by John Burke
‘But you persuaded her?’ Lesley felt the beginnings of admiration for the seedy little man.
‘We came to an agreement. But she insisted on having what she called some of her money’s worth. She would stay for lunch, and then high tea. And after that there was a bus to Kelso, and a connection she could make.’
Lesley wondered if there had been more than a financial concern in Hannah’s delay. If she had decided to walk out on Archie Ferguson – for good, or just for a brief, contemptuous spell – she would look pretty silly dragging back home early next day. She would need time to gather her wits, prepare a story and build up the bluster that would silence anything Archie had to say.
Not knowing that Archie had already been silenced.
Or did she know? That question came nagging back.
‘Ferguson,’ breathed Mr Furlong. ‘It’s not . . . there’s no connection . . .?’ It was only now that his pursed-up little mind was beginning to grasp the full import of that name and the presence of the police. Until their arrival he had never connected Hannah with news reports of a murder in the Borders. His blotchy complexion was going a very pale shade of pale.
Again Lesley was estimating times in her head. They continued to tally with what Rutherford had extracted in the interview room before releasing Hannah on police bail. So Hannah and Craig could not have played any part in Archie’s murder?
Unless the whole thing was a put-up job. They had certainly drawn attention to themselves, virtually forcing the manager and his staff to remember them. And most conveniently establishing the times when they were here and therefore couldn’t have been anywhere near Kilstane and Black Knowe during the crucial hours.
A carefully planned cover-up? Craig driving straight back to Kilstane, leaving Hannah in the clear that night and most of next day, murdering Archie, and then driving off to ditch the car in a Berwick back street? Presumably he lived in Berwick or near enough to dump the car and get back home without attracting attention. He would stay quiet there until the police had given up hope of tracing the murderer, and then take up where he and Hannah had left off. They had wanted Archie out of the way. Hannah’s patchy story to the detectives had been that she had met her second husband again, and that he had spun her a story about wanting her back. They were going to have a weekend together to talk it over – ‘Talk?’ Rutherford had leered afterwards – and bribe one of the staff to help provide evidence for a quickie divorce. But had that been just a showy façade? In reality they could have been acting like mad – right up Hannah’s street! – while scheming to get the obstacle of Archie removed more drastically.
Drastic it certainly was. If that was the way it was. It did seem extreme. But so many killings arose from trivial beginnings. She was sure of one thing: Rutherford would want to know where Sandy Craig had got to.
Lesley said: ‘I suppose it’s too much to hope that Craig signed his own name in the register?’
But she did begin to hope. What was the point of using any other name, especially if he had genuinely been wanting cast-iron divorce evidence, or merely pretending that that was what the weekend had been about? No need for a Mr and Mrs Smith.
Furlong got up and opened the door behind the reception desk, a space even more cramped than his office. He turned the heavy visitors’ book round to face them.
The address given was in Berwick-upon-Tweed.
It was too neat, too satisfying. Lesley was not going to let herself be even mildly optimistic about the address proving genuine. But it would have to be followed up.
*
The call had come to the incident room a few minutes after DC Gunn had set off towards Eastmarch Grange. It was presented to DCI Rutherford when he arrived late, cursing his car for a hiccup which had made his journey like one over a giant washboard. Sometime today he would have to get it down to the local garage.
Which, as it happened, was the source of the call. Logan’s Garage could at last report having found tyre treads which matched the impression near the cairn.
Rutherford collected a print of the original photograph, jolted his way to the garage, demanded a mechanic’s attention to his own car’s indigestion, and then said: ‘Right. Where’s this other one?’
Willie Logan, dourly methodical, insisted on personally being given details of the faulty vehicle first rather than let it go straight into the workshop. ‘Personal responsibility has always been my motto.’ Logan was tall and cadaverous, with a beaky nose and shoulders which sank the moment he began speaking to a customer. He resembled a scrawny vulture stooping over its prey. The droop was merely a prelude to dismal predictions about any vehicle brought under his scrutiny. After two minutes of that beady gaze, the owner would know that the operation on his car was going to cost at least twice as much as he had budgeted for. ‘We’ll do our best,’ he croaked after Rutherford had rattled off a summary. A human being under such scrutiny in hospital would know that only a surgical miracle would enable him to survive.
‘Now where is this one you rang up about? You’ve still got it here?’ demanded Rutherford.
Logan waved a hand towards a gleaming Escort at one side of the forecourt. Rutherford stooped to inspect the offside rear tyre and compare it with the photograph. It was a pretty close match.
He straightened up. ‘Congratulations. Someone’s got sharp eyes.’
‘Mine,’ said Logan. ‘Noticed it when the car was backed out of the workshop.’
‘You know whose it is?’
‘Aye, of course. Jamie Brown’s.’
He was watching the detective with a querulous gaze of his own, waiting for a reaction.
A chill struck through Rutherford’s first happy anticipation. The car was too bloody glossy. Someone had given it a thorough going over, as if tarting it up ready for sale. ‘It’s been in for a clean?’
‘Mr Brown put it in for its MoT, and wanted a full service as well, and our full washing and valeting service.’
‘Inside and out?’
‘Inside and out,’ Logan confirmed.
‘Could I speak to the mechanic who carried out the work?’
The young man who emerged from the workshop, wiping his hands on an oily rag which could only make them greasier, kept looking worriedly at his employer, fearing Logan’s disapproval more than any police officer’s. No, he hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary in Mr Brown’s car. Of course he hadn’t been looking, but what were they expecting him to spot? Bloodstains?
Rutherford cut that short. One unguarded hint, and the story would be all over town before midday. ‘Mr Logan, I want complete secrecy on this. You’re not to ring Brown to tell him his car’s ready. Or to tell him I’m on my way to see him. Understood?’
Logan’s face looked as cheerful as a vulture’s face could be expected to look. He solemnly agreed that he and his staff would remain silent until given permission to talk. There was a certain scavenging relish in his contemplation of the tittle-tattle pickings from the episode.
Rutherford walked at a brisk pace towards James Brown’s office. The staircase leading up beside the bookshop was rickety, its handrail chipped by rust, and the door at the top had not been painted for years. Only the insurance company logo was bright and up-to-date. Brown’s office was dominated by a desk which had once had a green leather inlay, now stained and frayed.
He made a great fuss over welcoming the DCI, waving him to a chair and clearing a space on the desk as if to make room for some unspecified recording equipment that might be produced from his interviewer’s back pocket. ‘I was wondering if you’d come to consult me. Anything I can do to help. Tragic. Such a blow to the community. Poor old Archie. Now. how are things going?’
‘Mr Brown, did you see Mr Ferguson during the afternoon or evening of his death?’
‘I’m afraid not. All I know is he didn’t show up at the meeting. And that was no’ like him. No’ like him at all.’
‘And you,’ intervened Rutherford, ‘arrived late for that meeting.
’
‘Did I? Och, aye, now you come to mention it. Got a very dirty look from old Hamilton. A real stickler.’
‘Any specific reason why you were late?’
‘Good heavens, it can’t have been more than ten minutes.’
‘Eleven, according to the Convenor,’ said Rutherford.
‘There you are. A real stickler, as I’ve said.’
‘You know the body was found in the cairn near Black Knowe.’
‘So I’ve heard. It’s incredible.’
‘And you were nowhere near the cairn that night?’
‘Why should I have been?’
Rutherford sat back and waited, letting Brown stew for a few moments. When there was no apparent reaction, he said: ‘Tyre marks of your car were found in the mud close by.’
‘Close by?’ Brown struck his forehead in a gesture worthy of Hannah Ferguson’s amateur dramatic society. ‘Och, for God’s sake. Of course. I remember now. It was a real dreich night.’
‘So you were there?’
‘Aye. That must have been where I skited off the road on the way up to see Sir Nicholas. Could have been nasty. I remember I thought for a wee moment I was stuck.’
‘An odd time to call on Sir Nicholas, wasn’t it?’
‘Not at all. After the theft of the quaich I wanted to impress on him the importance of insurance. I spent a great deal of time,’ said Brown virtuously, ‘working out quotes for him. I decided to drop them in on the way to the meeting. Didna take me far off my route. That,’ he added even more virtuously, ‘was why I was a few minutes late at the meeting.’
‘And now the quaich has turned up,’ said Lesley.
‘So I’ve heard. But there’ll be no harm in Sir Nicholas making sure it’s properly covered next time.’
‘You think there’ll be a next time?’
‘One should always be prepared.’
‘Mr Brown. That car of yours. Why did you want it to have such a thorough cleaning at this particular time?’
‘Just a minute. A wee minute. How do you know I asked for my car to be cleaned up?’
‘I happened to be putting my own car in for a repair today.’
‘And why should I not be cleaning my car when it suits me?’
‘The fact that your tyre marks were found so close to the murder scene –’
‘And how was I to know it was a murder scene? I’ve told you, I skited off the road in that mud, and then I stopped near the main door, and then I went on to the meeting. And with all the muck that was left on my car those couple of days, it made good sense to have it hosed down and vacuum’d inside when it went in for its MoT. You’re not suggesting I’ve anything to hide?’
‘Simply eliminating every possibility, Mr Brown.’
‘And whatever’s left has to be the truth?’ The nose in Brown’s weaselly face twitched in what was meant to be endearing comradeship. ‘The sooner you find the truth, Chief Inspector, the better for this town. It would lift a cloud from all of us.’
‘Quite right, sir. You won’t mind, then, if we let our Forensic boys have a look at your car? Just to eliminate it, you’ll agree.’
‘By all means. You’ll not find any signs of criminal activity, that I can promise you.’ He sounded so confident that Rutherford longed to drag the floor out from under him.
When Les Gunn got back, she could be the one to go and check with Sir Nicholas Torrance that Brown had really been at Black Knowe delivering insurance documents as he claimed.
Rutherford had a nasty feeling that this, too, would prove to be true. Or at any rate plausible.
*
Lesley Gunn felt an inexplicable tremor when she saw Sir Nicholas again. He was wearing a deep purple silk shirt, olive green slacks, and sandals. Rutherford’s nose would have wrinkled; and she was glad he was not along.
He took her arm with the lightest touch of his strong fingers and led her into a small room beside the entrance. It might once have been a guardroom, with a narrow window overlooking the slope down from the tower.
‘Now. How can I help?’
‘Sorry to be bothering you again, but there’s something we have to confirm. Mr James Brown tells us that he visited you on Friday evening on his way to a committee meeting. Can you confirm that?’
If they had been hoping to have Brown proved a liar, they were going to be disappointed. Sir Nicholas gave a grimace of distaste, but nodded. ‘The man’s a pest. You never know where he’s going to pop up and start trying to sell you something. But he did come here on Friday evening, yes. Armed with sheets of small print.’ There was nothing offensive in his gaze, yet Lesley felt that instead of concentrating on her questions he was delicately stripping her clothes off. Or maybe she was the one imagining it; and was horrified to find herself rather enjoying the possibility.
‘What time would this be, sir?’
‘Oh, just before eight, I think. Round about then, anyway.’
‘Signing the documents didn’t take a great deal of time?’
‘I didn’t sign them. I sent word down to Mrs Robson that he should leave them with her so that I could study them in my own good time and make up my mind.’
‘Sir Nicholas, you know that the quaich was found on Mr Ferguson’s body?’
‘I ought to. I was the one who found him, remember.’
‘Of course.’ She was getting flustered. ‘And you haven’t heard of the latest developments?’
‘Only those that I’m personally involved in, with Dr Hamilton.’
Whatever that was, it didn’t seem of immediate relevance to Lesley. ‘After what you told us,’ she went on, ‘and after further interviews, we have charged Mrs Ferguson with theft.’
‘Oh, dear. I’m sorry it had to come to that.’
‘You thought it might be her all along?’
‘She was the one most insistent that its disappearance put an end to the Ridings. She had a personal obsession about that.’
‘And now that it’s back, there’s been the murder.’
He stared out of the window, avoiding her gaze. ‘I’m afraid there are other developments you’ll not yet be aware of. The latest decision is that the murder is of no great consequence.’
‘No consequence? Sir Nicholas –’
‘No symbolic consequence, that is. The loss of the quaich did present some dissension. But now that it’s back, what one might call the ethical dilemma has been resolved.’
‘You don’t mean the Committee’s decided to go ahead with the Ridings?’
‘No.’
‘I should think not.’
‘Not the Committee,’ said Sir Nicholas. ‘I decided. I conveyed my views to Dr Hamilton, and he agreed that there could be no moral objection to resuming the tradition of centuries.’
He stared a challenge at her, daring her to argue.
All she could think of was that he had done it entirely for the benefit of that wisp of a creature riding out of the south towards him, and enticing her through the whole charade.
All of it?
And who was really doing the enticing?
Lesley Gunn felt irrationally furious.
Chapter Thirteen
Dci Rutherford had thought that after years in this job he had developed a cast-iron stomach. He had not been too nauseated by the deposit of a crack cocaine dealer’s intestines in a corporation litter bin during a Glasgow drug war. A laceration of people’s faces with broken bottles was a nasty sight until one got hardened to it. These became everyday matters, as inevitable as sleet and slush – unpleasant, but part of the routine of living and, at regular intervals, dying. Now Rutherford was wondering whether the steely DI Gunn possessed less feminine queasiness and a more cold-hearted disposition than he did. Just for once he felt quite shocked.
After her conversation with the master of Black Knowe, Les Gunn had reported the intention that the Ridings should go ahead. Confirming this, Dr Hamilton scrupulously notified the police that the usual traffic control would be requ
ired in the streets and the two main roads in and out of the town. Rutherford would have expected disapproval from anyone with the Convenor’s principles. But Hamilton’s austere features seemed justificatory rather than condemnatory. On some men as they grow older the skin tends to pucker and sag below their eyes, slackening down the cheeks and around the mouth. With Hamilton it had tightened like a drum-head, transparent over his cheekbones. He had all the lofty authority of an Old Testament prophet.
‘You’re really contemplating doing the whole thing?’ Rutherford was still incredulous. ‘All the riding out, the races, the lot?’
‘The Olympic Games have been known to continue after killings.’
‘Yes, but commercial sponsors there insisted on getting their money’s worth. Is that it? All the local shops and hotels need the trade from tourists?’
‘I’m glad to say that Sir Nicholas himself was the first to propose it for my consideration; and he certainly has no pecuniary interests in the matter. The Ridings are part of our heritage. Death of a valued colleague, sad as it may be, can’t be allowed to break the lifeline of our tradition.’
Rutherford tried to persuade himself that this made sense. The buses didn’t stop running in Glasgow every time some villain got slashed across the chops. There had been plenty of killing in those historic times of raiding and burning on which the pageant was based. What was so different now?
‘Life has to go on. The spirit of the community must go on.’
When Hamilton had left, Rutherford mockingly echoed his solemn pronouncement. ‘That poor bugger’s life isn’t going to go on, though. They do their nuts over a piddling little bowl that went walkabout, and their shindig grinds to a halt. But when one of their ain folk gets his skull bashed in, it doesn’t matter a toss.’
‘We still have to find out who bashed it in,’ Lesley observed.
‘Time for you to call on Mr Craig.’
‘Me?’
‘I want to concentrate on some aspects of this Riding racket. Which leaves you free to quiz Craig. He seems to have an eye for a bonny lass. You’ll get further with him than I could.’
‘I don’t want to get anywhere with him.’