by Jane Renshaw
25
At Aviemore Police Station, Scott left them in a small room containing a table and some chairs while he took the SD card away to hand over to the DI in charge of Finn’s case. Bram could feel his heart hammering, his skin slicking with sweat, sitting there in the airless little room.
‘DI Moira Cromer,’ said the grey-haired, business-like woman who eventually came to speak to them, taking a seat at the table opposite them with another, younger woman with wispy blonde hair, whom she introduced as DC Rachel Henderson.
DC Henderson switched on the tape recorder. ‘We’re recording this, okay?’
It wasn’t really a question, but Bram and Kirsty nodded.
DI Cromer gave all their names for the tape. Then: ‘You found this footage on the camera attached to your dog’s collar?’
‘My mum’s dog,’ Kirsty corrected. ‘Our daughter must have put the camera on him just before my dad and brother went out to check around the property.’
‘And they were later joined by your son, Maxwell?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why didn’t you come forward with this straight away?’
‘We’ve only just found it,’ Bram was able to say truthfully. ‘Kirsty didn’t know that Phoebe had attached the petcam to Bertie that night, and I just remembered after Max… after he was arrested.’
‘Okay.’ She consulted her notes. ‘I’m going to ask the two of you to stay here in the station, and surrender your phones, while we arrest your father and apply for a warrant to search your parents’ property. DI Sinclair will look after you. I understand you’re old friends.’
Kirsty nodded. ‘Max–’
‘What we’re going to do now is show your son this footage – which leaves no room for doubt about what your father did, Mrs Hendriksen. Maxwell seems like an intelligent lad. I’m sure he’ll see the sense in telling the truth.’
‘He was only keeping quiet out of – loyalty,’ Kirsty whispered, and Bram grabbed her hand. He wasn’t entirely confident, no matter what she said, that Kirsty would be able to go through with this. ‘Loyalty to his grandad.’
‘Yes, I appreciate that. Theoretically he could be charged with perverting the course of justice, but I don’t think the procurator fiscal is going to consider that to be in the public interest. It’s an understandable omission, to keep quiet about this, particularly as your father explicitly told him to do so.’
‘What will happen to Dad?’ Kirsty choked.
DI Cromer pursed her lips. ‘Regardless of what we find on his property, we have enough here with the footage, your testimony and, it is to be hoped, that of Maxwell, to charge him with Finn Taylor’s murder.’
Kirsty nodded wordlessly.
Bram squeezed her hand.
Scott kept them supplied with sandwiches and water and coffee, and updated on what was going on. For an hour or so, the updates consisted merely of the fact that Max was still being questioned. Then David had been arrested, but not yet charged. Scott reassured them that Amy had been hot on the heels of the officers who had arrested David – she’d picked up Linda and Bertie, and Phoebe from the Millers, and whisked them off to Scott and Amy’s place before the team executing the search warrant had arrived.
Scott was showing the stress of the last few hours, as they all were, but in Scott’s case this manifested as a boyish dishevelment and a slackening of his tie, rather than, as in Bram’s, sweat marks under the arms and lingering body odour.
‘Max will be released imminently,’ Scott said finally, coming into the room and dropping onto a chair by the door. ‘I think it’s best you all come back to our place, for now.’
‘Can’t we go home?’ asked Kirsty. ‘To Woodside?’
‘Not just yet. In light of this new evidence, the SOCOs will be going back there. But in the next few days, you should be able to return.’
‘What about the Taylors?’ said Bram. ‘Have they been told about David’s arrest?’
‘Yes. I told them myself. I don’t think you’ll have any more trouble with them. David… He’s well known for having a short fuse. I don’t think any blame will attach by proxy to any of you.’ Scott sighed. ‘What a bloody mess. I should have… God. I know what David’s like. When you were being harassed, one thing after another, and David was building up a head of steam… I should have seen the signs. I should have stepped in.’
So Scott probably did know about Owen?
‘What could you have done?’ Bram said mechanically. ‘You couldn’t have locked him up because you suspected he might commit a crime some time in the future.’
Scott grimaced. ‘No, but…’
‘It’s not your fault,’ Kirsty said, almost impatiently. ‘When can we see Max?’
Scott’s wife, Amy, was kindness itself, moving their little boy into their own bedroom so that Max could have a room of his own and not have to share with Phoebe. The little boy, five-year-old Stuart, was a perfect gentleman, solemnly offering Phoebe a range of toys which he thought she might like as she didn’t have any of her own with her.
The gesture made Phoebe cry, sitting on Linda’s lap in the conservatory as Stuart set a large drawing pad and crayons down on the table in front of her.
‘Mummy says you like drawing,’ he said uncertainly.
‘Thank you,’ sniffed Phoebe.
Scott and Amy lived in a grand Victorian house on Woodlands Terrace, set back from the road and screened from it by a huge garden filled with mature trees. It was wall-to-wall original features and amazing old fireplaces.
When Scott came home that afternoon, he asked to speak to Kirsty, Bram and Linda privately, and showed them into a panelled study overlooking the lawn at the back of the house. Scott sat in the swivel chair behind the desk, Linda and Kirsty in leather tub chairs by the fireplace, and Bram perched on the arm of Kirsty’s chair.
‘David has been charged with assault and perverting the course of justice, and released,’ Scott said, smiling uncertainly, as if not sure what kind of reaction was appropriate to this news.
Kirsty had gone pale. ‘But DI Cromer – she said he’d be charged with murder.’
‘That was before we realised that the rest of the petcam footage gives him a watertight alibi for the remainder of the night and the next day, so there’s no way he could have gone back and disposed of the body before the search began in the woods.’
Linda made a little sound. ‘Oh, thank God!’
‘That’s great,’ said Kirsty hollowly.
‘But I gave him an alibi for the rest of the night and the next day,’ Linda added.
Scott nodded. ‘But your evidence – I’m sorry, Linda, but the evidence of a spouse isn’t seen to be impartial. That of Bertie-cam, however… Bertie slept in your room with the two of you, and the petcam footage proves that David didn’t leave the room until you both got up in the morning. And it shows David getting his breakfast, pottering about the kitchen and so on. Taking Bertie for a walk.’
‘Well, thank goodness for the petcam,’ Bram managed.
‘Where is Dad?’ said Kirsty.
‘He’s in the car outside. I thought it might be better if I, uh, broke the good news first.’
Bram felt his heart start to pound. David must be furious with him and Kirsty for taking that petcam footage to the police.
Linda got to her feet.
‘I’ll go and get him,’ said Scott, also rising. ‘I just have to tell you that we’re not out of the woods yet, so to speak.’ He grimaced at the unintended pun. ‘David’s admitted to the charge of perverting the course of justice. An airgun was found in your garage, Linda. A .22 Winchester 55 RS. Wrapped in a towel and shoved under a pile of logs.’
‘Finn’s?’ said Bram.
‘David admits as much, and it’s the same make and model as the air rifle owned by Andrew Taylor, the one the Taylors say Finn took with him that night. Finn’s idea, apparently, was to take potshots at the security lights on your verandah. The rifle is currently undergoing forensic
examination.’
‘Surely that’s not necessary, if David admits to the altercation and – hiding the rifle?’ Linda said in a low voice. ‘And surely the assault charge won’t stick? Finn was terrorising the family. For David to suddenly come upon a masked man in the wood, a man with a gun… He must have reacted instinctively. It was surely self-defence.’
‘They were grappling,’ Bram added. ‘David got the gun off him and hit out with it. It was a natural reaction.’
Kirsty said nothing.
Scott got up from his chair and walked to the window, and then turned to face them. The bright light behind him made it impossible to read his expression. ‘It’s not just the assault charge he has to worry about. I have to tell you that DI Cromer still likes David for the murder.’
‘What?’ Bram’s heart leapt.
‘It’s those couple of minutes when David went back into the wood, off camera, that are proving the stumbling block. The post mortem on Finn has revealed that he was struck multiple times with at least two different objects, one blunt, presumably the stock of the air rifle, and the other weapon or weapons possibly metal, with a flat surface two or three centimetres across. The best guess is a hammer.’
God. That would be the hose bracket, which was about the same width as a hammer, although it wasn’t round, it was a sort of scroll shape, which would surely give more of a rectangular impression where it – where it smashed into Finn’s skull. But maybe there was so much damage that it was impossible to isolate individual impressions?
‘David is saying he only hit him a couple of times with the air rifle – although the footage shows it was three times – and that, although he did go after him into the wood, he didn’t find him. But if this goes to trial, the prosecution will maintain that David went after him, found him, hit him with another weapon and killed him.’
Linda shook her head. ‘But you’ve just said there’s no way David could have disposed of the body.’
‘DI Cromer’s theory is that he had help.’ He flicked a look at Kirsty. ‘Probably from Fraser. Fraser has no alibi for the rest of the night. But she’s also going to be looking at you and Bram. You’re going to have to give DNA samples for forensic testing.’
‘Okay,’ said Kirsty numbly.
Scott left the room, and as soon as he’d gone, Linda burst into tears. Kirsty was still holding her when the door opened again and David barrelled in, grabbed Linda and crushed her to him. ‘It’s okay, love, it’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay.’
Bram backed away until he was standing in the bay window, his heart knocking against his chest, his mouth dry. Phoebe and Stuart were out there in the garden, incompetently kicking a ball about and trying in vain to interest Bertie in it, while Max sat slumped on a bench under an apple tree.
‘Hey, Bram, relax!’ David chuckled, patting Linda’s back and looking over her shoulder at Bram and Kirsty. ‘The two of you are like kids with their hands caught in the sweetie jar! I get it, that you had to offer up the Bertie-cam footage to clear Max. Don’t worry, I get it.’
‘Uh–’ Bram couldn’t think what the hell to say.
He supposed that David could understand, if anyone could, what a parent might be prepared to do for their child, but nevertheless, it was very generous of him to be so forgiving. Was he really such a bad guy? Look at how loving he was with Linda, with Kirsty, with Phoebe. He wasn’t, surely, the monster Kirsty thought him. Maybe the Owen thing had been just an accident? He had just been giving the guy a scare, but had dropped him over the bridge by mistake?
‘We had to,’ Kirsty croaked.
David nodded reassuringly at her. ‘And yeah, I know, I should have come clean about what happened, but how was it going to look, eh? How does it look? The theory the police seem wedded to is that I killed Finn and Fraser disposed of the body – with a mind-boggling incompetence I’d hope would rule him out from the get-go, but apparently not. That bitch Cromer is determined to pin this on me.’
‘Really?’ Bram got out.
David took a tissue from his pocket and gently wiped Linda’s face. ‘Okay, love?’
Linda nodded. ‘But surely the police are clutching at straws, trying to bring Fraser into it?’
‘Aye, but Cromer doesn’t want to hear any other theories. Mine in particular.’
God. ‘Which is?’ Bram had to know.
‘Someone else must have had a set-to with Finn, right? The boffins have found other wounds on his head, not just a dunt with the butt of a rifle. Someone had a good go at the lad. Here’s what I’m thinking. Finn toddles off back home whining to Daddy about having been jumped, his rifle taken off him and used as a weapon against him. Andrew’s incandescent. Finn was bested by a bloody pensioner who got the rifle off him, and now it’s maybe going to be traced back to the Taylors? He goes for the lad.’
‘Oh, now, David.’ Linda rubbed his arm. ‘I don’t think that’s likely.’
‘He goes for the lad,’ David went on as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘Realises he’s killed him, panics, dumps the body.’ He looked from one to another of them as if expecting a prize.
‘I suppose it’s possible,’ muttered Bram.
He escaped as soon as he could to the garden, lowering himself onto the bench next to Max, and, when Phoebe came running over to wriggle between them, Bram gave her a hug.
‘Well, kids, Grandad’s back!’ He tried to sound upbeat about it. ‘He’s been released because Bertie-cam shows he can’t have, um, done what they thought he’d done. Well, he’s been charged with some other things, but hopefully he’s not going to be in too much trouble.’
Phoebe’s face lit up and she raced off inside, shouting at the top of her voice: ‘Grandad!’
Max stood to go after her, then turned back to Bram. ‘Bertie-cam?’ He frowned. ‘I thought it was Bertie-cam that put Grandad in the frame in the first place?’
Bram explained what had happened. ‘Although it seems the police still think David killed Finn. And maybe Fraser disposed of the body.’
‘Of course he didn’t kill Finn!’ Max rapped out. ‘I was there. Grandad didn’t hit him hard enough. Finn wasn’t even badly hurt. He ran off into the wood afterwards. If the police are saying Grandad went after him and hit him again – there’s no way that happened. Yeah, he went after him, but he didn’t have any other weapon, a hammer or whatever – and if there’d been a second set-to I’d have heard it. And he was only gone like a couple of minutes.’
‘The acoustics in woods can be strange – the trees have a damping effect on sound. That’s why people who live on busy roads plant hedges and trees, to cut out the noise.’
‘So you actually think Grandad did this?’
Bram stood and put an arm round him. ‘He has a history of violence,’ was all he could bring himself to say.
Max shrugged out from under Bram’s arm and strode away towards the house.
26
Bram stood in the rain on the banks of the stream and looked down at the churning water. It had been raining for three days straight, and as soon as you opened the front door or a window you could hear the stream roiling. There was no need to lug pails back and forth any more – the water supply had been miraculously restored. Right after the For Sale notice had appeared at the end of the drive to Benlervie. Their own sign would be joining it soon.
Slowly, he turned and looked at the house.
Woodside. Their dream home.
He hated it now, although he knew that was irrational. The house, this place wasn’t to blame. Bram had lost himself here, but that wasn’t anything to do with Woodside. He was to blame. And, he supposed, David. It’s all Dad’s fault was Kirsty’s constant refrain. He supposed she was right in that it was David’s insidious, malign influence that had precipitated the horrendous chain of events that had led to that boy dying in their shed.
He made himself look at the shed.
He made himself think of Finn, crashing around, falling over, getting up again, trying to get
to the window –
And all the time, the head wound Bram – no, David, and then Bram – had inflicted had been bleeding, bleeding away his lifeblood.
Just how hard had David hit him?
The police had questioned Fraser, Kirsty and Bram exhaustively. Small amounts of Finn’s DNA had been found on the air rifle hidden in David’s garage. The post mortem results had shown that Finn had originally been buried in the same type of soil as that around Woodside, soil with traces of weedkiller in it, and the vegetable patch had yielded an exact match. The theory DI Cromer seemed to be pursuing was that Fraser had buried Finn in the veg patch, then changed his mind, dug him back up, and taken Max’s car to dump the body in the forest by the quarry. There were traces of Finn’s DNA, somehow, in the car boot. But the witnesses in the forest hadn’t been able to see who was in the car – it had been too far away.
Bram jumped as something wet nudged at his hand.
Bertie. He hadn’t even noticed him approaching.
And now here was Max, slouching across the grass from the house in just a T-shirt and long shorts. He was going to get soaked, but Bram knew better than to say so.
Max was spending almost all his time in his room now. Overnight, he’d changed from a mature, personable young man into the sulky teenager he’d never been, avoiding his parents’ company and vanishing, when he did venture outside, for hours at a time without explanation. Phoebe was also struggling. She would no longer watch ‘scary’ things on TV, and getting her to sleep in her own room was a nightly challenge. And she had become completely paranoid about the Taylors.
Here she was now, running after Max. ‘You forgot Bertie-cam!’ She dropped to her knees on the wet grass to attach it to Bertie’s collar, then stood, looking past Bram to the wood. ‘Dad, could you come with me back to the house? Grannie’s made flapjacks and she wants to do a taste test. And Max, as soon as Bertie’s done his business, maybe you could come back too?’
‘Right,’ Max sneered, ‘because Oh no, look, there’s Andrew Taylor, swinging an axe! And Cara with a shotgun! And Sylvia with a bazooka!’