Carrion Comfort

by Aline Templeton

  It all looked very different from the way it had been on the hot and sunny day when she had come with Taylor. The insect life was mercifully absent and the stench of rotting plants too, but in this weather the dubh lochs were deepest black, and all colour seemed to have gone from the vegetation. Even the white flags of the bog-cotton were flat and sodden, and the banks of heather looked grey. What a bleak, sinister place this was!

  Strang was striding ahead and seemed to have a better sense of balance than she did. Her hands were muddy and sore and red with the cold from saving herself as she slipped and slid, with only sharp reeds and prickly shrubs to grab on to. Little streams ran everywhere, often half-hidden by an overhang that would crumble under her feet. It was the sound that demoralised her when she missed the solid ground, a greedy, gulping sucking noise as if the bog was a living thing, ready to drag her down to her destruction, and she had to fight to quell the feelings of panic. She gave a little scream once, when the mud held her boot so firmly that her foot slipped out and only Strang coming back with a steadying hand stopped her falling over to lie at its mercy.

  It seemed to be going on for ever. This place was a hell on earth, but she wasn’t going to whinge, no matter how miserable she felt. And at least there was something a bit more like a path now as the ground rose up towards the moor. Strang had gone ahead again and he was standing at the top waiting for her. ‘Look!’ he said, pointing to the small loch that lay ahead of them.

  He didn’t seem dispirited by the conditions. His face was alight with satisfaction as he said, ‘It’s all starting to add up.’

  ‘Is it?’ she said bleakly, and he laughed.

  ‘Shall we go back down the track Ross wanted us to take in the first place? It should be quicker and certainly easier.’ He was taking out his mobile as he spoke. ‘I’m just going to ask the super to send in forensics. We’re on our way.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  For DCI Strang the toughest part of the press conference in the incident room at Forsich was having to watch DI Hay smirking as he claimed credit for the speedy arrest of Morven Gunn. The rest was routine enough; the more aggressive representatives of the media obviously hadn’t fancied the long journey north and the questions asked were anodyne. It had achieved its objective, though, with DI Hay only too eager now to be associated with the murder investigation. JB should be pleased.

  PR and spin was such a waste of his time, especially when he thought that at last he had the shape of the case clear in his mind – though he must be on guard against the temptations that presented. He only thought, he didn’t know. Say ten times, ‘I could be wrong, I could be wrong.’

  His mind was on the interview with Bruce Michie in Aberdeen that might be taking place even now. It had sounded as if Steve MacLean was planning to go straight there so he should hear back before too long. At times during the conference he had looked across, too, at DC Murray, who was busy at a computer terminal; he saw her talking earnestly on the phone, though he couldn’t hear what she was saying. As she finished the call she caught his eye and gave him a grin and a thumbs-up. With impressive restraint he waited until DI Hay could be persuaded to abandon the scene of his triumph.

  At last he could go across and say, ‘Well?’

  ‘Ross’s alibi doesn’t stack up. They’re vague about when he was actually working on the rig, but they have to keep a record of passengers on the choppers. He wasn’t offshore at all over the weekend when Aitchison was killed. He was on the rig the night the body was put in the cottage, right enough. But on the Tuesday when he heard it had been found, he told you he couldn’t get off the rig until Thursday – that was a lie. He went ashore on the Wednesday morning.’

  Strang felt a glow of satisfaction. ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘Closing in. Anything else?’

  ‘There’s a report in from Wick – DC Wilson. Just gives the details of the search this morning. Nothing much there.’

  ‘Right. According to the super, we should have guys up here later this afternoon. I’ll have to show them to the site but then I can leave them to follow the path we went up to look for evidence.’

  ‘Ooh, that’ll be a treat for them,’ Murray said feelingly.

  She was probably unaware that she still had a smear of mud under her chin. Strang grinned. ‘And you bear the scars to this day,’ he said, indicating.

  She felt her chin, took out a tissue and spat on it. She was scrubbing at it when Strang’s phone rang. He glanced at the number and nodded to her.

  ‘Steve! Good. How did you get on?’

  His responses were mainly confirmatory noises until he said, ‘Great! And you’ll get a signed statement, yes? Thanks, Steve. I owe you one.’

  He was smiling as he turned to Murray. ‘Could hardly be better. Bruce Michie will testify that the person who joined his little party at the fishing hotel was David Ross and that he was in favour of selling off Curran Services to Brady. The minute we get the SOCOs sorted we go round there and bring him in for questioning. And this time he’s not going to tell me I can’t speak to his wife.’

  Lilian Sinclair was in the sitting room trying not to chew her immaculately manicured nails when she saw David Ross’s car pull up in front of the house. She jumped up and went to greet him.

  He was looking pale and agitated. ‘Where is he?’ he said.

  ‘Out at Rotary. My darling, what’s the matter? You look awful!’

  ‘Go through to the kitchen. Is Fran around?’

  ‘Oh, upstairs in her flat, wallowing in self-pity,’ she said as they walked across the hall. ‘But, David, what’s the matter? You’re scaring me. My heart’s racing.’

  ‘So well it might be.’ He slumped into a chair at the kitchen table. ‘We’re in trouble, sweetheart.’

  ‘What – what sort of trouble?’

  ‘Police. I’ve just met DCI Strang. There’s something frightening about the man – that scar on his face, the hard eyes. Menacing. And he knows. He asked if I’d gone fishing with Niall. I denied it, of course, but he didn’t believe me.’

  ‘He can’t do anything, though,’ Lilian protested. ‘There’s no evidence. You weren’t seen with Niall that day – no one knows you were even here.’

  ‘Gabrielle does. And he’s determined to question her – I’m not going to be able to stall much longer. Do you trust her not to give way once he starts on her?’

  ‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘No, I wouldn’t. She didn’t even tell you about moving the body.’

  ‘Still hasn’t. She just goes silent when I bring the subject up. I can’t think why she did that, unless she’s planning to drop me in it. God, I was so unlucky that bloody policewoman came by when she did! She’d be dead by now, with Morven Gunn on a charge of murder.’

  Lilian had gone white to the lips. ‘So, what are we going to do?’

  Ross gave her a long, cool look. ‘What do you think we’re going to do?’

  She put a hand to her throat. ‘Oh, David …’

  ‘It’s not a lot different from driving her to kill herself, is it, and we’ve been trying to do that ever since we realised what she’d done with the body.’ Lilian made a little, dissenting movement and he went on savagely, ‘Oh, you just as much as me. If she’d apparently done idiotic things only when I was there she’d have worked it out sooner or later – she’s not stupid. And your suggestion about the scan was masterly – I really think if we had time to wait she’d oblige us. But frankly, we don’t.’

  ‘Oh – this is awful!’ Tears came to her eyes and at the sight of them he leant forward to smooth them away with his thumb.

  ‘My love, we’ve known where this would end. We were neither of us the “all-for-love-and-the-world-well-lost” types. You certainly weren’t ready to give up your cushy number with Mogadon Man and Gabrielle was a pretty good meal ticket for me. Once Pat died and she was all that stood between us and our wonderful life together, there was only one solution.’

  ‘Yes, but that was suicide, not—’

>   ‘Not murder?’ He laughed. ‘Sweetie, don’t develop scruples now! We’re just talking semantics.’

  ‘Can’t we just wait a little bit? You said yourself—’

  His voice sharpened. ‘No! We can’t. He’s out there, making contacts, asking questions. I’ve laid the groundwork for saying she killed Niall and if she’s killed herself it backs that up.’

  Lilian’s mouth was dry. ‘What – what are you going to do?’

  ‘What she’d do herself – the small knife, you know? But obviously I’ll have to dope her first. Have you any more temazepam liquid? I’ve used up what you gave me.’

  ‘I picked up a bottle last week on the repeat prescription for my “insomnia”.’

  ‘Get it, then.’

  He watched her hesitate with cold eyes. Would she baulk at delivering up her daughter for execution? The jealousy ran deep – Gabrielle was the usurper who had taken her mother’s place in Pat Curran’s affections, after all – but she’d taken care before to hold herself apart from the distasteful side of their operations.

  Lilian had been standing near the door. Now she came across to him. ‘Hold me, David. I need your strength.’

  He stood up and took her in his arms. ‘And I need yours. We’re in this together,’ he said, as he had said to Gabrielle only a couple of hours before.

  ‘We’re doing this for us,’ she said. ‘I’ll fetch it.’

  Ross sat down again, and his mouth twisted in a little, ironic smile. What was that phrase – useful idiot? Did she really think that once he had Gabrielle’s money that he would tie himself down with an ageing wife, no matter how accomplished she might be in bed? He just had to make sure that she was fully implicated in this, however reluctant she might be. Her prints would be on the bottle. Along with Gabrielle’s, of course.

  He took it from her, only touching the cap, and slipped it into his pocket. ‘Right. Now don’t phone me – they may have it tapped.’

  She gave a little cry of fright at the thought. ‘Will they know we’ve—’

  ‘They’re not the morality police. They won’t tell Malcolm. I’m going now.’

  She went with him to the front door. ‘I’m scared, David – so scared.’

  Ross gave a bright, confident smile. ‘Stay strong, sweetheart. It’s an awful thing to have to do, I know, but keep thinking about our future, of what we’ve always dreamt of.’ He swept her into a passionate embrace and then he was gone.

  Above them, on the top landing, Francesca Curran had just come out of her flat and hearing the voices looked over the banister. She listened then stared in blank astonishment, putting up her hand to cover her gasp of horror, and retreated into the shadows on the upper floor.

  Gabrielle Ross heard David’s car drive away and got up hastily. She’d no idea where he would be going – the shops, perhaps? – but she suspected he wouldn’t be long. He’d been fussing over her like a mother hen and she’d need to take her chance now to track down the knife. The trouble was that it could be anywhere; the last time she’d seen it had been when Lilian brought it out of the downstairs bathroom, that shaming occasion. At the time, she’d slotted it back into the knife box with a nonchalance she didn’t feel, but she couldn’t be sure it was still there.

  In the kitchen she found his note and the knife was indeed where it should be. She picked it up and carried it back to the bedroom and stared at it for a moment, then tested the blade gingerly with her thumb. Bright beads of blood appeared instantly down the tiny slit. It stung, and she sucked at it, screwing up her face at the odd, metallic taste.

  It might be easier to do it right now, instead of thinking too much about it. The cuts she’d self-inflicted had been painful yet somehow satisfying: would the much larger cuts she had in mind be as therapeutic? She knew enough to know that the slashes must go down the length of her arm and not across; knew too, that warm water dulls pain. She thought of lying there in the bath, watching as the water turned into a pool of deepening red around her, and without warning she gagged, thought for a moment she was going to vomit. She crumpled onto the bed, feeling dizzy.

  But, of course, she couldn’t do anything now. For a start, David could come back at any minute and find her and drag her back and it would all be to do again. And she needed to prepare for it properly, with painkillers and alcohol carefully judged so that when the agonising moment arrived she was all but insensible already. And she wanted to leave a note for David, too, explaining that this was a loving, not a cruel decision. And …

  Coward. The word came to Gabrielle’s mind so forcefully that she thought she’d spoken it aloud. She craved oblivion, but she was afraid of the pain, afraid of the fear itself that would strike as she made the irrevocable decision. Yet if she hadn’t the courage to do it, she would be condemned to dying by inches, getting more frightened and lost day by day as her rational mind shrank away to nothing.

  And what about the glorious freedom she had felt at the certainty of no future – no present, even? The terrible thoughts came crowding back into her mind, their restless fluttering like the beating leather wings of bats pouring out of the hell that was her present life. As if to protect herself, she fell back on the bed, curled up into the foetal position.

  ‘Hello?’ That was David’s voice, and she heard the front door shut. ‘Are you still in bed?’ He was coming upstairs.

  She sat up abruptly and her eye went to the little knife, lying there on the bedside table. In a swift movement she swept it into the drawer just before the bedroom door opened.

  He looked at her lovingly. ‘How are you feeling, sweetheart?’

  Gabrielle hardly knew what to say. ‘As well as can be expected, I suppose,’ she managed eventually, with a wry smile. What she didn’t want was a long discussion. ‘Tired and headachy.’

  David nodded sympathetically. ‘I’m going to bring you up a cup of tea. And the reason I went in to the village was to fill a prescription they gave me at the hospital – said to give it to you in four hours so it’s about that now.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ she said listlessly. She couldn’t be bothered to ask what it was; another sedative, probably, and at least that would put off thinking for another few hours.

  When he came back up with the tray, it was obvious he’d made an effort. It wasn’t just a mug with a tea bag; this was a little teapot with a matching cup and saucer she hadn’t used for years and a pretty plate with biscuits. Touchingly, he’d even picked a rose from the scrubby bush by the kitchen door and put it in a small vase.

  He held up a little glass from the tray, half-full. ‘Get that down you and then have some tea and a biscuit to take the taste away,’ he said.

  Gabrielle sat up and squinted at it. ‘That looks quite a lot,’ she said.

  ‘Same as a couple of pills, probably. Looks more because it’s a liquid. Down the hatch! Well done, sweetie. Can you manage a biscuit?’

  To please him, she took one and nibbled at it.

  ‘Now, here’s your tea. It’s a special one – I had some on the rig and brought a few tea bags home because I liked it. What’s it called – redbush or something?’

  She sipped it cautiously, then made a face. ‘Tastes a bit funny.’

  ‘Full of antioxidants, or something. Terribly good for you.’ Then, as she still hesitated he said, ‘Oh dear, don’t you like it? I thought it would be a nice change.’

  ‘Yes, it’s fine,’ she said, taking another mouthful. ‘Now I’ve got used to it.’

  David smiled at her. ‘I’m going to wait till you’ve finished and then you probably want to shut your eyes again. It’s been a helluva day for you one way and another.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Oh yes.’

  It was a relief once she finished it and he went out with the tray. She was feeling sleepy; she lay down and snuggled into her pillows. Sleep was her only friend just now.

  Francesca sat down with such a plump that the little mushroom-pink button-backed chair almost toppled and she had to save her
self from falling to the floor. She hated that chair; it wasn’t her choice, it was Lilian’s, like everything else in this sickly twee flat with its pale grey walls and rose-pink curtains and cushions. There was nothing of Francesca herself here; she’d let her mother overrule her choices at every stage. She’d allowed Lilian to smother her to the point where she had no life at all, except as an adjunct to her mother.

  And this was what had been going on. She’d thought that until Gabrielle came along David was visiting the house because of her, that Gabrielle was to blame for taking him away from her almost as an exercise in spite. So, had it been Lilian all the time; Lilian, whom she’d defended so fiercely against Gabrielle’s accusations of betrayal when she’d left their father? And now here she was doing the same to poor deluded Malcolm, who worshipped the ground she walked on.

  But she and David hadn’t gone off together. Lilian liked her status as the doctor’s wife as well as the financial security and David certainly didn’t make a lot of money in his job. He owed his lifestyle to Gabrielle, just the way Lilian did to Malcolm.

  And Gabrielle had more money now – much more. It still hurt to think about Niall’s legacy, but the pain came from wounded pride. She’d known perfectly well that Niall wasn’t really interested – known too that she wasn’t interested in him as a person, only as a symbol of some kind of validation.

  David was different. Her heart had always fluttered when he gave her that special smile and his blue eyes softened. She felt hot shame as she remembered what she’d thought when she still didn’t know if her sister was alive or dead. He’d smiled at her then and for a moment she’d let herself dream—

  That rotten bastard! How many times had Francesca seen him and Lilian talking intimately together, believing they were talking about Gabrielle’s problems? Often – and then there were Lilian’s trips to Aberdeen for charity committee meetings too – were they just a cover for trysts with David?