by M. B. Shaw
Iris herself was seated between Rory’s empty chair and Fergus Twomey, which instantly brought back memories of her first-ever dinner at the castle.
‘Can you believe that was four months ago?’ said Fergus, noisily slurping his lobster bisque before launching into yet another story about hunting. ‘It’s been a terrible season for the Dumfriesshires and Stewartry. That’s my local pack,’ he complained to Iris. ‘Of course, now we’ve the shooting to look forward to. Although a certain wedding’s put a spanner in the works here at Pitfeldy. Between you and me,’ he added in a stage whisper, ‘I suspect the new Lady P might put the kibosh on the whole thing permanently. Bit of an animal rights nutter. All these Yanks are.’
Iris nodded politely, interjecting the bare minimum of ‘hmmms’ and ‘yes, I sees’ needed to keep Fergus oblivious while she observed the other guests. And Mrs Gregory, who flitted in and out of the room between courses looking shell-shocked and close to tears. Iris assumed this must be about Rory and ‘the thing no one was talking about’, but the strength of the housekeeper’s reaction was interesting. Angus Brae looked subdued, sitting between Kathy and the Reverend Michaela, but that wasn’t out of the ordinary. His girlfriend, Hannah, was on Jock’s right, and too busy making polite conversation about the wedding and honeymoon plans to be able to rescue her boyfriend socially, as she so often did when the two of them were out together.
‘Yes, where are you going on honeymoon?’ the vicar asked, tuning in to Jock and Hannah’s conversation while the maids finished clearing the beef Wellington and Mrs Gregory carried in the pudding, a towering raspberry pavlova that looked as much like a work of art as a dessert. ‘Or is it a secret?’
‘Not a secret,’ said Jock, reaching across the table for Kathy’s hand and squeezing it lovingly. ‘A surprise.’
‘He’s promised me it’s somewhere hot,’ said Kathy, returning his loving look, to Emma Twomey’s ill-concealed disgust. ‘As much as I adore him, if he takes us on a camping trip to Ben Nevis or to some dreary fishing holiday in Canada, it’ll be the shortest marriage in history.’
Iris, Hannah and the vicar laughed politely, and Fergus guffawed, earning himself a sharp look from Emma.
‘I must say,’ said Jock, wearily, ‘as much as I love Pitfeldy, it will be nice to get away. The last few months have been a strain on all of us.’
It was the closest anyone had come to acknowledging what had happened tonight, and all the suppressed tension in the room. Iris was as surprised as everybody else that Jock had been the person to do it, and even more surprised when Angus spoke up after him.
‘You deserve a break, baron,’ he murmured, tearing his eyes up from the bowl of meringue in front of him to look directly at Jock and Kathy. ‘Both of you do.’
‘Hear, hear!’ said the vicar, raising her glass. ‘I propose a toast. To a new year, and new beginnings.’
Eight glasses were lifted, some freely, some, Iris felt, more reluctantly.
‘To new beginnings.’
Just then a bright light arced into the room through the sash windows. It was a car headlight, and it was rapidly followed by two more and the spraying of gravel as a trio of cars pulled up in front of the castle. The whole room sat in silence as engines were switched off and doors opened and closed. Iris scanned the sea of faces for their different reactions. Emma, Hannah and the Reverend Michaela looked worried. Kathy, Jock and Angus all looked strangely blank. Fergus kept attacking his pavlova, oblivious, and Eileen Gregory froze like an escaping prisoner of war caught in a machine-gunner’s searchlight.
No one spoke as the front door was opened and the sound of footsteps on the ancient stone floors grew louder and louder.
By the time DI Haley actually walked into the room, the second police appearance of the evening, the mood around the table was more expectant than surprised. But that changed as soon as Haley opened his mouth.
‘We’ve identified the second victim,’ he announced bluntly, and more than a touch triumphantly, his eyes boring into Jock’s. ‘Jock MacKinnon, I’m arresting you on suspicion of murder.’
Chapter Thirty-two
Back at the station, Stuart Haley looked soberly across the interview desk at Jock MacKinnon, who met the DI’s gaze with an impressively blank stare. He’d been unusually calm up at the castle when Haley arrested him and read him his rights. Unlike Eileen Gregory, the housekeeper, who’d fainted dead away on the spot and had to be revived by the Reverend Michaela, and Kathy Miller, who’d let out a sort of animal howl that rang through the vast dining room for what felt like an hour. She was still going, slumped in Iris’s arms, as Jock was led away.
‘Interview commenced at ten p.m.,’ said Haley gruffly for the benefit of the tape. ‘So.’
‘So,’ said Jock.
‘Tell me about Paola Contorini.’
Haley had had a hunch about Beatrice’s mother, Paola, ever since it emerged that the stories of her untimely death in Rome were untrue. Eileen Gregory’s testimony to Iris deepened his suspicions, but it was tonight’s hard evidence from Professor Martha Lane that clinched it. It was a phone call Haley would never forget.
‘You’re absolutely sure, Martha?’ he’d asked, with his heart in his mouth. ‘I can’t stress enough how much rides on this.’
‘I’m positive,’ said Professor Lane firmly. ‘The X-ray results you sent me showed fractures in the left calcaneus and talus identical to those on our second set of remains. That would have made it ninety-nine per cent sure, but a few minutes ago my colleague at Sapienza University in Rome rang me with the DNA results from our bone marrow. Those were a match, too.’
It was a rare moment of unadulterated triumph for Stuart Haley, although he owed at least part of it to Iris Grey. He’d learned more than a week ago that Paola Contorini wasn’t on any of Italy’s criminal DNA databases. But Iris was the one who’d suggested that she might have provided a private DNA sample when she was chasing Massimo Giannotti for a paternity test. That had led Haley to the Contorinis’ GP in Venice, who had no genetic samples but who had helpfully provided Paola’s old X-ray results, and, eventually, to a private clinic in Rome, for whom she had, indeed, provide a sample.
Jock breathed in and out slowly, allowing Haley’s question to hang in the air.
‘Is Rory here?’ he asked eventually, sounding oddly detached.
‘Yes. He’s spending the night in one of our cells,’ said Haley. ‘Is that important, baron?’
‘Not especially,’ said Jock. ‘He’s waiting for his solicitor, I suppose?’
‘Paola Contorini,’ Haley leaned forward over the desk, bringing his face close to Jock’s. ‘Why did you do it, baron? Why did you kill her?’
Leaning back, Jock sighed heavily. ‘I think I’ll wait for my lawyer, too, if it’s all the same to you, detective,’ he announced, after a long pause. ‘I’m happy to cooperate. But it doesn’t make sense for me to answer the same questions twice. And John’s going to want to hear everything for himself when he gets here.’
‘OK,’ Haley said briskly, matching the baron’s relaxed tone, albeit with an effort. Two could play at that game. ‘Well, he’s on his way, I understand.’
‘Yes.’
Unlike Rory’s solicitor, John Mills, Jock MacKinnon’s brief, had picked up his phone at nine-thirty at night and was already on his way to Pitfeldy. Haley knew him by reputation. The man was as slippery as a snake dipped in olive oil and had a hawk-like eye for irregularities of procedure. Haley would have to be on top of his own game to stand a chance of outwitting him.
‘We’ll take a break, in that case, and resume once your man arrives. Interview suspended.’
* * *
It was almost midnight by the time John Mills sauntered into the station looking worryingly rested and efficient in an immaculately cut suit and smelling of expensive aftershave.
‘We obviously want to help, detective inspector,’ Jock’s lawyer said obligingly after almost an hour of ‘no comment’s, partial answ
ers and evasions from Jock that made it quite clear that was the last thing they wanted. ‘But I’m not sure how much more information my client can give you.’
‘Nor am I,’ said Haley doggedly, undeterred. ‘That’s why we’re still sitting here, Mr Mills. And we will be for the next,’ he looked at his watch, ‘seven and a half hours. After which, unless he stops lying to me, I fully intend to charge your client with obstruction, and very possibly with murder. Why did you lie about knowing Paola Contorini, Jock?’
‘I didn’t lie,’ Jock sighed. ‘I just didn’t remember her.’
‘We have witnesses who’ve testified Paola visited you at the castle, more than once.’
‘Forgive me, detective, but weren’t these visits more than a decade ago?’ John Mills piped up. ‘My client can’t be expected to remember every house guest he’s ever had on the estate.’
‘No indeed,’ said Haley, archly. ‘And I’m not interested in all of them. Only the ones who ended up murdered and buried under his bothy.’
For a blissful moment, that shut John Mills up.
‘Were you and Paola Contorini lovers?’ Haley demanded, turning back to Jock.
‘No,’ Jock drawled.
‘OK,’ said Haley. ‘So how did you know her?’
‘I told you. I don’t remember.’
‘Did you meet her in Venice?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Did you rape her, baron? When you and your friend Massimo Giannotti were staying at the Danieli Hotel together?’
‘Don’t answer that,’ John Mills instructed his client, before turning on Haley. ‘That’s an outrageous accusation, detective inspector. I trust you have the evidence to back it up?’
‘It’s not an accusation, it’s a question,’ Haley shot back. ‘We know that Paola Contorini claimed she was raped while she worked at the hotel. And according to my Italian colleagues, the attack took place during the period that your client was staying in Venice, a city he previously claimed never to have visited, at the Danieli. So here’s another question.’ He turned his attention furiously back to Jock. ‘Are you Beatrice Contorini’s father?’
Just for a second, a flash of panic registered in Jock’s eyes. It was gone as soon as it arrived, but not quick enough for Haley, who pounced like a cat, steamrollering over the lawyer’s ‘no comment’.
‘I’ll tell you what I think, shall I?’ Haley leaned over the table, as close to Jock’s face as the space allowed. ‘I think you remember Paola Contorini very well indeed. She wasn’t your mistress.’
‘I believe I already told you that,’ said Jock, in a rare flash of temper that earned him a warning look from his lawyer.
‘She was the chambermaid who wouldn’t shut up, wasn’t she?’ Haley continued. ‘That rape happened late at night and in pitch-darkness, when Paola was drunk. She always believed it was your friend Massimo Giannotti who attacked her. She believed that till she died, didn’t she? But it wasn’t Massimo. It was you. You were Paola’s attacker.’
‘No.’ Jock shook his head repeatedly. ‘That’s not right.’
‘I think it is,’ Haley persisted softly. ‘I think you raped Paola in Venice, and then you went home to Scotland and forgot all about her, letting your so-called buddy Massimo take the heat for what you did. Until, as awful fate would have it, eighteen years later, young Angus Brae went to Italy on a school trip. And who should he meet there, in Venice, and fall head over heels in love with, but Beatrice Contorini, Paola’s daughter. The product, according to Paola, of that rape. In other words, your daughter.’
Jock’s head shaking became more frenzied, but his former sangfroid seemed to have deserted him and he said nothing.
‘My client utterly refutes these outrageous allegations,’ Mills piped up, filling the silence.
‘Good for him,’ said Haley. ‘But I’m not finished. Angus fell in love with Beatrice on that school trip, and she with him. So much so that when he won a place at Edinburgh to study art, she ran away from home in Venice and followed him here, to Scotland. To be with him. Isn’t that right?’
‘No,’ Jock said, quietly but firmly.
‘Yes,’ Haley countered. ‘And it got worse, didn’t it, baron? Because by the time Edwin Brae went to Edinburgh to beg his son to come back home, Beatrice was already pregnant. But you couldn’t have that, could you? Because you knew something Edwin didn’t know, something he must never know. That Angus was your son. That you’d betrayed Edwin, your oldest and closest friend, by having an affair with his wife, Linda. Am I getting close, baron?’
John Mills looked utterly panicked, watching his client slump forward with his head in his hands in what looked very much like a tacit gesture of admission; to this last accusation at least.
‘Baron Pitfeldy, can you confirm that you are, in fact, the biological father of Angus Brae?’ Haley asked.
John Mills opened his mouth to speak but Jock held up a hand.
‘It’s all right,’ he said quietly. ‘I never knew for sure. But I always believed Angus was my son, yes.’
Haley leaned back, exhaling deeply. At last. At last the bastard was opening up and the pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fit.
‘Is that why you’ve always been so involved in his life?’
‘Yes.’
‘But he never knew?’
‘No. Neither he nor Edwin –’ Jock’s voice wavered. ‘Whatever you may think of me, detective inspector, I have always loved Edwin like a brother. I deeply regretted my affair with Linda. But you can’t turn back the clock.’
‘No,’ Haley agreed. ‘Although you can hide the evidence, can’t you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean I think you panicked, baron. When Angus, probably your son, shows up living with a girl who you know is probably your daughter? Well, you can’t have that, can you? You have to put a stop to it. So you get Edwin to do his part, packing him off to Edinburgh to emotionally blackmail Angus into dropping out and coming home. Using his Alzheimer’s to pressure the poor boy into returning to the estate.’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ Jock insisted hotly.
‘But Beatrice wasn’t prepared to just sit back and lose him, was she? She came to Pitfeldy. Maybe she was still pregnant, or maybe she’d lost the baby by then, I don’t know. But I think you confronted her, threatened her, told her she had to leave and forget about Angus. You just didn’t tell her why.’
‘No,’ said Jock. ‘That didn’t happen.’
‘And when she wouldn’t leave? I think you killed her,’ said Haley.
‘That is not true.’ Jock looked over at John Mills, apparently remembering his solicitor’s presence for the first time. ‘Yes, Angus had a girlfriend and yes, Edwin and I disapproved. But not for the reasons you think. And I certainly didn’t kill her.’
‘All right, that’s enough,’ said John Mills forcefully. ‘This is conjecture on top of conjecture. You’ve asked a question, detective inspector, and my client has answered it.’
Haley shrugged, keeping his eyes on Jock. ‘OK. Let’s agree you didn’t kill Beatrice Contorini. Then who did? Maybe it was Angus, hmm? Maybe he killed the girl?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Jock snapped.
‘I agree,’ John Mills piped up. ‘This isn’t a game of Cluedo, detective inspector.’
‘You’re right, it’s not,’ said Haley grimly. ‘It’s a double murder. But I don’t see anything ridiculous about what I just said. If your client is innocent, as he claims. Because, I mean let’s face it, guys, someone killed Beatrice Contorini, her and her mother, and buried them on your estate.’ He glared at Jock openly. ‘That much we know. Now, of course, Angus Brae would have no reason to kill Paola Contorini. You had a motive there, baron, but he didn’t.’
Jock closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked exhausted.
‘So let’s leave Paola for later,’ Haley pressed on. ‘Let’s stick with poor Beatrice for now, shall we? If you didn’t kill h
er, then I’m thinking Angus might have lashed out at her in an argument or whatnot? Maybe things got out of hand. He was under a lot of pressure, after all. From his dad, from you. From Beatrice herself, presumably, with a baby on the way. So I’m thinking, what if Angus killed her, and you helped him dispose of the body?’
Like a lit firework, or boiling water erupting from a geyser, Jock literally exploded up out of his seat.
‘That’s a LIE!’ he roared. ‘You’re a bloody liar, Haley. Angus had nothing to do with this. NOTHING!’
‘Sit down, Jock,’ his solicitor said sternly, as two uniformed officers stepped forward to restrain him.
‘I won’t sit down. You leave the boy out of this!’ he bellowed at Haley.
‘Sit down now,’ Mills repeated, ‘and stop talking.’
Still shaking, but sensing the gravity of the situation, Jock did as he was asked.
‘You’re not helping anyone by losing your temper,’ Mills went on. ‘Detective Haley has spent the last three hours trying to provoke you with these deeply hurtful and untrue allegations. But that doesn’t mean you have to let him succeed. Let me respond from now on. That’s my job.’
Jock nodded, sinking back into his chair. Haley sat back too, taking a moment to compose himself. That had been his game, and set, but if John Mills was allowed to take over, he knew he could still easily lose the match.
On an instinct, he decided to make an abrupt change in tactics.
‘That won’t be necessary,’ he said, getting to his feet and looking at the tape recorder. ‘Interview terminated. Baron Pitfeldy, you’re free to go.’
‘What?’ Jock and his solicitor asked in unison. Both were equally astonished. John Mills looked suspicious, while Jock still seemed vulnerable and close to tears.