Cradle to Grave

by Aline Templeton

  He dialled, then pulled a face. ‘Answerphone. Must be out of range.’

  In Kirkluce the weather had been depressing, with heavy, brownish clouds low overhead and the daylight feeble and grudging. As Fleming and Kershaw went down towards Rosscarron, it deteriorated and now they were driving through fog, making poor speed on the long, twisting road.

  The atmosphere inside felt almost as thick to Fleming. Beside her, Kershaw sat, still as stone, staring straight ahead, lost in her terrible thoughts. She had responded, briefly and expressionlessly, to Fleming’s occasional remarks, but eventually it seemed wiser to make no attempt at engagement.

  Bringing her along had been the best solution Fleming could come up with. Kershaw flatly refused to go home but was clearly unfit to work, and her sitting in the CID room in this state was disruptive and distressing for everyone else. She would probably be quite content to stay in the car while Fleming interviewed Cara.

  And Hepburn again too? She had no idea whether he was still at Rosscarron House, or how she would react to him if he was. Though it still took an effort of courage to check the papers every morning, there had been nothing so far and she was starting to allow herself to believe he might have been bluffing. It would be good to think so.

  The slow, silent journey was good thinking time. At least the fog surrounding the investigation was rapidly clearing, and with the evidence coming in daily, it looked as if they would be able to move against Ryan in the next couple of days, particularly if Cara was realising now that her husband had been involved in her father’s death and was prepared to cooperate.

  MacNee had said that she seemed afraid of her husband; she would be very vulnerable, of course. With her drug habit, Ryan could so easily push it more, and that bit more, until it got to the point where she would be too far gone in addiction to live even the sort of life she had at the moment. And she would be afraid, too, that bringing in the police would disrupt her chain of supply.

  Yes, it would be a tricky interview. But back at headquarters, Macdonald and Campbell would be talking to Pilapil and then seeing what they could do with Ryan. He had been invited again, not arrested, so of course he could walk out of it anytime he liked, but arrest would mean they had only six hours to decide whether to charge him or to let him go, and they weren’t quite ready yet. Not quite.

  That was the turn-off now. ‘Nearly there!’ Fleming said in the hearty tone she might have used to a child, then was embarrassed.

  There was no need. Kershaw gave no sign she had even heard.

  He had never been so afraid in his life. Declan Ryan got out of the Discovery he had parked in the square by the War Memorial, noticing the irony with a twisted smile. This was probably how these guys had felt before they went over the top – and look what had happened to them!

  He had lived life on his wits. He’d never had great vision, or strength of character – more just an eye to the main chance – but he had a quick mind that could often dance rings round those who did. He’d proved it again and again these last few days, contemptuously seeing off the plods, who kept trying to catch him out.

  They might be stupid, but there were a lot of them, and they were persistent. Now it wasn’t about winning a debating match any more. It was about his freedom.

  Ryan had no idea what they might have against him now. All over the country, in London, in Glasgow, here in Kirkluce, checks were being made by an invisible army and, like monkeys with typewriters, sooner or later they’d put the random fragments together to make a story.

  He couldn’t see a way out, unless Lloyd and Driscoll would help. And if Fleming wasn’t neutralised before her persistent nosiness turned something up, there was no hope of that.

  At least they hadn’t arrested him. If they’d hard evidence, they’d be charging him, not asking him for another chat. As Ryan reached the headquarters of the Galloway Constabulary, he wished he’d brought a lawyer, even so.

  He didn’t have a lawyer, though, any more. Alex had been smart as a whip; Alex would have kept everything under control. Now, when he needed him, Alex wasn’t there. And it was his own fault. He’d gone along with that stupid bastard Jason when he should have known it would backfire.

  ‘Why don’t you wait in the car?’ Fleming said, as she parked in the drive outside Rosscarron House. ‘I shouldn’t be long.’

  Kershaw turned her head. ‘No, I’ll come with you. It’s the job, isn’t it?’ She gave Fleming a smile that was only a baring of the teeth, unbuckled her seat belt and got out.

  ‘Fine,’ Fleming said hollowly, getting out herself.

  The fog seemed to gather round her, damp and oppressive, until it was almost as if she had to push through it – an eerie, uncomfortable feeling. As they walked towards the house, its sandstone walls appeared out of the low mist, then disappeared into it again fifteen feet above.

  It was Cara who opened the door, and Fleming saw with some relief that there was no sign of Hepburn, at the moment at least, and the silver Mercedes wasn’t sitting outside. Cara looked to be on a relatively even keel at the moment; her smile was, as usual, vague, but she seemed quite pleased to see them.

  ‘Marjory! This is a surprise,’ she said, as if greeting a friend who had popped in for a coffee unexpectedly. ‘Come in.’

  ‘Just wanted a chat, Cara.’ With Kershaw walking behind her like a zombie, Fleming followed her into the hall. Even with its white walls, it was dark today and the clinical perfection was marred by outdoor clothes draped over chairs and boots and trainers kicked off beside them. A tray with dirty crockery had been dumped at the foot of the stairs.

  ‘Are you on your own?’ Fleming asked, hoping that it didn’t show that she was holding her breath as she waited for the reply.

  ‘Just Nico.’ Cara gestured up the stairs and Fleming saw Nico’s face peering over the banister. She smiled and got a scowl in reply. The face disappeared.

  ‘Cris and Joss have left,’ Cara said. ‘And Declan’s . . . well, you know.’ She opened the door to the white sitting room, also showing signs of neglect, and stood back to let them pass. ‘Was it me you wanted to talk to?’

  ‘Yes,’ Fleming said. ‘Cara, DS MacNee said that you told him something and you were afraid your husband would be angry if he found out. Can we talk about that, while Declan isn’t here?’

  Cara gave Fleming a long, calculating look. Then she said, ‘Sit down. I’ll fetch some coffee.’

  Fleming sat down. Kershaw was still standing where she had stopped when she came into the room and was staring out of the window.

  ‘Kim,’ she said gently, ‘why don’t you sit down?’

  Kershaw looked round as if she were surprised there was someone there, then did as she was told. Groaning inwardly, Fleming settled down to wait for Cara’s return. She would need all her concentration and skill to draw Cara into confiding; she shouldn’t have to worry about her constable. Still, as long as Kim sat still and said nothing, it wouldn’t matter and it certainly looked as if that was what she was planning to do.

  They’d kept him waiting quite a long time – no doubt softening him up – then they hit him with it immediately. ‘What was Jason Williams, aka Damien Gallagher, doing in Rosscarron House just after he killed Alex Rencombe?’ the dark one, Macdonald, asked him.

  ‘Was he?’ Ryan played for time.

  ‘He was seen.’

  Pilapil, no doubt – sneaking little sod! ‘I didn’t see him.’

  ‘Who invited him in, then?’

  Ryan produced a blank look. ‘I’ve no idea. Gillis, perhaps, Cris Pilapil, Joss Hepburn.’

  ‘Hepburn didn’t arrive till next morning.’

  That was the ginger, Campbell – so sharp he’d cut himself. Ryan shrugged. ‘If you say so. All I can tell you is, it wasn’t me.’

  He felt a little better. They’d tried to rattle him and it hadn’t worked. Stay chilled – that was the answer.

  ‘The reason we thought it was likely you,’ Macdonald said silkily, ‘was
that Mr Williams’s telephone records show a lot of calls to your mobile. And from his bank records, you seem to have been paying him some sort of retainer over the past few months too.’

  Ryan could only hope he hadn’t gone pale. He’d forgotten that altogether. The paper trail – how many people had been caught out that way?

  ‘Sorry?’ he said. Think, man, think!

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you heard me, Declan.’

  ‘Of course. I just didn’t realise what you were talking about for a moment. “Retainer” isn’t a description I recognise. We used to be in a gambling syndicate. He placed the bets.’ Not a stammer, not a hesitation. He was proud of himself.

  ‘High rolling, obviously – £500 a month,’ Macdonald said.

  ‘On your wages, Sergeant, I suppose so.’

  ‘And did you often win?’

  ‘Oh, not as often as we’d have liked to.’ The answers were coming pat now, but Ryan would have been happier if Ginger wasn’t leafing back through a notebook in a way that suggested not so much that he was consulting it, but that he was trying to give that impression.

  Like many redheads, Campbell had pale blue eyes. He suddenly looked up and transfixed Ryan with a gimlet stare.

  ‘I’ve got here that you told us you didn’t know who he was. Met him for the first time at the camp.’

  It was a body blow. That was the other way they got you, besides the paper trail: not keeping track of the lies you told.

  ‘Yes, I suppose I did,’ he admitted, then added, ‘but it wasn’t under oath. I bet I’m not the first innocent man who hasn’t wanted to get involved in something like this when the police come asking.’

  If he’d hoped to draw them into that argument, he was disappointed. Macdonald said, with the plodding patience Ryan both despised and feared, ‘Let’s go back to the beginning. What was your friend Jason Williams doing at Rosscarron House after Alex Rencombe had been killed? And why did you give instructions that Mr Rencombe’s girlfriend should be told he’d contacted you?’

  This was the point at which he could get up and walk out. It wouldn’t solve anything, though. They’d keep coming back, and back, and back. The alternative? Like the PR guys always told you, get your version of the story out there first.

  ‘Look, can we scrub all this and start again?’ Ryan said. ‘It’s complicated, and I can see why you think what you do, but if you’ll hear me out, I’ll explain.’

  ‘Fine,’ Macdonald said. ‘Carry on.’

  But Campbell was grinning broadly. ‘I’m going to enjoy this,’ he said.

  That didn’t help. Ryan’s stomach was churning, and the worst of it was that he knew that if he got it right, he had a faint chance not only to get out of this mess but to cover some of the stuff that would most likely emerge later.

  ‘First of all, the business about Alex. You have to realise that he was a bit of a maverick, and if he hadn’t phoned his girlfriend, it was probably because she wasn’t his girlfriend any more and just hadn’t realised it yet. I didn’t want to drop him in it, so I told Cris to fob her off. OK? No great sinister mystery about that.’ Was he working well or what? Wonderful thing, adrenaline.

  ‘Now, Jason. I’ve known him for years,’ he went on. ‘He was a music industry techie and did concerts Gillis promoted. We met up sometimes in a group, went clubbing or something. Celebrated our racing winnings, when we had any.’ That was a nice little touch. ‘Might not see him for months at a time, though – we weren’t that close. Texted me to say he’d be up here for the music festival with his girlfriend.’

  ‘Lisa Stewart,’ Macdonald prompted.

  That was easy. ‘Beth Brown,’ Ryan corrected him. ‘It was only after all this happened that I found out she was actually our former nanny. She must have used him to try to get to us. A bit alarming, really. I didn’t like the idea of her being so close to my surviving child – and look what happened to poor Jason.’

  There was no doubt about it, he was inspired. Maybe it was true that the devil did, after all, look after his own.

  ‘Jason did come to the house that day looking for me – I was stupid to lie about it. He was in a bit of a state, but he only said that he needed somewhere to stay – he’d quarrelled with the girlfriend. He wanted to borrow a tent if possible, so I found one for him. That was all.

  ‘The next day everything went pear-shaped, with the bridge being down, and then Gillis was killed. It was only afterwards that we heard from the Buchans that Lisa had been on the headland. Of course it all fell into place for us then, though you lot still seem to be behind the curve even now.

  ‘Gillis was distraught after we lost our poor Poppy, and out of his mind with rage. He’d been dumb enough to threaten Lisa, and she saw her chance that day, maybe even saw it as self-defence, and picked up a rock. Then she must have been afraid that Jason would give her away, got him to come to her hotel and you know the rest. It’s obvious, if you hadn’t made your mind up already. Look, give me a break. I’ve never killed anyone – I swear it!’

  Ryan could see the dark one wavering; awed by his own cleverness, he had to try hard not to seem triumphant as he looked at Ginger.

  Campbell looked back with those ice-blue eyes. ‘Very neat. Don’t believe a word of it.’

  So, after all, Ryan maybe wasn’t as clever as he thought.

  He stood up abruptly. ‘I’ve had enough. I’ve been more than cooperative and you just don’t want to know. Can I take it I’m free to leave?’

  Feeling sick, he made for the gents’ toilet. He splashed his face and drank water from his cupped hands, and then on legs that felt shaky he went back to his car.

  When his mobile phone rang, the man with the widow’s peak looked at it with distaste. He knew who it would be; there had been two previous calls, demanding reassurance he had been unable to give truthfully. He’d lied, of course, but it was stressing him out.

  But when he glanced at it, it wasn’t the number he was expecting. He picked it up and said hello cautiously.

  The words he heard brought a smile to his face. ‘I’ll be there,’ he said. ‘Just go on as you would have done till I arrive.’

  There was more, though, and he shook his head. ‘No. Not two. One. That was the deal.’

  He listened, unmoved. ‘We’ll have to renegotiate, then.’ He named a price, heard the protests, then came down a little. He couldn’t afford to miss this chance.

  Today he had almost begun to believe he might fail, for the first time in his professional life. Mounting surveillance on the police car park had proved impossible; indeed, he had obviously missed Fleming leaving. This had delivered her to him on a plate. With chips.

  Lady Luck had always been a friend of his, and today she wasn’t just smiling, she was beaming and giving him a big, fat, sloppy kiss.

  26

  Cara brought in the tray and set it down on a low table. ‘It’s dark in here today!’ she said, and went to switch on a couple of the tall steel lamps in the corners of the room. As she bent over, the light caught her forearm, highlighting the needle marks and bruising. Fleming could see bloodied marks on her lips too, where the dry skin had flaked and been torn away, and the cracking at the corners of her mouth. The woman was in a bad way and, Fleming guessed, getting worse. Now Crozier had been got rid of, would Ryan start edging her from dependency into full-blown addiction?

  Fleming began while the coffee was still being poured out. She wasn’t sure how long she would have; Ryan could walk out of the interview anytime and she didn’t want to be still on the premises when he got back.

  ‘Cara, this isn’t official, because I know what a difficult position you’re in. But my sergeant said you had told him in confidence about the man you saw in the house, and that you were scared Declan would find out you’d talked to him.’

  Cara, handing round the mugs, didn’t say anything for a moment. Then she said, ‘Yes. Yes, I’m scared of him now. Things have been going on – he won’t tell me.’ She bit at the sore lip.
>
  ‘What have you noticed?’ Fleming had a low, attractive voice and now it was full of warmth and sympathy.

  ‘Well, there was the man, like I said. I asked Declan who he was and he was angry, said it was nobody and I hadn’t seen him. But I had. Then my father was killed, and when I heard about Alex, I was really scared.’ She looked at Fleming with wide, frightened eyes. ‘And then someone else died and I thought it was maybe the man I’d seen – I don’t know why. But who killed him?’

  ‘We don’t know as yet,’ Fleming said. ‘But your husband was here all that evening?’

  Cara shook her head violently. ‘No, no! I said that because he said I must, but I didn’t see him after about seven. I don’t know where he was. He doesn’t tell me what he’s doing, you know.’

  It was hard not to show satisfaction. This was the delicate part now, though, and Fleming said carefully, ‘Do you think you would feel able to make an official statement to that effect?’ As Cara hesitated, she went on, ‘You know, we have reason to think that your husband was implicated in your father’s murder, as perhaps you have realised?’

  ‘Oh, my father – yes,’ Cara said, but from the way she spoke Fleming guessed that this had not been, as she had been assuming, the motivating factor.

  ‘We would only ask you for it once we were sure of our ground,’ she assured her.

  That worked. ‘Yes,’ Cara said. ‘Yes, I’d do it then.’

  The phone rang. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, and as she went out Fleming could only be thankful that it hadn’t interrupted them a minute earlier. Cara could always go back on it, of course, but it was less likely once she’d made the commitment.

  Time was getting on. When Cara came back, Fleming stood up.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That’s been very helpful. We’ll leave it there today, though. I don’t want you to find yourself in difficulties if your husband comes back. Kim—’

  ‘Oh, no, no!’ Cara said. ‘Don’t go just yet. There’s – there’s other things I want to talk to you about.’