Ramsay 06 - The Baby-Snatcher (5 page)

In the most recent incident a three-year-old boy had been taken from a burger bar in a retail complex on the outskirts of Otterbridge. He was a guest at a birthday party which was being held there. His mother had taken him inside and waited until he’d handed over the present, then she’d gone shopping. She’d bought wallpaper from a DIY store and wandered round a car showroom, eyeing up the family saloons. When she returned to the burger bar an hour later the boy was gone.

‘I spoke to the people who held the party myself. Of course they were devastated, but you can understand how it happened. It was Saturday afternoon, and they had a long table in the main restaurant. There were twenty kids, all riotous. None of them would sit still.

They ran back and forwards to the toilet. It must have been hard to keep track of them all.’

‘Any witnesses where he was found?’

‘Not yet. He seems to have materialized out of thin air.’

The boy had been found four hours later wandering along the seafront at Whitley Bay, clutching a bag of chips, crying. It seemed that nothing had happened during his adventure to distress him. The tears had begun after he’d been abandoned.

‘The social worker’s talked to him again but she hasn’t come up with anything new. She can’t even be sure of the reliability of what we’ve got.’

‘What have we got?’

‘A ride in a car and a fun fair.’

‘The fun fair at the Spanish City?’

‘Presumably, but most of the rides are shut at this time of the year and no one remembers a single bloke with a kid. I’ve left a pile of witness statements on your desk.’

‘Thanks!’

She smiled up at him then returned to her computer screen. He moved on to his own office.

His desk was stacked with piles of paper which had appeared during the weekend – expense-claim forms for his signature, Home Office circulars, Sally’s witness statements. He ignored them all and began by flicking through a file of incidents which had been reported over night.

At first he skipped over the missing person report without really taking it in. He was concerned about children and this was an adult. Then he went back to it. Kathleen Howe. The walker. He had seen her and the girl on the roads round Heppleburn several times since Marilyn had turned up, panic-stricken, on his doorstep in the autumn. Once the girl was carrying a violin in one hand and a music case in the other. Another time she recognized him and raised her hand in greeting as he drove past. It was an apologetic gesture. She didn’t stop or break her stride. The mother never acknowledged him.

What had happened now? Had the girl overreacted to her mother’s absence again? Perhaps this time she had taken his advice by phoning the station instead of knocking on the door of a stranger. He unclipped the form from the file and looked at it in more detail.

It had been the husband, not the daughter, who had phoned the station.

Ramsay considered the piles of paper on his desk, then swivelled his chair so his back was turned to them. He was curious and he wouldn’t concentrate on other work until he had checked this out. He picked up the phone.

‘This missing person from the Headland?’ he asked. ‘She turned up yet?’

‘If she has no one’s told us. But, they don’t always, do they?’

‘I’ll deal with it if you like. Talk to the family anyway.’

‘Why?’ The voice was suspicious. Routine missing persons shouldn’t have interested Ramsay. ‘Something going on there that we should know about?’

‘Nothing like that.’

How could he explain his feeling that something was wrong? He could hardly say, ‘I went there once. The lassie was more worried than someone her age has a right to be. And there were no blackberries.’ He’d be a laughing stock. So he said nothing.

‘Well, if you’re short of work you’re welcome to it.’ The voice at the end of the phone had turned sulky. The receiver was replaced with a thud.

Ramsay drove back down the road along which he’d just travelled. There was a straight avenue of dripping trees before he came to the familiar grey terraces of Heppleburn and the road to the coast. As he drove he half expected to see the ramrod-straight figure of Kathleen Howe marching towards her home, carrying her canvas shopping bag and another excuse for her unexplained absence.

As on the previous occasion he had to wait at the level crossing. A coal train was rattling slowly on its way to the power station. On the other side of the line, beyond the barrier, a pedestrian was waiting to cross. He was a large man in a black PVC cape and Ramsay imagined the moisture trickling from the greasy collar into his neck. As the barrier lifted and Ramsay drove slowly across, the man peered into the car, sticking his head right up to the passenger window, so close that for a moment Ramsay was afraid he intended to jump in front of the vehicle. It occurred to Ramsay as he drove on towards the club that he should have stopped, and at least asked the man for his name and address. Already he was thinking of Kathleen Howe’s disappearance in terms of a police investigation.

The Headland was covered with a fine drizzling mist which hid the Coastguard House from view. Ramsay drove slowly past the club and towards the houses of Cotter’s Row. A red minibus loomed out of the fog ahead of him. He had seen it before parked in the street close to his cottage. It collected people who had no transport and took them to the ten o’clock service at the Methodist church in Heppleburn. He pulled in to let it pass and had a glimpse, through windows spotted with rain, of elderly faces.

He parked outside the Howes’and waited for a moment, suddenly daunted by the prospect of an encounter with Marilyn Howe. He thought he should have brought Sally Wedderburn with him, then told himself he was overreacting. When he knocked on the door Kathleen Howe would probably open it herself.

The door opened while he was still sitting in the car so he felt awkward, irrationally guilty, as if he’d been spying. Marilyn stood on the step. She was dressed in clothes which her mother might have worn: a shapeless knee-length skirt, a roll-neck sweater, fluffy pink slippers. Her hair was pulled away from her face. The effect was of middle-aged dowdiness and exhaustion.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘It’s you. I heard the car and I thought… Is there any news?’

He shook his head. ‘Your mother’s not back yet? You’ve not heard from her?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Perhaps I could come in. I’d like a word with you all.’

‘I’m the only one here. Dad’s out looking. He went as soon as it got light. I don’t think any of us slept.’

‘Is your father a big man? Wearing a black cycle cape?’

She nodded.

‘I think I saw him on the road.’ So the strange figure at the level crossing had been an anxious husband, not a suspect. Not yet at least. Marilyn continued. ‘Claire’s at work. She offered to stay but there didn’t seem much point.’

‘Claire’s your aunt?’

‘That’s right.’

She moved away from the step to let him in and took him straight to the back living room. There was a fire banked up in the grate and the sulphurous smell of smokeless fuel which reminded him again of his mother’s house. In one corner a clothes horse was draped with towels and the windows ran with condensation. The dining table was spread with textbooks.

‘I was trying to do some homework,’ Marilyn said. ‘ I thought it would take my mind off Mummy but I couldn’t really concentrate.’

He sat in the rocking chair where Kathleen Howe had been when he had surprised her on his previous visit to the house. In the hot, steamy room it would have been easy to doze off.

‘Why don’t you tell me what happened?’

‘We don’t
know
what happened!’ the girl cried. ‘She just disappeared.’

‘Well, when did you last see her?’

‘At breakfast yesterday. Then I went out.’

‘Where did you go?’

‘To school.’

‘On a Saturday?’

‘There was a special choir rehearsal. We’re taking part in a music festival at the Cathedral.’

‘What time did you get home?’

‘Two o’clock.’ She paused then continued like an ordinary schoolgirl, chatty, enthusiastic. ‘ We’d taken packed lunches because Miss Winter thought the practice would drag on into the afternoon but it went really well and we finished early.’

‘Your mother wasn’t expecting you back then?’

‘Not until later. That’s why I didn’t worry at first.’

‘How did you get home from school?’

‘I got a lift.’ There had been a slight hesitation. A flush of embarrassment. Or was it pleasure?

‘Who from? A parent? One of the sixth-formers?’ He had seen them, the kids coming out of the High School. They all seemed to have cars these days, and not just old bangers either.

‘No.’ She hesitated again. ‘ One of the teachers sings with us. Mr Taverner. He was coming this way.’

An adolescent crush, Ramsay thought.

‘Was anyone in when you got home?’

‘My father. He went out at about four. He works as a children’s entertainer. He had a booking at a kids’ party.’

‘Didn’t he tell you where your mother had gone?’

‘He thought she might have walked into Heppleburn, to the Co-op.’

‘Wasn’t he sure?’

‘Not really.’ She had been standing with her back to the table. Now she leant forward. ‘ When you meet my Dad properly you’ll understand. It’s not that he’s stupid. He’s absent-minded. When you talk to him he doesn’t always listen. Especially to Mummy, who tends to nag. I think it’s because his head’s full of tricks and illusions.’ Again she saw the need to explain. ‘He’s a magician. Brilliant. Anyone round here will tell you. He’s only part-time, of course. His real job’s with the DSS at Longbenton. The insolvency section.’

‘I see.’

Ramsay was glad he had visited Marilyn Howe in his own time and alone. He wondered what his sergeant, Hunter, would have made of the family. Hunter’s prejudices were widespread and various. He distrusted anything outside his own experience. A household without a car or a television would have struck him as sufficiently odd to raise his suspicions. But a part-time magician …

‘When did you start to worry about your mother?’

‘Soon after Dad left to go to the party. Even if she’d left just before I’d got home she should have been back from Heppleburn by then. She’s a fast walker.’

Ramsay gave a brief smile. ‘I know.’

‘I didn’t want to panic or make a fool of myself like last time. I told myself she’d soon be home. I looked to see what she’d taken with her, to try to work out where she might be. Then I knew something was wrong. Her coat was still here and her shopping bag and her purse. She wouldn’t have gone to Heppleburn without them.’

Her face crumpled and Ramsay was afraid she would cry. He felt a stab of anger because she was being put through this anxiety. Parents should be the ones to worry. It was part of the job description. But she hadn’t asked to be responsible for two middle-aged eccentrics whose thoughtlessness had caused this panic.

He gave her a moment to compose herself then asked, ‘Has your mother ever been ill?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Has she ever had any nervous trouble, suffered from stress or depression, anything like that?’

‘No,’ she said uncertainly. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Who’s your GP?’

‘Dr Lattimer in Heppleburn.’ She looked up at him and he saw that despite her sheltered life she could be mature and perceptive. ‘You think she’s had a sort of breakdown?’

‘It’s one possibility.’

‘She wouldn’t have committed suicide,’ Marilyn said, and again he was surprised at her ability to follow his train of thought. ‘Absolutely not. She wouldn’t want to leave me alone.’

‘No.’ He saw what she meant. ‘But the breakdown? She did seem rather tense when I came here last September. Did she ever really explain what happened that afternoon?’

‘Not to me.’ It was said too quickly but he didn’t feel it was the time to push her.

They waited for a moment in silence.

‘I’m not doing much good here,’ Ramsay said, ‘but I don’t want to leave you alone. Can we get your aunt to stay with you? I could talk to her employer. Explain. Where does she work?’

‘She’s a nanny to the kids in the Coastguard House. Don’t go up there. They think I’m daft enough already. That’s where Dad was working yesterday and I burst in and made a scene. Claire will be home soon. She’s only gone in for a couple of hours to help clear up after the party. Anyway, I don’t mind being on my own.’

‘Well,’ Ramsay said. ‘If you’re sure …’ She had, after all, been on her own when he found her. ‘Perhaps I’ll have a walk around the Headland. See if your dad’s come back.’

Outside it seemed very cold and the mist was thicker than ever. Ramsay carried on up the track until he arrived at the high, whitewashed wall which surrounded the Coastguard House. To the south a fog-horn belched, marking the mouth of the Tyne.

He called tentatively, ‘Mr Howe,’ then decided that only a maniac would be wandering along the cliff tops in fog. Besides, if Kath Howe’s husband had returned to the Headland he would surely have called home. Ramsay supposed he was still searching the footpaths in the dene.

He walked back between the double row of houses towards the club and the jetty. It was only eleven o’clock but there were lights on in the front rooms. In one a pretty little girl was playing at dressing up. She wore a frilly white garment which might once have been her mother’s night-dress, and twirled round and round so the skirt spun away from her body.

The club was still shut. The door was covered by a grille, the windows by steel shutters. The tide was well on its way in and the gully which had been cut through the rock to let out the coal boats was nearly full.

Four children were playing on the jetty. They were rowdy, foul-mouthed, cocksure. Future customers, he thought. The oldest had probably already been up before the Juvenile Bench and he’d guess they were all on some register or another. They were throwing rocks at a target floating in the water, swearing indiscriminately whether they hit or missed.

Ramsay approached them and shouted. They stopped briefly and looked at him, then continued their game, deciding he was nothing to be scared of.