The Third Sin

by Aline Templeton

  Skye sat up straight in the hard little garden chair and took a sip of the coffee she’d made so strong that she gave a little shudder as she tasted it. Strong – she had to learn to be strong too.

  Rejoining the world. There was the Homecoming party Jen had talked about: everyone would be there, all together, and the gossips could have their field day all at once. She didn’t trust Philippa Lindsay – you’d be a fool if you did – but whatever her motives might be that could be the answer to Skye’s problem. She couldn’t control the outcome but it would force her out of deadly inaction.

  When Jen had phoned, like the loyal friend she was, to tell her that the police were coming to talk to her, she’d obviously been worried that Skye would do exactly what she had done and tried to reassure her. Once Jen got back from school she’d ask her exactly what the police needed to know, prepare just what she was going to say then maybe even take the initiative by phoning them, apologising for being out. Then she’d sign on and start looking for a job. Whatever you had been through, life went on.

  And she’d go to the Homecoming party. It wouldn’t be easy; she gave a little shiver at the thought, but she wasn’t going to waver. That was a firm decision.

  She finished her coffee and took it back into the house. She’d have to plan what to wear, then. Jen, bless her, would no doubt offer to lend her something but anything that fitted Jen’s much taller, sturdier frame would swamp her; she wanted to look confident, not pathetic.

  A scruffy sweater would not really do. There was a smart top somewhere at the bottom of her bag; she tried to block out her memories of wearing it in happier times. It would need laundering.

  Skye went upstairs to dig it out. She had never got round to unpacking the rucksack; putting things in drawers had seemed like settling in and she wasn’t doing that. Now she tipped it on to the bed and pulled out a crumpled silky T-shirt in a greeny-blue colour that matched her eyes. There was a chunky glass necklace that she’d worn with it as well and she laid them out together. Yes, that with jeans would do.

  Skye started stuffing things back into the bag, then suddenly stopped, a thrill of fear going through her. She hadn’t seen it – where was it? It should have been there. Perhaps it was in a pocket somewhere – but she knew it wasn’t, really.

  Even so, she checked, shook everything out, poked into her make-up bag. Where could it be, where could it possibly be?

  Then she realised and she went cold all over.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘Will Stewart, Randall Lindsay, Skye Falconer – coincidence that none of them were available for questioning?’ DI Fleming said.

  Her meeting, for once, had ended early and she had called in her team for a debrief before the end of their shift.

  ‘Don’t believe in coincidence,’ MacNee said.

  Macdonald nodded. ‘Certainly wasn’t any doubt in my mind that Jen Wilson was planning to warn Skye that we were on our way. Wonder why she needed to?’

  ‘Will Stewart definitely knew we were there and asking questions. Whether he tipped off Randall—’ Hepburn pulled a face. ‘Little though I like to give that creep the benefit of the doubt, it’s possible he’d genuinely stepped out.’

  ‘It’d be useful to know,’ Fleming said. ‘They were close-knit in the past; they may have kept up the connections – or maybe this has prompted them into contact again. And if so, is that significant?

  ‘We won’t have the advantage of surprise tomorrow but at least you shouldn’t have anyone passing out on you, Andy. It’ll hit the media tomorrow – DSI Taylor has given a press conference and there was a lot of interest. He’s desperate for some sort of progress now, but on the face of it we haven’t come up with anything much to offer him, just people who professed to be shocked, whether genuinely or otherwise.

  ‘I’ve had the drug squads in Glasgow and – yes, Tam – Edinburgh alerted to see if his fingerprints and mugshot make any connection there, and I’ve got DSI Taylor to circulate those to all the stations in the whole Dumfries and Galloway areas to see if there’s any chance he’s known to them under a different name.’

  ‘Huh! You’d think they’d have done that already,’ Macdonald said and MacNee rolled his eyes.

  ‘Well – we won’t go into that,’ Fleming said diplomatically. ‘Now, tomorrow we need to get the interviews we didn’t manage today sewn up. I’ll take that on with you, Tam – I want to get a feel for the place. Louise, chase up phone numbers and arrange the appointments first thing. Then you can be on sifting duty – I’m expecting calls tomorrow once this goes out on the media and the switchboard can’t be expected to sort out the nuggets from the dross.’

  She smiled at the disgruntled face of her young officer.

  ‘How many tons of pitchblende was it that Marie Curie had to shovel to get a smidgen of uranium?’ Hepburn said. ‘Bet I’ll manage to beat that.’

  ‘Just as long as you come up with the goods,’ Fleming said. ‘Andy and Ewan, I want you on background. Check everything you can about the Cyrenaics – jobs, family, record of course, if any. The inquest report will give you a starting point – and check out the address Kane gave when he was charged. I’d like to find out where he stayed when he was down here too—’

  ‘The Lindsays, sometimes, according to Kendra Stewart,’ MacNee said. ‘So maybe we’re needing a wee word with Randall’s mum as well.’

  Fleming nodded. ‘Right. Fix that too, Louise.’

  Hepburn nodded glumly and MacNee said, ‘Cheer up, hen. You weren’t wanting to interview him anyway.’

  She brightened slightly. ‘If I never see him again it’ll be too soon. At least that means I won’t have to.’

  It was only afterwards that she remembered George Eliot’s dictum that among all forms of mistake, prophecy is the most gratuitous.

  Fleming had ordered the newspapers to be sent to her desk first thing on Friday morning and she was poring over them now. They made grim reading.

  DSI Taylor and Dumfries Division had been savaged, as she had guessed they would be, for sitting on the information about Connell Kane for such a long time. She’d seen him looking frankly terrified on the TV news last night and now phrases like ‘bungled operation’ and ‘rabbit in the headlights’ were being thrown about. They had loved rehashing the original scandal – with pretty girls, sex, drugs and tragedy, and now a brief resurrection before a murder, it was all their Christmases come at once.

  She sighed. As she drove in this morning, there had been a couple of the local stringers lurking hopefully at the front entrance but it didn’t look as if the big boys had picked up on Taylor’s mentioning that she was now involved with the operation.

  They might well be down at Ballinbreck, though, trampling all over the patch she was planning to investigate herself this morning, and she sighed again. Transparency was one thing; having someone constantly breathing down your neck and making the job they were blaming you for not doing all but impossible, was quite another.

  The phone rang. Finding that DSI Taylor wanted to speak to her was hardly a surprise but it certainly wasn’t going to improve her morning.

  ‘Yes, Tom?’ she said wearily.

  ‘Have you seen the papers?’

  ‘Yes, Tom.’

  ‘It’s simply outrageous, that they can print stuff like this. I should sue …’

  Fleming let him bluster on, making soothing noises. At last she said, ‘I’m afraid we simply have to accept that’s what they’re like and until we can show some progress we just have to take it.’

  He pounced on that. ‘Have you come up with anything, Marjory? They’ll want at least a statement today and I need to have something to give them.’

  ‘It’s the preliminary stages here,’ Fleming reminded him. ‘We’re still lining up interviews with Kane’s contacts that we couldn’t see yesterday. We have lines of enquiry, but— No, Tom,’ as he interrupted with an eager question, ‘absolutely nothing I could share with the press.’

  Before he cou
ld argue, she went on, ‘What about your end? Have the uniforms made any progress with finding where the car went in?’

  ‘No. Harris said he had people out yesterday but found nothing. He’s still convinced you’re barking up the wrong tree there.’

  Yes, he would be. ‘That’s disappointing. How far have they got?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that. Harris is in charge; I’m sure he’ll see it’s all done properly. He’s very efficient, you know.’

  ‘Yes, you said. And he hasn’t made any more progress on the lines he’s following either?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I’m sure he’d have told me if he had. And if there’s anything you come up with, you’ll get in touch at once Marjory, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Fleming put down the phone and sat back in her chair, frowning. Perhaps she’d been too wedded to the idea that the car could have entered the river lower down, just the way Harris had been wedded to his theory. She still didn’t believe his worked, but she had to admit that a car might have left the road somewhere, or been pushed in, without leaving significant traces for the searchers to find. And she wasn’t absolutely sure that Harris would tell her if they did.

  For once it looked as if DSI Rowley’s fears were justified. She could see this one going very wrong for her. From the sound of it, Harris wasn’t changing his position and when – if – she had information that had to be shared with the media, the attention and the responsibility for the case would switch to her – and he’d do his best to make sure it did.

  Unless today’s interviews turned up something more useful than yesterday’s, it was going to be her head on the block.

  Kendra Stewart tiptoed into Will’s bedroom, pausing to push the silky floral kimono she was wearing over a low-cut nightie a little wider open to give a better view of her impressive cleavage.

  Will was on his back, sprawled almost diagonally across the double bed, his mouth half-open. He was giving small, puffing snores and she giggled as she went across and kissed his stubbly cheek.

  He woke and shot bolt upright so suddenly that she had to duck to avoid his head making contact with her nose. He didn’t seem impressed by this romantic way of being returned to consciousness.

  ‘For God’s sake, Kendra, what do you think you’re doing? Logie—’

  ‘It’s all right, sweetheart, he’s downstairs.’ She sat down on the bed. ‘Give me a kiss.’

  Will pulled the bedclothes up round his bare torso in an almost maidenly gesture of self-defence. ‘He could come up at any time. Anyway, I need a shower.’

  He got out on the other side of the bed and pulled on a towelling robe over his pyjama bottoms.

  ‘Not necessary, darling. It just adds to your animal magnetism. You’ll wash away all those wonderful pheromones.’ Kendra followed him across the room.

  God, she really couldn’t take a hint, could she? He’d thought he was safe enough in his own bedroom – at least first thing in the morning when her husband was within earshot.

  ‘No, Kendra,’ he said irritably. ‘I’m really not in the mood. Was there something you wanted?’

  She gave him a suggestive look. ‘Apart from you? Well, actually I came up to tell you that the police phoned to say they want to see you at eleven. And from the sound of it, you’d better be here.’

  ‘Fine.’ He headed for the bathroom, leaving Kendra sitting on the bed pouting.

  It was a good, powerful shower. Will stood under it, letting it beat on his head as if that might wash away the tormented thoughts.

  Kendra was going around like a cat on heat; it was getting so obvious that Logie was set to explode any day now and a simple statement of Will’s own indifference to her wasn’t going to fix it – indeed, Logie was quite capable of taking that as an insult. He’d seen marrying Kendra as a triumph over the younger brother who’d always been famous for his ability to pull, without asking himself why she’d agreed.

  Thinking back, Will suspected that once she realised that commitment wasn’t in his vocabulary, she’d seen the marriage as a way of stalking him. And from the way she was going on, it looked as if she reckoned she had Will where she’d always wanted him now and he was very much afraid that when the accusation came she would own up to it gladly, say it was true love and expect him to express delight and whisk her back with him to Canada. Her self-confidence, and her insensitivity, were boundless. And she wasn’t his only worry.

  But once he’d shaved and dressed he felt better. He could handle Kendra, surely, and he couldn’t see any problem with the police. He’d been smart enough to avoid his former colleagues yesterday and he’d pumped Logie and Kendra so that he knew what they were going to ask and it seemed straightforward enough.

  All he had to do was play it cool and in a week’s time he’d be back in Canada. And Kendra, with any luck, would be five thousand miles away.

  ‘Kirkcudbright we stop – you promised, right?’ DC Jamieson said as she got into the car with DC Weston outside the Dumfries Police HQ. ‘And you owe me for this one – I didn’t shop you when we swore blind to Harris that we hadn’t gone on into Galloway.’

  ‘OK, promise,’ DC Weston said blithely. ‘It’s a nice day for a run in the country anyway. Would you rather be spending today going round Annan for the fourteenth time trying to find someone who hasn’t already been questioned about seeing men quarrelling in a grey car? The lads are fed up to the back teeth with it. We’ll get bacon butties in Dalbeattie. That’ll cheer you up.’

  Philippa Lindsay put down the phone and turned to her son, who was sitting at the kitchen table wearing an out-at-elbow sweater and jeans that were baggy with wear, looking gloomily at a plate of muesli as he contemplated the day ahead.

  ‘That was the police,’ she said slowly. ‘They want to speak to us both. What’s that about?’

  ‘The police? How – how would I know?’

  But his face registered alarm, dismay, even, and his mother homed in on that immediately, the tension in her face relaxing.

  ‘What have you done, for God’s sake?’

  He pushed back his chair and jumped up. ‘Nothing! Absolutely nothing!’ He licked his lips that had suddenly gone dry. ‘What have you done, for that matter?’

  Philippa ignored that. ‘You always were a rotten liar! You might as well tell me. I’d been wondering why you were planning to spend all this leave that you talked about at home – you never have before.’

  Randall’s face flushed with colour. ‘I haven’t done anything, I told you. It was just a bit of a misunderstanding—’

  ‘Oh yes, and you’ve lost your job? I thought you had. God, that’s all we need! Do you know how strapped for cash we are now in the business? It’s your future too, sunshine, and it’s on the brink of going under. Unless people start spending we’re all finished. I’d been counting on you for another injection of capital.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have got it,’ her son said unpleasantly. ‘What have you ever done for me?’

  Philippa glared. ‘Done for you? Where do I start—’

  ‘You sent me to the local bog-standard, when you could well have afforded to send me to a decent school. I got where I did through my own sheer hard graft—’

  ‘And blew it all on your own too, it seems.’ Philippa gave him a nasty smile. ‘So – give me a clue. Just what sort of “misunderstanding” was it that has brought the police down on us?’

  ‘They said they weren’t going to do anything!’ Randall cried. ‘Like I said, it was a misunderstanding. I filled in a form wrong, that was the thing – just sent some money to the wrong place—’

  ‘The wrong place? Dare I guess – your bank account? Dear God, Randall! You always were a fool.’ She shrugged. ‘Oh well, have to take your punishment like a man. If we’re going to go bottom-up I don’t suppose having a son with a criminal record will really matter.’ She turned away to pour herself a cup of coffee.

  The callousness stung him. ‘Anyway,’ he said savagely,
‘if it’s about my problems with the bank, I don’t know why they’d be wanting to interview you. Maybe it’s nothing to do with that at all.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid! What else would it be?’ she said.

  Leaning heavily on the banisters, Eleanor Margrave lugged the Hoover up the stairs, paused to get her breath back then went to fetch sheets out of the linen cupboard to make up the bed in the spare room. She was looking forward to the weekend; as she counted out pillowcases and towels she thought happily about Biddy’s arrival this afternoon.

  They’d been at school together, their friendship forged in the art room, and one of their particular delights was the sketching holidays they’d shared over the years. They were both reaching the stage of decrepitude where holidays in Greece or Italy caused them more anxiety than pleasure, but as Biddy’s Lake District and Eleanor’s Galloway were both artists’ paradises their weekends continued.

  Where to go tomorrow, though – back to one of their favourite spots or find new ground? There was a lovely view she’d discovered on a hill looking right out over the Solway … She was humming happily as she went back to the spare room.

  It was a very good thing to have visitors, she reflected: it made you do the housework you tended to neglect when it came to the rooms not in regular use. The sun shining in highlighted the neglected state of the polished surfaces and she was ashamed to see that there were dust bunnies under the bed. It would never do for Biddy to find those.

  She hadn’t actually been into the room since the night of the storm, except to strip the bed the day after, and she’d almost forgotten about her little mermaid – the woman who had disappeared as suddenly as she had appeared in the first place. She’d hoped at the time that she might come back to explain – the mystery had intrigued Eleanor for days – but she never had.

  With the bed made up, she switched on the vacuum cleaner, going meticulously into the corners of the rooms and pushing it under the bed. As she did so, the machine’s tone changed. When she pulled it back out she saw that a folded sheet of paper had stuck to the nozzle.