Cradle to Grave (22 page)

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.