by William Paul
‘How do you work that out?’
‘Well, the criminal psychologist who will no doubt be foisted upon us if this inquiry goes on past the weekend will say two things. One: the murderer is extremely clever and cunning and displays his intelligence by taunting those who are appointed to catch him. Or two: the murderer is driven by uncontrollable impulses but has enough self-awareness to realize the wrongness of his actions. He wants to be caught so he leaves a trail of clues so we can find him.’
‘Which one is it then?’ Simpson asked.
‘Depends on the psychologist.’
‘I would have said it depended on the murderer.’
McIsaac left, and Simpson went up to his room, slipping past the bunch of reporters who were still drinking in the other bar. Fyfe had escorted Moya up the creaking stairs. The dogs went too and invited themselves in. Fyfe tried to make them follow him but really used it as an excuse to hang around and chat for almost an hour. Now it was time to leave well alone. The mildest of flirtations was sufficient. After all, professional colleagues shouldn’t go all the way on the first date.
‘I’ll let you have Number Five to keep you company,’ Fyfe said as he poured the remainder of his whisky down his throat. ‘Come on Jill. Come on girl.’
Jill got to her feet, stretched, and followed him to the door. Number Five cocked an eyelid to watch but made no attempt to follow.
‘She likes you,’ Fyfe said.
‘It’s mutual,’ Moya replied from the bed.
Chapter Thirty
Friday, 01.20
It seemed like the right thing to do. Douglas Lambert lay on his back in bed and Patricia Gilchrist slept in the crook of his arm. Her weight had long since slowed the circulation and cut off all feeling but he made no attempt to move the arm. He couldn’t sleep himself. Instead he studied the ornate cornice in the unfamiliar bedroom, all the time thinking that it was indeed working out for the best just as he had promised. He had handed the organization of the next day’s funerals to his down-the-line managers. In the morning Pat and he would go north together to identify the dead bodies of their loved ones.
He had bought a good bottle of wine and a box of chocolates and taken a taxi round to the row of terraced houses where Pat lived. There was a group of about half a dozen reporters in a pair of cars parked on the opposite side of the well-lit street. They watched the taxi as it cruised along the street with the driver peering out trying to make out the individual house numbers. Just as the driver reached it, Lambert ordered him to go on past. He got out round the corner and dialled Pat’s number from a phone box. He used the three-ring code and she answered immediately on the second call. When he walked back along the street the reporters again watched him suspiciously. They began to get out of their cars when he knocked on the door. But Pat was waiting to open it immediately. They were only halfway across the road when he slammed it shut behind him.
Lambert and Pat had stood in the vestibule looking at each other, ignoring the sound of frustrated reporters hammering on the door and ringing the bell. After a few minutes they gave up and went away. Lambert held up the plastic bag containing the wine and chocolates. It was a confused peace offering. Now that they were face to face he didn’t know what to say. It looked like he wanted to celebrate.
‘Did you kill Ron?’ Pat asked simply.
‘No.’
‘He didn’t kill Laura. You know that.’
‘Yes I know that.’
‘The old fool lusted after her but he didn’t have it in him to kill her. He didn’t.’
‘No.’
‘What do you think happened then, Doug?’
He shook his head, pleading ignorance. ‘It will all make sense eventually, I suppose.’
She embraced him tightly. The top of her head pressed against his chin, forcing his head back. She clung to him as they went into the house and hardly let go of him until they got into bed. There was no sex. He didn’t try. They were just two old friends suffering from the pain of bereavement in need of mutual comfort.
Round the edge of the ceiling, the moulded pattern of the plaster cornice repeated itself every few feet. A raised line picked out in gold paint ran through it like a thread stitching the walls to the ceiling.
He had been sleeping with Pat, on and off, for the best part of twenty years but he had never before slept with her in this bed. It had been a long-running affair, yet totally discreet and secret. They each had a different life outside it and didn’t want to jeopardize that. Their friends would have been shocked.
He couldn’t put a date to his change of attitude when he started wanting Pat to be with him all the time instead of on irregular occasions. It was relatively recent and Pat was having none of it. The last time they had parted it had been after a blazing row. She was content to continue as normal. She wasn’t going to leave Ron for him. She just wasn’t. Ron might drool embarrassingly over young girls and take her for granted, but he was her husband and she had no intention of dumping him at this stage in her life. She didn’t want things to change. She was too old and set in her ways. Damn it, she was too respectable. So was Lambert. Respectability was too important. They had kept their secret too long and too well. They were both too staid and respectable to suddenly reveal themselves as passionate lovers.
But now Ron was dead and in a manner that blew apart her cherished respectability. Things had changed whether Pat liked it or not. She was still in shock for the time being but she would come to realize it quickly enough.
‘Are we celebrating?’ she had asked as they drank the wine.
‘We’re mourning,’ he had replied.
He had always been honest with Pat, never told her any significant lies. Three times she had asked him if he had killed Ron and three times he was able to deny it. Three times she held his stare for a long time in that way she had of making sure he was being absolutely genuine. Three times she was satisfied he was.
‘He wasn’t sleeping with Laura,’ Pat had said.
‘I know.’
‘It was just silly flirting. I mean you knew about Laura, didn’t you? She was back living with you, after all. You must have known.’
‘I knew about him and Laura,’ he agreed. ‘Sometimes I think she made a big show of it just to annoy me.’
‘So what do you think happened up there?’
‘Maybe we’ll never know. She was changing all the time. I didn’t understand her any more. She was a mystery to me.’
‘She did say the most awful things about you.’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t know how you put up with it.’
‘She was my daughter.’
‘Your cross to bear.’
‘Exactly. Nobody else’s.’
In the enclosed bedroom with the ceiling tightly stitched to the walls Lambert carefully eased his arm out from under Pat and began rubbing it to restore the circulation. Painful prickling spread along the length of the arm as he flexed his fingers and the blood and the feeling returned.
Chapter Thirty-One
Friday, 06.13
The mist lay a few feet deep over the surface of Loch Maree like a rumpled white tablecloth. McIsaac expertly steered the boat in towards the makeshift tarpaulin tent that marked Parliament Rock. Fyfe sat in the middle of the boat with Jill at his feet. Number Five had been left back at the hotel, undisturbed in Moya’s room, because she couldn’t be trusted not to jump over the side and go chasing after the ducks.
Fyfe had snatched a few hours’ sleep in his room, but seemed to have barely closed his eyes before McIsaac was knocking on the door ruining the dream that had just reached the stage where Moya was climbing into bed beside him. His first attempt at sleep had been disturbed after ten minutes when Matthewson had called around one, definitely fingering the husband Simon Wright as a prime suspect. Others had done the rounds of Laura’s father, a sad-eyed undertaker, and Gilchrist’s wife, a well-preserved lady of leisure with equally sad eyes. They had received pass marks wh
ile Matthewson had personally visited Wright and come away with a very bad impression.
‘He acted shocked all right, but there was something about him,’ Matthewson had said. ‘Oily type. A lawyer. I wouldn’t want my sister to marry him. I reckon quite a lot will crawl out from under his stone once we start questioning him properly.’
Fyfe agreed with him but couldn’t help thinking back to one of the laws of prophecy Moya had told him about; the most obvious interpretation is likely to be the wrong one. He arranged for Wright to be brought in for questioning the next afternoon. Better for him to be taken in than for them to go to him. Show him who’s in charge. Get him sweating a bit.
‘Give my regards to Isotonic,’ Matthewson had said.
The next person Fyfe saw was McIsaac, trimly turned out in uniform and silver beard, betraying no hint of the lack of sleep he too must be suffering. Fyfe crawled out of bed reluctantly to answer the knock, stumbling over Jill. McIsaac was standing to attention on the other side.
‘Morning, Isotonic,’ he said.
‘Good morning yourself, sir. You slept well, I trust.’
‘I did. Must be the Highland air. Your old biking pal sends his regards.’
Fyfe rubbed his chin. It was less than twenty-four hours since he had been shaved by Sergio in the barber’s shop but it already felt coarse to the touch, though not enough to make it worth his while shaving. The swelling round his eye had settled down to a fairly extensive blue and purple smudge with the white of the half-shut eye a deep pink. Sitting on the toilet he again read Laura’s column in the magazine and wondered at its exotic strangeness.
Fyfe didn’t have a change of clothes so he sprayed himself with borrowed deodorant and put the same underwear and shirt and jacket back on. He knocked gently on Moya’s door and was relieved when there was no answer. It gave him longer to think of a good opening line to begin their second day of acquaintance. He went downstairs and borrowed a Barbour from the coat-stand in the lobby and followed McIsaac out into the frosty atmosphere. Fyfe hadn’t seen the rock where Laura’s body was found and wanted to do so before heading south for Edinburgh.
‘Best part of the day, don’t you think sir?’
‘I’ve seen worse.’
Dawn had broken as they pushed away from the jetty. The chuntering of the outboard motor shattered the early morning quiet and sent a couple of moorhens fleeing over the mirror-smooth water. The air above the transparent mist was icily clear. The pine trees on the islands were decorated with glistening droplets of water. The mountain ridge on the north shore and the rounded summit of Slioch were pinprick sharp against the lightening sky. The boat moved steadily across the loch. Neither man spoke much until the rock and the tent on top of it were very close. Fyfe jumped ashore and tied the mooring rope to one of the scaffolding poles. McIsaac clambered after him. Jill sat in the boat watching them.
There was very little to see on the rock. Inside the tent was a chalk outline of Laura’s body, nothing else. There was no sense of hovering spirits, or supernatural entities, or doorways to different dimensions. He stared down at the patterns of lichen and tried to see something, anything. It was like looking for flame animals in the embers of a fire. Nothing.
What was written in the magazine? ‘I am human therefore I am afraid. But I am immortal therefore I am at peace.’
Stirring stuff. Whoever murdered Laura had a poetic soul. And there was the handwritten note from Bobby asking for forgiveness. Only to be expected really. Every poet has a troubled conscience.
Fyfe came out of the tent and walked to the far end of the rock. He could see a pair of swans on the loch but not the cottage where the body of the hanged man had been found. It was masked by the trees that crowded right to the very edge of the water.
‘Do you believe in reincarnation, Donald?’ Fyfe asked, dipping the toe of his shoe into the crystal clear water.
‘One life’s enough for me,’ McIsaac replied.
‘Same here.’
Chapter Thirty-Two
Friday, 07.40
Moya opened her eyes and a tremor of fear stiffened her whole body. There was somebody in the bed behind her. She could feel the weight on the mattress dragging her in towards the centre. She could feel the solid contact and when she lay completely still she could feel the steady, rhythmic movement of a rib-cage pressed against her back.
What had she done? She should never have had that late-night drink after such a long and tiring day, but it seemed so churlish to refuse and they were making good progress on the case. It was important to keep the momentum going so they had camped in the bar with the reporters barred and Fat Joe in his dressing-gown and stripy pyjamas shuffling around in the background, still unsure whether the abrupt notoriety of his hotel would be good or bad for business in the long term. McIsaac was the first to go, driving away in a crunch of gravel. Then Charlie Simpson with an exaggerated yawn and stretch. And suddenly it was only her and Fyfe and they took a bottle and went up to her room. She didn’t like to say no. Late night drinking conferences were part of the job, when thinking became lateral and ideas came thick and fast. She was one of the boys. She couldn’t not agree to it.
And what had happened then? She couldn’t remember. There was a vague picture of Fyfe standing over the bed looking down on her. She had eaten so little during the day. The drink must have gone straight to her head. What had she said? What had she done? What would he think of her?
He was moving. The weight at her back was shifting. She tensed so much her muscles hurt. Her nightdress was bunched awkwardly round her waist. By moving her fingers slightly she was able to make sure she was wearing knickers. A small mercy.
He was on top of the bedsheets. He must have fallen asleep there beside her. It was all perfectly innocent and she didn’t know if she was glad or sad. Nothing had happened after all.
She closed her eyes. She could feel his hot breath against the top of her head. It smelled awful. And he was pressing hard on her shoulder and breathing strangely, panting almost. What the hell was he doing? Surely not now? Not in the morning. Something cold and wet touched her cheek. What did he think he was doing? A rough tongue scraped across her forehead.
She squealed and threw off the covers to jump out of bed. She turned back ready to hit out and shout abuse but was stopped by the sight of a black labrador sitting on the pillow with its pink tongue hanging out the side of its mouth.
‘Number Five,’ she said, realizing the fortunate truth. ‘We must stop meeting like this.’
Only a few seconds had passed between Moya regaining consciousness and Number five licking her face. The idea that she might have slept with Fyfe had been no more than a fleeting thought. Now her mind was functioning properly and she was able to recall saying goodnight and going to bed alone before falling into an exhausted sleep immediately.
Moya picked up the magazine and slowly read Laura’s column once more, trying to squeeze the last ounce of significance from every word. It was so obvious, of course, in the clear light of day. So much for the spiritual dimension. So much for the supernatural. It was a real flesh and blood crime, after all. What was it Fyfe had said? The murderer wanted to be caught. Hopefully they would be able to oblige.
She flicked back to the title-page of the magazine and reminded herself of the name of the editor, Edward Illingworth, and the office address in Edinburgh. He would be worth talking to. The publisher Ronald Gilchrist would be unable to assist their inquiries. She would get the house-to-house rolling up here, and a fingertip search of the forest within a half-mile radius of the cottage. She and Fyfe had agreed their time would be best spent heading south to see what Wright and Illingworth had to say for themselves.
Moya went over to the window and pushed back the curtains. The pale dawn light spilled through the dirty glass panes and poured round her. The horizon was stained red. Snow patches and black shadows gleamed in crevices near the summit of Slioch. Boats were clustered round the hotel jetty. Another boat was app
roaching it, trailing a long, curving v-shaped wake behind it. She recognized McIsaac at the stern and Fyfe in the middle with Jill curled at his feet.
Number Five was beside Moya, paws up on the window-sill, giving a little bark of recognition. She patted the dog’s head and went downstairs to greet Fyfe. The press reporters ambushed her in front of the reception desk. Camera lights suddenly blazed and radio microphones appeared in front of her face. They didn’t all shout at once as they did in films. Instead they waited politely for her to speak. The silence was almost intimidating. Even Number Five was looking up at her expectantly.
‘I can confirm that a man’s body was found in a nearby cottage last night,’ she heard herself saying. ‘It is also being treated as murder.’
‘Is it related to the woman in white?’ a voice asked.
She meant to say possibly but it came out as probably. They all began shouting at once then. In the jumble of words she made out a question about whether she or Fyfe was in charge of the murder inquiry. She bridled.
‘I am in charge of this inquiry. I have been from the outset.’
‘Were they lovers?’
She blushed furiously, momentarily thinking the question was directed at her and Fyfe.
‘How did they die?’
‘Is it true someone has already confessed?’
‘A confession was made but it was found to be erroneous,’ she said. ‘Our inquiries are continuing into the manner of the incident. No useful purpose will be served by unverified speculation.’
What did she sound like? They were all shouting at once again. Charlie Simpson opened the dining-room door and grabbed her arm to pull her through. Number Five just made it before the door swung shut on the tip of her tail, making her yelp.
‘Dividing line,’ Simpson said. ‘DCI Fyfe set up a deal that they won’t cross it if we feed them information.’
‘Has he?’
‘Yes. He told them he would speak when he got back from the rock. I doubt if they’ll be interested now, not since you’ve put them straight. You being in charge and all.’
