Ann Cleeves - Burial of Ghosts

Kay Laing opened the door as if she expected the caller to be someone dirty and unemployed selling dishcloths. She couldn’t have many friends who just dropped in. She’d changed from the skirt and jacket she’d been wearing for work into a grey tracksuit and white trainers. Very white trainers.

‘Yes?’

This was the woman Philip had made love to more than twenty years ago, the mother of his child. She would have been very different then, of course. A student. And I could tell she would have been pretty in a conventional way. But that was the problem. I wasn’t jealous, nothing like that. I was disappointed. I had hoped for more from Philip, that he would have fallen for someone different, more exciting.

‘Well?’ she demanded. She made to close the door.

I flashed my identity pass. ‘Lizzie Bartholomew from the youth justice team.’

I wasn’t sure if there was a youth justice team in North Tyneside and at nineteen Thomas Mariner would probably be too old to concern them. But social service provision was labyrinthine, even to the people involved. I didn’t think Kay Laing would know the difference.

‘He doesn’t live here now.’

‘I’m aware of that, Mrs Laing. I just want a chat.’

Talking to Kay I felt sharper than I had all day, on top of things for the first time. Philip would have been proud. On the other side of the privet hedge, an elderly neighbour was on his knees weeding. If he hadn’t been there Kay wouldn’t have been so accommodating. She didn’t want him to hear her being rude.

‘You’d better come in.’

Ahead of me through an open door I saw the children at a table in the kitchen. They had changed too, one into pink dungarees with matching flowery shirt, the other into blue. I knew their uniforms would be hung up and neatly folded, ready for the next day. They were working with exercise books and pencils. I thought they seemed too young for homework but none of the schools I’d attended had been like St Cuthbert’s. And perhaps things had changed.

The living room was yellow and white. Stripped floors. Two big oatmeal sofas with yellow woven throws. A wood-burning stove, cold now. It wasn’t what I’d expected. Not Kay’s taste, I thought. She’d have gone for something more chintzy and convenient, Dralon and a real-flame gas fire. Ronnie’s, then… I was impressed.

‘What’s Thomas done now?’ Kay said. ‘He’s gone eighteen, you know. Responsible for himself.’

‘I know that.’

‘It’s not as if we haven’t tried. It’s not as if he wanted for anything.’ She turned her head, a gesture which encompassed not only the room but the house and all it represented.

‘I can see.’

She sat on one of the sofas, her back very straight. I took the other. Now I was here, I was feeling good, relaxed, confident I could get the information I wanted. I didn’t like Kay Laing and that helped. I didn’t mind lying to her. I imagined Ronnie as henpecked and downtrodden. While I was thinking that, my mind was racing, planning the interview: not too many direct questions, I decided. She’d realize then that I knew less than I pretended.

‘It can’t have been easy for him,’ I said. ‘Moving here. A new family, new friends.’

‘It’s easy to make excuses.’ Her voice was even. She was trying to sound reasonable. We were two professionals talking together.

‘Not excuses. I’m trying to understand.’

‘Everyone blames the family,’ she said. ‘That’s what makes me so angry.’ She didn’t look angry. She looked bitter, embattled.

‘I’m not blaming anyone. Really.’

She sniffed, as if you couldn’t believe anything a social worker said.

‘I’m new to the case. Perhaps you could fill me in on some of the background. I understand that Thomas never knew his father.’

‘What has that to do with anything?’

I thought then that she would tell me to leave. I added quickly, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.’

She managed to keep her self-control. ‘I didn’t want to maintain a relationship with Thomas’s father. It wouldn’t have worked. He had other commitments.’

But Philip wasn’t married to Joanna then. That came later, after he’d started work. So what commitments could there have been? Was Stuart Howdon keeping some awkward details from me? A previous marriage? Other children? I was longing to know, but this wasn’t the time.

‘Thomas was close to his grandparents, though, wasn’t he?’ I asked.

‘He was close enough to them. But they spoiled him. I’m not prepared to buy his affection. He could never accept that.’

I was already wondering what Ronnie had seen in this cow.

There was a shout from the kitchen. One of the girls was asking for a drink. Kay went out wearily to help. I realized she must have been dealing with similar demands all day. Perhaps I was judging her too harshly. I stood up too. I was starting to feel jittery – too much caffeine, not enough food – and couldn’t sit still. There was a photograph on one wall of a line of trees in winter, sunlight slanting through bare branches. Next to it on a white shelf stood a row of books. There wasn’t much fiction – a few classics left over from Kay’s college days and some action thrillers, but most were natural histories, travel, autobiographies of explorers, books on wilderness survival. There was nothing else to hold my interest and I wandered through to the kitchen after Kay.

At first she didn’t see me. She stood with a milk bottle in one hand and a plastic beaker in the other, deep in thought. All around her was evidence of her ordered life: calendars, notes, lists. Pinned to the notice board was a reminder that the Methodist Wives outing would be to Hexham Abbey. Packed lunch required. Fish and chip supper on the way home.

‘When I met Ronnie, when we got together, I thought it would be good for Thomas. It’s not that I hadn’t thought it through. He was eleven, just the age when a boy needs a father. And Ronnie didn’t mind the fact that I came as a package with the boy. Not at all. He said of course we’d have a family of our own one day, but he’d always wanted a son. And he had this house. So much room…’

And wouldn’t the other Methodist Wives be jealous? I thought spitefully. How they’d envy Kay moving into the smart house in the most desirable street in Whitley Bay. And wouldn’t they be secretly delighted when Thomas got into trouble and things started to go wrong.

‘But Thomas wouldn’t make any effort to like him. Ronnie tried really hard. He didn’t have things easy when he was a lad and he understood. Thomas always had so much energy. Ronnie said it was like having an untrained puppy in the house. He only had to turn round and he’d knock something over. But Ronnie didn’t mind that. He took Thomas out walking and climbing with him. I thought he’d enjoy it. The exercise and the fresh air.’

In my experience teenagers hated exercise. They were allergic to fresh air.

‘And at first he did seem to enjoy it. He talked about training for a job in the countryside. Gamekeeper, something to do with conservation perhaps. But that phase didn’t last long. And it didn’t stop him doing the things he knew would upset us. Smoking, of course, although we both abhor it. Running away from school. “Attention-seeking behaviour”, the teachers called it. As if I couldn’t have told them that. He was caught shoplifting in the off-licence at the end of the road. Can you imagine how humiliating that was for me? I teach other people’s children but I can’t control my own. People look at me as if I’m to blame for the way he’s turned out, but I’m not. I won’t take responsibility for it. Thomas has to do that.’