Ann Cleeves - Killjoy

‘Tell her I’m busy,’ Gus would shriek. He thought she was mad. She would ruin everything. ‘Tell her I’m in a meeting and I can’t be disturbed.’

‘She won’t believe you’re still in a meeting.’

‘I don’t care what she believes.’

On Wednesday night she had come to his flat. He had seen her car pull up in the street below and had switched off all the lights and bolted the door so even though she had a key she could not get in. She must have known that he was there because she stood on the wooden steps in full view of the street banging on the door and shouting through the letterbox, threatening to tell his secrets to the trustees, the press, the whole bloody world. He had stood in the kitchen, out of her view, shaking, thinking how easy it would be to let her in and keep her quiet for good.

Then, over the weekend everything went quiet. There were no calls from her on his answerphone, no sight of her car parked on the quay. On Sunday morning when he went into Hallowgate to buy the papers he felt that at last the worst was over. For the first time he thought there was no danger he would be followed. In the new year he would leave the area to begin his new job and he could leave the nightmare of the last few months behind. He even allowed himself a little optimism and excitement. There were FOR SALE posters stuck in the windows of his flat and he saw them as a symbol of change. They proved that the episode at the Grace Darling was a temporary aberration, and soon he would take up his life properly again.

The phone calls started once more on Monday. The first one came when Gus Lynch was out of the Centre, having a sandwich and a pint in the Anchor at lunch time, determined to maintain the old routine. Joe Fenwick put it through to Prue, who couldn‘ t persuade the caller to say what she wanted.

‘There was some woman on the phone for you just now,’ she said to Lynch when he returned. ‘She was in a phone box somewhere and wouldn’t leave a message but she was really upset, almost hysterical. I said you’d be in all afternoon.’

‘Oh, thanks!’ he said. He wondered how she could have been so stupid. ‘That’s just what I need!’

Prue ignored the sarcasm. She was still thinking about Anna.

Then the optimism of the weekend re-asserted itself and Gus thought that Jackie could do him no harm. He refused to let her phone calls threaten him or undermine his confidence. If she went public it would be an embarrassment of course, but who would take her seriously? Who would believe a middle-aged neurotic woman who had been jilted by her lover?

He sat in his office and concentrated on preparing a press release to advertise the performance of Abigail Keene. He was determined that the production would be a success. He wanted to go out with a bang. His phone rang.

‘It’s that woman again,’ Joe Fenwick said cautiously. He was expecting Lynch to be angry and was surprised by the director’s reaction.

‘Tell her to piss off, Joe,’ he said cheerfully. ‘ Tell her I want nothing to do with her. It’s one of the problems with being famous, old son, being pestered by women you’ve never met in your life.’

He replaced the phone, feeling pleased with himself, and shouted through to Prue to come into his office. He wanted to talk about costumes. They’d need to find the money from somewhere to hire them. This time he wasn’t going to have it done on the cheap.

‘I’ll not have it looking like a school play,’ he said. ‘There’ll be no jumble-sale cast-offs for us.’ Then, noticing for the first time how tired and tense she looked: ‘ What the hell’s the matter with you today?’

‘I’m worried about Anna,’ she said. ‘She went out with John Powell last night and didn’t come home.’

He laughed unpleasantly.

‘Good for Anna!’ he said. ‘I never knew she had it in her. She’s fancied him for ages, we could all see that. Now that Gabby’s out of the way…’

‘That’s a dreadful thing to say,’ Prue snapped. ‘Anna was Gabby’s friend. She wouldn’t have done her any harm…’

‘Of course not, pet, but it’s not done Anna any harm either, has it? She’s got the leading role and her man. Good luck to her. I only hope they get off the nest long enough to make it to rehearsal.’

And he laughed again.

The disturbances on the Starling Farm got out of hand because nobody was expecting them. It was a rainy Monday evening and the weekend had been quiet. The possible trigger to trouble-the arrest of the Pastons-no longer seemed to apply. The women were given bail in the late afternoon and delivered home by a kind constable. He accepted Alma’s offer of tea and stayed and chatted to her for half an hour before returning to the station. On his way out of the estate he saw a group of lads gathering in the car park of the Keel Row. They jeered at the panda car and threw a few stones but that was par for the course on the Starling Farm estate. He had a feeling that the gathering was more purposeful than usual, that the kids might be waiting for someone, but when he reported the incident back at the police station no one took any notice. It was five o’clock. Trouble usually started later when the pubs closed.

By five o’clock in Hallowgate police station Stephen Ramsay thought he knew who had killed Gabriella Paston and Amelia Wood. He had motive and opportunity and the description of the person Mrs Wilkinson had seen in Martin’s Dene was more accurate than he could have hoped. But he had no proof, no forensic evidence. At this stage there was definitely not enough to convict. He discussed the problem with his superintendent.

‘Should we go for an arrest?’ he asked.

The superintendent sat behind a desk stacked with paper and was deeply troubled.

‘Think of the publicity,’ he said. ‘It’ll be a media circus. Could we guarantee a fair trial after that, even if we get enough to bring charges?’

‘Not here,’ Ramsay said. ‘ But the trial could always be moved out of the area.’ Besides, he thought, that’s not our problem. My problem is to find the evidence to convict and I’m not sure an arrest would help. A confession’s not enough. Not these days.

‘What about searching the property? Would that be any use?’ The superintendent looked up from his papers. He looked suddenly tired and very old.

‘I think it would. We’ve the forensic report on Lynch’s car back now. There are some unexplained fibres on the driver’s seat. I’d be happier if we could tie them in with something belonging to our suspect.’

‘Yes, I see.’ He paused, seemed to be considering all the options. ‘Not a pleasant job,’ he said. ‘Never is.’ He looked at Ramsay with some sympathy.

‘Will you go yourself?’

Ramsay stood up and walked to the window. He looked out at the rain. A buoy flashed on the south side of the river.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I think I should go to the Grace Darling Centre.’ The drama had started there, the week before, and he thought that was where the thing would be concluded.

‘How long then,’ the superintendent demanded, suddenly alert and awake, ‘before it’s all over?’

Ramsay turned to him sadly. ‘We’ll get it finished tonight,’ he said. ‘One way or another.’

Ramsay drove to the Arts Centre through the centre of Hallowgate. The shops were still dark and shuttered, the streets almost empty. A squally wind blew litter across the pavement and made the branches of the big Christmas tree outside the shopping centre sway crazily. The large coloured bulbs which were its only decoration scattered light on to the wet streets and the blank shop windows. As Ramsay stopped at a junction a car drove up behind him very fast and overtook him, jumping a red light, almost causing an accident. It sped off at great speed before he could take the registration number and left him with a sense of shock and unease which remained all evening.