Too Soon a Death: A Scottish mystery where cosy crime meets tartan noir: Borders Mysteries Book 2 (15 page)

She went into work on Thursday expecting to see John Wilkie. It was a week since he’d come in for help with his sore back, so the painkillers she’d prescribed would have run out by now. Despite trying to set aside her suspicion that he was the poacher who’d pulled the dead boy out of the Tweed, the more she thought about it, the more convinced she became. He must have taken to catching and selling fish as a way of making ends meet while out of work, and would do it rarely now he had a new job. Others might have turned a blind eye to a person in the river, but John’s innate decency had compelled him to jump in and try to save the boy’s life. Moreover, on finding he couldn’t, he did the next best thing and immediately reported the body, enabling the police to launch their enquiry far sooner than if he’d told no one.

Who did she think she was kidding? Her patient had been committing a crime when he did what any right-minded person would have done and pulled the boy out of the river. And then, instead of sticking around to help the police by telling them what he’d seen, he ran away to save his own skin, stopping only to make an anonymous telephone call. A bad back was the least he deserved.

Recognising the truth probably lay between these two points of view did nothing to help Zoe decide on a course of action for when he eventually turned up at the health centre. His absence from Thursday’s patient list brought a degree of relief, but on Friday morning she read his name and still had no idea what she was going to say as she led him into her consulting room. Apart from the obvious.

‘How’s your back, John? You appear to be walking more easily.’

‘It’s much improved, thanks, Doctor, though I haven’t gone back to work yet. Any chance I could get more of those tablets?’

Zoe nodded and turned to her computer to print off a prescription. As she typed, she said casually, ‘You’ll soon be able to take up your hobbies again. You fish, don’t you?’

‘Not as often as I’d like. But how do you know that?’ John took off his glasses and started to rub them with the bottom of his tee-shirt.

‘I guessed.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Like I’m guessing you didn’t hurt your back decorating but when you pulled that boy’s body out of the river at Paxton.’

The silence between them lasted too long for his eventual response to be convincing. ‘You’re mistaken.’

‘Am I?’ Zoe held his gaze until he looked away.

‘How did you work it out?’ he mumbled.

By losing an earring under my bed
.
‘I put two and two together. Your bad back, your evasiveness when I asked how you’d done it, and the fact you knew the boy had been beaten up before he died. The police didn’t release that information.’

John’s face had gone bright red. ‘I told the truth about doing up our daughter’s bedroom,’ he said. ‘Trouble was, we didn’t have enough money for what she wanted, so I thought, what’s the harm in taking a couple of fish to sell? They’d not be missed.’

‘The poaching’s not important,’ Zoe said. ‘The police are only going to be interested in what you saw and heard, not why you were there.’

‘The police? I can’t go to the police.’

‘John, you must. Don’t you realise you may be able to help them catch whoever killed that poor boy?’

‘I don’t know who they were.’

‘You said “they”, so it wasn’t just one person. You already know more than the police do.’

‘I hid in the bushes when they drove onto the bridge, so I didn’t see them, just heard them talking in some foreign language. I thought they’d stopped for a smoke or to admire the view. It was a full moon.’

‘How many of them were there?’

‘Two, I think. They sounded like they were arguing about something, then it went quiet for a bit, and then I heard a loud splash.’

‘Didn’t that make you look out?’

‘Not till I heard their vehicle start up.’

‘So you saw them drive off?’

‘And come back again.’

‘They came back?’

‘They’d come from the Scottish side and only crossed to the English side to turn round.’

‘You have to tell the police.’

‘I can’t.’

‘It doesn’t matter what you were doing when you witnessed all this.’

‘I don’t care about being done for the poaching. Don’t you understand? I waited till I was sure they’d gone for good before going to see what made the splash. If I’d done something straightaway, I might have saved him.’ He put his head in his hands.

‘The boy was already dead when they dropped him into the water,’ Zoe said. ‘There was nothing you could do.’

He wasn’t listening to her. ‘I never learned how to do mouth-to-mouth, so I put him on his side, thinking the water might run out of him, but it was too late.’

‘John, they’d already killed him.’

He slowly lowered his hands. ‘You mean it wasn’t my fault he died?’

‘It wasn’t your fault he died.’

‘Thank God.’ He let out a long breath. ‘I’ve felt so guilty.’

‘Now will you go to the police? You may be able to help bring his killers to justice.’

‘If I don’t, will you tell them anyway?’

‘No, I’m not allowed to do that because of patient confidentiality. What you say in here can go no further unless you say so.’

‘I don’t want them coming to my house.’

‘I expect they’ll agree to meet wherever you want.’

‘Someone might see me going into a police station.’

‘What about here?’

John considered this, then nodded. ‘Later today, if possible. Let’s get it over with.’ He gave Zoe his mobile number and she promised to contact Sergeant Trent as soon as she finished taking surgery.

Half an hour later, a familiar voice answered Trent’s phone. Not the man himself but his boss.

‘Hello, Zoe. Dave’s not working this morning because his wife has been taken to hospital. Can I help?’

‘Oh no. Is she okay?’

‘I’m afraid there’s no news yet.’ Mather said again, ‘Can I help?’

Inexplicably tongue-tied, Zoe stumbled over words she’d practiced saying. ‘I er, I have some information. About the dead boy in the river. Or rather, a patient of mine has.’

She imagined Mather sitting up in his chair as he replied, ‘That’s interesting. What has he or she told you?’

‘He’s agreed to tell you himself, although he took a bit of persuading.’

‘In which case, thank you. How do I get in touch with him?’

‘Because he’s so wary of the police, I had to suggest you meet him here at the health centre. Would you be prepared to do that?’

‘Is he wary because he’s a poacher?’

‘You know I can’t tell you anything myself.’

‘Alright. If he saw something to move this case along, I’ll go wherever he asks.’

‘I promise you, he has valuable information.’

‘Did you agree when?’

‘Five o’clock this afternoon, if you can make that.’

‘I’ll see you then. And thanks.’

‘Won’t you be at Kate’s birthday lunch?’ After picking her words so carefully to avoid revealing John Wilkie’s identity by mistake, Zoe realised she’d put her foot in it as soon as she asked the question.

‘No.’ She could tell from his voice that Mather had no idea what she was talking about.

‘Oh well, it must be just a family thing. I’ll see you at five.’

SIXTEEN

After texting John with a carefully-worded message telling him to come to the health centre at five o’clock, Zoe went home for a change of clothes and to pick up Mac. The book about gravestones had arrived in the nick of time. Having forgotten to buy gift-wrap, she loosely wrapped it inside a vintage silk scarf she’d been saving to give Kate for Christmas and set off with Mac next to her on the passenger seat. When she arrived at Tolbyres Farm, she was glad to see just a handful of cars. Kate hadn’t understated the size of the guest list this time.

The news she’d listened to on the way over had been full of a rumoured plan by the government to introduce a hosepipe ban across the UK if the weather didn’t break soon, but Kate’s parents were unlikely to allow the small matter of legislation to put their garden at risk if this happened. Even more flowers jostled for space in the herbaceous borders, the lawn was a darker, richer green than on Zoe’s last visit, and the fragrance of lavender had been joined by that of roses.

She rounded the front corner of the house. A man’s voice called out her name and she saw Douglas, Kate’s brother, waving to her from the sitooterie. Zoe waved back and walked over to where the guests milled around a long table set for about twenty-five people. It was a family affair but she knew nearly everyone: Kate’s aunts and uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews, and Kate’s own children. Etta and Ranald Mackenzie were probably still in the kitchen with the birthday girl, putting finishing touches to what would undoubtedly be a huge and delicious spread of food.

Douglas hadn’t attended his parents’ recent barbecue owing to his wife having only recently given birth to their second son. In Kate’s words, Hazel ‘had a rough time of it’, although she hadn’t gone into details. Here now, Hazel sat apart from the crowd with her baby whose name Zoe had forgotten. Since her pregnancy started to show, she’d become resigned to people thrusting babies at her to admire or hold, so it was a relief when Hazel did no such thing. Indeed, she seemed to hug the baby closer to her breast as Zoe approached them.

‘This is Hugo,’ Douglas said proudly. ‘He weighed in at over ten pounds when he was born.’

Unsure how best to respond to this, Zoe smiled and said, ‘Gosh.’

The dress Hazel wore was creased and dowdy, in contrast to her son’s smart if somewhat old-fashioned sailor suit with smocking across the chest. She avoided Zoe’s gaze and said nothing. As if compensating for his wife’s aloofness, Douglas started to relate exactly what had taken place during her long labour. To Zoe’s relief, Kate appeared just as her brother had moved on to the birth itself and instructed everyone to take their seats, beckoning Zoe over to the chair beside her. Shortly afterwards, Etta and her younger sister who was known by everyone as Auntie Joan, appeared bearing trays of chicken drumsticks, slices of cold pork and rare beef and an enormous side of cooked salmon to join the bowls of rice, pasta, salad and potatoes already on the table.

The clamour accompanying their meal suggested more talking than eating was going on, yet after an hour, very little food remained. Mac sat for the entire meal at the children’s end of the table, gulping down every scrap thrown to him. Zoe had consumed scarcely anything herself, which didn’t escape Kate’s attention.

‘You don’t eat enough for one, let alone two.’

‘I had some salmon and salad. I’m saving myself for pudding.’

‘You’d better eat lots of it. I’ll be watching.’

Kate tried to get up and help her mother but was persuaded to sit down again as several volunteers made light work of clearing the table. They reappeared soon afterwards with trifle, bowls of strawberries and jugs of cream, followed by Etta’s entrance bearing the cake. She placed it in front of Kate, whose face showed both delight and surprise at the three layers iced in different shades of pink and decorated with fondant flowers.

Generous slices of cake were being passed round the table when Zoe heard a mobile ring and saw Etta frown at Douglas as he reached into his breast pocket. As he blocked out the noise around him with one hand and holding the phone to his ear with the other, his expression became grim. He ended the call, went round to the other side of the table, and spoke into his father’s ear. Ranald, who had been laughing at Mhairi’s impatience for her portion of cake, got up. Etta followed her husband and son into the house.

A few minutes later, realising she needed the bathroom, Zoe went inside too. As she passed a window in the hall, she saw Ranald and Douglas drive off in the battered white pick-up which Kate had used to deliver logs to Keeper’s Cottage during the winter. She went into the downstairs cloakroom and was surprised to see the door to the tall, slim cupboard she assumed held loo rolls and spare towels hanging open. It was empty.

Afterwards, she went to the kitchen in search of Etta, finding her there with Auntie Joan. They were making pots of tea and coffee and piling squares of tablet onto glass plates.

‘Is everything alright?’ Zoe asked.

‘Douglas has just had a call to say a dog’s been spotted worrying our sheep again,’ Etta said. ‘He’s gone to see if they can deal with it once and for all.’

‘If it’s the one that chased Mac, they’ll have to be careful if they try to catch it. It’s huge and seemed completely out of control.’

‘They’ll not be trying to catch it,’ Auntie Joan said. ‘They’ve taken the shotgun.’

So that’s what had been stored in the cupboard
.
‘Are they allowed to kill it? I’m not saying they shouldn’t, of course.’

Etta took a jug of milk out of the fridge. ‘As long as you can prove what it was doing and the police are notified straightaway.

‘It’s happened to us too,’ Auntie Joan said. ‘The dogs didn’t actually kill any sheep but they caused several of our ewes to miscarry.’

‘Here, Zoe, you can take this,’ Etta said, glaring at her sister and thrusting the jug towards Zoe, who suspected the reference to miscarriage in front of a pregnant woman had caused her annoyance. She obediently carried the milk outside and sat down again.

‘You haven’t had any cake yet,’ Kate said, reaching over to cut a piece big enough to last Zoe a week.

Most of the guests had left or were preparing to leave by four o’clock, several citing dogs to be walked or cows to be milked. Mac had joined Zoe where she sat answering Auntie Joan’s questions about her preparations for the baby’s arrival, until she spotted a familiar figure walking across the grass towards them: Patrick. His expression was grave.

‘Would you mind if I borrowed Zoe for a few minutes?’ He spoke very quietly, as if worried about being overheard.

‘She’s all yours,’ Auntie Joan said, getting up. ‘I should be in the kitchen helping Etta.’

‘I’ve come to ask you to do something that’s not very pleasant,’ Patrick said.

‘What?’

‘Look at a dead dog. We need to know if it’s the one you saw chasing Mac.’