“Was she on her own then?”
“Yes. Max and Judy arrived about half an hour later.”
“Did she mention a reporter who had come to do an interview about the meeting?”
“Mary Raven, you mean. I saw her. She was walking back towards the village. I don’t think Mrs. Parry would have said anything about her if I hadn’t asked who she was. She was quite cagey about her and what they’d been talking about. It wasn’t like her. She never usually minded publicity.”
“Did anyone else come to the house that evening? Apart from the Laidlaws.”
“I didn’t see anyone, but then I wouldn’t have done. I hardly moved from the sink. Mrs. Parry had used every pan in the kitchen and I wanted to leave the place straight before I went home.”
She looked at her watch. “ That beef’ll be burnt to a cinder,” she said. “You’ll have to let me go or we’ll have no lunch today.”
“Yes,” he said. “ I’ve nearly finished.” She stood up in an attempt to persuade him to go, but he remained where he was for a moment.
“Mrs. Kerr,” he said, “ why didn’t you have dinner with the family last night? Wasn’t it usual for you to join them?”
“Yes,” she said. “ I usually had dinner with them on St. David’s Day. Mrs. Parry always invited me. But I had my own problems and I wouldn’t have been very good company.”
Then Ramsay did stand up and say that he would not take up any more of her time. As he left the house he saw Tom Kerr at the end of the corridor, peering out of the shadows to be sure that he had gone.
Ramsay walked back to the Tower slowly, his hands in his pockets, taking in every detail of his surroundings. He might have been a tourist. At first there was no-one else about. Even the Castle Hotel seemed almost empty. Inside, he supposed, Olive Kerr’s daughter would be serving the customers who had no Sunday dinner to hurry home to. By the main gate into the churchyard was the bus shelter where Stella had seen the teenagers on the night of Alice Parry’s death, and Ramsay stood there for a moment to shelter from the wind. As he waited, unnoticed, two boys dressed in black leather walked past. They seemed young, all the teenage bravado driven out of them by the cold, and they were whispering together, more like gossiping girls than boys. As they walked past he heard one of them say with the extravagance of the young: “ If my dad finds out he’ll kill him.”
Then they were gone. Ramsay wondered if he should chase after them to find out if they had been in the bus shelter on the previous night, but he turned back towards the Tower. There was more to be done there and the boys would be easy enough to trace in a place the size of Brinkbonnie. He walked into the churchyard and followed the path Alice Parry would have used on the day of her death coming back from the village hall. Ramsay wished he had known her. He thought he would have liked her.
Olive Kerr lifted the heavy meat tray out of the oven and clucked over it before setting it on top of the cooker to keep warm. Tom had followed her back into the kitchen and stood, waiting for her to speak, prepared to offer any comfort or reassurance she needed. But when she turned to face him, she said nothing about Alice Parry.
“You shouldn’t blame Maggie about that business with Charlie Elliot,” she said. “ I’ve been thinking we haven’t been fair to her. It’s not her fault.”
“She could have stayed with her husband,” Tom said. “ That would have provided a stable home for her boys and saved us all a lot of trouble.”
“But she was unhappy!” Oliver Kerr said. “You could see how unhappy she was. And all those arguments weren’t doing the boys any good.”
“I know,” he said. “I know I’m hard on her.” He paused. “But don’t you realise that her separation started it all? Charlie Elliot told me that he would never have left the army if he hadn’t known she would be free. That’s the only reason he came home.”
“All the same,” she said. “You can’t blame her. She gave him no encouragement.”
“I can’t stand him hanging around the house,” he said suddenly. “I see enough of him at work. Whenever I go out, he’s there, waiting for her. If she wants nothing to do with him, she should tell him.”
“She has told him,” Olive Kerr shouted back. “ She was engaged to Charlie Elliot when they were both eighteen. She broke it off after three months and she hasn’t been interested in him since. She’s told him so a dozen times. It’s not her fault that the man’s as daft as a ship’s cat and won’t listen to her.”
“Then why doesn’t he leave her alone?”
“I don’t know,” Olive said. “ He’s stubborn, lonely. Perhaps he’s hoping that she’ll change her mind. But pestering her will do no good. She’s as stubborn as he is.”
“It’s not a joke anymore,” Tom Kerr said. “A couple of nights ago I couldn’t sleep. It was two o’clock in the morning. And he was still out there in the street staring up at her window.”
“Why don’t you talk to Fred?” she asked. “ Perhaps he’d speak to him.”
“No,” Tom Kerr said. “He takes no more notice of his father than he does of me.”
There was a silence. She took a heavy meat knife from a drawer and began to carve the beef.
“You know,” she said, “you could do something about it if you want to.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“If he had no work in Brinkbonnie, he’d have to leave. There’d be nothing to keep him here then.”
“I’ve no grounds for sacking him,” he said, shocked. “ He’s a good enough worker. What excuse could I use for sacking him? And you know why I took him on.”
“You don’t need an excuse,” she cried. “You’re the boss. Why should you feel guilty?”
But he shook his head. “No,” he said. “ I couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t be right.”
“He’s making your daughter’s life a misery,” she said. “ Is that right?”
He did not reply.
She clattered plates from the top of the oven onto the table and began to serve the meal.
“I’ll tell you something,” she said. “If you don’t sort out Charlie Elliot, Maggie will. And I’m frightened about what might happen. Alice Parry’s death has made terrible things seem possible.”
“You’re upset,” he said. He was relieved that she had returned to the subject of Alice Parry. He found that easier to deal with. “Of course you’re upset.”
She lost her grip on the knife she was holding and it slipped onto the table and then onto the floor, scratching a tile.
“Go and tell the boys to wash their hands,” she said. “Their dinner’s ready.”
He picked up the knife and went slowly out of the room.
Chapter Six
At the Tower the Laidlaws were preparing to leave for home. There was a pile of suitcases at the foot of the stairs. One of the twins was crying in a monotonous, exhausted way that seemed to get on all their nerves. Stella Laidlaw sat on the bottom step, clutching a fat handbag to her stomach, like a child with a favourite toy, only her eyes showing over the white collar of her sweater. Peter was asleep with his head on Carolyn’s knee, his face white and strained. They were waiting, it seemed, for Ramsay. Hunter had said that no-one could leave without his permission.
“We can’t face spending another night here,” James said. “I’m sure you can understand that, Inspector. The children need to be in their own homes.”
Ramsay looked at them. They were irritated by the delay but showed no other emotion. Do you really have no feelings? he thought. Or have you spent all your lives learning how not to express them? He raised no objections to their leaving. He was glad to see them go.
Hunter helped the Laidlaws to load the cars. He even stood awkwardly for a while with a baby in each arm. The wind was even colder, carrying flurries of snow, blowing scraps of garden waste across the lawn. As they watched, a square pink card flapped and lifted with the leaves then came to rest against the bumper of James’s car. Ramsay picked it up carefully by one corner and held it to show them. The card was damp and the corners of the letters were unstuck, but it was clearly Alice Parry’s anonymous letter.