20

Tuesday, 25 July

It was drizzling again this morning. When Marjory Fleming had set out to feed her hens, it hadn’t looked heavy enough to warrant a jacket and hood, but it was the soft, wetting stuff that soaks you through almost unnoticed. As she came back into the farmhouse kitchen carrying a bowl of eggs, she shook herself like a dog.

‘I should have taken the shampoo out with me instead of washing my hair in the shower,’ she complained.

Bill, just finishing his mug of tea, smiled. ‘I was out earlier, but I was smart enough to put on a jacket, so I was all right, wasn’t I, Meg?’

The collie, lying by the Aga, twitched her tail in response.

Marjory pulled a face. ‘Smug isn’t pretty, is it, Meg? We may both have got soaked but we think it’s pretty pathetic of you to need a jacket for a wee bit rain like that.’

Bill smiled again, then rinsed out his mug and set it upside down on the draining board. ‘I don’t care what she says, Meg – only a fool doesn’t know how to be comfortable.

‘I’m just off, then. You’ll be late again tonight, I suppose?’

‘Probably. Have a good day.’

As the door shut behind her husband and Meg, Marjory sighed. That had been the familiar sort of light-hearted exchange, but she’d noticed that increasingly they were involving the dog in their conversations, almost as if it was safer to be in company than alone. They were both being very civilised, but she didn’t want to have to be civilised. She wanted the old natural, loving relationship back, which had seemed so easy that she’d never given much thought to how it was achieved. If Joss Hepburn carried out his threat, if the newspapers represented her youthful follies in the ugliest possible way – as they would – might the damage it caused to her career be the least of her problems? The ringing of her mobile was a welcome relief from her unhappy thoughts.

It was John Purves. She listened for a moment, her brow furrowed. ‘What on earth for?’ Then she said, ‘Right. I have to monitor an interview first, but I can clear time after that.’

She ran upstairs. Catriona, in an early-morning trance, was on her way to the bathroom.

‘Don’t forget to tell Cammie to change his sheets today, will you?’ her mother said. ‘I’m going in now. I’ll probably be late back.’

‘How unusual!’ Cat yawned. ‘Remind me who you are again?’

Ignoring her daughter’s sarcasm, Fleming went into her bedroom and opened her wardrobe door. What on earth would a woman who ran a builder’s yard wear when she was checking out an applicant for casual labour?

 

Debbie had been very sleepy this morning too. Kim Kershaw’s mind was on her daughter as she drove towards work in Kirkluce from Newton Stewart. She had again looked in on her way to work and wakened her with a kiss, but Debbie’s eyes had opened only briefly, then closed again.

It was early, admittedly, since Kershaw was on a seven-to-three shift, and the carer said she’d had another restless night so it wasn’t surprising Debbie wanted a lie-in. And after the bad turn she’d had, it wasn’t surprising either that she was taking some time to recover, but as ever fear for the child’s health gripped Kershaw like an iron hand twisting her inside.

She couldn’t afford to think about it. There was a busy day ahead – a challenging day too.

There’d been a lot of gossip among the lads – fairly ribald, some of it – about Big Marge’s relationship with a pop star like Joshua, of all people. Kershaw wasn’t a reader of celeb magazines herself, but according to those who were, he certainly wasn’t the kind of guy you’d take home to meet the chief constable. Still pretty fit, though, even at his advanced age; she’d found herself looking at the boss with new respect.

Fleming was going to be watching the interview from the room next to the main interview room, with its one-way glass panel. It made Kershaw a little uneasy; she’d had superior officers do that in the past to check up on her technique, sometimes without telling her. Fleming had been open about it, though, and said she’d prompt any questions that occurred to her.

Kershaw would have said Big Marge wasn’t lacking in courage, but rather than checking on her subordinates, could she be ducking out of doing the interview herself? Her reaction to Tam MacNee’s extraordinary breach of procedure in springing Joss Hepburn on her had resulted in MacNee sitting in front of a computer terminal in the CID room all day, acting like a Rottweiller with a migraine if anyone spoke to him.

Whatever you said about the job, it wasn’t dull. And this morning looked like being even more interesting than usual.

 

MacNee was early today too. He came into the CID room with a spring in his step. There was nothing like a day stuck at a desk to make you appreciate getting out to do the hands-on job that was real policework to him. The rest of the stuff inflicted on them was just fantoosh – all the unnecessary frills and bows of form-filling and writing logs and going on diversity courses. At the thought of the last, he gave a small, involuntary shudder. Lucky Big Marge hadn’t thought of that or he’d be marked down for one right now.

Fleming, unusually, was there talking to Ewan Campbell. She turned when she saw him.

‘Morning, Tam. I was hoping you’d be in early. Change of plan – I’ve got another commitment today.’

MacNee’s face fell. His ‘Right, boss’ was very flat.

Fleming smiled. ‘Oh, don’t panic. I want you to go anyway, just on your own. Do a spot of sniffing around at Rosscarron House and see what you think.

‘I was so impressed with what you came up with when you went through all the reports that I’m asking Andy Mac to do a trawl this morning, but he’ll be available if you need back-up. Ewan, I’ll see you and Kim after the briefing to discuss the Hepburn interview. OK?’

MacNee felt a faint pang of jealousy. At least he was free to do what he did best, but that was one he’d have liked to be in on. He was wondering, too, what it was Fleming was doing later that took precedence over driving on the inquiry. She’d normally say, ‘A meeting,’ or, ‘A conference,’ often pulling a face about the hoops she had to jump through. But ‘A commitment’?

His nose told him there was something going on. She wasn’t wearing one of her usual smart trouser suits this morning, and the jeans, casual shirt and zip jacket suggested she wouldn’t be spending time in the office. He hated being out of the loop, but he’d only himself to blame. And he hated that too.

 

Lisa Stewart woke with a start and looked at her watch.

It was just after seven o’clock. She was relieved, having feared it might be later, but then it had only been nine o’clock when sleep overcame her last night, and this morning she definitely felt more alert and refreshed. If she’d had bad dreams, Lisa couldn’t remember them – or perhaps the insight Jan Forbes had given her had exorcised her demons.

But the note she had left for Jan was uppermost in her mind. Without even waiting to dress, she went out in her pyjamas and crept down the stairs.

There was no one about, but the note had gone. With a hollow feeling inside, she returned to her room. She told herself firmly that it didn’t matter; she was going to disappear anyway, but now it was a matter of real urgency.

She had three-quarters of an hour to catch the early bus. Breakfast didn’t start until eight and before that there would only be staff busy setting up. By the time anyone got round to missing her, Lisa would be long gone.

After a speedy shower, she crammed her few belongings into her bag and, doing a rough calculation, left some money on the bedside table. She shut the door quietly as she left the room. There were faint sounds from behind the closed doors in the corridor, but the hall below was empty.

Downstairs, Lisa could hear voices and the clatter of crockery from the breakfast room, but its window was towards the side of the house. Once she was out of the front door, she should be able to reach the road unseen.

It was a depressing day. The air was thick with water vapour, and curtains of silvery rain came sweeping across a grey, sullen sea. There was no view at all now, and even the bright gold of the gorse seemed dulled in the wet, its prickly leaves mud-splashed from the passing cars.

As she walked out between the guardian rowans, Lisa felt a twinge of fear. She was totally on her own now. Jan, the kindly Telfords – they had given her a sense of safety and she was putting herself beyond any help they could give her.

But it wasn’t really safety. They wouldn’t protect her from persecution by the police or the press once they had read her note. She had to vanish.

Lisa pulled up the hood of her jacket and began her trudge along the verge. She couldn’t rely on the bus driver being the obliging Doddie who had stopped for her outside the hotel; she had, according to what Susan Telford said when she arrived, a mile to go to the official bus-stop.

It was a quiet road, but it wasn’t pleasant walking. A car appeared round the corner ahead just as one came up behind her, a silver Ford Focus that was so close to her it actually had to swerve, and even then a fine spray of mud soiled her jeans. She glanced down irritably, but she didn’t bother to brush it off. She’d still quite a bit to walk and no doubt other cars would do the same.

When Lisa reached the bus-stop, she was reassured to see that a small queue had formed already. Sometimes timetables were out of date, but it looked as if hers had been right.

Everyone looked depressed this morning, standing in silent stoicism under the rain. Lisa joined them, and a few minutes later, just as the bus appeared, a man came up to stand behind her. She noticed idly that his jacket and his hair, very dark and growing in a deep widow’s peak on his forehead, looked surprisingly dry. He must live quite close by.

Lisa couldn’t remember where the bus ended up. ‘The terminus,’ she said.

‘Newton Stewart?’ the driver asked, and she nodded, paid and found a seat.

The man who had got on behind her sat down at the front of the bus. He got off again at the next stop.

Newton Stewart. From there, presumably, she could get a bus to Dumfries, then a train to Glasgow. She could even go to earth there for a bit, if the police came after her when they found she’d gone. She was at ease with big cities. No one was interested in strangers, and anyway the only photos of her showed her with distinctive red hair. She’d change her name again too, then stay quietly somewhere till the fuss died down and she could take a train back to London.

 

Rosie turned away from her parents’ bedroom window where she had been pressing her nose to the glass. She’d waved and waved, but the lady hadn’t paid any attention.

‘Rosie, come on,’ her mother said in harassed tones. ‘We’re going down to breakfast and we’re waiting for you.’

‘Lady gone,’ Rosie said sadly, but no one was listening.

 

How often did people say, ‘I’d love to be a fly on the wall’? Here, behind the one-way glass, DI Fleming was in that privileged pos-ition as DCs Kershaw and Campbell ushered Joss Hepburn into the interview room.

Spying, you could call it. Fleming was scrupulous about informing her officers when she was to be there, but even so she still always felt a prickle of discomfort. It was definitely useful, though: without the distraction of directing the interview, she could observe its subject minutely for body language, fleeting facial expressions and what gamblers call ‘tells’ – unconscious gestures showing stress. You could miss a lot when you had to concentrate on finding a killer question to ask.

Yes, detachment was useful. And of course Fleming could still have an input: Kershaw was wearing a discreet earpiece.

Hepburn noticed it immediately. Fleming saw his fractional stillness; then his eyes travelled to the blank panel on the wall opposite him. He gave a little nod and a slight, sardonic smile, as if he were looking through it straight into her eyes.

Fleming took an involuntary step backwards. He couldn’t see her, of course he couldn’t, but in some uncanny way he knew she was there. It shook her for a moment.

Duh! He’d really got her spooked. Of course he would guess. He was a man used to studios and to every trick of filming and production: one-way glass would hardly be an unfamiliar concept. Fleming narrowed her eyes and assessed him for signs of tension.

She couldn’t see any. With that half-smile still lingering on his face, he was sitting in a relaxed position, elbows on the arms of his chair, hands hanging loose. There were no jerky movements, no tiny twitches, no protective crossing of his arms. He watched in calm silence as Campbell set up the tape.

Kershaw, on the other hand, was nervous, shuffling her papers and shifting in her seat, as if she were feeling Fleming’s eyes on the back of her neck. Once, she even half turned, then turned back again, as if she’d had to fight an impulse to look over her shoulder.

Campbell returned to his seat and completed the formalities in his usual unruffled way.

‘Mr Hepburn,’ Kershaw began, ‘you made a statement that you, the Ryans and Mr Pilapil were all together all evening on Saturday night.’

Hepburn half closed his eyes and gave a bored sigh. ‘Oh dear. Yes, I guess I did.’

‘So it wasn’t true? Are you now withdrawing that statement?’

‘We-ell . . . not exactly withdrawing. Kind of modifying, you could say.’

Fleming couldn’t see Kershaw raising her eyebrows, but she heard it in her voice. ‘Modifying?’

‘Oh, come on, Officer, get real! You’ve seen the house.’ Hepburn’s tone suggested sweet reason. ‘Obviously, we were hardly sitting looking at each other all evening.’

‘So what were you doing?’

‘Mostly sitting in my room avoiding, as far as possible, contact with the Ryans and their unspeakably obnoxious offspring. I guess Cris was doing the same.’

‘Why did you lie about it, then?’ Campbell was reliably blunt.

Good lad! But it hadn’t rattled Hepburn – or if it had, it didn’t show. Fleming couldn’t see any of the signs of stress; the hands were still hanging, relaxed.

‘It kind of seemed rude, to contradict my host, you know? And since I had no reason to figure it wasn’t true, and since I’m not in the habit of suspecting my close contacts of murder, I guess I just went along with it.’ His hands turned palm outwards in the classic gesture of openness.

Now, hit him with the CCTV stuff, Fleming urged Kershaw, though only mentally.

Kershaw needed no prompting. ‘You see, Mr Hepburn,’ she said sweetly, ‘we have evidence that your hired car was in Kirkluce that evening.’

Hepburn raised his brows. ‘Was it? Oh dear, I’m just so careless about my keys! I wonder who borrowed it?’

No indication of shock, or surprise, even. The man was a performer, of course, constantly on stage, and Fleming remembered something suddenly.

‘Ask him if he takes acting lessons,’ she said into the microphone. He’d gone up to Glasgow for coaching every week when she knew him.

There was a hint of surprise in Kershaw’s voice as she put the question and for the first time it provoked a reaction. Hepburn sat forward in his chair. ‘Well, yes, but . . .’ Then he looked towards the panel with a short laugh. ‘As DI Fleming knows, I always did. My job is putting on an act.’

‘You’re good at it.’

Ignoring Kershaw’s acid tone, he went on, ‘Look, this is some kind of farce. DI Fleming is behind that panel. If she wants to ask questions, why doesn’t she cut the crap and ask face to face?’

‘Because I’m doing it,’ Kershaw said sharply. ‘And I want answers. Your hire car was seen in Kirkluce on Saturday evening, as I said. Are you stating that you weren’t driving it?’

‘I’m stating that I’m careless with my keys.’ Hepburn was getting promisingly angry now. ‘And that anyone in the house could have taken them.’

‘Where were the keys, then?’ Campbell again.

At last, they had got to him. ‘I – I can’t recall.’ His jaw, Fleming noticed, had tensed up and his hands had closed round the arms of the chair.

‘Have you driven the car since Saturday?’ Kershaw asked.

‘Until this morning, no.’

‘So this morning, before you drove in, where did you find the keys?’

Hepburn glared at her. Then, with a visible effort, he relaxed again. ‘Hey, this is crazy! I’m an absent-minded guy and suddenly I’m being featured as a suspect for killing some kid I never even met!’

‘Not suddenly. You always were,’ Campbell said, and Kershaw went on, ‘You see, we only have your word for it that Jason Williams was “some kid” you didn’t know. And I can’t see any reason why I should take it.’

Hepburn gave a dismissive shrug. ‘That, I have to say, is a matter of supreme indifference to me. You have evidence that my car was in Kirkluce. I guess you’ve no evidence that I was driving it, or you’d have produced it. Anyway, say I was in Kirkluce? It wouldn’t prove I’d killed anyone, would it?’

He was perfectly right. Kershaw tried, ‘Are you admitting it, then?’ and got the short answer. The interview was running into the sand.

Had he, Fleming wondered, really come in at nine o’clock to do a murder later? And been careless enough to drive along the main street, where there were likely to be cameras? But he had to have had a compelling reason to drive all the way to Kirkluce . . .

A thought struck her. ‘Ask him,’ Fleming said into the microphone, ‘if he was visiting his drug dealer.’

It is hard to ask a prompted question as if you had thought of it yourself, and Kershaw failed. Hepburn gave her a look of contempt, got up and came across to stand in front of the panel, looking directly at the unseen Fleming.

‘I’m not playing games any more, Madge. This is utterly futile. You’re not going to arrest me, so I’m leaving, and if I have to come back, it will be with my lawyer.

‘But I wish you’d think over very carefully what I said to you yesterday. This is important. I really, really want you to change your mind. For your own sake. I’ll even say please.’ He put the palms of his hands together in a supplicatory gesture. Despite the glass, his silver-grey eyes seemed to stare straight into Fleming’s own.

‘Once you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made’ had been one of Hepburn’s favourite sayings, but this time, she almost believed he was genuine. Oh, not because of what he said about her, but because of what she could see in his eyes – raw, naked fear.

Hepburn turned and walked out of the room. As Campbell said, for the benefit of the tape, ‘Mr Hepburn has terminated the interview,’ Fleming stood with her hands to her burning cheeks.

 

‘What did you make of that?’ Kershaw demanded once the microphones were switched off. ‘Hardly a great success, was it? We got absolutely nowhere, and I felt a right idiot. I never did see ventriloquist’s dummy as a fulfilling career.’

‘Hepburn’s right,’ Campbell said. ‘We’ve nothing against him, except an inaccurate confirmation of someone else’s informal statement.’

‘He’s a cold-blooded bastard. I could see him taking out any number of people without disarranging his carefully casual locks. And what was all that with the boss – Madge?’

Campbell was never a rewarding person to gossip to. ‘No idea. Better not hang about or she’ll know we’re discussing her.’

 

You could get tired of driving through the back of beyond in the rain, through all these wee places where only a handful of people lived. If they’d just the sense to get all together and live in a city, or even a decent-sized town, hard-working coppers could get the job done in half the time. DS MacNee looked disparagingly at the passing countryside as he drove to Rosscarron House. It had always been his opinion that when you’ve seen one sheep, you’ve seen them all.

He drove on to the Bailey bridge over the Carron with exaggerated caution. It gave him a nasty feeling in the pit of his stomach to glance down into the river, now shrunk back within its normal bounds. If he went in now, he could wade across, but he still didn’t fancy it.

The army, anyway, seemed to have done a good job. There was some heavy plant working now at clearing the mess for the poor bastards whose homes had been wrecked.

There was no one around at Rosscarron House. There were two cars and the Discovery parked at the front, but somehow it seemed to MacNee to have a forlorn look about it. Maybe he was just getting imaginative in his old age. He’d have to put a stop to that.

The rain had gone off now. He walked to the side of the house, where he could see the wires of the phone line coming in, the connection just beside a window on the upper floor. Easy enough to reach out of there and cut it, certainly. He went back to the front door.

The brass handle and the bell itself were tarnished, and when MacNee rang it, there was no reply. He rang again and heard an irritable voice shouting, ‘Cris, the doorbell! Where the hell are you?’

Declan Ryan flung open the door. ‘Yes? Oh – it’s you again. What do you want this time?’ He looked dishevelled, and judging by the bags under his eyes, he wasn’t sleeping well, and was probably hitting the bottle too.

MacNee smiled. There was a warm glow spreading through him, like the first sip of a good malt: it was a real bonus to see a suspect softened up before you even started.

‘That’s not very nice. And here’s me thinking we were old pals. I’m just back for another wee crack with you.’

‘I don’t suppose it will do any good to tell you I’ve nothing to say to you?’ Ryan sounded weary.

The sergeant shook his head. ‘Uh-uh.’

‘You’d better come in, then.’

The white hall, with its random purple wall, was just as chillingly impersonal as MacNee had remembered it. He hadn’t enjoyed the music that was always playing, but in its absence the place felt colder and more unwelcoming than ever.

The sitting room, however, looked definitely lived-in, though not in a good way. There were dirty plates and glasses abandoned on the tables and floor, and it was plain that no housework had been done for days. Ryan even seemed embarrassed by the mess.

‘We’d have been gone by now if it wasn’t for you,’ he said bitterly. ‘The cleaning woman won’t come back because she says she’s scared and Cris seems to be on strike.’ He sat down, running his fingers through his hair. ‘Get on with it, then. I’ve too much on my hands to waste time dictating something for you to write down in your notebook.’

‘I’ll get straight to it, then.’ MacNee took his seat immediately opposite. ‘Was it you cut the phone line to the house?’

Ryan gaped, opening and shutting his mouth like a codfish. ‘No, no. I – I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Bull’s eye! ‘Aye, you do. The phone line. The line that brings the telephone connection.’ MacNee spoke like a nursery teacher addressing a three-year-old with learning difficulties. ‘You know, the one you leaned out the window to cut.’

The man wasn’t going to boak, was he? His face had gone pale green, but he managed to say, ‘I’ve no idea what window you mean.’

‘That’ll be right,’ MacNee said ambiguously. ‘I had a wee look as I came in so I can maybe find it.’ He got up and went to the door.

Ryan jumped up, saying hastily, ‘I’ll come with you.’

‘Second window from the front on that side, as far as I can see.’ MacNee pointed as he led the way up the stairs.

‘One of the guest rooms,’ Ryan said. ‘I don’t think it’s been in use.’

His voice, MacNee noticed with annoyance, had steadied. He opened the door indicated and MacNee saw a room similar to the one he’d used himself after the accident – white-painted with splashes of colour in a canvas on the wall and cushions on the bed, rust and orange this time.

Ryan went to the window and stuck his head out into the rain. ‘Oh, yes, here it is. I’d never noticed before.’

‘Do you tell me that?’ MacNee said with polite incredulity. ‘So, who would know, then?’

‘Possibly my late lamented father-in-law. Or Cris, quite likely.’ Perhaps it was the rain that had revived him: Ryan sounded quite perky as he threw Pilapil to the wolves. ‘To be honest, I’m not sure I’ve ever been in this room before, but he’s responsible for all the maintenance. He’s the man you need to talk to.’

‘Oh, I’ll be doing that, right enough. Who else was here on the Wednesday night?’

Ryan had suddenly become obliging. ‘Myself, Cara, Nico, of course. Gillis too, because it happened before he died. Cris, Joss Hepburn – no, I tell a lie, Joss arrived next morning. So really, you need to talk to Cris. In fact, he can tell you that I came to him at the time to ask what had happened to the line.’ Ryan had started to look pleased with himself. ‘And of course it could have been someone from outside.’

It had taken the man a wee while to think of that, but now MacNee watched with a jaundiced eye as Ryan warmed to his theme.

‘It could easily be that man who killed himself – much more likely! Nothing to stop him shinning up there at night.’

‘Won’t wash, Declan. We’ve searched his house – no ladder.’

‘Maybe he borrowed one. Or dumped his somewhere.’ Ryan made a passable attempt at sounding bored. ‘Anyway, I’m afraid I can’t help you there. Now, did you want to speak to Cris?’

Reluctantly recognising a dead end, MacNee agreed.

 

As she got off the Newton Stewart bus in Dumfries at last, Lisa Stewart was feeling light-headed after two journeys on an empty stomach. She’d better get something to eat before she drew attention to herself by fainting from hunger. There was a little café just across the road there; she went in, found a table by the window and ordered coffee and a bacon buttie. So far so good.

The trains to Glasgow were quite frequent, so she should be on one before anyone missed her, but she’d need to find a cash machine first and take out as much as she could on her card. There were a few things she ought to buy, like hair dye and more knickers. And jeans – she was still wearing the ones Maidie had given her. The new pair she’d bought were drying somewhere in the hotel.

Lisa felt her spirits lift. Even just sitting in this dingy little café, she had a sense of relief, of freedom. No one in the world could know she was here, now there wasn’t someone at her side betraying her every move. She hadn’t felt hungry for days – weeks, even – but the bacon roll tasted really good. She might even order another one.

She didn’t notice the silver Ford Focus parked just across the street, or the man wearing driving gloves and reading a newspaper as he sat at the wheel, a man with dark hair that grew in a widow’s peak.