The Hiding Place(52)

“We don’t have any coffee.”

But we can’t always get what we want.

“Tea is fine.”

She fills the mugs with boiling water, adds milk.

“I remember you from school,” she says. “You were part of Hurst’s gang.”

“For a while.”

“I never thought you were like the rest.”

“Thanks.”

“Didn’t say it was a compliment.”

I wonder how to respond. I decide to say nothing, for now.

She finishes making the tea and brings the mugs over. “Are you going to sit down or what?”

I plonk my backside down in a chair. She takes the seat opposite.

“I heard you were renting the cottage.”

“Word gets around in Arnhill.”

“Always has.”

She reaches for her tea and takes a sip. I look at the brown liquid stewing murkily in my mug and decide against doing the same.

“You cleaned the cottage for Julia Morton?”

“That’s right. Though I doubt she’ll be giving you a reference.”

“You must have gotten to know her and Ben?”

She wraps her hands around her mug and regards me shrewdly. “Is that why you’re really here? You want to know about what happened?”

“I have a few questions.”

“It’ll cost you.”

“How much?”

“A deep clean.”

I remember Lauren’s price list. “Fifty pounds?”

“Cash.”

I consider. “I’ll live with the dust. Twenty-five pounds—and it will have to be a check.”

She sits back in her chair and folds her arms. “Go on.”

“What was Julia like?”

“All right, as teachers go. She wasn’t too up herself. But she thought she was better than this place. Most of them do.”

And most probably are.

“But she wasn’t depressed?”

“Not that I saw.”

“And Ben?”

“A good lad. At least he was, before he went missing.”

“What happened?”

“Didn’t come home one day after school. Had everyone out looking for him.” She pauses. “And then he came back.”

For the first time, I sense discomfort, a crack in the hard fa?ade.

“And?”

“He was different.”

“How?”

“He’d always been a polite, tidy lad. After, he’d leave the toilet unflushed. His bed was always stained with sweat, and other stuff. His bedroom stank, like something had crawled in there and died.”

“Maybe he was just going through a phase,” I say. “Kids can turn from sweet youngsters into smelly teens in the blink of an eye.”

She looks at me, swigs some of her tea. “I used to clean there last on my rounds. Sometimes Ben would be home from school. We’d chat. I’d make us both tea. After he came back, I’d turn around and find him standing there, just staring. It used to make my skin crawl. The way he looked at me. The way he smelled. Sometimes, I could hear him muttering under his breath. Foul words. It didn’t even sound like him. It wasn’t right.”

“Did you say anything to Julia?”

“I tried. That was when she said she didn’t need me anymore. Gave me my notice.”

“When was this?”

“Just before she took him out of school for good.”

I glance at my mug and wish I had a strong coffee. Strike that. I wish I had a bourbon and a cigarette.

“Open the back door,” Ruth says.

“What?”

“You want a smoke. I wouldn’t mind one neither. Open the back door.”

I stand and walk over to the door. It opens onto a small backyard. Someone has tried to brighten it with a few wilting plants in pots. At the far end, there’s a kennel. I walk back inside and sit down. I slip two cigarettes out of my pack and offer one to Ruth, then light both.

“What do you think happened to Ben?” I ask.

She takes a moment to reply: “When I was a kid, we had a dog. I used to walk him up at the old pit site.”

“I remember,” I say, wondering where this is going.

“One day he ran off. I was gutted. I loved that dog. Two days later he came back, coat matted with dirt and dust, a huge bloody scar around his neck. I bent down, fussed him. He wagged his tail and bit my hand. Right through to the bone. Dad wanted to throttle him right there and then. ‘Once a dog turns bad,’ he said, ‘that’s it. There’s no going back.’ ”

I stare at her. “You’re comparing Ben Morton to a dog?”

“I’m saying something happened to that boy and it was so bad his mother couldn’t live with it anymore.” She drags on the cigarette, blows out a thick cloud of smoke.

“Did you tell any of this to the police?”

She snorts. “And have them call me crazy?”

“But you’re telling me.”

“You’re paying me.”

“And that’s all?”

She drops the cigarette butt into her mug. “Like I said, you weren’t like the rest.”