Murder in My Backyard

Chapter Ten

Hunter seized on the disappearance of Charlie Elliot as an excuse for activity. While the communications centre at Otterbridge put out a general description of Charlie Elliot and of the car he was driving, Hunter drove at great speed around the country lanes, hoping to make an immediate arrest. He returned to the police house in the middle of the afternoon, disappointed, but still convinced that Charlie Elliot was a murderer. Ramsay knew the danger of jumping to conclusions too quickly and cautioned patience, an open mind.

“Charlie Elliot had an alibi for the time of the murder,” he said reasonably. “His father confirmed that he was in the house by eleven. And then there was the girl he saw in the churchyard. We should be looking for her.”

“What girl?” Hunter demanded. “ Man, that was just Elliot making up stories to throw us off the scent. No-one in the Tower saw a girl. And the old man was lying to protect his son.”

“What about motive?” Ramsay said quietly. “ I thought you said no-one would commit murder for the sake of a few houses.”

“No-one sane,” Hunter said. “We know Elliot was unbalanced, unpredictable. Look at his obsession with that girl in the pub. He’s our man. He can’t have got far. We’ll have him tonight.”

But as the afternoon wore on there was no information about Elliot. No-one had seen the car. The men waiting in the police house became irritable and impatient, and to make things worse Fred Elliot was on the phone every half-hour wanting to know if his son had been found and claiming that Charlie, too, had been murdered.

At half-past six Ramsay had waited long enough.

“I’m going to Otterbridge,” he said to Hunter, “to talk to the Laidlaws. Go and sit with old man Elliot. There’s a chance Charlie will come home when he’s cold and hungry. And you’ll need to break that alibi if you’re to prove Charlie guilty. Elliot might talk while he’s so upset.”

They walked together down the street to the green, where Ramsay’s car was parked. Despite the cold, two teenage boys in black leather stood by the bus stop, smoking a cigarette, passing it between them.

Poor sods, thought Hunter. What else is there for them to do in a place like this?

“Nip over and get their names and addresses,” Ramsay said. “Stella Laidlaw saw some lads at the bus stop on Saturday night. Find out if it was them.”

Hunter went, sauntering towards them, indirectly over the grass. Ramsay thought Hunter had more in common with the boys than he did with him. The sky was clear and there would be another frost. Ramsay shivered as he watched the three figures by the bus shelter. He saw Hunter take a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and hand it around, then the three of them huddled together around the lighter, sheltering the flame from the breeze. He imagined the three in conspiracy against him. “That’s my boss,” he imagined Hunter saying. “But don’t take any notice of him. If you’ve got any information, come straight to me.”

That’s ridiculous, he thought. Diana always said I was paranoid. But his suspicions about Diana had been justified and she had run away eventually with someone who produced television programmes for the BBC in Fenham.

Hunter returned, stubbing out the cigarette with the heel of his designer trainers before he reached the inspector.

“They’re all right,” he said. “Bored out of their brains, but who can blame them in a place like this? They weren’t here Saturday night, but they’ve given me the names and addresses of a couple of other lads who might have been.”

Ramsay nodded and walked on alone to his car. Hunter might be good at communicating with local teenagers, but he had other skills. He had been married to Diana. He knew how to talk to the civilised middle classes.

Max Laidlaw was on call that Monday morning but paid the deputising service to take the duty for him. Judy wanted him to take Peter to school, then spend some time with her and the twins. In the afternoon he had a surgery and by then he would be pleased to leave the house. He told himself he needed time to think. In a sense Alice Parry’s death had changed nothing and there were still decisions to be made. In the chaotic house in Otterbridge he found decisions impossible.

Judy made things worse. All morning she seemed unable to leave the subject of his aunt’s death alone. She followed him around the house demanding his attention, desperate, it seemed, for his opinion. Even while he was shaving she was shouting at him through the closed bathroom door.

“What did you think of Ramsay, the detective?” she asked. “I didn’t know what to make of him. He seemed rather hostile, I thought.” Then: “How did Alice seem to you that night? Was she even more upset than she said?”

“I don’t know,” he shouted, slamming out of the room, almost tripping over her on the landing. “And I don’t bloody care.”

“But you talked to her,” Judy said, catching him up as he ran down the stairs to the kitchen. “You helped her clear up the dishes after supper and she wouldn’t let anyone else into the kitchen. ‘I want a private word with Max,’ she said, and she sent us all away. So what was the great secret?”

“There wasn’t any secret,” he said. “ You know what she was like.”

“At one time you would have trusted me. Now you don’t share anything.” She gave him one of her hurt and vulnerable looks.

“There was no secret,” he said. “Really.”

I’m too soft, he thought. When she looks at me like that, I’d promise her anything. He wanted to make some gesture of affection, but before he could show her how much he cared for her, one of the twins cried for her attention and she turned away.

Throughout the morning the children irritated him. On the way to school Peter was listless and tired, reacting to the smallest provocation with tears or temper, and in the house the twins whined with a mechanical, metallic sound that grated on his nerves.

“Of course they’re demanding,” Alice had said on the evening of her death when they were alone in the kitchen at the Tower. “But you wouldn’t be without them, would you?”

And he had responded wholeheartedly: No, of course he wouldn’t be without them. He loved them.

Now it did not seem so simple, and he longed for the old times, when he was a tandem-riding student, before guilt and responsibility.

When the time came to go to the surgery, Judy seemed to sense his unhappiness. She was concerned about him, she said. She put on boots and a sweater to help him clear the ice from the windscreen of the car and told him to take care when he was driving.

“Drive slowly,” she said. “It’s still very slippery. Perhaps you should walk.”

“I’m only going into town,” he said, though he was pleased that she was worrying about him. “The roads will be clear by now.”

Before he drove off she stood close to him and kissed him. Her nose was cold and the unexpected gesture shocked and touched him.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “ It’s been my fault. You will take care?”

He nodded and squeezed her arm, then got into the car.

The roads were a slushy mess, the thin layer of snow already melted by salt and regular traffic, but in a school playground a queue of running boys in grey uniforms slid down an icy run. Max braked too sharply at a traffic light and the car slid forward before stopping, harmlessly, against the kerb. The jolt made him think of Judy and her concern for him. She was wrong, he thought. It was not her fault, but he could think of nothing that would make things right. The lights changed and he drove on slowly.

The Health Centre was packed. Four buggies had been parked in the porch outside, and he had to push his way past them to get into the waiting room. Inside the room was hot and noisy with the damp acoustics of swimming baths. The place was full, it seemed, with feverish children and bronchitic grandmothers. The receptionist was flushed and fraught. She hardly acknowledged Max as he walked past because she was trying to answer the telephone and find a missing file at the same time. The ill-tempered chaos suited his mood and he called irritably for the first patient.

Stella Laidlaw phoned late in the afternoon when he was examining his last patient, a toddler with an ear infection. The receptionist spoke to him first.

“I’m sorry,” the receptionist said. “I explained that you were busy, but the lady insisted. She wouldn’t give her name. She said it was personal.”

Max felt a sudden exhilaration. His promise to Alice was immediately forgotten.

“Give me two minutes,” he said, “then put her through.”

He wrote a hurried prescription for the child, then, as calmly as he could, saw him and the mother into the waiting room. He picked up the telephone again.

“Yes,” he said. “Max Laidlaw.”

Stella’s voice surprised and disappointed him, and for a moment he could not place it. He had been expecting someone quite different.

“Max,” she said. “I’m sorry, Max. I need your help again.”

“No,” he said angrily. “ I told you before. That was the last time.”

“You don’t understand,” she said. “I’m desperate.”

“You should see your doctor.”

“I can’t. You know that. He’s a friend of James.”

There was a silence, then she continued spitefully: “I could tell James all about you, Max. I could phone Judy. I know she’d be interested. You wouldn’t like that.” She had the affected accent of minor royalty and always sounded to him like a lonely public-school girl, but it was impossible now to be sorry for her. “I know what happened, Max,” she went on, “at the Tower. You wouldn’t want me to tell Judy that.”

“That’s blackmail,” he said, but even as he protested he knew he would do as she wanted, because he always took the easy way out. He was weaker than she was.

“You’re ill,” he said. “You need help. Real help. Not the kind that I can give you. You need someone to talk to, to share things with.”

“I can talk to you,” she said, her voice almost seductive, “ when we meet.”

“I’m so busy,” he said, with a last flicker of resistance. “ I’ve so little time.”

“You’ve time enough for this.”

“I can’t come today,” he said quickly, playing for time. “ It’s dark already and the roads are bad. If I’m late, Judy will worry and phone the practise.”

“Tomorrow then,” she said after a pause. “James is out all day. Come tomorrow.”

She put the phone down quickly, so Max wondered if someone had disturbed her at the other end of the line. The conversation had upset him and he felt that he needed comfort, to feel good about himself again. He dialled the telephone number of the Otterbridge Express office, enjoying the sensation that he was taking a risk by calling her at work.

“Could I speak to Mary Raven?” he asked.

“I’m sorry.” The woman’s voice was bland, uncaring. “Miss Raven has just left the office. Can anyone else help you?”

“No,” he said, and quickly replaced the receiver. He would have to plan some romantic gesture to make his peace with Mary. It was impossible, after all, to think he could do without her.

Judy spent the afternoon in desultory clearing-up. The twins grizzled themselves to sleep eventually, and after school Peter sat slumped close to the television watching a Walt Disney cartoon. His eyes were heavy and he refused to communicate with her. When she tried to hug him, he shrugged her away. All day the phone rang with friends offering their sympathy and help, wanting, she thought, a share of the drama. Finally she took the phone off the hook, and when people came to the door she sent them away. Only Max could reassure her and he was refusing to talk. She had known for months that he was worried about something but had been too busy, too exhausted, too engrossed in playing the part of a fulfilled and active woman to find out what was troubling him. Now perhaps it was too late.

She had longed to know what Alice had to say so urgently to her husband, yet this morning she had handled the whole thing badly. She had wanted to force him to honesty. Instead she had come across as a nagging shrew. She felt excluded and unimportant, a failure.

The television cartoon finished and she persuaded Peter to go to bed. He did not argue and allowed her to undress him, moving his limbs when she told him to but making no effort himself.

“Mum,” he said. “ When will the policeman come to see me?”

“When you’re ready,” she said. “ Tomorrow, I expect.”

She tucked the blankets around him, but he seemed unwilling to settle to sleep.

“Aunt Alice was murdered, wasn’t she? Someone killed her?”

“Yes,” Judy said. “ The police think she was murdered.”

“I saw her go out,” he said. “ She banged the door and went off down the drive.”

“You can’t have seen her,” Judy said. “ You were asleep.”

“I wasn’t,” he said. “ I was pretending.”

“So you saw Aunt Alice walk down the drive to the road?”

He nodded.

“Did you see anything else later? Did you see your aunt coming back?”

Perhaps the urgency of her voice distressed him. He seemed suddenly frightened and pushed his head into the pillow. She held him and turned him gently to face her.

“You’re quite safe here,” she said. “You can tell me. Did you see anyone else that night?”

But his loyalty to Carolyn prevented him from sharing his fear.

“No!” he said, almost hysterical. “ No!”

She held him tightly until he sobbed himself to sleep.

The kitchen was in the basement. It was the length of the house. At the front it was below the level of the street, but at the back there was a door into the garden. On one wall hung a red, cream, and black rug that they had brought home from a holiday in Portugal. There was a small sofa covered in an Indian bedspread bought in an Oxfam shop when Max was a student and a long oak table that had been made by a friend. There was a notice board made of cork tiles where the children’s paintings and drawings were pinned, together with postcards, magazine articles, concert tickets. Max walked into the silent house and down the bare wooden stairs to the kitchen. He was later than usual and tried to think of some excuse if Judy should ask him where he had been.

The room was lit only by a spotlight over the table and another near to the cooker where Judy was standing. The mess of unironed clothes and half-completed models had become invisible in shadowy corners. The table was laid for dinner, with cutlery and a wooden bowl of salad. There were wineglasses. It was all quite different from what he expected. They seemed to live now on a children’s diet of sausages and baked beans. He shut the door behind him and pulled across the heavy curtain that shut out the draughts from upstairs. He wanted to acknowledge the effort Judy had made.

“This looks nice,” he said, realising at once how inadequate it sounded. Judy lifted a tray of baked potatoes from the oven and prodded one to make sure it was cooked.

“I put them to bed early,” she said. “They were so tired.”

He took off his coat and put it over a chair.

“There’s some wine in the fridge,” she said. “Would you like to open it?”

Why do we have to be so polite to each other? he thought. Do we have to start from the beginning again?

“Did you have a busy afternoon?” she asked.

“Hmm.” He took white wine from the fridge, opened it, and poured her a glass. “Not too bad.” He expected her then to ask why he was late, but she said nothing.

“Do you want to eat now?”

“If it’s ready.”

He sat at the table and she brought out the food. She had changed into a loose brown top and her hair was brushed out in chestnut curls. If only it were always like this, he thought. But he realised it could not be that easy. Now there were other complications, deeper anxieties, and he could not think clearly. They ate for a while in silence.

“Peter was very upset tonight,” she said. “Did you realise he was still awake when Alice went out to see Colin Henshaw? He watched her from the window.”

Max looked up sharply. “ No,” he said. “I didn’t realise. How long was he awake? Did he see Alice come back?”

“No,” she said uncertainly. “He says not. But he was so distressed it was hard to tell.”

There was another period of silence. Judy’s attempts to please had confused him. He supposed she would want something in return for her efforts-some reassurance that he still cared for her-but he no longer knew what he wanted.

Suddenly the doorbell, which was worked by an old-fashioned pull, jangled above them. Max jumped to his feet, glad of an excuse to leave the table.

He expected it to be one of Judy’s friends. They turned up regularly, often in tears, with tales of insensitive husbands, uncaring boyfriends. Sometimes he overheard the women talking together. “Of course,” one of them had once said, “ if I only had a husband like Max, things would be quite different!” He wondered what Judy could have told them about him. Was it loyalty that prevented her from sharing her dissatisfaction or pride that would not allow her to admit that she had made a mistake in her marriage? He was so certain that he would find a woman on the doorstep, probably a distraught woman with a child, that he greeted Ramsay almost with pleasure.

“Come in,” he cried. “It must be cold out there.”

“I wondered,” Ramsay said, “ if I could talk to your son. I thought it might be better to do it now, so he can return to normal as soon as possible.”

“He’s in bed,” Max said. “He was worn out.”

“Oh, well,” Ramsay said. “Don’t disturb him. I’ll come back another day.” But he did not move from the doorstep.

“Come in anyway now that you’re here,” Max said. “ Judy’s making coffee.”

“Thank you,” Ramsay said. “ There are a few questions…” Through the door he had a glimpse of a warm, untidy house and he wondered how he could have found the Laidlaws so unappealing at the Tower. The cottage in Heppleburn was empty and uninviting in contrast. He was in no hurry to return home.

They walked down the stairs from the brightly lit hall and the kitchen seemed dark and gloomy.

“Let’s have a bit more light in here,” Max said, and switched on the central electric light. The muddle and dust were illuminated and the sense of intimacy was lost. Even Judy looked different. He could see the dark rings under her eyes and the sharp nose and pinched chin. The chestnut curls looked matted and untidy. He stood behind her with his arm on her shoulder, aware that they looked to Ramsay like a perfect, happily married couple.

“I came to talk to your son,” Ramsay said, “but your husband says he’s asleep.”

“Yes,” she said. “We don’t have to wake him, do we?”

“No,” Ramsay said. “ It’ll do another day.”

He sat on the sofa, still wearing his overcoat, to show them that he did not intend to take up too much of their time. He was jealous of their companionship, their home, their children. If he sensed any tension between them, he put it down to the shock of their aunt’s death.

“We’ve discovered that Mrs. Parry returned to the Tower at about midnight,” Ramsay said. He turned towards Max. “You were the last person to go to bed. Were you still up at midnight?”

Max seemed uncertain and confused. “Yes,” he said. “I think so. I told you I was watching the television.”

“But you didn’t hear Mrs. Parry come into the house?”

“No,” he said. “ I suppose she might have come in through the kitchen. I wouldn’t have seen her then.”

That was possible, Ramsay thought. If Alice Parry came back into the house after her meeting with Henshaw, she might have wanted to avoid the family. Especially if she was upset. But what had so distressed her about the meeting with Henshaw, a meeting he had described as a friendly discussion?

“She went to the pub on her way back from the Henshaws’,” Ramsay said. “ Did she go there regularly?”

“Almost every night,” Max said. “She claimed she had to go to catch up with the village gossip, but I think she liked the company. She never had a lot to drink.”

“A young woman was seen in the churchyard on the night of your aunt’s death,” Ramsay said. “ Have you any idea who that might have been?”

“No,” Max said. “ I can’t imagine.” He looked at Judy. “ What about you, love? Did you see anyone?”

She shook her head. “ No,” she said. She turned away to pour coffee into tall blue mugs. “I expect it was one of the girls from the village hanging round the bus shelter for the lads.”

She handed coffee and sugar to Ramsay, and they waited for him to speak again.

“There was a discussion on Saturday night about Mrs. Parry’s will,” he said. “If she’d carried out her threat and refused to leave the Tower to James, presumably you would have benefited.”

“Yes,” Max said vaguely. “I suppose we would.”

“That must have put some stress on your relationship with your brother.”

“I don’t know,” Max said. “We’ve never been particularly close. He’s ten years older than me. When you’re a child, that’s too big a gap for friendship. He was always like an uncle, a bit prim and pompous. I resented him rather. We used to go to the Tower together when Alice asked us because it pleased her, but we rarely meet each other socially otherwise.”

“Can you explain his reluctance to help Mrs. Parry in her campaign against the new houses in Brinkbonnie?”

“Oh, yes,” Max said. “It would have been a matter of principle to him, of ethics. He’s a great one for editorial independence.”

There was a moment’s silence while Ramsay drank coffee, then set the mug carefully on the table.

“We’ve discovered who wrote the anonymous letter to Mrs. Parry,” the inspector said. “It was Charlie Elliot. Do you know him?”

“I’ve met him in the pub a couple of times. Has he been arrested?”

“Not yet. We’re having some difficulty in tracing him.”

Judy was sitting on one of the wooden chairs and turned it to face the policeman. As the legs moved over the tiles, they made the harsh sound of chalk on a damp blackboard.

“Do you think he killed Aunt Alice?”

“We don’t know,” Ramsay said. “ Not yet.” He stood up. Judy saw that his coat was creased and crumpled from where he had been sitting. She thought that he probably lived on his own. He made his way up the stairs towards the front door and Max followed. At the doorstep he hesitated, as if reluctant to leave, then turned quickly and walked over the frozen path to his car.

In the kitchen Judy was stacking plates in the dishwasher. Max stood beside her and stroked a strand of hair from her neck.

“Leave that,” he said. “ I’ll do it. You look exhausted. You should go to bed.”

“All right,” she said. She stood and faced him. “Are you coming, too?”

“Soon,” he said. “ I’ll be up soon. I’ll just do this.”

She nodded and made her way slowly upstairs.

Max loaded the dishwasher, then sat at the kitchen table. He waited until Judy was out of earshot. He heard the gurgling in the old pipes, which meant she was running a bath, then went to the phone. Although he knew it was irrational and Judy could not possibly hear him, he conducted the conversation in a whisper. He would not take the risk that she would hear him. When she had finished in the bathroom, he was already upstairs, preparing for bed.