Murder Most Merry

A WINTER’S TALE – Ann Cleeves

In the hills there had been snow for five days, the first real snow of the winter. In town it had turned to rain, bitter and unrelenting, and in Otterbridge it had seemed to be dark all day. As Ramsay drove out of the coastal plain and began the climb up Cheviot the clouds broke and there was a shaft of sunshine which reflected blindingly on the snow. For days he had been depressed by the weather and the gaudy festivities of the season, but as the cloud lifted he felt suddenly more optimistic.

Hunter, sitting hunched beside him. remained gloomy. It was the Saturday before Christmas and he had better things to do. He always left his shopping until the last minute—he enjoyed being part of the crowd in Newcastle. Christmas meant getting pissed in the heaving pubs on the Big Market, sharing drinks with tipsy secretaries who seemed to spend the last week of work in a continuous office party. It meant wandering up Northumberland Street where children queued to peer in at the magic of Fenwick’s window and listening to the Sally Army band playing carols at the entrance to Eldon Square. It had nothing to do with all this space and the bloody cold. Like a Roman stationed on Hadrian’s Wall. Hunter thought the wilderness was barbaric.

Ramsay said nothing. The road had been cleared of snow but was slippery, and driving took concentration. Hunter was itching to get at the wheel—he had been invited to a party in a club in Blyth and it took him as long as a teenage girl to get ready for a special evening out.

Ramsay turned carefully off the road, across a cattle grid, and onto a track.

“Bloody hell!” Hunter said. “Are we going to get up there?”

“The farmer said it was passable. He’s been down with a tractor.”

“I’d better get the map,” Hunter said miserably. “I suppose we’ve got a grid reference. I don’t fancy getting lost out here.”

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary.” Ramsay said. “I’ve been to the house before.”

Hunter did not ask about Ramsay’s previous visit to Blackstoneburn. The inspector rarely volunteered information about his social life or friends. And apart from an occasional salacious curiosity about Ramsay’s troubled marriage and divorce, Hunter did not care. Nothing about the inspector would have surprised him.

The track no longer climbed but crossed a high and empty moor. The horizon was broken by a dry stone wall and a derelict barn, but otherwise there was no sign of habitation. Hunter felt increasingly uneasy. Six geese flew from a small reservoir to circle overhead and settle back once the car had passed.

“Greylags,” Ramsay said. “Wouldn’t you say?”

“I don’t bloody know.” Hunter had not been able to identify them even as geese. And I don’t bloody care, he thought.

The sun was low in the sky ahead of them. Soon it would be dark. They must have driven over an imperceptible ridge because suddenly, caught in the orange sunlight, there was a house, grey, small-windowed, a fortress of a place surrounded by byres and outbuildings.

“That’s it, is it?” Hunter said, relieved. It hadn’t, after all, taken so long. The party wouldn’t warm up until the pubs shut. He would make it in time.

“No,” Ramsay said. “That’s the farm. It’s another couple of miles yet.”

He was surprised by the pleasure he took in Hunter’s discomfort, and a little ashamed. He thought his relationship with his sergeant was improving. Yet it wouldn’t do Hunter any harm, he thought, to feel anxious and out of place. On his home ground he was intolerably confident.

The track dipped to a ford. The path through the water was rocky and the burn was frozen at the edges. Ramsay accelerated carefully up the bank and as the back wheels spun he remembered his previous visit to Blackstoneburn. It had been high summer, the moor scorched with drought, the burn dried up almost to a trickle. He had thought he would never come to the house again.

As they climbed away from the ford they saw the Black Stone, surrounded by open moor. It was eight feet high, truly black with the setting sun behind it. throwing a shadow onto the snow.

Hunter stared and whistled under his breath but said nothing. He would not give his boss the satisfaction of asking for information. The information came anyway. Hunter thought Ramsay could have been one of those guides in bobble hats and walking boots who worked at weekends for the National Park.

“It’s a part of a circle of prehistoric stones,” the inspector said. “Even if there weren’t any snow you wouldn’t see the others at this distance. The bracken’s grown over them.” He seemed lost for a moment in memory. “The house was named after the stone, of course. There’s been a dwelling on this site since the fourteenth century.”

“A bloody daft place to put a house,” Hunter muttered. “If you ask me....”

They looked down into a valley onto an L-shaped house built around a flagged yard, surrounded by windblown trees and shrubs.

“According to the farmer,” Ramsay said, “the dead woman wasn’t one of the owner’s family....”

“So what the hell was she doing here?” Hunter demanded. The emptiness made him belligerent. “It’s not the sort of place you’d stumble on by chance.”

“It’s a holiday cottage,” Ramsay said. “Of sorts. Owned by a family from Otterbridge called Shaftoe. They don’t let it out commercially but friends know that they can stay here.... The strange thing is that the farmer said there was no car....”

The track continued up the hill and had, Hunter supposed, some obscure agricultural use. Ramsay turned off it down a potholed drive and stopped in the yard, which because of the way the wind had been blowing was almost clear of snow. A dirty green Land Rover was already parked there, and as they approached a tall, bearded man got out and stood impassively, waiting for them to emerge from the warmth of their car. The sun had disappeared and the air was icy.

“Mr. Helms.” The inspector held out his hand. “I’m Ramsay. Northumbria Police.”

“Aye,” the man said. “Well, I’d not have expected it to be anyone else.”

“Can we go in?” Hunter demanded. “It’s freezing out here.”

Without a word the farmer led them to the front of the house. The wall was half covered with ivy and already the leaves were beginning to be tinged with frost. The front door led directly into a living room. In a grate the remains of a fire smouldered, but there was little warmth. The three men stood awkwardly just inside the room.

“Where is she?” Hunter asked.

“In the kitchen,” the farmer said. “Out the back.”

Hunter stamped his feet impatiently, expecting Ramsay to lead the way. He knew the house. But Ramsay stood, looking around him.

“Had Mr. Shaftoe asked you to keep an eye on the place?” he asked. “Or did something attract your attention?”

“There was someone here last night.” Helms said. “I saw a light from the

back.”

“Was there a car?”

“Don’t know. Didn’t notice.”

“By man, you’re a lot of help.” Hunter muttered. Helms pretended not to

hear.

“But you might have noticed,” Ramsay persisted, “fresh tyre tracks on the

drive.”

“Look,” Helms said. “Shaftoe lets me use one of his barns. I’m up and down the track every day. If someone had driven down using my tracks how would I know?”

“Were you surprised to see a light?” Ramsay asked.

“Not really,” Helms said. “They don’t have to tell me when they’re coming

up.”

“Could they have made it up the track from the road?”

“Shaftoe could. He’s got one of those posh Japanese four-wheel-drive jobs.”

“Is it usual for him to come up in the winter?”

“Aye.” Helms was faintly contemptuous. “They have a big do on Christmas Eve. I’d thought maybe they’d come up to air the house for that. No one’s been in the place for months.”

“You didn’t hear a vehicle go back down the track last night?”

“No. But I wouldn’t have done. The father-in-law’s stopping with us and he’s deaf as a post. He had the telly so loud you can’t hear a thing.”

“What time did you see the light?”

Helms shrugged. “Seven o’clock maybe. I didn’t go out after that.”

“But you didn’t expect them to be staying?”

“No. Like I said, I expected them to light a fire, check the calor gas, clean up a bit, and then go back.”

“So what caught your attention this morning?”

“The gas light was still on,” Helms said.

“In the same room?”

Helms nodded. “The kitchen. It was early, still pretty dark outside, and I thought they must have stayed and were getting their breakfasts. It was only later, when the kids got me to bring them over, that I thought it was strange.”

“I don’t understand,” Ramsay said. “Why did your children want to come?”

“Because they’re sharp little buggers. It’s just before Christmas. They thought Shaftoe would have a present for them. He usually brings them something, Christmas or not.”

“So you drove them down in the Land Rover? What time was that?”

“Just before dinner. Twelvish. They’d been out sledging and Chrissie, my wife, said there was more snow on her kitchen floor than out on the fell. I thought I’d earn a few brownie points by getting them out of her hair.” He paused and for the first time he smiled. “I thought I’d get a drink for my trouble. Shaftoe always kept a supply of malt whisky in the place, and he was never mean with it.”

“Did you park in the yard?”

“Aye. Like I always do.”

“That’s when you noticed the light was still on?”

Helms nodded.

“What did you do then?”

“Walked round here to the front.”

“Had it been snowing?” Ramsay asked.

“There were a couple of inches in the night but it was clear by dawn.”

“What about footprints on the path? You would have noticed if the snow had been disturbed.”

“Aye,” Helms said. “I might have done if I’d got the chance. But I let the dog and the bairns out of the Land Rover first and they chased round to the front before me.”

“But your children might have noticed,” Ramsay insisted.

“Aye.” Helms said without much hope. “They might.”

“Did they go into the house before you?”

“No. They were still on the front lawn throwing snowballs about when I joined them. That’s when I saw the door was open and I started to think something was up. I told the kids to wait outside and came in on my own. I stood in here feeling a bit daft and shouted out the back to Shaftoe. When there was no reply I went on through.”

“What state was the fire in?” Ramsay asked.

“Not much different from what it’s like now. If you bank it up it stays like that for hours.”

There was a pause. “Come on then,” Ramsay said. “We’d best go through and look at her.”

The kitchen was lit by two gas lamps mounted on one wall. The room was small and functional. There was a small window covered on the outside by bacterial-shaped whirls of ice. a stainless-steel sink, and a row of units. The woman, lying with one cheek against the red tiles, took up most of the available floor space. Ramsay, looking down, recognised her immediately.

“Joyce,” he said. “Rebecca Joyce.” He looked at Helms. “She was a friend of the Shaftoe family. You don’t recognise her?”

The farmer shook his head.

Ramsay had met Rebecca Joyce at Blackstoneburn. Diana had invited him to the house when their marriage was in its final throes and he had gone out of desperation, thinking that on her own ground, surrounded by her family and friends, she might be calmer. Diana was related to the Shaftoe by marriage. Her younger sister Isabel had married one of the Shaftoe sons and at that summer house party they were all there: old man Shaftoe, who had made his money out of scrap, Isobel and her husband Stuart, a grey, thin-lipped man who had brought the family respectability by proposing to the daughter of one of the most established landowners in Northumberland.

Rebecca had been invited as a friend, solely, it seemed, to provide entertainment. She had been at school with Diana and Isobel and had been outrageous, apparently, even then. Looking down at the body on the cold kitchen floor, Ramsay thought that despite the battered skull he still saw a trace of the old spirit.

“I’ll be off then....” Helms interrupted his daydream. “If there’s nothing else.”

“No,” Ramsay said. “I’ll know where to find you.”

“Aye. Well.” He sloped off, relieved. They heard the Land Rover drive away up the track and then it was very quiet.

“The murder weapon was a poker,” Hunter said. “Hardly original.”

“Effective though.” It still lay on the kitchen floor, the ornate brass knob covered with blood.

“What now?” Hunter demanded. Time was moving on. It was already six o’clock. In another hour his friends would be gathering in the pubs of Otterbridge preparing for the party.

“Nothing,” Ramsay said, “until the pathologist and the scene-of-crime team arrive.” He knew that Hunter wanted to be away. He could have sent him off in the car, arranged a lift for himself with the colleagues who would arrive later, earned for a while some gratitude and peace, but a perverseness kept him quiet and they sat in the freezing living room, waiting.

When Ramsay met Rebecca Joyce it had been hot, astoundingly hot for the Northumberland hills, and they had taken their drinks outside onto the lawn. Someone had slung a hammock between two Scotch pines and Diana had lain there moodily, not speaking, refusing to acknowledge his presence. They had argued in the car on the way to Blackstoneburn and he was forced to introduce himself to Tom Shaftoe, a small, squat man with silver sideburns. Priggish Isobel and anonymous Stuart he had met before. The row had been his fault. Diana had not come home the night before, and he had asked quietly, restraining his jealousy, where she had been. She had lashed out in a fury, condemning him for his Methodist morals, his dullness.

“You’re just like your mother,” she had said. The final insult. “All hypocrisy and thrift.”

Then she had fallen stubbornly and guiltily silent and had said nothing more to him all evening.

Was it because of her taunts that he had gone with Rebecca to look at the Black Stone? Rebecca wore a red Lycra tube which left her shoulders bare and scarcely covered her buttocks. She had glossy red lipstick and black curls pinned back with combs. She had been flirting shamelessly with Stuart all evening and then suddenly to Ramsay she said:

“Have you ever seen the stone circle?”

He shook his head, surprised, confused by her sudden interest.

“Come on then,” she had said. “I’ll show you.”

In the freezing room at Blackstoneburn, Hunter looked at his boss and thought he was a mean bastard, a kill-joy. There was no need for them both to be there. He nodded towards the kitchen door, bored by the silence, irritated because Ramsay would not share information about the dead woman.

“What did she do then?” he asked. “For a living.”

Ramsay took a long time to reply and Hunter wondered if he was ill. if he was losing his grip completely.

“She would say.” the inspector answered at last, “that she lived off her wits.”

He had assumed that because she had been to school with Diana and Isobel her family were wealthy, but discovered later that her father had been a hopeless and irresponsible businessman. A wild scheme to develop a Roman theme park on some land close to Hadrian’s Wall had led to bankruptcy, and Rebecca had left school early because the fees could not be paid. It was said that the teachers were glad of an excuse to be rid of her.

“By man,” said Hunter, “what does that mean?”

“She had a few jobs,” Ramsay said. “She managed a small hotel for a while, ran the office of the agricultural supply place in Otterbridge. But she couldn’t stick any of them. I suppose it means she lived off men.”

“She was a whore?”

“I suppose,” Ramsay said, “it was something like that.”

“You seem to know a lot about her. Did you know her well, like?”

The insolence was intended. Ramsay ignored it.

“No,” he said. “I only met her once.”

But I was interested, he thought, interested enough to find out more about her, attracted not so much by the body in the red Lycra dress, but by her kindness. It was the show, the decadent image, which put me off. If I had been braver I would have ignored it.

Her attempt to seduce him on that hot summer night had been a kindness, an offer of comfort. Away from the house she had taken his hand and they had crossed the burn by stepping stones, like children. She had shown him the round black stones hidden by bracken and then put his hand on her round, Lycra-covered breast.

He had hesitated, held back by his Methodist morals and the thought of sad Diana lying in the hammock on the lawn. Rebecca had been kind again, unoffended.

“Don’t worry.” she said, laughing, kissing him lightly on the cheek. “Not now. If you need me you’ll be able to find out where I am.”

And she had run away back to the others, leaving him to follow slowly, giving him time to compose himself.

Ramsay was so engrossed in the memory of his encounter with Rebecca Joyce that he did not hear the vehicles outside or the sound of voices. He was jolted back to the present by Hunter shouting: “There they are. About bloody time, too.” And by the scene-of-crime team at the door bending to change their shoes, complaining cheerfully about the cold.

“Right then,” Hunter said. “We can leave it to the reinforcements.” He looked at his watch. Seven o’clock. The timing would be tight but not impossible. “I suppose someone should see the Shaftoes tonight,” he said. “They’re the most likely suspects. I’d volunteer for the overtime myself but I’m all tied up this evening.”

I’ll talk to the Shaftoes,” Ramsay said. It was the least he could do.

Outside in the dark it was colder than ever. Ramsay’s car would not start immediately and Hunter swore under his breath. At last it pulled away slowly, the heater began to work, and Hunter began to relax.

“I want to call at the farm,” Ramsay said. “Just to clear up a few things.”

“Bloody hell!” Hunter said, convinced that Ramsay was prolonging the journey just to spite him. “What’s the matter now?”

“This is a murder enquiry,” Ramsay said sharply. “Not just an interruption to your social life.”

“You’ll not get anything from that Helms,” Hunter said. “What could he know, living up there? It’s enough to drive anyone crazy.”

Ramsay said nothing. He thought that Helms was unhappy, not mad.

“Rebecca always goes for lonely men,” Diana had said cruelly on the drive back from Blackstoneburn that summer. “It’s the only way she can justify screwing around.”

“What’s your justification?” he could have said, but Diana was unhappy too, and there had seemed little point.

They parked in the farm yard. In a shed cattle moved and made gentle noises. A small woman with fine pale hair tied back in an untidy ponytail let them into the kitchen where Helms was sitting in a high-backed chair, his stockinged feet stretched ahead of him. He was not surprised to see them. The room was warm despite the flagstone floor. A clothes horse, held together with binder twine, was propped in front of the range and children’s jeans and jerseys steamed gently. The uncurtained window was misted with condensation. Against one wall was a large square table covered by a patterned oilcloth, with a pile of drawing books and a scattering of felt-tipped pens. From another room came the sound of a television and the occasional shriek of a small child.

Chrissie Helms sat by the table. She had big hands, red and chapped, which she clasped around her knees.

“I need to know,” Ramsay said gently, “exactly what happened.”

Hunter looked at the fat clock ticking on the mantelpiece and thought his boss was mad. Ramsay turned to the farmer.

“You were lying.” he said. “It’s so far-fetched, you see. Contrived. A strange and beautiful woman found miles from anywhere in the snow. Like a film. It must be simpler than that. You would have seen tracks when you took the tractor up to the road to clear a path for us. It’s lonely out here. If you’d seen a light in Blackstoneburn last night you’d have gone in. Glad of the company and old Shaftoe’s whisky.”

Helms shook his head helplessly.

“Did he pay you to keep quiet?” Hunter demanded. Suddenly, with a reluctant witness to bully he was in his element. “Or did he threaten you?”

“No,” Helms said, “it were nothing like that.”

“But she was there with some man?” Hunter was jubilant.

“Oh.” Helms’s wife said quietly, shocking them with her interruption, “she was there with some man.”

Ramsay turned to the farmer. “She was your mistress?” he said, and Hunter realised he had known all along.

Helms said nothing.

“You must have met her at the agricultural suppliers in Otterbridge. Perhaps when you went to pay your bill. Perhaps she recognised you. She often came to Blackstoneburn.”

“I recognised her,” Helms said.

“You’d hardly miss her,” the woman said. “The way she flaunted herself.”

“No.” The farmer shook his head. “No. it wasn’t like that.”

He paused.

“You felt sorry for her... ?” Ramsay prompted.

“Aye!” Helms looked up, relieved to be understood at last.

“Why did you bring her here?” Ramsay asked.

“I didn’t. Not here.”

“But to Blackstoneburn. You had a key? Or Rebecca did?”

Helms nodded. “She was lonely,” he said. “In town. Everyone thinking of Christmas. You know.”

“So you brought her up to Blackstoneburn,” Hunter said unpleasantly. “For a dirty weekend. Thinking you’d sneak over to spend some time with her. Thinking your wife wouldn’t notice.”

Helms said nothing.

“What went wrong?” Hunter demanded. “Did she get greedy? Want more money? Blackmail? Is that why you killed her?”

“You fool!” It was almost a scream, and as she spoke the woman stood up with her huge red hands laid flat on the table. “He wouldn’t have harmed her. He didn’t kill her. I did.”

“You must tell me,” Ramsay said again, “exactly what happened.”

But she needed no prompting. She was desperate for their understanding. “You don’t know what it’s like here,” she said. “Especially in the winter. Dark all day. Every year it drives me mad....” She stopped, realising she was making little sense, and continued more rationally. “I knew he had a woman, guessed. Then I saw them in town and I recognised her too. She was wearing black stockings and high heels, a dress that cost a fortune. How could I compete with that?” She looked down at her shapeless jersey and jumble-sale trousers. “I thought he’d grow out of it. that if I ignored it, he’d stop. I never thought he’d bring her here.” She paused.

“How did you find out?” Ramsay asked.

“Yesterday afternoon I went out for a walk. I left the boys with my dad. I’d been in the house all day and just needed to get away from them all. It was half-past three, starting to get dark. I saw the light in Blackstoneburn and Joe’s Land Rover parked outside. Like you said, we’re desperate here for company, so I went around to the front and knocked at the door. I thought Tom Shaftoe was giving him a drink.”

“There was no car,” Ramsay said.

“No,” she said. “But Tom parks it sometimes in one of the sheds. I didn’t suspect a thing.”

“Did you go in?”

“Not then.” she said calmly. “When there was no reply I looked through the window. They were lying together in front of the fire. Then I went in....” She paused again. “When she saw me she got up and straightened her clothes. She laughed. I suppose she was embarrassed. She said it was an awkward situation and why didn’t we all discuss it over a cup of tea. Then she turned her back on me and walked through to the kitchen.” Chrissie Helms caught her breath in a sob. “She shouldn’t have turned her back,” she said. “I deserved more than that....”

“So you hit her,” Ramsay said.

“I lost control,” Chrissie said. “I picked up the poker from the grate and I hit her.”

“Did you mean to kill her?”

“I wasn’t thinking clearly enough to mean something.”

“But you didn’t stop to help her?”

“No.” she said. “I came home. I left it to Joe to sort out. He owed me that. He did his best, but I knew we’d not be able to carry it through.” She looked at her husband. “I’ll miss you and the boys,” she said. “But I’ll not miss this place. Prison’ll not be much different from this.”

Hunter walked to the window to wait for the police Land Rover. He rubbed a space in the condensation and saw that it was snowing again, heavily. He thought that he agreed with her.