Evil for Evil

by Aline Templeton

  From the curtained room next to the front door he heard the sounds of someone wakening from deep sleep: a couple of groans, and then muttered swearing. Drummond grinned to himself and waited expectantly.

  The woman who opened the door looked groggy, her hair a bird’s nest and her half-shut eyes smudged with last night’s mascara. She was huddled in a black towelling robe with the Dior logo and she was eying him with naked hostility.

  ‘What the hell do you want?’

  He switched on the charm. ‘Oh God, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Were you asleep? And I guess you must have been pretty shaken too.’ He held up his press pass. ‘Tony Drummond. It’ll only take a moment of your time—’

  ‘Press?’ she said thickly. ‘Piss off.’

  The door was slammed so hard it almost got his nose. Aggrieved, Drummond retreated. OK, she’d been asleep, but there was no call for aggression. Her and Lovatt must both have taken their nasty pills this morning, unless it came naturally.

  He’d just have to pad the article with suggestions of foul play – and he could make something of the phrase, ‘Detectives are being sent to pursue enquiries’, especially if he linked it to Innellan’s other news story.

  Elena Tindall leant against the door she had just slammed. She felt like death. Her stomach was heaving and the gash on her thigh was throbbing in time to the pounding of her head. She struggled to the sofa at the back of the sitting room and sank on to it, glancing anxiously towards the window in case the scum was poking a camera at it, but a moment later she heard a car drive away.

  Water. She needed water. Her lips were parched and her tongue was sticking to the roof of her mouth. With infinite caution she raised her head, waited for the room to stabilise, then staggered through to the kitchen.

  The water was good, very good: icy cold, fresh and without the stale chemical taint city water always had. Elena drank greedily then filled a jug, found some paracetamol and went back to the sitting room. Her legs were shaky, but her discomforts gave her an excuse not even to try to process the various shocks which had hit her. She had drunk too much, of course, but she was punch-drunk too.

  It had all seemed so clear and simple when Elena made her plans. She only had to be invisible; the name she had given to the letting agency as she paid in cash was not her own, and once she had left there would be no trace.

  It had taken steely resolve not to turn back on her journey north, but now that was faltering. There was just too much. She could leave, now, tempting whispers were saying. Drive home to Eddie, back to the comfort of his adoration. Eddie – perhaps that comfort was the closest thing to love she would ever know. But at what price? The maelstrom of emotions behind the calm and smiling front she always presented to him was destroying her and to return with the issues unresolved would, she surely knew, kill her, in one way or another.

  So she’d nothing to lose. Nothing to lose – and to gain? Debts repaid? A slate wiped clean? Unfinished business completed? Her tortured mind, at last, at rest? Elena had to believe it.

  If she was going on with this, she had to stay calm, clear-headed. No more storms of rage, like last night. No more drinking. Ignoring her still-aching head, she got up, found the remaining bottles of wine and poured the contents down the kitchen sink. She put the kettle on for coffee and went to run a shower.

  When her mobile rang she didn’t answer it, assuming it was Eddie. Her voice was probably still rough and he’d fuss about her health. She had her shower, swallowed some coffee, then picked it up. He’d only go on phoning until she spoke to him.

  Then she realised that it hadn’t been this phone ringing, but the other one, the pay as you go Eddie didn’t know about and couldn’t monitor, the one whose number she had given Cal last night. She listened to the message, chewing her lip. He was right: they had to meet, and the sooner the better. ‘This afternoon,’ she said when she rang back. She couldn’t afford to go out now and be breathalysed.

  No going back now. Elena stood for a moment staring out at the island, and the tiny flame of anger that always burned in her soul flared up into vigorous life.

  ‘What did he do?’ DC Ewan Campbell said.

  Fleming and Macdonald looked at him. She had just detailed the interviews she wanted done and outlined the tentative theory that Rosie Drummond might well have heard the man’s dying groans.

  ‘You mean his job?’ Macdonald asked, puzzled.

  ‘No, you don’t, do you, Ewan?’ Fleming said slowly. ‘You mean, what did the man do to merit such an unspeakable punishment?’

  Macdonald was inclined to be dismissive. ‘Psychopaths get their kicks out of inflicting torture. You can’t deduce something from the method and start blaming the victim.’

  ‘But it’s a new line of thought,’ Fleming argued. ‘I hadn’t looked at it from that angle. Don’t psychopaths also get their kicks from watching their victims suffer? Whoever did this left him there.’

  ‘Could be he didn’t want to watch,’ Campbell said. ‘In case.’

  ‘In case of what?’ Macdonald said in some irritation. ‘It’s all very well being the quiet type, Campbell, but you’re starting to sound like Mystic Meg.’

  This time Fleming made no attempt to interpret, and let the silence lengthen. At last Campbell said, ‘Well, in case he relented.’

  Matt Lovatt was doing accounts, sorting bills into one pile, invoices into another. Money in, money out, never quite seemed to match up, and he winced as he thought of the bill for last night’s largesse. Lissa had been complaining already that they couldn’t afford what she called ‘army waifs and strays’, but he was adamant. It was a debt of honour and Christie, and her successors, were repayments to the account.

  Kerr had gone into Kirkcudbright to buy stout padlocks for the gates of the stags’ pens. That way, if it happened again it would plainly be criminal damage, not negligence as the police obviously believed.

  But if it wasn’t that, it would be something else. The scheme to drive the Lovatts out had started whenever they arrived as ‘white settlers’ and continued sporadically over the years – tacks tipped on to the drive, a load of manure ordered in his name, insults scrawled on walls. Just petty vandalism – he’d no doubt the Donaldsons were behind it but he’d never bothered to report it, reckoning it would probably make matters worse and they’d give up when they saw it wasn’t working.

  This was different. He could pinpoint when the atmosphere had changed: after he’d turned Sorley off the island with his cheap metal detector and his pathetic, avaricious delusions. The local reference section in Kirkcudbright library held a report from an archaeological dig in the seventies, and if there was a hoard of Viking gold they’d managed to keep it remarkably quiet.

  The venomous graffiti on his son’s grave and the dangerous freeing of the stag had Sorley’s fingerprints all over. The Donaldsons weren’t very bright; Sorley was much sharper. So what would he come up with next? Surveying his vulnerabilities, Lovatt’s eye fell on Mika, lying in his basket. The dog opened its eyes as his master turned his head, then half-closed them again.

  Lovatt had been careful not to look into the parentage of the pup he had reared. Its mother had clearly been living rough, probably another pathetic victim of the Bosnian conflict, and given the area – and the appearance of the pups – a wolf father was possible. Importing a hybrid was complicated, though, and if the animal had to be quarantined for months he’d almost certainly have lost any hope of domesticating it.

  He had no illusions about what he’d taken on: a half-wild creature who must never discover that a challenge would succeed. But out of the daily dominance rituals – a vital tool of management – had grown an emotional bond, the most satisfying Lovatt had in what had become a bleak existence. He shied away from describing it as love – love was a concept entirely foreign to the dog, who understood only loyalty to the alpha male. But Mika certainly meant more to him than any human being, and there was a danger that, picking up subliminal clues, the dog might decid
e to try to assert his favoured status in his human pack, so Lovatt invariably kept him either at his side or securely in his pen – and now he thought of it, he must call Kerr and get him to buy an extra padlock for that. ‘Wolf on the loose’ would make another good story for bloody Drummond.

  Oh yes, it was all starting to get very nasty indeed. Maybe he should just give up, pack it all in, let the bullies have their way. He was tired, tired, tired, and starting again to have the nightmares that left him afraid to take the sleep he needed.

  He’d never get Lissa to leave her son’s grave, though. Lissa … He sat back and ran his hand through his hair. What, in God’s name, was he going to do about her and Kerr?

  She’d had a breakdown before they were married. She’d always been vague about the causes but he didn’t talk about his problems either; it was their mental struggle that was their common ground.

  ‘You understand!’ she’d said on their first date, her blue eyes shining. ‘I’ve never met a man who understood.’

  He’d convinced himself no woman would take on a man with a face like his, least of all one as delicately pretty as Lissa, and a month after their first meeting they were engaged. Had he ever loved her, or was it just that her responsiveness was balm to his wounded spirit?

  At that time it had felt as if they were perched on a cliff edge, clinging together so that neither should fall. Building each other’s confidence, supporting the lapses into despair, had been a shared purpose in those early days, something he realised later had disguised their total incompatibility. Lovatt had hoped a child would provide another focus, but after the tragedy there was no hope. He had seen Lissa coming closer and closer to that edge; he’d feared she might even try to kill herself, yet struggling with his own stability he couldn’t help her. It was Kerr’s arrival that had brought her back to ground that was at least relatively safe.

  Lovatt had no idea how long the affair had been going on. Perhaps if he’d still been emotionally involved with his wife he might have been more observant, but what he felt for Lissa now was mainly exasperation. He had only realised what was going on the other day, when he’d seen them kissing in the garden in clear view of the farm office. He’d drawn back so they wouldn’t see him, but he’d felt betrayed – by Kerr, though, rather than by her. Of course they were out of the army now but there was a code among comrades-in-arms which he had, in some unformulated way, thought would still apply.

  Had their kiss been a careless action, with a subconscious wish to be discovered, perhaps? Or was it more deliberate, representing – a dark thought, this – a sort of challenge from Kerr, as if, like Mika sensing a weakness in his authority, he had taken him on? With everything else just now, Lovatt had no stomach for confrontation. It would have to wait till he felt stronger. He tried not to think what the result would be with Mika if he did that.

  What had he done to deserve all this? No, a quiet voice in his head murmured, don’t go there.

  With a half-groan, he turned to what he must deal with today. That woman, for a start. Would he have to go up and see her again?

  She’d been on his mind in his wakeful hours through the night. Smashing that glass – such rage, such a strange and violent act! With so much direct and somehow personal hostility, Lovatt had felt that grinding it into his face wouldn’t have been beyond her. ‘You would!’ she had said, as if she knew him, her dark-blue eyes blazing, yet their brief meeting the previous morning had seemed a pleasant, casual encounter.

  There was something about her that affected him at a level he couldn’t quite explain. Had they met somewhere before? Not that he could remember, certainly, and he couldn’t afford to let it bother him. She’d been in shock, after all, and perhaps was a bit unstable anyway.

  That settled it. He’d order flowers to be sent to her with another apology, and let her take it from there.

  You could go pure mental, shut up in this place on your own. A military prison where you’d other guys to talk to would be better than this.

  Fergie was pacing up and down the loft. He’d worked out an exercise programme of marching to and fro, push-ups, sit-ups and squat thrusts, to do four times a day. He hadn’t worked out like this since he was a recruit with a sadistic bastard as RSM, and he wouldn’t call it enjoyable, but it was better than staring at the wall. Brodie had brought him some paperbacks, but reading wasn’t Fergie’s thing. It was kinna hard to get the story when you needed your finger to follow the lines. He’d begged to have the door unlocked but Brodie wouldn’t hear of it.

  ‘You’d get yourself caught,’ he’d said, ‘and I’m not having you dropping me in it.’

  Fergie completed his marching. Now, push-ups. He lay down. One, two, three … He was panting hard by the time he’d reached a hundred.

  Suddenly he heard movement from below. Poised at the top of a push-up with his arms straight, Fergie froze, then lowered himself noiselessly. In his exertions, he hadn’t heard a boat coming. He could only hope it was Brodie, though he’d get grief for not keeping a lookout and making a noise.

  The visitor was walking across the room. Still flat on the floor, Fergie turned his head to follow the movement. He heard a door open, then shut – a cupboard, maybe? – and then footsteps coming back.

  And now, they were on the stairs. The ninth step creaked – he had counted as Brodie came up with supplies. There, that was the creak now. Fergie held his breath. Could the pounding of his heart be heard on the other side of the door? There was no sound of a key in the lock – not Brodie, then – but the handle turned and the door was rattled.

  After a gruelling minute, the footsteps retreated, and he sagged with relief. If the door had been unlocked, he’d have been caught like a rat in a trap. He could hear more movement downstairs, then it sounded as if someone was walking away. With infinite caution, Fergie crept to the window with the broken slat and peered out.

  A man he didn’t know was walking up the hill, carrying a bucket – feed for the deer, likely. There was a huge, scary dog, German shepherd or something, loping alongside. Fergie sat down on his bed, feeling shaky.

  What would happen now? Would the man come back, with another key? He felt sick with nerves, just sick.

  Matt Lovatt put the dog into a sit-stay, then went up the hill to shake feed pellets into a wooden trough. He could hear the buck barking in the wood somewhere, but a couple of does came trotting up. He watched them for a moment, then called the dog and headed back to the boat.

  He’d need to speak to Kerr. There must be rats in the cottage again; he’d heard scuffling movement that had stopped as he walked in, but when he fetched the poison from the cupboard to put down upstairs, the door was locked and the key wasn’t in its usual place – in one of Kerr’s pockets, no doubt. If they didn’t get bait put down immediately, half the feed would disappear.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The woman who opened the door to DS MacNee, a hard-faced blonde in her forties, gave him a less than enthusiastic greeting. In fact, it was a long time since MacNee had heard such a varied selection of swearie-words. Respect!

  He grinned. ‘Nice to see you too, Shirlee. Where is he?’

  Shirlee produced another colourful selection to attach to Bar-L as well. Billy, it appeared, was in Barlinnie on remand until his trial for a robbery in Paisley.

  ‘Och well, hen,’ MacNee said cheerfully, ‘there’s a silver lining to every cloud. I was here to have a word about an off-licence break-in and if he’d not been banged up, no doubt he’d have had another offence to be taken into consideration.’

  Shirlee didn’t seem to appreciate this comforting reflection. With a cheery wave at the slammed door, MacNee went back to his car.

  That suited him just fine. He’d a wee bit of business to deal with on his own account, and no one would be expecting him back at the station for a while. He’d driven to Newton Stewart already to find Billy; now he drove on down the road towards Borgue.

  Kerr Brodie. MacNee had never been in the top rank
of good haters. Folk did bad things, time passed, you shrugged your shoulders and let it go.

  In general, that was his rule. For Brodie, he made an exception. For Brodie, a visceral loathing festered. Brodie had wrecked Tam’s father’s life and that he hadn’t wrecked Tam’s as well seemed even now a sort of miracle.

  Unbidden, the image rose of the Glasgow tenement: the Brodies on the ground floor with two bedrooms and their own toilet, the MacNees on the top floor in a wee poky room-and-kitchen, with a shared cludgie on the stair. He thrust it away; he never thought about those days if he could help it, and he blamed Brodie that he was being made to think of them now.

  He’d run an illicit check on the man on the quiet, but he didn’t have previous, something of an achievement given what MacNee knew of his early associates and activities. Maybe Brodie had been clean since then – and maybe pigs would grow wings and hold a fly-past in his honour.

  No, Kerr Brodie, damn his black soul, could no more decide to go straight than a corkscrew could decide on a new career as a skewer for shish kebab. So he wasn’t just cannon fodder – and he probably had friends in the right places too, MacNee reflected grimly. They didn’t pay coppers so well that they’d turn down a few quid in used notes for just not noticing.

  So what was Brodie in on, down here? Drugs? It usually was. Scotland was bidding fair to be drug abuse capital of Europe, and if you did it in a quiet way and didn’t go flashing the cash, you’d be on to a very nice little earner. There’d been smugglers of one kind or another on the Solway coast since Rabbie Burns was an exciseman – and before. Easy access to the Isle of Man and Ireland, a straggling coastline, wee isolated places accessed by a dead-end road so you knew who was arriving and had a view of the sea in case they came that way – ideal.