Cold in the Earth (31 page)

Once she was on the road walking was a little easier. There were even some blurred tracks from a vehicle which had gone past the house then turned in a field gateway further along – or perhaps those were just Conrad’s tracks from yesterday. It was certainly a lovely day to be out. The air was like champagne, deliciously cold and refreshing, and somewhere a bird was singing loudly. She looked round to track the sound and saw a robin sitting on a snow-capped fence post, red chest puffed out and beak open, looking as if he’d heard he was in with a chance of a starring role on a Christmas card and was giving it his best shot.

It was all very, very beautiful. This place had a lot of the qualities she’d been looking for in her search for somewhere she could put down roots and feel at home: she loved the tranquillity of the countryside and the busy, friendly little towns where passers-by smiled at one another. The people she’d met were lovely too, with an old-fashioned warmth and courtesy she thought had vanished long ago, and she loved the soft accent and the vivid Scots expressions they used. But could she ever think of it as anything other than the backdrop to her sister’s tragedy?

Deep in thought, it took her a moment to notice that the snow was getting deeper underfoot; there was a corner ahead and as she reached it she realised that the fence posts marking the lines of the fields had disappeared. She stopped.

There must be a dip in the road here. You wouldn’t know, though, because it was a solid, level sheet of white. The wind must have whipped snow off the fields on either side to collect in the hollow here and there was a drift which must be four feet deep at least. Even if she had a four-wheel drive, Mrs MacNab wouldn’t be coming this way today and Laura certainly wasn’t going to make it through to the farmhouse of her imagination with its snug kitchen and the smell of home baking.

Absurdly disappointed, she turned back. She’d just have to go home and wait till the power came back on again. She had a roof over her head, lots of clothes she could pile on and food to eat even if it couldn’t be heated up; she wasn’t going to die of starvation or hypothermia. But didn’t these power cuts sometimes go on for days? Last night had probably brought dozens of lines down and with snowdrifts like this all over the area the linesmen would be finding it hard even to get about.

That could mean another night of darkness like the last one – and a long night too when the sun disappeared in the late afternoon and rose late. Anything but that!

Galvanised by the thought, she set off in the opposite direction, back past the house, in the direction of the Glenluce road. It wasn’t so very far, and then it was only a couple of miles to the main road. She and Brad had done a lot of hiking when they were first married; even given the snow, that distance wasn’t a problem and she reckoned that hereabouts, in weather like this, you could be pretty sure someone would stop and give you a lift into town. The Galloway Arms with its blazing fire and nursery food seemed a very appealing place right now.

Half a mile on, the snow got deeper again. There were tyre marks, only just visible – Conrad’s again? – but to go on, she’d have to wade through a foot and a half of snow, with no guarantee that there wouldn’t be a worse drift round the next corner. The sun had gone in now too and even her thick clothing wasn’t protecting her from the bitter cold. Miserably, she turned back to plod slowly home.

Flakes of snow were drifting down again; the landscape had lost all its colour and looked bleak and sombre. The back of the row of cottages, broken only by the narrow windows of the bedrooms, looked forbidding too. It was set back a little, so that there was an expanse of rough ground between the building and the road.

Walking along with her head bowed, Laura noticed, as she had not noticed before, that there was trampled snow all across this space. The bellowing animal! It must have been just outside her window – no wonder it had wakened her. She went to look, hoping that even she might be able to guess from the tracks what it had been.

Like the tyre marks, the prints had been blurred and distorted by the action of the wind, but the evidence was unmistakable. These were human, not animal. Someone had been prowling backwards and forwards outside her window last night. Someone bellowing like a beast.

She gasped. Whoever it had been was long gone, but fear transcended logic. She fled, slipping a couple of times but managing to save herself; inside, with the door locked and bolted, she slumped against it, breathless and with her heart racing in terror.

What was she to do now? Already the sky was grey and the light seemed pallid, unearthly. How could she cope with hours of pitch darkness and terror?

There was only one thing for it – swallow her pride and ring Conrad. She hunted in her bag for her mobile phone, clicked it on and waited impatiently for a connection, waited and waited, then stared in horrified disbelief at the terse message: ‘No signal.’

It was after ten o’clock when Marjory Fleming got in to Police Headquarters. She didn’t feel guilty about that; she’d every intention of leaving early too, once she’d spoken to Donald Bailey. In terms of overtime (unpaid) she was well ahead of the game.

She’d had to stand over Bill this morning to make sure he ate a proper breakfast, and poor neglected Meg had to be given a good walk too; she rushed around, barking joyously in the snow. Then Marjory had to embark on the uncomfortable business of phoning round farming neighbours she would once have called friends, to be greeted with polite hostility. There was huge sympathy for Bill, though, and she’d arranged for a steady stream of visitors. Surely that must cheer him up? And Janet had promised to brave the tricky roads to go out and give him his lunch; having had experience of her mother’s gently implacable tactics during episodes of childish faddiness, Marjory could feel confident that Bill would eat it up like a good boy and have a nice clean plate.

She made her appointment with Donald Bailey for later in the day. She wanted to clear her desk and have detailed plans in place for covering her absence before she saw him. Fortunately, being SIO for the murder meant she didn’t have any other on-going cases, but even so she’d have a powerful amount of work to shift, just tying up the loose ends.

She’d have to see Tam MacNee and she wasn’t looking forward to that. She told herself she had no need to feel guilty; it wasn’t as if there was any hard evidence that it hadn’t happened in just the way Conrad Mason had suggested. She’d need more justification for sacrificing her personal duties to her professional ones than a couple of question marks and a gut feeling, but she wasn’t entirely sure that Tam would see it that way. Still, her mind was made up.

As usual, there were e-mails waiting. She sat down to flip through them for anything urgent before she phoned to summon Tam and get it over with. Most seemed to be internal memos and reports: those could wait.

Then one appeared which caught her eye, from the path lab in Glasgow, and she remembered the funny scrap of material she’d sent them – had that only been yesterday, when she’d been in such a bullish mood? She could only think it was lucky it had come in now instead of later, when whoever took over from her might well query the expense.

She opened it. It was an informal report, headed ‘Interesting!’ and as she read it she went very still. The sample she had sent, it said, under a comparison microscope had been found to match some scraps of rotting fabric found with the remains. Though they still hadn’t completed all the tests they were fairly sure it was cotton flannelette with a stripe in it – gents’ pyjama material, it suggested.

Fleming was still staring at the screen trying to make sense of the implications when there was a tap at the door and Tam MacNee appeared.

‘I hear Bailey’s set to pull the rug out,’ he said without preamble. ‘Just when I’d got confirmation from the Met Office that the weekend we’re talking about was in the middle of a cold snap when it had been below freezing even during daylight hours for three days. So there shouldn’t have been an animal outside at all, but of course he’ll pay no heed. All the man ever thinks about is preserving the budget so there’s enough in the kitty to let the high heid yins swan off to the Caribbean on fact-finding missions. He’ll never agree to give us more time.’

‘He may have to. Look at this, Tam.’

He came round to squint over Fleming’s shoulder; his lips pursed in a silent whistle of surprise as he read and she explained what she’d done. ‘Though what was the girl doing, out in the maze wearing men’s pyjamas, if they’re right – does that imply she was taken out of her bed, or even killed there, maybe? Though why the maze . . .’

Thinking aloud, she didn’t notice MacNee’s uncomfortable silence. ‘Er—’ he said at last, and she looked at him sharply. ‘Does this mean something to you?’

‘I’d forgotten about it, to be honest. It was my first interview with Thomson – you’ve got it there somewhere.’ He nodded towards the computer. ‘But you maybe haven’t had time to read it.’

‘I’ve got upwards of a hundred reports in there,’ she said tartly. ‘I need a steer if there’s something significant.’

‘Aye, of course you do. I just didn’t think to mention it. Thomson said he saw her going out her flat at night in her pyjamas two or three times. I asked, was she going to meet someone, but he said no, she was always back a few minutes later. Seemed a daft-like thing to be doing in the winter but I just put her down as one of these fey types that go off and commune with Mother Nature. Didn’t seem exactly relevant – but with this, now . . . Meeting someone after all?’

Fleming was tapping her front tooth with a pencil. ‘Doesn’t sound likely, just for a few minutes. But why on earth – oh, you don’t think she could have been a sleep-walker, do you? Cat had a spell of that once and we found her outside a couple of times. We need to check that with the sister. Where’s she staying – still at the Glen Inn?’

MacNee shook his head. ‘No, she upped sticks the other day – scunnered with the Masons, poor lass, if you ask me. DC Nisbet has her address – a holiday cottage somewhere off the Glenluce road, as far as I mind.’

‘Not the cleverest place to be at the moment, with the weather. I was listening to Radio Solway on the way in this morning and some of the upland roads are blocked and they’ve power cuts out there too.

‘I tell you what,’ Fleming went on, tongue in cheek. ‘I’ll give you the chance to be her knight in shining armour if she’s sitting there all cold and pitiful. Don’t say I’m not good to you! You can ask her about the sleep-walking – oh, and show her this.’ She picked up the ankle bracelet which was lying on her desk in a sealed plastic bag. ‘Ask if she can identify it as her sister’s – though I have to say that after this I’m pretty sure it must be. But I’m warning you, if you manage to get yourself snowed in with her, I’m going to clype on you to Bunty.’

Tam took the joke in good part. ‘Don’t do that! “In hell she’d roast me like a herring!” Oh, all right, all right.’ He fished out 10p and put it into the box on the desk in front of him as he got up.

On the way out he turned back. ‘Did I hear you’re back at the Mains? How’s Bill?’

‘Don’t ask. No, I really mean that. I’m in a mess but I’ll have to sort it myself.’

He still hesitated. ‘You know where I am, if you’re needing anything.’

‘Yes. Somewhere in a snowy glen chatting up a glamorous babe young enough to be your daughter. Get on with it!’

Her jaunty smile faded as he shut the door. She’d have to change her appointment and go to see Bailey as soon as possible about this new development. It would mean firing up the investigation again, taking the maze apart to find out what secrets it might be concealing. Finger-tip searches, digging – the whole, let’s-burn-money paraphernalia. How could she tack, ‘And by the way, I’m demanding compassionate leave,’ on to the end of that?

It was half-past twelve when the sound of a car’s engine brought Laura leaping to her feet. It was coming slowly and it would have to turn and come back this way once it reached the snowdrift round the corner but she wasn’t taking any chances. She flung open the door and skittered along the path to the road without pausing for a coat or a change of footwear.

Her first thought, on seeing the Range Rover stopping by the gate, was that Conrad must have either a very forgiving nature or a particularly thick skin. She was framing an exquisitely abject apology when she realised that it wasn’t Conrad jumping down from the driver’s seat. It was Max.

She had believed she didn’t want to see Conrad; it was only now that she realised how much more welcome he would have been. But right at this moment – and she seemed to be saying this rather a lot lately – beggars couldn’t be choosers.

‘Hey, Laura!’ His greeting was jaunty but she thought he was looking a little shaken. ‘Whew! That was a bit hairy! Still, it’s worth it to find a reception committee of one – I like a girl who’s eager.’

He advanced towards her with his arms outspread; she took a neat step back and grasped his hands, leaning forward to submit to being kissed on both cheeks.

‘I hate to disappoint you, Max, but it’s the car, frankly. I’d welcome anyone who’d come to rescue me from this Arctic hell.’

‘Ah, I was right, then!’ He sounded gleeful. ‘I popped down to the Glen Inn for a lunchtime drink – had to get away from the house with the old girl stomping round stabbing me with looks of hatred and Conrad behaving like a gorilla with a hangover. They’d had a power cut since last night so I said to myself, Max, there’s a damsel who probably needs rescuing. Get in there! So here I am!’

‘You haven’t had it at Chapelton?’

‘We’re on the supply from the farther end of the road. So far, so good.’

‘Lucky you. Come in, anyway. It’s freezing out here – not that it isn’t freezing inside too. I’m just going to pack up rapidly, then hitch a lift to the Galloway Arms, if you don’t mind.’

Max followed her into the cottage. ‘I’m afraid there’s a teeny problem with that. The snowplough hasn’t come through yet and it was skin-of-the-teeth stuff getting along here – would have turned back, if it hadn’t been an errand of mercy—’