The Healers Read online

  Abbot was rattled, Hunter thought. He was hiding it well but he was definitely rattled.

  ‘But perhaps you’ll be expecting that,’ Ramsay went on. ‘ I’m surprised that you didn’t come forward yourself.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, Inspector.’

  But you do, Hunter thought. You know what we’re talking about all right.

  ‘I mean another suspicious death,’ Ramsay said. ‘Another victim connected with the Alternative Therapy Centre.’

  Abbot said nothing. He stared at Ramsay. Perfectly controlled but terrified.

  ‘You must have seen the news report,’ Ramsay persisted. ‘Val McDougal. She was murdered in Otterbridge on Monday night.’

  Then, surprisingly, there was relief. Hunter was sure of that. A relaxation of tension.

  ‘No,’ Abbot said. ‘I didn’t know. At least I didn’t realize it was Val. Someone told me a teacher had been killed in Otterbridge but I didn’t hear the name. We don’t have a television and not much time for reading papers.’

  ‘But you did know Val McDougal?’

  ‘Yes. She was a patient at the Centre. She came to me originally, complaining of panic attacks. I referred her on to Magda. I saw her occasionally in reception, then she came with us to our weekend retreat in Cumbria last autumn.’

  ‘You didn’t actually treat her?’

  ‘No,’ Abbot said. ‘I did a traditional diagnosis, took the pulses, blood pressure, but decided that rebirthing seemed more appropriate.’

  ‘She was killed on Monday night,’ Ramsay said. ‘Strangled like Mr Bowles.’ He paused, then continued provocatively. ‘Could you tell me where you were on Monday evening?’

  ‘Why?’ Abbot demanded, no longer frightened but very much on his dignity.

  ‘It’s a matter of routine,’ Ramsay said smoothly. ‘Elimination. I’m sure you understand.’

  ‘Win and I were in Otterbridge actually. At the Further Education College. An old tutor of mine was giving a lecture.’

  ‘Mrs McDougal was working at the college on Monday evening. Did you see her?’

  Abbot shook his head impatiently.

  ‘What time did you get home?’

  ‘Not till late. After midnight. A few of us took the lecturer out for a meal. Then I had to take Lily home.’

  ‘Lily was in Otterbridge with you?’

  ‘No. She was here, babysitting. I dropped Win off and drove her back to Laverock Farm.’

  ‘Sean wasn’t with her?’

  ‘No.’

  There was a pause while Ramsay considered the information.

  ‘Would Mrs McDougal have known Lily and Sean?’

  ‘Lily certainly. They both went to Magda’s group.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course,’ Ramsay said. ‘The Insight Group. And Mr Bowles? Would she have known him?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought so. Unless she went to Laverock Farm to see Lily.’

  ‘So the Old Chapel is the only link between the murders,’ Ramsay said. ‘I think that puts you in a rather uncomfortable position…’

  ‘What are you implying, Inspector?’ It was an expression of injured surprise.

  ‘I’m not implying anything,’ Ramsay said calmly. ‘It’s not as if you benefit from either of the deaths.’

  ‘No,’ Abbot said, a little uncertainly. ‘At least not personally.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ For the first time Ramsay’s voice was sharp. ‘We’re not playing games, Mr Abbot.’

  The man leant forward across the desk in a conciliatory gesture. ‘Look, I’ll have to explain about Cissie Bowles or you’ll not understand. She came to us after a row with her GP. To pay him back, I suspect, for not giving her enough attention and not being sufficiently polite. You can hardly blame the doctor. She was a demanding and cantankerous old thing. Certainly not polite herself. Given to strange oaths of a vaguely biblical nature. I think she’d been through three GPs already before she decided to try me. I’m sure she only stuck with me because it amused her to be treated by what’s known generally in the town as “that group of hippies”. She’d never been properly accepted here, although she was brought up in Laverock Farm and went to school with most of the old crows who disapproved of her.’

  He paused for breath. Ramsay said nothing. He was prepared to wait to see where this was leading.

  ‘Ernie was her only relative,’ Abbot went on. ‘Her parents were middle-aged when she was born and she was an only child. I know all this because I took a personal history when she first consulted me. Her parents died when she was in her early twenties and she took on the farm. Ran it, apparently, almost single-handed until Ernie was old enough to help. There was a hired help. He was an outsider, too, I imagine. Not immediately local anyway because he had to live in.’

  Ramsay raised his eyebrows. ‘ Ernie’s father?’

  ‘Yes,’ Abbot said. ‘Ernie’s father. She fired him as soon as she discovered she was pregnant and made do after that with casual labour from the town…’

  ‘This is very interesting,’ Ramsay interrupted, ‘but I don’t see how you come to benefit from Mr Bowles’s death.’ He suspected that Daniel Abbot was stringing him along.

  ‘I’m coming to that,’ Abbot said. ‘Cissie left the farm to Ernie for his lifetime and in the event of his marrying and having children to his offspring after his death.’ He stopped, took a shallow breath and completed the explanation in a rush. ‘If he was to die before having children the farm would come to the Alternative Therapy Centre.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us that before?’ Ramsay demanded. ‘You didn’t say anything to the officer who came earlier in the week to take a statement.’

  ‘Shock, I suppose. Embarrassment. And at that time I only had Cissie’s word as to what was in the will. She might have been leading me on. It would have been quite in character. But I had a phone call from her solicitor this morning.’

  ‘What do you mean Laverock Farm goes to the Alternative, Therapy Centre?’ Hunter asked belligerently. He saw the chance of a ruck. ‘You mean you sell it and split the profit between you? I don’t know how many of you work in this place but it’d be a tidy windfall. I’d call that a personal gain.’

  ‘No,’ Abbot said, interrupting forcefully. ‘It wasn’t like that. The terms of Cissie’s will were very exact. Occasionally we run weekend retreats like the one Val McDougal attended last autumn. It provides a chance for our patients to get away from the stress of everyday life which often lies at the root of their problems; charge, if you like, their spiritual batteries… We have discussion groups, teach relaxation techniques, yoga, meditations. Look, as you said yourself, at the whole person.’

  ‘This is most instructive but I don’t understand what it has to do with Laverock Farm.’

  ‘In the past we’ve always gone to a place in Cumbria for the retreat. Juniper Hall. It’s pleasant enough but expensive and inconvenient for people to get to. Cissie had a vision of Laverock Farm being turned into a centre where we could run retreats ourselves, weekend workshops, experiment with all kinds of different therapies in a residential setting. A place like that would attract visitors from all over the country.’

  ‘I bet the locals will love that,’ Hunter muttered.

  ‘I’m sure they’ll get used to it, Sergeant,’ Abbot said piously. ‘Besides, Cissie was hardly one for worrying about what her neighbours thought.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Ramsay asked. ‘Isn’t that what this is really about? We know there was ill feeling between her and the Richardsons at Long Edge Farm. I suspect the will was her way of paying back her neighbours for what she saw as their spite. It was her final piece of mischief. Her revenge. Leaving them with what they’d consider a commune in their midst.’

  ‘Her motives hardly matter now, Inspector. You can be sure we’ll put the place to good use.’

  ‘You seem to have given the venture a lot of thought,’ Ramsay said.

  ‘I suppose I have. It was a dream,
you know, that’s all. An exciting dream. I never thought anything would come of it. Ernie Bowles was fifty-five. He could have lived for thirty years.’

  He could have lived for thirty years, Ramsay thought. But he didn’t, did he?

  Chapter Thirteen

  After the interview with Abbot, Ramsay and Hunter separated. Hunter was sent to Long Edge Farm to talk to the Richardsons.

  ‘See if you can find out if Richardson knew about Cissie Bowles’s will,’ Ramsay said. ‘ If he did I think we’ve lost a motive for murder. He’d surely rather have a festival of New Age travellers once a year, than have the hippies on his doorstep permanently. And see if any of the family knew Val McDougal. The wife, Sue, might have done. They’d be of a similar age. It’s even possible that Peter, the lad, went to Otterbridge FE College before starting at agricultural college.’ At this point they were still looking for connections, hoping for luck.

  Ramsay picked up Sally Wedderburn from the incident room and took her to interview Win Abbot. He had already established that she would be at home.

  ‘Win?’ Abbot had said, dismissively. ‘Oh yes, she’ll be there. Since the boys were born she’s only worked part-time.’

  He must have warned her that the police were on their way because when they rang the doorbell she let them in immediately, without asking what they wanted. Win was a tall, thin woman with wispy hair fixed in a pile on the back of her head with a tortoiseshell comb. The hairstyle and her clothes – a long skirt reaching almost to her ankles and a long shapeless cardigan – made her seem old-fashioned. Like a character from one of the adaptations of D. H. Lawrence that Prue made him watch, Ramsay thought. Somehow haunted and intense. Certainly she looked very tired. She came to the door carrying a toddler on her hip.

  ‘Come in,’ she said, pushing a strand of hair away from her face. ‘I’m just giving them lunch. We’re in the kitchen.’

  The house was one of a stone terrace built into the side of the hill with a long steep garden behind it and a bay window at the front. The kitchen was an extension on the back. Another little boy sat at the table there. Win lifted the toddler from her hip into a high chair. She began to feed him slices of apple and wholemeal toast covered with an unappetizing but obviously healthy spread.

  ‘Sit down,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry about the mess.’

  She looked around the kitchen as if overwhelmed by the disorder, though Ramsay thought he had seen much worse. Often, for example, in Prue’s home. There was a basket of laundry on the table, a pile of toys on the floor, some nappies steeping in a bucket by the sink. Nothing to explain Win Abbot’s exhaustion.

  ‘It must be a lot of work with two little ones,’ Sally Wedderburn was saying. ‘And your job at the Alternative Therapy Centre. Do you have any help?’

  ‘No.’ The hand twitched nervously back to the escaping hair. ‘Not now. I had a girl in to look after the boys last summer, but now I try to manage on my own. I only go to the Centre two evenings a week. Daniel has the boys then.’ She handed the toddler another finger of toast and watched while he squeezed it back out through toothless gums on to his plastic bib. ‘Can I get you something?’ she asked. ‘Tea? Coffee?’

  Ramsay shook his head.

  ‘The main trouble is that they don’t sleep very well,’ she went on. ‘I always seem to be tired.’

  So that was the explanation, Ramsay thought, for her drawn and grey appearance. Not guilt, the torment he’d imagined, but kids who wouldn’t sleep. He should know by now not to jump to conclusions.

  ‘Perhaps you could explain how the Centre is organized,’ he said. ‘You and your husband are partners?’

  ‘With my mother,’ she said. ‘She and Daniel work at the Centre practically full-time. There are three treatment rooms. I use the third for my evenings. When I’m not there we let the room to other practitioners: Sam Lacey’s an osteopath and Billy Brown’s a chiropractor. They have two and a half days each.’

  ‘But they’re not partners? They won’t benefit under the terms of Cissie Bowles’s will?’

  ‘None of us will benefit personally,’ she said sharply. ‘And I’m sure we’ll find a place for them at Laverock Farm.’

  ‘But you will benefit,’ he persisted gently. ‘Surely you’ll have an increased income because of the new patients the centre at Laverock Farm will attract.’

  That seemed genuinely not to have occurred to her.

  ‘I suppose it might,’ she said. ‘ In the long term.’

  ‘And you’ll split any profit three ways?’

  ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘ I shouldn’t think so. Magda put most money in when we started. It would be fair, I suppose, that she should take most out.’

  She leaned forward over the table. ‘But none of us has been motivated by money, you know. That’s not what it’s all about.’ She had the passion of a fanatic.

  ‘What does motivate you?’ he asked lightly.

  ‘Healing,’ she said. ‘ We want to show people that they can be well. That’s why Laverock Farm’s important. We can reach more people.’

  The boys had finished eating. She wiped their faces perfunctorily with a dish cloth and helped them down from the table, then opened the door to let them into the garden. Outside there were tricycles, a scooter. She shut the door on them gratefully.

  ‘Peace,’ she said. ‘ For ten minutes at least. Until they start fighting.’

  ‘You’ve heard from your husband that Mrs McDougal’s dead?’ Ramsay asked.

  She nodded.

  ‘Tell me about her. Were you friends?’

  ‘Friends?’ The question seemed to bemuse her. She sat with her head on one side, considering it. Her eyes were grey and her skin was sandy and freckled, lined on her forehead with fine wrinkles. Ramsay guessed that she and Daniel were of a similar age but she looked much older. ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘We weren’t really friends, though I always felt we might be. I was putting it off, if you know what I mean, saving it for when I had more energy and time. Now I suppose it’s too late.’

  ‘Val didn’t make the effort to be friends with you?’

  ‘No, but then she wouldn’t have done. She was very shy.’

  ‘You never saw her professionally?’

  ‘No. She had ten sessions of rebirthing with Magda. She came to the retreat at Juniper. I talked to her there, at meals you know, socially. But there was a lot going on that weekend. It was hard to concentrate on getting to know people.’

  ‘I would have thought that was what the weekend would be for.’

  ‘Usually, yes…’

  ‘But something unusual happened that weekend?’

  She looked up at him sharply as if the question might be some sort of trick, then paused uncertainly and shook her head. She was lying but he did not push it. There would be other people to ask.

  ‘Do you ever attend your mother’s Insight Group?’

  ‘Occasionally,’ she flashed back bitterly. ‘When I can persuade Daniel to look after the children.’

  ‘Did Mrs McDougal have any special friends there? Someone she confided in. A man perhaps?’

  ‘She didn’t have a boyfriend, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘What about Lily Jackman? Were she and Val friends?’

  ‘What is this friendship business about?’ Win demanded angrily. ‘I thought you were a policeman, not a psychologist.’

  ‘If she had any concerns for her safety she may have confided in someone,’ Ramsay replied calmly. ‘That’s why I need to know.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I hardly slept at all last night. That’s why I’m so ratty. And the shock, I suppose. Val and Lily seemed to get on very well in the group. They seemed to understand each other right from the start. But I don’t think they ever met away from the Centre. Lily never mentioned it anyway.’

  ‘You’ve been very kind to Lily and Sean,’ he said.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘They come to your house for meals and baths. You found them somewhe
re to live.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I suppose I felt a bit responsible – for their staying in Mittingford when the rest of the convoy moved on.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’d talked to them a lot about the Centre, how we organize it. I wanted them to see that they could have a lifestyle which didn’t compromise their beliefs but was more purposeful than aimlessly travelling around in an old van.’

  She was like a missionary, Ramsay thought. He could see how Lily had been hooked.

  ‘It was awkward,’ she said. ‘I think when the convoy moved on they expected that we’d put them up here. I wouldn’t have minded. We’ve got the room and I’d have liked the company. But Daniel wasn’t keen. He didn’t want us getting too involved…’

  ‘So instead they moved into Mr Bowles’s caravan.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Did you meet any other members of the convoy?’ Ramsay asked.

  ‘Yes. They used to come into the Coffee Shop in the Old Chapel. I saw them there occasionally.’

  ‘Do you remember a couple called Wes and Loma? They might have been driving a blue Transit van. They had a baby, a little girl.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Lily and Sean were the only people I really got to know.’

  ‘Could you tell me where you were on Saturday night?’

  ‘The night Ernie Bowles was strangled?’ There was a brief flash of humour.

  He nodded. ‘It’s a formality,’ he said. ‘We’re asking everyone.’

  ‘I was here. I’m always here.’

  ‘And your husband?’

  There was a perceptible pause before she answered: ‘ Yes. He was here too.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’ As they stood to go there was a yell from the garden, followed by the sound of a child sobbing.

  ‘I’ll have to go,’ she said, more in resignation than concern.

  ‘That’s all right. We’ll see ourselves out.’

  ‘Poor cow,’ Sally Wedderburn said when they were out on the pavement.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, she seems so ground down by it all, doesn’t she? Depressed.’