‘I could send him along with Allan,’ Fleming offered. ‘And Tansy Kerr can handle the heart attack situation – she’s got a good touch with people.’
Appeased, Bailey said, ‘That’s better. And of course you and Tam will be free to take it on tomorrow once this Manchester business is sorted out.’
She got up. ‘If Kingsley hasn’t solved it first. He’s got his reputation to think of, after all.’
Her tone was dry, and Bailey tutted. ‘He has his faults. But we mustn’t hold back the ambitious young. It’s one of the failings of middle age which I flatter myself I haven’t succumbed to, but you must fight it, Marjory, fight it!’
‘Tooth and nail, Donald.’ Fleming left, muttering under her breath.
She hit her office like a whirlwind, sending e-mails and making calls. The briefing on the Wintour case would have to be postponed, but that was no bad thing; the picture should be quite a bit clearer by the end of the day. She rescheduled it for nine the following morning, then summoned Tam MacNee.
‘The most important thing is keeping our end up,’ she told him. ‘Everything has got to run like clockwork so those snotty buggers don’t look down their noses at us poor teuchters.’
MacNee smirked. ‘Someone got your dander up? Where’s your “sweetness and light to our southern brethren” campaign now?’
‘If I tell you that DCI Carter almost had me quoting Burns myself, you’ll get some idea of the provocation. Maybe his subordinates won’t be so bad, and anyway, all being well we should be able to get shot of it in twenty-four hours.
‘They’re on their way now with Brewer and a barmaid called Mandy Preston – should be here – what? Late morning? Fix up an immediate appointment with the mortuary – the autopsy’s early this afternoon and we want the ID done before that.
‘And remember, Tam, cool and dignified. Hang on, I’m not sure you do dignified. I’ll settle for civil. Just don’t let the side down with DS Arnold Tucker.’
‘Arnold? What kind of a man would have a posh name like that?’
‘Probably a very superior being. And if you start quoting “A man’s a man, for a’ that,” it’s a disciplinary matter.’
Chapter 7
The dining-room in the Mackenzie household was a silent place this morning. Jennifer Mackenzie, Susie Stevenson’s mother, was trying so hard not to give vent to her fury that the atmosphere was as thick as the porridge her grandson Josh was unenthusiastically pushing round his bowl. His father, the graze on his cheek now surrounded by a large and livid bruise, had been stirring and stirring at his tea as if totally unaware of what he was doing.
At last his mother-in-law snapped. ‘For heaven’s sake, Findlay, you’ll wear a hole in the bottom of that cup.’
Findlay, who had been avoiding her eyes since he came in, coloured, looked up briefly, muttered, ‘Sorry,’ and set down his spoon.
Jennifer’s lips tightened and she fussed with the collar of her Alexon blouse. They had been sorely tried, she and Derek, these last few weeks, having their pleasantly ordered lives turned upside down with three extra people living in an executive villa designed for a retired couple with only occasional visitors. She really thought that if it weren’t for the en suite she would have gone mad, and Derek was seriously restive about his BMW being parked in the drive, now that the garage had become some sort of squalid kennels for Findlay’s wretched dogs.
They’d been perfectly happy when Susie married him, but at the time he’d been a respectable farmer, well able to support her in proper style. Since then, he’d reduced their daughter first to being a shop girl, and now, as if that wasn’t bad enough, a common labourer’s wife. And Jennifer, with her high blood pressure, just didn’t dare to let herself think about this latest humiliation he had brought on the family.
Susie, at the other end of the table, was drooping and red-eyed, making a production of her misery.
‘Have some toast, Susie. You’re not eating anything.’ Jennifer spoke bracingly; her supply of sympathy was running low. Findlay was Susie’s husband, after all, and she should never have permitted him to get himself into this sort of mess. If Derek had shown signs of stepping out of line – which, to be fair, in thirty blameless years of banking he never had – Jennifer would have brought him up so short he’d have pitched on to his nose.
‘How can I?’ Susie said tragically. ‘With all this – and the move today—’
‘If it’s still on.’ Findlay spoke without raising his eyes.
Jennifer stiffened. ‘Still on? Why not?’ She couldn’t bear to think what Derek would say if she had to tell him that the garage wouldn’t be ready for thorough cleaning tonight.
‘Ask your daughter.’
The ready tears came to Susie’s eyes. ‘My fault now, is it? If you hadn’t—’
Her mother rose majestically. ‘Come, Josh,’ she said to the child who had been a silent witness, looking from one parent to the other in anxious dismay. ‘Mummy and Daddy have something they need to discuss together. Quietly.’ It was an instruction. ‘It’s time you went up to tidy your room anyway.’
Obediently Josh went out with his grandmother, who shut the door behind them in a marked manner.
Susie, aggrieved, wasted no time in springing to her own defence. ‘I was only doing it for you, Fin. And they released you, so it worked – you can’t say it didn’t.’
‘I can, actually.’ Findlay had the temper that went with his colouring; he was having to struggle to keep it under control. ‘I had been told I was free to go before the phone call from Marjory came through. And I can’t believe what you inflicted on poor Josh.’
‘Then you should have thought of that before you got into a fight.’ Her expression was mulish.
‘I know, I know,’ Findlay said impatiently. ‘But I told you what that bastard’s threatening to do to Moss—’
‘Moss is a dog, remember?’
‘A dog who’s brought us in the money that we needed, just to scrape along. If I hadn’t built a reputation on his cleverness, I wouldn’t be getting the prices for the trained pups that I am now. Don’t you think I owe him something – life, at the very least?’
Susie pouted. ‘Oh, in an ideal world . . .’
‘This is far from an ideal world.’ Findlay’s voice rose. ‘In an ideal world, I wouldn’t have lost the farm. In an ideal world, I wouldn’t have been forced to sell the best collie I’ll ever have. In an ideal world, I wouldn’t have a wife who was dumb enough to antagonize the very people who are offering us a job and a home that would get us out of this awful situation.’
‘My parents’ house isn’t good enough for you? And I’m not good enough either? Is that what you’re saying?’
For a moment they glared at each other, then Findlay dropped his head into his hands with a groan. When he looked up, he said tiredly, ‘They don’t want us here, Susie – you know that as well as I do. We need a fresh start, need to get back to being a proper family again. It was fine before all this, wasn’t it?’
She hesitated, then sighed. ‘Oh yes, it was fine before. And of course the Flemings won’t withdraw the offer – how could they? It would make them look terrible.’ She brightened. ‘And you got a good price for Flash yesterday. Once you have a paying job, and we’re living rent-free, we can use that as the start of the fund for a better future—’
‘That money’s going to buy back Moss.’
‘What? Are you mad?’
‘I’m going to offer it to Murdoch,’ Findlay said stubbornly. ‘It’s three thousand less than he paid me, but I can’t see him getting a better offer.’
His wife jumped to her feet, too angry for her usual tearful response. ‘You don’t care about us, do you? Not about me, not about Josh, not about what you’ve put us both through since you lost the farm. We’ve been forced on to my parents’ charity and even now you haven’t been able to find a decent job.
‘Well, you can choose. Do that with the money, and you can forget the idea that Jos
h and I will come and live with you in the miserable hovel that Her Graciousness Marjory Fleming has been kind enough to offer. Get out, and take your stupid dogs with you. We’ll stay here.’
‘Fine.’ In the pallor of his face, the bruise stood out among the freckles more vividly than ever. ‘I’ll do just that. And you can suit yourself about whether you come or not.’ In a pantomime of indifference he picked up his cup with a shaking hand and, without even noticing, drank the stone-cold tea.
Closing the door with a vicious slam, Susie marched across the hall to the kitchen.
Putting dirty plates into the dishwasher, Jennifer heard the slam and she compressed her lips again. She straightened up as Susie came in and looked at her daughter with disapproval. ‘Good gracious, what was all that about?’ she asked coldly.
‘That was me, telling Findlay to get out. I’m staying here, with Josh.’
Jennifer looked at her with consternation. ‘But Susie, you can’t—’
‘Oh, can’t I? He’s going to throw away all the money he got yesterday on buying back his stupid Moss!’
‘But that doesn’t mean you can just walk out on your husband!’ She recognized the signs: Susie was having one of her temper tantrums again. And she’d seemed to be more strung up than ever for the last couple of days. This was going to call for desperate measures.
‘Sit down, Susie.’ She took her daughter’s hand and led her to a chair by the little breakfast table where, in happier times, she and Derek used to have breakfast and read the Daily Express in companionable silence. ‘Now, first of all, is the offer of somewhere to live still there?’
‘Of course it is!’ Susie was scornful. ‘Findlay was just making a point.’
‘Then you must go with him,’ her mother said firmly. ‘You and Findlay have things you need to sort out between you, and that can’t be done at a distance. Remember, a child is entitled to a home with his mummy and daddy – we brought you up to believe that. You took a sacred vow, and marriage isn’t something to be tossed aside because you’ve had a tiff. You have to grow up, Susie, and accept that sometimes you have to work at it.’
Susie stared at her in hurt disbelief. ‘You’re not saying – you don’t mean we can’t stay on with you?’
‘For your own good, dear, no, you can’t,’ Jennifer said piously. ‘It would be quite wrong for us to encourage you in any way.’
Susie sprang up. ‘Let me get this straight. You’re throwing me, and your grandchild, out of this house?’
Jennifer tittered. ‘Oh dear, that’s so like you, Susie – over-dramatic since the age of three! It may have got you your own way then – we used to laugh about you being such a headstrong little thing – but I’m not about to allow you to throw away your future. And little Josh’s too, don’t forget.’ The words had a fine moral ring to them. ‘Now, away you go back to your husband and say you were just upset. I’m sure he’ll be very sympathetic.’
As an indication that this was her last word, she returned to stacking the dishwasher.
Casting a look of fury at her mother’s oblivious back, Susie went back to the dining-room where Findlay was still sitting at the table.
‘She won’t let me stay.’ Her whole frame was rigid with resentment. ‘We’ll have to come with you.’
It was his chance to get up, take her in his arms and tell her how relieved he was. He didn’t.
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I’ll phone Bill and check that it’s still on.’
He went out, leaving Susie staring after him, her eyes narrowed and her hands clenching, unable to decide who she hated most: her husband, her mother, or Niall Murdoch, who had been the cause of this whole thing.
‘Arnold? Tam. Tam MacNee, DS.’
Summoned by the duty officer, MacNee held out his hand to the man who had detached himself from the little group waiting in reception. With a warily professional eye, MacNee noted greying brown hair, a boxer’s nose and eyes that were now undoubtedly assessing him in much the same manner. Tucker was heavily built, with a look which suggested he had seen it all before, and dealt with it. He was short, though, very little taller than MacNee himself, which got him plus points: so often, in MacNee’s view, big blokes confused height with superiority. And the man probably hadn’t much say in what he’d been christened.
Indeed, at the mention of his name, Tucker winced. ‘Make that Tommy,’ he said, shaking hands. ‘Nickname I’ve got. Can’t think why.’
His deadpan delivery struck a chord too. ‘Random, these things are sometimes,’ MacNee said with matching solemnity, and, heartened by this exchange, walked across to the two civilians, waiting uncertainly with a policewoman. He greeted them with a formal expression of sympathy, made his inspector’s apologies and led them to a room where PC Langlands was waiting with a coffee tray.
Mandy Preston, a plump woman, in her late thirties perhaps, had red hair with an unnatural purplish tinge and metallic silver nail polish. She looked a bit confused, but Jeff Brewer seemed to be still in shock. His eyes were red and he was shivering occasionally, though the hall was warm enough.
Leaving Sandy Langlands to make soothing noises as he ushered them to their seats and poured out coffee, his normally cheerful face creased into sympathetic lines, MacNee withdrew with Tucker to the corridor outside.
Tucker jerked his head approvingly. ‘Lovely little mover. See the way he’s being mother – real class, that.’
‘Know these PAT dogs, go around hospitals cheering up the patients? He’s ours. We’ve had to stop the punters giving him doggie treats.’
Together they observed the little group through the open door. Mandy Preston was visibly brightening under Langlands’ solicitude, but Brewer’s movements seemed mechanical, as if he was hardly aware of raising the cup to his lips. He was wearing a cheap suit with an open-necked black shirt, which did nothing for his sallow skin. The pallor of exhaustion and strain had given it an almost greenish tinge.
MacNee nodded towards him. ‘Prime suspect?’
‘My guvnor thinks so. But yours doesn’t, seemingly. Bit of a dragon, is she?’
‘Big Marge had a go at him, then?’ MacNee, remembering what Fleming had said, was amused. ‘She seemed to have taken a scunner to him, for some reason.’
‘If that means what I think it does, it was mutual. He’s not exactly noted for his tact. JCB, we call him – has the same effect as heavy machinery.’
‘Knowing Big Marge, I’d put my money on her. I’d like fine to see the two of them have a square go. Any chance you could get him up here?’
Tucker pulled a face. ‘Not much. He’ll just want reports. He’s a lot on his plate – gangland killing a couple of weeks ago that’s given us a bit of bother. And we’re not expecting to get a lot here. The action’ll be in Manchester.’
‘Right enough. Bit of a doss, really, this end. We’re going through the motions, but once the reports are in it’ll be over to you.
‘Anyway, the mortuary knows to expect them. Langlands and your constable can handle that while I take you up to the crime scene. The boss has the autopsy this afternoon, then she wants to give Brewer a grilling and see what Preston can tell her, but I’d guess you’ll be heading south again tonight.’
Tucker looked disappointed. ‘Couldn’t spin it out a bit longer, could you? I could do with a break and I can always tell Carter you do things slowly up here.’
‘Say that in front of Big Marge and you’re dead meat. We’re to show you lads what serious police work’s all about.’
‘Scary, is she?’
‘Has her moments. Still, she won’t be back till mid-afternoon. There’s this wee pub, near where we’re going – you’re not an arrows man, by any chance?’
‘Pound a game?’
In perfect accord, they saw the others leave, then set off for the Queen’s Way, MacNee smugly contemplating his moral superiority to his boss in the ‘hands across the Tweed’ initiative.
Fleming returned from the autopsy in sombre mood, a
s she always did on these occasions. Despite the cold impersonality of the clinical surroundings – the stainless-steel tables, the harsh light, the antiseptic which didn’t quite mask the underlying smell but at least stopped you gagging – it was never easy to maintain professional detachment. The chilled body might have a waxen look, but the narrative of injuries, which told of a violent quarrel and a terrified woman overpowered and battered to death, made it all too vividly human.
There had, John Brownlee the pathologist pointed out, been five separate blows to Wintour’s face, delivered open-handed but with some force.
‘Someone was very, very angry. A man, most likely – it usually is, given a situation like this – but it’s not impossible that a woman in a rage could do it. Wintour was small and slight, and we’ve seen a lot more woman-on-woman violence lately.’
The aggressive ladette had certainly started featuring quite prominently on the charge sheet after drunken brawls. Fleming nodded. ‘Did she fight back?’
Brownlee picked up first one limp hand, then the other, and studied the nails. ‘Doesn’t look like it, but we’ll check.’ He nodded to an assistant who, in a macabre parody of a manicurist, began taking samples.
Fleming averted her eyes. ‘Could she have been knocked off her feet and accidentally hit her head as she fell?’
After another careful examination, he was positive in his reply. ‘No. Oh, the first injury – yes, it’s just possible. But look’ – Fleming was again obliged to take a quick glance – ‘it’s clear she was struck again after that, twice, perhaps three times more. With something hard and heavy and roundish – something more like a rock, say, than a club. But you’ll have to wait for the tissue analysis before we can give you that sort of information.’
Dutifully, Fleming had stayed for the rest of the ritual desecration which the interests of justice demanded, without any other significant information emerging. They might get some more useful pointers about where she had died once the analysis of clothes and shoes was complete, and the SOCO’s report from the scene of crime should be on Fleming’s desk today or tomorrow.
Lying Dead Page 10
