Carrion Comfort

by Aline Templeton

  It was the sound of someone moving about the house that woke Gabrielle next morning and she sat up with a gasp. It was oddly dark outside but the digital clock by her bedside was showing 11.38.

  She sat bolt upright, her heart racing, and there was panic in her voice as she called, ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘Only me, Gabrielle!’ her mother called. ‘Are you still in bed?’

  Gabrielle collapsed again, her mind still fuddled from the pills she had taken the night before. She’d slept soundly for once, perhaps because the rain that was drumming on the windows now had provided a lullaby as well as sparing her the relentless brutality of constant light. She’d locked up carefully last night but here was Lilian coming into her bedroom looking almost offensively bright and organised.

  ‘Oh dear, bad night, sweetie?’

  Propping herself up again, Gabrielle said, ‘How did you get in?’

  ‘David gave me a key. He thought it was … er …’ She hesitated, then said awkwardly, avoiding her gaze, ‘Just in case there was, well, some problem.’

  In case I was lying here dead of an overdose, you mean, Gabrielle thought. God, how she hated her husband discussing her problems with her mother! But she said only, ‘I thought you were in Aberdeen?’

  ‘I woke early and decided just to get back here immediately. I usually get Nico to touch up my tint because Dennis is absolutely useless at that, but I’m so worried about my girls I decided just to come home first thing.

  ‘Is everything all right? I was glad to see you’d locked up properly – awful that it’s come to that in our little backwater, but David won’t be back till later and after what happened to poor Niall you mustn’t take risks. I haven’t even been home yet. I thought I’d just check that you were OK and see if I could coax you to come back with me until he gets here. I’ll tell him to pick you up from Westerfield House, shall I?’

  Lilian’s style of motherliness always made her cringe. ‘Thanks, but I’ve got things to do here.’ She’d tried to speak crisply but her throat was still dry, and her tongue felt thick in her mouth.

  Lilian smiled. ‘What you need is coffee. Are you getting up, or shall I bring you some here? You need your rest.’

  Gabrielle was still feeling dizzy, but she swung her legs out of bed and grabbed her dressing gown. She didn’t want her mother working in her kitchen: what if she found the milk in the cupboard under the sink or the phone in the fridge, as had been known to happen? And where had she left that knife?

  ‘No need,’ she said hastily. ‘I’ll come down and make some.’

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on, anyway,’ Lilian said. ‘Then I’ll just take a comfort break – it’s a long drive.’

  Gabrielle was able to check on the kitchen before her mother came back. There didn’t seem to be anything out of place, though the knife wasn’t in its slot. She remembered thinking about it a lot yesterday, but she couldn’t with any certainty say what she might have done with it. She made the coffee and put the bread in the toaster, still feeling nervous.

  She didn’t want to talk to anyone until she’d made up her mind about where Niall’s will had left her, not even David. Perhaps, particularly not David. She’d have to face up to it eventually, but she needed time to get her bearings, think calmly – if she could still think calmly – about what she wanted to do. About what, realistically, she was mentally and physically capable of doing. Loyalty was a heavy burden.

  The toast had popped, and she was getting out plates when she heard her mother come back in. She didn’t speak and when Gabrielle glanced over her shoulder Lilian was looking at her with an expression she couldn’t quite read – shock, pity?

  ‘Darling …’ She sounded very hesitant. ‘The cloakroom – what is that about?’

  Gabrielle went cold. ‘What – what do you mean?’

  Wordlessly, Lilian turned and led her back across the hall. The cloakroom had a clutter of coats on the hooks behind the door and shoes and boots standing together on the floor below. Gabrielle’s eyes went to the basin and yes, there was the little knife. But her mother wasn’t looking at that: she was pointing to the dark-blue towels draped over the rail beside it. They had been quite neatly sliced into rags.

  She felt her face flood with colour. Lilian was staring at her, waiting for her to say something.

  ‘Oh – that!’ She made an attempt at a laugh. ‘I’m properly caught out, aren’t I? I’m afraid I was just in a really bad temper – I’d burnt a cake I was making, and I felt destructive. Silly, I know, but we were needing new ones anyway and it was a great way to relieve frustration.’

  She was proud of her quick thinking, but Lilian was still looking at her very soberly. ‘I suppose I can understand how you felt – heaven knows, after Dennis has made a mess of my haircut, “frustration” doesn’t begin! But Gabrielle, this isn’t normal. This is so weird, so violent! What else might you do, when we’re all under such stress? I really don’t think you should be alone.’

  Gabrielle tried to make light of it. ‘Oh, you’re exaggerating. If it was as bad as that don’t you think I’m better on my own? If one of you annoyed me I might turn dangerous.’

  Lilian sighed. ‘Don’t be silly, I’m not worried about that. What I am worried about, darling, is – well, to put it bluntly, I’m frightened you might turn it on yourself. Have you been having thoughts about that?’

  ‘No. I absolutely haven’t.’ Gabrielle had never found it difficult to lie to her mother. ‘I’m fine here. I’ve things to do before David gets back tonight – like make another cake.’

  Lilian sighed again. ‘I can’t force you to come. But Malcolm’s insisting that you go and have a professional chat with him. He’s just as concerned about you as David and I are. There’s no need to struggle on your own, you know.’

  ‘Thank him very much,’ Gabrielle said. ‘But no thanks. Here’s your coffee, and I’ve made toast—’

  Lilian was walking out of the cloakroom. ‘I think I’d better be getting back. When I phoned Malcolm last night he said poor Fran is still very distressed.’

  ‘Yes, poor Fran.’ She went across the hall and opened the front door. Just go, just go, she said to herself.

  And then she was on her own. She went back into the cloakroom, picked up the little knife and stared at it. Despair, the enemy she had kept at bay for so long, was slowly, steadily gaining ground.

  There was a car waiting for DCI Strang at the heliport at Dyce airport. A DI was waiting at the gate; he’d met him before – Steve MacLean.

  ‘Thanks, Steve,’ Strang said. ‘Your lot are doing a great job for us.’

  ‘All part of the service. We’ve arranged for them to be at home for interview, like you asked. Tom Morrison lives in Airyhall, just ten minutes from here. Chris Brady’s one of the fat cats – lives out at Cults. Bruce Michie lives in one of the new “executive” estates in Westhill.’

  ‘Know anything about them?’

  ‘Tom’s a tiddler – old pal of Bruce Michie’s. Brady’s a bit of a shark in the business community – he’s swallowed up a couple of smaller firms in the last two years. Michie—’ He shrugged. ‘Don’t know much about him. Just standing in for Pat Curran’s daughter. Curran himself was in the Brady league.’

  ‘Really?’ Strang said. ‘That would figure.’

  As they walked through the airport MacLean hesitated as they passed a news-stand. ‘I wasn’t sure if I should point this out to you. But – well, forewarned is forearmed.’

  Strang looked at the paper he was indicating – the Press and Journal, the long-established newspaper for the North-East. So far, they had only printed a straightforward version of the statement he had given himself; today they had gone to town with a graphic description of Niall Aitchison’s mutilated body – enough to bring on a feeding frenzy from the tabloids. There was his name, as investigating officer, as well as a mention of the ‘new’ Serious Rural Crime Squad. And a rather stiff quote from DI Hay in Thurso, stating that CID there was
being bypassed.

  He swore. ‘I suppose it was inevitable. But I’d been hoping we’d have a bit more progress to talk about before this hit us. The press aren’t inclined to be indulgent to Police Scotland right at the moment. I wonder how long I can afford to wait before I phone my boss?’

  MacLean made a sympathetic face. ‘The P&J probably isn’t the first thing he reaches for in the morning. It’ll depend on how long it takes the news media to pick it up and run with it.’

  ‘She, actually,’ he said. ‘And she’s usually snowed under with meetings. I reckon I can risk doing the interviews first in the hope that I’ve got a bit of proper red meat to offer her at the end of them.’

  When they reached the car with the waiting driver, MacLean said, ‘Keep me up to date with what’s happening, but I’ll leave you to it now. I’ve a pile on my desk like you wouldn’t believe.’

  ‘Oh, I’d believe you. Thanks for taking time out to meet me. I’ll text you the outcome later.’

  As he was driven to Airyhall, Strang had a sinking feeling in his stomach. With the Police Scotland top brass hypersensitive about the headlines at the moment, he was dangerously exposed. JB was in general a good boss but she had her own bosses breathing down her neck and she’d given him a big promotion. Reasonably enough, she wasn’t going to sacrifice her career for his, so he’d better deliver. That remark from Hay wasn’t going to help: if they decided the SRCS wasn’t working they’d be ruthless and there wasn’t a lot in his life just at the moment, apart from the job.

  He knew the city centre in Aberdeen, but he’d never been in the residential areas before. They did love their granite, though today in the pouring rain it looked gloomy and colourless. There seemed to have been an agreement, too, that all the houses would be built to more or less the same pattern: rooms to either side of the front door and steeply pitched roofs with windows inset. The one the driver had stopped outside was in the middle of a long, monotonous street with few front gardens to add colour; almost all of them had a paved area for cars instead.

  The doorbell was brass and highly polished and the woman who opened the door was grey-haired and very neat in a floral dress with a white cardigan. She was obviously expecting him, but she scrutinised his warrant card and looked him up and down before she said, with a little sniff of what he guessed was disapproval, ‘Come in, then. Mr Morrison will see you now.’

  It sounded as if she had once been a receptionist and saw formality as a way of putting him in his place. Strang thanked her with suitable humility and was shown into the front room, where a plump, balding man with a neat rim of grey hair and high colour in his cheeks got up to greet him from one of the lug chairs that stood on either side of a fireplace that boasted a large arrangement of artificial flowers.

  He was also very nervous and almost too cooperative. At the first question about the fishing trip, he embarked on an exhaustive description, detailing virtually every cast he had made. But when he was asked if he had a priest, he looked puzzled.

  ‘No, we’re Church of Scotland. Well, sort of.’

  Strang laughed. ‘I meant for stunning the fish – you know, a sort of baton.’

  ‘Oh, is that what it’s called? No, I don’t. I just pull them out and leave them on the bank. I don’t like handling them while they’re squirming – bad enough just taking them off the hook. I think Chris maybe has one, I’m not sure.’

  What he was very keen to emphasise was that it had just been a perfectly ordinary fishing morning and they had all gone their own way as they usually did unless they’d decided to take a boat. He repeated this later using, Strang was interested to note, almost exactly the same form of words. He also denied that there had been another man who joined them; if anyone said there was, they were ‘confused’.

  He wasn’t comfortable, though. Strang looked at him for a long moment. Then, ‘I don’t think you’re very sure about that, are you, Mr Morrison?’ he said.

  Morrison’s face flared. ‘Yes – yes of course I am! Well, if there was it was nothing to do with me. Chris and Bruce sat on in the bar after I’d packed it in and gone to bed. They looked as if they were settling in and I haven’t the stamina. Not as young as I was, you know!’ He attempted a casual laugh.

  Strang said, ‘Did you know Niall Aitchison?’

  Morrison jumped as if he’d bitten him. ‘Niall Aitchison – no. Why should I? He’s the one that got killed, isn’t he? No, of course I didn’t. Is that what this is all about?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Morrison. I’m investigating his murder.’

  ‘Then why for heaven’s sake are you questioning me?’ Morrison’s cheeks flushed. ‘I’ve never met the man in my life!’

  ‘You’re an old friend of Bruce Michie’s, aren’t you? Did you not know Mr Aitchison was one of his partners at Curran Services?’

  ‘No, I did not! I knew about Pat Curran – met him a couple of times, and I knew the daughter had taken over. But we never talked about work. We went fishing to get away from it.’

  Strang raised his eyebrows. ‘All of you?’

  Morrison gulped. ‘Well, maybe Chris and Bruce did talk shop, a bit. They’re in the same line, you know.’

  ‘Oh yes, I know. I think you’re well aware that something was going on. I think you were told what to say when I came to ask you questions.’ Morrison was gaping like one of his hooked trout and his colour was such an alarming shade of burgundy that Strang hurried on, ‘I think you were told that this was highly commercially sensitive, and you had to make sure that nothing suspicious seemed to be going on.’

  ‘That’s right! I don’t understand about business, except my own – I’m one of Curran Service’s suppliers, that’s all.’ Morrison was gabbling in his haste to get it out.

  ‘So, can I ask you again – did someone join the group?’

  Morrison hesitated. ‘Well, it wasn’t a lie, what I said. There was someone arrived, but it was just after I’d got up from the table on the way to my bed. Chris said you’d be asking about that, because someone said another man had joined them, but it just wasn’t true.’

  Strang sighed. For a moment there he’d thought he was going to get a description but that was too much to hope for. His next question, about their movements on the Saturday, produced only a long and tedious complaint about the weather being poor for fishing and his own lack of success.

  Losing the will to live, he got up suddenly. ‘Thank you, sir. That’s all I need. You’ve been very helpful.’

  At these words Morrison’s relief was palpable. He sagged back in his chair, looking as if all the air had been let out of him and Strang added hastily, ‘Don’t get up, I can see myself out.’

  At least he could score off one of the ‘persons of interest’ in the case. In fact, ‘person of extreme boringness’ would be more accurate, but at least he’d got some useful ammunition for the Brady interview. That might be a lot more fruitful.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  There was no one in when DC Murray arrived at the Mowats’ farmhouse. She walked round into the yard, but there was no one about there either. A little at a loss, she looked around her, then thought that at least she could look for the cottage where Aitchison’s body had been found. The track that ran past the farm looked promising and she didn’t have to go far before she saw it, perched on rising ground.

  There was still a bit of crime scene tape attached to one of the gateposts, but it was broken and drifting in the wind and she walked through. There were two dead birds, large, black, and hanging like rags from the fence at the side – ravens, presumably, executed for their crimes and she shuddered. The battered-looking door to the cottage was standing open and she stepped inside but there was nothing to see; the SOCOs would have cleared anything lying about and now it was just an old, decaying building, almost roofless. She went back out again and looked down towards the farm and the main road.

  Anyone passing along there would be able to see the door standing open. Had the local uniforms checked for peopl
e who might have been passing? she wondered. It might be worth checking. But it was baffling that someone should take the risk of being seen – and in broad daylight, at this time of year – just to leave the body here for the ravens to find.

  Unless it was to implicate someone? Fergus Mowat, even? She must ask if there was anyone who had it in for him. She walked round the back to the paved yard, but there was nothing to see there either, though it must have been where a car had been parked to unload the body. She decided to walk on up the slope beyond it.

  The track itself, muddy today, would have been hard as concrete during the dry spell, so no helpful tyre marks as evidence. At the top of the rise – you couldn’t really call it a hill – the track bore off down to the right in the direction of the village through fields where sheep were grazing. To the left there was only rough grass and heather and the land dipped away there too. If you didn’t want to drive up past the farm, you’d have to come across country and it was rough terrain – and bog too, when you got down into the Flow Country. You’d need a sturdy vehicle for that.

  Despite her wet-weather gear, the rain was managing to find a way round the collar and down her neck and her hands were red and freezing cold. The temperature must have dropped fifteen degrees since yesterday. She considered her options: wait on in hope for a bit longer, wait in the car or go and see Lilian Sinclair first. She was starting to shiver now, so scrub option one.

  Murray was on her way back to the car when she heard someone whistling a tune. She turned to look: you never heard anyone doing that these days when someone else made the music for you through a plug in your ear. But the man who was coming up the track from the sheep fields towards her, wearing an Indiana Jones hat and a heavy waxed jacket, was whistling as if there was nothing made him happier than getting soaked and frozen.

  He stopped when he saw her and called, ‘Hello, there! Looking for me?’