by Gray, Alex
Maryka had brought trays of coffee and shortbread biscuits and was pouring out a cup for Mrs Forsyth who sat slumped into her chair, a dazed look on her face. Solly acknowledged his friend’s presence with a tiny nod but from the way the psychologist was crouched down beside the man’s chair, Lorimer could see that he had succeeded in engaging Hamish Forsyth in conversation.
‘Twenty years ago we bought this bloody place,’ he heard Forsyth say, but the words were uttered with a sigh of resignation as if the news of their son’s death had drained all bitterness from his soul. ‘Gary was away and we needed a fresh start. She wanted to come here,’ he told Solly, glancing back at his ashen-faced wife. ‘Never knew why.’ He gave a hollow laugh. ‘Ask her now. Ask her why she stood at that damned jetty day after bloody day.’ His voice ended on a high strained note and he picked up the coffee cup in front of him, looking at its contents as though they might be the answer to all of his questions.
‘Mrs Forsyth?’ Solly stood up and came towards the woman, seating himself on the arm of her chair. ‘Can you give an answer to that?’
‘He said he’d come here,’ she said slowly, turning to look out of the window at the stretch of water that linked island to mainland. ‘Gary. He said he was coming up to stay. I had a letter, you know. From Glasgow,’ she added, turning to give Solly a peculiar look that made him shiver. Her eyes had a faraway stare that he recognised from years of interviewing patients at the State Hospital in Carstairs. Behind them a kind of madness festered, years of hope and longing wasting a fragile mind.
‘Gary wrote to you?’
She nodded. ‘He didn’t know, of course,’ she muttered darkly. ‘He didn’t want to know.’ A brief turn of the head indicated the father who had disowned his son. ‘Things have changed now, haven’t they? Even get married nowadays.’ She laughed a short dry laugh. ‘Who’d have thought it? But then…’ Her words trailed off, leaving the listeners to fill in their own version of what sort of world it had been when his father had thrown Gary Forsyth out of the family home.
‘He told me about a hotel. This hotel,’ she added. ‘He was going to come back and work here with his friend.’
‘And do you know who Gary’s friend was?’ Solly asked gently, the silence around him full of expectation as the others listened for her response.
‘No,’ she replied sadly. ‘But I had the impression it was someone local. Someone from Mull. We bought Kilbeg and I waited for him to come back.’ She smiled, her eyes flitting from Solly to the other men standing nearby.
‘He isn’t coming back,’ Solly explained gently. ‘Gary died a long time ago.’
‘What about Archie Gillespie?’ Lorimer came forward and hunkered down at the woman’s other side. ‘Was he here when you bought the hotel?’
‘No.’ Hamish Forsyth turned and answered for his wife. ‘Archie answered an advert we had placed in the Oban Times and the Gazette. Came up here in that old boat of his and has been here ever since. Like one of the family,’ he murmured, a puzzled frown creasing his bushy eyebrows.
‘And was Archie Gillespie here when that letter arrived from Glasgow?’ Lorimer asked, pinning Mrs Forsyth with his blue gaze.
‘I can’t remember.’ She blinked then smiled at them all in turn, her raised eyebrows and outspread hands telling all that they needed to know. The woman had reached a point where the sorts of details that the police required had ceased to have any importance; the certainty of her son’s death tipping her further over the edge. But, Lorimer reasoned, if it was found that Gillespie had arrived at Kilbeg after Gary’s death, could that put him in the frame for the boy’s murder?
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
‘And she’s all right?’ Lorimer wanted to know.
‘Aye, seems to be. We’ll know more when she’s been seen at Oban hospital. Dr MacMillan wants her to have a scan.’
‘Does she know what damage has been done?’
‘Fractured skull at least, the doc says.’
Lorimer drew in a deep breath. Assault to severe injury looked like being on the charge sheet, amongst other things.
‘Gillespie gave her some crack on the head. If it was Gillespie,’ Calum amended carefully. ‘Must have tied her up and dumped her in the old outdoor pantry. No idea where he’s gone now. Could even be across to Coll. Or Tiree, perhaps,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘Think we may need that helicopter of yours again, sir.’
Despite the intense pain in her head, it was amazing how much better she felt with fresh dry clothing and a hot bowl of porridge inside her, Stevie thought as she lay in the ambulance taking her off the car ferry to Oban hospital. Back in Craignure, Dr MacMillan had been kindness itself, helping Stevie into a hot shower and giving her some clothes that fitted surprisingly well. The big police officer back at Kilbeg had packed her toiletries but had not thought to bring a change of clothing.
With all that was going on there, Stevie couldn’t blame him.
‘Looks as if we are about the same size,’ the woman had smiled, patting Stevie’s shoulder as she had emerged from the shower, swathed in a fluffy towel. ‘Think these’ll tide you over for a wee bit, Detective Inspector.’
Stevie watched as the clouds flew past the windows of the ambulance. She badly wanted to close her eyes and sleep but her memories of the previous night were clear enough now.
There would be a hunt for Gillespie, she thought. A lot of manpower deployed to apprehend her attacker. But, Stevie told herself, even if he was the man who had so ferociously attacked her, had he killed those two red-headed boys? And that gentle old lady? What would Lorimer make of it? she wondered. Wouldn’t he want to ask a different question?
If Gillespie was guilty of these crimes, then why was she still here at all instead of being flung into the bottom of the ocean?
‘He must have realised who he was knocking over the head, surely?’ Lorimer remarked as he and Solly drove back to Kilbeg from the incident room at Tobermory where they had met with the other members of Crozier’s team.
‘It would be dark,’ Solly reminded him. ‘And she was an intruder.’
‘But to truss her up and dump her in that wee shed…? Come on, what was he thinking?’
‘Maybe he just wanted to frighten her?’
‘Gillespie could just have given her an earful,’ Lorimer retorted. ‘No, there’s more to this, Solly.’
‘He’s not been found then?’
‘Not yet. But he must have been hiding something, surely?’
‘Any words from DI Crozier at all?’
‘Just what we know from big Calum. He did pass on one thing, though. DI Crozier wanted to let us know that there was a whole sheaf of Courlene on Gillespie’s boat. That was the same stuff he used to tie her up.’
‘Hm,’ Solly said, staring at the road ahead as they passed the sign for the Mull Theatre and headed out of the Tobermory area.
‘He gave her a fright, that’s for sure,’ Lorimer said grimly.
‘Maybe that was all he intended,’ Solly replied thoughtfully. ‘If he’d wanted to strangle DI Crozier and dump her overboard then he had plenty of opportunity to do so.’
‘What I was thinking myself,’ Lorimer agreed. ‘Is he or is he not the man we’re looking to put in the frame for the murders?’
‘What did the team tell you about this man, Gillespie, from the initial inquiry?’ Solly wanted to know.
‘He came to work at Kilbeg shortly after the Forsyths bought the place,’ Lorimer told him. ‘They’d upped sticks and left their previous hotel at Mrs Forsyth’s insistence.’
‘She was still hoping that her boy would return.’
‘Yes,’ Lorimer agreed. ‘What we need to know is the exact time when Gillespie applied for the job. Was it before or after Gary Forsyth’s death?’
‘Do you really think he might have been the one that murdered Gary?’ There was a challenging note in the professor’s voice that Lorimer recognised.
‘Well, it did cross my mind.’ Lorimer turned to
look at the psychologist’s raised eyebrows. ‘I know, I know. I’m guessing that doesn’t fit your profile.’ He gave his friend a rueful grin. ‘And that is something I have come to respect.’
‘Thank you,’ Solly replied gravely, giving a little bow of his head in acknowledgement.
‘Right, let me see. You think that our man is someone other than the chef from Kilbeg. Someone who may have been around the fringes of the art world? Am I correct?’
‘Hmm.’ Solly nodded.
‘Let’s take it a bit at a time,’ Lorimer said, pulling into a lay-by to allow the local bus to overtake them. They had reached the top of the Guline Dubh and Solly’s glance out of the window became a head-turning stare as he looked at the view. The whole Sound of Mull stretched out from the peak of Ben Hiant in the west to the vague shapes of mountains in the other direction, the land below a pastoral landscape that hugged the coastline in a series of small coves. In the time he had been on this island, the psychologist must have been driven past this place many times but it had taken this short pause for him to look out and appreciate its full magnificence.
‘Whoever killed those boys must have felt a great deal for them,’ Solly said slowly, turning to face the road ahead once more. ‘I think that each of these young men’s deaths was an accident.’
‘An accident?’ Lorimer exclaimed ‘Do you really think so?’
‘Hear me out.’ Solly held up a hand. ‘Whoever tied up the two boys waited with their bodies for a considerable time,’ he reminded Lorimer. ‘Until rigor had set in.’
Lorimer nodded silently.
‘It was only then that he undid the bonds, taking them to a place where he could release them into water.’ He looked back out at the expanse of the Sound below them. ‘I wonder if it was a sort of farewell,’ he mused. ‘To have buried them would have been too great, emotionally speaking.’
The psychologist gave a sigh as though trying to put himself into the shoes of the man behind these tragedies.
‘It was only when he had made some sort of peace with them that he could let them go. So he slipped Rory’s body over the side of a boat. Probably tumbled Gary down the side of the river from somewhere upstream. Out of a car, possibly. We don’t know such details yet, of course.’
‘And what about Jean Erskine?’ Lorimer insisted.
‘By the time he knew about what Jean had witnessed that night, I think our killer had become desperate. I am sure that brief moment of strangling the old lady had nothing malevolent about it at all,’ he continued sadly. ‘One swift snap and she was gone. Like throttling a chicken.’
‘You’re saying that he had dehumanised her?’
Solly looked at him intently for a long moment. ‘I think he had to,’ he said at last. ‘A man like that would never have been able to kill in cold blood otherwise.’
‘Who are we looking for, then? A sentimental gay man with BDSM tendencies who happens to have access to a boat?’ Lorimer tried not to sound overly sceptical.
‘Perhaps.’
Lorimer threw his friend a quizzical look, then, signalling, he drove from the lay-by and down the twisting single-track road that would take them back to Kilbeg Country House Hotel and the deepening mystery of just who had taken these three people’s lives.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
‘Maryka’s got something to tell you,’ the police sergeant announced as he met the pair in the foyer of the hotel. The Dutch girl was hovering behind the big policeman, shifting her eyes to Lorimer then away again. He’d seen that sort of expression countless times before, especially in interview rooms when he knew that the person opposite was about to confess their guilt.
‘It’s about Archie,’ the girl said, moving forward at Calum Mhor’s prompting. ‘I know why he went away in such a hurry. He was hiding stuff in that boat of his.’ She glanced at Lorimer then down at her shoes.
‘Cannabis,’ Calum stated. ‘Maryka, tell the detective superintendent exactly what you told me.’
The Dutch girl shifted her eyes back to Lorimer and Solly. ‘He had stores of it in the boat,’ she told them. ‘Got more every time he sailed to Oban for supplies.’ She shrugged. ‘Suppose he was dealing for years around here.’
‘And how did you come to know about this?’
Maryka looked to the side, making Lorimer wonder if she were about to fabricate the truth.
‘I… we… had a few joints together in the kitchen,’ she said, feigning a nonchalance that Lorimer was certain she did not feel.
‘No, Maryka,’ he insisted. ‘How did you know about Archie Gillespie being a supplier?’
There was no reply from the girl as she continued to look beyond them at the open doorway. Then, as though something had come to mind, she looked up at the detective superintendent.
‘He hated Rory,’ she said. ‘Told him he’d be eating with the fishes if Rory grassed on him.’
‘So Rory knew too?’
She shrugged again. ‘Think everyone knew Archie was a dealer,’ she said vaguely. ‘Not the Forsyths, of course. They’d have sacked him right away.’
‘And Fiona Taig?’
‘Oh, Fiona!’ Maryka gave a superior sort of smile. ‘She’s such an innocent sort of girl. Only ever sees the best in people. Even in Rory,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘No, Fiona was never aware of Archie’s habits. We kept that from her, all right.’
‘Explains why he was so eager to get rid of DI Crozier and scarper,’ Lorimer said grimly. ‘And if we do find that boat you can bet there will be no trace of cannabis or anything else on board.’
‘Just a lot of happy little fishes at the bottom of the sea,’ Solly murmured, an enigmatic smile hovering above his beard.
Lorimer shot him a look. Had the psychologist dabbled in his younger days? Best not to ask, he thought, flicking through the files placed against the steering wheel.
They were sitting in the Lexus once again, Lorimer preferring to look at the case notes in private and out of earshot of anyone in the hotel.
‘What does it say about the gardener?’ Solly asked, his eyes resting on the file that Lorimer was examining.
‘Not a lot,’ Lorimer sighed. ‘The officer who questioned him has very little on record. Does say here though that Lachlan Turner appeared to be dour. And monosyllabic. Can’t see how that helps at all.’
‘Oh, but it does,’ Solly countered, sitting up and smiling.
‘How so?’
‘Don’t you see?’ Solly continued, smiling his enigmatic smile. ‘This could be the suppression of emotion, could it not?’
Lorimer shook his head wearily. ‘Or Lachlan Turner might just be a dour monosyllabic gardener,’ he objected.
‘Well,’ Solly said brightly. ‘Shall we go and see for ourselves?’
Bella Ingram’s house seemed deserted when they arrived, with no sign of the gardener’s van parked outside.
A knock on the door was rewarded by the sound of feet coming along a corridor, however, and the door opened, a woman’s face lit up with expectation.
When she saw that two strangers stood there, Bella Ingram’s expression changed at once, a wary shadow crossing her face.
‘Yes?’ The door was only half open, the woman’s strong hands clutching the handle as though ready to slam it shut.
‘Detective Superintendent Lorimer,’ he told her, holding out his warrant card for her to inspect. ‘And Professor Brightman who is part of the team who are looking into the recent deaths on the island.’
‘Terrible,’ Bella Ingram declared. ‘Just terrible. Nothing like this has ever happened in all my life. No one’s safe any more,’ she said, accusingly, as though the tall policeman were personally responsible. ‘We all keep our doors locked now. And not only at night. Never used to be like this,’ she went on. ‘Drugs and that. The world isn’t what it once was.’ She shook her head.
‘We were hoping to speak to Mr Turner, your brother,’ Lorimer said patiently.
‘Lachie isn’t here,’ she said shortl
y.
‘When do you expect him home?’ Lorimer asked.
The woman shrugged. ‘Who knows? When he’s out fishing he could be away all day.’ She looked past Lorimer at the bearded psychologist who had taken a step forward.
‘Is there any chance we might come in and talk to you, Mistress Ingram?’ Solly asked, his quaint form of address at once disarming the woman who passed a hand over her hair and smiled coyly.
‘Well, now, I’m not sure how much of a help I could be…’
‘Oh, I think you might give us quite a lot of background information about life in Tobermory nowadays,’ Solly assured her. ‘You’ve lived here all your life?’
Bella Ingram nodded. ‘Well, why not come away in. I was just going to put the kettle on anyway,’ she said, opening the door wide and beckoning the two men inside. ‘Come through the house.’ She ushered them into a room that was obviously the parlour, kept clean and tidy for special occasions. ‘I’ll just be a wee minute with the tea.’
Lorimer watched her go then glanced around the parlour. It was an old-fashioned sort of room with heavy dark furniture, probably passed down from one generation to the next. Solly stood looking out of the window but Lorimer’s eyes had been caught by several fine watercolour paintings that had been fixed to the walls. They were all landscapes, mostly, he assumed, of Mull: one was unmistakably Tobermory, the curve of colourful houses around the bay with Calve Island in the background, now an iconic image found in calendars everywhere.
‘They’re good,’ Lorimer remarked as Bella Ingram returned with a laden tea tray. ‘Local artist?’
‘Och no.’ She gave a short laugh. ‘Well, I suppose it is in a way. No, these were all done by our Lachie. Long time ago, now,’ she added in a disapproving tone.