Ann Cleeves - The Baby-Snatcher

‘She was going out to collect lichens to make the dye,’ Bernard said. ‘At least I think that was it.’

‘But she didn’t shout up that she was going?’

‘No.’

‘Did you hear the door slam shut again?’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I really can’t remember.’ He stared out of the window as if he expected the interview to be over.

‘Mr Howe.’ Ramsay spoke quietly. ‘We need to find out why your wife was attacked. There was no sexual assault and so far as we know she didn’t disturb some other crime. Motive is important. You do see that, Mr Howe?’

‘Yes.’ He seemed to find the idea interesting.

‘Mr Howe, can you think of anyone who might have wanted your wife dead?’

He gave the matter proper consideration. He didn’t dismiss it out of hand.

‘No,’ he said at last. ‘I can’t think of anyone who would have killed her.’

Ramsay was halfway down the narrow stairs before he realized that Bernard Howe had not actually answered the question.

Ramsay took the three women out to lunch. He’d only been in the house for half an hour and he couldn’t stand it any longer. He thought they must be going mad.

‘What about Bernie?’ Claire had said, but when they asked Mr Howe he said a sandwich would do for him and continued to practise his magic tricks. So Ramsay called in an eager young constable to stay in the house and they drove away from the Headland, Sal Wedderburn in the driving seat and Marilyn and Claire silently in the back. He was surprised there were no reporters waiting for them in the street. Only the slight movement of upstairs net curtains marked their going.

Ramsay took them to an Italian restaurant in Otterbridge. The food was good and if Claire and Marilyn had unadventurous tastes there was pasta and pizza. All young people ate pizza these days. He felt, unconsciously, that he wanted to give the girl a treat, a small comfort.

He and Prue used the restaurant often and the owner was a friend. It was late and the place was nearly empty. The last customers were preparing to go. Ramsay said gravely that he hoped the restaurant wasn’t about to close. They had been hoping for a place to talk. Marco would understand. And Marco did understand. He flapped a white napkin over a table by the window and said they could stay, all afternoon if they liked. He was there anyway. And with a wink, in an aside to Ramsay, he said that it was always a good idea to keep on the right side of the police.

The restaurant had long windows which looked out on a courtyard, one side of which was formed by the ruins of the town wall. The small trees in the courtyard still looked lifeless but underneath had been planted a bed of crocuses, bright orange, and purple and lit by the pale afternoon sun.

Ramsay watched Marilyn read the menu, hesitantly, always turning back to the cheaper items on the front. At Cotter’s Row money would have been tight and if the family had eaten out at all choice would have been restricted.

‘Have whatever you like,’ he said. ‘ It’s on expenses.’ Which it probably wouldn’t be but she always seemed so anxious that he wanted her, at least, not to have to worry about this. He ordered pasta with a spicy spinach sauce and, on impulse, a carafe of house red. Across the table he could sense that Sal Wedderburn was perplexed, wondering what he was up to, what he was hoping to get out of this. What the bosses would say.

What Claire made of it he could not tell. Meeting her for the first time in the cramped and claustrophobic living room at Cotter’s Row she had seemed entirely out of place. She was a statuesque young woman, large boned, dark haired, dark eyed. Here in the restaurant, with the other guests having left for their offices and only the Italian staff waiting quietly by the bar she seemed more at home. She could have been one of them. She ate with pleasure, drank the first glass of wine quickly and accepted the second when it was offered. You would have said she was there for a family celebration, yet, Ramsay thought, Kath Howe was the nearest thing she had to a mother.

They did not talk of the murder until they had finished eating. By then the sun had left the courtyard. Marco brought coffee in a thermos jug and said he would leave them to it. Throughout the meal Sal Wedderburn had attempted to catch Ramsay’s eye in an unspoken attempt to start the ball rolling. Each time he had ignored her. Now, quite openly, she looked at her watch. He saw it was a torture for her to sit and wait.

‘I expect,’ he said, ‘there are questions you’d both like to ask.’

‘We don’t know anything,’ Claire said flatly. ‘It’s not right, being kept in the dark like this.’

‘That certainly wasn’t deliberate. We didn’t want to give you false information. The details in a case like this take longer to check than anyone realizes.’

‘But now you do know? About how Kath died?’ He tried to place Claire’s accent, and decided north of the county. Berwick. Wooler. Had Kath Howe spoken like that? He couldn’t remember.

‘We know enough to be certain she was murdered. She didn’t slip on the rocks and fall. She was dead when she entered the water.’

As he spoke he was watching Marilyn. The colour drained from her face though there were no tears.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘When did she die?’ Claire demanded. Her bluntness surprised him. She leant forward across the table waiting for an answer.

‘Some time on Saturday. It might be possible to pinpoint the time more accurately once we know when she last ate but at the moment that’s all we know.’

‘How was she killed?’

‘She was stabbed, possibly with an ordinary kitchen knife. We haven’t found the weapon yet but we’ve begun to search.’ He paused. ‘We might need to look at your house too.’

She looked up, challenging. ‘Why?’

He chose his words carefully. ‘There’s a possibility that Mrs Howe knew her killer. We don’t think there was a struggle.’

He expected a denial, outrage that he could suggest that one of the family might be involved but perhaps she lacked the imagination to realize the implication of what he was saying. He continued. ‘There’s a possibility that Mrs Howe let someone into the house that morning.’

‘Might she have done that?’ Sally Wedderburn asked. ‘Might she have let a stranger into the house? She wouldn’t have been afraid?’

Claire shook her head. ‘Not for herself. She wouldn’t let Marilyn out of her sight but she thought nothing of walking the country roads at night. Besides, Bernie was upstairs all morning, wasn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ Sally Wedderburn said. ‘Of course.’ She seemed thrown by Claire’s confidence, her aggression, and fell silent.

‘Obviously we’re trying to form an idea of Mrs Howe’s movements on Saturday,’ Ramsay said. ‘ We need your help for that.’ He turned to Marilyn. ‘ I understand from your father that she walked with you to the bus stop in the morning. Did she wait with you until the bus came?’

Marilyn looked at him blankly as if she had not heard the question and he had to repeat it.

‘She waited until we could see the bus coming down the road then I sent her back. The crossing was clear for once and you can stand there for hours if one train follows another.’ She paused. ‘ To be honest I thought there might be someone I knew on the bus. I didn’t want any of my friends to see Mummy waiting with me.’

‘When I spoke to you on Sunday you said the last time you saw your mother was at breakfast.’

‘I was embarrassed,’ Marilyn said. ‘ I didn’t want to tell you that she wouldn’t let me walk to the bus stop on my own.’ She began to cry. Large, silent tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘She was only worried about me. I never worried about her. None of us did.’