Cold in the Earth (7 page)

The voice that said, ‘Max Mason’ didn’t sound weird. It was a pleasant voice with, Laura thought, the faintest hint of a Scottish accent. When she announced herself he said, ‘Hey, that’s great! I was afraid the message would get, maybe, snarled up in the system.’

Laura said cautiously, ‘The girl you knew – she looked like my photograph?’

‘Spitting image. Were you alike?’

‘Yes, oh yes!’

‘I reckoned you had to be her sister. I knew her as Di – Di Warwick.’

At the name, Laura’s throat constricted. ‘That – that was her name. Oh, do you have any idea where she is?’

Max sounded regretful. ‘Not a clue. Sorry if I raised your hopes. Like I said, it was way back – fourteen, fifteen years ago, it must have been.’

‘I didn’t really think you would,’ she said dully. ‘Where was that?’

‘Up in Scotland. In Galloway where I – where I used to live.’

There was, Laura thought, bitterness there. ‘Scotland! Why on earth – what on earth was she doing in Scotland?’

‘My father’ – she hadn’t been wrong about his tone – ‘employed her as a sort of Girl Friday. He has a pedigree herd of Welsh Black cattle and she did the office stuff for the farm and saw to it he wasn’t bothered with details like cooking his meals or ironing his shirts – you know the sort of thing.’

‘Tell me about it. Everything you can remember.’

‘Everything! Well, that’s some story. It would be better to meet up. Where are you?’

Laura hesitated before admitting that she was in London.

‘That’s no sweat, then. I could do lunch tomorrow, if you can.’

She felt pressured. ‘Perhaps we could talk a bit more—’

‘My battery’s low,’ he said. ‘There’s so much to tell you . . .’

It was an artful thing to say. She wasn’t sure it was true, but she had to talk to him: it was possible he might know more than he realised . . . Covent Garden, she suggested, the pub downstairs at one o’clock.

She could feel quite safe there; even in February there would be tourists and buskers, probably. She had no reason, no reason at all, for feeling a terrible reluctance to go, as if this were something much, much more momentous than a meeting with a stranger who had once known her sister, a long time ago.

The warehouse, on the outskirts of Newton Stewart, was a seedy-looking breeze-block building, but its doors stood open on what looked like some sort of eccentric department store. Nicked tellies, DVDs and car radios were laid out together in one corner, smuggled cartons of cigarettes piled up in another. A grandfather clock dominated a collection of antique furniture and silver and beside a couple of weathered garden statues a gnome with a leer and a fishing-rod peeped out of a classical stone urn.

DS Mason showed DI Fleming round with a proprietorial air, drawing her attention to the more choice pieces like a salesman. ‘That sideboard – looks like it’s the Regency one they said was worth five figures. And there’s a painting at the back there fitting the description of the one that went in the break-in at Knockhill House . . .’

‘That’s been a very nice piece of detective work, Conrad. Very nice indeed.’ Fleming was generous in her praise and listened attentively as he detailed his plans for follow-up arrests. She gave the operation her blessing and then with a final, ‘Well done!’ went back to her car, where DS MacNee was waiting to return to headquarters with her.

She started the engine and the wipers – had there ever been a wetter spring? – and said wryly to the man at her side, ‘All I ask is that you don’t say, “A man’s a man for a’ that.”’

Tam MacNee had spoken up for Mason when she had canvassed his opinion before; now he gave his gap-toothed grin. He was short and stocky with swarthy, acne-pitted skin, and in his regular plain-clothes uniform of jeans, trainers, black leather jacket and white T-shirt looked nothing like the conventional image of a policeman. When he and Marjory had worked together as partners, some years before, a suspect they’d lifted – clearly aggrieved that pigs working under cover weren’t obliged to wear diced caps – had snarled, ‘You’re nothing but a wee Weegie hard man,’ and she could find no fault with the description.

The first twenty-five years of Tam’s life had indeed been spent in his native Glasgow where Marjory guessed he’d been on the lawless fringes of society. Like many another man, he’d been saved by the tough love of a good woman; behind him – indeed, towering over him – was Bunty MacNee, a comely Dumfries lass who could give her husband, at a conservative estimate, a couple of stones and when necessary the sort of flea in his ear which would have a lesser man whimpering for mercy. He adored her, though, and had put up no resistance to her determination to return home and remove him from the companions of his misspent youth.

As poacher turned gamekeeper Tam was a first-class detective, with a near-uncanny knack of second-guessing the criminal mind and no ambition for any promotion which would take him away from down and dirty operations. Fleming still relied on him more than anyone else despite their cultural disagreements.

‘Too obvious,’ he scoffed. ‘No, no, I was just going to say Jackie Johnston was a “wee, sleekit, cow’rin’, tim’rous beastie” –’

‘And that isn’t obvious?’

‘– and about as much use to us as a chocolate fireguard. But Mason, now – he’s the wee boy!’

‘He’s certainly got better timing than Fred Astaire,’ she said dryly. ‘He was needing the Brownie points after the way he’s been carrying on.’

‘Och, if he just keeps a civil tongue in his head he’ll do fine.’

‘Mmm.’ She was still far from certain that he would, or could, even, but there was no doubt that Mason’s coup in mopping up the house-breaking gang which had caused them endless hassle – particularly from middle-class householders, every copper’s nightmare – went a long way towards justifying the softly-softly approach she had decided on, with Tam on the watch for any further trouble.

‘How’s the “hardy son of rustic toil”?’ MacNee asked idly. ‘Busy with the lambing?’

Fleming nodded. ‘Poor Bill – this rain’s been a problem. They can cope with snow all right, but they don’t like the wet. Still, there’s been a good few twins and no orphans yet. Cat’s very disappointed. To tell you the truth, I’m a wee bit disappointed myself.’

A fair number of lambs owed their lives to the warm bottom oven of the Aga, and she loved their quavering bleats and the eager butting of the little, hard, black woolly heads as they scrambled for their bottle. It was time-consuming, though, and then it was always tough persuading the children that come the day they’d to go off to the market like any ordinary sheep.

‘Bunty’s always at me to get you to give her one to raise, but I’m not that daft. I’d end up living ten years with a bleating hearthrug. Her and her waifs and strays!’

The MacNees had no children and Bunty’s kind heart was legendary. Marjory had lost count of the three-legged dogs and one-eyed cats that called the MacNee villa home, and asking Tam for a reprise on the numbers wasn’t tactful. She changed the subject.

When they got back to Headquarters MacNee went to give warning to the dungeonmaster of the likely influx to the cells while Fleming sought out Superintendent Bailey to give him the good news, then briefed the Press Officer. It was a good day; the mood of satisfaction spread through the building as word got round and a couple of personnel problems Fleming had thought might be tricky sorted themselves out in the general atmosphere of goodwill.

For once she managed to knock off in time to pick up the children from school. As usual, they were bickering; to avoid having to listen to them she switched on the car radio and caught a news summary which had just started.

‘. . . suspected case of foot-and-mouth disease at Cheale Meats Abattoir in Essex. Tests are being carried out . . .’

Marjory caught her breath. It happened every so often, a scare about foot-and-mouth, and even though it regularly proved to be a false alarm a shudder would always run through the farming community. It was a virus that spread like wildfire.

She was too young to recall the ’67 outbreak in detail but she could remember the terrible newspaper pictures of burning cattle and the disinfectant mats at all the farm road-ends. Farming had taken years to recover from it and bloodlines established over long years had been ruthlessly wiped out. She could only hope that this was the usual alarmist nonsense. Anyway, Essex was a long way off and surely, more than thirty years on, better processes would be in place to contain an isolated pocket of the disease. She decided not to mention it to Bill; he seldom heard the news and there was no point in worrying him unnecessarily.

But when she parked the car and the children tumbled out, still squabbling, she saw Bill coming across from the stackyard in the rain, his oiled jacket glistening, and from the grimness of his expression it was obvious that the story had reached him.

‘You’ve heard the news,’ Marjory said. ‘But even if it’s true, it’s Essex, Bill – that’s not exactly on our doorstep.’

‘I wish it was Essex. Hamish Raeburn phoned me,’ he said heavily, mentioning their neighbour who owned a dairy herd on the adjoining farm. ‘He’s on the NFU committee, you know. It’s a farm in Hexham the animal came from.’

‘Hexham! Oh no!’ That was seriously alarming; the Farmers’ Union would have reliable information and that was too close for comfort.

‘It’s worse than that. They send their beasts to the market at Carlisle as well.’

That was where they sold their own stock. Marjory swallowed hard. ‘Maybe the tests will prove negative,’ she offered.

‘It’s a bad farm. There were complaints months ago and they didn’t take any action. There could have been infection there for weeks without anyone noticing.’

She felt sick. They were so vulnerable: a small mixed farm, with sheep spread out across a couple of hillsides, some arable land and a herd of stirks bought in to fatten for the beef market. They were only just recovering from the problems of BSE; it would be too cruel . . .

There was no point in agonising. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ she asked, but her husband shook his head.

‘I’m just away down to check on the ewes. Another five lambs today – two sets of twins.’

‘That’s good. No custom for Cat’s “cuddle-a-lamb” service, then?’

He shook his head, smiling, but as he turned the smile faded. She watched him head off down the path in the unremitting rain, then went into the house with a heavy heart.

In the Band Box dress agency, the fair-haired woman had also heard the alarming news. The shop radio, always kept tuned to Classic FM, at a discreet volume, broadcast the item on the four o’clock news bulletin.

As she heard it, she became very still, listening intently. She barely heard the Litolff
Scherzo
which followed and a sturdy matron, optimistically holding up a size 10 Frank Usher evening gown with a query as to whether it might fit, was at first gratified by the proprietor’s, ‘Yes, yes of course,’ then later, in the privacy of the changing cubicle, rather indignant.

In her little office the other woman sat on, a furrow appearing between her finely pencilled brows.

5

There were no buskers braving the elements when Laura came down into the courtyard outside the Covent Garden pub; there was a chilly wind driving the rain under the glass roof and she hurried into the dark, fuggy warmth of the bar.

She was deliberately early, feeling it would give her a chance to scan people as they arrived and see if she could spot Max Mason; he knew what she looked like and somehow she felt that put her at a disadvantage. She’d given some thought to her appearance, gathering her hair into a neat knot and putting on one of the dark trouser-suits she had worn for work. It was a calculated distancing technique: formality as self-protection.

There was a fair number of people inside already, spread about among the irregular nooks and bays, but the pub wasn’t busy. Laura collected a glass of Rioja, then found a round table in the corner of the window which gave on to the courtyard and commanded a view of the entrance as well.

Outside, a toddler caught Laura’s eye, descending the steps very carefully hand-in-hand with her mother; a trendy tot wearing a pink coat and a purple hat with a shocking pink flower, and a distinctly yummy mummy. She was watching them with some amusement; the voice that spoke quietly at her ear gave her a shock.

‘Laura.’ It was a statement, not a question.

She turned sharply. A man was standing at her elbow, a man with fairish hair and dark blue eyes, a little over medium height. He had neat features and a full-lipped mouth which somehow suggested petulance or even weakness; he was wearing a beige jacket over a brown polo-neck, stylish but not expensive, in contrast to the heavy gold watch on his wrist. She hadn’t seen him come in; had she been so absorbed in watching the child that she had missed him, or had he – uncomfortable thought – been in the pub already, watching her these last ten minutes?

She was startled. ‘M-Max Mason?’ Her stammer betrayed her; she was irritated that he should have seen this sign of nervousness, especially since she thought she caught a glint of satisfaction in his smile. He had an expensive-looking smile, with very white and regular teeth, and he was holding out his hand.

She shook it. He kept hold of her own rather too long as he studied her face. ‘Hey, hey! Di’s kid sister! And you can’t be a lot older than she was, last time I saw her. Swear to me that while I get a drink and the menu you won’t do a runner like she did?’

Laura snatched her hand back, then was annoyed with herself all over again for making her discomfort apparent. She didn’t reply, giving him only a tight-lipped, unamused smile. He had caught her off-balance again, just as he had done with his message.

She made her voice chillingly polite when he returned. ‘Thank you for taking the trouble to get in touch with me. Do you work in London?’