Lying Dead (21 page)

    Adrian froze. ‘Wh-what?’ he stammered stupidly.

    ‘Oh, you may not want me but you can’t complain if someone else does.’ She smiled triumphantly.

    There was water left in his glass from supper. He picked it up and threw it in his wife’s face. She gasped with shock.

    ‘Do you mean you’re having an affair with Niall Murdoch?’ he said very quietly.

    The cold water, and her husband’s face, white with burning eyes, sobered her to some degree. ‘Well – sort of. Last year. But it didn’t mean anything, not really.’ She took refuge in tears.

    ‘Niall.’ He repeated the word through clenched teeth. ‘And I suppose you’ve told everyone about this – it’s all over Drumbreck?’

    ‘No, no, of course not,’ she hiccupped, but he knew she was lying.

    He didn’t say anything more. He walked out of the room, leaving Kim staring after him and dabbing ineffectually at her wet face with a paper napkin.

‘Are we going down to the club tonight?’ Gina Lafferty asked her husband as they sat at their glass table in the dining-room which overlooked the patio and the garden at the back of the house. Ronnie didn’t like to eat in the kitchen; Gina suspected that it reminded him of his Glasgow tenement childhood when the bathroom was a shared lavvy on the stairs and personal hygiene, such as it was, centred on the kitchen sink.

    He looked across at her with his frog’s eyes. ‘No. Haven’t seen my lovely wife for a few days. Thought I’d have her all to myself tonight.’

    There was something about the way he spoke that made her uneasy. But she was wrought up already; perhaps she was imagining it. ‘Goodness!’ she said, her tone light and mocking. ‘Whatever will we find to say to each other?’

    ‘Oh, I’m sure we’ll find something,’ he said blandly. ‘I called in at the marina earlier – had a good chat with Brian Aitcheson. Now
there’s
a man who’s happy in his work.’

    The protuberant eyes were fixed on her. ‘That’s nice.’ Her voice sounded hollow, even to herself, and her mouth was dry.

    ‘And then I had one with Niall.’

    She took a sip of water. ‘How is he?’ What else could she say?

    ‘Oh, surprisingly chipper, for someone who’s owing me money. It’s not often my creditors take it as casually as he seems to be doing. Must be something making him happy too.’

    The chicken she was eating seemed to have turned to sawdust in her mouth. She had to drink some more water to swallow it. ‘That’s good!’

    ‘Yes, isn’t it! And later I bumped into Mrs Aitcheson as well – very chatty, she was.’

    She wasn’t going to play mouse to his tormenting cat. ‘Oh, there was something I was going to tell you. That woman’s nicked the little silver box you gave me for our anniversary. Can’t I sack her? For all we need here, I could do the house myself. I haven’t enough to do when you’re in Glasgow.’ She saw her mistake as soon as the words were out of her mouth.

    ‘Satan finds mischief for idle hands, eh?’ Ronnie’s smile wasn’t a pleasant one. ‘You could have a point there. But Brian’ll sort it out. He knows her little ways. I don’t choose to have my wife scrubbing floors, and where would we find someone else with Mrs Aitcheson’s – er – talents?’

    It was intolerable. Gina looked at her watch and jumped up. ‘Oh, it’s time for
EastEnders
– can’t miss that. Coming?’

    She went out but Ronnie did not follow her. He sat looking into space, his froggy mouth turned down in a hard line.

He had found himself curiously calm. When the truck dropped him where he was to work, Keith Ingles had simply set down his tools and walked quietly away through the trees. No one would think anything of it when he didn’t appear at noon; sometimes he joined the people working nearby to eat his sandwiches, sometimes he didn’t.

    Fortunately, he was only a couple of miles from home. If he could reach it before the alarm went up, he would at least have a chance of escape. He could collect his passport, driving licence and bank card; if luck was on his side he could withdraw cash before they stopped his bank account and be on the boat to Ireland from Stranraer before they alerted the ports. And if, as his co-worker had said, they were concentrating on the Manchester end, it might give him a couple of days’ grace before they homed in on him. As, sooner or later, they most definitely would.

    When he reached the cottage, it was as quiet and peaceful as when he left. The birds, busy about their parental duties, were almost silent, but there were butterflies flitting among the nettles. He paused for just a second to look round the place which had been for him such a blessed haven, then, grim-faced, went about his preparations.

    He changed his working boots for proper walking ones and packed a rucksack with clothes and such food as would travel: cheese, apples, biscuits, a bottle of water. He folded up a thin blanket too, and stuffed it in. He’d be sleeping rough tonight; it must be at least forty miles to Stranraer and he dared not attract attention by taking a bus or hitching. Even if they weren’t looking for him now, they soon would be, and he must not leave a trail for them to follow.

    Keith knew a lot more than once he had done about the underbelly of society. Prison gave you the sort of education a law degree couldn’t match and he was confident that once in Ireland he could take a Ryanair flight to a new life wherever he chose and find work, no questions asked. Relations between the British police and the Garda meant there was bound to be a time-lag.

    It made sense to follow the main road, but he had taken paths alongside wherever he could. He didn’t allow his sense of urgency to translate itself into suspicious speed, walking with a steady, swinging stride, just another rambler out for a pleasant hike to anyone who saw him. He had covered the ground; Keith reckoned he must have done at least thirty miles by the time the sun went down.

    As light lingered in what Scots call the gloaming, he had seen a filling-station where he got money from an ATM, bought crisps, a bottle of milk and a pasty heated up in the microwave and ate as he walked. It was almost dark now and he was very tired, so it was a relief to see a tumbledown shed, still half-roofed in a field by the side of the road. It would give him shelter from the chilly night wind which had sprung up and though it had rained a couple of times during the day, he’d had time to dry out and at least it wasn’t raining at the moment. He climbed over the fence and went in.

    It was dank and cold, the ground damp and covered with fallen stones, rank grass and nettles. His spirits sinking, he did his best to clear the most sheltered corner, then took off his waterproof jacket and spread it out. Shivering in his shirt sleeves, he piled on layers of clothes and wrapped the blanket round him, then, using his rucksack for a pillow, lay down and shut his eyes. It would be light not much after four, and he could get on his way then. With luck, he’d reach the ferry by lunchtime.

    He couldn’t sleep, though. His legs twitched and his mind seemed to twitch too, in spasms of fear. Cold and wretched, he huddled in his corner waiting for daybreak.

Chapter 11

It was raining this morning, with that fine silvery rain which feels soft on your face but can soak you to the skin in minutes. Thick cloud was hanging low over the hills opposite the Mains of Craigie farmhouse and Marjory Fleming, huddled in her hooded waterproof jacket as she fed her hens, was feeling low too.

    The hens didn’t like it any more than she did, stumping round unhappily with wet feathers. There had been a major squabble at the feeding trough when Cherie, the alpha hen, launched an unprovoked attack on one of her meeker sisters, and even Tony, the rooster, wasn’t strutting around as smugly as usual.

    Marjory wasn’t tempted to linger. She checked for eggs, then collected up her pail and plodded up through the orchard to the farmhouse. She didn’t glance at the Stevensons’ cottage but as she crossed the yard she saw Findlay on his way to one of the steadings, a young collie at his heels. She called a greeting, which he returned. Fin wasn’t the problem.

    He didn’t look happy though. Well, Marjory probably wasn’t looking too cheerful herself. She’d stayed at work late last night hoping for a breakthrough, but despite all the hours of police time nothing useful had emerged. Ingles had vanished, and though the usual alerts had gone out to ferries and airports, she was all too aware that if he just had the sense to lie low until the heat was off, they would have a problem. And his house, on the initial search, had given them no leads. It almost seemed to be deliberately impersonal: no diary, no address books, no letters, no photographs. The forensic team would be gutting the place later today: if Davina had been there, they’d find the evidence, but that wasn’t a lot if the killer remained at large.

    Showing Davina’s photo around had turned up several people who’d known her years ago – which had at least produced the information that her parents were dead and she was an only child – but they still hadn’t found anyone who had seen her recently. Still, formal identification had been done by a solicitor colleague of Ingles’s and one of the secretaries from the Wigtown office, and the photo would appear in the
Scottish Sun
today so the calls would start. Perhaps there would even be one or two that were in some sense useful.

    As she reached the back door Marjory could hear their own phone ringing and, kicking off her rubber boots in the mud-room, she hurried along to the kichen just as Bill, with a piece of toast in one hand, was putting the receiver down.

    ‘That was Donald. He wants you to call him back.’

    Marjory collapsed on to a chair. ‘What now?’

    ‘The Chief Constable disturbed Donald’s breakfast and he seems to be working on the pay-it-forward principle. Apparently the
Scottish Sun
is favoured reading in the Menzies household and he was tweaking Donald’s tail.’

    ‘That’s all I need.’ Marjory’s gloom deepened. ‘There isn’t any good news and today will mainly be a waiting game, whereas what Donald will want is Action. Lots of Action! Action even if it means chasing our tails until we’re dizzy, just so we look as if we’re doing something. Still, I suppose I’d better phone.’

    ‘Good luck!’ Bill said, finishing his toast and heading out to get on with the day that had started at six.

    He was looking for binder twine in a drawer in the mud-room when she came looking for him. He turned round and saw the look on her face. ‘Oh dear! What’s he said now?’

    ‘The man,’ Marjory said tautly, ‘is unbelievable. I had to tell him that until we had reports and preferably picked up Ingles, there wouldn’t be much to announce at the Press briefing today. Then, like a fool, I told him that Carter in Manchester was dragging his feet, and he went ballistic. Tam and I, if you please, are to go right now to Manchester for a couple of days, while Bailey contacts his oppo and pulls strings, so that when we arrive we’ll be about as welcome as a heavy cold. And meanwhile Greg Allan is to take charge of developments here. And we all know what that means.’

    ‘Don’t worry about this end anyway. We’ll cope. It’s a lot easier now I have Fin, and Cat’s a dab hand with the frozen peas. Even Cammie’s mastered the art of putting things in the oven.’

    ‘Thanks, love. I’ll have to phone Tam right away.’

    She tried, but the line was engaged – probably Bunty checking on the livestock. She took the phone with her as she went upstairs to throw some clothes into a suitcase and change into her posh trouser suit. She didn’t want to have people pointing and staring at the bits of straw when she reached the big city.

Laura Harvey was just stripping off her outer layers after taking Daisy for a damp morning run when her own phone rang.

    ‘Hello? Oh, Jon – you’re an early bird this morning.’

    She was pleased; he hadn’t contacted her since their sailing day and she had more or less decided that this had been a test which she, with her land-lubber tendencies, had failed.

    ‘Just wanted to touch base before I went on duty. I don’t know if you’ve spoken to Marjory, but there have been big developments in the murder case and there have been a couple of other local problems I’ve been involved in too, so it’s going to be a busy spell. I didn’t want you to think I’d forgotten about you.’

    ‘No, no, of course not!’ she protested, crossing her fingers.

    ‘I’m not sure how I’ll be placed over the next bit, but would it be very cheeky to ask if I could drop in when I have time, and pick your brains? I know you’ve given Marjory good advice in the past on motivation and so on, and it could be a great help to me.’

    ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ She was a little taken aback; this wasn’t what she had expected him to say.

    ‘Thanks. I’ll have to go now. Our prime suspect’s done a runner so we’re going to be spending the day trying to catch up with him.’

    ‘Good hunting!’ Laura put the phone down, then, in response to increasingly frantic prancing, went to give the dog her breakfast with a furrowed brow.

    She wasn’t entirely comfortable. It was odd, surely, that one of Marjory’s constables would want to consult her like that when presumably it was his boss who was in charge of the direction the case would take. She’d picked up vibes from both Marjory and Tam which suggested that neither of them was Jon Kingsley’s biggest fan, but she’d chosen to ignore that. Now she couldn’t help wondering if he was trying to steal a march on them, and if this was part of some sort of undermining operation, she wanted no part of it.