‘Hard to say. You know how the phones were cut off at Rosscarron?’
‘Oh, I remember, Tam. Believe me, I remember,’ Fleming said with feeling.
‘The linesman’s report just came in. The phone line for the area goes to Rosscarron House first, right? And someone cut it. It hadn’t broken.’
‘We knew that. Poor Jamieson, presumably, as part of his revenge for his ruined life.’
‘We thought that, aye. Seems we were wrong,’ MacNee said with dramatic satisfaction.
‘I don’t need entertainment, just information,’ Fleming said tartly. ‘Take the rabbit out of the hat before it escapes.’
‘The line was cut at Rosscarron House. Not just at, but where it could be reached from a window. So unless someone went and put up a ladder against the house without anyone noticing, it was an inside job. And we know that Jamieson didn’t have a ladder.’
Fleming’s brain was racing. ‘So someone in that house wanted to cut off the phone and the Internet. Now why would they do that? To isolate them from the rest of the world? But they couldn’t have known the bridge would be sabotaged. The struts were definitely sawn through with Jamieson’s chainsaw.’
‘Aye.’ MacNee scowled in concentration. ‘So was that just a wee bonus for them?’
‘Or didn’t it matter? What mattered was the phone being out. Was there something on the Internet that Crozier shouldn’t see, for instance?’
‘Something to do with that business no one wants to talk about? Stinks like a Glasgow close on a Saturday night.’
Fleming, he thought, looked uncomfortable. ‘I have a nasty feeling that it does. But I can’t see how to get at it.’
‘We’ve questions we’re needing to ask them, anyway. Here – say you and me go out there tomorrow?’ MacNee looked at her hopefully and she laughed.
‘OK, Tam. Hepburn’s coming in first thing. I’ll sit in on that from next door, then I’ll commute the desk sentence. You’re only out on licence, mind you.’
‘Rowantrees Hotel,’ Susan Telford said into the phone. ‘Can I help you?’
‘Could you put me through to Lisa Stewart, please?’
It was quite a coarse voice; some instinct made her hesitate. ‘Who’s speaking, please?’
‘Just a friend of hers.’
That settled it. ‘I’m afraid we don’t have anyone of that name staying here. There’s a place called the Rowans in Kirkcudbright – you could try there.’
There was a pause; then he said lightly, ‘Oh, never mind. I must have made a mistake.’ He rang off before she could put the phone down.
Susan went through to the lounge, where Jan Forbes was alone, sitting by the window again, knitting. She looked up when her friend came in.
‘That’s the elephant finished,’ she said, holding up her handiwork. ‘Isn’t he a handsome fellow?’ Then, seeing the look on Susan’s face, she said, ‘Oh dear! Something’s happened?’
‘I think so. We were expecting the press to catch up with poor Lisa, and I think they have. There was a man on the phone asking if she was staying here. Of course I said no, but I hesitated at first and I’m not sure I convinced him. I’m not a very good liar.’
‘It was bound to happen,’ Jan said. ‘If they’re on to her, they won’t stop till they find her.’
‘Should we warn her, do you think?’
Jan considered that. ‘Do you know, I think we should leave it for the moment. She’s in a very fragile state, and she has us to protect her. If they turn up here, you can always turn them away.’
Susan gave her a cynical look. ‘And you expect they’ll go? Still, the doctor’s given her something to make her sleep and she’ll be feeling stronger tomorrow, poor lamb.’
The man in the silver Ford Focus, parked in a side street in Kirkluce, switched off his mobile with a small, grim smile of satisfaction. He looked at his watch. Seven o’clock – time for a pie and a pint. Or a half-pint, anyway, since he never ran the risk of being caught by the breathalyser.
He chose one of the shabbier pubs, which was already busy. On this sort of job you never wanted to draw attention to yourself. He had to wait a few minutes at the bar to get his drink, then carried it and the wooden number for his order over to a table away from the window. You never knew who might be passing in the street.
He didn’t see a slightly built man with longish brown hair and a row of steel earrings shrink back into the further corner of the bar with an expression of shock, or notice him slip out of the pub, attaching himself to a noisy group who had just got up to leave.
He didn’t know that outside, tucked out of sight in an alleyway, the man was making a phone call with shaking hands.
20
Tuesday, 25 July
It was drizzling again this morning. When Marjory Fleming had set out to feed her hens, it hadn’t looked heavy enough to warrant a jacket and hood, but it was the soft, wetting stuff that soaks you through almost unnoticed. As she came back into the farmhouse kitchen carrying a bowl of eggs, she shook herself like a dog.
‘I should have taken the shampoo out with me instead of washing my hair in the shower,’ she complained.
Bill, just finishing his mug of tea, smiled. ‘I was out earlier, but I was smart enough to put on a jacket, so I was all right, wasn’t I, Meg?’
The collie, lying by the Aga, twitched her tail in response.
Marjory pulled a face. ‘Smug isn’t pretty, is it, Meg? We may both have got soaked but we think it’s pretty pathetic of you to need a jacket for a wee bit rain like that.’
Bill smiled again, then rinsed out his mug and set it upside down on the draining board. ‘I don’t care what she says, Meg – only a fool doesn’t know how to be comfortable.
‘I’m just off, then. You’ll be late again tonight, I suppose?’
‘Probably. Have a good day.’
As the door shut behind her husband and Meg, Marjory sighed. That had been the familiar sort of light-hearted exchange, but she’d noticed that increasingly they were involving the dog in their conversations, almost as if it was safer to be in company than alone. They were both being very civilised, but she didn’t want to have to be civilised. She wanted the old natural, loving relationship back, which had seemed so easy that she’d never given much thought to how it was achieved. If Joss Hepburn carried out his threat, if the newspapers represented her youthful follies in the ugliest possible way – as they would – might the damage it caused to her career be the least of her problems? The ringing of her mobile was a welcome relief from her unhappy thoughts.
It was John Purves. She listened for a moment, her brow furrowed. ‘What on earth for?’ Then she said, ‘Right. I have to monitor an interview first, but I can clear time after that.’
She ran upstairs. Catriona, in an early-morning trance, was on her way to the bathroom.
‘Don’t forget to tell Cammie to change his sheets today, will you?’ her mother said. ‘I’m going in now. I’ll probably be late back.’
‘How unusual!’ Cat yawned. ‘Remind me who you are again?’
Ignoring her daughter’s sarcasm, Fleming went into her bedroom and opened her wardrobe door. What on earth would a woman who ran a builder’s yard wear when she was checking out an applicant for casual labour?
Debbie had been very sleepy this morning too. Kim Kershaw’s mind was on her daughter as she drove towards work in Kirkluce from Newton Stewart. She had again looked in on her way to work and wakened her with a kiss, but Debbie’s eyes had opened only briefly, then closed again.
It was early, admittedly, since Kershaw was on a seven-to-three shift, and the carer said she’d had another restless night so it wasn’t surprising Debbie wanted a lie-in. And after the bad turn she’d had, it wasn’t surprising either that she was taking some time to recover, but as ever fear for the child’s health gripped Kershaw like an iron hand twisting her inside.
She couldn’t afford to think about it. There was a busy day ahead – a challenging day to
o.
There’d been a lot of gossip among the lads – fairly ribald, some of it – about Big Marge’s relationship with a pop star like Joshua, of all people. Kershaw wasn’t a reader of celeb magazines herself, but according to those who were, he certainly wasn’t the kind of guy you’d take home to meet the chief constable. Still pretty fit, though, even at his advanced age; she’d found herself looking at the boss with new respect.
Fleming was going to be watching the interview from the room next to the main interview room, with its one-way glass panel. It made Kershaw a little uneasy; she’d had superior officers do that in the past to check up on her technique, sometimes without telling her. Fleming had been open about it, though, and said she’d prompt any questions that occurred to her.
Kershaw would have said Big Marge wasn’t lacking in courage, but rather than checking on her subordinates, could she be ducking out of doing the interview herself? Her reaction to Tam MacNee’s extraordinary breach of procedure in springing Joss Hepburn on her had resulted in MacNee sitting in front of a computer terminal in the CID room all day, acting like a Rottweiller with a migraine if anyone spoke to him.
Whatever you said about the job, it wasn’t dull. And this morning looked like being even more interesting than usual.
MacNee was early today too. He came into the CID room with a spring in his step. There was nothing like a day stuck at a desk to make you appreciate getting out to do the hands-on job that was real policework to him. The rest of the stuff inflicted on them was just fantoosh – all the unnecessary frills and bows of form-filling and writing logs and going on diversity courses. At the thought of the last, he gave a small, involuntary shudder. Lucky Big Marge hadn’t thought of that or he’d be marked down for one right now.
Fleming, unusually, was there talking to Ewan Campbell. She turned when she saw him.
‘Morning, Tam. I was hoping you’d be in early. Change of plan – I’ve got another commitment today.’
MacNee’s face fell. His ‘Right, boss’ was very flat.
Fleming smiled. ‘Oh, don’t panic. I want you to go anyway, just on your own. Do a spot of sniffing around at Rosscarron House and see what you think.
‘I was so impressed with what you came up with when you went through all the reports that I’m asking Andy Mac to do a trawl this morning, but he’ll be available if you need back-up. Ewan, I’ll see you and Kim after the briefing to discuss the Hepburn interview. OK?’
MacNee felt a faint pang of jealousy. At least he was free to do what he did best, but that was one he’d have liked to be in on. He was wondering, too, what it was Fleming was doing later that took precedence over driving on the inquiry. She’d normally say, ‘A meeting,’ or, ‘A conference,’ often pulling a face about the hoops she had to jump through. But ‘A commitment’?
His nose told him there was something going on. She wasn’t wearing one of her usual smart trouser suits this morning, and the jeans, casual shirt and zip jacket suggested she wouldn’t be spending time in the office. He hated being out of the loop, but he’d only himself to blame. And he hated that too.
Lisa Stewart woke with a start and looked at her watch.
It was just after seven o’clock. She was relieved, having feared it might be later, but then it had only been nine o’clock when sleep overcame her last night, and this morning she definitely felt more alert and refreshed. If she’d had bad dreams, Lisa couldn’t remember them – or perhaps the insight Jan Forbes had given her had exorcised her demons.
But the note she had left for Jan was uppermost in her mind. Without even waiting to dress, she went out in her pyjamas and crept down the stairs.
There was no one about, but the note had gone. With a hollow feeling inside, she returned to her room. She told herself firmly that it didn’t matter; she was going to disappear anyway, but now it was a matter of real urgency.
She had three-quarters of an hour to catch the early bus. Breakfast didn’t start until eight and before that there would only be staff busy setting up. By the time anyone got round to missing her, Lisa would be long gone.
After a speedy shower, she crammed her few belongings into her bag and, doing a rough calculation, left some money on the bedside table. She shut the door quietly as she left the room. There were faint sounds from behind the closed doors in the corridor, but the hall below was empty.
Downstairs, Lisa could hear voices and the clatter of crockery from the breakfast room, but its window was towards the side of the house. Once she was out of the front door, she should be able to reach the road unseen.
It was a depressing day. The air was thick with water vapour, and curtains of silvery rain came sweeping across a grey, sullen sea. There was no view at all now, and even the bright gold of the gorse seemed dulled in the wet, its prickly leaves mud-splashed from the passing cars.
As she walked out between the guardian rowans, Lisa felt a twinge of fear. She was totally on her own now. Jan, the kindly Telfords – they had given her a sense of safety and she was putting herself beyond any help they could give her.
But it wasn’t really safety. They wouldn’t protect her from persecution by the police or the press once they had read her note. She had to vanish.
Lisa pulled up the hood of her jacket and began her trudge along the verge. She couldn’t rely on the bus driver being the obliging Doddie who had stopped for her outside the hotel; she had, according to what Susan Telford said when she arrived, a mile to go to the official bus-stop.
It was a quiet road, but it wasn’t pleasant walking. A car appeared round the corner ahead just as one came up behind her, a silver Ford Focus that was so close to her it actually had to swerve, and even then a fine spray of mud soiled her jeans. She glanced down irritably, but she didn’t bother to brush it off. She’d still quite a bit to walk and no doubt other cars would do the same.
When Lisa reached the bus-stop, she was reassured to see that a small queue had formed already. Sometimes timetables were out of date, but it looked as if hers had been right.
Everyone looked depressed this morning, standing in silent stoicism under the rain. Lisa joined them, and a few minutes later, just as the bus appeared, a man came up to stand behind her. She noticed idly that his jacket and his hair, very dark and growing in a deep widow’s peak on his forehead, looked surprisingly dry. He must live quite close by.
Lisa couldn’t remember where the bus ended up. ‘The terminus,’ she said.
‘Newton Stewart?’ the driver asked, and she nodded, paid and found a seat.
The man who had got on behind her sat down at the front of the bus. He got off again at the next stop.
Newton Stewart. From there, presumably, she could get a bus to Dumfries, then a train to Glasgow. She could even go to earth there for a bit, if the police came after her when they found she’d gone. She was at ease with big cities. No one was interested in strangers, and anyway the only photos of her showed her with distinctive red hair. She’d change her name again too, then stay quietly somewhere till the fuss died down and she could take a train back to London.
Rosie turned away from her parents’ bedroom window where she had been pressing her nose to the glass. She’d waved and waved, but the lady hadn’t paid any attention.
‘Rosie, come on,’ her mother said in harassed tones. ‘We’re going down to breakfast and we’re waiting for you.’
‘Lady gone,’ Rosie said sadly, but no one was listening.
How often did people say, ‘I’d love to be a fly on the wall’? Here, behind the one-way glass, DI Fleming was in that privileged pos-ition as DCs Kershaw and Campbell ushered Joss Hepburn into the interview room.
Spying, you could call it. Fleming was scrupulous about informing her officers when she was to be there, but even so she still always felt a prickle of discomfort. It was definitely useful, though: without the distraction of directing the interview, she could observe its subject minutely for body language, fleeting facial expressions and what gamblers call ‘te
lls’ – unconscious gestures showing stress. You could miss a lot when you had to concentrate on finding a killer question to ask.
Yes, detachment was useful. And of course Fleming could still have an input: Kershaw was wearing a discreet earpiece.
Hepburn noticed it immediately. Fleming saw his fractional stillness; then his eyes travelled to the blank panel on the wall opposite him. He gave a little nod and a slight, sardonic smile, as if he were looking through it straight into her eyes.
Fleming took an involuntary step backwards. He couldn’t see her, of course he couldn’t, but in some uncanny way he knew she was there. It shook her for a moment.
Duh! He’d really got her spooked. Of course he would guess. He was a man used to studios and to every trick of filming and production: one-way glass would hardly be an unfamiliar concept. Fleming narrowed her eyes and assessed him for signs of tension.
She couldn’t see any. With that half-smile still lingering on his face, he was sitting in a relaxed position, elbows on the arms of his chair, hands hanging loose. There were no jerky movements, no tiny twitches, no protective crossing of his arms. He watched in calm silence as Campbell set up the tape.
Kershaw, on the other hand, was nervous, shuffling her papers and shifting in her seat, as if she were feeling Fleming’s eyes on the back of her neck. Once, she even half turned, then turned back again, as if she’d had to fight an impulse to look over her shoulder.
Campbell returned to his seat and completed the formalities in his usual unruffled way.
‘Mr Hepburn,’ Kershaw began, ‘you made a statement that you, the Ryans and Mr Pilapil were all together all evening on Saturday night.’
Hepburn half closed his eyes and gave a bored sigh. ‘Oh dear. Yes, I guess I did.’
‘So it wasn’t true? Are you now withdrawing that statement?’
‘We-ell . . . not exactly withdrawing. Kind of modifying, you could say.’
Fleming couldn’t see Kershaw raising her eyebrows, but she heard it in her voice. ‘Modifying?’
Cradle to Grave Page 30
