Evil for Evil

by Aline Templeton

  Time to move on. ‘You inherited the farm from your grandmother, right?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘Is your father dead?’

  Her bluntness was calculated, and Lovatt turned his head sharply. ‘I wouldn’t know,’ he said stiffly. ‘I haven’t heard from him since I was ten years old, after he walked out on my mother and me.’

  ‘I see.’

  They had reached a little bay. The dog had brought back the stick then raced off again as Lovatt threw it down on to the beach. Hepburn followed the dog, the fine sand powdery under her feet. The sun was starting to break through the clouds, flicking the wave tops with tiny shafts of light. She bent down to pick up a smooth stone and sent it skipping over the water.

  ‘What about the bairn’s part?’ she asked casually, over her shoulder.

  ‘The … the bairn’s part?’

  ‘Oh, you know. The lawyer must have explained it to you. In Scots law, the deceased’s offspring have a right to a third of the moveable property. Was that paid out to your father at the time you inherited?’

  Hepburn spoke with the easy authority of one who had been totally ignorant until the question arose with the death of her own father last year. Lovatt, she was fairly sure, would have heard of it in the same way.

  ‘Oh – oh yes,’ Lovatt said vaguely. ‘I don’t know – the lawyers looked after all that. There was no claim made, as far as I know.’

  ‘So your father may be dead?’

  ‘He may be. Like I said, I really wouldn’t know. I can tell you that my mother died some time ago. Look, Constable, I can’t quite see the relevance of all this, and as you can imagine I’ve got a hell of a lot to do. Do you mind if I go and do it?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Hepburn agreed smoothly. ‘Thanks for your patience. Just one last thing – do you know anyone called Andrew Smith?’

  The dog, waving the stick, was prancing in front of Lovatt, but he didn’t seem to notice. The side of his face that was towards Hepburn was the side which could not register emotion of any kind, but the man stood stock-still for a second. Then he bent to pick up the stick and throw it again.

  ‘Andrew Smith? There was a squaddie of that name in my regiment – oh, and I think Smith the butcher in Kirkcudbright is called Andrew. Is that who you mean?’

  ‘Are they both still alive?’

  This time Lovatt’s puzzlement was clear. ‘Yes, of course – at least as far as I know.’

  ‘Then neither of them is the Andrew Smith who died in the cave on your island.’

  ‘Wh–what?’ Lovatt’s face, already pale, went white on the good side.

  ‘I think you heard. The skeleton in the cave. Made a connection?’

  But the man was a soldier, trained to deal with sudden emergencies and the dog was a useful prop. ‘There you are, Mika,’ Lovatt said as he threw the stick again. His voice was controlled as he said, ‘No, I’m afraid not. It’s just that it seems so much more personal when you have a name to attach to that particular horror. Have you been able to find out anything else about him?’

  It wasn’t hard evidence, Hepburn thought as she drove back to Kirkluce, but she knew what she’d seen.

  Swish! The automatic doors at the entrance to the hospital opened for the umpteenth time, admitting a blast of cold air. Melissa Lovatt, sitting on one of the upholstered benches in the reception area, gave it a resentful look and shivered.

  She didn’t have a coat. Matt, of course, hadn’t thought to bring one yesterday. At least he’d brought her mobile, along with a bundle of what looked like charity shop reject clothes but had apparently been lent by Georgia, since her own were still in the house. She wouldn’t want to wear them anyway, all saturated with smoke; they’d have to be laundered or, better still, thrown away. Matt would have to take her to Kirkcudbright to get replacements today, however busy he might claim to be.

  Everything was far too big, of course. The sandals Georgia had sent were flapping on her feet, the bulky sweater swamped her slight frame and she’d had to roll up the legs of the trousers. It was lucky Georgia had thought to send a belt, but even with it fastened in the last hole Lissa still had to clutch them when she was walking to prevent them slipping down. They certainly weren’t thick enough to keep her warm.

  But Lissa was feeling a chill which had nothing to do with the draughty hall. She had almost died, and no one – no one at all – seemed to care.

  When the ward sister arrived to tell Lissa that she was being discharged immediately, she had been quite abrupt. No professional concern there: she’d almost hustled her now former patient into her clothes and they had even begun stripping the bed before she was out of the room.

  And then Lissa had phoned Kerr. She’d only done it because the romantic hero Matt whom Kerr had described wasn’t the Matt who had arrived at her bedside yesterday, icily polite in the face of her emotional appeal and interested only in forcing her to say that she’d been so doped that she hadn’t heard his little friend Christie’s warning.

  She wasn’t going to admit it, though. In any case, she’d always slept so lightly that even after a sleeping pill she wouldn’t have slept through someone banging on the door – of course she wouldn’t! But you couldn’t expect everyone to understand that, and if they were sceptical, Christie would literally get away with murder – well, attempted murder, anyway.

  The nice young policewoman who came to talk to her had been very sympathetic, but even she had gone on about needing more proof, although it would seem to Lissa that the bolted door made it obvious Christie knew she hadn’t left the house and had abandoned her to the flames, which ought to be proof enough. And this was the woman her husband was trying to protect!

  So to call Kerr to come and fetch her had been Lissa’s first thought today, even if he hadn’t come to see her or even phoned since she was admitted. That should have warned her, but it hadn’t. She was totally unprepared for the shock of his reaction.

  ‘For God’s sake, Lissa!’ he had said. ‘Can’t you take a hint? It’s over! Leave me alone!’

  She gasped with pain. ‘But Kerr, we love each other—’

  ‘Oh, you think! You were up for a wee fling and so was I. God knows, I’ve tried to let you down gradually, but you just can’t seem to get it.’

  Her pride spoke. ‘I don’t accept that, Kerr. It was more, much more.’

  ‘Do I have to take a sledgehammer to get it into your empty little head? It’s over. Finished.’ He rang off.

  Had that been a threat? Tears of fear – or perhaps just humiliation – had welled up. They had talked of love – or perhaps only she had? Lissa felt confused, betrayed.

  And what was she to do? She couldn’t sit in the hospital for ever. She had to get home – though of course she had no home to go to now. She had no friends, no family – apart from a cold and indifferent husband and a little grave on a bleak Scottish island.

  More tears had come, but eventually she had dried her eyes and blown her nose fiercely. She’d have to phone Matt; there was nothing else she could do. But he too had been brusque, totally unsympathetic.

  ‘Got someone with me,’ he’d said. ‘I’ll come when I can.’

  There was nothing Lissa could do except wait, and shiver. The receptionists, she was aware, had been watching her and one came over to ask if she was all right. She’d had to say her husband had been delayed. That had felt humiliating too.

  But eventually the swish of the doors heralded Matt’s arrival. He went towards the desk, then spotted her and came over.

  ‘Oh, there you are, Lissa. Come on, then.’

  He was wearing old army fatigues and she could smell stale smoke. He didn’t apologise for keeping her waiting, and he didn’t look pleased to see her. He was wearing what she always called his ‘black’ look, his brow furrowed and his eyes stormy.

  ‘You took your time,’ Lissa said acidly.

  ‘Not from choice,’ Matt snapped, swinging round to head for the door.


  She was a little in awe of his temper. She trotted behind him without responding, clutching at her slipping trousers.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ she ventured as they reached the car.

  ‘Georgia put up Christie and me at the Smugglers Inn last night. She’s only got two bedrooms, but I can move out and let you stay—’

  ‘Stay under the same roof as that murderous little bitch?’ Lissa demanded shrilly. ‘Oh, ideal – that way she can have another go.’

  ‘That’s a bloody silly thing to say! And don’t dare repeat it to anyone else – it’s manifest nonsense.’ With his lips folded tight, as if he didn’t trust himself, Matt drove off.

  After a few minutes he said curtly, ‘If that’s your attitude, I’ll take up the offer I had to use one of the caravans and you can stay there.’

  ‘Fine. And you can take me via the dress shop in Kirkcudbright high street.’

  ‘I got out some of your things.’ Matt jerked his thumb at the back seat.

  Lissa gave them a disdainful glance. ‘I refuse to go round smelling like an ashtray. I have to have something warm to wear until they can be washed, and these things are falling off me.’ She did, however, reach back to grab a pair of trainers; she wrinkled her nose, but at least they fitted.

  Matt sighed, deeply. ‘Oh, all right, as long as you don’t take too long – there’s a million things waiting for me. And for God’s sake don’t fling money around. I still don’t know what compensation we’ll get and we’re running on empty at the moment.’

  The set of his jaw, she noticed, was very grim. Lissa had always felt entitled to her feelings of hurt but her first thought – to say, ‘Do you grudge me the very clothes for my back?’ – suddenly seemed unwise. What was emanating from her husband was not just the smell of the disaster that had struck them. It was the smell of hatred.

  And from Kerr, hatred. And from Christie – oh yes, from Christie, hatred. It frightened her. Too many people hated her. Where Christie was concerned, she hadn’t thought it mattered. But it had – oh yes, it had.

  ‘She won’t be pleased,’ DS Macdonald said. ‘This whole investigation has ground to a halt and you could tell yesterday she was relying on a kick-start from the interviews today. And this hasn’t come up with anything either.’

  He gestured at the computer screen in front of him, where the SOCO’s preliminary report on the Lovatts’ farmhouse fire was displayed. He and DC Campbell were alone in the CID room, discussing their unsatisfactory encounters with the Donaldsons and Sorley. At least, Macdonald was discussing them, while Campbell grunted, mostly.

  ‘There’s nothing to say, except that Steve Donaldson is the weakest link and we failed to crack him. The best we can offer is that it shows there’s a deliberate cover-up going on.’

  ‘What of?’

  Macdonald looked at Campbell impatiently. ‘Now, let me think, what could it be? Oh, I remember. Setting the farmhouse on fire. Slipped my mind for a moment.’

  Campbell, provokingly, shrugged.

  ‘Look, it’s obvious. Those guys are clearly obstructing the investigation. They’ve a history of vandalism—’

  ‘Alleged.’

  ‘OK, alleged, if you insist. But who else could have a motive for doing it?’

  Campbell only gave him a level look, and Macdonald’s face flushed with anger. ‘If you’re trying to suggest it was Christie, you’re barking. Apart from anything else, she’s not dumb enough to think you can splash petrol about and start a fire, then reckon on getting back into the house to save the person you want and leave the other to fry. And if her defence was going to be that she thought Melissa Lovatt had got out already, she wouldn’t have left the door bolted. I can’t imagine how you can claim she did it.’

  ‘Didn’t.’

  ‘As good as. You’re just weaselling now.’ He eyed his colleague with dislike, the old Macdonald saying, ‘Never trust a Campbell,’ coming forcibly to mind.

  ‘Didn’t,’ Campbell said again.

  ‘Oh great! Going back to the nursery, are we?’ Macdonald’s voice had risen. ‘Perhaps, if you could spare more than a monosyllable or two, we could have something approaching an adult discussion—’

  ‘What’s all this about?’

  Macdonald spun round. He hadn’t noticed DI Fleming come into the room. She was looking distinctly raddled this morning, and she didn’t sound very cheerful either.

  ‘Oh, nothing, boss,’ he said hastily. ‘We were just talking about the interviews.’

  ‘And …?’

  He’d been right. All the signals were there: Big Marge was definitely not in a mood for bad news. He swallowed nervously. ‘They were stonewalling, basically. They’d agreed a cover story between themselves and we couldn’t shake them.’

  ‘I see.’ Fleming glanced at the screen they had been looking at. ‘Is that the SOCO’s report?’

  Macdonald nodded. ‘Preliminary. But …’ He stopped. There wasn’t anything cheering to say about it, and she could read the bad news for herself.

  She scrolled down, the disappointment showing in her face as she reached the end.

  ‘So – where does that leave us?’

  The words ‘flatter on our bottoms’ sprang to his mind but in the current situation seemed impolitic, however accurate they might be. ‘Sifting through the reports, more interviews,’ he offered feebly.

  ‘In line with the striking success we’ve had by these methods before?’ Fleming said with considerable acerbity. ‘Oh come on, Andy, can’t you do better than that? We’re simply plodding determinedly down a street marked Dead End, aren’t we? What about some lateral thinking?’

  She paused, looking from one to the other, but when both steadfastly refused to meet her eye, went on, ‘I’m going to go down there myself this afternoon to have a go at Matt Lovatt. I said I’d take Louise Hepburn with me. Do you know where she is?’

  The two detectives exchanged an uneasy glance. ‘Er – I think she went down to do that herself this morning,’ Macdonald said.

  ‘She what?’

  Solidarity demanded some sort of defence for a colleague not there to defend herself. ‘I think she thought that was what you would have wanted her to do. She didn’t know when you’d be back.’

  None of them had known, and Big Marge in her present mood didn’t seem inclined to explain her absence.

  ‘Oh, she did, did she?’ Her tone was ominous. ‘I want to see her whenever she appears.’

  Fleming swung out of the room and Macdonald watched her go with his lips pursed in a soundless whistle. ‘Who’s stolen her scone? I tell you something – I’m glad I’m not—’

  His mobile ringing interrupted him. Smiling as he recognised the voice at the other end, he said, ‘Hi Georgia. What can I do for you?’

  His expression changed as he listened to her furious tirade. ‘What a cow!’ he said, when at last he got the chance. ‘Don’t worry, Georgia. I’m going to drop her in it so deep that she won’t come up for air for a month.’

  Having an investigation stall was hardly a new experience for DI Fleming. What was different this time was the feeling of utter hopelessness – about that, and about herself. She was a selfish failure who couldn’t do either her job as a mother or her job as a police officer successfully. Her success as a wife – if she could claim that – was entirely due to Bill’s stalwart loyalty. He’d have had a better home life with someone more in the traditional mould. Another failure, really.

  She’d had plenty of mistakes to acknowledge over the years, but failure – that hurt in one of the most sensitive areas of her psyche, her pride. Hug the pain, someone had said to her once. Take it into yourself, use it to grow. Sound advice, probably, when it came to her personal life.

  In her job, though, it was different. If she failed, someone else could die, and right at the moment she had no idea how to prevent it. Fleming brought her fists down on the desk in an agony of frustration.

  She had to do something. Her eyes itched f
rom lack of sleep, her head felt stuffed with cotton wool and she felt no enthusiasm as she turned to her computer screen. She’d have to pan through the silt of reports from the uniforms, hoping for a glint of gold somewhere. It was unlikely, though – anything that even faintly resembled progress would have been brought to her long ago.

  Somehow, she had to snap out of it, lift her professional mood. Fleming knew she’d been unfair to Macdonald and Campbell in demanding lateral thinking. Ewan had a good analytical mind and Andy was a thoughtful and efficient officer, but neither of them went in for inspiration. That was her job – hers and Tam’s.

  His father had been a gratuitous complication. The tabloids had, indeed, been hostile and Bailey had harrumphed a bit, but once old Davie was in the bosom of his family there wasn’t really anywhere for the story to go. Another couple of days at the most – maybe even a day, if everything was still quiet – and she’d have him back on the strength. In fact, she could give him a call now; he’d have had plenty of thinking time and MacNee’s ideas were always worth listening to. She reached for the phone.

  ‘Bunty? It’s Marjory. Could I have a word with Tam, if he’s around?’

  ‘Oh! Marjory! Er … sorry, I’ll have to get him to call you back.’

  To Fleming’s surprise, Bunty was sounding uncomfortable, almost shifty. ‘He’s out, is he?’ she asked. Perhaps she was imagining it.

  ‘Well – sort of, not exactly.’

  No, she wasn’t. For some reason, Bunty was being evasive, and she wasn’t good at it. Tam had to be behind this, with something he’d wanted his wife to cover up, but Bunty was the soul of truth and Fleming knew she would never tell a direct lie.

  Taking base advantage of that, she said, ‘Come on, Bunty, Tam’s up to something, isn’t he? Where is he?’

  ‘Oh dear, I told him I couldn’t …’ Bunty was fluttering. ‘He’s – he’s not doing anything. He’s just asleep.’

  ‘Asleep? At this time of day? Is he ill?’

  ‘No, no, he’s fine. Look, I’ll get him to phone you when he wakes up. I really can’t say anything else.’