Free Murder in My Backyard by Ann Cleeves Page A

Six
    At the Tower the Laidlaws were preparing to leave for home. There was a pile of suitcases at the foot of the stairs. One of the twins was crying in a monotonous, exhausted way that seemed to get on all their nerves. Stella Laidlaw sat on the bottom step, clutching a fat handbag to her stomach, like a child with a favourite toy, only her eyes showing over the white collar of her sweater. Peter was asleep with his head on Carolyn’s knee, his face white and strained. They were waiting, it seemed, for Ramsay. Hunter had said that no-one could leave without his permission.
    “We can’t face spending another night here,” James said. “I’m sure you can understand that, Inspector. The children need to be in their own homes.”
    Ramsay looked at them. They were irritated by the delay but showed no other emotion. Do you really have no feelings? he thought. Or have you spent all your lives learning how not to express them? He raised no objections to their leaving. He was glad to see them go.
    Hunter helped the Laidlaws to load the cars. He even stood awkwardly for a while with a baby in each arm. The wind was even colder, carrying flurries of snow, blowing scraps of garden waste across the lawn. As they watched, a square pink card flapped and lifted with the leaves then came to rest against the bumper of James’s car. Ramsay picked it up carefully by one corner and held it to show them. The card was damp and the corners of the letters were unstuck, but it was clearly Alice Parry’s anonymous letter.
    “Where did this come from?” Ramsay turned on Hunter, aware as he spoke that his anger was unfair. It wasn’t Hunter’s fault. “I thought they’d searched the garden.”
    Hunter shrugged. He was thinking of the delights of the Bigg Market: the teenage girls dressed in tiny skirts, the disco music spilling onto the streets through open pub doors. Policing was only a job to him. The pleasures of his time off were more important to him. Ramsay’s anger did not concern him. He had a date with a student nurse and he regretted that more.
    “It’s very blowy,” he said. “ It could have been dropped anywhere in the village.”
    “Quite a coincidence,” Ramsay said. “ Talk to them. See if there’s anywhere they might have missed.”
    Hunter nodded, handed the twins back to their mother, and walked away without a word. The cars moved off down the drive. Ramsay stood outside for a moment watching them disappear through the trees. It was almost dark and Ramsay thought there would be more snow.
    In the kitchen the forensic team were just finishing.
    “Anything?” Ramsay asked.
    The officer shook his head. “ Sorry,” he said. “It’s spotless. That doesn’t mean that the sink wasn’t used, but there’s no evidence. Nothing on the floor either.”
    Ramsay shrugged. It was the worst sort of information. It didn’t eliminate or identify anyone. He was no further forward. He filled a kettle to make coffee.
    “Did you look at the knives?” he asked.
    “Yes. We’ll take one or two of the more likely ones back to the lab to check, but I don’t think your murder weapon’s among them.”
    “That’ll please them,” Ramsay said. “They’ll have to continue the search outside.”
    “You’re a hard man,” the officer said. “ It’s practically dark out there and it’s freezing.”
    It was cold even in the kitchen. The family must have switched off the heating. Ramsay shivered and made instant coffee in a mug. The forensic team left. He heard them calling to each other outside and the sound of their cars going up the drive.
    When Hunter came in, he was wearing only denim jeans, a sweater, and a thin leather jacket. He never seemed to feel the cold.
    “They say that card couldn’t have been in the garden,” he said. “They searched everywhere. They wouldn’t have missed it. Is that tea?”
    Ramsay shook his head. “You’ve drunk enough tea to sink a battleship. What do you think of all