Lamb to the Slaughter (49 page)

‘Don’t bother. Just answer my question.’ Fleming was in no mood to be trifled with.

‘Fiona Farquharson has alibis for both murders,’ was his next bid.

‘Tansy told me. And Giles has an alibi for one and is most unlikely for the other. And?’

He shifted uncomfortably. He’d looked a fool in front of one woman this morning already. ‘Well, I had this idea. Didn’t come to anything.’

‘You didn’t think to share it with the team? Do you remember what happened last time?’

MacNee put his hand melodramatically to his head. ‘Not – not clearly. In fact, I’ve sort of been walking round in a dwam, all confused, ever since, or else I’d have told you all about it – whoever you are.’

With Big Marge in her present frame of mind, it was a high-risk strategy, but to his relief her mouth began to twitch and she burst out laughing. Better still, she allowed herself to be distracted.

‘MacNee, you’re a pain in the backside! But look, something’s come up. Tansy brought it in, and we’ve been working around it.’

For a moment, relief at being off the hook was replaced by a pang of jealousy. ‘Oh yes?’

‘She’s been doing a good job, keeping on top of the paperwork. And this morning, we were sent a copy of Andrew Carmichael’s will. There are some minor bequests, but the bulk of the estate goes to Salaman, with fifty thousand and the kids’ school fees to Farquharson—’

That cheered MacNee up considerably. Fifty thousand might be serious money to him, but he guessed Fiona would be mightily pissed off.

‘– and what is really interesting is, twenty thousand to Ellie Burnett.’

He blinked. ‘Ellie Burnett,’ he said slowly. Then, ‘Did she know?’

‘I phoned the solicitor. According to him, Carmichael was the type who’d have thought discussing money was vulgar. In the circumstances, though, if he’d decided to agree the sale with ALCO – and we don’t know that he hadn’t – he might have told her about it to reassure her about the future.’

MacNee’s whole being revolted at the implication. Beautiful, fragile Ellie, who made him want to shield her from any rough wind, killing first for money and then, with cunning and utter ruthlessness, shooting a boy she disapproved of as a friend for her son? ‘I shouldn’t think she even knows how to fire a gun,’ he said flatly.

Kerr sprang into the argument. ‘It’s hardly difficult. The upper classes, with barely a brain cell between them, seem to manage it, considering how much wildlife they massacre each year.’

Fleming was clearly irritated at this outing for Kerr’s recently acquired hobby horse. ‘What’s that about, Tansy? Knock the chip off your shoulder and we can get back to more important things.’

Kerr went red, and Fleming continued, ‘This all sort of fits, in a way, with what I was wanting to run through with you, Tam. Always supposing you’d been here.’

She gave him a beady glare. He said hastily, ‘I’m here now. What was it?’

‘It starts with the dead sheep.’

Dylan Burnett opened the gate into the workshop yard. He’d been sure he’d find Johnny here, but the place was empty. He hesitated.

If Johnny had gone off somewhere, he didn’t want to have to deal with his mother alone. He’d be better off at school. But he didn’t want to go back there either, and the big Suzuki bike and the blue van were both there, so perhaps Johnny’d realised his mother had problems and stayed to look after her.

He opened the door to the flat and went up the stairs.

‘I started looking at what had actually happened, instead of who had a reason for doing what. We’d been snatching at straws – conspiracy theories, blackmail, possible links that showed no signs of actually existing. But I still couldn’t believe it was completely random.’

Didn’t want to believe, more likely
, MacNee thought ­rebelliously. He didn’t like where this latest theory seemed to be heading, but since he’d used up most of his credit this morning, it would be smarter to wait till she’d finished before rubbishing it.

‘The dead sheep,’ she said again.

The woman was getting a bee in her bonnet about the animal. He was tired of thinking about it – the way folks were these days, it was probably just someone’s idea of a sick joke.

‘I thought it could have been a sort of graphic illustration of what could happen, if ... And then, Carmichael’s death—’

With the most perfunctory tap on the door, Sergeant Naismith burst into the room.

‘Sorry, ma’am,’ he said breathlessly. ‘I think you’d better come.’

There had been no sound of voices when Dylan reached the top of the entrance stairs. ‘Johnny?’ he called hopefully, but he didn’t get a reply.

The door to the sitting-room was ajar, though, and from it came the faint creak-creak of his mother’s rocking-chair. He didn’t really want to see his mother. There could be awkward questions about why he wasn’t at school, for a start – if she still had her head together enough to notice. If she didn’t, well, that would be bad too. On the other hand, she’d have heard him coming in and anyway she might know where Johnny was. He pushed open the door.

It was as if he’d stepped into a different reality, something from a bad film, maybe, or a too realistic computer game. At the far end of the long room, his mother was sitting, pushing the rocking-chair Johnny had brought from their own flat to and fro, to and fro. Creak-creak, creak-creak – time seemed to stand still.

Between them, lying spreadeagled on the carpet, was what was probably Johnny, though it was hard to tell. There was blood everywhere, on the walls, on the floor, on his mother’s clothes. The smell—

Dylan gagged, then screamed and screamed again. He couldn’t move, he was paralysed—

It was only at that point that Ellie seemed to notice him. Her eyes were blank and staring, but she blinked, then focused on him. ‘Oh, Dylan, I’ve waited for you.’ She sounded quite calm. ‘I had to see you, to explain, so you’d understand—’ She got out of her chair.

The power of movement came back to him. ‘Don’t – don’t come near me,’ he croaked, backing away.

‘It’s all right. You don’t know, you see—’

All right? When Johnny was lying there—? She was coming towards him and he turned to run. He saw a gun, propped against a wall near the door, seized it and ran down the stairs.

He thought it might be loaded still. He held it carefully as he ran, ran and ran along the High Street till he came to the Kirkluce Police Headquarters. In his wake, two passers-by were reaching for their mobile phones.

‘Drugs,’ MacNee said heavily. ‘Didn’t realise. Wonder how long that’s been going on? Don’t really need to work out a motive, do you, if she’s off her head?’

They were all shocked. He, Fleming and Kerr stood in the workshop yard as Ellie was taken away and uniformed officers set about securing the scene.

‘You’d have to say she knew how to fire a gun, all right,’ Kerr said with what MacNee felt was tasteless point-­scoring.

‘OK, OK. But that bonny girl – can’t believe it, really.’

Fleming had been very quiet. ‘Yes,’ was all she said, then, ‘Sorry. I’d better get back. Phone calls to make ...’ She moved away.

‘Men!’ Kerr was saying scornfully. ‘“Bonny girl”! Even after all this time, you still think we’re poor, pathetic, feeble creatures. But we’re not.’

And MacNee, thinking of Fiona Farquharson, Romy Kyle and Christina Munro – and, indeed, Marjory Fleming and Bunty MacNee – couldn’t find anything to say.

Fleming was on the phone to Superintendent Bailey when Dr Rutherford came in. ‘Sorry, can I call you back? Police doctor’s just arrived from seeing Burnett.’

She set down the phone. ‘Dr Rutherford, do sit down. What is the situation with Ellie Burnett?’

Rutherford looked grave. ‘In my judgement she ought to wait until tomorrow morning at the very earliest before she says anything, but she’s adamant that she wants to do it as soon as possible.’

‘Is she under the influence of drugs?’

‘Without running tests I’m not prepared to make a judgement on that. But she should certainly have a lawyer present before she makes any sort of statement.’

‘No,’ Fleming said flatly. ‘She has said that she is ready to speak to us, and as I understand it you are not claiming that she is medically incapable of giving informed consent. She cannot see a lawyer until we have had six hours to question her.’

Rutherford was definitely put out. ‘Is that legal?’

‘Yes.’ Fleming was getting irritated in her turn; surely he should know that most basic rule?

‘I see. Then I can only say she would be much wiser to wait but I can’t state that she doesn’t know what she’s saying.’

It had become an adversarial situation, which she hadn’t expected. ‘Can I be quite clear about this? If asked later, you will confirm that you agreed she could be questioned?’

‘Yes.’ The word ‘regretfully’ hung on the air.

‘Thank you, doctor.’ They both stood up, and he left, clearly unhappy.

As the door shut behind him, Fleming pulled a face at it. It was probably something to do with the Hippocratic oath, and all very admirable, but she had a job to do. Ellie wasn’t his patient; he was the police doctor and they were meant to be on the same side.

She looked at the time. She’d better phone the fiscal, before she called Bailey back for what was likely to be quite a lengthy discussion. With the phone calls that had come in about a deranged youth rampaging through the streets with a gun, rumours would be rife, and it would never do if the fiscal heard a garbled story from someone else, when he was technically in charge of the enquiry.

It was a surprise, when she was put through, to hear a female voice at the other end of the line saying, ‘DI Fleming? This is Sheila Milne.’

One of the deputies, Fleming assumed, but she needed to speak to the fiscal himself. ‘I’m sorry, I wanted Duncan Mackay.’

‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible. Mr Mackay is in hospital after a heart attack. I’ve been brought in as acting Procurator Fiscal.’

It was unreasonable to take against someone’s voice, just because she was making an unconvincing attempt at a posh accent. Hiding her feelings, Fleming said, ‘I’m very sorry to hear he’s ill. Is he going to be all right?’

‘I understand they’re optimistic. They’re having to do a triple bypass, though, so he will be off for some considerable time. So for the foreseeable future I shall be in charge.

‘I’ve been reading your reports, naturally, but I would prefer to be briefed more directly. I want to know exactly what is being done in my name.’

Fleming’s heart sank. The portly Duncan Mackay’s reluctance to get directly involved had made her life a lot easier; she knew from colleagues in other forces what a nightmare it could be when you had a fiscal who fancied starring in high-profile cases.

‘Of course, if that’s what you want,’ she said. ‘In fact, I was phoning to alert you to the latest development...’

At the mention of another shooting, she heard a sharp intake of breath at the other end of the line, but she hastily explained that the woman was in custody and seemed likely to enter a guilty plea, at least to the most recent killing.

‘That’s very satisfactory. Confessions are what we want – saves our time and the tax-payers’ money.’

‘I accept that,’ Fleming said carefully. ‘Provided we are sure of corroboration.’

‘Inspector, do you imagine I am unfamiliar with Scots law?’ The accent had slipped a little. ‘Look, you do your job, which is getting the evidence, and I’ll do mine, which is getting convictions. I hope we understand each other?’

‘I’m sure we do.’

‘I shall, of course, wish to visit the scene of the crime. Can you arrange for that, please?’

Fleming assured her this would be done, then put down the phone with serious misgivings. Somehow she didn’t think Sheila Milne would be easy to work with, and with all her heart she wished poor Duncan a speedy recovery.

She wondered what Milne would make of the crime scene, which was one of the most unpleasant she herself had ever had to attend. The state of the body and the room – and Ellie Burnett, blood-spattered and dazed-looking...

MacNee was right, of course, that drugs were involved in this somewhere. But as she had been taken out past them, Ellie had looked full into her own eyes and there Fleming had seen such a depth of agony and despair that she felt shaken by it still.

It seemed, as the fiscal clearly thought, a satisfactory solution to it all – but Fleming wasn’t satisfied. She pulled out the mind-map again and studied it, tapping her finger on her front tooth.

She was playing with ideas, twisting and turning them in her mind, when, with the suddenness of the tumblers of a combination lock falling into place, she understood. There was, as she had always a little desperately believed, a rationale behind all this, but it was one so warped, so shocking, that she gasped, then shivered. It was as if she had looked into a pit of darkness, and saw the deadly game at last for what it was. She still didn’t know everything, but if she was right, there was a quality of purest evil here that she had never, in all her professional life, encountered before.