Evil for Evil

by Aline Templeton

  ‘Fix up another appointment. I’ll be back in two or three days. Probably.’

  He sounded strained, unnatural. What was going on? Then it dawned. Of course! That Woman.

  ‘Going up to Scotland, are you?’ She struggled to keep hostility out of her voice.

  ‘Yes. Kirkcudbright.’

  Of course. She’d clicked her fingers and he’d jumped, just like that. Well, Eddie paid her to be his secretary, not his keeper – though heaven knew the dumb bastard needed one.

  ‘I’ll cancel your appointments till then, right? We’ll need to keep in touch, though. Where are you going to stay?’

  ‘Don’t know, yet.’

  With a sigh, she suggested booking him into a hotel and he jumped at the offer. So he wasn’t joining That Woman somewhere, then? Did she know he was on his way – or had Clive done the detecting he was being paid for and come up with something that told Eddie where his wife was, so he’d gone up to spy on her?

  That didn’t fit, though. The manager had said he didn’t get a phone call, just saw something on the news that had sent him off. There was a TV downstairs in the showroom; Marianne couldn’t resist trying to satisfy her curiosity.

  There was no one in the waiting area. She switched from the sports channel to News 24, and stood frowning, waiting for some item that made a connection. And at last, there it was – a woman found dead on an island in Scotland, somewhere near Kirkcudbright.

  So of course Eddie, poor sod, had decided it was her. He’d been going on about not having spoken to her the last couple of days. It probably wasn’t anything to do with That Woman at all, and Marianne could only hope that he wouldn’t be in such a state about it that he went off the road.

  If it did happen to be her, though, Marianne wouldn’t be feeling the need to lay in an extra box of tissues for herself.

  There was no answer to MacNee’s knock on Fleming’s door, though they’d said downstairs that she was in. Maybe she was on the phone. He opened it, and glanced inside.

  Fleming was asleep, her head down on her desk. She didn’t move when he cleared his throat, and remembering she’d been called at three in the morning, he turned to tiptoe out. He knocked the door with his foot, though, and this time she surfaced, raising her head groggily from the desk.

  ‘Oh – oh, for goodness’ sake! Sorry, Tam.’ Her voice was thick and she shook her head as if trying to clear it. ‘I must have crashed out. I haven’t had much sleep for the last couple of nights.’

  From the look of her, he could well believe it. He said, ‘Can you not maybe go away home for an hour or two and get a proper rest?’

  ‘I’ll be fine. I’ll phone for coffee. Want some?’ She picked up the phone and while she ordered it MacNee tried to frame his apology.

  When she turned back to him, he said with some awkwardness, ‘Marjory, I’m sorry. I screwed up and it’s just lucky it wasn’t a whole lot worse. When I thought that dog was loose on the island, I lost it completely. Broke the land speed record getting myself safe in the bothy. I’m black, burning ashamed.’

  She gave a huge yawn. ‘Sorry, I’ll wake up in a minute. You weren’t the only one to think that, Tam. Bill had half a dozen sheep killed by stray dogs earlier this year, and they looked exactly like that. It’s how dogs attack – and frankly, I wouldn’t have hung around either. We’ve both seen Lovatt’s dog, and you wouldn’t stand a chance. I’m glad the poor beast didn’t have to be put down, though.’

  ‘You could say.’ MacNee’s agreement was heartfelt. ‘Took a bit of a nibble out of one of the handlers apparently. Couldn’t blame him.’

  ‘Lucky he stopped there. If something happened to the dog with Lovatt in his present mood I’d be seeking a warrant to confiscate his shotgun.

  ‘Ah, here’s the coffee! Thanks – I’m needing this. And biscuits – just realised I haven’t eaten all day.’ Fleming smiled at the FCA as she set down the tray.

  MacNee watched her load her black coffee with sugar and set about a jaffa cake. ‘You’ll just get a sugar rush with that,’ he said disapprovingly. ‘You should go to the canteen and get some proper food.’

  ‘Never thought I’d live to see the day when Tam MacNee was lecturing me about junk food. Anyway, I’m fine after my power nap.’

  ‘Oh, that’s what it was, is it?’ he said sardonically.

  ‘Absolutely. Anyway, back to business. We’ve both agreed it appeared to be a dog attack. And I’ll tell you what the pathologist said: “It almost looks as if that was what it was meant to suggest.”’

  ‘Did he?’ MacNee was struck by the idea. ‘Right enough, I’ve seen plenty broken-bottle attacks, but I’ve never seen one where they went straight for the throat. Mostly it’s right in the face, and her face …’ He stopped, recalling the spattered blood. ‘Well, it hadn’t been mutilated, anyway.’

  ‘Did someone just think that the dog would be blamed and we wouldn’t look elsewhere? Or …’

  They both spoke together. ‘Someone wanted the dog to be blamed.’

  Fleming went on, ‘Wanted the dog put down. Something else to damage Lovatt. He says someone’s trying to tear his life apart, and maybe he’s right.’

  ‘Brodie,’ MacNee said, with sudden certainty. ‘He’s been on the spot each time. And he’d even a cat’s paw – a lad he was hiding from the military police on the island. He could have been involved as well.’

  Fleming considered that. ‘He’s been having an affair with Lissa, admittedly. But according to Lovatt, he’d cooled on the idea and was trying to end it.’

  ‘Managed, then, didn’t he? It’s Brodie, I tell you,’ MacNee said. He was visibly gloating. ‘They’re holding him at Stranraer. I’ll get down there and—’

  ‘Tam.’

  ‘What?’ His tone was belligerent, but he knew what she was going to say.

  ‘It’s possible. It’s not a certainty. We’ve seen already where jumping to conclusions gets us.’

  The ‘us’ was generous. ‘Fair enough,’ he said gruffly.

  Fleming was tapping her front teeth with a fingernail. He waited, then she said slowly, ‘I just don’t see why the persecution should have started suddenly. Brodie’s been living here for three years. He’s had a nice little number going with the drugs – why do something like this, that was bound to have us all over them like a rash?’

  ‘Maybe Lovatt realised and was threatening to turn him in,’ MacNee was arguing, when there was a knock on the door and DC Hepburn bounced into the room, holding some papers.

  ‘I think we’ve got it right here, ma’am,’ she said.

  A police officer, silent and, Matt Lovatt felt, shamefaced, drove him back to Lovatt’s Farm in a dog van with Mika whining unhappily in the back. Staying at the Smugglers Inn wasn’t going to work any more – the situation with Christie was too fraught, and he would rather sleep on the floor in his own home. The air would be a bit cleaner tonight, at least.

  When they arrived, he got out without thanking the driver, just stood beside him as the man nervously opened the door to let the dog out, then scuttled back into his van.

  Lovatt watched him drive off, then dropped to his knees to stroke the dog, burying his face for a moment in its ruff to hide the tears of relief and sheer exhaustion. Mika, unsettled by the strangeness of this, fidgeted uneasily, and once released pranced a few steps, looking back over his shoulder to invite a walk. At a gesture from Lovatt he raced off along the shore path, Lovatt following slowly.

  Every bone in his body ached. Perhaps it was the result of his makeshift bed last night, but it felt as if the pain was a deeper malaise, the pain of the past. He was scared, too. He had lied to the police, and he intended to lie again. He was too afraid to tell the truth. A soldier, and a coward.

  The series of shocks he had suffered over the last few days had affected him like increasingly powerful physical blows. He felt like a boxer in the ring, punch-drunk, unable to predict his invisible opponent’s next attack. Sooner or later, it would be a k
nockout, and by now he wasn’t sure he even cared. God knew he was living on borrowed, or perhaps stolen, time already.

  He had told the police the truth when he said that he couldn’t think who could now hate him so much. Lovatt racked his brains as he walked, but he could only come back to the tired old theory of the Donaldsons and Sorley, and even he didn’t believe that any longer.

  There was someone unseen, unknown, someone who, for reasons he could not understand, hated him so intensely that merely killing him wasn’t enough: he must be destroyed in agony first. His flesh was starting to creep and he found himself scanning the hill slopes and the shore as if there might be cruel and hostile eyes watching him even now.

  Elena Tindall went to pick up her handbag from the ledge by the chalet’s big window. She was on her way to Kirkcudbright; she fancied a little browse round the shops, a visit to the deli to get something for supper, perhaps with a bottle of wine.

  She was feeling so much better: her head felt light and airy, purged of all the dark thoughts of years, like an attic that had been swept clear of all the dust and spiders and the worse things that she’d never chosen to recognise, that lived in the secret, dirty corners. So free in her mind, so relaxed in her body. Everything was so straight and simple now.

  A movement down below caught her eye: a van, drawing up outside the Lovatts’ farmhouse. Then a man was getting out; a tiny frown creased her smooth brow. Another man, releasing a dog from the back.

  Her frown deepened. Elena picked up the binoculars that lay on the ledge and watched as the van drove away, and man and dog walked out along the shore path. Her mouth took an ugly turn and her eyes narrowed.

  She watched until they were out of sight. She put down the binoculars with unnecessary force. Then she took a deep, deep breath and put her hand up to her forehead to smooth out the frown, noticing as her sleeve fell back that the wounds on her wrist were healing nicely. She hadn’t cut herself for days now.

  That was progress, and she wasn’t going to let this little setback spoil her mood. She was smiling again as she locked up the chalet and got into the car.

  ‘It’s there, see.’ DC Hepburn pointed to the document, ‘Last Will and Testament of Elspeth Smith or Lovatt.’

  ‘It’s the wrong way round,’ MacNee said instantly. ‘Should be Lovatt or Smith.’

  Hepburn smiled. ‘In Scotland, you record a married woman like she has an alias, with her married name first, right? So if she’s formally Smith or Lovatt—’

  ‘She was married to a man called Smith,’ Fleming was stunned. ‘She just used her maiden name—’

  ‘But maybe her son didn’t.’ Hepburn, with bright, excited colour in her cheeks, cut across her superior. ‘And there was no Major Lovatt in the KOSB. There was a Major Matthew Smith.’

  ‘So – Lovatt Island, Lovatt Farm. It was her family.’ Fleming spelt it out.

  ‘Yes, she must have changed her name officially – presumably her husband did too. And her grandson was only going to inherit – look,’ Hepburn shuffled on to the next page, ‘provided he changed his name to Lovatt.’

  ‘So he was lying blind when he said he didn’t know who Andrew Smith was,’ Fleming said. ‘Could he even have killed him?’

  ‘And all this is revenge for that?’ For some reason, MacNee’s mind was running on revenge.

  She considered it. ‘He said he’d never been here before he came into the property, and from what the locals say that seems to be true. He told us the family had been estranged from his grandmother – which might well be true too, if the son refused to call himself Lovatt. And it would explain why he wasn’t to inherit.’

  ‘Lovatt could have sneaked up when he was on leave,’ MacNee pointed out. ‘If you were planning on abandoning your old man to die a lingering death in a sea cave, you wouldn’t take out an advert in the Galloway Globe, would you?’

  ‘We’ve been asking the locals the wrong question,’ Fleming said. ‘What a bloody waste of time! We’ve been assuming they were deliberately obstructive, but maybe they’d never heard Elspeth’s son called Smith.

  ‘Right. Let’s get the show on the road. I’ll get authorisation for more overtime. Tam, call in uniforms. Get Campbell and Macdonald back here for a meeting in, say, three-quarters of an hour. Pick up Lovatt again – I want to see him before the evening briefing.’

  She went to the door, then paused. ‘Well done, Louise – good work. I want you there too.’

  Hepburn, who had been holding her breath, glowed. Mission accomplished.

  Eddie Tindall was tired. It had been a long drive, and he’d been flashed by a speed camera on the way up, which hadn’t improved his mood. Still, at least the hotel Marianne had booked was on the Kirkcudbright high street, easy to find, and it looked all right.

  He ordered tea in the lounge on his way up to his room, and paused there only to dump his suitcase. He’d listened to Five Live all the way, but none of the news bulletins had any more information about the murdered woman, though he knew now she’d been found on Lovatt Island, near some village called Innellan, wherever that might be. He was counting on a chatty waitress to fill in some of the details.

  The girl who brought the tray was quite ready to discuss what was clearly a hot topic in the town and Eddie discovered, with inexpressible relief, that the murdered woman was a local and that her husband’s dog had killed her. He winced at the thought, but it wasn’t his Elena and he settled down to enjoy the scones. He’d missed his lunch, after all, and he supposed he’d made a bit of a fool of himself. Still, the manager didn’t matter and Marianne was used to him – she’d have gone home when the meeting with Brian Mitchell was cancelled but he could phone her there and say he’d be back tomorrow.

  As he sipped his tea, though, his mind slipped into its default setting – Elena. Clive had ferreted out that she was somewhere near here; maybe, if he hung around for a bit, drove round the area and asked a few questions, he might get some idea of where she was.

  And who she was with. The fear had been haunting him, awake and in his dreams. She’d never been away for so long, never failed to return his calls. Of course, he reminded himself, she’d said that she’d been feeling stressed, that she was on a retreat …

  When the girl came back for his tray, he asked about places that hosted retreats, but she only looked blank. Nothing to be gained there, then. He’d had a look at the map too and it was a huge area, with hundreds of back roads – she could be anywhere. His spirits sank. Maybe he should just go with Plan A and drive back to Salford tomorrow.

  The evening yawned ahead. It wasn’t four o’clock yet and the hotel didn’t serve an evening meal until seven. If Eddie started in on the whisky now, he’d be in no state to leave early tomorrow morning; a speeding fine was one thing but losing his licence was another altogether.

  He might as well take a stroll, have a look around the town. Marianne had said it was a holiday destination and it was a nice autumn afternoon. There was a chill in the air when he went out but it was a pretty enough place, with a kind of castle thingy and a small harbour. He watched someone stacking lobster creels for a bit, then wandered along past the shops.

  He was nearly back at the hotel. He’d put in half an hour, though, so if he went up to his room and grabbed a spot of shut-eye, he could—

  Eddie stopped short. There she was, his Elena. She was coming out of a food shop with a carrier bag, wearing a sort of weatherproof jacket over jeans and a T-shirt. No jewellery, no make-up. For a moment he’d hardly recognised her.

  ‘Elena!’ The word rose to his lips as she set off in the opposite direction, but he stifled it. What would he say? How would he explain what he was doing here? She would know immediately that he had tracked her down. He remembered, all too clearly, her anger when he’d questioned her about her escapes, early on in their marriage. If she discovered he’d used a detective to find her … Eddie felt cold at the thought.

  He’d come all the way up here, fearing she was dead. He co
uld go back home tomorrow secure in the knowledge that she wasn’t; she was alive and looking fine. Plan A.

  He stood watching her walk away to – to where? Where was she going – and who to? If she was looking so unlike herself, was it because she was with some man who liked a woman to look natural, not highly finished as his own beautiful Elena always was? The snake of jealousy uncoiled, and began writhing inside him.

  With sudden decision, he ran into the hotel car park and jumped into his car. She wouldn’t recognise it; he’d been driving one of the sales force vehicles when he’d seen the news. But he mustn’t draw attention to himself and he mustn’t lose her, either. When he drove out she had vanished.

  His heart in his mouth, he accelerated to the corner, then turned along to his left. And – oh lucky, lucky Eddie – there she was, getting into a small car. It was a hire car, not her own BMW coupé and it was facing towards him; he drove past, then when he reached a side road backed into it, and sat waiting till the car moved away.

  Then very, very discreetly, he drove off in pursuit.

  DI Fleming’s mind was fizzing as she got back to her office to wait for the team to gather. She was still feeling light-headed, but with that had come a strange sort of clarity, as if everything was in sharper focus, as if her nerve endings were nearer the surface than usual.

  Bailey had authorised whatever overtime it took. Indeed, given that this had become a headline news story, he was ready to blow the budget totally.

  Fleming sat down at her desk, ignoring the waiting messages. She wanted to crystallise her thoughts before her team arrived. She wanted their input – and young Hepburn seemed promising, very promising indeed – but to be properly effective discussions needed clear direction.

  And at last they had a clear direction to go in. Perhaps now they would get ahead of the shadowy figure she became more and more convinced was behind it all – please God! – before the action moved on to the next deadly phase. If Lovatt was right that someone was trying to destroy him bit by bit, there was only one obvious conclusion.