No Stranger to Death: A Scottish mystery where cosy crime meets tartan noir: Borders Mysteries Book 1 (37 page)
Authors: Janet O'Kane
There was a lot more she needed to know, but her other questions would have to wait until Hazel was less emotional.
‘What the hell’s going on?’
Hazel sprang away from Zoe as though her husband had caught them in a lovers’ embrace.
Ray loomed over them, blocking Zoe’s view of the window. He stared down at his wife and demanded, ‘What have you been telling her?’
Receiving no reply, he turned to Zoe. The fierce look on his normally placid face made her wish she had listened to Kate and stayed away.
‘You doctors are supposed to make people feel better, not worse.’ Ray advanced on Zoe and the room seemed to grow darker.
Zoe’s stomach contracted. This angry man bore little resemblance to the amicable landlord she knew. Forcing her voice to stay steady, she said, ‘Hello, Ray. Why don’t you sit down and we can talk?’
‘It’s my bloody home.’ He leaned over, trapping her on the sofa, and brought his face to within a few inches of hers. She smelt salted peanuts on his breath. ‘Don’t tell me what to do.’
‘Please, Ray, sit down.’ Hazel had stopped crying, and her voice was subdued but steady. ‘She’s trying to help.’
Her husband looked like he was going to argue, then stepped back and eased himself down on to the sofa opposite them, the leather creaking under his weight. He continued to glare at Zoe, his face very red.
‘She doesn’t care one iota about us, love,’ he said. ‘I asked her to help before, but all she did was encourage you to see that con man again and ask to be put in touch with her dead husband.’
‘That’s not what happened,’ Zoe said. ‘I think he’s a phoney too, and I made sure he knew it.’ She turned to Hazel. ‘I’m sorry. I know you’re comforted by what Colonel Stevens claims to be able to do, but he isn’t genuine.’
Hazel put her hands over her ears. ‘I’m not listening. You both say you want what’s best for me, but you don’t.’
Ray’s bluster had evaporated, and his face now wore an expression of helplessness. Zoe relaxed a little.
Time to get this conversation back on track
.
‘I know how Duncan died,’ she said. ‘And that Chrissie found out.’
The only response to this was a short mew of anguish from Hazel.
‘I’m guessing her friend Fiona, the red-head who came to the funeral, was employed by Duncan’s GP.’
‘Chrissie never let on how she knew,’ Ray said. ‘But when Hazel overheard that bloody woman talking to you after the funeral she worked it out.’
Hazel jumped in, ‘There she was, in our pub, drinking our sherry, and all the time it was her fault.’
‘She was lucky it wasn’t me who made the connection. I’m not sure I’d have stopped at throwing beer over her.’ Ray’s clenched fists reminded Zoe of a boxer’s gloved hands.
‘I don’t understand why you feel the need to keep something like that a secret,’ she said. ‘HIV and AIDS no longer carry the stigma they used to. People would have been sympathetic.’
‘Oh, aye?’ Ray said. ‘Maybe they’re used to it in big cities like the one you come from, but how many patients are you treating for it here? Anyway, AIDS didn’t kill him, it was that cancer. I didn’t want people knowing he’d caught something disgusting like that.’
Accepting now was not the time to challenge Ray’s ignorance, Zoe said, ‘You have to go to the police and tell them Chrissie was blackmailing you.’
‘We didn’t kill her!’ Hazel cried.
‘Shush, love.’ Ray turned back to Zoe. ‘We don’t have to take orders from you. You’re only a doctor.’
‘If I’ve worked it out, how long do you think it’ll be before the police do too?’
‘I wanted to tell them all along,’ Hazel said. ‘Chrissie was the one breaking the law, not us.’
‘And have them decide we killed her because of it?’ Ray said. ‘That’s what the doctor thinks, isn’t it?’
He stood up. ‘Come with me.’
‘Where to?’ Zoe asked.
‘Down in the bar. I want to show you something.’
Hazel led the way downstairs, with Zoe then Ray behind her. They walked past the back door and along the narrow corridor which connected the bar and dining room with the pub’s kitchen. Zoe slowed down as they passed the kitchen, felt a hand at the small of her back urging her on, and responded by coming to an abrupt halt. Hazel continued on into the bar, unaware she was now alone.
Zoe found the prospect of entering The Rocket’s empty bar intolerable, the sickly smell of stale beer which emanated from it adding to her apprehension. She hastily weighed up her options.
The building’s front entrance was usually bolted until opening time; once in the bar there would be no easy way out. However, she was pretty certain Hazel had not locked the back door after letting her in. All she had to do was switch positions with Ray and make a dash for it.
Thanks to Gregor’s boasting, she was better informed regarding Chrissie’s private life than anyone else in Westerlea. Because of this, she had seen no point in challenging Ray to reveal who had started the rumour about the dead woman having a lover. Now, though, raising the subject might buy her some time.
She turned to look at Ray, whose face was redder than she had ever seen it. ‘The night after Chrissie’s body was found, you said someone told you she was having an affair. Was that true?’
Ray looked taken aback at first, then he shrugged. ‘She always went about all tarted up. Don’t tell me she did that for poor old Jimmy’s benefit.’
‘So you were lying?’
‘Who cares? Anyway, I haven’t got all day. Come on.’
Zoe stayed where she was, but could not help glancing towards the back door. She cursed inwardly when Ray noticed.
‘Planning your getaway? You really do think we could have killed her.’ He let out a rumble of humourless laughter, then called to Hazel, ‘Bring me the cash tray out of the till, will you love?’
Unseen, the cash register beeped, its drawer clattered open, and coins rattled against each other. Shortly afterwards, Hazel walked back into the hall, bearing the black plastic tray of money in front of her like a joint of beef newly out of the oven. Ray squeezed past Zoe and took it from her.
Now Zoe had a clear passage to the back door. She willed herself not to look in its direction until she was ready to make her move.
‘See here,’ Ray said, lifting up each spring-clip in turn to demonstrate how few notes were in the tray. ‘Not much is it? And last night was a good night. We’re not wealthy people.’
‘I don’t understand the point you’re trying to make.’ Zoe said.
‘My point is that while Chrissie Baird may have been blackmailing us, she was clever, only demanding a few hundred, never more than we could scrape together in cash. That’s not enough to murder someone over.’
Was he really so naive? The news regularly reported people being killed for less
.
‘Did you give her money on the day she went missing?’
‘Yes.’
‘How much?’
Hazel spoke for the first time since they came downstairs. ‘Three hundred and fifty pounds.’
The exact cost of the spa break Chrissie had booked
. The Andersons could be telling the truth. Or Ray might have tracked down Chrissie later in the day and killed her, but had not been able to find the money to retrieve it.
Ray nodded. ‘We wouldn’t have paid if we’d planned to kill her, would we? She left here just before we opened for Sunday lunch, alive and very pleased with herself.’
‘In which case why don’t you tell all this to DCI Mather?’
‘Because if we don’t, you will,’ Ray said. ‘That’s what you’re threatening, isn’t it?’
Hazel slumped against the wall with a groan. ‘It’ll all come out then. Perhaps that’s for the best.’
‘No it isn’t.’ Her husband took a step towards Zoe.
The back door was only a few metres away, but Zoe estimated her chances of reaching it before Ray caught up with her to be very slim. Unless she distracted him in some way.
She reached out and pushed upwards on the base of the cash tray which Ray still held. Her hands met less resistance than she expected. A jumble of coins sprayed down the publican’s front and clattered onto the wooden floor.
Zoe turned and ran. She heard the cash tray drop then the slithering of feet trying to find purchase on the uneven layer of money.
She reached the door.
It was locked.
‘Let her go, Ray.’ Hazel said.
Wasting no time looking round to see if Ray was heeding his wife’s plea, Zoe turned the key in the lock. Then she yanked open the door, darted outside and sprinted to her parked car, nearly colliding with the postman.
As she drove off, she saw Ray staring at her from the pavement outside The Rocket.
Keeper’s Cottage had never felt more like home than when Zoe drew up outside it a few minutes later. Her heart still pounded, but she was already asking herself if her response to Ray had been too extreme. He had not come near to hurting, or even threatening, her. Even so, she remained in the car, watching through the leafless hedge for the Andersons’ blue Volvo, until she felt safe enough to make for the house.
Poised, key in hand, to let herself in, she spotted what looked like small patches of ice glistening under the sitting-room window. Moving closer, she saw the ice was actually shards of glass. She rushed indoors, yelling for Mac, and relief flooded through her as he trotted into the hall, a little subdued but uninjured.
Most of the windowpane had been driven into the sitting-room and scattered across the carpet. A whinstone, small enough for Zoe to pick up with one hand, rested against the leg of Mac’s chair. It looked like it came from the pile lying in her rear garden, the remains of an old wall. Anyone walking to the back of the cottage to collect this would have seen the open garage doors and known she was out. Which meant the culprit had not intended to cause her physical harm. Smashing her window was merely a childish way of expressing a grievance.
Childish
.
Neil had used that exact word to describe his brother. Did Peter really resent her so much that he’d do this? And if so, was it his first act against her – or the latest? While tampering with a car’s brakes could not be dismissed as childish, it shared the same cowardice, the same avoidance of actual confrontation, as tossing a stone through the window of an empty house.
She pulled up her sleeve to look at the faint bruise, testimony to the force with which he had seized her arm earlier in the week. She heard his voice again:
I’m telling you for your own good
.
Those words now sounded less like a warning and more like a threat.
She should go to the police.
And tell them what, exactly?
First she had thought Ray Anderson was out to get her, and now Peter Pengelly. For all his patience and courtesy, Mather would write her off as paranoid.
Zoe dropped into the nearest chair, her head spinning. All she really wanted to do was lock her front door, pull the curtains across the broken window and sit quietly with Mac until everything sorted itself out. But even as she considered this strategy, she knew it stank. She had never been passive, to the extent that Russell had often accused her of being bloody-minded. Her best course of action was unclear, but doing nothing was not an option.
After sweeping up the worst of the glass, she shut the dog in the kitchen and went out to the hire car. She had not travelled far when she saw a car coming towards her, flashing its lights. A blue Volvo. She stared straight ahead and put her foot down.
Zoe felt absurd, skulking about in her own property with the lights off, spying on her lover and his brother. Yet despite these misgivings, she continued to peer out of the tower room’s hexagonal window. Neil’s Land Rover and Peter’s hatchback were parked in front of Larimer Hall, as well as a large green van she had never seen before.
She should go over now and tackle Peter while Neil was there to protect her. Protect her? Was that really necessary?
She glanced at her phone – no missed calls, no new texts – and looked up in time to see Peter’s car reverse out of its space and pick up speed as it tore along the drive. He was paying no heed to peacocks this afternoon.
After giving Peter five minutes to get well away, Zoe locked up and walked the short distance to Larimer Hall. Confident that Neil would be in his workshop and hear the bell, she let herself in. When she tired of waiting for him to appear, she made her way downstairs.
Bert and Tom lay curled up in their basket in front of the Aga, but the workshop and showroom were deserted and Zoe got no response to her calls. Returning to the ground floor, she heard a sound coming from above, so she climbed the next flight of stairs. Like the hall, the first-floor landing was outsized and several doors led off it. All were closed except one, and the sound – louder but still unidentifiable – was coming from that direction.
Walking around someone else’s house uninvited felt wrong, even if that person had declared their intention to marry her. Zoe hesitated before going through the open doorway into a small anteroom which must have served as a gentleman’s dressing room when the house was built. Its use had not much changed, judging by the presence of a wardrobe, a shoe rack and a full-length mirror.
Zoe glanced into the mirror. What she saw reflected there made her spin round and stare at the opposite wall in disbelief.
A row of whips, canes and riding crops hung at eye level. Beneath these, a narrow shelf supported coiled lengths of chain and leather, and handcuffs: narrow ones made of metal and wider, leather ones with buckles. There were other items too; Zoe could only guess at their uses.
She stretched out a hand, pulling a thick, leather strap towards her.
Wasn’t this one of the old reins from the tower room?
The strange noise she had followed upstairs sounded again. It put her in mind of a trapped animal crying to be released, and came from behind the door on her left.