‘What’s that you’ve got there?’
‘To be honest, not a scoobie.’ On the desk in front of MacNee was a pile of transparent plastic document folders, and the one he was looking at had held a few sheets of handwritten paper.
‘Found among the debris after the fire at the farmhouse. From the looks of it, could have come from a cupboard or a filing cabinet or something. Oh, Lovatt’s passport’s here too, incidentally – confirms what he said. Some of it’s a bit charred-looking, but it’s all legible.
‘See this stuff, though – it’s seriously weird.’
Fleming took the papers he held out.
I think I’ll go mad if I can’t confess my guilt. But whenever I’ve tried to speak about it, the terrible pain from the acid that rises in my throat takes away the breath to form the words. My hand’s cramping now just thinking about writing it down, but for my sanity I have to try, one agonising page at a time. If I’m only writing it for me, not to show to anyone, perhaps I can do it – but even so I’m scared, knowing what it’ll cost me to live through it again. I’ve got to get it out of my head, tip it out into written words. Then burn the paper, destroy the memory? I wish – oh, I wish! But could it give me any relief, when there’s no chance of forgiveness? I can only try …
Fleming read on, through the other pages of raw agony.
‘You see what I mean?’ MacNee said, then stopped. She wasn’t listening to him.
‘Weird, certainly,’ she said at last. ‘The person writing this has the sort of problems that could cause any amount of destruction. She’s talking about “recompense” – is that a more acceptable way of saying revenge? And dark, wavy hair …’
‘That’s Lissa, isn’t it? Of course – she’s the twin of the girl who was abducted and murdered! There’ll be a record of that – we can get it tomorrow. So someone here’s involved, she’s found out who did it, she’s stirred up trouble, and they’ve killed her.’
‘It’s possible,’ Fleming acknowledged, but absently. ‘I’m uneasy with that. Lissa lived here for three years and hadn’t stirred up any trouble at all. She almost died in the fire, but the only person she could think of who might attempt to kill her was Christie Jack, who fancied her husband. You’d think by that stage she’d have been happy to tell us who else might have had a grudge against her. There’s something—’
Macdonald and Campbell were coming across towards them, looking glum. ‘Nothing in the house, boss. Findlay wasn’t there, and the social services weren’t much impressed when we told them the old lady is alone in a house with the door kicked in. They’re sending someone out to look after her but they’ll be making a complaint.’
‘Never mind that,’ Fleming said. ‘I want you up at the chalets to talk to Ms Natalie Thomson. I want you to find out just exactly what she’s doing here, and how come she’s been having such a good time in this little backwater that she can’t tear herself away. OK?’
‘OK, boss,’ Macdonald said, but as they went out he said to Campbell, ‘Why do I think there’s something she knows that we don’t?’
‘There always is,’ Campbell said darkly.
Cal Findlay didn’t even see the heavy bottle in Elena’s hand as he stepped towards her and struck at her. It caught him on the temple and everything went black.
She got up and looked down at him with anger and contempt. She should take the knife and finish him off, but she wasn’t keen. She’d prepared for Lissa, with a change of clothing ready in a carrier bag with the wine bottle, after she’d seen her pass and followed her across the causeway to the island, but even so she’d needed a long soak in the tub with her Dior Poison bath gel to remove the last traces of blood, even as the useful carrier bag, its contents weighted down with a handy stone, settled into the seabed off the island’s cliffs.
The blow to Cal’s temple was bleeding, and as she watched a little trickle of blood came out of his mouth. Good! But Elena’s brow clouded as she looked at the pool of champagne round about him. Interfering fool – this wasn’t meant to happen. She’d have to be careful that nothing went wrong with the rest of her meticulous plan.
She went to the handbag that stood waiting for her by the door. She opened it, took out a pair of transparent surgical gloves and slipped them on. She switched off the lights, shut the door and locked it.
She hadn’t put on a coat but the cold, somehow, was exhilarating. The cold, and the wheeling stars and planets above her head. She was part of this passionless, powerful universe, far removed from the pathetic mortals who were the playthings of fate. She had suffered, yes, but she had been strong enough to come through, to create her own destiny: peace of mind, with every debt paid back in full.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
He was completely taken by surprise. If Elena had turned her head as she passed she would have seen Eddie sitting there, behind the wheel, his shoulders hunched and his arms huddled round him. He hadn’t heard her footsteps.
He’d been on the point of giving up, defeated by the cold. He could almost feel the blood in his veins slowing, thickening, which wasn’t exactly smart for a man of his age and physique. He wasn’t even sure what he was doing here. He wasn’t going to confront Elena and her lover, so he might as well give up, return home and steel himself for the agonising wait to find out whether she was coming back to him or not. There was nothing else he could do.
Then she’d appeared, walking along in the starlit dark as if she was floating, swinging her bag in her hand like a child coming home from school. He could see that she was smiling, and she looked happier, more carefree, than he had ever seen her look before. Eddie hardly recognised her as the cool, contained woman he knew.
The shaft of pain was like a spear thrust. He desperately loved her; had he been making her so wretched over all these years? Blinded by tears, he bowed his head, defeated. This man, whoever he was, had made her happy.
If Elena did come back to him, it could only be for the money. He’d bought her company long ago, but he’d believed then that he was rescuing her; he wouldn’t do that again, if buying his own happiness would be at the expense of her misery. He would have to offer to set her free, with a settlement that would be his thank you for what had been for him the most wonderful years of his life. If they had been unhappy for her, she could take it as compensation.
Still, Eddie hadn’t lost all curiosity. Where could she be off to at this time of night, leaving her lover in the chalet? The only thing he could think of was that she might be going down to the pub for a bottle of wine. Surely the bloke would have brought one, though, or at least, gone to fetch it himself?
Groaning with stiffness he levered himself out of the car, grabbing at the door frame. It was sticky with frost and his fingers stung as he prised them away. He hobbled across to the farther side of the track and looked over the edge.
Elena hadn’t come into view yet. That was the sound of her opening the second gate, and it would take her a few more minutes to appear on the road below. He shivered as he stood waiting.
On the still air, he could hear the sound of laughter and talk from the pub below. From further away, there came a burst of animal sound – the deer, maybe, that he’d seen in the fields.
There was Elena now, crossing the main street. She didn’t go towards the pub, though. She went round the side of what looked like a house that was attached to it, through a little garden, then disappeared round the back. A moment later, he saw her again, heading out along a path round the curve of the bay. She was little more than a dim shape now as she went beyond the range of the street lights but he could see that she was still almost dancing along.
A walk in romantic starlight? Eddie frowned – surely he, the lover, should be with her for that?
Elena had changed direction. She had turned off on to a drive leading to the farmhouse that had been damaged by fire, and now Eddie realised there was a light behind a curtained window. She must be going to see someone there.
Why? And why had the lov
er been left behind? Perhaps he’d got it all wrong. Perhaps the man in the chalet wasn’t a lover – perhaps just someone bringing a message from someone else? Elena hadn’t spent long with him, after all, before she had set off like … like, Eddie realised, someone going to a tryst.
He couldn’t check out the chalet without the real risk of being spotted. But there, at the farmhouse which she had reached now, which she had entered without waiting to be admitted, he could look around unseen, perhaps even find a chink in the curtain of that lighted room.
There was no point in leaving his car here. He wouldn’t be coming back; once he’d found out what was going on – or, more likely, established that he couldn’t find out – he’d have no alternative but to drive back to the hotel. He could park somewhere, then follow the path she had taken.
Eddie hurried back to his car and drove down to the village. He was just parking it in the main street, a little along from the pub, when a car with two men in it passed him. He didn’t see them turn off up the track.
‘Not having much luck tonight, are we?’ Macdonald said. ‘Car outside, no one at home.’
They had parked beside Spindrift, but the chalet was in darkness and there was no answer to their knock.
‘Could be inside, dodging us. And Big Marge seems really keen to see her,’ Campbell said hopefully.
‘You’d better watch your enthusiasm for kicking in doors doesn’t become an addiction. Don’t be daft. She’s probably down the pub. Come on, we’d better get down there and check it out.’
Macdonald turned away, but Campbell had wandered off round to the front of the chalet and was shading his eyes, peering in the big window.
Macdonald had the car door open. ‘Come on, Ewan, it’s cold standing here.’
Campbell turned slowly. ‘Lucky I’ve got my door-kicking shoes on,’ he said as he came back. ‘There’s a body in there.’
Fleming was reading the document through for the third time. Respecting her concentration, MacNee was filtering through the rest of the documents – the usual stuff: tax forms, receipts, insurances, bank statements. His eyebrows rose when he saw the size of Lovatt’s overdraft and he pursed his mouth in a silent whistle.
‘You see, Tam, I’ll tell you what I’m unhappy about,’ Fleming said suddenly. ‘Going by what it says here, Lissa would have been the person looking for revenge. She’s lived here for three years and nothing’s happened, but suddenly there are two attempts on her life.
‘Is Hepburn right that somehow the TV programme advertised that she was here – that someone came to find her, as the only person who knew the full story, who must be eliminated in case at last she told what she knew – even the final secret that she talks about, that she somehow couldn’t even admit to herself?
‘Anyway, I need to talk to Lovatt, right now. Confront him with this.’ She stood up, then stopped. ‘Hang on – there’s an obvious point. Though what that would say about—’
The mobile in her bag on the desk rang. She set down the papers she was holding and dug it out, squinting at the caller.
‘Yes, Andy?’
Her face went white as she listened. ‘Oh God!’ she said. ‘On my way.’
The warmth was making Matt Lovatt drowsy. Provided he sat close enough to the fire, the temperature was bearable and he’d placed a sofa and a heavy old armchair so that they blocked the worst of the icy draught from the window he had reluctantly left open. The sergeant had read him a lecture on the danger of the toxic fumes that persisted days after a fire.
Perhaps tonight he might manage to sleep, even on a bed of cushions. He was certainly weary enough; his head felt as if it was floating, but when he tried lying down his eyes shot open automatically, like one of those dollies whose eyelids closed when laid flat, only in reverse. It was a curious aspect of human design that meant if you were too tired, you were entirely unable to sleep.
He sat up, piled the fire with logs as high as he dared. If he wasn’t going to sleep he might as well take the time to work out what he was going to do. The house, the farm – there would have to be practical decisions in the next day or two, at the most. Practical decisions were good, or better at least than the thoughts he was using them to suppress.
At the sound of a footstep in the hall, he turned his head, then sank it forward on to his knees with a moan of utter weariness. The police, no doubt, having discovered that he had escaped from the claustrophobic atmosphere at the pub, ready to march him back to Christie’s white, reproachful face, asking for what he could not give her …
It wasn’t the police. He recognised the woman who had opened the door, but for a moment he couldn’t place her. He struggled to his feet.
‘Hello, Matt,’ she said. She was smiling.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you knock. Can I help you?’ He spoke stiffly, remembering now who she was – the woman who had been so rude to him after the stag attacked her. Natalie something.
She seemed to be finding something amusing. As she came across the room towards him, her eyes seemed to be dancing with merriment.
‘Oh, I didn’t feel I needed to knock, Matt.’
Was there something wrong with her? The way she was behaving wasn’t normal – and she kept using his name as if she knew him. Perhaps she’d decided she was entitled to damages and had come looking for money.
‘I’m sorry, Natalie—’
That made her laugh out loud. She was definitely unbalanced. He tried to make his voice soothing as he went on, ‘If you’ve come to look for compensation, I’m afraid you’d have to see my lawyer. I’ll give you the address …’
The smile disappeared from her face. ‘Oh yes,’ she said, and he could see in the flickering firelight that her eyes had gone hard and blank. Dead eyes. ‘Oh yes, compensation, but we’re not going to bring a lawyer into it.
‘Sit down, Matt.’
Her voice cracked like a whiplash and to his surprise he found himself sitting down on a cushionless chair. She sat down on the sofa beside it, a little too close to him for comfort. She was carrying one of these fashionably large handbags; she set it down at her feet.
‘That’s cosy.’ She was smiling again, but this time she wasn’t amused. ‘You mentioned compensation – it’s as good a place as any to start.’
‘Look, I haven’t money here, not even a chequebook,’ he said, though the hairs rising on the nape of his neck told him it wasn’t about money and chequebooks. There was something badly wrong, something dangerous that he didn’t understand.
‘You don’t recognise me, do you?’ She was looking at him intently now.
‘You’re Natalie—’
‘Don’t be bloody stupid.’ There was the edge to the voice again. ‘Look at me.’
He studied her. Blonde hair, neat little nose, eyes that might be grey or dark blue – it was hard to tell in the firelight. It didn’t mean anything to him – or did it? There was something, some faint echo of a resemblance, but …
‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t.’
‘And you don’t remember what you did to me? I expect you’ve carefully managed to forget, after all these years. Funny how people do. I don’t think Hugh Donaldson remembered me either.’
Matt was bewildered. ‘Hugh Donaldson, the farmer?’
‘Never mind him,’ she instructed. ‘Look at me again.’
‘What on earth is all this about?’ he burst out. ‘You walk into my house unannounced, you start issuing orders, you say I did something to you but you don’t tell me what it was supposed to have been. I’m sorry, but—’
‘Look at me again,’ she repeated, as if he hadn’t spoken.
Again, he obeyed her. This time a faint frown came to his face. ‘I suppose you do remind me faintly of someone, but I can’t think who …’
She glanced round the room. On one wall, an old-fashioned mirror hung in a heavy wooden frame.
‘Go and look in that,’ she said.
‘There’s another ambulance on its way,’ Macd
onald said. ‘Mercifully no one else has chosen to have an emergency tonight, because the only other one’s on its way to Dumfries mortuary with Hugh Donaldson’s body.’
‘Doesn’t look good, to be honest,’ MacNee said, looking down at Cal Findlay’s inert body. ‘Bad sign - blood coming from his mouth, look.’
‘I’d rather not,’ Campbell said. He was reading the label of the champagne bottle lying on the floor beside it. ‘Cristal. That good?’
‘Expensive, anyway,’ Macdonald said.
Fleming was feeling as if the bottle might have come down on her own head. This new blow, on top of the sort of light-headedness that came from exhaustion and, she suddenly realised, lack of food – what an idiot! – was making it difficult for her to think clearly. She saw MacNee give her an anxious look, and she pulled herself together with a supreme effort.
‘The knife on the floor by his hand suggests this was self-defence. But I’m not happy. You’d have expected her to call us in, if she’d been attacked, and she hasn’t fled in the car either. Where is she? And more importantly, what’s she doing now?’
‘It’s all right,’ MacNee said quickly. ‘If this guy tried to kill her, she’s not in danger now. We’ve lads all over the place tonight and Matt Lovatt’s safely under guard in the pub.’
Fleming gave him a weak smile. ‘Didn’t stop this happening, did it? I won’t feel easy until we have her sitting in a chair in front of us, telling us what’s been going on.
‘Anyway, we’d better get down there and take Lovatt apart. Right now this minute. Andy, get a uniform on duty here, circulate a description of Thomson and have everyone out on the street looking.’
At least that was decisive, though she was aware of having stumbled a little over a couple of words. As she passed Campbell on the way to the door he pressed something into her hand.
Evil for Evil Page 39
