Marnie could hear violence in the raised voice at the front door as she crept past in the shadows of the hall, stifling a sob of fear. The kitchen door stood open and she went in, pushing it to behind her, then tiptoed across to a glass panel door leading into the garden. She turned the handle as delicately as she could, grimacing at the slight noise it made.
It resisted – locked! She was trapped, no escape – but as she glanced wildly about she saw a key hung up by the sink, a key with a flowered tag saying ‘Garden’. She grabbed it and let herself out, closing the door as quietly as she could. To her left there was a path leading round the side of the house to the front, but she couldn’t risk taking it. If Anita hadn’t let the women into the house they would be standing at the front door where they would see her as she came round the corner of the house, and with her imagination running riot she could see them falling on her like a pack of wild beasts…
The back garden was small but there was a high, solid stone wall at the end of it, separating it from the property beyond. Marnie ran across the sodden, muddy square of grass and launched herself at it, thankful that she was wearing jeans and trainers. Stretching her arms she could reach the top and she levered herself up, her feet scrabbling against the stone. She had no idea what was on the other side of it but she threw herself over, landing awkwardly on the soft earth of a flower bed and staggering violently into a bush. Its thorns scratched her and tore at her clothes but she barely noticed.
This garden, and the house it belonged to, was bigger. Marnie glanced nervously at the windows overlooking it; the householder might not be pleased at his property being invaded like this and she didn’t think she’d done the shrub any good either. The sooner she got out of here the better. There was a wicket gate which led past the side of the house leading to the front garden, offering an escape route, and she trotted off across the sweeping lawn towards it.
Then she heard a door opening and a second later, savage barking. A dog was racing across the garden, a small burly dog with the distinctive broad, blunt head of a Staffordshire bull terrier, and its muzzle was drawn back to expose pointed teeth.
With a scream of fright, Marnie sprinted towards the gate. She didn’t try to open it, just flung herself across the top to land heavily on her hands and knees on the path beyond. The dog, snarling and snapping, was hurling itself at the wood in such a frenzy of excitement that the gate was bending under its onslaught. If it gave way, burst open—
But there was a shout, then a whistle. The dog stopped, turned and ran panting back to the house. Marnie could hear a man’s mocking laughter.
Feeling sick with shock, she picked herself up and limped down the front path into the street beyond. What could she do now? Where could she go?
She could go back to the Morrisons – muddy, with a tear in her jeans and bleeding knees and hands. She could picture Gemma’s sympathetic horror at what had happened to her as she admitted her to that immaculate kitchen and her immaculate life, cleaning her wounds with kindness and, yes, pity.
Marnie didn’t want pity. Once you were pitiable, once you lost your pride, there was nothing left. All she could do was go back to the main road and wait for the next bus back to Kirkluce.
Then she stopped. If she retraced her steps, she’d have to pass the end of Anita Loudon’s road and might walk straight into the coven on their way back, angry that she’d escaped them. She’d have to walk along this road in the other direction instead, hoping it would connect with another one that would lead her back down to the main street along the shore.
It was a circuitous walk, made worse by the constant fear of blundering into her persecutors, and the grazes on her knees were stiffening too by the time she reached the bus stop. She had to endure a nervous wait with her eyes constantly scanning the passers-by, terrified that one of them would react to her with another attack. When at last the bus came she almost threw herself into it; the driver gave her a strange look but didn’t comment on her dishevelled appearance and Marnie collapsed onto a seat with a little groan.
Then it was pulling away and she was leaving Dunmore, on the way back, she could only hope, to some sort of normality. Along with the fear she still felt and the pain of her grazes, there was utter bewilderment. What kind of a place was it where complete strangers screamed abuse in your face and people set their dogs on you?
Fleming looked up in surprise when DS MacNee appeared in her office. ‘Wasn’t expecting to see you today. How are the lovebirds?’
He struck an attitude. ‘The great romance is over! See Gloria – Partly wi’ love o’ercome sae sair, And partly she was drunk? Well, turns out it was all the drink talking, no “partly” about it, and now she’s changed her mind. She’s dumped the old man, and Maggie’s comforting him.’
Fleming, who was in no mood for having Burns declaimed at her, said sourly, ‘Glad someone’s happy. I’ve had to tell the super about the Marnie Bruce problem.’
MacNee sobered immediately. ‘I’d kinna forgotten about that. Did Louise find out what she wanted?’
‘Yes, and I really wish you’d been there to do it instead. Marnie Bruce was very blunt – said she wanted to know what happened to her mother and why there had been no real investigation when she disappeared. Louise was obviously shocked when I couldn’t say that there had been, naturally, so there’s a problem now with her as well as Marnie.’
‘We’ll just have to tell her.’
Fleming shook her head. She tapped the bulky file still sitting on her desk. ‘Injunction. The legend that was created for Kirstie Burnside can’t be disclosed to anyone except officially recognised persons – that means us and superintendent level and above. We can’t decide to give a random DC the information.’
‘What about the daughter?’
‘We’re assuming that because she’s digging it all up again she doesn’t know her mother’s history, which may not be true, of course. But, if so, the same applies – we can’t disclose anything without a court order. We’d get it, of course, but it would take time and if we can’t give Marnie good reason to be patient, she could create havoc.’
‘And Louise is just the wee girl to help her do it, if she thinks she’s being fobbed off. She’s still got all these fancy ideas about justice.’
Fleming gave him a wry smile. ‘I had the crusading spirit too, once upon a time. You probably did as well but now all we seem to think about is process and practicality.’
MacNee snorted. ‘You’ll not get many convictions by giving the jury a wee speech about what you believe in. And that’s the way convictions get quashed too – when the lads get round to thinking what they’re after is justice, not proof.’
‘Oh, I know you’re right. But even so, it seems sad, somehow. Another sign of advancing age.’
‘Maturity,’ MacNee corrected. ‘Wisdom, you could say – I kinna like the idea of wisdom.’
‘Right. Spare me some of it now. I’ll have to phone Marnie Bruce and arrange a meeting. What am I going to tell her?’
‘Never mind Marnie. What am I going to tell Louise? She’ll be at me the minute I put my head in the door of the CID room.’
‘I don’t know what on earth you’re talking about,’ Anita Loudon said with a fine air of bewilderment as Lorna Baxter, with Shelley Crichton close behind her, looked round the sitting room with an expression of baffled rage. The other two women, who looked as if they were suffering acute embarrassment, were hanging back in the hall.
‘What is all this about, Lorna?’ Anita went on. ‘Who are you looking for?’
‘Kirstie Burnside’s daughter, that’s what. We saw her coming in the house here. What are the two of you wanting? Did Kirstie put her up to it? That’s what Shelley wants to know.’
‘She was there at the play park, gloating,’ Shelley burst out. ‘I was putting down my flowers for poor little Tommy and when I looked up, there she was, watching me. I really thought it was Kirstie, just at first—’
‘This is absolutely ridiculous!’ Anger, that was good. ‘You burst into my house with some bizarre story about Kirstie Burnside’s daughter – did she even have a daughter?
‘There was a girl came to the door doing a survey for a company I bought some stuff from, if that’s who you’re talking about. She was here about ten minutes, maybe, and then she left. Right enough she’d reddish hair and blue eyes, the same as Kirstie, but that’s what you call a Celtic complexion – there’s a lot of it about here, after all. The rest is just total rubbish.
‘Oh, I can forgive you, Shelley – I know this is a really bad time for you and you’ve got all my sympathy. But what the hell do you think you’re doing, Lorna – stirring all this up? You got warned off before and unless you get out of my house and stop all this nonsense, I’m calling the police myself, right now.’
Shelley looked from one to the other uncertainly and Janette Ritchie came forward to take her arm. ‘That’s exactly what I told you, Shelley. Come away back with me now and have a wee sit-down – you’re overwrought, and no wonder. Lorna, you should be ashamed of yourself.’
Entirely unrepentant, Lorna said, ‘I know what I saw. And you know what you saw, too. You’re a liar, Anita Loudon.’
She walked out of the sitting room in the wake of the other women, then before Anita could stop her went across the back of the hall to the kitchen. ‘Probably hiding in here,’ she said, throwing the door open.
Anita, at her shoulder, had to suppress a gasp, but the room was empty. ‘How dare you, Lorna,’ she said furiously. ‘I meant it, about the police.’
Unmoved, Lorna was peering out of the window. ‘There’s footprints, look! Someone’s gone across the grass.’
‘Yes, me,’ Anita said. ‘There was a plastic bag caught on that bush over there and I went to remove it, if you must know.’ She was awed by her own inventiveness. ‘So get out of my house.’
She wondered what she would do if Lorna stood her ground. The woman was a good two stones heavier than she was and her broad, doughy face was flushed and belligerent.
But Lorna said only, ‘Oh aye, that’ll be right,’ and at last went towards the front door. The others had left already, walking away quickly as if trying to dissociate themselves from what was happening.
On the threshold she turned. ‘I said from the very start you knew more about Tommy’s death than you ever told. Now I know you did. And this isn’t the end of it.’
With a well-timed push, Anita got her off balance and shoved her out, locking the door behind her. Staggering, Lorna had to grab at a railing by the front step so as not to fall and she turned to shout at the closed door, eyes blazing malevolence.
‘Oh, I’ll get you for this! That’s assault – could have broken my leg. And making me out to be a liar – we’ll see who’s the liar around here.’ She walked away.
The adrenaline rush that had powered Anita’s defiance left her. Shaking, she went back to the sitting room and half-fell into a chair. She could feel her throat constricting, feel the breathlessness starting as if the air had been depleted of oxygen, but she dared not go to open a window. All she could do was cup her hands round her face and force herself to the rhythm of shallow breaths in, long, slow breaths out. It worked at last, though her heart was still racing.
What was going to happen now? She couldn’t begin to guess; she only knew that everything that she had tried to believe was in the past, over and forgotten, had sprung to vicious life.
She’d surprised herself with the facility of her lies, but she didn’t think anyone, least of all Marnie Bruce, had believed her. The girl might well have been scared by what had happened here today, but Anita feared that it wouldn’t stop her asking questions. She had certainly wanted to know all about Drax.
There was a sick feeling in the pit of Anita’s stomach at what he would say when she told him what had happened. She didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but with Lorna Baxter determined to stir it, rumours would be flying round the village already. If he got to hear what had happened by chance, it would be all her fault for not telling him – instead of only partly her fault somehow for letting it happen at all. He’d be incandescently angry in that luminous, silent, terrifying way.
Why had she allowed herself to remain in thrall to him? He was offhand, even brutal on the phone, frequently inaccessible, unfaithful – no, she couldn’t call it that. Faithfulness had never had any part in their relationship, except on her side and that had been her choice. There had been no one else for her, ever, even when Anita was sharing him with Karen. When Karen didn’t know.
She hated remembering what she had done to Karen, and to Karen’s daughter. She hated it so much that she’d even tried to atone, though in the cowardly way – the way that meant you weren’t there to explain or say sorry, or even ‘but it wasn’t my fault, it was his’ . If you could call that atonement.
Anita couldn’t count the number of times she had made up her mind to finish with Drax. And yet with some uncanny form of sensitivity he would always appear just then, without warning, in one of his sparkling moods which would feed her addiction like a glass of champagne pushed into the hands of an alcoholic, and sweep her off somewhere – a dogfight in Liverpool, a bizarre nightclub on a Spanish island, somewhere seedy and crazy and exciting.
Without him, she wouldn’t have been a woman with a glamorous secret lover. She’d be just a spinster who’d moved back to the place where she grew up twenty years ago, when her parents died. She’d always thought of it as temporary, but Dunmore was as near him as he would allow her to be, now he had his own nightclub in Glasgow.
Anita felt she’d been on the edge of coming apart for years now. You would think that after all this time you could just forget the secrets that you’d never wanted to know in the first place but they had seemed to weigh heavier and heavier the older she got. Now all this had happened she wondered how long she would actually be able to take the pressure.
Drax had to understand – they must do something. She didn’t know what, but she knew it couldn’t go on like this, not now Karen’s daughter had appeared. She couldn’t just lie and lie – sooner or later something would slip.
She should be able to count on his support. He’d been comforting and reassuring in the past when it suited him, but even as she thought about phoning him now, the room seemed to be closing in on her again and her heart was pounding so heavily that she could almost hear it. But then, if a heart attack killed her, it might not even be the worst thing that could happen to her.
‘What’s happening about Marnie Bruce, Sarge?’ DC Hepburn asked as DS MacNee joined the queue in the canteen at lunchtime. She had been watching out for him ever since she heard he was back but he hadn’t appeared in the CID room where she’d been writing up a statement.
MacNee gave a disparaging look at the plate she was holding, which seemed to have a lot of green stuff on it. ‘Can’t think where you’ll find the energy to get through the afternoon eating that rubbish,’ he said provocatively but Hepburn resisted the attempt to divert her into a familiar argument.
She waited until he got his bridie and beans, then took one of two seats side by side at the table. MacNee hesitated but she patted the chair next her saying, ‘Here you are, Tam,’ so that he really had no alternative.
‘Has Big Marge phoned her yet? She was pretty evasive when I reported to her.’
‘Was she?’ MacNee said vaguely, then leant across the table towards an officer who was reading the sports pages of a red top. ‘Here, Hughie, what’re they saying there about the Rangers?’
Hughie grunted. ‘Not much.’
Without giving MacNee time to think of some way of prolonging that conversation, Hepburn chipped in again.
‘She said that both you and the boss knew her mother.’
‘Sorry – who said?’
At this blatant attempt to shut down the subject, Hepburn’s eyes narrowed. ‘What’s going on, Tam? Is this some kind of cover-up?’
At least that got a reaction. ‘Cover-up? Course not! The boss is going to phone the woman whenever she’s got a minute, right? There’s no mystery – it was just that her mother walked out on her. Women do that sometimes – you’ve maybe noticed?’
Hepburn wasn’t going to let him off with that. ‘Bludgeoning their children unconscious first?’
He hadn’t started on his bridie, she noticed. That was unusual: the speed at which MacNee’s unhealthy pastry of choice normally disappeared could only be beaten by DC Campbell who had usually begun eating on his way to the table. Now MacNee made a business of picking up his knife and fork, not meeting her eyes.
‘It happens. Not very nice, right enough, but not every mum’s the cuddly kind.’
‘I’ll grant you that, if you’ll admit it’s unusual, to say the least. Anyway, Marnie Bruce told me there hadn’t been an investigation.’
‘Course there was,’ MacNee said flatly. ‘She was too young to know anything about it, that’s all. The woman just disappeared, right? We looked for her. Her car was abandoned at Dumfries station and there was no trace of her after that. No sign of disturbance, no sign of anyone else at the house. No great mystery.’
‘But a kid, hit over the head by her mother – what did the press make of it?’
MacNee’s plate was empty now and he got up. ‘In those happy days of auld lang syne, my bairn, there weren’t stringers for the gutter press inside the force. And no one thought the kid would be better off for appearing in the News of the World. That’s all. OK?’
He went out. Hepburn went on with her salad, though without enthusiasm. Lettuce and hard-boiled egg stained pink by pickled beetroot were distinctly unappealing and, she reflected with a sigh, she’d probably have to eat supper in a couple of hours anyway after she went off shift and got home.
She’d definitely been warned off. ‘Leave it with me,’ Fleming had said, and MacNee’s message as he hopped around the subject in his hobnailed boots had been the same. It made her more determined than ever to find out what had gone on in those ‘happy days’ when the police weren’t subject to public scrutiny.
Marnie Bruce deserved answers to her questions and Louise Hepburn was going to see to it that she got them.
Lorna Baxter followed the others out along the street. Janette Ritchie, who had been in earnest conversation with Shelley, dropped back, waiting for her.
‘Lorna, I hope you’re satisfied, winding Shelley up like that. It’s not done her any good – she’s really upset now. And you heard what Anita said.’
‘Oh, I heard it, all right,’ Lorna sneered. ‘And I didn’t believe a word of it. Did you?’
Janette went slightly pink. ‘We’ve no reason not to believe it, and I’ve convinced Shelley not to bother Grant about it. And anyway, supposing it was Kirstie Burnside’s daughter – and don’t think I’m accepting that – what’s the point of digging everything up again?’
‘Oh, that’s great! She’s to be allowed to come and have a good laugh at Shelley’s grief and take the joke back to her mother to share, but the people who call themselves her friends just want to let her get on with it? Well, Shelley’s got some real friends who won’t stand for that. I’m one of them, and there’ll be others, no doubt.’
Janette looked at her in consternation. ‘For goodness’ sake, Lorna – what are you planning to do?’
‘“For goodness’ sake”? Goodness doesn’t come into it, as far as I can see. We’re talking about sheer wickedness.’
High on her own self-righteousness, Lorna pushed past Janette and set off down the hill towards the social housing on the other side of the main road. She had just reached it when she saw a bus passing, heading inland along the main road, and in one of the windows she caught a glimpse of reddish-gold hair.
With a turn of speed impressive for a woman of her bulk, she puffed across to her own house just opposite, bundled herself into the car that stood outside, backed out with a fine disregard for the oncoming traffic and drove off in pursuit.
Marnie had only been minutes on the bus when the call she had been waiting for came through.
‘Ms Bruce? This is DI Fleming. I understand you requested a meeting with me?’
‘Yes. The sooner the better.’ Marnie knew she sounded brusque, and she knew from the tiny pause that the person at the other end had recognised that.
‘Shall we say ten o’clock tomorrow?’
‘Yes, fine.’
She switched off the phone without saying goodbye. She wanted Fleming to know, before she set eyes on her, that Marnie meant business – and anyway, in this place what would you gain by being polite and patient? So far she’d had abuse, lies and violence.
More than anything, Marnie hated being lied to. She had known Anita Loudon was lying; she just didn’t know which bits of what she had said were true – if any. It could have been just a pack of lies from start to finish, considering the way she’d tried to bluff about Drax.
Marnie wasn’t sure exactly when she had begun to wonder who this person was who cropped up occasionally in their lives, wherever they might be, so it must have happened gradually. The man seemed to be part of the mystery of her mother’s past, the past she wouldn’t ever talk about; he would make her mother crazily happy and silly, then provoke hysterical rages and physical attacks on him, while he with his superior height held her off and laughed at her. Marnie never saw him hit her, though sometimes when she was in bed she would hear screaming and the next morning there would be bruises under her mother’s make-up and she knew not to ask.
Then a scene was unrolling in her head. She must have been about six, when they were still living in the block of flats.
Drax has just left after one of his visits. She’s glad he’s gone because he scares her. One of her friends asked her if he was her dad and she said no because she doesn’t want him to be. But maybe he is?
She’s kept out of his way today, playing in her bedroom mostly. Now he’s gone and Mum’s alone, she could go and ask her. She heard her crying after he went but she’s been quiet for a good while now.
She goes into the living room. It’s raining and it’s getting dark but Mum’s just standing staring out of the window as if there was something to look at.
‘Mum, is Drax my dad?’ she says.
Her mother turns round. ‘Wha’?’
‘Is Drax my dad? I don’t want him to be. He’s nasty.’ Then she notices the bottle of whisky on the table, the bottle that had been full at lunchtime and isn’t now. She’s wishing she hadn’t said anything as she backs away.
Mum takes two unsteady steps across the room and slaps her across the face. ‘You little bitch! How dare you?’
As she crumples into a crying heap, her mother goes back to the window and stands staring out again.
She had never asked after that. She decided she’d wait till she was too big for her mother to hit her, but she thought about it a lot. She’d even considered asking Drax himself on one of his visits to the house at Clatteringshaws, but her courage failed her and Marnie was never sure if it was because she was afraid of a violent response, or of the answer she might get. She hated to think she might have inherited any part of his character.
She was sure Anita knew, and she had a right to know too. If Anita thought that she’d got rid of her, if she thought Marnie had been scared off, she had another think coming. All that the abuse and lies had done was make her more stubbornly determined to get at the truth even if it meant taking her life in her hands and going back to Dunmore.
And then there was the policewoman. If she was planning to stonewall, she’d regret it.
She glanced down at her grazed hands, her torn and muddy jeans. She didn’t want to hang around until three, when she was supposed to get back into the B & B. She needed a change of clothes as well as a clean-up, and if her landlady didn’t like it, she could do the other thing. Marnie was in a belligerent mood as she got off the bus in Kirkluce and headed along the High Street then took the first on the right.
She didn’t notice the elderly blue Honda that had drawn in behind the bus and now pulled out to drive slowly along Bridge Street behind her, then accelerated past as she reached the B & B and rang the bell.
Lorna Baxter pulled out her mobile and dialled directory enquiries. When they gave her the number she wanted and put her through, it was a secretary who answered.
‘Could I speak to Mr Grant Crichton?’
‘Your name and business, please?’
‘Mrs Lorna Baxter, and it’s personal.’
She wasn’t sure if that would get her through, and she wasn’t sure, either, if he would recognise the name, but a moment later Grant came on the phone and he knew who she was all right, since he had the rather wary tone people like him tended to use to people like her.
‘Yes, Mrs Baxter. What can I do for you?’
‘I wasn’t really sure whether I should bother you,’ she said primly. ‘But something rather odd happened today and I thought you’d like to know.’