The Healers

by Cleeves, Ann

  From the corner of his eye he watched Hunter surreptitiously kick out at the bantams.

  The farmyard was bounded on one side by the house and garden with a track to the road and the rest of the land. Two others were made up of barns and out-buildings. The fourth, and shortest side, had a stone wall and a five-barred gate leading to a field. The gate had sunk on its hinges and they had to lift it.

  In the night there had been rain and the grass was still wet. By the time they reached the caravan their trousers, socks and shoes were soaking. A pale-skinned young man with thin hair pulled back in a pony-tail was sitting on the caravan steps. At first it seemed to Ramsay that Sean was watching their progress through the cow-parsley with enjoyment, but as they got closer he said, vaguely, almost apologetically:

  ‘I’m sorry about that. I keep meaning to cut a path…’

  He stood up and opened the door for them to go inside.

  When Ramsay saw that Lily Jackman was the attractive girl from the health food shop he was not surprised. He had known, somehow, that she would be. Behind him he heard Hunter mutter something appreciative under his breath and turned to warn him. Lily looked up and stared at the two men but did not recognize Ramsay. She was sitting listlessly on the padded bench which ran against one wall and which, presumably, they pulled out each night to make a bed. In the confined space he felt clumsy and awkward. A WPC was sitting impassively and unsympathetically on an identical bench beyond a pull-down table. She too, it seemed, did not care for travellers. Ramsay sent her back to the farm. ‘We can manage now,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’ She stood up sulkily and went out without a word.

  ‘Miserable cow,’ Lily said, under her breath. Ramsay pretended not to hear.

  Sean slid in beside Lily and Ramsay and Hunter took the opposite bench. It was very cramped and their knees were almost touching under the table. Ramsay was aware of Hunter staring at Lily, but she seemed not to notice. Perhaps she was used to it. He introduced himself, briefly.

  ‘I’ll have to ask some questions,’ he said, trying to be gentle, remembering that she had probably never seen a body before. ‘Mr Bowles was murdered, you see. Perhaps you realized. There’ll be a police investigation.’

  Lily stared back at them blankly. Hunter lowered his eyes.

  ‘Yeah,’ Sean said. ‘ Right Of course.’ He took her hand.

  ‘We didn’t have anything to do with it,’ Lily said, suddenly. ‘You can’t pin it on us.’

  ‘It’s not my job to pin it on anyone,’ Ramsay said. ‘My job is to find out what happened.’

  He spoke briskly, with what Prue called his schoolmaster voice, and he realized he must have sounded pompous.

  But Lily blushed. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that people like us always seem to get the blame. We’re natural scapegoats.’ She took a tobacco tin from her pocket and began to roll a very thin cigarette.

  ‘People like who?’

  ‘Unconventional people, travellers.’ She paused and added mockingly: ‘Hippies.’

  ‘But you haven’t done much travelling recently,’ Ramsay said.

  ‘Have you? I understand that you’ve been living here since last summer.’

  He couldn’t place her social background. Her voice was without accent, deep, rather throaty. An actress’ voice, he thought, then wondered if the huskiness was caused by cigarettes, not a desire for effect. Perhaps he was being unfair to her.

  ‘You have been living here since last summer?’ he repeated.

  ‘Yes,’ she said bitterly. ‘Nine bloody months.’

  ‘Haven’t you been happy here?’

  ‘Would you be?’ she snapped back, then seemed to regret her rudeness. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘we were glad to move in. It seemed perfect. Right out in the country. You know.’

  ‘But not so much fun in the winter,’ Ramsay said easily.

  ‘Bloody freezing,’ she agreed. ‘But it wasn’t only that…’ She paused.

  ‘What is it then? The inconvenience?’ Hunter spoke for the first time and she looked him up and down before answering, sarcastically:

  ‘Yes, the inconvenience.’

  Of course it was more than that, Ramsay thought. He waited, hoping she would explain why she really disliked the place so intensely.

  ‘It isn’t that bad here,’ Sean said awkwardly. ‘Not really. I’ve lived in worse places.’

  ‘You’re just soft,’ she said. ‘I think you’d be happy anywhere.’

  ‘I would,’ he said. ‘Anywhere living with you.’ The words were so sentimental that Ramsay thought he was teasing, but he was quite serious. Lily seemed infuriated by the remark.

  ‘Then you’re a bloody fool,’ she said.

  ‘You could have moved on,’ Ramsay said. ‘Couldn’t you?’ He directed the question at Lily, sensing that she was the one who took all the decisions.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I suppose we could.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  She shrugged. ‘Partly money,’ she said. ‘I work in the health food shop in Mittingford. It only pays peanuts but it’s too much for Sean to be eligible for benefit. We’re stuck in the poverty trap. Isn’t that what they call it? That’s what it feels like. We’d need some money to move on, to buy a van or a truck and do it up.’

  ‘But it isn’t just money,’ Ramsay said.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘ it isn’t just that.’ She leaned forward, stubbing out the cigarette on the lid of the tobacco tin. ‘We’ve made friends around here. There are people we’d miss. Wouldn’t we, Sean?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Sean said. ‘That’s right.’ But Ramsay thought the only person he cared about was Lily.

  ‘Was Ernie Bowles one of those people?’ Hunter asked abruptly.

  ‘What?’ She was startled, uncomprehending.

  ‘Was Mr Bowles one of the people you’d miss?’

  ‘Good God, no,’ she said. ‘He was why we wanted to leave.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he was hassle,’ she said. ‘ We should have realized. I don’t know how we didn’t see it when we first looked round.’

  ‘In what way was he hassle?’

  She turned to Sean. ‘You explain.’

  ‘He was sort of strange,’ Sean said. ‘Weird. You know.’

  ‘How did that affect you?’

  ‘When we moved in he was really helpful. Nothing was too much trouble. You know. He said he liked having us here, he wanted to meet our friends. That sort of thing. He used to drop in some evenings. We didn’t know what he wanted. I suppose we thought he was lonely. Then he seemed kind of disappointed and everything went sour. If we were a day late with the rent he was up here causing a scene. He even tried to start charging for bringing the Calor cylinders back from Mittingford.’

  ‘What do you mean,’ Ramsay said, ‘ disappointed?’

  This time Lily answered.

  ‘He was a smutty old man,’ she said. ‘He’d imagined all sorts going on here.…’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘He’d read the tabloid press,’ she said impatiently. ‘He’d been young in the sixties, hadn’t he? Well, youngish. But his mother had kept him on a tight rein. He thought we’d be like a sixties commune: free love, orgies, you know.’

  ‘Ah,’ Ramsay too had been young in the sixties. He too had felt that he’d missed out. ‘I see.’

  ‘We’re not like that,’ Lily said. ‘ Even when we were on the road we kept ourselves to ourselves.’ Then in a brave attempt at a joke: ‘Besides, there’s not a whole heap of room in here for all-night parties.’

  ‘Did he bother you?’ Hunter asked sharply. ‘Personally?’

  There was a pause and then she shook her head. ‘No,’ she replied at last. ‘ He wouldn’t have had the guts. Like Sean said, he was just weird.’

  She stared out of the window.

  ‘So how did you come to live here?’ Ramsay asked.

  ‘We were desperate,’ she said. ‘We must have been.’


  ‘Did Mr Bowles advertise the caravan for let?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t think so. We heard about it through a friend. We were still dossing in Sean’s van then but we kept getting moved on. And it was clapped out anyway. I’d been offered a job in the health food shop. We both like Northumberland. The caravan seemed like the answer to our dreams. Didn’t it, Sean?’

  Sean looked up at her. He had very fine eyelashes, barely visible, which gave his eyes a staring quality.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘We were looking for a chance to settle down. Be a proper family. I even thought we might have a kid one day.…’

  ‘Dream on!’ Lily spat at him, under her breath.

  He turned away from her as if he’d been hit.

  There was a silence. Ramsay looked at Hunter, thinking he might want to take over the questioning but he shook his head.

  ‘When did you last see Mr Bowles alive?’ he asked, formally.

  ‘Saturday evening after work,’ she said. ‘He was ogling me through the kitchen window. Dirty bastard. He thought I didn’t know he was there but you could almost hear the heavy breathing across the farmyard.’ She caught her breath. ‘I’m sorry. I’d almost forgotten he was dead. I don’t suppose he was so bad really. Just lonely and screwed up.’

  ‘I saw him later than that,’ Sean said.

  ‘Did you?’ She was still resentful.

  ‘Yeah, don’t you remember? I was sitting outside and I called you to come and look. He was all dressed up and he drove off in the Land-Rover. We laughed. You said he must have found a woman at last.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said sombrely. ‘ I do remember.’

  ‘Did you hear the Land-Rover come back?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Sean said. ‘I was out all evening.’

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘I went for a walk. I do a lot of walking. And thinking.’

  ‘Communing with nature?’ Hunter said unpleasantly.

  ‘Yes actually,’ Sean said. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘What time did you get back?’ Hunter asked.

  There was a pause. Sean looked helplessly at Lily.

  ‘Seven-thirty on Sunday morning.’

  ‘By man, that was a long walk,’ Hunter said, scenting blood. It would all be over by the end of the day.

  ‘I met some friends.’

  ‘Just bumped into them, did you, out on the lanes?’

  ‘It was a bit like that,’ Sean said. ‘They were parked in the gypsy transit site.’

  ‘And what were they called, these friends of yours? Just in case we want to check your story.’

  ‘Wes and Lorna,’ Sean said. ‘They’ve got a little girl called Briony.’

  ‘Surnames?’ asked Hunter.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Sean said. ‘I don’t think I ever knew.’ He looked at Lily again.

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ she said, ‘ I never met them.’

  ‘Will they still be at the transit site?’ Ramsay asked quietly.

  Sean shook his head sadly. ‘They were moving on yesterday. They dropped me off on the way.’

  ‘What vehicle were they driving?’

  ‘A blue Transit.’

  ‘Registration number?’

  ‘How would I know?’ He was starting to get rattled.

  ‘I don’t suppose you know where they were going either?’ Hunter said.

  ‘No. They didn’t say.’

  He stared ahead with his blank eyes.

  Ramsay was intrigued by the midnight wanderings and would have liked to ask more, but knew this wasn’t the time. He turned his attention to Lily.

  ‘Did you go out on Saturday night?’

  ‘No,’ she said angrily. ‘I was too bloody tired after a day at work.’

  ‘Did you hear the Land-Rover return?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I was surprised because he came back earlier than I’d expected. Tennish. Before the pubs had closed anyway.’

  ‘Did Mr Bowles have anyone with him?’ Ramsay asked. ‘ Perhaps you heard voices.’

  She shook her head. ‘But that doesn’t mean that he didn’t bring someone back with him. You can hear the Land-Rover a mile away – I think the exhaust must have gone. I’m sure I’d not have heard people talking in the yard. The windows were closed and I was listening to the radio.’

  ‘Had you talked to Mr Bowles earlier in the day? Did he mention where he might be going?’

  ‘No. Like I said, recently we’ve tried to keep out of his way.’

  ‘And neither of you saw him at all yesterday?’

  They shook their heads.

  ‘Didn’t that strike you as odd?’

  ‘No,’ Lily said dismissively. ‘He was a heavy drinker. I suppose I thought he was sleeping off the effects of the night before. That wouldn’t have been unusual. When Cissie was alive she used to drag him off to the chapel but I don’t think he’s been near the place since her funeral.’

  ‘Were there any visitors to the farm?’

  ‘I didn’t see anyone but I was out all afternoon.’

  ‘How did you spend Sunday?’

  ‘We walked into Mittingford to have lunch with friends. The Abbots. They work at the Old Chapel too. And to use their shower. You need friends when you live like this.’

  ‘Did you both go?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said with irritation. ‘You can check if you like.’

  ‘Oh yes, Ms Jackman,’ Ramsay said, ‘you can be sure that we will.’

  Chapter Six

  They were at Laverock Farm until mid-afternoon, mostly hanging about, waiting for the experts to finish, for reinforcements from the Otterbridge team. Then Ramsay sent Hunter back to Mittingford to supervise the setting up of the incident room. Hunter, at least, knew how he liked things.

  ‘I’ll go to talk to the neighbour,’ Ramsay said. ‘Richardson. The one whose lad had a go at Ernie Bowles in the pub. We’ll need someone to manage the livestock until a sale can be arranged. Besides, I’m interested to meet the boy.’

  Hunter nodded but he thought Ramsay was wasting his time. He had Sean Slater down for the murder. There was something odd about him; the glazed expression, the way he looked at the girl, the improbable alibi. He was on the point of betting Ramsay a tenner that they’d have Slater for it in the end, but thought better of it. You could never tell how he’d take things like that.

  The Richardson farm straddled the lane, with the house on one side, a large open barn on the other and lots of mud on the road between. To the south of the house the land fell away to low fields and a bum. Beyond that there was hill and heather moorland. Next to the barn a row of outhouses had been converted into neat cottages, each with its own small front garden. In one a middle-aged couple were sitting, eating a late picnic lunch, drinking red wine. They took no notice of Ramsay.

  The farmhouse was in full sunlight. The door was wide open. Ramsay knocked and when there was no reply called in. A woman hurried out of one of the inside doors and into the hall. She was perhaps fifty, smartly dressed in a rather unconventional way with a brightly striped loose-weave skirt and jacket. She collected items as she moved – a large handbag retrieved from the bottom of the stairs was slung across her shoulder and shoes were stepped into, almost without stopping. She gave the impression of relentless energy and enthusiasm. She had not been aware of Ramsay’s presence and when she saw him she stopped briefly in her tracks.

  ‘You’ll want my husband,’ she said breathlessly, assuming, he supposed, that he was a vet or a food rep. ‘Round the back in the kitchen. If you’re quick you might even get a cup of tea.’

  And she was gone. He stood on the step and watched while she got into her new Fiesta and drove away.

  He walked around the outside of the house. The windows were low and he could see into a large living room with a chintz sofa and chairs, a grand piano. It was very different from Laverock Farm. The kitchen door was at the side of the house, slightly open. There were two pairs of wellingtons on the s
tep and inside people were talking. He tapped on the door.

  ‘Yes?’ said an impatient voice, with a strong local accent. ‘ What is it?’

  Ramsay pushed open the door.

  The speaker was a squat bull terrier of a man with wild grey hair and bushy eyebrows. He sat in a wicker basket chair cupping a mug of tea in his hand. As he moved the wicker creaked A younger man stood by the table leaning against it. The kitchen looked as if it had come out of a magazine for townies aspiring to country living. The red quarry tile floor matched the red Aga. There were earthenware crocks, gleaming pans, drying herbs. The men in their stockinged feet and overalls seemed strangely out of place.

  ‘Mr Richardson?’ Ramsay said.

  The older man stood up and looked at him. ‘Aye. And who the hell are you?’ It was, Ramsay felt, his standard greeting. He introduced himself.

  ‘You’ll be here about Ernie Bowles. You’d best come in then.’

  ‘You know about Mr Bowles?’

  ‘You don’t think you could keep a thing like that quiet. Your chaps turned away the post van this morning and the postman came straight on here. It’ll be all over the county by now.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ramsay said. ‘I suppose it will.’

  ‘How can I help you then?’

  ‘I’m worried about Bowles’s stock,’ Ramsay said.

  ‘I don’t know why. He never bothered much.’

  ‘Someone needs to look after things. I was wondering if you could come to an arrangement with his solicitor. It shouldn’t take me long to find out who that is.’

  ‘No need for that,’ Richardson said. ‘It’s Johnny Wright in Mittingford. I should know. I’ve had enough solicitor’s letters from him.’ He paused. ‘You can leave it to me. I’ll keep an eye on things until the place goes up for sale.’ And it occurred to Ramsay that Richardson had already thought things through, that he was considering Laverock Farm for himself. And then, sensing the younger man’s interest, he thought: No, he intends buying it for his son.

  ‘What were the solicitor’s letters about?’ Ramsay asked.

  ‘Planning matters,’ Richardson said shortly.

  ‘What sort of planning matters?’

  ‘We were trying to make a living,’ Richardson said. ‘ Not easy for farmers at the moment.’