by Ann Cleeves
‘And did you? Tittle-tattle?’
‘I didn’t start the gossip,’ she said defensively. ‘Mr Taverner was there on the day. Kath went up to clean. And then Bernard made it worse.’
‘Bernard? What would he know about what was going on at the Coastguard House?’
‘He went up there one evening to talk about his magic act. Mrs Coulthard wanted an entertainer for her kiddies’ party. You know about that. He found them together then.’
‘And he came home and talked about it?’
She nodded.
‘What about you? Did you talk about Mr Taverner and Mrs Coulthard to Bernard and Kathleen?’
‘They asked what was going on. I said Mr Taverner was around a lot, especially when Mr Coulthard was working late. But I didn’t accuse him of anything.’
‘And that was enough for Mrs Howe to write a letter like this?’ Hunter demanded.
‘You didn’t know her. Mr Taverner was a teacher, wasn’t he? One of Marilyn’s teachers. She couldn’t have had her darling Marilyn corrupted. Besides, when she got suspicious I expect she kept an eye on the place, looked out for his car. I wouldn’t have put it past her. It certainly wouldn’t have occurred to her that it wasn’t any of her business.’ She looked at them, trying to make them understand. ‘She was like that. She thought she had a right to interfere.’
‘Do you know if she ever sent this letter?’
‘Never got the chance to ask her, did I? I came home at lunchtime especially to have a word, to tell her to keep her nose out, but she wasn’t there. And I never saw her again.’
‘And what’s your feeling?’ Hunter leant forward so that their heads were almost touching over the coffee table. ‘Were they having an affair? You’d know, if anyone would.’
‘Well, I never caught them in bed together if that’s what you mean.’
‘We’re not talking about evidence,’ Ramsay said patiently. ‘As Gordon says, it’s your feeling we’re interested in.’
‘I’d say they were very close. The way they spoke to each other, laughed. As if they shared a joke which no one else could understand. A sort of… intimacy.’
‘I see,’ Ramsay said. ‘And do you think Mr Taverner ever received this letter? Tell me, Claire. What’s your feeling on that?’
‘Put it this way. Since that party he’s never been near the house. Not to my knowledge.’
Chapter Twenty
‘What do you reckon, then?’
Hunter and Sal Wedderburn sat across the table from him waiting for an answer. Ramsay sipped from his pint. He suspected they had formed an uneasy alliance to push him into action. He had known they were plotting when they both asked, separately, if he fancied a pint after work. It was the day after their meeting with Claire Irvine.
Then Hunter had brought them to this place. An old man’s pub sinking into bankruptcy, as the customers who came to huddle over their dominoes died off one by one and the landlady drank away the profits. Not a place Hunter would choose for a social evening but somewhere he knew they would not be overheard.
‘Well?’ Hunter demanded. Sally, who was brighter than he was, had let him be spokesperson. ‘What do we do now? Confront Taverner with the letter?’
‘Not until we understand more about it.’
‘What else is there to know?’
‘The identity of the person referred to.’
‘Christ man, we know that already.’
‘No,’ Ramsay said calmly. ‘We know who Claire Irvine believes it refers to, but we can’t be certain, can we? Mrs Coulthard isn’t mentioned by name.’
‘So who else could it be?’
Before they could answer, the door swung open and a tiny old lady came in. She scuttled across the stone floor and hoisted herself on to a bar stool with the agility of a child.
‘Bottle of Mackeson please, pet,’ she said to the landlady who was obviously an old friend.
‘Sorry, Kitty hinnie. You won’t believe it but the brewery’s on strike. They didn’t deliver.’ No one did believe it. The days of brewery strikes were over. The landlady opened the till with a clatter and took out a five-pound note. She waved it towards the youngest of the domino players.
‘Nip over to the supermarket, Doug, and fetch Kitty a couple of bottles of Mackeson.’
The man went out and the room returned to silence. Hunter’s question still hung in the air. He looked at each of them then answered it himself.
‘What about Kim Houghton, the single mam at number six? You saw the inside of her house. She didn’t furnish that on Income Support and the whole neighbourhood knows she takes strange men back there. She’s classy. I bet she doesn’t come cheap. Mark Taverner could be one of her regular callers. Kath Howe might have seen him go in. Like Claire said, she’d probably have recognized his car.’
‘Hardly worth killing for, though, is it?’ Sal Wedderburn objected.
‘What do you mean?’ Hunter turned on her. Any understanding between them had disappeared.
‘Well, he’s free, a widower. She’s divorced. Who could object to them spending the night together? Even on a regular basis and even if he slipped her a few quid to buy her fancy curtains. Kath Howe might not have liked it but even if she’d informed the school, who would care?’
Ramsay thought that Taverner would care. He was a fastidious man, a churchgoer, head of religious education at the high school. News that he had paid a prostitute would be more than an embarrassment. The school with its pretensions to traditional values wouldn’t like it much either.
‘I’m sorry,’ Sal Wedderburn was continuing, ‘I just don’t see it as sufficient motive for murder.’
‘But if he was having it off with Emma Coulthard, and Mrs Howe threatened to make the affair public, you think it would?’ Hunter demanded. ‘Be a good enough motive for murder, I mean. Just because the woman’s married?’
‘No,’ Ramsay said. ‘Not just because Emma’s married. But because she’s married to Taverner’s friend, probably his only friend. If that is how it happened.’
Sally, twisting the glass in her fingers, hardly seemed to be listening.
‘You don’t think…’ she said, then thought better of it and stopped.
‘Yes?’
‘Look, this is probably really dumb but it’s just occurred to me. The letter doesn’t actually say that the person Mark Taverner was having a relationship with was a woman, does it?’
They looked at her.
‘Brian Coulthard?’ Hunter asked. ‘Na! He’s not the type.’ But she heard, with satisfaction, some uncertainty in his voice.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘ It was just an idea.’
‘Yes.’ Ramsay seemed lost in thought. ‘It certainly is an idea.’
‘What now, then?’ Hunter demanded. ‘Where do we go from here?’
‘I could have a word with Emma if you like,’ Sally offered eagerly, as if she were doing them a favour but kidding neither of them for a minute. Hunter glowered at her.
‘I mean she might confide in a woman. If she’s been having an affair with Taverner and suspects him of murder she’d be under a terrible strain.’
‘And you think she’d talk to you?’ Hunter said scathingly. ‘She doesn’t even know you.’
‘Why not? She’s hardly going to talk to her husband.’
‘It would be a tricky interview,’ Ramsay said. ‘ I don’t want either of them to know about the letter. Not at this stage.’
‘I don’t mind having a go.’
‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘All right.’
‘What about me?’ Hunter’s voice was so loud that the old men looked up from their dominoes.
‘Could you talk to Kim Houghton? See if she knows Taverner.’
‘I’ll speak to her tomorrow.’
‘I’m still very keen to trace the driver of the Mazda.’
‘I’ve spoken to every Mazda dealer in the country.’
‘We’d best try another tack, then. Weren’t we talki
ng about doing a check on the pubs and clubs in Whitley? Do you think you can handle that?’
‘Oh aye.’ Hunter studied his beer. ‘I think I can handle that.’
Sally got to the Coastguard House early. There’d been a heavy frost but now the Headland was in bright sunshine. She parked on the track and pushed open the heavy wooden gates into the garden. It was the first time she’d been inside the walls. She hadn’t realized the house was quite so smart. There was new growth on the spindly trees along the border wall, snowdrops and aconites bloomed in the sheltered borders.
Very nice, she thought. Like something out of the home and garden magazine her mother read. She looked forward to see inside the house.
But when she knocked at the door Claire answered.
‘Oh,’ Claire said. ‘It’s you.’
‘I was hoping to speak to Mrs Coulthard.’
‘She’s not here. She’s gone for a walk, said she needed some fresh air.’ Claire sniffed. In the background Sally heard a child’s voice. ‘She doesn’t seem to be able to settle to anything these days.’
‘Where did she go?’
‘Just out on the Headland. She’ll not have gone far. Owen goes to playgroup this morning.’
Sally saw Emma silhouetted against the sun almost at the edge of the cliff. She was carrying the baby in a sling against her stomach and had buttoned her long black coat around the child, so Sally thought for a moment that she was pregnant again, and felt a stab of disgust. Three kids were enough for anyone. She realized almost immediately that, it was impossible for Emma to be so pregnant so soon and when she got closer she saw the baby, its head lolling uncomfortably to one side, fast asleep.
‘Mrs Coulthard. Could I have a word?’ She didn’t introduce herself. Everyone on the Headland knew the team of detectives working on the Kath Howe murder.
‘I suppose so. I was just going to walk down to the jetty and back.’
She was still looking out to sea and Sally could study her face without appearing to be staring. She looked grey and tired. There were fine lines around her eyes and her hair could have done with a tint and a perm. Perhaps you’re letting yourself go, Sally thought, now your fancy man doesn’t visit any more.
‘I’ll come along with you, then,’ she said. ‘ We can talk as we go.’
They set off over the grass.
‘Well?’ Emma asked. ‘ What do you want?’ The ferocity of the question surprised Sally. She had planned the interview in advance. It had not been supposed to start like this.
‘Actually, I wanted a word about Mr Taverner.’
Emma stopped in her tracks. ‘Mark? Why?’
Sally hesitated. She could hardly say, ‘Well, I just wondered if you were having an affair with your husband’s best friend. Your nanny says you’re very chummy. You’ll feel a lot better if you tell me all about it.’ She saw now that wouldn’t work. The problem was that she had expected Emma Coulthard to be quite a different sort of woman. A housewife. Dull and downtrodden. Not sharp and assertive. She tried a different tack.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘In a murder investigation all sorts of details come out. Things which have no possible relevance to the case. Things which people would much rather we didn’t know about. In that situation we’re always very discreet.’
As Emma looked at her, Sally remembered Ramsay saying that she once held a very high-powered job in industry.
‘What exactly are you asking?’ Emma demanded.
‘If there’s anything you’d like to tell me about your relationship with Mr Taverner? Any information which you think you should pass on?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Emma said. ‘I really don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. Of course I’d help if I could. It’s in our interest to have the murderer caught. We live here, after all.’ She made a show of looking at her watch. ‘ I’m afraid I won ‘t have time to finish that walk. I’ll have to go straight back. My son starts playgroup at ten and I’ve promised to give someone a lift. Don’t hesitate to get in touch if there’s anything I can do to help.’
She swept away down the hill.
Sally Wedderburn was left standing on the cliff. She thought she must look like bloody Meryl Streep in The French Lieutenant’s Woman, then wondered how she was going to admit to Stephen Ramsay – and to Gordon Hunter – that she’d cocked up.
Chapter Twenty-One
It was Kim Houghton’s turn to help at playgroup. There was a rota and once a term you had to do your bit. Some of the mothers moaned about it but Kim didn’t mind. The woman who ran the group wasn’t much older than her and they always had a laugh.
Besides, she liked kids. In their place. She couldn’t have Kirsty messing about with sand and paint at home – there was the carpet to consider – but in the old church hall with its smell of mildew and decay that seemed to cling to the children even after they came home, she could be as mucky as she liked. Kim always made sure Kirsty was dressed in her oldest clothes on playgroup day.
At nine o’clock the phone rang. It was Emma Coulthard playing lady of the manor. She said she was just going for a walk but she’d be back for playgroup if Kim wanted a lift.
‘Great,’ Kim said. ‘But you don’t mind going a bit early, do you? I’m on duty.’
She could tell that Emma wasn’t too pleased about that, but she thought, sod it.
If Emma hadn’t phoned she’d have got a taxi. She couldn’t be faffing about on the bus and she was flush at the minute. She was even thinking of putting aside some money towards a holiday with the girls. They were talking about Corfu. She’d always fancied going there. She’d have to sort out something for Kirsty though. She loved Kirsty to bits, wouldn’t be without her, but she couldn’t have her in Corfu with the girls. It had crossed her mind that Claire might take her for a week. It wasn ‘t as if she was any trouble, and you could tell that Claire would want a child of her own one day the way she fussed over that baby at the Coastguard House. It would be good practice. Being a nanny was one thing. Looking after a bairn for twenty-four hours a day was quite another.
In the car Kim chatted to Emma about holidays but she hardly seemed to be listening.
Toffee-nosed cow, Kim thought.
The church hall was a barn-like stone building with high arched windows and a stage at one end. The heavy equipment was kept under the stage and it was still being set up when they arrived. Emma stayed to help because the playleader said she didn‘t want any children left until she could supervise them properly. She stopped in the middle of fixing the heavy wooden slide on to the climbing frame to explain.
‘Someone tried to snatch a laddie from a nursery in Otterbridge last week. The police think it was the same person who abducted that kid a month ago. You know, he was at a birthday in McDonald’s and he just disappeared. They found him wandering along the seafront at Whitley hours later. We’ve all been asked to take special care.’
Emma felt the room spin and shut her eyes tight. She couldn’t imagine the horror of what the mother had gone through, and still she felt faint.
When she looked again the playleader, red faced and muscular, was staggering across the room with a tray of sand. Emma followed her.
‘I could stay and help all morning if you like.’ She didn’t want to lose sight of either of the boys.
‘Don’t be daft!’ The woman was bringing up three on her own and didn’t have much patience for overanxious mums. ‘We’ll shut the door when everyone’s here and you know we never let them go until someone we recognize is here to collect them.’
The room was already starting to get noisy. Boys on trikes played bumper cars, taking advantage of the helpers’ lack of attention. Kirsty had found the dressing-up box and click-clacked over the wooden floor in oversized high-heeled shoes. Emma’s head throbbed. She wanted to get back to the Coastguard House and Helen.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘If you’re sure.’
Still she hung on until the children were sitting in a circle on the carpet a
nd they’d called the register. On her way out she made certain the door was firmly closed behind her.
It was near the end of the session when all the toys had been put away and they were singing ‘A Princess Lived in a Big High Tower’ that a girl saw the face at the window. The girl was Louise Armstrong who’d flounced off in a sulk because she hadn’t been chosen as the princess. They’d told her she didn’t have to play if she didn’t want to. They’d known she’d come round in the end.
When she screamed the playleader muttered unprofessionally under her breath about spoilt brats. The Armstrongs lived in one of the posh new houses on the edge of the village. She rounded on the girl.
‘What’s the matter now, Louise?’
Owen Coulthard, the handsome prince, stopped galloping round the circle, and looked.
‘There’s a man at the window,’ Louise said. ‘A monster. Or a vampire.’
Louise had older brothers and sisters and, despite her snobby parents, probably watched videos which weren’t good for her.
‘Don’t be silly, Louise. No one can get up there. It’s too high.’
Then the head appeared back at the grimy window. They all stared. The man gestured in a way which was vaguely menacing.
‘Carry on with the game,’ the playleader said grimly. Neither the children nor the adults took any notice. She strode to the door, threw it open and yelled, ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
He had been forced to climb on to an upturned bin to get to the window. He wobbled for a moment, recovered his poise and jumped down.
‘I tried knocking on the door,’ he said accusingly. ‘No one heard.’
‘We wouldn’t. We were busy. If you knocked we probably wouldn’t have heard.’
‘I’m looking for Kim Houghton.’
‘Now there’s a surprise.’ She spoke so quietly that only he could hear. More loudly she said, ‘She’s busy.’
He began to lose his temper. ‘So am I, lady. My name’s Hunter. I’m a detective. Mrs Houghton will tell you.’