She could feel her heart start to race in fright, but she wouldn’t show it. ‘Fine,’ she said lightly.
This wasn’t going well. How could you build bridges with a son whose every instinct was aggressive? He was making no attempt to talk to her, though he had taken a third glass of wine and helped himself to the remains of the despised casserole.
Desperately, she said, ‘This is pointless, Nat. We need to talk, to get things sorted out between us. I know you resented Rob and I know too that I’ve neglected you this last bit. I’m sorry about that. But there were faults on both sides, you know.
‘So let’s put all that behind us. We can’t go on like this.’
For the first time, he smiled. ‘Sounds good. Let’s do that.’
‘I’ll tell you what I was thinking—’
‘No, why don’t I tell you?’ He put down his knife and fork, sat back with his glass in his hand. ‘First off, we get this dump sold, right? Go back to Glasgow, maybe, where there’s some sort of scene for me. There’ll be a bit of cash—’
Katy swallowed. ‘Nat, I don’t see it quite like that. First of all, there’s a mortgage—’
‘Oh, sure. But I’m not daft – I know what the property market’s done. And don’t tell me Rob didn’t have money he put in himself.’
‘Invested it, yes, in the business. And I need a business to earn my living.’
‘Nothing to stop you going back to your old job, is there?’
Waitressing – terrible hours, worse pay, no future. ‘What about you, Nat – what would you do?’ she asked quietly.
‘Oh, leave school, get something, I suppose. I’m still a kid – entitled to have a bit of time to enjoy myself. Gap year, they call it. If we split the money—’
She had been undecided about her own future, until now. She was still afraid of what Nat might do but it was almost as if she could feel Rob’s steadying hand on her shoulder. ‘Any money there is was Rob’s money. He put it into the pub to provide for our future, his and mine. If I waste it – or let you just throw it away – I’d be betraying him, and I’m not going to do that. The Anchor’s the business we built together and we’ve had good friends here. I’m not selling it. That’s final. And if you don’t like it, Nat, well, there’s plenty of young men your age earning their own living.’ She braced herself for his response, ready to move out of the danger zone if he flared up.
He didn’t. There was anger in Nat’s face, but also uncertainty. He gave a tight-lipped smile. ‘Well, let’s cool it for now. See how things go.’ He set down his glass, unfinished, and got up. ‘I’m going out. Don’t wait up.’
As he shut the door, Katy found that she was trembling. She buried her face in her hands. What sort of awful mother was she? Was there another woman in the world who so disliked what her child had become that she could no longer be sure she loved him? She tried to reach back for the memories other mothers seemed to keep preserved like rose petals in pot-pourri, memories of sunshine and laughter and chubby little hands, but Nat’s childhood seemed to have passed in a fog of fear and anxiety. The Nat she remembered was a frightened kiddie she’d taken blows for, to protect him from his drunken father – and what he had learned was that violent bullies got what they wanted. Both Nat, and her relationship with him, had been deformed as a result. It was her fault for being weak – she should have left, with Nat, before that damage was done – but no one who hadn’t suffered abuse would ever understand how hard it had been.
Her every instinct was to send him back to Glasgow, now. It was only, really, her promise to Enid that she would try again that was stopping her – that and his unexpected reaction to her ultimatum which had suggested that perhaps he was still scared of the world outside, still reluctant to leave his home.
Or – something else? Something more calculating? She shivered. One more chance, but she’d phone Dave’s mother meantime and have a chat with her about renting a room for Nat somewhere near enough for her to keep an eye on him. Just in case. Because she knew that if she let herself be abused again Rob would feel that she was letting him down.
At least the smug bastard had the sense not to gloat openly at the morning briefing when he heard what Tansy Kerr had to say, even if Tam MacNee was scunnered by the modest smile Kingsley had chosen to adopt instead. Tempted though MacNee felt to point out that an unconfirmed alibi wasn’t the same as a false one, he managed to keep his mouth shut. There was still the evidence of the mobile phone to come, though not for a day or two, apparently, for some technological reason he hadn’t even tried to understand.
Meantime, there was no choice. They’d have to wheel out the big guns against this their most promising suspect in the hope that sooner rather than later they could find something – anything – to link Elder with the more serious crimes. When the man got out today on bail, as he certainly would, and returned to his executive palace, he’d find JCBs digging up the drains – and, according to Tansy, a wife who’d been ‘nursing her wrath to keep it warm’. He grinned inwardly at the thought; it was a pound to a dud penny that Joanna Elder could be a right little hell-cat when she got going.
There would be a lot of legwork today too – more interviews, lots more, with everyone you could think of and probably a few that never even crossed your mind. He hated jobs like this, particularly when he was far from convinced that they were heading in the right direction, but there was no doubt he was in the minority. The rest of the troops were enthusiastic: Ritchie Elder was just the sort of guy everyone liked to see fall on their face, and the flatter the better. Jon Kingsley’s stock was high this morning.
At least, at the end of the briefing, the boss had reminded them of the status of unconfirmed alibis and warned them to keep an open mind, though when MacNee brightened and said, ‘In that case, if it’s unconfirmed—’ she just said firmly, ‘No, Tam.’ So that was that. He’d be expected to put his heart and soul into his allotted task of checking the schedule for every vehicle operating out of Elder’s company. Oh, he was looking forward to it already.
As he left, he found himself in the company of Jock Naismith, sergeant of long standing and deep-dyed cynic. He jerked his thumb back over his shoulder to where Kingsley was the centre of an animated group. ‘See him? Thinks he’s Archie, and he’s not even Archie’s dog!’
Grinning, Tam slapped him on the back, then went to collect his detail in at least a slightly better frame of mind.
PC Sandy Langlands was feeling cheerful this morning as he drove away from the showhouse office at Fuill’s Inlat. Right enough, it would have been good to feel he’d had more of a hand in bringing Elder to justice himself, but like all the lads he was glad to know that the bastard who’d flooded the district with drugs and killed four people to protect his trade would soon be having an intimate acquaintance with the inside of one of Her Majesty’s less glamorous properties. Peterhead, maybe. He fancied the thought of Elder away up on the bleak East Coast. They still had slopping out there, didn’t they?
His mission this morning had been to make quite sure that the girls working in the showhouse office could confirm that they hadn’t seen Elder until he came in to tell them the lifeboat had been called out, and that the time they’d given in their previous statements was correct. They could: one had moaned to the other that it was all right for the boss – twenty-past seven and there he was away, when they’d be on till ten. He’d noted that down and thanked them warmly.
Their case was still on track; the coastguard’s call had gone out at five-past seven, so if no one had seen Elder until twenty-past, he could have parked his car, reckoning if anyone noticed it they’d assume he was somewhere else on the site, and then in the rain and darkness slipped behind it and down into the cove to place the lanterns, which would have taken ten minutes, max. Seven-twenty, and he’d have been ready to stick his head round the showhouse door and go back to Knockhaven.
Langlands’s next task was to go back to the couples who had been viewing the houses. Several had
n’t arrived until after Elder had left but there were four he had to see again to question in more detail. Ideally, they too would confirm he hadn’t been in any of the houses and just maybe someone might remember seeing the Mitsubishi parked well before seven-twenty. You never knew your luck. His problem would be getting hold of them at this time of day – out at work, probably. He’d maybe have to call HQ to see if their work addresses were on file as well.
His mind on this problem, he was driving just a shade too fast up the narrow lane. Suddenly, just short of the point at which it joined the main road, he saw a woman come out of the cottage on the corner and with a fine disregard for her safety place herself in his path. He braked to an untidy stop.
She was elderly, in her seventies, perhaps, with rigid rows of curls covering her head; her mouth, he noticed with a sinking heart, was pursed up like a cat’s bum. Now she was placing her hands on her hips.
Langlands drew the car into the side, put on his diced cap and got out. ‘Good morning, madam. Were you wanting to speak to me?’
‘I should have thought,’ she said shrilly, ‘that the boot would have been on the other foot – that the police would have been wanting me.’
His sense of humour threatened to get the better of him, but he realised in time that the brief pleasure of saying, ‘Shall I fetch the handcuffs, then?’ would not be worth the consequent pain. ‘Now, why would that be?’ he wondered gravely.
‘You’ve asked everyone else about the night that lifeboat was wrecked but you’ve never asked me. Or my husband. For whatever good that would do you,’ she added darkly.
‘I’m sorry, madam. I suppose it was felt that you wouldn’t have seen much from the top of the road. And of course we always hope that anyone with useful information will contact us.’
‘Huh!’ she snorted. ‘Well, now you’re here you’d better come in.’ Without waiting for his response she went back inside and he followed her meekly into a small sitting room with a window which gave directly on to the lane.
A depressed-looking, grey-haired man in a beige cardigan was sitting in one corner by a meagre fire, a red-top open at the sports pages in his hand. He set it down, looking over it at his visitor with glum indifference. ‘What are you after now, Jeanie?’ he asked his wife but she behaved as if he hadn’t spoken.
‘There – see?’ Jeanie had picked up a brown exercise book which had been lying, with a pen beside it, on the windowledge. ‘See this jotter? The traffic down here’s been a scandal ever since those gomerils in the Council were daft enough to agree to the houses. And a few wee backhanders slipped under the table too, I’ve no doubt, so there was little chance they’d pay any mind to what we had to say about it. Well, I’ve been keeping this log of every car that’s been up and down here since. It’s maybe too late to change it now, but if they think they’ve shut me up they’ve got another think coming.’
Her husband gloomily gave it as his opinion that if they did manage, it would be a first, but again was ignored.
Langlands took the book from her and started leafing through it, then stopped, drawing in his breath sharply. ‘May I take this, madam? It could be very useful.’
With a triumphant glance at her husband, Jeanie said, ‘See, Ron? And you telling me I was just wasting my time!’ She turned her beady gaze on Langlands. ‘Now, I’ll be needing it returned, mind!’
‘Of course. I’ll give you a receipt.’ He fished a pack of forms out of his pocket.
‘Could you not take her too?’ the melancholy voice said from the corner. ‘I wouldn’t be wanting her back.’
Repressing a shudder at the thought, Langlands went back to his car. He got in, then hesitated. He’d been given his orders, but there was no point in being in the Force if you didn’t use your initiative sometimes. He was going to head back to the nick to tell Big Marge. From what he’d seen, this could change everything.
It was the blaring of a car’s horn that shocked Ritchie Elder back to full awareness. He slammed on his brakes as, in a flurry of obscene gestures, the driver of a Renault Clio vented the adrenaline rush caused by Elder’s Mitsubishi pulling incautiously out of the side road which led to the cells under the Galloway Police Headquarters in Kirkluce.
Elder’s hand went to his brow and found that he was sweating. He wouldn’t have believed, if you’d told him beforehand, what the effect of a night in the cells could be. He’d have said he was a hard man, but when the door slammed behind him and he was alone in that bare, bleak, harshly lit space with its seatless lavatory and its uncompromising message about the power of the State – no belt, no tie, in case he should decide to string himself up from the bars on the tiny window – he knew the panic of helplessness for the first time in his life. He’d never before been in a situation where money couldn’t buy you, at the very least, the ordinary decencies of life.
The only other occupant last night had been a drunk brought in shortly before midnight, shouting and swearing and then being violently and noisily sick in the adjoining cell. Elder couldn’t sleep; he got up and through the observation window saw a policeman with a mop and bucket going to clean it up.
‘Bad luck!’ he said sympathetically.
The man turned. ‘Compared to you,’ he said, ‘he’s Mother Teresa.’
Elder had never before bothered to consider what anyone thought of his dirty trade. He’d been in denial, too, about his own responsibility for Willie’s condition on the night of the wreck; after all, he’d told the moron often enough that only a fool samples the wares, and he’d trusted the man not to let him down when it mattered. And of course he didn’t believe in the garbage about one day answering before the Throne of Justice. Yet here in this blank hell-on-earth, you did begin just to wonder . . .
Qualms of conscience had never bothered him much, easily quelled by the usual arguments: nobody makes them buy the stuff; if I don’t do it, someone else will . . . And there was a seedy glamour about it, too. At Kirkluce High he’d seen himself as an edgy sort of guy, lead singer in the predictably terrible rock band when Lewis Randall was a swot and Willie Duncan was a thicko with no ambition but to go to the fishing as the Duncans had done since someone first thought of putting a worm on a bent pin.
But now he was going down, no question. His lawyer, whom he employed because he knew every trick in the book, had been blunt. ‘The difficult, we do immediately. The impossible – well, there’s bugger all we can do about that.’ He thought he was funny. Whether he’d think it was so funny if Elder decided to take his custom – worth tens of thousands, in his present situation – elsewhere, was another matter.
He’d known the risks, of course he had – theoretically. He’d even worried a bit, initially, but the trade had been running like clockwork for so long now that in his mind it wasn’t a lot different from his legitimate business, which anyway wasn’t entirely above board when it came to compliance with health and safety and building regulations. What Elder had never believed was that they’d get him. There were hundreds of them in his game, thousands more likely, and how often did anyone other than the poor pathetic runners ever get caught?
He probably knew enough about the supply routes to bargain down his charge in exchange for cooperation, but as his lawyer had pointed out, it might be better to take the rap and not spend your life after you came out waiting for the bullet in the back. Though, he’d added helpfully, you probably wouldn’t have to wait that long. Newly sensitive, Elder realised that it wasn’t only the police who despised him.
The murder accusation was something else. Murder was different. Murder – and they were talking multiple murders – meant they locked you up and threw away the key until you might as well be dead. Probably better dead, at that.
And dead was what he would be, or someone else would be, if he didn’t pay attention to his driving. He headed for Bayview House at an uncharacteristically sober speed.
When he turned in, the drive was already being dug up. His beautiful, elegant house, the crowning gl
ory of his career – no shabby corner-cutting here – was being reduced once again to a building site. There were men in white overalls with clipboards observing as a man with a pneumatic drill broke up the concreted area beside the garage where there was a stand-pipe and a drain, while a group of workmen with spades and pickaxes stood by. Sick and shaken, Elder let himself into the house.
It was unnaturally quiet inside. Every window was, naturally, triple-glazed and the sound of the drill outside was muted to little more than background noise. Inside, all he could hear was a faint thud-thud-thud coming from the pool area.
Elder was all too familiar with that sound, made by Joanna’s feet on the treadmill. He’d managed to blank her out of his mind. Slowly and reluctantly he crossed the pools of light that lay on the pale wood floor of his lofty hall and opened the door on to the artificial paradise he had created. It looked no more convincing than a stage set now.
Joanna, her delicate features contorted with effort, was running, but when she saw him flicked a switch, slowed down and got off. Red-faced and sweating, she confronted him. ‘You stupid, stupid bastard!’ she snarled, and slapped him.
Somehow, that helped. If she’d cried . . . ‘Did you enjoy that?’ he said. ‘Other side, to balance it up?’ He turned the other side of his face towards her.
She shook her head. ‘You really are something else,’ she said wonderingly. ‘You couldn’t be satisfied by what you cream off from your rubbish houses – you had to risk this whole thing—’ She waved her hand.
He sneered at her. ‘You don’t really think I paid for this from the business? The money that comes from the business covers the lifestyle, more or less. That’s it.’
Joanna’s eyes widened in shock. ‘You mean, all this . . .’
‘All this,’ he said with relish. ‘Yes, my sweetheart, when they freeze all the assets and then start unravelling the books there won’t be much to get your sticky little fingers on.’
‘My lawyer . . .’ she faltered.
The Darkness and the Deep Page 26
