Ann Cleeves - Burial of Ghosts

Each time I saw Ronnie Laing I would be surprised by how small he was physically. None of that remained in the memory. What you remembered was the smile, boyish and confiding. It was as if he had none of the normal barriers people put up round themselves for protection. He couldn’t pretend. You don’t expect that sort of vulnerability in a used-car salesman. And his energy. That first day when he took my hand to help me out from the van, the touch shocked me. I don’t know why. I looked at him and he smiled; he knew the effect he’d had and he was almost apologetic.

‘Ronnie Laing,’ he said. ‘Spelled like the art gallery.’ His voice surprised me too. It was pleasant, quiet, almost without accent. There was a trace of a stutter. I knew how his name was spelled. There was that big sign by the road. I thought he was trying to tell me something else. That he was cultured, more than a grease monkey. He wasn’t showing off, but he wanted me to know something about him. I didn’t give him my name. I didn’t say anything.

‘What sort of thing are you looking for?’ he went on.

‘Nothing boring. I can’t stand boring cars.’

‘A woman after my own heart.’ In someone else that could have come out as flirty, teasing, but I thought he was quite serious. He gave a little frown as he spoke. With the easy cliché he spoke of a connection between us. That was how it seemed to me then.

He showed me what he had in stock, touching my elbow occasionally to direct my attention. It wasn’t hard to appear interested. I really would have to buy a car soon. Thanks to Philip I had some money and I couldn’t rely on Ray to ferry me about. But all these were way out of my league and he must have sensed that he wasn’t going to make a sale.

‘If you have anything special in mind I can look out for it for you.’

‘Maybe something a little less special.’

He frowned again. ‘We don’t usually deal with the budget stuff.’ There was a moment’s hesitation. ‘But I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Oh?’ I gave him a quizzical look. I hope that’s how it turned out. The effect he was having was so marked that I wasn’t in the mood for role playing.

‘Nothing illegal,’ he said quickly, and the stutter was more marked. ‘I don’t operate that sort of business. I have contacts, go to auctions. Most of my trade is with repeat customers. I know the sort of thing they want. I might bump into something to suit you.’

‘Oh, right.’ An embarrassed giggle to show I’d misunderstood. I went with him into his office to pick up a business card. There was a framed photo of a woman and two little girls on his desk. The woman had a hairstyle that could withstand a hurricane and a thin, straight smile. There was nothing of Thomas, but I hadn’t expected there to be. Also on the desk was a cardboard dispenser with application forms to join something called the Countryside Consortium. A picture of a bloke carrying a shotgun, wearing green wellies and a Barbour jacket was printed on each one.

‘I didn’t have you down as the green wellie type,’ I said.

‘It’s a serious issue. You have to do what you can.’

‘Oh, right,’ I said again. ‘Of course.’

‘I’ll need your name and number.’ He paused a beat and I seemed to stop breathing. ‘In case I find you a car.’

‘Lizzie.’ I scribbled the Sea View number on a piece of paper.

‘Lizzie what?’

‘That’ll find me.’

In the car Ray was listening to something plaintive and Irish. Easy listening for him.

‘What do you know about the Countryside Consortium?’ He’d switched off the tape and pulled out into traffic. Every Sunday he went walking in the hills. I didn’t know anyone else who’d have information on the countryside.

‘Those buggers.’ For Ray the reaction was vituperative. I was surprised. I’d even thought he might be a member.

‘What’s wrong with them?’

So he told me. They were land-owning bastards who tried to restrict the right to roam on their land. They were townie thugs who thought they should have a free hand to bait badgers and steal raptors from the wild. They were hunters and punt-gunners and they thought democracy didn’t apply to them. In Ray’s view, they were the scum of the earth. None of that seemed to apply to Ronnie Laing. He was gentle and polite. I supposed his support of the consortium was a ploy to hit the farmers with his fancy four-wheel drives, but even that seemed too calculating for him. I thought Ray must have got the whole thing wrong.

That evening I couldn’t put Ronnie Laing out of my mind. I’m an obsessive. It’s part of my personality. Occasionally images get stuck in my head and they go round in a loop, like an irritating song. What bugged me most was that I couldn’t place him. I couldn’t fix his class or his education, even his age. Usually I’m good at that stuff. Ray and Jess invited me to the pub with them, but I stayed at home. I lay on my bed remembering the shock when Ronnie touched me and his quiet voice, the effort it took him to keep the stammer out, the slim, fit body beneath the suit. I was still awake when the clock at St Bartholomew’s struck three. I took a sleeping tablet then and eventually fell unconscious.

Perhaps because of the pill I felt strange the next day, disconnected. When I woke up Jess was hanging out towels to dry in the yard. The spin on the automatic had gone, so they were very wet. They were heavy and they dripped and she had to struggle to peg them up. I wondered briefly if I should use some of my money to buy a new washing machine, but I didn’t go out to help her.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ She turned, the plastic laundry basket in her arms, and saw me watching from the kitchen door. It wasn’t cold but I was wrapped up in a big sweater.

‘Dunno. A touch of flu.’

She accepted that without question, though she looked at me again more closely. Then she fussed inside to make a hot lemon drink.

‘Go to bed,’ she said. ‘I’ll bring it up.’

‘I’ve got to go out. Work, sort of.’

She accepted that too. She didn’t like it but she let me go.

The evening before I’d been to the library in the village to look in the Tyne and Wear phone book, hoping to track down an address for Kay and Ronnie, but they must have been ex-directory. I could have put off tracing Thomas’s mother for another day, waited until I felt better, but, like I said, I’m an obsessive. I couldn’t let it go.

In the photo she’d shown me in North Shields, Mrs Mariner’s grandchildren had been wearing bright yellow sweatshirts with St Cuthbert’s Primary School in big brown letters on the front. There was only one St Cuthbert’s school in Whitley Bay and that was in the phone book. I arrived there too early. It was an old-fashioned place built of grey stone, still showing the separate boys’ and girls’ entrances over the doors. The yard had been marked for hopscotch and it was surrounded by black wrought-iron railings. When a class came out with a basket of skipping ropes and balls for PE I walked on up the street. I didn’t want to be noticed staring in at the kids. There was a café near the old bus station and I sat there drinking stewed tea which had been poured from a big iron pot, watching the hands of the clock move round towards three. It only occurred to me when I was leaving that I should have had something to eat.

There was a bunch of mothers waiting by the gate, a couple of grans, a sprinkling of self-conscious dads, an assault course of pushchairs and prams. I stood on the edge of the group, trying to look as if I belonged there. I was starting to panic. Little girls in yellow sweatshirts all look very similar. How would I recognize them?