Ann Cleeves - Killjoy

He thought he had probably seen her three or four times in the night club in Otterbridge. Hunter went there regularly to impress new girlfriends and it was always packed. He had only spoken to Gabriella once. On the other occasions he had glimpsed her sitting at the bar with friends or on the dance floor under the flashing lights, but she had always attracted his attention. On the night he had spoken to her he was on his own, stood up by some woman, determined all the same to have a good time. She had been sitting on a tall bar stool, her legs crossed at the ankles, laughing. He had offered to buy her a drink, and she had laughed again and refused, saying she was waiting for a friend. That was all that happened. There had been no more contact than that, but Hunter felt the result of the encounter all evening. He was excited, suddenly optimistic about the possibility of good times ahead. He wasn’t sure what it was about her that had been so special and was trying to find a word to describe her when Gus Lynch provided it for him. Gabriella Paston was fun.

In Lynch’s office Ramsay looked at Hunter, giving him the opportunity to ask questions of his own, but the sergeant shook his head.

‘That’ll do for tonight, Mr Lynch,’ Ramsay said, surprised. ‘We’ll be in touch again tomorrow.’

‘Oh!’ Lynch said with some bitterness and self pity. ‘ I expect you will. How will I live it down, do you suppose? What will the trustees think? Even if they don’t believe I’m a murderer they’ll think I’m remarkably careless. To allow my car to be used as a dump for dead bodies.’

Ramsay was already on his feet but he hesitated at the door.

‘Were you careless?’ he asked. ‘ With your car keys for example. There’s no indication that your boot was broken into. Could someone have taken your keys without your realizing?’

Lynch shrugged. ‘I keep them in my jacket pocket,’ he said. ‘My jacket’s usually hanging up in my office. I don’t usually lock my office door. I suppose that’s careless.’

He turned his back to them and poured another drink.

In the lobby Joe Fenwick was still pretending to read the Sun , but he was looking out for them, hoping to be involved, an insider in the investigation.

‘The others are waiting for you in the small lounge,’ he said. ‘At the end of the corridor and turn left. I can show you if you like.’

Ramsay seemed to consider the offer carefully. ‘ No,’ he said. ‘Thank you. I think someone should stay on the desk if you don’t mind.’

‘Sure!’ Fenwick said, grinning to expose a mouth full of crooked teeth.

In the lounge the mock-leather chairs were still set in a circle. Earlier the Writers’ Circle had sat and listened with rapt attention to a local author of historical romances talk about the necessity of proper research. The three women in the room had pulled their chairs out of the circle and sat in a corner around a small table which held a tray with a teapot and mugs. The heating in that part of the building must have been switched off automatically because the room was very cold. The women were all wearing coats.

Hunter opened the door without knocking and they turned to face him with the wary suspicion that usually met the police. Ramsay, standing behind him, did not hear the sergeant’s introduction and his explanation that they had questions to ask but they would be as quick as possible. He was staring at Prue Bennett, recognizing her immediately, waiting for some sign that she recognized him.

One summer, more than twenty years before, Stephen Ramsay had been in love with Prue Bennett. He had been a sixth former at Otterbridge Grammar School. She had been a year older, at the same school. There, Ramsay had been considered boring. He was hard working, not terribly bright, never a real member of the arty group which dominated the Common Room. He found the talk of politics, rock music, and pop psychology bewildering. There was nothing in his background or personality to excite interest and the girls who were at that time into long floral dresses and self-expression ignored him. In their presence he was awkward, gawky, quite socially inept. He cared too much what they thought of him, desperate for some contact, some intimate female company. Now, in the Grace Darling Centre, standing in the doorway, trying to catch Prue’s eye, he still remembered with pain the desperation of that summer and the occasion that had brought them together.

A trendy young English teacher had organized a trip to the Newcastle City Hall in the school’s minibus. The lead guitarist from a famous rock group had recently gone solo and was playing there as part of a country-wide tour. Who was he? Ramsay wondered now. But although he had an image of a fine-featured young man, with long ginger hair, bending over a guitar, could even hear one of the more lyrical tunes which had the girls in the party dancing, he could not remember the musician’s name. Had it been familiar to him even then? Or had he gone along on the trip just because he was frightened of being left out altogether, of becoming one of the strange, misfit pupils, the target of jokes, hardly considered as part of the sixth form at all? He had gone, he admitted to himself now, though he would not admit it then, because there would be girls in the party and in 1971 he was obsessed by women. For Ramsay, at that time, almost any girl would have done. He would have been content with a kiss, a touch, a token taste of the sexual activity which was going on all around him and in which he never participated. He supposed that someone fat or particularly ugly would have been an embarrassment but he had the sense that once he made it with one girl the rest would be easy. There was a feeling of time running out.

Prue Bennett was not any girl. She was a calm, dark young woman as tall as he was. She was in the upper sixth and had already gained a place at Cambridge. She was, he knew, way out of his league. Yet because of chance or circumstance, because the trendy English teacher was infatuated with a married woman, Ramsay and Prue were thrown together.

It had been arranged that the minibus would deliver all the girls to their homes, but it had taken longer than the teacher had expected to negotiate the traffic generated by the concert. He had a date with his mistress and knew she would not wait for him if he were delayed. She had a husband to return to. He was a mild distraction to relieve her boredom, not someone to ruin her life for. When he arrived at the town centre with Prue still on board he was frantic.

‘Look!’ he said, persuasive, chummy, one of the lads. ‘I’ve got an appointment, something I can’t miss. You know how it is. Steve, you’ve got to get the bus home anyway. Can’t you walk Prue to her house and get it from the top of the hill?’

‘All right,’ Ramsay had said hesitantly. Would Prue Bennett want him to walk with her? She was independent. Perhaps she would prefer to walk alone. He was more nervous than he had ever been. More nervous than before ‘O’levels, even than before the eleven-plus and then he had been so frightened that he had spewed up in the playground of the village school where he’d been a pupil.

‘Prue?’ the teacher had said. ‘You don’t mind, my love? You’ll be quite safe with old Steve.’ And he had laughed, a little unpleasantly, as if he knew of Stephen’s inexperience and was making a joke of it.

‘No,’ Prue had said easily. ‘Of course not. I’d like the walk if you don’t mind…’ She had turned round in her seat in the minibus to face him and put her hand on his arm. ‘If you’re quite sure.’

Oh yes, Ramsay mumbled. He was quite sure.

‘Let’s go through the park,’ she said as they crossed the bridge. It was still warm but a breeze from the Otter blew her hair, and the skirt between her legs. He looked away.