Lying Dead (43 page)

    ‘I’m with you there. I’ve said that from the start.’

    ‘I’ll have to find out what they think they’ve got on Susie – ask them to go easy unless it’s—’

    She broke off, seeing MacNee’s expression. ‘No, I can’t, can I?’ she said wretchedly. ‘I have to back off.’

    ‘Yup, back off. We’ve a few other lines to follow up on anyway. There’s a connection between Murdoch and Davina now. Maybe it’s him sent her the cutting, if they’ve kept in touch.’

    Fleming seized on that. ‘They’ll take his prints at the autopsy but I won’t get the report till Tuesday, probably. Wait a minute. Tam, get someone at the house to lift his prints from something personal – that would save time.’

    ‘I’ll do that. And I tell you the other thing I’ll do – I’ll phone my pal in Glasgow – he gave me a nice wee tip for tweaking Lafferty’s tail, and he’d maybe go round and have a chat with Adrian McConnell. He’s the mystery man – took off before any of us had a chance to see if he minded Niall Murdoch making free with his wife.’

    ‘Fine. I’m going to make arrangements for removing the incident room whose main use seems to have been as a café and manicure parlour. I just hope my credit with Donald’s good enough to withstand the cost of that little error of judgement. Always supposing he checks, which on past form, mercifully, he doesn’t.

    ‘After that I’ll head back to Kirkluce. I’ll have to call in on my mother, but I’m going to have a cup of coffee with Laura around six. Want to come? She’s usually got something helpful to say.’

    MacNee grinned. ‘Now, when have you ever known me turn down a chance to see Laura? Meet you there.’

Kingsley, with Kerr, arrived at the incident room half an hour later. ‘Where can I find the marina employees?’ he said abruptly to the PC in the incident room who, alone with the FCA, had again lapsed into lethargy.

    ‘They’re not here. Gone home – they’ve shut up shop.’

    ‘Who authorized that?’

    He didn’t try to hide his irritation and the constable reacted badly. ‘Didn’t need authorization, did they? Expect me to arrest them, or something, in case you might happen to want to speak to them later?’

    ‘You might have thought—’ Kingsley began angrily.

    ‘Shut up, Jon.’ Kerr said sharply. She and Kingsley had been bickering already in the car; she could accept that Kingsley had come up with this take on the case but not that it gave him the right to dictate procedure. Barging in, overturning apple-carts as you went wasn’t, in her view, constructive: she’d been driven to remind him of the recent results of his cock-at-a-grosset attitude to Ingles, which had left him dumped in it as well as Allan. This, she was prepared to admit, had not improved professional co-operation.

    Now she said to the constable, ‘Don’t let him get to you. He’s just a wee woolly lamb once you get under this snotty, unpleasant exterior. Let me know if you ever do – no one else has.’

    The constable guffawed, the FCA smiled discreetly, and Kingsley gave her a dirty look. She went on blithely, ‘You have addresses for them? Thanks.’

    They waited in silence as the constable jotted them down, then held out the paper. Kingsley made to take it but Kerr got there first.

    ‘That’s brilliant. Now, Jon. I’ll give you directions. And we can discuss in the car how we’re to handle the questions. Discuss – that means someone says something, then the other person says something back. It doesn’t mean that you announce what we’re going to do, and I do it. OK?’

    His face black with temper, Kingsley stalked out of the club. Kerr, with a grin and a wave to the others, followed him.

‘Funny the bank wouldn’t lend to him,’ Kerr said suddenly after they had driven for a couple of miles in silence. ‘I got a loan for a holiday last year, no bother. Never even asked my earnings.’

    ‘Extraordinary,’ Kingsley drawled.

    ‘It’s not as if she hasn’t a job. She works in that upmarket dress shop in the High Street.’

    Kingsley didn’t respond.

    ‘Let’s go and ask them why.’

    He turned his head to stare at her. ‘What on earth for?’

    ‘It’s an inconsistency. The boss always says you should look for anything in a story that doesn’t add up.’

    ‘“The boss says” doesn’t make it right,’ he said acidly. ‘What does it matter? In any case, they’ll only quote client confidentiality if you haven’t a warrant, and I can’t see you getting one for that, can you?’

    ‘I still want to try,’ she persisted. ‘Let’s go to the bank.’

    ‘Let’s not. Let’s go and question some of the people who might have seen Susie Stevenson hanging around the place.’

    ‘After the bank. It could be shut by the time we’ve done interviews.’

    ‘Let’s start with the boatman. What’s his address?’

    ‘That’s for me to know and you to guess,’ Kerr said provocatively.

    ‘Stop playing idiotic games!’

    ‘I will when we’ve been to the bank.’

    The rest of the journey was accomplished in icy silence. When at last they drew up outside the bank, Kingsley switched off the engine and folded his arms. ‘You can go. I’m not coming in to make a fool of myself.’

    ‘Better without you.’ Kerr got out and walked into the bank jauntily.

    She wasn’t long, and one look at her face told Kingsley she had been successful. But she didn’t speak; he was forced to say, ‘Well?’

    ‘Thought you’d never ask! The loan manager was just a laddie – couldn’t make up his mind if he was more chuffed at helping in a murder inquiry or feart he’d do the wrong thing.

    ‘So I said I understood all about confidentiality, but time was important and all I really wanted was a nod or a shake of his head if I got the right answer for why they wouldn’t lend. So I started with bad credit and overdrafts but then I couldn’t think of any other reasons and he was starting to look desperate like someone in one of those game shows where you’re allowed to mime but not say anything.

    ‘So I said, “Look, I’m not here and you’re not there. If we need something officially I’ll come back with all the paperwork and we’ve never seen each other before.” Then he just sort of burst out, “I didn’t refuse, I told her they’d got it and she said she didn’t want it any longer.” So then I said, “Better out than in,” and that was it, really.’

    ‘OK, you were right, there was something there,’ Kingsley admitted. ‘She was ready to lie to the bank and to her husband. Would she be prepared to kill Murdoch to prevent Findlay from going to him direct and promising to pay him in instalments, maybe?’

    ‘He may not have told her he was planning to steal the dog back,’ Kerr pointed out. ‘She’d probably have tried to stop him if he had; it was a pretty daft thing to do, with the DI right on your doorstep. She’d have been better killing the dog instead of Murdoch and putting an end to it.’

    ‘But you’ve turned up something here,’ Kingsley argued. ‘And do we know the whole story? Is there some back connection with Murdoch, like there was with Watt? I wouldn’t put it past her to have a go at anyone who got in her way, would you?’

    ‘From what I’ve heard about her, no, I wouldn’t. But we need to do a lot more digging. First staff address?’

    ‘Yes please, Tansy. Thank you, Tansy. You were right, Tansy,’ Kingsley said mockingly, but he was smiling for the first time that day as they drove off.

Chapter 21

It was a still, sunny evening. In the walled garden at the back of her cottage, Laura Harvey was pouring lemon squash from a jug clinking with ice into a glass for Marjory. Tam MacNee was making inroads into an Export while Daisy panted at his feet, exhausted after a protracted game with a tennis ball.

    Marjory had just arrived. Compared to Laura who looked cool and fresh in a sharp yellow linen shirt over jeans, she felt positively grubby in her working trouser suit. She shrugged herself out of her jacket and leaned back in the garden chair, shutting her eyes and tilting her face to the evening sun.

    Laura put the glass into her hand and she sat up, drinking it gratefully. ‘I’ve just come from Mum’s. Thanks for popping in, Laura – she was so pleased to see you. Did you say anything to her about Dad? She didn’t mention it, but she seemed much calmer today and I just wondered.’

    Laura took her own glass and sat down. ‘She’s intelligent, Janet. I told her about the plaques that Alzheimer’s forms in the brain, and she latched on to that. Her generation was brought up not to believe in mental illness – it was the sort of thing you just had to snap out of – and I think that somewhere at the back of her mind there was an unarticulated belief that he could do that, if she tried hard enough to help him. A physical cause – well, that’s different.’

    ‘I’d never have thought of that. Laura, would you come with us when Bill and I have to tell her that she can’t cope with him at home? I’m dreading that.’

    ‘I would, of course. But I think it’ll be possible to get her to accept it gradually. As I said, she’s not stupid. I enjoy my chats with her; we’ll see what happens over the next bit, shall we?’

    Marjory raised her glass in a toast to her friend. ‘Thanks, Laura. Don’t ever let them persuade you that you’d be better working from London, will you? – I need you here.’

    ‘Maybe you could get round to solving our professional problems now too,’ Tam said. ‘We’re in a right fankle, I can tell you that.’

    Marjory groaned. ‘Too many strands, all tangled together. Too many suspects.’

    Laura was surprised. ‘I thought you’d made an arrest, for one of the murders.’

    It was Tam who groaned this time. ‘Let’s kid on we haven’t, all right? It’s what we’re all doing down the nick.’

    ‘I don’t even know where to start,’ Marjory said helplessly.

    Laura thought for a second. ‘What’s the big question? The first one that springs to mind?’

    ‘Why did Davina Watt come back?’ Marjory said promptly.

    ‘There you are! Tell me about her.’

    Between them, Tam and Marjory sketched out the background, while Laura listened intently. At the end of the recital, she said, ‘It seems to me that the big question you’re not asking is why she went away. Look, you have this woman who disappears, changes her name, wipes out all traces of her previous life – why does someone do that?’

    ‘Doesn’t want to be found,’ Marjory said, and Tam went on, ‘Scared. And we know she was worried enough about Ingles to want to be told when he was getting out, wanted to be on her guard. She’d stitched him up. So when he was free, he could come looking for her – or at least go snowking around to see if he could prove what she did to him. She wanted to be long gone by the time he did that.’

    ‘I still think she saw it as a chance for a new life too,’ Marjory argued. ‘Natasha Wintour – she was going to be a different person from plain Davina Watt. Natasha would get what Davina only dreamed of – only it didn’t work out like that. She wanted to be a new person, but the same things happened all over again.’

    ‘Doesn’t happen. You take yourself with you, no matter where you go.’

    ‘Right enough,’ Tam approved. ‘So what about the first question – what was she doing coming back here?’

    Marjory was frowning. ‘Something changed, didn’t it? Suddenly, it was worth taking the risk. What did she want?’

    ‘Money,’ Tam said. ‘Like the Super said, it’d be money.’

    ‘It was running out, in Manchester. The man she was living with told me he’d spent his legacy, she’d tried blackmail, if we’re to believe the barman, and it didn’t look as if she was getting far with that. So she thought there was a better prospect here.’

    ‘You said she was into wealthy married men. Was there someone whose interest she thought she could revive?’ Laura suggested.

    Tam was more cynical. ‘Or someone who would pay to stop her mouth?’

    ‘Someone,’ Marjory said, ‘who was horrified enough to lose control and kill her there and then. It was that sort of attack. We know that Murdoch met her – could he have had a reason to kill her?’

    ‘From the sound of her, anyone might. But then, of course—’

    They said in unison, ‘Who killed him?’

    ‘But look – I’m just thinking aloud here,’ Marjory said. ‘We’re pretty sure she came back looking for money. He didn’t have the sort of money she’d be looking for even if he was vulnerable to blackmail, which on the face of it seems unlikely. Suppose, when she met him in the pub, she told him what she was planning –

    ‘Maybe he was her insurance policy, so she could say if she was threatened that someone knew what she was doing. Then, with her dead—’

    ‘Or maybe before that. He might have decided to get in on the act anyway—’

    ‘Right enough, we’ve seen nothing to suggest the man had scruples—’

    ‘That fits, because he was definitely expecting he’d have money at the weekend—’

    ‘But who from?’

    Laura, watching as ideas were batted to and fro, felt the surprise of a spectator at a tennis match being asked to join in when Tam turned to her. ‘So where do we go now?’

    ‘You seemed to be getting on just fine without me,’ she protested.