by Susan Hill
‘He never has to go far, does he? Is he actually investigating?’
Sam filled her in and talked about his own involvement with Sandy, but she was quickly aware that his eyes were red with tiredness and cut him short.
‘Tell me in the car. Or when we get back.’
As she pulled out to join the stream of motorway traffic, she saw him rest his head back. A minute later, he was asleep and slept until they arrived home.
There was an unfamiliar car in the drive and Kieron came to the front door as he heard them.
Sam was still rubbing his eyes and stretching, while Cat was beside her husband.
‘Your father’s here,’ he said.
Thirty-two
‘Russon?’
He was creosoting one of the fences along the five-a-side area. The bloke doing it with him hadn’t spoken a word since they had started, not in answer to questions or of his own volition. He was skanky, with moles on his head and an oddly sallow complexion. Whenever he encountered someone new, Lee Russon liked to chat to them. He couldn’t contain himself. Where do you live? Are you married? What was your job? Have you got kids? What telly do you watch? Play pool or billiards? Footy? Like gardening? Curry? What car did you drive? Anything that came into his head. Sometimes they stuck it out for a bit, nodding, grunting, but usually they answered and came back with their own questions and then they were on different terms altogether. Not friends. You didn’t make friends in here, not in the proper sense. Couldn’t happen. But you had to get along and this was the way. Only the odd one wasn’t having any of it and today, that was the bloke who hadn’t even offered his name.
‘Come on, I’ve got to call you something.’
No answer.
‘Can’t just say “Hey, you”.’
No answer. But then, ‘Don’t talk to me.’
The one thing you always, always needed to know – or he did – was, what did you do? What are you in here for? Once in a blue moon somebody would come in and you knew, because you’d seen their picture on the telly or in the paper, and then you knew everything. Mostly, though, you didn’t.
He didn’t recognise Skanky and his wasn’t a face you’d forget.
Men didn’t always want to say why they were here but it was surprising how many couldn’t wait to spill it all out, and when they did, there were two things. Whatever they’d done, it had never been their fault, and they’d been allocated the worst brief in the country. Diabolical.
After that was out of the way, they seemed to loosen up. Lee had a knack of listening, making them feel at ease with him, so they gave him all the detail. When they’d done that, they were his.
‘Russon? Governor wants to see you.’
Not what he was expecting. His illicit postbox via Officer Moon could not conceivably have been discovered. He knew it. Moon would never – more than his job, his future prospects, his
… no. Not that.
What else was there? He was very careful not to break petty stupid rules, because it was the petty stupid rules that got to everyone, made them so mad they broke them out of frustration, because they couldn’t help themselves and that way they lost privileges, their parole was set back – if they were ever entitled to parole. Russon was careful. Kept his head down. Kept his powder dry for the serious stuff.
‘What’s it about?’
The officer shrugged. He walked quickly. Inside the building, doors unlocked. Corridors. Upstairs. More corridors. Up more stairs. Windows up here. Barred of course, but still, windows you could see out of. Well, a bit.
Unlock. Lock. Stairs. Short corridor.
Stop outside a door.
PRISON GOVERNOR.
An outer office. Small. Green plastic-covered bench. Desk. Computer. Swivel chair.
Nobody sitting there.
Inner door.
The officer pointed Russon to the bench but stood himself.
There was total silence for ten minutes by the office clock.
*
The governor, Claire McAlister, was a woman in her fifties, with very short hair, and what Russon’s mother would have called a boot face. She wore a navy-blue suit and a pale blue blouse. The suit jacket hung over her chair back.
But she did not have the manner that went with the boot face. She was quietly spoken, she seemed calm, she looked him in the eye.
‘Good morning.’
‘Morning, ma’am.’
A laptop was open on the desk in front of her and she glanced at it, but just once.
‘In case you’re worried that you’ve been brought in here for a reprimand, you can relax. But I thought it best to see you because I have had a slightly unusual request. Mrs Marion Still.’
Her eyes did not leave his face and he found it difficult to meet them.
‘Do you know who that is?’
Russon nodded. ‘Have you ever met or spoken to Mrs Still?’
‘No, ma’am.’
‘Have you had any communication with her at any time since being in this prison?’
‘No, ma’am. There’s …’
‘Yes? Go on.’
‘There’d be no reason, would there?’
‘Nevertheless, Mrs Still has put in a visiting request.’
‘You … I beg your pardon?’
‘You do look surprised.’
‘Of course I’m bloody surprised. Sorry.’
‘Why do you think she is asking to see you?’
‘No idea. It’s … it’s just mad. What could …’
He did not often find himself confused or at a loss for words but he had been so thrown by what the governor had said that his head seemed to be subject to a great pressure which was making him hot, and unable to think straight or focus.
‘Just let me recap. I know you were charged with the murder of Kimberley Still but that the case –’
‘It was thrown out. The CPS threw it out.’
‘For lack of evidence.’
‘Which there wasn’t any of because I didn’t do it.’
Claire McAlister was silent for a few seconds, looking down at her desk.
Then she met his gaze again. ‘How do you feel about this, Lee?’
She was known as the governor who believed in giving prisoners the option of being called by their first or last names. Lee had ticked the ‘First name’ box when he had arrived. How did she remember this? Because she had looked it up before he came in, stupid. Still, she’d bothered to do that.
‘I can’t get my head round it.’
‘You don’t have to accept, you know. I can reply saying that you are refusing the request to visit and I do not have to give any reason. Nor do you. But if you do agree to see her, we need to talk for a bit longer.’
‘I just … Jesus. It’s … I said. It’s thrown me. I don’t know.’
‘I tell you what. I don’t have to answer straight away. We can leave it until tomorrow. Please think about it carefully. If you want to decline the request just tell the officer on duty at lunchtime tomorrow and he will get the message to me. But if you decide that you will see Mrs Still, then you ask him to find out a time when I can see you again. It will be in the afternoon, I have meetings out of the prison until two. Does that seem to you the right way of going about it?’
‘Yes. It …’ He shook his head. ‘It’s just mad. But OK, I’ll do that.’
‘Think it over carefully … reasons for and against. Then we’ll go from there.’
‘Yes, ma’am. Thanks.’
She nodded. ‘Thank you, Lee.’
He had another hour of creosoting the fence. Time to think. Skanky had gone. Russon picked up his brush and dipped it into the sticky brown liquid and started to stroke the wooden paling carefully, down and up, down and up. It was a blue-sky day. The creosote got into his nostrils and at first he had liked it, as he had always liked the smell of new glossy magazine paper or turps or size, though it began to cloy and then to sicken him, after a while.
But he was preoccupied not
with what he could smell but with what he thought. Thought and felt. And the first thing he did was try and bring that newspaper piece to mind, in which the mother had talked to the reporter about ‘justice for my Kimberley’.
That had only been a week earlier. Why the thing suddenly seemed worth looking into again God knew. Nothing had happened. No one had found out anything. He hadn’t done it. By this time, he believed himself. He had convinced himself. He hadn’t done it. He had done the others. Not this one.
He jabbed the brush hard at the fence panel. What? Of course he’d done it. Nobody else knew but he knew. What was this? He could hide from everyone, everything, but not himself and why would he bother? He wasn’t talking.
She had asked for a prison visit. She wanted to come here, sit down opposite him, see him, look him in the eye and talk to him. What about? About Kimberley, what else was there? But what about Kimberley? ‘Did you kill her?’
‘No.’ End of.
He didn’t have to agree. He could say no, tomorrow, get the word to the governor, and that would be that. Nothing would be heard of it all again, and if the woman asked to see him a second time, then he would refuse her a second time, and a third and a hundredth.
But if he saw her?
He was not used to having problems bother him, mainly because, inside, any problems that arose were the straightforward sort that just got dealt with. He ate and said nothing, and the problem revolved like a Ferris wheel inside his head, and when he went to play pool, his moves were mechanical and that got noticed and he had to start lying about the dentist.
The Ferris wheel went round and round.
If he saw the woman.
If he didn’t.
If he …
If …
He tried to read, and a new Michael Connolly ought to have grabbed and held him, but the Ferris wheel got between him and the printed pages.
Lights out and he watched it go round until he thought he’d smash his own skull in to stop it.
But then he decided. It stopped. His head felt normal again. And then he didn’t understand why he hadn’t done it from the start, because he knew himself, he was all right, he didn’t have to say or do anything he didn’t want to, ever. Christ, he ought to know that by now.
He went to sleep, not gradually, in an anxious, drifting way, but off, bang, his mind settled.
Thirty-three
‘DI Lynch, Police Scotland. This is DC Goode.’
Graham Lynch, red-headed, very tall and Aberdonian dour. Andy Goode was none of those things and his handshake with Serrailler was firm, his expression friendly, interested. Lynch might be interested, but he was clearly a man who played his cards close to his chest.
‘Come in. I’ve the kettle on, or there’s a coffee machine.’
‘No thanks.’
‘A brew of tea would be great …’ Lynch gave his junior colleague a hard look. Sod you then, Simon thought, you can sit and watch us both drink tea and eat our way through the shortbread.
‘I’ve come to release you from any further involvement in the case of the woman, Sandy Murdoch, dead, believed murdered. I have to thank you for your assistance while Police Scotland was undermanned in the area dealing with urgent matters, and to formally assume responsibility for the investigation.’
He sounds like a bloody robot, Serrailler thought, and the junior knows he is one. He deliberately avoided DC Goode’s eye as he set down the teapot and mugs.
‘Sure you won’t?’
‘Sure thank you.’
Serrailler joined them at the kitchen table. There had been no small talk, no preliminaries, no light touches. This was official and even tea was out of order. He sensed that the DI did not feel comfortable in the cottage, would have far preferred to sit in a police station, which Taransay did not have.
‘I have read your report and the report of the pathologist. I don’t think there’s anything to add.’
‘How do you see the investigation proceeding?’
‘You’re leaving it in capable hands, Chief Superintendent. We’ll obviously follow everything up.’
‘I’m sure you will. But listen, Inspector, we know that this was neither accident nor suicide, so it’s a murder inquiry and once the islanders find that out, they will be pretty shaken. Sandy Murdoch was well liked, she’d become a member of the community. People were upset at her sudden disappearance and then the finding of her body but murder would have been a million miles from their thoughts.’
‘What exactly are you trying to tell me?’
‘Just –’
But just what? Simon thought. Just go carefully. Just be respectful. Just be tactful. Just …
‘Nothing.’
The fact that he had taken a dislike to the DI did not mean he doubted his competence, and even if he did, it was nothing to do with him. He was out of it. He would like to know if they ever found out the identity of Sandy’s killer but he had a suspicion that in the end the case would go down as ‘unsolved’ and remain open. Perhaps for years, perhaps for good. But he could not have said why he thought it.
He worked on the Still files for the next three days without much of a break. The longer he spent on them the more holes he found in the original investigation and the more unanswered questions came up. He wanted to finish and then go over the whole thing again, filling out the notes he had made.
But on the third night, with the gales still battering the house, he woke at three o’clock, and at once his mind was full, not of Kimberley Still but of Sandy Murdoch. He lay on his back, his right arm behind his head, hearing the window latches rattle and the floorboards creak and groan and it was as though the time spent working on another, quite different case had freed some portion of his mind to think about Sandy. He was well aware that the case no longer had anything to do with him but he was certain that the pair who had taken over would put the whole thing on the back burner, once they had brought themselves up to speed.
It was not who Sandy was, she or he, which was exercising him. It was the bullet wound. Plenty of islanders kept rifles but it was not a rifle that had killed her. It was a revolver – the sort of gun which, since the Dunblane incident, was virtually impossible to get hold of. Criminals in major cities might have access to them but no one on Taransay, surely. Why would they want, say, a Glock pistol? You didn’t go after rabbits with one of those.
So, either the weapon had come onto the island with a stranger, been used to kill Sandy, and then gone away with the same person, or … or there was someone on Taransay hiding one away. This was so unlikely that Simon dismissed the idea and turned to thinking about an incomer. There were the students at the field centre. There had been a man seen getting off the ferry with them but walking away alone. Had he been the same one Simon had seen on the top road? He tried to focus on the figure in his memory. Walking boots. Rucksack. Cap. Wax jacket. All dark green and khaki, blending in with the background. Average height and weight. He had had no glimpse of the man’s face. Nothing had stood out except that he was a stranger and walking across the island alone. But people did that. Hikers, birders, archaeologists, who visited for a day or a week, and left. The man had not stayed at the inn and there was nowhere else.
But he had almost certainly gone and trying to trace him was a needle-in-a-haystack business. You bought a ticket for the ferry at the quay. It was possible to book online but nobody did so except during the peak few weeks of summer. Nobody asked for a name, ID, a passport any more than they did when you boarded a train.
He turned over. Let DI Lynch and his sidekick find the man.
He slept through the wind and rain until after seven o’clock and as he woke he was still thinking about Sandy and the gun and the stranger and the oddness of the whole scenario.
Twenty minutes later he was driving up to Douglas and Kirsty’s house. The kitchen smelled of frying bacon and Robbie was struggling with his shoelaces.
‘Dad wears boots all the time, and slippers in the house, I never ever
see him in a pair of laced-up shoes,’ Robbie said, pink in the face with bending over. ‘Can you tie laces Mr Simon?’
‘I can. Let me –’
‘Even with your bionic hand you can?’
Simon hesitated. He was wearing pull-on boots. Because until he not only had his new prosthesis and was practised in using it, doing laces, picking up small objects and performing fine finger-and-thumb tasks was impossible. The previous evening he had automatically gone to lift a heavy fallen branch out of the way, and dropped it on his foot, because there was no muscle power in his prosthesis. And when he was caught out like that, it made him flare up, swear at himself, curse the inanimate objects that defeated him. And now he was being challenged by a four-year-old over tying shoclaces.
‘No, Robbie. You’re right. I can’t. I can’t help you.’
It seemed a huge and significant failure and it sickened him.
Kirsty simply handed him a mug of tea. ‘Bacon on toast?’ She gave him a close look.
‘Douglas is out back but he’ll be taking Robbie to school … if it’s him you wanted.’
‘Yes.’
‘Sit down, enjoy your breakfast.’
‘You didn’t ask if I’d already had it.’
‘I can tell you haven’t by looking at you, and even if I’m wrong, who turns down a second one, in this weather?’
Robbie had bent over again and said nothing more, but as Simon took a mouthful of tea, he leapt up. ‘I’ve done them, I’ve tied them, I’ve tied them!’
Kirsty gave a great, warm smile. ‘Come here, let me look.’ Robbie stood on one and then the other leg, raising each shoe to show.
‘Clever wee boy, you can tie them and you’ll never forget it again. Well done, Rob.’ She put out her arms to hug him but he ducked away, and fled from the kitchen. Kirsty laughed. Her face had rounded out and she showed her pregnancy well.
‘You’re looking bonny,’ Simon said. ‘Everything good?’
‘It’s fine, thank you. I’m a lot happier now I’m no so sick every day. What about you?’
He nodded, his mouth full of hot bacon. He thought he might well not be on the island for much longer, and he did not want to tell her. He would tell no one, just get on the ferry and wait for it to return and spread the word that he’d left, with a heavy rucksack and a holdall.
