Read Online Healers by Ann Cleeves - Free Book Online Page B

it.”
    “One witness has described him as “creepy”,” Ramsay said.
    “Yes,” she said gratefully. “That’s just it. I thought I was overreacting.” She gave a sudden smile, self-mocking. “But I don’t think I lived up to his expectations either. We were both disappointed.”
    “Yet you went through with the dinner?”
    “I wasn’t sure how to get out of it. He was quite insistent and I didn’t want to make a scene. I might not have been the sort of woman he imagined but I had the impression that he considered me better than nothing. I really think he believed I was grateful for his attentions.”
    There was a silence.
    “We ordered a meal,” she said. “I tried to talk to him, find out about his life on the farm. I thought that would be safe ground.”
    “What did he say about the farm?”
    “It was rather a litany of complaint. About how much work there was for one man, how little money it brought in, how lonely he was. I stopped being frightened of him then. He just seemed very pathetic. That’s when I decided to leave. I told him I had to go to the ladies’ cloakroom and walked out through the back door. I suppose it was a very cowardly thing to do, just to leave him sitting there. And rather unkind. But I didn’t want to spend any more time with him, and I didn’t see why I should.”
    The words were defiant. It would have come hard to her to walk out, Ramsay thought, after years of always doing the decent thing.
    “I stood in the backyard of the Ship with all the empty barrels and I burst into tears. It wasn’t so much that Mr. Bowles had upset me. It was disappointment, I suppose. Injured pride.”
    “Did anyone see you there?” Ramsay asked.
    “Sorry?”
    “Did anyone see you in the yard?”
    “I don’t know,” she said. “The kitchen’s at the back of the hotel. Perhaps one of the staff would have seen me. Why?”
    “You were one of the last people to see Mr. Bowles alive,” Ramsay said gently. “You do see that we have to corroborate your story.”
    “Oh yes! Of course. I should have realized.” She thought again. “When I pulled myself together I walked round the side of the hotel and into the street. I met Mr. Jones there, my boss. He asked me if I was all right. I suppose I looked upset. I said I was fine but I let him walk me to my car. I thought Mr. Bowles might come chasing after me.”
    “But he didn’t? You never saw him again?”
    “No.”
    “During the time you spent with Mr. Bowles did he mention that he’d arranged to meet anyone else later that evening?”
    “Oh no,” she said. “Definitely not.” She blushed a deeper shade of scarlet. “I had the impression, you see, that he’d expected to spend the night with me.”
    “Did he talk about friends, business acquaintances? Anyone he’d had a row with?”
    “No,” she said. “There was nothing like that’
    “What about his tenants? Sean and Lily. Did he mention them?”
    She shook her head.
    “Well, what did he talk about?” Hunter demanded, losing patience. “Apart from the farm.”
    “His mother,” she said. “He talked about his mother.”
    “What did he say about her?”
    “Nothing really. Nothing specific. He just wanted to talk about her. For me to know how important she’d been to him. I think that was it.”
    They stood for a moment on the pavement. It was dusk. In the little house Jane Symons turned on the light and drew the curtains.
    “That doesn’t get us much further forward then, does it?” Hunter said. He was disappointed, felt the interview had been an anticlimax. Then he reconsidered, brightened. “If anything it points more to Slater. We know now that Bowles went home alone.”
    “Not exactly,” Ramsay said. “We know he was alone when Mrs. Symons left him. That’s all.”
    Ernie Bowles would have been furious, Ramsay thought. And frustrated. He’d made all that effort, only to be stood up. What would he have done to try and mend his hurt pride? Find another