10

Fleming held the phone a little away from her ear, pulling a face as, after the most perfunctory enquiry about her state of health, Bailey demanded to know what on earth was going on, in tones which suggested that in finding herself at the scene of a murder Fleming was in some sense culpable.

The stickiest part came when they got on to actions taken last night after the discovery of the body.

‘Yes, yes,’ Bailey said. ‘MacNee was policing the site, and Hay came to raise the alarm, but you haven’t told me what you were doing, Marjory.’

She swallowed. ‘I’m afraid I had to go to bed.’

There was an awful silence, then, ‘To bed?’

‘I’m sorry. I had concussion when the car crashed and I was quite simply unfit to continue.’

Fleming could almost hear Bailey recalling the regulations about harassment. ‘I – see. But Marjory, the golden hour, when we have our best chance of good evidence, wasted!’

‘I agree, it was most unfortunate. But now I have officers in place . . .’

She went on to describe the tasks she had allocated and her own activities – background checks to be made on Crozier, interviews to be done with family – and talked bullishly about Alick Buchan as the prime suspect.

As always, Bailey liked the thought of a straightforward you’re-nicked-sunshine. ‘An early arrest and charge would certainly cover your back,’ he conceded, ‘but I have to say it’s looking a bit exposed at the moment.’

Fleming didn’t need him to tell her that. She rang off feeling depressed and with a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach.

She had let herself into Crozier’s study to have privacy for her phone call, and she looked around it now. There was a control deck for the house’s sound system, but apart from that the white, impersonal room told her almost nothing about the tastes of the man himself. It was clinically tidy, with a desk that had only a computer, a tray of pens and two wire baskets on its glass surface.

Fleming wasn’t used to desks that looked like that. Though she could always find what she was looking for, her own could only be described as deep litter and in her heart of hearts she suspected that those who were always putting things away either hadn’t enough to do or had something to hide.

With a pop festival meant to be going on right at this moment, Crozier would have had plenty to do, yet there was nothing in his out-tray, and his in-tray held half-a-dozen invoices and a couple of business letters.

There was a huge cork board on one wall and here there were schedules, letters, lists and Post-it notes galore. Fleming squinted at a couple, one about a band called Zombie and the Living Dead with a technical specification that went over her head, another demanding plaintively what had happened to the running order for Saturday night. Certainly, they all related to the festival, but surely there should be more bumf than this?

There was a bank of filing cabinets on another wall and Fleming went over to look. There were two marked, ‘Festival’; these were unlocked and she pulled them out, looking without much interest at files with labels like ‘Bands’, ‘Accommodation’ and ‘Lighting’.

The drawers below were identified only by numbers and letters, and these, when she tugged experimentally at one or two, seemed to be locked. Pilapil, presumably, would have the keys, but she’d leave that until there was better-qualified manpower on hand to do an in-depth search. The computer would have to be checked out as well.

Fleming was just turning away when she noticed that one drawer in the end stack was not fully closed. It was almost an invitation and she went back to pull it open.

For a moment she stared at it, not quite understanding what she was seeing. Every file was empty, and the hangers had been put back so hurriedly that the drawer was unable to close properly. She pulled open others in that stack and the one next to it; they too were empty, though the sagging cardboard of the sides showed that they had not been unused.

She felt sick and cold. Pilapil had, as requested, locked the study and given her the key last night, but she had been feeling too ill to think clearly. She should have demanded every key, and while she slept someone – or more than one person – had come in and cleared out – what?

Something they didn’t want the police to see, that was for sure, but she didn’t know what it was, and now she couldn’t see how she was going to find out. There had been plenty of opportunity to destroy anything that needed destroying while she slept.

 

Kershaw looked around the meagre kitchen of the Buchans’ cottage with a shock of pity. It was so bleak, so lacking in any sort of comfort! You were always hearing about poverty in the inner cities, but rural poverty was every bit as wretched and often unsupported by charities and the ‘initiatives’ beloved of governments looking for the popular vote. There weren’t a lot of votes in country areas.

Maidie Buchan certainly looked as if her life held no joy, or even hope. She took the keys of the jeep listlessly and said that her husband was out dealing with a blocked drain.

That suited Kershaw perfectly. ‘Perhaps I could have a word with you while I’m waiting?’ she suggested.

‘Yes, fine.’ Maidie looked flustered by the request. ‘You’d – you’d maybe better come through the house, then. Gran’s there, but . . .’

In the sitting room, there was no sign of the missing girl, only an overweight elderly woman with a downturned mouth, squatting toad-like in a chair in the corner of the room.

‘Who’s this, then?’ she asked rudely, eyeing Kershaw as if she had brought a bad smell with her into the room.

‘It’s the police, Gran.’ She turned to Kershaw. ‘My mother-in-law, Ina Buchan.’

She was immediately corrected. ‘Ina McClintock Buchan. I’m one of the Dundrennan McClintocks.’

This conveyed nothing to Kershaw beyond the information that Ina was a snob – with, on the face of it, not much to be snobbish about. ‘Can you tell me—’

Ina cut across her. ‘What are you wanting here, anyway?’

Ignoring her, Kershaw said to Maidie, ‘Mrs Buchan, we’re looking for a girl who lived in the Rosscarron Cottages. Did she come here, the night of the landslip?’

There was a snort from Mrs Buchan senior. ‘Oh aye, she came, all right. She’s still here. We can’t get rid of her.’

Maidie went red. ‘We’ve been happy to give Beth shelter at a time like this,’ she said with some dignity, adding, in response to Kershaw’s raised eyebrows, ‘Beth Brown. She arrived in the middle of the night in a terrible state. She’d been out a walk and she was up above the cottages, sitting on the seat there just a wee minute before the ground collapsed and it went over. She was that shocked!’

‘And she’s still here?’

‘She’s away out with my wee boy – she’s awful good with him. She’ll likely be back soon.’

‘I’ll wait for her, if you don’t mind. Meanwhile, could I just ask you both what you were doing yesterday afternoon?’

Ina’s eyes narrowed. ‘What are you wanting to know that for?’

Kershaw didn’t reply and Maidie said hastily, ‘We were both here all afternoon. Gran doesn’t get out much, and I’d a lot to do.’

‘And Beth was with you?’

‘Some of the time,’ Maidie was saying when Ina again interrupted.

‘She was out most of the afternoon. Sulking, most likely. She’s got quite a temper, that girl – walks out the room if you so much as look at her. And never said a word at tea last night – just glared. That’s not manners, is it? She was looking upset, mind you.’

‘Beth’s not wanting to stay here any more than you and Alick want to have her,’ Maidie retorted. ‘And it’s natural she’d be upset, after all that’s happened – her partner and everything.’

‘She knows about that?’ Kershaw asked.

Maidie nodded. ‘It was Alick had to go into the house and he found the body. That was what set him off—’ She stopped, biting her lip, as Ina impaled her with a stare.

Kershaw filed that away. ‘What time did he get back from Rosscarron House?’

Maidie opened her mouth to speak, but Ina held up her hand imperiously. ‘Stop! You’re not saying another word till we’re told what all this is about.’

They’d hear soon enough. Kershaw explained, and saw from Maidie’s stricken expression that not only did she now understand the thrust of the questioning, she was afraid that her husband might have killed his boss.

Ina understood too. ‘Ridiculous!’ she snapped. ‘When my son comes back, you’ll talk to him yourself, no doubt, if you’ve no more sense than to think he might do a thing like that. But you’ll not get anything out of us to trap him with.’

Kershaw was resigning herself to a silent wait when she heard someone coming into the house, and a child’s fractious wail.

Maidie jumped to her feet. ‘That’ll be Beth with Calum,’ she said, heading for the kitchen. Through the open door, Kershaw could hear a woman’s voice saying, ‘He’s just miserable with his cold. Come on, Calum, I’ll wipe your nose for you and give you a cuddle.’

The child’s wailing stopped. Maidie said, ‘There’s a policewoman here wants a word with you, Beth.’

Beth’s voice, when she spoke after a silence of several seconds, sounded suddenly flat. ‘Right. I’ll go on through, then.’

She appeared in the doorway, carrying a rosy-cheeked toddler with a pink nose and watering eyes, who was snuggling into her shoulder. She was a dark-haired girl who looked to be in her early twenties, with a sallow, rather pudgy face and light blue eyes – very round eyes, with a gap between the iris and the lower lid. Eyes as round as marbles . . .

Taken by surprise, Kershaw blurted out, ‘I know you! You’re Lisa Stewart, aren’t you?’

The girl who had called herself Beth Brown shrank back as if she had been struck. There was a cry of triumph from Ina.

‘I knew I recognised her! You know who this is, Maidie? You know who you’ve been trusting with my grandchild? She’s the one who put that baby out in the rain to die, then got off with it. Get your murdering hands off that child this minute!’

Calum’s mother’s face registered shock and uncertainty. Kershaw could see Maidie fighting her immediate impulse to snatch her precious boy from the other woman’s arms.

Beth – no, Lisa, saw it too. Blindly, she thrust Calum at Maidie and began to cry with great heaving sobs.

‘I didn’t do it – I would never hurt a child! Never, never!’

Calum, looking bewildered, began to wail again. It was to Kershaw’s considerable relief that she saw through the window the Discovery drawing up outside.

 

Declan Ryan was, without a doubt, a nasty piece of work.

Fleming was working from the conference room, conducting the interviews she wanted to do before going back to headquarters.

She had started with Cara. She would be a pretty woman, Fleming thought, with her fair hair and baby-blue eyes, if it weren’t for the bad skin – the result, no doubt, of whatever was cushioning her from reality.

She was tearful, admittedly, but she spoke in a gentle, emotionless voice. ‘I can’t believe my father’s gone. And who would kill him? He was a lovely man.’

The interview hadn’t taken long. Cara couldn’t think of an enemy he had in the world, and asking her about times proved equally futile: she vaguely thought that she and Nico had probably watched a film together and agreed to the suggestion that it might have been Harry Potter, but that apparently was the limit of her recollection. When Fleming said the sitting room had been empty when she came downstairs, Cara frowned for a moment, then said they might have gone upstairs, but she couldn’t really remember.

Ryan, in contrast, was totally on the ball. Below the floppy blond hair, his eyes, which were the merest fraction too close together, were sharply watchful, reminding her of Pilapil’s description of him as a jackal. He came in wearing a cocky smirk, skinny jeans and a T-shirt bearing the legend ‘I was Keith Richards’s drug dealer.’ He was definitely waiting for her to notice it.

Fleming looked at him coolly. ‘Wind-up-the-pigs time, is it, Mr Ryan? Wasted on me, I’m afraid.’

With some satisfaction, she saw she had read his mind and it had thrown him. The smirk disappeared and his ‘First thing that came to hand, actually’ was definitely defensive.

Not tough enough, then, to say, ‘Absolutely. So what?’ Was the cockiness a cover for weakness? She thought it showed in his face. Following up her advantage, Fleming said, ‘Since you’ve brought up the topic, where does your wife get her drug supply?’

He was prepared for that with a smart answer. ‘From the pharmacy, actually. She suffers from depression. And don’t worry about the “Mr Ryan” part. We were all chums together last night, Marjory.’ He gave her a false smile as he sat down opposite.

She squirmed inwardly at the implication of intimacy; being a guest in the house had certainly diminished her effectiveness. She selected her next weapon with care.

‘I prefer to keep this official, Mr Ryan. I gather you and your father-in-law didn’t get on?’

‘Who told you that? There was nothing wrong with our relationship.’ Anger put an ugly twist on his mouth, but it gave way to petulance. ‘Oh, you got that from dear little Cris, I suppose. Jealous as a cat, you know, because I’m family and he isn’t. Always hoped his charms would persuade Gillis to make a will signing everything over to him, but my beloved pa-in-law wasn’t that way inclined. It’s a family business anyway.’

‘And what, exactly, is that business?’ Fleming waited for the reply with considerable interest.

Ryan pushed his chair away from the table and leaned back in it, stretching out his crossed legs and putting his thumbs in the pockets of his jeans. ‘Oh, promotion, mainly, but Gillis had a finger in lots of pies. The venture into property wasn’t his smartest move, though, and now the festival’s completely doomed. He was losing his touch, frankly. Better as a Mr Fix-It, putting people together, you know? That sort of thing.’

Fleming didn’t know, really, but what she did know was that the ostentatious relaxation of Ryan’s position was completely at odds with the tension that came across in his voice, and the twitching of a muscle at his temple, too, suggested stress. The business would be checked out later, but meantime there was something else she wanted to know, if he would tell her – which was unlikely.

‘Do you have a key to your father-in-law’s study?’

He couldn’t hold the casual pose. He sat up, and his voice when he said, ‘A key? Cris has one. Do you want it?’ was so innocent that she had not the slightest doubt that he knew why she had asked.

‘No, I have that one. Are there others?’

‘Oh, probably.’ Ryan gave an elaborate shrug. ‘Never needed one, actually. When it was just the family here, Gillis didn’t bother to lock the door.’

He wasn’t stupid. True or not true, it was a good answer. ‘So you are saying you didn’t go in there last night?’

‘Last night? Look, I had Cara throwing fits, I had Nico high as a kite and refusing to sleep. What would I want to go to the study for?’

‘I don’t know, Mr Ryan. Perhaps you could tell me?’ Fleming waited for a long moment, keeping her eyes on him. He shifted in his seat, but didn’t respond. ‘No? Then there are just a few other technical things I need to ask you.’

She discovered that there was a solicitor’s office in Kirkcudbright that had handled the local interests, like the housing project and the organisation of the festival. She jotted down the details, then said, ‘That’s all I need. I won’t detain you – you must have a lot to do.’

It took him by surprise. Ryan was looking uncertain as he got up, but he said in a silly, mocking voice, ‘Aren’t you going to do the whole bit about my whereabouts? Oh, Inspector, you are so mean! I was looking forward to that. I was going to say, “My alibi is Detective-Sergeant Tam MacNee. To break me you’ll have to break him first!” ’ He struck a defiant pose.

‘I know that already, Mr Ryan. Thank you for your cooperation.’

He paused in the doorway. ‘I take it you will be arresting Buchan? It’s a clear-cut case, and my wife will be distressed as long as her father’s killer is still at large.’

It was almost comic the way his voice had suddenly taken on that middle-class, my-taxes-pay-your-wages tone.

‘We prefer to have some evidence first,’ Fleming told him, and saw his face grow dark before he left the room. As the door closed, she gave a small, involuntary shudder. She would have described herself as case-hardened, but she was deeply thankful that she would soon be in the Sea King being taken back. Weak men and nervous dogs were often the most dangerous and she was glad she wouldn’t be spending another night under the same roof.

And she wasn’t looking forward to her next interview either.

 

Alick Buchan had, after all, proved to be a pussycat. When he got back to the house and Kershaw told him what had happened, his weather-beaten face paled so that the broken veins in his cheeks showed as bright red patches. She didn’t ask any questions, only invited him to come with them to the police station, and he agreed immediately, despite the shrill protestations of his mother. His wife, holding her son close, watched in dumb despair as he climbed into the Discovery.

Lisa Stewart was in the back already, studiously facing away from him and staring out of the window. After her tearful outburst she had regained control with steely determination, answering Kershaw’s questions with brief, factual answers. She had been up on the bluff when the landslip took place; she had walked through the night to get help. She had thought her partner was away, had seen him leave before she did. Yes, she was prepared to identify him.

Making assumptions about the reactions of people who may be in shock is unwise, but still Lisa’s lack of emotion was disturbing. Kershaw hadn’t wanted to go into the background in front of an audience, but Campbell had said with his usual directness, ‘You don’t seem too upset.’

Lisa had looked at him calmly. ‘I’m not, really.’ Then, as Ina hissed in delighted horror, she went on, ‘I’d thrown him out. That’s why I thought he wasn’t there.’

It was, Kershaw thought, a chilling response, but Campbell had only said, ‘Right,’ as if pleased to have a logical explanation. After that no one seemed to have anything to say and it was a relief when Buchan’s return broke the silence and they were able to comply with the instructions radioed to Campbell to go back to the campsite and wait for the helicopter.

 

‘Out all day yesterday, up tracks and ploughing through mud, and what do we find?’ an indignant engineer complained to DS Andy Macdonald. ‘Only that someone’s had the bright idea of cutting the line to the house. You lot had better get him put behind bars, that’s all.’

‘Not up to me,’ Macdonald said regretfully. ‘I’d throw away the key.’

He would, too, when he thought about all the problems that had caused. Though, of course, if this was part of the sabotage effort that had brought the bridge down too, even the most bleeding-heart judge would have to think custodial.

That was the only interesting snippet that came his way all morning. The statements the uniforms were getting from the campers and the contractors were without exception unhelpful. No one had seen anything; few people could remember exactly where they were when, or who was with them. Half of them seemed to have been asleep in the afternoon – and probably half cut as well. ‘Nothing else to do,’ one had said bitterly.

If there was any action, it certainly wasn’t here and Macdonald was bored. If being a sergeant meant you got lumbered with organising while the others went off and did the interesting jobs, it wasn’t worth all the studying and the courses and the exams. His one hope was that when Big Marge came to be airlifted out, she’d decide she couldn’t do without him back at headquarters.

Still, at least the news coming in about the replacement bridge was good. The campers were packing up their cars, with the promise of getting off the headland in a couple of hours.

Suddenly Macdonald noticed that up at the top of the hill, just by the police tape surrounding the crime scene, there was a child – a boy, didn’t look more than seven or eight. He was talking to PC Langlands, the uniform on duty at the site, but this was no place for a kid! Macdonald started up towards them.

Langlands, a pleasant-faced young man celebrated for his sympathetic way with children and those of a nervous disposition, started pulling agitated faces over the boy’s head as Macdonald approached.

‘This is Nico, Sarge,’ he said. ‘Nico’s, well, wanting to know about his granddad.’

‘Right.’ Macdonald looked down at the child, a little uncertainly, but Nico’s blue eyes met his with total confidence.

‘My granddad was killed in there, right?’ He pointed to the clump of trees. ‘Can I see?’

Langlands cravenly retreated. Macdonald said firmly, ‘Sorry, no. It’s a crime scene. No one’s allowed in there.’

Nico scowled. ‘But I’m family. I have a right to see him. I’ll speak to Marjory – she’ll give you a row.’

Macdonald blinked. ‘DI Fleming will tell you the same. Whoever you are, you can’t go in.’

The boy’s face became stormy and for a moment Macdonald thought he was about to throw a tantrum. Then with startling suddenness he smiled. ‘You can tell me, then – did someone hit him and hit him with a stone until he was dead? Was there lots of blood?’

Macdonald heard a choking sound from Langlands and felt slightly queasy himself. Of course kids were ghouls, but this was going over the score.

‘I think you should go back to the house,’ he said firmly. ‘No one’s going to tell you anything and nothing’s going to happen for a long, long time. Your mum’s probably looking for you.’

‘Her?’ Nico said scornfully. ‘She’s so fried she wouldn’t know if I was there or not. But I’ll go back and ask Cris. He’ll have to tell me because he’s my servant now my granddad’s dead.’

He swaggered off, leaving Langlands and Macdonald staring after him with dropped jaws.

 

‘Well, look at you!’ Joss Hepburn said with his lazy smile as he came into the conference room. ‘Could catch on – rainbow make-up!’

Her nerves taut as piano strings. Fleming said in her coolest, most professional voice, ‘Morning, Joss. Would you like to sit down?’

His lips twitched as he stood surveying her teasingly from his considerable height. ‘Why, thank you, Madge. Or should I call you Inspector Madge?’ He sat down.

She mustn’t smile. ‘I have to ask you, please, what your movements were yesterday afternoon.’

‘Of course. Easier if I demonstrate, perhaps.’ Disconcertingly, he swung his long legs on to the chairs to his left, then lay down on his right side across the chairs to his right. His voice came from below the level of the table.

‘I lay down on my bed. That was my first movement. My next movement – can you see? – was on to my back, like this. I lay that way for a bit, contemplating the ceiling and the ineffable tedium of being stuck here indefinitely. Then –’ he appeared again – ‘I guess I sat up and smoked, using this movement –’ he mimed puffing at a cigarette – ‘several cigarettes. Could be I dozed, briefly.’ He put his head down on the table and made small, comic snoring snuffles, then sat up looking at her hopefully.

It was funny, but she remained stone-faced. ‘Then?’

‘Then I most likely got out my gui-tar,’ Hepburn put on a Texan drawl, ‘and just strummed awhile. I guess my only hope of an alibi, Inspector—’ He broke off, laughing. ‘No, I definitely can’t. Inspector Madge is positively my best offer.’

‘No need to call me anything,’ Fleming said crisply. ‘Since we’re the only people in the room, I can make a guess that you’re talking to me. Your only hope of an alibi . . . ?’

‘Is if someone heard me. That’s it. Otherwise, I could have popped up the hill and bashed Gillis’s head in. Except, of course, that I didn’t. Why should I? He was a mate, a professional contact. I’d nothing against the guy, except his tendency to want to tell me his problems. You may remember I was never much interested in other people’s problems.’

Hepburn looked at her quizzically and Fleming heard herself say, with feeling, ‘Oh, yes, I remember,’ then had to make a swift retreat to safely professional territory. Recalling his earlier reaction to the question, she asked, ‘Crozier’s business – you were a bit vague about it when I asked you before. Were you involved in it?’

‘Involved? No.’ Again she sensed tension in the flat denial, as he went rapidly on, ‘Gillis fixed up a lot of gigs for me, here and in Europe, so he called in a favour to get me here to headline the pop festival. Bi-ig mistake, even before all this. I should never have agreed. Boredom ought to be on the proscribed list as a form of torture.’

Ignoring his attempt at distraction, Fleming asked if he had a key to Crozier’s study.

‘Of course not. Why should I?’

‘Or see anyone going in there last night?’

‘Afraid not.’

He hadn’t asked why she wanted to know. Perhaps he was simply assuming she wouldn’t tell him. Or perhaps—

The sound of the helicopter low overhead interrupted them. Feeling anyway that there was little more progress to be made and relieved to have kept control of the interview, more or less, Fleming got up and walked round the table to the door. ‘I’ll have to go. That’s all I need to know for the moment. You’re not intending to go back to the States immediately, are you?’

He joined her. ‘Planning to confiscate my passport, Madge? No need – I’d welcome a chance to hang about and renew auld acquaintance. It’s sort of an obligation on us Scots, isn’t it – dear old Rabbie Burns!’

She held open the door for him. ‘We would just prefer you didn’t leave for the next few days, that’s all. Someone will take contact details later.’

‘But I would so much prefer to see you than someone,’ Hepburn protested. ‘I might have to pretend that I have important information I will only disclose to you personally.’

‘It’s called wasting police time.’ She added deliberately a distancing, ‘Sir. And we always ask for prosecution.’

Hepburn’s laugh was one of unaffected amusement. He looked down at her, then very gently cupped her injured cheek. ‘You put up a great front. But she’s still there, you know, under the tidy hair and the smart professional clothes – my crazy Madge. If you ever want to let her out again, I’m sure one of your officers will know where to find me. OK?’

He left, and she shut the door and slumped against it. For a moment she had thought he was going to kiss her and she honestly didn’t know how she would have reacted.

The wild, self-destructive girl she had once been was long gone, but as she stood there trying to calm her racing pulse, she felt all of a sudden bereft.

 

There was still one more check Fleming had to make before she left. She went through the under-stairs door at the back of the hall, hoping to find Pilapil in the kitchen. He wasn’t there, but when she called his name, he appeared from a door off the corridor beyond it.

‘Just one thing I wanted to ask you, Cris,’ she said. ‘Did anyone go into Mr Crozier’s study last night?’

‘I locked it and gave you the key.’

‘That wasn’t what I asked you. I guess there may have been other keys – who had them?’

‘I’m not sure.’

He was looking everywhere except straight at her. Fleming was disappointed in him: she’d had him marked down as one of the good guys.

‘I’m not going to let you get out of it by evasion, Cris. If you’re not going to tell me the truth, it’s going to have to be a direct, straightforward lie. I think you know that someone went into the study last night and removed a lot of papers. Who was it?’

Pilapil raised his head and looked her straight in the eye. ‘I don’t know anything about it, Inspector Fleming.’

She had invited him to do it, and he had. ‘I’m sorry you said that. Very sorry. Are you sure you don’t want to change your mind?’

His head went down but he said nothing. She had no alternative but to leave.