Ramsay said nothing. He disapproved of Hunter’s easy familiarity. Perhaps it had been a mistake after all to invite him into his home. A murder enquiry needed tact and gravity. Yet he noticed that even the straight-backed, straitlaced woman was responding to the sergeant’s attention. Hunter would be making her feel special, playing the part of the attractive, rather wayward son who needed looking after. Soon she would be making him tea and telling him to wrap up warm before he went out because the wind was cold. Hunter whispered something to Olive, which made her smile, then stood up.
“We need screens,” Ramsay said. “ There are already people in the churchyard staring. They can’t see the body from there, but it’ll not be long before we have the press in the garden.”
“The press is here already,” Hunter said. “ In the house. One of Mrs. Parry’s nephews is the editor of the Otterbridge Express.”
“I know,” Ramsay said. He was already feeling depressed. “Tell me who else is here.”
“Laidlaw’s wife, Stella, and their daughter, Carolyn, and his brother and his family. They’re all in here.”
Hunter led him through the hall to the warm square room where the family had waited the night before for Alice’s return. As soon as he saw them all, Ramsay knew that these were Diana’s sort of people and the thought triggered a profound unease and an excitement. They could easily have been friends of Diana’s, invited to her dinner parties, sharing evenings at the theatre, meals in dimly lit foreign restaurants. He recognised the style. Although the women wore jeans and hand-knitted sweaters, their wardrobes were probably full of clothes that Diana might have chosen to wear. It had always surprised him that Diana would admit quite happily to having found a bargain in a charity shop or at a jumble sale-“ a real silk shirt and only five pounds”-but refuse to go near the cut-price chain stores in the high street where his mother always shopped. It always seemed to him a strange sort of snobbishness, though Diana always said he had no taste and could not possibly understand. Throughout the interview with the Laidlaws he felt that, with Diana’s arrogance, they were saying the same thing. You’re different from us, they implied. You’re from a different background. How can you possibly understand?
Yet he felt from the beginning that because they were Diana’s sort of people, he did understand them. It was his secret weapon, that understanding. They would always underestimate him.
He stood just inside the door and looked around the room. James Laidlaw sat on a worn leather Chesterfield reading an old copy of the Times. He recognised Ramsay and stood up.
“Inspector,” he said smoothly, “ I’m glad it’s you. It’s always easier to work with a person one knows.”
Ramsay nodded but said nothing. There seemed to have been no collective support or sympathy, no communication between them even. Max Laidlaw was sprawled on the floor. He was tall like his brother but younger, good-looking in a dark Celtic way. He seemed too inexperienced, Ramsay thought, to be a doctor. It was hard to imagine him taking responsibility. He was too careless of other people, too self-absorbed. He took no notice of Ramsay.
It was the women who held Ramsay’s attention. Their sophistication stirred memories that disturbed him. A fair, fine-boned woman sat on a small chair close to the fire smoking a cigarette. Her wrists were so thin and long that it seemed as if they would snap as she moved the cigarette to her mouth. She wore a white mohair sweater with a huge collar, and in contrast her eyes were very dark. She was so pale that he wondered if she were ill or had taken some medication. He had seen addicts with the same drawn pallor. But perhaps she was only scared, he thought, moved by her beauty. James Laidlaw saw Ramsay looking at the woman and introduced him.
“This is Stella,” he said. “My wife.” With the few words he gave the impression of great pride.
She turned towards Ramsay. Her neck was very long and the hair was tied back so tightly that her head seemed small. She smiled sadly. “ Good morning,” she said, and returned her gaze to the fire.
The other woman was quite different in colouring and stature. She had a round face like a child’s and copper-coloured hair. He thought she would easily be raised to anger. When James introduced her as Judy Laidlaw, she did not speak but glared at him. Ramsay thought she was probably the sort of woman who disliked policemen as a matter of principle.
At a coffee table away from the fire two children were making a jigsaw. They worked in silence, in a dreamlike absorption.
“I’m sorry,” Ramsay said. “You’ll be upset. But you realise I’ll have to ask some questions.”
“Of course,” James Laidlaw murmured. “Anything we can do to help.”
Judy stood up and walked quickly to the playing children. “Carolyn,” she said quietly. “Would you mind taking Peter into your bedroom to finish the puzzle? We want to talk.”
Ramsay thought for a moment that the girl would object or cause a scene. She turned towards her parents, who seemed not to notice that she was pleading to stay. Then, with an adult resignation, she picked up the jigsaw and left the room. Peter obediently followed her.
Judy stared at Ramsay with a mixture of hostility and curiosity. “That is all right?” she said. “Peter found the body. He still seems terribly confused and I don’t want to make things worse.”
“Of course,” Ramsay said. “ I’ll need to talk to him later, but it can wait.”
He stood by the fireplace and looked at them, waiting for some response, for their questions. Judy was struck by his stillness. He must be very confident, she thought, to stand there quite immobile, watching us, waiting for someone to break the silence. For the first time she considered the police not as despicable but as frightening. Suddenly the silence was too much for her.
“Max said Alice had been murdered,” she said. “ Is that true? I can’t believe it.”
“Yes,” Ramsay said. “ Mrs. Parry was murdered. She was stabbed. It probably happened quite close to where Dr. Laidlaw found her. The murderer must have covered her body with the leaves. He, or she, might have thought it would take longer for Mrs. Parry to be found. If Peter hadn’t gone to play on the swing, it would have taken several hours, I should guess.”
“She?” Judy cried. “You don’t think a woman would do anything like that?”
Ramsay looked at her seriously. “Why not?” he said. “ It wouldn’t have taken any great strength, you know. Especially if the murderer was known to Mrs. Parry.”
He realised he was trying to shock them and checked himself. It was time, for the moment, to stick to fact. He directed his questions to Max.
“When you found the body,” he said, “was the wrought-iron gate between the garden and the churchyard open or shut?”
“Shut,” Max said. “ Definitely shut. When I saw that she was dead, I noticed the vicar coming from the green towards the church. I shouted to him for help, though I don’t know exactly what I expected him to do. It was so windy that he didn’t hear me. It was like one of those nightmares, you know, when you shout and no sound comes out. In the end I ran to fetch him. The catch on the gate is very stiff and it seemed to take hours to get it open. He didn’t realise that anything was wrong and just stood on the path smiling.”
When Max stopped talking, there was another silence. Ramsay looked at them all again. They were shocked, of course, but still very self-composed. If anyone was lying, it would be hard to find out. Yet if anything the shut gate indicated that the murderer was a member of the household. Would someone who had just committed murder stop in his flight to fasten a difficult catch on the gate? Then he remembered Olive Kerr and made a mental note to ask which way she had come into the house.