Bad Blood (8 page)

‘She’d attacked her own
daughter
?’

‘No one could ever prove it. Marnie had concussion and didn’t know what had happened, but there was no sign at all of a disturbance inside the house, nothing in the immediate area and the car was found later at Dumfries station. She’d just disappeared and the child was taken into care.’

Rowley pursed her lips. ‘With her record, you’d have to assume she’d just lost her temper again. So what was the follow-up?’

This was the hard part. ‘I was a PC at the time so of course I have no idea of the discussions that went on. But Superintendent McNally told me he was hamstrung by the identity injunction and since the child had recovered after a night in hospital he didn’t want to start a witch-hunt.’

The superintendent was looking sceptical.

‘Yes, I know,’ Fleming said. ‘The thought of another rerun of the whole Cradle-of-Evil thing was probably part of it. She was released on lifelong licence, of course, so presumably he informed the appropriate authorities that she’d broken her parole but they’d be reluctant to admit that they’d somehow lost one of the most notorious killers in Britain.’

‘I can see that. Realpolitik, Marjory – sometimes it’s impossible to do things by the book. So – has she turned up again?’

‘That wouldn’t be so much of a problem – she wouldn’t want to draw attention to herself. No, I’m afraid it’s worse than that. Her daughter Marnie has turned up demanding to know what steps were taken to find her mother and why she was told nothing at all after she was taken into care. I haven’t spoken to her myself, but I gather Marnie thinks her mother was murdered.’

Rowley groaned. ‘Causing trouble?’

‘Certainly wanting answers.’

‘So we give them to her – why not? If she doesn’t know who her mother really is it may come as a shock but—’

Fleming was shaking her head. She tapped the file in front of them. ‘We can’t, not until we can get legal permission for an exemption from the injunction.’

‘That could take weeks!’

‘Yes. And meantime, if we aren’t in a position to give Marnie the information she wants, is she just going to go away quietly or is she going to decide we’re covering up and contact the press?’

‘An immediate injunction to stop her,’ Rowley suggested. ‘That would be quick enough.’

‘A gagging order?’ Fleming said doubtfully. ‘The press tend to get very interested in those.’

Rowley obviously realised she was right. ‘Well, what do you suggest?’ she snapped. ‘You were in at the start of this – I wasn’t.’

Even though she had known perfectly well what the bottom line would be, Fleming still felt aggrieved. If she’d been in charge, instead of being a humble PC, she’d have – well, what would she have done then? She didn’t know, and certainly she didn’t know now.

‘All I can suggest is that I talk to her, give her as many facts as I legitimately can and try to persuade her that we did our best at the time and thought it wasn’t in her interests to start a public hunt.’

‘I suppose so.’ Rowley didn’t sound impressed, but she was looking at her watch again. ‘I’ve got to go – I’m late already.

‘Do try to keep all this under wraps, Marjory. It’s really very tedious.’

As she swept out, Fleming pulled a childish face at her retreating back.

Shelley Crichton was sitting on the sofa in Janette’s front room, still hiccuping a little as she sipped at a glass of cooking brandy. Two of
the other women had come back with her and were drinking white wine, being less in need of such robust stimulus

Lorna Baxter was well into her second glass. She was a big, bulky woman who always had high colour and now her cheeks were red as poppies with the combination of alcohol and outrage. ‘It’s disgusting, coming like that to gloat. That Kirstie must have sent her to report back – that’s what it would be! She knows there’d be a lynching if she turned up herself.’

Janette frowned her down. Lorna wasn’t a friend of hers – ‘coarse’, was her private opinion, and the family, from the social housing at the bottom of the hill, weren’t what up here on the hill you called ‘respectable’. She was a good ten years younger than the rest of them but she’d been part of the vigilante group that had driven Kirstie Burnside’s dysfunctional family out of Dunmore after the trial and ended up in court herself. Perhaps it had been a mistake to ask her to join them at the park, but almost everyone was out at work or busy and Janette had wanted Shelley to feel supported.

‘I’m sure that’s absolute nonsense,’ she said repressively, but Shelley ignored her, sitting up eagerly.

‘Do you think so? Do you think that’s what it was? How could anyone be so cruel, so wicked?’

Janette exchanged an anxious glance with Sheila who was a real friend, a nice, sensible woman, and she stepped in.

‘Don’t be daft, Lorna. You don’t know that’s even any relation of Kirstie’s. It was just a lassie with reddish hair and blue eyes – there’s plenty of them about. You’d have passed her in the street if it hadn’t been the coincidence of her coming along just when we were all thinking about poor wee Tommy.’

Lorna bridled. ‘Oh, you think so? I tell you, that girl was the very image of her mother as a bairn. She shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it, that’s what I think.’

Shelley’s face was becoming flushed too and Janette was starting to
regret that she hadn’t been more careful about the amount of brandy she’d tipped into the glass.

‘She went into Anita Loudon’s house.’ Her voice was shrill. ‘You can’t deny that Anita knew Kirstie at the time it happened—’

‘Of course she did,’ Janette said, a little desperately. ‘Everyone went to that wee school. It doesn’t prove anything.’

She knew she was struggling, though. Right enough, it would be quite a coincidence for a complete stranger who was a lookalike for Kirstie Burnside to drop in on one of her best friends, but it would do Shelley no good at all to believe that a malevolent Kirstie was still somewhere in the picture, mocking her grief. What could she do about it anyway, except put herself through another nightmare frenzy of publicity? Oh, she certainly shouldn’t have invited Lorna – troublemaking wasn’t so much a hobby as her business in life, and now she was demonstrating that she was determined not to be deflected from it.

‘That girl’s needing to be told what we all think of her for what she’s doing, and what everyone thinks of that murdering besom, her mother, as well. We were never given a chance to tell Kirstie that straight – she’s been protected all her life, with her fine new identity that no one’s allowed to know and all her “rights” – well, this is the result.

‘She’s needing stopped, and Anita too – what’s she doing, getting involved in this? It was probably her told the girl Shelley’d be at the park.’

Shelley was clinging to the now empty glass. ‘That’s right, Lorna. That’s what needs to happen.’

‘You don’t know that Anita was expecting her, or that she’s Kirstie’s daughter,’ Janette argued, though without much hope. ‘There may be cousins—’

‘There aren’t,’ Lorna said triumphantly. ‘There was just a brother, and he’s gay – lives in Inverness with his partner.’

Shelley stood up. ‘I’m not letting her get away with this. I’m going to look her straight in the face and find out what all this is about, if Kirstie put her up to this … this disgusting cruelty. And if Anita’s been helping her to do it she’s just as bad – worse in some ways, because she knows what we went through. When Grant hears about this—”

Grant Crichton’s short fuse was legendary. ‘Do you need to tell him?’ Janette bleated. ‘It’ll only upset him.’

Shelley rounded on her. ‘And why shouldn’t he be upset? I’m upset. He ought to be told what that woman’s still doing. And the police too …’

‘That’s right, Shelley.’ Lorna set down her empty wine glass and came across to link arms with her. ‘Don’t you worry. I’ll come with you and we’ll give her laldie, eh?’ She was almost smacking her thick lips.

With a glance at Sheila, Janette reluctantly got up. ‘If the two of you are determined to go, we’ll come with you. You need to be careful nowadays, you know. If you start in on someone it could be you in trouble with the police. You don’t want to end up in court.’

She didn’t say ‘again’ but the venomous look Lorna directed at her as she and Shelley went out of the door, still arm in arm, showed that the barb had gone home.

Anita set down the tray on the coffee table with exaggerated care, waiting for her burning cheeks to cool. She handed Marnie a mug saying casually, ‘Oh him? Milk, sugar? Help yourself to biscuits.

‘That’s an old friend of mine. Haven’t seen him in ages. Why? Does he look like someone you know?’

‘Yes, he stayed with us quite often when I was little.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so, dear.’ Her voice sounded hollow, even to herself. ‘You were down in England then and he lives in Glasgow. I expect it’s just a chance resemblance. You can’t remember very clearly when you’re small.’

‘I remember everything.’ Marnie stated it as a fact.

‘Oh, I’m sure you have a very good memory.’ Anita achieved a light laugh. ‘But nobody actually remembers everything.’

‘I do. I mean it. I have something called hyperthymesia.’

She’d never heard of it. Was it a case for ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘Congratulations’? She raised her eyebrows.

‘I told you – I remember everything,’ Marnie repeated. ‘That’s what it is. It’s a condition that means I have complete recall of everything that’s ever happened to me.’

Anita stared at her.
Everything?
Surely that had to be nonsense. Please, that was nonsense. She couldn’t possibly – but now she was proving that she could.

‘Would you like me to tell you what you were wearing that time you and Mum took me shopping in Dumfries? You had on jeans and a pink mohair sweater. Your stilettos were cream-coloured with peep-toes and the varnish on your toenails was pink but your fingernails were red. You had a glass pendant with a rose sort of drawn on it.’

The etched crystal pendant was lying in a drawer upstairs. Her expression seemed to amuse Marnie; she gave a harsh laugh and said, ‘I can view it like a film, you see. Want any more? You said to my mother, “That so-called sale was just cheap rubbish bought in—”’

‘No, no, that’s enough,’ Anita said. She could feel the hairs rising on the back of her neck. If the child had remembered all that, what else might she have remembered?

Marnie wasn’t a child any more, though, and the disconcerting woman she had become was studying her with her mother’s ice-blue eyes and a cool, measuring look that was all her own.

‘So I remember the man in the photograph, right? Drax, my mother called him. I didn’t call him anything. What’s his name?’

Anita moistened her lips. ‘Daniel Lee.’ When was the last time she’d said that aloud?

‘So why Drax?’

‘Oh, it was just a stupid joke among us kids. He was allergic to garlic so we called him Dracula, Drax for short, and it stuck, somehow. Silly, really.’ She gave a little, self-conscious laugh. ‘He was just this guy your mum and I both knew from when we were at school, that’s all. Nothing sinister. I’m sorry if I made some sort of mystery out of it – I just thought it wasn’t likely you would have remembered him.’

That was better. She’d managed to sound calmer, more relaxed.

‘Was he my father?’

That threw her again. ‘H-how would I know?’ she stammered. ‘What did your mother tell you?’ Then, with sudden inspiration, ‘Why don’t you ask her about it?’

Marnie’s eyes widened. ‘You mean – she’s still alive? Where is she?’

‘Don’t you know?’

She saw the animation die out of Marnie’s face. ‘I never saw her again after I was injured that night at the cottage and was taken into care. I was hoping you might know what happened afterwards.’

Anita gave a little shrug. ‘I didn’t even know you’d had an accident, dear. All I know is that I tried to phone your mother and when I got no answer I went out to the cottage. There were police tapes around it and no one was there so I tried to find out what was going on, but the police wouldn’t tell me anything.’

She spread her hands wide. ‘I’m so sorry. It must have been very upsetting for you and I just wish I could be of more help.’

‘I … see.’

Struggling with disappointment, Marnie looked much more vulnerable now, younger than her years and more like the child Anita remembered. Struggling not to wince at a piercing shaft of shame, she said, ‘It’s all a long time ago now, of course. It must have been very hard on you, but you’ve obviously made your own life. Where are you living now?’

Again, Marnie refused to be deflected. ‘Maybe you can’t tell me what happened then. You can tell me what’s wrong here now, though.
You know – I saw it in your face. Why did that woman try to attack me?’

How could she tell her? A truthful answer wouldn’t put a stop to Marnie’s questions, it would just open the way to a whole lot more.

‘That’s her coming up the path!’ Marnie’s voice was suddenly sharp with alarm as she stared over Anita’s shoulder out of the window on the front of the house. ‘She’s got people with her …’

When Anita spun round to look she saw that Shelley Crichton was indeed coming up the path in a little group, preceded by Lorna Baxter, of all people. Even the way the woman was ringing the doorbell was aggressive.

‘Oh dear,’ Anita said faintly. ‘I’d – I’d better go and speak to them.’

As she opened the door, she was swept aside by Lorna’s impressive bulk. ‘Where is she, then? We’re wanting to talk to her. Shelley’s got a few wee questions needing answers.’

But when Lorna burst into the sitting room there was no one there. Marnie might not have understood what this was all about, but she could recognise a lynching party when she saw one.

Marnie could hear violence in the raised voice at the front door as she crept past in the shadows of the hall, stifling a sob of fear. The kitchen door stood open and she went in, pushing it to behind her, then tiptoed across to a glass panel door leading into the garden. She turned the handle as delicately as she could, grimacing at the slight noise it made.

It resisted – locked! She was trapped, no escape – but as she glanced wildly about she saw a key hung up by the sink, a key with a flowered tag saying ‘Garden’. She grabbed it and let herself out, closing the door as quietly as she could. To her left there was a path leading round the side of the house to the front, but she couldn’t risk taking it. If Anita hadn’t let the women into the house they would be standing at the front door where they would see her as she came round the corner of the house, and with her imagination running riot she could see them falling on her like a pack of wild beasts…

The back garden was small but there was a high, solid stone wall at the end of it, separating it from the property beyond. Marnie ran
across the sodden, muddy square of grass and launched herself at it, thankful that she was wearing jeans and trainers. Stretching her arms she could reach the top and she levered herself up, her feet scrabbling against the stone. She had no idea what was on the other side of it but she threw herself over, landing awkwardly on the soft earth of a flower bed and staggering violently into a bush. Its thorns scratched her and tore at her clothes but she barely noticed.

This garden, and the house it belonged to, was bigger. Marnie glanced nervously at the windows overlooking it; the householder might not be pleased at his property being invaded like this and she didn’t think she’d done the shrub any good either. The sooner she got out of here the better. There was a wicket gate which led past the side of the house leading to the front garden, offering an escape route, and she trotted off across the sweeping lawn towards it.

Then she heard a door opening and a second later, savage barking. A dog was racing across the garden, a small burly dog with the distinctive broad, blunt head of a Staffordshire bull terrier, and its muzzle was drawn back to expose pointed teeth.

With a scream of fright, Marnie sprinted towards the gate. She didn’t try to open it, just flung herself across the top to land heavily on her hands and knees on the path beyond. The dog, snarling and snapping, was hurling itself at the wood in such a frenzy of excitement that the gate was bending under its onslaught. If it gave way, burst open—

But there was a shout, then a whistle. The dog stopped, turned and ran panting back to the house. Marnie could hear a man’s mocking laughter.

Feeling sick with shock, she picked herself up and limped down the front path into the street beyond. What could she do now? Where could she go?

She could go back to the Morrisons – muddy, with a tear in her jeans and bleeding knees and hands. She could picture Gemma’s
sympathetic horror at what had happened to her as she admitted her to that immaculate kitchen and her immaculate life, cleaning her wounds with kindness and, yes, pity.

Marnie didn’t want pity. Once you were pitiable, once you lost your pride, there was nothing left. All she could do was go back to the main road and wait for the next bus back to Kirkluce.

Then she stopped. If she retraced her steps, she’d have to pass the end of Anita Loudon’s road and might walk straight into the coven on their way back, angry that she’d escaped them. She’d have to walk along this road in the other direction instead, hoping it would connect with another one that would lead her back down to the main street along the shore.

It was a circuitous walk, made worse by the constant fear of blundering into her persecutors, and the grazes on her knees were stiffening too by the time she reached the bus stop. She had to endure a nervous wait with her eyes constantly scanning the passers-by, terrified that one of them would react to her with another attack. When at last the bus came she almost threw herself into it; the driver gave her a strange look but didn’t comment on her dishevelled appearance and Marnie collapsed onto a seat with a little groan.

Then it was pulling away and she was leaving Dunmore, on the way back, she could only hope, to some sort of normality. Along with the fear she still felt and the pain of her grazes, there was utter bewilderment. What kind of a place was it where complete strangers screamed abuse in your face and people set their dogs on you?

Fleming looked up in surprise when DS MacNee appeared in her office. ‘Wasn’t expecting to see you today. How are the lovebirds?’

He struck an attitude. ‘The great romance is over! See Gloria –
Partly wi’ love o’ercome sae sair, And partly she was drunk
? Well, turns out it was all the drink talking, no “partly” about it, and now
she’s changed her mind. She’s dumped the old man, and Maggie’s comforting him.’

Fleming, who was in no mood for having Burns declaimed at her, said sourly, ‘Glad someone’s happy. I’ve had to tell the super about the Marnie Bruce problem.’

MacNee sobered immediately. ‘I’d kinna forgotten about that. Did Louise find out what she wanted?’

‘Yes, and I really wish you’d been there to do it instead. Marnie Bruce was very blunt – said she wanted to know what happened to her mother and why there had been no real investigation when she disappeared. Louise was obviously shocked when I couldn’t say that there had been, naturally, so there’s a problem now with her as well as Marnie.’

‘We’ll just have to tell her.’

Fleming shook her head. She tapped the bulky file still sitting on her desk. ‘Injunction. The legend that was created for Kirstie Burnside can’t be disclosed to anyone except officially recognised persons – that means us and superintendent level and above. We can’t decide to give a random DC the information.’

‘What about the daughter?’

‘We’re assuming that because she’s digging it all up again she doesn’t know her mother’s history, which may not be true, of course. But, if so, the same applies – we can’t disclose anything without a court order. We’d get it, of course, but it would take time and if we can’t give Marnie good reason to be patient, she could create havoc.’

‘And Louise is just the wee girl to help her do it, if she thinks she’s being fobbed off. She’s still got all these fancy ideas about justice.’

Fleming gave him a wry smile. ‘I had the crusading spirit too, once upon a time. You probably did as well but now all we seem to think about is process and practicality.’

MacNee snorted. ‘You’ll not get many convictions by giving the jury a wee speech about what you believe in. And that’s the way
convictions get quashed too – when the lads get round to thinking what they’re after is justice, not proof.’

‘Oh, I know you’re right. But even so, it seems sad, somehow. Another sign of advancing age.’

‘Maturity,’ MacNee corrected. ‘Wisdom, you could say – I kinna like the idea of wisdom.’

‘Right. Spare me some of it now. I’ll have to phone Marnie Bruce and arrange a meeting. What am I going to tell her?’

‘Never mind Marnie. What am I going to tell Louise? She’ll be at me the minute I put my head in the door of the CID room.’

‘I don’t know what on earth you’re talking about,’ Anita Loudon said with a fine air of bewilderment as Lorna Baxter, with Shelley Crichton close behind her, looked round the sitting room with an expression of baffled rage. The other two women, who looked as if they were suffering acute embarrassment, were hanging back in the hall.

‘What is all this about, Lorna?’ Anita went on. ‘Who are you looking for?’

‘Kirstie Burnside’s daughter, that’s what. We saw her coming in the house here. What are the two of you wanting? Did Kirstie put her up to it? That’s what Shelley wants to know.’

‘She was there at the play park, gloating,’ Shelley burst out. ‘I was putting down my flowers for poor little Tommy and when I looked up, there she was, watching me. I really thought it was Kirstie, just at first—’

‘This is absolutely ridiculous!’ Anger, that was good. ‘You burst into my house with some bizarre story about Kirstie Burnside’s daughter – did she even have a daughter?

‘There was a girl came to the door doing a survey for a company I bought some stuff from, if that’s who you’re talking about. She was here about ten minutes, maybe, and then she left. Right enough she’d reddish hair and blue eyes, the same as Kirstie, but that’s what you
call a Celtic complexion – there’s a lot of it about here, after all. The rest is just total rubbish.

‘Oh, I can forgive you, Shelley – I know this is a really bad time for you and you’ve got all my sympathy. But what the hell do you think you’re doing, Lorna – stirring all this up? You got warned off before and unless you get out of my house and stop all this nonsense, I’m calling the police myself, right now.’

Shelley looked from one to the other uncertainly and Janette Ritchie came forward to take her arm. ‘That’s exactly what I told you, Shelley. Come away back with me now and have a wee sit-down – you’re overwrought, and no wonder. Lorna, you should be ashamed of yourself.’

Entirely unrepentant, Lorna said, ‘I know what I saw. And you know what you saw, too. You’re a liar, Anita Loudon.’

She walked out of the sitting room in the wake of the other women, then before Anita could stop her went across the back of the hall to the kitchen. ‘Probably hiding in here,’ she said, throwing the door open.

Anita, at her shoulder, had to suppress a gasp, but the room was empty. ‘How dare you, Lorna,’ she said furiously. ‘I meant it, about the police.’

Unmoved, Lorna was peering out of the window. ‘There’s footprints, look! Someone’s gone across the grass.’

‘Yes, me,’ Anita said. ‘There was a plastic bag caught on that bush over there and I went to remove it, if you must know.’ She was awed by her own inventiveness. ‘So get out of my house.’

She wondered what she would do if Lorna stood her ground. The woman was a good two stones heavier than she was and her broad, doughy face was flushed and belligerent.

But Lorna said only, ‘Oh aye, that’ll be right,’ and at last went towards the front door. The others had left already, walking away quickly as if trying to dissociate themselves from what was happening.

On the threshold she turned. ‘I said from the very start you knew
more about Tommy’s death than you ever told. Now I know you did. And this isn’t the end of it.’

With a well-timed push, Anita got her off balance and shoved her out, locking the door behind her. Staggering, Lorna had to grab at a railing by the front step so as not to fall and she turned to shout at the closed door, eyes blazing malevolence.

‘Oh, I’ll get you for this! That’s assault – could have broken my leg. And making me out to be a liar – we’ll see who’s the liar around here.’ She walked away.

The adrenaline rush that had powered Anita’s defiance left her. Shaking, she went back to the sitting room and half-fell into a chair. She could feel her throat constricting, feel the breathlessness starting as if the air had been depleted of oxygen, but she dared not go to open a window. All she could do was cup her hands round her face and force herself to the rhythm of shallow breaths in, long, slow breaths out. It worked at last, though her heart was still racing.

What was going to happen now? She couldn’t begin to guess; she only knew that everything that she had tried to believe was in the past, over and forgotten, had sprung to vicious life.

She’d surprised herself with the facility of her lies, but she didn’t think anyone, least of all Marnie Bruce, had believed her. The girl might well have been scared by what had happened here today, but Anita feared that it wouldn’t stop her asking questions. She had certainly wanted to know all about Drax.

There was a sick feeling in the pit of Anita’s stomach at what he would say when she told him what had happened. She didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but with Lorna Baxter determined to stir it, rumours would be flying round the village already. If he got to hear what had happened by chance, it would be all her fault for not telling him – instead of only partly her fault somehow for letting it happen at all. He’d be incandescently angry in that luminous, silent, terrifying way.

Why had she allowed herself to remain in thrall to him? He was
offhand, even brutal on the phone, frequently inaccessible, unfaithful – no, she couldn’t call it that. Faithfulness had never had any part in their relationship, except on her side and that had been her choice. There had been no one else for her, ever, even when Anita was sharing him with Karen. When Karen didn’t know.

She hated remembering what she had done to Karen, and to Karen’s daughter. She hated it so much that she’d even tried to atone, though in the cowardly way – the way that meant you weren’t there to explain or say sorry, or even ‘but it wasn’t my fault, it was his’ . If you could call that atonement.

Anita couldn’t count the number of times she had made up her mind to finish with Drax. And yet with some uncanny form of sensitivity he would always appear just then, without warning, in one of his sparkling moods which would feed her addiction like a glass of champagne pushed into the hands of an alcoholic, and sweep her off somewhere – a dogfight in Liverpool, a bizarre nightclub on a Spanish island, somewhere seedy and crazy and exciting.

Without him, she wouldn’t have been a woman with a glamorous secret lover. She’d be just a spinster who’d moved back to the place where she grew up twenty years ago, when her parents died. She’d always thought of it as temporary, but Dunmore was as near him as he would allow her to be, now he had his own nightclub in Glasgow.

Anita felt she’d been on the edge of coming apart for years now. You would think that after all this time you could just forget the secrets that you’d never wanted to know in the first place but they had seemed to weigh heavier and heavier the older she got. Now all this had happened she wondered how long she would actually be able to take the pressure.

Drax had to understand – they must do something. She didn’t know what, but she knew it couldn’t go on like this, not now Karen’s daughter had appeared. She couldn’t just lie and lie – sooner or later something would slip.