The Third Sin

by Aline Templeton

  ‘Tam, did—’ She broke off as the phone on her desk rang and she took the call, scribbling down a note as she listened, finishing, ‘Thanks, Mike.’ She put it down.

  ‘They’ve found Will Stewart’s hired car. It’s in the Balcary Bay car park – good spot for starting a walk along the Solway coastline, but of course it’s still quiet at this time of year. Pure luck they found it, Mike says – a sharp-eyed constable on his day off. He’s arranging a fingertip search so we may have some joy with forensics at last.’

  There were murmurs of satisfaction and MacNee said, ‘So – what now?’

  Fleming thought for a moment. ‘Mike’s calling in the SOCOs so for the moment there’s nothing we could do at the site except get in the way. Tam, I was going to ask you how you and Louise got on with Jen Wilson?’

  MacNee smote his head. ‘I meant to tell you – with all this it slipped my mind. I’d a brainwave about teachers’ free periods – only they’ve got some fancy name for them nowadays. When we checked at the school the heidie told us she’s got one last thing on a Friday, so maybe her alibi’s not just so great after all. But we never got to speak to her before you phoned.’

  Fleming raised her eyebrows. ‘Didn’t mention that to anyone, did she?’

  Macdonald and Campbell shook their heads.

  ‘Right. I’ll get down there, then – Tam, I’ll need you. Bring a tape recorder. The rest of you – just clock off. Tomorrow may be a busy day if we get reports on Stewart’s car.’

  She sensed a certain reluctance as they got to their feet and shuffled out. Hepburn hung back.

  ‘Randall,’ she said. ‘There isn’t any news of him, is there?’

  ‘Not that’s reached me.’

  ‘What do we think about him now, with all that Skye said? He certainly had a motive to kill Julia but Will clearly didn’t think he had, so why would Randall want to kill him? And how would he know that Mrs Margrave had found the letter?’

  ‘I take your point. The letter certainly seems to have been the triggering incident and it’s hard to see how he would have been involved in that. The most damning thing was him suddenly disappearing – if he would just make contact and answer a few questions, my guess is that we could rule him out.’

  Hepburn nodded. ‘Right. Never seemed the type to me, to be honest. Thanks, boss.’

  DC Campbell clocked off with the others but then went back to the CID room via the canteen to collect a couple of KitKats. He was in no hurry to get home: his mother-in-law was coming the next day and his wife had been bellyaching on about the lawn needing mowing.

  The room was quiet and he settled down at a terminal in perfect contentment. He was at his happiest just ferreting through files, trying to spot what others might have missed, and Eleanor Margrave’s murder had produced extensive reports, offering hours of pleasurable trawling ahead.

  It was six o’clock when, going through the records, he suddenly stopped. He checked what it said, frowning, and then recollected an interview they’d done. He accessed it and read it, nodding with satisfaction.

  That could be worth following up. He flagged it up so the boss would see it in the morning, then with some reluctance logged out and went home to face the domestic storm.

  For once, Fleming chucked the keys to MacNee when they reached the car park. Knowing her dislike of being driven, he looked surprised.

  ‘I just want to think really hard about this next interview,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a feeling it’s crucial and I don’t want to be distracted while I work out the line I want to take.’

  ‘Good,’ MacNee said. ‘Maybe that’ll stop you giving a running commentary on when I should change gear.’

  She pulled a face at him and settled back in her seat.

  She ought to be feeling elated that they had the evidence now to close the Connell Kane enquiry but she hadn’t time for that. Yes, it was satisfying, but it shed very little light on what had happened afterwards – and she hated being in the dark.

  Once the news of Skye’s release got out, someone would be afraid, scrabbling for safety in the shadows like some frightened animal; she could almost sense the small panicky movements, the shifting patterns.

  Frightened creatures were dangerous. It scared her when she saw no obvious way forward – with reason, since there were previous cases where she had failed to prevent a tragedy. She needed to think clearly, and she needed to think fast.

  She’d had a feeling all along that Jen Wilson wasn’t the bystander she appeared to be, and now she hadn’t that solid alibi for Eleanor Margrave’s murder it was getting stronger.

  This was all about connections – who knew what, and when? The letter, as quoted by Skye, indicated that Kane had only recently found out that there had been Ecstasy as well as cocaine in Julia’s system. That had been published in the report from the inquest two years ago but Kane would have been ‘dead’ before that; perhaps he hadn’t known then about the report. Skye and Will Stewart self-evidently hadn’t told him.

  Jen Wilson could have known Kane was alive despite her claims that she hadn’t – and even known where he was. But then, why wait until now to tell him that the drugs he’d given her weren’t what killed Julia? And what was the point? Why would she have wanted to rake it all up again?

  Fleming thought back to their earlier interview with her. She had checked back on it before she left and once more was struck forcibly by how defensive she had been, how determined to distance herself from it all. Some of her answers just hadn’t been credible; indeed there had been only one that had shone out as truth – that she had, at least at one stage, believed Kane was dead.

  Suppose she’d discovered he was alive, what had she thought the result of contacting him would be? What would it achieve?

  ‘Tam,’ she said, so suddenly that he jumped, ‘if you got, say, a letter, telling you that the woman you loved had died because someone gave her a large dose of E on top of the stuff she was taking, what would you do?’

  MacNee’s reply was prompt. ‘Same as he did. Come back to kill the bastard. Mind you, it’s kind of hard to imagine Bunty OD’ing on cocaine and Ecstasy. Cupcakes, now …’

  Fleming smiled. ‘Her and the rest of the Women’s Guild. Anyway, I agree – that’s what the sender would guess Kane would be likely to do. And say you were Jen Wilson, why would you want that?’

  ‘If she’d some kind of grudge against Will Stewart, maybe? If they all knew Kane didn’t deal in E, if he was the obvious source …?’

  ‘Mmm. Not convinced. Too many “ifs” there.’ Fleming was frowning. ‘Tam, she passed out when she was told Kane really was dead – and after Skye had been arrested for his murder, she was venomous about her, remember. She cared a lot.’

  ‘So she’s daft about him, jealous of Julia – answer, get rid of the competition. Fair enough – but she’s hardly going to draw a wee map with arrows on for him saying look what happened, is she?’

  Fleming said suddenly, ‘Did you read that report of the interview the lads did with Charles Lindsay? He said that Philippa had set up the whole Homecoming thing because she was in love with Will Stewart and it was the way she hoped to get him back. Could that apply to Jen as well, do you reckon?’

  ‘So she uses it to lure him home, then the whole thing kicks off and Kane’s dead for real? All her fault?’

  ‘She’s been insisting all along that it’s nothing to do with her. Maybe she even needs to believe that. And the more I think about it the more I like it. Skye knew Kane’s address; what would be more likely than that she’d tell her best friend after all the fuss had died down?

  ‘The connections are falling into place. She’s right in there, Tam.’

  Somehow, she’d known that all along; now she needed to play her hunch. Fleming could feel the excitement building.

  As she let herself into her flat, Louise Hepburn was feeling bored and restless, at a loose end. This was always a danger point: the desire for a cigarette kicked in and there was a newsa
gent’s two minutes away – but having come so far that really would be a crass thing to do.

  Instead, she went to scrabble in the kitchen drawer where she kept the nicotine patches and slapped one on to blunt the craving, while she made a cup of coffee and went through to her little sitting room to drink it. The ghost of past cigarettes still hung on the air, which didn’t help.

  It had been such an interesting day with the new developments in the case and she’d been hoping they’d all go off together and discuss it, but Ewan had gone back to the CID room and Andy had seemed pleased to get away early and driven off. Probably had a date, or something.

  Louise didn’t. The nice guy she’d gone out with a couple of times hadn’t been in touch since she’d had to cancel their cinema plan to go to the Homecoming party. He’d probably found someone else to take who didn’t have a ridiculously demanding job.

  She was definitely feeling flat. Apart from anything else she’d been looking forward to interviewing Jen Wilson and now Fleming was going to do it herself.

  The idea about Will Stewart having killed Julia – she knew she’d only been flying a kite and Ewan and Big Marge between them had sent it fluttering down in flames And when you really thought about it, Jen hadn’t been properly scrutinised, lurking there on the fringes with her perfect alibi.

  She thought back to the night of the party. Jen had been on the fringes then too, she realised, watching but uninvolved. Had she always been like that, the one nobody noticed? If she cared enough about Connell to faint when told he was dead, she’d have been bitterly jealous of his adored Julia. There was nothing simpler than to give a druggie an overdose – and, it suddenly struck her, if PC Will was a bit free with drugs, it would be simple enough to get a tab or two of E from him and reckon that no one would ever know Julia hadn’t taken it herself.

  No one except Will. They’d been at a loss to understand why he should have been killed, but you could have the answer right there.

  What Louise needed now was a Gitane to help her think it through. In desperation, she found some nicotine chewing gum and didn’t sit down again, pacing restlessly to and fro as she masticated it. The taste really was pretty revolting.

  She knew there were still gaping holes in her theory and she wished she had Andy here to bounce it off; joining the gaps was his speciality. She wasn’t going to phone him, though. She could just imagine him rolling his eyes at his date and saying, ‘This stupid woman from work,’ after he’d brushed her off.

  No, it would have to wait till the morning. There was nothing else she could do except see if for once there was something on the box that wasn’t either football or politicians slagging each other off.

  Or maybe there was. Fleming had said that if they could just get Randall Lindsay to come forward and explain, they might be able to score him off the list. She hadn’t wiped her messages and if she checked back, she should find the ones he had sent.

  Louise picked up her bag and rummaged for her phone. She scrolled through, found the message and pressed the call-back number.

  There was, predictably, no response. When it went to voicemail she said carefully, ‘Randall, it’s Louise. Please listen to me. I want to help you. I guess you’ll have been scared because we’ve been hunting for you but there have been new developments that could let you off the hook, if you would just explain why you haven’t come forward. You’d be doing yourself a favour. And I promise if you talk to me I won’t bring out the handcuffs.’

  He didn’t pick up and he didn’t ring back immediately. But perhaps, once he’d thought about it, he might. Always supposing he was as innocent as she believed him to be.

  There was a wildlife programme on BBC4. It told Louise more than she wanted to know about invertebrates, but at least it would pass the time.

  Jen Wilson was looking sullen. When she opened the door she stood in front of it, blocking the way in.

  ‘Yes? What do you want now?’

  ‘If we could have a word,’ Fleming said.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Inside, if you don’t mind.’

  Jen sighed elaborately. ‘If you must, you must, I suppose. But I can’t think what more you imagine I could tell you.’

  ‘Oh, this and that,’ Fleming said silkily, walking into the sitting room and sitting down uninvited. MacNee followed her example and Jen, after standing for a minute with her arms folded, sat down herself with a bad grace.

  ‘You won’t mind if we record this? Saves DS MacNee having to decipher his own handwriting.’

  Jen eyed the small machine he set down on the coffee table between them as someone might eye a poisonous spider, but she didn’t object.

  Fleming took a deep breath. ‘Jen, tell us why you contacted Connell Kane to tell him it was Ecstasy that caused Julia Margrave’s death.’ She knew it was a high risk strategy. The calm, controlled Miss Wilson had only to keep her cool and deny it and there would be nowhere to go.

  She didn’t. Jen’s face flared red and she stammered, ‘I-I—How could I? I thought he was dead.’

  ‘Oh, at first. When did you discover that he wasn’t?’

  ‘I-I didn’t—’

  ‘Of course you did. Skye told you. Quite recently.’ Fleming was careful not to say that Skye had told them, but Jen would assume that she had. She was biting her lip now.

  ‘You’re a bad liar, Jen,’ Fleming said conversationally. ‘A good liar doesn’t show relief when they’re asked a question they can answer truthfully and you did that last time. You told quite needless lies to try to distance yourself from everything that happened, didn’t you? And I wonder whether that was as much for your benefit as ours – you were in love with Connell and you can’t bear to think that you caused his death.’

  Would it work? There was a silence while Jen stared at her. Then she burst into tears and covered her face with her hands.

  ‘I didn’t, I didn’t,’ she sobbed. ‘Yes, I sent him a letter. Dear God, I wish I hadn’t now. But what happened wasn’t anything to do with me. You can’t make me feel guilty about it, you can’t! It wasn’t me that killed him – it was Skye.’

  Fleming was pitiless. ‘No, we don’t believe it was. It seems that Connell tried to kill Will, Jen, and it was Will who killed him in self-defence.’

  ‘No, no!’ There was anguish in Jen’s voice. ‘He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t …’ But it was clear she didn’t believe what she was saying.

  Fleming had her admission about the letter. Her gut feeling had been to focus on Jen and she’d been right. Now it was getting stronger; she felt a sudden surge of adrenalin.

  ‘You were in love with Connell.’ It was a flat statement, not a question and Jen didn’t deny it. She bowed her head, wiping her eyes and her nose with the back of her hand.

  ‘Did you send him the letter just so that he would come back to you?’

  She looked up and her face told the truth, but she denied it. ‘No, no. It was just – Skye didn’t tell me until recently, just casually, in an email, as if it didn’t matter. It was so cruel of her, so cruel, when she knew I’d thought he was dead.’ She choked up again.

  ‘And then you sent the letter. So what happened – did he reply?’

  Jen said nothing, only shook her head.

  ‘So there wasn’t much point in it, then?’

  There was still no response but Fleming waited, like a cat watching a mouse hole, until Jen went on haltingly. ‘It just seemed so wrong he should be haunted by guilt when—’ She stopped.

  ‘When it was someone else? Who, Jen?’ Fleming held her breath. She was getting close to it now.

  ‘I … I don’t know. How would I?’

  ‘Because you did it yourself? And it was worth taking the risk of telling him what had happened for the sake of seeing him again, perhaps making him look at you when he wasn’t dazzled by Julia any more?’

  Jen was staring at her as if transfixed. Fleming sensed MacNee moving uneasily beside her but she ignored him.

  ‘But
then Skye arrived. You knew it had all gone wrong, you heard that she had dropped the letter at Eleanor Margrave’s house and knew that she would report it, you knew that Will had given you the Ecstasy and that now, with Skye being charged with murder, he was going to tell us, so he had to die too.’

  Fleming believed it as she said it. She was totally unprepared for Jen’s response.

  She was patently amazed. ‘Me – do all that? You must be barking.’

  The praying mantis was holding a transparent grub between its front legs, nibbling at it delicately as the victim squirmed and writhed. Revolted, Louise Hepburn switched channels to what looked like a reality show of some kind unless, of course, there was a directive about lookism that meant that the new TV stars had to be obese, ugly people, then switched back, hoping the mantis had finished its meal. It hadn’t. She switched off.

  She couldn’t sit here all evening just trying not to yield to the temptation to go out and buy a pack of cigarettes. Surely one of her girlfriends would be up for an evening in the pub! She got up to fetch her phone, which gave a ‘ping’ just as she reached it.

  A text message – probably one of her friends with a similar idea, she told herself, but her hands were shaking a little as she opened it.

  ‘Why would I trust you? R,’ was all it said.

  Yes! Louise punched the air. She thought for a moment. Text back? But she’d rather talk to him and he was probably holding his phone right now. She dialled his number.

  At least he picked up, but there was only silence at the other end. ‘Randall,’ she said, ‘listen to me. You can’t spend your life in hiding. Move, and you’ll be picked up – we’re good at that. And my boss actually said that it was disappearing that made you a prime suspect. Talk to me, and we can get it all cleared up. Where are you?’

  There was another long silence but she waited it out. At last he said, ‘You’ll send someone to arrest me. Why should I believe you? You spied on me.’