In the Mists of Time

by Marie Treanor

  “I’m in,” Charlie said. His eyes were already distracted, distant, as if seeing the characters or the scenes he’d portray. “But I’m not much on animation…”

  “I can deal with that,” Thierry said. “Glenn?”

  Glenn was reading a text that had just arrived on his phone. “I think you’ve got something. Could be seriously good. I’ll see what I can come up with.”

  Charlie was already walking purposefully out of the room.

  Thierry smiled and closed the laptop. “Good. If we can move quickly, I think we can make a lot of money on this.”

  “Talking of money,” Glenn said heavily.

  Thierry paused, glanced at him. “What?”

  “Ronald Main, B&B guest, fisherman and private investigator.”

  “What about him?” Thierry asked steadily.

  “He’s dead. Managed to fall down the waterfall and kill himself.”

  After the first shock, the implications swamped Thierry. He sat on the sofa. “Fuck.”

  “He was investigating you, Thierry. The cops will be all over us like a rash.”

  “Fuck,” Thierry said again, dragging his hand through his hair and tugging. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” Glenn asked, and something in his voice caused Thierry’s gaze to fly up to his face. “I have to ask, Frog. Did you have anything to do with this?”

  Thierry stared. “Of course I bloody didn’t. I knew he was here for me—he broke into the caravan to poke around, but there was never anything for him to find. You know that. I’m pretty sure Aidan Grieve knows it too. He’s been looking.” He thumped one fist into the cushion. “Merde. Why couldn’t the stupid bastard just have gone home?”

  “Suppose he was determined to get you, one way or another.”

  “Sod it,” Thierry said tiredly. He stood and picked up his laptop. “I haven’t got their money, I never had it, and I didn’t push him off a cliff. Unless you did, we’re clear.”

  Of course, even as he walked out, he knew it was never going to be as simple as that. Even without the added juice of Ron’s investigation, a body turning up so close to a house full of ex-cons was a gift to the local plods.

  * * * * *

  Weekend meals at Ardknocken House were normally haphazard, at best. If the residents were around, they made do for themselves. The first of the organized fishing trips meant Jim worked full out on his most ambitious three-course dinner while everyone else, apart from Izzy who set the table and acted as waitress for the evening, was forbidden from the dining room. Thierry and Glenn acted as Jim’s kitchen porters.

  “You should be in there with them,” Jim said to Glenn while their guests got stuck into their elegant starter. “Dinner with the laird has more cachet.”

  “Not when the laird is Glenn Brody, convicted murderer and ‘top Glasgow gangster’—which is how I last appeared in the press, complete with unflattering mug shot.”

  “I don’t know,” Thierry said thoughtfully, scrubbing at a saucepan. “It would be something for them to tell their executive pals. Plus, a bit of danger would add spice to their evening.”

  Glenn snorted. “Danger? What do you think I’m going to do with them?”

  “I suppose one might decide to pick a fight,” Jim said regretfully. “Some idiots do.”

  “Not if Izzy was there too,” Thierry said. “The laird and his lady. Izzy can make civilized conversation.”

  “While I sit there like some death’s head at the top of the table? Fuck off, Thierry.”

  “We’ll think about it,” Izzy said from the doorway where she’d been listening in to the conversation while keeping an ear on the cutlery clattering in the dining room. “It might make it more of an event if we can find a way for Glenn not to hate it.”

  “Try a cardboard cutout,” Glenn suggested.

  Thierry laughed with the others. In many ways, it was as if his previous conversation with Glenn hadn’t happened. He could almost imagine Ron wasn’t dead, that everything wasn’t about to go horribly wrong for everyone. Even Louise’s text—Meet me on the beach 10.30—he knew had more to do with Ron’s death than any true desire on her part to see him again. Whatever they’d found last night would inevitably crumble and die in this mess…

  After their dinner, which resulted in many compliments to the chef, Dougie took their guests off to the river and the rest of them cleared up. Jim was as delighted with Glenn’s praise as with the way his first dinner party had gone. Chrissy, inevitably, had been unable to stay away and popped in to hear about it—and to make the residents’ craft items available for sale to their guests upon their return.

  Thierry escaped, eventually, grabbed his jacket from the caravan and walked around to the front of the house, where Chrissy’s disapproving voice sounded with disastrous clarity. She was in her office with the window open.

  “I don’t care, Aidan. Louise is the opposite of an undercover cop. You should never have asked her to do that.”

  “Well he was never going to talk to anyone else,” Aidan said reasonably. “She understands.”

  Thierry paused as if the breath had been suddenly whipped away from his body, and then walked on while new pain seeped in, twisting among the old like bindweed. He hadn’t really believed the suspicion he’d once voiced to Louise about her working with Aidan to find him out. After last night, it had never even entered his head. But never had he imagined such a clear-cut and calculated investigation. No wonder she’d been so eager to get away this morning.

  * * * * *

  With her parents safely in bed, Louise left the house and hurried down to the dark beach. It was generally deserted at this time, the dog walking all done and the teenage parties having retreated somewhere warmer. The night was still and the sea like dark glass, with just a small sparkle of reflected moonlight.

  Louise didn’t see a soul as she walked over the narrow band of sand which was all the advancing sea had left. Tides were pretty high at this time of year. She could see that, right now, it was only just possible to get round to the beach below the big house, but even so, there was no sign of Thierry or anyone else walking towards her.

  Maybe he’d decided not to come. After all, he hadn’t answered her text. Perhaps he’d had enough of her. There had been a lot of very intense sex, enough, perhaps, to get whatever he’d seen in her out of his system.

  It hadn’t felt like that this morning. He’d asked her to come back.

  “Hey,” said a voice in the darkness, making her jump and squeak with surprise as she jerked around to face the sound.

  A black figure perched on a rock jutting out of the cliffside.

  She started towards him. “Jesus, Thierry, you scared the pants off me!”

  He didn’t move. “What’s on your mind?”

  She paused, chilled by the distance in his voice. “Ron, among other things. I’ve been afraid to call you or text you much in case the police look at our phones.”

  “Why would that matter? Did you push him?”

  “Of course I didn’t bloody push him!” She peered through the darkness at his still figure. “What’s the matter? Have the police spoken to you?”

  “Not yet, but they will. They’ll be all over Ardknocken House by Monday, we reckon. What is it you want to know?”

  She frowned. “Know? I just wanted to talk to you.”

  “Is that Aidan’s idea too?”

  She closed her lips and glared up at the sky, silently cursing her brother. She’d no idea how to defend herself from the accusations so clearly in his heart, or even if she could. Instead, she said, “Aidan doesn’t know anything about the mist.”

  At least that surprised him. His head moved in her direction. “The mist?”

  She walked forward again, closing the distance between them. “George—PC Harris—says it looks like Ron fell down the waterfall
last night or early this morning. Doesn’t it seem likely to you that he missed the path in the mist?”

  “Possibly,” Thierry allowed.

  She grabbed his arm, gave it a little shake. “Then we were up there when he was. I know we never went that far, but we were close by. What are the police going to make of that?”

  Thierry inhaled deeply. “At best, we alibi each other and waste all our efforts at discretion.”

  “And at worst, we’re prime murder suspects. Between us, we have plenty of motive. He was investigating you. I already confronted him about Nicole. Plus, you and I are having this secret affair.”

  He looked up at her, his eyes impossible to read or even to see properly in the darkness. “Are we?”

  She released his arm as though it burned her. “We were. Anything more is up to you. I came to talk to you about what exactly we should tell the police about our walk in the mist.”

  Thierry stood up, so close to her that she could smell him, feel the warmth of his not-quite-touching body through his clothes and hers. “The truth,” he said. “Let’s be upfront honest for once. At least it will exonerate you from complicity.”

  She stared up at him, wishing she could see his face, and yet knowing she wouldn’t like that any better than this. “How exactly will it do that?”

  “You were working for Aidan. In effect, you were Ron’s accomplice, not mine.”

  She couldn’t seem to stop this disastrous house of cards. They just kept falling. “Is that all you think I was?” It came out in a whisper.

  “No,” he said. “You were a damned good fuck.” Without warning, his head swooped, and his mouth crushed hers in a hard, almost bruising kiss. She knew it was meant to punish rather than seduce, and yet, even so, everything in her leapt at his touch, melting. But he gave her no time to seduce him back. He dropped her after a mere moment and just walked away.

  So were you, you bastard! She wanted to shout the words after him, with fury and hurt at his injustice. But they stuck in her throat, held up by panic and pain because this was it, finished before they’d even acknowledged a relationship.

  * * * * *

  Since the fishing-trip guys didn’t come in until nearly four o’clock in the morning, Louise made a specially late breakfast for them, including cooking a couple of the trout they’d caught last night. They were enthusiastic in their praise of the river, the fish stocks, Dougie’s charming rogue persona and the fabulous dinner.

  “All without a glimpse of the laird!” one of them said, clearly disappointed.

  “Glenn keeps himself to himself,” Louise returned. “He doesn’t like to intrude.”

  “Heard a rumour the gorgeous waitress is his wife.”

  “Izzy?” Louise guessed. “They’re not married, but close enough.”

  “I must say it’s been a great weekend, meeting—and not meeting!—some very interesting people. I’ll be recommending this for summer outings and other company events.”

  Louise poured him more tea.

  The youngest of them, Stewart Lane, smiled at her and offered his cup too. “Do you spend much time up there?”

  Louise shrugged as she poured. “Izzy’s a friend. Plus, I’ve started a workshop in woodwork.”

  “You’re a lady of talents! Who leads that? Not Dougie?”

  “No, Rab. Dougie’s the mechanic.”

  They were clearly fascinated by the setup at the big house, showed her the jewellery they’d bought for their wives and girlfriends, and other souvenirs. Louise detected Chrissy’s influence there. By the time she saw her guests off, she had a headache from smiling and being cheerful. The thrill of success was definitely dulled by Thierry-induced misery.

  As she and Cerys washed up, she wavered between anger with him for thinking so badly of her—how could he even imagine she would go to such lengths just to dig out information for her bloody brother?—and the sharp pain of grief because it was over when it could have been so good.

  Ha, who was she kidding? She barely knew the man. It was just sex, damned good sex, but who cared?

  She did. But she refused to give in to the vision of lonely years stretching out before her. She had a good life here, she did, and it was getting better. The business was picking up, Aidan was home—mostly—and happy, and she had Cerys and the carers to help with her parents. Compared with the start of the year, her life was great. Compared with last night…

  Oh no, I’m not going there.

  What the hell had she been imagining about last night anyhow?

  Fortunately, perhaps, the doorbell rang.

  “I’ll get it,” she said at once, grateful for the distraction, and, leaving Cerys to finish the dishes, she passed through the family living room, where her mother was reading the Sunday newspapers and her father was snoozing, to the hall and opened the front door.

  Aidan stood there with another man who looked vaguely familiar. She stepped back. “Forgot your key again?”

  “I’d already rung the bell before he caught up with me,” said the man she almost recognized, reaching inside his pocket. “DI Davidson, CID.”

  It was like a boulder hurled at her stomach. She backed even farther into the house, although fortunately it probably looked like a welcoming gesture. Now she remembered Davidson. She’d seen him among the other policemen the night Aidan had gone after some drug smugglers back in January.

  “It’s about Ron,” Aidan said.

  “I thought he fell,” Louise managed. She hesitated, glancing at Aidan. “Office?”

  Aidan nodded, and she called through to Cerys to say where she was, while Aidan led the detective into the little office.

  “No obvious signs of anything else,” Davidson continued their conversation. “But we’ve been called in, considering the nearest neighbours to the accident—”

  “Who, the guys who caught your big-time drug smugglers for you a couple of months ago?” Louise interrupted.

  “That’s the ones,” Davidson said steadily. “You’re almost as protective of them as your brother. Any reason for that? I’ve met his,” he added with a jerk of his head at Aidan.

  “Beyond unfairness, no,” Louise replied with dignity. She gestured to the chair by the desk and Davidson sat while Louise perched on the old kitchen chair, as she had when Thierry’d been here. Aidan lounged against the windowsill, watchful.

  “I’m not being unfair,” Davidson assured her. “Your late guest was investigating Thierry Duplessis, who’s been living at Ardknocken House since the New Year.”

  She couldn’t deny it. She’d already told George Harris.

  “You must see that puts a new complexion on things,” Davidson added.

  “I suppose. But how can I help you?”

  At the window, Aidan stirred. “He’s been to see Nicole. George knew about it. Apparently, Mrs. Campbell saw some kind of confrontation between them last week, outside the post office. According to Nicole, he apologised.”

  Louise frowned, briefly distracted. “Really?”

  Davidson scowled at Aidan, presumably to try to shut him up—Good luck there, Louise thought wryly—and addressed Louise, “I understand you got involved in this business between Miss Graham and the deceased?”

  “I wanted her to report it to the police,” Louise said. “She was reluctant. She has a reputation in the village for…eccentricity. She thought no one would believe her.”

  “Did you believe her?” Davidson asked.

  “I met her just after it happened. She was clearly upset, so, yes, I believed her.”

  “And you confronted him about it?”

  Shit. “Once. I warned him to leave her alone. I think Aidan told him the same.”

  “What was his reaction? Did he threaten you at all?” Davidson asked.

  “Not really,” Louise said doubtfully. “He said ‘Or what?’, as
if doubting my ability to stop him doing whatever he chose. But he wasn’t angry.”

  “And this was when?”

  “Wednesday.”

  “Did you see him after that?”

  Louise shook her head. “No. I presumed he was either fishing or pursuing Thierry in some other way.”

  Too late, she remembered the fishing rod abandoned outside Thierry’s caravan. She hoped to hell Ron had got it back, but a quick glance at Aidan told her nothing. When had she stopped being able to read him? Years ago, once he’d joined the police. Davidson also had a poker face, though his was more obviously deliberate.

  “Okay,” Davidson said. “I’m going up to Ardknocken House now. Would you mind coming too? Just to save time, in case something comes up that I need you to confirm.”

  His voice was friendly, almost apologetic, more appealing than commanding, but Louise had so many reasons to avoid the big house right now that she was torn. On one hand, there was Thierry. On the other, her mission last night to make their stories match had failed. She needed to know what Thierry said in order to confirm it. Of course, just because she was in the house didn’t mean Davidson would interview him in front of her…

  “All right,” she said as amiably as she could. Her throat felt slightly hoarse; she prayed it wasn’t obvious to the cop. “I’ll just be a minute.”

  She went to tell her parents and made sure Cerys could stay until she came back. Then they piled into Davidson’s car and drove up to Ardknocken House.

  * * * * *

  The front door was wide open, as it often was when Chrissy wasn’t around to shut it. For obvious reasons, the ex-cons liked open doors and windows. In the big garage at the side, someone was cursing in fluent Glaswegian. Something heavy and metallic clattered on concrete.

  “Dougie!” Aidan called. “The polis is here!”

  “Bugger off, then,” Dougie said, stamping out of his garage in overalls and an obvious temper and striding towards them. His ferocity was tempered with a friendly “Hello, hen” to Louise. “Izzy’s up in the flat, I think. You taking the filth with you?”

  Davidson blinked.

  Aidan said, “No, I mean the polis is really here. You remember DI Davidson?”