Cradle to Grave (30 page)

Lisa wasn’t intimidated. Through the small window, she could see that it was dark now and there was a smirr of light rain on the dirty pane; a wind had got up, blowing with a soft, groaning sigh. The Balmoral Guest House was in a quiet backstreet with only the occasional passer-by, whose footsteps echoed on the pavement.

There was an old, dog-eared copy of
Hello!
open on Lisa’s knee, but she hadn’t read a word of it. She couldn’t think of anything except what lay ahead and she was feeling sick.

Why hadn’t she just put her head in the sand, ignored the text message he’d sent her, hoping this would all go away? But she hadn’t, and anyway she knew that wouldn’t have solved anything. It was her only chance to get the answers she wanted.

Perhaps she should have insisted on meeting in a public place, but she wasn’t sure whether the police were watching her, even now. Or watching him.

And now the hands of her watch had crept round to the time agreed. There was no going back. Lisa got up, put the magazine back on the pile on the rickety coffee table, switched off the fire and the lights, and let herself quietly out of the front door.

She looked carefully up and down the silent street. There was no one to be seen, and all the curtains were drawn across the lit windows in the other houses. The wind ruffled her hair, and after the stuffy atmosphere inside, the cool, damp air made a clammy film on her cheeks. She shivered again.

If he’d passed the window, she would have seen him, but of course he could have come from the opposite direction and be waiting for her. She walked towards the side of the guest house, unable to stop herself from checking over her shoulder.

Under the yellow street lights, everything looked cold and unreal, like a stage set, the deserted street heavy with undefined significance. She turned away and, with a deep, deep breath, set off down the dark alleyway that ran between the houses to the miserable garden at the back.

14

Sunday, 23 July

Moira Wishart put the greasy frying pan into the sink and ran in hot water. When she squeezed the detergent bottle, it gave only a despairing groan, so muttering under her breath, she turned off the tap, fetched a key and went out of the back door to the shed where the stores were kept.

Lisa Stewart and the other resident were sitting at their separ-ate tables in the small dining room. They acknowledged their enforced intimacy with a polite, embarrassed greeting and were now eating their fatty bacon and frizzled egg, careful that their eyes should not meet.

When the screams came from the direction of the kitchen, the man was pouring out tea. He missed his cup and the hot liquid ran off the table and on to his knees; he jumped up, pulling the steaming cloth away from his legs. ‘Oh my God, whatever’s that?’

Lisa had jumped up too. She was very pale. ‘Mrs Wishart. Something’s happened.’

She was first through the door to the kitchen, the man hopping after her, still plucking at his trouser leg. Mrs Wishart came staggering in through the back door, wild-eyed and looking over her shoulder as she emitted scream after scream. Lisa went to her and took her by the arms, shaking her to try to stop the noise.

‘What’s wrong? Are you hurt?’

‘She must have seen something,’ the man said, going out into the yard as Moira at last quietened enough to gasp out, ‘Dead – out there – man.’

‘A man dead? Are you sure?’ Lisa asked.

‘Sure? Of course I’m sure!’ Seized with indignation, Moira found her voice. ‘He’s had his head beaten in with a bloody great crowbar! That’s why I’m sure.’

The man came back in, his face grey-green. ‘Don’t go out there,’ he warned. ‘It’s ghastly.’

Lisa ignored him. As the man poured himself a glass of water with a shaking hand, she walked out past him.

Beside the dismantled car, a body was lying. The head was a bloody mess of brain, bone and tissue; beside it lay a rusty-looking iron bar. The man’s eyes were shut, and on the other side of his head the short, spiky hair was caked with dried blood. He was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans, and on his feet was a pair of trainers with orange Velcro fastenings.

‘Here! What’s been going on?’ A man was leaning over the garden wall. ‘We heard screaming.’

Lisa, who had been standing impassively beside the body, looked up. ‘Someone’s been murdered. We’ll need to get the police.’

There wasn’t much progress to report at the morning briefing. There was plenty of housekeeping to be done, of course – routine crime didn’t conveniently stop for a major investigation – but when it came to the follow-up on the killings, Fleming couldn’t with any degree of honesty say that there was a clear line to follow. At the moment it was a waiting game while forensic tests were running, and the reports never came in as quickly as you hoped they would.

Lack of clarity was bad for morale. The teams always worked harder and more effectively when the dog could see the rabbit, which, Fleming reflected gloomily, was at the moment well concealed in the undergrowth.

Still, she talked positively about what they knew already, cautioned against making the sort of assumptions the media were already making about Douglas Jamieson, and tasked the various teams with searches and interviews. She was just bringing the meeting to an end, asking if there were questions and/or suggestions, when the message came through that she was needed elsewhere.

As she went out, Fleming saw glances being exchanged, heard the ripple of talk and the word ‘Breakthrough?’ Years of bitter experience had made her less optimistic: it was always wise to assume that an unexpected development was bad news until proved otherwise. She went off to see her uniform counterpart, Mike Wallace.

It was DS MacNee she called to her office. Fleming might be out of sympathy with him, but there was no doubt that he was her most effective officer, with a knack for picking up on things that weren’t in plain view – guessing what was on the other side of the hill, in Wellington’s phrase.

‘At least we know one thing – Jamieson didn’t kill this one,’ MacNee said morosely, as he came in.

‘Thanks, Tam. I had just managed to work that out.’ She wasn’t in a cheerful mood either. A third murder, no visible progress on the other two and a chief constable with doubts about her competence left her feeling as if she were dangling above an abyss, suspended by a rope whose fibres were being severed one at a time.

‘It’s landed on our plate, at least meantime, and the procurator fiscal’s satisfied that we can cope. Thank God Duncan Mackay made such a good recovery and got back to work – he’s always been a great supporter.’

‘So what’s the position?’

‘A man’s body has been found in the backyard of the guest house where Lisa Stewart is staying.’

MacNee’s ears almost visibly pricked up, and Fleming went on, ‘I know, I know, but it may be completely unrelated.’

‘It’s related,’ MacNee said. ‘I feel it in my bones.’

‘I’m not saying you’re wrong, but Mike Wallace talked to them while the scene of crime was being secured and no one admits to knowing him.’

‘Doesn’t prove anything,’ MacNee said stubbornly. ‘It’s the missing boyfriend. Bets?’

‘I’ve given up betting with you. You’re right too often, and if you’re not right, trying to get you to admit it and pay up is like trying to shove an eel into a jam jar. Let’s get along there and see what’s happening.’

Blue-and-white tape was draped round the entrance to the passage down the side of the Balmoral and a small crowd had gathered, though not, thankfully, the media as yet. The sergeant on duty logged their names and they went along to the garden at the back.

It had been efficiently set up by the crime-scene manager, and Fleming and MacNee stood on the concrete beside the cordon; at a nod from Fleming, an officer in white coveralls went forward to lift a covering off the body.

She looked at the horribly bloodied young face – so pathetically young! – with a faint prickle of recognition, but as she struggled to pin down the memory, MacNee exclaimed, ‘I know who that is! You mind we saw him up at the campsite, and Campbell gave me his description yesterday – he gave false information when they took his statement. He’s Damien Gallagher – or more likely he isn’t.’

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Lisa Stewart said, with surprising calm. ‘You think I killed him. I didn’t. I’ve no idea who he is.’

It was the first time Fleming had spoken to her. She had seen her, of course, on the helicopter bringing them back from Rosscarron, but at the time her attention had been focused on Alick Buchan. What she had heard from MacNee and Kershaw had made her curious, and now she sat slightly behind Lisa on one of the worn chairs in the stale-smelling lounge, while MacNee dealt with the routine stuff.

Lisa’s naturally pale skin was a dirty grey and there were purple shadows under her eyes, but MacNee was finding her composure hard to shake. He went into some very aggressive questioning, but that didn’t seem to disturb her either.

Then he said, ‘I’m asking you again – did you know the man who was found dead in your cottage?’

She glanced at him scornfully. ‘No. I’ve never seen him before in my life. That’s the truth, and however often you ask the question, the answer’s going to be the same.’

He went on, ‘And do you know the man who’s lying dead in the garden right now?’ and Fleming realised what he was doing. It was an old trick – ask a question you believe will get a truthful answer, follow it up with one that may provoke a lie, and observe.

Lisa suddenly met his gaze very directly. Her voice hardened. ‘No. I didn’t.’

The difference was stark. The over-direct stare, the flat tone, the brief reply – they were the tell-tale signs of ineffective lying.

But whatever suggestion MacNee made – and they became blunter and blunter – her responses didn’t vary: she had no idea who the man was; she had never seen him before; last night she had read magazines in the lounge and then gone to bed. That was all. She remained entirely unemotional.

Could that be the chilling indifference of the psychopath? It was possible, certainly, but observing the girl, Fleming was reminded of something she had read about detachment as a symptom of psychological distress – a learned defence against intolerable reality. Lisa’s calm seemed almost trance-like, and the harder MacNee pushed, the more remote she seemed to become.

With faint stirrings of sympathy, Fleming leaned forward. She knew how to use her voice effectively and when she said, ‘Lisa, you’ve had some dreadful experiences lately,’ it was very soft and very warm. ‘You must be feeling shaken.’

Lisa’s head whipped round. She met the inspector’s clear hazel eyes, and for a second her own filled with tears. She blinked them away, and it was as if a veil came down. ‘Naturally,’ was all she said, and she said it coldly, but it told Fleming that her assessment had been right.

Joss Hepburn came downstairs late. Breakfast never featured in his life, but at a certain stage coffee became essential and he headed for the kitchen. As he passed the sitting room, he heard Declan Ryan’s raised voice. ‘I know, I know. But we have to wait.’ Hepburn went quietly on.

In the kitchen, there was no sign of Cris Pilapil, but others had breakfasted and no one had cleared afterwards. There were plates, bowls and mugs on the table, along with a pack of butter still in its wrapper and a jar of jam with a sticky knife laid beside it. There were crumbs everywhere and someone had spilled milk without wiping it up. Hepburn wrinkled his nose; he abhorred messiness of all kinds, whether physical or emotional.

Still, at least the room was empty. While the espresso machine sputtered and gurgled to produce his fix, he gathered up the debris and dumped it by the sink, then wiped the table.

He needed out. Now. Every instinct was screaming flight, but there were other pressures. Till he was sure everything had calmed down, he mustn’t do anything to court attention. And Madge had been showing a thoroughly unhealthy interest in the business; until she could be distracted or diverted, they were all at risk.

It was getting to him, though, making him feel stifled. It was just like old times, before he’d escaped to the wide skies and the sunshine and the promise of the New World. He had felt cramped by the smallness and sameness of everything, the little towns where nothing had changed for a hundred years, and where they liked it that way.

And here he was back, an international star, which didn’t change anything when you were stuck with this – the dismal weather, the isolation, the weirdness of a house that felt like a hotel with no staff, the other inmates.

Oh, yes, the other inmates. He had just poured his coffee into a satisfyingly thin white porcelain cup, found an ashtray and lit up a cigarette when the kitchen door opened and Nico Ryan appeared.

Hepburn sat down, eyeing him with distaste. ‘Hi,’ he said, as discouragingly as he could.

Nico marched over and stood in front of him, a little too close. It was a habit he had; Hepburn pushed his chair a few inches further back.

‘That’s going to kill you, you know.’ Nico pointed at the cigarette. ‘Your lungs are going black already and you’ll start coughing them up in little bloody bits until you can’t breathe any more. I saw a film.’