Well, Ramsay thought, there were still plenty of communities in Northumberland like that. He wondered how long the Howes had been living on the Headland. He could not imagine that they belonged.
‘Sal Wedderburn stayed the night with the family,’ he said. ‘She was there when I told the girl about her mother.’
‘Aye.’ Hunter was disapproving. ‘I’d heard you’d called her in to play social worker.’
Ramsay wondered if it was time for a warning about the petty rivalry which flared between the two officers occasionally but decided against it. Gordon Hunter was given to sulks and flounces and he could do without that now.
‘They seemed to take to her.’ But as soon as the words were spoken he wondered if that were true. There had been no hostility but the family had hardly seemed to acknowledge Sally’s presence. When he’d said that he’d like her to stay – for support, to fend off the press if that proved necessary – Bernard, had emerged briefly from his stupor to say, ‘But where will she sleep? Claire uses the spare room.’
Ramsay had explained that the sofa would be fine and there had been no more comment. He had hoped that Marilyn would form a relationship with Sally, would confide in her, but realized now that this was unlikely to happen.
‘You think one of the family’s involved, then?’ Hunter asked.
‘I don’t know anything at this stage.’ The words were sharper than he’d intended and he added, ‘No. That’s not why I asked Sally to stay. The girl was very close to her mother. They went everywhere together. She’ll know better than anyone if Kath Howe was anxious, frightened. I’d hoped she’d see Sal as a friend.’
‘Ah.’ Hunter was relieved. ‘Like I said. Playing the social worker.’
‘I’d like you to come over to Heppleburn with me,’ Ramsay said. ‘I want every single person on the Headland talked to. I don’t mean a plod asking a couple of questions on the doorstep. I mean a pot of tea on the table and someone listening for as long as the chat goes on. Gossip. Not just about the Howes but about anyone living in the place.’
‘You think we’re looking for a local, then?’
Ramsay shrugged, tried not to show his frustration at Hunter’s demand for easy answers. ‘It’s not the sort of place a stranger would wander across to by chance. Especially in the weather we’ve had this weekend. I don’t suppose we’ve got a time of death yet?’
‘Nothing specific. Some time Saturday.’
‘Ah.’
‘Problem?’
‘The Coastguard House has been converted to private use. On Saturday afternoon there was a kiddies’ party. I presume that means carloads of strangers visiting the place. Not exactly a problem. More of complication. We’ll need a list of visitors, car registration numbers. It certainly doesn’t make life easier. Anyone unfamiliar on the Headland that day would have been put down as a guest of the Coastguard House.’
‘Do you want me to talk to the owners?’
‘No,’ Ramsay said. ‘I’ll do that.’
‘Leave me to deal with the peasants? Is that it?’ Hunter grinned to show there were no hard feelings, exposing teeth which seemed very white in an even brown face. He’d been on a package holiday to Turkey in the autumn and he’d topped up his tan regularly since then on the sun beds.
‘Charm the old ladies more like,’ Ramsay said. Hunter liked that and grinned again.
The jetty was still roped off with blue and white plastic tape. Despite the drizzle a small group of onlookers stood in the car park of the Headland Social Club. Mostly old men with pitmen’s coughs. One of them was blind and had his arm linked with that of his companions who provided a running commentary on the proceedings. Not that there was much now to comment on.
A blue transit van with a noisy exhaust rattled to a stop beside the group. On the side ERIC WILSON MOBILE SHOP was painted in uneven white letters. This was the excuse for the gathering, though Ramsay thought that on normal Mondays it would be the women who’d be waiting. Perhaps the men had persuaded them it wouldn’t be safe to be out.
Eric Wilson jumped out and opened the back doors of the van. Apparently from nowhere a group of children came running down the road. They pushed to the front of the queue and began pointing at the trays of improbably coloured sweets and chews which the shopkeeper stored sensibly out of their reach. The men muttered disapproval but did not try to stop them. It was as if they were scared to. These were the children who had been throwing stones at Kath Howe’s body.
Ramsay waited until they had been served then made his way towards them. They munched silently, surrounded by a scattering of dropped sweet wrappers. In other circumstances he would have ordered them to collect the litter, but he resisted the temptation and said mildly, ‘Shouldn’t you be at school?’
They grinned as if they had caught him out.
‘Na. Half term, isn’t it?’
It was only later that he realized he’d seen the school-crossing lady in Heppleburn Village. A sudden death on the Headland had been too much for them to resist.
‘Were you playing round here on Saturday?’
‘We might have been here.’ As if playing wasn’t a concept they recognized.
‘I need your help.’ He began walking away from the men buying bags of potatoes and tins of beans. The children followed. When they could not be overheard he said, ‘It’s a murder inquiry.’
That had them hooked. They wanted to know if Mrs Howe had been shot, stabbed or had her head cut off. They acted out scenes from particularly nasty videos and pretended to be carrying automatic machine guns. Every other word was an obscenity. Ramsay felt out of his depth. He’d been imagining the Gorbals Diehards not these manic addicts of celluloid pornography.
‘Was it a serial killer?’ one of them asked. ‘Was it?’
‘No!’ he said, more sharply than he’d intended. ‘And if you’re going to be stupid I’ll ask someone else to help.’
Then they calmed down because above everything else they were bored.
‘What time were you here on Saturday?’ he asked.
They looked confused. They didn’t own a watch between them.
‘Before tea or after tea?’
Again that had little meaning. They seemed to eat continually when they weren’t at school, scrounging crisps and biscuits from whichever mother they could con into providing them.
‘What was on the television before you went out?’
‘Live and Kicking. When that was finished there was only the sport.’
‘And what was on when you went back in?’
‘Baywatch’. It was the oldest boy. He gave a lecherous smirk. ‘My dad always watches that.’
‘So you were out all afternoon?’
They nodded.
‘Where did you go? Were you down by the jetty?’
‘Earlier on.’
‘Did you see anything?’
‘The murder, you mean? Na.’ He shook his head, disappointed, then gave a blood-curdling scream, an imitation presumably of a woman being stabbed. ‘Later we hung around the Coastguard House. There was something going on. Loads of big cars.’
‘It was a birthday party,’ one of the younger boys said almost wistfully, then added, ‘Not that we’d have wanted to go.’
‘Na!’ they all joined in.
‘Did you see Mrs Howe that afternoon? You would all recognize Mrs Howe if you saw her?’
‘Course we would. She was an ugly bitch. And a stuck-up cow.’ A pause. ‘ That’s what my mam says.’
‘Did you see her on Saturday afternoon? At the jetty?’
They shook their heads, quite certain.
‘What about later? You’d have had a good view down the Headland from the Coastguard House.’
They looked at each other. Ramsay thought they were taking the question seriously, trying to reach a consensus.
‘We didn’t see her. But we mightn’t have. It was drizzly and misty. Like today only worse. And it was sodding cold. You couldn’t see much. Especially when it started to get dark.’