“Problems?” Ramsay asked when James returned to the room.
“Not really,” James said. “We printed an uncomplimentary story about a local businessman who’d been prosecuted by the health and safety executive. He wanted to complain. Said we were biased. It’s all nonsense, of course.”
“Do people often come to your house?”
“No,” James said shortly. “ It’s not something I encourage. It won’t happen again.”
They offered Ramsay another drink, but he refused and said he should go home. When he went outside, the air was milder and droplets of moisture hung in the air. All night there was the sound of melted snow dripping in the gutters, and in the morning the garden was green again and the sun was shining.
Chapter Thirteen
The car stolen by Charlie Elliot from Tom Kerr’s garage was found late on Monday evening in the car park of a Do-It-Yourself Superstore in the industrial estate just outside Otterbridge. No-one could remember how long it had been there. No-one had seen Charlie Elliot in the streets around the town, though a motorbike had been stolen from outside a house close to the estate and the police were working on the theory that he had taken it. His picture was on the front page of every local newspaper. The press had found an old army photograph with Charlie standing beside a friend, smiling, and because that did not look sufficiently sinister there was a police sketch, too, with staring eyes and stubble on his chin. It was evident from the pictures and from the tone of the newspapers’ reporting that Charlie Elliot was a murderer.
Ramsay was under increasing pressure to limit the scope of his investigation to the arrest of Charlie Elliot. Early on Tuesday morning the superintendent had Ramsay in his office.
“Look,” he said. “ Steve.”
Ramsay winced.
“I respect your integrity, but I think you’re being unnecessarily cautious here. We have motive. We have opportunity. The chap’s run away. That’s almost as good as a confession. We really can’t justify the time and cost of any wider investigation. It’s a matter of following up sightings until he’s caught. It’s all a question of publicity now. He’ll be miles away. You’re a good man. We must think about your career. After that unfortunate business at Heppleburn you should keep your head down for a while. Avoid controversy. Steve, I’m thinking of your future.”
“I don’t think he did it,” Ramsay said. “ I believed him. There was a woman in the churchyard.”
“Find me the woman and we might have a different situation.”
“Look,” Ramsay said. “I’m investigating a different angle on the development. Henshaw’s got no record, but apparently he’s been known to use violence to get what he wants. He’s not the respectable builder he likes to be thought of. I want to follow that up, too. But I need time. And men.”
“Steve. Leave it alone. I’m sorry. This is an order. It’s a matter of economics. If we had unlimited resources…”
“Two more days,” Ramsay said. “ Give me two more days. Me and Hunter.”
“You think you can wrap it up in two days?”
“I’ll have to,” Ramsay said. “Won’t I?”
The superintendent nodded.
In the Incident Room Hunter was on the telephone. Calls were coming in from all over the country. Elliot had been seen on a train between Cardiff and Swansea, hitching a lift down the M1, in a bus queue in south London.
“Fantasies!” Ramsay said, when Hunter showed him the reports. “Nothing worth bothering about there.”
He dialled Jack Robson’s home number, but though he let it ring there was no reply. The lack of response made him irrationally angry.
“Come on,” he said to Hunter. “ You can’t stay in here drinking tea all day. There’s too much work to do. We’re going to talk to Mary Raven.”
Mary Raven slept badly, and while it was still dark she got up and wandered about the flat drinking mug after mug of black coffee, trying to decide what she should do about Max. The sensible thing would be to stop the affair now. It had caused enough hurt. He had treated her abominably and had appeared at the flat the night before because he wanted reassurance and information. She was a fool to think he would leave his wife and his precious family for her. He did not care that much. Then the romantic excitement of his appearance at the flat, uninvited, shy, moved her almost to tears. She knew it was unreasonable to expect him to leave his wife, but she had never been one for logical thought.
She had always been attracted to danger and extremes. When other girls at school had misbehaved, they had kept open an avenue of retreat, of apology. In arguments with parents they had been prepared to compromise. Mary Raven had been expelled from school, and at sixteen she had left home to live in a squat until the life there had become too uncomfortable and she had returned, still defiant, to her parents. She had never been reasonable.
When it was light, she went to the kitchen and poured out a bowl of cornflakes. There was no milk and she padded, barefoot, through the entrance hall to the front door to fetch it. Outside it was warmer and the sky was clear. She felt restless and optimistic. Perhaps she should drive to the Health Centre, she thought, and wait for Max. It would be a pleasure just to see him, to exchange a few words with him. But she rejected the plan almost immediately. Max might be irritated by the attention and, besides, it would be dangerous. It was to distract her from doing anything foolish that she sat at the table to work. She began to write up the court proceedings of the day before, banging on her secondhand typewriter and waking up the student who had the bed-sit in the next room. Soon she became engrossed. When she paused to dress and make more coffee, she thought that while Max was making up his mind she still had her career to consider.
Mary Raven was not in the Express office when Ramsay and Hunter arrived. James Laidlaw was there, hostile and intimidating, still talking about the police mismanagement of the case and their incompetence in allowing Charlie Elliot to run away.
“I understand that he was interviewed twice,” James said, “ and still you let him go. I’ll be making the point very clearly in this week’s paper.”
He could not tell them where to find Mary Raven, and it was Marjory, the receptionist, who suggested that they try the small café on Front Street.
“She came in very early,” Marjory said, “before I arrived. She’s rather a melodramatic young lady. She left me a note saying she was working on a story and she didn’t know when she’d be back. But if she’s in Otterbridge at this time, she usually has a coffee and a sandwich across the road.” She returned to her typing.
The café was empty except for Mary Raven. It had print tablecloths, silk flowers in bowls, and an elderly lady in a black uniform to serve the customers. In the summer it would be full of day-trippers from Newcastle. Mary was drinking more black coffee, cupping her hands around the patterned china cup. She seemed lost in thought. Ramsay looked at her through the window and decided she might be the mysterious woman who had been in the churchyard. She was small, dark, with long hair. She fitted Charlie Elliot’s description. If they could persuade her to admit that she was there, that night, walking through the gravestones, his superintendent might be inclined to believe the rest of Charlie’s story. As they watched she set down the empty coffee cup and began to write in a shorthand notebook that was on the table in front of her. She wrote quickly and fluently, pausing occasionally as if searching for the right word. When they walked into the café, she looked up briefly but took no notice of them. She put them down as reps in town to collect goods from the agricultural suppliers near the market. She imagined them delivering dog food all around the region.