Dark of Night

by Oliver Davies

  Adam’s story about the boundary dispute hadn’t appeared to be particularly relevant, but you never knew. Things like that could unexpectedly turn out to be the key to cracking a case open, and I wanted to know all the details. So, the next thing I did was call my cousin Shay, who was living down in Edinburgh at the time. He answered on the third ring, sounding antsy and pleased to hear from me.

  “Conall! How are you doing up there, cuz? All good? I was going to call you this weekend.”

  “Something up?” I asked before I could stop myself. He laughed.

  “Nah, just your Da ragging me to make more of an effort. What have you got for me?”

  It would be annoying, the way he leapt to conclusions like that, if I didn’t know how his mind worked. When had I last called him during working hours just to chat? And he sounded pretty keen, as if he were itching for a live case.

  “I would never dare to describe your Shay as Pretty Keane!” Liam had said to me once, years ago, interrupting one of my tales. “Shame on you, Conall. That’s just criminally inadequate.” Liam could be quite the wit.

  “Where are you?” I asked Shay.

  “In the flat, all on my lonesome. Just noodling with some boring computer stuff. Nothing urgent.” Okay, then. I filled him in on the little I had, so far, and asked if he could find out whatever the mess with the titles had been, just in case it proved to be important.

  “I’ll get right on it,” he promised. “I’ll bounce you a report as soon as possible. Might be quick, might be a day or two. Depends if I need to order any records at Register House myself. A lot of the stuff that hasn’t been digitised isn’t on site and, even when it’s delivered, you have to order copies from their Digital Imaging Unit if you want any.”

  “Sounds lovely!” I said sarcastically. “Thanks, Shay. I’ll expect it when I see it.”

  “Sure. We might get lucky anyway. I know a guy.” Well, of course, he did. If I had a quid for every one of Shay’s ever-expanding web of useful connections, I could pay off the mortgage on my place in East Lothian and wouldn’t have to rent it out again.

  After we’d hung up, Caitlin popped her head in to say that the two farm workers who’d been at the Ramsay’s yesterday had come straight in. “They both seem really upset about poor Gareth,” she told me. “Neither of them seems to think they have anything helpful to tell us, though. They left the farm together at six.”

  Without much hope, I followed her to the interview room, where one of the men had been settled with a mug of tea. We passed the constables talking football with the other one over at their desk. I remembered to stop and text Shay the names and addresses for both properties before we went in.

  We both introduced ourselves, and once we were settled across the table from the first farmhand, Caitlin turned the recorder on. “This is DCI Conall Keane with DS Caitlin Murray interviewing Mr Jack Braithwaite at five past ten am on the 14th of March 2018,” I announced.

  Jack Braithwaite was a short, dark, smooth-shaven, handsome young man who looked to be in his late twenties. His eyes were reddened, as if he’d been crying. He didn’t appear to be nervous, just very upset. “Thank you for coming in today, Jack,” I said gently. “In your own words, could you give as detailed an account of your movements yesterday from the time you arrived at work to going to bed? If you can recall everyone you saw at the farm, and when, that would be helpful.”

  “Yes, of course. I’ll do my best. I just can’t believe this has happened. Everyone’s in shock. Gareth was one of the nicest blokes I’ve ever met. I can’t understand why anyone would do this… sorry.” His accent placed him as a Yorkshire lad.

  “That’s perfectly understandable,” I assured him. “Just take your time, Jack, start when you’re ready.”

  We were done with him in just under half an hour. Caitlin’s terse notes held the approximate time he thought the feed delivery had come and confirmed the identity of the driver, supplying us with the same name Mary Ramsay had given. Jack hadn’t seen any strange people or vehicles about, not even when he and his co-worker had driven down to the village when they left the farm at six pm. We now had a rough timetable for when he’d remembered encountering any of the Ramsay’s and the location on the farm of each person he’d met. He’d last seen Gareth just before leaving for the night, and Gareth had told them he was going in for his tea as soon as he’d put some tools away.

  We repeated the whole process with the other man, a local lad, Alex Cameron. The two of them hadn't been working together all day, but everything each of them had told us matched up well with what the other had said and what Adam Allen had told us, back at the farm.

  Alex’s recollections of, “…then Adam asked Jack to head up to the top field with him to help fix a broken wall. That was about half two, I reckon,” matched Jack’s “Adam and I were about an hour fixing a section of the dry stone wall up there, so it must have been between half three and four when we went in for a cuppa,” and Adam’s “Jack and I left Alex to help Gareth around half twoish I reckon.”

  They had both said they’d driven straight to the village pub, The Ram, for a meal and then the rest of their team pals had turned up for the weekly quiz night. They’d stayed until around ten o’clock.

  It was about eleven by the time we’d finished with Alex, and Caitlin went off to write up all the notes. I sent two patrol constables off to visit the neighbouring farms, like I’d made a note to do earlier, and went back to my office to spin my chair back and forth and plan out the rest of our day. There was no chance of getting anything from forensics before late afternoon and, more probably, only tomorrow morning.

  I decided that we should head out toward the Kerr Estate once Caitlin had caught up and that it would be a good idea to pop in at The Ram for lunch on our way over there. Alex and Jack had both said the food there was good - “well tidy scran they do”- in Alex’s words - and we could confirm their shared alibi at the same time. Plus, I was confident that the landlord there would be well worth talking to. Local gossip didn’t often escape the ears of resident Publican. Then I ran some searches on crime reports in the vicinity while I ate the small but still edible brown banana I found in my top drawer as a late nod to missing out on a solid breakfast.

  My searches didn’t reveal anything new to me that might have raised a red flag. There had been a couple of DUIs issued to some lads from town who’d fancied a rural pub crawl, some petty thefts from parked vehicles, a fistfight that neither party had wanted to press charges about and had been given a caution for and several complaints from farmers about tourists leaving gates open or letting their dogs loose on private farmland; like I said, nothing that merited digging into in connection with our new case. And really, this was the kind of scut work I should have delegated to one of my DCs, and would have, if I’d had anything better to do just then.

  I found myself wondering if Mary’s brother in Canada would fly over for the funeral. She’d mentioned that, given the time difference, she was waiting to call him once she knew he’d be up, to break the news and explain why they couldn’t set a date for the funeral service just yet. There was no point in ruining his night’s sleep, was there? It wasn’t like there was anything he could do. That did it. I wasn’t going to sit here until I couldn’t stop thinking about getting phone calls like that, telling you that someone you loved very dearly had been killed. I got up, grabbed my coat and left the office. Caitlin saw me coming, locked her screen, and got up.

  “Grab your stuff,” I said, keeping my tone under control quite nicely, “I need to get out of here and get some proper work done. Are you hungry yet?”

  “Famished.” she pulled her coat on and stuffed her phone notebook and little digital recorder into her pockets. “The Ram?” she asked, astutely, because she’d have had pretty much the same thoughts about it as I’d been having. As we made our way out, I spotted my most promising DC, Mary Walker, and asked her to take the delivery van driver’s statement when he came in. Mary was very sharp
, very responsible and had the right kind of analytical mind to do very well on her current path, given time. I’d snatched her from the uniform pool and packed her off to the Academy for the mandatory twelve weeks’ training about two months after I’d taken up my post here, after my promotion to DCI. She’d been more than happy to go, after we’d had a good talk. Her talents were being wasted with the uniforms, and I have no idea why my predecessor here hadn’t done anything about it. She’d joined the force with an undergraduate degree under her belt and put in three solid years in uniform before I came along. Given another year, or so, I thought she’d be ready to pass her sergeant’s exam with flying colours and, by then, she’d have enough experience to perform well in the role.

  McKinnon had offered me a replacement, second DS when Billy Mead had retired, a few months ago, but I’d explained that I was training one up for myself and could manage just fine with the team I had here, for now. He got it. If I was fully staffed, I’d have to keep the more senior DS he’d given me and let someone else steal Walker from under my nose. And he knew that I knew he wouldn’t offer me either of his best two. So he’d played fair and let me have my way. Like I said before, McKinnon was a great boss.

  Five

  Alex and Jack were right. The quality of The Ram’s food was well above average. I don’t think I’d eaten a better meal for weeks. The service was fast, too, even though they were starting to get busy when we arrived. The landlord was a ‘poster boy’ for jolly, rotund, red-faced publicans everywhere. He was a big balding man with the broken-veined nose of a regular drinker and the stomach you’d expect on anyone who ate most of their meals in this place. Once I’d introduced Caitlin and myself, he made it his business to make sure we weren’t kept waiting.

  “Don’t concern yourselves about jumping the queue, Inspector,” he insisted when I asked him not to give us any special treatment. “We’ve all heard about that awful business with Gareth. We want you back on the job and at your sharpest, and you can’t do that if you don’t get properly fed as quickly as we can manage it.” He eyed me up and down, tutting disapprovingly at my leanness, as if keeping in good shape was highly inadvisable in his book. I’m pretty certain that the steak I was served was a lot bigger than their standard portion.

  The Ram was a typical pub for the area, with dark wooden furnishings and comfortable padded benches in the booths along the long wall opposite the bar. Matching upholstery adorned the chairs and stools around the tables spaced out across a carpet of fading red with a thin, yellow geometric pattern running through it. For all I knew, that carpet might have been identical to others I’d seen in dozens of places like this over the years. The same could be said for the framed prints and landscape paintings adorning the white walls. Everything was warm, welcoming and familiar.

  The locals who’d dropped in to eat pretended not to see us, or to know who we were within minutes, and they all left as soon as they’d finished their lunches, no hanging about out of morbid curiosity. The pensioners coddling slow pints in clusters around their favoured tables also respectfully kept their distance, although I could see them sneaking curious glances our way. Their low mumble of speculation played counterpoint to the clinking of our cutlery throughout the meal. Neither Caitlin nor I were surprised that news of the death had already reached the local pub.

  The Landlord, Robert Fowler, had to have been pushing sixty but despite his age and bulk seemed surprisingly spry as he bustled about while we ate. He was there in an instant when we finally pushed our plates aside in a reluctant admission of defeat. “Will you not take another bite of something?” he asked, “A bit of apple pie and cream, perhaps?”

  “Just a black coffee for me, thank you, espresso if you have a machine?” No, no luck there. “And could we borrow some of your time to ask a few questions?”

  “Aye, of course!” He nodded. “I’ll sit a bit while you have your coffee.” He looked questioningly at Caitlin, who I could tell was dying to loosen her belt. She shook her head.

  “Nothing for me thank you. Everything was delicious, though. Really good.” Fowler bustled off with our plates and Caitlin pushed herself up and headed for the bathroom. I stood up when I saw her come out again, so she could get past me. She pulled her water over to our side of the table and got her notebook ready. Fowler brought my coffee and claimed Caitlin’s former place, managing to squeeze in without apparent difficulty. He sat back, looking comfortable enough, and there was definitely still a little gap between his belly and the table edge.

  “Now, what would you like to know, Inspector?” he asked.

  “Could you tell me what time Alex Cameron and Jack Braithwaite came in yesterday evening, Mr Fowler? They’re not under suspicion of any wrongdoing. We’re just following procedure and checking everyone’s whereabouts.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  “Well, I’d gone upstairs for an hour between five and six, like I usually do,” he said. “We’ve a flat up there, me and the missus. Our Sean was watching the bar, and Sally was helping him. She starts at four, doesn’t do any early shifts. I reckon your boys came in soon after I got back down. So about ten past six, give or take five minutes.” I nodded, sampling my coffee, it was better than I’d hoped for.

  “Can you tell me what time they left? Or if either of them went out and came back before that?” Fowler took a minute to think the evening through.

  “They had their food with a pint each, then moved to their usual table. Alex’s brother Billy and his wife joined them straight after, at around seven, and Jack’s girlfriend Becky, a few minutes later. That’s their regular team. The quiz started on time, at seven-thirty. It ran a bit late last night, but it was still over before nine. No luck for Billy’s team, again, but they were fourth out of seven. Better than their usual.” He shook his head, smiling slightly at their quizzing shortfalls. “I reckon they all headed out about an hour later, around ten. The girls were the designated drivers this week. They take it in turns, fair like.” He thought a little more. “Billy and his missus nipped out for five minutes having a smoke a couple of times, but I didn’t see any of the others move, except to nip to the loos.”

  “That’s very helpful, thank you.” I hadn’t thought that either Jack or Alex made likely suspects, but it was good to know their alibis were so solid. I leaned forward, resting my arms on the table. “Can you think of anyone who might have held a grudge against Gareth Ramsay? You seem like a man who might know pretty much everything that goes on around here, hears all the gossip.” Fowler snorted.

  “Aye, well that comes with the job, really. But as to your question, the only person that springs to mind is dead, so he’s ruled out—and anyway, we hadn’t seen him around these parts since the nineties.”

  “A local who moved away?”

  “Archie Ramsay, Gareth’s no-good, thieving little brother. He was a right nasty little shite, pardoning my language, Sergeant.” His eyes had lost their warm friendliness as he reminisced about the black sheep of the Ramsay family. “Served time, that one, more than once. The parents left the farm to Gareth, naturally, but I heard Archie got a tidy sum too, despite everything, not that he was thankful to get it. He’d turn up, off and on, for a year or so after they’d passed, usually drunk, and go ranting on about how he’d been cheated out of his rightful share.” I’d encountered the type. “Threw him out of here myself a couple of times. Barred him when he tried to take a swing at me.”

  “He sounds perfectly charming.” I shook my head. We’d have to check on it, but if the man was dead, he certainly wasn’t a suspect. Besides, if he’d meant Gareth harm, he’d had plenty of time to act on the impulse the way Fowler told it. “Did Archie stay in touch with any of his relatives?

  “None that I know of. Gareth wouldn’t give him the time of day again once he’d had a bit too much of his nonsense. He wouldn’t have wanted him around Mary or young Iain.” Fowler blinked. “But I heard that Archie had managed to charm a nice lass into marrying him, poor girl. He wasn’t
a bad looking lad, in his day, and could act sweet as pie when he wanted to. It didn’t last though. The way I heard it, she came to her senses and divorced him quickly enough, when he got sent down for three years a few months after they got hitched.”

  “What about more recently? Do you know of anyone arguing with Gareth? Any little thing at all?”

  “Well, there was no’ any arguing, but Douglas Kerr was fed a load of bull by his lawyers and thought some of the Ramsay land might be his, not theirs, for a short spell. But that all got straightened out, and those two got along just fine after, same as before. They were both on the committee organising the Spring Fair, and most of our village events for the past ten years, truth be told. He’s alright is Douglas. Not that he comes in here, not the pub type.” Something occurred to him then. “Has anyone mentioned that hippie mob staying on the Kerr estate to you?”

  My interest perked. “Can’t say they have,” I admitted, “but we’re heading over there next. Did Gareth have some trouble with them?”

  “Not that I know of.” Fowler admitted, “But some of them seem a bit dodgy, if you know what I mean. They’re all Jessica’s friends. Jessica Kerr—she’s Douglas’ niece. Nice girl but mebbe a bit too trusting. I think they’re taking advantage. Douglas is letting them camp out on the estate, in their vans, or ‘tiny houses’ or whatever they call them now.” I’d finished my coffee by then, and Fowler didn’t seem to have anything else to tell us, so I thanked him and gave him my number, in case he remembered anything else. He tried to refuse payment for our lunches, and I had to make myself quite clear about how much trouble that could cause for us before he finally gave in.

  “Well, that last bit about the campers was an interesting little titbit,” Caitlin commented as we walked to the car.

  “Very,” I answered. It was Caitlin’s turn to drive again, so I climbed in on the passenger side and buckled up. “I just hope there isn’t a mob of them to get through. Fingers crossed he was exaggerating. We’ll be at this for days if he wasn’t.”