She heard him sigh. ‘Oh, I dare say. But all we’re talking about here is identification, for goodness’ sake – what possible point is there in driving someone hundreds of miles, just for the sake of saying, “I know her as well”?’
Fleming made sure he heard her sigh too. ‘OK, for the sake of argument, suppose some guy’s murdered his wife. An unknown woman’s body turns up, drowned or in an accident, say. He sobs, swears it’s her and he’s off the hook. Sorrowing widower, big funeral, sympathy, insurance, the whole jing-bang. No one goes out looking for a shallow grave.’
‘Far-fetched, I’m sure you would agree. It doesn’t happen, in my experience.’
‘Are you sure?’ It slipped out; she shouldn’t have said it and she could almost hear his lips tightening. She went on hastily, ‘It was only an example. Anyway, the SOCOs are up at the scene today. I’ll forward their report to you whenever it reaches me and then perhaps we can liaise over bringing Brewer up here.’
‘I was thinking that we might send up some of our own forensic people. They’re experts, of course, with a lot of experience, and it might help your people out.’
Fleming bristled. She didn’t have to read between the lines: this was being spelled out in screamers just under the masthead.
‘That would be a matter for the Procurator Fiscal’s Office, which directs all murder cases in Scotland, but I think you’ll find we can manage,’ she said, ice forming on the words.
That got through. As if he had flicked a switch, when he spoke again his voice was charmingly apologetic. ‘Oh look, I’m sorry about the way that came out. Did it sound patronizing? I didn’t mean it to.’
‘I’m so glad. I’d hate to think it was deliberate. Such an unhelpful attitude, I always find.’
‘Well – er, sorry, as I said.’
She’d managed to put him off balance. Good! ‘Don’t worry about it. Keep me in the picture about Brewer, and we’ll fix up whatever you need.’
‘Fine. Thanks. We’ll be in touch.’
He didn’t seem keen to prolong the conversation. With a certain grim satisfaction Fleming returned to her work, planning briefing notes and details for the following day.
It felt all wrong, though, like being in a phoney war. There was a woman lying dead, a woman who had been brutally assaulted first, and there was almost nothing to be done about it, at least as yet. Fleming had two duty officers out taking Gavin Scott’s statement; another couple were knocking on the doors of the handful of houses along the Queen’s Way road in the forlorn hope that someone might have happened to notice a car parked in the area, but there was no reason to bring in off-duty officers today and run up the bill for overtime. Any fingertip search that was needed could happen once the SOCOs were clear of the area.
She’d already commissioned roadside signs to appeal for information, which would be erected tomorrow at either end of the relevant stretch of road – in her opinion the best chance of getting eye-witness evidence of a parked car – and once these reports came in they might have something more to go on. She doubted if the autopsy which she would reluctantly have to attend, tomorrow probably, would tell them anything they didn’t know.
The only thing that niggled away at her was the question of the killer’s links with the area. You live in Manchester, you’re looking for an out-of-the-way spot to leave a body and Scotland seems to fit the bill. Unless you’ve been there already, are you likely to think of Galloway, so many miles off the main road north, instead of the better-publicized wilderness of the Highlands? Galloway’s unspoiled beauty of quiet hills and wild, empty moorlands – and huge forests – was one of the best-kept secrets of scenic Scotland. There had to be a connection of some sort.
Fleming was glad that the demands of identification would mean they’d get a chance to question the boyfriend directly. Even if Brewer had nothing to do with it – and it would take quite a lot to convince her that he had – he might be able to shed some light on that. And the second ID witness could be useful too, if it was a close friend, as it was likely to be.
It would be good to have the answer to that and get it out of the way, then hand over the whole package to the overbearing DCI Carter to do with as he chose. She couldn’t think that the sum of human happiness would be increased by any prolonged co-operation between the two of them.
‘Phew!’ DCI Chris Carter set the phone down reverently, running his hands through his thick, iron-grey crop. ‘And wipe that grin off your face, Tucker!’
DS ‘Tommy’ Tucker, who had come in just as Carter began his phone call and parked himself on the edge of the desk, failed to comply with the order from his superior officer. ‘Got a right one there, haven’t you?’
‘God, I can just see her! One of these terrifying females who’ve been submerged in the job so long they’ve got barnacles on their bottoms, and they’re ready to savage anyone who sets a toe on their territory. And typical Scots – chip on her shoulder the size of a hod of bricks. Kept trying to push her angle and got all frosty when I dared to suggest she might welcome some help from our boys.’ He stretched out in his chair, his hands behind his head in a characteristic pose: at six foot three he always felt cramped in the standard office chairs.
Tucker gave him a sardonic look. He wasn’t bad as guvnors went, but they’d missed out the listening-skills section of his primary education. ‘You’re losing your touch,’ he said. ‘Spreading on the charm like tarmac after you’ve bulldozed them flat used to work.’
‘Cheeky sod,’ Carter said without rancour. ‘And anyway, what’s a Procurator Fiscal?’
‘I don’t know. What
is
a Procurator Fiscal? Is there a punchline?’
‘That may become apparent later. He seems to be someone who’s in charge of ops up in Scotland. We may yet be grateful for our Chief Constable.’ He paused. ‘Well, perhaps not.’
‘What’s the score? Someone got to go up there? I’ll volunteer – I fancy a short break in rural Scotland.’
‘You may just have to. Anyway, did you come in for anything, apart from a good laugh?’
‘Just to give you a sit-rep. The bar Brewer manages is called Cosmo – one of those minimalist, poncey places that can’t serve a decent pint. Wintour’s been employed there as a barmaid for a year – a bit over, maybe, and they’ve been shacked up together most of that time. Brewer doesn’t seem to know if she’s got family, parents, that sort of thing, but he’s been quite happy to agree to searches of the flat and his car. Says he’s nothing to hide.’
‘Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe we need to be looking for one of the regulars in the bar. That woman – Fleming – was adamant his reaction was genuine.’
‘Maybe she’s right. But one of the team who interviewed him said to me he reckons there’s something there, at least. Brewer’s brief was very protective and Brewer himself was definitely edgy.’
Carter made a face. ‘Could be something unrelated. Black market booze, trousering the profits . . . it’ll emerge.’ He got up. ‘Keep me posted, Tommy. I’m due in a briefing about that non-fatal shooting yesterday.’
‘I didn’t think you’d be free today, after what you said on the phone last night about the body in the forest.’
Laura Harvey, her cheeks pink with the wind and a blue woolly hat pulled well down over her ears, was on board Jon Kingsley’s
Blackbird
, a smallish boat with a blue-painted hull and white sails and superstructure. An Achilles 24, he told her, although, knowing nothing about sailing, this meant little to her.
‘It’s kind of weird,’ he agreed. ‘You’d expect we’d all be swinging into a major operation, but in fact the boss seems to be reckoning it’s not a lot more than a macabre sort of fly-tipping. Even so, we’d better not stay out too long in case there’s a summons. It takes a bit of time to put my baby to bed.’
‘Fine.’ Laura wasn’t about to argue. The weather had definitely broken and today, though it wasn’t raining, the sky was heavy, and in the stiff breeze vicious little waves were slapping against the hull, making the boat buck as they clipped along, and she wasn’t entirely sure that the croissant she had had for breakfast was happy in its new home.
They were a good way out in the bay now, tacking across it while keeping clear of the line of yachts pursuing one another in a race out into Wigtown Bay and then, so Jon said, round a fixed light buoy and back. More to take her mind off her stomach than anything else, Laura asked how long he’d had his boat. ‘And why
Blackbird
? Did you choose the name?’
Jon laughed, his face glowing. He seemed almost high on the exhilaration of the speed and the wind in his face. ‘Black bastards – that’s what the Scottish criminal classes call us, from the colour of the uniform and – well, I leave the rest of the explanation to your imagination.’ He broke off to make some fine adjustment to the sails and looked at his passenger. ‘You all right? Not too cold or anything?’
Laura shook her head and he went on, ‘So I changed her name to
Blackbird
because she was – is – the only woman in my life. At present.’ He gave her a glancing smile. ‘Anyway, I came down to Galloway sailing a few times with friends from the Uni in Edinburgh, sometimes on the west coast in Portpatrick and sometimes here. I got hooked, and was lucky enough to hear about someone selling her cheap for a quick sale and managed to snap her up. When I was in Edinburgh, I sailed out of South Queensferry, but the east coast sailing isn’t as good.’
‘Was that what tempted you away from the big city?’
He considered that. ‘Partly, I suppose. And it was a chance to do something different, make my mark perhaps in a smaller place. It’s not for ever, of course. I’m working for my sergeant’s exams and I can see me heading back to Edinburgh, if I make rank.’
Ambitious, Laura thought, but that wasn’t a crime. Being a young man in a hurry didn’t endear you to everyone, though; she could see Tam and even Marjory being unsympathetic to someone with an eye possibly more to his prospects than the job in hand. Still, much as she loved Galloway herself, you could hardly blame someone for wanting a faster-paced life.
Jon was doing something clever that made them come about and now they were sailing towards the marina and the Yacht Club. Laura didn’t dare to hope it meant they were heading in.
‘Are you a member there?’ She pointed.
‘In my dreams! Not since it was a shack, before the country club makeover. Now the committee’s all second-homers and they’ve raised the subscription to make sure they’re the only people who can afford to belong. And even if I could find the money, as a humble copper I’d probably be blackballed.’
‘They sound a charming lot.’
‘The locals were upset about it too. It made Drumbreck even more fashionable, which of course had its effect on house prices, and it’s ripped its heart out. Most of the houses are shut up half the year and the little general store they had was forced to close – no business during the winter, and even when they come for weekends they bring in their supplies from Tesco.’
It was sad, but a far from unusual scenario in the more picturesque areas of the countryside. ‘You do lose any sort of community then, don’t you? And all there seems to be here is a sort of glossy magazine fantasy.’
‘And a pretty unhealthy one at that,’ Jon agreed. ‘Sodom-on-Sea, they call it. I tell you, I thought I had some free-wheeling friends but the morals in this place would make an alley cat blush.
‘Oh, hold tight – here’s one of the motor yachts. We’re going to catch its wake.’
Laura, interested in the conversation, had almost managed to take her mind off her stomach, but as the smaller boat bobbed up and down she had to swallow hard.
Seeing her face, Jon grinned, though not unkindly. ‘Having problems? It’s a bit blowy today, I suppose. I’ll take you out next time when it’s a flat calm and you’ll get used to it, but we can head in now, if you like.’
‘I’m not going to argue with the last part of that, anyway.’ Laura took comfort from the rapidly approaching shore. It would be a pity if what looked like a promising relationship foundered on his obsession with ‘the only woman in his life’.
All hell had broken loose when Marjory Fleming came into the police headquarters on Monday morning. She stopped in amazement at the sight of the crowded entrance hall and the officers going to and fro, clearly under some kind of pressure.
Sergeant Jock Naismith was on the desk this morning and she caught his eye. He was dealing with a voluble lady with the high colour of indignation in her cheeks who was laying forth about some perceived deficiency in police operations. With some relief he excused himself and came across to Fleming.
‘If looks could kill, you’d be skewered like a kebab,’ she told him as the lady, even more indignant now, directed a dagger look at his broad back.
He grinned. ‘Like enough. It’s a wee bit lively in here today.’
‘What on earth’s going on?’
‘What isn’t, more like. Three break-ins in neighbouring council houses in Clapperfield Road. Third one, the wifie disturbed them and ended up being taken in to the hospital with a suspected heart attack. That’s her sister there, giving me my head in my hands and my lugs to play with.