Human Face

by Aline Templeton

  ‘Perhaps not.’

  They went back to the village in silence, but as Daniel got out he said, ‘I’m not satisfied. I’m calling the police.’

  When the phone rang, PC Livvy Murray scowled. She was on fire this morning; it looked as if she was going to get to the next level on Candy Crush and if this was Mrs Brodie again demanding to know why she hadn’t found her cat, she’d tell her why instead of pretending that she was doing something about it.

  Reluctantly she abandoned her game and took the call.

  As she listened, her face brightened. ‘I’m on it,’ she said.

  She pulled her hair back into a ponytail, jammed her hat down on her head, grabbed the keys and shut up shop.

  Murray didn’t exactly take to Daniel Tennant – that was the polite way of putting it. Patronising git, was what she’d thought as he explained to her how important it was to find his now presumably ex-girlfriend. He didn’t seem much taken with her, either, when she said that women who packed their suitcases sometimes didn’t choose to explain to absolutely everyone where they were going. She was proud of her restraint in not saying that this Eva probably just hadn’t been that into him and if it’d been her, she too would have taken the first available opportunity to ditch him and disappear without a trace.

  When she wouldn’t promise an immediate investigation and he told her he had a problem with that, she probably shouldn’t have said, ‘Well, we all have our problems, sir.’ But it slipped out, somehow.

  Then she had to take the long and tedious road round the head of the bay to Balnasheil Lodge. She wouldn’t fancy it in bad weather but fortunately today was clear and chilly and the views were certainly spectacular, if you went for that sort of thing. She preferred seeing them on one of those ‘Great Scottish Views’ calendars.

  Her welcome at the Lodge was distinctly chilly. Murray was well used to getting a less than enthusiastic reception when she turned up on someone’s doorstep, but there was no need for the woman who let her in to look at her as if she had a problem with personal hygiene.

  She had the sort of posh voice you didn’t usually hear from someone as fat as this – most of the toffs around here were skinny as rakes and wiry with it. It probably came from yomping around the hills in the rain, and maybe if Livvy did that herself a bit more often she wouldn’t need to worry about the muffin top she was afraid would develop from sitting watching the rain with a packet of Tunnock’s teacakes close at hand.

  A case about a missing female had sounded promising to start with, but from what Daniel Tennant had told her it was pretty improbable that there would be anything for her to do. An adult woman who packed up then walked out without telling anyone where she was going – headline news, not.

  Beatrice Lacey took her to Eva Havel’s room, and all her effects had certainly gone.

  ‘And you saw her packing – right? I’ll just need a statement from you, if that’s all right,’ Murray said.

  Beatrice, with a sigh of annoyance, led her to a sitting room on the first floor, a room with what might be called corporate furnishing – cream walls, oatmeal curtains and large leather chairs and sofas – but redeemed by its view up to the Black Cuillin, looking its majestic best on this sunny late autumn morning. Murray sat down and took out her notebook.

  ‘I went to Eva’s room yesterday to tell her I was going to Oban,’ Beatrice said. ‘She was obviously embarrassed to be caught packing and I didn’t feel it was my business to interrogate her. To be honest with you, Constable, these girls that the charity tries to help with establishing themselves over here are often a bit unreliable. Adam Carnegie, who is our executive director, is too idealistic – I think they are sometimes less than truthful in the sob stories they tell him, to say the very least.

  ‘Eva had a young man over in the village, and possibly more than one. I wouldn’t put it past her – a flighty little thing. I think she’ll be long gone by now – and of course she didn’t have the courtesy to tell us where she was going. It would have saved all this nonsense.’

  As she scribbled to keep up, Murray had to admit that it sounded plausible. Given the way Daniel Tennant was getting his knickers in a twist, she guessed that he wasn’t just a ‘concerned acquaintance’ like he said – and if him, why not some other fella too?

  ‘You don’t know who else she might have been pals with?’

  ‘No. I wasn’t party to her – social life.’ Beatrice’s tone was scathing.

  ‘So when did you leave yesterday?’

  ‘Just before eleven, I think. I was to have been away overnight but I finished my business early and decided to drive back instead.’

  ‘And she was gone by the time you got back?’

  ‘There were no lights on so I imagine she was.’

  ‘Right. Thanks for your time, madam.’ Murray shut her notebook and tucked it away. ‘There’s a Mrs Macdonald who works here? That right?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll take you to find her, shall I?’

  Beatrice Lacey rose with an alacrity surprising in one so bulky and led the way out, calling ‘Vicky! Vicky!’

  There was a reply from the kitchen and Beatrice pointed the way, then disappeared into a room on the farther side of the hall.

  A cleaner who went across to do the rough work, Daniel Tennant had said, so Murray was surprised to find that Vicky Macdonald looked more the sort you’d find working in a hotel or an office: young and very pretty with her wavy fair hair and wide-set blue eyes, wearing smart-looking jeans and a neat checked shirt.

  She had a worried crease between her brows, though, as she waved Murray to a seat at the kitchen table and made tea. The shortbread she offered melted in the mouth.

  ‘That stuff’s pure dead brilliant,’ Murray said, and Vicky smiled.

  ‘It’s my job,’ she said. ‘Oh, I do the cleaning, and except when there’s guests it’s not very demanding. But I’m a trained cook and I do whatever catering needs doing here.’

  ‘Not in the hotel?’ Murray asked. The shortbread box was pushed towards her again and despite the muffin-top worry she couldn’t resist.

  ‘Not enough work there, except in high summer. The owner does most of it himself.’

  ‘Right.’ Murray got out her notebook. ‘Eva say anything to you about leaving?’

  Vicky shook her head. ‘Nothing. I was surprised – not saying she was my BFF, or anything, but we always chatted and it wouldn’t have been like her not to say goodbye.’ Then she said with careful emphasis, ‘I was worried about her, actually. She’s the kind of gentle girl who could be very vulnerable and I don’t think things have been going well between her and Adam lately.’

  Murray looked enquiring but the only reply was a shrug and, ‘Just a feeling, that’s all.’

  ‘So her position in the household – what was that?’

  Vicky turned pink. ‘Well – housekeeper, sort of.’

  Murray raised an eyebrow. ‘Bidie-in?’

  She made an irritated noise. ‘She was just a nice girl, all right?’ she said. ‘You don’t know what her background was, to find herself in this position. You will be looking into it?’

  ‘Mmm.’ It was Murray’s turn to be non-committal. This was sounding more and more like a girl who’d been a bit ‘flighty’ and had changed her mind about who was to be next. ‘So – you last saw her when?’

  ‘Yesterday. She was doing orders and checking stores through here in the back pantry and I didn’t really see her after that. I don’t know what she was doing.’

  ‘Miss Lacey left at around eleven, she said.’

  ‘That’s right. Then Adam left just before twelve. Marek – Marek Kaczka, he’s the handyman who lives in the gatehouse cottage – took him across by boat to Balnasheil. His car’s always parked there because the road round the bay is so awful—’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Murray said with feeling.

  ‘I saw Marek come back, and then my husband came across to take me home at about one.’

  ‘And Mr C
arnegie’s car had gone by that time? Right. So Eva was alone here?’

  ‘Yes. The thing is, how did she get away? She’d told Daniel she was going to call him when she wanted to go.’

  ‘Yes, he said. But there’s nothing more you can add to that?’

  ‘I wish there was. You are going to check it out?’ She sounded almost as anxious as Daniel had.

  Murray shut her notebook and sighed. ‘When an adult disappears and there are no suspicious circumstances, I’m afraid we don’t put an investigation in hand for several days anyway. And since we know Eva Havel was planning to leave I don’t reckon there’s much we would be able to do in this situation, to be honest.’

  ‘You mean, because she was an immigrant and a bidie-in?’

  Vicky, friendly before, was now glaring at her and Murray was taken aback by this sudden aggression. ‘I didn’t say that,’ she said stiffly. ‘I will certainly be making a report to my sergeant. And if there’s any further information you think might be helpful, get in touch, OK?’

  As she got back into her car and prepared for the long drive back, Murray felt her spirits sink. She’d been hopeful that here at last was a proper investigation, but she knew exactly what her sergeant would say when she made her report: that it wasn’t Police Scotland’s business to track down a girl who’d changed her mind about a fella.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘Kelso Strang,’ he said.

  ‘Strang?’ DCS Borthwick looked up at DCI Chisholm with a frown. ‘Problems? Sit down, Brian.’

  ‘I hate to say this, ma’am, but he’s buggering up the team. Oh, he’s not doing anything wrong. There’s no problem with his operational performance, but he’s going round like a zombie and it’s draining the life out of everyone else. Don’t think we don’t sympathise. Everyone’s sympathetic to the point of total paralysis. And it’s only natural, for God’s sake, but to be honest I don’t think he should have come back so soon. No one can relax, there’s no banter and it’s starting to affect morale.’

  ‘Hmm.’ She was concerned. ‘Have you talked to him?’

  Chisholm grimaced. ‘Talking’s a two-way process. I ask him how he is and he says, “Fine.” I suggested he should take more compassionate leave and he just says no. He was angry: I couldn’t push it.’

  ‘You can see why he might be. Life’s a bitch. But we’ve all got a job to do – that has to be what comes first.’

  Chisholm waited in respectful silence as she brooded for a moment. Then she said decisively, ‘Right, I’ve taken that on board. Leave it with me.’

  ‘Thanks, ma’am.’ He left, she thought, reassured.

  When the door shut behind DCI Chisholm, Borthwick sat back in her chair, still frowning. Yes, the job came first. As she’d said to Strang earlier, she’d used it to fill in the gaping hole in her life after John died and her career was now what defined her. Particularly now, with the upheaval of changing from multiple local constabularies to a single national force, there was serious pressure to deliver; one chief constable had already crashed and burnt and the leaders of the divisions were all nervous.

  She had fellow feeling for Kelso Strang, of course she did. But sympathy was one thing, operational efficiency was another. If he was messing that up, she’d have to do something.

  The trouble was, she didn’t want to lose him. She believed in proactively spotting talent and she’d noticed him as a bright young constable in Armed Response who’d saved another officer’s life and then handled the subsequent inquiry with aplomb. To the annoyance of his sergeant, she’d convinced Strang to transfer to CID and until now she’d congratulated herself on her own acumen: he’d made sergeant, then inspector and now SIO in record time – what age was he now? Thirty-one, thirty-two?

  She’d been pleased when he’d said he wouldn’t consider a transfer; he was by a distance the most able officer she had, the only one she reckoned was going places in the force. Too many officers, male and female, merely wanted a job; he saw it as a promising and satisfying career, just as she had – and probably even more so now.

  Damage limitation. That was the priority. She’d have to see him. She leant forward and buzzed down. ‘Make an appointment for DI Strang as soon as possible.’

  Beatrice had tears in her eyes as she went along the corridor to the kitchen. It wasn’t her place to serve up the meals Vicky had left ready; that had been Eva’s job. She just couldn’t get everything assembled and then carry a big heavy tray along to the dining room quickly, so it wasn’t her fault if the food went cold.

  Harry had been really rude about that and Adam, instead of standing up for her and pointing out that she was doing this as an obligement, had only said, ‘It would be nice to get it before it congeals, Beatrice.’

  She hadn’t thought about this aspect of being without a housekeeper. It had never happened at a time when Harry was staying before and if Adam was on his own he usually ate in his own flat where there was a smart little kitchenette at one end of his sitting room. He mostly just microwaved a frozen meal but he rather prided himself on being a gourmet cook and on the rare, precious occasions when he’d invited Beatrice in, she would sit and watch admiringly while he chopped vegetables like a professional and then conjured up some delicious little something they’d share, sitting intimately at the breakfast bar. He’d hardly do that for Harry, though.

  As she manoeuvred her way through the kitchen door, carrying the tray, she realised that the oven timer was bleeping. She didn’t know how long it had been doing that, but she could smell that Vicky’s self-saucing lemon sponge – ‘Be sure not to let it overcook, Beatrice, or it’ll be dry’ – was not only going to be dry but a bit scorched as well.

  Sniffing miserably, she retrieved it from the oven. It wasn’t fair! Harry had been here for three days already, working on accounts or projections or something and he was in a filthy mood too – there had been raised voices when he and Adam were closeted away in the office. If he was going to stay much longer they’d have to make some other arrangement, that was all.

  The only good thing was that nothing more had happened about Eva’s disappearance. Adam had seemed to be annoyed but philosophical about it. ‘Easy come, easy go, those girls,’ he’d said, then added, with a glinting smile, ‘Not like you, sweetie.’

  And he’d said he’d got his plane to Paris all right, so obviously it had been a case of mistaken identity at the petrol station. And obviously Eva had been in a hurry to get away and had just forgotten the case under the bed, so there was nothing to worry about. Obviously.

  The policewoman hadn’t returned either, so that was all right, though she was getting a bit irritated with Vicky, who kept asking questions, clearly prompted by Eva’s boyfriend. Had she noticed anything unusual when she came back that night? What about other girls – had any of them gone away suddenly like that?

  ‘No,’ she’d said firmly, but she had a feeling that the reply hadn’t come out quite as slickly as she would have liked it to. Vicky had said sharply, ‘Are you sure?’ and she’d had to be quite abrupt with her.

  They were waiting for their pudding. Burnt, and cold as well if she didn’t hurry, wasn’t going to be good, and then she’d have to clear everything up afterwards. Her eyes still blurred with tears, she was clumsy in picking up the hot dish to put on the tray; it tipped out of her hands and smashed on the stone floor. She stood staring at it, aghast.

  Alerted by the crash, Adam appeared. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Beatrice – what’s happened now? And stop that damned thing bleeping, can you?’

  She burst into sobs. He gave an exasperated sigh, then put his arm round her shoulders. ‘Now, now. Cheer up – accidents happen. We can manage with cheese, if you just bring that through. But this won’t do – we’ll have get things sorted out.’

  Beatrice sat down, fished out a handkerchief and blew her nose. Did that mean another housekeeper? She was more or less resigned to them by now, would almost welcome one this time, if it wasn’t for—No, she was j
ust being stupid again, obviously. She needed to put all that out of her mind.

  She lumbered to her feet. They were waiting for their cheese. She’d better get on with it before Harry had another tantrum.

  ‘I apologise, ma’am,’ DI Strang said stiffly. ‘I didn’t mean to be a drag on the team.’

  DCS Borthwick could see the rigidly suppressed anger in the whiteness round his mouth. ‘I’m not for a minute suggesting you are, Kelso. I’m just saying it’s not only you that needs breathing space. Other people need to get over their shock about Alexa too – she was very popular with your mates, I know.’

  ‘I – don’t – want – leave.’ Suddenly the anger erupted. ‘Why would I get out of bed in the morning? What would I do when I got up – start drinking? No, hang on, perhaps I could just leave the bottle by the bed so I could poke my head out from under the duvet, have a swig and then pull it back over my head again? I need there to be something I have to do. For God’s sake, it’s all I have left!’

  He was shaking. He bowed his head, struggling for control, then managed, ‘Sorry, ma’am. I – I shouldn’t have said that.’

  ‘Better out than in,’ she said calmly. ‘No need to apologise. It’s natural enough; in fact you’re actually making progress – anger’s the second stage in grief, after denial.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to pull you from the team meantime. I’ll expect you in tomorrow first thing, though; there’s a lot of follow-up admin needing to be done on that rape in the Grassmarket for the report to the procurator fiscal. All right? I’ll give some thought to another placement and I’ll get back to you.’

  ‘That policewoman’s not doing anything, is she?’ Daniel Tennant said. He was looking pale and strained as he sat at the kitchen table in the Macdonalds’ cottage.

  Vicky stopped rolling out pastry. ‘It’s outrageous. I don’t think she’s paid any attention to what we said. She hasn’t even gone back to Balnasheil Lodge, as far as I know. They’re just kicking the can down the road. How can we force them to take it seriously?’