‘Do you have time to talk now?’ Ramsay was asking. ‘If you prefer I could make an appointment to see you at home this evening.’
‘No,’ Mark said. ‘I’ve a free period first thing this afternoon. There’s no rush to get back.’
‘I know you gave a statement to one of my officers but there are a few points I’d like to clear up.’
‘Of course.’ Now that the moment had come, Mark felt quite calm, clear-headed. There was none of that ridiculous panic he’d felt last night on his way to meet Brian.
‘Did you know Mrs Howe well?’
‘Not well. I’d met her at parents’ evenings. She came to school concerts.’
‘You would have recognized her?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘But you didn’t see her on the day she disappeared?’
‘No. I said so in my statement.’
There was a brief silence.
‘What was your opinion of Mrs Howe?’ Ramsay asked. ‘I mean as a parent.’
‘She was supportive. Involved. I wish all our parents were as well motivated.’
‘But?’
‘But on occasions her interference could be irritating. And it didn’t do Marilyn any good.’
‘Perhaps you could explain.’
‘Marilyn’s a competent violinist. She works hard, passes all her exams, but there are other, more talented musicians in the school. Last term Mrs Howe barged into a rehearsal and demanded that Marilyn should be moved from second to first violins. It was perfectly true that Marilyn could have coped quite adequately with the music, but so could many of the others in her group.’
‘How did you deal with the situation?’
Mark smiled, briefly. ‘I left it to Mr Scott, our head of music, to sort out. That’s what he’s paid for.’
‘What did Marilyn make of the fuss?’
He shrugged. ‘Naturally she would have liked to play first violin. She’s a competitive child. But she was profoundly embarrassed by the incident. I tried to make light of it, to make the others see that Marilyn could hardly be held responsible for her mother’s… over-enthusiasm. All the same it can’t have been easy.’
But Ramsay thought that his sympathy would have made it easier. No wonder the girl had a crush on him.
‘Did you ever meet Mr Howe?’
‘He was dragged along, rather reluctantly I suspect, to some events.’
‘Is Marilyn popular at school?’
The question seemed to throw him.
‘She’s conscientious, well behaved. I’m sure most of the staff would welcome her in their class.’
‘That’s not really what I asked. Did she have friends? Close friends of her own age?’ Or was she, as she had described herself, a Billy No Mates?
Mark Taverner considered. ‘ No. Not in the way that you mean. You mustn’t assume, though, that she is unhappy at school. That there’s bullying, for example. I don’t believe there is anything of that sort. Some children are naturally solitary. Or they find it easier to form relationships with adults. I was like that myself. I didn’t develop any close friendships until I left home and went to university.’
‘When you met Mr Coulthard?’
‘Brian. Yes.’
‘And Mrs Coulthard? Would you consider her to be a close friend?’
‘Very.’ The answer came easily.
‘Brian’s marriage didn’t affect your friendship?’
‘Why should it?’ Mark asked.
‘Oh,’ Ramsay said lamely. ‘ There can be an awkwardness sometimes in a threesome, can’t there?’
Certainly he had felt awkward with some of Prue’s friends. She had been single for years and had become very close to the women who had supported her. One or two resented the time she spent with him. Their jealousy had perplexed her.
‘Why can’t they just be pleased for me?’ she had demanded, almost in tears, after one particularly hurtful remark.
Because they can’t get a man of their own, he had wanted to reply. Only half flippantly. Knowing that was what Hunter would have said and not caring. But he hadn’t been entirely sure that Prue would have found it amusing so he had kept his mouth shut.
‘Not in this case,’ Mark said firmly. ‘Emma has always understood that Brian’s friends were important to him. Besides, we weren’t a threesome. I was already married when Brian and Emma met.’
‘I see.’
‘My wife died five months ago. She had cancer. Brian and Emma have been wonderful. I really don’t know how I could have carried on without them… That’s how I came to the Headland the afternoon Mrs Howe was killed. Since Sheena’s death they’ve been very good about including me in family events.’
‘You drove there, straight from school?’
‘Yes. That’s how I came to give Marilyn a lift.’
‘What car do you drive?’
‘A blue Volvo estate. I told the other policeman.’
He was beginning to lose his patience. Ramsay ignored his irritation.
‘How did Marilyn seem to you? She wasn’t anxious? She didn’t express concern for her mother’s safety? I thought she might have confided in you.’
‘Look, Inspector. Marilyn Howe’s not the sort of girl to confide in anyone. She might possibly have talked to her mother. She certainly didn’t talk to me.’
That night Stephen Ramsay took Prue to Marco’s to celebrate her return. They were given the table near the window where he had sat with Marilyn and Claire. The town wall was floodlit from below and long shadows were thrown across the courtyard.
‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘ it’s an anti-climax. Coming back here. After all the admiration and the glory.’ Her group had taken a prize at the festival. There had been rave reviews in the Scottish press.
‘At least I can catch up on some sleep.’
But not, Ramsay thought, tonight, I hope.
‘And you’ve been kept busy? Gordon Hunter hasn’t had you out clubbing in town, picking up unsuitable women?’
‘Unfortunately not. He thinks I’m past it. It would be an embarrassment to be seen with me.’
She laughed. Marco himself came up with the wine, made a great fuss of Prue, then melted away.
‘I have been busy though. This murder inquiry.’
‘So you haven’t missed me?’
‘Hardly at all.’ After a few drinks he might have answered more honestly but she hated it when he got heavy.
‘How’s the inquiry going?’
‘Not very well. We can’t trace an important witness – a man who stayed in the Headland the night before the murder. The victim was a middle-aged housewife. The family seem very respectable, quite ordinary I suppose. We can’t dig up a motive. Why would anyone have wanted to kill her?’
‘A meaningless act of violence, then?’
‘No. I don’t think it was that.’
Why not? he wondered. Because she disappeared so absolutely. Because the Headland wasn’t like Newcastle on a Friday night. Because he had the sense, for some reason, that the murder had been planned.
‘I think you know one of the witnesses,’ he said. ‘Mark Taverner. Didn’t you work with his wife? You both sat on a Northern Arts committee?’
‘That’s right. She was a writer. She died last September. I went to her funeral.’
‘Were you friends?’
‘I don’t think Sheena had friends. Not really. She didn’t have time for them. She had admirers, though. Plenty of them. She was quite stunning in a dark anorexic way. She was desperately skinny even before she was ill.’
‘You didn’t like her?’ He realised it was the same question he had asked Brian Coulthard.
‘I think I might have done if she’d given me a chance. She was very driven, absolutely convinced that she could be a great writer. Nothing was allowed to stand in her way. Certainly not a night in the pub with a mate.’
‘And was she a great writer?’
‘I didn’t think so. I found her too self-conscious.’ Prue paused, considered. ‘Perhaps she might have been if she hadn’t taken herself so seriously. She came once to run a workshop for the kids in the arts centre and she was brilliant with them, very witty, very funny. They all ended up writing nonsense verse and laughing out loud. I asked why she didn’t do more of that kind of thing. Why didn’t she produce a book for children, for example? She said she’d love to but it would only be a distraction. As if something enjoyable couldn’t possibly be worthwhile.’