Cold in the Earth (32 page)

Laura turned, dismayed. ‘You mean you can’t get down to the main road? I was counting on that! I’ve got an article to finish and e-mail to the
Sunday Tribune
and if the Glen Inn’s off too—’

Max raised his hand. ‘Chill! Unlikely as it may seem, even at primitive Chapelton we’re connected. The office computer is state of the art. Out here in the sticks it has to be. It’s the only link to civilisation. Even dear Auntie Brett goes Internet shopping.’

‘But—’

‘No buts! Run off and get packed, ducky, and I’ll take you back to Chapelton for a nice hot bath and a cup of decent coffee. There’s even a guest suite, you know, so Auntie can’t possibly object to giving shelter to an orphan of the storm.’

Go to the site of her sister’s murder and unhallowed grave, where, no doubt, there were still the scars of the investigation, where Dizzy’s ghost would be round every corner? It was a horrifying prospect, with the Mason family
en masse
to make bad even worse.

But what were the alternatives? At the moment the snow seemed to be confining itself to occasional flurries and in theory the snowplough could arrive to clear the road at any moment – but even so she’d have to go out and search for someone prepared to take her into Kirkluce. Or then again, it might not. Which would mean another night of being cold, in darkness and alone with the fear of whoever had trodden down the snow outside her window . . .

She went into the bedroom to pack up the essentials, without further argument. She could come back later when the roads were open and her car was repaired to clear the house but she certainly wasn’t going to spend another night here, even if the Met Office and Scottish Power gave her signed guarantees that it wouldn’t happen again.

Laura finished packing and Max took her case as she came out of the bedroom. She picked up her laptop and papers, then followed him out and locked the door.

It had occurred to her to wonder if his refusal to drive her into Kirkluce had been yet another manipulative device, but after a few minutes on the road she made him a mental apology. Max wasn’t confident in these difficult conditions; Conrad was a much better, more experienced driver and she’d felt safe with him even in the blizzard, but with Max driving the heavy vehicle seemed to have a mind of its own, particularly at the corners. There seemed to be a lot of swearing and she could see his knuckles were white as he gripped the wheel. Still, they were going so slowly that she didn’t think they could come to serious harm, and she definitely owed him a debt of gratitude for coming to rescue her.

As they lurched at last up the Chapelton drive and on to the parking area outside the house, Conrad appeared down the steps. He was obviously very angry. Max, who had barely said a word to Laura as he struggled with the car, turned now with a triumphant grin.

‘
Such
fun to wind him up, I always find! He’s jealous, of course, because I thought of rescuing you first, but I wonder what his excuse will be?’ He jumped down from the car without waiting for a reply.

Cancel the debt of gratitude
, Laura thought. With these two, it was all about a kind of sibling rivalry taken to pathological extremes: they might talk about attraction or friendship where she was concerned but in reality she was nothing more than a grown-up plaything for them to quarrel over.

Conrad, red in the face, was yelling something about Max’s incompetence and risking their transport on dangerous roads. Max, smirking, was planting occasional barbs, like a matador with a maddened bull. They paid absolutely no attention to Laura as she got down from the 4x4.

She found she couldn’t help looking about her, despite the resolution she had made not to seek out evidence of Dizzy’s tragedy. All that was visible, though, was the blanket of untrodden snow which lay all about the house; she could see where a drive went round farm buildings and a straggling hedge but nothing beyond that.

Leaving the men still engrossed in their quarrel, she walked up the steps to the front door, which was standing open. A little hesitantly, she stepped into the huge, bare hall. There was nothing to soften the oppressive Victorian style; such indifference to the impression it must make on a visitor made her feel it had an unwelcoming, almost hostile atmosphere. How had Dizzy felt, coming here as a lively twenty-year-old? Had she too felt oppressed, or was Laura’s own response exaggerated by hindsight?

At least it was warm, though. A huge, old-fashioned radiator against the side wall was pumping out waves of heat which drew Laura irresistibly. It was too hot to touch with her bare hands but she leaned against it gratefully, feeling the warmth seep through the layers of her clothes.

‘And what, may I ask, are you doing in this house?’

The harsh, challenging voice from behind her made her jump guiltily and swing round. Brett Mason was coming down the stairs glaring accusingly as if she’d caught Laura in the act of putting the family silver into a bag marked ‘Swag’.

Fright gave way to annoyance. ‘I’m sorry I startled you,’ Laura said coolly. ‘I’m Max’s guest – I was snowed up in a house with no power and he very kindly rescued me.’

Brett had reached the foot of the steps; her eyes raked Laura from head to foot. ‘If you imagine Max ever does anything from kindness you are sadly deluded. And if you imagine that this will bring you into closer contact with my son—’

Laura was startled. ‘Nothing could be further from my thoughts,’ she protested.

The other woman laughed harshly. ‘So you say. That’s what they always say.’ She walked away, vanishing through a door at the back of the hall.

Staring after her, Laura shivered, suddenly cold despite all that the radiator could do.

19

‘And how was your wee friend, then?’ DC Charlotte Nisbet greeted her sergeant mockingly as he came into the CID room, pink-nosed from the cold, rubbing his hands together and very bad-tempered. ‘Suitably grateful, was she?’

‘You tell me. If she is, it’s to someone who got there before I did. A fair waste of time, that was. It’s no joke out there, and I’ve put a dunt in the side wing of the car from a wall that appeared suddenly in the middle of the road. I’d have turned back if I hadn’t thought the lassie was on her own with the electric off.’

Shaking her head, Nisbet said solemnly, ‘Terrible. And you all set to do your Good Samaritan impersonation. I bet he’d have been pretty scunnered too if someone had bruised his camel and then nipped in first with the bandages.’

‘If you’ve nothing better to do than sit there thinking up witticisms, so-called, you haven’t a big enough case-load.’

She grinned. ‘I’m hard at work, Sarge. The word’s out we’re back in business with the Warwick murder.’

‘I was never out of it, me. Far too bloody tidy for my liking, with the Masons all ettling to pin it on the old boy. Any normal family, they’d be dinging on about how he couldn’t have done it.’

‘You could say. But Tam, take a keek at this.’ She swung her chair round to her computer. ‘I’ve been combing the records, here and downstairs in the files. All that we have on the Masons is a slap on the wrist to Max for possession in his teens and a few speeding tickets. But look what came up on Scott Thomson.’

MacNee came round to peer over her shoulder. ‘Got form, has he? Breach of the peace? Could be anything – that charge isn’t called “the Fiscal’s flexible friend” for nothing.’

‘Yes, but look.’ She punched another few keys. ‘It was stalking, basically. Persistent too. He was living across in Lanark at the time – got himself arrested for following this girl, then got bailed with the condition he didn’t go near her. By the time the case was called he’d breached his bail and the Sheriff got stroppy – locked him up for a couple of months.’

‘Well, well. He must have known we’d likely pick this up – and he was the one who told me he’d seen the girl out at night in her pyjamas. Did he think someone might have noticed him watching her, maybe, and told his Uncle Tam before they could? I think I’m needing to have another wee chat with our Mr Thomson. But it can wait. I’ll pass this on to the Boss but you’ll not catch me on that road again until it’s been cleared.’

Lunch had been a deeply uncomfortable meal. There was a communal basement kitchen, serving both the upper and the lower flats; Laura and Max were sitting at a table in the window of the cavernous room eating a pizza Max had taken from the freezer and heated up in a microwave when Conrad and his mother appeared.

Brett ignored Laura and Max completely, going to the fridge and taking out half a dozen eggs, then finding a bowl to break them into, chopping tomatoes. Conrad’s greeting was correct but chilly, leaving Laura in no doubt that he saw her acceptance from Max of the help she had rejected from him as a deliberate snub; she wasn’t sure he even knew about the power cut, and would have liked to explain. But he had turned his back on her, busying himself with setting out plates and cutlery on a tray while his mother cooked an omelette.

Max rose, pointedly. ‘Let’s take our coffee in the flat, Laura. It’s getting a bit crowded in here.’

The remark was patently both absurd and provocative. Laura said firmly, ‘Thanks, Max, but I’ll go to my room if you don’t mind. I’ve got a deadline for my article and I’m seriously behind – with the power cut and everything.’ She stressed the final phrase.

‘Hey, come on! Ten minutes won’t hurt—’

‘Sorry, Max.’ Picking up her mug, she headed for the door, but not before she had seen Max pouting like a child and Conrad smirking maliciously. A plague on both their houses!

‘Never know when to back off, do you, Max? Give the girl a bit of space!’

‘She’s my friend and my guest. Nothing to do with you.’

They were off again. Laura left the room, shutting the door quietly, but she was aware of Brett Mason staring at her with what could only be hatred in those strange pale green eyes.

The guest suite on the ground floor, where Max had installed her, was surprisingly comfortable. Like what she had seen of the rest of the house, the furnishing and decor were old-fashioned and there was a fine layer of dust on the polished surfaces of mahogany chests and tables, but the sitting-room and bedroom were spacious and blessedly warm and had an internal bathroom between them.

The other thing she liked was the key in the lock of the door to the hall. Turn it, leave it in place, and they’d have to start breaking windows to get to you – though it was an uncomfortable thought that this had been the first thing she noticed when Max showed her in.

There was even an electric kettle with a tray of cups and saucers and a jar of Nescafé; it wasn’t exactly fresh but only some of it had coalesced into a lump at the bottom. Laura made herself a cup of what could loosely be described as black coffee, sipped it and grimaced. But at least it was hot; she’d suddenly come to appreciate the virtues of ‘hot’. She set up her laptop on the table in the sitting-room and settled down.

Laura enjoyed what she was doing. She even thought, without false modesty, that she was rather good at it. She worked solidly for an hour and at the end of it felt more or less satisfied with what she had written. Her only problem was the facts she needed about the foot-and-mouth epidemic; she had to be precise about these, but fortunately Max had shown her before lunch where there was a small ante-room off the main farm office with a fixed-line computer for e-mail and Internet access. She could check those final details then send on her article to Nick Dalton by e-mail as an attachment.

With her work copied on to a floppy, Laura went out into the hall. It was still light outside but here darkness was gathering already; the heavy chandelier which came on when she pressed the switch had several dead bulbs and produced only a meagre pool of light in the centre of the hall, doing nothing to chase the lurking shadows in the corners. There was no one to be seen, but Laura couldn’t help glancing uneasily over her shoulder as she crossed the parquet floor. The clicking of her shoes seemed very loud in the echoing silence.

The cramped office itself was sternly businesslike, lit by a couple of fluorescent strips, with filing cabinets and shelves holding stationery round the walls. The curtains hadn’t been opened today; Laura drew them back to catch the last of the daylight. On the desk a computer flickered with a screen-saver where shapes in different colours stretched and tumbled and the swivel chair was pushed back, as if the person who’d been using it, last night probably, had risen in haste or impatience. She swung it back, trying not to wonder if Dizzy, too, had sat in this office, on this chair, while she performed the secretarial part of her Girl Friday duties.

Someone had been using the Internet, she found, and conveniently hadn’t shut it down. She keyed in the first of her searches; it didn’t take long to find the site but once located it was slow to download and she sat tapping her fingers impatiently on the desk. That was when it caught her eye: the little legend at the bottom of the screen showing the site previously accessed most recently. ‘Therianthropy’, it said.

She frowned at it, her curiosity aroused. The word rang a faint bell; she’d definitely heard it somewhere before. In a lecture, in a textbook? It had strange connotations . . .

She couldn’t pin it down. It was irritating her like an itch she couldn’t scratch and when the information she’d been looking for came up on the screen she noted it down automatically, her mind elsewhere.

Was checking out what someone had been looking at on the Internet in the same category as reading a book they’d left open, or was it more akin to eavesdropping or reading a letter someone had left lying around? It was an interesting moral question – but it was so annoying that she couldn’t remember what she knew! If she just glanced at it to refresh her memory, then closed it again . . .

She clicked on the icon. The screen went black, then an image came up so startling, and with such shocking implications, that the ethical question was totally forgotten.