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  He tipped his chair forward so his eyes were in shadow.

  “That must be suspicious,” he said. “Relevant anyway. The Alternative Therapy Centre is supposed to be all about healing, yet three people connected to it have died suddenly. Faye’s death could be a coincidence but it needs investigating. The writer of the anonymous letter certainly thinks so. Of course he might have his own reasons for that. It could be a distraction.”

  “Any way of tracing the writer from the letter?”

  Ramsay shook his head. “Not unless you want to look at every typewriter in the county.”

  “Postmark?”

  “Newcastle,” Ramsay said. “The main post office in Eldon Square. Which at least shows a degree of intelligence. If it had been sent from Otterbridge or Mittingford we’d have had somewhere to start’

  “Means he must have transport if he lives in Mittingford. It’s a good sixty miles into town.”

  “Not necessarily. There’s a bus. One a day each way from here and one every hour from Otterbridge direct to the Haymarket.”

  “That’s a lot of bother to go to,” Hunter said. Ramsay always tended to opt for the over-elaborate explanation. “Perhaps Faye Cooper had contacts in Newcastle and someone from there sent the letter. Where do her parents live?”

  “Wallsend,” Ramsay said. “Those houses by the river.”

  “It’s a hell of a lot easier to get to Newcastle from Wallsend,” Hunter said. “Perhaps the mother thought there was something odd about the lass’s death …”

  “And felt she owed it to the daughter to let us know. But didn’t want to contact us directly for some reason. So she sent an anonymous letter. It’s possible that her concern was triggered by the publicity surrounding the recent murders. The press has got hold of the alternative therapy angle.” Ramsay was talking slowly, to himself. Hunter might not have been there.

  “What do you want me to do about it?” Hunter demanded. He was already irritated at being ignored.

  “Go and talk to the mother. If she admits sending the letter she might have other information. Interview her, without the stepfather if you can. Find out what all the rows were about.”

  “Then what?”

  “See the boy. James. Treat him gently, though. Don’t forget he’s just lost his mother.”

  “What do you take me for? An ignorant slob?”

  Ramsay did not answer.

  “I had the impression that the relationship between him and Faye was over before she died. Find out what happened. If he finished with her we might be back to a reason for suicide. We need to know how involved she was with the crowd at the Old Chapel …”

  “Yeah,” Hunter said. “OK …” No need to spell it out, he thought. I’m not some wet-behind-the-tears DC.

  “And it will be useful to know how they met,” Ramsay went on. He paused. “Don’t disturb the lad at school. He’s been through enough without having to explain you to his mates. Wait until four o’clock and see him at home. And if the father’s there, for God’s sake be polite. He’s the type to stand on his dignity.”

  “OK,” Hunter said again. Generally it had all turned out much better than he could have hoped. A day away from the Mittingford sheepshaggers, the chance of a good lunch on expenses and the possibility of actually moving the case forward. He could do with the recognition. He felt vaguely that he was always in Ramsay’s shadow. If Ramsay had been a different sort of man, more of a character, more he struggled with the idea heroic, that wouldn’t be so important. But to play second fiddle to such a dull dog did his image no good at all.

  He was on his way out of the incident room when Ramsay called him back.

  “Take Sally Wedderburn with you,” he said. “She’s on her break but she’ll be back in five minutes. She could do with the experience. And Faye Cooper’s mam might find it easier to talk to a woman.”

  And at least Sal has a modicum of tact and discretion, he thought, but did not say.

  “Yeah,” Hunter said, trying not to show how pleased he was, trying to sound as if it were a chore he could do without. “Yeah. All right.”

  After Hunter had gone Ramsay sat in the incident room and took out the file he was compiling on Faye Cooper. In a corner a DC was stabbing inexpertly at a typewriter. Otherwise the room was empty and still. Ramsay re-read all the information and tried to form a picture of the girl. He wished he had a photograph. Beside the original police report into the accident at Juniper Hall and the coroner’s statement, he had obtained records from her high school. What occurred to him most was that she had been abandoned by all the adults who had been responsible for her. It was clear that there had been no contact with her parents once she left home, and the staff at the college seemed to have been unconcerned about the way she lived. Perhaps they did not know. Or did not care. Val McDougal would have cared, he thought. She would have had the girl back to her home for meals, kept an eye on her. But once the romance between Faye and James was over, what would have happened to her then? He was becoming fascinated by her.

  His teenage years had been stifling. Every move had been monitored by an over-protective mother and an extended family of aunts and cousins with nothing better to do than look out for his welfare. He tried to imagine what it must have been like to be left so completely alone. Exhilarating perhaps, but terrifying. He found himself groping towards an explanation for Faye’s attraction to the people at the Old Chapel. She wouldn’t be turned on by traditional religion. That would seem staid and irrelevant. But the philosophy of Daniel and Win with their close family life, Magda’s evangelical zeal, her charisma, would be more exciting. Belonging to that community of believers would give Faye a meaning to her life and the same sense of comfort as belonging to a church.

  It occurred to him that Lily Jackman might have had the same sort of rootless past. More affluent, he thought, but similarly insecure, attracted to the group at the Old Chapel for the same reasons. He wondered what else the two girls might have had in common.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Faye Cooper’s mother lived in a row of terraced houses which ran steeply towards the river Tyne. Her name after her marriage was Irving. Sally Wedderburn, who had done her homework and was as determined as Hunter to make her mark on the case, called her Joan.

  “Just a few words, Joan,” she said as they stood on the doorstep trying to persuade the woman to let them in. “We won’t take up much of your time.”

  Hunter looked down to the Tyne, to a dredger moving slowly up the river. Two lads, sitting on the pavement with their feet in the gutter, stared back.

  The woman was reluctant. The door was only open a crack and she was ready to close it again.

  “No, thank you,” she said, as though they were selling dusters and broom heads. Then: “My husband wouldn’t like it.”

  “Come on, pet,” coaxed Sally Wedderburn. “He need never know we’ve been here.”

  “Of course he’ll have to know,” the woman said sharply. She peered out, saw the lads on the pavement and drew back her head. “The people round here have nothing better to do than mind other folk’s business.”

  “Tell him we’re the Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Sally said. “Come to convert you.”

  “I’ll have no blasphemous talk in my house,” Joan Irving said, but by then somehow they were in, standing crushed together in a small hall. There was a smell of lavender furniture polish and bleach.

  “Is the lounge through here?” Sally asked. She pushed open the first door she came to. “Nice little places, aren’t they, these? Cosy.”

  The room they entered was small and square, dominated by the harmonium that stood against one wall. The colour scheme was brown and mustard. The smell of furniture polish had become overwhelming. It was impossible that anyone sat here and relaxed. The cushions propped against the brown leatherette settee were symmetrically arranged. There were no books or newspapers. The only ornaments were framed religious texts which hung on the walls and were propped up on the tile
mantelpiece.

  Hunter shivered. This wasn’t what he’d expected at all. From Ramsay’s description of the family he’d imagined someone feckless, a slut who’d got herself pregnant, then conned some poor bloke into marriage to get the rent paid and her brat cared for. Someone with loose morals who’d ditched the girl as soon as she could. Not this stern, pinch-faced woman who was only forty but looked older than his mam. He wasn’t sure how to handle the situation but he wasn’t going to let Sally Wedderburn have all the running.

  “Is your husband out at work?” he demanded.

  She did not answer, but backed away from him, apparently panic-stricken, until she was pressed against the wall.

  Christ, he thought. She’s mad as a hatter.

  “Well?” he said impatiently. She looked wildly about her. Still she did not speak.

  Hunter swore under his breath.

  “Haven’t you got a call to make, Sarge?” Sally Wedderburn said.

  “What?” He turned his anger towards her.

  “A call. From the car.” She motioned for him to leave the room. He stamped out, banging the front door behind him, then stood on the pavement smoking a cigarette. It came to something when you were ordered out of an interview by a subordinate. Still, he told himself viciously, it was better to let a woman deal with the hysterics. It was all they were good for.

  In the brown and mustard living room Joan Irving had begun to tremble.

  “Can I get you something?” Sally asked.

  The woman shook her head. “It’s my nerves,” she said. “I’ve always been bad with my nerves. There was no need for him to shout.”

  “No,” Sally agreed. “Why don’t we sit down and start again. I can explain properly why I’m here.”

  “I don’t know,” the woman said. “My husband’s out at work. At Swan’s. But he’ll be back soon. They’ve been on short shifts since the receivers took over the yard.” But she did as she was told and sat on a straight-backed, fireside chair, her knees locked together, her hand gripped in her lap.

  “I’m here about Faye,” Sally said gently.

  “That’s all over,” Joan Irving snapped. “She’s dead.”

  “Are you sure it’s over?” Sally asked. “As far as you’re concerned?”

  “I don’t know what you mean!” The panic was returning. She began to take gasping breaths. Sally moved closer to her and took her hand. She waited until the breathing returned to normal, then said:

  “We had a letter about Faye this morning. We wondered if you’d written it.”

  There was a silence.

  “No,” Joan Irving said at last. “I don’t understand.”

  “We’re investigating two murders. A farmer at Mittingford and a teacher from Otterbridge. Perhaps you read about them.”

  Joan Irving nodded. Ron had pointed the items out to her in the Chronicle. A sign of the times, he had said.

  Sally continued, “Then someone wrote to us and suggested that Faye’s death could be linked. To these murders. Do you know why anyone would think that?”

  The woman shook her head. She seemed genuinely bewildered.

  There was a pause and Sally tried again. She could see the back of Hunter’s head through the window. It was a sort of challenge.

  “It must have been a shock hearing out of the blue that Faye was dead,” she said tentatively.

  “Of course it was a shock, “Joan snapped back. “Wouldn’t you be shocked? If it were your child?”

  “I haven’t got kids myself,” Sally Wedderburn said. “Not yet. I’m working on it.”

  Outside the window Hunter began to pace up and down the pavement. Sod him, she thought. I’m not rushing this. “Did you go to the inquest?” she asked.

  Joan shook her head. “Ron went. He thought my nerves wouldn’t stand it.”

  “But you did accept the verdict? You did believe her death was an accident?”

  “Nothing in this world is without purpose,” Joan said piously. Then: “An accident, of course. What else could it have been?”

  Sally didn’t answer the question directly. “I’d like you to tell me all about Faye,” she said, ‘if it wouldn’t upset you too much.”

  “No. I want to. Ron doesn’t like me talking about her. It’s morbid, he says.”

  “Ron’s your husband?”

  She nodded. “He says she brought it on herself.”

  “In what way?”

  “For getting mixed up with those people. The New Age hippies. We’d heard about all that in our church. No better than witchcraft, Ron says.”

  “And what do you think?” Sally asked quietly. “About Faye’s death? Do you think she brought it on herself?”

  “No,” the woman said uncertainly. “No one deserves that, do they?”

  She got suddenly to her feet. Sally thought for a moment that the panic had returned and she was running away, but she opened a drawer in a small sideboard and pulled out a photograph album. She held it out to Sally with an awkward gesture, as if she expected it to be rejected as unimportant. Sally took it carefully and opened it on her knee. Joan Irving sat beside her on the sofa and began to point out Faye as a baby, Faye on her first day at nursery school, Faye starring as Mary in a nativity play.

  “She was very pretty,” Sally said, and indeed the girl was attractive, fair-haired, blue-eyed.

  “I look at it, “Joan said, ‘when Ron’s not here. It’s all I’ve got of her.”

  “You never married her father?” Sally asked. “You brought her up on your own until you met Ron?”

  “I’d made my bed,” she said, “I had to lie on it.” She paused, embarrassed but wanting to explain. “I was working in an estate agent’s. He was my boss. It happened at the office party. My first time. Too much to drink. When I found out I was expecting I just left. I couldn’t face seeing him again.”

  Bloody men, Sally Wedderburn thought. Hunter, on the pavement, was lighting another cigarette, cupping his hand around it to stop the wind putting it out.

  “She looks very happy in all those photos,” Sally said. “Was she a happy child?”

  “Once she started school,” Joan. said. “She wasn’t an easy baby. Always restless. The health visitor said she was bright and I should be pleased.” For the first time she smiled and made an attempt at a joke. “I told her I’d have been pleased to get more sleep.”

  “You must have been very close,” Sally said.

  “I suppose we were. Then.”

  “How old was Faye when you met Mr. Irving?”

  “She was twelve. She’d just started at the high school.”

  “Where did you meet him?”

  “At the chapel. That was before we started to worship as a house group He was kind. Took us out for treats. He said he liked kids.”

  I bet he did, Sally thought.

  “I really married him for Faye, so she’d have a dad like the other children.”

  Then there was a silence. On the river a boat’s hooter sounded.

  “Twelve’s a difficult age, isn’t it?” Sally said. “They’re just starting to grow up. Was Faye difficult?”

  Joan Irving became tense again. Her spine straightened and her knees locked together.

  “She never liked Ron,” Joan said. “She made things difficult, right from the start.”

  “In what way?”

  “Cheeking him. Not doing what she was told.”

  “Was he strict then?”

  Joan was defensive. “No,” she said. “Not really. I suppose I’d let her have her own way too much. There just being the two of us. Ron said I’d spoilt her.”

  “Why did she leave home? Did Ron tell her to go?”

  “No! He wouldn’t have done that. He knows what’s right.”

  But he made things so uncomfortable for Faye, Sally thought, that she was forced to leave.

  Joan Irving was continuing. “He had rules,” she said. “He wanted to know where she was and who she was with. There was nothing wrong with th
at. Faye was always wilful. She didn’t see he wanted the best for her.”

  “So there were rows?”

  Joan nodded. “About her staying out late and make-up, and the clothes she was wearing. Always rows.”

  “It must have been a relief when she decided to leave home.”

  Joan looked at her suspiciously. “Yes,” she said. “I suppose it was.”

  “But you kept in touch with her? You went to see her? Helped her find somewhere to live?”

  “I did at first. Ron works one weekend in four. On the Saturday he was working I’d go into Otterbridge to see her. To keep an eye. She was always wild.”

  “You went to her bed sit

  Joan nodded.

  “And was she all right? Managing?”

  “It was tidy enough, but then she knew when I was coming. I don’t know what it was like the rest of the time.”

  “Wasn’t she lonely, on her own?”

  “She said not, but then she would. Pride being one of her faults.”

  “Why did you stop going to see her, Mrs. Irving? Was it because Ron found out?”

  She shook her head.

  “Why then?”

  “She got herself a boyfriend.”

  “And didn’t she want you to meet him? Or didn’t you approve? She was sixteen. Old enough to have a boyfriend.”

  “Not that boyfriend, “Joan Irving said.

  “Why?”

  “He was bad for her. Took her off to pagan festivals. Introduced her to all that wickedness.”

  “Did you ever meet him?”

  Joan shook her head. “He was called James,” she said. “I remember that. Came from a nice home too, according to Faye. He should have known better.”

  “She discussed the New Age ideas with you?”

  “She talked about them all right!” Even after all this time Joan was indignant. “She said it would help me. I ought to go along to some group. Meet this Mrs. Pocock. Then I wouldn’t be so uptight. I told her, “I’m not uptight, my girl. I just know right from wrong.”

  “So you stopped going to see her.”

  Joan nodded. “She would have thought I approved. Besides,” she added honestly, “Ron would have killed me if he’d found out.”

  “And you never saw her again?”