Evil for Evil

by Aline Templeton

  Places like Innellan. And an island – an island, if Sorley was to be believed, whose owner didn’t like trespassers. Brodie and Lovatt, with the deer farm as a handy, money-laundering enterprise?

  The stuff could come straight in and go straight out again, but in MacNee’s experience there was usually leakage in the local area. Cutting out the middleman on at least a proportion of the supply was almost irresistible.

  Brodie had arrived less than three years ago, so it should show up around here. And MacNee knew the man who could tell him: PC Danny Tait, a handy man with the arrows, like MacNee himself, who’d be happy enough to have an unofficial chat with a pal.

  The police office at Borgue, just along the road from Innellan, was scheduled for closure next year – one of the tiny local stations run, basically, by a man and a boy. Tait was an idle beggar, putting in time till retirement, working office hours and no weekends, and there were plenty who envied him his quiet life. MacNee, though, looked with a curled lip at the pretty church and the pleasant cottages with their neat gardens. He’d likely have to put a doily under his coffee mug.

  Tait was, indeed, happy to be interrupted and produced coffee, though with no genteel extras. ‘So what are you after, Tam?’ he asked, the pleasantries over. ‘Not trouble on my patch, I hope?’ He was looking alarmed at the thought.

  ‘No, no, Danny,’ MacNee reassured him. ‘Just a general query, that’s all. Have you had more drugs problems around here over the last two or three years, say?’

  The man looked blank. ‘Not more than usual, as far as I know. It’s pretty quiet – and that’s the way I like it.’

  ‘Deals done in country pubs, maybe? And you’ve a lot of caravan sites. Anything with the holiday visitors in places like Innellan, say?’

  Tait seemed keener to hear about the dramatic events there than to address himself to the question, but MacNee brushed that aside. ‘Any figures on drug use in the area?’

  With some reluctance, Tait heaved his corpulent body out of his chair. ‘I don’t, offhand, but I know a man who does.’ He went over to open a door and stuck his head round it. ‘Pete – a word, if you don’t mind.’

  He came back and sat down again with a grunt. ‘FCA Pete Ogilvie – great guy. Does all the work around here, don’t you, Pete?’

  Ogilvie was a tall, thin young man with a shock of black hair and sharp, watchful eyes. ‘Certainly do.’

  That was probably right, MacNee thought, and from the way Ogilvie spoke he didn’t think it was as much of a joke as Tait did.

  Tait introduced him. ‘DS Tam MacNee. Looking for the stats about drug offences – got them at your fingertips, have you?’

  ‘Anything special you’re looking for?’ Ogilvie asked.

  ‘We’re interested to know if you’ve seen more drug-related offending in the last couple of years or so.’

  Ogilvie pulled a face, shaking his head. ‘Nothing out of the ordinary. That answer your question?’

  The tone was dismissive, which made MacNee stubborn. ‘Have you the figures? I’d be interested to see how they compare with the general pattern. And have you had any luck recently?’

  ‘Arrests, you mean?’ Ogilvie glanced at Tait, who shrugged.

  ‘You’ll remember better than I will, Pete.’

  ‘Two, maybe three,’ Ogilvie said. ‘The odd small pusher but no big guys in the area. Coming in from Glasgow as usual.’

  Was he stonewalling? He hadn’t answered MacNee’s question about the statistics. Tait had noticed the omission and was about to say something, but MacNee said smoothly, ‘Aye, right enough. Not a lot we can do about that unless we searched every car coming down the A77 and I can’t see the budget stretching. Anyway, appreciate your help, Pete.’

  ‘My pleasure.’ He disappeared back into his office.

  MacNee got up to leave. ‘Thanks for the coffee, Danny.’

  Escorting him to the door, Tait said wistfully, ‘Don’t suppose you’re going to give me the low-down on the Cave Man Mystery, are you?’

  ‘Cave Man Mystery?’ MacNee was revolted. ‘Where did that come from?’

  ‘Our local reporter, Tony Drummond. The Sun’s taken it up.’

  ‘Typical!’ MacNee’s view of Drummond was inevitably jaundiced. ‘Well, forensics won’t be in a hurry and it’ll go pretty quiet till then.’

  He went back to his car very thoughtful. He was opening the door as a white van pulled up and a weaselly-looking man with a straggly ponytail got out. MacNee changed his mind, and shut it again. ‘Good morning, Mr Sorley. Got a problem?’

  Sorley gave him a tight smile. ‘Just making a complaint.’

  ‘Anything I can help you with?’

  ‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘I want this logged officially. Lovatt’s negligence over dangerous animals is endangering our community.’

  ‘Dangerous animals? His dog?’

  ‘His wolf, you mean. Oh, that too. But after the stag attack last night it’s time the authorities took action.’

  It was the first MacNee had heard of it, but he wasn’t going to admit that. ‘Right, right. I won’t detain you, then.’

  He drove off, frowning. Had Drummond found a story to keep the pot boiling? He was tempted to drive on to Innellan and find out, but Macdonald and Campbell would be there already and more police would generate more interest. In any case, MacNee was uncharacteristically keen to get back to his desk. The stats that Ogilvie was reluctant to disclose should be on record at HQ and it would be easy to compare the Borgue drugs statistics with what they had been four years ago, before Kerr arrived in the district. He was ready to bet something would show up.

  Kerr Brodie’s mobile rang as he was paying for the four padlocks in the ironmonger’s in Kirkcudbright. ‘Brodie. Yes?’ he said, then listened to the brief message. ‘Half an hour, by the harbour. Right.’

  He took the receipt from the assistant and went out with an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t like the sound of that; didn’t like it at all.

  Pete Ogilvie went through to the main office where PC Tait was working on the computer – at least he was doing something, though his guilty movement suggested it was more likely solitaire than an official document.

  ‘OK if I take an hour out, Danny? I’ve had toothache and the dentist’s got a cancellation.’

  ‘Sure, sure,’ Tait said. ‘No need to hurry back – you’ll be feeling a bit groggy. See you in the afternoon.’

  Whenever he left, Tait switched off the computer, switched on the answerphone and locked up. He’d logged Sorley’s complaint, but it wasn’t exactly urgent. If anyone wanted him they could push the bell, which rang in his house. There was golf on the telly and a beer in the fridge.

  ‘I think we’d better head for Lovatt’s Farm first,’ Macdonald said.

  Campbell was driving; Macdonald had the report on the stag incident as well as Fleming’s notes and had been filling him in on it as they drove to Innellan.

  ‘Four people there,’ he went on. ‘Matt and Melissa Lovatt, Kerr Brodie, Christie Jack. I’d like to talk to her as soon as possible.’

  ‘Aye, MacNee told me.’ Campbell was apparently concentrating on the narrow road.

  Macdonald flushed. ‘Don’t know what he told you but it’s a load of bollocks anyway,’ he said stiffly. ‘We need to establish she wasn’t responsible before we interview anyone else, and then we can ask about noises from the island. Right?’ He directed a challenging look at Campbell but got no response.

  ‘The other interviews – straightforward enough,’ he went on. ‘The Donaldsons, Sorley – though presumably he works? May be hard to get hold of.’

  They were reaching Innellan now. ‘Turning on the right, just beyond the pub,’ Macdonald directed. ‘We’d better drop in to the Smugglers to see my friend Georgia afterwards. She’ll tell us who to interview to see if there’s a tradition about ghosts on the island.’

  ‘Does she do pies?’ Campbell’s face brightened.

  Macd
onald shook his head. ‘Crisps, sandwich, maybe, if we can sweet-talk her.’

  ‘Is there another pub?’

  ‘What’s wrong with a sandwich? How come you’re so obsessed with junk food?’

  ‘Wife’s into healthy eating. Up here?’ Campbell gestured towards the short drive up to the farmhouse.

  ‘Mmm. Try driving on a bit. If we want to see Christie first, she’s likely out around the farm.’

  They bumped along the badly made road round the bay. The tide was almost at the full, the sea a sullen grey and the sun a silver ball hazed over with cloud, struggling to break through but without success.

  ‘There she is!’ Macdonald said, pointing to a field beyond a bank of whin and bracken.

  Christie Jack was standing beside a drystone dyke with a fallen section, turning a large stone in her hands and frowning, like someone with a jigsaw piece that doesn’t seem to fit anywhere. She turned her head at the sound of the car, and when it stopped by the gate into the field, put down the stone and came slowly towards them.

  Macdonald reached her first. Their greeting was constrained, and when Campbell arrived Christie eyed him unsmilingly. She was heavy-eyed and pale; as she waited for their questions she squared her shoulders and tilted her chin, an attempt at confidence that somehow only made her look more forlorn. Macdonald fought down a surge of protective tenderness; there was a job to do.

  ‘Can we have a few minutes of your time? Just one or two questions.’ He smiled.

  She didn’t. ‘I don’t have an alternative, do I? What do you want to know?’

  ‘I don’t need to go over the information you’ve given already,’ Macdonald said. ‘But last night—’

  She interrupted him. ‘You’re going to say, am I sure I shut the gate properly. Yes, I am. I’m really, really sure. I know I did. Someone else let the stag out deliberately.’

  ‘Who?’ Campbell, as usual, was brief and to the point.

  ‘I don’t know. That’s your job, isn’t it?’ Her tone was hostile.

  ‘Of course,’ Macdonald said soothingly. ‘The local police will be dealing with that.’

  ‘Will they? Haven’t seen them checking for footprints, and it rained during the night so there’s probably no point now. But if they’re going to check fingerprints I’m happy to have mine taken for elimination.’

  The chances that further action would be taken, when the only injury had been to a woman who said it was trivial and she didn’t want matters taken further, were zero. Macdonald said awkwardly, ‘I’m sure they have it in hand,’ earning himself a look of contempt. He went on hastily, ‘I gather you had no direct knowledge of what happened?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Any ideas?’

  ‘Not much point in playing guessing games, is there?’

  He struggled on. ‘Do you know Hugh and Steve Donaldson? Or Derek Sorley?’

  ‘I know who they are.’

  ‘Did you know there was bad feeling between them and the Lovatts?’

  ‘Yes, I heard that. Kerr Brodie told me there’d been nasty stuff went on.’

  At last she had volunteered something to follow up. ‘So do you think they were behind this?’

  Christie shrugged. ‘Guessing games, like I said. I told the police they’d come into the pub laughing not long before we heard the stag was out.’

  Campbell said, ‘But you’re still guessing? Someone else in the frame too?’

  ‘Not necessarily. Don’t see the point, that’s all.’ But she clearly had another idea, something she didn’t want to say.

  Recognising her discomfort, Macdonald couldn’t bring himself to make it worse. What was she doing to him? ‘Fine, fine,’ he said, and saw his colleague giving him a sharp look. So? If Campbell was wanting probing done, he could try doing it himself for a change.

  Macdonald went on, ‘There’s something else – a rather odd question. Have you ever heard strange noises coming from the island – screams, wailing, that sort of thing?’

  Christie stared at him. ‘Screams and wailing? What on earth’s that about?’

  ‘I know, I know. Sounds crazy.’ He smiled at her again, hoping she might smile back, but she still resisted. ‘The thing is, we have a report that a month or two ago someone heard noises like that coming from the island.’

  Her scepticism was obvious. ‘I certainly haven’t. I—’ Then she stopped. Her hand went to her mouth and her face turned red.

  Macdonald and Campbell exchanged glances.

  ‘Changed your mind?’ Campbell said.

  ‘Not … not exactly. But – well, if it was a couple of months ago it could have been me.’

  ‘You?’ Macdonald was startled.

  ‘It was just after I came here. I was … I was just a total mess. If it hadn’t been for Matt Lovatt I don’t know where I’d be now.’

  Macdonald noticed jealously that her mouth softened as she said his name.

  ‘He told Kerr to give me the key for the bothy on the island with the instruction to stay till I was ready to come back. I … I sort of went mad. I threw rocks in the sea and yes, I suppose I cried and yelled. It was beautiful weather and on a still night sound does carry across water.’ She looked from one to the other defiantly. ‘OK, so it sounds crazy, but it worked. The island’s a healing place.’

  Macdonald smiled. ‘I’m glad it worked for you. Perhaps you need a rest cure there again, after all this.’

  He got the briefest flicker of a smile, before her face darkened again. ‘If stuff like last night’s going to happen, I’m not leaving Matt to face it alone.’

  With a heavy heart, Macdonald thanked her. Christie turned to go, then paused. ‘You … you won’t have to tell everyone, will you? I’d feel a right plonker.’

  Macdonald reassured her. She nodded, then headed back to her challenging task. As they went back to the car, Macdonald said defensively, ‘I know you thought I should have pushed her more. But Big Marge said it was just a matter of ticking the boxes for the local press.’

  Campbell ignored that. Instead, he said, ‘Alone, eh? And where does that leave Mrs Matt?’

  Catriona Fleming stirred in her sleep, groaned, and flung an arm across her eyes against the bright light. God, she felt terrible!

  Without lifting her head from her pillow, she half-opened her eyes. The bed opposite was empty; Lily must have got up early and gone out. Or not come back at all – that was more likely.

  Cat couldn’t remember much about last night. Sunday had passed in a sort of blur, hanging out with Lily’s chums, and she vaguely remembered coming back with some guy from the residence, giggling and talking, and someone yelling at them to shut up, making them laugh even more. It had been very late, and now she looked she hadn’t even undressed, just collapsed on to her bed.

  Not good. Naughty. Must do better. What on earth time was it? She’d better get a move on – she’d registration at ten, a meeting with her tutor at eleven and the introductory lecture at twelve.

  Cat sat up and blinked at the clock on her bedside table. It was saying half past twelve – it must have stopped. But it hadn’t stopped; the second hand was sweeping jerkily round the face. It must have gone haywire! The alarm was set for eight-thirty. She grabbed it up.

  It wasn’t set. She’d been so wasted last night that she hadn’t started it, and now it was half past twelve and she’d missed everything, all the official stuff. What would happen? They wouldn’t throw her out, right away, would they? She’d have to ask Will—

  She’d forgotten. Her misery overcame her like a great wave and she fell back on her bed again, sobbing. What was the point? He’d been key to her dream and now he’d gone it was turning into a nightmare.

  She should go to see her tutor now and apologise. But that would be a great big black mark before she even started, and she’d probably be yelled at. Cat couldn’t face that, not the way she was feeling at the moment. Her clothes smelt disgusting and there were mascara smears on her clean sheets. She ought to strip the
m off, take them down to be washed – but later. She couldn’t face the hassle right now.

  Once she’d showered and changed, she’d go back to the pub where Lily and her friends hung out. Someone there would know what she should do.

  There was, Macdonald thought, something surreal about this whole set-up: the thin little woman with her great tragic eyes who might once have been chocolate-box pretty, the man who would be handsome apart from his ravaged face, the animal that should have been lurking in the shadows of some Russian forest, assembled in this old-fashioned sitting room with faded wallpaper and worn loose covers on the chairs. Oh, and with two police officers asking them about ghost stories.

  They’d taken that question first this time. Matt Lovatt had looked blank; Melissa Lovatt had said the island was always haunted for her by her dead child.

  ‘And certainly I cry there,’ she said, her soft mouth trembling. ‘I cry a lot, but quietly, naturally. No one could possibly hear me. And of course my husband never does. He hardly goes up to the grave at all, do you, Matt?’ There was an interesting hardening of the voice as she said that.

  Lovatt didn’t respond, only saying, ‘There are old Norse graves there so there could be a local tradition – I wouldn’t know. I never came here before my grandmother died and we don’t mix much with the locals.’

  Macdonald nodded. ‘I see. That brings me to the incident last night. We’ve spoken to Miss Jack, and she says she shut the gate properly. What’s your opinion of her?’ The proper, professional question would concern her reliability, but he couldn’t resist phrasing it in a way that might reveal whether Lovatt’s feelings reflected Christie’s.

  ‘If we were in action in a tight spot, I’d trust her with my life, without hesitation. The stress disorder was a tragedy for her. She’s the best sort of soldier – courageous, loyal, honest, a good comrade. If she says she shut the gate, she did.’

  Macdonald felt as if a load had been lifted. Lovatt’s assessment was anything but lover-like – yet Lissa gave a little sigh and raised her eyes to the ceiling.