Ramsay 06 - The Baby-Snatcher (17 page)

As Emma looked at her, Sally remembered Ramsay saying that she once held a very high-powered job in industry.

‘What exactly are you asking?’ Emma demanded.

‘If there’s anything you’d like to tell me about your relationship with Mr Taverner? Any information which you think you should pass on?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Emma said. ‘I really don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. Of course I’d help if I could. It’s in our interest to have the murderer caught. We live here, after all.’ She made a show of looking at her watch. ‘ I’m afraid I won ‘t have time to finish that walk. I’ll have to go straight back. My son starts playgroup at ten and I’ve promised to give someone a lift. Don’t hesitate to get in touch if there’s anything I can do to help.’

She swept away down the hill.

Sally Wedderburn was left standing on the cliff. She thought she must look like bloody Meryl Streep in
The French Lieutenant’s Woman
, then wondered how she was going to admit to Stephen Ramsay – and to Gordon Hunter – that she’d cocked up.

It was Kim Houghton’s turn to help at playgroup. There was a rota and once a term you had to do your bit. Some of the mothers moaned about it but Kim didn’t mind. The woman who ran the group wasn’t much older than her and they always had a laugh.

Besides, she liked kids. In their place. She couldn’t have Kirsty messing about with sand and paint at home – there was the carpet to consider – but in the old church hall with its smell of mildew and decay that seemed to cling to the children even after they came home, she could be as mucky as she liked. Kim always made sure Kirsty was dressed in her oldest clothes on playgroup day.

At nine o’clock the phone rang. It was Emma Coulthard playing lady of the manor. She said she was just going for a walk but she’d be back for playgroup if Kim wanted a lift.

‘Great,’ Kim said. ‘But you don’t mind going a bit early, do you? I’m on duty.’

She could tell that Emma wasn’t too pleased about that, but she thought, sod it.

If Emma hadn’t phoned she’d have got a taxi. She couldn’t be faffing about on the bus and she was flush at the minute. She was even thinking of putting aside some money towards a holiday with the girls. They were talking about Corfu. She’d always fancied going there. She’d have to sort out something for Kirsty though. She loved Kirsty to bits, wouldn’t be without her, but she couldn’t have her in Corfu with the girls. It had crossed her mind that Claire might take her for a week. It wasn ‘t as if she was any trouble, and you could tell that Claire would want a child of her own one day the way she fussed over that baby at the Coastguard House. It would be good practice. Being a nanny was one thing. Looking after a bairn for twenty-four hours a day was quite another.

In the car Kim chatted to Emma about holidays but she hardly seemed to be listening.

Toffee-nosed cow, Kim thought.

The church hall was a barn-like stone building with high arched windows and a stage at one end. The heavy equipment was kept under the stage and it was still being set up when they arrived. Emma stayed to help because the playleader said she didn‘t want any children left until she could supervise them properly. She stopped in the middle of fixing the heavy wooden slide on to the climbing frame to explain.

‘Someone tried to snatch a laddie from a nursery in Otterbridge last week. The police think it was the same person who abducted that kid a month ago. You know, he was at a birthday in McDonald’s and he just disappeared. They found him wandering along the seafront at Whitley hours later. We’ve all been asked to take special care.’

Emma felt the room spin and shut her eyes tight. She couldn’t imagine the horror of what the mother had gone through, and still she felt faint.

When she looked again the playleader, red faced and muscular, was staggering across the room with a tray of sand. Emma followed her.

‘I could stay and help all morning if you like.’ She didn’t want to lose sight of either of the boys.

‘Don’t be daft!’ The woman was bringing up three on her own and didn’t have much patience for overanxious mums. ‘We’ll shut the door when everyone’s here and you know we never let them go until someone we recognize is here to collect them.’

The room was already starting to get noisy. Boys on trikes played bumper cars, taking advantage of the helpers’ lack of attention. Kirsty had found the dressing-up box and click-clacked over the wooden floor in oversized high-heeled shoes. Emma’s head throbbed. She wanted to get back to the Coastguard House and Helen.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘If you’re sure.’

Still she hung on until the children were sitting in a circle on the carpet and they’d called the register. On her way out she made certain the door was firmly closed behind her.

It was near the end of the session when all the toys had been put away and they were singing ‘A Princess Lived in a Big High Tower’ that a girl saw the face at the window. The girl was Louise Armstrong who’d flounced off in a sulk because she hadn’t been chosen as the princess. They’d told her she didn’t have to play if she didn’t want to. They’d known she’d come round in the end.

When she screamed the playleader muttered unprofessionally under her breath about spoilt brats. The Armstrongs lived in one of the posh new houses on the edge of the village. She rounded on the girl.

‘What’s the matter now, Louise?’

Owen Coulthard, the handsome prince, stopped galloping round the circle, and looked.

‘There’s a man at the window,’ Louise said. ‘A monster. Or a vampire.’

Louise had older brothers and sisters and, despite her snobby parents, probably watched videos which weren’t good for her.

‘Don’t be silly, Louise. No one can get up there. It’s too high.’

Then the head appeared back at the grimy window. They all stared. The man gestured in a way which was vaguely menacing.

‘Carry on with the game,’ the playleader said grimly. Neither the children nor the adults took any notice. She strode to the door, threw it open and yelled, ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

He had been forced to climb on to an upturned bin to get to the window. He wobbled for a moment, recovered his poise and jumped down.

‘I tried knocking on the door,’ he said accusingly. ‘No one heard.’

‘We wouldn’t. We were busy.
If
you knocked we probably wouldn’t have heard.’

‘I’m looking for Kim Houghton.’

‘Now there’s a surprise.’ She spoke so quietly that only he could hear. More loudly she said, ‘She’s busy.’

He began to lose his temper. ‘So am I, lady. My name’s Hunter. I’m a detective. Mrs Houghton will tell you.’

Only then did Kim, laughing so much that she was red in the face and tears were running down her cheeks, come forward to put him out of his misery.

‘I suppose you’d better come in,’ the playleader said. ‘ We’re nearly finished.’

So then he had to stand inside the hall until the games were over. The children pointed and sniggered at him, encouraged in their taunts by Kim Houghton who called out to him, ‘We’re doing. “The Farmer’s in his Den” now, Sergeant. Do you fancy being the farmer? Or would you rather be the bone?’

She showed no inclination to drop out of her place in the circle to talk to him.

At last the games were over and the parents were let in to collect their children. Emma Coulthard must have recognized him but she gave no sign. Kim called over to her. ‘I don’t need a lift home thanks, Mrs Coulthard. I’ve made other arrangements.’ Then she gave him a wink so obvious that he knew she’d only done it to embarrass him.

‘I’ve a few more questions,’ he said, once the hall was quiet.

‘There,’ she said, ‘and I thought you’d come to ask me out for lunch.’

‘We could talk over lunch if you want to.’ If Ramsay interviewed witnesses on expenses, he didn’t see why he shouldn’t, too.

‘Na!’ she said. ‘Look at me. I’m hardly dressed for it. Anyway, I’ve got Kirsty.’

‘Oh.’ He felt put out. It wasn’t often he was turned down.

‘I don’t suppose you fancy fish and chips?’ she said. ‘A walk on the beach?’

‘Why not?’ Though he’d never been one much for the great outdoors, and the little house in Cotter’s Row would have been much more cosy. He hoped that salt water wouldn’t ruin his shoes.

They bought fish and chips in Heppleburn and ate them walking along the long sweep of sand which ran north from the Headland. Kirsty ran ahead, jumping from sand hills, poking with a stick among the debris washed up by the tide. She didn’t seem to be a child who needed much attention.

Kim ate hungrily. When she finished, she licked the grease from her fingers and sent Kirsty off with the paper to find a bin.

‘More questions, you said.’

‘Aye.’

‘You’ve still not found the bloke who was with me that night?’

‘He’s not come forward.’

‘Well, I’ve told you all I can remember. There’s nothing more I can do.’ She spoke crossly as if she expected contradiction and walked ahead of him.

The beach was almost empty. In the distance an old man was throwing a piece of driftwood for his dog. It was very still, very clear and the power station at the north of the bay seemed close enough to touch. Hunter felt exposed and silly. Apart from his holidays in the sun he hadn’t been near a beach since he was a kid. He hurried after her.

‘I need to ask about other friends, other blokes you’ve taken back to the house.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you’re not telling me he was the first.’

She stopped suddenly. Hunter stopped too and felt the soft sand squelch under his expensive leather soles. She was furious.

‘What are you calling me, then? You’re as bad as the old grannies in the Row.’

‘No,’ he said, panicking slightly. ‘No You don’t understand! What I’m saying is you’re an attractive woman. I can’t believe the chap in the red car was the first…’ He paused, tried to find the right word, ‘… admirer you’ve had since you were divorced.’

She was slightly mollified.

‘No, well. People jump to conclusions. Just because I’m friendly, like.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.’

It occurred to him that he’d learnt a few things through working with Stephen Ramsay, though he’d never let on. Finesse. That was the word. In the past he’d have gone at this witness like a bull at a gate, and got nowhere. Now he’d have her eating out of his hand.

They walked for a few minutes in a companionable silence.

‘The thing is,’ he said at last, ‘you’re the only one on the Headland who seems to have anything like a social life. Except the Coulthards, of course, and we’re speaking to them too. Whoever killed Mrs Howe knew the place. They knew where it was safe to dump the body, for example. You do see that we have to ask about any visitors you might have had. It’s nothing personal.’

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘ I can see that.’

‘So if you could give us a list of any people who came to your house. Men or women. Say in the month before Mrs Howe was murdered.’

She looked worried again.

‘You wouldn’t hassle them, would you? Call at their homes?’

The old Hunter would have asked if she was worried that would be bad for business, but tactfully he kept quiet.

‘They’re friends, you know,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t want them to get into any bother.’

‘We’ll be discreet. I guarantee it. I’ll see to it myself.’

‘Oh aye,’ she said, laughing. ‘ Discretion’s your middle name. I can tell that. Coming to the playgroup and scaring us all out of our wits.’

All the same she sat with him in the shelter of a sand dune while he took out his notebook and she reeled off about a dozen names. She had details of some. She could give their occupations, their addresses. She even knew the names of their children. She didn’t seem to resent their other, respectable lives. For others, like the man in the Mazda, she just had first names and brief descriptions.

Mark Taverner’s name was not on the list.

‘And this is all?’ Hunter asked. She had trotted out the names so glibly that he did not believe it was exhaustive.

‘Yes!’ She was close to being offended again.

‘You don’t know a chap called Mark? Mark Taverner.’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘He’s a teacher at the high school.’

‘Well there you are, then. I never go out with teachers. I can’t stand bossy men.’

‘Are you doing anything tonight?’ he asked casually. If he was likely to bump into her in Whitley he wanted some warning, though if she were there, perhaps she’d be able to point out this Paul to him.

‘Na,’ she said. ‘A quiet night in.’

She stood up and called in Kirsty. Hunter took them home, dropping them at the level crossing so the old ladies in Cotter’s Row would have nothing to talk about. For the rest of the day he found dribbles of sand in his clothing: in his trouser turn-ups, in his jacket pockets. Even in the seams of his underpants when he went for a piss.

It reminded Gordon Hunter of being a boy again. Friday night and out on the prowl in Whitley. In those days, though, he’d have had a couple of mates with him for moral support and to take a turn in the fight at the bar.

When it got dark the temperature plummeted. The cars parked in the streets leading away from the seafront glistened with frost and as he breathed in, the cold stung his throat and his nostrils. There was a thin, sharp moon, upended like a smile.

The streets were heaving with people dressed for the dance floor. The lasses wore skimpy little-girl frocks in pastel colours and when they were caught in car headlights you could see their lacy panties and their underwired bras. Though they shivered and hugged themselves that seemed to be more through excitement than a response to the arctic conditions. When he’d been young he’d never felt the cold either. He’d never taken a jacket to Whitley for fear it would get pinched or that he’d get so pissed he’d put it down and forget it. Or one of his mates would throw up all over it in the taxi home.

He walked along the seafront trying to get a feel for the place again. It had been a while since he’d been there and the pubs and clubs seemed to change hands almost monthly. Then their characters altered with the management. Kim Houghton had said she’d met Paul in the Manhattan Skyline. In his youth that had been a place for under-age drinkers, a bar where a thirteen-year-old girl with enough make up and bravado could get a vodka and tonic if the police weren’t in and she had an older lad with her. Now it obviously catered for an older market.