‘You must be absolutely shattered! I couldn’t believe it when I heard about that awful fire. Who on earth would do such a thing?’
Marnie gave a rueful shrug and Gemma rattled on, ‘I suppose it’s vandals. Can’t quite get it myself but there’s people seem to do that sort of thing for fun. I just can’t bear to think what might have happened.
‘Now, come upstairs. I’ve put you in the bedroom next to mine so if you need to borrow anything you can just pop in. The only drawback is that Mikey’s on my other side and when he wakes up he likes to have company, the more the merrier. Hope you’re a sound sleeper!’
Marnie smiled. ‘Where is he?’
‘Oh, he’s with Mum. She’s been away for a couple of days so she’s suffering from grandchild deprivation. I’ve barely been allowed to see him today.’
Gemma opened the door to a large bedroom at the front of the house, looking out towards Loch Ryan, and went over to draw the curtains – thick, interlined, in a turquoise and coral print.
‘It’s got a lovely view when it’s sunny but it’s so gloomy today that we might as well shut it out early. Your en suite’s here’ – she opened the door on a neat shower room – ‘and I’ve put in some stuff I thought you might be short of – shampoo and things.’ There was a row of Molton Brown and Jo Malone bottles on a glass shelf.
‘Now, do whatever you feel like – have a shower or a rest if you want. Just come down whenever you feel like it.’ As she turned to go out she looked again at Marnie, then reached out and put a hand to her cheek. ‘You poor love, you’ve had such a rotten time, haven’t you? But we’re going to cosset you now. You’ll find us in the kitchen when you’re ready.’
Marnie felt a tightening in her throat as she thanked Gemma and put her cheap holdall down on the straw-coloured wool carpet. The sleigh bed was piled with cushions in blues and corals, echoing the fabric of the curtains. It was all very pretty, very feminine, like Vivienne Morrison herself. Her hand was evident, too, in the pile of books and magazines on the bedside tables and the tissues and cotton wool balls on the dressing table.
The luxury was almost stifling. It was as if Marnie had been starving and was suddenly being offered an unwisely rich meal; she had never in her life had so much care lavished on her and she found it hard to accept. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe Gemma’s affection was genuine – no one could act that well. It was just that it related to a world Marnie wasn’t equipped to understand.
After a long power shower, she felt a little better. They were kind, she was comfortable, and above all she was safe. It was the sort of house where nothing bad ever happened to anyone. Live for today and let tomorrow take care of itself.
When she went downstairs and tapped tentatively on the kitchen door before opening it, Gemma called, ‘Oh, come in, Marnie – no need to knock. Mum, you remember Marnie.’
It was something of a shock when Vivienne turned. It was twenty years, of course, since Marnie had last seen her, when she was still a young woman, but even so she looked older than she would have expected – still pretty, but she looked tense and strained, though perhaps it was the contrast with her daughter’s healthy bloom that emphasised it.
She was as welcoming as ever, expressing her own concern at what had happened to Marnie, but it was clear that her attention was fully absorbed by the toddler who was ignoring his fish fingers and beans to study Marnie with solemn blue eyes.
‘You came before. Did you bring me a present?’ he said before being hushed by his mother.
‘No, she hasn’t. That’s rude, Mikey. Why should she?’ Gemma smiled apologetically. ‘He’s an absolute brat, Marnie, and I blame my parents. They think he can do no wrong, don’t you, Mum?’
‘It’s your father, not me,’ Vivienne protested. ‘He thinks it’s funny when he’s cheeky, Marnie, and then this little tyke plays up to it.’ Her smile as she looked at the child, though, was very fond.
‘Where is Dad?’ Gemma asked casually. ‘I didn’t know he was going to be late tonight.’
‘He – he didn’t say.’
She sounded not merely uncertain, but unhappy. Marnie gave her a sharp look but at that moment Mikey upset his mug of milk and there was the fuss of mopping it up.
‘I don’t think we should wait for him, anyway,’ Gemma said. ‘Come on through to the sitting room and we can have a drink in comfort – if Mum’s prepared to see the monster to bed.’
Vivienne smiled. ‘Of course, darling. You girls go on. You can have a glass of Chablis waiting for me.’ She was saying, ‘No, Mikey, bedtime right after this,’ in answer to the ritual protests as they left the room.
But what was it, Marnie wondered, that had been upsetting Vivienne about her husband’s absence? Gemma seemed not to have noticed anything, so perhaps she had imagined it. Or perhaps, when you lived in this sort of set-up, it never occurred to you that anything could possibly go wrong.
Bill Fleming looked tired, certainly, but propped up in bed with a supper tray of the sort of healthy food he would normally have turned up his nose at, his colour was good and he was remarkably cheerful.
‘They kept telling me how lucky I was and I’m sure they’re right,’ he said. ‘I just have to walk instead of jumping on the quad bike, and learn to love lettuce.’
‘It’s time I got back in shape too,’ Marjory said. ‘The dreaded middle-aged spread is getting itself well established and I need to take more exercise too. We can do it together.’
Bill looked doubtful. ‘I’m not sure your sort of yomping is what the doctor ordered. Steady walking, he said.’
‘Excuses, excuses. Now, it’s bedtime for you. I’m going to sleep in the spare room. With all that’s been going on I’m not convinced I’ll get a peaceful night and I don’t want you being disturbed.’
‘Where’s my dram?’ Bill demanded. ‘The doc said it wouldn’t do any harm – might even do me a bit of good.’
‘Not tonight,’ Marjory said firmly. ‘He said you needed lots of rest too and you just yawned. Have you finished that?’ She bent to take the tray off his knees and he pulled her into an embrace.
‘Nice to be back,’ he said.
Marjory’s voice shook as she said, ‘Don’t ever do that to me again, will you? I can’t bear to think what I’d do without you.’
Bill laughed. ‘Look on the bright side, love – you might go first.’
‘You’re exasperating, do you know that? Now go to sleep,’ Marjory said, but she was smiling happily as she went downstairs.
Having the terrible burden of responsibility taken from her shoulders should have given Louise Hepburn a lift, but the release of tension made her feel like a puppet whose strings had been cut. She was yawning so hugely that her aunt sent her off to bed at nine o’clock and she went thankfully.
But as she lay in bed, warm and relaxed, she thought again about Marnie. Was she safe and warm too – and where was she tonight, anyway?
Where could she be? She had ruled out hotels and B & Bs and she wouldn’t be considering a remote secret hideaway after what had happened at Clatteringshaws. She couldn’t sleep in the car in this weather, and she didn’t have friends locally—
Oh yes, she did. She knew Gemma Morrison. Perhaps she’d asked her for a bed. If that was where Marnie had gone – and the more she thought about it, the more likely she thought it was – she should be safe enough. Drax was hardly going to burst into his partner’s house and murder his daughter’s friend.
On that comforting thought, she fell asleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
She heard the pounding of boots on the spiral stairs as she sat in her office, the little room that felt to her like the shell to a snail, with a sick sense of inevitability. Even so, she jumped to her feet and dashed out to protect him from intrusion, just as she always did.
One of the officers, invading aliens in their black gear and helmets, peeled off from the squad and came towards her menacingly. ‘Daniel Lee. Where?’
; It was no use. She nodded towards the door of Drax’s office. She hadn’t seen him all afternoon; she’d tapped on the door around seven but either he wasn’t there or he didn’t want to be disturbed and she knew better than to open it.
The police had no such scruples. The burly man in front opened the door, following through with his shoulder as if he expected it to be locked and didn’t care if he smashed it. He staggered slightly as the door swung back, shouting, ‘Police!’
The others, following through behind him, came up short and one bumped into him. He had stopped on the threshold.
It seemed as if an action movie had gone into freeze-frame and after that everything seemed to move weirdly slowly. The officer in the door frame turned with a gesture. ‘Keep her back!’ he ordered, and then she knew. It couldn’t be – yet she somehow had always known that here was where it would all end.
With a sudden movement she jinked past the officer who came towards her and she was looking through the doorway at Drax, lying across his desk in a pool of blood, already turning rust-red.
Someone was screaming now, agonised, piercing screams like some animal in pain. It was a moment before she realised who it was, and then she couldn’t stop.
Marjory Fleming had just come upstairs to bed in the spare room when her phone rang a little after eleven. She answered it feeling glad that she had followed her instinct and Bill’s much-needed rest wasn’t being disturbed.
The FCA on the night shift was apologetic. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, ma’am, but there is an urgent message from DCI Alexander at Cairnryan. He asked for you to be alerted at once to make sure that Marnie Burnside’s protection is properly in place. He said Daniel Lee had been shot dead in Glasgow and it might have implications. That was the message.’
Feeling as if the floor had given way under her feet, Fleming managed to say, ‘OK. Thanks. I’ll be coming right in, if anyone else wants me,’ and taking time only to scribble a note to leave on the kitchen table she ran out to her car.
Her mind was whirring. Had they been looking in the wrong direction all this time? She had described Lee and Morrison equally as vermin, but she’d let herself be convinced by Marnie’s belief that it was Lee who had her followed.
Of course, she told herself, with the company that Lee kept there might well be others with reason to want to put a bullet in him; guns were easy to come by when you had the right contacts. All that would be in the hands of the Strathclyde police, though, and her job was simply to protect Marnie if this was, as she suspected, a case of thieves falling out.
She had no idea where she might be, though. And Marnie had naively placed herself in danger twice already – once in giving Lee the opportunity, at least, to have her tailed, and once by failing to realise that her being taken to the police station after the petrol bomb would be common knowledge – and she feared that Marnie’s confidence that she could look after herself was misplaced.
When she arrived at headquarters she was surprised to find MacNee waiting for her.
‘Did Alexander contact you too?’
He shook his head. ‘Caught the late-night news after the football tonight. Said there’d been a shooting at a nightclub in Glasgow and I called one of my pals up there. Shot our fox, like you’d probably say.’
Fleming made a face. ‘If the fox gets shot it means the hens are safe. Not quite the same. Come up to my office. I’m going to call Nick and see what he can tell us.’
‘The big question is, where’s Marnie?’ he said as she picked up the phone.
‘The big question is, how am I going to tell Nick we don’t know?’ Fleming said. ‘I’m not looking forward to this.’
Alexander was predictably both annoyed and worried, and able to add very little more detail to what she knew already. She put the phone down feeling profound irritation herself with the stubborn Marnie.
‘So – what next?’ MacNee said. ‘Get someone checking hotels?’
Fleming had a sudden thought. ‘No. Play the man instead of the ball. Let’s find out where Morrison is first.’ She picked up the phone again.
It was Gemma Morrison who answered, sounding sleepy and, when she heard who it was, indignant. ‘Is phoning at this time really necessary? You’ve wakened me and that’s my son awake now.’
Fleming could hear the sounds of a child wailing in the background.
‘What do you want, anyway?’
‘I am anxious to speak to Mr Morrison. Is he there, please?’
Gemma sighed loudly. ‘I wouldn’t know – it’s a big house and he could be in his study. I suppose I can go and check, but I’m not even sure that he’s back yet. He’s been working late.’
Drumming her fingers on the desk, Fleming waited. When Gemma returned to the phone she sounded worried.
‘He isn’t back, no. Has something happened to him? Is that why you’re phoning?’
‘No, no,’ Fleming said. ‘We just need to speak to him, that’s all. Could you please leave a message for him to that effect?’
‘If that’s all, I think you could have left it until the morning and not upset people at this time of night.’ She put the phone down abruptly.
‘Not there. I don’t like it,’ Fleming said. ‘Where is he?’
‘Killed Lee then done a runner?’ MacNee suggested.
‘If I thought that I’d be a happy woman – it would mean he wasn’t out there gunning for Marnie. Where is the wretched girl?’
‘Ask Louise,’ MacNee suggested. ‘She maybe doesn’t know where Marnie is but she’s talked to her a lot. She’s in a better position than we are to guess.’
‘Good thought.’ Fleming dialled the number, then found herself engaged in a conversation with someone who spoke only minimal English. ‘I – need – to – speak – to – Louise – Hepburn,’ she said slowly, making a puzzled face at MacNee.
‘Probably her mum,’ he murmured. ‘French – you’re an expert, right?’
She gave him an acid glance, but when she scraped up some schoolgirl French it seemed to work. ‘She sounded disapproving but she’s gone to wake Louise.’
‘Here – fancy you remembering your Highers! Didn’t believe you could still speak it.’
‘Neither did I,’ Fleming said, then, ‘Louise? Sorry to disturb you. But we’re getting worried about Marnie. Do you have any idea, any idea at all, where she might be?’
Louise, like Gemma, sounded half-asleep, but at least cooperative. ‘Oh, I was thinking about that. I suddenly remembered that she was friendly with Gemma Morrison, so it’s quite likely she would ask her for a bed. And, of course, she’d be safe enough there because Morrison wouldn’t be very pleased if Lee burst into his house and killed one of his daughter’s guests, would he? If I’m right, I should think that’s the safest place she could be.’
Gemma was just turning away from the phone, calling, ‘It’s all right, Mikey, I’m just coming,’ when the front door opened and her father appeared.
‘Oh Dad!’ she exclaimed. ‘I was wondering—’ She caught sight of his face and stopped, looking horrified. ‘Is something wrong?’
He looked exhausted, his face pale, almost grey, and his eyes bloodshot. ‘No,’ he mumbled. ‘Just tired – very tired.’
He looked more ill than tired and it was with some alarm that she went over to him. Then she smelt the taint of spirits on his breath and her face cleared.
‘Dad!’ she scolded him. ‘You’re far too old to go out on a bender. Get through to the kitchen before Mum sees you like this. Have you had anything to eat?’
‘Not since lunch.’
‘You’re lucky you got home without being breathalysed. Now, on you go, through to the kitchen.’ She listened at the foot of the stairs. ‘Good – sounds as if Mikey’s gone back to sleep. He got wakened by the phone just now – can you believe it, it was the police wanting to speak to you, at this time of night! I told them they could wait till the morning.
‘It’s just as well he didn’t hear you coming back or
he’d have demanded to see you and I’m not sure how well you’d focus on the bedtime stories in that state, you wicked old man! Now, come on through. No arguments – I’m going to make you a bacon butty and a pot of black coffee. And take off your coat – you’ll be too hot.’
‘Louise is going to keep a watch on the house and she’s trying to get Marnie on the phone now,’ Fleming said as they hurried down the stairs. ‘If she’s right about where she is, we can just swoop in and pick her up as long as he’s not there.’
‘That’s if Gemma’s not in on it as well. Marnie could be dead by now,’ MacNee said gloomily.
‘Always the positive thinker. You arrange for a patrol car to stand by for support.’
Then they were in the car and Fleming fixed on the blue light as she turned out of the car park and accelerated off towards the Stranraer road.
DC Hepburn was shaking with nerves as she drove along to Dunmore. She’d tried ringing Marnie but the phone was switched off. She was most likely sound asleep, just as she had been herself. At least, she hoped that was why she wasn’t answering her phone.
It only took ten minutes. It would be quarter of an hour at least before Fleming could get here and Hepburn had her orders: she was to ring the doorbell, provided there was no sign of Michael Morrison. If his car was there – she’d been given the registration – she was under no circumstances to approach. She was to keep trying Marnie and liaise with the patrol car which would be told to wait somewhere further out along the road past the Morrisons’ farmhouse.
Hepburn stopped just short of the turn-off into the drive. She could see the house now; there was one light on upstairs and another downstairs and there was a large car parked below the lamp over the front door. It hadn’t been put away in the fancy garage with the electronic doors, but even so it looked like Morrison’s Mercedes.
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