Bad Blood

by Aline Templeton

‘She’s disappeared,’ Macdonald said, coming into the CID room. ‘That’s the last on the accommodation list checked out, and she’s not in any of them.

  ‘Have you tried her phone again?’ he asked Hepburn, who was sitting at a computer terminal.

  She didn’t look up. ‘Three times.’

  ‘How soon do we decide it’s deliberate and start looking for her in earnest?’

  ‘Give her a chance! There’s lots of reasons why you might not be taking calls besides trying to do a runner. And maybe she just decided to go back to London, after all that had happened.’

  She spoke absently, looking at what had come up on the screen in front of her at the same time.

  Macdonald’s curiosity was piqued. ‘What are you doing? Thought you were supposed to be writing up the Ivy Gordon interview?’

  ‘Done that. Now I’m just checking out the press coverage of Tommy Crichton’s murder.’ Hepburn scrolled on down, then suddenly sat back in her chair, staring at it. ‘Oh my God!’

  ‘What have you found?’ He came round to look over her shoulder.

  Hepburn pointed to the photograph inset into the newspaper article, a family snap of a girl with strawberry-blonde hair and striking blue eyes. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Marnie Bruce as a child,’ he said slowly. ‘Only it isn’t, is it? That’s Kirstie Burnside, child murderer.’

  ‘No wonder Marnie got a reaction when she strolled into Dunmore, looking like that. And,’ Hepburn said with triumphant emphasis, ‘it shows she was telling the truth that she couldn’t understand what happened. She has no idea who her mother was.’

  ‘It’s plausible, I suppose. Kirstie would be given a watertight new identity after her release and full legal protection afterwards, so even if a persistent journalist got on her trail there’s no way anything could be published.’

  ‘It’ll all come out now, though, surely?’

  Macdonald considered that. ‘Not necessarily. The press won’t have a photo of Marnie to compare it with, and even if someone tells them that someone who looked like Kirstie Burnside was in the village – well, so what? We’re certainly not going to make them a present of the connection.’

  ‘And,’ he said, triumphant in his turn, ‘it explains why Big Marge and Tam have been so cagey with you. Not a cover-up – an injunction protecting Kirstie.’

  Hepburn conceded the point. ‘But anyway, what happens now? If we want to find her, we’ll have to put out an alert. And you know what will happen then.’

  ‘I certainly do.’ A general alert to find a police suspect was like ringing a bell to summon the press for a feeding frenzy. ‘But if they manage to put two and two together, will they be banned from reporting on Kirstie’s child too? You did law, didn’t you?’

  ‘Only as a subsidiary.’ Hepburn gave it some thought. ‘I’d guess there might have been an injunction but probably with an age limit – up to 18, maybe. They’d be unlikely to impose a whole life ban like her mother’s, so as long as they didn’t bring Kirstie’s whereabouts into it Marnie could be fair game, legally at least. The only problem might be that it would expose the surname Kirstie had adopted, though of course we don’t know whether Kirstie’s alive or dead. If she’s dead the rules would be different.’

  ‘You’re taking me out of my depth there. Anyway – what now?’

  ‘I’m going to tell Big Marge I know – get things out in the open. Do you think she’s back yet?’

  Macdonald glanced at his watch. ‘Probably not. And even if she is back she’ll have to report to the super and maybe take a press conference – unless Hyacinth wants to take it.’

  ‘What do you think – that she’s going to resist the chance of taking the limelight? And anyway, the boss will have to task us – they said we’re all on overtime for today at least.’

  ‘I’m going to grab some lunch while I can. What about you, Louise?’

  It was the longest amicable conversation they had ever had. It had been in Hepburn’s mind to rub it in that she’d been right about Marnie Bruce, but she thought the better of it.

  ‘Fine, Andy. Just let me close this down.’ You couldn’t spit on an olive branch, even if you did think it was likely to wilt before very long.

  Fleming’s mobile rang as she and MacNee got back into the car outside the Morrisons’ house. She glanced at caller ID and pulled a face as she answered it. ‘Fleming.’

  MacNee studied his nails as the voice at the other end crackled on. He couldn’t make out what it said, but the expression on the inspector’s face told him all he needed to know.

  ‘Yes, I appreciate that you’re keen to have a press conference as soon as possible,’ she said, ‘but I have some things to tie up here and I can’t afford the time to drive to and from Kirkluce again today.’

  The voice crackled again, even at second hand sounding aggrieved.

  ‘Yes, I quite understand. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

  ‘Hyacinth not just jumping for joy?’ MacNee said sympathetically as Fleming rang off.

  ‘You could say. Leaves me pushed for time. Still, at least she stopped short of ordering me back immediately.

  ‘Right. Marnie’s in the frame, and Daniel Lee. And given the symbolic positioning of the body, Tommy’s parents. I’d rather see them myself than leave it to a routine interview, but I can’t see us fitting in both of them – I’ve got to prepare for the super’s statement and the afternoon briefing as well.’

  MacNee cleared his throat. ‘I’m not maybe the best one to visit Grant Crichton at the moment. I’d a wee chat with him yesterday after the stramash in Bridge Street and I’m not sure I’m just his favourite wee boy. He seems kinna sensitive, ken?’

  ‘I think this is probably something I don’t want to know about,’ Fleming said with resignation. ‘All right, I’ll leave him. There’s no evidence at the moment that he’d any recent contact with Anita so I’m more interested in Shelley right now – she seems to have been at the centre of all this.

  ‘According to Janette, she’d been talked into accepting Anita’s story that the girl they saw was nothing to do with Kirstie – if we can believe her. Not sure I do. It’s such a strong resemblance and there were certainly people convinced enough to go and make trouble for her that night.

  ‘And Shelley clearly has a streak of violence – she flew at Marnie on the spot when she saw her. If she thought Anita was in league with Kirstie, could it just have got out of hand again? Got her revenge putting the body where Tommy was found?’

  ‘Kind of a giveaway, you’d think.’

  ‘That’s why I’d like to see her myself. Would the payback motive be so strong that she didn’t even consider the implications?’

  MacNee looked sceptical. ‘And you think you can tell that just by meeting her? Respect!’

  ‘Sarcastic isn’t pretty, Tam. No, I don’t think that, especially when we’re unlikely to surprise her, given that the local drums will have been beating. She probably knows more than we do about what’s happening at the moment and she’ll be expecting us.

  ‘But you know as well as I do that there’s always something you can pick up on, however hard they try to give nothing away. Oh, perhaps Shelley Crichton is totally open and transparently truthful – she’d be unusual, though I daresay it’s possible. But if she’s a bit more normal, I want to see for myself what she’s incapable of covering up.’

  The Glasgow traffic, to someone unfamiliar with the area and an inexperienced driver, was terrifying. Marnie lost count of the number of times someone blasted their horn at her as she tried to read road signs and get herself into the appropriate lane. She didn’t have a satnav and trying to read the instructions she had printed out from the computer in the Kirkluce library was an added complication.

  Sod’s Law was operating too: the industrial park where she would find Daniel Lee’s nightclub was on the far side of Glasgow. After one particularly alarming near-miss, Marnie took to driving off the city bypass until she could stop, then mem
orising the next batch of instructions and returning to it. This made it a slow process but at last the traffic started thinning out and the signs she needed to follow became more obvious.

  When she drew up at last in the car park, she was sweating. The sun, so bright earlier on, had disappeared; the air was bitter when she stepped out but she lingered, letting it cool her flushed cheeks. She wanted to be calm, poised and in control before she encountered Daniel Lee. Always supposing he was here. And that he would see her.

  A busy road ran alongside the sprawling building. There was something scribbled in neon across the front but it wasn’t switched on and it took her a moment to make out that it was the name she’d been given – Zombies. It must have been a warehouse to start with and all around were industrial units – an ugly setting, though it would look better when the lights were flashing and darkness concealed the litter that gathered at the corners in wind-blown heaps.

  Marnie’s knees felt shaky as she walked across the car park, trying to avoid the potholes and puddles. It must have been raining here earlier. The only entrance she could see, apart from a fire exit at one side, was a great industrial-style door with a smaller door cut into it.

  She turned the handle. It opened onto a sort of lobby, with a huge, dark cavernous space beyond. She took a deep breath, then stepped over the threshold, trying not to hear the voice inside her head that was murmuring, ‘Will you walk into my parlour, said the spider to the fly …’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Shelley Crichton’s house was a little way out of the village to the north, an attractive white cottage in a well-kept garden with a view out over Loch Ryan. In the chilly sunshine it looked positively idyllic.

  The woman who opened the door to DI Fleming and DS MacNee didn’t look in any mood to enjoy it. She was quite tall and solidly built, with frizzy grey hair and strongly marked brows; the jersey two-piece she was wearing was an unflattering shade of green. She looked heavy-eyed, as if she had slept badly.

  With the memories this crime must have rekindled, Fleming had been braced for dealing with another weeping woman, but there was no sign of tears and she greeted them sullenly.

  ‘Yes, I heard you were going round the doors. I suppose you’d better come in, then.’

  Fleming raised her eyebrows and MacNee pulled a face behind her back as they were taken through the lounge to a large conservatory on the other side. The air was heavy with the smell of damp earth and vegetation and it was teeming with plants, small shrubs and bushes with fleshy leaves and exotic blooms. With the sun streaming into the overheated room it felt positively tropical and when Fleming took her seat on one of the wicker peacock chairs a nearby plant with waxy white flowers gave out a scent that made her feel slightly sick.

  Shelley went on the attack instantly. ‘I suppose you’ve got me on the suspect list because of where Anita Loudon’s body was found. Oh yes, I know all about it. Janette Ritchie phoned me first thing, and I’ve had ten other phone calls since.’

  Right on cue, a phone rang somewhere in the house. ‘Ignore it,’ she said crisply. ‘Shall I tell you why they all phoned? Oh, they said they were concerned about me – “Such a horrible thing to happen, poor Shelley, you must be feeling dreadful – oh, and by the way, did you beat her head in?” Not in so many words, of course, but that was the message.’

  ‘And did you?’ Fleming was unmoved by the display of passionate indignation.

  Shelley gasped. Her eyes, slightly prominent anyway, positively bulged with temper and she snapped, ‘No, of course I didn’t. Satisfied?’

  ‘Not entirely,’ Fleming said. Perhaps it was the nauseating perfume that was making her tetchy; she had come prepared to take it gently but Shelley Crichton was no distressed old lady.

  ‘Let me explain,’ she went on. ‘We are at the very beginning of our enquiries. At the moment, we’re trying to establish the relationships and recent contact people had with the victim rather than setting up any list of suspects.

  ‘So perhaps we could start again. Was Anita Loudon a friend of yours?’

  Pause for calculation, Fleming thought cynically as Shelley hesitated.

  ‘Well, in a way,’ she said at last. ‘I knew who she was, of course. If I saw her in the street I would say hello but I’ve had very little to do with her, really.’

  ‘And of course she was a pal of Kirstie Burnside’s as well, wasn’t she?’ MacNee put in. ‘Hard to forget that, eh?’

  ‘It was a long time ago. She was just a child.’ Shelley’s face was impassive but Fleming noticed that her hands were so tightly clasped together that the knuckles were showing white.

  ‘When was the last time you saw her, Mrs Crichton?’

  ‘Oh, I forget. A little while ago, I think.’

  ‘Last Tuesday, maybe?’ MacNee suggested innocently. ‘When you and Janette and some pals went round there to challenge her about someone you thought was Kirstie Burnside’s daughter?’

  ‘Oh, that’s right. Of course,’ she said, though the set of her mouth suggested that Janette’s friend status was likely to be reviewed. ‘I’d forgotten that was when it was. It was all a mistake, anyway. It was just a girl with similar colouring who’d been doing a survey. I felt a bit of a fool, actually.’ She gave a little, artificial laugh.

  ‘So you haven’t had any contact with her since?’

  Shelley shrugged. ‘Why would I?’

  ‘You tell me, Mrs Crichton,’ MacNee said and was rewarded with a glare.

  ‘There’s no reason why I would. That’s what I meant.’

  ‘Aye, but did you?’

  ‘No – I – did – not! Right – is that all?’ She got up.

  ‘Very nearly, for the moment anyway,’ Fleming said, without moving. ‘Can you tell me what your movements were last night?’

  Under the inspector’s scrutiny, Shelley’s gaze slid off to the left. ‘I didn’t have any “movements”, as you call it. I was at home all day, I had supper, I watched television and I went to bed. Just a typical sort of day for an elderly divorcee who lost her only child.’ She gave an acid smile. ‘So there’s no one can confirm it but that doesn’t mean it’s not the truth.’ She was standing with her arms folded, waiting for them to leave.

  ‘Of course not.’ Fleming, with a glance at MacNee, stood up. ‘I think that’s all for the moment. Thank you for your cooperation, madam.’

  As she passed Shelley, she knocked a gardening magazine off a small table with uncharacteristic clumsiness. ‘Oh, I’m sorry!’ she exclaimed, stooping down to pick it up and handing it back to its owner.

  Shelley took it without thanks, walking behind them as they made their way out, like a sheepdog determined to make sure there were no stragglers.

  Just at the front door Fleming turned back. ‘Just one more thing. When you went round to Ms Loudon’s house, if you had found that her visitor really was Kirstie Burnside’s daughter, what would you have done?’

  It was a standard ploy. Shelley, holding the front door ready to shut it behind them, had relaxed her guard.

  For a second her light-brown eyes blazed and she stammered, ‘I … don’t—’ Suddenly the magazine she was holding dropped from her hand and when she’d retrieved it and straightened up her expression was bland. ‘Like I said, I don’t know. I would have been wounded to think the daughter of the woman who killed my son had been spying on what is for me a sacred moment. But what could I do? Ask her nicely not to do it again?’ She gave a harsh laugh. ‘I’m just a victim. People like you see to it that we have no rights.’ The shutting door almost clipped Fleming’s heels.

  ‘She’s not wrong there,’ MacNee said gruffly. ‘But anyway, what was all the stooshie with the magazine?’

  Fleming smiled. ‘Hers or mine?’

  ‘Oh, hers was plain enough. What about yours?’

  ‘It’s nothing like conclusive, of course, but there’s some evidence that lying involves a kind of visualisation that means your eyes move to the left, if you’re right-handed
. And hers did when she said she was in all evening, and she is.’

  MacNee snorted. ‘Needed evidence, did you? I could have tellt you that.’

  The incident room had been opened up and already the boards round the walls were filling up with photos and sketches. The room was crowded; teams were working overtime and uniformed officers and detectives were perching on the edges of tables and bunching at the back behind the two rows of chairs.

  Fleming was feeling harassed as she came in. She had impressed on Rowley that she must not hint to the press that there was any sort of connection with the Kirstie Burnside case and the superintendent, whose motto had always been ‘what the press wants, the press gets’, even if it meant dropping her officers right in it, had ended by appearing shifty. The press, needless to say, picked up on it at once and she’d had a bit of a mauling, for which she had naturally blamed Fleming.

  ‘I dread to think what the media will make of that,’ she said bitterly. ‘You can take the next conference yourself instead of setting me up for a fall.’

  When Fleming left the office Rowley was phoning the chief constable, officially to get urgent clarification about the situation but unofficially to make sure that if a head were to roll it wouldn’t be hers. There were no prizes for guessing whose would be bouncing along in the gutter.

  Fleming had been braced for ructions when she pointed out that the cover-the-back exercise on illegal immigration would have to be suspended, but they didn’t happen. Rowley had been surprisingly relaxed, saying that the lads at Cairnryan, clearly flavour-of-the-month, were treating it with appropriate seriousness, so she was at least off the hook on that one.

  It was the only small consolation. Yet another failed attempt to contact Marnie Bruce had deepened Fleming’s gloom. She’d had to work out, too, what she could and couldn’t say to the assembled officers, while giving them enough information to do their jobs. This was a briefing she was determined would be brief indeed.

  She spoke from the notes she had on such information as had come in. Anita Loudon had been battered to death in her own home; the body had then been moved to a play park a few hundred yards away. No weapon had been found. The approximate time of death was now estimated to be between 20.00 and 01.00 hours, with an hour’s leeway on either side. There were no eyewitnesses. There were unsubstantiated accounts of visitors to the house earlier in the evening, but as yet no names or descriptions.