The Baby-Snatcher

Chapter Twenty

‘What do you reckon, then?’

Hunter and Sal Wedderburn sat across the table from him waiting for an answer. Ramsay sipped from his pint. He suspected they had formed an uneasy alliance to push him into action. He had known they were plotting when they both asked, separately, if he fancied a pint after work. It was the day after their meeting with Claire Irvine.

Then Hunter had brought them to this place. An old man’s pub sinking into bankruptcy, as the customers who came to huddle over their dominoes died off one by one and the landlady drank away the profits. Not a place Hunter would choose for a social evening but somewhere he knew they would not be overheard.

‘Well?’ Hunter demanded. Sally, who was brighter than he was, had let him be spokesperson. ‘What do we do now? Confront Taverner with the letter?’

‘Not until we understand more about it.’

‘What else is there to know?’

‘The identity of the person referred to.’

‘Christ man, we know that already.’

‘No,’ Ramsay said calmly. ‘We know who Claire Irvine believes it refers to, but we can’t be certain, can we? Mrs Coulthard isn’t mentioned by name.’

‘So who else could it be?’

Before they could answer, the door swung open and a tiny old lady came in. She scuttled across the stone floor and hoisted herself on to a bar stool with the agility of a child.

‘Bottle of Mackeson please, pet,’ she said to the landlady who was obviously an old friend.

‘Sorry, Kitty hinnie. You won’t believe it but the brewery’s on strike. They didn’t deliver.’ No one did believe it. The days of brewery strikes were over. The landlady opened the till with a clatter and took out a five-pound note. She waved it towards the youngest of the domino players.

‘Nip over to the supermarket, Doug, and fetch Kitty a couple of bottles of Mackeson.’

The man went out and the room returned to silence. Hunter’s question still hung in the air. He looked at each of them then answered it himself.

‘What about Kim Houghton, the single mam at number six? You saw the inside of her house. She didn’t furnish that on Income Support and the whole neighbourhood knows she takes strange men back there. She’s classy. I bet she doesn’t come cheap. Mark Taverner could be one of her regular callers. Kath Howe might have seen him go in. Like Claire said, she’d probably have recognized his car.’

‘Hardly worth killing for, though, is it?’ Sal Wedderburn objected.

‘What do you mean?’ Hunter turned on her. Any understanding between them had disappeared.

‘Well, he’s free, a widower. She’s divorced. Who could object to them spending the night together? Even on a regular basis and even if he slipped her a few quid to buy her fancy curtains. Kath Howe might not have liked it but even if she’d informed the school, who would care?’

Ramsay thought that Taverner would care. He was a fastidious man, a churchgoer, head of religious education at the high school. News that he had paid a prostitute would be more than an embarrassment. The school with its pretensions to traditional values wouldn’t like it much either.

‘I’m sorry,’ Sal Wedderburn was continuing, ‘I just don’t see it as sufficient motive for murder.’

‘But if he was having it off with Emma Coulthard, and Mrs Howe threatened to make the affair public, you think it would?’ Hunter demanded. ‘Be a good enough motive for murder, I mean. Just because the woman’s married?’

‘No,’ Ramsay said. ‘Not just because Emma’s married. But because she’s married to Taverner’s friend, probably his only friend. If that is how it happened.’

Sally, twisting the glass in her fingers, hardly seemed to be listening.

‘You don’t think…’ she said, then thought better of it and stopped.

‘Yes?’

‘Look, this is probably really dumb but it’s just occurred to me. The letter doesn’t actually say that the person Mark Taverner was having a relationship with was a woman, does it?’

They looked at her.

‘Brian Coulthard?’ Hunter asked. ‘Na! He’s not the type.’ But she heard, with satisfaction, some uncertainty in his voice.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘ It was just an idea.’

‘Yes.’ Ramsay seemed lost in thought. ‘It certainly is an idea.’

‘What now, then?’ Hunter demanded. ‘Where do we go from here?’

‘I could have a word with Emma if you like,’ Sally offered eagerly, as if she were doing them a favour but kidding neither of them for a minute. Hunter glowered at her.

‘I mean she might confide in a woman. If she’s been having an affair with Taverner and suspects him of murder she’d be under a terrible strain.’

‘And you think she’d talk to you?’ Hunter said scathingly. ‘She doesn’t even know you.’

‘Why not? She’s hardly going to talk to her husband.’

‘It would be a tricky interview,’ Ramsay said. ‘ I don’t want either of them to know about the letter. Not at this stage.’

‘I don’t mind having a go.’

‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘All right.’

‘What about me?’ Hunter’s voice was so loud that the old men looked up from their dominoes.

‘Could you talk to Kim Houghton? See if she knows Taverner.’

‘I’ll speak to her tomorrow.’

‘I’m still very keen to trace the driver of the Mazda.’

‘I’ve spoken to every Mazda dealer in the country.’

‘We’d best try another tack, then. Weren’t we talking about doing a check on the pubs and clubs in Whitley? Do you think you can handle that?’

‘Oh aye.’ Hunter studied his beer. ‘I think I can handle that.’

Sally got to the Coastguard House early. There’d been a heavy frost but now the Headland was in bright sunshine. She parked on the track and pushed open the heavy wooden gates into the garden. It was the first time she’d been inside the walls. She hadn’t realized the house was quite so smart. There was new growth on the spindly trees along the border wall, snowdrops and aconites bloomed in the sheltered borders.

Very nice, she thought. Like something out of the home and garden magazine her mother read. She looked forward to see inside the house.

But when she knocked at the door Claire answered.

‘Oh,’ Claire said. ‘It’s you.’

‘I was hoping to speak to Mrs Coulthard.’

‘She’s not here. She’s gone for a walk, said she needed some fresh air.’ Claire sniffed. In the background Sally heard a child’s voice. ‘She doesn’t seem to be able to settle to anything these days.’

‘Where did she go?’

‘Just out on the Headland. She’ll not have gone far. Owen goes to playgroup this morning.’

Sally saw Emma silhouetted against the sun almost at the edge of the cliff. She was carrying the baby in a sling against her stomach and had buttoned her long black coat around the child, so Sally thought for a moment that she was pregnant again, and felt a stab of disgust. Three kids were enough for anyone. She realized almost immediately that, it was impossible for Emma to be so pregnant so soon and when she got closer she saw the baby, its head lolling uncomfortably to one side, fast asleep.

‘Mrs Coulthard. Could I have a word?’ She didn’t introduce herself. Everyone on the Headland knew the team of detectives working on the Kath Howe murder.

‘I suppose so. I was just going to walk down to the jetty and back.’

She was still looking out to sea and Sally could study her face without appearing to be staring. She looked grey and tired. There were fine lines around her eyes and her hair could have done with a tint and a perm. Perhaps you’re letting yourself go, Sally thought, now your fancy man doesn’t visit any more.

‘I’ll come along with you, then,’ she said. ‘ We can talk as we go.’

They set off over the grass.

‘Well?’ Emma asked. ‘ What do you want?’ The ferocity of the question surprised Sally. She had planned the interview in advance. It had not been supposed to start like this.

‘Actually, I wanted a word about Mr Taverner.’

Emma stopped in her tracks. ‘Mark? Why?’

Sally hesitated. She could hardly say, ‘Well, I just wondered if you were having an affair with your husband’s best friend. Your nanny says you’re very chummy. You’ll feel a lot better if you tell me all about it.’ She saw now that wouldn’t work. The problem was that she had expected Emma Coulthard to be quite a different sort of woman. A housewife. Dull and downtrodden. Not sharp and assertive. She tried a different tack.

‘Look,’ she said. ‘In a murder investigation all sorts of details come out. Things which have no possible relevance to the case. Things which people would much rather we didn’t know about. In that situation we’re always very discreet.’

As Emma looked at her, Sally remembered Ramsay saying that she once held a very high-powered job in industry.

‘What exactly are you asking?’ Emma demanded.

‘If there’s anything you’d like to tell me about your relationship with Mr Taverner? Any information which you think you should pass on?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Emma said. ‘I really don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. Of course I’d help if I could. It’s in our interest to have the murderer caught. We live here, after all.’ She made a show of looking at her watch. ‘ I’m afraid I won ‘t have time to finish that walk. I’ll have to go straight back. My son starts playgroup at ten and I’ve promised to give someone a lift. Don’t hesitate to get in touch if there’s anything I can do to help.’

She swept away down the hill.

Sally Wedderburn was left standing on the cliff. She thought she must look like bloody Meryl Streep in The French Lieutenant’s Woman, then wondered how she was going to admit to Stephen Ramsay – and to Gordon Hunter – that she’d cocked up.