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“I don’t know. Something to do with the farm, I suppose. He was talking about getting some hens again.”

  She picked up the plastic laundry basket and walked into the house. He followed her. The kitchen was even more untidy than when Ernie Bowles had lived there. A mound of dirty plates was piled on the draining board and a box of washing powder stood on the windowsill. There was a smell of stale joss sticks. A candle stood in a bottle in the middle of the table and wax had dripped on to the surface.

  “Why do you live like this?” he demanded before he could help himself.

  “And how do you live?” she spat back. “In a nice tidy semi, on a nice tidy estate, with a nice tidy wifey to cook your meals?”

  He grinned. “With my mam in a council house.”

  “So you’re a mummy’s boy,” she said. But her anger had dispersed. He felt she was teasing him.

  “No,” he said. “It’s just convenient.”

  She made instant coffee in grubby mugs. There was no milk or sugar.

  “I did as you suggested,” he said. “I went to see Rebecca Booth.”

  “Did you?” She seemed awkward. “A nice kid, isn’t she?”

  “Too nice to be messed around by Daniel Abbot.”

  “She told you then? I wasn’t sure she would.” She stood up, rinsed her mug under the tap.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about him and Faye Cooper before?” Hunter demanded.

  “I didn’t think it was relevant,” she said. “I still don’t. Not to the murders. But Rebecca shouldn’t have to put up with that every day. No one should.”

  “Has Daniel tried it on with you?” he asked suddenly.

  She gave a laugh. “Of course not. I’m too old. And I’ve got a boyfriend. Daniel always makes sure his victims are unattached. He might look tough but he’s a coward.”

  “What happened that weekend at Juniper Hall?” Hunter asked.

  “I’m not sure. He was pretty discreet. But on the Saturday evening I found Faye in tears in the ladies. She blamed herself. She was scared Win would find out.”

  “What did you say?”

  “That he was just a dirty middle-aged man and she should stand up to him. She wouldn’t have done, though. She’d just been dumped by Peter Richardson and she’d lost all her confidence. She was in no state to stand up to anybody.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are you sure she didn’t threaten to tell his wife, or Mrs. Pocock, or the press? Are you sure he didn’t drown her to keep her quiet?”

  “Of course he didn’t drown her!” Lily’s voice was emphatic. “I don’t like him any more than you do but he wouldn’t have done that. He’s a healer.”

  There was a moment of silence. In the hall Cissie Bowles’s clock began to chime.

  “Did Ernie Bowles know about Mr. Abbot’s habit of harassing young girls?” Hunter asked.

  “I shouldn’t think so. How could he?”

  “You said he was a snoop.”

  “He was that all right. Made it his business to know everyone’s business. But I can’t see how he could have found out about that.”

  “You didn’t tell him?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Did he have any reason to go to the Alternative Therapy Centre?”

  “When Cissie could still get about he used to take her in the Land-Rover for her acupuncture treatment. He used to sit in the waiting room while she saw Mr. Abbot. I suppose he could have overheard something but Faye wouldn’t have been around then.”

  “And when Cissie was bedridden?”

  “She was taking some homoeopathic remedies prescribed by Win. Ernie collected the tablets from the Centre. I offered to get them for him but he seemed to like going himself.”

  She returned to the table and sat down again, opposite to him. He thought she seemed unusually restless. He could tell that her concentration was wandering.

  “We think Ernie could have been a blackmailer,” he said, hoping to hold her attention. “Did he ever try to blackmail you?”

  She laughed. “What would be the point? I’ve no reputation to lose anyway.”

  “But he would be capable of it?”

  “Oh,” Lily said, ‘he’d be capable of anything. We all are, aren’t we? In the right circumstances. Put under enough stress.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She paused. He had the impression that she was weighing him up, deciding how far she could trust him, wondering even if she should ask him for help. She seemed about to speak when the door opened and Sean Slater walked in.

  “This is very cosy,” he said. He stood in the doorway with the sun behind him, breathing heavily as if he’d been running. Something had annoyed him. He was spoiling for a fight but Hunter had just enough sense not to be provoked. He knew Lily Jackman wouldn’t be impressed by fisticuffs anyway.

  “I’m just asking Miss Jackman a few questions,” Hunter said.

  “I thought you’d be leaving us alone now,” Slater said. “You found my friends in the blue Transit, didn’t you? You know we couldn’t have killed James McDougal. So why do you keep tormenting us?”

  “I’m not tormenting you,” Hunter explained reasonably. And you’d soon know about it if I was, he thought. “I’m asking for information.”

  “Or is there another reason for your interest?” Sean said nastily. “Another reason for you sniffing around here all the time?”

  Hunter pretended not to understand. He stood up and walked out of the house. Slater leaned against the frame of the door and watched until his car was out of sight.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Win Abbot had been crying. She pretended at first not to be in. Sally Wedderburn rang the doorbell over and over again but there was no reply. She could have given up and gone back to the station. Why should she always be the one to deal with nervy women anyway? But she was too persistent for that. An alley at the end of the terrace led into a footpath which ran along the back of all the gardens. Beyond that there was open hillside: bracken and sheep-grazed grass. Most of the gardens had a gate on to the footpath. The Abbots’ had stiff bolts, presumably to prevent the children from escaping. Sally gave up trying to shift them and climbed over. She pulled a thread on the pair of Benetton trousers she’d bought in the sales, but was rewarded by a glimpse of Win’s terror-stricken face at the kitchen window.

  “Mrs. Abbot!” she called, knocking on the kitchen door. “Please let me in.”

  Win must have made an effort to pull herself together, because when she opened the door she was red-eyed but calm.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I had the radio on. I didn’t hear the bell.”

  “Could I come in for a while?”

  “I don’t know. It’s not very convenient.”

  “There are just a few points to clear up about the acupuncture lecture,” Sally said.

  Don’t confront her about her husband, Ramsay had told Sally. We don’t want to scare him off. That can come later. Don’t ask her anything about Juniper Hall. Nothing tricky. Get her confidence and stick to the lecture in the college. See if you can break the alibi.

  “You’d better come in then,” Win said, as if she wasn’t really bothered after all.

  The lunch things were still on the table. There were cartons of houmous and olives, half a quiche, a tub of salad. Most was untouched. It seemed Win hadn’t had much of an appetite. It looked as if everything had been bought specially. Not the sort of snack a woman would rustle up for her and the kids. Win saw Sally looking at the table.

  “Magda was here for lunch,” she said. “My mother, you know. She brought the food. The restaurant at the Old Chapel do a carry out service, if you’re hungry just help yourself …”

  Sally shook her head. She wondered what the meal had been about. Some sort of peace offering perhaps.

  “Where are the boys?” she asked.

  “Upstairs having a nap. I couldn’t face their noise today.”

  Sh
e had a feverish burst of activity, clearing plates, snapping lids on to plastic cartons, then stopped, quite suddenly, before the job was finished. Sally thought she was close to breaking point. It was just as well, she thought, that they hadn’t sent Hunter. He’d push her right over the edge.

  “Are you married?” Win Abbot demanded.

  Sally shook her head. “Thinking about it.” She smiled. “Would you recommend it?”

  “Yes,” Win said very quickly. “Of course.” She leaned forward across the table towards Sally. “I couldn’t regret marrying Daniel. He’s a great man, you know. He has a gift.” Her eyes shone with fanaticism. “You can’t expect gifted people to behave in ways we understand.”

  She knows her husband likes chasing young girls, Sally thought. And she’s going to do nothing about it. Selfish bitch.

  “I was very ill as a child,” Win went on. “It took someone like Daniel to make me well again. Now he’s helping other people. It’s worth making sacrifices to support him in that.”

  Sally did not know how to respond. “Hallelujah’ might have been appropriate. Like in a Pentecostal church when someone’s given witness.

  “About the lecture …” she said.

  “Yes?” Win said brightly.

  “Perhaps you could take me through the evening again.”

  “Lily was babysitting. We drove to Otterbridge College. Daniel wanted to arrive early. He was making the introductory speech. He was with me all the time.”

  And even if he wasn’t, Sally thought, you wouldn’t let on.

  Magda was late arriving and Ramsay was debating about whether he should go to fetch her when the man on the desk said she was there. “I’ll be quarter of an hour,” he said. “Put her in an interview room.” He wasn’t usually into power games but with Magda, he thought, he needed all the advantage he could get.

  But when he saw her he thought he had misjudged the situation. She was subdued, uncertain. They had given her a mug of tea. His mug, he noticed immediately. One that Prue had given him. It was covered with painted pigs. Her idea of a joke. The interview room was taller than it was wide, and could once have been a cell. The bare stone walls had been covered with thick cream gloss paint. The window was very small, close to the ceiling, protected by wire mesh. Although it was a sunny afternoon the room was gloomy and lit by an electric light bulb hanging from a dangerous looking flex. Magda, however, seemed not to notice her surroundings.

  When he went in she stood up and held out her hand.

  “Mrs. Pocock,” he said, ‘we’ve been trying to talk to you …”

  “About the boy. I know.”

  “Where were you yesterday?” His voice was pleasant, only slightly curious.

  “I went to Juniper Hall,” she said. “I needed somewhere to think. It seemed fitting. There were no guests staying and the staff were very kind. They allowed me to walk in the gardens. It was quite late when I got back, and then Win phoned me and told me about James. I think I had decided to give you this anyway, but I couldn’t keep quiet after that.”

  From her bag she took a notebook. It was A4 with hard covers, the sort which might be used in an office as a ledger.

  “Faye Cooper’s diary,” he said.

  “Yes. Faye’s diary.” She paused. “Don’t expect too much, Inspector. I don’t think it will solve your case for you. This hasn’t been a conspiracy to protect a murderer. I really don’t see that it can have anything to do with the attacks on Mr. Bowles or the McDougals. That’s what I’ve been telling myself, you see. That’s why I didn’t come forward before. Then I thought you were an intelligent man. You would use the information wisely. And that any information, even of a negative kind, would be of use to you. Was my judgement correct?”

  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