Ann Cleeves - The Healers

“You can see how that would have affected her, Inspector. She had invested all her hope for the future in the practitioners at the Centre. We were her friends and her family. She was unbalanced anyway. You can understand why she took the option of suicide. She looked forward to a life of loneliness…”

“But she didn’t kill herself that night?” “No. It was the following night. The Saturday.” “You say that you feel responsible in part for her death. Why was that?”

“On the Saturday afternoon I was leading a session. Voice Dialogue. It’s a form of therapy I’ve trained in. Faye Cooper was there, taking part. The others were all in pairs so I worked with her myself.”

“She told you what had happened?” “Using one of her voices. Her victim voice. Yes.” “You were acting as facilitator. What did you say?”

“Nothing during the session, I just asked Faye’s victim voice questions so that she could more easily understand that part of herself. Afterwards though, I don’t know why, I think it was my own sense of frustration for her, I suggested that she had a responsibility to take charge of her life. Blaming others for her situation would do her no good.” “You blamed her for what had happened?” “No!” she said. “Of course not. I wanted to give her the strength to prevent it from happening again. But I can see that she might have taken it that way.” She paused. “Yes, if you look in the diary you will see that she blames herself. She writes: “Magda thinks it was all my fault.” “How did she seem after the session?” “Quiet. Listless. That’s not unusual. It can be draining.”

“She had a meal with you?”

“Yes. I never saw her again. She wasn’t at the talk after supper. She went upstairs. I presumed that she’d gone to help Win with the children, though later Win said that she hadn’t seen her. She must have been in her room, writing her diary. Then, when the house was quiet, she went to the pool and drowned herself.”

She sat upright. Very still.

“Did Daniel know you’d taken the diary from Faye’s room?”

“Yes. But he never read it. He did not know what it contained.”

“Why did you keep it all this time?”

“It would be wrong, I thought, to destroy it.” She pushed the diary towards him and across the table in a gesture of relinquishing all rights to it.

“You see, Inspector, it’s not so very exciting after all. Not so very important. There is no motive for murder here. Only the story of a sad young girl whose ideals had been shattered and who could not face going on without them. Perhaps now you can leave Faye in peace. Her death has no relevance to your enquiries.”

She stood up to leave. At the door she stopped and turned back.

“Will you be talking to Daniel about these matters, Inspector?”

“Oh yes,” Ramsay said. “We’ll have to do that’

“Good,” she said. “Good. I hope you scare him.”

She gave a quick smile at his surprised face and left.

When she had gone he remained in the interview room to read Faye’s diary. There’d be no peace in the incident room. Sally Wedderburn and Hunter would be back vying for his attention.

It was all as Magda had said. There was no doubt that Faye had committed suicide. There had been no trick with forgeries, no elaborate lie. The same handwriting had been used throughout, the same confused and unhappy voice described her disillusionment with Daniel Abbot as noted her rejection by Peter Richardson.

And yet, Ramsay thought, in one way Magda was wrong. Faye’s death was relevant to his enquiries. He was beginning to understand the connections. He saw the case as the symmetrical patterns of a kaleidoscope, a series of mirror images like the warm-up exercises Magda Pocock got her students to perform. He was groping towards a solution.

They left a skeleton team in the incident room to man the phones. The rest decamped to the pub, where they persuaded the landlord to move a television into the private bar. There they gathered around to watch Ramsay appear live on the local news. The press conference was taking place in the entrance hall of the old police station. It was packed with journalists from all the local papers and some of the nationals, besides TV and radio. Usually Ramsay avoided that sort of publicity, but today he had volunteered.

Sniggering, the team in the pub watched him begin his spiel. He said he needed specific information. The McDougals lived in Ferndale Avenue in Otterbridge. Did anyone see an unfamiliar car parked in that street between 8.30 and 10 p.m. on Monday, May the 10th? He was interested, too, in Ferndale Avenue on a more recent date, the previous afternoon. Perhaps the same vehicle had been seen? Did anyone notice the driver of these cars, or see anyone behaving at all unusually in the vicinity of number 32?

The detectives in the pub waited for him to ask for information about vehicles seen near Laverock Farm, but Ernie Bowles was not mentioned at all.

Ramsay continued: “We’re planning a reconstruction of James’s walk from the high school to his home, and then on to the cemetery tomorrow. Officers will be in position all along the route to jog memories and ask questions. I’m sure you’ll be co-operative. In the meantime, will any member of the public who feels they can help call the Mittingford incident room.”

There was a shouted question from a crumpled, middle-aged man at the back of the room.

“I can take it, Inspector, that you’re looking for one culprit for all three murders?”

“I’m not prepared to rule anything out at this stage.”

A young reporter from Radio Newcastle, with hair cropped so short that she looked like a baby seal, raised her hand, thrust a microphone towards him.

“Yes?” Ramsay said.

“I understand that you’ve been investigating another death connected with Mittingford Alternative Therapy Centre,” she said in a clear voice. “Can you confirm that?”

Ramsay was obviously thrown for a moment.

“We have been following many lines of enquiry,” he said, noncommittally. “So far none of the leads have been particularly encouraging.”

“Is it true that the person in question was a young girl called Faye Cooper, who drowned last year at a hotel in Cumbria? The inquest verdict was accidental death but you believe there may have been foul play.”

The room was hushed, waiting for his reply.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m not prepared to answer that question.”

“Why didn’t he just deny it?” Hunter shouted to the assembled gathering in the pub. “I said all along someone was trying to piss us about. We know now that the poor kid killed herself.” He fancied himself on the television. His mam would love it. She’d get all the neighbours in to watch.

In the police station the cameras were switched off and the reporters began to gather up their equipment. Ramsay approached the young woman from Radio Newcastle who was checking her tape.

“Where did you get that information about Faye Cooper?” he asked. “From her mother?”

“No,” the reporter said. “At least I don’t think so.” She looked up sharply, smelling a story. “Why? Is it important?”

“It could be.”

“There was a phone call to the news room this morning. Anonymous. No proof of course, but I thought I’d just give it a whirl, see what response I got.”

“Was the caller mate or female?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t take it myself. I can probably find out for you if you like. Give you a ring here later this evening.”

“Please.” he said. Then: “There’s no truth in the story, you know. It’s not worth following up.”

“Why didn’t you say that on air?” Ramsay did not reply. He was not quite sure himself.