The Darkness and the Deep

by Aline Templeton

  Marjory considered. ‘Not specifically. Asking questions all round, which I suppose might make anyone feel uncomfortable.’

  ‘So it’s an extreme reaction to a low-level threat. It all suggests a very high degree of self-love, self-preservation.’

  ‘Solipsism. That was what you said.’

  ‘It’s not a clinical term, just a way of describing someone with a vastly inflated idea of the importance of their own wishes – someone who sees life as a play in which they’re not so much the leading character as the only character. The killer here seems to be egocentric to a seriously dangerous degree. And you don’t need me to tell you that the first death is a taboo broken. The second one is easier – and, if you’re threatened again, a wasted investment unless you eliminate the next equally ruthlessly.’

  ‘So somehow we have to be sure of getting to the truth before someone stumbles on it?’

  Laura’s shrug was eloquent.

  ‘So – why are you doing it at all? You love yourself – why do you expose yourself to a risk like this?’

  ‘Love, hatred, gain, revenge – the usual. Or a combination.’

  ‘Well, that covers most of our suspects. Couldn’t you just be a bit more specific?’

  ‘What you want isn’t a psychologist, it’s Gypsy Rose and her crystal ball. Or one of these profilers who can tell you the killer is five foot eleven, with a taste in sharp suits and an Oedipus complex.’

  Marjory stared at her. ‘You could be describing Lewis Randall. Except he must be at least six foot.’

  Laura burst out laughing. ‘There you are, then! But realistically, he could just have divorced her, couldn’t he? And if you hated your wife enough to kill her instead, you’d probably want to put your hands round her throat.’

  ‘I take the point. But his mother – she hated Ashley, who was a bad wife to her son. If he wouldn’t divorce her . . .’

  ‘More plausible motivation, certainly. Who else have you got under the microscope?’

  ‘Enid Davis – allegedly in love with Lewis, though Jon swears he’s not interested.’

  ‘Killing the wife would be quite a speculative venture unless you were sure he wouldn’t seize his freedom and go off with someone else. But Joanna Elder – is she still in the frame?’

  ‘Very much so. She had a lot to lose, if Ritchie turned her out. Oh, he’d have to pay her off, certainly, but it’s not the same.’

  ‘So you think it was aimed at Ashley, then?’

  ‘Not necessarily, I suppose.’ Marjory pulled a face. ‘There’s Nat Rettie, Cat’s friend Kylie’s boyfriend and Rob Anderson’s stepson. Big problems there, and there’s a trace of evidence that makes Tam think we might have been a bit hasty in writing him out on the basis of an alibi provided by Kylie, whom I wouldn’t trust round the corner.’

  Laura considered that. ‘You wouldn’t put the wreck down as a teenage crime, would you – too meticulous? But then again, they all spend hours on computers playing these intricate fantasy games, so elaborate planning mightn’t be as unnatural as you’d think.’

  ‘So – let me get this straight. You’re saying it could be anyone, but if you were placing a bet you wouldn’t put it on Lewis Randall or Enid Davis?’

  ‘Oh, I’m not sure I’d go as far as that.’ Laura was laughing. ‘I did warn you long ago, you needn’t expect answers from psychology.’

  ‘Don’t know why I bother, really. Seriously, though, that’s helped straighten a few things out in my mind. And I heard what you said, about the next killing being easier.’ Perhaps it was only because the sun had gone in that Marjory shivered. ‘Brr, it’s cold! The nights are really drawing in now.’

  ‘Daisy’s managed to run herself into the ground, anyway.’ The puppy, trotting wearily beside her mistress now, looked up at the mention of her name and Laura picked her up, averting her face to avoid a succession of grateful licks. ‘We’d better be getting home. Do you want to come back for tea?’

  ‘Thanks, but no. I’m going to drive on down to Knockhaven for a chat with Lewis Randall.’

  ‘Good luck! Don’t forget to tell Cat to come to tea.’ Laura waved goodbye and hurried back to her car.

  Marjory lingered a little longer. As so often in the early evening, the wind had dropped and daylight began to yield to a creeping darkness that blurred the edges between the sky and sea. The birds had gone; a hush fell and it almost seemed as if that great silence was louder than the swishing of the waves at her feet. It was going to be a cold, clear night and across the bay the lights of the little townships down the Mull of Galloway studded the dusk.

  After a moment or two she sighed, then looked at her watch. She should just have time to pick up a few things at the ‘8 ’til Late’ in Knockhaven – bread, potatoes and loo rolls, mainly. Wasn’t it always?

  She should have time for a chat with Lewis Randall and still be back for supper. For the next while, however difficult it might prove to be, she was determined not to miss the family meal, even if it meant going back to her desk afterwards.

  She took a last look before she turned reluctantly to go; as the darkness encroached she could just see the stabbing beam of the Mull of Galloway lighthouse. With her mind on those who had their business in deep waters, she went back to the car.

  There had been considerable industry in the CID room this afternoon. As officers returned, recalled from their details, a place at one of the computers was in high demand; most, if not all of them, had arrears of reports to make up and this pause for breath before the investigation spun off in a different direction was precious found time. Hot-desking was the order of the day and taking a comfort break, when you were in possession, was a high-risk activity.

  With the double advantages of an early summons back to HQ and a good bladder, Tam MacNee had managed to stake out a corner desk and, ignoring both pleas and imprecations, was smugly finished by half-past five.

  He got up. ‘Anyone fancy a wee bevvy?’ he said provocatively as there was a rush to take his place. He hadn’t really expected there to be any takers; he could go and have a quiet jar, trading insults with the landlord – an old mate – and time his arrival home so that he didn’t see any more than he had to of his brother-in-law, a banker, who with Bunty’s sister had been bidden to supper this evening. They always behaved as if letting Tam eat at the same table was a big favour and it took him all his time not to tell them what he thought of that toffee-nosed besom and her lardy husband. But since Bunty had the same inexplicable fondness for her sister that she had for mangy dogs and flea-ridden cats, he kept his trap shut for her sake. He just didn’t like to try himself too far, that was all.

  It was only as he came out of his corner that he noticed Jon Kingsley. He was sitting at the big table in the middle of the room, apparently engrossed in paperwork, but he looked wretched. In fact, he reminded Tam of nothing so much as the deflated Mr Toad in a pantomime Bunty had made him take her to, which he’d never have done if he’d known it involved suffering for any of God’s creatures which – even when played by a man in a loud green-checked suit – invariably wrung his wife’s tender heart. Perhaps it was in deference to her that he felt uncomfortable seeing the man there, with a space about him on either side, a sort of no-man’s-land, as if all those who had been hailing him as a hero this morning were trying now to dissociate themselves from him – The Man Who Backed The Wrong Hunch.

  Tam’s lip curled. He yielded to no one in his dislike of cocky little sods who thought they knew it all, and if anyone had it coming to them it was Kingsley. But when a man was down . . .

  ‘Come on, Jon,’ he said roughly. ‘Come and have a jar and leave these tossers to get on with their homework nicely.’

  Startled, Kingsley looked up. He didn’t seem exactly thrilled, but after a moment he said, ‘Why not?’ and followed MacNee out.

  The pub most favoured by the constabulary was a small, old-fashioned establishment about 500 metres along the main street. The Salutation had two long room
s side by side, separated only by a chimney stack where a fire, open to both sides, burned summer and winter. It made no attempt to attract a white-wine-spritzer clientele with its rough wooden flooring and its walls yellowed by years of kippering from smoke; you could get a good pint, sausages, decent pies and sandwiches, but towards the gastropub concept there was not so much as a nod.

  It was early enough to be very quiet. ‘Grab the table by the fire and I’ll set us up,’ Tam instructed his colleague, and while Jon sat down, holding his hands to the blaze as if its comforting warmth was not only physical, went to the bar to engage in some ritual abuse of the landlord, before coming back with a pint glass in either hand.

  Jon took his with a twisted smile. ‘Cheers. Payback time, I suppose.’

  ‘Slainte. No, not really.’

  Jon looked up sharply. ‘I don’t need pity!’

  ‘You’re not getting it. You stuck your neck way out, the axe came down . . . Tough.’

  ‘Yeah, sure!’ Jon’s tone was bitter. ‘It’s the name of the game. But what’s really got to me is the way the top brass are all over you one minute, then when I met the Super in the corridor today, slapping you down because something seems to have come unstuck – not that I’m convinced yet that it has, frankly, just because some dotty old biddy—’

  ‘Ah. I wasn’t sure if you’d heard yet. Some dotty old biddy, plus the cutting edge of modern technology.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘A report came in from Vodafone today. They’ve traced the call the coastguard made to Ritchie Elder’s mobile, and it was answered in Glasserton, just where he said he was.’

  ‘Oh.’ Jon took a sip of his pint, but he didn’t look as if he were enjoying it. ‘So that’s that, then. The Super seems to have marked me down as a total prat already and this will have finished it. Not that I understood what he said – he seemed to be saying it was a bummer – and I certainly agreed with him there. But he said something broad Scots about a bee as well—’

  So that was what Marjory wouldn’t tell him. Tam tried not to smile. ‘Bummer and bees? Perhaps, “It’s no’ aye the loudest bummer’s the best bee”?’

  ‘That’s right! What on earth does it mean?’

  ‘In Scots, bees don’t buzz, they bum. The bee that buzzes loudest isn’t always the best.’

  ‘I – see.’

  Tam was beginning to regret his kindly impulse. ‘Look, laddie, I’m going to tell you something they don’t teach you at the university. If you’re going to swan in and tell everyone you’re better than they are, you’d bloody better get it right. If you keep quiet, never say boo, and don’t get up anyone’s nose, no one’ll mind if you’re wrong. Most of us come somewhere in the middle, and if you don’t rub it in when you’re right, they won’t rub your nose in it when you’re wrong.’

  Jon smiled, a wonderfully polite smile. ‘Thanks, Tam, that’s very helpful, of course.

  ‘Do you know what Big Marge is planning now? Presumably there’ll be a morning briefing . . .’

  Well, sod him! Tam dispatched his pint with unaccustomed speed and, even more unusually, refused the other half, on the excuse that he had people coming to supper.

  Bunty would be surprised. Tam’s normal form was to appear just as the plates were put on the table, and disappear back to work with the arrival of the coffee cups.

  19

  ‘Oh, I’m afraid he’s not here. He’s off this afternoon.’ The doctors’ receptionist discreetly lowered her voice as five patients in the waiting area visibly strained to hear what the tall woman who had announced herself as DI Fleming wanted to know, and Fleming looked at her with interest.

  She’d seen Enid Davis before, at the funeral tea, but had gained only a fleeting impression of the person who’d figured in rumour as a scarlet woman. Today she was wearing something nondescript and suitable in brown, which did nothing for her mousy hair and pale colouring. The polite, professional smile didn’t quite reach her eyes and the lines about her mouth suggested that a real smile wouldn’t come readily; you’d guess life hadn’t been exactly kind to her and she’d stopped expecting that it would be.

  ‘Would you know where I could find him?’

  ‘Not really. I know he goes for long walks sometimes – or he could be at home. Or perhaps at his mother’s. Do you need addresses?’

  ‘I have them, thanks.’ Fleming hesitated. Perhaps she should question Enid now too, to save someone else from having to come out to do it tomorrow even if it did mean being later in getting home than she had planned. She was wrestling with her conscience when another woman appeared from behind a bank of shelves. She had a helmet of grey curls and her eyes were bulging with curiosity – or perhaps she just had bulging eyes anyway.

  ‘Who’s this, Enid?’ she demanded, loudly and rudely.

  In a colourless voice, Enid told her.

  ‘Oh, an inspector! We are going up in the world, aren’t we?’ she tittered. ‘I’m Muriel Henderson.’

  ‘So I see.’ Fleming indicated the badge sitting on the sloping shelf of her acrylic-clad bust.

  ‘I’m the most senior receptionist. I’ll take over now, Enid.’ With a quelling glance at her colleague she neatly edged her aside. ‘Now, what did you want to know, Inspector?’

  Enid moved obediently, but the look Fleming saw her direct at Muriel’s back was eloquent. Of course, this was the woman who had told Jon the rumour; a high-ranking officer questioning Enid now would fuel a brushfire of speculation when she looked as if she’d suffered enough from that already – and it gave Fleming all the excuse she needed to duck out. ‘It’s all right, thanks. Mrs Davis has given me the information I need.’

  ‘But—’

  Pretending she hadn’t heard, Fleming turned to go. As she shut the door behind her it was clear Muriel was moving in to give her colleague the third degree. What a fearsome creature, like a spider at the centre of her web of intrigue, trussing her victims with the sticky threads of smear and innuendo before she sucked them dry. Fleming grimaced as she walked back to her car.

  Randall’s house was in a housing development built in the 1990s which was a mixture of smaller houses, built with gardens adjoining back to back, and a few larger ones with a bit more ground, like his. The streets were all, confusingly, called Mayfield something; she took a couple of wrong turnings before she drew up outside the big, ranch-style house with its white picket fence. There were lights on inside. That looked promising.

  In the light from the street lamps, she could see that the garden was quite bare – just paving slabs, with spaces left for a few shrubs. She went up the concrete path and rang the doorbell.

  Lewis Randall was slumped in one of the big leather chairs in his study. He had an empty tumbler on the table at his side and there was a bottle of Bladnoch on the floor at his feet. He was dozing; the sound of the doorbell took a moment to register. Then he groaned, blinked blearily and heaved himself to his feet, swaying a little. But he steadied himself, shaking his head in an attempt to clear it, and went to answer the door.

  He was better now he was on his feet, not so drunk that he couldn’t carry on a civilised conversation with whoever it might be – no doubt one of the neighbours, who had all been treating him to kindness so relentless that it reminded him of a child loving a hamster by squeezing it till its eyes popped out. Still, as Lewis’s calm, ordered world disintegrated round him, he should be grateful for their constancy – and he was, in general. He licked his dry lips and ran a hand over his hair to smooth it down; the last thing he needed was to have it all round the village that the doctor had a drink problem. He might be working on developing one, but that was beside the point.

  He didn’t recognise the woman on the doorstep. At this time of night you occasionally did get cold-callers, though somehow she didn’t look as if she was selling double-glazing. She was tall, nearly as tall as he was himself, but it was her eyes he couldn’t help noticing – hazel eyes that seemed to be taking in at a glance what h
e was trying to hide.

  ‘Detective Inspector Fleming,’ she said. ‘I wonder if I could have a word with you, Dr Randall?’

  His heart gave a single, heavy thump of alarm. His mother had warned him . . . And perhaps he should say no, that it wasn’t convenient. He ought to have all his wits about him before he talked to the police. But what would be inferred from that?

  ‘Of course.’ His tongue felt thick and unwieldy. ‘Would you like to come in?’

  He could take her into the sitting room, cold and dark at the moment, but without the evidence of glass and bottle. He was probably just about asphyxiating the woman with whisky fumes anyway, so with a mental shrug he led her through to the study where the lamps were lit and the ceramic stones in the bowl of the gas hearth glowed in fashionably ironic imitation of an open fire.

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’ he offered.

  She smiled. ‘I share your taste in whisky, but unfortunately I have a car at the door.’

  ‘Do sit down, anyway. I’m just going to get myself a glass of water. Can I get you anything else?’

  She shook her head and Lewis escaped from the room. In the kitchen he ran the tap cold, then splashed his face. He filled a glass with water, drank it, then refilled the glass, noting clinically that his hand was trembling slightly. He took several deep, slow breaths before he went back to submit to inquisition.

  Best to take this one head on. As he sat down he said, ‘I hope what I say to you is going to make sense. As you will have noticed, I’ve been drinking.’

  ‘You’re a doctor. I don’t need to tell you it’s not the best way to cope with problems. But it’s entirely understandable.’ She had a low, attractive voice and she spoke sympathetically. ‘You must be under a great deal of strain.’

  ‘Yes. Yes.’ Alarmingly, he felt tears prickle the backs of his eyes. He hadn’t cried, had hardly felt tempted to cry, but alcohol was notorious for loosening constraint. ‘Everything is just – I don’t know where I am. I’m not very good at uncertainty.’