A Taste for Malice (36 page)

If he had seen her he would have recognised her, could have given her a name.

Kirsty.

The sea rolls on to the beach with the consistency of treacle as if all the to-ing and fro-ing in the warm spring air had tired it out. Dotted here and there along the beach, couples stroll hand in hand. The high and happy voices from children in the swing park mingle with the caw of the seagulls as they circle in the air. In the jagged horizon, the Isle of Arran projects a two-dimensional outline as if from an award winning photograph.

Picture perfect.

I remember the hours spent building sandcastles here and on other beaches along this coast. In all kinds of weather. Pouring water into a moat that would empty just as fast as I could fill it. Taking that satisfying leap on to the middle of the castle at the end of the day.

The nuns urged us on to great feats of sand engineering. They clustered together on woollen, tartan blankets. In full habit. If the sun was shining their only concession was to roll up their sleeves to just below the elbow.

‘Sure you’re getting a grand tan,’ one would say to another.

Once sufficient time had passed on the sandcastles we were urged to go for a swim. Then soaked and shivering we lined up and sandwiches were thrust into our hands.

I remember debating with another child that the grit covering each
sand
wich was where the name came from. Stands to reason even now.

Then there was the dread of the return to the convent and bedtime while the sun still shone. I kick at some sand as if trying to dislodge the negative associations from the good memories.

‘Don’t come crying to me when you get too much sand in your shoes, Boss,’ says Alessandra from the safety of the low grey wall that runs the length of the beach.

‘There’s always a compensation for life’s discomforts,’ I reply.

‘Good god, he’s going all Dalai Lama on me.’

‘Heard that,’ I shout back.

I hear her landing on the sand, a dull grunt, then her footfall as she makes the dozen steps to my side.

‘See, grasshopper, the pleasure outweighs the pain,’ I say.

‘As far as I’m aware, Ray, the Dalai Lama doesn’t use grasshoppers to illustrate his points. That was the guy in Kung Fu.’

‘Whatever. Don’t you just love being by the sea?’ I breathe in long and deep and study the cool flame of the sun, hanging low in the early afternoon sunshine. It’s sparking off a chain reaction on the surface of the water, like a golden disco ball that has been flattened and stretched across the width of the bay.

‘Don’t we have a mad woman to catch?’ asks Alessandra while looking at me as if I’m wearing a disguise and she’s trying to find the real me underneath.

‘We do.’ I turn and pace back to the wall. ‘Let’s go. Cliché alert, Miss Rossi. Never forget to take time out and smell the roses.’

‘And the sea air, and the …’ she pauses looks at her right foot, ‘…dog shit.’

‘Bring that into my car,’ I’m all heart, ‘and you’re walking home.’

‘Where will I …?’ She looks back and forward. Then looks to the sea as if she might dip her shoe there.

‘Patch of grass,’ I point in one direction. ‘Public toilet,’ I point in the other.

‘Wanker,’ she points in mine and grins.

A clean and odourless Alessandra joins me in the car. I drive back to the bed and breakfast establishment that Mrs Hogg’s directions led us to. It is a grand, sandstone building, constructed in the traditional villa style standing just off the seafront to the far right of the bay. A sign in the window tells me that there is room to spare in Ettrick House.

The door is large and made of solid wood; I push it open and walk in. A short, slim woman with cropped blond hair walks towards me while wiping her hands on a white apron. Her eyes are blue and bright and hold a frank curiosity in the people before her.

‘I’m Julie. Can I help you?’ she asks and looks from me to Alessandra.

‘DI McBain and DC Rossi. We’re looking for someone.’ I take out my warrant card and show it to her.

‘Oh.’ She goes through the changing expressions that people who rarely have contact with the police exhibit. First there’s mild alarm, followed by
who me
, then relief that it can’t possibly be her, followed by an all-consuming interest in who could possibly be of interest to the police. All of this in two seconds flat. Now she’s mentally assessing all of her current clients.

‘We are looking for a young woman, early twenties, on her own,’ Alessandra says.

Julie nods. ‘We have two of those actually. One is American …’

‘It’ll be the other one then,’ I say. ‘Is she in? What does she look like?’ I ask.

‘She’s not in at the moment. Don’t know where she is. She mentioned something about having friends in the town. Says she hasn’t seen them for years, since they had a baby.

‘She’s average height, average weight, quite pretty, short brown hair. Last I saw her she was wearing jeans and a blue cotton coat.’

‘Can you check your reservation book for her name?’ I ask.

‘Don’t need to do that, DI McBain, when someone tells me their name is Audrey Hepburn, I tend to remember.’

In the car, Alessandra and I have nothing better to do than wait.

‘How should we approach this, Ale?’

‘Doh!’ she makes like Homer Simpson. ‘Soon as we see her, we jump out and arrest her.’

‘We know for sure that she’s the one?’

‘There’s not too many people running around with the name, Audrey Hepburn, is there?’ She pauses. ‘I loved her movies. She was one classy woman.’

‘The nuns used to make us all watch her movie about the missionaries in China. The
Inn of the Sixth
something or other.’

‘
Happiness
and that was Ingrid Bergman, ya numpty,’ Alessandra punches my arm for good measure.

‘Like, whatever, dude.’ I rub my arm as if it really hurts.

‘Don’t talk like that. You are, like, way too old, pops.’ ‘I’m not that much older that you, sweetheart. And anyway if I’m the old one how come you know the movie better than me?’

‘There were lots of wet Saturday afternoons in my youth with nothing better to do than watch old black and white movies.’

‘Almost makes me want to be you,’ I say.

Alessandra looks out of the window and watches a seagull wheel and glide in the sky. ‘We do need a positive ID for the live Hepburn. You still got my camera?’

‘Did I not give you it back?’

She pulls her mobile phone from her handbag, ‘Never fear, gadget girl is here.’

‘If it takes clear photos, even better. Then we can send it to Mrs Browning’s phone and she can give us the identification we need.’

Minutes later a woman walks in the direction of Ettrick House. She is of average height and build with short brown hair and wearing denims and a blue coat. She’s walking along with the air of someone who is on holiday. There’s nothing pressing, nothing important and she has all day to see to it.

As she passes the car, Alessandra aims her phone. It makes the clicking sound of a camera. She holds it up so we can both look at it.

‘Crap,’ she says.

‘I thought you said your phone took good pictures?’

‘It does. She was walking too fast …or something. Why don’t we just go and arrest the bitch?’

‘Alessandra, we can’t afford to fuck this up.’

Ten minutes later a large Skoda draws up in front of us and beeps its horn. It has lettering on the rear window that says “Troon Taxis”. The same girl runs out of the building and jumps into the front passenger seat. The car moves off into the traffic.

I start the engine and do likewise.

‘Wonder where she’s off to?’ Alessandra thinks aloud.

‘Must be local. What would be the point of coming to stay in Troon and then get a taxi somewhere else?’

The taxi drives for around ten minutes. We pass a large supermarket, a swimming pool and then a different stretch of beach.

‘I didn’t know Troon had two beaches,’ says Alessandra. I move my eyes from the traffic to view the tall grasses, sand dunes and another stretch of sparkling sea and then go back to the traffic. Minutes later the taxi takes a left into a large housing estate full of neat modern houses with neat lawns. Suburbia by the sea.

The car takes a few turns, left and right, then pulls up in front of an identikit semi-detached house. It has a trim lawn and a couple of fir trees in front. A child’s bike has been abandoned to the side of the path leading to the front door.

The car stops, the woman gets out and the car drives off. I park across the road.

The door of the house opens. The woman’s head moves as if she is speaking. We can’t see to whom. The door closes. The woman turns and faces the street. She looks stunned and getting angrier by the second. Whatever just happened was not in the script. She turns back to the door, pauses and then puts her back to the house. She walks down the path and pauses again. She looks up at the bedroom window, thinks some more and then walks to the end of the path.

Alessandra and I look at each other. What the hell was that all about?

Whatever happened, it means that we now have a photo opportunity.

‘I’ll distract her,’ I say to Alessandra. ‘You take the picture.’

I climb out of my car. ‘Excuse me,’ I say while trying to think about what I should say next.

The woman is wearing a strange expression that suggests the thoughts in her head are too confusing to be tolerated. Her eyebrows are low and her chin is jutting out with the effort of trying to make sense of them. Her mouth is a tight line of pink, like a well-stitched wound.

‘What?’ she asks.

As she looks at me I try to take her measure. She may be confused, but she’s not stupid. There’s a clear and cunning intellect behind those brown eyes and while I try to assess her, she’s doing the same with me. What does she see? A man in a suit. He’s not a tourist then. A salesman, perhaps?

‘I’m afraid I got kinda lost in this maze of houses. I’m trying to get back to the main road. Do you know how to get there?’ As I say this I’m hoping that Alessandra has her phone out and she’s snapping away.

A car door slams and feet thunder behind me getting closer. A man is shouting. I turn to face him. He’s not looking at me. He only has eyes for Hepburn.

‘Jim,’ she says. ‘What the fuck is going on? I tried to get in to see Angela and …’ she pauses as if catching herself about to say something, ‘and that bitch wouldn’t let me in.’ A look passes between them, a look that shows a shared experience. It’s an intimate recognition of friends, perhaps even lovers turned adversaries, with their past wound in years’ worth of falsehoods.

Judging by her face the experience didn’t end well, nor has it aged well.

He on the other hand has moved on. Or something else more important is demanding his attention. I’m not really listening to what the guy has to say, I’m wondering what his part is in all of this. He’s about my age, tall and wiry. He needs a shave and he looks like he slept in his clothes. He’s still talking and Hepburn is listening closely. Then she looks at me as if to say, why can’t you fuck off?

Such is the force of her glare that I take a step back, despite myself. The man just called her something. It isn’t Audrey, or Lucy or Hepburn.

Sounded like Kirsty.

The walls are tiled in a grey cardboard-like material, the table is formica-topped and the chairs are dark blue plastic. We’re in Ayr cop shop. Alessandra is beside me and Hepburn in front of me. The man we just met, Jim Hilton is sitting in the reception area like he’s got a bomb hanging round his neck and it’s going to explode any second.

Hepburn is sitting back in her chair, feet crossed at the ankles, hands clasped and resting on her lap. She looks like she’s about to pray for all of the world’s lost souls.

‘Ms Hepburn, thank you for your patience,’ I say. ‘We need to get some clarity on the Hiltons’ situation and as a close family friend you are obviously in the position to do that.’

‘But I haven’t seen them or spoken to them …’

I stand up. ‘Sorry. Please bear with us for a little longer? Alessandra, let’s go. We need to have a word with Mr Hilton.’ I assess Hepburn’s reaction to this. The line of her mouth suggests she is annoyed. Good. I want to goad her into a response and there’s nothing like a couple of hours of being completely ignored to fuel the fires of provocation.

Downstairs Jim Hilton grabs my hand like I’m the surgeon and he needs a new valve.

‘Thank you for speaking to me. Thank you,’ he says, his face bright with need.

‘Coffee?’ Alessandra asks.

He nods fiercely. Alessandra walks in the direction of the cafeteria and I follow to have a quick word out of Jim’s hearing.

‘Did you get any reply from Mrs Browning yet?’ I ask. She shakes her head. ‘Did we send it to Mrs Craig?’ She was the mother of the boy who had almost been strangled on the curtain cord.

‘I’ll get on to that.’

‘Why don’t you tell me everything you know, Jim,’ I say.

He talks for over an hour. He tells me all about his wife’s condition, his wee boy and this woman Moira. He actually blushes when he tells me how Moira gave him oral sex and then filled a condom with his semen so she could present this to his wife and get him out of the house. He then goes on to say how he had been dreading Kirsty coming home, because she was an old friend of his wife’s and the only one who could blow his cover of them still being happily married.

Poor sod. I almost feel sorry for him. He goes through all of that and he still loses his wife and son.

‘Hang on a minute. You mentioned Kirsty. Who’s she?’ I ask.

He fixes me with a puzzled expression. ‘The woman you were talking to outside my house. Kirsty. Kirsty Maxwell.’

‘She’s going by another name now,’ I say. ‘Audrey Hepburn.’

He makes a face. ‘Who goes about changing their name? Good Christ, what next? This is like living in a bad movie.’

‘Aye and the cast is Moira Shearer and Audrey Hepburn,’ I say. He makes a sound with his lips, like an abbreviated neighing noise.

‘Yeah, crazy innit.’

‘There’s a connection,’ I say, thinking out loud. ‘Moira’s surname is supposedly Shearer. Moira Shearer, old Hollywood star. Kirsty is going by the name of Audrey Hepburn. Do they know each other? Quite a coincidence with the old actresses’ names, don’t you think?’