The Healers

Chapter Twenty-five

Win handed the boys over to Lily at two-thirty. Lily had her bike with her. The basket was full of fruit and veg which were too old or misshapen to sell. She wore dungarees and red canvas baseball boots.

“I thought I might take them out,” Lily said, “To the park. They always like the park. What do you think?”

“Great,” Win said. But Lily thought that nothing about Win seemed great. She looked harassed, tired, worn down. If that was what marriage and kids could do to you, Lily thought, Sean could bloody well think again. He hadn’t spoken any more about marriage but she could tell what was in his mind. He’d begun going gooey over kids lately too, even the Abbot brats, and he’d told her more times than she could remember about the little girl who lived in the blue Transit van. How she’d been really sweet and no trouble really. Her parents were still on the road, weren’t they? They hadn’t sold out.

That morning Lily had left him working in the garden at Laverock Farm and the picture of him bent over his spade had made him seem domesticated and suburban. He wasn’t any different from his father, she thought. Next thing he’d be wanting a semi on a new housing estate, weekly trips to a garden centre and a shed to hide in when she was at the moody time of the month. She knew she should be grateful but she couldn’t settle for that, not even for him.

When the phone call had come from Win, Lily had asked him if he minded her going.

“It’s not as if it’s that important,” she’d said. “Win’s only playing Lady Bountiful. She thinks she should offer our condolences to James McDougal. As if he’d want to see her. I expect Daniel put her up to it. He probably wants to know what Val said to James about Juniper Hall. They were very close. I suppose it could be useful to find out just what she told him.”

Sean rested on his spade. “You go,” he said. “We could do with the money. I want to get on with this anyway.”

Lily watched Win drive away then got the boys into their coats and strapped them into the double buggy. The road down to the park was steep. She imagined letting go of the push chair handles and watching it bump down the hill and into the burn at the bottom, swept away perhaps by the high spring water. What’s wrong with me? she thought. I don’t hate kids. I just don’t want Sean’s.

When Hunter saw her from the window of the police station the boys were out of the buggy. One was on the slide and the other was squatting down and playing with the wood bark which was supposed to make a softer landing, and which all the neighbourhood cats loved to use as a lavatory.

Lily was rolling a cigarette, very thin. He watched her pinch out the ends and cup her hand to light it. She was staring out across the town to the hills, taking no notice of the children.

“I can’t stand this waiting,” he said. There had been no news from Ramsay about the blue Transit. “I’m going out for a breath of fresh air.”

They let him go without comment. Gordon Hunter could be a moody bastard and you were best not to cross him.

When he got to the park she had not moved. She took a last drag of the cigarette and pinched it out.

“It’s all right,” she said. “It’s only tobacco.”

“I thought you were a health freak. I didn’t think you’d touch that.”

“Oh!” she said airily. “I’ve got all the vices.” She sat on one of the swings with her legs stretched out in front of her. “What are you doing here?”

“They let me out occasionally.”

She leant back so her arms were straight and she was looking at the sky.

“I’ll give you a push if you like,” he said.

“Better not. There’s probably some bye-law. About adults on the swings. We couldn’t have you mixed up in criminal activity.” She pulled herself upright again.

I wouldn’t mind, he thought. With you. He nodded towards the boys. “They’ve got you playing at nanny now, have they? I hope they’re paying you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Didn’t they have that kid Faye Cooper skivvying for them last summer?” While he was there, he thought, he might as well find out what she knew.

She took a tobacco tin from her dungaree pocket and began to roll another cigarette.

“You’re making me nervous,” she said. “I don’t usually smoke this much. I’d heard you’d found out about Faye. The Abbots won’t like that. How did you find out?”

He took a gamble. “We had an anonymous letter,” he said. “You wouldn’t have had anything to do with that?”

She shook her head. “What did the letter say?”

“It linked Faye’s death with the recent murders.”

She laughed, which disconcerted him. It was the last response he would have expected.

“Faye wasn’t murdered,” she said.

“Why? How do you know? Did you see anything that night at Juniper Hall?”

She shook her head but he thought that she did have things to say. She just didn’t trust him.

“Faye wasn’t murdered,” she said. “No one there would have had the guts.”

“How did you get mixed up in all that stuff?” he asked suddenly.

“A nice girl like me?”

“Don’t be like that,” he said. “I’m trying to understand.”

And he wanted the moment to last. He liked the sound of her voice. The sense of intimacy, sat side by side on the swings with only the kids to overhear. But half the squad watching, he thought suddenly, glancing up at the old police station, imagining his colleagues crowded round the window, the obscene remarks, the gestures. Sod them, he thought. Let them think what they liked.

“Well?” he asked.

“They seemed to have all the answers,” she said. “To be so certain. If you’re mixed up yourself that gives you something to hold on to.”

“Who, exactly, are we talking about?”

“All of them, I suppose,” she said. Then: “No. It’s Magda really. She’s the one who holds it all together. She was the one who attracted me in.” She leaned forward. “Look,” she said, “I’d screwed up everything. At home, at school. I suppose she gave me some confidence again. In the beginning I was like Faye. I thought they were all heroes.”

“And now?”

She shrugged. “Just because I don’t believe in heroes any more, doesn’t mean I don’t admire them, think they do good work.”

“Did Faye lose faith too?”

She did not answer.

“Well?” he demanded.

She shrugged. “We all have to grow up sometime.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Nothing.” Again he had the impression that she wanted to confide in him.

“I’m still grateful to them,” she said suddenly. “For what they taught me.”

“What was that?” he asked warily. He felt as he did when people come to the door talking about the Good News.

“Openness. Understanding.” She pushed back on the swing. “I still remember the first group I went to. Magda was running it. We were working in pairs. I still remember my partner. He was a dentist. That seemed strange. I always thought dentists would be really straight.”

“Like policemen,” he said.

“Yeah. Like policemen. I found myself telling him things I’d never told anyone before in my life. About my father and my shitty mother and blokes I’d known. And suddenly I found myself bursting into tears.”

It didn’t sound a barrel-load of fun, Hunter thought.

“You get close to people very quickly,” she said. “I suppose it makes you vulnerable… And you learn you’ve got to move on.”

Hunter wanted to say something intelligent but the words wouldn’t come. At least with the Jesus freaks you could just slam the door.

They realized then that one of the boys had fallen and was crying. Lily went reluctantly to pick him up and dust the shavings from him.

“I’ll have to go back,” she said. “Get them some tea.”

“Where’s their mam?”

“She’s gone into Otterbridge to see James McDougal.”

“What would she do that for?” His voice was suddenly sharp.

“Nothing suspicious.” She was laughing at him. “A gesture of sympathy, that’s all. I’m not expecting her to be long.”

She bundled the boys roughly into the buggy and fastened the straps.

“Do you want a hand up the hill with that?” Hunter said, imagining the jibes of his mates when he returned to the incident room if she agreed. “Never had you down as a family man, Gordon,” they’d say. Sniggering.

“No,” she said easily. “I can manage.”

He walked with her to the edge of the park. There, their ways would separate.

“We’re not just cranks, you know,” she said.

“No,” he said, unconvinced.

“Look,” she said, ‘talk to Rebecca in the Alternative Therapy Centre. That might give you some idea what happened to Faye.” She walked on quickly and though he called after her asking what she meant, she did not turn back.

Gloom had settled once more on the incident room. Ramsay was back and had reported in a clipped detached voice on the interview with Wes and Lorna. Hunter came in just in time and glowered silently for the rest of the day. The frustration was more than any of them could bear. They’d all had Sean Slater down as the murderer the midnight wanderings, that crappy alibi, a feeling that he was really weird. Weirder than that crowd at the Old Chapel. Whatever you might think of them at least they made a decent living. And Hunter was feeling ratty.

The phone went. A uniformed WPC took the call. She grinned at her friends and shouted to Hunter.

“I think you should take this one, Sarge.”

“Why? What is it?”

“A witness. It might be important.”

“Put it through then,” he said grudgingly.

He listened for a few minutes, grunted, then replaced the receiver.

“Very funny, constable,” he said.

“Who was it, Sarge?” They sensed a wind-up and they needed cheering up.

“A lunatic,” he said. “Some poor bugger who’s spent too long up here in the hills. He says he’s just seen the ghost of Ernie Bowles in Mittingford High Street.”

They all laughed and Hunter stomped out.