Lamb to the Slaughter (12 page)

Christina Munro had fallen asleep in her chair by the fire. When she woke with a start, it was nearly midnight.

So they likely weren’t coming tonight. Sometimes there was a week or more between their visits. She got up painfully and hobbled to the door to let the dog out. It slipped past her like a shadow and disappeared in the darkness.

It was a fine, chilly night, with a hard silver moon, and in the blackness of the sky the stars were glittering pinpoints, so thick and so numerous they almost seemed to be bearing down on her. How could she, just one wee tiny speck of dust, matter in the grand scheme of the whole universe?

She shivered and whistled to the dog. It came bounding in and she shut the door and locked it, then slid across the four solid bolts she had recently and roughly installed. Before she switched off the lights and went to bed, she glanced to make sure that the reloaded shotgun was propped up on the wall beside the door.

6

Ossian Forbes-Graham surfaced dreamily, still not quite sure if he was awake or not. The sickly-sweet smell of last night’s spliff hung in the air and pictures and shapes still drifted behind his closed eyelids.

His bedroom was a turret room on one corner of the red sandstone, Scottish baronial Ravenshill House. It was a Victorian monstrosity, too big to be comfortable and too small to be seriously grand, bought by his grandfather, a man with a small business and large aspirations. Ossian’s father, having sold the business advantageously, now viewed it as ancestral property.

Ossian opened his eyes and the comforting dream-world slipped away to be replaced by the churning anxiety which was more and more often taking possession of him now. He sat bolt upright and pulled open the top drawer of the chest by his bed, knowing it was useless; he’d stocked up when he went to the pub the other night, but he’d smoked all he had.

His hands went to his mouth, first one, then the other, nibbling desperately at his nails, already bitten to the quick. He began tearing off the tiny, ragged ends of skin round about them, drawing blood. It took a considerable effort of will to stop himself and get out of bed.

He padded across the bare, whitewashed floor. The walls had the same soft, powdery finish, and they too were bare apart from an unframed mirror over the black cast-iron ­Victorian fireplace. The white furniture consisted of a bedside chest, a wooden chair, and the bed itself, made up with white bedlinen. The only colour came from a jumble of paints, brushes and used palettes in one corner, beside an easel on which was propped a blank canvas.

He went to stand in front of it, oppressed by its silent reproach. Once, he’d seen the whole room as a sort of composition to show up the explosion of colour he laid on his canvases. Now he felt blank himself, as if the colour had been leached out of him, as if he was white like his white room, his white canvas. Invisible, even.

Ellie. Ellie. Ellie. It was only when he was with Ellie that he felt alive. If he had Ellie, he knew he could paint again. But that she wouldn’t let him touch her, wouldn’t let him near her, even, left him an unpitied victim to his inner torment. She was an incubus, a vampire, sucking away his soul. Sometimes he hated her. Or loved her. One or the other. How did you tell which was which?

A jar on the floor by the easel held turpentine, stained muddy red from the steeping brushes used in the last painting Ossian had done, weeks ago now. In a sudden fit of rage he picked it up and hurled it against the fireplace. It shattered, and the pool of liquid spread across the hearth.

The noise seemed to bring him to his senses. Ossian ­shuddered, then shook his head as if to clear it. He dared not go on like this. If he did, the strings he used to make the Ossian puppet work would snap, and he would fall apart.

He stared at his reflection in the frameless mirror. He looked strange and wild, his dark hair disordered and his light blue eyes glittering. Deliberately, he slapped his face, once, twice on either side, so that red marks showed on his pale skin. He went to one of the turret windows and threw it open, taking deep gasps of the cool, early-morning air.

It was hardly light yet. No one would be about. An icy shower and a long cold walk would shock him back to being normal. At least, as normal as he ever was now.

But first, he had to clear up the mess he had made. If his mother saw it she’d make him go and see the doctor.

‘Dead sheep?’ Fleming said blankly. ‘What are you talking about, Sandy?’

There was a worried frown on PC Langlands’s usually cheery countenance. ‘I know it sounds a bit daft, boss. But I was talking to Tam MacNee down the pub last night and he said it was something I should tell you as soon as ­possible.’

Fleming had notes for what she had to say at the morning briefing lying on her desk; now, as she said, ‘I see. Out with it, then, Sandy,’ she was writing in block capitals across the top, ‘Warning about Tam’.

‘It probably never reached your desk, boss. It was last week – not quite sure which day, but it’ll be logged.’ He told her what had happened. ‘Sergeant Bruce and me went out to it, and it looked like it’d been shot, all bloody.’

‘Shot? Shot somewhere else, then dumped, or shot there in the yard?’

Langlands looked blank. ‘Couldn’t say, boss. Linda and me checked it out but no one knew anything about it.’

‘What sort of wound – a shotgun wound?’

‘I’d guess maybe a shotgun – it was in a real mess, anyway. But I don’t know much about that kind of thing. Sorry – we maybe should have checked,’ he said uncomfortably. ‘But there’s a Mrs Kyle has a shop there, she thought it was a threat because they were against the superstore. Didn’t give us anything to go on, though.’

Fleming was scribbling notes. ‘So what happened to the sheep, then?’

He had nothing to offer on that either. ‘We just reported it and they got it removed. There was a story in the local paper – you maybe saw it?’

Fleming shook her head. ‘Life’s too short to worry about what they think we’ve done wrong this week. Did the paper take a photo?’

Langlands shook his head. ‘It had been taken away before they got there. Don’t know what happened to it.’

It was frustrating, if understandable. ‘Sent to the knacker’s yard, most likely. Was there a lot of talk in the town?’

‘A bit. But everyone just reckoned the neds had been at it again.’

‘Mmm,’ she said glumly. ‘Who did you report to?’

‘I spoke to DC Wilson, but he said there wasn’t a lot to be done unless there was more to go on. There wasn’t any brand to show where it came from.’

Fleming frowned, then sighed. ‘Not much you could do on that basis, I suppose. OK, Sandy. Could you see that I get copies of the statements you and Linda took? Thanks.’

As he left, she was frowning and tapping her finger on a front tooth, an unconscious habit she had when concentrating. Could it be some form of intimidation, or was it just irrelevant, unpleasant vandalism? It wasn’t unknown for animals to be attacked, though that tended to be with airguns, and from what Langlands had said about messiness, it sounded like a shotgun right enough.

Fleming glanced down at her desk, where she now had a printout of the list of licences. Bill’s name was there, along with that of pretty much every farmer in the district, and when you added those who quite legitimately wanted them for what were termed ‘rural pursuits’, it ran to pages. Gun laws in Scotland had been tightened since the tragedy at the school in Dunblane, but even so you couldn’t stop people shooting pheasants or rabbits or even clay-pigeons, come to that.

Will Wilson had been involved, so he might have some light to shed on it. She wanted to talk to him anyway; she’d seen what happened when antagonisms developed within the CID, and without being heavy-handed, she was keen to sort him out before things went too far. She picked up the phone.

While she waited for him to arrive, she prepared notes for the briefing. It was much too early yet to decide on a direction for the enquiry, but as a starting-point she recorded the names of people so far involved: the occupants of the Craft Centre units; the nephew who stood to inherit, since it would be foolish to overlook the straightforward motive in the maze of complications; Councillor Gloag, whose name had surfaced in several reports from the door-to-door enquiry teams. But in addition a good number of local people had strong views one way or the other, and there were a couple of other shops directly affected by the superstore proposals, now also on her crowded desk somewhere. She scrabbled papers aside, looking for them: it would be instructive to find out whether the owners it involved were for or against the development.

She found the plans and spread them out. There was a little fancy goods shop that would go, but it belonged to Senga Blair who must be at least sixty-five, with stock that reflected her age. A lavish offer from ALCO would probably be an answer to prayer as far as she was concerned.

The other shop affected was much bigger, with a sizeable yard at the back, owned by George MacLaren, the butcher. He was a major customer for Bill, and for the first time Fleming felt a chill of unease. By selling out, MacLaren would stand to gain a great deal of money, and she knew what happened to farms that lost their local outlets and had to sell to the supermarkets instead: they were beaten down on price until they were actually losing money on what they produced. They had some friends in the Borders who’d been forced to sell up because of this, and they were far from the only ones.

Bill, characteristically, hadn’t so much as mentioned the threat, at least in her hearing. He’d often enough told her he’d a philosophical objection to worrying about things that might never happen, and she hadn’t until now given the supermarket more than the most casual consideration.

Wilson’s arrival brought an end to her troubled thoughts. He was looking a little awkward, which was all to the good after his behaviour yesterday, but she went straight to the question of the dead sheep.

He was annoyed not to have thought of it first. ‘It happened last Monday. I should have picked up on that, boss. Sorry. I didn’t make the connection.’

‘There may not be one,’ Fleming pointed out. ‘It’s interesting, though. Sandy Langlands gave me the bare facts, but perhaps you could talk to Linda Bruce? She might have noticed more about the nature of the wound, for instance—’

Wilson was shaking his head. ‘I can tell you that right now. She didn’t look. Felt a bit squeamish, I think.’

Disappointed, Fleming said acidly, ‘Needs a spell on Traffic – that would sort her out. Anyway, keep that in mind when you’re doing interviews today – put on a bit more pressure than Sandy and Linda did at the time, see if anyone can come up with anything to give us a lead.

‘I’ll give out details at the briefing, but I’ll be wanting you, Andy and Tansy as a task force. I’m hoping Tam may be allowed back soon, but until then we’ll be understrength and under pressure. It will mean working as a particularly close team.’ She looked at him with a half-smile. ‘OK?’

Wilson coloured. ‘Yes, of course. Er – sorry about ­yesterday.’

‘Is there a problem?’

‘No, not really.’ He sighed. ‘Just – well, there’s a few things not going well at the moment.’

‘Anything you’d like to talk about?’

‘Nothing right now. Got to work it out for myself, but thanks anyway.’

‘Fine. But Will,’ and there was just the slightest edge to her tone now, ‘I’d like to think you’d bring it to me if you’re in some difficulty before it affects the team.’

He promised, smiling, and left. He wasn’t a bad lad, Fleming reflected, just perhaps having to come to terms with reality when a rather raffish charm wasn’t enough.

The dead sheep, though. She went back to that. Except that it had happened last Monday, Wilson hadn’t really had anything to add to what she knew already. She didn’t know what to think, and was left wondering uncomfortably if Tam had seen something in it that she hadn’t.

‘Well?’ Fiona Farquharson demanded from the table in the corner of the smart ‘farmhouse’ kitchen where she was finishing her breakfast coffee, as her husband came back into the room. ‘What did he say?’

Giles was looking even worse than he usually did this ­morning. His heavy face had a greyish tinge beneath its tracery of broken veins, and the bags under his eyes were puffy and reddened. She’d had a disturbed night herself, not helped by him tossing and turning and switching on the light to see what time it was.

He’d wanted to go to work as usual this morning, but Fiona had insisted he stay to phone Uncle Andrew’s lawyer. ‘Anyway, you’ll have to go along to the house. You ought to be there as next of kin, to keep an eye on what the police are doing.

‘And don’t say Murdoch won’t like you taking the time off. You won’t have to put up with his demands for much longer.’

Giles had been reluctant. ‘People will think—’ he began, but she hadn’t let him finish.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Giles. That’s your problem, always trying to duck your responsibilities. You’re going to have to make it clear from the very start that you’re in charge, and that you’re not going to pay attention to what people think. There’s going to be opposition, and you’ll have to be prepared for it. The sooner you get in touch with ALCO the better. You don’t want them thinking there’s a problem and deciding to go elsewhere.’