‘What about your own family?’
She gave a bitter laugh. ‘My family? My father’s freer with his hands than Alick is. He’d take me back as a skivvy – my mother died, worn out at forty.’
Looking at Maidie, Kershaw could see her destined for the same fate, exhausted and brutalised. ‘Look, there’s a women’s refuge I can get you into,’ she said. ‘They’ll give you somewhere to stay, sort out benefits, that kind of thing. No problem.’
Maidie was dubious. ‘Alick wouldn’t let me . . .’
‘Alick wouldn’t have to know. You only have to give me the nod.’
Maidie half smiled; then the tears started again. ‘I’m sorry – this is daft! It’s just the relief, knowing there’s somewhere, if it comes to that, but I’ll wait for now, see if things settle down.’
Kershaw sighed inwardly. Battered women always did. They stayed with drunken bullies, sometimes until it was too late, but there was never any point in arguing. ‘The offer’s always there. Here – that’s my number.’ She gave her a card.
‘But I really came to ask if you could give me any background about Lisa Stewart – Beth, if you like.’
The change of subject seemed to pull Maidie together, but she had nothing to offer. Beth, it seemed, hadn’t been any more communicative than Lisa was. ‘I can tell you this, though,’ Maidie said fiercely, ‘I don’t believe for one minute that she killed that poor wee mite. She was that patient with Calum – he’s really missed her today.’
‘She was acquitted,’ Kershaw pointed out, echoing MacNee. ‘But I did wonder why she would choose to be so close to the baby’s family.’
‘She never said. Just she was living in her granny’s old house – maybe she’d nowhere else. Where’s she staying now? I wish I could help her, but—’
‘She’s fine,’ Kershaw assured her. ‘Staying at the Balmoral Guest House in Kirkluce.’
She went on to her next line of questioning. ‘Alick organises shoots and so on for the people who come for meetings to Rosscarron House, right? How many of them? And do you know who they are?’
‘There’s usually about five or six. Before Calum was born, I used to go sometimes and help Cris at the big house. There were a few foreign gentlemen – one was French, I think, and there was another one told me he was Italian. Then there’s Mr Lloyd and Mr Driscoll, of course – Alick knew them from when they were in the army with Mr Crozier. The three of them played in a sort of band together, he said once. Officers, of course. Alick never had much time for officers.’
A man with a grudge might be a very useful source of information; Kershaw filed that one away to suggest to Big Marge later. ‘Do you know what the business was?’ she asked hopefully.
Here she drew a blank. Maidie had no idea. ‘Made a lot of money, that’s all I know,’ she said wistfully.
Kershaw left it at that. She still had a long drive back to Kirkluce, but there was no briefing tonight with it being Saturday, when they were all on overtime. She’d have plenty of time to look in and see Debbie before she was settled down for the night.
Cris Pilapil came into the conference room, where Declan Ryan was sitting at the table with a shredder and piles of paper around him.
‘Has Alex got in touch?’ he said, without preamble.
Ryan didn’t look up. ‘Not with me.’
‘It’s funny.’
‘Alex’s a maverick. He wouldn’t have been Gillis’s lawyer if he wasn’t.’
‘I’m worried. The girlfriend’s been on the phone again.’ Pilapil came forward to lean on the table, and this time Ryan did look up.
‘You told her he was in Inverness, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, but we both know he isn’t.’
‘We don’t, actually. He might be anywhere. You know Alex. Look, Cris, I’m scared about this.’ For once, Ryan was speaking without his usual sneering sarcasm. ‘Alex is key to the whole thing. It couldn’t be more unfortunate that he’s gone AWOL like this, and if the police start sniffing around at that end, we’re all up the creek.
‘I can’t dash off to London when the police have asked me to stay here. Lloyd and Driscoll are keeping at arm’s length from the whole thing and I don’t want them to find out there’s a problem over Alex – they’re likely to overreact.’
‘Yes.’ Pilapil’s agreement was unhesitating.
‘So . . .’
‘OK, OK. If she phones again, I’ll give her some story. At least he told the office he’d be away for a bit – I checked. I just wish he’d get in touch before everything falls apart.’
Pilapil saw his own anxiety, bordering on fear, replicated in the face of the other man as he turned to go.
‘Bill, I want to talk to you about Joss Hepburn.’
There, she’d said it. They were on their own for supper: Cat was out with her boyfriend, a medical student at Glasgow University, and Cammie had been evasive about his plans, but from the smell of aftershave Marjory reckoned that her sports-mad son must have discovered girls at last. So she and Bill had only Meg for company, if you didn’t count the elephant in the room, which they had studiously ignored.
Bill was concentrating on putting sugar in his coffee. ‘Maybe you should wait till Cat’s here. You won’t want to have to go through it all twice.’
‘It’s not the sort of conversation I was planning to have with Cat. Bill, Joss is just someone I knew a long, long time ago. All right, someone I was in love with a long, long time ago. I found out what he was like, I ditched him, and I fell in love with you. This was a casual, unimportant encounter, that’s all.’
‘So unimportant that you didn’t mention it until you had to?’ Bill looked up and she saw hurt in his eyes. ‘Do you think I don’t know that you put it off because you were trying to find the best way of convincing me it was unimportant?’
‘You’re just proving me right, Bill!’ Marjory cried. ‘You’re reacting as if you’re jealous.’
‘Yes, I suppose I am. And I can tell you why – because I know exactly what you’d have done if this meant as little as you’re making out. Immediately after you’d told me about the accident, you’d have said, “Bill, the most awful thing! You’ll never guess who’s here – Joss Hepburn, and the last time I saw him, you’d just given him a broken nose! How embarrassing is that?” Something along those lines.’
Marjory opened her mouth to deny it, but the words wouldn’t come.
‘I’m not afraid you’re going to run off with him. You’re an honourable person and you’re not stupid either. But the trouble is, there’s always been something in you that could never be satisfied with life as the wife of a simple farmer – it’s why you need the drama of policework. But just at the moment I think you’re wondering what life would have been like if you’d walked off on the wild side with Joss and there’s a part of you regrets not having had the nerve to do it. And that hurts – of course it does.
‘I’ll get over it. And when he’s gone, the waters will close over him, and though you’ll spare him a thought now and then, that will be all. I don’t see much point in discussing it now when I doubt if you’re being honest with yourself, let alone me.’
Bill had spoken levelly and calmly. But now, as he got up from the table, he said with a sort of anger in his voice that she had never heard before, ‘Just as long as that bastard hasn’t poisoned your pleasure in the life that has made us so happy up till now.’
For the hundredth time, Lisa Stewart consulted her watch. It wasn’t a cold night, but she was shivery with nerves and she had put on the one-bar electric fire in the dingy lounge. She was alone; she’d seen only one other guest, a dispirited-looking man in a tired suit with a battered briefcase, but he had gone to his room, as Mrs Wishart clearly hoped Lisa would. She’d come in a couple of times to check, making plain her opinion of such wanton extravagance with a grudging look at the fire. Eventually she had given up and gone upstairs, telling Lisa to be sure to put off the lights ‘and the fire’ before she went to bed.
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Lisa wasn’t intimidated. Through the small window, she could see that it was dark now and there was a smirr of light rain on the dirty pane; a wind had got up, blowing with a soft, groaning sigh. The Balmoral Guest House was in a quiet backstreet with only the occasional passer-by, whose footsteps echoed on the pavement.
There was an old, dog-eared copy of Hello! open on Lisa’s knee, but she hadn’t read a word of it. She couldn’t think of anything except what lay ahead and she was feeling sick.
Why hadn’t she just put her head in the sand, ignored the text message he’d sent her, hoping this would all go away? But she hadn’t, and anyway she knew that wouldn’t have solved anything. It was her only chance to get the answers she wanted.
Perhaps she should have insisted on meeting in a public place, but she wasn’t sure whether the police were watching her, even now. Or watching him.
And now the hands of her watch had crept round to the time agreed. There was no going back. Lisa got up, put the magazine back on the pile on the rickety coffee table, switched off the fire and the lights, and let herself quietly out of the front door.
She looked carefully up and down the silent street. There was no one to be seen, and all the curtains were drawn across the lit windows in the other houses. The wind ruffled her hair, and after the stuffy atmosphere inside, the cool, damp air made a clammy film on her cheeks. She shivered again.
If he’d passed the window, she would have seen him, but of course he could have come from the opposite direction and be waiting for her. She walked towards the side of the guest house, unable to stop herself from checking over her shoulder.
Under the yellow street lights, everything looked cold and unreal, like a stage set, the deserted street heavy with undefined significance. She turned away and, with a deep, deep breath, set off down the dark alleyway that ran between the houses to the miserable garden at the back.
14
Sunday, 23 July
Moira Wishart put the greasy frying pan into the sink and ran in hot water. When she squeezed the detergent bottle, it gave only a despairing groan, so muttering under her breath, she turned off the tap, fetched a key and went out of the back door to the shed where the stores were kept.
Lisa Stewart and the other resident were sitting at their separ-ate tables in the small dining room. They acknowledged their enforced intimacy with a polite, embarrassed greeting and were now eating their fatty bacon and frizzled egg, careful that their eyes should not meet.
When the screams came from the direction of the kitchen, the man was pouring out tea. He missed his cup and the hot liquid ran off the table and on to his knees; he jumped up, pulling the steaming cloth away from his legs. ‘Oh my God, whatever’s that?’
Lisa had jumped up too. She was very pale. ‘Mrs Wishart. Something’s happened.’
She was first through the door to the kitchen, the man hopping after her, still plucking at his trouser leg. Mrs Wishart came staggering in through the back door, wild-eyed and looking over her shoulder as she emitted scream after scream. Lisa went to her and took her by the arms, shaking her to try to stop the noise.
‘What’s wrong? Are you hurt?’
‘She must have seen something,’ the man said, going out into the yard as Moira at last quietened enough to gasp out, ‘Dead – out there – man.’
‘A man dead? Are you sure?’ Lisa asked.
‘Sure? Of course I’m sure!’ Seized with indignation, Moira found her voice. ‘He’s had his head beaten in with a bloody great crowbar! That’s why I’m sure.’
The man came back in, his face grey-green. ‘Don’t go out there,’ he warned. ‘It’s ghastly.’
Lisa ignored him. As the man poured himself a glass of water with a shaking hand, she walked out past him.
Beside the dismantled car, a body was lying. The head was a bloody mess of brain, bone and tissue; beside it lay a rusty-looking iron bar. The man’s eyes were shut, and on the other side of his head the short, spiky hair was caked with dried blood. He was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans, and on his feet was a pair of trainers with orange Velcro fastenings.
‘Here! What’s been going on?’ A man was leaning over the garden wall. ‘We heard screaming.’
Lisa, who had been standing impassively beside the body, looked up. ‘Someone’s been murdered. We’ll need to get the police.’
There wasn’t much progress to report at the morning briefing. There was plenty of housekeeping to be done, of course – routine crime didn’t conveniently stop for a major investigation – but when it came to the follow-up on the killings, Fleming couldn’t with any degree of honesty say that there was a clear line to follow. At the moment it was a waiting game while forensic tests were running, and the reports never came in as quickly as you hoped they would.
Lack of clarity was bad for morale. The teams always worked harder and more effectively when the dog could see the rabbit, which, Fleming reflected gloomily, was at the moment well concealed in the undergrowth.
Still, she talked positively about what they knew already, cautioned against making the sort of assumptions the media were already making about Douglas Jamieson, and tasked the various teams with searches and interviews. She was just bringing the meeting to an end, asking if there were questions and/or suggestions, when the message came through that she was needed elsewhere.
As she went out, Fleming saw glances being exchanged, heard the ripple of talk and the word ‘Breakthrough?’ Years of bitter experience had made her less optimistic: it was always wise to assume that an unexpected development was bad news until proved otherwise. She went off to see her uniform counterpart, Mike Wallace.
It was DS MacNee she called to her office. Fleming might be out of sympathy with him, but there was no doubt that he was her most effective officer, with a knack for picking up on things that weren’t in plain view – guessing what was on the other side of the hill, in Wellington’s phrase.
‘At least we know one thing – Jamieson didn’t kill this one,’ MacNee said morosely, as he came in.
‘Thanks, Tam. I had just managed to work that out.’ She wasn’t in a cheerful mood either. A third murder, no visible progress on the other two and a chief constable with doubts about her competence left her feeling as if she were dangling above an abyss, suspended by a rope whose fibres were being severed one at a time.
‘It’s landed on our plate, at least meantime, and the procurator fiscal’s satisfied that we can cope. Thank God Duncan Mackay made such a good recovery and got back to work – he’s always been a great supporter.’
‘So what’s the position?’
‘A man’s body has been found in the backyard of the guest house where Lisa Stewart is staying.’
MacNee’s ears almost visibly pricked up, and Fleming went on, ‘I know, I know, but it may be completely unrelated.’
‘It’s related,’ MacNee said. ‘I feel it in my bones.’
‘I’m not saying you’re wrong, but Mike Wallace talked to them while the scene of crime was being secured and no one admits to knowing him.’
‘Doesn’t prove anything,’ MacNee said stubbornly. ‘It’s the missing boyfriend. Bets?’
‘I’ve given up betting with you. You’re right too often, and if you’re not right, trying to get you to admit it and pay up is like trying to shove an eel into a jam jar. Let’s get along there and see what’s happening.’
Blue-and-white tape was draped round the entrance to the passage down the side of the Balmoral and a small crowd had gathered, though not, thankfully, the media as yet. The sergeant on duty logged their names and they went along to the garden at the back.
It had been efficiently set up by the crime-scene manager, and Fleming and MacNee stood on the concrete beside the cordon; at a nod from Fleming, an officer in white coveralls went forward to lift a covering off the body.
She looked at the horribly bloodied young face – so pathetically young! – with a faint prickle of recognition, but as she struggled to pin
down the memory, MacNee exclaimed, ‘I know who that is! You mind we saw him up at the campsite, and Campbell gave me his description yesterday – he gave false information when they took his statement. He’s Damien Gallagher – or more likely he isn’t.’
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Lisa Stewart said, with surprising calm. ‘You think I killed him. I didn’t. I’ve no idea who he is.’
It was the first time Fleming had spoken to her. She had seen her, of course, on the helicopter bringing them back from Rosscarron, but at the time her attention had been focused on Alick Buchan. What she had heard from MacNee and Kershaw had made her curious, and now she sat slightly behind Lisa on one of the worn chairs in the stale-smelling lounge, while MacNee dealt with the routine stuff.
Lisa’s naturally pale skin was a dirty grey and there were purple shadows under her eyes, but MacNee was finding her composure hard to shake. He went into some very aggressive questioning, but that didn’t seem to disturb her either.
Then he said, ‘I’m asking you again – did you know the man who was found dead in your cottage?’
She glanced at him scornfully. ‘No. I’ve never seen him before in my life. That’s the truth, and however often you ask the question, the answer’s going to be the same.’
He went on, ‘And do you know the man who’s lying dead in the garden right now?’ and Fleming realised what he was doing. It was an old trick – ask a question you believe will get a truthful answer, follow it up with one that may provoke a lie, and observe.
Lisa suddenly met his gaze very directly. Her voice hardened. ‘No. I didn’t.’
The difference was stark. The over-direct stare, the flat tone, the brief reply – they were the tell-tale signs of ineffective lying.
But whatever suggestion MacNee made – and they became blunter and blunter – her responses didn’t vary: she had no idea who the man was; she had never seen him before; last night she had read magazines in the lounge and then gone to bed. That was all. She remained entirely unemotional.
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