Ann Cleeves - Killjoy

At the Grace Darling Centre everything was much as it had been the week before. It was the quiet period before the evening rush. Joe Fenwick sat behind the desk in the lobby, his legs stretched in front of him, his eyes half closed, resting.

Gus Lynch’s sense of elation had persisted. He paced about his office, with his door wide open so his voice carried through the building, speaking on the telephone, trying to drum up advance publicity for The Adventures of Abigail Keene. He used the murders shamelessly.

‘Look,’ he said to friendly reporters, ‘the girl who died was actually playing the lead. You can’t get more topical than that…’

And he replaced the receiver satisfied that they would have all the publicity they could use.

Prue Bennett tried to work but she was distracted by Gus Lynch’s voice and her anxiety about Anna. It was not only a concern for the girl’s safety which made it impossible for her to concentrate on the report to trustees she was trying to prepare. Gus Lynch’s insinuations that Anna had benefited from Gabriella’s death remained with her, persistent and alarming, and other incidents, things Anna had said, took on a new and disturbing significance.

This is mad, she thought. It’s caused by exhaustion and worry. If Anna were here, so I could see her and talk to her, I’d realize it was all nonsense. But still she could not settle to her work and finally she went to the cafeteria and waited there, drinking coffee after coffee, trying to clear her mind of all her suspicions.

At six o’clock Ellen Paston turned up for her shift in the cafeteria. She nodded to Joe in the lobby on her way through as she always did, leaving her soaking raincoat on a hook behind the counter and put on her nylon overall. The place was quiet and she had time to fill all the sugar bowls before the customers arrived. Prue came to the counter to order another coffee but Ellen said nothing of her ordeal of the morning. She kept the humiliation of police questioning to herself, and brooded on it as she worked.

Half an hour later members of the choral society and the writers’ group began to arrive. They talked with ghoulish curiosity of the tragedy that had occurred the week before and spent longer over coffee than they would usually have done.

‘Come on, then,’ one said at last. ‘We’d best get started. I think we’re all here. Except Evan. He said he’d be able to make it this week too. Oh well, if he were coming he’d be here by now. We’ll have to manage without him.’

And they went to make music without giving Evan a further thought.

When Ramsay arrived at the Grace Darling Prue was still in the cafeteria, sitting in the corner where she could watch the door, waiting for a glimpse of Anna. As soon as the inspector came in she got to her feet and hurried to meet him, knocking a coffee cup off the table with the sleeve of her jacket in her haste.

‘Why are you here?’ she said. The colour had drained from her face. ‘Is there any news?’

He shook his head. ‘ You’ve not heard any more from her?’

She tried to hold back her tears.

‘She’ll turn up,’ he said. ‘I promise she’ll turn up.’ He wanted to take her into his arms and comfort her.

At six o’clock news began to come through of disturbances on the Starling Farm. The news hit so quickly because the television companies had been warned in advance by an anonymous phone call about what would take place. The reporters were in position in the grounds of the nursery school which had been left untouched by previous looting. They watched a gang of youths smash the windows of the school and break down the door. They did nothing to assist the caretaker, an elderly man, who tried to stop the destruction, but they turned to each other and called it ‘ good television.’

The mob who had broken into the school ran off with a television, a video recorder, and an aquarium full of newts, but it seemed that they were more interested in provoking a reaction from the police, in bringing them on to the estate, than in what they could steal. When the police arrived to find a road block of burnt-out cars outside the school the crowd cheered and pelted the officers with rocks, bricks, and beer cans. They lobbed petrol bombs like grenades. It was all more organized and serious than the policemen had expected. They retreated and waited for reinforcements.

The police who arrived in the next wave were so anxious not to be overwhelmed by the crowd that they over-reacted. They were aware of the criticism of delay levelled at them after the Meadow Well riots, and decisions were hardened because the television cameras were already there. No one wanted pictures of riot and disorder to be seen again in living rooms throughout the country. The north-east had a bad enough image already. The officer in charge of the operation was insecure, temperamentally unsuited to taking responsibility. He panicked. He thought it was better to have the reputation of coming down hard on troublemakers than going soft. All the political comment in recent months had reinforced his attitude. He was not prepared to wait, to be seen as a coward, a laughingstock.

His men arrived in armoured buses, wearing riot helmets, carrying shields and batons. They were greeted by an even louder cheer from the crowd and that seemed to provoke the officer in charge beyond endurance. He told his men to go in hard, immediately, and the young people behind the road block, many of whom were only there as spectators and stood laughing and drinking beer were surprised by the attack. It was over very quickly and brutally. The riot police weighed in without proper supervision or preparation. They seemed to lose control, hitting out with their batons, tramping over bodies already knocked to the ground in the rush to escape. It was perhaps fortunate for the officer in charge that only one incident-the beating of a twelve-year-old boy-was captured on television. It could have been worse. The rioters retaliated aimlessly, set the school alight, then scattered on foot and in stolen cars.

At the Grace Darling Centre Gus Lynch eventually agreed reluctantly to cancel the rehearsal. Anxious parents who had seen pictures of the violence on the local early evening news phoned in and said that they would not let their teenagers out. Still there was no information about Anna, and Prue Bennett grew more anxious and withdrawn.

‘Where the hell is she?’ she cried. ‘ She should have been here by now. I can’t stand this waiting.’

Ramsay said nothing. His work was all about waiting and he was used to it.

A police car on traffic patrol on the road from Newcastle to the coast was parked in a layby close to the Co-op hypermarket which had been raided earlier in the week. From there the driver could look down on the Starling Farm estate. He saw the flashes of petrol bombs and the huge bonfire which had once been the nursery school. He heard the screech of sirens.

‘If any of them come this way,’ he said to his partner, ‘we’ll get the bastards.’

In the opposite direction two fire engines and an ambulance went past at speed. They turned off the main road. The policemen in the car were frustrated and watched the disappearing blue lights with envy. They wanted to be involved. They had friends hidden behind helmets and riot shields. But they had been ordered to keep their position on the Coast Road until they were needed.

The radio crackled and the message had begun almost before they had realized, while their attention was still on the scene below.

‘Blue Sierra. Registration number: Alpha 749 Romeo, Tango, Golf. Two occupants wanted for questioning in relation to Starling Farm disturbances. Moving west towards the Coast Road.’

‘That’s it,’ the policeman said. ‘They’re ours.’