The Baby-Snatcher

Chapter Twelve

Brian Coulthard was running late. Emma was in the kitchen with the kids squawking around her and when he shouted down the stairs she didn’t hear him. In the end he had to go himself. He stood in the doorway, bare chested, and said in as restrained a voice as he could manage, ‘ I don’t suppose there’s a clean shirt in this house.’

She was heating milk for the baby’s cereal and hardly turned round.

‘There are some in the tumble dryer. If you hang on a minute I’ll iron one.’

‘I need it now. I’m late already.’

She was still in her dressing gown and he felt like screaming, ‘What the hell do you do all day?’ But that would have provoked a row which would only have delayed him further.

‘All right.’ she said. The martyr. ‘I’ll do it now.’

She slammed open the dryer door and yanked the ironing board into an upright position.

When he left the house he tried to kiss her but she turned her cheek away. There were roadworks on the A19, and traffic was tailing back from the Tyne Tunnel to the Coast Road roundabout. He liked to be first in the office. Today his secretary was already there and the phones were ringing. A backlog of work to be cleared before he started.

Brian Coulthard had set up his computer software business in 1985. It had been a gamble going it alone, and it hadn’t all been plain sailing, however it seemed from the outside. There had been times at the beginning when the banks had threatened to call in the debt and it was only Emma’s wage which had kept the company afloat. He had seemed then to spend all his time on the road touting for business, giving presentations to an audience so obviously uninterested that he had known they had already decided to place their contract elsewhere. Now there was more work than he could handle. He employed a dozen programmers and they were all rushed off their feet. That was stressful too, though Emma didn’t seem to realize.

Whenever he was asked he said his office was in Jesmond. People knew that was Newcastle’s smartest suburb. In fact it was in Sandyford, close to the bus depot and the cemetery, near enough to the new Cradlewell bypass for him to hear the rumble of heavy traffic if he left his window open. It was in a gentrified terrace with a firm of accountants on one side of him and solicitors on the other. He was very proud of the office. He was buying, not renting it. Beside the door there was a brass plaque with COULTHARD COMPUTING engraved upon it. He parked the BMW in the space reserved for him and let himself in.

‘Anything urgent?’

His secretary was a smooth-faced young graduate who’d given him the shock of his life when he’d turned up at Coulthards for interview. Brian had assumed the agency would send a woman though he hadn’t been displeased. He preferred to work with men. The secretary was called Noel, a name of ambiguous gender which suited him.

‘Mr Taverner rang.’ Noel knew that Brian would consider that urgent.

‘When?’

‘About ten minutes ago, but he said not to phone him back because he’s teaching all morning. Can you give him a ring at school at lunchtime? He was hoping you might meet for a drink this evening.’

‘Right.’ Brian wondered why Mark had not phoned him at home before he left for school. That was the usual practice.

‘And Inspector Ramsay phoned again. He’s been trying to get in touch for a few days, he said. He really would prefer to meet you during the day but he could come to your home this evening if that’s impossible. He says you’ve got his number.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Brian had made a few desultory attempts to get back to Ramsay but they hadn’t connected. Brian knew he could have organized a meeting if he’d made the effort. So did Noel. The last thing he wanted was office gossip about him obstructing the police.

‘Give him a ring, will you, Noel? Tell him I can fit him in during my lunch break. Say about one o’clock.’

Ramsay arrived at exactly one. Brian went out to reception to meet him. He knew Noel was listening to every word.

‘Have you eaten, Inspector? I’m afraid I’m rather hungry. It was chaos at home this morning and I didn’t even manage a slice of toast.’

Ramsay shook his head. He wondered for a moment if he would be wined and dined.

‘I usually buy some sandwiches from the deli in Cradlewell. In weather like this I like to eat them outside. It’s a break from the office. Would you mind talking at the same time?’

So they walked together down the street. Ramsay noticed that for a man of such heavy build Coulthard had very small feet and a walk that was dainty, almost dancing.

‘I usually sit in the cemetery,’ Brian said. ‘ You won’t find that macabre? Of course you won’t mind. Not with a job like yours.’

It was a large Victorian cemetery, too big to keep tidy. The graves were covered in mounds of dead leaves and overgrown with bramble. Where the grass had been cut close to the paths there were snowdrops and in the tangle of undergrowth an overblown, greenish-white Christmas rose.

The weather was fine, unusually mild, and other office workers strolled down the wide paths. They found a wooden bench in the sun.

‘I didn’t know the woman,’ Brian Coulthard said. ‘I mean, you’ll have gathered what it’s like. I’m rushed off my feet. I’m hardly ever at home.’

‘But you would have recognized her.’ Ramsay was sure about that.

‘No. I don’t think so. Why should I?’

‘She walked everywhere. You must have seen her on the roads round the village, striding out. Usually she has a girl with her.’

‘Oh was that her? I have seen them. She always struck me as rather odd.’ He paused. ‘And it was the girl, wasn’t it, who turned up at the party?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Poor child.’

‘Did you ever speak to Mrs Howe?’

‘No. Never. Though I nearly ran over her once. I’d have spoken to her then if I’d had the chance.’ He bit into a tuna roll, wiped mayonnaise from the corner of his mouth with a handkerchief.

‘What happened?’

‘She ran off the pavement like a lunatic, straight into the path of the car. I remember it because it was the day my daughter was born.’

‘When was this?’

‘Last September.’

It was in September, Ramsay thought, that Mrs Howe last disappeared.

‘But I suppose you want to know what I was doing that day.’ Coulthard seemed eager to move the interview on. ‘When she died.’

‘Last Saturday. Yes.’

‘In the morning I came into work.’

‘What time did you leave the Headland?’

‘Nine. Nine thirty.’

‘Did you see Mrs Howe or her daughter on your way out?’

He could have done. Marilyn had timed the bus’s arrival at nine forty-five.

‘No.’

‘You seem very definite.’

‘As soon as I heard the woman had been murdered I went over things in my mind. I knew you’d be asking.’

‘But you didn’t know then who Mrs Howe was.’

‘I didn’t see her on my way out. I know because I didn’t see anyone adult. It had snowed and there were a few kids mucking around on the pavement using a black bin bag as a sledge. That was all.’

‘Any strange cars?’

‘A very flash Mazda parked outside Kim Houghton’s house. I’d not have left a car like that in Cotter’s Row. But I don’t suppose he had car security on his mind.’

‘You know Kim Houghton?’

‘Only by reputation. They talk about her in the club.’

‘Did anyone phone you at work?’

‘At weekends all the phones are switched on to the answering machine. Except my personal line. I had one call on that. Mark Taverner – a friend. He paused. ‘ I put in a few hours then came home for about one. To a madhouse. Emma so wound up you‘d have thought Princess Di was coming for afternoon tea, the kids as high as kites.’ He turned to Ramsay. ‘Have you got children?’

Ramsay shook his head.

‘You won’t understand what it’s like, then. When they get excited they fizz.’ He shook his head and smiled. ‘Like an Alka-Seltzer. It starts off bubbling gently then gets wilder and wilder until it overflows.’

Ramsay said nothing – he could not imagine Marilyn Howe fizzing, even as a five-year-old – and Coulthard continued. ‘I was glad to get out of the house again.’

‘Where did you go? Back to work?’

‘To the club. I’d arranged to meet a friend there.’

‘Mr Taverner?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Did you drive?’

‘Walked. I knew I’d have a few drinks. I’m not sure of the time. Claire Irvine, the nanny, walked down with me. She’d probably know. I think she’d had enough of the madhouse, too. She usually stays for lunch with Emma, but that day she’d obviously decided she needed a break.’

‘She walked with you to the club?’ Ramsay was deliberately obtuse.

‘No. Just as far as Cotter’s Row, then I walked on down by myself.’

‘Did she let herself into the house or knock on the door?’

‘I think she had a key.’

‘Was Mr Taverner in the club when you arrived?’

‘No. I had to wait for him. He said he’d probably be late.’

And that would fit, Ramsay thought, because Marilyn had seen Claire when she was on her way back to the Coastguard House, her hood up, head bent against the sleet.

‘Tell me about Mr. Taverner. Is he an old friend of yours?’

It was a polite question, not emotionally loaded, yet Brian found himself talking, rambling even, as he might in the rugby club after far too much beer to someone who wasn’t really listening.

‘We met at university. Durham. He was doing theology and I was doing applied maths. In the first year we had rooms on the same corridor, and we’ve been friends since then. Surprisingly, because we’re quite different characters. Mark comes from the south. Worcester. He was the first southerner I’d really known. His father was a clergyman, something high up in the Cathedral. Mine was shop steward in a bakery…’ He stopped abruptly, seeming to expect another question. Ramsay said nothing and he continued.

‘Mark’s the only one of the Durham gang I’ve kept in touch with. I was always into computers. I got a job with an electronics company straight out of university and stayed with them until I set up on my own. That’s where I met Emma. She worked for personnel.’ He paused again, remembering. ‘We all thought Mark would be a priest, follow in his father’s footsteps and I think that’s what he intended until he met Sheena. His poet. That’s what he called her. But Sheena wouldn’t have made a vicar’s wife. You couldn’t see her running the Brownie pack or organizing the flower rota. That wouldn’t be nearly poetic enough for her. Even if she was a Christian, which I don’t believe she was. So he went into teaching.’

‘You didn’t like her?’ Ramsay’s voice was uncritical but surprised.

‘It didn’t matter what I thought of her. Mark loved her. That was enough for me. That’s why I got involved when she was ill. Not because I fancied her, which is what some people thought.’ He must have decided then to answer Ramsay’s question because he added, ‘No, I didn’t like her. She was too wrapped up in herself. She treated Mark like shit.’

‘What do you mean – you got involved when she was ill?’

‘I suppose I hustled on their behalf. I tried to persuade them not to give in. When she was diagnosed as having breast cancer they both seemed to regard it as a death sentence. It was ridiculous. It can be a treatable disease. But neither of them would fight it. They wouldn’t ask questions, press for different therapies. They just let it happen. I know I was interfering but I wanted to keep her alive for him.’ He shrugged. ‘ I failed, didn’t I? Made a fool of myself for nothing.’ Suddenly he seemed embarrassed by the conversation. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I should go back. They’ll be sending out search parties.’

Ramsay nodded and watched him hurry away, his little feet skipping across the damp grass.

In the office Brian phoned Mark but could not speak to him. He had forgotten how early a teacher takes his lunch hour. Mark was already in the classroom for the afternoon session. Brian left a message saying he’d be in the office until six and spent the afternoon distracted by work.