Devil's Garden

by Aline Templeton

  ‘Let me give it some thought. Anyway, the boss isn’t going to bring in the drug squad till we’ve had a chance to get something out of Wilson.’

  She was just opening her mouth to say she was planning to chat him up when he went on, ‘The important thing is to let him come of his own accord, thinking that confessing before we’ve found out anything will give him a bargaining chip. If we approach him, he’ll know we’re on to them and he could decide it was safer to clam up.’

  Phew! She breathed an inward sigh of relief. She could really have screwed up there, just when she was doing so well. ‘Right, boss,’ she murmured.

  ‘The snow’s in our favour, in fact,’ he said. ‘We haven’t much excuse to stay on if we’ve nothing more we can do on Anna Harper, but it looks as if no one’s likely to be going anywhere in the next couple of days. Are you fixed up for somewhere to stay?’

  ‘Kate’s offered me a bed, bless her cotton socks. What about you?’

  ‘Wilson’s found me a pub. I’ll ask him if he’d like a drink later. Though I think we’re all going to be busy quite soon. The temperature’s risen a little bit and that’s always what happens when the snow’s on its way.’

  ‘Here we are,’ Kate Graham said, leading the way up the garden path with Livvy Murray at her heels. As she opened the front door, she called out, ‘Hello, Dad! We’ve got a visitor.’

  It was a pleasant-looking house, very much in the local style, built in pinkish-grey stone with fretwork along the roof and round the little porch. Inside, the hall was spacious, with a settle along the wall under the staircase and a polished oak table with a bowl of spring flowers. Livvy Murray could smell hyacinth and furniture polish and just a faint hint of woodsmoke.

  She went through to the comfortable, old-fashioned living room with its deep sofas and armchairs where the fire was burning and the lamps were lit, and an old man with a shock of white hair sat in a wheelchair. He looked round at her beaming and said, ‘Well, who have we here?’

  She was suddenly struck by a pang of bitter envy. Lucky, lucky Kate – did she realise how lucky she was? She’d have died rather than bring a colleague back to the bleak flat that had been her own home, where there had never been a father at all, and where her mother would more than likely have been drunk amid the squalor of dirty dishes and the smell of unwashed clothes.

  She went over to shake hands. ‘How do you do, Mr Graham. I’m Livvy.’

  ‘No, no, call me Hugh. My goodness, your hands are cold. Come in to the fire and Kate will find you something to warm you up.’

  Kate went over to an old-fashioned cocktail cabinet in one corner. ‘He’s only saying that because his tongue’s hanging out for a Scotch. What about you, Livvy?’

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ she said, sitting down and holding her hands out to the blaze.

  ‘So – to what do we owe this pleasure?’ Hugh said. ‘I don’t get about as much as I used to so it’s quite a treat.’

  ‘I stay in Edinburgh but I’m on secondment down here and Kate said I could come here till the storm passes.’ She smiled across at her hostess. ‘Was she always bringing back homeless kittens as well?’

  ‘Tchah! Nonsense,’ Kate said but Hugh nodded. ‘You’ve obviously got the measure of her. Now, tell me about yourself.’

  Kate brought over the drinks. ‘I’m going to take my glass of wine through to the kitchen and get the supper started. No, Livvy, I’m fine,’ she said as Livvy got up. ‘You stay and amuse Dad. But be careful – he’ll get all your secrets out of you without you even noticing.’

  And somehow, with the whisky, the heat of the fire and the warm interest in the man’s blue eyes, so like Kate’s own, she found herself telling him more about herself than she’d ever told anyone else.

  Then Hugh said, ‘Now tell me about your boss, this Kelso Strang. Good man, is he? Kate’s talked a lot about him. They were great pals when they were at Tulliallan. Sad business, his wife dying like that, but of course, life must go on.’

  It was obvious what he was doing, and why. Even as she gave him all the assurances a careful father could wish, she was struggling with a sense of shock. Kelso was a widower, a still-sorrowing widower, she was sure, and she hadn’t for a minute thought of him taking up with his old mate.

  Kate came back just at that moment and said sharply, ‘Dad! What are you up to? Don’t embarrass me.’

  As Hugh protested Livvy was thinking, ‘Kate? I can’t believe that.’ And then, to her horror, a thought crossed her mind. She’d been feeling envious of her kind hostess. Surely she couldn’t be even the slightest, teeniest bit jealous, as well?

  Davy Armstrong’s warnings, as he dropped her home, had been even more lurid today, but Cassie held firm. She’d wait and see, she told him. It was raining and she got quite wet just coming in from the car, but it looked as if she wouldn’t need to make a final decision before the next morning.

  The glass of wine with the weather forecast was becoming a habit. As she fetched it and sat down to listen she pulled a face; she’d better pack a bag tonight and give in. It wouldn’t be all bad; if she was at Highfield it might even give her a chance to find out what was going on with her mother.

  Cassie had only taken a couple of sips of her wine when there was a knock at the door. She frowned; she hadn’t heard a car, but then the TV had been on. She was cautious now, after all the warnings, and she peered through the spyhole before she turned the handle.

  She’d forgotten she’d locked the door. She called, ‘Hang on a moment,’ as she fumbled with the key for a moment. Then, saying, ‘Sorry about that,’ she opened it.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ‘Cassie! Cassie!’ She had heard his voice as if it had come from a long way off, as if it was bringing pain with it. She didn’t want the pain; she kept her eyes tight shut, trying to stay in the quiet place where it wasn’t.

  ‘Come on, snap out of it! It was just a little tap – I didn’t hit you that hard, for God’s sake!’

  Despite her efforts, the pain had arrived in her head now. The pain, and the memory. They had been on her doorstep; there had been a gun – a gun! – and then, nothing. And they weren’t on her doorstep now; she was lying down. She wanted to open her eyes, to see where she was, but some instinct was telling her to keep them shut. Lie still, ignore the panic building inside, pretend she was still in the quiet place even while her tormented brain was trying to work things out.

  ‘Cassie!’ He was yelling now at a painful level, but she mustn’t flinch. She mustn’t react, must make herself go limp even when he picked up her arm and dropped it. He groaned. ‘Cassie! All I want is the code. You can hear me, can’t you? Tell me the code and then everything’ll be all right.’

  Code? For a moment she wondered if she was dreaming after all, in some spy movie where the code would disarm the nuclear weapon that would annihilate the world.

  ‘The code for Highfield. What is it?’

  He had been talking as if he knew she could hear him, but she schooled herself not to react, to breathe regularly. The Highfield code – Marta had told her, but she was useless with numbers; she’d scribbled it down in her diary somewhere, but she couldn’t remember what it was. And if she could, she wasn’t going to give it to him. Not after what he had done to her.

  He didn’t say anything more, but Cassie could sense his presence, hear his small, impatient sighs and movements. She began drifting in and out of sleep with no idea of time; she had a dream about a door slamming but she was too tired to open her eyes.

  The peaceful little pub of DCI Strang’s imagination wasn’t anything like this. The bar looked as if it hadn’t been renovated in the last twenty years and there was a heavy, beery smell as if the stained floral carpet hadn’t been cleaned in that time either. The group of elderly men sitting hunched over at the bar looked as if they’d always been part of the fixtures and fittings.

  DS Wilson had escorted him in. ‘I’m afraid it’s a bit old-fashioned, sir, but Halliburgh’s a
wee place and there’s not too much choice. They say you get a good breakfast here, though.’ Then he said to the barman, ‘Ron, this is DCI Strang – I told you about him.’

  Ron was bald, overweight and supremely uninterested. ‘Oh aye.’ He turned to pick up a key from the shelf at the back. ‘There’s only the two rooms. This is the big one at the front. You’ve your own shower. If you’re wanting something to eat, we’ve pizzas and that.’ He indicated a laminated menu that looked like a list of microwaveable food.

  Perhaps the gods were punishing him for his churlish behaviour last night. Glumly, Strang thanked him and picked up the key and his bag.

  ‘You all right then, sir?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘Thanks very much, Sergeant. I was going to say, do you fancy a drink, or are you hurrying off home?’

  He saw calculation on the man’s face. Then he said, ‘Well, never known to refuse, me! Just a quick one. Thanks very much, sir.’

  ‘Give me a moment to dump my stuff upstairs. I’ll set up a slate – order what you want. Mine’s a Scotch. Famous Grouse, if they have it.’

  He spoke to the barman, then went upstairs. The room was immediately above the bar but so far it didn’t look as if he’d be kept awake late into the night by the regulars whooping it up. It was large, certainly, even with the partitioned en suite in one corner, and the saleroom brown furniture – bed, wardrobe and matching chest of drawers – looked slightly at a loss for how to fill the space. He hadn’t seen a candlewick bedspread for years and there was an obvious dip in the mattress, but after Afghanistan all he looked for in a bed was that it was flat enough to lie on and when he checked the sheets were clean. Then he rooted about in his bag and took out a tiny voice recorder, activated it and slipped it into his pocket.

  When he came downstairs again, Wilson was sitting at a table by the window with the drinks in front of him. ‘Is the room OK, sir?’ He was looking anxious.

  ‘Oh, it’ll do. Cheers! Now, tell me your first name – I can’t go on calling you sergeant. Grant? Fine. Have you been in Halliburgh long?’

  Wilson was only too ready to tell him the story of his life, not that there was much to tell. He’d started off in Dundee, was posted down here when he got his sergeant’s stripes and like everyone else, he’d resented the downgrading of the local CID.

  Strang made soothing noises, then said casually, ‘And DI Hammond – how long has he been here?’

  ‘Oh, eighteen months, or so.’

  It was a very cautious reply. Strang said, ‘Good boss, I guess? I was impressed with his efficiency this morning.’

  Again, that calculating look. ‘Yes, of course. He’s good, but …’

  ‘But?’

  ‘Of course I don’t really know him, if you see what I mean, except just as a colleague, and the last thing I’d want to be is disloyal, but I don’t always quite see eye to eye with him about some things.’

  Strang had once seen a dog walking out on to the ice on a pond performing the same manoeuvre, testing each step before it committed. ‘I’m interested. What sort of things?’

  ‘Just – oh, I don’t know. Maybe I just mean a different sort of emphasis. As a sergeant you can’t just tell the DI what he should be doing. You see’ – he leant forward, lowering his voice – ‘I’m really worried about the drugs problem now. County lines stuff, you know?’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Well Steve – DI Hammond – he just sort of doesn’t seem to notice. There’s kids like a couple we’d in the other day having a knife fight.’ He gave Strang a sly look. ‘Like your DC Murray said, it’d make you think maybe drugs – she’s smart, isn’t she? Steve just brushed it off, though. But I’m worried. I don’t know why you’d do that.’

  ‘You’re not suggesting he’s deliberately turning a blind eye?’

  ‘No, no, of course not. Just hasn’t thought about it properly, I expect. But …’

  Strang let the silence develop and Wilson went on, ‘Just between ourselves, off the record, I’m a wee bit worried that maybe—no, that’s daft. Like you said, Steve’s a good officer. I don’t believe for a minute he’d get mixed up in anything he shouldn’t.’

  He looked at his watch, gave an artificial start, then jumped to his feet. ‘Oh damn, I didn’t realise it was that time. Sorry – I’ve got to meet someone. Can I buy you the second half tomorrow?’

  ‘I’ll look forward to it,’ Strang said gravely. ‘See you in the morning.’

  As Wilson went out, Strang reached into his pocket to switch off the recorder. It wouldn’t constitute evidence, but it might serve to remind Wilson of what he’d said already if he decided to clam up. In fact, he was pretty sure this was only the first instalment. The man had clearly gone away convinced he’d laid the groundwork that could put him in the clear if things began to unravel.

  Strang finished his drink and glanced around. The bar had an atmosphere of settled gloom – indeed, he half wondered if the old boy in the corner of the bar had actually died but no one had noticed. He’d be better in his own room with the emergency bottle he always packed, but surely even a small place like this must have somewhere better. He certainly wasn’t going to settle for a reheated Forfar bridie and beans for his supper and he went out into the street.

  It was cold and the dark and sullen sky seemed nearly to be skimming the roofs of the buildings. It had been raining earlier; it had gone off, but the still air was laden with moisture, oppressive, and as Strang walked along the almost-deserted street past darkened shops and office buildings, it gave him that uneasy sense of something waiting to happen. The forecasts had been talking apocalypse for days now, but even allowing for exaggeration it sounded as if the Beast from the East really was going to be nasty.

  Further along the street he saw a building with light streaming out from the windows – a pub, with a sign reading The White Hart. It was smart-looking, with gleaming windows and even window boxes with a gallant show of crocuses, and there was a promising-looking menu on the board outside – much more what he had in mind. His spirits rising, he stopped to read it, wondering why on earth Wilson wouldn’t have directed him here.

  He was pushing open the door when he saw a group of men at the far end of the bar − Wilson, Hammond and another younger man he recognised as one of the uniformed sergeants. So this was why he was to be kept away: Wilson had been trying to stress that his relationship with Hammond was purely professional, and fairly distant at that. Strang backed out, closing the door again quietly.

  This was all very well, but he’d be seriously pissed off if it meant his only option for supper was a greasy bridie. However, it seemed that the gods now felt they had punished him enough: further along there was an Indian restaurant, which proved to be every bit as good as the one he usually favoured in Edinburgh.

  The snow started falling in the early evening. It hadn’t been cold enough for the ground to freeze so at first the little flecks that were almost rain landed and disappeared. The bigger flakes were sleety, falling faster now so the first slippery slushy layer was laid for the bigger ones, the ones like cotton wool balls, to begin the build-up that would create morning rush-hour chaos despite the gritter trucks working through the night.

  ‘For God’s sake, woman, are you coming?’ Duncan McNaughton shouted. ‘We don’t want to get stuck here.’ He was waiting in the hall of their cottage with the front door standing open and the car was right outside. Already it was getting a covering of snow.

  Edna’s voice came from upstairs. ‘Won’t be a minute. I’m just closing the suitcase. Did you turn off the water?’

  He gave an impatient sigh. ‘Yes, of course I bloody did. Hurry up!’

  Edna appeared on the stairs. ‘I’m coming. And don’t you swear at me, Duncan McNaughton.’

  Duncan grabbed the case from her hand and went out to sling it in the car. As she followed him, she looked across the valley to the house up on the hill. ‘Well, goodness me! That’s that car back there again! You wouldn’t thin
k anyone would drive out here now with the weather closing in.’

  Locking the front door, he said, ‘Maybe they’re back just to switch off the water.’ He got in and started the car.

  Edna was looking over her shoulder as they drove off. ‘Oh, the car’s got its lights on now so maybe you’re right. What time did you tell your sister we’d be coming?’

  Davy Armstrong looked at the clock on the wall in the kitchen and got up from the breakfast table. ‘I’d better be a wee bit early this morning,’ he said to his wife. ‘Folk always get their knickers in a twist when there’s snow and the high street’ll just be crawling along.’

  His wife looked up. ‘Will you manage to persuade Cassie to come in from Burnside? The way it’s looking she could get cut off there, easily.’

  Davy shook his head. ‘Don’t know. She’s thrawn, that one – once she’s made up her mind, she digs her toes in.’

  ‘She’d be more likely to come in to stay at Highfield House if you told her you think she’d better just stay where she is,’ she pointed out.

  He laughed, shrugging on his oilskin jacket. ‘Right enough.’ He went out.

  There was quite a covering on the little road up to Cassie’s cottage. It wasn’t a problem in the SUV at the moment, but the weather wasn’t letting up and there was at least a chance the argument would be made for him when it was impossible to get back later.

  Usually Cassie was on the lookout for him and she’d appear at the door before he could turn off the engine. There was no sign of her this morning, so after waiting for a few minutes he gave a tactful toot on the horn. Still no movement.

  Maybe she’d slept in. He grabbed his hat from a side pocket and went up the path to the front door to ring the bell. It was only when there was no reply that he began to worry. What if she was ill? He rang the bell again, a longer peal this time, waited, and then he tried the handle.