He’d been planning to lead her on, get her talking about other scandal which might, as her job took her into the Drumbreck homes, have come her way. But the horse he was flogging was well and truly pushing up the daisies now and MacNee left with a cheery, ‘Thanks for the wee blether, Euphie,’ and enjoyed the sullen look she gave him.
MacNee let himself out and glanced back at the house as he left. A movement at an upper window caught his eye: Gina Lafferty had been watching him depart, but now twitched rapidly back behind a curtain.
Chapter 19
‘It’s really pretty here, isn’t it?’ Tansy Kerr said, getting out of the car and looking out over Marjory Fleming’s favourite view. ‘Wouldn’t mind living here myself – look at that blossom, and the hens pecking about!’
Kingsley, getting out of the driver’s seat, grunted. ‘Shame about the neighbours, as they say.’ He gave a cursory glance, then turned round to survey the clutter of buildings: the old stone farmhouse, the cottage below, beside the orchard, the untidy sprawl of sheds and steadings in every possible material, from stone like the houses to polythene and red corrugated iron.
Kerr eyed him warily. He’d been in a bad mood on the way up, grumbling about being kept away from the centre of the action. ‘Didn’t tell MacNee to come out here to clean up the mess on her doorstep, did she?’ he had said bitterly.
‘What does it matter? It may have escaped your notice, Jon, but we’re all in this together. We’re a team. It’s not a competition.’
‘Oh, it may not be for you,’ he said, his tone so patronizing that it made Kerr want to slap him. She lapsed instead into silence. She’d noticed that Big Marge always chose her confrontational moments carefully and, though it might not sit plausibly with Tansy’s zany-hair-ripped-jeans style, the boss was her role model. A teeth, nails, kick-where-it-hurts row with Kingsley would have to be a pleasure deferred.
‘I think we should start with Bill,’ he said now, taking charge in the way that got right up her nose, considering she had longer service. ‘He may have noticed comings and goings that we could check against what the Stevensons choose to tell us.’
‘We’ll have to find him first,’ Kerr pointed out. ‘He could be anywhere on the farm. So could Stevenson.’
But Bill was clearly expecting them. He emerged from one of the steadings, in heavy boots and blue boiler suit, holding a gushing hosepipe.
‘I’ll just turn this off and be with you,’ he called.
Kerr had met Bill Fleming on a couple of occasions, including a charity ball when she had been his partner in a set of farmers for a Strip the Willow of such sustained ferocity that it made a fight after an Old Firm game look like a Sunday School picnic. She liked him; he was somehow comforting to look at, big and solid and pleasant-faced, with clear blue eyes and a ready smile.
He wasn’t smiling today. He came over to shake hands with Kingsley, whom he hadn’t met, and shook hands with Kerr too. He had big, hard, workman’s hands, with the cracks and callouses that come from outdoor labouring.
‘I suppose you’re looking for Findlay.’
‘Is he expecting us?’ Kingsley asked.
‘No. They’d heard about the murder – it was on TV last night – and I wasn’t sure that you would want him given warning of your visit. But he’s not far away – doing some work on a standpipe down in one of the lower fields there. I told him to take his mobile in case I needed him.’
He fished his own out of his pocket and made the call. ‘He’ll be about ten minutes. Do you want to wait in the house or anything?’
‘Perhaps we could just check a couple of things with you,’ Kingsley said smoothly. ‘The dog, first. Did you realize it was Murdoch’s dog?’
Bill looked uncomfortable. ‘Yes – well, yes, I suppose I did. You don’t get a dog behaving like he did, totally in tune with a new master, as quickly as that. And there was that prick ear, too. But I didn’t say anything. I was sorry for Fin, and I was sorry for the dog too. It was under a death sentence, you know.’
‘Mmm.’ Kingsley didn’t sound sympathetic, and Kerr said hastily, ‘But you didn’t know at that time about Niall Murdoch’s death?’
‘No, not till Marjory came home and told me. I realized, of course, that this put a different complexion on the situation. Not that I believe for a moment that Fin would do anything like that.’
‘Despite his having been previously charged with assault on Mr Murdoch?’ Kingsley said coldly, and Kerr gave him an irritated glance. He seemed to be trying to put Bill’s back up, a common enough technique when you were trying to bounce someone into an admission which might otherwise be withheld, but it was surely unnecessary here.
Bill didn’t rise to the bait, only saying mildly, ‘I suppose I would tend to put throwing a punch into a different category from murder.’
Kingsley ignored that. ‘Comings and goings,’ he said. ‘The night before last. Did either of the Stevensons leave the farm after seven o’clock?’
‘They wouldn’t tell me. They would have no reason to.’
Kerr, looking at him sharply, suspected that he was, very gently, stalling. He had given an answer, but not to the question he had been asked. So much for Jon’s technique!
Kingsley hadn’t noticed. ‘But you might have heard a car driving away – seen the car was missing? Did you see Stevenson at any stage in the evening?’
‘I saw him around seven when I went out after supper to check on a delivery that had come earlier. I didn’t see him after that.’
‘So you couldn’t say whether he was here or not? And what about a car leaving, say around ten, eleven?’
‘I go to bed at ten, and after that I’m afraid I don’t hear a thing. Marjory will tell you I’m a very sound sleeper.’
‘How convenient for neighbourly relations,’ Kingsley said unpleasantly. But, Kerr realized, he hadn’t noticed that Bill had again avoided giving a straight answer. She sympathized, but he couldn’t be allowed to get away with it. This was a murder inquiry.
Feeling mean, she put it to him directly. ‘Bill, did you hear the Stevensons’ car going out at any stage on Wednesday evening? Or notice that it had gone?’
He said heavily, ‘When I went out at around nine, the hatchback wasn’t there.’
‘Oh, thank you, Mr Fleming. You’ve been very helpful,’ Kingsley said with heavy sarcasm – as if, Kerr thought indignantly, it had been he who had prised out the information.
‘That’s Findlay now,’ Bill said with obvious relief as Stevenson appeared up the path with a couple of collies. He stopped when he saw them and his face changed.
It was Kingsley who went forward, holding out his warrant card. ‘Mr Stevenson, could we have a word?’
The dog with the prick ear came closer to his master, his eyes on the man’s face, as if he sensed his unease. Stevenson squared his shoulders, as if he were going into battle.
‘You’d better come down to the house,’ he said.
‘What’s this?’ Susie Stevenson, bristling, glared as Stevenson led them into the cramped room at the front of the cottage which served as both kitchen and sitting-room. ‘My husband will appear in court on the date he’s been given, but I don’t see why we should be subjected to police harassment in the meantime.’
‘May we sit down?’ Kingsley said to Stevenson, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘We’ve quite a bit to talk about, haven’t we? Perhaps your wife could leave us—’
‘And have my husband subjected to police brutality, without witnesses?’ she shrilled, but Stevenson, looking unutterably weary, said only, ‘Better do as he says, Susie. Go to Josh – see that he doesn’t come wandering through.’
She looked mutinous, but when Kingsley went to the interior door and held it open, she flounced through it.
Findlay sat down on the sofa beside the little fireplace with its beige fifties tiles, and the two officers sat down opposite. The dogs had been left outside; through one of the small, deep-set windows Kerr could see the older
dog with the prick ear lying down, his nose on his paws, eyes on the doorway.
‘The dog outside there,’ she said. ‘That’s Moss, isn’t it?’
Findlay met her eyes for a second, then put his head in his hands. ‘How did you find out?’ he said, then, ‘Oh, I suppose—’
‘We had a tip-off,’ Kerr said quickly. ‘Someone gave us the information, and DI Fleming asked us to check it out.’
‘Well, what would you have done?’ There was hopeless anger in his voice. ‘The man was going to kill him. I offered him money, but it wasn’t enough. I’d tried to raise the full amount, but the bank in Kirkluce wouldn’t lend, and he said it was all over. Wouldn’t even talk to me any more.
‘He’s a brilliant dog – the best! I’d betrayed him once already, selling him to that bastard. How could I let him die?’
‘Right, Mr Stevenson, suppose you talk us through it while DC Kerr here takes notes.’ The emotional temperature had risen; Kingsley’s cool tones brought it down again, but Kerr looked daggers at him. It wasn’t up to him to order her to take notes.
‘Nothing to talk through, really. I drove along to Drumbreck just as it was getting dark. There were people in the Yacht Club but otherwise there was no one around. Susie had told me where Moss was being kept so I just went to the shed and there he was. The only problem,’ a flicker of a smile crossed his face, ‘was the noise he made when he saw me, whining and yipping. But I shut him up, then I loosened his collar and left it attached to the chain so that it would look as if he’d slipped it, then escaped. To tell you the truth, I didn’t think Murdoch would bother to go looking for him.
‘Then I brought him back here – spot of black ink on his nose, and—’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘That’s all, really.’
‘Is it? Haven’t you left out one or two details?’
Stevenson looked at his interrogator. ‘Well . . .’ He hesitated. ‘Probably, but nothing important that I can think of.’
‘Nothing like torching the shed later, after you’d rescued the dog, by way of revenge? Nothing, perhaps, like being caught in the act by Murdoch and deciding to have it out with him, once and for all? You were angry, weren’t you – very angry? That dog’s more like a child to you than an animal, and what Murdoch was doing was murder in your eyes. Oh, maybe you didn’t set out to kill him, but when you lost your temper, like that day at the sheepdog trials—’
It was a very aggressive performance, and Kingsley had raised his voice. The door to the back of the house burst open and Susie Stevenson erupted into the room.
‘You’re a fool, Findlay!’ she cried. ‘I told you I should stay. They’re trying to stitch you up for murder now. They do that all the time – get you confused, so you say the wrong thing, and then when you correct it they claim you’ve been lying. You’ve seen it often enough on TV. But I heard every word. That’s a false accusation, and I’m going to phone a lawyer.’
Kerr got up and came over to her. ‘Mrs Stevenson, you can of course have anyone you like present. All we are doing at the moment is talking to your husband, trying to establish a background for the case. If we were going to use anything he said as evidence, we would have to caution him first.’
Sensing the woman hesitate, Kerr went on, ‘Perhaps you can help us. You’ll know when your husband left and when he came back with the dog. Perhaps if we knew the times involved we could work out whether he could have had time to do what my colleague suggested.’ She knew the answer would be worthless – she could see Susie’s eyes already narrowed in calculation of the shortest believable interval – but it had calmed her down, as Kerr had intended it should.
‘Let me see,’ Susie was saying. ‘It must have been after seven-thirty when you left. I know because Josh had just gone to bed. And you were back by half-past eight – I looked at my watch. So you would only have had time to pick up the dog and come straight back.’
Kerr would have known it was a lie – she doubted if it was physically possible, given the narrow, awkward Drumbreck road – even if she hadn’t seen Findlay open his mouth as if to speak, think the better of it and close it again.
‘And then, of course, we were here together the whole of the rest of the night,’ Susie finished triumphantly. ‘So quite obviously, he could have had nothing to do with anything else that might have taken place.’
Kingsley had said nothing since Suzy entered the room, only observing them both with a cold, unwavering stare. Now he said, ‘Did either of you know Davina Watt?’
That hit a nerve. To Kerr’s astonishment, Findlay’s pale, freckled skin went fiery red and Susie’s mouth pleated itself into a tight, hard line.
‘I – I used to,’ Stevenson stammered. ‘Years ago. Before we were married.’
‘You, Mrs Stevenson?’ Kingsley seemed only mildly interested.
‘She was – around,’ Susie managed.
‘How well did you know her?’
Before Findlay could speak, Susie said quickly, ‘Oh, she worked in the solicitors’ office that Fin used for our farm, which wasn’t far from Wigtown. We met her socially a few times.’
‘Mrs Stevenson, meeting her socially wouldn’t make your husband go bright red and you look as if you were sucking a lemon.’ Kingsley sounded amused. ‘We can go around asking people for gossip, or you can tell us yourselves now.’
Susie’s face darkened. ‘There’s absolutely nothing to tell—’ but Findlay took over.
‘I made a fool of myself. I wasn’t the first, and I don’t suppose I was the last either to lose my head over Davina. Susie and I were engaged and I broke it off. It was a complete nonsense, and I realized what an idiot I had been. Susie forgave me. That’s all.’
‘That was my first mistake!’ Susie shot at him bitterly. ‘It’s been one mess after another, and now this – thanks to your obsession with that stupid dog.’ She turned away and stood with her back to them, arms folded, staring blindly out of the window.
‘I see,’ Kingsley said softly. ‘Could it be that you only realized you’d made a mistake when she dumped you and moved on?’
He’d scored a hit with that one too. Findlay winced, and Kerr heard the hiss of an indrawn breath from his wife.
Kingsley pursued his advantage. ‘And how did you feel when she turned up in the neighbourhood again?’
‘I didn’t even know,’ Stevenson protested, and Susie swung round.
‘Look, the woman left the place long ago. Findlay saw that she’d made a fool of him; why would it matter to either of us what she did after that?’
‘All right, Mrs Stevenson. Now, Niall Murdoch – did you have any dealings with him, Mrs Stevenson?’
‘We knew him slightly, as another farmer.’ She met his eyes squarely. ‘I haven’t seen him for years.’
‘Mmm.’ Kingsley got up abruptly. ‘I think that’s as far as I want to take that angle right at the moment. Findlay Stevenson, you are under arrest. I am charging you with the theft of a valuable animal. I am now cautioning you. You do not have to say anything . . .’
Susie’s outburst was spectacular; she launched herself towards the officers in a fury, but her husband caught her arm and shook it.
‘Calm down, Susie. There’s no point. What happens now?’
Susie flung herself free of her husband’s restraint and collapsed, sobbing dramatically, into a chair. It was agreed that Findlay, with the dog, would follow them to the police HQ in Kirkluce where he would make a formal statement and the dog would be impounded.
Still smarting at the way Kingsley had treated her as his junior while he asked the important questions, Kerr got into the car and slammed the door. ‘Well, that was a good way of handling the boss’s request for tact! Was there any reason why you couldn’t have asked him in for questioning, and charged him there?’
Kingsley was unrepentant. ‘Why should someone get special treatment just because she’s involved? And it broke them wide open, didn’t it?’
She had to give him that; it was the truly
maddening thing about Jon Kingsley – that he was good. Kerr changed her tack. ‘Anyway, perhaps I could remind you not to give me orders? You’re not a sergeant yet.’
He grinned. ‘Act it, become it. I’d put money on Greg taking early retirement. He’s pretty fed up with the job, and after his latest fiasco over Ingles . . .’
Kerr noted wryly the transferred ownership. If the fiasco had been a triumph, Allan and Kingsley would have been in it together. And she hadn’t much brief for Allan, but Kingsley as sergeant would be infinitely worse.
Just to be irritating, she said, ‘Don’t count on it. Andy Macdonald’s done his sergeant’s exams already.’ But she had a sinking feeling that if it came to a choice, the smart money would be on Kingsley, given his record.
Still, as they drove down the track to the main road, she added defiantly, ‘Anyway, I don’t care what you cracked open. It doesn’t hang together. Apart from anything else, if Murdoch surprised him as he was torching the shed, how come he was in day clothes and got his head bashed in down by the boat? I still don’t see that man as a killer.’
Kingsley’s smile was wolfish. ‘Perhaps not,’ he conceded. ‘But what about her?’
Donald Bailey’s unannounced appearance in her office took Fleming by surprise. He must still be feeling penitent: it was normal practice for him to summon her to his, on the first floor. He must have taken the stairs too, rather than the lift, and he was breathing heavily as he came in.
He collapsed into a chair, which gave an alarming groan. ‘I’m not sure about this keep-fit nonsense – not sure at all,’ he grumbled. ‘Seems to me that all it’s likely to do is to seek out any flaws there may be in the system. But you know how it is with doctors these days – paid by results, so they’re always on at you with scare stories.
‘So, Marjory, how are we getting on?’
Fleming grimaced. ‘The reports are coming in all the time, but nothing seems to hang together. Every time I look at it the picture seems to shift. I can’t even make up my mind whether we’re looking for one killer or two.’
Lying Dead Page 29
