She left, promising to look in on Janet at home later, and wishing that she could have taken her back to the farm and been a proper daughter, comforting and cherishing her mother at a time of such crisis in her life. But Janet would insist that Marjory’s work came first – she’d been a policeman’s wife, after all – and then, with the others out all day too she’d be lonely, and being Janet would probably set about cooking meals and doing the neglected housework. No, she was better off with the neighbours who had been her friends for thirty or forty years.
It didn’t make Marjory feel comfortable, though. If Ingles had indeed pled guilty, Greg could wrap it up. He’d enjoy that, and given his success he was entitled, along with Jon, to get all the credit going. Then she could take some of her leave allocation, which had been piling up, and persuade her mother to come and stay for a few days while Marjory did all the proper daughterly things, and perhaps look for a home where Angus could be comfortable, if she and Bill could manage to convince Janet that there was no alternative. If!
The crowd had drifted away now, and only people passing on the way to their day’s sailing stopped briefly to have a look. Mirren Murdoch, perched on the garden wall and shivering in a chilly breeze, watched the proceedings. The ashes were grey now, not glowing red, and the two fire engines had gone, leaving the fire chief to wait for the investigators.
He was standing, hands on hips, surveying the debris, when Sergeant Christie came over to him.
‘Discarded petrol can there, look.’ He kicked at the blackened, buckled object poking out of a pile of ash.
‘Ah! that’s good. Now, see and not let anyone touch it,’ he instructed. ‘Get it bagged up for Fingerprints when it’s cool enough.’
He got a sardonic look in reply. ‘I’ve seen more fire inquiries than you’ve had Sunday roasts. We know the ropes. But it’s definitely arson, as if we’d any doubt. The team’s on its way.’
Christie tapped his nose. ‘Got our man fingered. Just radioed to have him lifted on suspicion of wilful fire-raising.’
Aware of a presence at his elbow, he turned. Mirren had left her perch and was standing beside him, staring at the can. It crossed his mind that the next discovery, when they started sifting through, was likely to be the charred bones of her deceased pet – not very nice. And anyway, the last thing he needed was a child having hysterics.
‘Off you go now,’ he said, not unkindly. ‘You’re better inside with your mum. There’s going to be a lot of coming and going here and we don’t want any accidents.’
‘I don’t want to go.’ Mirren stood her ground. ‘It’s our shed. I want to see what happens. And I could help – look, I could show you where the dog slept. There was straw all round – here.’
She ducked under the tapes and headed towards where the fire chief was standing. ‘It was just where this can is—’ She bent forward and was just about to pick it up when the fire chief grabbed her.
‘Are you daft, lassie?’ he roared. ‘You’ll burn your hand – and that’s evidence, anyway. See those tapes – they’re there to keep you out. Get back on the other side of them. In fact, do like the sergeant said – get back in the house. We’re not needing you getting in our way.’
With a bad grace, Mirren allowed herself to be removed, then with a smouldering glance back over her shoulder went into the house. The two men were shaking their heads; she heard one of them say, ‘What do they use for brains nowadays?’
Inside the house, she stopped to listen. It was all very quiet; there was no sound of drilling or anything. She tiptoed down the corridor leading to the office; the door was shut and she stopped to listen again, in case her mother was inside and on the phone, but she couldn’t hear anything there either. Most likely she was upstairs working on the new flat; she’d said something yesterday about doing the painting.
It was a risk she had to take. She opened the door.
Jenna, sitting at her desk frowning over some papers, looked up. ‘Hello! Are you looking for me? I’m just checking on the insurance.’
‘I just wondered if you were going to be working in the flat today?’ It was all Mirren could think of on the spur of the moment.
‘I doubt it. There’ll be too many interruptions to make it worthwhile. Did you want me to do something?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Not really.’ She shut the door on her mother’s anxious, ‘Are you all right?’ and stood chewing her lip.
There would be interruptions. Her mother would have to deal with them. And then . . .
The young constable came back from his round of knocking on the doors of the houses round the bay with nothing to report. The Drumbreck folk all seemed either to have been socializing until much later or else snugly tucked up in bed, and who was he to wonder, given the reputation the place had, whose bed that might be.
Christie had headed back to Newton Stewart, leaving him with instructions to check out everyone in and around the marina. There were cars parked, staff and family groups for the sailing, no doubt; it was a pound to a dud penny that this would be another couple of hours of slogging round with nothing to show for his efforts.
He glanced over his shoulder. There were plenty of places round here where you could lose yourself for a quiet fag. He walked very purposefully towards the marina and then round the corner to the end pontoon, where he was well out of sight and likely to be undisturbed.
Reaching into his pocket, he took out his cigarettes, lit one, and took a deep, satisfying drag. It was a rare morning now, with the clouds lifting and the sun starting to come through. There was a light breeze blowing, and the moored boats were moving gently and making a clinking sound. There were some wee boats clipping along, out into the estuary, having a fine time, and a sleek red-and-white motor boat came roaring past, shattering the silence. He looked after it admiringly; he’d like fine to have a shottie at that, sometime.
At peace with the world, for the moment at least, he turned towards the pleasant vista of Drumbreck, the neat houses, the trim boats at the pontoons – floating palaces, some of them. He took another drag, then choked on it.
There, trapped between the last two boats moored to the end pontoon where he was standing, a man’s body was floating, face down.
Chapter 15
Lurking in her office at the Kirkluce HQ would be e-mails, voice-mail and no doubt a message from Donald Bailey summoning her, but Marjory Fleming had no intention of finding them before she had a proper grasp of the situation. When she arrived she headed instead for the CID room.
As she went along the corridor towards it, DCs Wilson and Macdonald came out, heading towards her.
‘Off on a job?’
It was Macdonald who answered. ‘Fire in a shed over at Drumbreck. Nothing very exciting. How was the big city?’
‘Oh, wild,’ Fleming said dryly. ‘Probably not a lot to show for it. You’d more action here, by the sound of it. Do you know where Greg and Jon are?’
‘I don’t know where Jon is, but Greg’s in there. With – with Tam and Tansy.’
She registered that Wilson, a tall, skinny young man with a crooked nose and untidy fair curls, spoke with some constraint, but she only nodded and passed on. She’d find out soon enough.
When she opened the door, the tension in the atmosphere was palpable. Allan, high colour in his face, was confronting MacNee, who was saying, ‘But for God’s sake, man—’
‘Tam!’ Kerr, at his elbow, warned him. ‘Here’s the boss.’
As if she hadn’t heard, Fleming said, ‘Greg! You seem to be starring these days, you and Jon.’
Allan thanked her, but he looked uncomfortable rather than smug, as she would have expected. What was this all about? She perched herself on the edge of one of the tables. ‘I was – surprised,’ she said, giving the word a cold emphasis, ‘not to hear from you last night, but fill me in now. I want to know exactly where we are before I see the Super.’
The door opened and Kingsley spoke behind her. ‘Oh, we’ve given him a
ll the details. I was just talking to him and he was wondering when you’d be back. He’s keen to see you.’
It was paranoid to worry about being the subject under discussion. ‘You’d better brief me quickly, then. I take it Ingles confessed?’
A look passed between the two men. ‘All but,’ Allan said.
‘All but?’ Fleming was startled.
‘He didn’t confess,’ Kerr chipped in. ‘He specifically denied it.’
‘But you charged him with murder? What evidence did you have?’
Allan shifted from foot to foot. ‘The bloodstained tarpaulin – he admitted he used it to wrap the body while he moved it.’
‘Not to you, he didn’t.’ Kerr, usually the conciliator, seemed to be spoiling for a fight. ‘It was only when Sandy and I talked to him that he told us.’
Allan sneered. ‘Oh, he spun Tansy some sort of cock-and-bull story about finding the body on his doorstep, being scared he’d be blamed and taking it off to where we found it. Knew a soft touch when he saw one. Before that, he said he wanted to confess, then changed his mind.’
It didn’t sound good. ‘I’ll need to have a look at the tape,’ Fleming said. ‘I want to get this clear.’
Allan cleared his throat. ‘Er – he didn’t actually say that when it was running. He said it before, when we were getting everything set up, didn’t he, Jon?’
‘That’s right.’
They were both looking uneasy. ‘So,’ Fleming said slowly, ‘explain to me. What was your evidence for charging him with murder?’
‘We only did it after Tansy came back to say he’d admitted – on tape – that he’d disposed of the body.’ Kingsley was defensive. ‘So there was no need to wait for analysis of the stains on the tarpaulin, or DNA linking him to it.’
‘And he’d tried to do a runner already,’ Allan added eagerly. ‘Had his passport and a great wodge of cash on him, trying to hire a car. Couldn’t release him to give him another chance at it, could we?’
‘You didn’t have to—’ MacNee began aggressively, but Fleming silenced him with a look.
‘Was there some reason why you shouldn’t have charged him with attempting to pervert the course of justice by moving the body? For goodness’ sake, the man hadn’t served his full sentence so he was still under restraint – I told you that myself. On the admission he did make, he’d have gone straight back to serve the unexpired part of his sentence, just for a start.’
Allan’s face turned crimson and Kingsley looked at the floor. ‘I – I suppose it just didn’t occur to us.’
‘Playing for high stakes.’ Fleming’s face was grim. ‘I’m sure you’re right that he’s our man, but we’ll just have to hope for something a bit more conclusive from the SOCOs. Otherwise we’re struggling.’
‘That’s the point. We’re struggling already,’ MacNee said sombrely. ‘The report from them has just come in and I’ve called it up, here.’ He pointed to the computer.
Kingsley looked startled. ‘When did it arrive?’
‘Five minutes ago.’ Allan was running his finger round the inside of his collar as if, despite it being open, it was too tight. As the others clustered round the screen he pulled a face at Kingsley. ‘Not good,’ he muttered.
It was worse than ‘not good’. They hadn’t as yet checked the clothes he was wearing and had with him, but after an exhaustive forensic examination of Ingles’s belongings, his house and the surroundings, there was nothing at all – not a fibre, not a hair – to suggest a connection with the dead woman. On the other hand, they had investigated the area just outside the clearing where he claimed to have found the dead woman, and it had produced a wealth of confirmatory evidence.
‘I called them yesterday afternoon,’ Kerr said, ‘and asked them to check that out.’
‘You had no authority—’ Allan started angrily, then, at a look from the inspector, stopped.
Fleming had finished reading the report, but she sat looking at the screen for a little longer while she marshalled her thoughts. Then she rose, saying decisively, ‘Right. Tansy, set up a screening of the tape. I’m going to see the Super, and we’ll both want to look at it.
‘Tam – car hire. Find out if Carlisle have done their checks, then get on to Tucker in Manchester and see if you can sweet-talk him into geeing up the searches there. And get someone contacting all local firms – since he hadn’t a car, it’s possible Ingles may have hired one too.’
Fleming turned to Allan and Kingsley. ‘I’m keeping in mind that just because there’s no trace of the woman in his house, it doesn’t mean he didn’t kill her. He could have killed her somewhere else then brought her there to dispose of the body. He’s an intelligent man – he may well have worked out that a half-truth is always more convincing than a flat lie.
‘I don’t know what the Super will say.’ Fleming sighed. ‘But it will be better if you back off this and leave it to someone else. I’m taking you off the task force. Just finish whatever admin needs doing—’
‘Done that. We thought that there’d be a lot more evidence that would need attention today so we stayed late last night, clearing it.’ Allan was sounding sorry for himself.
Fleming sighed again. ‘Look, I know you’ve put in a lot of work on this and I’ll give you the credit for that. The Super has got to know the full story, obviously, but I’ll do my best not to drop you in it.’
‘Thanks, boss.’ Kingsley was looking worried. ‘I’m sorry – not very clever, was it?’
‘Sorry,’ Allan echoed.
‘No,’ she agreed, ‘it wasn’t clever.’
And now she was going to have a difficult interview with Donald. She could hardly suggest to him that his impatience was to blame for sending her off to Manchester, or that it was his inflated opinion of Kingsley that had encouraged the man to overreach himself and, no doubt, to egg on the feeble Allan. And Donald would be aware of that, and would be looking for someone to blame. As his subordinate, she knew her place: in the wrong.
There were a couple of men in white overalls picking their way through the rubble of the collapsed shed and sifting through the piles of ash when Sergeant Christie arrived with PC Neish, a sensible middle-aged woman who could be relied on to make tea and pat hands as required.
This was one part of the job he always hated – breaking bad news. He wasn’t good at it. A fastidious man, he always felt uncomfortable round raw emotions: things always turned messy and there was nothing you could do to control them. As they arrived at the door, he straightened his diced cap and squared his shoulders. ‘Right, Aileen?’
‘OK, sarge.’ Neish rang the bell.
Usually the sight of two police officers at the door, one a woman, is enough to set alarm bells ringing with the householder, so that the news is often delivered in the form of confirmation. Jenna Murdoch, expecting such a visit, would have to have it all spelled out.
She greeted them with a smile. ‘Back again, sergeant?’
‘May we come in?’ Christie said, with appropriate gravity.
She didn’t notice. Turning away, she led them to the kitchen. ‘Cup of tea?’
They refused, suggested she sat down, sat down themselves, but even then she only looked at them with an inquiring smile.
At least the child wasn’t there. Christie said heavily, ‘I’m afraid I have bad news for you, Mrs Murdoch.’
Her brow furrowed. ‘If it’s the dog’s bones, please just dispose of them quietly, before Mirren sees them.’
‘I’m afraid it’s not the dog. It’s your husband. I’m afraid he’s dead.’ There wasn’t a tactful way of saying it – not one he could think of, anyway.
Her face went blank. ‘Dead? Niall? In the shed?’
‘No, no, nothing to do with the fire.’ This was getting complicated. He looked hopefully towards Neish and she took over.
‘Mrs Murdoch, they found your husband drowned this morning. Just by the marina.’
‘Niall?’ she said again. ‘Drowned? He’s
dead?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
This was always the moment Christie dreaded. You just never knew what they were going to do – scream, faint, go into shock . . .
Mrs Murdoch got up and walked away from them, and stood with her back to them, looking out of the window. ‘What happened?’ she asked quietly.
He was on safer ground here. ‘We don’t know, as yet. It may be an accident. He could have tripped and hit his head as he fell into the water. He was between two boats, out at the further end of the pontoons. We’d a couple of CID officers here anyway to investigate the fire, so they have it all in hand.’
‘When did it happen?’ She still seemed very calm.
‘Perhaps you can help us there. You said he was away – where was he?’
She turned, showing for the first time some sign of emotion. He wasn’t good at reading that sort of thing, but somehow it looked more like embarrassment than anything else.
‘I’m afraid I was – economical with the truth, don’t they call it? To be honest, my husband and I hadn’t been getting on for some time. He wasn’t there when the fire broke out last night so I assumed he was – elsewhere,’ she gave a wry little smile, ‘and to be perfectly frank, I didn’t want to be humiliated. So I told you he was away.’
Christie’s first thought was relief that this made it unlikely that there would be any awkward manifestations of grief, his second that here was a very cool customer.
‘So where would he have been, then?’
‘Oh, I wish I could tell you, sergeant! There were a number of – ladies, shall we call them, though it’s not the word that springs to mind, who shared his occasional favours.’
He’d heard Drumbreck called Sodom-on-Sea before now, but even so Christie was taken aback by her offhand reaction. He retreated to safer ground. ‘So when was the last time you saw your husband?’
‘Let me think. He had breakfast here yesterday, but he didn’t come back for lunch. He phoned to tell me he wouldn’t be in for supper.’
There was no love lost between this pair, that was for sure. If it was foul play – and there was a nasty bash on the back of the man’s head – and if Christie hadn’t been quite sure that in the circumstances Rab McLeish was their man, he’d have wondered if it wasn’t the old story of the woman scorned.
Lying Dead Page 22
