When the ambulance was safely away, Corstorphine manoeuvred the Land Rover under the tree and climbed onto the roof to release the captive rabbit into another evidence bag. From there he could reach the lower branches with ease and he climbed gingerly into the upper reaches of the tree. The stronger of the wire snares was securely wrapped around a stout branch, where the force of Oscar’s snaring had caused the wire to dig deeply into the bark. It was the rabbit’s snare that caught his attention, though, looped around a large bone wheel that had jammed itself in between two smaller branches.
He called down to Frankie. “Pass up the camera.” As he grabbed the strap, he caught her questioning gaze. “The whole bloody tree will have to be a crime scene.” His mind was engaged with how to manage an oak tree and its surrounds as a forensic crime scene. They didn’t teach this at police college.
They left the tree wrapped with police tape, instructing anyone unlikely enough to be in the vicinity of the deserted glen to not cross this line, and drove on to the cottage. The small sunlit stone building sat peacefully in the glen, making the nightmarish scene they’d recently left behind appear all the more unreal. Corstorphine pulled on another set of latex gloves and tried the door. It was unlocked and in unspoken agreement they entered. The rooms were spotless, kitchen knives all in place in a wooden rack, bed made. They opened a few drawers, nothing out of the ordinary. The drive back to the station was interspersed with little in the way of conversation, both detectives too wrapped up in their own thoughts.
“Can it be a coincidence he chose that tree to set a snare?” Corstorphine queried Frankie, the knowledge surrounding how the tree became known locally as the Hanging Tree all too much to the forefront of their minds.
“Who, sir? Oscar – or whoever laid the trap for him?”
“I think we can dispense with the idea of a suicide.” Corstorphine drove in silence for a while, concentrating on keeping the Land Rover’s wheels inside the existing track ruts. “I don’t know what’s going on with the gears lying around the tree, but nobody goes to that much trouble if they’re killing themselves. The question we should be asking is who had the motive?”
Frankie sighed heavily. “Who didn’t have a reason to kill him? He’s been making lifelong enemies ever since he reached nursery school!” She stared out of the Land Rover window, distant mountains wreathed in clouds threatening an end to the sunny spell they’d been enjoying. The change in weather chimed with her own mood, the day’s early promise fading away. She had been a young girl herself when the tree was christened, a lonely baptism of one solitary young woman ending her life. “Do you think any motive may have a connection with the tree then, sir?”
“Probably just a coincidence.”
“But why leave a rabbit up there?” Frankie voiced just one of the questions that worried them both. Snared like a rabbit. Hung in the Hanging Tree. Bits of artfully constructed bone gears littering the ground. It made no sense, and Oscar wasn’t likely to be offering them much assistance.
“We’ll start with Margo, she must know something.”
“You think she’s a suspect, sir?”
“At this stage, everyone’s a bloody suspect.” He slowed as the vehicle reached the road, checked each way and then moved off at a faster speed towards the town. “But do I think Margo killed him?” The silence that followed them back into town provided the only answer they had.
They sat in the interview room, Frankie and Corstorphine on one side of a table with Margo facing them. Three mugs of coffee sat untouched, thin tendrils of steam curling up into the stale air. Frankie switched on the voice recorder beside her, announced who was in the room and advised Margo that she was providing a witness statement of her own free will before Corstorphine spoke. He took the time to study her. She’d been beaten, and recently – the bruising was evident enough around her eyes despite the layers of make-up.
“Before we start, Margo, do you need to see a doctor? I can see someone has knocked you about.” Corstorphine had seen her wince as she lowered herself onto the hard chair, and the hand she had clasped to her side before crossing her arms protectively across her chest.
“I’m fine.” Her response was sharp.
“Alright.” He sighed, tired of always being seen as the enemy in these scenarios. “I want you to go over everything that happened before you saw Oscar this morning. Try and remember every detail, even things that seem unimportant, like changes in his routine. Did he appear unduly worried? Anything that you can tell us may help.”
Margo sucked in short shallow breaths to avoid the pain in her ribs and watched the police through narrowed eyes. They didn’t think she’d done that to him? Left him hanging in a wire noose, just another wild animal – she wished she had. If only she had the strength of will to fight back. If only… she smiled, that tired old mantra again.
“We had a fight two days ago. I told him I was expecting.”
Frankie’s eyes widened as she instinctively focussed on Margo’s stomach, seeking confirmation of the first tell-tale bulge. Corstorphine just nodded encouragement for her to continue.
“Oscar wasn’t impressed. He let me know he didn’t want a child. Tried his damn best to get rid of it there and then!” She spat the last words out. “He was never that good with words, preferred using his hands.” She laughed mirthlessly at her own joke, missing the quick glance that the detectives exchanged.
“And then?” Frankie prompted.
“He left the house yesterday morning, just after six, as usual. Oscar liked to be up early in case any animals were stupid enough to still be on the hills. I lay in bed for a while, then did a wash. The sheets were bloody.”
“What did you do after that?” Corstorphine asked. “Did anyone come to the house, or did you see any hikers on the path? Anyone that can substantiate your story?”
“Well, it’s like a bloody motorway some days. I had thought about opening a café, maybe selling some home-made cakes. You know, make some money on the side to pay for foreign holidays.” The sarcasm met with a stony response. She breathed deeply, and then wished she hadn’t as a lancing pain stabbed her in the side. Margo shifted position on the chair in an effort to get more comfortable. “No, nobody comes up the glen. There’s fuck all reason to do so. It goes nowhere, there’s no big hills to climb, no fish in the burn and no trees to cut down.” She paused her diatribe for a second. “Except the one.”
“So, what did you do the rest of the day?” Frankie again, searching for details that might help colour in the outline she’d given them.
“Made the fucking bed with clean sheets, cleaned the kitchen floor where I’d bled all over it and prepared Oscar’s meal for him. The rest of the time I just looked out of the window and wished I could run away.” She blinked away the tears that were starting to form, angry to display any sign of weakness in front of these two. She hurriedly carried on. “When Oscar was late for his dinner, I thought he’d be down the pub.” Her eyes met theirs, the anguish in her gaze catching them both unawares. “Then I was worried. I can just about manage him normal, like, but when he’s drunk... You’ve no idea what he’s like. He wanted the baby gone, I knew that.” She could feel the memory of the knife in her hand as she’d lain there, nerves stretched so tight she was unable to sleep. “When he hadn’t come back this morning, I took my chance, packed my bag and left. I thought he’d see me on the track, and I couldn’t run because of the pain in my ribs. Then I saw him, hanging from that tree. I couldn’t work out what it was at first, then I saw it was Oscar.”
Her head tilted to one side as she relived the moment, unconsciously mimicking his stance as he swung bloodily from the wire. “I was happy,” she stated simply. “He couldn’t hurt me any more. Then I thought whoever did it might still be around and I had to run, even though it hurt my ribs. You know the rest.”
Corstorphine regarded her steadily, the eyebrow refusing to lift. Inso
far as anyone told the truth, this was as close as it got. “Who’d want to do this to him, Margo?”
She laughed, the sound short and sharp like a fox’s cough. “Who wouldn’t?”
Frankie asked her again. “Seriously, Margo, if you know anyone who may have done this, we need to know.”
Margo considered. If she gave them a name they’d let her go, otherwise she could be held here for bloody hours.
“There’s a gamey Oscar set up some months ago. Left a dead eagle on his beat. He’s up before the court in Inverness some time this week. Oscar said he’d know who did it, found it funny.”
“Do you have a name?” Corstorphine queried. Frankie’s pen hovered over her notebook.
“John Ackerman. His patch isn’t that far from Inverness. Everyone knows it’s a setup. You don’t shit in your own bed.”
Frankie closed her notebook. “This interview is terminated at eighteen-forty.” She switched off the recorder, whilst Margo looked at them quizzically.
“You’re free to go, Margo. Get yourself checked out at the hospital – do you want us to run you there?” Corstorphine’s offer was met with a hostile stare.
“Think I want to be seen in a police car? No thanks. I’ll make my own way.”
“Where will you be staying, Margo? In case we need to get back in touch.” Frankie queried as she held the door open.
Margo stared blankly into some middle distance. She’d set out this morning without any destination in mind, save anywhere away from Oscar. Now there was only one place she could go. “Back home.”
“Before you go…”
Margo turned to see Corstorphine holding out a set of keys. “From the quad bike,” he explained. She took them in silence and left the interview room. Frankie escorted her to the front desk where Hamish handed over her travel bag. They stood watching as she retrieved a purse, making a show of counting her money out in front of them before abruptly leaving.
IV
SATURDAY 19:11
Corstorphine left Frankie at the station in the act of pinning a red thread between Oscar’s photograph and a yellow post-it inscribed with John Ackerman’s name. As crazy walls went, this one was looking particularly sparse and he had little confidence that their first suspect would prove to be the killer. Frankie had put Margo’s name up on the board, but Corstorphine had a feeling that line of enquiry was a non-starter. Whoever had set the snare for Oscar had planned his death carefully, more like a military operation than the desperate act of a newly-pregnant woman. The forensics report would come later, once the SOC unit had made the round trip from Inverness and finished investigating the scene of crime – a tree, that would be a first for them.
Leaving Frankie to work the case on her own felt like a dereliction of duty, and it was in a conflicted state of mind that he crossed the car park, raising a hand in farewell to her outline in the office window. Not that there was much more that he could do without the forensics report. The vision of Oscar’s torn body hanging from the tree remained fresh in his memory and it took an effort of will to delete the image. He wanted to go home, sink into the settee with the TV on and a large single malt – but he had arranged to meet this woman. Corstorphine was too much the gentleman to stand her up, no matter how Oscar’s death had affected him.
He checked the car dashboard, 19:15. Still in time to make his pre-arranged date at the village inn, some way out of town. Raising himself slightly in the driver’s seat, Corstorphine appraised his reflection in the rear-view mirror. Hair touched with grey, but no sign yet of the widow’s peak that had adorned his father’s head at this same age. Did he look forty-one? His hazel eyes engaged with their serious reflection, balancing the crooked ridge of a broken nose, the result of an overly enthusiastic arrest in his younger days. He had a face his wife used to describe variously as ‘characterful’ or ‘rugged’. Towards the end, anchored to the hospital bed with a morphine drip for the pain, her shaking hand had brushed his wet cheek and with a voice more air than sound had told him it was ‘lived-in’.
Corstorphine still felt guilty whenever he met another woman, a concern that he was being unfaithful, disrespectful. His wife still sat next to him in his imagination, a comforting presence giving him ‘that look’ which told him he was being stupid, or stubborn, or frequently both.
“Go on and live life. That’s the only gift you can give me. Live for both of us.” It was, he felt, an admonishment to grief. They were among the last words she’d spoken, whispered with eyes momentarily unclouded before a replacement morphine drip took effect. Words that had wounded him deeply. He turned to look at her, sitting beside him as he manoeuvred out of the station car park and her smile was benediction enough. Corstorphine addressed the empty air. “You’re right. I know.”
The road followed the edge of a loch, grey waters cresting into white peaks as the wind intensified, miniature white horses riding each crest. Pine trees bent their tall heads, inclining away from the prevailing westerly, fresh in from the Atlantic. A bird hung motionless in the agitated sky, an expert aviator bending nature’s force to hold itself effortlessly suspended in space. Corstorphine gave up trying to identify it as he held the car to the curve of the road. Too small for an eagle, probably a buzzard searching for an easy meal – purveyor of the finest road kill. He envied the bird its inherent ability to master the elements. For too long now he felt his life had been similarly suspended, hanging at some random point but exhibiting none of the graceful skill the bird presented. No, Corstorphine thought ruefully, his motion through life was more the stumbling random walk of the town drunk, greeting each new day with the dull surprise that he had managed to get this far without falling flat on his face.
“Give it a rest, Corstorphine. Glass half empty again?” His disembodied wife laughed beside him, poking fun at his moodiness, encouraging him as she often did, to enjoy life. While it lasted.
“Aye. I know, lass.” He spoke the words with the ease of someone long used to communicating with the dead. “I always was a morose bastard.” She faded away as the village inn lights came into view, and by the time he’d turned into the car park there was nothing left of her, just a touch of warmth around his heart. Corstorphine remained in the car for a few minutes, mentally filing the day’s events away before he felt able to face the world.
There was a woman already sitting at the table the waitress pointed out to him, and her eyes flicked towards him as he approached. She looked no older than thirty, certainly a lot younger than her slightly out of focus online profile had suggested. All too often the dating apps lied more than politicians; photographs taken before the last flush of youth had departed were presented as ‘recent’. The duplicity of those seeking a relationship was slightly offensive to his detective’s mindset, but he knew enough about life to make allowances for the air of desperation that adhered to some of those serial daters he had encountered. This was a novelty for him, a woman appearing younger than her photograph. She raised her hand to beckon him over, her fingers performing a Mexican wave in his direction.
“James Corstorphine, sorry I’m late.” He proffered a hand to the woman, suddenly taken by the panicked thought that perhaps this wasn’t his date and wondering how best to extricate himself, even as his hand was grasped by hers.
“Jenny Peck. No, you’re quite on time. I’m early, so I started without you.” She tilted her head towards a glass of wine. “Can I get you a drink?”
Corstorphine sat at the table, flustered by the role reversal that had just taken place. “No, let me.” His protestations went ignored. She had already raised a hand, beckoning over the waitress with an imperial wave. “I insist! What will you have?” They both stared at him, the woman with an amused air as if he’d just said something witty, the waitress with professional indifference.
“Do you have a non-alcoholic beer?” Corstorphine suddenly felt ineffectual, off balance, wondering how the initiative
had been so easily taken away.
“We’ve got non-alcoholic lager.” The waitress waited, stylus poised over some iPad arrangement that he supposed was electronically connected directly to the bar.
“Yes, that’s fine. Thanks.” She placed the menus down on the table and after a second’s hesitation, which wasn’t lost on him, put the wine list down on Jenny’s side of the table.
“Hard day?” His blind date asked the question whilst raising her glass to her lips, observing him over the upturned rim.
“Aye. Busy enough. How about you – you’re a nurse, is that right?” Corstorphine felt instantly more at ease asking the questions and took the opportunity to search her face for any clues as to character. Apart from dark brown eyes that held his in an amused stare, he was none the wiser. Those detective skills, honed year after year from searching faces for guile or guilt, came back empty. She was attractive enough, a light touch with the makeup which was a relief, auburn hair falling naturally to her shoulders. A momentary panic hit him as it crossed his mind she might be younger than he first thought.
“Staff nurse,” she replied. “I’m the battle-axe on the ward.”
It was Corstorphine’s turn to smile, more out of a sense of relief that she couldn’t be that young, to be a staff nurse. “I can’t see you as any kind of murder weapon.”
She laughed, a good-humoured light sound that he felt he’d like to hear more of. “Well, I can see that you’re a policeman. Murder weapon indeed!”
He took his time reading the dinner menu as a companionable silence engulfed their table, a small quiet island in the sea of conversation that murmured restlessly around them. Couples out for dinner, families celebrating a birthday or some other event, a few first dates like themselves – too old for nightclubs, too young to have resigned themselves to a lonely existence. The sound of a grandfather clock striking eight o’clock brought him out of his reverie. A sombre-looking instrument, more than likely purchased from some house auction to provide much needed character to the otherwise anodyne restaurant interior. Now that his attention had been drawn to it he could hear the metronome tick tock that accompanied the pendulum’s swing.
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