The Healers

Chapter Twenty-one

Sean Slater was setting about making himself indispensable. Whatever happened to Laverock Farm he wanted to be involved. After years of drifting he thought he had found a project he could believe in. At least that’s what he told Lily. At the back of his mind there were other ideas which he would have found hard to confess to her. Marriage, children. He saw Laverock Farm as a way of finally tying her down.

Already they had moved from the caravan into the house. Somehow he had persuaded Bowles’s solicitors that it would be safer. The security was dreadful and they could keep an eye on the place. The Abbots had not been able to refuse.

“It’s only camping,” Sean had said to Lily. “But at least there’s room to swing a cat.” And it stakes our claim, he thought.

If Lily realized what he was up to she made no effort to escape. She even seemed to encourage him in his plans. The day the anonymous letter arrived at the incident room Magda Pocock and the Abbots came out to the farm, to survey, as Daniel grandly put it, their new estate. It was evening and the low sun made the place more attractive, warming the grey stone, hiding the rubbish with long shadows. Sean and Lily were in on the meeting and Sean was full of ideas.

“I think Stan Richardson up the valley would buy most of the land,” Sean said, hardly giving them time to get out of their car. “I talked to him about it. In general, you know. No commitments. That would give you the working capital to convert the house. I thought we might turn some of the outhouses into staff accommodation. That would leave the house for guest rooms and lecture halls. There’s plenty of space.”

“You had no right to talk to Richardson,” Magda said sharply. “The house has nothing to do with you.”

Lily was surprised by Magda’s anger it wasn’t like her but Sean was unabashed. “The police took the livestock up to Long Edge,” he said. “I had to speak to Richardson about that. Then he dropped some pretty massive hints that he’d be interested in the land. The sooner the better, surely, from your point of view. Once you’ve got the money you can start on the house.”

“We mustn’t get carried away,” Daniel warned, but he seemed to be getting carried away himself. He could imagine the place humming with people and ideas. They would attract the best teachers from all over the world. There’d be other spin-offs books, for example. He’d always wanted to write. And perhaps a training facility for other practitioners. The new EC directives would make further qualifications essential. And money. He had to admit to himself that he imagined the prospect of making money. “Still, I think Sean’s got a point, don’t you? It would be great to make a start.”

Magda said nothing, though Lily could sense her disapproval.

“I thought an organic garden,” Sean suggested enthusiastically. He was leading them across the farmyard. “To provide food for the Centre. It shouldn’t take long to get Soil Association approval. It’s run wild since we’ve been here and I shouldn’t imagine any pesticides were used even in Cissie Bowie’s day. Look, it’s a wonderful place.”

He pushed open a rotten wooden door in a high stone wall and they were in an enclosed garden. Once there had been glass houses built against the wall and paths and fruit trees. Now it was an overgrown wilderness. The panes of glass had shattered and rotting vegetation lay everywhere.

“It’s sheltered from the north wind by the house,” Sean said. “You could grow anything in here.”

“It would take a lot of work to get it straight,” Daniel said, but he saw it with Sean’s eyes, pictured neat rows of organic vegetables, the trees and fruit bushes pruned back. “We could have a herb garden. Medicinal and culinary herbs. There’d be nothing else like it in the country…”

“I wondered if you’d like me to make a start on it,” Sean said diffidently. “Just clear out the rubbish. Dig it over perhaps. So when you take the place over we’ll be ready to start.”

“I’m not sure…” Daniel hesitated.

“I don’t think that would be wise,” Magda interrupted briskly. “Not before all the formalities have been completed. That’s the time to take stock of the situation and to decide which way we want the project to go.”

“I can’t see that it would do any harm for Sean to make a start,” Daniel said. Win stood beside him, silent and tense.

“And do you propose paying him?” Magda demanded. “Or will we expect him to work out of the kindness of his heart? Excuse me for being blunt, Sean, but what’s in it for you?”

Sean smiled easily. “I just want to get involved,” he said. “We both do. Really. We so much admire what you’ve done at the Old Chapel. You and Daniel and Win. We want to help.”

There was a silence, then Win blurted out:

“I had a phone call just before I came out, from that policeman, Ramsay.”

Daniel looked at her sharply. “You didn’t say. Why didn’t you tell me before?”

She shrugged awkwardly.

“What did he want?”

“To ask about Faye.”

“Faye? What has she to do with anything?”

“I always knew,” Magda said, ‘that poor child would come back to haunt us.”

“Nonsense.” Daniel was dismissive. “Why should she? She was nothing to do with this business.”

“I’m not sure.” Win spoke slowly. “The police think that she has.”

“Why?” Daniel demanded. “What made you think that?”

“I don’t know.” Win looked wretched. “Ramsay said they’d received “certain information”. And he seemed so serious, so formal.”

“He’s always like that,” Daniel said. “It’s a pose. You shouldn’t allow yourself to be intimidated. What did he ask?”

“He wanted to know about boyfriends,” Win said. “Did Faye have a boyfriend?”

“And of course you told him that she did?”

Win nodded. “I said when she was living with us she was seeing Peter Richardson, that she seemed very keen on him though she never really discussed him. I said I couldn’t see it lasting because they had so little in common.” Her voice trailed off.

“That’s all right, then. They can go up to Long Edge and bother young Richardson. I never liked him.” Daniel had recovered his poise.

“That wasn’t all,” Win said. She paused and swallowed hard. “He asked about a diary. Did we find Faye’s diary among the rest of her belongings at Juniper Hall?”

“What did you tell him?”

They had to wait again for her to reply. The sun had fallen below the horizon. The air was very still. There was the distant buzz of a tractor and wood pigeons called from the trees behind the house.

“I said that I knew Faye kept a diary but we didn’t find it. She must have left it at home in Otterbridge.”

“Quite right,” he said. “You did very well.” He gave a strange little laugh. He was staring directly at Magda, challenging her to contradict him. “It’s the truth after all. We didn’t find it. And it won’t come to light after all this time. Faye will be able to rest in peace.”

Magda turned abruptly, and walked away, through the arch into the farmyard. Daniel gave another of his little laughs. “Mother-in-laws,” he said.

Win watched the woman go anxiously. She seemed about to follow her but Daniel caught hold of her hand and pulled her towards him.

“You know,” he said, “I’m not sure Magda’s really committed to the Laverock Farm project. I’m not convinced that she’d fit into a therapeutic community. It’s not her style. She’s too much of an individualist.” He put his arm around Win’s shoulders. “We’ll have to talk about it seriously,” he said. “Decide where she’d be happiest.”

Lily expected some protest from Win, but she stood miserably cradled in Daniel’s arm and said nothing. They walked slowly back towards the car.

“What about the garden then?” Sean asked. “Do you want me to make a start on it?”

“Oh, I think so,” Daniel said expansively. “I definitely think so.”

Lily and Sean stood in the farmyard and watched the car drive off.

“What was that all about?” Lily asked. “The police can’t really think Faye’s death had anything to do with these murders.”

“Who knows?” Sean said. He seemed pleased with himself. “You should ask your friend Gordon Hunter.”

“He’s not my friend,” she said automatically.

“He thinks I killed Ernie Bowles.” But today not even that troubled Sean.

The Abbots’ car disappeared round a corner in the lane.

“It seems very quiet without the animals,” Lily said. “The hens and that smelly dog of Cissie’s that Ernie kept chained up all day.” She looked towards the house. “I can still see him there in the kitchen, looking out at me from behind the net curtains. I can’t believe that Faye’s come back to haunt me but I can believe in the ghost of Ernie Bowles, dirty old man.” She clapped her hand to her mouth. Sean led her inside.

“Ernie Bowles,” Ramsay said, ‘is a problem.”

It was seven o’clock and they were in the small private bar that the pub’s landlord had said they could use. “You’ll get no peace if you sit in the public,” he’d said. “Folks’ll be asking questions all night, sticking their oars in.”

Ramsay thought he just wanted them out of the way. Murder had novelty value but after a while having cops within earshot cramped the punters’ style. It was bad for business. The room was dusty and smelled damp. At one table sat the team who had been tracing the participants in Magda Pocock’s workshop. A bunch of weirdos, the team agreed, but harmless enough. One significant detail had been confirmed. For most of the exercises Val McDougal had worked with Lily Jackman. No one could remember if Val had been especially anxious or upset, but they told the detectives that Lily would know. Lily had been with Val all afternoon, real buddies.

At another table made of dimpled copper, sticky with drink rings, sat Ramsay, Hunter and Sally Wedderburn.

“What do you mean?” Hunter demanded. “Ernie Bowles is the problem.”

“I don’t see where he fits in. Everyone else knew each other. Faye, Lily, Val, the gang from the Old Chapel. They all had similar ideas and met socially. Ernie Bowles wasn’t any part of that. They despised him. So far as we know the only connection he had with that group was through his mother.”

“And the fact that the rest of them inherited his farm,” Hunter said. “Even the two hippies will have benefited from that. The Abbots are hardly likely to turf them out of the caravan, and Ernie might have done if he suddenly turned nasty. I still think Slater was involved. That blue Transit never turned up.”

“Are we certain that the old lady did die of natural causes?” Sally asked suddenly. “I suppose Abbot didn’t stick an acupuncture pin in one of her vital organs? She’d been ill for ages and she was getting on. The doctor might not have looked too closely for a cause of death. I should think an attack like that might be hard to trace anyway.”

Ramsay smiled. “Perhaps. But I’ve checked with the doctor who signed the death certificate. Pneumonia killed her in the end. Nothing more exciting than that.”

“What about Richardson?” Hunter asked. “He’s a sort of connection. If his dad buys the Laverock land and he was going out with Faye.”

“Yes,” Ramsay said. “I thought I’d go to see young Richardson this evening.”

“Want me to come with you?”

“No. I don’t think so. I thought an informal approach.”

“Suit yourself,” Hunter said. He stood up in a huff to fetch another round of drinks.

“What’s the matter with him?”

“He had his nose put out of joint,” Sally said, ‘because Faye Cooper’s mother would only talk to me.”

“We knew that was likely,” Ramsay said. “We knew she’d probably be more comfortable with a woman.”

He looked across at the group of officers at the other table and frowned. They were becoming rowdy. They’d already had too much to drink. He knew they were frustrated. They thought the case was going nowhere. He did not really want the drink Hunter had bought for him, but he took it anyway, finished it off quickly. Hunter was in a mood to take offence.

“I’ll go then,” he said. “See what Peter Richardson has got to say for himself.”

Outside, a group of teenagers stood, looking bored, at the bus shelter. They stared as he walked past and he thought that everyone in Mittingford knew who he was. It was inconceivable in a place like this that someone did not know who had strangled Ernie Bowles. The town was already in shadow, and the air was suddenly cold. He walked quickly past the Old Chapel towards the police station.

In the incident room staff were still on duty, manning the phone, being available to talk to members of the public who came in off the street with scraps of information, most of it irrelevant. “I remember the last time I saw Ernie Bowles at market he seemed very peculiar. Odd, you know. I thought you’d be interested. He bought me a pint and he’s never done that before in his life. He wanted to talk about his mother

…”

It was all written down and processed. Anything of interest was copied and left on Ramsay’s desk. When he saw the paper that had accumulated there in his absence he felt overwhelmed by it. He left a message saying where he was going and drove into the hills.