Cold in the Earth

by Aline Templeton

  After all, with Laura safely at Mains of Craigie and probably doing far more good to Bill than she could herself, there wasn’t any reason, either operational or personal, to make waves about a few days’ delay on a fifteen-year-old case.

  ‘Will you be wanting to head back now, Bill? We’ve had a good walk.’

  Hamish wasn’t looking for a reply; Bill had made no response at all to the other farmer’s occasional remarks about the weather and the scenery. The most he expected was a shake of the head or perhaps a silent turn in the direction of home.

  But Bill said, ‘No.’ Then, with difficulty, ‘This – is good.’

  ‘Well, that’s rare! Good man! On we go, then.’

  The sun was making a brave attempt now; there was even a patch of watery blue the size of the proverbial sailor’s trousers appearing as they set off again up the stony slope of the hill ahead, Meg describing ever-widening circles around their path.

  22

  A door to the right of the hall was standing ajar. Laura found herself pushed through it, into the long, low sitting-room which ran from front to back of the house, and flung violently into one of the armchairs by the side of the fireplace. There was a pile of accumulated wood-ash from long-dead fires; tiny flakes rose like a puff of smoke as the air was disturbed then floated down again to settle on the dusty surface of a side-table.

  He stood towering over her, not touching her but by his physical presence making it an act of intimidation. He was shouting at her, roaring almost, so that the words were indecipherable, a jumble of sound.

  She’d never realised before how bull-like he was. Or – her heart missed a beat – had he become more bull-like as she watched? His shoulders seemed to swell as he tossed his head back and forth, his eyes were bulging and his hand went to tear the fabric of the black polo-neck sweater he was wearing, as if some expansion of his massive neck made its constriction intolerable. He opened his mouth wider so that looking up from below she could see his open throat. He bellowed.

  Laura had heard that sound before, echoing eerily outside on a winter night. Then, when she was safely behind walls, it had scared her. Now, the power of the sound alone was physically distressing and as he lowered his head and stooped so that his arms, clenched into fists, came below his knees, she gave a sob of terror.

  He swung away, breathing stertorously, snorting, almost, as he began to pace up and down the length of the room, faster and faster. He seemed to be working himself into a frenzy, foam gathering at the corners of his mouth. He began to trot, turning at each end with a swivelling movement of his haunches. As a bull would.

  Her heart was pounding now. Perhaps she would die of fright before the charge came, before that powerful head smashed the bones of her face – a hundred gothic tales, a hundred horror films clawed at her mind.

  But even in the grip of panic, an inner voice made itself heard above the thundering of her heart and the superstitious clamouring of her imagination: They aren’t true. It doesn’t happen. He only thinks it does. He’s a man with a mental problem, like your patients. You know what to do. It’s your job.

  And then there was another voice, repeating the advice she’d been given at the Women’s Refuge, long ago in another world: Make like you’re big and calm. It had worked when she’d braved women’s partners who were maddened by drink or drugs or anger, or all three. To look small and vulnerable was always to invite disaster, but even so, standing up now was probably the bravest thing she would ever do.

  Keeping the movement controlled and unhurried she raised herself from the chair. ‘Conrad!’ She spoke in a voice of calm authority. ‘I’m calling you back. The bull is leaving you now. Leaving you.’

  He didn’t react to her change of position or to her voice; at first she thought he was oblivious to anything but his mania. Then his bloodshot eyes rolled towards her and his pace faltered.

  Her voice monotonous, hypnotic, she went on talking. ‘I can see you again now, Conrad, the bull has gone. It’s all right. Gone, Conrad, gone. It’s all right.’ Again and again, for what seemed an eternity, she repeated the soothing phrases until at last he stood still, shaking and twitching, his head lowered like a bull in the ring, weakened physically and mentally and awaiting the coup de grâce.

  Still she talked. At last he raised his head and shook it, looking about him as if he barely recognised his surroundings. ‘What – what did I do?’ he muttered thickly, then he collapsed to begin banging his head against the floor. Laura could smell his acrid sweat – the smell of fear – and he started to cry like a child, huddling himself into a foetal position.

  She was aware, suddenly, of sharp pain. She looked down at her hands and saw the half-moon shapes of her nails, dug so far into her palms that some were filling with blood. She took a shaky breath as she looked down at the man who had inspired such fear, pitiable and helpless as he lay at her feet. She wasn’t afraid now.

  ‘Conrad, did the bull kill my sister?’

  ‘I – I don’t know.’

  ‘Did he want to kill me?’

  ‘You told – you told,’ he said brokenly. ‘I was angry. You liked Max – you didn’t want me. She didn’t either. I don’t know – I don’t know!’

  The anger was still there. She was taking no chances. ‘I’ll get you a drink of water,’ she said, walking confidently to the door and resisting the temptation to look nervously back over her shoulder.

  At last the solid wooden door was shut behind her with the old-fashioned key turned in the lock. There was a phone in the kitchen; she dialled 999, delivered her message with calm precision, put down the phone and realised that her legs were buckling. She collapsed into the sagging chair by the Aga and even when she heard the sirens twenty minutes later couldn’t summon the strength to get up.

  They found him asleep. They led him past her, handcuffed, but he didn’t turn his head to look towards her as he shambled out. Laura’s eyes followed him with sadness and pity and – yes, even regret.

  There was only one thing Donald Bailey disliked more than being wrong and that was someone else being proved right, but even for the sake of diplomacy and their future relations, there wasn’t anything Marjory Fleming could do to fudge it.

  ‘We’ve charged him with assault and breach of the peace for a start. We’re not ready to detain him for questioning on the murder charge as yet, because of course the minute we do the clock’s running and we’ve only six hours before his brief can roar in breathing smoke and demand we either press charges formally or drop them. And it’s not as if we don’t know where to find him.

  ‘He’s not exactly denying that he killed Diana Warwick, anyway. He keeps saying he doesn’t know, it was the bull not him.’

  Bailey groaned. ‘Should he be sectioned?’

  ‘The police surgeon’s checking him over now, but he’s rational enough at the moment and he’d hardly be the first killer to use insanity as a defence. I’ve put him on suicide watch, though – he’s utterly humiliated.’ He had presented a pathetic figure when she interviewed him, a bully whose bluff was called, even looking physically diminished as he sat slumped over the table in front of him.

  ‘Dear, dear. It’s a bad business. Promising young officer, too.’

  She didn’t correct him. ‘Can I take it we can apply for a search warrant? We’d want to take away the computer, for a start.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Bailey said testily. ‘Obviously. I’d better alert the Chief Constable to the probability of another complaint. I simply shudder to think of his mother’s reaction. Has she been informed?’

  ‘Not so far. I gather they’re drawing lots downstairs for who’s to do it and who’s going to ride shotgun.’

  This was what was known as the bad method of attempting to lighten the atmosphere, she reflected a moment later, as the joke backfired.

  ‘Yes, it’s going to be a very delicate business. In fact,’ Bailey said with a wintry smile, ‘I think you should go yourself, Marjory. That way, I can assure the
CC that we’re taking all possible steps to treat this sensitively. All right?’

  He rose and went to the door to hold it open for her. As she went out, Fleming consoled herself with the thought that if this was his pay-back for her being right, at least her penance would be over and done with by tea-time.

  And she’d take Tam with her. Why should she suffer alone? After all, he’d been right too.

  ‘As a reward, I’ll let you have a free quotation, if you can think of one,’ Fleming said as they drove along the all-too-familiar road to Chapelton. MacNee, having been lucky in the previous lottery, had been loud in his complaints against the injustice of it all.

  He sighed.

  ‘May coward shame disdain his name,

  The wretch that dare not die,’

  he quoted lugubriously.

  Fleming laughed. ‘What do you think she’ll say, Tam?’

  ‘It’s not what she’ll say that’s bothering me. It’s what she’ll do. It’s all right for you – you’re bigger than me. But I’m only a wee fellow.’

  ‘And delicate with it. Your douce nature’s a by-word down the nick. But seriously, it’s going to be a terrible shock for her.’

  ‘Unless she knew.’

  Fleming shot him a look. ‘Knew?’

  ‘Well, you’d think if your son was charging around going off his head and bellowing, you’d maybe notice.’

  ‘Right enough.’ She was much struck by this idea. ‘But you’d cover up for him, even so?’

  ‘I can’t see her being fashed about anything except what suits him.’

  ‘And she’d be bothered about herself too, Tam. I’d a pretty clear impression from Conrad about the demands she made on him. She had the money and she used that to jerk him around.’

  ‘He’s like a puppet with his strings cut, the now. I even feel kinda sorry for the guy.’

  ‘Hasn’t had much of a life, it seems to me. Laura says people with delusions like his often sort of use the animal personality to express what they daren’t themselves. And even now, when he’s at rock bottom, you can see how angry he is.’

  MacNee shook his head. ‘Weird. So – if you were an animal, what kind would it be?’

  ‘A dog. I’d take people in my teeth like rats and shake some sense into them.’ It came out without reflection; she was taken aback herself. ‘I don’t know where that came from,’ she admitted awkwardly.

  ‘Aye, well. Not surprising, maybe.’ MacNee waited, but she didn’t choose to elaborate and a few minutes later they turned in at the Chapelton sign.

  As she stood on the doorstep, Fleming squared her shoulders in preparation for the ordeal ahead and she noticed that MacNee, after he had rung the doorbell, did the same. Perhaps, she thought hopefully, it would be Max Mason who would answer the door and they could legitimately delegate the task of breaking the news to his aunt . . .

  It wasn’t. They could see the outline of Brett Mason’s square frame through the etched glass of the inner door even before she opened it.

  She didn’t look well. Her complexion, always florid, had an unhealthy, purplish tinge and the whites of her eyes were muddy and bloodshot. Fleming remembered uneasily that her brother had succumbed to a stroke as Brett’s face darkened into an expression of fury at the sight of them.

  ‘How dare you!’ she shrilled. ‘How dare you? The Chief Constable gave me his personal assurance that this persecution would cease immediately. I shall report this to him at once.’ She made to shut the door.

  Fleming stepped forward. ‘Please wait, Mrs Mason. We have to talk to you about Conrad.’

  ‘Conrad?’ She paused. ‘He’s not here. I’m expecting him back soon. He didn’t come in for his lunch and it’s nearly five o’clock.’

  ‘That’s right. He’s at the police station,’ MacNee said disingenuously.

  ‘I see. He could have let me know himself, of course, but I suppose if he’s back at his work . . . And at least you’ve come to your senses at last. You can ill-afford to dispense with the services of someone like my son, you know, and I can tell you after all that’s gone on he was contemplating resignation.’ Another thought struck her. ‘Oh – come to apologise, have you? Well, you’d better come in. Naturally I would prefer that none of this had happened in the first place, but I shall tell the Chief Constable I appreciate that an effort has been made.’

  Cravenly, they didn’t correct her, only exchanging glances as they followed in her wake into the big study at the front of the house with its trophies and pictures which so eloquently showed the family obsession which had ruined her son.

  They sat down, Fleming and MacNee on a leather chesterfield, cracked with age, while Brett sat down in a heavily carved wooden armchair as if it were a throne. Clearing her throat nervously, Fleming began.

  It took Brett a moment to realise that this was no apology; she began to protest about false pretences but Fleming talked steadily on until she stopped and listened, looking bewildered and uncomprehending.

  They had been prepared for a hysterical, even violent reaction. Instead she sat completely still and silent, seeming to shrink in the chair as the sense of what was being said got through to her. She was wearing a long purple scarf; she began pulling it through her hands more and more frantically. When Fleming finished at last, she said nothing for a second, then whispered, ‘You’ve arrested him! You’ve arrested Conrad? Oh no, no, no!’

  The tears came then, floods and tempests of tears, with sobs which seemed almost to be choking her as she clutched at her throat. Alarmed, Fleming went to kneel beside her, offering tissues from her shoulder-bag though she dared not touch her. ‘Go and see if you can find Max,’ she said urgently over her shoulder to MacNee.

  He nodded and went out, but hadn’t far to look: Max was at that moment coming across the hall. MacNee explained succinctly what had happened and saw a slow, unpleasant smile spread over Conrad’s cousin’s face.

  ‘Now fancy that! He always was a sod. Good to know the plods have caught up with him at last, despite him being inside the tent. You don’t think I’m surprised, do you? You’re talking to someone he bullied for years. Wonder if that’s why they call it bullying?’

  MacNee looked at him with cold dislike. ‘Your aunt’s pretty upset. Maybe you could stretch a point and try and calm her down.’

  ‘Me?’ Max laughed. ‘Oh, I’ll give it a whirl if it’ll make you happy. But arrange these words into a well-known phrase or saying: rag, to, bull, red, a. Oops, not perhaps the most tactful thing to say, in the circumstances. To level with you, I’d phone the doctor if I were you.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ MacNee said grimly, getting out his phone as Max sauntered past him into the study.

  Fleming looked up anxiously as he came in. Brett was still sobbing, her breathing so ragged as to be alarming in a woman of her physique.

  ‘Max – oh good! I’m worried about your aunt. Has she got pills or anything?’

  Max strolled over to stand beside his distraught relative. ‘Haven’t the vaguest.’ Bending closer, he said in the tones of one speaking to the profoundly deaf, ‘Pills, Auntie? Do you have pills?’

  It had an astonishing effect. As if he had pressed a button, Brett’s sobs stopped and she pulled herself up in her chair; with the tears still wet on her cheeks, she narrowed swollen eyes and spat out, ‘Oh, you’re happy now, no doubt. It’s all you’ve ever wanted, to see Conrad and me destroyed. No doubt you had a hand in this, you and that woman – oh yes, I could see how Conrad was looking at her, just the way he looked at her sister. And you brought her here deliberately, that – that Delilah, to bring about his downfall! She lured him to it, I could see that. But you’ll both suffer for it, I promise! You’ll suffer!’

  Astonished at this display of virulent energy, Fleming scrambled to her feet, ready to intervene if the woman showed signs of translating her threats into action. Max, on the other hand, looked amused, standing with his hands in his pockets.

  ‘I seem to have achieved
the desired effect, anyway. Perhaps she doesn’t need a doctor after all – they can’t do a lot about a poisonous personality.’ As he sauntered out again, MacNee came past him back into the room, looking surprised to see Brett apparently quite recovered.

  ‘Perhaps you should go and lie down, Mrs Mason,’ Fleming suggested, not very hopefully. ‘You’ve had a shock.’

  ‘There’s a doctor on the way,’ MacNee added.

  Entirely composed now, Brett looked icily from one to the other, then rose regally to her feet. ‘I shall go to my room. It will spare me the offence of your company. You may tell the doctor where to find me.

  ‘Meantime I shall be phoning my lawyer. You may inform your superiors that we will be pursuing an action for damages against you for these monstrous and totally unfounded accusations.’

  She swept out, all injured majesty, leaving the two officers staring after her blankly.

  ‘Well, bugger me!’ MacNee said vulgarly.

  ‘She’s something else, isn’t she? I was worried sick, thinking she was completely out of control on her way to having a fit, and then suddenly – bam!’

  ‘Here – maybe she turns into a crocodile in her spare time. Their tears don’t mean anything either – and they’ve a pretty savage bite on them too.’

  ‘You could say.’ Fleming shook her head in wonder. ‘Anyway, with any luck neither of us will have to see her again. Whoever drew the short straw last time gets to question her.’

  ‘You’re not kidding.’ MacNee was looking about him as he spoke; he had never been in the room before and he began to wander around, looking at the photographs on the walls and reading the framed newspaper cuttings.

  ‘No wonder Conrad’s like he is,’ he observed. ‘Get all this! Bulls everywhere you look. Probably thought he was a calf, when he was wee.’ Moving on, he stopped in front of the trophy cabinet and gave a low whistle. ‘There’s a fortune here, mind you! Solid silver, some of these – I can think of a few of the local punters who’d pay good money for a tip-off. And not so much as a security lock on the window snibs.’