Evil for Evil (28 page)

Doggedly, she went back to the reports. And then, at last, something caught her eye. Trivial, probably, but it was something that had been missed. How often had a serial killer been free to carry on because of a box that hadn’t been ticked? She was clutching at straws here, perhaps, but it wasn’t as if there were convenient logs floating by.

It was late afternoon by the time the Lovatts returned to Innellan and the sun was dropping low in the sky, hinting at the onset of the long, dark northern winter. Matt dropped Lissa outside the caravan with a key and a carrier bag of basic supplies. She had flatly refused to take any of her clothes.

‘They would stink the place out. I don’t feel up to washing them. Maybe your little friend Christie could do that in her spare time,’ she had said unwisely, then flinched at the anger in her husband’s face.

He had been angry anyway, when he’d demanded to see the credit card slip from the dress shop, and admittedly Lissa had gone a bit over the top. She’d been feeling both angry and defiant – she hadn’t bought clothes for years and that was just what decent jeans and a good coat cost these days. He hadn’t said anything, but he had crumpled the slip in his hand and there was a white line around his lips. He’d been annoyed, too, when she’d refused to go to the Smugglers for meals, and made him stop to let her buy groceries.

Now Matt had dumped her here, and just driven off as if he couldn’t bear to be a moment longer in her company.

The caravan wasn’t one of the big, smart family ones with huge windows. It was old-fashioned, small and shabby, with skimpy curtains drawn across the meagre windows, a bolt-hole for the owner of a picturesque home down on the shore during the profitable holiday rental season. It was huddled sideways into the hill behind to give shelter when the wind blew but tonight, with the shadows lengthening, it looked dark and unwelcoming.

There was a real autumn chill in the air, and even huddled into the expensive coat, Lissa was cold – and tired too, and her throat was still raw from the after-effects of the smoke. She needed warmth, a cup of tea, a rest. Her hands were icy and it took her a moment or two of fumbling to work the awkward lock.

The door opened on a dim, shadowy cavern, with a stale, unaired smell. She stepped inside uncertainly, leaving the door open, and could make out a galley of sorts, and a bed with a thin mattress, covered by a worn candlewick bedspread in an ugly shade of orange. She felt for a light switch, but couldn’t find one. Surely, on a permanent site like this, it must be connected up to electricity, and plumbing, too? But there was a large empty water container on the floor in the galley; her heart sank when she turned the tap above the chipped enamel sink and no water came out, and sank further when she opened a little door at the back and found a cramped chemical toilet. As she looked around despairingly, she noticed a big camping gas light sitting on a table at the back. No plumbing, no electricity – and even the two burners in the galley were Calor gas. She hadn’t thought to get matches.

She sat down on the tatty bedcover and burst into tears. It wasn’t fair! It wasn’t fair! But that brought an echo of what her mother had always said, coldly, when she complained: ‘Whoever told you life was
going to be fair? It certainly wasn’t me. And you should know that by now.’

Lissa knew it, all right, but a sense of grievance had haunted her all her life except for that brief, early time with Matt when she had thought that with all he had been through he would understand, would make everything right for her. Now she felt, as she had sometimes felt in the past, that she was quivering on the brink of total disintegration, with everyone in the world against her.

Kerr had rescued her before, but she didn’t want to think about him now. He had done his best to humiliate her, and she still had her pride. The very next time she saw him she would make it icily plain that she loathed and despised him. That seemed to be what he wanted, so she wasn’t afraid of his silly threat.

So that left only Matt, who was so angry with her that he hadn’t looked directly at her once today. Christie seemed to have turned him into Lissa’s enemy now, and for the first time she wondered if they could have been acting together – Christie’s daring rescue a sham, done with Matt’s cooperation? Surely not – he wouldn’t burn down his own house!

Yet the ugly thoughts kept going round and round inside her head, and it was a refinement of cruelty that she didn’t even have the most basic comforts in this disgusting, sordid place.

Restless in her misery, she got up and went to let in such light as there was, drawing back the curtain on the window opposite the bed. Across the bay she could see the island, starting to grow shadowy in the fading light – the island, where what remained of her fractured heart was buried with her son.

She could go and sit by his grave, talk to him. She didn’t think of him as the small, still thing he had been – in her mind he grew steadily and she saw him as the toddler he would be now, a sturdy little dark-haired boy,
with blue eyes like her own, trotting around laughing. He never cried, of course, and was starting to babble baby talk that would make her laugh. He would never betray her, never grow away from her. Never learn to hate her. He was all she had left. Lissa needed to be there, with him.

She’d have to find Matt, though, to get the key to the boat. He and Christie were probably sitting, snug and warm in the bar, laughing together and grateful that Lissa was out of the way for the moment at least – if not permanently. She wasn’t sure she felt strong enough to face them.

Lissa pressed her face against the glass to cool her cheeks, hot now with tears. Below on the shore the tide was on its way out and she saw that the causeway was almost clear. She could walk across that way and satisfy her yearning without ever going near Matt. It would be passable for hours now and perhaps when she got back she would feel heartened enough to ask someone for matches and find a standpipe to fill the water bottle.

Just for tonight. She could cope with one night, but no more. Tomorrow things would have to be different. In her expensive coat, cream-coloured and impractical, she set off on the track past the chalets and down to the village.

Louise Hepburn’s jaunty step as she came back into the CID room reflected her satisfaction. For the first time since she joined she’d had the chance to conduct a major interview, and she reckoned she’d made some sort of breakthrough. Admittedly, she hadn’t got an admission out of Lovatt and he obviously hadn’t known who the skeleton was, but she had no doubt that the ‘Andrew Smith’ he’d first thought of wasn’t either the butcher in Kirkcudbright or his brother-in-arms. What was more, she’d an idea that she wanted to chase up that just might produce a line to follow.

She was totally taken aback when DS Macdonald, who seemed to be lying in wait for her, launched into a tirade about bullying and harassment that called into question her judgement, her competence, her professionalism, her ethics – indeed, everything, only just stopping short of her personal freshness.

The sergeant had always seemed kind of a laid-back guy who never stood on his dignity. ‘Hey, Sarge,’ Hepburn protested, ‘what’s this about? Give me a break!’

Mistakenly. Macdonald’s fury changed to icy rage. ‘Don’t be impertinent, Constable. I want to know why you reduced a very vulnerable woman to a state of hysteria.’

Feeling the first prickle of nervous sweat, Hepburn’s hand went up to rub the back of her neck. ‘If you mean Christie Jack, all I did was put to her the allegation that Melissa Lovatt had made.’

‘We’d covered that yesterday, which you knew. Georgia Stanley told you. She says that you began by trying to lure Christie into making some sort of admission, then when she didn’t produce what you wanted, you started bullying her.’

Hepburn opened her mouth to protest, but Macdonald swept on, ‘In any case, an official complaint has been made and DI Fleming wants to see you ASAP. And I have to tell you that she’s not very pleased that you sneaked in to interview Lovatt before she did, either.’

There was malice in his smile as he said that. Hepburn left the room, feeling faintly sick. She’d better go straight there and get it over with; Big Marge’s reputation was that she didn’t do a lot of barking, but when she bit she went straight for the jugular.

That image was to haunt her when she heard the news the following day.

The knock on DI Fleming’s door was a very tentative one, and she had no problem guessing who it was. ‘Come!’ she said, and DC Hepburn inserted herself into the room.

Fleming’s sense of the ridiculous had always been a handicap to the expression of righteous wrath. Hepburn was perhaps twenty-four, twenty-five, but she looked exactly like a schoolgirl summoned to the head teacher.

‘You’d better sit down, Hepburn,’ she said. ‘You’re in trouble.’

‘Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am.’

She sat down, but Fleming had made a practice of studying body language, and when Hepburn came in she’d been – yes, more scared than she was now. If she’d been sharp enough to pick up on Fleming’s faint amusement, she could be valuable.

Not that she was letting her off the hook. ‘As someone will probably have told you – DS Macdonald, perhaps? – an official complaint has been made about your handling of the interview with Christie Jack this morning. I’ve been told you were bullying her. This is your window of opportunity to put your side of the story.’

It was interesting to watch her reaction. Two ways to go – deny it, or accept it and apologise. It was even more interesting that she found a middle way.

‘I don’t see it like that. I asked her if she had started the fire because Melissa Lovatt had said that she did. Yes, I tried to put pressure on her to see if she would admit it, after getting her confidence first, but I stopped when she became distressed and I didn’t mislead her at any stage. It was a routine interview.’

‘You should know enough to understand that our job is to collect admissible evidence. Supposing you had broken her down – supposing she had admitted that she had set fire to the house? No corroboration – no case to answer.’

She saw her swallow, saw her run her hand through her untidy mop of hair to massage the back of her neck in a sort of helpless gesture. This was a crucial one: would she bluster, or …

‘I’m sorry. I hadn’t thought of that.’

Another smart response. Fleming hadn’t finished, though, by any means. ‘No, it’s fairly obvious you hadn’t. Which is why we don’t send inexperienced officers out to do major interviews on their own.’

Hepburn took that like a sword thrust. ‘Lovatt,’ she said, her voice flat.

‘Lovatt.’

She swallowed. ‘Look, we’d arranged that would happen. They told me you wouldn’t be in, and I thought you were anxious to have it done anyway …’

‘Did you?’

‘I–I … Oh well, all right. I was just pissed off – sorry, ma’am, disappointed, that it wasn’t going ahead. I’d read all the background stuff, and it seemed to me he was the most interesting assignment going. None of the stuff that has been done had led anywhere, and Lovatt—’ She stopped.

Fleming’s interest quickened. ‘And …?’

Hepburn hesitated. ‘There’s stuff that I want to check on first—’

Her patience snapped. ‘Look, Hepburn, I think you have an interesting approach. I have a strong feeling that you’re keen to impress me. But if you think that the clever way to do it is by assembling your case and then laying your cards on the table and saying ‘Gin’, let me disabuse you. Gin rummy is one thing, a police investigation is quite another. What – did – Lovatt – say?’

Hepburn didn’t seem intimidated. ‘Just didn’t want to waste your time, ma’am. There was nothing that would stand up in court. But there were two things – I don’t think he’s totally confident that
Christie Jack hadn’t set the house on fire – whatever DS Macdonald may think about it.’

‘We’ll let that one pass. The other?’

‘When I said “Andrew Smith” he definitely reacted. I’d be prepared to swear the name meant something to him. He managed to cover it up, playing with the dog – scary animal! I wasn’t sure it was a dog at all, it looked more like a wolf. He really looked shocked when I told him why we were asking – I’d be surprised if that was faked. I think we could definitely get results if we lean on him. If that’s not going to turn out to be bullying.’

It was a cheeky remark, but Fleming chose to ignore it. ‘It sounds as if you may have got somewhere – I’ll give you credit for that. Christie Jack – well, I think given the profound apologies I will make on your behalf, it doesn’t need to go further.

‘I’m prepared to add you to the team on this case and see how you get on. The first rule is, you don’t go out on your own – we work together.’

Hepburn was beaming. ‘Thanks, ma’am. I do understand.’

‘So, Louise – where do we go from here?’

‘You tell me, ma’am.’

The submissive reply made her laugh. ‘Fair enough. I’ll get you all in tomorrow, and you can make your peace with Andy Macdonald.’

She was a bit cocky, Fleming thought as Hepburn took her leave – but that wasn’t altogether a serious fault, if it meant she was full of ideas. She’d her wits about her too, clever enough to make the right noises when challenged. But why did Fleming suspect that there was something she wasn’t being told?

It had to be tonight. Tomorrow’s forecast was for clearing skies and dropping temperatures, and though the new moon would only be a
thumbnail, starlight in a frosty sky could be too bright for deeds of darkness.

The clouds were heavy tonight, though. At eleven o’clock, just as the street lights went out in Innellan, Tam MacNee drove up the track into the position he had taken the previous night. When he switched off the headlights, the darkness seemed to swoop round him, thick as fog; when he put down his window, there was a silence below the sounds of water and light wind that seemed almost physically oppressive. A stag roared, another answered; there was a sudden waft of voices and laughter from a house somewhere, but after the noises died it seemed stiller than ever.

MacNee shifted uneasily. The countryside at night always spooked him. Maybe he’d a hieland granny no one had told him about, but he kept finding himself looking around and over his shoulder, even though he knew that it was only his own imagination that peopled the shadows.