Ramsay 06 - The Baby-Snatcher (23 page)

‘What would you have told us?’

‘Well, that Claire and I had become …’ He paused. ‘… friendly.’

Hunter walked away in apparent disgust. He stood with his back to the fire, his arms folded, watching.

‘Tell me,’ Ramsay said gently. ‘When did you and Claire start to become “friendly”?’

Bernard looked at him suspiciously. He, too, had changed from his work clothes. He was wearing olive green cords, worn thin at the knees and a Marks & Spencer’s patterned sweater in lilac and pink. A Christmas present, Ramsay supposed, from his mother. Claire would have had more taste and Kath would have considered it an extravagance.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Was it soon after Claire came to stay with you?’

‘She wasn’t under age!’ The panic had returned. ‘ She was seventeen.’

‘Didn’t it occur to you that you might be abusing a position of trust?’ Ramsay asked.

Of course it didn’t, he thought. That’s what the Minister’s wife said when you wandered off into the night with the little boy. Like the spoilt child you are you did just what you felt like. You didn’t consider the consequences at all.

‘Abuse never came into it,’ Bernard said. ‘ You ask Claire. We were happy together. That didn’t seem wrong.’

‘I don’t suppose that’s how Kath saw it.’

‘No,’ Bernard muttered. ‘ Kath didn’t understand. Not at first, anyway.’

‘How did she find out?’

‘It was September. Claire hadn’t started working for the Coulthards. She’d finished at the college but she couldn’t find a job so she was home a lot. My office works flexitime. If I do enough overtime I can have the occasional half-day off. We knew Kath was going to be out that afternoon. She was doing a course at the Open Door Learning Centre. Word processing. She thought she’d be able to help Marilyn with her school work. It was every Wednesday. But the tutor was ill so she came back early.’

‘She didn’t come home because she suspected you were being unfaithful?’

Bernard winced at the word, shook his head. ‘ No, she didn’t suspect anything. That might have been easier. It was the shock. That’s what floored her.’ He stared past Hunter. ‘You should have seen her face.’

‘What happened?’

‘She ran out into the street. It was getting dark. I heard a screech of brakes. Some fool driving too quickly up Cotter’s Row. I thought she’d killed herself. But she was only frightened.’

‘You went after her?’

‘Of course. I was worried. We both were.’

‘Were you?’ Ramsay’s voice remained polite but faintly sceptical.

‘Yes! We didn’t want to hurt her. That’s the last thing we would have wanted. That’s why we’d kept our friendship secret.’

‘Not because you were afraid Kath would want it to stop? That she’d cause a scene?’

‘Not exactly.’ He paused. ‘ When we’d made sure she hadn’t been run over we thought it would be better to give her some time alone. That was what she wanted. I was booked to do a magic show. I took Claire with me. I thought by the time I got back Kath would have calmed down.’

And none of you considered Marilyn, Ramsay thought, coming home and finding no one here.

‘Had she calmed down?’

‘In a way. It was horrible. She cried. I’d never seen her cry before. She wasn’t angry. She blamed herself. When we got in Marilyn was in bed and Kath was sitting in her chair in the kitchen with tears running down her cheeks. I’d have done anything to make her stop.’

‘So you and Claire promised to break off your relationship?’

‘No!’ He seemed astounded by the notion. ‘We couldn’t do that. We love each other.’

‘I don’t quite understand, then, what happened.’

‘When we’d had time to think about it we realized that nothing need happen. That things could go on just as before.’

That’s not how Marilyn tells it, Ramsay thought. She told Sal that Claire and Bernard stopped being ‘ friendly’ when her mother found out. Was she deluding herself? Or is Bernard lying again?

Bernard was continuing. ‘ Kath didn’t want to leave. We were quite happy for her to stay. If we were discreet there shouldn’t be any upset or disruption.’

Hunter couldn’t contain himself. ‘And she was ready to go along with that? To share your bed at night knowing you were screwing her little sister on your afternoons off.’

Bernard seemed horrified. He looked to Ramsay for support. No one had ever spoken to him like that before. Ramsay said nothing.

‘We worked things out in a civilized way,’ he said, very much on his dignity.

‘Wasn’t your wife jealous?’ Hunter demanded. When he went out with a lass he expected undivided attention. Any flirting or funny business and she’d be out on her ear.

There was a brief silence.

‘If she was, she was too proud to show it,’ Bernard said. ‘She was a little withdrawn for a while, but things soon settled back to normal. Kath was frightened of being on her own. That’s why she agreed to the arrangement.’ Deliberately ignoring Hunter he sat up straight and turned to Ramsay. ‘And that, Inspector Ramsay, is why I had no need to murder her.’

Claire sat very straight with her hands in her lap and her ankles crossed. Her dark hair was pulled away from her face. She wore no make-up. She hadn’t been given the opportunity to talk to Bernard about his interview but she didn’t seem curious. She waited for the questions like an earnest schoolgirl before an oral language exam.

Hunter had been sent into the back room to watch television with Bernard. It was Sally’s turn to sit in on the conversation. But it was Ramsay’s show. He was the examiner.

‘Let me take you back to the day your sister was killed,’ he said.

She said nothing. If there was any reaction it was a faint amusement.

‘You came home for lunch?’

‘Yes.’

‘And to see Mr Howe?’

She raised her thick, dark eyebrows. ‘You know about Bernard and me,’ she said. ‘I suppose Marilyn told you. I thought she’d guessed more than she was letting on but Bernard couldn’t see it. It’s probably for the best. There was no need to drag us away from Kim’s, though. We’d have told you if you’d asked.’

‘That’s why you came home that lunchtime? You knew Marilyn would be out?

She nodded.

‘You must have thought Mrs Howe would be out too. That was part of the deal, I presume, that you’d wait until you had the house to yourselves before …’

‘Making love?’ she finished impassively. ‘Yes. There was no formal arrangement. No rules. But it wouldn’t have been kind, would it, to do that while Kath was in the house?’

‘Was it kind to have an affair with her husband?’

She didn’t answer but he didn’t think that the question had disturbed her. He left it and moved on.

‘What made you think Kath would be away from home that lunchtime?’

‘I thought she’d planned to go into Otterbridge with Marilyn on the bus.’

‘She told you that?’

For the first time Claire seemed unsure of herself. ‘ I don’t remember. I suppose she must have done. Otherwise I’d have stayed at the Coastguard House for lunch.’

They stared at each other, then Ramsay asked again, more slowly.

‘Well, was it kind to have an affair with your sister’s husband?’

She put one elbow on her knees and leant forward, eager to make him understand.

‘Kath was a strange woman, Inspector. She didn’t feel emotion. I don’t think she was upset even when our mother died…’

‘You were too young to remember that, surely?’

‘I remember that I was upset. And that Kath was never around to comfort me. There were no cuddles at bedtime. I don’t think she ever read me a story. As soon as she could she left to marry Bernard.’ She paused. ‘I don’t blame her. I don’t think she was capable of emotion.’

‘She cried when she found out about you and Bernard.’

‘Yes,’ Claire agreed. ‘But that was because her pride was hurt. She never loved Bernard. Not truly. Not like me.’

The self-justification, Ramsay thought, of mistresses everywhere.

‘Did she love Marilyn?’ he asked. ‘ I presume she cuddled Marilyn and read her bedtime stories?’

‘Oh yes,’ her voice remained light and cool but somewhere under the amusement he thought he detected a note of jealousy. ‘Kath surprised them all when the baby was born. For the first time in her life there was something she cared for. She wasn’t much good at the practical side. So clumsy apparently that they thought she might drop the baby. But there was plenty of affection. Perhaps too much.’ She stared up into Ramsay’s face. ‘It’s not the same, though, as love between adults.’

‘Is that really what you and Bernard have?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘When the relationship started you were seventeen. Only just an adult.’

‘Age has never mattered to us.’ She paused. ‘Bernie didn’t corrupt me if that’s what you’re saying.’

‘No. I’m sure he didn’t.’

From the room next door came a swelling soprano singing the backing to a deodorant advertisement.

‘What I don’t understand,’ Ramsay said, ‘is why Kath didn’t ask you to leave. You claim there was no great bond between you. And it’s not as if you would have been homeless. You were just about to start work for the Coulthards. It’s normal, isn’t it, for nannies to live in? They would have had the space to put you up.’

He paused, then continued as if the idea had just come to him. ‘Or perhaps she
did
ask you to leave, but not then. She waited until she was sure you were settled at the Coastguard House, and you had somewhere suitable to go. She would take her responsibility for you very seriously. I have the impression of a very principled woman. Is that why she didn’t throw you out immediately? I wonder if that’s what provoked her death. She couldn’t go along with the pretence any longer. She wanted you out.’

‘Kath never asked me to leave,’ Claire said grandly. ‘She knew that if I went, Bernard would come too.’

‘I wonder if you really believe that.’ Ramsay was apologetic. ‘It seems to me that Bernard is a man who likes his comfort. His routine. Kath might not have been a brilliant homemaker but she shopped and cooked and washed for him. She let him play with his magic tricks and his ventriloquist’s doll. She really didn’t make any demands. If he’d left the family he would still have been financially responsible for Marilyn and for Kath. There’d be your wages of course, but there wouldn’t have been much money for a decent home of your own. I’m not sure if Bernard would have enjoyed slumming it in a flat or a bedsit. Even with you. It’s not what he’s used to and he’s not a man, I’d say, who likes change.’

Claire said nothing and Ramsay went on. ‘ But let’s assume that you’re right. Let’s assume that Kath wouldn’t have thrown you out because she couldn’t risk his leaving too. That would make sense. Above all she wanted to make a stable home for Marilyn. Bernard would be a part of that. That alone would explain why she was prepared to tolerate the position …’

‘Quite,’ Claire said.

‘But I can envisage certain circumstances which she would never be prepared to tolerate.’

He looked at her as if expecting a response.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I don’t think, for example, she would put up with your living here if you were pregnant. You’re not pregnant, are you?’

‘No!’

‘Because if you were, Kath would find it impossible to pretend to herself that Bernard was just being kind to you, as substitute father. She would have to admit that the relationship was – how did you put it – a love between adults. And a new baby would be competition for Marilyn. It really wouldn’t work, would it?’

‘I’m not pregnant!’ The words came out as a scream.

‘No,’ Ramsay said. He was quiet and sympathetic. More like a doctor than a policeman, thought Sally, who was watching spellbound, all thought of the earlier criticism of her boss forgotten. ‘No, you’re not pregnant. But you’d like to be, Claire, wouldn’t you?’

Sally thought the girl was going to scream at him again, but she nodded silently. Sally wanted to go up to her and put her arm around her and tell her not to let Bernard bug her, because all men were bastards. Except Ramsay, who was a bloody genius. But Ramsay was going on, ignoring Claire’s obvious distress.

‘I’ve seen you with the Coulthard children,’ he said. ‘ But I suppose it’s not the same if they’re not your own.’

‘Bernard always said he didn’t want any more children.’ She gave a little smile. ‘He said it was the mess and the clutter he hated. Nappies in buckets. Spilled food all over the floor. But that was because Kath wasn’t very good at it. It doesn’t have to be like that.’ She looked down at her feet. ‘And that was probably an excuse. He knew Kath wouldn’t like it. He was afraid of her.’

‘Did you think you’d talk him into it? There’s plenty of time, after all. You’re very young.’

‘I wasn’t sure.’ She looked up bleakly. ‘He can be stubborn when he wants to be. And
he’s
not so young.’

‘But you thought that with Kath out of the way there’d be more chance he’d change his mind?’

She nodded enthusiastically and they realized again that she was hardly more than a child herself. ‘I thought he’d see how well I’m running the house. How cosy and cheerful everything is. And he’d see that if I can manage to hold everything together when I’m working, a baby wouldn’t need to get in the way.’

‘He didn’t see it like that though, did he, Claire? Bernard wants you all to himself. He doesn’t understand how important it is to you to have children. How can he?’

‘I tried to make him understand!’ she cried. ‘I arranged for us to be on our own this evening so we could discuss it, but he wouldn’t listen.’

‘What a terrible waste!’ Ramsay said. ‘After you’d made the plans. Bernard will never know what you went through, what courage it must have taken. You knew Kath didn’t go to Otterbridge. You said you needed to talk to her about Bernard and arranged to meet her at the jetty at lunchtime. No one could see you in all the sleet and the rain but still it must have taken some nerve. To stab her, push her into the water. Throw the knife after her then walk back to the house as if nothing had happened. Poor Claire. You killed your sister and it was all for nothing.’

But while he was speaking he knew it couldn’t have happened that way. Because at lunchtime the tide was out and he couldn’t believe a body could lie, unnoticed, on the shore all afternoon.