Too Soon a Death: A Scottish mystery where cosy crime meets tartan noir: Borders Mysteries Book 2 (7 page)

The previous night’s weather forecast had promised a day even hotter than had been experienced thus far in the record-busting Scottish summer, so she got ready to take Mac out not long after six. Although never a fan of team sports, she had been active all her life and saw no reason to stop just because she was pregnant. She could still walk as far as ever, albeit more slowly; it was the getting ready that took time and effort. In addition to her mobile and Mac’s biscuits, she must now carry water for them both and a fold-up drinking bowl for Mac as well as the usual lip-salve, tissues and mobile, necessitating the preparation of a small backpack before every outing. And what to wear was a constant challenge. Preferring to go off-road for all but the briefest of walks, she couldn’t risk bare legs or do without sturdy footwear, but pulling on trousers and struggling to do up walking boots often left her overheated and exasperated.

After ensuring both house and garage were secure, she led Mac a short distance up the road then released him and watched him race along the grass track which went down one side of a field of barley. At the far corner, rather than keep going round the field he took a sharp right and vanished into a patch of woodland. Zoe called, ‘Wait for me,’ and he reappeared, tail wagging as though urging her to catch him up, but by the time she reached the trees, he was again nowhere to be seen. Unconcerned, she followed the path they often took, enjoying the shade.

She was about to walk back into the bright sunlight when she heard squeals and barking off to her left. Mac tore out from behind a group of conifers, followed by a huge, unfamiliar dog which passed her in a blur of mottled brown coat and flapping jowls. With just a few metres between the animals, the second dog terrified Zoe. If it caught Mac, he wouldn’t stand a chance. She shouted, ‘No!’ and hurried after them.

The field ahead was planted with oilseed rape. Used to seeing the landscape swathed in yellow when the crop was flowering, she’d been surprised to witness recently how the straight, green stalks eventually became fibrous and tangled, creating impenetrable jungles which must surely be harvested any day now. She watched helplessly as Mac tunnelled into the rape in an effort to escape the bigger dog which, after a moment’s hesitation, ploughed in after him. Calling wouldn’t help; all she could do was wait and hope Mac’s size gave him an advantage over his pursuer.

She forced herself to sit on a prone tree trunk in the shade for nearly half an hour. Her bottle of water was soon empty but she still felt thirsty. Noises coming from the rape field had long since died away; the only sound she could hear now was birdsong. She tried to force images from her mind of Mac stranded in the middle of the field, unable to find his way out or, worse, caught up in the undergrowth with the Hound of the Baskervilles bearing down on him. Finally, she pulled out her mobile. She didn’t have his personal number but Patrick had told her last night that he was on call, with emergencies being transferred to him between midnight and ten this morning, when his colleague would take over for the rest of the weekend. She doubted he could offer any practical advice, but she needed to talk to someone, to share her anxiety. Had it been later in the day she would have texted Kate, but she was unlikely to be up and about at this time.

Despite the early hour, Zoe had to shade her mobile’s screen with her free hand. It showed three missed calls, all from blocked numbers, all coming in just after one in the morning, but no message had been left. Distracted by her concern for Mac, she wrote these off as drunken misdials, and scrolled through her contacts until she found the vet’s number. She had just hit the green handset symbol when a noise made her look up.

Mac stood a few feet away. He whined again. The garland of stalks and seed pods trailing from his head would have been comical had his right eye not been closed and a cut on his nose dripped blood. Cancelling the call and abandoning her mobile on the tree trunk, Zoe rushed over and dropped to her knees, simultaneously hugging and checking him for serious injury. As she fussed over him, constantly asking, ‘Are you alright, boy?’ Mac’s tail started to wag, although his eye remained closed. Not wanting to risk another encounter with the other dog, which might emerge from the undergrowth at any moment, she attached the lead to Mac’s collar and steered him towards home, remembering just in time to pick up her mobile.

Her first priority on getting back to Keeper’s Cottage was to tend to Mac’s poorly eye, bathing it with cotton wool dipped in warm water. It gradually opened, then the dog passed with flying colours the only sight test she could think of, catching the biscuit she threw to him. As she wiped the blood from his scratched nose and brushed his coat to remove all traces of oilseed rape, she wondered if she should inform anyone there was a dangerous dog on the loose. Then again, it must surely be the same animal which had attacked the Mackenzies’ sheep, so it would already have been reported.

She glanced at her mobile to check the time. It was only just after eight but felt much later after such an eventful walk. Robbie Mackenzie wasn’t due until eleven, which gave her enough time to eat a leisurely breakfast, take a shower and put her feet up for a while. She looked again at the phone, remembering those calls she’d missed during the night. They were logged as having come in at one-ten, one-thirteen and one-twenty. Because the caller identification had been blocked, she had no way of knowing if they were from the same person, although it seemed likely. This alone was strange, as her personalised message, albeit brief, would have told the caller the first time that they had reached the wrong number. It crossed her mind that the photographer she’d encountered on the Chain Bridge last week may have recognised her and somehow obtained her mobile number, but she swiftly dismissed this idea as paranoia.

Mac started to bark just after eleven, rousing his owner from a nap she’d had no intention of taking when she put up the umbrella and lay down on the sun-lounger an hour earlier. Unlike his sister, Robbie didn’t come round to the garden, choosing instead to ring the bell and wait for Zoe to let him in. He was on his mobile when she opened the door, an apparently important conversation because he nodded to her and stepped inside without stopping talking. Zoe might have taken offence, had he not given her the broadest of grins, reminding her of Kate, when he did eventually end the call.

‘Sorry,’ he said, keeping his mobile in his hand.

‘No problem. Can I get you a drink of something?’

They agreed on tea, and while the kettle was boiling, Zoe led Robbie around the house, showing him the work which had been done since she bought it from him at the start of the year. Seeing Keeper’s Cottage through someone else’s eyes, she appreciated for the first time what a major undertaking the extension and remodelling had been, and what a difference this had made. The single-storey house now had a proper bathroom and a separate loo, a decent-sized kitchen and a second bedroom which she refused to call the nursery, despite everyone else doing so.

‘They’ve made a good job,’ Robbie said as he scrutinised the bathroom tiling.

‘I gather some of your work was delayed in order to fit me in so quickly. I hope that didn’t cause you any problems. Time’s money in your business, I imagine.’

‘My deadlines aren’t as pressing as the one you’re working to.’

Zoe smiled politely at this first pregnancy reference of the day and made her way to the kitchen.

Although she expected her visitor to prefer to stay indoors while he drank his tea, he carried his mug through the new French doors and repositioned a chair to face the garden. ‘What are your plans for out here?’

‘Something low maintenance. Lawn and a few shrubs are about the extent of my green fingers.’

‘It’s not very big. Children need more space than you’d think, once they start running around.’

‘I’m not thinking that far ahead, to be honest.’

‘How do you feel about having livestock at the end of your garden?’

‘I liked looking out on sheep earlier in the year and quite miss them now. You grew up surrounded by animals but I wasn’t even allowed a goldfish.’

‘Unfortunately they won’t be coming back, because my tenant has given notice. He’s retiring.’ Robbie kept his tone casual but his right knee had started to jiggle. ‘So . . . I was wondering if you’d like to buy the field from me.’

‘Won’t you find someone else to rent it?’

‘I’ve been looking at my portfolio, with a view to rebalancing it away from rural to urban.’

‘How much do you want for it?’

‘I’d not be looking for the full market value, as it’s you.’ Robbie named a sum which even to Zoe, who knew nothing about land prices, sounded a trifling amount for such a big field. ‘You’d substantially increase the value of the cottage if it came with a bit of land.’

‘Can I give it some thought?’

‘I’ll call you in a couple of days, yes? I’d prefer to get this sorted quickly.’

Like his sister, when Robbie decided on something he was obviously single-minded about seeing it happen; there was little use in arguing with him, so Zoe didn’t try. Of course she wouldn’t agree to something which wasn’t to her advantage, but on the surface his proposition seemed reasonable, generous even. She could afford it, after all, but would still sound out her solicitor, who also ran a successful estate agency, tomorrow.

She studied the field which surrounded Keeper’s Cottage on three sides with more interest than usual. There would be nothing to stop her renting it out herself, until she made long-term plans for it.

Having got the business part of his visit over, Robbie’s leg ceased to jiggle and he started to tell Zoe how worried his parents were at the reappearance of Kate’s ex-husband.

‘You don’t think she’ll have him back, do you?’ Zoe asked. ‘Especially now Erskine Mather’s around.’

‘No, but Ken’s always been trouble. When he left, it affected Sis badly, whatever she might claim. The children were all too young to realise what was going on. Now, though, they’ve already started asking questions, like why he’s here, are they going to have to go and live with him. Mhairi was in tears over breakfast and she didn’t even see him last night.’

‘Oh dear. Let’s hope his meeting with Kate this morning will be the end of the matter.’

‘Now he’s back he’ll not be easy to get rid of, trust me. He’s after something—money, probably.’

‘Surely that was all sorted out when they divorced?’

‘Maybe he thinks Dad’ll pay him to go away. Again.’ His mobile, sitting on the table between them, chose that moment to ring. He lifted a hand to shade its screen and said, ‘I’ll have to take this.’

Zoe thought about what he’d just said, oblivious to the one-sided conversation going on next to her. Did she misinterpret him, or did he let slip that Ranald Mackenzie had paid his son-in-law to walk out on Kate and their children?

After ending the call with an abrupt ‘Yes’, Robbie said, ‘I have to go. Thanks for the tea. I’ll ring for your answer about the field on Tuesday.’

A few minutes after Robbie left, Zoe put aside the tuna salad roll she was preparing in order to answer a call on her mobile. Curious to hear how Kate had got on with Ken, it wasn’t until she held the phone to her ear that she remembered Kate only ever texted.

‘Hello, Zoe, it’s Patrick Dunin. I know this is probably a daft question, but did you call us earlier today?’

‘Yes, I dialled the surgery number but I didn’t think the call connected.’

‘Is everything okay? Did you have a problem with Mac?’

‘You could say that.’ She briefly explained what happened on their early morning walk.

‘That must have been terrifying. How is he now?’

‘His eye’s still not fully open but his sight doesn’t seem to be affected.’ She paused, then asked, ‘How did you know it was me?’

Patrick cleared his throat. ‘A sequence of one-two-three-four in the middle of a mobile number is pretty memorable. I’ve come into work to do some paperwork and your contact details on Mac’s records jumped out at me. When I compared the number that called with yours, I found they were the same. I hope you don’t mind me following it up.’

Zoe couldn’t help smiling at the suggestion he just happened to be looking at Mac’s records on a Sunday morning. He had obviously planned to ring her anyway, but she’d provided him with the perfect excuse. ‘It’s me who should apologise for wasting your time. I can’t have ended the call properly because I was so pleased to see Mac reappear.’

‘Do you plan on bringing him in to be checked over?’

‘There’s no need at the moment but I’ll call you if it turns out the damage is worse than I thought.’

‘Good. Well, I’m pleased to hear it.’

Zoe waited for the vet to say more, although she had no idea how to react if he suggested they meet up socially. However, it didn’t come to that. He simply said goodbye and she responded likewise. Maybe Kate was wrong after all.

After sharing her roll with Mac, she opened the laptop, checked her bank account then turned her attention to nursery furniture. She soon felt overwhelmed by the choices to be made. Dark wood, pale wood, or white? Cot, Moses basket or crib?
And how could a tiny baby possibly need a wardrobe?

She heaved a sigh and went to make a cup of tea. This part of imminent parenthood was fun, or so everyone told her. But any concerns she had about giving birth then enduring months of sleepless nights were far outweighed by the need to acquire furniture, bedding, clothes and everything else deemed essential for a new baby. It wasn’t the money involved, although she was shocked by how much she could easily spend, but the inescapable fact was that however much she wanted the child she was carrying, the arrival of nursery paraphernalia would confirm once and for all she was going to be a mother, entirely responsible for another human being. This terrified her.

A text came in from Kate mid-afternoon:
Want a visitor? Promise not to go on about exes!

Eager for a distraction, Zoe texted back then closed down her laptop. Unlikely though it was that Kate would be able to keep her promise, she sounded upbeat, suggesting her meeting with Ken had gone well. Once again, Zoe thought back to what Robbie had said, still unsure if he had been telling her that Ken took money from the Mackenzies to end his marriage to Kate. Telling herself this was none of her business, she got up and attempted to put it out of her mind by emptying the dishwasher.