‘Should have had a cremation,’ McKay whispered. ‘Half the work’s already been done.’
‘Alec!’ Helena Grant said. ‘You can’t say things like that. Disrespecting the dead.’
McKay looked round the church. ‘Seems to me he’s already being accorded more respect than he deserves. No one’s had a bad word to say about the bugger so far.’
‘What do you expect? De mortuis nihil nisi bonum, and all that.’
‘I generally prefer Illegitimi non carborundum. Stands me in better stead at work.’
‘It’s a funeral, Alec. People don’t generally use them as an opportunity to air their grievances.’
‘It’s not just that, though, is it? Seven people were killed. The Gillans and the Dawsons. Those three innocent kiddies. Now it’s all going to get brushed under the carpet. Nightingale will get quietly pensioned off on medical grounds. Everly’s conveniently dead. No one’s going to start digging too deeply into what he might have been up to earlier in his career. Those two can’t be the only ones. There must have been plenty of other bastards in on the deal. Yet it looks like the only person who’ll face justice is Isla’s brother, as an accomplice in the murders last year.’
‘I’m not looking forward to being called as a witness in that. Poor Isla. And poor Ginny.’
‘I’d say poor Tristram too. I reckon Jewell had a gift for getting people to do what she wanted. He was probably as much a victim as anyone. I don’t think it was an accident that she picked someone close to Ginny. That’s just the kind of game-playing Jewell would have loved.’
‘Maybe Archie Donaldson will spill the beans in his final days. That would leave a few other people exposed.’
‘I doubt it. I think some deal’s being cooked up to allow him compassionate relief in return for keeping his mouth shut.’
McKay fell silent as the service finally started. He had no interest in following the service itself – McKay had never been one for the comforts of religion – but he took the opportunity to look around the church. The building was, as he’d expected, packed with mourners. Some of the great and the good were here, too. The chief constable, of course, and a senior representative of the Scottish Government, along with other dignitaries whom McKay half-recognised.
None of that was surprising. Everly had been a senior officer killed in the line of duty, while apparently performing a heroic act. The death of an officer on duty was, thankfully, a rare enough event in itself, and Everly’s relative seniority was likely to attract even greater interest. In those circumstances, as Helena Grant had implied, no one was likely to be asking too many questions.
There would, inevitably, be an inquiry into the background to Everly’s death. McKay had cynically commented that the investigation would no doubt focus on why Everly had been allowed to re-enter the building rather than one of his more junior colleagues offering themselves up for pointless sacrifice. But that was a problem for another day.
It had proved impossible to recover the bodies of Everly and Ruby Jewell until the fire crew had eventually succeeded in bringing the blaze under control. By that stage, the fire had already spread to the first floor, consuming most of the landing. There had followed a further delay while the structural safety of the building had been confirmed. Everly’s body had been found on the first-floor landing, badly damaged by the flames. The assumption was that he had collapsed from smoke inhalation before even reaching the second floor. Ruby Jewell’s body had been found, more or less where McKay and the others had last seen her, on the upper floor. She had also died of smoke asphyxiation, although her body had been untouched by the fire.
The post-mortems on the two bodies had revealed one further intriguing fact. Everly and Jewell had shared DNA. Everly, not Archie Donaldson, had been Ruby Jewell’s father. That titbit of information had been passed on to them by Jacqui Green before – supposedly in the light of Everly’s senior rank – the remainder of the investigation had been taken over by a team based out of Tulliallan.
‘So what do we make of that?’ Grant had asked.
‘Explains a few things, maybe,’ McKay had said. ‘My guess is that, if we were in a position to delve a little deeper, we might find that Everly had been on Donaldson’s payroll for a long time. Maybe got a little closer to Donaldson’s wife than Donaldson realised.’ He had paused. ‘Or maybe Donaldson did realise. We know that Donaldson’s wife died young and unexpectedly, but we’ve never had reason to check out the circumstances. And perhaps that was why Donaldson was so happy to offload his daughter at the earliest opportunity.’
‘And what? Everly took care of her after that?’
‘Maybe. Or maybe only when she reappeared at the time we arrested Donaldson. At that stage, Everly would have learned we were trying to track down Donaldson’s daughter and perhaps put two and two together. That might be one reason we’ve had such difficulty finding her. Part of that was down to her own innate ability to reinvent herself, but I also wonder whether she was assisted by a few judicious interventions by Everly when he was down south.’
‘You think that’s possible?’
‘I don’t know. He talked to you about taking risks. I wouldn’t be surprised if he engineered his move here after she reappeared last Christmas.’ McKay had smiled. ‘The funny thing is, I suspect she never even knew.’
‘That Everly was her father or that he was trying to protect her?’
‘Both. She gave us the impression Everly was working for Donaldson – which maybe he still was. I don’t think she realised he was also working on her behalf.’
‘This is all guesswork, Alec.’
He’d shrugged. ‘That’s all it’s likely to remain. I don’t think we’ll be allowed anywhere near the case after this. Shame, because there are things I’d like to know.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like whether Jewell was really capable of talking people into killing themselves.’
‘Why would she make it up?’
‘Because she liked creating her own myth. That was why she set all this up. Putting on one last show to taunt her pursuers. Demonstrate she could do exactly what she liked. But the truth is she could have simply poisoned the Gillans. She could have knifed Paul Dawson and then proceeded to kill his wife and those poor kids in cold blood. We know from the objects in the packages that she was in the chalet after the murders had been committed. It looks as if she planted Isla’s old teddy bear there to pick up the traces of blood and DNA. My guess is that she parked the car somewhere down in the village then walked back up. The question is, did she return just to pick up some souvenirs to send us or was that when she killed the Dawsons?’
‘It’s a horrible thought, either way.’
‘It is. I’ve been thinking about Kevin, my brother-in-law. You remember he fell from the ramparts at Fort George. We thought he’d either taken his own life or been pushed. But maybe it was Jewell who talked him into jumping. She really was capable of anything.’ He shrugged. ‘Still, I don’t suppose the likes of us will ever be allowed to know. All we can do is keep buggering on. Pity about your project work, though.’
‘Maybe it’ll be restarted after the dust has settled. I’m not sorry. It was interesting stuff, but I’d already begun to suspect I was being set up. I reckon they wanted to involve a few supposedly down-to-earth cops to help sell some of the less palatable outcomes.’
‘I’ll have you fully trained in the principles of high-level cynicism before you know it.’ McKay had found himself hesitating. ‘I did wonder if you were getting close to Everly. If so, I’m sorry. You’ve suffered enough on that front.’
‘He was a charmer,’ she had said. ‘No question about that. And I admit I enjoyed his company. But, no, I’m not going down that route again for a good while.’
McKay had been replaying all this in his head as the service came to an end. He realised that he’d failed to listen to any of the eulogy delivered by the chief constable. ‘All very moving,’ he said to Grant.
‘You thought so?’
‘Aye. So let’s move. There’s only so much church I can take.’
Outside, it was a fine autumn day, the leaves just beginning to turn on the trees around the churchyard. The sky was clear of cloud, the sun sufficient to bring some warmth to the day even this late in the year. McKay and Grant stood back to watch the rest of the congregation pour out of the church.
‘What about Ruby Jewell or Maggie Donaldson or whoever she was,’ McKay said. ‘Do you know if there are plans for a funeral?’
‘I don’t know how it works,’ Grant said. ‘I’m not aware she had any next of kin, but there must be some kind of process. You weren’t thinking of going, were you?’
He smiled grimly. ‘I might be tempted.’
‘To pay your respects?’
‘No. If I went, it’ll be for just one reason.’
‘Go on.’
‘Because this time I want to make bloody sure she really is dead.’
THE END