Hunter was still in the Incident Room. His desire to get a search warrant for the Pastons’ house was stronger than his dislike of paperwork. He was going through the details of young people convicted of auto-crime, matching the descriptions with the visitors he had seen going to the house on the previous day. Besides, he wanted to be around if something exciting happened. Something like arson or riot. Hunter had a very low boredom threshold and he was prepared to sacrifice a night out with the lads for a chance like that.
‘Can you do something for me?’ Ramsay said. ‘Find out if a Volkswagen Polo was reported stolen in the last few days. Red. J Reg. I haven’t got the number.’
‘Is it relevant to the murders?’
‘Probably not.’
He went to his office, watched the rain on the window and brooded. Hunter knocked on the door.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No car of that description’s been reported stolen.’
So, Ramsay thought. Evan was right. He had no evidence against John. That did not mean of course that the car had not been stolen. It could have been replaced in the street without the owner realizing it had gone. The record of the theft could be lost, the owner away on holiday. But it meant they could take no further action. At least until after the weekend. It meant that he could go home and get quietly drunk.
Hunter was on his way out of the office when he stopped. ‘I forgot to tell you,’ he said. ‘You had a phone call when you were out. From Joe Fenwick, that security man at the Arts Centre. He wants to talk to you. I offered to go but I wouldn’t do apparently. He said he’d be at home at his flat in Anchor Street. I told him you’d probably not get to see him tonight but he said he’d wait in anyway.’
‘I think I’d better go,’ Ramsay said. He liked Fenwick. He didn’t want him to wait in all evening hoping for a visit. Hunter shrugged and went back to the control room, to listen for news coming in from the town.
Ramsay put on the overcoat, which was still wet, and went out. The streets were quiet but it was early, not nine o’clock, and any troublemakers would need a few pints inside them before facing the rain.
So, instead of getting drunk at home, he found himself sitting in the steaming basement flat in Anchor Street, listening to Joe’s stories of his life in the ring. They drank whisky together and Ramsay made no attempt to hurry the old man. He realized it wouldn’t come easy to him to tell tales. When he left the flat at eleven o’clock there was a fire on the horizon and all the cranes along the river stood out in silhouette against the flames.
Chapter Sixteen
The weekend passed in an uneasy peace. There were occasional disturbances which would probably have passed unnoticed if the situation had been less tense. The fire Ramsay had seen on Friday night was in a derelict warehouse close to the river. The arson looked dramatic but the damage was limited. It was rumoured that some lads from the Starling Farm had been paid by the owner to set the place alight. It was well insured and he was planning to redevelop the site with a retail park.
On Saturday afternoon Newcastle United lost 3-1 to Bristol Rovers at St James’s Park after a scrappy and uninspired game. The fans were frustrated and angry and there were scuffles at the metro station as they left. The only casualty was a student from the West Country who was jostled and lost his footing when a group of supporters heard his accent. He had not even attended the match and his injuries were superficial. The incident would have been ignored during a normal weekend but the police moved in quickly to break up the crowd and move the boy to safety.
On Sunday, in the early evening, the joy riders returned to the Starling Farm. There was more racing in the street and a spectacular show of hand-brake turns performed to the audience who had been charged a pound each for a grandstand view. The police waited for the crowd to disperse before moving in, thinking that there would be little resistance if the spectators had had their money’s worth. The episode ended in good humour and the policemen on the ground began to think that the worst of the tension was over.
Ramsay followed the developments at a distance. On Saturday morning he drove to Hallowgate police station and haunted the Incident Room, waiting for news. Still no witnesses had come forward to confirm that Gabriella Paston had actually arrived at Martin’s Dene, despite a piece in the Journal and on local television.
‘Sorry, sir,’ a young woman DC said. ‘It’s as if she disappeared.’
‘And Lynch’s car? The blue Volvo. Did anyone see that?’
The policewoman shrugged. One witness thinks she saw a blue saloon parked on the edge of the hill that day-at the layby where one of the footpaths begins.’ She tapped into the computer. ‘Her name’s Hilda Wilkinson. I’m not sure how reliable she’ll be. She’s an elderly lady who was walking her dog and she seems pretty absentminded. She can’t tell us the make of the vehicle, never mind the age or registration number.’
‘Go and talk to her again,’ Ramsay said. ‘ Why would she remember a car? She probably doesn’t drive and it would have no interest for her. But she might remember someone she met on the hill. If she’s a local she might know if it was a stranger. She might even have tried to engage them in conversation. Don’t put ideas into her head but if she comes up with a description like this let me know immediately…’ He spoke quickly and precisely and watched as the DC wrote in her notebook.
Ramsay went to the CID room and then to the canteen to look for Evan Powell. He needed to re-establish contact. There were still questions to be asked and after the conversation with Joe Fenwick the questions had become more urgent, but he was told by a colleague that Powell had taken the weekend off too. Ramsay tried to phone him at home several times but there was no reply. At lunch time he decided he might as well be at home.
He worked the afternoon in the garden, leaving the kitchen window open so he would hear the phone if it rang. The rain had stopped but the air was misty and damp. He raked dead leaves from the lawn and as he moved rhythmically across the grass the unformed ideas which had disturbed him throughout the investigation grew more substantial. The theory which had seemed possible the evening before now seemed probable, but he felt none of the satisfaction which usually marked the approaching end of the case. He thought he knew what happened but many of the details were still unclear and he took no pleasure in it.
By four o’clock all the light had gone and he went inside. He took a basket of laundry into the living room and ironed shirts as he watched the football results come through on the television. He had no interest in sport but still felt a tribal allegiance to the team his family had supported since he was a child and there was an irrational disappointment when he learned they had lost.
He wondered what his mother would think if she could see him. When Diana had divorced him Mrs Ramsay had wanted her son to move back home so she could care for him properly. His room was still ready for him. She thought it inconceivable that a man could fend for himself. He couldn’t tell her that Diana had never ironed a shirt in their married life, that he had usually been the one to cook, that he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. When he had moved to the cottage in Heppleburn, without actually lying he allowed his mother to gain the impression that he employed a woman from the village to help in the house. At least that had put a stop to the phone calls inviting him for meals and the requests for bags of dirty washing. He enjoyed living on his own and he told himself it would be impossible for him to adjust now to anything different. But the evening seemed long and he felt that something was missing.
On Sunday morning he woke early and phoned the police station, where the DC who had taken the first statement from Hilda Wilkinson was still on duty.