Lamb to the Slaughter (9 page)

‘There’ll be no leave of any sort till this one’s cleared up,’ Fleming said tartly.

Kerr straightened her face. ‘Sorry, boss. Just a joke.’

‘Yes, I know. But—’ She caught a look between the two young detectives and hastily said, ‘Oh, never mind.’ It was unreasonable to be irritated, she knew that. Jokes came with the job, even, or perhaps particularly, in gruesome situations, but these days living with yoof culture at work as well as at home was a bit of a strain.

‘I haven’t got much to go on as yet. The first person to talk to is someone called Annie Brown. His housekeeper, I think – she found the body. I jotted down the address—’

‘I know where she stays,’ Macdonald volunteered. ‘She’s a friend of my Auntie Irene’s – her that has the coffee shop in the Craft Centre. There’s been a lot of feeling, of course, with this superstore business.’

‘Superstore? Oh, that’s right. There was a public meeting about it last night, wasn’t there?’ Fleming had given the rights and wrongs of it little thought, only reflecting secretly and guiltily that it wouldn’t do any harm to have a better class of ready-meal available than the Spar supermarket could offer, without having to drive miles to stock up.

‘There was quite a bit of aggro, apparently. Some people are set to lose their businesses and there’s others ready to make a fortune out of it, my auntie says. Councillor Norman Gloag, for a start – he’s saying he’s no axe to grind, but everyone knows he’ll be given the company’s business if it gets the go-ahead. And of course it all depended on Andrew Carmichael agreeing to sell the Craft Centre. My auntie said he was going to refuse and there’d be a lot of people upset about that.’

‘Your auntie seems to be the fount of all wisdom.’ Fleming was amused. ‘You’d better go and see her once you’ve talked to Annie Brown.

‘There should be uniforms out knocking on doors by now so we’ll have quite a bit more information by mid-afternoon. I’ll have to wait here for the pathology team, but I’ll be in my office after that. Was there any sign of Will?’

‘Will’s out sailing with one of his mates today,’ Kerr said.

‘Right – it’s up to the two of you, then. Follow your noses if there’s anything interesting.

‘And one last thing – Tam’s been in to see me already. And much as I miss him, much as I’d like to have him in on this, he hasn’t been signed off so he can’t come back to work yet. He’s threatening to go freelance, but for his own good, not to mention ours, he’s got to be stopped. Understood?’

As they walked back down the drive, Kerr looked up at Macdonald. ‘Oh, sure! Easy! Will you tell him, or will I?’

‘You tell him. He wouldn’t hit a woman,’ Macdonald said simply.

Norman Gloag walked out of the house and slammed the door. His hands were not quite steady as he fumbled in his pocket for his car keys. Shouting at his son had done nothing except make him look foolish, but he had been provoked, coming into the kitchen to find Maureen cooking bacon for Gordon when it was clearly understood that if you didn’t turn up for breakfast, you missed it.

It had ended with Gordon saying, ‘It’s sad, really, what a boring old fart you are,’ and strolling out of the kitchen.

Gloag was going out to give his car its Sunday wash when he saw it. There, right across the whole of the driver’s side of the BMW, scratched in the gleaming metallic blue paintwork, was – well, an obscenity. Directed at him. By name.

For a moment, he couldn’t move. Then he stormed back into the house and went to the kitchen. He wasn’t talking to Maureen, of course, but you couldn’t launch into a furious tirade when you were alone.

She was sitting at the table with a cup of coffee and another fag in her mouth, wearing an air of indifference, but when he at last ran out of steam with an announcement that he was just going to phone the police, she did speak. ‘It was probably Gordon and his pals. Won’t do your public image any good if your son’s arrested for doing that to his dad, will it?’

Tam MacNee drove up the pot-holed track which led to Christina Munro’s farmhouse with mixed feelings about his mission. He knew perfectly well that it was pointless, but on the other hand it was getting him out of the house when Bunty’s sister, her that was married to the bank manager, was bringing her husband to tea, and the pair of them always got his dander up. Last time she’d said, with ill-concealed satisfaction, ‘You’ll just have to face it, Tam – you’ll never be the same again.’

So having to go to Wester Seton and listen to the old biddy rabbiting on about the wickedness of the younger generation, then make meaningless soothing noises, was a small price to pay, especially since it would give him a chance on the way home to pop into the Salutation Bar, frequented by officers from the Kirkluce HQ.

Anyway, Bunty had insisted that he went. She and Christina both belonged to the bunny-huggers sisterhood, always taking on animal down-and-outs that no one with any sense would allow over the threshold.

The whole place was neglected. The farm was situated on rising ground, quite exposed and bare, and it could never have been really prosperous. The farmhouse was no more than a run-down cottage, and as Tam parked in the yard he noted there were slates missing from the roof and weeds growing up between the cobbles. There was some elderly farm equipment rusting away in long grass and the house itself, with its weathered paintwork and all the downstairs shutters closed even on this bright afternoon, looked abandoned. As he got out, three donkeys, browsing an adjacent field, looked up, and one came towards him, exposing pale gums and large yellow teeth in a series of brays.

A shutter opened cautiously and MacNee caught a glimpse of a face behind it. Then it closed again and a moment later he heard the rattle of bolts and Christina Munro opened the door, a tiny, stooped figure in a crocheted hat, wearing a blue jersey with pulled threads and grey trousers which were much too big for her.

‘Bunty said you’d be, so you better come in. Not that there’s any point.’

It wasn’t what you’d call a gracious welcome, even if she was right. Tam followed her in, feeling aggrieved. It was very dark, coming in from the sunshine, and he blinked as his eyes adjusted. There were a couple of low-wattage lamps on, and a fire was burning in the meagre grate of a black-leaded kitchen range. He hadn’t seen one of those for years.

‘You’ll be wanting a cuppa, I suppose. You can sit down there.’

She indicated a chair opposite the one she obviously sat in herself, which had cushions, a multi-coloured crochet rug and a tortoiseshell cat sitting on the arm. Tam obediently took his place while she went to push a kettle by the side of the range on to a hotplate where it at once began singing. The cat jumped down with a glare of indignation and took up a position under the kitchen table, its tail twitching.

There were a couple of other cats around and a greyhound, too, a pretty creature, which stood watchfully beside its mistress, but after a moment, when Tam held out his hand, it came over to lay a trusting head on his knee.

Christina cackled. ‘Oh, they know a soft tumphy when they see one!’

Affronted at the suggestion, Tam stopped stroking and the dog, with a reproachful look, went to lie down in front of the fire.

The kitchen, he thought, looking about, could have gone straight on the telly for one of these dreary Scottish kailyard dramas he never watched: chipped stone sink, a meat safe instead of a fridge, an opening on to a pantry with thick slate slabs for shelves, a rough wooden table covered with a green checked oilcloth. The flowered linoleum on the floor looked like the most recent addition to the decor and he reckoned that had probably been laid in the Fifties.

Christina was producing some tired-looking biscuits from a faded tin marked ‘Peek Frean’s Fancy Selection’.

‘No, no, nothing for me,’ Tam said hastily. ‘A cup of tea’ll do fine – milk and three sugars. I’ve just had one of Bunty’s Sunday lunches and you know her – not happy till you can barely stand.’

She didn’t respond to the pleasantry, scooping tea from a caddy with a Coronation picture of the Queen on it into a brown pot which had been warming by the range.
Well, be like that
, he thought, irritated, but then, as she started pouring on the boiling water, some of it missed the pot and splashed, hissing, on to the range. Suddenly he realised that her hands were shaking badly – in fact, her whole body was shaking.

He didn’t think it was a physical disability. The woman was in a highly nervous state. As Tam got up to take the thick china mug she had filled, he said gently, ‘Tell me what’s been happening.’

When Bunty had told him what she knew, he’d pointed out it was just the usual stuff – neds mucking about. Difficult to handle, when there wasn’t real damage done, but usually you could reckon they’d get tired of it and move on. Apart from a slap on the wrist and a word with the parents, there wasn’t a lot the police could do, except threaten an ASBO – for what that was worth.

But as Christina talked, he began to be alarmed. This was nasty stuff, calculated to intimidate, and it was having a dangerous effect. As the old woman talked on, in her quavering voice, of her fears for her animals more than herself, he found himself unable to reassure her. Certainly he didn’t think she was in physical danger personally – the police knew who they were and they would know that they’d be picked up immediately if she came to any harm. But the donkeys, for instance—

And she was talking wildly. How could she let the poor beasts be persecuted? She was their protector, she had a duty. Suddenly, Tam noticed the shotgun propped on the wall beside the door, and he broke into what she was saying.

‘Here, have you a licence for that thing?’

Christina followed his eyes. ‘’Course I do. I’ve aye had a licence.’

‘It should be locked up,’ he said firmly. ‘Have you a secure cupboard?’

She jerked her head. ‘There’s one through the house there.’

‘That’s where it should be, then.’ He went over and picked it up, noting with some alarm that it was loaded. He broke the gun and shook out the cartridges into his hand. ‘Through here?’

With a bad grace, Christina led the way and opened the door to show him into another darkened room. Flicking on the light switch, Tam saw a dingy farm office, a desk piled with yellowing paperwork and shelves stacked with drums and packets of farm supplies, thick with dust. A sack of animal feed was open in one corner and the air was heavy with its fusty smell.

The built-in cupboard looked secure enough, fitted with steel-lever locks – about the most modern things in the house, Tam reckoned. There was a small, ancient safe under the desk and Christina, bending with difficulty, turned the dial on the outside, opened it and took out keys. He could see there were cartridges stocked there as well.

‘That’s good security,’ he approved. ‘Excellent, in fact. But not if the gun’s standing in your front room.’

The door to the cupboard wasn’t locked and she looked at him expressionlessly as he opened it. The cupboard was empty. ‘This is the only gun you have?’

‘Only need one. I go out shooting rabbits for the cats’ supper.’

It was a reasonable enough thing to say, but somehow he didn’t find it reassuring. Tam set the gun inside, locked the door again and handed the keys to Christina, but she made no move to return them to the safe. ‘Shall I put them back for you?’ he offered.

‘I’ll put them back after. Once you’ve gone. I’m not telling anyone the combination.’

He could hardly insist. They went back into the kitchen, but she didn’t ask him to sit down to finish his tea. She stood pointedly near the door, not actually holding it open but making it perfectly plain that she expected him to go.

‘Look, Christina,’ he said awkwardly, ‘I know you’re having a hard time. It’s not fair, and there’s nothing I’d like better than to give those wee toerags a lesson they’d never forget. But it’s not like that nowadays. I can’t act outside the law, and neither can you.’

‘So you can’t do anything either. Never thought you could.’ Her stance was defiant, but she was still shaking. The dog, which had silently appeared again at her side, gave a little whine and nudged her; her hand went down automatically to fondle its head.

‘I’ll get the police to go and lean on them a bit heavier this time,’ he promised.

She laughed at that. ‘Oh, that’ll sort it, right enough. And next time they’re going to be worse.’

The terrible thing was, Tam couldn’t deny it. She was holding open the door now and he had no choice but to leave. On the threshold he turned.

‘Christina, what I’m saying is, don’t take matters into your own hands. There was a farmer in the south who tried that and it ended in a tragedy and him in jail.’

She was silent for a moment, and then she said, ‘Aye. Well, I expect he thought it was worth it. They wouldn’t go back there in a hurry, would they?

‘Oh, I know the law, Tam MacNee. In my day we were brought up to respect it. Just a pity we’re the only ones that do and folks like me are left sick with terror – sick to my stomach – the whole time.’

She shut the door on him, but not before he had seen the tears in the fierce old eyes.

Tam drove back to Kirkluce in a very thoughtful mood. It was an alarming situation, and perhaps he ought to report it and have Christina’s gun licence revoked. But in truth, while he thought she might fire the gun as a warning – which would, of course, cause trouble enough since neds always knew their rights and wouldn’t hesitate to report it – he didn’t believe for a moment that she would deliberately injure anyone, except perhaps herself. And it probably gave her some feeling of security. If she felt totally helpless she might, at her age, simply die of fear, and how would he feel then?