2007 - The Dead Pool (7 page)

Kirstin let the pages drop on to the desk and slid them back towards Glen. Two things had hit her. First, the language. The heat of his anger seeping out of those fury-laden words. Language he’d never used in her company. Language he’d been known to vehemently disapprove of. And second, the dates. He’d wanted to go to the river party on that day. But couldn’t. Thank God.

‘Kirstin? You okay?’

She realized that she’d been staring, eyes unfocused, at the pages now lying beneath Glen’s hands.

‘I…I’m sorry. I just don’t remember him being like this,
ever
. And the language. He’s got utter contempt for these people. Perhaps with good reason but…it just doesn’t seem like him. These read like…well, they’re almost ravings at one or two points. I just don’t recognize him here. Do you know what I mean?’

She knew her look was pleading.
Please agree with me, but help me too. I need to understand
.

Glen offered her another sympathetic smile. ‘Yes, of course I do. The Jamie I first met and knew was, I think, the one you so fondly remember. What’s here is not what I thought Jamie was doing at the time he was working for me. I knew he had issues with lona Sutherland and the others. But I didn’t realize how far it had gone. I didn’t realize it had become so personal.’

Kirstin flicked her hand towards the pages. ‘I don’t understand. Didn’t you see these? Weren’t they written for you?’

Glen shook his head and moved a palm over the typed sheets as if trying to hide them from her eyes. ‘Not exactly. You see, it seems he had two sets of logs. The official one, and a set he called ‘alternative’ logs. Two sets of notebooks, two sets of transcriptions. A double life. It seems he began the practice sometime in the early summer when he’d become increasingly incensed at the group’s abuse of the river. I suppose it was a way to vent feelings he couldn’t share with anyone else.’

She frowned. ‘So, how come you have these now? Are you the only one who’s seen them?’

He sat back, glanced out of the window. ‘Yes, I am.’ He sighed. ‘Jamie handed them over to me, along with his laptop and the disks. I suppose he could just have disposed of them. That wasn’t in his nature, though. I don’t have to tell you that Jamie was an honest man. He was in a dilemma and he chose to put his trust in me. He asked for my help.’

‘Help?’

‘As you can see, Jamie knew about the party that was planned that day. Intended to go down there and catch them. Luckily,
very
luckily for him, his hip let him down. But he was worried. After the killings he came to me in a panic. What if the others in the group told the police about their feud with him? What if they started looking at his logs? I calmed him down. I doubted very much that the police were going to look at a seventy-year-old overzealous volunteer. Apparendy Ross had reassured him in much the same way. Jamie was feeling guilty about being horrible to horrible people. And now some of those people were dead. Also, I promised that should the police ask me about any of it, I would support him unreservedly. I wouldn’t divulge the existence of these. He was, after all, in the right, even if he’d gone
way
over the top about things.’

Kirstin leant over the desk, trying to get Glen to look at her. He seemed transfixed by the view of the hills and river.

‘So, did you have to lie to the police?’

At last, he tore his eyes from the view and looked direcdy at her. ‘An officer came to see me about the lona Sutherland letter. It wasn’t anything heavy. They were looking at everything then. The group hadn’t raised hell about Jamie. I imagine he wasn’t on their radar. They were all too traumatized by the killings, I suppose. I told the officer the truth. That lona Sutherland and her friends had been a pain in the neck and that I, on behalf of the association, was drinking of taking some legal action against them. I praised Jamie’s work, showed the officer a sample of his logs. The official ones. And that was that. I wasn’t asked anything more. I didn’t have to lie.’ He paused to finger the file again. ‘But had tiiey dug any deeper, I would have. You see, there are more notes. Notes that Jamie didn’t transcribe. I think the reason for that is clear.’

Kirstin felt a stab of anxiety. She watched as Glen flicked back through the file. He passed a sheaf of Polaroids across the desk to her, then flicked back through the small notebook. Stopping at the page he wanted, he handed it over. ‘Brace yourself.’

I am almost ready. The backpack is supplied: logbooks (2 including the ‘alternative’ one), flask (with a wee dram in it!), mini-binoculars (in case the dipper makes an appearance), pen and torchon string, sketching pencil (in case of creative urge), sandwich box, baseball cap. AND my new digital camera. How kind of Ross. Such a practical gift for an old man
.

The old·fashioned way of catching them out is gone. The Polaroids had their limitations but showed enough: the disgusting lona Sutherland and her consort, Craig Irvine. Faithless swine! Indulging in a repulsive embrace and worse! By the wall at the weir of all places. Sacrilege! Mouths and bodies locked together. Poor innocent, naive Morag. Surely it’s time for someone to care. Should I show her these? She is far too good for Irvine. He and his bit of skirt—disgusting, filthy, repulsive pair
—
are making a fool of her
.

But no matter. There are far better pictures to be taken tomorrow of the whole shower. They’ll be sitting ducks, insensible from their bacchanalian indulgences. Unequivocal evidence of them sullying my river
.

I WILL CATCH THE DESPICABLE WRETCHES THIS TIME. THEIR GAME IS UP
.

K
irstin knew Glen was waiting for some reaction. She stood, scooping up the notebook as she rose, and walked to the far corner of the office. It was her turn to look out at the distant view of the hills, and to listen to the rhythmic burbling of the river a few yards below.

Eventually, she wiped at a tear and looked away from the beauty of the vista outside, turning the notebook over in her hands. Part of her wanted to hurl the thing into the Water of Leith.
Let the river takeit away to where it belongs!
Another part of her wanted to hold it for hours, know every word within it, and see if somehow she could intuit what had transformed a dear old man into a ranting, obsessive, peeping Tom. What had made him curdle like this? Or was this a part of Jamie that had always been there but he’d never let her see it before? The thought chilled her.

She’d been unaware of Glen standing up and walking towards her. Gently he eased her fingers from the notebook.

‘Come on. Please, sit down.’

His strong hands settled her back in the chair and he moved round the desk. Slowly, he gathered the sheaf of photographs, his hand covering the near-naked bodies of lona Sutherland and Craig Irvine caught in writhing passion by the weir. Jamie had dated the snaps on the back and this encounter was long before their final, fatal coupling. It seemed these two had been enjoying each other’s company for quite some time.

Glen began putting the file back together. ‘I’m wondering if I should have shown you all this. I suppose I had a selfish motive, in that I’ve not been able to share it with anyone. It’s been burning a hole through me. Especially after Jamie died. So, in an odd way, your appearance here has been something of a godsend. I can share the…guilt, I suppose, the overriding feeling that maybe I should have seen more, done more. I don’t know. And yet, the real guilt is in eventually having to deceive.’

‘De—‘ She could barely find her voice. ‘Deceive?’

He’d finished with the file and slid it to one side. ‘Because after Jamie died, I
did
have to lie to the police. And I don’t know if I’ve done the right thing. By Jamie, by his son. And now, by you.’

She sat up, straining to compose herself. ‘Go on.’

This time, his direct look had gone, his gaze straying past her. Seeing something else? In the past?

‘After Jamie died, they came to see me. Asked if I could think of any reason why he might have been distressed. The suicide theory was obviously the one they favoured.’

‘And?’

‘And I told them everything was fine, that Jamie had been absolutely normal. They mentioned the Cauldron killings. Did they upset him? I said that they upset everybody. They obviously didn’t appreciate how obsessed he was with Morag’s case. But in a way that didn’t matter. What I couldn’t have them knowing about was the logs, the photos, the hatred of lona Sutherland. It would just have made everything…messy. And hurt people. Ross, the dead people’s families…it would have been complicated.’

She felt unaccountably cold. ‘Complicated.’ The word Ross had used.

Glen glanced back at her, waving a hand over the file. ‘I should have got rid of all this ages ago. I don’t know why I kept it. But at least it may have helped you. Painful as it might be, you can see a bit of what was going on. Jamie changed all right. I’m just not really sure why. I
think
he eventually found life too hard once his career and his wife were gone. Circumstances overwhelmed him. The river work might have helped but the clash of personalities with lona’s group, then the killings, then the accusations against the only one of them he liked.’

‘Why was he so eager to help Morag? What made him so convinced of her innocence?’

He frowned, as if pondering the question for the first time. ‘Actually, I don’t know. He just judged people, didn’t he? Took a position on them—for good or ill—and stuck by it. You must know that?’

She nodded, a smile involuntarily returning for a fleeting moment. ‘Yes, he was quite a one for first impressions. And he was usually right.’

Glen was trying a faint smile back. ‘He was loyal, I’ll say that about him. But…everything I’ve just outlined…I think it was all too much. I believe it led to a downward spiral. A chain reaction.’

She didn’t want to vocalize the thought, but it was there in the air. ‘You think he took his own life? I’m sorry, I find that so hard to believe. And it’s not what Donald thinks either…though he hasn’t seen what you’ve shown me, thank God. But it just doesn’t fit with the Jamie I knew. Not suicide.’

Glen’s sad half smile was fading. ‘I don’t know if it was
intentional
as such. But he
would
have known the danger of going down to the Cauldron in those conditions. There had to be some self-destructive impulse involved. I’ve thought about that every day these past five months.’

Without warning, he sat up straight and banged a palm on the desk, making her jump. ‘It’s left me sad but, from time to time, so angry. Whatever happened to Jamie, some of those bastards that made his life a misery are responsible. At least in part. To that extent, you could say that the river work killed him. If he hadn’t met that lot…but maybe that’s too simplistic. I can’t afford to think that way. I couldn’t live with myself.’

He slumped back again, the momentary spurt of fiery energy gone. ‘And, as for those sods, it’s pointless trying to get back at them. Two of them are dead. And I suppose the rest of them don’t really matter. Initially, after his death, I had fantasies of telling all, and then shaming those that are still living. I’m thinking of Alistair Sutherland and Eraser Coulter in particular. They led Jamie a merry dance. But,’ he splayed his hands over the file, ‘but
this
makes it all too…well, as I say, complicated. By shaming them, you forever taint his memory.’

The impulse grabbed her without warning. She needed to get away, breathe some outside air.

‘I…I’m sorry. I must go. I want to think about all this. It’s…not what I expected to hear today.’

‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told y—’

She raised a hand. ‘No, no, don’t apologize. I’d far rather know what was going on, whatever it was. It’s just…I need to go now.’

He was at the door before her, opening it and gently placing something in her hand. ‘Here. My card. My home number, mobile, everything’s on the back.’

He walked past the deserted reception area and back into his office. At least she’d allowed him to escort her to the car park. He sat back down at his desk, hands clasped, as if in prayer. It had been a lot for her to take in. But he had done the right thing. He’d thought long and hard about it after Donald’s call.

His hands dropped on to the desk and, slowly, he retrieved the notebook. There had been nothing to worry about. Kirstin Rutherford wouldn’t have stumbled on it during a cursory look. But he knew exacdy where the entry was.

Man 14⁄8⁄06

All hell has broken loose. I am utterly at a loss. I feel sick all the time. I can concentrate on nothing. Every minute of the day I try to blot out the memories. But they are seared into my brain. That is my punishment and I cannot escape it. Ross is worried about me, keeps coming round, phoning. Has offered to come and stay or has offered me the option to stay at his house for a while. I don’t want that. I want to be alone. Away from everyone
.

Tues 15⁄8⁄06

The police are still swarming over everywhere, interviewing everyone again andagain
.

Wed 16⁄8⁄06

Bad news. Two officers turned up this afternoon. I am to be interviewed tomorrow
.

Thanks be. Glen has agreed to withhold the logs-or, rather, the ‘difficult’ logs. ‘It’s best all round.’ He’s right. We need to stick together. Anyway, he has little choice. Not only would the logs reflect badly on the association (and Glen) if they came to light, but there is a deeper worry. So I, inturn, will help him
.

Gently, Glen turned the page, running a finger down the little notebook’s spine.

I will not tell anyone that Glen was there on Sunday
.

Bonnie Campbell ambled along the ground floor of the Scottish National Gallery of Modem Art, easing her way through the throng, and turned right, back out of the main door. She wasn’t really enthused by any of it today. Not by art, not by the prospect of a picnic, not by anything. The idea of spending long hours with that lot had depressed her from the moment of waking. She thought of pleading illness
—
calling Fraser, who was the most likely to be sympathetic without flushing out her lie
.