Evil for Evil (29 page)

He’d planned to keep the car window open tonight to get the earliest possible warning of anyone stirring, but for one reason and another he was shivering. He’d see movement soon enough and he’d touched base with the excise lads earlier and they were on full alert. He put it up again.

Nothing to do now but wait. Stay alert, stay calm. Stifle the impatience to see Brodie pay at last that had filled his mind to the exclusion of everything else.

Caring for his father had rekindled the anger that had smouldered for more than twenty years. The poor, sad old man, bewildered and ill at ease in his clean clothes and cosy surroundings, begging for a drink whenever he saw the son who was the keeper of happiness in the form of a whisky bottle, wrung Tam’s heart – a good man, a good father, reduced to a shambling wreck. He was missing the streets,
too, missing his pals and what he called freedom. That Tam had been forced to become in some sense his jailer was another charge to add to Brodie’s slate.

Was that a movement on the island, cutting the skyline? MacNee snatched up his binoculars but it was a brief glimpse only, and it was too dark to see anything against the bulk of the island. He’d thought he’d seen something last night, around the same time, probably, but again it could have been just a deer.

That small excitement over, he settled back to his watch.

Fergie Crawford couldn’t sleep. He’d tried earlier, but his head was buzzing. He’d not got much kip the night before either – supposing he never heard the summons? He was sleeping fully dressed these days, not to keep Brodie waiting.

Maybe the boat to take him off was on its way right now. If he knew that, he could be ready watching for Brodie to come across and not get tore into for being slow. He could slip out, up to the ridge in the middle of the island, and take a wee look over along the Solway Firth. It would pass the time anyway.

It was pitch-dark outside, but he’d kind of got used to that now. He let himself out of the cottage and went round the back, skirting the trees, keeping low so if Brodie looked across from the farm he wouldn’t spot him and go mental. Supposing the boat didn’t come tonight? Fergie wasn’t wanting to be locked in again.

The ruins on the top of the rise – more just a pile of stones, really – gave him cover as he lay down and cautiously peered over. Black sky, lighter sea; Fergie could see the white lines of the wave crests – hear, too, the wash as they broke on the rocks below. But no sign of a ship, no steady throb of an engine.

He was used to disappointment by now. He sat up again, then
his eye caught something pale, in among the rickety headstones just below the church. His heart thumped uncomfortably. It was near where that baby … It freaked him out, that …

Probably just a plastic feed sack Brodie or his boss had left. Of course it was. But if he didn’t check he’d start thinking daft things. He stood up, careless now, and walked down to it.

It wasn’t a sack. With a groaning gasp, Fergie shrank away, gagging, then fled down towards the trees, and round the back of the cottage. He stopped to be violently sick before he dashed inside and up the stairs, locking the door against … he didn’t know what.

MacNee’s eyes were feeling heavy, and he was starting to yawn. He looked at his watch and groaned. It was after two – what if he’d been wrong in his reckoning? What if he hadn’t read Brodie’s mind as well as he thought?

The mobile in his pocket buzzed. He grabbed it, listened and a slow smile spread across his face. ‘Hold on,’ he said.

He got out of the car and walked over to the edge of the track. The rush of cool air revived him, and as he looked down over the village he saw someone come out along the main street, a familiar figure with a limping gait, hurrying down towards the jetty.

‘Yup!’ he said into the phone. ‘We’re in business.’

‘For God’s sake, Crawford!’ It was Kerr Brodie yelling, beating on the door of Fergie’s room. ‘Are you dead, or what?’

Fergie came out of the deepest part of his sleep with his heart pounding. He was on his feet, staggering across to open the door while he was still half asleep, trying to work out where he was, what was happening. Brodie grabbed his arm, propelling him down the stairs.

‘My bag,’ he stammered, then wished he hadn’t as Brodie, giving him a vicious push that had him tripping down the last three steps on to his knees, told him exactly what he could do with his bag.

‘Out!’ Brodie snarled, and Fergie scrambled to his feet, following the other man at a staggering run down to the jetty. He was still not fully awake as they took off, but the sea air was bracing and before they rounded the end of the island it had come back to him in a sickening rush. The woman …

He choked, and Brodie’s head flipped round. ‘You’re not going to puke, are you?’

‘No, no,’ Fergie managed, though he wasn’t entirely sure – the woman, lying there covered in blood with her eyes wide open and her throat ripped out by … something. A dog, most likely the wolf-dog he had seen around with Brodie’s boss. And still roaming on the island, maybe.

When he’d reached the safety of the bothy, Fergie had locked himself in, then, cold with terror, had climbed into bed to try to warm himself up. He had listened with painful anxiety for a time, but at last in the silence had dropped into an exhausted sleep, not long before Brodie banged on the door.

If this didn’t work, Fergie wasn’t going back there, not for anything. He’d sooner turn himself in. But it had to work – it
had
to!

Brodie was edgy, though, he could see that. He was looking all around him as they headed towards a trawler which was gliding up the firth with no lights showing. Fergie caught his unease and started swivelling his head too, until Brodie in a savage undertone told him to sit still. He contented himself with willing the little boat across the water, faster and faster – and then they were there, and a man above them was catching the rope Brodie had thrown and securing it, then dropping a rope ladder over the side. Fergie stood up, ready to grasp it—

The roar of a powerful engine seemed to come from nowhere. A high-wattage spotlight dazzled them and a megaphone boomed out a warning, then the revenue cutter, speeding out from the shelter of Ardwall Island, was alongside.

The trawler made no attempt to flee, but the deck became frantic with activity, and a package dropped down into the sea beside them as Brodie, swearing violently, gunned his engine. But the rope to the trawler held. They were trapped.

Fergie Crawford’s escape was at an end.

MacNee was grinning as he trained his binoculars on Brodie, setting off in his boat to sail into the trap MacNee had laid. The diversion across to the bothy on Lovatt Island puzzled him at first, until he made out another figure moving in the darkness beside Brodie and hurrying to the boat. Who could that be? It would explain the movements he’d caught these last two nights – and, he remembered suddenly, the provisions he had spotted in the bothy room. A pal of Brodie’s in the drug business, maybe, with a reason for lying low?

His work here was done, and he could go home now to his bed, but he’d slept half the afternoon and felt disinclined to walk away from the excitement. Maybe the bothy would repay investigation – and now he noticed that the causeway below was uncovered. He could walk across, avoiding the need for a boat – and maybe even catch some of the action from the top of the island.

MacNee backed up the car and drove down to the shore, took his torch and his binoculars and set off. The causeway didn’t seem quite such an easy option, now he was close. He didn’t know much about the tides, but the sea, pitch-black in the darkness, was slapping at its stones now, and every so often a skittish wave would come higher than the others and break over the top. It would be wiser to turn
back, maybe, but he wasn’t going to miss seeing the trap sprung. He’d just have to be quick. It wasn’t that far.

Iron poles had been stuck in, indicating the best line to take, but even so, in the light of the powerful torch he could see jagged rocks slippery with seaweed and pitted with rock pools. Hurrying was a good prescription for a broken ankle, but impatience made him careless after a bit. An injudicious step sent him sliding into wet seaweed and he emerged soaking, with a bleeding gash on his ankle stinging with the salt water. Swearing, he rubbed at it, then looked for the torch which had gone flying. He was in a right mess if he couldn’t find it.

Mercifully, it was sturdy and shock resistant and the light shining through the bladderwrack revealed its position. His hands were shaking as he groped among the slimy tendrils for it.

The sea was covering the rocks behind him already. He couldn’t turn back now, and at least the causeway rose as it reached the island. He just had to keep moving faster than the tide rose. He tried to put out of his mind the local belief that the Solway tide came in faster than a horse could gallop. It was probably just an old wives’ tale, but his trainers, wet already from their immersion, were getting soaked again by the bolder waves. They were aggressive now, not playful.

Don’t panic. Watch your footing. Think about something else. Think about Brodie, think about payback time. It could still go wrong, of course. It was all about timing: if Brodie got warning, he could speed off, deny everything …

The excise lads who had spotted the trawler coming up the firth were experienced, he told himself – they wouldn’t get it wrong. And the causeway, thank God, was rising steeply now. MacNee slipped a couple of times, but just ahead there was rough grass growing down to the rocks. He had just reached it when he heard the sound of
the revenue cutter coming into action, and sprinted up towards the seaward side of the island, where he got a grandstand view of it all.

If revenge is a dish best eaten cold, MacNee’s was chilled to perfection. All it needed was a tot of whisky to go alongside, so he could drink to Brodie’s damnation, and he’d get that later. Admittedly, it was a pity they’d take the boat into Stranraer and he wouldn’t be there to look the bastard in the face as they brought him ashore in handcuffs, but he’d make sure Brodie would know who he had to thank.

MacNee was grinning as he turned away. He’d check out the bothy, then call in for someone to take him off. Even he would struggle to get seasick in the journey across from this side of the island.

It would be an hour or two before the first real signs of dawn, but the darkness was lifting a little, and he switched off the torch. He didn’t need it now to see his footing and the ruined chapel against the skyline gave him direction. He was just short of it when something lighter, something patchy, on the ground caught his eye. In the semi-dark, he couldn’t make out what it was and he snapped on the torch again and went to investigate.

The patches of white were the parts of the woman’s coat not totally saturated with blood. And her neck …

An animal, that was MacNee’s first thought. An animal, that had gone straight for her throat. Something like the wolf-dog he had seen at Matt Lovatt’s heels.

His second thought: where was it now?

Once again, Innellan was roused in the night by sirens. Georgia Stanley came out of sleep with a sickening lurch.

It was early morning, really, though the sun hadn’t risen. She grabbed her dressing gown and slippers. Oh, what now? More trouble for Matt and Christie? The girl was falling apart; Georgia didn’t think she could take much more, and Matt was looking ill with the stress.

Christie was out on the landing. She was very pale, but seemed almost unnaturally calm. ‘It’s the police, Georgia. I saw from my window. What’s going on?’

She looked at the girl uneasily. ‘Come on downstairs and I’ll put on the kettle, then we’ll see what’s happening outside.’

‘Matt—’ Christie said, hanging back and glancing towards his closed bedroom door.

‘If he can sleep through that din, he must be shattered. Plenty of time for him to hear about it in the morning,’ Georgia said, drawing
Christie towards the stairs. ‘If he wakes up, we’ll have a cup of tea ready for him.’

Christie went down ahead of her into the kitchen. The room was luridly lit by the orange flashing lights of a police car parked outside, and then there was heavy knocking at the front door. It felt as if Georgia’s own heart was thumping in time as she unlocked it.

Two unsmiling uniformed officers stood there. ‘Matthew Lovatt,’ one said. ‘I understand he’s staying here.’

‘Yes,’ Georgia admitted. ‘Do … do you want to come in?’

As they stepped inside, Christie appeared. ‘What do you want with him? Has something happened?’

‘We’re needing to speak to Mr Lovatt, that’s all. If you’d just go back to bed, miss—’

‘I’d rather wait, until you tell us.’ Christie’s chin was jutting defiantly.

Georgia took her arm. ‘They’re not going to tell us, Christie. We’ll find out later. We can wait through here, at the back.’ She turned to the officers. ‘I’ll just go and wake him.’

As she propelled a reluctant Christie into the lounge and shut the door, she heard one saying to the other, ‘Deaf, is he, then, sleeping through all this?’ As she ran upstairs and knocked on the door of Matt’s room, she already had misgivings, and when she opened it, the room was empty and the bed hadn’t been slept in.

MacNee sat on the camp bed in the bothy loft. He’d heard the sirens and now, between the slats on the windows, he could see the lights of three police cars. What he didn’t know was how long it would take to get a trained handler and a marksman down here. There was no way a police officer could set foot on the island until these were in place, and he certainly wasn’t going to step outside this room, even though
he’d seen nothing moving except the deer coming out to browse in the early morning light. He’d never in his life been more scared than he’d been in the short time it had taken him to run from where the poor woman’s body lay to the safety of the bothy.

He’d recognised her: Lissa Lovatt. Had the dog, roaming free on the island, turned rogue? Both he and Fleming were quite sure the animal wasn’t far from its wolf ancestry, but even so, wolves, as far as he knew, weren’t in the habit of attacking humans unless from hunger. There were deer all over the island for the taking, and this hadn’t been a prey kill – thank God for that, at least.

Had her husband gone mad and set the dog on to her to kill her? And, in the final, hideous detail, there right on the grave of their dead child? MacNee had his reservations about Lovatt, but
this
…

There was something deeply evil lurking in this innocent-looking, pretty island. He had been so absorbed in his own revenge on Brodie that he hadn’t given much thought to what had been going on: local politics, with the Donaldsons and Sorley, had been his casual assumption about the recent events. As for the murder, so many years before – there would be time enough to sift through whatever evidence remained about Andrew Smith when Manchester did the follow-up on known associates.

MacNee didn’t believe that now. Lovatt’s local enemies releasing a stag – certainly. Burning the house down – possibly. But you couldn’t assume that about a second hideous murder on the island.

He could be stuck here for hours. He’d phoned in to see if there was any word of the specialist team, though he should have known better: as usual, no one had a scoobie. He’d checked out the loft, hoping for drug evidence, but all he’d found was a carrier bag containing a pathetic bundle of scruffy T-shirts and underwear, and what looked like army issue shoes with a number inside. If this was one of Brodie’s
drug dealer chums, you had to think he wasn’t much good at his job.

MacNee paced irritably to and fro, and then his eye lit on the stock of tins. He was hungry, he realised, and it wouldn’t be the first time he’d eaten cold baked beans out of a tin. He looked doubtfully at the spoon lying on the table, then shrugged, pulled back the ring on the tin and settled down to wait.

Matt Lovatt woke up, coughing. He could feel smoke in his throat and with the sound of the sirens starting to penetrate the sleep of exhaustion he thought the house was on fire again and sprang up in panic from the sofa cushions on the floor of the farmhouse sitting room.

There were two men in yellow jackets and police caps standing by the window which had been left wide open to freshen the air. ‘Matthew Lovatt?’ one said. He was tall and broad with greying hair, and his voice was cold.

‘Yes,’ Lovatt stammered. He had slept in a T-shirt and jeans but the early morning air was chilly. As he struggled to orientate himself, he pulled a blanket off the makeshift bed to wrap round him.

‘We were informed you were staying at the Smugglers Inn.’

‘Yes, I was, but …’ How could he explain that Georgia Stanley’s kindly fussing, and his own guilt about the effect on Christie, had made the smoke-laden atmosphere in the farmhouse seem less oppressive?

He didn’t try. ‘I just felt I should be here.’ It sounded lame.

‘Where’s your dog?’ The question almost burst from the other officer. He was very young, slightly-built, and definitely nervous.

‘My dog?’ Lovatt looked blank. ‘In his kennel.’ He had a confused thought that this was some kind of check-up, something to do with the Dangerous Dogs Act, but at this time in the morning? With sirens?

‘Are you sure?’ the older man asked.

‘Of course—’ Then he stopped. Oh God, they couldn’t have let Mika out, tried to find an excuse to have him destroyed – he couldn’t bear it, to lose Mika!

‘There’s a padlock … if they’ve tampered with it …’

Not waiting to go to the front door, he climbed out of the window and barefooted ran across the yard to the dog’s enclosure, followed more slowly by the officers.

Mika was there, prancing in welcome at the sight of his master, and a huge flood of relief swept over Lovatt.

‘There he is, see? Safe in his cage. So what’s the fuss about?’

Mika had gone very still, his slanted amber eyes fixed on the men. The senior officer stepped forward, eying the dog warily as he shook the padlock. Then he turned to Lovatt.

‘You’re saying the padlock hasn’t been tampered with?’

‘See for yourself. One of my stags was released before by locals with a grudge, and now we have the sort of padlocks that would need wire cutters to open.’

They should be backing off now, apologising for disturbing him. So why weren’t they? Lovatt felt the first stirrings of fear.

‘So you can confirm that only you could let the dog out?’

Lovatt nodded.

‘And it couldn’t have been loose on the island?’

‘Certainly not.’ He was puzzled, but on firm ground there, at least.

‘Could it have got there on its own?’

What
was
this? Lovatt was beginning to get impatient. ‘Look, he’s a big, powerful dog. He’s locked up here in the kennel unless he’s with me. I never let him run loose.’

‘I see. Well trained, is he?’

‘Yes, of course.’ He turned to the dog with a gesture. ‘Mika –
down.’ The dog dropped immediately to a lying position, looking up at his master.

‘So – you could make it do anything you like?’ the officer persisted.

‘I suppose so – within reason.’

‘Like – say, attacking someone?’

Suddenly, Lovatt felt very, very cold and it had nothing to do with his bare feet. ‘Someone has been attacked?’

His question was ignored. ‘You are denying that you or your dog were present on Lovatt Island yesterday?’

‘Most certainly I am.’

‘Matthew Lovatt, I am arresting you on suspicion of murder. You are not obliged to say anything, but anything you do say will be noted and may be used in evidence.’

The younger policeman had a notebook out, ready.

With a sense of unreality, Lovatt said, ‘Who am I supposed to have murdered, for God’s sake?’

Again, he got no reply. ‘This way.’ The senior officer took his arm, urging him towards the house. ‘You’d better put some shoes on and get a coat.’

Lovatt hung back. ‘What about the dog?’ he demanded.

The younger policeman said, ‘Oh, someone’s on their way to take care of
him
.’ And from his emphasis it was clear that no one was talking about a comfortable basket and a nice juicy bone.

It was a considerable relief to MacNee to get the phone call telling him that the dog was safely locked up on the mainland, and the pathologist and the photographer were even now in Innellan, waiting to come across. He left his refuge and went down to the jetty to meet them.

There had been a ground frost in the early morning, and the blades
of grass were etched with silver, crisp underfoot. The sun was just coming up, and it promised to be a glorious autumn day. In the wood behind the bothy, the leaves were turning and with the drop in temperature brilliant reds and yellows had started to appear.

The pathologist sniffed the clear, cold air as he landed. ‘Aaah! Beautiful day,’ he said cheerfully, looking around. ‘Bonny place, too. We should be taking a boat out fishing today, instead of tramping about looking at remains. A few mackerel for supper – eh?’

‘Up there, Doc, by the ruins,’ MacNee said shortly. Right enough, if you’d a grim job like looking at corpses you couldn’t afford to let it get you down, but sometimes you could be a bit too cheerful. And talking about supper as you went up to inspect the body – well, MacNee was beginning to regret the baked beans just at the thought.

The photographer was lugging his kit out of the boat, and MacNee turned back to help him take it up the hill. ‘Wait,’ he said to the man who had been driving the boat. ‘You can take me back in a minute.’

Keeping his eyes carefully averted as he approached, MacNee said, ‘The SIO is on her way, they tell me. I’ll be getting back.’

The pathologist was opening his case. ‘Fine. Nasty one, this.’ He spoke almost with relish, and MacNee gave a little shudder as he returned to the jetty. He’d go straight home, snatch a spot of kip and then go in to the station in the afternoon. With all the fuss about this no one would be interested in his own triumph.

The boatman was a local, an elderly fisherman, roused from his bed and gagging with curiosity. ‘Someone’s dead, right?’ he asked, before MacNee had even sat down.

‘Right.’

‘And Lovatt’s been arrested and they’re taking that dog to be destroyed. Was it his missus?’

‘Hasn’t been formally identified.’

The old man cackled. ‘That’s a yes, then. Thought it must be. Och well, they caused nothing but trouble from the day they arrived – incomers!’

Revolted, MacNee said, ‘So it’s all right for someone to be killed as long as it isn’t one of the locals?’

He was unmoved. ‘Wouldn’t have happened if they’d cleared off. They knew they weren’t wanted.’

Fortunately it was a short crossing. MacNee clambered out ‘Thanks, Mr …?’

‘Rafferty.’

‘Rafferty – really? A fine Irish name, Rafferty. So if someone wipes you out because you’re a miserable old bastard, we just say, “Och well, he was an incomer,” and leave it at that, eh? Fine by me.’

MacNee walked off before the indignant splutterings could organise themselves into speech.

Fleming had ordered a driver to take her down to Innellan. She hated being driven but she didn’t trust herself. After virtually no sleep the previous night she’d been roused at three this morning, after lying awake with her troubled thoughts till one.

It was an FCA driver, and she sat in the back with her eyes closed, as if she were trying to pay off her sleep deficit, but her mind was churning as they took the now familiar road to Innellan.

This had come as a shock, but not a surprise. She had been tense, waiting for disaster; they were floundering, still with no idea where the threat was coming from, or who was threatened, and this death had been the result.

And what a hideous, bizarre way to die! Bizarre – as the death of the man in the cave had been bizarre. There was a strange echo there.
But how could you arrange that a dog would rip someone’s throat out?

Fleming knew about dogs. She’d lived with them all her life and she’d seen dangerous dogs – so-called handgun dogs – on far too many occasions. Despite the cliché ‘no bad dogs, only bad owners’, it wasn’t true – some dogs were by nature aggressive, just as some people were.

As a murder weapon, though? Lovatt could have trained his dog to attack on command, of course he could. Dogs had no innate morality and savage wardogs had gone into battle beside their masters for hundreds of years. And Lovatt had been in Bosnia; could it have done that there?

She’d met his dog, though, and it wasn’t some slavering beast that had to be restrained from attacking any passing stranger. It had accepted their arrival without reaction, or indeed interest – and of course, it would be familiar with Lissa. Admittedly, pets sometimes attacked family members, but the problem usually was lack of discipline. Lovatt’s dog was extremely well trained. This didn’t add up.

No, if it had killed her, it had been acting under instruction. Lovatt would have needed to give the order, and have trained it to understand that order, one which went counter to the behaviour demanded in normal circumstances. A complicated message to get across to an animal, however intelligent it might be.