Murder in My Backyard

by Cleeves, Ann

  It took her a while to realise that there was a woman in the churchyard, walking backwards and forwards along the path from the green to the small wrought-iron gate in the wall that marked the boundary with the Tower garden. Stella saw the woman first in a brief flash of moonlight, a small figure, half hidden by the gravestones, with long hair that streamed behind her in the wind. She saw her again when the woman paused under the street light, but she was then too far away for her to see the details of her face or her clothes, though something about the way she stood and walked seemed familiar. The church clock struck ten and the woman looked up at it, as if she could hardly believe the time. Then she moved away from the light to begin pacing once again up and down the path between the Tower and the green. Stella could not see her clearly after that but was aware of a movement in the moonlight, a shadow blown, it seemed, by the breeze between the white marble stones.

  When James came to find her, Stella did not mention the figure. Perhaps she thought he would think it one of her old hallucinations and would return to the subject of hospital and the need for proper treatment. Perhaps Stella hoped to save the fact of the woman until she really needed it, until she was in a situation when she needed them all to take notice of her, like money saved for a rainy day.

  “What are you still doing here?” he asked gently when he came into the room. “The others are wondering where you are.”

  She got up quickly and moved away from the window.

  “It was all that fighting,” she said. “ It upset me. You know I shouldn’t be upset.”

  “Yes,” he said. “ I know.” He put his arm around her and led her out of the room and held her tight as they walked down the stairs. But as they approached the living room, it was clear that Alice was involved in an argument again.

  “I must talk to him,” she was saying. “I won’t sleep until I’ve talked to him.” She was wearing a parka with a furlined hood, one of the sort that boys of eight or nine wear, and was pulling a pair of Wellingtons over the purple flares.

  “But it’s late,” Judy said. “ Why don’t you wait until morning? Or phone him, if you want to talk to him now.”

  “It’s all so simple,” Alice said. “It came to me when I was talking to Max. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. It’s obvious I’ll have to buy back the land.”

  “What are you doing, Aunt Alice?” James asked. He stood just inside the room, his arm still around Stella’s shoulders, blocking the door.

  “She’s going to see Henshaw,” Judy said helplessly, “ to persuade him to sell her the land.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” James said. “ He’s spent thousands drawing up the plans. He’ll not sell it back to you now.”

  Alice sat on the carpet, so she could pull more effectively on the Wellingtons. She looked up at James.

  “That depends,” she said, “what I offer to pay for it.”

  “At least let me come with you,” James said. “I don’t like the idea of your being out there on your own.”

  “I don’t need a bodyguard,” she said. “ Not yet.” She stood up and waited for James to move away from the door. “Don’t stay up for me. This may take some time.”

  She went out into the garden, slamming the front door behind her.

  Judy made more coffee and they sat in the small, square sitting room until the fire died to embers. There was some talk of going out to meet Alice to make sure that she got safely home, but they decided she was a grown woman who knew her own mind and they drifted eventually to bed.

  Peter woke soon after it got light, while his parents and the twins were still asleep. He dressed quickly and quietly, then ran downstairs to the kitchen, where he expected to find his great-aunt. Aunt Alice seemed to need no sleep at all, his parents always said. She was always last to bed after a party and first up the next morning. She had the constitution of an ox. Usually, early in the morning, Peter would find her in the kitchen, sitting on the wooden rocking chair next to the Rayburn, wearing the old lab coat she used as a dressing gown, a cat on each knee. But today the kitchen was empty and the cats came up to him, rubbing against his legs, hoping for food. Peter felt the disappointment of the night before. Aunt Alice had let him down again. He liked the morning ritual at Brinkbonnie. His aunt would make tea in a brown earthenware pot and set out the cups on a tray—for her, a wide, shallow one, the size of a soup bowl, and for him, a small yellow one with poppies on the rim. Then they would drink the tea, eat digestive biscuits, and plan the day’s events.

  There was a tap on the kitchen door and he thought for a moment that it would be Aunt Alice. But what would she be doing outside? There was another knock, this time louder and more impatient. Peter went to open the door and was surprised when it was unlocked. Usually when his aunt let him out into the garden in the morning, she took a big brass key from a hook by the door to open it. Olive Kerr stood outside, stamping her feet with cold and anger at being kept waiting. She was a large-boned, aggressive woman. She ignored Peter and swept past him. Soon after there was the sound of the Hoover in the dining room.

  The boy stood uncertainly in the kitchen, trapped by Mrs. Kerr’s activity. He was frightened of her. She had a haughty, imperious manner, and reminded him of his headmistress. She returned to the kitchen to fetch polish and dusters and he slipped hurriedly outside into the garden.

  It was a cold, raw day and he wished he had waited to put on a coat. The wind blew a smell of salt and seaweed. In the kitchen he heard his father shouting that it was cold because some fool had left the door open, but Peter took no notice. He was even less eager to see his father than to see Mrs. Kerr. He wished he knew where his aunt was.

  He zigzagged, the wind blowing him towards the churchyard wall. In the corner there was a swing, which his great-uncle had tied to one of the heftier trees when Carolyn was still a toddler. The ropes creaked as he sat on the wooden seat and moved himself forward. With every swing he kicked a pile of leaves swept up in the autumn so that the wind picked them up and scattered them away in a brown whirlwind across the garden.

  At that moment his father came to the kitchen door and shouted to him. “Peter!” He sounded resigned rather than angry. “What are you doing out there? What will your mother say? You must be freezing. Have you seen Aunt Alice?”

  Peter did not answer immediately. He had seen, under the pile of leaves, a black Wellington and a piece of purple fabric. He jumped from the swing and ran towards his father, chasing and stumbling towards the house, crying.

  Max took over then. He sent Peter indoors and went to look under the leaves himself. It was only later that Peter was told by his mother that Alice was dead.

  Chapter Four

  As Ramsay drove into the village he saw a poster advertising the meeting to protest against the proposed housing development on the Tower field. How would I feel, he wondered, if the developer at Heppleburn decided to put up a new housing estate behind my cottage? He answered the question immediately. Murderous, he thought. I’d feel murderous.

  When he drove between the high walls towards the Tower, the drive was crowded with familiar cars, and in a huddle in the corner of the garden, hands deep in Barbour jacket pockets so that they might have been landowners preparing for a day’s shooting, were his superiors, who waited uneasily for him to take over the investigation. It was always the same. Formality dictated that they had to be there, but they would take little active part in the investigation and they preferred not to interfere. Then they could claim not to be responsible for any mistake. When Ramsay got out of the car and approached them, he felt they were more anxious than usual. The body was still there, wet, half covered with leaves. He bent and looked carefully for a moment. The woman was lying facedown on the grass. The wound was in her back and her clothes were soaked with blood.

  “She was stabbed,” he said, almost to himself. “And only once. The murderer was either very confident or he knew what he was doing.” He stood up and turned away to face the group who
watched him.

  “Who is it?” he asked.

  The superintendent, young, able, lazy, who had recently returned from an exchange visit to Colorado, answered indirectly.

  “Steve,” he said. “We might have a difficult one here.”

  “Why? Who is it?”

  “Her name’s Alice Parry. Does that mean anything to you?”

  Ramsay shook his head.

  “She’s a magistrate and a well-known lady. Her nephew’s James Laidlaw, editor of the Otterbridge Express.”

  “Yes,” Ramsay said. “I know James Laidlaw. Does that matter?”

  “Steve! Does it matter? Remember Heppleburn. We need the press on our side.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Of course.”

  This is all I need, he thought. The press will be here, watching every move we make.

  “Has the murder weapon been found?” he asked.

  “No, and we’ve no information yet on what we’re looking for.”

  Then the superintendent went away, telling Ramsay to be careful, that he would deal with all press enquiries, and Ramsay was left alone with the smell of ivy and wet leaves.

  By then it was eleven o’clock and the congregation for parish communion were coming out of the church. The vicar, his cassock billowing about him in the breeze, stood at the door to greet his parishioners. There had been a christening and the mother stood proudly, holding the baby in its long robe while admiring friends took photographs. Then there was the giving of the amice—the coal, bread, salt, and money wrapped up in a napkin that in Northumberland churches is given to the first child the baby meets—and more photographs. Ramsay wished they would all go, but some of the congregation must have heard about the murder because they came up to the wrought-iron gate and stared at the policeman searching the garden.

  He found his sergeant, Gordon Hunter, in the kitchen talking to Olive Kerr.

  “Sorry to call you out,” Hunter said cheerfully. “How are you settling in?”

  Ramsay said nothing. He disapproved of Hunter’s easy familiarity. Perhaps it had been a mistake after all to invite him into his home. A murder enquiry needed tact and gravity. Yet he noticed that even the straight-backed, straitlaced woman was responding to the sergeant’s attention. Hunter would be making her feel special, playing the part of the attractive, rather wayward son who needed looking after. Soon she would be making him tea and telling him to wrap up warm before he went out because the wind was cold. Hunter whispered something to Olive, which made her smile, then stood up.

  “We need screens,” Ramsay said. “ There are already people in the churchyard staring. They can’t see the body from there, but it’ll not be long before we have the press in the garden.”

  “The press is here already,” Hunter said. “ In the house. One of Mrs. Parry’s nephews is the editor of the Otterbridge Express.”

  “I know,” Ramsay said. He was already feeling depressed. “Tell me who else is here.”

  “Laidlaw’s wife, Stella, and their daughter, Carolyn, and his brother and his family. They’re all in here.”

  Hunter led him through the hall to the warm square room where the family had waited the night before for Alice’s return. As soon as he saw them all, Ramsay knew that these were Diana’s sort of people and the thought triggered a profound unease and an excitement. They could easily have been friends of Diana’s, invited to her dinner parties, sharing evenings at the theatre, meals in dimly lit foreign restaurants. He recognised the style. Although the women wore jeans and hand-knitted sweaters, their wardrobes were probably full of clothes that Diana might have chosen to wear. It had always surprised him that Diana would admit quite happily to having found a bargain in a charity shop or at a jumble sale—“ a real silk shirt and only five pounds”—but refuse to go near the cut-price chain stores in the high street where his mother always shopped. It always seemed to him a strange sort of snobbishness, though Diana always said he had no taste and could not possibly understand. Throughout the interview with the Laidlaws he felt that, with Diana’s arrogance, they were saying the same thing. You’re different from us, they implied. You’re from a different background. How can you possibly understand?

  Yet he felt from the beginning that because they were Diana’s sort of people, he did understand them. It was his secret weapon, that understanding. They would always underestimate him.

  He stood just inside the door and looked around the room. James Laidlaw sat on a worn leather Chesterfield reading an old copy of the Times. He recognised Ramsay and stood up.

  “Inspector,” he said smoothly, “ I’m glad it’s you. It’s always easier to work with a person one knows.”

  Ramsay nodded but said nothing. There seemed to have been no collective support or sympathy, no communication between them even. Max Laidlaw was sprawled on the floor. He was tall like his brother but younger, good-looking in a dark Celtic way. He seemed too inexperienced, Ramsay thought, to be a doctor. It was hard to imagine him taking responsibility. He was too careless of other people, too self-absorbed. He took no notice of Ramsay.

  It was the women who held Ramsay’s attention. Their sophistication stirred memories that disturbed him. A fair, fine-boned woman sat on a small chair close to the fire smoking a cigarette. Her wrists were so thin and long that it seemed as if they would snap as she moved the cigarette to her mouth. She wore a white mohair sweater with a huge collar, and in contrast her eyes were very dark. She was so pale that he wondered if she were ill or had taken some medication. He had seen addicts with the same drawn pallor. But perhaps she was only scared, he thought, moved by her beauty. James Laidlaw saw Ramsay looking at the woman and introduced him.

  “This is Stella,” he said. “My wife.” With the few words he gave the impression of great pride.

  She turned towards Ramsay. Her neck was very long and the hair was tied back so tightly that her head seemed small. She smiled sadly. “ Good morning,” she said, and returned her gaze to the fire.

  The other woman was quite different in colouring and stature. She had a round face like a child’s and copper-coloured hair. He thought she would easily be raised to anger. When James introduced her as Judy Laidlaw, she did not speak but glared at him. Ramsay thought she was probably the sort of woman who disliked policemen as a matter of principle.

  At a coffee table away from the fire two children were making a jigsaw. They worked in silence, in a dreamlike absorption.

  “I’m sorry,” Ramsay said. “You’ll be upset. But you realise I’ll have to ask some questions.”

  “Of course,” James Laidlaw murmured. “Anything we can do to help.”

  Judy stood up and walked quickly to the playing children. “Carolyn,” she said quietly. “Would you mind taking Peter into your bedroom to finish the puzzle? We want to talk.”

  Ramsay thought for a moment that the girl would object or cause a scene. She turned towards her parents, who seemed not to notice that she was pleading to stay. Then, with an adult resignation, she picked up the jigsaw and left the room. Peter obediently followed her.

  Judy stared at Ramsay with a mixture of hostility and curiosity. “That is all right?” she said. “Peter found the body. He still seems terribly confused and I don’t want to make things worse.”

  “Of course,” Ramsay said. “ I’ll need to talk to him later, but it can wait.”

  He stood by the fireplace and looked at them, waiting for some response, for their questions. Judy was struck by his stillness. He must be very confident, she thought, to stand there quite immobile, watching us, waiting for someone to break the silence. For the first time she considered the police not as despicable but as frightening. Suddenly the silence was too much for her.

  “Max said Alice had been murdered,” she said. “ Is that true? I can’t believe it.”

  “Yes,” Ramsay said. “ Mrs. Parry was murdered. She was stabbed. It probably happened quite close to where Dr. Laidlaw found her. The murderer must have covered her body with the leaves.
He, or she, might have thought it would take longer for Mrs. Parry to be found. If Peter hadn’t gone to play on the swing, it would have taken several hours, I should guess.”

  “She?” Judy cried. “You don’t think a woman would do anything like that?”

  Ramsay looked at her seriously. “Why not?” he said. “ It wouldn’t have taken any great strength, you know. Especially if the murderer was known to Mrs. Parry.”

  He realised he was trying to shock them and checked himself. It was time, for the moment, to stick to fact. He directed his questions to Max.

  “When you found the body,” he said, “was the wrought-iron gate between the garden and the churchyard open or shut?”

  “Shut,” Max said. “ Definitely shut. When I saw that she was dead, I noticed the vicar coming from the green towards the church. I shouted to him for help, though I don’t know exactly what I expected him to do. It was so windy that he didn’t hear me. It was like one of those nightmares, you know, when you shout and no sound comes out. In the end I ran to fetch him. The catch on the gate is very stiff and it seemed to take hours to get it open. He didn’t realise that anything was wrong and just stood on the path smiling.”

  When Max stopped talking, there was another silence. Ramsay looked at them all again. They were shocked, of course, but still very self-composed. If anyone was lying, it would be hard to find out. Yet if anything the shut gate indicated that the murderer was a member of the household. Would someone who had just committed murder stop in his flight to fasten a difficult catch on the gate? Then he remembered Olive Kerr and made a mental note to ask which way she had come into the house.

  “Now,” Ramsay said. “ Tell me what you’re all doing here and what happened last night.”