‘According to Sarah.’
‘I’d heard that Sarah and Anna had fallen out about something that happened at the school, but there was no mention of the husband.’ Robert made the row sound petty, as if the women were kids who’d fallen out in the playground.
‘So you don’t mind me poking around?’ Jimmy asked. ‘I’ve said I’ll stay for two days. I can’t give it longer than that.’
There was a long pause at the end of the phone. ‘You’ll do what you want anyway, won’t you, Jimmy? You’ve always been a stubborn bastard. Just let me know if you find anything.’
The next day Jimmy Perez woke early. The first snow of winter had fallen. A light coating of white that made the village, with its backdrop of trees, look like a Christmas card.
Breakfast was fried and tasty. He thought of Cassie, who was only six but had strong views on healthy eating. Cassie was his stepdaughter and the love of his life now that her mother was dead.
The landlady, who told him her name was Elspeth, was nosy. His food came with a string of questions. She was like a hound sniffing for information.
‘Are you here for the fishing?’ she asked. Then, without waiting for a reply, she went on. ‘Of course it’s not really the weather for fishing. So maybe you’re a walker? We get folk staying who have walked Hadrian’s Wall and then come north of the border to see what we have to offer.’
‘I used to know Anna Blackwell,’ Jimmy said. He still hated lying after years as a cop, but it stopped the woman asking her questions. ‘The woman who died. I wanted to see where she lived.’
‘Poor lassie. What a tragedy!’ Elspeth sat at the empty seat at his table and poured herself a cup of tea from his pot. Then she went on to tell him everything she knew about the dead teacher.
‘She looked so young when she turned up in Stonebridge,’ Elspeth said. ‘Hardly more than a child herself. Not old enough to have a child of her own. Of course there was talk. But Maggie the head teacher said she was good at her job, and Freda, who used to teach the little ones, had got so fat that she could hardly get out of her chair. So it was time for someone new!’
Elspeth paused for breath. ‘Some parents didn’t take to Anna. They thought she let the children get away with murder. But the kids in the first class were only wee and they shouldn’t be told to shut up all day. My granddaughter loved her to bits.’
‘Oh?’
That was all it took to set Elspeth off again. ‘Mrs High-and-Mighty Sarah King tried to get Anna sacked. Just because she’s the doctor’s wife she thinks she runs this place. She went to Maggie with a list of parents’ names and told her they all thought Anna wasn’t a fit person to look after the kids.’ The woman looked sad. ‘It was horrid. A kind of witch-hunt. No wonder the poor lassie got ill with stress. She came to this village full of joy and ended up like a hermit locked in her house all day. They had to get in a supply teacher to take her class for a while. Then Freda took the job on again and she’s back there now.’
Jimmy Perez could see why Sarah hadn’t told him about her campaign to get Anna sacked. It had been a nasty thing to do and Sarah must be feeling guilty. No wonder she was coming under fire from the gossips in the village. But he could understand too why everyone assumed Anna had committed suicide.
‘How old was Anna’s little girl?’ He took a last bite of toast.
‘Four. Anna must still have been a teenager when she fell pregnant. The lassie’s name is Lucy. She was in Anna’s class at the school. So she’s lost her mother and her teacher all at once.’
‘What’s happened to her now?’ Jimmy already knew the answer but he wanted to hear it from Elspeth.
‘They’ve taken her into care. They couldn’t trace her family, you see.’ Elspeth looked up at Perez. ‘If you were Anna’s friend you might know someone who could love her? Who could take her in?’
Jimmy shook his head sadly. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know her that well.’
3 The Neighbour
Outside there was a nip of frost in the air. The school was in the middle of the village just off the main street. Jimmy could hear the children’s voices as soon as he left the hotel, and he saw the children when he crossed the road. They were wrapped in coats and scarves and had made a slide in the ice. Perez thought he could see Sarah’s son playing with the other boys.
An older woman waddled into the yard and rang a hand bell to mark the start of the school day. Perez thought this might be Freda, the woman who’d lost her job to Anna Blackwell and was now back. For a while, at least. He would talk to the head teacher later, when school was over. It would be good to hear what she’d made of Anna.
He walked round the village making a map of the place in his head. He found the doctors’ surgery in a modern building close to the school. Three names were on the door. Thomas King’s was one of them.
The small estate where Anna had lived was right at the edge of the village, not far from Tom and Sarah’s house. Ten semi-detached homes formed a horseshoe round a patch of frosty grass. There were some swings and a slide. Anna had lived in number four. It had a neat garden, but Perez couldn’t see inside because the curtains were closed. He was standing there, wondering if there was a way to get inside, when an elderly man appeared at the front door of the next house.
‘Can I help you?’ He was small and wiry, with teeth that were too big for his mouth.
‘I just came to see where Anna lived,’ Jimmy said.
‘Did you know her?’
‘Not exactly. I’ve been asked to find out why she died.’
‘Are you a cop?’
‘Yes,’ Jimmy said. Because after all, that was the truth.
‘Poor young thing. The women in this village are all bitches. They go to church on a Sunday, but that didn’t stop them making the lass’s life a misery with their gossip and their lies.’
‘You don’t happen to have a key?’ Perez nodded towards the small, tidy house.
‘Aye. I was the one who found her body.’
‘Maybe you could tell me how that happened,’ Perez said.
‘I told the other police.’ For the first time the old man seemed suspicious about Jimmy’s role in the case.
‘I know. I’m just checking that nothing’s been missed.’
They sat in the neighbour’s tiny living room in front of an open fire. The man offered tea but Perez shook his head.
‘Did she own the house?’ Perez asked.
The man shook his head. ‘She rented it. One of the doctors bought it when it came on the market a few years ago. A kind of investment, I guess. A young couple had it for a few years and then Anna moved in with her kid.’
‘What was the name of the doctor?’ Perez asked, but he thought he already knew.
‘Tom King.’ Another thing Sarah had failed to tell him: that her husband had been Anna Blackwell’s landlord.
‘I’ve lived here for years,’ the man said. ‘I love the place. But the way they treated Anna made me feel sick. I’m not sure I can stay.’
‘How did you find her body?’
‘Anna’s daughter Lucy had been at a friend’s for the night, at a farm just up the hill. When the friend’s mother, Gail Kerr, dropped her home they couldn’t get Anna to open the door. I told them to wait here and I let myself in. Anna had given me a key when she first moved in. For emergencies, she said. Well, that was an emergency.’ He stared into the fire.
‘Where was Anna?’
‘Where the police found her, of course. I called them from the house. There should be a record of that.’ He looked at Perez. ‘You are a cop?’
‘Yes.’ Perez took out his ID card and the man nodded.
‘She was sitting in the living room,’ he said. ‘Slumped over the table next to an empty wine bottle and a glass.’
‘Just one glass?’
‘Aye.’
‘What about the pills? Was there a medicine bottle?’