Lying Dead (16 page)

    And ‘Mrs Aitcheson’! That was another irritation. Gina had been charmingly democratic when they first met, saying winsomely, ‘I’m Gina. And you are—?’ only to get the repressive reply, ‘Mrs Aitcheson’ll do.’

    She didn’t scruple to call her employer ‘Gina’, though, using it as a weapon in the tacit psychological warfare waged between them. It annoyed the hell out of Gina, but she’d never discovered the woman’s first name – her husband Brian always referred to her as ‘the wife’ or ‘Mrs A’ – so couldn’t even retaliate in kind. She’d have told the old cow that she’d prefer to be called ‘madam’, if she hadn’t known it wouldn’t make any difference and that ten minutes later the story would be all over Drumbreck, with everyone sniggering behind their hands.

    She hadn’t a hope of getting back to sleep now and the day yawned ahead of her. It was tempting to go right back to Glasgow but Ronnie had said he was coming down today and wanted to spend another week here, for some reason. And what Ronnie wanted, Ronnie got. It would be wrong to say she was afraid of him – or perhaps it wouldn’t, exactly. Gina certainly didn’t trust him; she had a secret deposit account which was coming along nicely in preparation for the day when he changed his mind about his second wife just as he had about his first. But it wasn’t big enough yet for her to be anything other than very serious about keeping him sweet. Gina had tried poor and she’d tried rich and she knew which one she preferred.

    There was still the rest of the day to fill in. She could spend a bit of time working out at the club, and the bar at lunchtime was always better than it was in the evening when the families came in, the teenagers being a pain and the wives giving her the sidelong looks that explained why Ronnie had needed to buy half the marina to get membership. She’d egged him on, believing, God help her, that this would give her entrée into a social elite; it was only once they were members that she realized there was more to it than that. Once a scrap merchant, always a scrap merchant, even if you were richer than most of them. The ones prepared to be friendly, like Kim McConnell, were, frankly, white trash and Gina did have standards.

    If only she could have persuaded Ronnie to sell up here, buy in to one of those luxury developments in Spain! Heaven knew she’d tried, but Ronnie liked Drumbreck, where he’d the most expensive house, the largest luxury cruiser and the glossiest trophy wife – oh yes, Gina knew her status – but if they went somewhere more glamorous and cosmopolitan he would be a small fish. Here, however little they liked him, whatever they said about him behind his back, he couldn’t be overlooked, and that was important to Ronnie; thwarted, he turned nasty. She’d never forget his insane rage when he was blackballed by the club.

    Gina lay for a while contemplating the problem, then got up and opened the curtains. Beach House, a handsome Edwardian villa, had the best position in Drumbreck, looking straight down the bay to the marina and the Cree estuary and Wigtown Bay beyond. This morning again the water was shimmering in the sunshine and the usual group of small dinghies was having a sailing lesson. It didn’t look settled, though; there was heavy cloud gathering on the horizon and Gina pulled a face as she turned away to get dressed.

    ‘Morning, Mrs Aitcheson!’ she called with determined cheerfulness as she went downstairs and passed the open door of the lounge where the Dyson was being propelled about with a fine disregard for the legs of tables and the edges of chairs.

    Mrs Aitcheson was a short, powerful-looking woman in her fifties with a weathered complexion and coarse grey hair badly cut in a straight fringe which did not quite cover a scar running from her temple to her cheekbone on the left-hand side. She was wearing her own Day-Glo orange overall, as she always did. The more tasteful navy one in the cleaning cupboard hung ignored; Gina had accepted that, short of wrestling the woman to the ground and forcibly dressing her in it, the cupboard was where it was destined to remain.

    Pretending that she couldn’t hear for the noise of the vacuum-cleaner was another of Mrs Aitcheson’s little games. Gina’s smile vanished as she received no response to her greeting; she went in and stood in front of the other woman, who grudgingly turned off the machine.

    ‘Mr Lafferty’s coming this afternoon,’ Gina said, pointedly using the formal name. ‘Could you clean the study, please, and iron the shirts in the laundry.’

    Her dark eyes cold as pebbles, Mrs Aitcheson said, ‘I’ll see if I’ve time, Gina.’ Then she switched on the Dyson again, moving it in a wide sweep which gave her a reason to turn her back.

    Gina was just leaving the room when a gap on one of the shelves caught her eye, a gap where a small silver box had stood. The other objects on the shelves had been moved closer together. She swung round.

    ‘What’s happened to the silver box, Mrs Aitcheson?’

    Mysteriously, Mrs Aitcheson’s hearing seemed to have improved. Switching off the motor once more, she turned round, her face blandly innocent. ‘I couldn’t say, Gina. I noticed it wasn’t there. Maybe Ronnie moved it – there hasn’t been anyone else in here, has there?’

    This time it was Gina who turned away. Her face flaming, she went to the kitchen. She knew Mrs Aitcheson was lying; she lied whenever it suited her, and small items and sums of money were always disappearing. But Ronnie wouldn’t hear of her being sacked and Gina had for some time had an uneasy feeling that part of the woman’s duties was checking up on his wife’s activities when Ronnie wasn’t here.

    She knew she’d taken a risk, bringing Niall back the other night. But sometimes a sort of madness seized her; she knew all about the advantages of being married to money, but often the price seemed high. She was pretty sure that yesterday, when Mrs Aitcheson didn’t come, she had removed any traces that could have given her away.

    At least, she hoped to God she had.

‘You’re going to have to call the police,’ Jenna Murdoch said flatly. ‘I don’t care what it does for community relations – they’ve got to put a stop to it. It was petty vandalism before, but this is more than that. I’ve put up with you telling me they’ll get tired of protesting for long enough, and next week the flat goes on the market. I’m not going to spend my morning scrubbing it off and pretending it hasn’t happened.’

    She was standing with Niall looking at the obscene graffiti which had been spray-painted in red across the stretch of wall beside the entrance to the newly renovated flat.

    ‘I’m not asking you to,’ Niall snapped angrily.

    He seemed to have been angry for days now. Jenna was feeling much the same herself. ‘So what are you going to do, then?’ she snapped back.

    ‘Oh, I’ll phone the police before I go to the marina.’ He cast an irritable glance across the yard to where the collie lay at the end of a chain, watching them with head on paws. ‘You’d think the sodding dog could have barked, or something – it’s no good for anything else.’

    ‘It’s not a watchdog,’ Jenna pointed out, then, reminded, asked, ‘Is Findlay going to buy it back? You didn’t tell me what he said when he phoned last night.’

    Niall snorted. ‘Thought he could get the brute back for less than half of what I paid for him. I’ve told him he can think again.’

    ‘Reckon you’ll get a better offer from anyone else?’ His wife gave him a pitying look. ‘Take the money and run, is my advice.’

    ‘Damned if I will. I’ve told him he’ll have to come up with the full amount. If he doesn’t, the dog’s dead.’

    ‘And somehow, that will solve the problem?’

    Niall chewed at his lip. ‘No. But neither will what he’s offered me. I’ve another plan anyway  . . .’

    ‘Care to share it?’ There was an edge to Jenna’s voice. Niall had flatly refused to discuss the financing of his purchase but she couldn’t see where the money had come from. These dogs were expensive, and it hadn’t come out of their joint overdraft – she’d checked.

    ‘No. I’ll go and phone the police from the office.’ He went into the house just as Mirren came out. Ignoring him, she walked past her mother too and spoke to the dog, which sat up as she approached. His tail gave the faintest twitch, and with a pang Jenna saw Mirren smile. How long was it since she’d seen a smile on her daughter’s face?

    ‘You’re pleased to see me, aren’t you, Moss?’ she was saying, bending down and speaking softly, but not trying to touch the animal. She produced a piece of toast from her pocket, which was accepted warily.

    ‘Mirren, for goodness’ sake, your pocket will be full of crumbs,’ Jenna scolded with transferred distress, but her daughter paid no attention, still talking to the dog.

    ‘You’ll be all right, Moss, till I come back. I promise.’ Now she did look at her mother, her expression fierce. ‘You won’t let him do anything to Moss if I go out for a walk, will you?’

    ‘Of course not.’ There wasn’t the faintest chance of anyone stopping Niall if he made up his mind in a fit of vindictiveness, but saying that wouldn’t help. If the worst came to the worst, she’d just have to cope with Mirren’s reaction when she heard. It would be a considerable relief when, one way or another, it was all over.

    More or less satisfied, Mirren left and Jenna went back inside. Today she was decorating the new flat. She always enjoyed decorating; the instant transformation which paint brought about was all but magical. There wasn’t much else in her life to encourage her belief that a better future – her only hope for herself and Mirren – might actually be possible, that the day would come when all the sacrifices would have been worth it, when she could concentrate on her daughter and make up for all the neglect and indeed, she reflected uncomfortably with their most recent conversation in mind, the lies of the past. She sorted out the paint, trays and rollers she would need with pleasurable anticipation.

    When the doorbell rang, Jenna was up a ladder, reaching awkwardly over her head with a roller to paint a ceiling. She swore, then set the roller back in the tray and climbed down, easing her aching shoulder. Her face and hair must be covered with flecks of white paint but it hardly mattered, since it was most probably the police.

    It wasn’t. It was a tall, heavily built young man whom she recognized, after a moment, as Rab McLeish, who had come before and made a laughable offer for the flat.

    ‘Yes?’ she said, without enthusiasm.

    He ducked his head in greeting. ‘I was hearing you’d been having a wee bit of trouble,’ he said, indicating the lurid message along the side of the house.

    Jenna’s eyes narrowed. ‘As you see.’

    ‘I was just thinking, it’s maybe going to be a bit of a problem for you, selling the flat, when there’s people not happy about it. It’d fairly put off any buyers from outside, thinking they might get their windows broken next.’ He was visibly nervous; he put his hand up to his mouth before he went on, ‘I was thinking, you see, I could maybe do us both a bit of a favour. I know you were looking for a better price than I offered, but I could see my way to upping it a bit.’

    It was blatant. The nerve of the man! Jenna couldn’t decide whether that was more astonishing, or his naivety. She could actually see a little smudge of red paint on the side of his hand. Oh, she was going to enjoy the phone call she’d make to the police when he was off her doorstep, but she wasn’t stupid.

    ‘Well, I’d like to discuss it with you, of course,’ she said sweetly. ‘But I’m afraid my husband wouldn’t hear of it. He’s phoned the police and I’m sure they’ll see to it that this sort of thing doesn’t happen again. Sorry.’

    As she shut the door and saw the look of black rage which crossed the young man’s face, she congratulated herself on the wisdom of not telling him precisely what he could do with his miserable offer.

Findlay hadn’t been meant to start work until next week. After all, Susie had taken time off to get the house straight and it wasn’t as if there wasn’t plenty that needed doing: unpacking boxes, moving furniture, replacing curtains – since there was of course no way she was going to live with the second-hand rubbish Marjory Fleming had hung at the windows.

    But when Susie woke, there was no sign of Findlay. Going downstairs to make breakfast for herself and Josh, she found a half-empty mug of tea with a cold film on top; he must have gone out hours before.

    While Josh ate the Sugar Puffs he had negotiated as compensation for the porridge he’d had to eat at his grandmother’s, Susie went outside, shading her eyes against the watery sun and looking round for her husband.

    Outside the farmhouse, Marjory Fleming was getting into her car. She raised a hand in greeting but Susie pretended not to see, swinging round to scan the fields.

    She saw him almost immediately, just below, standing by a dry-stone dyke with a stone in his hand. He bent forward to tuck it into a gap, then stood back to assess its effect, dusting his hands. Satisfied, he turned away and plodded up the field in her direction, his head down.

    ‘Findlay!’ she called, making the name an accusation, and he looked up.

    ‘Oh – I’m just coming in for some breakfast.’

    She’d have liked to say, ‘Are you, indeed? And who do you think’s going to make it for you?’ but she wasn’t going to give Marjory the satisfaction of seeing them brawling on the doorstep. Susie walked back into the house, poured herself a mug of tea and sat down beside Josh. There was no place set for Findlay.