“I’ve explained that certain allegations have been made,” Ramsay said quietly. “They may be malicious but you do see that I have to follow them through.”
“I suppose these were anonymous allegations!” Daniel said petulantly.
“I’m sorry, sir, you can’t expect me to discuss that.”
“Why don’t you just tell us what happened,” Hunter said threateningly, ‘on that weekend that the lassie died.”
Daniel seemed about to protest again but looked at Hunter and thought better of it.
“We picked Faye up in Otterbridge on Friday lunchtime,” he said. “She didn’t have classes in the afternoon, or if she did she was prepared to skip them. She seemed in an emotional mood, rather withdrawn. I kept expecting her to burst into tears. We discovered in the course of the trip to Cumbria that a boy she’d been seeing, Peter Richardson, had finished with her. I don’t think it was ever a particularly close relationship but she seemed to be taking it rather badly. I hoped that the weekend would be good for her, do something to rebuild her self-confidence. Certainly by the time we arrived at Juniper Hall she seemed more cheerful
“It was a beautiful weekend, very hot and sunny. Everyone talked about it, said how unusual the weather was for that time of year. We kept expecting it to break, for there to be a thunderstorm. It had that sort of feel. But it stayed fine.”
He paused. He would have found it easier to deal with specific questions. But Ramsay and Hunter just waited for him to continue.
“Juniper’s a beautiful house,” he said. “Elizabethan, I think. All chimneys and pointed gables. More the sort of place you’d expect to find in the Cotswolds. You could tell that Faye had never seen anything like it before. There wasn’t much arranged for the Friday. Some of the people had a long way to travel and didn’t arrive until late. We had a meal. There was a session where we all started to get to know each other.”
“Val McDougal was there?”
“Yes. She arrived in time for dinner.”
“And Lily Jackman?”
Daniel paused. “Yes. She got a lift with Val.”
“How did Miss Jackman afford it then?” Hunter thrust his face towards Daniel’s. “I’ve seen the brochure. It doesn’t come cheap.”
“You’d have to ask Lily that. I presume she thought it was worth it.”
“Did Faye have her own room?” Ramsay asked.
Daniel nodded.
“She died late on Saturday night or early Sunday morning. Did anything unusual happen on Saturday?”
“No. It had all gone very smoothly. There was a great sense of sharing and openness. Everyone seemed very close.”
“Did Faye go to all the sessions that had been arranged?”
“I don’t think so. You’d have to ask Win. She’d be more likely to remember. Faye definitely took the kids out for a walk in the morning while I was running a group, but in the afternoon I think they went for a nap so she could join in.”
“And what session was that?”
“It was Magda’s Voice Dialogue.”
“The same thing she was doing with her group on the Sunday before Val died?”
Daniel nodded. “It’s a technique of consciousness-raising,” he said. “A way of achieving self-acceptance. You know.”
“Not really,” Ramsay said brightly. “But I’ll take your word for it. Were they working in pairs?”
“Yes. That’s how Magda works it.”
“Who was working with Faye?”
He paused again.
“Come on, Mr. Abbot. You must have some idea.”
“I think it was Magda herself. There was an uneven number so she joined in.”
“And that session lasted all afternoon?”
Daniel nodded.
“How did Faye seem? Was she still upset?”
“I didn’t notice,” Daniel said dismissively. “Magda would know.”
“What happened then?”
“There was a period of free time before dinner. For people to reflect quietly in their rooms or explore the garden.”
“Or go for a swim?” Hunter demanded.
“Yes. Some of them went for a swim.”
“But not Faye? She didn’t swim until later, did she?”
“No,” Daniel said awkwardly. “That’s right.”
“Tell us about that,” Ramsay said confidentially. “Tell us exactly what happened.”
“I don’t know,” Daniel cried. “I wasn’t there. No one was.”
“Take me through the evening then.”
“We had dinner. Helped clear up. That’s part of the deal at Juniper. Everyone mucks in. After the meal there was a talk by a visiting speaker. He went on rather. It was gone ten by the time he’d finished. We had coffee then most people drifted back to their rooms.”
“Wasn’t that unusual?” Ramsay asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I get sent on conferences too. Not so uplifting, of course, and I expect the food’s better, but the set-up’s similar. I always mean to got to bed early but I never seem to manage it. There’s too much going on. People you’ve not seen for years. I always find myself up until the early hours chatting.”
“It’s hardly the same, Inspector. Our sort of programme is very intensive. Emotionally draining. People need time to come to terms with what they’ve learnt about themselves.”
“They don’t all go off to the pub then?”
“We don’t need alcohol, Sergeant. That’s not encouraged.”
“And yet,” Ramsay said, ‘after a long day of looking after the children and this intensive group therapy Faye decided to go swimming. By herself. I wonder why she should do that.”
“I don’t know, Inspector. All I know is that she was found drowned the next morning.”
“Who found her body?”
“My wife did,” Daniel said. “She’d gone out for a walk before I was awake. Of course she was terribly distressed. She came to find me and once we realized Faye was dead we called the police.”
“Yes,” Ramsay said. “I see.”
There was a silence. Daniel looked at his watch. “My next patient will be coming soon, Inspector. If there’s nothing else…”
“Faye’s diary,” Ramsay said.
“What about it?”
“It wasn’t among her belongings at Juniper Hall. Not when the police arrived.”
“She must have left it at home then.”
“In your house? Did you ever find it?”
“No,” Daniel said. “Not in our house. In her bed sit I don’t know what happened to her stuff there.”
“Did Faye ever meet Ernie Bowles?” Ramsay asked. The questions came quickly. He knew that his time was running out.
“Of course not. Why would she?” He found it hard to contain his impatience. The telephone rang. “That’s my next patient, Inspector. I’ll have to ask you to go now.”
“All right, Mr. Abbot. Perhaps we could see if Mrs. Pocock can help us.”
But there was no sign of Magda and she’d left a message with the receptionist to say that she’d be out for the rest of the day.
Chapter Twenty-four
When they got back to the incident room they noticed a change of mood. They had left the team submerged in an air of morose quiet, which had little to do with hangovers, the result of the night before. Nothing was happening and nothing, the team felt, was likely to happen. The case had reached a stalemate. But now there was conversation, a lift of spirits. It was clear that they had been waiting impatiently for Ramsay’s return.
“Well?” he said. “What’s been going on?”
“We’ve traced those hippies, sir. The gang Slater claims to have spent the night with when Ernie Bowles was killed. A postie said he saw their blue Transit up a track just west of Berwick. A man, a woman and a kid. It must be them. We reckon they must have been hiding out up there. They might even have been in on the murder.”
They looked at him expectantly. They all wanted to go to check it out. They were like children, he thought, waiting to be chosen for the school football team. He wouldn’t have been surprised to see hands in the air, to hear cries of “Pick me, sir. I’m the best.”