Dead in the Water (30 page)

‘A shop, then. Bar of chocolate – something.’

‘We’ll get something later, on the way back.’

Suddenly suspicious, Kerr eyed him. ‘What’s the rush? There’s something else you want to do, isn’t there?’

‘Might be. Tansy, when you read the case files and notes yesterday, did anything strike you?’

‘Plenty of things.’ Kerr was automatically defensive. ‘But if you mean, can I guess your weird thought processes – no, not being psychic.’

With considerable forbearance, Macdonald said mildly, ‘Dearie me! You do have a nasty temper first thing in the morning, don’t you?’

‘Not when I’ve had my coffee. If I had a nice nine-to-five job I’d be sweetness and light.’ She gave him a darkling look.

‘Anyway,’ he went on doggedly, ‘I noticed the lighthouse people weren’t properly questioned, just asked if they’d seen anything that night, which they hadn’t. But they were near neighbours, might have known the background.

‘I recognized one of the names – she’s a pal of my auntie’s, married to one of the keepers, but she’s a widow now and I got her address. She’s living in Drummore, down near the Mull there, so I got my auntie to phone her and she’s happy to have a wee chat with us.’

‘Will she give us coffee?’

‘God, you never let up, do you? Actually, I’d put money on it. And probably home bakes as well. All my auntie’s chums are into cut-throat competitive tea parties.’

‘Maybe we could go there first, then?’ Kerr suggested hopefully. ‘It certainly doesn’t sound as if we’ll be offered so much as a drink of water at the Grants’.’

‘No, we can’t. Deprivation will give you a ferocious edge. Hell hath no fury like Tansy without her caffeine fix.’

Kerr glowered at him but didn’t reply, sinking down in her seat and pulling the hood of her grey sweatshirt over her head. ‘I’m asleep,’ she announced.

‘Don’t feel bad about leaving me without conversation, will you? With Ewan in the car, I’m used to it.’

Kerr only grunted. Macdonald left her to doze, rather enjoying the peace and the quiet coast road. The tide was out, and on the wave-rippled sand a flock of oyster-catchers strutted on their pink, stilt-like legs, while they probed the beach with long red-orange bills. Every so often one would startle and rise and the others would follow with their wild ‘weep-weep’ cries, to swirl around and then come back to settle again. It was a soft, greyish morning with a pale sun struggling through, but it looked uncertain weather. April showers, no doubt.

As they rumbled over a cattle-grid, Kerr woke up. She yawned, stretched, and shook her head to clear it. ‘That was probably a mistake,’ she said thickly. What I need is—’

‘No, don’t tell me. Let me guess. Coffee.’

‘Cold water to splash my face,’ she said with dignity. ‘And a toothbrush. My mouth feels—’

‘I’d really rather not go there. Look, that’s the farm. Up there on the right.’

Kerr looked about her and shuddered. ‘God, this is bleak! Nothing but the lighthouse on the point, and then the farm. And the house gives me the creeps anyway with that black stone – it looks like it’s scowling.’

‘So does its owner. We’ve been spotted.’ Macdonald drove into the farmyard and a tall, raw-boned woman marched towards them, reaching them before the car had stopped moving.

‘What do you want?’ she demanded as Macdonald opened his window.

Kerr leaned across. ‘Mrs Grant? We’re police officers. Could we have a word?’

‘Can I stop you?’ Jean Grant asked bitterly. ‘Come in if you must.’

She led them to the front door, through the small fenced-off garden. Kerr, last through the gate, turned to latch it and caught sight of a furtive movement. A man had come out of the house, and was heading towards a clapped-out Vauxhall.

‘Mr Grant!’ she called, and saw him jump and look round. Behind her, Jean Grant snarled, ‘I said “this way”. You’d better come right now.’

Kerr ignored her, going to meet the man now hovering uncertainly, looking towards them, then to the car, and back again.

‘Trying to avoid us, Mr Grant?’ She took malicious pleasure in his confusion.

‘No – er, I just – er—’ he stuttered. He was a big man, slightly shambling, with bright red hair. He looked helpless and bewildered.

‘We need to ask you a few questions,’ Kerr said.

‘Oh, right. Fine.’

He followed her to where Jean stood on the doorstep, fuming. Macdonald waited impassively.

‘My son doesn’t have time to waste,’ Jean snapped. ‘I can answer your questions, pointless as they are.’

Kerr was in no mood to be pushed around. ‘Since our time is valuable as well as your son’s, perhaps we could just get on with it?’

Tight-lipped, Jean opened the front door and stalked in. Ushering Grant in in front of him, Macdonald turned to wink at Kerr. ‘I take it I’m the good cop today, then?’ he murmured as they went inside.

Fleming was engaged in speed-reading a government report before going to see Lindsay when a tentative tap on the door announced a timid-looking Force Civilian Assistant.

‘Sorry, ma’am, I didn’t want to interrupt you but they said to tell you at once.’

Fleming smiled at the young woman. ‘That’s all right. Take a seat.’

The FCA looked at the chair indicated as if it might have jaws that would snap shut round her if she sat down. ‘Oh, no thank you, ma’am. It was just a message came from the path lab in Glasgow. They’ve found the specimens you wanted. Tissues from the body and the –’ she gulped, ‘foetus.’

‘No!’ It had seemed such a long shot. Fleming hadn’t been sure the unimpressive pathologist would even have taken samples, and even less sure that, if any existed, they would have survived the local lab being shut down. ‘That’s excellent. Can you instruct them to DNA-test the foetus? Not the body as yet, but the other ASAP. Thanks.’

When the girl had gone, Fleming sat back, tapping one fingernail on her front teeth. Hard evidence at last! If Lindsay let them take DNA samples it could lay to rest any suspicion of his involvement, and finally get Mrs Grant off their backs. Hodge was definitely in the frame but she couldn’t see him submitting to testing without a warrant and she couldn’t see much chance of getting one. And, of course, there was nothing to say that some man in Glasgow, as yet unknown, hadn’t been the father of the child. Still, given the extensive DNA data base, there was even the wild card chance that the sample might match someone on file for a totally irrelevant offence.

Today, too, the footprints expert would be at Tulach. He might produce hard evidence as well, and they could make much-needed progress. They still hadn’t come up with anything definite on the motive for the assault, and anything motiveless raised the spectre of murderous attacks on other upright citizens.

She brought her fist down on the desk in frustration. They needed this one wrapped up, now. Then she could devote herself to the murder investigation, where the events of the past had started to cast long, intriguing shadows.

In the cold, bare front room, Jean Grant seated herself on a small sofa with wooden arms, indicating that her son should join her. He squeezed uncomfortably into the space left him.

What a cheerless place, Macdonald thought: a bare minimum of furniture, dried vegetation in an orange vase, no pictures or photographs. It reflected the personality of its owner, as rooms tend to do.

He had suggested separate interviews, but got a flat refusal from both.

‘If your time’s so
valuable
,’ Jean lingered sarcastically on the word, ‘this’ll be quicker. And if it’s about the attack at Tulach the night before last, we were here together all evening.’

‘You heard about that, did you? What was your reaction, Mr Grant?’

His mother answered. ‘Oh, ask away. But you’ll not get an answer from either one of us.’

‘Mr Grant?’ Macdonald said again, fixing his brown eyes steadily on the man’s bent head, and after a moment Stuart looked up.

‘Got what was coming to him, probably. But it’s nothing to do with me.’

Jean’s hand gripped her son’s arm, and Macdonald thought she was digging in her nails.

‘It couldn’t be. We told you – we were here all evening, weren’t we, Stuart?’

‘That’s right,’ Stuart mumbled.

‘And what were you doing?’ Macdonald asked. Kerr was taking notes.

‘Had our supper. Then washed up – ooh, now I don’t want to mislead you. I washed and he dried. Then we watched TV until we went to bed.’

‘At?’

‘Ten o’clock. That’s when we always go.’

‘So what did you watch on TV?’ Macdonald asked with some eagerness, reckoning he could go on
Mastermind
with last night’s TV schedules as his specialist subject.

‘A video.
He
likes them. Load of rubbish, but it let me get on with my knitting.’

‘What was it?’ Macdonald was crestfallen. Easy to choose a film you’d seen before, possibly several times.

‘
Terminator 2
,’ Stuart offered sullenly. ‘I like watching it.’

Kerr chipped in. ‘So you were here together all evening, just like you were when Ailsa was killed? Only then you weren’t really, were you? Mr Grant, you said in an interview that you were out half the evening, doing emergency repairs round the farm.’

Stuart’s pale skin crimsoned. He looked apprehensively towards his mother. She didn’t look at him.

‘The man’s a fool!’ she snarled. ‘He was out the house for ten minutes, maybe. He’s forgotten – he gets mixed up about things sometimes. Don’t you, Stuart?’

Again, Macdonald saw the grip tighten on his arm.

‘Yes, maybe,’ Stuart muttered. ‘It was a long time ago.’

‘There you are!’ Jean’s voice was triumphant. ‘Right – got what you came for?’

‘Not quite,’ Kerr said coolly. ‘We’d like to know what you were doing on the other nights this week. Starting with Sunday.’

Stuart seemed suddenly to find his knees of compelling interest, but Jean stared straight at her questioner, hard-eyed. ‘Just the same as last night. It’s what we always do.’

It was another chance for Macdonald to show off his knowledge and he brightened. ‘What did you watch?’

‘If you think anyone can remember what they watched days ago, with the rubbish they put out, you’re daft. We usually see the news.
Emmerdale
, maybe. And
he
likes
EastEnders
. I do my knitting every night. Oh no – I tell a lie.’ She waited for their interest, then went on, ‘One night I did my ironing. I hope you’re satisfied with that, for it’s all you’re getting.’

‘Mr Grant?’ Kerr persisted.

He did look up, but his expression was as stony as his mother’s. ‘It’s like she said,’ was the only response.

Goaded, Kerr said with deceptive sweetness, ‘You see, one of the things we’re anxious to do is establish whether there’s any link between what happened to Marcus Lindsay and Ailsa’s death. You made allegations at the time, Mrs Grant, and you were very resentful that they didn’t produce the result you wanted. Even though you’ve been told that Mr Lindsay can prove he was in the US at the time.’

There was an electric silence. Stuart almost looked as if he had stopped breathing, and Jean gave a gasp, swiftly covered with a cough.

‘How dare you!’ she said shrilly. ‘I’ve told you, we were here together all last night. That’s all I need to say. And maybe it’s time you let my daughter rest in peace.’

Further questions met only silence, and Macdonald and Kerr had to give up. As they drove away Kerr said acidly, ‘Oh, I
am
glad we came. Tam told us yesterday what they’d say, and we could have saved ourselves a long, boring journey.’

Macdonald, in some exasperation, said, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you, Tansy. Their reactions told us a lot.’

‘Oh, I suppose so.’ It was a grudging admission. ‘Now, where’s this lady who’s going to make with the home-made goodies and coffee? I tell you, there’ll be bloodshed if you’ve got that wrong.’

‘How do you thank someone who’s saved your life?’

Marcus Lindsay came across the library to hug Jaki Johnston, as best he could with his arm in a sling. Mrs Boyter, having shown her in, hovered with a sentimental smile and then withdrew.

‘I’m not sure I did, actually, as it turned out.’ Jaki gave a shaky laugh.

He held her away from him, looking at her upturned face with growing concern. ‘Hey, hey! What’s happened here? Are you all right?’

He led her to the chesterfield in front of the fire and sat down beside her.

‘I should be asking you that,’ Jaki said. ‘But you’re looking pretty good, apart from the sling and the plaster on your head. Does it hurt?’

‘Like they say, only when I laugh. The stitches are pulling a bit but all I’ve needed today is paracetamol. But you – to be brutally honest, you’re looking terrible. I’m worried about you. And you’re shivering – I’ll poke up the fire.’

Marcus went over to the fireplace, picking up a steel poker to coax the fire into a clearer blaze, then sat down again, chafing Jaki’s hands.