Lamb to the Slaughter

by Aline Templeton

  Fleming knew she had to say it. As a police officer, she had little sympathy with the view that the perpetrator should be given more consideration than the victim, but the words almost stuck in her throat as she said, ‘After you’d killed him?’

  Christina looked at her pityingly. ‘How could I have killed him? I fired up in the air, he was wearing one of those helmet things. Even if it had hit him coming down, it wouldn’t have done him any harm.’

  ‘Did you fire the other barrel?’ Fleming asked.

  ‘No. I just fired once. That was all. I don’t know what this is about. I’m an old woman – it’s all very confusing.’

  Abruptly, the inspector got up. ‘DI Fleming is terminating the interview at this point. Stay where you are, Christina.’ Macdonald switched off the tape and followed her out.

  ‘What do you make of that?’ she demanded.

  ‘You tell me, boss.’

  Fleming sighed. ‘I suppose I have to. My job, not yours. She’s admitted to motive, means, opportunity – is there some way it could have been a freak accident?’ Then, seeing Macdonald’s expression, she said, ‘No, no, of course it couldn’t. I know that. It was a direct shot, at comparatively close range, they told me, but given that he was alive when you and Tam found him—’ She broke off, frowning.

  ‘How come you and Tam were together? You know what I said—’

  ‘No, no,’ Macdonald said hastily. ‘We both happened to be in the Cutty Sark when Tam heard the bikes going along the High Street and as he didn’t have his own car, he thought mine would be nearer. That’s all.’

  Fleming was far from certain that it was all, but this was hardly the moment to pursue it. ‘Where do we go from here?’ she said.

  ‘Question her for another five hours, charge her or let her go on police bail,’ Macdonald said promptly, and got an acid look from his boss.

  ‘I didn’t ask what you would write if that was an exam question. I mean, what is your opinion as to which of these options we should pursue? It’s all right, it’s my decision. But I want to know what you think. One or the other. Just like that.’

  She knew she was pushing him further than he wanted to go. But Andy Mac had to grow up; if he was going anywhere – and she had a feeling that he might – he had to learn about putting his neck on the block.

  ‘I’d let her go on an undertaking to appear,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t believe she killed someone, in cold blood, or that she’s going to do a runner.’

  ‘I don’t either,’ she said heavily. ‘I’m going to play down the loaded gun and charge her with culpable homicide not murder, but I’m going to lock her up. And yes, that’s a political decision. A young man has been killed. I know how the community will feel, and if she’s to be bailed, I want it to be the Sheriff who decides. I’ll hate doing it, but that’s the job.

  ‘But before we do that, we’re going to ask her about the Colonel’s death.’

  Macdonald was startled. ‘You don’t think – oh well, I suppose...’

  ‘Exactly. Two shootings barely a mile apart. What else can you think? You can’t judge by appearances – who’d have guessed the Colonel would have an illegitimate Malaysian grandson? Maybe there was something between him and Christina at one time.’

  ‘Hard to imagine, her looking like that,’ Macdonald said with the merciless judgement of youth.

  ‘She might have been pretty when she was young. Age does cruel things,’ Fleming said, conscious of a slight ­defensiveness in her tone.

  Macdonald was oblivious. ‘Pretty? You think? So – back to some more self-incriminatory statements. Her brief will be tearing his hair out when he sees what she’s said.’

  When PC Sandy Langlands and Sergeant Linda Bruce arrived at Barney Kyle’s home and rang the doorbell, there was no answer, though there was a light on behind the drawn curtains of an upstairs room. Langlands pressed the bell again, but there was still no response.

  ‘I reckon someone’s in there,’ Bruce said. ‘I thought maybe the curtain moved.’

  ‘I’ll try again.’ He leaned on the bell this time, then banged on the door.

  ‘Mrs Kyle!’ Bruce shouted. ‘Police. We need to speak to you urgently.’

  That got no reaction either. The two officers retreated down the path and stood looking up at the window.

  ‘Where do we go from here?’ Bruce said helplessly.

  ‘We can’t exactly kick in the door then say, “Sorry about the damage, your son’s dead,”’ Langlands pointed out.

  ‘Maybe I was wrong about the curtain. She could be out – she’s hardly likely to refuse to open the door to the police.’

  ‘Maybe. So – where would she be? The neighbours might know.’

  The house next door was in darkness, but two doors along lights were on downstairs and the door was answered immediately by a young woman who looked at them first with alarm, then when they said they were trying to contact Mrs Kyle, with lively curiosity.

  ‘Oh, if she’s not in she’s probably down at her workshop in the Craft Centre. She often works late. Is – is there something wrong?’

  Langlands didn’t answer. ‘We’ll try there. Thanks for your help, madam – sorry to disturb you.’ They went back to the patrol car.

  As he drove away, Bruce burst out, ‘I really hate this kind of assignment! And I’d braced myself – now I’ll have to get psyched up all over again.’

  ‘I’ve never had to do it – tell someone their kid’s dead,’ Langlands admitted.

  ‘Happens more often to female officers. Suppose they think a woman being there will help somehow – as if anything could.’

  ‘What do you say?’

  ‘Make it quick, make it clear. Get the news out first, leave the sorries and the sympathy till after when it doesn’t matter what you say, because they won’t hear it anyway.’

  It had come on to rain now, a dreary, persistent drizzling, and Langlands switched on the wipers as they drove in silence to the Craft Centre. There were lights showing behind the curtains of an upper flat above a shop to the right, but the shops themselves were in darkness, apart from the unit opposite the entrance, which was brilliantly lit so that the woman inside looked almost as if she were working in a stage-set. She had her back to them, sitting working at the bench that ran along the back of the shop.

  They paused, watching her for a second. ‘Look at her,’ Bruce said. ‘We know, she doesn’t, that her world is about to fall apart. You’re seeing the last happy moments of that poor woman’s life.’ She took a deep breath, then knocked on the door.

  Romy Kyle jumped at the sound and looked over her ­shoulder, startled. As she saw the uniforms, a frown came over her face.

  She put down what she had been working with and strode across to unlock the door. ‘All right,’ she said grimly. ‘Hit me with it – what’s Barney been doing now?’

  It was shortly after midnight that the phone rang in Johnny Black’s flat. He had been watching a late night film; he turned down the volume and picked it up.

  He listened to the voice at the other end. ‘I’ll come round now,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry – it’ll be all right, I promise you. I’m on my way.’

  It was only as Marjory Fleming drove home that the full impact of what had happened hit her. She hadn’t had time before, her mind too full of procedure, and checks and ­questions to be asked and answered for there to be space for feelings.

  A lad had died. Officers had gone to a house and told a mother that her son was dead. As a parent, you didn’t dare to think about it. You had to put it out of your mind, because there was no way of arming yourself against what would follow.

  And this particular boy had been a friend of Cat’s, a friend who was undesirable in her parents’ eyes, which of course made him particularly glamorous. That was natural enough. Marjory could remember her own defiant attempts to wind her father up, and she and Bill had assured each other that the phase would pass.

  This changed everything. You never
forgot the first time a friend your age died and you were forced to accept that youth and immortality were not inextricably linked after all. Cat would be stricken. She would need her mother’s comfort, but would she accept it when only this evening – was that really just a few hours ago? – Marjory had spelled out her disapproval?

  She’d have to be told in the morning, before she went to school. Marjory would do it herself, answer her questions honestly and try to help, but she was too analytical to believe she was likely to succeed. At least Cat had Bill and Janet, and Marjory would just have to accept rejection as the price she had to pay for being who she was and doing what she did.

  And there was the worry about Tam, too. He had overstepped the mark, as Marjory had feared all along that he would. If he’d merely failed to report his concerns about Christina Munro’s gun, it would never have come out, but after what he’d said to the kids in the afternoon – while claiming to be acting as a police officer – it might well emerge, and if it did a massive damage-limitation exercise would be called for.

  She could only hope it would succeed. She hoped, too, that her uncomfortable doubts about Christina Munro were unjustified. She hoped that Bailey, the Chief Constable and the press wouldn’t make her difficult life more difficult, after this second death. And she hoped – oh, how she hoped – that her problems with Cat wouldn’t sour their relationship for ever.

  So many hopes! And there was a cold, cynical voice inside her head, mocking the folly of optimism.

  Romy Kyle had no idea of the passing of time. She sat on the stool behind the counter, her elbows on the surface and her chin propped on her hands, staring out into the darkness. It was raining hard now and the plate-glass window looked as if it was veiled in the tears she couldn’t shed.

  They hadn’t stayed long. They’d told her what had happened and seemed almost alarmed by her calm questioning. ‘Suspicious circumstances’, they had called it, but it wasn’t hard to see what had happened. If she’d read it in the newspaper she’d just have said they were asking for trouble and the poor woman had been driven beyond endurance. As it was, she felt such overpowering anger that she could barely ask what had happened to Dylan and Gordon. Gordon hadn’t been there, it seemed; Dylan had escaped unhurt.

  Dylan would. If it wasn’t for Dylan – oh, she knew Barney looked like the leader, but she was his mother – oh God, she had been his mother, and if Dylan hadn’t egged him on, Barney wouldn’t have done it. Oh yes, she blamed Dylan, with that feckless mother of his. Ellie had just better not come with her sympathy, that was all, or she’d get more than she bargained for.

  The police had offered to take her home, or fetch someone for her – her partner, a doctor, someone from Victim Support. The woman, looking at the little kitchen area at the back of the shop, had even offered to make tea, as if this was an appropriate response to tragedy. It was funny in a sick sort of way, and she knew they’d been disconcerted by her evident amusement. Romy had got rid of them by promising she’d call her partner.

  She hadn’t. Pete didn’t really like Barney. Well, come to that she didn’t much like him herself, the way he’d been lately. She loved him, though, loved him right to the core of her being. She thought of all the Barneys of the past – the tiny, furious baby who’d made her life a haze of exhaustion for months, the feisty toddler with his sudden wild affection, the bright, cheeky ten-year-old, the teenager who was going through the difficult stage— He’d never emerge from that now. Romy could have saved her breath, nagging at him to think about his future. He wasn’t going to have one. Her throat was aching so that she could hardly swallow. She ­couldn’t sit here all night; she’d better get herself home and break the news to Pete. How would he take it? Pete wasn’t good with emotional demands.

  With meticulous care, she checked that everything had been switched off – burning the place down wouldn’t help – and put the silver she had been working with back in the safe. She set the alarm, put off the lights and went back to her car.

  The wind had got up too now, and as she turned on to the main road, out of the shelter of the buildings, she could feel the car being buffeted by the squalls of rain. The anger had drained away and she felt cold, numb. Perhaps when she saw Pete, when he held out his arms to her, the tears would come, and that would relieve the pain in her neck and throat, which was radiating into her shoulders now.

  It wasn’t far. She drew up outside the house, which was in darkness. She looked at the dashboard clock: half-past two. Pete would be asleep, but she’d have to wake him. She needed him. She had started to shake and it took her three goes to get the key into the lock on the front door.

  Romy stumbled up the stairs in the silent house. She didn’t glance towards Barney’s room, though the door was half-open on the chaos of carelessly discarded clothes and belongings. She wanted to be able to tell Pete what had happened before she fell apart. A tearing sob escaped her as she opened the door.

  The room was dark, but in the light from the landing she could see that the bed was empty and that it hadn’t been slept in. ‘Pete!’ she called, then screamed, ‘Pete!’ There was no answer, and Romy didn’t need the wardrobe standing open to reveal the empty hangers to know that Pete had gone.

  12

  ‘Councillor Gloag says he would appreciate a word, ma’am.’

  DI Fleming put the hand that wasn’t holding the phone to her aching head. ‘Tell him I’m tied up at the moment, will you? Give him my apologies—’

  ‘I don’t think I can, ma’am.’ The Force Civilian Assistant’s voice had the despairing tone of one caught between the upper and the nether millstones. ‘He’s – very insistent.’

  ‘I see.’ Fleming chewed her lip. Gloag was a man it was dangerous to ignore. ‘Get someone to show him up, then.’

  It hadn’t been a good morning so far, and it looked set to get worse. She hadn’t got to bed till two, and had slept so badly that getting up before six had been a positive pleasure. It was a dull morning, with a clay-coloured sky and the hills opposite the farmhouse grey with low cloud. She plodded down to the orchard through the puddles from last night’s rain and released the grumbling, fussing hens, then realised with dismay there was one missing. Bill must have forgotten to count them in when he shut them up last night, and after Marjory had given them their mash she walked around, looking, and sure enough found feathers and the traces of a struggle in the mud. She hated foxes – nasty, sly, skulking beasts who would kill even when they had no need for food, but because they were cutesy had sentimental townies fighting for their animal rights. You didn’t hear a lot about rights for rats, did you?

  Things didn’t improve. Marjory had to leave early for work, but she wanted to tell Cat herself what had happened, even if it meant waking her. Cat had been resentful at being disturbed, but as she heard the news, her eyes widened and filled. When her mother said, ‘I’m so sorry, Cat – this is awful,’ and tried to put her arms round her, Cat had flung herself face down in her pillow. Between sobs, she had thrown muffled accusations: ‘Expect you’re glad – you thought they were rubbish – probably give her a medal – no, don’t!’

  She had wriggled away from the hand her mother had tried to put on her heaving shoulders and Marjory found Bill at her side, shaking his head. She’d given up and gone ­downstairs, knowing she was only making matters worse. Attempting consolation, he’d suggested that by this evening Cat would be seeing it differently, but in the face of Marjory’s withering ‘Oh yeah?’ agreed that there might be a problem.

  Now she had a meeting with Bailey and Menzies scheduled at ten to discuss developments and a press statement to prepare, which it looked likely she would have to deliver. She had a morning briefing to do before that, and a post-mortem to attend afterwards. A difficult conversation with Gloag, The People’s Representative, was about as welcome as gastro-enteritis.

  The uniformed constable who had escorted Gloag up to her office said, in a studiously neutral voice, ‘Councillor Gloag has some po
ints he wishes to raise with you, ma’am,’ and ushered him in.

  Fleming rose and went over to shake hands. ‘Councillor Gloag. Do take a seat.’

  She took her own place behind the desk but before he could say anything she said, ‘As you will appreciate, I have very little time to spare this morning. I have a meeting in ten minutes so perhaps we can deal with this as quickly as possible.’

  Gloag’s narrow mouth pursed disapprovingly. ‘I trust you understand, inspector, that I am not here in any private capacity. I am here as The People’s Representative and I trust that concerns I may wish to raise on their behalf will not be simply brushed out of the way for the sake of going to a meeting.’ He said it as another person might have said ‘taking a long lunch break’.

  ‘Then we’d better not waste any time, sir,’ she said sweetly. ‘What are these concerns?’

  Gloag settled back in his chair with an air of satisfaction. ‘First of all, I want to know exactly what stage this investigation has reached, with this new atrocity.’

  ‘We are pursuing several active lines of enquiry.’

  He waited for her to go on; when she didn’t, he said, ‘That’s hardly what I’d call information, inspector.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s all I’m at liberty to give at the moment.’

  He seemed almost incredulous. ‘But I have explained to you – the public has a right to know! What steps are you taking? Is Miss Munro being charged with both murders, or is everyone still under some sort of cloud of suspicion? Even I, myself, was all but accused of involvement by one of your subordinates.’

  He was curiously insistent in his demands. Why, Fleming wondered, was he so keen to know what the police were up to? She said blandly, ‘I’m sure that was merely a misunderstanding. There are routine questions which our officers are obliged to ask.’

  ‘Leaving that to one side, for the moment, you haven’t answered my question. Has Miss Munro been charged?’