‘Someone had it in for him?’
‘Someone? I’ll tell you who didn’t have it in for him – that’ll be quicker.’
‘I have all the time in the world.’ MacNee settled back again as comfortably as he could in the flimsy chair.
‘Got a problem, old man?’
Adrian McConnell jumped as the voice hailed him. A motor yacht, with a cargo of women, children and men showcasing varied interpretations of the nautical look, swept round in a curve and throttled back alongside.
‘No, no.’ He leaned forward to fiddle with the engine. ‘Cut out, that’s all.’ He turned the key and it obligingly caught. ‘That’s it now. Thanks all the same.’
‘My pleasure,’ called the man at the wheel, touched his hand to his white skipper’s cap, and roared away.
Adrian looked down at the water again, foaming now in the wake of the motor yacht. The moment had passed.
Feeling so weary that every bone in his body ached, he turned the boat and headed for the shore.
Fleming sat at her desk, her head in her hands. It was only six-thirty, but it had seemed a very long day.
She was depressed as well as tired. She’d called the hospital from her mobile to get the latest on Angus’s condition, but the report wasn’t good. They still hadn’t got him stabilized; they were having to keep him mainly under sedation at the moment, the sister said, and suggested delicately that for his wife to come and see him at the moment might be distressing. With experience of psychiatric hospitals, Fleming had read between the lines: he would be being physically restrained, ill-shaven, unkempt – Angus, who had always had an almost military precision in his grooming – and the condition of his neighbours on the ward would be upsetting too.
It hadn’t been easy to persuade Janet that she should leave it for a day or two until the news was a little better and she was stronger herself. When Marjory went in, she was in the sitting-room, dressed but looking egg-shell fragile, with the bruise on the side of her forehead now showing rainbow colours. She’d had a stream of people in to look after her all afternoon, she said, though Marjory wasn’t sure that having to make the effort to be sociable was the best thing for her.
Janet brushed aside the notion that she should be in bed, though, and when her daughter sat down beside her, her first question was when they were going to see Angus; on being told that it wouldn’t be for a day or two yet, she burst into tears.
Marjory had put her arms round her, of course, patting and soothing as she would have done with Cat or Cammie, but it felt unnatural, ineffectual. How could she comfort her mother, when comforting was a mother’s job? How could she console for a grief even she, in middle age, was still too young fully to understand?
It was Janet who calmed herself down, found her hankie and tried to smile as she dabbed at her eyes. ‘I suppose I’ll just have to possess my soul in patience, won’t I? And maybe it’s all to the good if he’s getting a proper rest – he got awful trauchled, sometimes, you know, with the confusion in his mind.
‘And don’t you go fretting, dearie. We’ll get him home again when he’s more like his old self.’
Sick at heart, Marjory had weakly agreed, lied about having had lunch, and allowed herself to be shooed away because she’d be needing to get finished up at her work and be away home to her man and the weans.
So here she was at her desk, finishing up. Or at least, she ought to be, but there seemed to be so many aspects to these two investigations that she couldn’t sort them out. Was Tam right that they were linked? Or was Murdoch’s murder, as the strutting Sergeant Christie would have it, a drunken revenge attack? There was something about what he’d told her that was niggling at her, but every time she tried to focus on it, it seemed to slip away again and puzzling at it only made it worse.
At least MacNee’s appearance at the door gave her an excuse for stopping. He seemed in high spirits.
‘Anything you want to know about Drumbreck, just ask. I’m the wee boy!’ he proclaimed, then, as she looked up wearily, he frowned. ‘Here – who’s stolen your scone? You’re looking about as cheerful as a wet weekend in Rothesay.’
‘Oh – long day, I suppose. And I’ve just been telling my mother that the news about Dad isn’t good.’
‘That’s a bummer.’ Tam sat down. ‘How is Janet?’
‘Looks as if she’d fall over if you breathed on her, but she’s doing her usual stoic bit. Chased me away after checking up to make sure I’d eaten.’
‘And had you?’
‘Well, not in that sense,’ Marjory admitted. ‘Not since breakfast.’
‘No wonder you’re looking so peely-wally. Come on, I’ll take you down the pub.’
‘I’ve stuff to do to be ready for tomorrow and I don’t want to be too late home, after being away.’
‘Canteen, then, even if you only take a sandwich.’
She realized that she was, after all, very hungry and got up, sketching a salute. ‘Sir!’ She followed him downstairs.
There were two people sitting in the big room, with at one end the canteen hatch with tables, and at the other some easy chairs and a TV, now broadcasting regional news. Jon Kingsley and Tansy Kerr were sitting watching at the same table, Fleming was glad to see; it looked as if the hostilities of the morning had been suspended at least.
‘That’s Drumbreck, look,’ Kingsley said as they came in.
There were views of the marina, of a handful of people and of uniformed officers by the blue-and-white tape, followed by a shot of the burned-out shed.
‘A spate of vandalism in this quiet village has caused problems recently,’ an earnest young man was saying to camera, ‘and there is speculation that Niall Murdoch was killed during the arson attack which left this shed in ruins. A man is helping police with their inquiries.’
Fleming, choosing a sandwich, turned. ‘That’s what was bothering me – of course! Christie was telling me he was fixing on a time between seven, when Murdoch phoned his wife, and nine, when the night watchman came on, but of course the shed wasn’t torched as early as that. If it’s the vandal he’s fingering, he’d have to be considering a much later time.’
‘Around midnight, according to the night watchman,’ MacNee, at the hatch, said over his shoulder. ‘Bridie and beans, thanks, Sally. Turns out he’s Euphemia Aitcheson’s husband, Brian – used to be in the Force, maybe you remember? Didn’t see a thing – quiet night, till the fire broke out, he said.
‘But I reckon we’re needing to take a wider look at it anyway. According to Brian, if you fancied taking out Murdoch you’d be told to form an orderly queue. His partner, Ronnie Lafferty—’
Fleming and Kerr chorused in unison, ‘Oh, him!’
MacNee looked surprised, and Fleming explained that the man himself was probably even now upstairs awaiting release on an undertaking to appear.
‘Serious bad news, Lafferty is. After what Brian said I gave a pal in Glasgow a call, and he says the man’s got some very nasty wee chums.’
Kerr pitched in her account of the row between Lafferty and Murdoch, and the rumour of Murdoch’s affair with Lafferty’s wife.
MacNee agreed. ‘Brian talked about that too. Said Murdoch was a brave man – that’s brave, like, stupid. He didn’t say so, but he seemed a wee thing embarrassed and if you ask me he’s been reporting to Lafferty about Gina’s activities.’
‘And the horse-faced woman I talked to said that Ingles had known stuff about Lafferty and tried to keep him out of the club,’ Kerr said.
Fleming listened to it all, frowning. ‘You know,’ she said slowly at last, ‘it all does seem to keep coming back to the Ingles thing. We’ll need to keep a very open mind about this.
‘Incidentally, the pathologist says he drowned. The blow on the head, with something small and round and heavy, knocked him out, but he was alive when he hit the water. So there’ll be an argument there for the lawyers when we get our man.’
‘There’s always an argument for the lawyers,’ Tam said bitterly.
Kingsley had been uncharacteristically quiet. Now he said, awkwardly, ‘Look, I just want to say sorry. I’ve apologized to Tansy for things I said this morning, and I know we screwed up. I’ve talked to Greg and he still thinks Ingles is guilty. I think he may be, but with this other killing – well, I’m scared we got it wrong. Listening just now, I had an idea . . .’
He hesitated.
‘Always ready to listen to ideas,’ Fleming said lightly.
‘We know Murdoch was still alive at seven. He must have been dead by the time of the fire, or surely he’d have come rushing. And why wasn’t he going home for supper? If we knew where he was, who he was with, that might tell us something.’
‘I bet the night watchman takes a break from time to time,’ Kerr said shrewdly. ‘And anyway, the body was out at the end of the pontoons and everyone in the place has a boat. If he was there to watch for vandals he wouldn’t look out to sea.’
‘All good points. There’s a lot to consider.’ Fleming got up. ‘I’m going back to finish up. I’d appreciate reports as soon as you can, and Tansy, I’d be grateful if you could chase up Christie if his doesn’t arrive tomorrow. Briefing in the morning.’
As she went to the door, she turned to Kingsley. ‘I’ll detail you to do interviews in Drumbreck tomorrow,’ she said. ‘But just don’t make any sudden movements.’
He grinned. ‘Thanks, boss.’ Then he added, ‘And if you see Laura, could you tell her I’m being a good boy?’
‘Laura? Oh – yes, if it comes up.’ Fleming left, with MacNee following her. She had forgotten all about Kingsley’s meeting with Laura at the dog trials, and this wasn’t entirely welcome news.
She did try to make her voice as neutral as possible as she said to MacNee, ‘Are they an item, then?’
‘Not that I know of,’ MacNee said sourly. ‘Laura’s far too good for the likes of him.’
‘Laura’s too good for most people, but we mustn’t be selfish. He’s a bright lad – homed in on the question of where Niall was at suppertime.’
MacNee sniffed. ‘Still wouldn’t let him or Allan anywhere near the Ingles case.’
‘I know, Tam. There’s always a temptation to want to be right, especially when it’s your career at stake, but at least for once he’s prepared to admit he’s been wrong.’ She laughed. ‘Laura’s influence, maybe.’
But it wasn’t a happy thought. How could she, in future, talk to Laura as freely and confidentially as she always had done, when it would mean asking her to keep secrets from someone she was involved with?
Gina Lafferty heard the front door close with such a resounding bang that she winced, half-expecting it to be followed by the sound of its glass panel crashing to the floor. Ronnie had returned.
Ronnie storming in could hardly be called a novelty, but this, from the sound of it, was going to be the kind of storm where you were advised to put up the shutters and leave town. She shivered. Ronnie’s rages were indiscriminate: you could be caught up just by being in the wrong place.
Stay calm, stay calm
, she told herself.
She was opening the sitting-room door when he bellowed, ‘
Gina!
Oh – there you are. You heard? You heard what they did – to
me
?’
She took a step back as he pushed past her, heading for the built-in cocktail cabinet. Taking a water tumbler, he filled it to the brim with Scotch. She noticed, inconsequentially, that the missing silver box had magically reappeared on its shelf.
Ronnie’s face was a murky purple, an unhealthy colour. It crossed her mind to suggest he call a doctor – but why? It would only provoke him further, and anyway, what was wrong with being a wealthy widow?
‘Yes. Tony phoned and told me.’ Tony was Ronnie’s ‘fixer’ in Glasgow, the man whose job it was to see that things like this didn’t happen.
From the torrent of obscenities which followed, she gathered that the Fixer of the Year title was unlikely to be coming Tony’s way. ‘I managed to put in a call, told him to see to it they dropped all charges, there and then.’ Ronnie gulped at his whisky, sat down, then got up again to pace the room; he stopped in front of the fireplace. ‘Told him to get Beltrami on to them – he’s a top Glasgow lawyer, knows the score – and all the moron could say was that the busies have six hours to do as they like first. Nazis, the police in this country – Nazis!
‘So surprise, surprise – they charged me – they sodding charged me!’
‘Tony said you’d get a slap on the wrist, that’s all,’ she offered soothingly.
This had much the same effect as pouring oil into a blazing chip-pan. ‘A
slap on the wrist!
’ he yelled, smashing the glass in his hand down so hard on the marble mantelpiece that it broke. Whisky poured out along the surface, dripping on to the pale carpet, and shards of crystal fell to shatter on the hearth. He didn’t even glance down. ‘A slap on the wrist? Has the man gone doolally? Do you know what a “slap on the wrist” means? It means a criminal conviction. It means fingerprints and DNA on file. That’s what it means.’
He glanced down impatiently at the debris at his feet, then walked back to the drinks cupboard to fetch another Scotch. He turned, his bullfrog eyes hot and red, glaring at her. ‘Well? Say something!’