by M. B. Shaw
‘Right,’ Haley sighed. ‘Anything else?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said the sergeant, a little disappointed that the DI wasn’t as excited by the beads development as he’d expected. ‘The artist lady is here to see you – Iris Grey. She’s in the waiting room.’
‘Did she say what it was about?’ asked Haley, perking up slightly. He’d liked Iris Grey during their first, brief meeting.
‘No, sir. She said she preferred to wait for you. Should I show her in?’
* * *
Iris sat nervously while DI Haley read Kathy’s notes, a look of deepening consternation on his face.
‘Why didn’t she come to us earlier?’ Placing the first five envelopes to one side, he picked up the last note and read it aloud: ‘ “Do you believe me now? You’re not the first whore he’s taken up with and got tired of. Leave, or you’ll be next.” That’s pretty clearly a reference to the bodies.’
‘I agree,’ said Iris. ‘Whoever’s been writing these notes wants her to believe that Jock killed whoever was buried up there.’
‘And that he’s going to kill her,’ said Haley. ‘That’s a threat.’
‘Or a warning,’ suggested Iris. ‘But the tone of the other notes isn’t exactly friendly. So I agree, it’s probably meant as a threat. I did try to persuade Kathy to come to you sooner, but she preferred to try and handle it herself.’
‘Why?’ asked Haley.
Iris shrugged. ‘She didn’t want to upset Jock. And I don’t think she took them terribly seriously. As the notes were addressed to her, I felt it was her decision to make.’
‘Hmmm. But this latest one changed her mind?’
Iris nodded. ‘That and the fact that two bodies have turned up on the estate. I think she’s scared.’
Haley frowned, thinking about Jock’s ‘missing’ first wife and the Christmas cards to Dr Bowman that stopped fifteen years ago.
‘Maybe she should be. I’m curious. Why didn’t she bring me these letters herself? She was down here earlier, dropping off these, so it would have been easy enough for her.’ He held up a small plastic bag of pretty, blueglass beads.
‘What are they?’
‘Apparently, they came from the crime scene.’ He told Iris about poo-gate, which she seemed to find in equal parts fascinating and hilarious. ‘It all sounds like a bit of a shaggy dog story to me, but we’ll see what forensics have to say about it. In any case, I’m wondering why she sent you with the letters?’
Iris shifted uncomfortably in her seat. ‘I think she felt awkward. She still hasn’t told Jock about them yet, although I imagine she will now. Anyway, I already had the earlier notes at my place, so when she brought the last one over this morning, I said I’d do it. I’ve been unofficially helping her for the last couple of weeks, you see. Trying to find out who was sending them.’
‘Ah.’ Haley grinned broadly. ‘You’ve had your Miss Marple hat on again, have you, Ms Grey?’
Iris blushed. ‘Like I said, I did try to convince her to go to the police.’
‘Ach, it’s all right, I’m only teasing,’ he said kindly. ‘Have you made any progress?’
‘Not to speak of,’ said Iris. ‘The envelopes are interesting. Handmade, and there’s a little watermark on the seal, if you look closely. But I haven’t been able to track down the source yet.’
‘OK,’ said Haley, interested, turning the letters over.
‘Given the times and places each one was left, it has to be someone who either lives up at the castle or has regular access and knows Kathy’s routines,’ Iris continued.
‘A fairly small group, I’d imagine,’ said Haley.
‘Very. But it’s possible that one person writes them and another hides them for Kathy to find. That would widen the net considerably.’
‘So it would.’ Haley nodded. ‘Well, I’ll have these fingerprinted and we’ll see what our labs can come up with on those envelopes. It may be that the ink or the paper are unusual, too. Thank you for bringing them in.’
Standing, he offered her his hand.
‘Of course.’ Iris shook it. ‘Good luck. And with the beads.’
After she’d gone, Stuart Haley sat back down and looked at the items on his desk, wondering if they would turn out to be leads or red herrings. He knew he didn’t like Jock MacKinnon. But he also knew that he mustn’t allow that to cloud his judgment. As much as he might like to come across a photo of Alice MacKinnon wearing a string of those blueglass beads around her neck, he didn’t expect it to happen. More likely than not, Alice was alive and well somewhere in the Outer Hebrides and the skeletons under the bothy belonged to a couple of hapless Romanian prostitutes that some migrant farm worker had done away with over a decade ago.
Most likely.
Still, he thought, reading Kathy Miller’s letters again, someone wants us to believe it was Jock.
And that someone, it seemed, also wanted Kathy Miller out of the picture. At all costs.
Chapter Eleven
Iris blew on the tips of her fingers as she turned out of the castle driveway and back onto the Pitfeldy road. Up until last week she’d walked to and from her painting sessions with Kathy, but autumnal weather had arrived with astonishing speed to Banffshire and it was so cold now that she’d started to drive instead. After about five minutes, the heating on her rental car, a cheerful royal-blue Mini Cooper, would be toasty warm. But until it kicked in, getting into the car was like climbing into an ice box. She found herself praying that she would finish the portrait before winter kicked in in earnest, although at her current rate of progress this seemed unlikely.
In recent weeks, Kathy had taken to postponing sittings due to various wedding-related appointments. ‘It’s less than three months away, you know,’ she kept informing Iris, as if three months weren’t more than enough time to buy a cake and a dress and order in a few flowers. When they did have sessions together, Kathy was forever moving, usually when talking animatedly about her latest theory on the Girls in the Wood, or her mysterious letter writer. Even once Iris finally persuaded her to sit still, her hair remained a sticking point. And then, finally, there were the constantly wriggling dogs.
Though she wouldn’t admit it to their besotted mistress, Iris had secretly grown fond of Milo and Sam Sam. She loved that they were so naughty and out of control that they’d managed not only to contaminate a crime scene, but also to ingest and then shit out potentially vital evidence. But there was no doubt that having two fluffy tyrants involved in every sitting had slowed down her work to a frustrating degree, and no amount of begging on Iris’s part could get Kathy to change her mind about including them in the picture.
Today’s session had gone slightly better than usual. Both dogs had helpfully fallen asleep, allowing Iris to concentrate on them for once, while Kathy talked non-stop as usual, this time about Jock.
‘He handled the whole letters thing better than I thought he would,’ she told Iris, shivering beneath her cashmere cardigan and dabbing a blob of rose balm on her sore lips. Even cold and sniffly, and with zero make-up on, she looked more beautiful than any woman had a right to. ‘He just said he wished I’d told him sooner, and that I mustn’t let whoever was sending them get to me.’
‘Did he have any thoughts on who it might be?’ asked Iris.
‘Not really. “A local” was all he said. Some idiot with a grudge. I asked if he thought it might be Rory or Emma, but he just laughed and said they wouldn’t dare. Which I guess is probably true.’
‘What about the whole “you’ll be next” thing?’ Iris pressed. ‘Didn’t that worry him?’
‘It honestly didn’t seem to,’ said Kathy, pensively. ‘I mean, obviously he knows he had nothing to do with whatever happened to those women. So I guess he has no reason to be worried. The only thing that did bother him –’ She hesitated.
‘What?’ said Iris.
‘Don’t take this the wrong way,’ Kathy said awkwardly. ‘But I think it upset him that I’d confided in you
about the notes, rather than him.’
‘I see,’ said Iris.
‘He can be quite possessive when it comes to my affections,’ Kathy explained. ‘Plus, he wasn’t thrilled that I’d let you show the notes to the police. He’s not a fan of that Haley guy. But anyway, all in all, I’d say he was pretty chill.’
* * *
Turning right just as the road crested over the hill and began its sharp descent towards Pitfeldy harbour, Iris pulled into the Lidl car park. She needed bread and milk and a ready meal for tonight’s supper, ideally something warming like a curry or a cheesy fish pie. Stepping out of the Mini, she pulled her coat more tightly around her before grabbing a trolley. This morning’s frost had melted in the weak midday sun, and the leaves in the hedgerows glistened slick and dark in the fading afternoon light. A light drizzle had begun to fall. Dashing into the store, Iris was wondering if it would turn to sleet by nightfall, or even snow, when she ran slap bang into ‘that Haley guy’.
‘Ms Grey.’ He smiled a little awkwardly. ‘We really must stop meeting like this.’
He looked tired, Iris thought, hovering with his shopping basket beside a giant display of cereal boxes and with a paper list clutched in his hand. There’s something so faint about him, with his pale skin and thinning hair and that awful grey suit, that makes him almost invisible. She wondered if the attempt to fade away was deliberate, and if so whether it was professional – a detective’s need to observe and stay in the shadows – or personal, a more profound wish to disappear, to withdraw from a world that had hurt him.
Or maybe he’s just pasty and Scottish with crap taste in suits, thought Iris, laughing out loud as this pithy counterpoint popped, unbidden, into her head.
‘Something funny?’ Haley looked confused.
‘Oh, not really.’ Iris blushed, getting a grip on herself. She liked Haley and the last thing she wanted was to be rude. ‘Any progress on the letters? Or those beads?’
‘Not much,’ he sighed. ‘The beads did come from the bothy site, and were probably once part of a bracelet or a necklace. Possibly belonging to one of the victims, but we’ve found almost no other traces of clothing up there. Just a few fragments of cloth that could have been anything. So we’re not sure.’
‘I see,’ said Iris. She was pleased, and not a little surprised that he would choose to share so much information with her. Evidently, the admiration and trust between them was mutual. ‘Well, that’s good news, I suppose.’
‘Not good enough,’ said Haley wearily. ‘To be frank with you, Ms Grey, although I’d appreciate it if you kept this between us, I’m under increasing pressure to shit or get off the pot, if you’ll pardon the expression.’
‘You still don’t have leads on who the women were?’ Iris asked.
‘I’ve got some open lines of inquiry,’ Haley answered cautiously. ‘But nothing I can hang my hat on, no. The bottom line is, if I cannae get an ID on at least one of the bodies soon, the investigation’s likely to be shelved.’
‘Shelved?’ Iris sounded shocked. ‘As in, the police just walk away?’
He nodded.
‘But it’s a murder!’
‘I don’t want to drop the case, believe me,’ said Haley with feeling. ‘But no one’s come forward to claim our girls, and they don’t match any known missing persons on the Scottish register.’
‘What about the English register?’ asked Iris.
‘That’s a bigger list and we’ve got men still running through it, but so far nothing,’ said Haley. ‘Dental records were our big hope, but that’s been a “no” too, unfortunately, at least so far. I’ve got one more door I’m still knocking on. We’ll see.’
He didn’t want to tell Iris his suspicions about Alice MacKinnon until he had something concrete. But already he’d had calls in to Lerwick police in Shetland, and to Dr Jillian Vaisey, Alice MacKinnon’s old NHS dentist in Buckie, and was tentatively crossing his fingers.
‘People in the village have been talking about migrant workers,’ said Iris. ‘Is there a possibility the girls came from abroad?’
‘Every possibility,’ admitted Haley. ‘The problem is, especially if they entered illegally, as most transient workers do, we have no way to find them in any records or to cross-reference databases. Migrants are as good as invisible. It’s one of the things that makes them so vulnerable. Plus, when we’re looking at women, you’ve got to think about the sex trade.’
‘You mean you think they might have been prostitutes?’ asked Iris.
‘What I mean is, we still don’t know who they were. And that’s the problem. If they were sex workers from abroad, it’ll only make it harder for me to argue for more time and resources.’
‘That’s terrible,’ said Iris, appalled. ‘After all, murder’s murder, isn’t it? Surely one life’s just as valuable as another.’
Reaching out, he put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder.
‘It should be, Ms Grey,’ he said wistfully. ‘It absolutely should be.’
* * *
Haley woke early the next morning, sitting bolt upright in bed like Frankenstein’s monster, startled by some dreamed shock he’d already forgotten. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep, he got up and stumbled groggily into the shower, allowing the pounding hot jets to coax both his body and brain into some sort of life.
By six he was in the kitchen, dressed and on his second cup of coffee. He’d had emails overnight from Lerwick. According to the station there, Alice MacKinnon had never actually lived on Shetland.
‘She may have rented a croft or a cottage for her holidays one year,’ Sergeant Thane had emailed Haley. ‘But she never owned property here, or registered to vote. We’ve no NHS records for any Alice MacKinnon.’
Out of curiosity, Haley had also inquired about Linda Brae, Angus’s mother and the old gillie’s wife, as Angus had mentioned that she’d moved to Shetland after she’d left his father. The news there was more positive.
‘Linda Brae was definitely resident and registered to vote here until 2009. As far as we can tell, she left Shetland that year and hasn’t been back. She registered a new address in Glasgow.’ Haley made a mental note to check that out later. ‘She’s still listed as the owner of Tithe Cottage over at Braehoulland, but the place is completely derelict. It’s actually due to be demolished next month – health and safety. All attempts by the council to trace the owner failed, so they got a court order to tear it down.’
Gulping down the last of his coffee and taking a second Lidl cinnamon bun for the road, Haley grabbed his car keys from the hook by the door. Doolally or not, it was time he paid Edwin Brae a visit. He wanted to ask Pitfeldy Castle’s old gillie to his face about the bodies in the bothy, and about migrants and prostitutes hanging around the estate during his years in charge.
He’d also like to know exactly when Edwin Brae had last laid eyes on his wife. And what had happened to make Linda run off, abandoning her son, friends and life, never to return.
* * *
Passages Care Home was an ugly, modern brick building with hideous double glazing, crouched at the end of a nondescript no-through lane on the outskirts of the fishing town of Buckie. In front of it was a tarmacked circle for visiting cars and a single flower bed that was mostly just mud, interspersed with a few desultory grasses and ‘hardy’ flowers, all bowed and battered by the recent storms.
Making a mental note to kill himself rather than ever allow anyone to pack him off to a place like this, Haley parked and went inside.
In the foyer, some attempt had been made at cheer. The building was at least warm, with tartan armchairs scattered throughout the common areas and vases of plastic flowers plonked in the windowsills and on the edge of the reception desk. Inoffensive, piped classical music drifted out of speakers recessed somewhere in the ceiling. There was art on the walls too, most of it kitsch photography: kittens playing with balls of string, or naked babies in aprons flashing their peachy bottoms. It was all pretty awful, in
Haley’s opinion, but it did at least provide some distraction from the stench of disinfectant and overboiled vegetables, and the pervasive sense of death hovering in the air, an awkward but familiar visitor.
‘Can I help you, love?’
The fat, bottle-blonde receptionist looked up at Haley kindly. He showed her his badge.
‘I’ve come to talk to a Mr Brae. Mr Edwin Brae? I understand he’s one of your residents.’
The receptionist looked at him quizzically. ‘He is, yes. Been here longer than I have, has Edwin. You do realise he has advanced Alzheimer’s?’
‘Yes,’ said Haley. ‘So I’ve been told.’
‘What I mean is,’ the woman tried again, ‘he won’t know who you are. Most of what he says, if you’re not familiar with the condition – he doesn’t make a lot of sense.’
‘I understand,’ said Haley, though it was obvious to the receptionist that he didn’t. ‘I do need to talk to him all the same. Just in case he remembers something. It’s important.’
With a ‘suit yourself’ shrug, she directed him to the old gillie’s room. Number 206, right at the very end of the hallway.
Through the half-open door, Haley could see a frail, bent figure sitting in an upright leather chair with a tray across his lap, gazing out of the window at Passages’ scrubby rear garden. A nurse or carer of some sort was in the room with him, bustling about stripping sheets and propping the old man’s back with cushions. As he drew nearer, Haley could see that the room was mostly bare: just a chair, bed and side table with a narrow fitted wardrobe crammed into one corner. The only exception were a few rather well-executed watercolours hanging on the walls, including an eerie painting of what looked like a Venetian canal at dawn that particularly caught his eye.
‘Hello.’ Haley walked in and introduced himself, first to Edwin Brae, who looked through him as if he wasn’t there, and then to the nurse. ‘Nice painting, that.’ He pointed to the canal picture above the bed.