Bad Blood

by Aline Templeton

  ‘Anyway, let me know when there’s any more you can give me.’

  Janette Ritchie was sitting at the kitchen table in the house next door to the park, a blanket draped round her shoulders, too shocked to cry. There was a woman PC – well, a girl really, since she didn’t look much more than sixteen – patting her hand in a tentative way while her hostess hovered, ready to offer more tea, though Janette hadn’t even touched the mug in front of her because she was afraid she would spill it if she tried to pick it up.

  How could it happen twice? To her – why to her? It had been so awful the last time; she’d taken weeks to recover, even though in those days she had been young and busy, with Shelley to prop up, her own kids to look after and no time to brood. She didn’t like to think of herself as old but she certainly wasn’t as resilient, and this – this had been worse than Tommy with his poor bashed head. This looked as if someone vicious had enjoyed doing it.

  ‘I’ve got to think about something else,’ she said aloud, and as if on cue the door opened and two people came in – a tall woman, smartly dressed in a dark trouser suit, and a short man in a black leather jacket and jeans.

  ‘Mrs Ritchie?’ she said. ‘I’m DI Fleming and this is DS MacNee. Do you feel able to talk to us? I know you’ve had a dreadful experience.’

  She had a low, attractive voice and her eyes were so sympathetic that suddenly the tears came. ‘It was awful – awful!’ Janette sobbed. ‘And there, of all places, right there!’

  As her hostess tutted sympathetically and found a box of tissues, the detectives sat down at the table. ‘There?’ Fleming prompted.

  Janette scrubbed at her eyes and blew her nose. She mustn’t go to pieces now.

  ‘Right where I found Tommy – I found him, you know. Oh, it was a field then, of course, but even after they made it into the play park I couldn’t forget. I walk past it every day but it’s only because Shelley does her remembrance thing that I ever set foot in it.’

  She had to explain, then, all that had happened that day, with the sudden appearance of a woman who looked uncannily like Kirstie Burnside, whose child-face was seared on their memories. The officers listened without speaking, but Fleming’s hazel eyes never left her face and she could feel the intensity of their interest.

  When it came to the events of the morning, the questions started but they were all straightforward and somehow afterwards it felt as if she had somehow been relieved of at least a part of the horror. At the end, though, she felt totally shattered and DI Fleming seemed to pick that up.

  ‘You’ve been an enormous help, Janette. But I think you’ve had enough for today and you should go home and have a lie-down. Is there someone who can stay with you?’

  ‘I could go to my daughter’s,’ Janette said. ‘She’s got two little ones, you know, so I’d be better round there with something to take my mind off this. They’re ever so sweet, a boy and a girl, four and two.’ She went on for a moment, then stopped. ‘Sorry, I’m blethering. You haven’t time for this – I don’t know why I’m going on like this.’

  ‘Shock.’ The sergeant spoke for the first time. ‘You away round there and see the bairns – that’s the best thing. You’ll be fine.’ He gave her a rather alarming smile and she smiled back, a little uncertainly.

  ‘That’s the way!’ he said encouragingly. ‘You’re a wee stoater, isn’t she, boss?’

  Fleming smiled. ‘A star, indeed. Thank you very much for your help, Janette. Someone will take a formal statement later but we’ll let you get your breath back first. And now we’ll get on with finding the person who did this.’

  As they left, Janette said slowly, ‘You kind of feel someone’s taken charge, don’t you?’

  As the PC smiled, Janette noticed that she had a rather impish face. ‘Oh, that’s Big Marge. She’s in charge, all right. Wouldn’t like to have her after me, I can tell you that.’

  Kylie put her ear to the door of Daniel Lee’s office and listened. He’d been on the phone and she didn’t want to burst in and interrupt him when he was in a bad mood, and he’d been in a really bad mood this morning. Hung-over, likely.

  As his management assistant in Zombies – one of the most successful nightclubs in Glasgow – she had what was a dream job with nightmare episodes. You met really cool people and Drax was exciting to work for: when he was your best friend it gave you a real high, which was why you didn’t just walk out when he took a sadistic delight in suddenly taking you down. And if you screwed up – OMG! The stationery cupboard on the landing had been christened ‘The Crying Room’ by his previous assistant.

  She had only lasted six months and Kylie, coming up four, was living on her nerves, with her partner making ‘it’s-him-or-me’ noises. She wasn’t sure she’d last to six. There was this morning to be got through, for a start.

  She hadn’t heard anything for a few minutes now so she tapped on the door.

  ‘Drax – have you finished phoning?’

  Drax was sitting pushed back from his pristine desk in his starkly white office with his cream leather office chair tipped back, arms clasped behind his head and long legs stretched out. He turned to look at her, scowling.

  ‘Guess,’ he said.

  Kylie’s heart sank. Sarcastic was dangerous. ‘There was a message from a Mr Crichton to phone him. He said it was urgent.’

  Lee sat up and swung round suddenly. ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘I-I said you were on the phone, but I’d give you the message.’

  ‘You said I was here?’ His eyes were blazing now.

  Kylie shrank away. ‘Well, yes—’

  ‘And what if I don’t want to speak to him now? What if I want to put him off without spelling it out? You’re there to intercept unwanted calls, for God’s sake!’

  Unwanted calls, OK, but calls from his business partners hadn’t come into that bracket before. She knew better than to argue.

  ‘Sorry, Drax – should have thought.’

  ‘Thought? You are getting ideas above your station, aren’t you? Leave thinking to those of us with the equipment for it – when plankton gets ambitious it only causes trouble. Try just doing as you’re told.’

  ‘Yes, Drax.’

  ‘Now get out. Unless there’s anything else?’

  ‘No – no, that’s all,’ she said, backing out. She’d got off lightly and she wasn’t going to put her neck on the block by sticking around, even though there was a problem with the guy who did the lighting that he’d have to deal with and she’d a list of bookings for their special ‘band night’ series that needed to be confirmed too.

  As the door shut behind her, Lee drummed his fingers on the desk for a moment then picked up the phone.

  Crichton was agitated – almost hysterical. Lee held the phone away from his ear, his face taut with annoyance, but when Crichton ran down his voice was soothing. ‘Chill, Grant! Getting worked up’s not going to change anything.’

  It didn’t seem to have any effect and Lee’s face darkened. ‘OK, so this is a complication, but we’ll deal with it. And there’s no point in kicking off now – we talked it through, remember? Just do what we agreed. That’s all. OK?’

  Crichton hesitated, then agreed, and Lee finished the call, then brought his fist down on the desk and swore violently. He was addicted to risk, but only when he was in control. For the moment at least, he certainly wasn’t.

  DC Hepburn was yawning and looking haggard this morning. She’d been wakened at 3 a.m. by her mother, fully clad, insisting that she’d better hurry to get up for school because she’d been late the last two mornings; it had taken another hour to coax her back to bed and then she couldn’t get back to sleep herself.

  She wasn’t in any mood for DS Macdonald’s pointed remarks about Marnie Bruce as they drove to Dunmore.

  ‘I’d have her right at the top of the suspect list. That yarn she spun us about the women coming to Loudon’s door to lynch her – what would you say all that was about?’

  �
�I would say that it was about Anita telling lies,’ Hepburn said. ‘If what she said was true, how come the mob was outside Marnie’s window?’

  ‘Good question – the mob outside her window. Suddenly they’re out there baying for blood, and she doesn’t know why, she didn’t do anything, she’s baffled? Aye, right! Doesn’t make sense, which is why she concocted the stuff about having to escape from Anita’s house out the back.’

  ‘She did. Anita agreed with that.’ Hepburn glanced sideways at Macdonald, whose face was set in mulish lines. ‘Are you saying that just so you can disagree with me?’ she demanded. ‘Because—’

  ‘No, I’m not!’ Macdonald raised his voice. ‘I am using my judgement, based on considerably more years of police service and expertise than you have. You might care to remember that, Constable.’

  ‘Pulling rank?’ she needled. ‘Fine, Sergeant, if that’s the way you want it.’

  There wasn’t really anything more to say after that.

  Lennox Street was congested with police vehicles and personnel, as well as gawping locals clustered along the line of the blue-and-white ‘crime scene do not cross’ tape outside Anita Loudon’s house.

  ‘Ghouls,’ Hepburn muttered as they drove past to find somewhere to park and for once got a grunt of agreement from Macdonald. They had been tasked with interviewing anyone the uniforms had found with useful information and they were pointed in the direction of a harassed-looking police sergeant.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘I’ve got one here for you to make a start on. Lady next door. Mrs’ – he squinted at a list in his hand – ‘Gordon. Elderly, not very mobile, but all the strength’s gone to her tongue instead. Nearly had to send in a raiding party to spring my lads. Hope you’re prepared for a long stint.’

  ‘Oh good,’ Macdonald said hollowly as they headed up the path. The front door was open; they tapped on it and got an eager, ‘Come away in, come in!’

  Ivy Gordon was white-haired, beady-eyed and in a state of high excitement. She was sitting in a chair beside the window from which she had a commanding view of the activities next door, with a Zimmer frame in front of her.

  ‘I think that’s the SOCOs going in now,’ she informed them as they came in.

  His mouth twitching, Macdonald said, ‘Do you watch a lot of crime series on TV, Mrs Gordon?’

  ‘Never miss. CSI, that’s my favourite. Now, sit down and I’ll tell you all about Anita Loudon.’

  They did as they were told, after they’d shown their warrant cards and Macdonald had given their names, though Ivy wasn’t much interested.

  ‘The thing you have to understand is that Anita’s parents were decent, god-fearing folk. Nothing wrong with the way they brought her up, I can tell you that, but all along she’d a taste for the gutter.’

  Hepburn blinked. ‘The gutter?’

  ‘Oh yes. That laddie, Daniel Lee – no father, of course, that anyone ever knew about, and wild. Impudent, too. I wouldn’t soil my lips with telling you what he said when I gave him laldie for coming over the wall to scrump my apples. And, of course, Kirstie Burnside – there was bad blood in that family. Oh, they said she was a victim of child abuse, but how did that happen? I’ll tell you – bad blood.

  ‘But of course the Loudons were fair devastated when it all happened – devastated. To see their wee girl, ten, eleven years old, maybe, up there in the court – well, her parents were just never the same again.’

  Macdonald and Hepburn exchanged glances. ‘Sorry – in court? Was she charged with something?’ he asked.

  ‘No, no, of course not – don’t be daft. A witness! Surely you mind what happened?’

  ‘I think I might have been too young,’ Hepburn said tactfully. ‘What was the trial about?’

  Ivy sat back in her chair. ‘Mercy me, what’s the world coming to when the police don’t know something like that? Tommy Crichton’s murder, of course.’

  Twenty minutes later, when useful background information had strayed into interminable anecdote, desperation gave Macdonald the impetus to push in with, ‘Can I just ask you about last night? You told the other officers, I think, that you saw something?’

  ‘Not saw, no,’ she said regretfully. ‘They’ve started putting me to bed like a wean at some daft time, now I can’t manage myself. But there were comings and goings last night, I can tell you that – my bedroom’s on the other side of the hall at the front and her front gate creaks. There were car doors slamming a couple of times, and early on I heard her talking to someone.’

  ‘Male? Female?’ Macdonald asked.

  Ivy shook her head. ‘Only heard Anita’s voice and I couldn’t make out what she was saying. I switched off the TV to see if I could hear it, but she’d stopped by then.’

  It wasn’t a lot to go on. They’d had high hopes at the start of having found the ideal elderly woman witness – nosy, observant and eager to share anything she knew. They tried to pin her down on times, but she was vague about when, and how often, she had heard the gate creak.

  Disappointed, Macdonald said, ‘Thanks very much, Mrs Gordon. That’s been a great help, giving us the background.’

  He made to get up, but, like the Ancient Mariner, she made a grab at him and fixed him with a rheumy stare. ‘But I haven’t told you about her lover!’ Macdonald sat down again.

  ‘Och, she thought she was being quite canny. Often he’d come after it was dark, maybe, or he’d just park his car outside and she’d come running out and jump in. Been going on for years and years. Not even on, you know – he’d just maybe pop in when he fancied a wee bit of the hochmagandy, you know?’

  Hepburn, ready to laugh at the jocular term, realised Ivy was deadly serious as she went on, ‘And he was here yesterday.’

  ‘Staying at the house last night?’ Macdonald’s voice sharpened.

  Ivy hesitated, then reluctantly admitted that she didn’t know. ‘Saw him going away yesterday – oh, around twelve, maybe. But he could have been back in the evening, for all I know. Why a body has to be put to bed at seven o’clock I don’t know. If you’re old you need less sleep, not more.’ She sounded bitter.

  It was a pause that neither officer liked to interrupt and after a moment, she went on, ‘I’d like you to get him, though, if he did that to Anita. I mind her so well as a wee lassie.’ She produced a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed her eyes.

  Hepburn said gently, ‘But you’ve no idea who he is?’

  Ivy’s tears vanished in indignation. ‘Of course I do! It’s Daniel Lee – him that I told you about.’ She pursed her mouth in distaste. ‘He got called some silly name – Drax, that’s right.’

  DI Fleming arrived at Anita Loudon’s house along with DS MacNee, gave their names to the constable on duty at the inner cordon and were permitted through. As they struggled with their paper protection suits, MacNee muttered a constant litany of words which included daft and overkill, as well as a choice selection of expletives.

  ‘I tell you what we look like – maggots,’ he said as they dodged SOCOs coming and going down the front path.

  ‘Something I’ve learnt of late is to think as little as possible what you look like, and avoid mirrors. It’s a life skill I’m acquiring to cope with middle age.’

  MacNee snorted. ‘I’m jake with mirrors. They don’t answer back. If I didn’t have to wear one myself I could get quite a riff going about grubs.’

  ‘I can imagine. Why do you think I make sure you do?’

  Fleming didn’t feel as flippant as she sounded. A woman murdered in a peculiarly brutal way was bad enough, but she was finding it hard to see it in isolation, as a crime that had happened last night and an investigation that would start this morning. In some way she couldn’t as yet figure out, this was harking back to the murder of a little boy forty years ago.

  Inside there were white-clad figures moving everywhere. In the lounge there was someone swabbing the corner of a coffee table tipped on its side – a woman, Fleming realised, as she looked up. �
�Any luck?’

  The SOCO shook her head. ‘Nothing to the naked eye. Needs testing, obviously, but I doubt it.’ She put the swab into a sterile pouch and marked it. ‘Knocked over in a struggle, perhaps.’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe just when she fell. Ask Kevin about that.’

  There was another white-clad figure kneeling just beyond her. Kevin looked up when he heard his name. ‘Fell here, I reckon. Got a bloody nose, probably – look.’

  There was a small patch of blood on the beige carpet. There was also, Fleming noticed, a much larger bloodstain a foot away.

  Kevin pointed. ‘I’m moving on to that. Looks to be where the main injuries occurred, at a guess. What happened to her?’

  ‘Got her head bashed in,’ MacNee said. He had been moving about, checking out the room.

  ‘Ouch,’ the woman SOCO said, taking a fresh swab to the next corner.

  ‘Have a look at these,’ MacNee said, indicating the photos arranged along the top of an old-fashioned bureau. ‘See her?’ His pointing finger ran along the photos of Anita Loudon: blonde and glamorous, in a provocative pose; having a good time with friends; playing the fool.

  Then he pointed to the photo of two elderly people at the back. ‘See them? It’s their room, not hers, isn’t it?’

  Fleming surveyed the room with its old-fashioned brown furniture and beige-toned decor. ‘And what does that say? How long has she lived here without them?’

  There was a SOCO sitting at a side table, sifting piles of paper with her plastic gloves. She turned round. ‘Funny you should ask that. I’ve just found a lawyer’s letter here, saying that the house was now in Anita Loudon’s name.’

  Fleming looked interested. ‘Date?’

  ‘1992.’

  ‘That’s more than twenty years,’ MacNee said. ‘Did she just not care about how the place looked?’

  ‘Maybe she just never got round to it,’ Fleming said, conscious of certain elements of refurbishment that long ago ought to have been put in hand back at Mains of Craigie. ‘But from the way she dressed, you’d think she’d want a smart house as well as smart clothes. Maybe she didn’t really plan on staying but it just happened. Anyway – she can’t tell us now, can she?’