Bad Blood (7 page)

Shelley’s sudden scream took her totally by surprise. She spun round.

A slight, fair-haired young woman was walking towards them –
no, it wasn’t fair hair. It was reddish-gold, and she had vivid light-blue eyes. Janette felt her own flesh crawl.

‘Don’t come near me!’ Shelley was screaming. ‘Don’t touch me! Vile, vile! Get back to hell where you belong! Get away, get away!’

Shocked, Marnie gaped at the woman who had accosted her, yelling hate. She was old, but tall and strong-looking with rather wild grey hair and her face was blotchy as if she had been crying. As she stood transfixed, the woman lurched threateningly towards her, her hands like claws reaching for Marnie’s face.

There was a group of women with her and one of them grabbed her, restraining her as Marnie dodged back with a scream of fright.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ this woman called. ‘Shelley, stop it! It’s all right!’

‘Shelley’ was mad, obviously. ‘She shouldn’t be allowed out, your friend,’ Marnie said fiercely as her terror subsided into anger and her racing heart slowed. ‘She could give someone a coronary, doing that.’

‘Yes, I know, I’m sorry. She’s not usually like that. It’s just …’ The apology trailed away.

Her friend, her arms still imprisoned, burst into hysterical sobs. ‘But it’s her, it’s her!’

‘No, it isn’t. It can’t be, Shelley. Just think – it can’t possibly be.’

Marnie felt a cold shiver run down her back. All right, so this was a crazy woman. But it didn’t explain why the others were staring too and her friend, who seemed sane enough, was looking at Marnie with eyes that were wide with shock in an ashen face.

And when she found the house where Anita Loudon lived, in the road that looked out over the play park, there it was again: that same look of horror and dismay as Anita opened the door.

For the third time, DI Fleming read through the report of the Marnie Bruce interview. As Hepburn had said, the account she had given was very detailed and, at least to Fleming’s more imperfect recollection, factually accurate – uncannily so, in reference to her own occasional visits to Marnie’s mother. She had completely forgotten that ill-judged orange and olive-green sweater she had apparently been wearing.

Where on earth did you go from here? Fleming turned to the thick buff file on the desk beside her and flipped through the yellowing transcripts. She checked that there was a marker at the relevant injunctions and in one or two other salient places, then closed it again.

It was still dusty. She took out a wipe and cleaned it up; Rowley wouldn’t appreciate getting her hands dirty, either physically or metaphorically. Fleming hadn’t been able to settle to anything today as she waited for the superintendent’s return from a meeting in Stranraer, apparently, and she’d asked to be told when she got back.

This wouldn’t do! She’d a load of stuff she needed to shift and she wanted to get away promptly tonight for Cammie’s celebration.
Cat was coming down from Glasgow specially and she’d said she’d meet her train at Dumfries just after six, so not being there waiting would be another big black mark. With that threat hanging over her, Fleming selected a pile of requests for authorisation that could be done on autopilot and powered her way through them.

When the summons eventually came, she gathered up her papers and hurried downstairs with a sinking feeling in her stomach. Over the top!

‘Come … come in,’ Anita Loudon managed. As she stared at her unwelcome guest she was struggling with a sense of unreality.

She had thought for a crazy moment when she saw her standing on the front doorstep that her visitor really was Kirstie returned – not the woman who called herself Karen, the woman she had known twenty years ago, with dyed black hair and eyes muddied with coloured contact lenses, but the girl with the red-gold hair and bright-blue eyes.

It was Marnie, of course, Marnie – the child whose memory had haunted her dreams and her three o’clock wakings, with ‘Guilt! Guilt! Guilt!’ tolling in her head like a great bell. Anita had forgotten how unnervingly like her mother as a girl she had always been.

As the young woman followed her into the house she heard herself babbling, ‘My, this is a surprise! How nice to see you. Goodness, how long is it? In here – now do sit down. It’s so lucky you found me in – I’m usually working, but this is my day off.’

Marnie didn’t sit down. As Anita fluttered round her, she turned to face her squarely. She too was looking shocked, and rigid with tension.

‘What’s wrong with me?’ she demanded. ‘Why is everyone looking at me as if I’m some sort of monster?’

Dear God, where did you start with that one? And – everyone? Anita drew a deep breath.

‘Marnie, I’m sorry – so rude, to have stared at you like that. It just
took me a moment to place you and then it was such a surprise to see you after all these years.’

She saw Marnie open her mouth to speak and deliberately turned away, saying, ‘Now, I’m sure you need a coffee. It’s quite cold out there, but at least it’s not raining today. You just sit down. I won’t be a moment.’

She whisked out of the room. Don’t panic, she told herself, don’t panic. The crushing sense of her own sin threatened to overwhelm her and even before she switched on the kettle, she flung open the back door and slowly inhaled the cool, damp air. She needed all her wits about her.

Marnie wasn’t just making a nostalgic visit to the place where she had spent a part of her childhood. She’d come looking for answers and Anita had to think up some to give her in the time it took for a kettle to boil.

And ‘everyone’? Who was it who had seen her and thought the same as Anita had?

Marnie was quite glad to do as she was told and sit down. Her legs still felt shaky after her encounter with the coven down the road. She had felt their eyes on her as she hurried away and came along to the house here. What was it with this place?

And Anita – the Anita Marnie remembered had been petite and slim and had seemed glamorous, at least to her as a child, but she wasn’t that any more. Her nails were still manicured and her hair was still long and blonde but it was thinning and meagre now and she was just a thin, worn-looking middle-aged woman trying to seem younger by keeping the look she’d had twenty years before.

No matter what Anita said, when she opened the door she hadn’t been surprised, she’d been horrified just like the women in the village. She’d wriggled out of it by going to make the coffee but when she came back Marnie was going to force her to tell her why, however reluctant she might be.

Was she sure she really wanted to know, though? The scene flickered into her mind again.

She’s just walking past the play park, trying to read the street name on the board at the end of the next road. There’s a group of women coming out of the park and then there’s this weird one who suddenly tries to attack her and she’s yelling, ‘Don’t come near me! Don’t touch me! Vile, vile! Get back to hell where you belong! Get away, get away!’

Feeling sick and frightened, Marnie buried her face in her hands. What nightmare was this that she had stumbled into?

She didn’t have to stay. She could get up right now, walk out of the house, before Anita returned. She could – but then she would never know what this was about and it would drive her crazy. The ache of curiosity was part of her reason for coming back in the first place.

So she was stuck here in this dreary little room, the sort of room Marnie hated. It was old-fashioned, with too much fussy furniture with barley-sugar legs and elaborate machine-carving and every surface was cluttered with knick-knacks: little vases, bowls, china ornaments and photographs – lots of photographs. She imagined taking a big black plastic bag and sweeping the surfaces blessedly clear.

The coffee was taking a long time. She got up restlessly and went across to look at the framed photos grouped on the top of a bow-legged bureau. There was one where Anita had obviously posed for the camera, with her dark eyes looking flirtatiously from under long eyelashes, her blonde hair thick and full, just the way Marnie remembered her. Most of the others were just snaps: there was one of an elderly couple but most were of Anita – Anita laughing in a group of friends, Anita raising a glass at a party, Anita in a paper hat pulling a funny face.

Not very interesting. Marnie was just turning away when her eye caught one right at the back. A photograph of a man.

He was striking-looking, rather than handsome, with very dark
hair and eyes and flaring eyebrows marking a narrow face. He was giving a quizzical smile and there was something about his expression that drew you in, making you want to share his amusement.

She couldn’t move. She stood, stiff and still, as the images began to whirl in her head, crazy clips and sequences – too many, too many! Then one pushed the others aside and started running.

It’s a sunny day, the day after her birthday and she’s feeling proud of being a big girl of five. It’s hot inside and she’s out on the walkway that runs past the front doors of all the flats in the block.

Mum’s inside with him. They’re shouting at each other so it’s better being out here even though she doesn’t like the sour smell from people peeing on the stairs. She’s left her birthday present doll inside because if the boy next door comes out and sees her playing with it he’ll have it off her. So she’s bored, and she’s hanging over the wall to see what’s happening in the car park five floors below.

Not a lot, really, just someone shouting at a big dog that’s chasing a little one. She’s watching to see if it’ll catch it when he comes out of the flat behind her. She turns, warily.

If he’s in a good mood he’s OK but she’s always a bit scared of him. She’s had the back of his hand a few times and if he’s been fighting with Mum he’s bound to be in a bad mood. He’s scowling, anyway.

Then he sees her, and suddenly he’s smiling. ‘Hi, Marnie. What are you doing?’

She feels uncomfortable when he smiles like that. It’s not his nice smile, the one that means he’s happy and everything’s going to be fun.

‘Nothing,’ she mutters.

He joins her. ‘Boring, isn’t it? What are we going to do to cheer things up? I know – why not practise wall-walking?’

She’s puzzled. ‘Where?’

‘Here.’ He pats the top of the wall she’d been looking over. It’s not very wide, just wide enough for your foot, if you were daft enough to put it there.

She says, ‘I’m not allowed to.’

‘Oh, of course not – if you were by yourself. That would be dangerous, but I’m here to see you’re all right. Come on, it’ll be fun. I’ll lift you up.’

He’s coming towards her, holding out his arms. She hangs back. ‘I don’t want to.’

He stoops over her and his face is dark again. ‘Not scared, are you – a big five-year-old like you behaving like a baby?’

It isn’t nice to be called a baby. ‘I’m not scared,’ she says, and then he’s smiling again.

‘That’s my girl.’ And he’s picked her up and she’s suddenly standing on the ledge and there’s a drop on the other side all the way down into the car park. She’s not scared, she’s terrified, and she’s shaking and clinging to the upright.

‘Come on, now,’ he says, and there’s that nasty edge to his voice. ‘I want to see you’re not a coward, Marnie. I wouldn’t like that.’

She takes a step, and another wobbly step. She mustn’t look down, away, away down to the car park below. She mustn’t – but somehow she has to, just a quick glance. She’s feeling dizzy, shaky, as if it’s sort of pulling her—

There’s a sudden scream. She screams herself, and her balance goes. She’s falling!

Somehow she manages to throw herself inwards and not down, down. She lands hard on the concrete, though, grazing her knees and her elbows and her hands and she’s wailing.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Mum is screaming at him. ‘She could have been killed!’

He’s shrugging, walking back into the flat already. ‘Of course she couldn’t. She wanted to try and it was safe enough. I was ready to catch her.’

He wasn’t, though. She knows he wasn’t. And everything hurts. ‘Mum!’ she sobs.

Mum looks down at her and sighs. ‘Oh, for God’s sake. What on earth made you do that? Now I suppose I’ll have to clean you up – come on.’

The door opening behind her brought Marnie back with a start.

‘Sorry to take so long,’ Anita said cheerfully. ‘I think I need a new electric kettle. Now tell me, how is your mum these days?’

Marnie picked up the photograph, and turned. ‘Who is this?’ she demanded and saw Anita’s face slowly turn a deep, dark crimson.

‘I may be called down to London for the security meetings at MI5, of course,’ Detective Superintendent Rowley said. Her rather sallow skin was a little flushed with the excitement of it all, and she put up her hand to her dark bob in a grooming movement as if to be ready for the summons if it came at this very moment.

‘They’re extremely concerned about illegal immigration, and of course the upsurge in Irish Republican activity too. I hadn’t quite realised how much of a front line we had up here, on the border with Ireland – a large and important entry point into the UK. The Cairnryan Special Branch have their work cut out, Marjory. I’ve assured them that any help they needed would automatically be given top priority.’

‘Of course,’ Fleming said gravely. The lads down at Cairnryan had obviously played a blinder. She could almost hear Hyacinth purring; it seemed a shame to have to spoil her fun.

But now Rowley was saying, ‘Anyway, what was it you wanted to see me about? I hope it’s not going to take too long – I’m due to lunch with the chief constable at one.’

She had been so busy talking that she hadn’t noticed the bulky file Fleming had brought, and when the inspector put it on her desk, she gaped. ‘What on earth is that? Oh really, I can’t think there’s time just now to discuss something like this.’ She looked at her watch impatiently.

Fleming stood firm. ‘I’m afraid it can’t wait, ma’am.’

Rowley’s lips tightened. With a bad grace and another pointed look at her watch, she said, ‘Very well. What’s the problem this time?’

Controlling her irritation, Fleming said, ‘Do you remember the Dunmore murder case?’

‘Well, not vividly, I have to say. But of course it comes up every time there’s a child-on-child killing anywhere – the ‘Cradle of Evil’ village.’

‘It was forty years ago.’

‘That explains it, then. At the age of one I was perhaps not quite as au fait with the big news stories as I should have been.’

The sarcastic, patronising tone grated on Fleming like a knife scraped sideways on a plate. ‘I don’t remember it either, obviously. But about twenty years ago when I was a rookie Kirstie Burnside, who killed Tommy Crichton, came to live on this patch. She was calling herself Karen Bruce by then.’

‘Surely she shouldn’t have been allowed to return to the area?’

‘It’s actually more than an hour away – she was living up by Clatteringshaws Loch. But yes, you would have thought it was a mistake.’ Fleming opened the file at one of the marked places. ‘Here, though, you can see that it was questioned and they found there wasn’t anything forbidding it. And she seems to have been very determined – threatened to create all sorts of mayhem if they tried to remove her. And here, you see,’ she flipped to another marker, ‘there really is an injunction to say that nothing must be done which could in any way threaten to reveal the new identity she’d been given. So our hands were tied.’

Rowley barely glanced at the papers. ‘So? Look, Marjory, this was all a very long time ago. If there’s an immediate point—’

Fleming hurried on. ‘I was detailed to visit her from time to time, just routine, never any problem. She’d been taught bookkeeping in prison and somehow or other she’d got a job in some office in Newton Stewart. There was a child, Marnie. She was a ward of court
but the assessment was that Karen was a “good enough” mother and there was no real reason to take her away. When she was about ten or eleven she was found in their cottage with a head injury and her mother gone.’