White Nights - Ann Cleeves [85]
‘We haven’t been able to trace any other family. Is there anyone else we should inform about his death?’
She shook her head. ‘He was an only child. The classic only child: spoiled rotten and left to play too much on his own. His parents were quite elderly when we married. They’re probably dead now.’
Taylor felt he was losing control of the interview. He’d brought Jebson along to observe, not to take over.
‘You say you hadn’t seen Mr Booth since he left sixteen years ago,’ he said. ‘Have you communicated with him at all?’
‘He’s paid maintenance for Ruth since he left. Not a lot. He’s never had steady work. Since he set up the drama-in-education company things have been a bit better. I never wanted to make a fuss about the money and we had no direct contact over that. It was as if he preferred not to think about us.’
‘Did you try to find him when he left?’
‘Of course I did! I worshipped him. But he’d left his job at the school too. Just walked out. Gave no notice, asked for no reference. I thought he must be going through some sort of breakdown, tried psychiatric hospitals, the police, the Salvation Army. I imagined him sleeping on the streets, in some horrible hostel.’
‘Did you ever find out where he went after he left you?’
‘To his mummy and daddy.’ She sounded very bitter. ‘Hardly the great romantic gesture, was it? Running home like a scared child. Of course I contacted them but they told me they hadn’t heard from him. He got them to lie for him.’
‘And there was nothing, really, that precipitated his going?’
‘It was when Ruth was born,’ she said. ‘That was when things started changing.’
She paused, and Taylor wished she’d get to the point.
Perhaps Jebson sensed his impatience, because she cut in with a question. For such a big, ungainly lass, she had a gentle voice.
‘In what way did things change, Mrs Stapleton?’
‘I don’t know what he’d been expecting. He was so excited when I found out I was pregnant. Maybe some ideal of family life. A child who would adore him. Certainly not nappies and crying, coming home to an exhausted wife who suddenly made demands on him. And then Ruth wasn’t the perfect baby he’d visualized for himself.’
‘In what way wasn’t she perfect?’
‘She was born with a cleft palate. You wouldn’t know now. She’s a beautiful young woman. But there have been lots of spells in hospital. And when we first brought her home she was an ugly little thing. I think he was repulsed by her. And disgusted with himself for feeling that way. Perhaps that’s what brought matters to a head. He couldn’t face the reality, couldn’t lose himself in theatre any more. So he just ran away. He pretended she’d never been born.’
‘Can you think why anyone would have wanted to kill him?’
‘I’d probably have killed him,’ she said. ‘If I’d tracked him down to his parents’ house. If I’d caught him there, being waited on by them while I was struggling to keep things going at home.’
‘Did he have any family and friends in Shetland?’
‘No family. If he made friends there it was after my time.’
She offered them more tea, handed them biscuits, smiled to show she really didn’t care any more. There was the sound of the key in the door.
‘Hi, Mum.’
‘Shall we leave,’ Taylor said, ‘so you can talk to Ruth on her own?’
‘No. She’ll probably have questions. You’ll be able to answer them better than me.’
Ruth was, as her mother had said, a beautiful young woman. Dark-haired, full-breasted, with a wide smile. She stood in the door and looked at them. She was wearing jeans and a loose white top, easy with her body. She was curious about who they were, but too polite to ask.
‘These people are detectives,’ Amanda Stapleton said. ‘They have some news about your father.’
The girl looked at them, horrified. ‘What about him? What has