Ann Cleeves - The Healers

She nodded.

“Because I’m happier.” He paused. “I had a sort of breakdown. Stress disagrees with me. You wouldn’t think there was a lot of stress teaching Virgil to ten-year-olds in a crummy prep school, would you? But it was too much for me.”

“So you dropped out?” Sally said.

“Or dropped in. Depending on your perspective. Concentrated at least on the important things.”

“It can’t have been easy, with a baby.”

“I don’t think babies are ever easy, wherever you are. We’d like to find somewhere to settle now. Briony’s getting older, you see. She should be at play group soon. We could afford to pay rent but no one wants us. Travellers don’t make ideal tenants apparently. Once we could have had a council house but they’ve been sold off. Except flats on city estates and that would make me mad again. So we’re here. Camping out on common land. Doing no harm to anyone. Hoping that eventually people will get to know us and trust us enough to rent us a place. Even a plot of land to put a caravan.

The phrases came in sharp bursts. Then he seemed to run out of steam and gave a lop-sided grin to show he realized the hope was misguided.

“How long have you been here?” Ramsay asked.

“All winter. About six months.” Sally caught Ramsay’s eye. So Hunter was right, they both thought. Slater was lying all the time.

“You can confirm then that you weren’t on a road near Mittingford the week before last.”

“Why?” It was Lorna again. Suspicions.

“Haven’t you realized that we’ve been looking for you?” Ramsay demanded. “Don’t you ever read the newspapers?”

Wes shook his head.

“Listen to the radio?”

“Yes,” Wes said. “But only Radio Three.”

“There was a murder. A farmer in Mittingford was killed. We think you may have been witnesses. But if you can prove you weren’t anywhere near the place…”

“We might have been there,” Wes said. “On the Saturday night. We’d been to a show in Durham. Lorna sells her jewellery wherever she can agricultural shows, craft fairs. We’d driven down early on Saturday morning. We had a good day and we were late packing up. By the time we got to Mittingford we were both shattered so we decided to pull into the gypsy transit site and spent the night there. What are we supposed to have seen anyway?”

“Did you meet anyone that night?”

“Yes,” Wes said slowly. “A guy called Sean Slater. Why?”

“What time did you meet him?”

They found it impossible to say. Perhaps it was just getting dark. He appeared there at the van, out of the blue. They hadn’t seen him for ages. They could have done with an early night, really, but Sean seemed keen to talk. They listened to some music, drank some wine. The inspector would understand. By that time it was so late that they suggested Sean should crash out with them. There wasn’t much space but they’d managed to fit another sleeping bag on the floor.

“What time did Mr. Slater go?” Ramsay asked.

They considered. “Probably at about seven.” Lorna said at last. “We were back here by nine. The bells were ringing and all the old biddies were on their way into church as we drove through the village.”

“Mr. Slater is an old friend of yours? You know him well?

“Oh yes,” Wes said. “Sean and I go back years.”

“And how did he seem that night?”

“Fine. Perhaps a bit jealous, you know. He was playing with Briony before she went to sleep. I had the impression that he would have liked a kid of his own. He was living with a woman he really seemed to care for, but she didn’t want to be tied down.”

“He didn’t take you to the caravan where he was living?”

“No. We dropped him at the end of the track in the morning, and he said he’d walk from there to the farm.”

“Did he seem upset or anxious?”

“Of course not. We’d had a good night catching up on each other’s news, talking… What is all this about?”

“I think,” Ramsay said, ‘you’ve just cleared your friend of murder.”

They returned to Mittingford more slowly. Ramsay was driving and he was always more cautious.

“Well?” he said. “Were they telling the truth?”

“Definitely,” she said. “They had no idea what we were doing there at first. The story wasn’t prepared.”

“So Slater’s in the clear,” Ramsay said. “At least for the Ernie Bowles murder.”

“Sir, can I ask you something?”

“What?” He was surprised and did not know what to expect.

She grinned. “Let me be the one to tell Gordon Hunter he’s been wrong about Slater all this time.”

Win handed the boys over to Lily at two-thirty. Lily had her bike with her. The basket was full of fruit and veg which were too old or misshapen to sell. She wore dungarees and red canvas baseball boots.

“I thought I might take them out,” Lily said, “To the park. They always like the park. What do you think?”

“Great,” Win said. But Lily thought that nothing about Win seemed great. She looked harassed, tired, worn down. If that was what marriage and kids could do to you, Lily thought, Sean could bloody well think again. He hadn’t spoken any more about marriage but she could tell what was in his mind. He’d begun going gooey over kids lately too, even the Abbot brats, and he’d told her more times than she could remember about the little girl who lived in the blue Transit van. How she’d been really sweet and no trouble really. Her parents were still on the road, weren’t they? They hadn’t sold out.

That morning Lily had left him working in the garden at Laverock Farm and the picture of him bent over his spade had made him seem domesticated and suburban. He wasn’t any different from his father, she thought. Next thing he’d be wanting a semi on a new housing estate, weekly trips to a garden centre and a shed to hide in when she was at the moody time of the month. She knew she should be grateful but she couldn’t settle for that, not even for him.

When the phone call had come from Win, Lily had asked him if he minded her going.

“It’s not as if it’s that important,” she’d said. “Win’s only playing Lady Bountiful. She thinks she should offer our condolences to James McDougal. As if he’d want to see her. I expect Daniel put her up to it. He probably wants to know what Val said to James about Juniper Hall. They were very close. I suppose it could be useful to find out just what she told him.”

Sean rested on his spade. “You go,” he said. “We could do with the money. I want to get on with this anyway.”

Lily watched Win drive away then got the boys into their coats and strapped them into the double buggy. The road down to the park was steep. She imagined letting go of the push chair handles and watching it bump down the hill and into the burn at the bottom, swept away perhaps by the high spring water. What’s wrong with me? she thought. I don’t hate kids. I just don’t want Sean’s.

When Hunter saw her from the window of the police station the boys were out of the buggy. One was on the slide and the other was squatting down and playing with the wood bark which was supposed to make a softer landing, and which all the neighbourhood cats loved to use as a lavatory.

Lily was rolling a cigarette, very thin. He watched her pinch out the ends and cup her hand to light it. She was staring out across the town to the hills, taking no notice of the children.

“I can’t stand this waiting,” he said. There had been no news from Ramsay about the blue Transit. “I’m going out for a breath of fresh air.”

They let him go without comment. Gordon Hunter could be a moody bastard and you were best not to cross him.