Dead in the Water

by Aline Templeton

  He relaxed a little. ‘I knew I could count on you. This way, we’re seen to be running our own ship and – well, it’s in the family, isn’t it?’

  Thinking about her father, Fleming hadn’t considered how embarrassing this was for Bailey too. An unsolved murder case is a professional failure for the Senior Investigating Officer, and to have someone else check on you, trying to pinpoint mistakes you might have made, perhaps even finding the answer you hadn’t found, must be an uncomfortable thought.

  It wouldn’t be comfortable for her either. She’d have to put him on the spot, quite possibly find fault . . . Not exactly the best position to be in with your boss. A nasty suspicion took hold of her. ‘In the family?’ Was he, and was the CC, expecting her merely to rubberstamp his decisions?

  As delicately as she could, she suggested someone from outside. ‘They would find it easier to see things clearly. I might find it hard to be totally objective—’

  ‘No, no!’ he cried. ‘I have confidence in you as the best officer I know. And we want the best possible job.’

  She hadn’t thought it would work. ‘Thank you for the compliment,’ she said with a sickly smile.

  Bailey beamed. ‘Well deserved. And naturally, you must grill me on what I did. I don’t expect any favours. And if you succeed where I failed, I shall be delighted.’

  Perhaps he even thought he meant it, but human nature being what it is, he wouldn’t be delighted in the least. He had to be hoping she too would find the case insoluble. Fleming’s heart sank further. ‘I can only do my best,’ she said hollowly.

  ‘Good enough for me. I’ll arrange for the material to be sent to you, and you can have whatever back-up you need, of course.’

  Fleming left with a sense of foreboding. The classic no-win situation: success would mean her superintendent being humiliated; failure would give Sheila Milne ammunition for the vendetta she seemed determined to pursue.

  The connection with her father, too: the more she thought about it, the more uncomfortable she felt, as if she were being drawn into disloyalty. And she had, too, an uneasy, superstitious feeling about digging up events from long ago. You never knew what ghosts would emerge from the grave of the past.

  Marjory Fleming headed out of Kirkluce on her way home to the farm owned by her husband Bill, and his parents and grandparents before him. Farming wasn’t an easy life these days – if it ever had been – and the catastrophe of foot-and-mouth, scare stories about BSE in sheep and the flood of ever-changing European directives had made the last few years particularly stressful, but even so her heart always lifted when she turned up the farm track.

  Mains of Craigie was looking particularly appealing today. It sat on rising ground, looking out to soft green Galloway hills, and with the brisk March wind the daffodils that straggled up by the farm track were dancing with an enthusiasm to inspire Wordsworth to a positive frenzy of poetic rapture. The sky was clear, with fluffy clouds whipping past, and on the hill opposite were half-grown lambs, still at the playful stage, playing King of the Castle on a tussock. As Marjory parked the car in the yard and got out she could hear loud triumphant cackling coming from the old orchard below the house, where one of her hens had obviously laid an egg.

  Smiling, she went to look down at them, the cares of a bruising day slipping away. Just watching them, plump and confident, strutting and scratching around in the rough grass, and hearing their comfortable sounds always put things into perspective.

  She hadn’t worked late tonight, so Bill would probably still be out around the farm. The kids should be home, unless Cammie had one of his rugby training sessions. It would be nice if they could all have supper together – it didn’t happen as often as it should.

  Supper was something to look forward to these days. Karolina Cisek, whose husband Rafael worked for Bill on the farm, had transformed Marjory’s life, not only by helping with laundry and cleaning. She also provided delicious meals from the small catering company she had managed to set up, despite three-year-old Janek whose mission in life seemed to be to run his mother ragged. With her quiet, even shy appearance – soft fair hair, blue-grey eyes and dimples in her pink cheeks – you could never guess she would be so dynamic. She was fluent in English now, though her husband still struggled and they always spoke Polish at home. Marjory suspected Rafael wasn’t altogether happy with his wife’s new career, but no doubt the money was welcome.

  Her mother’s little car was parked in the yard, she was pleased to see. She was worried about Janet Laird, who had coped well with her husband’s distressing decline, but since his death eighteen months ago had been . . . It was hard to define exactly what, since Janet was still her gentle, cheerful self, and her face was rounded and plump once more. But she was, Marjory sensed, diminished in some way, as if in losing Angus she had lost part of herself too.

  It was hard to know what to do, since enquiries invariably met with a smiling ‘Och, I’m fine,’ to which you could hardly say, ‘No, you’re not,’ without evidence to back it up. All Marjory could do was hold a watching brief and keep her mother involved in family life, without letting her do too much and wear herself out. She’d always felt guilty about taking advantage of Janet’s uncomplaining readiness to provide childcare and supplement Marjory’s own lack of culinary skills. Now the children were older and Karolina was doing most of the housekeeping, Marjory could make sure Janet was free to enjoy her friends and her garden instead of servicing the demands of the Flemings.

  Taking off her shoes in the mud room, she could hear Cat chattering away in the kitchen. She sounded cheerful and excited and Marjory smiled. At sixteen, Cat had suddenly shaken off the worst of her teenage rebellion; she’d got very good marks in her Standard Grades last year and was working hard towards Highers, hoping to become a vet. She was even stepping out with a nice lad with ambitions to be a doctor, and Bill and Marjory were beginning tentatively to hope that, allowing for occasional lapses, the worst was probably over.

  Cammie, at fourteen almost as tall as his father, had reached the spotty, hairy, grunting stage. He had dark hair and eyes like his mother’s, but his looks weren’t improved by bruises and the occasional black eye, and his nose was no longer the shape God had intended. Not that he cared; rugby and his training were still the most important things in his life, ruling out the drink-drugs-girls problems most parents with teenage boys worried about. He seemed set for a professional playing career with the farm to come back to later, and since he couldn’t actually have forgotten how to talk, communication would no doubt be re-established in a year or two. He was good around the farm anyway, and conversation wasn’t a necessity when you were heaving bales or dipping sheep.

  Cat and Janet were alone in the kitchen, mugs of tea and a plate of flapjacks in front of them. The Tin, a family institution, was open on the table, with a chocolate cake, shortbread, a fruit loaf and some more of the flapjacks inside. It was battered now by years of service, but Janet still regularly filled it up to bring to the farm and take back empty.

  Marjory came in and bent to give Janet a hug. Was it just her imagination, or had her mother got smaller this last year or two?

  ‘Had a good day, pet?’ Janet asked, as she had done since her daughter was coming home from Primary One. ‘I’ll just make you a cup of tea.’

  ‘No, no, Mum,’ Marjory protested. ‘You sit down. I’ll get it myself.’

  Cat, unfolding her long legs, stood up. ‘Stop bickering, you two. Mum, sit down and I’ll make some tea. You want another cup, Gran?’

  Marjory and Janet exchanged smiles, doing as they were told. As Cat lifted the lid of the Aga and pulled across the kettle, she said over her shoulder, ‘Did you hear about the filming, Mum?’

  ‘Filming? No.’

  ‘I was just telling Gran. You know Playfair’s Patch?’

  ‘Know it, yes,’ Marjory said, ‘but don’t ask me to watch it. Playfair’s a superintendent, allegedly, and does house-to-house enquiries. Try asking Donald Bailey t
o go out knocking on doors and see what answer you get!’

  Cat brought back the teapot and put it on the table. ‘Oh, Mum, get with it! It’s a crime series, OK? It’s not a documentary. Bet if they filmed what you do all day it’d be so boring no one would watch it.’

  ‘You have a point there. Sometimes I can hardly bear to watch it myself.’ Marjory took a flapjack.

  ‘The thing is, they’re coming to shoot an episode over in the South Rhins next week. Isn’t that totally wicked?’ Cat’s eyes were sparkling.

  ‘I thought Playfair’s Patch was in Glasgow,’ Marjory objected.

  ‘Well – yeah. So? It’ll look good and you could kind of think it might be somewhere in Strathclyde. Anyway,’ Cat went on as her mother seemed ready to argue, ‘the thing is, Karolina’s going to ask you for a few days off – she’s got a Polish friend in catering in Glasgow and heard they needed extra help in the canteen. They’re wanting school kids as extras too, so I said how cool it would be if I could get in on it, and she goes, “Well, my friend knows the director – he’ll mention you.” Wouldn’t that be fantastic? I phoned Anna and we could go together – it would be, like, amazing!’

  Cat and Anna seemed to do most things together these days, but that was fine. Anna was a great improvement on some of Cat’s earlier chums – pretty, clever and nice too.

  ‘Sounds fun. But what’s Karolina going to do with Janek?’

  ‘I could baby-sit for her—’ Janet began, but her daughter interrupted, shaking her head.

  ‘It’s so like you to offer, and granted, Janek’s an engaging little scamp, but you’ve no idea what a handful a lively three-year-old can be.’

  ‘Calling Janek lively is like saying it’s a bit blowy during a hurricane,’ Cat put in. ‘I’m always wiped out after baby-sitting, even though he’s mostly asleep. No, she’s parking him in a nursery – worth the money, she said, because it could really boost her catering company. That’ll be brilliant, won’t it?’

  Marjory agreed, as enthusiastically as she could. It wasn’t impressive that her first thought had been to wonder about its effect on her domestic life, when this would indeed be a wonderful opportunity for Karolina.

  Cat didn’t notice, but Janet was quick to pick up reservation in her tone. ‘Don’t worry about the house, dearie. I can easily come up and keep things running for you, now I’ve no one to think of but myself.’

  ‘Of course not!’ Marjory exclaimed. ‘I wouldn’t take advantage of you like that. You do enough – visiting at the old people’s home, all the baking for those constant coffee mornings and church fairs. You were exhausted after the Lifeboat fundraiser last week when I came to see you.’

  ‘Well, I’d been on my feet the whole day,’ Janet protested, but her daughter went on.

  ‘Anyway, Karolina’s doing fine at the moment and it may take some time to get major clients. But Cat – next week, did you say? You’ve got school.’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s a complete doss just now. It’s only a week till the end of term, it’s just revision and we’ve covered the syllabus already. I’ll work in the evenings, I swear.’

  Marjory looked at her daughter doubtfully. She was quite eye-catching, blonde and slim with long legs and pretty blue eyes, and if they needed an attractive teenager she would certainly fit the profile. ‘You’ll have to ask the Head. If he agrees, I won’t object.’

  Cat came over to fling her arms round her mother’s neck. ‘Thanks, Mum. I’m sure the Heidie will say it’s OK. He’s almost human – says it’s good to broaden our experience.’

  ‘Who’s the star, anyway?’ Marjory asked idly. ‘I remember seeing him – quite good-looking, fortyish.’

  ‘Marcus Lindsay. And his sidekick’s Jaki Johnston. He’s meant to be sort of posh, and she’s not. It said in Heat they’re an item.’

  ‘Marcus Lindsay!’ Janet said. ‘Now, I know something about him – what is it, now? Give me a wee minute . . .’ She frowned, then her brow cleared. ‘That’s right! It’s not his real name – not the Lindsay bit. He’s Marcus Lazansky – Lindsay was his mother’s name, and I suppose he’d need something easier for folk to remember. His father was a Czech, Ladislav Lazansky – he was a fighter pilot. Stayed on after the war.’

  Janet gave a little sigh. ‘Laddie Lazansky! My, he was handsome – a charmer, too! We’d coffee mornings then too, raising funds for poor folks in Middle Europe, and he’d always be there. So dashing – I mind him wearing a blue cravat, just the colour of his eyes . . .’

  ‘Gran! You’ve gone quite pink!’ Cat teased.

  Janet laughed softly. ‘Oh, I was young once! And I’d an eye for a braw lad – I chose your grandfather, after all, and a fine-looking man he always was.’

  Her eyes had misted, and Marjory said hastily, ‘Was Laddie a suitor too, Mum?’

  ‘Oh dearie me, no!’ Janet seemed shocked at the suggestion. ‘I was only a wee smout then, younger than you, Cat. Anyway, he’d a wife in Czechoslovakia, though I doubt he ever went back there. Got a divorce and married that Flora Lindsay – county family, with an estate up near Dumfries, but then he was meant to be the same kind back where he came from. They’d a grand house over Ardhill way.

  ‘They’re both dead now – I mind his mother died last year – but Marcus still has the house, though I doubt he’s ever there. He’d be about your age, Marjory, I would jalouse, but they sent him away to school in the south so you’d never have met him.’

  ‘Is there anyone in Galloway you don’t know about?’ Marjory said, amused. ‘You put our official records to shame.’

  She considered asking Janet about the unsolved murder, but she was reluctant to spoil this pleasant family time. Anyway, she could hear the roar of quad bikes arriving, then Bill talking to Cammie and the boy’s familiar grunt in reply. They’d be wanting their supper soon.

  ‘You’ll stay for supper, Mum, won’t you?’ she said to Janet.

  ‘That would be nice, pet. Now, what can I do? Peel potatoes—’

  ‘No, no need. I’ve a wonderful casserole with some unpronounceable Polish name in the freezer, and it only needs rice. You can talk to your son-in-law while I go up and change.’

  ‘That’ll be lovely,’ Janet said, but, Marjory thought, her voice sounded a bit flat again. Talking about Angus must have brought it all back.

  2

  The fire in the basket grate of the Adams-style fireplace was burning low and it was a cold night. In spite of the central heating, the room felt suddenly chilly, and with an anxious glance at his companion Marcus Lindsay went to fetch logs from a huge wicker basket.

  Even here in his own house there was an air of theatricality about him, as if he were following a stage direction: ‘Cross to stage left, fetch logs and place on fire.’ He was above medium height, though not tall; he was slim and well-built, with a face marked by strong eyebrows and a square chin. It was too irregular for classical good looks, but his very blue eyes, in contrast to his dark hair, were striking. They had an attractive way of crinkling at the corners, too, when he smiled as he did now, picking out a couple of peat sods to add to the flames beginning to lick round the logs.

  ‘I’m probably committing an eco-crime by burning peat, but I just love the smell, don’t you?’

  ‘Après nous le déluge, darling,’ the woman said in the husky voice with a slight break in it which had made her famous. She held up the crystal brandy balloon she was holding in a toast and finished what was left in it. A moonstone ring on the third finger of her left hand sparkled in the light from the Chinese lamp on a side table.

  Sylvia Lascelles was much older than Marcus, well into her seventies, and she was no longer the beauty she once had been. But good bones age well: she still had fine grey-violet eyes, and her thick white hair was swept up in a loose knot on her head. She was wearing black jersey Jean Muir, but the hand holding the glass was gnarled, and though she was sitting in a high-backed Jacobean armchair, a wheelchair stood waiting and she had a black cane with a he
avy silver knob at her side.

  ‘Another one?’ Marcus suggested, going to the butler’s tray where the drinks were, carrying his own glass.

  She shook her head. ‘Shouldn’t even have had this one. Quarrels with my medication but I couldn’t resist. Find me some bloody sparkling water, darling, and I can pretend it’s champagne.’

  Pulling a sympathetic face, he brought it to her. ‘Here’s to old loves,’ she said, in her usual toast, then added with a touch of bitterness, ‘and to charity.’

  ‘Sylvia! If that means what I think it does—’

  ‘Oh, sweetheart, forgive?’ She held out her hand in what was still a graceful movement. She had great power to charm; he took it and kissed it.

  ‘I’m such a self-pitying old bag,’ she went on. ‘I keep opening Vogue and seeing women my age like sodding Jane Fonda, all air-brushed and cut to shape, talking about being seventy years young.

  ‘It’s a real bitch, I tell you, when your body lets you down. Oh, there’s no gratitude – the money I lavished on it, boring mud-wraps, massages, spas, hours on the beastly treadmill . . .’ She turned it into a joke, aware perhaps that old people talking about their ailments is the ultimate turn-off.

  He smiled with her, then said seriously, ‘Look, let’s knock the charity thing on the head, right now. This part’s made for you. Asking you to do it was a no-brainer. When I said I thought I could persuade you, the director went crazy. It’ll probably double our audience – a rare appearance by the fabulous Sylvia Lascelles.’

  ‘Flatterer! But it’s dear of you to have thought of me. And to have a few days down here with you, in this heavenly place, with all its memories of darling Laddie—’

  She turned the ring on her finger, her eyes going to the photograph on the mantelpiece, a photograph of a man with the romantic looks of a Thirties film star. His son’s looks were much less striking, but there was a strong resemblance.