Lamb to the Slaughter (22 page)

Dylan stared at her. She’d never said that before, had always tried to find reasons why he shouldn’t go, even when it wasn’t term-time, like it was now.

‘Why?’ he asked blankly.

A little colour came into Ellie’s cheeks. ‘Maybe you need a man around, like you said yourself. I’m not happy about what you’ve been doing, you and Barney Kyle.’

He knew she’d blamed Barney for the police coming round. Barney’s mother blamed Dylan. They’d had a good snigger about mothers.

‘Barney’s OK,’ he said defensively, then an idea struck him. ‘Here! Is this about you and Johnny? You trying to get rid of me, because I’ll be in the way? I wouldn’t, I guarantee. He’s cool.’

Ellie turned away. ‘That’s – that’s nothing to do with it. I just wish – oh, what’s the use?’ She sounded very tired as she went to fetch a packet of beef burgers from the freezer. ‘Do you want chips?’

‘Just a bun. I’m going out again.’

‘Where? What are you going to do?’

Sullenly he said, ‘Just hang out in the square, with the other kids.’

His mother’s eyes fixed on him as though they might pierce a window into his thoughts. He shifted in his seat and she said sharply, ‘You’re not going out to Christina Munro’s again, are you?’

‘’Course not,’ he muttered, but he knew he’d gone red.

She went very still. Then she said, ‘As if everything isn’t terrible enough, you’re going to end up in jail—’

It was an uncomfortable echo of what the policeman had said. Dylan pushed his chair back. ‘Forget the burgers. I’m not hungry now,’ he said over his shoulder, and left.

He’d gone to the chippie and now, here they were, waiting for the right moment to go, as Barney saw it. He’d been there ahead of Dylan and was sitting astride his bike now, doing the gallus bit to a couple of admiring girls.

Dylan didn’t feel gallus. Being wild, bold and cheeky didn’t square with having a dry mouth and a sinking feeling inside. It was a bad moment when Cat Fleming’s mother appeared and dragged her away – everyone knew Cat’s mum was in the polis – but Barney said she wouldn’t drop them in it. ‘She never tells her mum anything,’ he said, and Dylan found he believed him.

‘Right?’ Barney said, revving his engine, and ‘Right,’ Dylan replied, putting on his helmet, and then they were off, to a chorus of mocking cheers.

The speed alone was exciting, and the looks of alarm, too, from passers-by as they tore down the High Street, along to Wester Seton which was just outside the thirty-mile limit. He got scared himself when he swung a bit too recklessly on to the farm track and the bike wobbled, but he saved himself and, with Barney ahead, covered the short distance up to the farm rather more slowly.

As before, the greyhound heard them first. Christina Munro had allowed herself to become absorbed in a play about the Second World War on the radio: after a trouble-free night, and Tam MacNee’s visit, she had begun to hope that perhaps they had been discouraged, that her turn had passed and some other poor soul was now their victim.

Hearing the sound of the engines herself, as they came up the short farm track from the main road, was a bitter blow.

And they were bolder this time. This time, they began by banging on every window and every door. She cowered inside, so paralysed by fear that she could not even reassure the shivering, whimpering dog.

With a roar of engines, they circled the house, once, twice. Then they stopped. That was worse, because with the windows shuttered she had no idea where they were or what they were doing.

After that the banging outside started. Christina could tell, from the direction of the sound that they were attacking the barn where she had shut up the donkeys for their protection. She could hear the donkeys start to move restlessly, then to whicker, then one of them brayed in alarm. Then another, again and again. Christina wanted to cover her ears, not hear what was happening to these creatures, so ill-treated before they came under her protection.

Protection? What sort of protection was this? She owed it to them, innocent, helpless creatures. What did it matter to her what happened now? Her life was all but over. Surely, with nothing to lose, she could show the merest fraction of the courage of her own contemporaries, the young men who had offered their lives to protect the weak and ­helpless.

Christina walked to the door where her loaded shotgun stood and picked it up. With trembling, twisted fingers she turned the lock, pulled back the bolts and flung open the door.

Dylan was enjoying himself now. It gave you a real buzz to know that behind the shutters the old bag was cowering, afraid to show her face, even if a tiny bit of you felt ashamed. They both banged on the windows and doors, then Dylan, high on the adrenalin of violence, looked round to see what else they could do. Find a stone, maybe, to break windows – just a couple, as a reminder...

But Barney had other ideas. He’d pushed up his visor and Dylan could see an evil grin on his face as he brought out a solid wooden mallet from one of the panniers. He swung the mallet round his head. ‘Nicked this from my mum’s workshop. Come on!’

He ran across the yard to the barn, Dylan close behind. It had two great doors, fastened by a metal bar and a serious-looking padlock, but round the side there was a window, low down, blocked with half-a-dozen stout slats of wood. Beyond, you could see the shapes of the donkeys shifting uneasily.

‘Stand back!’ Barney shouted, swinging the mallet in an arc, to hit the slats. One splintered, and a donkey whinnied, starting back from it, then began braying in fright.

The next blow knocked one slat out completely and the other donkeys, terrified too, joined in – a fine sound! Barney was laughing so hard he didn’t hear, as Dylan did, the shaking voice shouting, ‘Get back from there or I shoot!’

Dylan swung round. The door to the cottage had opened and the old bag herself was standing there, wearing a crocheted hat which he recognised as one of his mother’s making. Her eyes were wild, she was shaking, and she was holding a shotgun. She looked completely crazy.

Dylan swore. Then he yelled, ‘Barney, for God’s sake, stop! She’s got a gun. Let’s get out of here!’

He didn’t wait for his friend. He sprinted past her, threw himself on to his bike and heard the sound of a shot just as he took off, as if all the devils in hell were after him, chancing his neck on the rough surface. He made it safely to the road, but didn’t stop till he was round the next bend, almost at the thirty-mile limit. His heart pounding, he cut his engine, ­waiting for Barney to catch up. Then he stiffened. Was that another shot?

She wouldn’t really have fired
at
them, of course. Not in cold blood. She’d have been firing into the air, just as a threat, to scare them off. And she’d done that, all right. Barney could suit himself, but Dylan was never setting foot in the place again.

Maybe Barney hadn’t been as scared as he was, and had taken the farm road more slowly than Dylan had. At least, he hoped to God that was why he hadn’t appeared.

Still shaking, Christina Munro went back into the house. There was a half-bottle of brandy in one of the cupboards; she fetched it, and a tumbler. As she poured in a couple of inches, the bottle clinked on the edge of the glass, and her teeth knocked against it too as she took a mouthful, then another, grimacing at the fierceness of the cheap spirit. She sat down on the edge of her chair and emptied the glass. The dog, which had stayed inside, trotted across to sit pressed against her leg and she stroked its soft fur absent-mindedly.

Warmth was running through her now. She hadn’t shut the door and outside, apart from the still restless movements of the donkeys, all was quiet. She went to check on them again; they were alarmed, not hurt, and she spoke to them soothingly before she came back in and closed her door. She didn’t lock it. Then she folded back the window shutters, and evening light flooded the room. That was better.

The radio play was still going on, with the sounds of gunfire and men’s voices, shouting orders. She’d probably lost the thread by now, but she went back to her chair to listen anyway.

Still not quite sure what he was doing there, DS Andy Macdonald drove out of Kirkluce, MacNee silent and tense at his side. He’d asked, of course, what was going on and Tam had explained about the neds who were persecuting Christina Munro, but he hadn’t been very explicit.

Macdonald was just slowing down to turn into Wester Seton when a motorbike erupted out of the entrance in front of him. He swore, wrenching the steering wheel to the left; the bike braked, swerved across the road and wobbled sideways, throwing its rider on to a grassy bank.

Macdonald and MacNee were out of the car before the bike’s wheels had stopped spinning. The rider, looking to be unhurt, sat up as they approached and took off his helmet. He was ashen with shock.

MacNee looked at him with some distaste. ‘Not very clever, Burnett. What are you doing here? And where’s your pal Kyle?’

The boy seemed hardly able to speak. Then, ‘Help!’ he said, bizarrely.

The policemen glanced at each other. ‘What’s wrong, son?’ Macdonald said more gently.

‘It’s – it’s Barney. There.’ Dylan pointed up the track. ‘It’s – horrible—’ He began to shudder uncontrollably.

Macdonald took off, MacNee at his heels. Just a few yards short of the main road, another motorbike had toppled, part of it pinning down a helmeted figure lying on its side in a pool of blood. Macdonald was aware of MacNee’s voice muttering, ‘Please God this is an accident,’ as they reached it. Macdonald lifted the bike off and dumped it to one side.

The helmet was still on, but this was Barney Kyle, presumably. From the front there was no sign of injury, apart from foam-flecked blood at the corner of his mouth. The back—

There was a hole in the back of his denim jacket towards the left-hand side, and the wound beneath was still pumping bright red arterial blood.

‘He’s alive,’ MacNee said sharply, grabbing his mobile from his pocket and dialling
999
. ‘Ambulance. This is police. Top priority,’ he snapped, then impatiently gave details.

‘Twenty minutes,’ he said, switching it off. ‘That’s the best they can offer.’

Macdonald was kneeling at the boy’s side. ‘Five would probably be too late anyway. Nothing we can do.’ He stood up, his cream chinos bloodied to the knees. The two men watched, helpless, as life ebbed away.

MacNee was one of the hardest men Andy Macdonald knew, but his face was green. ‘Phone the boss,’ he said. ‘I think I’m to blame for this.’ Then he turned to the side of the track and vomited into the hedgerow.

11

Fiona Farquharson had been in a state of silent rage ever since the lawyer’s phone call that afternoon. It showed in the way she banged the pots together on the stove, and she’d chipped a Nigella Lawson bowl, one of a set Andrew had given her last Christmas when she’d rather have had a bottle of Chanel No.
5
. She just might throw the bowl at Giles when he deigned to come home.

The quiche was past its best. The ones she’d cooked to be cut into cocktail-sized squares for the Forbes-Grahams’ party tomorrow night had been taken out long ago. Of course, she and Giles could have had theirs cold, but there was a vindictive satisfaction in producing it dry and overcooked, with the subtext that he had forced her to suffer by his lack of consideration. It would also give her an excuse for refusing to eat. She wasn’t hungry, couldn’t imagine feeling hungry ever again. She was so filled with rage there was barely room to breathe, let alone eat.

Fiona’s eyes were glittering dangerously when Giles appeared at last. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ she screamed as the back door opened.

He was looking dishevelled, with dirty streaks on his face and mud caking his trousers. ‘Some bullocks got out from the field on the road, and the stockman and I had a helluva job rounding them up,’ he said tiredly. ‘I need a drink – you want one?’

‘You’d better have your supper first,’ she said with deliberate cruelty. ‘It’s pretty much ruined already. And why didn’t you let me know? You do have a mobile phone.’

For once Giles stood his ground. ‘If it’s spoiled already, it can wait while I have a drink. And anyway, I came in to tell you what had happened and your car wasn’t there. Where were
you
?’

He had managed to wrong-foot her. Fiona snapped back, ‘Where do you think? Taking Gemma back home, of course. She came out like she always does to help me prepare for the Forbes-Grahams’ party tomorrow – I suppose you do remember I told you? The sort of thing that I’m going to have to do as long as I can stagger to the stove. Thanks to Andrew Carmichael.’

She spat out the name, but Giles didn’t even seem to hear. He went to the cupboard where the whisky was kept and filled a tumbler. He had drunk half of it before he even sat down.

An ambulance and two patrol cars had arrived at Wester Seton by the time Fleming got there, blocking the entrance to the farm track. She parked on the main road, behind a car she recognised as Macdonald’s. It was almost completely dark and the cars’ headlights were trained on a green sheet covering something on the ground. Two paramedics were talking to DS Macdonald; as she approached, she heard him say, ‘You can’t move him. This is a murder scene.’