Ann Cleeves - The Healers

“Even with a load of “hippies” living in the house?”

He snorted.

“I’ve told Stan I don’t think that will be a problem,” Sue interrupted again. “I’ve seen the sort of operation they run at the Old Chapel. I like to shop there, actually. Some of my guests prefer organic produce. It’s very professional. I don’t think we’d have anything to worry about if the Abbots took over. It might even work to our advantage. Some of our visitors might be attracted by the facilities they’d provide. Anything would be better than Ernie Bowles, with his smelly old dog, swearing at anyone who went near him.”

So Cissie’s plan had backfired, Ramsay thought. She had hoped to upset the neighbours. Instead they saw the Alternative Therapy Centre as a tourist attraction.

“What do you want with the lad then?” Stan demanded.

“Some information,” Ramsay said. “It’ll not take long.”

“I’d best go and fetch him for you. He’d spend all night in the bloody bathroom given the chance. Then I’ll be in the other room watching the television if you want me.”

He stomped out of the kitchen. Sue watched him go with an indulgent smile. Through the open door they heard him yell up the stairs to Peter: “That police inspector wants to see you. Get your arse down here!”

Sue slammed shut the dishwasher door and pretended not to hear. She poured coffee for Ramsay and set it before him with a slice of fruit cake.

Peter swaggered in ten minutes later. He was wearing the trendy Geordie’s uniform for a night on the town: expensive and immaculately fitting jeans, a short-sleeved open-necked shirt and a lot of gold. This was standard dress in Newcastle even when there was snow on the ground and ten degrees of frost.

Sue Richardson looked at her watch. “If you don’t mind, Inspector, I’ll leave you to it. Another family is moving in to one of our cottages tomorrow. There’s a cot to put up and I want to check that everything’s ready for them.”

She flashed him a professional smile and disappeared.

Peter stood with his back to the Aga. “Inspector,” he said sneering. “What a surprise! How can I help you?”

“I want to ask about Faye Cooper,” Ramsay said. “She was a friend of yours?”

It wasn’t what he had been expecting and the mask of arrogance slipped. He played with the gold chain on his wrist.

“Yes,” he said uncertainly. “I knew her for a while.”

“I wouldn’t have thought she was your sort,” Ramsay said.

Peter did not answer.

“But she was your girlfriend?”

“I suppose so.”

“Where did you meet her?” He had been anxious about that from the start. They would hardly have had many friends in common.

“In the Old Chapel.” He seemed almost ashamed of admitting that he had ever been there. It didn’t fit in with his image. “In the coffee place. Mum asked me to get some stuff from the health food shop and I stopped for a drink. She’d been visiting the Abbots. We got talking. She said she was a student in Otterbridge. I’d just finished at the agricultural college. There was something about her… I asked her out. On the spur of the moment, you know.”

“And she agreed?”

“Yes, she agreed. I was surprised. I suppose I was just trying it on.” He paused. “We arranged to meet in a pub in Otterbridge because she didn’t have any transport. I almost didn’t go. She wasn’t my type really. Too serious. Too intense. But, like I said, there was something about her.”

“Did she tell you she already had a boyfriend?”

“Yeah. I thought that was a good sign. I didn’t want to get into anything too heavy.”

“How long did you go out with her?”

“It wasn’t like that. I mean, it wasn’t as if we were engaged or anything. She still had her boyfriend, James, and I was seeing other women… We talked mostly. Went for walks. I didn’t really think of her as my girlfriend.”

The relationship with Faye had obviously confused him. Girlfriends you took out to clubs and pubs. If they let you, you screwed them. If they didn’t, you dumped them. His friendship with Faye had been different, less clear cut. He hadn’t known how to handle it.

“But Faye did consider herself your girlfriend, didn’t she? She told James about you. And last summer she got a job in Mittingford so she could be close to you.”

“I told her not to do that,” he said. I knew it would be a mistake.”

“Cramp your style, you mean?”

“If you like!” The macho lout had returned. “I wasn’t ready to be tied down. Not to a lass like her.”

“Is that what she wanted? To be tied down?”

“Oh,” he said, “I never knew what she wanted.”

“Did your parents know that you were seeing Faye?”

“They knew I was seeing someone called Faye. They never met her.”

“Wouldn’t they have approved?”

“It wasn’t that.” It was because she wasn’t leggy and ornamental, Ramsay thought. She was pretty enough, but she would have worn the wrong clothes, given the wrong impression altogether. He would have been embarrassed to be seen out with her. “None of my friends knew,” Peter said. “They wouldn’t have understood.”

“Did Faye understand?” Ramsay asked. “Didn’t she mind being kept a secret?”

“I don’t think she realized,” Peter muttered. “She really liked me, you see.” Then, trying to be flippant, a man of the world: “Women are such romantics, aren’t they?”

“You went out with her all that summer?”

He nodded. “Not often, though. The Abbots were real slave-drivers. She didn’t have much time to herself.”

“Did she ever meet Ernie Bowles?” The question suddenly occurred to him.

“No. Not when she was with me. Why?”

Ramsay did not answer. “Did you ever consider putting an end to the relationship?” he said. “If she was such an embarrassment…”

“Of course I considered it. But I liked her. She listened. And I wasn’t sure how she’d handle it. She didn’t have anyone else. I suppose I didn’t have the guts. Besides, I knew she’d go back to college at the end of the summer. I thought it would die a natural death.”

“Instead,” Ramsay said, ‘she died a natural death.”

Peter flushed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make a joke. Not about that.”

Suddenly he became almost likeable.

“Tell me about her,” Ramsay said. “You must have known her better than anyone.”

Peter shrugged. He wasn’t used to putting feelings and impressions into words.

“Everything was black or white with Faye. She either loved you or hated you. She hated her stepfather. “I had to get away from that house,” she said, “or I’d have killed him.” The crowd at the Old Chapel were her heroes. She quoted them all the time: Daniel said that or Magda said this. It really got on your nerves…” He paused. He had more to say but he wasn’t sure how to put it. “She didn’t play safe,” he said. “There was no pretence. If she liked you, she said so. If she wanted something, she asked for it. There was no… protective layer between her and the world.”

He blushed again. “This must sound dead stupid. Do you know what I mean?”

Ramsay nodded. “I think so. It would have meant that she’d be easily hurt.”

“That’s why I found it so hard to tell her that I didn’t want to see her again.”

“Did you tell her that?”

“In the end.”

“What happened?”

“Like I said, I expected we’d stop seeing each other so often when she went back to Otterbridge. She’d become too demanding. I wouldn’t have minded meeting her occasionally…”

On your own terms, Ramsay thought. To have your ego massaged. To be flattered by her admiration.