Lying Dead (38 page)

    ‘I don’t feel well. Do it yourself.’

    The tic at the side of his eye was flickering again. He sat down at the table. ‘Look, Kim, you’d better pull yourself together. I don’t want to get caught up in all this and the sooner we’re back in Glasgow the better.

    ‘And if I were you, I’d stop all this nonsense about Niall. Everyone’s having a laugh at the fool you’re making of yourself.’

    ‘You don’t care about that. You want to get away because you can’t face meeting people knowing that they’re all laughing at
you
.’

    He went white about the mouth. ‘Don’t – don’t
dare
say that to me.’ He got up, then leaned forward over the back of her chair to speak, very quietly, into her ear.

    ‘I’m packing up to leave now. Come or don’t come. I don’t care. I’ve had enough of all this. You and Kelly have just gone too far. It can’t go on like this, Kim.’

    Gaping, she watched him leave. Jason, eyes closed, was still oblivious. Gary, too long ignored, started to cry in earnest.

    ‘Oh, shut up, Gary!’ she yelled suddenly. ‘Shut up, or I’ll slap you so hard your head will fall off.’

    The child stopped on an indrawn breath, his mouth a wide ‘O’ of shock. Silence fell, and Kim put her head down on the table and began to cry again.

Fleming kept the briefing meeting short and to the point. The first objective, she explained, was to build a picture of Murdoch’s movements on the day he was killed, concentrating particularly after seven o’clock. There would be a search of the house, and they needed to talk to his closest associates. She touched on the man’s reputation, but when Wilson asked if there was a connection to Davina Watt’s murder, refused to be drawn.

    ‘The position at the moment is that Ingles has been charged with her murder, though I understand the Fiscal won’t be proceeding to indictment as yet. It won’t do any harm to find out who knew Watt as well, but don’t let that cloud your thinking. There are other players who are in the frame for Murdoch’s killing who have no link to her – like Rab McLeish, for instance, who’s been charged already with vandalism to the Murdochs’ property.’

    That produced the only surprise of the meeting. ‘Rab McLeish?’ Jon Kingsley said. ‘I think there was a McLeish who was a barman at the old Yacht Club – is this the same man?’

    That was interesting. ‘This one’s a lorry driver. But we’ll find out – it’s not that common a name.’

    ‘I can take that on,’ MacNee volunteered. ‘I’m to see Mrs Aitcheson this morning – she’ll know. And I could pick off the Laffertys at the same time, and interview Adrian McConnell.’

    ‘Good. That’s it, then, everyone. Sergeant Naismith has your details. There’s an incident room being set up in the Yacht Club for interviews – Wilson and Macdonald, I want you based there. One of you keep an eye on the house search and I’d like the other to focus on Murdoch’s movements. And keep in mind that he could have been attacked by someone arriving in a boat. Allan, you’re i/c the office end here.’

    Allan looked less than happy, but said nothing. He was keeping a low profile these days.

    As the officers started drifting out, Fleming stopped beside Kingsley. ‘Jon, I said I’d send you to Drumbreck but I’ve something I want you to do instead.’ She thought he looked a little put out at the idea of being removed from the centre of the action, but she paid no attention. ‘I want to catch Tansy too – oh, there you are, Tansy. I’m heading back to my office. I’ll explain as we go.

    ‘I’ve got an awkward personal situation and I want it handled as tactfully as possible,’ she said as they walked from the briefing-room on the first floor towards the stairs.

    ‘So why pick on us?’ Kingsley said, half-joking, whole earnest.

    She turned to give him a frigid stare. He coloured, and mumbled, ‘Sorry, ma’am.’

    ‘Speak like that to me again and I promise you, you will be,’ she said, irritated that his mood of humble penitence had disappeared quite so soon. She outlined the situation at Mains of Craigie and went on, ‘You may remember he’s on a charge already for attacking Murdoch.’

    ‘The sheepdog trials.’ Kerr nodded.

    ‘That’s right. So we have to take this one seriously. But I’d be grateful if you could be as discreet as possible about where the tip-off came from.’ Fleming pulled a face. ‘Oh, I know, they’ll work it out. She will, if he doesn’t. But it’s just something I have to live with.’

    ‘We’ll do our best,’ Kerr promised, and Kingsley asked, ‘Any known connection with Davina Watt?’

    ‘No reason why he should have.’ Fleming shrugged. ‘But you know what it’s like in Galloway – it’ll turn out she went to school with his sister or one of his wife’s cousins, usual thing.

    ‘Anyway, if you want to make me happy, find that he’s got an alibi, preferably from the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, and that the dog ran away and by some wonderful instinct knew his master had moved to Mains of Craigie and came to find him, meantime having dyed his nose black because he fancied a makeover.’

    ‘What would it be worth to find it was a conspiracy between the two of them and arrest them both?’ Kerr suggested. ‘That would get them out of your hair.’

    ‘Don’t tempt me,’ Fleming said darkly. ‘Thanks, anyway. See how you get on.’

    They were standing by the staircase and Kingsley and Kerr were just setting off down it when PC Langlands appeared coming up, with papers in his hand.

    ‘I was just bringing this for you, boss,’ he called when he saw her. ‘They’ve found the hired car. Burned out, up a track in the forest.’

    Kingsley and Kerr stopped to listen. ‘How badly?’ Fleming asked, taking the report from him as he reached her and frowning over it.

    ‘Totally.’ Langlands leaned over to point out the paragraph. ‘Fuel tank exploded, of course.’

    ‘Won’t be able to get much off it, will they?’ Kerr asked, and Kingsley shook his head. ‘Heat of a petrol blaze like that – wouldn’t find anything with fatty traces like fingerprints or DNA. Pity, that.’

    ‘They’re taking it in for examination this morning,’ Langlands added.

    ‘We’ll probably need to organize a fingertip search of the area round about at some stage, but that’ll have to wait until we’ve tidied up at Drumbreck and can spare the manpower. I’m sure they’ll have secured the site properly, but perhaps you could check that for me, Sandy. OK?’

    Langlands, enthusiastic as ever, agreed and departed, with Kingsley and Kerr following him down. Fleming went on upstairs to her office.

    It was a blow that there was so little likelihood of getting evidence from the car. Yet again, whoever was behind this had made sure there would be no evidence to tell tales.

    Rab McLeish’s connection with Davina was certainly interesting. He had, after all, the most obvious motive to kill Murdoch; could he, somehow, have been involved in the robbery? She remembered suddenly that the barman had normally had the safe keys in his possession and nothing could be simpler than having spares cut. Could there have been some arrangement between him and Davina? If Ingles had been wrongly accused, if Davina had come back to get money out of McLeish by threatening to expose his part in it—

    But Mrs Aitcheson had caught Ingles in the act. That hare wouldn’t run.

Doing all right for themselves, the Laffertys, MacNee reflected as he stood between the fluted pillars which flanked the glossy black front door of Beach House.

    He was expecting Euphemia Aitcheson, as the hired help, to open it in answer to the peal of the brass doorbell, so it was a shock to be confronted with someone who looked as if she might be able to come up with quite a number of uses for a feather duster, but cleaning surfaces was unlikely to be among them.

    Gina Lafferty was, quite simply, a smasher. Tall, legs up to her armpits, dark glossy hair, eyes like an Italian film star, full lips, and below that – well, MacNee, struggling to keep his cool, decided it was wiser not to go there.

    He had just produced his warrant card when a voice, from somewhere around the woman’s shoulder, rasped, ‘You’d better come in. Sooner you’re in, sooner you’re out again.’

    Somehow he hadn’t noticed Lafferty. His first thought was that she couldn’t have kissed him yet – either that, or this wasn’t a spell that could be so easily broken. Lafferty even moved like a toad, waddling squatly away without looking to see if MacNee was following him.

    Gina favoured him with a smile of such high wattage that he blinked. ‘Come in, sergeant. We’ll be happy to give any help we can. Such a terrible tragedy – everyone is absolutely devastated.’

    He could hear the sound of hoovering from somewhere at the back of the house. As he followed Gina across the parquet floor of the hall, with its impressive staircase rising between carved pillars at the foot, the Mrs Merton question – ‘And tell me, what first attracted you to millionaire Ronnie Lafferty?’ – could not help but come to mind. Wonderful the things you could buy these days!

    Lafferty had taken up his position in front of a white marble fireplace. Whoever built this house had been pretty keen on pillars; they featured here too, providing an unlikely setting for the present occupant. It was the sort of room that made you feel the real owners might come back at any time and throw the peasants back where they belonged.

    ‘Get on with it, then. What do you want to know?’ As Lafferty spoke, Gina went across to stand beside him.

    ‘Perhaps it might be better to speak to you separately?’ MacNee suggested.

    Lafferty put his arm possessively round his wife’s waist. ‘We’ve no secrets, do we, babe?’

    MacNee thought that under the expertly applied make-up she had flushed a little, but she only waited with a look of polite inquiry.

    ‘Your movements yesterday – where were you, from seven p.m. on?’

    ‘Quite simple – here. We were together, all the time. That do you?’

    ‘You can confirm that, Mrs Lafferty?’

    ‘Of course.’

    She sounded quite confident when she said it; this didn’t seem to be a problem area. He’d have to needle her a bit. ‘And your relationship with Mr Murdoch—?’

    ‘Perfectly civil,’ Lafferty answered before she could open her mouth. ‘He was my business partner. We didn’t have a lot to do with the Murdochs socially.’

    He needn’t think he was getting away with that. ‘I was asking your wife.’

    ‘As my husband says. I never had any problem with Niall.’ She didn’t sound so comfortable now.

    ‘No one said you did. In fact, just the opposite. They’re saying you and he were having an affair.’

    She gasped at his directness and her cheeks flared. ‘I – that’s—’

    Oh, she definitely didn’t like that, but Lafferty leaped in. ‘You’d better have proof, sergeant, if I’m not to put in a complaint about you insulting my wife. And you don’t, do you? All you’ve got is gossip from a set of poisonous old bitches.

    ‘Take a look at my wife. They’re jealous as cats. Nothing they’d like better than to cause trouble for her.’

    ‘Maybe.’ So he’d known what was going on, then: that was something MacNee had come to find out. ‘And would you say the same about the violent row you were reported as having with your partner in the Yacht Club last week?’

    Somehow he’d known to expect that too. ‘This’ll maybe come as a shock to you,’ he drawled sarcastically, ‘but I’ve been known to lose my temper. Niall and me – we’ve had the odd stramash over business, but it blows over.’

    ‘What was the stramash about this time?’

    ‘Taken an unauthorized loan out of the business. Borrowed five K to buy a sheepdog – what got into him, God only knows. Turned out to be a dud too.

    ‘But he was going to be able to pay it back at the weekend. So if you’re suggesting I bumped him off because he was owing me money, I’d have been a fool to myself if I’d done it just before he delivered, wouldn’t I?’

    ‘You believed him?’

    Lafferty paused. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I did, for some reason.’ He sounded almost surprised; it was, MacNee reckoned, the first uncalculated response he had got.

    ‘Where was it going to come from?’

    ‘God knows.’ Lafferty had lost interest. ‘Look, five K’s pocket money, as far as I’m concerned. And I’ve told you, we were here together all night, so whether or not I had a row with my partner isn’t really relevant, is it? Unless you’re suggesting my wife and I are both lying?’ He stuck out his chin as if inviting a punch.

    ‘I’ve heard what you said, sir. Thanks for your time.’ MacNee turned to go and saw an easing of tension in their postures. ‘I’d like a word with Mrs Aitcheson now. She’s in cleaning, is that right?’

    He saw alarm in Gina’s eyes. ‘Oh, I don’t think—’ she began, and MacNee saw Lafferty’s free hand go across to grab her arm, so tightly that his fingers made indents.

    ‘That’s all right. Help yourself.’

    ‘Thanks.’ MacNee went to the door and opened it, then turned round. ‘How’s Paddy Riley these days? I gather he’s a big chum of yours in Glasgow.’

    Paddy Riley was to organized crime in Glasgow what Alex Ferguson was to Manchester United. MacNee had the satisfaction of seeing Lafferty’s mouth open and shut, as if at any moment a croak might emerge. He closed the door gently without waiting for a reply.