The Baby-Snatcher

Chapter Nineteen

Ramsay and Hunter were outside six Cotter’s Row at eight o’clock. Exactly. Ramsay wanted Claire to know that they were taking her seriously. She let them in as soon as they’d rung the bell and Hunter made a joke about her rushing them in before the neighbours could see she was entertaining two strange men. Ramsay wasn’t sure how she’d take that. He’d gained the impression of someone prim, old before her time. But although she didn’t smile she answered Hunter in the same lighthearted vein.

‘They’re used to strange men turning up on the pavement outside this house.’

Then she gave a giggle and Ramsay saw that Hunter had already managed to establish a slightly flirtatious rapport.

She was very comfortable in the house. She might have lived there.

‘Tea?’ she asked. ‘Coffee? Kim wouldn’t mind, I’m sure.’

‘Tea, then,’ Ramsay said. ‘Thanks.’

She was still wearing her respectable working clothes: a long black cord skirt with opaque black tights underneath and flat shoes; a white cotton shirt done right up to the neck. The effect was severe, that of an Edwardian school mistress or a nun in mufti. Not the type Hunter would usually have gone for at all, but he had slipped into chat-up mode without any apparent effort.

She brought out the tea on a tray, with sugar in a bowl and milk in a jug. The tray had already been laid in the kitchen. Ramsay wondered if she had brought the milk jug from home. It didn’t match the cups. It was clear she wanted to make a good impression.

‘You not having one, then?’ Hunter asked. As she set the tray on the low coffee table he saw she had dark, rather masculine eyebrows. Like two bloody caterpillars, he thought, crawling across her forehead. ‘ You shouldn’t have bothered just for us.’

‘That’s all right.’ She knew there was a can of Coke in the fridge. She would treat herself to that afterwards.

‘How can you help us, Claire?’ Ramsay asked. ‘You do think you can help us?’

She hesitated and for a moment he thought he had jumped in too quickly. At last she spoke.

‘Certain information has come into my possession.’ It was clear she had practised that bit.

‘And you think this information might help us find the murderer of your sister?’

‘I’m not saying that. I just think you should know.’

‘Of course.’ He paused. ‘You can trust us, you know, not to jump to conclusions.’

‘I feel responsible, you see, for my children.’ Then, fearing they might have misunderstood. ‘I mean the children I look after.’

‘You mind the Coulthard bairns, don’t you?’ Hunter said. ‘Three kids under five. I bet they’re a handful for a young lassie like you.’

‘Young children are only a problem if you don’t know what you’re doing.’ Her response was unexpectedly tart. ‘I had two years’ training, before they let me loose on kids. Most parents don’t have anything, do they?’

The question was flashed at Hunter who seemed uncertain how to answer. He couldn’t understand what he had done to upset her.

‘What sort of parent was Kath?’ Ramsay asked quietly.

‘You’re not here to talk about that.’

‘There’s no hurry is there? Gordon and I have all evening. We really would very much value your opinion. As a qualified childcare worker.’

At first Ramsay thought she would refuse to answer. She had her own agenda for the evening’s interview. But finally she could not resist.

‘If Kath had been my mother I’d have died.’ It was said flatly, without any emotion.

‘Why?’

‘Well, I didn’t have it easy but at least my dad wasn’t weird.’

‘What do you mean?’

She ignored Ramsay and turned to Hunter. ‘You can’t be too old to remember. When you’re a kid you don’t want to be different. Not in any way. It’s the most important thing. It was bad enough for me. No mother and money tight all the time. If I have kids I won’t put them through that. They’ll have the same as everyone else. Nike trainers and whatever brand of jeans they want, even if it means me doing without. Dad didn’t understand, but at least I didn’t have a mother like Kath to show me up. She got it all wrong.’

‘In what way?’ Ramsay asked. She answered him angrily as if he’d interrupted a private conversation between her and Hunter.

‘In every way. She wore dreadful clothes. She went into school and made a fuss. She said Marilyn wasn’t getting enough homework! She was the only mother to turn up to Sports Day so everyone stared.’ She stopped in mid-flow and continued more quietly. ‘The worst thing is that she didn’t realize. She thought Marilyn appreciated the effort. Perhaps you can’t understand. Perhaps it’s not the same for boys.’

Ramsay thought it was very much the same for boys. There had been a lad from his village who had gone to the grammar school at the same time as him. His mother had suffered from a mental illness. She had probably been schizophrenic, though at the time she had only been labelled barmy. In primary school the boy had spoken about his mother having to go into St George’s, the local psychiatric hospital. Later he learned not to mention it at all.

Once, coming home in the school bus down a narrow road leading to the pit village where Ramsay lived they had come across the woman. It was summer and she had picked a bunch of wild flowers from the hedgerow. She was dancing in the middle of the road, throwing the blooms one by one into the air. The driver had pushed on his horn and muttered darkly about maniacs who should be locked up. The boys whistled and yelled. Eventually the woman, still apparently unaware of the bus, moved to the side of the road.

The boy had said nothing. He had shown no concern for his mother’s safety. His only response has been to send a desperate, pleading glance towards Ramsay, begging him not to betray his secret. Then he had laughed at the woman with the rest of them.

Ramsay, who had never quite been one of the crowd, was tempted for a moment to jeer at the boy and give him away. He was still proud that he hadn’t. Now he was trying to come to grips with Marilyn’s feelings for her mother.

‘I see that it can’t have been easy for her,’ he said to Claire. ‘Kath must have seemed quite different from the other girls’mothers, but they always seemed very close to me. I mean, there were never any rows, were there? Disagreements, perhaps, but no real bust-ups.’

He thought that in all the hours Kath and her daughter had spent walking together they must have developed an understanding. And unlike the schizophrenic’s son, Marilyn had cared more about her mother’s safety than feeling foolish. She had knocked on the door of a stranger, panic-stricken, when she thought her mother was missing.

‘Well,’ Claire said. ‘Kath was lucky. Marilyn’s not the rebellious type.’

‘And Bernard?’ Hunter asked, allowing himself a little risque grin. ‘Was he rebellious?’

‘Bernard was devoted to Kath,’ Claire said.

‘They never had any arguments?’

‘He’s not the type to row. You’ll have seen that for yourself.’

‘Deep, then.’

‘I’ve told you. He was devoted.’

They sat for a moment in silence. The sound of next door’s television came through the wall.

‘Tell me, Claire, what did you do on the Saturday evening after Kath disappeared?’

Ramsay knew he was playing a dangerous game. Claire was itching to pass on her information. Making her wait might make her lose her cool. She might give away more than she intended. Or she might clam up altogether just to spite him.

‘We all went to look for her.’

‘Together? Separately?’

‘Marilyn asked up the street in case any of the neighbours had seen her then she waited in the house. We knew Kath didn’t have any keys. Her coat was at home and they were in the pocket. Bernard and I went down the Headland as far as the railway line. By then it was too dark to see, so we went home to see if she’d turned up. Later Bernard went down to the phone box by the club to report her missing.’

‘By himself?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Was he away for very long?’

‘Just long enough to phone the police.’

‘Thank you, Claire. That’s very helpful. I’m sorry about the questions, but I wanted to get them out of the way so we could concentrate on what you have to tell us. We’re very grateful for your patience, Claire, and now we’d like you to tell us why you phoned us.’

He held his breath, hoping he’d done enough to appease her.

‘I wanted to show you this,’ Claire said at last. ‘I wasn’t sure at first but now I think you should see it.’

From her handbag she took a piece of paper. It looked as if it had once been crumpled into a ball, but an attempt had been made to flatten it.

‘I suppose I should have showed you earlier. I hoped I wouldn’t have to but it’s been weeks now and you’ve still not caught the killer.’

She set the paper on the coffee table. Ramsay let it lie there and read aloud without touching it.

Mr Taverner.

It has come to my notice that you have developed an intimate relationship with someone whom any decent person would consider unsuitable. This is a severe and disgusting betrayal of trust. If this relationship does not cease immediately I will feel obliged to tell the relevant parties.

The letter was written in pencil. There were a number of crossings out. Some words had been scribbled out so fiercely that it was impossible to see what had been written underneath. It was not signed.

‘Kath wrote it,’ Claire said. ‘It’s her handwriting.’

‘But she didn’t send it?’

‘Well, she wouldn’t have sent this. She always wrote her letters in fountain pen. Not pencil. She said even biro was crude. This was a practice, wasn’t it? That’s how I came to find it.’

‘Where did you find it?’

‘There’s a bucket by the grate in the back room. We put our waste paper in there, then we use it to light the fire. It was with the newspapers and Marilyn’s rough homework.’

‘When did you find it?’

‘Early on the Saturday morning. The day she died.’

‘So it was written on the Friday?’

‘Or some time earlier that week. It was right at the bottom of the bucket.’

‘Why did you keep it?’ Ramsay’s voice was bland. He didn’t want Claire to think he was accusing her of prying.

‘I meant to ask her about it later in the day. I didn’t want her making a fool of herself. Or me.’

‘You?’ Hunter raised his eyebrows, gave that slightly lecherous smile.

‘What?’ She realized what he was implying, and blushed. ‘Don’t be daft! I wasn’t carrying on with Mr Taverner. But it affected me, didn’t it?’

‘In what way?’

‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? She was accusing Mr Taverner of having an affair with Mrs Coulthard. Of course that affects me. They’d want to know where she got her information for one thing. The last thing a nanny’s supposed to do is tittle-tattle.’

‘And did you? Tittle-tattle?’

‘I didn’t start the gossip,’ she said defensively. ‘Mr Taverner was there on the day. Kath went up to clean. And then Bernard made it worse.’

‘Bernard? What would he know about what was going on at the Coastguard House?’

‘He went up there one evening to talk about his magic act. Mrs Coulthard wanted an entertainer for her kiddies’ party. You know about that. He found them together then.’

‘And he came home and talked about it?’

She nodded.

‘What about you? Did you talk about Mr Taverner and Mrs Coulthard to Bernard and Kathleen?’

‘They asked what was going on. I said Mr Taverner was around a lot, especially when Mr Coulthard was working late. But I didn’t accuse him of anything.’

‘And that was enough for Mrs Howe to write a letter like this?’ Hunter demanded.

‘You didn’t know her. Mr Taverner was a teacher, wasn’t he? One of Marilyn’s teachers. She couldn’t have had her darling Marilyn corrupted. Besides, when she got suspicious I expect she kept an eye on the place, looked out for his car. I wouldn’t have put it past her. It certainly wouldn’t have occurred to her that it wasn’t any of her business.’ She looked at them, trying to make them understand. ‘She was like that. She thought she had a right to interfere.’

‘Do you know if she ever sent this letter?’

‘Never got the chance to ask her, did I? I came home at lunchtime especially to have a word, to tell her to keep her nose out, but she wasn’t there. And I never saw her again.’

‘And what’s your feeling?’ Hunter leant forward so that their heads were almost touching over the coffee table. ‘Were they having an affair? You’d know, if anyone would.’

‘Well, I never caught them in bed together if that’s what you mean.’

‘We’re not talking about evidence,’ Ramsay said patiently. ‘As Gordon says, it’s your feeling we’re interested in.’

‘I’d say they were very close. The way they spoke to each other, laughed. As if they shared a joke which no one else could understand. A sort of… intimacy.’

‘I see,’ Ramsay said. ‘And do you think Mr Taverner ever received this letter? Tell me, Claire. What’s your feeling on that?’

‘Put it this way. Since that party he’s never been near the house. Not to my knowledge.’