He nodded.
“Was Faye Cooper murdered?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “Not… technically. Morally perhaps there was a responsibility, but nothing, I think, which would interest you. Nothing legal.”
“She committed suicide?” he said.
“You guessed?” She was surprised, rather impressed.
“I thought it was a possibility.”
“She committed suicide,” Magda said. “It’s quite certain. She makes her intention very clear in the diary. She wanted the record set straight.”
“But it wasn’t, was it? Not publicly at least. Because you stole the diary. Why did you do that?”
She shrugged heavily and he was reminded again that her mother had been a foreigner. “For a number of reasons,” she said. “None of them were very well thought out.”
“To protect Daniel?”
“Him? No. To protect my daughter perhaps. She must have guessed at his proclivities, but she would not admit it even to herself. Perhaps it was my fault. I brought her up to believe that those who can heal are special. She’s still infatuated with him, at least the idea of him. I went to see her at lunchtime to show her the diary, to explain what I had to do. She wouldn’t even read it. She had persuaded herself that he was just showing these young girls kindness. Perhaps when the story is out in the open she will not find it possible to maintain the self-deception. I hope that is the case. I would like her to leave him. We could make a life for the children…”
She paused and looked up at him.
“And then,” she said, “I was protecting myself. I
had a part in the girl’s death too.”
“Tell me what happened,” Ramsay said. “I’ll read the diary, of course, but I’d like to hear it from your point of view.”
She sat back in her chair and shut her eyes.
“It was such a hot weekend, Inspector, and such a beautiful place. The leaves had started to change colour but otherwise you’d think it was high summer. The… tone of these weekends is usually set very quickly, depending on the people who are there, how they respond to each other. On that occasion it was affected too by the weather. Everything seemed feverish, sultry, highly charged. You understand what I mean?”
“I think so.”
“You will see from the diary that on the Friday night Daniel invited Faye Cooper to go with him for a walk. She went without question. She was a lovely girl, no parents to speak of, no boyfriend. If anything Daniel was for her a father figure. I’m not sure precisely what happened on that walk, the diary is not specific. An unwanted advance at least. A forced kiss. Perhaps something more serious…” She hesitated again, sat more upright.
“You can see how that would have affected her, Inspector. She had invested all her hope for the future in the practitioners at the Centre. We were her friends and her family. She was unbalanced anyway. You can understand why she took the option of suicide. She looked forward to a life of loneliness…”
“But she didn’t kill herself that night?” “No. It was the following night. The Saturday.” “You say that you feel responsible in part for her death. Why was that?”
“On the Saturday afternoon I was leading a session. Voice Dialogue. It’s a form of therapy I’ve trained in. Faye Cooper was there, taking part. The others were all in pairs so I worked with her myself.”
“She told you what had happened?” “Using one of her voices. Her victim voice. Yes.” “You were acting as facilitator. What did you say?”
“Nothing during the session, I just asked Faye’s victim voice questions so that she could more easily understand that part of herself. Afterwards though, I don’t know why, I think it was my own sense of frustration for her, I suggested that she had a responsibility to take charge of her life. Blaming others for her situation would do her no good.” “You blamed her for what had happened?” “No!” she said. “Of course not. I wanted to give her the strength to prevent it from happening again. But I can see that she might have taken it that way.” She paused. “Yes, if you look in the diary you will see that she blames herself. She writes: “Magda thinks it was all my fault.” “How did she seem after the session?” “Quiet. Listless. That’s not unusual. It can be draining.”
“She had a meal with you?”
“Yes. I never saw her again. She wasn’t at the talk after supper. She went upstairs. I presumed that she’d gone to help Win with the children, though later Win said that she hadn’t seen her. She must have been in her room, writing her diary. Then, when the house was quiet, she went to the pool and drowned herself.”
She sat upright. Very still.
“Did Daniel know you’d taken the diary from Faye’s room?”
“Yes. But he never read it. He did not know what it contained.”
“Why did you keep it all this time?”
“It would be wrong, I thought, to destroy it.” She pushed the diary towards him and across the table in a gesture of relinquishing all rights to it.
“You see, Inspector, it’s not so very exciting after all. Not so very important. There is no motive for murder here. Only the story of a sad young girl whose ideals had been shattered and who could not face going on without them. Perhaps now you can leave Faye in peace. Her death has no relevance to your enquiries.”
She stood up to leave. At the door she stopped and turned back.
“Will you be talking to Daniel about these matters, Inspector?”
“Oh yes,” Ramsay said. “We’ll have to do that’
“Good,” she said. “Good. I hope you scare him.”
She gave a quick smile at his surprised face and left.
When she had gone he remained in the interview room to read Faye’s diary. There’d be no peace in the incident room. Sally Wedderburn and Hunter would be back vying for his attention.
It was all as Magda had said. There was no doubt that Faye had committed suicide. There had been no trick with forgeries, no elaborate lie. The same handwriting had been used throughout, the same confused and unhappy voice described her disillusionment with Daniel Abbot as noted her rejection by Peter Richardson.
And yet, Ramsay thought, in one way Magda was wrong. Faye’s death was relevant to his enquiries. He was beginning to understand the connections. He saw the case as the symmetrical patterns of a kaleidoscope, a series of mirror images like the warm-up exercises Magda Pocock got her students to perform. He was groping towards a solution.
Chapter Thirty
They left a skeleton team in the incident room to man the phones. The rest decamped to the pub, where they persuaded the landlord to move a television into the private bar. There they gathered around to watch Ramsay appear live on the local news. The press conference was taking place in the entrance hall of the old police station. It was packed with journalists from all the local papers and some of the nationals, besides TV and radio. Usually Ramsay avoided that sort of publicity, but today he had volunteered.
Sniggering, the team in the pub watched him begin his spiel. He said he needed specific information. The McDougals lived in Ferndale Avenue in Otterbridge. Did anyone see an unfamiliar car parked in that street between 8.30 and 10 p.m. on Monday, May the 10th? He was interested, too, in Ferndale Avenue on a more recent date, the previous afternoon. Perhaps the same vehicle had been seen? Did anyone notice the driver of these cars, or see anyone behaving at all unusually in the vicinity of number 32?
The detectives in the pub waited for him to ask for information about vehicles seen near Laverock Farm, but Ernie Bowles was not mentioned at all.
Ramsay continued: “We’re planning a reconstruction of James’s walk from the high school to his home, and then on to the cemetery tomorrow. Officers will be in position all along the route to jog memories and ask questions. I’m sure you’ll be co-operative. In the meantime, will any member of the public who feels they can help call the Mittingford incident room.”