Evil for Evil (32 page)

Her frown deepened. Elena picked up the binoculars that lay on the ledge and watched as the van drove away, and man and dog walked out along the shore path. Her mouth took an ugly turn and her eyes narrowed.

She watched until they were out of sight. She put down the binoculars with unnecessary force. Then she took a deep, deep breath and put her hand up to her forehead to smooth out the frown,
noticing as her sleeve fell back that the wounds on her wrist were healing nicely. She hadn’t cut herself for days now.

That was progress, and she wasn’t going to let this little setback spoil her mood. She was smiling again as she locked up the chalet and got into the car.

‘It’s there, see.’ DC Hepburn pointed to the document, ‘Last Will and Testament of Elspeth Smith or Lovatt.’

‘It’s the wrong way round,’ MacNee said instantly. ‘Should be Lovatt
or
Smith.’

Hepburn smiled. ‘In Scotland, you record a married woman like she has an alias, with her married name first, right? So if she’s formally Smith or Lovatt—’

‘She was married to a man called Smith,’ Fleming was stunned. ‘She just used her maiden name—’

‘But maybe her son didn’t.’ Hepburn, with bright, excited colour in her cheeks, cut across her superior. ‘And there was no Major Lovatt in the KOSB. There
was
a Major Matthew Smith.’

‘So – Lovatt Island, Lovatt Farm. It was her family.’ Fleming spelt it out.

‘Yes, she must have changed her name officially – presumably her husband did too. And her grandson was only going to inherit – look,’ Hepburn shuffled on to the next page, ‘provided he changed his name to Lovatt.’

‘So he was lying blind when he said he didn’t know who Andrew Smith was,’ Fleming said. ‘Could he even have killed him?’

‘And all this is revenge for that?’ For some reason, MacNee’s mind was running on revenge.

She considered it. ‘He said he’d never been here before he came into the property, and from what the locals say that seems to be true.
He told us the family had been estranged from his grandmother – which might well be true too, if the son refused to call himself Lovatt. And it would explain why he wasn’t to inherit.’

‘Lovatt could have sneaked up when he was on leave,’ MacNee pointed out. ‘If you were planning on abandoning your old man to die a lingering death in a sea cave, you wouldn’t take out an advert in the
Galloway Globe
, would you?’

‘We’ve been asking the locals the wrong question,’ Fleming said. ‘What a bloody waste of time! We’ve been assuming they were deliberately obstructive, but maybe they’d never heard Elspeth’s son called Smith.

‘Right. Let’s get the show on the road. I’ll get authorisation for more overtime. Tam, call in uniforms. Get Campbell and Macdonald back here for a meeting in, say, three-quarters of an hour. Pick up Lovatt again – I want to see him before the evening briefing.’

She went to the door, then paused. ‘Well done, Louise – good work. I want you there too.’

Hepburn, who had been holding her breath, glowed. Mission accomplished.

Eddie Tindall was tired. It had been a long drive, and he’d been flashed by a speed camera on the way up, which hadn’t improved his mood. Still, at least the hotel Marianne had booked was on the Kirkcudbright high street, easy to find, and it looked all right.

He ordered tea in the lounge on his way up to his room, and paused there only to dump his suitcase. He’d listened to
Five Live
all the way, but none of the news bulletins had any more information about the murdered woman, though he knew now she’d been found on Lovatt Island, near some village called Innellan, wherever that might be. He was counting on a chatty waitress to fill in some of the details.

The girl who brought the tray was quite ready to discuss what was clearly a hot topic in the town and Eddie discovered, with inexpressible relief, that the murdered woman was a local and that her husband’s dog had killed her. He winced at the thought, but it wasn’t his Elena and he settled down to enjoy the scones. He’d missed his lunch, after all, and he supposed he’d made a bit of a fool of himself. Still, the manager didn’t matter and Marianne was used to him – she’d have gone home when the meeting with Brian Mitchell was cancelled but he could phone her there and say he’d be back tomorrow.

As he sipped his tea, though, his mind slipped into its default setting – Elena. Clive had ferreted out that she was somewhere near here; maybe, if he hung around for a bit, drove round the area and asked a few questions, he might get some idea of where she was.

And who she was with
. The fear had been haunting him, awake and in his dreams. She’d never been away for so long, never failed to return his calls. Of course, he reminded himself, she’d said that she’d been feeling stressed, that she was on a retreat …

When the girl came back for his tray, he asked about places that hosted retreats, but she only looked blank. Nothing to be gained there, then. He’d had a look at the map too and it was a huge area, with hundreds of back roads – she could be anywhere. His spirits sank. Maybe he should just go with Plan A and drive back to Salford tomorrow.

The evening yawned ahead. It wasn’t four o’clock yet and the hotel didn’t serve an evening meal until seven. If Eddie started in on the whisky now, he’d be in no state to leave early tomorrow morning; a speeding fine was one thing but losing his licence was another altogether.

He might as well take a stroll, have a look around the town. Marianne had said it was a holiday destination and it was a nice autumn afternoon. There was a chill in the air when he went out but
it was a pretty enough place, with a kind of castle thingy and a small harbour. He watched someone stacking lobster creels for a bit, then wandered along past the shops.

He was nearly back at the hotel. He’d put in half an hour, though, so if he went up to his room and grabbed a spot of shut-eye, he could—

Eddie stopped short. There she was, his Elena. She was coming out of a food shop with a carrier bag, wearing a sort of weatherproof jacket over jeans and a T-shirt. No jewellery, no make-up. For a moment he’d hardly recognised her.

‘Elena!’ The word rose to his lips as she set off in the opposite direction, but he stifled it. What would he say? How would he explain what he was doing here? She would know immediately that he had tracked her down. He remembered, all too clearly, her anger when he’d questioned her about her escapes, early on in their marriage. If she discovered he’d used a detective to find her … Eddie felt cold at the thought.

He’d come all the way up here, fearing she was dead. He could go back home tomorrow secure in the knowledge that she wasn’t; she was alive and looking fine. Plan A.

He stood watching her walk away to – to where? Where was she going – and who to? If she was looking so unlike herself, was it because she was with some man who liked a woman to look natural, not highly finished as his own beautiful Elena always was? The snake of jealousy uncoiled, and began writhing inside him.

With sudden decision, he ran into the hotel car park and jumped into his car. She wouldn’t recognise it; he’d been driving one of the sales force vehicles when he’d seen the news. But he mustn’t draw attention to himself and he mustn’t lose her, either. When he drove out she had vanished.

His heart in his mouth, he accelerated to the corner, then turned along to his left. And – oh lucky, lucky Eddie – there she was, getting
into a small car. It was a hire car, not her own BMW coupé and it was facing towards him; he drove past, then when he reached a side road backed into it, and sat waiting till the car moved away.

Then very, very discreetly, he drove off in pursuit.

DI Fleming’s mind was fizzing as she got back to her office to wait for the team to gather. She was still feeling light-headed, but with that had come a strange sort of clarity, as if everything was in sharper focus, as if her nerve endings were nearer the surface than usual.

Bailey had authorised whatever overtime it took. Indeed, given that this had become a headline news story, he was ready to blow the budget totally.

Fleming sat down at her desk, ignoring the waiting messages. She wanted to crystallise her thoughts before her team arrived. She wanted their input – and young Hepburn seemed promising, very promising indeed – but to be properly effective discussions needed clear direction.

And at last they had a clear direction to go in. Perhaps now they would get ahead of the shadowy figure she became more and more convinced was behind it all – please God! – before the action moved on to the next deadly phase. If Lovatt was right that someone was trying to destroy him bit by bit, there was only one obvious conclusion.

The sense of urgency possessed her, making it hard for her to sit still – or perhaps that was just lack of sleep. She got up and walked over to the window that looked out to the plane trees and down to the humdrum normality of the Kirkluce street below, but she wasn’t seeing it.

They needed to establish how the recent events were related. From the time of the discovery of the body, these had escalated in seriousness from what could be described as petty vandalism to murder – and
murder so cold-blooded that it looked as if it might have been staged so that a dog would be destroyed to punish its owner.

Was there someone who cared about Andrew Smith – someone, perhaps, who had not known he was dead until the body was discovered? Someone who knew, or thought, that Matt Lovatt had killed him and was taking appropriate revenge?

Perhaps he had, but Fleming was convinced that when it came to his wife’s death, at least, Lovatt was blameless. And the more she thought about it, the surer she was that the cold brutality of the two deaths was the sort of signature murderers left on their crimes, as distinctive as the scribble of an artist at the foot of a painting.

That felt right. She let her mind run on those lines. Why, if you had killed Andrew Smith, would you choose the discovery of his body to embark on a high-profile series of crimes which would focus police attention on the present day rather than the past?

She had no immediate answer. She could get the team thinking about that, see if anything emerged. And they’d all need to focus too on which of the lines of enquiry this had opened up should take priority.

And if they got that wrong? Though the sun was streaming through the window on this sunny autumn afternoon, Fleming felt suddenly cold.

Bill Fleming checked his phone, just in case he’d missed a call, and sighed. Oh well, he knew what was going on at the moment, and he should be used to it by now.

There was a car outside the Findlays’ house when DS Macdonald went back at four o’clock. This was putting him under time pressure, but he’d been on his way to Innellan again when he got MacNee’s call about the meeting, briefing him on the most recent developments which included Hepburn being added to the team.

It had been hard not to let his private fury show. The woman was a total bitch, but now, with a lucky guess, she’d got promoted to being Big Marge’s new best friend. So Macdonald had a choice – he could sulk in the corner of the playground, or try to play himself back into the game. Checking out Findlay meant that at least he would get first crack at putting the Andrew Smith/Lovatt question, and maybe that would bust the whole case wide open and he’d be flavour of the month. A man can dream.

He rang the bell but there was no answer. Macdonald swore. There was the car, so had the man seen him arrive and taken cover? Possible, certainly, but he’d no proof. Findlay could just have come
home from work, then gone out for a wee walk, or to see someone. Kicking in doors without solid reason could seriously damage your professional health.

He looked nervously at his watch. He couldn’t afford to be late with Fleming already set, in her much-mocked phrase, to have his guts for garters. In some frustration, he walked to the fence by the edge of the bluff and peered over without much hope.

It was high tide and the causeway was submerged, but there was a man on the promontory leading to it, a hunched figure sitting on the rocks, staring out across the bay towards the island. Findlay? Not necessarily, but it was worth a shot.

There was a sort of rough path further along and Macdonald scrambled down it to the foreshore. He could see there was activity on the island, where a line of stooped uniforms seemed to be doing a back-breaking fingertip search. There were definite advantages to being CID.

There was no reaction from the man, though he thought it unlikely that he hadn’t heard him coming up. Certainly, he wasn’t startled when Macdonald said, ‘Calum Findlay?’

He turned his head, and Macdonald scented blood. This wasn’t someone who had gone out on a sunny afternoon to admire the undoubted beauty of the seascape. This man looked numb with misery, hollow-cheeked, and with black rings under his eyes. At the sight of the warrant card he visibly quivered.

‘What do you want?’

‘Just a wee chat,’ Macdonald said. He sat down on the rocks just slightly too close and noticed with sardonic amusement the other man’s instinctive recoil.

‘What … what can I do for you?’ Findlay said, with a pathetic attempt at jauntiness, while his hand went to his mouth and he began gnawing at a nail which was bitten to the quick already.

‘Andrew Lovatt.’

The shock registered. Findlay’s mouth fell open as he gasped. ‘Wh–what about him?’

‘You knew him?’

‘Yeah, well, yeah, of course.’ He was stuttering, looking out to sea to avoid his questioner’s eyes. ‘He … he grew up here – old Mrs Lovatt’s son. Drew Lovatt. Course I knew him. Everyone did.’

‘Did you know him as Andrew Smith?’

There was a chill breeze, but Macdonald could see Findlay had started to sweat. He could smell the fear as the pause lengthened. Weighing up the odds, Macdonald reckoned. What did the police know? If he denied it, would he be caught out?

A verbal nudge might help things along. ‘You knew him as Andrew Smith, didn’t you?’

‘Yeah, well, yes, I suppose so,’ Findlay muttered at last.

Macdonald didn’t say anything, only raised his eyebrows.

At last, Findlay went on, ‘You see, there was a big bust-up with him and his mum, and his granddad had a trawler down in Barrow. His dad was dead so he went to take it on. I wanted to be a fisherman so I got a job off him, worked down there to get a bit of money then came back here. That’s all.’ His story had the ring of truth, and he was clinging to it like a lifeline.

Macdonald moved on. ‘So he called himself Smith down there?’ Findlay nodded, and he went on, ‘And when it was announced it was his body in the cave, you didn’t tell us you knew him?’

‘You never asked me. Common enough name.’

Damn! That was true enough, and he could hear himself blustering as he said, ‘And you didn’t think, since we’d been interviewing everyone in the village, you might have come to speak to us?’

‘I don’t listen to local gossip.’

Again, Macdonald was baulked. He tried another tack. ‘So – when did you decide to come back here, then?’

‘Didn’t decide, really. He had to give up the boat.’

‘Give it up?’

There was another long, long pause. Macdonald knew enough not to break it; he could almost hear the words whirling round in the man’s head as he made his calculations. What have they found out already? If I tell them, will it be better or worse?

Findlay said, ‘He was a gambler, Drew. He’d a good business, could have done really well. Couldn’t stop himself, though. That’s how he fell out with his mother. She wouldn’t pay any more.’

‘So he left, changed his name …?’

‘Then threw away his grandfather’s business too.’

There was useful bitterness there. Macdonald homed in on it.

‘You didn’t get what he’d offered you when you followed him down to Barrow?’

‘You could say. Came home, took a mortgage on a boat, thought I could make it on my own, but you know what they’ve done to the fishing. And now I’m stuck with her.’ He jerked his head up, towards the house. ‘Can’t afford to get out.’

Poor bastard, Macdonald thought, but poor woman, too. Those cries of ‘Help me! Help me!’ had totally spooked Campbell, and he’d thought of them since himself, too. Even so, poor bastard. Still, he had a job to do.

‘So you came back here, when?’

‘Can’t remember. Twenty-seven, twenty-eight years ago. Something like that.’

Findlay had regained quite a lot of control as he related what Macdonald was prepared to believe was the truth. He needed shaking out of it.

‘So you were here when it happened?’ he said.

‘What happened?’ Findlay’s face had gone blank, but one hand crept towards his mouth again and he bit at his thumbnail.

‘When Andrew Smith, Lovatt, whatever you like, was murdered? Ten, twelve years ago, or thereabouts, the labs are telling us.’

Findlay took his hand down from his mouth, then grasped it with the other hand as if to restrict it from the telltale activity. ‘I don’t know anything about that. Whoever killed him was probably some big guy he owed money to.’

‘That’ll be right,’ Macdonald said, taking no trouble to hide the sneer in his voice. ‘Criminal gangs, they operate all the time here in Innellan.’

It was a mistake. Findlay’s face set. He shrugged. ‘Believe what you like. I don’t know anything about it.’

‘What about the murder last night, then?’

‘Don’t know anything about that either,’ Findlay said, but he started to shiver, his teeth chattering together. Before Macdonald could say anything, he got up. ‘It’s getting cold. If you want to ask me anything more, you can come back to the house.’

Macdonald took another look at his watch. There were more big questions – a lot more – he planned to ask, but given what Findlay had said already, he’d be wise to have the next interview properly recorded. He didn’t want to piss Big Marge off by being late either.

He climbed back up the path behind Findlay. When he said, ‘I think that’s all. Thanks for your help,’ Findlay gave him a look of incredulous relief and retreated inside like a rabbit into its burrow.

Back in his car, Macdonald was grinning as he set off down to the village. Oh, he was looking forward to squeezing that one till the pips squeaked.

As he passed the end of the track to the chalets, he saw Natalie
Thomson’s car turning on to it. She was a strange one, that. Who, coming on holiday and finding the sort of mayhem that was going on here, the place infested by police officers and a murderer on the loose, not only carries on regardless, but extends the let?

A little niggle edged at his mind. In any case like this, you were always alert for the things, and the people, that somehow didn’t fit. But then he reached the main street and glancing left saw the Smugglers Inn, which reminded him of Christie, Christie who, whatever troubles she had caused him – like, plenty – still had a grip on him. He couldn’t understand it. He’d always seen himself as pretty grounded, and this certainly wasn’t rational. In trying to work it out, without success, the little niggle disappeared from his mind.

Eddie Tindall had been trying to keep a car or two between him and his quarry but, as Elena turned on to smaller and smaller roads, that became more and more difficult. He was overtaken once by a police car, but then it overtook Elena as well so it hadn’t helped. How long would it be before she glanced in the mirror and recognised him? He didn’t even have a hat or sunglasses in the car.

He drew into the side and dug out a map. With some relief he realised it was a dead-end road she’d taken; she had to be heading for the place where that woman had been killed. He’d always reckoned only sick people did that. Surely she wasn’t going to gawp, his elegant, fastidious wife? Perhaps the retreat she had talked about just happened to be down here.

Anyway, he could relax now so he waited for a minute or two, to be on the safe side, before heading down the road after her. When he reached the village by the side of the bay, there was no sign of her but there were plenty of police cars about the place, and he could see officers going from door to door. There seemed to be photographers and even someone filming with a camera labelled BBC, too.

You wouldn’t think a dog attack would generate that kind of interest. Eddie drove on through to where the road ended, down by the shore, frowning. Unless, it suddenly struck him, the killer dog was still on the loose? He had a sudden lurch of fear at the thought of the danger to Elena – would she be wise enough not to go wandering about?

Where was she, anyway? Her car was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps the retreat wasn’t actually here; perhaps it was beside the road somewhere and he hadn’t noticed it. He’d certainly passed one or two big houses.

There was quite a bit of coming and going at the local pub, he noticed. He could always ask there, and just as he reached it someone drove out of the small, crowded car park. He tucked the car into the free space and went inside.

The bar was busy, and the woman serving was looking flustered. Some of her clients had cameras round their necks, and it looked as if most of the others were media too. Eddie headed for the far end of the room, where there were two or three men sitting together who looked as if they might be more likely to have local knowledge.

‘Busy today,’ he said cheerfully.

The only response to his greeting was a brief nod, and the man nearest to him half-turned his shoulder. Not what you’d call a chatty lot.

It was a few minutes before the woman came to take his order, and she didn’t look inclined to chat either – understandable with someone else calling another order to her already. However, as he fumbled deliberately with change he said, ‘I was wondering if you’d seen a friend of mine that’s holidaying around here – Elena Tindall.’

The woman shook her head. ‘No, sorry.’

Eddie looked at the change in his hand then said, ‘Oh, dear, I’ll have to give you a note.’ He dug in his hip pocket. ‘She’s very slim, pretty, blonde …’

The woman frowned. ‘Sounds like the lady that got chased by a stag. She was staying up in the chalets there but the papers said her name was Natalie Thomson. Thank you, sir.’

She took the note he held out, then turned to fetch change. He didn’t wait to get it, or to finish the whisky in front of him.

‘I’ve come to confess,’ Derek Sorley said.

The young constable, detailed to deal with this random punter who had wandered in off the street and demanded to speak to DI Fleming, stared at him. She’d taken his full name and address and now the word ‘Innellan’ on the form in front of her seemed to stand out in huge letters. ‘Con–confess?’ she squeaked.

‘Yes. So I need to speak to a
senior
officer.’ Sorley withered her with a look. ‘Find one, will you? Preferably Inspector Fleming.’

‘Wait here,’ she said and hurried out as he gave her a patronising smirk.

When she returned, along with a uniformed sergeant, his face fell. ‘What’s this? A senior officer, I said.’

‘Yes sir,’ he said stolidly. ‘I’m a senior officer. I understand you wish to confess to murder, and I’m here to escort you to an interview room.’

‘
Murder?
I’m not here to confess to murder!’ Sorley’s face, crumpling into dismay, was comical. ‘I’m here to explain to DI Fleming that though my friends and I were responsible for releasing a stag from its pen last week – just a foolish prank, you understand – we had absolutely nothing to do with any subsequent event. I felt it was my duty as a citizen to make this clear, since it may be confusing the investigation into these dreadful crimes.’

‘I see, sir. Well, I’m sure DI Fleming will be very grateful, but she’s a bit tied up at the moment. However, I’m fully competent to take
your statement confessing to the deliberate release of a dangerous animal – look, my constable’s been writing it down already. And I’m sure you’re wise, sir. An early confession plays very well in the courts. Now, let’s take it right from the start.’

‘Nice work, Andy.’ Fleming had listened to Macdonald’s report with considerable interest, not only for the quality of the information. He seemed fully engaged now, not obsessing over Christie Jack; with Hepburn on the team, he’d clearly reckoned he had something to prove. She’d always believed in teamwork, but a spot of rivalry might be just the kick up the backside Macdonald needed.

He’d always been hard-working, extremely competent, completely reliable. Not imaginative, though, not a risk-taker. Yet today he’d taken a punt on an idea and chanced annoying the hell out of her by being late. Fleming couldn’t remember the last time he’d been late for a team meeting.