Killjoy

Chapter Seventeen

When Ramsay arrived at work Hunter had already persuaded the superintendent to authorize a search of the Pastons’ bungalow and was in the process of putting together a team to go. He was triumphant.

‘I told the old man I had your blessing,’ Hunter said, looking up from his phone. Then: ‘By, man, you look dreadful. A night on the tiles, was it?’

‘Something like that,’ Ramsay said. He wasn’t going to tell Hunter he’d spent the night with a murder suspect.

‘Do you want to come?’

‘No,’ Ramsay said. ‘I’ll be tied up here all morning. I’ll leave you to deal with it. But be discreet. We don’t want the local lads saying we cocked up an operation on their patch.’

‘Man, they’ll never know I’ve been there.’

Alma Paston never missed her cooked breakfast. She thought it set her up for the day. She was sitting at the kitchen table eating a last slice of fried bread when the doorbell went.

Ellen was standing by the sink, running cold water into the frying pan. Her face was flushed with the cooking.

‘H’ way then, hinnie,’ Alma said impatiently. ‘It’ll be one of the bairns. I heard the cars out racing yesterday. Let’s see what they’ve got for us.’

Ellen left the pan in the washing-up bowl, wiped her hands on her apron, and looked out of the living-room window to see who was there.

‘It’s a policeman,’ she shouted back to her mother. ‘Not the tall one that came here. The other one, Hunter, who was at the Grace Darling. What does he want?’

‘Well, we’ll not find out while he’s standing there. Let him in. He’ll have some news about Gabby likely.’

Alma heaved herself from the chair and stood, almost wedged in the doorway between the kitchen and the hall to watch what was going on. She thought there was the chance of a bit of banter. She was looking forward to putting the young policeman in his place.

‘Come on in, young man,’ she called over Ellen’s shoulder. ‘ What’ll the neighbours think if they see I’ve got a gentleman caller?’

‘There are three of them,’ Ellen said rudely.

‘All the more reason to bring them inside, then. I’ve my reputation to think of.’ And she began to laugh so her body heaved and she choked as if she were having some sort of fit.

‘Come on in, then, pet,’ she said at last to Hunter. She was wheezing, trying to catch her breath. Hunter stared at her with horror. ‘And what do they call you?’

He gave his name and nodded to his colleagues-a young woman in uniform and a second detective-to follow him. They all stood ridiculously crushed in the small space of the hall.

‘Well now,’ Alma said, laughing again. ‘This is cosy, like. You’d better come into the front room and tell me what it’s all about.’

It was all very different from what Hunter had expected. When Ellen had opened the door to him he had thought it would be easy. He could sense her fear and unease. But Alma’s confidence, her jolly good humour, made him wonder if he had made a mistake. He was frightened of making a fool of himself.

‘Why don’t you put the kettle on?’ Alma said to Ellen. ‘Take Mr Hunter’s friends into the kitchen and make them some tea while I find out how I can help him.’

Ellen stamped away crossly and Hunter found himself alone with Alma Paston.

‘I’ve got a search warrant,’ he said.

‘Have you now?’ She raised her eyebrows and pulled a face in mock horror. ‘Do you think that bothers me?’

‘I think it’ll bother your daughter,’ he said.

‘Oh, Ellen!’ She dismissed the woman. ‘She never was up to much. Not like Robbie. Now there was a lad!’

‘Is that when all this started?’ Hunter said. ‘When Robbie was a lad?’

‘All what?’ she demanded. She looked at him with a theatrical disappointment. I’d thought better of you, she seemed to be saying. I thought you’d have realized I was too canny to be taken in by a trick like that.

He was affronted by her impudence. ‘We have reason to believe that you are in possession of stolen goods,’ he said angrily. ‘We have a warrant to search these premises and I’ll ask my colleagues to begin the search now.’ He went to the door and nodded through to the kitchen where they were standing awkwardly, watching Ellen make tea.

‘Reason to believe!’ Alma said. ‘ Who’s given you reason to believe? I hope you’ve something better to go on than rumours. You can get into trouble making false accusations. You never know, I might sue. For defamation of character.’

Her tone was light but she looked at him intently. He thought he had not misjudged the situation after all. Alma Paston had something to hide and she wanted to know who had informed against her.

‘You had a lot of visitors here yesterday,’ he said. ‘Could you explain to me please the purpose of their visits?’

‘Bairns,’ she said. ‘They were just bairns. They know I can’t get out and they came to keep me company.’ She leaned forward and thrust her face towards his. ‘There’s a lot written in the papers about the Starling Farm, Sergeant,’ she said. ‘You’d think it was a den of wickedness. But they’re the salt of the earth, the people on this estate. They look after their own.’ She smiled at him, not caring whether he believed her or not.

‘Don’t mess me about,’ he said, losing his patience at last. ‘We were watching the house. Most of the lads that came here yesterday were convicted criminals. They weren’t here to make your tea and weed your garden. I can give you a list of their names if you like…’

There was a pause. He realized that she was intelligent and that she was coming to terms with the fact that he knew more than she had suspected.

‘Why not?’ she said quietly. ‘Why don’t you do that, Sergeant? And at the top of the list why don’t we put a special friend of mine. Such a nice lad. Well brought up. From such a good family. And bright too. Bright as a button. You’ll never guess some of the schemes he’s dreamt up to make himself a few bob.’ She leaned forward again. ‘If you’ve been watching the house, Sergeant, I’m sure you know who I’m talking about. You’ll know his father.’

She laughed triumphantly and he understood now what lay behind her confidence and good humour. She had no anxiety about her own future. She did not care at all what would happen to her if she were caught. All that mattered was that John Powell was brought down with her.

‘Is this what all this has been about?’ Hunter demanded. ‘Revenge?’

‘Evan Powell took my son,’ she said. ‘I’ve taken his. In a way.’ She levered herself to her feet and lumbered to the door.

‘You’ll find what you’re looking for in the loft,’ she shouted out to the two police officers who had begun to search her bedroom. ‘No need to wreck our home, is there? It’d upset Ellen, you see. She’s that houseproud. And the money’s in the commode by my bed.’ She walked back to Hunter and patted his hand. ‘The Red Cross brought it but I never use the thing,’ she said. ‘I’ve still got all my faculties.’ She laughed again.

‘You’ll have to come to the station to make a statement,’ Hunter said sullenly, withdrawing his hand. He knew he’d been used.

‘That’ll be a treat then, hinnie. A ride in a police car. I’ve always wanted one of those. Will you let me start the siren?’

She returned to her chair and stared at Hunter through narrowed eyes.

‘I could say that it was all young Powell’s idea,’ she said. ‘That I was just keeping the stuff for him, that he bullied me into doing it.’

‘How did you get him involved?’ Hunter asked. He knew this was out of order. He should wait to begin the interview until they were in the station, with the tape-recorder running, a WPC present, but he knew damn fine that Alma Paston would say nothing in front of witnesses unless she felt like it and she was well able to look after her own civil rights.

‘He involved himself, hinnie,’ she said. ‘I’m not a witch.’

‘Who brought him here?’

‘A friend of mine,’ she said. ‘A lad from the estate.’

‘What’s his name?’

She shook her head. ‘You’ll not expect me to tell you that,’ she said. ‘I’ve told you. It was a friend. A good boy.’

‘Why did John Powell do it?’ Hunter cried. ‘A lad like that with everything to lose.’

‘It was the excitement,’ she said. ‘The danger. My Robbie was just the same. I could tell that the minute Johnny was in the house. I recognized the signs. It was like my Robbie all over again. I knew once he started he’d never be able to stop.’

‘So you encouraged him to steal cars?’

‘I bought what he had to sell,’ she corrected him. ‘Mostly radios, of course, but you’d be surprised the stuff that gets left in cars.’ She shut her eyes and continued in reminiscence. ‘I did a nice little line in designer raincoats and jackets for a while: Burberry, Berghaus, you know the sort. You can get a good price for a famous label if it’s in decent condition, even secondhand. The lads and lassies around her appreciate quality.’

‘How did you sell it on?’ he asked. ‘You never leave the house. Did the customers come here?’

She opened her eyes and looked at him disapprovingly. ‘I’d not be such a fool,’ she said.

‘Sarge!’ There was a shout from the hall. The DC was standing on a short stepladder with his head stuck through a square hole in the roof. ‘I think this is what we’re after!’ He descended, wiping the dust from his hands, and Hunter took his place and shone a torch into the roof space. There, neatly piled in boxes on the floor, was a variety of stolen goods. Most of the boxes contained radios and cassette-recorders, but there were briefcases, ladies’ handbags, leather gloves. He could see boxes of wine, jewellery, small electrical household items. Alma was standing at the foot of the ladder.

‘It’s a canny storeroom, isn’t it?’ she said with satisfaction. ‘That’s all Ellen’s work. I can’t get up there myself.’

‘Where did you get the toasters, then?’ Hunter shouted down. ‘And the booze? The kids’d not have found that in stolen cars. Not all of it at least.’

‘No,’ she conceded. ‘Well, we found we’d saturated the market with in-car entertainment-that’s what they call it you know, the radios and cassettes. So we decided to branch out.’

‘The ram raids,’ Hunter said. There was a grudging admiration in his voice. She had nerve, you had to give her that, and she’d been conning them all for years. ‘ Was Powell involved in that too?’

He climbed down to join her.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I think you can say that Johnny was the leading light behind the ram raids. The moving force.’ She touched Hunter’s arm conspiratorially. ‘The attack on the Coast Road hypermarket on the night Gabby died,’ she said. ‘That was all his own work. I wasn’t pleased about that. I thought the timing lacked respect. But he’s always had a flair for organization.’

‘You were telling me how you get rid of the stuff,’ Hunter said.

‘Was I?’ She was teasing him, pleased by his interest. ‘ Perhaps I’ll let you work that one out for yourself. We don’t want to make it too easy for you.’

‘You’ll stop mucking me about,’ he said.

‘I run a sort of franchise,’ she said proudly, not intimidated in the least. She had wanted to tell him anyway. ‘I suppose that’s what you’d call it. I have agents who do the selling for me. I take a commission.’

‘That bloke who was in court on the afternoon Mrs Wood died,’ Hunter said. ‘Tommy Shiels. Was he one of your agents?’

She nodded. ‘Not one of the best, though, hinnie. You mustn’t think I only deal with the losers.’

‘At least he kept his mouth shut,’ Hunter said. ‘He never let on he was working for you.’

‘Oh, they all keep their mouths shut, hinnie,’ she said. ‘ They know that some of my friends are…unpredictable.’ She touched his arm again with her thick soft fingers. ‘ You might not believe this, but they’re frightened of me!’

She seemed to find the idea hilarious and burst into laughter, rocking backwards and forwards. Hunter, watching her felt suddenly sick and chill. Like Ramsay he could believe her capable of anything.

Before he could settle to the investigation Ramsay phoned Prue Bennett at the Grace Darling Centre. The disappearance of Anna disturbed him, nagged at his subconscious all day. He did not see how she could be in real danger but knew that he would always blame himself if anything happened to her. Prue had been determined to go in to work and had left Otterbridge at her usual time. If she stayed at home she’d just mope, she said. She needed to keep busy. Anna would know where to find her.

‘Any news?’ he said.

‘Yes. I was just going to ring you.’ She sounded almost drunk with relief. ‘ She phoned in to say she was all right.’

‘Where is she?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know. She wouldn’t speak to me. Her pride, I suppose. Or she’d think I’d just make a fuss, get cross. She left a message with Joe.’

‘What exactly did she say?’

‘That she was sorry to have worried me, she was fine, and she’d be at the rehearsal tonight. She’d explain it all then.’

Ramsay said nothing.

‘Stephen,’ she said, perhaps sensing his disquiet. ‘You don’t think anything’s wrong, do you? She is going to turn up this evening, full of the adventure?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Of course she is.’ There was no point in frightening her.

But as soon as she had replaced the phone he dialled again and spoke to Joe Fenwick.

‘That message you took for Miss Bennett this morning,’ he said. ‘You are sure it was Anna on the phone?’

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘ For sure. I knew it was her before she gave her name. There’s not much of the Geordie in her voice, y’knaa, and it’s very quiet. I’d recognize it anywhere.’

Ramsay replaced the receiver slowly. He hoped to God she was safe.

In the neat terraced house on Martin’s Dene Front Street Hilda Wilkinson made tea for the pleasant policewoman who had come to talk to her. Hilda Wilkinson was a widow, spry, independent, energetic. She had just returned from her daughter’s and was full of the trip. She had enjoyed her weekend in the Lakes, she said, despite the weather. She still managed a good tramp across the fells.

‘It’s about the car you saw last Monday,’ the young detective said. ‘Can you tell us anything more about it?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Mrs Wilkinson said. It was only mid-afternoon but the windows of the cottage were small and the light was already beginning to fade. The lights were on and she had just lit a fire in the grate. ‘It was about two o’clock, I know that, and it’s unusual to see cars parked there during the week. At weekends it’s different of course. But there was nothing really to catch my interest.’

She poured tea into pretty china cups and handed one to her visitor.

‘Did you see anyone out on the hill while you were walking your dog?’

‘Not the young girl who was killed,’ Mrs Wilkinson said. ‘I saw a photo of her in the paper and a description of her clothes. I’ve rather a good memory, you know, almost photographic despite my age, and if I’d seen her I’d remember.’

‘But was there anyone else?’

‘Yes.’ Mrs Wilkinson sat very still. She wanted to test her memory. She was quite confident in her own ability.

‘It was very foggy,’ she said. ‘In the morning it had been sunny but by lunch time the mist started to come in from the sea. I didn’t go very far. I’m not a nervous person but it wasn’t pleasant there…’ She paused. ‘ There was a young mother,’ she said, ‘ with a child in a pushchair. I almost bumped into her, the fog was so thick. The baby wasn’t wearing gloves and I thought it was so irresponsible. His hands must have been freezing. I almost said something but she hurried away.’

‘Anyone else?’ The policewoman looked out of the window. She supposed the inspector must know what he was doing but this seemed a waste of time. She nibbled a piece of shortbread, stretched her hand towards the fire, and thought she might as well make the most of the rest. It had been a busy weekend.

‘There was Eleanor Darcy,’ the old woman said, ‘but I don’t suppose you’ll be interested in her. She walks on the hill every afternoon. She’ll not have remembered anything. She’s rather confused, poor dear. Still on the committee of the WI but not really up to it, I’m afraid.’

‘I’ll take her address,’ the policewoman said. ‘Just in case.’ She jotted the information in her notebook and stood to go.

‘Wait a minute!’ Mrs Wilkinson said. She was suddenly excited. ‘There was someone else. Not actually on the hill but on the road close to where the car was parked. Now, let me think…’ She shut her eyes and then began a detailed description which tallied almost exactly with that given to the policewoman by Stephen Ramsay the day before.