Lying Dead

by Aline Templeton

  Bunty was famous for her tender heart, and the MacNee villa in Kirkluce was seldom without its complement of war-weary tomcats and stray dogs. ‘How many have you got at the moment?’

  ‘A three-legged mongrel, a puppy that doesn’t know what a newspaper’s for, a tom with stitches where he’s had the chop and three females, one of them expecting.’ He took a sup of his pint of Special. ‘Last time I counted, that is. But then, I haven’t been home since eight this morning.’

  Marjory laughed. ‘You’d miss them if they weren’t there. Under that black leather jacket you’re just a big tumphy.’

  Tam glowered. ‘A softie – me? Listen, if I wasn’t feart for what Bunty would do to me I’d let the lot of them out to play in the traffic. She’s left a list of what they all like to eat, and a stack of “healthy meals” for me. How come they get to eat what they want, and I’m to have “healthy meals”?’ He said the words with loathing, then brightened up as the barman appeared with their pies and beans. ‘Thanks, Donnie.’

  ‘Right,’ Fleming said, lifting her knife and fork. ‘Tell me about the report on the robbery.’

  ‘Three inches thick, for a start. My bum’s numb from sitting all afternoon. But it’s interesting, I will say.

  ‘The prosecution case was that there’d been five thousand quid, give or take, with some cheques as well, put in the safe after the sponsored events. It was one of those old-fashioned efforts – they probably built the old club round it. Weighed a ton, with a couple of locks to open it. Not much kept there, usually, just the bar takings and a couple of silver cups.’

  ‘So who held keys?’

  ‘Duplicate set at the bank. The other set, somewhere on the bar premises, but on the Saturday they didn’t open because of some posh gala do they were having in Newton Stewart that night, and it was closed then on Sundays. So Ingles as Hon. Treasurer put the money away on Saturday afternoon and kept the keys.

  ‘Story was, he went back at around eight on the Sunday, let himself in, opened the safe and took the money, cleverly breaking a window to suggest an outside job.’

  ‘And it couldn’t have been?’

  ‘Broke the window from the inside, didn’t he?’

  ‘Ah. Not an experienced villain.’

  ‘You could say. Sad, really. He was just leaving when the cleaner arrived.’

  Fleming raised her eyebrows. ‘Kind of late, wasn’t it? Her usual time?’

  ‘I couldn’t tell you, but no one picked up on it. Ingles probably didn’t know the routine.

  ‘In her witness statement she says he called, “Who’s that?” and when she told him he said, “It’s all right, Mrs Aitcheson, it’s only me putting something in the safe.” Then as she went to the cleaning cupboard he came bursting out holding something in his hand and assaulted her. Laid her out – lucky she survived.

  ‘Used a marlinspike, apparently. What the hell’s a marlinspike?’

  ‘Don’t ask me. Is it the sort of thing you’d use in the office of a yacht club?’

  ‘More likely just leave it lying around, from the sound of it. Anyway, she survived to give ID evidence against him.’

  ‘Corroboration?’

  ‘The rest’s circumstantial, but solid stuff. The keys were in his possession, and they found a couple of the cheques in a drawer in his house. Open and shut, really. And then he tried to get Davina to swear out an alibi for him and she testified against him instead.’

  ‘Ah.’ Fleming pounced. ‘You could be just a wee thing peeved if the woman you’d done it for shopped you.’

  ‘Particularly if she’d gone off with the goodies. Lack of recovery didn’t do him any good when it came to the sentencing.’

  ‘Right enough.’ She sat back, frowning, and her empty plate caught her eye. She pulled a rueful face. ‘Every time I eat one of these things I regret it afterwards.’

  ‘Now that’s a funny thing. I don’t. I should have made it a double while I was at it.’ Tam’s glass was empty too. ‘The other half?’

  Marjory shook her head. ‘I’ve to drive later and I’ve not finished this one.’

  A few officers had come in now and were propping up the bar. There was a lot of banter as Tam waited for his pint, but rapt in thought she barely heard it.

  When MacNee, with a last sally over his shoulder, came back, she said, ‘So what’s the scenario? Why does she come back here? She was scared enough to leave the locality and change her name – what possesses her to come back and see him?’

  ‘Ah, there you have it – as Rabbie says, “one point must still be greatly dark – The moving ‘Why?’ they do it.” Unfinished business?’

  ‘Or looking for a truce, so she could come back home?’

  ‘Didn’t sound as if she liked it much when she was here,’ MacNee pointed out. ‘Jon said she’d run through the existing talent, got herself a reputation – you’d think she’d have reckoned Manchester would give her a bit more scope.’

  Fleming sat up suddenly. ‘Hang about! Suppose she didn’t. Suppose he got on her trail somehow, went down to Manchester, killed her there, then brought the body up here for disposal?’

  ‘He’d think it wouldn’t be found for years.’ MacNee was impressed with the theory. ‘You wouldn’t guess you’d have such bad luck.’

  She fished out a pad from her bag and began scribbling notes. ‘I’ll want his work records, car registration – might get something from CCTV. Dig out his mugshot – someone might have seen him in her locality.’

  Then she stopped, and swore. ‘So of course, that means involving Carter again, who thinks deaths that don’t come in multiples don’t count. We’ll get stick for an unsolved murder while he sits on his backside doing nothing for us as long as he possibly can. Spelled it out when I spoke to him today.’

  MacNee looked shocked. ‘Dearie me, that wouldn’t be you showing politically incorrect racial prejudice, would it?’

  ‘Nothing to do with race,’ she retorted defensively. ‘He’d be a pompous, patronizing bugger if he was a direct descendant of William Wallace.’

  ‘Now you see, me and Tommy Tucker are just like that.’ MacNee held up smugly crossed fingers. ‘Would you maybe like me to try some telephone diplomacy instead of you putting the heid on the man? As you say yourself, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.’

  She gave him a withering look. ‘Time I went back to work, sergeant. What about you?’

  ‘Me, ma’am? Oh no, I have starving animals that need me. But you know where I am if anything breaks. I could be tired of their conversation by then.’

  Shaking with impotent rage, Adrian McConnell went into the little sitting-room overlooking the bay, picked up his Herald and opened it with a crack, though with the red mist in front of his eyes he was unlikely to be able to read it for some time. The window was open; he could hear his daughter talking to her friends as they went down the steps to the road.

  ‘So he goes, “When will you be back?” and I’m like, “Hello-o? You think I know?” and he goes, “Ten o’clock!” ’

  ‘Ten o’clock!’ one of the others squealed. ‘Is he out of the Ark, or what?’

  ‘So I go, “I am so-o not going to do that!” and suddenly I’m thinking, ohmigod, he’s going to ground me! And then you guys ring the bell and I’m like, I’m out of here!’

  Peals of girlish laughter followed and their voices died away as they went off, trouble on the hoof.

  Adrian found he was grinding his teeth, a bad habit his dentist had spoken to him about before. Kelly was getting completely out of hand and there was nothing he could do about it.

  And Kim was no help – on the contrary. The row had started at the supper table: Kelly hadn’t come in till almost two last night and he’d wanted to know what she was doing. All he got was the evasive, ‘Stuff,’ and when he tried to tell her she wasn’t going out this evening until she answered, he got no support from his wife.

  They’d both been round at some friends’ for sundowners after
the day’s sailing; he’d no idea how much Kim had drunk but she’d certainly been knocking it back. And by the time she’d had a couple of glasses of wine over supper she was definitely the worse for wear. He’d pointedly taken water himself at the meal, which was a tactical error, since once Kim had laughed at him and opened a bottle, it left her with it all to herself, and once she started she wouldn’t stop.

  So when he’d confronted their daughter, Kim had made it all worse. ‘You do look silly when you’re cross, Adrian,’ she had giggled. ‘Doesn’t he, kids? Just because he doesn’t know how to have a good time doesn’t mean we all have to be boring, does it, Kelly pet?’

  Kelly shot a triumphant look at him, Jason a pitying one. ‘We were just, like, mucking about,’ she said airily. ‘Didn’t notice the time. How about you chill, Dad?’

  He knew when he was on a loser. He subsided in silent fury until he had the child on her own, away from her mother, but then she had just walked out on him, shutting the door on what he was saying when her friends arrived, all of them looking, like Kelly, as if they were heading for a street corner to tout for trade.

  The door slammed again and he looked out to see Jason leaping down the steps. His father had no idea what he was doing either. And if Gary wasn’t safely upstairs asleep in his cot he’d probably be off to a toddlers’ rave somewhere too.

  Anger drained out of him and he could only feel sick with despair. Everything had gone so terribly, terribly wrong recently.

  Kim’s heavy drinking worried him – would he be able to get her back to more normal consumption when they went home? – but in a way Kelly’s goings-on worried him even more. It was like a gathering boil, with foul matter accumulating until, sooner or later, it must burst.

  He hadn’t read a word of the article he was staring at concerning the latest idiocy of the Scottish Parliament. He put down the paper and got up. Kim was on her own, and if he was to get any sense out of her it had better be now before she had a chance to finish the bottle.

  She was well through it already. When he went into the kitchen, she was still at the table with a glass in front of her. She patted the seat next to her invitingly.

  ‘Come to keep me company, pet? ’Sboring through here all by my wee self.’

  He pointedly went back to his own place at the other end of the table. ‘Kim, we need to talk about Kelly. Seriously.’

  His wife pouted. ‘Kimmie doesn’t want to.’ She sloshed the last of the wine into another glass and pushed it towards him. ‘Let’s go through to the front room and make out on the sofa like we used to when we were kids. Better than the back of your car.’ She giggled.

  Kim always got amorous when she was drunk. It was beginning to put him off sex completely. He tried again.

  ‘You’re her mother – doesn’t the prospect of a gymslip pregnancy worry you at all?’ It worried the hell out of him: what would the Press say about a political candidate who couldn’t bring up a teenage daughter with proper standards?

  ‘Silly! She’s been on the pill for ages.’

  ‘On the pill? What?’

  ‘Oh, you’re just so square! They’re all on it nowadays. They’re not stupid – not like we were.’

  He didn’t like to be reminded of the reason for their own marriage. He scowled.

  She had reached the belligerent stage. ‘If I’d been as smart as Kelly, I wouldn’t be married to a boring stuffed shirt who only gets excited about politics. I’d be with someone like Niall – oh, I know you look down on him because he works with the boats and you’re a fancy “accountant”,’ she put mocking quotation marks round the word, ‘but I tell you he’s got it over you where it counts.’

  Adrian froze. ‘Wh-what?’ he stammered stupidly.

  ‘Oh, you may not want me but you can’t complain if someone else does.’ She smiled triumphantly.

  There was water left in his glass from supper. He picked it up and threw it in his wife’s face. She gasped with shock.

  ‘Do you mean you’re having an affair with Niall Murdoch?’ he said very quietly.

  The cold water, and her husband’s face, white with burning eyes, sobered her to some degree. ‘Well – sort of. Last year. But it didn’t mean anything, not really.’ She took refuge in tears.

  ‘Niall.’ He repeated the word through clenched teeth. ‘And I suppose you’ve told everyone about this – it’s all over Drumbreck?’

  ‘No, no, of course not,’ she hiccupped, but he knew she was lying.

  He didn’t say anything more. He walked out of the room, leaving Kim staring after him and dabbing ineffectually at her wet face with a paper napkin.

  ‘Are we going down to the club tonight?’ Gina Lafferty asked her husband as they sat at their glass table in the dining-room which overlooked the patio and the garden at the back of the house. Ronnie didn’t like to eat in the kitchen; Gina suspected that it reminded him of his Glasgow tenement childhood when the bathroom was a shared lavvy on the stairs and personal hygiene, such as it was, centred on the kitchen sink.

  He looked across at her with his frog’s eyes. ‘No. Haven’t seen my lovely wife for a few days. Thought I’d have her all to myself tonight.’

  There was something about the way he spoke that made her uneasy. But she was wrought up already; perhaps she was imagining it. ‘Goodness!’ she said, her tone light and mocking. ‘Whatever will we find to say to each other?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure we’ll find something,’ he said blandly. ‘I called in at the marina earlier – had a good chat with Brian Aitcheson. Now there’s a man who’s happy in his work.’

  The protuberant eyes were fixed on her. ‘That’s nice.’ Her voice sounded hollow, even to herself, and her mouth was dry.

  ‘And then I had one with Niall.’

  She took a sip of water. ‘How is he?’ What else could she say?

  ‘Oh, surprisingly chipper, for someone who’s owing me money. It’s not often my creditors take it as casually as he seems to be doing. Must be something making him happy too.’

  The chicken she was eating seemed to have turned to sawdust in her mouth. She had to drink some more water to swallow it. ‘That’s good!’

  ‘Yes, isn’t it! And later I bumped into Mrs Aitcheson as well – very chatty, she was.’

  She wasn’t going to play mouse to his tormenting cat. ‘Oh, there was something I was going to tell you. That woman’s nicked the little silver box you gave me for our anniversary. Can’t I sack her? For all we need here, I could do the house myself. I haven’t enough to do when you’re in Glasgow.’ She saw her mistake as soon as the words were out of her mouth.

  ‘Satan finds mischief for idle hands, eh?’ Ronnie’s smile wasn’t a pleasant one. ‘You could have a point there. But Brian’ll sort it out. He knows her little ways. I don’t choose to have my wife scrubbing floors, and where would we find someone else with Mrs Aitcheson’s – er – talents?’

  It was intolerable. Gina looked at her watch and jumped up. ‘Oh, it’s time for EastEnders – can’t miss that. Coming?’

  She went out but Ronnie did not follow her. He sat looking into space, his froggy mouth turned down in a hard line.

  He had found himself curiously calm. When the truck dropped him where he was to work, Keith Ingles had simply set down his tools and walked quietly away through the trees. No one would think anything of it when he didn’t appear at noon; sometimes he joined the people working nearby to eat his sandwiches, sometimes he didn’t.

  Fortunately, he was only a couple of miles from home. If he could reach it before the alarm went up, he would at least have a chance of escape. He could collect his passport, driving licence and bank card; if luck was on his side he could withdraw cash before they stopped his bank account and be on the boat to Ireland from Stranraer before they alerted the ports. And if, as his co-worker had said, they were concentrating on the Manchester end, it might give him a couple of days’ grace before they homed in on him. As, sooner or later, they most definitely would.r />
  When he reached the cottage, it was as quiet and peaceful as when he left. The birds, busy about their parental duties, were almost silent, but there were butterflies flitting among the nettles. He paused for just a second to look round the place which had been for him such a blessed haven, then, grim-faced, went about his preparations.

  He changed his working boots for proper walking ones and packed a rucksack with clothes and such food as would travel: cheese, apples, biscuits, a bottle of water. He folded up a thin blanket too, and stuffed it in. He’d be sleeping rough tonight; it must be at least forty miles to Stranraer and he dared not attract attention by taking a bus or hitching. Even if they weren’t looking for him now, they soon would be, and he must not leave a trail for them to follow.

  Keith knew a lot more than once he had done about the underbelly of society. Prison gave you the sort of education a law degree couldn’t match and he was confident that once in Ireland he could take a Ryanair flight to a new life wherever he chose and find work, no questions asked. Relations between the British police and the Garda meant there was bound to be a time-lag.

  It made sense to follow the main road, but he had taken paths alongside wherever he could. He didn’t allow his sense of urgency to translate itself into suspicious speed, walking with a steady, swinging stride, just another rambler out for a pleasant hike to anyone who saw him. He had covered the ground; Keith reckoned he must have done at least thirty miles by the time the sun went down.

  As light lingered in what Scots call the gloaming, he had seen a filling-station where he got money from an ATM, bought crisps, a bottle of milk and a pasty heated up in the microwave and ate as he walked. It was almost dark now and he was very tired, so it was a relief to see a tumbledown shed, still half-roofed in a field by the side of the road. It would give him shelter from the chilly night wind which had sprung up and though it had rained a couple of times during the day, he’d had time to dry out and at least it wasn’t raining at the moment. He climbed over the fence and went in.