Snare (19 page)

By Wednesday morning rain had been falling for sixty hours, but Sgoradale was fortunate; with the deep cut of the river to carry off storm water there were no floods, although the river itself was an awesome sight. When the rain stopped, around eleven o'clock, it was possible to hear through the thunder of the torrent the muffled rumbling of boulders being carried down the bed. Miss Pink, looking at the amber rapids from Feartag's sitting room, swore that she could feel the house vibrating.

‘It does,' Beatrice said, it's built on rock, so the vibrations can be felt quite distinctly. It worried the police too, and it wasn't so bad yesterday morning. Wasn't it odd that they should want to see Robert's guns?'

‘I don't know what was in their minds. The autopsy didn't turn up a bullet wound. I noticed a difference in Pagan's manner when he came to me yesterday: almost conspiratorial, as if he suspected I was considering Hamish as the killer although I wasn't yet ready to admit it openly.'

‘I don't know.' Beatrice spoke as if she'd been giving the matter a lot of thought, ‘I'm sure he'll turn up. His nerve broke and he ran away.'

That's what Flora says, but he ran away before the body was found.'

‘But not before Campbell was murdered, if the body had been in the water for longer than a day.'

‘So you have come round to thinking that Hamish was responsible. It's as well you haven't given any interviews to the Press. Do you think I might have another cup of coffee?'

‘There's no milk. Come to the shop with me; I'm still very wary of the reporters. You can deal with them.'

Overnight the gale had moderated and by the time they turned into the street the wind had died to a zephyr and there were splashes of sunshine on the water. A little East Coast fishing boat was coming up the loch on the tide.

‘Where's she been?' Miss Pink asked. ‘She was never fishing in those gales.'

‘She could have put in for shelter to some remote cove and the crew have eaten all their stores. Or maybe they have some fish they caught before the gale and need to get it to market.'

She was wrong. The first inkling they had of anything untoward was when they realised that the street was empty but the quay was a jumble of cars. ‘There're a lot of people in front of the hotel,' Miss Pink said. ‘What can they be doing?' The fishing boat had slowed down and was coming round to the quay. ‘Those people have to be the Press,' she continued. ‘So there's another story, and it must be connected with the boat. Could they have picked up someone who was in trouble?'

‘There was nothing on the radio.'

They were standing on the turf in the vicinity of the police house and now Joan Knox emerged from her drive and crossed the road towards them. Her hair was uncombed, she wore a shabby brown dress and bedroom slippers. She looked at them bleakly, not returning their greeting.

‘What's happening, Mrs Knox?' Beatrice asked.

‘They're bringing in a body.'

‘How do you know?'

She looked across the water and only her lips moved. ‘The captain radioed ashore.'

‘Where's Mr Knox?'

‘With the others on the quay. Waiting.' Beatrice looked from her to Miss Pink, then everyone stared across the loch, two of them refusing to speculate because they felt that Joan Knox had known all along that her son would not return of his own accord nor with the police, but in some fashion like this: coming in with the tide and caught up in a fishing net.

* * *

‘How would I know?' Rose Millar said. ‘All I know was the shop was full of people and suddenly they were all gone. A body? It's not unusual after a big blow.' But she licked her lips and her eyes were uneasy.

‘Mrs Knox seems to think it's Hamish,' Beatrice said.

Rose was very still. ‘Why would she think that?'

‘The captain of the boat could have said it was a boy's body.'

‘Well, he could have.' Her restless hands aligned and realigned magazines on the counter. ‘We shall know soon enough. Why should it be him?' A door slammed at the rear of the building and she moved towards the living quarters so fast that she knocked some tins off a shelf.

‘That must have been someone going out,' Beatrice said. After a few moments they heard Alec protesting loudly, his voice punctuated by urgent muttering. ‘They can't hurt him,' he was saying. ‘I won't let them ... that was him on a
horse!
Cars aren't the same; I'll keep him on the lead. He's got to have his walk ... How can you? You got the shop to mind, and Dad's down there anyway ... I always walk him at – what're you doing?' This was a rising wail. ‘I don't care about them; you can't keep me a prisoner –'

Rose showed for a moment, struggling with a door-stop, then the inner door slammed on herself and Alec, if not the sound of his voice. The shop-bell rang and Esme walked in. ‘Good morning.' She smiled grimly. ‘Have you heard?'

‘Is it anyone we know?' Beatrice asked delicately.

‘I didn't hang around, but rumour says it's a boy's body.' With one accord they stared through the shop window. The East Coaster was now alongside the quay.

‘How's Joan taking it? I saw you talking to her.' Getting no response, Esme gestured towards the back of the shop. ‘Why's that door shut – and who's that shouting?'

‘She won't let Alec out,' Beatrice said.

‘Well, she wouldn't, would she?'

A telephone was ringing in the house. It stopped and after a moment or two, the door to the living quarters opened gently and Alec eased into the shop, carrying the puppy. He lifted the flap in the counter only to find his way blocked by Miss Pink. Behind him Rose appeared, flustered and fierce. ‘He's not to go out,' she said quickly. ‘He's not well.'

‘You must stay in this morning, Alec,' Beatrice said pleasantly, ‘because we don't want you talking to the people from the newspapers.'

‘Why not?' He was sweating and he didn't look all that fit. His mother had hold of his arm, but she couldn't draw him behind the counter. The puppy whined and struggled. Beatrice looked at Miss Pink, who said, ‘Because the reporters are clever and they may print things you didn't say.'

‘I'll sue them.'

‘Oh, great,' Esme exclaimed.

‘You can't.' Miss Pink was equable. ‘You could if you were poor, because then the lawyer's free; in your position the bill has to be paid by your mother. Has she got several thousand pounds to give you?'

‘No.' He was dumbfounded. ‘She hasn't got hundreds. Oh dear, what do I do then?'

‘There's no problem; let's go in and talk about it ...' She had turned him round and was edging him through the doorway as she talked. None of the others followed. He stepped into a cosy little parlour and asked her to sit down. ‘Now tell me what's on your mind,' he said.

* * *

‘It took the wind out of my sails,' she told

Beatrice when they were outside the shop again. ‘The words, the intonation were a perfect mimicry of someone: wise, kind, compassionate. After that he was a child again. He didn't know what “sue” meant any more than he would know the motive behind a reporter's questions. He'd tell them every detail of his confrontation with Hamish: the poodle's being run down, the bowl hurled out of the window. He'd probably say he meant to kill Hamish.'

‘I wonder if the police have interviewed him.' Beatrice looked across the water. ‘People are moving; we'd better make tracks for home. You'll stay for lunch?'

‘Beatrice, you're too calm. We have to find out who it is.'

‘You go then; I don't want to know.'

Miss Pink stumped down the road to her car and drove to the quay. When she reached it she got out and closed the door quietly so as not to alert the people in the crowd. She could distinguish Duncan Millar, old Sinclair and Butchart from the hotel. The media men were at the front and facing them were two uniformed policemen.

She skirted the people to a point which brought her astern of the boat, with no one blocking her view. For a minute or two she saw nothing remarkable, although she could hear the click of cameras and the watchers were obviously focusing on something. Then, on the boat, two men stood up – Pagan and Steer – and conferred as they looked downwards, absorbed in some object at their feet. Pagan gave an order and several men in plain clothes went aboard. The body, wrapped in tarpaulin, was lifted ashore and carried to a trailer. The police had brought in a Mobile Incident Unit. There was a general movement towards it, the detectives and the cortège followed by the Press, Miss Pink to one side.

When he reached the steps of the trailer, Pagan stopped and turned. Reporters pushed forward. Miss Pink caught his eye and saw him frown as if puzzled by her presence, but he turned back to the reporters and the cameras and said calmly, ‘The body is that of a local boy, and he's been identified as Hamish Knox. He disappeared from home on Sunday night, but it was thought that he'd left the area –'

‘How did he die?'

‘Are there signs of foul play?'

‘Is there a connection between this death and Campbell's?'

‘How old was he?'

‘Where is Knox?'

He held up his hand. ‘Now you know,' he chided them, ‘that I can't answer any questions regarding his death until after the autopsy, and as for a connection between this and Campbell's death, we'll be considering that possibility of course. The boy was sixteen; as for his father, I would expect you to cooperate here (“as I with you” was the tacit corollary) and respect the privacy of the bereaved parents.' He caught Miss Pink's eye again, nodded towards the interior of the trailer and went inside. Other men in plain clothes emerged to watch the crowd disperse. Miss Pink mounted the steps of the trailer.

The bundle lay on the floor. Pagan said grimly, ‘Well, here's a pretty kettle of fish, and no mistake.' He lifted a corner of the tarpaulin and she saw features with a familiar cast, although she wouldn't have said immediately that this was Hamish Knox because she was confused by the condition of the face. She had flinched when she saw Pagan's intention, anticipating some horror similar to Campbell's head, but the same forces had not been at work here.

The face was dark where she would have expected it to be blanched, and the skin of the forehead was rubbed, giving it the appearance of scuffed leather. The lips had a blue cast, and when she looked closer she saw that the whites of the open eyes were speckled with little dark spots. She was so astonished by this that she could only stare at Pagan.

‘What do you think?' he asked.

‘Those flecks in the eyes – and the blue lips – can it be asphyxia?'

‘Good.' He was like a professor commenting on a student's progress. Behind him two strange men were studying papers, ostentatiously not listening. Pagan seemed to be waiting.

‘He was murdered?' she asked quietly.

‘We mustn't jump to conclusions.'

She wanted to shake him, but as his words sank in she saw that there was a technical problem and she responded with interest. ‘Asphyxia by accident?' she wondered. ‘You mean he could have choked – or drowned? Do you get those flecks in drowning? What are they called? It's like pistachio.'

‘Petechial haemorrhages. I think we can turn him over since he's been tumbled about by the sea for quite a while. Give us a hand here.'

He peeled back the tarpaulin and, aided by the two junior men, eased the body on to its face. It was painfully slight; she hadn't realised what a small boy Hamish was – most obvious now because, although wearing jeans and trainers, the upper part of the trunk was bare. The waist above the shrunken cinch of the jeans was reddened with a kind of blush, but the shoulders would have been white – were still white where they weren't marked with the same kind of abrasions as those on the forehead. There were similar marks on the elbows. The body had the appearance of having been partially scrubbed with a wire brush.

Pagan felt delicately in the damp hair, looked at his fingers and straightened up.

‘Slight fracture there,' he said. ‘You see the abrasions, ma'am?'

‘The body was carried along the bottom? That's the effect of sand and rocks, after he went in the water?'

He raised his eyebrows and gestured to the dark lumbar region below the pale shoulder blades.

‘
Post mortem
staining,' she said, knowing exactly what it portended, knowing as he held her eye what he would say, and he said it: ‘
Post mortem
staining. The body was kept somewhere before it was put in the water. We've got a double murderer on our hands. I'm going to see Knox now; he's in the hotel with Steer, away from the Press. I need more information about this boy and somehow I don't think the father's got anything else to tell me. And the mother? Is she alone now, I wonder?'

‘Miss Swan was going to ask Mary MacLeod to be with her.'

‘I'm worried about tonight, about people who live on their own who may have seen something they shouldn't – like Campbell did.'

‘You're sure of that? What kind of crime would be worth murdering two people for?'

‘Another – old – murder? You could go on for ever. And then this place has access to foreign ports. It could be drugs, although they don't come so far north usually; Cardigan Bay is good enough for the drugs runners.

Poaching? Surely not. I've no idea why these two were killed, but I'm worried. Killing gets progressively easy. Our man's not mad, not so's you'd notice, but he's unhinged. And think of all the people living alone in this place without even a dog to bark at an intruder. You might spread the word around – impress on them that they ought to get home before dark this evening, and secure all their doors and windows. And that goes for you too, ma'am.'