I suppose. Or she’d think I’d just make a fuss, get cross. She left a message with Joe.’

‘What exactly did she say?’

‘That she was sorry to have worried me, she was fine, and she’d be at the rehearsal tonight. She’d explain it all then.’

Ramsay said nothing.

‘Stephen,’ she said, perhaps sensing his disquiet. ‘You don’t think anything’s wrong, do you? She is going to turn up this evening, full of the adventure?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Of course she is.’ There was no point in frightening her.

But as soon as she had replaced the phone he dialled again and spoke to Joe Fenwick.

‘That message you took for Miss Bennett this morning,’ he said. ‘You are sure it was Anna on the phone?’

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘ For sure. I knew it was her before she gave her name. There’s not much of the Geordie in her voice, y’knaa, and it’s very quiet. I’d recognize it anywhere.’

Ramsay replaced the receiver slowly. He hoped to God she was safe.

In the neat terraced house on Martin’s Dene Front Street Hilda Wilkinson made tea for the pleasant policewoman who had come to talk to her. Hilda Wilkinson was a widow, spry, independent, energetic. She had just returned from her daughter’s and was full of the trip. She had enjoyed her weekend in the Lakes, she said, despite the weather. She still managed a good tramp across the fells.

‘It’s about the car you saw last Monday,’ the young detective said. ‘Can you tell us anything more about it?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Mrs Wilkinson said. It was only mid-afternoon but the windows of the cottage were small and the light was already beginning to fade. The lights were on and she had just lit a fire in the grate. ‘It was about two o’clock, I know that, and it’s unusual to see cars parked there during the week. At weekends it’s different of course. But there was nothing really to catch my interest.’

She poured tea into pretty china cups and handed one to her visitor.

‘Did you see anyone out on the hill while you were walking your dog?’

‘Not the young girl who was killed,’ Mrs Wilkinson said. ‘I saw a photo of her in the paper and a description of her clothes. I’ve rather a good memory, you know, almost photographic despite my age, and if I’d seen her I’d remember.’

‘But was there anyone else?’

‘Yes.’ Mrs Wilkinson sat very still. She wanted to test her memory. She was quite confident in her own ability.

‘It was very foggy,’ she said. ‘In the morning it had been sunny but by lunch time the mist started to come in from the sea. I didn’t go very far. I’m not a nervous person but it wasn’t pleasant there…’ She paused. ‘ There was a young mother,’ she said, ‘ with a child in a pushchair. I almost bumped into her, the fog was so thick. The baby wasn’t wearing gloves and I thought it was so irresponsible. His hands must have been freezing. I almost said something but she hurried away.’

‘Anyone else?’ The policewoman looked out of the window. She supposed the inspector must know what he was doing but this seemed a waste of time. She nibbled a piece of shortbread, stretched her hand towards the fire, and thought she might as well make the most of the rest. It had been a busy weekend.

‘There was Eleanor Darcy,’ the old woman said, ‘but I don’t suppose you’ll be interested in her. She walks on the hill every afternoon. She’ll not have remembered anything. She’s rather confused, poor dear. Still on the committee of the WI but not really up to it, I’m afraid.’

‘I’ll take her address,’ the policewoman said. ‘Just in case.’ She jotted the information in her notebook and stood to go.

‘Wait a minute!’ Mrs Wilkinson said. She was suddenly excited. ‘There was someone else. Not actually on the hill but on the road close to where the car was parked. Now, let me think…’ She shut her eyes and then began a detailed description which tallied almost exactly with that given to the policewoman by Stephen Ramsay the day before.