The Baby-Snatcher

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Claire sat very straight with her hands in her lap and her ankles crossed. Her dark hair was pulled away from her face. She wore no make-up. She hadn’t been given the opportunity to talk to Bernard about his interview but she didn’t seem curious. She waited for the questions like an earnest schoolgirl before an oral language exam.

Hunter had been sent into the back room to watch television with Bernard. It was Sally’s turn to sit in on the conversation. But it was Ramsay’s show. He was the examiner.

‘Let me take you back to the day your sister was killed,’ he said.

She said nothing. If there was any reaction it was a faint amusement.

‘You came home for lunch?’

‘Yes.’

‘And to see Mr Howe?’

She raised her thick, dark eyebrows. ‘You know about Bernard and me,’ she said. ‘I suppose Marilyn told you. I thought she’d guessed more than she was letting on but Bernard couldn’t see it. It’s probably for the best. There was no need to drag us away from Kim’s, though. We’d have told you if you’d asked.’

‘That’s why you came home that lunchtime? You knew Marilyn would be out?

She nodded.

‘You must have thought Mrs Howe would be out too. That was part of the deal, I presume, that you’d wait until you had the house to yourselves before…’

‘Making love?’ she finished impassively. ‘Yes. There was no formal arrangement. No rules. But it wouldn’t have been kind, would it, to do that while Kath was in the house?’

‘Was it kind to have an affair with her husband?’

She didn’t answer but he didn’t think that the question had disturbed her. He left it and moved on.

‘What made you think Kath would be away from home that lunchtime?’

‘I thought she’d planned to go into Otterbridge with Marilyn on the bus.’

‘She told you that?’

For the first time Claire seemed unsure of herself. ‘ I don’t remember. I suppose she must have done. Otherwise I’d have stayed at the Coastguard House for lunch.’

They stared at each other, then Ramsay asked again, more slowly.

‘Well, was it kind to have an affair with your sister’s husband?’

She put one elbow on her knees and leant forward, eager to make him understand.

‘Kath was a strange woman, Inspector. She didn’t feel emotion. I don’t think she was upset even when our mother died…’

‘You were too young to remember that, surely?’

‘I remember that I was upset. And that Kath was never around to comfort me. There were no cuddles at bedtime. I don’t think she ever read me a story. As soon as she could she left to marry Bernard.’ She paused. ‘I don’t blame her. I don’t think she was capable of emotion.’

‘She cried when she found out about you and Bernard.’

‘Yes,’ Claire agreed. ‘But that was because her pride was hurt. She never loved Bernard. Not truly. Not like me.’

The self-justification, Ramsay thought, of mistresses everywhere.

‘Did she love Marilyn?’ he asked. ‘ I presume she cuddled Marilyn and read her bedtime stories?’

‘Oh yes,’ her voice remained light and cool but somewhere under the amusement he thought he detected a note of jealousy. ‘Kath surprised them all when the baby was born. For the first time in her life there was something she cared for. She wasn’t much good at the practical side. So clumsy apparently that they thought she might drop the baby. But there was plenty of affection. Perhaps too much.’ She stared up into Ramsay’s face. ‘It’s not the same, though, as love between adults.’

‘Is that really what you and Bernard have?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘When the relationship started you were seventeen. Only just an adult.’

‘Age has never mattered to us.’ She paused. ‘Bernie didn’t corrupt me if that’s what you’re saying.’

‘No. I’m sure he didn’t.’

From the room next door came a swelling soprano singing the backing to a deodorant advertisement.

‘What I don’t understand,’ Ramsay said, ‘is why Kath didn’t ask you to leave. You claim there was no great bond between you. And it’s not as if you would have been homeless. You were just about to start work for the Coulthards. It’s normal, isn’t it, for nannies to live in? They would have had the space to put you up.’

He paused, then continued as if the idea had just come to him. ‘Or perhaps she did ask you to leave, but not then. She waited until she was sure you were settled at the Coastguard House, and you had somewhere suitable to go. She would take her responsibility for you very seriously. I have the impression of a very principled woman. Is that why she didn’t throw you out immediately? I wonder if that’s what provoked her death. She couldn’t go along with the pretence any longer. She wanted you out.’

‘Kath never asked me to leave,’ Claire said grandly. ‘She knew that if I went, Bernard would come too.’

‘I wonder if you really believe that.’ Ramsay was apologetic. ‘It seems to me that Bernard is a man who likes his comfort. His routine. Kath might not have been a brilliant homemaker but she shopped and cooked and washed for him. She let him play with his magic tricks and his ventriloquist’s doll. She really didn’t make any demands. If he’d left the family he would still have been financially responsible for Marilyn and for Kath. There’d be your wages of course, but there wouldn’t have been much money for a decent home of your own. I’m not sure if Bernard would have enjoyed slumming it in a flat or a bedsit. Even with you. It’s not what he’s used to and he’s not a man, I’d say, who likes change.’

Claire said nothing and Ramsay went on. ‘ But let’s assume that you’re right. Let’s assume that Kath wouldn’t have thrown you out because she couldn’t risk his leaving too. That would make sense. Above all she wanted to make a stable home for Marilyn. Bernard would be a part of that. That alone would explain why she was prepared to tolerate the position…’

‘Quite,’ Claire said.

‘But I can envisage certain circumstances which she would never be prepared to tolerate.’

He looked at her as if expecting a response.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I don’t think, for example, she would put up with your living here if you were pregnant. You’re not pregnant, are you?’

‘No!’

‘Because if you were, Kath would find it impossible to pretend to herself that Bernard was just being kind to you, as substitute father. She would have to admit that the relationship was – how did you put it – a love between adults. And a new baby would be competition for Marilyn. It really wouldn’t work, would it?’

‘I’m not pregnant!’ The words came out as a scream.

‘No,’ Ramsay said. He was quiet and sympathetic. More like a doctor than a policeman, thought Sally, who was watching spellbound, all thought of the earlier criticism of her boss forgotten. ‘No, you’re not pregnant. But you’d like to be, Claire, wouldn’t you?’

Sally thought the girl was going to scream at him again, but she nodded silently. Sally wanted to go up to her and put her arm around her and tell her not to let Bernard bug her, because all men were bastards. Except Ramsay, who was a bloody genius. But Ramsay was going on, ignoring Claire’s obvious distress.

‘I’ve seen you with the Coulthard children,’ he said. ‘ But I suppose it’s not the same if they’re not your own.’

‘Bernard always said he didn’t want any more children.’ She gave a little smile. ‘He said it was the mess and the clutter he hated. Nappies in buckets. Spilled food all over the floor. But that was because Kath wasn’t very good at it. It doesn’t have to be like that.’ She looked down at her feet. ‘And that was probably an excuse. He knew Kath wouldn’t like it. He was afraid of her.’

‘Did you think you’d talk him into it? There’s plenty of time, after all. You’re very young.’

‘I wasn’t sure.’ She looked up bleakly. ‘He can be stubborn when he wants to be. And he’s not so young.’

‘But you thought that with Kath out of the way there’d be more chance he’d change his mind?’

She nodded enthusiastically and they realized again that she was hardly more than a child herself. ‘I thought he’d see how well I’m running the house. How cosy and cheerful everything is. And he’d see that if I can manage to hold everything together when I’m working, a baby wouldn’t need to get in the way.’

‘He didn’t see it like that though, did he, Claire? Bernard wants you all to himself. He doesn’t understand how important it is to you to have children. How can he?’

‘I tried to make him understand!’ she cried. ‘I arranged for us to be on our own this evening so we could discuss it, but he wouldn’t listen.’

‘What a terrible waste!’ Ramsay said. ‘After you’d made the plans. Bernard will never know what you went through, what courage it must have taken. You knew Kath didn’t go to Otterbridge. You said you needed to talk to her about Bernard and arranged to meet her at the jetty at lunchtime. No one could see you in all the sleet and the rain but still it must have taken some nerve. To stab her, push her into the water. Throw the knife after her then walk back to the house as if nothing had happened. Poor Claire. You killed your sister and it was all for nothing.’

But while he was speaking he knew it couldn’t have happened that way. Because at lunchtime the tide was out and he couldn’t believe a body could lie, unnoticed, on the shore all afternoon.

She looked at him, open-mouthed.

‘Or did it happen later?’ he asked. ‘ You slipped out of the Coastguard House while the party was in full swing and killed her then.’

‘No,’ she said in a whisper. ‘I didn’t kill Kath. How could you think that? I lost my father and my mother. She was the only relation I had left.’

He regarded her gently, with pity.

‘Then it was Bernard,’ he said. ‘Bernard killed her. For you. And that’s why you didn’t tell us about your affair.’

‘No,’ she said again, more firmly. She had quite regained her composure. ‘Neither of us killed her. And there’s no way that you’ll be able to prove that we did.’

Without asking his permission she stood up and walked out. The exam was over.

Ramsay had come in his own car, which he had parked in the alley at the back of the houses to avoid the impression of a police raid. Bernard showed him out through the kitchen door into the yard. The others had left already. Ramsay switched on his torch to light his way through the debris. There was an old tin bath with a pile of clothes pegs lying in the bottom, a wheelie bin and a ceramic tub which looked as if it had been newly planted with seedlings. Perhaps Claire was trying to extend her civilizing influence to the yard as well as the house.

As the torch beam flashed past the shed which had once been the outside lavatory, he saw that the door was closed with a heavy padlock. What did Bernard own that was of sufficient value to be locked away? His bike, but that was still propped against the wall in the corridor inside. He thought again that he had grounds for a thorough search of the house and the yard, but imagined the effect on the family of a team ripping the place apart and put off the decision again.

A splintered wooden gate led from the yard to the alley beyond. Ramsay stood there for a moment and looked through the uncurtained window into the house. Bernard and Claire stood in the kitchen facing each other. She put her hands on his shoulders. He pulled her awkwardly towards him so her head rested on the pink and lilac sweater. He stroked her hair.

Ramsay was moved by this sentimental gesture, then thought his sergeant would think him a sentimental fool. Although Bernard Howe’s domestic situation obviously fascinated Hunter, he would sneer at it. How could anyone take that relationship seriously? Ramsay imagined that the information was already being passed on to the other members of the team. ‘He had a bloody harem I tell you, the paunchy fat bastard. Two women and one of them young enough to be his daughter.’ He’d try to keep the envy from his voice but he’d probably not manage it.

He felt a voyeur, that by standing there, looking in, he was sharing Hunter’s salacious interest in the family. He unhooked the latch and moved into the alley. From his car he could see up the Headland to the Coastguard House, lit by a security light, gleaming white through the greyness and the drizzle. A beacon, he thought. Metaphorically at least. What most of the families in Cotter’s Row aspired to. A BMW in the garage. A machine to wash dishes. A nanny to mind the children. Comfort and security. Wasn’t that why so many people played the lottery every week?

He had climbed into the car and begun the slow drive down the narrow alley when it came to him that the situations between the Coulthards at the top of the hill and the Howes at the bottom might be very similar. Bernard had managed his compliant ménage à trois without disturbance or conscience. Why should Emma Coulthard not be doing the same thing? He had assumed that if she were sleeping with Mark Taverner she would want to keep the fact secret from her husband. But the two men were friends. Friends who shared everything. Perhaps they were sharing Emma too.