The Darkness and the Deep

by Aline Templeton

  ‘With a wide open field, that’s where. I keep thinking about the tales you hear on every harsh coastline about wreckers in the old days – you know, local people who would use lights to lure a ship on to the rocks in a storm so they could loot the cargo. But of course the only cargo a lifeboat carries is human.

  ‘Give it a bit of thought, Tam. I want a case conference tomorrow, so sort out your ideas. Jon Kingsley should have quite a bit of useful input – he’s been seeing a few of the main players today.’

  ‘I hope he’ll let us all have the benefit.’ The constraint was back. With a nod, MacNee went out, leaving Fleming to frown at the closed door before she went back to the report on her desk. She was going to be late tonight; she’d have to phone Bill and warn him, but she thought she might take half an hour off to go and see Laura. She wanted her ideas on the profile of the person who could do this, and ten minutes playing with Daisy would be light relief in a heavy day.

  10

  Muriel Henderson had taken her tea-break and Enid Davis was on the reception desk when Katy Anderson arrived, a little early for her four o’clock appointment. She drifted in like a ghost, oblivious to the sympathetic glances of other patients in the waiting room who recognised her, as if she had her being in a different dimension. The pallor of her face was in startling contrast to her fiercely red-rimmed eyes, which seemed to be having difficulty in focusing on Enid as she came up to the desk.

  Enid recognised the stigmata of wretchedness. It was like seeing again a familiar domestic landscape which even today was clearly visible to her, though at a distance; now she was only an occasional visitor.

  ‘Dr Matthews is running a bit late, I’m afraid,’ she said gently. ‘Would you like to sit in the waiting room there?’

  ‘Yes. Yes of course.’ Katy turned, obedient as a zombie, as if, had she been asked to lie on the floor, she’d have done that too without question. A woman with a small child pulled it on to her knee to make room for Katy on one of the padded benches, then leaned across to pat her knee.

  Enid saw Katy’s automatic, meaningless smile. These people offering their sympathy were looking for a connecting response of gratitude for their kind concern, when in fact most of them, you could tell, had either an unhealthy desire to be associated with sensation or a wish to bask in the sunshine of their own benevolence. All the time their greedy eyes were performing a sort of visual rape.

  ‘Is she here yet?’ Muriel’s voice, speaking in her ear, gave Enid a start. She wasn’t due back on duty for another quarter of an hour, and it wasn’t like Muriel to cut short her tea-break – on the contrary. The reason was clear enough, though: she was eagerly scanning the waiting room until she spotted Katy, her eyes blank and her hands folded in her lap.

  ‘Oh, there she is! Goodness me, Enid, how could you think of letting the poor soul sit out there in the waiting room with everyone staring!’ She was opening the door from the office area as she spoke, surging out and across to where Katy was sitting. The woman looked up in bewilderment as Muriel took both her hands.

  ‘Katy, my dear, you shouldn’t be out here, you in a state like this! Come away through the back – there’s tea made, and you can just wait there quiet for a bit till Dr Matthews can see you. He’s had a bit of a backlog to deal with – poor Dr Ashley’s surgery, you know.’

  There were one or two meaningful looks exchanged by waiting patients as Muriel led her victim away, a lamb to the slaughter. Two minutes later, Cara Christie, another receptionist who had also been on her break, appeared at Enid’s side. ‘I’ll take over. You go and have your break now – I just can’t stand it. It’s like watching a cat bring in a mouse to play with and not being able to stop it.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Enid said faintly, ‘I don’t suppose I can, either.’ But she yielded her place to Cara and went through a door at the back into the staff sitting room.

  It was a small room with a coffee table and half a dozen chairs with wooden arms and multi-coloured cushioned seats. Coat pegs and lockers had been fitted behind the door and there was a sink, mini-fridge, microwave and kettle in one corner with cupboards above, but not much else except a tray of mugs and plates. Muriel had inserted a mug of tea into Katy’s hands, which she was holding as if it were nothing to do with her. Muriel was talking, with the air of one who as yet has been able to elicit little response.

  ‘You won’t be able to take it in yet, dear – it’s the shock, you see. But you know,’ she leaned forward confidentially, ‘you’ve got to think positive – isn’t that right, Enid? It all might be for the best, after what happened to Dr Ashley and that poor young teacher.’

  Enid, pouring out her own tea, went rigid. Katy, her voice roughened by tears, croaked, ‘I don’t think he knew.’

  ‘Oh, take it from me, he did, dear! Bob MacNally – you know, he was in the rescue party – he said to me Rob asked as they were putting him in the ambulance, and they had to tell him. That would really take away your will to live, wouldn’t it? And of course he would know there would have to be an enquiry too . . .’

  Katy closed her eyes. ‘Oh God,’ she breathed.

  ‘He wouldn’t have been strong enough to tell you how it happened, though, would he? No?’ As Katy made no reply, or indeed showed any sign that she had heard the question, Enid, sitting quietly down opposite with her own mug of tea, saw Muriel’s lips purse in irritation. But she wasn’t easily daunted.

  Continuing her relentless pursuit, she said in a voice sugared with concern, ‘And what about your Nat? Have the police gone and charged him?’

  ‘Nat?’ Katy frowned, almost as if the name was unfamiliar to her. Then she said, ‘Oh, you mean with taking the car? I – I should never have told them, probably. I was angry – I suppose I’ll have to speak to them about it—’

  Muriel oozed synthetic sympathy. ‘No, no, dear! You know – with rigging up the lights that wrecked the boat!’

  If her object had been to provoke a response, she achieved it. Katy’s eyes shot wide open, as if she were a sleepwalker rudely awakened.

  ‘What are you saying?’ she cried wildly. ‘Are you saying that my son – that Nat murdered Rob? And – and the others . . . ? Is that what you’re telling me?’

  Alarmed by her own success, Muriel said hastily, ‘That’s not what I was saying! I was just saying the police think that, but you know them – get everything wrong. If you ask me, Nat had nothing to do with it—’

  Katy wasn’t listening. She had jumped to her feet. ‘What shall I do? What shall I do?’ she kept saying distractedly, showing all the signs of incipient hysteria.

  Muriel, with her eye on the clock, exclaimed, ‘Oh, for goodness sake! Dr Matthews’ll be ready to see her any minute! We’ll need to calm her down or she’ll go saying terrible things to him about us.’

  ‘Us?’ Enid was tempted to reply, but said instead, ‘You go back to the desk, Muriel. She’ll maybe be better just on her own with me.’

  Muriel, her face flushed a mottled red, needed no second invitation; she escaped with only an anxious glance over her shoulder at Katy, who was pacing to and fro, wringing her hands and taking the short, shallow breaths that lead to hyperventilation.

  Placing herself in her path, Enid took her shoulders in firm hands, almost forcing her back into her chair. ‘Put your hands to your face and breathe into them,’ she instructed with quiet authority. ‘Now, slower. Slower.’ She talked evenly and calmly until the gasping stopped, then sat down beside the trembling woman.

  ‘Listen to me. Don’t pay any attention to Muriel. She’s an evil woman. She knows perfectly well it wasn’t your son who did it. It’s all to do with the drugs business – Willie Duncan was a dealer and he’d only himself to blame if they were out to get him. Don’t let her upset you. You know your own son. Every mother does.’

  ‘That’s – that’s the problem. He’s turning out to be his father, all over again. And his father was a bad man.’ Her lips were quivering.

  Taken aback, Enid sai
d, ‘Sometimes, you know, youngsters go through bad patches, but he’s your own flesh and blood, after all. You can’t think straight at the moment – you’re in shock. So put what Muriel said out of your mind. She enjoys making people unhappy. I heard her myself telling the police that she knew it wasn’t Nat.’

  ‘You’re – you’re very kind. It’s – it’s bad enough already, but believing that—’ She shuddered.

  There was a tap on the door and a worried-looking Muriel put her head round the door. ‘That’s Dr Matthews ready to see you now.’

  Katy nodded, then got up. ‘Thank you,’ she said as she went out. ‘You’ve been very understanding.’

  ‘Well done, Enid!’ Muriel eyed her colleague with some respect. ‘Poor soul – I thought she was well away, there!’

  Enid opened her mouth, then, with her usual caution, shut it again. She’d seen, all too often, what happened to people who got across Muriel Henderson.

  The cottage which Laura Harvey had rented unfurnished was in a quiet street parallel to Kirkluce High Street, one of a terrace all painted in pastel colours, green and blue and pink and mauve – ‘Like a row of fondant fancies,’ as she had laughingly said to Marjory Fleming. The front door opened directly into a sitting room with a deep-set window to the front and a pine staircase rising at one side to two bedrooms and a bathroom; behind lay the kitchen with a door to an enclosed garden, ideal for a collie puppy with an enquiring mind and an adventurous spirit.

  Laura had furnished it with a sure touch which Marjory hugely admired. She and Bill had never exactly furnished the farmhouse, it had just sort of happened, with bits and pieces handed down through the family or acquired, as necessary, over the years. But when she had said that ruefully to her friend, Laura had only laughed.

  ‘When I go to your house, I feel enfolded by it. You’ve got a home, Marjory – I’ve got furniture in a rented property.’

  Even so, Marjory thought when she had greeted her friend and the exuberant Daisy – firmly in that order, to stress their respective hierarchical positions – it was a delightfully welcoming room. The walls were a pale buttery cream and the sofa, pushed against the back wall, was upholstered in teddy-bear brown plush with a blue cashmere throw which echoed the blue in curtains and cushions and another couple of chairs. One corner was arranged with a pine desk and a computer as an office area where Laura could work on her articles and the book arising out of them which she had been commissioned to write. On the stripped pine floor, an oriental rug in blue, brown, cream and terracotta lay in front of a fireplace which, while it might not be authentic Victorian, was doing its best. This evening a cheerful log fire was burning.

  Daisy, in an ecstasy of recognition, was bouncing up and down at her one-time owner. ‘And how’s my grand-dog behaving?’ Marjory enquired.

  ‘Wonderful!’ Laura glowed with pride. ‘Practically house-trained, sits, lies down – briefly—’

  Looking down at the eager little dog, Marjory said firmly, ‘Sit, Daisy!’ then, as the plump rear-end made contact with the floor, crouched down to fuss her with extravagant praise.

  ‘She’s a clever wee thing. Have you worked out who’s boss yet?’

  ‘I am – I think. But we’re definitely still in negotiation. Drink?’

  Marjory shook her head. ‘I wish I could but I’ve got to go back in. I really came to pick your brains.’

  Laura’s face sobered. ‘This tragic lifeboat business, I suppose? Was it really wrecked? You never know how much to believe of what you hear.’

  ‘Oh, it’s true enough, sadly. Someone deliberately rigged up lights in imitation of the leading lights at Knockhaven harbour in Fuill’s Inlat – that’s Fool’s Inlet to you, so-called because the entrance to it from the sea mimics the harbour’s contours. There were dreadful conditions, of course, and added to that the regular cox was too stoned to perform and the reserve tried to throw himself overboard on the way home.’

  ‘That’s what Mrs Moncrieff told me over the fence this afternoon. She’s got a sister in Knockhaven. But you’ve made an arrest, haven’t you?’

  Marjory stared at her. ‘See villages! MI5 shouldn’t be doing its recruiting at Cambridge, you know. Get a few of the local wifies on the job and there wouldn’t be a terrorist whose mother’s maiden name they couldn’t tell you.’

  ‘I’m not convinced they’d be totally reliable when it came to compliance with the Official Secrets Act,’ Laura pointed out. ‘So what about this boy you’ve arrested?’

  ‘Nothing to do with it, as far as we can make out at this stage. He’d been joyriding in the car with an under-age girlfriend – friend of Cat’s, unfortunately – and we’re investigating. Not that I think we’ll have anything to go on – slap on the wrist for the car and that will be it.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So. What sort of person would do such a foul thing? The lifeboat – well, I’m sure you know how people feel about the service round here.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Laura, curled up on the sofa, wound her finger in a strand of fair hair escaping from its clasp at the back and frowned as she considered the question. The fire crackled and there was a tiny snore from Daisy asleep on the rug, worn out by her duties as greeter. Marjory waited, watching her friend.

  Laura was the antithesis of Marjory in appearance, small, blonde and neatly made, with grey-blue eyes. She was also clever with clothes; that pink and grey scarf she was wearing casually looked exactly right with her sweater. Marjory sighed quietly; when she put on a scarf, it always ended up looking like a neck poultice.

  At last Laura said, ‘A vandal’s the obvious one – the usual wanton pleasure in destruction. Do I get the impression you’ve rejected that idea?’

  ‘It’s unlikely. Vandalism tends to be spur-of-the-moment, seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time when everyone’s drunk. It’s not often planned. But this was, quite elaborately. The lamps had been specially prepared with glass paint and they’d only a battery life of a few hours so there had to be a question of timing too. The other thing is, it was only by chance that the lights were discovered. The perpetrator would have hoped to have it written off as an accident – vandals want people to know it’s their handiwork.’

  Laura absorbed that. ‘So you’re talking about planning to cause three deaths. You’d have to wonder about a grudge against the lifeboat service – was there someone they failed to save, perhaps? Or maybe someone who wanted to join the crew and got turned down?’

  ‘Easy enough to check. But Laura, you have to be talking local. This guy had to know about Fuill’s Inlat, had to be on hand to wait for a call-out on a night when the weather was bad enough to give it a chance of success – he couldn’t know their problem would be compounded by Willie Duncan and Luke Smith. And off the top of my head, I can’t think of any failed rescue in recent years and I’d be almost bound to know.

  ‘Suppose it isn’t a nutter with a grudge. Suppose we’re looking for someone with a personal motive. What’s he like? Or she, I suppose you have to say – why can’t the language have a neutral pronoun?’

  ‘Case-profiling is bad enough – don’t get me started on grammar! But you’re asking me what kind of person would kill three people, related only through the job they do, if it turns out to be not about the job? They could be directly connected in some other way – you’ll be looking into that?’

  Fleming nodded.

  ‘And if not . . .’ Laura lapsed into thought again. Then she said, slowly, ‘There are the psychopaths, who kill for enjoyment. It doesn’t tend to be at arm’s length, though, like this – they want to see their victim suffer. Or at least show off their deadly skill and power, like the snipers in America. And again, it would be pointless if people didn’t know so weren’t afraid. Creating what looks like an accident is logical only if the idea is to get away with it.

  ‘But if this is a person who had a motive for killing one of the crew, and had no scruples about the innocents involved, then you’re looking for someone who, if they’r
e not actually psychopathic, has an abnormal degree of detachment. Most normal people who kill – if anyone who kills can be described as fully normal – either do it in a fit of rage, without calculation, or appoint themselves judge and jury and decide the victim deserves to die. To take two other lives as well, incidentally, for the sake of your hatred, vengeance, gain, whatever, means that you have, to say the least of it, an unnaturally solipsistic view of the world.’

  ‘Solipsistic? I know I should know—’

  ‘Selfish, to a pathological degree. A sort of tunnel vision which excludes everything except your wants, needs, desires.’

  ‘Male, female?’

  Laura smiled wryly. ‘I know women who would tell you that solipsism comes with the genes where men are concerned. But no, I couldn’t say one was more likely than the other.’

  Marjory sighed. ‘It was worth a try. If we could eliminate fifty per cent of our suspects it would be a good start. But thanks, Laura – you’re very good at setting things out so I can get them clear in my own mind. I’ll put someone on to sifting through the records of the local lifeboats and see if anything turns up – nice job for the uniforms!’

  She glanced at her watch. ‘I really need to be getting back. Goodbye, Daisy!’

  At the mention of her name, the little dog looked up drowsily, then dropped her head again as if the effort was simply too much. The two women laughed and Marjory got to her feet.

  ‘That’s cleared my mind for the briefing tomorrow. We really ought to have you on the strength.’

  She was in her car with the engine running when her conscience smote her. It was two or three days since she had been to see her parents, and with the way things were going she wasn’t likely to have more spare time in the immediate future. Reaching the main road she turned right, out of town towards the Lairds’ pleasant retirement bungalow five miles away.

  Janet Laird was, as usual, busy in the kitchen when Marjory Fleming arrived. She could hear the sound of the TV from behind the sitting-room door; when she looked in, her father Angus, long retired after many years as an institution in the Galloway Constabulary, was blankly watching a quiz show. He grunted without turning his head when she said, ‘Hello, Dad,’ and she retreated with a grimace of concern. It wasn’t good for him, this mindless viewing, and she’d told him that. She could almost hear the brain cells dying, but her father wasn’t the man to listen to the daughter who should have been a son and who could never, however hard she tried, gain recognition for her achievements in the career she had chosen, almost consciously, in the hope of pleasing him.