Whirligig

by Andrew James Greig

  As the laird was contemplating his prospects for survival, Margo had returned to the cottage only to find her knickers lying on top of the chest of drawers. She felt physically sick, violated in her own home. Without thinking she threw them in with the rest of the dirty washing, shutting the laundry basket lid as if that might help eradicate the vision of the laird fingering her underclothes. The nausea returned in waves and she bent double over the toilet, dry retching racking her body as she convulsed. As the sickness passed, she made her way back down the cottage stairs to the kitchen, putting on the kettle. “Everything’s alright with a cup of fucking tea,” Margo advised the empty room, murdering another of her mother’s favourite adages.

  With the mug of steaming liquid clasped to her body, Margo picked up the envelope left propped on the kitchen table. It was written in legalese, but the meaning was clear enough – she only had a month to find somewhere else to live. Margo sat looking out of the cottage window as the wind shook the frame in a sudden gust. She couldn’t stay here; the laird was either going to stalk her like he did his deer or throw her out. Neither option held any particular attraction. She sipped at her tea, unconsciously cradling her womb with the other hand – still too early for any outward sign but she felt decidedly pregnant. The foetus was already beginning to control her life. Margo wouldn’t have welcomed the comparison but, much in the same way as parasitic wasps turn their caterpillar hosts into zombies, whatever decision she took now had to be in her unborn child’s best interests.

  She sat nursing her tea, trying to come to terms with Oscar’s death. Everything felt unreal: her pregnancy, Oscar gone, the notice to quit the house that was her home. Even just sitting there quietly without the fear of him coming home and finding fault, that unbearable worry had gone. Why then did she feel the pain of losing him when he’d been so cruel? Why did she feel a vacuum had formed in the centre of her being – an absence so keenly felt that the pain of it was physical? Margo felt more alone than at any time in her life. In his own way Oscar had at least needed her; the two of them were together – perhaps not as commonly represented in romantic fiction, but they were together. Now she was truly apart; alone and adrift with nobody in the world who cared what happened to her. She felt the gravity of self-pity starting to pull her down into that relentless spiral she knew too well and fought back. Now it wasn’t just about her, the baby needed her and that small seed inside her was going to be her salvation. Margo didn’t need the world or its pity. The child she carried needed her and that was enough; for to be needed is to be loved and that was all she had ever desired.

  Her first concern had to be money. There wasn’t anything she could hope to accomplish without money. How much was there in that tin? Was it even still there? A sudden panic attack hit her as she scrambled to the door, throwing it open to see whether the laird had dug up her vegetable patch whilst she’d been away. The spade remained where she’d left it, upright in the freshly turned soil where new plants held tight against the wind that threatened to lift them out of the ground. She glanced down the track, then searched around the hills just in case he had someone keeping an eye on her. Clouds sped by overhead, urged on by the prevailing wind which regularly reached gale force up on the mountain tops. The hills around her weren’t that high, but clouds covered the tops, wrapping the weathered rocks in moisture as water vapour coalesced in the colder air. The glen was empty, as far as she could tell. If the laird had already searched the cottage then he was unlikely to want to search it again. She pulled on her wellingtons, grabbed a coat and collected the spade. With a final look around her, she dug with a single sense of purpose to retrieve the tin, hiding it under the folds of her coat as she took it back into the cottage. Door safely locked and curtains drawn for good measure, she placed the tin on the kitchen table. Taking out the rolls of £50 notes, Margo started counting them into piles of £500. In a few minutes she’d opened the last roll – £3250! Plus the four hundred she’d hidden in her clothing and purse, and the £100 from the snotty reporter.

  It was a good start, but not enough. She emptied the rest of the tin’s contents out on the table. She dismissed the photographs; there was nothing she could make out of them. Why had Oscar kept them? He was hardly the sentimental type. They looked like kids at school. Were they his classmates? As she carelessly scattered them across the table one flipped over and her heart chilled. Drawn on the back was a skull and crossbones, an image still found on some of the older gravestones she’d seen in the town. Picking up the photograph, she looked more closely at the picture. It was of a child, a tousle-headed boy of six or seven years old. Did this mean he was dead? Wordlessly she checked the other photographs out of the fifteen she counted, eight had the same inscription on the back, drawn carelessly in ballpoint.

  The notebook took her attention, black and red cover curled with age and damp. She checked the name again, June Stevens – it was definitely hers. Why did she have to write in stupid bloody scribbles? Margo thought back to the French newspaper reporter, she knew how to write shorthand. She might even pay good money to get her hands on the reporter’s notebook. Who knew what secrets were inside?

  She opened the biscuit tin and shoved the notebook and photos in. The money she slipped inside a pillowcase. That would have to do until she went back into town.

  X

  MONDAY 14:08

  Corstorphine and Frankie sat in the interview room, running through the legal litany that informed John Ackerman of his rights. He’d been picked up from the Sheriff Court in Inverness that morning, following a conviction for poisoning the golden eagle found on his estate, and his mood matched his ill-fitting dark suit.

  Corstorphine started the interview. “What can you tell us about your movements last week, between Monday 12th to Friday 16th May?”

  “Is this to do with that bastard, Oscar Anderson?” The gamekeeper almost spat the words out.

  “I’ll ask the questions, John.” Corstorphine could see the visceral animal hatred in his face, weasel features twisted into an ugly sneer. The sneer turned into a satisfied grin, exposing yellowed teeth that hadn’t been near a dentist for many years. “You think I killed him?”

  “I don’t recollect anyone saying he was dead, do you, Frankie?”

  “Don’t try that shit with me. It’s common knowledge the cunt was found hanging from that tree. Don’t the polis read the papers like the rest of us?”

  Corstorphine made a note to look at the day’s press. He glanced towards Frankie who made a non-committal gesture with her shoulders, an imperceptible shrug expressing the fact she was none the wiser either. “Why don’t you try answering the question? What were your movements last week?”

  “I was on the estate all week. Didn’t have much choice since your polis buddies at Inverness wanted to look in every bloody building. Looking for the poison, they said. Didn’t make a fuck of difference, they found none. Like I told them – it wisnae me did the poisoning! The guy they should have collared is that dead bastard.”

  “Do you have anyone who will be able to substantiate your story?” Frankie interrupted.

  The gamekeeper looked at her in surprise. “Aye. The Inverness bobbies, of course, hen.” He shook his head in wonder at having to answer a woman’s question.

  “And the Inverness police were with you every day last week?” She persevered, bottling her frustration for the moment.

  “Pretty much. They were with me from first thing Monday, all day. Then they came back on the Tuesday with some stuck-up RSPB types. Know what gets me about the RSPB? They get all hot and bothered about some bloody bird that kills other birds for a living, and then don’t give a toss about the thousands of pheasants and grouse people like us make sure get shot every year. They’re birds as well.”

  “Just answer the question.” Corstorphine interrupted his soliloquy.

  He received a sullen stare for his interruption. “On the Wednesday I was on the
estate all day, ask my boss. The Thursday I was showing some rich American the best places to stalk deer and had a few drinks at his expense in the Stag Hotel where he was staying. The Friday I had to go into Inverness to see the legal aid – total waste of bloody time, that was.” He looked at them both with open hostility. “What’s the bloody point of the law if the sheriff is as bent as his gamekeeper?”

  “You’re familiar with the concept of slander?” Corstorphine asked.

  “Aye. And he’s another one that has it coming.”

  “How do you mean?” Frankie rejoined the questioning.

  The gamekeeper adopted the same surprised expression he had when she spoke previously, quickly looking towards Corstorphine for confirmation that he was expected to answer. “You don’t know the half of it, do you?” He said this with apparent wonder. “Those two have been hand-in-glove for bloody years. You ever wondered why Oscar never got prosecuted, not once?” He sniggered, a sound Frankie could picture him making all the way through school. “You two should take up comedy, bloody class.”

  “If you have any information that may lead to whoever was responsible for this death, you’d be well advised to tell us now.” Corstorphine spoke quietly, allowing the full import of what he was saying to percolate into the gamekeeper’s consciousness.

  John Ackerman sat back in his chair and regarded them with a smug expression. “Think I’m going to help you with your job when you’ve just lost me mine? Think again.”

  They let him go after checking his story with the Inverness police who confirmed with Corstorphine that they’d spent two days with the gamekeeper the previous week. The Procurator Fiscal had wanted more evidence to tie him to the poisoning, but it hadn’t mattered in the end. The sheriff had come down hard on him, a big fine and community service – there would have been custodial for a second offence – and he lost his job, so a good result as far as they were concerned. His employer, a financier from London, confirmed Ackerman had been with him the previous Wednesday and that the American visitor had been walking the hills with him on Thursday. Corstorphine couldn’t see how the gamekeeper would have had the time to set such an elaborate trap for Oscar, much less have the IQ to do so. He did have the motive, however.

  Frankie brought in the morning’s Courier and placed it on his desk. The front page was a photo of the Hanging Tree, still adorned with police tape, making it look like a festive maypole in the wilderness. Right month for it, Corstorphine voiced silently to himself. The headline shouted in large bold print, ‘Gamekeeper Snared in Tree’ with, ‘Police investigate second death at cursed tree’ as a strapline. An old photograph of Oscar stared sullenly up from the page.

  “So much for keeping it under wraps!” Corstorphine sighed heavily. There was no point in berating his staff, there were any number of ways the story could have got out. He belatedly remembered his date, Jenny, telling him the hospital staff were all talking about the gamekeeper’s death. How long before the minister put in an appearance on the front page?

  “Sir?” Frankie interrupted his thoughts. He looked up from the paper, her forehead had developed several deep lines – her thinking face, he called it. “What is it, Frankie?”

  “What do you make of John Ackerman’s comments about the sheriff and Oscar being in cahoots?”

  Corstorphine wondered if Frankie had been watching too many Westerns. “In cahoots?”

  “Yes, sir. John Ackerman suggested they were hand-in-glove. Do you think there’s any truth in that? Oscar certainly seemed to lead a charmed life – not one prosecution ever stuck.”

  Corstorphine shrugged. Not being born and brought up in the town meant that he was always going to be seen as the incomer. Local history and knowledge came to him drip by drip and he often relied on Frankie and the others to fill him in on feuds and alliances that went back several generations in some instances.

  “What do you think, Frankie? You’ve lived here all your life, is there something we’re missing, some other line of enquiry we should be following?”

  “I don’t know, sir. If John Ackerman says the sheriff has it coming, shouldn’t we warn him he may be in danger?”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary, Frankie. As a sheriff he’s put any number of people behind bars, he knows to take precautions. I’ve been to his house on the estate, big wall around it, alarm system, CCTV – he’d not be such an easy target as Oscar was.”

  “But if it’s the same person that got to the minister…” She left the thought hanging.

  Corstorphine remembered the coin that forensics had found under the tree and dug out the report from underneath the newspaper on his desk. “When did that lassie kill herself, Frankie? What year?”

  She adopted the same look of concentration, brows furrowed downwards as she retrieved a memory. “I was seven at the time, so that would make it… 1997, sir.”

  He passed over the photograph of the coin. She studied it in silence before they locked eyes. “Looks like there may be a connection to her death after all.”

  Corstorphine nodded. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We’ll see what they find in the bell tower first. Either way, we need to start looking for a connection between the dead woman and Oscar.” It was Corstorphine’s turn to frown. “Who was the suicide anyway, do you remember her name?”

  “Oh, yes. She was the local reporter for the Courier. Her name was June Stevens.”

  “Get down to the paper, try and find out who leaked the story to them. Although it’s too bloody late now. And have a look at what June Stevens was working on before her death, just in case it’s pertinent somehow.”

  “Yes, sir.” Frankie turned smartly on her heel and left him alone with his thoughts. What if her death wasn’t a suicide? Was the same murderer repeating his crime twenty years later?

  “Hamish!” Corstorphine called to the desk sergeant, “Can you fetch me the case notes for that girl who committed suicide in 1997. June Stevens?”

  “Certainly, sir. They’ll be locked in the storeroom filing cabinet, files that old. May take a while.”

  “I’ll watch the front desk until one of the constables comes back. Then I want you to tell me everything you remember about the day she died.”

  “Is there a connection to the present-day murders, sir?”

  “I’m not sure, Hamish. Just something I need to explore.”

  The sergeant returned after a while, a bulging file tied with blue ribbon under his arm. “This is the lot,” he announced. “The DI’s notebook is here as well – I put it in here when he retired. It was the only important case we ever had whilst he was in charge.”

  “Thanks, Hamish. What do you remember about the case? Nothing official, just looking for background.”

  Hamish looked relieved at the words ‘nothing official’ and sat down at Corstorphine’s bidding on the other side of the paper-strewn table.

  “It was just an ordinary day, about this time of year. We had an emergency call alerting us to the discovery of a woman’s body found hanging in the glen, must have been around 10:00 a.m. as I’d just got back from the beat and was making myself a coffee.”

  “Who made the call?”

  “Anonymous, sir. Some hiker who didn’t want to be identified, probably. He had an Australian accent, I think. Whoever it was had used the public call box on the Inverness Road – it’s not there now, been taken away.”

  “Was the phone dusted for prints?”

  The desk sergeant looked surprised, as if this was the first time anyone had suggested checking the public phone for evidence. “No, sir. I think the DI said it wasn’t a worthwhile use of police resources because everyone and their dog would have used that phone some time or other.”

  “It’s not a phone that would get that much use, stuck in the middle of nowhere.”

  Hamish considered this for a good while, his eyes staring at a point over
Corstorphine’s head. “I suppose not, sir. It was all a bit mad then, with the girl’s body and everything.”

  “What can you tell me about the girl?”

  “Oh, she was a bright thing. Worked as a reporter for the Courier – always sticking her nose into everything. The DI used to get quite angry with her, leaking stories he was trying to keep under wraps.” His eyes traversed to today’s copy of the paper, front page uppermost on the intervening desk.

  “Was she depressed at the time? Did anyone suggest a reason why she’d commit suicide?”

  “Well that’s the thing, sir. She always looked quite happy, a regular ray of sunshine, but there was a change to her in the weeks before she died. Something wasn’t right although she never let on.” Hamish looked defiant for a second. “Whatever it was that was bothering her, she shouldn’t have taken her own life – not with her having a child to look after.”

  “What child was this, Hamish?”

  The desk sergeant looked faintly surprised, before remembering that Corstorphine was an outsider. “You’d not know, of course. She had a daughter. She must have been aged around six at the time. She doted on her, a pretty young thing.” He frowned at a returning memory. “The child was distraught when the social took her from school that day. I had to go along with them, there wasn’t a dad, see. Not even sure if she ever married, there certainly wasn’t a man on the scene back then.”

  “Where’s the girl now?”

  He shook his head. “Nobody knows. She was taken to the old orphanage on City Road, not there any longer, of course, turned it into flats. She’d only been there a year or maybe a bit longer when she ran off. She was never found. We organised a few search parties in case she’d taken off into the moors, put her picture in the press.” He shook his head slowly, head bowed. “Terrible for her. I don’t think she ever came to terms with her mum’s death. God knows what happened to the girl. The DI closed the case after a couple of years – presumed dead.”