Snapshot

16

Scobie Sutton had received word that Mrs Humphreys was ready to see him, but when he reached the hospital, the first thing he saw was his wife’s car parked in one of the reserved slots. He went inside, showed his ID at the reception desk and explained the purpose of his visit. ‘But first,’ he said, blushing a little, ‘could you page my wife? Beth Sutton?’

A call went out on the public address system, and then Beth was there, beaming, and they gave each other a chaste kiss. ‘I wanted to warn you,’ Scobie said, leading her to a vinyl bench seat beside a rubber plant in a huge brass pot.

His wife was round, pink, and easily flustered. Her hand went to her throat. ‘What about?’

He told her what had happened in court that morning. ‘Now that Natalie knows you’re married to a policeman she’ll be suspicious.’

Beth blinked away sudden tears, shook her head, and clenched her fists in frustration and pain. ‘I’m fighting a losing battle, Scobe,’ she said, and it was an old story between them, the social problems on the blighted estates of Waterloo, Rosebud and Mornington. She knew the Cobb family, and dozens more like them, and sometimes it was all too much, there was too much misery, ignorance and indifference for her to bear.

‘There, there,’ said Scobie, rocking her gently, listening as she told him about Seaview Estate, where the Cobbs lived, which offered views of the refinery stacks and wore an air of defeat.

‘There’s this little community hall,’ she said, ‘but no one on the estate ever uses it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s booked solid every day, but by outsiders, like the Gilbert and Sullivan players, the Penzance Beach Cubs and Scouts, the Yoga Club. I’m trying to get the local kids to make it their clubhouse, but we need funds to employ a youth worker, and whenever I approach the Shire for money, the manager of finance and the manager of marketing say no. Their bottom line is always cost. I try to get them to feel something, but they have no feelings. Oh, it makes me so cross.’

That was as close to an oath as his wife could get.

‘The only ray of hope among the kids on that estate is Natalie Cobb,’ she said.

‘Sorry if I’ve stuffed it up for you.’

‘Oh Scobe, you haven’t.’ She brightened. ‘What brings you here?’

He told her about Janine McQuarrie and the connection with Mrs Humphreys. She was appalled. ‘Janine McQuarrie?’

‘Do you know her?’

‘All the welfare agencies know her,’ Beth said. She paused. ‘I don’t want to speak ill of the dead.’

‘That’s all right,’ he said resolutely. ‘We need to know everything we can, the good and the bad. Then we can sort the relevant from the irrelevant.’

Beth’s hands were washing against each other dryly, restlessly. ‘This could be relevant,’ she said.

‘You’d better tell me,’ he said.

He watched her stare into the distance, gathering her thoughts. ‘It was as if she deliberately set out to antagonise people, turn them against each other,’ she said slowly. ‘She was autocratic, had to get her own way all the time.’

To encourage his wife, Scobie said, ‘We heard much the same thing this morning, from the people she worked with.’

Beth nodded. ‘In one case I know of, a fifteen-year-old girl from one of the estates was referred to her because of problems at home. She told the girl to leave home immediately, but failed to do a follow-up, and the girl joined a shoplifting gang so she could buy drugs. It turned out there weren’t problems at home, not really: the girl didn’t like being thwarted by her mother, that’s all. If she’d carried out a proper mediation involving the girl and her family, she would have saved everyone a lot of heartache.’

Scobie nodded encouragingly.

‘Her job was to listen and advise, and if necessary refer people on to other specialists, or place them in shelters or whatever, but often she’d be openly antagonistic, act like judge and jury.’

‘Such as?’

‘Well, let’s say a wife came to her for counselling because her marriage was unhappy or acrimonious: Janine would go after the husband, challenge him directly.’

‘Ah,’ said Scobie musingly.

‘In another case I heard about, a man came to her because his wife was beating him. Janine thought he was lying in order to cover up his own acts of violence, and reported him to the police. She doesn’t double check, Scobie. She doesn’t follow up.’

He sighed. ‘Well, someone sure followed up on her.’

‘Who would do such a thing?’

It’s what good people, innocent people, said at such times. Scobie himself still said it, even after years on the job. He suspected that Challis and Ellen didn’t say it: they knew, or were past being baffled.

But Scobie was patient. He waited, and his wife went on: ‘No one deserves to die like that, but she was awful sometimes, just awful. She was a relief psychologist for the prison service, but rarely got invited back. Children’s Services stopped referring kids to her. She’d insult them-you know, blame the victim-and us.’

‘Can you give me any names? Social workers? Kids?’

‘Oh, Scobie, I don’t think any of the social workers would shoot her. And where would a kid get a gun?’

You’d be surprised, Scobie thought. ‘Even so, she clearly made enemies, Beth.’

‘It was all hearsay, I shouldn’t even be telling you this,’ his wife said, and gathered her things to go.

‘What about lovers?’

‘Oh, Scobie, how would I know a thing like that?’

‘Ask around, could you, love? Discreetly? Who she kept company with. Anyone heard making threats, anyone harmed by one of her decisions…We need their names, even if only to cross them off the list.’

Beth’s face twisted in anguish but she gave him a hurried peck goodbye. ‘I’d better call on the Cobbs,’ she said, and a moment later was hurrying out to her car.

Scobie sighed and returned to the reception desk. A minute later he was shown to a corner room where the afternoon light struggled to reach a high, narrow bed and the woman in it, who was observing him with sly good humour, as if she’d never had an operation in her life. ‘Police, eh?’

She was a down-to-earth, big-boned woman aged in her seventies, and Scobie hated to think of those bones failing her. He sat, mustering a knockabout look on his face to suit her canny, expectant expression. ‘Mrs Humphreys, I understand you live at 283 Lofty Ridge Road in Penzance North?’

‘Call me Joy. And out with it, no beating about the bush.’

So he told her.

‘Good lord. You think those jokers were after me?’

‘Were they?’

‘Blameless, son, a blameless life,’ she said, twinkling. ‘All of my enemies are too old and tired to do me in, or I’ve outlasted them. Who’s the dead woman?’

‘Her name’s Janine McQuarrie.’

‘Never heard of her.’

‘You weren’t expecting any visitors to the house today?’

‘No.’

Scobie showed her the photograph of Janine McQuarrie from the Bayside Counselling brochure. ‘Have you seen this woman before?’

‘No.’

He sighed. ‘It’s possible she was lost and went to your house by mistake.’

‘Followed,’ Mrs Humphreys said, ‘or ambushed? If ambushed, why at my place?’

Scobie grinned. ‘You’re trying to do my job for me.’ He paused. ‘Reporters will want to talk to you.’

‘Let them,’ Mrs Humphreys said.

She was tiring now, winced once in pain, and struggled to muster a return grin. ‘I don’t have a soul in the world but my goddaughter.’

Scobie stiffened. ‘God-daughter?’

‘She was staying with me a couple of months ago but she’s in London now.’

Scobie uncapped his pen. ‘I think you’d better tell me all about her.’