Murder in My Backyard

Chapter Twenty

Ramsay was in his kitchen, drinking coffee, spreading some of his mother’s homemade marmalade on a piece of toast when Jack Robson appeared at the cottage. The interview with Mary Raven the night before had depressed and frustrated him. He had expected more from her. He had thought she would provide all the answers he needed. If she had not killed Alice Parry, why was she being so obstructive? Ramsay was sure Max Laidlaw was her secret lover and his failure to persuade her to tell him that had left him feeling incompetent. She was hardly the sort to be coy about sex. He could not help feeling that Hunter would have made a better job of it.

When the knock came on the front door, it was still early, before eight o’clock, and Ramsay supposed it was probably the postman with a circular too big to fit through the letter box. Instead it was Jack Robson, his face glowing after the walk from the other end of the village. He stood, his hands in his pockets, waiting to be let in.

“Hey, man,” Robson said. “ You’re a hard person to get hold of. I was here several times yesterday evening and I couldn’t catch you in.”

“No,” Ramsay said. “I was working late.” He did not know what to make of Robson’s appearance. In a serious investigation there was always the pressure of time, and once he let the old man into the house it might be hard to get rid of him. Yet there was always the possibility that he had useful information.

“Come in,” he said. “ I’ll make you some tea.”

“Well,” Robson said. “If you’re sure you’ve time.” He scrubbed his boots on the doormat and stepped in, looking around him with unembarrassed curiosity. “You’ve a nice place here. And a canny view.”

“Aye,” Ramsay said. “Unless Henshaw gets planning permission and there’s a new estate built at the end of the garden. There’ll not be much of a view then.”

“You don’t want to worry about that,” Robson said. “Building out there would extend the boundary of the village and that’s not in the structure plan.”

“The structure plan didn’t count for much in Brinkbonnie.”

“No,” Robson said. “ Well, I’m here to talk about that.”

Ramsay took Robson into the kitchen and made strong, sweet tea the way Jack liked it.

“Have you come up with anything?” he asked. He felt suddenly optimistic. Surely Jack would not be here so early in the morning if he did not think he could help.

Robson sat on a painted wooden chair. “I’ve no evidence,” he said. “Nothing I can lay my finger on. But I’ve got a theory.”

Ramsay was disappointed. He wanted something more concrete than theories.

“Go on,” he said.

“I’ve been through all the records,” Robson said. “I’ve gone back five years. I’m sure Henshaw’s found some way of manipulating the system. He even managed to get planning permission for sites where other developers had previously been turned down.

“So how’s he doing it?”

“It’s nothing to do with the council,” Robson said. “ I’ve already told you I’m certain of that.”

“Is it one of the officials then? Someone in the planning department?”

“No,” Robson said. “I think the corruption is more grassroots than that. You can have a village with a well-organised community group that successfully fights off any development, then along comes Henshaw and miraculously all the opposition disappears. It seems to happen again and again.”

Ramsay was listening impassively. “ Tell me your theory,” he said.

Robson paused and poured out more tea.

“Most protest groups have one or two activists who do all the work,” he said. “ The rest turn up at the meetings-if the weather’s not too bad and there’s nothing good on the telly. It’s the same in any political organisation, and in most places you find the same people running everything-they’re school governors, on the parish council, even running the WI. If Henshaw managed to threaten, bribe, or blackmail the activists in each group, there would be no real opposition left. The organisation would fall apart. Then the Department of the Environment inspector would think that no-one cared sufficiently about the development to make a fuss and he would let it go through.”

“But to prevent your activists from being effective, Henshaw would have to have detailed information on people all over Northumberland. It hardly seems likely.”

“He’s got a lot of contacts,” Robson said. “A lot of people owe him favours. And we know he’s used dirty tactics in the past. Besides, he wouldn’t have to do it in every case. Only when it seemed likely that other methods wouldn’t work.”

Ramsay had been standing throughout the conversation and moved to the window to look down the dene. His mind was working very quickly and he felt suddenly light-headed. For the first time he had a plausible motive for Alice Parry’s murder. She had the confidence of everyone in the village. If Henshaw had chosen leading members of the Save Brinkbonnie group as victims of his persuasion, it was quite possible that Alice would have heard about it. Perhaps, when she went to see Henshaw in an attempt to buy back the land, she had tried some gentle blackmail of her own. Ramsay imagined her standing up to the developer: “ Sell me the land or I’ll tell everyone what methods you’ve used to get your own way. My nephew’s a newspaper editor. He’ll be glad of the story.”

Rosemary Henshaw had said that Alice was angry when she came to the house. Nothing could be more daunting, Ramsay thought, than a middle-class lady spurred on by righteous indignation. But perhaps Henshaw had called her bluff. Perhaps he had pointed out to her that the people most likely to suffer from exposure were the people whose indiscretions had made them potential victims of blackmail. That would explain her distress in the pub after she had left him. Then perhaps he had decided that her knowledge was too dangerous, and he had followed her and murdered her before she reached home. There was a lot of conjecture in the theory, but it fitted the facts. Ramsay was attracted to it, too, because it made Henshaw the most likely suspect. If he were convicted of murder, Ramsay’s view would be safe.

“Well?” Robson demanded, breaking in on his thoughts.

“What do you think?”

Ramsay turned back slowly to face the room. “ It’s very interesting,” he said noncommittally. “ I’m grateful for all your help.”

“I don’t want your gratitude, man. I want to know if you think I’m right.”

“I think it might be worth following up,” Ramsay said.

Jack was thrilled. “ What do you want me to do? I’m a well-known man in this county. I could speak to a few people.”

“No,” Ramsay said. The last thing he wanted was Jack Robson frightening off Henshaw before they had proof. “We have to be discreet, you know, and it’s a police matter now. But you can help all the same.”

“How?” Robson asked. “Just tell me, man. I’ll do anything I can.”

“I’ll need a list of names,” Ramsay said. “ Members of residents’ associations or community groups living in areas where Henshaw’s recently won a planning appeal. The activists you were talking about. The people who do all the work. Can you do that?”

Robson was disappointed. He had expected something more exciting. He wanted a challenge.

“Aye,” he said. “ I can do that for you. I can think of someone now who led the group in Wytham before those houses went up. Her name’s Jane Massie. She’s involved in everything that goes on in Wytham. I’ll write down the address for you. She lives in that big house opposite the new estate. You can have a longer list later if you need it.”

Ramsay nodded gravely. He stood on the front step and watched Robson walk quickly down the road on his way to work in the school.

In the kitchen Ramsay emptied the teapot and rinsed the mugs. He preferred to have things tidy to return home to. He was determined in his new home not to descend into bachelor squalor. As he tidied the room, he was testing Robson’s theory against the facts. It might work, he thought. It might just work. But who would Henshaw have approached in Brinkbonnie to influence the opposition? Charlie Elliot? Fred Elliot? Tom Kerr? All were prominent members of the Save Brinkbonnie group and possible candidates. He felt he needed to spend more time in Brinkbonnie, listening to the gossip, getting a feel for the place, before he could make a sensible judgement.

But that would have to wait. The most immediate concern was to talk to Max Laidlaw. Ramsay thought that the doctor would be less able to stand up to questioning than Mary Raven. He was weak and indecisive. Besides, the police had the illegal prescription given to Stella, and faced with that evidence he might be persuaded to admit his relationship with Mary. An affair with one of the practise’s patients would provide another motive for murder, Ramsay thought, if Alice Parry had found out about it, and as he was always telling Hunter, it was important to keep his options open.

Ramsay drove to the Health Centre in Otterbridge, thinking that it might be more tactful to talk to the doctor there than at home. He waited patiently behind an old woman whose joints were swollen with arthritis while she collected a repeat prescription, then asked to see Dr. Laidlaw.

“I’m sorry,” the receptionist said, hardly looking up. Dr. Laidlaw’s taken a few days off for his aunt’s funeral.”

When the inspector arrived at the Laidlaws’ house, he thought at first that no-one was there. It was a sunny, breezy day and he had expected children in the garden, washing on the line, but the house was quiet and in shadow. He was about to give up and turn away when Judy Laidlaw came to the door.

“Inspector!” she said. His presence frightened her. “ What is it? Come in.”

“I was looking for your husband,” Ramsay said. Then, in an attempt to put her at ease: “It’s very quiet here today. Has he taken the children out?”

“No,” she said. “ The children are with a friend for the morning. Max is out, I’m afraid.”

She led him automatically down the bare wooden stairs to the basement kitchen.

“Could you tell me when he’ll be back?” Ramsay asked. “It’s quite important.”

She hesitated, turning away from him so he could not see her face. “ No,” she said quietly. “I don’t know where he is. We had an argument yesterday at lunchtime and I’ve not seen him since.”

Then she turned back to face him and he saw she was crying, her body heaving with frightened, silent sobs. “I’m so worried about him,” she said. “ I think something dreadful has happened to him. It’s not like him to stay out all night without telling me.”

Ramsay stood awkwardly, not sure what to do, how to comfort her. He would have liked to put his arm around her but was frightened the gesture would be misinterpreted. She seemed so desperate for affection.

“Shall I make some tea?” he said. “Then you can tell me all about it. Or perhaps you’d prefer me to leave you alone. I could come back later with a policewoman.”

“No,” she said. Her eyes were raw from crying and he realised she must have been sobbing all night. “ Don’t go! Don’t leave me alone! I’ll make the tea.”

“There’ve been no accidents, you know,” he said, trying to reassure her. “ Nothing serious. I would have heard about anything like that.”

“Oh, well,” she said, trying to smile. “I’m just being silly. He’ll come back, I expect, when he’s stopped being angry. It was my fault for asking all those questions. When you’re on your own, you imagine all sorts of dreadful things.”

“Yes,” he said. “I suppose you do. What questions were you asking?”

“It was about Alice,” she said. “She and Max had a private conversation on the night of her death. I wanted to know what it was about.”

“And he wouldn’t tell you?”

She shook her head. “ It upset him. He said it showed I didn’t trust him. He accused me of thinking he killed her. But it wasn’t that.”

“Can you tell me what you thought the conversation between Alice and your husband was about? I don’t want to upset you, and I’ll treat it as confidential unless it’s important, but it might help me find out who did kill her.”

“It wasn’t Max,” she said, the hysteria returning. “He wouldn’t have done a thing like that.”

“Tell me now,” Ramsay said firmly. “Why do you think Mrs. Parry wanted to talk to Max?”

“I think she’d found out that Max was having an affair,” Judy said quickly. She was blushing.

“And was he? Having an affair?”

“I think so. I didn’t want to believe it at first. I found a letter in his jacket pocket once. It was beautiful, very tender, very loving, very lyrical. I’ve never written anything like that to him. I suppose I’ve always taken our relationship for granted. He told me it was from a patient, an elderly, neurotic patient who was infatuated with him. All of the doctors in the practise had received love letters at one time or another from her, he said. Now it was his turn.”

“And you believed him?”

“Because I wanted to.”

“Was the letter signed?”

She shook her head. “It didn’t even start ‘Dear Max,’” she said. “It was set out more like a poem.”

“Did you recognise the handwriting?”

She shook her head again.

“Could it have been written by Stella Laidlaw?” he asked. It was an explanation for the scene he had witnessed yesterday, which he could not ignore.

“Stella!” She seemed astonished. “No, of course not. Stella wouldn’t write love letters to Max. She has hardly enough warmth to give to her husband and daughter. She wouldn’t have any affection left over for a lover.”

“You’re certain the handwriting wasn’t hers?”

“No,” she said. “I couldn’t say that. It never occurred to me that it could be Stella. I was in a state when I found it. I made a big scene. I didn’t look at it very rationally. Why do you think it might have been written by Stella?”

“Dr. Laidlaw went to her house yesterday afternoon,” Ramsay said. “Have you any idea why he should go to visit her?”

“No,” Judy said. “None at all. He always seemed to dislike her.”

“She wasn’t a patient of your husband?”

“No,” Judy said. “Of course not. James and Stella have their own doctor with a practise on that side of town. He’s much more their type, a friend of James’s. They went to school together.”

“Has Stella been ill?”

“She had nervous trouble,” Judy said. “She was very depressed after Carolyn was born. Not just the normal baby blues a lot of mothers experience, but a real psychosis. She went to hospital for a while. She seemed well enough when she first came out, but she still has bouts of depression. She’s not very easy to live with. James never complains-he seems to adore her whatever she does. On bad days she can be rude and aggressive, and he has to go round apologising and explaining for her. I feel rather sorry for him. There doesn’t seem to be a lot that anyone can do.”

“James has never asked Max to treat her?”

“No, of course not. It’s not something Max is specially qualified in. James would be more likely to consult a specialist.”

There was a pause. Judy Laidlaw poured out tea, then hunted in a cupboard for biscuits. Ramsay waited until she was sitting down again.

“Yesterday afternoon your husband delivered a prescription to Mrs. Laidlaw. It was made out for a course of tranquilisers. Have you any explanation for his doing that?”

She shook her head. All the crying had dulled her, left her with a headache. She could not think clearly.

“I know Stella’s doctor doesn’t like her taking tranquilisers,” she said. “ I think she may have become dependent on them when she first came out of hospital. The dangers of dependence weren’t so well documented then. She’s complained to me sometimes that they’re the only things that help. She asked me if there was any equivalent she could buy over the counter. Of course, there isn’t.”

“So Max might have given Mrs. Laidlaw the prescription to help her, because he felt sorry for her?”

“No,” she said sharply. “ He wouldn’t do that. He’s a good doctor. He knows the rules. I can’t imagine why he would prescribe for her unless…” Her voice dropped.

“Unless?” he prompted.

“Unless she had put him under some sort of pressure. Max is weak. In some situations he might be prepared to take the easy way out.”

“And what might Mrs. Laidlaw be using to put pressure on your husband?”

“I don’t know!” she cried, and he realised he had pressed her too far, too quickly. “I just don’t know.”

“Perhaps,” he said gently, more the doctor himself now than the policeman, “perhaps we have come back again to Max’s affair.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Judy said. “ Stella wasn’t capable of loving anyone. I’ve explained already. She certainly wasn’t capable of writing that letter.”

“But perhaps,” he said more gently, still reassuring her with his voice, telling her that he knew how hard all this was for her, “perhaps she knew who did write it.”

“Blackmail!” Judy said. “You think Stella was blackmailing him about his lover.”

“Is that possible?”

The speed and certainty of her answer surprised him. “Yes,” Judy said. “She’s a bitch. I’d believe anything of her.”

She thought then that he was through, but he stayed on, pouring more tea for himself and for her, so that she knew his questions had not finished and she must brace herself again for another shock, more unpleasantness.

“You know who it is,” she said suddenly, as if the thing would be easier to bear if it were she who took the initiative. “ You know whom he’s been having an affair with.”

“I’ve an idea,” he said. “ I’ve no certainty.”

“Well,” she demanded. “ Tell me!”

“There’s a young reporter on the Express,” he said, “called Mary Raven. She spoke to Alice Parry on the afternoon of her death. It’s possible, don’t you think, that she might have confided in the old lady about her love affair with Mrs. Parry’s nephew. Especially if the affair was at an end, going badly. Then Mrs. Parry asked to speak to Max in private. Don’t you think she might have been telling him to sort himself out, to come to a decision one way or another, that he wasn’t being fair to either of you? All evening Mary Raven waited in the churchyard outside the Tower. Don’t you think she was waiting for her secret lover, hoping that he would leave his wife, and then there would be no need to keep him secret anymore?”

“I know Mary,” Judy said, almost to herself. “ She comes here sometimes. I like her.” Then she turned to Ramsay, her voice hoarse and shrill with distress. “ What are you saying?” she asked. “Are you saying that Max and Mary did murder Alice? To stop their secret coming out? That’s no reason. I wouldn’t have made a scene about the affair. We would have sorted something out. Tell me! What do you think happened?”

“I don’t know,” Ramsay said, aware that she needed the definite answer he was unable to give. “Perhaps nothing happened. Perhaps Max stayed in the Tower watching television and eventually Mary went away. We know she can’t have killed Mrs. Parry herself. She was at a party in Newcastle when the murder was committed. Did Max tell you anything about what happened that night when you’d gone to bed?”

“No,” she said. She looked sadly at Ramsay. “I’ve told you. He won’t tell me anything at all.”

She turned to the policeman, suddenly angry and upset. “ Max didn’t kill Alice,” she cried. “I know he wouldn’t do anything like that. But I’ll tell you something you should know. Do you know why Stella Laidlaw was taken into hospital, finally, after Carolyn was born? Because the health visitor turned up at the house one day and found her standing over the cot with a bread knife! If you ask James, he’ll have to tell you. Or her doctor. If you’re looking for a culprit, why don’t you talk to her?”

But later, when Ramsay tried to telephone James at the Express office, Marjory told him that James was out all day. She was so skilled at protecting her boss that he could not tell whether she was telling the truth or not.