But what she did know was that she couldn’t let it rest. She had to go back to Carnmore, where it had all begun.
Carnmore, November 1899
“Rab, you mustn’t stay!” Having seen him ride into the yard and dismount, Livvy had flown out of the house and clutched at the sleeve of his coat.
“Livvy, I got your note. Tell me what’s happened.”
Livvy looked round wildly; the yard was empty, but it wouldn’t remain so for long. “You must go, please, before someone tells Will—”
“Will? Livvy, I’ve ridden all the way from Benvulin in a lather. I am not leaving until you tell me what’s wrong. If this is about your father, surely we can work something out—”
“No, it’s more than that.” Realizing that Rab wasn’t going to budge, Livvy took the horse’s bridle and began urging the beast towards the back of the warehouse. The wind that had blown from the east throughout the day had died, and the peat smoke from the kilns rose to meet the bank of cloud hovering over the hilltops. “Come this way, then. We can talk in the warehouse.” Will was overseeing a distillation run and should be occupied in the still-house for a while longer.
Livvy tethered the horse to a stunted rowan and led Rab into the warehouse through the back door. The angels’ share hung heavily in the still, cold air. She turned to him, breathing hard, her back against a rank of casks. “Father told Will, and Will—I’d no idea he would mind so much. He’s furious with me, and with you. It’s as if he’s held back everything since his father’s death, and now—”
“Livvy, I can pay back the money, with interest, in the spring. Surely, I can make him see reason.”
“No, Rab, I don’t want you to try.” The truth was that her sweet and biddable child had become a man, a stranger, and she had seen something in his eyes that frightened her. “Just give me time, I’ll talk to him, and my father. This was my idea; I won’t have them blame you.”
Rab grasped her shoulders, as he had the night of the harvest-home, and she felt a shuddering ache run through her body. “Dear God, Livvy, I’ve never seen you like this. You are so beautiful I can hardly bear it.” He plunged a hand into her hair, and she felt it tumble loose, cascading down her back. “Have you any idea how much I want you? There must be a way—”
“Rab, no.” She twisted in his grip, panic warring with desire. “We can’t—You’re married, and I—if Will—”
“You’re a grown woman, Livvy. You can choose what you want.”
“But I can’t, Rab,” she whispered. “I’ve seen that.” Yet she had stopped struggling, and when his lips came down on hers, she returned the kiss fiercely. She was lost, and she knew it. Her body had no defense against him.
“You bastard.” Will’s voice cut through the haze of her need like ice.
Rab let her go, and stepped away.
Will stood in the doorway, his eyes lit with a cold fury. “First you cheat my mother out of her money, then you try to seduce her. Or have you already?” He came towards them, fists clenched.
“Will, be sensible,” Rab said easily, but Livvy felt him tense. “You don’t want to insult your mother—”
“Me? Insult my mother?” Will’s voice rose and cracked. “How dare you suggest it, when you’ve made a mockery of her, and of me, and of my father’s memory—”
“Will, your father has nothing to do with this. Your father wouldn’t have wanted to see another distillery fail—”
“You think my father would have wanted to see another man with his wife? You think my father wouldn’t have wanted me to defend his honor?” Will was within striking distance now, his fists raised.
“I think your father wouldn’t have wanted you to get hurt, Will.” Rab rocked forward on his toes. “I outweigh you by a good three stone. You’re going to regret it if I hit you.”
“Stop it, both of you,” shouted Livvy, but it was too late. Will’s right hand had flashed out in a blur of motion. Blood streamed from Rab’s nose, and then they were grappling and shoving, grunting with effort.
Livvy tried to pull Will away, but he flung her off into the dirt. Rab got in a punch that grazed Will’s head, but not even his weight and experience seemed a match for Will’s anger. They came together again, in a parody of an embrace, and for a moment Rab had Will pinned against the casks. Then Will twisted free, quick as a cat, and Rab spun with him. Will staggered back, then catapulted himself forward, stiff-armed, and gave Rab a shove that had all his weight behind it.
Rab fell, hard, into the casks, and Livvy heard the crack of bone against wood. Will was still on him, pummeling wildly with his fists as Rab slumped to the floor.
“Will, stop!” screamed Livvy, clawing at him. “He’s hurt, Will.” At last she got her arms round her son’s waist and pulled him away. Only then did Will seem to realize that the other man wasn’t hitting back.
The smell of whisky filled the air, burning Livvy’s throat. The bung of the cask where Rab had hit his head had come loose, and whisky dripped to the floor.
She looked down at Rab Brodie’s crumpled form with growing horror. Livvy’s mother had died in her arms, as had her baby daughter, and her husband. She knew the face of death when she saw it. Still, she knelt beside him, shaking him, sobbing as she stroked his cheek. There was no response.
“Dear God, Will, you’ve killed him,” she whispered, her voice cracking.
Will sank to his knees, as if his legs had suddenly refused to support him. “No. He can’t be. I’ll get help. The men are gone—I sent them home early, with the weather closing in, but I can go to the village—”
“Will, no.” Livvy felt an icy calm envelop her. She had lost everything that mattered to her, except her son. She would not lose him, too.
“There’s no help for him now,” she said. “We’ve no proof that this was an accident. Helen Brodie has powerful friends. I won’t have you go to prison.”
“Prison? But I never meant—”
“What you meant doesn’t matter now. If I hadn’t—” She shook her head hopelessly. “Will, this is going to be between you and me, our secret. I won’t have you suffer for what I’ve done.”
“But we can’t—”
“We can. We’ll bury him here, beneath the casks. No one will ever know.”
But she would. She would carry Rab’s death with her like a mark, and for her, there would be no forgiveness on either side of the grave.
The confines of the old warehouse were dim, and several degrees colder than the outside air. Although it was not quite noon, the sky had darkened ominously.
Hazel stood, letting her eyes adjust to the light, looking round the cavernous empty space. The ranks of casks that had filled it in her childhood were long gone, but for an instant, she thought she caught the faint scent of whisky. Had the angels’ share leached into the stone itself, a permanent reminder of the past?
No, she told herself, it was just her imagination, as were these dreams. But here the images seemed stronger, and if she closed her eyes she could almost hear their voices. Olivia and Will Urquhart, Rab Brodie. She could put names to them now, if not faces.
Suddenly, she remembered a recurring childhood terror. There had been a spot in the warehouse, halfway down the left-hand side, that had always inexplicably frightened her. Had there been a reason for her fear?
With a swift decision, she left the warehouse and walked across the nettle-studded yard to the old barn. She dug around in a jumble of rusty tools, brushing cobwebs from her face, until she found an ancient spade. The wood of the handle was cracked, the head slightly loose, but it would have to do.
Going back to the warehouse, she stood in the doorway, closing her eyes again, deliberately placing herself within the dream perspective. Sweat broke out under her arms, on her forehead, as she felt again the panic of her dream.
She walked forward, slowly, twenty paces, then stepped to the left. The casks had stood here; the earth was packed as hard as concrete. When she jabbed the tip of the spade into
the ground, the shock reverberated up her arms. But she swung again, and again, her face set in determination, until her hair was damp with sweat and her hands were numb.
She knew this ground; she knew there was only a shallow layer of topsoil over rock. If they had buried Rab Brodie here, they had not buried him deep. She dug on, beginning to wonder if she was mad.
Hazel had almost given up when her spade struck something more yielding. Dropping to her knees, she scrabbled in the dirt with her bare hands. There—she brushed away another layer of soil, more gently this time, except that it didn’t feel like soil. It crumbled in her fingers…was it peat? Beneath that, she felt something pliable, a leaf—no, it was cloth, a heavy cloth…wool…a man’s coat, perhaps? The fragile scrap seemed to disintegrate even as she touched it, revealing the dark knob of a stick—no, it was bone, bone stained with the rich, deep brown of peat.
Hazel snatched her hand back and clapped it to her mouth, stifling a moan. She hadn’t believed it, even as she dug, not really, but now the grief in the dream came back to her as if it were her own.
Her eyes swam with tears and she began to weep, short, hiccoughing sobs that grew stronger until they wrenched at her chest. Was she crying for Livvy Urquhart and Rab Brodie, or for her grandfather, Will…or for Donald…and Tim…and herself?
The spasms began to ease and she sat back, sniffing. She would have to tell someone—it was past time Rab Brodie’s death came to light.
The light voice came from behind her, making her heart jolt in surprise. “Hazel? What on earth are you doing?”
Hazel stood and squinted at the small form silhouetted in the doorway. “Louise? What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you.” Louise came forward until Hazel could see her more clearly. “You know, we really haven’t had any time alone together for a chat since you’ve come.”
“Has something happened? Is it Tim? Or John? Have they arrested John?”
“No. I don’t think they will arrest John,” said Louise, and there was a note in her voice Hazel couldn’t identify. “What are you doing?” she added, coming close enough to peer down into Hazel’s small trench. “You’ve been digging.”
“I—I’m not sure.” Hazel felt suddenly reluctant to say. “I thought…there was someone buried here, a long time ago.”
Louise knelt and poked a finger into the hole. “Bones?” She looked up, her eyes wide. “You’ve found another body? Well, hasn’t this been a week for revelations?” Standing, she picked up the spade Hazel had abandoned and raked the tip over the soil.
Hazel put out a hand. “Louise, don’t—”
“Possessive about this one, too, are you?” Louise stopped, leaning on the spade.
“What—I don’t understand.” Hazel’s heart began to thud.
“Not everything belongs to you, Hazel. Did you know that? Did it ever occur to you that other people deserve a share? That other people have feelings?”
“Louise, what are you talking about?” Hazel whispered.
“Did you never think, all those years ago, how I might have felt?” she hissed, her voice full of venom. “Louise, the invisible. Louise, the third wheel. I watched you together, and you never noticed. I loved him, and you never saw it. And then you threw him away, as if he were so much rubbish, and left me to patch up his wounds.”
“Louise, it wasn’t like that at all—”
“You discarded him and moved on to the next one, as if you were changing shoes. But I kept on. I loved him, and I waited. I married John, because he was available, and I waited a little longer. I chose the property here, the closest to Donald I could find. I thought he would see…if I gave him enough time…if I could show him what he was missing.
“And then, you came back, picking up where you left off, and he was so blind he didn’t see you would do the same thing again.”
“But, Louise, I didn’t—”
“But you did. I told him that morning, told him that you had packed and gone, without even telling him good-bye. He didn’t believe me.”
“You…saw Donald?”
“I was out walking. Someone had left John’s little gun in my potting shed, and the rabbits had been into my garden, so I took the shotgun with me. I wanted to think; I was so happy when I saw you drive away, but I knew I couldn’t show it, not yet. I didn’t know Donald was out, as well, until I saw him coming across the meadow.
“He met me with a smile. He wanted to share it all with me, your joyous reunion, his plans for the future. I had to tell him, then, that you were gone.
“He didn’t believe me, at first.” Louise shook her head, as though his stubbornness still surprised her. “When it began to dawn on him that I was telling the truth, he wanted to go after you. That was too much, after everything you’d done to him. I couldn’t bear it.
“I told him he was a fool. I told him that you would never really care for him, not the way I did.” She fell silent, and Hazel waited, too sick with horror to speak.
When Louise did go on, her eyes seemed to have lost their focus. “He laughed at me. I told him I loved him, and he laughed at me. He thought I was joking, at first. And then, when he realized I meant it, he looked at me as if I were something nasty, an insect found under a log.
“‘I wouldn’t have you if you were the last woman on earth, Louise,’ he said. ‘You’re a wee cold spider, always watching, always waiting, always looking for your advantage. You should watch yourself—you’ll be lucky I don’t tell your husband what you’re up to. Now, let me go.’ He shook my hand off his arm.”
“What—What did you do then?” Hazel asked hoarsely, in spite of herself.
“I didn’t think,” answered Louise, with an air of wonder. “I just raised the gun and pulled the trigger. He looked so surprised.”
Hazel took an involuntary step back, stifling a sob. “Louise, why are you telling me this?”
“Because Callum MacGillivray didn’t die, and I have no doubt he’ll be telling Chief Inspector Ross that he saw me that morning.”
“You—You poisoned that poor man?”
Louise didn’t seem to have heard. Her gaze had focused on Hazel again, fully intent. “You’re afraid of me, aren’t you?” she asked, as if the possibility had not occurred to her. “I told you, I only came here to talk…but then, it all comes down to you, doesn’t it…And I have nothing to lose.” Louise smiled, tightening her grip on the spade, and Hazel’s blood ran cold.
Leaving Tim in the interview room, Kincaid went out into the corridor and rang Gemma from his mobile phone.
“Gemma!” he said with undisguised relief when she answered. “Listen, I’ve just talked to Tim. He was there over the weekend, all right, and he did take the gun from the cabinet. But he says he didn’t shoot Donald Brodie. He left the gun in the potting shed. In which case—”
“Louise took it.”
“You knew?”
“I talked to Callum. He saw her, walking through the meadow with the gun. That’s why she poisoned him.”
“Have you told Ross?”
“I left him a mess—” The phone signal broke up.
“Gemma, you don’t mean to talk to Louise yourself?” he asked, with dawning dread. “You realize that if this woman shot Donald, and poisoned Callum, she’s capable of anything.”
A garble of static came back to him, interspersed with a few intelligible words. “…no choice…Hazel…gone after her…”
“Gemma, where are you?” he said, only realizing he was shouting when a passerby in the corridor looked at him oddly.
“…pole in…” he thought he heard her say, and then very clearly, “…the Braes of Glenlivet.” Then the phone connection went dead.
The rain had turned to snow as Gemma passed through Tomintoul. Fat, white flakes splattered the windscreen like stars, then vanished beneath the wipers. As visibility diminished, she regretted the time she’d taken to drive to Innesfree, but she had hoped against hope that Louise had not followed Hazel to C
arnmore.
But when she arrived at the B&B, she found not Louise, but Pascal, fuming. Ross had had him driven to Aviemore to make a formal statement, and when he’d returned he’d found both Louise and his car gone. “I left her the keys,” he explained, “in case she needed to move it. I had not parked this morning with the intent to stay.”
“We’ll have to hope courtesy is its own reward,” Gemma told him, patting his arm. “What about John and Martin?”
“Still at the Aviemore Police Station. I think they were waiting for the return of John’s car.”
“Come on, then. I have to drive back past Benvulin. I’ll drop you.” She had explained the situation briefly on the way; then, after leaving Pascal at Benvulin’s gate, she called Ross again and this time left a detailed message.
Perhaps Kincaid would try to reach him, she thought as she made the turning at the Pole Inn. She’d pulled over for a moment in the pub’s car park and tried to ring Kincaid back, but she’d lost her mobile phone signal, and she didn’t want to take the time to use the call box.
The snow grew heavier as she crawled along the track that led into the Braes, her sense of urgency mounting. By the time she reached Chapeltown, she could see only a few feet in front of the car, but she kept going along the farm track that led up towards Carnmore. If she got stuck, she would worry about it later.
But her luck held, and when she could make out the more solidly white shapes of the distillery buildings, she stopped the car. She slipped out, careful to make no sound. A few feet on, when she recognized both Heather’s Audi and Pascal’s BMW, she hesitated. As Kincaid had said, Louise had shown herself to be capable of anything, killing, or attempting to kill, both with forethought and without.
She went back to the car and, quietly popping the boot, took out the tire tool. It was the best she could do.
The snow cloaked her and muffled her footfalls as she neared the distillery. She could see that the door of the old warehouse stood open, so she approached it obliquely, then stood just at its edge, listening with increasing dismay as Louise matter-of-factly related murdering Donald.
Now May You Weep Page 32
