Lamb to the Slaughter
| Lamb to the Slaughter |
| DI Marjory Fleming [4] |
| Aline Templeton |
| 2008 : Scotland |
on his doorstep. In the pretty and tranquil market town of Kirkluce a
proposed superstore development has divided the population in an
increasingly bitter war. The low-level aggression of bored youth that is
generally tolerated has become sinister. The bloodied carcass of a
sheep abandoned in the streets is more than just unpleasant vandalism
and teenage bikers, terrorising a woman to breaking point, are
impossible to control. When a second victim is killed in what seems a
random shooting, the fear in the town becomes tangible. DI Fleming will
not accept that the crimes are motiveless, but she struggles to make
sense of the two murders, when nothing makes sense any more and no one
will believe anything. Not even the truth.
Also By The Same Author
Death is my Neighbour
Last Act of All
Past Praying For
The Trumpet Shall Sound
Night and Silence
Shades of Death
NOVELS FEATURING DI FLEMING
Cold in the Earth
The Darkness and the Deep
Lying Dead
Lamb to the Slaughter
Aline Templeton
First published in Great Britain in
2008
by Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette Livre UK company
Copyright © Aline Templeton
2008
The right of Aline Templeton to be identified as the Author
of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988
.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means
without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise
circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published
and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance
to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
Epub ISBN 9781848942936
Book ISBN
9780340922309
Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
338
Euston Road
London NW
13
BH
For Milena with fondest love
Contents
1
‘No,’ the woman said. She could feel the muscles in her neck tense into cords, and her nails dig into the palm of her hand in an effort to stop her voice from wavering. ‘Whatever you say, whatever you do – no.’
She had to use both hands to set down the receiver and even then she was shaking so much that she knocked it off its stand again.
‘What do you do about a dead sheep?’ PC Sandy Langlands’s cheerful, cherubic face was creased into worried lines as he came into the CID room at the Kirkluce headquarters of the Galloway Constabulary.
‘I don’t know, what do you do about a dead sheep? Just get to the punchline, Sandy – I’m busy.’ DC Will Wilson was working on a tricky report at one of the computers and didn’t look up.
‘No, a real dead sheep.’ Langlands came across to perch on a nearby desk. ‘It’s not very nice – pretty messy. Looks as if someone shot it, then dumped it in the courtyard of the Craft Centre. Mrs Paterson, her that has the pottery there, found it when she came in this morning and about had a fit.’
Reluctantly abandoning his report, Wilson grimaced. ‘I hate Mondays. The vandals all go on a spree at the weekend and we get to clear up the mess. Whose sheep was it – any mark on the fleece?’
Langlands shook his head. ‘No. Cut away, probably. And I checked – there’s been no report from any of the farmers about a problem.’
‘Not a lot we can do about it then, is there? Take statements to make them feel we’ve taken this seriously and get someone to remove the beast before the story’s all round the town and everyone comes to take a look. There’ll be muttering about us not stopping vandalism, but at least we can look efficient at clearing it up.’
Langlands thanked him and went away.
If only everything was as straightforward as that! Going back, frowning, to his problems, Will Wilson dismissed it from his mind.
On this windless Saturday evening, there were three swallows on the telephone wire which looped across Andrew Carmichael’s garden. Only three, but next week there would be more, then more, their twittering the knell for the passing of another summer.
Sitting on the low wall that surrounded the rose garden, Andrew sighed. It seemed an alarmingly short time since he had sat here last year in the same elegiac mood, watching the swallows prepare for departure as August slipped into September.
It was still warm, but over the low Galloway hills beyond the garden wall the weakening sun was a line of fire below a sky streaked with gold, pink, purple and lilac – a good show, tonight, in full technicolor. He was something of a connoisseur of sunsets from this vantage point. How old had he been when he had watched his first one? Four, perhaps.
That was a lot of sunsets over seventy years – minus, of course, the years when he’d been posted to the Tropics. Korea, Malaya, Belize: when night fell there like a shutter coming down, feeling homesick and sometimes scared, he had hungered for the slow golden gloaming of a Scottish summer night and the sweet-pea perfume of the old blush rose which had always rambled along the wall.
It was still and silent tonight, apart from the muffled croon of a wood pigeon in one of the silver birches. Andrew tipped his face back to the last of the sunshine and words by his beloved Browning came unbidden to mind:
I am grown peaceful as old age tonight.
I regret little, I would change still less.
That wasn’t true, though. He had much to regret, and old age was more of a burden than a benison when he would need so much energy for the meeting later. He was coming under pressure, severe pressure. How much easier it would be simply to give in to it! After all, it wasn’t as if there weren’t arguments in favour of doing just that.
But supposing he did, what about lovely, vulnerable Ellie? And Pete too – a charming fellow, but he was heading for trouble again, sadly, and Romy’s job as the main breadwinner would be harder still without his own support for her studio. He knew he ought to stand firm. Ought to.
He’d never had a problem when it was just bullets that were being fired at him. Physical courage was easy; moral courage in your personal life was different and he didn’t like to think about the times when he hadn’t had the guts to do what he knew was right. He’d paid the price today already for what had been cowardice, pure and simple. An ugly vice in an old soldier.
He shifted uncomfortably on the wall, which seemed to have become harder over the past few minutes. The colours were fading now, turning muddy and dull, and Andrew rose a little stiffly.
He still had a military bearing, straight-backed without the chin-poking stoop of old age. The twinges of creaking joints were no more than a nuisance; he’d been lucky compared to his poor Madeleine, who had found relief from the agony of her twisted, arthritic limbs only in death last year.
He turned towards the house. Fauldburn House was a sprawling grey sandstone building, grown over the centuries from its austere Scottish Georgian beginnings to accommodate large Victorian and Edwardian families. It was far too big for him now: with no one coming to visit, there were too many rooms shut up and unused. He and Madeleine had talked about selling, but he shrank from the thought of seeing his household goods dispersed. All he wanted now was to be left in peace, which at the moment seemed a forlorn hope.
The estate that went with the house was on the western edge of the market town of Kirkluce. It had never been extensive, and land had been very advantageously sold off for housing over the years, but there was still some tenanted farmland and a courtyard with old stable buildings round about, converted now into shops as a Craft Centre.
Andrew went down the stone-flagged steps, in at the back door and along the passage by the kitchen where Annie had said she’d left a salad for him on a covered plate in the fridge. He’d fetch it later, he decided, once he’d changed out of his gardening cords and the soft cotton twill shirt that was frayed round the collar. His King’s Own Scottish Borderers tie with grey flannel bags and his blazer would be more suitable to put steel into him, because no matter what he decided, battle lay ahead.
He changed, then took the silver-backed hairbrushes from his dressing-table, one in each hand, and was applying them to the springy white hair which, thank the Lord, showed no sign of deserting its post, when the doorbell rang.
He swore mildly. Someone coming round, no doubt, to bend his ear in advance of the meeting. Just as long as it wasn’t Norman Gloag: he’d been tried enough by that unspeakable man and he’d reached the point where he couldn’t guarantee to be civil.
He went downstairs, across the cool darkness of the entrance hall and opened the door.
‘That’s the last burger, Cammie.’ Bill Fleming, his fair complexion flushed from the heat of the glowing charcoal, took it from the grid, stuffed it into a bun and handed it to his son Cameron.
From an elderly deckchair with sagging canvas, Bill’s wife Marjory watched them lazily, putting her hand up to shield her eyes from the low sun. Cammie, at twelve, was growing fast now, so fast that she sometimes thought she could see the gap between his trainers and the hem of his jeans widen as she watched. He’d overtaken his older sister Catriona and looked set fair to top her own five foot ten by the end of the year. And she’d noticed a few more strands of grey in her chestnut crop lately – an unwelcome reminder of the passage of time.
