‘Give it to Tam,’ Fleming directed. ‘I’m going back to set up the major incident room at Kirkluce after I’ve seen the pathologist – it’ll be time enough then.’
She looked around, assessing the scene. The sky was starting to clear as the freshening wind tore the clouds apart. It would give them perhaps an hour of better light before sunset.
‘The obvious route to the site is up the path and directly across the burn, of course – the way we all came. We may have destroyed evidence already, unfortunately, but tape it off now. And just in case, seal off the area beyond the fallen trees and the access from downstream. It’s possible the killer may have carried her across below and walked up but it should be safe enough to assume at least that he won’t have come down from above. So make sure everyone crosses upstream and approaches from there.
‘There’s not a lot we can do before the photographer arrives and after that the daylight will have gone. Just finish taping off, sergeant, then send away anyone who isn’t needed. The fewer people we have stamping around here the better, and—’
The ringing of a mobile phone cut across her. ‘It’s this one,’ MacNee said, startled, taking it out of his pocket and holding it out to Fleming.
She hesitated for a second then took it. Half-unwrapping it, she pressed the answer button through the plastic and held it a little way away from her ear.
They all heard the man’s voice. ‘Natasha! Thank God! What the hell are you playing at? I didn’t know where you were – I kept calling and just got the frigging answer service. I’ve been going mental! Where are you?’ Raw anxiety was overlaid with the anger of relief.
‘I’m sorry.’ Fleming’s voice was carefully neutral. ‘Who was it you wanted to speak to?’
‘Natasha Wintour.’ His tone sharpened. ‘Who are you? What are you doing with her phone?’
‘Police. The phone has come into our hands. Who am I speaking to?’
‘God, has she lost her phone again? Typical! This is Jeff Brewer. Where was it found?’
‘I’m sorry, sir, I’m not at liberty to give that information. Can you give me your address, please, and Ms Wintour’s?’
‘It’s the same. We live together. Or at least we did, until four days ago when she suddenly took off without a word to me.’ He sounded bitter.
At a gesture from Fleming, MacNee took out his notebook and wrote down the address as she repeated it.
‘Thank you, sir. We’ll be in touch.’ Fleming ended the call then, with her lips pursed in a silent whistle, and replaced the phone carefully in its bag. ‘Manchester! That’s a surprise.’
Tam bristled. ‘What’s she doing here? Started trying to reduce their crime statistics by dumping their bodies on us, have they?’
‘Even for you that’s paranoid. Like the boys in blue in Manchester have a disposal squad going round Scotland looking for likely sites? Anyway, I’ll have to contact them tonight to ask them to go and break the news to Brewer. We may find ourselves having to work quite closely with them, Tam, so you’d better stop reading Burns until this one’s out of the way. I blame him for your rabid nationalist attitude.’
She turned to Christie. ‘Someone’ll have to work out how to get that poor lad down off the hill – we needn’t keep him any longer. What about getting him a piggyback? I’m sure you’ve some young, strong constable who’s blotted his copybook in the last few days.’
‘Oh, indeed I do. I’ve one who put a dent in his patrol car yesterday. Brown! I’ve a job for you!’
‘What’s happened to you?’ Jenna Murdoch, putting a vegetable curry into the microwave for her daughter, turned to stare at her husband as he came in. He was sporting a livid bruise on one cheek and his lip was split and swollen.
‘I was attacked, that’s what happened.’ He was in a state of barely suppressed fury. ‘Stevenson went for me like a madman after the trials. Not content with conning me over the dog, he comes up when I’m having a quiet drink at the bar and has a go at me.’
Jenna tried to conceal a smile. ‘Do I take it you and Moss didn’t cover yourselves with glory?’
‘What could I do? The dog’s past it, and Stevenson knew it. Who’s going to buy it now, I said, and he started yelling at me. Then, when I told him if I didn’t have a decent offer – from him, preferably – within the week, I was going to have the useless beast put down.’
Taking a stew out of the oven for their own supper, Jenna froze, waiting for Mirren’s reaction. She had come in just before her father and gone to sit at the kitchen table, saying nothing; she’d probably start throwing crockery at any moment, having inherited her temper from her father’s side of the family.
But she didn’t even speak. Turning, Jenna saw that her daughter’s face was white and drawn and her dark eyes, burning with hatred, were fixed on her oblivious father.
The microwave pinged. Relieved to have an excuse to break the tension, Jenna said, ‘Here you are, Mirren. It’s ready now.’ She scooped the food on to a plate and put it in front of her daughter.
‘I’m not hungry.’ Mirren didn’t drop her gaze.
‘Can’t say I am either,’ Niall said. ‘What is it – stew? If it’s your usual watery muck, I’m not sure how much I fancy it, with my lip being sore.’
Jenna’s lips tightened. She helped herself, then sat down at the table with her own plate. ‘Seems like I’m the only one who’s eating,’ she said lightly.
Niall was taken aback. ‘Well, that’s nice, isn’t it! I’ve been beaten up, and all my wife can do is sit and stuff her face. I would have thought I might have been entitled to a bit of sympathy and consideration.’ He glanced towards his daughter, as if expecting support, then, encountering her unblinking, accusatory stare, snarled, ‘And you can stop looking at me like that, too!’
He jumped to his feet. ‘I wouldn’t like you to worry about my supper,’ he said to Jenna with heavy sarcasm. ‘I’ll get something to eat at the Yacht Club.’
‘I’m surprised you’re prepared to show your face there,’ she returned with saccharine sweetness, ‘looking like it does.’
Niall stormed out, slamming the door behind him so hard that the room shook.
Jenna set down her fork. ‘Oh dear, I don’t think I’m particularly hungry now either.’
Mirren’s thin body was still rigid with tension and Jenna’s heart went out to her spiky, passionate daughter. ‘Mirren,’ she said gently, ‘please try to eat something.’
The girl’s eyes were bright with tears. ‘I can’t. It would stick, here.’ She touched her thin throat. ‘He mustn’t kill Moss, he mustn’t!’
Jenna sighed. ‘It’s a working dog. It’s not a pet. And if it can’t work—’
‘Moss only can’t work because
he
’s useless. When Moss came, he was fine. It’s
him
that’s the problem. He should be put down, not Moss.’
When was the last time her daughter had called her father Dad or Daddy, or indeed anything but ‘he’, spoken with contempt? Jenna had been absorbed in her own daily struggle with the brutal demands of restoration work; she hadn’t spared time or energy to attend to more than the basic physical needs of her family and she was long past concern about her own relationship with her husband. Now, looking at the sad child in front of her, she experienced terrible guilt.
She’d known, of course, that Mirren was something of a loner at school. Well, that was just Mirren. She’d never made friends easily, but she was a self-sufficient child, keen on wildlife and passionate about her Green causes, to the point where she was a pain in the neck about conservation. Jenna had been reduced to smuggling bottles into the bin after Mirren was in bed to reduce the glass mountain in one of the sheds; who had time to drive into Wigtown regularly to recycle them?
It was only recently that her mother had begun to feel uneasy. She’d heard a programme on the radio which she always had on while she was working. It had caught her attention, because the speaker was someone who lived in Galloway: a woman psychotherapist who wrote for the newspapers and had published a book about problem situations in family life. On this occasion, what she was talking about was the relationship of teenage girls with their fathers and the importance of paternal approval and encouragement to the development of self-confidence.
That was something Mirren notably lacked, which was another problem that could be laid at Niall’s door, but on the other hand, her own dismissive attitude to her husband, while perfectly understandable, could only have made things worse. She had taken pleasure in cutting him down to size in front of her.
‘Mirren,’ Jenna said unhappily, ‘I know how upset you are. But Dad’s had a bad time. He’d set his heart on doing well in the trials.’
Her daughter’s face was still stony. ‘You see,’ her mother went on, ‘Granddad always made Dad feel a failure because he didn’t win. And I know you find it hard to accept it, but Moss is only a dog—’
‘Only a dog? Only a
dog
?’ The tears started to spill over, fat tears, splashing down Mirren’s face. ‘There’s nothing special about humans, you know – all they are is nasty animals.’ She stood up. ‘But I’m going to stop him. I don’t care what I have to do.’
A moment later, Jenna was alone at the table with the plates of uneaten food and her uncomfortable reflections.
The rain had stopped by the time Niall had flung himself out of the house and the first pale stars were beginning to appear between clouds chased along by a stiff breeze. Jolly boating weather, he reflected acidly, as he walked out towards the far end of the marina’s pontoons, beyond the lights and out of sight. It was always quiet there and you could be sure of being alone once sailing was over for the day.
Around the bay, behind the lit windows the smart set were having dinner parties, no doubt, and on some of the moorings, warm yellow light glowed from the boats’ portholes, showing where some keen sailor was drying out equipment after today’s outing, or preparing for tomorrow’s. From the Yacht Club he could hear the sound of music, voices and laughter.
He couldn’t bring himself to go in. Some of the laughter was probably at his expense and even the consolation of knowing that Findlay Stevenson could be behind bars by now didn’t compensate for his own public failure and humiliation.
And anxiety. He’d still hoped, when he went to hang around the bar after the trials, that despite the disaster of Moss’s performance, someone would come up and make him an offer on the basis of the dog’s previous reputation. But he’d been drinking alone when Stevenson came in and started slagging him off. He’d lashed out with the deadliest weapon in his armoury – killing off the dog – and there had been considerable satisfaction in seeing the pain in the man’s face. Niall had even managed to land a punch or two in self-defence before Stevenson was dragged away.
His big problem was Lafferty. Ronnie had scared him last night, but if he went ahead with the rescue plan that had occurred to him, Davina would be furious and she was a bad person to cross. Then again, did she need to know? She’d said she was only passing through . . .
‘Hey, lover!’ The voice that spoke at his shoulder made him start, but when he looked round it wasn’t the woman he was thinking about who stood there. He hadn’t heard her approach, with the wind stirring the boats into clinking movement and the creaking of the pontoons.
Gina Lafferty stood smiling at him out of the darkness, the full mouth inviting as ever, the flirtatious eyes glinting and the plunging neckline of her dull gold silky top an arrow pointing to the dark hollow below. Lust on legs, he had called her once: the ideal woman, someone whose appetites matched his own, and who had an even greater vested interest in discretion.
Niall stood up, glancing nervously over her shoulder. ‘Gina! I didn’t know you were down this weekend. I thought Ronnie was here this week on his own.’
‘He was. But then I thought, hey! Why don’t I come down too? Especially when the office phoned the Glasgow house to say they were looking for him – some sort of minor crisis. I got here last night; he left this morning. And tonight – well, I felt like playing with fire and I came along to see if I could find someone to light the flame.’
It had been a bruising day, in every sense of the word. He’d have to be crazy to take a risk like this, but it was balm to his wounded spirit. So Lafferty was richer, more powerful? In one direction at least he was a loser, big time. How could Niall resist?
He took a step closer, smiling at her. ‘Oh, I think I could just about manage that.’
Gina put out her hand and touched soft fingers to his sore lip. ‘I hear you’ve been in the wars. I’ll have to be gentle with you, won’t I?’
‘You go back,’ he said thickly. ‘I’ll drift along when the coast’s clear.’
‘You’re awful quiet this evening,’ Rab McLeish said. ‘You’ve barely touched your breezer.’ He sounded faintly impatient as he looked down at the dark-haired girl sitting alone at the small corner table next to the bar.
They were a curious pair. Rab was big, self-confident and loud and she was a quiet little thing – mousy, in the opinion of some of his friends, though they never said it to his face. They’d been stepping out for nearly two years and Rab was daft about the girl; certainly she was pretty enough, with the soft blue eyes and pale skin that often goes with dark hair in Scotland.