Lamb to the Slaughter (37 page)

After they had gone, Farquharson looked at his wife. ‘You must be mad,’ he said quietly. ‘What if they check up?’

She tossed her head. ‘They won’t bother. Not now I’ve given them something else to think about. No thanks to you, though. If it was left to you, we’d be their prime suspects.’

18

The canteen was busy today. With so much activity centred on Kirkluce and its near surroundings, and the addition of a number of officers seconded from the neighbouring Dumfries force, there was standing room only when Fleming and MacNee arrived.

MacNee’s appearance was greeted with shouts and even a smattering of applause, and colleagues took turns to shake his hand and slap him on the back with cheerful insults.

‘Lucky it was only your head, eh, Tam?’

‘Auld Nick looks after his own, right enough!’

‘It’s been rare and peaceful without you – now the trouble starts.’

Fleming looked on, amused. Tam was popular, certainly, but the news channel running on the TV in the corner was a perpetual reminder of the pressure they were under, and contributing to his welcome was an almost superstitious belief that Tam’s return would signal some improvement in their fortunes. She wasn’t immune to the feeling herself.

Tansy Kerr and Will Wilson, who had been sitting at the far end of a table for eight, got up and elbowed their way through. Tansy, moist-eyed, gave him a hug: she’d always been close to Tam, and Fleming promised herself that once this was over she’d see to it that the dangerous partnership of Wilson and Kerr was broken up.

‘There’s a seat there, boss, if you want one,’ Wilson said to her, but she shook her head.

‘I’m just having a sandwich. I only came in to make sure Tam didn’t run himself into the ground on his first day back.’

MacNee was saying teasingly, ‘Dearie me, Tansy, what’s happened to your hair? It’s all the one colour – that’s not like you!’

With a sinking heart Fleming observed the telling look that passed between Wilson and Kerr, the slight smile on Wilson’s face and the colour that came into Kerr’s cheeks. She’d been going to have a word with Tam about her worries over the pair of them, but she saw now, as he eyed them shrewdly, that she wouldn’t have to.

Kerr patted her hair self-consciously. ‘Well – thought I’d try monochrome for a change. More sophisticated, you know.’

‘Going for the femme fatale look, aren’t you, Tansy?’ Wilson, not a sensitive man, gave her a broad wink.

‘How’s that young man of yours?’ MacNee asked innocently. ‘Seemed a nice lad, when I bumped into the two of you that time. If you’d just convince him to take up the Beautiful Game instead of the ugly one, he’d be all right.’

‘He’s history,’ Kerr said shortly.

‘Now, that’s a real shame. Still, there’ll be another one along in a minute, I’ve no doubt.’ He turned to Wilson. ‘Good to see you, Will. And how’s the family? The boys’ll be getting big now.’

Wilson shifted uncomfortably. ‘Fine, Tam. And it’s nice to see you’ve decided to stop skiving. You’re looking good.’

As a diversionary tactic it failed. ‘Bunty was saying she’d met Aileen the other day – expecting again, I hear. Congratulations – you’re gluttons for punishment, you two.’

Wilson turned crimson. Kerr recoiled, as if someone had slapped her face. ‘Is – is she, Will?’

‘Yes, I suppose so,’ he muttered.

There were only a few people close enough to hear but among them there was foot-shifting and an awkward silence. Kerr said, ‘Excuse me,’ and hurried out. Wilson made to go after her, but MacNee’s hand shot out and grabbed his wrist in a brutal grip.

‘Don’t think I’d do that, if I was you.’ Then, very quietly, he added, ‘And don’t think you won’t pay for this, you little bastard.’

Wilson, looking sick, wrenched his hand away and went back to his seat. MacNee turned round. ‘Now, someone said there was haggis on the slate today. Lead me to it – “
great chieftain o’ the puddin’ race!
”’

‘Oh, someone stop him giving the full “Address”, for any favour!’ someone pleaded, and the laughter that followed dispelled the tension.

When Murdoch Forbes-Graham came in for lunch, his wife was stirring soup on the stove. He looked round the kitchen. ‘Where is he?’

‘He went up to his room after we got back from the doctor’s. I promised I’d call him when lunch was ready.’

‘How did it go, then?’

She turned away from the stove, her delicate features contorted with anxiety. ‘Oh, Murdoch, I’m so worried! The doctor wouldn’t let me stay while he talked to him, and Ossian seemed quite disturbed when he came out. All he would say was that the doctor wants him to see someone else, so he obviously thinks there’s something wrong – you know, mentally, but he simply doesn’t understand!’

Her husband put his arm round her shoulder, patting consolingly, but he didn’t say anything.

She went on fiercely, ‘It’s that woman, Ellie – that’s the problem. He’s obsessed. It’s the only word for it. He said yesterday that she was sleeping with Andrew Carmichael, and now with Black – I don’t know whether it’s true or not, but he sounded really angry, and – Murdoch, I’m scared!’

He made her sit down at the table, with its cheerful blue-and-white floral tablecloth and the places set for lunch. His voice was gentle. ‘Don’t you think it might be an idea to get further treatment? We can both see that Ossian’s very unhappy, and they might be able to make things better for him. There’s no disgrace in mental illness, my dear. Your own father—’

Deirdre covered her ears. ‘Don’t say that! He was only ... volatile, like Ossian is. But what frightens me is that she could bend him to her will. He’d do anything she wanted, anything!’ She began to cry.

He hated to see her so troubled. ‘My dearest, if you’re talking about these dreadful murders, you need to look at it more calmly.’ He sat down beside her, taking her hands in his. ‘Even if she could control him – which I would question – why ever would she want Carmichael killed? I’ve no idea what their relationship was, but my reading of the situation is that she’d have been a lot worse off without him to stop the Craft Centre being sold—’

Deirdre was shaking her head. ‘I’m not talking about the first one. She wouldn’t have told Ossian to kill Andrew, but he hated him anyway. It’s the other boy – I shouldn’t think Ossian even knew him, but he told me
she
couldn’t stand him, blamed him for leading her son astray, getting him into trouble with the police—’

Forbes-Graham stared at her, shocked. ‘You’re telling me you think our son would be capable of killing twice, in cold blood?’

She was crying in earnest now. ‘You have shotguns, Murdoch. It would be easy for him just to get one from the cupboard, and if she brainwashed him—’

‘Hush, darling. You’re distressing yourself quite unnecessarily. I can set your mind at rest on that anyway.

‘To be honest, I’ve been worried about Ossian for some time. Not that it crossed my mind that he would harm another person but ...’ He paused, reluctant to say the word ‘suicide’. ‘He gets so excited sometimes, so strange, that I thought it would be best to keep the keys to the gun cupboard on me so that there was no question of him finding them. He hasn’t been on a shoot for months now, and on the odd occasion when he wanted to shoot clays, I just told him to get a gun from Danny.

‘So I can assure you it’s impossible for him to be implicated in any of this.’ He produced a handkerchief from his top pocket and wiped her cheeks tenderly, as if she was a child. ‘There you are. Now, blow!’

He smiled at her and she laughed, a little shakily. ‘Oh, Murdoch, what a relief! You are my rock! I should have told you all this sooner, instead of worrying and worrying by myself.’

‘Indeed you should. But there is one thing. I don’t often lay down the law, but I’m going to insist that we get help for him. His behaviour at the moment simply isn’t normal, and it can’t go on like this – apart from anything else, it’s distressing you too much.’

She gave him the smile that had bewitched him from the moment he met her at a dinner party, a slender divorcee in a pale blue dress which exactly matched her eyes, and as unlike the sturdy, sensible woman he was then married to as it was possible to be.

‘Of course we must, darling, if that’s what you feel,’ she said soothingly. ‘He can go and have another chat with Dr Rutherford and I’m sure we’ll find he can help him get things straight.’

‘But,’ he protested with the feeling of helplessness he so often experienced in dealing with his wife, ‘we must take the professional advice he gives us.’

‘Of course we shall,’ she said, patting his hand and getting up. ‘Now, I’ll just finish making the soup, if you’d like to go up and tell Ossian that lunch is ready.’

Forbes-Graham left the kitchen with something close to despair. She always agreed with him, without argument, but somehow what she didn’t want to happen never did.

Three minutes later, he came back in. ‘He’s not there,’ he said. ‘There’s no sign of him.’

Deirdre sighed. ‘Probably gone back to his studio to moon over that wretched woman. Murdoch, what are we going to do about that?’

With a sinking heart, Murdoch recognised the marital ‘we’ – denoted in normal speech by the pronoun ‘you’.

The only sandwiches left in the canteen were cheese and pickle, not what Fleming would have chosen, and she was finishing one gloomily when Macdonald and Campbell came in. Macdonald was looking around and, spotting her, came over.

‘How’s it going?’ she asked.

‘I hoped we’d catch you, boss. There’s a couple of things—’

She made a quick decision. Going back to her office was risky, since she was trying to avoid being trapped at her desk, but on the other hand this was a good opportunity. ‘There’s the briefing tonight, of course, but the team’s all here at the moment and with Tam back it would be useful to meet and share what we’ve got. Round up Will and Tansy, can you, and I’ll prise Tam away. He’s on his second helping of haggis and enough’s enough.’

As Fleming and MacNee walked upstairs to her office, she said ruefully, ‘That was an awkward little scene earlier. You were quick off the mark in spotting it, Tam. I was going to have a word with you about doing something before it got nasty.’

‘Bunty said Aileen was a bit tearful when she saw her. Three kids under six was putting a strain on their marriage already, she said, and she was scared this would finish it completely. Then when I saw the look between the two of them...’

‘Yes. I’d have thought better of Tansy, though.’ Fleming sighed. ‘Still, at least that will have stopped it before it became a disciplinary matter. I’ve scheduled them for routine stuff this afternoon, but I suppose we’ll have to rejig the partnerships tomorrow.’

‘You could keep him on routine. Just ground him – no one likes doing the basic maintenance.’

‘Good thinking.’

They reached her office and she looked with distaste at the blinking light on her phone. ‘I’ll run through those, see if there’s anything urgent. I’m not even going to look at the emails, though.’

Fortunately there was nothing that couldn’t wait, and she was ready to start the meeting by the time the others appeared. Wilson, looking shamefaced, took the seat furthest away from MacNee, and Kerr had clearly spent some time working on her make-up, though it didn’t conceal her swollen eyelids.

Ignoring the atmosphere, Fleming said, ‘You kick off, Andy. You’d something to say.’

‘Two things, actually. We interviewed the Farquharsons this morning. Ewan’s just longing to write up the report for you, of course.’

Campbell looked resigned. Macdonald went on, ‘But there was just this and that about what was said – hard to pin down, but I’m sure we weren’t getting the truth from them—’

‘From her,’ Campbell corrected him.

‘Fair enough, from her. She told him what to say, and he said it, not very convincingly. Right little Lady Macbeth, she is.

‘But then, at the end, she suddenly came out with something she’d heard the night before, when Zack Salaman turned up unexpectedly at a party at the Forbes-Grahams’. Turns out the Farquharsons didn’t know a thing about him – must be the only people in the whole of Galloway who didn’t – and it threw them completely. You have to keep in mind that Mrs Farquharson has an axe to grind, but she told us she’d overheard this conversation between Salaman and Johnny Black. Black was talking about some job he’d done for him, and what caught her attention was that Salaman was seriously annoyed with him for mentioning it. She just wondered, she said, what sort of “job” they were talking about.’

‘Black,’ Fleming said with considerable satisfaction. ‘I’ve had my eye on him. He was in a pretty seedy business, and coming here from Glasgow—’

‘Thanks!’ MacNee said dryly. ‘But I have to say, I think that one’s got legs, Andy. The only thing is, I can see him killing off Carmichael – revenge, profit, particularly if Carmichael was determined to reject ALCO’s offer. But Kyle?’

‘If you’re still claiming it wasn’t a sniper, that’s hardly rocket science,’ Wilson chipped in aggressively. ‘Salaman didn’t order that one. That was Black’s private initiative, because Kyle caught him in the act.’

‘Certainly, that’s the theory we’ve been running with,’ ­Fleming said hastily, seeing MacNee’s hackles rise.