Bad Blood (18 page)

It was bad enough being wakened because Fleur was confused
about time. Listening all night for any sound of movement was impossible, if she wanted to keep her job.

What she needed was an alarm system that would tell her if her mother was opening a door or a window. She could arrange that tomorrow – that and the doctor’s appointment.

She was just too tired to worry any more. After the warmth of the bath, sleep overwhelmed her the moment she shut her eyes.

Michael Morrison, too, was aroused out of a deep sleep in the middle of the night. At his side, Vivienne was twitching and moaning, giving little cries of distress and he touched her gently, murmuring, ‘Sssh, sssh, it’s all right, darling.’

She woke instantly, looking round her in bewilderment and then began to cry. ‘Oh Michael, it was a terrible, terrible dream!’

‘Just a nightmare, darling. That’s all. Go back to sleep.’

‘It was Anita – and her head – she was still alive, but—’ She began to shudder violently.

He switched on the light and took her in his arms, patting her soothingly. ‘Put it out of your head. I tell you what – I’ll go down and make you a cup of hot milk, shall I? And then you can take another of your sleeping pills and get a proper rest.’

Vivienne clung to him. ‘I’ll come with you. I don’t want to be left alone. It’s guilt, Michael – I feel I should have been able to help her, done something that night instead of letting her go back to the house alone.’

‘You did all you could. Now you just need to put it out of your mind, like we said. All right?

‘Come on, then – quietly, though. We don’t want to wake the Monster.’

She smiled at that, tiptoeing along the landing with a glance at her grandson’s bedroom door.

As Michael heated up the milk, he said, ‘You know, sweetheart, I
was just thinking you ought to get away for a day or two. It’s going to be quite upsetting for you here with all that’s going on and you wouldn’t be opening the shop for a bit, anyway. Diana’s always asking you to see her in London – why not just take her up on it? It would do you good.’

Vivienne said slowly, ‘Yes, I suppose it might. But I hate to leave you when you’re working so hard – and of course Gemma would be on her own with Mikey—’

Michael laughed. ‘Stop fussing. Gemma’s a big girl now and, anyway, I’m here to see she’s all right. Get Diana to take you out for some retail therapy and you’ll be a new woman.’

Vivienne’s relief showed in her face as she allowed herself to be convinced. As they went back to bed, she was talking happily about an exhibition she wanted to see.

Michael stayed awake until he heard his wife’s breathing become soft and even. He was feeling a certain sense of relief himself. His responsibilities were weighing on him painfully and at least he wouldn’t have to worry about Vivienne, for the moment, anyway – though with so many threatening clouds gathering one fewer worry hardly mattered.

It was a long time before he got back to sleep.

It was not quite nine o’clock when DI Fleming was informed that Daniel Lee was waiting in reception. She was surprised: to arrive at this time, driving through the Glasgow rush hour, would have meant leaving well before seven, an hour she would have thought unknown to nightclub owners unless approached from the other end.

‘Think he’s anxious about something?’ MacNee said innocently when she collected him on the way down to the interview room.

‘Let’s hope so,’ Fleming said. ‘Anxiety’s useful.’

‘Better than nothing, I suppose, now they’ve put a stop to waterboarding.’

Daniel Lee didn’t look as if he was being gnawed by anxiety, though. He greeted them with an urbane smile, saying, ‘I thought we’d better get this nonsense cleared up as soon as possible. My time’s precious just at the moment.’

‘I feel just the same, sir,’ Fleming said cordially. ‘This way, please.’

She eyed him narrowly as she ushered him ahead of her. She knew he must be in his fifties but he walked with the swagger of a young man in his skinny jeans. He was, she supposed, good-looking; he certainly had a compelling face and his eyes, so dark they were almost black, did have a magnetic quality but there was something about him that repelled her, though she couldn’t quite say why.

In the interview room, she explained that while this was merely an initial interview, it would be recorded and he was entitled to have a lawyer present.

He waved away the offer. ‘I don’t need to pay someone to tell me to keep my mouth shut. I want to get this cleared up.’

When MacNee had completed the formalities, Lee cut in before Fleming could frame a question.

‘Look, I want to put on record that I was a total fool yesterday. I suppose I was … well, you can imagine what I was, when I heard that Anita had been killed. I’m sorry. Bad boy.’

He caught Fleming’s eye for a second and then he smiled. His narrow face came alive and the dark eyes seemed to light up, charmingly inviting her into this delicious little conspiracy of understanding and forgiveness.

Fleming had to control a quiver of revulsion. ‘We’re ready to hear whatever statement you wish to make, Mr Lee.’

‘Thank you.’ He held the smile and the tone was almost caressing. She realised that he didn’t know what the effect on her had been; interesting. Overconfidence was almost as useful as anxiety.

MacNee was looking sick. Afraid he might start making retching noises, she hurried on, ‘For the record, you told DS MacNee yesterday
that you hadn’t seen Anita Loudon or been in Dunmore for more than five years. I gather you wish to correct this statement.’

‘Yes.’ He looked down at his hands for a moment and when he looked up his face was set in lines of sorrow. ‘This has been a terrible shock. I heard yesterday from one of my business contacts – I’m afraid I led you to believe that I didn’t know, Sergeant.’

‘Aye, you did that,’ MacNee said dryly. ‘Among other things.’

‘We were lovers, though I had my life in Glasgow and she had hers here.’

‘Not an exclusive relationship, then?’ Fleming said.

‘We were free spirits. We each led our own life, mine in Glasgow, hers in Dunmore.’

MacNee was unimpressed. ‘Kept it kinna quiet, though, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, we didn’t flaunt it,’ Lee said smoothly. ‘That was Anita’s choice. A small place, you know – a lot of old pussycats. But it was a strong relationship that went way back.’

‘Of course. Right back to Tommy Crichton’s murder, in fact,’ Fleming said. ‘Which brings us to the question of why Anita’s body should have been placed there, on the same spot.’

‘Oh yes, they said that on the news. Looks like some sort of revenge motive, doesn’t it?’ His expression was bland.

‘That’s what you think, is it?’ MacNee said. ‘So who’d want revenge on Anita?’

‘How would I know? We led our own lives so I’d hardly know if she’d got across someone.’ Then he frowned. ‘Though, hang about – I do remember her mentioning that she’d had a bit of a run-in with Shelley Crichton. Some sort of misunderstanding about a visitor she’d had, and Shelley got the wrong end of the stick.’

‘You mean, when Marnie Burnside visited her?’

Fleming’s question had thrown him, definitely. Lee’s eyes narrowed and his thin mouth became a taut, straight line, but the speed of his recovery was testament to his quick wits.

‘Well, well, that’s a name from the past! Marnie Burnside – good gracious. Anita didn’t tell me that. The last time I saw Marnie she was just a kid. Her mother was another old friend but I lost touch with her years ago.’

‘Another “free spirit”?’

MacNee’s tone was heavily sarcastic but Lee didn’t rise to the bait.

‘If you like.’

‘Let’s move on, then, to your movements around the time of Anita’s death. Start with Tuesday of this week.’

As he hesitated, Fleming went on smoothly, ‘If you’re calculating how much we know already, Mr Lee, I would advise you to assume it’s everything.’

He gave her a look of dislike, the charm switch now definitely set to ‘Off’. ‘I was ordering my thoughts, that’s all.

‘I left Glasgow on Tuesday, late afternoon, I suppose. I arrived at Anita’s house in the evening. I spent the night there. She had gone to work when I woke up and then I left again mid morning and drove back to Glasgow. End of.’

‘A very brief visit,’ Fleming said.

‘I’m a very busy man.’

‘Why did you decide to come down that evening?’

Lee shrugged. ‘Hadn’t seen Anita for a bit. Nothing special going on at the club that night so I fancied a change of scene. It’s not illegal, as far as I know – not yet, at least.’

There was an edge to his voice. He was getting defensive and MacNee picked up on it immediately and goaded him.

‘So – just bad timing, then? You come down one night and she’s dead the next? Just came down to say goodbye, maybe? One last night of love?’

Lee’s face went white with rage. He grasped the table as if to stop himself coming round it to assault MacNee and Fleming could see the cords in his neck standing out.

His voice sounded strangulated as he snarled, ‘Yes, if I’d known she was going to die, I would have said goodbye. I wish I had. It is a very sad end to a long friendship.

‘I think I’ve been as helpful as I feel like being, given your attitude. You’ll have to arrest me to keep me here and since you obviously haven’t the evidence to do that, I’m leaving now.’

‘Just one question,’ Fleming said. ‘Your alibi for Wednesday night?’

He was halfway to the door. ‘Ask any of my employees. Or rather, since most of them are kids who have trouble knowing whether it’s Tuesday or Christmas, ask my secretary. She always knows what I’m doing better than I do myself.’

He left the room. Fleming said, ‘Mr Lee has terminated the interview,’ for the benefit of the recording and MacNee switched it off.

‘Had that one all ready, didn’t he?’ he said.

‘Oh yes. Think you could get one of your Glasgow pals to send a couple of uniforms round to see his “kids” asap? And tell them not to bother with the secretary – we know what she’s going to say already.’

MacNee gave her a cynical look. ‘And you think the kids won’t back her up? What’s the going rate for an alibi these days – twenty quid?’

Fleming sighed. ‘Right enough. Even so, wouldn’t do any harm to keep up the pressure.’

‘The sort of pressure I’d like to put on that one would involve his windpipe. Remember the good old days when you could take them round the back, no questions asked?’

‘Tam, you shock me!’ Fleming said. But she was grinning as MacNee left.

It had been a wild night. The wind in the trees roared like a raging sea and with that, and the cold, Marnie kept waking up. In the early morning the storm abated and she fell into a deep sleep at last, waking only with the first signs of light at eight o’clock.

She climbed out of her sleeping bag feeling grubby and disgusting, ready to sell her soul for a decent shower. Instead, she stripped off her clothes and exposed her shrinking, goose-pimpled flesh to a cold sponge-down in the kitchen and dried herself on a blanket. She’d forgotten about towels.

It was a luxury to climb into the car and put the heater on. She listened to the morning news programme as she left the house but there was nothing fresh about Anita’s murder, just a statement that the police were pursuing several lines of enquiry. She clicked off the radio. It felt strange and scary hearing that, when you were one of the lines of enquiry being pursued.

Despite having thought of nothing else in her waking moments she still hadn’t decided what to do. The picture DC Hepburn had painted of Marnie’s future as a fugitive had scared her but she wasn’t entirely
convinced it would be like that; they’d find the real killer before long and they wouldn’t go to all that trouble to find her if she made it difficult for them. She could still hide; casual work in the catering trade wasn’t famous for keeping records.

But then there was Anita’s will. She didn’t know what it would mean – a bit of money, perhaps, and that wouldn’t go amiss – her little savings account was nearly empty. But it could mean the police would decide she’d killed Anita for what she might get and really set out to nail her, though it wasn’t like Anita was wealthy. Working in a shop, what she would have had to leave couldn’t be much. The thoughts chased each other round and round her head till she felt dizzy with them.

When she reached the police station in Kirkluce there were people hanging around outside with cameras and microphones; there was an edge of frost in the air this morning and they were stamping their feet and swinging their arms as their breath rose in steamy clouds.

Marnie couldn’t face shouted questions, cameras shoved in her face, at least not yet. She drove on past and out of the town without any real idea of where she was heading – just not there.

‘Glenluce Abbey’. The signpost further on down the road triggered her memories.

She’s staring and staring at the arches that spring up and fall back like water in a fountain so that she hardly hears Gemma and the others giggling or the teacher talking history. She’s gone to a quiet, beautiful place in her mind.

She needed to think clearly, and where better? Marnie turned off the main road, up through the little village of Glenluce and then on down the narrowing roads until she saw the cluster of grey buildings that almost seemed to grow out of the landscape, the walls of roofless buildings like stone outcrops. She didn’t like the windows without glass, that looked like empty eye sockets in an animal’s weathered skull, but all round the ruined grandeur was a working farm like any other farm. There was only one other car in the car park.

Perhaps, Marnie thought as she went to pay her entrance fee, there had been sheep in those same fields, tended by the monks, in the days of the abbey’s glory. She fended off the well-meaning, and probably bored, attendant, keen to tell her more than she wanted to know, and stepped out onto the springy turf, crisp with frost.

It was very quiet. A sheep bleated and another answered, but that seemed part of the historic peace of the place. She ignored the remains of the great church and went unerringly to the ornate doorway leading into the chapter house.

The fountains of stone rose and fell just as she remembered. The white walls, the grey stone, the warm burnt orange of the tiles, the glazed windows whose shape made her think of flowers: it was a sort of silent music.

Marnie stood, letting it still the endlessly chattering voices and clear her mind. And at last, on the other side of that silence, she understood. For her, this wasn’t about a death or a will. It was all about her mother.

Drax and Anita, the only two friends Marnie had ever known her have, said they had lost touch with her, hadn’t seen her for years. She didn’t think she believed either of them. And if her mother was still alive, why should they lie?

Her mother hadn’t been the sort of mum you read about in cosy children’s books but she couldn’t just walk away: if DI Fleming had something to tell her, she had to know what it was. Whatever it was. Even if she had a feeling in the pit of her stomach that afterwards she would wish she didn’t know.

It didn’t help that as she left with a final glance upwards, fighting her forebodings, she noticed the four grotesque, ugly faces carved around the central pillar.

Daniel Lee had spotted the press as he arrived and parked in the street nearby, then strolled past them confidently. There had been one or two glances cast in his direction but no one had accosted him then,
so he adopted the same attitude on the way out and reached his car again unchallenged.

His rage had cooled as quickly as it had flared up. It always did, and latterly he’d got better at controlling it. Once he’d have gone for the jumped-up little prick of a sergeant and throttled him.

With the cooling came a deep unease. He’d believed he’d covered his tracks; it had been a shock that they’d got on to him at all, let alone so quickly.

Had Marnie told them something? She was dangerous, very dangerous, but she’d said she wasn’t going to speak to them. She’d better mean that – they all had enough problems without someone inviting her to do show-and-tell with her freaky memory.

No, it was probably just the good old local spy system that had shopped him. Anita, he could be sure, would have been discreet; he’d told her that the first time he heard of gossip would be the last time she saw him. There was the old bag who was her next-door neighbour, of course; she could give lessons to the KGB.

At least he’d managed to give the police a nudge in Shelley’s direction since they were probably too dumb to spot it on their own. Or pinpoint their own backsides, come to that.

Lee had just turned the key in the ignition when he noticed something. That wasn’t—

Oh yes, it was. That was Marnie Bruce crossing the road just ahead of him, on her way into the police station. She was going to the police after all – lying bitch!

For a crazy moment he thought about gunning the car’s engine and taking her out right there, in front of the assembled media.

Wiser councils prevailed. Everything was under control; he had to keep telling himself that. Keep calm. But as he drove off he tore roughly at a snagging edge on his thumbnail, then winced as a bead of blood appeared …

Fleming was dreading the interview with Marnie Bruce and wanted to get it over – always supposing that she appeared.

Since she’d been informed the day before that the injunction against revealing Karen Bruce’s identity had been amended to permit her daughter to be told, she’d thought long and hard about how to break the news, had lost sleep over it, even. But whatever she said, Marnie would have to hear the ugly truth that not only was her mother a sort of national hate-figure, but she had chosen to build her daughter’s life on deceit. How would Marnie feel when she discovered that even her name wasn’t her own?

It was only ten minutes later that Marnie arrived. Fleming had arranged to use one of the smaller waiting rooms as being the nearest thing to informal that the station provided and chatted about the cold weather as they took their seats there, but even so Marnie was clearly nervous. She sat on the edge of the chair, twisting her hands together in an unconscious movement. She was pale with dark shadows around her eyes and looked as if she had slept badly.

Fleming leant forward too, smiling. ‘Thank you for coming in, Marnie. I felt I owed you an explanation for having been less than frank with you earlier. I’ve been authorised now to tell you something that I’m afraid will be very difficult for you. Would you like a drink – tea, coffee?’

Marnie shook her head.

‘Right, fine. Could I just ask you first of all, where are you staying? I wasn’t sure if my messages were getting through and we need to be able to contact you.’

‘Do I have to tell you?’

‘Not have to, no, at this stage. But I think it would be advisable.’

‘I’m moving about a bit.’

Feeling faint irritation, Fleming said, ‘Well, where were you last night?’

‘I’m not sure of the address. Just an old cottage. But I’ll be leaving there soon.’

It wasn’t worth having an argument over. Marnie had answered the phone eventually and once she’d been told about Anita’s will the lawyer could take care of all that. First things first, though.

Fleming took a deep breath. ‘Marnie, when you asked me about your mother, I wasn’t in a position to tell you. She has a protected identity and there was an injunction against information about it being given to anyone, which included her daughter, until the injunction was lifted yesterday – only for you, I have to stress, and that only because of the particular circumstances we find ourselves in.’

Marnie stared at her. ‘A protected identity – what does that mean? Was she a witness, or something?’

‘No, Marnie, I’m afraid not.’ Fleming found she was twisting her hands too. ‘Have you heard of Kirstie Burnside?’

She shook her head.

‘When Kirstie Burnside was ten she was charged with murdering a child of eight, Tommy Crichton. She served out her sentence and when she was released she was given a new, protected identity so that she wouldn’t be persecuted. Kirstie Burnside was—’

Marnie was ahead of her. ‘My mother. My mother was a murderer. A child killer.’

She had turned so pale that Fleming thought she was going to faint. ‘Marnie, you need to understand that she had a terrible start in life. It only came to light when this happened that her father—’

She didn’t have a chance to finish. Marnie cut in, ‘Abused her? Oh, that makes it all right, then. My mother’s a murderer and my grandfather was a paedophile! Anything else you want to share with me?’

There was nothing Fleming could say in the face of her bitterness. She waited until Marnie raged on, ‘Why did you tell me this? You think it’s something I wanted to know?’

She could have said, ‘You asked me.’ Instead, Fleming had to give her the next bit of bad news. ‘The reason I felt you had to be warned
is that if the press hasn’t already worked out who you are, they will very soon.’

Marnie looked at her in horror. ‘You’re going to tell the press?’

‘I’m not, no. But people in Dunmore know and they’re not going to keep quiet about it.’

‘They know? So that’s why …’ Her voice trailed off and a curious look came over her face, as if she was looking into the far distance.

It was a bit uncanny. Louise Hepburn, Fleming suddenly remembered, had said she’d noticed something like that too.

‘She’s coming straight at me – attacking me,’ Marnie murmured, and then her eyes seemed to snap back into focus again and she looked at Fleming as if bewildered. ‘But how could she have known? Anita knew at once too, only she wouldn’t admit it.’

‘I’m afraid it’s your appearance – red-gold hair, bright-blue eyes. You’re very like your mother as a child.’

‘Like my mother? I don’t know what you mean. She had dark hair – almost black! And her eyes – they were a sort of greyish-brown, I think. Not really a definite colour at all.’

‘Yes, I remember,’ Fleming said heavily. ‘Her colouring as a child was very distinctive so she dyed her hair and I suppose used contact lenses.’

‘Yes, I remember she had contacts. But I never saw her without them.’ Again that remote look appeared. ‘She’s having a problem with one of them. She’s got her hand over her eye and she’s going out to the bathroom …’

‘Marnie,’ Fleming said gently, bending forward to touch the other woman’s arm, ‘what are you doing?’

Marnie gave a slight start. ‘Oh … oh sorry, it’s just a condition I have.’

Fleming listened in astonishment to her explanation about hyperthymesia. ‘You can remember absolutely everything as if it were happening just now?’

‘If a memory’s triggered, yes.’

‘But you don’t remember what happened the night your mother left?’

‘I never saw who hit me.’ She chewed at her lip. ‘So … so this is why you believe it could have been my mother who did it?’

‘That, and the lack of evidence that anyone else was there.’

‘I … I see.’

There were tears forming in her eyes. Fleming went on hastily, ‘There’s another thing that I have to tell you. We found a copy of a will that Anita Loudon had made, leaving everything to you.’

Marnie showed no sign of surprise. That was interesting, Fleming thought. ‘Did she tell you she had?’

‘No. I don’t know why she would.’

‘I should stress that this isn’t official. There may be another will somewhere with different provisions. We won’t know until we’ve finished going through all her papers and had proper confirmation from her lawyers. But as it stands, you will inherit her estate. So—’

‘You don’t need to tell me,’ Marnie said bitterly. ‘She’s dumped me in it, hasn’t she? You think I killed her to get it. I didn’t, by the way, though I don’t suppose you’ll accept that.’

Relieved to be moving on to more familiar terrain, Fleming said coolly, ‘No, I won’t “accept” it, but I don’t jump to conclusions either. You will have to make a formal statement about any contact you had with Anita Loudon, but I’d prefer to talk through it with you first, if you’re willing to do that.’

‘I told your detectives all about the first time, when I had to escape – I don’t want to go over it all again.’

Fleming nodded. ‘I’ve read the report. There were other occasions, though?’

‘Just one.’ There was a pause, then the odd look came over Marnie’s face again. She muttered, ‘Sorry.’ Then, ‘Give me a moment.

‘OK. It was on Wednesday evening. She took a long time to come
to the door. I thought she’d maybe been asleep or something – she was yawning and she looks – looked a bit blank for a moment. She was wearing a cream and dark red skirt and a cream top and her lipstick was a little bit smeared. She doesn’t – didn’t look exactly pleased at seeing me and she didn’t ask me in, she just says – said, “Oh – Marnie! I thought you’d gone.”