Ramsay 04 - Killjoy by Ann Cleeves

was poll-tax capped we thought the Centre might have to close but somehow she found the grants to keep us going. She wangled some sponsorship deal with some local businesses too. I don’t know the details … But it is hard to like her. She thinks we should only use the Centre to house events which will attract a big audience and pay their way. She considers anything experimental as left-wing propaganda.’
    She stopped, quite breathless, then smiled awkwardly. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘That’s only my opinion, my prejudice I suppose. I got carried away. I almost forgot you were here professionally. I wouldn’t want you to take what I’ve said too seriously.’
    ‘How does Gus Lynch get on with her?’ he asked.
    ‘He doesn’t like her dictating artistic policy but there’s never been any real confrontation. She knows that if he leaves they’ll never get anyone else as famous to head up the Grace Darling Centre.’
    ‘Did Gus mention yesterday that he had a meeting with her?’
    ‘No. I had the impression that he was as surprised to see her as me.’
    ‘Tell me about the famous Gus Lynch. How do you get on with him?’ He tried to keep the question flat, his voice light, but was aware, despite himself, of an edge of mockery. Can I really be jealous, he thought, of a man because he works with the woman I made love to twenty years ago?
    ‘It’s hard to be objective about one’s boss,’ she said. ‘Especially one with as high a public profile as Gus Lynch.’ She smiled. ‘ Doesn’t every assistant believe that they do all the work while their supervisor takes the credit?’
    He smiled back. ‘And you feel that about Lynch?’
    ‘Let’s just say that he’s not very generous about acknowledging other people’s contribution to his work.’
    ‘But you’ve never thought of leaving? Of finding another job?’
    ‘No,’ she said. ‘I love it. Especially the work with the kids. It’s a real challenge. I learn something every day. I can handle having a boss who’s so insecure about his own abilities that he has to put everyone else down.’
    Is that how Hunter feels? Ramsay wondered suddenly. That he does all the work while I take the credit? That I’m so insecure that I’m always putting him down?
    ‘Did Lynch have a special relationship with any of the girls in the group?’
    ‘Gabby, you mean. No, I don’t think so. He admired her talent, of course, but he kept his distance from all the kids.’
    ‘How did she come to be living here?’ he asked.
    ‘She asked if we’d put her up,’ Prue said simply. ‘ She said that things weren’t working out at home and she wanted to move out.’
    ‘Was there a row? A specific incident which led to her leaving?’
    ‘She wouldn’t say, but I think there must have been. Before that I had the impression that she was happy enough. The Pastons gave her more freedom than she was allowed here. There must have been some upset, I think, to make her decide to move so suddenly.’
    ‘Why did you decide to take her on?’ he asked. ‘ It was quite a responsibility to provide a home for a teenage girl.’
    ‘I felt sorry for her, I suppose,’ Prue said. ‘It can’t have been much fun living with two single women, one of them quite elderly. But it wasn’t only that. She was good for Anna. Anna was always solitary and withdrawn, even as a small child. She found it hard to make friends. It was a worry. I didn’t know how to handle it. I even thought of getting professional help but that seemed an over-reaction. I suggested that she came to the Youth Theatre when I started working there because I thought performing would give her confidence, but it was meeting Gabby that made the real difference. Gabby made her laugh. They became real friends. That’s why I’m so worried about how Anna will cope with her death.’
    ‘Gabby told one of her schoolfriends that she had been invited out to lunch yesterday, to the Holly Tree in Martin’s Dene. You’ve no idea who