No Stranger to Death: A Scottish mystery where cosy crime meets tartan noir: Borders Mysteries Book 1 (32 page)

‘Run out, haven’t I?’

‘No, I don’t think that’s the reason. I think you’re not using matchbooks any more because they’re a reminder that Chrissie caught you with one from somewhere you shouldn’t have been. Somewhere she disapproved of.’

Tom studied the nails of his right hand.

‘Honestly, if that’s all there is to it, you’ve nothing to fear. I know the Borders is a more traditional place than where I’ve come from, but there’s no way you’d lose custody of your children over something as inconsequential as that.’

Tom rubbed his nose hard, as though deliberately trying to make it hurt more. A trickle of blood ran out of one nostril but he ignored it. In a monotone he said, ‘I went up to Edinburgh with a few mates for a night out. The bairns had a sitter, Hannah. She’s fifteen, lives in the Auld Smiddy with her parents. Chrissie usually babysat but she was going somewhere with the Rural.

‘We went to a club, the TipTop, in Leith. I hadn’t realised what sort of place it was, honestly. There was lap dancing, and private rooms too, upstairs, where they did more than just dance for you. I got drunk – we all did – and made a night of it. I can’t mind exactly what happened.’

Tom blushed as he claimed this loss of memory.
He wasn’t being entirely truthful, but did that make the rest of his story a lie?

‘When I didn’t come home by one o’clock, Hannah got worried and called her parents. They were angry I’d left her and the twins so long, and went round to fetch Chrissie. She was at my house when I got back the next morning. I told her Mikey’s car broke down and we had to sleep in it in a lay-by on Soutra Hill. I even smeared oil on my jacket to prove we’d tried to fix it. Chrissie gave me a row for not calling her, but said no more after that. I should’ve known she wouldn’t let it rest.’

‘So how did she find out the truth?’ Zoe asked.

Tom gave a long sigh. ‘I came home one day a few weeks ago to find her and the twins playing a new game. Flitting, they called it.’ Seeing the puzzled look on Zoe’s face, he added, ‘That’s how folk in these parts describe moving house.’

Zoe nodded.

‘She’d got them carrying all my clothes to the spare room and putting their own in my drawers and cupboards. Which gave her the chance to poke about and go through my pockets.’

‘And she found a TipTop match book?’

‘Aye, in the jacket with oil down the front. She knew I couldn’t have worn it since that night, because it’s ruined. Now I wish I’d thrown it out.’

‘But how did she know what sort of place the TipTop is?’

‘The match book had the club’s name and phone number, so she looked it up on the Internet. That was all the proof she needed. As far as Chrissie was concerned, I’d spent the night in a brothel. She said any court that heard I’d left my children with a girl not even sixteen herself to go to a place like that and not come home until morning would give the twins back to their mother straightaway. And she threatened to tell Jean.’

‘Would Jean really care what you got up to before you started going out with her?’

Tom’s voice cracked as he said, ‘It was this July. We’d already been together for almost a year.’

‘Oh Tom.’ Zoe’s attempt to sound sympathetic came out more like a reprimand.

‘Aye, it was an awful thing to do and she’d never forgive me if she found out. You know Jean, she was brought up with all that religious stuff. She wouldn’t even agree to us living together until we got engaged. Said she wasn’t going to be anyone’s bidie-in.’

‘When did Chrissie tell you what she’d found?’

‘A few days before she disappeared.’

Their eyes met.
Bad timing
.

‘I should’ve known she’d tell Alice the first chance she got.’

‘Do the police know about this?’

‘Of course not.’

‘And what makes you think Alice won’t tell them?’

‘If she did, she wouldn’t have a hold over me any more.’

Zoe considered what to say next. Any advice she gave Tom could affect a lot of people, not least two innocent little girls. Slumped and defeated, he reminded her of a patient who had arrived for a consultation expecting bad news – and got it. With this thought, a solution came to her: why not do what she always did when faced with a medical problem that went beyond her remit?

‘I need to fetch something from my consulting room. Don’t go away.’

Tom looked puzzled but didn’t move. He started to speak as Zoe came back into the room a minute or so later, but went silent as he looked down at the business card she handed him.

‘Go and see Chris Kossoff,’ she said. ‘Tell him what you’ve told me, all of it. He’ll be able to give you much better advice than I can.’

‘I can’t afford to hire someone like him.’ Tom tried to pass the solicitor’s card back to her.

‘You can’t afford not to. You’re in a hell of a mess, and frankly Jean leaving you may be the least of your worries. Think about the girls. What use will you be to them if you’re in prison for murder?’

‘I didn’t kill Chrissie.’

‘So make an appointment to see Kossoff tomorrow and tell him that. Then worry about how much it’ll cost.’

Tom slipped Kossoff’s card into his pocket and followed Zoe back outside to where Kate was waiting for them in her car.

The first thing Zoe did after Kate dropped her off and drove away with Tom was telephone Jean to forewarn her of the state her man was in. Jean sounded unfazed by news of Tom’s scuffle with Gregor. ‘I imagined something much worse when he was gone for so long.’

Later, during Mac’s last walk of the day, Zoe got a text from Kate.
Couldn’t talk earlier. Need to meet asap re A & G. Innocent?!

Chapter 41

‘They were sitting at an angle to me, so I couldn’t see everything they said. But I got the gist.’ Kate stood in Zoe’s hall, unwinding her pink scarf as she spoke.

In the two days since the Bairds’ funeral, Zoe had worked extra sessions, filling in for Walter who was back in Wales moving his mother into a nursing home. She stayed away from the coach house, Neil’s failure to get in touch making it obvious he did not want to take their relationship any further. Meanwhile, Kate’s research into her client’s Scottish roots had sent her to Edinburgh again. As a result, this was their first opportunity to discuss the conversation Kate had observed between Gregor and Alice after their parents’ funeral.

Zoe led her friend through to the kitchen and persuaded her to sit down. For once, Kate ignored the food Zoe put in front of her.

‘That letter Alice came rushing in to show Gregor was her mother’s credit card statement.’

Zoe recalled the sceptical voice at the other end of the telephone when she tried to cancel a safari in South Africa which Russell had booked for them. She had known nothing about it until the arrival of a demand for the balance owed, long after his death. ‘It can take ages to tidy up a dead person’s affairs.’

‘It showed a charge for November the fourth. That’s when Chrissie told everyone she was driving down to stay with Alice in Newcastle. And although I thought Alice was lying when she claimed she didn’t expect her mum until the day after, I believe her now.’

‘What’s changed your mind?’

At last, Kate picked up a sandwich and waved it around as she continued to speak. ‘Chrissie had booked to be somewhere else on the night of the fourth.’

‘A hotel or restaurant, you mean?’

‘I missed exactly where, but it must be one of those, probably a hotel. They take your credit card details when you make a booking, so they can clobber you for any lost revenue if you don’t cancel in good time. Chrissie didn’t turn up but they still put a charge through on her card.’

‘If it was a hotel,’ Zoe said, ‘I’d give anything to know if she’d booked a single or a double room.’

‘When you lie about your movements to cover up the fact you’re spending a night in a hotel, you’re not planning to stay there on your own, are you? She must have had an assignation with her secret lover. Whoever he is.’ A piece of lettuce fell out of the sandwich Kate was brandishing. She picked it up, jammed it back in and took a bite.

‘This could put Alice and Gregor in the clear,’ Zoe said.

‘Alice certainly thinks so. She’s probably been over to Hawick already, telling the police.’

‘I don’t think DCI Mather will be as impressed by this new piece of evidence as we are.’

‘Why not?’

‘He wasn’t there when Alice came into the pub to tell Gregor. As far as he knows, it could be part of an elaborate ruse to reinforce her story. Only you and your lip-reading skills can attest to their surprise at the bill’s arrival.’

‘Are you saying that because I eavesdropped on their conversation, I could help those two stay out of trouble with the police?’

‘Ironic, isn’t it?’ Zoe poured tea into their mugs then looked up to add, ‘Although, if we stop assuming they worked together to dispose of their parents, either of them could still be in the running. If Gregor is the murderer, he could easily have killed Chrissie without knowing she was due to be somewhere else later that day.’

‘I’m sure his surprise was genuine. He was a bit slow on the uptake and Alice had to explain why the charge on the statement was so significant.’

‘But that doesn’t mean he didn’t kill Chrissie.’

‘You’re crediting him with being cleverer than he actually is. It’s not his brain that Gregor Baird’s known for.’

‘So Margaret tells me. But while he’s not particularly clever, he strikes me as cunning enough to think up a ruse like that.’

‘I really thought we were getting somewhere.’ Kate took a gulp of tea. ‘But you’ve shot me down in flames again.’

‘I’m sorry. That wasn’t my intention.’

‘You’re so unemotional, Zoe. Anyone would think you don’t care who the killer is.’

‘Of course I care. I came close to losing my own life, remember? But we all cope with things differently.’

Kate picked up another sandwich and bit a chunk out of it. She did not seem appeased.

‘Look on the bright side,’ Zoe said, hoping to jolly her friend out of the uncharacteristically grouchy mood she was in. ‘You’ve got a good excuse to see Mather again.’

‘I don’t need an excuse to see him, thank you very much. And I’m hardly going to do anything to help Alice after the way she’s treated Tom, am I?’

‘You did agree we’d tell the police if we found out anything important.’

‘I don’t see why I should.’ Kate adopted the expression she called a petted lip and often scolded her children for wearing when they did not get their own way.

‘Give Mather the facts and let him do whatever he wants with them.’

‘I think I might tell Alice first. Perhaps she’ll agree to easing up on her demands about the twins.’

‘Kate, that sounds horribly like blackmail.’

‘If it stops Tom’s children being taken away from him and the rest of the family, I’m prepared to do it.’

‘You may not have to.’

Zoe had planned to tell Kate some, though not all, of her conversation with Tom at the health centre, but they had been so occupied discussing Alice and Gregor that the opportunity had not arisen. Now it was too late for Kate to be anything but more riled with her.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I think I may have convinced Tom to get help from Chris Kossoff to stand up to Alice and deal with the police on his behalf.’

‘And when were you going to tell me this?’

‘I’m telling you now.’

‘He’s my cousin, Zoe. I think I have a right to know when you’ve persuaded him to do something that could affect the whole family.’

‘I haven’t had a chance.’

‘You’re only telling me now to stop me from going to see Alice.’ Kate’s voice rose as she pulled her car keys out of her handbag. ‘By the way, the full story about Brian being Lisa’s dad is out at last. I suppose you were going to tell me that too, eventually. Mum’s extremely upset. It would have been much better if she’d heard it from me.’

‘Please don’t be angry. I found out at the police station and couldn’t say anything.’

Kate stood up. ‘Zoe, you’ve got to learn to trust someone. Maybe not me, but someone.’

The front door banged as she left the cottage.

No longer hungry, Zoe stared down at the sandwich on her plate. She was so sick of keeping secrets. She had enough of her own without everyone else’s too.

Even a visit to the coach house, where both bathrooms had been fitted since she was last there, did little to raise Zoe’s spirits that afternoon. She trudged up the stairs to the tower room and stood staring across at Larimer Hall.

First Neil and now Kate had turned their backs on her. This was why she avoided getting close to people.
Sooner or later, they always let you down
.

Gerry Hall arrived as she was about to leave. After soliciting praise for the work done so far, he asked if she had chosen a kitchen yet.

‘I know you’re getting our mutual friend to make it for you, but we need a plan to show where you’re wanting the plumbing and power points. Aye, a plan.’

‘Neil was working on it. I’ll chase him up.’

Zoe’s stomach lurched. There was no avoiding it. She had to go to Larimer Hall and seek out Neil, which would be both disturbing and embarrassing.
Her own fault for mixing business with pleasure.

As soon as Gerry Hall was gone, Zoe secured her property and drove slowly up the drive. She could feel the tension across her shoulders as she rang the bell. When Peter opened the door and looked past her, she realised he always greeted Mac when they met, not her. She had left the dog at Keeper’s Cottage today.

‘Is Neil around? I need to talk to him about my kitchen.’

Peter shook his head. ‘He’s out seeing a customer in Berwick. Won’t be back till teatime.’

‘Oh. It’s Gerry Hall, you see. He needs a plan for the plumbing and electrics. I was wondering how far Neil’s got with my drawing. I said I’d chase him up and let Gerry know when it’ll be ready. If it’s not too much trouble, could you –’

‘He’s finished. It’s in the workshop.’

Humiliated by her own babbling, Zoe followed Peter in silence through the hall and down the stone staircase. The cats were in their usual place, in front of the Aga. The workshop smelt familiar, an agreeable fusion of wood and oil, like Neil without the cigarettes. She felt a pang of regret.
They wouldn’t even be friends now
.