They were all over the container lorry the moment it drove off the boat at Cairnryan. Watching the activity from his office window DCI Nick Alexander saw the driver escorted away between port authority officials, looking bewildered – whether genuinely or otherwise. One of his detectives climbed into the cab then jumped down again, clutching a file of documents as he nodded to an official to drive the lorry off into a hangar.
Alexander was unconsciously rubbing his hands as he turned away from the window and waited for the evidence to start arriving.
DS MacNee sat at a desk in the CID room, feeling intense frustration as he eyed the envelopes still lying there, unopened.
He looked at his watch impatiently. He didn’t know anything about rugby, but surely a game couldn’t go on for more than three hours? It was half past two now, and he’d tried Fleming’s phone twice in the last half-hour without success.
Marnie Bruce was getting restless. She’d been asking when she would be free to go and of course they’d no right to keep her if she decided to walk out. He’d gone down himself to apologise for the delay and say it wouldn’t be long now, if she could just bear with him, but he was beginning to feel irritated. Family pride was all very well but surely Fleming could take a minute to check her phone?
He tried it again, heard the impersonal voice at the other end and switched it off, swearing.
They sat in silence in the hospital waiting room. The cheerful curtains and pictures and the upholstered chairs were obviously a well-meant attempt at cosiness but somehow the effect was of an unconvincing sitting-room stage set ready for some cheesy drama to be played out, Fleming thought. Blank walls and hard surfaces would have felt more appropriate to tragedy.
Cat, white-faced and shocked, was dry-eyed but every few minutes she would give a convulsive sob. Marjory herself felt strangely detached: her head seemed too light, as if it might float away from her body. They were sitting side by side, but after the first clinging together as Bill – so still, so grey – was removed with impressive efficiency they had withdrawn as if locking themselves into their own misery was the only way they could cope.
As Marjory was driving out to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, forcing herself to concentrate on the road ahead, which seemed more like a film projected in front of her than reality, Cat had said, her teeth chattering, ‘At least it happened there, with paramedics on hand, not somewhere up on the sheep walks.’
‘Getting to him right away – that’s the important thing. He’ll be fine.’ Marjory managed to form the words but she couldn’t manage conviction. After that there was nothing more to say.
Now they were waiting for Cammie. The game, of course, had gone on but by now they would have told him and the joy of his triumphant try would be for ever extinguished.
He would take it badly. Cat and Marjory were alike, self-possessed and contained, but Cammie didn’t bottle up his emotions the same way. This would devastate him and Marjory was already summoning up her reserves to produce the comforting he would need. She would have to be very strong for him – and that was hurried footsteps in the corridor outside now. She stood up, ready.
Cammie appeared in the doorway. He seemed to take up most of it; a towering figure in a tracksuit hastily thrown on over his filthy rugby strip. His face and hands were still caked with mud and there was a huge reddening bruise under his cheekbone.
‘Oh, Cammie,’ Marjory faltered, and felt tears start to her eyes for the first time.
He looked down at her from his superior height, then swept her into an embrace. ‘Come on, Mum!’ he said. ‘Can’t have this – he’s going to be fine! Of course he is.’ He looked over her head at his sister, holding out one arm and Cat too, crying now, came and clung to him.
After a moment he shifted. ‘Right, girls, that’s enough. There are tissues over there. You’ve got mud all over your face, Mum.’
Shakily, Marjory laughed and did as she was told. It could have been Bill himself talking.
‘I’d a word with one of the paramedics at the stadium,’ Cammie said, ‘and he said he’d seen a lot worse and the crucial thing was prompt treatment – Dad certainly got that. No one’s giving out guarantees, but you can take this two ways. You can be upbeat or you can look on the black side – it won’t make any difference either way, but you’ll feel better on the way through.’
Cat had recovered her composure. ‘My wee brother – the philosopher!’ she mocked him. ‘Played not a bad game of rugby as well, from the bit I saw.’
Cammie grinned. ‘We won, too. I’m just telling you so that if we get called in to see Dad, you’ll be able to tell him because it’s the first thing he’ll ask.’
For just a moment, his voice shook and Marjory looked at him anxiously. But then he sat down and started telling them about coming off the pitch and being told what had happened.
She’d been still thinking of him as a boy, but Cammie was all grown-up, ready to step in as the man of the family – temporarily, please God, but remembering what he had said she firmly suppressed the chilling thought that it might not be.
There was a clock on the wall and suddenly Marjory noticed the time. She’d said to Tam she would check in later – she’d better call and tell him what had happened. She picked up her handbag, then felt Cat’s eyes upon her, cold and hard.
‘You’re going to phone the station,’ Cat said. ‘Right now, when we don’t know if Dad’s going to pull through, you’re thinking about the bloody job?’
‘Cat, I have to let Tam know what’s happened.’ She knew she was sounding defensive.
‘I’ll do that. If you do it, you’ll get involved in whatever’s going on. Give me the phone.’ She held out her hand.
Marjory took the phone out of her bag slowly. ‘I won’t,’ she said, but she knew that if she spoke to Tam she wouldn’t be able to cut him off. ‘It would just be better if I explain—’
‘Choose,’ Cat said. ‘If you don’t give it to me, I’ll never forgive you, ever.’
Cammie was sitting with his head bent. He didn’t look at her.
Wordlessly, she held the phone out to her daughter.
MacNee put the phone down and groaned. His first thought, of course, was for Bill, the hardy son of rustic toil, as he’d always called him – not so hardy, perhaps. These big men, reaching middle age carrying a bit of excess weight: not good. He looked down at his own spare, wiry frame for reassurance.
Fleming must really be taking it hard. Cat had said she wasn’t even able to speak to him – though from her hostile tone he wouldn’t put it past her just to have confiscated her mother’s phone. He’d never had much time for Cat Fleming – a skelped bottom at an early age might have done her a lot of good.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of it, this left him in a right mess. Cat had given no indication at all when her mother would be able to speak to him and investigations couldn’t just grind to a standstill meantime. There were the envelopes on his desk, just for a start.
Running to the super about this would feel like telling tales and MacNee was no clype. But it didn’t sound as if Fleming would be leaping back into the job any time soon and Rowley would have to step in. The thought of answering directly to Hyacinth, without Fleming to act as a buffer, made his blood run cold but it had to be done. He picked up the phone.
‘Oh – MacNee! Well, what is it? This had better be important. I’m very busy.’
It wasn’t a promising beginning. ‘Sorry, ma’am, I’m afraid it is,’ he said and explained the situation, without mentioning that Fleming had been unofficially in Edinburgh at the time.
There was a silence at the other end of the phone, then Rowley said, ‘Oh, really! That’s too bad.’
MacNee had a nasty feeling that she wasn’t talking about Bill’s heart attack.
‘Of course I’m sorry this should have happened, but it couldn’t have come at a more inconvenient time. I’m just packing to go to an important meeting in London – with MI5, you know.’ She dropped the name with an almost audible clang. ‘They want a report from me about our progress up here so I can’t possibly cancel now.
‘You’ll just have to cope as best you can. No doubt Fleming will be back tomorrow – it’s her husband that’s ill, not her, and she’s responsible for a murder investigation, after all.’
The easiest thing would be to agree, but MacNee was far from certain that she would – and if the worst happened, she certainly wouldn’t. ‘There’s another SIO, isn’t there? Perhaps we could draft him in meantime,’ he suggested.
‘No we can’t,’ Rowley snapped. ‘He’s up to his eyes in a case of racially aggravated assault – you can’t take someone off a racist investigation. Surely you can manage?’
‘Managing’ was one thing. Taking over an investigation, making the decisions that would be subject to scrutiny, risking disaster if they were the wrong ones – that was different. MacNee had opted to stay in the sergeant’s job because he had never fancied the responsibilities that ran Fleming ragged.
He had another try. ‘Maybe the Dumfries force has someone they could spare for a few days—’
‘Dumfries?’ Rowley screeched. ‘Are you mad? What would that say about me – that I couldn’t manage to staff my own murder investigation? Are you saying that you’re incompetent, MacNee?’
What could he say but no? Her voice was triumphant as she said, ‘That’s settled, then. You’re in charge until Fleming returns. I’ll be at the end of the phone if necessary, but only if necessary – I’ll be very busy.
‘Thank you very much, Tam. It will be good experience for you – professional development, you know?’
MacNee didn’t actually slam the phone down on her immediately but his response before he did was brief. Disgusted by her lack of professionalism and feeling faintly sick, he reviewed the situation.
Hyacinth’s behaviour broke every rule in the book. He could go over her head and cause trouble but any investigation would throw up Fleming’s absence from duty. Anyway, whistle-blowers seldom prospered.
So he’d have to take it on, hoping that it would, indeed, only be for a day or so. He needed to plan for the worst, though.
The lab results would come through soon and any evidence would have to be analysed, acted on and followed up. Grant Crichton would have to be interviewed in the light of his wife’s change of story but the budget decision had been not to bring officers in on overtime today, so that would have to wait until Monday. He’d been planning himself to go and turn the screws a wee bit on Shelley Crichton; he’d been struck by her friend’s unease about her response to Anita’s murder – and he mustn’t forget to arrange for uniforms to go and do a scare job on Lorna Baxter. It was possible that something might come of that.
And then there were the letters. He looked down at them, lying on the desk in front of him. He had every right now to satisfy his curiosity; all he had to do was take them along to Marnie Bruce and ask her to open them.
Then what? Fleming had flagged up the problem of her likely reaction and MacNee was well aware that his record for putting the frighteners on people was better than his record for comforting the distressed.
Perhaps it needed a woman’s touch. If Louise wasn’t out partying again maybe she could come in. And if that meant blowing the budget without authorisation he’d be happy to discuss it with Hyacinth when she got back from her own preferred kind of partying.
The young registrar who came at last to talk to the Flemings was almost as tall as Cammie, with dark hair and a cheerful expression. Marjory tried to still her thumping heart; surely he would look more sombre if the news was bad?
He introduced himself, then said, ‘I’m pleased to say he’s doing very well.’
Such beautiful words! She was struggling with tears again, of relief this time, and she heard Cammie give a sort of long sigh and his shoulders sagged, as if he had been squaring them rigid to hold himself together.
Cat, still tense as a drawn bowstring, said sharply, ‘What exactly does that mean?’
The young man turned to her. ‘He had a heart attack caused by a clot blocking one of the coronary arteries. The good news is there was no further damage since he got such immediate treatment. He was at Murrayfield when it happened, I gather.’
He turned to Cammie. ‘I guess you were on the pitch? It was the Scotland Under 20s today, wasn’t it?’
Cammie nodded. ‘My first game for them.’
‘I turn out for Edinburgh Accies Thirds when I can. How did it go?’
‘We won, 7–3.’
‘Great! Who scored?’
‘Well … I did.’ Cammie tried to sound modest and failed.
Sensing that an explosion was building in Cat, Marjory stepped in hastily. ‘So what happens now, Doctor?’
‘We’ll be doing an angioplasty – fitting a stent to keep the artery open. It’s not a major op, just a local anaesthetic and then if all goes well we might keep him in just for a night.’
Marjory only realised that her own shoulders had been hunched up around her ears as she felt them relax. ‘And after that?’
‘That should fix it. He’ll have some medication, at least to start with, and his GP will advise about statins but after that it’s mainly a question of diet and exercise, losing a bit of weight, maybe. Has he been in the habit of eating healthily?’
Conscious of the fry-up only that morning, Marjory made a non-committal noise. ‘We’ll certainly see to it that he does now – and that he doesn’t overdo it. His farmworker’s been laid up and he was absolutely exhausted this last bit. He put it down to old age but he’ll have to take it easier now.’
She wished she hadn’t said it when she saw a cloud pass over Cammie’s face. ‘Not that it’s a problem,’ she added hastily.
‘He’ll probably feel fitter than he has for years,’ the doctor said. ‘Worst thing he could do is start sitting around thinking of himself as an invalid. He’s been lucky enough to get this as a warning and if he makes the sensible changes we outline he’ll be absolutely fine.
‘You can look in to see him now, but then I suggest you go back home. We’ll want him to have a good rest before the operation tomorrow.’
It was a shock to see Bill lying there, linked up to machines and drips and somehow looking smaller. Marjory heard Cat give a sharp little gasp of dismay and she found it hard herself to look suitably cheerful.
Bill, though he looked very strained and shaken, was smiling bravely. ‘Sorry about that. Must have given you a hell of a fright,’ he said, then, ‘What happened?’ He wasn’t talking about his own dramatic collapse.
‘7–3 to us,’ Cammie’s voice sounded a little flat. ‘I scored.’
His father beamed. ‘That’s my boy! All set for your full Scotland jersey in another year!’
‘Oh, we’ll see,’ was all that Cammie said and Bill looked across at Marjory with a raised eyebrow.
Cat was at her father’s side, holding his hand. ‘Don’t do that again, Dad.’ Her voice was shaking. ‘It really wasn’t a clever idea.’
‘Stupid, that’s me. But don’t worry, lassie. I’ve learnt my lesson. Maybe I should go veggie from now on, eh Cammie?’
His son managed a weak smile at the reference to his ex-girlfriend and Marjory said, ‘That might be too much of a shock to the system. But take it from me, fry-ups are out – the doctor sounded like prosecuting counsel when he asked me about your diet.’
The nurse was hovering, ready to show them out. Marjory hung back to kiss him. ‘Hope it all goes smoothly tomorrow,’ she said. ‘No more frights, OK?’
‘Piece of cake,’ Bill said sturdily. ‘The doc seems quite relaxed about it.’
‘Of course he is,’ Marjory said. Agonising wouldn’t help and with Bill determined to keep it all low-key, the last thing he needed was her screaming hysterically, ‘It’s still an operation! I’m still scared!’ Instead, she said, ‘I love you, Bill.’
He smiled up at her. ‘Oh dear – bad as that, is it? I’ll be fine, I promise. Oh, and I love you too.’
Just as she left, he said, ‘I do feel upset about spoiling Cammie’s triumph. He seems very down – tell him we’ll celebrate once I’m home.’
‘I will,’ Marjory assured him but she had a nasty feeling that there was more to Cammie’s low spirits than just the anxiety about his father.
‘Yes, of course I can,’ DC Hepburn said when the phone call came from DS MacNee. ‘That’s awful about the boss’s husband. Do you think he’ll be all right?’
‘Can’t tell you. I only spoke to the daughter – she said Marjory couldn’t come to the phone.’
‘I’ll be with you in half an hour.’
She felt the fizz of excitement that made her job such a rewarding one. A last letter from the dead woman, and she was going to see it before anyone, apart from Marnie herself. She could find that she was holding the key to the whole case.
And she would have to leave her mother to do it. The fizz dispersed, leaving her with the flat feeling of misery she had been struggling with all day. The neighbourly warning had perhaps made her more alert to the signs of confusion but Fleur seemed to have deteriorated rapidly.
It was making her unhappy too, for the first time. She had fretted all day about her husband’s absence and Louise was reduced to lying that he was away on business. Perhaps she should tell her again that he was dead, but would it mean her mother reliving the shock and horror? She needed to talk to a doctor before she did that.
If she left her, might Fleur decide to wander out to look for him? She could lock the doors, of course, but what if something happened – what if Fleur managed to set the house on fire and couldn’t escape?
Perhaps she should phone Tam MacNee and say she couldn’t manage after all, not until she could find a carer to stay with her mother while she wasn’t there herself?
Louise looked into the sitting room. The television was on and Fleur was on the couch in front of it. She looked very comfortable and peaceful and quite often she was happy to sit half-watching the screen for hours on end.
It wouldn’t take long, just to go in, hear what the letter had to say and mop up Marnie if necessary. To back out now would mean telling Tam her problem and asking for compassionate leave that, given the situation, might turn into resignation. It was a decision she wasn’t ready to take just yet.
She slipped out of the house quietly, feeling leaden with guilt. But as the miles passed and her thoughts went ahead to what Anita Loudon’s letter might tell them, the excitement began to build again.
No one seemed to be feeling chatty as Marjory drove back from Edinburgh. In the mirror she could see that Cat had again put in her earphones and had her eyes shut, but Marjory didn’t think she was sleeping. She still looked drawn and there was a little furrowed line between her brows.
Cammie had been limping as he walked to the car and the bruise on his cheek was starting to take on lurid colours. He’d got off lightly, then, Marjory reflected wryly.
‘You’ll need a long hot bath when we get back,’ she told him as Cammie winced, getting himself settled in the front seat. ‘You’ll probably have to chip the mud off – it’s set hard.’
‘Maybe I’d better just start in the sheep dip,’ he said, making an effort at humour.
‘Will you have to come back for physio tomorrow? We’ll be over to see Dad anyway.’
Cammie shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ he said, then lapsed into silence.
Marjory had found the journey over quite constructive for thinking about the investigation but now all she could think about was what lay ahead of Bill tomorrow, and even that was better than going back: the terrible moments when she had thought Bill was dead.
He’d always been the strong one, the one she could rely on always to be there for love and support and good common sense. She’d taken all that for granted; she hadn’t given his exceptional tiredness a thought, or his constant munching of indigestion tablets. He must have been struggling with that narrowed artery, feeling awful, and she hadn’t even noticed the warning signs. Too wrapped up in the absorbing job, of course, the vampire job that Cat – and even Cammie – felt had sucked the blood out of their family life. She felt crushed by guilt.
At last, desperate to escape her own thoughts and the oppressive atmosphere in the car, she turned on the radio. ‘Let’s get the Scottish news,’ she said brightly. ‘Maybe they’ll have a report on the game.’
Cammie agreed though without much enthusiasm and Cat took out her earpiece. Marjory half-listened to the latest spat in the referendum campaign between the Yeses and the Noes and tuned out another episode in the ongoing disaster that was the Edinburgh trams. It was only the last brief tailpiece that caught her attention.
‘In what the Galloway Constabulary are describing as an arson attack, a cottage by Clatteringshaws Loch, near Newton Stewart, was burnt to the ground in the early hours of this morning. There were no casualties but police are appealing for witnesses.
‘And now, sport …’
Marjory felt the shock ripple through her. She could hear Marnie Bruce’s voice: ‘just an old cottage’ – and it was a cottage beside Clatteringshaws Loch that Karen Bruce had been living in when she’d been visiting her all those years ago.
An arson attack – someone had tried to kill Marnie Bruce. At least they hadn’t succeeded, but would someone see to it that she was allocated some sort of protection?
Her thoughts must have shown on her face. She glanced in the mirror as she pulled out to overtake a slower car and saw Cat’s eyes on her.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ she said fiercely. ‘Just for once, try concentrating on your own family. Dad’s having an operation tomorrow – oh, they make it sound nothing but he’s still in danger. If you loved him you wouldn’t even be able to think about anything else.’
‘Cat, of course I feel that. But someone may be in danger—’
‘And no one else will be able to look after them – just you? Either you’re delusional or all your colleagues are incompetent. I back delusional. But you’re allowed to choose.’ She got her mother’s mobile out of her bag.
‘Here it is. Take it if you like and make your call. But I meant what I said.’ Marjory waited for Cammie to say something – anything, but he didn’t. He was staring out of the window as if he hadn’t even heard.
She bowed her head. ‘All right,’ she said.
DC Hepburn felt quite shocked when she went into the waiting room with DS MacNee. Marnie Bruce’s bright red-gold hair was dull and stringy, with a patch of frizzled ends near the front; her eyelids were heavy with purple, bruised-looking shadows and puffy with tears and lack of sleep. The room was warm but she was shivering visibly.
‘Sorry to keep you, Marnie,’ MacNee said. ‘You know DC Hepburn, don’t you? She’s brought along a couple of letters from your lawyer that we need you to read. We’ll want to read them afterwards, with your agreement.’
Marnie looked at him coolly. ‘And if I don’t agree?’
‘Then we would have to get a court order. Obviously we’d prefer not to.’
Hepburn held out the letters and Marnie looked at them incuriously. ‘Who are they from?’
‘This one’s from the lawyer, I expect.’ Hepburn indicated the typewritten one. ‘This one – it’s addressed to you in what we believe is Anita Loudon’s writing.’
Marnie’s eyes sharpened. ‘But Anita’s dead!’
‘She left this with her lawyer some time ago.’
Marnie took the letters and examined them with frustrating carefulness. Then she gave a little shrug and opened the typewritten one. She read it, then held it out to Hepburn.
‘He’s just asking to see me on Monday, that’s all. About her “legacy”, whatever that may mean.’
Hepburn glanced at it but said nothing. Marnie was examining the second letter now. She made to open it, then stopped.
She’s scared of what it’s going to say, Hepburn thought. And no wonder, with what had hit her these past few days. ‘Do you want me to open it for you?’ she said gently, but Marnie shook her head.
At last she slipped her finger under the flap, opened it and took out the letter. There were three sheets, covered on both sides in Anita Loudon’s looping writing. She read it slowly.
Hepburn found she was holding her breath. MacNee, standing beside her, shifted impatiently. Marnie read the last page then put it down in her lap.
MacNee, unable to contain himself any longer, said, ‘Well, what does it say, then?’
The woman looked almost dazed. ‘I-I don’t quite know,’ she said. ‘There’s too much …’
‘Shall I take it?’ Hepburn said softly and with a gentle, unhurried movement held out her hand.
For a moment nothing happened, and then Marnie gave a little shrug. ‘Why not?’ and handed it over.