Bareback

by John Burke

  ‘Not that I noticed. He always had so much stuffed into his bag that I wouldn’t pay much attention anyway.’

  ‘He didn’t have any papers with him when he died. But the quaich he did have. I know it sounds far-fetched, but could your husband just possibly have stolen the quaich and hidden it for some reason of his own?’

  ‘I wouldn’t put anything past him.’ Hannah’s snarl rather dented the image of the grieving widow.

  ‘You didn’t come across it in the house while he was out?’

  ‘I’d have said, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘If he did have it there, or in his office, why carry it with him to the meeting? Guilty conscience, or not wanting to risk leaving it lying around? Meaning to return it on the way, maybe? Or hand it over to the committee so the festivities could carry on?’

  Hannah let out a snort of derision. Lesley could see that Rutherford preferred her like this. The more she fulminated away, the more likely it was that a few flakes of fact might fall out of the turbulence of unreason.

  ‘Well, it can’t go back to normal, can it? The quaich has turned up, but they still can’t do the Ride-out, can they?’ Hannah sounded vengeful. ‘Surely can’t do it after a murder.’

  ‘And Kirsty?’

  ‘What about Kirsty?’

  ‘Was she at home on Friday night?’

  ‘Where else would she be?’

  ‘Perhaps you won’t mind us having her back in now.’

  ‘Mind? What’s it got to do with whether I mind things or not?’

  ‘Mrs Ferguson, I repeat: any time you want to leave, or have a solicitor or a friendly witness in –’

  ‘All right, let’s hear what she’s got to say. A waste of time, like all the rest of this.’

  Kirsty came in looking sparky yet vulnerable.

  Rutherford said: ‘Now, Kirsty, I want you to think back to Friday night.’

  ‘You’re not to bully her. I won’t have you putting words in her mouth.’ It struck Lesley that Hannah’s bluster hid a deep unease.

  ‘I merely want to confirm a few points. Kirsty, you didn’t see your stepfather come back from the office or go back out again?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It didn’t occur to you or your mother to wonder why he didn’t come back later that evening?’

  ‘I . . . I’d have been asleep.’

  ‘And you, Mrs Ferguson?’

  ‘I’ve already told you. How many more times?’

  Rutherford’s head inched forward. He was growing more deadly, ready to spring. ‘Kirsty, you weren’t even at home that night, were you?’

  ‘That’s enough,’ cried Hannah. ‘I’ll hae no more of this.’

  ‘We can interview Kirsty on her own,’ said Rutherford. ‘Or in the presence of a solicitor or social worker. And she can continue telling us her story without you. It might prove less distracting.’

  ‘What do you expect to get out of her?’

  ‘Kirsty, where were you all Friday night?’

  The girl’s head sank. ‘In bed, of course.’

  ‘No, Kirsty. You were in the Black Knowe cellar, weren’t you?’

  ‘Where could you get an idea like that?’ Hannah erupted.

  ‘From Sir Nicholas Torrance.’

  ‘Och, the stinker.’ Kirsty sagged even further. ‘So he’s just a gossip like a’ the rest o’ them.’

  ‘Was he telling the truth?’

  ‘Aye, all right then. I was in the tower with . . . my fiancé.’

  ‘All night?’

  ‘Aye.’ Kirsty glared defiantly at her mother. ‘All night.’

  ‘You slut. You little bitch. You –’

  ‘So,’ Rutherford interrupted quickly, ‘we don’t know how long you were out, Mrs Ferguson, or what time you went out, or –’

  ‘My husband’s dead.’ Hannah expanded to the dimensions of a stricken heroine. ‘My Archie’s dead, and all you can do is –’

  ‘Your Archie?’ said Kirsty. ‘Oh, spare us the tragedy queen act, Mither.’

  ‘Kirsty, you claim you were in Black Knowe all night.’

  ‘That man’s not fit to occupy that place,’ raged Hannah. ‘Not worthy of it. Letting them use it as a . . . a brothel. Disgusting.’

  ‘Mrs Ferguson,’ said Rutherford at a measured pace, ‘I know you must be upset. I don’t want to press things too hard at this juncture. But can you tell us where you were all day Saturday?’

  ‘Out looking for her. Where else d’you think?’ Hannah had thrust her face a few inches away from his. ‘She hadn’t come back. I guessed what filth was going on, but I couldn’t find her.’

  ‘Driving round looking for her?’

  ‘No. Walking. The car was gone by then, wasn’t it?’

  ‘So you did know by that stage that the car was missing?’

  There was a long silence. Rutherford slid off the table, grinning, and went to open the door. He and Lesley escorted Hannah to the desk, where the custody sergeant looked up warily. He knew Hannah Ferguson. If any procedural mistakes were made, he would be right in the line of fire.

  Rutherford turned to Lesley. ‘Will you do the honours?’

  She had known it must come to this. ‘Mrs Ferguson,’ she recited, ‘I am now charging you with theft, in that on the evening of 11th June you stole a quaich from the premises of Sir Nicholas Torrance. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

  A WPC accompanied them back to the interview room with two sealed cassettes. She broke the wrappers, slid the cassettes into the recorder, and switched on. Rutherford recited the date and time and the names of those present, and again dwelt lovingly on every syllable of the invitation to Mrs Ferguson to have a solicitor present. Hannah remained scornful. Her rejection might be that of innocence; but Lesley suspected it was more a matter of a desperate determination to brazen anything out.

  Yet her voice quivered when she answered a repeated question about her perhaps coming back that Friday afternoon to find Archie prying in her wardrobe and discovering the stolen quaich.

  ‘No.’

  ‘How d’you suppose he came to be clutching it when his body was found?’

  ‘Snooping, I suppose. Just like him. Snooping.’

  ‘And you came in and caught him at it. And you felt strongly enough about it to take the law into your own hands?’

  ‘You’re trying to get me to say I had something to do with Archie’s death.’

  ‘That’s not what you’ve been charged with, Mrs Ferguson.’

  ‘But that’s what you’re really after. Who cares about that quaich, when there’s been a murder? But I couldn’t have had anything to do with him getting killed. I wasn’t even there.’

  ‘Not there?’ Rutherford’s shoulders hunched, and his right foot scraped a few inches along the floor. He was like a bull pawing the ground, lowering its head for the charge. ‘Not at home?’

  ‘I’ve got an alibi.’

  It had all the grandeur of Lady Macbeth asserting that she had been absent from Cawdor on the night of a certain unfortunate episode, and would offer conclusive evidence of enjoying a blameless boat trip on the Moray Firth at the time.

  ‘An alibi? You’re telling us you were not at home on the night of the murder?’

  ‘I was not there.’

  It was a big jump onwards from a charge of theft, but in a tone as melodramatic as any of Hannah’s efforts, Rutherford said: ‘So that we may see how relevant this could be to your late husband’s possession of stolen goods, Mrs Ferguson, perhaps you’ll tell us where you were.’

  ‘I was away. I’d planned a weekend with . . . a friend.’

  ‘A friend?’ Rutherford’s tone was drenched with innuendo. ‘A weekend? And your husband knew that you intended going away?’

  ‘I left him a note.’

  ‘Telling him everything?’

  ‘Well . . . o
ch, no, not in so many words. I mean, I just wrote that I’d be awa’ for a quiet weekend to think things over.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘Private things. Between him and me.’

  ‘And what was the result of your thinking things over?’

  ‘None of your business.’ Hannah attempted a final despondent rally, then finished lamely: ‘Anyway, I came back early.’

  ‘Late, actually,’ said Lesley. ‘Late on Saturday.’

  ‘Not the whole weekend, I meant.’

  ‘And when you got back, there was nobody there.’

  ‘That’s the way it was, yes.’

  ‘Didn’t that strike you as peculiar?’

  ‘He was always the peculiar one. After he’d read my note, I thought he might have gone out somewhere to think things over.’

  ‘Seems to have been a lot of thinking things over. For both of you. And was the note still there when you got back?’

  ‘He must have torn it up and thrown it away.’

  ‘You cut the weekend short. Your . . . friend . . . didn’t prove all that helpful?’

  ‘I’ve always been a fool,’ Hannah wailed. ‘I give in too easily. I believe folk too easily.’

  Rutherford and Lesley Gunn exchanged glances. They both had to be thinking the same thing: Hannah’s gullibility was conditioned entirely by the ability of the man concerned to pile things on with a trowel. Archie Ferguson could surely never have been forceful enough or randy enough.

  ‘Mrs Ferguson,’ said Rutherford, ‘I do have to ask you. Who was this friend you . . . consulted?’

  Hannah looked as if she might slump forward more dismally than her daughter and bang her forehead on the table. She mumbled something too faint for Lesley to hear.

  Rutherford was remorseless. ‘For the tape, please, Mrs Ferguson.’

  ‘I was with Sandy Craig.’

  ‘Sandy Craig?’

  ‘My second husband,’ said Hannah. ‘The cheating bastard.’

  Chapter Twelve

  The hotel manager agreed that a Mr and Mrs Craig had indeed stayed at his establishment on the night in question. Or rather, he hastened to correct himself under the critical eyes of DI Gunn and the uniformed constable accompanying her, they had booked in for two nights, but during dinner the first evening there had been a difference of opinion.

  ‘About what?’

  Mr Furlong had an adenoidal Liverpudlian whine which sounded alien above the rolling Northumbrian countryside. The hotel, a few miles inland from Eyemouth, had seen better days. His own office, crammed with papers, a computer of dubious efficiency, and shelves creaking under huddles of files, was hardly large enough for himself, Lesley, and the broad-shouldered local policeman.

  ‘They had a bit of an argument,’ he said nervously.

  ‘About what?’ asked Lesley again.

  ‘Well, we never consider it our business in the hotel trade to eavesdrop on our guests or question their private relationships.’

  ‘Not unless they start throwing the crockery at one another?’

  Mr Furlong tilted his narrow nose up in protest. ‘Oh, it wasn’t that bad. We don’t have that sort of thing in Eastmarch Grange.’

  ‘Then how bad was it?’ asked Lesley.

  ‘I think perhaps . . . I wasn’t personally involved, had a dozen other things to attend to, you know, but . . .’ He gave up the struggle. ‘Oh, I suppose I’d better get Roseanne to fill you in. She was serving at table that evening.’

  The threat of being filled in suggested to Lesley some massive lady wrestler, or the hotel’s head bouncer. In fact Roseanne turned out to be a thin little girl with bitten fingernails and a tendency to giggle even when nothing funny was being said. She brought a whiff of floor polish and boiled cabbage into the confined space.

  Nervous and obsequious when talking to a visitor and especially to a police officer, Furlong was sharp and peevish to his staff. ‘Roseanne, tell the inspector what happened that Friday night.’

  The girl moved her weight from one foot to another. ‘Which Friday, Mr Furlong?’

  ‘You know. When we had that trouble with that couple. And Shirleen.’ The name seemed to go sour between his teeth.

  ‘Oh, that Friday.’

  ‘Roseanne.’ Lesley leaned across a spike of invoices. ‘All I want is a clear account of what happened between Mrs Ferguson and . . .’ She stopped, irritated by her blunder. ‘Between Mr and Mrs Craig.’

  Roseanne giggled. ‘There, I never did think they was married.’

  ‘Let’s have it from the beginning, shall we?’

  ‘Well, of course, Shirleen was always the one, wasn’t she?’ Roseanne giggled again. ‘Mr Furlong will tell you that.’

  ‘I’ll do no such thing. If I’d known when she came here . . .’

  ‘Roseanne,’ Lesley pleaded.

  Bit by bit she extracted the story from the girl, and in her own mind reshuffled it into something near coherence.

  The couple had arrived in the Metro mid-afternoon on the Friday in what Roseanne described as a lovey-dovey mood. ‘Couldn’t wait to get to bed, know what I mean?’

  Her employer was not amused. ‘Roseanne, that will do.’

  ‘Well, she says she wants to know everything, and that’s the way it was at the start.’

  It appeared that the two of them had gone straight to their room and not emerged until half an hour before dinner, when they sat close together in the bar. While studying the menu, Sandy’s hand kept straying under the large mock leather folder. ‘You know how it is.’ Roseanne’s bony shoulders twitched. ‘Tickling her fancy,’ she risked, to Mr Furlong’s outrage.

  ‘But they had dinner all right?’ Lesley prompted.

  ‘Oh, yes. Well, most of it.’

  Lesley turned to the manager. ‘What time do you serve dinner?’

  ‘Folks round here often like to eat early. We serve from six-thirty to nine.’

  ‘And the – er – Craigs? They ate early on? Or late?’

  ‘Early. Almost as soon as we’d begun serving.’

  ‘It was right after the dessert course,’ Roseanne broke in eagerly, ‘that the trouble started.’

  ‘How, exactly?’

  ‘Well, he went upstairs to their room to fetch something. I think he said it was his wallet, and he didn’t fancy leaving it lying around.’ She was well away now, really enjoying herself. ‘Must have fallen out of his trousers while he was –’

  ‘Yes, Roseanne.’ Mr Furlong’s sallow features were growing blotchy with vexation. ‘Mr Craig went back to their room. That’s all we need to be told at this point.’

  ‘Yes, well, that’s where Shirleen came in, wasn’t it?’

  The presence of Shirleen seemed to have cast a blight on the premises. She had always been at it, according to Roseanne, sounding envious rather than disapproving. Soon after dinner had begun, Shirleen went up to the bedrooms to turn down the sheets and check the bathrooms. When she reached that particular room and saw the state of the bedclothes, she must have grinned to herself. ‘I’ll bet that turned her on,’ said Roseanne.

  And then Sandy Craig would have appeared in the doorway. It took about ten minutes before Hannah showed signs of impatience, maybe wondering if she had misheard him and he was waiting for her upstairs. Anyway, she followed him to their room.

  That was when the shouting started.

  Less than fifteen minutes later, Craig left the hotel under a hail of abuse.

  ‘Needless to say, I fired the girl on the spot,’ Furlong said.

  Mrs Ferguson had stamped upstairs to pack her case. It was only when she came down, ready to leave, that she found her car had gone. Furlong hadn’t realised it was not Craig’s. He had taken no steps to stop the man getting in and driving off.

  Now it was his turn to cower before a broadside of threats, concluding with a demand that he get in touch with the police to report the theft.

  Was she sure that was what she wanted? Furlong knew his company chairman would
be very unhappy with the publicity.

  It was not in Hannah’s nature to care twopence what made anyone else happy or unhappy. Yet at the last moment she retracted. No, thought Lesley: she wouldn’t have wanted publicity herself, either. That juicy tale spreading through Kilstane at the usual speed of local gossip would be too humiliating.

  Hannah wasn’t to know then that there was worse to come, with news of Archie’s death.

  Or was she?

  ‘How did she get home?’ Lesley asked.

  ‘Without a car, there was no way she could leave at that time of the evening,’ said Furlong. ‘She went to bed.’

  ‘All alone,’ Roseanne simpered. ‘Sad.’

  ‘I don’t think we need your personal observations, Roseanne.’ The name was having the same effect on Furlong’s teeth as Shirleen’s had had. ‘Let’s stick to the facts.’

  The lady, he reported, had come down long before breakfast, ringing the bell at reception to say she was leaving.

  Lesley was estimating times in her head. The time of the quarrel, the time Sandy Craig drove off, the time Hannah left. Why hadn’t she stormed off that same night? It would have been more like her.

  ‘You said she couldn’t leave at that time of the evening?’

  ‘Without a car, she’d have had to go by bus. We only get three a day, and the last one goes past at six-thirty. She had to wait for the first one in the morning. That’s why she was up early.’

  Most of it tallied with what Rutherford had extracted from Hannah in the interview room before releasing her on police bail.

  Remembering how late Hannah had shown up that Saturday, Lesley asked: ‘What time did she leave? Early morning, you said?’

  ‘Right, Roseanne, that will be all.’ Furlong decided to continue the story on his own. When Roseanne had reluctantly gone out, he said: ‘Mr Craig had rushed off without paying the bill. The lady paid it with a credit card in the name of Hannah Ferguson. We unfortunately had a difference of opinion.’

  Hannah’s speciality, thought Lesley.

  ‘Mr Craig had booked in for two nights dinner, bed and breakfast. I had to insist that Mrs Ferguson paid the full amount. She took a great deal of persuading.’

  ‘But you persuaded her?’ Lesley felt the beginnings of admiration for the seedy little man.