The Nickum (15 page)

Getting to his feet and gingerly touching his leg to find out if he’d done any damage to it, Willie looked around him. The room was spotless, apart from the mess the vase had made, the bed was in pristine condition, and nothing else seemed to have been touched. He had better check in the kitchen, and if his sister wasn’t there, goodness knows where she could be.

He was assailed suddenly by a shiver going down his spine. Something was wrong – he was sure of it. Gritting his teeth, he opened the door from the bedroom into the little lobby and nearly stepped on a bundle of … He jumped back in alarm as he realised that it wasn’t a bundle of anything. It was Connie! Bending over, he touched her brow. Not stone cold, but too cold to be … There seemed to be a lot of blood on the floor but he kept his eyes averted as he stumbled through the kitchen, over the towels strewn in a kind of trail, to unlock the door. He had to get air or he would pass out. There was nothing he could do to help his sister, nor the bloodied thing lying between her legs.

Once outside, he drew long breaths of fresh air until he felt a little more composed, then he sat down on the low wall that girdled the front garden. What should he do? He felt so useless, and it would take him ages to walk home. Remembering the bicycle, he turned to look at it. It looked in perfect order. Should he chance it? Getting to his feet, he went over to feel the tyres. Hard as rocks. Mr Meldrum must have checked them himself, despite the cobwebby handlebars.

His power of thought practically exhausted, he had one thing in mind now – to get home, as quickly as he could. He was still only fifteen and couldn’t deal with what had happened. As he was setting the bicycle upright, he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye, and stretching so that he could see better round the end of the house, he saw a man coming out of one of the outhouses at the far end of the back garden, quite an extent considering the size of the tiny cottage. This person was looking furtively about him and, having made sure that no one was near, he ran like the wind, vaulting the wooden fence and carrying right on into the wood behind.

At first, Willie thought nothing of this. Connie had often said she was sure there were gypsies, or tinks, hiding somewhere near. She had missed various items of clothes from the washing line, and she’d been almost sure that her hens would have laid more eggs than she found.

Then another thought occurred to him, making him feel sick. It was no gypsy he had seen, nor a tink. The man was well-dressed, and reminded him of somebody. It had just been an impression he’d got, since he hadn’t seen much of the man’s face. He’d had a quick glance to his left and then to his right, but he hadn’t looked straight ahead. If he had, Willie thought now – the slight impression he had before crystallising into a certain recognition – he’d have seen his young brother-in-law watching him.

But why had Gordie Brodie been skulking about in a shed? Why had he been so afraid of being seen? At that moment, a flash of inspiration hit him, practically taking his breath away. It must have been Gordie who had killed Connie! Not must have, though. It was!

Unable to cope with this thought, Willie jumped on the bicycle and made for home. It did not take long. It took him longer to make his father understand what he was saying, but at last Jake, not believing that his daughter was dead but recognising that his son was too shocked to be of any help, set off on foot for the farm, to ask Mrs McIntyre to phone the doctor.

Jeemsie Cooper had been enjoying a breakfast of ham, eggs and toast, very acceptable because it was so late – he’d spent most of the night helping Johnny McIntyre to round up the sheep that had managed to break out of their field. The little blighters, some of them not so little, had led them a merry dance before they were all captured, even though there had been about seven or eight men all engaged in the hunt. Still, that was another job well done, and he’d have a few hours to catch up on his lost sleep. Demolishing his last bit of toast in one mighty mouthful, he couldn’t help grinning. From catching lost sheep to catching lost sleep, that was really clever. He must remember that; it would be a good conversation piece, for he was never very good at making witty conversation.

Yawning, he got to his feet and moved over to his easy chair by the fire. His mother would be busy with her housework and the outside chores, so she wouldn’t likely be in the kitchen again till it was time to make some supper. He put his feet, already bootless, up on the fender stool, shifted the cushion at his back to a more comfortable position and shut his eyes.

Some time later, Bella Cooper peeped round the door, having guessed that her son would be asleep. Poor lad, he needed the rest, so she withdrew with the same silence, but only another fifteen minutes had passed when someone hammered on the door. She hurried to answer it, hissing as she opened it, ‘Stop that noise. You’ll wauken my Jeemsie an’ he’s been workin’ a’ nicht.’

A breathless Andy McIntyre shook his head. ‘You’ll ha’e to wauken him, fitever, Mrs Cooper. He’ll ha’e to go to Gordie Brodie’s hoose – you ken, up the glen. Something affa bad’s happened.’

Unwilling to believe that any incident would be bad enough for her to rouse her son, she bridled. ‘What kinda something?’

‘Jake Fowlie says his lassie’s been murdered.’

‘But he canna be sure she’s deid. He’s nae a doctor.’

The boy shrugged. ‘My ma’s phoned the doctor, so he’ll be there. Ony road, it wasna Jake that saw her. It was his laddie.’

Her mouth gripped, still unconvinced, the woman went into the kitchen and shook Jeemsie, still deep in the arms of Morpheus. ‘Jeemsie! Jeemsie! You’re needed at Birch Cottage. Andy McIntyre says Connie Fowlie’s been murdered.’ She used the girl’s maiden name, as was the custom in the area.

Her last word spurred the man into action. His eyes barely opened, he sat up to put on his boots. ‘Who says she’s been murdered? Ordinary folk canna mak’ that kinda decisions. That’s the police’s job.’

‘It wis Jake Fowlie said it, but Andy says it was Willie that found her.’

‘Willie Fowlie.’ Jeemsie let his hands drop. ‘Kennin’ him, he could be tellin’ lies. He wasted hours o’ police time wi’ yon last cairry on.’

Bella had had more time to consider this side of things. ‘No, Jeemsie. This is different. Last time, there was never nae body found.’ She left it that. It was enough for her son, however. ‘Right enough, Ma. If Connie’s just a body, it must be murder. I just wish I could be sure.’

Saving any further conjecture on anybody’s part, Doctor Murison was already there and had pronounced the victim dead. ‘As a result of a horrendous attack,’ he told the two men who had beaten him to the house, McIntyre having taken pity on Jake and driving him there himself. ‘Sadly, the infant has also suffered severe injuries, so it is just as well that it did not survive.’

Studying the carnage, Jeemsie wished that he had phoned for assistance before leaving his own home, but he hadn’t wanted to place himself in a position liable to ridicule, and would have to cope unaided until he could report the crime. He took his notebook from his pocket, took out the pencil he always left inside, and began his investigation. ‘Who found the body?’

Jake stepped forward. ‘My son Willie.’

‘And you’re prepared to believe him, after what happened that other time?’

‘I didna believe him at first,’ Jake admitted, ‘but I did believe she’d been hurt, so I went to Wester Burnton to get somebody to phone the doctor.’

Murison lifted his bag from the floor. ‘I must get on, I have patients waiting.’ He addressed Jeemsie now. ‘You will arrange for the removal of the body, I presume?’

The policeman looked stunned. ‘I’ll need to phone for assistance, but there’s nae a phone here, is there?’

‘No,’ Jake supplied, ‘nothing nearer than Wester Burnton.’

Johnny McIntyre, Good Samaritan that he always was, chipped in, ‘I phoned Aberdeen afore we come here, Jeemsie, so they’ll be well on their way. I need to be gettin’ back now, though.’

Waiting until the two men had left, the PC muttered, ‘It was kennin’ it was your Willie that reported it, that’s why I didna ring Aiberdeen. I thocht it was another caper, like the last time.’

‘He was only a bairn that time,’ Jake said, indignantly. ‘He was fear’t to tell.’

‘He’s maybe fear’t to tell this time, an’ all.’

‘What d’you mean by that?’ Jake was scowling. He was finding it hard enough to hide the grief for his daughter that was doing its best to consume him, without having aspersions cast on his son.

‘Take it whatever way you like, but it seems suspicious to me that he ken’t she was deid, when he’d never seen a deid body afore. You see what I mean? Of course, he could’ve just been guessin’. Either that, or he’s the murderer.’

His face almost purple with anger, Jake shouted, ‘Dinna spik bloody rubbish, man! He wouldna kill his ain sister. He wouldna kill onybody! He tell’t me aboot it, for God’s sake, and he wouldna tell if he’d done it his sel’, would he?’

‘Jake,’ murmured the policeman, trying now to pour oil on the troubled waters, ‘I dinna ken what your Willie would’ve done.’ He was completely at a loss. Word had been sent for help to solve a murder, when he, who should have been first on the spot, had arrived there last. And he hadn’t one single clue as to who had done it. He eyed the other man hopelessly, then mumbled, ‘I’m sorry for saying it, Jake, but I canna think on ony other solution. Can you?’

Jake rubbed his rough hand over his even rougher chin. ‘I canna say as I can, but there must be some explanation.’ After standing deep in thought for some moments, he suggested the only thing that occurred to him, surprised that the bobby hadn’t thought of it himself. ‘You could ha’e a look round an’ see if you can catch the criminal. He could still be skulkin’ aboot outside.’

‘That’s a good idea. There’s not much I can do here, till the Aiberdeen boys come.’

Realising that there was nothing Jeemsie Cooper could do anyway on his own, Jake muttered, ‘I’ll gi’e you a hand.’

The two men decided to split up and thus be able to cover more ground, and each went off in a different direction. And so it was that, when the police van arrived at the cottage, the only occupants were the two corpses.

Dod Bruce, the Detective Inspector in charge – Johnny McIntyre had stressed that it was a murder and not a hoax – jumped out first, the three PCs following him. ‘Reid, you come inside with me,’ he ordered, ‘and Cormack and Dunne, you search all the outhouses and the immediate surrounding area.’

The indoors investigation yielded no clues; the outdoors crew having the same result except for coming across Jeemsie and Jake. The four disconsolate searchers returned to admit defeat. It was only then that Jake remembered that his wife had been left to comfort Willie, when her own sorrow must be breaking her heart. Connie had been her oldest child, the one on whom she had depended most. He himself had not had time to come to terms with it, even seeing his lovely daughter lying on the floor like that hadn’t hammered it home to him.

Feeling as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders, he addressed the DI. ‘I’d better be getting home to my wife.’

Bruce barked, ‘And who are you, exactly?’ obviously annoyed that a mere civilian was intruding on a murder scene.

‘He’s the victim’s father,’ Jeemsie explained. ‘It was his son that found the body.’

Bruce relaxed slightly. ‘All right, Mr …?’

‘Mr Fowlie,’ supplied Jeemsie.

‘Right then, Mr Fowlie, you are at liberty to go home, but we will have to take statements from you and your son later.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Jake turned away.

On his way home, it occurred to him that Emily wouldn’t know for sure that Connie had been murdered. Possibly, she was still be clinging to the hope that Willie could be mistaken, that her daughter could have regained consciousness and would be all right. Her husband would have to disillusion her, Jake mused. The man who loved her most would have to tell her the truth, to break her heart. Oh, dear God! His poor, poor Emily. To lose a second daughter so soon after losing the first.

Emily was sitting by the fire with Willie on her knee, although he was already taller than she was. She had never held her son so closely since he was a baby – had hardly ever had her arms round him at all – but she needed his body against her for comfort as much as he needed hers. Jake’s heart was pounding as he looked on them, but Willie jumped up and came to him. ‘Dad, Connie
is
dead, isn’t she? Mam doesn’t believe me.’

‘Aye, lad, I’m sorry to have to say Connie’s dead. God kens who did it, for Jeemsie says there hasna been ony tinks or gypsies ony place near here for months.’

With tears coursing down his cheeks again, Willie said, ‘Dad, it was Gordie.’

‘Gordie? No, loon, you canna think that.’

‘I dinna think it, Dad, I’m sure it was him. He’d been hiding in one of the sheds, and I saw him coming out, and looking from side to side to make sure nobody could see him.’

‘So how did he nae see you, if you saw him?’

‘I was at the front of the house, at the corner of the gable end, and he never looked in that direction, and he jumped the fence and ran away into the wood.’

‘But he wouldna kill his ain wife. He would never have hurt her even.’

At this, Emily raised her tear-ravaged face. ‘Aye would he. He’s been ill-using her ever since they were wed. He’s an animal.’

Although upset that she had told him nothing of this before, Jake only commented, ‘The pair o’ you had better tell the ’tecs all that when they come askin’ questions. That’ll let them ken there’s only one suspect.’ His sorrow for his daughter, his black rage at his son-in-law, his compassion for his young son who was obviously still in shock, suddenly merged into an emotion he had never experienced before, overwhelming him in its intensity. With no warning, he spun round and strode out, his one wish to be alone in his bottomless misery.

Gordon Brodie had sobered up more quickly than he had ever done. Even the sight of his wife’s bloodied body and that of his child had not had the same effect. It was his shock on seeing somebody coming towards the house when he had been feverishly searching for the means of concealing his crime that had panicked him. He hadn’t even had time to pick up the pieces of glass and china that were scattered over the floor, he had been perilously near to being caught. He had meant to hide the bodies somewhere and leave the place spotless, explaining Connie’s absence by saying she was going to her mother’s house for the birth, but something must have changed her mind. Then, if they’d questioned him further, he’d have sworn he didn’t know where she’d gone.