He hadn’t really thought it through. Faced with the prospect of the cheerless pub on an evening like this, when experience told Kelso that a power cut might well be on the cards, supper at the Grahams’ house as described by Livvy Murray sounded very tempting. It was only when Kate’s father greeted him with a warm handshake and, ‘Come away in – I’ve heard a lot about you,’ that he remembered his sister’s reaction when he’d brought Kate back to his house. There was a very similar look on Hugh Graham’s face.
‘Oh dear,’ he said lightly, ‘I hate to think what that might be. Kate knows where all the bodies are buried.’
‘Oh, we always brought her up not to be a clype. I think your secrets are safe enough with her. What happens in Tulliallan stays in Tulliallan, is that right?’
‘Yes, Dad.’ There was a warning note in Kate’s voice. ‘It was all a very long time ago.’
‘Of course, of course,’ Hugh said hastily, then with a rapid change of subject, ‘Now tell me, is there any news about this poor girl?’
‘I’m afraid not. We’re trapped by the weather, of course, and from the latest reports it may even be worse by the morning.’
The conversation became more general. Kate’s cooking lived up to its billing with a cracking fish pie and the company was good. He’d never seen Livvy in a relaxed situation like this and she was very funny, playing off Hugh who was relishing the craic.
He’d been on tenterhooks all evening, though, and when his phone rang, he jumped, as did they all. He got up and said, ‘Sorry. I’ll have to take this.’
‘There’s the study next door,’ Kate said, and he went out. You could always hope that this would be the call that said they’d found Cassie and that she was fine, even if you really knew it wouldn’t be.
It was the desk at the police station. ‘Will you speak to Jason Jackson, sir? He said you’d want to talk to him because it was very important and he wouldn’t talk to anyone else.’
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Jackson? Strang here. You wanted to speak to me?’
‘Yes,’ Jackson said. He sounded agitated. ‘Look, I’ve just heard about Cassie Trentham and knowing the way your minds work I reckoned I’d be right at the head of the suspects list. I just wanted to tell you that I know absolutely nothing about this. I’m in Glasgow, dossing down with friends here and we’ve been together all of last night and this morning – I’ve got four witnesses.’
‘Sounds like a powerful alibi. At least, on the face of it, it does, depending on the company you’re keeping. Someone will come round to take a statement. Where are you staying? We should know – I instructed you to keep us up to date with your movements.’
‘I did!’ Jackson sounded aggrieved. ‘The minute I knew I could stay here, I clocked in with DI Hammond.’
He didn’t want to scare him off. ‘Did you? Oh, right. Tell the desk again now, will you? Thanks.’
Even if Wilson didn’t come across with the goods it was getting to be time they got moving on Hammond. If he knew to lie about Jackson’s whereabouts, he knew they were on to him and Strang didn’t want him to slip through their fingers and disappear. Yet again, he cursed the weather as he went back to the brightly lit room and the ring of interested faces.
He shook his head. ‘Routine stuff. Anyway, it’s time I set out on the trek to the pub. I may be some time …’
In a way, it had been easier when she was still concussed, as she now realised she had been. Cassie wasn’t so sleepy now and there was nothing she could do in this bleak prison to distract herself from the terrors that prowled around her. She fought them off – with poems she remembered, songs that she sang as loudly as she could, marching up and down swinging her arms to generate some heat, but when her guard slipped they were back at her throat, shortening her breath into panic attacks. She’d cried a bit, but it didn’t help. It just made her feel worse and she sagged into a sort of listless grey nothingness.
She was hungry now too, hungry and cold. She’d set the bottle of water on the floor beside her so that she didn’t squander the precious heat under the duvet when she wanted a drink – and she would have to ration it. There was no way of knowing how long she’d been here and even less of knowing how long she would be here. She was afraid of him, but perhaps she was more afraid that he would never come back and she would be left to starve to death. How could anyone find her?
Now she could hear the wind howling and roaring like some savage animal and she remembered – the Beast from the East, of course. Perhaps he couldn’t get here anyway, even if he wanted to.
Then she heard a sound – the bang of a car door. She sat bolt upright, wrapping the duvet round her as her teeth chattered partly with cold and partly with fear. A moment later, there was a sound outside – he was stamping his feet and swearing. He was angry – with the weather, with her? What would he do?
He unlocked the door and opened it, a dark silhouette with snow on his coat and his boots. A cold breath came in with him and in her fevered thoughts it seemed unearthly, like the chill they say accompanies an apparition.
Before he could say anything, she cried, ‘What are you going to do to me?’
It was as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘The code, Cassie,’ he said. ‘I’m in a hurry. Time’s up.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Kelso Strang couldn’t get to sleep. It was unusual for him; his years in the army had taught him not to waste the precious resource of time available for sleeping, and not to be fussy about where or what on. Admittedly The Sun’s mattress was the kind that had received unremitting punishment over the last twenty years at least, but that wasn’t what was making him toss, turn and try to beat the lumpy pillows into a more user-friendly shape.
Where was Cassie tonight? He couldn’t get her out of his mind. Was she still alive, even? Was there something more he could have done today? And there was, too, something that was niggling at him, some connection that had prompted a brief thought, which he couldn’t pin down now. He wasn’t even sure it was particularly relevant, just some little quirk that for some reason was bothering him now. It wasn’t the first time he’d been aware of frustration at the block between conscious and unconscious thought; he’d never worked out a way to join them up and access what was in there, so what was the point of agonising now?
Rational argument, unfortunately, was no kind of remedy for sleeplessness and at last he got up and fetched his laptop. If the wind didn’t drop soon – and it showed no signs that this was the plan – tomorrow would be another day of forced inactivity. He began with a list of in-depth background checks he could commission tomorrow; he could ask JB to fast-action them, but even so it would take days for the reports to come through, especially if the disruption meant that office staff couldn’t get in to work.
The police check on Hammond would be easier, though – just a question of accessing the records. They would know where he’d come from and there’d be a string of contacts, which might tell their own story. But he had a gut feeling now that they couldn’t afford to wait for that if they wanted to nail him; any evidence would disappear and, he was afraid, so would he. There were always jobs for the bent coppers if they moved in the right circles. His lie about Jackson’s address ought to be enough to convince JB they had to move immediately.
Research on Gil Paton and Richard Sansom could take longer. He wasn’t about to play Livvy’s game of spot-the-villain: was a smooth, intelligent man more plausible than a lumpish whinger with his grievance against Cassie blatantly on display? He’d seen too many cases in his time to think that they wore an ‘It’s me!’ badge that you could see if you looked hard enough. And, of course, there was always the possibility of some outside agency, as yet unidentified.
There was a sudden bellow of wind, then a slipping sound, and a crash. Kelso got out of bed and padded over to the window, rubbing at the condensation to see out. He could see a roof tile rapidly sinking into the snowdrift below. There would be a lot of damage done tonight.
He ga
ve a huge yawn as he went back to bed. That was more promising. But as he started drifting into sleep a thought struck him and suddenly he was wide awake again. He’d made the connection. But there was nothing he could do now, except lie down seething with frustration and listen to the wind howling and whipping up the hardened snow to thrash against the window.
‘But I can’t remember it!’ Cassie Trentham said. ‘Marta told me, but I didn’t pay any attention at the time. I was busy, and I knew I’d only have to ring the bell and they’d let me in.’
‘You’re lying,’ he said.
She was. How did he know that? Perhaps policemen got special training for when they were interrogating suspects. Part of it was true, though; she must concentrate on that bit if she wanted to be convincing.
‘I’m hopeless with numbers. I can’t even remember my car registration or my mobile number without checking.’
Hammond stared at her for a moment, a stare that was an assault in itself. Then he said, ‘So – you write them down. That’s what you do, isn’t it?’
She had made a trap for herself. ‘No. Well, sometimes I don’t. I didn’t this time—’
‘Don’t waste my time, Cassie. You’re a pathetic liar.’ He was moving from foot to foot, as if he was on an adrenaline high, too psyched up to stand still. ‘You wrote it down. Where?’
Then as she licked her dry lips, seeking for something to say, he burst out, ‘Your diary – you’d write it in the diary you keep in your handbag. Beside your bunch of keys. And I kept those.’ She knew her face was confirmation of what he’d just said, but she couldn’t do anything about that. He was ranting on, ‘I can’t believe it – I had the sodding thing right there in my hands and I didn’t know.
‘Right – I’m going back, while I can still get out.’
‘What are you going to do?’
He went to the door. ‘I’m going to kill our mother,’ he said in what was almost a conversational tone.
‘What? What do you mean? And – what about me? Are you going to kill me too, or just leave me here to die?’
It did at least make him pause. ‘Do you know, I haven’t quite decided,’ he said. ‘Blood should be thicker than water, shouldn’t it? But I’m not entirely sure that it is.’
Then he was gone, turning the key in the lock as he left.
Marta Morelli woke feeling cramped and stiff. She moved, easing herself painfully upright in the chair, her face tight and sore with the tears she had shed. The fire was out and when she looked round there was no sign of Anna.
She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece: half past one. She must have slept for hours, slept through Anna getting up and leaving. She must have gone up to bed.
Marta’s mouth was dry and she felt sticky and unclean. Still feeling groggy, she stumbled through to the kitchen and drank water while her coffee brewed, then poured herself a double espresso. It would wake her up, help her to order her chaotic thoughts.
Anna had not turned against her, thank God. It had taken a lot to convince her, but she believed it now. She had offered to leave, to confess, even to kill herself, but the friendship that was the most important thing in her life had held fast. They had been too emotional to make decisions; that would have to wait for the morning once this long dark night was over.
Anna had been shocked. She had known she would be, which was why she had never told her. Anna had been brought up with very different values; Marta’s own were of a more primitive sort. More natural, she had often told herself, even as she paid lip service to those that Anna seemed to hold dear. Her religion, a faded thing now for all those early years of going to Mass, inclined more to the Old Testament than to the New: payment for sins, revenge for evil done, was simple justice. At least, it had seemed that way at the time. Now, when payment was being called in on your own, it felt different.
Now, they were in a dark, dark place. Even if they told the police every last detail of their past, they had taken so much care to cover their tracks all those years ago, there would be no way to trace anything back. Yet someone had found them now – and they both knew who he was, or even she: they just didn’t know anything else – except that whoever it was had views more like Marta’s than Anna’s.
She finished her coffee, washed and dried the cup and saucer and put them away so that the kitchen was pristine, as always, when she left. Upstairs, the door to Anna’s room wasn’t quite shut and she pushed it open cautiously. It was in darkness, apart from the pool of light from the lamp at the side of her bed. Had she fallen asleep reading – or was this more like the night light a child would have in their room to keep night-fears at bay? There was no sign of an abandoned book and Anna’s face, relaxed in sleep, still showed the tracks of dried tears. As she watched, Anna muttered something, moving her head uneasily. She was suffering, even in her dreams.
Marta had felt helpless, fearful, guilty – oh yes, guilty above all. But now she was angry, with the burning rage of helplessness. She went back to her own room and went to the chest in the corner, the one that had a special drawer with a false back, where she could keep her jewellery safe from casual theft.
And not just her jewellery. Beside their padded boxes lay the gleaming, silvery knife. She picked it up, smoothed her thumb across it, then touched the flick switch and the wicked stiletto blade sprang out – long, razor-sharp, but dull and mottled with use and age. Marta looked at it for a moment with an odd, tight little smile. Then she flicked it away again and slipped it into the pocket of her skirt.
She had lost faith in the protective alarms and she had slept enough. She was going to mount guard through the dangerous hours of darkness and in the morning she and Anna would have to make up their minds about what to tell the police.
Cassie heard the outer door slam, then a car door, then an engine starting, coughing a little, restarting and then catching. He was going away, leaving her alone again with the tearing wind that sounded more savage than ever, rattling the windowpanes behind the hardboard as if it was determined to shatter them and let the snow have its way inside as well.
Her mind was reeling. Our mother – that’s what he had said. And that comment about blood being thicker than water? What could it conceivably mean?
Anna had never told them anything about her past. Cassie and Felix had speculated about it occasionally, had asked Marta once or twice, but when the question was deftly brushed aside, they hadn’t persisted; children have very little curiosity about anything that took place before their own important arrival on the planet. What had happened, that this man who claimed he was her son had wanted to kill her? And she was totally useless, unable to do anything to warn Anna that soon he would have what he needed to creep into the house on his deadly mission.
Suddenly, through the noise of the storm, Cassie heard another sound – the outer door opening again and closing, someone moving, the key being turned in the lock. The door of the room was flung open violently so that it bounced on its hinges and Hammond stood there again. Did this mean that he had decided to come back and kill her first? With an animal instinct, she cowered under the duvet – as if that could be any sort of protection!
She’d thought he was angry before; now he was in a towering rage, screaming a flood of obscenities about the snowploughs, which had not, as he had instructed, kept the road from here to Halliburgh clear.
‘Haven’t been able to get the car out of here, let alone back on to the road. Even if they send a plough out now, I doubt if they’ll get it open.’
He had taken a phone out of his pocket and a moment later was venting his anger to some probably blameless subordinate. ‘Well, who did cancel the order? Why don’t you know? I know it’s a small road, but I gave the order that it was to be kept clear. Get a plough on to it right now, top priority, and—What do you mean, they’re stood down? When will they get going again?’ He listened briefly, then said, ‘Right. Not a lot I can do, then. You have my order – at first light, right?’
The energy of rag
e seemed to have evaporated. His shoulders slumped and he sat down on one of the ramshackle chairs, which creaked alarmingly, then leant forward on the table putting his head in his hands. He looked, she thought, defeated.
Something had gone badly wrong with his plans. Cassie sat up, her brain working furiously. Surely she could use this to her own advantage? They always said that in a hostage situation you should get them talking, get them to think of you as a real person, not a pawn. She said what she judged would be the most likely thing to catch his attention. ‘Are you … are you really my brother?’
And then the light went out.
Marta wasn’t asleep when she was plunged into darkness. She was sitting on her bed, propped up against the pillows and she tensed – she knew what would happen next. She groped for the landline, but that took a moment and it rang twice before she could pick it up to hear the disembodied voice of the security recording warning that there had been an interruption to the circuit and that the system was down. She heard Anna stirring even as she punched in the number to confirm that she was aware.
‘Marta – was that …?’
‘No,’ she called back. ‘Just security, because of the power cut.’
‘Oh. I couldn’t think what had happened. I’m just coming—’
‘Torch – in your bedside drawer.’ Marta felt for her own and switched it on as the bobbing light from Anna’s approached.
Anna trailed in, looking almost ghostly, with a white cashmere robe draped round her shoulders and her hair disordered round her white face.
‘I’d forgotten there was always one there. I couldn’t think what had happened when I woke up.’ She still sounded fuddled with sleep. ‘When I heard the phone, I thought—’
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