Lamb to the Slaughter (25 page)

Things didn’t improve. Marjory had to leave early for work, but she wanted to tell Cat herself what had happened, even if it meant waking her. Cat had been resentful at being disturbed, but as she heard the news, her eyes widened and filled. When her mother said, ‘I’m so sorry, Cat – this is awful,’ and tried to put her arms round her, Cat had flung herself face down in her pillow. Between sobs, she had thrown muffled accusations: ‘Expect you’re glad – you thought they were rubbish – probably give her a medal – no,
don’t
!’

She had wriggled away from the hand her mother had tried to put on her heaving shoulders and Marjory found Bill at her side, shaking his head. She’d given up and gone ­downstairs, knowing she was only making matters worse. Attempting consolation, he’d suggested that by this evening Cat would be seeing it differently, but in the face of Marjory’s withering ‘Oh yeah?’ agreed that there might be a problem.

Now she had a meeting with Bailey and Menzies scheduled at ten to discuss developments and a press statement to prepare, which it looked likely she would have to deliver. She had a morning briefing to do before that, and a post-mortem to attend afterwards. A difficult conversation with Gloag, The People’s Representative, was about as welcome as gastro-enteritis.

The uniformed constable who had escorted Gloag up to her office said, in a studiously neutral voice, ‘Councillor Gloag has some points he wishes to raise with you, ma’am,’ and ushered him in.

Fleming rose and went over to shake hands. ‘Councillor Gloag. Do take a seat.’

She took her own place behind the desk but before he could say anything she said, ‘As you will appreciate, I have very little time to spare this morning. I have a meeting in ten minutes so perhaps we can deal with this as quickly as possible.’

Gloag’s narrow mouth pursed disapprovingly. ‘I trust you understand, inspector, that I am not here in any
private
capacity. I am here as The People’s Representative and I trust that concerns I may wish to raise on their behalf will not be simply brushed out of the way for the sake of going to a
meeting
.’ He said it as another person might have said ‘taking a long lunch break’.

‘Then we’d better not waste any time, sir,’ she said sweetly. ‘What are these concerns?’

Gloag settled back in his chair with an air of satisfaction. ‘First of all, I want to know exactly what stage this investigation has reached, with this new atrocity.’

‘We are pursuing several active lines of enquiry.’

He waited for her to go on; when she didn’t, he said, ‘That’s hardly what I’d call information, inspector.’

‘I’m afraid it’s all I’m at liberty to give at the moment.’

He seemed almost incredulous. ‘But I have explained to you – the public has a right to know! What steps are you taking? Is Miss Munro being charged with both murders, or is everyone still under some sort of cloud of suspicion? Even I, myself, was all but accused of involvement by one of your subordinates.’

He was curiously insistent in his demands. Why, Fleming wondered, was he so keen to know what the police were up to? She said blandly, ‘I’m sure that was merely a misunderstanding. There are routine questions which our officers are obliged to ask.’

‘Leaving that to one side, for the moment, you haven’t answered my question. Has Miss Munro been charged?’

‘I’m afraid I am not at liberty to discuss that.’ She could go on blocking indefinitely.

Gloag wasn’t pleased. His eyes narrowed. ‘I’m not at all impressed by stonewalling, inspector, as I shall not hesitate to say, both to your superiors and to the press.

‘But there is a much more serious matter I have to raise. I understand from my son Gordon that one of your sergeants suggested to the boys yesterday afternoon that Ms Munro might well attempt to shoot them. If he knew of this, and took no action, it is a very serious matter indeed.’

He wasn’t wrong there. Fleming’s stomach lurched, but she managed not to show her dismay. ‘I’m afraid I can’t say anything until I have looked into it. As far as I know, there was no officer who was detailed to speak to them yesterday – though, of course, there was a record of problems.’

Gloag waved away that point. ‘Irrelevant. I had also, I may say, warned the detectives who interviewed me that Kyle and Burnett were heading for trouble, and were a pernicious influence on others, but I assume they took no action. Most ­fortunately, my son came and told me that he had no wish to get involved with this latest stupid prank and would be staying at home rather than going with them—’

‘You mean,’ Fleming interjected, ‘that you knew another visit to Wester Seton was planned – and did nothing to stop it? Like warning the police, for instance?’

She managed to look shocked, and saw Gloag falter. His piggy eyes, which had been boring into her, slid away and he licked his lips. ‘Well, that’s to say – I had no evidence – and of course they might have changed their minds.’

‘We would have been happy to take precautionary action. Especially since it might have averted tragedy. This is most unfortunate – most,’ Fleming said gravely, and saw Gloag squirm. As she went on, ‘And apart from anything else, I feel that the public would be astonished to learn that in your ­position you were not concerned to stop the persecution of an elderly lady,’ she saw a fine film of sweat appear on his forehead.

‘I – I think I may have given a false impression. By the time Gordon told me about this, it would have been too late.’

‘I see. Well, we shall be talking to him, of course.’ She got to her feet. ‘I’m afraid I must get to my meeting.’

‘Of course, of course.’ Gloag got up. ‘And I trust you understand that my only motive for coming in this morning was concern for the public interest. Nothing personal at all.’

‘We all have our jobs to do, and I’m sure we understand each other.’

‘Of course, of course. Nothing but the fullest support.’

The way he took his leave was almost obsequious. Fleming was fairly certain he wasn’t about to go and make trouble with the press; the great advantage about dealing with politicians was that they understood delicate blackmail. And he’d been surprisingly sensitive once she’d picked up on his own prior knowledge.

She wasn’t under any illusions, though. The business with Tam was a ticking time bomb.

Tam MacNee was in a grim mood as he walked up the forestry track, bending into a brisk wind, the greyhound a slim shadow at his side. He’d had to bring it with him. He tended to prefer cats to dogs – there was something about their independent, to-hell-with-you attitude that spoke to him – but when he’d been going out of the door, the animal had shown such signs of distress that he’d felt he couldn’t leave it: removed from its mistress, it had obviously decided that Tam represented security. He’d made token protests, but there was no doubt it was flattering, and he kind of liked having the beast with him. He’d tried throwing a stick for it, but this was ignored with a pained dignity which made him feel positively embarrassed at being so uncouth.

The early cloud had cleared and now it was a bright, breezy morning with just a slight autumnal edge to the air. Though Tam had never been exactly what you’d call the outdoor type, in these last difficult months when he’d needed to get out of the house he’d sometimes come here, up to Glentrool, to one of the rough tracks between the towering pines, where the only background sound was their branches creaking and muttering in the wind and maybe a wee burn blethering to itself. It had sometimes helped him put things in perspective, but today it wasn’t working. However you looked at it, whatever the boss might have said, he knew that his part in the disaster was likely to come out, sooner or later. And then what? He simply didn’t know.

Christina Munro – how could she have fired directly into the back of a youth who was running away? Fear and pressure, of course, made people do strange things. But gunning Andrew Carmichael down on his doorstep ... Why, just for a start? She wasn’t one of the farmers who could be driven out of business by the superstore deal going through – she’d sold up her stock long ago – and she wasn’t, as far as he knew, close to any who did. So whether Carmichael was ­planning to sell or wasn’t, it couldn’t have mattered to her either way.

Fleming would have the lads out today, digging for a motive: going through Christina’s papers, asking for telephone records, comparing with what they had already from Fauldburn House. If it were him, he’d go straight to Annie Brown. Would someone think of that, he wondered. Maybe he’d go anyway. He’d be wise to keep his head down, but there was nothing to stop him going for another chat with his old neighbour. He’d go off his head if there was nothing to do but wait.

If Christina hadn’t killed the Colonel, it had to mean there was a second person out there who was also prepared to shoot to kill. He could have understood it better if the Colonel’s death had happened after she’d shot Kyle: someone with a grudge might have taken the opportunity to get rid of the man in the hope that the two deaths would be bracketed together.

Tam had never taken much interest in guns. He was as fond of a roast pheasant as the next man, but he’d always been uncomfortable with the notion of getting pleasure out of killing a living creature. Not that he’d been exactly inundated with invitations to join the local shoots – for some strange reason!

Until now, apart from the occasional suicide, gun crime hadn’t featured on their patch, and ballistics wasn’t something he’d had to swot up. He did know, though, that being able to identify a particular shotgun was highly unlikely. Calling in all the shotguns on the register wouldn’t get them anywhere, which was probably lucky, considering how many there must be in this rural area.

If any were missing, of course, that would be interesting. Tam had seen for himself that security standards at the Ravenshill clay-pigeon shoot were lax: a check-up there might be useful. He couldn’t go back, though. Dan Simpson had been in the motorbike showroom when Tam had been daft enough to stick his nose in.

Anyway, if someone else had killed the Colonel, they couldn’t know Christina was going to shoot Kyle. So you were left with Christina having killed both of them, or a very odd coincidence. The gloom, which had lifted as he speculated, descended again.

There was something else, though, something niggling at the back of his mind that he couldn’t quite place. He tried not to blame his injury; plenty of times in the past, when there had been nothing wrong with his head, he’d struggled to track down a passing thought. Even so—

A rabbit suddenly shot across the path. Tam had almost forgotten about the greyhound, walking daintily at his side; suddenly, there was a flash of movement and covering the ground in huge, graceful leaps like a startled deer, the dog was off in pursuit.

Just as Tam was wondering what he would do with a freshly slain rabbit, the dog returned to his side, mercifully with nothing in its jaws. It was presumably used to its electric quarry disappearing, but Tam thought he sensed a faint embarrassment.

‘Never mind, son,’ he said, stroking the narrow, intelligent head. ‘We all make mistakes.’

‘Ossian!’ she called. ‘Is that you?’

There was no reply, only the sound of footsteps running up the stairs, and then, somewhere above, a door slamming.

Deirdre Forbes-Graham got up from her easel in the room she called her studio at the back of the first floor of the house. It was more, perhaps, a boudoir than a workroom, furnished with pretty, scaled-down, feminine furniture – an Edwardian
bonheur de jour
, a neat button-backed chair – and the elaborately carved easel holding the watercolour she was working on at the moment had been designed for a Victorian lady who shared Deirdre’s hobby. The half-finished painting, in common with others framed on the walls or propped up ready for framing, showed misty hills and ­obligingly romantic trees; the scenic postcard she was copying lay on the nearby table, along with the elegant box of expensive paints.

Deirdre went to the door and out into the hall. ‘Ossian!’ she called again up the stairs, but there was no answer. She heard, to her alarm, a muffled crash.

She was worried about her son – very worried. An artistic temperament was all very well – indeed, she’d encouraged it, revelled in her son’s mercurial talent and later in his success. The launch of his London exhibition, a sell-out, had been the proudest moment of her life.

But the way he had been behaving recently was alarming. He certainly wasn’t painting and, as far as she could tell, he’d hardly eaten these last few days. She’d barely seen him; he spent all his time either at the Fauldburn studio or in his bedroom, which had always been forbidden territory to the rest of the household without due notice and permission.

It was that woman, Deirdre knew it was – a predatory harpy, driving her poor boy insane, and almost old enough to be his mother. Oh, how she wished she had never introduced them! She’d been taking in some of her pictures, which Ellie sold in the shop along with her own insipid flower sketches, and on that ill-fated day, Ossian had been with her.

She’d never forget his reaction. He’d stared at her with his mouth half-open, like some idiot child. Deirdre had been positively embarrassed! The next thing she knew, Ossian had been going to hear her sing at a pub, and then he announced he was going to rent the vacant unit in the Craft Centre, to have a permanent showcase for his paintings while he worked. Though it hadn’t exactly been productive, had it?