The Reckoning (8 page)

‘So you think he might be deranged? He's not particular who he kills?'

‘It's a bizarre idea, I grant you, but the lack of any connection
between the two victims and the geographic distance between the crimes rather points to a man travelling about the realm with murder on his mind.' The chief inspector paused. ‘Unless there is a connection, of course.'

‘That's what bothers me.' Madden fell silent himself. Through the open window of the study he saw Hamish gallop heavily across the lawn in pursuit of a crow that had alighted on the grass a moment before, and which now rose with a bad-tempered caw, easily evading the dog's ponderous challenge. ‘That and the possibility that somehow I'm mixed up in this.'

‘You're thinking of that visitor Gibson had?'

‘And the letter he started writing with my name in it. They could be connected.'

‘So if that visitor was the same man who killed Gibson later, you've reason to be concerned. I quite understand.'

Listening to his old chief, Madden smiled. He had yet to explain his idea, but the chief inspector seemed to have grasped it already.

‘What you need to know is whether the doctor up here received a similar visitation. Did he have an unpleasant encounter with a stranger? Was the tenor of his life upset in any way?'

‘Yes, it's possible he had some sort of warning of what was about to happen, even if he didn't recognize it as such.'

Madden paused.

‘Now I'm sure the Scottish police will get on to that aspect of the investigation. But they'll have to coordinate with the authorities here and it may take a while. I don't want to wait that long. I'd like to know the answer as soon as possible. Are you acquainted with the police up there?'

Sinclair's response was a dry chuckle, which reached him clearly over the line.

‘Now I see what you're up to. Well, you'll be pleased to hear I've made a habit of looking in on the Aberdeen constabulary. The current head of the CID is a man called Murray, a superintendent.
We're on good terms. He'll certainly be familiar with the Drummond investigation; he may even have been involved in it to some degree. I'll ask. I might even slip over to Ballater, if I get the chance.'

‘I don't want you to put yourself out, Angus,' Madden began, but was cut short by a fresh cackle.

‘Set your mind at rest. There's no question of that. As a matter of fact, you'll be doing me a favour. I shall be home by the weekend, but at present that seems a long way off. A day away is just what I need, and I'm sure Bridget would agree. It's been a long three weeks for us both.'

He chuckled again.

‘Don't misunderstand me, John. I love my sister dearly, but we seem to bring out the worst in each other: her prolixity, my lack of patience. She'll be glad to see the back of me, if only for a few hours.'

7

L
ATE ON FRIDAY
,
HAVING
received no word from the chief inspector, Madden rang Billy Styles at the Yard to discover that the investigation was temporarily at a standstill.

‘It's a question of how we go about it,' Billy explained. ‘Is this a Scottish inquiry, or should we take charge of it? Where is this man based? Is he from down here or north of the border? That's still not known.'

He said he had been in touch with Edward Gibson, who had told him he was slowly working his way through his brother's diaries to see if they contained any hint of past trouble: with no result as yet.

‘I had Vic on the phone, too, from Lewes. He's extended his investigation to farms and villages in the area, some of them miles away, hoping this man might have stayed at one of them, or at least been spotted. But it's the same story: there's no trace of him anywhere.'

Madden told Billy about the approach he had made to the chief inspector.

‘I hope we're not stepping on anyone's toes,' he said. ‘But I want to get this settled. Either Gibson had something important to tell me, or that letter is a red herring. As it happens, Mr Sinclair is up there at present, staying in Aberdeen. I spoke to him
yesterday and asked him if he could find out anything about the doctor that might be useful. He seems to think he can talk to the police there without upsetting anyone.'

Billy received the news with a dry chuckle.

‘I'd better let the chief super know that,' he said. ‘He gets back next week: he's been in hospital.' He was referring to his superior at the Yard, the man who had stepped into Angus Sinclair's shoes, Detective Chief Superintendent Chubb – someone Madden himself had known well in the past when they were both young detectives learning their trade the hard way, under Sinclair's unforgiving eye.

Madden promised to pass on to Billy whatever he learned, but when Saturday passed without a phone call from Aberdeen, he resigned himself to the fact that he would have to wait until his friend's return to discover what, if anything, he had discovered.

In the circumstances, the lunch to which he and Helen had been invited on Sunday was a welcome distraction, as was the sight of Violet Tremayne standing beneath the portrait of one of her ancestors in the drawing room at Stratton Hall wearing a fur hat perched on her dark curls and waving a red flag emblazoned with the hammer and sickle.

‘A gift from one of the comrades,' she announced as she greeted them with a kiss. ‘Some of them are dears when you get to know them. Mind you, they say the same thing of Uncle Joe, and I'm not so sure about him.'

A slip of a girl in the photographs Helen had of their youth, Violet had become more matronly with the years, but her dark eyes retained a mischievous glint.

‘We used to fight like cats when we were little girls,' Helen had told her husband on the way over. ‘I lost count of the number of times I was sent home from the Hall in disgrace. It's a wonder we ended up friends.'

Over a glass of sherry in the drawing room Violet told them
she was there on behalf of her elder brother, the new earl, who was in Delhi serving on the staff of Lord Mountbatten in his capacity as the first Governor-General of an independent India.

‘I have to make an inspection. Everything's gone to rack and ruin since Daddy died. Peter wants to hang on to the ancestral seat, but it'll cost a fortune to keep up and the only answer seems to be to hand it over to the National Trust. The trouble is, now that the Labour Party is in power I'm afraid they'll just use it as an excuse to grab other people's property.'

‘Grab other people's . . . Honestly, Violet.' Helen couldn't contain herself. ‘I don't know where you get your ideas. For your information, the National Trust is run exclusively by Old Etonians, and although it was originally set up to protect the countryside, its only purpose now seems to be to preserve the aristocracy.'

‘Well, bless them, if it's true.' Lady Violet was defiant. ‘But I've heard differently. And you can't deny that this new government, which I know you voted for – and shame on you, Helen – is after our blood. Taxation . . . death-duties . . . there's no end to it.'

‘Oh, you poor darling.' Helen contrived to appear griefstricken. ‘But never fear. When the tumbrels arrive, you can come and seek refuge with us. We'll look after you.'

‘Joke about it all you like, but one of these days you'll see the red flag flying over Stratton Hall, and then you'll be sorry.'

Before going in to lunch Violet led them over to the window and together they looked down at the sad sight of the extensive gardens now reduced to a wilderness of overgrown borders and uncut hedges. The handsome lawns surrounding a lily pond choked with weeds, once the realm of strutting peacocks, had become little more than muddy strips where the grass tried vainly to recover from the war years when the Hall had been converted
into a convalescent home for wounded servicemen and the young officers had used them for their football games.

‘We're going to have to put all this in order, and the house as well, before we approach the Trust. Peter's asked me to make a start.'

She took Helen's arm in hers.

‘Do you remember the parties we used to have before the war – the first war, I mean – and all those young men we danced with? Then they went away, and so few of them came back.'

Later, as they were leaving, she came out with them to the stable yard where they had parked their car and showed them the coach house, now the repository of junk that had accumulated over the decades: a tractor with its innards exposed, a dog-cart missing a wheel; cracked mirrors and chairs without legs. In one corner was a giant cage, once home to a pair of exotic parrots, which Helen remembered from her childhood, and beside it a claw-footed bath piled high with moth-eaten rugs and carpets.

‘I'm going to have to get rid of it all.' Violet sighed. ‘I can't bear looking at it. It reminds me too much of the past.'

As Madden opened the front door, the sound of Hamish's trumpeting bay came from the other side of the house, and when they went through the sitting room to the terrace they saw the spruce figure of Angus Sinclair, dapper in tweeds, walking up the lawn from the bottom of the garden twirling a walking stick in his hand and with the basset hound trotting at his heels. He hailed them from the foot of the steps.

‘Tell me: does Cerberus greet everyone this way? Or am I singled out for special attention?'

‘Angus!' Helen greeted him with a kiss. ‘How are you? How is that awful cold you had?'

‘It went of its own accord. I won't say the Scottish air cured it, though Bridget might. She still can't believe that I actually chose to spend my life south of the border with the auld enemy. And before you ask, my dear, my toe is in capital shape. I haven't felt a twinge of gout.'

He caught Madden's eye. Helen sensed, rather than saw, the silent communication passing between them.

‘We've just been to lunch with Violet Tremayne at the Hall. Most amusing, but exhausting too, so I'll leave John to tell you all about it while I go upstairs and rest.'

Her glance went from one to the other.

‘And I rather think you have something to tell him too,' she added.

‘Drummond was fifty-eight, a little younger than that fellow in Sussex, but the same generation. He studied medicine at St Andrews and, from what I could gather, spent his whole working life in Scotland, first as a junior partner in a practice in Edinburgh and later with his own practice in Ballater. That's where he came from, by the way, so he was well known in the community, and well liked, too.'

The chief inspector moved his chair a little so that the late-afternoon sun no longer shone in his eyes. They were sitting on the terrace side-by-side looking out over the long lawn and, beyond it, to the great wooded ridge of Upton Hanger rising like a wave, golden and flame-coloured in the full glory of autumn. Stretched out at their feet, Hamish's long body lay motionless in sleep.

‘His connection with England seems to have been minimal. His receptionist remembers him making two or three trips to London, including once for a medical conference. And he had a cousin in Cumberland whom he would visit from time to time.
But he had no links with the south of England – she was almost ready to swear he had never been near Lewes – and the name Gibson meant nothing to her. Neither did yours, incidentally.'

Madden stirred.

‘It's the period before he was shot that I'm interested in, Angus.'

‘Yes, I know, John.' Sinclair smiled. ‘But bear with me. I thought it as well to give you the whole picture: you'll see why. But let's deal with your questions first. You wanted to know if Drummond had received an unexpected visitor before his death; and whether anyone – any stranger – had been observed checking on his movements. The answer to both questions is “No” as far as I'm aware, though of course he may have kept it to himself. I say that because your man in Lewes didn't exactly broadcast the news of
his
visitor, did he? The police only learned about it thanks to his daily.'

The chief inspector paused, as though to give his listener time to digest what he had said. Then he resumed.

‘I was right in thinking the Aberdeen police might have been involved in the Drummond shooting. Murray told me he had assigned a detective from the city force to oversee the investigation. Of course they already knew about the two bullets being matched, but the news of Gibson's visitor hadn't reached them yet, so he was more than interested to hear what I had to tell him. The upshot was that he decided to send the same man, a sergeant called Baillie, back to interview some of the witnesses again and allowed me to accompany him. And before you start to thank me, let me say it proved to be the high point of my holiday. It's years since I did any honest-to-God investigative work. The experience was refreshing.'

He beamed.

‘Now, to put you in the picture, Ballater's a small town where everyone knows everyone, and after a morning spent walking around talking to Drummond's friends and acquaintances I can
say with some assurance that there were no dark secrets where his life was concerned. No one we spoke to could come up with an explanation for the killing, and the only suggestion put forward was that he must have been murdered by mistake. Either that, or it was the work of a madman. We weren't able to talk to Drummond's widow – the poor woman still hadn't come to terms with his death and had gone to stay with a sister in Dundee – or with their two children, both of them grown-up and neither of them living in Ballater. But Baillie said he'd spoken to all of them in the aftermath of the shooting, and none had been able to shed any light on the crime or to think of any reason why Drummond should have found himself a murder victim.'

The chief inspector paused for breath.

‘However, we managed to have a long conversation with the person who probably knew him best after his wife: his secretary-receptionist, a Miss McRae. She had worked for him for more than fifteen years and was clearly devoted to the man. We found her at home – she lives with her mother – and interestingly, from our point of view at least, she still had all the doctor's files in her possession, ready for handing over to Mrs Drummond when she returns from Dundee. With her help we were able to piece together the last fortnight of Drummond's professional life – the patients he saw, in particular – which may or may not provide you with a lead.'