Chapter Twenty
Hunter was uncomfortably aware that he’d had too much to drink at lunchtime. He’d taken Sally to a little pub he knew near the river. He’d planned it before the farce at the Irving house, hoping to impress, but he’d needed a drink after that. Several drinks. There’d been a row. Now, sitting moodily in the car, waiting for James McDougal to come home from school he thought he hadn’t been interested in Sally Wedderburn. Not seriously. He saw vaguely that the desire to impress had become a habit, an object in its own right, and his thoughts returned to Lily Jackman, who wouldn’t be taken in anyway by a smart pub lunch.
“Oh shit,” Sally said. “He’s been there all the time.”
They had rung the doorbell but when there was no answer had assumed that he was still out. Now they saw that he must have been in the garden, at the back. He came round to the front with a pair of shears and began to chop furiously at the privet which separated the house from the property next door.
Sally Wedderburn got out of the car.
“Do you want me to come?” Hunter said nastily. “Or do you think you can handle this better on your own too?”
For a moment Sally was tempted to reply but she shrugged and said nothing. The boy heard their footsteps on the gravel and turned to face them nervously, holding the shears in front of him like a weapon.
“It’s all right,” Sally said. “We’re from the police.” She held out her identification. The boy looked at it then relaxed.
“Sorry to be so jumpy,” he said. “I know it’s silly
“Quite natural I’d have thought,” Sally said. “I’m afraid we want to ask you some more questions. Is that OK?”
“I suppose so.” He was unenthusiastic but not rude. He led them round the back of the house and in through the kitchen door.
“What a lovely garden!” Sally said.
“Yeah. Mum loved gardening. She did it all herself. It was starting to get untidy. Dad’s not bothered. I wouldn’t be normally but Mum would have liked it sorted out.” He flushed.
“You’ve been to school today?” Hunter asked. James was wearing black jeans and a T-shirt, but you couldn’t tell. Sixth-formers were allowed to wear anything these days.
“I couldn’t face it,” the boy said. “They understand…” He stared out into the garden then turned back to face Hunter. “How can I help you?”
“Did you know a girl called Faye Cooper?”
“Faye? Yes. She was my girlfriend. For a while.”
“Until she died?”
“No. She packed me in before that. Found someone else.” The words were bitter. He screwed up his face like a child trying not to cry. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I still get upset. I’ve never met anyone else like her. At least when she was alive there was some hope that we’d get back together…”
He got up abruptly and pulled a can of Coke from the fridge. “You want one?”
They shook their heads.
“Do you know the name of the lad she went out with after you?” Hunter asked.
“It was no lad, “James said angrily. “At least that was the impression she gave. Someone mature. More mature than me at least. She never told me his name. And then she took that summer job in Mittingford so I couldn’t pester her. That’s what she said. Just because I was younger than her, still at school, there was no need to treat me like a kid.”
“You were jealous then?” Hunter said.
“Of course I was jealous. I wanted her back.” He ripped back the ring on the Coke can.
“Where did you first meet Faye?” Sally asked.
“In a pub in town. She’d just moved to Otterbridge and she didn’t know anyone. We started chatting. We liked the same music, shared the same ideas.”
“The New Age thing?”
“I suppose so, though I’ve never been sure what that means. It’s only a label, isn’t it, now? Used by the press. But she cared about more than making money and having a good time. I liked that. And her independence. She lived by herself, you know. Her parents had thrown her out. She had a bed sit over the bookie’s in Bridge Street. She didn’t have much money but she made it really nice in the end. I helped her. Decorating, going to jumbles and car boot sales to pick up stuff for her. I spent a lot of time in that place…”
“The belief in alternative therapy was one of the things you shared?” Sally asked. She had to repeat the question. He was still dreaming of long lazy afternoons and Faye.
“Yeah. It was part of being open to new ways of looking at things. First we went to a talk by Magda. Faye was dead enthusiastic then and asked me to take her to the Sunday group in Mittingford. She never had any transport and Mum let me borrow her car.”
“Then your mother got involved too?”
“Yes. I explained to Inspector Ramsay about that. But Faye was always the most heavily into it. Mum and I were more detached, more critical. Faye swallowed it whole. I suppose she needed something definite to hold on to.”
“Your mother was at Juniper Hall when Faye died?”
“Yes.” He took a gulp from the Coke can. “What is all this about? Why are you so interested in Faye?”
“We received an anonymous letter this morning. It implied that Faye’s death was connected to your mother’s murder.” Hunter paused. “I don’t suppose you sent that letter?”
“Of course not. If I’d had anything to tell you I’d have come right out with it.”
There was a silence, then he asked: “Do you think Faye was murdered too?”
“There’s no evidence of that,” Sally said carefully. “Did your mother tell you about the accident when she came back from Juniper Hall?”
“Of course. She was dreadfully upset. She’d liked Faye. Not just because she was my girlfriend.”
“She never expressed any doubt that it was an accident?”
He shook his head. “She said no one knew how it happened. It was a mystery.”
“When was the last time you heard from Faye?”
“At the beginning of the summer holidays when she went off to work in Mittingford. His voice became hard. “She was terribly kind. Told me there was someone else, that she was very fond of me but that I was to leave her alone.”
“Do you know where she was working in Mittingford?”
“Didn’t you realize?” He was surprised by their ignorance, shocked by their incompetence. “She worked for Daniel and Win Abbot as a sort of nanny. She looked after the kids, did a bit of cleaning.” He hesitated. “I don’t think they were paying her very much but when I asked her about that she told me to mind my own business. She said she’d have done it for nothing.”
“It would help us to know if Faye was particularly lonely or unhappy just before she died. Do you know anything about that? Perhaps she talked to your mother at Juniper Hall? It sounds as if they were close.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “Mum didn’t say…”
He seemed lost again in thoughts of his own. Through the open window they could hear a woodpecker drumming on one of the oaks at the bottom of the garden.
“Would Faye have been capable of suicide?” Sally asked carefully.
James considered.
“Yes,” he said. “I think she would. She was wild, you know. You had the impression that in the end she had nothing to lose.”
“Except the new boyfriend.”
“Yes. Except him. If anything went wrong there I think she’d have been pretty desperate.”
He sat in a gloomy silence. Sally and Hunter looked at each other.
“Is there anyone else she might have confided in?”
“I don’t think so. Magda perhaps. Or the Abbots.”
“No special college friends?”
“No. She was always a loner.”
He stood up. “Look,” he said. “I don’t think I can stand much more of this. I ought to get on with the garden.”
“There’s nothing else you can think of?” Hunter demanded. He was reluctant to let the boy go. He wanted a result from the interview and the bloated feeling caused by too much beer made him belligerent.