As he neared the cottage, a browsing doe looked up, but didn’t startle away. He’d never been this close to a fallow deer before, though he’d seen one or two red ones killed by cars – and a dead man, too, after a sudden encounter with one of them on a country road. They could do more damage than you might think.
The bothy was built of rough stone, with a corrugated-iron roof which extended over a lean-to for the miniature tractor. The window glass had long gone and been replaced by slats roughly nailed in place. The front door, its wood scoured to bare timber by the elements and rotted along the bottom, stood open on a barn-like room, and when MacNee stuck his head inside, the musty smell of animal feed greeted him. There was none of the usual farm disorder, though; in the dim light he could see sacks arranged with military precision and racks and cupboards for tools.
From the middle of the room rose a rough staircase with a solid modern door at the top. It had a lock, but when MacNee turned the handle it opened and he stepped into a loft running the full length of the building, with a small window at each end; these too had been boarded up. One of the slats had slipped and a ray of sunshine played on the dust motes stirred up by his entrance.
The roof beams came low down and only a strip in the centre gave reasonable headroom, but at one end a thick mattress with a sleeping bag and blankets was tucked under the eaves, with a camping Gaz lamp beside it. There was a very basic lavatory and basin behind a partition and at the other end a table with a camping stove on it as well as a couple of plates, a mug, a frying pan, kettle and a few utensils. There was a shelf with tins too, MacNee noticed. Beans with pork sausages, ham, corned beef; a comfortable enough set-up, if you’d to be here overnight for some reason – sick animal, or something, MacNee supposed vaguely.
And eggs. And butter. And a loaf of bread. MacNee frowned. You didn’t leave stuff like that for an emergency. Someone must be staying here.
He didn’t know enough about deer to know if they needed babysitting. Or maybe one was ill now. He shrugged and went back downstairs.
But as he did, it came to him that he wouldn’t really like to spend much time here. There was something uncomfortable about the atmosphere. Or maybe it was just the dim light and the draught of air coming through the window that was making him feel chilly.
Steve Donaldson, lounging against a car in the Smugglers Inn car park, threw away his cigarette and straightened up, looking at his watch and scowling.
‘For God’s sake, that’s after five to twelve! When’s the silly cow going to open up?’
He was a big, powerful man gone soft, with dark hair badly in need of trimming and a roll of fat round his thick neck. His fleshy mouth was permanently set in discontented lines and there were the marks of temper between his brows.
Derek Sorley, a puny figure beside him, said, ‘Scared of the polis. She’s only got a licence from twelve. Anyway, what do you think about what I said?’
Donaldson grunted. ‘Oh, I’ll go with anything that gets that bugger off the land I should be farming, by rights.’
It wasn’t what the lawyers had said – the lease agreement had lapsed, and Donaldson hadn’t been working the farm with his father – but Sorley knew better than to remind him.
‘If the plan works, I’m sure he’d be glad for you to take a lease afterwards.’
That only seemed to provoke further rancour. ‘Aye, and I’d be expected to be grateful to him. “Yes, sir, thank you sir!”’ He put on an affected voice, then added savagely, ‘And get back where you came from, you Sassenach bastard!’
Sorley, who now considered himself an authority on Celtic culture, interrupted him. ‘Ah now, that’s not quite right. The Gaelic sasunnach doesn’t mean English, it means lowlander, non-Gaelic speaker. To a highlander, you’d be one.’
The dangerous look on his companion’s face brought him up short. ‘Ah, well.’ He saw with some relief the pub door opening. ‘Look – there she is now. The other thing – I’ll come round this afternoon and we’ll talk about it.’
Donaldson grunted and moved on ahead. To his further annoyance he found he wasn’t first to the bar; the sergeant, MacNee, was sitting on a stool there already with a woman beside him.
‘That’s nice,’ he sneered. ‘One law for the polis and another for the rest of us, eh?’
MacNee held up his china mug in a mock salute. ‘Not really, pal. Just a wee fly cuppa.’
Georgia Stanley bristled. ‘I don’t serve alcohol to anyone before twelve o’clock. Since it’s that now, I’m ready to take your order. The usual?’
She pulled pints for the two men. Once they had carried them to a corner table she returned to the other end of the bar, pulling a face.
‘Sorry about that. Not two of my favourite people,’ she confessed, then as the door opened again and an elderly man appeared, groaned quietly. ‘And there’s another – Steve’s father. I always make sure I’ve got the counter between me and him.’
MacNee and Fleming turned to look. Donaldson senior looked to be in his seventies, shorter than his son but not unlike him in appearance. His sagging jowls had tufts of an old man’s weak, greying stubble after a careless shave and the leer he gave her from his watery eyes explained Georgia’s reaction.
‘Pint. Bring it over to me, pet, will you?’ he said with a smile revealing broken and discoloured teeth.
A little knot of people coming in gave her the excuse to say, ‘Hang on, Hugh. You’ll have to take it yourself – I’m going to be serving.’
There was a lot of interest in Innellan’s most sensational event since a summer visitor trying to launch his boat had beached his new Jaguar below the high tide mark two years ago, and the buzz of talk rose.
Fleming heard a woman say, ‘Well, it’s just a skeleton, isn’t it? Not like a body, or anything.’ Her friends laughed comfortably.
She was wrong. It was exactly the same as a body – a body whose identity had been ruthlessly stripped away, right down to the very flesh on its bones.
‘That’s it,’ Matt Lovatt said, closing the gate on the last of the stags. ‘Nothing more to do, except leave them to get worked up for the next couple of weeks. I can smell them already.’
And Christie could too, now she thought about it. There was a taint on the air, rank and pungent.
‘Smells a bit like goats,’ she said.
‘A bit – stick around! They really start to stink. Gets the hinds excited – sort of like guys putting on aftershave when they’re going out on the pull.’
‘Takes more than that to do it for me,’ Christie said saucily, which made Matt laugh as they headed towards the farmhouse. She loved making him laugh – he didn’t laugh often enough.
‘What else is there today?’ she asked. ‘Kerr’s gone into Kirkcudbright.’
‘I know. But there’s not much – concentrate to take out later and there’s some fencing needing attention. But take some time off – I don’t want to be a slave-driver.’
He gave her his lopsided smile – lopsided, because one side of his face didn’t work very well any more – which always went to her heart.
‘You’re not!’ she protested. ‘Are you going in to lunch now?’
The arrangement was there were packets of instant soup in the cupboard, cheese and ham in the fridge, and you took your own when it suited you, eating with whoever was there or taking it to your room, if you liked.
Christie cherished days when she and Matt coincided at the kitchen table alone. She still knew little about him as a person; he was very reserved, but gradually she was piecing together the tiny scraps of information he let fall. They couldn’t discuss the art films he liked and she’d never seen, or her favourite pop videos, but they could agree they could barely even look at a poster for a war movie.
Matt glanced at his watch. ‘I’ll probably take a break around twelve-thirty. I was up early today.’
Christie nodded, then said casually, ‘Did Lissa go with Kerr?’
‘No. She’s found some
crab apples – says she’s going to make jelly, but I wouldn’t depend on it for your “piece” at teatime.’
She’d be in the kitchen, then. Christie smiled. ‘That’s very brave. If you don’t need me I might pop round the pub for half an hour.’
‘Fine, fine. See you later,’ Matt said absently, and went on towards the house. In the pen in the yard, his dog was waiting, padding from foot to foot and swinging its tail. He let it out and it pranced round him as he went inside.
Feeling somehow deflated, Christie watched him go then walked down the farm road leading to Innellan.
It was quarter past twelve when Andy Macdonald reached the pub. He was alone; the other guys were still doggedly eating the fry-up they hoped would make them ready for the next beer.
He registered the surprising number of cars in the Smugglers’ car park without looking at them closely, but the police car drew his attention. When was the last time he’d seen one here? Probably when he and his delinquent mates had taken the underwear off Mrs Chalmers’s washing line and draped her impressively large knickers and bras over the gravestones round the old church. In keen anticipation of another local drama, Andy went in and headed for the bar.
‘What’s going on, then, Georgia? Anyone exciting under arrest?’
‘Andy Macdonald! What are you doing here?’
The sudden materialisation of Big Marge at his elbow threw him completely. ‘Er … boss! What … oh, I’m … I’m in a caravan with some mates, along there.’ He jerked his head, then noticed MacNee. ‘Hello, Tam. Well, er … this is a bit of a surprise.’
He was babbling. Georgia, whose sympathetic expression suggested that given a chance she’d have warned him, put a pint in his hand. He took a steadying sip, then said, ‘A stag weekend, that’s all. What’s happening?’
‘Bones,’ MacNee said in suitably sepulchral tones. ‘Old bones. And watch what you say – we’ve the press breathing down our necks.’ He raised his tea mug in an ironic salute to Tony Drummond, who had edged closer.
Fleming drew Macdonald into a corner and was briefing him in a low voice when Christie Jack came in. She looked round, and Macdonald said awkwardly, ‘Sorry, boss – someone looking for me.’
He went over. ‘Good to see you – I wasn’t sure you’d make it. A Beck’s?’
‘Thanks.’ She was looking puzzled. ‘What on earth’s going on today, with all the police and stuff?’
Macdonald was saying uncomfortably, ‘Well—’ just as MacNee hailed him.
‘Come on, Andy, introduce us to your friend.’
Macdonald turned with obvious reluctance. ‘Christie Jack. This is DS Tam MacNee and DI Fleming.’
Christie’s eyes flickered over their faces, then went to his. ‘How … how do you know them?’
Macdonald winced. ‘I’m in the force.’
‘Detective Sergeant,’ MacNee put in helpfully.
‘Oh,’ Christie said flatly.
Macdonald’s face fell. ‘Let’s go and sit down,’ he suggested. ‘There’s a table over by the window.’
As they moved away, Fleming said coldly, ‘You really are a sod, Tam. That wasn’t kind.’
MacNee conceded that. ‘No, but it was kinna fun. Should have told her at the start, shouldn’t he?’ He went on sententiously, ‘The honest heart that’s free frae a’ / Intended fraud or guile, / However Fortune kick the ba’ / Has ay some cause to smile.’ He did just that, favouring Fleming with a choice specimen.
‘A man who threw up on a journalist isn’t in a strong position to sneer at others,’ Fleming pointed out and saw with satisfaction the smug grin disappear.
Kerr Brodie drove into the car park near Kirkcudbright harbour, looked round, and swore. His instructions had been clear enough. Where the hell was the man?
It wasn’t a good day. As if things weren’t problematic enough already, this was seriously threatening to his plans. It was tempting to drive away and leave the stupid bugger to his fate – but a loose cannon careering round the deck could sink the ship.
Ill-temperedly he parked, got out and went into a bar with a window he could watch from, but he’d finished his sandwich and almost finished his pint when a lorry drew up and a painfully skinny young man climbed down from the cab with a bulging carrier bag in his hand, waving a thank you to the driver. As the lorry drove off, he looked round him with a sort of helpless misery.
Brodie drained his glass and hurried out. ‘What kept you?’ he snarled. ‘Get in the car. Over there.’
The youth’s face cleared. ‘Thanks, Sarge. I didn’t know what to do—’
‘Spare me.’ Brodie slammed the car door and took off almost before his passenger was inside. ‘Shut up, and take on board what I’m telling you, Crawford. It’s important. Get it wrong and you’re done.’
Crawford’s pinched face registered alarm as he listened to Brodie, but he didn’t speak until Brodie finished. Then he only said, ‘Right, Sarge.’
They drove on in silence. At last Crawford ventured, ‘Don’t suppose you’ve got a smoke, Sarge?’
Brodie gave him an exasperated look, then jerked his head towards the glovebox. ‘Tin in there.’
The young man rolled a joint with shaking hands, took a long draw and sat back, his hunched shoulders relaxing as the tension drained from his slight frame.
I have to go on. Now I’ve started, I mustn’t stop. Or all the pain, all this dreadful remembering – pointless.
There in the bedroom that was too quiet, I heard the morning sounds of movement. My mother’s voice, shrill, angry with my father. A familiar sound. Her footsteps, brisk, annoyed, clipping along the wooden floor of the landing. I hid under my covers, rigid with fear.
The door opened. ‘Come on, you two – time to get up.’ The voice, as always, with that slight hint of barely controlled irritation.
I sat up, rubbing my eyes as if I had been asleep.
‘Where’s your sister?’ she said. ‘Did she get up early?’
I remember I said, ‘I was asleep.’ I remember I got dressed as usual but remember, too, shivering as if I was cold though it was a sunny morning.
After that, things are blurred. I don’t know how long it was before the house was full of strangers and the questions started. I answered them all with tears and shakes of my head. After that I kept to my room, I think, but I can’t be sure of much in the hazy unreality of the days that followed.
It’s like a series of snapshots: lying in bed, in that same room, unable to sleep for terror, unable to tell anyone why; hearing my mother screaming at my father, screaming and screaming – but that was nothing new; a kitten, I think – did someone bring a kitten to cheer me up, or is that just a dream that came from an unfulfilled longing?
Then there came a night – I don’t know how much later. I had been asleep, I think, and I got up and went out of my room. The house was silent and - too difficult I can’t
CHAPTER FIVE
Georgia Stanley glanced out as a large van drew up in the street outside the Smugglers Inn.
‘That’s the telly again,’ she said. ‘They’ll be thinking they live here.’
‘Right. Tam, let’s move.’ DI Fleming put down her mug. ‘I want to see this Major Lovatt anyway and clear our lines before anyone else arrives on his property. Thanks, Georgia.’
MacNee followed her out of the back door, with a glance back at Macdonald and the girl, who seemed to be having a rather stilted conversation. Outside, PC Hendry was keen to assure the boss that boats were coming from Kirkcudbright and would stand by until required. The pathologist was expected in around half an hour.
‘That’s more like it, Constable,’ Fleming said. The lad looked relieved as she turned and headed towards the house Georgia had pointed out.
It was a brisk five-minute walk away, standing on a rise above the rough farm road which skirted the shore: a substantial, white-harled farmhouse in its own garden, a little apart from farm buildings and enclosures and with a small wood of mature broadl
eaves round about it. The original, more modest house had been extended with a wing at the back and spoke, if not of wealth, then certainly of solid prosperity. It was well maintained and the garden was laid out to grass and paving, to an effect undeniably more military than artistic. Near the house there was a spacious dog-run and kennel, surrounded by chain-link fencing and empty at the moment.
Matt Lovatt answered the door himself. Georgia had prepared them for his disfigurement, but even so the taut, shiny skin under his right eye distorting his cheek was shocking, perhaps partly because he would otherwise have been a good-looking man: tall, dark curling hair with a hint of a widow’s peak, very dark grey-blue eyes. Fleming found it hard to assess his age; he probably looked older than he was. He seemed surprised by their warrant cards, but waved them in without question.
The square hall was panelled in varnished pine and dark after the sunshine outside. Fleming, glancing round, encountered a pair of pale amber eyes, glowing in the light from the open door, and recoiled.
There in the shadows of the staircase was – surely not a wolf? But those eyes, slightly slanted, the ruff of silver-fawn fur, the huge feet …
‘My God!’ MacNee spoke first. ‘What the hell is that?’
Fleming sensed Lovatt stiffen and saw the creature’s ears prick. ‘My dog,’ he said flatly.
‘It’s not a dog, it’s a frigging wolf!’ MacNee exclaimed.
‘I don’t know what his father was. His mother was a German Shepherd of sorts.’
The Wild Animals Act, 1976 – the words hovered in the air. Fleming said, ‘A hybrid? Do you have a licence, sir?’
‘I have no reason to suppose the father was a wolf.’ Lovatt was defensive. ‘Look, Inspector, I was in Bosnia with the army. This stray came into the camp and produced pups, two of them, and she died along with the other one. I raised this fella myself.’
Evil for Evil Page 7
