by V Clifford
‘I went to speak to Pamela but she wasn’t around. I was in the stable office when he came in. He came at me with a spade.’ She heard him take in a breath and slowly release it. ‘I managed to get away but he took a couple of shots at me.’
‘What, gunshots?’
‘Yep. He missed but Coulson will find the cartridges. I managed to injure him.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I used my Gerber on his thigh. Should’ve taken his dick off.’
‘I’m on my way to a meeting but are you okay on your own?’
‘Sure. Coulson said she’d drop by when she’s done. I hope the bastard bleeds out. He’s crazy for Lady Hamilton and ticked me off for calling her Pamela. I’m guessing she’s happy to string him along. I wouldn’t be surprised if he killed David on her behalf or thinking it would gain her favour. Whatever. He’s a loose cannon and the sooner he’s incarcerated the better. I keep thinking about Lisa and her mum and the bruise and blood on her face. What kind of coward does that to someone? And in front of their own kids? Assault is assault. I don’t give a fuck about that behind closed doors shit. People cannot do what they like. Not in my book.’ She blew out a breath. ‘Sorry. I’m ranting. But he and men like him make my blood boil. I’m going to check some photographs and go back through Pamela’s emails. There’s a bumper sticker from a feed company on the Land Rover and I spotted an email conversation from an account that’s probably an anagram of that company name.’
‘How did you spot that?
‘How could I not?’
‘Blimey, you’re good at this kind of thing.’
‘I’m so in the infants at this game. There are gazillions of people out there who think I’m a total lightweight. So go easy on bigging me up.’
‘No point in . . . I’ll be up later. I’ll bring food. Are you sure you’re okay?’
‘Fine. See you then.’
She took her laptop upstairs to Sal’s study and airdropped some of the photographs she’d taken in Sholto’s loo onto Sal’s desktop to see them on the big screen. The boy in the photographs always with Pamela and Sholto had grown up and become their gamekeeper. Christ, it was like a Lawrence novel gone wrong. Would he really still call her Lady Hamilton? What century was he living in? Old habits do die hard, but still.
The email address that had caught her eye on the bumper sticker was an anagram of ‘Feeds ‘n’ Seeds’. Too many ees not to be a giveaway. Not the work of a genius. She scrolled through their correspondence, lots of it dull horsey stuff. Gamekeeper was obviously a euphemism for many things in the countryside. He did all things equine as well as rearing pheasants. There was no sign of killing, or culling as they preferred to call it, on the Percy estate. She found the occasional suggestion of a meeting either they’d had or planned. There was definitely more to their relationship than employee and boss. There was something about his fondness for Pamela that made her pity him. He couldn’t see that he was being played. Pamela was clever at getting what she wanted. Her correspondence with Sholto was different, bordering on needy. With the gamekeeper, she dominated.
Viv’s phone pinged with a text from her sister suggesting a family brunch at the weekend. She switched her phone to silent. And returned to the screen. Was this guy a killer? Now that she’d calmed down she realised there was no way that he’d have missed her if he had wanted to hit her. He was a gamekeeper; shooting was his job. He’d deliberately shot wide, which was enough to keep her scared. Would he have the motivation to kill David? Was keeping Pamela sweet a good enough reason?
She was surrounded by bookshelves groaning with works on psychology that Sal had used for profiling. Now was a good time to make use of them. As was often the case when she was researching she found something that took her attention but wasn’t necessarily of use in the current investigation. Blind alleys were part of the deal and knowledge was always useful at some point. Eventually she found a section on domestic violence. The perpetrators had nothing in common. It took place in households across the social and economic spectrum. There was plenty of evidence of domestic violence turning from the odd punch to rape and murder, but it was uncommon for the person committing this crime to take their vengeance outside the home. It was easy to be brutal behind closed doors. Cowards.
Mollie stood and went to the study door and barked. A few seconds later the doorbell rang. She glanced out of the window but could only see a dark saloon in the drive behind the Rav. Must be Coulson. She ran downstairs and opened the door. Sure enough, it was.
‘Come in. I’ll stick the kettle on. Did you get him?’
‘Yes, he’s on his way to hospital. Lost a lot of blood. He came without any fuss.’
‘Yes, I was just thinking that with his job if he’d really wanted to kill me he could easily have done it. He shot wide deliberately, but was determined to scare me off.’
‘I haven’t questioned him yet. I’ll get to that once he’s been stitched up. He might need blood.’
Viv didn’t look at her. ‘I had to protect myself. It was self-defence.’
Coulson sighed. ‘What a bloody mess it all is.’ She took an evidence bag out of her pocket. ‘This was found in David’s jacket.’ She handed it to Viv.
‘My God, how many more of these are going to turn up?’ She took the bag and looked at it beneath a stronger light. It contained another eight-pointed cross but Viv was struck by the colour of part of the shield. ‘I don’t know if I’m imagining it but I think that the other Knights of Malta insignia have much richer red embossing. The thing is I’ve only seen photographs of them but this one and the one Mac and I found on a key-ring in Sholto’s town house have a paler . . .’ Just as she was about to say the colour she realised the connection.
‘What? What were you going to say?’
‘Well I’m wondering if the paler shade of red is closer to pink, which is probably significant. It could be a . . . I’d need to speak to Sholto again.’
‘What’s your connection?’
‘It’s just a theory, but I’m wondering if these men, all gay, have had their own eight-pointed cross designed as a way to identify their Catholicism and their sexuality. Wait here.’ She bolted up stairs and brought back her laptop. ‘Look, there’s a dating App for guys to meet guys and these . . .’ She lifted the evidence bag and again tried to get a better look at the cross. ‘Don’t suppose I can take a closer look?’
‘No. It might have prints on it and I don’t want any contamination. So you think this is a way for gay Catholic men to advertise themselves?’
‘Could be. If they want to stick to a particular audience it would be a kind of coded, safe way to do it. You know for insiders.’
Coulson sniffed. She wasn’t buying it. Viv pulled up images of the Knights of Malta insignia on her laptop. ‘See, it’s the same shape and detail but the colour on this one is weaker.’ She pointed at the screen. ‘These are ruby red. I know it’s a long shot but it’s worth thinking about. I’ll ask Mac if he can get clearer photographs of the others. I wonder if it belonged to David or if someone planted it on him?’
Coulson shrugged. ‘I guess we’ll know as soon as it’s checked for prints and DNA . . . You seem to have recovered.’
She shrugged. ‘Keeping busy. Being rational. Work’s always a good distraction. I’ll get myself over to Sholto, see if he’ll speak to me about that cross. Is Pamela still there?’
‘No. He didn’t want to see her. She kept trying. Hanging about. But he wouldn’t see her.’
‘And you think that’s strange?’
Coulson nodded slowly. ‘I don’t know what the hell is going on between them. He cancels the wedding. You’d think she’d be kicking off about that but she doesn’t seem that bothered. Not like most jilted brides, who’d be in meltdown.’ She shook her head. ‘At least the press have moved on for the time being. Anyway. I just wanted to see you were okay. I’ll get back to base. Make sure you get Mac to send me copies of those photographs. How many are there by the w
ay?’
‘That’s the fourth so far.’
Coulson knitted her brows. ‘Tell me about them.’
Since Ruddy had told her and Mac to keep quiet about the death in the cathedral she said, ‘Best ask Mac.’
Coulson didn’t push. ‘Right, I’ll get going then.’ But she hesitated and glanced round the room. ‘She’d made it really homely.’
Viv nodded. ‘She did. My flat in Edinburgh is homely but not like this place. She’s thought of everything.’
Coulson made for the door. ‘Keep me posted if you find anything else.’
‘Sure will, and thanks for dropping by.’
She waited until Coulson had backed down the drive, then returned to Sal’s study. She emailed Sholto, but knew it was a long shot. Better to see him face to face - harder for him to deny her hunch about the pink cross. Okay, it wasn’t as pink as the triangle but certainly on its way. Her phone rang. It was Mac.
‘Hi, I’m just checking in. I hear the gamekeeper’s in custody.’
‘He is. I’m fine. Been busy. Discovered that the colours on the eight-pointed cross are not quite the same as the original and it struck me that it might be a pink version.’
‘Pink as in pink pound or pink triangle?’
‘Exactly. If that is the case the connection between the Cathedral killing and David can’t be in doubt. I’m just taking a look at an App that gay guys use to see if I can find any with the cross in it. It could be on a tee shirt or like that guy’s slippers. It’s just a guess.’
‘Funny you should say that, because the guy in the cathedral was an old flame of David’s from law school. Coincidences adding up by the second.’
‘How long ago was he killed, I mean do we have an exact time of death? One might have killed the other. I’d say David had been in the tunnel for over a week. He was ripe. I don’t know if I’m making this up, but do you have access on your phone to the photographs of the dead priest? I think I saw fine scratches on his hands. Fine scars just healing.’
‘What are you getting at?’
‘Well, I noticed similar fine scars on Brian’s arms the other day. He’d been strimming and cutting back brambles. If our mock cardinal had been cutting back brambles and gorse at the entrance to the tunnel that would explain the fine scabs on his hands.’
‘So who killed the killer?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe it was suicide.’
‘What, he whacked his own head with a candle stick?’
‘It’s not impossible. I know it sounds mad, but I’m just thinking out loud. I’ve no idea. If you asked me this morning I’d have put money on the gamekeeper as David’s killer but now I’m not so sure. I think if he’d wanted me dead it wouldn’t have been a problem. Since he works for both estates there’s a chance that the Hamiltons don’t have the same views on conservation and kindness as the Percys. A gamekeeper has probably shot all his life. There’s no way he’d have been that wide of the mark, even one-handed. So I’m thinking he just wanted rid of me. Didn’t want me poking around in his or Pamela’s stuff. Extreme I know.’ She ran her hand through her hair. ‘I think I need a walk. That’ll clear my head. What are you working on?’
‘Nothing that you need to know about yet.’
‘Ah, but there’s a chance that I will later?’
‘You any plans to come to Edinburgh?’
‘I’m going to speak to Sholto again. See if he denies or confirms the existence of the pink eight-pointed cross. I’ll give you a buzz later. I’d love to get a look at David’s laptop. My ways and means are diminished from here. I might find a way but . . . ’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Thanks.’
She went down to the hallway and pulled on her boots. Mollie birled around at the idea of a walk. Eventually Viv managed to fix a lead onto her collar and they took off across the river park.
She started ordering her thoughts from the beginning. Sholto’s party, the request for her to look into a mis-pers, the flats in Edinburgh, the dead priest. The body in the Cathedral had definitely been killed somewhere else. There was no blood and he did have a bump to his head, which may or may not have been done by the candlestick on the altar. She had a vision of the woman who had found the priest in St Jude’s, the one who’d called the police. Usually women who worked within the Catholic Church saw their position as a privilege and did anything to protect themselves and those around them. She hadn’t, why? She had called in the police; was that a knee-jerk reaction to the death or what? There could be a less benign reason. As Viv strode over the river park she tried to picture this person. She had no idea what she looked like but was inclined to think of her as beyond retirement years, devout, but maybe she actually worked in the Cathedral for money. Maybe she had a grudge, or maybe she really was an innocent who found the body? Plenty of questions to revisit. If as Mac said, the dead priest, James O’Brien, was a former lover of David’s, he had to be a suspect as well as a victim if David’s death occurred before James’s. Need to concentrate on a timeline and find out more about the woman who found James’s body.
***
There had been a shower of rain while she’d been online and the grass soaked the bottoms of her trousers. Mollie was in seventh heaven, her nose so close to the ground she almost made a furrow in the grass as she walked. Viv realised that she was becoming familiar with slight changes in the landscape. A sycamore tree on the opposite bank had, at some point, probably been hit by lightning and lost its foliage at the top. The actual river banks were shored up by giant boulders and she wondered how long they had been like that and how many men it had taken to get them into place. The countryside didn’t just happen to be as we see it; it had been interfered with by men for centuries. Boundaries have always been important and everywhere she walked had been part of someone’s design. Rivers and their banks were the old highways, routes to significant settlements and religious centres. That’s where money and employment was. Hadn’t changed. Once she’d reached the chapel she looped back up through the woods to her favourite tree. The view of Ben Ledi was different every time but just as magnificent. What she needed to do was write a list of all possible scenarios and start eliminating. Why did post mortems take so long? It was never like that in the movies. She checked her phone. Great signal. She rang Sholto; it went straight to voicemail. She sent him a text and then an email. Covering all bases. Nothing would prevent her from asking about the pink cross. Her next step was to drop off Mollie then to pitch up at the Hall.
Chapter Twenty-One
Mrs Smith answered and held the door open for her to go in. Good start.
‘He’s not been seeing any one but he might see you. I’ll go and check.’
Viv hovered around in the hallway and studied the paintings and the vast fireplaces on either side of the entrance. The times she’d been before hadn’t given her a chance to stop and have a good look around. The paintings may have been catholic in taste but not in representation. Large Scottish landscapes, and small but multiple portraits. Two beauties, of lurchers obviously loved by the family, and possibly the artist since they were so affectionately painted. Footsteps from the passage made her turn. It was Pamela. Almost unrecognisable from the night of the drinks party, she was wearing grubby dungarees and had a scarf tied round her hair like a WWII mechanic. She looked stunning.
‘Are you trying to see Sholt?’
Viv nodded. ‘Yes, but . . .’
Mrs Smith appeared at the top of the stair and beckoned her up.
‘Looks as if I’m in luck.’
‘I’m sorry about the upset at the stables.’
Viv, half way up the stairs, turned. ‘He’s got some serious anger issues.’
Pamela looked at her feet. ‘He is over-protective at times.’
Viv snorted, ‘Oh I think he’s a bit more damaging than “over-protective”. You must know his wife.’
Pamela looked genuinely confused. ‘I know who she is, but they’ve always lived on
the Percy’s estate. I haven’t had reason to . . .’ She stopped as if she knew she was getting into deep water.
‘You were childhood friends, you, Sholto and?’
‘Richard. His name’s Richard.’
‘So he must have courted her before they married, then they had children. Are you saying, in a small community like this, you weren’t aware of what was going on between them?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘You’ll have heard the saying, “What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor but the silence of the bystander”. Think about it.’
Viv stared her down then continued upstairs two at a time.
Mrs Smith tapped on the study door and pushed it open. An extremely dishevelled Sholto sat behind his desk. His hair was sticking out at odd angles and dark rings under his eyes were testimony to sleepless nights. He gestured for her to come in and take a seat.
Mrs Smith retreated but as she left said, ‘I’ll get coffee.’
‘I wanted to ask you about the Knights of Malta insignia, the eight-pointed cross. Am I right in thinking that you and some of your friends have your very own version?’
He nodded. ‘Yes. It has made life easier for lots of gay men who also want to keep their faith.’
‘Nice touch to make it pink.’
‘We didn’t really think it through for very long. It just kind of happened. And then it became a thing.’ He leaned forward on the desk, pulled his laptop closer and began to type. He turned it round so that she could see the screen.
‘There’s nothing sinister about it. And there are probably lots of men who don’t use it but at least those who do feel safe. There’s only one manufacturer that . . .’ He stopped and knitted his brows. ‘Do you think David’s death had something to do with the Knights of Malta?’
‘You know that they found a cross in his pocket?’
‘No, I didn’t. But why would that be an issue? We all have one.’
‘It might not be. It just struck me as odd because another pink eight-pointed cross turned up in a case that we’ve been working on and we’re not fond of coincidences like that. I’m just poking around. There may not be a connection but it’s unlikely.’
