Lying Dead (45 page)

    A movement outside the window caught her eye and she saw someone crossing the yard to the back door. ‘Oh dear,’ Marjory said with a sinking heart. ‘Susie Stevenson. I don’t think I’m off duty yet.’

    There was a loud ‘rat-tat-tat-tat’. Bill half rose. ‘I’ll go – try and get rid of her,’ he offered, but Marjory shook her head.

    ‘I might as well get it over with. I can’t avoid her permanently. I won’t close the door – you can come and help talk her down if necessary.’

    The back door was next the kitchen, off the corridor leading to the mud-room; as she turned its handle, there was another furious ‘rat-tat-tat’. She pulled it open.

    Marjory was totally unprepared for physical attack. Without any sort of warning, Susie launched herself at her, punching and pummelling. ‘Bitch! Bitch!’ She was screaming. ‘You did this! You did this, to spite me! You’ll rot in hell!’

    Marjory had the height advantage but Susie wasn’t a small woman and she was stockily built. Marjory craned backwards to keep her face out of reach, and losing her balance under the onslaught, fell back against the wall. She felt nails rake her face and then a fist catch her eye. She was grappling with the woman now, trying to catch at her hands, but Susie seemed possessed.

    Then Bill had reached her and had his arms round Susie, imprisoning her arms and dragging her back, away from his wife. ‘Phone Findlay, Cat,’ he yelled over his shoulder. ‘Get him up here.’

    Meg was beside him, crouched low and growling, her lip curled up to show her teeth. Cat was gabbling frantically over the phone and Cammie rushed to help his mother up.

    Susie’s frenzy seemed to pass; she sagged into Bill’s arms, moaning, ‘Bill, oh Bill! See what your wife has made me do!’

    ‘No, I don’t think so, Susie,’ Bill said grimly, frogmarching her outside. ‘We’ll wait here till your husband comes. Marjory, are you all right?’

    ‘Yes, yes, I think so,’ Marjory said as Cat hurried over to help Cammie get her to her feet. He was pale with shock; Cat was crying.

    ‘Oh, Mummy, your face! I’m sorry for what I said – so sorry!’

    ‘Is it bad?’ Marjory gingerly felt her smarting cheek and her hand came away bloodstained. ‘Damn – that’ll show. But don’t worry, Cat love, it’s superficial.’ She fetched a wodge of kitchen towel and went over to the sink, wetting it and dabbing at her face. ‘Ow!’

    ‘You’re going to have a black eye too,’ Cammie said, speaking as one who knew. ‘Maybe you should put something cold on it.’

    ‘I’ll get some frozen peas.’ Cat, grateful to have something to do, fetched a pack from the freezer just as Findlay came running across the yard.

    He looked panic-stricken, seeing his wife drooping in Bill’s grasp. ‘What’s she done? She was in a terrible mood – I couldn’t stop her coming—’

    ‘She’s made a pretty fair mess of my wife’s face.’ Bill did not hide his anger. ‘Take a hold of her, Fin, and remove her before I hit her myself. You might be as well to take her to hospital. She must be having a breakdown – or if she isn’t, she’s going to be answering a charge of assault.’

    Marjory came out of the kitchen, the pack of peas pressed to her swelling eye, and saw Findlay’s pale face turn almost green at the sight of her. ‘Oh God, Marjory, how awful! I – I don’t know what to say.’

    ‘Fin, I’d rather not take this further. You’re both in enough trouble without me adding to it. Just keep her away from me, all right?’

    ‘That’s very generous of you—’ he began, but Susie interrupted. ‘That’s not generous. She’s enjoying this! Well, here’s what I think of your
charity
!’ She lunged out of Fin’s grasp and spat at Marjory, but Bill had grabbed her again so that she didn’t reach her target.

    ‘Get – her – out. Now!’ he said. ‘I don’t care where you go or what you do, but I want her off the farm tonight. You can’t guarantee to restrain her, Fin.’

    ‘You can’t throw us out tonight,’ she smirked triumphantly. ‘There’s Josh – you can’t leave a poor little boy all on his own without his mummy or daddy.’

    ‘Cat and Cammie will babysit till you get back, Fin. Sleep there if necessary,’ Bill said, and the children, beside their mother in the doorway, nodded.

    ‘He’ll be fine. He knows us – don’t worry,’ Cat said reassuringly.

    ‘You’re a good, kind girl,’ Susie said approvingly. ‘Can’t think where you get it from.’ She shot a sidelong, malicious look at Marjory.

    Cat flushed. ‘My mother, probably. She’s put up with you, hasn’t she?’

    ‘Cat—’ Marjory said warningly, but Cat said, ‘I know. I’m just going. Oh, Mum—’

    She kissed her very gently on the uninjured cheek and she and Cammie went off down to the cottage as Fin half-dragged Susie to the car, while she protested that he wasn’t to hold her arm so tightly. ‘You’re on their side, you bastard!’ she was shouting as he forced her into the passenger seat.

    It suddenly seemed very quiet. Bill shut the door.

    ‘Dear God!’ he said. ‘Did you see that woman’s eyes? She’s flipped, or else she’s on something. Are you all right?’

    Marjory realized her legs were like rubber. She staggered into the kitchen and collapsed on to a chair. Meg, who had been hovering anxiously, came trotting over to push her nose into Marjory’s hand.

    ‘Yes, Meggie, yes. I’m all right, at least I think I am. I haven’t looked in a mirror yet.’

    ‘You’ll need a whisky before you do.’ Bill disappeared to fetch it from the sitting-room.

    Marjory prodded her bruised ribs experimentally, wincing, then touched her face again. There was a cut at the side of her mouth too, but nothing serious. She’d have some explaining to do tomorrow, though. And she’d said she wouldn’t report it, but in fact, now she thought about it—

    ‘Get that down you,’ Bill said. He took her face between his hands and kissed the other corner of her injured mouth very tenderly. ‘Sorry. I feel responsible for this. I read that woman all wrong – I should never have landed you with her.’

    ‘Let’s not go there. But Bill, it’s all worse than you know. They think there may be evidence linking her with the murders. And I’ve been saying all along they weren’t a woman’s crimes because a woman wouldn’t inflict the sort of damage there was to Davina’s face.

    ‘But she’s done a pretty good job on me, hasn’t she?’

Chapter 22

‘Crivvens! Whatever’s happened to you, boss?’ the desk sergeant exclaimed as DI Fleming crossed the reception area at quarter-past eight on Saturday morning.

    ‘I haven’t decided yet,’ Fleming said cryptically as she headed for the stairs. Her face was very stiff and sore today; her eye was throbbing and the cut at the corner of her mouth made moving her lips uncomfortable. Two of the scratches on her face were just red lines now, but the two middle nails had bitten deeper and she had a couple of fine scabs forming which an extra layer of make-up couldn’t hide.

    She had only just reached her office when DC Kingsley appeared. ‘I just wanted to catch you before—’ Then, seeing her face, he stopped, gaping.

    ‘Yes, Jon?’ she said wearily. ‘It’s all right, nothing serious.’

    ‘Glad to hear it! What happened to the other fellow?’ he said flippantly, too absorbed in what he wanted to say to waste time on sympathy. He was looking pleased with himself.

    ‘It was Susie Stevenson I wanted to talk to you about. You’ll have seen my report? Well, I’d a chat with Laura Harvey last night about the case, and the psychological profile she suggested was a good fit for Susie.

    ‘The thing is, in this case we seem to be really stuck for hard evidence. If we can work out who did it we can focus—’

    ‘Jon, which part of the word “no” don’t you understand?’ Fleming hadn’t the energy to spare for patience this morning. ‘I’ve had to tell you this too many times – it’s all about evidence, however dreary and tedious that may seem to be, and then we go from that to the killer, not the other way around. I don’t like to rub this in, but arresting Ingles without proper evidence hasn’t exactly proved to be a triumph for you, has it?’

    He scowled, but she went on, ‘It’s still early days – we haven’t had detailed analysis from the lab in either case, and they’re not even going to do the autopsy on Murdoch until Monday. There’s the chance of DNA evidence—’

    He shrugged. ‘That might clear Ingles. But could we get a warrant to check other suspects?’

    That hit a nerve. ‘No,’ she said uncomfortably. ‘I don’t suppose we could. And I hear what you’re saying – that this could turn out one of those nightmare open cases where we know perfectly well who did it but we can’t nail them.

    ‘That’s a long way down the line, though. Thanks to the exodus from Drumbreck, asking questions is going to take longer, but there’s a list of the owners of moorings and they’re working through the local ones already. We’ll get round the holiday homes families in time, and something may come of that. There’s a lot more detailed questioning to be done before we even begin to narrow the field.’

    Kingsley wasn’t pleased. He’d obviously been hoping to bowl her over with his dynamic conclusions, but she wasn’t about to let herself be used as a stepladder for his ambitions. She dreaded the thought of him being earmarked for promotion and in a position to do even more damage to the team she had to manage.

    ‘Thanks, Jon.’ Fleming closed the conversation firmly, and as the door shut behind him, she sighed heavily.

    Kingsley was quite right that the chances of getting any warrant in connection with Susie were slim. Since the Human Rights Act, the sheriffs had become very strict about fishing expeditions. But if DNA evidence emerged, and Susie had been charged with assault, her DNA would be recorded right there in their own files.

    She knew all about the anger and frustration the police felt when a man got off because the woman he had beaten up refused to report it officially so that the police could press charges, especially when there were other crimes involved. And her own situation was very close to that.

    Fin had returned at midnight, having left Susie with her horrified parents. Her mother had given her sleeping pills, he said, and would take her to the doctor first thing. He himself, with Josh, was leaving next morning.

    Marjory had said she wouldn’t report Susie’s assault. But had she any alternative?

‘Here – have you an old Heilan’ granny who’s a spaewife?’ The phone call from Tam MacNee’s Glasgow contact came minutes after he arrived for work.

    ‘Not likely, Sheuggie. If my granny’d been able to see the future she’d surely not always have backed the horse that came in last.’

    ‘I went away round to that address you gave me last night, and here! Was there not an ambulance and a couple of cars there, and the wife going mental because her man had taken an overdose.’

    ‘Adrian McConnell?’ MacNee was astonished.

    ‘That’s him. Paracetamol – dirty stuff. We haven’t heard yet if he’s had his chips.’

    ‘Was there a note?’

    ‘Aye, there was. I’ll go in later and see if I can get to fax it through.’

    ‘Thanks, Sheuggie. I owe you one. Oh, and Lafferty – got anything on him yet?’

    ‘He’s been there and thereabouts for a few things, but we’ve nothing on him, as yet. I’ve put out a few feelers in that area to see if there’s any talk about a hit man. I’ll keep you in the loop. And the drinks are on you next time you’re in Glasgow.’

    MacNee’s mind was racing as he put down the phone. What did they know about the man? Not a lot, except that he’d a wife who was a drunk who’d been carrying on with Murdoch. Would that be enough to make you want to kill yourself – or was there rather more to it than that? He’d better pass this on to the boss immediately; she might even want him to head straight on up to Glasgow today.

    He was on his way out of the CID room as Kingsley came in, looking sullen. He didn’t stop to ask why.

    The sight of Fleming’s face stopped him in his tracks.

    ‘I know, I know!’ she said. ‘A parting gift from Susie Stevenson – didn’t like Findlay being arrested yesterday. Still, at least she’s left the farm.’

    ‘Good riddance.’

    ‘I know. But – am I going to report her, Tam? I sort of said I wouldn’t, with them being in so much trouble already—’

    ‘You’re kidding – at least I hope you are. Apart from anything else, she’s a suspect and this ties in with beating up Davina Watt.’

    ‘I know. But I loathe the woman so I feel I have to be particularly careful that it doesn’t become personal—’

    ‘Just because you loathe her doesn’t mean she’s innocent,’ he pointed out.

    ‘I suppose it doesn’t. And Jon’s right in saying we’d be struggling to get a warrant if the labs come up with DNA evidence, whereas if she’s been charged—’

    ‘Exactly. There you are. Jon’s putting his money on her now, is he?’

    ‘He’s desperate to impress the Super by getting there ahead of the rest of us, Tam. I’m trying to stop him making another big mistake, but it’s not easy.’

    ‘Why try? He can take what’s coming to him.

    ‘But wait till you hear this.’ MacNee told her of the latest development. ‘I’ll maybe need to go to Glasgow to interview him, if he pulls through,’ he finished.