“Where is she?” Hunter asked.
“In the kitchen,” the farmer said. “Out the back.”
Hunter stamped his feet impatiently, expecting Ramsay to lead the way. He knew the house. But Ramsay stood, looking around him.
“Had Mr. Shaftoe asked you to keep an eye on the place?” he asked. “Or did something attract your attention?”
“There was someone here last night.” Helms said. “I saw a light from the
back.”
“Was there a car?”
“Don’t know. Didn’t notice.”
“By man, you’re a lot of help.” Hunter muttered. Helms pretended not to
hear.
“But you might have noticed,” Ramsay persisted, “fresh tyre tracks on the
drive.”
“Look,” Helms said. “Shaftoe lets me use one of his barns. I’m up and down the track every day. If someone had driven down using my tracks how would I know?”
“Were you surprised to see a light?” Ramsay asked.
“Not really,” Helms said. “They don’t have to tell me when they’re coming
up.”
“Could they have made it up the track from the road?”
“Shaftoe could. He’s got one of those posh Japanese four-wheel-drive jobs.”
“Is it usual for him to come up in the winter?”
“Aye.” Helms was faintly contemptuous. “They have a big do on Christmas Eve. I’d thought maybe they’d come up to air the house for that. No one’s been in the place for months.”
“You didn’t hear a vehicle go back down the track last night?”
“No. But I wouldn’t have done. The father-in-law’s stopping with us and he’s deaf as a post. He had the telly so loud you can’t hear a thing.”
“What time did you see the light?”
Helms shrugged. “Seven o’clock maybe. I didn’t go out after that.”
“But you didn’t expect them to be staying?”
“No. Like I said, I expected them to light a fire, check the calor gas, clean up a bit, and then go back.”
“So what caught your attention this morning?”
“The gas light was still on,” Helms said.
“In the same room?”
Helms nodded. “The kitchen. It was early, still pretty dark outside, and I thought they must have stayed and were getting their breakfasts. It was only later, when the kids got me to bring them over, that I thought it was strange.”
“I don’t understand,” Ramsay said. “Why did your children want to come?”
“Because they’re sharp little buggers. It’s just before Christmas. They thought Shaftoe would have a present for them. He usually brings them something, Christmas or not.”
“So you drove them down in the Land Rover? What time was that?”
“Just before dinner. Twelvish. They’d been out sledging and Chrissie, my wife, said there was more snow on her kitchen floor than out on the fell. I thought I’d earn a few brownie points by getting them out of her hair.” He paused and for the first time he smiled. “I thought I’d get a drink for my trouble. Shaftoe always kept a supply of malt whisky in the place, and he was never mean with it.”
“Did you park in the yard?”
“Aye. Like I always do.”
“That’s when you noticed the light was still on?”
Helms nodded.
“What did you do then?”
“Walked round here to the front.”
“Had it been snowing?” Ramsay asked.
“There were a couple of inches in the night but it was clear by dawn.”
“What about footprints on the path? You would have noticed if the snow had been disturbed.”
“Aye,” Helms said. “I might have done if I’d got the chance. But I let the dog and the bairns out of the Land Rover first and they chased round to the front before me.”
“But your children might have noticed,” Ramsay insisted.
“Aye.” Helms said without much hope. “They might.”
“Did they go into the house before you?”
“No. They were still on the front lawn throwing snowballs about when I joined them. That’s when I saw the door was open and I started to think something was up. I told the kids to wait outside and came in on my own. I stood in here feeling a bit daft and shouted out the back to Shaftoe. When there was no reply I went on through.”
“What state was the fire in?” Ramsay asked.
“Not much different from what it’s like now. If you bank it up it stays like that for hours.”
There was a pause. “Come on then,” Ramsay said. “We’d best go through and look at her.”
The kitchen was lit by two gas lamps mounted on one wall. The room was small and functional. There was a small window covered on the outside by bacterial-shaped whirls of ice. a stainless-steel sink, and a row of units. The woman, lying with one cheek against the red tiles, took up most of the available floor space. Ramsay, looking down, recognised her immediately.
“Joyce,” he said. “Rebecca Joyce.” He looked at Helms. “She was a friend of the Shaftoe family. You don’t recognise her?”
The farmer shook his head.
Ramsay had met Rebecca Joyce at Blackstoneburn. Diana had invited him to the house when their marriage was in its final throes and he had gone out of desperation, thinking that on her own ground, surrounded by her family and friends, she might be calmer. Diana was related to the Shaftoe by marriage. Her younger sister Isabel had married one of the Shaftoe sons and at that summer house party they were all there: old man Shaftoe, who had made his money out of scrap, Isobel and her husband Stuart, a grey, thin-lipped man who had brought the family respectability by proposing to the daughter of one of the most established landowners in Northumberland.
Rebecca had been invited as a friend, solely, it seemed, to provide entertainment. She had been at school with Diana and Isobel and had been outrageous, apparently, even then. Looking down at the body on the cold kitchen floor, Ramsay thought that despite the battered skull he still saw a trace of the old spirit.
“I’ll be off then....” Helms interrupted his daydream. “If there’s nothing else.”
“No,” Ramsay said. “I’ll know where to find you.”
“Aye. Well.” He sloped off, relieved. They heard the Land Rover drive away up the track and then it was very quiet.
“The murder weapon was a poker,” Hunter said. “Hardly original.”
“Effective though.” It still lay on the kitchen floor, the ornate brass knob covered with blood.
“What now?” Hunter demanded. Time was moving on. It was already six o’clock. In another hour his friends would be gathering in the pubs of Otterbridge preparing for the party.
“Nothing,” Ramsay said, “until the pathologist and the scene-of-crime team arrive.” He knew that Hunter wanted to be away. He could have sent him off in the car, arranged a lift for himself with the colleagues who would arrive later, earned for a while some gratitude and peace, but a perverseness kept him quiet and they sat in the freezing living room, waiting.
When Ramsay met Rebecca Joyce it had been hot, astoundingly hot for the Northumberland hills, and they had taken their drinks outside onto the lawn. Someone had slung a hammock between two Scotch pines and Diana had lain there moodily, not speaking, refusing to acknowledge his presence. They had argued in the car on the way to Blackstoneburn and he was forced to introduce himself to Tom Shaftoe, a small, squat man with silver sideburns. Priggish Isobel and anonymous Stuart he had met before. The row had been his fault. Diana had not come home the night before, and he had asked quietly, restraining his jealousy, where she had been. She had lashed out in a fury, condemning him for his Methodist morals, his dullness.
“You’re just like your mother,” she had said. The final insult. “All hypocrisy and thrift.”