Lamb to the Slaughter (45 page)

‘I’ve never spoken to Romy Kyle. I’ll maybe away round first thing tomorrow and just have a word with her. I’ve spoken to Ellie already, but you can’t get any sense out of her – the woman’s away with the fairies most of the time.’ He sighed. ‘Bonny, though, and sings like a wee lintie.’

Kerr, about to make a caustic remark, thought the better of it. If you were going to do a ‘me-too’, mocking the man wasn’t a smart way to begin.

‘I could give you backup – a woman’s touch and all that,’ she offered, trying to sound offhand.

MacNee wasn’t fooled. ‘Och, I’m in a generous mood. You’re needing to be in on the big breakthrough when it comes, if you’re to get yourself back in the boss’s good books, and you’re not going to get that doing paperwork, are you?’

‘Thanks, Tam,’ Kerr said, squirming only a little. Eventually, she supposed, they’d all forget what she’d done. Even if she didn’t herself.

Dylan and Johnny were in the front room with the door shut. Ellie Burnett could hear the familiar sounds of a football match in progress – the roaring of the crowd, the synthetic excitement of the commentator, a groan from the men as a decision didn’t go their way.

She shut the front door of the flat with exaggerated caution, though it was very unlikely they could hear it, then went down the stairs to the yard below. Johnny’s workshop was locked up and the big gates across the entrance were closed. She could see the padlock he had attached today to the bar across them, but she had taken the bunch of keys he kept on a hook upstairs.

Ellie unlocked the padlock and swung the bar away; it clanked, and she shot an anxious glance at the curtained windows above. They didn’t move and she heard a shout of triumph from inside as she swung open the gate, then pulled it to behind her and went out into the High Street.

Usually at this time, half-past eight, it would be if not exactly busy, then well populated with folk going to pubs and restaurants and youngsters ‘hanging out’, as they always said. Tonight, you’d have guessed it was one o’clock in the morning, apart from the lights in the houses where frightened people had stayed indoors.

Ellie had two choices. It was almost like tossing a coin, though she knew it was heavily weighted in favour of one of them. What were the chances, at this time of night, that the other would be available? Still, with everything – or almost everything – stripped away, she had reached bedrock. What was somehow still part of her, bred in the bone, meant she had to allow that option its chance to dispel the darkness that was gathering round her with some sort of miracle.

The Roman Catholic church was a small, low, whitewashed building just off the High Street. It didn’t have a large congregation and she hadn’t added to it, except at Christmas or Easter, and not always even then. Ellie couldn’t remember the last time she had been to confession, didn’t know the hours for it. Perhaps, just perhaps, it was this evening. She rehearsed the words in her head:
Bless me, father, for I have sinned
... Would she be able to go on, after that opening? Was there any point in trying? Could it change what she felt, in her heart of hearts, must happen next?

If the church was closed, if there was no priest there waiting to save her soul, she hadn’t made the decision – God had.

As she approached the church, it was clear what that decision was. There were no lights on, no cars parked outside, but even so she went up to the heavy doors, rattled the unyielding handle and then, in a frenzy of despair, battered on them with her clenched fists.

When she stopped, the silence engulfed her. A breeze had sprung up, with a cutting edge to it, but she stood with her head bowed until she began to shiver. Then she shook herself like a dog and walked away. There was only one answer now.

Ellie felt in her pocket and the banknote crackled reassuringly in her fingers. If God wouldn’t help her, there was someone she knew in a backstreet near here who would.

22

It was far too long since Marjory had sat with Bill, swirling her malt in the heavy crystal tumbler, here in the comfortable, shabby sitting-room. Under Karolina’s care, the brass fender which bore the scars of age and family life was glittering in a way it never had before and the wood of the old-fashioned furniture, which had belonged to Bill’s parents, and indeed grandparents, now had a patina which glowed in the soft light of the side lamps. The nights were drawing in and it had started raining: with the cheerful blaze of the fire and Meg blissfully stretched out on the rug, it seemed more than ever a haven of comfort.

They talked family business: the funeral was to be on Saturday, Janet was being cherished by friends who were helping her prepare the service, Cammie was fine, Cat was very subdued.

‘She’s had a lot to cope with,’ Marjory sighed. ‘She hasn’t had anyone she knew die before, and two within days is ­shattering. Especially when one was someone her own age – you believe you’re immortal, till one of your friends dies. I remember when that happened to this day, and I was eighteen at the time.’

‘Are you any nearer to knowing who did it? Probably the last thing you want to think about tonight, but—’

‘No,’ she said. ‘If you’re in listening mood, it would help to talk.’

Bill leaned back in his chair and stretched out his legs. ‘Nothing better to do, unless someone else finds another sheep with an ambition to practise somersaults.’

‘The thing is, it just seems to be trickling through my fingers. Every time, it’s promising, then it doesn’t work out. We’re not even close.’

‘Early days,’ Bill pointed out. ‘It’s not a week yet since Carmichael was killed.’

‘I know, I know. But we’ve been working flat out, even brought in extra help to do it, and we’ve pretty much covered all the bases. They were both opportunistic crimes which have left us with very little in the way of hard evidence.

‘Oh, plenty of people had good sound motives for killing Carmichael, but their links with Barney Kyle are casual or non-existent. We’ve established he didn’t happen to walk past and see someone raising a shotgun, and any other motive we’ve managed to dredge up seems flimsy in the extreme. Nearly all our suspects have an alibi for one murder or the other – we’re almost at a standstill.

‘Councillor Gloag is still in the frame, being slippery as usual, but unless there’s more to it than meets the eye, you have to ask – two murders on the basis of getting a big business contract?’

‘And it’s not going through anyway, I hear. Janet’s friend Mrs Duncan was full of it – ALCO has decided that being associated with a double murder isn’t good for PR, and they’re looking elsewhere.’

‘Really? Well, that’s good news for the High Street, and for the farms too, but there would have been advantages on the domestic front. It might have offered a healthier selection than pizza and oven chips from Spar. I’m going to have to get a grip on that once all this is over. If it ever is. If it doesn’t – get worse.’

Bill raised his eyebrows, but she went on, ‘Tomorrow I’m going to pull in the Farquharsons – you know the story there? Oh, need I ask – Mrs Duncan! Well, they at least thought they had good reason to want the Colonel out of the way before he refused ALCO’s offer. They have definitely lied to us about their movements and if you assume conspiracy their alibis have gaps in them you could drive a tank through. But again, we hit the problem of a link with Kyle – doubt if they even knew him, and it’s hard to see how they’d be sufficiently aware of his movements to set up an ambush.

‘I’m getting desperate, Bill. If this
is
rational, it’s a logic I don’t understand. I don’t know where else to go. Any suggestions?’

He looked at her empty glass. ‘What about another dram, for a start?’ He brought over the bottle and topped them both up, then sat down again, his brow furrowed in thought.

Marjory waited patiently, listening to the peaceful sound of rain pattering on the windows. A burning log sent up a flurry of sparks and Meg stirred in her sleep, giving a muffled ‘wuf
f
’ at something in her dream.

At last he said, ‘You want to believe there’s a reason, don’t you?’

Marjory stiffened. She had asked him, but now she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear what he had to say.

He went on, ‘You’ve looked for links between the people, connections, their motives for choosing those victims. What if it isn’t like that?’

‘A sniper,’ she said dully. She had been relaxing; now she found herself tensing up again, almost expecting that at the use of the dreadful word the phone might ring with news of another victim.

‘Not necessarily – but suppose it was? What do you do then?’

‘
I don’t know!
’ There was desperation in her tone. ‘I don’t even begin to know where to start. I’ve read stuff about it when it’s happened in the States and they haven’t any answers either. You check out the known loners and weirdos, but more often than not it’s someone they describe afterwards as quiet and ordinary.

‘It happens again – and again, possibly, then either someone sees something and gives you a lead, or they confess or kill themselves. That’s how most crimes get solved – information or confession. And I can’t see any sign of either at the moment.’

‘The only thing is,’ Bill said, ‘when you read about it, they just pick off a passer-by. Here, he’s gone out of his way to choose someone – in Kyle’s case, very carefully.’

Marjory brightened. ‘Someone else said that. And it’s true, isn’t it?’

‘But from what you say you’re in some doubt as to whether there’s reason behind it at all. The crimes seem random.’

‘So where do I go from there?’

There was another of Bill’s long silences, then he said, ‘Look at the crimes, not the person. See if the answer’s there.’

‘The crime, not the person,’ she repeated slowly. ‘I think I see what you mean. It’s a new angle, anyway, and I was desperate for one. Thanks, Bill.’ A gawping yawn took her by surprise. ‘Oh – sorry.’

Bill got up. ‘Time you were in bed, anyway. You get on upstairs. I’ll take the glasses through and lock up.’

‘Thanks.’ She yawned again. ‘I think I’ll sleep tonight.’

‘You certainly should, after two doubles and goodness knows how many glasses of wine with Karolina,’ he said drily. ‘And you never told me what the joke was.’

Marjory smiled. ‘There are some things,’ she said, ‘that it’s better for a man not to know.’

It was kind of early for an official visit but, as MacNee had pointed out to Kerr, they could always check that the curtains were open and there were signs of life downstairs before they actually rang the bell.

He was desperate for a lead, any lead. This morning he had found himself more tired than he should have been, and evading Bunty’s watchful eye he’d taken his pills to ward off the headache that was brewing. He might not have the stamina for day after day of this. Andy Mac had said that Marjory too had been low last night after the information about Ossian, and she wasn’t herself either – touchy, impatient and suffering sense of humour failure. And with the threat that the killer might strike again, they were up against the clock.

Hence the early visit. But when they reached the house, they realised it was not early but too late. Curtains were open, certainly, but no one answered the door and there was no car outside.

‘Maybe she’s gone away to stay with her family or something,’ Kerr was suggesting, when MacNee had the uncomfortable sensation of being watched. He swung round.

A sour-looking woman had appeared from next door, bent with age but with darting eyes behind the thick glasses she wore.

‘Looking for her, are you?’ she called.

MacNee walked over to the dividing fence. ‘That’s right. Has she gone away?’

‘You reporters, then?’ she asked with a hopeful expression. ‘There’d be a charge, mind, but I could tell you—’

He cut short the sales pitch. ‘Police.’

‘Right,’ she said, with obvious disappointment, making to go back inside.

‘Hang on. Do you know where Mrs Kyle is?’

She looked as if she was framing the words, ‘What’s in it for me?’ but the glare he gave her changed her mind. ‘Try where she works,’ she said grudgingly. ‘She goes there funny times. Half-past five she left this morning, in her working clothes. That’s all I know.’ She hobbled back in and shut the door with a resounding slam.

‘Wow, respect!’ Kerr was impressed. ‘Could we employ her to do surveillance? On the job round the clock, obviously.’

‘Everybody’s ideal neighbour. Why half-past five, do you reckon?’

‘Poor woman probably can’t sleep,’ Kerr said soberly. ‘Son’s body still in the morgue waiting for release to bury him, partner on the run – no wonder she needs work to take her mind off it.’

They drove round to the Craft Centre. Today it looked more desolate than ever, with the other shops shut and Romy’s car the only one in the courtyard. The shelves in the shop part of her unit were bare but the lights were on and they could see her facing the back wall, standing in front of a fiery glow.

The door, when MacNee tried it, wasn’t locked, but he banged on it as he opened it to alert her to their presence. There was a hot smell in the air and a roaring sound from the compressor for the powerful blowtorch she was operating in a sort of three-sided chamber, but she heard them and looked round. She cut off the gas supply to the blue flame and went to set down the dull silver piece she had been working with on the solid wood bench which ran along the back wall. It was deeply scarred with burns and gouges, untidy with tools of every description – mallets, saws, drills, shears, hammers, files.