The Third Sin (10 page)

MacNee snorted. ‘You think? Money, usually – that’s all.’

‘OK, but that’s often just part of it. The job’s hierarchical and breaking the rules is a way of putting up two fingers, and if it makes you a profit on the side too, well and good. And it could be just that Stewart wanted to be in on this Cyrenaic group and had to go along with it. It hinges on how much he knew about Kane’s suppliers.’

‘They’ll have toasted his toes about that during the internal
enquiry,’ MacNee said. ‘Can we get access to it?’

‘Not sure,’ Fleming said. ‘Legal problems with that, I suspect. We’ll just have to grill him ourselves – though he’s certainly given himself enough time to have his story absolutely straight.

‘Oh, there it is.’ She drove into The Albatross car park.

To Fleming’s disappointment they were taken not upstairs to the restaurant with its velvet drapes and nasty prints, but through to the private quarters at the back by a cleaner in a pink overall who was obviously bursting with curiosity.

Will Stewart was waiting for them in a pleasant sitting room with a view on to a small private courtyard, bright with pots of geraniums. He got up to shake hands, smiling affably, and said to the cleaner who was lingering in the doorway, ‘Thanks, Sandra – that’s OK.’ Reluctantly, Sandra withdrew.

‘Bit embarrassing, this,’ Stewart said, getting in first. ‘The classic bad apple, me, I’m afraid.’

‘Were you, Mr Stewart?’ Fleming said with some interest. ‘How bad?’

Stewart laughed easily. ‘Make it Will. Mr Stewart’s my brother. Oh, not rotten to the core. Just a few little bruises round the edges.’

‘How would you define “bruises”?’

‘Turning a blind eye, I suppose. Of course I knew about the drugs and you wouldn’t believe me if I said I didn’t indulge. Weed certainly, the odd line of coke, but the equivalent of social drinking if the laws in this country were halfway realistic.’

His manner was relaxed, almost chummy. ‘I’m not here to debate the law,’ Fleming said coldly. ‘Where did it come from?’

He gave her a sideways look. ‘Well now, do you think I wouldn’t have taken great care not to know? That kind of knowledge doesn’t do you any good, if you’re a cop. They start expecting awkward favours.’

That, Fleming thought, had the ring of truth, but MacNee said, ‘Worth it when it’s good money, though?’

‘You didn’t know Connell Kane, obviously. He wasn’t about to cut anyone in on his deals. All I can tell you is that he was Edinburgh based, so I assume that’s where it came from.’

Fleming felt, rather than saw, MacNee’s triumphant glance at this exoneration of his native city. That line of questioning wasn’t getting them anywhere and she changed tack.

‘Did you see Mr Kane at any time after his staged suicide?’

Stewart shook his head. ‘No. I was as astonished as anyone else when I heard about it.’

‘Did he tell you what he was planning to do?’

Again, he shook his head. ‘Kept his cards very close to his chest. None of us knew him, really, Inspector, except Julia – well, Randall too, I suppose. But it didn’t seem odd at the time that he should kill himself knowing he was responsible for the tragedy – he never had eyes for anyone except Julia.’

‘And the rest of you, Mr Stewart?’

‘Well – we were young and foolish, as the saying goes.’

‘Forty-three, you were,’ MacNee said flatly. ‘It’s on record.’

For the first time, Stewart seemed put out. Then he gave what was, Fleming had to admit, a very charming smile. ‘They say forty is the new thirty, though, don’t they? But I suppose I was just immature.’

Long experience had made her impervious. ‘However immature you might be, you must have realised that for a police officer to become involved in a group like the Cyrenaics was courting trouble?’

‘Mmm. But look at it this way. I was single, I had a job that kept me in a place that isn’t what you could call exciting. There was this group of fun people gathering in my brother’s pub – you expect me
just to go to bed early every night saying, “No, no, I can’t have a social life, I’m a police officer”?’

Fleming was quicker to recognise the red herring than MacNee, who had started to argue about what constituted a social life. She cut in before Stewart could respond. ‘You have a job in Canada now, I understand?’

‘That’s right.’

It was the shortest answer he’d given so far. ‘What do you do?’

He paused. ‘I don’t want my present employer being told that the police are asking questions so I’m afraid that without compulsion I won’t tell you.’

He was well within his rights and it wasn’t that important. ‘So when did you return?’

‘I arrived here last week. Friday. You can check it, if you like.’

They were getting nowhere, and MacNee was definitely becoming restive. ‘What on earth would you want to come back for? You’d been drummed out of the place, more or less.’

‘Not quite, Sergeant.’ Stewart sounded annoyed. ‘The police drummed me out, granted, but this was my home for forty-three years, my brother lives here and I have a lot of friends, some of whom will be here for this Homecoming party. Since I didn’t want to be exiled from Ballinbreck for the rest of my life, I thought it would be a good opportunity. All right?’

He’d answered what they asked him, apparently readily. Either he was truthful or he was a very good liar. Or – Fleming considered the possibility – they hadn’t been asking the right questions. After checking whether he had tipped off Randall Lindsay about their visit, and getting a look so blank that she had to believe it was genuine, she thanked him formally and then they left.

‘What did you make of him?’ she asked MacNee as she drove off.

‘Sleekit,’ MacNee said, using that useful Scottish word that means both smooth and sly.

‘Not just well prepared?’ Fleming said. ‘I think he’s clever, certainly. But I wouldn’t be sure it’s more than that.’

‘Sleekit,’ MacNee repeated firmly.

Biddy James glanced at her watch as she slowed down to turn into Eleanor Margrave’s gateway. Ten past four; she’d made very good time – she’d always driven rather too fast – and it had been a golden afternoon for the drive, the Solway scenery at its sparkling best. Perfect sketching weather.

She was looking forward to the weekend. Her circle of old friends was sadly diminished now and it was only really with Eleanor that she could go back to being young and silly again. Under the depressing weight of general expectation you found yourself compelled to be boringly sensible but she and Eleanor could still reduce each other to helpless fits of the giggles.

Young she might be at heart but the feeling didn’t extend to her rheumaticky legs. She unfolded herself painfully out of the car, holding on to it until she could reach her stick.

Eleanor’s front garden, shielded by a thick hedge, was impressive as usual, given the salt spray and the winds. Pale late narcissi and tulips, primulas and bluebells were all making a show under pink and red rhododendrons and on the wall of the old house a clematis was ready to burst into flower. Biddy paused to admire it, then rang the doorbell.

There was no answer. Eleanor usually had the door open by the time Biddy got out of the car but she was a little earlier than she’d said. She waited knowing that, like her own, Eleanor’s mobility wasn’t good, but after a moment or two she rang the bell again, for rather longer; maybe her hearing was becoming a problem too.

Still no reply. Eleanor’s car was there, so she couldn’t have dashed out for something she’d forgotten, say. She must be round the back,
though Biddy was puzzled. There wasn’t really a garden there, just a stretch of the riverbank where she sometimes hung out washing but Eleanor would hardly be doing that when she was expecting a guest. Leaning heavily on her stick she went round the corner of the house, negotiating the rougher terrain with some difficulty.

The tide was on the turn, with only a narrow strip of shore below the drying green. Eleanor wasn’t there either. Biddy’s heart skipped a beat. At their advanced age, it was bad news when a friend who was expecting your visit didn’t answer the door. Perhaps Eleanor had fallen, or … or worse.

She turned to go back to the house, intending to peer through the windows. Then a movement in the water caught her eye, a flutter of rags undulating moved on the waves. Rags, and a huddled – something.

Shaking and feeling sick, she hobbled over to the edge of the grass. ‘Eleanor!’ she cried, though she knew there would be no answer. Her friend’s face looked back at her from a tangle of seaweed, suffused and swollen, with bulging eyes that were glassy and staring. On the pull of the tide, the body drifted a little further out, then further still on the next retreating wave.

The word had spread rapidly round Dumfries CID that the lead they had been following had petered out. As DI Len Harris came in to take the afternoon briefing he could sense the discontented, almost rebellious mood, with even his most loyal supporters looking away as he came in.

He had spent years keeping them in check with bullying and threats; he reckoned they would still find it hard to take him on unless he gave them the opportunity by seeming weak.

Act it, become it. Harris swept confidently through them to stand before the whiteboard, beside the pictures of the car and the corpse, the blue fibre-pen notes and the arrows for action that now meant nothing. He seized a rag and wiped them all off.

‘We’ve achieved the first stage of the investigation,’ he said. ‘For those who don’t know, we’ve managed to eliminate the car seen in Annan from our enquiry. You did a good, thorough job around the area, lads – well done.

‘That frees us to go on to the next stage. Known previous associates – that’s the name of the game. I’ve instigated enquiries
already so the Galloway force have begun carrying them out on their patch.

‘As you know, the super in his wisdom has decreed that DI Fleming takes charge of this one, so we’re more or less hamstrung until she gets round to making decisions instead of mouthing off.’

They had been very silent. When Harris said that, he could feel a ripple of discontent. He went on hastily, ‘Of course, I have my own ideas. Hotels, B&Bs; I want them all checked. Show them the mugshot, get them in conversation. Remember Kane would be using a false name, remember there may be staff who are off duty. Don’t rush it this time – get them chatting. Questions?’

There were a couple, easily dealt with. Weston’s hand, waving at the back, he pretended not to see and swept out again. There was sweat on his forehead but he couldn’t risk getting out a handkerchief to wipe it until he was back in his office.

He hadn’t got far down the corridor when she came up behind him. ‘Sir …’

He didn’t stop. ‘Yes, Weston?’

‘The tracks, sir – the place the car went into the sea …’

Harris turned round. ‘I didn’t mention it, Weston, because it was utterly pointless. I checked it out, as I said I was going to, and they couldn’t have been made by a car. Did you study the tracks on the shore?’

‘I didn’t think there were any.’

‘You see, that’s the problem. The reason I can’t rely on you, Weston, is that you’re sloppy. When you looked at them properly it was clear it had been something like a quad bike with a trailer, going down on to the shore – to get seaweed for fertiliser, more than likely. The farmers do that all the time.

‘I’ve overlooked the insubordination but I’m seriously concerned about the lack of attention to detail. You’d better shape up or we’ll
have to consider whether you have a future in the Force.’

He swept on, leaving Weston gaping.

At the Kirkluce afternoon briefing the mood was more upbeat generally, though Hepburn was having a moan about her assignment.

‘Of all the wastes of a day! I’d no idea we had so many nutters around. There was actually a psychic offering her help; she’d had a vision of a man wringing his hands and wailing and he was telling her that his murderer’s name began with B. And there was another one from a B&B down near Manchester who claimed he’d been staying there last week. Tricky. And those were pretty much the best of them.’

‘Indeed. So – no uranium?’ Fleming asked.

‘Not a trace.’

She looked at Macdonald and Campbell. ‘You two? How did you get on with the background checks?’

‘They seem to have led a disappointingly blameless life,’ Macdonald said. ‘We trawled the records but no joy, apart from a speeding conviction for Randall Lindsay. Logie and Kendra Stewart, Jen Wilson – all here, doing the jobs we know about since Julia Margrave’s death, but we’ve no handle as yet on where Skye Falconer or Will Stewart might have been. We did turn up one interesting little piece of news, about Lindsay, though – I spoke to his boss in Paris and he’s left the bank. Wouldn’t say why – just said that the decision had been mutual. Sounded pretty tight-lipped about it, though.’

‘Ah!’ MacNee said with some satisfaction. ‘That’s not what he told us. I jaloused there was something there from the way he was twitching when it came up. Seemed surprised when he realised that it was Kane we were asking about, too.’

‘Fingers in the till, from the sound of it,’ Fleming said.

Hepburn was grinning. ‘Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. He’ll have to learn how the other half lives now.’

‘I’ve got an appointment with one of the senior executives at the headquarters in Edinburgh on Monday,’ Macdonald said. ‘I’ll check out Julia Margrave’s professional background as well.’

‘Excellent.’ Fleming said. ‘So you and Ewan—’

Campbell cleared his throat. ‘Er … not me.’

‘It’s your day off, isn’t it. But I think we could swing some overtime—’

‘It’s not that. I’ve an appointment. Medical.’

They all looked at him with concern. ‘I hope it’s nothing serious,’ Fleming said.

‘No. Back Tuesday, probably.’

MacNee, uninhibited by social convention, said, ‘What’s wrong, lad? Spit it out.’

Campbell went pink. ‘Just piles. OK, laugh.’

No one did. ‘Bad luck,’ Fleming said and passed on quickly. ‘Right, that will be you going with Andy on Monday, Louise. All right?’ They both looked at their feet, saying nothing.

‘There are one or two areas to follow up after our interviews this morning.’ She gave them the general details and went on, ‘We were both convinced that Skye Falconer was lying. I don’t know exactly what she’s lying about, or why, but we need to lean on her and find out.

‘We haven’t had any result from the searches along the shoreline. It was a long shot, but I had been hoping we might be lucky. DSI Taylor said he’d be putting a full team on it so they should have covered the ground – we certainly haven’t the manpower to check ourselves.

‘I’d have liked to go on with this over the weekend – ask a few questions round the village, try to tap into any gossip – but the super’s put her foot down about overtime. If the media focus shifts to us here she’ll have to, but for the moment she’s quite relaxed about leaving Dumfries to take the flak for lack of progress. That’s all I have for the moment. Questions?’

‘Why now?’ Campbell said.

‘What brought him back, you mean?’ Fleming said. It was, as usual, a good question. It had come up before but in organising the routines of investigation they hadn’t taken time to consider it.

‘Risky thing to do,’ Hepburn said. ‘He was known in the area and his photo had been in all the papers. He could have been spotted just going into a shop.’

‘So what was it that made him take that risk? Was he meeting someone?’ Macdonald said.

Hepburn picked up on that. ‘There was this Homecoming party. Maybe it was the focus – they’d all have gathered then. Does it mean we’re looking just at the people who came back for it – Randall Lindsay, Will Stewart, Skye Falconer?’

‘I don’t think so. It’s this weekend, isn’t it? He was actually killed well before. Could be that it was to prevent him meeting someone who was coming back.’

Hepburn was impressed. ‘That’s a fair point, Andy,’ she said.

Fleming watched with a quiet smile as they did the job she had picked them for – generating ideas. If they would just cut out the constant needling – and, of course, being cooped up in a car all day on Monday would probably bring out the worst in them both, but she wasn’t going to pander to their prejudices by sending Tam instead of Andy.

‘That’s food for thought,’ she said, when they had talked it out. ‘I’ll let you go. There won’t be a briefing on Monday morning. I’m going to have to go and talk to the Dumfries CID – get them a bit more directly involved doing interviews in the village since we can’t do that ourselves. Tam, I’ll want you to come with me.’

MacNee grinned. ‘Feart you’ll get a dagger in your back?’

‘You think you’re joking,’ Fleming said. ‘Anyway, have a good weekend, all of you. And good luck on Monday, Ewan.’

Campbell nodded glumly as they filed out.

Biddy James thought she was going to faint. Her head was spinning and her legs were trembling so that she thought they might collapse under her. But if she went down on uneven ground, how would she ever get up again? She mustn’t give way, she mustn’t, she mustn’t, for Eleanor’s sake as well as her own. Grasping her stick with both hands for support, she forced herself to take deep, calming breaths. ‘There’s nothing wrong with you except nerves,’ she told herself sternly, being of the generation that despised mental weakness.

The dizziness passed off and Biddy stumbled back to the car. Phone. She must phone the police. She had an awkward stretch into her car to reach her handbag, clutching at the roof for balance, then lowering herself to sit sideways on the driver’s seat while she scrabbled through it.

She persisted in having a smartphone, though her family kept telling her she should have one that had bigger numbers, more suited to clumsy old hands. She regretted scorning the advice now, when her hands were shaking so much, but she succeeded at last. But when she switched it on, there was no signal and now she remembered Eleanor had told her that.

What was she to do now? And every moment that was wasted, the dreadful, implacable waves were pulling Eleanor further and further out. Not that she would care, anyway, not now. Tears came to her eyes.

She banished them, blew her nose, wiped her eyes and considered the possibilities. There was a phone in the house and perhaps the door was unlocked. Awkwardly, she levered herself to her feet again and walked shakily over to the front door.

The handle didn’t yield. The back door, perhaps? But she quailed at the thought of negotiating the rough ground again, and then the steps that led up to it. At that moment a car passed along the road.

I’ll hail a car, Biddy thought, her heart lifting a little at the thought
of being able to pass the responsibility to someone else. She’d never played the age card before, had found herself bristling sometimes when well-meaning help was offered. She’d be glad enough to be considered old and frail now.

She walked to the gate. Another car passed just as she reached it but she didn’t have time to flag it down. Then the road was empty.

The minutes ticked by with agonising slowness. It seemed a long time before a car came along and the woman driver, seeing her wave, stopped and lowered the passenger window, smiling.

‘Want a lift, dear?’

Biddy was humiliated to find the tears starting again. ‘It’s my friend,’ she said. ‘I think she must have fallen in the river. She’s drowned. Oh please, please could you go round and see if you can stop her being swept away?’

‘Oh my goodness!’ She jumped out. ‘That’s awful! And you’re shaking – you need to sit down.’

Biddy indicated her own car and allowed herself to be helped back onto the driver’s seat. As the woman headed off towards the river, she leant her head sideways against the seat back and shut her eyes, thankful that at last there was someone to take charge. Bizarrely, she found herself drifting into sleep and woke with a start to find that the woman had returned and was wearing a puzzled expression.

‘Round the back, on the shore, did you say, dear? I can’t see anything there at all. Are you sure?’ She looked at Biddy doubtfully. ‘You didn’t just dream it, did you? Sometimes it’s so difficult to tell when you just wake up. Maybe your friend has just gone out …’

She had the sort of kindly, indulgent tone that people so often adopt as if being elderly were the same as being feeble-minded. Irritation stiffened Biddy’s resolve as nothing else could have.

‘Oh no, my dear,’ she said with a certain hauteur, pushing herself upright. ‘I do assure you she was there. The waves were already
dragging her away. We need to contact the police so they can get the coastguard out, but there’s no signal here.’

The woman still looked doubtful, but she said, ‘My house isn’t far away. I’ll take you there and call them. Now, if I took your arm do you think you could get up, dearie?’

Pride, and her hatred of being thought old and feeble, got Biddy out of her car and onto her feet before her rescuer had finished her sentence.

Will, with a bad grace, was setting up tables in the pub for the evening meal. There had been a bit of a row with Logie when he’d tried to get out of it; his brother was on edge – well, frankly, they all were – and their relationship hadn’t been that close to start with. Now, with Kendra all over Will like a rash, Logie was ready to pick a fight about anything except his wife’s relationship with his brother, being too afraid of what the outcome might be to open the subject.

Will was entirely with him on that, even if it did mean giving up his evenings to save his brother a waitress’s wages. It wouldn’t be for long, anyway. He hoped.

When his mobile rang he glanced at the number, not recognising it. ‘Hello?’

‘Will.’

A throaty voice, loaded with some sort of meaning, one he didn’t recognise. ‘Yes, speaking.’

‘It’s Philippa, Will.’ The voice held a hint of reproach.

His heart sank. ‘Philippa, goodness! Great to hear from you. How are things?’

‘Oh, all the better for your being around. The grapevine, you know? But why didn’t you let me know you were back for the party?’

‘It’s been a bit frantic since I arrived. The pub is busy – you should see me at the moment, setting up the tables. Never saw myself as a waiter, really. In fact, I should really be—’

She didn’t wait to let him make the excuse. ‘Oh, I know things must be tricky at that end. Kendra always talks as if you’re her personal property. But what about sneaking out later, just for a drink? Renew our … acquaintance?’ She gave a little laugh.

Oh God, what had he got himself into? ‘Philippa, nothing I’d like more but I couldn’t let Logie down.’

‘Tomorrow lunchtime, then?’ she persisted. ‘Remember that little place up near Gelston?’

Yes, he remembered it. All too clearly. It was part of that terrible madness that had somehow taken possession of them all two years ago, and he was paying for it now.