by Caro Ramsay
‘Tony?’ asked Daisy.
‘He’ll be out later, just a little smoke inhalation. Batten and Wyngate are with him, all talking in strange, husky voices.’
‘And how are you?’ Daisy asked.
‘I’ll survive,’ Costello said.
‘You might not survive the inquest,’ Mulholland pointed out. ‘Not with DCI Turner.’
‘Well, he can wait. Walker’s report is complimentary.’
‘And Warren? What about Warren?’ asked Daisy. ‘I saw the bag, on the stretcher?’
‘The prof has him now, what’s left of him. The water has had him for a year. It will come out that he died going for help. He had taken a few blows to the head and still managed to get off the island. His dad will be proud of him.’
‘How are we going to explain Elvie to Turner?’ asked Mulholland quietly.
Costello noted the protective tone in his voice. ‘Geno was paying her.’
‘He can’t threaten me with anything,’ shrugged Elvie.
‘No, but they will threaten Colin.’
‘It was my idea for you to be here, Elvie.’ Costello put her head in her hands. ‘For God’s sake, you swam up behind Ruth and pulled her off that rock. Before she could kill me, Batten, Wyngate or all three of us. I thought you had drowned her.’
Elvie shook her head. ‘Only punched her unconscious.’
‘I really thought you were Warren, then I saw those bones.’
‘I think he was trying to help. From beyond the grave.’ Daisy nodded. ‘That would be him.’
‘Or would that be the wind, the peculiar tide at the solstice? The wind that brought the rain which hampered the progress of the fire, Daisy, not witchcraft?’
‘The tears of the angels, like I said.’
‘But are you a witch, Daisy? How did these women get pregnant?’ asked Costello.
Daisy opened her mouth then closed it. ‘I suppose it is all over now.’ She looked around.
‘It is, Daisy. It’s all going to come out and I think that is wrong. People don’t need to know. We can just not say.’
Daisy looked over at the burned-out shell of the boatshed.
‘Blue-eyed parents with brown-eyed children. For different reasons, Eoin, Fergus, Adam all had their infertility. Warren was a healthy young man … Tony knew how sperm donation had tumbled after the law was changed. Sperm donors could be traced, chased by the CSA. It left people desperate. Warren cared nothing for money. He had none. He believed that life was life.’
‘Did money change hands?’
‘Not really – they paid for the lodges. Kept us going. They came back, we saw them grow up.’ She started to cry. ‘Lovely children.’
‘Conceived by …?’
‘Turkey baster, aided by horny goatweed, apples. All aid fertility. Tony knew that.’
‘But Jimmy found out. Found out his parents had deliberately sought a second child, Robbie. That pushed the little psychopath over the edge. He killed their pets, killed Grace, tortured his mum. He saw the way Warren looked at Robbie, the way Warren looked out for Callum. Isobel admits that she was scared of him. That’s why the attack on Robbie was so savage. Jimmy is being assessed by the head shrinkers.’
‘Did he know about Angela? The case has so many similarities.’
‘He did know. Eoin knew everything of the history of this place.’
‘So did Tony. We talked about him, Jimmy would have known,’ added Daisy.
‘Batten says he’s never been so scared of or so seduced by a boy of that age. Can’t help but feel sorry for Isobel; she got so caught up in protecting what she thought was right. Scared of losing her job, her child, her marriage.’
‘Her job?’ asked Elvie.
‘If she was discovered up here, pot smoking, drinking illegal whisky, of course she’d lose her job. And she needed that income.’
‘Do you think Warren was starting to see his boys through an adult’s eyes?’ asked Daisy.
‘Ruth saw the writing on the wall years ago. Warren might want some involvement in the boys’ lives, his sons. Batten had noticed the way Warren stroked Callum’s face. Very telling.’
‘Yet her narrative of Warren being the murderer allowed Eoin not to face the extremely unpleasant truth about Jimmy,’ said Vik. ‘Where is Ruth?’
‘Held at a secure unit for the moment.’ Costello swallowed hard. ‘She’s not insane; she’s an evil bitch. Making us look stupid.’
‘She didn’t need any help with that, Costello.’
‘You’re right,’ said Costello. ‘Drugging Eddie with her own medication that she didn’t take. She told us about the confusion of neighbours going in each other’s houses – we didn’t pick up on that. She said the death of her son was something that she couldn’t accept, we ignored that. She said she couldn’t live with the fact the killer of her child was out there, walking around. We misread that. Killing Warren was a decision made in a heated moment, but her own heart had already written the story as soon as she found out Taylor and Lexy had lied about Warren’s alibi. Therefore Warren murdered Grace.’
‘She was accurate with a bow at that distance?’ asked Elvie.
‘She was then, obviously,’ said Costello.
‘But not now, otherwise Mr Peppercorn wouldn’t have survived. Moving target, thank God,’ said Daisy, biting back a tear.
‘How did Ruth find out about that alibi being false?’
Costello shrugged. ‘A wee chat around here? In the hairdresser’s? Doesn’t matter. But as soon as Jimmy came back screaming, in that split second she had Warren tried, judged and executed. She was a remarkable woman.’
‘I thought it was weird that she watered her plants, at odds with the disarray of the rest of the house. And when she shook my hand, I felt how rough her skin was. How does a woman who does nothing all day have skin that rough? She must be doing something. I never asked what. Archery. I’m from Mosspark, I know the council let out garages. Turner has already found one of Eoin’s old Berlingo vans with a fake council logo in a garage near Ruth, but it was listed in the neighbour’s name.She even told us the dog next door was black. She more or less told us!’
‘What has a dog got to do with anything?’ asked Mulholland.
‘Rereading the notes, I think we will find a woman with a black dog appears somewhere. Outside Bella’s. At the Boden Boo. But it really only clicked when Eoin picked her up, so easily. I saw it in my head, him carrying her out the field away from Eddie’s body.
‘I think Bernie had worked it out in the end. He wasn’t looking for Warren, he had guessed something had happened to him. Crecy was his codename for Ruth, so he knew about her archery. But he was playing it too clever, being clandestine, phoning her and texting her. He thought he was keeping tabs on her. But she was playing him. Then Ruth tipped off Karen Jones. He sealed his own fate when he phoned her about Eddie’s body.’
‘And the way he behaved here with Sammy …’ Daisy shuddered. ‘Still, it was a terrible way to die.’
‘What was the point?’ asked Vik. ‘All that tarot card stuff. Was she telling us that she was in the know, that she was the powerful one?’
‘She ran rings round us, Vik.’ Costello stood up and looked out over the loch, the island, the glimmering water. The click of efficient heels approached behind her. ‘She’s coming to take me away. I can always say my throat is too sore to talk.’
‘DI Costello? DCI Turner wants to speak to you. Now.’
Costello turned to Daisy. ‘You are lucky, you know, living here. No matter what has gone on, you’re really lucky.’
‘The door is always open. Good luck.’
‘I’ll need it.’
Epilogue
Costello closed the car door quietly and took a long look at the house. If she had to pick out a house from the street, which one of these houses do you think belongs to an anally retentive shit of a fiscal with OCD? Yip, she would have picked this one.
A hyper-neat bungalow, a lawn that looked as though it had be
en trimmed with nail clippers, and two topiary bushes cropped within an inch of their lives. The gravel in the drive showed lines of a recent raking. The chipped path was the same. Absolutely perfect. Costello walked on the path, taking delight in squirming the soles of her boots in, leaving an untidy pattern behind her. Simple things.
The front door was a modern plastic one with false stained glass patterned in some abomination of the Rennie Mackintosh rose design. Cheaper taste than she would have expected from him, although maybe it was her taste, the taste of the wife he claims he doesn’t get on with. The taste of the wife he doesn’t bring out with him because that would interrupt his love life too much.
Well, the wife’s taste in husbands wasn’t very impressive.
She pressed her finger on the doorbell for slightly longer than was polite. She’d teach him about what happens to married men when they play away. Not that she was going to do anything, just a warning shot across his libido.
The procurator fiscal was a long time in answering. Through the glass panel she saw an internal door open and close, a figure walking to the door, three bolts sliding back, the key turned, the handle twisted, the door opened.
Archibald Walker’s eyes opened in horror.
‘Hello,’ she said sweetly, pulling the word into three syllables. ‘Hope you don’t mind me standing on your doorstep.’ The answering glower proved that he very much did. ‘But Colin has gone to the trouble of typing this up. I thought you might like a flick through the final version before he makes it official …’
Walker’s face didn’t move.
‘You know, before he signs it all off, in case there’s something there that you wish to keep under the official secrets or something.’ She made a joke of it but Walker’s face was poker straight. She showed him the folder but made no attempt to hand it over. She wanted to meet the wife; she wanted to put him on the spot. And see him wriggle.
Eventually he remembered his manners. ‘Oh, there was no need to come out here. How is Colin?’ he said, smiling a smile that warmed his lips but hardened his eyes.
‘As you would expect. His daughter is in a bad way, emotionally.’
Walker nodded. ‘It was a terrible thing for one so young to witness. You really shouldn’t have come all this way.’
‘No problem. There was every need, Sir. DCI Bernie Watson was a two-timing shit of a police officer.’ She smiled as Walker had the good grace to blush. ‘So best that I come out and show you this, make sure that the force is not going to be embarrassed by the activities of any of our officers.’
He put out his hand. She reluctantly handed over the folder. Walker turned round at the sound of a door opening behind him.
‘Darling, you stay …’ But she had broken through, the wife who did not understand him.
‘Is that one of your colleagues, Archie? Invite her in, for God’s sake, don’t leave her on the doorstep. Come on in.’ The small lady with a neat grey bob opened the door fully. On first glance she was a lot older than her husband, in her sixties, maybe. Archie Walker – fiscal and toy boy?
‘Thank you.’ Costello smiled as she passed them going into the hall. On closer look the age was only an impression given bythe elastic waisted trousers, the washed out woollen jumper … the beads round her neck … lots of beads round her neck. Was this why Walker never allowed her to come out? Was she too much of a fashion frump?
She smiled at Costello; her eyes were sparkly and friendly and her face full of laughter lines.
‘Do come through. Archie, put the kettle on. Oh, look at him standing there like a useless article.’ She bustled her way through into the front room that looked as though it had just been emulsioned with brilliant white. There were vacuum track lines on the plush red carpet, like a ploughed field.
‘I’m sure DI Costello has better things to do than join us for afternoon tea.’ He looked meaningfully at Costello and even more meaningfully towards the door.
‘No, I don’t,’ Costello said airily.
‘Oh, you sit down, dear. Archie, put the kettle on.’
The procurator fiscal tootled off in the direction of a highly glossed door, leaving it open as he went through. Costello noticed the sliding bolt at the top of it.
‘Do you like my beads?’ Mrs Walker asked, placing herself delicately on an armchair.
‘Yes, they’re lovely. Don’t wear much jewellery in my job, I’m afraid.’
‘And what is it you do, dear?’ She leaned forward, her eyes keen and intelligent.
Costello paused; maybe she was deaf … ‘I’m a police officer, I work with your husband.’
‘Archie, yes. He’s a fiscal.’
‘Yes,’ said Costello, aware of a slow sinking feeling in her stomach.
‘Do you like my beads?’
‘Pippa, don’t annoy DI Costello.’ Archie came through carrying a tray with three mugs on it. He caught Costello’s eye, that look was there again. ‘I’ve stuck the file in the study. I’ll try and have a look at it tonight.’ He put the tray down on the coffee table. ‘Pippa? Our friend is going to join us for a cuppa, do you want some tea?’
Pippa nodded enthusiastically and sat back, beaming at Costello but speaking to her husband. ‘Is this the new cleaner?’
‘She’d be crap, I’ve seen her desk,’ muttered Archie. Then said loudly, ‘No, she’s having a cup of tea.’
‘That’s nice, dear. Does she like my beads?’ And Pippa started taking them off, strand after strand. Dangling then carefully over her wrists. She did this with great care, having forgotten her audience.
Archie held out a mug. ‘There’s your tea, dear.’
‘Oh, no, thanks,’ she said, brushing it away, trivia she had no time for.
Archie put the mug down then carefully slid the beads from her wrists and placed them over her head again. This was clearly a routine they had been through many times before. ‘Are you happy with these ones or do you want some more?’
‘I’m fine, where’s my tea?’ But she made no attempt to reach for the mug, though she was staring straight at it. ‘You are a lovely girl,’ she said to Costello.
‘Lovely beads,’ was all Costello could manage.
‘Some days we do quite well,’ Archie said as he handed Costello her tea. ‘Some other days are a bit more of a challenge.’ He sat down on the sofa, almost collapsing into the cushions. He looked exhausted. He closed his eyes, grateful of a minute’s peace.
‘Archie? Can you get me my beads?’
‘In a minute, darling.’
Pippa smiled.
Silence hung in the room like a funereal veil.
‘That’s a nice name, Pippa. Short for Philippa?’ asked Costello.
‘Sorry, who are you?’ Pippa asked.
‘Just a colleague from work.’
Pippa stared at her. ‘Really, are you leaving now? Do come again …’
Costello picked up the slight aggression in her tone. ‘Do you want me to go?’
Archie gave her a half-hearted smile. ‘I’d like you to stay but you had better go.’
‘I’ll see myself out.’ She stood up. ‘Bye, Pippa.’
‘Bye,’ said Pippa, bored.
As Costello closed the front-room door she heard Pippa say, ‘Who was that dreadful woman? I think she stole my beads.’
