by Alex Walters
'She seems to be doing a fair bit of grieving. Almost too much, you might say.'
'You might. But you've said it yourself many times, Alec. You can't judge anything from the way people respond to these kind of events.'
'I know. It sends the copper's instincts buzzing, that's all.'
They walked back down the lawn and approached the woman sitting at the table. 'Mrs Baillie?'
She looked up and stared at them with tear-reddened eyes. 'Aye?'
'DCI Grant and DI McKay,' Grant said. 'Do you feel up to talking to us for a few minutes?'
'I suppose.'
'We just need a few words for the moment, Mrs Baillie. Just to understand what's going on–'
'I've no idea what the fuck's going on,' Baillie snapped. 'Who'd want to do that to poor Tommy. And Colin. Someone's going to have to tell his wife too. Poor Rona…' The tears had returned and she collapsed back into silence.
'We'll deal with all that, Mrs Baillie. We'll get the contact details from you and arrange for someone to break the news.' Grant paused, wondering how far it would be possible to take this. 'Can you tell us when you found your husband, Mrs Baillie?'
'I don't know. I mean, I called you pretty much straightaway. Half an hour ago?'
'You'd been out of the house?'
'I'd been away. Tenerife. With a girlfriend. For the last week. We flew back separately though, to Gatwick together but she was going to visit some friends in London, so I flew back up here by myself–' She stopped, as if unsure why she was telling Grant so much. 'I was expecting Tom to meet me at the airport. But he didn't, so I got a taxi. I thought he'd…'
'What did you think, Mrs Baillie?'
There was silence for a moment. 'I thought he'd forgotten. I tried to phone him, but it just went to voicemail. So I thought maybe he'd had to go into the office for some reason or, I don't know…'
Grant exchanged a glance with McKay. 'What does your husband do, Mrs Baillie?'
'He's a company director. They both are. Tom and Col. They own various bars around the city. But they've stepped back from the business a bit in the last year or so, so he's often around the house.'
'Would you have expected your brother-in-law to be here?' Grant asked. 'I mean, did he visit often?'
Baillie seemed taken aback by the question. 'Not really. I mean, we occasionally have them over for supper, but not often. Tom reckoned he and Col spent enough time in each other's pockets at work as it was, so we tended to do our own things outside that. He hardly ever came over apart from that. If they had a business matter to discuss, they'd do it in the office. Tom liked to keep work and home separate as much as he could.'
Grant nodded. 'I don't like to push you on this, Mrs Baillie, so don't feel that you need to answer. But you're sure it is your brother-in-law?'
Baillie blinked but answered immediately. 'It's definitely him. He was the one I checked first. He was rolled against the fence but I could see his face quite clearly. For a moment, I'd thought it was Tommy, then I realised it wasn't. It was Col. There was dried blood all round his neck. Then I knew the other one must be Tommy…'
The tears were returning but Grant felt she had to continue with the question. 'And you're sure it's your husband there, too?'
'Aye, it's Tommy right enough…' She was sobbing again deeply.
Grant gestured to the female PC who had been standing a discreet few metres away. 'Thank you, Mrs Baillie. I'm sorry we had to trouble you with these questions. We needed to be certain of the situation. We'll leave you be for the moment. Is there someone we can contact to be with you? A family member or a friend?'
There was no immediate answer. As Grant and McKay rose, the PC took Grant's place. 'I'll find someone,' she said. 'Leave it with me.'
Grant nodded her thanks and led McKay to the far end of the decking. 'What do you think?'
'Question is why were both brothers here,' McKay said. 'And I know you can never fathom other people's marriages – Christ, I can't even fathom my own – but I got the impression that maybe the Baillies might have been a little semi-detached.'
'The solo holiday, you mean? Not that unusual, especially with business types who can't get time off together.'
'Baillie wasn't exactly a pub landlord. He could presumably take time off when he wanted. But it wasn't just that. It was the way she talked about him not meeting her at the airport. That she thought he might have forgotten. You don't forget that your wife is coming back from holiday.'
'You don't have a memory like mine,' Grant said. 'But point taken.'
'Maybe I'm adding two and two and making who knows what, but I had a sense Baillie might have been engaged in extracurricular activity. Maybe his wife wasn't necessarily the first thing on his mind.'
'An affair?'
'Something worth looking into. Something to push his wife on, maybe, when she's in a state to be pushed.'
'She said there was blood around the brother's neck.'
'Looks like we have another garrotting special then. Which suggests a link with McGuire, Young and Dingwall.'
'Which in turn puts Elizabeth Hamilton firmly in the frame. At least until we have reason to think otherwise. Speaking of which…' Grant pulled her mobile from her pocket and glanced at the screen. 'I felt it buzzing while we were talking to Baillie. Ginny.' She thumbed the call back button. 'Any luck?' There was silence as she listened to what Horton had to say. 'That sounds straightforward. Are you heading up there? If so, stop when you get to Culbokie. There's a car park by the village shop. Pull in there and wait for us. We don't know if Hamilton's potentially dangerous.' She felt the phone buzz in her hand. 'Hang on, Ginny. I've another call coming in. Stay there while I take it in case it's relevant.' There was almost always a moment like this, Grant thought. The point where the enquiry takes off and everything happens at once. She switched calls and spoke. 'Grant. Yes. Oh, for Christ's sake. When was it called in? Don't let anyone go up there, uniform or plain clothes, until you've heard from me. No, I'll sort that with the powers that be. I'm heading back to HQ. We'll regroup there and decide next steps.' She flicked back to Ginny Horton. 'Ginny. Change of plan. Don't go to Culbokie. Head back to HQ. New developments. We're not going into this without backup. See you in my office.'
She ended the call. McKay was regarding her quizzically. 'New developments?'
'Aye. Just the sort we don't need.'
'Another body?'
'You fucking psychic or something? Aye, another body. And Ginny's found out where Elizabeth Hamilton's staying. So, Mr Mentalist, have a wild stab at guessing where this new body's been found.'
43
The two young women had backed as far as they could from the body, while still keeping it in sight.
'What did they say?' Alicia said.
'They asked if I was sure it was a dead body. I said I was as sure as I could be. That it was definitely human. That there was blood on the ground all around it, and it was showing no sign of moving. They asked me to check for a pulse and I tried–' She stopped, shivering as if she'd been struck cold despite the warm morning sunshine.
'Could you find one?'
'No. I was probably doing it wrong. But I'm sure she's dead.' Jane looked as if the real meaning of that word had only just struck her. 'She didn't move. She didn't respond at all. They asked me if I knew who she was, and I said I thought I did.'
'Netty?'
'I told them it was Netty Munro, and I gave them her address here. They asked me if I knew how death had occurred. I said we'd found her like that. Maybe there was some kind of accident… Anyway, they told me to leave the scene untouched and step away as far from it as I reasonably could. So they can do the forensic stuff, I suppose.'
'Does that mean they think it's murder?'
Jane could hear the tremble in Alicia's voice. 'I imagine they have to be careful, just in case.'
'Do you think it was murder?' Alicia spoke the words as if Jane was the fount of criminal knowledge.
'Why wo
uld anyone want to murder Netty?'
'I can't think why anyone would. She's such a lovely warm generous person.'
Jane knew there was little point in arguing with that. But she knew what she'd seen, and she knew that, however Munro had died, it wasn't the result of any accident. She couldn't think much beyond that, couldn't begin to process who might have done this or why.
The two young women had backed away as far as the fencing. The firth was behind them, glittering blue under a clear sky. It was hard to imagine that anything bad could happen on a day like this.
'Do you think we should go back to the house?' Alicia said.
Jane didn't know what they should do. She had a vague sense they ought to stay near to the scene, though the police operator hadn't really said that. She'd just said the police and an ambulance were on their way and would be with them very shortly. The operator had asked if Jane wanted to keep the line open until the police arrived, but Jane had felt too exposed, unsure what she ought to be saying. She wondered whether that had been the right decision.
She felt bewildered, but the reality of what had happened was slowly percolating into her mind. Someone had killed Munro, and that someone could still be there, perhaps somewhere among these trees. Watching her and Alicia.
It was only then that the second thought struck her, although it had been the obvious question from the start. Where was Elizabeth? Was she lying somewhere in the grass nearby, another victim of whoever had done this? Or…
Jane couldn't begin to deal with the implications of that thought. It would be sensible to head back up to the house, wait there for the police. There must be other people working on the farm. They should seek help there.
Instead though, she felt paralysed, unable to move from this spot, with no option but to wait until help arrived. Alicia seemed to be in the same state, although she was perhaps waiting for Jane to provide some lead.
'What's going to happen now?' Alicia whispered.
'How do you mean?'
'To us. What's going to happen to us? If Netty's dead.'
That was something else Jane hadn't considered. They were staying here as Netty's guests. If Netty Munro was dead, they couldn't remain. Who knew what would happen to the house and the farm? Presumably it would be bequeathed to some relative of Munro's, who might want to live there or to sell it, but who wouldn't want the likes of herself or Alicia anywhere in the house. They weren't tenants. They had no legal rights, presumably. In short, they would be back where they started. At the centre, with nowhere to go beyond that.
Jane felt guilty even thinking about those issues with Munro lying dead just a few metres away. But it was another part of the reality they were going to have to live with. In the few minutes since they'd left the house, everything had changed.
'Jane!'
She looked up, startled, at the sound of the voice through the trees. She glanced at Alicia, and placed a finger to her lips as a sign she should keep silent.
'Jane!' the voice called again.
Involuntarily, Jane took a step back against the fence, half-pulling Alicia along with her.
'Jane. It's me, Elizabeth. Are you there?'
Jane's instinct had been to keep quiet and try to hide, moving back from the sound of the voice. But she knew it was already too late. The woodland was too sparse to conceal them. Elizabeth stepped out of the shadows. 'Jane?'
'What's happened, Elizabeth?' Jane called. Her voice sounded steadier than she'd expected. 'What happened to Netty?'
Elizabeth was watching them in silence. There was something in her hand, Jane thought. Something that moved and glittered in the sunlight.
'What happened to Netty?' Jane called again.
Elizabeth said nothing. After a moment, she took a step forward, and Jane thought she was intending to approach them. She looked around at Alicia, wondering what to do, whether they should try to make their escape to the farmhouse. But when she looked back, Elizabeth had already turned and was moving away from them, into the trees.
A moment later, Jane heard what Elizabeth had presumably already picked out from the birdsong and the whisper of the breeze in the leaves. The sound of a police siren, growing louder.
44
'I didn't even know this place was here,' McKay observed as Horton pulled the car in alongside the two marked cars that had arrived just ahead of them. An ambulance was following behind, but the paramedics would be going nowhere until the police had worked out exactly what had happened.
'This Netty Munro's obviously got a bob or two,' Grant said from the back seat. They'd reconvened at HQ as arranged, and Grant had organised backup before they'd set off up here. One of the marked cars contained two armed officers. She had no idea what they were dealing with but with six deaths already reported, she was taking no chances. The journey had been punctuated by a series of calls to senior officers and the communications team to clear the lines of authority before they went further. A Chief Super was travelling up somewhere behind them, but had accepted that they shouldn't delay taking action.
They stood for a moment in the sunshine, the team of uniformed officers mustering around them. Somewhere in the distance they could hear the sound of farm machinery, but otherwise the place was silent, as if even the birds had ceased to sing.
'The caller said they'd found the body at the rear of the house,' Grant said. 'She didn't know the cause of death but said there was a significant amount of blood. We can't take any chances. If our various killings are the work of a single individual, we're dealing with someone who's highly dangerous.'
'The killings so far have all been garrottings?' one of the armed officers said. His tone suggested he could hardly believe it.
'So far. I'm assuming that requires an element of surprise, so keep alert.' Grant made her way towards the house. She directed a couple of the uniforms and one of the armed officers to remain at the front. 'In case our killer tries to make a break for it,' she said. 'But for Christ's sake don't shoot unless really necessary. We've already got the media breathing down our necks on this.'
She pressed the front doorbell and held it down, hearing the shrill ringing from inside the house. Better to go through all the protocols, she thought. She gave it a few more seconds, then banged heavily on the door.
'Police!'
She could hear no movement from within. She tried the door handle but the door was locked. 'Okay. Let's head round the back.'
With McKay alongside her, Horton a step behind, and a following trail of the armed officer and two uniforms, Grant made her way around the side of the building. At the rear, there was a working farmyard with open storage buildings to the right. Beyond the farmyard, a track led down past the edge of a barley field towards more grassland and a thicket of trees.
Grant peered along the track. To her left, at the bottom of the barley field, she could see two figures standing by the fence. 'Police! Make your way up here slowly, with your hands above your heads!'
The two figures jerked into motion and slowly shuffled up the edge of the field. As they drew closer, Grant saw they were two young women. Both looked terrified. Grant waited until they'd reached the track, then gestured for them to stand apart. 'Who are you?'
The woman at the front said, 'I'm Jane McDowd. I'm the person who called. We found the body–'
The other woman jumped in. 'I'm Alicia Swinton. It's true. We found the body.'
Grant nodded. 'Okay, you can put your hands down now.' The two women were both dressed in jeans and flimsy T-shirts. It was clear neither was carrying any kind of weapon. 'Where's the body?'
'In those trees to the left of the track.' Jane paused and gulped down a breath. 'Elizabeth's down there too.'
'Elizabeth?' Grant nodded to McKay and Horton.
'She's staying here too. Like we are. She was working with Netty…' Jane trailed off.
'Netty Munro's the owner of this place?'
'Netty's dead,' Alicia said, and for the first time her voice quivered on the edge
of tears. 'It's Netty's body.'
'You're sure this Elizabeth is still down there?' Grant said.
'We saw her,' Jane said. 'Just a few minutes ago.'
'Okay.' Grant turned to one of the uniformed officers. 'Can you look after these two? The rest of us will head down and see what's going on.'
The sun was high in the empty sky, and there was not even a breath of wind. The only sound was the rasp of their own footsteps on the rough ground. Not much chance of approaching surreptitiously, Grant thought.
For all their caution, Elizabeth's appearance was still unexpected. She stepped slowly out of the shadow of the trees, a slim figure dressed in black. Her face was pale and her eyes looked dead, expressionless.
Ginny Horton would say later that Elizabeth Hamilton's expression was the same as when Horton found her on Rosemarkie Beach on the rain-soaked night when she'd drowned her father and Denny Gorman. Her face was blank, the look of someone who had lost contact with the world, who no longer felt any responsibility for anything she might have done.
There was something in her left hand, Grant saw. Something that glittered and writhed in the afternoon sun. As Grant took a step forward, the object dropped onto the track. A long wire.
'Elizabeth?'
Elizabeth Hamilton blinked.
'Where's Netty Munro, Elizabeth?'
There was a prolonged silence, then Hamilton turned to point into the trees. 'She's there. She's dead.'
'Did you kill her, Elizabeth?'
'She needed to die.'
'Why did she need to die?'
'She was one of them.' Hamilton's voice was as dead as her eyes. 'Or she might as well have been. He wouldn't accept that. Didn't want to believe it. Wouldn't believe it.'
'Who wouldn't believe it, Elizabeth?'
'He wouldn't. I couldn't persuade him. Just like he wouldn't believe me about Jack.'
'Jack?'
'He was wrong about Jack.'
Grant was as sure now as she could be that Hamilton was unarmed. She took a step forward, took Hamilton gently by the arm, and led her over to the two uniformed officers. 'Take her back up to the car. Make sure she's secure and we'll deal with the formalities in a bit. First priority is to check out Netty Munro's condition. Send the ambulance down here. They should be able to get it down this track okay. Tell them to bring it as far as the trees and we'll meet them there.'
