Their Final Act

by Alex Walters

  'Do you think Netty would mind if we had another glass?' Alicia asked. 'I hadn't realised how thirsty I was.'

  'She said to help ourselves,' Jane said. She poured two more glasses, and they both sat drinking them in silence, sipping more slowly.

  'Pity about the bread,' Alicia said. 'Do you think Netty will mind?'

  'It's only bread. She can make more. I imagine she'll be mainly cross with herself for forgetting about it.'

  'I hope she doesn't blame us.'

  'Why should she blame us? We didn't even know she'd put a loaf in the oven.'

  'Perhaps she meant to ask us to keep an eye on it.'

  'We're not mind readers,' Jane said. Then a thought struck her. 'She didn't ask you to, did she?'

  'No, of course not. I just meant…' Alicia shook her head. 'I just meant that it's not like her, that's all.'

  'Everyone makes mistakes,' Jane said. 'She's only human.' She finished the last of her juice. 'Do you think we should go and find her?'

  'To tell her about the bread, you mean?'

  'Partly. But I was thinking we could also ask her what else she'd like us to do. I don't like just sitting around and doing nothing. I feel as if I ought to be earning my keep.'

  'Me too. Though I didn't really feel we were doing that this morning, even though we were working hard.'

  'Let's go and track her down. We can see if we can persuade her to give us something more useful to get on with.'

  They placed their two glasses in the dishwasher as Munro had shown them, and made their way out into the garden. 'Where do you reckon they'll be?' Alicia asked.

  'Not sure.' Jane stopped and looked around. 'She said it was the fencing on the lower fields. So presumably that's towards the firth.' There was a field filled with the first burgeoning shoots of barley between them and the stretch of fencing below. 'Down there, I suppose.'

  There was no immediate sign of Munro or Elizabeth, but the fencing stretched the length of the land ahead of them, disappearing into a cluster of trees at the far end of the barley field. From what Munro had told them, her land extended some distance beyond that, so Jane assumed that the work must be taking place somewhere beyond the trees. 'I'm not sure how we get there,' she said.

  They walked along the edge of the barley field. There were farm buildings to their right and somewhere Jane could hear the sounds of mooing cows, but there were no visible signs of life. At the end of the field, there was a time-worn path leading down towards the lower ground. Jane gestured to Alicia, and they made their way down the hillside.

  The sun was high in the sky and the day was beginning to grow hot. The tide was low in the firth and much of the bed was exposed. The stretch of water that remained was utterly still, reflecting the landscape above and around it. Jane could hear no sound but the tread of their own footsteps, the occasional caw of a gull, and the counterpoint of more melodious birdsong in the hedgerows around them.

  They reached the lower fence and Jane looked along it, hoping to see Munro and Elizabeth, perhaps with Henry Dowling. But there was no one. She glanced back at Alicia, and then set off to follow the line of the fence. There was no real footpath, and the ground was rough and overgrown under their feet. They passed the trees, pushing back some undergrowth to force their access, and found themselves in an open space.

  It looked as if it was little more than woodland. Perhaps it was one of the wildlife areas that Munro had talked about. There were various parts of the farm, she had said, that she'd deliberately left uncultivated to encourage birds and other wildlife. 'At least,' she'd added, 'that's what I tell the neighbours. They don't really approve of me not extracting every square metre of value from the place. They just think I'm mad.'

  Jane peered around. Then she saw, at a point just ahead where the fence wiring seemed to sag inwards, a toolbox left on the ground, with a hammer and some other implements scattered beside it. Perhaps they'd somehow managed to miss Munro and Elizabeth, Jane thought. Perhaps they'd already headed back up towards the house. If they'd gone directly back up towards the farmhouse, their paths wouldn't necessarily have crossed, though Jane was surprised she hadn't heard any sound from them.

  She took another step forward and she stopped.

  Her grandmother had had a phrase. She'd always reckoned that she had a touch of second-sight, and that her dreams were filled with meaning, if only she was able to decipher them. Occasionally, she'd pick up on something Jane had said or done which she claimed had been prefigured overnight. 'Oh. You've broken my dream,' she'd say.

  That was how Jane felt now. You've broken my dream. Not a real dream though, but the uneasy disturbing sensation she'd felt in the kitchen only a short while earlier. The sense that at any moment she was about to witness something dreadful.

  And now she was. Something more dreadful than she had ever witnessed before.

  She took a step back and gestured to Alicia. 'Keep back, Alicia. There's something here. Something–' She stopped, trying to force her mind to work. 'We'd better call the police.'

  41

  'So you're from the police?' the woman behind the desk said, with a note of scepticism in her voice.

  Christ, this was proving hard work, Ginny Horton thought. Helena Grant had made the right call in asking Alec not to handle this one. 'DS Horton,' she said patiently.

  'And you have ID?'

  Which I've already shown to at least three of your staff, Horton said to herself. 'Of course.' She slid her warrant card across the cluttered desktop.

  'That looks in order,' the woman said, though she hadn't obviously even glanced at the card. 'You'll understand we have to be very careful, DS Horton.'

  'Of course.'

  'Even with the police. Not all of your colleagues are above reproach. Not all of them come here with entirely professional motives.'

  Horton had little doubt this was true. She could easily imagine some officers she'd encountered in the force as potential abusers. She could equally imagine they might not be too punctilious in exploiting their status. 'I can ensure you my motives are entirely professional,' she said. It was difficult not to find yourself echoing the officialese you encountered in places like this. She imagined they adopted that manner of speech to avoid getting too emotionally entangled in the cases they were dealing with, day in, day out.

  'I'm sure.' The woman suddenly seemed to decide she was content to accept Horton at her word. Her face broke into an unexpected smile. 'Ann Callaghan,' she said, as if offering her name as a talisman of goodwill. 'How can I help you?'

  'I'm trying to trace the whereabouts of a woman called Elizabeth Hamilton.'

  Callaghan was silent for a moment. 'May I ask why?'

  'We need to speak to her as part of an enquiry,' Horton said. 'A murder enquiry. We need to speak to her urgently.'

  'Is Ms Hamilton a suspect in your enquiry?'

  An interesting conclusion to jump to so quickly, Horton thought. 'She's one of a number of key witnesses we need to talk to in connection with the enquiry,' she said, knowing Callaghan would be fully aware her question had remained unanswered.

  'You know that Ms Hamilton has an… interesting history?'

  'We've been fully informed about her background, yes.'

  'Is that history one of the reasons you want to speak to her?'

  Horton was sorely tempted to respond, as she had no doubt McKay would have done by now, that she was the one asking the questions. 'Not directly, no. We have substantive grounds for believing she can assist us with the enquiry. Is Ms Hamilton still staying here?'

  Callaghan was silent again, her expression suggesting she was considering the options available to her. 'I'm afraid Ms Hamilton's no longer with us. She's moved on.'

  'Are you able to inform me where?'

  'We have an… associate,' she said, after a pause. 'She sometimes offers places to women here who have nowhere else to go.'

  'And that was the case with Hamilton?' Horton was still unclear about Elizabeth Hamilton's cir
cumstances. It was possible she'd inherited her father's estate, given her acquittal for his murder, but it was perhaps more likely Robbins had excluded her from his will. Another line for them to check out in due course.

  'As we understood it, yes. She had no friends and other family. Her father… well, you know about him.'

  'So she's moved on to stay with this associate you mentioned?'

  'A woman called Netty Munro. Look, I have to ask you to treat this with as much discretion as you're able.'

  'Of course.' In practice, Horton thought, that might not be much discretion at all, depending on how it all panned out.

  'Netty helps to provide women with a route back into normal life. That's one of the problems we have here. The women who come here have often developed a dependency relationship with their abusers. That's how the abusers work – manipulation, gaslighting, grooming, until the target of their abuse comes to believe they have no option but to stay with the abuser. The abusers withhold money, confiscate possessions, ensure the victim is entirely reliant on them. So, however bad the abuse becomes, the victim has little option but to stay. And of course there are usually threats that the abuse will increase if the victim tries to escape.'

  None of this was exactly news to Horton, but it was a shock to hear it spelled out so baldly. 'So if they do get away, they come with nothing?'

  'More often than not. Sometimes they've managed to squirrel away a few pounds over the years. But almost never enough to start any kind of new life.'

  'So what can they do?'

  'We can help them in small ways. Sometimes with limited financial help – perhaps the money for a deposit on a flat, or the travel costs needed so they can go to stay with relatives elsewhere. Sometimes we can help them find employment. Mostly it's finding ways of getting them out of the orbit of their abuser, if you see what I mean. But it's rarely easy.'

  'And this Netty Munro?'

  'Netty's lovely. I don't know how or why she does it. I believe she has her own history. But she was one of the luckier ones, in the sense that at least she had her career and money stashed away, and the means to make the escape. I assume she just wants to help those who don't have that.'

  'It sounds admirable.'

  'It is. I mean, she can afford to do it. But not many would choose to use their money that way. She has a farm over in the Black Isle. She takes the women in there, provides them with accommodation and food. Lets them stay as long as they wish, and tries to help them find practical ways to restart their lives. She has good contacts in the music and entertainment world–'

  'Music and entertainment?' It was strange how they kept coming back to that, Horton thought. Music. Comedy. Show business.

  'She used to be a singer. Guitarist. Quite a big name, I believe, in her day, though not really my sort of thing. Natasha Munro.'

  The name rang a bell with Horton. She vaguely recalled seeing Natasha Munro on Top of the Pops sometime back in the 1990s. Throaty-voiced country singer-songwriter with a rocky edge. Some Christian angle in there too, Horton thought, which might explain what she was doing now. 'Must have a bob or two then presumably?'

  'Exactly. She's pretty much retired from all that, as I understand it. But it's a working farm, not a vanity project. She seems to do well from it. But she's chosen to use her wealth for this.'

  'Do the women work on the farm? The women who move there from here, I mean.'

  'You mean is this just a way of recruiting cheap labour?'

  'Well…'

  It was the police officer's lot to be the voice of cynicism, Horton thought. Sometimes she wasn't proud of that.

  'That's not the way I understand it,' Callaghan went on. 'I think she asks them to do a few tasks around the house in return for their bed and board, but fairly light stuff. If they want to work on the farm, she pays them the same as her other employees. But only does that if they volunteer for it. She's always said to me her objective is simply to provide a safe space for recovery.'

  Horton felt appropriately chastised. 'Sorry. I didn't mean to sound critical. I was just trying to understand the set up. Do you have contact details?'

  'This is where I need you to be discreet. Netty doesn't have the same kind of security as we have here, though she has some. We keep her location and identity as confidential as we can.'

  'I understand.'

  Callaghan turned to her computer and tapped on the keyboard for a few moments. A printer on the far side of the room disgorged a sheet of paper, which Callaghan rose to retrieve. 'Here you are.'

  'And as far as you know Hamilton's still there?'

  'Netty would have informed me if she wasn't.'

  'Thank you for your help in this. It really is important that we speak to Hamilton.' Horton paused. 'This may or may not be relevant, I'm not sure. But can I ask you why Hamilton was here in the first place? We're aware of the history, of course, but we weren't aware she was facing any kind of threat now.'

  Callaghan frowned. 'She was referred to us by social services after her… after the trial. They said she was in a fragile emotional state and she believed there were still threats to her physical well-being. She refused to be explicit about the nature of those threats, but our understanding was that they related to acquaintances of her late father. In that kind of situation, we carry out whatever due diligence we can to ensure there isn't some ulterior motive for wanting access to the centre, but to an extent we have to take such claims at face value.'

  'She hadn't reported any of these concerns to the police,' Horton pointed out.

  'We encouraged her to do so, but we could do little more than that. She perhaps had reasons for not entirely trusting the police, if you'll forgive me saying so.'

  Horton recognised there was little point in arguing. She rose and held out her hand for Callaghan to shake. 'Thanks again for your time and for the information.'

  'I hope I've done the right thing.'

  'You have. We're conducting a murder enquiry. All we're trying to do is get to the truth.'

  'The truth can often be painful,' Callaghan said.

  Horton nodded. Perhaps more than you know, she thought. Perhaps even more than you can imagine.

  42

  'Christ. Of course,' McKay exclaimed as they pulled into the roadside in one of the leafier quarters of Inverness.

  'You just got religion, Alec?' Helena Grant asked. 'About time.'

  'I'm been trying to think why the Baillie brothers rang a bell,' he said. 'I knew I'd heard it somewhere recently.'

  'Go on.'

  'They're the owners of the bloody comedy club. The bar where Jimmy McGuire performed before he was killed. I checked out the ownership at the time.'

  'Interesting coincidence.'

  'Isn't it? Wonder whether Mr McGuire was acquainted with the Baillie brothers.'

  'The other question,' Grant said, 'is whether Elizabeth Hamilton was acquainted with the Baillie brothers.'

  'Aye, that'll be an interesting one. Any word from Ginny yet?'

  'Not so far. I'm guessing it'll take time even for Ginny to prise any information out of that bunch.'

  They climbed out of the car and stood for a moment gazing at the house, a detached villa in one of Inverness's more desirable suburbs. The river was close by and the neighbourhood seemed eerily quiet for somewhere so close to the city centre. The house was set in a decent sized garden, thick with mature trees. The ground was a tapestry of green shade and golden sunlight.

  'Nice looking place,' Grant commented.

  'People with a few quid to spare.' McKay looked around him. 'Hamilton's father's place was around here somewhere too, wasn't it?'

  'Just along from here, aye.'

  'Another coincidence.'

  'This is where the well heeled tend to end up in this town,' Grant said.

  'Fair point.' The drive was blocked by marked patrol cars, blue lights still pulsing. 'See the uniforms have done their best to keep it discreet,' McKay commented.

  They'd been told
the bodies had been discovered at the rear of the house. Horton and McKay followed a path that led round the side of the building, and found themselves in a large rear garden. A woman with bright blonde hair was sitting at a picnic table, sobbing, apparently uncontrollably, comforted by a female uniformed officer. Three more uniformed officers were milling about on the lawn, clearly unsure of their role. There was no real need to protect the crime scene, except perhaps from nosy neighbours, and little more that could be done pending the arrival of the examiners.

  The nearest of the uniforms had glanced up as McKay and Horton turned the corner, poised to challenge their presence. But Grant was already brandishing her warrant card. 'Afternoon, Charlie.'

  The PC in question, Charlie Keen was familiar to Grant from previous enquiries. She'd always found him helpful and co-operative, which was not something she could say for all his colleagues. He walked forward to meet them, gesturing discreetly towards the blonde woman. 'That's the wife. She's in a bit of a state. She was the one who stumbled across the bodies.'

  McKay looked around. 'Where are they? You've not touched them?'

  Muir emitted a derisive snort. 'We're not all utter numpties, you know. They’re over the wee hill there. Nobody's been near them since they were found.'

  'Did the wife disturb the scene at all?'

  'She's not really been in a state to ask, but I doubt it. She got close enough to confirm the identities but that was about it, as far as I can tell.'

  'She's sure it’s her husband and his brother?'

  'Seems to be. As I say, difficult to be entirely certain as she's been like that since we arrived.'

  * * *

  Muir led the way up the gentle slope of the lawn. When they reached the point where the garden dropped down towards the far boundary, he stopped and gestured. 'There.'

  Grant nodded and turned to McKay. 'Shall we try to have a word with the grieving widow?'