“Why?”
She paused. “He had a girlfriend. He was crazy about her. She was his first love, you know. She dumped him for someone else and then she died, really suddenly in an accident. He couldn’t handle it.”
“Did she talk about that at the Sunday group?”
“Yeah,” Lily said, ‘she did. She wished she could get James to come along.”
“And what did you talk about?”
“My bloody father and mother and how they screwed me up.” The answer was flip and automatic.
“Not Sean?”
“No,” she said. “Why would I want to talk about him?”
“If you were frightened of him.”
“Don’t be daft.” She gave a short, bitter laugh.
“Where was he on Saturday night?”
“Smoking dope with a couple of drop-outs in a Ford Transit. Listening to old records. Remembering old times.”
“You believe him?” Hunter was scathing.
“Yeah,” she said. “Actually I do.”
“We haven’t traced the van yet.”
“No?” she said. “Well perhaps you haven’t been trying very hard.” There was a brief angry silence.
“That’s not true,” he said.
“Well, I’m sorry, but it wouldn’t be the first time a traveller was fitted up for something he didn’t do.”
“What will happen to the two of you when the
Abbots and Pocock take over Laverock Farm?” he asked conversationally.
She looked at him, suspecting a trap. “Sod it,” she said. “You’ll find out anyway. There’ll be a place for us there. And work. And it’ll be a bloody sight more comfortable than the caravan.”
“So you’re pleased Ernie Bowles is dead?”
She paused. “OK,” she said, ‘so I’m pleased that he’s dead. That doesn’t mean that I killed him.”
They ate for a while. The food wasn’t bad, Hunter thought. For vegetarian muck.
“How do you get on with them?” he asked. “The Abbots and Pocock.”
“Magda’s great,” she said enthusiastically. “Really special, you know. There are lots of people in the business of self-enlightenment and personal growth. Most of them are crap. Magda knows what she’s doing.”
“And the Abbots?”
“Win’s OK. A bit heavy sometimes, a bit intense. And too wrapped up with her kids. But she’s kind. She gives us meals. If it wasn’t for Daniel I think she’d have had us to stay…”
“You don’t get on with Mr. Abbot?”
“I don’t not get on with him. We’re just not very close.”
“What about Mrs. Pocock, Magda? Does she get on with him?”
Lily shrugged. “Not ‘specially. But it’s not an easy relationship, is it, being a mother-in-law?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never been one.”
She grinned despite herself.
“There must be more to it than that,” he went on. “If she’s such a special person she wouldn’t have taken against him for no reason.”
“Oh,” Lily said, “I think she had a reason.”
“What reason? Was Daniel playing away?”
Lily nodded.
“And his wife never found out that he was seeing other women?”
“I think she knew. She just didn’t want to admit it’
“Can you give me the names of some of these women?”
But Lily remembered her conversation with Magda the evening before and shook her head. Hunter didn’t push it. He could make his own enquiries and he wanted Lily on his side.
“Do you know Peter Richardson?” he asked.
“I’ve seen him about,” she answered, cautiously.
“I was chatting to him last night,” Hunter said. “He seemed to think that any offer he made on the Laverock land would be accepted. But Mrs. Pocock didn’t know anything about it.”
She looked awkward.
“That might be Sean, she said. “Jumping the gun a bit. I know he was chatting to Mr. Richardson when he came down to see to the animals.”
“Nothing to do with him though, is it?”
“We’d want to be involved,” she said. “I told you, we’ve been promised a place if it goes ahead.”
“What’s the deal then?” Hunter asked. “Richardson slips your laddie a few quid if he can persuade the Abbots to sell him the land without going to auction?”
“No,” she said. “Sean wouldn’t be involved in something like that.” But her voice was uncertain.
If Sean and Richardson were working together now, Hunter thought, perhaps they were working together before. Perhaps they were both behind the murder of Ernie Bowles. It was the closest he’d come to a motive for Sean and he felt quite cheerful.
“Have a pudding,” he said. “Some of that carrot cake.”
She looked at her watch. “No, I’d better go. I only get half an hour for lunch. Thanks anyway.”
“No problem,” he said.
He watched her walk back across the stone flags, her hips swaying, her thin jacket slung over one shoulder like a matador’s cape.
Chapter Seventeen
Win wished they had invited guests for lunch as usual. She and Daniel seldom communicated now unless they had an audience. This seemed not to trouble Daniel but Win always felt tense and wretched when they were alone together in the house. She wondered how long she could carry on. Magda hadn’t said anything directly but Win could tell she thought the marriage was a mistake. It was all right for her, Win thought bitterly and irrationally. She’d lost her husband before it had had a chance to go wrong.
It had occurred to her recently that she should leave Daniel but she knew she lacked the courage to be that decisive. She kept hoping things would get better. There were the two children to consider. Then there was the project at Laverock Farm. That would be a challenge, something they could work on together. She tried to convince herself that it would bring them close again.
When the telephone rang summoning Daniel away it was a relief. One of his patients had gone into labour. She had fought for home delivery. She had found a sympathetic midwife and she wanted him there to help with pain relief. He went out cheerfully. He especially liked being present at births. It made him feel important and the patients were always very grateful. He said that Win shouldn’t wait up for him. The contractions had only just started and he might be up all night.
In her paranoia she wondered if the patient in labour was an excuse and really he had arranged to spend the night with another woman. The idea started as an idle fancy but after an hour of worrying she became convinced by it. When the children were settled in the kitchen for their tea, she went to his desk and checked his diary. There was a woman he had supervised through pregnancy who had reached full term so she supposed she would have to believe him.
As she was returning the diary to the desk a photograph fell out. It had been slipped between the leaves at the back of the book. She had seen it before, might even have taken it. It was of the boys, playing in the garden last summer. They were splashing in a round, inflatable paddling pool and beside them, stretched out on a striped towel, was Faye Cooper. She was turned towards the children, shouting at them perhaps to take care. Win told herself that there was nothing suspicious about the photo. Daniel had kept it because it was a good one of the boys. All the same she took it back with her into the kitchen. There she cut it up into very tiny pieces and threw it into the bin.
Ramsay took the afternoon off. He needed time away from the case. He went first to his cottage in
Heppleburn. It seemed as cold and unlived in as if he had been away for a month and behind the door there was a pile of junk mail and free newspapers. From there he phoned Prue. He was tempted to turn up at her house to surprise her but he thought she should be given the opportunity to make an excuse if she did not want to see him. He still lacked the confidence to take that for granted.