When Marnie Bruce parked her car on the shore of Clatteringshaws Loch it was late in the afternoon. Banks of purple-black clouds pierced by a startling streak of pale turquoise above the pewter-coloured waters of the loch gave it an almost unearthly light and she shivered as she left the warmth of the car to walk along to the cottage.
The road was busy at this time of night and the sweeping beams of the headlights gave erratic illumination. After a blast from an alarmed motorist she took to the verge, stumbling over snagging roots and almost twisting her ankle in an unnoticed ditch. She was half-sobbing by the time she reached the safety of the garden. The last time, she vowed, the last time. By tomorrow she’d be in London.
Inside the house, it was pitch-dark. She groped her way to the kitchen, then had a fumbling search to find the matches for the camping light. She’d have to learn to keep them in the same place. If she was staying. Which of course she wasn’t.
Even once she got it lit, the pale gleam wasn’t comforting tonight. It just showed up the dismal, grubby hopelessness of everything about her, in a sort of reflection of her own life. Her journey of discovery about her past had been an exercise in futility, and worse.
Drax had reminded her that the police would be looking for her. She knew that already – ‘as a matter of urgency’, Fleming’s message had said – but since she hadn’t had anything to do with Anita’s death, they probably wouldn’t look very hard.
Marnie lit the stove and filled the kettle with hands that were numb with cold. She filled a hot-water bottle to warm them while she heated up a tin of soup she’d bought, along with a sandwich and a bar of chocolate. The long night stretched grimly ahead of her but once she’d eaten she’d go to bed where she would be warmer and if she could get to sleep at once she would wake early and get on her way.
There was just one thing. Her phone. She’d switched it off this morning and hadn’t looked at it since but she couldn’t ignore it for ever. Look on the bright side, she told herself, there could be a message to say they’d arrested someone and didn’t need to talk to her after all. As if.
An envelope in the corner told her she had a new message – three, when she checked. The first two she recognised as coming from DI Fleming; the other number was unfamiliar. Marnie hesitated.
Get the worst over first. She opened the top one on the list, which was simply a repeat of the message she’d accessed this morning. She deleted it and her finger was poised to delete the next one too when it occurred to her that it might be worth checking.
‘I urge immediate contact. More info about your mother now available.’
Marnie was totally taken aback. She read it again, with a sense of disbelief. She had begun to feel as if there was a sort of conspiracy of silence to frustrate her at every turn. Was it possible that just when she had given up all hope this, at last, was real progress?
Or was it a trap? She’d read in the papers that criminals were sometimes invited to some attractive event, simply so that they could be rounded up and arrested. Could she trust Fleming?
The only lie she was sure Fleming had told her was the social one about her mother’s character, a lie to soften a harsh opinion. But perhaps she had been clever enough to hide others.
The soup hissed up to the top of the pan and she had to grab it to stop it boiling over. She filled the mug and sat with her hands wrapped round it while she struggled with her thoughts.
There was still the other message. That was unexpected too.
It was from DC Hepburn, the young policewoman who’d talked to her first, and then come to take a statement after the Tuesday night horror. She’d seemed sympathetic, Marnie had thought at the time, but in a general, fairly pointless way.
The message read, ‘There’s something you need to know. Shouldn’t tell you but very important. Please – call me!’
She didn’t know what to make of that.
DC Hepburn fell asleep again on the way back. When she woke with a start the car was drawing up outside her house in Stranraer and DS MacNee was looking at her sternly.
‘I’m dropping you off here. You can get a lift back to Kirkluce tomorrow to fetch your car with one of the patrols but I don’t trust you to drive tonight.
‘You’re overdoing it, Louise. Being a young hell-raiser’s all fine and good – I was a wee bit of an expert myself – but you’ve a job to do and if you’re tired like that you’re not fit to do it.’
Still fuddled with sleep, Hepburn again had to fight back tears of exhaustion. ‘I wasn’t partying,’ she said defensively. ‘I just didn’t sleep very well last night, that’s all.’
MacNee’s expression changed and his voice was gentle as he said, ‘Got a problem, hen?’
The longing to tell, to talk, almost overwhelmed her but exposing her poor, confused mother would feel like betrayal. ‘Nothing a good night’s sleep won’t put right,’ she lied and saw in his face that he knew she had.
‘Louise—’ he began, but was interrupted by her phone ringing.
She glanced at it and recognised the number with a little frisson of excitement. She could hardly take this one in front of her sergeant. She switched it off, saying, ‘I’ll take it later,’ as she unbuckled her seat belt.
‘Thanks, Tam, it was kind of you to bring me back. I’ll get my head down really early, I promise.’
She was out of the car before he could reply, though she saw him give a suspicious look at her abrupt exit.
The house was completely dark. When she went in and started switching on lights, there was no sign of her mother downstairs. There was no sign, either, of the elaborate preparations for dinner she would normally be making at this time of day.
In bed, then? Louise climbed the stairs slowly, as if the burden of care and responsibility were physically bearing down on her, and quietly opened the door of her mother’s bedroom.
Graceful even in sleep, Fleur was wearing an eau de Nil silk nightgown, lying on her side with her cheek pillowed in her hand like a child. Wisps of hair that had escaped from the loose rope of hair she knotted at night framed her face.
It was a touching picture but Louise didn’t smile. Fleur had, of course, had a disturbed night too, but when she felt tired she had been able simply to put on her nightgown and go to bed – unlike some other people. And how long had she been asleep? Probably hours by now. She’d wake up quite sure it was morning, prepare breakfast and then come and wake Louise yet again in the middle of the night.
Oh, she was so, so tired! Every bit of her ached with exhaustion and if she didn’t get the proper night’s sleep she’d promised Tam she would, it would be even worse tomorrow.
Louise glanced at her watch. Nine o’clock. She could grab a quick sandwich and fall into bed to snatch whatever sleep she could before her mother woke up.
Not before she phoned Marnie Bruce though.
After the call from DC Hepburn Marnie took her hot-water bottle, picked up the camping lamp and went through to her bedroom. In a sort of daze she slipped off her outer clothing, put on a thick soft woolly and socks and climbed into her sleeping bag with a blanket over the top. She cuddled down, trying to restore feeling to her icy hands and feet, hoping the warmth might have an effect on her numbed brain too.
DC Hepburn had sounded both excited and nervous. ‘Marnie, thank you so much for agreeing to hear what I have to tell you. First of all, I need you to know that I want to help you.’
Marnie wasn’t sure if she wanted to be helped by DC Hepburn. ‘Oh?’
‘I know, I know, it’s what the police always say. But I really mean it. I believe in justice and I don’t believe you’ve had that.’
She was right there, but Marnie wasn’t interested in the discussion of abstract principles. ‘You said you had something to tell me.’
‘Yes …’ There was a pause, as if Hepburn was wondering whether to go on. ‘The thing is, if my bosses discovered I’d told you, my job would be on the line. I’m not saying you have to promise not to tell anyone before I give you the information, I’m just explaining so that you know what the result would be if you did.’
‘I … see.’ The woman was a fool, that was her problem.
‘I’m taking a big risk to persuade you to come to the police station and talk to us. It will be so, so much worse for you if we have to start looking. Do you see that?’
‘I think so.’ This was scaring her; Marnie felt like some small creature desperately snuffing at the air to sense the direction danger was coming from.
‘You know that Anita Loudon is dead – murdered?’
Marnie said nothing and Hepburn went on, ‘The reason they’re so anxious to see you is that she made a will leaving everything to you.’
‘What?’ She didn’t know why she said that; she’d heard perfectly clearly. It was just she couldn’t connect the words up to any sort of meaning.
Hepburn repeated it more slowly. Then she said, ‘You see, if you just disappear they’ll track you down. Your name and description will be circulated to every police force in the country and it’ll be all over the media. Sooner or later they’ll find you and until then you’ll be afraid all the time, waiting for the knock on the door that will come one day. It’s no sort of life, Marnie.
‘I don’t believe you killed Anita – it just doesn’t add up. But because of her will, if you don’t give us your version of what happened, it could easily be assumed that you did. So will you please, please come and see DI Fleming tomorrow?’
Marnie wasn’t going to be bounced into anything while she was still suffering from shock. ‘I’ll think about it.’ Then she said, ‘What is it Inspector Fleming’s going to tell me about my mother?’
The line went quiet. Then Hepburn said, ‘She’s been in touch about that, has she? I think I’d better leave that to her. But it’s another good reason for coming in, Marnie, I promise.’
‘I suppose so,’ Marnie had said, then switched off the phone without saying goodbye.
Now as she lay in bed huddled down in the sleeping bag with the extra blanket pulled up over her ears, she tried to think through what had happened. Why would Anita have left everything to someone she’d known only briefly as a child? It made no sense.
Unless … unless – guilt? Was this a sort of pay-off for some unknown injury? Was Fleming going to tell her tomorrow that Anita had left a confession that she killed Marnie’s mother – and if so, how long would it be before she brought out the handcuffs and charged Marnie with a revenge killing?
She’d told herself that no one knew where she was, that she could vanish without a trace – but not once the police really started looking for her. She had nowhere to run to.
The wind was getting up. The trees outside the window were starting to sway with a low, keening sound, casting shifting shadows across the room. Sick with worry, she lay curled in the foetal position willing sleep to come to her. Then it would be tomorrow and she would have the misery of the night behind her. She’d rather deal with the demons of the day than the demons of darkness.
Louise Hepburn woke suddenly. She had no idea how long she had been asleep or what it was that had wakened her but she sat up in bed.
It was a windy night. She could hear the roaring of waves breaking on the shore just across the road and she could feel, too, a powerful draught sweeping in through her open bedroom door. That must have been what roused her.
Alarmed, she jumped out of bed. Had her mother opened a window somewhere? The rain would come pouring in on a night like this. Shoving her feet into slippers she went out onto the landing.
Not a window. The wind was blowing up the stairs from the open front door. Oh God! Fleur must have got up and gone out – on a night like this! In a flimsy nightie she could be hypothermic in minutes. And how long had she been gone? Louise had no way of knowing and she was feeling panicky as she grabbed a dressing gown and sped downstairs.
She ran out into the garden, looking wildly about her. She was soaked through before she reached the front gate and looking up and down the street she couldn’t see her mother. Cars were driving past but with the waves breaking right over the farther pavement there was, unsurprisingly, no one out on foot that she could ask.
Could Fleur have wandered across the road onto the shore, been swept away? With a sob in her throat, Louise ran across to look helplessly at the heaving waters of the loch. What was she to do?
She turned back and there coming along the street towards her was her mother, dressed in the yellow oilskin and sou’wester that was her customary wet-weather gear, along with stylish floral Wellingtons. She was carrying an empty shopping basket and as she neared Louise she broke into a trot, exclaiming in horror.
‘Louise! My little one, what are you doing? You are soaked to the skin – what are you thinking about? Get inside at once and change out of these wet things while I make you a tisane so you don’t catch your death of cold.’
Struck dumb, Louise allowed herself to be scolded and chivvied back inside. When at last she got a chance to speak, she said, ‘What were you doing out anyway, Maman?’
Fleur’s face clouded. ‘I just went along to the shops, but I think it must be a holiday. They were all shut.’
‘Mmm.’ As her mother went through to the kitchen, Louise locked the door and put the key in her pocket. ‘Don’t worry about the tisane. I’ll just have a hot bath and go back to bed. I don’t need to be in early so I’ll have a bit of a lie-in, all right? Don’t wake me.’
‘That’s a good idea. You work too hard.’
Fleur went through to the kitchen – to do what? Louise wondered wearily as she ran her bath. Have breakfast? Lunch? This couldn’t go on. She’d been trying to pretend it was just temporary confusion, but now she’d have to call in the doctor.
During the day Fleur would be safe enough. She wasn’t in the habit of going very far – she’d never learnt to drive so it would just be into the town or along the shore for a walk, perhaps, and if she mixed up morning and afternoon it wouldn’t matter.
But the nights were the problem: Louise was terrified now that next time Fleur really would go out in her nightclothes. She could lock the doors, but if her mother was determined to get out she might climb out of a window and hurt herself that way.
It was bad enough being wakened because Fleur was confused about time. Listening all night for any sound of movement was impossible, if she wanted to keep her job.
What she needed was an alarm system that would tell her if her mother was opening a door or a window. She could arrange that tomorrow – that and the doctor’s appointment.
She was just too tired to worry any more. After the warmth of the bath, sleep overwhelmed her the moment she shut her eyes.
Michael Morrison, too, was aroused out of a deep sleep in the middle of the night. At his side, Vivienne was twitching and moaning, giving little cries of distress and he touched her gently, murmuring, ‘Sssh, sssh, it’s all right, darling.’
She woke instantly, looking round her in bewilderment and then began to cry. ‘Oh Michael, it was a terrible, terrible dream!’
‘Just a nightmare, darling. That’s all. Go back to sleep.’
‘It was Anita – and her head – she was still alive, but—’ She began to shudder violently.
He switched on the light and took her in his arms, patting her soothingly. ‘Put it out of your head. I tell you what – I’ll go down and make you a cup of hot milk, shall I? And then you can take another of your sleeping pills and get a proper rest.’
Vivienne clung to him. ‘I’ll come with you. I don’t want to be left alone. It’s guilt, Michael – I feel I should have been able to help her, done something that night instead of letting her go back to the house alone.’
‘You did all you could. Now you just need to put it out of your mind, like we said. All right?
‘Come on, then – quietly, though. We don’t want to wake the Monster.’
She smiled at that, tiptoeing along the landing with a glance at her grandson’s bedroom door.
As Michael heated up the milk, he said, ‘You know, sweetheart, I was just thinking you ought to get away for a day or two. It’s going to be quite upsetting for you here with all that’s going on and you wouldn’t be opening the shop for a bit, anyway. Diana’s always asking you to see her in London – why not just take her up on it? It would do you good.’
Vivienne said slowly, ‘Yes, I suppose it might. But I hate to leave you when you’re working so hard – and of course Gemma would be on her own with Mikey—’
Michael laughed. ‘Stop fussing. Gemma’s a big girl now and, anyway, I’m here to see she’s all right. Get Diana to take you out for some retail therapy and you’ll be a new woman.’
Vivienne’s relief showed in her face as she allowed herself to be convinced. As they went back to bed, she was talking happily about an exhibition she wanted to see.
Michael stayed awake until he heard his wife’s breathing become soft and even. He was feeling a certain sense of relief himself. His responsibilities were weighing on him painfully and at least he wouldn’t have to worry about Vivienne, for the moment, anyway – though with so many threatening clouds gathering one fewer worry hardly mattered.
It was a long time before he got back to sleep.
It was not quite nine o’clock when DI Fleming was informed that Daniel Lee was waiting in reception. She was surprised: to arrive at this time, driving through the Glasgow rush hour, would have meant leaving well before seven, an hour she would have thought unknown to nightclub owners unless approached from the other end.
‘Think he’s anxious about something?’ MacNee said innocently when she collected him on the way down to the interview room.
‘Let’s hope so,’ Fleming said. ‘Anxiety’s useful.’
‘Better than nothing, I suppose, now they’ve put a stop to waterboarding.’
Daniel Lee didn’t look as if he was being gnawed by anxiety, though. He greeted them with an urbane smile, saying, ‘I thought we’d better get this nonsense cleared up as soon as possible. My time’s precious just at the moment.’
‘I feel just the same, sir,’ Fleming said cordially. ‘This way, please.’
She eyed him narrowly as she ushered him ahead of her. She knew he must be in his fifties but he walked with the swagger of a young man in his skinny jeans. He was, she supposed, good-looking; he certainly had a compelling face and his eyes, so dark they were almost black, did have a magnetic quality but there was something about him that repelled her, though she couldn’t quite say why.
In the interview room, she explained that while this was merely an initial interview, it would be recorded and he was entitled to have a lawyer present.
He waved away the offer. ‘I don’t need to pay someone to tell me to keep my mouth shut. I want to get this cleared up.’
When MacNee had completed the formalities, Lee cut in before Fleming could frame a question.
‘Look, I want to put on record that I was a total fool yesterday. I suppose I was … well, you can imagine what I was, when I heard that Anita had been killed. I’m sorry. Bad boy.’
He caught Fleming’s eye for a second and then he smiled. His narrow face came alive and the dark eyes seemed to light up, charmingly inviting her into this delicious little conspiracy of understanding and forgiveness.
Fleming had to control a quiver of revulsion. ‘We’re ready to hear whatever statement you wish to make, Mr Lee.’
‘Thank you.’ He held the smile and the tone was almost caressing. She realised that he didn’t know what the effect on her had been; interesting. Overconfidence was almost as useful as anxiety.
MacNee was looking sick. Afraid he might start making retching noises, she hurried on, ‘For the record, you told DS MacNee yesterday that you hadn’t seen Anita Loudon or been in Dunmore for more than five years. I gather you wish to correct this statement.’
‘Yes.’ He looked down at his hands for a moment and when he looked up his face was set in lines of sorrow. ‘This has been a terrible shock. I heard yesterday from one of my business contacts – I’m afraid I led you to believe that I didn’t know, Sergeant.’
‘Aye, you did that,’ MacNee said dryly. ‘Among other things.’
‘We were lovers, though I had my life in Glasgow and she had hers here.’
‘Not an exclusive relationship, then?’ Fleming said.
‘We were free spirits. We each led our own life, mine in Glasgow, hers in Dunmore.’
MacNee was unimpressed. ‘Kept it kinna quiet, though, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, we didn’t flaunt it,’ Lee said smoothly. ‘That was Anita’s choice. A small place, you know – a lot of old pussycats. But it was a strong relationship that went way back.’
‘Of course. Right back to Tommy Crichton’s murder, in fact,’ Fleming said. ‘Which brings us to the question of why Anita’s body should have been placed there, on the same spot.’
‘Oh yes, they said that on the news. Looks like some sort of revenge motive, doesn’t it?’ His expression was bland.
‘That’s what you think, is it?’ MacNee said. ‘So who’d want revenge on Anita?’
‘How would I know? We led our own lives so I’d hardly know if she’d got across someone.’ Then he frowned. ‘Though, hang about – I do remember her mentioning that she’d had a bit of a run-in with Shelley Crichton. Some sort of misunderstanding about a visitor she’d had, and Shelley got the wrong end of the stick.’
‘You mean, when Marnie Burnside visited her?’
Fleming’s question had thrown him, definitely. Lee’s eyes narrowed and his thin mouth became a taut, straight line, but the speed of his recovery was testament to his quick wits.
‘Well, well, that’s a name from the past! Marnie Burnside – good gracious. Anita didn’t tell me that. The last time I saw Marnie she was just a kid. Her mother was another old friend but I lost touch with her years ago.’
‘Another “free spirit”?’
MacNee’s tone was heavily sarcastic but Lee didn’t rise to the bait.
‘If you like.’
‘Let’s move on, then, to your movements around the time of Anita’s death. Start with Tuesday of this week.’
As he hesitated, Fleming went on smoothly, ‘If you’re calculating how much we know already, Mr Lee, I would advise you to assume it’s everything.’
He gave her a look of dislike, the charm switch now definitely set to ‘Off’. ‘I was ordering my thoughts, that’s all.
‘I left Glasgow on Tuesday, late afternoon, I suppose. I arrived at Anita’s house in the evening. I spent the night there. She had gone to work when I woke up and then I left again mid morning and drove back to Glasgow. End of.’
‘A very brief visit,’ Fleming said.
‘I’m a very busy man.’
‘Why did you decide to come down that evening?’
Lee shrugged. ‘Hadn’t seen Anita for a bit. Nothing special going on at the club that night so I fancied a change of scene. It’s not illegal, as far as I know – not yet, at least.’
There was an edge to his voice. He was getting defensive and MacNee picked up on it immediately and goaded him.
‘So – just bad timing, then? You come down one night and she’s dead the next? Just came down to say goodbye, maybe? One last night of love?’
Lee’s face went white with rage. He grasped the table as if to stop himself coming round it to assault MacNee and Fleming could see the cords in his neck standing out.
His voice sounded strangulated as he snarled, ‘Yes, if I’d known she was going to die, I would have said goodbye. I wish I had. It is a very sad end to a long friendship.
‘I think I’ve been as helpful as I feel like being, given your attitude. You’ll have to arrest me to keep me here and since you obviously haven’t the evidence to do that, I’m leaving now.’
‘Just one question,’ Fleming said. ‘Your alibi for Wednesday night?’
He was halfway to the door. ‘Ask any of my employees. Or rather, since most of them are kids who have trouble knowing whether it’s Tuesday or Christmas, ask my secretary. She always knows what I’m doing better than I do myself.’
He left the room. Fleming said, ‘Mr Lee has terminated the interview,’ for the benefit of the recording and MacNee switched it off.
‘Had that one all ready, didn’t he?’ he said.
‘Oh yes. Think you could get one of your Glasgow pals to send a couple of uniforms round to see his “kids” asap? And tell them not to bother with the secretary – we know what she’s going to say already.’
MacNee gave her a cynical look. ‘And you think the kids won’t back her up? What’s the going rate for an alibi these days – twenty quid?’
Fleming sighed. ‘Right enough. Even so, wouldn’t do any harm to keep up the pressure.’
‘The sort of pressure I’d like to put on that one would involve his windpipe. Remember the good old days when you could take them round the back, no questions asked?’
‘Tam, you shock me!’ Fleming said. But she was grinning as MacNee left.