The Baby-Snatcher

Chapter Thirty-Six

He took Sally Wedderburn with him to Newcastle. In the car he explained to her what it was all about, but since Claire’s dig about her own childhood she seemed to have lost interest in the case. She wasn’t even shocked.

Ferndale Avenue was full of parked cars and they had to stop in the next street and pull up on to the pavement. As they walked to the house they had glimpses through an occasional uncurtained window of family groups gathered round Saturday evening television. At Mrs Howe’s the curtains were drawn. There was a curtain at the front door too and they waited for Bernard’s mother to draw it back before she let them in. She seemed too excited to be surprised to see them.

‘Come in, come in,’ she said, sounding almost jolly. She was wearing a maroon velveteen dress – a best frock put on for the occasion – and held the cat to her shoulder so it looked like a fur stole. It stared at them with watery eyes. Its fishy breath wafted to them across the doorstep.

‘Come in,’ Mrs Howe said again with a touch of impatience. ‘We’re having a little recital. Bernard has often told me how musical Marilyn is but I hadn’t realized until now the extent of her talents.’ They stepped into the hall and they did hear rather plodding piano music coming from the living room. ‘If we’re lucky we might persuade Bernard to do some magic for us later.’

She released the cat, leaving it stranded on her shoulder, and clapped her hands in appreciation and as a childish gesture of delight at the piano piece which had just stopped. Ramsay realized she had achieved just what she had always wanted. Her son was back home with her. For a while at least. Through an open door Ramsay saw a Victorian dining table laden with the remnants of a high tea.

The living room was as hot as it had been on his previous visit, but Bernard was sitting with his chair pulled up close to the fire. He was wearing carpet slippers. When he had returned to Cotter’s Row after performing his magic tricks to the children of Gosforth Ramsay had explained that he and Marilyn might be more comfortable if they moved elsewhere for a while. It seemed odd that he had chosen to bring carpet slippers with him, then Ramsay realized that these slippers had been bought by Mrs Howe and kept at the house in Ferndale Avenue for Thursday evenings. And in readiness for the time when Bernard, as he surely would, recognized his mistake and returned home.

As they entered the room Marilyn turned on the piano stool to face them. Bernard looked up from the fire but he did not stand up to greet them. Ramsay thought he was full of food, as lazy as the cat now settled on Mrs Howe’s knee.

Sally sat on an upright chair in a corner. Her face was lit from below by an ugly table lamp with a porcelain base. It made the skin under her eyes look dark, like bruises.

‘I wonder if I might have a few words,’ Ramsay said.

‘Where’s Claire?’ Bernard asked. ‘Is she all right?’ But really he seemed not too bothered. He was asking because it was expected of him.

‘Oh yes. She’s been very helpful.’ For the moment Ramsay had forgotten about Claire. What would happen to her now? ‘I expect you’re wondering what’s going on at Cotter’s Row. You’d like me to explain what all our people are doing there.’

‘Routine, you said.’ Bernard shifted. On the arm of his chair there was a glass bowl containing chocolates in brightly coloured cellophane wrappers. He reached out and took one, unwrapped it carefully and dropped it into his mouth. ‘Because that child was found in our shed.’

‘There’s a bit more to it than that.’

‘Oh.’ He shook his hands out in front of him and began to stretch and flex his fingers. Ramsay supposed it was an exercise to keep his hands supple for the tricks of illusion. He found the movement and Bernard’s contemplation of the dancing fingers so irritating that he wanted to scream at the man to sit still. Instead he continued calmly.

‘We found blood on the floor of your shed.’

‘But I thought the boy was fine. That there was no harm done.’

‘He was imprisoned for two hours. A terrifying experience for a child that age.’

Because he was looking out for it he saw Sally Wedderburn in her corner tense then force herself to relax.

‘But an accident surely. That’s what I was given to understand.’

‘No,’ Ramsay said. ‘ No accident.’

The hands fluttered to rest in his lap. ‘And the blood?’

‘I’m surprised you didn’t notice that. You must have been in there every day for coal.’

‘Yes. And it was clear enough when you pointed it out. But we didn’t notice it None of us did. We had other things, I suppose, on our minds.’

‘There will be tests but we believe the blood is your wife’s.’

‘You think that Kathleen was killed in our shed?’ He didn’t seem shocked by the thought. Rather, he seemed to think it mildly amusing. Here, in his mother’s warm living room he obviously thought himself above suspicion, quite safe.

‘Perhaps. Or left there until it was convenient to dispose of the body.’

Bernard seemed to consider the matter. His head was tilted to one side so the long strands of his hair almost reached his shoulder.

‘Dispose of the body how, Inspector?’ he asked at last.

‘We believe that it was loaded into the boot of a car, parked in the alley behind your house, and driven to the jetty. Again, there are tests which will prove the matter.’

A smile appeared on Bernard’s round, white face.

‘It’s clear then that you can’t suspect one of us, Inspector. The shed must have been used without our knowledge. We don’t own a car. We don’t drive.’

‘Of course,’ Ramsay continued, as if Bernard had not spoken, ‘it’s possible that the murderer had help to move the body.’

There was a moment of silence. The cat sneezed then began to pad rhythmically, catching the velveteen material of Mrs Howe’s frock in its claws. She continued to stroke it. Ramsay thought that her deafness had probably excluded her from the conversation. They had been speaking rather quietly. She gave the impression of listening but had no idea what they had been talking about. Certainly now she seemed unaware that they had stopped and when Ramsay spoke directly to her, clearly and loudly, she answered without hesitation, assuming perhaps that it followed naturally from what had gone before.

‘Do you drive, Mrs Howe?’

‘I do. I learned as a girl in the war. In the Land Army.’

It was hard to imagine her dressed in overalls driving a truck.

‘And you own a car?’

‘Certainly. A Standard Ten. I gave Bernard lessons in it. I could tell almost from the beginning that he would never make a driver. His co-ordination was satisfactory but his concentration let him down. He would have been a menace on the road.’

‘Do you still drive, Mrs Howe?’

‘Of course. Why should I not? I’m old but I’m not senile, Inspector.’ She gave a complacent smile. It seemed not to occur to her to ask why the questions were being asked.

‘Regularly?’

‘I give Olive a lift to the supermarket once a week so she can stock up on groceries for me. In the old days I’d enjoy a spin in the countryside but alas not any more. I’m too anxious at the prospect of breaking down.’ She shook her head, grieving for her jaunts into the hills. ‘ It would be different if Bernard would come with me occasionally but he claims he’s too busy.’

‘Mother!’ Bernard interrupted. Then to Ramsay: ‘What are you saying, Inspector? That my mother is implicated in some way in this crime? That’s ridiculous.’

‘No!’ The cry was involuntary and came out as a shrill scream. Marilyn even stamped her foot to demand their attention, so hard that her body was thrust backwards and Ramsay thought the piano stool would tip over. With her frizzy hair and her petulant face she looked like an adolescent version of Violet Elizabeth Bott.

‘You came here to talk to me,’ she said. ‘You came here to find out why I killed Mummy.’