Ann Cleeves - The Baby-Snatcher

He broke off abruptly, began chewing his fingernails.

‘Where’s David?’ Hunter said. ‘David Coulthard. The little boy you took from the Headland this afternoon.’

‘I didn’t take anyone from the Headland,’ he repeated automatically. Then, in a more animated voice, he went on. ‘It was like you said. I went to Whitley last night, looking for Kim. I’d been really low. I thought I could have a few beers, go back to Kim’s house, play with Kirsty in the morning. I told Marie I was working away.’

‘Didn’t you realize we’d been looking for you?’ Hunter demanded. ‘If you’d met up with Kim she’d have phoned us straight away.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think.’ And they realized that was probably true. He was too wrapped up in himself, in his own need for comfort. ‘Kim wasn’t there. So I drove out to the Headland. I looked in the club because I thought she might be in there, having a drink with her friends. Then I waited outside the house. Kim wouldn’t have recognized the car. We take different ones from the garage. It depends what’s been sold. I didn’t knock at the door. There might have been a babysitter. I wouldn’t have known what to say.’

‘What did you hang around there for?’ Hunter asked.

‘I thought Kirsty might be on her own,’ he confessed. ‘Kim leaves her sometimes. She doesn’t deserve a kid, does she? But Kim was there. I saw her draw the bedroom curtains. I suppose I could have gone in but by then I couldn’t face her. All that chat. Having to be nice. You don’t have to do that with kids. So I drove down to the jetty and went to sleep in the car.’

‘Until two o’clock in the afternoon?’ Hunter asked, as if he didn’t believe a word of it.

‘Yeah. I mean I wasn’t asleep all that time. I went for a walk along the cliffs. To clear my head. Like I said, thinking. I knew it couldn’t go on. If you hadn’t picked me up at that roadblock I’d have given myself in anyway.’ He looked up at Hunter. ‘How did you know I was there?’

‘We didn’t.’ Hunter was quickly losing patience. ‘We were looking for David Coulthard, the little boy you abducted from the Headland. Now stop pissing about and tell us what you’ve done with him.’

‘I’ve already told you. I didn’t take a little boy. I would have liked to spend some time with Kirsty, but I didn’t see her either.’

Ramsay slipped silently from the room. Paul Hooper was biting his thumbnail again and looked very much like a little boy himself.

In Cotter’s Row Ramsay waited for Sal Wedderburn to join him before knocking at the door. He saw her walking briskly down the track, her hands in her jacket pockets. He knew she would be glad to have escaped the Coastguard House.

‘How are the Coulthards bearing up?’

She shrugged. ‘ It gets harder, the longer it is without news.’

‘You left someone with them?’

‘Grace Newton.’

Ramsay nodded. Grace was soft and plump, famous for her laziness. She was irritating to work with but she’d be unflappable, reassuring.

‘Do you know where Emma Coulthard went this lunch time?’ Sally said. ‘To meet Mark Taverner. She came right out with it in front of her husband. She said she’d explain to him later. He didn’t seem bothered. As if it hadn’t come as any surprise that they were meeting.’

‘How long did she spend with Mark?’

‘She didn’t. Apparently he arranged to meet her in a pub and he never turned up. That’s how she was back on the Headland earlier than she’d expected.’

‘Has he phoned the Coulthards since, with any explanation?’

‘Not so far as I know.’

Sally was impatient to knock on the Howes’ door and get on with the interview, but he stood on the pavement for a moment and considered what this could mean. Wild explanations occurred to him, a bizarre conspiracy theory in which Mark had phoned Emma to keep her off the Headland while her child was taken. Ramsay was distracted by the coincidence.

‘I suppose his car might have broken down,’ he muttered. ‘Something like that.’

‘Are we going in then?’ Sally demanded.

‘We’ll talk to Mr Taverner later. When we’ve finished here.’

Marilyn opened the door. She was wearing the same jeans, the same jumper.

‘Is there any news?’ she asked. ‘Claire told me what happened. You read about these things, don’t you? But you never dream they’ll happen here.’

Ramsay had the impression she was repeating a phrase she’d heard. Perhaps the neighbours had said the same thing about her mother’s death.

‘Where is Claire?’

‘In the backroom.’ She lowered her voice. ‘She’s ever so upset.’

‘Is your dad in?’

‘No. He’s working this afternoon. A private party. The taxi came a while ago. He needed a taxi to carry all the stuff he’s got. He’s trying a new act: ventriloquism and magic combined. So he had to take Charlie.’

‘Charlie?’

‘The ventriloquist’s dummy.’

Ramsay wondered what the men on the roadblock would make of that, then thought, with a constriction of the stomach, that they might not even stop the taxi. They were looking for a private car. They might just wave it through.

‘Where’s your dad working?’

‘I don’t know. Newcastle, I think. Somewhere smart. Jesmond. Gosforth.’

‘Does he keep an appointment diary?’

‘Yeah, but he’ll have it with him. Why?’

‘We’ll need to talk to him. He might have seen something.’

‘Are you joking? He was in his room, practising. You could have the Blyth Town Band marching in the street outside and he’d not notice.’

‘Can we go through, then, and talk to Claire?’

‘Sure.’

Although the fire wasn’t lit, Claire was sitting in her usual chair by the side of the grate. She was still wearing her outdoor shoes and her coat. There was a newspaper on her knee but Ramsay could tell she wasn’t reading it.

‘I suppose Mrs Coulthard told you it was my fault,’ she said, still staring at the paper.

‘I haven’t spoken to Mrs Coulthard.’ Ramsay took the other seat, Bernie’s seat, beside her.

‘I told her I wouldn’t be able to manage the three of them outside. She knows David’s a tinker. He hasn’t got any sense of danger. He’s always running off and he’d follow anyone.’

‘I think she probably blames herself more than you.’

‘Yeah, well. It’s my living, isn’t it? I might never work again if people get to hear about this.’

‘You haven’t asked if there’s any news of David.’

‘I’m not daft. You’d have told me if you’d found him.’ She turned for the first time to face him. ‘You haven’t found him?’

He shook his head. She stared back at the newspaper. ‘That’s it, then. Someone’s had him away. You’d have found him if he was still on the Headland.’

‘Not necessarily.’

‘What do you want?’

‘Do you mind if Sally looks round? We’re searching all the houses is Cotter’s Row, in case he just wandered in through an open door. Is that the sort of thing he might do?’

‘He might,’ she conceded. She wiped a hand across her forehead. Her cheeks were flushed but still it didn’t occur to her to take her coat off. She paused for a moment. Ramsay nodded to Sally, who left the room.

‘A nanny’s not supposed to have favourites,’ Claire went on. ‘But he was the one I liked best though he wasn’t easy. He was always into mischief. Like I said, a real tinker.’

‘Tell me what happened today.’

‘I only agreed to go in as a favour. I don’t usually work weekends.’

‘Did Mrs Coulthard tell you why she needed you to work?’