Ann Cleeves - The Healers

“Tell me about her. Were you friends?”

“Friends?” The question seemed to bemuse her. She sat with her head on one side, considering it. Her eyes were grey and her skin was sandy and freckled, lined on her forehead with fine wrinkles. Ramsay guessed that she and Daniel were of a similar age but she looked much older. “No,” she said at last. “We weren’t really friends, though I always felt we might be. I was putting it off, if you know what I mean, saving it for when I had more energy and time. Now I suppose it’s too late.”

“Val didn’t make the effort to be friends with you?”

“No, but then she wouldn’t have done. She was very shy.”

“You never saw her professionally?”

“No. She had ten sessions of re birthing with Magda. She came to the retreat at Juniper. I talked to her there, at meals you know, socially. But there was a lot going on that weekend. It was hard to concentrate on getting to know people.”

“I would have thought that was what the weekend would be for.”

“Usually, yes…”

“But something unusual happened that weekend?”

She looked up at him sharply as if the question might be some sort of trick, then paused uncertainly and shook her head. She was lying but he did not push it. There would be other people to ask.

“Do you ever attend your mother’s Insight Group?”

“Occasionally,” she flashed back bitterly. “When I can persuade Daniel to look after the children.”

“Did Mrs. McDougal have any special friends there? Someone she confided in. A man perhaps?”

“She didn’t have a boyfriend, if that’s what you mean.”

“What about Lily Jackman? Were she and Val friends?”

“What is this friendship business about?” Win demanded angrily. “I thought you were a policeman, not a psychologist.”

“If she had any concerns for her safety she may have confided in someone,” Ramsay replied calmly. “That’s why I need to know.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I hardly slept at all last night. That’s why I’m so ratty. And the shock, I suppose. Val and Lily seemed to get on very well in the group. They seemed to understand each other right from the start. But I don’t think they ever met away from the Centre. Lily never mentioned it anyway.”

“You’ve been very kind to Lily and Sean,” he said.

“Not really.”

“They come to your house for meals and baths. You found them somewhere to live.”

“Well,” she said, “I suppose I felt a bit responsible for their staying in Mittingford when the rest of the convoy moved on.”

“Why?”

“I’d talked to them a lot about the Centre, how we organize it. I wanted them to see that they could have a lifestyle which didn’t compromise their beliefs but was more purposeful than aimlessly travelling around in an old van.”

She was like a missionary, Ramsay thought. He could see how Lily had been hooked.

“It was awkward,” she said. “I think when the convoy moved on they expected that we’d put them up here. I wouldn’t have minded. We’ve got the room and I’d have liked the company. But Daniel wasn’t keen. He didn’t want us getting too involved…”

“So instead they moved into Mr. Bowles’s caravan.”

She nodded.

“Did you meet any other members of the convoy?” Ramsay asked.

“Yes. They used to come into the Coffee Shop in the Old Chapel. I saw them there occasionally.”

“Do you remember a couple called Wes and Lorna? They might have been driving a blue Transit van. They had a baby, a little girl.”

She shook her head.

“Sorry,” she said. “Lily and Sean were the only people I really got to know.”

“Could you tell me where you were on Saturday night?”

“The night Ernie Bowles was strangled?” There was a brief flash of humour.

He nodded. “It’s a formality,” he said. “We’re asking everyone.”

“I was here. I’m always here.”

“And your husband?”

There was a perceptible pause before she answered: “Yes. He was here too.”

“Thank you,” he said. “You’ve been very helpful.” As they stood to go there was a yell from the garden, followed by the sound of a child sobbing.

“I’ll have to go,” she said, more in resignation than concern.

“That’s all right. We’ll see ourselves out.”

“Poor cow,” Sally Wedderburn said when they were out on the pavement.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, she seems so ground down by it all, doesn’t she? Depressed.”

Sally was right, he thought. There was more wrong with Win Abbot than a few nights’ missed sleep. She might be tied to the children but it wasn’t as if she didn’t get any break at all. There were her two evenings at the Old Chapel and they knew that she’d been in Otterbridge on Monday night with Daniel. Lily was obviously available to babysit and her mother lived in Mittingford. Surely she’d help if Win were desperate.

And she was desperate, he saw now. But why?

When they returned to the incident room Hunter was waiting for them, sitting on Ramsay’s desk with a mug of coffee in his hand.

“Well?” Ramsay said. “How did you get on? How did Mr. Richardson take the news that there’d be a New Age Centre at Laverock Farm?”

“He didn’t set the dogs on me or get out the shotgun,” Hunter said. “Though it was touch and go at first.”

“Did he know already about the terms of Cissie Bowles’s will?”

“He says not and I believe him.” Hunter put his coffee mug on to the desk, leaving a ring in the wood. “At first he was pretty mad. He talked about getting an injunction. Something about a change of use from agriculture being against the planning regulations, but he didn’t really seem to know what he was talking about. His wife soon calmed him down.”

“How?”

“She said she thought the hippies would only be interested in the house, not the land. It was a way of getting a bargain.”

“I had the impression that he has his eye on the farm,” Ramsay said. “For the son.”

“Aye well, it’s the land the son’s interested in too, not a big draughty house. If he marries.

Mummy and Daddy will build him a nice modern bungalow.”

“So Peter Richardson’s done very well out of Ernie’s death, if the Abbots are willing to sell the land.”

“Too bloody right,” Hunter said and slurped the last of the coffee.

“Did any of them know Val McDougal?”

“Never heard of her. So they claim.”

It was Saturday, a week after Stephen Ramsay had walked with his lover in the hills and Ernie Bowles had dressed up to meet his date in the town. Lily had been invited to supper with Magda Pocock. Magda, the famous rebirther who despite her wealth lived very simply on the job in a flat built into the roof of the Old Chapel.

Lily was working and Magda had come into the shop, ostensibly to buy groceries but hoping to find Lily there. She was still wearing her smart conference clothes, looked very much the professional woman.

“Lily,” she said. “My dear. What time will you finish work?” There was still the hint of the accent she had picked up from her mother.

Lily told her.

“Come and talk to me,” she said. “Stay for supper. I’m worried about all these dreadful things that have been happening.”

And she was worried, Lily could see that. She wasn’t curious or excited like most of the customers who came into the shop to discuss the murders. Magda’s anxiety troubled Lily more than all the other unsettling things that had been going on. It wasn’t like her.

From the beginning Magda had taken Lily under her wing and Lily had become dependent on her.