Murder in My Backyard (28 page)

“What would you like to eat?” she asked. “ I could pop something from the freezer into the microwave. It wouldn’t take a minute. Or a sandwich. I could do you a sandwich.”

Ramsay said that a sandwich would be very nice. She sliced a stottie deftly and began to fill it with ham and tomato.

“What time did your husband go out this morning?” Ramsay asked.

“I don’t know,” she said, giggling again. “ He was gone when I got up. I’m dreadful in the mornings. He sees himself out.”

“What about Tuesday morning?” Ramsay asked. “ Did he go out early then?”

“Why?” she asked, suddenly suspicious. “What’s this all about?”

Ramsay answered the question though he knew she must already know why he was asking. She was no fool.

“Charlie Elliot was murdered on Tuesday morning, very early,” Ramsay said. “ You must have heard that.”

“I heard he was dead,” she said. “I didn’t ask for any details. I don’t want to know.”

“He was stabbed,” Ramsay said. “Just like Alice Parry.”

“I don’t understand what’s going on,” she cried. “ Everyone said he killed the old lady.”

“Well,” Ramsay said. “ Now he’s dead.”

There was a silence and then she turned to him.

“Why are you here?” she asked. “I don’t understand what it has to do with us.”

“It’s to do with everybody,” he said, suddenly angry. “Everyone in Brinkbonnie. Alice Parry and Charlie Elliot lived here. Elliot’s body was found in the small stone barn on the hill behind your house. The land is owned by your neighbours, the Greys. You all have an interest in getting the thing resolved.”

“Yes,” she said, though he could not tell if she understood. “ Yes, I see that.”

“So,” he said gently. “ Will you tell me where your husband was on Tuesday morning?” He watched her face, saw her prepare to lie then change her mind.

“I don’t know,” she said. “He did go out very early. I heard him go and it was still dark. I presumed it was work.”

“Did you ask him why he left so early?”

“No,” she said. She gave no explanation for the lack of communication between them. “No.”

“And what about Saturday night?” Ramsay asked softly. “ He did go out, didn’t he, after Alice Parry left your house?”

“Yes,” she said, and began to cry. Tears were her usual weapon against confrontation. “ I don’t know where he was. He won’t tell me.”

“What happened when Mrs. Parry was here on Saturday night?” Ramsay asked. She was so distraught that he hoped she would answer without thinking, under the spell of his sympathy. “It wasn’t a cosy little chat after all, was it?”

But if he expected her to be honest, he was disappointed. She looked up sharply and he knew she was preparing to lie.

“It was!” she said. She seemed terrified. “It happened just like Colin told you.”

“There’s no reason to be frightened, you know,” he said. “ We can give you all the protection you need.”

“No!” she cried. “I don’t need protection from Colin. He’s my husband. You’re mad.”

She was almost hysterical and seemed not to care that he did not believe her. He sat in silence, hoping that she might grow calmer and volunteer to change her story, but she got up and fetched a packet of cigarettes from her handbag.

She lit one, her hands shaking. Eventually she did regain her composure, but her story did not change.

“You must understand,” she said at last, “ that Colin and Mrs. Parry got on very well that evening. She was angry when she arrived, but by the time she left, things had been sorted out between them.”

“How had things been sorted out?” Ramsay asked. “What did your husband say to Mrs. Parry to make her change her mind?”

“Nothing,” she said awkwardly, but she would not meet his eyes. “There was nothing to tell. She realised, I suppose, that the battle had been lost. There was nothing she could do to make him change his mind.”

There was a silence. Through the kitchen window Ramsay saw the elderly gardener push a barrow of dead leaves over the patio towards the compost heap.

“I’m sorry to have upset you,” Ramsay said. “ It’s been a difficult time for everyone. Could you answer a few more questions?”

She nodded.

“It’s about your husband’s business,” Ramsay said. “I’m a layman and there are some points in the planning procedure that I don’t quite understand. Quite often the local council rejects his plans, but Mr. Henshaw always seems to win an appeal. Can you explain how he does that?”

She looked at him suspiciously, thinking that the question had some deeper significance.

“He’s clever,” she said. “ He knows what the planning inspector will accept.” Then she smiled. “ Besides, he’s a lot of important contacts.”

“Yes,” Ramsay said. “I’m sure he has. I wanted to ask you about that. Did he ever discuss his contacts with you? In Brinkbonnie, for example, did he have someone to help him here?”

She shook her head. “I can’t help you,” she said quickly.

“You’ll have to talk to Colin. I don’t know anything about his business. I told that reporter the same.”

“Oh,” Ramsay said. “ Has Mary Raven been bothering you again?”

“Yes,” Rosemary Henshaw said, glad of the change of subject. “Nosy little madam. She was here today calling for Colin. I told her he didn’t want to talk to her. She said it would be good publicity for his business. I told her he was doing well enough. He didn’t need her sort of publicity.”

“When was she here?” Ramsay asked.

“Not very long ago,” she said. “Just before I started my lunch. I’m surprised you didn’t see her on the road.”

She stood up and began to fuss with coffee, searching in a tin for biscuits. But Ramsay did not want to prolong the interview. He had learned enough.

“Will you tell Mr. Henshaw that I’ll be in the police house in the village until this evening,” he said as he left. “There might be something he wants to tell me.”

Then he went out, striding down the drive and the Otterbridge Road through Brinkbonnie, walking in the middle of the street so that the people hiding behind their net curtains would not miss him. He wanted everyone to see him make his way to the police house. He was convinced that someone in the village had information for him.

In the police house Hunter was coordinating the search for Max Laidlaw.

“We should find Mary Raven,” Ramsay said. “ I’m sure he was having an affair with her. She’ll lead you to him. She’s been in Brinkbonnie today.”

“What has she been doing here?” Hunter was hardly interested. That bloody woman, he thought. Ramsay’s obsessed with her.

“She wants to speak to Henshaw. Something to do with a story.”

“Bloody reporters,” Hunter said.

“I want you to go to Wytham,” Ramsay said, “to talk to a woman there.” He was torn. He would have liked to go to Wytham himself to see the woman Robson had suggested. He was still committed to the theory that Henshaw was a blackmailer. But it was more important, he thought, to stay in Brinkbonnie, to be accessible if one of the community leaders there wanted to speak to him. He explained Robson’s idea to Hunter and was aware immediately of the sergeant’s scepticism.

“Talk to her,” he said. “Be discreet. Just ask how she planned the campaign against Henshaw and why it came to nothing in the end. Find out if she was really active all the way through. You might need to talk to other people in the place, too. If she makes some excuse for having dropped out of the fight, press her. Be sympathetic. Give her the chance to tell you. Ask if Henshaw made any contact with her.”

Go teach your grandmother to suck eggs, Hunter thought, but he said nothing. He was glad of the excuse to get out of Brinkbonnie. He hated the lack of activity and the constant wind. A few new houses would be an improvement, he thought. They might even liven the place up.

He found Jane Massie’s house very easily. It was, as Jack Robson had said, close to the new housing estate on the opposite side of the main road, backing onto open countryside. As he parked, Hunter looked at the development with some envy. If he won the pools, he thought, he wouldn’t mind living in a place like that. Somewhere with a bit of class and style. In contrast, the Massies’ house was not to his taste. It was built of grey stone, square and solid. The window frames needed a lick of paint.

When Hunter knocked at the door, there was no reply, and he found Jane Massie in the long back garden feeding hens. She was a short woman, rather overweight, probably in her early thirties. He was surprised. From Ramsay’s description, he had expected someone older. She was wearing a calf-length dress in a patterned corduroy and the sort of shoes with buckles he had only seen on children. He dismissed her in his mind as an aging hippie, but all the same he found her attractive. Her face was young and very pretty. When she saw him, she hitched up her skirt and climbed out of the hen run to meet him. Two small boys in dungarees appeared from the hen house and clambered after her.

She did not seem shocked to see a stranger wandering through the back garden. She seemed, to Hunter, to have great self-confidence. He knew few women like her and was nervous.

“Hello,” she said. “Can I help you?” She came, as he had expected, from the south.

The boys hid behind her.

“Mrs. Massie,” he said, “I’m Sergeant Hunter from the Northumbria police. Could I have a few words with you?”

“Yes,” she said. “What’s wrong? There’s not been an accident?”

“No,” he said. “ It’s nothing like that.”

She took him into the house through a back door into a kitchen that smelled of lentils and garlic. She rinsed her hands under the tap.

“I’m sorry I panicked,” she said. “My husband’s away on business. I hate the thought of him driving down the A1. You hear of so many accidents. Would you like some tea? We don’t drink coffee, I’m afraid.”

He nodded.

“How can I help you?” she asked. In the garden the boys were splashing each other from muddy puddles, but she made no attempt to stop them. He thought his mother would have skinned him alive if he’d dirtied his clothes like that.

“We’re conducting an investigation into certain planning irregularities that might have taken place when the estate over the road was built,” he said. “ I understand you were involved in opposing the development.”

“I certainly was,” she said. “It’s a dreadful eyesore. It’s about time someone put a stop to Henshaw. It’s too late for us, but it might stop some other village from being ruined.”

“Were you aware while you were running the campaign that some of Henshaw’s tactics might be dishonest?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “ Not exactly. Everything seemed to be going as we had expected until the builder appealed to the Department of the Environment inspector. It was a terrible surprise then when Henshaw won.”

“Were you involved in the campaign all the way through?”

“Oh, yes,” she said angrily. “Even when everyone all around me seemed to be losing interest. I kept going to the bitter end.”

“What do you mean that the people around you lost interest?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “ The village just seemed to give up and accept its fate.”

“It wasn’t that one or two prominent members of your committee dropped out?”

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “It was nothing like that. The committee remained remarkably united. They were very supportive.”

There was a pause. Hunter drank his tea.

“It couldn’t have been that at the end of the campaign you all got”—he hesitated, searching for the word he wanted— “complacent? You thought you would win so you didn’t bother to put up much of a fight?”

“No,” she said. “Really, I’ve thought about it and I’m sure our tactics were just right. My husband’s in public relations and he advised us. Look, if you’re interested, I can show you a file of letters I sent asking for support—to councillors, the local M.P., the media. I kept copies of them all. We had a concerted attack in the last couple of weeks just before the appeal was heard.”

She disappeared into another room and returned with a yellow envelope file bursting with typewritten notes and letters. She sorted through them and took out a handful to show Hunter.

“Look,” she said. “All these are dated in the month before the appeal. I really don’t think we could have done any more. We just didn’t get the response from the public that we could have hoped for. Perhaps the campaign had just been going on for too long and they had a sort of protest fatigue. This sort of development had happened so often in the county that it just didn’t seem exciting anymore.”

“Do you know Henshaw?” Hunter asked. “ Personally?”

She laughed. “ No,” she said. “We don’t move in the same social circles.”

“Did he ever approach you during the campaign?”

“Not during the campaign,” she said. “ He came here afterwards, when the inspector’s decision was finally made public, to gloat. He stood on the doorstep and shook my hand and said that now that the due process of law had been completed he hoped we could be good neighbours.”

“What did you say?”

She shrugged. “What could I say? As far as I knew he was right. Everything was legal and aboveboard. I was as gracious as I could manage, wished him luck for the future, and asked him for a donation for playgroup equipment. As he was so keen to be a good neighbour. I’m on the playgroup committee and we’re always short of money.”

“Did you get your donation?” Hunter asked.

She smiled wryly. “Oh, yes, we got it. And just as the bulldozers were moving in, there was a picture in the local paper of Henshaw surrounded by grateful toddlers and piles of new toys. He knows more about public relations than my husband.”

“Yes,” Hunter said. “I see.” So Ramsay was wrong again, he thought. He should have more sense than to believe Jack Robson’s fairy stories.

She looked at her watch. “I haven’t been a lot of help, have I?” she asked. “ If there’s nothing else you want to know, I’ll have to be out soon to collect my older boys from school. I should avoid that while you’ve got the chance. There’ll be no peace then.”

She let him out of the back door and into the garden again. As he left he saw her rounding up her sons, scolding them halfheartedly for the state they were in, laughing as she gathered them to her.