2007 - The Dead Pool (11 page)

‘I don’t know, Ross. Jamie was a pretty good judge of character. And, having met her myself, I don’t agree with you. I think Morag Ramsay’s a genuine person. I’d guess she’s got a lot of problems, emotional ones, some of which I think were there long before the deaths of her boyfriend and lona Sutherland. The only credence I could possibly give to her being guilty is if she did it and can’t remember.’

He laughed. ‘Hah! Barely credible.’

‘Not so. I don’t know what that lot were on, but they were having a high, and I mean
high
, old time together. It’s perfectly possible that she had amnesia. I’ve known you to have memory lapses when you’ve overindulged.’

‘Hardly comparable.’

‘Oh, come on, Ross. Did you know that some of these so-called friends of hers had been spiking her drinks? They sound a bloody unpleasant lot. With the exception perhaps of Bonnie Campbell. But she hasn’t exactly rushed to stand up for Morag. It’s a shame. If even one of that group had stood by Morag, she’d be in a better state than she is today.’

Ross clattered his glass down on the table with more force than was necessary. ‘And doesn’t that tell you something? Maybe her friends knew her better than anyone else. I told Dad as much. Warned him. Maybe I should warn you too. Be careful with this woman.’

She shook her head, exasperation taking hold at last. ‘I’m not stupid, Ross. But, my first impressions of her made me think she was okay. The thing is, I don’t see how she could have done it anyway, even if she did have genuine amnesia about the event. There would’ve been other evidence. Actually, I feel sorry, very sorry, for her. She reminds me of some of the poor souls I used to meet when I was a paralegal. Some really sad cases. Victims, dumped on by all and sundry. Morag Ramsay’s one of them. She just hides it a bit better than most. Her brittle, defensive attitude makes sympathy hard to come by. In fact, if it came to court, I reckon a jury wouldn’t take to her one bit. And that would be bloody unfair.’

Ross was shaking his head in disbelief. ‘
God, Kirsty!
You were always such a soft touch. Just as well you never thought of being a prosecutor. You’d be letting them all off!’

The comment stung but she let it pass. He wasn’t intending to be offensive. He was just being his usual patronizing, insensitive, infuriating self.

She shook her head back at him. ‘Just being humane. That’s all.’
You should try itsometime
. She accepted another refill and dropped her eyes, toying with the glass.

‘Look, Ross. I’m glad you called. Really I am. And I’m glad I’m here. But I
don’t
want to talk about us tonight. I want to…ask you…something. Something we only touched on at the cemetery. Tell me, what
exactly
do you think happened to your dad?’ If she couldn’t discuss her meeting with Glen, she could at least try to unearth what Ross was really thinking about the death of his father.

Ross didn’t react immediately. Instead, he turned away towards the window, seeming absorbed in the blackness of outside. She wondered if he hadn’t heard her. She felt the irrational urge to lean over and touch his arm, check if he was still breathing. Then he inhaled—a loud, deep breath—and turned to face her, full on, his eyes locked on hers.

‘I
have
thought about it. Almost endlessly. And I
do
have an idea. It’s not one you might want to hear…To find an answer, you need to go back four years. You’ll remember some of that time, I’m sure. Dad’s retirement was the start of it. He had great plans for doing all the things he and Miim hadn’t done because he’d worked so hard all his life. The ‘wonders’ of retirement. Not in his case. The truth…the
bitter
truth for Dad was something else. The fact is, Mum was happy doing her stuff at home. The garden, reading, her coffee mornings, evening classes, and all the rest of it. All that stuff well-to-do, middle·class older women do. I’m not knocking it. Just stating a fact. Mum didn’t want her life turned upside down by Dad’s retirement plans. And once he recognized this, I think he quickly became disappointed. In short, their marriage worked because they had separate lives.’

He paused to break eye contact with her, and she thought he’d never seemed so sad, so weary. But within a moment he’d rallied and met her gaze once more.

‘It’s an age-old story. Mum’s domestic life was already full and fulfilling. Dad felt a huge gaping hole in his. No work, no business lunches, no client dinners. All that he used to fill his days and nights with had gone. So it didn’t take long for him to start drifting back into the office, ‘on the off chance’. Once or twice at the start was fine. I and some of the more senior partners would take him out for a good lunch. But it wasn’t long after that when he started quizzing me and others about cases, about old clients of his. And thereafter it was one short step to offering ‘advice’. It was a very tricky situation. A bit of a nightmare, frankly.’

She looked at him, puzzled. ‘Why didn’t I know any of this?’

‘I didn’t want to worry you, and I freely admit I was a coward. I hadn’t the balls to tell Dad where to get off. One or two of the older partners tried, but it was useless. They were old buddies of Dad’s, still played golf with him. So they botded out. Can’t blame them. In the end it was down to poor old Mum to dish the dirt. And she didn’t pull her punches. I came round for one or two Sunday lunches just after. Dad was depressed. The GP had put him on some tablets.’

‘What? Antidepressants?’ This was news to her.

‘That’s right. They helped. A bit. Mum had a private word with me about it and asked,
insisted
, that I didn’t tell you. Dad wouldn’t want it. He’d be embarrassed if you knew. Anyway, the medication worked up to a point. He and Mum were learning to coexist. Donald was helping too. He’d take Dad out, keep him occupied many days of the week. I don’t think Donald cares much for me, but I will say he was good for Dad.’

She watched Ross momentarily close his eyes, as if composing himself for the next words. ‘And then, out of a clear blue sky, the worst happened. Mum died. Gone. And you know the rest. Well, most of it. Up until you left, that is. To bring you up to date, the last two years have been a nightmare. I believe Dad became mentally ill. He refused to see the GP or take any more tablets. I’m no psychiatrist but I think, in addition to his depression, there was the trauma of sudden bereavement. And there was tetchiness, and paranoia, and—I’m sorry, Kirstin—I think Dad finally got very,
very
tired of living. And remember, before you remonstrate with me about this, you
didnot
see him during the last year and a half of his life. I did.’

She watched as he sank back into the deepest corner of the sofa. What had been a dignified and painfully frank speech had left him clearly exhausted. Ross was right. She had not been around. The Jamie she
had
known might not have killed himself. But there was another Jamie being described here now. Another Jamie that Donald, Glen and Morag had described to her also. Many Jamies, maybe. But not all of them were bad.

She shifted her position to lean towards Ross. ‘Donald told me something about Jamie that both surprised and heartened me.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yeah, during the last couple of years before he retired—and for a while afterwards, I think—Jamie was apparently helping some small wildlife and environmental groups in their struggle against a building development on the east coast.’

‘He
what?
Ross shook his head in astonishment.

She nodded. ‘Yes, and that…well, it seems to go against this notion of him being terminally depressed, not engaged with the world. It suggests quite the opposite, actually.’

‘The bloody fool.’ Ross was still shaking his head. ‘I hope to God it wasn’t one of our clients he was advising against.

He would have got us, the firm, into so much trouble. But…that doesn’t matter now. It just underlines a spectacular loss of judgement…of
balance
. The fact is, after he retired, after Mum died, he got depressed, clinically so. Until the river work came up, but then he…mucked that up. He changed, went downhill. I’m sorry, but it’s the truth.’

Kirstin leant back and glanced out towards the river, barely visible now through the darkness. A year and a half had led to untold change in her own life. For the better. Why couldn’t the reverse be true for Jamie? To his credit, Ross had not tried to instil any guilt concerning her absence while Jamie deteriorated. He didn’t need to. She was carrying enough of her own. Perhaps what Ross
was
trying to say as gently as he could was ‘leave it alone’. But how could she? She was still left kicking against her ex-husband’s firm belief in his father’s suicide. Ross believed what he was saying. No doubt. But Ross didn’t know what she knew. And if he did? Like Glen, he’d still come up with the same conclusion. That Jamie was somehow responsible for his own death.

She suddenly felt alone in it all. Glen might be troubled, but he’d already decided what had happened. Ross too. That left her and dear old Donald. It would have been laughable in other circumstances. Jamie’s flag-carriers—a directionless divorcee and a seventy-odd-year-old man who missed his best friend. Oh, and maybe there was one other she could recruit, to complete a ridiculous trio. A vilified, furious and depressed woman. A woman everyone, except herself, thought was a ruthless killer.

M
orag knew it was madness. Coming down to the Cauldron at dead of night. But she’d had a restless time of it since her disastrous session with Dr Lockhart that afternoon. Things were calming down again. Dr Lockhart had called her, obviously worried that she might rush into some foolish, self-destructive action. And here she was.
Morag, the Bitch-Witch-Cauldron-Killer, is out, at night, on her own, by the river!

As she passed along the path, atop the hill opposite she could see the reassuring lights of her own house and the window where the telescope stood, pointed right towards her at this very moment. She imagined looking down at herself. Here she was, Morag the hermit, padding along on this surprisingly bright moonlit evening, leaving the heavy torch swinging redundant by her side. The occasional scuffles in the undergrowth, and the owls hooting above, were reminders that other creatures were keeping her company tonight.

She gathered the long-sleeved cotton shirt around her. The night was warm but with the gentlest of cooling breezes scudding along the wide river valley. All the nearby houses were in darkness. What hour was it? She’d left her watch behind. Unusually,
uniquely
, since her descent into hell, she’d stayed out on her patio until well after sunset—how proud Dr Lockhart would have been of her—listening to the radio, nicking through an old
National Geographic
magazine but taking little in. That morning’s encounter with Kirstin Rutherford had been playing back and forth in her mind, eventually to the exclusion of all other worries: money, the house, Dr Lockhart, hypnotherapy.

There had been something heartening about Kirstin’s visit. She felt believed. Kirstin had said that during her legal work she’d come across all sorts of injustice, and she had seemed to genuinely sympathize. That was important. Useful, maybe. Somehow it was more significant to be believed by her than by Dr Lockhart. And then there was Jamie. It was important to talk with someone who had really known him. Bonnie and she had talked about him after his death, but only in passing.

Morag shook her head. Bonnie had been a let-down. Just a couple of meetings, a meditation and a few phone calls were all she’d offered. She knew why. Bonnie was simply deeply uncomfortable in her company. She wished she’d asked the question the last time they’d met: ‘Do you think I did it?’

Perhaps that’s why she’d found Kirstin’s visit so emboldening. Here was someone who was not quite saying but implying, ‘I am, or might be, on your side. Let’s see.’ That, in turn, had freed her from the paralysing anxiety that had become her default mode of existence. And here she was taking a nocturnal jaunt to the Cauldron. Foolish? Maybe. Liberating? Certainly.

Morag heard the weir long before it came into view. The familiar sound was welcome, almost making her smile. The freshwater scent drifted towards her as she approached the fringes of the Cauldron. She let the torch beam rove from side to side across the pool’s glassy surface, eventually settling the silver disc of light on a point opposite. Where it had happened was too far in the wooded area to pick out. Should she,
could
she, cross the footbridge? She swung the torch to her left and ran its beam to and fro along the wooden structure. She swivelled to her right, the light flickering off the low wall where the game had begun. She took a few tentative steps towards it. Gently, she lowered herself on to the wall, swinging her legs over to dangle on the weir side in forced playfulness. But she knew her smile was no more than a bitter curl of the lip…

The wretched irony. How she’d loved to stroll along to this very spot on a summer’s evening and let the whoosh of the weir sweep her everyday woes away as she cooled her feet in the waters. And it had worked. Just like magic. Now look what she was reduced to. How long had it been since she’d dared to come back here? There had been regular pilgrimages soon after it happened. Some with the others. Then she had come alone a few times. She’d preferred that. Not having to deal with the others’ reactions to the place. But this was her first visit since prison. Strangely, it was Jamie’s presence she felt here tonight more than anything else. He’d died near this very spot. But on a very different night. The place transformed, the topography practically unrecognizable thanks to the power of fast-running water. Water he must have known would be a danger. And yet he came. She shook her head again, aware that her mouth was still twisted into a mock smile.

Jamie. Silly, stupid Jamie…

Morag felt tired now. How long had she been sitting here? She fought off the urge to lie along the broad flat surface of the wall and sleep until dawn. That could be done more comfortably in her home. Enjoy its comforts while she still could.