Free Ramsay 04 - Killjoy by Ann Cleeves Page A

it would be pointless to follow him now. He would have friends or relatives all over the estate prepared to hide him. Besides, he would be easy enough to trace. Ramsay wished, though, that he had had a chance to tell the boy that he only wanted to help.

Chapter Six
    When John Powell got up his father had already left the house. John had had very little sleep and would have been late for college if his mother had not woken him. She came into his room, still in her dressing gown, bringing a mug of tea for each of them, then sat on his bed and tried to make him talk about Gabby.
    ‘I thought she was a special friend of yours,’ she said. ‘ She was in your English group at college, wasn’t she?’ She lit a cigarette and inhaled it deeply. She had taken to smoking when his father was out of the house.
    ‘She was just a friend,’ he said. She had woken him in the middle of a dream, in which he was Smollett the highwayman being chased by a gang of soldiers. He felt the light-headed exhilaration which comes from too little sleep. His mind was racing. He was surprised by his mother’s interest in the murder. His father had always protected her from the unpleasantness of his work.
    ‘But you knew her quite well,’ Jackie Powell persisted. ‘ I’ve seen you with her.’
    John knew he would have to be careful. There was a rush of adrenalin and he found it almost impossible to lie still in bed. He breathed slowly, and reminded himself that if he was an actor this was just another performance.
    ‘She was Abigail Keene in the play,’ he said. ‘We had to work closely together.’
    ‘Did you see her yesterday?’
    ‘Not at the Arts Centre,’ he said, deliberately misunderstanding. ‘You know that. She didn’t turn up. She was dead.’
    ‘But earlier?’ His mother leaned forward and he could see the fine lines around her eyes and on her forehead. Without any make-up she looked old, desiccated. ‘ Did you talk to her earlier? At college?’
    John considered carefully but could not decide what line to take.
    ‘I can’t remember,’ he said flatly. ‘She might have been there. Why do you want to know?’
    Jackie Powell stood up.
    ‘I don’t want you involved in this,’ she said quietly. ‘The police will be asking questions everywhere. I don’t want you involved.’
    There was a trace of hysteria in her voice. He thought she was going to cry. He sat up, irritated by the unwelcome emotional demand.
    ‘Look,’ he said, trying unsuccessfully to control his impatience. ‘What’s the matter?’ He had his own life to lead. What problems could she have? He viewed his parents almost as if they were a different species—respectable, untroubled, invulnerable.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. She took a tissue from her dressing-gown pocket and blew her nose. ‘ I’m just upset…a young girl like that. It might have been you.’
    He got out of bed and pulled a T-shirt over his head.
    ‘No,’ he said deliberately. ‘You mustn’t worry about that. I can look after myself. It wouldn’t have been me.’
    John walked to the sixth-form college from Barton Hill. The prosperous streets of the estate were empty. Most of the families who lived there had two cars. The children would be driven to school or to the childminder. The parents would already be at work. Most people needed two incomes to support a mortgage on Barton Hill. John wondered how his father managed it.
    When he left the estate he avoided the main road, and chose instead the narrow red-brick terraced streets, sauntering, his hands in the pockets of the leather jacket which had been last year’s Christmas present. He thought again about his portrayal of Smollett, a criminal, an outsider, trying to work out how he could give some depth to the character. He refused to see the play as a jolly jape, a pantomine. He wanted to be good. He ran over the lines in his head.
    There had been a heavy frost and the cars still parked in the street were covered in ice. He