by Alex Walters
'Anyone told you no one likes a smart-arse?'
'You've told me, more than once. So the sad thing is that Munro thought she was taking Hamilton in to protect her.'
'Looks like it. Hamilton had contacted her to say she didn't feel safe. She told Munro that, after what had happened with her father, some of the other members of the network would have her in their sights. That was why Munro didn't let on to the others that Hamilton was her daughter.'
'That's another tiny thing that should have troubled me from the start. Though I never got round to thinking about it properly. What had happened to Hamilton's mother. By the time she was arrested, it didn't matter. I'd assumed Robbins was a widower or that she'd walked out on him and he'd got custody. Mr Respectable.'
'Simpler than that,' Grant said. 'Munro and Robbins were never an item. Just a one-night stand and Elizabeth Hamilton was the result. Good Catholic Netty Munro didn't want an abortion, but also didn't want anything to impede her career which was just beginning to take off in the US. Robbins was the white knight charging to the rescue. Munro took a few months out of the limelight before the pregnancy showed. She still wasn't a big enough name for the media to pay any attention. Robbins took on the fatherly role, no doubt supported by a decent stipend from Munro, and there you were.'
'And Elizabeth Hamilton never forgave her.'
'Seems not. As far as Hamilton was concerned, Munro was always part of this. She was always on the list.'
McKay had reached the centre of the small village of Culbokie. He passed the village shop of his right, the pub on his left. There wasn't much more to the village than stretches of farmland and scatterings of houses. 'And she didn't trust Douglas to do the deed.'
'That's what she said. But he'd always been closer to Netty Munro than she had. Which raises some interesting psychological questions in itself. But she reckoned Douglas had never really seen Munro as part of the network, though it looks as if, at the very least, she'd been happy to turn a blind eye to it.'
'Not to mention persuading her own sister not to expose it.'
'Henrietta Dowling? I assumed you must have worked that out. That why you're up there then?'
'That's it. You think I'm wasting my time?'
He could sense Grant hesitating at the other end of the line. 'Maybe not. She's the only one left on the list now, from what Hamilton told us. Whether she really deserves to be is another question.'
'As is the question of whether Douglas would be prepared to kill his own mother, if he was reluctant to kill Netty Munro.' McKay had reached the turn off into the small estate of houses.
'Hamilton said that was why she'd done it. To show him they had to go all the way. Eradicate them all. That was the word she used. Eradicate.'
McKay had reached the end of the estate. In the driveway ahead of him, there was the four-by-four he'd seen parked here before, with a battered old Volvo estate behind it. That guy down at McDermott's Yard, Gordon Stewart, had mentioned seeing a Volvo estate. 'I'm here,' McKay said. 'Wish me luck.'
'I've done more than that, you numpty. I called out backup as soon as I heard where you'd gone. There's a team coming down from Dingwall, so they won't be far behind you.'
'Okay. Thanks,' he said, conscious he sounded more grudging than he'd intended. 'No, you're right. I shouldn't be doing this on my own.'
'Of course you bloody well shouldn't. But you're Alec fucking McKay, aren't you, so what else are you going to do?'
'That's the way I see it.'
'And you might be right. We can't afford to delay if there's a chance you're right. But, Alec…'
'Aye?'
'Take care, won't you?'
49
He ought to do this by the book, he thought. Ring the bell, wait for a response. Take it step by step. Don't go blundering in until you've an idea of what you're blundering into.
But that was the trouble. He had no idea what was going on in there. He had no idea what he might provoke even by ringing the doorbell. Depending on Douglas's state of mind, something as trivial as that might be the only catalyst needed.
McKay retrieved his baton from the rear of the car and made his way slowly round the side of the bungalow. Ahead of him, the land opened up and fell away, the wide blue waters of the Cromarty Firth mirror-like in the afternoon sun. As he rounded the corner, he saw the rear patio doors were open. He moved closer, straining his ears for any sound.
At first, he could hear nothing. Then, as he stepped forward, he could make out a strange, indecipherable noise. It was two parallel voices, not exactly in harmony but in an eerie counterpoint, both murmuring or whimpering. He could make out no words, just an unsettling keening.
He moved further round, trying to find a line of sight into the room without exposing his own presence. But a thicket of bushes to the left of the patio prevented him from seeing into the room without moving on to the lawn beyond. He hesitated for a moment, then moved quickly around the bushes, jumping up onto the decking. Then he stopped.
Henrietta Dowling was sitting on the floor with her back to the sofa. Douglas was behind her on the sofa. It took McKay a moment to work out what was happening. Then he caught the glitter of the wire around Dowling's neck. Douglas was holding it pressed hard against her throat, but hadn't yet pulled it tight.
The weird keening appeared to be coming from both of them. Dowling had her eyes closed and was whimpering, a long continuous inarticulate sound that dripped with terror. Douglas looked and sounded little different. His eyes were shut and he was murmuring something to himself. A wordless incantation, as if he were trying to summon up the state of mind needed to complete the act. It wasn't clear that either of them had registered McKay's presence. Behind him, somewhere in the distance, he could hear the faint sound of a police siren.
McKay took another few steps forward and entered the room, blinking at the relative gloom. He'd moved as silently as he could, but Douglas's eyes snapped open. Involuntarily, his hand jerked and the wire tightened on Dowling's neck. The whimpering increased in volume, although Douglas had fallen silent, staring blankly at McKay.
'Let go of the wire, eh, Andy?' McKay said. 'She's done nothing.'
'She gave me to them,' Douglas said. 'She let me go. She never cared.'
'She's your mother, Andy.' McKay took another cautious step forward, trying to work out how he could make Douglas drop the wire without harming Dowling.
'She never cared,' Douglas repeated. 'Netty was the only one who cared. The only one who ever looked after me.'
'This won't help anyone, Andy. Just let go of the wire and I'll take care of you.' Somewhere outside, McKay could hear the sound of sirens growing closer. If the uniforms burst in here, he had no idea what Douglas's response might be. He took another step towards the sofa.
Douglas looked up sharply and his hand twitched again bringing another gasp of pain from Henrietta Dowling. 'You don't understand. I have to do this now. I have to finish it. I have to make it complete.'
McKay was never sure whether, at that moment, Douglas really did intend to pull the wire tight. He saw the young man's hand grip the wire, its end wrapped around some kind of wooden stick, and he saw the muscles in Douglas's arm tense. He slammed the baton hard down on the back of Douglas's hand, desperately hoping that Douglas would release his grip rather than pulling tighter. Then he stuck a second blow to the right of Douglas's head, sending him falling in Dowling's direction. As Douglas fell, he heard a scream from Dowling and he turned to see the wire cutting deeply into the flesh of her neck.
50
'We'll have to go through the process, that's all,' Grant said.
'You mean I'll have to go through the process.'
'We all will, Alec. They have to make sure everything was handled appropriately.'
'Aye, but I'm the one who went off-piste, aren't I? Went up there to deal with it by myself.'
'Which was the correct thing to do. You made the right call. We couldn't have delayed another minute.'
>
'I should have got some backup to come with me.'
Grant was silent for a moment. 'Aye, that may be your one weak spot but that wouldn't have helped.'
'It might. Anyway, I should have handled it differently. Not go charging in there like a bull in a porcelain factory.'
'You had to go in, Alec. You had no other choice.'
'I still should have handled it differently.'
'There was nothing else you could have done. You did the only thing possible.'
'Aye, but–'
'Oh, for Christ's sake, Alec. She's alive. She survived.'
'No thanks to me. What if he'd tightened that wire a bit more?'
'He didn't because you'd knocked him unconscious.'
'But if he'd not been properly knocked out, or if he'd fallen the wrong way, or–'
'None of that actually happened. You've nothing to reproach yourself for.'
'That's not how they'll see it.' McKay had finally jumped to his feet and begun his familiar circuit of Grant's office.
'Alec, it's a routine enquiry. They're only doing it because they want to pre-empt any attempt by Douglas or Hamilton to do what Hamilton did in her last trial. They're just covering their arses.'
'Aye, and I'm the one who had to hand over his trousers.'
'It'll be fine. Main thing for us is to put the story together as clearly as we can for the trial. I'm struggling to get my head round some of it. So you reckon that Ronnie Young was Douglas's father?'
'That's what he said. He knew nothing about the circumstances, but the timing fits with Dowling's initial claim that Young raped her.'
Grant sat up. 'So you're saying–'
'I'm saying nothing. We need to see what Dowling says once she's in a condition to tell us.' The wire had cut badly into Henrietta Dowling's throat. It was likely that her life had been saved only because McKay had managed to hold the wound shut until the paramedics arrived. She was in hospital, but expected to make a full recovery. 'But the timing works.'
'So why would she drop the complaint against Young?'
'Because Netty Munro persuaded her to. I suspect Munro was very persuasive. Dowling's career was struggling at that point. She was in the same position as Munro in that an abortion, whatever the circumstances, would have damaged the following she'd begun to build up on the country scene in the US. She and Munro were both seen as clean-cut Christian country rockers, and that wasn't going to play well with any of this. So Munro persuaded her to keep the baby who grew up to be Andy Douglas. Dowling was no more maternal than Munro, and she was quite content for Douglas to be used in the same way as the network's other victims.'
'Christ. But Douglas had had the idea that Munro had protected him.'
'Maybe she did,' McKay said. 'Though not for his benefit, I imagine. My impression is that Munro was the smartest and most ruthless of all of them. I wouldn't be surprised to discover she was the one behind the whole thing. If she took greater care of Andy Douglas, I think it's because she recognised he was the flakiest of all of them. The one who needed to be protected to protect the rest of them.'
'She was right then.' Grant watched him prowl around the room. 'So what about all Munro's supposed good works. Taking in all these poor young women from the refuge centre. Was that just a way of grooming more victims, or had she turned over a new leaf?'
'I suppose we'll have to do some digging into that,' McKay said. 'Some of the previous woman who've stayed there seem to have done okay. Got out and rebuilt their lives. But there's a number we haven't been able to track down yet. Munro had more or less retired from her singing career. Maybe she'd decided to settle down and apply some of these Christian principles, after all.'
'What about that stuff that Jane McDowd overheard? The idea that they'd be "good material"?'
McKay shrugged. 'Could go either way, couldn't it? Good material for the network, or good material for Christ's eternal salvation. Alleluia and all that.'
Grant nodded. 'Christ, I don't envy the Procurator on this one. Especially if Hamilton starts playing the same games as last time.'
'I would say that was a trick she could only pull once,' McKay said. He finally sat back down in the seat opposite Grant and fumbled for a stick of gum. 'Except we're talking about Elizabeth Hamilton, and I'd put nothing past her.'
'That's what scares me.' Grant paused. 'By the way, speaking of Christ's eternal salvation and all that, I've heard you've suddenly turned to performing charitable acts in your old age.'
'It's a foul slander,' McKay said. 'Whatever they're saying.'
'Jane McDowd and Alicia Swinton. I hear they've found temporary accommodation.'
'That's what you've heard, is it?'
'Little bungalow up in Rosemarkie. No longer needed by its primary occupant.'
McKay had reddened slightly. 'It was just going to waste…'
'Thought you were going to take Chrissie up there for dirty weekends by the coast?'
'My weekends are none of your fucking business, Grant,' McKay said. 'But, yes, I discussed it with Chrissie. Those poor wee lasses had nowhere else to go. Christ knows what's going to happen to Munro's farm – the lawyers are still arguing over that one, given that she'd apparently bequeathed it to Elizabeth Hamilton in her will and it's not clear who's next in line assuming Hamilton's found guilty.'
'Assuming.'
'Aye. The bungalow was going to be standing empty. I had to clear it with the letting agent and the landlord, but they were okay as long as I continued to pay the rent. And it's amazing how persuasive the mention of a police rank can be sometimes. They're there until the end of the year's contract, so there's a good few months still to run. It'll tide them over till they can get themselves sorted.'
'I thought you'd taken the bungalow on a renewable six month contract?' Grant said.
McKay had reddened a little more. 'Aye, well. That was part of the deal I did with the agent.'
'So you and Chrissie are paying for them to stay there for the next six months? How does Chrissie feel about that?'
Grant half-expected that McKay would once again tell her to mind her own fucking business, but instead he just offered her a sheepish smile. 'She's grand with it, to be honest. They're fine wee lasses. They invited us over, offered us a nice little lunch as a thank you. And we've invited them back. It'll bring a bit of life to the house, you know?'
Grant knew. It was what she missed herself, living in her neat little house in North Kessock. It was fine, mostly. She'd never been a gregarious individual. But sometimes the silence, the emptiness in the house, felt too much for her. She thought about McKay and Chrissie and the daughter they'd lost, the silence that had grown between them after that, and she felt pleased for them. Pleased that they'd come through. Pleased that they'd found a way of filling the silence.
After her husband Rory had died, Grant had even harboured her own vague fantasies about a future with McKay, but that had always been a ridiculous idea. Instead, she'd mainly just thrown herself back into the job, and that had been okay. But now, suddenly, she felt as if she'd been treading water for too long. 'That's great,' she said. 'Really pleased it's all going so well for you and Chrissie. You both deserve it.'
McKay looked at her. 'You okay, hen?'
She looked down at her watch, conscious that there were tears brimming somewhere behind her eyes. 'Aye, Alec, I'm grand. It's late. We've had a hard week. So why don't you just fuck off home to Chrissie, eh? She'll be waiting for you.'
* * *
END
NOTE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The first DI Alec McKay book, Candles and Roses, ended on a deliberately ambiguous note. The crime was solved, justice was served, but McKay was left with some lingering doubts.
At the time, I hadn't intended to take the story any further. I hoped that the book's resolution was satisfying to the reader, but provided one further twist to reflect the kind of uncertainty that can bedevil any real police enquiry or criminal trial. I didn't know whether or no
t McKay's concerns were justified, and I assumed I never would.
Then my mum read the book.
She told me she'd enjoyed it (but then she's my mum so she has to say that), but she wanted to know who the killer really was. I replied that I knew no more than she did – I was just the author – but she refused to believe me. 'You must know,' she said. 'You wrote it.' But that's not how it works. The truth was I really didn't know.
You can't ignore your mum, though. So when I sat down to think about the third book in the series, I found I'd also become curious to know what really happened after the end of Candles and Roses. So I decided to revisit the story and find out what happened next. And it turned out that there was a lot more to the story, and to the enigmatic Elizabeth Hamilton, than I'd ever imagined…
I've tried hard to ensure that Their Final Act works as a standalone book, whether or not you've read Candles and Roses (though, like most crime series, you'll probably get a little more out of the books if you read them in order). But if you have read the first book, I hope you enjoy where the story goes next.
So thanks to my mum for making the book possible (and to her and my dad for making everything possible). Thanks as ever to Helen for being my first and best critic, and for the support in writing and everything else. Thanks to all those who advised on the book, and apologies for any liberties I've taken with what you told me. Thanks, as ever, to Betsy, Fred, Sumaira, Sarah and everyone else at Bloodhound Books for their unfailing support. And thanks to all the good people of the Highlands and the Black Isle for allowing me, yet again, to clutter this glorious landscape with fictional corpses.
