Lamb to the Slaughter (34 page)

At last he raised his head. ‘You’re going to start
probing
, aren’t you? That’s what people like you do – poke me like boys poke an animal that’s all curled up, to make it do something?’

‘Is that how you feel?’

‘Yes. No. How do I know? I don’t
feel
anything. Not now.’

‘You used to?’

A light flickered briefly in his eyes. ‘Oh yes. Then, I felt – everything! I could do anything. I could move mountains, make things happen, have whatever I wanted. I had power. I could paint the greatest pictures in the world. I could even make her fall in love with me. But what am I now? “
Eyeless in Gaza at the mill with slaves
”.’

A little startled, Rutherford recognised the reference. It was Milton describing Samson, bound and powerless, shorn of his famous strength, who used the last of it to pull down everything around him into utter destruction. It was an alarming image.

‘You feel trapped?’

‘Betrayed. In chains. Blinded. I can’t see what to paint. If I can’t paint, if I can’t have her, there is nothing.’

‘Her?’

It was the last question that needed to be put to him. He talked, in a monotone, until his mouth was so dry that the doctor fetched water for him. Much of what he said was rambling, some of it seriously worrying. It was almost an hour before he stopped talking.

Rutherford said carefully, ‘Ossian, I think it’s hard for you at the moment to understand what’s happening in your brain. There is help available that will make all the difference. I can refer you—’

For the first time he showed animation. ‘No!’ he said fiercely. ‘I know what you’re talking about – they’ll drug me, and then I’ll be like everyone else, all you poor, boring,
sad
people. I’m an artist. I need – whatever it is.’ He subsided into ­listlessness. ‘If I find it again ... If not—’ His shrug was a movement of utter despair.

With a spring in his step, Tam MacNee walked into the Galloway Constabulary Headquarters, announced to the desk sergeant, ‘I’m back!’ then set off up the stairs, two at a time. With only the most perfunctory of knocks, he bounced into DI Fleming’s office. He’d been looking forward to seeing her reaction – exclamations of delight, relief, even...

She was sitting hunched over her desk with one of those scribbles she did with names and arrows connecting them in front of her – mind-maps, she called them, though MacNee had never seen the point of them himself. Just as he came in, she swore, crumpled it up and shied it in the direction of the waste-paper basket. She missed. He couldn’t remember when he’d seen her looking so stressed.

When she saw him, a brief flicker of pleasure came to her eyes. ‘Tam – has he signed you off at last?’ she said, then, when he nodded, went on, ‘Thank heaven for small mercies. Take a seat.’

It wasn’t quite the welcome MacNee had been expecting. Things were obviously bad. ‘A sniper, is it? That’s what they’re saying in the town.’

‘Tell me about it! In the town, in the papers, on the telly – I swear they have the whole place staked out with photographers hoping to be in place to snap the next random victim as he crumples to the ground.

‘Of course it isn’t a sniper! But I’ve spent the morning trying to make some sense of it and the more I think, the worse it gets. Carmichael’s death – that could be anyone, if you think about it. We don’t even know whether the man was going to agree to sell or not.

‘If he was, all the High Street shops would be affected – not just the ones on the site itself. There are farmers and suppliers of all kinds who have contracts with local firms that might go to the wall, and if there’s no alternative but to sell to the superstores they know they’ll be screwed into the ground on price.

‘And that sheep – a farmer has all the means to do it, gun and transport readily available. When everything still seems to be going ahead despite that, he kills Carmichael—’

‘Then Barney Kyle? What would he do that for?’

‘I know, Tam, I know! Maybe he knew something that compromised the killer, but we’ve no indication that he did. And supposing that’s right, it leaves us with a crippling list of suspects.’

‘If it was one of the locals, why the hell would they want to kill the Colonel? The main theory going round was that he was holding out against it. You’d have to be daft to kill him if you wanted to scupper it. Everyone knew what would happen if the Farquharsons inherited, them being the kind that would skin a mouse for its hide.’

The look of relief he had hoped to see appeared. Fleming even laughed and relaxed back in her chair.

‘You’re right, Tam, of course. I’ve been needing to be pulled up short. Everyone else just agrees with me and I’ve been chasing my tail round and round this morning till I was ready to disappear up my own backside.’

She picked up her phone. ‘I’m going to tell them to hold all calls. I’ll pay for it later, so you’d better make this worth it. Switch on the kettle over there.’

With mugs of strong black coffee before them, Fleming kicked off. ‘Ideas? You start. I’m tired of mine.’

‘Could be a sniper. Practised on the sheep, then took what came his way.’

‘Let’s pretend you didn’t say that. If, God forbid, this is haphazard, there’s nothing to talk about. All we could do would be to hope we caught him in the act as he lined up his next victim. Or a photographer does.’

‘It’s not nice to be bitter. Gives you acid indigestion.’

‘And let’s drop the dead sheep.’

MacNee grinned, but Fleming hadn’t been joking. ‘How much do you know at the moment, Tam?’

With studied vagueness, he said, ‘Oh, quite a bit, one way and another. I hear this and that – you know what this place is like.’

‘Oh yeah? Andy Mac, I suppose. Don’t worry – I’m not planning to follow it up. I hate to think what hold you’ve got on him.’

MacNee gave his gap-tooth grin. ‘Good lad,’ he said fondly.

‘Indeed. So can I take it that if he knows, you know?’

‘More or less.’

‘Right. Whether or not Barney was killed because he knew too much, let’s look at him first, instead of second. Pete Spencer’s in the clear – rock-solid alibi from Sandy Langlands, of all people. The team’s checking out the whereabouts of the others that were in the frame for Carmichael. At least we have the timing for Kyle’s killing so precisely that we ought to be able to rule people out on alibi. And that’s where I think we should focus – we’re up against the clock now, with the whole town getting panicky.’

MacNee shifted in his seat. ‘Andy and me – we were on the spot within minutes. The gunman must still have been around.’

‘Yes.’ Fleming pulled some papers towards her. ‘I printed this out – the report from the SOCOs. They’ve found trampled grass and broken twigs behind the run of bushes along the side of the track, which is suggestive, though they can’t say when that happened and there are no footprints. There’s the possibility that he didn’t fall off his bike instantly, but I think we have to proceed on the assumption that the shot came from there.’

‘Could still have been there when we arrived, then?’

‘Probably was. It’s open fields either side of the track. You’d have been more likely to spot him if he’d tried to make off.’

He grimaced. ‘I thought that. Makes you feel bad, that he was there for the taking – but of course, at the time we thought we knew who’d done it.’

‘Must have given him a hell of a fright, you poling up,’ Fleming said absently, then, ‘But listen – that’s not sniper behaviour, is it? Point-blank range, a stake-out, waiting for a precise individual...’

‘And he had to know the boys would be coming!’

They looked at each other. ‘That’s the handle,’ Fleming said. ‘Who knew what they were planning? Now we’re getting somewhere.’

‘You know your problem? Your problem’s been wanting to know why. What are you needing motive for anyway? Means, opportunity and hard evidence’ll get you a conviction. The rest is fancy-pants stuff.’

‘Rude bugger!’ she said without animosity. ‘Andy Mac never says anything like that.’

‘That’s because he’s feart.’

‘Never! Of me, with my famously sweet nature and patience? Anyway, as I was saying when I was so rudely ­interrupted, who knew?

‘Will and Tansy interviewed Gordon Gloag and some kids at school – including Cat, I may say, which wouldn’t please her. Apparently they announced their intentions in the motorbike shop after you left.’

‘Mmm. There were a lot of kids there. If they went around gossiping, anyone might know. Black was there, of course, and Dan Simpson too.’

‘I know that Gordon Gloag told his father. And Gloag Senior was trying to cover up the fact that he knew before they went out to Wester Seton, to the point where he asked his son to lie about it. That puts him in the frame – and now I think about it, when Macdonald interviewed him, he accused Kyle of damaging his car. There’s a connection there.’

Fleming got up. ‘I’ve spent too long between these four walls. I need to get out there and talk to people – get a feel for this.’

‘Anyone on the suspect list who wouldn’t have known about Kyle’s nasty little plan, do you reckon?’

She considered. ‘The Farquharsons have lied too, about when they came into Kirkluce for the meeting, but it’s hard to see how they could have known where Barney would be – their kids are away at school. Ossian Forbes-Graham – who knows? Might have talked to Dylan Burnett, or Ellie, even, who might easily have heard from Dylan. Apart from that – hard to say.’

She picked up her coffee mug and put it back on the tray beside the kettle. As MacNee followed suit, he said hesitantly, ‘By the way, that business about me knowing Christina Munro had a loaded gun...?’

‘So far, so good. With her being cleared it’s not the problem it was, and Gloag’s the only one that’s mentioned it so far. With any luck he’ll be nervous enough to be reluctant to cause trouble.’

‘So well he might be. And I’m the wee boy to keep him that way.’

‘Let’s make a start on him, then.’

MacNee followed her out. He felt like himself again, comfortable in his skin, confidence restored. A happy man, ‘
o’er a’ the ills o’ life victorious
’
.

17

‘I’ve been thinking.’ DC Campbell spoke suddenly as DS Macdonald drove them away from the school, where they had been taking a formal statement from Dylan Burnett.

Macdonald gave an exaggerated start of surprise. ‘Well, stone the crows! Here’s me thinking you were just sitting there counting the lamp-posts as we drove past, like you usually do.’

Campbell ignored that. ‘We’ve been told to forget the sniper theory, right?’

‘Don’t even mention the word, or Big Marge’ll take you by the ear and wash your mouth out with soap. And you’ll probably be drummed out of the force as well under suspicion of talking to the
Sun
.’

‘So if it’s not that, there had to be a reason why Barney Kyle was killed.’

‘Wow! That’s, like, seriously impressive reasoning. You’ll have to give me time to catch up with your lightning brain.’

‘We’ve all been hunting for connections. Spencer’s out of it. To everyone else, Kyle was just another kid, right?’

His laconic statements always tended to prompt Macdonald to foolish facetiousness. ‘You mean, like he wasn’t an alien from outer space? Oh, hang about – he was a teenager, and they all are, anyway.’

Doggedly, Campbell continued, ‘So it has to be that Kyle knew something that was dangerous.’

‘Just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time – yes, we discussed that.’ Macdonald was getting impatient now. ‘He may have seen something and tried a spot of blackmail, or he may not even have recognised what he saw, but had to be wiped out in case something emerged. It’s a theory, but there isn’t any proof.’

‘But where was he?’

‘Where was he, when?’

‘When he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Carmichael was shot on his doorstep. Kyle would have to have been going past at the time and seen something.’

‘Right enough,’ Macdonald said slowly. ‘It was a clean killing – point the gun, bang! Being seen really was the only danger. If the gunman got in and got out again without being spotted, he was free and clear. So what you’re saying is, where was Kyle at that time on Saturday afternoon?’

Having made his point, Campbell only nodded.

Macdonald thought for a moment. ‘If we can catch Big Marge at lunchtime I think we should run that past her. We’ll need to talk to Mrs Kyle about it and it’s a bit delicate, after serving the warrant yesterday to search the house, all for nothing. So we’ve time to do the Farquharson interview before that.’

‘Will,’ Tansy Kerr said hesitantly, as she and Wilson drove away from failing to find Ossian Forbes-Graham at home, ‘what did you do last night, after you left the station?’

Wilson frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

It was tempting to say, ‘Did you read up the interview notes?’ and pretend that was what she’d meant all along, but something was niggling away at her. She swallowed hard.