Ramsay said nothing. He could have defended Evan Powell but he waited, encouraging Alma Paston to continue. He suspected that a police operation twelve years before could have little relevance to the murder of Gabriella Paston, knew that in listening without comment he was condoning the spread of damaging and malicious rumour, but he needed all the information the spiteful woman could give.
‘Our Robbie wasn’t a saint, Mr Ramsay,’ she said. ‘No one could call him a saint. Not even Ellen. He worked hard but he drank too much, stood up for himself if there was any bother. He had a house on the other side of the estate with Isabella and Gabby. Isabella was Spanish, temperamental. Sometimes they had rows. She wasn’t one for rowing quietly. It was all screams and throwing the furniture about. You’d think he was murdering her. Then the neighbours would call the police and our nice community policeman would come to sort it out.’ She paused, still smiling. ‘Mr Powell was a man of fixed ideas,’ she said. ‘ He got it into his head that Robbie was a villain!’ She paused again. ‘He thought he was battering Isabella!’
‘Well?’ Ramsay said. ‘ Was he?’
‘No more than she was battering him.’
‘What else was Robbie up to, then?’ Ramsay asked.
She moved her huge bulk in her chair and did not answer directly.
‘It was 1980,’ she said. ‘Not an easy time on Tyneside, Inspector. Men losing their jobs. Worse even than it is today. Robbie had a family to support. And he was wild. I admit that. He needed the excitement.’
‘So he stole cars,’ Ramsay said. ‘Is that it?’
She shrugged. ‘There’s no death penalty for stealing cars,’ she said.
‘You’d better tell me exactly what happened.’
‘We don’t know exactly what happened,’ she said sharply. ‘No one would tell us. There was a police operation, they said. Evan Powell was driving the car following Robbie. They knew who he was. They could have picked him up at any time but they followed him so hard that he drove into the back of a lorry.’ She squeezed tears from between the folds of flesh of her face. ‘The bairn was six years old,’ she said.
‘You don’t think this has anything to do with Gabby’s death?’ Ramsay said. ‘Not after all these years.’
‘I knew that he was there last night. At the Grace Darling,’ Alma said sharply. ‘Ellen saw him, didn’t you pet?’
Ellen, still standing by the door nodded. ‘He’s in the choral society,’ she said. ‘He came into the cafeteria after for a cup of tea.’
‘That’s hardly a good enough reason to suspect him of murder,’ Ramsay said lightly.
‘I’ve reason enough,’ Alma said. She lay back in her chair and slowly closed her eyes.
‘If you’ve any information,’ Ramsay said impatiently, ‘you should tell me.’ But Alma Paston gave no sign that she had heard him and remained with her eyes shut.
The door bell rang. Ellen stood uncertainly by the door and did not move. The bell rang again. Eventually Alma Paston opened her eyes.
‘Go on, then, pet,’ she said. ‘Let’s see who’s there.’
Still Ellen hesitated and looked at her mother as if questioning her judgement. Alma nodded encouragingly and Ellen lumbered slowly to the front door.
‘It’s Gary Barrass,’ she said cautiously.
‘H’way in Gary, hinnie,’ shouted Alma. ‘Don’t be shy.’
Ellen stood aside to let in a boy of indeterminate age. He was thin, with a grey unhealthy pallor. His hair was cropped short and Ramsay wondered if he had recently been released from some institution. Despite the cold he wore a short-sleeved cotton T-shirt. He shivered slightly and stared at Ramsay.
‘This is our Gary,’ Alma said to the Inspector. ‘My friend’s lad. He runs errands for us, don’t you pet? Helps us out in the garden.’
The boy, obviously confused, simply nodded. He looked at his hands. LOVE had been written in black ink on the knuckles of one hand and HATE on the other. His nails were split and bitten.
‘I don’t think we need anything today, pet,’ Alma Paston said. ‘But perhaps you could come back later.’ She winked at him.
‘What time?’ the boy said.
‘Oh,’ Alma said. ‘Any time.’ She laughed. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
The boy hovered. He shuffled from one foot to the other and seemed about to ask a question.
‘Off you go now,’ Alma said interrupting. ‘This is Inspector Ramsay from Northumbria Police. You don’t want to disturb him.’
And he disappeared before Ramsay could speak to him.
With his departure the atmosphere in the room changed. The women relaxed. Ramsay felt again that he had been outwitted in some way. The heat and Alma’s superficially jovial words had worn him down. He thought he would get no more from them now. He stood up and sensed Alma’s triumph.
‘Are you off now, Inspector?’ she said. ‘You’ll not mind if I don’t get up. Ellen’ll see you out.’
Ramsay stood in the doorway for a moment, enjoying the fresh air, reluctant still to go. He knew that the interview had been a failure. He wondered, as he always did at times like these, if Hunter could have done any better. But even Hunter would have found it hard to bully two ladies on their own. Perhaps he would have taken them at face value, commiserated with their loss, considered them characters in the great Tyneside tradition. What motive could they have for murdering the girl? The idea was ludicrous. But Ramsay was uncomfortable. As he hesitated on the step he heard a deep, uncontrollable chuckle from the depth of the house. Alma Paston was laughing. At a time of grief the noise was horrifying. Ramsay walked quickly to his car and drove away.
As he was approaching the main road which circled the estate Ramsay saw Gary Barrass, the boy who had come to the Pastons’ house supposedly to run errands. The idea of Gary as an angel of mercy was improbable and Ramsay was interested. The boy was standing on a corner outside a big gloomy pub called the Keel Row, which had been famous once for its Saturday night fights, but which now attracted so few customers that it had lost even that distinction. Gary seemed to be waiting for someone. He was dancing up and down with the cold and seemed pathetically young. When Ramsay slowed the car and drew up beside him he approached at first as if this might be the person he was waiting for, then he recognized Ramsay and he started to run.
Ramsay jumped out of the car and chased after him, wondering as he did so why he was bothering. Gary crossed the pub car park and scrambled over a wall. Ramsay, already out of breath, stood and watched as the boy scuttled down an alley behind a row of almost derelict houses. He knew it would be pointless to follow him now. He would have friends or relatives all over the estate prepared to hide him. Besides, he would be easy enough to trace. Ramsay wished, though, that he had had a chance to tell the boy that he only wanted to help.
Chapter Six
When John Powell got up his father had already left the house. John had had very little sleep and would have been late for college if his mother had not woken him. She came into his room, still in her dressing gown, bringing a mug of tea for each of them, then sat on his bed and tried to make him talk about Gabby.
‘I thought she was a special friend of yours,’ she said. ‘ She was in your English group at college, wasn’t she?’ She lit a cigarette and inhaled it deeply. She had taken to smoking when his father was out of the house.
‘She was just a friend,’ he said. She had woken him in the middle of a dream, in which he was Smollett the highwayman being chased by a gang of soldiers. He felt the light-headed exhilaration which comes from too little sleep. His mind was racing. He was surprised by his mother’s interest in the murder. His father had always protected her from the unpleasantness of his work.
‘But you knew her quite well,’ Jackie Powell persisted. ‘ I’ve seen you with her.’
John knew he would have to be careful. There was a rush of adrenalin and he found it almost impossible to lie still in bed. He breathed slowly, and reminded himself that if he was an actor this was just another performance.