Killjoy

Chapter Twenty

They sat in the kitchen of the house in Otterbridge. It was almost midnight. Ramsay had sent them back in a police car and promised to come later to explain it all to them. Anna was wrapped up in a towelling dressing-gown in the rocking chair. When Ramsay arrived Prue made a fuss of him, took his wet coat, offered him tea, a drink.

‘Whisky,’ he said. ‘If you’ve got it.’

‘Anna’s been explaining what happened,’ Prue said. She couldn’t take her eyes off her daughter. She sat on the arm of her chair and stroked her as if she needed to make sure she was really there.

‘Perhaps you’d better tell me,’ Ramsay said to the girl. ‘If you can face going through it again.’

‘I think it was a kind of madness,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what got into me.’

‘You met John Powell?’ he said.

She nodded. ‘We went to the Starling Farm,’ she said. ‘The kids there race stolen cars…’

‘And you?’ he asked. ‘Did you take part?’

‘Not the first time,’ she said. ‘The first time I just watched but when I went on Sunday afternoon I joined in. John was driving. I just sat beside him. I had my eyes closed most of the time but it was so exciting…’

‘And after the racing?’ Ramsay said flatly. ‘ What did you do then?’ He wanted to tell her that she was a stupid fool, that her mother had been frantic with worry, but he knew that Prue wouldn’t have wanted that.

‘I asked John to take me home,’ she said defensively. ‘But he wouldn’t. He was going with some friends to a sort of party in one of the boarded-up houses on the estate.’

‘You could have phoned me,’ Prue interrupted. ‘I would have come for you.’

‘I know.’ Anna paused. ‘It was pride, I suppose. I couldn’t bear phoning up, begging to be collected. Like a child. And I wanted to be with John.’

‘So you went to the party with him?’

She nodded. ‘I didn’t enjoy it much. It lasted all night. I just wanted to go to sleep. John drank himself senseless and was in no state then to take me home.’

‘What happened in the morning?’ Ramsay asked.

‘I said I should go to school but they all laughed at me. What did I want with school, they said. I told them I’d have to phone my mother. She’d be frantic. She’d have the police out looking for me and it would only cause trouble. So John took me to the Community Centre and I used the phone there.’

‘You were still in the Community Centre when Connor got the news that the Pastons had been arrested?’ Ramsay asked.

She nodded. ‘Connor told John to run away. He said the police would be on to him like a shot. They’d cause a disturbance to distract them, and give John a chance to get away. But John said he wasn’t running anywhere. I think in a way he would be glad to be caught. He knew he was out of his depth. It had all got out of hand.’ She looked directly at her mother. ‘I tried to leave then,’ she said. ‘But Connor wouldn’t let me. He said I would only give them away. I was a sort of hostage, until it was all over.’ She shivered. ‘I think he must be mad,’ she said. ‘I heard him plan it all-the petrol bombs, the looting. He phoned some friends from Newcastle to join in.’

‘Did you go out on to the street with them?’

She nodded again.

‘How did you get away?’

‘When the police came it was dreadful, chaotic. I don’t think Connor had expected it to happen like that. They weren’t interested in me by then. I walked up to the Centre. I knew Mum would be worried.’

‘Of course I was worried,’ Prue cried. ‘I was worried all night.’ But she put her arm round her daughter’s shoulder and there was no anger in her voice.

‘What will happen to John?’ Anna looked at the policeman.

‘You don’t really care?’ Prue interrupted. ‘After all he’s done…’

‘There was an accident on the Coast Road,’ Ramsay said. ‘The stolen car which John and Connor were driving was being followed by the police. It was speeding. John was the driver. As you say he didn’t seem to care what happened to him. He hit a Mini and was spun into the oncoming traffic.’

‘Is he dead?’

Ramsay shook his head. ‘He’s very ill. They think he’s got spinal injuries.’

‘And Connor?’

‘He was killed immediately.’

There was a silence. Anna stood up as if she were exhausted and said she was going to bed. The adults watched her leave the room.

‘I suppose the police will be blamed for that as well,’ Prue said bitterly. Ramsay looked at her, surprised. It must be a new experience for her to consider herself a champion of the police force.

‘We’ve got the disturbances under control,’ he said. ‘There was a danger that they’d spread when news of Connor’s death got out, but there were only a few skirmishes on the Starling Farm. There was worse trouble in the west end of Newcastle but that’s all quiet now too.’

Prue stood up and brought the whisky bottle to the table.

‘So the murders of Gabby and Amelia Wood had nothing to do with joy riding after all,’ she said.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Not directly.’ Yet there was a link, he thought, between the crimes of Jackie Powell and her son. They were motivated by the same sense of dissatisfaction, the same inability to live in the stifling atmosphere of conventional family life.

‘Why did she do it?’ Prue cried. ‘ What could she have against Gabby?’

‘Jackie Powell was Gus Lynch’s mistress,’ Ramsay said. ‘You never guessed?’

‘I knew there was someone. He made jokes about her. The little woman, he used to call her. The bored housewife who needed his attentions to bring her a bit of excitement. She’s been more demanding lately but I never realized it was so serious.’

‘Oh,’ Ramsay said, ‘she took it very seriously. She saw it as an escape. She couldn’t stand the thought of being on her own with Evan after John left for university. She thought that when Gus moved out of the area he’d take her with him. Of course he never had any intention of doing that.’

‘How did you know?’ Prue said. ‘You weren’t surprised, were you, when she went for Gus? You were looking out for her.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I thought she must be desperate by then. She hadn’t been home all day. I guessed she would try to see Lynch. That’s one reason why I spent so long at the Grace Darling yesterday evening.’ He poured himself another whisky. ‘I didn’t expect violence, though. I should have realized that was a possibility.’

‘But how did you know she was having an affair with Gus? He didn’t tell you?’

‘No,’ Ramsay said. ‘Joe Fenwick told me. He asked me to his flat on Friday night. He’d seen them together once in the Centre and when she started phoning he realized who she was. He didn’t realize, of course, how important the information was, but he thought I should know.’

‘I still don’t understand,’ Prue said, ‘ why she would want to hurt Gabby. They can’t even have known each other. Not well. I know she’d met Gabby at the party at Barton Hill but they had nothing to do with each other.’

‘Jackie Powell was protecting Gus Lynch,’ he said. ‘Gabby was blackmailing him. She was worried she might not get a grant for drama college. She used the information she had to get money out of him.’

‘She knew about the missing funds?’

He nodded.

‘Did he set Jackie up to it?’ she cried. ‘What a bastard!’

‘No,’ he said. ‘ Really. I don’t think so.’ He found it strange to be defending Gus Lynch.

‘What happened that lunch time?’ Prue asked. ‘Do you know?’

Ramsay nodded. Once Jackie Powell had begun to make her statement there had been no stopping her. The tension of the previous week had been released in a stream of words. But before he gave Prue the details he wanted to explain why he made so many mistakes during the course of the investigation.

‘It took me so long to work out what happened because I had the perspective all wrong,’ he said. ‘I knew the thing had been planned in advance-the fact that the table at the Holly Tree had been booked the day before proved that. But I thought the murderer had planned it. In fact of course Gabby set it all up, using the name of Abigail Keene. She sent Jackie a letter inviting her to lunch-if you’re going to try blackmail it’s best, I suppose, to do it in a civilized setting, and she’d expect Jackie to pay. The reply came in the envelope we found in Gabby’s drawer.’

‘So Gabby knew about the affair too?’

‘She knew everything that went on in the Grace Darling through Ellen.’

‘Yes,’ Prue said. ‘ Of course. Did Gabby blackmail Jackie about her relationship with Gus?’

‘No. Jackie wouldn’t have worried too much about that being made public. It was the missing money that was the subject of the blackmail. Gabby realized she’d got all she could expect out of Gus, and she knew Jackie wouldn’t want him to be charged with fraud and sent to prison.’

‘Tell me what happened,’ Prue said.

‘Jackie had no transport. Evan’s car was in for a service and he was using hers. So she borrowed Gus Lynch’s car. She had the keys-he’d given her a spare set so she could get into the flat. She met Gabby at the bus stop and they walked over the hill towards the Holly Tree. It was foggy that day if you remember. They were very close to the road but no one could see them.’

‘But they never reached the restaurant.’

‘No,’ Ramsay said. ‘ They never reached the restaurant. Gabby was taunting Jackie about the affair-she was there of course at the party at Barton Hill when it all began. Then she began to talk about the missing money. Gus had told Jackie that there had been administrative irregularities at the Centre and he had come under pressure from Amelia Wood to sort them out, but she didn’t know the extent of his fraud. It must have come as a terrible shock. Gabby was threatening to expose him and all Jackie’s dreams of escaping Hallowgate would be ruined. Gabby was walking over the hill ahead of her, full of herself, full of the information she had, mocking Jackie for making a fool of herself with a thief. Jackie lost control. She went up behind her and strangled her with her scarf. She says it wasn’t premeditated and I believe her.’

‘Why didn’t she leave the body there, on the hill?’

‘She panicked,’ Ramsay said. ‘Someone was coming. The fog was very thick, but she could hear voices coming over the hill. She pulled Gabby back to the car. It wasn’t far and she was terrified. She lifted Gabby back into the boot. Gabby was tiny, wasn’t she? There was nothing to her. Then she realized that Gabby’s bag was still on the hill. She flung it over the wall into the nearest garden.’

‘So that was a coincidence,’ Prue said. ‘ She didn’t mean to implicate Amelia.’

‘It was a coincidence,’ Ramsay said. ‘The only one.’

‘Then she returned the car to the Grace Darling Centre,’ Prue said. ‘She must have been mad. Why did she do that if she was trying to protect Gus?’

‘She didn’t know what else to do,’ Ramsay said. ‘She wasn’t thinking rationally and she couldn’t face moving the body again. And she was Evan Powell’s wife. She had a naïve and rather pathetic belief in the English justice system. She didn’t think it possible that an innocent man would be found guilty of murder. She cleaned the car as thoroughly as she could and returned it to the Grace Darling in mid-afternoon when it was quiet. No one saw her. I suppose if Gus Lynch was ever found guilty she would have come forward.’

‘So it was all a dreadful muddle,’ Prue said, ‘ and not planned logically at all. Did she tell Gus Lynch what she’d done?’

Ramsay shook his head. ‘ She went to his flat later that evening but she didn’t tell him. She didn’t want him involved. She thought she was being terribly brave to cope with it by herself. She’s really infatuated with him and saw it as a sort of romantic sacrifice.’

‘Didn’t he ask her if she’d taken his car? He must have known she had access to his keys.’

Ramsay shook his head. ‘Apparently not. He made some joke about it-a policeman’s wife as a murder suspect-but he thought she was just weak and silly. It never occurred to him that she would be capable of taking his car without telling him.’

‘Where did Amelia Wood come into it? Did she see Jackie in Martin’s Dene on the day Gabby died?’

Ramsay shook his head. ‘No, it was nothing like that. Jackie knew that Gus had applied for a job out of the area. It was her great hope. She thought she could escape Evan and the tedium of Barton Hill and start a more glamorous life with Gus. John would be leaving home anyway and wouldn’t need her any more. On the day after Gabby’s death Gus had a phone call from his agent, pressing him to sign the contract and make the move public. But the night before he’d had a visit from Amelia Wood. She’d made it clear that she wasn’t going to lose him from the Grace Darling without a fight. If he persisted with his intention to move she’d make his theft public, and who would want him then? Lynch didn’t know what to do. He told me that he went out into Hallowgate to meet Mrs Wood from court, intending to plead with her again to release him. But just as he was about to approach her she was called back by the usher. He went home without speaking to her.’ Ramsay paused. ‘He was depressed. He phoned Jackie Powell for comfort, sympathy. He got rather more than that.’

‘She went out and killed her!’

Ramsay nodded. ‘Again, I don’t think it was terribly well thought out. Gus Lynch had told her where Amelia Wood lived and that she was on her way home. She parked in the same place as she had the day before and walked over the hill to the back of the Woods’ house. She intended to go in and confront Amelia Wood but while she was waiting there, trying to make up her mind what to do, the woman came out with the dog. By that time Jackie Powell was under tremendous stress and in her unbalanced state she saw it as a sign, an answer to her prayers. She followed Amelia into the dene and killed her in just the same way as she’d strangled Gabriella. The dog barked and there must have been a struggle, but there was no one on the hill to hear.

He paused and poured himself another drink. ‘She left the body where it was. It was dark and there was no one on the hill to disturb her this time. She walked back to her car. Nobody saw her.’ He paused again. ‘Then she drove on to the supermarket and did the week’s shopping. I can’t imagine the state she was in. She needed to explain her absence from the house, I suppose. When she got back to Barton Hill her son was there, and her husband decided they should go out for dinner at the Holly Tree. She must have been frantic, having to go back to Martin’s Dene, knowing Mrs Wood’s body was still on the hill. Even I could tell she was unhappy but it never occurred to me then that she might be involved. She was just Evan Powell’s wife.’

‘Perhaps that was the problem all along,’ Prue said. ‘She wanted to be more than a policeman’s wife. I can understand that.’

‘But you wouldn’t have committed murder.’

‘No,’ Prue said. ‘I wouldn’t have committed murder.’ She paused. ‘Did Lynch suspect what she’d done?’

‘I don’t think so for a moment. He wouldn’t have the imagination. Wouldn’t consider his little woman capable of it. All he could think about was himself. And if he had suspected I think he’d have come to the police. He’d not want to be implicated in murder.’

She looked at him over her glass. ‘You never thought it was me, did you? Or Anna?’

He shook his head sadly. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I never thought it was you.’ He realized that wasn’t quite true and at the beginning of a murder investigation he suspected everyone. He wasn’t a good judge of character, especially of women, and he couldn ‘t afford to trust his instincts.

‘Look’ he said. ‘You’ll be tired. None of us slept much last night. I’ll go now and let you go to bed.’

‘Should you drive?’ she asked. ‘After all that booze? Aren’t you over the limit?’

‘I think I can risk it,’ he said.

‘No,’ she said softly, grinning so he saw her as a schoolgirl again. ‘We can’t have you breaking the law. Perhaps you should stay.’